Category Archives: Donald Trump

On Jan. 6, supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol to stop the official counting of the Electoral College vote. What did then-President Trump know, and when did he know it? And how did Trump view the actions of his supporters who overran the Capitol Police?

The answer: Its still murky.

Trumps role came up during an interview of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., on the April 25 edition of "Fox News Sunday." During the interview, host Chris Wallace repeatedly pressed McCarthy on the nature of a call between Trump and McCarthy while members of the pro-Trump crowd were still in the building.

As we take a closer look at what is known about Trumps actions, well start with what McCarthy told Wallace. Broadly speaking, we found that McCarthys answers are not provably wrong, but they were evasive, inconsistent with his earlier comments, and selectively framed in a flattering way to Trump.

Congress, meanwhile, hasnt been able to put together an official bipartisan inquiry into the storming of the Capitol because of partisan disagreement over its parameters.

In its absence, journalists and the public are left to piece together Trumps role that day from a hodgepodge of unofficial sources.

What McCarthy said on Fox News Sunday

Heres the relevant exchange between McCarthy and Wallace, including screenshots Wallace showed his audience.

Wallace: "During the Trump impeachment in February a Republican congresswoman said this. I want to put it up on the screen. She said that while the Jan. 6th riot was in full force, you phoned President Trump and asked him to call off his supporters. And according to you, she said, the president responded, Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election then you are. Is she right? Is that what President Trump said to you?"

McCarthy: "What I talked to President Trump about, I was the first person to contact him when the riot was going on. He didn't see it. What he ended the call was saying telling me, he'll put something out to make sure to stop this. And that's what he did, he put a video out later."

Wallace: "Quite a lot later. And it was a pretty weak video. But I'm asking you specifically, did he say to you, I guess some people are more concerned about the election than you are?"

McCarthy: "No, listen, my conversations with the president are my conversations with the president. I engaged in the idea of making sure we could stop what was going on inside the Capitol at that moment in time. The president said he would help."

McCarthys comments drew attention for what they didnt say, and for the possibility that he was soft-pedaling the contents of his call because Republicans chances of winning back the House in the 2022 midterm elections could depend on how energized Trumps supporters are.

The tone of McCarthys comments also conflicted with his remarks on the House floor on Jan. 13, just a week after the Capitol was breached.

"The president bears responsibility for Wednesdays attack on Congress by mob rioters," McCarthy said. "He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. These facts require immediate action by President Trump, (to) accept his share of responsibility, quell the brewing unrest and ensure President-elect Biden is able to successfully begin his term."

What Herrera-Beutler said

McCarthys "Fox News Sunday" comments about Trump contradicted public statements by U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera-Beutler, reporting by CNN and Trumps tweets on that day.

Back in February, Herrera-Beutler, R-Wash., detailed what McCarthy had told her about his Jan. 6 call with Trump. Heres the key portion of a statement she tweeted on Feb. 12:

"When McCarthy finally reached the president on Jan. 6 and asked him to publicly and forcefully call off the riot, the president initially repeated the falsehood that it was antifa that had breached the Capitol. McCarthy refuted that and told the president that these were Trump supporters. That's when, according to McCarthy, the president said, Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.

"Since I publicly announced my decision to vote for impeachment, I have shared these details in countless conversations with constituents and colleagues, and multiple times through the media and other public forums."

In the "Fox News Sunday" interview, McCarthy didnt directly deny that Trump had said, "Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are." But he did sidestep the question, effectively downplaying its significance.

As for McCarthys assertion to Wallace that he and Trump "engaged in the idea of making sure we could stop what was going on inside the Capitol at that moment in time," this is incomplete. According to McCarthys earlier account to Herrera-Beutler, he and Trump argued over whether the rioters were antifa members or Trump supporters.

In addition, McCarthy spotlighted to Wallace that Trump ended the call by saying hed "put something out to make sure to stop" the insurrection. This isnt in conflict with Herrera-Beutlers account, but it does put a much more positive gloss on the conversation.

What CNN reported

An article published by CNN on Feb. 12 provided a bit more detail on the Trump-McCarthy call using anonymous sources.

"A furious McCarthy told the then-president the rioters were breaking into his office through the windows, and asked Trump, Who the f--- do you think you are talking to? according to a Republican lawmaker familiar with the call," CNN reported. The report said that details of the call were "described to CNN by multiple Republicans briefed on it."

The article added that "McCarthy pressed Trump to call off his supporters and engaged in a heated disagreement about who comprised the crowd."

