Category Archives: Donald Trump

Musician John Legend told the director of the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, David Axelrod, that his friendship with fellow musician Kanye West could not overcome his support for former President Donald Trump.

"We aren't friends as much as we used to be," the EGOT winner said of West on CNN's The Axe Files podcast, "because we publicly disagreed on his running for office, his supporting Trump"

WATCH: LINDSEY GRAHAM CALLS 'FRAUD' INFLATION REDUCTION ACT A 'LIE'

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"It became too much for us to sustain our friendship," he added.

He was upset that I didnt support his run for presidency of the United States of America for understandable reasons, Legend said.

"You weren't alone in that," Axelrod chimed in.

"He was not happy about that," explained the singer. As a result, he said they "haven't been close since then."

Of West, Legend said the rapper is "very real," adding that "there's not a lot about him that people don't get," he added.

"What you see with him is pretty much what you get," the singer continued.

Jordan Strauss/Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

Axelrod then asked the star about his past activism during the Iraq War, to which he asserted, "We all knew ... it was bulls***."

"You could tell they were trying to find ... intelligent support for something that clearly they just decided they wanted to do," he said of the Bush administration.

"Clearly, Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, and the case for him having WMDs was ... weak at best," Legend said.

"They were selling us a bill of goods," he explained, adding that he "didn't believe it."

"I was one of those people," he said, who didn't believe it from the beginning.

"I grew up very inspired by civil rights leaders," he further told Axelrod.

Legend also described when he cried after former President Barack Obama, the first black U.S. president, was elected. "The moment that broke me was watching the older black Americans," he said.

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He also detailed using his celebrity power, influence, and resources to create change, revealing that he is currently focused on justice reform and local governments. Notably, Legend recently endorsed several Democratic district attorneys in elections across the country.

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John Legend says friendship with Kanye West couldn't survive Donald Trump - Washington Examiner

Donald Trump is a type of fascist terminator. He will not stop. He will not get tired. He is relentless in his pursuit of power and will do anything to get and keep it. And he is here right now.

He is not alone. Many of Trump's followers are willing to engage in acts of terrorism and other violenceat his command. Others in Trump's orbit are using him as a weapon to advance their own agenda of creating a new American apartheid Christian fascist plutocracy. They have no use for Trump personally. Some of them will even acknowledge, in private, that he is very dangerous. But they have convinced themselves that Trump can be deployed to do their bidding. To this point, they have been proven correct.

Ultimately, Donald Trump's first regime was but a preview of the American nightmare he and the Republican-fascists are advancing. If Trump returns to power in 2024 or beyond, matters will be far worse. Donald Trump and his coup confederates must be prosecuted, tried, convicted and given the maximum punishment allowed under the law as a necessary first step in saving American democracy and the country's future from the rising fascist tide.

The House Jan. 6 committee hearings have confirmed that Trump's coup attempt was much closer to succeeding than many among the mainstream American news media and the country's political class wanted to believe. As part of that plot, Trump and his confederates embedded their agents in critical positions throughout the United States government at the highest levels including the national security state. Their role in the coup and subsequent attempts to hide and otherwise conceal and/or destroy evidence is still being revealed. These agents remain loyal to Donald Trump and the Republican-fascist movement. Presumably, they will be used again in any future coup or other attempt to nullify American democracy and the rule of law.

Trump's coup plot was disrupted by members of his administration as well as career civil servants who were more loyal to the Constitution and the rule of law than to his fascist personality cult. If and when Trump takes power again, he will remove such obstacles to his authoritarian rule.

In a critically important recent article at Axios, Jonathan Swan explained how such a plan will be enacted:

FormerPresident Trump'stop allies are preparing to radically reshape the federal government if he is re-elected, purging potentially thousands of civil servants and filling career posts with loyalists to him and his "America First" ideology, people involved in the discussions tell Axios.

The impact could go well beyondtypical conservative targets such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Internal Revenue Service. Trump allies are working on plans that would potentially strip layers at the Justice Department including the FBI, and reaching into national security, intelligence, the State Department and the Pentagon, sources close to the former president say.

Swan continues:

They intend to stack thousands of mid-level staff jobs. Well-funded groups are already developing lists of candidates selected often for their animus against the systemin line with Trump's long-running obsession with draining "the swamp." This includes building extensive databases of people vetted as being committed to Trump and his agenda. The preparations are far more advanced and ambitious than previously reported. What is happening now is an inversion of the slapdash and virtually non-existent infrastructure surrounding Trump ahead of his 2017 presidential transition. These groups are operating on multiple fronts: shaping policies, identifying top lieutenants, curating an alternative labor force of unprecedented scale, and preparing for legal challenges and defenses that might go before Trump-friendly judges, all the way to a 63 Supreme Court.

