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Donald J. Trump After the White House - Page 4
Opinion by Sabrina Haake

Project 2025, Donald Trump’s authoritarian playbook on Christian nationalism, is already in motion. While the media debates Trump’s disingenuous disavowals of the masterplan, the real story is the extent to which the Supreme Court has already begun implementing it.

Project 2025 seeks to degrade civil rights nationwide by outlawing abortion, mandating Christianity and reducing LGBT+ citizens to second class status.

But these culture war flashpoints are merely a ruse, a distraction for the media to consume while its backers disguise their real objective. Project 2025 is a massive undertaking financed by fossil fuel wealth to protect fossil fuels, abetted by Supreme Court justices with ties to Big Oil.

The Supreme Court's immunity decision is facing its first test. The ruling granted Trump broad immunity in his federal coup case against Jack Smith for “official acts.” Judge Tanya Chutkan will now decide which allegations are immune from prosecution. MSNBC’s Katie Phang is joined by Politco’s Ankush Khardori and The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell.
Maya Boddie

Many Democrats, political and legal experts have warned that a second Donald Trump presidency would likely mean the end of American democracy, based on his proposed policies like mass deportation through force of the National Guard, and using the Department of Justice to target his political enemies.

In a Sunday, August 4 report published by Politico, reporter Gavin Bade highlights another aspect of a second presidency that would also be a danger to democracy — former top Trump trade official, Robert Lighthizer.

Foreign Policy columnist Edward Alden, in May, wrote an article about Lighthizer, titled, "The Man Who Would Help Trump Upend the Global Economy, asserting: "As President Donald Trump’s trade representative, he turned the United States away from six decades of support for a rules-based, multilateral trading system and toward a robustly nationalist approach."
Story by Peter Wade

Donald Trump boasted about MAGA supporters taking over Georgia's State Election Board, part of his team's efforts to corrupt future elections.

"I don't know if you've heard but the Georgia State Election Board is in a very positive way… They're on fire, they're doing a great job," Trump said Saturday night at a rally in Atlanta.

The former president went on to name the three MAGA Republicans currently on the five-person board - Dr. Janis Johnson, Rick Jeffares and Janelle King - calling them "pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency and victory."

According to the State Election Board's website, their charge is not fighting for "victory" for Trump. The board is "entrusted with a variety of responsibilities and authority to protect all Georgians' right to cast a ballot."
At the rally, Trump also pushed his big lie of election fraud, claiming, "I won this state twice in my opinion."

As Rolling Stone previously reported, Team Trump is behind efforts to undermine voter integrity in Georgia. His allies have been working in the state to purge voter roles and put into place policies that make it easier to challenge election results. A source close to Trump told Rolling Stone that "Georgia is our laboratory."
Story by Ben Blanchet

Former President Donald Trump praised Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday just days after the massive prisoner exchange between the U.S., Russia and other Western nations.

“By the way, I would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin for having made yet another great deal. Did you see the deal we made?” said the Republican nominee at a campaign rally in Atlanta.

The historic prisoner swap —the largest such exchange involving the U.S. and Russia since the Cold War — saw 16 people including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich being released from Russian custody.

It’s been described as a massivewin for President Joe Biden’s administration in the days since.

Trump, who hasshowed love to Putin before and once claimed the Russian leader wouldn’t release Gershkovich “for anyone else” but him, didn’t mention any Americans who returned home as part of the deal at his Atlanta rally.

Project 2025 dedicates six chapters to "The Common Defense," proposing sweeping changes for the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, and the intelligence community. Its goal is to remove any obstacles to Trump’s authority and entrench right-wing culture wars into governance. The proposals include purging military leaders who don't align with Trump’s policies, eliminating what it terms "divisive critical race theory programs," expelling trans individuals from military service, and requiring military aptitude tests for public school students. Project 2025 advocates “a purge of anyone who might disagree with a second Trump administration,” warns top national security lawyer Mark Zaid.
Story by Nandika Chatterjee

In January 2017, a bank manager at the National Bank of Egypt in Cairo received a letter from an organization linked to the Egyptian intelligence service asking them “kindly withdraw” about $10 million in cash from the organization’s account. That took place just five days before Donald Trump became president, The Washington Post reported in an exclusive on Friday, revealing that federal investigators believed the withdrawn cash may have been intended as a bribe for the Republican.

According to bank records, the state-run branch emptied a considerable share of Egypt’s reserve of U.S. currency by filling two large bags with bundles of $100 bills weighing a combined 200 pounds. Later four men arrived to carry away the bags.
Carl Gibson

On Friday, former President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) gave a joint press conference at Mar-a-Lago to introduce an initiative aimed at preventing non-citizens from voting. But one Fox News host slammed that policy proposal as a red herring.

Johnson joined Trump for the press conference in the wake of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) threatening to bring a motion to vacate to the floor of the House of Representatives in protest of Johnson's bipartisan efforts to keep the federal government open. Trump made it clear that Johnson had his support, despite Greene saying on Friday that the speaker was "full of sh--" during an interview with former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.

During the press conference, with Trump scowling behind him, Johnson promised to introduce legislation "to require that every single person who registers to vote in a federal election must prove that they're an American citizen first."

Of course, as Punchbowl News' John Bresnahan tweeted, US residents who lack citizenship "can’t vote in federal elections [and] haven’t been able to do so for decades." During a Friday segment on Fox News' The Five, panelist Richard Fowler echoed that sentiment, casting doubt on the need for a new law on the books to ban non-citizens from voting.