PolitiFact does not use anonymous sources in its reporting, and could not independently confirm this account. But if the CNN report is accurate, McCarthy described a much less contentious conversation during his Fox News interview.

Trumps timeline that day

What about McCarthys portrayal of Trumps actions that day outside of the phone call? Once again, McCarthys account is technically accurate but leaves out context.

McCarthy said Trump "didn't see" the storming of the Capitol

For a president obsessed with cable television, this seems unlikely but its not provably false.

The New York Times reported that, "at some point, Mr. Trump went to the Oval Office and watched news coverage of a situation that was growing increasingly tense."

And then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, citing "public reports," that Trump "watched television happily happily as the chaos unfolded."

But the only public reports we could find were news reports citing anonymous sources, so its impossible to independently verify that McCarthys version is wrong.

Trump "put a video out later" and "said he would help."

McCarthys description here is incomplete.

According to a New York Times timeline published Feb. 13, Trumps motorcade headed back to the White House at 1:19 p.m. after he finished speaking at a pro-Trump rally on the Ellipse. At 2:12 p.m., rioters breached the Capitol, leading Vice President Mike Pence to be rushed off the Senate floor.

At 2:38 p.m., Trump tweeted, "Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!"

At 3:13, he tweeted, "I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!"

The timeline places the Trump-McCarthy call at "around 3:30 p.m."

At 4:17 p.m., Trump tweeted a video from the Rose Garden in which he said, "I know your pain. I know youre hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us, it was a landslide election, and everyone knows it, especially the other side. But you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. We have to respect our great people in law and order. We dont want anybody hurt."

At 6:01 p.m. he tweeted, "These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!"

The building was finally secured around 8 p.m. By that time, Trump had as McCarthy said on "Fox News Sunday" put out a video. However, it came more than two hours after the Capitol breach, as violence was continuing.

In addition, Trumps calls in the video to have "peace" and to "go home now" were joined by sympathy for the rioters cause a more mixed message than McCarthy indicated.

Read more here:

What happened during the Jan. 6 call between Donald Trump and Kevin McCarthy? - PolitiFact

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Former President Donald Trump has endorsed fellow Republican Susan Wright in the crowded Saturday special election to replace her late husband, U.S. Rep. Ron Wright, R-Arlington.

The endorsement is a massive development in a race that features 11 Republicans, including at least two former Trump administration officials. A number of the GOP contenders have been closely aligning themselves with the former president.

"Susan Wright will be a terrific Congresswoman (TX-06) for the Great State of Texas," Trump said in a statement Monday. "She is the wife of the late Congressman Ron Wright, who has always been supportive of our America First Policies."

Wright, a member of the State Republican Executive Committee, said in a statement that she was "so proud to be the only candidate in this race President Trump trusts to be his ally in our fight to Make America Great Again."

The special election was triggered by Ron Wright's death in February after he was hospitalized with COVID-19. In addition to the 11 Republicans, Saturday's ballot includes 10 Democrats, one Libertarian and one independent.

Wright's Republican rivals include Brian Harrison, the chief of staff at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under Trump, and Sery Kim, who worked at the Small Business Administration under the former president. There is also Dan Rodimer, the former pro wrestler who moved to Texas after an unsuccessful congressional campaign last year in Nevada that had Trump's support.

The candidates' efforts to show their loyalty to Trump has gotten so intense that a Trump spokesperson had to issue a statement last week clarifying that he had not yet gotten involved in the race.

Early voting for the special election started a week ago and ends Tuesday.

Continue reading here:

Susan Wright endorsed by Donald Trump in Texas congressional election - The Texas Tribune

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This excerpt is adapted with permission from Driving While Brown: Sheriff Joe Arpaio Versus the Latino Resistance by Terry Greene Sterling and Jude Joffe-Block, a deeply reported account of Arizonas bellwether immigration battles, published by University of California Press.

The window shade was drawn, giving the artificially lit room a bunkerlike feeling. Outside cameras fed video of an empty porch onto a monitor above a desk, where an 85-year-old man bit glumly into a meaty deli sandwich.

It was Aug. 8, 2017. Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, knew he would soon be sentenced for his crime. And even though a prison sentence was a long shot for a federal misdemeanor, the very idea that it was a remote possibility angered and unnerved him.

