Category Archives: Donald Trump

Nov 8th 2021

by James Astill: Washington bureau chief and Lexington columnist, The Economist, Washington DC

The usual routine for former presidents is to sink into the background, graciously refuse to criticise their successor and plan a library. But Donald Trump does not do background or graciousness or books. In rallies, interviews and impromptu speeches to wedding parties at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate, Mr Trump has lambasted President Joe Biden, the media and the handful of Republicans who have dared acknowledge that he suffered electoral defeat in 2020. He has repeatedly teased the possibility of a comeback. In 2022 that will look increasingly inevitable.

It already seems that only a health crisis could deny Mr Trump the second tilt at the presidency he clearly craves. Most Republican voters want him to run again. He has raised well over $100m just by hinting that he will. And if the Republican establishment did not roll over for him that could only be because it was too prone already to effect the contortion. Trump cheerleaders such as Lindsey Graham began exhorting him to retain command of their party the day he left office. Mr Trumps only serious rivals for the nomination, such as Governor Ron deSantis of Florida and Mike Pompeo, his former secretary of state, are his imitators. Every indication is that Republicans would prefer the real thing.

Mr Trump also appears to have pre-arranged the politics of his returnthrough his claim to have been robbed of electoral victory against Mr Biden by a corrupt establishment. Around 80% of Republican voters say they believe that lie. This explains why Republican lawmakers quashed an effort to hold a serious investigation into the January 6th insurrection on Capitol Hill that it inspired; and also why the handful of Republicans who resisted that, such as Representative Liz Cheney, have been pilloried. Republican lawmakers and candidates at every level are meanwhile sounding the alarm on election integrity. The implication in many Republican-controlled states, where the delusion is most pronounced, is that the Democrats cannot win legitimatelyand that special measures are therefore required to stop them winning at all.

Few of the 75m voters who chose Mr Trump in 2020 appear to have been repelled by the January 6th insurrection

At least 18 Republican-controlled state legislatures have passed election laws that will make it harder to vote, many of which appear to target African-Americans and other traditionally Democratic groups. Probably worse, many of those Trumpified legislatures have also seized control of their states handling of elections.

This is especially troubling given how concerted Mr Trumps effort to steal the election in 2020 turned out to be. Had a handful of state officials buckled, he might have produced more chaos; or conceivably succeeded in his attempted heist. And that handful has already been reduced. Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state for Georgia whom Mr Trump importuned to find 11,780 votes could not reprise his role in defending democracy, for example. The states Republican legislature has stripped his office of the power to do so.

The Republican congressional primaries, mostly due in the first half of 2022, will indicate how far the party has succumbed to this extremism. Of the 212 Republican House members, ten voted to impeach Mr Trump over the insurrection, of whom one, citing death threats, has already announced his intention to quit politics. The other nine, including Ms Cheney, will face Trump-backed primary challengers. If most lose, as appears likely, Mr Trumps grip on his party will be tighter and its adoption of election scepticism as a strategy more advanced. (And if they win, the Trumpists will cry foul, which could have much the same effect.)

The mid-term elections in November 2022 will be a more important weather-vane. They will represent the first opportunity for Trump Republicans to air their election conspiracies to the electorate at large. The leading role that Mr Trump will take in their campaign will encourage them to do so. The big question, then, is whether enough centre-right voters will find this sufficiently off-putting to make it a losing strategy.

It would be a heavy blow to Mr Trumps prospects of recapturing the presidency if they did. But there appears to be little reason to hope for that. Remarkably few of the nearly 75m voters who chose Mr Trump in 2020 appear to have been repelled by his election denialism or the violence on Capitol Hill. If they do not share his authoritarian instincts, they appear not to take them terribly seriously. America may come to rue that.

James Astill: Washington bureau chief and Lexington columnist, The Economist, Washington DC

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition of The World Ahead 2022 under the headline The second coming of Donald Trump

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The second coming of Donald Trump - The Economist

In late October 2020, Donald Trumps chief of staff, Mark Meadows, was attending the confirmation hearing for Amy Coney Barrett when his cellphone rang. He answered with a whisper and walked out to the hallway to take the call. What was so urgent as to pull the chief of staff out of a Supreme Court confirmation hearing just two weeks before a presidential election?

On the line was Andrew Hughes, the top staffer at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Meadows had asked him to call because it had been brought to Meadowss attention that a young assistant at HUD had been caught consorting with the enemy.

She had liked an Instagram post from the pop star Taylor Swift.

The first photo in the post was of Swift with the word VOTE superimposed on it in large blue letters. But a swipe revealed a second photo, of Swift carrying a tray of cookies emblazoned with the Biden-Harris campaign logo. We really cant have our people liking posts promoting Joe Biden, Meadows told Hughes.

Never mind that nearly 3 million other people had liked the post or that the young woman was a Taylor Swift fan who liked just about everything Swift had ever posted. To the enforcers of Trumpian loyalty, this was a sign of treachery in the ranks.

Those enforcersincluding the eagle-eyed official who had first spotted the offending likeworked for the Presidential Personnel Office, a normally under-the-radar group responsible for the hiring and firing of the roughly 4,000 political appointees in the executive branch. During the final year of the Trump administration, that office was transformed into an internal police force, obsessively monitoring administration officials for any sign of dissent, purging those who were deemed insufficiently devoted to Trump and frightening others into silence. (Many sources for this story asked to remain anonymous so they could talk about sensitive personnel issues.) Some Trump aides privately compared the PPO to the East German Stasi or even the Gestapoalways on the lookout for traitors within.

