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      Trump and the Republican party exemplify these five elements of fascism | Robert Reich

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      The Washington Post calls Donald Trump’s vision for a second term “authoritarian”.That vision includes mandatory stop-and-frisk. Deploying the military to fight street crime, break up gangs and deport immigrants. Purging the federal workforce. Charging leakers.“In 2016, I declared I am your voice,” Trump said at his first 2024 campaign rally in Waco, Texas. “Today, I add I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”How do we describe what Trump wants for America?“Authoritarianism” isn’t adequate. It is fascism. Fascism stands for a coherent set of ideas different from – and more dangerous than – authoritarianism.To fight those ideas, it’s necessary to be aware of what they are and how they fit together.Borrowing from the cultural theorist Umberto Eco, the historians Emilio Gentile and Ian Kershaw, the political scientist Roger Griffin, and the former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright, I offer five elements that distinguish fascism from authoritarianism.1. The rejection of democracy, the rule of law and equal rights under the law in favor of a strongman who interprets the popular will.“The election was stolen.” (Trump, 2020)“I am your justice … I am your retribution.” (Trump, 2023)Authoritarians believe society needs strong leaders to maintain stability. They vest in a dictator the power to maintain social order through the use of force (armies, police, militia) and bureaucracy.By contrast, fascists view strong leaders as the means of discovering what society needs. They regard the leader as the embodiment of society, the voice of the people.2. The galvanizing of popular rage against cultural elites.“Your enemies” are “media elites”, … “the elites who led us from one financial and foreign policy disaster to another”. (Trump, 2015, 2016)Authoritarians do not stir people up against establishment elites. They use or co-opt those elites to gain and maintain power.By contrast, fascists galvanize public rage at presumed (or imaginary) cultural elites and use mass rage to gain and maintain power. They stir up grievances against those elites for supposedly displacing average people and seek revenge. In doing so, they create mass parties. They often encourage violence.3. Nationalism based on a dominant “superior” race and historic bloodlines.“Tremendous infectious disease is pouring across the border.” (Trump, 2015)“Jewish people that vote for a Democrat [show] great disloyalty.” (Trump, 2019)“Getting critical race theory out of our schools is … a matter of national survival.” (Trump, 2022)Authoritarians see nationalism as a means of asserting the power of the state. They glorify the state. They want it to dominate other nations.Authoritarianism seeks to protect or expand its geographic boundaries. It worries about foreign enemies encroaching on its territory.By contrast, fascism embodies what it considers a “superior” group – based on race, religion and historic bloodlines. Nationalism is a means of asserting that superiority.Fascists worry about disloyalty and sabotage from groups within the nation that don’t share the same race or bloodlines. These “others” are scapegoated, excluded or expelled, sometimes even killed.Fascists believe schools and universities must teach values that extol the dominant race, religion and bloodline. Schools should not teach inconvenient truths (such as America’s history of genocide and racism).4. Extolling brute strength and heroic warriors.“You’ll never take back our country with weakness, you have to show strength and you have to be strong. (Trump, 6 January 2021)“I am your warrior.” (Trump, 2023)The goal of authoritarianism is to gain and maintain state power. For authoritarians, “strength” comes in the form of large armies and munitions.By contrast, the ostensible goal of fascism is to strengthen society. Fascism’s method of accomplishing this is to reward those who win economically and physically and to denigrate or exterminate those who lose.Fascism depends on organized bullying – a form of social Darwinism. For the fascist, war and violence are means of strengthening society by culling the weak and extolling heroic warriors.5. Disdain of women and fear of non-standard gender identities or sexual orientation.“When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.” (Trump, 2005)“You have to treat ’em like shit.” (Trump, 1992)“[I will] promote positive education about the nuclear family … rather than erasing the things that make men and women different.” (Trump, 2023)Authoritarianism imposes hierarchies. Authoritarians seek order.By contrast, fascism is organized around the particular hierarchy of male dominance. The fascist heroic warrior is male. Women are relegated to subservient roles.In fascism, anything that challenges the traditional heroic male roles of protector, provider and controller of the family is considered a threat to the social order.Fascism seeks to eliminate homosexual, transgender and queer people because they are thought to challenge or weaken the heroic male warrior.These five elements of fascism reinforce each other:Rejection of democracy in favor of a strongman depends on galvanizing popular rage.Popular rage draws on a nationalism based on a supposed superior race or ethnicity.That superior race or ethnicity is justified by social Darwinist strength and violence, as exemplified by heroic warriors.Strength, violence and the heroic warrior are centered on male power.These five elements find exact expression in Donald Trump and the white Christian nationalist movement he is encouraging. This is also the direction that most of the Republican party is now heading.They are not the elements of authoritarianism. They are the essential elements of fascism.America’s mainstream media is by now comfortable talking and writing about Trump’s authoritarianism. In describing what he is seeking to impose on America, the media should be using the term fascism.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com More

