Category Archives: Donald Trump

As an academic historian, I never expected to find myself in a videoconference with Donald Trump. But one afternoon last summera day after C-SPAN released a poll of historians who ranked him just above Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson, and James Buchanan, our countrys worst chief executiveshe popped up in a Zoom box and told me and some of my colleagues about the 45th presidency from his point of view. He spoke calmly. Weve had some great people; weve had some people that werent so great. Thats understandable, he told us. Thats true with, I guess, every administration. But overall, we had tremendous, tremendous success.

I am the editor of a scholarly history of Trumps term in the White House, the third book in a series about the most recent presidents. A few days after The New York Times reported on the project, Trumps then-aide Jason Miller contacted me to say that the former president wanted to talk to my co-authors and mesomething that neither George W. Bush nor Barack Obama had done. For someone who claimed indifference about how people in our world viewed him, Trump was spending an inordinate amount of timemore than any other ex-president that we know oftrying to influence the narratives being written about him. My co-authors and I werent the only people he reached out to. According to Axios, Trump conducted conversations with more than 22 authors, primarily journalists, who were working on books chronicling his presidency.

Tim Naftali: The worst president in history

But if anything, our conversation with the former president underscored common criticisms: that he construed the presidency as a forum to prove his dealmaking prowess; that he sought flattery and believed too much of his own spin; that he dismissed substantive criticism as misinformed, politically motivated, ethically compromised, or otherwise cynical. He demonstrated a limited historical worldview: When praising the virtues of press releases over tweetsbecause the former are more elegant and lengthierhe sounded as if he himself had discovered that old form of presidential communication. He showed little interest in exploring, or even acknowledging, some of the contradictions and tensions in his record.

The former president sat at a wooden desk in his Bedminster Golf Club with an American flag beside him. Over the first 30 minutes, with a single sheet of white paper in front of him, Trump reminisced about his underappreciated negotiating talent in handling the economy, the coronavirus pandemic, and the leaders of China, North Korea, and Russia. Nobody was tougher on Russia than me, he maintained. With regard to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Trump recounted how he had compelled other allied nations to pay higher dues after decades when they had not paid their fair share. Many of Trumps anecdotes came back to how he had talkedor intimidatedpowerful actors into doing things that no other president would have been able to. The former president claimed that he had reached a tentative deal with the South Korean government to contribute more to its own defense. (In telling the story, he imitated the accent of South Korean President Moon Jae-In.) The historic deal, Trump alleged, was scuttled once Joe Biden became president, after the 2020 election was rigged and lost.

He seemed to measure American politicians primarily by how they treated him. Even many of those elected officials who criticized him in public sang a different tune, he insisted, when the television cameras were off. Trump vented about governors who continually expressed during private meetings how impressed they were with his COVID policies (I hope you can get the tapes, Trump said) yet proceeded to knock the hell out of me in public: So unfair.

Right as I was about to open the virtual floor for discussion, Trump took a surprising detour, spending several minutes telling a convoluted story about how price overruns and poor design plans had marred the Navys $13 billion supercarrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford. Calling the project the stupidest thing that Ive ever seen, Trump explained how during a presidential visit, he warned that the technologically advanced vessel was a mistake. He recounted how the hardworking crew members who had been servicing ships for years (out of central casting) thought key features of the Navys design, including aspects of the catapult system that assists in launching planes, made no sense to anyone who had experience in aerial military operations. On the USS Gerald R. Ford, you would have to be an Albert Einstein, one crew member had complained, to fix things that once would have been extremely easy to repair.

I glanced at the puzzled faces of my colleagues in their Zoom boxes as Trumps story unfolded. But his point soon became clear. He was taking a jab at the experts. For the historians who were writing a first draft of his presidency, Trump had a message: The best and brightest didnt always know what they were talking aboutunlike hardworking people who lived by common sense, as he did.

Our entire meeting suggested that Trump sometimes does care about expertise, despite his vitriol toward the academy. After all, he was the one who had decided to reach out to a group of professional historians so that we produced an accurate book. As he has done many times before, Trump proudly mentioned his uncle who was a professor at MIT. While talking to us, Trump was working to influence the narratives that were told about himas hed done repeatedly during his time in the Oval Office. Indeed, he had even closed out his term peddling the case that he was not a failed one-term president, like Herbert Hoover or Jimmy Carter, but someone who had victory stolen from him.

Quinta Jurecic: The evolution of Trumps threat to America

When the Yale historian Beverly Gage brought up the presidents relationship with the FBI and the intelligence communitythe subject of her chapter in our bookhe eventually turned to the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021. According to his memory, the expert opinion was off. The real story, Trump argued, has yet to be written. When Congress met to certify the Electoral College results, Trump told us, there had been a peaceful rally, more than a million people who were full of tremendous love and believed the election was rigged and robbed and stolen. He made a very modest and very peaceful speech, a presidential speech. The throng at the Capitol was a massive and tremendous group of people. The day was marred by a small group of left-wing antifa and Black Lives Matter activists who infiltrated them and who were not stopped, because of poor decisions by the U.S. Capitol Police when some bad things happened.

During our hour together, Trump didnt have many questions for us. Even in his attempt to correct the record, Trump mostly didnt acknowledge or engage with informed outside criticisms of his presidency. He did, however, admit to having sometimes retweeted people he shouldnt have, and at one point he said, when I didnt win the electionphrasing at odds with his false claim that the 2020 vote was stolen.

