Trump’s ‘blood bath’ threat wasn’t even the most dangerous thing he said all weekend
Rex Huppke, USA TODAY – March 18, 2024
You might have heard some controversy over former President Donald Trump’s use of “blood bath” this weekend.
Here’s a quick summary: At an Ohio rally on Saturday, Trump was talking about the auto industry and said if he doesn’t get elected in November “it’s going to be a blood bath for the country,” prompting a number of news outlets to report things along the lines of “Trump predicts ‘blood bath’ if not elected,” which seemed pretty on point, but then a bunch of MAGA types got bent out of shape and said, “No, he was talking about it being a blood bath for the auto industry,” which still seems kind of bad and unnecessarily apocalyptic but … you know … whatever, and so a bunch of news outlets started writing about the possibility that the “blood bath” comment was taken out of context and all sorts of hand-wringing ensued and it was, to borrow a phrase, a bit of a blood bath.
Here’s the full quote, which came on the heels of his comments about the auto industry: “Now if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a blood bath for the whole – that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a blood bath for the country.”
Here’s what matters: A number of media outlets and President Joe Biden’s campaign pounced on one unhinged Trump comment that had questionable context when there were SO MANY OTHER absolutely despicable comments to choose from.
Trump’s ‘blood bath’ line overshadowed more dangerous comments
If the media erred, it was in focusing on the “blood bath” comment rather than – (please imagine me waving my hands in all directions) – everything else.
Of greater importance, I’d argue, was the fact that Trump’s Saturday rally in Dayton began with an announcer saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, please rise for the horribly and unfairly treated Jan. 6 hostages.”
The presumptive GOP presidential nominee has taken to calling the charged, tried, convicted and imprisoned insurrectionist-lunkheads who attacked the U.S. Capitol in 2021 “hostages.” He referred to them as “unbelievable patriots.”
The fact that a former president of the United States is treating domestic terrorists as heroes – they are so horribly and unfairly treated! – is certainly as newsworthy as any “blood bath” comment.
Trump calling migrants ‘animals’ should alarm everyone
Trump also continued his dehumanizing anti-immigrant rhetoric, painting a wildly inaccurate picture of “hardened criminals” by the “hundred of thousands” crossing the border and “destroying our country.”
“I don’t know if you call them people, in some cases they’re not people, in my opinion,” Trump said. “But I’m not allowed to say that because the radical left say it’s a terrible thing to say.”
Former President Donald Trump campaigns at the Dayton International Airport on March 16, 2024, in Ohio. The state holds its Republican Senate primary on the following Tuesday.
On Saturday, Trump called them “animals.” That is vile rhetoric, though not at all surprising since he has previously echoed Adolf Hitler’s language by claiming immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
When you sound like Hitler, that’s a very bad thing
Asked about similarities between his words and Hitler’s on Fox News on Sunday, Trump said: “That’s what they say; I didn’t know that.”
Sure, buddy. He apparently missed the classes on World War II in high school history. And it seems worth noting that even “accidentally” saying something that sounds like Hitler is neither good nor normal.
Unfazed by his Fox News interviewer, Trump continued to repeat the same horrendous crap: “Our country is being poisoned.”
He mocked Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker: “You have this guy Pritzker … he’s too busy eating. He wants to eat all the time. Would you like a hamburger? How many do you want? Five. … Who the hell orders five burgers?”
Of Georgia district attorney Fani Willis, who’s prosecuting one of the many criminal cases against the former president, Trump said of her name: “It’s spelled ‘fanny,’ like your a–.”
Speaking of his former competitors in the GOP primary, Trump said advisers told him to to go easy on them: “They said, ‘Sir, please don’t talk about these people that way, they’re Republicans.’ … I don’t give a sh–, they’re terrible.”
To sum things up, the “blood bath” comment, whatever the context, was bad.
But beyond that, the man a majority of Republicans believe should be the next president spent the weekend: calling the sitting president a “numbskull”; calling former Republican primary candidates “terrible”; continuing to deny the results of a free-and-fair election; calling immigrants “animals” while continuing to embrace Hitlerian rhetoric, even after being reminded it’s Hitlerian rhetoric; swearing; crudely making fun of someone’s weight and another person’s name; and calling the people who quite literally attacked the U.S. Capitol and assaulted more than 100 police officers “unbelievable patriots.”
I’d say the real controversy is the media failed to point out that Trump’s “blood bath” comment, disturbing as it is, might have been the least-bad thing he said all weekend.
With the election behind him, Putin says Russia aims to set up a buffer zone inside Ukraine
The Associated Press – March 18, 2024
Ukrainian and Russian soldiers are depicted in a tug-of-war game on a memorial in Izium, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Sunday, March 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)Family members of Vitaliy Alimov, his mother Maria and his wife Natalia, mourn over his body before his funeral in Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi, Ukraine, Monday March 18, 2024. Alimov, a firefighter, was killed in the Russian attack on Odesa on Friday March 15. (AP Photo/Victor Sajenko)Men in unmarked uniforms stand guard during the seizure of the Ukrainian corvette Khmelnitsky in Sevastopol, Crimea, Thursday, March 20, 2014. When Ukraine’s Kremlin-friendly president was ousted in 2014 by mass protests that Moscow called a U.S.-instigated coup, Russian President Vladimir Putin responded by sending troops to overrun Crimea and staging a plebiscite on joining Russia, which the West dismissed as illegal. (AP Photo, File)Emergency services workers look on as Military chaplain Archpriest Ioann shovels earth into the grave of Vitaliy Alimov during his funeral in Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi, Ukraine, Monday March 18, 2024. Alimov, a firefighter, was killed in the Russian attack on Odesa on Friday March 15. (AP Photo/Victor Sajenko)
Russian President Vladimir Putin said after extending his rule in an election that stifled opposition that Moscow will not relent in its invasion of Ukraine and plans to create a buffer zone to help protect against long-range Ukrainian strikes and cross-border raids.
The Kremlin’s forces have made battlefield progress as Kyiv’s troops struggle with a severe shortage of artillery shells and exhausted front-line units after more than two years of war. The front line stretches over 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) across eastern and southern Ukraine.
Advances have been slow and costly, and Ukraine has increasingly used its long-range firepower to hit oil refineries and depots deep inside Russia. Also, groups claiming to be Ukraine-based Russian opponents of the Kremlin have launched cross-border incursions.
“We will be forced at some point, when we consider it necessary, to create a certain ‘sanitary zone’ on the territories controlled by the (Ukrainian government),” Putin said late Sunday.
This “security zone,” Putin said, “would be quite difficult to penetrate using the foreign-made strike assets at the enemy’s disposal.”
He spoke after the release of election returns that showed him securing a fifth six-year term in a landslide in an election devoid of any real opposition following his relentless crackdown on dissent.
