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      The race for the 2024 election is on. But who will take on Trump?

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      The race for the 2024 election is on. But who will take on Trump?The ex-president is daring Republican challengers to make the first move – and some are preparing to attack The starting gun has been fired and the race for the White House is under way. But in Iowa, where the first-in-the-nation Republican caucuses are just a year off, the landscape is icy and snowy and eerily silent.There is no great mystery why: the Donald Trump effect.Sarah Huckabee Sanders to give Republican State of the Union responseRead more“These folks must be watching Trump’s poll numbers and that’s why there’s a delay,” said Art Cullen, editor of Iowa’s Storm Lake Times. “Trump and [Florida governor Ron] DeSantis are doing this sparring around the ring. Others are watching to see if somebody takes a blow and gives them an opening.”At the same stage in 2019, at least a dozen Democratic contenders for the presidency had either been to Iowa or announced plans to visit soon. “We were getting one every other week,” recalled Cullen, noting that the first major candidate forum took place in March.But among potential Republican hopefuls for 2024 only the former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson has visited so far this year while Tim Scott, a senator for South Carolina, and Kari Lake, a former candidate for governor of Arizona, seen as a possible Trump running mate, have lined up appearances later this month.Trump, the only declared candidate so far, has not yet been to Iowa but his campaign is finally moving up a gear. Last weekend the former US president addressed Republicans at small-scale events in two other early voting states, New Hampshire and South Carolina, vowing to “complete the unfinished business of making America great again”. He is issuing policy statements, building infrastructure and unveiling endorsements that signal: catch me if you can.It is a surprisingly orthodox approach from the most unconventional of candidates. The 76-year-old was twice impeached, was blamed for thousands of deaths in the coronavirus pandemic and encouraged a violent coup on 6 January 2021. He is facing multiple criminal investigations and yet, with remarkable insouciance, styling himself as incumbent in all but name and betting on voters’ short memories.He is also throwing down the gauntlet to would-be challengers, daring them to make the first move. While there are signs that some are preparing to take him on, none has yet launched a full-frontal attack on Trump or Trumpism, apparently wary of earning his wrath and alienating his base.Bill Whalen, a former media consultant for California politicians including former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, said: “I don’t think anybody wants to run and be a bad guy wrestler, be seen as the heel whose one purpose is just to attack Donald Trump. It’s not a ticket to success and it’s grinding because Trump will return fire. What’s the old saying about wrestling with the pig in the mud: you get dirty and the pig enjoys it more than you do.”It emerged this week that Nikki Haley, 51, who was South Carolina’s governor before serving as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, is planning to announce her candidacy in Charleston on 15 February. In 2021 Haley told the Associated Press that she “would not run if President Trump ran”, but she has since changed her mind, telling Fox News that she could be part of “new generational change”.In South Carolina last Saturday Trump told WIS-TV that Haley had called him several days earlier to seek his opinion. “She said she would never run against me because I was the greatest president, but people change their opinions, and they change what’s in their hearts,” he said. “So I said, if your heart wants to do it, you have to go do it.”Trump appears more threatened by – and less courteous towards – DeSantis, who won re-election in a landslide in Florida and is beating him in some opinion polls. Trump, who helped elevate DeSantis in the past, has dubbed him “Ron DeSanctimonious” and said a DeSantis challenge for the 2024 nomination would be “a great act of disloyalty”.But even DeSantis – who is not expected to declare until the Florida legislature adjourns in the spring – has pulled his punches so far. He responded to Trump’s attack with only a coded rebuke, drawing a contrast between his own success and Trump’s failure at the ballot box in 2020: “Not only did we win re-election, we won with the highest percentage of the vote that any Republican governor candidate has in the history of the state of Florida.”Other possible candidates such as Trump’s former vice-president Mike Pence and his ex-secretary of state Mike Pompeo have been similarly circumspect in critiquing their former boss, taking the odd swipe while also praising his administration and their parts in it. Taking on Trump directly carries huge political risks, as rivals such as Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio discovered via name calling, insults and humiliation in 2016.John Zogby, an author and pollster, said: “There is the the sense that alienating Donald Trump is a very thankless task. Trump comes down with a hammer, an anvil and a safe from the sky. Even though it is clear that a lot of the magic is gone from Trump, by the same token he can do extensive damage. He still has his own forum and he still has his own loyal following and he can suck up all the negative oxygen. Whether Trump wins or loses, he blocks.”Even so, Trump could soon have company on the campaign trail, not least because primaries often draw long-shot candidates who would welcome the consolation prize of a book deal, radio show, TV pundit gig or slot as winner’s running mate.State governors who might seek to build their brand nationally include Greg Abbott of Texas, Brian Kemp of Georgia, Kristi Noem of South Dakota, Kim Reynolds of Iowa, Chris Sununu of New Hampshire and Glenn Youngkin of Virginia.It remains to be