But his goal was to sell a group of historians on his side of the story. Im looking at the list, its a tremendous group of people, and I think rather than being critical Id like to have you hear me out, which is what were doing now, and I appreciate it. In preparation for the meeting, his staff had already supplied us with documents that portrayed him as a conventional president with a moderate record.

He seemed to want the approval of historians, without any understanding of how historians gather evidence or render judgments. Notwithstanding the C-SPAN polls, our goal is not to rank presidents but to analyze and interpret presidencies in longer time horizons. We want to understand the changes that take place to public policy, democratic institutions, norms of governing, and the relationship between White House officials and political movements. Though we are always eager to read oral histories by participantsand hear directly from a former presidentthese sorts of comments play only one small part in works that are checked and cross-examined with other contemporaneous sources. In practice, professional historians gather their evidence by reviewing essential written and oral documents stored in archiveswhich is why so many in my profession shuddered upon learning that boxes of material were initially carted off to the former presidents home at Mar-a-Lago rather than given directly to experts at the National Archives.

Trump could help historians evaluate his presidency by sitting for public questions from people other than Fox News hosts and Conservative Political Action Conference audiences, and preparing a thoughtful, revealing, and honest memoirone that might offer historians insights into his personal and political evolution as well as key decisions made in his time in office.

After answering our questions for half an hour, Trump ended the conversation by thanking us: I hope its going to be a No. 1 best seller! It was certainly an upbeat way to sign off, though I wasnt quite convinced he meant it. A few days after our meeting, Trump announced that he would stop doing interviews with authors, because they had been a total waste of time. He added: These writers are often bad people who write whatever comes to their mind or fits their agenda. It has nothing to do with facts or reality.

The video above is embedded courtesy of Special Collections, Princeton University Library. The full video can be found here.

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What I Learned When Trump Tried to Correct the Record - The Atlantic

As Salon's Kathryn Joyce reported on Friday,Manhattan Institute senior fellow Christopher Rufo, who fashions himself "the new master strategist of the right," is not a man afraid of the spotlight. On the contrary, he's surprisingly candid for a man whose policy ambitions, such as destroying public education as we know it, are deeply unpopular. He loves to brag, on social media and into any microphone you'll put in front of him, of how he cynically concocts baseless moral panics with repeated false claims about everything from "critical race theory" to conspiracy theories about Disney "grooming" children for pedophilia.

But there's one thing that Rufo is surprisingly mum about: Religious faith.

Rufo's agenda is obviously being set by the religious right. He works closely with Hillsdale College, a fundamentalist school that functions as the Christian right's war room. His goals are aligned directly with long-term religious right targets. Searching his Twitter account, however, one swiftly finds that he never talks about his religious beliefs. There's no real mention of God or Jesus or the Bible. When he does speak about Christianity, it's only in the context of pushing conspiracy theories about how white Christians are victims of ethnic oppression by "woke" forces. His conspiracy theories are clearly designed to get Christian conservatives in particular riled up. For instance, he heavily hyped ridiculous claims that children are being taught to pray to Aztec gods in public schools but he carefully avoids getting theological with it.

RELATED:The guy who brought us CRT panic offers a new far-right agenda: Destroy public education

It wasn't always this way with the religious right. During the George W. Bush years, Republicans tended to wear their Bible on their sleeves. The God talk was frequent and explicit. Bush himself spoke of being "born again," and frequently did evangelical events thick with fundamentalist jargon that was impenetrable to outsiders. The public school fights weren't over "critical race theory" and false claims that kids were being taught sex acts in kindergarten. Instead, it was over whether schools should replace science with creationism and replacesex ed with abstinence-only texts that had been written by religious organizations. This public piety from Republicans was more muted during the Barack Obama administration, but only slightly. Throughout those years, the difference between a church service and a Republican fundraiser was often undetectable.

The best way to impose theocracy on Americans is to dress it up as a secular movement.

Then Donald Trump became president. On paper, Trump appeared to be as much of a supplicant to the relentless Jesus talk on the right as every other Republican. He hit up the same evangelical schools for speeches, waved Bibles around in public, and even did photo-ops where a bunch of grifty ministers prayed over him. But, as far as I can tell, almost no one was actually fooled by this. Trump's ignorance of Christianity was absolute. He wasn't even aware that the central tenet of his supposed faith was a focus on penance and forgiveness. He called Christians "fools" and "schmucks" behind their backs. But no matter how often Trump's evangelical base was reminded that he is not one of them, they stuck by his side. They believed, correctly, that he could deliver them the policy outcomes they desired: A rollback of reproductive and LGBTQ rights, the destruction of public education, and an end to the separation of church and state.

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Turns out that Trump is the most powerful religious right leader of all, precisely because he so obviously isn't a believer. He created a "secular" cover that allowed the Christian right to hide in plain sight. Now he's out of office, but the lesson was learned well: The best way to impose theocracy on Americans is to dress it up as a secular movement.

Nowadays, the main public discourse on the right about Christianity is focused on identity, not theology. Fox News pundits like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity talk about Christianity mainly in demographic terms, as part of a larger conception of what it means to be a "real" American. It's less about what you believe, and more about what tribe you belong to. Across the country, Republicans are passing laws that are clearly designed to advance the Christian right agenda, from abortion bans to the "don't say gay" law in Florida. But the Jesus talk has taken a backseat to QAnon-inflected fantasies about pedophilia and litter boxes in schools.