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      The Guardian view on Trump and political violence: more than words | Editorial

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      Like Joe Biden’s ascent to the White House, Donald Trump’s indictment for unlawfully holding classified documents and obstructing justice offers a partial answer to one great question of American politics: can the country’s institutions contain his excesses?The backlash that the indictment has prompted highlights another: what happens when they do? When the Democrat defeated him, Mr Trump’s armed supporters stormed the Capitol to prevent the transfer of power, assaulting police officers and chanting “Hang Mike Pence”. Within minutes of his indictment last week, threats and even calls for civil war were surging on social media platforms used by his supporters.The violent rhetoric doesn’t just come from the grassroots. The Arizona Republican Kari Lake announced that “to get to President Trump, you’re going to have to go through me, and you’re going to have to go through 75 million Americans just like me … Most of us are card-carrying members of the NRA [National Rifle Association].” Mr Trump himself previously warned of “death and destruction” if he were indicted in a separate case, over hush money payments.His bluster at such times is intended to deter action against him – despite the extraordinary case put forward in the indictment, including the now-familiar photo of boxes stacked in a bathroom. It is critical to avoid hysteria or fatalism about the threats facing US democracy. It is true that the direst prognostications did not come to pass after the 2020 election.Nonetheless, last year, research found that more than two in five Americans think a civil war is at least somewhat likely within the next decade. The number who think violence would be justified to restore Mr Trump to the White House has fallen since last year, but still stands at 12 million. An increasingly divided country is also increasingly well armed, with almost 400m privately held guns; their owners are disproportionately white, male and Republican. According to one study, almost 3% of adults, or 7.5 million people, bought a firearm for the first time between January 2019 and April 2021.A slew of analysts have warned that the US could be heading towards widespread political violence. Prof Barbara Walter notes in her book How Civil Wars Start that two conditions are key: ethnic factionalism and anocracy – when a country is neither fully democratic nor fully autocratic. She believes that the US has the first, and remains close to the second, even if the short-term threat has ebbed somewhat since 2021. Others have pulled back from warnings of civil war, but think major civil disruption is entirely plausible.No one foresees a straight confrontation between forces as in the 1860s, let alone a geographic split. What some experts fear is a guerrilla-style asymmetric conflict waged by a decentralised movement, with small groups or lone attackers targeting minority targets such as synagogues or gay clubs, civilians more broadly, infrastructure, or figures such as Democratic politicians, judges and election officials. Trumpism would be best understood not as the animating principle of such a conflict, but as a catalyst. People would not be fighting for Mr Trump so much as fighting because they believed he spoke for them. And if not him, another figurehead might yet emerge.No violence broke out at the indictment hearing in Miami, as some had feared. Key figures on the extreme right are now locked up: more than 1,000 people have been charged with offences relating to January 6, and hundreds of those imprisoned. Others reportedly feel that Mr Trump has abandoned them. Nonetheless, the growth of threats and political violence in recent years is undeniable. That the language of Mr Trump and his enablers makes these more likely is surely, by now, beyond doubt.
      Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. More

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      Obama criticizes GOP hopefuls Nikki Haley and Tim Scott over racism stances

