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      ‘There’s nowhere I feel safe’: Georgia elections workers describe how Trump upended their lives

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      ‘There’s nowhere I feel safe’: Georgia elections workers describe how Trump upended their livesShaye Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, testified how Trump and his allies fueled harassment and racist threats In powerful and emotional testimony about the sinister results of Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, a mother and daughter who were Georgia elections workers described how Trump and his allies upended their lives, fueling harassment and racist threats by claiming they were involved in voter fraud.Giuliani told Arizona official ‘We just don’t have the evidence’ of voter fraudRead moreTestifying to the January 6 committee in Washington, Shaye Moss said she received “a lot of threats. Wishing death upon me. Telling me that I’ll be in jail with my mother and saying things like, ‘Be glad it’s 2020 and not 1920.’”That was a reference to lynching, the violent extra-judicial fate of thousands of Black men in the American south.Moss also said her grandmother’s home had been threatened by Trump supporters seeking to make “citizen’s arrests” of the two poll workers.No Democratic presidential candidate had won Georgia since 1992 but Joe Biden beat Trump by just under 12,000 votes, a result confirmed by recounts.Tuesday’s hearing detailed Trump’s attempts to overturn that result via pressure on Republican state officials and vilification of Moss and her mother over video supposedly showing them engaged in voter fraud, a claim swiftly debunked.Moss’s mother attended the hearing. In taped testimony, she said: “My name is Ruby Freeman. I’ve always believed it when God says that he’ll make your name great. But this is not the way it was supposed to be.”“For my entire professional life, I was Lady Ruby. My community in Georgia, where I was born and lived my whole life, knew me as Lady Ruby. I built my own business around that name: Ruby’s Unique Treasures. A pop-up shop catering to ladies with unique fashions.”“I wore a shirt that proudly proclaimed that I was and I am Lady Ruby. I had that shirt in every color. I wore that shirt on election day 2020. I haven’t worn it since and I’ll never wear it again.“I won’t even introduce myself by my name anymore. I get nervous when I bump into someone I know in the grocery store who says my name. I’m worried about people listening. I get nervous when I have to give my name for food orders. I’m always concerned of who’s around me.“I’ve lost my name and I’ve lost my reputation. I’ve lost my sense of security, all because a group of people starting with [Trump] and his ally Rudy Giuliani decided to scapegoat me and my daughter Shaye, to push their own lies about how the presidential election was stolen.”Freeman also said: “There is nowhere I feel safe. Nowhere. Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States target you?“The president of the United States is supposed to represent every American. Not to target one. And he targeted me, Lady Ruby, a small business owner, a mother, a proud American citizen who stood up to help Fulton county run an election in the middle of the pandemic.”Freeman said she had been forced to leave home for two months.Moss described threats also made to her grandmother.“That woman is my everything,” she said. “I’ve never even heard or seen her cry, ever in my life. And she called me screaming at the top of her lungs, like ‘Shaye, Shaye, oh my gosh, Shaye’, freaking me out, saying that people were at her home.”“And they knocked on the door and of course she opened it, seeing who was there, who it was, and they just started pushing their way through, claiming they were coming in to make a citizen’s arrest. They needed to find me and my mom, they knew we were there.“And [my grandmother] was just screaming and didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t there so I just felt so helpless and so horrible for her. And she just screamed and I called her to close the door. Don’t open the door for anyone.”Moss was asked how her own life had been affected.She said: “My life was turned upside down. I no longer give out my business card. Don’t want anyone knowing my name. Don’t want to go anywhere with my mom because she might yell my name out over the grocery aisle or something. I don’t go to the grocery store anymore.“I haven’t been anywhere. I’ve gained about 60lb. I don’t want to go anywhere, I second-guess everything that I do. It’s affected my life in a major way, every way.“All because of lies.”TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS elections 2020US politicsGeorgiaRepublicansDonald TrumpRudy GiulianinewsReuse this content More

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      ‘There’s nowhere I feel safe’: Georgia election workers on how Trump upended their lives

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      ‘There’s nowhere I feel safe’: Georgia election workers on how Trump upended their livesShaye Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, testified how Trump and his allies fueled harassment and racist threats In powerful and emotional testimony about the sinister results of Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, a mother and daughter who were Georgia elections workers described how Trump and his allies upended their lives, fueling harassment and racist threats by claiming they were involved in voter fraud.Giuliani told Arizona official ‘We just don’t have the evidence’ of voter fraudRead moreTestifying to the January 6 committee in Washington, Shaye Moss said she received “a lot of threats. Wishing death upon me. Telling me that I’ll be in jail with my mother and saying things like, ‘Be glad it’s 2020 and not 1920.’”That was a reference to lynching, the violent extra-judicial fate of thousands of Black men in the American south.Moss also said her grandmother’s home had been threatened by Trump supporters seeking to make “citizen’s arrests” of the two poll workers.No Democratic presidential candidate had won Georgia since 1992 but Joe Biden beat Trump by just under 12,000 votes, a result confirmed by recounts.Tuesday’s hearing detailed Trump’s attempts to overturn that result via pressure on Republican state officials and vilification of Moss and her mother over video supposedly showing them engaged in voter fraud, a claim swiftly debunked.Moss’s mother attended the hearing. In taped testimony, she said: “My name is Ruby Freeman. I’ve always believed it when God says that he’ll make your name great. But this is not the way it was supposed to be.”