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?
Orbán meeting offers preview of Trump’s 2nd-term strongman idealizations
Analysis by Stephen Collinson – March 8, 2024
Szilard Koszticsak/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock/File
Victor Orban is taking his blueprint on dismantling democracy to Mar-a-Lago.
The Hungarian prime minister first won power through a democratic election, then proceeded to weaken the institutions of that democracy by eroding the legal system, firing civil servants, politicizing business, attacking the press and intimidating opposition parties and demagoguing migration.
Former President Donald Trump has left no doubt that he’d try something similar in the United States if he wins a second term – so the presumptive GOP nominee will presumably be eager to compare notes when he hosts Orbán in Florida on Friday.
The prime minister isn’t meeting Biden administration officials. (A Biden administration official told CNN’s Betsy Klein that no invitation for a meeting between the current US president and Hungarian leader was extended.) Instead, he’s choosing to meet the man he hopes will again be US president next year. The two men have a long history of mutual admiration. The fact that one of Trump’s first moves since becoming presumptive GOP nominee this week is to meet a European autocrat speaks volumes.
Trump sees Orbán as the kind of strongman – unencumbered by legal and political restraints – that he’d like to be. Orbán also frequently genuflects to Russian President Vladimir Putin – just like the former US president. Orbán supports Trump’s vow to end the war in Ukraine if he’s elected within 24 hours – a process that could happen only on Putin’s terms and reward his illegal invasion. Their relationship is also helped by the Hungarian leader’s frequent praise for Trump. He knows the way to the ex-president’s heart. At a rally in New Hampshire in January, Trump diverted from his regular stump speech to laud Orbán in a way that offered a chilling glimpse into his own intentions. “Some people don’t like him because he’s too strong. It’s good to have a strong man at the head of a country,” Trump reflected.
Orbán’s far-right populism, fierce anti-immigration rhetoric, Christian nationalism and hostility to LGBTQ rights has made him a popular ideological model for Trump’s “Make America Great Again” followers. He has spoken in the past at the Conservative Political Action Conference – an annual gathering of pro-Trump forces – and Hungary will host another edition of CPAC’s overseas conferences next month.
In many ways, Orbán pioneered a demagogic style of leadership that is identical to that of Trump long before the ex-reality star and property mogul went into politics. His country is a member of NATO and the European Union but, like Trump, he has often taken steps that cut against the interests of the western democracies. He has, for instance, long feuded with the EU over his anti-immigration policies and slowed the entry of Sweden into NATO, which finally took place this week.
Ahead of his meeting with the former president, Orbán endorsed Trump’s views on Ukraine, in what will have been music to Putin’s ears and will have added to alarm in Kyiv about what a second Trump term would mean. “It is not gambling but actually betting on the only sensible chance, that we in Hungary bet on the return of President Trump,” Orbán told an economic forum on Monday, Reuters reported. “The only chance of the world for a relatively fast peace deal is political change in the United States and this is linked to who is the president.”
Trump’s antipathy to sending more US aid to Ukraine had prompted House Republicans to block President Joe Biden’s latest $60 billion package and has led frontline soldiers fighting Russia to ration bullets. Trump is not even president, but he’s already influencing US policy in ways that help Putin.
Biden used the early portion of his State of the Union address on Thursday night to castigate Trump over his hostility to NATO allies and affinity with the Russian leader. “My predecessor, a former Republican president, tells Putin, ‘Do whatever the hell you want,’” Biden said, referring to a comment by Trump to the effect that if NATO states didn’t make military spending targets he wouldn’t defend them. “A former American president actually said that, bowing down to a Russian leader. It’s outrageous. It’s dangerous. It’s unacceptable.”
Biden, who is anchoring his reelection bid on a warning that Trump would destroy US democracy in a second term, was quick to seize on Orbán’s visit to Florida. In a statement, Biden’s campaign rebuked Trump for meeting “Hungarian dictator Viktor Orbán, notorious for eroding his own country’s democracy and cozying up to Vladimir Putin (sound familiar?)”
The juxtaposition of Biden using his State of the Union address on Thursday to vow to fight to preserve American and global democracy and Trump’s red carpet welcome for Orbán eloquently encapsulates the political and geopolitical crossroads that America’s presidential election represents.
Much of Europe is already recoiling in horror over the possibility of a second term for Trump. But in Budapest, at least, he’s seen as a kindred spirit and his return would be greeted with great satisfaction.
Trump praises ‘fantastic’ Viktor Orbán while hosting Hungarian autocrat at Mar-a-Lago for meeting and concert
Kristen Holmes and Andrew Millman – March 9, 2024
Emin Sansar/Anadolu/Getty Images
Donald Trump heaped praise on Viktor Orbán while hosting the Hungarian prime minister at Mar-a-Lago on Friday night.
“There’s nobody that’s better, smarter or a better leader than Viktor Orbán. He’s fantastic,” the former president told a crowd gathered for a concert at the Florida resort, as shown in a series of videos posted to Orbán’s Instagram account.
Trump added that the European autocrat is “a noncontroversial figure because he said, ‘This is the way it’s going to be,’ and that’s the end of it, right? He’s the boss and … he’s a great leader, fantastic leader. In Europe and around the world, they respect him.”
Trump called the visit “an honor” and seemed to reference the pair staying in contact after he left White House in 2021, saying they “kept in touch.”
The meeting and subsequent admiration underscore Trump’s history of embracing global strongmen – at times at the expense of more traditional US allies.
The former president and a small group of close advisers met with Orbán for roughly an hour Friday night, sources familiar with the matter told CNN, with one of the sources describing it as a “social meeting” with no agenda. A separate source called it “friendly.”
Trump, according to a readout from his campaign, met with Orbán “to discuss 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.”
Orbán, a fourth source told CNN, sought the meeting with Trump and had been planning to be in the US separately.
Afterward, Trump took him to a tribute concert that was part of a “members only” event at the club, featuring The Beatles and Rolling Stones tribute bands, along with the Palm Beach Symphony.
