Category Archives: Donald Trump

The Fulton County district attorney opened a criminal investigation last month.

March 4, 2021, 5:35 PM

4 min read

A grand jury is expected to be seated this week in Fulton County, Georgia, to look into efforts by Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 election, signaling that the county's investigation into the former president is intensifying.

Prosecutors in Fulton County are expected pursue subpoenas for documents and witnesses and rely heavily on them, people familiar with the investigation told ABC News.

In a letter sent last month from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to Gov. Brian Kemp and obtained by ABC News, Willis said the grand jury would convene in March and would "begin requesting grand jury subpoenas as necessary at that time."

Willis wrote in the Feb. 10 letter that her office had no reason to believe any Georgia official was the target of the investigation.

President Donald Trump addresses a campaign rally in Dalton, Georgia, Jan. 4, 2021, on the eve of the run-off election to decide both of Georgia's Senate seats.

The district attorney's office in Fulton County formally launched a criminal probe into Trump's efforts to overturn his election loss in the state last month, after Trump was heard in a Jan. 2 phone call pleading with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to help him "find 11,780 votes," the exact number he needed to win Georgia.

"This investigation includes, but is not limited to, potential violations of Georgia law prohibiting the solicitation of election fraud, the making of false statements to state and local governmental bodies, conspiracy, racketeering, violation of oath of office and any involvement in violence or threats related to the election's administration," Willis wrote in her letter to the governor.

George Washington University Law Professor John F. Banzhaf, whose formal complaints with Georgia officials helped trigger the investigation, says that Trump's hour-long call to Raffensperger could have violated as many as three separate state laws.

Trump has previously denied any wrongdoing.

ABC News' Quinn Scanlan contributed to this report.

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Grand jury in Georgia expected to convene in probe of Trump's efforts to overturn election - ABC News

Actor and comedian Tim Allen recently said that he liked that President Donald Trump incited anger in his critics.

"Once I realized the last president pissed people off, I kinda liked that," the 67-year-old "Last Man Standing" star said during an appearance on Monday's episode of "WTF With Marc Maron."

He continued, "It was fun to just not say anything. Didn't join in the lynching crowd."

Allen went on to say that he personally knew Billand Hillary Clinton ahead of the 2016 presidential election, calling the former US president a "genuinely nice guy."

He added that he "just didn't think that Hillary should've been president," saying that there was "nothing personal" about his opinion.

The actor referred to himself as a "fiscal conservative" as a result of his long-standing dislike for paying taxes.

"Once I started making money, I had this silent partner that just took almost half of my money and never gave me anything for it. That's taxes. I've never liked taxes," he said.

Allen added that he doesn't try to inflict his political views on others.

"I literally don't preach anything. What I've done is I've just not joined into, as I call it, the 'we culture.' I'm not telling anybody else how to live. I don't like that," he explained.

Following Allen's interview with Maron, his name began trending on Twitter as a result of his comments about Trump. However, it wasn't the first time he's spoken about the former president.

In 2016, he called Hollywood liberals "hypocritical" for condemning Trump as a "bully" during a visit to Fox News' "The Kelly File."

"What I find odd in Hollywood is that they didn't like Trump because he was a bully," he said. "But if you had any kind of inkling that you were for Trump, you got bullied for doing that. And that's where this gets a little hypocritical to me."

The comedian has also attended Trump's inauguration in January 2017 and described his experience on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" months after.

"I was invited. We did a VIP thing for the vets, and went to a veterans ball, so I went to go see Democrats and Republicans," he said.

Allen told the host then that he had to be "careful" talking about his decision to attend the event, likening being a conservative in Hollywood to living in 1930s Germany.

"You get beat up if you don't believe what everybody believes. This is like '30s Germany. I don't know what happened. If you're not part of the group, 'You know what we believe is right,' I go, 'Well, I might have a problem with that.' I'm a comedian, I like going on both sides," he said.

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Tim Allen says he 'liked' that Donald Trump 'pissed people off' while he was in office - Insider

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Stewart Poths and Suzanne Stratten of Vancouver, Washington sold flags, T-shirts and hats Monday, March 1, 2021 at the corner of Hartnell and Cypress avenues in Redding.(Photo: Damon Arthur/Record Searchlight)

Donald Trump may have lost the election in November, but Gretchen Vela is still flying his flag.

The Redding woman bought one in Redding on Monday from acouplewho set up tables and displays selling Trump flags, hats and T-shirts at the corner of Hartnell and Cypress avenues.

Vela and her husband came to buy a flag that says "Jesus is my savior and Donald Trump is my president."

To Vela, it is appropriate to mention Trump and Jesus in the same sentence.

"He makes it possible to keep our religious rights and what we feel is right," Vela said.

Stewart Poths and Suzanne Stratton of Vancouver, Washington, travel around Oregon, Washington and Northern California selling Trump goods. Sales are still strong, even though Trump is no longer president, Poths said.

