Cat Burglar

Cats are known for not really minding their own business, getting their furry paws on just about anything they can.

And it turns out, this makes them effective vectors for DNA evidence, according to a study published last month in the journal Forensic Science International: Genetic Supplement Series.

Researchers collaborating with the Victoria Police Forensic Services Department in Australia found detectable human DNA in 80 percent of the samples collected from 20 pet cats, with 70 percent of the samples strong enough that they could be linked to a person of interest in a crime scene investigation.

"Collection of human DNA needs to become very important in crime scene investigations, but there is a lack of data on companion animals such as cats and dogs in their relationship to human DNA transfer," said study lead author Heidi Monkman, a forensic scientist at Flinders University, in a statement.

"These companion animals can be highly relevant in assessing the presence and activities of the inhabitants of the household, or any recent visitors to the scene."

Here Kitty

One possible takeaway is that cats — and other companion pets like dogs — could be harboring DNA that could help solve a case.

The bigger issue, though, is that pets could introduce foreign DNA that muddles a crime scene, possibly leading to an innocent person being implicated. A pet could be carrying the DNA of a complete stranger, or it might bring the DNA of its owner into a crime scene that they had nothing to do with.

Monkman's colleague and co-author of the paper, Maria Goray, is an experienced crime scene investigator and an expert in DNA transfer. She believes their findings could help clear up how pets might tamper a crime scene by carrying outside DNA.

"Are these DNA findings a result of a criminal activity or could they have been transferred and deposited at the scene via a pet?" Goray asked.

It's a question worth asking — especially because innocent people have been jailed off botched DNA science far too often.

More on DNA evidence: Cops Upload Image of Suspect Generated From DNA, Then Delete After Mass Criticism

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Cats May Be Tampering With Crime Scenes, Scientists Say

Latest Feud

Another day, another Elon Musk feud on Twitter — except now, he's the owner of the social network, and he's beefing with a sitting member of Congress.

The whole thing started innocently enough earlier this week, when firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY, and better known by her initials, "AOC") subtweeted the website's new owner.

"Lmao at a billionaire earnestly trying to sell people on the idea that 'free speech' is actually a $8/mo subscription plan," the New York Democratic Socialist tweeted in a post that, upon Futurism's perusal, appeared to load only half the time.

Sweat Equity

Not one to be shown up, Musk later posted a screenshot of an AOC-branded sweatshirt from the congressperson's website, with its $58 price tag circled and an emoji belying the billionaire's alleged affront at the price.

In response, Ocasio-Cortez said she was proud her sweatshirts were made by union labor, and that the proceeds from their sales were going to fund educational support for needy kids. She later dug in further, noting that her account was "conveniently" not working and joking that Musk couldn't buy his way "out of insecurity."

Yo @elonmusk while I have your attention, why should people pay $8 just for their app to get bricked when they say something you don’t like?

This is what my app has looked like ever since my tweet upset you yesterday. What’s good? Doesn’t seem very free speechy to me pic.twitter.com/e3hcZ7T9up

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 3, 2022

Bricked

To be clear, any suggestion that Musk personally had anything to do with any Twitter glitches on AOC's part would seem ludicrously petty. But then again, this is a guy who once hired a private detective to investigate a random critic.

Occam's razor, though, suggests that it was probably AOC's mega-viral tweet that broke the site's notoriously dodgy infrastructure. Of course, that's not a ringing endorsement of the site that Musk just acquired for the colossal sum of $44 billion.

More on Twitter: Twitter Working on Plan to Charge Users to Watch Videos

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AOC Says Her Twitter Account Broke After She Made Fun of Elon Musk

Chinese scientists are reportedly planning to send monkeys to its new Tiangong space station for experiments that will involve the animals mating and potentially reproducing, the South China Morning Post reports.

It's a fascinating and potentially controversial experiment that could have major implications for our efforts to colonize space: can mammals, let alone humans, successfully reproduce beyond the Earth?

According to the report, the experiment would take place in the station's largest capsule, called Wentian, inside two biological test cabinets that can be expanded.

After examining the behavior of smaller creatures, "some studies involving mice and macaques will be carried out to see how they grow or even reproduce in space," Zhang Lu, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, said during a speech posted to social media earlier this week, as quoted by the SCMP.

"These experiments will help improve our understanding of an organism’s adaptation to microgravity and other space environments," he added.

Some simpler organisms, including nematodes and Japanese rice fish, have been observed reproducing in space.

But more complex life forms have struggled. In 2014, a Russian experiment to see whether geckos could produce offspring in space failed when all the critters died.

And the failure rate for mammals, so far, has been total. Soviet Union scientists got mice to mate during a space flight in 1979, but none of them gave birth after being returned to Earth.

In other words, getting monkeys to reproduce on board a space station will be anything but easy. For one, just dealing with living creatures in space can pose immense challenges. The astronauts will "need to feed them and deal with the waste," Kehkooi Kee, a professor with the school of medicine at Tsinghua University, told the SCMP.

Then there's the fact that astronauts will have to keep the macaques happy and comfortable, something that experts say will be challenging since long term confinement in the spartan environments of space habitats could cause immense stress for the simians.

And even if astronauts successfully set the mood for the monkeys, the physics of sex in space are predicted to be challenging.

"Firstly, just staying in close contact with each other under zero gravity is hard," Adam Watkins, an associate professor of reproductive physiology at University of Nottingham, wrote in a 2020 open letter highlighted by the SCMP. "Secondly, as astronauts experience lower blood pressure while in space, maintaining erections and arousal are more problematic than here on Earth."

With its new space station in nearly full operation, China isn't shying away from asking some big questions — but whether these experiments will play out as expected is anything but certain.

READ MORE: Chinese scientists plan monkey reproduction experiment in space station [South China Morning Post]

More on sex in space: Scientists Say We Really Have to Talk About Boning in Space

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China Plans to Send Monkeys to Space Station to Have Sex With Each Other

Observatory Offline

The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) Observatory in Chile has been hit with a cyberattack that has taken its website offline and forced it to suspend all observations, authorities there said.

Even email services were limited in the aftermath, illustrating the broad impact of the hack.

Nested high up on a plateau in the Chilean Andes at over 16,000 feet above sea level, ALMA is one of the most powerful and advanced radio telescopes in the world. Notably, ALMA helped take the first image of a black hole in 2019, in a collaborative effort that linked radio observatories worldwide into forming the Event Horizon Telescope.

