Daily Archives: May 12, 2023

It took barely a minute for Donald Trump to say rigged election. From there, he rambled. He ranted. He lied. And he lied some more. And that was the response to the first question of the evening to the first President in American history to refuse to concede his defeat and accept the peaceful transfer of power: Why should Americans put you back in the White House?

The disaster that was the CNN town hall with Trump in New Hampshire on Wednesday night was both predictable and predicted. None of it was a surprise. The Donald Trump running in the 2024 Presidential election is the same Donald Trump he always was, a purveyor of industrial-strength untruths. A demagogue. A hater. The struggle of the interviewer, CNNs Kaitlan Collins, to fact-check his fire hose of falsehoods was painful to watch. The kindest thing to say is that she tried. It is not easy when the former President of the United States is calling you a nasty person in front of a cheering crowd of his voters.

The cheering crowd, in fact, was the tell, the most revealing part of the whole exercise. Trump without the approval of the mob, his mob, would be just another angry old American man, an unwilling Florida retiree shouting at the television after a round of golf. Instead, he still commands his following, which means that he gets to be an angry old man shouting on the television and not merely at it. CNN described the audience on Wednesday night at Saint Anselm College as a collection of Republican and undecided New Hampshire voters who would consider voting Republican in the upcoming G.O.P. primary. But the whoops and cheers for Trump throughout did not convey undecidedness.

The crowd hooted, chuckled, or clapped when Trump called the former Speaker of the House Crazy Nancy and when he insisted that his former Vice-President, Mike Pence, had the power to single-handedly overturn the election results on January 6, 2021. They laughed when he insulted Collins. The more offensive Trumps words, it seemed, the more they cheered. Only a day before the CNN event, a jury in New York had found Trump civilly liable for sexually abusing and defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll and awarded her five million dollars in damages. Trumps response was to insult Carroll again on national TV. When he said that he felt sorry for her ex-husband, the audience laughed. When he called her a whack job, they laughed once more. When the show was finally over, the audience offered Trump a standing ovation.

Throughout, Collins struggled, and how could she not, having been assigned a near-impossible task? One revealing moment, among so many, came well into the hour, after Trump interrupted a long, untruthful speech about how he had finished the border wall, which he had not in fact finished, to mention, yet again, the rigged election of 2020. Collins tried once more to interject. The election was not rigged, Mr. President, she said. You cant keep saying that all night long.

But he could, and he did.

The question, of course, was why this was happening in the first placea question that is ever more pressing, considering that Trump is now and will likely remain the front-runner for the Republican nomination to reclaim the office he lost in 2020. One awful hour of television will not resolve the matter. Right up until Trump finally exits public life, whenever that will be, this debate will continue: Should Trump be given a platform to make his attacks on American democracy, and, if so, should you listen? Does the mere fact of his large following in an increasingly radicalized and extremist Republican Party require that news organizations broadcast his views to millions?

In the immediate aftermath of Trumps 2020 defeat, with the memory still fresh of his summoning of a violent horde to the U.S. Capitol to do his bidding, there seemed to be a clear answer. The answer was no. He was kicked off Twitter and Facebook. Even Fox News mostly cancelled him. And yet here we are, little more than two years later. Trump has not changed his views or become any less untruthful, inflammatory, or dangerous. If anything, he has become more extreme, even saying that the Constitution itself should be subject to termination if that is what it takes to reinstate him to power. But the outrage over Trumps post-election offenses turned out to have an expiration date. His banishment, it seems, came with an unspoken codicil: it was contingent on Republicans repudiating him, which they have not done. The polls are almighty; he leads, so he can speak.

Whatever else it was, the Trump show on CNN certainly did remind viewers, all too clearly, of who he is. He repeated a litany of his favored lines from the past, about other countries ripping us off and Antifa ruining American cities and impeachment hoax No. 1. He gleefully slung insults at RINOs and Democrats and Europeans. He said words like horrible a lot. Our country is being destroyed by stupid people, by very stupid people, he said. It was the same garbled nonsense, empty catchphrases, and nasty gibberish so familiar from his four years in the White House. This 2024 Trump still does not speak in coherent sentences, or make arguments. Hes a demagogue. He demagogued.

Aside from the sheer awful spectacle, its hard to say that any actual news came out of the questioning. Nor was it clear what CNN executives expected from a CNN-manufactured event that, as Trump said in a social-media post before it began, appeared to be all about an effort by the network to get those fantastic Trump ratings back! It certainly was not news that a former President who, according to the Post, made more than thirty thousand falsehoods and misleading statements while in office would ceaselessly lie on air. By the time the farce was over, Trump had made false claims about the 2020 election, about supposedly offering the use of ten thousand soldiers on January 6th, about creating the greatest economy in history and the biggest tax cuts ever. He had lied about President Obama taking classified documents when he left office. Among others. No surprise there: a lying liar is going to lie. Trump is nothing if not consistent in that.

He is also a believer in another time-honored technique of the propagandist: repetition. His provocations on Wednesday night were familiar to anyone who has been paying attention. We already knew that Trump does not want Ukraine to win the war, that he will pardon the January 6th insurrectionists, and that he does not want to say where he stands on Republican efforts to further restrict reproductive rights after the Trump-majority Supreme Court threw out Roe v. Wade. Along with expressing a willingness to see the United States default on its debt if Biden does not give in to Republican demands for spending cuts, those were the newsiest things he said, and they were not new. The shocking revelation on Wednesday was not what he said, it was that he was given the platform to say it.

