Daily Archives: December 31, 2023

Retired U.S. Army General Barry McCaffrey said Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is "actively hoping" that former President Donald Trump wins the 2024 presidential election.

Trump, the frontrunner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, has long praised and even quoted the Russian leader on the campaign trail. At a rally in Durham, New Hampshire, earlier this month, the former president quoted Putin who criticized the numerous criminal charges that Trump is currently facing, all of which the former president has pleaded not guilty to.

"Even Vladimir Putin...says that Biden's, and this is a quote, politically motivated persecution of his political rival is very good for Russia because it shows the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracy," Trump quoted Putin as saying, who made the comment during an economic forum in eastern Russia in September. Putin did not name Biden in the original quote.

Meanwhile, the relationship between Trump and Putin has been criticized since the former president's 2016 run when questions of Russia's alleged election interference and possible coordination with the Trump campaign arose.

"I have never understood this whole relationship between Mr. Trump and Putin. Putin is a thug, a murderer, he's gotten the Russian Federation into terrible trouble economically, politically. He stamped out free speech. So, why Mr. Trump seems to be in league with this desperado is hard to understand," McCaffrey said during his interview appearance on MSNBC.

He added: "Yes, Putin and for that matter other criminal enterprises like the North Koreans are actively hoping to have Mr. Trump back in office, where in my personal opinion, he would be devastatingly bad for U.S. national security."

McCaffrey, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, was in the U.S. Army for 32 years and later served as director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy under President Bill Clinton.

Newsweek reached out to McCaffrey via X direct message, Trump's campaign via email and the Russian government via online form.

Following Trump's 2016 win against his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, the Department of Justice (DOJ) launched an investigation into possible Russian interference in the election.

Special counsel Robert Mueller led the investigation and in March 2019 his findings were made public in what is notoriously known as the Mueller report.

"Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities," the report said.

Russia has denied allegations of election inference and Trump has called the Mueller report a "complete and total exoneration."

However, regarding the question of whether Trump obstructed justice, the report said, "The President's efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests."

"While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him," according to the report.

In March 2021, a U.S. intelligence report was released that alleged Russia also tried to help Trump in the 2020 election, but that there was no evidence of foreign voter fraud.

Putin authorized "influence operations aimed at denigrating President Biden's candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting Trump, undermining public confidence in the electoral process and exacerbating socio-political divisions in the U.S," the Office of the Director of National Intelligence report said.

The Kremlin denied allegations that it interfered in the 2020 election, which Trump ultimately lost to Biden. The former president also denied being "given help from any country" in the election.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

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Putin 'Actively Hoping' to Get Donald Trump Back as President: Ret. General - Newsweek

A United States appeals court denied on Thursday Donald Trumps request to pause his upcoming defamation trial in a lawsuit brought by writer E. Jean Carroll.

Last week, the former presidents attorneys asked the court to delay the case for up to 90 days, asserting that they needed more time to consider whether to approach the U.S. Supreme Court after their presidential immunity claim was shot down.

Trump argued that he couldnt be sued for remarks he made in 2019 about Carroll and her sexual assault allegations against him because, as president, it was his job to tell the public that the accusations were false.

But, in a unanimous decision, the three-judge appeals court panel found that Trump waited too longthree yearsto come up with the defense.

The Jan. 16 trial, which will determine how much Trump owes Carroll in damages for his defamatory comments, will be Carrolls second against the former president.

In the previous case, she said Trump raped her at a New York department store in the 1990s and later defamed her after he called her accounts a con job.

In May, the jury found that Trump sexually abused and defamed Carroll and awarded the writer $5 million in damages.

Trump has also used the presidential immunity claim in Special Counsel Jack Smiths criminal election interference case. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan denied that immunity claim, an order that Trump has since appealed.

Excerpt from:

Trump Loses Bid to Put E. Jean Carroll Defamation Trial on Hold - The Daily Beast

The campaign to have former President Donald J. Trump removed from the ballot over his efforts to remain in power after the 2020 election has kicked into high gear, with decisions in two states, Maine and Colorado, barring him from the primary ballots.

Challenges are still underway in many more states, based on an obscure clause of a constitutional amendment enacted after the Civil War that disqualifies government officials who engaged in insurrection or rebellion from holding office.

Over the years, the courts and Congress have done little to clarify how that criterion should apply, adding urgency to the calls for the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on the politically explosive dispute before the upcoming election.

Heres what to know about the challenges.

The Maine secretary of state said on Thursday that Mr. Trump did not qualify for the Republican primary ballot there because of his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. She agreed with a handful of citizens who claimed that he had incited an insurrection and was thus barred from seeking the presidency again under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.

In a written decision, the secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, said that while no one in her position had ever barred a candidate from the ballot based on Section 3 of the amendment, no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection.

Hours later, the secretary of state in California announced that Mr. Trump would remain on the ballot in the nations most populous state, where election officials have limited power to remove candidates.

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Trump Ballot Challenges: What to Know - The New York Times

As the top elections official in Washington State, Steve Hobbs says he is troubled by the threat former President Donald J. Trump poses to democracy and fears the prospect of his return to power. But he also worries that recent decisions in Maine and Colorado to bar Mr. Trump from presidential primary ballots there could backfire, further eroding Americans fraying faith in U.S. elections.