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      Barack Obama has criticized two Republican presidential hopefuls, the South Carolina senator Tim Scott and the former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, over their stances on race relations in America.In a podcast interview, Obama, who became the first Black US president when he was elected in 2008, said that while presenting a hopeful message on race relations was important, “that has to be undergirded with an honest accounting of our past and our present”.Scott is the only Black candidate in the 2024 Republican presidential primary race and Haley is Indian American.Asked about Scott’s messaging, Obama said there was sometimes a tendency among Republican candidates to gloss over the effects of racism, arguing that candidates need to address racial disparities to be taken seriously on the subject of American unity.“There’s a long history of African American or other minority candidates within the Republican party who will validate America and say, ‘Everything’s great, and we can make it,’” Obama told the Democratic strategist David Axelrod on the CNN-hosted Axe Files. He added that he thought Nikki Haley “has a similar approach”.Obama said that approach does not include “a plan for how do we address crippling generational poverty that is a consequence of hundreds of years of racism in this society, and we need to do something about that.“If that candidate is not willing to acknowledge that, again and again, we’ve seen discrimination in everything from … getting a job to buying a house to how the criminal justice system operates,” he added.That prompted a pushback from Scott, a former insurance agent, who has said “Racism is real. It is alive,” but argues that his success as a Black man is not exceptional but representative of progress.Scott responded to Obama’s comments, telling the conservative radio host Mark Levin that the president had “missed a softball moving at slow speed with a big bat”.In a Twitter post later on Thursday, Scott said: “Let us not forget we are a land of opportunity, not a land of oppression. Democrats deny our progress to protect their power,” he wrote. “The left wants you to believe faith in America is a fraud and progress in our nation is a myth.“The truth of MY life disproves the lies of the radical left,” Scott continued. “We live in a country where little Black and brown boys and girls can be president of the United States. The truth is – we’ve had one and the good news is – we will have another,” he added.Separately, Nikki Haley took issue with Obama’s position.“Barack Obama set minorities back by singling them out as victims instead of empowering them,” Haley told the New York Post. “In America, hard work and personal responsibility matter. My parents didn’t raise me to think that I would forever be a victim. They raised me to know that I was responsible for my success.” More

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      Republican hopeful Mike Pence to release book on ‘how faith makes family’

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      The former vice-president and candidate for the Republican presidential nomination Mike Pence will release a new book in November: a compilation of “advice on how faith makes family and family makes a life”, entitled Go Home for Dinner.Simon & Schuster announced the new project, from a devoutly Christian politician famous for refusing to dine alone with any woman who is not his wife.Pence’s daughter, Charlotte Pence Bond, was announced as co-author. Pence Bond is also the author of a series of children’s books about the family’s pet rabbit, Marlon Bundo, which the HBO talkshow host John Oliver memorably satirised with a book in which Marlon turned out to be gay.Pence published a campaign-oriented memoir, So Help Me God, last year. In that project, in preparation for his presidential run and now on the campaign trail, he has sought to gradually distance himself from his former boss – not least because Donald Trump sent to the Capitol the mob which threatened Pence’s life on January 6.On Thursday, Simon & Schuster said: “When Mike Pence was a young politician, reporters used to ask him: ‘Where do you see yourself in five, 10 years?’ Without fail, the former vice-president would reply: ‘Home for dinner.’”Before becoming vice-president, Pence was a congressman and governor of Indiana.Pence looks set to lose the Republican primary, lagging about 50 points behind Trump in polling, despite the former president’s various forms of serious legal jeopardy.While facing likely indictments over his election subversion and incitement of the Capitol riot, Trump has pleaded not guilty to 37 federal criminal charges over his retention of classified records and 34 state criminal charges over his hush money payment to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, who claimed a sexual affair.Simon & Schuster said Pence would offer readers a “straightforward and personal” guide to a lifestyle rather more cloistered than Trump’s.Promising “short chapters”, the publisher said Pence would walk readers “through the principles he and his wife, Karen, developed to raise their family”, while giving “credit to his parents for setting the precedent of gathering around the dinner table and for being attentive listeners”.Pence, Simon & Schuster said, will “discuss how he and Karen prioritised their relationship, even when they struggled professionally through two failed congressional races and personally with infertility.“He reveals how he learned to trust God, make difficult choices, and take leaps of faith, all with an eye to what his family needed.” More