But, as a matter of politics, both Trump and Biden could claim to have benefitted from the evening. No less a Trump cheerleader and frequent media basher than Stephen Miller thanked CNN for giving Trump the airtime. His advisers were said, per the plugged-in reporter Jonathan Swan, to be thrilled. Trump critics also saw some gain for their side from the wretched performance. They imagined all the attack ads that could come out of it, all the fresh material Trump had just provided for those millions who loathe him. With a highly unpopular President of their own who has just announced a relection bid at the age of eighty, Democrats will need to make the race a referendum not on Biden but on Trump. Both parties in this age of polarization have become skilled at ramping up the outrage and anxiety of their voters.

Soon after the town hall was over, Biden tweeted: Its simple, folks. Do you want four more years of that? This, in short, is the 2024 campaign. It is coming fast upon us. Beware.

Read more:

Don't Say You Haven't Been Warned About Trump and 2024 - The New Yorker

Donald Trumps ex-director of strategic communications has revealed that she saw a number of problematic behavior and comments by the former president during his tenure at the White House, largely towards young female staffers. She said she went so far as to report itbut that nothing was ever apparently done about it.

Alyssa Farah Griffin, who is now a co-host of The View but was at the time among the dozen most senior staff in the West Wing, is sharing her experience in the Trump administration in the hopes that it will deter other women from working for the real estate mogul and reality TV star.

Listen, the mans the former commander-in-chief, hes currently far and away the Republican frontrunner for president, and I think the American public needs to know who Donald Trump is, Griffin says.

I saw behavior and engagement with very young junior female staffers from the former president that made me uncomfortable, she adds, alleging Trumps behavior was an open secret, open discussion in the West Wing.

The way I was brought up, the way that Ive behaved professionally is it is my duty to report that. So I took it to my direct report, which was the then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, she added. He seemed very aware of the issue and said he was going to handle it.

Subscribe to The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or Overcast.

Griffin says to her knowledge nothing was ever done but that I cant say that definitively.

Its a pattern. It was visible. It didnt take a genius to see it. It was reported, I dont know if it was handled, but this is a man who does not respect women, she continued. Its a man who objectified women.

Weve heard it in his own words countless times. And I thought it was important to state it yet again after the E. Jean Carroll decision, because hes now been found liable by a jury of his peers for predatory behavior. And if I could help protect any woman who might think about working around him, think about being around him, I just wanted to share that.

Plus! The Daily Beast reporters Kelly Weill joins the podcast to discuss the Allen Outlet Mall shooting in Texasand a neo-Nazi diary the gunman kept on a Russian social media site.

If you read this guys writing[he is] very alone, does not seem happy at all, Weill said.

Listen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher.

Excerpt from:

Donald Trump's Actions to Young Staff at White House Was an 'Open Secret,' Says Alyssa Farah Griffin - The Daily Beast

When former President Donald J. Trump was inveighing against E. Jean Carroll on CNN Wednesday night, at least one person was not watching: Ms. Carroll.

She was asleep and did not learn of his comments calling her claim of a decades-old sexual assault fake and a made-up story until Thursday morning, when her lawyer sent her a transcript, she said.

Its just stupid, its just disgusting, vile, foul, it wounds people, Ms. Carroll said in an interview with The New York Times on Thursday, adding that she had been insulted by better people.

Mr. Trumps comments came just one day after a Manhattan jury awarded Ms. Carroll $5 million in damages and found him liable for sexually abusing her in the mid-1990s in a department store dressing room and also for defaming her on his Truth Social platform.

Mr. Trump, in response to questions from the CNN moderator about the Manhattan jurys verdict Tuesday, called Ms. Carroll a wack job and said her civil trial was a rigged deal. The audience had been drawn primarily from Republican groups, and his comments drew applause and laughter.

Ms. Carroll said she was infuriated when her longtime stylist told her on Thursday morning that the stylists 15-year-old son was talking about what Mr. Trump had said on television Wednesday.

I am upset on the behalf of young men in America, Ms. Carroll said. They cannot listen to this balderdash and this old-timey view of women, which is a cave man view.

Ms. Carroll, 79, is now weighing whether to file a new defamation lawsuit against Mr. Trump, said her lawyer, Roberta A. Kaplan. In addition to the case that ended Tuesday, Ms. Carroll has an earlier defamation suit against Mr. Trump, 76, that is still pending. Mr. Trump has argued in that case that he cannot be sued because he made those comments in his official capacity as president.

Ms. Carroll made it clear in the interview that despite Mr. Trumps mockery, she saw the jurys verdict this week as validating her account that he sexually assaulted her in the mid-1990s, something he has denied repeatedly and loudly.

Im thrilled that we won, she said. Thats it. He did it. He knows he did it.

Mr. Trumps lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, filed a notice of appeal for Mr. Trump on Thursday.

In the wide-ranging interview, Ms. Carroll, accompanied by her lawyers, addressed why she believes the jury found Mr. Trump liable for sexually abusing her but not for raping her, as she had long claimed; how she felt being aggressively cross-examined by Mr. Tacopina; why she did not scream when Mr. Trump assaulted her; and the rituals she and her lawyers performed each day of the two-week trial.

She made it clear that she respected the jurors six men and three women who were kept anonymous by the judge and who, she said, remained an enigma to her.

It was like Saturday Night Mystery Theater every time they walked in, Ms. Carroll said. I studied their faces and they were absolutely deadpan like nine statues. She added: Never cracked a smile, never lifted an eyebrow, never batted a left eyelash.

It was those jurors who parsed the evidence and testimony by Ms. Carroll and 10 other witnesses called on her behalf before rendering a verdict in less than three hours.

Ms. Carroll, in the interview, blamed herself for their decision to find Mr. Trump liable for sexually abusing her but not for rape.

I didnt make myself clear when I was testifying, Ms. Carroll said.

Under New York law, according to Ms. Carrolls lawyer, Ms. Kaplan, penetration by the penis must occur for there to be a rape. Ms. Carroll had testified that after Mr. Trump led her into the Bergdorfs lingerie department and into a dressing room, he shoved her against a wall and inserted his fingers and then his penis into her vagina.