Removing him from the ballot would, on its face value, seem very anti-democratic, said Mr. Hobbs, a Democrat who is in his first term as secretary of state. Then he added a critical caveat: But so is trying to overthrow your country.

Mr. Hobbss misgivings reflect deep divisions and unease among elected officials, democracy experts and voters over how to handle Mr. Trumps campaign to reclaim the presidency four years after he went to extraordinary lengths in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election. While some, like Mr. Hobbs, think it best that voters settle the matter, others say that Mr. Trumps efforts require accountability and should be legally disqualifying.

Challenges to Mr. Trumps candidacy have been filed in at least 32 states, though many of those challenges have gained little or no traction, and some have languished on court dockets for months.

The decisions happening right now come amid a collapse of faith in the American electoral system, said Nate Persily, a Stanford Law School professor who specializes in election law and democracy.

We are walking in new constitutional snow here to try and figure out how to deal with these unprecedented developments, he said.

Professor Persily and other legal experts said they expected the United States Supreme Court would ultimately overturn the decisions in Colorado and Maine to keep Mr. Trump on the ballot, perhaps sidestepping the question of whether Mr. Trump engaged in an insurrection. Mr. Persily is hopeful that whatever ruling the court issues will bring clarity and soon.

This is not a political and electoral system that can deal with ambiguity right now, he said.

Mr. Trump and his supporters have called the disqualifications in Maine and Colorado partisan ploys that robbed voters of their right to choose candidates. They accused Democrats of hypocrisy for trying to bar Mr. Trump from the ballot after campaigning in the past two elections as champions of democracy.

After the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Mr. Trump should be removed from the states primary ballot, Senator J.D. Vance, Republican of Ohio, said in a statement: Apparently democracy is when judges tell people theyre not allowed to vote for the candidate leading in the polls? This is disgraceful. The Supreme Court must take the case and end this assault on American voters.

Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey and Mr. Trumps most ardent critic in the Republican primary, warned that Maines decision would turn Mr. Trump into a martyr.

But other prominent critics of Mr. Trump many of them anti-Trump Republicans said the threat he posed to democracy and his actions surrounding the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol now required an extraordinary intervention, whatever the electoral consequences.

The challenges are based on a Reconstruction Era provision of the 14th Amendment that prohibits anyone who has engaged in rebellion or insurrection from holding federal or state office.

J. Michael Luttig, a retired conservative federal appeals court judge, hailed Colorados and Maines decisions as unassailable interpretations of the Constitution. Officials in Maine and Colorado who disqualified Mr. Trump from the ballot have written that their decisions stemmed from following the language of the Constitution.

But on a recent sunny Friday afternoon in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, Deena Drewis, 37, a copy writer, and Aaron Baggaley, 43, a contractor, both of whom have consistently voted for Democrats, expressed a queasy ambivalence over such an extraordinary step.

Im really just conflicted, Mr. Baggaley said. Its hard to imagine he didnt fully engage in insurrection. Everything points to it. But the other half of the country is in a position where they feel like it should be up to the electorate.

Officials in Democratic-controlled California have shown little appetite for following Colorado and Maine. Californias Democratic secretary of state, Shirley Weber, announced on Thursday that Mr. Trump would remain on the ballot, and Gov. Gavin Newsom dismissed calls by other Democrats to remove him. We defeat candidates at the polls, Mr. Newsom said in a statement. Everything else is a political distraction.

In interviews, some voters and experts said it was premature to disqualify Mr. Trump because he had not been criminally convicted of insurrection. They worried that red-state officials could use the tactic to knock Democratic candidates off future ballots, or that the disqualifications could further poison the countrys political divisions while giving Mr. Trump a new grievance to rail against.

Attempts to disqualify demagogues with deep popular support often backfire, said Yascha Mounk, a professor and political scientist at Johns Hopkins University who has written about threats to democracies. The only way to neutralize the danger posed by authoritarian populists like Donald Trump is to beat them at the ballot box, as decisively as possible and as often as it takes.

The decisions by Colorados highest court and Maines secretary of state barring Mr. Trump from state primary ballots are on hold for now and are likely to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

While most of the challenges to Mr. Trumps candidacy have been proceeding in federal or state courts, Maines constitution required the voters seeking to disqualify Mr. Trump to file a petition with the secretary of state, putting the politically volatile and hugely consequential decision into the hands of Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat.

Her counterparts in other states said that they had spent months discussing whether they could face a similar decision, and that they had been talking with other elections officials and their legal teams about the thickets of state laws governing each states elections.

In Washington State, Mr. Hobbs said he did not believe he had the power as secretary of state to unilaterally remove Mr. Trump from the ballot. He was relieved, he said, because he did not think one person should have the power to decide who qualifies to run for president.

The stakes for the nation were enormous, Mr. Hobbs said, because of the damage Mr. Trump had already done to faith in the nations elections.

Its hard to put the genie back in the bottle, he said. This is going to be a long-term effort to try to regain trust among those who have lost it.

Jena Griswold, Colorados Democratic secretary of state, said in an interview this week that she supported decisions by Ms. Bellows and the Colorado Supreme Court to remove Mr. Trump from the ballot.

Election workers and secretaries of state have increasingly become the targets of conspiracy theorists and violent threats since Mr. Trumps refusal to accept his 2020 defeat; Ms. Griswold said she had received 64 death threats since the lawsuit seeking to remove Mr. Trump from the ballot was filed by six Republican and unaffiliated voters in Colorado.

