February 2024 – Page 10 – The Tarbabys Blog

In Tucker Carlson interview, Putin’s plans for Ukraine appear to echo Trump’s

USA Today

In Tucker Carlson interview, Putin’s plans for Ukraine appear to echo Trump’s

Kim Hjelmgaard and Rachel Barber – February 9, 2024

Former Fox News host and divisive conservative political commentator Tucker Carlson on Thursday released a lengthy and carefully stage-managed interview with President Vladimir Putin − the first Western media figure to do so since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly two years ago.

Carlson published the video interview on his personal website. It was also posted on his X social account. The interview took place in a gilded hall at the Kremlin palace in Moscow.

It covered a variety topics from the war in Ukraine to President Joe Biden, from the fate of detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich to Elon Musk. The interview did not break meaningful new ground. Carlson has consistently spread misinformation and conspiracy theories. He’s also been a strident critic of Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and U.S. conservative political commentator Tucker Carlson.

“If you really want to stop fighting, you need to stop supplying weapons,” Putin said when asked by Carlson about the prospect for peace in Ukraine, referring to Western aid. “It will be over within a few weeks. That’s it.”

Putin said he didn’t see a point in calling Biden, whom he had not spoken to since before the invasion. Biden has refused to speak to the Russian leader unless genuine conditions for negotiating a peace deal are put forward.

Instead, Putin’s answers about the fighting in Ukraine seemed to echo with the U.S. president he said he had a positive relationship with: Donald Trump.

Putin called on the U.S. to “make an agreement” to end the war, likely involving Ukraine ceding territory to Russia.

“Before I even arrive at the Oval Office, shortly after I win the presidency, I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled,” Trump said at a Manchester, New Hampshire, rally last month.

Trump has not explained how he would achieve this.

The interview comes as momentum on the battlefield appears to have swung in Russia’s favor while fresh U.S. aid for Ukraine remains uncertain in Congress. Polls show the majority of Americans believe the U.S. should be supporting Ukraine, but many are concerned it may be doing too much at the expense of domestic priorities. Republicans are far more skeptical than Democrats over the utility of sending Ukraine more wartime aid.

Ukraine is running out of weapons: Is it also running low on the time-tested coping mechanism of humor?

At times, the interview, which lasted more than two hours, became somewhat confrontational. However, Carslon did not explicitly challenge Putin’s many false assertions, nor did he push Russia’s leader on his military’s alleged war crimes in Ukraine or political repressions at home.

When Putin said he believed Russia and the U.S. could potentially reach a deal to free Gershkovich, an American journalist Russia detained last year, Carlson pressed him: “This guy’s obviously not a spy. He’s a kid, and maybe he was breaking your law in some way, but he’s not a super spy, and everybody knows that.”

Putin’s government has been holding Gershkovich for more than a year for reporting on the invasion. Gershkovich has been charged with espionage, an allegation he and the U.S. State Department deny. The U.S. government has determined that Gershkovich is being wrongfully detained.

The U.S. made an offer late last year to secure Gershkovich’s release but said Moscow rejected it. Putin appeared to indicate Thursday that he would consider swapping Gershkovich for Vadim Krasikov, a Russian assassin who killed a Georgian-born dissident in a park in Berlin in 2019. Krasikov followed his victim to the park on a bicycle. He’s serving a jail sentence in Germany.

Putin dominated the conversation. He also appeared to occasionally joke and snarl at Carlson’s expense.

“Are we having a talk show or a serious conversation?” Putin said in response to a question about why he had previously said he believed the U.S. could, via NATO, launch a “surprise attack” on Russia.

“Your basic education is in history, as far as I understand,” Putin added. “So if you don’t mind, I will take only 30 seconds or one minute to give you a short reference to history to give you a little historical background.”

Putin then went on to speak for more than 20 minutes about the history of Eastern Europe, including references to Catherine the Great, the 18th century empress of Russia.

Carlson struggled to interrupt Putin during his personal overview of Russian history.

At one point, the conversation took a turn to discussing the U.S. reputation in the international community. Putin claimed the U.S. is more afraid of a “strong China” than it is of a “strong Russia.”

Putin repeated false claims Russia did not attack Ukraine. He addressed his relationships with past U.S. presidents, saying he had a “very good” one with George W. Bush.

And he lavished praise on Tesla’s founder, who also owns X.

“I think there’s no stopping Elon Musk,” he said.

In a social media monologue prior to releasing the interview, Carlson said he wanted to sit down with Putin because “most Americans are not informed” on how the war in Ukraine is “reshaping the world.” He blamed U.S. mainstream media for this, alleging that “no one has told them the truth.” He has previously claimed, without providing evidence, that the U.S. government has thwarted his attempts to sit down with Putin.

Carlson said Western journalists have, by contrast, interviewed Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy many times. He described these interviews as “fawning pep sessions” aimed at amplifying Ukraine’s need for more U.S. weapons and ultimately directed at getting the U.S. more involved in the war.

There was no immediate official reaction to Carslon’s interview with Putin from Ukraine’s government.

Ukraine shake-up: Volodymyr Zelenskyy removes his top general Valery Zaluzhny

International media outlets have sat down with Zelenskyy dozens of times since the war’s start. However, there is little merit to Carlson’s other claims. Journalists in Russia face extreme reporting restrictions. They can be arrested for labeling Russia’s invasion a “war”; instead, they have to call it a “special military operation.”

Russia’s crackdown on free speech extends to regular citizens as well as journalists. They can be arrested or fined for criticizing the war in Ukraine. Carlson promotes his show on social media platform X as a defender of free speech. The International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, has issued an arrest warrant for Putin. It accused him of war crimes in Ukraine including deporting children from Ukraine to Russia.

War crimes allegations in Ukraine: They may be unprecedented. So is the country’s push for swift justice

Russians escape Putin’s war on Ukraine: They find a new home – and a moral dilemma

Since news of the interview broke, many Western journalists have been posting on social media how they have repeatedly attempted to secure interviews with Putin over the last two years. The last time Putin was interviewed by an American journalist was in June 2021 with NBC’s Keir Simmons.

“Does Tucker really think we journalists haven’t been trying to interview President Putin every day since his full scale invasion of Ukraine?” CNN’s Christiane Amanpour wrote on X. She called his claim “absurd.”

Putin himself has made many speeches and public appearances during which he’s commented at length on the war in Ukraine and his “objectives.” At various times, he’s described these as “denazification, demilitarization and its neutral status.” There is no evidence to indicate that Ukraine has a systemic problem with neo-Nazis. Putin has long been vehemently opposed to Ukraine and other neighboring nations joining NATO.

Putin has said that Western countries have been “stupefied” by anti-Russian propaganda.

Before the interview ran, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters that Americans shouldn’t believe anything Putin said in the interview.

“Anybody (who) watches that interview you need to make sure to remember that you are listening to Vladimir Putin. You shouldn’t take at face value anything he has to say.”

As the host of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Fox News, Carlson was one of the network’s biggest stars. The show was canceled last year following a series of controversies. Carlson drove ratings at the network but, his critics say he pushed extreme right-wing views and trafficked in racist and misogynistic themes and conspiracy theories.

“Tucker Carlson isn’t a journalist, he’s a propagandist,” wrote Ian Bremmer of the Eurasia Group, a global political risk consultancy, on X.

A timeline: Tucker Carlson and his Russia obsession

Carlson has been a longtime defender of Putin and he has consistently questioned U.S. support for Ukraine.

“It may be worth asking yourself, since it is getting pretty serious, what is this really about? Why do I hate Putin so much?” he said as Russia’s leader amassed troops on Ukraine’s border, ready to invade, in February 2022.

“Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? These are fair questions, and the answer to all of them is: ‘No.’ Vladimir Putin didn’t do any of that.” Carlson described Ukraine as a “a pure client state of the United States State Department” and the then looming war as a “border issue.”

Prior to his interview with Putin, one of the topics Carlson addressed on his X account, which posts material from his subscription streaming service, was about male-pattern baldness.

Contributing: Francesca Chambers

Abandoned by his colleagues after negotiating a border compromise, GOP senator faces backlash alone

Associated Press

Abandoned by his colleagues after negotiating a border compromise, GOP senator faces backlash alone

Mary Clare Jalonick and Stephen Groves – February 7, 2024

Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., left, the lead GOP negotiator on a border-foreign aid package, holds hands with his wife Cindy Lankford, center, joined at right by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., who has been central to Senate border security talks, during procedural votes, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2024. Senate Republicans have blocked the bipartisan border package, scuttling months of negotiations between the two parties on legislation intended to cut down record numbers of illegal border crossings. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., the lead GOP negotiator on the Senate border and foreign aid package, does a TV news interview at the Capitol in Washington, Monday, Feb. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Just before the Senate voted Wednesday to kill the border deal he spent the last four months negotiating, Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford climbed a set of marble stairs outside the chamber and joined his wife in the visitors’ gallery.

As the Republican quietly watched from a floor above, briefly the outsider after defending his legislation in a last Senate floor speech, fellow negotiator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona was down on the floor excoriating the Republicans who had abandoned Lankford, one by one, after insisting on a border deal and asking him to negotiate a compromise on one of the country’s most intractable issues.

“Less than 24 hours after we released the bill, my Republican colleagues changed their minds,” said Sinema, a former Democrat turned Independent. “Turns out they want all talk and no action. It turns out border security is not a risk to our national security. It’s just a talking point for the election.”

Walking out of the gallery with his wife close by his side, Lankford was asked by a waiting reporter if he felt betrayed by his party. He sighed, deeply, and waited a few beats.

“I’m disappointed we didn’t get it done,” Lankford said, diplomatically. “I don’t know if I feel betrayed, because the issue is still there. It’s not solved.”

He then walked back down the stairs with his wife and Sinema, who had come up to greet them after her speech, and walked into the chamber to watch the bill’s defeat.

In the end, all but four Republicans voted against moving forward on the legislation — including Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who had delegated Lankford to negotiate the bill combining Ukraine aid and border security and had been closely involved in the negotiations.

A former youth minister in the Baptist church, Lankford, 55, is known as one of the most sincere and well-liked members of the Senate. He’s a conservative who rarely votes against his party, has long championed stricter measures at the border and has been supportive of former President Donald Trump. So his colleagues’ swift and outright rejection of the deal he has spent weeks and months negotiating — and their willingness to completely abandon Lankford in the process, after many of them indicated they were supportive of the direction of the talks — is all the more remarkable.

“They reacted to it like it was a poison,” said Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, the third negotiator with Lankford and Sinema, of Senate Republicans who had previously signaled they were supportive. “I think it’s unforgiveable what they did to James.”

“They really threw the man overboard,” President Joe Biden said of Lankford at a fundraiser Wednesday evening.

While some Republicans were always going to vote against the compromise, arguing that no policy is better than what they saw as weak policy, others made clear they were encouraged by the talks as Lankford briefed them on the emerging details. But his colleagues’ eventual, quick rejection of the bill highlights the deep divides in the GOP as Trump, the party’s front-runner for the 2024 presidential nomination, has made immigration a top issue. Some senators who had previously been open to a deal became more skeptical after Trump made his opposition clear.

It is also a sign of dysfunction and paralysis in the Senate as its traditionally bipartisan image fades in favor of more partisan, House-like battles.

When he took on the job negotiating a border compromise, Lankford laughed that “he drew the short straw.” Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., joked later that if Lankford can’t get a deal done: “Moses couldn’t get a deal done. He’s one of the most kindest, compassionate people I’ve met in my lifetime.”

His fellow negotiators described him as an earnest, smart legislator who was willing to spend long hours digging into the intricacies of immigration law — and spent weeks away from his family in the process. Murphy said senators often negotiate the broad policies and let staff do the “dirty work” of putting the ideas into legislative text.

“James does both,” Murphy said. “It’s a sign of how sincere he is and how in the weeds he is on policy. But it probably means he’s maybe a little less attuned to the politics.”

The Oklahoma Republican has spent the last three days desperately trying to explain the bill after many of his colleagues put out statements opposing it without even reading the full text. Some Republicans put out misleading statements about what it would do, claiming it was designed to let more people into the country. Trump, who has strongly opposed the bill and said he doesn’t want to give Democrats a win on the issue, gleefully bragged that he helped kill it.

“I think this is a very bad bill for his career, and especially in Oklahoma,” Trump said of Lankford on a radio show earlier this week.

The bipartisan compromise would overhaul the asylum system at the border with faster and tougher enforcement, as well as give presidents new powers to immediately expel migrants if authorities become overwhelmed with the number of people applying for asylum, among other measures to reduce the record numbers of migrants crossing the border. It would also send billions to Ukraine, Israel and allies in the Asia-Pacific.

Lankford’s work on the issue could have lasting political consequences. A group of about 100 people within the Oklahoma GOP put out a statement condemning him for crafting the bill even before it had been released. And in his Senate floor speech Wednesday, Lankford spoke of an unidentified “popular commentator” who told him that if he tries to move a bill to solve the border crisis, “I will do whatever I can to destroy you, because I do not want you to solve this during the presidential election.”

Even more stunning was how quickly his Senate colleagues turned against it.

As the bill was released late Sunday night, Lankford was on an airplane flying to Washington. By the time he landed, an onslaught of criticism from conservatives was already underway. He was on a call with reporters, trying to explain the details of the bill, when House Speaker Mike Johnson posted on X that the bill would be “ dead on arrival ” in his chamber.

Lankford’s frustration was palpable as he responded, listing off how the bill would accomplish several conservative goals like building more border wall, hiring more Border Patrol agents, expanding detention capacity and speeding deportations.

“We’ve got to be able to find a way to stop the chaos at the border,” Lankford said.

Almost no Republicans endorsed it, save McConnell. And by Monday night, seeing the writing on the wall, McConnell told the conference it was OK to vote against it.

“I feel like the guy standing in the middle of a field in a thunderstorm holding up the metal stick,” Lankford told reporters shortly ahead of the bill release. “This is a really intense thing. It’s been divisive.”

Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim, Will Weissert, Jill Colvin and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

Sen. Lankford says a ‘popular commentator’ threatened to ‘do whatever I can to destroy you’ if he negotiated a border deal during a presidential election year

Business Insider

Sen. Lankford says a ‘popular commentator’ threatened to ‘do whatever I can to destroy you’ if he negotiated a border deal during a presidential election year

Bryan Metzger – February 7, 2024

Sen. James Lankford was the top GOP negotiator on the failed border security deal.
He claims a “popular commentator” warned him not to solve the crisis during an election year.
“I will do whatever I can to destroy you,” Lankford said.

Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma spoke on Wednesday about the political challenges he’s encountered while serving as the top GOP negotiator on a bipartisan border security deal.

In a speech shortly before the expected failure of the deal, Lankford bemoaned the fact that some fellow Republicans were objecting to the bill for purely political reasons.

“Some of them have been very clear with me,” Lankford said of his GOP colleagues, “they have political differences with the bill. They say it’s the wrong time to solve the problem. We’ll let the presidential election solve this problem.”

