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Donald TrumpTrump holds Iowa rally as poll in early voting state shows strong support
Former president stays quiet on possible 2024 White House run
The silence of Trump: how Twitter’s ban is cramping his style
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Donald TrumpStephanie Grisham: Trump ‘will be about revenge’ if he wins in 2024Ex-president’s third press secretary says he will run again and presents a greater threat to democracy
Trump seeking to elevate Republicans who refuse to accept Biden victory
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The fight to voteDonald TrumpTrump seeking to elevate Republicans who refuse to accept Biden victory Ex-president has endorsed Republican secretary of state candidates who would wield enormous power over elections The fight to vote is supported byAbout this contentSam Levine in New YorkMon 4 Oct 2021 04.00 EDTLast modified on Mon 4 Oct 2021 04.01 EDTSign up for the Guardian’s Fight to Vote newsletterDonald Trump and allies are seeding one of their most dangerous efforts to undermine US elections to date, seeking to elevate candidates who refuse to accept Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 to crucial offices where they could do significant damage in overturning the 2024 elections.The former president has endorsed several Republican candidates running to be the secretary of state, the chief election official, in their respective states. If elected, these candidates would wield enormous power over elections, and could both implement policies that would make it harder for Americans to cast a ballot and block the official certification of election results afterwards. Ten of the 15 candidates running for secretary of state in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada have either said the 2020 results were stolen or that they need to be further investigated, Reuters reported earlier this month.The endorsements from the former president underscore the enormous power that secretaries of state have over election rules and procedures, both before and after the election. One of the main reasons Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election failed in many places were election officials, including Republican and Democratic secretaries of state, who refused to go along with his effort. If those officials are voted out of office next year, it would be a serious blow to the guardrails of US democracy.“It is really troubling that Trump’s grip on the base of the Republican party may lead to the election of people who say that they believe the 2020 election was stolen from Trump,” Richard Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California, Irvine, wrote in an email. “That’s demonstrably false, but it does undermine the integrity of any elections that these people would be involved in running should they be elected.”The candidates are seeking votes from a Republican electorate that continues to embrace the false belief that the 2020 election was stolen. Seventy-eight per cent of Republicans believe Biden did not win the election, according to a recent CNN poll. More than half of Republicans believe there is solid evidence Biden did not win, the poll found, even though no evidence exists.Earlier this year, Trump endorsed Jody Hice, a Republican congressman in Georgia running to oust Brad Raffensperger, the current GOP secretary of state who rebuffed Trump’s efforts to get the election overturned. Hice, who appeared at a rally with Trump last weekend, objected to the counting of Georgia’s electoral votes and said he was not convinced Biden won Georgia, even though several recounts affirmed Biden’s victory there. Hice posted a photo on the morning of 6 January describing the day as “our 1776 moment”.Trump has also endorsed Mark Finchem, an Arizona state representative he described as a “true warrior”. Finchem was at the Capitol on 6 January, and though he has said he did not enter the building, records show he was in contact with organizers of the “Stop the Steal” rally. “When you steal something, that’s not really a win; that’s a fraud,” Finchem said at a 5 January pre-rally. Finchem was also one of the most-vocal supporters of a shoddy, Republican-backed review of the 2020 election in Arizona’s largest county, celebrated by Trump, that failed to turn up substantial evidence of fraud.In Michigan, Trump has endorsed Kristina Kamaro, who as a poll watcher in Detroit in 2020 and made unsubstantiated claims of fraud. More than 250 local audits and a Republican-led legislative inquiry have affirmed Biden’s win in Michigan.“Donald Trump has made it his mission to sow doubt in our democracy. His endorsement of Secretaries of State who believe and spread the Big Lie is the next step in the effort to tip the scales in future elections,” said Jena Griswold, Colorado’s top election official and the chair of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State. “More than ever we need election administrators who will respect the will of voters no matter the outcome of an election – our democracy is on the ballot in 2022.”TopicsDonald TrumpThe fight to voteUS elections 2024US politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More
