Trump has been courting the United Steelworkers for an endorsement, but union president Bruce McCall said that the union will endorse President Biden.
McCall said on Fox News:
We’re clearly leaning towards President Biden and we’ll be endorsing him. I’m sure it would be up to our executive board to do that in the very near future.
But President Biden is really developed for at least in my lifetime an industrial policy in this country with the infrastructure bill, the IRA and the CHIPS and Science Act. If you do that along with making sure that we’re on a level playing field with the rest of the world, that’s, that’s about real progress in America for industrial workers.
When asked why they haven’t endorsed Biden yet, McCall answered, “We just haven’t had our board meeting yet.”
Video:
Steelworkers Union President: We’re clearly leaning towards President Biden. We’ll endorse him, I’m sure…. pic.twitter.com/K5jePn3JXE
— Acyn (@Acyn) March 18, 2024
Trump has courted the autoworkers, Teamsters, and steelworkers unions with the autoworkers and steelworkers both deciding to endorse President Biden and the Teamsters making it clear that they are likely to endorse Biden after the presidential conventions.
Donald Trump was one of the most anti-labor president in modern American history. Trump’s record on labor is abysmal. It would be shocking if any of the major unions endorsed Trump. In contrast, Joe Biden has been one of the pro-labor presidents in America since FDR.
Labor isn’t going to abandon Biden, and they most definitely will not be abandoning him for Donald Trump.
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]]>A new poll shows that a criminal conviction in Manhattan would gravely wound and potentially doom Trump’s presidential candidacy.
Politico asked Ipsos to poll the American people on Trump’s criminal cases and the Supreme Court, and they found some very bad news for Trump with Independents.
This is what Politico reported:
A plurality of respondents — 44 percent — said that a conviction in Manhattan would have no impact on their likelihood to support Trump for president, but that is far from the whole story.
Among those respondents who said that a conviction would influence their decision, the numbers were not good for Trump.
…
By a more than 2-1 margin, respondents said that a conviction would make them less likely to support Trump (32 percent) as opposed to more likely (13 percent). Notably, more than a third of independents said it would reduce their likelihood to support Trump. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of respondents who said that a conviction would bolster their support were Republicans.
Trump has not been able to win back Nikki Haley voters who voted against him in the Republican presidential primary. The former president appears to only have the support of roughly 65%-70% of Republicans, so he is teetering on the edge of being unelectable. Many of those Republicans may hold their noses and vote for Trump in November.
If Trump gets convicted in Manhattan, and a third of Independents rule him out, it would potentially doom his campaign, as the Republican Party would find itself in a situation where they would have a nominee who can’t get enough potential voters to support him.
Donald Trump becomes virtually unelectable if he gets convicted of a felony.
It is clear now that the Republican spin that the criminal cases help Trump is a complete fantasy. A Trump criminal conviction would do grave damage to his campaign.
Voters may not be locked in on the election yet, but they already know that many will not vote for a convicted felon in November.
e their move or pack up and end this investigation.
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]]>Republicans said that they wanted Trump’s bloodbath comments put into context, so the Biden campaign did it for them.
Watch the ad:
Donald Trump has shown us who he is, time and time again. pic.twitter.com/pBqyMTloHX
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) March 18, 2024
In a statement, the Biden campaign listed the context for Trump’s bloodbath remark:
– Throughout his 2016 campaign, Trump encouraged his supporters to “knock the crap out” of protestors. Trump accepted no responsibility for violence at his rallies and said he would pay supporters’ legal bills if they attacked protesters after egging them on.
– Trump said there was “blame on both sides” after violent riots by white nationalists and neo-Nazi marchers in Charlottesville.
– Trump celebrated a Republican who attacked a reporter, “Any guy that can do a body slam, he is my type!”
– At a debate, Trump refused to condemn white supremacist violence by far-right groups like the Proud Boys, telling them to “stand back and stand by.”
– At a rally before his supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, Trump told them, “You’ll never take back our country with weakness…If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
– Trump suggested that the Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley should be executed.
– Trump has suggested violence would erupt if numerous court cases against him did not go his way.
– Trump says he wants to be a dictator and praises them repeatedly.
– Trump has dehumanized his political opponents, calling them vermin, and said they should be rounded up and imprisoned, and described migrants as “not people.”
– This weekend, Trump again opened his rally saying he would pardon violent rioters who attacked police officers and said, “If I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country.”
Republicans are trying to defend Trump by claiming that he was talking about the auto industry, but bloodbath is not a commonly used term when talking about domestic policy. Trump has nearly a decade-long history of making comments about political violence or attempting to incite political violence.
The context of what Trump was saying was not lost on anyone who has been paying attention since 2015.
The ad is devastating because the Trump campaign is already on the defensive about the bloodbath comment, and they don’t have an answer for how President Biden is defining Trump as an un-American threat to the nation ahead of the election.
e their move or pack up and end this investigation.
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]]>Trump’s lawyers admitted in court that he can’t post the $454 million fraud judgment bond because he lacks the cash to back it.
