Category Archives: Donald Trump

A video claiming that a book from the 1890s could be proof that Donald Trumpand his son Barron are time travelers has been doing the rounds on TikTok. TikToker Lindsay Ivan, who goes by @lindsayivan, claimed that Ingersoll Lockwood's book 'Barron Trump's Marvelous Underground Adventures' has "too many coincidences" with the family of the former US president.

The video has garnered more than 3,000 likes. Lindsay said, "Donald Trump and his son are time travelers, and I'm about to show you why. First starters, let's take a look at this book from the 1890s. It's called Barron Trump's Marvelous Underground Adventures. The book is about a young boy named Barron Trump, who finds a portal and time travels."

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The Tiktoker continued, "Donald Trump's son is named Barron Trump. Not only that, in the book, Barron is guided by a man named Don - Donald Trump. But wait, there's more in another book by the same author. It's about an unlikely presidential candidate that won the election. Not only that, but the book talks about the Fifth Avenue Hotel. The address in the book is the same address where the Trump towers currently stand."

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The user added, "Like what are the odds? This is too weird. In the book, there's also a character named Laugh Pence, aka. Similar to Mike Pence. What's going on? There's way too many eerie coincidences here."

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Many users agreed with her, drawing passages from the book to support her claim. One user said, "Shes correct do the research." Another added, "Ive been saying this for years. It is a lot of similarities." A third commented: "Too many coincidences indicate no coincidences at all."

Meanwhile, Trump has been in the news due to the FBI raiding his Mar-a-Lago home, reportedly as part of an investigation into whether he took classified documents with him when he left the White House. He was seen leaving Trump Tower in New York on Monday, August 8, 2022, giving a thumbs up to those who were gathered.

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In his announcement about the FBI raid, Trump did not specifically mention what the agents were looking for, but said that his home was "under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents." "They even broke into my safe!" he said.

The investigation focuses on material that Trump brought with him to Mar-a-Lago after leaving the White House, the New York Times reported. The FBI was specifically trying to find out if he has classified information in his private possession, which would be a violation of federal law. Trump reportedly took 15 boxes of material with him in January 2021 after leaving Washington, DC, but the boxes were returned to the National Archives in January 2022. The FBI still tried to find out if the former president had additional presidential records or any classified documents at his South Florida estate.

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This article contains remarks made on the Internet by individual people and organizations. MEAWW cannot confirm them independently and does not support claims or opinions being made online.

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Bizarre video claiming Donald Trump and his son Barron Trump are time travelers goes viral on TikTok - MEAWW

Elon Musk's renewed efforts to buy Twitter could pave the way for President Donald Trump's return to the platform that permanently banned him a year earlier.

If Musk follows through on the deal and if he stands by his prior plan to reverse Trump's ban the Republican ex-president could potentially resume tweeting in time to make an impact on the November midterm elections.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO, who offered to buy Twitter for $54.20 a share in April but then tried to scrap the deal, this week signaled through a regulatory filing that he once again wants to proceed with the original transaction. News of the deal, which is still not finalized, sent Twitter's stock soaring.

Before getting cold feet on the deal over the summer, Musk said he planned to lift Trump's Twitter ban if he took over the company. "I do think it was not correct to ban Donald Trump," Musk said in May.

Twitter had shut down Trump's account in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, when a violent mob of Trump's supporters, spurred by his false claims of a rigged election, stormed the U.S. Capitol and forced lawmakers to flee their chambers for safety.

Trump, who now posts on a similar platform he backed called Truth Social, has said he won't return to Twitter even if he is allowed back on. "I was disappointed by the way I was treated by Twitter. I won't be going back on Twitter," Trump told CNBC in April.

But with Musk's $44 billion Twitter buyout now back on the table, some believe Trump won't be able to resist the allure of regaining an account that boasted nearly 90 million followers at its peak.

"Of course he will" return to Twitter if he can, Democratic strategist Kurt Bardella said of Trump.

The former president is "a Twitter addict" who "loves the instant gratification" it offers, Bardella said, while noting that Truth Social has so far failed to garner a similar level of user engagement.

Trump's Truth Social account, created in February, currently has 4.15 million followers.

Twitter's suspension of Trump "took away his megaphone," said Jonathan Nagler, co-director of NYU's Center for Social Media and Politics and a professor of politics. The tech giant's move "lessened his ability to push bogus election fraud claims" and "incite action against election officials," he said.

"Truth Social, as far as anyone can tell, has had nowhere near the impact or reach that his Twitter account has had," Nagler said.

Spokespeople for Trump, Musk, Twitter and Trump's company behind Truth Social did not immediately respond to CNBC's requests for comment.

Musk has not yet reiterated that he will lift Trump's Twitter ban if the latest buyout plans come to fruition. With sources telling CNBC that a deal could happen as soon as Friday, it's possible Trump could be allowed to resume tweeting before the Nov. 8 midterm elections.

If so, Trump's frequent musings about the midterms could soon be back on Twitter, reaching an audience that was once more than 20 times the size of his Truth Social following.

What's more, Twitter is used much more heavily by most media organizations and politicians, both in the U.S. and around the world. But Nagler warned Trump may not want to be "100% beholden to Musk, the world's richest man," as his social media enabler.

"Elon Musk could change his mind as well," Nagler said. "We're trying to predict the behavior of two people, both of who seem quite agile in their ability to shift what they plan to do."

Still, Nagler said, Trump is likely to rejoin Twitter if given a chance. "That would be my guess," he said. "At the end of the day, Trump likes to be heard ... my guess is that would win out."

Some of Trump's conservative fans cheered the news that Musk was once again pushing to buy Twitter. But not everyone is so sure it will benefit his allies.

"I think it's going to cut both ways," Nagler said. Trump's tweets could possibly mobilize parts of his base to turn out to the polls, but "his increased visibility could be a reminder to moderates of why they do not want Republicans in office," the professor said.

