Category Archives: Donald Trump

WASHINGTON Donald Trump brought his dark views of Joe Bidens presidency to Dallas on Saturday night, warning that American civilization will collapse if hes not returned to power and regurgitating his falsehoods about the 2020 election.

The election was rigged and stolen, and now our country is being systematically destroyed. And everybody knows it....I ran twice and won twice, he declared at the Conservative Political Action Conference. America is on the edge of an abyss. And our movement is the only force on earth that can save it.

We have to seize this opportunity to deal with the radical left socialists and fascists, Trump said, rallying activists for the November midterms.

Persecution and grievance were recurring themes at the three-day conference at the Hilton Anatole, where speakers echoed Trumps disproved assertions that he actually won in 2020. Trump and others denounced the House Jan. 6 investigation.

Look at what theyre doing to President Trump. They understand they cant beat him at the ballot box. They cant beat his energy. They cant beat his vision, Steve Bannon, Trumps former strategist, told CPAC on Friday, two weeks after his conviction on two counts of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena related to the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Theyre trying to put him in jail to make sure he cannot run again and 2024 and be the rightful president he should be right now.

Trump has been a rock star at CPAC for years.

He handily won a straw poll of attendees on Saturday, topping Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis 69-24 as their top pick for president in 2024. Sen. Ted Cruz was a distant third at 2%.

I said I better win that damn straw poll Its an honor, Trump said, noting hed also scored a 99% approval rating. When is the last time somebody had 99% approval?

Nationally, just under half of Republicans named Trump as their top choice in a recent New York Times/Siena College poll. And nearly one in five believe his actions after losing the election threatened American democracy. At CPAC, 91% of attendees said they would support Trump if he seeks the Republican nomination.

Almost all of the progress that we have made comes either directly or indirectly from Donald Trump, said conservative media host Glenn Beck, warming up the crowd for Trump.

High on Becks list: the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe vs. Wade and ending a half-century of constitutional protection for abortion rights. Trump installed three of justices on the nine-member court, cementing a rightward shift that will last a generation and endearing himself to conservatives.

Kari Lake, the Trump-backed GOP nominee for Arizona governor, called him the greatest president weve ever known.

Hes got the globalists against him. Hes got the fake news against him. Hes got the left against him, and hes even got some people in our own party against him, she said.

Trump took the stage at the Hilton Anatole to the strains of Lee Greenwoods Proud to be an American, surveying the ballroom at attention until the song ended.

A video played just before he stepped into the spotlight a four minute distillation of his case against Biden.

America, he said, has become a joke. And he said, We are a nation that allowed Russia to devastate a country, Ukraine, killing hundreds of thousands of people, and it will only get worse.

Fortunately for Ukraine, that vastly exaggerates the toll. The United Nations has confirmed 5,327 civilian deaths in Ukraine. Western intelligence agencies say Russia has lost up to 20,000 troops, and Ukraine somewhat fewer.

Trump lavished attention on Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Amarillo, teasing that Jackson liked being White House physician even more than serving in Congress, because he loved looking at my body. He said I was the healthiest president thats ever lived.

Trump blasted Pelosi for visiting Taiwan earlier this week, asserting that she had provoked China needlessly.

I got impeached twice. She failed twice. The woman brings chaos, Trump said, asserting that by going to Taiwan, Pelosi played right into their hands. Now they have an excuse to do whatever theyre doing.

In Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike lauded Pelosi for refusing to let China dictate where American officials can travel.

Trump hit Biden for failures on the economy, border security and foreign policy, not always with the facts on his side, as when he taunted Biden for allowing gasoline prices to skyrocket.

$1.87 a gallon I got it down to....A friend of mine from California called me this morning. He just paid $8.55, Trump predicted. Hed cited $8.25 a day earlier at a rally in Wisconsin.

Data from the federal Energy Information Administration show the average at $4.13 per gallon nationally, and $5.47 in California.

Prices spiked after Russia invaded Ukraine in February but have subsided by 20% since a the peak in late May. The low point Trump cited came during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the economy had come to a standstill.

The latest average in Texas is $3.65, down nearly a dollar in two months.

Trump was in Dallas in July 2021, the last time the American Conservative Union held CPAC there. He basked in chants of four more years and spun tall tales about a rigged election.

No evidence? Theres so much evidence, he insisted then.

He also used the forum to downplay the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, when a mob of his supporters tried to stop Congress from certifying Bidens victory.

He complained that some patriots remained in jail months later, glossing over the fact that some supporters had called for the deaths of Vice President Mike Pence and Speaker Nancy Pelosi that day.

The House Jan. 6 hearings revealed that members of Pences senior staff and security detail feared for their lives, and the vice presidents.

Trumps grievance list in July 2021 included his attorney general. Bill Barr, he complained, had refused to echo his assertions about election fraud or assign the Justice Department to engage in a fishing expedition for evidence.

Barr has since testified under oath to the House Jan. 6 committee that Trumps fabrications had no basis in fact, and recounted his refusal to go along.

Trump remains formidable within the Republican Party.

He has used his clout to punish Republicans in Congress who voted to impeach him over the Jan. 6 attack, and to target against state officials who refused to help overturn his defeat.

On Friday, for instance, he stumped in Wisconsin for a candidate running for governor against state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos. Biden won the state by more than 20,000 votes and Vos resisted Trumps pressure to somehow nullify that outcome.

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Watch live: Trump at CPAC Dallas says election was rigged and stolen - The Dallas Morning News

Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder

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Former President Donald Trump "probably" will be indicted on criminal charges along with officials in his White House as part of a Justice Department investigation of efforts to reverse the 2020 election results nationally, ex-Attorney General Eric Holder said in an interview Thursday.

But Holder suggested that before that happens, Trump is more likely to first face possible criminal charges from the Georgia state prosecutor who is investigating attempts by Trump and his allies to undo President Joe Biden's win there in 2020.

Holder, who led the Justice Department during the Obama administration, made those predictions during an interview with the SiriusXM Urban View satellite radio show Joe Madison The Black Eagle.

Madison asked Holder whether he would seek to indict Trump if he still were attorney general.

Holder demurred, saying he did not have access to all the material that the Justice Department currently has regarding Trump.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump looks on during the pro-am prior to the LIV Golf Invitational - Bedminster at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster on July 28, 2022 in Bedminster, New Jersey.

Cliff Hawkins | Getty Images

But he told Madison that, based on his experience as a federal prosecutor who filed public corruption cases against elected officials, as "more evidence is elicited, you will see people start to cut deals."

"My guess is that by the end of this process, you're going to see indictments involving high-level people in the White House, you're going to see indictments against people outside the White House who were advising them with regard to the attempt to steal the election," said Holder.

"And I think ultimately you're probably going to see the president, former president of the United States indicted as well," he said.