All of us swear to uphold our state constitution and the U.S. Constitution, Ms. Griswold said. Making these decisions takes bravery and courage.

Her office announced this week that, because Mr. Trumps case had been appealed, his name would be included on Colorados primary ballots unless the U.S. Supreme Court said otherwise or declined to take up his case.

In Arizona, placing Mr. Trump on the ballot was a more cut-and-dry decision, said Adrian Fontes, the Democratic secretary of state. He said that state law required him to list any candidate who had been certified in two other states.

He called the blizzard of legal rulings, dissents and contradictory opinions swirling around Mr. Trumps place on the ballot a slow rolling civics lesson that demonstrated the countrys democratic resilience.

I kind of celebrate the notion its complicated, he said. Were having this conversation because thats what democracy is about.

Mitch Smith and Michael Wines contributed reporting.

Continued here:

Would Keeping Trump Off the Ballot Hurt or Help Democracy? - The New York Times

Rot in hell.

Those words were part of Donald Trumps Christmas Day message, spewed at his political enemies. The next day, when I was asked during a CNN interview about the increased violence in this country, I responded honestly that I thought the former presidents message was wrong and divisive. Im not afraid to say what I think, even when that means there may be unpleasant repercussions and threats from the former president and his supporters. A lot of us may face this type of conflict in the year ahead. I am particularly familiar with this, as Mr. Trump has targeted me in the past in ways that have been very difficult.

I was married to a great and wise man with whom I shared an incredible love for decades. I miss John every day. On the day that he died, in 2019, he dictated an op-ed to me that would be titled My Last Words for America. He observed, In our modern political age, the presidential bully pulpit seems dedicated to sowing division and denigrating, often in the most irrelevant and infantile personal terms, the political opposition. Months after his death, when I voted for the first articles of impeachment against President Trump, he launched into a brutal attack saying that John was looking up at me (implying he was in hell). Thats the Trump way the cruelty is the point, yet that awareness doesnt make it any less painful. Were human. He knows that, and he thrives on it.

I am not seeking a fight with Mr. Trump. Its not easy to tangle with him, especially after that experience involving John. But I do know that hateful rhetoric cannot be ignored or become normalized. We have to stand up to bullies in this country, and we have to call out indignities. My bluntness about rot in hell being unacceptable was my unfiltered reaction and I stand by it. In my view, the only way you can deal with bullies is to consistently call out their inexcusable behavior and stand in defense of those they choose to target. Trust me, I know it can wear you down but we cant grow tired, and we must push back on the hatred when we see it, calling it out, using language everyone understands and in ways that prevent it from seeping into our everyday lives and routines.

Being in Mr. Trumps tunnel of hate is not enjoyable. Frankly, its often frightening. Like many of my colleagues, I have received hostile calls, antagonistic mail and death threats, and I have had people outside my home with weapons. And it reflects the vitriol, bullying, rage and threats we are witnessing across the country today from our exchanges on social media to dialogue with each other and with those in our workplaces, schools, gathering places, families and communities. Its a real danger to our democracy and our safety.

When I expressed my thoughts about his Christmas message, Mr. Trump took to Truth Social to go after me once again as a loser. Unfortunately, he also brought John into his rant. I can deal with being called names and subjected to the standard venom that weve all become familiar with in Mr. Trumps social media attacks. But when he brings up John, its one of the things that hit me hardest. It would be easy to say his words dont hurt, but they do. And I am sure he knows it.

When my husband died, Mr. Trump called me. At the time, I was touched by the presidents sympathy, his taking the time to reach out, and having the flags flown at half-staff. I did not ask Mr. Trump for anything during that call; it was Representative Nancy Pelosi, who was then speaker of the House, who helped with funeral arrangements. John earned the tributes he received. But President Trump cared enough to call, and he lowered the flags. Though we recall it differently, to this day I remember his act of kindness. But that private moment of empathy wasnt and is not some kind of pass when my duty was to consider articles of impeachment against him, or a permission slip to allow for the public words he chose four years ago or those he used this week.

People dont know how much I still miss John, especially this time of year, and how easily the tears come. Loneliness is something that is affecting many these days, and the loss of someone who was your total partner, and accepting the painful reality he is gone, does not happen quickly or easily. It is a hard, exhausting process.

But I cannot and will not be bullied or intimidated by anyone. Sometimes tyrants think women will cower. We cannot. We have the strength and courage to do what is right and fight for the betterment of our communities.

Mr. Trumps style of politics the disrespect, prejudice, name-calling and malice that too often get swept aside as his just calling it as he sees it makes healthy debate and discussion virtually impossible. The word congress by definition means coming together. Government shouldnt be about who can make the most noise; its about working together to find solutions. Take it from me: What Mr. Trump is doing isnt honesty or candor, its ruthless and deliberate viciousness.

We can be sure Mr. Trumps rhetoric will get only more fiery, discordant and divisive over the next year leading up to the election. Weve already seen the dangerous and deadly consequences his words can have, and we cannot become complacent. This isnt just about one man. We all face a choice in how we react to bullies, and we all have a responsibility to choose civility in the face of cruelty.