Thankfully, ALMA's impressive arsenal of 66 high-precision antennas, each nearly 40 feet in diameter, was not compromised, the observatory said, nor was any of the scientific data those instruments collected.

In High Places

What makes ALMA so invaluable is its specialty in observing the light of the cooler substances of the cosmos, namely gas and dust. That makes ALMA a prime candidate for documenting the fascinating formations of planets and stars when they first emerge amidst clouds of gas.

Since going fully operational in 2013, it's become the largest ground-based astronomical project in the world, according to the European Southern Observatory, ALMA's primary operators.

So ALMA going offline is a distressing development, especially to the thousands of astronomers worldwide that rely on its observations and the some 300 experts working onsite. Getting it up and running is obviously a top priority, but the observatory said in a followup tweet that "it is not yet possible to estimate a date for a return to regular activities."

As of now, there's no information available on who the hackers were, or exactly how they conducted the attack. Their motivations, too, remain a mystery.

More on ALMA: Astronomers Think They Found the Youngest Planet in the Galaxy

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Hackers Just Took Down One of the World's Most Advanced Telescopes

Droning On

Someone thinks it's a great idea to fly 500 drones over New York City to create a huge ad in the sky on Thursday evening. Because New Yorkers certainly don't have any historical reason to mistrust unknown aircraft over their skyline, right?

As Gothamist reports, the drone swarm is part of a "surreal takeover of New York City’s skyline" on behalf of — we shit you not — the mobile game Candy Crush.

Fernanda Romano, Candy Crush's chief marketing officer, told Gothamist that the stunt will "turn the sky into the largest screen on the planet" using the small, light-up drones.

Though this is not the first time the Manhattan skyline has been used as ad space — that distinction goes to the National Basketball Association and State Farm, which did a similar stunt this summer during the NBA draft — local lawmakers are ticked off about it nonetheless.

"I think it’s outrageous to be spoiling our city’s skyline for private profit," Brad Hoylman, a state senator that represents Manhattan's West Side in the NY Legislature, told the local news site. "It’s offensive to New Yorkers, to our local laws, to public safety, and to wildlife."

Freak Out

Indeed, as the NYC Audubon Society noted in a tweet, the Candy Crush crapshoot "could disrupt the flight patterns of thousands of birds flying through NYC, leading to collisions with buildings" as they migrate.

Beyond the harm this will do to birds and the annoyance it will undoubtedly cause the famously-grumpy people of New York, this stunt is also going down with very little warning, considering that Gothamist is one of the only news outlets even reporting on it ahead of time.

While most viewers will hopefully be able to figure out what's going on pretty quickly, the concept of seeing unknown aircraft above the skyline is a little too reminiscent of 9/11 for comfort — and if Candy Crush took that into consideration, they haven't let on.

So here's hoping this event shocks and awes Thursday night city-goers in a good way, and not in the way that makes them panic.

More drone warfare: Russia Accused of Pelting Ukraine Capital With "Kamikaze" Drones

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Huge Drone Swarm to Form Giant Advertisement Over NYC Skyline

Jeff Bezos' former housekeeper is suing the Amazon founder for workplace discrimination that she says forced her to literally climb out out the window of his house to use the bathroom.

In the suit, filed this week in a Washington state court, the former housekeeper claimed that she and Bezos' other household staff were not provided with legally-mandated eating or restroom breaks, and that because there was no "readily accessible bathroom" for them to use, they had to clamber out a laundry room window to get to one.

In the complaint, lawyers for the ex-housekeeper, who is described as having worked for wealthy families for nearly 20 years, wrote that household staff were initially allowed to use a small bathroom in the security room of Bezos' main house, but "this soon stopped... because it was decided that housekeepers using the bathroom was a breach of security protocol."

The suit also alleges that housekeepers in the billionaire's employ "frequently developed Urinary Tract Infections" that they believed was related to not being able to use the bathroom when they needed to at work.

"There was no breakroom for the housekeepers," the complaint adds. "Even though Plaintiff worked 10, 12, and sometimes 14 hours a day, there was no designated area for her to sit down and rest."

The housekeeper — who, like almost all of her coworkers, is Latino — was allegedly not aware that she was entitled to breaks for lunch or rest, and was only able to have a lunch break when Bezos or his family were not on the premises, the lawsuit alleges.

The Washington Post owner has denied his former housekeeper's claims of discrimination through an attorney.

"We have investigated the claims, and they lack merit," Harry Korrell, a Bezos attorney, told Insider of the suit. "[The former employee] made over six figures annually and was the lead housekeeper."

He added that the former housekeeper "was responsible for her own break and meal times, and there were several bathrooms and breakrooms available to her and other staff."

"The evidence will show that [the former housekeeper] was terminated for performance reasons," he continued. "She initially demanded over $9M, and when the company refused, she decided to file this suit."

As the suit was just filed and may well end in a settlement, it'll likely be a long time, if ever, before we find out what really happened at Bezos' house — but if we do, it'll be a fascinating peek behind the curtain at the home life of one of the world's most powerful and wealthy men.

More on billionaires: Tesla Morale Low As Workers Still Don't Have Desks, Face Increased Attendance Surveillance

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Jeff Bezos' Housekeeper Says She Had to Climb Out the Window to Use the Bathroom

You know that "research" going around saying humans are going to evolve to have hunchbacks and claws because of the way we use our smartphones? Though our posture could certainly use some work, you'll be glad to know that it's just lazy spam intended to juice search engine results.

Let's back up. Today the Daily Mail published a viral story about "how humans may look in the year 3000." Among its predictions: hunched backs, clawed hands, a second eyelid, a thicker skull and a smaller brain.

Sure, that's fascinating! The only problem? The Mail's only source is a post published a year ago by the renowned scientists at... uh... TollFreeForwarding.com, a site that sells, as its name suggests, virtual phone numbers.

If the idea that phone salespeople are purporting to be making predictions about human evolution didn't tip you off, this "research" doesn't seem very scientific at all. Instead, it more closely resembles what it actually is — a blog post written by some poor grunt, intended to get backlinks from sites like the Mail that'll juice TollFreeForwarding's position in search engine results.

To get those delicious backlinks, the top minds at TollFreeForwarding leveraged renders of a "future human" by a 3D model artist. The result of these efforts is "Mindy," a creepy-looking hunchback in black skinny jeans (which is how you can tell she's from a different era).