In one clip posted to social media, Orbán can be seen at the concert – billed as “Orchestral Elegance Meets Rock Legends” – presenting former first lady Melania Trump with a large bouquet of flowers as the band played “Oh, Pretty Woman” by Roy Orbison.
A Biden administration official confirmed to CNN that the White House did not extend an invitation to the authoritarian leader to meet with President Joe Biden, and Orbán did not request a White House meeting during his trip to the US this week.
Biden earlier in the day suggested the meeting between the Hungarian strongman and Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, was worrying.
Asked whether he was concerned about the Mar-a-Lago talks, Biden said: “If I’m not, you should be” – suggesting it was only natural for him to be alarmed by the meeting between Orbán and Trump.
Orbán’s far-right populism, fierce anti-immigration rhetoric, Christian nationalism and hostility to LGBTQ rights has made him a popular ideological model for Trump’s “Make America Great Again” followers. He has spoken in the past at the Conservative Political Action Conference – an annual gathering of pro-Trump forces – and Hungary will host another edition of CPAC’s overseas conferences next month.
The Biden administration has mostly declined to comment on Orbán’s meetings with Trump, but the president seized on the visit during remarks Friday evening in the crucial 2024 battleground of Pennsylvania.
“You know who he’s meeting with today, down in Mar-a-Lago? Orbán of Hungary, who stated flatly he doesn’t think democracy works – he’s looking for dictatorship,” Biden told the crowd gathered for what was his effectively his first rally of the 2024 general election campaign.
“That’s who he’s meeting with,” Biden added. “I see a future where we defend democracy, not diminish it.”
This headline and story have been updated with additional details.
CNN’s Kevin Liptak, Betsy Klein, Michael Williams and Kaanita Iyer contributed to this report.
The ratification cements NATO’s presence in the Nordic region with all countries now members, and makes the Baltic essentially a “Nato sea” right on Vladimir Putin‘s doorstep.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken presided at a ceremony in which Sweden’s “instrument of accession” to the alliance was officially deposited at the State Department.
“This is a historic moment for Sweden. It’s historic for alliance. It’s history for the transatlantic relationship,” Mr Blinken said as he welcomed the 32nd country into the group. “Our Nato alliance is now stronger, larger than it’s ever been.”
The Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg described it as “a historic day,” adding: “After over 200 years of non-alignment Sweden now enjoys the protection granted under Article 5, the ultimate guarantee of Allies’ freedom and security”.
Article 5 of Nato’s treaty obliges all members to come to the aid of an ally whose territory or security is under threat. It has only been activated once – by the US after the 11 September, 2001, attacks – and is the collective security guarantee that Sweden has sought since Russia invaded Ukraine.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, right, accepts Sweden’s instruments of accession from Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson (Reuters)
Finland and Sweden both applied to join the defence alliance in the wake of Russian President Putin ordering the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. While Finland officially joined Nato last April, Sweden’s bid was held up by Hungary and Turkey.
Turkey expressed concern that Sweden was harboring and not taking enough action against members of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), which is deemed a terrorist group by Ankara, the US and the EU. The Turkish parliament finally gave approval in January. As for Hungary, it continued to drag its feet, without ever being so clear about the reasons for its objections. Populist
President Viktor Orban is Putin’s closest ally in Europe, and has been a block on EU-wide funding for Ukraine. Some have suggested that Orban has sought to play up his nation’s military and economic leverage to look strong to a domestic audience. Hungary finally ratified in the decision within the last week.
“Good things come to those who wait. No better example,” Mr Blinken said.
The White House said that having Sweden as a Nato ally “will make the United States and our allies even safer.”
A Ukrainian serviceman from air defence unit of the 93rd Mechanized Brigade fires a AK-74 assault rifle on the eastern frontline near Bakhmut (REUTERS)
“Nato is the most powerful defensive alliance in the history of the world, and it is as critical today to ensuring the security of our citizens as it was 75 years ago when our alliance was founded out of the wreckage of the Second World War,” it said in a statement.
Mr Kristersson was due to visit the White House and then be a guest of honor at President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address to Congress late on Thursday. Mr Biden is expected to cite Sweden’s accession to Nato as evidence that Putin’s intent to divide and weaken the alliance has failed as a direct result of the Ukraine invasion. He is also set to use Sweden’s decision to join to step up calls for reluctant Republicans to approved stalled military assistance to Ukraine as the war enters its third year.
Ukraine has been facing Russian advances in eastern areas of the 600-mile frontline while having to contend with shortages of ammunition. While the EU has managed to overcome Orban’s objections to push through some fresh funding, the US Congress still cannot agree. As Washington is the single largest supplier of military aid to Kyiv, Ukrainian officials have urged the US to agree new funds as soon as possible, as it is having a direct impact on the frontline.
The Swedish flag will be raised outside the military organization’s headquarters in Brussels on Monday. “Sweden will now take its rightful place at Nato’s table, with an equal say in shaping Nato policies and decisions,” Mr Stoltenberg said in his statement.
“Sweden’s accession makes Nato stronger, Sweden safer and the whole alliance more secure,” he added. He said that the move “demonstrates that Nato’s door remains open and that every nation has the right to choose its own path.”
Sweden has already got a taste of military exercises with NATO. Nordic response, a first-of-its-time training venture was launched in recent days across northern Norway, Sweden and Finland. The exercises across land, air and sea involve more than 20,000 troops from 13 nations, including the UK.
Trump meets with Hungary’s leader, Viktor Orbán, continuing his embrace of autocrats
Nicholas Riccardi and Justin Spike – March 8, 2024
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban speaks at CPAC in Dallas, Aug. 4, 2022. Former President Donald Trump is meeting Friday, March 8, 2024, with Orban, a prominent conservative populist whose crackdowns in Hungary have sparked criticism that he’s eroding that country’s democracy. The meeting comes as Hungary has had conflicts with President Joe Biden’s administration. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File)A fisherman casts a line near Mar-a-Lago, as former President Donald Trump is planning to meet Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban, Friday, March 8, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)A security guard stands near an entrance to Mar-a-Lago, as former President Donald Trump is planning to meet Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban, Friday, March 8, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
Former President Donald Trump met Friday with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, as the likely Republican presidential nominee continued his embrace of autocratic leaders who are part of a global pushback against democratic traditions.