Bardella argued that Republican candidates have struggled "every time that Donald Trump has been the center of attention."

He pointed to the 2018 midterms and the more recent Georgia special elections, which led to Democrats clinching a slim Senate majority. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, meanwhile, unseated a Democrat in a blue-leaning state by keeping Trump at arm's length during the general election, Bardella said.

"The last thing that Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy want the elections to be is a referendum on Donald Trump," Bardella said. "Republicans have made it very clear, they want the conversation heading into the midterms to be about the economy, inflation and crime. They don't want it to be about Donald Trump."

Musk's comments about the need for Twitter to be "politically neutral," and his recently revealed correspondence with people pushing him to fight "woke-ism" and censorship on the platform, could also indicate how the site might change the way it previously handled Trump's tweets.

During the 2020 election, Twitter tried to combat misinformation by labeling certain accounts' tweets with warnings and providing links with credible election information. Trump's tweets were tagged multiple times, as the then-president regularly amplified a wide variety of conspiratorial claims that his reelection chances were being threatened by rampant election fraud.

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Here's what Musk's potential takeover of Twitter could mean for Trump - CNBC

As the first Proud Boys memberpleads guiltyfor their involvement in the January 6 attack, its worth remembering Donald Trumps role inciting groups like the Proud Boys to attack the Capitol and try to overturn an election.

Donald Trump told the Proud Boys to stand back and stand by.

Reuters: Debate moderator Chris Wallace asked Trump if he was willing to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and tell them to stand down and not add to violence during recent protests in U.S. cities such as Portland, Oregon, and Kenosha, Wisconsin. Trump agreed to do that, asking, Who would you like me to condemn? Biden interjected: The Proud Boys. Trump then urged the Proud Boys to stand back and stand by, but quickly turned the conversation to antifa, a left-wing anti-facist ideology, whose adherents he has blamed for violence at protests in recent months.

The Proud Boys began planning for the riot after Trump tweeted that his protest in DC would be wild with one saying they needed to get radical and get real men.

The Washington Post: Whats immediately apparent is that the Oath Keepers were preparing specifically for the day of the riot before the Proud Boys were; in fact, the Proud Boys only seemed to turn their attention to that day after President Donald Trump tweeted his encouragement for people to be in Washington on that day for a protest that he promised would be wild.

The Washington Post: A Proud Boys member encourages Tarrio to get radical and get real men after the Trump tweet [] Tarrio and other Proud Boys form a new chapter of the organization called the Ministry of Self Defense (MOSD). The focus, Tarrio says, is national rally planning.

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Donald Trump Told The Proud Boys To Stand Back And Stand By - Democrats - Democrats.org

This story is part of the ABC News series "Democracy in Peril," which examines the inflection point the country faces after the Jan. 6 attacks and ahead of the 2022 election.

The nation's democratic process has been dangerously tested after the 2020 presidential race and the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, polls show and experts warn, leaving many Americans with little faith in the election system.

Heading into the consequential midterm elections, when voters will decide which party will control Congress next year, more than two-thirds of Americans think our democracy is in danger of collapse, according to a an August poll from Quinnipiac University.

An ABC NewsWashington Post poll conducted in January -- more than a year after the insurrection -- found only 20% of those surveyed saying they're very confident about the election system. Even fewer Republicans, just 13%, said they were very confident in the process.

"After every election, especially a presidential election, there is some sense among the people who voted for the losing candidate that the election was not quite fair," Barry Burden, the director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told ABC News.

"But 2020 is different," Burden continued. "Republican voters have been stuck with very low levels of support."

That's in large part due to Donald Trump, Burden and other elections observers said, as well as his GOP allies who continue to emphatically spread falsehoods about the integrity of the 2020 election.

In fact, 60% of Americans will have an election denier on the ballot this November. Out of 541 total Republican nominees running for office, FiveThirtyEight found 199 who've fully denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election.

So, what can be done to restore trust in the system? The path forward is unclear, experts ABC News spoke with said.

"It's a very hard problem," Burden acknowledged.

What would be the most successful fix is also the thing least likely to happen: for Trump and his allies to change their message.

"Donald Trump, as somebody who knows how to bring a crowd, whenever he leans into some of this election conspiracy stuff, he is tapping into a very, very animated part of the Republican base," explained Eli Yokley, a senior reporter at the data firm Morning Consult, which also tracks confidence in U.S. institutions.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump attends a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, U.S., September 3, 2022. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly

Andrew Kelly/Reuters

Yokley said it will be "incumbent on policymakers not to lean into voters' worst instincts" for trust to be restored.

Because Republicans are also generally more skeptical of mainstream media and traditional news sources, it's going to be most impactful for those lacking faith in the system to hear it straight from the former president and his closest associates.

"Those kinds of authoritative voices for Trump's followers have to be what's going to deliver the message because other sources like the current president or the mainstream media or fact checkers just aren't trusted in the same way," Burden said.

But Trump, as recently as Oct. 1, at a rally in the battleground state of Michigan, continued to call the 2020 election "stolen" and said Democrats "cheat like dogs" to win.

"I don't believe we'll ever have a fair election again," Trump said, prompting boos and shouts of agreement from his crowd. "I don't believe it," he repeated.

While Trump and his allies continue to spread lies about the 2020 election, state and local elections offices are picking up the slack to combat disinformation.

Arizona's Maricopa County -- the largest county in the battleground state and the site of intense scrutiny both during and after the 2020 election -- launched a campaign in 2021 titled "Just the Facts" in response to the increase of misinformation spreading about elections administration.

The website and an accompanying newsletter answers questions about how elections are administered, how officials build the ballot, how they count the ballots and ensure accuracy of the equipment used. This cycle, the campaign will also provide information about the upcoming races and how to participate successfully, according to Maricopa County Elections Department spokesperson Megan Gilbertson.

