Category Archives: Donald Trump

The excerpt below is from The Marathon Dont Stop: The Life and Times of Nipsey Hussle, byRob Kenner, which was released March 23. Nipsey Hussle was shot and killed in Los Angeles on March 31, 2019.Next Tuesday, March 30, marks five years since his and YGs FDT, the first major anti-Trump protest song, dropped ahead of the 2016 election. The song ultimately kicked off a movement in hip-hop and beyond, and spooked the then-presidential nominee enough that he reportedly pressured YGs record label to censor some of the songs lyrics and the LAPD to shut down the music video shoot. This is the story of how the song came to be.

When its all over all that counts is how the storys told

So write my name down, write my aim down

To do this my way and carve my own lane out.

Nipsey Hussle, Outro, The Marathon Continues (2011)

When Obama was running for president in 2008, the unified power of hip-hop helped lift him to victory. Endorsements by rappers from Jay-Z and Jeezy to Common and Will.I.Am not to mention two cover stories in Vibe magazine helped to mobilize record turnout among a coalition of young voters from various cultures, ethnic groups, and economic backgrounds. Eight years later, America was faced with the most openly racist candidate in modern history, but the popular resistance was in disarray. Somebody needed to step up, harness the awesome power of hip-hop, and speak with a clear voice, calling Trump out on his bullshit. Los Angeles rapper YG and Nipsey Hussle were locking in to start work on their collaborative album, as outrage against Trump was reaching a fever pitch. Everywhere I went, everybodys findin out all the real shit about him, YG recalled. He and Nip were always talking about using their platform to make a bold statement about real issues. As YG put it, they aspired to do stuff other motherfuckers are not doing. So we finally hit the studio and really did it.

Over the last couple of years Trumps been foreshadowing that hes going to run, said Nipsey. I thought it was a joke. I knew he was a big celebrity, but I didnt know it was possible for him to become president.

Hussle noticed that the power of the Trump brand was working in his favor. When you think about the 2016 election, all you really hear is Trump, he observed. You know Hillary, you know Bernie, but it seems like Trumps name and voice is louder than the rest of them. So it was like, Are we actually taking this serious? For Hussle, Trump was just a privileged rich dude that got an out-of-touch view of the world. That made me like, dude is definitely out of his mind and our country sounded crazy for even taking him as a legitimate candidate. We werent feeling him, YG said. The world wasnt feeling him.

Having grown up in L.A., both YG and Hussle found Trumps attacks on Mexican Americans particularly offensive. I went to Paramount High School, YG recalled. It was probably like 95.9 percent Latino All my homies grew up with Latino next-door neighbors, tryin to talk to they sisters and shit. Hussle had always discouraged Black-on-brown (as well as Black-on-Black) conflict. Thats divide and conquer, thats Willie Lynch, he told Davey D back in 2006. I feel like we got a common enemy, so I dont feel we got time to be beefin. In the decade since then, Hussle had put those views into practice, bringing different hoods and cultures together within his team, including his Mexican-born business partner and road manager Jorge Peniche.

The way Trump was campaigning was really affecting my guy, said Hussle, who gained a new appreciation for the impact of Trumps rhetoric. His situation was really in jeopardy. And watchin on TV, we like, Thats not right. This dude went to college. This dude is a good person. I saw it up close and personal. Fortunately, Peniche was able to work out his situation, but as the son of an immigrant himself, Hussle knew that many others were still in jeopardy. Moreover, Hussle had a sizable Mexican fan base turning out for his concerts and supporting his movement. I felt like they needed somebody to ride for em, Nip said. Because we relate in the struggle, and poverty, and not havin shit, and bein incarcerated we relate. So that message aint something we feel neither.

By the time Black people started getting thrown out of Trump rallies, YG felt they had no choice but to act. Trump was taking it too far. One day he put it to Nip: Look, bro, if we doin a project called Two of AmeriKKKaz Most Wanted, we gotta have a song called Fuck Donald Trump. Nip thought the idea was tight, like a 2016 version of N.W.A.s Fuck tha Police.