CNN reported on a filing by Trump’s lawyers”
The amount of the judgment, with interest, exceeds $464 million, and very few bonding companies will consider a bond of anything approaching that magnitude,” Trump’s lawyers wrote. (Trump himself was ordered to pay $454 million; the $464 million includes the disgorgement for his adult sons Don Jr. and Eric.)
An insurance broker, Gary Giulietti, who testified for Trump during the civil fraud trial, signed an affidavit stating that securing a bond in the full amount “is a practical impossibility.”
Potential underwriters are seeking cash to back the bond, not properties, according to Trump’s lawyers.
No bond company is crazy enough to give Trump a $454 million bond without the cash to secure it. Bonding companies don’t want buildings or assets. They want cold, hard cash. If Trump had the money to post the bond. he wouldn’t need a bonding company to post it for him.
Donald Trump’s problem is that he doesn’t actually own much real estate in New York. His biggest holding appears to be Trump Tower, but it is unclear if he owns the building outright. Other buildings that either carry Trump’s name in New York or are listed among his holdings are licensing deals, ground leases, or places he might own a portion of.
It is very difficult for Trump to sell a building or two in New York to cover the bond when he does not own much in New York that he could sell.
James could seize Trump Tower and 40 Wall Street, but unless Donald Trump wants to sell his Florida properties, it is clear why he is struggling to come up with the cash.
Donald Trump’s illusion of vast wealth was just another con.
e their move or pack up and end this investigation.
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]]>Paul Manafort, who was the centerpiece of the 2016 Trump coordination with Russia, could be brought back to the campaign by the fall.
Former president Donald Trump is expected to enlist Paul Manafort, the former campaign manager he pardoned, as a campaign adviser later this year, according to four people familiar with the talks.
The job discussions have largely centered around the 2024 Republican convention in Milwaukee in July and could include Manafort playing a role in fundraising for the presumptive GOP nominee’s campaign, according to these people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private deliberations. While no formal decision has been made, the four people described the hiring as expected and said Trump was determined to bring Manafort back into the fold.
Manafort’s connections with Russia and the fact that he shared sensitive campaign data with the Russians led a Senate committee to deem him a counterintelligence threat to the country, but Manafort did prison time for Trump and kept his mouth shut, so Trump sees him as the kind of person that he wants to bring back.
Trump is desperate for cash. His campaign fundraising is struggling, the Republican Party is nearly broke, and the former president has made it clear that he is open for business. He needs money to pay legal judgments and his ever-mounting legal bills.
It could not be more obvious if Trump wore a sign around his neck that Putin: Deposit Funds Here.
Trump needs Russian money and election interference to have any chance of defeating President Biden. Donald Trump doesn’t have any new strategies or ideas. He is trying to run the 2016 playbook in 2024, and help from Russia via Paul Manafort is critical to that effort.
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]]>On HBO’s Last Week Tonight, John Oliver discussed student loans and how President Biden has delivered more student loan debt relief than any president in history.
Oliver said:
I do have some good news because while the Supreme Court struck down Biden’s big $ 400 billion plan to his credit he’s managed to get other meaningful solutions through by tweaking existing programs under his administration. He’s forgiven nearly 12 billion of debt for borrowers with disabilities and through adjustments to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program another 56 billion for nearly 800,000 borrowers that is significant for those benefiting from it.
…
Look if you personally have student debt it’s worth knowing this administration is currently rolling out the save plan a retooled version of income driven repayment which does look promising. It lowers eligibility requirements and ensures that for anyone who borrowed less than $12,000 their debts would be wiped clean after 10 years of payments. You can go to this website to see whether you’re eligible and how much it might save you, and I’m not saying it’s perfect for a start it’ll have to be administered properly and remember these [ __ ] are still involved, but in just its first few months the safe plan has relieved a total of $1.2 billion for 150,000 borrowers.
In fact if you take everything Biden’s Administration has done together he’s managed to relieve 138 billion in student loans for 3.9 million people in just 3 years. That is more than any president in history. And look I know we are talking about band-aid aolutions here Even if we got rid of all the problem problems with the surfaces that won’t the giant pile of debt that people owe and even if we got rid of that won’t fix the central problem that the cost of college in this country is absurd.
Video:
Biden has been blasting Republicans for their hypocritical opposition to student loan forgiveness, and he continues to forgive billions in student loan debt.
President Biden’s commitment to forgiving student loan debt has been historic, and if he doesn’t win reelection, it will all go away. Trump is already on record as opposing student loan relief, and some MAGAs have questioned whether or not Trump could reinstate forgiven debt. However, that would result in massive legal challenges that would take years to sort out.
Biden is capable of doing even more in a second term, and he does deserve credit for not giving up and delivering something for so many of the nation’s student borrowers.
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]]>Rep. and Senate candidate Adam Schiff (D-CA) said that the Supreme Court will further discredit itself if it does not act quickly on Trump’s immunity claim.
Schiff was asked about the delay in Trump’s criminal cases on CNN’s State Of The Union, and he said:
There is a chance that he could evade justice by delaying justice.
