Category Archives: Donald Trump

My research analyzes real speeches made by politicians past and present, including those of Trump, Orban and Putin, using cognitive linguistics a branch of linguistics that examines the relationship between language and the mind. What I have found is that throughout history, speeches by dictators and autocrats have one thing in common: they use dehumanizing metaphors to instill and propagate hatred of others.

It is well-documented that for example words like reptiles and parasites were used by the Nazi regime to compare outsiders and minorities to animals. Strongmen throughout history have referred to targeted social groups as rats or pests or a plague. And its effective regardless of whether the people who hear this language are predisposed to jump to extreme conclusions. Once someone is tuned into these metaphors, their brain actually changes in ways that make them more likely to believe bigger lies, even conspiracy theories.

These metaphors are part of a cognitive process that entraps some people in this kind of thinking while others are unaffected. Heres how it works.

The first step to manipulating the minds of the public, or really the precondition, is that listeners need to be in the right emotional state.

In order to hack into the minds of the public, people need to feel fear or uncertainty. That could be caused by economic instability or pre-existing cultural prejudices, but the emotional basis is fear. The brain is designed to respond to fear in various ways, with its own in-built defense mechanisms which produce chemicals in the response pattern, such as cortisol and adrenaline. These chemical responses, which zip straight past our logical brains to our fight-or-flight reactions, are also activated by forms of language that instill fear, either directly (as in a vocal threat) or, more insidiously, by twisted facts which allay fears through lies and deceptive statements.

In this state, dehumanizing metaphors are very effective. My research shows that this language taps into and switches on existing circuits in the brain that link together important and salient images and ideas. In effect, metaphors bypass higher cognitive reasoning centers to make linkages that may not have a basis in reality. And when that happens, a person is less likely to notice the lie, because it feels right.

This pattern becomes more effective the more it is used. According to studies, the more these circuits are activated the more hardwired they become, until it becomes almost impossible to turn them off. What this means is these repetitive uses of dehumanizing metaphors are incredibly powerful to those brains already willing to hear them, because they direct their thoughts, making it easy to focus on certain things and ignore others.

The same is true of conspiracy theories. The neuroscientific research shows that people who believe them develop more rigid neural pathways, meaning they find it difficult to rethink situations once this pattern of thinking is established.

This also means that if someone is already more susceptible to believing lies in the form of dehumanizing metaphors and this same person comes across a big lie or a conspiracy theory that fits into that well-trodden neural pathway, they are more likely to believe it and be influenced by it.

This is how language that might seem like harmless hyperbole winds up literally changing the way people think. And once they think differently, they can act in ways that they might not have before.

With the rise of populist and far-right political movements in the 2010s, the use of dehumanizing metaphors to engender hatred of foreigners or of those who are different in some way has spread worldwide.

In 2016, during a state-orchestrated public campaign against refugees and migrants in Hungary, Orban characterized them as a poison. In August 2017, when groups of white supremacists arrived in the college town of Charlottesville, Va., to participate in a Unite the Right rally, the protesters used both animal and dirt metaphors when they claimed they were fighting against the parasitic class of anti-white vermin and the anti-white, anti-American filth.

Putins labeling of the Ukrainian leadership as Nazi falls into this category, a powerful slur against the Jewish leader Zelensky, whom Putin called a disgrace to the Jewish people. Significantly, he uses this alongside dehumanizing language to justify the invasion of Ukraine, claiming it as a mission in denazification, eliminating Ukraine of its Nazi filth by innuendo. The use of the dirt and filth metaphor, coupled with the historically loaded terminology, is a persuasive linguistic tool.

Former President Trump also supported his Big Lie with the same pattern of conspiracy theories and fake news reported in far-right social media that spurred supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. | Francis Chung/POLITICO

These dehumanizing metaphors have been used consistently to tap into the neural pathways of fearful or anxious people ready and waiting to believe. This helps explain why so many Trump supporters were influenced by the QAnon conspiracy hoax in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election. Trumps Big Lie refers to the false claim that the election was rigged and stolen from him through massive electoral fraud even though that assertion has been repeatedly debunked.

Significantly, Trump also supported his Big Lie with the same pattern of conspiracy theories and fake news reported in far-right social media, such as QAnon, that spurred Trump supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. This sustained use of the central metaphor of a cabal of satanic, cannibalistic abusers of children conspiring against Trump will easily fit into the entrenched neural pathways of someone who is already willing to believe.

The tricky thing about all this is that some people are more susceptible to this type of rhetorical manipulation than others. This comes down to critical thinking and brain training. If one wants to or needs to believe then the language works manipulatively and the neural pathways are built up. If we arent fearful or primed to believe, our brain has mechanisms to alert us to the deceit. Simply put if we are constantly critical of lies, our brains are more trained to notice them.

Unfortunately, research into this brain wiring also shows that once people begin to believe lies, they are unlikely to change their minds even when confronted with evidence that contradicts their beliefs. It is a form of brainwashing. Once the brain has carved out a well-worn path of believing deceit, it is even harder to step out of that path which is how fanatics are born. Instead, these people will seek out information that confirms their beliefs, avoid anything that is in conflict with them, or even turn the contrasting information on its head, so as to make it fit their beliefs.

People with strong convictions will have a hard time changing their minds, given how embedded a lie becomes in the mind. In fact, there are scientists and scholars still studying the best tools and tricks to combat lies with some combination of brain training and linguistic awareness.

Not all hope is lost, however. History has shown that disruptive events such as the toppling of a regime or the loss of a war can force a new perspective and the brain is able to recalibrate. So it is at least possible to change this pattern. Once the critical mind is engaged, away from the frenzy of fear and manipulation, the lie can become clear. This is the uplifting moral tale that can be gleaned from history all the great liars, from dictators to autocrats, were eventually defeated by truth, which eventually will win out.