One of the flags for sale in Redding on Monday, March 1, 2021 looked like an American flag but featured assault rifles and handguns.(Photo: Damon Arthur/Record Searchlight)

"It's good. A lot of the support is really good," Poths said, especially in Redding.

In addition to the standard "Make America Great Again" ball caps, there were also "Trump 2024" flags, "Our Nation Our Votes Stolen" flags, yellow Gadsden flags featuring an image of a coiled snake and the phrase "Don't tread on me."

There was also a flag that resembledthe American flag, but the stars were made up of images of handguns and the stripes were composed of assault rifles.

Vela said she bought her first Trump hat from the same vendors a couple days ago.

Stewart Poths of Vancouver, Washington, shows off a flag he had for sale in Redding on Monday, March 1, 2021.(Photo: Damon Arthur/Record Searchlight)

"He (Trump) just reminds me of my grandpa, who was a hard worker," Vela said.

But Stevan Keyser of Redding said he was angered at seeing the Trump goods up for sale. He was riding the bus when it passed by the corner and saw the items up for sale.

"I don't think that what I was seeing there was American," Keyser said. "I think this moves beyond free speech because it is incendiary."

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Former President Trump speaks to a crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida, promises not to start a new political party. USA TODAY

Damon Arthur is the Record Searchlights resources and environmentreporter. He is among the first on the scene at breaking news incidents, reporting real time on Twitter at@damonarthur_RS. Damon is part of a dedicated team of journalists who investigate wrongdoing and find the unheard voices to tell the stories of the North State. He welcomes story tips at 530-338-8836 and damon.arthur@redding.com. Help local journalism thrive bysubscribing today!

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Donald Trump still gets the love and sales in Redding - Record Searchlight

Ralph Bristol, Guest columnist Published 12:00 p.m. CT March 2, 2021

Former President Trump speaks to a crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida, promises not to start a new political party. USA TODAY

Trump allies like Lindsey Graham say Donald Trump is still the future of the Republican Party. Democrats hope that's right.

In 2020, former President Donald Trump was involuntarily inducted into the least envied of all former presidents clubs.

Trump is one of nine U.S. presidents to seek and fail to get a second term. Twenty-one Presidents won election to a second term. Others didnt seek a second term for various reasons, including death.

The other eight members of the club are John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, Franklin Pierce, Benjamin Harrison, William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush.

You cant judge Trumps presidency or his potential to continue to lead the GOP solely by his membership in that least envied of all political clubs. For that, you must examine other evidence.

Former President Donald Trump at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Feb. 28, 2021, in Orlando, Florida.(Photo: John Raoux/AP)

Three 20th-century Republican presidents were involuntary inductees. Trump is the first in the 21st Century.

In the 20th century, William Howard Taft was felled by a split in the Republican Party when his predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt, broke with the GOP and ran on a third-party ticket, paving the way for Democrat Woodrow Wilsons victory.

Herbert Hoover was seven months into his administration when the stock market crashed and the Great Depression began. His loss gave us Franklin D. Roosevelt, the only president to serve more than two terms, who presided over both the Great Depression and World War II.

George H.W. Bush took hits from both a strong third-party candidate, Ross Perot, and the 1992 recession. He also suffered self-inflicted wounds by reneging on a now infamous read my lips promise not to raise taxes. Democrat Bill Clinton collected the spoils, which included some of the most irresponsible Oval Office behavior of any U.S. president, but also one of the most robust and sustained market rebounds in history and, coupled with spending restrained by a Republican congress, the last responsible, balanced budget the U.S. will likely ever see.

Former president Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Sunday, Feb. 28, 2021, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)(Photo: John Raoux, AP)

Trump won the presidency at the end of the so-called Great Recession after modest growth had returned and the largest deficit in history to that point, $1.4 trillion under President Barack Obama, had dropped to $700 billion, still outrageous but trending in the right direction. The country had practically forgotten the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that dominated the eight years of the George W. Bush administration and still plagued the eight years of the Obama administration. Trump inherited and reined over a period of relative peace and prosperity. His reelection jeopardy was two-fold.

The first was self-imposed. Trump made a lot of domestic enemies in high and low places with the way he conducted political business. He constantly and publicly fought with people almost indiscriminately, in both parties, in business, in the media, in the street, berating and punishing anyone who crossed him and many who didnt.

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Since he occupied the most powerful office in the world, he could and did command a lot of fear, but not nearly as much respect. That works up to a point, until the privacy of the ballot box unveils a previously undetected vein of opposition.

Trumps self-imposed problem was joined by the challenge to manage a deadly coronavirus pandemic in a way that would save the most lives without wrecking the economy, a challenge that presented itself nine months before the election. Trump cant be blamed for COVID-19 or for all of the government decisions that made it worse, but the buck stops with the president, especially in an election year.

