Donald Trump

Subterms

    More stories

    • 275 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump cases: lawyer argues to dismiss Georgia election subversion case; progressive groups call for ‘fair’ hush money trial – as it happened

      by

      Donald Trump’s legal team was in Atlanta to argue that the charges brought by Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis against the former president should be dismissed on first amendment grounds. Other defendants have tried unsuccessfully to make that argument, but Judge Scott McAfee wrapped up the hearing without giving any indication of how he may rule – or, perhaps more importantly, when Trump’s trial will actually start. Speaking of trials, Republican House speaker Mike Johnson sent the Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer a letter demanding he get started on homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s impeachment trial as soon as the GOP transmits the charges on 10 April. Schumer’s office said the Senate leader plans to do so, but reports indicate that Democrats are considering voting to dismiss the impeachment articles.Here’s what else happened:
      James Comer, one of the House Republican leaders of the attempt to impeach Joe Biden, invited the president to testify before his committee. Don’t expect him to show up.
      Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he spoke with Johnson about Ukraine aid, though no breakthrough on authorizing more funds was announced.
      Progressive groups have written an open letter asking that Trump receive “a prompt and fair trial” in the New York hush-money case.
      Biden called New York City mayor Eric Adams to offer condolences on the death of police officer Jonathan Diller. Trump attended his wake.
      The Republican National Committee wants to know whether new hires think the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
      James Comer, the Republican House oversight committee chair and one of the leaders of the campaign to impeach Joe Biden, has invited the president to testify at a hearing about his family’s business dealings.Don’t expect the president to take him up on the offer. When Comer announced last week that he planned to send the invitation, a White House spokesman kept their response succinct: “LOL”.Indeed, the Republican attempt to bring charges against Biden for alleged corruption appears to be in trouble, in part because they haven’t actually proven their allegations, and also because some in their party don’t support the effort. Comer has reportedly signaled to potential donors that he may settle for making a criminal referral to the justice department, rather than continuing to push for the president’s impeachment.In a lengthy letter to Biden, Comer proposed that he appear on 16 April:
      As the foregoing demonstrates, the Committee has compiled evidence -bank records, contemporaneous electronic communications, and witness testimony – showing your awareness, acquiescence, and participation in self-enrichment schemes of your family members.
      As Chairman of the Committee, in addition to requesting that you answer the questions posed in this letter, I invite you to participate in a public hearing at which you will be afforded the opportunity to explain, under oath, your involvement with your family’s sources of income and the means it has used to generate it. As you are aware, presidents before you have provided testimony to congressional committees, including President Ford’s testimony before the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice of the House Judiciary Committee in 1974.
      Then there’s the matter of the Senate. Democrats control it by a margin of just one seat, and their best path to maintaining their majority after next year is by getting Joe Biden and two of their senators representing red states re-elected. One of those two is Jon Tester of Montana, where the Guardian’s Kira Lerner reports the state’s highest court today struck down voting restrictions passed by its Republican government:In a significant win for voting rights, the Montana supreme court on Wednesday struck down four voting restrictions passed by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature in 2021.In a 125-page opinion, the state’s highest court affirmed a lower court’s ruling that the four laws, passed in the wake of Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss, violate the state constitution. The laws had ended same-day voter registration, removed student ID cards as a permissible form of voter ID, prohibited third parties from returning ballots and barred the distribution of mail-in ballots to voters who would turn 18 by election day.After a nine-day trial, the lower court found that the laws would make it harder for some state residents to register to vote and cast a ballot.A spokesperson for the Republican secretary of state, Christi Jacobsen, who appealed the lower court decision in an attempt to get the laws reinstated, said that she was “devastated” by the supreme court decision.“Her commitment to election integrity will not waver by this narrow adoption of judicial activism that is certain to fall on the wrong side of history,” the spokesperson, Richie Melby, wrote in a statement. “State and county election officials have been punched in the gut.”Mike Johnson’s time as House speaker may not last long – the Republican majority is small, and Democrats have the opportunity to flip the chamber back to their control in November. But there are lots of variables that will affect whether they are able to do that, including which congressional maps are used in which states. Today in South Carolina, the Guardian’s Sam Levine reports that Republicans scored a win in an important redistricting case:A federal court will allow South Carolina Republicans to use their congressional map for the 2024 election, it said on Thursday, despite an earlier finding that the same plan discriminates against Black voters. The decision is a big win for Republicans, who were aided by the US supreme court’s slow action on the case.In January 2023, a three-judge panel struck down the