Tag: Donald Trump
Sean Hannity

Hannity Blames Democrats For Failure To Repeal Arizona's 1864 Abortion Law

Sean Hannity urged Arizona Republicans to repeal the near-total abortion ban a court imposed on the swing state in order to contain the political damage to Donald Trump and the GOP. Hours later, after they refused to do so, he deceived his Fox News viewers by blaming Democrats.

Republicans are reeling after the Arizona Supreme Court jolted the national and state political environment on Tuesday by restoring an 1864 state law banning abortion in nearly all cases. Trump, who took credit for overturning Roe v. Wade’s constitutional protections for abortion and said on Monday before the ruling that states “will” determine abortion law, subsequently claimed on Wednesday that the court had gone too far. Kari Lake, the leading GOP candidate for U.S. Senate in Arizona, and other Republicans in tough races are walking back their past positions to condemn the ruling.

Hannity waited until after Trump spoke out to take a position on the ruling, finally responding on Wednesday night with the ludicrous suggestion that Arizona Democrats were deliberately sabotaging efforts to repeal the law for partisan gain.

“Trump opposes the law and this ruling,” he said. “And you know what? Arizona’s governor is a Democrat. The state’s attorney general is a Democrat. The state legislature is almost evenly divided. If Democrats — you want to get rid of the law, well, you have a chance right now to get rid of it. And I would advise you, get rid of it!”

The Fox host concluded, “They would rather use it as a political tool ahead of November.”

Hannity’s statement that “the state legislature is almost evenly divided” is almost comically deceptive. Republicans have majorities in both the state House and the state Senate, and earlier that day, Arizona’s GOP lawmakers blocked Democratic efforts to roll back the law in each chamber. Arizona House Speaker Ben Toma, a Republican currently facing a competitive primary, told Axios “that he wouldn't support a repeal and wouldn't permit a vote on it.”

Hannity knows that Republicans control the fate of the state’s 1864 abortion ban. Speaking on his radio show Wednesday afternoon, he urged Arizona’s Republican officials to “change the law now.”

SEAN HANNITY (HOST): There's a lot to get into. Although, honestly, it's — it's more simple than people think. And I know the media, the mob, and everybody in between is just freaking out over this Arizona Supreme Court decision, which literally goes back to a 160-year-old near-total abortion ban without exceptions for rape, incest, mother's life, any of that. It was even before Arizona was a state. And there's no Republican that supports this, but that's what — Whoopi Goldberg says Republicans want to bring slavery back following the decision. I'm like, OK. Here we go. The demagoging never ends. The lying, the distortion, the misinformation, the propaganda. This is what needs to happen. This is my message for all of you elected state Republican leaders out there in Arizona. Get your act together. Change the law now, and that means every Republican has to stay united, and you better understand where the people in this country are on the issue of abortion. Putting aside over 50% of abortions are now done with the pill, put that aside. And what you need to do is follow the Dobbs decision, 15 weeks, follow the first-trimester decision, whatever it is. And then you've got to force your Democratic governor, Hobbs, to sign a bill that says no late-term abortions, no abortions based on gender or race. I talked to Arizona — former Arizona AG Brnovich. He had some great ideas. You know, find a point of where a viability restriction would be palpable to the overwhelming number of people in your state, and stand up and do your job and get it done now.

“This is my message for all of you elected state Republican leaders out there in Arizona,” Hannity said. “Get your act together. Change the law now, and that means every Republican has to stay united, and you better understand where the people in this country are on the issue of abortion.”

But it turns out that when your political movement treats abortion as murder and calls for banning it “from the moment of conception,” some people who actually believe that — rather than pretending to so Republicans can win elections and cut taxes for rich people — won’t play along.

Arizona’s abortion ban is entirely the fault of Republicans. All six U.S. Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe and open the door to such policies were appointed under a Republican president, including three Trump nominees confirmed by a Republican-controlled Senate. GOP governors appointed every member of the Arizona Supreme Court, which was expanded by Republicans in 2016.

But the political consequences of their actions are devastating for the GOP, so the party’s candidates are running away from them while propagandists like Hannity try to deceive the public about who is to blame.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Former Trump Officials Debate His 'Ignorance' Of Vital National Security Bill

Former Trump Officials Debate His 'Ignorance' Of Vital National Security Bill

Former Donald Trump White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin slammed her ex-boss after he "urged House Republicans to reject a reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA, ahead of the key procedural vote on Wednesday" according to CNN.

FISA enables "warrantless surveillance of non-Americans by U.S. intelligence agencies," and Trump encouraged his party to "kill" the legislation — resulting in a chaotic and unproductive for the GOP leaders.

Griffin, who turned on the MAGA hopeful when she declared President Joe Biden won the 2020 election, took to X (formerly Twitter) to blast the former president's lack of knowledge on the bill. She tweeted:

Trump:

-doesn’t understand FISA

-doesn’t understand Signals intelligence gathering-

doesn’t even understand that the Carter Page order wasn’t sought under Section 702

His ignorance & personal grievance is going to cripple our national security.

Another former Trump official took offense to Griffin's tweet, suggesting Griffin doesn't know what she's talking about.

Former Trump intelligence officer Richard Grenell said to Griffin: "You wrote press releases and didn’t get the daily compartmentalized intel briefings on threats, and you never saw the FISA application process. There is so much you never had access to. You don’t understand what you are tweeting. The abuses are real even though you didn’t see them, Alyssa."

