Category Archives: Donald Trump

After eight congressional hearings investigating the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, one thing is clear: there is enough evidence to prosecute Donald Trump on a variety of charges. The committee has the option to refer cases to the Justice Department for prosecution, but such a step is not necessary. The Justice Department could decide to prosecute at any time, on whichever charges for which they find sufficient evidence. Already more than 800 people have been charged in connection with the January 6 eventsalthough most have been charged with lesser crimes. So far only 50 have pleaded guilty to felony charges.

But all along, the issue has been not what the 10,000 people who came to Washington D.C. for the rally knew or even what the 2,000 people who made it inside the Capitol building knew. All along the issue has been what did the president know and what did he intend? Was this a rally that simply got out of control? Or was it the first attempt ever by an American president to stage a coup detat?

If it was an attempted coup, it was a pretty pathetic and incompetent one.

From the hearings, we now know that Trump did not even have the support of his own family and friends nor his handpicked White House staff. To pursue his plans, he had to rely on a close group of advisors known as the clown show led by Rudi Giuliani, a pillow manufacturer, and a dot-com millionairenone of whom was in government and none of whom controlled the most important assets (guns, tanks, planes etc.) needed to take over a government. In contrast to most successful coups in history, Trump had no faction of the military, no faction of the National Guard, and no faction of the District of Colombia Metropolitan Police at his disposal.

As we learned in some of the most recent hearings, it was Vice President Mike Pence who was in contact with the military and the police, and most importantly, the military and the police were taking orders from Pence not Trump, the commander in chief! During the entire 187 minutes between Trump calling for the mob to march to the Capitol and his meek video gently asking the mob to go home, he made no calls to the military, the National Guard, or the Metropolitan police. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley was surprised that Trump never called him. Did Donald Trump really think that 2,000 people, many of whom were unarmed, could take control of the Capitol against a mobilized law enforcement and militarywhich, while late, did show up? Did Trump really think that a riot so dangerous that it sent one of his most loyal supporters, Sen. Josh Hawley running for his life through the halls of Congress would have the Republican backing needed to succeed? Did Trump really think that a riot could force Congressional leaders who were, by then, in secure locations in the Capitol Complex along with Vice President Pence, to delay their constitutional duties?

But an incompetent coup attempt could still be treasondefined as the betrayal of ones own country by attempting to overthrow the government through waging war against the state or materially aiding its enemies. Many will argue that Trump committed treason, particularly because the definition of treason simply requires the attempt not success in overthrowing the government. However, there are other grounds to prosecute him. He could be prosecuted for obstructing an official proceeding in his efforts to block the Electoral College vote. He could be prosecuted for conspiracy to defraud the United States for his various schemes to overturn the election. He could be prosecuted for dereliction of duty for his refusal to intervene to stop the attack on the Capitol. He could be prosecuted for inciting an insurrection. Section 3 of the 14th amendment which was passed after the Civil War to keep Confederates out of office could be used to keep him from ever running for office again. It provides: No person shall hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same.

For some, the decision to prosecute is easy; no one is above the law, including Donald Trump, and the decision to prosecute should be based solely on evidence. But for others, prosecuting a former President of the United States whose followers maintain an almost cult-like loyalty to him is a decision with enormous consequences. Would a successful prosecution and perhaps jail time make Donald Trump a martyr and exacerbate the ugly divisions he has launched on the country? Prosecution would take place under the Biden Administrations Justice Department which would, no doubt give birth to even more violent conspiracy theorists.

Is the end game really to put the guy in jail or is it, as Rep. Liz Cheney has maintained from the beginning, to make sure that Trump is never within 1000 feet of the presidency again?

The hearings themselves, absent any prosecutions, seem to be weakening Trump. A recent NYT/Sienna poll had Florida Governor Ron DeSantis moving into a strong second place behind Trump among 2024 Republican primary voters. The article points out that His share of the Republican primary electorate is less than Hillary Clintons among Democrats was at the outset of the 2016 race, when she was viewed as the inevitable front-runner, but ultimately found herself embroiled in a protracted primary against Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. And in the Republican primaries for Congress to date Trump has a mixed record. His endorsed candidates have won some high-profile racessuch as the Republican Senate primary in Ohio and lost others such as the Republican gubernatorial and secretary of state primaries in Georgia.

Prosecuting Trump is not a simple matter of determining whether the evidence is there. It is a question embedded in the larger issue of how to restore and defend American democracy. The January 6 committee has done an admirable job so far arguing that Trump is not fit for office. They have led. In an ideal world the voters would follow with the final word.

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Should Donald Trump be prosecuted? - Brookings Institution

TAMPA, Fla.Former President Donald Trump took center stage Saturday night for day two of Turning Point USA's 'Student Action Summit'.

The Summit is all about mobilizing young people to not just join the Republican Party but also start organizations aimed at reaching more young people.

Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk led a panel discussion with three young republicans running for office, Florida's Anthony Sabotini, Anna Paulina Luna, and New Hampshire's Karoline Leavittt.

Kirk and the panelists spoke about voting out Democrats and longstanding Republicans to usher in a new wave of the Republican Party.

You just heard from three young Republican leaders. To the older Republican Party, if youre watching, your time is up, Kirk said.

The second half of the day brought out Donald Trump Jr. and his fiance Kimberly Guilfoyle. Day two of the summit wrapped with an hour and a half long speech from former President Donald Trump.

Young people love us. They love our policies. They love common sense, he said.

President Trump spoke at length about his time as president. The former president said the future of the Republican Party is bright with the mobilization of more young people.

Your generation will not let them do what they want to do to you, which is bad, bad things. Were going to very soon take back our country, he said.

An Axios Generation Lab Next Cities Index found Tampa is the second most sought-after city for young Republicans.

ABC Action News Political Analyst Dr. Susan McManus said summits like this one is how younger Republicans are making their voices heard.

"It's just a conservative are historically a lot quieter. And they're not really too much into protesting. They're more about these kinds of actions. And forming these groups on campus have like-minded students to go out and talk to other students. And that's a big difference," she said.

Dr. McManus says the world of politics is evolving on both sides, and it's all because of young people.

"Both the Republican and the Democratic Parties have really growing and very strong young components. And a lot of that reflects that the younger generations are now replacing the boomers and the older ones. And they're bringing in a whole different kind of energy, a whole different way of communicating, totally different set of priorities. But both parties, young people in both parties really just want to make the country better. They just have different ways of going about it," she added.

She said now is the time for the Democratic Party to mobilize.

"Democrats know that they have to start reaching their younger population and breaking into the independence. And here you have the Republicans say look right here in Tampa, Florida, we've got 5,000 young people who are conservatives to the nth degree who are going back to their high schools and colleges and going to start getting people engaged. This is a big moment for Republican young people as well as the Democratic young they are emboldened by both parties needing them."

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Former President Trump headlines Turning Point USA's 'Student Action Summit' in Tampa - ABC Action News Tampa Bay

In a certain sense, you almost have to admire Boris Johnson. Please note: I said "almost." In his final appearance last week for the always-entertaining ritual performance of Prime Minister's Questions before the House of Commons (seriously, watch it sometime if you're inclined to believe the British are unfailingly polite), Johnson seemed exactly the same as ever a mischievous, intelligent and unreliable schoolboy, overstuffed with expensive chocolates, entirely unrepentant and largely upbeat only days after having been driven to resign by his own party in one of the most humiliating political collapses of recent history.

And from his blas, Oxbridge, upper-class-wag, profoundly narcissistic point of view, why not? What Johnson told the honorable members in Westminster was pretty much true (which is a point to keep in mind as we go on): He had conquered the dominant political party in Britain and re-engineered it, pulling in large numbers of working-class voters in the north of England for the first time and leading the Tories (i.e., the Conservative Party) to their largest electoral majority since the days of Margaret Thatcher. He had accomplished the seemingly impossible and quite likely undesirable task of extracting the U.K. from the European Union (i.e., Brexit), something his own party hadn't previously much wanted to happen.

Johnson's unasked and unanswered question during that performance was obvious to all: Given how awesome I am and how much I have accomplished in just three years, why in the name of Sweeney Todd are you chucking me out? He ended on a simultaneously ludicrous and threatening note that even his worst enemies would have to admit was vintage Johnson, winding up his peroration to the House with: "Mission largely accomplished for now. Hasta la vista, baby!"

Let me revert for a moment to resisting the impulse to admire someone possessed of enough thoroughly unearned self-confidence to quote George W. Bush and the Terminator in a single soundbite. Whew! Let's move on: Whatever effect Johnson was looking for, he got it. Within hours, even respectable media outlets like the BBC, the Guardian and the Wall Street Journal felt compelled to follow the lead of the right-wing London tabloids and game out scenarios for Johnson's immediate or eventual comeback, while admitting, almost in passing, that under Britain's parliamentary system that outcome was somewhere between wildly unlikely and completely impossible.

One right-wing tabloid promised a "shock poll" revealing that 85% wanted Johnson to stay on as prime minister. It was a poll of the tabloid's online readers.

On the website for the Express, probably the British daily that most reliably represents pro-Boris working-class Tory voters, the top three stories on Saturday evening (and four of the top five) were all variations on the theme of "Boris Johnson's incredible comeback," as one nearly substance-free article breathlessly put it. (It comprised 16 sentences of prose, several of them cribbed from earlier coverage, spread among six or seven photographs of Johnson.)

Another Express article promised a "shock poll" of Johnson's popularity, finding that "85% still want him as PM." Which would indeed have been a shock if it hadn't been an online poll of angry people reading Boris Johnson content on Express.co.uk, rendering it about as rigorous as a poll of hungry foxes asking whether they prefer live chicken or cold tofu or, rather more to the point, a poll of Fox News viewers asking them to choose between a Donald Trump dictatorship and a seven-hour lecture on veganism delivered with painstaking attention to gender pronouns.