The virus and government reaction on all levels to it permanently destroyed millions of businesses and jobs, despite Trump and Congress trying to save them with a federal government spending spree that knows no historic equal, and people continued to die by the thousands every day.

For reasons having nothing to do with alleged election fraud, Trump lost the 2020 election by a margin he described as a landslide when he defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Ralph Bristol(Photo: Submitted)

Fourmonths after the election, Republicans are still circling the wagons around Trump. Most House and Senate Republicans voted to protect him from impeachment charges that he incited the Jan. 6 riot and "insurrection" at the Capitol. State Republican parties in Louisiana, North Carolina,, Pennsylvania, Alaska and Nebraska censured their U.S. senators who voted to convict Trump of the impeachment charges. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina insisted after the Senate vote that the path to future Republican victories is Trump plus.

The next two election cycles should reveal whether Graham is right that the newest inductee into the infamous club, who lost the entire government to Democrats, will continue to lead the GOP. Democrats insist they hope Graham is right, as do Independents and third party candidates eager to challenge both parties in the next two election cycles.

More likely, most Republicans are simply stuck in the first stage of grief denial but will advance to bargaining by the midterm elections and will be ready for acceptance and eager to put Trump in the rear view mirror well before the next presidential election.

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Ralph Bristol is a retired conservative broadcaster living in Nashville.

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Can Donald Trump lead the Republican Party after losing Congress and the White House? | Opinion - Tennessean

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U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, in a speech Friday at a major national conservative gathering, joked about his recent trip to Cancn during the Texas winter weather crisis and promised that former President Donald Trump would be a lasting force in the Republican Party.

Cruz appeared at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida, as President Joe Biden headed to Texas to see the states recovery from last weeks storm, which left millions of Texans without power and potable water. The Democratic president was set to be joined in Houston by the states senior U.S. senator, John Cornyn, as well as Gov. Greg Abbott, both Republicans.

Cruz opened his CPAC speech by poking fun at his ill-timed visit to Cancn, which sparked a national uproar late last week. Cruz returned early from his trip, calling it a "mistake."

I gotta say, Orlando is awesome. Its not as nice as Cancn, Cruz said, pausing amid laughter in the crowd. But its nice.

Cruz went on to use the address to rally Republicans against the Biden agenda and for the next two election cycles. At one point, he brought up Trump and said there were some in Washington D.C., who want to move on from him.

Let me tell you this right now: Donald Trump aint goin anywhere, Cruz said, arguing the GOP has become the party of not just the country clubs but also blue-collar workers.

That is our party and these deplorables are here to stay, Cruz added, referring to the term Hillary Clinton used to describe some of Trumps supporters in the 2016 presidential race.

Cruz led up to the declaration by referencing a report Thursday that an old intraparty nemesis, ex-U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, told Cruz to go f--k yourself in an off-script moment while recording the audio version of his new memoir.

Yesterday, John Boehner made some news, Cruz said. He suggested that I do something that was anatomically impossible to which my response was, Whos John Boehner?

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Ted Cruz speaks in Florida about Donald Trump, Cancn - The Texas Tribune

Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- A firm hired to monitor Texas power markets says the regions grid manager overpriced electricity over two days during last months energy crisis, resulting in $16 billion in overcharges.Amid the deep winter freeze that knocked nearly half of power generation offline, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, known as Ercot, set the price of electricity at the $9,000-a-megawatt-hour maximum -- standard practice during a grid emergency. But Ercot left that price in place days longer than necessary, resulting in massive overcharges, according to Potomac Economics, an independent market monitor hired by the state of Texas to assess Ercots performance. In an unusual move, the firm recommended in a letter to regulators that the pricing be corrected and that $16 billion in charges be reversed as a result.Potomac isnt the first to say that leaving electricity prices at the $9,000 cap for so long was a mistake. Plenty of power companies at risk of defaulting on their payments have said the same. But the market monitor is giving that opinion considerable weight and could sway regulators to let companies off the hook for some of the massive electricity charges they incurred during the crisis.The Arctic blast that crippled Texass grid and plunged more than 4 million homes and businesses into darkness for days has pushed many companies to the brink of insolvency and stressed the power market, which is facing a more-than $2.5 billion payment shortfall. One utility, Brazos Electric Power Cooperative, has already filed for bankruptcy, while retailers Griddy Energy LLC and Entrust Energy Inc. defaulted and have been banned from participating in the market.The market is under quite a bit of duress, Kenan Ogelman, Ercots vice president of commercial operations told Texas lawmakers Thursday. Moodys Investors Service downgraded Ercot one notch from A1 to Aa3 and revised the grid operators credit outlook to negative.Retroactively adjusting the power price would ease the financial squeeze on some of the companies facing astronomical power bills in the wake of the energy crisis. EDF Renewable Energy and Just Energy are among those asking the Public Utility Commission to reset the power price for the days after the immediate emergency while others have also asked regulators to waive their obligation to pay until price disputes are resolved.If we dont act to stabilize things, a worst-case scenario is that people will go under, said Carrie Bivens, the Ercot independent market monitor director at Potomac Economics. It creates a cascading effect.The erroneous charges exceed the total cost of power traded in real-time in all of 2020, said Bivens, who spent 14 years at Ercot, where she most recently was director of market operations before becoming its watchdog. Its a mind-blowing amount of money.While prices neared the $9,000 cap on the first day of the blackouts, they soon dipped to $1,200 -- a fluctuation that the utility commission later attributed to a computer glitch. The panel, which oversees the states power system, ordered Ercot to manually set the price at the maximum to incentivize generators to feed more electricity into the grid during the period of supply scarcity. The market monitor argues that Ercot should have reset prices once rotating blackouts ended because, at the point, the emergency was over.Its asking the commission to direct Ercot to correct the real-time price of electricity from 12 a.m. Feb. 18 to 9 a.m. Feb. 19. Doing so could save end-customers around $1.5 billion that otherwise would be passed through to them from electricity providers, Bevins said.But power generators that reaped substantial profits from the high prices during the crisis week are likely to push back. Vistra Corp. on Thursday submitted comments to the utility commission arguing against repricing. During a Texas senate hearing the same day, utilities South Texas Electric Cooperative and the Lower Colorado River Authority also voiced opposition.Texas Competitive Power Advocates, a trade association representing generators, said retroactively changing prices could discourage future investments in Texass electricity market. Changing prices after the fact creates additional instability and uncertainty, Michele Richmond, the groups executive director, said in an email.Bivens acknowledged the market monitor isnt typically in favor of repricing, but noted in her letter to the commission that the move wouldnt result in any revenue shortfalls for generators. Instead, the new price would reflect the actual supply, demand and reserves during the period.This isnt some Monday morning quarterbacking, she said in an interview. Ercot made an error and we dont let errors slide.The utility commission on Wednesday adopted a prior recommendation made by the market monitor, voting to to claw back some payments to power generators for services they never actually provided during energy crisis. The commissioners also expressed support for capping the price of certain grid services -- a request made by several retailers -- but didnt take action on it. Another commission meeting is scheduled for Friday.(Adds Ogelman quote, Moodys downgrade in fifth paragraph.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.2021 Bloomberg L.P.

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Trump Organization Under Criminal Investigation in NY Will Donald Trumps Accountants Flip? - Yahoo Finance

Infowars host Alex Jones can be heard saying that he is "sick" of former President Donald Trump in a newly unearthed video.

Jones made the remarks while filming an interview for the documentary You Can't Watch This in January 2019. In an expletive-filled outtake leaked by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) on Tuesday, the far-right conspiracy theorist insisted that he would have preferred to have never met the former president, despite heavily promoting Trump to his audience for more than five years.

"It's the truth and I'm just going to say it, that I wish I never would have f***ing met Trump," Jones said. "I wish it never would have happened. And it's not the attacks I've been through. It's I'm so sick of f***ing Donald Trump, man. God, I'm f***ing sick of him. And I'm not doing this because, like, I'm kissing his f***ing ass, you know. It's, like, I'm sick of it."

A spokesperson for Trump declined to comment to Newsweek when asked about the video. Infowars had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.

While the video suggests that Jones may have privately tired of Trump, he has publicly remained one of the former president's most ardent supporters. Jones participated in multiple "Stop the Steal" rallies following Trump's election loss to President Joe Biden, including a January 6 rally in Washington, D.C. that immediately preceded the deadly breach of the U.S. Capitol.

The leaked footage was recorded by filmmaker Caolan Robertson, who told SPLC that Jones "doesn't care about most of the stuff he professes to." Jones has rarely strayed from praising Trump since the former reality television star became a political figure. Trump himself took part in a December 2015 Infowars interview with Jones, with the then-candidate telling the host that "your reputation is amazing" while vowing to "not let you down."

In January, a video showing Jones denouncing the false pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory while speaking to a supporter of the theory on Infowars went viral, gathering millions of views. Jones had previously used his platform to boost QAnon and similar debunked conspiracies like Pizzagate.

"Every God damn thing out of you people's mouths doesn't come true," Jones said. "It's always 'Oh, there's energy,' 'Oh, now we're done with Trump.' You said he was the messiah! You said he was invincible! You said that it was all over. That they were going to Gitmo and now that he's part of a larger thing of Q."

"I will not suffer you Q people after this," he added. "I knew what you were day one and I know what you are now and I'm sick of it. I'm sick of all these witches and warlocks and pumpkin popsomes and everything. Oh God. Bye-bye Q, I can't talk to you anymore. Jesus, lord help me."