Monday marks the 10th anniversary of Russia’s seizure of Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula, which set the stage for Russia to invade its neighbor in February 2022. However, Putin has been vague about his goals in Ukraine since that full-scale invasion floundered.
Putin again warned the West against deploying troops to Ukraine. A possible conflict between Russia and NATO would put the world “a step away” from World War III, he said.
French President Emmanuel Macron recently said that sending Western troops into Ukraine should not be ruled out, though he said the current situation does not require it.
Commenting on the prospects for peace talks with Kyiv, Putin reaffirmed that Russia remains open to negotiations but won’t be lured into a truce that will allow Ukraine to rearm.
However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has apparently shut the door on such talks, saying Putin should be brought to trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, which last year issued an arrest warrant for Putin on war crime charges.
With crucial U.S. aid being held up in Washington, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham arrived in Kyiv on Monday, the U.S. Embassy said. Ukraine desperately needs the around $48 billion that the package of support would provide, especially artillery shells and air defense systems.
Ukraine’s air force said it intercepted 17 out of 22 Shahed drones launched by Russia over various regions of the country overnight. Russia also fired five S-300/S-400 missiles at the Kharkiv region and two Kh-59 at the Sumy region, both in northeastern Ukraine, it said.
Authorities say the intensity of ground attacks and airstrikes has increased recently in the Sumy region, prompting the evacuation of 56 people, including 26 children, from one border village over the past week.
In the past two and a half months the region has been struck more than 3,000 times, after some 8,000 strikes over all of last year, the Ukrainian regional government says. The number of aerial bomb attacks has tripled, and Russian saboteurs are highly active, according to officials.
This story corrects the name of the court to the International Criminal Court.
Trump doubles down on call for Liz Cheney to be prosecuted
Miranda Nazzaro – March 17, 2024
Former President Trump on Sunday doubled down on his push for former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) to be prosecuted over allegations she and the other Jan. 6 committee members purposely withheld testimony and details from their investigation into the former president’s actions during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection.
Trump, on Truth Social on Sunday, posted a piece from former Trump administration aide Kash Patel published in The Federalist last week, in which Patel claimed Cheney and the House Jan. 6 committee “suppressed evidence” about the former president’s authorization of National Guard troops during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection.
“SHE SHOULD BE PROSECUTED FOR WHAT SHE HAS DONE TO OUR COUNTRY! SHE ILLEGALLY DESTROYED THE EVIDENCE. UNREAL!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social while linking to Patel’s piece.
Cheney clapped back Sunday at Trump’s calls for her to be jailed on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, writing, “Hi Donald: you know these are lies. You have had all the grand jury & J6 transcripts for many months. You’re trying to halt your 1/6 trial because your VP, WH counsel, WH aides, campaign & DOJ officials etc. will testify against you. You’re afraid of the truth and you should be.”
Cheney served as vice chair of the House Jan. 6 committee and emerged as one of the most outspoken GOP critics of the former president. She has repeatedly pinned the blame on Trump for allegedly inciting the riot.
Cheney lost her seat in the House after three terms to Trump-backed challenger Rep. Harriet Hageman during the 2022 primaries in Wyoming, where Trump maintained wide support with voters.
The back-and-forth comes nearly a week after House Republicans released a new report on the Jan. 6 Capitol attack in an attempt to discredit Congress’s initial investigation into the Capitol insurrection and clear Trump of any wrongdoing as he pursues reelection.
The report, drafted by the House Administration Committee’s oversight subpanel, accuses the now-disbanded Jan. 6 select committee of embarking on a partisan witch hunt to harm the former president.
Included in the report was a detail about how the driver of Trump’s car on Jan. 6 disputed testimony from former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who previously claimed Trump tried to take control of the car and go toward the Capitol. She told the public she heard in a story from others that Trump had “lunged” for the steering wheel after his speech near the White House in an apparent attempt to go toward the Capitol on Jan. 6.
The unnamed driver told the committee, however, that Trump “never grabbed the steering wheel,” and he said he “didn’t see him … lunge to try to get into the front seat at all.”
Republicans have seized on the driver’s testimony and how the committee did not release it earlier as further fuel to their argument Trump’s actions on Jan. 6 should be exonerated.
A copy of the transcript of the driver’s testimony, reviewed by The New York Times, indicated the driver did back Hutchinson’s details about Trump’s insistence to join supporters at the Capitol.
Trump currently faces four felonies over his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, though the trial has been delayed while the Supreme Court weighs whether the former president’s actions on Jan. 6 fall under presidential immunity. Trump has argued he cannot be prosecuted because he was working as president at the time.
The ‘authoritarian’ lessons Trump and the Republicans want to learn from Orbán’s Hungary
Katie Hawkinson – March 15, 2024
Donald Trump and Viktor Orbán pictured together meeting in March 2024 (HUNGARIAN PRIME MINISTER’S OFFICE)
As he gears up for the 2024 election, presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump met with an old ally: Viktor Orban, the Prime Minister of Hungary who has triggered a democratic backslide in his country.
Their meeting came just one week before National Hungary Day when Mr Orbán gave a speech condemning the “Western world.”
“They start wars, destroy worlds, redraw countries’ borders and graze on everything like locusts,” Mr Orbán told a crowd in Budapest, per the Associated Press. “We Hungarians live differently and want to live differently.”
The exact details of the discussion between Mr Trump and Mr Orbán are unclear. Mr Trump’s campaign released a statement describing their conversation as focused on “a wide range of issues affecting Hungary and the United States, including the paramount importance of strong and secure borders to protect the sovereignty of each nation.”
Regardless, the conversation clearly went well, with Mr Orbán calling the former president his “good friend” on Monday. The same day, the Hungarian Prime Minister also praised Mr Trump’s reported comment that he will not send any aid to Ukraine if elected. Meanwhile, Mr Trump has mentioned Mr Orbán in several remarks, including a 2023 speech in which he wrongly referred to him as the President of Turkey.
Even beyond Mr Trump, the GOP has a fixation with Hungary and Mr Orbán’s government. In 2022, former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson focused on Hungary, releasing a documentary that appeared to portray the country as a model for conservatism. More recently Carlson has been singing the praises of Vladimir Putin’s Russia – both Mr Trump and Mr Orbán have a close relationship with the Russian dictator.
So, why do Mr Trump and Mr Orbán get along so well? Experts tell The Independent it’s because Mr Trump wants to learn from Mr Orbán if re-elected in 2024.
Why is Donald Trump obsessed with Viktor Orbán?
The former President and Mr Orbán have similar goals for the future world order — making them eager allies, Robert Benson, a senior policy analyst with the Center for American Progress, told The Independent.
“It’s no coincidence that someone like Viktor Orban is attempting to build a relationship with Stephen Miller, with Donald Trump, with the Maga Republicans on this side of the Atlantic,” Dr Benson said. “Because they see themselves in a civilizational battle for the future of what they call ‘Western Civilization.’ This is steeped in anti-immigrant xenophobia, in right-wing nationalism, and in tropes about the nation-state.”