Donald Trump's former White House advisor Stephen Miller would play a key role in deciding who is "qualified" for the new regime per its loyalty and other ideological litmus tests, "identifying and assembling a list of lawyers who would be ready to fill the key general counsel jobs across government in a second-term Trump administration," Swan writes. "Miller has his eye out for general counsels who will aggressively implement Trump's orders and skeptically interrogate any career government attorney who tells them their plans are unlawful or cannot be done."

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In a new article at the New York Times, leading sociologist and political scientist Theda Skocpol explained to Thomas Edsall how "Trump, in a second term, would bring in like-minded loyal and lawless authoritarians from the get-go, especially to run Justice, Homeland Security and Defense."

Skocpol also explained that America's political and other governing institutions "would not survive another Trump term, especially because of parallel reinforcing developments in a majority of states and in the federal courts. Discouragement and outright repression and popular threats of violence would push most centrists and liberals into full retreat."

This minority rule, Skocpol notes, would push the nation into"a major new decades-long era of U.S. politics. We may already have done so, given the 6-3 SCOTUS majority devoted to eviscerating federal government power for many Democratic Party agenda priorities"

None of this should be a surprise.

Trump's speech last week and his threats of "law and order" are a prime example of how fascists and other authoritarians expand their power.

Trump has a deep attraction to violence. As such, he admires authoritarian leaders such as Putin, Orbn, Erdogan, Duterte, Mohammed bin Salman and Bolsonaro, and how they de facto have the power to kill at will and engage in acts of wanton cruelty and violence against their "enemies" and others in the name of "law and order," "safety," "security" and "unity."

In a speech last week at the America First Agenda Summit in Washington, D.C., Donald Trump detailed the reign of terror he would unleash if he were to somehow be "reelected" to the presidency. One of Trump's main priorities will be to further dehumanize and brutalize the homeless, drug addicts and other vulnerable and marginalized individuals and communities. Trump is also biting at the bit to use the National Guard as his personal shock troops to impose his and the Republican-fascists' will on "Democrat-led" majority black and brown cities to "stop crime."

During his speech to America First Trump said:

We have blood, death and suffering on a scale once unthinkable because of the Democrat Party's effort to destroy and dismantle law enforcement all throughout America. It has to stop and it has to stop now.If we don't have safety, we don't have freedom, we don't have a country. America first must mean safety first. We have to have safety. Starting with our new majorities in Congress next year and continuing onto the next Republican president, we need an all out effort to defeat violent crime in America and strongly defeat it and be tough and be nasty and be mean, if we have to. Here's what we must feel to restore public safety.

This cannot go on anymore. Every other approach has been considerably tried, and they tried the weak approach, they've been trying it for years... It's not working. It's time to go a different direction. And only one option remains. The next president needs to send the National Guard to the most dangerous neighborhoods in Chicago until safety can be restored....We're living in such a different country for one primary reason: there is no longer respect for the law and there certainly is no order. Our country is now a cesspool of crime.

We have to take back our streets and public spaces from the homeless, the drug addicted, and the dangerously deranged. What's happened to our cities?....

Donald Trump, like other fascist and authoritarian leaders have done in the past (and present), wants to "disappear" the homeless and other "undesirables":

Perhaps some people will not like hearing this, but the only way you're going to remove the hundreds of thousands of people, and maybe throughout our nation millions of people,...is open up large parcels of inexpensive land in the outer reaches of the cities, bring in medical professionalsbuild permanent bathrooms and other facilities, make 'em good, make 'em hard, but build them fast, and build thousands and thousands of high-quality tents, which can be done in one day. One day. You have to move people out.

Trump's speech last week and his threats of "law and order" are a prime example of how fascists and other authoritarians expand their power and control, criminalize dissent, and intimidate and otherwise brutalize any individuals or groups who dare to oppose them in any way.

Writing at Defense One, Kevin Baron offers this warning about Trump's plans and the danger they pose to American democracy and the basic principle that the country's military is not supposed to involve itself in domestic politics:

Donald Trump just said he wants to build concentration camps in America and assume direct control over the National Guard in a way that sounds a lot like theNazi SS force.

So, on Tuesday, in a speech meant for the ears of Republican primary voters, Trump said the next American president should send the National Guard to Chicago. That would require, at minimum, invoking the Insurrection Act, which is supposed to be reserved for natural disaster or civil violence "to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order." But it also would ignore the Illinois governor, the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, and the advice of top National Guard generals who strongly resist federalization. (We'vebeen through this debatebefore.)

