Tag: Donald Trump

GOP’s attacks on Fauci at center of pandemic message

The Hill logo

Former President Trump and his GOP allies have stepped up attacks on Anthony Fauci, seizing on portions of his emails and a renewed interest in the origins of the coronavirus pandemic to demonize the nation’s top infectious disease doctor.

The attacks, which are largely based on out-of-context comments and draw on unsubstantiated conclusions, gloss over the Trump administration’s role in the nation’s early failures to respond to the pandemic.

Instead, conservative lawmakers and media personalities are lionizing the former president as someone betrayed by his advisers. Fauci is painted as a liar who misled both Trump and the American people, and is now facing calls for his resignation, prosecution, or both. Continue reading.

8 Months After Election, MN GOP Refuses To Say It Wasn’t Stolen

DFL Logo


GOP continues to give credence to conspiracy theory that led to assault on U.S. Capitol

SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA – Yesterday, in an interview with the Rochester Post Bulletin, Minnesota Republican Party Chairwoman Jennifer Carnahan refused to affirm the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election. Per the Post Bulletin:

Asked whether the election was “stolen” from Trump, Carnahan declined to say one way or the other, but said the “concerns that people have should not be overlooked.”

“If there’s ever any question or doubt, or people don’t feel that they have the full transparency on enough things, what is wrong with just looking into things and answering those things?” she said.

DFL Party Chairman Ken Martin released the following statement in response:

 “It is both disgraceful and dangerous that the Minnesota Republican Party is giving credence to a conspiracy theory that fueled an insurrection against the United States. Refusing to condemn the Big Lie will only serve to further radicalize a segment of the Republican base against American democracy.

“The reason the Republican base has questions about the election is because they have been lied to by cowardly politicians who care more about their careers than our democracy. If Republicans make questioning the legitimacy of free and fair elections a regular feature of American politics, it will lead to another attack on our government.

“Minnesota Republican leaders at all levels must denounce this inflammatory and radicalizing rhetoric from Jennifer Carnahan. This has to stop.”

Stephen Colbert Breaks Down Latest Bonkers Election Conspiracy To Emerge From GOP

Huff Post logo

“Now this is obviously insane,” the “Late Show” host said of the wild “Italygate” theory.

Stephen Colbert took on the latest wild conspiracy to emerge from the GOP — the so-called “Italygate.”

The baseless theory suggests that people in Italy used military satellites to flip votes in the 2020 presidential election from then-President Donald Trump to his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden.

The theory was even pushed by then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in the aftermath of Trump’s defeat, according to The New York Times. Meadows reportedly pressured the Justice Department to investigate. Continue reading.

Trump For House Speaker Is A Bannon Brainstorm

National Memo logo

Following former President Donald Trump’s June 4 remark that the idea of becoming speaker of the House after the 2022 midterm election is “very interesting” to him, political media has been abuzz with speculation. The idea has been making rounds in right-wing spheres in various iterations since January, when it was first championed by former White House chief strategist, election conspiracy-theorist-in-chief, and enchanted pile of dirty laundry Steve Bannon.

On January 21, conservative influencer Rogan O’Handley, who goes by “DC Draino” online, appeared on Bannon’s show War Room: Pandemic to discuss his tweet, in which he had proposed that “Trump run for Congress in Florida in ’22” and become speaker of the House, after which he can “impeach Kamala” — a remark that suggests Biden would not be president in 2023.

During the show, Bannon effusively praised O’Handley’s idea. He said the possibility of Trump, the only former president to incite an insurrection, becoming speaker in 2023 means “we don’t have to wait until 2024 to have a presidential election. This nationalizes the midterm elections” and “gives a unifying message” for Trump’s base to rally around. Continue reading.

Brooks’s claim that counting the votes of ‘eligible American citizens’ would have reelected Trump

Washington Post logo

Donald Trump won the presidential race “if only lawful votes cast by eligible American citizens were counted … Somewhere in the neighborhood of 900,000 to 1.7 million noncitizens voted in the 2020 presidential election overwhelmingly for Joe Biden.”

— Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), in an interview with the Washington Examiner, published June 7

Brooks, who is running for the Senate, is echoing Trump’s false claim that President Biden actually lost the election. He, like Trump, claims there was all sorts of election fraud behind Biden’s victory. But he also has argued that Biden’s victory was greased by the votes of noncitizens.