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He had stacked printouts of personalized Google alerts and emails, along with a few fan letters, on his desk. They were comforting proof to him that he was still famous and his supporters had not abandoned him. Hed long branded himself as Americas Toughest Sheriff, the guy who forced many inmates in his jails to live and sleep in uncomfortably hot tents, wear pink underwear, buy their own salt and pepper, eat gloppy, sometimes moldy food, and undergo other hardships geared toward getting more press.

As sheriff, hed apprehended and jailed and sent tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants into deportation proceedings in Maricopa County. He had become known to those who opposed him as much more than an immigration hard-liner or border hawk. His critics viewed him, instead, as a 21st century patriarch of the restrictionist immigration movement, which is rooted in a dark history of eugenics and white supremacy dating back at least to the early decades of the 20th century.

As Arpaio developed his brand, it helped him keep his office into his 80s. It also embroiled him in a history-making federal class-action lawsuit, in which Latino drivers and passengers successfully sued Arpaio and his agency, the Maricopa County Sheriffs Office, for racial profiling. This lawsuit, in turn, had resulted in court-ordered reforms, including an explicit judicial order forbidding Arpaio or anyone in his agency from detaining undocumented immigrants who had not been accused of crimes and turning them over to federal authorities for deportation. Arpaio had disobeyed the court order for 17 months, two federal judges ruled, which led to a criminal contempt-of-court guilty verdict on July 31, 2017, and an upcoming sentencing that October, which could include up to six months in a federal prison.

Even though the sentencing was still a few months away, people wondered what might happen. Would Arpaio get off with a fine or probation? Or would marshals shackle Arpaio and lead him out of the courtroom? Would they distribute his mug shot on the internet? Would he be marched in front of the cameras in a perp walk? Would Arpaio be confined to a prison cell?

He had long professed his innocence. He viewed his conviction as the end result of a conspiracy by loyalists of former President Barack Obama who were still embedded in the United States Department of Justice, which had successfully prosecuted him in a Phoenix courtroom.

Im the victim, he had told us more than once.

On this August day, we were perched, as usual, in a couple of small chairs facing his large desk. Arpaio was telling us about his plan to get President Donald Trumps attention. Two dried-out ballpoint pens commemorating his 25 years as a federal narcotics agent sat on his desk. A name plaque read Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Americas Toughest Sheriff. He sat in a high-backed black executive office chair. His office, a corner suite on the first floor of a building he owned in Fountain Hills, the town where he lived some 30 miles northeast of Phoenix, was a museumlike tribute to himself. Shelves in the hallway leading to the bathroom were crammed with police-themed tchotchkescoffee mugs, hats, bobblehead dolls, and a border wall brickall of which reminded him of his 24 years as sheriff of the nations fourth most populous county, now home to about 4.5 million people.

Carefully arranged framed newspaper and magazine articles, photographs, and letters of commendation dating as far back as the 1960s hung on all the walls. Hed positioned the most important photos so he could point to them from his deska picture of a younger Arpaio mugging with President George W. Bush, another of Arpaio with thinning, slicked-back graying hair shaking hands with President Barack Obama, and several of Arpaio posing with Donald Trump as a candidate and newly elected president. Hed endorsed Trump early. Once, at a campaign event, a photographer caught a moment in which Trump wrapped his arm around Arpaio, who half-smiled, coyly. Later, Trump autographed the picture: I Love You Joe! Donald Trump.

We sensed his bravado failed him after he was convicted.

Trump, 14 years younger, was Arpaios only hero. They traveled the same highway. They would never surrender as they battled forces that tried to bring them downmainstream media, big government, leftist judges, open borders liberals, or any combination thereof.

And they both understood the immigration problem.

In our meetings, Arpaio had told us once that should he be convicted, he didnt need to be rescued with a presidential pardon. He could take care of himself.

But we sensed his bravado failed him after he was convicted. After marching shackled immigrants in front of the media in perp walks, he understood what might lie ahead for him. Only Donald Trump could rescue him. The president reportedly had asked his appointee, United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions, if he could drop the prosecution of Arpaio. Sessions had refused, and the case went to trial. The president had planned to pardon Arpaio should he be found guilty. But more than a week had passed since Arpaios guilty verdict, and Trump had stayed mum.

Arpaio pinned the presidents unresponsiveness on White House aides who didnt like Arpaio and thus didnt tell Trump about Arpaios predicament. So Arpaio had strategized to get the presidents attention.