"This press conference was billed as an 'election integrity' press conference," Fowler said. "In 1996 congress passed the illegal immigration reform and immigration responsibility act. That act makes it explicitly illegal for noncitizens to vote."
Story by Nick Visser

Former President Donald Trump attempted to explain what he meant when he told a crowd of Christians last Friday that, as far as voting goes, they wouldn’t “have to do it anymore” if he wins in November.

Trump spoke to Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Monday amid criticism about his remarks, which Democrats say is further evidence that he would attempt to stay in office beyond a second term. Opponents have pointed to other remarks in which he pledged to only be a dictator on “day one” of a new term and vowed to retaliate against his critics if he returns to the White House.

Ingraham afforded Trump multiple attempts to reject Democrats’ claims that he was telling supporters they wouldn’t need to vote again in the future, but Trump reiterated that Christians wouldn’t have to vote for him multiple times.
“This was a crowd that liked me a lot ... and they’re treated very badly by this administration, OK?” Trump said of his speech Friday at the faith-focused event in Florida.

“That statement is very simple,” he added. “I said, vote for me; you’re not going to have to do it ever again. It’s true.”

“This time vote, I’ll straighten out the country, you won’t have to vote anymore, I won’t need your vote.”
Opinion by Zack Beauchamp

Donald Trump went on national TV last week and proposed bombing Mexico.

Asked by Fox News’s Jesse Watters if he’d consider strikes against drug cartels operating in the country, Trump said yes — and framed his answer as a threat against the Mexican government. “Mexico’s gonna have to straighten it out really fast, or the answer is absolutely,” the former president said.

This is not a one-off answer to a stray question. Trump suggested firing missiles at Mexico during his presidency, asked advisers for a “battle plan” against the cartels last year, and recently proposed sending special operators to assassinate drug kingpins. The idea of war in Mexico is popular among the Republican elite; a Trump-aligned think tank even drew up a broad-strokes plan for how such a war might work.
There is every reason to take Trump’s proposal seriously. Presidents tend to at least try to deliver on campaign promises, and they have nearly unlimited war-making power nowadays. As unthinkable as it may sound, there is a reasonable chance the United States will be at war on its southern border in the coming years if Donald Trump returns to office.

So how come nobody is talking about it?

The Fox interview has barely gotten any pickup in other media. The prior years of Trump musings about war with Mexico have been mostly ignored. A major party candidate is proposing the first North American war in over a century and, somehow, it’s not even on the radar in Washington.
Story by Gustaf Kilander

Former President Donald Trump is facing outrage after appearing to suggest that he would end elections in the US if he’s re-elected while speaking to a Christian audience.

Towards the end of his speech at the Believers Summit in West Palm Beach, Florida on Friday, Trump said, “Christians, get out and vote, just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore … You got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good you’re not going to have to vote.”

Many Democrats interpreted the comments as Trump being prepared to put an end to American democracy.

California Representative Adam Schiff, a Senate candidate in the fall, shared a clip on X of Trump’s comments: “This year democracy is on the ballot, and if we are to save it, we must vote against authoritarianism. Here Trump helpfully reminds us that the alternative is never having the chance to vote again.”
“This. Is. Terrifying. We cannot let this be the case,” Washington Representative and the chair of the progressive caucus Pramila Jayapal said on the platform.

“The only way ‘you won’t have to vote anymore’ is if Donald Trump becomes a dictator,” New York Representative Dan Goldman said.
Story by Gabe Whisnant

Two Republicans were confronted on Sunday morning news programs about former President Donald Trump's remarks in which he told people at a summit that they "won't have to vote" in four years.

The former president made the remarks at Turning Point Action's Believers' Summit on Friday in West Palm Beach, Florida. The 2024 Republican presidential nominee's speech played into the conservative summit's themes, which are tailored to "unite Christians across America," according to the event's website.

During his speech, Trump said that Democrats have "only one reason" why they do not support legislation to enact voter registration reform: "Because they want to cheat."

"Republicans must win," he said Friday. "We have to win this election, [the] most important election ever. We want a landslide that's too big to rig."
Trump added: "Christians, get out and vote just this time. You won't have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what? It will be fixed. It will be fine. You won't have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians."

In a response to Newsweek on Sunday afternoon, Trump's spokesperson Steven Cheung said via email, "President Trump was talking about the importance of faith, uniting this country and bringing prosperity to every American, as opposed to the divisive political environment that has sowed so much division and even resulted in an assassination attempt."

Former President Donald Trump spoke at Turning Point Action's The Believers’ Summit in West Palm Beach, Fla., urging people to vote "just this time."
By Reuters

WASHINGTON, July 16 (Reuters) - The United States received intelligence in recent weeks about an Iranian plot to assassinate former President Donald Trump, CNN said on Tuesday, and a U.S. official said the Secret Service shared details of an increased threat with the Trump campaign.

The White House declined to comment, but said there were no indications that the suspected shooter in Saturday's attempted assassination of Trump had any foreign or domestic accomplices.

Iran said the accusations against it were "unsubstantiated and malicious." U.S. officials have for years worried that Tehran would retaliate against Trump for his ordering of the January 2020 killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani.

“As we have said many times, we have been tracking Iranian threats against former Trump administration officials for years, dating back to the last administration," said Adrienne Watson, spokesperson for the White House National Security Council.
“Then you see the baby all of a sudden starting to change radically,” Trump told RFK Jr. on the phone
By NANDIKA CHATTERJEE

A video leaked on X shows a phone conversation between Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Donald Trump in which the GOP nominee expressed his shared concerns regarding vaccines.