RELATED:Salon investigates: The war on public schools is being fought from Hillsdale College

That the QAnon-style conspiracy theories would work better than lots of public praying seems weird at first blush. But it works for one simple reason: The Christian right has terrible branding.

Church ladies waving crosses around are nobody's idea of a good time. A lot of Americans, even Republican-voting Americans, don't go to church very often, if at all. What Trump understood, and the GOP, in general, has glommed onto, is that people want to have fun or at least create the illusion of being fun people. Packaging misogyny and homophobia as religious faith may give it a moral justification, but it's also a drag. Putting those ideas into the mouth of someone like Joe Roganor Carlson in his current "naughty boy" persona, however, makes it feel transgressive, cool, and exciting.

Trump gave the right permission to stop trying to dress up their ugly views in Christian piety. He pushed calorie-free bigotry. You get the pleasures of being a bully, but you don't have to pay the price of doing boring crap like going to church. Of course, it sells well.

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The confirmation hearing of Amy Coney Barrett is a perfect illustration of this shift. Barrett has a long history of public piety in the Bush mold. It's why Trump chose her so that the religious right would feel absolutely secure that she will be the vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. But during her confirmation hearing, when Democrats tried to make hay over Barrett's lengthy record of super public religiosity, Republicans cried foul, pretending that Barrett's beliefs were an entirely private matter that had no impact on her jurisprudence. This bad faith was aided by the fact that Barrett happily stood by Trump's side in public, apparently indifferent to his long history of adultery and repeated divorce. That willingness to be in the same room with Trump, perversely, only helped bolster her image as a "reasonable" person who had no intention of forcing her fundamentalism on the American public. But, of course, that's exactly what she was hired to do.

Right now, the nation is being swept by a tidal wave of theocratic legislation, and the situation only looks like it's getting worse. So far, however, the public mostly doesn't seem to take much notice. The various abortion bans barely make a ripple in the public discourse and the threats to hard-won LGBTQ rights aren't really raising many alarms either. Part of that is due to Democratic complacency after President Joe Biden's 2020 win, of course. But part of it is that people respond, especially in our short-attention-span era, to aesthetics more than substance. The Christian right has stopped looking like the Christian right and instead embraced the secular-seeming vibe that Trump, because he's godless, embodies effortlessly. It's hard to convince the public that fundamentalists are coming for them when the fundamentalists have gotten so good at pretending to be someone else.

Originally posted here:

Hiding in plain sight: How Donald Trump became the most powerful religious leader on the right - Salon

A look at some of the top headlines trending online today including the latest updates on the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, Donald Trump and coronavirus news and much more.

Russian attack on railway station in eastern Ukraine leaves dozens dead, officials say (Fox News)

Ukraine Calls for More Arms, Girds for Heavier Fighting Against Russia in East (WSJ)

Russian troops discussed killing Ukrainian civilians in radio transmissions intercepted by Germany, source says (CNN)

Zelenskyy says situation in Borodyanka is much worse than in Bucha (CBS)

Food prices soar to record levels on Ukraine war disruptions (AP)

Senate confirms Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court (NPR)

New York Attorney General asks judge to hold Donald Trump in contempt for stonewalling on documents (CNBC)

Criminal investigation into Trump and his company continues as prosecutors review new evidence, NY DA says (CNN)

Trump says Secret Service blocked him from joining Jan. 6 march to the Capitol (Politico)

US likely to see a surge of Covid-19 in the fall, Fauci says (CNN)

New wave of Covid cases hits U.S. officials, rattles Washington (NBC)

Pelosi tests positive for COVID-19 a day after event at White House with Biden (PBS)

Federal appeals court upholds Biden vaccine rule for all federal employees (CBS)

Tiger Woods pleased with 1-under 71 in return at Masters, but knows long way to go at Augusta (ESPN)

Opening Day in MLB: New No. 21 patches, NL DHs and Guardians (AP)

Pink Floyd reunite for Ukraine protest song (BBC)

Ferrero recalls some Kinder chocolates from U.S. over salmonella fears (Reuters)

The rest is here:

Ukraine updates, Donald Trump, coronavirus & more: Whats trending today - cleveland.com

Kid Rock, the man that ain't nobody gonna tell how to live, has predictably gotten a video from former U.S. President Donald Trump to play at his live shows. In the video, Trump says everyone at the Kid Rock show is the "true backbone of our great country" before calling them "hard working, God-fearing, rock and roll patriots."

Rock and Trump recently made headlines when Rock revealed that Trump once asked him for advice on what to do about North Korea. In an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Rock said he and Trump were "looking at maps. I'm like, you know, like, 'Am I supposed to be in on this shit?' Like I make dirty records sometimes. I do. 'What do you think we should do about North Korea?' I'm like, 'What? I don't think I'm qualified to answer this.'"

Rock's politics have hardly been a secret lately either, especially with his latest track "We The People" and its "Let's Go Brandon" chants.

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Of Course KID ROCK Has A Video From DONALD TRUMP To Play At Live Shows - Metal Injection

Former president Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Fla., February 28, 2021.(Joe Skipper / Reuters)

Jonathan Chait is nothing if not a consistent barometer and leading public indicator of which Republican partisan Democrats fear the most. In 2016, it wasnt Trump, which is why he wrote a now-infamous column on the eve of the New Hampshire primary at the very point when both a Trump nomination and a Trump loss to Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio seemed possible entitled Why Liberals Should Support a Trump Republican Nomination. In 2021, he was pushing back against anyone who wanted Republicans to move on from Trump. In recent months, he has been refocusing to attack Ron DeSantis, making the inevitable and much-predicted turn to arguing that DeSantis is worse than Trump. Chait even dedicated the launch of his newsletter to this theme.