The Examiner said that Brooks “did not provide evidence to support the claim” but instead pointed to a speech he made on Jan. 7 that laid out his calculations. In the address on the House floor, he declared: “Noncitizens overwhelmingly voted for Joe Biden in exchange for the promised amnesty and citizenship and, in so doing, helped steal the election from Donald Trump, Republican candidates, and American citizens all across America.”

The speech is actually rather detailed in showing Brooks’s math. But it relies on dubious assertions, some of which we have fact-checked before, to come up with these numbers. Continue reading.

A new study reveals the disturbing truth about the base of Trump’s support

Raw Story Logo

How do we know anything at all about the 74 million people who voted for Trump in 2020? Are they mostly racist? Sexist, homophobic, xenophobic? Are they white working-class males who suffer from status anxiety as the U.S. population grows more diverse? Are Trump supporters wealthier voters or poorer? Are they anti-elites, or elites themselves? Are working people becoming the core of the Republican Party, as Senator Josh Hawley proclaimed on election night? Or did Joe Biden bring them back into the Democratic fold?

Answers to these questions traditionally come from exit polls supplemented by what we hear from political commentators, labor union officials, and community leaders. An NBC poll (February 21, 2021) reported that the news is not good for labor progressives: 

The GOP is rapidly becoming the blue-collar party. 
In the last decade, the percentage of blue-collar voters who call themselves Republicans has grown by 12 points. At the same time, the number in that group identifying as Democrats has declined by 8 points.

Continue reading.

Trump’s election fraud claims propelled them to the Capitol on Jan. 6. His ongoing comments are keeping them in jail.

Washington Post logo

Many of those charged in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol have blamed former president Donald Trump for their actions, saying he riled them with his claims of election fraud and his promises to join them in fighting it.

Now, Trump’s continued refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election is helping to keep some of those supporters behind bars.

“The steady drumbeat that inspired defendant to take up arms has not faded away; six months later, the canard that the election was stolen is being repeated daily on major news outlets and from the corridors of power in state and federal government, not to mention the near-daily fulminations of the former President,” U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson wrote recently in denying bond to a Colorado man. The man is accused of driving to Washington with two firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition after threatening to kill House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D). Continue reading.

Fallen cop’s Trump-loving partner ready to go to war with Mitch McConnell and Republicans for protecting Trump

Raw Story Logo

Sandra Garza, the partner of fallen Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick spoke to CNN Tuesday about her loss and the anger she has around the attack on the U.S. Capitol that led to his death.

Both she and Sicknick were avid Trump supporters, but in wake of the attack, things have changed. 

“I know you are a supporter because you believed in ‘blue lives matter’ and you believed in the former president’s defense in law enforcement,” said CNN’s Erin Burnett. “Why do you think this report does not look at Trump’s role in what happened that day?” Continue reading.

Fox News staff leaked to CNN host how ‘distraught’ they are network keeps covering up the Jan. 6 attack

Raw Story Logo

CNN host Brian Stelter told Jake Tapper on Tuesday that he had to nearly rewrite his book Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth for the paperback version because so much has happened since it was first published in hardback.

He explained that about a dozen Fox News staffers came to him privately to say that they were “distraught” over the network’s downplaying of the attack on the U.S. Capitol. More recently, the liberal group Meidas Touch gave Fox News just under $200,000 to run an ad with statements from Capitol and D.C. police officers about what they experienced on that day. Fox refused to run the ad, effectively canceling the police officers they purport to support. 

The Fox staffers told Stelter that their network has “looked the other way and made excuses for the rioters.” However, he explained, those staffers leaking aren’t in the majority. “Riot denial has won out at Fox and today, the network has barely covered this new Senate report and they have stuffed this down the rabbit hole.” Continue reading.

Trump allies set for bitter brawl in Texas AG primary

The Hill logo

Two high-profile allies of former President Trump are barreling toward confrontation in the race for Texas attorney general in what could become one of the Lone Star State’s closest-watched primaries next year.

The Republican primary race began in earnest last week when Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush, the son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), announced a challenge to sitting Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is expected to run for a third term in 2022.

Both men are ardent allies of Trump and are aggressively seeking his endorsement in the primary, believing that the former president’s backing would offer the easiest path to the GOP nomination. Trump has teased making an endorsement soon but has offered no hints as to which candidate he’s leaning toward. Continue reading.