RFK Jr.’s son posted and later deleted the video in which Trump appears to repeat his old claims that childhood vaccines can be dangerous to babies, a belief that, in addition to being false, falls directly in line with RFK Jr.’s conspiracy theory that such vaccines can lead to autism, Axios reported.

Trump told Kennedy that he would “love” for him to “do something" with his campaign because “it would be so good for you and so big for you."

"Something's wrong with that whole system. And it's the doctors, you find," Trump told Kennedy regarding the vaccines.
Some Republican judges are protecting Trump from the crimes he commits against America.

Boxes of classified documents were found at Trump's Mar-a-Lago home.
By Katherine Faulders

The classified documents case against former President Donald Trump has been dismissed by Judge Aileen Cannon.

The judge ruled that special counsel Jack Smith's appointment was unconstitutional.

"The Superseding Indictment is DISMISSED because Special Counsel Smith's appointment violates the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution," she wrote.
The president was taken to the hospital and is "fine," a spokesperson said.
ByIvan Pereira

Donald Trump was rushed off stage during an election rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday after a possible assassination attempt on the former president.

Secret Service agents swarmed Trump and ducked behind the podium. Blood could be seen on his right ear of Trump as agents surrounded him and led him off the stage to a waiting vehicle to whisk him away.

Trump is "fine," a spokesperson said. The alleged shooter is dead, as well as at least one bystander, according to Butler County District Attorney Richard A. Goldinger.
CBS News

President Biden targeted the expansive far-right policy agenda known as Project 2025 in a rousing campaign stop in Detroit on Friday night as he sought to quell calls that he withdraw from the presidential election.

The president lambasted the multi-pronged initiative that was crafted by conservative think tanks, claiming it is "run and paid by Trump people, his top policy people."

"You heard about it? It's a blueprint for a second Trump term that every American should read and understand," Mr. Biden told more than 2,000 people at Renaissance High School.

Former President Donald Trump, who is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, and his campaign have worked to distance themselves from Project 2025. Trump has gone as far as to call some of the proposals "abysmal."

"I know nothing about Project 2025. I have not seen it, have no idea who is in charge of it, and, unlike our very well received Republican Platform, had nothing to do with it," he wrote on social media on Thursday. "The Radical Left Democrats are having a field day, however, trying to hook me into whatever policies are stated or said."
Carl Gibson

One of the most ominous pieces of former President Donald Trump's agenda in a potential second term is a massive playbook dubbed "Project 2025." And one leading scholar of far-right regimes around the world says Trump's recent attempts to distance himself from it is a telltale sign of his authoritarian cult-of-personality leadership style.

Last week, Kevin Roberts — president of the far-right Heritage Foundation, which is the key organization behind Project 2025 — hinted at political violence against anyone who may dissent against a second Trump administration. During a radio interview, Roberts proclaimed that the United States was in the midst of a "second American Revolution" that he promised would be "bloodless, if the left allows it to be."

Later, on his Truth Social platform, Trump posted that he had "nothing to do with" Project 2025 and had "no idea who is behind it," even though he "wish[ed] them luck."

"I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal," Trump wrote, though he did not elaborate on which parts of Project 2025 he found "ridiculous and abysmal."
Carl Gibson

A leading expert on far-right, oppressive governments around the world is warning that former President Donald Trump would usher in fascism in the United States if he wins a second term this fall.

In a detailed interview with Guardian reporter Alice Herman, scholar and author Ruth Ben-Ghiat — a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University whose work focuses on fascism — said November's election represents a "democratic emergency" with Trump as the GOP's presumptive nominee. She said his openly stated plans to be a "dictator" on "day one" combined with the Supreme Court's recent ruling guaranteeing presidents absolute criminal immunity for "official acts" is a recipe for authoritarianism.

"At its most basic, authoritarianism is when the executive branch of government domesticates or overwhelms or politicizes the judiciary, critiques and tries to silence the press, and when the leader has a party that he’s made into his personal tool, and in general, seeks to remove or neutralize any threats to his power," Ben-Ghiat said. "Authoritarianism is about replacing the rule of law with rule by the lawless."
Thom Hartmann

They’re already explicitly gunning for journalists like me who write for Raw Story (which, along with The New Republic, Daily Kos, Alternet, Common Dreams and others, regularly publish my articles), CNN, The Washington Post, and Reuters, according to an astonishing new investigative report published yesterday at Raw Story.

Trump’s self-described “Secretary of Retribution,” Ivan Raiklin, already reportedly has a hit list of 350 “deep state” individuals he says they intend to try to assassinate by tricking police into attacking their homes with SWAT teams.

Raiklin posted a video to X, which has now gotten more than 10 million views, saying:
By Steve Contorno, CNN

CNN — Donald Trump has lately made clear he wants little to do with Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for the next Republican president that has attracted considerable blowback in his race for the White House.

“I have no idea who is behind it,” the former president recently claimed on social media.

Many people Trump knows quite well are behind it.

Six of his former Cabinet secretaries helped write or collaborated on the 900-page playbook for a second Trump term published by the Heritage Foundation. Four individuals Trump nominated as ambassadors were also involved, along with several enforcers of his controversial immigration crackdown. And about 20 pages are credited to his first deputy chief of staff.

In fact, at least 140 people who worked in the Trump administration had a hand in Project 2025, a CNN review found, including more than half of the people listed as authors, editors and contributors to “Mandate for Leadership,” the project’s extensive manifesto for overhauling the executive branch.