Lankford went on to say that a “popular commentator” — without naming any names — threatened to “destroy” him if he negotiated the deal during a presidential election year, regardless of what was in it.

“I will do whatever I can to destroy you, because I do not want you to solve this during the presidential election,” Lankford recounted the commentator saying.

“By the way, they have been faithful to their promise, and have done everything they can to destroy me,” he added.

Ahead of the release of the text of the deal — which was negotiated following GOP demands to attach border security provisions to a bill to provide billions in aid to Ukraine and Israel — right-wing media outlets like Fox News promoted false claims about the deal, claiming it would amount to “amnesty.”

And some Republicans admitted that politics was a key factor for them.

“I cannot vote for this bill,” said Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the third-highest ranking GOP senator, in his statement on the deal. “Americans will turn to the upcoming election to end the border crisis.”

Following the expected failed vote, the Senate is expected to take up a bill to send billions in aid to Ukraine and Israel, but without any border security provisions.

“Awful and unethical”: Legal experts say Judge Cannon could face removal for “disturbing” order

Salon

“Awful and unethical”: Legal experts say Judge Cannon could face removal for “disturbing” order

Igor Derysh – February 8, 2024

Legal experts sounded the alarm after the judge overseeing Donald Trump’s classified documents case rejected special counsel Jack Smith’s bid to keep government witnesses secret.

Smith’s team opposed making information public that could reveal the identity or any personal identifying information of any potential witnesses in the case or any transcripts or other documents they may have provided, citing concerns about witness intimidation.

Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon ruled in Trump’s favor on the matter, writing: “Following an independent review of the Motion and the full record, the Court determines, with limited exceptions as detailed below, that the Special Counsel has not set forth a sufficient factual or legal basis warranting deviation from the strong presumption in favor of public access to the records at issue.”

Cannon questioned Smith’s concern for witnesses, writing that “the Special Counsel’s sparse and undifferentiated Response fails to provide the Court with the necessary factual basis to justify sealing.”

The Press Coalition, which is comprised of major media companies, also asked the court to unseal Trump’s redacted motion in unclassified form, citing public interest.

Jeremy Foley, a Berkeley College law professor who specializes in judicial ethics, told Newsweek it is “unusual for a judge to make classified documents public.”

“Before doing so, Judge Cannon was required to weigh the factors favoring disclosure: potential aid to the defense and the public interest argument asserted by the media groups against those identified by the government: release of the documents could harm national security, impair an ongoing investigation, or compromise potential witnesses in the case,” he said.

“If the government is concerned that the judge’s order will cause harm, it can seek emergency relief from the 11th Circuit, which could stay the order pending review. We should know very soon if that happens,” Foley added.

The order raised concerns among legal experts who have long worried that Cannon may be tilting the case in favor of Trump.

“Judge Aileen Cannon continues to make rulings that are disturbing,” former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance wrote on Substack. “Perhaps we’d view any one of them, on their own, as a judicial aberration. But the pattern of ruling upon ruling that is out of the legal mainstream and results in delay well past the point where this case should have been ready for trial is something that shouldn’t be ignored. Judges should not put their fingers on the scales of justice either for or against a defendant or any other party. Here, it’s impossible to avoid the conclusion that the scales are being tipped.”

Smith’s “best option” may be to ask Cannon to reconsider, but the judge’s “dismissive tone towards the government suggests that there is little they can do to persuade her,” Vance wrote.

A big test will come next week when Cannon holds a hearing under Section 4 of the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA), where she will make rulings on what classified material in discovery can be used at trial. Trump is expected to seek additional delays in the case, asking Cannon to postpone the deadline for some pre-trial motions and revisiting his presidential immunity and Presidential Records Act claims that “border on being frivolous at this point, and using them to further delay this case would be a travesty,” Vance wrote.

“The time for Smith to decide whether to actively seek Cannon’s recusal, or at least hint to the Circuit that it’s merited, will be after the Section 4 hearing rulings are issued,” Vance noted. “Forced recusals are rare. But at this late date, even if the 11th Circuit were to move quickly, as it has in the past, and force Cannon to step aside, it would take a new judge some time to get up to speed. There are no quick fixes for the damage Judge Cannon has done,” she added.

Longtime Harvard Law Prof. Laurence Tribe said he hopes Tuesday’s order “will trigger a motion to remove her.”

“The 11th Circuit might well agree this was the last straw. Compromising national security is a bridge too far,” he tweeted.

“It is impossible to overstate how awful and unethical is Aileen Cannon,” added Norman Ornstein, emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “Clearly has no business being a judge at any level.”

Putin tells Tucker Carlson the US ‘needs to stop supplying weapons’ to Ukraine

The Guardian

Putin tells Tucker Carlson the US ‘needs to stop supplying weapons’ to Ukraine

Adam Gabbatt and Andrew Roth – February 8, 2024

Tucker Carlson and Vladimir Putin were in the spotlight on Thursday night, as the divisive, Trump-supporting rightwing commentator interviewed the reclusive Russian autocrat.

The rambling, two-hour interview, filmed in Moscow, was Putin’s first with a western media outlet since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

It marked a new level of infamy for Carlson, who has frequently criticized US support for Ukraine, has referred to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the president of Ukraine, as a “Ukrainian pimp” and “rat-like”.

Carlson’s tone was less pugnacious in the interview with Putin, who he referred to as “Mr President” throughout.

The decision to interview Putin had been widely criticised ahead of the interview. But the opening of the conversation between the former Fox News host and Putin was a let down.

Putin spent more than 30 minutes giving a history of Russia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine, in a monologue that took viewers from the ninth century rule of Oleg the Wise, to the struggles of the 1300s, through to a critique of Lenin’s foreign policy.

When a baffled-looking Carlson finally coaxed Putin into the 21st century, the Russian president accused the US and other western countries of prolonging the war in Ukraine.

There were peace talks with Ukraine that were “almost finalized”, Putin said, but then Ukraine “threw away all these agreements and obeyed the instructions of western countries, European countries and the United States to fight Russia to the bitter end”.

Putin laid the blame at the feet of Boris Johnson, the former British prime minister, in particular. Johnson was forced out of UK parliament in June 2023, but Putin claimed that as prime minister he had dissuaded Zelenskiy from signing a peace deal in the early stages of the conflict.

“The fact that they [Ukraine] obey the demand or persuasion of Mr Johnson, the former prime minister of Great Britain, seems ridiculous,” Putin said.

In a video released ahead of the interview, Carlson said he was driven to speak to Putin, in part, because the American public has “no idea why Putin invaded Ukraine or what his goals are now”.

It’s unclear whether viewers will come away with a clearer sense of either.

In December, the Kremlin said engaging in peace talks with Ukraine is “unrealistic” – Ukraine has said peace can only be based on a full withdrawal from the territory Russia has seized since it invaded in 2022.

But in the interview, Putin told Carlson that Russia and the US still speak “through various agencies” about ending the conflict.

Russia’s message to the US, Putin said, is: “If you really want to stop fighting, you need to stop supplying weapons. It will be over within a few weeks.”

Putin said the last time he spoke to Joe Biden was before Russia invaded Ukraine.

“I said to him, then, I believe that you are making a huge mistake of historic proportions by supporting everything that is happening there, in Ukraine, by pushing Russia away,” Putin said.

Carlson did, at least, press Putin on Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter who has been detained in Russia since 23 March having been accused of espionage – which Gershkovich and the Journal deny.

Putin claimed Gershkovich, 32, was “caught red-handed when he was secretly getting confidential information”, and alleged he was “working for the US special services”.