I couldnt see anything that was happening, Ms. Carroll had told the jury. But I could certainly feel it. I could certainly feel that pain in the finger jamming up.

In the interview Thursday, Ms. Carroll noted that she had twice been married, and she said, I know what a penis feels like, and he did insert his penis.

Mr. Trump has not only denied any assault, he has claimed he was never even at Bergdorfs, did not know Ms. Carroll and has said he would not have raped her in any case, because she was not his type.

By its verdict, the jury indicated it believed Ms. Carroll. Michael Ferrara, another of Ms. Carrolls lawyers, noted in the interview that the jurors handling of the case showed that the process was not rigged.

If they were out to just get Donald Trump, why not check the rape box? Mr. Ferrara said. They didnt do that because they actually considered the evidence.

Ms. Carroll delivered visceral testimony, telling the jury of the attack in every grim particular and that it had ended her romantic life.

Then, she was cross-examined by Mr. Tacopina for almost two days. She described in the interview how her lawyers prepared her to be questioned by Mr. Tacopina, who is known for his charm but also for his aggressiveness: They told me he would pull out all stops.

By the time I was sitting down, I was braced up. If you notice, I always wore a tight-fitting jacket just to keep myself together, you know, as sort of a little bit of armor against Joe Tacopina.

Mr. Tacopina pressed her repeatedly about why she had not screamed during the assault. She told him that she was in too much of a panic and had been fighting. After more back and forth, she declared, Im telling you, he raped me, whether I screamed or not.

In the interview, Ms. Carroll recalled the exchange. This is not the 16th century, she said. I was almost embarrassed for him. Just embarrassed. How dare he?

To malign a woman for not screaming is preposterous, she said.

Mr. Tacopina, reached Friday, said, that as a father of two daughters, I would never suggest there is an appropriate way to respond when you are a true rape victim. The issue is obviously I didnt view Ms. Carroll as a true rape victim, nor did the jury.

He added, The only reason I questioned her about her not screaming is because she gave four different reasons why she didnt scream.

During the trial, Ms. Carroll said, she tried to stay off social media. At night, she said, she was in bed by 7, and each morning, her stylist visited and prayed with her, even though Ms. Carroll said she is not a religious person.

That became the ritual, Ms. Carroll said.

Ms. Carroll said that after the verdict, she returned to Ms. Kaplans office. Wine was flowing.

There was such joy, Ms. Carroll said. We almost floated to the top of the ceiling.

Ms. Kaplan, her lawyer, said Thursday that a decision would be made soon on whether Ms. Carroll will file another defamation suit in light of Mr. Trumps comments on CNN.

Everythings on the table, obviously, and we have to give serious consideration to it, Ms. Kaplan said.

As for Ms. Carroll, she said she feels ready to move forward in her personal life perhaps even dating again.

I wasnt having romance, and I was aware something was desperately wrong, Ms. Carroll said.

She had testified at the trial that she long had blamed herself for flirting with Mr. Trump after their chance encounter at Bergdorfs and allowing him to lead her to the lingerie section and into the dressing room, where he attacked her.

With her lawsuit over and Mr. Trump held accountable, Ms. Carroll said she was open again to exploring that part of her life.

Lets see if I can do it," she said.

She paused briefly.

Yes, Im going to do it, Im going to do it, so watch out.

Excerpt from:

E. Jean Carroll May Sue Trump a Third Time After 'Vile' Comments on CNN - The New York Times

The Justice Department is seeking to stop a deposition with Donald Trump this month in lawsuits filed by two former FBI officials who have been frequent targets of criticism by the former president.

In a redacted court filing Thursday, Justice Department attorneys said Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar authorized an appeal to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C., unless a lower court judge reconsiders an earlier ruling allowing Trumps deposition to take place before a deposition with FBI Director Christopher Wray.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled in February that Trump and Wray could be deposed in the lawsuits, which Peter StrzokandLisa Page brought against the Justice Department and the FBI in 2019.

Justice Department attorneys said in Thursday's filing that they just recently learned that Trump's deposition has been scheduled for May 24, before any deposition for Wray.

Contrary to the request of the United States, Mr. Strzok seeks to depose former President Trump before Director Wray, thereby making it impossible to determine if the Directors deposition might obviate the need to depose the former President, Justice Department attorneys wrote in a 10-page motion to block Trump's deposition.

They asked the appeals court to resolve the matter by Tuesday.

Lawyers for Strzok declined to comment. Attorneys for Page and Trump did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In a court filing in March, the Justice Department said Trump has not requested an assertion of privilege over any of the information within the scope of the authorized depositions.

Jackson's ruling in February said the Trump and Wray depositions must be limited to two hours and to a narrow set of topics that were discussed at a sealed hearing.

Trump frequently targeted Strzok and Page during his presidency. They made headlines in December 2017 when it was announced that they had been removed from then-special counsel Robert Muellers investigation over text messages that disparaged Trump.

Pages lawsuit alleges privacy violations and Strzoks alleges wrongful termination, with both citing the release of text messages.

Page, who resigned as the FBIs counsel in May 2018, had argued in her lawsuitthat thetext messagesshe exchanged with Strzok were unlawfully released and that attacks by Trumpand his allies had damaged her reputation.

Strzok's lawyers are seeking Trump's deposition to determine whether he met with and directly pressured FBI and Justice Department officials to fire Strzok or directed any White House staff members to do so.

If the deposition moves ahead as planned, it would come on the heels of a finding by a federal jury in New York that Trump is liable for sexual abuse and defamation in a lawsuit filed by writer E. Jean Carroll. Trump has indicated he will appeal the verdict.

He also faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments from 2016. Trump pleaded not guilty last month to all charges.

