US Politics

Trump’s new media company deal investigated by SEC Top financial regulators are investigating $1.25bn deal to float his new social media venture on the stock market Wall Street’s top financial regulators are investigating Donald Trump’s $1.25bn deal to float his new social media venture on the stock market, a filing showed on Monday.‘Crooked bastards’: Trump attacks US media in foul-mouthed speech Read moreDigital World Acquisition Corporation, the blank-check acquisition firm that agreed to merge with Trump Media & Technology Group Corp (TMTG), disclosed in a regulatory filing on Monday that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra) were looking at the deal.Digital World said the SEC asked for documents in early November relating to communications between it and TMTG, meetings of its board, policies and procedures relating to trading, the identification of banking, telephone and email addresses and the identities of certain investors.The SEC stated in its request that its investigation does not mean that the regulator has concluded that anyone violated the law, Digital World said.TMTG did not respond to requests for comment.The Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren had asked the SEC to investigate TMTG’s proposed merger with Digital World over potential violations of securities laws, including whether they had sufficiently disclosed when deal talks began.The SEC declined to comment.The investigations come amid excitement among Trump supporters and retail investors over the planned deal. Frantic trading of Digital World’s shares has driven TMTG’s valuation from $875m in October to close to $4bn.Digital World, whose shares were down 1.8% to $44.14 on Monday, said Finra asked for details in late October and early November about “surrounding events”, including a review of trading, that preceded the announcement of the merger.Finra said in its request its inquiry should not be construed as an indication that any violations of Nasdaq rules or federal securities laws have occurred, Digital World added.Finra declined to comment.TMTG said on Saturday it had entered into agreements to raise about $1bn from a group of unidentified investors, bringing the deal’s total proceeds to $1.25bn. But TMTG will receive the money only if the deal is completed. A vote required for Digital World shareholders to approve the transaction has yet to be scheduled.Some on Wall Street have been reluctant to associate with Trump, and the Digital World filings did not disclose which investors backed the $1bn fundraising.Trump was banned from top social media platforms after the 6 January attack by his supporters on the US Capitol amid concerns he would incite further violence. The Capitol attack was based on unsubstantiated claims of widespread fraud in last year’s presidential election.Trump remains in legal jeopardy arising from both his lie that his defeat by Joe Biden was caused by electoral fraud and his financial affairs. His own personal worth has plummeted and the Trump Organization faces investigations in New York over its financial and tax affairs.But Trump remains a vocal presence in national politics. On Monday he was in the headlines for an attack on the US press – which he called “crooked bastards” – in remarks to a conservative group at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday night.In a rambling speech, Trump also said “big tech” was “horrible” and had “taken away our press, they have taken away a voice”.Trump continues to send out statements, his chosen method of communication in lieu of the tweets by which he used to conduct much of his business.In statements on Monday, Trump continued to complain about the revelation by his former chief of staff Mark Meadows, first reported by the Guardian last week, that Trump returned positive and negative Covid tests three days before his first debate with Biden last year.In its first financial projections since the announcement of the merger, Digital World said it expected the average revenue per user of Trump’s planned social media app, Truth Social, to grow to $13.50 in 2026, with 81 million total users.That is despite the app not having reached even trial mode. TMTG plans to launch the beta version of Truth Social in the first quarter of 2022.Digital World also said it expected TMTG to reach 40 million total subscribers by 2026. By comparison, Twitter has more 200 million daily active users.TopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

‘It’s who they are’: gun-fetish photo a symbol of Republican abasement under TrumpThomas Massie’s incendiary picture, days after a deadly school shooting in Michigan, seemed carefully calibrated to provoke It is a festive family photo with seven broad smiles and a Christmas tree. But one other detail sets it apart: each member of the Massie family is brandishing a machine gun or military-style rifle.Outcry after Colorado sheriff’s office tweets photo of Santa getting handgun permitRead moreThe photo was tweeted last week by Thomas Massie, a Republican congressman from Kentucky, with the caption: “Merry Christmas! PS: Santa, please bring ammo.”A few days earlier, a school shooting in Michigan left four teenagers dead and seven people injured after a 15-year-old student allegedly went on a rampage.Massie’s post earned widespread condemnation but was also seen as indicative of a performative, provocative brand of Republican politics, calculated to go viral, “own the libs” – that is, provoke outrage on the left – and contribute to the outsized influence of supporters of Donald Trump.