His latest profile is full of now-familiar Chait hobbyhorses, but the most unintentionally funny part is the (to him) ominous opening, describing a DeSantis press conference in February, which he illustrates with a photo array:

As DeSantis spoke, he looked like a man who had been mimicking Donald Trumps speeches in front of the mirror. He performed a series of hand thrusts, in which he drew his thumbs together until they were almost touching, then jerked them apart in quick horizontal motions, as if he were playing an invisible accordion. After five such accordion pulls, he swung his right hand, thumb pointing up, in a semi-circular motion back inward to the center. DeSantis tweeted out the clip, and any MAGA fan watching, even without the sound on, would have grasped the gist just through the eerie physical impersonation.

I would submit to the reader that Donald Trump did not actually invent Italian-Americans talking with their hands. A writer forNew York should know that.

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Jonathan Chait Thinks Donald Trump Invented Italians Talking with Their Hands - National Review

The next day, prosecutors say, Mr. Reffitt began to make arrangements to travel to Washington and arrive in time for Armageddon all day on Jan. 6, he wrote in the Three Percenters group chat. He told his compatriots that he planned to drive because flying was impossible with all the battle rattle he planned to bring a reference to his weapons and body armor, prosecutors say.

Some in the group appeared to share his anger. On Dec. 22, one member wrote in the chat, The only way you will be able to do anything in DC is if you get the crowd to drag the traitors out.

Mr. Reffitt responded: I dont think anyone going to DC has any other agenda.

The House committee has also sharpened its focus on how the tweet set off a chain reaction that galvanized Mr. Trumps supporters to begin military-style planning for Jan. 6. As part of the congressional inquiry, investigators are trying to establish whether there was any coordination beyond the post that ties Mr. Trumps inner circle to the militants and whether the groups plotted together.

That tweet could be viewed as a call to action, said Representative Pete Aguilar, Democrat of California and a member of the committee. Its definitely something were asking questions about through our discussions with witnesses. We want to know whether the presidents tweets inflamed and mobilized individuals to take action.

On the day of the post, participants in TheDonald.win, a pro-Trump chat board, began sharing tactics and techniques for attacking the Capitol, the committee noted in a report released on Sunday recommending contempt of Congress charges for Dan Scavino Jr., Mr. Trumps former deputy chief of staff. In one thread on the chat board related to the tweet, the report pointed out, an anonymous poster wrote that Mr. Trump cant exactly openly tell you to revolt. This is the closest hell ever get.

Lawyers for the militants have repeatedly said that the groups were simply acting defensively in preparing for Jan. 6. They had genuine concerns, the lawyers said, that leftist counterprotesters might confront them, as they had at earlier pro-Trump rallies.

Mr. Trumps post came as his efforts to hang onto power were shifting from the courts, where he had little success, to the streets and to challenging the certification process that would play out on Jan. 6.

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New Focus on How a Trump Tweet Incited Far-Right Groups Ahead of Jan. 6 - The New York Times

At noon on January 6, 2021, then-President Donald Trump spoke to supporters at a rally near the White House. Journalists often quote his incendiary language from the speech: Fight like hell; We will not take it anymore. But Trump also laid out a precise plan of action for the crowd:

If Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election. All he has to do, all this is, this is from the No. 1, or certainly one of the top, constitutional lawyers in our country. He has the absolute right to do it

States want to revote. The states got defrauded. They were given false information. They voted on it. Now they want to recertify. They want it back. All Vice President [Mike] Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president and you are the happiest people.

Trump told the crowd how they could force Pence to act on Trumps plan.

After this, were going to walk downand Ill be there with youwere going to walk down, were going to walk down.

Anyone you want, but I think right here, were going to walk down to the Capitol, and were going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and -women, and were probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.

Because youll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated.

Trump promised the crowd that if they did as he urgedif they marched on Congress, if they showed strengththey could force a change of the election result.

David Frum: Dont let anyone normalize January 6

About 45 minutes before Trump delivered this speech, he made his last call for nearly eight hours on the White House phone system. From 11:17 a.m. until almost 7 p.m., Trump made all of his phone calls on a nongovernment phone.

We know the president spoke by phone during that gap. As the crowd came crashing toward the office of the Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy, McCarthy called the president to demand he stop the violence. Trump instead excused it. Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are. Witnesses reported seeing the president on the phone many other times during the day.

As president, Trump often avoided using official lines. He used multiple phones of his own. He borrowed phones from other people.

Trump did not grab phones at random. He thought tactically about which phone to use. When the Stormy Daniels story broke, in 2018, Trump tried to place a call to Melania Trump on one of his own phones. She recognized the number and refused to answer the call. So Trump borrowed a phone from a Secret Service agent whose number would not be recognized. The first lady picked up.

Trumps phone choices were powerfully intentional. What was he intending on January 6? The answer is obvious: concealment. But concealment of what?

Trumps actions that day were not secret. They all happened in full public view. He incited a crowd to attack Congress in order to overturn by violence his election defeat. He refused to act to protect Congress and the Constitution when the attack began, and for a long time afterward. When he finally did act, he did so ineffectively: a tweet at 2:38 p.m. faintly suggesting that the crowd be more peaceful, another at 3:13 saying so more emphatically, and after all that, a tweet at 7:24 again condemning Pence for not indulging the fantasy that his vice president could overturn the election for him.