Mr Trump, of course, has made his far-right, anti-immigration stance clear since day one of his 2016 presidential campaign. Similarly, Mr Orbán has expressed radical views on immigration since 2015 — and in 2022, he said he did not want Hungarians to become “peoples of mixed race.”
“I am the only politician in the EU who stands for an openly anti-immigration policy,” Mr Orbán said. “This is not a race issue for us, this is a cultural issue.”
Meanwhile, Kim Scheppele, Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at Princeton University, sees the Trump-Orbán relationship in a different light — rather than plotting a new future for civilization, she says the two leaders are “just opportunistic, transactionalists looking to cut a deal whenever it happens.”
“Both of them are just transactional politicians,” Dr Scheppele told The Independent. “One of the reasons why both of them love dictators — and don’t like organizations like Nato, the EU and so on — is because dictators are also transactional. They don’t expect you to be loyal forever; everything is just a deal in the moment.”
Mr Trump would not have to entirely pull out of Nato to reject their principles during a potential second presidency. As journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Anne Applebaum wrote in The Atlantic, Mr Trump could simply reject Article 5, which states an attack against one Nato nation “shall be considered an attack against them all”. Though, as former United States Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said, a second Trump presidency could certainly mean the end of US Nato membership. Though he did not outright reject it, Mr Trump did not specifically endorse Article 5 at the 2017 Nato summit.
“Trump admires lots of dictators, but I think he admires them because they stay in power forever, because they look all powerful, but that mostly because their foreign policy doesn’t tie them up in strings,” Dr Scheppele said.
“Orbán becomes a model for this kind of foreign policy,” Dr Scheppele continued.
Now, Hungary is in a democratic backslide. Mr Orbán has sought to undermine education, even targeting his former ally-turned-enemy George Soros, who founded Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. Mr Orbán forced Mr Soros – who has become a hate figure to the hard right across the world over his support for civil society projects – to relocate the university to Vienna in 2018.
In 2022, the EU Parliament declared that Hungary could no longer be called a full democracy, labelling it an “electoral autocracy.” Lawmakers raised several concerns about the Hungarian government, including the lack of media pluralism, religious freedom and independence of the judiciary.
“Academic freedom, freedom of religion, freedom of association, the right to equal treatment, including LGBTIQ rights, the rights of minorities, as well as those of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, are also problematic,” Parliament said in a statement.
Then, in 2023, Hungary passed Mr Orbán’s Defence of National Sovereignty Act, which authorized the creation of a new government authority that can gather information on any organizations or individuals that benefit from foreign funds or that can influence public debate.
Dr Scheppele called the law an “authoritarian monster.” Meanwhile, the European Commission said last month the law violated European Union law.
What could this alliance mean if Mr Trump is re-elected?
Practically, Dr Benson said a second Trump administration could bring withdrawals from international institutions.
“So, in the event that Trump were to win the presidency in 2024, he would probably withdraw from international institutions,” Dr Benson told The Independent. “He’s mentioned his disdain for NATO. This plays neatly into a playbook for Vladimir Putin, who is banking exactly on our domestic politics to be able to succeed in Ukraine.”
Meanwhile, Dr Scheppele pointed to Project 2025, a conservative playbook for the next presidential administration that calls for a series of actions to bolster a potential conservative presidency come the 2024 election. Its purpose is to avoid the mistakes of 2017 when Mr Trump first took office and the GOP was woefully underprepared. Along with replacing supposedly impartial federal officials with fellow conservatives, Project 2025 also calls for several policy revisions, such as re-adding the citizenship question to the US Census and reversing the FDA approval of abortion pills.
Wes Coopersmith, the Chief of Staff for the Heritage Foundation who oversees Project 2025, told The Independent that replacing employees with GOP allies if Mr Trump is elected would be “democratic.”
“We think the most democratic way to run the administration is with folks who agree with the President, who voted for the president, who agree with his policies and want to implement that,” Mr Coopersmith said.
Mr Orbán’s success leading an “authoritarian” government relied on “decapitating” the civil service and replacing it with his extremist allies, which mirrors the Project 2025 strategy, Dr Scheppele said.
“In 2010, [Orbán] came in and decapitated the civil service, replacing with all his own loyalists, reinstated Civil Service protection for them and captured the state bureaucracy — that was a big part of how he went about locking himself into power,” Dr Scheppele told The Independent. “You see this as the blueprint for Trump.”
“There is an ideological battle at play between liberal democracy and those who espouse a kind of perverted autocracy,” Dr Benson said.
“It’s clear that this is very much part of the stakes going into 2024 here at home,” he continued.
There is only one thing that matters about Donald Trump — and it’s not his crimes or mental decline
Brian Karem – March 14, 2024
Donald Trump Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images
I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m already tired of the presidential election campaign and it’s just mid-March. And I like politics.
Usually, by this time in the campaign season, we’re not even sure who the nominees are yet. This year we already know and most of us have already made up our minds. That doesn’t mean anyone has stopped yelling at us, of course. It just means if you’re covering politics you’re already tired because the divisive rancor in this country is headed for overdrive until November (and possibly afterward) and some of us would like to spend a little bit of time thinking about someone other than Donald Trump or Joe Biden. The wife. The kids. The family. Maybe that mime on the beach who nearly drowned. Whoever. Whatever.
To quickly recap, standing in the sewage and heaving his own political feces far and wide is the wild orangutan of the Republican, excuse me MAGA, party – Donald Trump. We know what he’s all about. Do I really need to go into great detail? What can I possibly say that hasn’t already been written, said, recorded or spoken about the man. He’s still chaos in a blender.
And his supporters? Most of them fall not too far from the poisoned tree of Trump. I spoke with one of his Midwest supporters this week; a used car salesman who believes all politicians are liars, but Donald is special. “They all lie. They’re all crooks. They’re all corrupt. The country was better under Trump though. We were at peace. He got us out of Afghanistan and Biden screwed that up. We were at peace with Russia and Biden screwed that up. There wasn’t a war in the Middle East. That’s Biden’s fault too.”
How do you dissect that nonsense? I didn’t even waste my time arguing with the guy. He’s like a bad SNL skit. It’s as bad as the morons who think God has chosen Trump to lead us to the promised land. If Joe Biden loses to this level of stupidity, he will have no one to blame but himself – and a Democratic Party that hasn’t effectively fought back.
Donald is busy slurring his way through speeches, calling other Americans “The enemy”, and creating campaign issues out of inaction, blame, deflection and fiction. You know, typical Trump.
On the other hand, we have Joe Biden. The MAGA party is falling over itself in befuddlement as it tries to impeach him for reasons they don’t understand, can’t articulate and don’t believe. It is all to support their own candidate, who many of them secretly loathe but are willing to support because . . . they’ve got no one else. Think about it. Who in that party, outside of Trump, has any national appeal? Matt Gaetz would lose a fistfight to Rand Paul’s hair perm. The only real challenger is Nikki Haley and Trump effectively destroyed her by Super Tuesday.
