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Florida GOP Ousts Christian Ziegler As Party Chairman After Rape Allegations

Florida GOP Ousts Christian Ziegler As Party Chairman After Rape Allegations

Florida’s Republican Party on Monday voted in an emergency meeting to remove its state chairman Christian Ziegler from his position following allegations of sexual assault, NBC News reports.

“No one voted for Christian Ziegler,” Republican State Senator Blaise Ingoglia told CNN.

Ziegler is currently under investigation by the Sarasota Police Department after a woman last year accused the former chairman of rape.



Politico reports:

Ziegler has maintained that the sexual encounter he had with the woman who leveled the rape accusations against him was consensual. He and his wife, Moms for Liberty cofounder and Sarasota County school board member Bridget Ziegler, also acknowledged to police that they had been in a three-way sexual encounter a year earlier with the alleged victim, per a search warrant affidavit.

Charges have not been filed in the case. NBC News reports “Ziegler was not in attendance for the vote.”

An anonymous source told NBC News the party was forced to oust Ziegler after he “did not do the right thing and resign.”

“I believe it was almost unanimous vote to remove Christian Ziegler, which I believe is the absolute right thing to do,” the source said. “And I want to reiterate that we are spending a lot of time and energy on this, on this meeting instead of focusing on the things we need to focus on, and that’s simply because Christian Ziegler did not do the right thing and resign.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Hugh Hewitt

NBC Commentator and GOP Shill Hugh Hewitt Is Paid By Trump Campaign

Reprinted with permission from MediaMatters

NBC's Meet the Press hosted right-wing radio host and NBC News commentator Hugh Hewitt, who talked up President Donald Trump's reelection chances and touted his "sort of powerful energy on conservative media" for Republicans this week after being released from the hospital. In addition to the absurdity of hosting a dishonest shill like Hewitt, host Chuck Todd did not disclose that Hewitt has a financial tie to Trump's campaign: Last month, the Trump Make America Great Again Committee twice rented Hewitt's newsletter to raise money.

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CNN’s John King Calls “Bullshit” After Trump Attacks NBC Reporter

CNN’s John King Calls “Bullshit” After Trump Attacks NBC Reporter

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Attacking members of the mainstream media is nothing new for President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly described journalists as “the enemy of the people” and providers of “fake news.” This week, one of Trump’s targets was NBC News’ Peter Alexander, who CNN’s John King is vigorously defending.

During a press conference on the coronavirus crisis, Alexander asked Trump, “What do you say to Americans who are watching you right now who are scared?” And Trump angrily responded, “I say that you’re a terrible reporter. That’s what I say. I think it’s a very nasty question. And I think it’s a very bad signal that you’re putting out to the American people. The American people are looking for answers, and they’re looking for hope — and you’re doing sensationalism.”

In response, King gave Trump a vehement tongue-lashing on CNN, telling his colleague, Kaitlan Collins, that there was no justification whatsoever for the president’s “bullshit attack” on an NBC News reporter.

“What the president did to Peter Alexander is reprehensible,” King told Collins. “The American people are looking for answers. They do want hope, they do want support. Mr. President, that was a very fair question.”

The CNN reporter continued, “I get (that) there are, at times, disagreements…. between politicians and reporters. That was a 100 percent legitimate question with no hype, no shade, no bias. He just wanted to attack.”

Democratic Debate Scores 289 % Higher Audience Than ABC Trump Special

Democratic Debate Scores 289 % Higher Audience Than ABC Trump Special

Millions of people tuned in for the first night of Democratic debates on NBC News — not only tying the ratings record for Democratic debates, but also crushing Trump’s poorly rated prime-time special earlier in the month.

“15.3 million watched on NBC, MSNBC & Telemundo, equaling record for the most-watched Dem primary debate ever,” New York Times writer Michael Grynbaum noted on Twitter after NBC released the ratings data on Thursday.

Roughly 3.9 million people watched Trump in his June 17 prime-time special on ABC, which failed to win its time slot against the U.S. Open. Trump’s special was watched by even fewer people than Family Feud, which was in the same slot on the same network the week before.

NBC said 9 million people watched its online stream of the Democratic debate, also far outperforming Trump’s recent special.

The Democratic debate showcased 10 of the 20 candidates who have qualified for the debates, in a field where many of the top candidates are already outpolling Trump in head-to-head matchups.

“We’re 495 days out from the election. Seven months from Iowa,” Grynbaum noted. “There is intense interest in this election.”

Executives at the network had not expected such high ratings.

“NBC executives privately said they’d be surprised to top 10 million viewers,” CNN reportedThursday.

Trump’s prime-time special wasn’t his only ratings dud recently. Many voters, it seems, are tired of his antics and are simply tuning him out.

“President Donald Trump’s guest appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday failed to draw significantly higher viewership for the program, mirroring his recent performance on other networks,” CNBC noted on Wednesday.

Trump only drew 3.1 million viewers for Meet the Press with host Chuck Todd, just a slight increase over previous weeks — even though Trump’s appearance was an unusual event, since he has largely avoided Meet the Press as well as most outlets other than Fox News.

Trump has been trending downward in television ratings over the last two years. He had 18.77 million viewers in a November 2016 interview with 60 Minutes after the election, then just 11.29 million viewers in October 2018 on the same program.

A month later, voters turned out in historic fashion to vote against Trump’s agenda and deliver control of the House to Democrats.

Trump has prided himself for years on bringing in attention and viewers. But he never had the support of most Americans — and now they would rather watch Democrats on TV than him.

Sad!

Published with permission of The American Independent.