But the bad news is that you need that kind of disruption. Without these jarring events to bring a dose of reality, it is unlikely that people with strong convictions will ever change their minds something that benefits the autocrat and endangers their society.

Follow this link:

What Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbn Understand ... - POLITICO

Donald Trump Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Donald Trump's attorneys were told by the Department of Justice last week that he may soon be indicted and arrested for alleged crimes connected to the Jan. 6 coup attempt. That would makethe third time that Trump is indicted and arrested for allegedly committing crimes this year. The ex-president also faces an indictment in Georgia for additional alleged crimes connected to the events of Jan. 6 and the plot against American democracy. Also on Thursday, special counsel Jack Smith and his investigators filed additional charges against Trump that include obstructing justice in connection with the Mar-A-Lago stolen classified documents case.

If Trump is found guiltyof committing all of these alleged crimes, he may spend the rest of his life in prison.

How is Donald Trump going to respond? Predictably. He will threaten and encourage, through direct means as well as stochastic terrorism and other veiled commands, acts of violence, chaos, mayhem and murder. To that point, in response to his impending indictment and arrest for the crimes of Jan. 6, Trump is behaving like an unrepentant reprobate, as he rants and throws a fit on his Truth Social disinformation platform. Trump's verbal explosions there these last few days include statements such as:

"We'll have fun on the stand with all of these people that say the Presidential Election wasn't Rigged and Stollen. THE TRIAL OF THE CENTURY!!!"

"2024 ELECTION INTERFERENCE!!!" "PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT!!!" "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!"

"They ought to throw Deranged Jack Smith and his Thug Prosecutors in jail, with Meritless Garland and Trump Hating Lisa Monaco. They have totally Weaponized the Department of Injustice. Whatever happened to the Crooked Joe Biden Boxes Case? Why was Hillary Clinton allowed to delete 33,000 emails, many of them Classified, AFTER getting a Subpoena from Congress? Why was Bill Clinton allowed to take tapes out of the W.H. in his socks? Why has no other President ever been charged? ELECTION FRAUD!"

"How can Deranged Jack Smith bring a case on January 6th., as ridiculous as it is anyway, when I have already won such a case, and been fully acquitted, in the U.S. Senate? In other words, I was Impeached on this, and WON!!! ELECTION INTERFERENCE & PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT, all rolled up as one. We are truly a Nation In Decline!"

"At the direction of Crooked Joe Biden and his Weaponized DOJ, Deranged Jack Smith is attempting to destroy the lives of two fine people who have worked for me (and have done a great job!) for a long time. They are being persecuted with one goal, to "Get Trump." This is textbook Third World intimidation by rabid, lawless prosecutors. These same craven tactics were used, and failed, during the Russia, Russia, Russia Witch Hunt and other Hoaxes. We will not let Radical Lunatics destroy our Country!"

Story continues

To reiterate: There is no evidence of real election interference against Trump and the Republican Party. Trump is again trafficking in the Big Lie, where any such "election interference" or related skullduggery in the 2020 election was actually committed by Donald Trump and his Republican Party and other agents to suppress, nullify, and outright rig and steal votes to keep him in power against the will of the American people.

Yetat a rally held in Eerie, Pennsylvania on Saturday, Trump continued with his fascist-authoritarian Big Lie verbal fusilladesand other mouth noises against reality, the truth, and human decency as he continued to proclaim that he is being "persecuted" by some vast conspiracy because he is a champion of the MAGA movement and "real Americans":

They waited two and a half, almost three years, so that they could bring this up right in the middle of my presidential election because it's election interference. They're crooked people...You know they're not indicting me; they're indicting you. I just happen to be standing in their way that's all it is....Until the FBI, DOJ, and IRS hand over every scrap of paper they have on the Biden Crime Families corrupt businesses dealings. We have to know, and the public deserves to know.

Fake news is all you get. They refuse to discuss the Biden crime family, but enjoy covering false indictments of Donald Trump, who has done nothing wrong

During his speech, Trump made an exceptionally vulgar attack on President Joe Biden,calling him "a dumb son of a bitch":

We have somebody that's not at the top of his game, never was at the top of a game. Never was...We have a guy who's a dumb son of a b***h to allow this to happen Every dollar spent attacking me by Republicans is $1 given straight to the Biden campaign if he makes it.

The crowd of MAGA faithful in Eerie was in ecstasy.

Donald Trump is not going to change or otherwise modify or correct his behavior. He is 77 years old; violence is core and central to his personhood, identity, and way of being in the world. As mental health professionals continue to warn, Trump has shown himself to be a sociopath if not a psychopath. His collective behavior such as the coup attempt on Jan. 6, democide in response to the COVID pandemic, being impeached twice, the multiple indictments and arrests, embrace of neofascism, massive corruption, malignant narcissism and utter disregard for reality and facts, political cultism, and other pathological behavior by an American president is unprecedented in the country's history.

Thus, the problem and growing peril for the nation: what happens when the unprecedented keeps repeating itself and by doing so becomes normalized and no longer "shocking" or "surprising"?

In continuing with his many and varied incitements to violence and civil disorder, last Monday Trump shared an image on his Truth Social disinformation platform with the caption, "'Nothing can stop what is coming." This is language associated with the antisemitic Qanon conspiracy cult and a threat of massive destruction and violence in the form of a "storm" a bloody revolution and purge against the "deep state" and other "enemies" of the movement and "White Christianity" and "real Americans."A large percentage of Republicans believe in some or all of the Qanon conspiracy-lie and its claims about how Democrats, liberals, progressives, "the left" and other elements of some global cabal-secret society control the world using superpowers they obtain from drinking the blood of children and other victims.