“For my entire professional life, I was Lady Ruby. My community in Georgia, where I was born and lived my whole life, knew me as Lady Ruby. I built my own business around that name: Ruby’s Unique Treasures. A pop-up shop catering to ladies with unique fashions.”“I wore a shirt that proudly proclaimed that I was and I am Lady Ruby. I had that shirt in every color. I wore that shirt on election day 2020. I haven’t worn it since and I’ll never wear it again.“I won’t even introduce myself by my name anymore. I get nervous when I bump into someone I know in the grocery store who says my name. I’m worried about people listening. I get nervous when I have to give my name for food orders. I’m always concerned of who’s around me.“I’ve lost my name and I’ve lost my reputation. I’ve lost my sense of security, all because a group of people starting with [Trump] and his ally Rudy Giuliani decided to scapegoat me and my daughter Shaye, to push their own lies about how the presidential election was stolen.”Freeman also said: “There is nowhere I feel safe. Nowhere. Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States target you?“The president of the United States is supposed to represent every American. Not to target one. And he targeted me, Lady Ruby, a small business owner, a mother, a proud American citizen who stood up to help Fulton county run an election in the middle of the pandemic.”Freeman said she had been forced to leave home for two months.Moss described threats also made to her grandmother.“That woman is my everything,” she said. “I’ve never even heard or seen her cry, ever in my life. And she called me screaming at the top of her lungs, like ‘Shaye, Shaye, oh my gosh, Shaye’, freaking me out, saying that people were at her home.”“And they knocked on the door and of course she opened it, seeing who was there, who it was, and they just started pushing their way through, claiming they were coming in to make a citizen’s arrest. They needed to find me and my mom, they knew we were there.“And [my grandmother] was just screaming and didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t there so I just felt so helpless and so horrible for her. And she just screamed and I called her to close the door. Don’t open the door for anyone.”Moss was asked how her own life had been affected.She said: “My life was turned upside down. I no longer give out my business card. Don’t want anyone knowing my name. Don’t want to go anywhere with my mom because she might yell my name out over the grocery aisle or something. I don’t go to the grocery store anymore.“I haven’t been anywhere. I’ve gained about 60lb. I don’t want to go anywhere, I second-guess everything that I do. It’s affected my life in a major way, every way.“All because of lies.”TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS elections 2020US politicsGeorgiaRepublicansDonald TrumpRudy GiulianinewsReuse this content More

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      Jan 6 hearings: Raffensperger debunks Trump’s baseless fraud claim: ‘The numbers don’t lie’– as it happened

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      Using Trump’s words from a recorded phone call with Raffensperger, the committee is having the two Georgia officials debunk all of his claims of a stolen election in their state.“The numbers are the numbers and numbers don’t lie,” Raffensperger said, defending his office’s conduct. “Every single allegation, we checked, we ran down the rabbit trail to make sure that our numbers were accurate.”The FBI and Georgia Bureau of Investigation also investigated the claims and found them to be baseless.Adam Schiff, the California Democrat leading today’s question, said that the committee has learned that around the time of the dispute over Georgia’s vote, Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, wanted to send Georgia election investigators “a shitload of Potus stuff,” in the words of one White House aide. These included coins and autographed Maga hats. “White House staff intervened to make sure that didn’t happen,” Schiff said.The fourth hearing of the January 6 committee explored both the official effort to overturn the 2020 election and the impact of personal attacks by Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani against a pair of Georgia poll workers. Meanwhile, Congress is in the midst of a flurry of legislating, with lawmakers days away from taking a two-week break.Here’s what else happened today:
      South Dakota state attorney general Jason Ravnsborg lied to investigators and abused the power of his office after he struck and killed a pedestrian, prosecutors argued earlier today at the opening of an impeachment trial that could remove him from office.
      Documentary film maker Alex Holder is cooperating with a subpoena by the House select committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and related events. He filmed interviews with Trump and family.
      Congress is inching towards votes on a bipartisan gun control compromise reached between Republicans and Democrats, spurred on by the Uvalde school massacre as well as the racist killings at a grocery store in Buffalo.
