US elections 2024

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Tim Scott suspends presidential bid as Trump leads Republican pack

      by

      Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina has suspended his presidential campaign, conceding that he does not see any path to the Republican nomination as Donald Trump maintains a significant lead in primary polling.Scott told Fox News in an interview on Sunday evening that he had suspended his campaign. His exit may provide a modest boost for other candidates trying to dislodge frontrunner Donald Trump from the top spot.“I think the voters, who are the most remarkable people on the planet, have been really clear that they’re telling me: ‘Not now Tim,’” he said.The news comes less than six months after Scott launched his White House bid with the promise of offering a more optimistic vision about America’s future, projecting the persona of a “happy warrior” ready to lead the Republican party into a new era. Scott, who is the only Black Republican serving in the Senate, used his own personal story as the child of a single mother to make an argument for America’s greatness, accusing Joe Biden and other Democrats of “attacking every rung of the ladder that helped me climb”.“We live in the land where it is absolutely possible for a kid raised in poverty in a single-parent household in a small apartment to one day serve in the people’s house and maybe even the White House,” Scott said as he announced his candidacy in May. “This is the greatest country on God’s green Earth.”But that positive messaging failed to sway Republican primary voters, and Scott struggled to gain traction with a party base that remains largely loyal to Trump, despite the 91 felony counts against the former president.In more recent months, Scott explored darker rhetoric on the campaign trial in an apparent attempt to bolster his dwindling hopes of capturing the nomination. During the second Republican primary debate in late September, Scott implied that slavery had been more bearable for Black Americans than the Great Society, President Lyndon Johnson’s anti-poverty program that led to the creation of social welfare programs like Medicare and Medicaid. The comment won praise from Fox News commentators and sparked outrage among Scott’s critics, who accused Scott of downplaying the atrocities of slavery.Weeks after that incident, Scott lambasted Biden over his response to the attacks carried out by Hamas on 7 October, which killed more than 1,400 Israelis. Blasting Biden’s foreign policy agenda, Scott accused the president of inadvertently causing the violence.“While Hamas carried out these attacks, Joe Biden has blood on his hands,” Scott said. “His weakness invited the attack.”Scott later applauded the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for his “restraint” in his response to the Hamas attacks. At the time Scott made the comment, Israeli airstrikes in Gaza had already reportedly killed a large number of Palestinians.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDespite Scott’s pivot to more severe rhetoric, his level of support in national primary polls remained in the low single digits, leaving him with no path to the nomination. Scott announced in October that he would shift his campaign resources to Iowa, zeroing in on the first voting state in a last-ditch effort to revive his campaign.But that strategy failed to lift Scott’s polling numbers, and he has now formally suspended his campaign, as Trump cements his status as the clear frontrunner in the race. More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Newsom 2024: could the California governor be a rival to Joe Biden?

