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These Trump-Endorsed Candidates Are on the Ballot Today
Candidates endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump have had mixed success so far in contested Republican primaries for the 2022 midterm elections.Most of Mr. Trump’s endorsed candidates are running unopposed or face little-known, poorly funded opponents. But many Republican candidates this year, whether endorsed by Mr. Trump or not, have embraced his style of politics, including false claims about the integrity of the 2020 elections.Here is a look at Mr. Trump’s endorsements in closely watched races today in Georgia, Arkansas and Texas.GeorgiaA campaign rally for former Senator David Perdue at the Wild Wing Café in Dunwoody, Ga., where he appeared on the John Fredericks Show, on Monday.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesDavid Perdue, the Trump-backed former senator, has trailed in public opinion polls and fund-raising in his effort to unseat Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican who angered the former president by refusing to help overturn the results of Mr. Trump’s 2020 loss in the state. Mr. Perdue has made lies about the 2020 election results a focal point of his campaign. Mr. Kemp has stood by the results, while supporting new restrictions on voting.Mr. Trump is also supporting Representative Jody Hice in his bid to unseat Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who also refused Mr. Trump’s effort to overturn the state’s 2020 election results. Mr. Hice, a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, has made Mr. Trump’s baseless claims about the 2020 elections the center of his own campaign.Herschel Walker, the former professional football player whom Mr. Trump endorsed, has led a crowded field in the Republican primary for Senate, looking to challenge Senator Raphael Warnock, a well-funded Democrat, for the seat Mr. Warnock won in a high-profile special election in early 2021. Mr. Walker has been accused of domestic abuse and embraced skepticism about the 2020 election, but his celebrity and the Trump’s backing have buoyed him in public polling and fund-raising.In the crowded race for an open congressional seat just north of Atlanta, Mr. Trump endorsed Jake Evans, the son of Randy Evans, Mr. Trump’s former ambassador to Luxembourg. Mr. Evans has been attacked by his rivals for past remarks criticizing Mr. Trump. He has raised less money than Rich McCormick, a former Marine and a physician who narrowly lost a House race in 2020. Dr. McCormick has echoed Mr. Trump’s false claims about the 2020 elections and has refused to concede his own 2020 loss.ArkansasArkansas Republican gubernatorial candidate Sarah Huckabee Sanders, second from right, with her husband Bryan Sanders, right, greeting supporters in Harrison, Ark., on May 20.Terra Fondriest for The New York TimesMr. Trump endorsed two candidates who are heavily favored to win their primaries today. Sarah Sanders, Mr. Trump’s former press secretary and daughter of former Gov. Mike Huckabee, is facing Doc Washburn, a conservative talk radio host who was fired after not complying with the radio station’s vaccine mandate.In the race for attorney general, Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin, whom Mr. Trump endorsed, has raised and spent far more money than his rival, Leon Jones Jr., the state’s former labor secretary.TexasTexas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, in July 2021.Cooper Neill for The New York TimesAttorney General Ken Paxton has some problems. He has been indicted on criminal securities-fraud charges that are still pending. Several of his top aides claimed he abused his office by helping a wealthy donor. And he has faced abuse-of-power and bribery accusations. But he also has Mr. Trump’s endorsement and that could prove powerful enough to survive a re-election challenge from George P. Bush, the Texas land commissioner and nephew of former President George W. Bush who has clashed with Mr. Trump. More
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Arkansas Republican admits abortion trigger law would cause ‘heartbreak’ if Roe is reversed
Arkansas Republican admits abortion trigger law would cause ‘heartbreak’ if Roe is reversedGovernor Asa Hutchinson signed near-total abortion ban bill, even though he disagreed with the lack of exceptions for incest and rape The Republican governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, has admitted that an anti-abortion trigger law that he signed on to the books would lead to “heartbreaking circumstances” if Roe v Wade is overturned, in which girls as young as 11 who became pregnant through rape or incest would be forced to give birth.Hutchinson’s remarks give a revealing insight into the twisted human and political quandaries that are certain to arise should the US supreme court, as expected, destroy the constitutional right to an abortion enshrined in Roe v Wade when it issues its ruling next month. The governor told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday that in 2019 he had signed the Arkansas trigger law, Senate Bill 6, which would ban almost all abortions the instant Roe were reversed, even though he disagreed with its lack of exceptions for incest and rape.Asked why he had put his signature on the law, despite the fact that it would prohibit all abortions other than in cases where a pregnant woman’s life were in imminent danger, he said: “I support the exceptions of rape and incest … I believe that should have been added; it did not have the support of the assembly.”Under intense questioning from the CNN host Dana Bash, the governor was asked why an “11- or 12-year-old girl who is impregnated by her father, or uncle or another family member be forced to carry that child to term?”He replied: “I agree with you. I’ve had to deal with that particular circumstance even as governor. While it’s still life in the womb, life of the unborn, the conception was in criminal circumstances – either incest or rape – and so those are two exceptions I think are very appropriate.”He added that if the supreme court does throw out the constitutional right to an abortion, then “these are going to become very real circumstances. The debate and discussion will continue, and that could very well be revisited.”But Bash pressed Hutchinson on what would happen if the absence of rape and incest exceptions can’t be revisited in the law that he had personally approved, pointing out that his term as governor comes to an end in January. “If you can’t change [the trigger law], that means girls who are still children, 11- and 12-year-olds, might be in that situation in a very real way in just a couple of months,” Bash said.“Those are heartbreaking circumstances,” Hutchinson replied. “When we passed these trigger laws we were trying … to reduce abortions, but whenever you see that real-life circumstances like that the debate is going to continue and the will of the people may or may not change.”A report by the Guardian this month found that at least 11 US states have passed laws that ban abortions without any exceptions for rape or incest. Such trigger laws are legally written in such a way that they would come into effect the second that the constitutional right to an abortion embodied in Roe were overturned.Earlier this month, a draft majority opinion of the supreme court written by Justice Samuel Alito was leaked to Politico. With the apparent backing of five of the six conservative justices on the nine-member court, it would eradicate federal abortion rights in the most aggressive terms.The court has insisted that the draft is not final and that changes to its wording or outcome are still possible. But the country on both sides of the abortion divide are bracing now for Roe to be undone and power over women’s reproductive choices to be handed to individual states like Arkansas.TopicsArkansasRoe v WadeAbortionUS politicsHealthRepublicansUS supreme courtnewsReuse this content More
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Trump or no Trump: Asa Hutchinson mulls run for president in 2024
Trump or no Trump: Asa Hutchinson mulls run for president in 2024Republican Arkansas governor says he would not be deterred by former president in party in wrong over January 6 insurrection
This Will Not Pass review: Dire reading for Democrats
The Arkansas governor, Asa Hutchinson, is considering a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 and would not be deterred if Donald Trump made an expected bid to return to the White House.January 6 committee set to subpoena Trump allies, Republican Kinzinger saysRead more“No, it won’t [deter me],” Hutchinson told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.“I’ve made it clear. I think we ought to have a different direction in the future and so I’m not aligned with [Trump] on some of his endorsements, but also the direction he wants to take our country.“I think he did a lot of good things for our country, but we need to go a different direction and so that’s not a factor in my decision-making process.”Trump is free to run – and has amassed huge campaign funding – after being acquitted in his second Senate impeachment trial, in which he was charged with inciting the deadly January 6 Capitol attack, in his attempt to overturn defeat by Joe Biden.More than 20 years ago, Hutchinson was a House impeachment manager in the trial of Bill Clinton, over the 42nd president’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. As Arkansas governor, Hutchinson now operates in the more moderate lane of Republican politics.On CNN, he was asked about an appearance last week at a “Politics & Eggs” event in New Hampshire, a “traditional stop for any presidential hopeful” in an early voting state.