      The US Supreme Court has struck down a state-funded program in Maine that covers the costs of some private schools — but only those that are nonsectarian.
      The US politics blog will return tomorrow, but for all the developments in the Russian invasion of Ukraine as they happen, including news on the visit by US attorney general Merrick Garland, the fate of American citizens fighting on Ukraine’s side, and what’s happening on the ground, do follow our global live blog on the war, here.The testimony by Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss was the emotional climax of the January 6 committee’s fourth hearing, as they detailed how being personally attacked by Trump ruined their lives. Their experience is unfortunately not unique.Alexander Vindman, a prominent witness in Trump’s first impeachment investigation, tweeted his support:Lady Ruby and Shaye,I know what it’s like to have the President of the United States attack me. Stay strong. We are better than him and we will prevail. Much love!— Alexander S. Vindman (@AVindman) June 21, 2022
      Former US attorney and Trump foe Preet Bharara weighed in:If Shaye Moss can come testify, so can Mike Pence— Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) June 21, 2022
      A spokesman for Ron Johnson has responded to evidence presented in today’s January 6 hearing that appeared to show the Republican senator cooperated with Trump’s efforts to disrupt the 2020 election results in crucial swing states.The senator had no involvement in the creation of an alternate slate of electors and had no foreknowledge that it was going to be delivered to our office. This was a staff to staff exchange. His new Chief of Staff contacted the Vice President’s office.— alexa henning (@alexahenning) June 21, 2022
      The Vice President’s office said not to give it to him and we did not. There was no further action taken. End of story.— alexa henning (@alexahenning) June 21, 2022
      In its hearing, the committee detailed a plan by Trump supporters to create “fake elector documents,” which would say that states crucial to Joe Biden’s victory such as Georgia and Arizona actually voted for Trump. The idea was to get these into the hands of Mike Pence, who was to certify Biden’s victory on January 6, 2021. The committee showed an aide for Johnson contacted the vice-president’s staff about getting the documents to Pence, but they ultimately rejected the request.The January 6 committee has finished its hearing for the day, and as is its practice, ended with a preview of its next presentation, set for Thursday.Committee chair Bennie Thompson said the House lawmakers will explore Trump’s “attempt to corrupt and the country’s top law enforcement body, the justice department, to support his attempt to overturn the election.” He played a brief excerpt from the testimony of Richard Donoghue, the acting deputy attorney general at the end of Trump’s term.“The president said suppose I do this, suppose I replace Jeff Rosen with him, Jeff Clark, what do you do? And I said, sir, I would resign immediately. There is no way I’m serving one minute under this guy Jeff Clark,” Donoghue is heard saying.Rosen was the acting attorney general for the final weeks of Trump’s time in the White House. Clark was an assistant attorney general who is accused of plotting with Trump to overturn the election, and is now facing disbarment.Pressure mounts on ex-DoJ official Jeff Clark over Trump’s ‘election subversion scheme’Read moreThe committee also showed Trump attacking Freeman as a “vote scammer” in a call with the Georgia secretary of state. Moss and Freeman are ending their testimony with the latter describing how it feels to be personally attacked by the president.“There is nowhere I feel safe. Nowhere. Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States to target you? The President of the United States is supposed to represent every American. Not to target one. But he targeted me,” Freeman said in recorded testimony played by the committee.Earlier, Moss had described just how intense the attacks from Trump supporters against them became. People would repeatedly make large pizza orders to Freeman’s home, sending delivery drivers to her door. In one instance, Moss said, strangers turned up at Freeman’s home and tried to force their way in to attempt a “citizens arrest” of her. Around January 6, Freeman was advised by the FBI to leave her home for her safety.Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman are detailing how Trump and Giuliani’s promotion of a conspiracy theory that they somehow rigged the vote has disrupted their lives.Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman are passing around USB ports “as if they are vials of heroin or cocaine,” Giuliani said in video testimony to the Georgia senate that the committee just played. In reality, Moss testified, what’s shown being passed in that video was a ginger mint. But that allegation started the campaign of attacks by Trump supporters against the mother and daughter.Moss, who is Black, said people found her Facebook profile and left her “hateful” and “racist” messages, including one saying “Be glad it’s 2020 and 1920.”“I don’t go to the grocery store at all. I haven’t been anywhere. I gained about 60 pounds,” Moss said of the the threats’ effects on her. “I don’t want to go anywhere. I second-guessed everything that I do.”The three Republican officials have now finished their testimony before the committee, and the lawmakers are now hearing from Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, a Georgia poll worker who, along with her mother, was accused of rigging the vote in a number of conspiracies promoted by Trump supporters.Her mother is seated behind her in the hearing room.Moss has been a Fulton county election worker for 10 years, and began by confirming she never received threats before like she did during the 2020 election.Using Trump’s words from a recorded phone call with Raffensperger, the committee is having the two Georgia officials debunk all of his claims of a stolen election in their state.