Trump did not order the National Guard to the Capitol until past 3:30. He did not release a video statement against the violence until past 4 p.m.

From the January/February 2022 issue: Trumps next coup has already begun

Trump encouraged the violence and welcomed it in real time. The whole world saw that.

But the world does not know everything about January 6not yet, anywayand Trumps phone behavior may suggest the answer to the most important remaining questions:

Trumps phone choices sought to conceal the answers to those questions. Why? One of the pivotal moments during the Watergate scandal of 1972 was the revelation that President Richard Nixons secretary had erased 18 and a half crucial minutes of a tape recorded three days after the break-in. The erasure suggested consciousness of guilt by the president, and helped end his presidency.

Trumps 7.5-hour gap likewise suggests consciousness of something. And it sure smells like guilt.

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What Is Trump Hiding About His Phone Records? - The Atlantic

A sea of blue David Perdue campaign signslined the dragway in Commerce on Saturday.

Volunteers handed out signs and stickers promoting the former senator, who is now running for governor of Georgia. And when former President Donald Trump, who headlined the rally as part of his Save America tour,came on stage he gave his glowing support for Perdue.

David Perdue is going to be your next governor, Trump said to a crowd of thousands, hes going to do an incredible job."

But the strength of Trumps endorsement will be tested in May, when Gov. Brian Kemp faces Perdue in the Republican primary on the path to a re-election. While Trump rally-goers remained emphatic over the former president, his endorsed candidates drew mixed responses from attendees.

Rally recap:Election results, critical race theory, trans athletes among topics at Trump rally in Ga.

More: 'They hate me': Marjorie Taylor Greene defends her place on Georgia ballot at Trump rally

Speakers began at 4 p.m. on Saturday but the festivities started that morning as early bird supporters lined up as soon as they could. The event was held at the Banks County Dragway, former home of the NHRA Southern Nationals,and on the surrounding grounds, a tailgate like atmosphere brewed as vendors and merchants set up shop.

Tents and tables cluttered the greenspace with shirts, flags, and political volunteers handing out leaflets. Trump supporters milled around the grounds before doors opened and the Athens Banner-Herald spoke with them about their key issues.

When asked why they were attending, some responded they were there for the whole lineup of politicians. While some attendees had their favorites, many were in support of all of Trumps endorsements.

However, for some, the slate of Trump-backed candidates drew a mixed response.

Each of the speakers on Saturday have Trumps stamp of approval, including Perdue, former Georgia Bulldogs standout Herschel Walker (running for Senate), and Rep. Jody Hice (running for secretary of state). In cases like Perdue, that endorsement has carried some but not overwhelming weight as they face off against members of their own party in May.

While signs for Perdue covered grounds, nowhere to be seen was a display of support for Kemp, who is currently on the outs with Trump over the handling of the 2020 presidential election and its results.

A Trump supporter and Herschel Walker volunteer named Robin Sheppard attended the rally with friends, all of whom said they did not support Perdue in his run for governor.

Sheppard said that Trumps endorsement of Perdue did not matter to her, comparing him to dry toast, and she called herself a free thinker who is not going to support someone just because she is told to.

I was raised to be a leader and not a follower, Sheppard said. I make my determinations based on my research.

Sheppard and other volunteers were not necessarily supportive of incumbent Kemp, either. Instead, they preferred Kandiss Taylor, a candidate for governor who is not currently entangled in the Trump endorsement battle.

Taylor, a Republicanfrom South Georgia and a former educator, toutsher focus on Jesus, Guns, and Babies with platform goals of gun rights, election reform, immigration, education, pro-life legislation and the economy.

A member of Preserve Georgia Rights, who would only give the name Jeff, threw his support behind Taylor due to her educational background. He said he is currently concerned with thetrend Georgias schools are headed in, and felt Taylor was the best choice to address this. He added she would be best to address election integrity over Perdue.

If you dont have a fair election, then what do you have? he said.

But other staunch supporters fell in line with Trumps slate of endorsed candidates.

A Chinese Conservative volunteer group, with members from Fulton County and across Georgia, made their support for Perdue known immediately, saying that Perdue being elected governorwas one of their main priorities. When asked which other candidates on Saturday they supported, they said anyone endorsed by Trump.

We like Perdue as governor because three things: Number one, he was endorsed by Trump and Republicans [have]to be united behind him and he is the only one that who can beat Stacey Abrams, said Shan Davis, a member of the Chinese conservative group.

The Nguyen family, residents of Towns County,also supported Trumps picks. Shannon Nguyen and two of her children attended the rally, with the mother saying that not only does she support the endorsed candidates, but her husband, who was not in attendance, is very much in support of President Trump and anybody that he endorses.

We support all the Trump endorsed candidates, said Nguyen

Trump rallies in the past have drawn tens of thousands of attendees, but the gathering in Commerce was a fraction of that, with top Georgia political reporters estimating 5,000 attendees.

Greg Bluestein, a political reporter with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, tweeted that the rally was smaller than others he had covered, and Stephen Fowler with Georgia Public Broadcasting backed up that statement, adding that it was smaller than even Trump's recent rally in Perry, which Fowler estimated to have hosted 10,000 attendees.