      by

      One of the strongest candidates for US president in 2024 may be one who’s not yet in the race. There’s growing evidence that Gavin Newsom, the charismatic and energetic Democratic governor of California, is running something of a shadow campaign to Joe Biden and ready to step up if, or when, the incumbent is out of the running.Several developments in recent days suggest Newsom, who romped to re-election a year ago without really campaigning, is ready to bring forward what was already expected to be a strong run for the presidency in 2028.There are mounting concerns inside the Democratic party, matching polling among voters, that Biden is too old for a second term, the start of which in January 2025 would see him two months past his 82nd birthday if re-elected. Some want him to stand down.Newsom, 56, is among a generation of younger, prominent and popular Democrats expected to emerge from the shadow of the old guard, and has stolen a march on his peers with a series of bold moves many analysts see as strategic.Even movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger, himself a Republican former two-term governor of California, thinks a Newsom run at the White House is inevitable.“I think it’s a no-brainer. Every governor from a big state wants to take that shot,” Schwarzenegger said earlier this year.But not all Democrats appear thrilled at the prospect. Pennsylvania US senator John Fetterman, at a dinner in Iowa, connected Newsom with Dean Philips, a congressman who said he is challenging Biden.“[There are two] running for president right now,” he said. “One is a congressman from Minnesota, the other is the governor of California, but only one has the guts to announce it.”This week, Newsom made a financial donation to a Democratic mayoral candidate in Charleston, South Carolina, 2,800 miles from his governor’s mansion in Sacramento. Reaching into political elections in other states is, experts say, a sure sign of a potential presidential candidate wishing to raise their profile on the national stage.“South Carolina is an early state in the primary process for Democrats, and doing well in the early states is seen as momentum for later ones,” said Eric Schickler, professor of political science at University of California, Berkeley, and co-director of its institute of governmental studies.“In fact, Biden’s win in South Carolina is really what propelled him to the top 2020, so building connections to important politicians in the state can certainly be seen by potential candidates as an important step.”Newsom has publicly denied that he has sights on Biden’s job.“I’m rooting for our president and I have great confidence in his leadership,” he told Fox News earlier this year.But while Schickler believes Newsom’s own thinking about the timing of any White House run probably hasn’t changed, he says circumstances have.“The Democratic party’s nervousness about Biden has certainly increased, and with him polling behind Donald Trump in many states, his low approval ratings, young voters being especially disenchanted with Biden, all of that has heightened interest among a lot of party supporters in an alternative,” he said.That alternative might not be Kamala Harris, who as vice-president would usually be assumed Biden’s heir apparent. Her public approval is currently as low as the president’s.So a rising, often progressive-leaning politician such as Newsom, with a wealth of executive and legislative experience, and a willingness to counter head-on Republican policies and personalities, makes for an attractive proposition.“It’s not a situation where there’s like 20, or 50, or 100 Democratic leaders who could be viewed as legitimate. If there were such a group, Newsom has positioned himself pretty well and would be on a very short list along with [Michigan governor] Gretchen Whitmer and a couple others,” Schickler said.“The problem is the party. There’s just a lot of different voices, a lot of different constituencies, and not really anybody or any group that could authoritatively say, ‘Oh, it’s Newsom’.“[But] he would certainly be one of the most serious people. The things he’s doing now, it helps him for 2028, which still is the most likely scenario, and certainly doesn’t eliminate him if something crazy or unexpected were to happen in the next six months.”Other not so subtle clues that Newsom has sights on higher office include his $10m (£8.2m) investment earlier this year in a new political action committee designed to spread the Democratic party’s message in Republican-held states he said have “authoritarian leaders directly attacking our freedoms”.Among the targets is Ron DeSantis, the hard-right Florida governor and faltering candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. The pair will debate each other on 30 November in a highly anticipated nationally televised event once billed as a clash of two leading White House contenders.“The idea of debating DeSantis was probably a lot more appealing when it really did look like he might actually defeat Trump. In that scenario, showing you can debate him and score a lot of points helps Newsom’s visibility with the party and makes his case that he would be an effective candidate,” Shickler said.“With DeSantis not doing so well, the upside for Newson is less, but there are still Democrats who would be happy to see him debate and defeat him. He only stands to benefit, it’s just the benefit will be smaller.” More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘A revenge term’: what would another four years of Trump look like?