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      Mayor of Miami Francis Suarez enters 2024 Republican presidential race

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      The mayor of Miami, Francis Suarez, has entered the race for the Republican presidential nomination.On Thursday morning, he tweeted: “My dad taught me that you get to choose your battles, and I am choosing the biggest one of my life. I’m running for president.”The tweet was accompanied by a video of Suarez out for a run.Ahead of a speech at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California, the Cuban American mayor, 45, also spoke to ABC News.“I think I have a different message,” he said, claiming to have “implemented generational change”, touting his experience leading a major city and winning election and re-election by large margins.Suarez will be an outsider in a crowded field dominated by two other Florida men: Donald Trump, the twice indicted former president, and Ron DeSantis, the hard-right governor. Trump leads most polling averages by more than 30 points. The former vice-president Mike Pence leads the rest of the pack, way back.Asked what he thought of Trump’s indictment in Miami this week on 37 federal charges relating to his handling of classified materials, Suarez tried to dodge the question, saying the city had avoided “anarchy” around Trump’s court appearance.Pressed, Suarez said Republicans thought there “isn’t an equal administration of justice”.Quizzed again to say what he thought of Trump’s behaviour, Suarez said he would have turned over documents, as Trump refused to do, but also tried to link the case to an investigation of documents retained by Joe Biden.“I’m not an expert on these kinds of matters,” Suarez said. “But I do want to say this, that this conversation is not a healthy conversation. We should be talking about the issues the Americans care about.”Suarez insisted he was not running against Trump, but “against Joe Biden’s America”.The New York Times noted an ad buy in early voting states charging Biden with failing to control crime. The paper also referenced an FBI investigation that could damage Suarez’s run.“Mr Suarez is little known outside his state, and he is facing emerging allegations of influence-peddling on behalf of a real estate development company,” the Times said.The editorial board of the Miami Herald said “$10,000 monthly payments [Suarez] received from a developer for consulting work – while serving as mayor”, while “small potatoes compared to Trump’s legal problems … look like a conflict of interest”.The board also asked: “Is being president really Suarez’s goal?”In two terms, the paper said, the mayor had “turned himself into a tech-bro hero, cryptocurrency cheerleader and conservative cable news staple.“He likes the glitz and star power that come with running a city that’s transforming into a technology and financial hub. That attention seems to have convinced him he can run for president.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Herald also noted Suarez’s history of departing from Republican orthodoxy – he voted against Trump twice – and his ability to represent the Hispanics Republicans need to attract.Suarez told ABC he would pledge to support Trump if he won the nomination, adding: “I’m the only candidate who’s Hispanic in both parties. I think that’s incredibly important because 20% of the country is made up of Hispanics that are trending Republican.”Citing the case of Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who ran for the Democratic nomination in 2020, showed strongly and is now US transportation secretary, the Herald said Suarez might really be aiming to win a cabinet post.The paper said: “Suarez will have to define himself on the national stage and show Republican voters – many already smitten with Trump or, to a lesser degree, DeSantis – who he really is. Is he the hip moderate or the rightwing Biden baiter?“If Suarez truly is seeking the biggest political prize in the free world, he’ll first have to make a powerful case that he’s the better choice for the nomination. That said, he might end up with a really neat consolation prize.”Suarez was elected mayor in 2017 with 86% of the vote, and re-elected four years later with a still healthy 78%. With his city at ground zero of the climate emergency, he has broken with many Republicans’ views and considers rising seas and global temperatures “a real crisis” facing the planet.He has championed the Miami Forever bond, investing $400m of taxpayers’ money in projects to counter sea level rise and other consequences of the climate crisis, including increasingly prevalent flooding.The whiff of scandal, however, is likely to cling as primary season approaches. On Wednesday, the Republican US congressman Carlos Giménez, a former mayor of Miami-Dade county, said Suarez “had a snowball’s chance in hell” of winning.“I don’t think he has any business running for president. He has never established himself as having the capacity to run anything in his life,” Giménez told the Miami New Times.
      This article was amended on 15 June 2023 to correct the date of Carlos Giménez’s statement. More