Meanwhile, special prosecutor Robert Hur showed up in Congress this week to answer questions about the investigation into Joe Biden and his handling of classified documents. Hur was the guy who described Biden as a well-meaning old geezer. Since the prosecutor admitted Biden did nothing illegal, all the GOP could do was try to parse his words for soundbites and faux political arguments making the airwaves at Fox, and in articles at Breitbart.
Hur was vilified by the left, lionized by the right and in the end, no one did anything – because, after all, this is a MAGA-controlled Congress and they can barely keep the lights on. That’s fine with Jim Jordan because he apparently operates best in the dark.
While the MAGA party has no real charges, so far, to level against Biden, that doesn’t keep them from calling him a degenerate, a corrupt criminal, a chronic bed wetter and a drooling dotard with dementia. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. Say it enough and the acolytes will believe. More importantly, they’ll start quoting you – that’s all the MAGA party wants. They say it here. It comes out there. Garbage in. Garbage out.
Meanwhile, over on the Meidas Touch video channel, a former Trump employee talked about Trump’s often explosive and violent bowel movements and his use of adult diapers.
But, even if Trump explosively evacuates his bowels on stage in front of thousands, you can’t count him out because remember those four jurisdictions with felony charges against him? Well, looks like that will never keep him out of the presidential race.
The first case to go to court, or maybe not, will be the Stormy Daniels hush money case in Manhattan. Even the fiercest prosecutors think that while the facts of the case are valid, it’s a stretch to charge Trump with a felony – it’s more likely just a misdemeanor. Former fixer Michael Cohen is waiting for a showdown with Trump – which Trump doesn’t want, so Trump has asked for a delay based on his claims of unlimited immunity – for actions that took place before he was president. That’s truly funny. I wonder if he’d claim immunity on stealing lunch money in fifth grade based on his “unlimited” immunity?
The Mar-a-Lago classified documents case is probably the strongest against Trump, but a Trump-friendly judge has prosecutor Jack Smith completely hamstrung, despite the fact that, as Ted Lieu so ably pointed out in the hearing with Hur, Trump lied, conspired to destroy evidence, shifted blame, lied again and then tried a Vulcan mind meld to say he could do whatever he wanted.
The D.C. insurrection case is so tied up in Supreme Court shenanigans it will be lucky to go to trial this fall. And in Georgia? The one case that Trump could not dismiss if he were re-elected? It may never get to trial. A judge dismissed six charges against Trump for lack of evidence. That prompted hoots, screams of “Deep State” (though it was the state that dismissed the charges) and of course, the inevitable plea by Trump for more money from his supporters. Meanwhile, the judge is still to rule on the tryst between Fulton County District Attorney Fanni Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade. That whole case sounds like a season of the old soap opera “All My Children.” Trump loves soap operas, so he’s munching popcorn and cheeseburgers waiting gleefully for that dustup to end so he can bilk his supporters for more money while screaming, ranting and raving (and perhaps suffering from explosive diarrhea) no matter what the outcome is.
What a presidential race this is turning out to be.
“We don’t have it so good in this country,” a Trump follower told me. “I don’t like either candidate, but I’ll choose Trump cause he can get things done.”
What, on God’s green Earth, or Trump’s scorched Earth, gives anyone the impression that Trump can get anything done? He never has. He couldn’t even run his own real estate “empire.”
He never got an infrastructure bill passed despite announcing “Infrastructure Week” nearly every week of his presidency. Members of his own party lament that they didn’t get border policy legislation passed when they controlled Congress during the Trump administration. The MAGA party claims immigration, the economy and national security are the main issues in the election – and while they may be right, they also haven’t done anything to contribute to solving any of the problems. They’ve only worked to exacerbate them and exploit them for Trump’s benefit.
Trump doesn’t care about solving the problems, and some of us don’t recognize the true problems we face. For example, the biggest fallout from prosecutor Hur’s testimony in Congress highlighted just how easy it is for our enemies to get access to classified and Top Secret information.
Don’t expect us to pay much attention to that salient point. Explosive bowel movements, hush money to hookers, and “illegal” immigrants who take all the jobs while sitting on their butts not working and getting unemployment are our biggest talking points.
Biden reached out to Trump to solve the immigration problem. “Let’s work together,” he said. Trump would have none of that. He just wants to dish out blame.
That leaves the “Thump them in the nose” approach the only viable alternative to Trump.
To hell with arguing about court cases. To hell with pointing out Trump’s foibles. Hillary Clinton lost because she didn’t go where she needed the votes in 2016. Concentrate on beating Trump at the polls. Make sure the election is secure. Make sure there’s no fraud. Make sure there’s no suppression. Concentrate on doing those things and then it doesn’t matter if Trump goes to prison. Just make sure the seditious ass clown never makes it back to the White House. Count every vote and everyone must vote.
Isn’t that the real goal? Personally, I do not care if Trump spends one day in prison – though he deserves to spend the rest of his days there. I also don’t care that he’s old, or that Biden is old.
These things are distractions. The die has been cast. For the next eight and a half months we have to listen to the most moronic, insipid, ridiculous presidential campaign of all time between one old geezer with explosive bowel movements, and another who suffers from sleep apnea and is nursing a broken foot.
The only thing to do is to keep an eye on the prize. Do not be fooled by trinkets, and baubles. It doesn’t matter what goes on in court. It doesn’t matter if Donald is demented. It doesn’t matter if he’s a fascist, authoritarian, a despot, a philanderer, a numbskull, a loon, or a spoiled brat who has mommy and daddy issues. It matters that the atavistic ass could be our president – again. So, don’t focus on the Depends. Focus on the end.
Donald Trump must never return to the White House. We know what and who he is. Don’t waste your time pointing out the obvious, or getting upset about it. Do something positive. Turn out the votes. It is not a time to be complacent. It is not a time to become bored or unamused. The next eight months will be a trial of everyone’s intestinal fortitude.
I read recently one reporter’s lament about suffering from PTSD following the 2016 campaign. Wussy. Buckle up buttercup. These are the times that try all souls. You’ve got a job to do. Report the facts. If we did that there might be fewer MAGA supporters as a result.
The voters have a job to do, too.
Quit whining. Don’t listen to the next eight months of gaslighting. Vote.
GOP nominee to run North Carolina public schools called for violence against Democrats, including executing Obama and Biden
Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck – March 14, 2024
From Michele Morrow/Facebook
The Republican nominee for superintendent overseeing North Carolina’s public schools and its $11 billion budget has a history marked by extreme and controversial comments, including sharing baseless conspiracy theories and frequent calls for the execution of prominent Democrats.