state’s first congressional district, which is currently represented by Nancy Mace, a Republican. The judges said legislative Republicans had impermissibly used race when they redrew it after the 2020 census. As part of an effort to make it more solidly Republican, lawmakers removed 30,000 Black voters from the district into a neighboring one. Republicans argued that they moved the voters to achieve partisan ends, which is legal. The district was extremely competitive in 2020, but Mace easily won the redrawn version in 2022.The ruling is a significant boon to House Republicans, who are trying to keep a razor-thin majority in Congress’s lower chamber this year.In a post on X, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he spoke with Republican House speaker Mike Johnson, who has refused to say whether he will allow a vote on another round of military aid for the country.Zelenskiy said he updated Johnson about the situation on the battlefield in Ukraine, and continued: “In this situation, quick passage of US aid to Ukraine by Congress is vital. We recognize that there are differing views in the House of Representatives on how to proceed, but the key is to keep the issue of aid to Ukraine as a unifying factor.”Here’s more:Democrats around the US have enjoyed startling electoral successes through campaigning on Republican threats to women’s reproductive rights, just this week even taking a state seat in deep red Alabama.Marilyn Lands won that race after, in the words of our report, making “Alabama’s abortion ban and access to contraception and in vitro fertilization (IVF) central to her campaign, speaking openly about her own previous abortion experience in a TV ad that featured her saying that it was ‘shameful that today women have fewer freedoms than I had two decades ago’”.Today, Lucas Kunce, a Missouri Democrat hoping for an upset win over Josh Hawley, a prominent far-right presence in the US Senate, follows suit with a new campaign ad.In the short ad, headlines (including one from the Guardian) about Hawley’s refusal to back legislation protecting IVF and support for an anti-IVF judge appear on screen as Jessica, described as “a Missouri mother”, says:
      After years of trying and disappointment and struggle and health scares, I just had this beautiful baby and I held her and I just like knew I was meant to be her mom. Now there are efforts to ban IVF and Josh Hawley got them started. Josh Hawley has proven that he won’t protect ATF and he would let politicians make me a criminal. I want Josh Hawley to look me in the eye and tell me that I can’t have the child that I deserve.
      Kunce said: “Jessica and her family matter. Josh Hawley has built his career on a control-obsessed crusade to outlaw reproductive healthcare. It’s now a threat to IVF and to women in Missouri. We can’t risk giving Hawley’s crusade another six years in the US Senate.“This race is going to be about freedom. In Missouri, we’re tired of Big Brother elites like Josh Hawley telling us how to live and criminalising our freedoms.”Hawley’s wife, Erin Hawley, is a prominent lawyer in reproductive rights cases who this week argued before the supreme court that mifepristone, an abortion pill, should be banned.Here’s more on that case, from Melissa Segura and well worth a lunchtime read:Officials at the US Department of Defense are having preliminary “conversations” about how to stabilize Gaza with a peacekeeping force when, at some point, the current conflict between the Israeli government and Hamas, the Islamist group that runs the Palestinian territory, comes to an end, Politico reports.The US news outlet is reporting that Pentagon chiefs are talking about options, including the possibility that the Pentagon would help fund either “a multinational force or a Palestinian peacekeeping team”.The report points out that no options include US troops serving on the ground in the Gaza area, citing two Pentagon and other Biden administration officials, who won’t be named by Politico because of the highly-sensitive nature of the discussions.The outlets suggests any US funding “would go toward the needs of the security force and complement assistance from other countries”.Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that the International Court of Justice has ordered Israel to allow unimpeded access of food aid into Gaza, where significant sections of the population are facing imminent starvation, in a significant legal rebuke to Israel’s claim it is not blocking aid deliveries.Illinois Democrat Sean Casten’s not holding back about the right-wing majority House impeaching homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and impatiently expecting a trial in the Senate.“Reminder that MTG [Marjorie Taylor Green], Clay Higgins and Andy Biggs are all named impeachment managers. If you want to make the @HouseGOP look like the clown show it is on national television, this is how you do it,” the congressman posted on X/Twitter.Arizona Republican Andy Biggs had also posted, saying Mayorkas was “derelict in his duty” to secure the US-Mexico border.The House and Senate are on a two week recess at the moment.Reuters adds that: Federal officials including presidents, who are impeached by the House are subject to a trial in the Senate to determine whether they should be removed from office.Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer’s office issued a statement saying that senators will be sworn in as trial jurors the day after the articles are delivered. However, the Democratic-led chamber is highly unlikely to vote to remove Mayorkas from office.Some more details and reactions coming through on Republican House speaker Mike Johnson’s demand that the Senate’s Democratic majority leader, Chuck Schumer, schedule the trial of homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas “expeditiously” after his impeachment last month. The speaker will transmit the articles of impeachment on April 10.Louisiana Republican congressman Clay Higgins getting very “we the people”…And, from the White House:Donald Trump’s legal team was in Atlanta to argue that the charges brought by Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis against the former president should be dismissed on first amendment grounds. Other defendants have tried unsuccessfully to make that argument, but Judge Scott McAfee wrapped up the hearing without giving any indication of how he may rule – or, perhaps more importantly, when Trump’s trial will actually start. Speaking of trials, Republican House speaker Mike Johnson sent the Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer a letter demanding he get started on homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s impeachment trial as soon as the GOP transmits the charges on 10 April. Schumer’s office said the Senate leader plans to do so, but reports indicate that Democrats are considering voting to dismiss the impeachment articles.Here’s what else is going on:
      Progressive groups have written an open letter asking that Trump receive “a prompt and fair trial” in the New York hush money case.
      Joe Biden called New York City mayor Eric Adams to offer condolences on the death of police officer Jonathan Diller. Trump plans to attend his wake.
      The Republican National Committee wants to know if new hires think the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
      Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer responded to Mike Johnson’s letter by saying they’d get the ball rolling on the impeachment trial as soon as House Republicans send the charges over.“As we have said previously, after the House impeachment managers present the articles of impeachment to the Senate, senators will be sworn in as jurors in the trial the next day. Senate President Pro Tempore Patty Murray will preside,” Schumer’s office said in a statement.There’s plenty they are not saying, including whether they’ll actually go through with holding the trial, or quickly vote on a motion to dismiss the charges, as Democrats are reportedly considering doing.The Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has demanded the Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer schedule the trial of homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas “expeditiously” after his impeachment last month.“As Speaker and impeachment managers of the US House of Representatives, we write to inform you that we will present to you upon the Senate’s return, on April 10, 2024, the duly passed articles of impeachment regarding Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. We urge you to schedule a trial of the matter expeditiously,” Johnson and the 11 Republican impeachment managers wrote in a letter sent today to Schumer.They continued:
      We call upon you to fulfill your constitutional obligation to hold this trial. The American people demand a secure border, an end to this crisis, and accountability for those responsible. To table articles of impeachment without ever hearing a single argument or reviewing a piece of evidence would be a violation of our constitutional order and an affront to the American people whom we all serve.
      House Republicans alleged Mayorkas has mismanaged security on the border with Mexico, but Senate Democrats have shown no interest in removing him from office. They are reportedly considering dismissing the charges without holding a trial, and Schumer has said the allegations were ginned up at the behest of Donald Trump:
      This sham impeachment effort is another embarrassment for House Republicans. The one and only reason for this impeachment is for Speaker Johnson to further appease Donald Trump.
      House Republicans failed to produce any evidence that Secretary Mayorkas has committed any crime.
      House Republicans failed to show he has violated the Constitution.
      House Republicans failed to present any evidence of anything resembling an impeachable offense.
      This is a new low for House Republicans.
      Congress is currently out of Washington DC, with the Senate and House set to resume on 8 and 9 April, respectively.A coalition of progressive groups has released an open letter calling for Donald Trump to receive “a prompt and fair trial” in New York, where he faces charges related to making hush money payments prior to the 2016 election.Earlier this week, the judge overseeing that case set 15 April as its start date, making it the first of Trump’s four criminal indictments to go to trial. The other three cases remain mired in pre-trial motions and appeals, and it is unclear if verdicts will be reached in any prior to the November presidential election.“The facts alleged in the indictment recount much more than a sordid soap opera and corporate malfeasance; they also describe conduct that should matter to anyone who cares about democracy, voter information, and meaningful voter choice,” reads the letter, which was signed by 17 groups organized into the Not Above the Law coalition, including Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, MoveOn and Indivisible.In New York, Trump stands accused of channeling funds from his business to adult actor Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal in exchange for their silence on extra-martial affairs ahead of the 2016 election. He allegedly described the payments as legal costs, which New York prosecutors say broke the law.The groups say this amounted to an “instance of election interference” that “might also be understood as an early sign of Trump’s antipathy for voters, which surfaced again in behavior culminating in the January 6th violent attempt to overturn the 2020 election results and disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.”They continue:
      If the rule of law is to remain meaningful, no one — not even a former president — should be allowed to be above the law, and all the Trump criminal trials must play out. The first of these trials is important. We, the undersigned organizations, stand united in our desire for a prompt and fair trial that goes wherever the facts and the law lead. The undersigned organizations also express our hopes that as the Manhattan trial unfolds, the full context for the charges is made clear and understandable to the American public. Our nation deserves nothing less. More