Orbán has become an icon to some conservative populists for championing what he calls “illiberal democracy,” replete with restrictions on immigration and LGBTQ+ rights. But he’s also cracked down on the press and judiciary in his country and rejiggered the country’s political system to keep his party in power while maintaining the closest relationship with Russia among all European Union countries.
In the U.S., Trump’s allies have embraced Orbán’s approach. On Thursday, as foreign dignitaries milled through Washington, D.C., ahead of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, Orbán skipped the White House and instead spoke at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank overseeing the 2025 Project, the effort to create a governing blueprint for Trump’s next term.
“Supporting families, fighting illegal migration and standing up for the sovereignty of our nations. This is the common ground for cooperation between the conservative forces of Europe and the U.S.,” Orbán wrote on X, formerly Twitter, after his Heritage appearance.
He then flew to Florida, where met Trump late Friday afternoon at the former president’s beachfront compound, Mar-a-Lago. Orbán posted on his Instagram account footage of him and his staff meeting with Trump and the former president’s staff, then of the prime minister walking through the compound and handing Melania Trump a giant bouquet of flowers.
In the video, Trump praised Orbán to a laughing crowd. “He’s a non-controversial figure because he says, ‘This is the way it’s going to be,’ and that’s the end of it. Right?” Trump said of the Hungarian prime minister. “He’s the boss.”
The Trump campaign said late Friday that the two men discussed “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.”
Campaigning Friday in Pennsylvania, Biden said of Trump: ’You know who he’s meeting with today down in Mar-a-Lago? Orbán of Hungary, who’s stated flatly that he doesn’t thinks democracy works, he’s looking for dictatorship.”
“I see a future where we defend democracy, not diminish it,” Biden added.
Orbán’s approach appeals to Trump’s brand of conservatives, who have abandoned their embrace of limited government and free markets for a system that sides with their own ideology, said Dalibor Rohac, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
“They want to use the tools of government to reward their friends and punish their opponents, which is what Orbán has done,” Rohac said.
The meeting also comes as Trump has continued to embrace authoritarians of all ideological stripes. He’s praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. Orbán’s government has reciprocated, repeatedly praising the former president.
On Friday, Hungary’s Foreign Minister, Péter Szijjártó, posted from Palm Beach, hailing Trump’s “strength” and implying that the world would be more peaceful were he still president.
“If Donald Trump had been elected President of the United States in 2020, the war in Ukraine, now in its third year, would not have broken out and the conflict in the Middle East would have been resolved much faster,” he wrote.
Orbán has served as Hungary’s prime minister since 2010. The next year, his party, Fidesz, used its two-thirds majority in the legislature to rewrite the nation’s constitution. It changed the retirement age for judges, forcing hundreds into early retirement, and vested responsibility for appointing new judges with a single political appointee who was widely accused of acting on behalf of Fidesz.
Fidesz later authored a new media law and set up a nine-member council to serve as the country’s media regulator. All nine members are Fidesz appointees, which media watchdogs say has facilitated a major decline in press freedom and plurality.
The country’s legislative lines have been redrawn to protect Fidesz members and no major news outlets remain that are critical of Orbán’s government, making it almost impossible for his party to lose elections, analysts say.
Orbán backed Trump’s reelection effort and has had frosty relations with the Biden administration, which pointedly did not invite Hungary to a summit on democracy it organized after the president took office. Hungarian officials have accused Biden’s ambassador to the country, former human rights lawyer David Pressman, of interfering in internal governmental affairs.
Earlier this week, Hungary objected to Biden’s choice of a former Dutch prime minister to serve as NATO’s new commander, potentially stalling the appointment.
The Hungarian leader also has enthusiastically boosted Trump’s latest presidential campaign, posting a message encouraging Trump to “keep fighting” after he was hit with the first of what would be four criminal cases against him last year. Last week, Orbán declared that a win by the former president would be “the only serious chance” for ending the war in Ukraine.
A video from the Heritage appearance posted by Orbán’s political director showed the prime minister speaking with Vivek Ramaswamy, a pharmaceutical entrepreneur who unsuccessfully ran for the Republican presidential nomination before dropping out and endorsing Trump. The Hungarian leader also met with Steve Bannon, a former Trump adviser who remains a vocal ally of the ex-president and is active in global populist circles.
Orbán’s visit this week comes after he signed a new National Sovereignty Law that penalizes any foreign support of political actors in Hungary, part of the prime minister’s longstanding battle against the European Union and international nonprofits criticizing his erosion of Hungary’s democracy.
“Orbán is setting up this huge barrier to anyone interfering in Hungarian elections, but Orbán’s interfering in all sorts of other countries’ elections,” said Kim Scheppele, a Princeton sociologist and Hungary expert.
Orbán is one of a small group of conservative populists who have publicly aligned themselves with U.S. conservatives trying to oust Biden in November. Last month, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and Argentine President Javier Milei spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference just outside Washington. Orbán was a featured speaker at the 2022 event, after which he met Trump at the former president’s New Jersey golf course.
Several conservative populists have won European elections in recent years, including in Italy and Sweden. But leaders in those countries have remained staunch opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, not battled with the European Union government or taken steps that alarm democracy advocates as Orbán has.
Scheppele said the parallels between Trump and Orbán go beyond ideology. She noted that Orbán is not very religious but has become a hero to Christian conservatives for his hardline stances, much like Trump.
The two men face a similar electoral quandary as well, she added.
