Category Archives: Donald Trump

Former President Donald Trump is headed north for the summer, and will move temporarily to his resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, according to a new report.

Trump has spent the first few months of his post-presidency life at Mar-a-Lago, the beachside club in Palm Beach, Fla., that the New York real estate mogul has owned since 1985. But sources close to the former president told Business Insider that Trump is relocating temporarily and plans to use the move to jumpstart fundraising efforts for his 2024 campaign effort not exactly an unexpected move for those in Trump's orbit.

Mar-a-Lago traditionally closes for the season after Memorial Day, when the moneyed membership disperses to escape the state's cloying summer heat the club's peak season usually lasts from Thanksgiving to Easter, according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the local newspaper that covers Palm Beach.

This doesn't appear to be a permanent address change Trump made that switch in advance of the election, declaring in a 2019 Declaration of Domicile, "I hereby declare that my above described residence and abode in the state of Florida constitutes my predominant and principal home and I intend to continue it permanently, as such."

The move to Mar-a-Lago has already been a personal boom for Trump, who has raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars by hosting speeches and events for the Republican National Committee at the club and the bonanza doesn't appear to be ending anytime soon.

Right-wingers of all stripes have flocked to the property in recent months, including a recent event at which Trump's former CIA Director Mike Pompeo was spotted hobnobbing with anti-Muslim internet provacateur and former Florida congressional candidate Laura Loomer.

This week,Sean Hannity even dropped $5.3 million on a condo just a few miles away, joining a number of other Fox News personalities who now call the wealthy enclave home.

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Donald Trump relocating to New Jersey to jumpstart ...

Trump was tired.

He was exhausted, the former senior administration official said of the immediate aftermath of his tenure as president. And he just did something he hadnt done in five years. He just relaxed.

People whove watched him closely over the years and even for decades? They noticed. And they were, they told me, surprised. Quieter than I would have expected, Trump biographer Michael DAntonio said. A slower pace than I had anticipated, presidential historian Doug Brinkley said.

There were, of course, reasons beyond mere overwork. In his last few months in office, Trump fanned the flames of the toxic fiction that Novembers election was illegitimate and therefore so, too, was his loss. Supporters of his stormed the Capitol, wanting to reverse the results, leaving five dead. He was impeached for a second time. All of this was in addition to Trumps already pending legal peril. Regardless of the cause, however, he got off to a sluggish, almost subdued start as a former president, lying low (for him) for weeks after Air Force One dropped him off at PBI.

In January, near the end of the month, he opened the Office of the Former President, according to a Statement from the Office of the Former President. It was the first time he used in that context that wordformer. Notably, it also was the last. Thereafter, he did away with the moniker evocative of the past and shifted to the number that will always be hisDonald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America. Trump loves comebacks. Formers for losers.

Beyond practically obligatory, mostly pro forma communications concerning the impeachment proceedings and the trial in the Senate, at the end of which he again was acquitted, Trump endorsed former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders in her Arkansas gubernatorial bid, highlighted numbers from a friendly pollster saying House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney of Wyoming was extremely vulnerable to a primary on account of her anti-Trump impeachment vote and crowed about his very good and cordial meeting with House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy at Mar-a-Lago. Trump took the opportunity as well to suggest his endorsement means more than perhaps any endorsement at any time.

In February? Largely similarly languid. He endorsed Kansas Senator Jerry Moran. Ditto Max Miller, a former aide, in his Ohio congressional primary effort against Anthony Gonzalez, another one of the 10 House GOP impeachment dissidents. He hosted Lindsey Graham and Steve Scalise. He did a trio of cable-news phone-ins the day of Rush Limbaughs death. He seemed to snap to with a lengthy statement excoriating Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, calling him a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack. He went to Orlando to speak at the annual gathering of the Conservative Political Action Committee. Miss me yet? he said. He listed the names of those whove crossed him. He promised retribution. He dropped a tease. I will be actively working to elect strong, tough and smart Republican leaders, he said. We will take back the House. We will win the Senate. And then a Republican president will make a triumphant return to the White Houseand I wonder who that will be.