“Here his family’s got guns under a Christmas tree just after four kids were killed,” said Elaine Kamarck, a former official in the Clinton administration. “The guy’s abominable but that’s what’s happening to the Republican party. They’re flat-out nuts. There’s a piece of the Republican party that now supports violence.”Recent examples include Paul Gosar, a congressman from Arizona, posting an animated video that depicted him killing Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking Joe Biden. All but two Republicans in the House refused to vote to censure him.Last month, Congresswoman Lauren Boebert made anti-Muslim remarks about Ilhan Omar. Boebert claimed she and a member of her staff were taking a lift at the US Capitol when she saw an alarmed police officer running toward them. She said she turned to her left and spotted the Minnesota Democrat standing beside them.“Well, she doesn’t have a backpack. We should be fine,” Boebert recalled saying, to laughter. “And I said, ‘Oh, look, the jihad squad decided to show up for work today.’”Omar urged House leaders to discipline Boebert. But Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader, downplayed the incident and defended Boebert, insisting she had apologised both publicly and personally.Omar responded on CNN on Sunday: “McCarthy is a liar and a coward. He doesn’t have the ability to condemn the kind of bigoted Islamophobia and anti-Muslim rhetoric that are being trafficked by a member of his conference.”She added: “This is who they are. And we have to be able to stand up to them. And we have to push them to reckon with the fact that their party right now is normalizing anti-Muslim bigotry.”Such incendiary antics are set to continue on Tuesday when Gosar is joined by Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Louie Gohmert of Texas and Matt Gaetz of Florida at a press conference to decry the treatment of people arrested in connection with the 6 January attack on the US Capitol. Republican extremists have sought to portray the rioters as patriots.Each tossing of a verbal grenade commands more airtime than moderate Republicans receive going about legislative business, ensuring that Trump loyalists continue to dominate the national conversation. Taylor Greene, appearing on rightwing ideologue Steve Bannon’s podcast, boasted recently: “We are not the fringe. We are the base of the party.”Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, pointed to the recent congressional testimony of Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, who described how the platform’s model rewards those who shout the loudest.“What we know from the whistleblower at Facebook is that the more dramatic, the more outrageous the picture, the more it grabs you,” Kamarck said. “The more it’s violent, the more clicks it’ll get. That’s what their algorithms are trained to do.”Massie’s gun fetish post now has more than 80,000 likes on Twitter.Kamarck said: “This guy wants to solidify a base, get campaign contributions from pro-gun people. This is simply unforgivable. There’s just no way that the majority of Americans agree with this kind of rabid, pro-gun stance, even people who are hunters and pro-gun people.”With historical trends suggesting Republicans will win back the House next year, McCarthy appears determined to become speaker, meaning he cannot afford to alienate Trump or the most radical members of his caucus.Kamarck added: “Kevin McCarthy is just the lowest of the low. He has decided that he has to placate a base which is very dangerous, which is violent and calls people to commit violent acts, and we’ve never had anybody like that. Kevin McCarthy thinks if he can hold all these crazy people in his caucus, he can be speaker.”The dangerous shift in Republican ranks was on display recently when Kyle Rittenhouse, who was 17 when he killed two people at an anti-racism protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, argued that he acted in self-defence and was acquitted on all charges.Rittenhouse was invited to Trump’s estate in Florida, elevated to heroic status by rightwing media and feted by Republicans. Taylor Greene even sponsored a bill to award him a congressional gold medal.Ilhan Omar: McCarthy a ‘coward’ for not condemning Islamophobic commentsRead moreLarry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, said: “Within the Republican party, there’s a battle for leverage in terms of winning primaries and influencing primaries. Then you’ve got Donald Trump.“He’s sitting there as a kind of monarch waiting for his subjects to come and pledge their fealty to him and one way to do it is to be the tough man to promise to take to the barricades to defend the 2020 election results, as Donald Trump sees it.”He added: “We’re into the kind of outrage culture in the Republican party. There’s almost a competition as to who can be more outrageous, more vicious and threatening. It’s a race to the bottom.“It’s a completely bonkers political party. This is one of the most dysfunctional and dangerous political parties in the democratic world. You’ve got Hungary, you’ve got Austria. There are places where you’ve had a surge on the right and I would say this is comparable. And maybe even a further extreme, if you look at what elected members of the US Congress are saying and doing.”TopicsRepublicansUS politicsDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