The former president was scheduled to speak at 7 p.m., but attendees waitedmore than an hour before Trump arrived on stage. While waiting, the crowd grew increasingly impatient and chants of Trump or we want Trump intermittently came and went, unsuccessful in their attempts to draw out the former president.

When he did come out to speak in an address that lasted an hour and a half a large portion of the crowd trickled out before his appearance concluded.

Trumps speech attempted to further display the ongoing rift in the Republican party, calling out the RINOs, a shorthand for Republicans in name only, and how his candidates were instead stronger.

We first have to defeat the RINO sellouts and the losers in the primaries, said Trump.

Trump had Perdue return to the stage for an encore as the former president renounced his previous endorsement of current governor Kemp, adding that you cant win them all.

Trump criticized Kemps negotiations of a $5 billion Rivian plant in Morgan and Walton counties, saying that the governor has sold out Georgians. That statement, however, drew a lackluster response from the crowd, which was not quick to cheer on the idea that theelectric vehicle plant from Kemp was a bad move.

The location of the Saturday rally is the future home to an in-the-works Kemp-backed vehicle battery plant, which the governor indicated wasfantastic news for Georgias growing electric vehicle industry.

The crowd, however, did cheer as Perdue touted claims of a rigged election and pushed the blame onto Kemp, with the crowd exclaiming lock him up!

The May primary will be the next test of whether Trump can sway Georgia voters. If his endorsed candidates do win, it will put to the test Trumps theory that his preferredcandidates have what it takes to beat Democrats in the November midterm elections.

Mister future governor I hope, David, youre going to be the governor, Trump said, or I just wasted a hell of a lot of time here tonight.

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Georgia rally-goers still emphatic about Trump, but where do they stand on his picks for 2022? - Online Athens

Donald Trumps ferocious money-raising machine, powered in equal measure by grassroots giving and large individual and corporate donations, has never really stopped turning and it is currently raising huge sums of cash.

As of this month, Trump has $108,046,100 saved in his Save America political fund, more than the Republican and Democratic national committees combined, and 12 times as much as the fund Pac for the Future for the Democratic House speaker, Nancy Pelosi.

And all of that has been raised while Trumps own ambitions remain unclear. Though his grip on the Republican party remains tight and he has waged an endorsement war against his opponents the big question over whether Trump will run again for the White House remains unanswered.

Without any declared candidacy, his war chests purpose and thus also that of its master, is unclear and deliberately so.

Trump cannot easily spend the money on himself should he decide to run in 2024. Save America is registered as a leadership pac, or political action committee, not a campaign tool for himself. Yet Trump is not yet spending much, according to its leadership purpose of supporting Republican candidates going into this years hotly contested midterm elections.

Despite Trumps more than 120 Republican endorsements, and even as Democrats pour money into the effort to retain control of Congress, the massive accumulation of cash under his control raises the question: what is it for?

Trump has not stopped raising money since he left office, either through thousands of small donations raised at Trump rallies or online, or via the big donor money-machine that Democrats cannot match being schmoozed by Trump himself on the golf course and in the dining room at Mar-a-Lago.

Since Trump founded Save America in November 2020, the group has raised $124m the largest war chest ever built by an ex-president but spent only about $14m, or around 11%.

In contrast, the main fund for supporting Senate Republican candidates has spent about 80% of the $135m it raised since the start of 2021, while its main fund for congressional candidates has spent half of the $162m it has raised in the same period.

The question of Trumps pac money is beginning to vex strategists on both sides of the political divide. It could be a fund designed to ensure the loyalty of Republican allies forming a new power base within the party, or he may have other designs namely securing his own path forwards by securing the political future of loyalists.

Its consistent with Trumps political priorities Trump first above everything else and makes him well positioned for a presidential run in 2024, said the Democratic consultant Carly Cooperman.

Its possible he decides to make a big splash in competitive races as we get closer to the midterm elections, but above all, Trumps immense popularity and ability to raise large sums of money makes him even more powerful in the Republican party, Cooperman added.

According to FEC financial disclosures, Save America spent more than $3m on events through February, $2m on consulting services, including to law firms representing witnesses sought by committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot, including the Trump aide Dan Scavino and Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich.

It also spent $300,000 on ads, $200,000 in contributions to Republican congressional candidates, and at least $170,000 at hotels owned by Trump for lodging, meals and the renting of hotel facilities.

Budowich, communications director for both Save America and Trump, told Reuters that the former president was supporting candidates through direct contributions, rallies and joint fundraisers in other words, efforts that bind candidates to the former president.

Save America will not be telegraphing specific tactics or expenditures through the press, Budowich told the news agency. Every dollar raised will go to ensuring President Trumps America first agenda is advanced through his endorsed candidates and causes.

There is a lot of leeway to how the funds are spent, says Michael Beckel of Issue One, a non-partisan group that advocates for campaign finance reform. While he remains an unofficial candidate he can build his brand, draw further attention to himself by hosting large rallies, ostensibly to support other candidates in other states, but every rally has the upside of helping to boost his visibility and brand.

Trump is certainly on the move, holding rallies across the US with the usual aim of endorsing local supportive politicians. In some ways, its a substitute for social media blackout, in another its Trump connecting with his base in the way that has served him in the past.

Earlier this month, he held a rally in South Carolina in support of Russell Fry, a state representative he endorsed to challenge the incumbent Republican congressman Tom Rice.