Russia is “ready to talk” about releasing Gershkovich, Putin said, but added: “We want the US special services to think about how they can contribute to achieving the goals our special services are pursuing.”

The claim seemed to contradict the White House, which said in December that Russia had rejected a substantial proposal for the release of Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, a former US Marine serving a 16-year sentence in Russia on espionage charges.

In a video published ahead of the interview, Carlson claimed he was conducting the interview because English-language “media outlets are corrupt – they lie to their readers and viewers”.

“There are risks to conducting an interview like this obviously, so we’ve thought about it for many months,” Carlson said.

“Most Americans have no real idea what is happening in this region. Here in Russia or 600 miles away in Ukraine. But they should know. They’re paying for much of it.”

Followers of Carlson over the past two years will be less surprised than others that Putin accepted the interview request.

Carlson was an early, notable defender of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As Putin amassed up to 190,000 troops on Ukraine’s border in mid-February 2022, Carlson appeared to echo Putin’s talking points by claiming the brewing conflict was a mere “border dispute”.

In the week following the attack, Russian state media played clips of Carlson’s rants about Ukraine and against the US providing military aid to the country.

The interview was aired on Tucker Carlson Tonight, a streaming service which Carlson launched in December 2023. Notably, Carlson was fired by Fox News in April 2023 – for getting “too big for his boots”, a book later claimed.

The rightwing commentator faced criticism for the interview before it aired. On Wednesday, Hillary Clinton said Carlson was a “useful idiot” for Putin.

“He says things that are not true,” the former US secretary of state said of Carlson.

“He parrots Vladimir Putin’s pack of lies about Ukraine, so I don’t see why Putin wouldn’t give him an interview because through him, he can continue to lie about what his objectives are in Ukraine and what he expects to see happen,” Clinton said on MSNBC Wednesday.

In his video announcing the interview, Carlson claimed that “not a single Western journalist has bothered” to attempt to interview Putin.

Abby Phillip, an anchor for CNN, said that was untrue.

“Serious outlets, including CNN, have requested Putin to interview over and over again,” she said in her show on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, the Kremlin also debunked Carlson’s claim.

“Mr Carlson is wrong,” Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesperson, said in a briefing. “We receive many requests for interviews with the president.”

Putin last gave an interview to a western outlet in 2021, when he spoke with a reporter for CNBC. He has largely ceased speaking with independent media, both Russian and international, since launching his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Since 2021, he has only given interviews to Russian, Kazakh and Chinese media.

Press freedoms have largely disappeared in Russia over the past two decades, as pressure has grown on independent media and the danger of arrest has increased for local and foreign journalists working in the country.

The arrest of Gershkovich last year was a watershed attack on a foreign reporter in the post-cold war era.

But Russian journalists had already faced long prison sentences for their work and for angering Putin’s allies and friends.

In a particularly egregious verdict in 2022, Russian journalist Ivan Safronov was sentenced to 22 years in prison on treason charges widely seen as politically motivated. Safronov, who had previously worked at Kommersant, was thought to have angered the military by reporting on secret negotiations with Egypt, but all the information in his trial was secret. According to a lawyer, Safronov had been offered just a 12-year sentence if he incriminated others, but refused to cooperate.

Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has also sped up the crackdown on independent media. More than 1,000 journalists have fled the country, a number of high-profile criminal cases have been opened against reporters for discrediting the Russian army or spreading “fake news”, and legacy broadcast media like Ekho Moskvy have been forced to close down, despite having powerful backers in the government.

Russia was one of the world’s top five jailers of journalists in 2023, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, with 22 reporters in prison.

At a protest of military wives near the Kremlin this week, police arrested more than 20 journalists in order to prevent them from reporting on the demonstration in an “unprecedented” move, according to Reporters without Borders.

• This article was amended on 9 February 2024 to correct some misspellings of Evan Gershkovich’s surname.

Republicans are sticking to Trump — they’re about to reap the whirlwind

Salon – Opinion

Republicans are sticking to Trump — they’re about to reap the whirlwind

Brian Karem – February 8, 2024

Donald Trump; Mike Johnson Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images

Welcome to the whirlwind.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat and constitutional lawyer, says he doesn’t believe the Republicans can win this fall. “They are floundering to find something to run on,” he said. “They’re losing all over the place. They don’t want solutions, they want problems. With them it’s rule or ruin. Either they want to rule everything or ruin our chances of progressing. That’s a fascistic strategy.”

According to Raskin, the Republicans won’t accept the result of elections unless they win, and are using immigration as a campaign issue for Donald Trump — who may well be ineligible to run for office. “I don’t think he’s legally qualified to be on the ballot,” Raskin said. “It’s clear to me that section 3 of the 14th amendment disqualifies Donald Trump because he participated in an insurrection or rebellion. He violated his oath.” Raskin hopes the Supreme Court will come to the “unavoidable” conclusion that Trump is ineligible for the presidency.

Like I said, the whirlwind.

In 1984, in a place called Rio Bravo just south of Laredo, Texas, a double-wide trailer burst into flames.

As the flames grew in intensity they became a whirlwind of fire that consumed the trailer and another structure nearby.

That serves as an apt metaphor for today’s Republican politics, and not just on the southern border.

The trailer owners were unable to do anything about the fire because the subdivision they lived in had no running water, or even electricity. At the time of the fire they were also busy fishing a friend’s trailer out of the Rio Grande, where it had been swept after a sudden deluge of rain.

Rio Bravo was, at the time, a subdivision situated next to the Rio Grande, carved out of rented land by a greedy Texas land developer who sold parcels in “open contracts” to undocumented immigrants. Business was so good, he opened a second illegal subdivision (later called “colonias” — a common term in Mexico — as they became popular throughout the Southwest). He named the second one “El Cenizo.”

That’s right. He called the second one “The Ash.” You can’t make that up.

Covering the border between Texas and Mexico was one of my earliest assignments as a reporter. One of my first run-ins with the Trump administration occurred because of Trump’s incredibly obtuse policies regarding the border. At the time I confronted White House press secretary Sarah Sanders — now the governor of Arkansas — about the practice of caging young immigrant children.

She, of course, claimed to be a Christian and also claimed to be more credible than most reporters. She lied then. She lies now. And Don the Con did not understand, either then or now, the root cause of illegal immigration or how to solve that problem. Trump is not alone. It is an emotional issue, one that nearly every politician has fumbled and few of us understand. It isn’t about criminals marauding through the countryside. It is about hope, despair and disinformation. The U.S. government and the businesses that want a constant supply of cheap labor are responsible for continuing the problem.

There has been no meaningful legislation concerning illegal immigration since the Simpson-Mazzoli Act in 1985, which, for the first time, made it illegal to hire undocumented immigrants. In the 40 years since that became law, few if any large companies have ever been prosecuted for hiring any of the millions of immigrants who work in agriculture, construction, thoroughbred racing and numerous other industries. It’s the promise of jobs and a chance to live out the American Dream that drives the “crisis” on the border that has been with us for at least 40 years.

America needs cheap labor. Immigrants from Mexico and Latin America (and other places much farther away) need jobs. In response, there has been a steady deluge of political garbage out of every White House since the Reagan administration, aimed at criminalizing a story of hope in search of votes.

As the rain continued to fall in Los Angeles this week, causing catastrophic mudslides and flooding, the political rain in Washington also continued, and with similar results.

It engulfed the GOP shortly after sunset on Tuesday, when the House failed by four votes to impeach Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas — for reasons that even some Republicans could not fathom. Rep. Tom McClintock of California, for instance, voted against impeachment for the simple reason that House Republicans failed “to identify an impeachable crime that Mayorkas has committed.” To proceed, he said, would “stretch and distort the Constitution.”