Massie’s gun collection: ‘They shouldn’t be in the hands of civilians’Analysis: furore continues over ‘Christmas card’ by US Congressman of group holding military weapons It is the Christmas card that has sent shockwaves across the world – and provided a chilling reminder of the size and type of weapons that are perfectly legal to own and carry in large parts of the US.An analysis by the Guardian indicates the guns in the photograph published by the Republican congressman Thomas Massie are military grade and – in some cases – similar to those used in recent notorious deadly incidents.The furore began on Sunday when Massie posted on Twitter a picture of himself and what appear to be members of his family, smiling and posing with an assortment of weapons, just days after four teenagers were killed in a shooting at a high school in Michigan.He wrote: “Merry Christmas! PS Santa, please bring ammo.”The tweet provoked an immediate response – with other Republicans criticising him for his insensitivity.Yet Kentucky law allows people aged over 21 to possess and carry guns – and no permit or licence is required for rifles, shotguns or handguns, according to the National Rifle Association.The calibre and range of the weapons on display horrified one expert. Philip Ingram, a former British military intelligence officer, told the Guardian: “There is no way in a modern society these weapons should be in hands outside law enforcement or the military … They are designed for one purpose: to kill people.” The weapon held by Massie, bottom left, has been identified as an M60 machine gun, first developed for the US military in the late 1950s and which, with its belt-fed ammunition, became one the best known weapons of the Vietnam war.A collector’s item, the M60 is relatively hard to buy on the open market, with sales prices estimated by some auctioneers at $69,000 or more.Machine guns made since 1986 are banned in the US – but US federal law allows any weapons that were registered before 1986 to be traded on an approved basis. According to Calibre Obscura, a military blogger and weapons expert, the other guns in the photograph are almost certainly semi-automatics, meaning an owner has to squeeze the trigger each time they want a shot to be fired.At the front, to the left of Massie, a woman is holding an Uzi, the Israeli submachine-gun, which can fire up to 600 rounds a minute.Massie’s wife, Rhonda, appears to be holding a Thompson M1SB, most likely a replica of the second world war submachine-gun, sold by its original manufacturer in the US.In the back row, other family members appear to be holding, from left to right, a Spanish military rifle, a Belgian rifle, and two AR-15s – the AR stands for ArmaLite, the original manufacturer. One of the most popular semi-automatics available in the US, its sales have soared over the last decade. An AR-15 was taken by Kyle Rittenhouse on his notorious trip to Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year, which saw him kill two people and injure a third as he roamed the streets acting as a self-described militia, following public protests after police shot a black man in the back. Rittenhouse was found not guilty last month after a jury concluded that he had acted in self-defence.Giffords Law Center, which campaigns against gun violence, said official US figures showed that 726,951 machine guns remain listed as in legal circulation. Over the weekend, Massie was condemned by political opponents, particularly for releasing the Christmas family picture days after the shooting at Michigan’s Oxford high school by a 15-year-old that left four dead. “I promise not everyone in Kentucky is an insensitive asshole,” said John Yarmuth, a Kentucky Democratic congressional representative.TopicsUS gun controlRepublicansKentuckyUS CongressUS politicsanalysisReuse this content More

‘Time is running out’: can Congress pass a voting rights bill after months of failure?The president made it a key plank of his election campaign, but nearly a year on, voting rights reform remains elusive For years, Helen Butler has been on a mission to increase voter turnout, especially among Black voters, in Georgia and across the south. She’s used to the skepticism. People she meets wonder why they should bother, because their vote won’t matter. No matter who’s in office, longstanding problems won’t get solved.More recently, she’s pushed back on efforts by Georgia Republicans to make it harder to vote. She’s seen things like overly aggressive efforts to remove people from the voter rolls and the rapid consolidation of polling places.Last year, she listened as Joe Biden promised he would protect the right to vote if he was elected president. “One thing the Senate and the president can do right away is pass the bill to restore the Voting Rights Act … it’s one of the first things I’ll do as president if elected. We can’t let the fundamental right to vote be denied,” he said in July last year.Months later, Butler and other organizers had a breakthrough that had been years in the making. After years of investing in voter mobilization, turnout among