The mainstream news media, however, with several notable exceptions such as MSNBC, was mostly silent about Trump's renewed Qanon threats.

And not to be ignored by a public and news media that are afflicted with a very short attention span and what too often appears to be a form of organized forgetting and collective amnesia, several weeks ago Donald Trump shared what he believed to be the Washington DC home address of former president Barack Obama on his Truth Social disinformation platform. As Trump intended, one of his MAGA cult members, who was armed with two guns, a machete, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, attempted to gain access to Obama's home with the goal of assassinating him.

On his Truth Social disinformation platform, Trump shared audio of him saying that "If you f**k around with us, if you do something bad to us, we are going to do things to you that have never been done before."

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

The ex-president continues to harangue, insult, and generally make threats against Attorney General Merrick Garland, Special Counsel Jack Smith, and the other prosecutors and members of law enforcement who are attempting to hold him accountable like any other person in the United States should be under the law.

Trump has also threatened that if he were to go to prison for his alleged crimes that "I think it's a very dangerous thing to even talk about, because we do have a tremendously passionate group of voters, much more passion than they had in 2020 and much more passion than they had in 2016." So there is a move to keep the names of the jury members in Trump's impending criminal trials a secret because of concerns about their safety in the face of death threats and other acts of intimidation and violence.

Violence, malice, and menace are the animating energy for Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign and his Hitlerian promise of a final battle and revenge against him and his MAGA movement's perceived enemies such as the Democrats, liberals, progressives, the news media, and any others who dare to oppose them and their plans to end multiracial pluralistic democracy.Trump's threats and plans are not hyperbole, bluster, or just "politics" and "polarization." These are real threats that should be responded to appropriately and with extreme haste.

On this, we should heed journalist Masha Gessen's wisdom:

Rule #1: Believe the autocrat. He means what he says. Whenever you find yourself thinking, or hear others claiming, that he is exaggerating, that is our innate tendency to reach for a rationalization. This will happen often: Humans seem to have evolved to practice denial when confronted publicly with the unacceptable.

National security, law enforcement, and other experts are continuing to warn that right-wing extremism is 1) the greatest threat to the country's domestic safety and security and 2) that there are many millions of Trump's followers who believe that President Biden and the Democrats are usurpers, otherwise illegitimate, and who "stole" the White House from Trump and the MAGA movement.

What should be done to stop Donald Trump and his repeated incitements and commands to violence and mayhem?

In a recent interview with host Dean Obeidallah on SiriusXM, Glenn Kirschner, who is a former federal prosecutor, explained why Donald Trump should be taken into custody immediately:

Donald Trump should be detained pending trial.And I say that not from my own personal preference or animosity, I have for the man....I say it because the law provides that when there is clear and convincing evidence that a defendant pending trial presents a danger to the community he is supposed to be detained, or she is supposed to be detained pending trial, that's the law.Everyone has ignored that when it comes to Donald Trump.

Psychiatrist Dr. Justin Frank, who is the author of the book "Trump on the Couch", agrees with Kirschner.In a recent conversation here at Salon, Dr. Frank told me that:

He gives permission to unstable people to carry out their grievances at a murderous level. This is not just because violent people love Trump, but because they are following Trump's stated practice of striking back "ten times as hard" with any means available when he feels wronged.

I'm beginning to think a warning, or even a gag order is not sufficient. He needs to be secured where nobody can hear his genuinely dangerous outpourings. And it needs to be now.

As I continue with my efforts to warn the American people about how dangerous Donald Trump and his neofascist movement continues to be, there are many moments when I feel like I am in a documentary film or TV series that is being directed by Joshua Oppenheimer or Errol Morris. I imagine myself sitting across from a detective, discussing a mass murderer, a cannibalistic serial killer, mad bomber or terrorist, or some other evildoer. I slowly read off the long list of arrests and criminal incidents and other warnings the proof of what this man was doing in the years and decades before he was finally arrested and put in prison. The detective, nervous, looks away sheepishly, his eyes searching for some type of explanation or deflection. He mutters, "We couldn't have imagined, it was all so shocking. Who could have ever guessed such a thing was happening? I press back, "The evidence was right in front of you. The police could have stopped him years ago and his victims would still be alive." I say nothing; Silence is an interviewer's friend. The camera focuses back in on the detective's face and lingers on it for a few seconds. He has nothing else to say. The screen then fades to black as he takes off the mic, gets up from the chair, and then exits the room.

That is America in the Age of Trump.

Will there be an epilogue and some satisfying closure from Donald Trump's criminal trials? That is the stuff of Hollywood movies. The Trumpocene is real life.

Read more

about the Trumpocene

Follow this link:

It's time to believe Donald Trump - Yahoo News

As he flails to reverse a polling decline that is beginning to resemble a rockslide, Gov. Ron DeSantis must be feeling a little clueless about why his political fortunes are crumbling so quickly. Attacking wokeness and bullying transgender people seemed to work so well in Florida, so why arent national Republicans in awe of the divisions hes deepened? Making repeated appearances with racial provocateurs never stopped him from getting elected as governor, so why did he have to fire a young aide who inserted Nazi imagery into his own video promoting Mr. DeSantiss presidential campaign?

But the political bubble inhabited by Mr. DeSantis is so thick symbolized by the hugely expensive private-plane flights that are draining his campaign of cash, since he and his wife, Casey, wont sit with regular people in a commercial cabin that he has been unable or unwilling to understand the brushoff he has received from donors and potential voters and make the changes he needs to become competitive with Donald Trump in the Republican primaries.