Michele Morrow, a conservative activist who last week upset the incumbent Superintendent of Public Instruction in North Carolina’s Republican primary, expressed support in 2020 for the televised execution of former President Barack Obama and suggested killing then-President-elect Joe Biden.
In other comments on social media between 2019 and 2021 reviewed by CNN’s KFile, Morrow made disturbing suggestions about executing prominent Democrats for treason, including Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Hillary Clinton, Sen. Chuck Schumer and other prominent people such as Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates.
“I prefer a Pay Per View of him in front of the firing squad,” she wrote in a tweet from May 2020, responding to a user sharing a conspiracy theory who suggested sending Obama to prison at Guantanamo Bay. “I do not want to waste another dime on supporting his life. We could make some money back from televising his death.”
In another post in May 2020, she responded to a fake Time Magazine cover that featured art of Obama in an electric chair asking if he should be executed.
“Never. We need to follow the Constitution’s advice and KILL all TRAITORS!!! #JusticeforAmerica,” she wrote.
CNN reached out to Morrow and her campaign multiple times but did not receive a response.
From activist to candidate
Last Tuesday, Morrow defeated Catherine Truitt, the incumbent North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction, in the Republican primary. Morrow, a registered nurse and grassroots activist who homeschooled her children, ran on a platform of supporting parental rights and opposing critical race theory.
As superintendent, Morrow would oversee the state’s public school system and help set educational priorities, manage the school system’s budgets, and work with the state’s Board of Education to set and implement curriculum standards. Her website lists endorsements by “conservative school boards” but remains light on changes she’d make if elected.
In a campaign speech in February, Morrow advocated for a constitutional amendment to abolish the state Board of Education, which sets policies and procedures for public schools in the state. Doing away with the board would put direct control over the state’s education agenda under the superintendent and the state legislature, which is currently controlled by Republicans.
“I’d like to see a constitutional amendment to get rid of the state Board of Education,”she said. “If the superintendent is elected and works under the legislature – knowing that they’re accountable to the legislature to oversee the DPI and to oversee and have impact into the superintendents in the 115 districts, I think we would be so much better off because you don’t have all these extra people right in mix.”
Morrow has espoused a wide range of extreme views on social media in recent years. Many of her past extreme comments were made on her now-dormant personal Twitter account — which is separate from her campaign account.
Morrow also promoted QAnon slogans and tweeted that the actor Jim Carrey was “… likely searching for adrenochrome” – a reference to a conspiracy theory shared by QAnon believers that celebrities harvest and drink the blood of children to prolong their own lives. Media Matters, a left-leaning publication, was first to report the QAnon tweets.
All together, Morrow tweeted “WWG1WGA” – the slogan that stands for “where we go one, we go all” and is commonly associated with the QAnon conspiracy – more than seven times in 2020.
Central to QAnon lore is the notion of the “Storm,” a belief there will be a day when thousands will purportedly be arrested, subjected to military tribunals, and face mass executions for their alleged crimes, with Donald Trump leading efforts to dismantle them alongside other QAnon “patriots.”
Violent fantasies about executing Democrats
Morrow’s post about publicly executing Obama was just one of numerous she has made espousing carrying out violent fantasies against Democrats.
On Twitter, the platform now known as X, and on the now-defunct conservative Twitter alternative, Parler, Morrow used the hashtag “#DeathtoTraitors” a combined 12 times – usually in relation to prominent Democrats.
In another post from July 2019, Morrow targeted Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar and other Democrats, suggesting their impending death for unspecified “treason.”
“@IlhanMN and her other law-hating Dems must be getting a little nervous. Are they just realizing the punishment for treason is death?!?” Morrow wrote.
In a post on Parler, Morrow used the hashtag #deathtotraitors in discussing the Democratic governors of North Carolina and New York, Cooper and Cuomo. Morrow publicized her Parler handle in a tweet and CNN found the deleted Parler posts on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.
“Our Communist sympathizer, Comrade Cooper, has the same plans for NC!Expose them NOW!Can we we see the CCP list, @SecPompeo??? #PrisonTimeforFederalCrimes #DeathToTraitors #FreeOurCitizens,” Morrow wrote in 2020, discussing restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In other posts on Parler, Morrow shared posts from other users and a QAnon account about locking up Democrats at Guantanamo Bay and prisons.
Morrow’s ire also went beyond Democrats, including one post in December 2020 calling for putting Republican Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia in prison after he certified Georgia’s results for Joe Biden in that year’s presidential election.
Shared conspiracies and made anti-Muslim comments
In other comments, Morrow repeatedlyshared the false claim that Obama was Muslim, called Islam evil, and expressed belief in a conspiracy theory that tens of thousands of Chinese troops were stationed in Canada to invade the United States to help Joe Biden become president.
“Tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers are already in Canada and probably Mexico waiting for orders to invade,” she wrote on January 8, 2021.
In another post from September 2019, Morrow said that Barack Obama (referred to as B.O.) was a puppet for the “Deep State” and the “Muslim movement” and suggested he pay the highest penalty for his alleged crimes.
“B.O. was a puppet for the Deep State and the Muslim movement to destroy our Constitutional Republic. We cannot give up until ALL the guilty pay the highest penalty for their crimes. We will lose our country #SAVEOURNATION #JusticeForAll #TraitorsMustPay
“The DEEP STATE globalists and Muslim extremists, intent on destroying America, placed Omar and MANY others into our govt. #WakeUpAmerica #IslamIsEvil #ToleranceIsDeadly,” she wrote in January 2020.
In one post, Morrow said Muslims should be banned from elected office in the United States and said Rep. Omar, who came to the United States as a refugee, should, “head back to Somalia.”
Vote against Trump, former supporters urge in $50m video campaign
Lauren Aratani – March 13, 2024
Donald Trump’s role in the January 6 insurrection is cited by many former supporters as a key factor in turning them against the former president. Photograph: Sam Navarro/USA Today Sports
An anti-Donald Trump group of Republicans is launching its second campaign against the former president, spending $50m and using testimonials from former supporters in an attempt to convince voters to turn away from Trump.
This week, Republican Voters Against Trump released 100 videos recorded by anti-Trump Republicans explaining why they no longer support him.
Sarah Longwell, president of Republican Accountability political action committee, which is behind the campaign, explained the logic behind the effort in a press release on Tuesday.
“Traditional Republican voters who have long supported the party but have concerns about Donald Trump proved decisive in the 2020 election. By targeting these voters and reaching them with credible messengers, the campaign will establish a permission structure for them to withhold their support from Trump again,” she said.
“This will help re-create the anti-Trump coalition that made the margin of victory in 2020 and holds the key to 2024.
The group ran the same unconventional ad campaign against Trump in 2020, when it ultimately received over a thousand homemade testimonials on its website.
“One of the reasons they are so compelling is because you can tell how authentic they are, how deeply they feel this – a lot of them want to get something off their chest,” Longwell told the Guardian in 2020.