    • 188 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Al Sharpton: Trump’s $60 Bibles ‘a spit in the face of people that really believe’

      by

      The spectacle of Donald Trump selling $60 Bibles is “a spit in the face of people that really believe”, the Rev Al Sharpton said, amid widespread backlash over the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s latest moneymaking scheme.“Blasphemy certainly comes to mind,” Sharpton told MSNBC.“I think that people ought to realise how offensive this is to those of us that really believe in the Bible. He’s doing this during Holy Week. Tomorrow is Good Friday, Sunday is Easter. Of all of the times you want to hustle using the Bible, why would you do it during Holy Week, which is really a spit in the face of people that really believe in the Bible from a Christian point of view?”Trump announced the Bible project on Tuesday, in a video posted to his Truth Social platform and in concert with Lee Greenwood, the country and western singer whose signature song, God Bless the USA, is played at Trump rallies and gives its name to the new Bible-hawking project.A website selling the Bibles featured Trump but claimed the project was “not political and has nothing to do with any political campaign”.A statement added: “GodBlessTheUSABible.com is not owned, managed or controlled by Donald J Trump, the Trump Organization, CIC Ventures LLC or any of their respective principals or affiliates.“GodBlessTheUSABible.com uses Donald J Trump’s name, likeness and image under paid license from CIC Ventures LLC, which license may be terminated or revoked according to its terms.”Set up by people close to Trump, CIC Ventures is registered at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, and has worked on other money-making ventures including digital trading cards and $400 gold sneakers.Citing a source “familiar with the details of the business arrangement”, the New York Times reported that Trump is “getting royalties” from purchases of the branded Bible, which includes copies of the US constitution and other founding documents.In his video announcement, Trump vowed to “defend God in the public square and not allow the media or the leftwing groups to silence, censor or discriminate against us”.But as he is campaigning for president while facing multimillion-dollar civil penalties and 88 criminal charges in four cases, so Trump has diverted significant funds to paying legal costs.The multiplying ironies of Trump selling Bibles have been widely remarked since the plan emerged.Trump continues to rely on conservative evangelical Christian support despite being married three times, accused of sexual misconduct by more than 25 women, legally adjudicated a rapist, facing 34 criminal charges for paying off an adult film star who claimed an affair and often struggling to articulate his own supposed religious beliefs.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSharpton is a long-term civil rights leader, political activist and MSNBC contributor. On Thursday, Willie Geist, a Morning Joe co-host, said: “I mean, $60. First of all, [Trump] wants you to pay for what he calls his Bible. There’s no your Bible or my Bible or Rev’s Bible or anybody else’s. It’s ‘my Bible’. Sixty bucks.“We all know where the money’s going. They say it’s not going to the campaign, but there are awful lot of legal bills that need to be paid here … who knows what he’s going to sell, but I think we should defer to the Rev Al Sharpton on questions of the Bible.”Sharpton said: “I wonder how many ministers or conservative evangelicals will go to their pulpit tomorrow or on Sunday, Easter, using the Trump Bible. They ought to be defrocked if they would even try and act like this.“This is nothing but … a hustle. You know, when I was growing up, I was licensed in the largest Black pentecostal church at the time, Washington Temple, very respected. But every once in a while a huckster evangelist would come through and they would sell blessed oils, blessed cloth.“Let’s remember this man [Trump] has sold the pieces of his garments that he went to court with [for $4,699]. He has sold sneakers, gold sneakers with red bottoms. Now Bibles. I mean, if he’s not like the old hustlers that used to [profit] off old ladies that believed that this was the way to God, then I don’t know what it is.“And for those in the evangelical community not to come out and say, ‘Wait a minute, during the Holy Week, that’s a step too far,’ makes us wonder where they’re committed.” More

    • 213 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Want to make it in the Republican party? Pledge allegiance to the Big Lie | Robert Reich