seen if forthright Trump critics such as Liz Cheney, a former congresswoman from Wyoming, and Larry Hogan, the ex-governor of Maryland, will throw their hats in the ring. Few observers expect such a candidate to win a primary more likely to offer voters different flavors of “Make America great again” (Maga), with culture warrior DeSantis aiming to prove himself a younger, more dynamic version of the brand than the Trump original.Drexel Heard, a Democratic strategist, said: “It’s going to be very interesting to see how Maga Nikki Haley becomes in the primary. I find Nikki Haley to be intelligent but she is going to have to go full tilt Maga to get through this primary because she’s up against somebody like Ron DeSantis, who is already coming out of the gate with red meat.”With a fiercely loyal base, Trump stands to benefit from a divided field, just as he did in 2016. In South Carolina he has already bagged the endorsements of Governor Henry McMaster and Senator Lindsey Graham, stealing a march on Haley and Scott within the state. But as Trump seeks to normalise himself with a traditional campaign so far, there are also important differences from seven years ago.Whalen, the former California consultant who is now a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in Palo Alto, said: “First, there are legal issues. Now, some are more serious than others but if you’re running for president and you’re taking the fifth amendment 400 times, it’s not a good look for a candidate.“Second, he has a record to deal with that he didn’t have. Donald Trump was a hypothetical in 2015 and 2016, a tabula rasa when it came to holding office. Now he has four years in office which he has to explain. He’s not a hypothetical, he’s somebody who has had the job before, so voters have to make the calculation: do they want him in office again?“Third, there was not a Ron DeSantis-like figure in 2016. There was nobody quite in the same position as DeSantis in terms of the ability to do three things at once: monetise, point to a very successful record in his state and play the game that Trump plays. That is what makes DeSantis an option that wasn’t there for Republicans in 2016. In 2024, there is someone potentially who could fight fire with fire.”Other commentators agree that, despite the slow start in Iowa, the Republican primary looks set to be far more competitive than anyone imagined a year ago. The party was willing to overlook any number of Trump’s lies and misdemeanors but not the miserable performance of his handpicked candidates in last November’s midterm elections. The self-proclaimed winner has become a serial loser: his fundraising numbers so far have been relatively disappointing.Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, said: “I’m not seeing a whole lot of Trump fear. It looks to me that there has been a truly wide agreement in Republican circles that Trump is weak and that he’s beatable. Moreover, he may be even weaker with the coming indictments. To me what’s going on right now is just confirmation that Trump’s hold on the Republican party is loosening.“I would say it’s pretty open. Trump is a favourite but he’s got some very serious long-term viability issues in the field that is obviously no longer intimidated by him. Republicans are tired of losing.”TopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsRepublicansRon DeSantisIowaMike PenceNikki HaleyfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Judge who told Pence not to overturn election predicts ‘beginning of end of Trump’

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      Judge who told Pence not to overturn election predicts ‘beginning of end of Trump’‘What Trump has done is quite arguably the worst crime against the US that a president could commit,’ says J Michael Luttig The conservative judge who convinced Mike Pence he could not overturn the 2020 election has predicted “the beginning of the end of Donald Trump” – the former president who incited the January 6 insurrection but is now trying to return to the White House.Trump pleads the fifth more than 400 times in fraud deposition, video showsRead moreSpeaking to the Washington Post, J Michael Luttig also made a common comparison to another notorious former president, Richard Nixon, who resigned in 1974 over the Watergate scandal.“What Nixon did was just an ordinary crime,” Luttig said, referring to the cover-up of a break-in at Democratic headquarters. “What Trump has done is quite arguably the worst crime against the United States that a president could commit.”Luttig was a staffer for Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush, who put him on the federal bench in 1991. Now 68, he is a retired conservative jurist widely deemed unlucky not to have made the supreme court. He came to national attention last June, when he appeared before the House January 6 committee.In a televised hearing, using precise and powerful words, Luttig explained why on 4 January 2021 he told Pence he could not do as Trump wished and block certification of Joe Biden’s election win, an argument Luttig also published on Twitter.Luttig went on to paint a stark picture of America “at war against herself” and warned that a year and a half after the deadly Capitol riot, Trump and his supporters still posed “a clear and present danger to American democracy”.Another six months on, Trump is in legal jeopardy amid investigations of his election subversion, his financial and campaign finance affairs and his retention of classified records, and a lawsuit brought by a writer who says he raped her, an allegation Trump denies.But Trump is still the only declared major candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, dominating polls of the notional field.In a lengthy profile published by the Post on Tuesday, Luttig said he had seen “ample evidence” of criminal activity and believed Trump would be indicted. He also cautioned that any decision about indicting the former president should consider how it might “split the nation”, given the inevitable “spectacle” of Trump’s fight to beat any charges.But the Post said Luttig