What I would encourage people to do, if attacked by Mr. Trump or his supporters, is to not be afraid to challenge the attack. Try to de-escalate the situation by presenting an alternative point of view calmly. Dont let them bait you to descend to their level. Because that animosity is exacerbating the problem: We are watching very premeditated and carefully chosen words and actions by Mr. Trump that are stoking anger, further fueling a lack of trust in many institutions and creating a climate that is threatening democracy. Beware, the dangers are real.

Im concerned by Mr. Trumps pledges to rip health care away from Americans and to rule as a dictator, and by his applause of political violence. We need to hold people accountable for their words. I know that if John were here, he would tell me to do exactly what Im doing now to stand up and make my voice heard, and not back down. Thats what Im going to continue to do, and I hope that as we look toward 2024, all our leaders, elected and aspiring, will join me.

Debbie Dingell is a Michigan Democrat and member of the House of Representatives from Michigan.

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Opinion | Debbie Dingell: Why Standing Up to Trump Is Worth the Pain - The New York Times

Overall, Donald Trump has had a pretty good 2023.

Despite his enormous legal troubles, including four criminal indictments, the former president has made it through a roller coaster of a year in some ways stronger than when it began.

A year ago, Trump had just announced an early bid for the GOP's presidential nomination, a campaign that many doubted would be successful in a crowded field that included a highly anticipated run from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. But Trump's Republican rivals, including DeSantis, have failed to catch up to his popularity among voters, and Trump's 2024 candidacy only gained momentum as the pile of legal actions against him grew.

His chances of beating President Joe Biden in a hypothetical rematch have also improved from a year ago, thanks to stubborn high prices and the ongoing border crisis, with the latter becoming such a headache for Biden that the Democrats are considering reviving Trump's immigration policies. Biden's indicted son Hunter has inadvertently given Trump a boost, handing the GOP megastar fodder for his attacks on his successor as the indictment of a public figure, now seemingly normalized, has hit the president and his family personally.

Trump saw other victories in 2023 as well, including his reinstatement to Twitter under Elon Musk's ownership, as well as to Facebook and Instagram after a two-year ban.

Here's a look back on the former president's tumultuous year:

Trump spent 2023 fielding lawsuits and criminal charges left and right.

In March, he became the first former president to ever be charged with a crime when Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced that Trump had been indicted on 34 felony counts related to a hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. Trump was accused by Bragg of falsifying business records with the explicit intent of covering up crimes, which bumped up a misdemeanor charge to a felony.

That indictment was followed by three more: two federal indictments and one out of Fulton County, Georgia. Special counsel Jack Smith's two investigations indicted Trump in June over alleged mishandling of classified documents and, in August, for his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Two weeks after his third indictment, Trump was charged with violating Georgia's racketeering laws, along with 18 co-defendants. The sweeping Racketeer Inuenced Corrupt Organization indictment from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis concerned attempts to overturn the 2020 election's results in her state.

The outcomes of those indictments are not certain, but Trump's court calendar is beginning to fill up with tentative dates. His federal election interference trial is scheduled a day before Super Tuesday, March 4, pending a decision on his immunity claim, and his Manhattan trial in the hush money case is slated for March 25.

The Mar-a-Lago classified documents trial is set for May 20 and the Georgia RICO trial is scheduled to begin August 5, less than three weeks after the Republican National Convention, where the party's presidential nominee will be named.

While none of these cases spell good news for Trump, he and the Republican Party have still benefited politically from them. A Newsweek analysis found that Trump saw a bump in the polls following his first indictment. Even though the uptick wasn't repeated after the other three indictments, those charges did not impede his steady climb among GOP primary voters. The indictments also furthered Republican claims that the Department of Justice was being weaponized against conservatives, a sentiment that has struck a chord among Republican voters.

"Any time they file an indictment we go way up in the polls," Trump said before his fourth indictment during a Republican Party dinner in Alabama. "We need one more indictment to close out this election. One more indictment and this election is closed out."

Trump did, however, suffer several major legal defeats in his civil lawsuits this year. In May, a Manhattan jury found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming columnist E. Jean Carroll, who accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in a department store change room in the mid-1990s. She was awarded $5 million in damages. Trump, who denies any wrongdoing, is appealing the decision.

In September, New York Judge Arthur Engoron ruled that Trump and the Trump Organization committed fraud related to his real estate empire and ordered that some of his companies be removed from his control and dissolved. The order was seen as a large win for a longtime Trump nemesis, New York State Attorney General Letitia James.

The trial in the $250 million civil lawsuit is expected to wrap up next month and could result in a verdict that would bar Trump from running any business in New York state.

Trump's lead in the Republican primary race is even greater than it was at the beginning of 2023.

FiveThirtyEight's tracker shows the former president with 61 percent support as of Thursday, a 50-point advantage over the rest of the pack. In January, Trump was seeing only 45 percent support and was only 10 points ahead of DeSantis.

The Florida governor did not announce his 2024 campaign until May and is polling at 11 percent support among GOP voters. Trump has also managed to remain the overwhelming front-runner despite his refusal to participate in any of the four Republican presidential debates held this year.

The greatest candidate threat to emerge against Trump has not been DeSantis but former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who has caught up with DeSantis. Nonetheless, she remains 50 points behind Trump nationally. Haley's strongest performance is expected to be in New Hampshire, which will follow Iowa in the primary season voting and where Trump's lead over Haley is a narrow 18 points.