The Justice Department reportedly is presenting evidence and testimony before two federal grand juries in Washington, D.C., one of which is eyeing a plan by Trump's lawyers and others to have so-called fake electors claim that the then-Republican incumbent won the election in their individual states.

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The other grand jury is investigating events leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, when a mob of Trump supporters interrupted for hours the confirmation of Biden's Electoral College win by Congress.

Pat Cipollone, who served as Trump's White House counsel, has been subpoenaed to appear before one of those grand juries, multiple news outlets reported Wednesday.

For weeks after the November 2020 popular election, Trump falsely claimed that he defeated Biden and argued his Democratic opponent's Electoral College victory was based on widespread ballot fraud in several swing states.

The former president since leaving the White House has continued to dispute the 2020 election results and has said that the investigations into his conduct and that of his allies are politically motivated witch hunts.

Holder in his interview said the pace of the Justice Department investigation into election meddling is likely to proceed in the same way that a character in the Ernest Hemingway novel "The Sun Also Rises" answered when another character asked how he went bankrupt: "Gradually, then suddenly."

"I expect you're going to see the pace of this investigation or these investigations pick up," Holder told Madison.

But Holder also said that he expected the Justice Department to "go dark" and not take public action in the case until after this fall's midterm elections.

The department in a long-standing practice in the months leading up to elections does not tend to file criminal charges or issue statements that might influence the outcome of elections.

"You watch the Justice Department in 2023," Holder said.

"But I think before that, I expect something coming of that prosecutor in Atlanta," he added.

That Georgia prosecutor, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, is presenting evidence and testimony to a special grand jury empaneled to investigate possible criminal meddling in her state's election by Trump and his surrogates.

That grand jury has issued subpoenas to a number of fake Trump electors, as well to the former president's lawyers and to U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

"I think in terms of time, that is the more advanced" investigation, Holder said Thursday.

"The case is in some ways less complicated," he said, noting that Trump is known to have phoned Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the state's top election official, on Jan. 2, 2021, and pressured Raffensperger to help find enough votes to overcome Biden's margin of victory there.

"You have the former president on tape saying, 'Find me 11,780 votes,'" Holder said.

"Now people argue: 'What was his intent?'" Holder said, referring to questions about whether Trump had criminal intent in asking such a question.

"Really?" Holder said sarcastically. "Put that before a jury ... Regular people, looking at the evidence, I think, will get to what I think is an appropriate conclusion."

"So my eyes are on Fulton County first. Look at the Justice Department in 2023," Holder said.

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Trump likely to be criminally charged in DOJ election probe along with other former White House officials, Obama AG Holder says - CNBC

Have you heard the good news? The walls are finally closing in on Donald Trump!

Attorney General Merrick Garland and the feds have Trump cornered, like a fascist rat in a trap! He's going to jail at last, and the goodguys will win in the end because it is the American Way!

Such reactions were triggered by a series of supposed bombshell reports last week. In a much-discussed interview last Tuesday, Attorney General Garland told Lester Holt of NBC News:

We intend to hold everyone, anyone who was criminally responsible for the events surrounding Jan. 6, for any attempt to interfere with the lawful transfer of power from one administration to another, accountable. That's what we do. We don't pay any attention to other issues with respect to that.

Holt tried to press him further, asking whether, if Trump announces another presidential campaign, "that would not change your schedule or how you move forward or don't move forward?"

Garland responded: "I'll say again that we will hold accountable anyone who was criminally responsible for attempting to interfere with the transfer, legitimate, lawful transfer of power from one administration to the next."

In a story that dominated the news for the remainder of the week, and deservedly so, on that same daythe Washington Post reportedthat Garland's Justice Department was in fact "investigating President Donald Trump's actions as part of its criminal probe of efforts to overturn the 2020 election results":

Prosecutors who are questioning witnesses before a grand jury including two top aides to Vice President Mike Pence have asked in recent days about conversations with Trump, his lawyers, and others in his inner circle who sought tosubstitute Trump allies for certified electors from some states Joe Biden won, according to two people familiar with the matter. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

The prosecutors have asked hours of detailed questions about meetings Trump led in December 2020 and January 2021; hispressure campaign on Penceto overturn the election; and what instructions Trump gave his lawyers and advisers about fake electors and sending electors back to the states, the people said. Some of the questions focused directly on the extent of Trump's involvement in the fake-elector effort led by his outside lawyers,including John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani, these people said.

In a recent conversationwith Salon, Norman Eisen, who served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Trump's first impeachment, offered these personal insights about Garland's temperament and how it may impact his investigation of Trump:

Garland fears no person. I've known him for years and he is a great American jurist and lawyer. He has said that he's going to follow the evidence where it leads and apply the law without fear or favor. He's going to let the chips fall where they may. I believe him. He's very methodical. He's very deliberate.

There's some element of not bumping into the Jan. 6 committee's work. There are strong norms at work here: You don't stampede into prosecuting a president.

Garland also needed to restore another kind of norm and that was the norm of a properly functioning Department of Justice. He's only a year and a half into his tenure, if even that long. He needed to get things settled down in the DOJ before he made such a momentous move. I have a lot of confidence in Merrick Garland's decision-making.

Of course that is encouraging news. But it pays to be cautious when attempting to decipher what may or may not be happening in the perpetual tempest of the MAGAverse and its leader. The following facts should be kept in mind in any and all discussions about Trump, the law and criminal consequences.

Donald Trump has been declared politically dead many times. He's been involved in thousands of lawsuits and accused of serious crimes and has never faced any serious consequences.

Trump has been declared politically dead on several previous occasions. He has been involved in thousands of lawsuits but has never been charged with a crime nor faced serious consequences for his evident wrongdoing. Hehas also been credibly accused of sexual assault and rape by numerous women without facing criminal charges or any other significant form of accountability.

Mental health professionals have repeatedly warned that Donald Trump is a sociopath (and perhaps a psychopath) with no regard for human decency, the rule of law or other norms and societal limits on his behavior. These pathologies, in a very real sense, are among his greatest strengths as a fascist leader who is plotting his return to power.

Is Donald Trump really at imminent risk of being indicted or prosecuted for his likely or apparent crimes related to the Jan. 6 coup attempt and Capitol attack? In the midst of all that breathless coverage suggesting that the answer was clearly "yes", NBC News offered this important qualification last Wednesday:

The Department of Justice is investigating then-President Donald Trump's actions leading up to the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol as part of its criminal probe of efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, an administration official familiar with the investigation said.

The inquiry is related to the department's broader probe of efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and not a criminal investigation of Trump himself, the official said.

Adding further caution to any narrative that Trump now faces imminent or inevitable prosecution, NBC News further reports that the Department of Justice may lack the resources necessary to properly investigate Trump, his confederates and the larger Jan. 6 coup conspiracy.