For years, Mr. DeSantis has created an entire political persona out of a singular crusade against wokeness, frightening teachers and professors away from classroom discussions of race, defending a school curriculum that said there were benefits to slavery, claiming (falsely) that his anti-vaccine crusade worked and engaging in a pointless battle with his states best-known private employer over school discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity. He had the support of the Florida Legislature and state Republican officials in most of his efforts and presumably believed that an image of a more effective and engaged Trump would help him beat the real thing.

But its not working. A Monmouth University poll published on Tuesday showed Mr. Trump with a 20-point lead over Mr. DeSantis in a head-to-head match, and the advantage grew to more than 30 points when all the other candidates were thrown in. Major donors have started to sour on him, and The Times reported on Thursday that they are disappointed with his performance and the management of his campaign, which he says he will somehow reboot.

DeSantis has not made any headway, wrote the polls director, Patrick Murray. The arguments that hed be a stronger candidate and a more effective president than Trump have both fallen flat.

The most obvious fault in his strategy is that you cant beat Donald Trump if you dont even criticize him, and Mr. DeSantis has said little about the multiple indictments piling up against the former president or about his character. Granted, there are downsides to a full-frontal attack on Mr. Trump at this point, as other Republicans have become aware, and Mr. DeSantis still needs to establish some kind of identity first. But he cant become an alt-Trump without drawing a sharp contrast and holding Mr. Trump to account for at least a few of his many flaws. There are graveyards in Iowa and New Hampshire full of candidates who tried to ignore the leader through sheer force of personality, and even if he had one of those, Mr. DeSantis hasnt demonstrated the skills to use it. Both men will speak Friday night at the Lincoln Dinner in Des Moines, and if Mr. DeSantis leaves his rival unscathed, its hard to imagine how he goes the distance.

The deeper problem, though, is that Mr. DeSantis is peddling the wrong message. Only 1 percent of voters think that wokeness and transgender issues are the countrys top problem, according to an April Fox News poll essentially a repudiation of the governors entire brand. Race issues and vaccines are also low on the list.

Lakshya Jain, who helps lead the website Split Ticket, which is doing some really interesting political analysis and modeling, said Mr. DeSantis misinterpreted what Florida voters were saying when they re-elected him by a 19-point margin in 2022.

The economy was doing well in Florida, and Democrats didnt put up a good candidate in Charlie Crist, Mr. Jain told me. Im not sure the majority of Florida voters really cared what he was saying on wokeness. Its not really an issue people vote on.

The economy, naturally, is what people care most about, but Mr. DeSantis hasnt said much about his plans to fight inflation (which is already coming down) or create more jobs (which is happening every month without his help). Clearly aware of the problem, he announced on Thursday that he would unfurl a Declaration of Economic Independence in a major speech in New Hampshire on Monday (a phrase as trite and tone-deaf as the name of his Never Back Down super PAC).

That appears to be the first fruit of his campaign reboot, but there are good reasons he doesnt like to stray from his rigid agenda, as demonstrated by his occasionally disastrous footsteps into foreign policy. Bashing Bidenomics means hell immediately have to come up with an excuse for why inflation is so much higher in Florida than the nation as a whole. Though the national inflation rate in May was 4 percent compared with a year earlier, it was 9 percent in the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale-West Palm Beach area for the same period and 7.3 percent in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater area.

The primary reason for that is the states housing shortage, an issue that Mr. DeSantis largely ignored during his first term and has only belatedly taken a few small steps to address. When the issue inevitably comes up on the campaign trail, you can bet that Mr. DeSantis will find some way of blaming it on President Biden. That way he can quickly pivot to his preferred agenda of rewriting Black history, questioning science and encouraging gun ownership.

He really cant help himself; just this week he said he might hire the noted anti-vaccine nut Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to work at the Food and Drug Administration or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Then he got into an online fight with Representative Byron Donalds, Floridas only Black Republican member of Congress, over the states astonishingly wrong curriculum on slavery, and a DeSantis spokesman called Mr. Donalds a supposed conservative.

Great way to expand your base. Remind me: When does the reboot start?

View post:

Opinion | Why Ron DeSantis Isnt Beating Donald Trump - The New York Times

Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during a Moms for Liberty summit in Philadelphia on Friday. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images hide caption

Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during a Moms for Liberty summit in Philadelphia on Friday.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is facing criticism from within and beyond his party after his presidential campaign shared a video touting his record of opposing LGBTQ rights and attacking former President Donald Trump for his past support.

The more than a minute-long video was made by the Twitter account Proud Elephant and shared by the DeSantis War Room his campaign's "rapid response" account on Friday, the last day of June.

"To wrap up 'Pride Month,' let's hear from the politician who did more than any other Republican to celebrate it," the War Room account wrote.

The video opens with a clip of then-candidate Trump pledging to "do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens" in a speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention, just weeks after a gunman killed 49 people at a gay club in Orlando.

That's followed by several interview snippets in which Trump says he would let Caitlyn Jenner use a bathroom of her choice at Trump Tower and that he would allow transgender women to compete in Miss Universe (which he co-owned until 2015).

Meanwhile, upbeat music plays in the background as pictures of among others Trump holding a rainbow flag, his campaign website's "LGBTQ for Trump" T-shirts and his 2019 tweet celebrating Pride Month float across the screen. A drag queen called "Lady MAGA" appears on screen, saying "make America great again."

Then the tone of the video changes dramatically. There's a photo of DeSantis, edited to show lasers shooting out of his eyes, accompanied by the word "no." The music shifts to a thumping bass beat as a montage of headlines, memes and movie snippets begins.

