Category Archives: Donald Trump

Donald Trumpcalled the 2020 presidential election the crime of the century on Saturday, even as Republican leaders scrambled to dodge the fallout from the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that supporters of the former president carried out earlier this year.

Trump also blasted Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) as weak and pathetic in a post on his so-called communications platform. He went after former Vice President Mike Pence for lacking the courage to reverse the results of the election, which Joe Biden won.

Screen Shot/Donald J. Trump blog

If Pence and McConnell had reinstalled Trump as head of the nation, we would right now have a Republican President who would be VETOING the horrific Socialistic Bills that are rapidly going through Congress, including Open Borders, High Taxes, Massive Regulations, and so much else! Trump wrote.

There are no open borders. Taxes have not been increased, though Biden is planning to raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 25% to 28% after Trump arranged to slash the corporate tax rate by 40%. Its unclear what massive regulations Trump was referring to.

Trump also claimed that polling ahead of the election was rigged. He argued that his supporters didnt bother to vote because polls made him look like such an incredible winner or that polls made him look like such an astounding loser that his supporters didnt think it was worthwhile to vote. The position that not enough of his supporters turned out to vote would seemingly contradict Trumps claims that ballots were somehow miscounted.

Trumps latest rant about the election results comes at an awkward time for fence-straddling Republican leaders, who have both been feeding oxygen to the big lie that the election was rigged and sort of denying it exists.

I dont think anybody is questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Wednesday after he and other congressional leaders met with Biden. I think that is all over with. Were sitting here with the president today.

However, several Republicans indeed have continued to undermine the legitimacy of the democraticpresidential election.

On Wednesday,House Republicans voted to oust Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) from her leadership role aftershe refused to go along with Trumps lies about the election. The former presidents rhetoric about election fraud motivated rioters to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Rep. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) said Biden was legitimately elected, but added in a dig that we need to make sure that we have unquestioned elections moving forward.

And Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) tried to deny that the Capitol riot occurred. There was no insurrection, he said last week. He also described rioters violent behavior as a normal tourist visit to the Capitol.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) has called the rioters peaceful patriots.

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Donald Trump Bashes 2020 Presidential Election As 'Crime Of The Century' - HuffPost

