President Joe Biden
New York Times political analyst Nate Cohn made an astute observation about a new Times/Siena poll, which showed President Joe Biden trailing Donald Trump in most battleground states.
"If there's any consolation [for Biden], it's that the poll is also littered with evidence that folks aren't super tuned in, and disengaged voters remain Biden's weakness," Cohn tweeted.
It's an insight that will likely define the presidential contest moving forward.
In the survey, for example, just 29 percent of registered voters said they are closely following the legal cases against Donald Trump. That means that less than one-third of voters are paying "a lot of attention" to the ongoing trial of a former president who will almost assuredly be the Republican nominee in the 2024 election.
The ancillary to Cohn's observation is that Biden performs better among high information, high propensity voters—or likely voters—a point veteran Democratic strategistSimon Rosenberg has been making for weeks now. A pattern has begun to emerge where Biden performs increasingly better as polling models move from "adults" to "registered voters" to "likely voters."
Rosenberg cites a recent Ipsos poll for ABC News, where Biden trails Trump among adults, 44 to 46 percent, but bests him by a point among registered voters, 46 to 45 percent. And Biden takes a four-point lead among likely voters, 49 to 45 percent. A Marist poll for NPR and PBS NewsHour made a similar finding, with Biden running just two points ahead of Trump with registered voters, 50 to 48 percent, but opening up a five-point lead among likely voters, 51 to 46 percent.
John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, made the same observation about voters ages 18 to 29 in the Siena battleground poll. Among registered youth voters, Biden trails Trump by three points, but among likely youth voters, Biden leads by seven points—a net turnaround of 10 points in the direction of Biden.
"Takeaway: the more you know; the more you vote; the better Biden does. It’s not complicated," he tweeted.
In an interview with Greg Sargent on "The Daily Blast" podcast, Biden pollster Jefrey Pollock said undecided voters make up anywhere from 10 to 15 percent of the electorate depending on the state, "which is actually rather large." Those voters are disproportionately young, Black, and Latino.
The Siena poll also included about 20 percent of respondents who either didn't vote in 2020 or who did vote in 2020 but skipped the 2022 midterms.
Both sets of voters—the undecided and the lower propensity voters—are voting blocs that the Biden campaign will be targeting to make up ground in the final months of the election.
Pollock cited Nevada where, every two years, about 25 percent of the electorate consists of voters who have never before cast a ballot in an election.
"That's what makes Nevada so interesting and challenging but also as movable as it is," Pollock explained. "You've got these voters who don't really pay attention to politics, who are just getting into the political scene."
They are going to pay attention to the election much later, Pollock said. "You have to force your way into their lives," he explained, because they are more concerned with their kids’ activities, making sure they have health care, and simply paying their bills.
"We have to force them to pay attention to politics. It's why advertising and campaigns mean so much, particularly in those closing months, because we really do have to find ways to get into those houses," he said.
Biden certainly has the resources and the campaign to help address that information deficit, but whether or not his campaign manages to reach and persuade those voters remains to be seen.
As former Obama White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer wrote in his "Message Box" substack: "My main takeaway from the [Siena] poll is that the more voters know about Biden and Trump, the better it will be for Biden."
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.
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Gov. Kristi Noem
Donald Trump came to the aid of embattled Republican South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, whose story about shooting to death her 14-month old German wirehaired pointer named Cricket has been denounced by Americans on the left and right for weeks.
Gov. Noem not only chose to put the story in her memoir, but has repeatedly defended her decision to drag the dog into a gravel pit and shoot her, killing her with one bullet without even warning her child, who asked when they returned home from school, “Where’s Cricket?”
Trump, speaking Tuesday on The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show, the successor to the late Rush Limbaugh’s talk radio program, did not appear to have a full grasp of the story or the massive outrage and upset Gov. Noem caused.
“I’m sure you’ve seen some of the Kristi Noem story. She might be the only person getting worse press than you on the left right now with the dog shooting story,” Clay Travis told Trump. “Is she still in the mix as a VP? Have you thought maybe she’d make more sense in a cabinet? How do you analyze stories like that as you go about making a choice?”
Noem, until the dog shooting story came out, was widely believed to be on Trump’s short list as a vice presidential running mate.
“Well, until this week, she was doing incredibly well and she got hit hard, and sometimes you do books and you have some guy writing a book and you maybe don’t read it as carefully,” Trump offered as a defense of the governor whose dog-shooting story came out weeks ago. “You know, you have ghost writers, do they help you? And they this case didn’t help too much.”
“Now, she’s terrific,” Trump continued, lavishing praise on Noem. “Look, she’s been a supporter of mine from day one. She did a great job of governor, as governor. And you know, you look at South Dakota numbers. She’s really done a great job.”
Trump did not say what numbers specifically, nor did he say on what Governor Noem did a great job. he also did not answer the question Travis posed about North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, nor did he bring up any of the other controversies surrounding the book.