It's the "most wide-ranging investigation" in Justice Department history: the unprecedented manhunt forhundredsof rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitolon Donald Trump's behalfon Jan. 6, 2021, and the criminal inquiry into efforts to stop the peaceful transfer of power.

It's also a logistical nightmare.

As cases against Capitol rioters work their way through the court system and a federal grand jury hears testimony aboutTrump's rolein Jan. 6, some federal officials are raising concerns that it could bring the already stretched investigation of Jan. 6 to a breaking point.

In conversations with NBC News in recent months, more than a dozen sources familiar with the sprawling Jan. 6 investigation expressed varying degrees of worry about whether the resources the Justice Department has allocated to the effort are sufficient for such a vast criminal investigation.

This is not the first time that Donald Trump supposedly faced legal peril for his conduct as president. As bestselling crime writer and activist Don Winslow has repeatedly pointed out on social media and elsewhere, over the course of the last six or seven years, Trump has faced numerous damning allegations and serious investigations and has escaped them all.

Trump became the first president to be impeached twice and only the third to be impeached at all and was acquitted at trial in the U.S. Senate on both occasions, suffering little or no long-term damage to his power or popularity within the Republican Party or among his cult followers.

For much of Trump's presidency, the media was obsessed with Robert Mueller's investigation, and kept telling us he would expose a massive web of lies and corruption and bring down the entire Trump regime.

For much of the Trump presidency, the mainstream news media was obsessed with Robert Mueller's investigation of the 2016 presidential campaign, with almost daily TV segments, interviews, reporting and commentary suggesting that Mueller was on the verge of exposing a massive web of treason and corruption that would bring down the entire Trump regime. But "Mueller time" was a bust, and the special counsel's report landed with a damp thud rather than anearth-shattering boom (at least partly due to the intervention of Attorney General Bill Barr).

In fact, Mueller's investigation conclusively showed that Trump's inner circle colluded with Russia, a hostile foreign power, during the 2016 campaign. Trump then obstructed justice on a grand scale to conceal those actions -- and also to hide his own culpability. After Congress did nothing to hold him properly accountable for the Russia scandal, Trump almost immediately tried to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into launching a fraudulent investigation of Joe Biden, then the leading Democratic candidate for president. That led to Trump's first impeachment and after he survived that, he moved toward inexorably toward the Jan. 6 coup attempt meant to keep him in office after losing the 2020 election to Biden.

So what will Trump do if Garland finally moves forward with criminal prosecution relating to the Jan. 6 coup attempt? The answer is obvious: As the leading student and protg of right-wing fixer and dirty trickster Roy Cohn, Trump will go on the attack.

He has already previewed his strategy in public. Throughout his presidency, Trump repeatedly said that he possessed "special" or secret executive powers that effectively placed him above the law. He has also repeatedly told his followers that he and they are the victims of a grand conspiracy involving the "deep state," the "liberal media" and the "socialist Democrats." In that context, any and all means of "self-defense," including law-breaking and political violence, are understood to be reasonable and righteous options.

In essence, Donald Trump and his confederates in the Republican-fascist movement seek to hold the American people hostage in order to prevent Garland and the Justice Department from enforcing the law.

In a new Rolling Stone report, Asawin Suebsaeng and Adam Rawnsley describe Trump's legal defense strategy:

"Members of the Trump legal team are quietly preparing, in the event charges are brought," says one person familiar with the situation. "It would be career malpractice not to. Do the [former] president's attorneys believe everything Cassidy [Hutchinson] said? No. Do they think the Department of Justice would be wise to charge him? No. But we've gotten to a point where if you don't think criminal charges are at least somewhat likely, you are not serving the [former] president's best interests.".

In their preparations, Trump's team has discussed strategies that involve shifting blame from Trump to his advisers for the efforts to overturn the election, per the three sources, reflecting a broader push to find afall guy orfall guys. "Trump got some terrible advice from attorneys who, some people would argue, should have or must have known better," says one of the sources with knowledge of recent discussions in Trumpland. "An 'advice of counsel' defense would be a big one."

Other potential strategies include defenses based on the First Amendment and the right to petition the government over a political grievance. Such arguments are viewed internally as potential defenses against charges related tothe "fake elector" scheme.

Trump also seems keenly aware of the blowback that could result from a federal indictment and is telling supporters it could be politically advantageous. Early this year, the former president told fans at a Texas rally that if prosecutors go after him, "we are going to have in this country the biggest protest we have ever had in Washington, D.C., in New York, in Atlanta, and elsewhere."

Trump has repeated versions of that line to confidants and longtime pals, including at casual gatherings this summer, a person with direct knowledge of the matter says. "He says," the source recalls, "it would make the crowd size at [Jan. 6] look small by comparison."

Anticipating such violence, Malcolm Nance, an expert on terrorism, extremism and military intelligence, outlined this scenario in a recent interviewwith mefor Salon:

Trumpism is moving beyond Donald Trump. Trumpism is the embrace of the conspiracy against all of them. I believe that maybe half of them, 40 million or so of his voters, would take to the streets.

I'd say an easy 10 million would come out with arms. Here's the second component of that scenario. Republican governors and state legislatures refuse to do anything about the armed Trumpists. They refuse to bring out the National Guard. They refuse to allow the National Guard to be federalized. Now you're in pre-Civil War 1860 territory.

Here is a scenario from my new book. Terrorists bomb a parade using high-technology drones that are synced together and drop mortar bombs, just like ISIS does. The president of the United States starts getting these reports. It's not one city, it's 10 cities right here in the United States. Armed men are taking over federal armories and National Guardsmen are not stopping them. The president of the United States, in a matter of moments, has to do several things. The president has to federalize state troops. The U.S. military would have to be mobilized to fight state troopers and recalcitrant National Guardsmen who refuse federal orders.

There will be a fiefdom down in Mar-a-Lago. There will be civilians with long rifles. The governor of Florida endorsing them, calling out the state National Guard to resist the president of the United States. This is not as farfetched a scenario as many would like to believe.

It is both premature and irresponsible for the news media and other public voices to treat the prosecution of Donald Trump and his confederates as a fait accompli or an inevitable outcome. It undoubtedly feels good for theprofessional centrists and hope-peddlers to write such stories. Hope-starvedliberals, progressives and Democrats will feel good reading such stories about Trump and his co-conspirators finally getting their just deserts and going to prison for their abundant crimes against democracy, American society and human decency.

It is important to remember that many of the public voices now crowing the loudest about Trump going to jail are the same voices who insisted that Trump was not planning a coup on Jan. 6, that the "institutions" would surely defeat Trump and his movement, that Roe v. Wade would never be overturned, that the Republican Party would eventually get tired of Trump's antics and drive him out, that "moderation" and the "adults in the room" would vanquish evil, and that Robert Mueller was an avenging superhero. At almost every key juncture, these voices have been catastrophically wrong about the extreme peril that Donald Trump, the Republican Party, and the larger neofascist movement represent to America's present and future.