      by

      If you’re seeking employment at the Republican National Committee (RNC), you’re likely to be asked in your job interview if you believe the 2020 election was stolen. And if you say no, well, you might as well seek a job with George Santos.After a Trump-backed purge of the RNC this month, agreeing to the false claim has become a kind of litmus test for gaining employment – no less than it’s become a litmus test for running for public office as a Republican.Even if you already have a job at the RNC, you might lose it if you don’t agree to the lie. According to the Washington Post, Trump advisers have been quizzing multiple employees who had worked in key 2024 states about their views on the last presidential election.Hell, even if you’ve repeated the lie multiple times in the media, you might still lose your RNC job. Former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel lost her job even though she continued to echo Trump’s election lies.McDaniel even participated in a 17 November 2020 phone call in which Trump pressured two Republican members of the Wayne county board of canvassers not to sign the certification of the 2020 presidential election, according to recordings reviewed by the Detroit News. None of this was enough to save her.Yet McDaniel now finds herself in the same integrity trap that many US news organizations have faced ever since Trump came to power.Trump fired McDaniel because she was insufficiently loyal to him. But she was too loyal to him to retain any integrity for herself.McDaniel was hired by NBC last week as a paid contributor until network anchors and reporters revolted. They argued that by hiring her, NBC gave a green light for election deniers to spread lies as paid contributors. On Tuesday, NBC fired her.The New York Times deadpanned that the embarrassing episode underscores the challenge to news organizations “of fairly representing … pro-Trump viewpoints in their coverage”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWrong. The real problem is there can’t be any “fair” representation of pro-Trump Republican viewpoints as long as those viewpoints are centered on the big lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.A party that baselessly denies the outcome of an election has no legitimate claim to be “represented” in a news organization. Nor can anyone who has gone along with the lie, including the former head of the Republican National Committee, expect a job with a news organization.The fact is, neither NBC nor any other legitimate news organization can find someone with integrity who can defend Trump or act as a mouthpiece for the Republican party he now controls, because no one with integrity would do so.“Wow!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday. “Ronna McDaniel got fired by Fake News NBC. She only lasted two days, and this after McDaniel went out of her way to say what they wanted to hear. It leaves her in a very strange place, it’s called NEVER NEVERLAND, and it’s not a place you want to be.”Trump understated the dilemma. The entire Maga Republican party is now in Never Neverland. And it’s a place no one with a shred of integrity would want to be.So be careful with that RNC job interview. More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump mocks ex-RNC chair Ronna McDaniel for being fired by NBC

      by

      Donald Trump mocked the former Republican National Committee (RNC) chair Ronna McDaniel, for her firing by NBC days after being hired as a political analyst.“Wow!” the former president and presumptive Republican nominee, who ejected McDaniel from the RNC in favour of his daughter-in-law Lara Trump, wrote on his Truth Social platform.“Ronna McDaniel got fired by Fake News NBC. She only lasted two days, and this after McDaniel went out of her way to say what they wanted to hear. It leaves her in a very strange place, it’s called NEVER NEVERLAND, and it’s not a place you want to be.”McDaniel’s hiring was announced by NBC last Friday. Interviewed on Meet the Press on Sunday, she disavowed Trump’s lie that Joe Biden stole the 2020 election but also claimed there were electoral “problems” in battleground states.Protests from on-air talent and an NBC union group also concerned McDaniel’s combative relations with the press in seven years as RNC chair, a period coinciding with Trump’s takeover of the Republican party. On Tuesday evening McDaniel was gone – giving her a four-day NBC career, not the two claimed by Trump.Cesar Conde, chair of NBCUniversal News, told staff: “No organisation, particularly a newsroom, can succeed unless it is cohesive and aligned. Over the last few days, it has become clear that this appointment undermines that goal.”Trump said: “These Radical Left Lunatics are CRAZY, and the top people at NBC ARE WEAK. They were BROKEN and EMBARRASSED by LOW RATINGS, HIGHLY OVERPAID, ‘TALENT.’ BRING BACK FREE AND FAIR PRESS.”Other rightwingers, and media figures, cried foul too.Hugh Hewitt, a talkshow host, told Fox News: “I have never seen anything this brutal since I got started in media in 1990.“Ronna is going to sue everyone who defamed her, for breach of contract, for intentional infliction of mental distress. They are going to sue for the destruction of her business opportunities that come from being on TV. I think they made a terrible decision, and they allowed the MSNBC bleed to take over their network.”On NewsNation, the former Fox News correspondent Geraldo Rivera accused the MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow of “malignant wokeism”, saying: “God did not anoint her the arbiter of who was appropriate for her network to hire or what their point of view is.”Liberal retorts concerned the chief issue cited by Maddow, Chuck Todd, Jen Psaki, Joy Reid, Nicole Wallace and other hosts: McDaniel’s support for Trump’s election subversion, including direct involvement in his attempt to nullify Biden’s win in Michigan.“Ronna McDaniel’s desperate attempt to whitewash her record as an election-denying Maga enabler was an insult to independent journalism and to any American who values the truth,” Alex Floyd, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Fortunately, much like her and Donald Trump’s conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election, she failed. It’s embarrassing that anyone would try to give McDaniel and her lies a soapbox after she spent years demonstrating such a blatant disregard for the truth, not to mention our entire democratic system. Proven liars who put loyalty to a political demagogue over our democracy have no place in politics – or in the media.”McDaniel did not comment. Politico reported that she was considering legal options and expected to be paid in full for her reported $600,000 two-year deal, which would in effect net her $500 a second for her Meet the Press interview.A “person close to McDaniel” was quoted as saying: “The part that pisses me off most about this is not necessarily that [NBC executives] folded: it’s [that] they allowed their talent to drag Ronna through the mud and make it seem like they were innocent bystanders.”For NBC executives, the pain may not be over. Though Semafor reported a senior Republican aide as saying “No one really cares about Ronna”, her firing has handed her party a potent campaign issue.Semafor also reported anger among NBC staffers.“Political reporters here didn’t take part in the backlash, nor did they get to give input on the hire,” an unnamed journalist was quoted as saying. “But they’ll be the ones who have to pick up the pieces with sources dismayed with the organisation.” More