Several of these articles, at the Express and elsewhere, have quoted outraged Johnson supporters (largely unnamed) describing the parliamentary infighting that drove him from power as a "coup" or a form of "impeachment," and observing that the entire process of ousting and replacing Johnson was undemocratic. First of all, those terms were imported piecemeal, and without much attention to detail, from contemporary American discourse, which is something of a tell.

Second of all, there's some justice to those observations, to be fair. But you have to wonder what country those people thought they were living in, and whether they believe they get to change the system just by whining about it. (And, goodness gracious, wherever would they have gotten such an idea?)

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Sometimes British prime ministers are removed from power through elections, to be sure. But at least as often it happens through an intra-party coup or a process approximately similar to impeachment, and especially so within the Conservative Party. (The Tories haven't lost a national election since 2005, but have gone through plenty of internal drama during that time.) That's exactly what happened to Johnson's two predecessors, Theresa May and David Cameron. That's what happened to Maggie Thatcher in 1990. It's pretty much what happened to the most revered Tory PM of all, Winston Churchill, who was forced to "retire," not altogether voluntarily, in 1955.

It's hardly a secret that the British parliamentary system is at best an indirect form of democracy, and that the prime minister is not elected by the voters at large. He or she is leader of the party that controls a majority in Parliament, and until recently was chosen by the other elected members of Parliament from that party, with zero public input.

While both the Tories and the center-left Labour Party have "democratized" that process lately, both have been eager to avoid anything resembling the chaotic scramble of the American primary system. Johnson's replacement as Tory leader (and, in effect, prime minister) will be chosen by an electorate of roughly 160,000 registered members of the Conservative Party or about 0.3% of all U.K. voters but only after the party's MPs have whittled a field of eight or so contenders down to two finalists.

Boris Johnson, as noted in the headline above, would love to be more like Donald Trump. His shit-stirring suggestion that he may try to stage a comeback, before he's actually left, may be the most overtly Trumpy thing he's ever done. (He remains prime minister for the moment, and apparently will not resign until the new party leader takes over in early September.) But for better or worse, both British politics and British culture including the enduring cultural politics of the supposedly-abolished class system sharply limit the possibilities of balls-to-the-wall Trumpiness.

Johnson would love to have a Trump-scale cult of personality behind him backing everything he does but a week's worth of clip-job articles in the right-wing press won't get that done. He'd love to be able to terrorize leading figures in his own party into silent acquiescence with the threat of political doom, even though they not-so-secretly hate his guts but in fact his collapse came because dozens of prominent Tories decided he was a political liability and flung him to the curb. As noted above, Johnson's final address to Commons was not full of blatant or outrageous lies and in fact the numerous falsehoods that got him into trouble as PM have been of the penny-ante, prevaricating variety, and would barely even register on the Trump scale.

Johnson's speech clearly implied that his fellow Conservatives had made a dreadful mistake in driving him from power, and the mini-bubble of "comeback" stories are no doubt meant as a trial balloon toward undoing that decision. To the extent that the left-behind Johnson supporters offer any sort of coherent narrative, it goes like this:

In the leadership election that's about to happen, his fans throw themselves behind Foreign Minister Liz Truss, a political chameleon and more or less a Johnson loyalist, over former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, who despite his South Asian background is pretty much a dyed-in-the-wool tax-cutting conservative with a Stanford MBA and a Goldman Sachs pedigree. In a year or so, Truss bows out or flames out or loses an election, and the chastened Tories, yielding to the public outcry for more Boris, return to the embrace of their dishonorable schoolboy.

Johnson can't claim that his political downfall was fake news and didn't really happen. And he doesn't need to claim that he fell victim to a conspiracy of backstabbers, since everyone knows that's what happened.

There are about 11 reasons why that won't happen, starting with the fact that there will be a British general election in 2024 (if not earlier), and almost no one believes that a party led by Boris Johnson could conceivably win it. But even the fact that such a scenario lingers somewhere on the outer margins of plausibility, and that Johnson and his supporters dare to dream of short-circuiting the established political process by way of a popular uprising, speaks to the global legacy of Donald John Trump.

But Boris Johnson isn't Donald Trump, and really can't be and this is a moment where the general historical parallels between postwar British and American politics begin to break down. For all his mendacity, vulgarity and hunger for power, Johnson is a consummate insider, an upper-class populist of a sort stereotypically familiar to the British public. After he leaves office, he'll be back at the bar at whichever exclusive London club he belongs to, cheerfully drinking excellent sherry with former allies and former foes and well positioned to make major bank in the private sector.

Johnson cannot claim that his political downfall is fake news and didn't really happen, only that it was a bad idea. He doesn't need to claim that he was the victim of a conspiracy of backstabbing traitors, since that's how the system works, and everyone understands that's exactly what happened.

I'm not here, trust me, to deliver some anguished Anglophile cri de coeur about how at least the guardrails of democracy held up in Blighty and in the end the Conservatives showed they had some principles and, gosh, maybe we'd be better off with a parliamentary system. That's not even remotely what happened: The Tories stood with Boris Johnson, giving him everything he wanted and ignoring his lies and ethical failings, right up to the moment they decided he was a loser.

If Boris and his dead-end allies dream of terraforming an American-style system, in which a political party can be swamped by mob sentiment, a whole lot of prominent Republicans in the U.S. would love to import the British system, in which a party leader who's gone sour and who won't shut up about how he didn't really lose the last election, just for instance can be junked without risking a massive primary rebellion.

I'm not sure that I would trade the American political system, compromised and paralytic as it currently is, for a constitutional monarchy with, um, no actual constitution and a distant-cousin relationship to actual democracy. But that's not the point, and neither of our nations is in a position to point fingers at the other one just at present.

There is, in the end, a continuing if approximate kinship: Boris Johnson's downfall represents roughly the same kind of conditional victory for democracy as Donald Trump's electoral defeat. Both men yearn for doubtful comebacks that remain, for the moment, out of reach but the larger question of whether the tendency toward autocracy that both men represent can be defeated will not be answered anytime soon.

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Boris Johnson only wishes he were Donald Trump: But his comeback dreams won't come true - Salon

Former Trump White House aide Steve Bannon was found guilty Friday of two counts of contempt of Congress after a trial in federal court in Washington, D.C.

Jurors deliberated for less than three hours before convicting Bannon of willfully failing to comply with subpoenas demanding his testimony and records, which were issued last September by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump.

He faces a minimum punishment of 30 days in jail and a maximum of one year when he is sentenced on Oct. 21. He also faces a fine in the range of $100 to a maximum of $100,000.

"The subpoena to Stephen Bannon was not an invitation that could be rejected or ignored," said Matthew Graves, the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia.

"Mr. Bannon had an obligation to appear before the House Select Committee to give testimony and provide documents. His refusal to do so was deliberate, and now a jury has found that he must pay the consequences."

Former U.S. President Donald Trump's White House chief strategist Steve Bannon arrives following his trial on contempt of Congress charges for his refusal to cooperate with the U.S. House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, at U.S. District Court in Washington, U.S., July 22, 2022.

Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters

"We respect their decision," Bannon, 68, said outside of the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse, referring to the jurors at his trial.

"We may have lost a battle here today, but we're not going to lose this war," Bannon said. "I stand with Trump and the Constitution, and I will never back off that, ever."

Bannon plans to appeal his conviction, which came a day after the Jan. 6 committee held a public hearing that featured evidence that included his own words.

The committee played an audio clip of Bannon, speaking to a group of people on Oct. 31, 2020, days before the presidential election, in which he said that Trump would claim to have won the White House race regardless of the actual results.

"What Trump's gonna do is just declare victory. Right? He's gonna declare victory. But that doesn't mean he's a winner," Bannon said. "He's just gonna say he's a winner.

That is exactly what Trump did for weeks after losing both the popular election vote and the Electoral College vote to President Joe Biden.

On Jan. 5, 2021, the eve of Congress holding a joint session to confirm Biden's Electoral College victory, Bannon spoke to Trump on the phone for 11 minutes, and then went on a radio show where he made a dark prediction.

"All hell is going to break loose tomorrow," Bannon said on that show. "It's all converging, and now we're on, as they say, the point of attack."

"I'll tell you this: It's not going to happen like you think it's going to happen," he said. "It's going to be quite extraordinarily different, and all I can say is strap in."

The next day, thousands of Trump supporters who believed he had won the election besieged the Capitol, with hundreds of them swarming through the halls of Congress, disrupting for hours the session confirming the official results.

The leaders of the Jan. 6 committee lauded the jury's decision Friday.

"The conviction of Steve Bannon is a victory for the rule of law and an important affirmation of the Select Committee's work," Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who is chair of the Jan. 6 committee, and Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said in a joint statement Friday afternoon.

"As the prosecutor stated, Steve Bannon 'chose allegiance to Donald Trump over compliance with the law.' Just as there must be accountability for all those responsible for the events of January 6th, anyone who obstructs our investigation into these matters should face consequences. No one is above the law," Thompson and Cheney said.

Bannon had served as chief strategist and counselor to Trump for about a half-year before being ousted in mid-2017. Since then, however, he has been an ardent backer of the ex-president and the so-called MAGA "Make America Great Again" movement.

Two weeks after the Capitol riot, on his last night as president, Trump issued dozens of pardons, including one to Bannon, who had been criminally charged in federal court in New York with swindling donors in a purported effort to build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico.

Prosecutors in that case said Bannon received $1 million in funds from the We Build the Wall group, and diverted that money to a separate nonprofit he had already created, whose ostensible purpose was "promoting economic nationalism and American sovereignty."

In her closing arguments Friday morning at Bannon's contempt trial, assistant U.S. Attorney Molly Gaston told jurors he "chose allegiance to Donald Trump over compliance with the law" by refusing to appear for testimony and give documents to the Jan. 6 committee.