“They’ve got the same problem,” Scheppele said. “How do you leverage a really solid base, which is not an actual majority, at election time?”
Riccardi reported from Denver and Spike from Budapest. Associated Press political writer Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.
Doctors Say Trump Is Displaying Clear Signs of Cognitive Issues
Victor Tangermann – March 8, 2024
At 81 years old, president Joe Biden has attracted significant voter misgivings over his age and mental acuity.
But his rival in the upcoming presidential election, Donald Trump, may be dealing with much more acute cognitive issues.
Experts are becoming increasingly worried over Trump’s condition, Salon reports, with the former president struggling to form coherent sentences and even once again confusing Biden with his predecessor Barack Obama during a rally in North Carolina this month.
“Not enough people are sounding the alarm, that based on his behavior, and in my opinion, Donald Trump is dangerously demented,” psychologist and former Johns Hopkins Medical School professor John Gartner, who wrote a book about Trump’s mental health, told Salon.
“This is a tale of two brains,” he added. “Biden’s brain is aging. Trump’s brain is dementing.”
“In my opinion, Donald Trump is getting worse as his cognitive state continues to degrade,” Gartner said. “If Trump were your relative, you’d be thinking about assisted care right now.”
Others agreed.
“It is meaningful because the confusion of people, in contrast to the occasional forgetting of names, is a sign of early dementia, as noted by the Dementia Care Society,” licensed psychologist and founder and executive director of the Washington Center For Cognitive Therapy Vincent Greenwoodtold the publication.
As for Trump mispronouncing words like “Venezuela” or “migrant crime,” experts tend to agree he’s exhibiting early signs of “paraphasia,” speech disturbances caused by brain damage, and “not just aging,” as Greenwood argued.
And others, like clinical psychologist and Cornell University senior lecturer Harry Segal, who specializes in mental health disorders, offer a more nuanced assessment — though not one that inspires much confidence in Trump.
“Since this is an intermittent problem, it suggests that when Trump is especially stressed and exhausted, he suffers cognitive slippage that affects the way he associates words or their meaning,” he told Salon. “Note, though, that Trump’s pathological lying is itself a form of mental illness, so these cognitive lapses are literally sitting atop what appears to be an already compromised psychological functioning.”
Biden’s allies are begging him to fight harder. The State of the Union is his chance to do so.
Edward-Isaac Dovere, CNN – March 7, 2024
A handful of Democratic governors made their way through a gaggle of their colleagues last month to tell President Joe Biden directly what they’ve been stressing behind the scenes: He needs to be fighting harder.
The Democrats told Biden that he needed to show more of the fire that was on display in a closed-door meeting with governors when Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte handed him a letter demanding more action on the southern border. Biden flashed a smile, according to two of the governors standing there.
“State of the Union,” Biden said, teasingly.
That fighting attitude is anticipated to be on display during Thursday’s primetime speech, in which the president is expected to go much further than he is used to in bashing corporations for gouging consumers and racking up profits. But with anger about rising prices driving so much of the bad vibes surrounding the economy — even the Cookie Monster X account posted about shrinkflation on Monday, prompting a response from the White House — Biden is going where he long resisted, in an effort to redirect the fury that has been weighing him down in the polls.
Leading Democrats say it’s far past time.
Two dozen top Democratic officials and operatives who spoke to CNN said they’re tired of reading that the president is cursing about Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu behind the closed doors of the Oval Office, or hearing reports that he told donors that Vladimir Putin is “a crazy SOB” and that MAGA Republicans are worse than segregationists. They want to see that passion and fire out in public as assurances that the president’s behind-the-scenes demeanor doesn’t match the public perception of the 81-year-old commander-in-chief are wearing thin.
“A lot of times you need to hear it from the candidate,” said Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota who’s eagerly thrown himself into becoming one of the president’s most active defenders. “Joe Biden’s a nice guy. People get that. One of the things people wonder, ‘Is he tough enough to take these things on?’”
Plus, Walz said, it would push back against the concerns that Biden is too old.
“I think it helps. He’s still going to be his age, but I think it helps to make the case on this,” Walz said. “Punch [Trump] a little bit. He earned it.”
Multiple Democratic officials told CNN they are hesitant of how much of to say, weighing the risks of calling even more attention to what Biden isn’t doing by going public.
But privately, many talk longingly about wanting to see more passion and pride – political theatrics, sure, but ones that they argue are crucial – at a moment when exhaustion with the process is pervasive and the Democratic worries over a second Trump administration are high. Biden’s effort in standing up for democracy shouldn’t top out with a few sly digs on Seth Meyers’ late-night show, they insist. They argue he shouldn’t give a forceful speech marking the anniversary of the January 6, 2021, insurrection and assume that will fill out his energetic quota for over two months.
“People do want to see that he’s a fighter, which he is. Anything that presents the contrast, which I think that would help do, I’d be for,” said New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a longtime friend of Biden.
Planning for traps
At a moment when polls show majorities of Democrats don’t think Biden should be running for reelection, and with the biggest national audience he is likely to get outside of the summer convention, Biden and his aides are hyper aware of the importance of Thursday’s speech. They know every word and stutter and shuffle will be picked over as much as any of the policy proposals, and the drafting has been going until late into the evening in the West Wing.
Top Biden advisers insist that their favorite moment from last year’s speech – when he got Republicans to boo cutting Social Security and Medicare, punctuating the moment with “I enjoy conversion” – was not at all planned.
This time around, aides acknowledge that the political pressure has them workshopping options to not leave Biden’s fate up to another improvisation and the hope that he will have another smooth off-the-cuff response.
Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz isn’t sure the State of the Union is the right forum for Biden to come out in full force, “but after that, I think he’s going to have to be gloves off.”
Biden aides love to scold and shame reporters for coverage they think is unfair or over-torqued. Schatz said the president and his aides need to move past that to get negative stories about Trump covered by getting Biden to take the swings.