And that's how extreme partisan politics could change the U.S. military forever, if Americans want.It's not just control of the House that's on the ballot; it's control of the U.S. military.

The law is not neutral, "blind" or fair in the authoritarian regime that Donald Trump and his Republican-fascist allies and movement want to impose on the American people. The law is instead an extension of the Great Leader's, the ruling party's and other elites' will, whims and desires. For such rulers, the law is but a means for exerting power and control to advance their narrow personal and political interests by snuffing out human freedom.

It is important to understand that Donald Trump's and the Republican-fascists' and larger white right's plans for a new America do not exist in isolation. They are part of a much larger global project that takes inspiration from Vladimir Putin's goal to make Russia into a type of White Christian Empire as well as Hungarian leader Victor Orbn's fake right-wing populism and white supremacist nationalist agenda.

Orbn is a particularly alluring role-model and guide for the American neofascists. In a speech two weekends ago, Orbn boldly and without qualification or hesitance channeled Adolf Hitler saying that: "We [Hungarians] are not a mixed race and we do not want to become a mixed race."

The Guardian offered this additional context, "On Saturday, he made frequent nods to the "great replacement" conspiracy theory, which claims there is a plot to dilute the white populations of the US and European countries through immigration. He said it was "an ideological trick of the internationalist left to say the European population is already mixed race." He named demographics, migration and gender as the main battlefields of the future, on the same day that thousands of people rallied in Budapest for the city's annual Pride march."

As part of his campaign against "diversity" and "multiculturalism," Orbn's government and followers have targeted the LGBTQ community, feminists, immigrants, migrants, Muslims, "leftists" and others deemed to be human pollution in the type of "ethnically pure" and "strong" "white" "Christian" society he is trying to create in Hungary and other parts of Europe.

Leading right-wing opinion leaders such as Fox News personality Tucker Carlson have been mainstreaming Orbn's racial authoritarianism and outright fascist talking points about "white civilization" being "under siege," "imperiled" or somehow at risk of being "replaced" to their public across the right-wing hate media propaganda echo chamber.

The Republican Party and other leading members of the American right-wing have not properly denounced, renounced or otherwise condemned Orbn's hateful and incendiary comments. Instead, Orbn is a featured speaker this week in Dallas.

Donald Trump and the other Republican-fascists are transparent and direct with their plans to end America's pluralistic multiracial democracy. As I have repeatedly warned in my essays here at Salon, the Republican-fascists and larger white right tell you what they are going to do and then they do it. It is foolhardy and dangerous to ascribe some other meaning to their threats and plans or otherwise attempt to impose some more kinder and gentler explanation for their cruelty. Unfortunately, too many Democrats, liberals, progressives and so-called pro-democracy Americans continue out of desperation and unending navet to make that mistake.

In a recent Twitter post, journalist David Atkins echoes this warning: "When Republicans say they will do terrible things, they mean it! It's not just politics. If you give them power, they will do the terrible things. You don't have the luxury of "sending a message" or making grumpy votes about gas prices that presidents don't control."

Donald Trump's ex-wife Ivana died on July 14. They were married for 14 years and maintained a close relationship after the divorce. Donald Trump buried her on July 20 at Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey. Ivana Trump's grave is not "simple" or "modest." It is basically unmarked, and looks like the type of grave that one would find at potters field or some equivalent space where the indigent are interred. In many ways, Ivana Trump's grave is a literal metaphor for Donald Trump and his lack of care and concern for other human beings. Some experts have even speculated that Donald Trump likely buried his ex-wife at his golf resort as a way of receiving a tax break for his property because it could then be deemed to be a "cemetery" under state law. If Donald Trump would treat his ex-wife and mother of his three children with such gross disregard, imagine what he would do to the American people (again) if he were to return to the White House, fueled even more by vengeance and evil, and possessing even more power.

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Think Trump's first term was a nightmare? Wake up if he wins again, the worst is yet to come - Salon

Hot on the heels of the first Big Lie scotch whisky, which was cheekily dedicated to the demise of British PM Boris Johnson, comes an American version that just might trump the first. This new bourbon comes with intentionally scurrilous details from online whiskey retailer Caskshare, and has its sights set squarely upon our own stable genius ex-President Donald Trump.