The Daily Beast

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / Photo GettyBill Gates enjoyed holding court at Jeffrey Epsteins Manhattan mansion, allegedly seeking refuge from his marriage and talking with the sex offenders circle of high-profile dinner guests about philanthropy and other worldly topics.But the Microsoft mogul may have been angling for another perk by networking with Epstein: Gates hoped the well-connected pervert could help him secure the Nobel Peace Prize, one former Gates Foundation employee told The Daily Beast.This person said members of the foundations communications team were alerted to Gates relationship with Epstein and were told it was a maneuver to try to get himself a Nobel Peace Prize. They said the tech mogul had even kept some employees on call on prize day in years past just in case he was awarded the distinction.We were aware of things that were potential reputational risks for the foundation and the co-chairs, Bill and Melinda, said the former employee. Even back then, people knew this guy wasnt squeaky clean, the person said, referring to Epstein.He [Gates] thought that Jeffrey would be able to help him, that he would know the right people, or some kind of way to massage things, so he could get the Nobel Peace Prize, which is what Bill wants more than anything else in the world, the staffer said.I think he was ultimately disappointed it didnt work out, the person added.Epstein was known for cultivating a rolodex of elite contacts from around the globe: billionaires, royals, celebrities, politicians, and prominent scientists, including Nobel laureates Frank Wilczek, Gerald Edelman and Murray Gell-Mann. The money-manager also opened various nonprofits over the years to steer millions to his friends projects and to fund research at institutions including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. Researchers continued taking Epsteins money despite widespread reports of his abuse of underage girls and young women.The former staffers claim that Gates thought Epstein was his ticket to the prestigious prize adds fuel to a Norwegian newspapers report last year that highlighted a 2013 meeting with Gates, Epstein, and the Norwegian Nobel Committees chairman at the time, Thorbjrn Jagland.A spokesperson for Bill Gates, however, denied the billionaire philanthropist was seeking Epsteins help in obtaining the award.While a Nobel Prize would certainly be a great honor, it is false to state that Bill Gates was obsessed with the honor, set it as a goal, or campaigned for it in any way, the spokesperson told The Daily Beast. If Epstein had a plan or motivation to insert himself into any processes related to any awards or honors on behalf of Gates, neither Gates nor anyone he works with was aware of his intentions and they would have rejected any offers for assistance.Jeffrey Epstein Gave Bill Gates Advice on How to End Toxic Marriage, Sources SaySince his divorce announcement this month, Gates has faced a torrent of scrutiny over his ties to Epstein, whom he met dozens of times after Epstein went to jail for soliciting a minor and had to register as a sex offender. Over the weekend, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal published reports on Gates alleged history of hitting on employees and his extramarital affair with a Microsoft engineer.It was not a secret within the foundation that he had dalliances, the former foundation employee told The Daily Beast. Of Melindas attitude toward the infidelity, the employee added, I dont think it was a wink-wink permissive thing at all. I think she was humiliated and did not like it.According to People, Bill and Melinda Gates will continue as co-chairs of their foundation, even as they divide their $130 billion in marital assets, because of their shared ambition for the Nobel Prize. One source told the magazine: They were really interested in trying to win a Nobel Prize. So one thing that was part of this is, if it gets worse, then it ends that. It seems as if that was on the agenda, and thats for both of them.Melinda Gates Warned Bill About Jeffrey EpsteinBill Gates may have had the prize on his mind in March 2013, when he and Epstein reportedly visited Jaglands home in Strasbourg, France.The rendezvous was revealed by Dagens Nringsliv, Norways largest business newspaper, in an October 2020 report. At the time of the meeting, Jagland was chair of the committee which awards the Peace Prize, and Gates was a potential candidate for the honor.The meeting also included members of the International Peace Institute (IPI)a think tank run by former Norwegian diplomat Terje Rd-Larsen that Epsteins secret charity lavished with a $375,000 donation in 2017. (Rd-Larsen resigned from the New York-based IPI last October after it was revealed his group received $650,000 in donations from Epstein, who also provided him with a $130,000 personal loan.)According to DN, Jagland said Gates and Epstein arrived at the Strasbourg meeting together, and Epstein introduced Gates to IPI for a polio eradication project. Rd-Larsen didnt attend the meeting but is a longtime friend of Jagland.Rd-Larsen also had longstanding ties to Epstein, who issued press releases touting his support of IPI while he worked to rehabilitate his image following his 2008 conviction in Palm Beach, Florida. (As The Daily Beast reported Sunday, Gates allegedly encouraged Epstein to revamp his reputation in the media.)In an email to DN, Jagland claimed Gates asked to meet him while he was in France and that their discussion centered not on the Nobel, but around human rights organization Council of Europes work on counterfeit vaccines. Asked if he thought it was a conflict to socialize with a possible Nobel laureate, Jagland told the newspaper: Bill Gates was not nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013.Not long after the Strasbourg gathering, the Gates Foundation granted IPI millions of dollars; records on the foundations website show IPI received a $2.5-million grant in October 2013, $5.5 million in March 2014, and $256,968 in June 2019 and July 2020.And, in September 2013, Bill and Melinda Gates spoke at IPIs Eighth Annual Ministerial Working Dinner on the Middle East. A writeup of the event indicates the couple were special guests who discussed the ongoing efforts of their foundation to eradicate polio and cited the connection between health and security.When asked about Gates meeting with the Nobel committee chairman, a spokesperson for the billionaire directed The Daily Beast to a 2019 statement, which says: Multiple high-profile people suggested that Bill Gates meet with Epstein because he made claims of being able to bring billions of dollars into philanthropy based on his status as an agent and advisor to wealthy individuals with respect to their giving strategies.Given the prospect of helping catalyze significant increases in charitable giving, Gates met with Epstein and others multiple times to discuss philanthropy and the work of his foundation. Although Epstein pursued Gates aggressively, Gates had absolutely no business partnership or personal friendship with Epstein. Gates never socialized with Epstein or attended parties with him.Its become clear that Epstein misrepresented the nature of his meetings with Gates while also working to insert himself behind-the-scenes without Gatess knowledge. Bill Gates regrets ever meeting with Epstein and recognizes it was an error in judgement to do so.Melinda Gates Called Divorce Lawyers in 2019 After Epstein Report: WSJThe Strasbourg meeting may not have been Gates only visit abroad with Epstein.In August 2019, the French news outlet Franceinfo reported on a roster of famous visitors to Epsteins Parisian apartment, which included Bill and Melinda on at least one occasion, according to the financiers former butler. A spokesperson for Melinda Gates told The Daily Beast that Melinda has never been to Epsteins Paris home.In spring of 2013, Epstein and his friend Lawrence Krauss appeared to be touting Gates appearance at a future panel at Arizona State University in 2014.Krauss, a theoretical physicist who led ASUs Origins Project and left the university amid sexual misconduct allegations, name-dropped Gates in an email to a prospective panelist for the event, which was later canceled. (Epstein had donated $250,000 to the Origins Project, while his buddy, billionaire hedge-funder Leon Black, donated $2 million, according to Buzzfeed.)In an email obtained by the Daily Mail, Krauss indicated Epstein was organizing a panel on the Origins of Money" and that "right now he has Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Larry Summers on board. Through a spokesperson, Branson denied having anything to do with the event, while Summers apparently didn't comment for the article.Reached by The Daily Beast, Krauss would only say that the panel never happened. Since I dont know Gates or these people, I cant comment, he said. with additional reporting from William BreddermanRead more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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Does Donald Trump Know He Could Be Arrested This Year? - Yahoo Entertainment