Zo Richards

Zo Richards is the evening politics reporter for NBC News.

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DOJ seeks to prevent Trump deposition in Strzok and Page lawsuits - NBC News

Theres usually a simple rule of thumb for thinking about outlying poll results: Toss it in the average, and dont think too hard about it. After all, outlying poll results are inevitable, simply by chance. When they occur, it shouldnt be any surprise.

But sometimes, that guidance gets a little hard to follow. The most recent ABC/Washington Post poll is proving to be one of those cases.

In a startling finding, the poll found Donald J. Trump and Ron DeSantis each leading President Biden by seven percentage points, with Mr. Biden trailing among young people and struggling badly among nonwhite voters. After a few days of relentless media conversation, even Ive been forced to abandon the usual rule of thumb.

Make no mistake: This survey is an outlier. The Post article reporting the result acknowledged as much. But of all the cases over the last few years when an outlier has dominated the political discourse, this may be one of the more useful ones. For one, it may not be quite as much as an outlier as you might assume. Even if it is, it may nonetheless help readers internalize something that might have been hard to believe without such a stark survey result: Mr. Trump is quite competitive at the outset of the race.

To the extent the usual rule of thumb would mean dismissing the poll result and returning to an assumption that Mr. Trump cant win, the usual guidance might be counterproductive.

Before I go on, I should acknowledge that I do have a few gripes with this survey. It reported the results among all adults, not registered or likely voters. The question about the presidential matchup explicitly offered respondents the option to say theyre still undecided, which could tend to disadvantage the candidate with less enthusiastic support. For good measure, the matchup was buried 16th in the questionnaire, following other questions about the debt ceiling, abortion, the presidential primary, the allegations against Mr. Trump and so on.

But my various gripes probably dont explain Mr. Trumps strength. The poll actually did report a result among registered voters and still found Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis ahead by six. And just a few months ago, an entirely different ABC/Post survey asked about the presidential matchup among registered voters in the typical way, without offering undecided as an option. What did they find? Mr. Trump still led by three points among registered voters. Similarly, they found him leading by two last September.

Interestingly, the January and September surveys showed all of the same peculiar results by subgroup Mr. Trumps lead among young voters (18 to 39), and the staggering Democratic weakness among nonwhite voters. And while this was not included in the most recent poll, Mr. Trump led among voters making less than $50,000 per year, historically a Democratic voting group. No other high-quality survey has consistently shown Mr. Biden performing so poorly, especially among young voters.

All of this means that the ABC/Post poll isnt quite like the usual outlier. This consistent pattern requires more than just statistical noise and random sampling. Something else is at play, whether thats something about the ABC/Post methodology, the underlying bias in telephone response patterns nowadays, or some combination of the above. It should be noted that the ABC/Post poll is nearly the last of the traditional, live-interview, random-digit-dialing telephone surveys that dominated public polling for much of the last half-century. So its easy to understand why it could produce different results, even if its not obvious why it produces them.

But if no other survey has matched the ABC/Post poll, it would probably be wrong to say that its entirely alone in showing a weak Biden. Yes, its alone in showing Mr. Trump ahead by seven (counting leaners). But even the last Times/Siena poll, in October, showed Mr. Trump ahead by one point among registered voters. So far this year, the average of all polls has shown an essentially tied race.

And virtually all of the polling shows an admittedly more muted version of the same basic demographic story, especially among nonwhite voters. Even excluding ABC/Post polling altogether (in clear violation of the toss it in the average rule), Mr. Biden still has a mere 49-37 lead over Mr. Trump among Hispanic voters and just a 70-18 lead among Black voters. In each case, Mr. Biden is far behind usual Democratic benchmarks, and it comes on the heels of a midterm election featuring unusually low Black turnout.

If the lesson from the ABC/Post poll is that Mr. Biden is vulnerable and weak among usually reliable Democratic constituencies, then perhaps the takeaway from an outlying poll isnt necessarily a misleading one.

Continued here:

An Outlier Poll on Trump vs. Biden That Still Informs - The New York Times

Just a few months ago, the Republican presidential primary seemed as if it might include a frank and vigorous debate about the leadership and limitations of Donald J. Trump.

But any appetite for criticism of Mr. Trump among Republicans has nearly evaporated in a very short time. Voters rallied around him after his criminal indictment in March on charges related to hush money for a porn star, and potential rivals have faltered, with few willing to take direct aim at the former president and front-runner for the nomination.

In a live town hall on CNN on Wednesday, the cheers for every falsehood and insult that Mr. Trump uttered under tough questioning by a moderator showed there was little to no daylight between Mr. Trump and the Republican base. A quirky effort to disrupt the love-in by Chris Christie a potential rival who bought Facebook ads to supply audience members with skeptical questions such as Why are you afraid of debating? went nowhere.

In surveys and focus groups, a fair share of Republican voters say that they would prefer a less polarizing, more electable nominee. But a near taboo against criticizing Mr. Trump has made it hard for rivals, apart from Mr. Christie and one or two others near the bottom of polls, to stand out.

In what looks like a rerun of the 2016 Republican primary, almost none of Mr. Trumps competitors have openly gone after him, despite his glaring vulnerabilities. Instead, they are hoping now as then that he will somehow self-destruct, leaving them to inherit his voters.

After a jury found Mr. Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation of the writer E. Jean Carroll on Tuesday, Mike Pence, the former vice president, who is weighing a 2024 campaign, declined to criticize Mr. Trump. In an interview with NBC News, Mr. Pence said it was just one more story focusing on my former running mate that I know is a great fascination to members of the national media, but I just dont think its where the American people are focused.

Other 2024 candidates either defended Mr. Trump, such as the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, or played down the verdict, including Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor. Ms. Haley, who announced her candidacy in February, even defended Mr. Trump this week for threatening to skip Republican primary debates. With the numbers he has now, why would he go get on a debate stage and risk that? she said.