The office was run by Johnny McEntee. Just 29 when he got the job, hed come up as Trumps body guythe kid who carried the candidates bags. One of Trumps most high-profile Cabinet secretaries described him to me as a fucking idiot. But in 2020, his power was undeniable. Trump knew he was the one person willing to do anything Trump wanted. As another senior official told me, He became the deputy president.

McEntee and his enforcers made the disastrous last weeks of the Trump presidency possible. They backed the presidents manic drive to overturn the election, and helped set the stage for the January 6 assault on the Capitol. Thanks to them, in the end, the elusive adults in the roomthose who might have been willing to confront the president or try to control his most destructive tendencieswere silenced or gone. But McEntee was therebossing around Cabinet secretaries, decapitating the civilian leadership at the Pentagon, and forcing officials high and low to state their allegiance to Trump.

When Trump wasnt happy with the answers he was getting from White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, McEntee set up a rogue legal team. This back-channel operation played a previously unknown role in the effort to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the vote. Just days before January 6, McEntee sent Pences office an absurd memo making the case that Pence would be following Thomas Jeffersons example if he used his power to declare Trump the winner of the 2020 election.

More than anyone else in the White House, McEntee was Trumps man through and througha man who rose to power at precisely the moment when American democracy was falling apart.

I first met Johnny McEntee when I visited Trump Tower in 2015, not long after Trump announced he was running for president. McEntee was polite, earnest, and eager to please. He identified himself as Trumps trip director and gave me a tour of the campaign headquarters. (He declined to comment for this story.)

McEntee was one of the first full-time staffers on the campaign, and he went everywhere Trump went. When Trump became president, McEntee had a workspace outside the Oval Officeright against the curved wall. The boss liked having McEntee around. A former quarterback for the University of Connecticut, he was good-looking and tallbut not too tall, about an inch shorter than Trump. During the first 14 months of the Trump presidency, McEntee did what he had done during the campaign: He carried Trumps bags.

Adam Serwer: If you didnt vote for Trump, your vote is fraudulent

In March 2018, it looked for a moment like his Washington career was over. He was fired by thenChief of Staff John Kelly after a long-delayed FBI background check revealed that he had deposited suspiciously large sums of money into his bank account. It turned out that the money was from gambling winnings. After Kelly himself was fired, McEntee returned to his old spot outside the Oval. It was January 2020, and he wouldnt be just a body guy for long.

In mid-February, Trump called his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to a meeting. Ominous signs of the coming pandemic were beginning to emerge. Hundreds of Americans who had been evacuated from Wuhan, China, were in quarantine on military bases. The World Health Organization had just reported a frightening new developmenta small number of COVID-19 cases in people who had never traveled to China. But the subject of the meeting wasnt the virus. It was staffing. Trump, newly acquitted in his first Senate impeachment trial, was looking to make some changes.

I want to put Johnny in charge of personnel, the president told Mulvaney.

The director of presidential personnel is responsible for vetting and hiring everybody, including ambassadors, Cabinet secretaries, and top intelligence officials. McEntee had never hired anybody for anything. Now he was going to be in charge of perhaps the most important human-resources department in the world?

Mulvaney called his top deputy, Emma Doyle, who oversaw the current director of personnel, into the meeting. Mr. President, she said, I have never said no to anything youve asked me to do, but I am asking you to please reconsider this. I dont think it is a good idea.

Doyle had spent a lot of time around the president, but she had never seen him as angry as he was about to become.

You people never fucking listen to me! Trump screamed. Youre going to fucking do what I tell you to do.

A few hours later, Doyle was on Air Force One, along with McEntee, en route to a Trump rally in New Hampshire. She asked him about his interest in the position.

People have been telling me I should do that for a long time, McEntee told her. I didnt feel ready before, but I am 29 now and Im ready. He added, Im the only person around here thats just here for the president.

McEntee told the president exactly what he wanted to hear: that his political problems were caused by people who pretended to support him but were really against him, the secret Never Trumpers right there in his administration. It was time to root out the deep state.

Franklin Foer: Letat cest Trump

McEntee began scouring federal agencies for people who didnt support all things Trump. Beginning in June 2020in the middle of both the pandemic and the presidential campaignthe personnel office informed virtually every senior official across the federal government, regardless of how long they had worked in the administration, that they would need to sit down for a job interview.

A president has a right to expect that his political appointees support his policies and will work to carry them out. These are, after all, political appointees. But most of the people McEntees team questioned were already devoted to Trump; they were still putting their reputations on the line to work for him three and a half years into his administration. But that wasnt enough for the loyalty enforcers.

McEntees underlings were, for the most part, comically inexperienced. He had staffed his office with very young Trump activists. He had hired his friends, and he had hired young womenas one senior official in the West Wing put it to me, the most beautiful 21-year-old girls you could find, and guys who would be absolutely no threat to Johnny in going after those girls.

It was the Rockettes and the Dungeons & Dragons group, the official said.

In fact, one McEntee hire was literally a Rockette; she had performed with Radio City Music Halls finest in the 2019 Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade. The only work experience listed on her rsum besides a White House internship was a stint as a dance instructor. McEntee also hired Instagram influencers. Camryn Kinsey, for example, was 20 and still in college when McEntee gave her the title of external-relations director. In an interview with the online publication The Conservateur, she said, Only in Trumps America could I go from working in a gym to working in the White House, because thats the American dream. (Kinsey went on to work at the pro-Trump One American News Network.)

The interviews with McEntees team usually lasted about an hour. They included questions such as Do you support the policies of the Trump administration and, if so, which ones? That question was asked of Makan Delrahim, the head of the Department of Justices antitrust division. As the person carrying out the presidents antitrust policies, he found the question strange.

Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency and HUD were asked, Do you support the presidents plan to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan? It was a bizarre question, given that neither official had anything remotely to do with Afghanistan policy.

The DOJ spokesperson Kerri Kupec was asked, What are your political inclinations? A little amused, she responded, Are you asking if I am Republican?

McEntees enforcers scoured the social-media accounts and voting records of officials high and low. An office assistant at the DOJ was asked to explain why she had voted in a local Democratic primary a few years earlier. She explained that her parents had told her thats where her vote would count most, because the Democratic primary winner was all but certain to win the general election. Nonetheless, after the interview, she was denied a promotion and raise that she had been eligible to receive.

McEntee took a particular interest in one job category: White House liaisons to Cabinet agencies. Traditionally, the liaison job is a mid-level position, responsible for coordinating messages between the agencies and the White House. But McEntee didnt want messengers. McEntee wanted people who would boss around the senior officials and report back to him.

In early November 2020, he installed a conservative activist named Heidi Stirrup as liaison at the DOJ. Stirrup was primarily known as an anti-abortion activist who had worked as a mid-level staffer for Republicans in Congress. She had no legal experience, but she was intensely loyal to Trumpand to McEntee. Her car was easy to spot in the DOJ parking lot; it was covered with Trump bumper stickersunusual at a department where even the most political of political appointees try to appear to be above the fray.

A few days after the election, in her first full day in the office, she went in to meet a senior official on Attorney General Bill Barrs team. It didnt go well. You need to wake up to the fact this election is being stolen! she screamed. It needs to be stopped! (The Atlantic was not able to reach Stirrup for comment.)

Barrs team saw Stirrup as more than just annoying; they worried she would snoop into DOJ investigations. This would have been highly unethicalthe White House is not supposed to interfere in criminal cases.

Jonathan D. Karl: Inside William Barrs breakup with Trump

The next time Stirrup came around to berate the senior official, he asked her if she would like to deliver her message directly to the attorney general, and with that he brought her in to see Barr. Most people find Barr intimidating, but not Heidi Stirrup. The election is being stolen, she lectured him. You need better people doing these investigations. And she told him she had a list of people, presumably provided by McEntee, whom he needed to hire.

Barr later told me hed never seen this kind of behavior. By the end of the week, he had ordered her banned from the DOJ building. Her pass was deactivated, and security was instructed not to let her in.

A similar run-in between a White House liaison and senior leadership had taken place at the Department of Homeland Security a few months earlier. McEntee had installed Josh Whitehouse, a 25-year-old Trump supporter from New Hampshire, at DHS, and Whitehouse immediately started throwing his weight around, often threatening to fire people (though he had no direct authority to do so).

Two people who worked with Whitehouse on the second floor of DHS headquarters told me his mood swings were so wild that they worried he could get violent. He was overheard screaming things into the phone such as, If they dont do this, I will literally go to their house and burn it down. (Whitehouse said the quote sounded exaggerated and he didnt think he had said it.) As one DHS official told me, I was legitimately worried he was going to come and kill us. When I asked Whitehouse about this comment, he told me, They need help. He added: I cant imagine anybody should be afraid of another person working there if they are in it for the right reasons and aligned with the agenda.

In mid-August 2020, Whitehouse had a loud confrontation with Acting DHS Secretary Chad F. Wolf in front of several witnesses. It happened after Miles Taylor, a former chief of staff at DHS, wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post criticizing Trump. Taylor wrote that the country is less secure as a direct result of the presidents actions and that he would be crossing party lines to vote for Joe Biden.

There are plaques in the office that include the names of all the past secretaries of Homeland Security and their chiefs of staff, each engraved on a metal plate. After the op-ed, Whitehouse set out to remove Taylors name. He was in the process of unscrewing the plate when Wolf walked by.

What are you doing? Wolf asked him.

I am removing the name of this traitor, Whitehouse answered.

Stop. That doesnt belong to you. It doesnt belong to me. And we dont erase history here at the Department of Homeland Security.

Whitehouse erupted at the Cabinet secretary: Miles Taylor is a traitor! This just shows you dont really support President Trump!

By the fall, Whitehouse would be reassigned to a more important job: White House liaison at the Pentagon. When the move was announced, he told people, Im going to the Pentagon to fire [Defense Secretary Mark] Esper and those deep-state bastards!

But before he left, he had one piece of unfinished business. At a moment when he saw that Secretary Wolf was out of the building, Whitehouse once again went over to the list of names. He removed Miles Taylors plate and flipped it over so the metal face was blank, before screwing it back into the wall.

In October 2020, Whitehouse helped the Presidential Personnel Office write a series of memos identifying nearly two dozen Pentagon officials they thought should be fired, each outlining transgressions allegedly made against Trump.

Read: Top military officers unload on Trump

The memo on Esper, never before made public, provides remarkable insight into the degree to which McEntees team was calling the shots. It includes bullet points outlining Espers sins: He bars the display of the Confederate flag on military bases; opposed the Presidents direction to utilize American forces to put down riots; focused the Department on Russia; was actively pushing for diversity and inclusion; and so on. The memo recommended that Esper be fired immediately after the election and replaced by Christopher Miller, then the director of the National Counterterrorism Center.

Trump followed the script. Six days after the election, Esper was fired and replaced by Miller. McEntee also selected Millers senior adviser, Douglas Macgregor, a retired Army colonel and regular guest on Tucker Carlsons show. As Axioss Jonathan Swan first reported, McEntee gave Macgregor a handwritten to-do list for the new team at the Pentagon:

1. Get us out of Afghanistan.

2. Get us out of Iraq and Syria.

3. Complete the withdrawal from Germany.

4. Get us out of Africa.

This is what the president wants you to do, McEntee told him.