In March, though, Trump showed more oomphmuch more.

Hunkered down at Mar-a-Lago, he rolled out endorsementsSenators Tim Scott of South Carolina, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Mike Crapo of Idaho, John Boozman of Montana, Jody Hice in his run for Secretary of State in Georgia against Trump nemesis Brad Raffensperger, others including a pair of Trump-supporting state party chairs. Never just an endorsementmy Complete and Total Endorsement! In an appreciation of sorts of Roy Blunt, the retiring Missouri senator, he introduced a new phrasethe Impeachment Hoax #2 (IH-2).

He blasted Karl Rove, the former top adviser to George W. Bush. A pompous fool, he called him. If it werent for me, he said in what he said about Rove, the House would have lost 25 seats instead of gaining 15adding characteristic ranting about ratings (31 million people listened to my CPAC speech online, and it had among the largest television audience of the week) and working in some old standby epithets (Liddle Bob Corker, Jeff Flakey Flake, Sleepy Joe).

He urged former football star Herschel Walker to run for Senate in Georgia. He urged his supporters to give money to him and not to other Republican coffers. Send your donation to Save America PAC at DonaldJTrump.com, he said. If you donate to our Save America PAC at DonaldJTrump.com, you are helping the America First movement and doing it right, he said.

He went back to announcing his pending appearances on TV the way he did when he was tweeting from the residence in the White House.

Enjoy!

He went on Newsmax. He went on Fox News. He talked on the podcast of a Fox News host.

He kept calling the election rigged. Rigged, he said. Illegitimate, he said. Fraud, he said. You saw what happened, 10:30 in the evening, all of a sudden, I said, Thats a strange thing, why are they closing up certain places, right? he said in an impromptu speech at a wedding he dropped in on at his club. Its an honor to be here. Its an honor to have you at Mar-a-Lago. You are a great and beautiful couple.

He sent out a statement that read like a late-night tweet: Wheres Durham? Is he a living, breathing human being? Will there ever be a Durham report? He flagged Fox flattery from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. He met with Marjorie Taylor Greene. He castigated public health professionals Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx. He called them self-promoters trying to reinvent history. He called Fauci the king of flip-flops and said he was moving the goalposts to make himself look as good as possible. He called Birx a proven liar with very little credibility left and a very negative voice who didnt have the right answers.

I was the one to get it done, he said.

Time has proven me correct, he said.

Most importantly, though, Trump started in earnest, and in utterly unprecedented fashion, to aim his ire at Bidenfrom the situation at the border with Mexico to changes in tax plans to matters of pandemic response, endeavoring to retrain the spotlight on his legacy while repurposing lines of criticism he once endured as cudgels against his successor.

Our border is now totally out of control thanks to the disastrous leadership of Joe Biden. He has violated his oath of office to uphold our Constitution and enforce our laws, he said in a statement on March 5. All they had to do was keep this smooth-running system on autopilot. Instead, in the span of a just [sic] few weeks, the Biden Administration has turned a national triumph into a national disaster. They are in way over their heads, he said on March 21. Joe Bidens radical plan to implement the largest tax hike in American history is a massive giveaway to China, he said on March 31, describing it as a classic globalist betrayal and a cruel and heartless attack on the American Dream.

In April, the onslaught only intensified.

Along with more endorsements of allies and call-outs of antagonists, an expression of mourning of the passing of Prince Philip of the British royal family and the passing along of links to pro-Trump opinion pieces in the New York Post and the Palm Beach Daily NewsWow, so nice!Trumps missives this month got particularly manic, beginning around Easter.

Why is it that every time the 2020 ELECTION FRAUD is discussed, the Fake News Media consistently states that such charges are baseless, unfounded, unwarranted, etc.? Sadly, there was massive fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election, and many very angry people understand that. With each passing day, and unfortunately for the Radical Left CRAZIES, more and more facts are coming out, he said the Friday of the holiday weekend. Other than that, Happy Easter!

That Saturday, he decried WOKE CANCEL CULTURE and then (with no apparent irony) called for boycotts of baseball, Coke, Delta and other major companies after Georgia passed restrictive voting laws Republicans insisted were necessary reforms. We will not become a Socialist Nation, he said. Happy Easter!