Grotesque model reveals what humans could look like in the year 3000 due to our reliance on technology

Full story: https://t.co/vQzyMZPNBv pic.twitter.com/vqBuYOBrcg

— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) November 3, 2022

"To fully realize the impact everyday tech has on us, we sourced scientific research and expert opinion on the subject," the TollFreeForwarding post reads, "before working with a 3D designer to create a future human whose body has physically changed due to consistent use of smartphones, laptops, and other tech."

Its sources, though, are dubious. Its authority on spinal development, for instance, is a "health and wellness expert" at a site that sells massage lotion. His highest academic achievement? A business degree.

We could go on and on about TollFreeForwarding's dismal sourcing — some of which looks suspiciously like even more SEO spam for entirely different clients — but you get the idea.

It's probably not surprising that the this gambit for clicks took off among dingbats on Twitter. What is somewhat disappointing is that it ended up on StudyFinds, a generally reliable blog about academic research. This time, though, for inscrutable reasons it treated this egregious SEO spam as a legitimate scientific study.

The site's readers, though, were quick to call it out, leading to a comically enormous editor's note appended to the story.

"Our content is intended to stir debate and conversation, and we always encourage our readers to discuss why or why not they agree with the findings," it reads in part. "If you heavily disagree with a report — please debunk to your delight in the comments below."

You heard them! Get debunking, people.

More conspiracy theories: If You Think Joe Rogan Is Credible, This Bizarre Clip of Him Yelling at a Scientist Will Probably Change Your Mind

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That "Research" About How Smartphones Are Causing Deformed Human Bodies Is SEO Spam, You Idiots

Spaceplane Buddy

After launching into orbit roughly three months ago, China's top-secret spaceplane has released a mysterious object, which is now circling the Earth behind it, SpaceNews reports.

There's very little we know about China's "reusable experimental spacecraft," except that it launched atop a Long March 2F rocket back in August. We don't know its purpose, what it looks like, or what cargo it was carrying during launch — but it's an intriguing development, nonetheless, for China's reusable launch platform.

Mysterious Object

The object was released between October 24 and October 31, according to tracking data being analyzed by the US Space Force's 18th pace Defense Squadron.

We can only hazard a guess as to what the mysterious object's purpose is. According to Harvard astronomer and space tracker Jonathan McDowell, it "may be a service module, possibly indicating an upcoming deorbit burn."

Based on the size and weight of payloads Long March rockets usually carry, China's mysterious spaceplane is likely similar to the Air Force's X-37B spaceplane, which is similarly shrouded in mystery and currently on its sixth mission.

We also don't know when the Chinese model will make its return back to Earth, but given recent activity at the Lop Nur base in Xinjiang suggests, it may land there in the near future, according to the report.

It's a puzzling new development for China's secretive spacecraft — but it does raise the possibility of a renewed interest in spaceplanes, a potentially affordable and reusable way to launch payloads into orbit.

More on the spaceplane: China Launches Mysterious "Reusable Test" Spacecraft

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Chinese Spaceplane Releases Mystery Object Into Orbit

Spying @ Home

Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic drove a wave of working from home, companies have been relentless in their efforts to digitally police and spy on remote employees by using what's known as "bossware." That's the pejorative name for software that tracks the websites an employee visits, screenshots their computer screens, and even records their faces and voices.

And now, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), an agency of the federal government, is looking to intervene.

"Close, constant surveillance and management through electronic means threaten employees' basic ability to exercise their rights," said NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, in a Monday memo. "I plan to urge the Board to apply the Act to protect employees, to the greatest extent possible, from intrusive or abusive electronic monitoring and automated management practices."

Undoing Unions

In particular, Abruzzo is worried about how bossware could infringe on workers' rights to unionize. It's not hard to imagine how such invasive surveillance could be used to bust unionization. Even if the technology isn't explicitly deployed to impede organization efforts, the ominous presence of the surveillance on its own can be a looming deterrent, which Abruzzo argues is illegal.

And now is the perfect moment for the NLRB to step in. The use and abuse of worker surveillance tech in general — not just bossware — has been "growing by the minute," Mark Gaston Pearce, executive director of the Workers' Rights Institute at Georgetown Law School, told CBS.

"Employers are embracing technology because technology helps them run a more efficient business," Gaston explained. "… What comes with that is monitoring a lot of things that employers have no business doing."

Overbearing Overlord

In some ways, surveillance tech like bossware can be worse than having a nosy, actual human boss. Generally speaking, in a physical workplace employees have an understanding of how much privacy they have (unless they work at a place like Amazon or Walmart, that is).

But when bossware spies on you, who knows how much information an employer could be gathering — or even when they're looking in. And if it surveils an employee's personal computer, which more often than not contains plenty of personal information that a boss has no business seeing, that's especially invasive.

Which is why Abruzzo is pushing to require employers to disclose exactly how much they're tracking.

It's a stern message from the NLRB, but at the end of the day, it's just a memo. We'll have to wait and see how enforcing it pans out.

More on surveillance: Casinos to Use Facial Recognition to Keep "Problem Gamblers" Away

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US Gov to Crack Down on "Bossware" That Spies On Employees' Computers

Advertisers are fleeing Twitter in droves now that Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has taken over control.

Ever since officially closing the $44 billion deal, Musk has been busy gutting the company's executive suite and dissolving its board. Senior executives, as well as Twitter's advertising chief Sarah Personette, have departed as well.

After all, Musk has been very clear about his disdain for advertising for years now.

The resulting uncertainty has advertisers spooked — major advertising holding company IPG has already advised clients to pull out temporarily — and the billionaire CEO is in serious damage mode.

Now, Reuters reports, Musk is spending most of this week meeting with advertisers in New York, trying to reassure them that Twitter won't turn into a "free-for-all hellscape."

According to one of Reuters' sources, the meetings have been "very productive" — but plenty of other marketers are far from satisfied.

Advertisers are reportedly grilling Musk over his plans to address the rampant misinformation being spread on the platform, a trend that Musk himself has been actively contributing to since the acquisition.

And if he's succeeding in ameliorating advertisers in private, he's antagonizing them publicly. On Wednesday, Musk posted a poll asking users whether advertisers should support either "freedom of speech," or "political 'correctness'" — a type of false dichotomy that echoes the rhetoric of far-right conspiracy theorists and conservative pundits.

"Those type of provocations are not helping to calm the waters," an unnamed media buyer told Reuters.

Some are going public with the same sentiment.

"Unless Elon hires new leaders committed to keeping this 'free' platform safe from hate speech, it's not a platform brands can/should advertise on," Allie Wassum, global media director for the Nike-owned shoe brand Jordan, wrote in a LinkedIn post.