"It's imperative for election experts to provide a trusted source of information to voters about the you know, the facts about elections administration," Gilbertson told ABC News. "And so I think that initiatives like this are attainable for elections offices."

The city of Atlanta has launched the Atlanta Votes initiative, a similar online tool aimed at educating voters and increasing turnout. The Connecticut legislature has provided $2 million for internet, TV and mail education efforts on the election process, and to hire an election information security officer. Colorado has also hired a team called the "Rapid Response Election Security Cyber Unit" to monitor sites for misinformation.

A voter fills out their ballot at Bedford High School during the New Hampshire Primary on Sept. 13, 2022 in Bedford, N.H.

Scott Eisen/Getty Images

The U.S. Elections Assistance Commission, a national clearinghouse for information regarding election administration, similarly revamped the information on its site to make it more digestible to everyday Americans, Chairman Thomas Hicks told ABC News.

"I always say that election officials are public servants," Hicks said. "None of us are doing this to get rich, and so we're doing this for the love of our country and for our democracy."

Hicks said the commission has also worked with other organizations and has spoken to Twitter and Facebook about combating misinformation.

The tech platforms took some steps tackle misinformation in 2020 but some experts said the actions weren't enough. YouTube, Google and TikTok have announced election plans for 2022 that include bolstering trusted news sources and flagging or removing posts containing falsehoods about the process.

But it's difficult to stop individuals who are spreading disinformation, Burden said.

"We have the First Amendment in the United States that protects people's right to say things they believe, even if they're factually incorrect," Burden said. "If they think they don't trust the system, they're certainly allowed to say that. So it's a difficult problem to solve."

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Experts say Trump, election deniers eroding trust in democracy. Can it be restored? - ABC News

As the October 30, Brazillian presidential runoff draws closer far-right incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro during an interview commented that if Donald Trump was still the US President he could've averted the Russia-Ukraine war that has been on for more than seven months now.

Speaking to the news magazine Veja, Bolsonaro also said that he had a good in-person meeting with Trump's successor Joe Biden. However, he asserted that if his close ally Trump was still in office, many issues currently bedevilling the world could've been avoided.

Watch |Brazil Presidential runoff: Will the country see a smooth power transition?

"Some think that the war in Ukraine would not have happened if he were still in power," he said adding, "I agree with that."

However, he failed to elaborate on how the former President would have done so.

As per Reuters the remarks could add to tensions with Washington and are sure to rile the white house.

Also read |Bolsonaro, Lula garner significant endorsements as they prepare for Brazil's presidential runoff

Recently, Trump also endorsed fellow right-wing populist Bolsonaro, calling him "one of the great presidents of any country in the world ... respected by everybody throughout the world."

Bolsonaro and Trump have long been allies, with the former an ardent admirer of the latter. Even when Trump saw his international popularity fall after the fallout of the 2020 US election, Jair Bolsonaro remained a fan. He was also among the last world leaders to recognise Joe Biden's victory, echoing Trump's US electoral fraud allegations till the end.

Also read |Brazil: Opinion poll shows Lula with 51% support, Bolsonaro 43%, amid fears of going wrong again

Bolsonaro is also prone to alleging electoral fraud in his home country. There are fears that if Bolsonaro's rival leftist rival Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva were to overtake him, the right-wing leader might take a leaf out of Trump's book and refuse to accept the result.

While talking to Veja he once again kept up his unfounded questioning of Brazil's electronic voting system, while declining to give a clear answer on whether he would accept the results if he lost in the second round.

"There's a feeling in public opinion that there was something dodgy," he said adding "I'm always worried."

(With inputs from agencies)

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`The war in Ukraine would not have happened` if Donald Trump was `still in power,` says Jair Bolsonaro - WION

Donald Trump aspires to be a warlord. He publicly admires despots, tyrants and other authoritarian leaders who kill their enemies and take away the rights of anyone who oppose them. Mental health professionals have repeatedly warned that Donald Trump is likely a sociopath with an erotic attraction to violence and mayhem.

He has repeatedly shown that he has no regard for the rule of law, democracy, human rights or other restrictions on his behavior. He encourages his followers and allies to engage in acts of terrorism and other violence on his behalf. The most notable example came, of course, on Jan. 6, 2021.To this point, Trump has been limited by his cowardice. He prefers to have others engage in violence on his behalf instead of directly ordering such acts or participating in them himself.

Matters are now in flux. Trump is under investigation by the Department of Justice and other law enforcement agencies, and may face serious consequences for his lawbreaking for the first time. As George Conway described in a recent conversation with Salon, Trump is ready to lash out:

Trump is basically a cornered animal. He's got all these legal proceedings bearing down on him. In addition, he is losing his touch and his connection to his public, because his act has become very tiresome. That explains why Trump is embracing the QAnon conspiracy. He's doing that because of his narcissism: He's feeling attacked, and for the first time in his life, he is facing real consequences for his actions. The DOJ and other investigations have caused Trump to suffer a narcissistic injury.

Trump is in a downward psychological, emotional and physical spiral. His embrace of QAnon shows how extreme his deterioration is. But here is the problem for the rest of us: Donald Trump is not going to go away immediately. He is going to try to use the electoral process, and threats of violence, to regain power and influence. Then Trump will say that he can't control what people do because they are so angry at how he is being treated by Joe Biden, Merrick Garland, the DOJ, the various prosecutors and judges, the news media and so on. Trump is going to make things much worse in this country before things finally get better.

Ultimately, as Donald Trump becomes more desperate, he will reveal more of his true self: a violent predator who will almost always attack instead of retreating or otherwise surrendering.Last Saturday, Donald Trump took one more step on this journey when he threatened the life of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. On his social media platform Truth Social, Trump accused McConnell of having a "death wish" because he has (on a few specific occasions) supported legislation sponsored by Democrats.Trump also used a racial slur to describe McConnell's wife, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, calling her "his China loving wife, Coco Chow!"