Only two 2024 hopefuls found the verdict in the Carroll case to be disqualifying for a would-be president: Mr. Christie and Asa Hutchinson, the former Arkansas governor. Mr. Hutchinson criticized Mr. Trumps contempt for the rule of law.

Several months ago, polling had suggested Mr. Trump could be a potentially weak candidate, with only 25 to 35 percent support from Republican voters in high-quality surveys. The Republican National Committee promised an autopsy of the 2022 midterms that was expected to address Mr. Trumps role in the partys surprising losses.

But today, the lane in the Republican primary for a candidate who is openly critical of Mr. Trump seems to be closing.

Mr. Hutchinsons long-shot campaign has failed to gain notice. Mr. Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, who has promised a decision this month on whether he will run, also has yet to generate much interest. Even the occasionally critical Mr. Pence, who mildly suggested Mr. Trump would be accountable to history for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, is struggling for affirmation from the Republican base.

And the R.N.C. autopsy of the midterms? A draft reportedly did not mention Mr. Trump at all.

David Kochel, a Republican strategist who advised Jeb Bush when he ran against Mr. Trump in 2016, said there was no opportunity for a candidate openly critical of Mr. Trump in the 2024 primary.

Voters have seen Trump as the most attacked president of their lifetimes, and they have an allergic reaction to one of their own doing it, Mr. Kochel said. Hes built up these incredible antibodies, in part stemming from how the base perceives he has been treated.

A CBS News poll released this month found that among likely Republican primary voters, only an insignificant handful, 7 percent, wanted a candidate who criticizes Trump.

The three candidates whom voters are the least open to considering, the survey found, are those who have criticized Mr. Trump to varying degrees: Mr. Christie, Mr. Hutchinson and Mr. Pence.

David Carney, a Republican strategist in New Hampshire, said he had expected the race to be more competitive by now, but a turning point occurred in March with Mr. Trumps indictment in New York.

It fell into the presidents narrative of the past five years, Mr. Carney said, referring to Mr. Trumps portrayal of himself as a victim of a criminal justice system out to get him. Mr. Carney described what he called a boomerang effect on Republican primary polls. Theyre beating up your guy theres a rallying around the flag.

Mr. Trumps rivals could still see a surge in support between now and next years first primary contests, but for the time being he is dominating all challengers. A polling average shows him with a 30-point lead over his closest rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who has yet to formally announce his run. All other candidates, declared and potential, are distant afterthoughts in the race, for now.

The former president is insulated from criticism, strategists said, because of the intense and dug-in partisanship of the Republican base, and because many of those voters get information only from right-wing sources, which have minimized the Jan. 6 attack and obscured Mr. Trumps 2020 loss.

They barely have access to the truth, said Sarah Longwell, an anti-Trump Republican strategist. Ms. Longwell, who hosts a podcast about Republican voters called The Focus Group, said a sizable share of primary voters wanted to move on from Mr. Trump.

But according to polling, a majority of Republican voters dont believe Mr. Trump really lost in 2020. Every politician on their team, everyone they know and all the media they consume all tells them that the election was stolen, Ms. Longwell said.

Mr. Christie, the most sharply critical 2024 hopeful of Mr. Trump, recently attacked the former president, calling him a child for denying the 2020 election results and cowardly for suggesting he might duck Republican debates.

But when Mr. Christie tested the electoral waters during visits to New Hampshire the past two months, including at the same college where Mr. Trumps town hall took place on Wednesday, his crowds seemed tilted toward independents and even Democrats, including those who knew him as the house conservative on ABC News.

One element that may factor in Mr. Christies calculus: The New Hampshire primary next year could favor an anti-Trump Republican because of an influx of independent voters. Because Democrats chose South Carolina as their first nominating state and because President Biden may not appear on the New Hampshire ballot or campaign in the state up to 100,000 independents are expected to cast ballots in the Republican race, where they could tilt the results.

Independents are open to voting for a Republican candidate, said Matt Mowers, who served as Mr. Christies New Hampshire state director in 2016, but they arent open to voting for a crazy Republican.

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Why the Anti-Trump Republican Primary Has Yet to Emerge - The New York Times

How does George Santos lie? Let us count the ways.

It is far too easy to mock Santos. His serial fantasies seem, in some ways, more amusing and frivolous than serious and dangerous. Who, after all, lies about being a volleyball star? If you are going to lie, go bigat least claim to be a basketball star.

But mocking Santos in this way both trivializes his rampant criminality and obscures his potent symbolism. Santos is not just a criminal in his own right; he is also a Donald Trump Mini-Me, exemplifying the intersection of the Big Lie form of politics and serial criminality. In his indictment, there are lessons to learn about both the degradation of politics and the limits of criminal laws ability to resist that degradation.

Some of Santoss alleged criminality is almost prosaic. Prosecutors allege that in June 2020, during the early months of the COVID pandemic, Santos sought unemployment benefits in New York, even though he was employed by a Florida investment firm (apparently, Harbor City Capital) earning a salary of $120,000 annually. If these facts are proven true, Santos is little more than a garden-variety crook trying to scam the federal government.

The more notable allegations involve Santoss fundraising activities during his campaign for Congress. Santos is alleged to have personally profited from a fraud involving his solicitation of contributions to assist in his congressional campaign. Election finance law allows the creation of a tax-exempt organization under section 501(c)(4) of the tax laws for the purpose of making independent expenditures on behalf of a candidate. Because these independent organizations have only limited obligations to disclose the sources of their funding, they are considered an effective and useful way of influencing elections without too much public exposure.