A few days before, the former sheriff had spoken with Jerome Corsi, a conspiracy theorist who, like Trump and Arpaio, had repeatedly alleged that Barack Obama had a fake birth certificate. Corsi wrote for the right-wing extremist website Infowars.

The website ran videos featuring Alex Jones, another conspiracy theorist, who maintained, among other things, that the 2012 massacre of children at Sandy Hook Elementary School was a fabricated event meant to undermine the gun rights of Americans. Infowars also published pieces that embraced anti-immigrant views.

The president read Infowars.

Arpaio knew this, and so likely did Corsi, who wrote an Infowars story about Arpaios pressing need for a presidential pardon. The piece was headlined Where Is Trump? Sheriff Arpaio Asks.

After being convicted of criminal misdemeanor contempt, former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has come out swinging, arguing the judge was biased and asking why President Trump is abandoning him, considering Arpaio was an early campaign supporter whose conviction reflects the determination to enforce immigration laws the Trump Justice Department is now exhibiting, Corsi wrote.

Other media took the Infowars plea mainstream. The Arizona Republic, the largest newspaper in Arizona, reported Arpaio would accept a presidential pardon. So did Politico.

Arpaio sat back and waited.

Four days after Arpaio told us about his scheme to get Trumps attention, white nationalists gathered for a Unite the Right alt-right, neo-Nazi protest in Charlottesville, Virginia. The protesters included white supremacists and the Ku Klux Klan, who had long supported Trump and his pro-white, anti-Muslim, anti-brown-immigrant rhetoric.

They had gathered in Charlottesville to protest the removal of a monument honoring Confederate hero Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Even after a white supremacist plowed his car into the crowd of counterprotesters, killing one woman and injuring dozens of others, Trump caused a controversy when he said there were very fine people on both sides.

If Trump were to choose this post-Charlottesville moment to do what he planned to do anywayissue his first presidential pardon to Joe Arpaio, so admired by white supremacists for his unsparing immigration sweepsthe pardon could accomplish multiple goals. It could save his friend. It could divert media attention away from Charlottesville. And the very act of pardoning a man so well regarded by the extreme right wing of the party could signal to Trumps base that the president was still on their side.

As Arpaio sat in his house in Fountain Hills, Lydia Guzman stood with thousands of protesters whod gathered around the Phoenix Convention Center, where President Donald Trump would soon hold a rally. It was late afternoon, Aug. 22, 2017. The hot, sloping sun tinted the white walls of St. Marys Basilica the color of desert honey. Guzman snapped photos with her Android smartphone. So many people had turned out to protest the presidents response to the Charlottesville violence and also the possible presidential pardon of Joe Arpaio. People on crutches, on walkers, in wheelchairs, on foot, on bikes, of all ages and ethnicities. People filled Monroe Street, sat on the Herberger Theater steps, and gathered around life-sized bronze sculptures of dancers. Some chanted. Others beat drums. They waved American flags. The thick air smelled of shampoo and sweat. People fanned themselves with baseball caps, sun hats, and signs: Things Are Not Alt-Right in the USA! No Nazis! No KKK! No White Supremacists! Hell No, Dont Pardon Joe!

Since Trumps election, Guzman felt that the vitriol against immigrants and minorities rampant in Arizona had spread across the country. Arpaios friendship with Trump had been one reason, among many others. But standing in the crowd, seeing the diversity of ethnicities and ages, she felt the Latino-led civil rights movement she had helped lead had won the narrative, in Arizona at least. Recent polling had showed about 50 percent of Arizonans opposed an Arpaio pardon. Only 21 percent supported it.

Just one month earlier, Guzman had been inside the Phoenix Convention Center where Trump now spoke. Shed been one of several local Latino activists feted by UnidosUS, a national Latino civil rights nonprofit once known as the National Council of La Raza.

The nonprofit had boycotted Arizona and Maricopa County several years before, when Sheriff Joe Arpaio was using restrictionist state laws as a justification to round up, criminalize, and turn over unauthorized immigrants for deportation.

Now, Arpaio, the patriarch of Arizonas anti-immigrant movement, had been voted out of office in 2016 and faced prison timekey victories for the Latino-led movement that had risen up against Arpaio and the state laws hed relied on. UnidosUS had chosen to have its 2017 conference in a city it once boycotted. This was a sign of the growing influence of Arizonas Latino activists as role models for resistance to the anti-immigrant animus that had spread across the country with the Trump presidency.

Yet on this August afternoon, in the very same building where Guzman and other Arizona activists had been honored by UnidosUS, the president promoted the same anti-immigrant narrative theyd battled for years in the courts, on the streets, and in the hearts and minds of Arizonans.