Political scientist Brian Klaas, author of "The Despot's Apprentice: Donald Trump's Attack on Democracy," wrote on Twitter that Trump's threats were "[t]otally detached from reality, inciting political violence putting a target on a senior member of the U.S. Senate and a new racist nickname. We can't just pretend this isn't happening, because these posts are radicalizing more and more extremists every day."

In a recent interview with MSNBC, Mary Trump, who is a clinical psychologist as well as Donald Trump's niece, and author of the family memoir "Too Much and Never Enough," offered this ominous and direct warning: "Everything Donald has done is a prelude to worse things to come."

As usual, the mainstream media largely avoids covering Trump's threats with the seriousness they demand.Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin observed that neither McConnell himself nor other senior Republicans have even condemned Trump's statement:

That's the state of today's MAGA movement, where decency toward fellow Americans, loyalty to one's spouse and support for democratic values all take a back seat to cult worship and the unquenchable thirst for power. And once again, the mainstream media is failing to rise to the moment.

One might expect the media to stop treating Republicans like normal politicians after their "big lie" about a stolen election, their ongoing whitewashing of the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, their attacks on the FBI and their indifference if not assent to racism. Alas, there is little sign that mainstream outlets have dropped their addiction to false equivalence and willful, moral blindness.

These and countless other interviews illustrate the urgent need to reimagine coverage of the GOP. Refusing to confront and expose MAGA Republicans' betrayal of democratic values doesn't make members of the media "balanced." It makes them enablers.

Donald Trump's aspiration to warlord status is guided by his malicious gifts as an entrepreneur of violence.In an interview with Salon in March,political scientist Barbara Walter, who is the author of the book "How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them," explained this concept:

One of the challenges that violent extremists have is how to expand their base of support. If they don't expand their support base, they just remain fringe movements forever. One way is to provoke a harsh government response. Let's say that there are peaceful protests, but then there are provocateurs there who try to get the police to open fire or to bash a few heads. Violence entrepreneurs will use those actions as evidence that the police or the government or the opposition are evil and intent on crushing them.

That tactic is often successful in radicalizing at least some portion of average citizens. It pushes them towards the extremists. Donald Trump is what I would describe as an "ethnic entrepreneur." He and his loyalists want to regain power. He is an autocrat. Trump has no interest in ruling democratically. But Trump is not going to get that power back without the support of the average white American. This means that Donald Trump has to convince them somehow that his is a worthy cause to defend.

Understanding Trump and the Republican-fascist movement requires a broader sense of their social and political context, which in turn renders their behavior both predictable and readily understandable rather than something "shocking" or "surprising" and therefore unknowable. For the most part, the mainstream news media has refused to use such a framework, which would require some candid discussion of the fact that the Republican Party and its supporters no longer support democracy. For most of the media, that's an existential challenge they are not willing to consider.

Beginning with his 2015 campaign and then throughout his presidency and beyond, Trump has used the technique known as stochastic terrorism to incite violence against his designated enemies. At his rallies and other events Trump has urged his followers to attack protesters. He wanted the U.S. military to crush the civic dissent that took place across the country in response to the police murder of George Floyd in 2020. Hisregime created a concentration camp system where nonwhite migrants and refugees were imprisoned in violation of their civil and human rights.

Borrowing from language used by the Nazis and other fascist regimes, Trump attacks the free press as "enemies of the people" in an attempt to intimidate journalists into silence.

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Trump has repeatedly threatened Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and other prominent Democrats with prison or worse. Republicans he deems disloyal (such as Rep. Liz Cheney or former Vice President Mike Pence) have also been subjected to his violent threats and wanton disregard for their safety.

As president, Trump praised right-wing paramilitaries, white supremacists and other street thugs as "very fine people." His administration maintained an arm's-length friendship with right-wing paramilitaries and other violent extremists. During the 2020 campaign, Trump refused to condemn those groups and after that election they played an integral role in his coup attempt and the Capitol attack.

Trump has suggested several times that his followers will descend upon majority Black and brown "Democrat-controlled" cities if he is indicted for his many apparent crimes. He has made barely-veiled threats against Attorney General Merrick Garland and the FBI, implying that he only can save the country from the violence and mayhem that will occur if he is prosecuted.

Trump's acolytes are often even more explicit with their threats of violence then he is.

During Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's speech at Trump's rally last Saturday, she claimed that "Democrats want Republicans dead, and they have already started the killings." President Biden, she said,"has declared every freedom-loving American an enemy of the state. We will take back our country from the communists who have stolen it and want us to disappear."

These are of course inflammatory lies, based in projection and inversion. As the House Jan. 6 hearings have revealed, Trump envisioned a crescendo to the Jan. 6 uprising, perhaps with him personally arriving at the Capitol amid the mayhem and destruction to declare himself an American Caesar.

Trump has continued to embrace the antisemitic QAnon conspiracy cult, with its threats of revolutionary violence and destruction. QAnon believers claim that the "Storm" will return Trump to power, and along the way there will be mass executions of "global elites" and their agents, a laundry list of villains that includes all leading Democrats, numerous Hollywood celebrities, liberal donors and the supposedly sinister forces of antifa, Black Lives Matter, and the gay and lesbian rights movement.