"When it really comes down to it, he did not want to recognize Congress' authority or play by the government's rules," Gaston said. "Our government only works if people show up. It only works if people play by the rules. And it only works if people are held accountable when they do not."

Bannon's lawyers did not present a defense during the trial, which began Monday with jury selection.

His attorneys were hamstrung by pretrial rulings by the judge in the case, who severely limited the evidence they could present at trial.

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During his own closing arguments Friday, Bannon's lawyer Evan Corcoran tried to suggest that Thompson did not sign a subpoena for Bannon, NBC reported. Corcoran dropped that line of argument after the prosecution objected.

Corcoran also asked jurors to set aside memories of Jan. 6 in their deliberations.

"None of us will soon forget January 6, 2021," Corcoran said. "It's part of our collective memory. But there's no evidence in this case that Steve Bannon was involved at all. For purposes of this case we have to put out of our thoughts January 6."

Jurors began their deliberations just before 11:40 a.m. ET, after closing arguments concluded. The verdicts were read out in court at around 2:50 p.m. ET.

Another former Trump aide, the trade advisor Peter Navarro, was arrested in early June on charges identical to the ones that Bannon was convicted of.

Navarro failed to appear to testify on March 2 in response to the subpoena from the House panel and also failed to produce by Feb. 23 the documents sought by that same subpoena, according to the indictment issued by a grand jury in Washington federal court.

CNBC's Kevin Breuninger contributed to this report.

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Former Trump aide Steve Bannon guilty in Jan. 6 contempt of Congress case - CNBC

michael schmidt

They usually dont let me do this, so this is like a were good? OK.

Its weird to hear my own voice through my

Youve got a bit of a radio voice.

[LAUGHS]: I do not think thats right.

All right. Before we start tell us who you are. Like, who are you, why what have you done in your career.

Well, early in my career I was a writer for Time magazine. I decided to become a lawyer. And early in that career I was a federal prosecutor in Manhattan. I focused on public corruption cases. I became the chief of the public corruption unit at a time when we brought successful cases against several major New York political figures. But then I was asked to join the Mueller investigation, and I moved to Washington and worked on that for two years. And now Im the head of the White Collar Practice at the law firm Cooley.

Youre not someone that I know that well. I mean, during the Mueller investigation I showed up at your house to try and get you to talk. And I went to your door and, your doorbell was broken, and we knocked on the door and I could hear you and your family inside. And I was with a colleague of mine, and I turned to the colleague, and I said, you know what, this is too invasive, weve gone too far, this man is inside with his family. And we left.

I didnt know that. Thats all a little creepy [LAUGHS]:.

Thats fair, totally fair.

But you concentrated in the Mueller investigation on a narrow question an important question, but a narrow question of whether Trump had tried to impede that investigation, right?

Thats right.

And what did you find?

As we noted in our report, we found that the presidents conduct during the course of the investigation involved a series of actions that involved attacking the investigation, publicly and privately, trying to control the investigation from his position as President and within the White House. There were efforts in both public and private to encourage witnesses not to cooperate with the investigation. And so those were our predominant findings in terms of obstruction.

And despite finding all of these things that, at the very least was not great behavior, you made a decision about what to do about whether Trump broke the law. What was that decision?

Well, ultimately we decided not to do what traditional prosecutors do when theyre considering bringing a criminal charge. We went down that road for a few different reasons. It was based on our understanding of the role of the president and our understanding of what we believe to be the proper role of a prosecutor.

So you guys basically made a decision not to make a decision, to sort of let the facts speak for themselves and say, look, if after this man, Donald Trump, leaves office and the Justice Department wants to prosecute him, they can do that based on what we found. But were not going to make a decision. Were not going to say whether we think he broke the law.

Thats basically right. And the reason for that is that normally the first step that a prosecutor takes when deciding to bring a criminal charge against somebody is to determine for yourself whether that person is, in fact, guilty. And then you weigh the admissible evidence, you see can you actually prove this case in court, will it stand up on appeal. But here we werent dealing with an ordinary subject. The President is the head of the executive branch. Under Department of Justice policy the President cannot be charged with a crime while in office. And that is because simply charging him with a crime, just making the accusation, that would infringe on his ability to be President.

Right. So that leads us to the January 6 hearings and a different set of circumstances because, of course, Trump is no longer President. Explain to me what crimes Donald Trump could be investigated for based on everything weve learned from the January 6 hearings.

I think the three main potential crimes that people have talked about and that would be at issue here are, number one, obstruction of an official proceeding, number two, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and number three, depending on the evidence, seditious conspiracy.

Lets start with seditious conspiracy. What does that mean and how hard is that to prove?

It means agreeing with one or more other people to use force or violence to prevent the law from being carried out. Some of the people who stormed the Capitol on January 6 have been charged with this and its for their efforts and their plans to stop the counting of the electoral vote by force.

So basically using violence to stop the certification of the election.

Exactly.

So for someone like Trump to be charged with that would that mean that the government would have to prove that he conspired with those individuals to use violence? Would you have to show that he told them to commit violence? Would you have to show that he actually committed violence himself?

You would not have to show that he committed violence himself. Youd have to show that he agreed with people who were going to use violence or who were planning to use violence to stop the electoral vote count from happening.

So you basically need, like, Donald Trump sitting down with the Oath Keepers and with, like, a map of the Capitol and saying, look, like, this is how you guys should break into the building to stop Pence from doing his certification.

I dont think you need that much, but you need to be able to prove that the President had an agreement or that he joined a conspiracy to not just have the vote count be stopped but to use force or violence to stop it. And the evidence thats out on the public record right now I dont think would support that.

OK, so what about the charge of defrauding the public, defrauding the American people? It seems like just from watching it that there might be a lot of grist for a charge there. Im thinking of Trumps efforts to install loyalists at the Justice Department, him pressuring the Secretary of State of Georgia to come up with the exact number of votes that he needed to win that state. It certainly looks to many like he took these acts knowing that he lost the election but was still trying to overturn them anyway. Are those examples of actions that could be used to show that he was defrauding the American people?

Look, there is a crime called conspiracy to defraud the United States, and it effectively means conspiring or agreeing with other people where the intent is to stop or obstruct the lawful function of the government using deceitful or dishonest means.

The difficulty with that kind of a charge here is that its a little novel. Conspiracy to defraud is something thats not itself novel, but applying it to this set of facts as Ive seen it is something that has not clearly been done before.

Well, then lets get to that third charge the charge of obstructing an act of Congress. Define that for us.

The proceeding itself would be the proceeding on January 6 where Congress and the Vice President were going to certify the results of the 2020 election. And the crime would be doing something or conspiring with others to do something to obstruct that proceeding and to do it corruptly.

How would you prove that someone obstructed an act of Congress or a congressional proceeding?

At the most basic level, you need two things. You need some action that would impede or would tend to impede the proceeding itself, and then you need corrupt intent. Intent is typically the hardest thing to show in a political corruption or an obstruction investigation. It requires showing that somebody was acting with an improper motive, that he was effectively conscious of wrongdoing at the time he took his action. And here theres been a lot of evidence about the Presidents advisors and lawyers and people from the Department of Justice telling the President that the election was over, that there wasnt sufficient evidence of fraud to overturn the results of the election. And so thats the kind of evidence that would get at the Presidents intent as hes continuing to push these claims of fraud even after having been told all of that.

Theres evidence that he was told that Mike Pence did not have the power to, on his own, refuse to take part in the certification or to delay the certification of the votes and that he continued to push Pence to do that. And then theres the evidence of his conduct on January 6 itself and some of the things he did not do while it was clear that the Capitol had been effectively under siege, and people were telling him to take actions, and he didnt. All of those are things that would go to helping establish the Presidents intent.

OK, so theres some evidence that could help establish intent here. But as you said, as a prosecutor, you would want to establish intent and action. What would be, putting the facts aside, which were not supposed to do in journalism, what would a clear cut example be of an action? If I said, make up an action that shows obstructing a congressional proceeding, what would that look like?

I think like, if, for example, if there is evidence that the President directed Mike Pences security detail to not let Pence go to the Capitol or, when he was there, to actually direct them to get him out of there before he could certify the vote that would be an act. It would absolutely have the effect of impairing or impeding the proceeding. And I think, if that was what happened, I think it wouldnt be that hard to show that the intent was corrupt.

So you need a clear-cut example of Trump doing something that literally impedes this certification.

Not necessarily in that you could have an attempt or you could have a conspiracy. But in the end I think a prosecutor would still need to point to an act, an action that the president either took himself or directed to have been taken that would itself obstruct the proceeding.

Based on what we know, Trump tried to pressure Pence in the days leading up to January 6 to essentially take the certification into his own hands and either decide who won or send the votes back to the states. You have Trumps actions on the Ellipse where he gives a speech, and he says, lets all march to the Capitol. And then he tries to go there himself in his own motorcade. And then when the riot is going on, Trump tweets about Pence, criticizing Pence for how Pence did. Unpack those different acts and explain to us why those different acts would potentially get you there or not get you there in terms of establishing that Trump did something to truly impede the proceeding.

I think for each of those acts there are ways to look at them where they would, in fact, have had the tendency to obstruct the proceeding, but they all have their own problems. For example, if the jawboning of Pence is basically a disagreement, and hes not trying to actually stop the proceeding, hes trying to get the proceeding to come out in a way thats in his favor, or hope that by going up there and then it getting delayed, it could buy him some time, thats different than an action that could actually obstruct the proceeding.

And the other things that you mentioned and that are out there, the speech that the president gave on the Ellipse early that afternoon telling the Secret Service to take away the magnetometers, the tweet about the Vice President when people were already inside the Capitol, these are things where, on the one hand, you can make an argument that they were designed to try to rile people up to then be able to go to the Capitol and to obstruct the proceeding. But theyre also things that politicians generally do. And theres a defense that this is political speech, that the tweet would be political speech. That the only reason he would have said to not let the magnetometers stay up would be because he wanted to pack the crowd and nothing to do with trying to get people who were armed to then go to the Capitol.