Trump is also polling well in a hypothetical race against Biden. The latest data from Real Clear Politics shows that Trump leads Biden by 2 points and that his lead is even greater in key battleground states like Georgia, Michigan and Arizona, where Biden trails him by 5 points, and in Nevada, where Biden is behind by 4 points. Biden won all four states in the 2020 election.

Biden's support for Israel during its war with Hamas has also cost him support from young voters, who have historically voted Democratic and were credited with helping Biden secure his 2020 victory. Polls have increasingly shown a positive trend for Trump among voters under 30.

Last week, a national survey released by The New York Times/Siena College found Trump leading Biden 49 percent to 43 percent among Americans between 18 and 29 years olda 6-point advantage that's enough to give Trump a 2-point lead among registered voters overall.

Less than four years ago, 2020 exit polls showed Biden defeating Trump by 24 points among voters under 30. Just over a year ago, that advantage was 21 points.

Biden is not only losing voters with his response to the Israel-Hamas war. Overall, the president's 2023 has arguably been not as strong as Trump's.

Although Biden spent the first two years of his presidency signing several significant pieces of bipartisan legislation into law, appointing his first Supreme Court justice and celebrating the Democrats' better-than-expected midterms performance, his approval rating in 2023 took a toll from the public's perception of the economy and the border crisis.

Biden has spent the past year touting his economic agenda, dubbed Bidenomics; the unemployment rate's drop to a pre-pandemic, five-decade low; and the sharp curb in inflation, from June 2022's 9.1 percent peak to last month's 3.1 percent. But many Americans say they have yet to feel the economic reliefsomething that clearly frustrated the president as he ripped into the media coverage of the economy earlier this week.

"Start reporting it the right way," the president told White House reporters on Sunday.

Confidence in the economy has improved over the past year, but it remains in negative territory and is still a pressing issue for many voters. Last week, Gallup found that only 22 percent of Americans see current economic conditions in the U.S. as excellent or good, while nearly 7 in 10 Americans say the economy is getting worse.

Even though there have been improvements, 14 percent of voters say the economy in general is the most important problem facing the country, and 12 percent point to inflation specifically, making economic concerns the No. 3 concern among voters.

The government/poor leadership and immigration remain the top two concerns, with 16 percent of Americans citing each. Immigration has plagued the Biden administration since the beginning of his presidency, when an influx of migrants came to the U.S.-Mexico border.

In the 2023 fiscal year, 2.5 million migrants crossed the bordera historic high that topped the record set in the prior year. As some Republican governors deployed an offensive response, sending migrants to Democratic-led cities like New York City and Washington, D.C., the mayors of those so-called sanctuary cities have ramped up pressure on Biden to address the increase in asylum seekers.

Multiple reports have indicated that the White House is now prepared to implement border policies that mirror those under the Trump administration. These include a possible revival of the pandemic-era Title 42 policy that Biden tried to lift in 2022, a potential expansion of immigration enforcement inside the U.S., and changes to legal standards that could make it harder for people to get asylum.

Personally, Biden has faced a barrage of attacks from GOP critics over his son Hunter, who was indicted twice this year on gun and tax-related charges. Hunter has pleaded not guilty to the gun charges and is set to be arraigned on the tax charges in January. His indictments have helped somewhat to normalize Trump's indictments while also casting a shadow over his father. A CNN poll from September found that 55 percent of Americans think Biden acted inappropriately in connection with the Justice Department's investigation of his son's alleged crimes.

But Biden has remained undeterred in his efforts to win reelection, telling reporters earlier this month that even though he's not the only Democrat who could beat Trump if he wins the Republican nomination, "I will defeat him."

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

Originally posted here:

Donald Trump's Amazing Year - 2024 Election - Newsweek

To the Editor:

Re Barring Trump From the Ballot Would Be a Mistake, by Samuel Moyn (Opinion guest essay, Dec. 24):

Despite the vast difference in our academic credentials (me: B.A. from Miami University, Professor Moyn: J.D. from Harvard), I dispute the authors conclusion that American democracy will suffer if the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the decision of the Colorado Supreme Court to bar Donald Trump from the primary ballot in that state.

Professor Moyn cites the fact that many Americans dispute Mr. Trumps culpability in inciting the riot of Jan. 6, and states that barring him from the ballot will incite more violence. But Mr. Trumps rhetoric urging followers to fight like hell that day is construed by all but the most rabid MAGA supporters as clear incitement and should disqualify him. If Mr. Trump is not punished, how can we expect any disgruntled election loser to graciously accept defeat?

The court, Professor Moyn asserts, should pay attention to public opinion when crafting a decision. The court did not, however, pay the slightest bit of attention to public opinion when it overturned Roe v. Wade or when it struck down the New York State law enacting strict gun control measures.

I believe the court will overturn the Colorado decision, not because it is the proper legal action, but because the court has devolved into a partisan political body fraught with corruption, a majority of whose members would like to see Mr. Trump back in office. Most Americans, according to some opinion polls, agree with me.

Bill Gottdenker Mountainside, N.J.

To the Editor:

The proponents and ratifiers of the post-Civil War 14th Amendment knew all too well from their experience the ever-present need to protect the nation from those who seek to undermine and supplant the legitimate constitutional order. They included Section 3 to prevent such tyranny to the extent any parchment barrier could. Thankfully, over time we have not had much need to invoke its provisions. We do now.