Fry spoke briefly, before handing the podium back to Trump who continued for 20 minutes. In 2024 we are going to take back that beautiful White House. I wonder who will do that. I wonder, I wonder, Trump teased.

But the consequences from straying from Trumps agenda are also apparent. Last week, the former president withdrew his endorsement of Mo Brooks for going woke after the Alabama Senate candidate expressed doubt that the 2020 presidential election was a fraud.

Mo Brooks of Alabama made a horrible mistake recently when he went woke and stated, referring to the 2020 presidential election scam, Put that behind you, put that behind you, Trump said, as he withdrew his endorsement.

But Trumps enduring influence efforts are not limited to rallies or building his power base. Last Tuesday, Axios reported that Donald Trump Jr is planning to launch a mobile news app after the bumpy launch of Truth Social, a Trump-aligned social media network that encourages an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating against political ideology.

The aggregator site comes with high ambitions to compete with Apple and Googles news aggregators, and to supplant the Drudge Report that has lost traffic and influence since founder Matt Drudge undercut the White House message on Covid deaths at the peak of the pandemic.

A spokesman said that the news site, MxM (short for Minute by Minute), will carry the tag mainstream news without the mainstream bias and would carry news from a variety of publishers across the ideological spectrum.

With about 12 employees, an ideologically copacetic news site could be a useful tool. But it is still Trumps money that is the focus of interest when it comes to his future ambitions.

Under election finance laws, should Trump decide to run in 2024, he would have to start a new campaign fund. His previous pac committee, Donald J Trump for President (since renamed The Make America Great Again Pac) still has more than $6m in it, after raising $13m in 2021.

The life of a political action committee after a candidate leaves office can morph to supporting other candidates, explained Beckel. The bulk of the money Trump has been raising is for Save America, but he also has a conduit vehicle so a donor can write one check and its split between buckets according to political contribution limits.

But how Trump will spend the money remains an open question, Beckel says. He could shape the 2022 midterms or other future elections significantly if he decides to unleash it. One can predict from how other former president or politicians have spent their money, but Donald Trump is not a conventional politician.

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Questions abound as Trump raises and hoards huge sums of 2024 cash - The Guardian

Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee didnt use their marathon question-and-answer session with Judge Ketanji Brown JacksonKetanji Brown JacksonRomney planning 'a much deeper dive' on Jackson after opposing her for appeals court House passes bill to honor Ginsburg and O'Connor with Capitol statues Collins to have follow-up call with Ketanji Brown Jackson MORE to challenge her about two high-profile decisions she issued that went against former President TrumpDonald TrumpTrump issues statement claiming hole-in-one on Florida course Pelosi: 'I fear for our democracy' if Republicans win House Jan. 6 panel votes to advance contempt proceedings for Navarro, Scavino MORE.

Instead, their focus was on other issues, a shift that marks the latest sign that Senate Republicans see Trump as more of a liability than an asset heading into the 2022 midterm elections.

While some Senate Republican candidates are clamoring for Trumps endorsement in this years primaries, Senate GOP incumbents dont want to inject the former president into the national conversation, fearing he could turn off moderate swing voters.

Republican strategist Vin Weber said GOP lawmakers believe theyre in good position to win control of the House and possibly the Senate in 2022 and the White House in 2024 because of President BidenJoe BidenPelosi: 'I fear for our democracy' if Republicans win House Jan. 6 panel votes to advance contempt proceedings for Navarro, Scavino Biden's 'careless remark' on Putin incenses GOP MOREs unpopularity and dont want to blow their chances by turning either election into another referendum on Trump.

Republicans believe there is very little that can screw up a new Republican majority, but there are a couple of possibilities: one is a completely unpredictable external event, the other is Donald Trump, he said. As Republicans assess the risk out there, that is one possible risk factor.

Republicans have a real interest in not elevating the Trump issue, if you will, whether it be advocating for him or defending his actions, he added. Thats a lot of what you saw in the Supreme Court hearing, a desire not to draw attention to Trump.

Jackson, a District of Columbia circuit judge and former D.C. district judge, ruled in cases involving to two sensitive issues related to Trump: allegations of Russian involvement on Trumps behalf in the 2016 election and the former presidents role in provoking the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Some conservative strategists identified Jacksons rulings in Judiciary v. McGahn and Thompson v. Trump as two that deserved scrutiny, especially her opinion in the first, where she declared presidents are not kings, which was later overruled on appeal.

Jackson took a direct shot at Trumps often-stated claims of executive privilege to rebuff attempts by Congress and other investigators to subpoena his associates or key documents.

This Court holds that Executive branch officials are not absolutely immune from compulsory congressional process no matter how many times the Executive branch has asserted as much over the years even if the President expressly directs such officials non-compliance, Jackson wrote in her November 2019 decision rejecting Trumps attempt to prevent former White House counsel Don McGahn from testifying before the House Judiciary Committee.

Conservative activists thought Jacksons rhetorical flourish contrasting presidents and kings went beyond what was warranted and could be interpreted as a sign of an activist political leaning that made her attractive to the liberal dark money groups that pushed her nomination.

Harvard Law School professor Alan DershowitzAlan Morton DershowitzSupreme Court fight shows GOP wants to steer clear of Trump Judging Biden's judicial nominees: Political hypocrisy switches parties Sunday shows preview: US deploys troops, briefs lawmakers amid Russia-Ukraine tensions MORE, who defended Trump in both of his Senate impeachment trials, criticized Jacksons reasoning, writing in The Hill that she does not seem to understand how our constitutional system of checks and balances is supposed to work.