“You’ve got to get through course this year,” he said, “but that’s an option that’s on the table. And that’s one of the reasons I was in New Hampshire.”Hutchinson used his CNN interview to take a shot at Ron DeSantis, another potential candidate in 2024, regarding the Florida governor’s battle with Disney over his anti-LGBTQ+ schools policy. The Arkansas governor was also asked if he would support Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader and an ardent Trump ally, to become speaker if Republicans take control in November.He said: “Well, of course, you know, Speaker McCarthy, or excuse me, Majority Leader McCarthy has his own set of challenges within the caucus. And he’s got to be able to somehow bring that together.”Ron DeSantis Disney attack violates Republican principles, GOP rival saysRead moreMcCarthy was recently shown to have said Trump should resign in the aftermath of the Capitol attack, to have changed his tune to support the former president, and to have lied about what he told his party.Hutchinson told CNN: “I would say that we had one message after January 6 among many of our leaders, recognising the problem with the insurrection. And that tone has changed and I believe that that’s an error.“I don’t think we can diminish what happened on January 6. We’re going to be having hearings there in Congress and much of this will come out in public in June, and that’s not going to be helpful for those that diminish the significance of that event.“And so that worries me in terms of not just the majority leader but also worries me in terms of other leaders that have diminished what happened on January 6.”TopicsUS elections 2024US politicsRepublicansDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackArkansasnewsReuse this content More - in US Politics
Ron DeSantis Disney attack violates Republican principles, GOP rival says
Ron DeSantis Disney attack violates Republican principles, GOP rival saysAsa Hutchinson of Arkansas appears to have no problem with anti-LGBTQ+ policies but says private business should not be target
This Will Not Pass review: Dire reading for Democrats
The “revenge” political attack on Disney by Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, for opposing his “don’t say gay” law violates the party’s mantra of restrained government, his counterpart in Arkansas said.Democratic senator Joe Manchin cuts ad for West Virginia RepublicanRead moreDeSantis and Asa Hutchinson could be rivals for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. On Sunday, Hutchinson laid out his position on CNN’s State of the Union.“I don’t believe that government should be punitive against private businesses because we disagree with them,” the Arkansas governor said, referring to the law DeSantis signed last week dissolving Disney’s 55-year right to self-government through its special taxing district in Florida.“That’s not the right approach… to me it’s the old Republican principle of having a restrained government.”Critics have criticised DeSantis for escalating his feud with the theme park giant, his state’s largest private employer, over the “don’t say gay” law, which bans classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in certain grades.Many educators believe the law is “hurtful and insulting” and threatens support for LBGTQ+ students in schools. Equality advocacy groups have filed a lawsuit against it.“They are abusing their power and trying to scare Floridians and businesses away from expressing any support for that community,” a Democratic state representative, Carlos Guillermo Smith, has said.Hutchinson appeared to have no problem with DeSantis going after the LGBTQ+ community.“The law that was passed is to me common sense that in those grades, those lower grades, you shouldn’t be teaching sexual orientation, those matters that should not be covered at that age,” he said.“[But] let’s do the right thing. It’s a fair debate about the special tax privileges, I understand that debate. But let’s not go after businesses and punish them because we disagree with what they say.“I disagree with a punitive approach to businesses. Businesses make mistakes, [Disney] shouldn’t have gone there, but we should not be punishing them for their private actions.”Disney struck back at DeSantis this week by informing investors that the state cannot dissolve its status without first paying off the company’s bond debts, reported by CNN to be about $1bn.Biden’s top border official not worried about Republican impeachment threatsRead moreThe dispute centers on an entity called the Reedy Creek improvement district, established by Florida lawmakers in 1967 to allow Disney to raise its own taxes and provide essential government services as it began to construct its theme park empire.DeSantis’s law seeks to eliminate all special taxing districts created before 1968. Analysts predict families in two counties that Disney’s land covers could face property tax rises of thousands of dollars each if Reedy Creek is terminated next summer.DeSantis insisted during a Fox News town hall on Thursday that Disney would be responsible for paying its debts. Without providing details, he promised “additional legislative action” to fix the issue, CNN said.TopicsRon DeSantisFloridaUS politicsRepublicansWalt Disney CompanyLGBT rightsUS educationnewsReuse this content More - in US Politics