Dozens more who staffed Trump’s government hold positions with conservative groups advising Project 2025, including his former chief of staff Mark Meadows and longtime adviser Stephen Miller. These groups also include several lawyers deeply involved in Trump’s attempts to remain in power, such as his impeachment attorney Jay Sekulow and two of the legal architects of his failed bid to overturn the 2020 presidential election, Cleta Mitchell and John Eastman.

To quantify the scope of the involvement from Trump’s orbit, CNN reviewed online biographies, LinkedIn profiles and news clippings for more than 1,000 people listed on published directories for the 110 organizations on Project 2025’s advisory board, as well as the 200-plus names credited with working on “Mandate for Leadership.”
Alayna Treene Kate Sullivan
By Alayna Treene, Steve Contorno and Kate Sullivan, CNN

CNN — Former President Donald Trump on Friday sought to distance himself from a closely aligned conservative group’s plans to radically reshape the federal government and American life should the former president win a second term.

In a post to his social media site, Trump claimed, “I know nothing about Project 2025,” the name given to a playbook crafted by the Heritage Foundation to fill the executive branch with thousands of Trump loyalists and reorient its many agencies’ missions around conservative ideals.

“I have no idea who is behind it,” Trump continued on Truth Social. “I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”

The post comes days after the president of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, drew widespread backlash from Democrats for saying in an interview that the country was “in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

Project 2025 — widely viewed by conservatives as a blueprint for Trump’s second term transition — is run by several former Trump administration officials and includes many policy priorities that are aligned with those of the former president, especially as they relate to cracking down on immigration and purging the federal bureaucracy by making it easier to dismiss civil servants and career officials.
Story by Amanda Marcotte

Steve Bannon has been in prison just over a week, and already one can see the strain on MAGA world, lost without their boss man to tell them what to think. Bannon's absence from the scene may be the single best explanation for why some of the loudest trolls on the right are now griping at Donald Trump for pretending he isn't tightly entwined with the notorious Project 2025. Talia Jane at the New Republic reports that Infowars host Alex Jones is leading the charge to castigate Trump, not for his 34 felony convictions, but for temporarily pretending to be moderate in order to win the presidential election.

“Trump gets told by his advisers and people who really just don’t want competition in his new White House," Jones complained on Monday's show. "Oh God, these are radicals, sir. You’ve got to come out and distance yourself."

Jones and his audience appear to understand that Trump was flat-out lying when he posted on Friday, "I know nothing about Project 2025." It's not just that a sea of reporters immediately established the intricate web of interactions between Trump and his former and likely future staffers who are running Project 2025, or that the organizers of Project 2025 have been upfront that theirs is the playbook for how a second Trump term will look. It's also that Trump lies about everything, to the point where his claim he knows "nothing" about Project 2025 may as well have been an admission that it is, as it seems to be, the true Republican Party platform.
Story by Ewan Palmer

Donald Trump's claims he has "nothing" to do with the conservative Project 2025 received further scrutiny after the think tank behind the policy plan was revealed to be hosting two events at the Republican National Convention.

The Heritage Foundation, which wrote the 900-page guideline on how the next conservative administration could overhaul the government and have federal workers replaced with Republican loyalists, has been signed on as a sponsor at the RNC in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, later this month, reported the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The Heritage Foundation is set to hold a day-long "policy fest" in Milwaukee on July 15, the first day of the convention where Trump will be confirmed as the GOP's 2024 presidential nominee. On July 17, The Heritage Foundation is listed as hosting a social event at Uncle Buck's, per the RNC's calendar. Newsweek has contacted Heritage Foundation for comment via email.
They talk about Biden but what about Trump?

Try to make any sense of what Donald Trump said.

Donald Trump gave a particularly incoherent speech during a recent rally, as he rattled through a lengthy list of odd grievances that didn’t quite ring true, devoid of some very necessary segues.

In front of a crowd of about 700 people (although Trump claimed it was 45,000) in Doral, Florida, on Tuesday, the former president hit all of the normal beats of his campaign trail speeches, and then some.

Trump attacked President Joe Biden for his weak performance in the presidential debate last month, and for many of his policies. He dropped Kamala Harris’s name more than a few times, arguing that it doesn’t matter who the Democrats’ candidate is, he will beat anyone in a “thundering landslide.”
A report from Republican Representative Jim Jordan has revealed transcripts of a former acting CIA Director saying he was "deeply concerned" by former President Donald Trump.
Fox News, Sinclair Broadcast Group and other Right wing news will not cover Trump’s memory issues


Author Ramin Setoodeh joins Morning Joe to discuss the new book 'Apprentice in Wonderland: How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett Took America Through the Looking Glass'.
Story by Ben Blanchet

CEOs seemingly weren’t too pleased with former President Donald Trump’s performance during their private meeting with him in Washington this week, according to a report by CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin on Friday.

The presumptive GOP presidential nominee addressed top business leaders and spoke of his hopes to further cut the corporate tax rate in a meeting that featured Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, Apple CEO Tim Cook and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.

A number of CEOs walked into the meeting being “Trump supporter-ish” or leaning toward backing him in November before walking out and finding him to be “remarkably meandering,” according to Sorkin, who recalled speaking with business leaders who attended the meeting on Thursday.