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Video Shows Alex Jones Saying He's 'Sick' of Donald Trump and Wishes He Never Met Him - Newsweek

Donald Trump clung to his core election falsehoods in his first post-presidential speech, wrongly blamed wind power for the catastrophic power failures in Texas and revived a variety of the baseless claims that saturated his time in office, on immigration, the economy and more.

A look at Trumps remarks Sunday at the Conservative Political Action Conference:

WIND POWER

TRUMP, assailing Democrats on energy policy: The windmill calamity that were witnessing in Texas ... its so sad when you look at it. That will just be the start.

TRUMP, on President Joe Biden: He wants windmills. ... The windmills that dont work when you need them.

THE FACTS: Windmill calamity is a false characterization. The power outages during the severe February storm in Texas were primarily due to failures in natural gas, coal and nuclear energy systems, not wind and solar.

Those traditional sources were responsible for nearly twice as many outages as frozen wind turbines and solar panels, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the states power grid.

ERCOT reported that of the 45,000 total megawatts of power that were offline statewide during the winter storm, about 30,000 consisted of thermal sources gas, coal and nuclear plants and 16,000 came from renewable sources. Wind only supplies about a quarter of the electricity in Texas.

Its not like we were relying on it to ride us through this event, Joshua Rhodes, a research associate at the Webber Energy Group at the University of Texas at Austin, said of wind power. Nor would it have been able to save us even if it were operating at 100% capacity right now. We just dont have enough of it.

Wind power comes from turbines, not windmills. Windmills grind grain. Trump always gets that wrong.

___

ELECTION

TRUMP: Had we had a fair election, the results wouldve been much different.

TRUMP: You cannot have a situation where ballots are indiscriminately pouring in from all over the country ... where illegal aliens and dead people are voting.

TRUMP: This election was rigged and the Supreme Court and other courts didnt want to do anything about it.

TRUMP on Democrats: They just lost the White House. ... I may even decide to beat them for a third time.

THE FACTS: All of this is flatly wrong, except it is true that the high court did not intervene, because the justices Trump nominees among them saw no reason to.

Biden won the election. It was run and counted fairly. His victory was affirmed in Congress, with Trumps vice president presiding over the process in the Senate, in the hours after the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection by a mob stoked by Trump.

Trumps allegations of massive voting fraud were either refuted or brushed off as groundless by a variety of judges, state election officials, an arm of his own administrations Homeland Security Department, and his own attorney general. His campaigns lawsuits across the country were thrown out of court or otherwise came to nothing.

No case established irregularities of a scale that would change the outcome no flood of dead people voting or ballots indiscriminately pouring in from all over the country.

Biden earned 306 electoral votes to Trumps 232, the same margin that Trump had when he beat Hillary Clinton in 2016, which he repeatedly described as a landslide. (Trump ended up with 304 electoral votes because two electors defected.)

___

IMMIGRATION

TRUMP, on foreign countries that are the source of migrants to the U.S.: Theyre not giving us their best and their finest.

THE FACTS: This falsehood goes way back in the Trump administration. Foreign countries do not select people to send to the U.S. That is not at all how immigration works.

He is referring to the diversity visa lottery program, although he did not identify it as such in these remarks. As president, Trump routinely assailed the program, mischaracterizing it as one in which other countries pick out undesirable citizens to send to the U.S.

The U.S. government runs the visa program and foreigners who want to come to the U.S. apply for it. The program requires applicants to have completed a high school education or have at least two years of experience in the last five years in a selection of fields identified by the Labor Department.

Out of that pool of people from certain countries who meet those conditions, the State Department randomly selects a much smaller pool of winners. Not all winners will have visas ultimately approved. Its not a pipeline for countries to send their troublemakers to the U.S.

___

CHINA

TRUMP: We took in hundreds of billions of dollars from China during my administration. They never gave us 10 cents.

THE FACTS: False and false, and very familiar.

Its false to say the U.S. never collected a dime in tariffs on Chinese goods before he took action. They are simply higher in some cases than they were before.

Its also wrong to say the tariffs are being paid by China. Tariff money coming into the treasury is mainly from U.S. businesses and consumers, not from China. Tariffs are primarily if not entirely a tax paid domestically.

___

ECONOMY

TRUMP: We built the strongest economy in the history of the world.

THE FACTS: No, the numbers show it wasnt the greatest in U.S. history, much less in the history of the world. He was actually the first president since Herbert Hoover in the Depression to leave office with fewer jobs than when he started.

The U.S. did have the most jobs on record before the pandemic, but population growth explains part of that. The 3.5% unemployment rate before the pandemic-induced recession was at a half-century low, but the percentage of people working or searching for jobs was still below a 2000 peak.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Romer looked at Trumps economic growth record. Growth under Trump averaged 2.48% annually before the pandemic, only slightly better than the 2.41% gains achieved during Barack Obamas second term. By contrast, the economic expansion that began in 1982 during Ronald Reagans presidency averaged 4.2% a year.