Once he had cleaned up the Pentagon, McEntee turned his attention to the election, and the presidents efforts to overturn the results. He began providing legal advice. When White House Counsel Cipollone told Trump that Pence did not have the power to overturn the election, McEntee drafted his own constitutional analysis, with an assist from his own rogue legal advisers, directly contradicting Cipollone and every other serious expert in the country.

McEntee sent the memo via text message on January 1 to Pences chief of staff. Here it is, in its entirety:

Jefferson Used His Position as VP to Win

The Constitution sets precise requirements for the form in which the states are to submit their electoral votes.

In 1801, the ballots of all states were in perfect conformity except Georgias.

Georgias submission dramatically failed to conform to the requirements.

VP Jefferson presided over the counting of the ballots even as he was one of the candidates.

Had the defective ballots been rejected, Jefferson would have most likely lost the election.

Senate tellers told Jefferson in a loud voice that there was a problem with the Georgia ballots.

Rather than investigating, Jefferson ignored the problems and announced himself the winner.

This proves that the VP has, at a minimum, a substantial discretion to address issues with the electoral process.

McEntee was no constitutional scholar and no historian. His bullet-point description was, not surprisingly, deeply flawed. Jefferson didnt discard electoral votes, as Trump wanted Pence to do. He accepted electoral votes from a state that nobody had questioned he had won.

But the facts didnt matter to McEntee. By distorting what happened in 1801, McEntee could turn up the pressure on Pence. Thomas Jefferson was the author of the Declaration of Independence and one of those guys on Mount Rushmore. If it was okay for him to use his power as vice president to get himself elected president, how could it not be okay for Pence to use his power to reelect Trump now?

Trump may have embraced his body guys theory, but Pence didnt. He refused to single-handedly overturn the election, preventing an even bigger disaster from taking place on January 6.

David A. Graham: The new lost cause

Since Trump left the White House, McEntee has kept a low profile. But he remains in close contact with Trump, and over the summer spent time at his club in Bedminster, New Jersey, volunteering for his political operation, according to a Trump spokesperson.

People close to Trump say there is no doubt he is going to run for president again in 2024. I am not convinced he will run, but if he does, he will be the clear favorite to win the Republican nomination. The idea of him getting elected again, although highly unlikely, no longer seems impossible. If that happens, McEntee will probably play a key role right from the start. As one of Trumps more levelheaded senior aides told me, I shudder to think what the Cabinet would look like in a second term. Johnny McEntee, I expect, is already working on his list of names.

This article has been adapted from Jonathan Karls forthcoming book, Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show.

See original here:

Johnny McEntee: The Man Behind the Man Behind January 6 - The Atlantic

Donald Trump made an appearance at Game 4 of the 2021 World Series. Footage of Trump interacting with a baseball fan at the game is getting attention.

ATLANTA Donald Trump made an appearance at the 2021 World Series. Now footage of the former president accidentally hitting a child with a baseball on the head during his visit is making its way around the internet.

The Atlanta Braves faced off against the Houston Astros in their home Atlanta stadium Truist Park for Game 4 of the 2021 World Series. Former President Donald Trump's expected appearance made headlines ahead of the game. But, one fan managed to walk away with something unexpected a signed baseball from the 45th President of the United States.

Just below the former president's open-air suite within Truist Park, one young baseball fan tried to get Trump's attention. In footage posted to TikTok, the fan can be seen gesturing for the former president to sign his baseball.

Trump obliged, with the child tossing his ball into the suite. Trump signed the ball before tossing it back. But, the billionaire industrialist's aim was a little off. The signed baseball softly hit the fan on the head; no injuries were visibly endured during the video.

Footage of the World Series moment from the former president can be viewed below.

I got Mr. trumps autographs at the World Series

The Atlanta Braves defeated the Houston Astros 3-2 in Game 4 before clinching the Commissioner's Trophy in Game 6. The Peach State's MLB team had not won a World Series title since 1995, marking a 26-year road to championship for the Atlanta Braves.

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Donald Trump accidentally hit child on the head with baseball at World Series - 11Alive.com WXIA

Glenn Youngkins impressive win in the Virginia gubernatorial race immediately sparked talk about what it means for theRepublican Partys future.

Key among those is what does it tell us about the ultimate question for the next presidential race: Will Donald Trump run again?

The Virginia outcome presents questions and potential answers about Donald Trump and 2024. Here are five to consider.

1. Was Trump relevant in Virginia either way?

A major takeaway is that Youngkin not only won back suburban voters who were Republican-friendly before Trump but he outperformed Trump in rural Virginia. He might have carried the Latino vote, though exit polls have conflicting data on that. Trump didnt do a rally in Virginia, and other than releasing a few pro-Youngkin statements, stayed out of the governors race.

But, he was still very much part of the race. Vanquished Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe, a former governor, couldnt stop talking about Trump.

Trump appeared in most of McAuliffes ads. When the Democrat A-team, including President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama, stumped for McAuliffe in the statethey also insisted the affable Youngkin was Trump in sheeps clothing.

So, the forty-fifthpresident hovered over the campaign without stumping for Youngkin.

But those suburban swing voters that abandoned Republicans because of those mean tweets and other silly behavior in 2020 didnt care about Trump in 2021.

2. So, does this mean Trump is less relevant in the GOP?

Democrats overestimated Trumps relevance, while Youngkina political rookieadroitly threaded the needle between not offending the Trump base, but not going Make America Great Again (MAGA).