So far, Musk's plans for the social media platform remain strikingly muddy. In addition to the behind-the-scenes advertising plays, he's also announced that users will have to pay to retain their verification badge, though he's engaged in a comically public negotiation as to what the cost might be.

He's also hinted that previously banned users — former US president Donald Trump chief among them — might eventually get a chance to return, but only once "we have a clear process for doing so, which will take at least a few more weeks."

The move was seen by many as a way to wait out the impending midterm elections. After all, Twitter has played a huge role in disseminating misinformation and swaying elections in the past.

While advertisers are running for the hills, to Musk advertising is clearly only a small part of the picture — even though historically, social giants like Twitter have struggled to diversify their revenue sources much beyond display ads.

Musk nodded to that reality in a vague open letter posted last week.

"Low relevancy ads are spam, but highly relevant ads are actually content!" he wrote in the note, addressed to "Twitter advertisers."

Big picture, Twitter's operations are in free fall right now and Musk has yet to provide advertisers with a cohesive plan to pick up the pieces.

While he's hinted at the creation of a new content moderation council made up of both "people from all viewpoints" and "wildly divergent views," advertisers are clearly going to be thinking twice about continuing their business with Twitter.

With or without advertising, Twitter's finances are reportedly in a very deep hole. The billions of dollars Musk had to borrow to finance his mega acquisition will cost Twitter around $1 billion a year in interest alone.

The company also wasn't anywhere near profitable before Musk took over, losing hundreds of millions of dollars in a single quarter.

Whether that picture will change any time soon is as unclear as ever, especially in the face of a wintry economy.

But, of course, Musk has proved his critics wrong before. So anything's possible.

READ MORE: Advertisers begin to grill Elon Musk over Twitter 'free-for-all' [Reuters]

More on the saga: Elon Musk Pulling Engineers From Tesla Autopilot to Work on Twitter

The post Elon Musk Meeting With Advertisers, Begging Them Not to Leave Twitter appeared first on Futurism.

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Elon Musk Meeting With Advertisers, Begging Them Not to Leave Twitter

Advertisers are fleeing Twitter in droves now that Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has taken over control.

Ever since officially closing the $44 billion deal, Musk has been busy gutting the company's executive suite and dissolving its board. Senior executives, as well as Twitter's advertising chief Sarah Personette, have departed as well.

After all, Musk has been very clear about his disdain for advertising for years now.

The resulting uncertainty has advertisers spooked — major advertising holding company IPG has already advised clients to pull out temporarily — and the billionaire CEO is in serious damage mode.

Now, Reuters reports, Musk is spending most of this week meeting with advertisers in New York, trying to reassure them that Twitter won't turn into a "free-for-all hellscape."

According to one of Reuters' sources, the meetings have been "very productive" — but plenty of other marketers are far from satisfied.

Advertisers are reportedly grilling Musk over his plans to address the rampant misinformation being spread on the platform, a trend that Musk himself has been actively contributing to since the acquisition.

And if he's succeeding in ameliorating advertisers in private, he's antagonizing them publicly. On Wednesday, Musk posted a poll asking users whether advertisers should support either "freedom of speech," or "political 'correctness'" — a type of false dichotomy that echoes the rhetoric of far-right conspiracy theorists and conservative pundits.

"Those type of provocations are not helping to calm the waters," an unnamed media buyer told Reuters.

Some are going public with the same sentiment.

"Unless Elon hires new leaders committed to keeping this 'free' platform safe from hate speech, it's not a platform brands can/should advertise on," Allie Wassum, global media director for the Nike-owned shoe brand Jordan, wrote in a LinkedIn post.

So far, Musk's plans for the social media platform remain strikingly muddy. In addition to the behind-the-scenes advertising plays, he's also announced that users will have to pay to retain their verification badge, though he's engaged in a comically public negotiation as to what the cost might be.

He's also hinted that previously banned users — former US president Donald Trump chief among them — might eventually get a chance to return, but only once "we have a clear process for doing so, which will take at least a few more weeks."

The move was seen by many as a way to wait out the impending midterm elections. After all, Twitter has played a huge role in disseminating misinformation and swaying elections in the past.

While advertisers are running for the hills, to Musk advertising is clearly only a small part of the picture — even though historically, social giants like Twitter have struggled to diversify their revenue sources much beyond display ads.

Musk nodded to that reality in a vague open letter posted last week.

"Low relevancy ads are spam, but highly relevant ads are actually content!" he wrote in the note, addressed to "Twitter advertisers."

Big picture, Twitter's operations are in free fall right now and Musk has yet to provide advertisers with a cohesive plan to pick up the pieces.

While he's hinted at the creation of a new content moderation council made up of both "people from all viewpoints" and "wildly divergent views," advertisers are clearly going to be thinking twice about continuing their business with Twitter.

With or without advertising, Twitter's finances are reportedly in a very deep hole. The billions of dollars Musk had to borrow to finance his mega acquisition will cost Twitter around $1 billion a year in interest alone.

The company also wasn't anywhere near profitable before Musk took over, losing hundreds of millions of dollars in a single quarter.

Whether that picture will change any time soon is as unclear as ever, especially in the face of a wintry economy.

But, of course, Musk has proved his critics wrong before. So anything's possible.

READ MORE: Advertisers begin to grill Elon Musk over Twitter 'free-for-all' [Reuters]

More on the saga: Elon Musk Pulling Engineers From Tesla Autopilot to Work on Twitter

The post Elon Musk Meeting With Advertisers, Begging Them Not to Leave Twitter appeared first on Futurism.

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Elon Musk Meeting With Advertisers, Begging Them Not to Leave Twitter

1. Former President Donald Trump to travel to Iowa for pre-election rally  Des Moines Register
2. Former President Donald Trump to hold Ohio rally for J.D. Vance day before election  WLWT Cincinnati
3. Donald Trump, JD Vance plan rally in Southwest Ohio ahead of midterm election  WCPO 9 Cincinnati
4. Trump to stump for JD Vance at Ohio rally  WTVG
5. Donald Trump, JD Vance holding rally in Ohio ahead of Election Day  WJW FOX 8 News Cleveland
6. View Full Coverage on Google News

Read the rest here:

Former President Donald Trump to travel to Iowa for pre-election rally - Des Moines Register

Former President Donald Trump arrives on stage at a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., on Sept. 3. According to a new poll, 67% of independents do not want Trump to run again, while just 28% said they do. Mary Altaffer/AP hide caption

Former President Donald Trump arrives on stage at a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., on Sept. 3. According to a new poll, 67% of independents do not want Trump to run again, while just 28% said they do.