There may be a time to celebrate the downfall of Donald Trump after he is prosecuted, tried, convicted and then sent to prison for a very long time and even then, such celebrations will be premature. Donald Trump is an idea, not a man. The dark political possibilities he symbolizes and made real have empowered the Republican Party to fully embrace fascism and white supremacy. Trump's followers will worship him as a political martyr and figurehead, no matter what happens to him. Trump the man is getting older, and is not immortal. But his most important role is not as president, or even potential dictator for life, but as prototype or proof of concept for an even more dangerous authoritarian leader in the near future.

In fact, Trump could become an even more powerful and compelling figure for the neofascist right, both in America and around the world, if he is prosecuted or imprisoned for his crimes. It is far too early to proclaim that the dark sorcerer is dead. He counts on such proclamations as his pathway to resurrection andrevenge.

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about Donald Trump, past and future

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Are the "walls closing in" on Donald Trump? Don't hold your breath - Salon

President Barack Obama delivers a televised statement that Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011. President Donald Trump makes a statement announcing the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2019. President Biden announces on Monday that a U.S. drone strike in Afghanistan killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. Brendan Smialowski/Pool; Alex Wong; Jim Watson/Pool/Getty Images hide caption

President Barack Obama delivers a televised statement that Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011. President Donald Trump makes a statement announcing the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2019. President Biden announces on Monday that a U.S. drone strike in Afghanistan killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The sight of a U.S. president announcing the death of a terrorist leader has been a fixture in American politics over the past 11 years.

The words each president uttered and their mannerisms at the podium reveal a lot about the type of leaders former Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump attempted to be and in the case of President Joe Biden, attempt to be.

This week, Biden announced that the U.S. had killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul over the weekend.

In 2019, Trump revealed that the U.S. killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. And in 2011, Obama shared with the American people that Osama bin Laden, the architect of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the U.S., was killed.

In the days following Biden's announcement, edited videos have popped up online comparing the speeches by Biden, Obama and Trump. Though some of the videos are created to put certain leaders in a bad light, analyzing these three speeches is worthwhile, according to historians and rhetoric experts that spoke to NPR.

Taking a deeper look at each speech, their delivery, even down to the words each used, provides a small window into each man, those experts said.

Though starkly different characters, there are similarities worth noting, said Thomas Schwartz, a professor of history, political science and European studies at Vanderbilt University.

The fact that Obama, Trump and Biden took center stage to announce the execution of another person is "a little bloodthirsty," Schwartz said.

"But they do recognize that there's a domestic political gain from taking out terrorist leaders, and they want to claim it," he added.

Each president in their speech makes special note to say that they directed the military and intelligence officers to act on the intel provided, that they gave the orders, Schwartz said. Each man ultimately wants to assert his leadership on the global stage, he said.

"Underneath it all are presidents trying to justify themselves politically and gain something politically," Schwartz said. "So I think our comparison on that level is probably justified even if, on stylistic things, it also reminds people what they liked and didn't like about various presidents."

President Barack Obama reads his statement to photographers after making a televised statement on the death of Osama bin Laden from the East Room of the White House on May 1, 2011. Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP hide caption

President Barack Obama reads his statement to photographers after making a televised statement on the death of Osama bin Laden from the East Room of the White House on May 1, 2011.

Each expert that spoke to NPR agreed: Obama's speech was iconic. Though Trump and Biden took out major terrorist leaders, the gravity of killing bin Laden is unmatched. To some degree, Trump and Biden attempted to even emulate Obama's bin Laden speech, Schwartz said.

"Bin Laden was, of course, someone who was a household name in a way that the other two men were not," said Margaret O'Mara, a history professor at the University of Washington. "So it was sort of an extraordinary historic moment, and something that in a way looms larger than the other two, because it was bin Laden."

O'Mara noted that Obama took time to acknowledge the emotion for victims of 9/11 nearly a decade after the attacks.

"Obama's speaking almost within a decade of 9/11 so it's much more raw," she said.

Obama, in a measured and somber tone, said in his nine-minute speech: "It was nearly 10 years ago that a bright September day was darkened by the worst attack on the American people in our history."

In this image released by the White House and digitally altered by the source to diffuse the paper in front of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, President Barack Obama and then-Vice President Joe Biden, along with with members of the national security team, receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House on May 1, 2011. Pete Souza/AP hide caption

In this image released by the White House and digitally altered by the source to diffuse the paper in front of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, President Barack Obama and then-Vice President Joe Biden, along with with members of the national security team, receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House on May 1, 2011.

He went on to say: "And yet we know that the worst images are those that were unseen to the world. The empty seat at the dinner table. Children who were forced to grow up without their mother or their father. Parents who would never know the feeling of their child's embrace. Nearly 3,000 citizens taken from us, leaving a gaping hole in our hearts."

Obama also carefully described how the White House came to receive intelligence on bin Laden and a short description of the steps special forces took to kill him.

"There's no question that watching Obama, you got reminded of how deliberative and almost academic his style could be in discussing things," Schwartz noted.

Former President Donald Trump speaks on Oct. 27, 2019 in the Diplomatic Room of the White House, announcing that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State group, is dead after being targeted by a U.S. military raid in Syria. Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP hide caption

Former President Donald Trump speaks on Oct. 27, 2019 in the Diplomatic Room of the White House, announcing that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State group, is dead after being targeted by a U.S. military raid in Syria.

Former President Trump took a far different approach in announcing the execution of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2019.

Taking a moment to analyze Trump's speech in comparison to Obama and Biden provides "a window into a lot of things," O'Mara said.

"In kind of a very blunt way, it's a window into how Trump was such a very different president and not just different from the two men who were on either side of him, but modern presidents generally," she said. "If you dial back and look at presidential oratory of presidents of both parties, it's very different in terms of not only the tone, but what type of information is being relayed."

Trump, known for lengthy rally speeches during his presidency, spoke for far longer than Obama or Biden in this announcement. His initial speech went on for over eight minutes, but he went on to take questions from reporters for another 40 minutes.

And with his usual flair, Trump spoke about the raid in dramatic detail using emotive language to describe both al-Baghdadi and the manner in which he died.

"No personnel were lost in the operation, while a large number of Baghdadi's fighters and companions were killed with him. He died after running into a dead-end tunnel, whimpering and crying and screaming all the way," Trump said.

He went on describing the operation, saying, "The thug who tried so hard to intimidate others spent his last moments in utter fear, in total panic and dread, terrified of the American forces bearing down on him."

This goes back to Trump's background not in politics, but as a businessman and reality TV star, these experts noted.

"One of the things that was very noteworthy about Trump's presidential rhetoric was that he claimed to not want to use it, he said that he didn't want to be presidential," said Jennifer Mercieca, a historian of American political rhetoric and professor at Texas A&M University. "He thought that presidential [style] was boring and lame and he thought that he won the office of the presidency by being dynamic and interesting. And so that's, I think, very clearly reflected."