Happy Easter to ALL, Trump added on actual Easter Sunday, including the Radical Left CRAZIES who rigged our Presidential Election, and want to destroy our Country!

The next week, donors descended on Palm BeachMecca, a top GOP operative called it when we talkedshuttle-busing from the Four Seasons to listen to the former president speak at Mar-a-Lago. Immediately leaked were the more incendiary snippets. He railed at the rigged election. He called McConnell a dumb son of a bitch. He indicated hes bothered by Bidens overall popularity relative to his lack thereof. Saintly Joe Biden, Trump said.

It spurred a renewed round of strikes at Bidenthe type of bombardment that (maybe) wouldnt be out of place in the thick of the stretch of a presidential campaign.

The Biden Administration did a terrible disservice to people throughout the world by allowing the FDA and CDC to call a pause in the use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, Trump said on April 13. They didnt like me very much because I pushed them extremely hard, Trump said of Pfizer. But if I didnt, you wouldnt have a vaccine for 3-5 years, or maybe not at all.

On April 18, he commented on Bidens stated date of September 11 to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. Trump made it possible, he said. I planned to withdraw on May 1st.

If Joe Biden wants to keep our Country safe from Radical Islamic Terrorism, he said before his sitdown with Sean Hannity, he should reinstitute the foreign country Travel Ban.

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Trumps Battle to Win the First 100 Days - POLITICO

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Former President Donald Trump is stepping up his involvement in the final hours of the Saturday special election to fill the seat of the late U.S. Rep. Ron Wright, R-Arlington.

Trump who endorsed Wright's widow, conservative activist Susan Wright, for the seat on Monday is hosting a tele-town hall for her on Thursday night, The Texas Tribune has learned. The town hall is being put on by the Club for Growth, the national conservative group that endorsed Susan Wright on Wednesday.

The Club for Growth has also launched an 11th-hour radio ad to spread the word about Trump's endorsement, which came on the second-to-last day of early voting. The minute-long spot warns that "out-of-state anti-Trump forces" are working against Susan Wright and says the race "may be a key test of Trump's continuing power in the party."

The race is arguably the first major electoral gauge of Trump's clout within the party since he left office in January. He made an endorsement in another special congressional election last month in Louisiana, but it was far less competitive. Trump has made clear he plans to remain a force in GOP politics moving forward.

Susan Wright, a member of the State Republican Executive Committee, is one of 11 Republicans on the ballot Saturday, which features 23 candidates total and is likely to go into a runoff. While she secured Trump's backing Monday, it came as at least two GOP rivals continue to tightly align themselves with the former president, possibly stirring confusion about who he is truly supporting in the crowded special election.

One GOP candidate Brian Harrison, the former chief of staff at the Department of Health and Human Services under Trump has been airing broadcast TV ads showing him standing beside Trump in the Oval Office. Another Republican running, former pro wrestler Dan Rodimer, is leaning heavily on the fact that Trump endorsed him when he ran for Congress last year in Nevada, regularly advertising that he is the "only candidate [in the special election] to have ever received a Trump endorsement."

Susan Wright and her allies have limited time to capitalize on the Trump endorsement, which arrived Monday afternoon. By the end of that day, 32,000 votes a significant chunk of the total anticipated vote had already been cast. The early voting period ended Tuesday with over more than 45,000 ballots cast.

In addition to the radio ad, the Club for Growth is spending on text messages and phone banking to boost Susan Wright in the race's closing hours, according to disclosures made Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission.

While the Club for Growth formally backed Susan Wright on Wednesday, it has been involved in the special election for weeks, spending over a quarter-million dollars attacking one of her closest GOP competitors, state Rep. Jake Ellzey of Waxahachie. The group backed Ron Wright when he first ran for the seat in 2018 and then again when he sought reelection in 2020.

The Trump tele-town hall for Susan Wright is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Thursday, and the Club for Growth's president, David McIntosh, is expected to join. Trump previously dialed in to similar events last year for two Texas congressional hopefuls, Tony Gonzales and Ronny Jackson, on the eve of their hard-fought primary runoff elections. Both prevailed in their runoffs and went on to win in November.