“We don’t have time to rewrite the rules of engagement in journalism. We just have to work with what we have,” Schatz said. “He’s personally going to have to make that case, and not assume that people are organically going to get it, either from surrogates or via osmosis.”
Biden aides acknowledge he’d look stronger if he fought more
For months, Biden campaign aides have been talking about the need to step up, and the obvious benefit they see in him doing it. People look strong when they’re picking fights, is how one senior Biden campaign official summarized the thinking to CNN all the way back in January – and they know the president needs to look stronger than he does.
They have found this easier said than done, and not just because Biden is trying to maintain the chances of getting a few outstanding bills through Congress, including avoiding a shutdown and sending more aid to Israel and Ukraine.
“The real Joe Biden is: ‘We’re red states, we’re bluestates, but we’re the United States of America,’” said Gov. John Carney, who’s known Biden for decades and attributes that sensibility to their shared Delaware roots. “But he also is feisty.”
President Joe Biden talks with Delaware Gov. John Carney following a dinner reception for governors and their spouses on February 11 in Washington, DC. – Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
And while Biden has enjoyed needling Trump while knowing he’ll probably get a response, his inclination is to present a calm demeanor for the sake of trying to insert more civility into politics – like the laudatory statement about Sen. Mitch McConnell he pushed to release last week after the Kentucky Republican announced he would be stepping down as minority leader. Biden did rile up many core Democrats by putting out any statement praising McConnell and by not mentioning things like his role in overturning Roe v. Wade by ensuring that Antonin Scalia’s and Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seats went to conservatives.
“A statement like that, you have to wonder if Joe Biden gets it,” one enraged high-level Democratic operative complained to CNN.
Most of the fiercest statements to come out of Biden’s campaign so far have been attributed to staff members or written largely by others in his name. Aides say realistic management of the president’s time is a basic consideration: busy running the country, he cannot be constantly running to microphones to blast Trump.
“President Biden is on offense, demonstrating whose side he’s on and calling Republican officials out for choosing rich special interests over middle class families, choosing extreme attacks on basic reproductive health care over Americans’ freedoms, and choosing fentanyl traffickers over the Border Patrol by opposing the toughest bipartisan border security legislation in modern history,” said White House spokesman Andrew Bates.
Biden campaign spokeswoman Lauren Hitt followed up with a statement noting similar points and that “the president and vice president will absolutely continue holding Donald Trump accountable and communicating directly to voters how much is at stake in this election.”
Tactically skipping some fights
But on several issues with huge potential for wavering voters, Biden can’t say much at all.
Trump’s kaleidoscope of indictments and court cases is one of the former president’s greatest political liabilities and a popular line of attack from Nikki Haley. But Biden is committed to making clear the independence of the Justice Department and courts.
He has more to say about Netanyahu and the situation in Gaza that American voters might be interested in, but White House aides are wary of how scrupulously every word attributed to the president is being read both by the Israeli government and Arab leaders in the region.
Biden’s habit of pulling back the curtain on these thoughts and others at fundraisers isn’t just because he gets comfortable in front of a friendly crowd. It’s an occasionally tactical decision to try to get his comments into the media bloodstream while preserving a sliver of plausible distance.
Just because going harder lights up Democrats already obsessing about the race and plays well online doesn’t mean it’s the best strategy for winning over the moderates and Republicans turned off by Trump that Biden is hoping to be a palatable enough alternative for, especially over a long campaign that can already feel like a slog with still eight months to go.
For now, the campaign has been leaning on a format for videos for its new TikTok and other social media accounts: Hand Biden an iPad and record him watching and reacting to a video of the latest Trump comment that the campaign wants to highlight. It’s what one campaign aide called “the real digital equivalent of ‘Let Biden be Biden.’” Biden’s mostly exasperated reactions from watching the videos tend to be fresh, but the comments he makes after to sum them up are scripted and modulated.
And for all the people complaining that Biden can seem like an elderly man sleepwalking on the job, aides feel like they have plenty of time to ratchet up the outrage.
That only goes so far.
“You can’t be at an 11 out of 10 in terms of being alarmed for eight months in a row – so I understand the need for him to peak at the right time, and to make those arguments when the maximum number of voters are paying attention.” Schatz said. “But a lot of times politicians are advised not to be too rough, because it can harm, it can backfire, because it can backfire. In this case, people really know what they think of Joe Biden as a human. So, he’s got a lot of runway here to be as tough as necessary.”
15 promises Donald Trump has made so far in his campaign for a second term
Piper Hudspeth Blackburn and Abby Turner – March 6, 2024
Former President Donald Trump, now the presumptive Republican nominee, has made a number of promises on the campaign trail, including rolling back car pollution rules, building 10 new cities and appointing a special prosecutor to investigate President Joe Biden and his family.
While some of Trump’s plans are lacking in detail, here are some of the policies he says he would enact if elected for a second term.
Immigration
Trump has made immigration and the border a central campaign issue, successfully pressuring Republicans to reject a major bipartisan border deal last month and making a trip to the southern border on February 29, where he touted his previous hard-line immigration policies.
In a Des Moines Register op-ed published roughly a week before winning the Iowa caucuses in January, Trump vowed to use the “Alien Enemies Act to remove known or suspected gang members, drug dealers, or cartel members from the United States.”
“We will shift massive portions of federal law enforcement to immigration enforcement — including parts of the DEA, ATF, FBI, and DHS,” he wrote.
In a video posted on Truth Social in late February before his border visit, Trump also promised to “carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.”
After the Israel-Hamas war began last October, Trump also promised to terminate the visas of “Hamas’ sympathizers.”
“We’ll get them off our college campuses, out of our cities and get them the hell out of our country, if that’s OK with you,” he added.
Drug cartels
The former president has also made waging “war” on drug cartels a priority for his second term. If elected, Trump said in his November 2022 campaign announcement that he would ask Congress to ensure that drug smugglers and human traffickers can receive the death penalty for their “heinous acts.”