His exact words, as YG remembered them, were: Cuz, on Six-Owe, I feel you! Lets do it!

Everything unfolded quickly from that point. YG knew exactly which beat he wanted to use. When he explained the concept to DJ Swish, the producer thought it was something YG was doing for fun. I never thought this would be popular, Swish said, but it fits well with the times. DJ Mustard and Young Thug happened to be in the studio when the vocals were laid down. We heard it back through the speakers and we already knew this was powerful, Hussle later recalled. YG thought Nip should be the one to rap the verses. You always talk about real shit, he said. I be on some turnt-up burnt-out shit. But Nip challenged YG to set it off.

Nah, you rap it! Hussle said, and YG didnt hesitate. As soon as he laid down his first verse evoking the Rodney King riots and saying Im bout to turn Black Panther / Dont let Donald Trump win, that nigga cancer! everybody started looking around like, We should lock the door and finish this. Me as an artist, Nip as an artist, we very straight up and down, YG said later. It is what it is. It aint no hidden messages when we rapping. You gon know what the fuck we talkin bout. By the final verse, YG and Nip were going back and forth, making plans to form a coalition that would disrupt Trumps campaign by uniting the same people Trump sought to divide.

Hold up, Nip, tell the world how you fuck with Mexicans, YG said, after mentioning his Mexican plug and the Mexican mechanic who fixes the hydraulics on his lowrider. It wouldnt be the USA without Mexicans, Nip replied a statement that cut to the heart of Trumps xenophobic attacks, and one that rang especially true in border states like California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. While calling for Black love and brown pride, YG and Hussle were also demonstrating the possibility of reconciliation between red and blue.

With inspiration flowing, the record was done in less than an hour. In case anybody missed the significance of what was going on, YG closed out the song with a promise to pay Trump a visit. When your L.A. rally? We gon crash your shit!

As soon as they knocked out the vocals, YG turned to Nip. Im like, Ay, bro you ready?

What you talkin bout? Nip replied.

You ready for what might come with this? he said, on a serious note. Like, niggas gonna get banned from shows. All the police, all them people, gonna be on us.

We already get backlash. We already cant do this and this and this, Nip replied. Fuck it. Lets make it worth something.

They called the song FDT and dropped it on March 30, 2016.

Hip-hops powerful rebuke of the presumptive Republican candidate set the internet ablaze. The final version of the track included a sound bite of Trump talking about building his great wall on the Mexican border (and getting Mexico to pay for it!) as well as a clip of Tahjila Davis speaking about getting thrown out of the Trump rally. We tryna touch the people, YG told Billboard after the song was released. We tryna motivate all the young people to vote. Really take your time cause its important, you feel me? If not, it could be all bad for us.

FDT represented much more than just two rappers dissing a controversial politician. A Blood and a Crip had come together to make a song repping for Mexicans whose L.A. street culture dates back even farther than the Slausons and the Businessmen. As hard as Nip and YG went in their verses, they still made space for open-minded white folks to join the movement. If historian Mike Davis was right when he said, I dont think theres anything the police fear more than an end to gang warfare, then FDT had to be their worst nightmare.

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The United States vs. FDT - Vulture

Before his presidency, Donald Trump was frequently seen flying around the world in his eye-catching Boeing 757. Dubbed Trump Force One following its appearance on the campaign trail in 2016, the jet went largely unused once Trump took office and began flying on government transport instead. So, where is it now?

Before he was allowed to use a converted Boeing 747 under the Air Force One callsign for his trips, Donald Trump used to jet around the world in his own personal Boeing 757. Affectionately dubbed Trump Force One, the aircraft has been sitting idle since Trump took up the US presidency in January 2017.