Trump's escalating threats of violence fit disturbingly well with the model of eliminationism and genocide seen before in Nazi Germany, Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

Most concerning is how Trump's threats of political violence also fit the model of eliminationism and genocide seen in such countries as Rwanda, Yugoslavia and Nazi Germany.The human rights organization Genocide Watch warns that genocide "develops in 10 stages that are predictable but not inexorable. At each stage, preventive measures can stop it.The process is not linear.Stages occur simultaneously.Each stage is itself a process.... As societies develop more and more genocidal processes, they get nearer to genocide.But all stages continue to operate throughout the process":

America is further along that path than most of us are willing to admit. In the same interview quoted above, Barbara Walter warned that Donald Trump and retired Gen. Michael Flynn "are preaching violence," not through code words but direct statements:

You can quote them on it. If you read what they are saying, it is shocking. Yet few people seem to know about it. If I were to show what Trump and Flynn are saying, their actual words, to the average American, they would say, "You're making that up, it can't be true." Thus we have a situation where these things are happening, but the information is not being shared with the general public, or if they are hearing what is happening then it is being distorted or not fully represented in a way that leaves most Americans ignorant of what is really going on.

Historically, the side that wants to do these horrible things and put themselves in a position of power, to lead a dictatorship or start a "race war" or commit acts of genocide for example, to kill all the Jews in Europe will spend a lot of time investing in propaganda because they understand that if they can control the narrative they can control the average citizen. That is exactly what is happening now in the United States.

Aspiring warlord Donald Trump has told America and the world exactly what he and his movement intend to do. Unfortunately, the mainstream news media and other hope-peddlers have deluded themselves into thinking that it's all a misunderstanding or harmless hyperbole. We should take Trump at his word. On these issues, he does not prevaricate or tell lies. It will do no good to protest that you couldn't possibly have known. We all knew this was coming, and now it's here.

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about Donald Trump's downward trajectory

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Political warlord Trump now targets his enemies and Mitch is first on the list - Salon

WILMINGTON, N.C., Oct. 7, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Attorneys Patrick Mincey, Stephen Bell and Phil Brewster were recently discussed in a Miami Herald article regarding their representation of a whistleblower who exposed alleged securities violations involving Trump Media & Technology Group Corporation ("Trump Media"). Former President Donald J. Trump is the majority owner of Trump Media, which is the parent company that operates the conservative social media platform Truth Social. As discussed in the Miami Herald article, the whistleblower was one of the original founders of Truth Social, which was founded shortly after former President Trump's permanent suspension from Twitter because of the events of January 6, 2021.

The Miami Herald article describes how executives from both Trump Media and its merger partner Digital World Acquisition Corporation allegedly violated SEC regulations in the still-pending merger transaction. The article describes how Trump Media and DWAC have acknowledged investigations into the merger transaction by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice. The proposed transaction is intended to take Trump Media public in a deal originally valued at over $1 billion.

"Our client remains committed to assisting investigators with his referral to the SEC Office of the Whistleblower," Mincey, Bell and Brewster jointly said. "He also looks forward to an opportunity to work with members of Congress in their oversight capacity."

Attorney Patrick M. Mincey founded and leads the White Collar, Government Investigations & Special Matters Group at Cranfill Sumner LLP in North Carolina.

Attorney Stephen J. Bell is partner in the White Collar, Government Investigations & Special Matters Group at Cranfill Sumner LLP in North Carolina.

AttorneyPhil Brewster is the founding partner of Brewster Law Firm LLC inWinnetka, Illinois, a firm dedicated to whistleblower matters and government investigations.

ABOUT CRANFILLSUMNERLLP

Cranfill Sumner LLP serves clients in 28 practice areas. For more information, visit http://www.cshlaw.com.

ABOUT BREWSTER LAW FIRM LLC

Brewster Law Firm LLC is dedicated to whistleblower matters and government investigations. For more information, visitwww.brewsteradvisory.com.

SOURCE Cranfill Sumner LLP

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Whistleblower Attorneys Issue Statement Regarding Investigation Involving Former President Donald Trump's Trump Media & Technology Group, the...

Rap star Kanye West called former President Donald Trump a friend and my boy in his latest interview, but also said he still feels used by him.

In a wide-ranging interview that aired Thursday night on Fox News Channel, Mr. West said that older White people are quick to classify a Black person only by the fact were Black and recounted one conversation with one older White person.

Even Trump, a person wed consider to be a friend of mine isnt immune to racialized using, he told host Tucker Carlson.

After a notorious White House visit on criminal-justice reform, Mr. West said he called Mr. Trump to help get someone out of jail.

One of the things he said to me is Kanye, youre my friend. When you came to the White House, my Black approval rating went up 40%, Mr. West recounted.

For politicians, all Black people are worth is an approval rating. The Democrats feel that they dont owe us anything. And Republicans feel that they dont owe us anything. Blacks have never demanded something for our vote, he maintained.

He was generally positive about Mr. Trump in the interview, the first of two parts to air on Thursdays and Fridays episodes of Tucker Carlson Tonight.

For example, he said he became suspicious of Hollywood liberals because of how they leaned on him and used his then-wife Kim Kardashian to toe the party line on the former president whose name is generally mud in the entertainment industry.

He also suggested that Mr. Trump was being held back by his son-in-law Jared Kushner and Mr. Kushners brother Joshua, whom he called overrated venture capitalists.

After talking to them and really sitting with Jared and sitting with Josh and finding out other pieces of information I was like wow, these guys mightve really been holding Trump back and being very much a handler. They love to look at me or look at Trump like were so crazy and that theyre the businessmen, Mr. West said.

The rap star and multiple Grammy winner said the Kushners never brought anything of value other than so-called being a good venture capitalist. I have a major issue with that and it makes me feel like they werent serving my boy Trump the way we could have.

He also said that Mr. Trumps flaws dont mean he wasnt the right president and perhaps was even on a divine mission like Mr. West said he himself is on.

Trump wanted nothing but the best for this country Moses stuttered. God isnt always going to bring the most perfect personality. A lot of times the most fake people, their job is talking and making people feel comfortable. And the realest people are gonna make you feel uncomfortable at first, he said.