This is a tried-and-true tactic of Trump throughout his career.And I hope that the courts are aware of exactly what he’s doing and his incentive in trying to prolong this, and I hope they won’t go along with that strategy.
In New York, I hope that they will look at the facts in terms of what caused the late release of this discovery. If it was driven by the Trump defense team not requesting it earlier, they should not postpone the trial any further.
My greatest concern, though, Dana is over the January 6 case. That is the most serious a set of allegations against the president. It is the case brought by the Justice Department. The Supreme Court moved with great speed when it came to ruling that Trump could appear on the ballot.The question is, will it also move with great speed in rejecting this bogus immunity claim?
If it doesn’t, it’s making a deliberate decision essentially to push the trial past the election. And I think that would be a terrible decision, both for the interest of justice. It would be a terrible decision in depriving American voters of the information they would learn during the course of that trial, but it would also just further discredit this partisan and reactionary court.
Video:
Adam Schiff warns that the Supreme Court will further discredit itself if they foot drag on Trump’s bogus immunity claim. pic.twitter.com/5DEtsIO7xd
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) March 17, 2024
Rep. Schiff was correct. If the Supreme Court delays their ruling on Trump’s claim of immunity that has been shot down by every previous court, it will prove the dire need for Supreme Court reform, because the court is completely corrupted and unable to function as the Constitution intended.
There is no doubt that the court will rule against Trump, but they can’t do his dirty work by engaging in needless delay.
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]]>Trump called for Liz Cheney to be criminally prosecuted, but the former vice chair of the 1/6 Committee called out his lie.
The former president called for Cheney to be criminally prosecuted on Truth Social, “SHE SHOULD BE PROSECUTED FOR WHAT SHE HAS DONE TO OUR COUNTRY! SHE ILLEGALLY DESTROYED THE EVIDENCE. UNREAL!!!”
Lying in all caps doesn’t make it true, Donald. You know you and your lawyers have long had the evidence.
You know these are lies. You have had all the grand jury & J6 transcripts for many months. You’re trying to halt your 1/6 trial because your VP, WH counsel, WH aides, campaign & DOJ officials etc will testify against you. You’re afraid of the truth and you should be.
Trump has been making the bogus claim that 1/6 evidence was destroyed as part of his many claims that a vast conspiracy somehow framed him.
It is well known that the 1/6 Committee preserved and turned over all of its evidence to the DOJ once the investigation concluded: “The 1/6 Committee carefully preserved all of its evidence and turned it over to the Department of Justice when the investigation concluded. The committee also made the evidence available to their Senate Democratic counterparts.”
Trump and his lawyers have had access to all of the evidence collected by the 1/6 Committee. Donald Trump is making up a conspiracy to keep his supporters from ever learning about the vast mountain of evidence that points to his possible guilt for 1/6 related criminal activity.
The real reason why Donald Trump wants Liz Cheney prosecuted is that she helped to lead an investigation of him. The only thing that Cheney did wrong in Trump’s mind was attempt to hold him accountable.
The former president wants to discredit the 1/6 Committee prosecuting them. It is all a part of the revenge fantasy disguised as a presidential campaign that the Republican Party has enabled in 2024.
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]]>Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) reminded America of why Donald Trump should not be president.
Pelosi was asked by CNN’s Dana Bash about Trump receiving classified briefings, and she answered:
I have 30 years of intelligence experience in the Congress.
This information is very important, and it is important for it not to be shared. So I would hope they would get some commitment from him, as they do from all of us when we get briefed, that they understand the importance of this information and that it not be shared.
The experience has not been positive with him, but, hopefully, those advising him would say, grow up, live up to your responsibilities. Don’t share this with the Russian foreign minister, as he did in the Oval Office before.
But we have — we just have to win this election, because he’s even predicting a bloodbath. What does that mean? He’s going to exact a bloodbath? There’s something wrong here.
How respectful I am of the American people and their goodness, but how much more do they have to see from him to understand that this isn’t what our country is about? Praising Hitler, praising the Russians, honestly, I mean, condemning our soldiers for losing or dying in war or being captured in war.
He said, what’s wrong with Russia? They defeated Hitler.
What about the millions of Americans who risked or gave their lives? What about him saying that soldiers buried in Europe, he didn’t want to visit them because they were losers?
This is — there’s something wrong here. There’s something wrong here. So I just say, with all the respect in the world for voters and their right to make their decision, weigh these equities. How much are you concerned about more women — or women having the right to choose or LGBT people having the right to their lives, that you would vote for him?
You wouldn’t even allow him in your house, much less in the White House.
So, in any event, yes, I think he should get the information, but — because he is a candidate for president, but he should be held to a standard that the rest of us all have been.
Video:
Nancy Pelosi perfectly sums up Trump, "You wouldn't even allow him in your house, much less in the White House." pic.twitter.com/JpmWtdwPZV
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) March 17, 2024
In case anyone forgot, because the corporate media spends its time normalizing Trump, the former president has a very long track record of embracing un-American and anti-democracy positions. Former speaker Pelosi laid out just a few of them, and she made it clear that Trump should not be given classified briefings, unless some security steps are taken.