Trump also vowed to “take down” drug cartels by imposing naval embargos on cartels, cutting off cartels’ access to global financial systems and using special forces within the Department of Defense to damage the cartels’ leadership.
Education
Trump announced plans in a September 2023campaign video to close the Department of Education and send “all education and education work and needs back to the states.”
“We want them to run the education of our children, because they’ll do a much better job of it,” he added.
The former president has also promised to “put parents back in charge and give them the final say” in education. In a January 2023 campaign video, the former president said he would give funding preferences and “favorable treatment” to schools that allow parents to elect principals, abolish teacher tenure for K-12 teachers, use merit pay to incentivize quality teaching and cut the number of school administrators, such as those overseeing diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
Trump also said in that campaign video that he would cut funding for schools that teach critical race theory and gender ideology. In a later speech, Trump said he would bring back the 1776 Commission, which was launched in his previous administration to “teach our values and promote our history and our traditions to our children.”
The former president said he would charge the Department of Justice and the Department of Education with investigating civil rights violations of race-based discrimination in schools while also removing “Marxists” from the Department of Education. A second Trump administration would pursue violations in schools of both the Constitution’s Establishment and Free Exercise clauses, which prohibit the government establishment of religion and protect a citizen’s right to practice their own religion, he said.
Health care
Last November, Trump promised to replace the Affordable Care Act, known colloquially as Obamacare, in a series of posts on Truth Social. A Trump-backed effort to repeal andreplace Obamacare failed in 2017 after three Republicans senators joined with Democrats to vote against the bill.
“Getting much better Healthcare than Obamacare for the American people will be a priority of the Trump Administration,” he said.
“It is not a matter of cost, it is a matter of HEALTH. America will have one of the best Healthcare Plans anywhere in the world. Right now it has one of the WORST!,” he continued. He also doubled down on his vow during a speech in early January.
Trump also vowed in a June 2023 campaign video to reinstate his previous executive order so that the US government would pay the same price for pharmaceuticals as other developed countries. Some of the former president’s pharmaceutical policies were overturned by Biden.
Gender care
“I will revoke every Biden policy promoting the chemical castration and sexual mutilation of our youth and ask Congress to send me a bill prohibiting child sexual mutilation in all 50 states,” Trump said at the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference last March.
Trump added in a campaign video that he would issue an executive order instructing federal agencies to cut programs that promote gender transitions, as well as asking Congress to stop the use of federal dollars to promote and pay for gender-affirming procedures. The former president added that his administration would not allow hospitals and health care providers to meet the federal health and safety standards for Medicaid and Medicare if they provide chemical or physical gender-affirming care to youth.
Justice system
Trump has promised to use the Department of Justice to attack critics and former allies. In several videos and speeches, the former president also laid out plans to gut the current justice system by firing “radical Marxist prosecutors that are destroying America.”
“I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” Trump said in June 2023 remarks. “I will totally obliterate the Deep State.”
Trump said in a campaign video last year that he would reinstate a 2020 executive order to remove “rogue” bureaucrats and propose a constitutional amendment for term limits on members of Congress.
To address what he labeled the “disturbing” relationship between technology platforms and the government, the former president said in a January 2023 video that he would enact a seven-year cooling off period before employees at agencies such as the FBI or CIA can work for platforms that oversee mass user data.
Trump added in multiple campaignreleases that he would task the Justice Department with investigating online censorship, ban federal agencies from “colluding” to censor citizens and suspend federal money to universities participating in “censorship-supporting activities.”
In a September 2023 speech at the Family Research Council’s Pray Vote Stand Summit in Washington, DC, Trump also touted plans to continue appointing conservative judges.
“I will once again appoint rock-solid conservative judges to do what they have to do in the mold of Justices Antonin Scalia; Samuel Alito, a great gentleman; and another great gentleman, Clarence Thomas,” he said.
Trump has also pledged to “appoint U.S. Attorneys who will be the polar opposite of the Soros District Attorneys and others that are being appointed throughout the United States.”
In a September 2023 speech in Washington, DC, Trump also announced that he would appoint a task force to review the cases of people he claimed had been “unjustly persecuted by the Biden administration.” Trump noted that he wanted to “study the situation very quickly, and sign their pardons or commutations on day one.”
It’s a move that could lead to potential pardons of many rioters from the January 6, 2021, insurrection – which he suggested he would do at a CNN town hall in May 2023.
Crime
Trump said in two February 2023 campaignvideos that if “Marxist” prosecutors refuse to charge crimes and surrender “our cities to violent criminals,” he “will not hesitate to send in federal law enforcement to restore peace and public safety.”
Trump added that he would instruct the Department of Justice to open civil rights investigations into “radical left” prosecutors’ offices that engaged in racial enforcement of the law, encourage Congress to use their legal authority over Washington, DC, to restore “law and order” and overhaul federal standards of disciplining minors to address rising crimes like carjackings.
Addressing policies made in what Trump calls the “Democrats’ war on police,” the former president vowed in a campaign video that he would pass a “record investment” to hire and retrain police, strengthen protections like qualified immunity, increase penalties for assaulting law enforcement officers and deploy the National Guard when local law enforcement “refuses to act.”
The former president added that he would require law enforcement agencies that receive money from his funding investment or the Department of Justice to use “proven common sense” measures such as stop-and-frisk.
Foreign policy
Trump has continued his attacks against member countries of NATO, a European and North American defense alliance. At a South Carolina rally last month,Trump said he would not abide by the alliance’s collective-defense clause and would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” if a member country didn’t meet spending guidelines.
“NATO was busted until I came along,” Trump said. “I said, ‘Everybody’s gonna pay.’ They said, ‘Well, if we don’t pay, are you still going to protect us?’ I said, ‘Absolutely not.’ They couldn’t believe the answer.”
The former president has also previously pledged to end the war in Ukraine, though he’s offered no details on how he would do so.“Shortly after I win the presidency, I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled,” Trump said at a New Hampshire campaign event last year, adding in another speech that it would take him “no longer than one day” to settle the war if elected.