″[He] could not keep a straight thought, was all over the map and, it was maybe not surprising, but was interesting to me ’cause these were people who I think might’ve been actually predisposed to him and actually walked out of the room less predisposed to him, actually,” said Sorkin on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

One CEO told CNBC that the former president didn’t outline how he hopes to achieve his policy proposals while at least two people in the meeting described Trump’s energy as being subdued.
Story by Darragh Roche

Former President Donald Trump's idea of imposing tariffs in order to abolish income tax could raise taxes for a typical American family by $5,000, according to an economist from the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Brendan Duke made the claim in posts on X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday following reports that Trump had raised the idea of using tariffs to replace income tax revenues. Duke served as senior policy adviser at the White House National Economic Council and a volunteer on the Biden-Harris transition team.

The former president reportedly floated introducing an "all-tariff policy" that would allow the federal government to eliminate income tax during a private meeting with Republican lawmakers at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.

Trump has long advocated using tariffs as a foreign policy tool, but several economists were quick to question the viability of replacing income tax with an all-tariff approach.

Is Donald Trump OK? During an interview with Sean Hannity, which aired on Wednesday, June 5, the ex-president, 77, sparked health concerns.

"Trump gets lost and confused during his interview. Trump: 'I say a lot of things.' Hannity: 'Stay focused for just a second,'" one person captioned the clip on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Analysis by Zachary B. Wolf, CNN

CNN - The way American campaigns are financed can be impenetrable even to people who pay close attention to politics.

Campaigns can only get so much money directly from donors. More money flows to organizations that can’t technically coordinate with campaigns but sure seem to come close. Separate organizations can also try to influence elections by pushing for issues, but they sure seem to try to benefit candidates.

Add into that complicated mess the fact that former President Donald Trump has been paying his copious legal bills through the campaign finance system.

To better understand what we know about how and by whom campaigns are being funded in 2024, I went to Fredreka Schouten, who covers this complicated issue for CNN. Our conversation, conducted by email, is below.
Gazette sought records for what visits by Trump and Biden potentially cost taxpayers
By: Abraham Kenmore

Hosting a president — or a former president — gets pricey, as cities and colleges across South Carolina can attest, and one public university is still waiting for the Trump campaign to settle up, according to public records provided this week to the SC Daily Gazette.

Both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump visited South Carolina to rally support ahead of the Democratic Party’s first recognized presidential primary in 2024 and the first-in-the-South Republican primary.

The Gazette sought public records for what both campaigns potentially cost taxpayers. Between the two candidates, only the Biden campaign provided no reimbursements for a visit in the weeks before the party primaries.

Records provided by Winthrop University for Trump’s Feb. 23 rally there the night before he won South Carolina’s GOP primary show his campaign was charged $57,300 for that event, and it was paid in full by March 4.
Story by Josh Meyer, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON − Before Donald Trump was the first former president and presumptive major party nominee to be convicted of a crime, he argued that a candidate who faced possible indictment shouldn’t be allowed to run for president.

The year was 2016 and Trump, then the Republican nominee, was trying to capitalize on a Department of Justice investigation of his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. If Clinton were charged criminally and became president, he warned, it would “create an unprecedented constitutional crisis" and "grind government to a halt."

“Folks, folks, folks, she shouldn't be allowed to run. Okay?” Trump told one raucous crowd of rallygoers at a Nov. 5, 2016 speech in Reno, Nevada, pausing for emphasis on each word. He made similar comments at other rallies, including the day before in Concord, N.C.

Trump is now campaigning for president after losing one criminal case and still facing three others. A Manhattan jury unanimously convicted Trump last Thursday of 34 counts of falsifying business records by disguising as legal expenses reimbursements to his lawyer Michael Cohen for a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.

But Trump has shown no signs of dropping out, issuing defiant statements and bragging that his fundraising spiked in the wake of his conviction.
Convicted felon and former president Donald Trump lied about using the phrase, "Lock her up."

The chant rattled into the public consciousness in 2016 during the Republican National Convention, where it was largely aimed at then-nominee Hillary Clinton over her private server emails (she has been cleared by the State Department and twice by the FBI).

Initially, Trump said that he "didn't like the phrase" and tried to distance himself from it. However, on Jul. 29, 2016 (mere days later), he said, “I’ve been saying let’s just beat her on November 8th. But you know what, I’m starting to agree with you."

Of course, the phrase is coming back into the minds of some after Trump was found guilty last week of 34 felony charges of falsifying business documents. It is possible that Trump will go to prison, though, as the first former president to have a felony conviction, this is an unprecedented moment.
Story by Kelby Vera

Donald Trump says he never called for Hillary Clinton to be arrested, tried and jailed, despite publicly pleading to “lock her up” multiple times over the years.

During an interview on “Fox and Friends” Weekend Edition on Sunday, the former president acted like he had nothing to do with the calls to imprison Clinton ― calls that were so common during his 2016 run for the Oval Office.

“You famously said, regarding Hillary Clinton, ‘Lock her up.’ You declined to do that as president,” Fox News co-host Will Cain said in an attempt to paint Trump as merciful.

Having been found guilty on 34 felony counts by a jury of his peers himself last Thursday, Trump brazenly lied about chants aimed at his one-time political rival.

“I beat her,” Trump said. “It’s easier when you win. They always said, ‘Lock her up.’ And I could have done it, but I felt it would have been a terrible thing.”

“And then this happened to me, so I may feel differently about it,” he went on. “I can’t tell you, I’m not sure I can answer the question.”
Ali Velshi

In the aftermath of his criminal conviction, Donald Trump has ramped up his attacks on the judge, the jurors, and others, in addition to peddling strange new theories about who is to blame. Molly Jong Fast and Jennifer Rubin join Ali Velshi to discuss Trump’s “unhinged” attacks and efforts to spin the narrative surrounding the conviction. “He didn’t sound this nuts, he didn't sound this disjointed, 5 years ago, 10 years ago, or even last year,” Rubin says. “He is mentally and emotionally unwinding."
Ron Elving

Former President Donald Trump stood in the lobby of Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan Friday morning looking somehow ill at ease in his own building.