Former President Donald Trump continues to heavily suggest he will run for president in 2024, but a new poll out from NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist shows voters in the middle overwhelmingly don't want him to give it another go.

Sixty-seven percent of independents said they do not want Trump to run again, while just 28% said they do. In 2020, Trump lost independents and lost the election. In 2016, Trump fared better with the group, but throughout his presidency and afterward he suffered with them and has never regained them.

"I think we need someone who can start uniting the country," said survey participant Mike Helms, 68, of Lincolnton, N.C., an independent who voted for Trump in 2020. "I don't think him or [President] Biden can unite this country."

Trump has continued to be heavily unpopular outside of his base, raising questions about the strength of a Trump 2024 candidacy. People who live in large cities and suburban women continue to be two of the groups most opposed to Trump, while white evangelical Christians, whites without college degrees and those in rural areas are most supportive.

"I definitely don't want him to run, because he will split the Republican Party and give the vote to the Democrats," said Greg Cox, 54, of New Haven, Mo., another independent who voted for Trump in 2020.

Overall, 61% of survey respondents said they don't want Trump to run again, largely unchanged from just after the 2020 election that Trump lost. A lot has transpired since then, and it shows just how locked in Americans' views are of Trump.

In fact, when respondents were asked if they would want Trump to run again, even if he is charged with a crime, the percentage saying no only increased marginally to 65%. That's within the margin of error.

Republicans looked like they were starting to pull away from Trump, but since the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago, his Florida home, for classified materials, they have reconsolidated around him.

When it comes to the FBI search, a plurality (44%) of respondents said they think Trump did something illegal. Another 17% think he did something unethical, but not illegal. Nearly 30% maintain he did nothing wrong, including 63% of Republicans.

Two-thirds of Republicans said they want Trump to run again, and a whopping 61% of them said they still want him to run even if he's charged with a crime.

Trump is using the FBI search as a rallying cry, calling it an "egregious abuse of the law." That's despite the FBI obtaining a legal search warrant. The Justice Department has said that it began investigating after a referral from the National Archives about classified material being mixed in with other material it received from Trump.

The FBI said it had evidence that Trump's team did not turn over all the documents it was asked for and the search bore that out. An inventory of the search of Trump's home found dozens of boxes of documents, including some marked with the highest, most sensitive classifications.

On Monday, Trump was granted the right to a "special master" to separate out materials that have attorney-client privilege and even potentially material that could be argued to have "executive privilege," even though Trump is no longer president.

"We're going to take back America," Trump said at a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. Saturday, where he lambasted the FBI search. "And in 2024, most importantly, we are going to take back our magnificent White House."

But Trump's base alone proved not to be enough in 2020, and likely wouldn't be in 2024, either.

Biden has also struggled with independents, who have largely disapproved of the job he has done so far, so they will be a major question mark and potentially hold the key to a 2024 presidential election, if it is a Biden-Trump rematch.

Helms, for example, said he would vote for Trump over Biden if Trump does run again, but not happily.

Cox said he would "absolutely not" vote for Trump again if there's a next time around, but he emphatically said he is not open to voting for Biden, either.

"Maybe I'd vote Libertarian," Cox said.

Methodology

The survey of 1,236 adults was conducted Aug. 29 through Sept. 1. It has a margin of error of +/- 4.1 percentage points, meaning results could be 4 points higher or lower than what is shown. There are 1,151 registered voters surveyed with a margin of error of +/- 4.3 percentage points.

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Two-thirds of independents say they don't want Trump to run for president - NPR

Washington, DC A United States judges decision to temporarily halt the governments review of documents seized from Donald Trumps home until they are vetted by an objective third party has sparked bewilderment among legal experts.

Judge Aileen Cannon on Monday ordered the appointment of a so-called special master to assess the documents collected by the FBI at the former presidents Mar-a-Lago estate last month for content that falls under attorney-client or executive privilege.

While many legal experts argue the ruling is unwarranted, they say it will only slow the Justice Departments probe into Trumps possible mishandling of classified materials not stop it.

Here, Al Jazeera looks at where things stand in the investigation and what the recent ruling means for the case:

A special master is typically someone with legal and/or technical expertise who can assist a judge in certain aspects of a case. In criminal cases, a special master is occasionally appointed as a neutral arbiter when privilege issues arise.

Trumps team had requested a special master to vet the documents as part of an ongoing lawsuit against the Justice Department over its investigation of the former president.

Certain information, including communication between suspects and their lawyers, is considered privileged, meaning the government cannot see it.

In the Trump case, the special master will assess the files taken from Mar-a-Lago for anything related to attorney-client privilege, as well as executive privilege.

Executive privilege is a legal concept that protects certain communication within the executive branch from going public, explained Michael Meltsner, a law professor at Northeastern University in Boston.

Under US law, when the president speaks to somebody and asks their advice, that is a privilege that can protect the conversation from [being divulged], Meltsner said. Its not in the Constitution. Its been created by the courts. But its never been to my knowledge applied to a former president.

In this situation, the special master needs to have a high-security clearance to handle secret documents and legal training to understand executive privilege.

Court documents show the US authorities retrieved dozens of classified government documents, some marked top secret, from Trumps home despite him leaving the White House in early 2021.

Numerous lawyers, professors and former prosecutors have criticised Judge Cannon, who was appointed by Trump shortly before he left office, for an order they say has no legal basis.

Meltsner, a veteran civil rights advocate who recently published a novel about the Civil Rights era titled Mosaic, told Al Jazeera that courts rarely interfere with criminal investigations, which he said makes Cannons decision to halt the document review unusual.

She is leaning over backwards to treat Trump the way nobody else has been treated, Meltsner said. In US law and practice, we dont interfere lightly with a criminal investigation. A criminal investigation by its very nature has to be private.

He added that court interference in criminal probes risks compromising vulnerable witnesses and making documents that could be used by defendants public. The Justice Department earlier said it had identified and avoided materials that could be considered privileged.

Cannon has ordered lawyers for the government and for Trump to submit a list of nominees for the post of special master by Friday.

The Justice Department can still appeal her order to a higher court, a potential move that Meltsner said would likely succeed but also carries risks.

The opinion by this judge is totally inconsistent with the law. It would not surprise me if an appellate court if it ever gets the issue would reverse her very quickly, he said.

But appeals may take time, appeals may distract, and appeals may even find similar Trump-appointed judges in the Court of Appeals. And if the Court of Appeals rules against Trump, then theyll go to the Supreme Court, and who knows what happens there.