Speaker Pelosi was right. Trump is threat to the American way of life and individual rights and freedoms.
Since the media refuses to cover Trump in this way, it will be up to Democrats to remind voters of the threat that Trump poses to the nation.
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]]>President Biden set a new Democratic fundraising record with $53 million in donations in February, as Trump is struggling to raise cash.
The Biden campaign announced:
Team Biden-Harris announced that it raised more than $53 million in February, continuing to break fundraising records through the beginning of 2024, boasting enthusiasm, strength, and historic resources heading into the general election. The team is also reporting a historic $155 million in cash on hand, the highest total amassed by any Democratic candidate in history at this point in the cycle. Team Biden-Harris’ cash on hand has increased each of the four reporting periods since the president launched his reelection.
Team Biden-Harris’ February haul was driven in large part by the strength of our grassroots support, which continued to grow month over month. February was the campaign’s strongest grassroots fundraising month since launch and the fourth consecutive record-breaking grassroots fundraising month.
Biden/Harris is raising an eye-popping amount of money, and while money doesn’t equal votes directly, the healthy position that Democrats find themselves in is night and day compared to Trump’s Republican Party.
The Trump campaign is struggling. The former president was still being outraised by Nikki Haley, even though she had no chance of being the nominee as recently as last month. Trump’s small donors appear to be burned out due to his constant and endless fundraising appeals. Trump has been hemorrhaging money due to legal bills, and he has been eager to get his hands on the RNC so that he can raid their coffers to boost his presidential campaign and pay his legal bills.
In a close election, the ability to spend money to get out the vote matters. While Donald Trump is spending money on lawyers, Bide is putting Democrats in a position to win in November.
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]]>Jen Psaki destroyed the Trump campaign’s spin of his bloodbath comments by providing the full context for what Trump was talking about.
Psaki said on her MSNBC show:
If they want us to consider the full context, let’s do just that because the full context is that Trump kicked off the same exact rally by saluting the people who were convicted for the deadly assault on the US Capitol on January 6th, all to the tune of the national anthem sung by a choir of imprisoned insurrectionists. The full context is that some of the first words out of Trump’s mouth last night, same rally were thanking those rioters and calling them patriots. The full context is that he also said in this same rally, quote, if this election isn’t won, I’m not sure that you’ll ever have another election in this country. The full context is that he went on to say some undocumented immigrants are quote, not people. And of course, the full context is that this is much bigger than one single speech.
This embrace of political violence, this dehumanizing language. This is what Donald Trump has been preaching for years. In January, he warned that there will be quote bedlam in this country. If his criminal prosecution derailed his campaign late last year. He echoed the dehumanizing language of Adolf Hitler comparing his political opponents to vermin and saying immigrants are quote poisoning the blood of our country last month. He said there would be potential death and destruction if he was charged in the Manhattan criminal probe. And during his first term, he flat out refused to condemn the political violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia saying there were very fine people on both sides. In 2020, he reportedly asked his defense secretary about shooting people who were protesting the death of George Floyd saying, can you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something? And of course, his very words inspired violence on January 6th 2021 when he told a crowd of his supporters to walk down to the Capitol and fight like hell because quote, you’ll never take back our country with weakness. Trust me, I could go on and on and on.
We all know by now that Trump’s illusions to political violence are not merely rhetorical. His supporters take them literally. That’s part of the big problem here. And he knows that too. So, no, we did not miss the full context. This was not some meandering off-message comment. This is his message.
Video:
Jen Psaki provides the full context of Trump's bloodbath remark, "We did not miss the full context, this was not some meandering off-message comment. This is his message. " pic.twitter.com/h3yiHDzKTy
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) March 17, 2024
The full context is that Trump continues to sell the myth that he is strong, so he emulates the language of authoritarians. It doesn’t matter what Trump was talking about. Democratic leaders don’t use violent rhetoric when discussing domestic politics. If Biden would have said there will be a bloodbath if his infrastructure legislation wasn’t passed.
The Trump campaign’s spin defies common sense and doesn’t add up. Everyone knows what Trump was really talking about. After 1/6, there is no ambiguity. Trump talks political violence in the hope that his supporters will act.
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]]>Mike Pence accused Trump of abandoning America’s leadership in the world, which is a clip the Biden campaign will definitely use.
Pence said on CBS’s Face The Nation that his refusal to endorse Trump was about more than 1/6:
The president and I have profound differences. Many think it’s just over January 6th, and frankly, the fact that president continues to insist I had the right to overturn the election that day is a fundamental difference.
I want to be clear that I’ve forgiven the president in my heart for what happened that day. As a Christian I’m required to do that. I’ve prayed for him in that regard. The issue to the constitution is not a small matter, but it’s not just that.
I mean, the reason that I cannot in good conscience endorse Donald Trump this year also has to do with the fact that he is walking away not just from keeping faith with the constitution on that day, but also, Margaret, with a commitment to fiscal responsibility, a commitment to the sanctity of life, a commitment to American leadership in the world.
Pence went on to criticize Trump for changing his position on China and TikTok.