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Donald Trump makes late push for Susan Wright in special election to fill her late husband's U.S. House seat - The Texas Tribune

Donald Trumps office emailed a statement to reporters Tuesday in which the former president bashed the Oscars, noting its low ratings and suggesting that it return a host to the proceedings and change its name back to the Academy Awards.

What used to be called The Academy Awards, and now is called the Oscars a far less important and elegant namehad the lowest Television Ratings in recorded history, even much lower than last year, which set another record low. If they keep with the current ridiculous formula, it will only get worseif thats possible, Trump said. Go back 15 years, look at the formula they then used, change the name back to THE ACADEMY AWARDS, dont be so politically correct and boring, and do it right. ALSO, BRING BACK A GREAT HOST. These television people spend all their time thinking about how to promote the Democrat Party, which is destroying our Country, and cancel Conservatives and Republicans. That formula certainly hasnt worked very well for The Academy!

As president, Trump also took to criticizing the telecast, including last year, when he bashed Oscar voters for giving best picture to Parasite. At a rally, he said of the South Korean film, What the hell was that all about? Weve got enough problems with South Korea with trade. On top of that, they give them best movie of the year. Was it good? I dont know.

ABC and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences frequently use the term Oscars to describe the ceremony, but AMPAS still refers to the awards as the Academy Awards.

The ceremony drew 10.4 million viewers, a record low, according to final Nielsen numbers released on Tuesday.

Talk hosts and commentators on the right seized on the low viewership to claim that it was due to political statements and speeches made during the telecast, something that even Regina King acknowledged at the outset could be a turnoff. But theres also a strong case to be made that the viewership numbers reflect the popularity of the nominees. With moviegoing curbed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, many had yet to see or even hear many of the contenders, even when they were available on streaming platforms.

The political statements that were made during the Oscars did not focus on Trump, but on topics like gun violence and policing.

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Donald Trump Seizes On Low Oscars Ratings To Bash Telecast: Dont Be So Politically Correct And Boring - Deadline

Former President Donald Trump might run for his old job again in 2024, or he might decide to stay in sunny Florida.

No one really knows for sure what Trump will eventually decide to do, or when he might make a decision, and it's causing a bit of consternation among some of his GOP allies, according to a CNN report.

Although Trump has not revealed any concrete plans, he has continued to elevate Republicans who could be potential successors, including Govs. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Kristi Noem of South Dakota, and Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri.

However, the former president's indecision about his own run has "frustrated" allies, who fear he is blowing his chance to "take control of the GOP early on" before his supporters develop relationships with other potential candidates, according to CNN.

"It's important to have a field-clearing exercise sooner rather than later if he's going to run, otherwise some of these other guys are going to start getting momentum," a former senior Trump administration official told the news outlet.

Several likely GOP entrants have already begun planting the seeds for potential campaigns, including former Vice President Mike Pence, who will give an address in South Carolina this week, as well as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has already traveled to Iowa and appeared virtually for a New Hampshire GOP event.

Read more: This millennial GOP congressman voted to impeach Trump. Now he's trying to save his party from going off a cliff.

DeSantis and former US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley will also make appearances in Iowa and Pennsylvania in the coming months, according to CNN.

Haley, a former governor of South Carolina, would likely play an outsized role in her home state if she decided to run due to its potential to provide political momentum early in the nomination process.

Other potential candidates who have visited or will soon visit Iowa include Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Rick Scott of Florida, and Tim Scott of South Carolina, according to CNN.

Several Trump allies have also told the former president to "fine-tune his post-presidential messaging," arguing that a "vengeance-driven strategy" will not have lasting appeal, per CNN.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia told CNN that Trump would be better off zeroing in on the Democratic Party.

"I think the radicalism of the Democrats is going to rebound enormously to Trump's benefit and he would be better off to focus on the Democrats," he said. "He has enough friends to go after disloyal Republicans."

An individual close to Trump emphasized that the former president misses being in the limelight.