So what youre saying is that because these actions that he took are sort of braided together with his First Amendment rights it makes it more difficult for those to be actual acts because its unclear where his free speech rights begin or end, and his intent to obstruct the proceeding picks up from there. Is that right?

I think when it comes in particular to the speech itself and to the tweet or other tweets that those, he would have a legal argument that its core protected First Amendment activity. Hes the President. He needs to be able to talk to supporters. He didnt explicitly say, lets go march on the Capitol, and break the doors down, and stop this proceeding from happening. And so theres a real legal defense there. And factually theres the defense that he did not in fact say the magic words that would be true incitement. At least he would have an argument that thats not what he was actually doing.

So if Im reading between the lines on what youre saying, it seems like, in terms of these two things you need, intent and an act, based on what we know and has come out at the hearings, theres probably enough on the intent side. But on the act side, its fuzzier in terms of whether theres a clear-cut act. Is that I mean, if were sitting back, and were assessing this, and youre saying, OK just do it for us, right? So like, youre the prosecutor. How much you know, do you get there on each one?

Number one, I dont really want to weigh in on the strength of the evidence, in part because I dont know all of it. And it would be a little bit of shooting from the sidelines to weigh in. But number two, I do think its important as the evidence is coming out of the January 6 Committee to realize that there are difficulties here in proving either of these things. There are issues with, are any of the things that the President did or try to get others to do that day, would they really count as obstructive acts? And in terms of his intent, theres definitely been a lot of evidence that has come out. Does that get you over the hump of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the President was acting with a corrupt intent? I think these are very hard questions.

Beyond the obvious of, like, wanting to have witnesses in the room for everything and documents backing it all up, if you were the prosecutor here, what would you want to know? What would you really be keying in on to try and understand whether the President broke the law?

One thing that I think I would want to know if is there any evidence that the President was telling people internally, anybody internally, that he didnt believe the things he was saying. That he knew he had lost and that all of this was effectively a construct to try to stay in power. If the Department had evidence of him saying that to a confidant or to somebody who was in the inner circle, thats the kind of evidence that I think, if I were a prosecutor in this type of a case, I would really want.

And why does that change things?

I think it goes right at the heart of intent, and it would put a very strong gloss on all of the actions that have already come out through this January 6 Committee process.

So youre saying by strengthening intent it sort of helps to bolster the acts because their intentions of the actual acts are clear.

Because I think what it could end up showing is that some of the actions might be able to be read in different ways.

If the government could actually show that the reason behind them, the intent behind them was all about trying to stop the certification of the election, that would then change what might be the type of act that could be read in two different directions and read in a way where, actually, thats the kind of action where the purpose of it was to impede the certification of the election.

So bolstering one can help bolster the other.

It can.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

After our last hearing, President Trump tried to call a witness in our investigation. A witness you have not yet seen in these hearings. That person declined to answer or respond to President Trumps call and instead alerted their lawyer to the call. Their lawyer alerted us, and this committee has supplied that information to the Department of Justice. Let me say one more time, we will take any effort to influence witness testimony very seriously.

Weve heard Liz Cheney talk about witness tampering. Would a witness tampering charge here be more appealing to a prosecutor?

Potentially because its more straightforward than some of the other things that are out there. Its easier for the public to digest, and the law on witness tampering is very clear. Youre not going to be pushing for some aggressive view of the law. Look, I do think factually tying the former President to the type of witness tampering that came up in that congressional hearing, I think, would be a challenge.

But if that were the provable crime, that in some ways becomes easier to explain that no person can tamper with the witness as theyre going and provide testimony before Congress on an important issue.

So its cleaner and clearer.

If the facts support it, I think it would be both cleaner and clearer.

OK, so lets say if prosecutors think they can prove intent, they think they have an act, an action, and they think they can prove the count beyond a reasonable doubt, and they can survive an appeal, and they send that up the chain of command at the Justice Department, it lands on Merrick Garlands desk in Washington, and he says, OK, I accept at face value what you prosecutors have determined about intent and action, then Merrick Garland has another decision to make. A whole other set of issues to look at. What are those issues and what is that decision?

In this kind of a situation its not easy. As I said earlier, when a prosecutor makes an analysis about whether to bring a criminal charge in any case, they have to believe that the person is guilty, they have to have the evidence to prove it, and to have it withstand any challenge on appeal, but then they also have to believe that its in the publics interest to bring the case. Is there a substantial federal interest in bringing this prosecution?

Explain what that means. What does the publics interest mean to a prosecutor?

Look, in some respects its a very straightforward thing that prosecutors consider all the time. Most prosecutors believe that their job is to do justice. And so, of course, what they want to do if theyre going to charge somebody with a crime is not just do an analysis of the facts and the law but also think about and believe that this is the right thing for the country. And theyre factors that are actually listed in whats called the Justice Manual, which is the guidebook for all federal prosecutors that walk through all of the different factors that our prosecutors should consider when evaluating the public interest in bringing a prosecution. And they include things like the seriousness of the offense, the circumstances of the defendant, the ability for there to be other means of accountability, the need for deterrence in that particular situation. And the hard question is, how do you weigh all these things? And theres not an easy answer to that. It comes down to an assessment of what you think is right and what you think is ultimately in the interests of the American public.

So what youre saying is that in our system weve entrusted prosecutors with not just the ability to investigate crimes and figure out whether an individual violated the law in terms of whether the facts line up with the law, but then on top of that, whether bringing such a prosecution is essentially the right thing to do. This power that weve given prosecutors in our country is just so great that theres an added element of whether is this in the best interest of the public that every case is looked at through.

Thats right.

And why is it the prosecutors job to figure out whether its in the best interests of the country and not simply just based on the evidence? Why do they get to decide whether its in the interest of the country or not?

In the criminal law, you want prosecutors to have some measure of discretion. You want to have a prosecutor have the ability to say no, to say, you know what, theres a different forum to try to carry out the best interests of the public here. And I think all this really means is that when you apply that to a president or a former president and somebody who is a potential candidate in a presidential election potentially representing the whole country that you do want a prosecutor to consider the public interest there. Otherwise, you could effectively have your head sort of in the sand and be bull charging ahead, taking a step that could have massive ramifications for the whole country.

Why should that matter? Right, so one of the major tenets of the American legal system is that were all treated the same under the law. Why is it that it seems like the bar for someone whos such a high profile politician or a former president or someone running is higher? Why is that higher? Why is that not the same for everyone else?

I dont think its necessarily higher, but the considerations when youre talking about a political leader are certainly different and harder because there you have the very clear and important rule that the Department of Justice should try in every way possible not to interfere with elections, to not take steps using the criminal process that could end up affecting the political process. And so I think a prosecutor in evaluating what to do with potential criminal conduct by a political leader has to weigh those things. And those are things that are just not going to be present in the ordinary course.

Does it become so high profile at a point that not prosecuting is as much a political decision as prosecuting?

It certainly could be viewed that way. And one of the things that the Department of Justice has to weigh in this kind of a situation is both what are the potential ramifications of prosecuting, but also the ramifications of not prosecuting. And here, in part because of just how high profile all of this is, if there were very clear evidence of a crime and it was sort of very straightforward and provable, but the Department of Justice walked away, there is a real risk of the American people thinking that there are two systems of justice. And that would be devastating to the mission of the Department.

And in this case, in terms of assessing whether to bring a charge, is the fact that it occurred around the certification of the election, something that we are supposed to hold so sacred in this country and our democracy, does that weigh in terms of look, this is a really serious event, and because a really serious event led to complete mayhem on essentially one entire branch of government that a charge should be brought? Or, I mean

I think that shows exactly why it is so important to get this right. And Merrick Garland has said publicly that hes effectively committing all of the resources necessary to get to the bottom of what happened and to hold people accountable for it. I think we should take him at his word. But without question, what happened on January 6 was horrendous for our country and for our democracy. You certainly wouldnt want to look away if theres criminal wrongdoing there. But you also want to make sure that the cases that you bring are strong and are the right cases to bring.

But like, also the issue is, look, if we go to trial and we lose, the consequences of that could be just as great for the country, right?

That is right. And that is one of the reasons why, before bringing criminal charges at this level as part of this investigation, the Department of Justice is going to want to make sure that their cases are as bulletproof as humanly possible. One possibility to consider would be whether it would make sense to delay bringing a charge until after the 2024 election. The upside of that is that you potentially are not interfering in the actual electoral process and having a potential trial or pretrial motions right in the middle of an election. The downside is that you would still have all kinds of talk and chatter about the presidential candidate being under investigation. And if he wins, then you have an even more difficult decision. Do you then bring a charge after the election is over against a candidate who won?

So if we look at the whole landscape of this thing, in your analysis, it seems like to me that bringing a prosecution against Donald Trump would be difficult. It was difficult when he was in office because he was President. Its now difficult because hes out of office and may run for president. Maybe you have to delay this prosecution until after the 2024 election. If its so hard to prosecute a president or a former president or such a high profile politician like this, why would we even investigate it anyway?

I think if theres evidence of criminal wrongdoing and its a federal criminal wrongdoing, it is the job of the Department of Justice to investigate that. And in the end an investigation such as the one being done by the January 6 Committee or an investigation like what we did under Special Counsel Mueller there are forms of accountability that are vindicated even if criminal charges are not brought. One of the great things that the January 6 Committee has been able to do has been to show in much greater detail what was actually happening on January 6, not just inside Congress and among the people who stormed the Capitol, but also inside the White House at that time. And I think all of the American public are better for having seen these facts and knowing what is out there.