He wore his signature suit, shirt and tie and stood alone at a lectern with five American flags and a cold stone wall behind him. Gone was the usual human backdrop of flag-waving supporters seen at MAGA rallies. He stood alone, without script or teleprompter, armed only with two sheets of paper and a look of barely controlled rage.

It was billed as a press conference to respond to the jury verdict that had convicted him on 34 charges the day before. But it was more a speech than a press conference. A contingent of reporters with cameras stood a few yards away, but Trump spoke without interruption and took no questions.
By Kaia Hubbard

Washington — Former President Donald Trump has joined TikTok, posting for the first time Saturday on the widely popular video-sharing app controlled by a Chinese parent company that he once tried to ban in the U.S.

"It's my honor," Trump said in the video, which features Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White, who declared that "the president is now on TikTok."

The video, which had garnered more than 2 million likes by Sunday afternoon, features clips from Trump's attendance at the UFC match in Newark, New Jersey, on Saturday, where he was greeted by supporters after being convicted in the New York "hush money" trial on all 34 felony counts days earlier.
The "lock her up" chants about Hillary Clinton were ubiquitous at Trump's rallies, and the former president joined in
Peter Wade

In an interview on Fox & Friends, filmed 48 hours after he was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records, Donald Trump attempted to re-write history. Now that he is facing legal consequences for paying hush money to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, the former president is denying he ever said, “Lock her up,” about Hillary Clinton, his 2016 opponent.

“You famously said regarding Hillary Clinton, ‘Lock her up.’ You declined to do that as president,” said Fox host Will Cain, implying that the president has control over who is prosecuted.

“I beat her,” Trump replied. “It’s easier when you win. They always said, ‘Lock her up.’ And I could have done it, but I felt it would have been a terrible thing. And then this happened to me, so I may feel differently about it. I can’t tell you, I’m not sure I can answer the question,” Trump hemmed and hawed.

He continued, “Hillary Clinton — I didn’t say, ‘Lock her up,’ but the people would all say, ‘Lock her up, lock her up.’ OK. Then we won, and I said pretty openly, I’d say, ‘Alright, come on, just relax. Let’s go. We gotta make our country great.'”

That is, of course, a lie. Trump not only beamed and nodded from the podium as his rally crowds chanted, “Lock her up,” he also said it himself, multiple times. He said it on Oct. 14, 2016, at a rally in Greensboro, N.C. As the crowd chanted the line, Trump said, “For what she’s done, they should lock her up.”
By Kabir Khanna, Anthony Salvanto, Fred Backus, Jennifer De Pinto

Views about former President Donald Trump's New York criminal trial after the verdict look much like they did before it took place.

Just over half the country thought Trump was guilty before the verdict, and now just over half think the jury reached the right verdict and that the trial was fair.

Republicans remain overwhelmingly of the belief that Trump was treated unfairly. Echoing the former president's sentiments, those who say the verdict was wrong call the jury biased, say the evidence was insufficient and the charges politically motivated.

And in another marker of the nation's partisan divisions, half the country thinks Trump is unfit to be president now that he's been convicted of a crime.

In all, we recontacted the Americans we interviewed before the verdict was reached, and hearing the jury's decision hasn't changed a lot of their minds.
By Joseph Tanfani, Ned Parker and Peter Eisler

May 31 - Supporters of former President Donald Trump, enraged by his conviction on 34 felony counts by a New York jury, flooded pro-Trump websites with calls for riots, revolution and violent retribution.

After Trump became the first U.S. president to be convicted of a crime, his supporters responded with dozens of violent online posts, according to a Reuters review of comments on three Trump-aligned websites: the former president's own Truth Social platform, Patriots.Win and the Gateway Pundit.

Some called for attacks on jurors, the execution of the judge, Justice Juan Merchan, or outright civil war and armed insurrection.
“Someone in NY with nothing to lose needs to take care of Merchan,” wrote one commentator on Patriots.Win. “Hopefully he gets met with illegals with a machete,” the post said in reference to illegal immigrants.

On Gateway Pundit, one poster suggested shooting liberals after the verdict. “Time to start capping some leftys,” said the post. “This cannot be fixed by voting."
Story by Charlie Jones

The news of Trump being found guilty in court was met with outrage among his supporters with some even threatening a "civil war".

The howls of violence were amplified by far-right figures in the MAGA movement. Far-right podcaster Stew Peters told his hundreds of thousands of followers on Telegram: "Our judicial system has been weaponised... we are left with NO other option but to take matters into our own hands".

His followers responded with talk of burning down courthouses and rioting. Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk took to X, formerly Twitter, saying: "We must defeat these savages." He also said they had "executed a legal assassination."

Conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec described Trump's opponents as "unhumans" while podcaster Tim Pool tweeted: "war." The far-right online forum Patriots.Win was also flooded with threats. "They’re not going to get a Civil War. It’s going to be a very uncivil war," one user wrote. Trump himself called the verdict a “disgrace” and said the trial was rigged, claiming he’s “an innocent man.”
Story by Reuters

(Reuters) - A New York jury found Donald Trump guilty of falsifying business records to cover up a hush-money payment to a porn star, making him the first former U.S. president to be convicted of a crime.