Black voters surged in the November election, helping Joe Biden win a state long seen as a Republican stronghold. In January, Black voters came out again and helped Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock win two upset Senate bids, giving Democrats control of the US Senate.On the night he was elected president, Biden called out the Black voters who helped him capture the presidency, saying: “When this campaign was at its lowest – the African American community stood up again for me. They always have my back, and I’ll have yours.”And so, after Biden was inaugurated, Butler and many others expected that voting rights would be one of the first things the president and Democrats addressed.Instead, during the president’s first year in office, Butler has watched with dismay as Biden and Democrats have failed to pass any voting rights legislation. Meanwhile, Republicans in Georgia passed sweeping new voting restrictions, one of several places across the country that made it harder to vote.“It is disheartening, I can tell you, out of all the work we’ve put in to have fair elections, to get people engaged, and to have the Senate that will not act to protect the most sacred right, the right to vote, is unheard of,” Butler said.“[It] makes voters say ‘Did I vote for the right people? … you haven’t fought for me. Why should I fight to keep you in office in 2022?’”Democrats have been stymied by the filibuster, the Senate rule that requires 60 votes to advance most legislation. Republicans have used the rule to successfully block voting rights bills on four different occasions this year.Democrats need the support of all 50 senators to get rid of the rule, and two Democrats, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, are strongly opposed. Both senators have argued the rule forges bipartisan compromise, but many believe Republicans have weaponized it into a tool of obstruction and that protecting voting rights is an urgent enough issue to justify getting rid of the rule.There was already simmering frustration from voting advocateswho believe Biden has not taken strong action, especially as several states enacted sweeping new voting restrictions.That frustration is now turning into escalating alarm that time is running out to pass meaningful voting rights legislation ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, amid a crammed congressional agenda that is already backed up for December. More than 200 civic action groups urged Congress on Thursday to postpone its December recess until it passes voting rights legislation. “All of the experts and lawyers are telling us the same thing: time is running out. We are not out of time yet, but we are running out of runway to get this bill passed, get it signed into law, be able to clear any legal challenges and actually get it implemented for 2022,” said Tiffany Muller, the president and executive director of End Citizens United/Let America Vote, which strongly supports both bills.Senate Democrats are searching for a path forward around the filibuster, but appear increasingly likely to finish Biden’s first year in office without passing a voting rights bill.“If Congress doesn’t get this done by the end of the year, it’s hard to see why the political will will be there later. What will have changed in January in February?” said Ezra Levin, a co-executive director of Indivisible, a grassroots groups that supports the bills. Distress is surging as Republicans in several states, including Texas, North Carolina, Georgia and Ohio, have passed distorted electoral maps that will lock in Republican advantages in Congress for the next decade.These maps show how Republicans are blatantly rigging elections Read moreMany of the new districts blunt the voting power of rapid population growth among Hispanic, Asian and Black voters, who tend to back Democrats, by grouping them into non-competitive districts.The voting rights bills stalled in Congress contain provisions that would limit, and in some cases halt, that kind of severe distortion, called gerrymandering. The bills would also stop many of the new restrictions states have passed this year and guard against similar restrictions in the future.Even if Democrats somehow find a way to pass a voting rights bill, they would face an uphill battle in trying to block already-enacted maps – as primary elections for those congressional seats up for grabs in next year’s midterms.The candidate filing period has already opened in Texas and is set to begin soon in North Carolina, noted Michael Li, a redistricting expert at the Brennan Center for Justice, making courts more reluctant to step in. Congress has made things “messier”, Li said, because it is harder to challenge maps after they go into effect and the electoral calendar is under way.“If the goal is to fix maps for 2022 … it’s becoming dangerously late in the game,” he said. Several provisions in the Freedom to Vote Act, one of the voting rights bills in limbo on Capitol Hill, also would require some states to make significant changes to the way elections are run.It requires states to offer same-day registration (not currently offered in 30 states), online voter registration (not offered in eight states). Election officials need time to implement those changes, and it will be harder on the eve of elections. If the legislation were enacted, states could probably pivot to implement changes and the more time they have , the smoother that will be, said Tammy Patrick, a senior adviser at the Democracy Fund, who specializes in election administration.