"He hates being off the A block," said the individual, using a reference to a top cable news segment. "He's really thinking of running again in 2024 just to get back to that."

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Trump allies fear his 2024 indecision is blowing chance to 'control' GOP: CNN - Business Insider

Donald Trump believes he should be included on Mount Rushmore (REUTERS)

A stone bust of Donald Trump would already be chiselled into the granite pillars of Mount Rushmore if the former president were a Democrat, according to Donald Trump.

At the same time, Mr Trump has also said Democrats want to "blow up" the presidential monument.

Whether contradictory or consistent ideas, Mr Trumps comments in a new podcast on Wednesday are the latest in his long-running preoccupation with the landmark dedicated to Theodore Roosevelt, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson.

Mr Trump also told podcast host Dan Bongino that he would be holding a rally "soon", and that he would likely announce his plans for the 2024 presidential election immediately after the 2022 midterms.

Mr Bongino, an avid supporter of Mr Trump, proposed that Hollywood loved the former president before he became a Republican, and that if he had run as a Democrat he would already be on Mount Rushmore.

I know, I know yeah, I would have, Mr Trump replied.

He has previously suggested his face should grace the monument, tweeting in August 2020 that it "sounds like a good idea to me!" after reports emerged his office contacted the governor of South Dakota Kristi Noem to discuss the idea.

"Based on all of the many things accomplished during the first 3 1/2 years, perhaps more than any other Presidency," he claimed.

At Independence Day fireworks on 4 July 2020, Ms Noem reportedly gifted Mr Trump a $1,000, 4.4 feet (1.3 metres) tall miniature of Mount Rushmore with his face included alongside Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln.

Mr Trump told a campaign rally in September last year that his poll numbers had been going up "like a beautiful rocket" ever since his speech at Mount Rushmore for that Independence Day celebration.

"If you would see how beautiful this is, it was like this perfect evening. The Sun was setting. The faces of these great, great majestic heroes of our country, right. Heroes of our country," Mr Trump said.

Story continues

"And they want to blow up Mount Rushmore."

The former president told Mr Bongino on Wednesday that he would likely announce if he would run for a second term regardless of whether Republicans do well or not in the midterms.

"And I am giving it the most serious consideration I think probably the most appropriate time would be right after the 22 election. Thats my opinion, Mr Trump said.

I could do it sooner, but I think right after the election would be good, especially if you have a good election. Now Im not sure if you didnt have a good election, Im not sure that that wouldnt be good also, if you want to know the truth.

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Originally posted here:

Donald Trump believes he would be on Mount Rushmore if he were a Democrat - Yahoo News

Opinion: Since Friday the one-term president has sent out no fewer than seven statements about Arizona's election audit, each one a bit more bizarre.

In this Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021, file photo, President Donald Trump waves as he boards Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House, in Washington, en route to his Mar-a-Lago Florida Resort. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)(Photo: Alex Brandon, AP)

Former President Donald Trump may live in Florida but he is obsessed with Arizona, a state that hes clearly hoping can spark his political resurrection.

A state thatis quickly becoming to the MAGA crowd what Area 51 is to people who believe that little green men walk among us.

Since Friday the one-term president has sent out no fewer than seven statements about Arizona's election audit, each one a bit more bizarre.

To summarize, he despises our governor (second worst Republican governor in America), loves Senate Republicans (brave and patriotic) and absolutely adores their choice of election auditors (Great American Patriots).

Democrats, not so much.

According to Trump, the Democratic Party has dispatched more than 100 lawyers to the state to try to stop the audit of Maricopa Countys election.

Thats up from 73 on Friday and way, way up from reality, which would be closer to 0.

Trump began pumping out pronouncements on Friday, thanking the brave and patriotic Republican State Senators from Arizona for the incredible job they are doing in exposing the large scale Voter Fraud which took place in the 2020 Presidential Election.

Its worth noting that Senate President Karen Fann has repeatedly claimed this audit isnt about overturning the results of the election that its about determining if there were problems that need to be corrected in order to restore voter confidence but dont try to convince Trump of that.