“The numbers are the numbers and numbers don’t lie,” Raffensperger said, defending his office’s conduct. “Every single allegation, we checked, we ran down the rabbit trail to make sure that our numbers were accurate.”The FBI and Georgia Bureau of Investigation also investigated the claims and found them to be baseless.Adam Schiff, the California Democrat leading today’s question, said that the committee has learned that around the time of the dispute over Georgia’s vote, Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, wanted to send Georgia election investigators “a shitload of Potus stuff,” in the words of one White House aide. These included coins and autographed Maga hats. “White House staff intervened to make sure that didn’t happen,” Schiff said.Sterling is detailing some of the conspiracy theories that followed Biden’s election victory in Georgia, and debunking them. But despite the evidence he outlined that the theories weren’t true, he said it was hard to get people to believe him.“It was kind of like a shovel trying to empty the ocean,” Sterling said. “It was frustrating. I even have family members who I had to argue with about some of these things, and I would show them things, and the problem you have is you’re getting to people’s hearts.”“Once you get past the heart, the facts don’t matter as much. And our job, from our point of view, is to get the facts out,” Sterling added.The January 6 committee has resumed its hearing, with the focus turning to Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state. As with Bowers before him, Raffensperger begins by confirming his bonafides as a conservative Republican who wanted Trump to win.Also answering questions is Gabriel Sterling, Raffensperger’s deputy, who went viral for his speech following the election in which he strongly denounced Trump’s baseless insistence that the 2020 election was stolen in Georgia.Sterling is addressing that speech before the committee, saying it was prompted by direct threats to staff members in his office. “I lost my temper,” Sterling said. “But it seemed necessary at the time, because it was just getting worse.” He also noted that he’s not aware of any request from Trump to his supporters not to use violence.The committee is now taking a recess, but before they concluded, Bowers, a Republican who said he voted for Trump in the 2020 election, detailed the costs of his refusal to go along with the former president’s plot to swing Arizona’s electoral votes in his favor.“We received, my secretaries would say, in excess of 20,000 emails, tens of 1000s of voicemails and texts which saturated our offices and we are unable to work,” Bowers said. Every Saturday, Bowers said organizations that he did not name would stage protests near his house. “We have various groups combined. They have had video panel trucks with videos of me, proclaiming me to be a pedophile and a pervert and a corrupt politician and blaring loudspeakers in my neighborhood, and leaving literature, both on my property and arguing and threatening with neighbors, and with myself,” Bowers said. More

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      Giuliani told Arizona official ‘We just don’t have the evidence’ of voter fraud

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      Giuliani told Arizona official ‘We just don’t have the evidence’ of voter fraudFormer Trump lawyer acknowledged his efforts to overturn the election were based on mere ‘theories’, officials recall Attempting to overturn election results in service of Donald Trump’s lie about voter fraud in his defeat by Joe Biden, the former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani told an Arizona official: “We’ve got lots of theories. We just don’t have the evidence.”January 6 hearings: state officials to testify about pressure from Trump to discredit electionRead moreThe Republican speaker of the Arizona house, Rusty Bowers, told the January 6 committee, “I don’t know if that was a gaffe. Or maybe he didn’t think through what he said. But both myself and … my counsel remember that specifically.”For the committee, staging a fourth public hearing, the California Democrat Adam Schiff asked: “He wanted you to have the legislature dismiss the Biden electors and replace them with Trump electors on the basis of these theories of fraud?”Bowers said: “He did not say in those exact words, but he did say that under Arizona law, according to what he understood, that would be allowed and that we needed to come into session to take care of that.”This, Bowers said, “initiated a discussion about … what I can legally and not legally do. I can’t go into session in Arizona unilaterally or on my sole prerogative.”In extensive questioning of his witness, Schiff asked if anyone at any time provided to Bowers “evidence of election fraud sufficient to affect the outcome of the presidential election in Arizona”.Bowers said, “No one provided me ever such evidence.”Biden won Arizona by about 10,000 votes, a margin slightly increased after a controversial review pursued by state Republicans.Bowers told the hearing that Giuliani, other Trump aides and the 45th president himself made him think of The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight, a classic novel of mob incompetence by the late New York journalist Jimmy Breslin.“This is a tragic parody,” he said.Bowers described harassment he and his family suffered. Another witness, Shaye Moss, a former Georgia elections worker, described threats and harassment dealt to her, her mother and her grandmother.Schiff said: “Your proud service as an election worker took a dramatic turn on the day that Rudy Giuliani publicised video of you and your mother counting ballots on election night.”Schiff played footage from a Georgia state senate hearing in which Giuliani said Moss and her mother were “quite obviously surreptitiously passing around USB ports as if they were vials of heroin or cocaine”.Giuliani claimed it was “obvious to anyone who’s a criminal investigator or prosecutor, they are engaged in surreptitious illegal activity”, and said the women’s places of work and homes “should have been searched for evidence” of voter fraud.What Giuliani said was a “USB port”, Moss said, was in fact “a ginger mint”.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS elections 2020Rudy GiulianiDonald TrumpUS politicsRepublicansArizonanewsReuse this content More