Its no secret that the whiskey industry is full of false narratives and alternative facts designed to push product, so its a breath of fresh air when there is complete transparency about the source and background story of a spirit. This Not a Grain of Truth Bourbon is decidedly not that, which is entirely the point here. The details provided by Caskshare are as followsthe source distillerys location is maybe Nambia, the whiskeys age is young and vibrant and the bottle number is number one, of course. Legendary master distiller Donald is the creator of this bourbon, and the bottling was approved Bye Don. The ABV is cask strength of 47.5 percent, and while no specific info has been provided about the angels share for this whiskey it looks like Donald was unable to stop the steal.

The tasting notes provided by Caskshare are vivid and intriguing: On first inspection [the whiskey] has a straw color and theres the whiff of covfefe echoing summer nights by the Mexican border on the nose, followed by the gentle aroma of burgers and fries in the Oval Office. The Devils cut here is tremendous but there are no bad hombres to be found in this bottle.

Clearly, the real Donald Trump wouldnt find this at all amusing, but hes a famous teetotaler so no harm, no foul. Caskshare launched in the UK in 2021, and is set to launch in the US this September. According to a rep for company, they will be working with ten craft distilleries here as well as importing scotch. In the meantime, you can explore the website and peruse exclusive whiskeys from distilleries that will be bottled when properly mature. If youre interested in getting your hands on this yuge, big league bourbon, you can contact Caskshare to let them know youre interested. The whiskey is priced at $80, which is certainly cheaper than buying Greenland.

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A UK Company Is Trolling Donald Trump With a Big Lie Bourbon - Robb Report

In campaign ads and stump speeches, Blake Masters is playing Trumps greatest hits. He complains about wokeness, talks openly about American decline, and demands that the government finish building the wall on the southern border. But unlike Trump, Masters political ambitions reimagine America in the eyes of Silicon Valley and one of its most powerful and controversial investors.

On the heels of Trumps endorsement, Masters is poised to win Tuesdays primary and become the GOPs next Senate nominee in Arizona. But his mentor Peter Thiel casts a long shadow over his candidacy and raises the stakes to something much larger than a single Senate seat. Over the last decade, Masters has studied under Thiel at Stanford, led Thiels powerful investment firm, and co-authored the pairs New York Times bestseller Zero to One, a contrarian guide for Silicon Valley startup founders that denounces higher education and encourages monopolization.

Now, that strain of tech libertarianism has launched Masters into a political alliance with Donald Trump. Speaking at an Arizona Trump rally late last month, Masters praised the prior administration and cursed the current presidents actions on inflation and border security.

Everythings on fire under Joe Biden, Masters warned. Arizona, make me your nominee so we can beat Mark Kelly, put America first, and finish the work that President Trump got started.

Sen. Mark Kelly, a former NASA astronaut, is running unopposed for the Democratic nomination after flipping late GOP Sen. John McCains (AZ) seat blue in a 2020 special election. Leveraging his background in science, Kelly has called for more drastic action to tackle climate change while defending federal entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid, which are popular with Arizonas older population.

In contrast, Masters program is relentlessly focused on privatization, putting anything from social security to Arizonas water resources under corporate control. Its an approach closely tied to Thiels own political pessimism and faith in private interests. As Thiel put it in a 2009 essay, [t]he fate of our world may depend on the effort of a single person who builds or propagates the machinery of freedom that makes the world safe for capitalism.

In laying out his platform, Masters seems to be doing his best to take up that mantle, including its lofty language. At his final pre-primary rally, Masters tweeted an image of himself onstage with the brief caption, Subverting existing paradigms.

The Thiel connection also helped Masters land Trumps official endorsement this past June, which has been the greatest single factor in his success. Thiel famously served on Trumps transition team and has long cultivated the former president as an ally. In the wake of the endorsement, Masters jumped ahead in polls, with his lead growing as high as 15 points, according to FiveThirtyEight on Monday. The numbers have given his campaign enough confidence to rename its Tuesday night election party a victory celebration.

While never denying the 2020 results outright, Masters accused Democrats of cheating. Hes already started to cast doubt on the integrity of the midterm elections, suggesting they wouldnt be fair, according to CNN.

Masters has also courted support from the cryptocurrency world, making early moves to accept Bitcoin donations and auctioning off NFTs to support the campaign. In September, he proposed that the US create a strategic reserve of Bitcoin, which he described as Fort Nakamoto the new Fort Knox. In the months since the proposal, Bitcoin has fallen by more than 40 percent.

Masters own financial holdings back up that enthusiasm, showing extensive holdings in a wide range of cryptocurrencies. In October, Masters disclosed Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Tezos, and Litecoin totaling millions of dollars, according to financial ethics filings. He had also invested in Urbit star, a decentralized finance project launched by the controversial neo-reactionary Curtis Yarvin.