While the judge has temporarily blocked the Justice Department from reviewing the documents taken from Mar-a-Lago, investigators can still interview witnesses and pursue other leads in the criminal probe.

Meltsner described Cannons orders as a speed bump in the investigation.

The government can still indict people, he said. Nothing this judge can or has done can stop the government from doing so if they want to. But thats another tactical decision that the government will have to make down the road.

Only the US Justice Department and likely Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has said he personally approved the August 8 search at Mar-a-Lago can answer that.

On the basis of the public record, it would certainly seem reasonable to charge Trump and/or his people with various offences regarding taking these documents and keeping these documents and refusing to return these documents, Meltsner said.

Whether they will do so or not is another matter. You can say that the elephant in the room is whether the prosecutors will think about the politics of this.

To press charges, the Justice Department would have to present its accusations to a grand jury to approve a formal indictment.

Trump and his Republican allies have rallied against the investigation and dismissed it without evidence as a political witch hunt. The former president has suggested that he is interested in another run for the White House in 2024, but he has not announced his candidacy.

Garland was appointed by President Joe Biden, but the White House says it does not interfere in Justice Department-led investigations.

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Trump investigation: Where do things stand and what happens next? - Al Jazeera English

Former US president Donald Trump celebrated his 75th birthday on Monday and the event was a low-key affair. Trump marked his 75th birthday with a dinner at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

Donald Trump Jr, the son of former US president, took to his Instagram account to share some photos of the birthday party. The guests included Donald Jr.s girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle, former NFL star Herschel Walker, Indiana congressman Jim Banks and Colorado congresswoman Lauren Boebert.

The most notable absentee was Donald Trump's wife and former First Lady, Melania Trump.

Ex-wife Ivana Trump once said in an interview that "Donald hates his birthdays", and a source also told People magazine that Melania "keeps her own schedule and leads her own life" away from her husband.

The absence of Melania has once again sparked the divorce rumors between the couple but writer Kristyn Burtt said that it is wrong to say that Melania has decided to part ways with Donald Trump.

She said: "She did that at the start of his administration when she and son Barron remained in New York City so he could finish out the school year before they moved to Washington, D.C. The couple has very different hobbies and seems to prefer their independent activities, but no one should read too much into her absence. This shouldnt be seen as a sign that there is trouble in their marriage."

Notably, the only family members who were present during Donald Trump's 75th birthday celebration were Donald Jr. and his girlfriend. Daughter Ivanka Trump was also not present at the event.

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Melania Trump to divorce former US president Donald Trump? Latest ...

In his final days in the White House, Donald Trump told top advisers he needed to preserve certain Russia-related documents to keep his enemies from destroying them.

The documents related to the federal investigation into Russian election meddling and alleged collusion with Trumps campaign. At the end of his presidency, Trump and his team pushed to declassify these so-called Russiagate documents, believing they would expose a Deep State plot against him.

According to a person with direct knowledge of the situation and another source briefed on the matter, Trump told several people working in and outside the White House that he was concerned Joe Bidens incoming administration or the Deep State would supposedly shred, bury, or destroy the evidence that Trump was somehow wronged.

Trumps concern about preserving the Russia-related material is newly relevant after an FBI search turned up a trove of government documents at the former presidents Mar-a-Lago residence.

Since the search, Trump has refused to say which classified government papers and top-secret documents he had at Mar-a-Lago and what was the FBI had seized. (Trump considers the documents mine and has directed his lawyers to make that widely-panned argument in court.) The feds have publicly released little about the search and its results. Its unclear if any of the materials in Trumps document trove are related to Russia or the election interference investigation. A Trump spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

But both Trump and his former Director of National Intelligence have hinted that Russia-related documents could be among the materials the FBI sought. I think they thought it was something to do with the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, Trump said during a Sept. 1 radio interview. They were afraid that things were in there part of their scam material.

Former DNI John Ratcliffe told CBS days earlier that, while he had no knowledge of what was in the records, It wouldnt surprise me if there were records related to [Russia] there.

A month before the 2020 election, Ratcliffe declassified intelligence detailing how the U.S. had obtained information about Russian intelligence analysis on Hillary Clintons campaign. The intelligence community, Ratcliffe wrote, couldnt determine whether the information contained exaggeration of fabrication. Both CIA director Gina Haspel and NSA chief Paul Nakasone reportedly opposed the declassification on the grounds that it could reveal how American spies had obtained the information. Indeed, a variety of other officials familiar with the internal debate felt such declassifications could out sensitive sources.

That document was from a pretty sensitive place that you would know where it was from if you were in Russia, one former intelligence official tells Rolling Stone about the material released by Ratcliffe. There were enough clues in there that the Russians couldve figured it out.

Other intelligence officials expressed concern that Ratcliffe would reveal even more information potentially damaging to U.S. intelligence sources. We were worried theyd try to counter the bipartisan Senate Intelligence committee endorsement of the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment by selectively declassing intel that the House Intelligence minority had cobbled together to counter the narrative that Russia preferred Trump, another former intelligence official says.

The 2017 assessment concluded that Russian president Vladimir Putin had meddled in the 2016 election because he wanted Trump to win a conclusion Putin himself half admitted to during his 2018 summit with the former president in Finland. But Republicans on the House Intelligence committee, led by Devin Nunes, repeatedly disputed that conclusion, even as their Republican counterparts on the Senate Intelligence committee accepted it.

The intelligence communitys resistance to Trumps efforts to declassify sensitive material related to Russia and the election specifically a classified report by Nunes disputing the 2017 assessment reportedly led Trump to consider firing CIA director Gina Haspel in November 2020 as he moved trusted allies into sensitive intelligence positions, CNN reported at the time.

Trump never fired Haspel, and the House Intelligence committees classified report wasnt released publicly. But both Trump and Meadows worked up until Biden took the oath of office to declassify information they viewed as beneficial to Trumps narrative of Deep State persecution.

In a memo to the acting attorney general and intelligence officials sent the day before Trump left office, he claimed the Justice Department had sent him a binder of materials on the FBIs so-called Crossfire Hurricane investigation in late December 2020. The department sent Trump that information, he claimed, so I could determine to what extent materials in the binder should be released in unclassified form.

The materials included transcripts of intercepts made by the FBI of Trump aides, a declassified copy of the final FISA warrant approved by an intelligence court, and the tasking orders and debriefings of the two main confidential human sources, Christopher Steele and Stefan Halper, according to John Solomon, Trumps representative to the National Archives.