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      RNC asks job applicants if they believe 2020 election was stolen in ‘litmus test’

      by

      A spokesperson for the Republican National Committee and Donald Trump did not deny a Washington Post report that said prospective RNC employees are being asked if they believe the 2020 election was stolen, constituting a “litmus test” as the 2024 election approaches.“Candidates who worked on the frontline in battleground states or are currently in states where fraud allegations have been prevalent were asked about their work experience,” Danielle Alvarez, a spokesperson for the RNC and Trump, said in a statement.“We want experienced staff with meaningful views on how elections are won and lost and real experience-based opinions about what happens in the trenches.”Trump has pursued his stolen election lie through his conclusive defeat by Biden; his attempts to overturn results in key states; his incitement of the deadly January 6 attack on Congress; his resulting impeachment and acquittal; his attempts to delay or avoid trial on four federal and 10 state criminal charges concerning election subversion; and his surge to a third successive presidential nomination.He extended control over the RNC last month with the replacement of Ronna McDaniel by new co-chairs, his daughter-in-law Lara Trump and Michael Whatley, a loyalist from North Carolina.Lara Trump told NBC on Tuesday the RNC was “past” disputing the 2020 election, adding: “The past is the past and unfortunately we had to learn a couple of hard lessons in 2020.”But the Post said Trump aides were now asking election lie questions as they assess which former staffers will be rehired, as the presidential election grinds into gear.Other questions for prospective hires focused on “election integrity” in the 2024 contest, the Post said.Speaking to the Post, an unnamed prospective employee said two top Trump advisers posed the question directly, asking: “Was the 2020 election stolen?”Two unnamed sources said questions were left open-ended.“But if you say the election wasn’t stolen, do you really think you’re going to get hired?” a former RNC employee was quoted as saying.CNN said it confirmed the Post report, saying sources described the 2020 question “as unusual for a job interview” but saw it as a way of “questioning their loyalty to Donald Trump”. Alvarez repeated her non-denial to CNN.Doug Heye, a former RNC communications director, told the Post it was not unusual for staff to be expected to “back the candidate up and go along with the worldview”.But Bill Kristol, anti-Trump conservative commentator, said prospective hires would now have “no excuse for wanting to work [at the RNC] in 2024”, given its open embrace of Trump’s election lie. More

    • 200 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump got some good financial news this week. But there’s a dark side | Margaret Sullivan

      by

      Donald Trump has had an encouraging day or two on the money front.On Monday, a New York appeals panel lowered – to a mere $175m – the amount the former president needs to cough up as he challenges the huge judgment against him in his civil fraud case. It’s not clear whether Trump can obtain such a bond – he has another week or so to try. He couldn’t raise an earlier, much higher sum, but this seems much more likely.That means it’s possible that he can avoid having liens put on his buildings (his “babies”, as he called them). Welcome news in Trump World.Then, on Tuesday, his media startup had a wildly successful stock market debut as a public company. Since Trump owns 60% of Trump Media & Technology (which owns Truth Social), his stake is now worth more than $5bn, the Washington Post reported.That development gave him a big status boost: Bloomberg put him, for the first time, on to its list of the 500 richest people. Still, there’s a hitch; he can’t sell his shares for six months. So the windfall doesn’t help with his immediate challenges.Meanwhile, Trump keeps singing the blues. He even indirectly compared his troubles to someone else with a large following, praising as “beautiful” this message from a fan: “It’s ironic that Christ walked through His greatest persecution the very week they are trying to steal your property from you.”I don’t feel concerned for Trump who, after all, is responsible for his thorny situation, despite his claims of victimhood.But I do worry about America’s national security amid Trump’s financial ups and downs, because they make way for influence-peddling and mischief.One reason is that major shareholders in Trump Media won’t be forced to publicly and immediately disclose their stakes. That’s potential trouble since we know that Trump’s businesses got millions from foreign governments and officials while he was president.As Noah Bookbinder, who heads the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told the Post, it’s been obvious for years that he’s open to such influence.“This seems like an opportunity that is tailor-made for that,” Bookbinder said.In other words, Trump is – as always – on the make. And his sheer heft of his legal and financial baggage makes that propensity much more dangerous.Trump’s situation creates “an unprecedented opportunity to buy influence with a leading presidential candidate and a sitting president should he be re-elected”, the non-profit organization wrote in an analysis last month.Without suggesting any malfeasance, I’ll note one example of overlapping interests: a Republican mega-donor, the billionaire Jeff Yass, was the biggest institutional shareholder of the shell company that merged with Trump’s social media company, according to the New York Times.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionYass’s firm is also a major investor in the parent company of TikTok; the House of Representatives just passed a bill that would force that Chinese parent company either to sell its popular video app or see it banned in the US.Despite Trump’s reprieves in recent days, there’s no end in sight for his financial or legal woes. And that’s problematic, not just for him but for the nation.One reason he is so desperate to be elected again is that he sees the presidency as a marvelous opportunity to line his pockets. Or – if absolutely necessary – to pay his debts, though that’s never his first choice.Meanwhile, his chatter gets more unhinged every day.Referring to one all-caps rant that began with “CROOKED POLS!!!” and ended with “WITCH HUNT!”, his former rival Hillary Clinton posed a simple question: “Does this sound like a man who should have access to nuclear codes again?”As the former secretary of state knows all too well, the answer is clear.
      Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture More