Donald Trumps new digital-media play is not exactly the social networking juggernaut one mightve expected him to try and unleash since leaving the White House. Instead, the former president has launched a personal communications platform, otherwise known as a bloga throwback to the style of pre-Instagram personal websites that celebrities once used to share their daily goings-on with fans.No longer able to post on Twitter and Facebook, both of which have currently banned him following the Capitol riot, the 45th president is now serving up his many grudges and grievances under the heading, From the Desk of Donald J. Trump. The site's launch took place several weeks after Trump adviser Jason Miller claimed that Trump would soon completely redefine" the social media game by creating a new platform, a P.R. promise that, so far, could not be further from reality.

There is noticeably less engagement and far fewer visitors on Trump's new site than the attention he recieved on his Facebook and Twitter accounts, according to NBC News. Using data compiled by the online analytics company BuzzSumo, the NBC report noted that the platform has only netted a little over 212,000 engagements. In comparison, one post on the former presidents Twitter account to his 88 million followers could receive more than a million likes, mainlining his every musing to consume the news cycle and the nations attention. Even the Trump name brand has severely deflated online since he was dropped by Facebook and Twitter in January. NewsWhip, an agency that researches social media use, recently reported that social media entries mentioning Trump have dropped by roughly 91%, per Axios. Amid this decline, the Trump campaign has utilized old-school email blasts that include short statements from Trump on stories in the newsincluding a recent note calling this years scandalized Kentucky Derby winner a junky horsewhich reporters then share on Twitter via screenshots, providing the former president with a back door into the social media conversation.

From the Desk users can like entries and share them on more popular platformsas in, the ones that Trump isnt allowed to use anymore. But unlike most blogging platforms, readers cannot comment or otherwise interact with the posts. In the case of Trumps new platform, it is so technologically primitive that there is no way for his followers to even migrate, said Binghamton University tech professor Jeremy Blackburn in a comment to NBC News.

Still, Trumps new blog has at least one avid reader so far. Senator Marco Rubio tried pimping his America First authenticity in an email to supporters that noted he was lucky enough to be [mentioned in] one of his first posts, referring to the former presidents new platform.

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Trumps Social Media Magic Appears to Be Wearing Off - Vanity Fair

Its no secret that Colorados politicians want the Biden administration to reverse the former administrations decision to move Space Command headquarters out of Colorado Springs.

Now U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, who sits on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, chair of the committee, specifically want to find out if the Trump Administration took into account how the move will impact intelligence capabilities and missions when making the decision to move the headquarters to Huntsville, Alabama.

We are concerned this decision did not take into account how such a move may affect Intelligence Community (IC) dependencies and missions, they wrote to President Joe Biden on Tuesday.

The two are asking Biden to review the process that led to the decision to move Space Command headquarters out of Colorado.

There are two other reviews into the decision already happening. One is spearheaded by the Government Accountability Office, Congresss watchdog group, which began at the request of Republican Rep. Doug Lamborn, and which Bennet and Sen. John Hickenlooper also support. The other review is being conducted by the Defense Departments Office of the Inspector General.

In the new request to the White House from Bennet and Warner, aside from suggesting the Trump administration did not look at how intelligence operations will be impacted, they argue that building a new headquarters in Alabama will be expensive, and that a move disrupts the workforce.

We are keenly aware of the threats in space and the criticality of maintaining U.S. superiority in the face of an evolving threat landscape, the senators wrote to Biden. Space is a critical national security issue, and we cannot squander time, talent, or money on unnecessary expenditures or delays.

The two Democrats argue there is valuable collaboration between the intelligence community and Defense Department that occurs in Colorado Springs because of past investments to foster that kind of collaboration at joint sites, such as the National Space Defense Center located at Schriever Air Force Base. And the two said both agencies benefit from communities of expertise in the area.