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CPAC 2021: Here are the lies Donald Trump told - AL.com

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For much of the past four years, Sen. Rob Portman has had to answer questions about former President Donald Trump's behavior, tweets and personal attacks on other politicians.

So when Trump makes his first post-presidential speech Sunday afternoon at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Portman hopes it's more about policy than personalities, the Republican fromTerrace Park told George Stephanopolous Sunday morning on ABC This Week.

While Republicans love Trump, Portman said,the Republican policies are more popular than the former president.

More: Who is Sen. Rob Portman?

Stephanopolous asked Portman whether Trump's dominance in the Republican Party is a blessing or a burden.

U.S. Sen. Rob Portman announced he will not be seeking re-election when his term is up in 2022, Monday, Jan. 25, 2021, at the Hilton Hotel in Cincinnati.(Photo: Kareem Elgazzar/The Enquirer)

Portman, who is retiring at the end of his term,didn't say whether Trump was either.

"He's very popular among Republicans, and the polling all shows that," Portman said. "Ido think the policies are what's even more popular. That's why the Republicans did pretty well in 2020, other than the presidential level."

Almost half of the 1,000 Trump voters surveyed by USA Today in February said they'd abandon the GOP if Trump started a third political party.

Portman said Trump has an opportunity tonight to talk about the successes over the past four years, such as the strong economy, building up the military and other issues.

But can Republicans talk about those issues with Trump in the lead?

"It sometimes makes it more difficult," Portman said. "But look, he has an opportunity today to talk about his accomplishments. I mean, instead of talking about personalities and who might not have agreed with him on the impeachment process, talk about what youdid."

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Rob Portman: Republican policies are more popular than Trump. 'He has an opportunity today' - The Cincinnati Enquirer

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene apologized for previous incendiary social media post regarding conspiracy theories. Associated Press

ROME, Ga. Tomany of her constituents, Marjorie Taylor Greene got to Congress because she embodies a variety of conservative values: anti-tax, anti-bureaucracy, pro-religion, pro-guns, pro-Donald Trump.

Her violent rhetoric and conspiracy theories?

Those aren't as popular with Republican conservatives in Georgia but probably aren't a deal-breaker, either.

"I know her I think she's representing us very well," said Debbie Scoggins, 54, a co-owner of Giggity's sports bar in downtown Rome, the imperially named city at the heart of Georgia's 14th Congressional District.

Sweeping the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, Scoggins said she met Greene as the latter asked for her vote.Pointing to the wide boulevard that runs past the old brick buildings of the rehabbed downtown, Scoggins said,"She's been all up and down Broad Street, asking people what they want from her ...She's passionate; she cares about people."

To others, Greene's passionboils into something far more than that: dangerous, conspiracy-driven extremism, the kind of rhetoric that leads to things like the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by fervent Trump supporters.

President Donald Trump and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene at a Senate runoff campaign rally in Dalton, Ga., on Jan. 4, 2021.(Photo: Brynn Anderson/AP)

"We just elected a bomb thrower, and she is not going to back down," said John Cowan, aRome-based neurosurgeon who lost a Republican runoff to Greene last year.

Greene's election in 2020 underscored how Trump's political movement swept some far-right candidates into public office; her tenure so far has exposed Trump-generated divisions in the Republican Party moving forward, though local GOP members said they are unsure if they can defeat Greene in next year's congressional elections.

Greene removed from committee: Incendiary social media posts prompt House action

GOP two-step: Republicans keep faith with Trump in backing of Marjorie Taylor Greene

Earlier this month, the Democratic majority in the U.S. House, along with 11 Republicans,voted to dismissGreene from two congressional committees, bringing another hailstorm of bad publicity to this rural, small-town corner of northwest Georgia.

Some Republicans in Georgia, and elsewhere, said people like Greene are killing the party it's"a battle for sanity," Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., told NPR News. Greene, meanwhile, raised money off of the attacks on her and threatenedto back primary opponents for Republicans who voted for Trump's impeachment.

"Youve picked a fight you cant win. We will make sure of it," Taylor tweeted at Kinzinger during the recent Senate impeachment trial that acquitted Trump of charges that he incited the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Republicans in northwest Georgia, some speaking on condition of anonymity so as not to alienate their neighbors, said too many of their colleaguesare hurting the party byignoring Greene's more extreme views: Her seeming support for violence against political opponents, her apparent QAnon belief that a secret sect runs the United States, her suggestions that school shootings were staged to inspire calls for gun control.

Some voiced concern that Greene's lack of committee membership could cost the region some federal aid. But they added it'stoo early to say whether a more establishment Republican might challenge her in a party primary next year.