For Trump and the Trump Nation, this audit is all about overturning the results of the 2020 election and clearingthe way for hisglorious return to the White House.

The Democrats have sent 73 lawyers to Arizona in an effort to stop this recount and full transparency because THEY KNOW WHAT THEY DID! he said on Friday. The Democrats are desperate for the FRAUD to remain concealed because, when revealed, the Great States of Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, New Hampshire, and the Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, would be forced to complete the work already started.

73 lawyers?Full transparency?

What audit is he watching? The handful of lawyers (four, maybe five tops?) are the same Arizona attorneys who handle all the Democrats legal work and the media has been locked out of Veterans Memorial Coliseum, where the audit is taking place. The auditors, meanwhile, have asked a judge to keep secretthe procedures they are using to determine whether Joe Biden and Sen. Mark Kelly really won the election.

But no matter. Later on Friday, Trump sent out another statement saying Democrats are swarming the state.

This could be Voter Fraud at the highest level. Dont think that Arizona is the only State, he said. Much more to come!

And there was more to come. Another statement,demanding that Gov. Doug Ducey immediately provide large-scale security for the brave American Patriots doing the Forensic Audit.

State police or National Guard must be immediately sent out for protection. The Democrats do not want to have this information revealed, and they will do anything to stop it. Governor Ducey must finally act!

Ducey, having already defended the integrity of Arizonas elections, has been silent on thisaudit. Unlike Fann, a once-reputable mainstream Republican who took a header down the rabbit hole, hes sitting this one out.

Trump has noticed.

Governor Doug Ducey of Arizona, oneof the wost Governors in America, and the second worst Republican Governor in America, is refusing to provide security for the American Patriots who are hand counting the Rigged 2020 Arizona Election Ballots, he groused on Monday.

Thats got to be a blow for the ambitious but term-limited governor who is running to the border and eliminating mask ordinances and generally doing just whatever he can to ingratiate himself with the base.

Everything, that is, but buying into the hopes and dreams of the Trump Nation that Arizona will be the domino that ultimately leads to Joe Bidens downfall.

Incredible organization and integrity taking place in Arizona with respect to the Fraudulent 2020 Presidential Election, Trump proclaimedon Monday. These are Great American Patriots, but watch, the Radical Left Democrats demean and destroy campaign will start very soon.

They will say anything they can to take away the integrity, validity, and credibility of what these incredible Patriots are doing but the people of Arizona wont stand for it. They were among the earliest to see that this was a Rigged Election!

Integrity, validity and credibility of an auditor who has promoted conspiracy theories about how the election was stolen andis apparently consulting with other conspiracy buffs on how to root out fraud?

Integrity, validity and credibility of an audit run by and for Republicans, one the media hasn't been allowed to watch? One in which no one really knows what who these people are or what theyare doing with our 2.1 million ballots or with the early ballot affidavits that contain our signatures or with the registration files that contain thenames, addresses andphone numbers and signatures of every voter in the state?

Or as Trump sees it, a red, white and true-blue audit that is independently run, with no advantage to either side.

The Radical Left Democrat Party has gone absolutely INSANE in fighting the Forensic Audit of the 2020 Presidential Election Scam, right now taking place in the Great State of Arizona, he said Tuesday. They sent a team of over 100 lawyers to try and stop it because they know what the result of the Arizona Senate sponsored audit will be and it wont be good for the Dems.

Nope, still just the same old handful of the usual Arizona attorneys who handle Democrats business attendedWednesdays court hearing.

But hey, the delusion continues.

The audit is independently run, with no advantage to either side, but the Democrats dont want to hear anything about it because they know that they lost Arizona, and other scam election States, in a LANDSLIDE, Trump said. They also know that the Arizona State Legislature approved virtually none of their many election requests, which is totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL. The people of Arizona are very angry, as are the people of our Country. If we cant have free and fair elections, we dont have a Country. The audit must continue. America deserves the TRUTH!

Truth would be nice, wouldnt it?

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.

Support local journalism:Subscribe to azcentral.com today.

