Category Archives: Donald Trump

During his presidency, Donald Trump said a lot of wild, outrageous, and untrue things. But a Trump misstatement unlike any other was the time he made up a nonexistent fighter jet.

As reported by the BBC, Trump made the statement in early 2018 that the United Stateshad sold F-52 fighter jets to Norway.

In November we started delivering the first F-52s and F-35 fighter jets, Trump said at a joint appearance at the White House with the then-Norwegian prime minister Erna Solberg, as reported by the Washington Post. We have a total of 52 and theyve delivered a number of them already a little ahead of schedule.

There is, in fact, no such jet in existence, although a fictional jet of that name is in the video game series Call of Duty, specifically the Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare game. TheNational Interestnotedin a piece last year that the F-52 in the video game is clearly based on early 1990s-era Lockheed Martin concepts for the Naval Advanced Tactical Fighter and the later A/F-Xboth of which were based on the YF-22 demonstrator aircraft that eventually became the F-22 Raptor.

There really was a sale of jets to Norway and presumably, the president had confused the number of jets, fifty-two, with the name of the jet.

Speaking of fighter jets, Trump was also known to confuse stealth with invisibility.

According to Popular Mechanics, the 45th president often created the impression that he thought the F-35 jet in particular was literally invisible.

No, they have the money, and they allthey would like to order quite a few F-35s; its the greatest fighter jet in the world, as you know, by far. Stealth. Totally stealth. You cant see it, Trump said in a White House briefing in August of 2020. Makes it very difficult. I was asking a pilot, What do you think is better: This one? This one? That one? Talking about Russian planes, Chinese planes. He said, Well, the advantage we have is you cant see it. So when were fighting, they cant see us. I say, That sounds like a really big advantage to me.

Stealth fighters are invisible to radar, but not to the naked eye itself unless theyre operated by Wonder Woman.

Earlier this year, under President Joe Biden, the United Statesreached another agreement with Norway, per Reuters.

The agreement regulates and facilitates U.S. presence, training and exercises in Norway, thus facilitating rapid U.S. reinforcement of Norway in the event of crisis or war, the Norwegian government said at the time of the deal.

Stephen Silver, a technology writer for The National Interest, is a journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philly Voice, Philadelphia Weekly, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Living Life Fearless, Backstage magazine, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.

Image: Flickr

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Donald Trump Did What? He Accidently Made Up the F-52 Fighter Jet - The National Interest

Donald Trump told Fox News 'a lot of people will be very happy' with his announcement on whether he runs again for President. Photo / Alex Brandon, AP, File

In the days after the United States Congress decided to impeach Donald Trump over his role in inciting the January 6 insurrection, it seemed the possibility of his running for the presidency again was slim.

Eleven months later, those odds have tumbled.

Although the former president has yet to launch an official, or non-official bid to run in the 2024 election, this Monday saw him give the clearest indication yet that he could be seeking to stage a comeback.

In an interview with Fox News, the controversial Republican confirmed it was something that was up for consideration.

"I am certainly thinking about it and we'll see," he said.

"I think a lot of people will be very happy, frankly, with the decision, and probably we'll announce that after the midterms.

"It doesn't mean I will.

"It's probably appropriate, but a lot of people are waiting for that decision to be made."

Should Trump decide to run in 2024, he'll need to win the Republican presidential nomination. Officially, the campaign for that role doesn't begin until after America's midterm elections in November 2022.

He's not without rivals. Other Republican candidates could include former vice president Mike Pence, former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Senator Ted Cruz, who previously attempted to run in 2016. These are some of the names Trump would need to beat to claim his party's nomination.

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Should he accomplish that, there's another step: beating the Democratic Party's nominee. Given the current unpopularity of President Joe Biden, that's not a far-fetched scenario.

With the pandemic still impacting American citizens, and America's catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan after two decades of conflict plaguing him, Biden's approval ratings have declined steadily in recent months.

A recent poll by Gallup placed Biden's approval rating at 42 per cent, which was a stark decline from the 56 per cent he achieved in June.

This was the second-lowest rating achieved by a president at this point in their term, above only Trump, who scored an approval rating of just 37 per cent 283 days into his time in office.

Another searing poll from Emerson College found that if the 2024 presidential election were today, Trump would beat Biden by 45 per cent to 43.

Half of those polled said they disapproved of the performance of the current President, with 41 per cent approving.

Biden's slumping approval ratings could impact the performance of the Democrats in the midterm elections in 2022, which subsequently affects how effectively they can pass bills and enact significant legislative change.

Currently the Democrats have control of both the House of Representatives and Senate, however, they could be at risk of losing both houses to the Republicans.

Analysis from CNN's editor-at-large, Chris Cillizza, showed that once a president's approval drops below 50 per cent, they lose "an average of 37 seats in the House".

"If Biden and congressional Democrats can find a way to a compromise on both the 'hard' infrastructure plan and the social safety net legislation, then Democrats could well have an appealing package of accomplishments to sell to voters come next November," Cillizza wrote, offering something of a silver lining.

Looking at Trump's activity since exiting the White House, it's clear he's still an influential member of the Republican Party.