The current value of Masters crypto assets is unclear. His 2022 financial ethics form was originally due May 17th, but he requested an extension making his new deadline August 15th, just weeks after the primary election.

But while his Silicon Valley ties might seem unusual for a GOP candidate, they havent stopped Masters from being embraced by the conservative movements most prominent kingmakers most recently in a primetime interview with Tucker Carlson on Monday night. The conversation focused on bread-and-butter Republican issues like inflation and demented Democratic spending. The Democrats in charge have failed, Masters said. Theyre destroying this country, and then theyll lie about it.

At the end of their conversation, Carlson wished Masters good luck and offered something just short of an endorsement. We are rooting for you, Blake Masters, he said.

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Blake Masters is splitting the difference between Donald Trump and Peter Thiel - The Verge

Jared Kushners upcoming memoir, Breaking History: A White House Memoir,is certainly providing a lot of fascinating insight into Donald Trumps time in the Oval Office. The latest excerpt breaks down Kim Kardashians visit to Washington, D.C. in hopes of securing Alice Johnsons release from prison.

Kim first reached out to the family, via Ivanka Trump, in 2017 to draw attention to Johnsons case. The then-63-year-old woman had been in prison for over two decades serving a life sentence for a nonviolent drug offense. Kushner revealed, in an excerpt obtained by People, that the issue was put on his desk to present to Donald Trump. He praised Johnson for the work she had done while behind bars, writing,Shed become an ordained minister, completed multiple vocational certifications, mentored fellow inmates, and maintained a spotless behavioral record.

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Even though Donald Trump was supportive of criminal justice reform, Kushner found himself working hard to convince White House counsel Don McGahn that this was the perfect opportunity to push this issue forward in the administration. Thats when he realized he needed Kims star wattage to seal the deal. It didnt hurt that McGahn was allegedly starstruck by Kims presence, but she also nailed her presentation. She gracefully presentedAlices case to the president, Kushner praised in his book. She knew the details backward and forward.

Click here to read the full article.

Buy: Breaking History $34.50

That might seem like a simple ending to the story, but its how Donald Trump chose to tell Kushner that Johnson should receive the pardon that would make anyone cringe. He wrote,Two days later, [Trump] called me early inthe morning and said, Lets do the pardon. Lets hope Alice doesnt go out and kill anyone!' Um, Johnson was a nonviolent offender, so that comment feels very awkward but Kushner clearly didnt have any problem adding that moment to his book. The presidents son-in-law did his best to redeem his father-in-law by sharing his genuine emotions after Johnson was released. Kushner said in the excerpt, The president called me afterward. Jared, that is one of the most beautiful things I have everseen. Ive been around for a long time, and that was beautiful.' It certainly was a victory for Donald Trumps administration, but the behind-the-scenes moments were not the most graceful.

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Launch Gallery: Celebrities at the White House: Angelina Jolie, Kim Kardashian & More Who Met With U.S. Presidents Through the Years

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Donald Trump Reportedly Made This Ill-Informed Comment After Pardon Meeting With Kim Kardashian - Yahoo Life

But that could all change under new threats emanating from former President Donald Trump and his allies, to the detriment of our democracy and our governments ability to keep us safe from a myriad of challenges facing our country.

Recent reporting has revealed that a group of Trump supporters are preparing to radically reshape the federal government if [he is] re-elected, purging potentially thousands of civil servants and filling career posts with loyalists to him and his America First ideology. And the former president publicly vowed to do just that.

Taking such a radical step would effectively eviscerate the merit-based, apolitical career civil service and return the country to the time when competence was undervalued and when public offices were used to reward members of the victorious political party.

The plan, first delineated in a Trump executive order in the fall of 2020 and rescinded by President Joe Biden two days after taking office, has support from some Republicans in Congress and could be embraced by other potential GOP presidential candidates. It would create a new job classification for career employees in confidential, policy-determining, policy-making and policy-advocating positions, and would strip these individuals of long-standing civil service protections by allowing politically appointed leaders to fire them at will.

Reviving this proposal could require a wide range of civil servants, including policy analysts, attorneys, managers, scientists and a host of other career employees whose unbiased judgment we rely on for safety and security, to show partisan allegiance or risk their jobs.

Such a policy would have a real chilling effect discouraging federal employees from speaking out while simultaneously eroding public trust in our government. It also would tarnish the historic requirement of a merit-based system where well-qualified federal employees are given charge over our most sensitive capabilities, data and choices, and would undermine the role of civil servants as stewards of the public good.