Grenell's appointment to Trump's cabinet was heavily criticized, as he lacked the experience necessary for the role of Director of National Intelligence.

According to federal law, "Any individual nominated for appointment as Director of National Intelligence shall have extensive national security expertise."

Griffin, who's now a co-host on The View and a CNN contributor, shot back: "Yes. I did. And as a former Director of ODNI [Office of the Director of National Intelligence] I’m surprised you’re unaware of the level of classified briefings every Pentagon Press Secretary receives every morning in a SCIF [sensitive compartmented information facility]."

On January 6, 2021, after the attack on the US Capitol, a tweet from Griffin went viral, in which she wrote: "Dear MAGA- I am one of you. Before I worked for @realDonaldTrump, I worked for @MarkMeadows & @Jim_Jordan & the @freedomcaucus. I marched in the 2010 Tea Party rallies. I campaigned w/ Trump & voted for him. But I need you to hear me: the Election was NOT stolen. We lost."

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet

Joe Biden

Biden Pulls Even With Trump In Latest National Polls

In the four weeks since his fiery State of the Union address, President Joe Biden's campaign has kicked into high gear—barnstorming eight battleground states, opening up more than 100 field offices, making a $30 million ad buy, and launching a Latino outreach strategy targeting the Southwestern swing states of Arizona and Nevada.

Some polls have begun to see movement in Biden's direction, including a recent Bloomberg battleground poll, the Marquette University polling released Thursday, and the NPR/PBS/Marist poll (compared to its January/February survey).

Since last fall, the standard line in national political reporting has been that Trump leads Biden in the polling. That construct doesn't hold true any longer. Eyeballing the last two weeks of polls released by nonpartisan outfits (excluding Trafalgar Group) on 538's aggregate, Biden won six of them, Trump won five, and one found them even.

Data analysts far smarter than me also see positive movement for Biden.

The 538 generic ballot continues to be better for Democrats relative to results earlier this year. At 44.6% to 44.4%, Democrats are now up by a whisper over Republicans, who consistently led in the generic this year until roughly a month ago when Democrats pulled even.

It's impossible to intuit exactly what goes into subtle shifts among the electorate, but Trump hasn't exactly been killing it on the campaign trail. His campaigning over the past month has mainly consisted of making courtroom appearances, golfing, some fundraising, and 'Truthing' his endless grievances.

The presumptive GOP candidate did manage to cause a stir this week in the battleground state of Michigan, where he lied about speaking with Ruby Garcia’s family. The Michigan woman was murdered by a man who was in the country illegally. Trump never spoke to her loved ones.

“He did not speak with any of us, so it was kind of shocking seeing that he had said that he had spoke with us, and misinforming people on live TV,” Mavi Garcia, who has acted as a spokeswoman for her family, said in an interview with WOOD-TV8, the NBC affiliate for West Michigan.

Other local media outlets carried similar stories refuting Trump's false claim.

From a campaign standpoint, it wasn't exactly a home run, even though the virulently anti-immigrant aspect of the stop surely thrilled his MAGA faithful.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Why Is Trump's 'Concierge Doctor' Concealing Basic Facts About His Health?

Why Is Trump's 'Concierge Doctor' Concealing Basic Facts About His Health?

The most recent report on Donald Trump's health is being questioned by an expert on aging who would like to provide the public with answers about the "projected life span and health" of President Joe Biden and the former president who is making a third run for the Oval Office.

In a deep dive into the background of Trump's new doctor, Dr. Bruce A. Aronwald, a 64-year-old osteopathic physician, the Washington Post is reporting the New Jersey physician is a longtime member of the former president's Bedminster, New Jersey golf club who specializes in wealthy clients serving as a "concierge" doctor.

As the report from the Post's Michael Kranish notes, a central focus of the 2024 presidential election is the health of the 81-year-old Biden and the 77-year-old Trump, and details about Trump's health are severely lacking.

A November letter about Trump's health, written by Aronwald and released by the former president's campaign, stood in stark contrast to a White House report on Biden's health, with the Post reporting it lacked "specifics like blood pressure and medications, the letter had just three paragraphs without specific numbers proclaiming that Trump was in 'excellent health' and had 'exceptional' cognitive ability. It did not disclose Trump’s weight."

An attempt by the Post to ask for more specifics was rebuffed after a visit to the doctor's office, with the doctor explaining, "There is no need for President Trump to release another medical report in addition to the one he recently made public. The President is strong physically and sharp cognitively, and he’s in excellent health overall.”

According to S. Jay Olshansky, "the lead author of a 2020 report in the journal Active Aging" on the relative health of Biden and Trump, there is not enough information to adequately address the former president's health status four years later.

"In his Nov. 23 letter about Trump’s health, Aronwald said he had conducted the most recent examination of Trump on Sept. 13, 2023. While not providing any specific numbers or names of prescription medication, Aronwald wrote that Trump’s 'overall health is excellent,' that his physical exams were 'well within the normal range and his cognitive exams were exceptional.' The letter also said that Trump’s cardiovascular studies were normal and cancer tests were negative," the report states.

According to aging expert Olshansky, "the full medical records are extraordinarily valuable. They tell a story about health prospects for survival going forward. You can’t really do a thorough assessment of life span and health span without the medical records.”

As for Aronwald, Ira Monka, the president of the American Osteopathic Association, stated he is well regarded in his field, telling the Post, his colleague is a "top concierge doctor," adding, "You get to that point, you could not get there if you were not a solid fundamentally strong primary care doctor.”

You can read more here.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.