While the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives impeached Trump in the wake of the January 6 riot, with the support of 10 Republicans, he was subsequently acquitted in a Senate impeachment trial.

A 57-43 majority of the Senate voted to convict Trump of inciting an insurrection against the US government, well short of the 67 votes needed for a conviction.

This means Trump could still legally run for the presidency again in 2024.

Since avoiding conviction, the former president has remained active within his party, endorsing some candidates and making enemies of others. Most recently, he backed winning Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin in the Virginia gubernatorial election.

While Trump previously attempted to "reinstall himself in power illegitimately" and through force, retiring Republican Congressman Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio said he's since changed tactics.

Retiring from politics, in part due to the threats he received after supporting Trump's impeachment in January, Gonzalez said the former president has learned from his mistakes,

"It looks to me that he has evaluated what went wrong on January 6. Why is it that he wasn't able to steal the election who stood in his way?" said Gonzalez, appearing on the CNN documentary Trumping Democracy: An American Coup.

"And he's going methodically, state by state, at races from, you know, state Senate races all the way down to county commissioner races trying to get the people who the Republicans the RINOs, in his words who stopped this, who stopped him from stealing the election."

RINO - Republican in name only - was previously a pejorative term used to refer to Republicans who were insufficiently conservative. It has since come to be used as a term for those who are insufficiently loyal to Trump.

The host of the documentary and prominent political journalist Jake Tapper also expressed fears over Trump's likely return to politics.

One of his key concerns was that the former president would continue his rhetoric that the 2020 election was stolen, stoking erroneous claims of voter fraud. He predicted Trump could do this by endorsing candidates who have historically supported or are more likely to support his attempts to undermine an election, through baseless and false allegations.

"People need to understand that he could and likely will try to do it again, and it won't necessarily be violent," Tapper told Vanity Fair.

"Next time, it might be without violence but more successful."

Should Trump set out for a second chance at presidency, he would historically be the third former president who has attempted to do so.

Serving as the 22nd and 24th US President, Grover Cleveland is the only person who's been able to serve two non-consecutive terms.

The 26th President of the US, Theodore Roosevelt also attempted to do something similar, but his bid to serve a third term by running against his successor, William Howard Taft.

However, as the first reality TV star to run (and win) the presidency - something he did before becoming the first US president to be charged with and survive two impeachment charges - Trump's actions have always been difficult to predict.

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Donald Trump 2024: Signs of a comeback bid for the presidency - New Zealand Herald

Donald Trumpsays he prefers the more profane version of the chant Lets go, Brandon! an anti-President Joe Biden inside joke, which really means FkJoe Biden.

The seemingly innocuous phrase Lets Go Brandon! started with NASCAR in October whenBrandon Brownwon his first Xfinity Series.

At the time, the crowd was chanting something that was difficult to hear. The sideline reporter suggested they were chanting Lets go, Brandon! to support the driver.

But later it became abundantly clear that the crowd was insulting the president by saying: Fk Joe Biden.

The in-joke Lets go Brandon became a big thing with Trump supporters, appearing on T-shirts, caps and mugs nationwide. It even became a chart-topping song.

Trump headlined the The America First Policy Institute, at his resort Mar-a-Lago, and spoke for 45 minutes blasting Biden, calling it a failed presidency.

When the crowd chanted Lets Go Brandon! he joked, I still like the first phrase better, somehow more accurate.

He added of the NASCAR mix-up by the NBC reporter Kelli Stavast, I still havent figured out was that young, attractive female reporter was she trying to cover up? Or was she being nice? Did she not understand what was happening? She works for NBC. So its about 94% sure that she knew exactly what she was doing.

Anyway, well, Brandon has become a big star. Nobody ever heard of this guy. Now. Hes one of the biggest stars. Nobody ever heard of Brandons history.

An insider said there was no direct talk from Trump about running for 2024 but the consensus in the room was he would.

Trump added, We have great great people in our party. But this is a much different party. They even call it the party of Trump and I said, its not the party of Trump. This is the party of all of you in this room, and this is going to long outlast Trump. This is a great thing that weve done in a very short period of time.

Attendees included Jared Kushner, Kellyanne Conway, Larry Kudlow and Monica Crowley.

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Donald Trump prefers the profane version of 'Let's go ...

After the Posts story was published online, Pirro denied through a Fox News spokesperson that she intervened on Kerik and Giulianis behalf.

According to Richard Ben-Veniste, a Watergate prosecutor, the use of campaign funds further undermines a wildly broad assertion of executive privilege. Executive privilege is typically limited to the protection of communications involving a presidents official dutiesnot to those relating to personal or political campaign matters. John Yoo, the arch conservative attorney, agreed with Ben-Veniste, telling the Post, If he acts as a president, he gets these things we talk aboutexecutive privilege and immunity. But if hes acting as a candidate, hes deprived of all of those protections.

In a statement to the Post, Taylor Budowich, a spokesman for Trump, said the former president is making executive privilege determinations carefully, based on the merits and in accordance with law and customs of interbranch comity,and, it has to be said, the idea of Trump carefully determining anything based on merits and in accordance with the law is completely hilarious. Budowich also accused the Biden administration of jeopardizing the office of the presidency by refusing to assert privilege over clearly privileged documents.

