Daily Archives: January 30, 2023

Meta to restore Donald Trump's Facebook and Instagram

Meta is expected to lift former President Trump's Facebook and Instagram ban as he gears up for a 2024 presidential run.

Claire Hardwick, USA TODAY

COLUMBIA, S.C.Donald Trump resumed public campaigning Saturday with renewed attacks on long-standing targets: President Joe Biden, the 2020 election, federal and state prosecutors, and a lengthening list of Republican opponents.

We will do it again, Trump told supporters while introducing his South Carolina Leadership Team during an event at the statehouse in downtown Columbia, capping a day-long trip that also took him to New Hampshire; both states hold early primaries in the 2024 presidential election.

In an earlier speech to members of the New Hampshire Republican Party, Trump said: So, we're here and we start, we begin.

The trip comesafter more than two months of political turmoil for Trump following his mid-November announcement of a 2024 campaign. A rising number of Republicans say the former president cannot win next year and the party should look for another standard-bearer.

"We just want the best normal candidate," New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu told NBC News in the days before Trump's visit.

Among Trump's themes on a renewed campaign:

In rambling speeches in both South Carolina and New Hampshire that bounced rapidly from topic to topic,Trump berated Biden and other Democrats as "radical leftists who have pursued bad policies.

The Trump rollout:Donald Trump plans campaign stops targeting Republican opponents and prosecutors

Polls, polls, polls:Trump trails DeSantis in possible 2024 matchup in New Hampshire, which holds first primary

Trump criticized the presidentover border security, military aid to Ukraine,election rules, drug trafficking, education, energy,military policy and son Hunter Biden's business practices.

While bemoaning Biden's presidency, the ex-president again made false claims about the administration of the 2020 election, despite a lack of proof about systematic voter fraud.

Biden and his allies say they aren't worried about the prospect of running again against Trump, noting that they defeated him in 2020.

Democrats mocked Trumps events. South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Trav Robertson, Jr., noting that former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolinaand maybe Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., might challenge Trump, said his state is sure to be ground zero for MAGA Republicans race for the MAGA base as they push for increasingly extreme abortion bans and tax giveaways to their special interest donors.

As some Republicans wonder if Trump will soon be campaigning while under criminal indictment, Trump has braced supporters by claiming that law enforcement officials are biased against him.

Prosecutors in Atlanta and Washington, D.C., are investigating Trump over efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden, activities that led to the attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20, 2021. Yet another investigation involves Trump's handling of classified material.

On that last item,Trump noted to supporters in his Saturday speeches that Biden recently turned over classified documents improperly in his possession.

One difference betweenthe cases: Trump has been accused of obstruction of justice over refusing to turn over documents to the National Archives. That refusal led to the highly publicized search of his Mar-a-Lago home in South Florida, anothersubject of Trump's stump speeches in New Hampshire and South Carolina.

All those investigations:Jan. 6 Capitol attack 2 years later: Trump still plagued by multiple investigations

The Atlanta case:Decisions in Trump Georgia election probe are 'imminent', but no report yet: Takeaways

Prominent Republicans are considering runs against Trump, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Trump's former vice president Mike Pence.Other potential Trump opponents reside in the states he visited Saturday: Haley and current New Hampshire governor Sununu.

Trump did not single out any potential challengers during his speeches, but he did denigrate the Republican field as a whole. Noting that no other Republican challenged him in 2020, Trump said in New Hampshire that "I don't think we have competition this time either, to be honest."

With primaries still a year away, polls are all over the place on Trump and his place in the Republican Party.

A few days before Trump's trip to New Hampshire, a University of New Hampshire poll showed him trailing DeSantis by double digits, 42% to 30%.

Meanwhile, aNew Hampshire Journal/Coefficient poll gave Trump a 37%-26% lead over the Florida governor. The same poll also said that, asked to pick between Trump and "someone else," 43% went with the ex-president while 42% went with the alternative.

The day-long trip to two early-primary states comes more than two months after Trump announced his 2024 presidential campaign.

Those two months have also featured a bevyof political problems.