Guzman watched men and women in American flag shirts and American flag baseball caps enter the convention center to attend the rally. Not that shed ever care to, but she figured if she wore Old Glory couture, she would be accused of defacing the American flag.

Instead, she wore an embroidered brown tunic, black pants, and sensible black walking shoes. A short woman with carefully coiffed waves of black hair framing her round face and large dark eyes, she looked put together, confident and calm, but she felt ragged inside. All the speculation over the possible presidential pardon of Arpaio had left her out of sorts. For days, shed tried to bolster the spirits of her friends and allies in the Latino community who worried Arpaio might get pardoned. Arpaio was no longer sheriff, everyone knew, but a presidential pardon for illegally rounding up Latino immigrants would be a symbolic slap in the face to the movement that had struggled for years to stop the local sheriff from violating the civil rights of brown-skinned Americans and Latino immigrants.

Shed been one of many in the movement who had taken on Arpaio when he was so powerful people were afraid of him. She had helped Latino drivers successfully sue the sheriff for racial profiling. That lawsuit had led to the guilty verdict that Arpaio hoped would be wiped away by the president.

Guzman knew many in her community yearned to see Arpaio get a taste of the humiliation hed meted out to Latinos. Arpaio in a mug shot. Arpaio in handcuffs. Arpaio behind bars, if only for a day. But now, Guzman thought, it looked as if Trump would rescue Arpaio with a pardon before he was even sentenced.

She figured the president might well pardon Arpaio that afternoon, just to humiliate the movement.

Ava, Arpaio told his wife, hes going to say my name. And soon, Trumpdid.

The fact that he was going to come to Arizona in our face, under our noses to do this, I think that was the biggest insult, she told us. It was more like he was taunting us and we couldnt do anything about it. I felt helpless.

Joe Arpaio watched the protest that Guzman attended on his large-screen television in his home on a cactus-stabbed hill in Fountain Hills. He saw the president, his hero, stroll out on a stage as speakers blared God Bless the USA. Among the thousands in the convention center, many shook red Make America Great Again posters, blue Drain the Swamp posters, and white Veterans for Trump posters.

Ava, Arpaio told his wife, hes going to say my name. And soon, Trump did.

So was Sheriff Joe convicted for doing his job? Trump asked the crowd.

The crowd chanted, Pardon Joe! Pardon Joe!

I think hes going to be just fine, OK? The president smiled. But, he added, I wont do it tonight, because I dont want to cause any controversy.

Outside the convention center, phones lit up with text messages detailing Trumps hints that likely he would soon pardon Arpaio. Guzman knew it would happen. And when it did, it would feel to her as though all the movements years of hard work were being discounted by Trumps pen. And the suffering shed witnessedwrongfully detained and deported immigrants torn from their familieswould be discounted too.

Really, she hated to say itbecause he was always nice to her facebut she secretly thought of Arpaio as a cockroach. For decades, the movement had tried to sweep away Arpaio and everything he stood for.

But for now at least, hed sidled into a dark space, out of reach.

By Terry Greene Sterling and Jude Joffe-Block. University of California Press.

Read more from the original source:

Hes Going to Say My Name - Slate

Former president Donald Trump is known for being a storyteller whether you believe him or not. Recently MSNBCs Mika Brzezinski claimed that Donald told her in a private meeting at the Trumps' personal residence in Palm Beach, Fla., that his wife, Melania, never had plastic surgery. People on Twitter, however, were not buying it.

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As OK! previously reported, Donalds infamously launched a Twitter attack against Brzezinski in June 2017 which has since been deleted, following his social media ban where he mocked her appearance and claimed she was bleeding badly from a face-lift, sparking backlash from the media and members of his own party.

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During a recent chat with host Molly Jong-Fast on The New Abnormal podcast, Brzezinski revealed that the scathing tweet originated from a conversation between the political host and the Trumps in their bedroom.

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Brzezinski and her husband, Morning Joe cohost Joe Scarborough, regrettably (as she put it!) had a working relationship with the former president and would occasionally visit him down at his Mar-a-Lago residence upon Trumps request.

In 2016, Brzezinski and her husband paid a visit to the former first couple down in Palm Beach, a few days after she had a cosmetic procedure done to reduce the wrinkles under her neck. I actually had gotten like a thing on the sides of my neck, like I guess they call it like a chin tuck, she told Jong-Fast on April 12. Four days later, its New Years Eve and Trump is calling Joe and hes like Wheres Mika? Hes always obsessed with me.