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      Texas Republican party adopts far-right position that homosexuality is ‘abnormal’

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      Texas Republican party adopts far-right position that homosexuality is ‘abnormal’Delegates at biennial convention also approve platform declaring that Joe Biden was not legitimately elected The Republican party in Texas has officially adopted a series of extreme-right positions that includes claims Joe Biden was not legitimately elected and homosexuality is “abnormal”.In a platform adopted at its biennial convention in Houston, delegates voted to oppose “all efforts to validate transgender identity”, including the use of taxpayer funds for any “medical gender dysphoria treatments or sex change operations”.The anti-trans and anti-gay declarations are part of the state party’s new guiding principles, in a section titled homosexuality and gender issues, which contradict claims by some Republicans that the GOP wants to be more inclusive.I often hear Republicans say they want to make a “bigger tent” and to be more inclusive.It’s clear that many Texas Republicans don’t want LGBT+ people in it. Here’s some of the flyers being passed around at the TX GOP Convention: #txleg #txpol pic.twitter.com/3S7vDX9WfM— Sergio Martínez-Beltrán (@SergioMarBel) June 17, 2022
      Adopted planks include opposition to giving a special legal status to gay men or women, while supporting those who oppose homosexuality based on faith, religion or a belief in “traditional values”. Military personnel, prison inmates and young people struggling with body dysmorphia and gender identity issues are singled out as groups who should not receive care and treatment.The state party’s stance is a rebuke to Biden’s recent executive order designed to protect the LGBTQ+ community from a wave of state laws in Republican states such as Texas that prevent access to health care resources and ban the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools.In another section dedicated to education, the platform calls for students in Texas to “learn about the humanity of the preborn child”, by witnessing a live ultrasound and the use of fetal baby models. The supreme court decision on abortion access is expected in the coming days, but Texas has already criminalized abortion in most cases.The resolution embracing falsehoods about the 2020 election stated that “substantial election fraud in key metropolitan areas significantly affected the results in five key states in favor of … Biden.” The state party rejects “the certified results of the 2020 presidential election, and we hold that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States.”The resolution encouraged Republicans to “show up to vote” in the November midterms, and to “bring your friends and family, volunteer for your local Republicans and overwhelm any possible fraud”.The state party also supports further restriction on mail-in voting and for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the landmark legislation which outlawed racial discrimination in elections, to be “repealed and not reauthorized”.Overall, the new platform provides more evidence of Texas Republicans moving further to the extreme right. Republicans, who control the legislature, governor’s mansion and every statewide office, have used their dominance to push through a swath of regressive laws in recent months including anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ+, anti-migrant and anti-voting rights legislation.Steve Toth, the state representative for part of Montgomery county, a Houston suburb, denied the party was moving to the right. “Defense of marriage? Abortion? Second amendment? Where have we moved to the right?… The Republicans have always been strong defenders of constitutional family values.”TopicsTexasRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Republicans exude confidence at Nashville event as midterms loom

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      Republicans exude confidence at Nashville event as midterms loom Party officials, prominent supporters, lawmakers and Trump took the stage at the ‘Road to Majority’ conference, but were vague on how they would ‘rescue America’“It’s the time to take this country back,” proclaimed Senator Rick Scott. “I’m here to tell you the American people are going to give a complete butt kicking to the Democrats this November!”The audience of religious conservatives clapped and whooped. No one felt that the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee was making an empty boast. Going into the midterm elections, the party has opinion polls, economic worries and history on its side.The ‘big rip-off’: how Trump exploited his fans with ‘election defense’ fund Read moreRepublicans exuded confidence this week at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s “Road to Majority” conference in Nashville, Tennessee, eager to regain power after a punishing few years that saw them shut out of the House of Representatives, Senate and White House.Party officials, prominent supporters, senators, representatives and former president Donald Trump took the stage – set in a faux classical temple – in triumphal mood, denouncing Joe Biden for presiding over inflation and rising gas prices, though they were more vague on how they would fix it.Addressing the faithful on Friday, Scott declared: “Now, the Biden presidency has brought us one new thing. They’ve figured out how to merge radical leftwing policies with absolute gross