“I think that it’s doable. But if we want to ensure that it’s done correctly and well, it’s going to take some time and definitely some resources. So the sands in the hourglass are slipping away,” she said.As the window to pass legislation closes, some voting rights activists say the White House is too passive.After Biden made his strongest signal to date of altering the filibuster, activists had high hopes for getting details on strategy during a 15 November meeting with Kamala Harris, whom Biden asked to lead the White House’s voting rights effort.Instead, Harris gave six minutes of remarks and then left staff to answer questions. Some attendees were upset and one, Cliff Albright, a co-founder of Black Voters Matter, told the Guardian of the meeting: “Nothing substantive came out of it, it was very frustrating.”Like Butler, Albright said he was concerned about the message to Black voters who turned out and helped elect Biden and Harris.“You’ve got people in the White House and friends of the White House that believe ‘if we get it done, people don’t care how long it took.’ I think that they’re dangerously mistaken,” he said. “People remember that you prioritized everything else above our interests.”TopicsUS voting rightsThe fight to voteUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More

Trump attacks media and Mark Milley in foul-mouthed Mar-a-Lago speech Insults to press and chairman of joint chiefs of staff recall barbs while Trump was in power In remarks to diners at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Saturday night, Donald Trump called the American media “crooked bastards” and Gen Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, a “fucking idiot”.Trump double negative: Twitter sees proof positive of no electoral fraudRead moreThe meandering, foul-mouthed speech to Turning Point USA, a group for young conservatives, was streamed by Jack Posobiec, a rightwing blogger and provocateur.The insult to the press recalled barbs while Trump was in power, including calling reporters and editors “fake news” and the “enemy of the people”, attacks many in the media regarded as dangerous, inviting political violence.“The country is at a very important, dangerous place,” Trump said, amid familiar lies about his defeat in the 2020 election, which he says was the result of electoral fraud.“We have no press. The press is so corrupt. We don’t have a press. If there is a good story about us, a good story about any of the people that are Republicans, conservatives, they make it a bad story. And if it’s a bad story they make it the worst story in history. It is the most dishonest group of people.”Trump claimed to have transformed Americans’ views of the press, saying “when I first announced I was running in 2015 they had a 94%-95% approval rating. And right now they have a lower approval rating than Congress.“I consider that to be a great honor because they are a bunch of very dishonest, crooked bastards.”The remark met with laughter.As with most of Trump’s claims, his claim about media approval ratings could be debated.In 2015, the year Trump ran for the White House, Gallup said 40% of Americans “had ‘a great deal’ or ‘a fair amount’ of trust and confidence in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately and fairly”.In 2019, midway through Trump’s presidency, Suzanne Nossel, chief executive of PEN America, told the Guardian his attacks on the press were “insidious” and “aimed to intimidate … a kind of dragging-through-the-mud effort, a character assassination … and it’s alarming”.In 2021, the year Trump left office, Gallup said 21% of Americans had “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in newspapers. For TV news, the figure was 16%. For Congress, it was 12%.Trump insulted Milley as part of a long complaint about Joe Biden’s handling of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Impersonating the general’s gravelly voice, Trump said: “I’ll never forget Milley saying to me, ‘Sir, sir. It’s cheaper to leave the equipment than to bring it.’Mark Milley, US general who stood up to Trump, founders over Kabul strikeRead moreTrump said he asked: “You think it’s cheaper to leave it there so they can have it than it is to fill it up with a half tank of gas and fly it into Pakistan or fly it back to our country?“‘Yes, sir, we think it’s cheaper, sir.’“That’s when I realized he was a fucking idiot.”Trump regularly complains about Milley, particularly over his portrayal in bestselling books as a key figure in efforts to contain Trump at the end of his time in power.Trump’s penchant for swearing is well-known, to the extent that his four-year presidency prompted soul-searching among some US media outlets about which words could properly be printed.The Guardian has long had few such scruples.TopicsDonald TrumpNewspapersUS politicsRepublicansNewspapers & magazinesnewsReuse this content More

Bob Dole, the long-time Kansas senator who was the Republican nominee for president in 1996, has died at the age of 98. Born in Russell, Kansas in 1923, Dole served in the US infantry in the second world war, suffering serious wounds in Italy and winning a medal for bravery.