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      Trump’s 2024 Republican rivals react to indictment: ‘Very serious allegations’

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      When news broke on Thursday that Donald Trump would be indicted for his alleged mishandling of classified documents, most of his Republican presidential primary opponents rushed to his defense, blaming the charges on the “weaponization of federal law enforcement”, as the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, said.But several Republican candidates have shifted their tone since the indictment was unsealed on Friday, revealing the full extent of the serious charges Trump faces. Those Republicans’ willingness to challenge the former president’s claims of “political persecution” could mark a new chapter in the 2024 primary fight, although the candidates may have to change their tune if Trump becomes the nominee.According to the indictment filed by the office of special counsel Jack Smith, Trump willfully withheld 31 classified documents from federal officials and obstructed justice in his efforts to conceal the materials. Some of those documents included highly sensitive government information on America’s nuclear programs, military vulnerabilities and planned responses in the event of a foreign attack. The former president pleaded not guilty to all 37 federal counts at his arraignment in Miami, Florida, on Tuesday.The nature of the classified information kept in ballrooms and bathrooms at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida caught the attention of his vice-president and now primary opponent, Mike Pence. While Pence had previously attacked the department of justice over the indictment, he told the Wall Street Journal editorial board on Tuesday that he considered his former boss’s alleged actions to be indefensible.“Having read the indictment,” Pence said, “these are very serious allegations. And I can’t defend what is alleged. But the president is entitled to his day in court, he’s entitled to bring a defense, and I want to reserve judgment until he has the opportunity to respond.”Pence, whose son and son-in-law served in the US military, specifically chastised Trump over endangering service members.“Even the inadvertent release of that kind of information could compromise our national security and the safety of our armed forces,” Pence said. “And, frankly, having two members of our immediate family serving in the armed forces of the United States, I will never diminish the importance of protecting our nation’s secrets.”That line was echoed by former South Carolina governor and presidential candidate Nikki Haley. Although Haley initially responded to news of the indictment by condemning “prosecutorial overreach, double standards and vendetta politics”, she begrudgingly acknowledged on Monday that Trump’s alleged behavior represented a grave threat to Americans’ safety.“If this indictment is true, if what it says is actually the case, President Trump was incredibly reckless with our national security,” Haley told Fox News. “I’m a military spouse. My husband’s about to deploy this weekend. This puts all of our military men and women in danger.”The South Carolina senator Tim Scott softened his own impassioned defense of Trump after the indictment was made public. While Scott lamented “a justice system where the scales are weighted” on Thursday, he told reporters on Monday that Smith’s indictment represented a “serious case with serious allegations”.But those three candidates did not go as far as the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who has been far more outspoken in his criticism of Trump. At a CNN town hall on Monday, Christie credited Smith’s team with crafting “a very tight, very detailed, evidence-laden indictment”.“Whether you like Donald Trump or you don’t like Donald Trump, this conduct is inexcusable, in my opinion, for somebody who wants to be president of the United States,” Christie said.Christie, who was once a Trump loyalist before turning against the former president, attributed the retention of the classified documents to “vanity run amok”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“He’s saying I’m more important than the country,” Christie said. “And he is now going to put this country through this when we didn’t have to go through it.”Even after the release of the incriminating indictment, however, some Republican candidates have continued to circle the wagons in Trump’s defense. Presidential candidate and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy traveled to Miami for the arraignment on Tuesday, and he spoke to supporters about the need to pardon Trump if he is convicted.“This is my commitment: on January 20, 2025, if I’m elected the next US president, to pardon Donald J Trump for these offenses in this federal case,” Ramaswamy, a long-shot candidate, said. “I have challenged, I have demanded that every other candidate in this race either sign this commitment to pardon on January 20, 2025, or else to explain why they are not.”Although Haley has criticized Trump’s recklessness, she said she would be inclined to pardon him if she becomes president.“When you look at a pardon, the issue is less about guilt and more about what’s good for the country,” Haley said on Tuesday. “I think it would be terrible for the country to have a former president in prison for years because of a documents case.”But with Trump continuing to dominate in polls of likely primary voters, it appears unlikely that Haley or any other Republican candidate will be in the position to issue a pardon. Given that the Republican National Committee has demanded presidential candidates pledge their support for the eventual nominee, whispers of criticism among Trump’s opponents may soon dim to silence, as they did in 2016.As Republicans have clashed over Trump’s fate, Joe Biden has remained above the fray, seemingly content to watch his rivals tie themselves in knots over a former president accused of jeopardizing national security. When asked about the arraignment on Tuesday, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, responded in the same way she has for days: no comment. More