also thought Trump’s political future had been “dealt triple blows … by his recent assertion that parts of the constitution should be ‘terminated’ to return him to office, the criminal referrals by the January 6 committee and the failure of his favored candidates in the 2022 midterm elections”.Donald Trump sues Bob Woodward over The Trump Tapes for $50mRead moreTrump made his remark about the constitution in a social media post in December. The Biden White House rebuked him for remarks it said were “anathema to the soul of our nation”.The January 6 committee made four criminal referrals to the Department of Justice. The justice department investigation of Trump’s election subversion and incitement of the Capitol attack continues.High-profile Trump candidates were beaten at the polls in November, costing Republicans control of the Senate and, arguably, a healthier House majority.Luttig, the Post said, saw in the cumulative effect of such factors “the beginning of the end of Donald Trump”. But he added that Trump had not yet been stopped, and it might be down to the courts to do so.“Donald Trump has proven that the only thing that can stop him is the law,” Luttig warned.TopicsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackMike PenceUS politicsUS elections 2020US elections 2024newsReuse this content More

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      Far-right project that pushed election lies expands mission as Trump ramps up 2024 campaign

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      Far-right project that pushed election lies expands mission as Trump ramps up 2024 campaign ReAwaken America faces criticism from religious leaders as it pushes disinformation using Christian nationalist messages A far-right project that has helped spread Donald Trump’s false claims about voting fraud in 2020, and misinformation about Covid vaccines, is trying to expand its mission, while facing new criticism from scholars and religious leaders about its incendiary political and Christian nationalist messages.ReAwaken America, a project of the Oklahoma-based entrepreneur Clay Clark, has hosted numerous revival-style political events across the US after receiving tens of thousands of dollars in initial funds in 2021 from millionaire Patrick Byrne, and become a key vehicle for pushing election denialism and falsehoods about Covid vaccines.ReAwaken America also boasts close ties to retired Lt Gen Michael Flynn, who in December 2020 met with Trump, Byrne and others at the White House to plot ways to reverse Trump’s election loss. The meeting happened shortly after Trump pardoned Flynn, who was convicted for lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador before serving briefly as Trump’s national security adviser.Clark’s project also has links to Dr Simone Gold, who served a 60-day jail sentence for illegally entering the Capitol on 6 January and founded America’s Frontline Doctors, an anti-vaccine group that has also touted bogus cures.“Christian nationalism has deep roots in American history and has gained traction at different points,” said Amanda Tyler, the executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. “The ReAwaken America Tour taps into the unholy well of Christian nationalism to sow doubt about the US election system and the safety of Covid vaccines while equating allegiance to Trumpism with allegiance to God.”She added: “Clay Clark and others who run this tour are using the name of Jesus, holy scripture and worship music to promote a partisan political agenda and personal business interests.”Flynn and Gold have made multiple appearances at ReAwaken America events, and spoke this January at a two-day gathering hosted at the Tennessee church of rightwing pastor Greg Locke. It drew other Trump loyalists such as the My Pillow chief Mike Lindell, Eric Trump, Roger Stone and Kash Patel, all of whom have appeared at other ReAwaken meetings.Locke has attended a few other ReAwaken events too, and earned notoriety for calling vaccines “sugar water”, the pandemic fake, and holding book burnings.In a rabble-rousing attack on medical professionals at the Tennessee meeting, Gold announced that she plans to launch an “antidote” to the CDC on 10 March and denounced “mainstream systems” as being “ totally corrupted”.Gold was ousted from her post at the Frontline doctors group by its board last fall in a nasty legal dispute that alleged she misappropriated funds for her personal use, including the purchase of a $3.6m home in Florida and three cars, one of which is a Mercedes-Benz.Gold has countered reportedly in emails to three board members charging that “murdering the organization is incompatible with your fiduciary obligation to the organization”.Besides hosting Gold at its meetings, the ReAwaken website serves as a resource for vaccine naysayers. It provides information about jobs where proof of vaccinations are not required, and how to “request a Covid vaccine religious exemption”.To expand its events and audience in coming months, ReAwaken America has announced plans for a gathering in May to be held at the tony Trump National Doral golf club in Miami. Another is slated for Las Vegas in August.The ReAwaken event at Trump’s club could prove useful to Trump, too, as his fledgling campaign has reportedly witnessed a drop-off in support from some evangelical allies who have backed him in the past.The Doral event may “give the appearance that Trump is still strong among the evangelical community”, quipped veteran GOP consultant Charlie Black, adding that “it will be more expensive to do it at the Doral” than other venues the tour has used.But for mainstream religious leaders and scholars who have studied the growing influence of the Christian nationalist right, the evangelical trappings and talks at the ReAwaken events, coupled with conspiratorial claims about Trump’s loss and vaccine misinformation, are worrisome, and have prompted a backlash.Tyler’s group has worked with a religious coalition called Faithful America to mobilize mainstream leaders to take public stands against ReAwaken events, and has helped organize rallies to counter them in Tennessee and other states last year.