“And in some form, I mean, I think I think she’s terrific. A couple of rough stories. There’s no question about it. And when explained the dog story, you know, people, people hear that and people from different parts of the country probably feel a little bit differently, but that’s a tough story. And, but she’s a terrific person. She said she had a bad, she had a bad week.”
Watch below or at this link.
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
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When cross-examination of Donald Trump's former longtime attorney Michael Cohen officially got underway, Trump attorney Todd Blanche immediately began by letting Cohen know he didn't appreciate a remark he made about the defense counsel on social media.
The Daily Beast's Jose Pagliery, who was attending Tuesday's trial proceedings in person, posted a dispatch from the courtroom detailing a tense exchange that Blanche had with Cohen. As the cross-examination began, Pagliery said Blanche "leaned forward with both hands forcefully gripping the edges of the wooden tabletop" as he approached the lectern and adjusted the microphone. He further observed that Blanche's typically "satiny" voice was replaced by "a slight grittiness."
"Mr. Cohen, my name is Todd Blanche. You and I have never spoken or met before, have we?" Blanche asked Cohen. When Cohen responded that they hadn't spoken or met, Blanche then asked Cohen to confirm that he still knew of Blanche's existence, to which Cohen said that he did.
"You went on TikTok and called me a crying little s—, didn't you," Blanche then asked, with Pagliery noting that he "growled" the question.
When Cohen began to respond that the comment sounded "like something I would say," prosecutors then objected, and Judge Juan Merchan sustained the objection (meaning he agreed with the prosecution). Prosecutors then continued to object seven more times during the following 25 minutes of Blanche's questioning, with Merchan sustaining each one. Reporters said the constant objections disrupted Blanche's rhythm.
Eventually, the cross-examination involved Blanche confirming with Cohen the various insults he used to describe the 45th president of the United States. At one point, Blanche asked Cohen if he indeed referred to Trump as a "dictator d—bag" who "belongs in a f—ing cage." The New York Post's Ben Kochman reported that Blanche asked Cohen if he called his former client a "boorish cartoon misogynist" and a "Cheeto-dusted cartoon villain" on his podcast, with Cohen responding in the affirmative.
"The tactic is one meant to direct the 18-person jury’s attention to the man who has been heralded as the Manhattan District Attorney’s star witness while prosecutors pursue 34 felony counts of falsifying business records against Trump," Pagliery wrote.
Blanche's harsh treatment of Trump could be a result of Trump himself prodding his lead attorney to be more aggressive during proceedings. Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that Trump has been upset with Blanche's performance in the courtroom, and was urging him to more vociferously attack the judge, the jury pool, the witnesses and the process itself. The ex-president has reportedly said he wants Blanche to be more like Roy Cohn, his late former personal attorney who was eventually indicted and disbarred.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's team has told Judge Merchan that Cohen will be their last witness before they rest their case. Trump is facing 34 felony counts relating to a scheme he allegedly orchestrated to buy the silence of women who claimed to have had extramarital affairs with him leading up to his 2016 campaign for the presidency.
The Manhattan trial is likely the only one of Trump's four criminal proceedings that will conclude with a verdict before Election Day. His Georgia trial has been sidelined until 2025 after the Georgia Court of Appeals agreed to hear Trump's argument to remove Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from the case. And his two federal criminal trials are both in limbo, with U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon indefinitely postponing his classified documents trial and the Supreme Court still mulling over the ex-president's argument for absolute criminal immunity from official acts carried out as president.
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
Michael Cohen and Donald Trump
Donald Trump has repeatedly been heard to defend himself against charges by women that he sexually harassed or assaulted by saying, how could you think that? She’s not my type. Stormy Daniels, who Trump also denies having sex with, was very much Trump’s type.
But if Trump had a “type” when it came to women, he also had a “type” with the men he surrounded himself with. Steve Bannon, who conned people out of money with a phony scheme to build part of Trump’s wall, was his type. Roger Stone, who walks around with a tattoo of Richard Nixon on his back and colluded with Russian intelligence agents to help elect Trump, is also his type.
But the person in this trial who by far best represents Donald Trump’s “type” is Michael Cohen, the lawyer Trump picked to represent him when he was president and CEO of the Trump Organization.
He’s a serial liar, a hustler, a con man, a double-dealer, a man, who if he had to, would sell his own mother to squiggle out of a corner he got himself into. Donald Trump didn’t have to take the stand in this trial. The prosecution put his moral doppelganger in the witness box in his stead.
That’s the first problem Donald Trump’s lawyers have with Michael Cohen: Everything Cohen did in covering up Trump’s one night stand with Stormy Daniels was done for Donald Trump and at Trump’s direction.
The second problem the defense has with Michael Cohen is the jurisdiction of the trial. It’s taking place in Manhattan, where both Donald Trump and Michael Cohen made their bones, as the mob saying goes. Lying, conniving scumbags have been working Manhattan since cows grazed in meadows along the creek that was eventually paved over to become Spring Street in what is now SoHo.