Video:
Mike Pence says Trump has abandoned, “a commitment to American leadership in the world.” pic.twitter.com/DUH88OXhpn
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) March 17, 2024
Mike Pence will not be endorsing President Biden. That is a certainty, but Pence knows exactly what he is doing. Trump’s abandoning America’s global leadership has been one of the main points of the Biden campaign.
The former vice president’s comments will be used in ads by President Biden, and other groups who are opposing Donald Trump throughout the campaign.
Trump’s own former vice president says that he is abandoning America’s leadership in the world. That is a powerful campaign ad waiting to happen, and Mike Pence just handed it to President Biden.
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]]>The Biden campaign blasted Trump for threatening America with a bloodbath if he loses the election.
The AP reported on Trump’s Ohio rally:
If I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath. … It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country,” he warned while talking about the impact of offshoring on the country’s auto industry and his plans to increase tariffs on foreign-made cars.
Later, Mr. Trump claimed that, “If this election isn’t won, I’m not sure that you’ll ever have another election in this country.”
The Biden campaign responded to Trump as spokesperson James Singer said, “This is who Donald Trump is: a loser who gets beat by over 7 million votes and then instead of appealing to a wider mainstream audience doubles down on his threats of political violence. He wants another January 6, but the American people are going to give him another electoral defeat this November because they continue to reject his extremism, his affection for violence, and his thirst for revenge.”
The Biden campaign had the perfect response to Trump’s threats. Donald Trump is threatening America because he is the one under threat. Trump’s business empire has crumbled. The former president’s freedom is under threat, and he could become a convicted felon.
Donald Trump knows that he can’t win a free and fair election, so he is trying to scare the American people into supporting him.
Trump is a threat. He is a threat to democracy, freedom, and national security, but those are threats that Republicans never want to discuss.
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]]>Trump son in law Jared Kushner is still exploiting overseas connections he got from the White House to make money.
Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of Donald J. Trump, confirmed on Friday that he was closing in on major real estate deals in Albania and Serbia, the latest example of the former president’s family doing business abroad even as Mr. Trump seeks to return to the White House.
Mr. Kushner’s plans in the Balkans appear to have come about in part through relationships built while Mr. Trump was in office. Mr. Kushner, who was a senior White House official, said he had been working on the deals with Richard Grenell, who served briefly as acting director of national intelligence under Mr. Trump and also as ambassador to Germany and special envoy to the Balkans.
The Trump overseas exploitation of their time in the White House remains alive and well. It is also a cautionary tale for the American people of what the future could hold if Donald Trump returns to the White House in 2025.
For as bad as the obvious corruption of the Trump administration was, these same people have learned from their experiences in the first Trump term and are going to return to power with a better understanding of how to be even more corrupt to enrich themselves.
Jared Kushner didn’t just do one $2 billion cash-in with the Saudis. Kushner is still running around the world and leveraging the relationships that acquired while working in the White House to make even more money.
The Trump family doesn’t want to govern. The Trumps want to use the most powerful political office in the world as their primary source of income.
Trump may have left office, but the corruption is alive and well.
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]]>Former Vice President Mike Pence said that he will not be endorsing Donald Trump in the 2024 election.
Pence said on Fox News, “It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year. Donald Trump is pursuing and articulating an agenda that is at odds with the conservative agenda that we governed on during our four years, and that’s why I cannot in good conscience endorse Donald Trump in this campaign.”
Video:
Pence: I will not be endorsing Donald Trump pic.twitter.com/YJIuTBjzNR
— Acyn (@Acyn) March 15, 2024
Of course, the biggest issue that Trump and Mike Pence disagree on is that Trump tried to get Pence killed on 1/6.
Trump kept telling his supporters that Pence needed to do the ‘right thing’ and refused to certify the 2020 election. Trump’s version of the right thing was a crime, and when Pence refused to commit a crime for Trump, the now former president responded by sending a mob to the Capitol that was chanting hang Mike Pence.
Hopefully, Pence has a personal policy against endorsing people who try to kill him.
It speaks to the level of bizarre cult-like behavior that the Republican Party has entered into for Fox News to suggest that is perfectly normal for Pence to endorse his former boss that tried to have him whacked.
Mike Pence deserves no credit for refusing to endorse the guy who wanted to end his life.
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]]>The winds of political momentum look to be shifting toward President Biden as Trump has a massive problem with Nikki Haley voters.
Some 39% of registered voters in the one-week poll, which closed on Wednesday, said they would vote for Biden, a Democrat, if the election were held today, compared with 38% who picked Republican former President Trump. Biden’s lead was within the survey’s 1.8 percentage point margin of error.
Many voters remain undecided, with 11% saying they would vote for other candidates, 5% saying they would not vote, and 7% saying they did not know or refusing to answer.
…
Trump had a marginal lead among all respondents, but Biden’s lead among registered voters was significant because people who are already registered to vote are more likely to do so in November. Only two-thirds of eligible voters turned out in the 2020 presidential election in which Biden defeated Trump.