“Our goal is to help Christians provide an alternative witness in the public square,” Tyler stressed, adding that these efforts began a few years ago as a movement dubbed “Christians against Christian nationalism. They want to counter the misinformation and threats to democracy.”Likewise, several academic critics are raising concerns about the medical falsehoods related to vaccines that Gold and others have spread at the ReAwaken events, as well as the far right’s mantra that the 2020 election was rigged.“The religious nature of these events is a pretext for a rally by people who are united by feeling victimized and outraged,” said Samuel Perry, a sociologist at the University of Oklahoma. “This is incredibly corrosive for democracy, because you have a group of political leaders and their followers who not only feel victimized by the culture, but they feel like the very political system is against them. That’s how you get populist coup attempts.”With regard to the attacks on vaccines, Perry said: “The rhetoric that we’re seeing from the Christian far right against medical experts stems from a variety of different sources, including the partisan tendency to fall in line behind leadership, information silos, and a bent toward populist conspiracy theories.”“From the earliest days of the pandemic, the issue of Covid response was politicized: Republicans and those on the right were more inclined to view any claims from so-called ‘experts’ with suspicion,” Perry added. “That obviously included masks and lockdowns, but ultimately bled into Covid-19 vaccines. These partisan conspiracies were promoted by pastors, conservative TV news and Christian talk radio, where conservative Christians would be more inclined to get their news.”Besides the ReAwaken tour’s events, there has been a drive by Gold, Flynn and other key figures in the election-denialist and anti-vaccine ecosystems to promote their conspiracies on multiple platforms, including the America Project that Byrne launched in early 2021 with Flynn as a key adviser.The America Project touts multiple missions – including election integrity, medical freedom and religious freedom – and likens its role to that of a “symphony conductor” with the goal of “magnifying the efforts of those who wish to ally with us through connecting, training, funding and working together to save America”. America’s Frontline Doctors, the group Gold founded, is listed among its allies.Byrne told the Guardian in 2021 that his group put up “tens of thousands of dollars” to launch the ReAwaken tour, and that he has attended some of their events too.In similarly expansive language, Gold’s rhetoric in Tennessee veered into a prophetic style as she talked up her vision for changing America: “We will create a separate society that is founded on righteousness, objective standards of right and wrong, good and evil.”From a historical perspective, the current role played by Christian nationalism in tandem with the election denial movement and the dubious critiques about Covid vaccines has been fueled by the rise of less-educated evangelicals in politics, especially in Republican ranks, said David Hollinger, a history professor emeritus at Berkeley.“White evangelicals are among the least educated of Americans. The Republican party’s increasing reliance upon them marks an unprecedented stage in American history: for the first time, one of the major political parties displays contempt for learning. Not even the Democratic party of Andrew Jackson was so dependent for its success on anti-intellectual postures.”TopicsDonald TrumpUS elections 2024US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Ron DeSantis prepares for 2024 White House bid as Trump hits campaign trail

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      Ron DeSantis prepares for 2024 White House bid as Trump hits campaign trail Moves spur Trump into attacking Florida governor during low key events over the weekend in Iowa and New HampshireAmerica’s 2024 presidential race is showing signs of kicking into gear amid reports that Florida’s rightwing Republican governor Ron DeSantis is now laying the groundwork for a White House bid as Donald Trump finally hit the campaign trail.DeSantis’s moves even spurred Trump into attacking him directly as the former US president held relatively low key events over the weekend in the key early voting states of New Hampshire and South Carolina.“Ron would have not been governor if it wasn’t for me… when I hear he might run, I consider that very disloyal,” Trump said, before seeking to slam DeSantis’s actions over fighting the Covid-19 pandemic.DeSantis began his time as Florida’s governor in the shadow of Trump, whose political messaging he closely emulated. But he has since emerged as Trump’s most powerful political rival in the Republican party, increasingly popular with many party officials who are wary of the scandals and chaos that accompanied Trump’s time in office.The Washington Post has reported that DeSantis’s political team has already identified potential campaign hires in states like Iowa and New Hampshire, whose traditional early spots in the nomination contest give them outsize influence on the race.Citing two Republican sources with knowledge of conversations and staff meeting on DeSantis team, the paper said the Florida governor was in close talks with two current and experienced members of his current team – Phil Cox and Generra Peck – about possible senior roles in any 2024 effort.Bill Bowen, a New Hampshire Republican delegate, told the paper that his state would likely be receptive to DeSantis. “I’m convinced there’s a good network of establishment party people in New Hampshire that will quickly have a very effective DeSantis campaign,” Bowen said.DeSantis has carved out turf in the Republican party that invites conflict with Trump. He has tacked to the extremist right, especially on social issues. His state has restricted LGBTQ+ rights and abortion, sought to demonize further education in the state as a bastion of liberal power and he has enflamed tensions over immigration with a series of political stunts.In response to DeSantis’s likely presidential bid, Trump has issued threats against the governor. Last November, Trump appeared to warn DeSantis by hinting at political blackmail against DeSantis’s potential 2024 run.