Tag: Donald Trump

Watch What’s Happening in Red States

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In states where Republicans control the legislature, American life is rapidly changing.

It’s not just voting rights.

Though this year’s proliferation of bills restricting ballot access in red states has commanded national attention, it represents just one stream in a torrent of conservative legislation poised to remake the country. GOP-controlled states—including Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, Texas, Arizona, Iowa, and Montana—have advanced their most conservative agenda in years, and one that reflects Donald Trump’s present stamp on the Republican Party.

Across these states and others, Republican legislators and governors have operated as if they were programming a prime-time lineup at Fox News. They have focused far less on the small-government, limited-spending, and anti-tax policies that once defined the GOP than on an array of hot-button social issues, such as abortion, guns, and limits on public protest, that reflect the cultural and racial priorities of Trump’s base. Continue reading.

Trump reemerges on the trail and plays the hits of yore

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In North Carolina, the former president took aim at Biden and Fauci and — falsely — claimed the 2020 race was stolen.

GREENVILLE, NC — Never before in U.S. history has a former president returned to the campaign trail to claim that his election loss was fraudulent. 

But in his informal reemergence on the political scene before the GOP faithful at the North Carolina GOP convention in Greenville, Donald Trump did just that, insisting — falsely — that the 2020 race was stolen and corrupt.

“The evidence is too voluminous to even mention,” Trump said at one point. Tellingly, he never mentioned it, choosing instead to insist that dead people had voted, that Facebook had encouraged get out the vote drives in liberal enclaves, and that “Indians” were paid to vote (ostensibly referring to Native Americans) — none of it supported by fact. “It was a third world election like we’ve never seen before,” he said. Continue reading.

‘Worse shape than I imagined’: Trump critics stunned by his ‘lethargic’ slurring North Carolina speech

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Donald Trump gave a speech in North Carolina on Saturday that lasted for 85 minutes — and gave some critics reason to question his health.

The former president threw red meat to his base during the speech at the state GOP convention and repeated his “Big Lie” about election fraud. He also attempted to defend himself after having difficulty walking down a ramp, which had raised questions about Trump’s health in 2020. Trump argued the ramp was a “boobytrap.”

The question of Trump’s heath was again raised for how he delivered his speech. Here’s some of what people were saying: Continue reading.

On The Trail: Arizona is microcosm of battle for the GOP

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PEORIA, Ariz. — In the last decade, ranch homes have sprouted behind walled communities here like so many flowers after a desert rain. This suburb and its neighbors, some of the fastest growing cities in America, are the definition of urban sprawl, spawning a new multi-lane highway amidst the oases of strip malls anchored by upscale grocery chains.

While parts of the Phoenix metro area are attracting millennials who have helped push Arizona into the swing state column, Peoria has drawn a more conservative set of older voters and retirees.

Former President Trump last year won 61 percent of the vote in the legislative district covering most of the city, a higher share than in all but two other legislative districts in the state. A reporter interviewing voters here on Election Day was unable to find a single person who backed President Biden. Continue reading.

Trump Org controller has already testified before Manhattan DA’s special grand jury: report

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The controller, a senior vice president of the Trump Organization has testified before the special grand jury empaneled to weigh evidence in the Manhattan District Attorney’s investigation into Donald Trump, his company, and its employees.

Jeff McConney, whose LinkedIn profile says he has worked at the Trump Organization for 34 years, and is considered to be one of its senior-most executives. As controller, he would have very specific knowledge of the company’s finances.

ABC News, citing sources, reports McConey is the first Trump Organization to testify before the grand jury, and says, “his testimony is a sign that prosecutors have burrowed deep into the company’s finances.” Continue reading.

At Once Diminished and Dominating, Trump Begins His Next Act

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The former president spoke on Saturday to the North Carolina Republican convention as he resumes political speeches and rallies.

GREENVILLE, N.C. — Donald J. Trump, the former president of the United States, commutes to New York City from his New Jersey golf club to work out of his office in Trump Tower at least once a week, slipping in and out of Manhattan without attracting much attention.

The place isn’t as he left it. Many of his longtime employees are gone. So are most of the family members who once worked there with him and some of the fixtures of the place, like his former lawyer Michael D. Cohen, who have since turned on him. Mr. Trump works there, mostly alone, with two assistants and a few body men.

His political operation has also dwindled to a ragtag team of former advisers who are still on his payroll, reminiscent of the bare-bones cast of characters that helped lift a political neophyte to his unlikely victory in 2016. Most of them go days or weeks without interacting with Mr. Trump in person. Continue reading.

Steve Schmidt issues dire warning: US just one election away from permanent Trumpian autocratic rule

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“One of the gravest threats the country has ever faced”

Lincoln Project co-founder and GOP strategist turned Democrat Steve Schmidt, ahead of Donald Trump’s speech this weekend to the North Carolina Republican Party issued a dire warning: America is just one election away from permanent autocratic rule from the former president and his allies.

In a 512 word Twitter thread Schmidt warns that Republicans have grown even stronger since the January 6 insurrection, and those who think Trump being out of the spotlight and off social media has weakened him are “fools.” He also urges the media to stop focusing on the demise of Trump’s blog. Continue reading.

The Memo: Trump seizes spotlight to distract from defeat

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It’s like he’s never been away.

Former President Trump will return to a campaign-style setting on Saturday, when he addresses the North Carolina Republican Party’s convention.

It will be only Trump’s second major public speech since his remarks near the White House on Jan. 6 — an address that became central to his second impeachment, on the charge of inciting the insurrection that followed. Continue reading.

Trump and his allies try to rewrite, distort history of pandemic while casting Fauci as public enemy No. 1

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Donald Trump and his Republican allies have spent the past few weeks trying to rewrite or distort the history of the pandemic, attempting with renewed vigor to villainize Anthony S. Fauci while lionizing the former president for what they portray as heroic foresight and underappreciated efforts to combat the deadly virus.

They have focused on the early moments of the coronavirus response and the origins of the virus, downplaying any role they may have played and casting others in the wrong, at times taking comments out of context and at others drawing conclusions that are unproved.

And at a time when the number of vaccinated people continues to rise and deaths are at one of their lowest levels, it has placed the coronavirus back at the center of the political debate. Trump is planning to make it a chief argument in a reputation rehabilitation effort. And Republicans are also making it a centerpiece of their midterm election campaigns, pledging to hold congressional investigations if they win back the House majority. Continue reading.

New lawsuit claims Lindell could lose $2B because of ‘conspiracy’ between voting equipment companies

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MyPillow founder says he could lose $2B because of voting-machine makers’ claims. 

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is suing a pair of election machine manufacturers as part of his ongoing legal battle over debunked claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

In an 82-page complaint filed in Minnesota federal court this week and laced with Orwellian and science-fiction references, Lindell accused Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic of “weaponizing the litigation process to silence political dissent and suppress evidence showing voting machines were manipulated to affect outcomes in the November 2020 general election.”

Lindell remains one of the most prominent purveyors of the discredited theory that election machines were rigged and hacked to steal votes from former President Donald Trump in favor of President Joe Biden last year. Continue reading.