Read or Share this story: https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2021/04/27/trump-statements-arizona-election-audit-detached-reality/4863399001/

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Donald Trump is turning Arizona into the Area 51 of politics - The Arizona Republic

For weeks, Trump had been giving winding, stream-of-consciousness updates on the state of the Covid fight as it clearly worsened. So when he got up from the Oval Office to brief reporters gathered in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room on April 23, there was no expectation that the days proceedings would be any different than usual.

Privately, however, some of his aides were worried. The Covid task force had met earlier that day as usual, without Trump to discuss the most recent findings, including the effects of light and humidity on how the virus spreads. Trump was briefed by a small group of aides. But it was clear to some aides that he hadnt processed all the details before he left to speak to the press.

A few of us actually tried to stop it in the West Wing hallway, said one former senior Trump White House official. I actually argued that President Trump wouldn't have the time to absorb it and understand it. But I lost, and it went how it did.

Trump started his press conference that day by doing something hed come to loathe: pushing basic public safety measures. He called for the voluntary use of face coverings and said of his administration, continued diligence is an essential part of our strategy.

Quickly, however, came a hint at how loose the guardrails were that day. Trump introduced Bill Bryan, head of science and technology at the Department of Homeland Security. Hes going to be talking about how the virus reacts in sunlight, the president said. Wait til you hear the numbers.

As Bryan spoke, charts were displayed behind him about surface temperatures and virus half-lives. He preached, rather presciently, for people to move activities outside and then detailed ongoing studies involving disinfectants. We tested bleach, he said at one point. I can tell you that bleach will kill the virus in five minutes.

Standing off to the side, Trump clasped his hands in front of his stomach, nodded and looked out into the room of gathered reporters. When Bryan was done, he strode slowly back to the lectern.

A question that probably some of you are thinking of if youre totally into that world, Trump began, clearly thinking the question himself, So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light and I think you said that that hasn't been checked, but you're going to test it. And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you're going to test that, too. It sounds interesting. And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs, and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that.

Dr. Deborah Birx, Trumps former coronavirus response coordinator, sat silently off to the side as the president made these suggestions to her. Later, she would tell ABC, I didnt know how to handle that episode, adding, I still think about it every day.

Inside the Biden campaign, aides were shocked as well. They were working remotely at that juncture, communicating largely over Signal. But the import of what had happened became quickly evident to them.

Even for him, said one former Biden campaign aide, this was stratospherically insane and dangerous. It cemented the case we had been making about his derelict covid response.

In short order, the infamous bleach press conference became a literal rallying cry for Trumps opponents, with Biden supporters dotting their yards with He Wont Put Bleach In You signs. For Trump, it was a scourge. He would go on to insist that he was merely being sarcastic a claim at odds with the excited curiosity he had posing those questions to Birx. His former team concedes that real damage was done.

People joked about it inside the White House like, Are you drinking bleach and injecting sunlight? People were mocking it and saying, Oh let me go stand out in the sun, and Ill be safe from Covid, said one former administration official. It honestly hurt. It was a credibility issue. It was hurting us even from an international standpoint, the credibility at the White House.

That Trump was even at the lectern that day was head-scratching for many. For weeks, he and his team had downplayed the severity of the Covid crisis even as the president privately acknowledged to the Washington Posts Bob Woodward that it had the potential to be catastrophic. But as it became clearer that the public was not buying the rosy assessments, Trump had decided to take his fate into his own hands assembling the press on a daily basis to spin his way through the crisis.

He loved it. The former administration official said Trump was elated with the free airtime he was getting on television day after day. He was asking how much money that was worth, the aide recalled. The coverage was so ubiquitous that, at one point, Fox News Bret Baier attended the briefing and peppered the president with questions because his own show was being routinely interrupted.

The bleach episode changed all that.

Aides immediately understood what a public health quagmire Trumps remarks had created. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany insisted he was being taken out of context.

President Trump has repeatedly said that Americans should consult with medical doctors regarding coronavirus treatment, a point that he emphasized again during yesterdays briefing, McEnany said in a statement issued the next day. Leave it to the media to irresponsibly take President Trump out of context and run with negative headlines.