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      Donald Trump leaves court after pleading not guilty to federal criminal charges at Miami indictment hearing – live

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      From 3h agoDonald Trump has pleaded not guilty to charges related to allegedly hoarding government secrets at his Mar-a-Lago resort and frustrating efforts by the federal government to retrieve them at his ongoing arraignment in Miami, Reuters reports.Donald Trump’s sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr took to social media as their father pleaded not guilty in the courthouse.Eric retweeted a post by the Republican congressman Jim Jordan that said there were different standards of justice for the Trump and Biden families.While Donald Trump Jr praised Ohio senator, JD Vance, for saying he wouldblock all nominees to the Department of Justice over the indictment against the former president.Ohio senator, JD Vance, who was endorsed by Donald Trump in his 2022 race, has said he would block all nominees to the Department of Justice “until Merrick Garland stops using his agency to harass Joe Biden’s political opponents”.In a statement posted to Twitter, Vance called the former president “merely the latest victim of a Department of Justice that cares more about politics than law enforcement” and said he would “grind [Garland’s] department to a halt” in protest of “the unprecedented political prosecution” of Trump.Vance said:
      Starting today, I will hold all Department of Justice nominations. If Merrick Garland wants to use these officials to harass Joe Biden’s political opponents, we will grind his department to a halt.
      Vance’s hold will just slow down the confirmation process for DoJ nominees, who will now all need to go through a procedural vote and a confirmation vote.As Punchbowl News’ John Bresnahan points out, the Ohio senator’s announcement doesn’t really change anything.As we reported earlier, Donald Trump’s personal valet Walt Nauta was not arraigned today as his lawyer was not admitted to practice in the southern district of Florida.Nauta is now scheduled to be arraigned on 27 June.A navy veteran from Guam, Nauta worked as a White House valet during the Trump administration and moved to Florida following the 2020 election to become Trump’s personal aide.Prosecutors allege that Nauta was a point person for Trump whenever he wanted to access or hide the boxes of classified documents.The indictment states that Trump directed Nauta to transport various documents to Trump’s personal residence and that Nauta helped Trump try to conceal the boxes of top secret information from the FBI. Nauta also texted two Trump employees about the documents, in one case sending a photo of a tipped-over box and classified documents spilled out on the floor of a storage room.Nauta faces several charges including conspiracy and making false statements, such as telling investigators that he didn’t know where the boxes of classified documents were being stored. He is the only person other than Trump charged in the case.Here’s a guide to the most important people involved in the indictment against Trump:Donald Trump has boarded his private plane in Miami, and is heading to his luxury golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.He is expected to make a statement on today’s criminal proceedings at a fundraising event later today.A judge has said E Jean Carroll, the writer who won a $5m jury verdict against Donald Trump last month, can pursue a separate defamation lawsuit against the former president.The writer and former Elle magazine columnist had sought to amend her original defamation lawsuit filed in 2019 so she could try to seek additional punitive damages after Trump repeated statements a federal jury found to be defamatory.A New York jury last month found Trump had sexually assaulted Carroll in a New York department store in 1996. The jury found that the former president “sexually abused” Carroll, defined as subjecting her to sexual contact without consent by use of force, and for the purpose of sexual gratification. But the jury did not find that Trump raped her. Trump was ordered to pay Carroll $2m for battery and $3m for defamation.Carroll then sought to amend her separate defamation lawsuit over a similar denial by Trump in June, in which he told a White House reporter that the rape never happened and that Carroll was not his “type”. The revision also sought to incorporate Trump’s comments made in a CNN town hall, where he called Carroll’s account “fake” and labeled her a “whack job”.Here’s a clip of Donald Trump arriving at the Miami courthouse earlier this afternoon for his formal arraignment, where he pleaded not guilty to all counts related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents.Donald Trump’s visit to the famous downtown Miami restaurant Versailles, where he was greeted by supporters, was pre-planned and part of his team’s attempt to control his image, HuffPost’s SV Dáte writes.As the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman points out, Trump is determined to fight the battle in the court of public opinion for as long as possible, including by having his co-defendant Walt Nauta close by him today.After he left court, Fox News showed Trump visiting a cafe in Miami and being greeted like a wronged hero.Supporters gathered around him and prayed for him. Someone shouted: “Jesus loves you!”Trump smiled and waved to the crowd and declared: “Food for everyone!” The crowd erupted in applause and cheers. One yelled: “Keep fighting, sir!”Then, ahead of Trump’s 77th birthday tomorrow, the patrons broke out in a chorus of “Happy birthday dear Donald, happy birthday to you!”The former president remarked:
      Some birthday! We’ve got a government that’s out of control.
      He then made brief comments about “a rigged deal”, suggesting that “we have a country that is in decline like never before,” and promising to speak more in Bedminster, New Jersey tonight.Someone shouted: “God bless Donald Trump!” as he departed and returned to his motorcade.Donald Trump has stopped by the Miami restaurant, Versailles, after the conclusion of his court hearing, where he told customers that he would pay “for food for everyone”.A group of people appeared to pray as he entered the cafe, while a crowd sang happy birthday to the former president, who turns 77 tomorrow.Trump’s co-defendant Walt Nauta was also seen in the restaurant.Earlier we reported that a protester was seen running in front of Donald Trump’s motorcade as it departed the courthouse in Miami.Here’s the clip of the man being tackled by security services, as shared by MSNBC’s Manny Fidel: More