Trump White House Chief of staff Mark Meadows later wrote in his memoir that he personally went through every page of the documents to make sure the declassified portions didnt disclose sources and methods and described his frustration by what he considered push back from the Department of Justice and FBI.Meadows and Trump worked to release the material up until minutes before Bidens inauguration. Trump sent a memo on Jan. 19 accepting the FBIs redactions and ordering declassification. Meadows sent a followup memo on Bidens inauguration day. The material was never released publicly. But in a series of podcast interviews recorded before the FBI search, former Nunes and Trump official Kash Patel shed some light on the administrations broader plans. He claimed Trump had asked him to help retrieve and publish so-called Russiagate material the White House counsels office had sent to the National Archives in the last days of the administration.

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Trump Told White House Team He Needed to Protect Russiagate Documents - Rolling Stone

Question: Is there any legitimate, not-suspicious reason that a former president of the United States would take information about a foreign countrys nuclear capabilities from the White House with him when he left, stash it in his home, and refuse to give it back despite being asked to do so on numerous occasions?

Answer: No, there isnt! Not a single one! Which is why it is incredibly damning to learn that Donald Trump, whose entire life has been a series of incredibly damning moments for which he should probably do hard time, allegedly did just that.

Yes, on Monday night, The Washington Post reported that a document describing a foreign governments military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities was among the materials seized from Mar-a-Lago during the FBIs August 8 search. If youre wondering if its possible that such a document could simply include low-level, not closely guarded details about another countrys nukes, and this whole thing isnt actually as bad as it sounds, we regret to inform you that is not the case. (In fact, its probably even a bigger deal than any of us can currently comprehend.) According to The Post, some of the documents uncovered during last months search detail top-secret U.S. operations so closely guarded that many senior national security officials are kept in the dark about them and only the president, some members of his Cabinet or anear-Cabinet-level official could authorize other government officials to know details of these special-access programs. For that reason, such records, per The Post, are kept under lock and key, almost always in a secure compartmented information facility, with a designated control officer to keep careful tabs on their location.

As in: not at a for-profit country club that anyone willing to pony up the initiation fee, or their guest, or a rando off the street asking to use the pool can walk through. Its also why, when the National Archives removed 15 boxes of documents this past January and the FBI came back for more in June, theyd hoped that was everythingparticularly in light of the fact that a lawyer for Trump had signed a written statement claiming all classified material had been returned to its rightful owner, i.e., the U.S. government.

In a statement, Christopher Kise, an attorney for the ex-president, did not address the fact that Trump had stashed information about a foreign powers nuclear capabilities at Mar-a-Lago, or that he held on to it despite a subpoena from a grand jury demanding the return of all documents or writings in the custody or control of Donald J. Trump and/or the Office of Donald J. Trump bearing classification markings, including Top Secret, and the lesser categories of Secret and Confidential. Instead, he selectively decried the leaks about the case, saying they continue with no respect for the process nor any regard for the real truth, claiming the damage to public confidence in the integrity of the system simply cannot be underestimated.

On Monday, a Trump-appointed judge, Aileen Cannon, granted the ex-presidents request for a special master to conduct a third-party review of the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago. In a move condemned in the harshest terms by basically anyone with a law degreeincluding former Trump attorney general Bill BarrCannon also blocked prosecutors from continuing to use the documents in their criminal investigation until the review is complete.

Back in November 2020, after Trump lost the presidential election, current and former government officials sounded the alarm on the possibility he would reveal valuable, classified information to further his own interests. John Fitzpatrick, a former intelligence officer and expert on the systems used to protect state secrets, told The Washington Post that the sort of information Trump was liable to have picked up on during his time in office includedwait for itspecial military capabilities, details about cyberweapons and espionage, the kinds of satellites the United States uses and the parameters of any covert actions that, as president, only Trump had the power to authorize. Assessing the possibility that he might do something untoward with that intelligence, David Priess, a former CIA officer, told the outlet, Anyone who is disgruntled, dissatisfied or aggrieved is a risk of disclosing classified information, whether as a current or former officeholder. Trump certainly fits that profile.

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Trump Reportedly Had Information About a Foreign Governments Nuclear Secrets at Mar-a-Lago, and Yeah, Thats Exactly as Bad as It Sounds - Vanity Fair

Former US President Donald Trump spoke to NDTV's Sreenivasan Jain.

Donald Trump has all but accepted that he'll be in the running for another term as US President in 2024. "Everyone wants me to run," he said, claiming that he's ahead in popularity polls so far, be it those in his party, the Republicans, or his rivals. "I'm leading in the polls, and every poll Republican polls and Democrat polls. I'll make a decision in the very near future, I suspect. And I think that a lot of people are going to be very happy."

After serving a four-year term from 2016, Donald Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 in a fractious fight. But the businessman-turned-TV celebrity-turned-politician appears to be eyeing a comeback in 2024.

As part of an exclusive interview with NDTV, he was asked if his being on the road with Indian-American businessman Shalabh Kumar his longtime associate and campaign donor is an indication of his 2024 run. "We've been friends from before the last campaign and 2016 and then 2020," Mr Trump said about Shalabh Kumar.

He then spoke of his equation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi too: "I've had a great relationship to India and to Prime Minister Modi. We were... we've been friends. And I think he's a great guy and doing a terrific job. It's not an easy job he's got. So, but, we've known each other a long time. Good man." PM Modi had apparently backed Donald Trump at a 'Howdy Modi' event in 2019, just months ahead of the 2020 election.

Mr Trump, when asked what he means by "a lot of people will be happy" if he fights the election, said: "I think so. A lot of people will be; and a couple of people will be unhappy."

Shalabh Kumar, who was next to Mr Trump, was asked if it's now obvious that Mr Trump is a candidate. "Of course, he should run again. That's our view. And you know, it'll be great if he runs again. I mean, our community, they will just love to have 'Trump 47'," he said, referencing a campaign pitch to make Mr Trump the 47th President of the United States.

On whether there is any other contender within the Republican Party, Mr Kumar said, "He is the Republican Party."

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World Exclusive: Will Donald Trump Run Again For US President? What He Said On 2024 - NDTV

A former FBI official said former President Donald Trump may have wanted to keep top-secret documents about a foreign power because of the astronomical price that country or its adversaries might have paid for such information.

Former FBI assistant director Frank Figliuzzi was asked by MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle on Wednesday why Trump would have wanted to keep top-secret documents about a foreign country's nuclear program at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida as was earlier reported by The Washington Post.