The current civil service system is remarkable for its ability to provide for the continuity of our government during changes in administration. It prevents huge knowledge gaps by keeping in place civil servants with expertise on terrorism, cybersecurity, international relations, public health and a wide range of other critical issues.

The arbitrary firing of tens of thousands of civil servants by a new administration could not only put the nation at risk, but potentially hamper the governments ability to effectively deliver important services, from veterans benefits and Social Security to farm programs and ensuring military readiness.

Our nations chief executive already faces the huge task of filling more political appointments than any other democracy. These 4,000 appointees include about 1,200 who must undergo the slow and partisan Senate confirmation process, leaving many critical jobs vacant for long periods of time and leadership gaps across the government.

Indeed, we need fewer, not more, political appointees, as well as a host of changes to strengthen the civil service. This includes improved leadership development, better employee recognition, support for innovation, increased accountability for poor performance and more streamlined hiring practices and policies that will bring young people and those with technology skills into the federal workforce.

Politicizing the federal workforce would be a major step backward and undo many of the hard lessons learned from the past.

Congress and the White House should not only act to preempt future efforts to bring a wrecking ball to the professional, merit-based civil service. They should take steps through new legislation to strengthen it, and in the process, protect our democratic system of governance.

In a world in which we face so many fast-moving challenges and risks, we need a highly capable and competent government, not one that returns us to the 19th century.

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Opinion | The Patronage System Was Corrupt. It's Threatening a Comeback. - POLITICO

The funeral for the first wife of former President Donald Trump, Ivana, took place on a hot July day at St. Vincent Ferrer Roman Catholic Church on Manhattans Upper East Side, not far from the townhouse where she died at the age of 73. Her golden casket sat next to a large poster board of her 1992 Vanity Fair cover, which read Ivana Be a Star! The story, by Bob Colacello, chronicled the junketing and jet-setting that went along with Ivanas effort to reinvent herself after her 1990 divorce from Donald.

Although, at the time of her death, Ivana had been out of the public eye for years, she had helped make Donald, as the editor who put her on that magazine cover told me.

I do think Ivana was hugely important to Donald Trumps riseshe domesticated the beast socially, said Tina Brown (who left Vanity Fair to become editor of The New Yorker shortly afterward). Before and after her, you never saw Trump at any top gathering or cultural opening. She brought him into circles he had ogled from outside and created a glamour aura.

Ivana may have succeeded in gaining the couple access to more exclusive echelons of Manhattan society, but above all, their parting, not their pairing, was what transformed them into prominent characters in the 1990s new culture of tabloid-gossip-driven celebrity. I was only 12 in 1990, but even a middle schooler could not have been innocent of the Trumps divorce.

Read: What Ivana reveals about Trump family values

Over breakfast, my stepfather and I would take turns reading the New York Post and the Daily News. Then I would walk to school. Every morning, on Lexington Avenue, I would pass a fancy sock store that featured elaborate, animated window displays of the latest episode in the divorce, sometimes with blown-up copies of a front page from one of the tabloids. I remember one day an enormous, moving mechanical check with Ivanas name on it.

Donald gave away a lot in the divorceprecipitated, after all, by his highly publicized affair with Marla Maples. Ivanas divorce lawyer was Michael Kennedy, a crusading attorney (and friend of my parents) known for representing members of the Weather Underground and the United Farm Workers. With his help, Ivana got: $14 million for herself; $650,000 a year in alimony and child support to raise Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric; a mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut; and an apartment on the Upper East Side.

But what Donald got from the divorce from Ivana was a realization that making a shameless spectacle of yourself could be boffo. As his biographer, the journalist Tim OBrien, told me: The lesson Trump drew from it was that he could endure a grotesque personal debacle, which he set in motion by his cheating on Ivana, and come out the other side even more an object of interest than he was before.

The headlines that the divorce generated made the gauche Trump brand gold-plated. The spectacle of their marital disintegration was a kind of lurid but victimless crime, involving two people who fed off the media attention while dragging each other through Page Six. The Trumps were just another bloated float in the 80s parade of showy New York money-grubbers, Tina Browns successor as Vanity Fair editor, Graydon Carter, told me. Their divorcefought more in the pages of the Post and the News than in the courtselevated them to grand-marshal status.

Read: What kind of man is Donald Trump?