In 1976 he was the Republican nominee for vice-president to Gerald Ford, in an election the sitting president lost to Jimmy Carter. Two decades later, aged 73, Dole won the nomination to take on Bill Clinton, to whom he lost. More

Bob Dole, giant of Republican politics and presidential nominee, dies aged 98
Long-time power-broker lost 1996 election to Bill Clinton
Biden: ‘An American statesman like few in our history’
Obituary: Bob Dole, 1923-2021
0Bob Dole, the long-time Kansas senator who was the Republican nominee for president in 1996, has died. He was 98.Bob Dole was a soldier, a politician and a Republican of the old school Read moreIn a statement on Sunday, the Elizabeth Dole Foundation – founded by Dole’s wife, a former North Carolina senator and cabinet official – said: “It is with heavy hearts we announced that Senator Robert Joseph Dole died earlier this morning in his sleep. At his death at age 98 he had served the United States of America faithfully for 79 years.”In late February, Dole announced that he had advanced lung cancer and would begin treatment. Visiting him, Joe Biden called Dole his “close friend”. The two men were in the Senate together for 23 years.On Sunday, Biden said: “We picked up right where we left off, as if it were only yesterday that we were sharing a laugh in the Senate dining room, or debating the great issues of the day, often against each other on the Senate floor.“I saw in his eyes the same light, bravery and determination I’ve seen so many times before in the Senate. Though we often disagreed, he never hesitated to work with me or other Democrats when it mattered most.”Citing Dole’s work on the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Social Security Commission and in creating a public holiday in honour of Martin Luther King – “a bill that many in his own caucus opposed” – Biden called Dole “an American statesman like few in our history, a war hero and among the greatest of the greatest generation”.“To me,” he said, “he was also a friend whom I could look to for trusted guidance, or a humorous line at just the right moment to settle frayed nerves.”The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, ordered flags at the Capitol flown at half-staff.Born in Russell, Kansas, in 1923, Dole left college to serve in the US infantry in the second world war, suffering serious wounds in Italy and winning a medal for bravery.His wounds cost him use of his right arm but he entered state politics and soon became a Republican power-broker, representing Kansas in the US House from 1961 to 1969 and in the Senate until 1996. He had spells as chairman of the Republican National Committee and as Senate minority and majority leader.In 1976 he was the Republican nominee for vice-president to Gerald Ford, in an election the sitting president lost to Jimmy Carter. Famously, in a debate with Walter Mondale Dole said America’s wars in the 20th century had been “Democrat wars”.Mondale said Dole had just “richly earned his reputation as a hatchet man”. Dole denied saying what he had just said, then backed down. He eventually acknowledged going too far.“I was supposed to go for the jugular,” he said, “and I did my own.”He pursued the Republican nomination in 1980 and 1988 and finally won it in 1996, at the age of 73 and two decades after being on the ticket.That put him up against Bill Clinton, a formidable campaigner seeking a second term. Against the backdrop of a booming economy, the Democrat won with ease, by 379–159 in the electoral college and by nine points in the popular vote, the third-party candidate Ross Perot costing Dole support on the right.On Sunday, Clinton said of Dole: “After all he gave in the war, he didn’t have to give more. But he did. His example should inspire people today and for generations to come.”Dole received both the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest US civilian honours.In December 2018, amid ceremonies in honour of the former president (and Dole’s rival) George HW Bush, Dole appeared before Bush’s casket in the Capitol Rotunda. As an aide lifted him from his wheelchair, Dole steadied himself and saluted.In the Trump years and after, Dole came widely to be seen as a figure from another time in Republican politics. On Sunday, the political consultant Tara Setmeyer, a member of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, tweeted: “I cast my first ever vote for president for Bob Dole in 1996. A war hero with a sharp sense of humor … another piece of a once respectable GOP gone.”But Dole remained a loyal Republican soldier. This summer, he told USA Today that though Donald Trump “lost the election, and I regret that he did, but they did”, and though he himself was “sort of Trumped out”, he still considered himself “a Trumper”.On Sunday, Trump called Dole “an American war hero and true patriot for our nation”.In the same USA Today interview, Dole called Biden “a great, kind, upstanding, decent person”, though he said he leaned too far left.He also said: “I do believe [America has] lost something. I can’t get my hand on it, but we’re just not quite where we should be, as the greatest democracy in the world. And I don’t know how you correct it, but I keep hoping that there will be a change in my lifetime.”On Sunday the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, a fiercely partisan Washington warrior who many on the left hold responsible for America losing its way, said: “Whatever their politics, anyone who saw Bob Dole in action have to admire his character and his profound patriotism. Those of us who were lucky to know Bob well ourselves admired him even more.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report
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