Longwell told the New York Times in a piece published on Tuesday that she had raised $20m so far for 2024 and hoped to raise the rest of the $30m before the election in November. The group has received large donations from anti-Trump billionaires, according to Forbes, including the Democratic donor and co-founder of LinkedIn Reid Hoffman and John Pritzker, a member of the family that owns the Hyatt hotel chain.
In many of the videos, former supporters say that the January 6 Capitol insurrection turned them against Trump.
“January 6 was the end of Donald Trump for me. I could not believe what was happening before my eyes – watching what was an insurrection at the Capitol, which was, in my mind, unquestionably led by Donald Trump,” Ethan, a former Trump supporter from Wisconsin, said in one video.
Chuck, a supporter from Nebraska, similarly said that he “completely 100% hold[s] him accountable for the insurrection”.
“I will vote Democrat. I can’t believe I’m saying it. But I will not ever support or vote for Donald Trump ever. I’ll vote for Joe Biden,” Chuck said.
Many other supporters similarly express disbelief at Trump’s popularity with the Republican party, often saying that Biden is the first Democrat they have ever supported.
“Now, I understand that a lot of people say, ‘Oh, well look at maybe Joe Biden in his past,’ and you hear that ‘Oh, everyone’s corrupt and has got a torrid past,’” said Paul, a voter in North Carolina, in his testimonial. “Maybe Joe Biden does, something he lied about many years ago about his record, but he’s not even in the same league as Trump as far as all the different lies.”
Longwell said in the release this week that she believed “former Republicans and Republican-leaning voters hold the key to 2024”.
“Whatever their complaints about Joe Biden – Donald Trump is too dangerous and too unhinged to ever be president again,” she said. “Who better to make this case than the voters who used to support him?”
Trump Hit With Harsh Truth After Harsh Truth From Former Voters In Scathing Ads
Lee Moran – March 13, 2024
Republicans who have in the past voted for Donald Trump explain exactly why they will never do so again in a damning series of testimonials released this week by the Republican Accountability PAC.
The conservative political action committee is spending $50 million on its Republican Voters Against Trump campaign to spotlight “real former Trump voters making the case for why they won’t support him in November,” according to a news release.
In a video released Tuesday, one- and two-time Trump voters reel off a long list of reasons for not backing the former president as he seeks to retake the White House.
They condemn the twice-impeached Trump as the “biggest threat to our democracy,” “responsible for the violence” at the 2021 U.S. Capitol riot, and more.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ahBKWQssQ5o%3Frel%3D0
In another video, a Virginia Republican named Beth explains how the Trump-instigated riot was “like a sucker punch” and made her realize “this is not the party that I thought we had.”
Trump’s 2021 decision to throw then-Vice President Mike Pence “under the bus and … to the wolves and the lions” for not helping him overturn the 2020 election result made Beth “sick to my stomach,” she says.
She says she’d back any rival if Trump’s “evil” is on the ballot, and acknowledges that President Joe Biden’s administration has been “a bit refreshing.”
“I’ll take kind, older man any day over the tyrant,” she says.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Cxqw4wzkGOQ%3Frel%3D0
A third clip shows a man named Dennis, identified as a former service member, condemning Trump for reportedly making derogatory comments about U.S. veterans and war dead.
Trump only thinks about protecting himself, he says.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=NcC80GCSOVQ%3Frel%3D0
The Republican Accountability PAC is one of multiple conservative groups seeking to prevent Trump from returning to the White House.
Its campaign will particularly focus on states that are “‘blue wall’ battlegrounds,” per the news release, with the goal of re-creating “the anti-Trump coalition that won in 2020 by targeting soft GOP voters and Republican-leaning independents.”
“Former Republicans and Republican-leaning voters hold the key to 2024, and reaching them with credible, relatable messengers is essential,” read a statement from Sarah Longwell, the president of the Republican Accountability PAC.
“It establishes a permission structure that says that—whatever their complaints about Joe Biden—Donald Trump is too dangerous and too unhinged to ever be president again,” Longwell explained. “Who better to make this case than the voters who used to support him?”
The videos will air “on TV, streaming, radio, billboards, and digital media,” according to the group. However, while such ads attacking Trump (especially from conservatives) have gone viral in recent years, their actual effect on swaying voters remains up for debate.
“Obviously low IQ”: Former DHS official says “Donald Trump has apparent repeated memory lapses”
Chauncey DeVega – March 12, 2024
Donald Trump Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
During last week’s State of the Union speech, President Biden fired a series of broadsides against Donald Trump and his MAGA movement. President Biden fired off this opening salvo and the Republicans in the audience, and more generally, never recovered from it.
Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault here at home as they are today. What makes our moment rare is that freedom and democracy are under attack, both at home and overseas, at the very same time.
Overseas, Putin of Russia is on the march, invading Ukraine and sowing chaos throughout Europe and beyond. If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you, he will not.
But Ukraine can stop Putin if we stand with Ukraine and provide the weapons it needs to defend itself. That is all Ukraine is asking. They are not asking for American soldiers. In fact, there are no American soldiers at war in Ukraine. And I am determined to keep it that way. But now assistance for Ukraine is being blocked by those who want us to walk away from our leadership in the world. It wasn’t that long ago when a Republican President, Ronald Reagan, thundered, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”
Now, my predecessor, a former Republican President, tells Putin, “Do whatever the hell you want.”
A former American President actually said that, bowing down to a Russian leader. It’s outrageous. It’s dangerous. It’s unacceptable.
Everyone was expecting a historic train wreck of a State of the Union last night and they got it. But it wasn’t the one they thought it would be. President Joe Biden’s address was powerful and dynamic and no doubt put a lot of timorous Democrats’ worries to rest (at least for a day or so.) It was Donald Trump’s highly touted response that failed dramatically.
Biden came out swinging and knocked the Republicans so far back on their heels that they had to completely abandon the image of him they’ve been building since 2020 — a man so old and feeble that he can’t even feed himself — and instead hilariously whimper about his loud macho aggression….Biden gave a barn burner of a speech that wasn’t boring, which is highly unusual for any president but especially unusual for a president many people have been convinced has one foot in the grave.
At the end of the State of the Union speech, President Biden made a bold move, landing another salvo on his critics and enemies, who are advancing the lie of a narrative that he is somehow “too old” or perhaps even “senile” and therefore should not seek a second term in office.
In my career I’ve been told I’m too young and I’m too old.
Whether young or old, I’ve always known what endures.
Our North Star.
The very idea of America, that we are all created equal and deserve to be treated equally throughout our lives.
We’ve never fully lived up to that idea, but we’ve never walked away from it either.
And I won’t walk away from it now.
My fellow Americans, the issue facing our nation isn’t how old we are, it’s how old our ideas are.
Hate, anger, revenge, retribution are among the oldest of ideas.
But you can’t lead America with ancient ideas that only take us back.
To lead America, the land of possibilities, you need a vision for the future of what America can and should be.