On Monday, the January 6 committee said it is issuing subpoenas to more top Trump associates, including

2020 campaign managerWilliam Stepien; former senior adviser to the campaign Jason Miller; John Eastman, the attorney who helped come up with Trumps argument that the election was stolen; disgraced national security adviser Michael Flynn, who wanted Trump to invoke martial law; Angela McCallum, national executive assistant to the 2020 reelection campaign; and Kerik. According to the Post, both Kerik and Eastman were active in the Willard hotel command center. According to CNN, Miller attended a meeting at the command center on January 5.

In the days before the January 6th attack, the former presidents closest allies and advisers drove a campaign of misinformation about the election and planned ways to stop the count of Electoral College votes, Select Committee chairman Bennie Thompson said in a statement on Monday. The Select Committee needs to know every detail about their efforts to overturn the election, including who they were talking to in the White House and in Congress, what connections they had with rallies that escalated into a riot, and who paid for it all. Thompson added: The Select Committee expects all witnesses to cooperate with our investigation as we work to get answers for the American people, recommend changes to our laws that will strengthen our democracy, and help ensure nothing like January 6th ever happens again. These are the first subpoenas issued since Congress voted to hold Stephen Bannon in contempt for ignoring his, CNN noted.

In related news, CNN reported last month that at least five former Trump staffers have provided information to the committee investigating January 6, either because they believe they have information worth sharing or to preempt a potential subpoena. So thats not great news for the former guy!

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Fox News Jeanine Pirro May Have Inadvertently F--ked Over Trumps Claims of Executive Privilege - Vanity Fair

Chutkan heard arguments in the suit last week and promised to rule quickly on Trumps initial emergency request. But she seemed inclined to reject it, questioning the legal basis for a former president to claim executive privilege over records when the sitting president and Congress disagree.

The National Archives has indicated that Trump is seeking to block at least 750 pages out of an initial 1,500 unearthed in response to the Jan. 6 committees request for records about the former presidents effort to overturn the election. Many of those papers are culled from the files of senior Trump aides like Mark Meadows, Stephen Miller and Patrick Philbin. They also include call and visitor logs.

Trumps attorney, Jesse Binnall, issued his second request Monday night, asking Chutkan to approve an administrative stay of her own ruling even before she issued it. That way, Binnall argued, Trump would have a chance to appeal her decision before the Archives began delivering hundreds of pages to congressional investigators.

Jobs numbers are great, and the economy is strengthening. But theres also inflation. And supply chain problems. Oh, and a worker shortage. So what does all that add up to?

Binnall also warned Chutkan that if she didnt rule on Trumps first request by Wednesday, he would go immediately to the appeals court and ask it to step in. He noted that Thursday is Veterans Day and that the National Archives plans to send Trumps papers to Congress at 6 p.m. Friday.

This case should be decided after thorough but expeditious consideration pursuant to Americas judicial review process, both before this Court and on appeal, not by a race against the clock, Binnall wrote.

But the request baffled legal experts, who said judges have no power to preemptively block rulings they havent issued yet. They noted Chutkan is already moving on an urgent timeline to consider Trumps initial request and that it was odd for the former president to threaten to go to the appeals court before seeing Chutkans decision.

Chutkan, in her brief decision overnight, said she would consider Binnalls request for a stay after she issues her ruling, which she reiterated would arrive expeditiously. But she noted that federal rules only allow a stay while an appeal is pending, not before.

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Trump makes and loses overnight bid to block Jan. 6 investigators - POLITICO

The GOP strategist who just helped a Republican win the Virginia governor's mansion expects a crowded primary field in 2024 but only if former President Donald Trump doesn't run.

"If Trump runs, Trump will be the nominee," said Jeff Roe, a veteran GOP operative who served as a top strategist on the Republican Glenn Youngkin's gubernatorial campaign in Virginia.

But if Trump opts out, Roe thinks Republicans from all over the political spectrum will consider hopping into the race, he said. Roe is in a position to know. The former manager of Ted Cruz's 2016 presidential campaign now runs Axiom Strategies, a consulting firm that represents GOP candidates all over the country.

"Gosh, if Biden runs for reelect," Roe expects many of his clients will think about running, he said.

"We have 14 senators, and we've elected 12 governors and have 107 members of Congress that are clients," Roe told Insider. "I think it's going to be wide open in '24 wide, wide open."

He expects the 2024 GOP hopefuls to break down into three buckets.

"Who's going to carry the Trump flag if he doesn't run the Trump agenda, who's the most conservative that might not be the same person and then who's the most electable?" he said. There is "no lane" for a Republican opposed to Trump, he added.

He expects a competitive field on the Democratic side, too, if Biden doesn't run.

"I think it's probably open on the Democrat side, and the Republican side, because I don't think Kamala has a lock on it at all. I think, in fact, she'd find herself in a pretty bad spot," he added.

Roe thought Harris "was pretty talented at the beginning," he said, but "she was just not a good candidate and has not been a very good VP in my estimation."