But to be lawful, the 501(c)(4) organization has to be an actual non-profit and spend money independently to advance a candidates campaign. According to the prosecutors, in Santoss case, neither happened. The company in question appears to be a for-profit Florida company named RedStone Strategies, and the money collected was sent to Santoss personal bank accounts where he used the money to buy luxury designer clothing and pay part of his outstanding car loan, among other things.

Podcast May 11 2023

From promising a general amnesty to Jan 6 rioters, to re-victimizing E. Jean Carroll on

In other words, even though Santos and those who worked for him told the contributors that the money would pay for political ads to advance Santoss campaign, Santos instead put the money in his own pocket and used it for his personal benefit. The lies that Santos told by email and by text are at the heart of the criminal wire fraud charges against him. And transferring $74,000 from the company to his own personal account is said to be evidence of laundering the criminal proceeds for his own benefit.

Again, a simple frauda lie told in an effort to separate the rubes from their money. But this time it is a crime with larger political implications, not because of Santos, but because of how his alleged crimes mimic Trump and those around him. In 2019, a New York judge ordered Trump to pay $2 million because money Trump raised supposedly for veterans actually went to his presidential campaign. The House January 6th Committee uncovered that money Trump raised for his legal defense (i.e., his efforts in court to overturn the 2020 election) actually went to a political action committee. Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon was charged with fraud for raising money putatively to building a wall on the southern border, then pocketing it.

Special Counsel Jack Smith is said to be gathering evidence about whether or not Trumps team solicited donations with false claims of election fraud. The idea is that Trump lost the 2020 election and that he knew he had lost. At least two outside consulting firms hired by the Trump team investigated those claims and reported to the Trump team that his claims of election fraud were not supported by any evidence.

It appears, however, that notwithstanding their knowledge that the election was lost fair and square, Trumps Save America PAC solicited and received hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from donors via email solicitations that claimed the election had been stolen. In much the same way that Santoss lies soliciting funds came to form the basis of charges against him, one can readily imagine that emails sent out to small-dollar donors saying, in effect, send us $25 so we can prove that Trump won the election would likewise be subject to potential fraud charges if those who crafted them or who directed that they be sent knew that it would not be possible to prove the election claims.

To be sure, there are differences in the two cases. Fund-raising solicitations are well-known for the proliferation of vague, unprovable, and overblown claims. It is no crime, for example, for Trump to say, elect me and I will cut taxes, even if he knows he cannot achieve that goal. Whether or not Trumps solicitations crossed the line from grandiose puffery to criminal fraud depends on the precise phrasing of the solicitations, how they were perceived by the victims who donated funds, and the depth of the knowledge of falsity held by those who sent the emails. These are all questions that need to be further examined.

And, likewise, unlike Santos (and Bannon), there is, as yet, no evidence that Trump put the money in his own pocket. So the personal profit motive that Santos is facing may not be present in a Trump-related case. Those differences may well matter in the end.

Or they may not. The charges against Santos, like those against Bannon, are a template for potential charges involving the Trump campaign. While personal profit is a robust motivation, so is maintaining the narcissistic fiction of a stolen election. Whatever the motivation, it is a crime to lie to those from whom you solicit money.

Bannon was pardoned by Trump for that crime. Santos faces criminal charges. Both are Trumpian fraudsters on a smaller scale. And so, perhaps, the Santos case is a trial run for these types of allegations. If so, Trump may yet face fraud charges as well.

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How Is George Santos Different from Donald Trump? - The Bulwark

Indiana Sen. Todd Young strongly rebuked Donald Trump Thursday, telling reporters in Washington D.C. that he wont support his fellow Republican in his 2024 run for the GOP presidential nomination.

When asked why, according to several tweets, Young said, Where do I begin?

Young named at least one factor in the brief exchange: Trumps failure to vocalize his support for Ukraine in the yearlong conflict following the Russian invasion.

I think President Trumps judgment is wrong in this case. (Russian) President (Vladimir) Putin and his government have been engaged in war crimes Thats why I dont intend to support him for the Republican nomination, Young said, according to video tweeted by CNN reporter Manu Raju.

In a CNN Town Hall on Wednesday night, moderator Kaitlan Collins asked Trump about whether Ukraine should win the war, Trump said, he didnt think in terms of winning or losing.

I want everybody to stop dying, Trump said.

He declined to support Ukraine explicitly and pushed back against calling Putin a war criminal.

In a separate Twitter thread, HuffPost reporter Igor Bobic shared more from Young, who said he didnt believe Trump could unite people.

You want a nominee to win the general election. As President Trump says, I prefer winners. He just consistently loses. In fact, he has a habit of losing not just his own elections, but losing elections for others, Young said. I dont think conservatives would be well-served by electing someone whose core competency seems to be owning someone on Twitter.

Young sidestepped a direct question about whether hed support Trump in the general election if he won the nomination, saying he didnt think hed win. He added, Republicans are in a winning mood. We want to win. We know hes the shortest path to losing.

Donald Trump talks gun rights but not his criminal charges at NRA convention

Young was just re-elected in 2022 to a six-year term. He has broken with Trump on several key issues, including the presidents desire for then-Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election results.

Politico noted that Young was one of only four Senate GOP incumbents that Trump didnt endorse for re-election.

Sen. Mike Braun, who will not run for re-election in 2024, declined to respond to Youngs Thursday comments, but his office pointed to recent remarks made following Aprils NRA convention indicating Brauns full support for the former president.

Its not that difficult, Braun told Fox News Digital on April 22. I think when it comes to that candidate that can portray what was working so well pre-COVID, we know who that was. It was President Trump.

Braun opted to run for Indianas open gubernatorial seat in 2024, freeing up his post for Congressman Jim Banks, a long-time and enthusiastic supporter of Trump who reiterated his approval for Trump as recently as April 20.

Banks currently faces opposition in neither the primary nor the general election.