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Still loopy on painkillers after going under the knife and against her husband's advice she made the trip down and found herself having a conversation with the former FLOTUS about her recent procedure in the couples bedroom during what she described as a woman to woman chat.

Melania was very curious about [the procedure], Brzezinski said. Thats when Donald came up and joined the ladies and said, You know, Melania has had no work done. Shes perfect. Im like, Thats great.

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Donalds claims that his wife has had zero plastic surgery were met with backlash on social media, with many Twitter users saying its clearly untrue. Lie!!! Its pretty obvious she had a facelift, one user wrote, while another said: He has never spoken the truth before why start now. Of course, she has had surgery look at her new nose, they wrote with side-by-side comparison pics of Melania. Come on!

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Shes pretty both ways, but dude be real. Yeah its a personal thing, but when u live in the public eye and ur pix r accessible everywhere, just admit it or say no comment, a third user wrote, while a fourth commented: Only cosmetic surgery and Botox could create that appalling look... so much Botox shes lost the ability to use any facial muscles so has the constant look of an angry expressionless mask!

Scroll through below to see more scathing tweets claiming Melania has had plastic surgery.

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Read the original post:

'He Has Never Spoken The Truth': Twitter Erupts After Donald Trump Claims Wife Melania Never Had Plastic Surgery - OK!

ATLANTA (AP) Georgia Republican Doug Collins, a favorite of former President Donald Trump, says he doesnt plan to run for governor or U.S. Senate in 2022.

The former congressmans announcement Monday makes it less likely there will be a top-drawer primary challenger to Gov. Brian Kemp, a frequent target of Trumps ire after the governor helped certify President Joe Bidens victory in November.

It also leaves Republicans without an obvious heavyweight against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who won a special election runoff in January over then-Sen. Kelly Loeffler and is seeking a full-term next year. Collins finished third in the first round, missing the runoff.

Victories by Warnock and fellow Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff gave Democrats control of the Senate, and the 2022 contest will again help determine the chambers balance for the final two years of Bidens term.

Collins didnt rule out a future statewide run, describing his decision as goodbye for now, but probably not forever. He said hed continue shaping our conservative message to help Republicans win back the House and the Senate.

Chip Lake, Collins top political adviser, said Collins told him in one-on-one conversations Sunday evening and again Monday that a statewide race requires a candidate to give it 110%, and he is not in a position to get to that in 2022.

Several Republicans, including sitting U.S. Reps. Buddy Carter and Drew Ferguson and former football star Herschel Walker, are eying the seat. But none would enter the 2022 contest with the political profile Collins carries as one of Trumps fiercest defenders during the 2019-20 impeachment proceedings against the former president.

Lake confirmed Collins and Trump have talked periodically since the president left office in January though he said its unclear how much Trump tried to coax Collins into a 2022 campaign.

Collins alliance with Trump wasnt enough in last Novembers all-party election that pitted Loeffler as the Republican incumbent against 19 other candidates. But Trumps support would have made him a favorite in an open Republican Senate primary and it could have made him a legitimate threat in a primary bid against Kemp.

With Collins taking a pass, it leaves open the question of how involved Trump will be in Georgia in 2022, even as the former president and his most vocal advocates are intent on cementing their influence on the GOP as the party adjusts to Georgias newfound battleground status. Biden won the state by about 12,000 votes out of 5 million cast.

A Trump aide did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump pressured Kemp to appoint Collins to succeed Sen. Johnny Isakson in early 2020. Kemp instead tapped Loeffler, a tremendously wealthy Atlanta businesswoman whom Trump supporters viewed with suspicion no matter how eagerly she embraced the president.

Those tensions boiled over in the Senate runoff as Trump falsely claimed that Bidens victory in Georgia was fraudulent and that Georgia Republicans didnt do enough to help him overturn it. Competing GOP camps blame the dynamics for their 2020 defeats. Trump backers argue that enough of the presidents supporters abandoned Loeffler and Sen. David Perdue to ensure their losses. More establishment Republicans argue that Trumps false narratives about the election drove more moderate Republicans and independents, especially in metro Atlanta, to the Democratic column.

Kemp has since been censured by several county Republican parties, suggesting he faces the same difficult balance between the GOPs right flank and the more moderate center. Still, the incumbent governors forceful advocacy on behalf of the sweeping election law overhaul he signed into law has helped improve his standing with some Republicans who felt he didnt do enough to challenge Bidens Georgia win.