But Roe said he wasn't worried about the Democratic competition heading into 2024.

"A general election in the United States is a tough race, but it's still a center-right country," he added. "I think it's an eminently winnable race."

Immediately after Youngkin's upset win last week, political pundits started chattering about whether the Virginia governor-elect was on a fast track to the White House.

But Roe said he never spoke with Youngkin about a White House bid.

"I think the best way to get another job is do a great job with the job you have. And so I think that's what he'll focus on," Roe said. "He's 54 years old, so he's got a lot of years left and a lot of gas in the tank, and so he could do whatever he wants."

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Cruz's Top '16 Aide Says Trump Will Be '24 Nominee If He Runs - Business Insider

Former U.S. President Donald Trump addresses a member of the news media after attending a border security briefing with Texas Governor Greg Abbott to discuss security at the U.S. southern border with Mexico in Weslaco, Texas, U.S. June 30, 2021.

GLASGOW, Nov 9 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Donald Trump did his damnedest to yank America from global efforts to combat climate change. The former president is not actually at COP26, the big UN climate conference in Glasgow, but his presence is palpable. And not just because he owns a Scottish golf club not so far away which played host to Indonesias delegation. A potential return to the White House hovers over the deliberations.

As nations sign up to long-term commitments to reduce their carbon emissions, banks pledge their balance sheets to assist and multinationals outdo each other with glossy promises to make their businesses cleaner and greener, many COP26 attendees wonder if Trump will return to the presidency in 2024. Their worry is that he will try to undo many of the things that have been agreed to try to keep the planet from warming up more than 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels.

Those fears are legitimate. For starters, soon after occupying the Oval Office, Trump pulled the United States from the Paris Agreement, reached at a previous COP in 2015. There, signatories agreed to keep the earth from warming by no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. He then set about unwinding numerous environmental rules and regulations at home and shilled loudly for hydrocarbons. On the sidelines of the 2018 climate shindig in Poland, he even tried to stage a glitzy pro-coal event.

The hope among business leaders and policymakers in Glasgow is that things will be too far along to unwind should Republican Trump win the American election in three years and renege on commitments made by President Joe Biden, who would be both his Democratic successor and predecessor. That should lend greater urgency, as if the end of the human species were insufficient motivation, to the negotiations in the second and final week of COP26.

For the private sector, theres little chance of an easy backslide were Trump to become the first commander in chief since Grover Cleveland to hold two non-consecutive terms in office. The worlds biggest banks and corporations are baking net-zero ambitions into their strategies, incentive structures and the composition of their balance sheets and investment portfolios largely because customers, investors and employees are insisting they do so rather than politicians.

Climate change is a political issue. Inequality is a political issue. And as a business leader, you need to take a position on those things. However, we try to stick to things that are close to our own business operations, says Alan Jope, chief executive of the $135 billion consumer goods giant Unilever (ULVR.L), which is aiming for net-zero nirvana by 2039. The reason why we care about climate change is because a world that's on fire or under water is a terrible place for Unilever to do business.

With the possibility of a Trump 2024 victory becoming more conceivable following a string of electoral setbacks for Bidens party last week in state and local elections most notably the Virginia governorship - American leaders, including Biden himself and Trumps predecessor Barack Obama, are making extra efforts to convince delegates in Scotland that the United States is serious about combatting climate change. This reflects widespread distrust that Washington will be able to keep its word, even if its many multinational companies are largely on board with eradicating greenhouse gas emissions.

To wit, in a speech on Monday, Obama characterised Trumps tenure as four years of active hostility towards climate science. That followed Bidens promise the week before that the United States is not only back at the table but hopefully leading by the power of our example, adding my administration is working overtime to show that our climate commitment is action, not words."

When pictures emerged appearing to show Biden closing his eyes during the conference, Trump blasted his followers with an email saying: Even Biden couldnt stand hearing so much about the Global Warming Hoax, the 7th biggest Hoax in America, followed closely behind by the 2020 Presidential Election Scam, Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2 and, of course, the No Collusion finding of the Mueller Report. It is fair to say Trumps characterisation of global warming is not widely accepted by the tens of thousands of COP delegates.

This is not just a case of ignorable domestic American politics, however. U.S. moral leadership, combined with economic might, is critical to arm-twisting climate laggards including China, India, Russia and Saudi Arabia to accelerate their carbon reduction targets. If America is not on board, it will be difficult for the remaining developed nations to get China, for example, to move quicker on phasing out coal.

But its also about the money. One of the key announcements in Glasgow was an $8.5 billion package of grants and concessional loans and investments to support South Africas decarbonisation efforts. The deal was reached after months of high-level diplomacy between Germany, France, the UK, the European Union and Washington, and may prevent up to 1.5 gigatonnes of emissions over the next 20 years.

The South Africa agreement, with strong U.S. financial backing, is being heralded as a blueprint for enticing other poor countries, like Indonesia and Vietnam, to up their ambitions in leapfrogging hydrocarbons. That gives added urgency to sealing a few of these deals, with money firmly committed, before the 2024 U.S. elections.