The Senate Intelligence committee will continue to examine how the intelligence community is postured to support U.S. superiority and leadership in space. Bennet is focused on ensuring these issues are duly considered in the decision making process on Space Command, said a Bennet spokesperson.

Lamborn, Bennet, Hickenlooper and others fear that political concerns, and not defense ones, led former President Donald Trump to override the Air Force recommendation that would have kept Space Command in Colorado Springs.

Bipartisan members of the states congressional delegation have pointed to press reports indicating Peterson Air Force Base had topped the list for the permanent headquarters, but that Trump ordered it to move to Alabama, a state that had voted for Trump in the 2020 election and which had several lawmakers support the former presidents election objections.

Local leaders in Colorado Springs share those concerns. Reggie Ash, chief defense development officer at the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce, also heard from people that the Air Forces first choice was Colorado Springs.

Our delegation did a whole lot [on advocating for Colorado]. And ultimately it came down to electoral politics, he said.

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Bennet Wants White House Review Of Trump's Decision To Move Space Command Away From Colorado Springs - Colorado Public Radio

COLUMBIA, S.C. As Mike Pence discussed his tenure as vice president with about 500 religious Republicans, some listeners couldn't help but wonder if they were seeing a preview of coming attractions.

I said to my husband, Did you think this was a trial run for a campaign speech? said Beth Atwater, an attorney from Lexington, South Carolina, who attended Pence's speech before the Palmetto Family Council last week.

Republicans across the country are pondering Pence's chances of becoming president thanks in part to the man who remains at the heart of GOP politics and made Pence vice president: Donald Trump.

Trump and some allies criticize Pence for refusing Trump's demands that he help overturn his election loss of Joe Biden. The insurrection by pro-Trump rioters Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol put Pence's life in danger.

Republicans who want the party to move on from Trump see the former vice president as part of the problem a loyalist who too often enabled the president.

Pence hasn't said he's running for president, but he raised eyebrows with his reemergence in public in South Carolina, home of a key GOP primary in 2024. He has a lineup of events in the coming months that looks like an attempt to appeal to Trump voters without alienating their leader.

Building a base for a presidential run is always challenging, Republicans said, but Pence's predicament is unique.

"I just don't see the path," said Denver Riggleman, a former GOP congressman from Virginia and an outspoken critic of Trump.

Making the moves

Pence is one of several Republicans making the kind of moves one does when exploring a presidential run.

The former vice president has created a political committee, Advancing American Freedom, to promote and defend the policies of the Trump-Pence administration. It has run web ads featuring Pence on issues such as border security.

Young America's Foundation, a conservative group, announced that Pence will give the keynote address at its National Conservative Student Conference in August in Houston. Pence plans to campaign for Republican candidates in the 2022 congressional races.

The former vice president is writing an autobiography scheduled to be published in 2023, a year before the presidential election.

In deciding where to make his first first speech since leaving office, Pence picked South Carolina home of the first-in-the-South primary that has been pivotal in Republican nomination battles.

Friday, Pence will attend an early cattle call of eight potential Republican candidates not named Trump. Texas Republicans organized a private meeting of donors to hear from Pence, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. Sens. Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio, Tim Scott and Rick Scott.

Sarah Longwell, a GOP strategist who ran a group called Republican Voters Against Trump in 2020, said Pence's challenges in a 2024 race are many.

"No. 1, Trump is going to attack him as insufficiently loyal," she said, and Trump voters who believe the election was stolen will blame Pence.

Republicans who want to shed Trump see Pence as complicit in the administration's actions, including the drawn-out protests of the election.

Longwell said, "People who love Trump don't like him, and people who hate Trump don't like him."

'A Christian, a Conservative, a Republican in that order'

During his half-hour speech in a downtown Columbia ballroom last week, Pence said that serving alongside Trump was "the greatest honor of my life," though he didn't mention the ex-president's name that much. He spoke more about the administration's record and criticized the Biden administration over immigration, spending, taxes, abortion and religious freedom.

In his opening, Pence recited a standard self-description: "I'm a Christian, a conservative and a Republican in that order."

Though vice presidents often find it hard to emerge from the shadow of the presidents they served, the job has become a stepping stone toward the Oval Office. Richard Nixon, George H.W. Bush and Joe Biden were elected to the presidency as former vice presidents. Hubert Humphrey (1968), Walter Mondale (1984) and Al Gore (2000) won the Democratic nominations but fell short in the general elections.

None of those former veeps faced the kind of obstacle within their own party that Pence has in Trump.

Pence has to answer one question first: Will he run if Trump does? The former president said he is considering another race in 2024 but won't make an announcement until after the 2022 congressional races.