OpinionDonald TrumpTrump’s coup attempt has not stopped – and Democrats must wake upRobert ReichHe still refuses to concede and riles up supporters with his bogus claim that the 2020 election was stolen. Tens of millions of Americans believe him Sun 5 Sep 2021 01.00 EDTLast modified on Sun 5 Sep 2021 01.02 EDTThe former president’s attempted coup is not stopping. He still refuses to concede and continues to rile up supporters with his bogus claim that the 2020 election was stolen. Tens of millions of Americans believe him.Trump reportedly nears DC hotel rights sale as ally says ‘I think he’s gonna run’Read moreLast Sunday, at a Republican event in Franklin, North Carolina, Congressman Madison Cawthorn, repeating Trump’s big lie, called the rioters who stormed the Capitol on 6 January “political hostages”.Cawthorn also advised the crowd to begin stockpiling ammunition for what he said was likely to be American-versus-American “bloodshed” over unfavorable election results.“Much as I am willing to defend our liberty at all costs,” he said, “there’s nothing I would dread doing more than having to pick up arms against a fellow American.”On Tuesday, Texas Republicans passed a strict voter law based on Trump’s big lie – imposing new ID requirements on people seeking to vote by mail and criminal penalties on election officials who send unsolicited mail-in ballot applications, empowering partisan poll watchers, and banning drive-through and 24-hour voting.This year, at least 18 other states have enacted 30 laws that will make it harder for Americans to vote, based on Trump’s lie.On Thursday, at Trump’s instigation, Pennsylvania Republicans launched an investigation soliciting sworn testimony on election “irregularities”, scheduling the first hearing for next week.Arizona’s Republican “audit” will report its results any day. There’s little question what they’ll show. The chief executive of Cyber Ninjas, the company hired to conduct it, has publicly questioned the election results. The audit team consists of Trump supporters and is funded by a group led by Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn.The Republican chair of the Wisconsin state assembly campaigns and elections committee has begun “a full, cyber-forensic audit”, akin to Arizona’s. Trump’s first White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, says Wisconsin Republicans are prepared to spend $680,000.These so-called audits won’t alter the outcome of the 2020 election. Their point is to cast further doubt on its legitimacy and justify additional state measures to suppress votes and alter future elections.It’s a vicious cycle. As Trump continues to stoke his base with his big lie that the election was stolen, Republican lawmakers – out to advance their careers and entrench the GOP – are adding fuel to the fire, pushing more Americans into Trump’s paranoid nightmare.The three top candidates to succeed Richard Burr in North Carolina all denounced the senator’s vote to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial. The four leading candidates to succeed Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania all embraced Trump’s call for an “audit” of election results.A leading contender for the Senate seat being vacated by Richard Shelby in Alabama is Representative Mo Brooks, best known for urging the crowd at Trump’s rally preceding the Capitol riot to “start taking down names and kicking ass”. Brooks has been endorsed by Trump.Yet even as Trump’s attempted coup gains traction, most of the rest of America continues to sleep. We’ve become so outrage-fatigued by his antics, and so preoccupied with the more immediate threats of the Delta variant and climate-fueled wildfires and hurricanes, that we prefer not to know.A month ago it was reported that during his last weeks in office Trump tried to strong-arm the justice department to falsely declare the 2020 presidential election fraudulent, even threatening to fire the acting attorney general if he didn’t: “Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the [Republican] congressmen.”The news barely registered on America’s collective mind. The Olympics and negotiations over the infrastructure bill got more coverage.A top Trump adviser now says Trump is “definitely running” for president in 2024, even though the 14th amendment to the constitution bars anyone from holding office who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the nation.Federal legislation that would pre-empt state voter suppression laws is bogged down in the Senate. Biden hasn’t made it a top priority. A House select committee to investigate the Capitol riot and Trump’s role is barely off the ground. The justice department has made no move to indict the former president for anything.But unless Trump and his co-conspirators are held accountable for the damage they have inflicted and continue to inflict on American democracy, and unless Senate Democrats and Biden soon enact national voting rights legislation, Trump’s attempted coup could eventually succeed.It is imperative that America wake up.
Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist
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Analyst David Shor and Jonathan Freedland look at the data and the polls and discuss why the Democrats should be worried – and what they need to do to improve their chances of winning the next presidential election
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When Joe Biden became the 46th US president in 2020 many Democrats were celebrating, but one – the data analyst David Shor – was nervous. After crunching the numbers and looking at the extensive data, David believes that if the Democrats continue as they are, the party is going to lose the next presidential election. The 30-year-old prodigy is one of the most in demand data analysts in the US – to such an extent that Politico has written an article about him entitled “The cult of Shor”. So what data has he seen to cause him such alarm? And what should the Democrats be doing to get back on track? David Shor talks problem and remedy with Jonathan Freedland. Archive: Freedom News TV Send us your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts More
Donald Trump was set to return to the campaign trail with a rally in Ohio on Saturday night, campaigning against a Republican who voted for his impeachment and trailing his own candidacy for president in 2024.“We’re giving tremendous endorsements,” Trump told the conservative Newsmax channel on Friday.“Fake Republicans, anybody that voted for the impeachment doesn’t get it. But there weren’t too many of them. And I think most of them are being … primaried right now, so that’s good. I’ll be helping their opponent.”Trump’s first impeachment, for abusing his power in approaches to Ukraine, attracted one Republican vote, that of the Utah senator Mitt Romney. In his second, for inciting the deadly US Capitol attack, 10 House Republicans and seven in the Senate voted for Trump’s guilt.Trump was acquitted twice but banned from major social media platforms over his role in the Capitol attack. Regardless, he dominates the Republican party.All bar one of the House Republicans who voted against him have attracted challengers. The 10th, John Katko of New York, co-authored a proposal for an independent, 9/11-style commission to investigate the 6 January attack on Congress, in which a mob roamed the Capitol, looking for lawmakers to capture or kill in an attempt to overturn the election. Senate Republicans blocked it.The rally outside Cleveland on Saturday was to support Max Miller, a former White House aide challenging Anthony Gonzalez, a former college football and NFL star censured by his state party for voting for impeachment.By Saturday afternoon, traffic was backed up from the fairgrounds into town, where pro-Trump signs dotted residents’ lawns. On street corners, vendors sold “Trump 2024” flags and other merchandise as supporters arrived.Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right congresswoman from Georgia who was stripped of her committee assignments over a number of extreme comments, mingled with attendees and took pictures.Trump has said he “didn’t win” the election but has not formally conceded defeat by Joe Biden and continues to voice his lie that the loss was the result of electoral fraud.On Friday he told Newsmax he would be “making an announcement in the not too distant future” about whether he will run again, and said supporters were “going to be thrilled” by election results in 2024.“We want a little time to go by, maybe watch what happens in [2022],” he said.In those midterm elections, Republicans hope to retake the House and Senate.Trump’s legal problems mounted on Friday, as his own lawyer confirmed that charges are likely in the investigation of the Trump Organization by the Manhattan district attorney. The company’s chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, and the company itself are in prosecutors’ sights.Many observers point out that Trump’s many legal problems did not stop him winning the presidency in 2016 and are unlikely to put off many Republican voters should he run for the White House again.In his Newsmax interview, the former president referred to his problems and to those affecting Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer and loyal ally. The former New York mayor this week saw his law license suspended, over his advancement of Trump’s election fraud lie.“Right now,” Trump said, “I’m helping a lot of people get into office, and we’re fighting the deep state, and we’re fighting [the] radical left. “They’re after me, They’re after Rudy, they’re after you, probably. They’re after anybody.”The “deep state” conspiracy theory holds that a permanent government of bureaucrats and operatives exists to thwart Trump. Steve Bannon, Trump’s campaign chairman in 2016 then a White House strategist and chief propagator of the theory, has said it is “for nut cases”.“They’re vicious,” Trump went on, “and they don’t do a good job and they’re very bad for the country … But I’ve been fighting them for five and a half years.“Since I came down the escalator [at Trump Tower in New York in June 2015, to announce his run for president], I’ve been fighting them. These are vicious people … I honestly believe they don’t love this country.”Trump has spent much of his post-presidency at his Florida resort and his golf course in New Jersey. He also told Newsmax he was “working very hard not only for 2024, but we’re working very hard to show the corruption of what took place in 2020, and then we see what happens”.Trump’s rallies have been an instrumental part of his brand since he launched his 2016 campaign. The former reality star often test-drives new material and talking points to see how they resonate with crowds. His political operation uses the events to collect critical voter contact information and as fundraising tools.The rallies have spawned hardcore fans who traveled the country, often camping out overnight to snag prime spots. Some such supporters began lining up outside the Ohio venue days early this week. More