Tonight you’ve heard mine.
President Biden was clearly implying that it is actually Donald Trump, and not him, who especially in these last few days and weeks, has repeatedly shown that he appears to be facing serious cognitive challenges in terms of his speech, thinking, and memory.
Sounding the alarm about Trump’s growing dangerousness, Dr. John Gartner explained to me in a widely read conversation here at Salon that, “Not enough people are sounding the alarm, that based on his behavior, and in my opinion, Donald Trump is dangerously demented. In fact, we are seeing the opposite among too many in the news media, the political leaders and among the public. There is also this focus on Biden’s gaffes or other things that are well within the normal limits of aging. By comparison, Trump appears to be showing gross signs of dementia. This is a tale of two brains. Biden’s brain is aging. Trump’s brain is dementing”.
Dr. Gartner’s colleague, Dr. Harry Segal, who is a senior lecturer at Cornell University and Weill Cornell Medical School, even went so far to suggest that Donald Trump should withdraw from the 2024 presidential campaign.
At several events last week, as predicted by Dr. Gartner and his colleagues, President Trump continued to manifest apparent challenges in speech, memory, and cognition.
In an attempt to make better sense of Donald Trump’s obvious cognitive challenges and related behavior in the context of the country’s democracy crisis and the 2024 election, and what may happen next, I recently asked a range of experts for their thoughts and suggestions.
Will Bunch is a national opinion columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Clearly, Donald Trump is struggling to hold a coherent thought or find the proper word, and I notice it seems to be increasing every time he gives a speech. Everyone ages differently, and I think of my dad who just turned 87 and it totally lucid in conversation although he does occasionally forget a name (as do I, at 65!), I’m not at all an expert on brain health, but based on what’s observable and also the folks who are experts whose analyses I’ve read I think there’s a real problem.
Voters should have serious conversations about what it means to be president, what the real issues are around presidential health, and how Trump and Biden might be different from each other. Generally speaking, I think the Ronald Reagan “charismatic actor” reinvention of the presidency makes people forget that we’re actually electing the CEO of a massive organization, with smart people in corner offices channeling the policies and morals of the boss. No one is bombing Barbados instead of Syria because an aging president said the wrong thing. That said, I think Trump’s mental struggles should be taken seriously by voters because in his case it seems to be linked to his moods and his temperament. He’s promised a presidency of “retribution” and to surround himself with aides who can act on his whims. That’s concerning. But will most voters care? Probably not.
It feels like the lessons the mainstream media have taken from the Trump years are exactly the wrong ones: a doubling down on a bland and ultimately phony interpretation of “balance and objectivity.” It seems that occasionally going out on a limb and calling out Trump for some of his lies from 2017-2021 means they were salivating for a chance to prove they can be just as tough on Biden – whether or not he deserves it. For a time, that stalking horse was “inflation,” but the price increases cooled, and Biden got four years older, so here we are. So much of this is journalists indulging voters by focusing on style when the substance in this election is life or death for America.
Miles Taylor is a national security expert who served under the Trump administration as chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security. Writing as “Anonymous,” Taylor published the widely discussed 2018 New York Times op-ed “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.” Taylor’s most recent book is “Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump.”
Donald Trump is obviously a deeply troubled person. Strip away the politics and his biography, and any person who would spend time with the man would come to the same conclusion: he’s a sick person, devoid of any moral system beyond relentless self-aggrandizement. The self-interest colors his every interaction. The man’s eyes scan every room — and situation — opportunistically for leverage, for moments to advance himself at the expense of others. This has happened to the people closest to him … to his employees … and to the country.
On a more simple level, Donald Trump has apparent repeated memory lapses, difficulty synthesizing complex information, disinterest in nuance, and an obviously low IQ. He’s not a smart man, and some would say he shows clear signs of decline. If it were a screenplay, a wannabe gangster with dementia might be an oddball comedy. But on the national stage, it’s a civic tragedy.
Ultimately, the election is less about Trump than it ever was. It’s now about us. We elevated a man to the nation’s highest office, witnessed a truly innumerable string of incidents displaying his ineptitude and immorality, watched him attempt to subvert the Constitution and commit crimes, and now we are giving serious consideration to restoring him to that office. If that is what we are doing, one might say we deserve a second Trump presidency. Perhaps it will be enough to shock the conscience of our society that it’s time to renegotiate our social contract. Perhaps not.
Yes, Joe Biden has lost his step. It shows. But there’s no comparison between an elderly man and an authoritarian one.
Jared Yates Sexton is a journalist and author of the new book “The Midnight Kingdom: A History of Power, Paranoia, and the Coming Crisis.”
I see a deeply unwell person. I think sometimes we get lost in politics and forget to look at the situation as human beings. What we’re dealing with is an abusive, deteriorating man who is somehow even getting worse. Fascism feeds on that unwellness and accelerates the process until it leaves a husk, a host, and that’s what we’re watching in real time. Everything else stems from that and that, coupled with the rhetoric, tells a story we should all be listening to.
As I say all the time, a healthy political system and American society would have rejected Donald Trump in 2016 like so much bad food. That it didn’t betrays a sickness. What should happen is a complex series of legal consequences and systematic expulsions. On a political level, a complete rejection by the electorate and movement toward something reconciliatory.
Biden’s age is an issue. We should be concerned about the fitness of a president. The media obsession is simply the same thing that propelled the e-mail debacle. Lazy journalism mixed with the neoliberal refusal to wrestle with itself. They want a right-wing turn in their bones but aren’t even conscious about it. These cycles give themselves away after a while.
Investigative reporter Heidi Siegmund Cuda writes about US politics and culture at her Substack newsletter and for Byline Times, and Byline Supplement.
I do my best not to watch the spectacle of Trump. He’s an avatar for the destruction of our country and America as a reliable ally, and his “moth to flame” circuses have turned us into stock characters — the outraged or the devoted. But it’s impossible to not see the clips of his antics, and yes, the obvious sloppy, sweaty decline is notable. But always when we’re watching a propagandist in action — how much is organic and how much is miming Vincent the Chin’s ‘bathrobe shuffle’? It behooves him to be “losing it” when committing crimes, and this cat has had more than nine lives. He detonates narrative warfare wherever he goes, so it’s difficult to decipher what is planted to create spectacle to feed the mangy cult and what is a true trash fire of a human.
The more critical framing for me is what it says about us that a man who led an insurrection, is an adjudicated sex assaulter, a convicted fraud, an agent of Russian disinformation who engaged in a cover up of his own nefarious activity, and a likely superspreader of America’s most guarded secrets, is a political party’s frontrunner. I guess I don’t care if he mispronounces “Venezuela” while appearing to get high on his own supply, I care about the fascism. Project 2025 is a fascist endeavor.