During his time at the White House, Trump Force One operated a few executive trips for the Trump Organization, but in mid-2019, was placed into long-term storage at Stewart International Airport. Its maintenance was overdue, and Trump didnt think he would need it again for at least another four years.

There were rumors it would come out of mothballs ahead of his departure from the White House in January. However, there was a big problem one engine had been removed. A loan engine was reportedly being sought to enable the jet to fly to Citadel Completions in Louisiana for maintenance. That engine was never found, and Trump flew to Mar-a-Largo on board the VC-25A Air Force One 747.

As of today, the 757 remains stranded in Stewart, north of New York. The almost 30-year-old aircraft is still in need of an engine, a Rolls-Royce RB211, to get it ferried for maintenance. All that costs money, and it doesnt seem to be an investment Trump is keen to make right now.

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For most aircraft owners, storage has become a hot topic in recent months. With airlines keen to keep their grounded jets in good order, desert storage locations have become the location of choice. The warm, dry conditions are ideally suited to keeping aircraft in tip-top shape, and have seen the likes of Victorville, Alice Springs and Teruel in Spain filling up with planes.

New York Stewart International Airport, in Orange County, is not such a super place to keep an aircraft. Although the summer is warm and often dry, the winter can be cold, with temperatures dropping to seven degrees C (44 F) or below. The cold season can bring with it plenty of rain, and sometimes also snow, making for a poor storage environment for aircraft.

With the 757 unable to fly, Trump has been left to fly in his smaller corporate jet. His Cessna 750 Citation X has frequently been spotted flying between Palm Beach and LaGuardia. Seating just eight passengers, its not as luxurious as the 757, and doesnt have his name on the side.

Trumps 757 was once his pride and joy. It featured front and center in his 2016 presidential campaign, with several rallies held at airports with the plane as a backdrop. Its a lavishly appointed VIP space, with cream leather seats, 24-karat gold fixings and a huge master bedroom.

But Trump doesnt have cash to burn, as 2020 has taken its toll on the billionaires worth. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, his net worth is down to $2.3 billion from $3 billion before his presidency. For now, it seems that Trump is condemned to rely on his somewhat less glamorous Cessna Citation.

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Whats Happening With Donald Trumps Boeing 757? - Simple Flying

By Brett Clarkson, South Florida Sun Sentinel

Missing Donald Trumps tweets? Apparently the former president is coming back to social media, this time on his own platform, a spokesman told Fox News on Sunday.

Jason Miller, one of Trumps senior advisers, said Trumps new platform will be the hottest ticket in social media and that it will completely redefine the game.

Miller said he couldnt provide much in the way of specifics about the new Trump social media venture, but he said he expected it to be online in about two to three months.

Trump has been off Twitter since January, when the social media giant suspended his account after his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, a riot that resulted in five deaths. His Facebook and Instagram accounts were also suspended.

(c) 2021 the Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)

By Brett Clarkson, South Florida Sun Sentinel

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Donald Trump will be back on social media with 'his own platform,' says adviser Jason Miller - The Gazette

Former President Donald Trump willmake a triumphantreturn to social media within the next few months and with his own servicethat will completely redefine the game,his top adviser said Sunday.

Jason Miller told Fox News Media Buzz that the former commander-in-tweet will be back online in two to three months, and will launch a new platform that he claimed would attract tens of millions of users.I do think were going to see President Trump returning to social media in probably about two or three months here with his own platform, Miller said. This is something that I think will be the hottest ticket in social media.

Its going to completely redefine the game, and everybody is going to be waiting and watching to see what exactly President Trump does, but it will be his own platform,Miller said.

Miller wouldnt go into detail about the new platform but said the former president has been holdinga lot of high-powered meetings at his Mar-a-Lago Florida resort and numerous companies are interested in helping to get it off the ground.

Twitter dropped Trump from its platform in January just days after a mob of his supporters marched on the Capitol as Congress was certifying the 2020 election for President Biden.