Even if Trump runs and wins, American attitudes toward fighting climate change have shifted since he pulled out of the Paris Agreement in 2017. There is also an increasingly bipartisan support for certain policies, such as tax credits, to hasten the adoption of renewable energy. And many states have moved to insulate their efforts to reduce carbon emissions from federal policy. Thats according to David Livingston, senior advisor to U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, in a panel discussion on hydrogen moderated by Breakingviews last week in Glasgow.

One of the hidden benefits ofthe past four years is that the sort of reaction of much of the United States to the lack of leadership on the global stage under the Trump administration was to create these sorts of antibodies of state and local level and corporate leadership that we in the Biden administration are not trying to replace, Livingston said. We are trying to amplify and empower (them) because we know we need a diverse fabric of allies and policies moving forward on this.

So, while there is a strong whiff of Trump redux about the proceedings in Glasgow, there is also a sense that with effort and maybe a little luck, current U.S. momentum will be maintained.

Follow @rob1cox on Twitter

Editing by George Hay and Karen Kwok

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Cox: Whiff of Donald Trump redux hangs over COP26 - Reuters

Donald Trump has spoken about the "let's go Brandon" chant and its predecessor "F**k Joe Biden," which have become a popular slogans for conservative figures in recent months, saying how he prefers the explicit version criticizing the current president.

Trump spoke about the chants which have frequently broken out at sports areas and other public events since September while appearing at the The America First Policy Institute event in his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on November 5.

As reported by Page Six, a chant of "let's go Brandon" began ringing out from the crowd. In response, Trump said: "I still like the first phrase better somehow. It's more accurate."

It is the first time that Trump has personally spoken publicly about the chants criticizing the president.

The "let's go Brandon" chant is a less obscene version of the "f**k Joe Biden" chant which had already been breaking out across the country.

Its origins stems from NBC Sports reporter Kelli Stavast claiming on air that a section of the crowd at the Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama were chanting "let's go Brandon" in support of NASCAR driver Brandon Brown following his victory, instead of "f**k Joe Biden."

Conservative figures and Trump supporters then started singing "let's go Brandon" instead, with the phrase becoming so popular that Trump's campaign team even started selling T-shirts "Let's Go Brandon" t-shirts on his Save America PAC website.

Speaking of the original comments from Stavast, Trump said: "I still haven't figured out, was that young, attractive female reporter, was she trying to cover up? Or was she being nice? Did she not understand what was happening? She works for NBC. So it's about 94 percent sure that she knew exactly what she was doing.

"Anyway, well, Brandon has become a big star. Nobody ever heard of this guy. Now. He's one of the biggest stars. Nobody ever heard of Brandon's history," Trump added.

Elsewhere during the event, Trump heavily criticized the man who beat him in the 2020 election, describing Biden's planned withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan towards the end of August as the "most embarrassing moment," reported Real Clear Politics.

Trump also made reference to unsubstantiated claims that Biden had a "bathroom accident" ahead of a meeting with Pope Francis in Rome in late October.

The rumor, which was pushed by former Nevada Republican Party Chairwoman Amy Tarkanian, was labeled "false" by fact checking website Snopes.

"You just saw what happened to Joe Biden on his travails in Europe. That wasn't good," Trump said.

"He went to see the pope. He was, uh ... a little late. What the hell happened to him? Does anybody know what happened?"

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Donald Trump Speaks Out on 'Let's Go Brandon' Meme For the First Time - Newsweek

Democrats are still licking their wounds from defeats in last weeks elections in Virginia, New Jersey, and elsewhere. Some are calling for the party to refocus on popular moderate policies. Perhaps thats the most realistic path forward; its the formula that top Republicans settled on following their own stinging electoral defeat in 2012. But instead of following its party leaderships prescription, the GOP base nominated a celebrity, and rode his popularity to electoral triumph. Why cant Democrats do the same?

After all, former President (and former reality-TV star) Donald Trump is currently tied with the two-term wartime president George W. Bush for the rank of most famous Republican, according to YouGov. He is also the second-most-popular Republican, after Arnold Schwarzenegger, another former entertainer. The late actor Ronald Reagan consistently ranks among Americans favorite presidents. But if you define celebrity as initially well known for something other than politics, the Democratsthe party that once counted the comedian Al Franken, the basketball player Bill Bradley, and the astronaut John Glenn among its elected officialsnow have no celebrities among their 20 most well-known or 20 most popular politicians.

The argument in favor of the Democrats recruiting more-famous candidates is pretty clear cut: Celebrity offers a number of important advantages to aspiring politicians. Most Americans consume more television than political news, so they see more actors than they do legislators. Trump was the best-known GOP primary candidate in 2015: 92 percent of Republicans and independents said they were familiar with him, compared with 81 percent who said they were familiar with the next-best-known candidate, Jeb Bush. In one 2016 poll, 96 percent of respondents correctly identified a photo of Trump. Some preliminary research suggests that Trump performed better in the 2016 Republican primary in areas where more people had watched The Apprentice.

As trust in institutions craters, people may look to unconventional candidates for leadership. This is happening all around the world, says Eunji Kim, a Vanderbilt University political-science professor. Ukraines president is currently a man who played Ukraines president on TV. A boxer and an actortwo different guysare currently running for president of the Philippines.