All the weaponry he built up in his arsenal was finally used in his media war with his wife, said OBrien. He had the New York Post gossip columnist Cindy Adams and she had the Daily News gossip columnist Liz Smith, and both of those writers ingested what the Trumps were telling them, and you went to each tabloid to know how to think about them. That divorce became a touchstone for how society thought about celebrity, fame, and marriage in the New York of the 1990s.

The divorce was a gift that kept on giving to headline writers, but perhaps the most famous one of all was the Posts Best Sex Ive Ever Had. The author of the accompanying article, Jill Brooke, later disclosed in an article for The Hollywood Reporter that the splash was born of Donalds frustration that Ivana was getting more and better coverage than he was, so he planted the story himself by calling the Posts then-editor, Jerry Nachman, and telling him, I want a front-page story tomorrow. In her report on the warring couple for the September 1990 issue of Vanity Fair, Marie Brenner quoted an unnamed journalist exclaiming, Goddamn it we created him! We bought his bullshit! He was always a phony, and we filled our papers with him!

Ive never known anybody who is as dependent on attention as he is, the writer Kurt Andersen told me. But to me, it is in his case a jones like Ive never seen. His obsession with fame is truly pathological. Its not figurative; its not a metaphoric addiction. He had a real addiction. Andersen, along with Carter, was a co-founder of the satirical magazine Spy, which famously traded on mocking Donald. But it was a two-way trade.

Of course, Donald Trump was a natural character, a natural target. He was made for us, said Andersen. Trump loved the attention we gave him. Sometimes people accuse us of making him famous. But we were trying to kill baby Hitler.

The divorce taught Donald the value of negative attention. Whether people felt disgust, envy, or indignation toward him, the outrage only burnished his brand. That instinct for manipulating bad publicity and turning an audiences negative emotions into mass entertainment and media spectacle never left him. That was what his 2016 presidential-campaign announcement on the golden escalator in Trump Tower was all about: Insulting Mexicans as drug-running rapists was simply a way of holding the stage as a supervillain. As he learned from his uber-brag about the sex he had with Marla when he was cheating on Ivana, our media culture loves an antihero.

Ivana died alone, after an accidental fall in her home. Meanwhile, her ex-husband is seemingly preparing for another presidential run, surrounded by sycophants and enablers, and still the center of the attention he craves and courts. What he learned from divorcing Ivana, he told us again in 2016: When youre a star, they let you do it.

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What Donald Trump Got Out of His Divorce From Ivana - The Atlantic

Donald Trump has always had a Tom Brady obsession, and now, we might know the reason why. Jared Kushner is offering insight into his courtship of Ivanka Trump in his upcoming book, Breaking History: A White House Memoir, and it surprisingly involves the NFL star.

Kushner and Donald Trump got off to a rough start because he was the publisher of the New York Observerat the time. His future father-in-law sent off an angry missive to him when he didnt like his standing on the magazines annual Power List in 2007. Please stop sending me your paper, so I dont have to read bullshit like this anymore! Trump wrote in an excerpt provided to Forward. That ego-driven letter sounds about right and it was a warning sign to Kushner, which he obviously didnt heed.

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Two years later, Kushner was dating Ivanka, and was time to start discussing possible proposal details to Donald Trump and her conversion to Judaism.I could feel my voice shake as I managed to say that Ivanka and I were getting more serious and that she was in the process of converting, Kushner wrote.Well, let me ask you a question, Donald Trump asked his future son-in-law. Why does she have to convert? Why cant you convert? Noting that it was Ivankas decision to make, Donald Trump also added a bit of competition into the mix for Kushner, reminding him that Brady still had an interest in his daughter, so he better have the best intentions with the upcoming proposal.

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That isnt exactly how the story went down, according to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback. Howard Stern mentioned to Brady in a 2020 interview that he knew that Trump always dreamed of you marrying Ivanka, and he pressed on to ask the athlete if they ever dated.That was a long time ago in my life, Brady answered awkwardly. No, there was never that wherewe ever dated or anything like that. And if you know the Brady-Gisele Bndchen timeline, then you know they married in 2009, the same year Kushner walked down the aisle with Ivanka. So it seems that Donald Trump was playing wishful matchmaker in his head because he wanted Brady as his son-in-law and nobody else was onboard with this scenario.

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Before you go, click here to see celebrities who share a famous ex.

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Donald Trump Warned Jared Kushner That Tom Brady Was Also Trying to ...

Announcing his long-awaited endorsement in the Republican primary for US Senate in Missouri, the night before polling opened on Tuesday, Donald Trump chose to hedge his bets.