Normally, a former vice president would be in "the top spot" for the next election, but "in a Trump GOP, it is more complicated," said Mike DuHaime, former political director for the Republican National Committee.

Despite Pence's "fealty over the four years," DuHaime said, "Trump may have forever damaged his reputation with Trump supporters by calling him out during the election lie and the Capitol riot on Jan. 6."

Pence, who frequently talks about his religious faith, does have support from at least one important Republican constituency: evangelical voters such as the ones who saw him speak at the Palmetto Family Council.

Tim Miller, a former Republican political strategist who saw Pence in Columbia, said he has "a base of support with evangelicals, which is better than most have, but can he expand out of that?"

Members of Trump's "Make America Great Again" caucus may remain suspicious.

"Hard to imagine the MAGA voters are ever going to love him," Miller said.

'He did the right thing ... And it's going to cost him'

One of Pence's biggest hurdles to a potential run isn't just his association with Trump but Trump's own criticisms of him.

At a Republican donor conference last month at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump said he was still "disappointed" that Pence did not move to block the counting of electoral votes from states that went for Biden.

In a statement this week attacking Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., Trump said the election result would have been different "had Mike Pence referred the information on six states (only need two) back to State Legislatures."

Trump denounced his vice president at a rally Jan. 6 that preceded the insurrection at the Capitol, where some Trump supporters roamed the halls looking for Pence and calling him a traitor.

Riggleman, the former congressman from Virginia, said he has seen Trump-Pence yard signs in his district with the vice president's name painted over or otherwise vandalized.

He said he likes Pence and believes the vice president acted honorably in refusing to interfere Jan. 6 when Congress met to confirm Biden's victory. "He did the right thing for the country that day," Riggleman said. "And it's going to cost him."

One thing potentially working in Pence's favor: Few people are paying attention to the Republican presidential race.

Jenny Beth Martin, honorary chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action, said reporters and political activists are interested in the early jockeying, but most Americans are worried about things such as schools opening once the COVID-19 pandemic is under control.

When the time for attention comes, she said, "the grassroots would want to know first and foremost whether Trump is going to want to run."

'A long time away'

At the Columbia Convention Center, South Carolina Republicans said they believe compatriots in their state and elsewhere places such as Iowa and New Hampshire will judge Pence on his merits. They are intrigued by how Pence might navigate the issue of Trump.

Kelly Ross, who works for a nonprofit company in Greenville, said Pence's base of voters is different from Trump's, and the election "is a long time away" in any event.

Others said the Pence-Trump dispute over Jan. 6 will mean little to Republicans in 2024.

"I think people forget things and get over them and move on to what's best for the country," said Cathy Wells, a housewife from Lexington.

In short, many said, they'll wait and see.

"It's kind of hard to tell," said Atwater, the attorney from Lexington. "You know, politics changes so quickly."

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Mike Pence looks at the 2024 presidential race but sees Donald Trump everywhere - South Bend Tribune

This week, Republicans are expected to vote to oust Rep. Liz Cheney from her position as conference chair, House Republicans' third highest-ranking leadership position. Her crime is that she won't stop saying former President Trump has been lying about the alleged theft of the 2020 election.

When people talk about an inability to quit Trump as an ongoing political problem for Republicans, they tend to mean that Trump is unpopular and continued association with him though pleasing to the Republican base is off-putting to most voters. And this is true as far as it goes, though we saw in 2020 how close the pro-Trump coalition came to electing a House majority and re-electing Trump.

But there's a second problem with the Trump fixation that's less noticed and may be hurting Republicans more. Since he left office, Trump's interests have diverged from the interests of elected Republicans. He no longer needs them to win their own elections like he did when he was president. And he has objectives like seeking revenge on Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp that have nothing in particular to do with advancing the Republican party's interests.

With his idiosyncratic, revenge-focused agenda, he's distracting Republicans from trying to win the next election.

Back when Trump was president, his relations with congressional Republicans were sometimes rocky, but held together by shared interests. Trump needed Republicans to win elections so that they could quash congressional investigations,pass his legislative agenda, and block his removal from office.

But as the Washington Post notes, much of his energy in recent months has been focused on "revenge endorsements" that is, efforts to defeat incumbent Republicans he sees as insufficiently loyal to him. At best, for Republicans, this is a distraction from beating Democrats in November. At worst, it may divide the party enough to throw general elections to Democrats a particularly serious risk in Georgia, a blue-trending state where Kemp only defeated Stacey Abrams by a modest margin in 2018's gubernatorial race.