No one should place too much faith in any single poll, but the Reuters poll was conducted over the course of a week with nearly 5,000 respondents. It wasn’t a quick poll taken with a small sample.
The poll is likely a more realistic look at where things stand right now. President Biden has a small advantage. There are a ton of undecided voters, and Trump has a massive problem with Nikki Haley voters.
Just 37% of Haley voters said that they would vote for Trump. Sixteen percent said that they would vote for Biden. The rest of the Republican voters suggested that they wouldn’t vote or they would vote for someone else.
Biden is not in nearly as much trouble as some of the other polls would suggest, but at this stage when the vast majority of voters aren’t paying attention, the incumbent holds a small advantage with voters who are most likely to vote.
The incumbent president has a fundraising advantage, no criminal charges against him, and much more upside than Trump.
It isn’t difficult to see the election going in the direction of more voters moving toward President Biden as Trump continues to run more toward the extreme right.
Spring has not yet arrived in this presidential election year, but the incumbent president has a visible path to a second term.
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) March 8, 2024
Biden is taking on Trump and his lies while showing the American people what he has done and what is at stake in 2024.
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The White House sent a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson telling him that his impeachment investigation is over.
The White House sent a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) early Friday with a clear message: Your impeachment inquiry of President Biden is over.
…
“It is obviously time to move on, Mr. Speaker. This impeachment is over,” Siskel wrote.
“There is too much important work to be done for the American people to continue wasting time on this charade.”
The reason why there has been minimal complaining from Republicans about documents being turned over is because the White House has been turning over information that was requested.
However, the letter signals that the White House is done, and it is time to move on to other things.
The letter is also a move by the White House to force Johnson and the House Republicans to make a move. Right now, Comer and Jordan are living in an impeachment netherworld. Sure, there technically is an impeachment investigation, and they are supposed to hold a public hearing soon, but the hearing won’t feature any new witnesses or information. It is going to be a rehash of all of the failed witnesses that Oversight Committee Chair Comer has already collected.
The White House wants Johnson to put impeachment on the House floor because they know that it will fail.
President Biden isn’t playing this game anymore, and it is time for Speaker Johnson and House Republicans to either make their move or pack up and end this investigation.
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]]>Judge McAfee ruled that the Trump defendants didn’t meet the legal burden to disqualify Fani Willis, but due to appearances of impropriety, either Willis, or Nathan Wade has to go.
Judge Scott McAfee ruled that the defendants did not meet their burden of proof to disqualify Fani Willis but that Willis’s hiring of Nathan Wade was a tremendous lapse in judgment that could create the appearance of impropriety, so Willis could either step down from the case or get rid of Wade.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported:
In a 23-page order, McAfee said he by no means condones Willis’ “tremendous lapse in judgment” for having the relationship with Wade, who has billed more than $728,000 in legal fees that he used to help pay for cruises and vacations he took with the district attorney in 2022 and 2023.
However, in a major finding, the judge said the defense had “failed to meet their burden of proving that the district attorney acquired an actual conflict of interest in this case through her personal relationship and recurring travels with her lead prosecutor.” If McAfee had found otherwise, he would have had to disqualify Willis and her office from the case.
Fani Willis is not disqualified. She will likely remain on the case because legal experts have suggested that if she withdraws, it is unlikely that another district attorney’s office would pick up the case. Her stepping down would end the years-long investigation of Trump and his allies in Georgia.
The practical result of this ruling is that Nathan Wade will leave as special prosecutor, and the case will move forward.
The disqualification motion has been an unnecessary circus. It was an error that Fani Willis could have easily avoided. Willis has a decision to make on whether or not to amend and refile six of the charges that Judge McAfee tossed out against the Trump defendants due to technical errors, but the trial should be expected to keep moving forward, and defendant Donald J. Trump is expected to stand trial in Georgia.
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]]>For those who are thinking that RFK Jr. could be a viable third party candidate consider that his potential running mate NFL QB Aaron Rodgers is a Sandy Hook truther.
CNN knows of two people with whom Rodgers has enthusiastically shared these stories, including with Pamela Brown, one of the journalists writing this piece.
Brown was covering the Kentucky Derby for CNN in 2013 when she was introduced to Rodgers, then with the Green Bay Packers, at a post-Derby party. Hearing that she was a journalist with CNN, Rodgers immediately began attacking the news media for covering up important stories. Rodgers brought up the tragic killing of 20 children and 6 adults by a gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary School, claiming it was actually a government inside job and the media was intentionally ignoring it.
When Brown questioned him on the evidence to show this very real shooting was staged, Rodgers began sharing various theories that have been disproven numerous times.
The nation already has to get through an election with Donald Trump and his deranged conspiracies. The country really doesn’t need an anti-vaxxer/Sandy Hook conspiracy ticket of RFK Jr and Aaron Rodgers polluting the national electoral pool even more.
Those who follow the NFL already know that Rodgers is an anti-vaxxer with some very out there beliefs and behaviors. Sandy Hook conspiracies are Alex Jones level stuff, and they have no place in a presidential election.