The world is in disarray right now. But nothing is in more disarray than the Republican Party, as it suffers both the whirlwind of fire brought about by its own need to generate issues for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and the deluge of stupidity unleashed by those who do his bidding in Congress. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene led the charge in that latter deluge, one of the few things she does with aplomb. She even claimed that Democrats had hidden members on the House floor to confuse the GOP majority as they voted to impeach Mayorkas. Apparently she can’t count to four even if she uses all of her toes. House Speaker Mike Johnson is so inept that he appointed Greene as a spokesperson. He also can’t count votes. Majority Whip Tom Emmer couldn’t find a way to get four more votes from his own caucus. Republicans have vowed to go after Mayorkas again once they figure out how to count. Is there a better definition of incompetent?

None of this has anything to do with “high crimes and misdemeanors,” the constitutional necessity for impeaching officeholders. There is nothing more grimly amusing than watching the GOP’s three-ring circus — which is both led by Donald Trump and staged exclusively for his benefit.

Trump lost twice on Tuesday. He couldn’t get the votes he wanted to impeach Mayorkas and he lost his bid for “total immunity” in his Jan. 6 criminal case, when three judges on the D.C. Circuit Court delivered circuit judges offered a unanimous and airtight opinion against him.

To understand the depth of Trump’s despair, you may be tempted to count the ketchup bottles at Mar-a-Lago. Or you could read at least part of the 57-page court decision which found that Trump can be criminally charged. Meanwhile, the GOP couldn’t muster anyone brighter than Greene to speak up about it. “When they came to Washington to protest, you called that an insurrection,” she said. “But when Biden was inaugurated and this Capitol was surrounded with National Guard troops, none of you stood there and called that an insurrection.”

The congresswoman from Georgia proves, once again, that you can be a whirlwind of fiery rhetoric while deluging the populace with extreme ignorance. Oh, and she wants the House to pass a resolution stating that Trump was no insurrectionist. So there is that.

At the same time the House GOP was trying to impeach Mayorkas, it was also just saying no to a Senate compromise bill that would provide more money and infrastructure on the border along with more support for both Ukraine and Israel. A standalone bill to fund aid to Israel, backed by the GOP, also failed on Tuesday. The border bill failed in the Senate Wednesday, and now that robust body, dominated by aging white men who suffer from incontinence, will have to take up separate funding bills for Ukraine and Israel.

“All of this is just to give Trump something to run on,” Raskin told me. “My colleagues in the Republican Party are subverting the process for a man who embraces fascism.”

The failures keep mounting, but don’t expect Mike Johnson to take any responsibility for his part in the fiasco on the House side. He told reporters, “I don’t think that this is a reflection on the leader, I think this is a reflection on the body itself.” Well, here’s a reminder: He’s the head of that body.

Johnson has promised that any bipartisan legislation sent to the House from the Senate regarding immigration will be “dead on arrival.” Of course Johnson says the border is “an overwhelming emergency” and should be dealt with promptly — but apparently not so much of an emergency that the GOP is willing to accept a compromise solution to a problem that has been ongoing since the last century. The Senate plan — negotiated by James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican; Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat; and Kyrsten Sinema, an Arizona independent — would strengthen border security and reduce illegal immigration. The Border Patrol union even supports it – and those folks are not liberal Democrats.

Don’t expect a solution anytime soon. We will get nothing but empty words as Trump’s tempest in a very nasty teapot continues. He wants to delay border legislation indefinitely, so he can run on the issue and take credit for any solution — but only after he wins, which is looking increasingly uncertain the closer we get to Election Day. The decision to deny him immunity seems ironclad, and relies on one of the oldest landmark Supreme Court cases — Marbury v. Madison — to do so. That decision gives courts the ability to strike down laws deemed unconstitutional. So it could be argued that if the Supreme Court takes up Trump’s immunity case and rules in his favor, it will overturn more than 200 years of judicial decisions and eliminate the Supreme Court as an equal partner in government.

To quote the D.C. Circuit decision: “As the Supreme Court has unequivocally explained: No man in this country is so high that he is above the law. No officer of the law may set that law at defiance with impunity. All the officers of the government, from the highest to the lowest, are creatures of the law and are bound to obey it. It is the only supreme power in our system of government, and every man who by accepting office participates in its functions is only the more strongly bound to submit to that supremacy, and to observe the limitations which it imposes upon the exercise of the authority which it gives. … That principle applies, of course, to a President.”

The court also found that the president is “amenable to the laws for his conduct,” and “cannot at his discretion” violate them.

Finally, the court found that Trump was a “citizen,” not a king: He “lacked any lawful discretionary authority to defy federal criminal law and he is answerable in court for his conduct.”

Harry Litman of the Los Angeles Times offered an explanation on X of what took the D.C. circuit so long: “They opted, probably from the start, to make it per curiam — basically one voice. That gives it even added force. And that might have required extensive compromising negotiation to get it just right.”

That means the Supreme Court might actually refuse to hear Trump’s appeal on the immunity case — something he fears and that many court watchers say is possible now that the D.C. Circuit has done the heavy lifting and penned an exquisite opinion. At any rate, even if the Supreme Court takes up the case, many experts believe Trump will still face a criminal trial, at the latest, by fall.

In the short term, do not expect any legislation regarding immigration to pass the Senate or House. Expect Donald Trump to use the time to raise money while he continues to fight his battles in court and keeps his political party running interference for him.

Trump’s last wild ride in the public domain is in its death throes. His whirlwind is consuming him. His supporters are holding on, and those who need him the most, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, are defending him so they can stay as relevant as possible (and perhaps evade criminal charges) in a world that increasingly sees Trump and his minions for what they are; soulless hacks with a need and desire for great personal power at the expense of humanity.

What this means for the GOP is obvious: After Kevin McCarthy and Mike Johnson; after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell; after its inability to pass any legislation, the party is undeniably broken, unable to lead and woefully lacking in common sense. It is dedicated to the edification and protection of one of the worst politicians ever to rise to prominence in our republic.

Trump’s former chief of staff, John Kelly, described him as “a person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about.”

Lead? The GOP is incapable of that. Follow? It won’t follow anyone except Trump, and it will never get out of the way — unless we collectively kick it to the curb. Or right into that whirlwind.

Three reasons why so many migrants want to cross from Mexico to US

BBC – News

Three reasons why so many migrants want to cross from Mexico to US

By Bernd Debusmann Jr, Washington – February 7, 2024

Getty Images Migrants cross the Rio Grande Getty Images

Migrant arrivals at the border have risen to record highs during President Joe Biden’s administration, a massive political headache for him ahead of the election.

Polls suggest that more than two-thirds of Americans disapprove of Mr Biden’s handling of the issue.

His likely opponent in November’s presidential election, Donald Trump, has this week condemned a cross-party bill trying to address the problem, saying it’s not tough enough.

But it’s not just Republicans who are unhappy about the influx. Democratic mayors in cities struggling to cope with the numbers are also making their feelings known.

More than 6.3 million migrants have been detained crossing into the US illegally under Biden, a higher number than under Trump, Obama or George W Bush.

Biden and Trump trade blame as border bill falters

The reasons for the spike are complex, with some factors pre-dating this government and beyond the control of the US. We asked experts what’s going on.

1. Pent-up demand after lockdown

The number began to rise in 2018, largely driven by Central Americans fleeing a series of complex crises including gang violence, poverty, political repression and natural disasters. Detentions fell again in the summer of 2019, which US officials credited to increased enforcement by Mexico and Guatemala.