Trump further addressed his strategy of stopping the “never-ending wars” by vowing to remove “warmongers,” “frauds” and “failures in the senior ranks of our government,” and replace them with national security officials who would defend America’s interests. The former president added in a campaign video that he would stop lobbyists and government contractors from pushing senior military officials toward war.
Trump said in multiple campaignvideos that he would spearhead an effort to build so-called “Freedom Cities” to “reopen the frontier, reignite American imagination, and give hundreds of thousands of young people and other people, all hardworking families, a new shot at home ownership and in fact, the American Dream.”
In his plan, the federal government would charter 10 new cities on federal land, awarding them to areas with the best development proposals. The former president said in a campaign video that the Freedom Cities would bring the return of US manufacturing, economic opportunity, new industries and affordable living.
In the March 2023 video, Trump added that the US under a second Trump administration would lead in efforts to “develop vertical-takeoff-and-landing vehicles for families and individuals,” not letting China lead “this revolution in air mobility.” The former president said these airborne vehicles would change commerce and bring wealth into rural communities.
Electric vehicles
Trump has promised to roll back new car pollution rules at the Environmental Protection Agency that could require electric vehicles to account for up to two-thirds of new cars sold in the US by 2032. Biden’s electrical vehicle-related policies, Trump claimed at a Michigan rally last September, “spell the death of the US auto industry.”
“On day one, I will terminate Joe Biden’s electrical vehicle mandate, and I will cancel every job-killing regulation that is crushing American autoworkers,” Trump added.
Energy
Trump has promised to reduce energy prices by increasing domestic production. In several campaign appearances, he has laid out plans to end delays in federal drilling permits and leases.
“We’re going to ‘drill, baby, drill’ right away,” Trump told a crowd of supporters in Des Moines, Iowa, during a victory speech after winning the state’s Republican caucusesin January.
At a South Carolina rally in February, he pledged to remove limits on American natural gas exports.
Trade
At the same rally in South Carolina,Trump pledged to impose “stiff penalties on China and other trade abusers.”
“It’s called you screw us, and we screw you,” Trump said.
Under his proposed “Trump Reciprocal Trade Act,” the former president said if other countries impose tariffs on the US, the country would impose “a reciprocal, identical” tariff right back.
It was the same pledge Trump made in a campaign video in 2023: to impose the same tariffs that other countries may impose on the US on those countries. The goal, the former president said then, is to get other countries to drop their tariffs.
As part of a larger strategy to bring jobs back into the US, Trump also said he would implement his so-called “America First” trade agenda if elected. By setting universal baseline tariffs on a majority of foreign goods, the former president said Americans would see taxes decrease as tariffs increase. His proposal also includes a four-year plan to phase out all Chinese imports of essential goods, as well as stopping China from buying up America and stopping the investment of US companies in China.
The former president has particularly focused on China, vowing in a January 2023 campaign video to restrict Chinese ownership of US infrastructure such as energy, technology, telecommunications and natural resources. Trump also said he would force the Chinese to sell current holdings that may put national security at risk. “Economic security is national security,” he said.
Economy
Trump has promised to extend the cuts from his 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, notably the TCJA’s individual income tax breaks. The former president has also talked about reducing the corporate tax rate from the current 21% to 15%.
“I will make the Trump tax cuts the largest tax cut in history,” the former president said last month at the Black Conservative Federation’s Honors Gala in South Carolina. “We’ll make it permanent and give you a new economic boom.”
Trump has also pledged to repeal Biden’s tax hikes, “immediately tackle” inflation and end what he called Biden’s “war” on American energy production.
Second Amendment
“I will take Biden’s executive order directing the federal government to target the firearms industry, and I will rip it up and throw it out on day one,” Trump said at the 2023 National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action leadership forum last April.
The former president also promised in the speech that the government would not infringe on citizens’ Second Amendment rights and that he would push Congress to pass a concealed carry reciprocity.
Equity
“I will create a special team to rapidly review every action taken by federal agencies under Biden’s ‘equity’ agenda that will need to be reversed. We will reverse almost all of them,” Trump said in a campaign video.
Trump added in multiple campaignvideos that he would revoke Biden’s equity executive order that required federal agencies to deliver equitable outcomes in policy and conduct equity training. If elected, Trump said he would also fire staffers hired to implement Biden’s policy, and then reinstate his 2020 executive order banning racial and sexual stereotyping in the federal government.
CNN’s Tami Luhby, Kate Sullivan and Kristin Holmes contributed to this report.
The ‘uniparty’? Conservatives bash bipartisanship by attacking fellow Republicans
Sahil Kapur and Allan Smith – March 3, 2024
WASHINGTON — An empowered faction of Donald Trump – aligned Republicans is seeking to redefine dealmaking as an insult by deploying the term “uniparty” to attack colleagues who work with Democrats and strike deals that fall short of what their base wants.
The growing use of the word among the GOP’s ascendant culture warriors represents an effort by conservative lawmakers, activists and commentators to disparage bipartisan agreements on matters that have broad support in Congress like government funding, infrastructure spending and aid for U.S. allies like Ukraine.
Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., chair of the far-right Freedom Caucus, called the recent House passage of a bill to avert a partial government shutdown an example of a “uniparty vote,” with Republicans who “talk about spending cuts and talk about fiscal responsibility” but ultimately support compromise spending measures.
“The uniparty is when the rubber meets the road and Republicans and Democrats join hands to stick it to the American people,” Good told NBC News.
He added that “unfortunately, too many Republicans are all too eager” to compromise with Democrats.
While Republicans control the House, Democrats hold the Senate majority and the White House, where President Joe Biden on Friday signed into law the short-term funding bill that was negotiated with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to keep the government open.
House and Senate Republicans who have assailed the so-called uniparty — including Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida, as well as Sens. Rick Scott of Florida and J.D. Vance of Ohio — all voted against the latest government funding bill.