But behind the scenes, Trumps remarks were used as evidence by senior aides for why they needed to crack down on unvetted information being put in front of the president. Either they didn't know what he was going to say which isn't ideal or they didn't push back before he went out to the briefing, said a former senior communications official in the Trump administration. It was a huge unforced error that could have been prevented."

By then, White House aides were already debating the efficacy of having Trump relay health information to the public and having to answer whatever question a reporter might throw his way. Some aides along with Republican allies on Capitol Hill were pushing to get the president to take a back seat to his health experts at the podium.

It became like a presser for the sake of having a presser. We didnt have anything to announce or real policy plans, a former White House official said. If youre just coming out and talking, a Q&A [with reporters] wasnt going to be helpful.

Trump would end up doing only a handful more press conferences after the bleach episode before picking them back up again in July. A year later, the episode is still considered a defining point in the Covid fight and a prime exhibit of what can go wrong when an over-confident president believes he can message his way through a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic.

Undoubtedly [it was] a seminal moment in presidential communications, and while it is easy to laugh it off, I hope it educates leaders and communicators for decades, said former Obama White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. But this was the moment where we knew without any doubt that the government was in way over its head, and its ability to both respond effectively and educate Americans about what to do was not going to be anywhere close to meeting the moment.

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Its been exactly one year since Trump suggested injecting bleach. Weve never been the same. - POLITICO

President Donald Trump was pitched on founding a conservative media and tech company centered around himself, Axios reported on Thursday.

The pitch involved "a conservative media powerhouse" called Trump Media Group "that will rival the liberal media and fight back against 'Big Tech' companies of Silicon Valley," according to 24-page presentation viewed by Axios.

The company would include a subscription content and entertainment arm called "Trump+", a social media platform or an investment in an existing platform under "Trump Social Media," and "Trump Technologies," which would offer online services similar to Stripe or Amazon Web Services. The pitch estimated the company would be worth $15 billion.

Trump, who would be the company's CEO, chairman, and president, was introduced to the idea last month and reportedly didn't show much enthusiasm for it. Still, Trump has for months considered starting his own digital media company.

The former president has escalated his attacks on his favorite network Fox News and major tech companies. He and his allies were furious when the network called Arizona for Biden before other outlets did last November. And the ex-president's voice in politics and media has been quashed in large part by Facebook and Twitter's decisions to ban him from their platforms for spreading lies about the election that incited the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

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Trump was pitched on founding a $15 billion 'conservative media powerhouse' called Trump Media Group - Business Insider

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and... Donald Trump? The former president believes that his dome would be the next on Mount Rushmore if he was a Democrat.

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When host Bongino said the 45th President would have been on the South Dakota monument if he were a Democrat, Trump agreed. "I know, I know yeah, I would have," he said.

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However, Trump has also said that Democrats want to "blow up" the monument, according to The Independent.

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The former president reportedly held a rally in front of the monument last year. "If you would see how beautiful this is, it was like this perfect evening. The sun was setting," Trump said at the time. "The faces of these great, great majestic heroes of our country, right. Heroes of our country. And they want to blow up Mount Rushmore."

In August 2020, Trump said it "sounds like a good idea to me" after reports that his office had contacted the governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem, to discuss the prospect of having his head added to the monument. Trump added that he was not the one to suggest it, but said he thought it would be justified, "based on all of the many things accomplished during the first 3 1/2 years, perhaps more than any other Presidency," he said in a since-deleted tweet (his account has been suspended).

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Trump said on the podcast that he would be holding a rally "soon" and that he would most likely announce his plans for the 2024 presidential election following the 2022 midterms.

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He continued, "I could do it sooner, but I think right after the election would be good, especially if you have a good election. Now Im not sure if you didnt have a good election, Im not sure that that wouldnt be good also, if you want to know the truth."

Trump also said he would beat Republican governor Larry Hogan in a presidential bid in his own state of Maryland. "This guy, I watch him. Hes a total loser and he hasnt been a good governor, Trump claimed. "I think he wants to run. I think I would give him less than a zero percent chance."

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Donald Trump Believes He Would Be On Mount Rushmore If He Ran As A Democrat - OK!