You could say that everyone in Manhattan has known a Donald Trump “type,” except the reality is, as residents of the prime borough of New York City, they have actually known Donald Trump himself, through his constant self-promotion during his time as a real estate developer, tabloid star, man-about-town, and reality TV host. Paying off a porn-star to protect his own reputation is supremely Trumpian, the exact kind of thing Manhattanites would expect him to do.
The third problem the defense has with Michael Cohen is, everyone in Manhattan has either read about or come across a lawyer like Michael Cohen – one who is, in the words of The Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage, to describe a hustler such as Cohen, “a rascally” lawyer, “shrewdly dishonest and unscrupulous.”
The point being, back in the day when Donald Trump was suing anybody and everybody in pursuit of (1) money, and (2) his identity as a self-declared billionaire, or being sued himself, the lawyer he chose to do his suing or to defend himself against lawsuits by others, was Michael Cohen. He was, from 2006 onward, Trump’s man, acting on Trump’s orders, doing Trump’s dirty work.
Cohen was famous for calling up journalists who wrote unflatteringly about Trump and threatening to sue them. In an interview with ABC News in 2011, Cohen put his representation of Donald Trump this way: “If somebody does something Mr. Trump doesn't like, I do everything in my power to resolve it to Mr. Trump's benefit. If you do something wrong, I'm going to come at you, grab you by the neck and I'm not going to let you go until I'm finished.” He was called Trump’s “pit bull.” In 2015, when the Daily Beast dug up a quote from the divorce action filed by Ivana Trump saying she had been “raped” by Trump when she was his wife, Cohen called the author of the piece and told him, “I'm warning you, tread very fucking lightly, because what I'm going to do to you is going to be fucking disgusting.”
Michael Cohen was speaking, of course, on behalf of his client, Donald Trump.
The fourth problem for the defense with Michael Cohen emerged today in Todd Blanche’s cross-examination of Michael Cohen: he is utterly unapologetic about who he is. Blanche tried again and again for a “gotcha” moment with Cohen on the stand. He asked, “Do you want President Trump to get convicted in this case?” Cohen, whose two books are titled Revenge and Disloyal, calmly said, “Sure.”
Blanche moved on to ask Cohen if he had called the defendant “a Cheeto-dusted cartoon villain” and “a boorish cartoon misogynist."
“Sounds like something I would say,” answered the man who once said he would “take a bullet” for Donald Trump.
Blanche went on to attack Cohen for making money off his appearance as a witness against Trump with his podcast and the merchandise he sells, such as a t-shirt with an image of Trump behind bars wearing an orange jumpsuit. Cohen was, again, unapologetic. Legal eagles such as Joyce Vance on MSNBC, who was in the courtroom for Cohen’s testimony, described Cohen as calm and collected almost to a fault, as well he should be. The defense is attacking Michael Cohen for being a clone of their client, a man who would do anything for a buck.
Apparently, the prosecution’s strategy with Michael Cohen is to show the similarities between Cohen and Trump. It’s almost as if by presenting Cohen as their summary witness, the prosecution is preparing to ask the jury in their summation, who do you want to vote for? The guy who actually had sex with a porn star and ordered its coverup, or the guy whose job it was to “take care of it” for him?
It's a gamble that could only be taken in Manhattan.
Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has covered Watergate, the Stonewall riots, and wars in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels. You can subscribe to his daily columns at luciantruscott.substack.com and follow him on Twitter @LucianKTruscott and on Facebook at Lucian K. Truscott IV.
Please consider subscribing to Lucian Truscott Newsletter, from which this is reprinted with permission.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Back in 2021, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sued Daily Kos to unmask the identity of a community member who posted a critical story about his dalliance with neo-Nazis at a Berlin rally. I updated the story here, here, here, here, and here.
To briefly summarize, Kennedy wanted us to doxx our community member, and we stridently refused. We protect our community at all costs. Shockingly, Kennedy got a trial court judge in New York to agree with him, and a subpoena was issued to Daily Kos to turn over any information we might have on the account. However, we are based in California, not New York, so once I received the subpoena at home, we had a California court not just quash the subpoena, but essentially signal that if New York didn’t do the right thing on appeal, California could very well take care of it.
It’s been a while since I updated, and given a favorable court ruling this month, it’s way past time to catch everyone up.
This has become a critical free speech case, with what’s called the ”Dendrite standard” at stake. In short, the Dendrite International, Inc. v. Doe No. 3 ruling states that anonymous speech is protected unless all of the following apply:
(1) the plaintiff must make good faith efforts to notify the poster and give the poster a reasonable opportunity to respond; (2) the plaintiff must specifically identify the poster's allegedly actionable statements; (3) the complaint must set forth a prima facie cause of action; (4) the plaintiff must support each element of the claim with sufficient evidence; and (5) "the court must balance the defendant's First Amendment right of anonymous free speech against the strength of the prima facie case presented and the necessity for the disclosure of the anonymous defendant's identity."