Despite the wishful thinking of readers of The Bulwark, Trump is still relevant. But, to the disappointment of avid Trump supporters, the Virginia race shows his presence isnt necessary to rally the base GOP voters.

That said, if Youngkin had decided to be a Liz Cheney Republican, he would have likely alienated the Trump base, drawn the former presidents wrathand probably would have lost the election if those voters stayed home.

Moreover, the barrage of McAuliffe ads calling Youngkin another Trump might well have encouraged some Trump backers to head to the polls to support Youngkin, who is a rather Romney-esque looking Republican. On the other side, when Trump wasnt on the ballot, Democrats just werent that inspired to swarm to the polls.

3. Did Trump actually show some selfless discipline with the Virginia race that could benefit a 2024 run?

Selfless and discipline are rarely words associated with Trump. So, in this case, we can at least say he showed uncharacteristic restraint.

On October 27, Trump sparked enthusiasm among Democrats and dread among Republicans with a statement saying in part, Thank you, Arlington, see you soon!

McAuliffe falsely claimed Trump was on the way. Trump made headlines, which is probably what he wanted. He temporarily distracted attention from Youngkins message. But, bottom line, he didnt show up and put the GOP campaign at risk.

Thats important when looking at a potential 2024 Trump candidacy.Can he show discipline he didnt in the past?

A big reason Trump lost in 2020 is that he just couldnt get out of his own way. The reason he never polled 50 percent, despite a roaring economy in the pre-Covid-19 years, is that he was constantly his own worst enemy.

The tweeting, the petulance, the hurt feelings all on public display were all unnecessary and self-inflicted wounds. Moreover, it didnt just harm Trump but trickled down the Republican ticket, particularly in 2018.

The fact is that Trump can be a big help to Republicans in certain parts of the country and a big hindrance to Republicans in other parts. Instead of recognizing this, he frequently acted downright jovial about Republicans that lostand blamed them for not embracing Trumpism. Recall, Mia Love gave me no love and she lost, too bad, referring to the former Utah Republican congresswoman defeated in 2018.

Had Virginia gone the other way in 2021, he almost certainly would have blamed Youngkin for not having him in the state to campaign.

However, in the case of Virginia, Trump seemed somewhat disciplined and selfless enough to sit this one out. After the fact, he of course took credit for the Virginia victory, but no one is implying he has metamorphosized into a portrait of humility.

Perhaps Trump correctly strategized he would have been blamed if Youngkin lost after a MAGArally in the commonwealth. Thats at least discipline, even if its not selfless.

The 2022 mid-terms will be a bigger test if he can continue this.Trump thus far seems selective about what primary candidates to endorseusually a candidate somewhat likely to win.

But, he could build goodwill for a 2024 run in cases where his chosen candidate doesnt win a primary. Will he go scorched earth or give at least a tepid endorsement to the Republican nominee to have a fighting chance?

That could be the difference between projecting the image of a kingmaker vs. a wrecking ball.

4. What does Virginiasoutcome say about Trumps invincibility in a GOP primary?

Virginia showed that Republicans can win a high voter-turnout election in a blue-leaning state, as 55 percent of the states eligible voters cast ballotsthe highest of any governors race since 1997.

Again, Youngkin outperformed Trump among rural and suburban voters and women. Youngkin had clear policies on cultural issues as well as tax-cutting economic issues. No two election years are exactly alike, but the GOP could do a lot worse in looking for a roadmap for a national comeback.

Trump brought in new working-class voters and non-white voters that didnt normally vote Republican, while he managed to alienate the suburban voters that felt more comfortable with Mitt Romney-style Republicans. The trick to winning a majority would be keeping and growing each without losing the other. It only took a year after Trumps loss for an example of that to emerge in Virginia.

The conventional wisdom is that Trump is unstoppable in a 2024 Republican primary, and if he runs he will clear the field of any serious competitors.

Maybe.

But the conventional wisdom was also that he could never be elected in 2016. Way before that, the conventional wisdom was that no one could possibly beat Hillary Clinton for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, and that Obama was possibly harming his political future for even trying.

Voters like boldness.

If Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, or, well, Youngkin, decide to jump into the presidential primary and take on Trump, they might be rewarded. Thats particularly true if these candidates have a conservative vision and Trump cant stop talking about being a victim in 2020.

Today, the hot commodity on the Right is DeSantis. By late 2022 or mid-2023, it might be someone else. A Trump primary opponent doesnt have to beand shouldnt bea knee-jerk Never Trumper. Voters reward boldness not spite and want to vote for someone not just against someone.

5. Does Virginia indicate whether Trump could win if he ran again?

Not directly, but the governors race was more of a referendum on the first tenmonths of the Biden presidency than on four years of Trump. So, from that perspective, it depends.

Biden won Virginia by 10 points over Trump. Whoever the Republican nominee is in 2024, he or she wont likely carry the states nine electoral votes.

The result does prove the flawed belief of McAuliffe and Democrats that saying Trump, Trump, Trump enough times in a blue state would be a winning strategy. This shows that maybe Trump isnt quite as toxic as once assumed.

Yes, Trump incites both irrational, deranged hatred on one side and an enthusiastic, near cult-like fawning love on the other. But those are just two categories of voters from 2020.

A third category is Trump voters that may or may not go to a rally in town, probably wont wear the MAGA hat, and sometimes wince at his uncouthness. But they voted to keep him in 2020 because they thought he was getting the job done.

Its the fourth category that is really up for grabs. These Biden voters didnt quite have an irrational seething hatred for Trump, but just grew tired of the constant drama and thought Biden seemed harmless enough. For some of these voters, mean tweets might not seem so bad about now.