“I think if he runs, he could hurt himself very badly. I really believe he could hurt himself badly… I would tell you things about him that won’t be very flattering – I know more about him than anybody – other than, perhaps, his wife,” Trump told Fox News.It was once widely expected that Trump – the only so far declared major candidate for the Republican nomination – would be largely unopposed. But a series of scandals, including meeting with white nationalists, and the flop of high-profile Trump-backed candidates in November’s midterm elections, has seen his grip on the party loosen considerably.Now a swath of other Republicans seem poised to enter the race.Trump even appeared to give his blessing to his former US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, after she informed him that she is considering a 2024 presidential bid.“I talked to her for a little while, I said, ‘Look, you know, go by your heart if you want to run’… She’s publicly said that ‘I would never run against my president, he was a great president,’” Trump told reporters on Saturday, CNN reports.He added that he told Haley that she “should do it”.In a Fox News interview earlier this month, when asked about her previous comments about not running for president if Trump ran, Haley responded that the “survival of America matters”.“It’s bigger than one person. And when you’re looking at the future of America, I think it’s time for new generational change. I don’t think you need to be 80 years old to go be a leader in DC… I think we need a young generation to come in, step up, and really start fixing things,” she said.Other former Trump cabinet members have also hinted at their presidential bids. Earlier this week, CBS asked former national security adviser John Bolton if he is considering a 2024 run. Bolton said that characterization is “exactly right”, the outlet reports.Bolton also criticized Trump’s 2024 presidential bid, calling it “poison” to the Republican party.“I think Republicans, especially after the November 8 elections last year, see that he’s poison to the ticket. He cannot be elected president. If he were the Republican nominee, he would doom our chances to get a majority in the Senate and the House. I don’t think he’s going to be the Republican nominee,” he said.On Tuesday, former secretary of state Mike Pompeo said that he will decide whether he will run for president. Speaking to CBS, Pompeo said: “Susan and I are thinking, praying, trying to figure out if this is the next place to go serve,” referring to his wife.“We haven’t gotten to that conclusion. We’ll figure this out in the next handful of months,” he added.When asked whether Trump’s 2024 presidential bid is having an impact on his own decision-making, Pompeo said: “None.”There are also likely to be a host of other Republicans eventually in the race with people like Georgia governor Brian Kemp and Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin among names often touted as likely runners.TopicsUS elections 2024Ron DeSantisUS politicsDonald TrumpRepublicansFloridanewsReuse this content More

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      Never Give an Inch review: Mike Pompeo as ‘heat-seeking missile for Trump’s ass’

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      ReviewNever Give an Inch review: Mike Pompeo as ‘heat-seeking missile for Trump’s ass’ The former secretary of state wants to be president. His vicious memoir will sell, but he may not find buyers at the pollsMike Pompeo is prescient, at least. Back in 2016, as a congressman, he warned Kansas Republicans of the danger posed by Donald Trump. Pompeo lamented that the US had already endured more than seven years of “an authoritarian president who ignored our constitution” – meaning Barack Obama – and cautioned that a Trump presidency would be no different.Schiff calls Mike Pompeo ‘failed Trump lackey’ after classified records claimRead more“It’s time to turn down the lights on the circus,” he said.Pompeo is an ex-army captain who graduated first in his class at West Point. But in the face of Trump’s triumphs, he turned tail and sucked-up. Pompeo was CIA director then secretary of state. On the job, his sycophancy grew legendary.“He’s like a heat-seeking missile for Trump’s ass,” a former ambassador recalled to Susan Glasser of the New Yorker.Never Give an Inch is Pompeo’s opening salvo in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. On cue, he puckers up to Trump, the only declared candidate so far, and thanks Mike Pence, a likely contestant, for bringing him into the fold. But where others are concerned, Never Give an Inch doubles as a burn book.Pompeo strafes two other possible contenders: Nikki Haley, Trump’s first United Nations ambassador, and John Bolton, Trump’s third national security adviser.Trump, Pompeo says, branded Bolton a “scumbag loser”. Pompeo thinks Bolton should “be in jail, for spilling classified information”. The Room Where it Happened, Bolton’s tell-all book, evidently ruffled feathers. As for Pompeo’s own relationship with classified documents? “I don’t believe I have anything classified.” It’s not exactly a blanket denial.Turning to Haley, Pompeo dings her time as UN ambassador – “a job that is far less important than people think” – and her performance in that post.“She has described her role as going toe-to-toe with tyrants,” he observes. “If so, then why would she quit such an important job at such an important time?”Trump is largely spared criticism but his family isn’t. Ivanka Trump makes a dubious cameo. Jared Kushner is depicted as someone less than serious.Pompeo edited the Harvard Law Review. He can write. His memoir is tart and tight. Filled with barbs, bile and little regret, it is an unexpectedly interesting read. It is not the typical pre-presidential campaign autobiography. This one comes with teeth. Pompeo is always self-serving but never bland.He heaps praise on Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and has kind words for Volodymyr Zelenskiy.