So far, Kemps top announced primary opponent is a former Democratic state representative, Vernon Jones, who endorsed Trump last year.

Warnocks campaign, meanwhile, said recently that the senator raised $5.7 million between the Jan. 5 runoff and March 31, giving him a considerable head start on any potential Republican challenger.

I think the window of opportunity for ... anybody else to get in is closing, said Republican Martha Zoller, a former congressional candidate and erstwhile adviser to Perdue and Kemp. Its a money thing.

Lake acknowledged we face challenges as a party but argued the dynamics of midterms elections favor Republicans since Democrats will have to answer for their unified control of Washington in a state he said is still center-right.

The 2020 election was all about Donald Trump, he said. But now 2022 will be about national Democrats. Thats a unifying deal for us.

Read this article:

Trump ally Collins won't run for Senate or Georgia governor - The Associated Press

The ethics/morality of war was a theme that cropped up in the dispiriting second season of Serial and is evident in The Line, an ongoing six-part series from Apple TV/Jigsaw Productions.

It focuses on a US Navy SEALs team led by special operations chief Eddie Gallagher, who was convicted in July 2019 of posing for a photograph with the corpse of a 17-year-old Isis fighter in Iraq. Gallagher was subsequently acquitted of having killed him.

Former US president Donald Trump pardoned Gallagher, and they were later pictured together, with their wives, at Trump's Florida Mar-a-Lago resort. None of this is a spoiler for The Line, which rather seeks to explore the sheep/wolves/sheepdogs moralities of the commando units (the SEALs mostly think they're the good sheepdogs; some call themselves lions, out to get any bad guys). It's a series that Call of Duty gamers might well savour.

Gallagher's conduct in Iraq was reported by former members of his unit - their testimony was published by the New York Times, the audio of which is played in The Line alongside interviews of various soldiers. Among those we hear is Gallagher, who posits in episode three that it was all a conspiracy by his team, who set him up by deleting the video.

The Line is narrated by Dan Taberski (Missing Richard Simmons), who's got an idiosyncratic, humorous interviewing and presenting style that includes references to Charlie Sheen in the 1990s film Navy SEALs, and prodding the grudge between a journalist and scholar over who coined the term "forever war".

An interesting note about The Line is that it's not just a podcast - a four-part limited documentary series will premiere on Apple TV in the autumn. The podcast is stimulating in itself; with two more episodes to come, will the TV series just be going over the same material or will the podcast leave us on a cliffhanger?

The BBC did a similar audio/visual tie-in recently with I'm Not a Monster, a 10-part podcast series/Panorama documentary. Apple TV also had a bonus 'official podcast' for its series For All Mankind. Expect more such companion series to follow in the years to come.

LOOKING AT CATASTROPHE

Slow Burn has returned for its fifth season. After focusing variously on David Duke, Watergate, Tupac vs Biggie, and the Bill Clinton scandal of the 1990s, the acclaimed Slate show is turning to the Iraq War, asking how did "the catastrophe" happen, and what was it like to watch the US make "one of its most consequential mistakes".

It's hosted by award-winning reporter Noreen Malone and available wherever you listen to podcasts.

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Podcast Corner: The Line looks at the actions in Iraq of Donald Trump's favourite Navy Seal - Irish Examiner

Rachel Maddow was still gobsmacked on Friday remembering that bonkers day when Lysol had to clue the world in on then-President Donald Trump.

That was the day, a year ago, when he suggested people inject disinfectant (and light ... somehow) to cure COVID-19.

I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in ... one minute, Trump said at the time. Is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning?

The poor Lysol people, recalled Maddow. They had to step up and ... insist to the people of all the world that no one should listen to the president of the United States about COVID.

Trump claimed later that he was just being sarcastic, but everyone could see he wasnt.

Is that what it sounded like? It sounded like he was joking there?asked the smirking Maddow.

The Lysol people ... are like, you know, we have a lot of challenges in our business. Telling people not to inject Lysol or bleach has never been one of our problems before, but, turns out, presidencies matter, Maddow noted.

Choose wisely when you choose somebody for that particular gig, she noted.

Trumps incredibly bad advice is still having repercussions, Maddow noted. The Justice Department announced Friday that it had just indicted a Florida family for selling industrial bleach as a COVID-19 cure. The Food and Drug Administration reported that people who ingested the bleach required hospitalizations, developed life-threatening conditions and even died.