      by

      It is a cold day in Washington. A crowd is gathering on the National Mall for the swearing-in of the 47th president of the United States. At noon on 20 January 2025, Donald Trump places his hand on a Bible, takes the oath of office and delivers an inaugural address with a simple theme: retribution.This is the nightmare scenario for millions of Americans – and one that they are increasingly being forced to take seriously. Opinion polls show Trump running away with the Republican presidential nomination and narrowly leading Democrat Joe Biden in a hypothetical match-up. Political pundits can offer plenty of caveats but almost all agree that the race for the White House next year will be very close.The fact that there is a more than remote chance of the twice impeached, quadruply indicted former US president returning to the Oval Office is ringing alarm bells. “I think it would be the end of our country as we know it,” Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in 2016, said on the ABC talkshow The View this week. “And I don’t say that lightly.”The former secretary of state noted that history shows how leaders can get legitimately elected and then terminate elections, the opposition and a free press. “Hitler was duly elected,” Clinton added. “All of a sudden somebody with those tendencies, dictatorial, authoritarian tendencies, would be like, ‘OK we’re gonna shut this down, we’re gonna throw these people in jail.’ And they didn’t usually telegraph that. Trump is telling us what he intends to do.”Trump, notorious for eschewing the politician’s dog whistle in favour of a megaphone, has been characteristically transparent about his intentions in a second term. He set the tone in March when, addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference, he framed the 2024 election as “the final battle” for America and told supporters: “I am your retribution.”Trump has promised to pardon January 6 insurrectionists in a second term. The Axios website has reported on his plan to dismantle the “deep state” by purging potentially thousands of civil servants and appointing ideological loyalists. A recent New York Times newspaper article told how his team wants to fill the White House and government agencies with aggressive rightwing lawyers who would not challenge the expansion of presidential power.And the Washington Post reported that Trump is discussing how to use the justice department to investigate or prosecute perceived enemies including his former chief of staff John Kelly, former attorney general William Barr and former joint chiefs of staff chairman Gen Mark Milley. The paper added that he is also considering invoking the Insurrection Act on his first day in office, which would allow him to use the military domestically to crush protests and dissent.Allan Lichtman, a history professor at American University in Washington, said: “It would be a disaster for America. He’s already made it very clear that his second term is going to be a revenge term. He’s going to use the power of government to persecute and prosecute his enemies and to cement his own power, or at least the power of his allies and cronies.“He’s already shown he has no respect for the law or for the traditions of American democracy and so a second Trump term would be very frightening. The overwhelming consensus of scientists is that we are getting close to the point of no return on climate change and four years of Trump would be a disaster for the planet. He wants to drill and dig and burn.”Trump has escaped cross-examination of his policy agenda by skipping all three Republican primary debates so far. But he has given plenty of clues in campaign rallies and online announcements that his second term would make the first look almost modest and moderate by comparison.He has pledged to extend his signature border wall, deploy special forces to fight drug cartels in Mexico “just as we took down Isis and the Isis caliphate”, and impose the death penalty on drug dealers. Other proposals include punishing doctors who provide gender-affirming care, tightening restrictions on voting in elections and eviscerating diversity, equity and inclusion programmes in education.Trump has previously branded the climate crisis a hoax and regularly mocks renewable energy sources such as wind; a second term would be sure to activate more drilling for gas and oil. He has also vowed to end the war between Russia and Ukraine in 24 hours, which many observers interpret as effectively waving a white flag to President Vladimir Putin.Trump would be unlikely to meet much resistance from the rank and file of the Republican party, which recently elected Mike Johnson, an election denier and ardent opponent of abortion rights, as speaker of the House of Representatives. An election that produces a Trump presidency would also be likely to give Republicans control of both the House and Senate, just as it did in 2016.Ezra Levin, co-founder and co-executive director of the progressive grassroots movement Indivisible, said: “In that scenario you see the tools of the executive branch being used for retribution, for dismantling our democratic institutions as he is currently promising to do very publicly, but you also see rightwing Maga members of the House and the Senate controlling the legislature.