It features headlines about DeSantis' policies, like "DeSantis Signs 'Most Extreme Slate of Anti-Trans Laws in Modern History'" and "Pride event in St. Cloud canceled after DeSantis signs 'Protection of Children Act' into law."

There are brief clips of Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman in "American Psycho," Leonardo DiCaprio as Jordan Belfort in "Wolf of Wall Street" and Brad Pitt as Achilles in "Troy." There are flashes of bodybuilders and the chiseled figure known online as "Gigachad," interspersed with clips of DeSantis walking purposefully, signing legislation and riding in a helicopter.

That's overlaid with tape from commentators and newscasters slamming the governor's actions, including describing them as "some of the harshest, most draconian laws that literally threaten trans existence."

The video has been viewed more than 22 million times as of Monday morning, according to Twitter.

And it has sparked plenty of backlash, including from DeSantis' Republican challengers, LGBTQ politicians on both sides of the aisle and the nation's largest conservative LGBTQ group.

NPR has reached out to DeSantis' team for comment.

The Log Cabin Republicans, an organization that advocates for LGBTQ conservatives, said in a Twitter thread that DeSantis' rhetoric had "ventured into homophobic territory," calling it "divisive and desperate."

Charles Moran, the group's president, told Morning Edition on Monday that the ad does not have a clear point or purpose.

"You've got some strange imagery of Ron DeSantis being between two oiled-up, hunky type of men," he said. "I mean, the ad smacked of both homophobia and homoeroticism at the same time."

Moran said that the Republican Party has "already basically agreed upon" advocating for equal rights for LGBTQ individuals, pointing to polls that show widespread support for marriage equality.

A May Gallup poll shows that the percentage of Republicans approving of same-sex relationships dipped from 56% last year to 41% this year.

"A misguided attack like this shows that they really don't have a focus and don't have anybody on their team who is truly understanding where the movement is," Moran added. "And that's that style of attack is ... going to backfire and is not helpful for his campaign or the GOP in general."

Former Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican and vocal Trump critic, also questioned the helpfulness of the video, adding that "outrage over outrage is the only way these guys know how to campaign."

Similar criticisms have been echoed by a slew of LGBTQ Republicans, including Jenner, who tweeted that DeSantis had "hit a new low."

"You can't win a general, let alone 2028 by going after people that are integral parts of the conservative movement!" she added.

Richard Grenell, Trump's former acting director of national intelligence and the first openly gay Cabinet member called the video "undeniably homophobic."

Christina Pushaw, the rapid response director for DeSantis' campaign, responded in a tweet that opposing the federal recognition of Pride Month is not homophobic.

"We wouldn't support a month to celebrate straight people for sexual orientation, either... It's unnecessary, divisive, pandering," she wrote. "In a country as vast and diverse as the USA, identity politics is poison."

(The Clinton administration first recognized Pride Month in 1999. Trump broke with precedent by not recognizing Pride Month until 2019, the third year of his presidency.)

Criticism also came from within the Biden administration. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg the first openly gay Cabinet member to be approved by the Senate alluded to DeSantis "trying to prove his manhood," and asked who he is aiming to help.

"I just don't understand the mentality of somebody who gets up in the morning, thinking that he's gonna prove his worth by competing who can make life hardest for a hard-hit community that is already so vulnerable in America," Buttigieg said on CNN.

Trump's team has slammed the video, with campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung telling CNN it showed "a desperate campaign in its last throes of relevancy."

And several of their GOP primary challengers have spoken out against it, too.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told CNN on Sunday that he is not comfortable with the video, nor with "the way both Gov. DeSantis and Donald Trump are moving our debate in this country."

He called their back-and-forth a "teenage food fight," describing it as inappropriate for leaders and distracting from the bigger issues facing the country.

"It certainly doesn't make me feel inspired as an American, on the Fourth of July weekend, to have this type of back-and-forth going on at all, and it's wrong to be doing it, and it's narrowing our country, and making us smaller," Christie added.

Separately, former Texas Rep. Will Hurd told CNN he doesn't believe LGBTQ rights should be a focus of the campaign.

He pointed to what he considers more pressing issues like the economy, artificial intelligence and international relations.

"I wish they would focus their attacks on war criminals like Vladimir Putin, not my friends in the LGBTQ community," Hurd said. "It is 2023. We should be talking about how do we embrace our differences ... we're better together."

While the video paints Trump as a staunch ally of the LGTBQ community, his administration notably took several steps to significantly roll back protections for it.

Among them, it banned transgender service members from the military, walked back Obama-era non-discrimination protections and guidance for schools on transgender students, appointed judges with anti-LGBTQ track records and sought to block questions about sexual orientation from the census.

And it appears Trump would go even further if reelected to a second term.

In a speech on Friday, he said he would sign an executive order to cut federal funding for any school "pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children," according to the Associated Press.

He also vowed to sign an executive order instructing federal agencies "to cease the promotion of sex or gender transition at any age," adding that hospitals and health care providers should lose federal funding if they provide gender-affirming care for minors.

Both Trump and DeSantis have spoken out against transgender women participating in women's sports and described gender-affirming care for minors as "mutilation," NBC News reports.

DeSantis who said while campaigning for governor in 2018 that "getting into bathroom wars, I don't think that's a good use of our time" has taken a more hardline stance in recent years, signing a slew of bills that roll back protections for gay and transgender individuals.

Last March he signed a bill that critics have branded "Don't Say Gay," which bans public school teachers from holding classroom instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity.

This spring, Florida enacted what the Human Rights Campaign calls "a record six expressly anti-LGBTQ+ bills into law," more than the last seven years combined.

Among them are bills that ban transition-related care for minors, bar trans people from using the public facilities that align with their gender identities and prohibit schools from requiring students or employees to refer to each other with pronouns that don't align with their assigned sex at birth.