Put another way, a plaintiff better have a damn good reason to violate an anonymous poster’s free speech rights in order to force a media organization to unmask them.
This test, suggested by Public Citizen and the ACLU in an amicus brief, was originally adopted by a New Jersey court in 2001. Ever since, Public Citizen has avidly sought to enshrine it in additional states. One of the missing states? New York. Public Citizen has assisted our defense team and represented our community member as an opportunity to enshrine the Dendrite protections in New York.
The issues at hand are so important that The New York Times, the E.W.Scripps Company, the First Amendment Coalition, New York Public Radio, and seven other New York media companies joined the appeals effort with their own joint amicus brief. What started as a dispute over a Daily Kos diarist has become a meaningful First Amendment battle, with major repercussions given New York’s role as a major news media and distribution center.
After reportedly spending over $1 million on legal fees, Kennedy somehow discovered the identity of our community member sometime last year and promptly filed a defamation suit in New Hampshire in what seemed a clumsy attempt at forum shopping, or the practice of choosing where to file suit based on the belief you’ll be granted a favorable outcome. The community member lives in Maine, Kennedy lives in California, and Daily Kos doesn't publish specifically in New Hampshire. A perplexed court threw out the case this past February on those obvious jurisdictional grounds.
[He] does not live or work in New Hampshire, he has no meaningful contacts with this state, he did not consult any New Hampshire sources when writing the article, he did not mention New Hampshire in the article or otherwise ‘direct’ the article to this state, and he had no reason to anticipate that the ‘brunt’ of the (alleged) injury to Kennedy’s reputation would be felt in New Hampshire—particularly since Kennedy is not a resident of New Hampshire and his connections to New Hampshire are, at best, attenuated.
Then, last week, the judge threw out the appeal of that decision because Kennedy’s lawyer didn’t file in time—and blamed the delay on bad Wi-Fi.
Freakin’ hilarious! So our intrepid community member, who ultimately unmasked himself, is in the clear! But that doesn’t mean the broader case is over.
Kennedy tried to dismiss the original case, the one awaiting an appellate decision in New York, claiming it was now moot. His legal team had sued to get the community member’s identity, and now that they had it, they argued that there was no reason for the case to continue.
We disagreed, arguing that there were important issues to resolve (i.e., Dendrite), and we also wanted lawyer fees for their unconstitutional assault on our First Amendment rights. (Fun fact: The press is the only profession specifically mentioned in the U.S. Constitution.)
On Thursday, in a unanimous decision, a four-judge New York Supreme Court appellate panel ordered the case to continue, keeping the Dendrite issue alive and also allowing us to proceed in seeking damages based on New York’s anti-SLAPP law, which prohibits “strategic lawsuits against public participation.”
Here’s how one of our lawyers, Adam Bonin, described the court order: “A New York appeals court is unanimously allowing Daily Kos to proceed on claims that RFK Jr. had no right to try to unmask one of our users and that his attempts to do so violated New York's anti-SLAPP rules, which may entitle the site to seek damages against him.”
Kennedy opened up a can of worms and has spent millions fighting this stupid battle. Despite his losses, we aren’t letting him weasel out of this.
We’ve been able to fight this fight on behalf of our valued community because of your generous support.
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.
Chris LaCivita
Donald Trump's presidential campaign is trying to sell donors on the idea that less is more when it comes to his flagging ground game in critical battleground states.
“We’re focused on quality over quantity. I mean, how novel a concept,” chief Trump campaign strategist Chris LaCivita told a crowd of mega donors on May 4 at Mar-a-Lago.
But here's how that leaner field organization looks on the ground to many GOP state strategists: “There is no sign of life,” said Kim Owens, a Republican operative in Arizona.
“Especially in a state that Trump lost so closely last time," Owens continued, "you’d expect to have more of a presence. I would think, ‘Let’s step it up.’ I think it’s a terrible mistake.”
These accounts come from an absolutely wild piece of reporting by four reporters at The Washington Post: Michael Sherer, Josh Dawsey, Maeve Reston, and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez. The reporting, which relates to the structural aspects of the contest, also comes at a moment when fresh New York Times/Siena polling suggests Trump is ahead of Biden in a handful of key battleground states.
Arizona's GOP operatives aren't alone in feeling mystified by the Trump campaign’s lack of presence—they are joined by those in Michigan, Georgia, and others as well.
The reason for Trump's flagging operation isn't exactly clear. To be sure, the Trump campaign is cash strapped, particularly when compared to the Biden campaign's war chest. Trump also recently took over the Republican National Committee, and the new leadership, which includes his daughter-in-law Lara Trump, reportedly scrapped the organizational plans drawn up by the old leadership under the direction of Ronna Romney McDaniel.
Under the original plan, in Georgia, the RNC was supposed to hire 12 regional field directors and 40 field organizers by the end of May, topped off by 20 field offices down the road. Instead, the RNC currently has one consultant, according to Cody Hall, a senior aide to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who has a tense relationship with Trump. Hall said he has "seen no evidence" that the Trump campaign has the field operation necessary to win the Peach State.