If we were a healthy society, we would prioritize a return to decency and the rule of law. We would swiftly arrest Donald Trump and his co-conspirators for their complicity in an attempted coup, which somehow this country seems to have forgotten. I’m tired of limited hangouts — I’m tired of small sentences for big crimes, and convictions for minor players. I want to see this country standup against authoritarians and oligarchs, who are trying to remove all barriers to their unrestrained lust for power. From the moment Trump removed language to water down support for Ukraine at the 2016 RNC, his role has been to hand Ukraine to Russia, which he is now doing through his proxies like Mike Johnson. I bring this up because until we have a proper framework, we will be continually tilting at windmills. The proper framing is Trump, his proxies, and his handlers, are aiming to destroy the US as an international power. They are using narrative warfare as a battering ram, and we need to take back the narrative quickly. We need to bullhorn the stakes. Women will likely have to take the lead, because it’s our rights that are imperiled.
The media’s obsession with Biden’s age (“But His Age….”) is America getting caught in the trap of narrative warfare, yet again. “But His Age” is simply “But Her Emails” as we saw with Hillary Clinton — it’s a gaslighting mantra for simpletons who don’t want to think too hard about the fact that we are the targets of a global fascist criminal movement attempting to eviscerate democracy. The New York Times and cable news know this, and they’ve placed their bets on fascism. Big News is big business and big business has historically supported fascism. This is why we as independent members of the media must help shape the narrative. Our choice is literally good vs evil. We have a choice between decency and a vast criminal network — a choice between standing up for our imperfect democracy or succumbing to complete authoritarian capture. It’s not about age — by Biden’s side is a perfectly healthy vice president, who can capably handle the labor of democracy should he fall ill.
The 2024 election is not about anything other than decency — are we good people — is our President a good man — are we decent — do we know right from wrong. If we are decent, we will re-elect Joe Biden, we will do everything to help Ukraine defeat Russian imperialism. We will rebuke the cruelty of Trumpism and Putinism. We know that Trump is a cruel man. We knew that when he called immigrants ‘rapists’, called women “fat pigs”, “dogs”, and “disgusting animals”, mocked a disabled person, and ginned up violent rhetoric to encourage his MAGA base to kill Mike Pence. We must decide who we are. Are we decent?
If Donald Trump returns to the White House, House GOP wonders: Who will talk to him?
Ken Tran, USA TODAY – March 10, 2024
WASHINGTON – As Former President Donald Trump has all but secured the Republican nomination in his quest to retake the White House, House Republicans are grappling with one key question as he marches towards the nomination:
Who’s gonna deal with him if he wins a second term?
If Trump wins reelection, someone in the House Republican conference will have to be the liaison between the former president and the lower chamber. Who that person will be isn’t exactly clear to some GOP lawmakers.
Of course, all administrations coordinate closely with Capitol Hill to enact their agenda, but the designee for Trump will be especially consequential because of his at times erratic behavior compared to his predecessors. Its unclear who he will listen to as Republicans attempt to advance their priorities. House GOP members have been in disarray for much of the past few months, and have failed at times to coalesce around major legislative policy.
From the sidelines as a candidate, Trump has already irritated some Republican lawmakers after derailing a bipartisan emergency spending deal that would have significantly overhauled border and migrant policy.
The lawmaker previously assumed to be the ambassador between the House and Trump has been forcibly removed from that position. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R -Calif., who was ousted last year, spoke with the former president multiple times every day during his administration to brief him on legislation during his term. At times, the former president deferred to his judgment on big-ticket legislation.
“The question isn’t who would talk to Trump. It’s who Trump would listen to and who he would trust,” a senior House GOP aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said. “I don’t think there’s anyone here right now that Trump would listen to like he listened to McCarthy.”
With McCarthy gone, the GOP conference is scratching its head over who will handle Trump.
“That’s a good question. I don’t know,” said Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, Trump’s former physician in the White House and an ally in the House. “I obviously have a relationship with him and I’m gonna try to be as useful to him as I can possibly be.”
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at a primary election night party at the South Carolina State Fairgrounds in Columbia, S.C., Feb. 24, 2024.
A ‘good working relationship’ with Speaker Johnson
The presumed point of contact between the GOP conference and a Trump White House is naturally the top House Republican, in this case, current House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. But there very well could be a leadership shakeup if Republicans lose the lower chamber in the elections – which Democrats are feeling bullish about considering the lower chamber’s dysfunction in recent months. Right now, Republicans hold a narrow majority in the House and Democrats would need a net gain of just four seats in order to win control of the chamber.
“Circumstances have required them to talk pretty frequently and I think that’s helped build the relationship,” Jackson said. A person familiar with the relationship between Johnson and Trump also described it as a “good working relationship” and said the two speak frequently through a range of issues.
One of McCarthy’s former top lieutenants, Rep. Garret Graves, R-La., noted Johnson was on Trump’s defense team in his first impeachment trial in 2020 and that has helped build a “close relationship” between the two. But nothing in the future is “guaranteed,” he added.
Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, an unabashedly pro-Trump lawmaker, didn’t express much worry since the former president has already built lines of communication with other lawmakers throughout his first term.
“I think there are people up here that will try to keep him informed.” Nehls said he does “what I can” to loop in Trump to the temperature of the House GOP conference and his priorities.
Among Trump’s other most ardent supporters in the House include Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio and House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Elise Stefanic, R-N>Y., the No. 4 ranking House Republican.
The number of lawmakers who have positioned themselves as Trump’s closest allies on Capitol Hill underscores the conundrum: no one knows who will lead along with the former president.
One lawmaker thinks Trump will personally pick someone himself.
“I think he’s gonna anoint someone,” Rep. Max Miller, R-Ohio, a former Trump aide who regularly speaks with the former president, told USA TODAY.
Nehls also thought it was possible Trump personally picks someone out of the conference to be the point of contact between the White House and the House. As expected from the former president, Nehls said “loyalty is very, very important,” to Trump.
Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., applauds before the arrival of President Joe Biden in the House chamber at the U.S. Capitol Thursday, March 7, 2024, in Washington.
A ‘multi-pronged approach’ for a House GOP ambassador
If fealty to the former president is non-negotiable, that could rule out leaders of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus. Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., chair of the loose group of hard-right lawmakers, opted to endorse then-candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over Trump in the presidential primary, drawing the ire of Trump allies.
If he does select someone out of the GOP conference to serve as House Republicans’ main ambassador, one former Trump White House official described it as a “multi-pronged approach,” with various factors that could determine Trump’s pick.
That includes defending the president on television and strong decision making. McCarthy, the official said, “had a good gut about things and more often than not, Kevin’s advice has been correct.”
Conservative firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., another one of Trump’s most outspoken supporters, pitched herself as one of those key members that could have the president’s ear.
“I’m always happy to be a point person for the president,” Greene said. “I would argue I’m probably his strongest supporter in the House.”
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., shouts at President Joe Biden as he delivers the State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress in the House chamber at the Capital building on March 7, 2024 in Washington, DC.