Another bill, aimed at keeping children from attending drag shows, was blocked by a federal judge late last month (just days before the Supreme Court, in an unrelated case, ruled that a web designer was entitled to refuse same-sex wedding work).

Read this article:

DeSantis slammed over Trump attack ad over LGBTQ rights - NPR

The top spokesperson for a super PAC supporting Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said that former President Trump is the “runaway front-runner” in the 2024 GOP presidential primary.

“Look right now in national polling, we are way behind,” the spokesperson, Steve Cortes, said during a Twitter Spaces event Sunday night. “I’ll be the first to admit that. I believe in being really blunt and really honest. It’s an uphill battle, I don’t think is an unwinnable battle, but clearly, Donald Trump is the runaway front-runner, particularly since the indictments.”

“That was not the case before the indictments. It is the case afterwards,” Cortes added. “And it is understandable that a lot of folks want to rally to [Trump] when he’s been unfairly prosecuted, really, but persecuted.”

Cortes served as a senior advisor to Trump’s 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns, but announced in May that he would be endorsing DeSantis for the GOP nomination in the 2024 presidential election. He now serves as an advisor and spokesman for the Never Back Down PAC, which backs DeSantis for the GOP nomination.

He wrote in an op-ed at the time that DeSantis was “the best possible option to win the presidency,” adding that the “America First movement” is larger than any one individual.

In response to an email from The Hill, Cortes said he remained convinced that DeSantis had a strong path to winning the GOP presidential nomination.

“The former president has debated through two successive presidential cycles, so of course he possesses a lot of experience in that arena. But I am convinced that Governor DeSantis will outperform expectations and inform large audiences about his amazing life, political record, and winning agenda for the presidency,” Cortes said in the email.

“Taking on an incumbent or former president in the primary always represents a significant challenge. I gladly embraced that reality in joining the team. All of us on Team DeSantis remain convinced that the governor has a strong path to the nomination, and the best chance of any Republican to defeat Biden in the general election.”

In the Twitter Spaces event, Cortes said that while DeSantis remains the “clear underdog,” he believes the GOP primary is a two-man race between the former president and the Florida governor.

He also noted that in the first four primary states, the polls are “a lot tighter” than what they are showing on the national scale.

“There’s a lot of other folks in the race, who I think most of whom are not truly running for president,” Cortes said. “They’re running for other positions or for sort of branding reasons or, you know, other and I think in some cases, frankly, some nefarious reasons that their right. I think it’s a two-man race. We’re clearly the underdog. We are clearly fighting uphill, but I think we have an amazing story to tell.”

“If we do not prevail — and I have every intent on winning, I didn’t sign up for this to come in second — but if we do not prevail I will tell you this, we will make President Trump better for having this kind of primary,” he added.

Politico first reported the conversation between Cortes and Twitter user @CryptoLawyerz, an anonymous account, on Twitter Spaces.

DeSantis press secretary Bryan Griffin reiterated the campaign’s confidence in a statement to The Hill, saying that the Florida governor has been “underestimated in every race he has won, and this time will be no different.”

“Donald Trump has to explain to Republican voters why he didn’t do the things he is now promising in his first term as president,” he said. “Governor Ron DeSantis over-delivered on his promises as governor and has the national vision we need to restore our country, clean out DC, and lead our Great American Comeback. This campaign is a marathon, not a sprint; we will be victorious.”

This story was updated at 5:26 p.m.

Original post:

DeSantis PAC spokesperson calls Trump the runaway front-runner - The Hill

What is included in my trial?

During your trial you will have complete digital access to FT.com with everything in both of our Standard Digital and Premium Digital packages.

Standard Digital includes access to a wealth of global news, analysis and expert opinion. Premium Digital includes access to our premier business column, Lex, as well as 15 curated newsletters covering key business themes with original, in-depth reporting. For a full comparison of Standard and Premium Digital, click here.

Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the Settings & Account section.

If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for $69 per month.

For cost savings, you can change your plan at any time online in the Settings & Account section. If youd like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial.

You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many users needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here.

Any changes made can be done at any time and will become effective at the end of the trial period, allowing you to retain full access for 4 weeks, even if you downgrade or cancel.

You may change or cancel your subscription or trial at any time online. Simply log into Settings & Account and select "Cancel" on the right-hand side.

You can still enjoy your subscription until the end of your current billing period.

We support credit card, debit card and PayPal payments.

Continued here:

Western allies are hedging against Donald Trump - Financial Times

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) on Sunday dismissed far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greenes (R-Ga.) latest stunt as just more stupid stuff from a radical Republican caucus.

Greene, during a speech at Donald Trumps latest 2024 campaign rally in South Carolina on Saturday, demanded the former presidents two impeachments be expunged.

Trump was first impeached in 2019 for attempting to extort Ukraine. His second impeachment was in 2021 for inciting the Capitol riot amid his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.

Lieu, an impeachment manager in Trumps insurrection impeachment, scoffed at Greenes demand.

There is no such thing known as an expungement of an impeachment in the United States Constitution, the California Democrat told MSNBC.

This is totally a made-up process. It is nothing more than a glorified press release with a fake vote, he added.

Lieu noted that Trumps impeachment following the insurrection received bipartisan support in the House and Senate, even though a majority of Senate Republicans voted against conviction.

You cant just erase that, he said. It was televised. Millions of people saw it.

Watch the video here:

More here:

Rep. Ted Lieu Gives Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's Donald Trump Call A Blunt Reality Check - Yahoo News

Glenn Kirschner on Saturday said it seems like special counsel Jack Smith still has a good bit of investigating to go in his probe into former President Donald Trumps alleged mishandling of classified documents.