Trump appeared on CNN Wednesday as a candidate for the Republican nomination for president in the 2024 election. Other declared candidates for the nomination include: former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, Ryan Binkley, Larry Elder, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, Perry Johnson and Vivek Ramaswamy.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is also rumored to be considering a run for the Republican nomination.

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Sen. Todd Young says he won't support Trump nomination - Indiana Capital Chronicle

nominee Donald Trump addresses a campaign rally in the Rodeo Arena at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds October 29, 2016 in Golden, Colorado. The Federal Bureau of Investigation announced Friday it discovered emails pertinent to the closed investigation of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's private email server and are looking to see if they improperly contained classified information. Trump said "I think it's the biggest story since Watergate." (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)Getty Images

Former President Donald Trump took a victory lap Thursday, bragging about the sky high ratings for his town hall appearance on CNN Wednesday. People are criticizing CNN for giving me a Forum to tell the TRUTH, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. I believe it was a very smart thing that they did, with Sky High Ratings that they havent seen in a very long time. It was by far the biggest Show of the night, the week, and the month!

CNN, which has languished in third place behind MSNBC and Fox News Channel, jumped into first place Wednesday night, with its controversial Trump town hall delivering a total audience of 3.264 million viewers. CNN also drew more than 2 million viewers in the hours before and immediately after the town hall. CNN slipped back into third place in the 10 p.m. ET hour, but still had an audience well above its recent average, 1.23 million viewers.

But the network was harshly criticized for allowing Trump to repeat lies about the 2020 election being stolen and to disparage the criminal cases against him, including laughing a jurys verdict finding that Trump has sexually abused E. Jean Carroll. CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy, writing in CNNs Reliable Sources newsletter, said while moderator Kaitlan Collins is largely receiving praise for her relentless fact-checking of the former president, she was facing an impossible task. CNN and new network boss Chris Licht are facing a fury of criticism both internally and externally over the event.

On CNN Thursday evening, Anderson Cooper defending the networks decision to host Trump, saying you have every right to be outraged today and angry and never watch this network again. But do you think staying in your silo and only listening to people you agree with is going to make that person go away?

Later in the evening, Kaitlan Collinswho moderated the town hall session and tried repeatedly to counter Trumps lies, only to be called nasty by the former presidentdefended the event as newsworthy. Anchoring the networks CNN Primetime, Collins opened the hour by saying about last night before describing the town hall as a major inflection point in the Republican Partys search for its nominee, and potentially the starting line for Americas next presidential race.

Collins aired clips of Republicans in Congress who criticized Trumps performance, including Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, who said I think people saw last night what they would get with another term of Donald Trump as president, which is completely untethered to the truth.

Trump ridiculed criticism from both the left and right, saying in a message on Truth Social that the Radical Left screamed take it down, take it down during the Show because they saw that I was making so many important points on the Border, Energy Independence, the Afghanistan Catastrophe, Inflation, the Economy, Russia/Ukraine, and so much more. Many minds were changed on Wednesday night by listening to Common Sense, and sheer Brilliance.

While CNNs ratings were sky high compared to recent months, the town hall sagged compared to previous town hall events with Trump. Sean Hannitys town hall with Trump in June 2020 drew 5.1 million viewers on Fox News, and CNNs event Wednesday trailed the ratings for four other Trump town halls that aired on Fox, all delivering ratings between 3.5 and 4.2 million viewers. CNNs highest-rated town hall was with President Biden in 2021, which drew 3.7 million viewers.

Mark Joyella is a five-time Emmy Award-winning reporter and news anchor for television stations in Miami, Orlando, Tampa and New York City. He's worked in cable news at CNN and Fox and his writing has appeared in Adweek, the New York Post, the Orlando Sentinel, The Dallas Morning News and Men's Health.

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Donald Trump Defends CNNs Town Hall, Brags About Sky High Ratings - Forbes

In little over an hour, Donald J. Trump suggested the United States should default on its debts for the first time in history, injected doubt over the countrys commitment to defending Ukraine from Russias invasion, dangled pardons for most of the Capitol rioters convicted of crimes, and refused to say he would abide by the results of the next presidential election.

The second-term vision Mr. Trump sketched out at a CNN town-hall event on Wednesday would represent a sharp departure from core American values that have been at the bedrock of the nation for decades: its creditworthiness, its credibility with international allies and its adherence to the rule of law at home.

Mr. Trumps provocations were hardly shocking. His time in office was often defined by a the-rules-dont-apply-to-me approach to governance and a lack of interest in upholding the post-World War II national security order, and at 76 he is not bound to change much.

But his performance nonetheless signaled an escalation of his bid to bend the government to his wishes as he runs again for the White House, only this time with a greater command of the Republican Partys pressure points and a plan to demolish the federal bureaucracy.

The televised event crystallized that the version of Mr. Trump who could return to office in 2025 vowing to be a vehicle of retribution is likely to govern as he did in 2020. In that final year of his presidency, Mr. Trump cleared out people perceived as disloyal and promoted those who would fully indulge his instincts things he did not always do during the first three years of his administration, when his establishmentarian advisers often talked him out of drastic policy changes.

From my perspective, there was an evolution of Donald Trump over his four years, with 2020 I think being the most dramatic example of him the real him, said Mark T. Esper, who served as Mr. Trumps defense secretary. And I suspect that would be his starting point if he were to win office in 2024.

In a statement, Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Mr. Trump, dismissed criticisms of the former president, who he said spoke directly to Americans suffering from the Biden decline and President Trumps desire to bring about security and economic prosperity on Day 1. He added, Understandably, this vision is not shared by the failed warmongers, political losers and career bureaucratic hacks many of whom he fired or defeated who have created all of Americas problems.

At the town-hall event, Mr. Trump almost cavalierly floated ideas that would reshape the nations standing in the world, vowing to end the Ukraine war within 24 hours and declining to commit to supporting the country, an American ally that has relied on billions of dollars in aid to hold off the Russian onslaught.