In comparison, Biden and Obama delivered very somber speeches, she said.

President Biden speaks from the Blue Room Balcony of the White House on Monday as he announces that a U.S. drone strike killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan. Jim Watson/AP hide caption

President Biden speaks from the Blue Room Balcony of the White House on Monday as he announces that a U.S. drone strike killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan.

Biden is known to struggle with blunders and flubs in speeches. He's even sometimes said the opposite of what he means, as noted by a New York Times piece during the 2020 presidential campaign.

For the announcement regarding the killing of al-Zawahiri, Biden (like the two presidents before him) wanted to communicate strength and power, Schwartz said.

Both Obama and Biden showed restraint in the language and description used to explain the killing of al-Zawahiri and bin Laden, Mercieca said.

Both men used the office of the president to sound official and to talk about justice owed to victims of 9/11.

Biden said of al-Zawahiri: "He carved a trail of murder and violence against American citizens, American service members, American diplomats, and American interests. And since the United States delivered justice to bin Laden 11 years ago, Zawahiri has been a leader of al Qaeda the leader."

He added: "Now justice has been delivered, and this terrorist leader is no more."

Presidents do this to "sort of elevate what could be a very crass event, which is that the United States has exacted revenge and murdered someone else," Mercieca said.

"What Donald Trump did was the opposite. He didn't try to elevate it," she said. "Instead, he called the person a 'dog,' he very crudely described how they died, and what it meant."

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Analyzing how 3 U.S. presidents announced the deaths of terrorist leaders - NPR

Musician John Legend told the director of the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, David Axelrod, that his friendship with fellow musician Kanye West could not overcome his support for former President Donald Trump.

"We aren't friends as much as we used to be," the EGOT winner said of West on CNN's The Axe Files podcast, "because we publicly disagreed on his running for office, his supporting Trump"

WATCH: LINDSEY GRAHAM CALLS 'FRAUD' INFLATION REDUCTION ACT A 'LIE'

Evan Vucci/AP

"It became too much for us to sustain our friendship," he added.

He was upset that I didnt support his run for presidency of the United States of America for understandable reasons, Legend said.

"You weren't alone in that," Axelrod chimed in.

"He was not happy about that," explained the singer. As a result, he said they "haven't been close since then."

Of West, Legend said the rapper is "very real," adding that "there's not a lot about him that people don't get," he added.

"What you see with him is pretty much what you get," the singer continued.

Jordan Strauss/Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

Axelrod then asked the star about his past activism during the Iraq War, to which he asserted, "We all knew ... it was bulls***."

"You could tell they were trying to find ... intelligent support for something that clearly they just decided they wanted to do," he said of the Bush administration.

"Clearly, Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, and the case for him having WMDs was ... weak at best," Legend said.

"They were selling us a bill of goods," he explained, adding that he "didn't believe it."

"I was one of those people," he said, who didn't believe it from the beginning.

"I grew up very inspired by civil rights leaders," he further told Axelrod.

Legend also described when he cried after former President Barack Obama, the first black U.S. president, was elected. "The moment that broke me was watching the older black Americans," he said.

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He also detailed using his celebrity power, influence, and resources to create change, revealing that he is currently focused on justice reform and local governments. Notably, Legend recently endorsed several Democratic district attorneys in elections across the country.

Continued here:

John Legend says friendship with Kanye West couldn't survive Donald Trump - Washington Examiner

As a Georgia grand jury investigates Donald Trump for his conduct after losing the 2020 election, the former president's team has turned to one of Atlanta's most respected and influential lawyers.

Dwight Thomas has for more than four decades represented many of the region's highest-profile defendants in fraught, sensitive cases. That he has consulted for the Trump team may be a sign it's taking very seriously the investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, according to former prosecutor Clinton Rucker, who spent more than 25 years working major cases for that office.

"If you hired Dwight Thomas, you are absolutely serious," said Rucker, who is now a municipal court judge. "You absolutely believe that you have some exposure and you want to make sure that you have somebody that is skilled enough to not only examine the issues, but you want somebody who ultimately can go in and fight and win."

A spokesperson for Willis' office confirmed Willis has spoken to Thomas about the case, and that the D.A. would only discuss the case with attorneys involved in it. Yahoo News first reported that Willis and Thomas talked. Thomas declined in an email to discuss his involvement, citing grand jury secrecy regulations. A source with knowledge of Thomas' involvement describes his work as "consulting" about special grand juries and the laws that govern them.

Representatives and attorneys for Trump did not return requests for comment. Trump has denied all allegations of wrongdoing with regards to his conduct following the 2020 election.

The special grand jury has in recent months subpoenaed dozens of Trump allies and supporters. It has also heard testimony from state officials involved in an infamous Jan. 2, 2021 phone call in which the then-president told Georgia election officials, "I just want to find 11,780 votes" the number needed to erase Biden's lead.

Few defense attorneys have as much experience as Thomas with special grand juries, Rucker said. Special grand juries are unique in that they focus on just one investigation and can be impaneled for a longer time than typical grand juries. Willis wrote when requesting the special grand jury in January that it will have "an investigatory focus appropriate to the complexity of the facts and circumstances involved."

Thomas' current and previous clients include a slew of celebrities and politicians. He represented the rapper T.I. in a weapons case, and is currently listed as an attorney for Alfred Megbuluba, a 32-year-old indicted on murder charges for allegedly pushing a woman out of a moving Lamborghini. Another attorney in the case told local media Megbuluba will enter a not guilty plea. Thomas recently defended Jason Lary, a suburban Atlanta-area mayor who pleaded guilty to fraud charges stemming from a scheme to steal more than $900,000 in COVID-19 relief funding.

Closer to home for Trump, Thomas represented Vernon Jones, a then-Democratic local politician, in multiple matters. Jones gained national attention when he endorsed Trump's reelection in 2020. Jones later changed his party affiliation to Republican.

Campaign finance records show Thomas has primarily donated to Democrats, including $2,000 in 2021 to Sen. Raphael Warnock, who is facing a tough reelection campaign against Trump-endorsed challenger Herschel Walker. But Georgia attorney Jason Sheffield said it's not a surprise that Thomas would take on a prominent Republican client.

"He checks any partisan views at the courthouse door. And he is extremely diligent. A prudent, fair, great negotiator. Thorough, but I think above everything else, just an advocate for the fair application of the law," said Sheffield, an adjunct professor at the Emory University School of Law who previously worked in Thomas' office.

Sheffield said he called Thomas for advice recently before taking on a high-profile, controversial client. Travis McMichael was one of three men convicted of murder in the racist killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man who was jogging when he was pursued by the three White men in pickup trucks and gunned down.