The most drastic reduction took place in early 2020, when pandemic-era restrictions led to a drastic reduction of over 53% between March and April that year.

Since these measures were lifted in early 2021, the numbers have steadily risen, reaching an all-time high of just over 302,000 in December 2023.

“That’s when we began to see an increase again, primarily of Central Americans after mobility restrictions [there] and across the region began to ease,” said Ariel Ruiz Soto, a policy analyst at the Washington DC-headquartered Migration Policy Institute.

“That’s also when the bigger change happened and we began to see much more diversified flows, starting with Venezuela, but also Colombia, Ecuador and places further away.”

Migrants now come from as far afield as West Africa, India and the Middle East.

Of migrants from outside the Americas, the greatest increase comes from China. More than 37,000 Chinese nationals were detained at the US-Mexico border last year, about 50 times the figure from two years ago.

2. Global migration trends

The increases in migrant figures seen at the US-Mexico border seen in the last several years also come at a time when, globally, migration to rich countries is at an all-time high.

Statistics from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released late last year show that 6.1m new permanent migrants moved to its 38 member states in 2022 – a 26% increase over 2021 and 14% higher than in 2019.

The number of people granted asylum in the US doubled in 2022, driven in large part by migrants from Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba. The US is second only to Germany now in levels of humanitarian migration.

“We are experiencing displacement around the world at a level never seen in recorded history, and people are turning up at our southern border for a variety of different reasons,” explained Jorge Loweree, managing director of programmes at the American Immigration Council, a Washington-based non-profit and advocacy group.

“There are four failed states in our hemisphere alone.”

More on the US border crisis

3. From Trump to Biden

The switch in the White House in 2021 also contributed, say some experts.

A key message from President Trump, even if it never became a reality, was the building of a border wall and increased deportations.

The headlines created by the separation of children from their detained parents, decried by many as cruel, added to the impression that the US was closing its border.

Under President Biden there was a change of tone and of policy. Deportations fell and “deterrent-focused” policies such as the rapid removal of migrants to Mexico and the building of a border wall ended.

Migrants were paroled into the US to await immigration court dates – a process which can often take years.

People trying to cross the border during this time told the BBC they thought that entering and staying in the US was going to be easier now. And human smugglers took advantage of a change in presidency to create a sense of urgency among migrants that they should hurry to the border.

“Part of it is that they think they can just come. I think that’s just what they’re being told,” said Alex Cuic, an immigration lawyer and professor at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio.

“They feel like there’s a pathway to come here,” he added. “It’s almost like an invite.”

Conversely, some immigration activists have criticised the Biden administration and US lawmakers from both parties for failing to pass meaningful immigration reform.

The last major overhaul of the system was more than 30 years ago and now the cross-party bill presented to Congress this week looks doomed due to Republican opposition.

Behind the border mess: Open GOP rebellion against McConnell

Politico

Behind the border mess: Open GOP rebellion against McConnell

Burgess Everett – February 7, 2024

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., speaks during a news conference on border security, following the Senate policy luncheon at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Conservative hardliners once celebrated Mitch McConnell for wrestling the federal judiciary to the right and thwarting progressive hopes.

Now he is under open attack from the right for even trying to work with Democrats on the border.

The Senate GOP leader is facing internal resistance not seen in more than a year as Republicans descend into discord over two issues they once demanded be linked: border security and the war in Ukraine.

McConnell, now nearing his 82nd birthday, is determined to fund the Ukrainian war effort, a push his allies have depicted as legacy-defining. But now that his party is set on Wednesday to reject a bipartisan trade of tougher border policies for war funding, his far-right critics are speaking out more loudly: Several held a press conference Tuesday where they denounced his handling of the border talks, with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) calling on McConnell to step down.

In an interview, McConnell rejected the criticism and said his antagonists fail to recognize the reality of divided government.

“I’ve had a small group of persistent critics the whole time I’ve been in this job. They had their shot,” McConnell said, referring to Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-Fla.) challenge to his leadership in 2022.

“The reason we’ve been talking about the border is because they wanted to, the persistent critics,” he added. “You can’t pass a bill without dealing with a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate.”

Despite that pragmatism, McConnell’s job is only getting harder. If he runs for another term in leadership next year, a tougher fight than Scott gave him seems almost inevitable.

That is in part because of Donald Trump, whom McConnell barely acknowledges after criticizing his role in the Capitol riot of Jan. 6, 2021. The former president played a leading role in killing the border deal and has called consistently for McConnell’s ouster. And at this time next year, Trump could well be back in the White House.

More and more of Senate Republicans’ internal strife is seeping out into public view, exposing years-old beefs that are still simmering. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) posted a fundraising link asking donors to “kill this border bill” in the middle of a closed-door GOP meeting on Monday and demanded “new leadership,” while Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) memed McConnell as Charlie Brown whiffing on an attempt to kick a football held by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.).

“I’ve been super unhappy since this started,” Johnson said in an interview. “Leader McConnell completely blew this.”

Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson helped squash the border bill’s prospects in the House while Ron Johnson, Lee, Cruz, Scott and Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) pummeled it on TV and social media. The intensity of that assault turned many GOP senators sour on a border security deal that would have amounted to the most conservative immigration bill backed by a Democratic president in a generation — a bill they once said was the key to unlocking Ukraine aid.

Though McConnell touted the work of Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) and the bill’s endorsement by the Border Patrol union, he conceded what was obvious by Monday night: This legislation is dead.

“The reason we ended up where we are is the members decided, since it was never going to become law, they didn’t want to deal with it,” McConnell said in the interview. “I don’t know who is at fault here, in terms of trying to cast public blame.”

At Tuesday’s party meeting, Cruz told McConnell that the border deal was indefensible, while Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) questioned why the GOP would walk away from it, according to two people familiar with the meeting. That followed a Monday evening private meeting where Johnson got into a near-shouting match with Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), one of several senators who has tried to rebut Trump’s influence on the party.

Young played down the spat afterward: “Ron and I have a very good relationship. We can be very candid with one another.”

McConnell’s loud critics are among those most responsible for raising opposition to the border deal, attacking its provisions while the text was being finalized. They raised such a ruckus that none of McConnell’s potential successors as leader — Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), John Cornyn (R-Texas) and John Thune (R-S.D.) — offered to support it.

McConnell can’t be ejected spontaneously like a House speaker, meaning his job is safe until the end of the year. He also has major sway over the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC that may have to help Cruz, Scott and other Republicans win reelection.

And McConnell is not without defenders. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said any attempt to blame McConnell for the border crackup is “a bit misplaced.”

Indeed, McConnell was OK with just approving foreign aid back in the fall, but agreed to link it to border security after rank-and-file Republicans grew eager to extract concessions from Democrats in order to get Ukraine money.

“It’s not James’ fault, he did the best he could under the circumstances. It’s not Mitch’s fault,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.).

The historical record holds plenty of quotes from McConnell’s current critics asking for stronger border policy during the Trump administration. Many of them now have since changed their tune to say Biden doesn’t need new laws at all to enforce border security.

“We all wanted to see border security. And I think a lot of our members were demanding that in exchange for the rest of the funding. That’s an issue our conference needs to be aware of,” said Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), the No. 4 leader. “The conference wanted border security.”

The animosity McConnell now faces from Ron Johnson, Lee and others isn’t new either: They’ve questioned Senate GOP leadership’s decisions for years.

Ron Johnson’s been a thorn in McConnell’s side for years, particularly after many Republicans abandoned his reelection bid in 2016. Cruz has sparred with McConnell since getting to the Senate in 2013, Lee frequently breaks with leadership and a number of newer GOP senators voted for Scott over McConnell in 2022.