“We have a white Christian nationalist now who is speaker of the House and would in all likelihood be speaker of the House in 2025, not in a Democratic or Republican split government scenario but one in which he can actually set policy. That is one where you see abortion bans, national book bans, defunding of education, a tax on contraceptives – the entirety of the agenda that they tried to push in 2017 and more because the Republican party in the intervening years has only gotten more extreme as the moderates have been pushed out by Trump supporters.”Levin, a former congressional staffer, added: “It is right to focus on what Trump is promising to do, but remember it’s not just Trump because he brings a lot of other bad actors along with him in the legislative branch, and they are going to do enormous amounts of damage with his support.”The enactment of such an agenda seemed far-fetched in the aftermath of the January 6, 2021 insurrection and as criminal indictments against Trump piled up in four jurisdictions. Yet he has proved remarkably politically resilient and dominates the Republican primary field by more than 40 percentage points.A string of opinion polls one year out from election day spooked Democrats. The New York Times and Siena College found Trump leading Biden in five of the six states crucial to deciding the electoral college. Emerson College Polling also had Trump ahead in five out of six swing states. CNN put Trump ahead of Biden by 49% to 45% nationally as voters express dissatisfaction with the economy and rising prices.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMichael Steele, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, warned: “The fact that Donald Trump in polling is beating Joe Biden in five out of the six battleground states is mind-numbingly painful to believe because it says to me that you value the country and its constitution far less than you value your own self-gratification. I get it; times are not equally good for everybody at the same time; people are going through stuff, absolutely.“But I’m not going to sit back and say that the guy who tried to overthrow the government, who botched the most consequential pandemic in modern times, resulting in the death of over a million Americans, who plays footsies with our enemies in Russia and China, is going to be the answer to high inflation which, by the way, is half of what it was a year ago. I’m not buying what folks out there are trying to sell with thinking that it will be better with Donald Trump.”Steele added: “He represents a clear and present danger. He is a threat and I take him at his word. When a candidate says, ‘I am your retribution’ to his base, that’s not good for the rest of us. People need to get their heads out of their behinds when it comes to what that threat is.”The 45th president suffered a setback, however, when Democrats achieved sweeping victories in this week’s off-year elections in Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere, powered in part by voters’ demand for abortion rights. Trump’s primary opponents cited it as proof that he is electoral poison and bears responsibility for a long run of Republican defeats at the ballot box.The results were enough to steady nerves about whether Biden, who turns 81 later this month, is the right man for a gruelling election campaign. Trump, meanwhile, spent Monday in a New York courtroom for a fraud case that threatens to break up his business empire – a preview of legal trials and tribulations that could still undermine his candidacy next year.Should the man seen as an autocrat-in-waiting overcome those hurdles and return to power in January 2025, the obituaries of American democracy are sure to be written. But not everyone believes that Trump 2.0 would be quite so apocalyptic.Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution thinktank who served in the Bill Clinton administration, said: “There’s a little bit of an exaggeration, a little bit of hysteria going on about this. The guardrails of American democracy are still in pretty good shape.”The supreme court and lower courts overwhelmingly rejected Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, Kamarck noted. “That’s not changed. If anything, the judiciary now has more non-Trump people because Biden has had three years of appointing judges – and he’s appointed a lot of judges.”A President Trump would also be checked by Congress where Republicans would be unlikely to have the 60-vote Senate majority required to pass legislation. A true autocrat also enjoys control of the military. “Look at all the top aides that have come out against Trump as president. There’s no indication that they would proceed to follow illegal orders from him; it doesn’t work that way.”Kamarck acknowledged: “I do think it would be bad for America and he would certainly try to be a dictator but this is where we trust in the founding fathers. They anticipated a Trump, but in a white wig with curls, and they built the system to prevent him. I think that system will work.” More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Party of the People review: Republican strength – and weakness – examined