Some Republicans blamed Trump for the party's disappointing showing in the 2022 congressional elections, including a failure to win control of the U.S. Senate. Other Republicans citethe many criminal investigations hovering around the former president.

Trump also took heat over a November dinner he hosted featuring anti-Semitic rapper Ye and white nationalist Nick Fuentes.

Trump has yet to schedule one of the mass political rallies that fueled his presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2020.

On Saturday, he went for more traditional types of campaigning with the keynote address at the winter meeting of the New Hampshire Republican Party and the event at the statehouse in Columbia, S.C.

Discussing rallies during the New Hampshire event, Trump told supporters:"We're going to do them soon."

Katon Dawson, a former South Carolina Republican Party chairman, said party members in his state are looking for alternatives to Trump.Many hope that Haley jumps into the race.

"They think it's time for the next generation to step up," said Dawson, who did not attend the Trump event.

Dawson said Trump will still be a formidable candidate in 2024. The ex-president will likely retain a strong base of support that could add up to 35%-36% of the vote, enough to win a primary with four or five more candidates who could split up the anti-Trump vote.

"As there are no runoffs in presidential primaries, all Trump needs is a crowded primary in the first ten states," Dawson said.

Read more here:

Donald Trump hits campaign trail in New Hampshire, South Carolina

Former president Donald Trump hit the campaign trail on Saturday for the first time since announcing his bid to run for the White House in 2024.

He visited New Hampshire and South Carolina, brushing off criticism that his run was off to a slow start.

"I'm more angry now and I'm more committed now than I ever was," he told a small crowd at the New Hampshire Republican Party's annual meeting in Salem, before heading to South Carolina.

There, Trump spoke to about 200 people in the state's capitol building in Columbiain stark contrast to the large rallies in front of thousands of supporters that he often holds.

With Governor Henry McMaster and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina flanking him, Trump said "we have huge rallies planned, bigger than ever before."

His speech saw him go from criticizing President Joe Biden to railing against transgender rights and mocking the the use of electric stoves and electric cars.

Here, Newsweek rounds up some key moments from Trump's remarks in South Carolina.

Referencing the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, Trump said Biden had brought the world to the brink of a third world war.

"Through weakness and incompetence, Joe Biden has brought us to the brink of World War III," he said. "We're at the brink of World War III, just in case anybody doesn't know it. As president, I will bring back peace through strength."

During his speech, Trump suggested Biden should acknowledge that his son, Hunter, was "not working out well."

House Republicans have begun a probe into the business dealings of the president's son after winning control of the lower chamber.

"At some point doesn't Biden have to say this son thing is not working out well?" Trump said. "You guys are great politicians, at some point don't you sort of say like this whole deal with the son, with Hunter, it's not working out great. Not working out great."

Trump railed against transgender rights and the teaching of critical race theory, an academic concept that centers on the idea that racism is systemic in the nation's institutions that has sparked school board protests and classroom bans in some states.

"We're going to stop the left-wing radical racists and perverts who are trying to indoctrinate our youth, and we're going to get their Marxist hands off of our children," Trump said.

"We're going to defeat the cult of gender ideology and reaffirm that God created two genders: men and women. We're not going to allow men to play women's sports."

Trump also criticized the FBI raid at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida and the investigation into classified documents found there. It comes as classified materials have also been found at the residences of President Joe Biden and former vice president Mike Pence.

"We're going to stop the appalling weaponization of our justice system," he said. "There's never been a justice system like this. It's all investigation, investigation. I've been going through it for seven years."

Trump mocked those promoting the use of electric stoves and electric cars, calling it "ridiculous."

"They want mandatory stoves. They want mandatory electric cars," he said.

"The cars go for like two hours. What are you going to do? Everyone's going to be sitting on the highway. We're all going to be looking for a little plug-in. Does anybody have a plug-in? My car just stopped. I've been driving for an hour and 51 minutes. It's ridiculous."

See the rest here:

Key Moments From Donald Trump's South Carolina Rally

Something you may have picked up on by now is that Donald Trump is a bad man whose elevation to the presidency was a net negative for society. Obviously, the examples supporting this claim could literally fill several hundred books, but today, lets focus on one in particular: the absolutely callous regard he showed for human life while breaking multiple records for federal executions.