One GOP senator, granted anonymity to assess the situation candidly, said that the new wave of attacks could be happening because McConnell’s opponents sense weakness — or just out of “personal pique” over years-old disagreements.

“For three months it’s been nothing but border and Ukraine, border and Ukraine, border and Ukraine. I don’t know how many speeches I’ve heard … and now all of a sudden, it’s: ‘We’re not going to do that,’” said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), another of the McConnell critics. “It just seems like total chaos to me.”

Either way, the 180 among many Republicans is evidence of a major drift away from McConnell’s style of Republicanism and toward Trump’s. McConnell hasn’t talked to Trump since the Jan. 6 riot and tried to turn the party in a surprisingly deal-centric direction during the first two years of President Joe Biden’s presidency.

Just two years ago, debt ceiling increases, gun safety and infrastructure laws passed with McConnell’s blessing — all a reflection of his view that protecting the filibuster requires working with Democrats on bipartisan bills.

Now the reality is that Trump, the likely nominee, doesn’t want a deal that Republicans set out to secure four months ago. Deal-making without Trump’s blessing appears impossible, and that’s a challenging dynamic for the longtime GOP leader.

“This wasn’t good for him. This wasn’t good for any of us,” said Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) of McConnell, whom he backed in 2022. “And I’m not gonna say he’s the total cause of it, but we got to have a better plan. This didn’t work out for us.”

Ursula Perano contributed to this report.

74 percent of Republicans say it’s fine for Trump to be dictator for a day

The Hill

74 percent of Republicans say it’s fine for Trump to be dictator for a day

Lauren Irwin – February 7, 2024

A new survey found that a majority of Republicans say it is fine for former President Trump to be a dictator for the day if he wins the presidential election.

The survey from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and YouGov found that 74 percent of Republican voters said it would be a good idea if Trump follows through on his remarks in which he said he would be a dictator only on the first day of his second term. Twenty-six percent of Republicans say it would be a bad thing.

Thirty-six percent of independent voters said it would be good, while 65 percent said it would be a bad idea.

Democrats were much more opposed. Only 13 percent of Democratic respondents said it would be a good idea for the country if Trump fulfilled his vow to be dictator for a day, while 87 percent said it would be a bad idea.

Trump has said in the past that he would not be a dictator if he were reelected, “except for day one.” On the campaign trail in Iowa in December, Trump doubled down on his claims that he would close the border and be “drilling, drilling, drilling” on his first day back in office.

“After that, I’m not a dictator,” he told Sean Hannity of Fox News.

The remarks have fueled concern for Democrats and even some Republicans that a second Trump term could threaten democracy, as he has threatened to abuse power and target people who have disagreed with him.

The former president is currently defending himself against 91 criminal charges among four state and federal criminal indictments. He is the front-runner to become the GOP’s nominee for the 2024 presidential election.

According to the survey, voters are split on whether they believe Trump is guilty of charges that he tried to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Fifty-eight percent of respondents said Trump is likely guilty, while 42 percent said they believe he is innocent. Seventy-two percent of Republican voters said they think the former president is innocent.

The survey was conducted Jan. 25-30 among 1,064 respondents. It has a margin of error of 3.7 percent.

The ‘Nuclear’ Election Conspiracy Doc Trump Cited In Court Is A Sign Of Things To Come

TPM

The ‘Nuclear’ Election Conspiracy Doc Trump Cited In Court Is A Sign Of Things To Come

Hunter Walker – February 7, 2024

The true believers were buzzing.

It was Jan. 2 and former President Trump had just used his “Truth Social” platform to release a 32-page “Summary of Election Fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election in the Swing States.” The document rehashed thoroughly debunked claims, promoted blatantly false information, and repeatedly cited other reports that do not actually appear to exist to make the patently absurd assertion there is “no evidence Joe Biden won.” In other words, it was everything many hardcore Trump supporters who refuse to accept his defeat had been waiting for.

On the site formerly known as Twitter where election dead-enders have taken advantage of Elon Musk’s permissive attitude towards right-wing conspiracy theories, a few thousand pro-Trump activists spent nearly 13 hours in an audio chat discussing the document, which they dubbed “The Nucleus File.” But the report was more than an object of fascination for the pro-Trump fringe.

Along with becoming a hot topic in delirious Twitter Spaces, the report was cited in a Jan. 2 federal court filing by Trump’s attorneys, part of a wild strategy to argue he was immune from prosecution in the election interference case brought by special counsel Jack Smith.

The use of a questionable anonymous document to incorporate election conspiracies into his defense raised eyebrows from legal observers, even those who had grown familiar with the former president’s everything-at-the-wall approach to his defense. One lawyer who previously worked for Trump described the move to TPM as not just unlikely to help his case, but akin to bringing up an “alien abduction” before a judge.

“That’ll never get off the ground,” said the lawyer, Ty Cobb, a veteran defense attorney who was special counsel on Trump’s White House legal team during the Mueller investigation and who has since become an outspoken Trump critic.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Trump’s team on Tuesday and allowed the prosecution to move forward at the district court level. In their decision, the circuit court panel stuck to the question at hand and completely ignored the assertion from Trump’s legal team that the 2020 outcome was up for debate. Instead, the court flatly declared Trump both an election loser and a danger to the democracy.

“Former President Trump’s alleged efforts to remain in power despite losing the 2020 election were, if proven, an unprecedented assault on the structure of our government,” the judges wrote.

The document may not have had any impact in court, but there are many indications it is part of a larger — and ongoing — project for Trump’s presidential campaign that his activist allies describe as a “nuclear” assault. The promotion of the document by the former president and its use in his legal defense ultimately served as proof that Trump is making the fever dream that he won the last election a part of the current one. Trump is dragging all elements of his political universe with him down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole, including his campaign team, an army of attorneys, Republican Party leaders, and the activists who have driven the false narrative online and are increasingly targeting election infrastructure in the real world.

Former President Donald Trump — flanked by attorney John Lauro, left, and D. John Sauer, right — speaks to reporters and members of the media at the Waldorf Astoria hotel after attending a hearing of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals at the federal courthouse on Tuesday, Jan. 09, 2024, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)More

Early on in the marathon Twitter discussion about the file, a right-wing streamer who has amassed a six-figure following using the handle “Behizy” took the virtual stage.

“What’s up my fellow conspiracy theorist election deniers?” Behizy declared, with evident sarcasm oozing over any potential hint of self awareness.

“I saw the report,” he said. “Who wrote it? Does anyone know?”

“We’re trying to figure that out,” replied Pablo Martinez, the chairman of the Republican Party in McKinley County, New Mexico, who was one of the hosts of the conversation.

“Behizy” actually seemed pleased not to get an answer to his question.

“I like that the author is anonymous because we know the mainstream media will attack the messenger before actually addressing the message,” he said. “So, I think it’s just smart that they intentionally omitted their name from the report.”

The report, however, wasn’t entirely anonymous. One person whose name was all over the document — David Cross — spoke to the crowd a few minutes later. Cross, who is a financial adviser in Georgia, has emerged in recent years as one of several self-styled experts and sleuths who have taken it upon themselves to question the 2020 presidential election results and the integrity of the country’s election systems. Corporate records show Cross is one of three executives at an outfit called the Election Oversight Group, a supposed watchdog organization, along with a man named Kevin Moncla. The EOG has helped file complaints with elections officials in Georgia and created research documents and videos based on debunked allegations. Cross, Moncla, and their organization were cited seven different times in the document shared by Trump and, on the Twitter broadcast, Cross hinted it was just the beginning.