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Robert F Kennedy Jr names tech lawyer Nicole Shanahan as 2024 running mate

      by

      Robert F Kennedy Jr selected Nicole Shanahan, a tech attorney and wealthy philanthropist, as his running mate in an independent campaign that could upset the 2024 race for the White House.Kennedy, an environmental attorney who gained notoriety as a vaccine sceptic and conspiracy theorist, announced his pick at a campaign event on Tuesday in Oakland, California, where Shanahan was born.In a nearly hour-long, winding speech, Kennedy cited Shanahan’s career in technology as an asset for the campaign, Kennedy said she had “deep inside knowledge of how big tech uses AI to manipulate” voters.Shanahan was the founder and CEO of the Palo Alto legal tech firm ClearAccessIP before selling the company in 2020. She was also a fellow at Stanford Law School’s center for legal informatics.“I managed to put a technologist at the forefront,” Kennedy said. “I found a vice-president who shares my indignation about the participation of big tech as a partner in the censorship, surveillance, and the information warfare that our government is currently waging against the American people.”Kennedy, 70, a scion of the US political dynasty that includes former president John F Kennedy, also presented Shanahan, 38, as a fresh and youthful voice in a presidential contest between 81-year-old Joe Biden and 77-year-old Donald Trump.“There’s a growing number of millennials and gen Z Americans who have lost faith in their future and lost their pride in our country,” he said.The announcement event took place in the Henry J Kaiser Center for the Arts, a historic building in Oakland that has been in disrepair for decades but is on the path to being reopened. Speaking at the event, rightwing author Angela Stanton-King said the venue had been opened to the campaign despite being partially under construction, and was chosen due to the historical events it had hosted – including a speech by Martin Luther King Jr in 1962.The event featured an introduction from the local Muwekma Ohlone tribe, whose battle for federal recognition has been supported by Kennedy, and musical renditions of This Land Is Your Land and America the Beautiful. Speakers included the Stanford professor and Covid-lockdown skeptic Jay Battacharya as well as Kelly Ryerson, a public health advocate who focuses on chronic illnesses she says are caused by toxins in our food supplies.More than two hours into the lengthy announcement event, after most cable news channels had cut away from the stream, the ex-NBA player Metta Sandiford-Artest, formerly known as Metta World Peace, welcomed Shanahan to the stage. The vice-presidential hopeful explained her political mission, citing her strong anti-war beliefs as aligning with Kennedy’s. She soon launched into an anti-pharmaceuticals screed, attributing her passion for “children’s health” to her child’s experience with autism.Democrats are especially concerned that Kennedy could pull votes away from Biden, spoiling the election. Recent polling from Quinnipiac projected Kennedy could receive as much as 15% of the vote in a race involving Biden and Trump, amid limited enthusiasm for the candidates from the two major parties.One such defector was Marilyn Chin, a volunteer for Kennedy’s campaign recruiting voters outside the event. Chin, who is 71, said she voted Democratic for most of her life but was now supporting Kennedy.“Get out of the duopoly,” she said. “Don’t vote Republican, don’t vote Democrat, start looking for something else.”Kennedy will face an expensive, and uphill battle to get on the ballot in all 50 states, which will involve gathering hundreds of thousands of signatures. He has made it on to the ballot in only one state so far, Utah. Still, the Democratic National Committee has called Kennedy a “stalking horse” and said third-party candidates may have tipped the 2016 election to Trump.In a statement following Kennedy’s announcement, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign called him a “radical leftist” and an “environmental whack job” before stating his campaign would not get very far. The Democratic National Committee called Kennedy’s run a “spoiler campaign” and said it was dangerous for Republican donors to be propping up Kennedy during such a high-stakes election.Earlier this year, the DNC filed a federal election complaint accusing Kennedy and a political action committee backing his third-party bid of illegally colluding to qualify for the ballot in swing states crucial to Biden’s re-election. Kennedy’s campaign has denied breaching financial barriers between candidates and outside groups, which is prohibited by federal campaign law.The Democrats have also said that a major donor to American Values 2024, the Super Pac backing Kennedy, is Tim Mellon, a businessman who has also backed Trump.Shanahan told the New York Times she has contributed $4m to American Values 2024.The Bay Area entrepreneur is known in tech circles as the founder of ClearAccessIP, a startup that uses software to help companies manage and distribute patents and patent rights. But she gained notoriety after her 2018 marriage to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, one of the wealthiest people in the world. The couple’s divorce in 2022 drew extra scrutiny following a Wall Street Journal report that Shanahan had conducted an affair with the Tesla and X chief, Elon Musk. She has denied the allegations.In February, she helped finance a $5m campaign advertisement for Kennedy during the Super Bowl, which alluded to his uncle John F Kennedy’s successful 1960 White House run. The ad was denounced by Kennedy’s family, who have disavowed his campaign and his baseless theories on vaccines and the Covid pandemic, among other issues.Shanahan told the New York Times that she was not an anti-vaxxer, but has shared Kennedy’s discredited claims about the safety of vaccinations. At Tuesday’s event, she formally renounced any affiliation with the Democratic party, saying it had “lost its way”.“The Democratic party is supposed to be the party of compassion and peace, it is supposed to be the party of diplomacy and science,” she said. “While I know those ideals still abide within many Democrats, I want to point out that the party has lost its way. In its leadership, in its institutions, it has become interested in elitism, celebrity and winning at all costs, even if that means turning a blind eye on issues they all know to be true.”Kennedy’s anti-vaccination views drew protesters at Tuesday’s announcement, including Wendy Bloom, a registered nurse who has worked in pediatric cancer units for 37 years, who stood outside the Oakland convention center with pro-Biden and pro-vaccine signs.“Besides being anti-vaccines, he’s not pro-science, and anti-research,” she said. She also dismissed the choice of Shanahan as a running mate.“His choice of VP tells us everything we need to know,” Bloom said. “She has no experience. She’s just a wealthy individual who can help raise money. Voters deserve someone with experience.” More