Elections matter, people, Maddow emphasized again.

And one other thing: Do not inject bleach, ever.

Happy Bleachaversary, she said. Has it only been one year? (Big sigh.)

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Rachel Maddow Can't Believe Even Lysol Had To Set The World Straight On Donald Trump - HuffPost

ALLEGAN COUNTY, Mich A GOP committee in Southwest Michigan ousted their treasurer after he said he didn't vote for former President Donald Trump and was publicly critical of the lack of COVID-19 precautions at a recent district meeting.

It's become a cult of personality, where it's fealty above all else, Jason Watts tells FOX 17.

Watts has been involved in Republican politics for more than two decades, most recently serving as an Allegan County election official and until this weekend as a treasurer for the GOPs 6th Congressional District Committee.

The committee held a vote Saturday to remove him from his position.

They ousted me unanimously, 26 to nothing, Watts said.

Watts believes he was removed in part because of his comments in a February New York Times article, where he was critical of Trump and admitted he never voted for him. In the article, he says he cast his ballot for independent candidate Evan McMullin in 2016 and Libertarian candidate Jo Jorgensen in 2020.

But I did a lot of things to secure Donald Trump's election in the district, Watts added. I felt I could separate those two. People in the district did not, they felt betrayed, Watts added.

Watts was recently hospitalized with COVID-19 after attending a district meeting in Portage. He believes publicly talking about the lack of COVID-precautions in a story with The Detroit News, also led to committee members wanting him out.

You had very few people wearing masks, and at least six people contracted COVID, Watts explained.

In a document provided to FOX 17, the committee says Watts violated bylaws by Providing false information to the committee during the past convention. Providing false information to the chairman of the committee. Serving as the unofficial spokesperson for the committee and attacking it publicly, and engaging in behavior harmful to the party.

6th District GOP Chair Scott McGraw did not provide comment for our story.

Watts refutes the charges and says its simply because hes not a Trump loyalist, adding that his removal will set a bad precedent for the district moving forward.

All my hard work, all my devotion to the district doesn't matter one iota. It was all about whether I could prove this blood loyalty to Trump, Watts said.

I feel strongly in the big-tent. In the big-tent you could disagree on candidates even in the general election and it didn't really matter because 90% of the time you're agreeing to the platform of low taxes. limited government, individual responsibility, and strong national defense. And that's what mattered, it was our ideas that matter, Watts explained. Now, it's making sure you have loyalty to an individual who lost the election, which the majority there do not believe he lost the election."

Watts still considers himself a Republican, but told the NYT he feels like a man without a party."

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GOP committee ousts treasurer after he admitted to not voting for Trump - Fox17

ThePosts push to get New Yorkers to roll up their sleeves and get vaccinated against the coronavirus is drawing a big thumbs-up from Donald Trump. The former president is on board with the campaign to get more people immunized so the city can get up and running at full speed.

Im all in favor of the vaccine, Trump said Thursday. Its one of the great achievements, a true miracle, and not only for the United States. Were saving tens of millions of lives throughout the world. Were saving entire countries.

Speaking by telephone to Post columnist Michael Goodwin, Trump said he got his first shot before leaving the White House in January, and his second in Florida, where he now lives. Former First Lady Melania Trump also has been vaccinated, and neither had any adverse reactions.

Not even a bit of arm soreness, he said. Its pretty amazing stuff.

Trump remains understandably proud of Operation Warp Speed, the program he commanded that dramatically reduced the time for vaccine research, development and human trials. No previous vaccine had come to market in fewer than five years, while this one went from start to finish in about nine months. The first doses were shipped to the states in the middle of December.

Trump and his successor, Joe Biden, dont agree on much else, but both believe this vaccine saves lives.

If we didnt have a vaccine, it would have been just like the 1918 Spanish flu, Trump said of the pandemic that took as many 100 million lives around the world.

Globally, some 141 million people have contracted COVID-19, with more than 3 million deaths.

Nearly 570,000 of the fatalities have been in the United States.

The vaccine is a great thing and people should take advantage of it Trump said, before quickly adding that nobody should be forced, we have our freedoms. But I strongly recommend it because its a real lifesaver.

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Trump gives thumbs up on Posts push for lifesaving COVID vaccine - New York Post

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Will Donald Trump run for president again, win in 2024? Bet on it - Las Vegas Review-Journal