Liz Cheney has refused to rule out running for US president if it would prevent Donald Trump from ever taking charge of the White House again, saying she will do “whatever it takes” to stop her fellow Republican.Cheney, who on Wednesday was ousted as House Republican conference chair by her colleagues, in a voice vote behind closed doors, was asked three times on NBC’s Today show in an interview aired on Thursday whether she would run to stymie a comeback by the former president.While not saying directly that she would, she declined to dismiss the suggestion each time.Trump’s hold on the Republican party is the “most important issue that we are facing right now as a country, and we’re facing a huge array of issues, so he must not ever again be anywhere close to the Oval Office”, Cheney said.“Right now I’m very focused on making sure that our party becomes again a party that stands for truth and stands for fundamental principles that are conservative and mostly stands for the constitution, and I won’t let a former president or anyone else unravel the democracy,” she told NBC’s Savannah Guthrie.Cheney, the House representative from Wyoming, was deposed from her leadership role after voting in February to impeach Trump for his role in the 6 January insurrection, where a pro-Trump mob stormed the US Capitol following a speech by him.She has also criticized the former president over his continued lies that the 2020 election, which he lost, was rigged.This stance has put her at odds with Republicans who refuse to distance themselves from the twice-impeached Trump, who remains a popular figure among a base of GOP voters.Any attempt by Cheney to claim the Republican nomination for the 2024 election would appear to be an extreme long shot, given Trump’s enduring appeal to the conservative base. But it would probably achieve a level of disruption that could hinder Trump if the one-term president chooses to run for the GOP nomination again.“For reasons I don’t understand leaders in my party have embraced the president who launched that attack,” Cheney told NBC. “I think you’ve watched over the course of the last several months, the former president get more aggressive, more vocal, pushing the lie.”She added: “This isn’t about looking backwards, this is about the real-time current potential damage that he’s doing, that he continues to do. It’s an ongoing threat, silence is not an option.”Cheney said that Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House minority leader, is “not leading with principle right now”, calling his actions to push her out of her No. 3 position “sad and dangerous”.Cheney said that McCarthy’s trip to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida to see for outgoing president following the Capitol riot was “stunning. I can’t understand why you’d want to go and rehabilitate him.”Cheney said her ousting was not a surprise but said she would not leave the party and speculated that several of her colleagues were worried what a commission into the 6 January riot would uncover.In defending their removal of Cheney, several Republicans have said that her attacks on Trump had become a distraction to opposing Joe Biden. Trump, for his part, has called Cheney is a “bitter, horrible human being”. More
Donald Trump devoted part of a speech to Republican donors on Saturday night to insulting the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell. According to multiple reports of the $400,000-a-ticket, closed-press event, the former president called the Kentucky senator “a dumb son of a bitch”.Trump also said Mike Pence, his vice-president, should have had the “courage” to object to the certification of electoral college results at the US Capitol on 6 January. Trump claims his defeat by Joe Biden, by 306-232 in the electoral college and more than 7m votes, was the result of electoral fraud. It was not and the lie was repeatedly thrown out of court.Earlier, the Associated Press reported that it obtained a Pentagon timeline of events on 6 January, which showed Pence demanding military leadership “clear the Capitol” of rioters sent by Trump.Trump did nothing and around six hours passed between Pence’s order and the Capitol being cleared. Five people including a police officer died and some in the mob were recorded chanting “hang Mike Pence”. More than 400 face charges.In his remarks at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Saturday, amid a weekend of Republican events in Florida, some at Trump properties, the former president also mocked Dr Anthony Fauci.“Have you ever seen somebody who is so full of crap?“ Trump reportedly said about the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Joe Biden’s top medical adviser who was a key member of Trump’s coronavirus taskforce.Trump also said Covid-19 vaccines should be renamed “Trumpcines” in his honour.According to Politico, the attack on McConnell concerned the senator’s perceived failure to defend Trump with sufficient zeal in the impeachment trial which followed the Capitol riot.Trump, who told supporters to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell”, was charged with inciting an insurrection. He was acquitted when only seven Republican senators voted to convict, not enough to reach the super-majority needed. McConnell voted to acquit, then excoriated Trump on the Senate floor.Of the certification of the election result on 6 January, according to the Washington Post, Trump said: “If that were [Chuck] Schumer [the Democratic Senate leader] instead of this dumb son of a bitch Mitch McConnell, they would never allow it to happen. They would have fought it.”Trump also attacked McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, who was transportation secretary until she resigned over the Capitol riot, just before the end of Trump’s term.“I hired his wife,” Trump said, according to the Post. “Did he ever say thank you?”He also ridiculed her decision to resign – “She suffered so greatly,” the Post reported him saying, his “voice dripping with sarcasm” – and said he had won her husband’s Senate seat for him.Trump has attacked McConnell before, in February calling him a “dour, sullen and unsmiling political hack”. On Saturday night he also reportedly called him a “stone cold loser”. McConnell did not immediately comment.The former president remains barred from social media over the Capitol riot but he retains influence and has begun to issue endorsements for the 2022 midterms. Most have been in line with the party hierarchy, including backing Marco Rubio, a Florida senator and former presidential rival many expected would attract a challenge from Trump’s daughter Ivanka.Trump’s acquittal in his second impeachment left him free to run for the White House. He regularly tops polls of Republican voters regarding possible candidates for 2024. On Saturday night, he reportedly left that possibility undiscussed.On Sunday morning, the Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson was asked if Trump’s remarks – and their reported enthusiastic reception by party donors and leaders – helped or hindered the Republican cause.“Anything that’s divisive is a concern,” Hutchinson told CNN’s State of the Union, “and is not helpful for us fighting the battles in Washington and at the state level.“In some ways it’s not a big deal what he said. But at the same time whenever it draws attention, we don’t need that. We need unity, we need to be focused together, we have … slim numbers in Washington and we got battles to fight, so we need to get beyond that.”At Mar-a-Lago, the Post said, the former president told Republicans to stick together.“We can’t have these guys that like publicity,” he said. More