In straying well beyond her role to decide only the cases and controversies before her, Judge Jackson has tilted the balance against the executive branch and in favor of the legislative branch, he argued, claiming her opinion should have been rendered in a five-page opinion instead of a 118-page historical essay.

Jacksons ruling in Judiciary v. McGahn was a potential vulnerability for the nominee because it was later overturned by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled the House Judiciary Committee lacked a sufficient cause of action.

Thomas Griffith, a George W. Bush-appointed judge, wrote in the 2-1 majority opinion that Article I of the Constitution does not create a judicially remediable right to enforce a congressional subpoena against the executive branch.

Weber said the lack of interest in arguing Trumps cause during the Supreme Court confirmation hearing is one of several recent examples that show Trumps influence on the party is slipping.

One big development came last month, when former Vice President Mike PenceMichael (Mike) Richard PenceSupreme Court fight shows GOP wants to steer clear of Trump Pence blames Biden for North Korea missile tests: Trump administration 'stood up to Kim Jong Un' 'Cowboys for Trump' founder found guilty for role in Jan. 6 riot MORE, who had been careful to toe the presidents line during his four years in office, rebuked him for claiming Pence had the power to overturn the results of the presidential election on Jan. 6, 2021.

Pence delivered a more veiled criticism of Trumps praise of Russian President Vladimir PutinVladimir Vladimirovich PutinHouse Oversight launches probe into Credit Suisse ties to Russian oligarchs Biden's 'careless remark' on Putin incenses GOP Leon Panetta: 'All of us share moral outrage about Putin' MORE when he declared this month: There is no room in this party for apologists for Putin.

Another sign of the complicated politics of being allied with Trump was Rep. Mo BrooksMorris (Mo) Jackson BrooksThe Hill's Morning Report - Biden: `No' policy for Russia regime change Supreme Court fight shows GOP wants to steer clear of Trump Brooks's turn on Trump could give the Jan. 6 probe momentum MOREs (R-Ala.) decision to distance himself from the former president by urging him to put the 2020 election in the past. That prompted a furious Trump to accuse Brooks, who is running for Senate, of going woke and rescinding his endorsement.

A recent Gray TV-Alabama Daily poll showed Brooks a distant third in the primary, behind Mike Durant and Katie Britt.

If he understands that Republicans dont benefit by talking about the 2020 election, believe me, everyone else does too, said Weber, alluding to the prominent role Brooks took in calling for the election results to be challenged at the Jan. 6, 2021, joint session of Congress to tally the Electoral College vote.

The D.C. circuits ruling against Trumps effort to block the HouseJan. 6 committee from obtaining records from the National Archives was more successful. The Supreme Court last month rejected a petition by Trump to overturn that decision.

In that case, Jackson joined the majority opinion, which was written by Judge Patricia Millet, an Obama appointee.

The lack of interest among Senate Republicans in rallying to Trumps defense once they had a judge who ruled against him twice in high-profile political cases reflects a broad desire to move on to new issues and bury Trumps old grudges in the past.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnellAddison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellJuan Williams: The GOP shows its true face Supreme Court fight shows GOP wants to steer clear of Trump Oscars hosts take aim at McConnell, Florida's 'Don't Say Gay' bill MORE (R-Ky.) and Minority Whip John ThuneJohn Randolph ThuneSupreme Court fight shows GOP wants to steer clear of Trump Rand Paul standoff throws Russia bills into limbo Why does Congress want China to win? MORE (R-S.D.) have repeatedly urged their colleagues to focus on fighting Bidens agenda instead of relitigating Trumps claims about election fraud in 2020.

Sen. Thom TillisThomas (Thom) Roland TillisSupreme Court fight shows GOP wants to steer clear of Trump Jackson faces growing GOP opposition on Supreme Court GOP shoots down Supreme Court boycott MORE (R-N.C.) said he didnt plan to ask Jackson about the McGahn decision because he covered that with the nominee when she appeared before the committee last year as part of her confirmation to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Brian Darling, a GOP strategist and former Senate aide, said Jacksons rulings against Trump didnt really show her to be a nominee outside of the mainstream and that other elements of her record are more telling.

Those cases didnt really help the cause of defeating the nominee. I just dont think that those cases spoke enough to the idea that [Jackson]is out of the mainstream, he said.

He noted that rising conservative stars on the committee, Sens. Ted CruzRafael (Ted) Edward CruzSupreme Court fight shows GOP wants to steer clear of Trump What Ukraine shows us about American politics Military academies prepare to welcome parent-cadets for first time MORE (R-Texas), Josh HawleyJoshua (Josh) David HawleySupreme Court fight shows GOP wants to steer clear of Trump Tears of Justice The Memo: Democrats hope GOP overplayed hand in Jackson hearings MORE (R-Mo.) and Tom CottonTom Bryant CottonSupreme Court fight shows GOP wants to steer clear of Trump Four GOP senators who should go back to law school Biden is handing the midterms to the GOP MORE (R-Ark.), appeared to be more interested in their own presidential ambitions than fighting Trumps old battles.

Theres no doubt that when you look at Cotton, Hawley, Cruz, theyre all engaging in ... getting 2024 teed up if Trump doesnt run, he said.

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Supreme Court fight shows GOP wants to steer clear of Trump | TheHill - The Hill