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Kanye West, on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight,' suggests Donald Trump used him - Washington Times

One of the many things weve learned in the Trump era is that a lot of the people in positions of power are either cynics or nihilists or both.

This is true on both sides of the political aisle, but its especially true on the right at the moment. Thats not a partisan statement, even if it may sound like one. The reality is that ever since Donald Trump took over the party in 2016, there are many people working in Republican politics who dont believe in what theyre doing, who know that Trump is and was a dangerous figure, and yet theyve plowed ahead anyway.

The question is: Why?

A new book by Tim Miller called Why We Did It gives about as good an answer as youll find. Miller is a former political operative who worked at various levels of Republican politics since he was 16 years old. He broke ranks with the party when Trump won the nomination and his book is a genuine attempt to grapple with his own contradictions and make sense of the people he left behind. The result is an unusually insightful glimpse behind the curtain. Thats why I invited Miller to talk about his book on the latest episode of Vox Conversations.

Below is an excerpt, edited for length and clarity. As always, theres much more in the full podcast, so listen and follow Vox Conversations on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Your journey in Republican politics is the core of the book and I just wanna start there. You started working in Republican politics when you were 16. Were you just a political junkie that early in your life?

Total political junkie. I dont know why, my parents werent. My grandmother was really into Republican politics, and so we would talk about politics and we gambled on the 1992 presidential race. I took Bill Clinton. She took George H.W. Bush. She had to mail me $1 with my winnings, which I was extremely proud of in fifth grade. And that was the last time I supported a Democrat until Hillary Clinton in 2016. So, you know, I kind of went full circle there.

The Republican Party has changed a lot since you were 16. But for reasons youve suggested it was always an awkward home for you. Youre gay, and you talk about how easily you contorted yourself to defend homophobes for years.

You call it championship-level compartmentalization in the book. That sounds like a really difficult pose to maintain for so many years.

Actually not really. It wasnt that difficult and thats the thing that makes it so gross. It makes me feel so bad about it.

I think that its important for me to explain that because if I could work for homophobes, when the people that I was working for were literally trying to use the law to deny me the things that are the most important things in my life right now my husband, my child well, then, think about how easy it is for somebody to justify working for Donald Trump when none of the impacts of his policies hurt them.

Like, they arent kids on the border. Theyre not gonna be the ones that are punished by the new abortion laws. So thats why I tried to make this parallel and try to make you really understand my mindset.

What was your eureka moment? When did you finally realize that you had had enough, that this whole thing had gone too far and you werent a Republican anymore?

I fucking knew it with [Sarah] Palin. I knew it.

And this is why the first half of the book is me in a hair shirt. I come to these interviews and they are like, Why is it Why We Did It? You opposed Trump from Day One. Which I did.

But its Why We Did It because I sat there for seven years as this beast kind of grew and grew and became more and more dangerous. And I knew it.

I leave the McCain campaign, I move to DC, I come out of the closet, and Im working for a PR firm. I still can see whats happening clearly. I was like, the crazies are taking this over. John McCain is a good man whos trying to manage the crazy and making some good choices, some bad choices while he does that. But the power, the energy is with the reactionaries. And I saw it then, and yet I still just keep getting sucked back in.

And the first way I get sucked back in is kind of earnest, actually I go to work for Jon Huntsman and Im like, I kind of know this guys gonna lose, but Im a moderate Republican, and Im gonna go work for this moderate. But I get addicted to the competition of it again, and then kind of slowly start going down the path to working for more and more gross people.

The second half of the book is really about actors behind the scenes in the Republican Party, the functionaries, the spin doctors, the campaign hacks. These are the people who often know what theyre doing, often know they shouldnt do it, and just do it anyway. And the reasons they do it are as banal as they are depressing.

One thing that comes across is that it really is a game for a lot of these people. And if you really push them on it, what you find is that theres no real moral core behind it. Its just careerist, jockeying for influence and attention.

Its really depressing. The characters in the book, almost all of them, with one or two exceptions, in the second half about the Trump era, go along with it anyway.

So the question is, why? This is gross in a different way, but you almost want it to be because theyve really bought the bullshit about how we need to have a secure border to help wages. Or they just are so hard line on protecting fetuses or so hard line on whatever.

And some of those people exist in real America. But in the DC class? None of em, and that includes the named people in the book. I also interviewed a bunch of people I didnt name and nobody nobody got passionate talking about any policy issue. Thats all a feint, its all bullshit.

The only time I would sense any emotion in their voice when they were explaining why they went along with Trump, besides the banal careerist reasons, was that theyve really started to really not like you, Sean. I mean, not you, but, like, your people, right? The liberal media elites theyve developed a very deep well of hatred and resentment and jealousy of them.

Of all the characters in the book, all the operator types, some of them you know personally, some of them you dont which of them sticks out to you the most in terms of just like abject nihilism or cynicism?

Its Elise for me. Elise Stefanik.

Can you say who she is?

Yeah, sure.

So just going all the way back, I worked with her on the Republican autopsy. People might remember, after Mitt Romney lost, we put together this document that basically had a bunch of blocking and tackling recommendations for how the party can catch up to Obamas data nerds, but also said that we should soften our rhetoric around immigration and other issues.

Elise was the editor of that document. And I was the spokesperson at the time. So I was working with her very closely.

So Elise then runs for Congress as a very moderate Republican climate change is a problem, gay marriage, immigration reform. You know, as moderate of a Republican as you have in Congress when she wins in 2014. 2016, she runs for reelection with Trump on the ballot, wont say his name. Literally cant even spit out his name.

In 2018, something happens. Trump comes to campaign in her district, huge crowd. She gets this huge applause on the stage. She starts to reassess her power trajectory. Paul Ryan, who was kind of her mentor, retires. So her little path up through the normal establishment ranks in Congress started to seem not as likely.