Trump's meddling has also caused trouble for Republicans in Georgia's next Senate election, set to be held in 2022. Top-tier GOP officials continue to pass on enteringthe race while Trump's preferred candidate to challenge Sen. Raphael Warnock football great Herschel Walker, currently a resident of Texas ponders whether he wants to move back to Georgia and run for Senate. CNN reports that Republicans in Washington are concerned Trump "is propping up a candidate simply because he has been a loyal friend, rather than assessing the former NFL running back's electoral viability in a pivotal battleground."

Next November, Republicans will hope that Trump works hard to elect them. But we've already seen what Trump looks like in a post-loss general election. In last year's Georgia Senate runoff elections, Trump was lackadaisical, focused on a message about the presidential election he had already lost that had nothing to do with turning out voters for the runoff and Republicans' reward was a turnout gap large enough to cost them two senate seats.

Trump's similar reluctance to engage in this year's Virginia state elections also bodes ill for Republicans during next year's midterms.

Insider's Warren Rojas and Tom LoBianco report the former president chose not to endorse a candidate in the party's nominating contest ultimately won on Monday by former Carlyle Group co-CEO Glenn Youngkin in part "because the team is worried the Republican pick may lose in November," citing Trump advisers. This unwillingness to engage for fear of losing means there's even less of a chance Trump helps drive low-propensity GOP voters come November, potentially harming Youngkin's chances in the state.

Last time there was a new Democratic president, in 2009, Republicans picked up the governor's mansions in both Virginia and New Jersey the only two states that elect governors one year after presidential elections. Republicans are serious underdogs in both states this year, but Virginia should not be completely out of reach, and a strong gubernatorial campaign would boost the GOP's chances of retaking the state's house of delegateseven if they lose the governor's race.

But then, what's Trump's reason to care who controls the Virginia legislature?

His longstanding insistence on total loyalty a reason that Republican candidates for governor ran extremely Trumpy primary campaigns in a state he lost by 10 points last year has not helped in Virginia either.

There is another reason Republicans are cozying up to Trump, despite this blas attitude towards winning elections. Earlier this year, Trump had a message for Republican campaign committees: stop using my name and likeness to raise money.

Unusually for a former president, Trump continues to actively raise money. And he has urged Republican donors to direct their money to entities he controls. This complicates GOP efforts to raise money during the 2022 midterms and gives Trump a lot of control over how political money intended for Republicans will be spent.

What is Trump's incentive to spend this money in a way that helps Republicans win elections, rather than in a way that helps him settle scores, rewards politicians who say nice things about him, and enriches himself?

Liz Cheney is obviously correct on the merits in her commentary about former President Trump. His conspiracizing about the 2020 election is both false and dangerous. But since Republicans are committed to their alliance with him, I get why they wouldn't want her in leadership anymore. She hasn't signed onto the party's political strategy, odious as it may be.

Replacing her with Rep. Elise Stefanik a recent convert to extreme Trump boosterism, who even voted against his tax cut bill in 2017 will reduce the amount of time Republicans spend arguing with each other about him.

But what it doesn't do is align Trump's incentives with the party's.

I don't think Republicans have a better strategic option than trying to make nice with Trump. If the party tries to repudiate him, his political actions will be even more of an obstacle to the party's strategy, and Republican voters, who overwhelmingly approve of Trump, will punish Republican officials.

But don't confuse a situation where Republicans appease Trump with one where he is a net political asset to the party. Out of office, it's not even clear that his best benefit to Republicans an ability to drive turnout among voters whose primary loyalty is not to the party but to him will persist if he is not featured on the ballot.

And as we're seeing in Georgia and Virginia, he's not necessarily going to apply himself.

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Glaring Problem With GOP's Trump Obsession. He Doesn't Need Them Anymore - Business Insider

In May 2021, a tweet began circulating around the internet showing a picture of the inside of a Snapple drink lid, with a fact about Donald Trump.

People have been liking and retweeting the photograph, but many internet users have been questioning the legitimacy of the picture, with some claiming that it is photoshopped.

Snapple is known for the facts featured on their bottles and website. The Snapple website describes their facts: Theyre real. Theyre fun. Theyre really fun facts.

To receive Snapple facts regularly, you can text realfact to 762-775 for a new fact each day.

In May 2021, a photograph of the inside of a Snapple lid went viral. The fact inside it read: Trump lost and the election was not stolen.

According to Fact Checker site Snopes, a look through the online Snapplereal facts databasedid not return any results matching the viral image.

Furthermore, many people were quick to point out that the fact looked photoshopped, as the font of the fact does not match the font of the other words on the lid.