In response, Figliuzzi posited that the high price of these documents would make them attractive assets to possess.

"If I were to be asked what the highest price tag or highest value might be on what kind of classified US government information, certainly among the top of my answers would be: nuclear-related information," he said.

He elaborated that such information has "potentially the greatest value" if one were to try to "market it and capitalize" on having such files.

"Well, first, a country would give its right arm to learn what the US knew about its nuclear program and capabilities, not only for the obvious reason of, 'Hey, they figured this out,' but also because it would signal what we don't know about their program," Figliuzzi said.

"Secondly, let's move to that country's adversary. They would give their left and right arms to find out what their adversary is doing in terms of nuclear capability," he added.

Aside from the value of the information, Figliuzzi noted that the files were also located at Mar-a-Lago, which Figliuzzi said had "some of the lowest security you can imagine" with foreign nationals "traipsing in and out."

A representative at Trump's post-presidential office did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Figliuzzi is not the first FBI official to speculate that foreign nationals may have tried to obtain access to Mar-a-Lago.

Former FBI official Peter Strzok who has a bitter and storied history with Trump said in August that "any competent foreign intelligence service" would have tried to gain access to the former president's Florida residence. Strzok cited Russia, China, Iran, and Cuba as possible countries these agents may have come from.

Figliuzzi is also not alone in speculating that Trump may have tried to sell such classified data.

In August, author Charles Leerhsen who ghostwrote one of Trump's books said the former president may have taken White House documents to sell as presidential memorabilia in the future. Separately, Fox News host Eric Shawn also asked during a broadcast if Trump had tried to "sell or share" these top-secret files "to the Russians" or to "the Saudis."

During the FBI's raid on Mar-a-Lago last month, agents seized 11 sets of classified documents, including some marked "top secret." Some of the documents may have concerned nuclear weapons, The Washington Post reported.

According to the warrant for the search, the DOJ is looking intowhether Trump broke any of three federal laws including theEspionage Act by keeping the documents at his Florida residence.

Last month, Trump dismissed the idea that there were any nuclear documents in his possession. However, The Washington Post reported this week that the files seized from Mar-a-Lago included information about a foreign government's nuclear defense capabilities.

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Ex-FBI official says Trump's nuclear information had high 'price tag' - Business Insider

In 2016, Hillary Clinton warned that Donald Trump was a fool who could be baited with a tweet. This past Thursday night, in Philadelphia, Joe Biden upped the ante by asking, in effect: What idiot thing might the former president do if baited with a whole speech? On Saturday night, the world got its answer.

For the 2022 election cycle, smart Republicans had a clear and simple plan: Dont let the election be about Trump. Make it about gas prices, or crime, or the border, or race, or sex education, or anythinganything but Trump. Trump lost the popular vote in 2016. He lost control of the House in 2018. He lost the presidency in 2020. He lost both Senate seats in Georgia in 2021. Republicans had good reason to dread the havoc hed create if he joined the fight in 2022.

How likely is Trumps return, and what should we expect? Explore these questions with David Frum, Jeffrey Goldberg, and others at The Atlantic Festival on Wednesday, September 21. Register and find out more here.

So they pleaded with Trump to keep out of the 2022 race. A Republican lawmaker in a close contest told CNN on August 19, I dont say his name, ever.

Maybe the pleas were always doomed to fail. Show Trump a spotlight, and hes going to step into it. But Republicans pinned their hopes on the chance that Trump might muster some self-discipline this one time, some regard for the interests and wishes of his partners and allies.

David Frum: The justification for Bidens speech

One of the purposes of Bidens Philadelphia attack on Trumps faction within the Republican Party was surely to goad Trump. It worked.

Yesterday, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Trump addressed a rally supposedly in support of Republican candidates in the state: Mehmet Oz for the Senate; the January 6 apologist Doug Mastriano for governor. This was not Trumps first 2022 rally speech. He spoke in Arizona in July. But this one was different: so extreme, strident, and uglyand so obviously provoked by Bidens speech that this was what led local news: Donald Trump Blasts Philadelphia, President Biden During Rally for Doug Mastriano, Dr. Oz in Wilkes-Barre.

Yes, you read that right: Campaigning in Pennsylvania, the ex-president denounced the states largest city. I think Philadelphia was a great choice to make this speech of hatred and anger. [Bidens] speech was hatred and anger, Trump declared last night. Last year, the city set an all-time murder record with 560 homicides, and its on track to shatter that record again in 2022. Numbers that nobodys ever seen other than in some other Democrat-run cities.

Trump spoke at length about the FBI search of his house for stolen government documents. He lashed out at the FBI, attacking the bureau and the Department of Justice as vicious monsters. He complained about the FBI searching his closets for stolen government documents, inadvertently reminding everyone that the FBI had actually found stolen government documents in his closetand in his bathroom too. Trump called Biden an enemy of the state. He abused his partys leader in the U.S. Senate as someone who should be ashamed. He claimed to have won the popular vote in the state of Pennsylvania, which, in fact, he lost by more than 80,000 votes.

The rally format allowed time for only brief remarks by the two candidates actually on the ballot, Oz and Mastriano. Its message was otherwise all Trump, Trump, Trump. A Republican vote is a Trump vote. A Republican vote is a vote to endorse lies about the 2020 presidential election.

On and on it went, in a protracted display of narcissistic injury that was exactly the behavior that Bidens Philadelphia speech had been designed to elicit.

David A. Graham: Trump cant hide from the Mar-a-Lago photo

Every day since the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago has brought new proof that Trump still dominates the Republican Party. He has extracted support even from would-be rivals like Florida Governor Ron DeSantisrituals of submission within a party hierarchy that respects only acts of domination.

Republican congressional leaders desperately but hopelessly tried to avert the risk that this next election would become yet another national referendum on Trumps leadership. Despite Trumps lying and boasting, politicians who can count to 50 and 218the respective numbers needed for a majority in the Senate and Househave to reckon with the real-world costs of Trumps defeats. But Biden understood their mans psychology too well.

Biden came to Philadelphia to deliver a wound to Trumps boundless yet fragile ego. Trump obliged with a monstrously self-involved meltdown 48 hours later. And now his party has nowhere to hide. Trump has overwritten his name on every Republican line of every ballot in 2022.

Biden dangled the bait. Trump took itand put his whole party on the hook with him. Republican leaders are left with little choice but to pretend to like it.

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Biden Laid the Trap. Trump Walked Into It. - The Atlantic