Hopefully, this news ends Aaron Rodgers as a potential political figure and him to keep his conspiracy theories to himself.
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]]>Hunter Biden declined to testify at James Comer’s public hearing and suggested an investigation into Jared Kushner and the Trumps for influence peddling.
CNN reported that Hunter Biden declined Comer’s offer to publicly testify through a letter to House Oversight Committee Chair Comer through is lawyer:
The attorney, Abbe Lowell, argued the hearing “is not a serious oversight proceeding. It is your attempt to resuscitate your Conference’s moribund inquiry with a made-for-right-wing-media, circus act.”
Calling the invitation “a Hail Mary pass,” Lowell wrote: “I thought even you would recognize your baseless impeachment proceeding was dead.”
In his letter, Lowell also criticized Comer’s decision to invite some of the discredited business associates tied to the president’s son to the same hearing. He argued if Comer was serious about holding an oversight hearing to address alleged influence peddling, the committee should invite Jared Kushner and members of the Trump family alongside Hunter Biden.
The investigation of the Trump family for influence peddling is likely coming after Democrats take back the House. In the meantime, Comer is going to try to revive his dead as a doornail Biden impeachment with a public hearing that will feature all of the same discredited names and faces that Republicans have been pushing for more than a year.
Comer has still not come up with a single witness who can testify to President Biden committing an impeachable offense. The House Republican game has grown beyond tiresome. The dead impeachment needs to end.
Hunter Biden and his attorney were correct.
If Chair Comer is serious about investigating a family member of a president for influence peddling, Jared Kushner, who worked in the Trump administration, is running around with $2 billion in Saudi cash and a whole lot of unanswered questions.
Republicans would rather focus on Hunter Biden and his paintings than admit the very corruption that happened under Donald Trump while he was president.
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]]>Trump is demanding it, but House Republicans don’t have the votes, so they are searching for a way out of Biden impeachment.
Behind the scenes, Republicans of all ideological persuasions are increasingly admitting that they pulled the trigger on Biden’s impeachment too soon and that the effort has been hobbled by embarrassing setbacks. They’ve accused the president of profiting off the Oval Office but have yet to find any proof that the president benefitted from his family’s business dealings. And it doesn’t help their case that the informant behind the most prominent and scandalous accusations of corruption by Biden was found to have lied to the FBI about those allegations and has been indicted.
…
There’s also another matter to contend with: Trump. His spokeswoman recently insisted that the former president expects Republicans to impeach Biden despite news that their top witness lied about his allegations.
House Republicans don’t have the votes to impeach the President, so they are tossing around the idea of criminal referrals to the DOJ, new legislation on influence peddling, or filing a lawsuit.
Yeah, the situation is glum for House Republicans.
This is what happens when a House majority tries to impeach a president without any evidence. Republicans committed to the impeachment without having an impeachable offense.
House Republicans led by the dynamic duo of James Comer and Jim Jordan have painted themselves into a corner. The House GOP could hold an impeachment vote, which will fail, and only serve to enrage Trump even more. The House majority is likely already history for the GOP, so if they are thinking that they can save their majority with some gesture short of impeachment, that ship has sailed.
House Republicans are soon going to have to face the consequences of trying to impeach a president without any evidence.
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Legal experts suggest that DA Fani Willis could reindict Trump and readd the dropped charges, although doing so could cause a delay.
If Willis wanted to pursue the charges related to trying to convince officials to violate their oath of office, legal experts say that she could reindict Trump and readd the dropped charges.
Renato Mariotti posted
Key point — Fani Willis and her team could reindict and add those counts right back into the indictment, as the judge contemplated in the footnote below.
Doing so would add delay, so she may not do so. There are many other counts, although now Meadows is only charged with RICO. pic.twitter.com/oDGimIenLy
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) March 13, 2024
In a trial that is expected to take a long time, would it be worth it to delay proceedings even more when there are still 35 charges left standing?
Practically speaking, the answer is probably no. The RICO related charges are the big charges against Trump. There is no reason to reindict the former president and readd those charges to the existing case. This isn’t a win for Trump. The charges were dismissed on a technicality that prosecutors could fix if they chose to do so.
The development today does not mean that Trump has been exonerated, or he is out of the woods, or should cast any doubt on the remaining charges.
If Willis wanted to she could fix the technical issues in her original filing and reindict Trump and Mark Meadows on the same charges.
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]]>Republicans and Trump will try to spin the dismissal of charges related to trying to get public officials to violate their oath of office, but Trump remains charged with racketeering in Georgia,
CNN reported:
The presiding judge in this case, Scott McAfee, decided that he’s going to throw out six of the 41 counts in this indictment. We should also be clear, though the most important count in this indictment, the racketeering count, is still standing in this case, but in the short term, the counts having to deal with the solicitation of the violation of an oath and office. So these defendants that were alleged to have tried to get pumped officials calls to violate their oath by creating this fake elector scheme. Or as we saw, the former president and tried to get to the secretary of state to overturn the election results here, those charges are no longer applicable in this case. Scott McAfee, the judge ruling that the district attorney attorney’s office did not provide enough details as to what part of the oath these defendants tried to get these public officials to violate any called that ultimately a fatal error.