incompetence.”The Florida senator highlighted a 12-point plan to “rescue America” that appears designed to “trigger” liberals and has proved controversial even in his own party. But it offers an insight into likely rightwing priorities for Republicans if they gain majorities in the House and Senate.Point one states: “Our kids will say the pledge of allegiance, salute the flag, learn that America is a great country, and choose the school that best fits them.” Point three: “The soft-on-crime days of coddling criminal behavior will end. We will re-fund and respect the police because, they, not the criminals, are the good guys.”Point four: “We will secure our border, finish building the wall, and name it after President Donald Trump.” Point seven: “We will protect the integrity of American Democracy and stop leftwing efforts to rig elections.” Point nine: “Men are men, women are women, and unborn babies are babies.”Scott had good reason to scent opportunity. History shows that the party that controls the White House tends to lose seats to energised opposition in midterm elections. This November Democrats face an added sense of malaise, with gas prices at $5 a gallon, a shortage of baby formula and some business leaders predicting recession.Republicans are ready to pounce. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina told the conference: “Inflation is crushing American families and the White House tells us that inflation could be good for our economy. Excuse me? … Gas prices, inflation, economic instability. We have to be the party that saves our economy by looking back to 2016 to 2020 when we were in charge.”Scott predicted: “I believe that we’re going to win the House and bring it back to the right. I believe that we’re going to win the Senate and bring back it back to the majority. I have a dream that with the House on our side and the Senate on our side and the White House back on our side, we will show America what leadership looks like.”Ronna McDaniel, chairperson of the Republican National Committee, added: “I can’t think of an election where we will have economic issues play such a big role, which we know they will with the gas prices and inflation. And also our values and our cultural issues will be on the ballot.”The gathering, held at a sprawling resort near the Grand Ole Opry House in the home of country music, also heard from former ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, Senator Lindsey Graham and Congressmen Dan Crenshaw and Jim Jordan. But former vice-president Mike Pence, a devout Christian, did not attend after falling out with Trump over the 2020 election and being booed at last year’s event.Attendees agreed that economic concerns are paramount. Tommy Crosslin, 54, a singer-songwriter, said: “Look at America right now. Inflation is high. Gas prices is high.“Workers are hard to come by because of certain situations that we’ve been put in. I don’t think most Americans wanted the Keystone pipeline shut down and I think there was a trickle effect from the beginning of President Biden’s take over. The American people will voice their opinions in the midterms.”Few believed that the televised congressional hearings into the Trump-inspired insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 will provide much counterweight. Joseph Padilla, 42, a retired Marine who works for a non-profit, said: “Every time we go to a grocery store, every time we go to get gas, we’re not reminded of January 6, we’re reminded of what administration is in this country right now. It’s going to be a red wave.”The conference also underlined the important role that religious conservatives still play in Republican politics. Attacking abortion rights was a popular applause line, although an imminent supreme court decision on Roe v Wade received few mentions than might have been expected.Ralph Reed, founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, told the Politico website: “In the Republican presidential nominating process, evangelical Christians today, in the Republican party, occupy a position of criticality and centrality that is analogous to the role that African Americans play in the Democratic party.”Several speakers made a point of quoting from scripture. Trump, who forged an unlikely alliance with evangelicals to win the presidency, told the audience: “This is going to be the biggest turnout in midterm history, we think without question, and it’s going to have conservative Christians all over the place.”The former president elicited one of the biggest cheers of the day when he said: “Above all else, we know this. In America we don’t worship government, we worship God.” Hearing the reaction, he joked: “I think this room loves God a lot.”The Senate is a close call in November but opinion polls suggest the question is not whether Republicans win a majority in the House but by how much. A 35-seat gain would give the party its biggest majority in more than 90 years. An 18-seat gain would eclipse the one it secured in 1995 when Newt Gingrich first became speaker.Such an outcome would enable Republicans to block Biden’s legislative agenda and aim to turn him into a lame duck president. They have also vowed to launch investigations into everyone from Biden’s son Hunter to infectious diseases expert Dr Anthony Fauci. And ominously the new intake is likely to include numerous election deniers who back Trump’s “big lie”.Such a prospect gave Trump loyalists at the Nashville event a renewed sense of swagger. Hogan Gidley, a former White House official, said: “The whiplash effect of all the prosperity that people were feeling just two years ago versus the the effect of the bad policies is what’s going to drive people out to the polls in the midterms.“It’s the juxtaposition of the success now with all the failures, and the braggadocio of the Biden administration saying, ‘Look, we’re doing everything opposite, we’re doing everything that Donald Trump didn’t do, we’re changing everything.’ Well, the effects of those policies matter to the American people and they’re hurting families in this country.”Gidley, now director of the Center for Election Integrity at the America First Policy Institute thinktank, added: “They can try to shift blame all they want to. These aren’t things that are happening to Joe Biden; they’re happening because of Joe Biden. That’s why I think a lot of people show up to events like this. They’ve never been more excited. They’ve never been more engaged. They’ve never been more willing to put skin in the game.”Critics say there is some irony in the Republican party capitalising on economic woes to brand itself the party of competence, noting that George W Bush presided over the Great Recession and Trump left office with the worst labour market in modern American history.Allan Lichtman, a history professor at American University in Washington, observed: “The Republicans don’t have any answers to the economy or to inflation, It’s not as if oh, if we vote Republican, that’s going to solve it all. That’s ridiculous. But if you lose your democracy, you’re not getting it back. That’s infinitely more important than come and go inflation.”TopicsRepublicansUS politicsDonald TrumpTennesseeNashvillefeaturesReuse this content More

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      Liz Cheney’s condemnation of Trump’s lies wins over Democrats

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      Liz Cheney’s condemnation of Trump’s lies wins over DemocratsThe Republican vice-chair of the January 6 committee has played hardball on Trump and his allies in hearings – and the left has shown admiration for her Liz Cheney voted for Donald Trump’s agenda 93% of the time during his presidency. The Wyoming congresswoman has an A rating from the National Rifle Association gun rights group, and she has called for the defunding of Planned Parenthood over the group’s abortion services. She also comes from a Republican political dynasty, as her father, Dick Cheney, served as vice-president under George W Bush.In short, Cheney is no Democrat.Pence the ‘hero’ who foiled Trump’s plot – could it lead to a 2024 run?Read moreBut as the Republican vice-chair of the January 6 select committee, Cheney has played a crucial role in presenting the case against Trump and his lies about the 2020 election, which culminated in the deadly attack on the Capitol, and that has won her a legion of strange bedfellow fans on the left.Even Democrats who disagree with Cheney on almost every other policy issue have expressed admiration for her clear-eyed condemnation of Trump’s antidemocratic crusade.“We can differ with Representative Cheney and other Republicans on policy,” said Christina Harvey, executive director of the progressive group Stand Up America. “But at the end of the day, we’re all Americans. We all care deeply about this country. And we believe that our democracy must be defended.”There is little doubt that Cheney has played hardball on Trump, his allies and enablers. During the committee’s first primetime hearing earlier this month, Cheney delivered a stark message to fellow Republican lawmakers: history will remember your misdeeds.“In our country, we don’t swear an oath to an individual, or a political party,” Cheney said. “I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: there will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”Cheney’s performance during the hearings has provided solace to fellow conservatives who feel the Republican party has strayed far from its roots and morphed into a personality cult worshipping Trump.Michael Steele, the former Republican National Committee chairman who has become a vocal critic of Trump, said Cheney has offered a welcome contrast to “these little petty, pathetic whiners who don’t even have the manhood to stand up to a 76-year-old punk”.“She has performed in a way that surpasses anything I think anyone would have expected, given the pressure that she has been under,” Steele said. “She’s holding up a mirror to both Trump and the party and reflecting back on them what we all saw … It’s really an indictment coming from a fellow Republican.”But it is with Democrats that the new Cheney fan club is most marked. Harvey’s group recently conducted a survey among its members and asked them to name political figures who inspire them. Cheney’s name came up repeatedly in the responses, with one member from Wisconsin describing her as “the only light in an otherwise pitch-dark Republican cellar”.While acknowledging that she wished Cheney would also support Democrats’ voting rights bills and other election reforms, Harvey expressed admiration for her willingness to stand up to members of her own party.“Would I also like Liz Cheney to support the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act? Yes, I absolutely would,” Harvey said. “But I give her a tremendous amount of credit right now for the courage that she is showing, in trying to protect the very fact that our system of government is a democracy.”Cheney has paid a heavy political price on the right for her work with the January 6 committee and her criticism of Trump. Cheney was stripped of her House leadership role last year, just a few months after she and nine of her Republican colleagues voted to impeach Trump for incitement of insurrection.Cheney now faces the serious threat of a primary challenge, as candidate Harriet Hageman has attacked the incumbent over her anti-Trump views. Trump has endorsed Hageman, and he traveled to Wyoming last month for a rally in support of her campaign.