“I’m troubled by the evil that has befallen his country,” Pompeo writes of Ukraine, a year into the Russian invasion. He also says he is “encouraged” that Zelenskiy, a “onetime Jerry Seinfeld” has “turned into a kind of General Patton”.But while Pompeo deploys the word “authoritarian” more than a dozen times, he never does so in reference to Trump. Trump, remember, has lauded Vladimir Putin as “smart”; praised the Russian president’s war strategy as “wonderful” and “genius”; derided Nato as “dumb”; and unloaded on Joe Biden as “weak”.Pompeo, the brown-noser-in-chief, has zero to say about this.As for Netanyahu, Pompeo is silent on Trump’s reported “fuck him” for the Israeli leader. No Trump appointee has ever dared grapple with that breach of decorum.Pompeo is happy, of course, to blame Obama for alienating Viktor Orban from the US and western Europe, and to sympathize with the Hungarian leader’s efforts to “root his time in office in his nation’s history and Christian faith”. Pompeo’s loyalties are clear. In Hungary this week, Yair Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister’s son, slammed George Soros, the “global elite” and “radical leftist” control of the media.Pompeo is a fan of Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s defeated former leader, who he says “largely modeled his candidacy for president on President Trump”. Words written, presumably, before the mini January 6 in Brasília. Birds of a feather, etc.Pompeo also takes Pope Francis and the Catholic church to task over their relationship with China, and derides both the reformist Pope John XXIII and the liberation theology movement of the 1970s. In 2014, five decades after his death, John XXIII was canonized. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, blurbed Pompeo’s book.As expected, Pompeo basically ignores the insurrection Trump stoked and the attack on Congress it produced. He refers to “mayhem at the Capitol” on 6 January 2021 and targets the “left” for looking to exploit the day’s events, but says nothing of Trump’s concerted effort to subvert democracy and overturn an election.Pompeo knows the GOP base. Three in five Republicans believe voter fraud birthed Biden’s victory. The same number say Trump did nothing wrong on January 6. Not surprisingly, Pompeo omits mention of his own tweets that day or his appearance before the House January 6 committee.“The storming of the US Capitol today is unacceptable,” Pompeo tweeted. “Lawlessness and rioting here or around the world is always unacceptable. Let us swiftly bring justice to the criminals who engaged in this rioting.”Asked about the tweets by committee staff, he responded: “I stand by it.”He also told Liz Cheney, on the record: “I thought the courts and the certification that took place were appropriate … the vice-president [Pence] made the right decision on the evening of 6 January” to certify Biden’s win.None of this appears on the page. Instead, Pompeo gleefully recalls how Trump approved of his loyalty.How well is all this working? Pompeo may well sell books but fail to move the needle. Polls show him at 1% in the notional presidential primary, tied with the likes of Paul Ryan, the former House speaker, and Ted Cruz, the Senate’s own squeegee pest. Pompeo trails Haley and Pence.The appetite for a Pompeo presidency seems … limited. Like Ron DeSantis, he is grim and humorless. Unlike the governor of Florida, Pompeo has no war chest.
      Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love is published in the US by HarperCollins
      TopicsBooksPolitics booksMike PompeoTrump administrationDonald TrumpRepublicansUS elections 2024reviewsReuse this content More

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      Washington Post condemns Pompeo for ‘vile’ Khashoggi ‘falsehoods’

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      Washington Post condemns Pompeo for ‘vile’ Khashoggi ‘falsehoods’Fred Ryan says former secretary of state ‘outrageously misrepresents’ Post journalist murdered by Saudi Arabian regime The publisher of the Washington Post, Fred Ryan, has blasted the former secretary of state Mike Pompeo for “outrageously misrepresenting” and “spreading vile falsehoods” about Jamal Khashoggi, the Post columnist murdered by the Saudi Arabian regime in 2018.Nikki Haley plotted with Kushner and Ivanka to be Trump vice-president, Pompeo book saysRead more“It is shameful that Pompeo would spread vile falsehoods to dishonor a courageous man’s life and service and his commitment to principles Americans hold dear as a ploy to sell books,” Ryan said.Pompeo’s memoir of his time in Donald Trump’s presidential administration, Never Give an Inch, was published on Tuesday.One of a slew of books from likely contenders for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination – if in this case one who barely registers in polling – the book recounts Pompeo’s time as CIA director and secretary of state under Trump.The Guardian obtained and reported a copy last week. In its own review, published on Tuesday, the Post called Pompeo’s book “vicious … a master class in the performative anger poisoning American politics”.The reviewer, the Pulitzer prize-winning reporter Tim Weiner, added: “Hatred animates this book. It’s got more venom than a quiver of cobras.”The murder of Khashoggi caused outrage around the world and stoked criticism of the Trump White House over its reluctance to criticise the Saudi regime, particularly the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who grew close to Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser.US intelligence believes the prince approved the killing of Khashoggi, whose remains have not been found.On the page, Pompeo deplores Khashoggi’s murder. But he also writes that Khashoggi was not a journalist but “an activist who had supported the losing team” and criticises what he calls “faux outrage” over a killing that “made the media madder than a vegan in a slaughterhouse”.On Monday, Khashoggi’s widow, Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, told NBC News: “Whatever [Pompeo] mentions about my husband, he doesn’t know my husband. He should be silent and shut up the lies about my husband. It is such bad information and the wrong information … This is not acceptable.”Elatr Khashoggi also said she wanted “to silence all of these people who publish books, disparage my husband and collect money from it”.On Tuesday, Ryan said it was “shocking and disappointing to see Mike Pompeo’s book so outrageously misrepresent the life and work of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.