If ultimately that doesnt result in a criminal prosecution of the President or any of his top advisors, that doesnt mean that there hasnt been some real good that has come out of the January 6 Committee.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Andrew, thank you so much for coming in to talk to us today.

It was a pleasure to be here.

Look, no person is above the law in this country. Nothing stops us.

Even a former President?

No I dont know how to maybe Ill say that again. No person is above the law in this country. I cant say it any more clearly than that. There is nothing in the principles of prosecution in any other factors which prevent us from investigating anyone, anyone who is criminally responsible for an attempt to undo a democratic election.

The January 6 committees next hearing is scheduled for 8:00 PM tonight.

Well be right back.

Heres what else you need to know today. A bipartisan group of senators has reached a deal to modernize the 135-year-old Electoral Count Act, the law that President Trump sought to abuse on January 6 to remain in office. Their proposed legislation seeks to guarantee a peaceful transfer of power from one president to the next by, among other things, clarifying that the vice presidents role in certifying electoral votes on January 6 is purely ceremonial.

And on Wednesday Russia expanded its territorial ambitions in Ukraine saying that it wants to recapture land in the countrys south. Thats a reversal from a few months ago when Russia said it would only seek to capture territory in Ukraines east. But so far its unclear if Russia can follow through with the threat.

Todays episode was produced by Jessica Cheung and Asthaa Chaturvedi with help from Stella Tan. It was edited by Michael Benoist, Lisa Chow, and Paige Cowett, contains original music by Dan Powell and Marion Lozano, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

Thats it for The Daily. Im Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.

Original post:

The Case Against Donald Trump - The New York Times

With help from Eli Okun and Garrett Ross

The Jan. 6 committees work is sowing doubts about Donald Trump on the right. | Chet Strange/Getty Images

SOME GOOD FOURTH OF JULY NEWS N.Y. Mag: Someone Finally Turned Nathans Hot Dogs Into Ice Cream

SOME BAD FOURTH OF JULY NEWS WSJ: The average cost of a summer cookout rose 17% from last year.

MORE DOUBTS ABOUT THE FRONTRUNNERS Its going to take a long time to process the events of June 2022. Two monumental storylines unfurled last month that will shape politics for the foreseeable future: the Supreme Courts transformational decisions on guns, climate regulation and abortion and the Jan. 6 committees evidence of potential criminality by DONALD TRUMP.

On Friday, we looked at how the Supreme Courts flurry of decisions pushing the country rightward is sowing doubts about Biden on the left.

For more on that, check out these two numbers in the latest Harvard CAPS/Harris poll:

64% of registered voters think Joe Biden is showing he is too old to be President.

71% of registered voters say Bidenshould not run for a second term.

But today we want to look closer at how the Jan. 6 committees work is sowing doubts about Trump on the right. The same poll reports:

61% of registered voters say Trumpshould not run for president.

The reasons?

He's erratic: 36%

He will divide America: 33%

He's responsible for Jan. 6: 30%

Two must-read pieces are chock-full of on-the-record quotes from Republicans who want to move on from the former president:

Via APs Steve Peoples and Thomas Beaumont:

Youd be hard-pressed to find people in this area who support the idea that people arent looking for someone else, said DAVE VAN WYK, a transportation company owner. To presume that conservative America is 100% behind Donald Trump is simply not the case.

People are concerned that we could lose the election in 24 and want to make sure that we dont nominate someone who would be seriously flawed, CHRIS CHRISTIE said.

His approval among Republican primary voters has already been somewhat diminished, Maryland Gov. LARRY HOGAN said in an interview. Trump was the least popular president in American history until Joe Biden.

Republican activists believed Donald Trump was the only candidate who could beat Hillary, MARC SHORT said. Now, the dynamic is reversed. He is the only one who has lost to Joe Biden.

If it looks like theres a place for me next year, Ive never lost a race, Im not going to start now, NIKKI HALEY told reporters. Ill put 1,000% in and Ill finish it. And if theres not a place for me, I will fight for this country until my last breath.

I just dont know if [Trumps] electable anymore, [KATHY DE KONING of Iowa] said.

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Via NYTs Michael Bender, Reid Epstein and Maggie Haberman:

Republicans want to win badly in 2022, and it is dawning on many of them that relitigating the 2020 election with Trumps daily conspiracy diatribes are sure losers, said DICK WADHAMS, a Republican strategist and former chairman of the Colorado Republican Party.

Theres some evidence that some Republican voters are trying to slow-walk from Donald Trump, said SCOTT JENNINGS, a Republican strategist. Jennings said he was not surprised by Mr. Trumps eagerness to jump into the presidential race. If youre in his shoes, you have to try to put that fire out. Because the more it burns, the more it burns.

Ms. Hutchinson would be the star member of a womens Republican club a committed conservative, no reason to say anything but the truth, said Senator BILL CASSIDY of Louisiana, who voted to convict in Mr. Trumps second impeachment and has been a target of Mr. Trumps since. He was one of the few lawmakers who spoke on the record. It gives power to a testimony that allows Americans to judge for themselves.

There will be a number of Republicans who many Republicans feel cannot only unite the party but would govern with strong, conservative policies, said JASON SHEPHERD, a former NEWT GINGRICH aide who is a Georgia Republican Party state committeeman.

Theres just too many people who dont really like him, [NICOLE] WOLTER said. We want everyone to kind of rally around him and be able to get the independents, and I just think that if he ran, he wouldnt be able to pull that off.

Wishful thinking by the usual GOP suspects? Or evidence that something has really changed?

More: NBCs Marc Caputo on how Trumps fear factor shows signs of waning as 2024 Republican hopefuls jockey.

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WEEKEND LISTEN: TIM MILLER and ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN sat down with Ryan this week to discuss their respective journeys navigating Trumpism and what CASSIDY HUTCHINSONs testimony could mean for the future of Trumps grip on the Republican Party.

Why is MIKE PENCE letting Cassidy testify? Mike Pence knows about all this stuff better than anybody, Miller said. And he's not going to be the president. If anybody knows how derelict Donald Trump was on that day, it's Pence. Listen to Playbook Deep Dive

BIDENS SATURDAY: The president has nothing on his public schedule.

VP KAMALA HARRIS SATURDAY (all times Eastern):

12:10 p.m.: The vice president will depart Los Angeles en route to New Orleans.

5:15 p.m.: Harris will attend the 28th ESSENCE Festival of Culture, where she will participate in a fireside conversation with KEKE PALMER.

8 p.m.: Harris will depart New Orleans to return to Los Angeles.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

WNBA star Brittney Griner is escorted to a courtroom for a hearing in Khimki, just outside of Moscow, Russia, on Friday, July 1. | Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo

ALL POLITICS

TRUMP VS. HOGAN Dems meddle in Trump-Hogan proxy war in Maryland, by Zach Montellaro: DAN COXs campaign for governor of Maryland got an early endorsement from Donald Trump last fall. And now, Democrats want Republican primary voters to know all about it.

The Democratic Governors Association launched a new ad Friday blasting Cox, a state lawmaker, for his ties to Trump, for being 100 percent pro-life and for refusing to support any federal restrictions on guns. But the end goal of the ad is not to sink Cox. Instead, Democrats are hoping to boost him in the July 19 Republican primary for governor, which has turned into a tight battle for the nomination with former state Commerce Secretary KELLY SCHULZ term-limited GOP Gov. LARRY HOGANs preferred successor.

KNOWING MARKWAYNE MULLIN He was prepared to kill Jan. 6 rioters. Now MAGA voters may give him a Senate seat, by WaPos Paul Kane in an analysis piece on the Oklahoma GOP representative.

JAN. 6 AND ITS AFTERMATH

THE NOT-SO SECRET SERVICE Jan. 6 inquiry thrusts Secret Service back into center of controversy, by WaPos Carol Leonnig: The new depiction of the Secret Service which has endured a decade of controversy from a prostitution scandal and White House security missteps during the Obama years to allegations of politicization under Trump has cast new doubt on the independence and credibility of the legendary presidential protective agency.

Accounts of Trump angrily demanding to go to Capitol on January 6 circulated in Secret Service over past year, by CNNs Noah Gray and Zachary Cohen

ABORTION FALLOUT

HEADS UP Texas Supreme Court blocks order that resumed abortions, by APs Paul Weber, Anthony Izaguirre and Stephen Groves: It was not immediately clear whether Texas clinics that had resumed seeing patients this week would halt services again. A hearing is scheduled for later this month.

SOMETHING TO WATCH House GOP women are a crucial piece to partys next move on abortion, by WaPos Marianna Sotomayor: There are 32 women in the House GOP conference, the largest number in history. And their ranks are expected to grow in a midterm year.

THE DEM DONOR REACTION Democrats swiftly raised $80M after court overturned Roe, by APs Brian Slodysko

IN THE STATES As Ohio restricts abortions, 10-year-old girl travels to Indiana for procedure, by the Indianapolis Stars Shari Rudavsky and Rachel Fradette

TRUMP CARDS

FOR YOUR RADAR Trump hires former 9th Circuit judge Kozinski for Twitter court fight, by Reuters Jacqueline Thomsen and Mike Scarcella

WHERE ARE THEY NOW She helped get Trump elected. Now shes raising crypto for Ukraine, by WaPos Steven Zeitchik: BRITTANY KAISER, the provocative Cambridge Analytica veteran, has become critical to the government of Volodymyr Zelensky. Not everyone is enthusiastic.

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CLICKER The nations cartoonists on the week in politics, edited by Matt Wuerker 15 funnies

GREAT WEEKEND READS, curated by Ryan Lizza:

How Do You Prepare for a School Shooting? by NYTs C.J. Chivers, with photos and captions by Lindsay Morris and Jake Nevins: In a gruesome new American ritual, mass casualty simulations confront first responders with agonizing choices they would face in a real attack.