In crowded primary fields, or in nonpartisan elections, fame can be especially helpful. Name recognitionthe main advantage celebrity buys youmatters primarily in low information elections. Thats because in any multiparty election, the most important factor influencing whether someone will vote for a candidate is their party affiliation. Republicans vote for Republicans; Democrats vote for Democrats. But in elections that dont have a partisan dividelike most primaries and some mayoral racesthe candidate who is more well-known has an edge.

What do people know about the typical person running for office? Actually very little, says Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a communications professor at the University of Pennsylvania. When they have little information about candidates, people gravitate toward familiar nameseven if those names are simply ethnically similar to their own. If youre Irish, and the name is Murphy on the ballot, and the other name is, say, Anderson, all things being equal, youre gonna vote for Murphy, Jamieson says. Even having a common name can help you win down-ballot races, says Jeffrey Glas, a political-science professor at the University of Georgia. A voter might get to the polling place and think, I knew a Joe Davis beforeyeah, he was a good guy. A name like Taylor Swift would presumably be even better.

Television and movies shape our politics more than many people realize. Americans watch more TV than people in other rich countries, but more and more people are opting out of news, Kim says. Kim estimates that, during The Apprentices heyday, its audience was three times as large as that of the NBC Nightly News and that, before Twitter deleted Trumps account, 69 percent of The Apprentices followers on Twitter also followed Trump. Another recent study found that Reagans tenure as the host of the 1950s TV show General Electric Theater gave him an electoral boost two decades later, in the 1976 Republican primary. In Italy, people who as children watched more of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconis low-brow network, Mediaset, became more likely to support populist ideas and politicians as adults. A celebrity candidates brand also matters: Trumps Apprentice persona was that of a successful businessman who ushered other Americans into the American dreama strong pitch for president, even if it was far from reality.

Celebrity candidates tend to be more charismatic communicators than generic white guys who spent their lives bouncing between the State Department and the Harvard Kennedy School. We watched Ronald Reagan do this brilliantly over the course of his political career, says Costas Panagopoulos, a political scientist at Northeastern University. His ability to deliver a speech or to connect with viewers and live audiences was spectacular. And that was part of not only his appeal, but also what allowed him to bring the country together at times when it would have been very difficult for someone who lacked those skills to do so.

Plenty of celebrities have flirted with running for office as Democrats. We are currently living through the Matthew McConaissance. And can you smell what potential presidential candidate The Rocks been cooking? Maybe its universal health care. Although some voters care too much about policy to back a celebrity candidate, others are repulsed by politicians. The Rock may not be a Middle East expert, but speaking plainly about ones lack of expertise can be charming.

Some Democratic strategists I reached out to seemed open to prominent celebrities running, as long as they have a good reason to seek office. The most important thing is that the celebrity has a story about how they have served the community or why they are running and want to serve the community, says Jessica Post, the president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.

When I asked the Democratic strategists who their dream celebrity candidates would be, they played along: The San Antonio Spurs coach and Trump critic Gregg Popovich came up twice. Democrats have approached the actor and activist Eva Longoria about running in her home state of Texas. Alyssa Milano, another actor-activist, occasionally takes to the Hill in combat boots. Jon Hamm and Ashton Kutcher are from the tantalizingly purple states of Missouri and Iowa, respectively. Who knows, maybe Camila Cabello becomes a staunch advocate for immigration reform and runs in Florida? I would love Demi Lovato to run, Post said, referring to the singer. They really are the voice of a generation. Run, Demi, run!

But one by one, most of the strategists also rejected the idea of recruiting more celebrities as candidates: Nothing is telling me that we have to go recruit a celebrity, said Ashanti Gholar, the president of Emerge, which recruits Democratic women to run for office. If you dont have some kind of a rsum that says, This is what Ive done for people, and this is what Ive fought for then we dont have any business recruiting such a person to run for office, said Gilberto Hinojosa, the chair of the Texas Democratic Party. The idea that you can recruit celebrities to run for political office is a fallacy and a fools errand, said David Turner, the communications director for the Democratic Governors Association. Democratic primary voters tend to be really engaged on substance, Amanda Litman, a co-founder of Run for Something, which helps progressive candidates seek local office, told me. They have less of a tolerance for emptiness. She pointed out that Andrew Yang had high name recognition going into the New York City mayoral race, but lost anyway.

In other words: Yes, some examples of extremely successful celebrity candidates exist. But, no, professional Democrats dont want to recruit more of them. Although celebrity candidates offer the political benefit of high name recognition, they sometimes prove disastrous if they appear reckless or ill-prepared. Turned out to be a surprisingly effective leader is something few Americans would say about the 45th president.

Trump was an unusual case. Though polling showed that he was well known in 2015, Republicans viewed him negatively. But soon after he announced his candidacy, he gave his base some red meat that they really liked hearing, and suddenly they just switched their opinion on him, says Patrick Murray, the director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute. Thats not a feat just any celebrity can pull off: Schwarzenegger may have captured enough Republican hearts to win the 2003 California recall, but nobody was listening to him when he was opposing Trump over the last few years, Murray says.