While we already knew the statsthe Trump administration executed more people than any administration in 120 years, oversaw a federal government that executed more Americans in a one-year period than every state combined, and was the first administration since the 1880s to put people to death during a lame-duck periodnew reporting from Rolling Stone reveals how little the act of ending 13 lives weighed on him, if it weighed on him at all.

According to the outlet, about a year after signing a bipartisan criminal-reform bill, Trump started telling advisers that carrying out capital punishment would insulate him from criticism that he was soft on crime, according to sources familiar with the matter. His attorney general, Bill Barr, was all too happy to oblige, and in July 2019, ordered the Federal Bureau of Prisons to resume executions after a 17-year hiatus. But while taking a human life, even one that may have committed terrible acts in the past, might have kept another president up at night, it appears that Trump barely gave it a thought, beyond what he thought the executions could do for him politically.

Per Rolling Stone:

The sum total of his discussions of the death penalty with his top law enforcement officer, Barr says, was a single, offhand conversation. After an unrelated White House meeting, Barr was preparing to leave the Oval Office when, he says, he gave Trump a heads-up that we would be resuming the death penalty.

Trumps lack of interest in the details had grave repercussions for the people whose fates were in his hands. According to multiple sources inside the administration, Trump completely disregarded the advice of the Office of the Pardon Attorney, an administrative body designed to administer impartial pleas for clemency in death penalty cases and other, lower-level offenses. And Barr says he does not recall discussing any of the 13 inmates who were eventually killed with the president who sent them to the death chamber.

As reporters Asawin Suebsaeng and Patrick Reis write, That means Trump never talked with Barr about Lisa Montgomery, a deeply mentally ill and traumatized person who became thefirst woman executed by the federal government since 1953. Montgomerywho committed an unspeakable act when she arranged a meeting with a dog breeder and then straggled, stabbed, and cut the fetus out of the dead womans womb and attempted to pass it off as her ownwas reportedly raped weekly by her stepfather by the age of 11, raped by her stepfathers friends, and raped by her stepbrother. In exchange for services like free plumbing, her mother would allow men to sexually assault her. The stepfather is said to have severely beaten her and caused traumatic brain injuries; per Rolling Stone, Montgomery was diagnosed with, among other conditions, post-traumatic stress disorder and dissociative disorder. MRIs revealed significant brain damage from the childhood beatings, and psychiatrist and University of Pennsylvania professor Ruben Gur said the physical and mental trauma she endured resulted in her brain being neither structurally nor functionally sound. According to Rolling Stone, Its unclear whether Trump ever read the petition her attorneys wrote asking to delay the execution; one of her lawyers told the outlet she is not convinced that Montgomery fully understood that she was about to die.

Then there was the case of Brandon Bernard, whod been sentenced to death for his role, at the age of 18, in the carjacking and murder of a young couple, Todd and Stacie Bagley. Bernard was not the gang member who shot and killed the Bagleys, but he lit the the car that they were in on fire. More than 10 years after his trial, Bernards appellate lawyers argued that the prosecution had withheld key evidence showing that he was not the ringleader of the group but a confused teenager following instructions from his place in the gangs lowest tier, per Rolling Stone. One member of the prosecution team wrote an op-ed saying Bernard did not deserve the death penalty. More than half of the jury members whod sentenced him who were still alive publicly stated that he should be spared. According to Rolling Stone, while recommendations made by the Justice Departments pardon attorney office are not made public, days after it met with Bernards attorneys in 2020, several sources told Bernards team that the attorney had recommended Trump commute the death sentence to life in prison.

It gave us hope, says Stacey Brownstein, who served as an investigator on Bernards defense. It felt for a moment that things were breaking our way.

In another administration, that might have been enough to save Bernards life. But in Trumps world, it barely registered.

In the remaining days of the administration, Barr scheduled a string of back-to-back executions, to squeeze in as many as possible before Biden moved into the White House, with three occurring in Trumps penultimate week in office. These inmates were being exterminated, Kelley Henry, an attorney for Montgomery, told Rolling Stone. When you see the government flex its power that waywith the cold, callous machinery of deathits truly appalling. She added: The administration just didnt care.