The crowd surged past law enforcement officers and smashed windows and doors to gain entrance to the federal building where they ransacked a number of congressional offices. Five people died as a result of the mayhem, including a Capitol Police officer.

Twitter said Trump was permanently suspended because he was inciting violence, cutting him off from his 88.6 million followers.

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Donald Trump returning to social media in 2-to-3 months with own platform: aide - New York Post

While former President Donald Trump and Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have been at odds with one another since Trump left office, both agree that removing the filibuster would ruin the Republican Party.

In a new podcast interview with Lisa Boothe, Trump warned Republicans that any efforts to eliminate the long-standing Senate filibuster would cause severe damage to the party.

Trump said McConnell was "hanging by a thread and if they get rid of the filibuster, if they knock it out, it will be catastrophic for the Republican Party."

McConnell, who has long advocated for keeping the filibuster, has also warned about abolishing the rule that allows the minority party in the Senate to force a debate on any issue before a vote.

"Rules like the filibuster, which requires 60 votes to advance most legislation, exist to block bad ideas from becoming law and to encourage bipartisan solutions. This design also stabilizes national policy from swinging with every shift of the political winds," McConnell wrote in an op-ed published by The Courier Journal on Monday. "The legislative filibuster is the essence of the Senate."

"The filibuster stops radical schemes like the Green New Deal and socialized health care that would devastate the Bluegrass," the senator wrote. "It protects Jeffersontown and Shively from being steamrolled by Brooklyn and San Francisco. Last year, the voters rehired me to use Kentucky's veto and protect our values."

Members of both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party have long used the filibuster to block legislative pushes from the opposing side. But with a tied Senate and two swing moderate Democrats who threaten the Biden administration's agenda, Senate Majority Chuck Schumer is facing mounting pressure from progressives to remove the filibuster.

Moving to a simple majority requirement in the Senate would allow for the Democrats to pass more of their bills, with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the tie, but it would significantly limit the power of the Republican Party.

President Joe Biden, who spent more than three decades in the Senate, has signaled that he is in support of the filibuster.

Last week, Biden said, "You've got to work for the filibuster. It is almost getting to the point where democracy is having a hard time functioning."

Although Trump agreed with McConnell on the Senate provision, the former president continued to criticize McConnell for failing to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

"But if you look at what happened in the election, Mitch McConnell should've fought. You know, he did nothing. He should've fought. They should've fought. That could never have, that could never have happened to a Democrat," Trump told Boothe on Monday."

"What happened to us with the presidential election could never have happened to the Democrats," he continued. "You would have had a revolution if the tables were turned, you would have literally had a revolution. And guys like Mitch McConnell, they don't fight. And now he's hanging by a thread. He's hanging by a thread."

Newsweek reached out to the Republican National Committee for comment but did not hear back before publication.

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Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump Agree That Removing Filibuster Would Ruin GOP - Newsweek

Franklin Foer: Russiagate was not a hoax

Kilimnik, too, has become an old and familiar face in American politics, one that appears in election after election. During the 2016 campaign, Paul Manafort, Trumps campaign manager, passed polling information to him. Although this fact turned up in former Special Counsel Robert Muellers investigation of the 2016 election, nobody has ever explained why Kilimnik wanted this polling information or what he might have done with it. Now here he is, back again, front and center in 2020. The new report says thatin addition to providing kompromat to OANNKilimnik, Derkach, and others met with and provided materials to Trump administrationlinked US persons to advocate for formal investigations; hired a US firm to petition US officials; and attempted to make contact with several senior US officials.

All of that helps explain why my second reaction was If I know this already, and none of it seems to matter, then something is seriously wrong with the American political system. If the link between Russian security services and the stories about the Biden family was bleedingly obvious at the time, why did anyone go along with it? Why were American journalists, American politicians, and the American presidents advisers messing around with Russian intelligence agents?