      by

      On Tuesday, voters in Ohio, Kentucky and Virginia stood up for individual autonomy, saying no to rolling back abortion access. Ohio, a conservative state, enshrined such rights in its constitution. In Virginia, a closely contested battleground, both houses went Democratic, a rebuff to the Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin. In Kentucky, Andy Beshear, a Democratic, pro-choice governor, handily won re-election.The personal is the political. The supreme court’s rejection of Roe v Wade and attendant abandonment of privacy as a constitutional mandate stand to haunt the Republican party. Next year’s presidential election is no longer just about the possible return of Donald Trump, with his two impeachments and smorgasbord of civil and criminal charges. A national referendum on values looms.Into this morass jumps Patrick Ruffini, a founder of Echelon Insights, a Republican polling firm. Party of the People is his look at the US’s shifting demographics. Turns out, it’s not all bad for the Republican cause. With good reason, Ruffini’s subtitle is “Inside the Multiracial Populist Coalition Remaking the GOP”.“A historic realignment of working-class voters helped Trump defy the odds and win in 2016, and brought him to within a hair of re-election in 2020,” Ruffini writes. “Joe Biden is faltering among the core Democratic groups that were once the mainstay of ‘the party of the people’ – working-class voters of color.”Cultural re-sorting continues. Since the 2000 election, educational polarization has come to prominence. Before then, Ruffini observes, “class – defined in terms of income – was widely understood to be the main dividing line in our politics”. Now it is educational attainment: where you and your spouse went to school.Once the home of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal coalition, the Democratic party has emerged primarily as a haven for college graduates, identity politics and multiculturalism. In one extreme outcome, in 2020, it helped birth an idiotic and self-defeating slogan: “Defund the police.” On race, white liberals are generally more fervent than communities of color.The Republicans are their mirror image. Over six decades, the GOP has morphed into a magnet for evangelicals, church-goers, southern white voters and white Americans without a four-year degree. It incubated the forces unleashed on January 6 and on display in Charlottesville, Virginia, where neo-Nazis marched in 2017. Significantly, however, the GOP also shows the potential to attract working-class voters across lines of race and ethnicity – a point Ruffini repeatedly and rightly stresses.“Numerous polls have shown Trump reaching nearly 20% of the Black vote and drawing to within 10 points of Biden among Hispanic voters,” he states. If those numbers hold next November, Trump may well be measuring the Oval Office curtains again.Despite what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the rest of the progressive “squad” in Congress may say, crime and immigration resonate with voters of color. Open borders and wokeness? Less so. The expression “Latinx” is best kept in faculty lounges.One need look no further than New York. Immigration is no longer simply a Republican talking point. It is bringing the city to a boiling point. The mayor, Eric Adams, and the Biden administration are at loggerheads on the issue. Last Tuesday, residents of the Bronx, a borough made up mostly of people of color, put a Republican on the city council. On eastern Long Island, the GOP gained control of Suffolk county.Ruffini examines New York political history. He reminds us that in 1965, the conservative columnist William F Buckley ran for mayor. He finished at the back of the pack but gained marked support in white working- and middle-class enclaves. His embrace of the police and skepticism of welfare counted.Five years later, in spring 1970, lower Manhattan witnessed the “hard-hat riot”, aimed at anti-war protesters. Later that year, Buckley’s brother, James, won a US Senate seat with a plurality in a three-way race. In the presidential elections of 1972, 1980 and 1984, New York went Republican. Now, though it seems a Democratic sure thing, the state’s population is stagnating, its share of the electoral vote receding.Ruffini is not infallible. Wrongly, he downplays the salience of the Dobbs v Jackson supreme court decision, which gutted the right to abortion, and the subsequent emergence of abortion as a key election issue. He acknowledges that Dobbs provided a boost to Democrats in 2022 but does not spell out how it thwarted an anticipated red wave and hastened Kevin McCarthy’s downfall as Republican speaker.Party of the People contains multiple references to abortion but mentions Dobbs three times only. As for “privacy”, Ruffini never uses the word. “January 6” makes a single appearance – and only in passing. “Insurrection” is not seen. It is almost as if Ruffini is seeking to avoid offending the powers that be.“Trump redefined conservative populism in a secular direction, replacing issues like abortion with immigration and anti-PC rhetoric,” Ruffini tweeted on election night. “Many of his voters voted yes in Ohio.”Yes. But not that many.A little more than one in six Ohio Republicans backed the measure, according to exit polls. On the other hand, 83% of Black voters, 73% of Latinos, more than three-quarters of young voters and five out of eight college graduates identified as pro-choice.Though more conservative than white liberals, voters of color are generally pro-choice. Indeed, in Ohio, their support for abortion access outpaced that found in the general electorate. White voters backed the measure 53%-47%. It passed by 57%-43%.But Democrats should not gloat. The FDR coalition is dead. The party last won by a landslide in 1964. Inflation’s scars remain visible. Kitchen-table issues still count. Trump leads in the polls. Ruffini has a real and meaningful message.
      Party of the People is published in the US by Simon & Schuster More

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Joe Manchin’s Senate resignation fuels speculation of third-party 2024 bid