Meanwhile, Trump was commuting sentences and issuing pardons for the convicted criminals whod worked on his campaign and for his son-in-laws father, among others.

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Report: Donald Trumps Record-Setting Executions Were Even More ...

Former President Donald Trump plunged back into campaign mode Saturday to kick off his 2024 White House bid, stumping in New Hampshire and South Carolina where he slung insults at Florida governor Ron DeSantis.

The 76-year-old ex-commander in chief called a potential presidential run by his GOP rival a great act of disloyalty.

Trump also took credit for the 44-year-old DeSantis initial election, insisting his political life was over.

If he runs, thats fine. Im way up in the polls, Trump told The Associated Press after his South Carolina speech.

Hes going to have to do what he wants to do, but he may run. I do think it would be a great act of disloyalty because, you know, I got him in. He had no chance. His political life was over.

Appearing first in New Hampshire, Trump told the audience of Republican party leaders that he is more angry at the direction of the country now and more committed to taking back the top job than he ever was.

The former president also took aim at his successor, President Joe Biden.

What a pigsty that place was, right? he said of the garage whereclassified documents from Bidens vice presidency were foundthis month.

He needled Biden for themassive corruptionseen on Hunter Bidens laptopbefore a small crowd of 413 party officials at Salem High School in Salem during the state GOPs annual meeting.

We have a president whose sons laptop from hell exposesmassive corruption, Trump said in the 55-minute speech.

Do you think the father was upset? Trump asked in an aside. Whats on it,son? Every crime that youve ever committed, pop.

The former president said helaunched his third White House run to confront the colossal disasters that Joe Biden is leaving in his wake.

What theyre doing is poisoning our country,he said, citingsuch ills aslax border security, a wokemilitarythatcantfight orwin,and radical left-wing prosecutorswho refuse to put criminals in jail.

Im the only one they go after,he complained,citingtheFBI raid of Mar-a-Lagoand thetax-fraud chargesagainst the Trump Organization. Nobody gets prosecuted,they go after me.

At his second campaign appearance in Columbia, South Carolina, Trump was endorsed by some of the states top Republicans, including Gov. Henry McMaster and Sen. Lindsey Graham.

There are no Trump policies without Donald Trump, Graham said, taking a veiled shot at the GOP primary challengers waiting in the wings.

You can talk about his policies, but you cannot do what he did.

Trumps 40-minute speech focused not only on the border and the troubled economy, but on hot-button social issues as well.

Were going to stop the left-wing radical racists and perverts who are trying to indoctrinate our youth and were going to get their Marxist hands off of our children, he said, promising to cut federal funding to schools that push far-left content in the classroom.

He also pledged to defeat the cult of gender ideology, adding, Were not going to allow men to play in womens sports its ridiculous.

Since declaring in November his plans to run for a second non-consecutive term, Trump has stuck to video-released policy statements rather than his raucous trademark rallies to win back the loyalty of Republicans disillusioned by his bombastic style and his fixation on his 2020 loss to President Biden.

The campaign stops came two days after the respected Granite State poll found Trump trailing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis by 12 points among New Hampshire Republicans even though the former president remains the GOPs only announced presidential candidate.

The poll, conducted by the University of New Hampshire, found DeSantis was the choice of 42% of likely GOP primary voters, with Trump at 30% a difference well outside the samples 5.2% margin of error.

The states first-in-the-nation primary status makes it crucial to Trumps nomination chances. But his popularity there crumbled during his presidency: he lost New Hampshire to Joe Biden by 7 points in 2020, after coming within a single point of beating Hillary Clinton there in 2016.

A host of big-name Republicans, including former veep Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, and others are widely expected to challenge Trump for the GOP nomination although recent national polls show all of them in the single digits, far behind both DeSantis and Trump in a hypothetical 2024 presidential primary.

An Emerson College poll this week gave Trump a narrow 44% to 41% lead over Biden in a hypothetical 2024 election, while a Biden-DeSantis race would be a toss-up: 40% for the incumbent president, 39% for the Republican rival.

Continued here:

Donald Trump opens 2024 run in New Hampshire, South Carolina