The Supreme Court need not wait for the consensual narrative about Donald Trump that Prof. Samuel Moyn believes is lacking. That would make the court superfluous. In his majority opinion in the Dobbs case, overruling Roe v. Wade, Justice Samuel Alito emphatically rejected the idea that the court should be affected by social and political pressures or the publics reaction to our work. The same applies to adjudicating Section 3.

Laurence H. Winer Marblehead, Mass. The writer is emeritus professor of law at Sandra Day OConnor College of Law at Arizona State University.

To the Editor:

Prof. Samuel Moyn is correct that the facts as to what took place on Jan. 6 are widely disputed. Donald Trump has a personality cult with millions of armed and angry members who would dispute that the sun rises in the east if he said it rises in the west. The theory of evolution is widely disputed too, by tens of millions of religious fundamentalists. But in neither case does opinion outweigh facts and even the Colorado district court ruling that Mr. Trump could not be removed from that states ballot conceded that the facts showed he had engaged in insurrection.

Its certainly possible, perhaps even likely, that a U.S. Supreme Court decision affirming Colorados ruling would incite some of Mr. Trumps followers to violence. But were he to remain on the ballot everywhere and lose next November, theyd be just as likely to explode maybe egged on by Mr. Trump himself resulting in a bigger, more heavily armed rebellion.

Perhaps the best solution is not for the justices to protect Donald Trump but for the court to refuse to hear the case, as I believe it should have done with Bush v. Gore. The Constitution gives the states power to choose their presidential electors; surely that extends to rejecting a candidate its own courts have ruled is ineligible.

Eric B. Lipps Staten Island

To the Editor:

It is important to note that a Supreme Court ruling against Donald Trumps qualification would not remove the issue from political remedy. Congress could simply vote to allow Mr. Trump back onto the ballot, as provided for in the 14th Amendment. Voters could make their voices heard on the matter by writing to their representatives. The 14th Amendment is a very reasonable and moderate part of the system of checks and balances.

Steve Bellantoni Toronto

To the Editor:

Re Dont Give In to Political Despair. Trump Is Too Great a Threat (column, Dec. 20):

I always appreciate Michelle Goldbergs clearsighted commentary on our world, but today I felt as if she were talking directly to me and to my friends, who are all doing exactly what we shouldnt giving in to political despair.

I knocked on doors for years, talking with voters who agreed with me and voters who didnt, and those who just didnt want to be bothered (but could still sometimes be reached with an emotional appeal). But Im getting older, and more tired.

I needed the push to make a substantial donation to an organization that recruits, trains and organizes door-knockers if I am not going to do it myself, and I am grateful to Ms. Goldberg for giving me that shove.

Susanna Lang Chicago

To the Editor:

Paul Krugmans column The Biggest Threat to Americas Universities(Dec. 15) offers welcome perspective. Mr. Krugman acknowledges the real danger of the latest outbreak of antisemitism within the Ivy League, but also draws attention to the war on truth waged by conservative politicians at public schools and universities.

I was educated at and have taught at public universities, including U.C.L.A. and Berkeley. When I teach courses on immigration and the politics of gender and race at the University of Nevada, Reno, most of my students are shocked to discover how little they learned about these topics in high school. And they come from the relatively liberal West. Imagine how much less students will learn in places like Florida in the coming years.

Defending against the conservative effort to gut public education must become our priority. Preoccupation with what happens in the Ivy League distracts from the real battle for American education.

State universities have the potential to educate generations of historically literate citizens, but were not on a path to realizing that potential. Students at nonelite colleges and universities are ignored because they are underestimated and undervalued.

Our lack of commitment to this important goal and funding to support it is the result of American elitism. Meanwhile, the recent behavior of students at the Ivies shows us that attendance at elite institutions is no guarantee of wisdom.

Jennifer Ring Berkeley, Calif. The writer is professor emerita of political science at the University of Nevada, Reno, and a co-author of Saving Public Higher Education: Voices From the Wasteland.

To the Editor:

Re Never Underestimate the Power of the Dinner Table, by Alex Prudhomme (Opinion guest essay, Dec. 27):

In response to your informative essay, I refer readers to the excellent book Dinner With Churchill, by Cita Stelzer. Throughout his long life, Sir Winston was a master at bringing all sorts of people with disparate views to dine with him at various places and times of the day. Champagne, food, wine, brandy, his wit and, yes, cigars, were tools he used to break down barriers to policies he espoused.

Joel Barad New Rochelle, N.Y.

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Opinion | The Supreme Court and Donald Trump - The New York Times

A new wrinkle has emerged in former President Donald Trump's immunity battle in his federal election interference case, with a watchdog group filing a brief on Friday calling for his appeal effort to be dismissed and for his trial allowed to resume.

Trump is currently contending with four criminal indictments at the state and federal levels, totaling 91 criminal charges in all. Among these cases is the federal one brought by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and special counsel Jack Smith pertaining to Trump's alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which ultimately led to the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Trump, the frontrunner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, has maintained his innocence in the case.

Trump's current tactic in the case has been to claim that he has complete immunity from criminal prosecution for anything that he did while he was president. This claim was previously shot down by the judge overseeing the case, Tanya Chutkan, and is now set to go before the D.C. Circuit appeals court. Meanwhile, an effort by Smith to try and accelerate the appeals process straight to the U.S. Supreme Court was recently dismissed. As the process winds on, the trial has been put on hold, leading some observers to accuse Trump of trying to delay it as long as possible.