The problem is not only the outgrowth of the peculiar climate created by Donald Trumphowever simple and satisfying such an explanation might be. Think, for a moment, about why the Russian state indulges in this kind of activity, year in and year out, despite the political costs and the risk of sanctions: Because its very cheap, its very easy, and a lot of evidence suggests that it works.

For decades now, Russian security services have studied a concept called reflexive controlthe science of how to get your enemies to make mistakes. To be successful, practitioners must first analyze their opponents deeply, to understand where they get their information and why they trust it; then they need to find ways of playing with those trusted sources, in order to insert errors and mistakes. This way of thinking has huge implications for the military; consider how a piece of incorrect information might get a general to make a mistake. But it works in politics too. The Russian security services have now studied us and worked out (it probably wasnt very hard) that large numbers of Americansnot only Fox News pundits and OANN broadcasters but also members of Congressare very happy to accept sensational information, however tainted, from any source that happens to provide it. As long as it suits their partisan frames, and as long as it can be used against their opponents, they dont care who invented it or for what purpose.

As a result, supplying an edited audiotape or a piece of false evidence to one of the bottom-feeders of the information ecosystem is incredibly easy; after that, others will ensure that it rises up the food chain. Russian disinformation doesnt succeed thanks to the genius of Russians; it succeeds thanks to the sharp partisanship of Americans. Russian disinformation works because Americans allow it to workand because those same Americans dont care anymore about the harm they do to their country.

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The Science of Making Americans Hurt Their Own Country - The Atlantic

What does he have to offer anybody? And in fact theres every incentive to crush him, DAntonio told the Post.

Though there are many to choose from, presumably the most worrisome legal issue facing Trump is Vances criminal investigation, which is looking into possible insurance, bank, and tax fraud. Last month, the Manhattan D.A.s officehiredMarkPomerantz,who helped put John Gotti and others involved in organized crime behind bars, to work on the Trump case. Among other things, Pomerantz hasreportedlybeen working on gettingAllen Weisselberg,the Trump Organizations longtime CFO who knows where all the bodies are buried, to flip. Equally terrifying, for someone trying to stay out of prison, is the fact that Vance has something no other investigator looking into Trumps affairs has had before: the ex-presidents tax returns, which the former real estate developer curiously refused to release while running for office and fought tooth and nail to keep secret. After the Supreme Court rejected his last-ditch attempt to keep the information out of Vances hands, Trump flew off the handle, calling himself the victim of the greatest political Witch Hunt in the history of our Country.And while thats not actually true, you can probably understand why he was upset! As former fixer Michael Cohen told the Post, the level of review being undertaken by Vances office, is unprecedented in Trumps corporate history, on par with a proctological exam of the highest order.

P.S. Trump is also financially screwed

Yes, hes still worth some $2.5 billion, but thats down $700 million since he became president and it appears the number may continue to plummet, per the Post:

Several of his hotels and resorts reported sharp downturns in 2020. At Trump Tower in Manhattan, one major commercial tenantTiffany & Co.is planning to vacate its space. Another, Marc Fisher Footwear, stopped paying rent in November, according to a lawsuit the Trump Organization filed against the footwear company this month. The company owes more than $1.4million in back payments, according to the suit.

Meanwhile, thanks to the events of January 6, 2021, Trump can no longer rely on previous sources of income like hosting LPGA events, which may make it difficult to repay the $1 billion he owes creditors. On the other hand, who knows how much money hell make scamming his supporters through his super PAC!

Oh: The officer who sympathetically noted the accused Atlanta shooter had had a bad day has a side gig promoting racist T-shirts

Jay Baker, who told reporters on Wednesday that Robert Aaron Long had had a really bad day and this is what he did while discussing the fact that Long allegedly murdered eight people, is reportedly no longer the spokesman for the case, which makes sense. Per the Daily Beast:

Excerpt from:

Donald Trump Is Drowning in Criminal Investigations and Legally Screwed - Vanity Fair

Ex-president Donald Trump finds himself adrift while in political exile. And Republicans, and even some allies, say he is disorganized, torn between playing the role of antagonist and party leader.