"Before taking the case I called Dwight and I said, 'What do you think of this? It's a very concerning case and people are angry about it.' He said, 'If you can't take on this case, you can't take on any case,'" Sheffield said.

Sheffield said the advice fits a mantra of sorts Thomas presses the lawyers he mentors to remember: "If you can't do it for one, then you can't do it for any."

That sentiment was echoed by Michael Holmes, another former associate at his firm.

"He was a mentor to me, a father figure and friend, and a phenomenal attorney," Holmes said.

The 71-year-old Thomas has mentored countless attorneys, Sheffield and Rucker said, and many of his protgs are current or former prosecutors in Fulton County.

"More prosecutors here have learned the practice of criminal law through Dwight's office than I can count," Sheffield said.

Rucker recalls learning from Thomas even while opposing him.

"He will catch you on technicalities in the law, and he'll do it with a smile. And when it's all over, he'll say, 'Hey, let me take you to lunch,'" Rucker said.

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Graham Kates is an investigative reporter covering criminal justice, privacy issues and information security for CBS News Digital. Contact Graham at KatesG@cbsnews.com or grahamkates@protonmail.com

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Influential lawyer's work for Trump in Georgia grand jury investigation means it's "absolutely serious" - CBS News

Donald Trump is a type of fascist terminator. He will not stop. He will not get tired. He is relentless in his pursuit of power and will do anything to get and keep it. And he is here right now.

He is not alone. Many of Trump's followers are willing to engage in acts of terrorism and other violenceat his command. Others in Trump's orbit are using him as a weapon to advance their own agenda of creating a new American apartheid Christian fascist plutocracy. They have no use for Trump personally. Some of them will even acknowledge, in private, that he is very dangerous. But they have convinced themselves that Trump can be deployed to do their bidding. To this point, they have been proven correct.

Ultimately, Donald Trump's first regime was but a preview of the American nightmare he and the Republican-fascists are advancing. If Trump returns to power in 2024 or beyond, matters will be far worse. Donald Trump and his coup confederates must be prosecuted, tried, convicted and given the maximum punishment allowed under the law as a necessary first step in saving American democracy and the country's future from the rising fascist tide.

The House Jan. 6 committee hearings have confirmed that Trump's coup attempt was much closer to succeeding than many among the mainstream American news media and the country's political class wanted to believe. As part of that plot, Trump and his confederates embedded their agents in critical positions throughout the United States government at the highest levels including the national security state. Their role in the coup and subsequent attempts to hide and otherwise conceal and/or destroy evidence is still being revealed. These agents remain loyal to Donald Trump and the Republican-fascist movement. Presumably, they will be used again in any future coup or other attempt to nullify American democracy and the rule of law.

Trump's coup plot was disrupted by members of his administration as well as career civil servants who were more loyal to the Constitution and the rule of law than to his fascist personality cult. If and when Trump takes power again, he will remove such obstacles to his authoritarian rule.

In a critically important recent article at Axios, Jonathan Swan explained how such a plan will be enacted:

FormerPresident Trump'stop allies are preparing to radically reshape the federal government if he is re-elected, purging potentially thousands of civil servants and filling career posts with loyalists to him and his "America First" ideology, people involved in the discussions tell Axios.

The impact could go well beyondtypical conservative targets such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Internal Revenue Service. Trump allies are working on plans that would potentially strip layers at the Justice Department including the FBI, and reaching into national security, intelligence, the State Department and the Pentagon, sources close to the former president say.

Swan continues:

They intend to stack thousands of mid-level staff jobs. Well-funded groups are already developing lists of candidates selected often for their animus against the systemin line with Trump's long-running obsession with draining "the swamp." This includes building extensive databases of people vetted as being committed to Trump and his agenda. The preparations are far more advanced and ambitious than previously reported. What is happening now is an inversion of the slapdash and virtually non-existent infrastructure surrounding Trump ahead of his 2017 presidential transition. These groups are operating on multiple fronts: shaping policies, identifying top lieutenants, curating an alternative labor force of unprecedented scale, and preparing for legal challenges and defenses that might go before Trump-friendly judges, all the way to a 63 Supreme Court.

Donald Trump's former White House advisor Stephen Miller would play a key role in deciding who is "qualified" for the new regime per its loyalty and other ideological litmus tests, "identifying and assembling a list of lawyers who would be ready to fill the key general counsel jobs across government in a second-term Trump administration," Swan writes. "Miller has his eye out for general counsels who will aggressively implement Trump's orders and skeptically interrogate any career government attorney who tells them their plans are unlawful or cannot be done."

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

In a new article at the New York Times, leading sociologist and political scientist Theda Skocpol explained to Thomas Edsall how "Trump, in a second term, would bring in like-minded loyal and lawless authoritarians from the get-go, especially to run Justice, Homeland Security and Defense."

Skocpol also explained that America's political and other governing institutions "would not survive another Trump term, especially because of parallel reinforcing developments in a majority of states and in the federal courts. Discouragement and outright repression and popular threats of violence would push most centrists and liberals into full retreat."

This minority rule, Skocpol notes, would push the nation into"a major new decades-long era of U.S. politics. We may already have done so, given the 6-3 SCOTUS majority devoted to eviscerating federal government power for many Democratic Party agenda priorities"

None of this should be a surprise.

Trump's speech last week and his threats of "law and order" are a prime example of how fascists and other authoritarians expand their power.

Trump has a deep attraction to violence. As such, he admires authoritarian leaders such as Putin, Orbn, Erdogan, Duterte, Mohammed bin Salman and Bolsonaro, and how they de facto have the power to kill at will and engage in acts of wanton cruelty and violence against their "enemies" and others in the name of "law and order," "safety," "security" and "unity."

In a speech last week at the America First Agenda Summit in Washington, D.C., Donald Trump detailed the reign of terror he would unleash if he were to somehow be "reelected" to the presidency. One of Trump's main priorities will be to further dehumanize and brutalize the homeless, drug addicts and other vulnerable and marginalized individuals and communities. Trump is also biting at the bit to use the National Guard as his personal shock troops to impose his and the Republican-fascists' will on "Democrat-led" majority black and brown cities to "stop crime."

During his speech to America First Trump said:

We have blood, death and suffering on a scale once unthinkable because of the Democrat Party's effort to destroy and dismantle law enforcement all throughout America. It has to stop and it has to stop now.If we don't have safety, we don't have freedom, we don't have a country. America first must mean safety first. We have to have safety. Starting with our new majorities in Congress next year and continuing onto the next Republican president, we need an all out effort to defeat violent crime in America and strongly defeat it and be tough and be nasty and be mean, if we have to. Here's what we must feel to restore public safety.