Therefore, we cannot confirm that the picture is a real Snapple fact.

Regarding their facts, the Snapple website explains:

Sometimes new information may be discovered that disproves one of our Real Facts, or a Real Fact may become outdated over time. When this happens, the only responsible thing to do is to retire that fact.

The Snapple website states that the facts on their bottles are real. It reads:

We call them Real Facts because they are just that: real facts. We check the validity of our Real Facts before we put them into circulation but if you find a fact that may be inaccurate, please let us know. We will have our fact-checking team look into any discrepancies.

On May 10th, a Twitter user shared a picture of the Snapple lid, and captioned it: Even Snapple is tired of the bulls**t.

The tweet received 10 thousand retweets and over 73 thousand likes.

One user retweeted the image, and stated: And this is another good reason I drink Snapple.

Another user wrote: Havent had a Snapple in years. Going to the store to stock up on my lunch.

In other news, Who is Alastair Campbells wife Fiona Millar? New Good Morning Britain host marries partner of 42 years!

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Is there a Snapple Fact that says that Donald Trump lost? Lid tweet goes viral! - HITC - Football, Gaming, Movies, TV, Music

Former first couple Melania and Donald Trump celebrated Mother's Day with son Barron at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, asPeople reported (though they weren't photographed together). While ex-Trump aide Omarosa Manigault Newman told the Daily Mailin 2020, "Melania is counting every minute until he is out of office and she can divorce," the two seem steadying on ... for now. "She has their relationship down to a science," a source at Mar-a-Lago told People. "She does what she wants and also continues as Mrs. Trump, so it's unlikely to expect much out of the order at this point." Meanwhile, on Donald, the source added, "He is very routine [and] rarely deviates on anything in this area." Fair enough!

The Trumps' post-White House living situation is interesting, with Melania reportedly only occasionally seeing Donald due to their splitting time between New Jersey and Florida for the sake of her son's education. "Melania and her family will spend time with Donald but also continue working with Barron's school and keeping him up to date on his extracurricular activities," the source told People.

Meanwhile, Donald is temporarily closing Mar-a-Lago for the summer and is expected to stay at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J. in the meantime, perThe Independent. Does that mean the summer could bring the Trumps closer together? We'll see!

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The Truth About Melania And Donald Trump's Relationship Today - Nicki Swift

Banned by Facebook and Twitter, Donald Trump has gone back to the future with an online communication tool that might be described as a glorified blog.

His retro webpage, billed From the Desk of Donald J Trump, appears at DonaldJTrump.com/desk and features a small photo of the 45th president writing in a book on his desk.

A video includes archive material announcing Trumps ban from Twitter and images of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and of a desktop, overlaid by captions: In a time of silence and lies, a beacon of freedom arises. A place to speak freely and safely. Straight from the desk of Donald J Trump.

Below the video are a series of Trump statements resembling blogposts, of which the most recent begins: Heartwarming to read new polls on big-shot warmonger Liz Cheney of the great State of Wyoming.

Cheney is under fire from fellow Republicans loyal to Trumps claims that he actually won the 2020 election, because she publicly calls out the lie and has strongly criticised the 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol by extremist Trump supporters.

Tabs on Trumps new website allow users to like or share the posts on their own Facebook or Twitter accounts, but there is no option for them to reply.

Visitors are also invited to sign up for alerts, so that Trumps musings can be beamed directly into their inboxes. Perhaps unsurprisingly, options to shop and contribute figure prominently.

A footnote says the tool is funded jointly by the ex-presidents Save America and Make America Great Again political action committees.

When the page was unveiled on Tuesday, social media erupted with comment and mockery suggesting that Trumps long-awaited return to social media owed much to platforms such as Blogger, launched in 1999.

But Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the former president, sought to provide a clarification via Twitter.

President Trumps website is a great resource to find his latest statements and highlights from his first term in office, but this is not a new social media platform, he wrote. Well have additional information coming on that front in the very near future.

Twitter announced it had banned Trump permanently after the US Capitol attack for breaking its glorification of violence rules.

Facebook also banned him, with its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, saying the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great.

But Facebooks independent oversight board is expected to announce on Wednesday whether it is overturning the suspension.

In the meantime Trump, exiled at his private Mar-a-Lago residence and club in Palm Beach after leaving office in defeat and disgrace, has been sending press releases to journalists.

They are often in a style reminiscent of his tweets, with capital letters, exclamation marks and misspellings. But they no longer drive the days agenda or cable news chyrons as his presidential missives once did.