MSNBCs Jonathan Capehart asked Kirschner, a former U.S. Army prosecutor and current legal analyst for the network, what he made of a New York Times report that said Smiths probe is still investigating aspects of the case, even after Trumps indictment.

What I make of this is that Jack Smith is just getting warmed up, Kirschner replied. It seems like he is intent on investigating all of the potential crimes, of not only Donald Trump but anybody else down at Mar-a-Lago, anybody else in Florida who may have been involved in assisting, facilitating, or who may be covering up, who may be an accessory after the fact, to Donald Trumps crimes.

Kirschner explained how in the big investigations it is common to ask the grand jury to vote out one indictment with perhaps one or two defendants, and a limited number of charges and continue to investigate in the grand jury any other crimes and then ask the grand jury to return a subsequent, or what we call a superseding, indictment.

It could mean additional charges for existing defendants, or adding additional defendants to the charges, he said.

Watch the video here:

The former president also remains under investigation for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, and for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia.

He faces trial in the Stormy Daniels hush money case in 2024.

Read the rest here:

Ex-Prosecutor Warns Donald Trump: 'Jack Smith Is Just Getting Warmed Up - Yahoo! Voices

Robert Montgomery

Most of us are not psychologists, but we can easily recognize when a spoiled child is having a tantrum. Often, they will sit on the floor and kick. As they grow up, they always want their own way and pout or cry if they dont get it. Many become bullies as older children and even as adults. I cannot help but be reminded of such persons by the behavior of Donald J. Trump.

There are two main issues with spoiled persons. One is their desire for something and the second is power to get what is wanted. When people want something, there are ways to get it that are usually acceptable and even sometimes admired, such as hard work so that the work will be rewarded with fulfillment of the desire. We are constantly seeking to make this possible in our democracy. However, a spoiled person may use unacceptable and wrong means to gain what is desired. We saw that Donald Trump was greatly disappointed when he did not win the 2020 election and he immediately lied, saying that he had won. This encouraged his followers to believe the same thing even though many courts rejected the Big Lie of massive fraud. Numerous false stories were made up about the election. But it did not stop there.

More: Opinion: Understanding past wrongs is first step in preventing them from happening again

Because Trump did not have the power to overturn the election, that did not stop him and his followers from trying to do just that as we clearly heard and saw on TV on Jan. 6, 2021. A frustrated spoiled child sits on the floor and kicks, as we have seen, and the former President and his followers did the adult equivalent of that as they tried to do the anti-democratic thing by exercising coercive force on the nation to get their way. They said they wanted to take back the country as if the country we all live in had somehow been taken away from them.

A major question in all societies is who should exercise power? Democracies have an orderly means for settling the matter of who should exercise power. It is through the whole process of trying to persuade the electorate by speeches and writings that are then followed by elections. The speeches and writings are backed by political parties that present different policies and programs for the future. They represent different governing philosophies and vie for approval from the electorate. The competition should remain within legal boundaries, but the law protecting the Capital or the Seat of Power was clearly broken by Trump and his followers, acting like spoiled children. I have been wanting to say that for a long time.

More: Opinion: Religions and nations often try to use each other leading to coercive power

No society, including American society, has been perfect, but democracy provides a way to continually improve society. This will never be evenly done, but we can constantly correct cases where the desire of some, especially those who are used to getting their way, becomes harmful. Also, through democracy we have a way to balance power between those contending for power. This is the purpose of elections as well as courts of law. We will always have spoiled people, who probably learned to be that way in early life, often a privileged life. Parents can play a part in the correction of such people, but so can teachers. Beyond these, there is the school of hard knocks, which seems built in to much of life. It can also be part of the judgement that comes with bad behavior

Our democracy is meant to enable the life of most people to proceed so that the proper use of our desires and power is encouraged and rewarded. At the same time, for those who have desires that bring harm to others and use unlawful means to obtain those desires will be hindered and blocked. This applies to all of life, including to government and to economic affairs, where power and its social effects can be very harmful to many.

Democracy is the government devised by the founders to create a society in which law prevails among equals. That is why we say No one is above the Law and not only say it, but attempt to carry this principle. This requires both courage and effort from as many people as possible in our society, We also welcome as many nations as possible to join us in the movement for freedom and democracy.

Rev. Robert L. Montgomery, Ph.D, lives in Black Mountain.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Opinion: Who should exercise power? Not bullies such as Donald Trump.

See more here:

Opinion: Donald Trump is a bully who never grew up, throws tantrums to get what he wants - Yahoo Sports

Donald Trump, once again, wants us not to believe our own lying ears. The template for this defense was set on October 7, 2016, when the Washington Post published a tape of Trump laughing crudely as he described to the Access Hollywood host Billy Bush his ability to do what he wanted with women (grab em by the pussy), because when youre a star, they let you do it. The gaslighting that followed the leaking of that tape was a master class in Trumps ability to obfuscate, bluster, and brazen his way out of the trouble that his big mouth had got him intoeven if it meant denying that he meant what everyone had heard him say.

We are about to find out now whether Trumps deny-it-even-if-you-said-it approach has any chance of succeeding in a federal courtroom, where he stands accused of thirty-seven criminal counts of taking classified documents from the White House and obstructing efforts by the government to reclaim them. Trumps own words, captured on tape on July 21, 2021, about one such documentan alleged Pentagon war plan for Iranfigured prominently in the indictment, given that Trump was recorded at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, claiming that he possessed it and admitting that he knew showing it off was wrong. On Monday, CNN broadcast the audio. Talk about a gotcha tape.