      by

      The West Virginia Democrat senator Joe Manchin’s announcement that he will not run for re-election next year has triggered speculation that he might instead launch a bid for the White House as the candidate of No Labels, a third-party group which has attracted significant funding.Manchin has long flirted with such a bid, brushing off warnings that by running he would only help elect Donald Trump, the likely Republican candidate who is far ahead in the party’s 2024 nomination race.On Thursday, announcing his decision to quit the Senate, Manchin pointed to a possible presidential run. He said: “After months of deliberation and long conversations with my family, I believe in my heart of hearts that I have accomplished what I set out to do for West Virginia.“I have made one of the toughest decisions of my life and decided that I will not be running for re-election to the United States Senate.“But what I will be doing is traveling the country and speaking out to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilise the middle and bring Americans together.”Polling shows that most Americans do not want a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump next year, deeming the former too old, at nearly 81, and the latter, 77, too damaged by his chaotic presidency, assault on democracy and extreme criminal and civil predicament.Nonetheless, a rematch seems all but assured. Accordingly, Manchin’s announcement prompted concern across the political spectrum.Bill Kristol, a Never Trumper on the right, said: “Tuesday night’s results [in Kentucky, Ohio and elsewhere] were good news for Democrats. Manchin’s announcement today was bad news – bad for Democratic prospects for holding the Senate in 2024, bad for No Labels implications in the presidential race.”Olivia Troye, an adviser to Mike Pence when he was vice-president to Donald Trump, said: “The odds of [Manchin] running on the No Labels ticket for president have likely increased exponentially. If he does run, it will split the votes and, in the end, only help Trump in the 2024 election.”Rahna Epting, political action executive director of MoveOn, a progressive political action committee, also issued a stark warning: “Every independent analyst reaches the same conclusion: a No Labels ticket has no chance of winning a single electoral college vote in any state. Instead, their campaign would only ensure Trump’s re-election.”Other third-party candidates have already declared. Most prominent is Robert F Kennedy Jr, the anti-vaccine campaigner whose conspiracy-laced message shows signs of siphoning more votes from Trump than from Joe Biden. Two academics, Cornel West and Jill Stein, offer challenges from the left.But with Trump-Biden polling in swing states on a razor’s edge, any further move or comment from Manchin will now attract most attention.Now 76, Manchin was governor of West Virginia before entering the Senate in 2011. As a Democrat in elected office in the fossil fuels- and Republican-dominated state, he became a rarity or oddity: a political coelacanth, a holdover from an earlier age, drifting on partisan tides.But even fossils must pass on. Having accepted his likely doom as a senator, Manchin seems set to make one last pitch for a place in history.In its own statement, No Labels called him a “great leader … a tireless voice for America’s commonsense majority and a longtime ally of the No Labels movement”.In words that will strike fear into all who fear a second Trump term, it added: “Regarding our No Labels Unity presidential ticket, we are gathering input from our members across the country to understand the kind of leaders they would like to see in the White House.“As we have said from the beginning, we will make a decision by early 2024 about whether we will nominate a unity presidential ticket and who will be on it.”Whether he runs or not, Manchin’s decision does seem likely to at least hand Republicans a Senate seat. Greeting Manchin’s announcement that he will not run for re-election in the senate, Steve Daines of Montana, chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said simply: “We like our odds in West Virginia.” More

    • 188 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump suggests he would use FBI to go after political rivals if elected in 2024

      by

      Donald Trump has suggested he would use the FBI and justice department to go after political rivals should he return to the White House next year in a move which will further stoke fears of what a second period of office for Trump could mean.Trump made the comments during an interview with the Spanish-language television network Univision. The host Enrique Acevedo asked him about his flood of legal problems saying: “You say they’ve weaponized the justice department, they weaponized the FBI. Would you do the same if you’re re-elected?”“They’ve already done it, but if they want to follow through on this, yeah, it could certainly happen in reverse,” Trump replied. “They’ve released the genie out of the box.“When you’re president and you’ve done a good job and you’re popular, you don’t go after them so you can win an election. They’ve done indictments in order to win an election. They call it weaponization,” Trump added. “But yeah they have done something that allows the next party, I mean if somebody, if I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say go down and indict them, mostly they would be out of business. They’d be out. They’d be out of the election.”Prosecuting political rivals is a hallmark of authoritarian regimes and Trump’s remarks are the most candid public revelations so far of the anti-democratic power he would bring to a second term as president.The former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who is challenging Trump but has lagged in the polls, said the remarks were alarming. “This is outrageous,” he said on CNN on Thursday evening.He also warned that unlike Trump’s first presidential term, there would not be lawyers and other officials around Trump to stop his most authoritarian pushes. Trump allies are already preparing an effort to install far-right attorneys in the federal government who can back up Trump’s fringe ideas.“You had good folks like Bill Barr who were keeping him on the rails and stopping him from doing stuff like this at the justice department,” Christie said. “Nobody as good and decent and honest as Bill Barr is gonna agree to be Donald Trump’s attorney general if he ever becomes president again.”The comments also drew rebuke from a CNN panel on Friday morning, which implored Americans not to shrug off Trump’s remarks.Even before Trump’s Univision interview aired on Thursday, the former secretary of state Hillary Clinton said Trump was clearly telegraphing an authoritarian agenda if he returns to the White House and compared him to Adolf Hitler.“Trump is telling us what he intends to do. Take him at his word,” she said on ABC’s The View.“Those aren’t flippant ‘ha-ha funny’ remarks,” Phil Mattingly, CNN’s chief White House correspondent said on air on Friday. “That’s insane.” Elie Honig, the network’s chief legal analyst, agreed and said Americans should “take him at his word”. “If he says he’s gonna do this, I believe him.”Trump is the overwhelming frontrunner in the Republican race for the 2024 nomination and no rival has yet emerged to seriously challenge him. In recent national polls against Joe Biden, Trump has also frequently been shown to be ahead – unnerving many Democrats.He faces a suite of lawsuits in key swing states, including Colorado, Minnesota and Michigan, seeking to bar him from running because of his responsibility for the January 6 attack on the Capitol. The suits argue that section 3 of the 14th amendment bars anyone who previously took an oath to the United States from holding office if they have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the US constitution.The Minnesota supreme court ruled this week that the state could not block him from appearing on the primary ballot, but left the door open to future challenges.Part of the reason the challengers are bringing these cases is because of the threat a second Trump presidency poses to the US constitution.“The dangers are not merely theoretical. We saw what happened on January 6 2021 and if he’s allowed back into power that might be child’s play compared to what he’ll do in the future,” Ron Fein, the legal director for Free Speech for People, a left-leaning group behind several of the challenges, told the Guardian last week.The Washington Post reported earlier this month that Trump and his allies were already discussing how to use the justice department to prosecute and exact revenge against people who have spoken out against Trump, including former attorney general Bill Barr and his former chief of staff John Kelly.He is also reportedly considering invoking the Insurrection Act on his first day in office, should he win, which would allow him to deploy the military against domestic protesters.Trump faces four separate criminal cases, including two different federal ones dealing with his handling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the election. Both of those cases were brought by Jack Smith, a justice department special counsel appointed by the attorney general, Merrick Garland, to insulate the cases from political pressure.If Trump wins the election, he would almost certainly fire Smith if the investigation is still ongoing, or pardon himself if he has been convicted. More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Elections 2023: Republicans lose big on issue of abortion – podcast