There is no apparatus, no structure and part of that is due to a lack of political understanding on Trumps behalf, said a person close to the former president, noting that Trump has struggled to learn the ropes of post-presidential politicking.

Its like political phantom limbs. He doesn't have the same political infrastructure he did three months ago as president, added GOP strategist Matt Gorman, who previously served as communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

The version of Trump that has emerged in the month and a half since he left office is far from the political godzilla many expected him to be. He was supposed to unleash hell on a party apparatus that recoiled when his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and declined to fiercely defend him during his second impeachment. Instead, Trump has maintained close ties to GOP officials who have committed to supporting incumbents, stayed almost entirely out of the spotlight, delivered fairly anodyne remarks the one time he emerged, and offered only sparse criticism of his successor, Joe Biden.

The cumulative result is political whiplash, as the former president shifts from wanting to support the GOP with his resources and grassroots appeal one day to refocusing on his own brand and thirst for vengeance the next. In the past week alone, Trump has gone from threatening party bodies for using his name and likeness in their fundraising efforts to offering up his Mar-a-Lago estate as a host site for part of the Republican National Committees spring donor retreat. He savagely attacked veteran GOP operative Karl Rove for criticizing his first post-presidency speech at the annual Conservative Political Action Committee, and endorsed Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), who repeatedly scrutinized Trumps own trade practices while in office.

And in the span of two weeks, Trump went from endorsing his first primary challenger to an incumbent Republican by throwing his support between former White House aide-turned-congressional candidate Max Miller to hosting a vocal opponent of insurgent primary challenges, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., for dinner at Mar-a-Lago. In his role as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Scott has promised to stick by GOP incumbents including Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who voted to convict Trump in his Senate trial last month on charges of inciting an insurrection. The Florida Republican said he had a great meeting with Trump in a tweet he shared Friday.

For any normal politician, it would look like hes trying to have it both ways but really hes trying to have it his way, said a former Trump White House official. He only cares about maintaining his power and his stranglehold over the Republican Party and it doesnt matter to him how any of the moves he makes affect the long-term success of institutions or individuals other than himself.

Trump has always been an impulsive figure who demanded loyalty from those around him. But those traits have come with positions of power: whether atop a real estate empire, as a media celebrity, or in his last iteration as president of the United States.

No longer occupying a powerful office, the task has been made more complicated. The former president has appeared to settle into life outside the confines of the West Wing, and even made his first trip to New York earlier this week. He continues to hold court on the patio of his Mar-a-Lago resort where he is greeted by a standing ovation from members when he and the former first lady walk by. He spends his days monitoring the news, making calls and playing golf at his eponymous club just a few miles away.

He has assembled a barebones staff of paid and unpaid advisers who say they are working to vet primary candidates seeking his support and get his fundraising operation off the ground. But the factions that have already formed among those surrounding him suggest potential turbulence ahead. Three veterans of Trumps 2020 campaign Brad Parscale, Bill Stepien and Justin Clark have been screening primary recruitments and brainstorming ways to reestablish his online presence, while Dave Bossie and Corey Lewandowski are in talks with the ex-president to launch a new fundraising entity on his behalf, according to people briefed on the recent discussions.

At the same time, Trump has continued to phone pals from his real estate days and former White House officials soliciting their counsel on which Republicans he should try to unseat and whether they approve of the primary challengers hes considering. One former administration official who has been in contact with Trump described him as a pinball, noting that his tendency to abruptly change directions or seize on a new idea after speaking with a friend or outside adviser a habit that often frustrated aides during his time in office has carried into his post-presidency life.

An 84-year-old man body-slammed in a driveway. A 27-year-old Air Force veteran jumped and called racial slurs in LA's Chinatown. POLITICOs Irene Noguchi reports on the rise in anti-Asian attacks.