"I think Jan. 6 was a big, big wake-up call for the Republican Party," Cowan said. "The issue is, how are we being represented?"

The House is expected to vote Thursday about whether to strip Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committee assignments, over her past embrace of conspiracy theories. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy says she apologized. (Feb. 4) AP Domestic

Amy Stone, 47, a Democrat and chief compliance officer who lives inChickamauga, said Greene succeeded because she was seen as being like Trump, spreading false claims that politicians want to forge "socialism" and take away people's guns.

"I feel like she did a really great job of just stirring that fear," Stone said. "And then riding Trump coattails because around here, Trump is king."

Local Republicans said it could take a long time to figure out how someone likeGreene could win a GOP primary and get elected to Congress, even from a conservative area like northwest Georgia.

"Everyone's scratching their head trying to figure that out," said Hal Storey, 63, a local businessmanwho described himself as a political independent,

Some reasons are already clear, however:A successful businesswoman, Greene had money and a good organization. Her incendiarysocial media posts gave her name recognition.She managed to cast herself as the "Trumpiest" candidate in a Republican primary field full of Trump supporters.

Greene says she regrets comments: Congresswoman says she's sorry for 'wrong and offensive' comments

More: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, controversial Republican embraced QAnon conspiracy theories

Initially, Greene did not even plan to represent the 14th District. She prepared to run in another district,a less Republican area in the northern suburbs of Atlanta that had elected a Democrat in 2018. The district did so again in 2020.

In the meantime, Greene took advantage of an unexpected political development that allowed her to run in a more Republican district.

Rep. Tom Graves, R-Ga., first elected to Congress from northwest Georgia in 2010, announced in December 2019 he would not seek reelection. A businessman, Graves was a more traditional Republican who developed a reputation as a fiscal hawk.

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During the 2016 Republican presidential race, Graves also criticized Trump. In a letter to constituents, he said: "Would I be comfortable if my three children acted like Trump? Certainly not.

Nine Republicans jumped into the 2020race for the newly open seat, but most had to create a campaign structure from scratch.Greene,moving into the 14th District from the northern Atlantaarea, hada ready-made organization she had created for the other race.

"She had the car up and running, while other people were assembling the pieces," said Charles S. BullockIII,a political science professor at the University of Georgia.

Greene's aggressive style, and provocative use of social media, gave her name identification and enabled her to build support from the area's large group of Trump supporters. It allhelped her accomplish step one: Finish in the top two of the primary and qualify for the runoff.

This despite criticism of a string of Facebook videos in which Greene said Muslims should not be allowed to serve in government, and that Black people have become "slaves to the Democratic Party." Greene also ran ads showing her holding semiautomatic weapons.

In theone-on-one runoff with Cowan, Greene cast herself as a champion of Trumpism and declared her opponent as insufficiently conservative; she won with 57% of the vote.

During an online debate,Taylor hit Cowan for not having donated toTrump's campaign "you haven't given a dime to President Trump" while Cowan brought up Taylor's extreme views.

"I'm all of the conservative and none of the embarrassment," he said.

Greene,who spent a reported $2.2 million on the campaign,prevailed even as her views drew national attention to the congressional race featuring the "QAnon candidate."

As in most of the country, most people don't follow the details of politics, said residents of northwest Georgia. They did not think through the ramifications of some of Greene's beliefs. They did not fathom QAnon, the conspiracy theory that baselessly claims that a cabal of pedophiles and Satan worshipersare secretly running the government.

American flags fly over a sign reading 'Pray For Our Nation' on Highway 27 Friday, Nov. 6, 2020, in Rome, Ga. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)(Photo: Ben Margot, AP)

Cowan noted that the primary was June 9 and the runoff was Aug. 11. Details about Greene's background emerged gradually, he said, and people did not have enough time to absorb and fully understand the implications of some of Greene's views.

"I don't think there was enough time and money to adjudicate it properly," Cowan said.

In Georgia's 14th Congressional District, winning the Republican nomination is tantamount to winning the seat. Greene's Democratic opponent in the general election Kevin Van Ausdal, 35, a political newcomer who hadpledged to "bring civility back to Washington withdrew from the race just more than a month before Election Day.

Some Greene supporters said the Democrats were just stirring up trouble for the Republicans, and still are.

"They need to get some of these old ones that's in there out that have gone wacko," saidRaleen Carr, 64, a Greene backer who works at a coffee shop in downtown Ringgold.

Carr cited Greene's youth and opposition to abortion "not killing babies," she said as reasons for Green's support in Georgiaand her opposition in Washington. Carr said, "they are trying to get her out because of her morals and her values."

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer carried a poster of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene holding an AR-15, while calling for her removal from House committees. USA TODAY

From the three rivers that originally made Rome a trade center,to the carpet industry that made Dalton a brand name,the 14th Congressional District was drawn to loop inRepublican and conservative areas.