A similar story is playing out in Arizona, where the RNC planned to open seven field offices and hire six regional field directors overseeing 23 organizers by the end of May. That plan appears to be dead on arrival with nothing to take its place.
An RNC presence is also missing in action in other battleground states, including Michigan, where several unnamed operatives were concerned.
Additionally, the Bank Your Vote effort, an early voting operation the RNC had launched at the beginning of the year, has gone dark with its website entirely offline for an indefinite amount of time.
Yet Trump campaign staffers and allies appear to be gaslighting their way through the deficit.
Asked about the Bank Your Vote operation by the Post, James Blair, the national political director for both the Trump campaign and the RNC, said, "It is full speed ahead. Stay tuned for more on the program.”
Blair's response was par for the course in the piece, which makes it difficult to pinpoint exactly what is happening with the RNC and the Trump campaign, which effectively appears to be a joint operation at this point. But among Republican operatives in these states—who are usually instrumental to implementing a statewide strategy—everyone is in the dark.
Perhaps most concerning is that Trump directed the RNC leadership to focus their efforts on election security rather than field operations and turnout. According to the reporting, Trump is plenty sure of his own ability to turn out his voters.
But here's another way to read that: Trump has no earthly idea if he can turn out enough people to win on the front end, so he's training the campaign's resources on ways to cause trouble on the back end. They’ll do this by questioning the integrity of the vote and, therefore, the election's results.
“Focus on the cheating,” the Post reported Trump told McDaniel and others when she was still leading the organization.
So as its GOTV operation flails, the RNC is planning a massive "election integrity" operation with "tens of thousands of volunteers who will monitor precincts and vote counting across the country," according to the reporting.
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.
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Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger questions Michael Cohen in New York Supreme Court on May 13, 2024
Michael Cohen today surpassed everyone’s expectations of what would happen when the New York lawyer who has been known to be a “loose cannon” took the stand.
Under direct examination by the prosecution, Cohen gave one or two-word answers repeatedly: Yes. No. I did. He did. When they got to the point of his testimony, which was to tie the Stormy Daniels payoff directly to Trump’s anxiety about how her story would affect his campaign, Cohen was stellar.
Referring to the possibility that Stormy Daniels would speak about her one night stand with Trump before election day, Trump told Cohen, “This is a disaster, a total disaster. Women will hate me.” Trump said “guys, they think it’s cool” that Trump had sex with Stormy Daniels in a hotel room in Lake Tahoe, but if women hear about it, “this is going to be a disaster for the campaign.”
Polls in 2016 already had Trump running seriously behind Hillary Clinton with women because of the Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump boasted that with women, he could “grab’em by the pussy” anytime, because “when you are a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”
Cohen described Trump as desperate at the thought of the Stormy Daniels story coming out days before the election. “Get control of it! Just get past the election. If I win, it’ll have no relevance when I’m president. And if I lose, I don’t really care.”
When Susan Hoffinger, the attorney for the prosecution, asked Cohen if he had talked about Trump’s wife, Melania, with him, Cohen answered, “Yes.” Cohen then described Trump’s attitude about the possibility that his wife would learn about his one night stand with Daniels. “Don’t worry. How long do you think I’ll be on the market for? Not long.”
That comment is a direct reference to the idea that Melania might divorce him over the Stormy Daniels story. It is also the reason that the row of seats for family members behind the defense table has been empty for four weeks, save for one day that Trump’s son, Eric, attended the trial for part of one day. The empty seats in the family row are in full view of the jury box.
Melania has her pride, even if her husband doesn’t.
Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has covered Watergate, the Stonewall riots, and wars in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels. You can subscribe to his daily columns at luciantruscott.substack.com and follow him on Twitter @LucianKTruscott and on Facebook at Lucian K. Truscott IV.
Please consider subscribing to Lucian Truscott Newsletter, from which this is reprinted with permission.
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Sen. Tommy Tuberville
Donald Trump’s courtroom entourage has expanded in recent days, with a troupe of thirsty elected Republicans jockeying for position to win his favor. But to what end, when even Trump’s own family—except for son Eric—hasn’t bothered to show at the New York hush money trial?
Sen. Rick Scott of Florida skipped a vote last Thursday to stand by his man. On Monday, a trio of elected Republicans showed up in the Manhattan courtroom. Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, and Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York were eager to play to the cameras, but didn’t get much of a chance to bask in the limelight.
“After traveling with him in his motorcade, court officers were ordered to prohibit us from standing with President Trump as he addressed media” and they also “prohibited us from speaking to media,” Malliotakis complained. That’s all because “They WANT to silence the truth, protect their narrative and create the false perception that he has no support. Far from it!” she claimed.
Scott insisted Thursday that he was there because “I have known Donald Trump a long time … I knew him before I was governor. I consider him a friend. And what he is going through is just despicable.”