Biden fumbled through the opening months of his presidency. He had a disastrous Afghanistan exit. He looked like a bystander while a civil war played out in the party he is supposed to lead. While it appears the infrastructure and whittled-down social spending bills will both pass before the end of the year, neither seems to resonate with the public.

If inflation continues to spike, new taxes on employers harm the economy, and assorted examples of corporate welfare boondoggles become the face of the Biden spending legislation (as happened with Obamas 2009 Recovery Act), it could be difficult for Democrats to run a winning 2024 campaign.

It seems unlikely that Biden would run for a second term in his eightiesand Vice President Kamala Harris isnt particularly popular. If the economy doesnt improve, its not that difficult to imagine Trump making a compelling case that before an unforeseen pandemic, times were quite good on his watch.

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Do Big GOP Wins in Virginia Mean Donald Trump Runs in 2024? - The National Interest Online

Another Trump administration official is making the rounds to talk about life in the White House; former National Security Adviser Fiona Hill, who revealed Donald Trump's admiration for Russian president Vladimir Putin knows no bounds."He saw Putin as the kind of epitome of the badass populist, frankly, you know, the kind of person that he wanted to be: super-rich, super powerful, no checks and balances, and essentially being able to stay in power forever," Hill told the Daily Beast's "The New Abnormal" podcast.

Alyssa Farah and Hill join former communications director Stephanie Grisham, who has also come forward to say Trump is not up to the task."I don't think he is fit for the job. I think that he is erratic. I think that he can be delusional. I think that he is a narcissist and cares about himself first and foremost. And I do not want him to be our president again," Grisham told ABC News.

In early October 2021, The Washington Post reported thatTrump was prepared to announce his candidacy for the 2024 race, but his advisers had told him to back down since the Democrats would likely use that against the GOP during the midterm elections."The biggest point we drove home was that he doesn't want to own the midterms if we don't win back the House or Senate," an unnamed source told The Post. Another reason for the silence?"We're not supposed to be talking about it yet, from the standpoint of campaign finance laws, which frankly are ridiculous," Trump said.

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A Former Trump Aide Says This Will Happen If Donald Trump Wins In 2024 - The List

The timing of the House vote on the bipartisan infrastructure package was far from ideal. If congressional leaders hoped for a large national audience, they were likely disappointed: On Friday night, the gavel came down in the House chamber at 11:24 p.m. on the east coast.

It was the next morning when President Joe Biden held a half-hour-long press conference at the White House, celebrating the legislative breakthrough. The New York Times highlighted the amusing way the Democrat began his remarks:

"Finally! Infrastructure week!" Mr. Biden declared with a broad smile from the State Dining Room, making a subtle dig at his predecessor, Donald J. Trump, whose White House perpetually promised big investments in the nation's public works, but never amassed the focus or votes.

It's easy to forget, but the former president was well positioned to succeed on infrastructure, which the Republican said was one of his top domestic priorities. But Trump just couldn't help himself.

In the first two years of Trump's presidency, when his party controlled the House and Senate by larger margins than Democrats enjoy now the GOP focused its energies on unnecessary tax breaks and a hapless health care crusade that ultimately failed. After the 2018 midterm election cycle, which left the House in Democratic hands, there were still hopes that an infrastructure deal was possible, and Democratic leaders were prepared to make it happen.

But as regular readers may recall, the then-president decided to attach some strings. In May 2019, however, according to Trump's own version of events, the Republican presented Democrats with an offer: The White House would work on infrastructure if Democrats agreed to stop investigating the then-president's many scandals. Democratic leaders, naturally, said that wasn't an option they added, of course, that Congress can legislate and conduct oversight at the same time at which point Trump abandoned the process.

Two years later, the Republican settled on a different kind of idea: If he couldn't have an infrastructure deal, then Biden shouldn't get one, either.

Indeed, Politico reported months ago that the former president was determined to "sabotage" the entire process: "Trump is trying to ensure that his successor, Joe Biden, suffers the indignity of the 'infrastructure week' jokes as well."

Except, as it turns out, Biden is the one telling the infrastructure jokes, not the one at the receiving end of the jokes.

Remember, for quite a while, Trump's efforts against this bill bordered on hysterical, even threatening primary campaigns against those who supported it.

Among the striking dimensions of this was the former president's indifference toward governing pretenses, and wholesale focus on electoral considerations. Over the summer, for example, Trump said that if Republicans reached a bipartisan agreement on infrastructure, it would mean "a big and beautiful win" for people Trump doesn't like. Ergo, Republicans should defeat any compromises.

He added in late July, "This will be a victory for the Biden Administration and Democrats, and will be heavily used in the 2022 election."

In other words, successful governing might benefit the incumbent president. So as far as Trump was concerned, Republicans needed to stand in the way of successful governing, no matter the consequences.

The former president, we now know, failed twice first when trying to pass his own infrastructure plan, and then again when trying to derail Biden's efforts. Trump, predictably, whined again over the weekend, denouncing the legislation he knows nothing about.

Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "The Impostors: How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politics."

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Why Biden succeeded on infrastructure (and Trump didn't) - MSNBC

Some 604 days after the Trump administration shut U.S. borders, a majority of international travelers are once again welcome. For those returning after a long hiatus, a few things may be different: the president, the hotel and restaurant landscapes, and the documentation required at the airport, which now includes proof of approved vaccination against Covid-19.