“One of the things that everybody needs to realize about this report is that this is a summary. There’s a bigger report that’s going to be coming later and it’s going to be like dropping a nuclear bomb on all of these states and with all of the ways that elections are manipulated,” Cross declared. “So, that’ll be the next thing that’s coming. So, you’re kind of getting a taste of the big picture in looking at this report. There’s more to come.”

Cross, who did not elaborate on his apparent inside knowledge, then went on to encourage other activists to obtain positions working within election infrastructure. However, he cautioned them to erase their “pro-Trump” digital footprint beforehand.

“You need to be involved as an election worker on Election Day and, if you are going to do that, then go on to your Facebook account and eliminate as much conservative stuff as you possibly can because you will be profiled,” he said. “They will not hire you.”

“Put stuff about, like, you know, your cats, and your flower garden, or your dogs, or fishing. I don’t care, just not political stuff,” Cross said, adding, “Get your ass hired so that you can be part of this and be part of the solution.”

The strategy was an example of how election conspiracy-theory activists are taking their message offline and into the polling places and offices where America’s votes are counted. After outlining his idea for a stealth mission, Cross returned to the report and seemed to indicate he had a hand in writing it.

“We have to close all possible loops for cheating and malfeasance, and I think we’ve done a really good job of exposing that in the report that everybody’s reading or the summary that you’re reading,” Cross said.

Despite seeming to take credit on the Twitter broadcast, Cross denied playing any role writing the report shared by Trump during a phone conversation with TPM on Feb. 2.

“My involvement in that report is just that my work was cited in it, so I didn’t actually write the bullet points that are in there, because what you’re looking at is a summary,” Cross said. “But I am aware that there’s going to be more, because, like I said, you’re looking at a summary, you’re not looking at all the details.”

Former President Donald Trump acknowledges supporters as he leaves the stage at the conclusion of a campaign rally at the SNHU Arena on January 20, 2024 in Manchester, New Hampshire. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The Trump campaign clearly played a role in publishing the report. On Jan. 6, four days after Trump shared the “election fraud” summary and his legal team cited it in the reply brief, the Washington Post published a story about the document that claimed “Trump campaign spokesperson Liz Harrington wrote the report.” The Post cited people “familiar with the matter.” Along with reportedly being produced by a Trump staffer, the document was hosted on a URL associated with Campaign Nucleus, a platform used by the campaign. That official web address is what led the excited activists to dub the document “The Nucleus File.”

Harrington did not respond to requests for comment on record. Cross also initially denied being in contact with anyone on Trump’s campaign team, but later admitted the pair had been in contact.

“Liz is really private, and so, I’m not really comfortable talking about what she’s doing or anything like that,” Cross said. “I mean, I can tell you that I’ve had a couple of conversations with her, but it’s all fairly general.”

The Post described Harrington as a “polarizing figure in Trump’s orbit” due to her interest in 2020 election denial. Overall, the reporters framed the publication of the report as evidence of “divisions” on Trump’s team, where some of the staff have tried to tamp down on the election conspiracy theories. A senior former Trump campaign official echoed that notion in a conversation with TPM where they described Harrington as a source of “craziness” and a “challenging” figure for those trying to steer Trump away from the false voter fraud narratives.

Of course, while Harrington or other individual staffers might be interested in election conspiracy theories, at the end of the day, it is Trump himself who shared the report and his lawyers who cited it in a court filing. Still, Harrington seems to be a central figure connecting fringe election activists with the Trump campaign.

Last August, Trump announced a grand plan to unveil a separate report on “the Presidential Election Fraud which took place in Georgia” during a press conference at his New Jersey golf club. According to the New York Times, that report was a more than 100-page document “compiled at least in part by Liz Harrington, a Trump communications aide who is often described as among the true believers in his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.”

Despite Trump’s announcement, the press conference never took place and that Georgia-specific document has, thus far, never seen the light of day.

The Georgia report that Harrington supposedly worked on seems like it may have been referenced in the “Nucleus File,” which contained multiple citations referencing a “Report on Widespread Fraud in the Georgia 2020 Presidential Election” that does not appear to exist anywhere else online. In a conversation last week, Kevin Moncla, David Cross’ partner in the Election Oversight Group, told TPM he is aware of a report on Georgia that is based, in part, on the pair’s research.

“The Georgia portion of that report I know includes some of our work,” Moncla said.

Like Cross, Moncla was somewhat coy when asked about his ties to Harrington.

“I’ve contributed my work,” Moncla said. “I’ll just leave it at that.”

Georgia’s 2020 election result, which has been the focus of much of Cross’ and Moncla’s work and skepticism, has been affirmed in three separate counts overseen by officials from Trump’s own party. The factual issues and logical leaps that plague their work aren’t the only things that make the pair potentially problematic associates for a presidential campaign. Last year, Georgia election officials asked the FBI to investigate a series of aggressive emails they received from Moncla in conjunction with complaints he filed related to the administration of the vote. At least one of those complaints is still being reviewed by the State Election Board. Moncla has also had personal legal troubles. In 2004, Moncla pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor voyeurism charge related to secretly videotaping his former wife and other guests in the bathroom of their home.

When asked about the call for an FBI investigation, Moncla said, “I’m not going to get into the status of it.” And he dismissed the voyeurism charges as an issue that came up in a “personal divorce case.”

“My work stands for itself, I don’t care what people think of me,” Moncla said.

Along with showing links between fringe activists and the Trump campaign, the “Nucleus File” connects the conspiratorial politics to the former president’s legal team. The filing that cited the document used it as an example of evidence that prosecutors are ignoring “the vigorous disputes and questions about the actual outcome of the 2020 Presidential election — disputes that date back to November 2020, continue to this day in our nation’s political discourse, and are based on extensive information about widespread fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election.” Trump’s attorneys, who have argued he has immunity for his conduct on Jan. 6, brought that point up to argue prosecutors had made “legally and factually incorrect” statements in the case. The lawyers who filed the brief citing the report did not respond to requests for comment.

Attorneys for former U.S. President Donald Trump Todd Blanche (2nd R), John Lauro (R) and Gregory Singer (L) arrive at the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Court House August 28, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Cobb, the veteran defense attorney and former federal prosecutor who once worked for Trump, theorized to TPM that the inclusion of election conspiracy theories is likely an effort directed by the former president to “relitigate that and complicate the criminal case.” Cobb predicted that strategy would be an utter failure since it is “irrelevant” to the question of whether Trump tried to obstruct an official proceeding.

“As a criminal defendant, you’re basically allowed to say it was an alien abduction,” Cobb said.

While Trump and his attorneys might be able to bring up election conspiracy theories in pre-trial hearings, Cobb predicted the judge would not allow them to take these issues to trial.

“You can get away with a lot argumentatively pretrial, but that’s why this would be a pretrial exercise. … He needs to get through her to be able to raise this at trial,” Cobb said, referencing U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, “and he won’t be able to do that.”

Though Cobb does not expect “The Nucleus File” will make it further into Trump’s case, its inclusion in the filings so far does seem to shed light on the figures surrounding the president. On both his campaign and in his defense Trump has found people who are willing to indulge in the 2020 election fantasies promoted by the former president.

For his part, Cobb said he would refuse to file this type of information for a client and would “withdraw” if they insisted on it.

“There’s right and wrong, and the importance of ethics, and having a duty of candor with the court,” Cobb said, adding, “You don’t perpetrate a fraud upon the court and you try to stop shy of letting your client do it. So this is the kind of thing I would just say no to.”

Trump’s current legal and political operations clearly have no such qualms.