Name recognition is important, but rich people who arent celebrities can buy themselves name recognition by funding other candidates and buying ads. Whats more, if it becomes clear that [the celebrity] is poorly qualified, that could shoot the parties in the foot, Panagopoulos says. And celebrities sometimes have skeletons in their closets that can be damaging if theyre not suitably vetted. The average actor is likely to have had a more interesting youth than the average city-council member, and not in a way that plays well with voters. For those reasons and others, says Cindy Kam, another Vanderbilt political scientist, Im sort of skeptical as to whether simply looking for celebrities is going to really help win elections.

Given that Hollywood is notoriously liberal, one might expect more celebrity candidates on the left. But getting celebrities interested in running for office can be difficult. A name-recognition advantage is no guarantee of victory: Just ask the failed celebrity candidates Caitlyn Jenner, Cynthia Nixon, and Kanye West. Many celebrities want to be vaguely engaged, writing Instagram captions about climate change, but they balk when it comes to campaigning. With one very notable exception, most politicians start out in state or local office; they dont skyrocket to the presidency with no experience. The average salary for a state legislator is $39,000, and the job is a lot of unglamorous work. Several TV newscasters and college-sports coaches have successfully run for local officeand even Congress, in the case of Iowas Ashley Hinson. These kinds of localized celebrities might be a better fit for political office than big-time actors, several strategists said.

If they do decide to run, celebrity candidates, accustomed to being adored, face a rude awakening when nitpicky reporters and angry voters ask them tough questions on the trail. No one should run and expect that theyre just going to walk into elected office because of their name, said Post, of the DLCC. Thats in addition to another very important hurdle: Many celebritieskeeping a cautious eye on box-office salesavoid saying outright that they are either a Republican or a Democrat. Jeff Bezos has a generally favorable opinion in the United States, Glas says, but once he declares a party, half the country is gonna hate him. If he thought people detested his business practices, wait til he takes a position on abortion.

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Trump and the Celebrity-Candidate Phenomenon - The Atlantic

A media star with no political experience throws his hat into the ring and soars in the presidential polls. Hurling crude insults at his critics, bashing the elites, vilifying the press, and lavishing praise upon Russia, he rides a wave of populist anger, fear, and xenophobia as he promises to restore his demoralized country to its former glory. No wonder many pundits are calling Eric Zemmour the French Donald Trump. Zemmour, 63, who aides say is about to announce his candidacy, freely acknowledges Trumps rise to power as a blueprint for his own potential run. He even modeled the cover of his latest book, France Has Not Said Its Final Word, on Trumps 2015 manifesto, Great Again. Both men pose like patriotic saviors in front of their national flag. Both men have been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women. (Zemmour has declined to respond to the allegations.)

Beyond the obvious similarities, however, the differences between Trump and Zemmour are substantial. Trump is an uncultivated vulgarian. Zemmour, in contrast, is an articulate, well-read intellectual whose speeches are peppered with literary and historical references. Trump succeeded by taking over the Republican Party; Zemmour, who belongs to no party, is scrambling to improvise a movement of his own. With his height, girth, and outlandish coiffure, Trump is physically imposing; Zemmour is balding, of modest stature and slight build, with a reedy voicethe kind of guy Trump would make fun of if he were in the opposing camp.

Perhaps the main thing the two men share is their status as outsiders that no one took seriously until they began to get traction in national polls. In Zemmours case, the rise has been meteoric: Credited in June with a 5.5% share of the theoretical vote, he has more than tripled that margin and now has a serious chance of facing off against President Emmanuel Macron in the runoff of Frances two-round election next April. Until recently, conventional wisdom had pointed to a replay of the 2017 matchup between Macron and Marine Le Pen, of the far-right anti-immigrant National Rally (R.N.) party, who has been trying to moderate her image. But by outflanking her on the radical rightand relentlessly insisting that Marine cant winZemmour could lure a substantial number of Le Pens 2017 voters to his camp.

Though he is not yet an official candidate, Zemmour has been sucking up all the media oxygen. He is a constant feature in TV interviews and debates. His face is emblazoned on the covers of major magazines. Crisscrossing the country on a book tour that is in fact a proto-campaign blitz, he has been drawing enthusiastic crowds at each stopalong with gaggles of sometimes violent demonstrators denouncing him as a fascist and racist.

Zemmour would deny both accusations, of course, but his words speak for themselves. His pronouncements and writings paint a bleak picture of France in decline: threatened by hordes of Muslim immigrants he contends are bent on turning the country into an Islamic republica process he calls the great replacement, the supplanting of Frances white population and its Christian culture by what he characterizes, in effect, as Muslim invaders. Declaring Islam in any form to be incompatible with democracy, he proposes, if he makes a play for the presidency, to close French borders to further immigration and expel 2 million foreigners over his five-year term. He also wants to outlaw the wearing in public of the Muslim veil and ban the use of Muslim first names such as Mohammed in favor of proper French monikers like Pierre and Jacques. Once he curbs the foreign invasion, Zemmour promises to restore France to its past grandeur, invoking the legends of Joan of Arc, Napoleon, and Charles de Gaullea pantheon of French heroes he apparently intends to occupy.