What could Scott get out of this? Maybe he thinks Trump will return the favor by supporting his reelection campaign. Scott has also been angling for the GOP leadership spot in the Senate since 2022, and might be considering what Trump could do for him there. Or perhaps he’s vying for a Cabinet slot, like secretary of Health and Human Services? He’s certainly shown he knows his way around Medicare—or at least how to defraud Medicare to the tune of $1.7 billion. He even tried to spin that investigation to his favor Thursday, saying Trump was the victim of “political persecution,” just like him.
“By the way, I saw this. It happened to me,” Scott said on Fox News. “I fought Hillarycare, and guess what happened when I fought Hillarycare? Justice came after me and attacked me and my company.”
He could be auditioning for the role of Trump’s vice president, but he’d have a problem there. Scott would have to leave Florida to do it, since the presidential and vice presidential candidates can’t call the same state home. That didn’t stop Dick Cheney back in 2000. He just declared he was a resident of Wyoming, and the courts bought it.
Vance is the likelier veep contender. He’s been circling Trump for weeks, reportedly texting or talking daily with Don Jr. and saying all the things Trump wants to hear, including that “the main goal of this trial is psychological torture” of Trump.
“I think that when you look at all of these attacks on Donald Trump, you have to be honest with yourself and say, this is not about law and this is not about justice,” Vance said on CNN Sunday.
In that interview, Vance also blew off the fact that Trump hangs around with well-known antisemites and white nationalists like Nick Fuentes and said that he would only accept the results of the 2024 election if they are “free and fair.” That’s all music to Trump’s ears, and Vance is clearly working overtime for that coveted top-of-the-ticket favor.
Tuberville’s Monday appearance in the courtroom is probably just a ploy for media attention. It’s possible he imagines he could be Trump’s No. 2. Or maybe he’s eyeing a Cabinet position—like secretary of Defense. Tuberville probably thinks he’s an expert and proved his bona fides through his months-long blockade of military promotions.
It’s hard to believe that the biggest Trump toady of them all—South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham—hasn’t shown up yet. And other veep contenders are really letting Vance get the jump on them. Where has South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott been? Don’t forget Marco Rubio, who also has a Florida man problem, but that’s fixable.
What about North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who Trump likes because he’s “very rich”? Or Trump’s “killer” friend, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York? They’re missing a big opportunity here.
Navigator collects, analyzes, and distributes real data on progressive messaging. The Hub Project's Bryan Bennett and Gabriela Parra talk with Kerry about what they are seeing in their research this election cycle, and which messaging can help progressive candidates win elections in 2024—and beyond.
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.
Former Trump “fixer” Michael Cohen in damning testimony Monday told jurors about Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s fears in 2016 when the “Access Hollywood” tape dropped, and what his real concerns were about the bombshell audio that nearly ended his nascent political career.
Cohen revealed that in 2015 when the then-real estate magnate announced he was running for president, Trump told him, “Be prepared. There’s going to be a lot of women coming forward,” according to Courthouse News.
Cohen told jurors that in 2016 “he caught wind of the fact that adult film star Stormy Daniels was shopping her story that she had sex with Trump a decade prior. Cohen said that he was concerned about the impact it could have on Trump’s presidential campaign, particularly after the release of the infamous Access Hollywood tape.”
“At this time, Mr. Trump was polling very, very low with women,” Cohen testified, adding that Trump “said to me, ‘This is a disaster.’”
“‘Women will hate me. Guys, they may think it’s cool. But this is going to be a disaster for the campaign.’”
Cohen also revealed from the witness stand that he had asked Trump how his wife, Melania Trump, was taking the news about Stormy Daniels, the adult film star who Trump allegedly paid hush money to then falsified his business records to hide the transactions in an effort to influence the election, according to prosecutors.
“How long do you think I’ll be on the market for? Not long,” Trump told Cohen, according to his former attorney.
“He wasn’t thinking about Melania,” Cohen said. “This was all about the campaign.”
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins called that a “Remarkable moment.”
The Daily Mail adds, “Asked if Trump was angry during this frantic period of damage control that could surface the Stormy Daniels story, Cohen said ‘Yes. Because there was a negative story that could impact the campaign as a result of women.’ ”
Watch MSNBC’s report below or at this link.
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
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After the ratification of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution — abolishing enslavement, awarding citizenship to Black Americans and guaranteeing their right to vote (Black men, anyway) — it was a time of progress and celebration.
African Americans were elevated to positions in cities, states and at the federal level, including American heroes such as Robert Smalls of South Carolina, first elected in 1874, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was well known by then, though. His sailing skills were crucial in a dramatic escape from enslavement that saw him hijack a Confederate ship he would turn over to the U.S. Navy.
But not everyone viewed the success of Smalls and so many like him as triumphs, proof of the “all men are created equal” doctrine in the Declaration of Independence. For some whites, steeped in the tangled myth of white supremacy and superiority and shocked by the rise of those they considered beneath them, the only answer was repression and violence, often meted out at polling places and the ballot box.