But where theyre going largely remains the same.According to data from Travelport, a global technology company that powers travel bookings for hundreds of airlines and thousands of hotels worldwide, flight bookings to and within the U.S. have already reached 70% of their pre-pandemic levels. Thats a hopeful sign for the quick recovery of the U.S. travel economy, which, according to the U.S. Travel Association, represents $233 billion annually and suffered weekly losses of $1.5 billion in spending from Canadians, Europeans, and Britons alone during the border closure period.

More interesting, perhaps, is where theyre coming from. (By and large, Brits are most eager to get back to U.S. cities, but the answers to that question change depending on the destination.) Here's a short guide to whos going where, and what they may need to know upon arrival.

New YorkThe city is expected to be the top winter holiday destination, according to surveys from a wide range of travel companiesthanks, in part, to the fact that the lights are (finally) back on Broadway. Expect a busy Christmas season, and little room for social distancing.

Whos going: The U.K. (18% of visitors), Canada (6%), and Mexico (5%) are the top three inbound markets.

Good to know: Rockefeller Center, once visited by tourists just for its big Christmas tree and skating rink, is now doubling as one of the most exciting restaurant neighborhoodsa change few locals saw coming.

MiamiSome would say the Magic City looked a little too Miami Vice throughout the pandemic; the city was one of the most popular places for Americans to decamp from cold winters amid lockdowns, and it took on increased popularity for its relative normalcy, even when case counts were dire. Next month brings Art Basel and all its related social eventslikely the perfect opportunity to pretend the pandemic never happened at all.

Whos going: Argentina (14%), the U.K. (10%), and Brazil (8%) are the top three inbound markets.

Good to know: The city has seen more marquee restaurant openings than practically any other in the worldlargely imports of big names from around the world. But if youre unsure about indoor Covid safety, the newly popular Fever app and website lists open-air events and activities like candlelight concerts or flyboarding with water-powered jet packs that send you hovering over the ocean.

OrlandoWith Walt Disney World celebrating its 50th anniversary, the parks are in full swing. Our guide to its little-known luxury services brings out the real Disney magic.

Whos going: The U.K. (46%), Brazil (10%), and Canada (8%) are the top three inbound markets.

Good to know: The Swan Reserve hotel has just opened its doors inside Walt Disney World, making it possibly the fanciest place to stay in the parks. It has six pools and 22 restaurants, including an outpost of New York favorite Il Mulino; because its part of Marriotts Autograph Collection, you can also book it with points.

Los AngelesA nearly $40 million L.A. Arts Recovery Fund led by the J. Paul Getty trust is working to get hard-hit institutions back on their feet, though it also helps that iconic venues like the Hollywood Bowl are once again running at 100% occupancy. A projected $1 billion in tourism revenues for November and December 2021 will help. Getting here is proving expensive; data from Hopper shows that flights to L.A. are 33% costlier than in 2019, while average U.S. airfares are down 7%, compared to 2019 prices.

Whos going: Mexico (15%), Canada (9%), and the U.K. (8%) are the top three inbound markets.

Good to know: After a series of delays, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures opened on Sept. 30. The $482 million museum complex, designed by Renzo Piano and located adjacent to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma), is filled with iconic costumes and props from films such as The Wizard of Oz and E.T.; theres also a temporary exhibition on view featuring the works of legendary Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki.

San FranciscoMunicipal programs called Slow Streets and Shared Spaces have helped create a relative abundance of car-free, outdoor public spaces throughout the citybeyond the typical outdoor dining setupsand the tech execs that left during lockdowns have largely returned to find a city thats investing heavily in outdoor festivals, murals, and al fresco performing arts.

Whos going: The U.K. (14%), India (10%), and Mexico (9%) are the top three inbound markets.

Good to know: As of October, only 25% of San Francisco workers were back in the office, signaling a slower return to normalcy. That has also applied to restaurants, many of which waited to reopen until summer or fall of this year. Chez Panisse will remain closed through 2022, but most everything else has come backincluding a handful of new spots such as Automat, an all-day, bread-centric concept that began as a series of pandemic and kid-friendly pop-ups.

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604 days after Donald Trump shut US to the world, foreign travelers are once again welcome - Economic Times

A video, shared to TikTok, showcases how former president Donald Trump's skills as a baseball player leave a lot to be desired. The short clip shows a young man throwing a baseball up to Trump, who's sitting above him in a box, to get it signed and chucked back. Unfortunately, after scrawling his signature on the ball, the "Apprentice" star throws it down and hits another child right in the head. Thankfully, TMZ confirmed the boy in question wasn't injured. At least the baseball will be a great keepsake from the event but, if the boy in question chooses to sell it, TMZ Sports reckons he could get between $2,000 and $3,000 for it,as of their 2020 calculations.

As you might have guessed, Twitter had a lot to say about Trump's throw from the box he was sitting in down into the audience after all, he did hit a kid on the head with a baseball. "There's a real 'you're all peasants' vibe," one spectator tweeted in response to the video. Another wrote in satire, "A lot of people said 'sir we've never seen such a perfect throw' as they wiped away their tears of joy at having seen such perfection." And yet another sarcastically alluded to Trump's previous claims that he was a star baseball player back in the day, writing, "He was the best baseball player in NY at one time."

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Why Donald Trump's Former Boast Of Being A Great Baseball Player Has Twitter In Stitches - The List

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, personal attorney to U.S. President Donald Trump, speaks in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, November 7, 2020.

Eduardo Munoz | Reuters

Rudy Giuliani, who served as personal lawyer for former President Donald Trump, so far is seeking to prevent prosecutors from seeing just three items out of the more than 2,000 contained on some of the electronic devices seized from him as part of a criminal probe, a court filing revealed Tuesday.

Giuliani is claiming that those three items are protected by attorney-client privilege, which would prevent them from being given to federal prosecutors, according to Barbara Jones, the so-called special master who is adjudicating such claims.