      by

      Tuesday was a big night for the Democrats, with big wins in some unexpected places: Ohio, Virginia and Kentucky. Abortion rights advocates were celebrating, their hopes lifted ahead of next year’s presidential election, despite some gloomy polls for Joe Biden. Republicans, meanwhile, like the presidential candidates who took to the debate stage on Wednesday, are reeling.
      So what do the results mean for 2024? Should Republicans rethink their message on abortion? And why is it that despite Donald Trump spending the week in court on trial for fraud, it’s Joe Biden who’s suffering in the polls?
      Jonathan Freedland is joined by Tara Setmayer and Simon Rosenberg to discuss it all.

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Hillary Clinton likens Trump to Hitler and warns he would end democracy

      by

      Hillary Clinton has compared Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler as she offered a blunt warning about the dangers of a second Trump presidency.Trump back in the White House, Clinton said during an appearance on ABC’s daytime talkshow The View on Wednesday, “would be the end of our country as we know it, and I don’t say that lightly”.The former first lady, senator and secretary of state said: “When I was secretary of state, I used to talk about ‘one and done’. What I meant by that is that people would get legitimately elected and then they would try to do away with elections, and do away with opposition, and do away with a free press.”Then Clinton added: “Hitler was duly elected. All of a sudden somebody with those tendencies, dictatorial, authoritarian tendencies, would be like ‘OK we’re gonna shut this down, we’re gonna throw these people in jail.’ And they didn’t usually telegraph that. Trump is telling us what he intends to do.”Clinton’s comments came days after a Washington Post report detailing how Trump is discussing how to use the justice department to investigate political rivals and former allies who have been critical of him should he return to the White House. He is also discussing invoking the Insurrection Act on his first day in office, which would allow him to use the US military domestically to quell protests and dissent, something he was talked out of by military leaders during his one-term presidency.Trump’s team is also preparing to staff a potential administration with more radical rightwing lawyers who are less likely to stymie efforts to get in his way as he pushes the bounds of presidential power, the New York Times reported.A New York Times/Siena poll released on Sunday shows Trump leading Joe Biden in several key battleground states. Trump faces criminal charges in four different cases, set to go to trial next year. Winning the presidency is widely understood to be Trump’s best chance of escaping liability. And the poll shows that many voters who were asked would switch back to Biden if Trump is convicted.But Clinton gave a clear warning.“Trump is telling us what he intends to do,” Clinton said on The View. “Take him at his word.” More