The electorate here is a distillation ofthe conservative evolution of the Republican Party, especially in the once solid-Democratic South. It's a tradition that runs from BarryGoldwater to Ronald Reagan to Georgia's own Newt Gingrich and now includes the Trump movement.

In getting to Congress, Greene campaigned on the Trumpian view thatthe nation is in decline, threatened by "socialism" and other countries that take advantage of the United States.

The approach "appeals to people who see the world changing around them," said Bullock, the professor. "They're uncomfortable. They don't know what to do about it."

There are other factors behind Greene's popularity, some residents said. Some supporters aresimply resentful of Blackor Hispanic peopleand never happy about civil rights laws that stretch back to the 1960s, some residents said,speaking on condition of anonymity.

Others simply hate Democratsand are thrilled to see Greene's slashing attacks on them. "I think people in northwest Georgia have applauded that," Cowan said.

More: Steny Hoyer blasts Marjorie Taylor Greene over AR-15 post targeting Democratic 'Squad'

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The area has historically chafed at the federal government.

There are Civil War references all over Rome, from a marker along a river noting the site of the Noble Brothers Foundry,which once made locomotives and cannons for the Confederate Army, to cannons themselves sitting atop Jackson Hill. Officials recently removed a statue ofConfederate Gen. William Bedford Forrest, who after the war became the firstGrand Wizardof theKu Klux Klan.

The city also honors all sorts of history, including a statue of its mosthistoric resident: Ellen Axson Wilson, first lady of the United States during Woodrow Wilson's presidency; she died during hisfirst term.

Taylor might not even be the most conservative member to ever represent the area.

Rep. Larry McDonald, elected in 1974 in a district that included parts of northwest Georgia, campaigned against what he saw as a communist conspiracy to destroy the United States. In office, he voted against the Martin Luther KingJr.holiday, falsely claiming in a statement that the civil rights leader had been "manipulated by communists and secret communist agents."

McDonald was also a Democrat, a throwback to the party's "Solid South" at a time when Republicans were poorly organized in the state. He died in one of the most infamous incidents of the Cold War:aboardKorean Air Lines Flight 007 that was accidentally shot down by the Russians in 1983.

Some northwest Georgia Republicans offered a different view of the political world. They said too many politicians are out for themselves and indifferent to the loss of manufacturing jobs andthe decline of religious morality.

In downtown Dalton, where the whistles of passing freight trains are often heard,Greene supporterSusan Mealssaid, "we don't think what's going on now is working sometimes you just need a change."

Meals, a nurse, did not agree with some of Greene's views: "There are a lot of people out there on both sides who have conspiracy theories I don't agree with. Does that make them bad people? No."

Greene would probably not be "my best friend," said Meals, 58. "But I didn't vote for her to be my best friend."

Down the road inRinggold, some houses fly the Confederate battle flag or the recently discardedGeorgia state flag that includesthe Stars and Bars.Another familiar sight through the district: the spires of churches, four of which lineNashville Street in downtown Ringgold.

Preston Brown, 49, a Republican who works in the area's fairly large tourism industry, said he didn't think it was right that Democrats made the decision to remove Greene from her congressional committees.

"That," he said, "seems like an overreach of authority.

The House has voted to remove Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from House committees. Here's why this is significant for the congresswoman. USA TODAY

Residents said most people in Georgia's 14th Congressional District really aren't intopolitics, especially the way it's practiced now. Some residents don't even know who Greene is.

Othersrefused to talk about her. And otherssaid they would discuss the congresswoman only on the condition that they not be named, fearful of blowback from friends and customers who ardently support Trump and Greene.

One business owner, who asked that his name not be used, said people said "we're going to shut you down" if he came out against Trump."It's pretty crazy," he said.

Greene does not represent the area in total, some residents said, particularly the African American population and a growing number of Latinos. The district is more than 80% white, according to Census figures.

Alexandros Cornejo, 41, an immigration attorneywho said he doesn't belong to either political party, said Greene is certainly not representing clients who work hard for a living. "At this point, she's become a nuisance and a distraction she needs to go."

Whether that happens in next year's election remains to be seen.

For one thing, Greene figures to be well-funded. Greene said on Jan. 29 she had raised more than $1.6 million off of negative media coverage of her.On Feb. 3, the day before the House voted to kick her off committees, Greene tweeted she had raised $175,000in a single day, and told followers that "they are attacking me because Im one of you."

Storey, the businessman who grew up in Rome,said people will be "scratching their head"for years over how Greene made it to Congress. He simply doesn't believe that most residents agree with the "divisiveness" and "meanness" displayed by Greene's campaign.

"That doesn't represent the community I grew up in," he said.

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'Around here, Trump is king': How Marjorie Taylor Greene got to Congress by running as the MAGA candidate - USA TODAY