American Oversight, a nonprofit legal watchdog group, filed an amicus brief on Friday that said the D.C. Circuit appeals court lacks the jurisdiction to take up Trump's appeal, and should therefore send the matter back to Chutkan and allow the trial to resume.

"As the American Oversight amicus brief argues, Supreme Court precedent [from 1989] prohibits a criminal defendant from immediately appealing an order denying immunity unless the claimed immunity is based on 'an explicit statutory or constitutional guarantee that trial will not occur,'" the group's official statement explained. "Trump's claims of immunity rests on no such explicit guarantee. Therefore, given that Trump has not been convicted or sentenced, his appeal is premature. The D.C. Circuit lacks appellate jurisdiction and should dismiss the appeal and return the case to district court for trial promptly."

Newsweek reached out to Trump's team via email for comment.

In response to the filing, various legal experts and analysts chimed in on social media, with some calling the move "an interesting wrinkle."

"Interesting wrinkle in the battle over Trump's claims of presidential immunity: American Oversight, in an amicus brief, says the issue did not merit immediate appeal and the DC Circuit should simply kick the case back to Judge Chutkan for trial," New York Times legal reporter Alan Feuer wrote on X, the platform previously known as Twitter.

"Interesting argument in new amicus brief by conservative lawyers that Trump's immunity appeal is subject to final judgment rule and must wait until after trial," former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade, who previously served the Eastern District of Michigan from 2010 to 2017 and appointed by former President Barack Obama, wrote. "Brief uses textual reading of Constitution to argue stay should be lifted immediately."

American Oversight describes itself as a nonpartisan group, not conservative.

Ben Meiselas, co-founder of the MeidasTouch media outlet, laid out the brief's argument in-depth, noting that the 1989 ruling cited by it was written by the notably conservative Supreme Court justice, Antonin Scalia.

"Oh, I am liking this amicus brief just filed by a group called American Oversight in Trump's DC absolute immunity appeal," Meiselas wrote on X on Friday. "The brief points out that a 1989 Supreme Court case called Midland Asphalt holds that the DC Circuit doesn't even have jurisdiction to hear Trump's appeal and must dismiss since an interlocutory appeal (appeal mid-case) can only occur when there is strict textual support for the appeal in a statute or in the Constitution like the Speech or Debate clause."

He continued: "There is not strict textual support for Trump's immunity claim anywhere at best it's based on a specious negative inference thus the argument goes that the Appeals Court must dismiss the appeal and send it back for trial immediately. Conservative Justice Scalia wrote the Midland Asphalt decision. No one has made this argument before. This can be a game changer."

Correction: 12/30/23, 2:42 p.m. ET: This article and headline has been updated to reflect American Oversight's nonpartisanship.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

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Lawyers' Amicus Brief Adds New Wrinkle to Donald Trump's Immunity Appeal - Newsweek

Four years ago, on the threshold of a critical election year that would decide whether Donald Trump won another term in the White House, I asked a German friend, Constanze Stelzenmller, of the Brookings Institution, to come up with one of those long Teutonic words for the state of constant, gnawing anxiety that Trumps disruptive tenure inspired. She came back with a true mouthful, a thirty-three-letter concoction that pretty much summed it up: Trumpregierungsschlamasselschmerz. Helpfully, she suggested that it would be fine to shorten this to Trumpschmerz. It means something like Trump-worry, but on steroids. At the time, I defined it as the continuous pain or ache of the soul that comes from the excessive contemplation of the slow-motion Trump car crash. Well, here we go again. Headed into 2024, America is stuck with another bad case of Trumpschmerz.

At the start of this year, it was still possible to look at the facts and avoid falling back into this dark place. There were reasonable expectations that something, somehow could prevent the looming rematch between Trump and Joe Biden, who succeeded Trump but has never been acknowledged by the ex-President and millions of his followers as Americas legitimate leader. Perhaps Trump would finally face consequences for his unprecedented efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. Perhaps a strong Republican challenger would emerge against him. Perhaps Biden, who spent the first year of his tenure more unpopular than any other President in the history of modern pollingaside from Trumpand is already the oldest leader in U.S. history, would step aside in favor of a younger Democrat, rather than seek a second term. But none of that happened.

The most extraordinary development in American politics this year was, without a doubt, the indictment of Trump in four separate criminal cases, totalling ninety-one alleged felonies. He is not only the first former President charged with a crime; he ends 2023 accused by the federal government of essentially mounting a coup against that government. And yet the charges against Trumpwhich were hardly a foregone conclusion a year agoserved not to clarify but to further confuse our muddled politics. Will the trials overshadow the 2024 race or shape its outcome? Will they even take place before the voting? What happens if hes convicted and wins anyway? All we can say definitively, so far, is that the indictments proved to be a political boon for him with his Republican Party. With just a few weeks until the beginning of the 2024 primaries, Trump now has what looks to be an insurmountable lead in the G.O.P. race, a lead that has only risen with each new case filed against him. When 2023 started, he was at about forty-six per cent among Republicans in the FiveThirtyEight average of national polls. Today, he is drawing more than sixty-one per cent.