Do you want Ukraine to win this war? CNNs Kaitlan Collins pressed.

Mr. Trump evaded.

I dont think in terms of winning and losing, he replied, adding that he was focused on winding down the conflict. I think in terms of getting it settled so we stop killing all these people. He did not mention that the majority of the killing has been committed by Russia.

Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, a Democrat who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee and is close to President Biden, said there were fears internationally of Mr. Trumps return.

His performance last night just reinforced what so many of our allies and partners have told me concerns them over the past two years that a return of Trump to the White House would be a return to the chaos, he said.

Some Republican elected officials who are skeptical of U.S. aid to Ukraine praised Mr. Trumps performance. Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio called his Ukraine answer real statesmanship.

Mr. Miller argued that Mr. Trump had an entire term with no new wars, and hes ready to do it again.

In New Hampshire, the audience of Republicans lapped up Mr. Trumps one-liners and slew of insults to Ms. Collins (a nasty person, he jeered, echoing his old attack on Hillary Clinton), to former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to E. Jean Carroll, the woman whom a jury this week found Mr. Trump liable of sexually abusing and defaming. And the crowd expressed no dissent as he again tried to rewrite the history of Jan. 6, 2021, when his supporters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to overturn his election loss.

It was a beautiful day, Mr. Trump said.

If he becomes president again, he said, he would most likely pardon a large portion of his supporters who were convicted over their actions on Jan. 6. They were there with love in their heart, he said of the crowd, which he beamed had been the largest of his career.

You see what youre going to get, which is a presidency untethered to the truth and untethered to the constitutional order, said Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, the Republican Partys most prominent Trump critic remaining on Capitol Hill. The idea that people whove been convicted of crimes are all going to be pardoned, or for the most part pardoned, is quite a departure from the principles of the Constitution and of our party.

Mr. Trump also embraced the possibility of defaulting in the debt-ceiling standoff between President Biden and congressional Republicans, an act that economists say could spell catastrophe for the global economy.

You might as well do it now because youll do it later, because we have to save this country, Mr. Trump said. Our country is dying.

Former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, a Republican who is running a long-shot campaign for president in 2024, said Mr. Trumps potential return to the White House posed an enormous risk for the nation.

He has shown such a disrespect for our institutions of government that are critical to our democracy, Mr. Hutchinson said, adding that he had been particularly unnerved by the talk of defaulting. He talked like it was OK for the United States to default on the debt. And thats like putting his past business practices of using bankruptcy as a tool and applying that to the government.

Despite such warnings from old-guard Republicans, the cheers from the conservative crowd in New Hampshire during the CNN event were an audible reminder of Mr. Trumps sizable lead in Republican primary polls.

Karl Rove, the architect of George W. Bushs two presidential victories, said in an interview that for true believers and ardent supporters, it was a boffo performance by Mr. Trump. But he said that other Republicans would now be forced to answer for a big pile of noxious material on their doorsteps.

Do other Republicans believe that rioters who attacked police, broke into the Capitol on Jan. 6 and, in some cases, attempted to overthrow the government should be pardoned? Mr. Rove asked. Do other Republicans agree that it doesnt matter if the United States government defaults on its debt? Do other Republicans not care who wins in Ukraine?

One of the most controversial policies of Mr. Trumps presidency was the forced separation of migrant parents from their children at the southern border, which Mr. Trump reversed himself on in June 2018 after a huge backlash.

But during the town hall on Wednesday, Mr. Trump suggested he would revive it. Well, when you have that policy, people dont come, he said. If a family hears theyre going to be separated, they love their family, they dont come.

Casual observers might be inclined, as some did in 2016, to take Mr. Trumps most extreme statements, such as his casual embrace of allowing the nation to default, seriously but not literally.

But underneath Mr. Trumps loose talk are detailed plans to bulldoze the federal civil service. These proposals have been incubating for more than two years within a network of well-funded and Trump-connected outside groups.

In the final, chaotic weeks of the 2020 election, Mr. Trumps lawyers, having crafted a novel legal theory in strict secrecy, released an executive order known as Schedule F that aimed to wipe out most employment protections against firing for tens of thousands of federal workers.

Mr. Trump ran out of time to carry out that plan. But a constellation of conservative groups has been preparing to revive the effort if he regains the presidency in 2025.

Pressed by Ms. Collins, Mr. Trump would not say he was willing to accept the 2024 results.

Former Representative Liz Cheney, who lost her Republican primary bid for re-election after helping lead the Houses investigation into Jan. 6, said of the Trump town hall, Virtually everything Donald Trump says enhances the case against him.

Donald Trump made clear yet again that he fully intended to corruptly obstruct Congresss official proceeding to count electoral votes in order to overturn the 2020 election, said Ms. Cheney, who has made opposing Mr. Trumps return to power her top political priority since her defeat last year. He says what happened on Jan. 6 was justified, and he celebrates those who attacked our Capitol.

On Wednesday, Mr. Trump also denounced his former vice president, Mike Pence, for upholding the 2020 election results and waved off the suggestion that Mr. Pence had been at risk on Jan. 6, even though the Secret Service tried to evacuate him from the Capitol.

I dont think he was in any danger, Mr. Trump said.

Marc Short, who was with Mr. Pence that day as his chief of staff, called out Mr. Trumps double standard in defending violence by his supporters while claiming to broadly stand for law and order.

Many of us called for the prosecution of B.L.M. rioters when they destroyed private businesses, Mr. Short said, referring to Black Lives Matter supporters. Its hard to see how theres a different threshold when rioters injure law enforcement, threaten public officials and loot the Capitol.

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Trump Town Hall Shows His Second-Term Plan: Shattering Even ... - The New York Times