Arkansas officials praise doctor accused of giving inmates ivermectin without consent
Arkansas officials praise doctor accused of giving inmates ivermectin without consentDespite lawsuit filed against Dr Robert Karas by four inmates, local officials have praised him for a ‘job well done’ An Arkansas doctor accused of prescribing ivermectin to inmates in his state without their consent has been praised by local officials for a “job well done” despite widespread outrage at his actions.In January, the Arkansas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued Dr Robert Karas, the physician at Arkansas’s Washington county detention center, on behalf of four inmates who said they were given ivermectin to treat Covid-19 as a form of “medical experiment”.“Plaintiffs ingested incredibly high doses of a drug that credible medical professionals, the FDA, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), all agree is not an effective treatment against Covid-19 and that if given in large doses is dangerous for humans,” the lawsuit said.According to the lawsuit, Karas told the inmates that the prescribed drugs “consisted of mere ‘vitamins’, ‘antibiotics’ and/or ‘steroids.’”The CDC, as well as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), have put out advisories warning against using ivermectin for Covid-19, though it is a cause celebre for some rightwing figures and anti-vaxxers.Despite the lawsuit, some prominent local leaders of Washington county have lauded Karas for his Covid treatment efforts.On Monday, Patrick Deakins, a Washington county justice of the peace, introduced a resolution to a local quorum court’s jail and enforcement committee to praise Karas for his handling of the pandemic in Washington county jail.“I don’t know the science behind Covid and I’m not so sure anybody does. I’m certainly not a doctor and I’m certainly not a virologist, and none of us on this panel are,” Deakins said.He went on to add, “I don’t know the value of one treatment or the appropriateness of it is. I don’t know the efficacy of ivermectin and I don’t know the most useful ways to treat any one individual, and those are not the debate of this resolution, I just want what’s best for the health and safety of the county.”“While over 850 cases of the infection have been recorded in the Washington county detention center, Dr Robert Karas and Karas Correctional Health have effectively treated those cases which have resulted in zero fatalities from the virus,” the resolution said.According to the document, Karas provided “exceptional medical care” to inmates and that the “Washington County Quorum Court commends Dr Robert Karas and Karas Correctional Health for a job well done despite the unique challenges.”Despite the resolution getting passed by the committee, other local officials pushed back against Karas.“If you talk to individuals at our local hospitals that are treating patients after Dr Karas has treated them, they are very ill,” said justice of the peace Eva Madison. “The reality is that he doesn’t know … He can’t possibly know what the side-effects are of the treatment that he has given,” she added.“How can we tout nobody died when the individuals in this lawsuit claimed health consequences from what he did to them,” Madison said in reference to the inmates. “You can agree or disagree with the lawsuit, Dr Karas, but why in the world would this body endorse a practice that’s being challenged in court?”In the lawsuit filed by ACLU last month, inmates complained that they suffered from various side-effects after ingesting ivermectin, including vision issues, diarrhea, bloody stools and stomach cramps. The inmates were also subject to payment of fees for medical examinations that they sought after experiencing the side-effects.Karas, who has had numerous lawsuits filed against him over the years for allegedly providing inadequate and poor medical care to inmates, has filed a motion to dismiss ACLU’s lawsuit against him.TopicsArkansasCoronavirusUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
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Sarah Sanders promotes ‘Trump vaccine’ but says Americans should ‘pray about it’
CoronavirusSarah Sanders promotes ‘Trump vaccine’ but says Americans should ‘pray about it’Former Trump press secretary criticises ‘arrogant’ medical experts but admits the benefits of the shot outweigh any potential risks Adam Gabbatt@ More
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Republican governors urge vaccine-hesitant residents to get Covid shots