It didn’t matter that these newly elected legislators, when given power, promoted policies that benefited everyone, such as universal public schooling.
In incidents throughout the South, the White League and the Klan killed Black men who had the audacity to exercise their right to vote, intimidating and silencing those who considered doing the same. In the Colfax Massacre in April 1873, an armed group set fire to the Colfax, Louisiana, courthouse, where Republicans and freed people had gathered; between 70 and 150 African Americans were killed by gunfire or in the flames. In Wilmington, North Carolina., white vigilantes intimidated Black voters at the polls, and in 1898, in a bloody coup, overthrew the duly elected, biracial “Fusion” government.
Reconstruction gave way to “Redemption,” couching a return to white domination in the pious language of religion, not the first or last time God was used so shamelessly as cover.
The perpetrators then were Democrats, allied against Lincoln’s Republican Party.
Today, it’s most often Republicans — afraid they can’t convince a majority with ideas alone — who engage in tactics to shrink the electorate to one more amenable to a “Make America Great Again” promise, one that harks back to a time that was not so great for everyone.
It’s not a coincidence that those most amenable to the leader of that movement are white Christian nationalists, eager to align a flawed messenger with a higher power, in order to gain more power on earth.
But the tools are subtle in 2024.
In Republican-led states, with like-minded legislatures, a proliferation of laws has erected hurdles to voting, ones that opponents say disproportionately hit minorities, the poor and the elderly. This week, a federal court in North Carolina is hearing a case brought by the NAACP that is fighting voter ID requirements that Republicans in the state say are not tough enough.
Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee have announced an effort to recruit 100,000 poll watchers in battleground states. You don’t have to be a mind reader to imagine where they could be stationed — Philadelphia, Atlanta, Detroit, Milwaukee — the places where minority voters are concentrated and where Trump insists fraud is going on.
From the 1980s until a few years ago, the RNC was hampered by a consent decree after complaints that posting armed, off-duty law enforcement officers at polls in minority neighborhoods just might intimidate voters. You have to wonder if they’ve learned anything.
America has seen it all before.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, laws that simply sought to balance the scales, right wrongs and achieve some semblance of justice, were all greeted with pushback that the government was going too far, too fast — that whites were losing something when minorities gained long-denied rights.
Some in the crowd in America’s 21st-century attempted coup, on Jan, 6, 2021, toted Confederate flags and signs demanding a violent take back of a country they don’t recognize and don’t want to accept.
Trump in Time magazine echoes the grievances that have never faded away, as he lays out his plans if elected in November. He promises policies to address what he calls a “definite anti-white feeling” in America.
“If you look at the Biden administration, they’re sort of against anybody depending on certain views,” Trump told Time. “They’re against Catholics. They’re against a lot of different people. … I think there is a definite anti-white feeling in this country and that can’t be allowed either.”
No proof, of course, that Mass-attending President Joe Biden is anti-Catholic, or that African Americans, with disproportionate outcomes on everything from maternal health to housing, are cruising along. But division and victimhood are all Trump knows. He supports his followers’ views, all FBI evidence to the contrary, that discrimination and hate crimes against whites are bigger problems than discrimination and violence against African Americans.
Trump and Republicans have already succeeded in states across the country, outlawing the teaching of basic history like the facts at the top of this column, for fear the truth about hard-fought gains, often accompanied by bloody sacrifice, might hurt someone’s feelings or perhaps provoke empathy and understanding for the “other.”
Ignorance of history makes it much easier to sell the lie that the 2020 election was stolen and that byzantine rules and poll watchers are needed to prevent the same in 2024.
Trump’s antics in a Manhattan courtroom have drawn all the attention, understandable with headlines about adult film stars, tabloids and the like. Trump won, in part, in 2016 because he knew how to suck up all the oxygen in the room.
But it’s important to pay attention to the words and actions of those who only love an America that excludes rather than includes the voices and votes of all its citizens, those who look back and like the view.
We’ve seen that America — throughout history and as recently as January 2021. It wasn’t pretty.
Reprinted with permission from Roll Call.
Charlie Kirk
The Washington Post reported the Republican National Committee describes its 2024 approach as “leaner” and “more efficient” than in previous cycles, and that it intends to operate with a smaller staff and more robust partnerships with outside groups.
One of these outside groups is Turning Point USA, the conservative “youth” organization founded by Charlie Kirk in 2012 that has since grown into a social media juggernaut, with a massive digital footprint, and a major player on the conservative conference circuit. The group has long-standing ties with extremists, and Kirk himself frequently pushes racism on his radio show and weekly podcast.
The Washington Post reports that a weekend fundraiser for the Republican National Committee included meetings between James Blair, political director for both the RNC and the Trump campaign, and representatives from Turning Point and other outside groups. From the report:
Blair praised Turning Point in particular as a group that is doing “great work.”