The Other Cancel Culture: How a Public University Is Bowing to a Conservative Crusade, by ProPublicas Daniel Golden and Kirsten Berg: With a rising national profile and donor base and relatively little state funding, Boise State University should be able to resist pressure by the Idaho Legislature. Instead the university, led by a liberal transplant, has repeatedly capitulated.

Did This Trump-Loving, Leopard-Hunting Dentist Kill His Wife? by Rolling Stones Matt Sullivan: Larry Rudolph built an empire in strip-mall suburbia, and a reputation as a gun-culture hero. Then came the love triangle, the allegations of fraud, and a mysterious death in Africa. Was it a tragic accident? Or murder?

Unsettled, by The Verges Makena Kelly: The Afghan refugee crisis collides with the American housing disaster.

He was acting strangely. Then he vanished into the Virginia wilderness, by WaPos Lizzie Johnson: The disappearance of 18-year-old Ty Sauer set off a frantic search in a densely wooded area of Shenandoah National Park.

Leonard Cohens Hallelujah Belongs to Everyone, by The Atlantics Kevin Dettmar: What is it about the once virtually unknown song that inspires so many musicians to make it their own?

Jason Brassard Spent His Lifetime Collecting the Rarest Video Games. Until the Heist, by Vanity Fairs Justin Heckert: The porn trilogy for Nintendos. Atari games from the 1980s. Pristine nostalgia, potentially worth millions, gone in a night.

Pete Buttigieg educated his Twitter followers about flight cancellations.

Elon Musk broke his Twitter silence on Friday, posting a photo with Pope Francis.

Jerry Hall has filed for divorce from Rupert Murdoch.

Enda ODowd, an Irish Times video journalist, documented the lowlights from the Arizona GOP gubernatorial debate.

WELCOME TO THE WORLD Kristen Soltis Anderson, founding partner of Echelon Insights and a CNN contributor, and Chris Anderson, software engineering manager at Sweetgreen, on Tuesday welcomed Eliana Christine Anderson. Pic

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Playbooks own Setota Hailemariam Jonathan Capehart Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.) and Randy Weber (R-Texas) Eric Fanning of the Aerospace Industries Association Brad Todd of On Message POLITICOs Cristina Rivero The Verges Brooke Minters Scott McGee of Kelley Drye Derek Gianino of Wells Fargo Matthew Dybwad of Xandr Jenny Beth Martin of Tea Party Patriots Courtney Geduldig of Micron Technology Matthew L. Schwartz Snaps Gina Woodworth Arkadi Gerney ... Sam Nitz ... Emily Stanitz Reed Howard former New Hampshire Gov. John H. Sununu former Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) Luci Baines Johnson Jeremy Garlington (53) NBCs Tom Llamas and Keith Morrison Abbey Rogers of Rokk Solutions Billy Constangy of Rep. Richard Hudsons (R-N.C.) office Collin Davenport of Rep. Gerry Connollys (D-Va.) office TikTok's Brooke Oberwetter

THE SHOWS (Full Sunday show listings here):

ABC This Week, anchored by Martha Raddatz: Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.). Panel: Alex Burns, Molly Ball, Mary Bruce and Brittany Shepherd.

FOX Fox News Sunday: Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves John Kirby. Panel: Marc Thiessen, Mollie Hemingway, Howard Kurtz and Juan Williams.

CBS Face the Nation: DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) Henning Tiemeier German Chancellor Olaf Scholz Jan Crawford Debora Patta.

CNN State of the Union: South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.). Panel: Bakari Sellers, Linda Chavez, Jess McIntosh and Scott Brown.

CNN Inside Politics: Jill Dougherty. Panel: Jonathan Swan, Jackie Kucinich, Laura Barrn-Lpez, Christopher Cadelago, Camila DeChalus and Ariane de Vogue.

NBC Meet the Press: Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra Danny Cevallos. Panel: Matthew Continetti, Jeh Johnson, Marianna Sotomayor and Ali Vitali.

MSNBC The Sunday Show: Linda Villarosa Deborah Watts Kurt Bardella Judith Browne Dianis.

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Send Playbookers tips to [emailprotected] or text us at 202-556-3307. Playbook couldnt happen without our editor Mike Zapler, deputy editor Zack Stanton and producers Setota Hailemariam and Bethany Irvine.

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See original here:

POLITICO Playbook: Growing doubts about Trump and Biden in '24- POLITICO - POLITICO

You dont say.

The committee members felt that taking on this oh-so-altruistic act on behalf of America meant that they didnt have to publicly reckon with the moral compromise of working for someone like Trump. Somehow this justification persisted even after they no longer worked for him and were using their access to make it rain in the private sector. Convenient!

Not a single one of the brave warriors on the Committee to Save America endorsed the only person who could actually save America from Trump his opponent in the 2020 election.

Despite this logical incongruence, it was the self-flattering messiahs who won the argument among Republicans in D.C. Their demand that good people do everything in their power to protect the country from the horrific realities of the president eventually extended not just to those in the national security apparatus but to mid-level political offices throughout town.

From their wake emerged their messianic junior partners who worked as Trump aides and Hill staffers and campaign flacks. They may not have convinced themselves they were saving the world exactly but were justified in the knowledge that if they did not take a glamorous White House job or continue working for a white-bread rational senator, the country would be saddled with someone far worse. Maybe even a white nationalist! Whos to say? (The fact that a white nationalist might be their replacement did not seem to strike many of the juniors as something that required reflection on the nature of their employment.)

These Junior Messiahs told themselves they were patriots, sacrificing on behalf of the American people, who deserved dedicated public servants like them. This belief was buttressed by the fact that they often had a point: The staffer who would replace them or the politician who would upend their boss in a primary was almost assuredly more terrible. In Trumps GOP, entropy was taking hold. From the cabinet to the Senate to the school board, the stodgy erudite men of yesteryear were being replaced by ambitious MAGA-fakers who were in turn being replaced by psychotic true believers, giving credence to the conceit that they used to comfort themselves anytime doubt crept in.

The Demonizers were the quickest to drink the Trumpian orangeade as a chaser to liberal tears. For some this was a dogmatic response to any signs of Democratic hostility to people of faith or the free market (or both, for those with the in-home Milton Friedman shrine).

For others, it was cultural, a rejection of the liberal pieties that ground their gears, a discomfort with how fast the script around gender and race was changing. For still others it seemed more personal, emanating from a bitterness over the snooty know-it-allism of the liberals in their life. They clung to anger over the way the left and the media had treated decent Republicans over the years, concluding that, if Mitt Romney and John McCain were going to be tarred as sexist, racist warmongers, then they had no choice but to throw in with the real sexists and racists.

This notion of anger driving support for Trump echoes what a lot of elite conservatives have admitted on the record. Rich Lowry, the nebbish National Review editor (and frequent POLITICO contributor), wrote on the eve of Trumps losing reelection bid that supporting Trump was a middle finger to the cultural left. This seemed to me to be an unbelievably asinine, if understandable, mindset coming from a fussy, middle-aged, Manhattan-dwelling white conservative who resents his more culturally ascendant neighbors. But what caught me off guard was how many of my peers felt the same. Over drinks in Santa Monica, a friend who I had gradually lost touch with over her rabid Trump fandom, stopped me cold when explaining her rationalizations. Despite being a socially liberal, urban-dwelling Millennial, she still had absorbed a deep well of hatred for woke culture.

I just dont feel the need to drive around my Prius drinking a coffee coolata with a coexist bumper sticker and checking the box like Ive solved climate change, she said. Me moving from plastic to paper straws is not actually moving this needle. The liberal culture of judgment, of do as I say, not as I do. John Kerry flying places in private jets. Thats why I was so drawn to Trump. I was at a breaking point.

I was genuinely dumbstruck by this. As someone who loves a chocolate shake, I also find forcible paper straw usage to be an utterly moronic inconvenience of modern urban life. But connecting that to support for Donald Trump? Being upset with Joe Biden about private companies switching to deteriorating straws? This anger didnt click with me at all.

Whatever the underlying reason, these Demonizers have decided that the left, the media, the Lincoln Project, the big-tech oligarchs, the social justice warriors, the people who put they/them pronouns in their email signature, the parents who take their kids to drag queen story hour, the Black Lives Matter protesters and the wokes who want to make stolen land acknowledgments at the start of meetings are all so evil that there is no need to even grapple with the log in their own eye. Trump was a human eff you to the bastards they thought were out to get them. Once youve decided that the other side are the baddies, everything else falls into place rather quickly.

Then you had the LOL Nothing Matters Republicans. This cadre gained steam over the years, especially among my former peers in the campaign set. It is a comforting ethos if you are professionally obligated to defend the indefensible day in and day out. Their arguments no longer needed to have merit or be consistent because, LOL, nothing matters. Right? The founder of the Trumpy right-wing website The Federalist, Ben Domenech is, I believe, the one who coined it. He said the LOLNMRs were inherently fatalist, believing that the most apocalyptic predictions about right and left are happening no matter what and that the lights will go down in the West. Now, from my vantage point, thats a rather ostentatious way of describing the standard-issue prep school man-child of privilege contrarian cynicism that has been memorialized in teen cinema for ages . . . but you get the point. The LOLNMRs had decided that if someone like Trump could win, then everything that everyone does in politics is meaningless. So they became nihilists. Some eventually took jobs working for Trump; others flipped from center-right normie game players to MAGAfied populist warriors in a flash; still others gave themselves a cocoon of protection working for the Mitch McConnells of the world, staying Trump adjacent so as to not have to challenge their newly developing worldview. But all of them avoided any of the hard questions of the era, wrapping themselves in the comfortably smug sense of self-satisfaction that comes with a lack of concern for consequences.