Video:
Trump is still charged with racketeering in Georgia, “The most important count in this indictment, the racketeering count, is still standing in this case, but in the short term, the counts having to deal with the solicitation of the violation of an oath and office.” pic.twitter.com/IpX1Z5Savr
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) March 13, 2024
Legal expert Norm Eisen pointed out that McAfee’s ruling is a sign that the judge isn’t going to disqualify DA Willis:
BREAKING: in somewhat of an indication that Judge McAfee will NOT disqualify Willis, he’s refusing to throw out key elements of the RICO charge although he is tossing a few of the later counts against a few of the defendants for lack of specificity (1/x) pic.twitter.com/Vr84iedqOp
— Norm Eisen (norm.eisen on Threads) (@NormEisen) March 13, 2024
Trump and MAGA are going to blow a lot of smoke about this dismissal and blow it way out of proportion, but the truth is that these counts were minor counts. The big charges against Trump are those related to RICO. If the case was meritless, the judge would have taken any one of the numerous opportunities that he has had to dismiss the charges against Trump.
McAfee has chosen not to do it, so at some point, it likely that Donald Trump will face RICO charges in Georgia.
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]]>House Republicans were hit with another blow when Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) announced that he would resign next Friday, further reducing their slim House majority.
Buck told CNN why he is bailing early and not finishing his term:
I think this place is dysfunctional. For example, I am the number third-ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. I haven’t even asked my questions yet. 40-50 people have gone before me.
…
A lot of this is personal and that’s the problem. Instead of having to quorum instead of operating in a professional manner. This place has just evolved into this bickering and and nonsense and not not really doing the job for the American people.
Video:
Rep. Ken Buck explains why he is abruptly resigning, “Instead of having decorum instead of operating in a professional manner displaces just devolved into this bickering and nonsense.” pic.twitter.com/3niAKLKsMO
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) March 12, 2024
The real world implication of Buck leaving early is that a Republican majority that can’t govern is right on the edge of losing their majority. House Republicans already can’t govern, but now they are going to need Democrats to help them do everything.
Republicans are right on the edge of not having enough votes to keep their majority. If a Republican gets sick or also resigns early, the GOP might not have a majority of votes in the House. If Speaker Johnson was smart, he would put the Ukraine aid bill on the floor, and take the deal that Hakeem Jeffries suggested that if Johnson lets Ukraine aid pass, Democrats will help him keep his job.
The Republican House majority is evaporating right in front of our eyes.
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]]>House Judiciary Committee Democrats have turned Jim Jordan’s Robert Hur hearing into a platform to expose Donald Trump.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), a former prosecutor, questioned why Hur made his comments about Biden’s memory in the report:
Former prosecutor Adam Schiff to Robert Hur, “You cannot tell me you’re so naive as to think your words who would not have created a political firestorm, you understood that didn’t you, when you wrote those words? When you decided to include those words.” pic.twitter.com/D61TSibqu2
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) March 12, 2024
Rep. Eric Swalwell D-CA) asked Hur if he would accept an appointment from Donald Trump if Trump returned to the White House:
Rep. Eric Swalwell: I want to first see if you will pledge to not accept an appointment from Donald Trump. If he is elected again as president.
Robert Hur: Congressman, I don’t I’m not here to testify about what will happen in the future. pic.twitter.com/umaFCTdHlY
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) March 12, 2024
Then Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) came along and turned the hearing on its ear by asking a series of yes or no questions to Hur:
Lieu asked Hur, ” Did you find that President Biden directed his lawyer to lie to the FBI? We identified no such evidence. Did you find that President Biden directed his lawyer to destroy classified documents?”
Hur, “No.”
Lieu continued, ” Did you find that President Biden directed his personal assistant to move boxes of documents to hide them from the FBI?”
Hur, “No.”
Lieu asked, “Did you find that President Biden directed his personal assistant to delete security camera footage after the FBI asked for that footage?”
Hur, “No”
Lieu asked, “Did you find that President Biden showed a classified map related to an ongoing military operation to a campaign aide who did not have clearance?”
Hur answered, “No.”
Lieu continued, “Did you find that President Biden engaged in a conspiracy to obstruct justice?”
Hur, “No.”
Ted Lieu’s final question was, “Did you find that President Biden engaged in a scheme to conceal classified documents?”
Hur, “No”
Lieu continued, “Each of the activities I just laid out described what Donald Trump did in his woeful mishandling of classified information and his criminal efforts to deceive the FBI. In contrast, President Biden handed over documents without delay and complied fully with investigators.”
The real purpose of this hearing was to lay the groundwork for an attempt to impeach President Biden over his handling of classified documents, but Republicans have shown that they have nothing to hang their hats on. The hearing has been all over the place on the GOP side, while Democrats have used this national platform to show that Trump committed crimes, is in cognitive decline, and is unfit for office.
Jim Jordan and James Comer gave Democrats a national platform to argue why Trump should never be returned to the White House, and it has been a disaster for the former president and his party.
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