Turning Point’s founder, Charlie Kirk, has been similarly effusive, recently announcing on social media: “As someone who has been a skeptic of the RNC in the past, I am very encouraged by what is happening.”
“Instead of them being sort of outside allies now, they’re more like partners for us. And we are going to be the battlefield commander,” Blair said. “The new regime is top down. The new regime is, ‘You get in our rowboat and you row. You dance to the beat of our music, or we’ll just simply say who’s not playing ball.’”
Turning Point and its leader Charlie Kirk have spread racism
Of particular concern is Turning Point and Charlie Kirk’s racism and ties to far-right antisemitic, white supremacist movements.
On a April 30 stream on Rumble, Holocaust denier and far-right cult figure Nick Fuentes claimed that Turning Point is being taken over by young extremists associated with his “groyper” movement.
Fuentes said, “Turning Point, we had a big rivalry with them and they hated us, they fired everyone that was associated with me, and then this past year, their CFO Tyler Bowyer said, well, you know, some groypers are OK."
Turning Point Action Chief Operating Officer Tyler Bowyer said that some of Fuentes’ groypers are “OK-ish” and “just want to have an honest debate” while appearing on TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk’s podcast last month to talk about former Daily Wire host Candace Owens. Owens recently left the right-wing outlet following a string of comments against Jewish people. Figures associated with the “groypers” have previously spoken at Turning Point USA events on college campuses.
In November 2022, Fuentes dined with Donald Trump and pro-Hitler rapper Ye (formerly Kanye West) at Trump’s Florida resort Mar-a-Lago. Fuentes has repeatedly praised Adolf Hitler and compared himself to Hitler. He has also denied the Holocaust and called for a “holy war” against Jewish people.
Kirk himself has drawn hostility within the conservative movement for his own racist comments. In the last few months, he has remarked on his podcast that if he sees a Black pilot he’s going to doubt his qualifications and launched a campaign to discredit the work of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
These comments resulted in significant backlash from conservative commentators and Trump allies. Longtime Trump surrogate pastor Darrell Scott described Kirk’s comments as “bullcrap,” saying, “That boy’s a racist right there.”
In the same NBC article that reported Scott’s comments, an anonymous Trump ally said the former president is “f---ing pissed that Charlie is out causing problems for him in the Black community.”
Kirk’s record of racism and antisemitism is extensive. He has suggested that Black women including Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and MSNBC host Joy Reid “do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously” and used affirmative action to “steal a white person’s slot,” said that “Haiti is legitimately infested with demonic voodoo,” and attacked the Democratic Party coalition as “resentful, government-addicted minorities and people that want government benefits."
He has also pushed antisemitic stereotypes in the wake of Israel’s invasion of Gaza, blaming “Jewish dollars” for funding “cultural Marxist ideas” and saying Jews control “not just the colleges; it’s the nonprofits, it’s the movies, it’s Hollywood, it’s all of it,” among other comments.
Kirk has made negative comments about Trump’s ground game
Kirk has not expressed confidence in the Republicans’ ground game ahead of the 2024 election, going so far as to attack their efforts.
On The Charlie Kirk Show, he said that the Biden campaign has a “superior ground game."
“The bad news,” he added, “is I do not know if we have the infrastructure, if we have the troops, the plumbing to translate the public sentiment into election success."
In another clip posted to X (formerly Twitter) by the Biden campaign, Kirk said, “We are struggling right now to open up the necessary field offices to compete against Joe Biden."
He praised Trump campaign operatives Chris LaCivita, who has been at the forefront of the RNC’s pivot, and campaign senior adviser Susie Wiles, then listed off Biden’s extensive ground operations in battleground states.
He continued, “Thankfully, we at Turning Point Action, we have well over a hundred people now chasing ballots in Arizona, trying to close that gap.”
As The Associated Press reported in October 2023, Turning Point Action, the organization’s political arm, has been fundraising for a $108 million campaign effort to turn out votes for Trump in the battleground states of Arizona, Wisconsin, and Georgia.
This push comes amid scrutiny. Kirk himself has become a millionaire as a result of his political prominence. Additionally, the group is relying on a mobile app, which will serve as a platform for its get out the vote campaign, developed by the company Superfeed Technologies. Superfeed’s board is chaired by Tyler Bowyer, Turning Point’s chief operating officer, who has suffered financial setbacks in recent years. Bowyer was recently indicted by a grand jury in Arizona for being part of former President Donald Trump’s fake electors scheme to overturn the 2020 election.
Veteran Republican campaign operatives have warned that such a large investment goes far beyond the scope of what is needed for field operations in just three states. Jon Seaton, a former aide to the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), told the Associated Press that “there’s not even enough doors” to knock on in the territory.
Concerns about Turning Point’s connections to extremism, Kirk’s history of racism and antisemitism, and dubious fundraising scheme should ring alarm bells among any political operatives seeking to build a campaign for Trump. Instead, they’re leaning in.
Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.