The House voted 320-99 to pass the measure, followed by a 77-13 vote in the Senate — evidence that there is “absolutely” a “uniparty” in Washington, according to Boebert.
“It means Republicans who vote Democrat Light, who side with the other party because they are weak and refuse to take a stand,” she said in an interview. “Unfortunately, too many Republicans campaign as conservatives and govern like Nancy Pelosi.”
Vance, a leading critic of additional funding for Ukraine’s military effort, said he doesn’t know where the term “uniparty” came from but cited the recent debate over assisting Ukraine in fending off Russia as an example.
“Whether you call it a uniparty or something else, I do think it suggests something’s broken about our democratic process,” he said.
Where did the term come from?
The modern use of “uniparty” traces back a few years, though its roots run deeper. The term’s framing has long been a favorite of Steve Bannon, the former Trump White House official and right-wing media personality who has been deploying it for years. Trump himself has reposted items from supporters who use the descriptor on his Truth Social platform.
The right has previously embraced similar wording, like “regime,” which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis used repeatedly during his 2024 presidential campaign to describe the federal government, and “drain the swamp,” a rallying cry during Trump’s 2016 campaign. There’s also “the cathedral,” a term used by some on the right to describe institutions they see as controlling acceptable political discourse.
Meanwhile, the left and third-party candidates have at times embraced similar terminology. An aide to former President Barack Obama described the foreign policy establishment as “the Blob,” while former Green Party presidential nominees Ralph Nader and Jill Stein have used “uniparty” in railing against the U.S. political system.
In the 2024 campaign, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has invoked the term, including when he wrote in The Baltimore Sun last month that special interest groups “control our government to such an extent that — no matter which party is in charge — many Americans now refer to the two parties as the ‘uniparty.’”
Stefanie Spear, a Kennedy spokesperson, said in a statement that “more Americans of all political persuasions are recognizing that both establishment parties largely represent the same corporate interests.”
“The term uniparty is therefore quite natural, and Mr. Kennedy is pleased that it is gaining traction,” she said.
Sen. Rand Paul, the son of libertarian former Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, noted the third-party roots of the uniparty framework, saying, “There’s been a uniparty since I was a kid and would come up here in the 1970s.”
“Libertarians always used it when they were running as another independent party,” Paul, R-Ky., said in an interview. “Hadn’t been used as much within the Republican Party, but I think it’s catching on.”
Some Republicans dislike the framing
The term is most often used when discussing two distinct issues — funding for Ukraine and government spending. And the leader who finds himself most under attack on that front is Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who recently announced he will step down from leadership after the November elections.
McConnell has vociferously pushed for additional funding for Ukraine and, in a time of divided government, has been able to cut a series of deals with the Biden administration.
“Believe me, I know the politics within my party at this particular moment in time,” McConnell said during a portion of his Senate floor speech on Wednesday announcing his pending retirement that focused on the need for America to lead on the global stage. “I have many faults; misunderstanding politics is not one of them.”
Yet some Republicans, including those aligned with the lawmakers who voted against the short-term spending agreement and have pushed back on new funding for Ukraine, find the term odd.
“What, you can’t differentiate between a Democrat and Republican up here?” said Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas.
Asked why his colleagues are using the term, he replied: “I don’t know. I guess everybody’s gotta come up with something clever.”
And one Senate Republican aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they “don’t like the term, frankly.”
“I think it went from ‘the swamp,’ which I do like, to ‘the regime,’ which I like less, then ‘uniparty,’ which I like even less,” this person said. “And they all kind of mean the same thing. But I think it sounds increasingly nerdy and weird and people don’t really know what they mean.”
This person said they feel some lawmakers are using this language because it sounds “like a vaguely intellectual term, even though it’s not, actually.”
As for what separates “uniparty” initiatives from the kind of bipartisanship some of these right-wing lawmakers might take part in, this person said the distinction was simple: If leadership on both sides is for it, it’s “uniparty,” but if the leaders of both parties oppose it, it’s not.
Democrats continue to celebrate bipartisanship
Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, a member of Democratic leadership, said the use of the term by certain Republicans highlights their interest in catering only to a narrow slice of the electorate.
“If they want to make it crystal clear that their coalition comprises 28% of the public, then I welcome that,” he said. “They are a minority and they are trying to turn the fact that their views are minority opinions into some sort of virtue. But the truth is that they’re way out of the mainstream, and any competent political party would not emphasize that point.”
Democrats have not hesitated to celebrate acts of bipartisanship, even when it leads to legislation or policies they consider imperfect.
“As I said directly to the speaker over and over and over again, the only way to get things done here is with bipartisanship, and this agreement is another proof point,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the floor Thursday of the short-term government funding bill. “When bipartisanship is prioritized, when getting things done for the American people takes a high priority, good things can happen even in divided government.”
In a statement Wednesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre used “bipartisan” three times in one sentence to describe the legislation.
“The bipartisan agreement announced today would help prevent a needless shutdown while providing more time to work on bipartisan appropriations bills and for the House to pass the bipartisan national security supplemental as quickly as possible,” she said.
Could it apply to Trump?
Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., framed his use of “uniparty” entirely around spending, using the term to describe “the group that always votes for more spending and more debt.”
“The letter beside their name does not matter: [They’re] Republicans that vote like Democrats and the Democrats that vote like Republicans,” Burchett said.
By that measure, the term could extend to Trump, whose policies in office led to increased spending and deficits, even when Republicans controlled both the House and Senate.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who worked in the Trump administration as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has repeatedly brought up Trump-era spending on the campaign trail as she seeks to defeat her onetime boss for the GOP nomination.
“I would love to tell you that Joe Biden did that to us,” she said in South Carolina last month while expressing dismay over the national debt. “But I always have spoken to you in hard truths. And I’m going to do that with you tonight. Our Republicans did that to us too. You look at the fact that President Trump put us $8 trillion in debt in just four years. More than any other president.”
One word she did not use in describing that predicament: uniparty.