    • 175 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump’s Truth Social valued at nearly $8bn as it goes public in New York

      by

      The firm behind Donald Trump’s Truth Social went public on Tuesday at a price that values the minnow social network at close to $8bn.Shares in Digital World Acquisition, the shell company with which Trump’s social media business has merged, have been surging since the turn of the year.They launched a volatile rally as it combined with Trump Media & Technology on Tuesday, closing up 15% after their first day of trading.The firm is trading under the ticker symbol “DJT”, using Trump’s initials.Trump Media’s arrival on the market has netted the former president a paper fortune of some $4.6bn . After the deal closed on Monday, Bloomberg said that Trump had joined the ranks of the world’s 500 wealthiest people for the first time.But trading in Trump Media was so volatile after Tuesday’s opening bell, it was briefly halted. At one point on Tuesday, shares in the group had soared by more than 50%.Trump, who is currently unable to offload his stake, will need the stock to continue to trade at the levels to which it has surged in recent months if he is to raise billions of dollars from a sale.“I LOVE TRUTH SOCIAL,” he wrote on the platform shortly after Trump Media landed on New York’s Nasdaq stock exchange. Investors finally backed a merger between Trump Media and Digital World last week, setting the stage for the deal to close.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIt comes as Trump, who is vying to regain the presidency from Joe Biden in November’s election, grapples with hefty legal costs. He is on the hook for $454m after a civil fraud case, although the former president was thrown a lifeline on Monday when a panel of appellate court judges provided him with 10 days to secure a far smaller $175m bond.Trump Media has struggled since Truth Social’s lackluster launch, generating sales of only about $5m since 2021. But Digital World has increasingly been seen as a so-called meme stock, boosted by internet memes – posted, in its case, on platforms including Truth Social – urging retail investors to buy into it.Special purpose acquisition companies, or Spacs, such as Digital World raise money from investors through initial public offerings, before typically searching for a company to take public.Once a Spac finds and agrees terms with a target, it absorbs the business and draws it on to the stock market, enabling investors in both companies to take a slide. Should the Spac’s original investors not like the deal, however, they can withdraw their cash.Devin Nunes, the former Republican congressman who now serves as CEO of Trump Media, said: “As a public company, we will passionately pursue our vision to build a movement to reclaim the internet from big tech censors.” More