There is a BIG election in the Great State of Missouri, the former president said on Monday, adding: I trust the Great People of Missouri, on this one, to make up their own minds I am therefore proud to announce that ERIC has my Complete and Total Endorsement!

There are three Erics in the Missouri race.

Among the real contenders, according to polling, are Eric Greitens, a scandal-plagued former governor, and Eric Schmitt, the state attorney general. Both claimed Trumps backing.

Greitens got there first, saying: Im honored to receive President Trumps endorsement. President Trump said it best when he characterised Schmitts campaign as great dishonesty in politics.

Trump used those words on his Truth Social platform.

Regardless, Schmitt followed up, writing: Im grateful for President Trumps endorsement. As the only America First candidate who has actually fought for election integrity, border security and against the Lefts indoctrination of our kids Ill take that fight to the Senate to SAVE AMERICA!

Both men said they thanked Trump by phone.

On Twitter, Claire McCaskill, a former Democratic senator from Missouri, was among those to point out the existence of a third Eric a long-shot candidate writing: Congratulations Eric McElroy on Donald Trumps endorsement! Time for a press conference. This is quite an achievement.

Yet another Eric, Trumps second son, Eric Trump, did not immediately comment. But Greitens perhaps stole something of a march on Schmitt when he trumpeted an endorsement from a second Donald the former presidents first son.

In a tweet, Greitens said he was proud to be the only candidate and only Eric in Missouri endorsed by Donald Trump Jr.

On the Democratic side of the race, Lucas Kunce and Trudy Busch Valentine are the leading contenders to take on whichever Eric (or other candidate) emerges from the Trumpian scrum.

On Monday night, Kunce scored a win by securing the backing of Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont.

As described by Bryan Lowry, politics editor of the Kansas City Star: While the much-anticipated Trump endorsement fizzled into a general approval of Erics, a big endorsement in the Democrat race came down in Missouri.

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Donald Trump endorses Eric in Missouri primary but which one? - The Guardian US

Lansing Former President Donald Trump contended Monday that conservative commentator Tudor Dixon is the Republican candidate needed to "take back" Michigan from Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Speaking for about five minutes, Trump touted Dixon of Norton Shores during a "tele-rally" on the eve of the Tuesday primary election, in which Republican voters will pick one of five candidates to be their nominee for the state's top job.

Some Republicans criticized Dixon in recent days for changing her answers on whether Michigan's 2020 presidential election was swayed by widespread fraud. Trump has maintained unproven claims that wrongdoing cost him his race against Democrat Joe Biden.

"Tudor will fight, and strongly fight, for election integrity," Trump said at one point during Monday's call. "Because what went on with the election in Michigan was outrageous."

Trump lost the battleground state by 154,000 votes or 3 percentage points to Democrat Joe Biden in November 2020. The result has been upheld by a series of court rulings, more than 200 audits and an investigation by the GOP-controlled state Senate Oversight Committee.

After a months-long fight for his endorsement, Trump, who remains an influential figure in GOP politics, announced his support for Dixon on Friday, four days before the primary election.

On Sunday morning, Dixon appeared on "Fox News Sunday," where host Bret Baier pressed her on whether the November 2020 election had been stolen from Trump as the ex-president has maintained for 20 months.

"It's certainly a concern to a lot of folks here in Michigan because of the way the election was handled by our secretary of state," responded Dixon, referring to Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.

At a May 12 debate in Livingston County, Dixon was among a group of Republican candidates who said they believed Trump had won Michigan's election. But in a 2021 interview, asked if Trump had won the state, Dixon didn't respond with a direct "yes" or "no."

One of Dixon's primary opponents, businessman Kevin Rinke of Bloomfield Township, said Dixon had "completely flip-flopped on national television." And chiropractor Garrett Soldano of Mattawan said she was turning "her back on those who fought for President Trump."

On the campaign trail, Dixon has called for expanding voter identification requirements and cleaning up lists of eligible voters.

Likely Republican primary voters were able to call into Monday night's "tele-rally" with Trump and Dixon. The event was brief, but Trump urged listeners to support Dixon.

He also mentioned John Gibbs, who's challenging U.S. Rep. Peter Meijer, R-Grand Rapids Township, and Jonathan Lindsey, who's opposing incumbent Sen. Kim LaSata, R-Niles.

"Tudor is the only candidate in the race who has my complete and total endorsement," the former president said of the governor's primary.

"Everybody's nice," he added of the candidates in the race. "I am endorsing Tudor Dixon. She's really going to be something special."

cmauger@detroitnews.com

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Donald Trump vows Tudor Dixon will fight for 'election integrity' - Detroit News