And she flips on a dime. And in the first impeachment becomes Trumps most rabid defender with the most absurd defenses. She was like a foreign policy neocon Republican who wouldve been very much arm the Ukrainians against the Russians, flips on it, sides with Trump against Zelenskyy. And is now literally indistinguishable from a MAGA troll.

And there was no policy anything about this. I interviewed tons of mutual friends. She wouldnt talk to me. She emailed me saying that she sees my tweets and is not interested in participating in the book. And didnt reply to any other of my entreaties.

So to me, she is the worst because its just the most brazen. It also is the worst at some level because its paying off for her. I truly think shell be on a VP shortlist for Trump, cause hell want a woman if he runs in 2024. And if not that, I think shes on a speaker of the house trajectory.

Part of me is perversely fascinated by some of the people you talk to, the ones who really, truly hate the cultural left so much, so that they pretend that theres just two choices, right? Wokeness or fascism.

How common is that sentiment?

Its pretty common.

So in all those drunk off-the-record conversations, people kept bringing this up. Literally this was the thing that people were volunteering, these Republican staffers.

The formulation that you just laid out is not an exaggeration. [One source] said, My wifes friends think Im a racist. My kids are getting these DEI packets. Theres cancel culture everywhere. And as a white male, like, sometimes I feel like my only choice to combat the wokeness is to just think about the one or two things that I agree with Donald Trump on and ride with him.

Thats not the direct quote, cause I dont have it in front of me, but like thats very close to his direct quote.

Thats a common sentiment. Thats how they all soothe each other, by expressing something to that same effect, maybe not quite as brazen.

Thats why I dont have a last chapter in the book what do you do about this? What do you do about petty, privileged, white dudes resentments, and willingness to go along with Donald Trump over them?

I dont have a good answer to that question.

Who do you thinks actually steering the party now? Is it Fox News? Is it the base? I mean, the politicians themselves seem to be totally hostage to both of those things.

No, theyre totally hostage to the base. Look at Trump getting booed over the vaccine thing. I thought that was a very telling moment. It was like one time where he kind of had to back off his own he doesnt even get to talk about it, one of the one good things that happened while he was in there: Operation Warp Speed. He cant even talk about it without getting booed.

Im stealing this from my other Bulwark colleague, Sarah Longwell, credit where due. Its a triangle of doom. The bases grievances are underlying. Some of them are legitimate, by the way, others are illegitimate.

The conservative media is stoking the illegitimate grievances mostly. But occasionally theyre legitimate grievances about the hollowing out of certain parts of the country.

And then the Republican politicians are riding the wave of that grievance-mongering. And rather than caring at all about responsibilities of leadership or checks on excesses, have now just totally accepted it.

And so, all three are responsible and, somewhere along that, you have to break it. But where? Who? The politicians arent, like the conservative media isnt. Is the Republican base gonna get less radicalized? Thats kind of hard to see.

You say something I think very true and profound at the end of the book about politics and identity. And I just wanna read it aloud here.

You say, For gay people, coming out of the closet is hard because of this change of your identity. Its not only how you look at yourself, but how other people look at you. People you love, your dad, your high school bestie. Youre worried that theyre going to now see you differently because your identity is changed in their eyes. And so if politics becomes like skin color, like sexuality, untangling that is a lifetime of work. And its therapy. And we should really think about it like that.

This to me is absolutely one of the most challenging problems. These cultural divides have mapped neatly onto political divides. That means our political views are wrapped up with our core identity in really powerful ways. And that means people are entrenched. Theyre not reachable by facts or arguments or policies because thats not what identity is about.

And even some of the cynical careerists you write about in this book, you can see how their professional identities are bound up with their partisan politics. And the price of leaving that behind is enormous. And most arent willing to pay it. Its who they are now. Its their friends, its their whole lives.

I dont know what to do about that, Tim. But that seems like a chasm that may be unbridgeable.

Its something that Ive thought about a lot. The fact that I had to come out of the closet and had to experience that I think in some ways helped me be more comfortable with this, right?

And it ended up being the best thing I ever did in my life. It was the best choice I ever made. My life trajectory wouldve been horrible had I decided to, like, stay in the closet and marry the one girlfriend I ever had (sorry, Stephanie).

So I knew that I could do this. For these other folks, to your point the bars they go to. The poker night. The church. Their friend group. Their dogs name is Reagan. Changing all that is very challenging. So thats the DC class. And I think it explains it doesnt excuse, but it explains why its so hard.

Last week, I was with someone who works for Liz Cheney. And I was like, hows life? Hes like, I still get invited to parties, but I dont go. Because its really awkward.

So thats hard. Thats challenging for people.

That is also happening now out in America though. Which is something that is kind of relatively new and is not totally Trump era, but has gone on steroids in the Trump era which is the voters out there see themselves as Republican partisans, the same way like political operatives do.

And so their identity changing that is very hard, right? Thats why theres no quick fix to this.

But the one nice lesson I have is that, well, I showed and want to show no grace to the Republican collaborators who knew better in Washington. The actual people out in America who have gotten kind of sucked into this do need grace and time to be kind of pulled away from that identity.

Because its very hard and its entangled in there in a much deeper way than I think their voting identity was in the era where we grew up.

I live in Mississippi. I grew up here. I love it here. I love the people here and I felt the instinct more and more to defend my friends, from around the country, who want to shit on this part of the country.

But theres like a woman down the street, an older woman who has a giant ass flag in her yard that says Karens for Trump still, still! Like, thats not an affirmative statement about what she wants to see in the world or about tax policy, whatever. That is a giant middle finger to everyone on the other side.

There is sanity and decency underneath so much of that. But its now been swallowed by tribalistic bullshit. And it is very hard to engage in ways now that dont activate these defenses.

I dont have the answer for that.

Me neither, man. I wish I did.