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Donald Trump returns to social media with glorified blog ...

Today Facebooks Oversight Board, (its self-designated supreme court) upheld the decision to ban Trump from its platform. His account was suspended the day after the January 6 insurrection for his role in promoting and condoning the violent attacks on the Capitol that resulted in 5 deaths, at least 138 injuries, destruction of property, and over 400 arrests so far. However, the board took issue with the indefinite nature of the ban. The ruling stated that Facebook itself should reevaluate the ban within 6 months of this decision.

For four years the press and the public reacted to an unprecedented barrage of Trump Facebook posts and tweetssometimes appearing early in the morning or late at night. It wasnt too hard to distinguish between his own messaging and official messaging. His own was more outrageous, more prone to spelling errors and often at odds with what the rest of his government was saying. His musings appeared regularly on television news shows, often followed by administration officials trying gamely to figure out what he meant or how it wasnt really the opposite of what his government had just said.

And then, because of decisions by Facebook and Twitter, he went dark only a few weeks before he left office for what has been a relatively quiet retirement at Mar a Lago. What impact did going dark have on his popularity?

Following is a graph from RealClearPolitics that charts the average of Trumps approval ratings starting on January 6, the day of the insurrection at the Capitol, to the end of April. On the day of the insurrection Trump was viewed unfavorably by slightly more than half of the public and the gap between his unfavorable ratings and his favorable ratings was 10.5%. Ten days after the insurrection, as more and more people digested Trumps role in what happened that day, the gap between his unfavorable ratings and his favorable ratings grew to 21.6% of the public. But in the months following he gained back some of what he had lost and the gap has remained more or less stableat about 16% as of the end of April.

So far three months of relative silence from Trump on social media do not seem to have affected his standing with hardcore supporters that appear to constitute between 35% and 41% of the electorate. These numbers are more or less the same as Trumps numbers throughout most of the second, third and fourth years of his presidency, which were notable for the fact that unlike previous presidents he never obtained favorable ratings from 50% of voters. The stability in Trumps numbers leads to a variety of hypotheses about the importance of social media.

First, it is possible that Trump supporters, hostile to the media and big corporations, do not respond to survey research and thus support for Trump is lower in polls than it is in reality. This possibility is supported by the fact that turnout for Trump in the actual 2020 election was far greater than many polls had predicted.

The second possibility is that the impact of social media on politics is not as influential as members of the political establishment and the press think it is. A Pew poll from this spring found that 70% of social media users never or rarely post or share about political, social issues.

In other words, a subsection of the populationprobably the same people who, in a different generation would have been mailing letters or calling into radio showscreate a large portion of the social media noise.

The third possibility is that by the time of his election loss Trump had created a hardcore base within the Republican Party that was powerful enough to dictate internal party decisions. Look, for instance, at the attempt to dislodge Trump critic Congresswoman Liz Cheney from her leadership position. That base may have solidified to the point where it does not need constant tending by Trump himself, thus making access to social media platforms less crucial. In spite of his being banned from social media his support among Republican voters has remained strong this year, as the following table using data from the Morning Consult/Politico poll indicates.

Table 1: Donald Trumps favorability among Republican voters (Morning Consult/Politico)

This strength, however, may have come at a cost. While Trump appears to have solidified his hold over the Republican Party, he also appears to have damaged the brand. Gallup has asked about party identification in polls going back decades. By the end of the first quarter of 2021 they found that people who identify as Democrats were more numerous than people who identified as Republicans by a margin of 49% to 40%. This is the biggest gap in party identification in a decade. It also correlates with an increase in people who say they are independent.

My final hypothesis is that even if Trump does return to social media, it is possible that his pronouncements will not be magnified by the mainstream press, especially television, now that he is no longer president. During his presidency Trumps most outrageous lies were covered because he was the president and many reporters and editors felt that they had an obligation to report what the president said. They may not feel the same obligation to an ex-president in Florida. (In the week after he was silenced, misinformation about the election dropped 73% according to a study by Zignal Labs.) This possibility has, no doubt, been a concern to Trump who just recently launched a new site From the Desk of Donald J. Trump as a way of getting around the social media ban.

So while todays decision has momentous consequences for social media in the coming decade, it may not have momentous consequences for Donald Trumps future. He remains the undisputed leader of a political party but that party has lost two elections in a row (2018 and 2020). In four years as president of the United States he was unable to expand his base. And now, the changing demographics of the country seem to be working against him. With or without social media he may have trouble expanding his following enough to become president again.

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What will Facebooks ban mean for Donald Trumps future? - Brookings Institution