With the sounds of papers rustling in the background, Trump is heard complaining about General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He said that I wanted to attack Iranisnt it amazing? Trump told his visitors, who included book advisers to his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows. A few days earlier, I had reported about Milleys concerns in the final months of Trumps Presidency that Trump might provoke a military conflict with Iran as part of his effort to remain in power, despite losing the 2020 election. This, Milley told others, was one of the nightmare scenarios that he was working to prevent. At Bedminster, Trump apparently brandished the Pentagons attack planwhich he claimed had been presented to him by Milley. This totally wins my case, Trump said. You know, except, like, it is highly confidential. He added, See, as President, I could have declassified it; now I cant, but this is classified.... its so cool. The tape ends with a line that was not included in the federal indictment: Trump asking, Bring some Cokes in, please? The whole exchange was happening, in other words, not in some top-secret facility but with someone standing by to fetch drinks, in Trumps office, right near the pool at his country club.

To legal observers and, indeed, to pretty much anyone who could hear, the audiotape sounded like an admission of guilt. But this is Trump, a serial liar for whom an obvious defense presents itself: that he was not telling the truth to his visitors when he claimed to be showing them secret papers. And, sure enough, by Tuesday, Trump told reporters on his way back from a New Hampshire campaign appearance, It was bravado, if you want to know the truthbravado here being a Trump synonym for bullshitting. This is the 2023 equivalent of dismissing the Access Hollywood tape as mere locker-room talk that had nothing to do with Trumps actual behavior toward women. He even suggested that the papers he is heard shuffling through were just building plans. For Trump, its better to be a liar than a convict.

The damning evidence against Trump would not exist if not for his rift with Mark Milley, a remarkable feud between the Commander-in-Chief and the nations top general that had been a secret backdrop to the public drama that played out after the 2020 election. At the time the tape was made, in the summer of 2021, Trump was apoplectic that Milleys fears about him were becoming public. Two recently published booksone by the journalists Carol Leonnig and Phil Rucker of the Post, and the other by Michael Bender, then of the Wall Street Journalhad reported new details about Milleys efforts, including regular land the plane phone calls with Meadows, the White House chief of staff, to prevent Trump from drawing the military into his quest to overturn the 2020 election. Milley was even quoted fretting about Trump and his supporters staging a Reichstag momenta fear that seemed eerily prescient on January 6, 2021, when a violent mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, seeking to block congressional certification of Trumps defeat. Trump, in turn, publicly denounced Milley and said that he had only picked him as chairman in 2018 to spite James Mattis, his soon-to-quit Defense Secretary at the time.

One thing the books did not reveal was Milleys concern throughout the volatile post-election period that Trump might escalate a confrontation with Iran. I learned about this as part of my reporting for The Divider, a book on Trumps Presidency I was working on with my husband, Peter Baker of the Times, and decided to publish the information then, given its relevance to the new disclosures about the Trump-Milley rift. The resulting July 15, 2021, piece described repeated meetings after the election, during which Milley objected to the prospect of strikes, which were being pressed on Trump by a circle of Iran hawks around the President as well as by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Milley even flew to Israel to have a meeting with him, at his home in Jerusalem, to urge him to back off. If you do this, youre gonna have a fucking war, Milley told Netanyahu. Iran was in fact the subject of the final meeting Milley had with Trump, on January 3, 2021, when the chairman and other national-security advisers were summoned to the Oval Office on a Sunday afternoon to debate the matter one last time. At the end of the meeting, Trump raised the upcoming January 6th rally of his supporters to Milley and his acting Defense Secretary, Christopher Miller. Its gonna be a big deal, Milley heard Trump say. Youre ready for that, right?

The reporting about his rift with Milley seemed to have greatly rattled Trump. In the summer of 2021, he was just a few months out of office, an unhappy exile spending most of his time at his clubs in New Jersey and Florida. In interviews, he fulminated about the rigged election and ran through his many grievances. While working on The Divider, Peter and I sat through two such performances, which were guided less by our questions than by whatever Trump wanted to talk about. Milley was still very much on his mind. During our second interview with Trump, in November of 2021, months after these initial stories had come out, he told us that the chairman was weak and stupid and had made up a lot of that stuff after I was done.

None of which was particularly useful for us authors, but it was certainly revealing of Trumps mind-set as the events that would result in this unprecedented federal criminal case against a former President were taking shape. To listen to the tape is to hear Trump reduced to his reckless and menacing essence: an angry, vengeful man who obsessed over his negative press and sought to weaponize secret information to smite an enemy. When Meadowss ghostwriters showed up at Bedminster that day, the former President saw a chance to plant his story about Milley. It worked, by the way: the book that Meadows ultimately published in November of 2021, The Chiefs Chief, included a detailed account of the meeting in Bedminster, with the sound of children laughing at the pool outside drifting into the room as Trump, dressed in a sport coat and a crisp white shirt, recalled a four-page report typed up by Mark Milley himself that purportedly contained the generals own plan to attack Iran.

No one made much of this attack on Milley when Meadowss book came out. If anything, it underscored Trumps own ignorance about the role of the Pentagon in dealing with its Commander-in-Chief. It is the militarys job, and that of its chairman as the Presidents senior military adviser, to draw up war plans for any number of scenarios. Presenting such a plan to Trump on Iran is hardly proof of advocacy to use it.

What Milley had been so worried about in the final days of Trumps Presidency was the spectre of an erratic leader, one who was cavalier with the nations secrets, impetuous in his thinking about war and peace, and consumed with himself and his effort to stay in power. All this was only confirmed by Trumps rant against him. This totally wins my case, Trump had said in the taped interview that will now be used against him in court. But it already seems clear that the case it proved was Milleys.

Go here to read the rest:

Why Donald Trump Was So Mad at Mark Milley That He Confessed ... - The New Yorker