Youve got Trump making endorsements of people without going through the process he agreed to three days ago, said the former White House official. Its really disorganized.

The fear among Republicans is that Trumps indecisiveness will extend to his personal political future as well. Trump has continued to dangle a 2024 run over the party, and the will-he-wont-he guessing game has held presidential hopefuls in limbo.

Politics is his hobby and hes having fun with his hobby in between his rounds of golf, said a former Trump adviser. His big test is does he run again? Because if he doesnt, youll see people lose interest in the guy in the next hour. As long as he plays the theatrics hes going to run again, he still garners attention and creates headlines.

But stripped of a social media platform like Twitter, the former president has had to rely on issuing statements some mimicking the tone and length of his past tweets via his post-presidency office or political PAC press lists. So far, hes issued more than two dozen endorsements and statements since leaving the White House. The more recent ones have bashed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and sought credit for the current Covid-19 vaccine distribution.

And while Trump, an avid cable news consumer, has avoided publicly responding to TV segments that are critical of him or the wave of recent cancel culture headlines, hes been tempted. Before a Wednesday appearance by his senior adviser Jason Miller on the War Room podcast hosted by former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, Trump told Miller he could make a little news by relaying the ex-presidents thoughts on last Sundays bombshell Oprah interview of Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle.

When I was talking to the president this morning hes like, Yeah, shes no good. I said that and now everybodys seeing it. But you realize if you say anything negative about Meghan Markle you get canceled. Look at Piers, Miller said, recounting his conversation with Trump, who had been referring to Piers Morgan, the polarizing Good Morning Britain host who parted ways with the show this week after dismissing Markles revelations as lies.

Some close aides have described Trumps hiatus from Twitter as a welcome break that allows his rare statements to carry more weight than the thought bubbles he would release on the internet.

But so far, many of his recent political maneuverings have been met with a shrug by the GOP. Trumps public tussle with the Republican Party over fundraising and the use of his name and likeness in appeals for money appeared to fizzle out after attorneys for the Republican National Committee denied Trumps cease-and-desist demands. By weeks end, the RNC was not only still using Trumps name in fundraising solicitations, it was offering him up as an enticement.

Want to meet President Trump? a fundraising appeal read, touting the opportunity to dine with the former president at an upcoming spring retreat and even take a photo with him too.

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Trump was supposed to be a political Godzilla in exile. Instead, hes adrift. - POLITICO

CNN has seen ratings plummet since former President Donald Trump left the White House, according to a Fox News report on Nielsen Media Research data.

The network averaged 2.5 million primetime viewers between the day after the election November 4, 2020 and Inauguration Day on January 20, 2021, Fox News reported.

Since President Joe Biden was sworn in, however, those numbers have dropped dramatically. An average of 1.6 million viewers tuned in during primetime hours between January 21 and March 15, Fox News said. That's a downturn of 36% since Biden took office.

Primetime viewers also ditched CNN in the periodbetween December 28 through to January 20. The network hemorrhaged almost half (49%) of its primetime viewers, Fox News reported. An average of 3.1 million primetime fell to just 1.6 million, the media outlet said.

The primetime numbers are abysmal among CNN's key audience. The network's target age group is those aged 25 to 54, according to MIT Media Lab. CNN has seen a 47% drop in viewership in that demographic during Biden's inauguration and March 15, Fox News said.

During daytime hours, CNN's ratings aren't faring much better. The network saw the number of daytime viewers drop by 34% in the period between the election and Inauguration Day, according to Fox News. Among the key age demographic, CNN lost 58% of those aged 25 to 54.

CNN thrived during the Trump presidency. The network hit a 40-year viewership record in November 2020, The New York Times reported.

But there's "palpable concern" that the former president's departure will cause a sustained slump in cable-news ratings, Variety's Brian Steinberg said.

Network executives have reportedly been fretting over a post-Trump era, with several journalists and executives telling The New York Times that they are "uneasy" about the year ahead.