This cannot go on anymore. Every other approach has been considerably tried, and they tried the weak approach, they've been trying it for years... It's not working. It's time to go a different direction. And only one option remains. The next president needs to send the National Guard to the most dangerous neighborhoods in Chicago until safety can be restored....We're living in such a different country for one primary reason: there is no longer respect for the law and there certainly is no order. Our country is now a cesspool of crime.

We have to take back our streets and public spaces from the homeless, the drug addicted, and the dangerously deranged. What's happened to our cities?....

Donald Trump, like other fascist and authoritarian leaders have done in the past (and present), wants to "disappear" the homeless and other "undesirables":

Perhaps some people will not like hearing this, but the only way you're going to remove the hundreds of thousands of people, and maybe throughout our nation millions of people,...is open up large parcels of inexpensive land in the outer reaches of the cities, bring in medical professionalsbuild permanent bathrooms and other facilities, make 'em good, make 'em hard, but build them fast, and build thousands and thousands of high-quality tents, which can be done in one day. One day. You have to move people out.

Trump's speech last week and his threats of "law and order" are a prime example of how fascists and other authoritarians expand their power and control, criminalize dissent, and intimidate and otherwise brutalize any individuals or groups who dare to oppose them in any way.

Writing at Defense One, Kevin Baron offers this warning about Trump's plans and the danger they pose to American democracy and the basic principle that the country's military is not supposed to involve itself in domestic politics:

Donald Trump just said he wants to build concentration camps in America and assume direct control over the National Guard in a way that sounds a lot like theNazi SS force.

So, on Tuesday, in a speech meant for the ears of Republican primary voters, Trump said the next American president should send the National Guard to Chicago. That would require, at minimum, invoking the Insurrection Act, which is supposed to be reserved for natural disaster or civil violence "to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order." But it also would ignore the Illinois governor, the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, and the advice of top National Guard generals who strongly resist federalization. (We'vebeen through this debatebefore.)

And that's how extreme partisan politics could change the U.S. military forever, if Americans want.It's not just control of the House that's on the ballot; it's control of the U.S. military.

The law is not neutral, "blind" or fair in the authoritarian regime that Donald Trump and his Republican-fascist allies and movement want to impose on the American people. The law is instead an extension of the Great Leader's, the ruling party's and other elites' will, whims and desires. For such rulers, the law is but a means for exerting power and control to advance their narrow personal and political interests by snuffing out human freedom.

It is important to understand that Donald Trump's and the Republican-fascists' and larger white right's plans for a new America do not exist in isolation. They are part of a much larger global project that takes inspiration from Vladimir Putin's goal to make Russia into a type of White Christian Empire as well as Hungarian leader Victor Orbn's fake right-wing populism and white supremacist nationalist agenda.

Orbn is a particularly alluring role-model and guide for the American neofascists. In a speech two weekends ago, Orbn boldly and without qualification or hesitance channeled Adolf Hitler saying that: "We [Hungarians] are not a mixed race and we do not want to become a mixed race."

The Guardian offered this additional context, "On Saturday, he made frequent nods to the "great replacement" conspiracy theory, which claims there is a plot to dilute the white populations of the US and European countries through immigration. He said it was "an ideological trick of the internationalist left to say the European population is already mixed race." He named demographics, migration and gender as the main battlefields of the future, on the same day that thousands of people rallied in Budapest for the city's annual Pride march."

As part of his campaign against "diversity" and "multiculturalism," Orbn's government and followers have targeted the LGBTQ community, feminists, immigrants, migrants, Muslims, "leftists" and others deemed to be human pollution in the type of "ethnically pure" and "strong" "white" "Christian" society he is trying to create in Hungary and other parts of Europe.

Leading right-wing opinion leaders such as Fox News personality Tucker Carlson have been mainstreaming Orbn's racial authoritarianism and outright fascist talking points about "white civilization" being "under siege," "imperiled" or somehow at risk of being "replaced" to their public across the right-wing hate media propaganda echo chamber.

The Republican Party and other leading members of the American right-wing have not properly denounced, renounced or otherwise condemned Orbn's hateful and incendiary comments. Instead, Orbn is a featured speaker this week in Dallas.

Donald Trump and the other Republican-fascists are transparent and direct with their plans to end America's pluralistic multiracial democracy. As I have repeatedly warned in my essays here at Salon, the Republican-fascists and larger white right tell you what they are going to do and then they do it. It is foolhardy and dangerous to ascribe some other meaning to their threats and plans or otherwise attempt to impose some more kinder and gentler explanation for their cruelty. Unfortunately, too many Democrats, liberals, progressives and so-called pro-democracy Americans continue out of desperation and unending navet to make that mistake.

In a recent Twitter post, journalist David Atkins echoes this warning: "When Republicans say they will do terrible things, they mean it! It's not just politics. If you give them power, they will do the terrible things. You don't have the luxury of "sending a message" or making grumpy votes about gas prices that presidents don't control."

Donald Trump's ex-wife Ivana died on July 14. They were married for 14 years and maintained a close relationship after the divorce. Donald Trump buried her on July 20 at Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey. Ivana Trump's grave is not "simple" or "modest." It is basically unmarked, and looks like the type of grave that one would find at potters field or some equivalent space where the indigent are interred. In many ways, Ivana Trump's grave is a literal metaphor for Donald Trump and his lack of care and concern for other human beings. Some experts have even speculated that Donald Trump likely buried his ex-wife at his golf resort as a way of receiving a tax break for his property because it could then be deemed to be a "cemetery" under state law. If Donald Trump would treat his ex-wife and mother of his three children with such gross disregard, imagine what he would do to the American people (again) if he were to return to the White House, fueled even more by vengeance and evil, and possessing even more power.

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about Donald Trump's coup attempt:

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Think Trump's first term was a nightmare? Wake up if he wins again, the worst is yet to come - Salon

Hot on the heels of the first Big Lie scotch whisky, which was cheekily dedicated to the demise of British PM Boris Johnson, comes an American version that just might trump the first. This new bourbon comes with intentionally scurrilous details from online whiskey retailer Caskshare, and has its sights set squarely upon our own stable genius ex-President Donald Trump.

Its no secret that the whiskey industry is full of false narratives and alternative facts designed to push product, so its a breath of fresh air when there is complete transparency about the source and background story of a spirit. This Not a Grain of Truth Bourbon is decidedly not that, which is entirely the point here. The details provided by Caskshare are as followsthe source distillerys location is maybe Nambia, the whiskeys age is young and vibrant and the bottle number is number one, of course. Legendary master distiller Donald is the creator of this bourbon, and the bottling was approved Bye Don. The ABV is cask strength of 47.5 percent, and while no specific info has been provided about the angels share for this whiskey it looks like Donald was unable to stop the steal.

The tasting notes provided by Caskshare are vivid and intriguing: On first inspection [the whiskey] has a straw color and theres the whiff of covfefe echoing summer nights by the Mexican border on the nose, followed by the gentle aroma of burgers and fries in the Oval Office. The Devils cut here is tremendous but there are no bad hombres to be found in this bottle.