A year ago, the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, coming off a nineteen-point relection victory in a formerly competitive state, and boasting a hundred-million-dollar-plus war chest, looked to be a real prospect to knock off Trump. But he fared just about as well as Jeb Bush, another Florida governor with a hundred million dollars to spend against Trump. Which is to say: his candidacy has been a total dud. Trump never even had to stoop to appearing on a stage with his rivals, who proved to be so afraid of the Trump-loving Republican electorate that they rarely so much as criticized the man they were theoretically running against. The defining moment for this field of craven also-rans came during their first debate, in August, when the Fox News moderators asked for a show of hands as to who would support the indicted ex-Presidentthe elephant not in the room, as Foxs Bret Baier called himwere he to receive the nomination. Virtually all of them indicated they would. Needless to say, the two dissenters, Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson, have no chance.

As of years end, the one non-Trump candidate to see her fortunes rise in the G.O.P. race has been the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley. Despite having served in Trumps Cabinet, she is often described as the closest thing the Party has left to its pre-Trump establishmenta hawkish, Chamber of Commerce type who is neither a culture warrior nor a MAGA acolyte. Talk about defining deviancy down. Haley is no avatar of the status quo ante but proof of how debased the party of Abraham Lincoln has become in its thrall to Trump. Just this week, Haley, when asked what caused the Civil War, told a voter in New Hampshire that it was about government freedoms and what people could and couldnt do. When the voter expressed astonishment that her answer had not included mention of slavery, she replied, What do you want me to say about slavery?

Trump, of course, could not resist the chance to dunk on Haley. Not ready for prime time, he crowed in response to her Civil War flub. (On Thursday morning, Haley said, Of course the Civil War was about slavery.) Trump has ended the year, meanwhile, striking his usual statesmanlike note. In a Christmas Day social-media post, his message to his opponents was MAY THEY ROT IN HELL, followed by the incongruous but nonetheless perfectly Trumpy conclusion, AGAIN, MERRY CHRISTMAS.

The only surprise is that anyone is surprised by this. In the first week of March, months before he was indicted by the Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, Trump gave a speech to CPAC in which he promised a run centered on the theme of retribution for all the grievances nursed by him and his followers. Despite the current conventional wisdom that the spate of indictments against Trump over the spring and summer allowed him to reinvent his campaign around a narrative of his own persecution, revenge was his mission well in advance of the court cases; 2024 was always going to be about seeking payback. The list of wrongs never mattered as much as the fact that he would have a litany of them to recite. The rigged election. The martyrdom of his supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and were sent to jail for it. His own undermining by the deep state.

His message then, as later in the year, was simple and messianic: This is the final battle. The audience cheered and hooted and clapped. They were, like the bulk of the Republican Party, not Never Trumpers but Always Trumpers. The story of 2023 turned out to be not the G.O.P.s search for another Trump but the persistent preference of a large majority of Republicans for the one they already have.

But if Trumpschmerz is our destiny again in 2024, the ex-President has also benefitted from his foes in 2023. DeSantis, despite the early hype from Fox News and the hopes of the Republican donor class, proved that negative charisma and terrible political judgment are not enough to run for President. He thought he was going to ride attacks on Mickey Mouse to the White House. Seriously?

Bidens miscalculation was not about Trumpthe President has always been dead serious about the threat posed by his predecessor and by the party that embraces himbut about himself. Having aspired, for the better part of four decades, to the office he improbably won on his third try, Biden has been reluctant to relinquish it in favor of a younger Democrat. His theory of the case seems to be rooted in his belief that he, and he alone, can insure Trumps defeat. But that rationale has become harder to sustain as his polling has grown worse and worse. As of the end of the year, Biden is, at best, tied with Trump; the Real Clear Politics average has him down 2.3 points.

Trumps victory is by no means assured. It may well be that predictions of him winning in 2024 will turn out to be just as wrong as the forecasts of a recession were at the start of 2023. But the past few years of Trump, Trump, Trump have taught me, if nothing else, that hoping for the best is not necessarily a winning strategy. With American democracy on the line, Im taking the only defensible position toward the New Year: full-scale dread. I plan to pull up the covers and hide under my pillow as long as possible come January. Its going to be a long twelve months.

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The Year We Stopped Being Able to Pretend About Trump - The New Yorker

Geoff Bennett:

Rick Hasen joins us now. He's an election law expert and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA's Law School.

Rick, thank you for being with us.

So, Maine joins Colorado now in barring Donald Trump from the ballot under the 14th Amendment. The process in Maine, where the secretary of state determines eligibility, is very different from the process in Colorado, where that was decided by that state Supreme Court.

But through what reasoning and on what judgment do both decisions rest?

Rick Hasen, UCLA School of Law: Well, you're right that the decision in Maine started administratively, but it's clear it's going to go to the courts and will ultimately be resolved by state courts and maybe the U.S. Supreme Court.

The issue in both cases is the same. It's whether Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bars from future office those officeholders who had pledged an oath to support the Constitution, but then engaged in insurrection or supported the U.S.' enemies, they would be disqualified from serving.

And so there's a bunch of legal questions. Does this apply to the president, the office of the president? There's also the question of whether Trump engaged in insurrection. That's more of a factual question. The secretary of state in Maine pretty much followed the reasoning of the Colorado Supreme Court in the earlier decision in finding that Trump is disqualified from serving in office.

It's something that involves complex, novel questions from a part of the Constitution that really was put in place after the Civil War and hasn't been used in recent times.

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Election law expert on legal and political questions as states block Trump from ballot - PBS NewsHour