"I am reserving decision on those three items," Jones wrote in her filing in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. "The remaining 2,223 items have been released to the Government."

The items were contained on seven of the 16 devices seized under search warrants executed at Giuliani's Manhattan apartment and office in April. Jones is reviewing the remaining nine devices, so Giuliani could end up making more claims of privilege.

All of the items reviewed so far were created on or after Jan. 1, 2018, according to Jones.

Jones wrote that she has assigned "additional documents for review" to Giuliani's lawyers, and that she expects to be told by them by Friday what additional items they claim are privileged.

"It's a tedious but very important process that we're all going through, and we are making every effort to adhere to Judge Jones' timeline," Giuliani's attorney, Arthur Aidala told CNBC.

Giuliani is a former mayor of New York City. He also served as the top federal prosecutor in the same office that is now investigating him.

Investigators are known to be probing Giuliani's dealings in Ukraine, where he had worked to dig up politically damaging material on Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.

Trump was impeached in the House in 2019 on articles of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress related to his own efforts to pressure Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelinsky to announce an investigation into the Bidens.

Joe Biden, who at the time was the Democratic front-runner in the 2020 presidential race, defeated Trump last year.

Giuliani's lawyer Robert Costello said the search warrants were related to allegations that Giuliani had failed to register as a foreign agent,the Associated Press reported.

At the same time they raided Giuliani's location, investigators also executed a search warrant at the Washington-area home of Victoria Toensing, a Republican lawyer and Giuliani associate.

Toensing has represented Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash, the subject of an indictment in the U.S.

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U.S. District Judge Paul Oetken in May appointed Jones to screen materials related to Giuliani, Toensing and Firtash for possible privilege claims before the items were turned over to prosecutors.

Jones in her filing Tuesday said that prosecutors have provided seized material from one device seized from Toensing.

"Mr. Firtash's counsel will be conducting the review of Seized Materials related to Ms. Toensing's representation of Mr. Firtash," Jones wrote.

Jones also said that she will speak with Toensing's lawyers to determine whether they plan to review the remaining material on the device for privileged information.

In 2018,Jones was appointed special masterto sift through materials seized from Michael Cohen, who at that time was Trump's personal lawyer.

She found thatfew of those documents qualified for privilegefrom prosecutorial review.

Cohen later that year pleaded guilty to lying to Congress, to financial crimes, and to facilitating hush money payments to two women who claim to have had sex with Trump.

Before entering prison, Cohen testified before the House Oversight Committee that Trump was a racist and accused him of a range of wrongdoing.

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Trump ally Rudy Giuliani seeks to block feds from getting 3 items of thousands seized under search warrant - CNBC

U.S. Sen.Rick Scottleft the Fox News Channel bubble Sunday, appearing on Meet the Press after a good week of electoral results for Republicans in Virginia and New Jersey.

However, interviewerChuck Todd focused much of the interview on former PresidentDonald Trump, including how Trump endorsements complicate Scotts efforts with the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 2022. Scott also was compelled to say that Biden in fact was the legitimately elected President of the United States, a position that does not square with that of Trump, who continues to contend the election was somehow stolen.

Todd noted that Republicans over-performed electorally in the gubernatorial races in Virginia, where Glenn Youngkin won, and in New Jersey, whereJack Ciattarellicame close to winning. Both candidates kept Trump at arms length.

Asked about that, Scott deflected, suggesting there is a path for candidates to win without embracing Trump.

We would love Donald Trumps endorsement. If youre a Republican, you want his endorsement. But youre going to win on the issues, Scott said.

The Democratic obsession with Donald Trump is going to be good for Republicans next year, Scott predicted.

That didnt close the line of questioning, however.

Asked about Trump playing in Senate races, endorsing primary candidates such asHerschel Walker in Georgia, Scott said that Republicans ought to let the voters decide and that the issues mattered most.

Youd be foolish not to want and accept Donald Trumps endorsement, Scott added, but youre going to win not just because somebody endorses you.

Pressed on the question of AlaskasLisa Murkowski, who Trump opposes this cycle, Scott said that the NRSC does indeed back her, including financially in the Primary.

Absolutely. We support all of our incumbents, Scott said.

Ultimately though, the balancing act Scott faces between running an operation to take back the Senate and placating the former President and his base was illustrated most clearly when Scott was confronted with NBC polling that said just 22% of Republicans believe President Joe Biden was legitimately elected.

I can tell you Joe Biden is the President. We went through the Constitutional process, that, you know. He was elected, said Scott, who was among the Senators who questioned the certification and legitimacy of one or more states electors last January.

I do believe a lot of people have buyers remorse, Scott offered.

He continued to dance around the question of why people believe the election wasnt legitimate: I think youd have to ask them. But I think Joe Biden was elected President.

You can go and ask all these questions about why people think the way they do, Scott added, when confronted with a Trump quote from last month that Election Day 2020 was the real insurrection and that Jan. 6 was a mere Protest.

Scott was similarly opaque when asked why Trump has yet to concede the election.

I think youd have to ask President Trump, he offered, before again noting that Biden is a duly elected President and the Constitution was followed.

I hope Democrats focus all the time on Trump, Scott said, toward the segments close. Im focused on how we win in 2022 and I know how exactly to win. Do what I did in my three races and focus on issues.

Scott gave Trump an award months back, one invented by the NRSC to honor the former President. But in an ironic twist, its Trump that keeps presenting Scott with headaches, as this segment kept coming back to the former President.

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Donald Trump's shadow looms over Rick Scott in Meet the Press interview - Florida Politics