Here is some international reaction:

HUNGARIAN PRIME MINISTER VIKTOR ORBAN ON X:
"I’ve known President @realDonaldTrump to be a man of honour. As President, he always put America first, he commanded respect around the world and used this respect to build peace. Let the people make their verdict this November! Keep on fighting, Mr. President!"

BRITISH OPPOSITION LABOUR PARTY LEADER KEIR STARMER:
"First and foremost, we respect the court's decision in relation to the decision in the Trump case. There's sentencing still to go and possible appeal, but we respect the court process.
"...We have a special relationship with the U.S. that transcends whoever the president is, but it is an unprecedented situation, no doubt about that."

MATTEO SALVINI, ITALY'S DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER AND HEAD OF THE LEAGUE PARTY:
“Solidarity and full support for @realDonaldTrump, victim of judicial harassment and a process of political nature. In Italy, we are sadly familiar with the weaponisation of the justice system by the left, given that for years attempts have been made to eliminate political opponents through legal means. I hope Trump wins; it would be a guarantee of greater balance and hope for world peace.”
By Jabin Botsford, Gregory WALTON

A New York jury convicted Donald Trump on all charges in his hush money case Thursday in a seismic development barely five months ahead of the election where he seeks to recapture the White House.

The historic first criminal trial of a former US president ended with the 77-year-old Trump found guilty on each of the 34 charges of falsifying business records to hide a payment meant to silence porn star Stormy Daniels.

Trump, who is all but certain to appeal, did not immediately react, but sat still, his shoulders dipping.

The conviction thrusts the United States into uncharted political territory but does not bar Trump from a White House run, even in the unlikely event that Judge Juan Merchan sentences him to prison time.

Videos showing former President Donald Trump being met with loud boos during the Libertarian National Convention on Saturday night has gone viral on social media. Trump and President Joe Biden became the presumptive 2024 Republican and Democratic presidential nominees respectively in March as both continue to campaign ahead of November's election. On Saturday, Trump spoke to the convention in Washington, D.C., ahead of them making their presidential nominee pick on Sunday.
Opinion by Neil Baron

Despite all evidence to the contrary, most voters in battleground states believe that former President Donald Trump would do more for the economy than President Biden in a second term.

A new poll shows Trump leading in all swing states except Wisconsin (where Trump and Biden tie), with 56 percent of voters saying the former president would do a good job on the economy versus just 40 percent for Biden.

These voters are sadly mistaken. Trump’s first term and current policy proposals are dire warnings that a second round of Trumponomics would be devastating to everyday Americans.

Trump is promising to give big tax cuts to everybody, and to protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. But the truth is that his proposed tax cuts will benefit the wealthy at the expense of low- and middle-income Americans, and he will cut entitlements to cover any lost tax revenues.

We’ve seen this movie before. In 2016, Trump promised his tax cuts would favor working- and middle-class Americans. The cuts he delivered, however, favored the wealthy, widened income inequality, and encouraged massive tax fraud (which Trump may view as normal practice, given his own bogus tax write-offs).

By the time they expire next year, Trump’s tax cuts are projected to have boosted after-tax incomes of the top 1 percent of earners by 3 percent, to an average of $2.1 million. But they barely affect the bottom 60 percent of earners, increasing their 2025 incomes just 1 percent, to $41,800.
Story by Judi James & Chiara Fiorillo

Donald Trump's confidence took a hit as he sent a "warning signal" to a crowd booing him while addressing the Libertarian Party National Convention on Saturday, a body language expert has said.

The former US president is used to rallying before crowds of ardent fans but this time he was also met with hostility. The Libertarians, staunch advocates for minimal government and personal liberty, have long been wary of the ex-president, and his appearance at their convention sparked controversy within the party.

In an attempt to connect with the audience, Trump quipped about his four criminal indictments saying: "If I wasn't a Libertarian before, I sure as hell am a Libertarian now." According to Judi James, being booed, as Trump was, can "bring out telling response displays" with reactions including anger or fear.
‘Donald Trump doesn’t freeze,’ the ex-president claims
James Liddell

Donald Trump has hit out at Joe Biden in a furious response to appearing to freeze for more than 30 seconds mid-speech at the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) annual meeting at the weekend.

The 77-year-old former president was encouraging gun-toting Texans to cast their votes ahead of November’s presidential election during his address in Dallas when, all of a sudden, he fell silent.

President Joe Biden’s supporters were quick to attack Mr Trump with his campaign team branding him “feeble” on X, hurling the Republican’s mental competency into question.

Mr Trump, however, has claimed the whole thing is a “made up Biden campaign story” in a rant on Truth Social.

“The Biden Campaign… put out a Fake Story that I ‘froze’ for 30 seconds, going into the ‘Musical Interlude’ section, when in actuality, the 30 to 60 second period of silence is standard in every one of my Speeches where we use the Music,” he said, with a typical sporadic use of capital letters.
Story by John Bowden

New unsealed court documents in the Florida case against Donald Trumpthis week reveal the extent of the involvement of Walt Nauta, Trump’s valet, in the storage and handling of classified documents found at the Mar-a-Lago resort and estate in Palm Beach.

The new documents reveal some of Nauta’s answers to questions from FBI agents investigating the case.

Referring to the effort by the National Archives to obtain some classified documents during Trump’s chaotic move-out process after January 6th, Nauta told investigators: “What I recall is every time he would leave for the evening, they would come up, and they would collect all the papers that he threw on the floor; or that – at the time – we understood that he didn’t need any more.”
Story by Daniel Dale, CNN

Former President Donald Trump delivered a bombardment of dishonesty in his interviews with Time magazine.

Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, made at least 32 false claims in the two April interviews that Time released this week. His serial inaccuracy spanned a wide range of subjects, including the economy, abortion, the NATO military alliance, the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, his legal cases, his record as president and the 2020 election he has relentlessly lied about for more than three years.

Time published its own fact check of some of the 32 claims on Tuesday, when it released its cover story on Trump. Here is an in-depth CNN debunking.
Story by Molly Crane-Newman, New York Daily News

NEW YORK — Donald Trump is in no way limited by what he can say about witnesses at his Manhattan hush money trial if he chooses to take the stand in his own defense, the judge presiding over the case told him Friday — correcting a claim Trump made outside court.

On his way out of court Thursday, Trump claimed Merchan’s gag order — the subject of ongoing debate – prevented him from taking the stand.

“Well, I’m not allowed to testify. I’m under a gag order, I guess. I can’t testify,” Trump said.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan started Friday’s proceedings by saying he needed to “clear up any misunderstandings” about the gag order preventing Trump from publicly remarking on witnesses and jurors.

“I want to stress, Mr. Trump, that you have an absolute right to testify at trial, if that’s what you decide to do,” the judge said, noting his order applies to “statements that are made outside of court, it does not apply to statements made from the witness stand.”

The gag order prevents Trump from making public statements — or directing others to — about jurors, witnesses involved in the case, or relatives of court employees, prosecutors, the judge, and District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Story by Jeremy Childs

If Trump had gotten his way, he would have spent Jan. 6, 2021 looking upon his supporters as they stormed into the Capitol building.

During his first political rally since his hush money trial began, Trump told the crowd in Waukesha, Wisconsin that he wanted to join the rioters that fateful day. When he wasn't recapping the chaos of abortion rights post-Roe v. Wade, he reminisced about asking his Secret Service staff if he could join the burgeoning insurrection.

"I sat in the back, and you know what I did say? I said: ‘I'd like to go down there, ‘cause I see a lot of people walking down,'" Trump boasted. "And they said, ‘Sir, it's better if you don't.' I said, ‘Well, I'd like to.' ‘Sir it's better if you don't.'"
Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen

What would a second Trump term really look like? You no longer need to guess:

Former President Trump has laid out, publicly and unambiguously, designs to stretch traditions, norms and accepted law in historic ways.

Why it matters: We've written for months that Trump allies privately are plotting loyalty tests and policy proposals to vastly expand presidential power and punish critics. Trump himself is now saying the quiet part out loud. You should listen.

You might like this or loathe it. But, based on two interviews with Time magazine totaling more than 80 minutes, you no longer can ignore Trump's intentions:

On whether states should monitor women's pregnancies so they can know if they've gotten an abortion that violates a ban (say, after 15 weeks of pregnancy): "I think they might do that. Again, you'll have to speak to the individual states." (President Biden tweeted about that quote: "This is reprehensible.")
By Sean O'Driscoll

Donald Trump's $50 million Chicago loan continues to raise questions about its true nature, the president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has said.

In an interview released on April 30, Noah Bookbinder, the head of the watchdog organization and a former federal prosecutor, spoke with Jessica Denson, a presenter on the liberal news site MeidasTouch, about the loan, which he called "a little complicated and pretty weird."

Barbara Jones, the court-appointed independent monitor of the Trump Organization, previously wrote in a report that Trump's business managers said the loan never existed, even though it was listed on numerous federal election forms that Trump filed.

Trump borrowed the money from one of his companies in Chicago, according to federal election filings. Newsweek has contacted Donald Trump's attorney for comment via email.
Story by Matthew Medsger, Boston Herald

People don’t seem to mind the idea of former President Donald Trump acting as a dictator, he told Time magazine in an interview that drew swift rebuke from the Biden-Harris campaign.

In a wide ranging interview given to the magazine — and shared by the 45th President Tuesday morning via his Truth Social media platform — Trump was asked to explain comments he made to Fox News host Sean Hannity, in which the former president said he would become a dictator on his first day in office.

“A lot of people like it,” Trump reportedly told Time.

As might be expected, President Joe Biden’s reelection team was quick to note the revelations contained in the interview and respond.

“Not since the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault at home as they are today – because of Donald Trump. Trump is willing to throw away the very idea of America to put himself in power,” Biden-Harris 2024 Spokesperson James Singer said in a statement.

“In his own words, he is promising to rule as a dictator on ‘day one,’ use the military against the American people, punish those who stand against him, condone violence done on his behalf, and put his own revenge and retribution ahead of what is best for America. Bottom line: Trump is a danger to the Constitution and a threat to our democracy,” Singer continued.
Story by mhall@businessinsider.com (Madison Hall)

Former President Donald Trump said in a new interview that he's not ruling out the possibility of election-related violence if he loses to President Joe Biden in November.

TIME released a lengthy interview with the former president on Tuesday conducted mostly on April 12 at his Mar-a-Lago Club. The conversation focuses on his ambitions in a possible second term, like mass deportations, getting rid of "bad people" in government, and how he might fire his attorney general if they refused to prosecute someone at his command.

When first pressed about the prospect of "political violence" resulting from the upcoming presidential election, Trump ruled out the possibility.

"I think we're gonna have a big victory," he said. "And I think there will be no violence."

Two weeks later, Trump spoke with the TIME reporter for a follow-up and the reporter asked specifically if violence might erupt if he doesn't defeat Biden.

"I think we're going to win," he said. "And if we don't win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of an election."
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