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Tim Miller on Donald Trump, Elise Stefanik, and the Republicans who pretend being MAGA - Vox.com

Editors note:This column by David Corn first appeared in his newsletter, Our Land.But we wanted to make sure as many readers as possible have a chance to see it. Our Landis written by David twice a week (most of the time) and provides behind-the-scenes stories about politics and media; his unvarnished take on the events of the day; film, book, television, podcast, and music recommendations; interactive audience features; and more. Subscribing costs just $5 a monthbut you can sign up for a free 30-day trial of Our Landhere. Please check it out. And please also check out Davids new New York Times bestseller: American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy.

Those of us paying attention the past few years know that the answer to the oft-repeated question have we reached the bottom of Trumpism?is, theres no bottom. Donald Trump and the Republican Party proved that once again in recent days, as Trump merged MAGA extremism with the conspiratorial lunacy of QAnon, and nary a Republican batted an eye.

In retrospect, the melding of MAGAism with QAnonand toss in a helping of Christian nationalismseemed inevitable. The QAnon conspiracy theory holds that the world is controlled by a cabal of satanic, baby-eating, sex-trafficking pedophileswhich includes, of course, top Democrats, assorted elites, Hollywood celebrities, and the Popeand that Trump is engaged in titanic combat behind the scenes to crush this evil power and save humanity (and lots of babies). Under assorted variants of this nuttery, Trump is being aided by John F. Kennedy Jr. (who did not die in a 1999 plane crash), and he will be restored to power in a final cataclysmic battle that involves mass arrests of Lucifers allies (lock em up in Gitmo!) and televised executions. Trump fully embraced the QAnon insanity last week, and this means that the Republican Party now supports a man who advances a dangerous derangement that exceeds his Big Lie about the 2020 election and that further delegitimizes American democracy and debases political discourse. And this party has a good shot at gaining control of Congress in seven weeks.

For years, Trump had played footsie with QAnon, claiming he didnt know much about it but praising its adherents supposed patriotism, their opposition to pedophilia and, naturally, their cultish love of him. Offered the chance to denounce this perverse craziness, he bobbed and weaved, sending the signal to QAnonerswho are always looking for signalsthat they did indeed possess the hidden truth. With nods and winks, he validated their paranoia and detachment from reality, as QAnon conspiracism led tonumerous acts of violence.

QAnon flags and symbols blossomed at Trumps 2020 campaign rallies, and they were present at the insurrectionist January 6 assault on the US Capitol. In the way previous Republicans over the years had encouraged and exploited right-wing extremisma story I tell in my new book,American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went CrazyTrump capitalized on this bizarre and bonkers internet phenomenon without endorsing it. His plan looked obvious: take advantage of this brainsickness and boost his base of supporters without being tarred as a champion of this looniness.

No more. He went full QAnon the other day when he posted online a photoshopped image of him wearing a Q pin. To make the message clear, this picture proclaimed, The Storm Is Cominga QAnon catchphrase referring to that ultimate showdown between Trump and the evildoers. And it contained the abbreviation for the QAnon slogan, where we go one, we go all.

The insanity of a former (and possibly future) president bear-hugging QAnon cannot be overstated. And this was no one-off, late-in-the-night shitposting from the former guy. He zapped out other posts with QAnon references. Then four days later, at a rallyin Ohio, he delivered an apocalyptic speech against the backdrop of music resembling the QAnon theme song. It was here that Trump supporters raised their hands and pointed a fingerpossibly signaling one, in an allusion to that QAnon slogan.

The supposed purpose of the event was to whip up support for GOP Senate candidate J.D. Vance. But the gathering demonstrated the fusion of MAGA extremism with QAnon and Christian nationalism. The crowd cheered as Trump proclaimed the country had become a hellhole with a crumbling economy, rampant crime, and no freedom of speech. It was all lies. But the fervor of the crowd and the arm waving were reminiscent of a religious revival meeting. Trumps movement has morphed into QMaga. The irrationality has spread from the evidence-free belief that sinister players (China, Venezuela, the CIA, the media, Democrats, voting machine companies) conspired to steal the election from Trump to the conviction that American politics has become a clash between patriotic Christians and cannibalistic Satan-worshipping pedophiles.

The Ohio arena was not full, and the empty seats indicated that Trumps mix of conspiracism, cult of personality, end-times ravings, and fundamentalism may not be a bestseller. But many of the GOP election denialists running in state elections this yearincluding gubernatorial candidates Doug Mastriano (Pennsylvania) and Kari Lake (Arizona)have ties to QAnon. Both Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert were QAnoners before they were elected to Congress in the last election. But perhaps of greater concern is that the entire GOP, which has supported Trumps authoritarian Big Lie crusade, is now willing to follow Trump further into the depths of fearmongering and madness.

Vance, a graduate of Yale Law School, bestselling author, and venture capitalist (who once referred to Trump asAmericas Hitler) certainly knows QAnon is crap. But he eagerly lapped up Trumps support at the rally. No prominent GOP official has come out and declared that Trump is guiding the party into the land of crazy. With their silence, they are legitimizing Trumps promotion of an absurd delusion. Just as their silence regarding Trumpsrecent vowto pardon the domestic terrorists who attacked Congress legitimizes political violence and likely will encourage more of it.

A few weeks ago, President Joe Biden excoriated MAGA extremism and election denialism as semi-fascism and warned the nation of the threat they pose. Republicans and conservativesturned snowflakes and cried foul. Since then, the danger has grown. As every pundit will tell you, the Republicans remain poised to win the House in the November elections and possibly the Senate. That will place in power a party that accepts and supports QMaga (and that backs as its leader a man who now excuses political violence). Without more media attention and more warnings from Biden and the Democrats, QMaga will spread into the halls of Congress not by mob violence but by the ballot box. A storm is indeed coming.

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Donald Trump and the Birth of QMaga: The Storm Is Coming Mother Jones - Mother Jones