Clearly, the real Donald Trump wouldnt find this at all amusing, but hes a famous teetotaler so no harm, no foul. Caskshare launched in the UK in 2021, and is set to launch in the US this September. According to a rep for company, they will be working with ten craft distilleries here as well as importing scotch. In the meantime, you can explore the website and peruse exclusive whiskeys from distilleries that will be bottled when properly mature. If youre interested in getting your hands on this yuge, big league bourbon, you can contact Caskshare to let them know youre interested. The whiskey is priced at $80, which is certainly cheaper than buying Greenland.

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A UK Company Is Trolling Donald Trump With a Big Lie Bourbon - Robb Report

In campaign ads and stump speeches, Blake Masters is playing Trumps greatest hits. He complains about wokeness, talks openly about American decline, and demands that the government finish building the wall on the southern border. But unlike Trump, Masters political ambitions reimagine America in the eyes of Silicon Valley and one of its most powerful and controversial investors.

On the heels of Trumps endorsement, Masters is poised to win Tuesdays primary and become the GOPs next Senate nominee in Arizona. But his mentor Peter Thiel casts a long shadow over his candidacy and raises the stakes to something much larger than a single Senate seat. Over the last decade, Masters has studied under Thiel at Stanford, led Thiels powerful investment firm, and co-authored the pairs New York Times bestseller Zero to One, a contrarian guide for Silicon Valley startup founders that denounces higher education and encourages monopolization.

Now, that strain of tech libertarianism has launched Masters into a political alliance with Donald Trump. Speaking at an Arizona Trump rally late last month, Masters praised the prior administration and cursed the current presidents actions on inflation and border security.

Everythings on fire under Joe Biden, Masters warned. Arizona, make me your nominee so we can beat Mark Kelly, put America first, and finish the work that President Trump got started.

Sen. Mark Kelly, a former NASA astronaut, is running unopposed for the Democratic nomination after flipping late GOP Sen. John McCains (AZ) seat blue in a 2020 special election. Leveraging his background in science, Kelly has called for more drastic action to tackle climate change while defending federal entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid, which are popular with Arizonas older population.

In contrast, Masters program is relentlessly focused on privatization, putting anything from social security to Arizonas water resources under corporate control. Its an approach closely tied to Thiels own political pessimism and faith in private interests. As Thiel put it in a 2009 essay, [t]he fate of our world may depend on the effort of a single person who builds or propagates the machinery of freedom that makes the world safe for capitalism.

In laying out his platform, Masters seems to be doing his best to take up that mantle, including its lofty language. At his final pre-primary rally, Masters tweeted an image of himself onstage with the brief caption, Subverting existing paradigms.

The Thiel connection also helped Masters land Trumps official endorsement this past June, which has been the greatest single factor in his success. Thiel famously served on Trumps transition team and has long cultivated the former president as an ally. In the wake of the endorsement, Masters jumped ahead in polls, with his lead growing as high as 15 points, according to FiveThirtyEight on Monday. The numbers have given his campaign enough confidence to rename its Tuesday night election party a victory celebration.

While never denying the 2020 results outright, Masters accused Democrats of cheating. Hes already started to cast doubt on the integrity of the midterm elections, suggesting they wouldnt be fair, according to CNN.

Masters has also courted support from the cryptocurrency world, making early moves to accept Bitcoin donations and auctioning off NFTs to support the campaign. In September, he proposed that the US create a strategic reserve of Bitcoin, which he described as Fort Nakamoto the new Fort Knox. In the months since the proposal, Bitcoin has fallen by more than 40 percent.

Masters own financial holdings back up that enthusiasm, showing extensive holdings in a wide range of cryptocurrencies. In October, Masters disclosed Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Tezos, and Litecoin totaling millions of dollars, according to financial ethics filings. He had also invested in Urbit star, a decentralized finance project launched by the controversial neo-reactionary Curtis Yarvin.

The current value of Masters crypto assets is unclear. His 2022 financial ethics form was originally due May 17th, but he requested an extension making his new deadline August 15th, just weeks after the primary election.

But while his Silicon Valley ties might seem unusual for a GOP candidate, they havent stopped Masters from being embraced by the conservative movements most prominent kingmakers most recently in a primetime interview with Tucker Carlson on Monday night. The conversation focused on bread-and-butter Republican issues like inflation and demented Democratic spending. The Democrats in charge have failed, Masters said. Theyre destroying this country, and then theyll lie about it.

At the end of their conversation, Carlson wished Masters good luck and offered something just short of an endorsement. We are rooting for you, Blake Masters, he said.

Continued here:

Blake Masters is splitting the difference between Donald Trump and Peter Thiel - The Verge

Jared Kushners upcoming memoir, Breaking History: A White House Memoir,is certainly providing a lot of fascinating insight into Donald Trumps time in the Oval Office. The latest excerpt breaks down Kim Kardashians visit to Washington, D.C. in hopes of securing Alice Johnsons release from prison.

Kim first reached out to the family, via Ivanka Trump, in 2017 to draw attention to Johnsons case. The then-63-year-old woman had been in prison for over two decades serving a life sentence for a nonviolent drug offense. Kushner revealed, in an excerpt obtained by People, that the issue was put on his desk to present to Donald Trump. He praised Johnson for the work she had done while behind bars, writing,Shed become an ordained minister, completed multiple vocational certifications, mentored fellow inmates, and maintained a spotless behavioral record.

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Even though Donald Trump was supportive of criminal justice reform, Kushner found himself working hard to convince White House counsel Don McGahn that this was the perfect opportunity to push this issue forward in the administration. Thats when he realized he needed Kims star wattage to seal the deal. It didnt hurt that McGahn was allegedly starstruck by Kims presence, but she also nailed her presentation. She gracefully presentedAlices case to the president, Kushner praised in his book. She knew the details backward and forward.

Click here to read the full article.

Buy: Breaking History $34.50

That might seem like a simple ending to the story, but its how Donald Trump chose to tell Kushner that Johnson should receive the pardon that would make anyone cringe. He wrote,Two days later, [Trump] called me early inthe morning and said, Lets do the pardon. Lets hope Alice doesnt go out and kill anyone!' Um, Johnson was a nonviolent offender, so that comment feels very awkward but Kushner clearly didnt have any problem adding that moment to his book. The presidents son-in-law did his best to redeem his father-in-law by sharing his genuine emotions after Johnson was released. Kushner said in the excerpt, The president called me afterward. Jared, that is one of the most beautiful things I have everseen. Ive been around for a long time, and that was beautiful.' It certainly was a victory for Donald Trumps administration, but the behind-the-scenes moments were not the most graceful.

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Donald Trump Reportedly Made This Ill-Informed Comment After Pardon Meeting With Kim Kardashian - Yahoo Life