“There is no Rino [Republican In Name Only] in America who has thrown in her lot with the radical left more than Liz Cheney,” Trump said at the rally. He added: “As one of the leading proponents of the insurrection hoax, Liz Cheney has pushed a grotesquely false, fabricated, hysterical, partisan narrative.”Trump’s words appear to have struck a chord with her constituents. A Super Pac aligned with Hageman’s campaign released a poll this month showing Cheney trailing her primary opponent 28% to 56%.At this point, Cheney’s hopes of winning another term in Congress appear bleak, and they are unlikely to improve after her noteworthy performance in the January 6 committee hearings. But even if Cheney does not return to the House next year, she could continue to play a vital role as a Republican counterpoint to Trump.Steele said he considered Cheney’s primary race to be a “win-win” situation for her. Either she beats Hageman and returns to the House emboldened, or she loses and she boosts her political profile as a bold conservative willing to stand up to Trump regardless of the consequences, Steele argued.“If she loses, the sky’s the limit. Now you have completely ostracized this woman to the point that she owes you absolutely zero,” Steele said. “I hope she considers looking at the presidency in 2024. The opportunities to continue the discussion about our country and the right direction for democracy become even greater.”TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsRepublicansUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Kinzinger: Trump’s actions surrounding January 6 amount to ‘seditious conspiracy’

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      Kinzinger: Trump’s actions surrounding January 6 amount to ‘seditious conspiracy’Republican member of the Capitol attack panel also says Trump’s actions surrounding the deadly riot had ‘criminal involvement’ A Republican member of the congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol said on Sunday that he believes Donald Trump’s actions surrounding the deadly riots amount to “seditious conspiracy” and “criminal involvement by a president”.Illinois congressman Adam Kinzinger’s remarks on ABC’s This Week came after three hearings held by the House January 6 committee presented searing testimony and mounting evidence about Trump’s central role in a complex plot to overturn his defeat at the hands of Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.While he was only one of at least four committee members scheduled to appear on the national news network’s Sunday talkshows, Kinzinger’s comments stood out for their candor and because they came from within the ex-president’s own political party.Searing testimony increases odds of charges against Trump, experts sayRead more“I certainly think the president is guilty of knowing what he did, seditious conspiracy, being involved in … pressuring the [justice department], vice-president [Mike Pence], et cetera,” Kinzinger said. “Obviously, you know, we’re not a criminal charges committee, so I want to be careful in specifically using that language, but I think what we’re presenting before the American people certainly would rise to a level of criminal involvement by a president.”Kinzinger also said that Trump’s actions, as portrayed by the committee, show he “definitely” failed to maintain his oath to uphold the US constitution.“The oath has to matter here,” Kinzinger said. “Your personal demand to stand for the constitution has to matter.”Just three days earlier, the third of six scheduled hearings by the committee examining the Capitol attack saw a former attorney to Pence recount how Trump unsuccessfully helped pressure Pence into unlawfully blocking the congressional certification of Biden’s win on the day of the riots.January 6 hearings make for gripping TV, but are voters paying attention? Read moreOne of the prongs of that plan involved sending fake pro-Trump electors from states that Biden to substitute electors pledged to Biden, which the justice department has been investigating for months now. Another prong, broadly, centered on Trump’s relentless but baseless claims that electoral fraudsters had stolen the race from him, even as his attorney general, William Barr, dismissed that argument as complete “bullshit”.Kinzinger said the only logical outcome to claims of a rigged presidential election was the mob of hundreds storming the Capitol – shortly after Trump urged his supports to “fight like hell” – in the attack to which a bipartisan Senate report connected seven deaths.The congressman added that there is more where that came from unless the country can “get a grip on telling people the truth” about things like valid election results, even when their preferred candidate lost.“There is violence in the future – I’m going to tell you,” said Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the nine-member select committee.As Kinzinger told This Week’s host George Stephanopoulos, the January 6 committee can’t file criminal charges against Trump. And the panel chairman, Mississippi congressman Bennie Thompson, said he doesn’t expect he and his colleagues to make a referral for charges to the justice department, which is the sole entity with the power to prosecute Trump.Nonetheless, Kinzinger’s comments on Sunday made clear what he and others on the committee think federal prosecutors should do even without a formal recommendation for charges.Pence himself, as of Sunday, hadn’t appeared at the January 6 hearings. But one of the Democrats on the select committee, Adam Schiff, said the panel hadn’t ruled out subpoenaing him to testify. Trump, for his part, has condemned the work of the January 6 committee as a “one-sided witch-hunt”.At a speech in Tennessee on Friday, he singled out Kinzinger for crying during another hearing last year about the Capitol attack.“This guy’s got a mental disorder,” Trump said of Kinzinger. “He cries. Every time this guy gets up to speak, he starts crying.”Kinzinger’s decision to go on the offensive against Trump – whom many Republicans still support vehemently – are not without peril. On Sunday, he recounted how someone had recently mailed to the congressman’s home a note threatening to execute him, his wife and their five-month-old son.“This should be a position where you can tell the hard truth, and unfortunately, my party has utterly failed the American people at truth,” Kinzinger said. “It makes me sad. But it’s a fact.”TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More