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CNN ratings have crashed since Donald Trump left the White House - Business Insider

The second reason is more narrowly partisan. But, at least for some progressives, the question is acute: How come the resign-in-shame thing seems mainly to apply to Democrats and not Republicans? The list of sexual and manifold other transgressions confirmed or credibly alleged against Donald Trump that are as bad or worse than anything done by Cuomo is encyclopedic. After 2016, when establishment Republicans tried and failed to pressure him out of the race for the Access Hollywood tape, he never faced serious pressure from his party to resign.

One good answer to this question is that Democrats aspire to be the progressive party, not the reactionary one, so there is good reason for them to live by a more demanding double-standard. Still, its notable that a majority of average Democratic voters in New York, unlike most elected leaders, said in a Siena College poll they do not want Cuomo to resign and are satisfied with how he has addressed sexual misconduct allegations so far.

This double-standard leads to a third reason the Make-Cuomo-Quit campaign is murky, even as his behavior is deplorable. The political culture is in the midst of a highly disruptive moment when it comes to enforcement of standards of right and wrong. The reasons relate to a convergence of changing societal attitudes, political polarization and the transformative effect of social media.

In some ways, the muscles of public accountability have grown much stronger and more demanding. Sexual and racial misconduct, which in an earlier time was more likely to fester undisturbed in the shadows, is now finally being brought into the light.

At the same time, other muscles of accountability have atrophied in alarming ways. As a general rule, as long as a politician can maintain a base of support usually animated by people who dislike his or her accusers more than the alleged transgression it is easier than ever to escape serious consequences.

It is a fluid moment in public ethics reason enough to be cautious in laying down the law about what should happen individual cases.

Its also true that every scandal has its own context and cant be conflated with another. Yet Cuomos team is understandably invoking the case of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam. When a photo emerged that purported to show him during the 1980s in black face costume after a confused early response, he said the photo wasnt of him many influential Democrats and The Washington Post were united in saying he must go. For a few days that looked inevitable. Then, Northam did what Cuomo is trying to do change the dynamic by making clear hes not resigning, period. With ten months left in his term, the scandal seems mostly forgotten. Meanwhile, former Sen. Al Franken and many of his supporters wish he had implemented the Northam strategy.

Schumer, Gillibrand and peers are bringing the ethos of an earlier age to a contemporary scandal. In an earlier age, once a critical mass of elites reached a consensus judgment that a politician was outside the bounds of acceptable behavior, there was no reasonable escape. This was the dynamic when Barry Goldwater and other Republican senators went to the Oval Office in 1974 to tell Richard Nixon his time was up. It was a similar dynamic that caused Gary Hart to give up his presidential campaign in 1987, once The Washington Posts Ben Bradlee sent word through an emissary that the paper was ready to publish more disclosures about extramarital affairs unless he dropped out.

In that generation, the choice was to either resign or throw oneself on the mercy of the court of public opinion. In this generation, Trump and other politicians have shown there is another choice: Contemptuously challenge the legitimacy of any court that would presume to judge you, and take advantage of the reality that there is no elite consensus that transcends partisan and ideological divides on any subject.

Cuomos thought bubble isnt hard to read: Hey, what worked for Trump might work for me.

That seems unlikely, but if he wants to give it a try, it is only a formal impeachment that can stop him.

President Joe Biden was actually quite artful when ABCs George Stephanopoulos asked him about Cuomo the other day. He seemed on the surface to be endorsing resignation but thats only if an investigation confirms that sexual harassment allegations are true. In other words, the outcome should depend on a process guided by either the state legislature or the criminal justice system.

It would be a reasonable decision if Cuomo announced that his problems were too serious and too much of distraction for him to remain in office. But the era when other politicians or the media can use public pressure alone to impose that judgment is likely over.

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Cuomo Tries the Trump Strategy For Surviving Scandal - POLITICO