The French-born son of Jewish Berbers who immigrated from Algeria in 1952, Zemmour studied at Sciences Po and began his career as a journalist, radio commentator, and author of popular books expounding his acerbic views. For the past two years the fiery polemicist has been a star commentator on CNews, a right-wing TV network created about four years ago that is often compared to Murdochs Fox News. (Last September, he suspended his relationships with CNews and the conservative daily Figaro in order to comply with French watchdog rules concerning media access by political candidates, or in his case, quasi-candidates.)

With immigration as his main bugaboo, Zemmour voices a litany of racist, sexist, and otherwise extreme views that place him at the outer edge of Frances far right. Virulently anti-feminist and homophobic, contemptuous of all forms of political correctness, Zemmour favors a restoration of the death penalty, the lifting of highway speed limits, and curbs on what he calls the counter powersmeaning judges, the media, the minorities. He warns darkly of a looming civil war and has been sanctioned multiple times by French courts for inciting racial hatred. He also has a penchant for Trump-style provocations: In a shocking gesture that drew widespread criticism last month, he trained an unloaded snipers rifle on a group of journalists at a security event and jokingly ordered them to get back. When citizenship minister Marlne Schiappa called the act horrifying, Zemmour dismissed her as an imbecile. (A day later, the dangers of unloaded guns were tragically demonstrated by actor Alec Baldwins accidental killing of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on a New Mexico movie set.)

In foreign policy, Zemmour is an ultranationalist who wants to pull France out of NATOs integrated command and forge a cozy relationship with Vladimir Putins Russia. Aides say he values Washington as an ally but insists on being treated as an equal partner and seeks an equilibrium between the U.S. and the Russian state. Yet his rhetoric is often tinged with undisguised anti-Americanism. Speaking at a rally in Rouen last month, for example, he called the D-Day invasion an occupation and colonization by the Americans. While he does not call for an outright Frexit from the European Union, he wants to curtail the E.U.s powers and reaffirm French sovereigntyhence his chumming up to Hungarys nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbn, with whom he met in September.

Though he is himself a practicing Jew, Zemmour has been accused of antisemitism by prominent members of Frances Jewish community based on a series of troubling remarks and writings. Recently, he suggested that the families of the Jewish children who were murdered by an Islamist terrorist in 2012 were not good French citizens because their families had chosen to inter their remains in Israel. He has cast doubt on the innocence of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer charged with pro-German espionage and ultimately acquitted in 1906. Most troubling is his revisionist claim that the Vichy government under Philippe Ptain actually protected French Jews during the Nazi occupation, whereas Vichys active role in rounding up and deporting Jews to Hitlers death camps (on French trains) is well documented. Whatever his motivations, Zemmours dog whistles clearly appeal to those on the far right who are unhappy with Marine Le Pens rejection of the blatant antisemitism for which her father was notorious.

The most remarkable thing about the Zemmour phenomenon is that no one saw it coming. Its a spectacular rise, says Frdric Dabi, head of the IFOP polling institute. In the history of the Fifth Republic, we have never seen someone who was not part of the political establishment gain this kind of momentum. One explanation, says Dabi, is that Zemmour benefits from a leadership vacuum on the right. Marine Le Pen, after two failed attempts at the presidency, has lost much of her credibility, while her strategy of softening her messageshe calls it ddiabolisation, or un-demonizinghas left many followers hungry for the kind of red meat that Zemmour doles out.

As a result, Zemmour is eating Le Pens lunch. Since his appearance in the political arena, the R.N. leader has seen her poll numbers drop sharply and the two are now running neck-and-neck. At this early stage of the campaign, of course, there is no telling whether Le Pen or Zemmouror another candidatewill make it to the runoff round. But for now the fiercest infighting pits these two right-wing rivals against each other. One bad sign for Marine: Her own father, the sulfurous party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, 93, says he will support his friend Zemmour if he retains his command in the polls. Marine has abandoned her strongest positions, he has noted, and Eric is occupying that terrain.

Meanwhile, supporters of the right-center Republicans have still not recovered from the humiliating elimination of their champion, Franois Fillon, in the election five years ago. Divided by competing claimants, the Republicans will not settle on a candidate until their December 4 convention. The apparent front-runner, former labor minister Xavier Bertrand, currently lags behind both Zemmour and Le Pen in most polls.

As for the left, also divided by internecine squabbles, no candidate appears to have a realistic chance of reaching the runoff round. Fewer and fewer French voters identify with the left, says IFOPs Dabi. The countrys values lie very much on the right today. Some analysts even speak of an extreme right-ization of French opinion. Indeed, the combined poll numbers of Zemmour and Le Pen comprise more than one third of the French electorate. (At the same time, Zemmour has the highest negatives of any potential candidate: 70% believe he lacks presidential stature, 57% say he worries them, and 71% think he gives France a bad image internationally.)

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The French Have a New Donald Trump in Eric Zemmour, the Far-Right Firebrand - Vanity Fair