The professional Tribalist Trolls overlap in their tactics with the Nothing Matters crowd but are different in that they at least have an ethos. Whatever is good for their side is good. And whatever is bad for the other side is good. Simple as that. In the early social media era, I was attracted to this mindset, and for a time when the stakes seemed lower, I was even a member of their ranks. But during the Trump years, I became aghast as it spread like a virus to peoples parents and friends and well . . . some days it feels like pretty much everyone? Or at least everyone who is part of the online political discourse.

If you want to know if you are a Tribalist Troll, ask yourself this when something horrible happens in the news, does your mind impulsively hope someone from the other tribe is responsible? Nobody wants to admit that they do this. But social media has laid bare our darker angels, and we can now see in real time that a large swath of the participants in our civic dialogue have reduced themselves to the most base type of Tribalist. Veterans of the very online Washington wars have warped themselves to such a degree that every news item, every action, is not something that requires a real-world solution that mitigates the suffering, but is just the latest data point in our online forever war. Many people believe the bullshit they are being sold about their opponents to such a degree that there is an internet culture adage Poes law, which indicates that no matter how over-the-top your parody may be of your political opponent, some of your followers will believe it to be real because theyve been so conditioned to hear the other sides awfulness. This insidious Weltanschauung has infected everything from sports message boards to recipe websites to online gaming, which are all now consumed by politicized power users who want to turn every corner of our society into their battlefield. This has created a reinforcing feedback loop up to the politicians and media personalities who are rewarded for constantly embiggening their troll game and expanding the remit outside the bounds of campaign politics. Ive seen decent people become so warped by this imaginary battle that they began to appreciate Trumps skill at trolling it even if they were personally repulsed by him. Of all the categories of enablement, this might be the most pernicious and inexpiable.

Naturally, in Washington there are those who dont need complex ideological justifications for their actions because they are pure old-fashioned Strivers. Some, especially the politicians, are motivated by a blind ambition that is just frankly not that interesting. The fact that pols want to attain higher office so they contort themselves to the whims of the crowd is not a new or unique phenomenon, nor does it merit much deep examination. Its the first subcategory to the worlds oldest profession. But theres a uniquely Washington class of Striver that was drawn to Trump like moths to an orange flame. This species doesnt necessarily want to move up the career ladder for ambitions sake, but instead, they crave merely the possibility of being in the mix.

Every Striver city has a drug that best suits its residents. In New York its money . . . and coke. In Los Angeles its fame . . . and coke. In Silicon Valley its the chance to be a revered disruptor, changer of worlds . . . and microdosing. In D.C. the drug of choice is a little more down-market. All political staffers really want is to be in the mix. Its not even the power itself that they crave. That would be less pathetic, frankly. Its the proximity to power. For these Little Mixes, its the ability to tell your friends back home that you were in the room where it happened. (If its possible for an entire body to cringe while typing, thats what mine did when I wrote in the room where it happened.)

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There Are 11 Types of Donald Trump Enablers. Which One Are You? - POLITICO

He was the most powerful man in the world, the possessor of the nuclear codes. Yet he behaved like a deranged manchild who threw temper tantrums and food against the wall.

That was the tragicomic story told to America last Tuesday at a congressional hearing that had even seasoned Donald Trump watchers lifting their jaws off the floor and speculating that his political career might finally be over.

In two seismic hours in Washington, Cassidy Hutchinson, a 25-year-old former White House aide, told the panel investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol that the former president had effectively gone haywire.

She described how Trump knew a mob of his supporters had armed itself with rifles, yet he asked for metal detectors to be removed. She also recounted how his desire to lead them to the Capitol caused a physical altercation with the Secret Service, and how in a fit of rage he threw his lunch against a White House wall, staining it with tomato ketchup.

Trump, who once called himself a very stable genius, vehemently denied the allegations but the political damage was done. Infighting and plotting engulfed a Republican party that had hoped the House of Representatives committee hearings would pass as a non-event.

Instead they have exceeded all expectations and could prove terminal to Trumps ambition of regaining the presidency in 2024 if Republican leaders, donors and voters run out of patience and decide to move on.

Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinsons Tuesday testimony ought to ring the death knell for former President Donald Trumps political career, said an editorial in the Washington Examiner, a conservative news website. Trump is unfit to be anywhere near power ever again.

The column concluded: Trump is a disgrace. Republicans have far better options to lead the party in 2024. No one should think otherwise, much less support him, ever again.

Seemingly aware of his growing political vulnerability, Trump is reportedly considering announcing another run for the White House sooner than expected. He has teased the prospect at recent rallies and, according to the New York Times, told advisers that he might declare his candidacy on social media without warning even his own team.

Such a move could have the added impetus of heading off a new star rising in the Republican firmament. Ron DeSantis, the pugnacious governor of Florida, is widely seen as his heir apparent and biggest rival for the Republican presidential nomination in two years time. At 43, DeSantis is more than three decades younger and is free of Trumps January 6 toxicity.

Speaking from Tallahassee, longtime Republican strategist Rick Wilson of Florida said: Ive picked up the same rumors that everybody else is hearing that Ron DeSantiss people are practically picking out curtains in the White House after Tuesday.

Apparently they feel like this was a phenomenal day for them, that it was a great breakdown of Trumps malfeasance and they didnt have to bring the attack it was brought by one of his former loyalists. If you look at it in terms of the 2024 nomination process, it was a consequential day.

Wilson, author of Everything Trump Touches Dies, cautioned that the twice impeached former president has been written off countless times before only to bounce back. But Trump has not faced a challenger like DeSantis.

DeSantis has been very carefully building out a presidential campaign for 2024 to primary Donald Trump, raising money, building relationships, going out there and quietly whispering: Hes crazy, Im not, Im younger, Im smarter, Im thinner, Im better looking. I can deliver more for you than the crazy old orange guy, Wilson said.

DeSantis certainly has political buzz. Ed Rollins, another Republican strategist, also believes Trump could be done, and has launched a group called Ready for Ron to gather details of DeSantis supporters ahead of an expected presidential bid.

An opinion poll released last week in the state of New Hampshire, traditionally the site of the first presidential primary, showed DeSantis in a statistical tie with Trump among likely Republican voters.

The University of New Hampshire poll found 39% supported DeSantis, with 37% backing Trump a big swing from October, when Trump had double the support DeSantis did. Former vice-president Mike Pence, who is exploring a 2024 campaign after breaking with Trump post the Capitol insurrection, was in a distant third at 9%.

There have been other clues that Trumps hold on Republican voters is not what it was. He has seen mixed results for his most high-profile endorsements in key states during this years midterm elections, in which DeSantis is seeking reelection as Florida governor.

DeSantis has proved himself a financial powerhouse, raising more than $120m since winning office in 2018. Recent financial disclosures showed his political accounts had over $110m in cash in mid-June.

Trumps Save America group, meanwhile, had just over $100m in cash at the end of May.

Republican donor Dan Eberhart told the Reuters news agency that three-quarters of roughly 150 fellow donors with whom he regularly interacts backed Trump six months ago, with a quarter going for DeSantis. But now the balance has shifted and about two-thirds want DeSantis as the 2024 standard bearer.

Eberhart was quoted as saying: The donor class is ready for something new. And DeSantis feels more fresh and more calibrated than Trump. Hes easier to defend, hes less likely to embarrass and hes got the momentum.

And the January 6 hearings are far from over. The six sessions so far have pointed the finger firmly at Trump as the unhinged architect of a failed coup who pushed conspiracy theories about voter fraud he knew to be false and was willing to let his supporters hang his own vice-president.

A survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 48% of American adults say Trump should be charged with a crime for his role. The crisply presented hearings would have been enough to bury any other politician for good.

Political scientist Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington, said: If the testimony stands as delivered, many Republicans will begin to ask themselves whether it wouldnt be preferable to find a candidate with Mr Trumps views but not his vices.

And, of course, there is such a candidate waiting in the wings. Tuesdays hearing was a Ron DeSantis for president rally because it underscored the risks of sticking with Mr Trump for a third consecutive presidential election.

Galston, a former senior policy adviser to President Bill Clinton, described DeSantis as the distilled essence of what the post-Reagan Republican party has become. In addition, its clear to the Republican base that, like Trump, hes a fighter. Like Trump, he is not at all deterred by liberal criticism.

Some believe the cumulative effect of the January 6 hearings could be enough to persuade many in the Make America great again base that, even while they remain devoted fans of Trump, he is no longer the pragmatic choice to oust Democrat Joe Biden from the Oval Office.

The big question for Republicans moving forward is: do they want to carry this baggage of Trump into 2024? said the director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, Larry Jacobs.

When youre battling to win over independent voters and when youre going to be handed a platform that could very well present a referendum on the insider party, the Democrats, it doesnt make sense even for a lot of Republican Trump supporters. Trump and his influence and his future prospects are fading fast.

But the populist-nationalism that the ex-president branded America first does look set to survive him, Jacobs added.

In the primaries, theres going to be a battle of who can carry Trumpism without Trump and thats going to be ethnic nationalism, attacks on the liberal cultural tilt of this moment, Jacobs said. You go to a Trump rally, a lot of those lines are going to be evident.

For Democrats, it may be a case of being careful about what you wish for. DeSantis was a relatively obscure congressman when Trump endorsed him for Florida governor in 2018 and has proven a worthy disciple, sparring with everyone from journalists to Disney to what he calls the woke left.

After the coronavirus pandemic took hold in 2020, he relaxed restrictions on businesses and schools in defiance of federal guidelines and overruled local officials who sought to preserve mask mandates.

DeSantis has also enacted numerous conservative bills with the help of Floridas Republican-controlled legislature, including an election police force dedicated to investigating alleged voter fraud, new voting limits and banning teachers from discussing gender identity with young children which critics decry as the dont say gay law.

He also effectively commandeered the redistricting process from Floridas state legislature, vetoing their congressional map and substituting his own proposal that eliminated two majority-Black districts while delivering four additional seats to Republicans.