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      House business to resume as McCarthy and Republicans break impasse

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      The US House of Representatives is set to resume votes on a handful of Republican-backed bills on Tuesday after a week-long impasse between Kevin McCarthy, the speaker, and a small group of far-right Republicans.Business is set to resume on the House floor on Tuesday afternoon. A slate of previously stalled votes, including a procedural measure to advance legislation protecting gas stoves, are expected to move forward.The agreement comes after a group of 11 Republicans brought the chamber to a halt last week by voting with Democrats and tanking a pair of GOP-backed bills in a revolt against McCarthy for working with Biden to address the debt ceiling. Members of the House Freedom Caucus criticized McCarthy for weak leadership.McCarthy appeared to have resolved the conflict with the holdouts following a closed-door meeting on Monday afternoon.“We know when we work together and work on conservative issues, we were winning, and we get more victories that way,” McCarthy told reporters after emerging from the talks.But lawmakers warned on Monday that they would continue to stall the GOP agenda if McCarthy did not listen to their demands. Among calls for deeper spending cuts, hardliners asked for a resolution condemning Biden’s calls for stricter gun control.“Perhaps we’ll be back here next week,” Congressman Matt Gaetz, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, told reporters as he exited the meeting.Later on Monday evening, McCarthy announced defense and domestic spending bills would include deeper spending cuts in a sign of the outcomes of the closed-door talks, according to the Washington Post.Since assuming the top House leadership role, McCarthy has struggled to gain the support of the Republican party. It took 15 rounds of votes for McCarthy to win the speakership in January as far-right Republicans stalled his confirmation.Yet other Republican members of the House criticized the hardliners for stalling their agenda. In a weekly closed-door meeting of the Republican conference on Tuesday morning, lawmakers condemned last week’s vote blockade.First-term congressman Derrick Van Orden, of Wisconsin, lashed out against the House Freedom Caucus in a fiery speech, according to multiple reports, saying his daughter is dying of cancer yet he still shows up to work every day. More