“As the CIA – which Pompeo once directed – concluded, Jamal was brutally murdered on the orders of Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. His only offense was exposing corruption and oppression among those in power – work that good journalists around the world do every day.”Pompeo responded on Twitter, writing: “Americans are safer because we didn’t label Saudi Arabia a pariah state. I never let the media bully me. Just because someone is a part-time stringer for the Washington Post doesn’t make their life more important than our military serving in dangerous places protecting us all. I never forgot that.”Ryan said Khashoggi, who wrote for the Post while resident in the US, “dedicated himself to the values of free speech and a free press and held himself to the highest professional standards. For this devotion, he paid the ultimate price.”TopicsBooksMike PompeoJamal KhashoggiPolitics booksUS politicsTrump administrationUS foreign policynewsReuse this content More

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      Trump is trying to make a comeback. It’s not working | Lloyd Green

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      Trump is trying to make a comeback. It’s not workingLloyd GreenHis ‘campaign event’ this week was a dud, his legal woes are growing and his cronies are viciously infighting Once again, the legal pitfalls and enthusiasm deficit that plague Donald Trump’s bid for the 2024 Republican nomination are on display. On Thursday, a federal judge imposed $938,000 in sanctions on Trump and his lawyers. Meanwhile, an appearance touted by Trump as a major campaign event was nothing more than a closed-door speech to deep-pocketed election-deniers at a Trump property.For those looking for uplift from a Trump campaign, those days are over. Rather, personal grievance and claims of a stolen 2020 election will likely be his dominant themes. For the 45th president, that may bring catharsis. For everyone else in the Republican party, that spells chaos, headache and the possibility of another Trump defeat at the hands of Joe Biden and the Democrats.Trump, Bankman-Fried and Musk are the monsters of American capitalism | Robert ReichRead more“Mr Trump is a prolific and sophisticated litigant who is repeatedly using the courts to seek revenge on political adversaries,” the court thundered in its ruling. “He is the mastermind of strategic abuse of the judicial process.”Judge Donald Middlebrooks shredded Trump and his lawyers for bringing a failed and frivolous racketeering lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, her political allies and a passel of ex-government officials. In the judge’s eyes, the lawsuit was little else than a repackaged Trump campaign stump speech.A day later, Trump dropped a separate lawsuit filed against Letitia James, New York’s attorney general. That case too was pending before Middlebrooks, who similarly viewed that matter as “vexatious and frivolous”. The threat of sanctions hung in the air.As for the Trump speech the public never heard, it now is another self-inflicted nothingburger, up there with his much-touted Trump NFT superhero trading cards – a waste of time and attention, a lost opportunity.Earlier in the day, Trump had vowed to deliver a major political announcement later that night. He also promised to resume his signature rallies. Instead, he spoke behind closed doors at Trump Doral, his resort in Miami, to Judicial Watch, a tax-exempt group ostensibly dedicated to promoting “integrity, transparency and accountability in government and fidelity to the rule of law”.That is the line Judicial Watch feeds the IRS. Reality is different. Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch’s president, pushed Trump to declare victory early on election night 2020 and stop counting ballots. Fitton also argued that White House records were Trump’s to keep.Rule of law? Not so much, actually.To be sure, Trump still leads the pack of prospective Republican presidential nominees. No other Republican contender possesses the same rapport with the party’s white working-class base; no one else is owed so much by Kevin McCarthy, the beleaguered speaker of the House.By the numbers, Trump retains a double-digit advantage over Ron DeSantis, Florida’s spite-filled but mirthless governor. So far, the 45th president’s mounting legal woes, listless campaign and friction with the evangelical leadership have not displaced him from his perch.At the same time, the Republican field appears poised for a growth spurt, and if 2016 teaches anything, it is that more actually is merrier from Trump’s vantage point. It dilutes the opposition.Kevin McCarthy’s debt ceiling standoff is yet more Republican madness | Richard WolffeRead moreRight now, anyway, Trump’s prospective challengers are running in place or forming circular firing squads. Mike Pence, his vice-president, hawks So Help Me God, a memoir. His numbers last hit double digits in June 2022. Candidates in retrograde usually lose.Apparently, Pence is betting that abortion and the supreme court’s decision overturning Roe v Wade may get him to the promised land. Or not. In case Pence forgot, voters in otherwise reliably conservative Kansas and Kentucky rejected abortion bans.Meanwhile, Mike Pompeo, Trump’s secretary of state, and Nikki Haley, his one-time UN ambassador, are publicly engaged in a personal spat. In Never Give an Inch, his soon-to-be released