Some fear that, as president, DeSantis would represent Trump 2.0 a refined, purified version without the incompetence, more efficient and ruthless and able to get things done.

Wilson, the longtime Republican consultant and Trump critic from Florida, commented: Ron DeSantis in Florida has accumulated enormous power. He has taken power away from the legislature. He is attempting to take power away from independent colleges and universities and to literally replace governance at every institution in Florida from top to bottom with the governors office.

I grew up in a time where Republicans thought a hyper powerful executive was not a great thing but Ron DeSantis has a very different opinion of executive power and he, as president, would engage in its use at a scale that would be dangerous for the country at a lot of levels.

The first nominating contests for the 2024 election are more than 18 months away, and the long term impact of the January 6 hearings remains uncertain. Lou Marin, executive vice president of the Florida Republican Assembly, does not think they will change minds. People who are paying attention realize that its a kangaroo court, he said. They need to move on and start doing their job instead of wasting taxpayer dollars.

DeSantis will also be wary of peaking too early and keenly aware that Trump, who famously boasted that he could shoot someone and not lose any voters, remains his partys most popular figure. A Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll this week found 56% of Republican voters said they would back the former president well ahead of DeSantis on 16%.

Former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele said: A lot of people want to put a tombstone on the grave but Donald Trump is still above ground. Hes still walking the earth and has a lot of political clout with a lot more people inside the party than folks may want to admit.

Those bridges are in front of us. We havent come to them yet to see exactly what these extra revelations will now present in terms of further chiseling away Donald Trumps hold on the party.

Some Democrats argue that DeSantis would be preferable because, unlike Trump, he would not threaten the foundations of Americas constitutional democracy.

But Steele warned: Whos the better thief, the one who breaks the window to get into your house or the one whos craftily picked the lock? DeSantis knows how not to trip the alarm system.

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As Trumps star wanes, another rises: could Ron DeSantis be the new Maga bearer? - The Guardian US

Testimony before the House Jan. 6 committee has often been cringeworthy, primarily because what Donald Trump was actively trying to do his steadfast intent, in the face of all evidence and most of the advice from the approximately sane people around him is abundantly clear to anyone who has an open mind.

But it gets especially excruciating when we have to hear accounts of Trump getting all hissy and hurt, his tantrums turning to vindictiveness, like an immature, petulant high school student. (Most likely a ninth-grader with emotional problems.)

None of that behavior is surprising, because Donald John Trump has always shown everyone around him and indeed everyone, period precisely who he is, a shameless man-boy who lies andcheats to get ahead and takes pleasure in bullying others, all the while bleating about how others treat him unfairly because they accurately point out that he's a liar, cheat and bully.

RELATED:Did "surprise witness" Cassidy Hutchinson save America from Trump's comeback?

He's a human Mbius strip of misdirection, misinformation and misappropriation of funds from his supporters.

We've always known that Trump was happy to encourage violence among his followers, so while it was shocking to hear about him reportedly throwing White House lunches and dinners against the wall or onto the floor, or about his henchmen's alleged efforts to influence witnesses, mob-style, it wasn't exactly surprising.

Everybody's talking about Cassidy Hutchinson's bombshell testimony but let's go back to the Jan. 5 session when Trump tried to browbeat Mike Pence.

In its sessions so far, the Jan. 6 committee has covered a lot of ground. While everyone and their uncle is talking about former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson's bombshell testimony during the surprise hearing on June 28, let's not forget the session that focused on Trump's relationship with his fanboy vice president, whom we now know Trump was willing to see hanged in front of the Capitol by the armed mob he had summoned to Washington and whipped into a fury.

In meeting with Mike Pence and John Eastman the attorney full of imaginative schemes who later on just wondered about that pardon on Jan. 5, 2021, the eve of You Know What, Trump reportedly pressed the veep to do his bidding in his usual mature manner: "You can either go down in history as a patriot, or you can go down in history as a pussy." (We don't know whether any of the White House china wound up on the floor during this encounter.)

When Pence correctly responded that he had no constitutional authority to stop or reject the certification of the electoral votes, according to the account in "Peril," by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, Trump tried to appeal to some untapped adolescent side within the pious Hoosier, asking him: "But wouldn't it almost be cool to have that power?"

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

While it's a bit of a stretch to call Mike Pence a hero, his backbone had apparently been stiffened by conversations with former Vice President Dan Quayle and retired federal judge J. Michael Luttig (man of exceedingly slow answers), and he continued to resist. That was when Trump pulled out his big guns, threatening Pence with the horror of taking away his friendship:

When Pence did not budge, Trump turned on him.

"No, no, no! Trump shouted, according to the authors. "You don't understand, Mike. You can do this. I don't want to be your friend anymore if you don't do this."

One is reminded of the queen bee character played by Rachel McAdams in Tina Fey's spot-on 2004 film "Mean Girls." She wouldn't have been so pathetically direct about it, but manipulating others by leveraging her "friendship" was certainly how she rolled.

But that wasn't the final card pulled by Mean Girl Trump in the climactic Pence meeting. When the vice president refused to play along with Trump's plot to subvert the Constitution and undo the outcome of a legitimate election, Trump called on his public, via social media and speeches and anything else he could think of, to "tell on" Pence and ramp up the pressure for him to "do the right thing." What's more, he kept that up well after he had to know that Pence was in real physical danger at the Capitol.

People inside the White House, including the former president's daughter Ivanka, have testified that Trump phoned Pence on the morning of the insurrection and during a final heated conversation called him a "wimp" and a "pussy."

Trump's deepest fear, through all this, was that he might wind up being thought of as a loser. Asreported by the New York Times, the day before Trump and his many co-conspirators in the West Wing, in the "war room" at the Willard hotel and in the Capitol itself kicked off the insurrection for real, he admitted as much to people around him:

The president has told several people privately that he would rather lose with people thinking it was stolen from him than that he simply lost, according to people familiar with his remarks.

That is so, so high school. And there it is again, the knowledge that what he was doing was based on a lie (in case "Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen" wasn't enough for you). Trump always planned to say the 2020 election was stolen if he didn't win. He started undermining the process in the eyes of his supporters back in the 2016 primaries and then when he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by nearly 3 million.

As we have learned from the committee hearings, Trump also understood that his Big Lie about election fraud presented him another opportunity for grift. He reportedly brought in some $250 million from his supporters for a nonexistent election defense fund (which was supposed to investigate nonexistent election fraud), emailing his small-dollar donors dozens of times a day.

People of my generation are always hoping that members of the younger generation will step up and save us from ourselves. Cassidy Hutchinson, a well-spoken 25-year-old, did just that. It was remarkably brave of her to do the right thing, to tell the truth about what she saw and heard in the mob social club of the Trump White House. (It's also reasonable to ask what she thought she was doing there in the first place.)

The ultimate lesson of these hearings so far is clear: The former president of the United States still thinks it might be "cool" to destroy democracy, and if you don't want to go along with that he definitely won't be your friend anymore and might just encourage his followers to string you up.

As Salon columnist and longtime White House correspondent Brian Karem noted recently, if our democracy is to survive, this dangerous mean girl must finally face the consequences of his actions. Seeing Trump and his enablers prosecuted would only be a first step toward our national recovery, but a vitally important one. It might make sure that future presidents don't emulate his example and remind them that "being our friend" isn't actually part of the job.

Read more on our 45th president and the Jan. 6 committee:

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Donald J. Trump, meanest of mean girls: He so doesn't want to be our friend anymore - Salon

Outgoing Republican Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson vowed Friday that he would not support Donald Trump if the former president decides to make another White House run in 2024 with Hutchinson saying Trump constituted a risk to the nation in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election.

As you can see from the testimony on Jan. 6, then and subsequent to the election where he was challenging the legality of it, the lawful transfer of [power] yes, that was a threat to our democracy. That was a threat to our institutions of government, Hutchinson told CBS Mornings. And thats not the behavior we want to see in a responsible president.

Hutchinson, who is likely to be succeeded as governor by former Trump White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, added that he did not believe the House select committee investigating last years Capitol riot had proven criminal wrongdoing by Trump in connection with the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

When asked if he agreed with select committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) that Trump constituted a danger to the US, Hutchinson eventually agreed.

Everybody phrases a different way, the governor said. I would not be supporting him for 2024. He acted irresponsibly. During that time, he was a risk to the nation, absolutely.

Trump has yet to announce whether he intends to run for president again, though he has teased a final decision to follow this Novembers midterm elections.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is widely seen as the most credible challenger to Trump, but the former president has expressed optimism over the outcome of any potential primary contest, telling the New Yorkerrecently I think I would win a showdown with DeSantis.

AR Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) says Jan 6 testimony shows Trump was a "threat to our democracy."

"I would not be supporting him for 2024. He acted irresponsibly, during that time he was a risk to the nation, absolutely," he tells @edokeefe. pic.twitter.com/HbrdFOzy61

Asa Hutchinsons comments came three days after Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top aide in the Trump White House, testified before the Jan. 6 committee and made several bombshell claims including that Trump knew several of his supporters were armed at the Stop The Steal rally that preceded the Capitol riot and that he made a lunge at a Secret Service agent after he was unable to travel to the Capitol building that same day.

Her testimony has since been called into question by sources close to the Secret Service, who claim the lunge never happened.

Asa Hutchinson, who is not believed to be related to Cassidy Hutchinson, praised her testimony as very compelling Friday.

I think she clearly demonstrated her concern and love for our country, the governor said. She came across with a great deal of credibility, but whats the challenge with the committee is theyre not having cross-examination. Theyre not having other points of view, and so that makes it more difficult Secondly, they got into hearsay and thats where, if they cant back that up, it undermines that testimony.

The committee will hold at least one more hearing this month and hopes to wrap up its work by the beginning of next year, when Republicans are expected to take control of the House of Representatives.

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Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson won't back 'risk to the nation' Donald Trump - New York Post