US newsRepublican governors urge vaccine-hesitant residents to get Covid shotsLeaders of Arkansas, West Virginia, and Utah describe high stakes as Delta variant poses threat Edward Helmore in New YorkMon 5 Jul 2021 14.02 EDTLast modified on Mon 5 Jul 2021 14.03 EDTSeveral Republican governors with lagging vaccine rates in their states have urged residents to accept the shots as the Biden administration comes under pressure to reopen US borders to overseas visitors.The Arkansas governor, Asa Hutchinson, West Virginia’s Jim Justice and Spencer Cox of Utah warned against vaccine hesitancy, which some disease experts, including the White House chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, said could create “two types of America”.“We are in a race,” Hutchinson said on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday. About 32% of people in Arkansas are fully vaccinated, compared with 47.9% nationwide, according to Johns Hopkins University. “If we stopped right here, and we didn’t get a greater per cent of our population vaccinated, then we’re going to have trouble in the next school year and over the winter.” The solution, he said, “is the vaccinations”.In a Fourth of July address on Sunday, Joe Biden called vaccination “the most patriotic thing you can do”, saying the US had moved into a new phase of virus response. But he also warned that while the country is “closer than ever to declaring our independence from a deadly virus”, the effort was not complete. “We’ve got a lot more work to do,” he said.Justice told ABC’s This Week: “Red states probably have a lot of people that are very, very conservative in their thinking and they think, ‘Well, I don’t have to do that.’ But they’re not thinking right.”01:28West Virginia, which has been offering vaccine incentives from college scholarships to free hunting and fishing licenses, has a similar rate of vaccination to Arkansas.“When it really boils right down to it, they’re in a lottery to themselves,” Justice said. “We have a lottery that says if you’re vaccinated, we’re going to give you stuff. Well, you’ve got another lottery for them, and it’s a death lottery.”Cox called Utah’s low vaccination rates “troubling”, and placed blame on the state’s youthful population. He told CBS’s Face the Nation “hopefully reason will rule”.Cox’s delicacy in urging his state’s residents to accept vaccination comes as a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll showed that 74% of people who have not been vaccinated said they probably or definitely would not get the shots.The divide corresponds to political affiliation, the survey found, with 86% of Democrats and only 45% of Republicans having received at least one vaccine shot. Six per cent of Democrats and 47% of Republicans said they were unlikely to get the shot.Asked about whether he is concerned the Delta variant of coronavirus could cause outbreaks in the US, Fauci said: “I don’t think you’re going to be seeing anything nationwide. Because fortunately, we have a substantial proportion of the population vaccinated. So it’s going to be regional. … We’re going to see, and I’ve said, almost two types of America.” Persistent resistance to vaccination in red states led Fauci to warn on Sunday that fully vaccinated Americans should “go the extra step” and wear masks when traveling to parts of the country with low rates.“If you put yourself in an environment in which you have a high level of viral dynamics and a very low level of vaccine, you might want to go the extra step … even though the vaccines themselves are highly effective,” Fauci told NBC’s Meet the Press.Fauci added that the situation was lamentable: “When you talk about the avoidability of hospitalization and death, it’s really sad and tragic that most all of these are avoidable and preventable.”The warnings came as the administration’s Covid response coordinator, Jeff Zients, acknowledged that it had narrowly missed its goal of 70% of adults having at least one shot by the Fourth of July.“I think we’re much further along than anyone would have anticipated at this point, with two out of three adult Americans with at least one shot,” Zients told CNN, noting that 90% of those age 65 and older had received at least one shot.The situation comes as the administration comes under increasing pressure to lift international travel restrictions that have been in place since March 2020.Steve Shur, president of the trade group Travel Technology Association, told the Hill on Monday that the administration’s travel bans were “frozen in time.”With exceptions for citizens, green-card holders, students and some family members, US entry bans remain in place for travelers from China, Iran, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Brazil, India and South Africa.“We believe it’s possible now, at least for countries of low risk, to start to reopen international travel” to the US, Shur told the outlet.The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, came under pressure late last month from European heads to reciprocate the EU’s recent reopening of borders to vaccinated travelers from the US.“I can’t put a date on it,” Blinken said at a press conference in Paris on 25 June. “I can tell you we’re working very actively on this right now, and we are – like France, like our other partners in Europe – both anxious and looking forward to restoring travel. But we have to be guided by the science. We have to be guided by medical expertise.”TopicsUS newsArkansasWest VirginiaUtahVaccines and immunisationCoronavirusUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