memoir, Pompeo trashes Haley for “abandoning” Trump and being less than consequential.Celebrity Apprentice is back. “Haley has become just another career politician whose ambitions matter more than her words,” Taylor Budowich, a former Trump spokesman who sued the January 6 committee, has since chimed in.To be sure, Haley gives as good as she gets. She accuses Pompeo of peddling “lies and gossip to sell a book” – arguing that Pompeo “is printing a Haley anecdote that he says he doesn’t know for certain happened this way”, to quote Maggie Haberman.Yet for all of his would-be opponents’ missteps, Trump’s road to re-nomination won’t be a coronation. His mojo is missing, his aura of inevitability damaged, if not gone. In the two months since Trump announced his candidacy, he has barely ventured from the confines of Mar-a-Lago, his redoubt by the Atlantic.There is also the primary calendar. Trump could well face Chris Sununu, New Hampshire’s popular governor, in the state’s primary. A Trump loss in the Granite State would be monumental. He won that contest seven years ago. And down in Georgia, governor Brian Kemp may be aching for revenge.Beyond that, Trump has suffered a series of recent legal setbacks. Last month, a Manhattan jury convicted the Trump Organization on tax and fraud charges. As a coda, the court imposed $1.6m in fines, the maximum allowed under state law.After Brexit and Trump, rightwing populists cling to power – but the truth is they can’t govern | Jonathan FreedlandRead moreThen there is the pending sexual assault and defamation litigation brought by E Jean Carroll. At a rage-filled deposition, the ex-reality show host flashed moments of verbal incontinence. There, he confused the plaintiff with Marla Maples, his second wife. In that split second, his much-hyped “she’s not my type” defense may have vanished.The near future does not appear much brighter. A trial is set for later this spring.Meanwhile, the special counsel moves ahead and the Manhattan district attorney reportedly shows renewed interest in Trump Organization payments to Stormy Daniels. Along the way, Michael Cohen has resurfaced. The circus is back.To top it off, in Georgia, a Fulton county court will hear arguments this coming week on whether to release a grand jury report on the 2020 election. If indicted, Trump’s fate on extradition could well rest with DeSantis. Now that’s ironic.
      Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992
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      Nikki Haley accuses Pompeo of ‘lies and gossip to sell book’ after vice-president plot claim

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      Nikki Haley accuses Pompeo of ‘lies and gossip to sell book’ after vice-president plot claimFormer UN ambassador hits back at former secretary of state as jockeying for Republican presidential primary hots up Nikki Haley said the former secretary of state Mike Pompeo’s claim that she plotted to replace Mike Pence as Donald Trump’s vice-president was “lies and gossip to sell a book”.Nikki Haley plotted with Kushner and Ivanka to be Trump vice-president, Pompeo book saysRead moreThe former United Nations ambassador spoke to Fox News on Thursday evening, after the Guardian obtained a copy of Pompeo’s forthcoming memoir, Never Give An Inch, and reported his comments about Haley.Haley resigned from the Trump administration in October 2018. Before that, Pompeo says, she set up a personal meeting with Trump in the Oval Office without checking with him.Pompeo writes that John Kelly, then Trump’s chief of staff, thought Haley had in fact been accompanied by Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner as they presented “a possible ‘Haley for vice-president’ option”.Pompeo also writes unfavourably of Haley’s performance as UN ambassador and criticises her resignation.Speaking to Fox News, Haley said: “I don’t know why he said it, but that’s exactly why I stayed out of DC as much as possible, to get away from the drama.”She also pointed out that Pompeo says in his book he does not know if the story is true.Haley and Pompeo are among possible contenders for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, a contest in which Trump remains the only confirmed candidate.But Haley seems set to run.She told Fox News: “We are still working through things and we’ll figure it out. I’ve never lost a race. I said that then I still say that now. I’m not going to lose now.”Haley turns 51 on Friday. In a remark seemingly directed at Joe Biden, who is 80, but also Donald Trump, who is 76, she said: “I don’t think you need to be 80 years old to go be a leader in DC. I think we need a young generation to come in, step up and really start fixing things. Can I be that leader? Yes, I think I can be that leader.”The former South Carolina governor has attracted support from Kushner’s family. She told Fox News Kushner and his wife were her friends, though she expected they would support Ivanka’s father.She said: “May the best woman win.”Pence, the senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley and even the former national security adviser John Bolton are among other possible candidates for the Republican nomination. But two men, Trump and the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, dominate polling so far.Confidence Man review: Maggie Haberman takes down TrumpRead moreOn Thursday, Ben Rhodes, a former foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama, wrote: “Pompeo and Haley poised for a real battle to see who can crack 1% in a Republican primary.”Pompeo’s description of Haley’s supposed meeting with Trump chimed with reports that in 2019 prompted Trump to deny considering replacing Pence as vice-president.On Thursday, Maggie Haberman, the New York Times reporter and author of the bestselling book Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, noted that Kushner and Ivanka Trump “insisted to disbelieving colleagues and Pence allies that they had no role in the Haley/VP rumors”.TopicsBooksNikki HaleyMike PompeoRepublicansUS politicsUS elections 2024Politics booksnewsReuse this content More