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J.D. Vance

Official Genealogy Report Explodes Vance's 'Scots-Irish Hillbilly" Claim

A “trawl of genealogy records” has called into question Vice President JD Vance’s self-declared status as a “Scots-Irish hillbilly at heart,” the New York Times reports.

Vance, in his 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, declared, “To understand me, you must understand that I am a Scots-Irish ­hillbilly at heart.”

But, according to a report commissioned by a Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) minister, Vance lacks “‘a conclusive family link’ to Northern Ireland.” The research was detailed in a “24-page dossier titled ‘The Family Footsteps of JD Vance,’” The Times reports.

As the Times notes, “Gordon Lyons, the Northern Ireland minister for communities, had been ­hoping to present a copy of the report personally to Vance over the St Patrick’s Day period in Washington DC.”

According to the Times, "as Scots-Irish, or Ulster-Scots, [Vance’s] ­family history would be tied directly to plantation-era Scots settlers whose descendants, generations after arrival in Ireland, set out for America.”

“Emails obtained via a freedom of information request show that in February Lyons’s office was advised that “it has not been possible to establish conclusive proof of a direct Vance link back to Ulster at this stage,” the report adds.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Donald Trump

'A Very Bad Idea': $400M Qatari Airliner Gift Unnerves Republicans

'ABC News on Sunday reported President Donald Trump is poised to accept “what may be the most valuable gift ever extended to the United States from a foreign government” — “a super luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar” to be used “as the new Air Force One until shortly before he leaves office, at which time ownership of the plane will be transferred to the Trump presidential library foundation.”

According to ABC News, “the gift is expected to be announced next week” after “lawyers for the White House counsel's office and the Department of Justice drafted an analysis for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth concluding that is legal for the Department of Defense to accept the aircraft as a gift and later turn it over to the Trump library.”

As AlterNet reported Sunday, the proposed gift — which aviation industry experts told ABC is estimated to value "about $400 million” — stunned Democrats and journalists alike. But, as news of the plane plan proliferated on social media Sunday, even some Republicans were concerned about conflicts of interest arising from the proposal.

“I’m sure the podcasters who are deeply alarmed by foreign influence will be all over this,” National Review editor Philip Klein wrote Sunday on X.

“Call me a crazy RINO neocon, but I think it’s bad for the President of the United States to accept a $400 million ‘gift’ from an Islamist regime that funds terrorist organizations that murder Americans,” conservative writer and podcast host Ian Haworth argued.

Conservative radio host Erick Erickson agreed.

“The Qatari government is not our friend, cooperates with Iran and its proxies, and funds terrorism and pro-terror propaganda around the world,” Erickson wrote in a tweet Sunday.

The Bulwark podcast host Tim Miller suggested Trump’s interest in receiving a gift from Qatar undermines the president’s “anti-semitism initiative.” The Trump administration has threatened funding for private universities over what it claims is a failure of universities to address rampant antisemitism on campus.

“Hamas’ sugar daddies are giving Trump a fancy plane? I guess the admin’s anti-semitism initiative has some carve outs,” Miller wrote Sunday.

National Review commentator Stephen L. Miller offered a succinct analysis on reports of Trump’s gift from Qatar.

“That sounds like a very bad idea,” Miller wrote.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Trump Susman Godfrey order

Law Firm That Won Fox Defamation Case Files Suit Against Trump

Susman Godfrey, the firm that won a $787 million defamation lawsuit against Fox News for spreading lies about Dominion Voting Systems, is now suing the administration over President Donald Trump’s executive order “penalizing firms that employed his enemies or engaged in work he opposes,” the Daily Beast reports.

“No administration should be allowed to punish lawyers for simply doing their jobs, protecting Americans and their constitutional right to the legal process,” the firm wrote in a statement about the suit.

As the Beast reports, “On Wednesday, Trump signed an executive order barring Susman Godfrey from federal contracts held by the firm’s clients, removed its employees’ security clearances, and banned them from accessing federal buildings.”

According to the suit, Trump has made “no secret of its unconstitutional retaliatory and discriminatory intent to punish Susman Godfrey for its work defending the integrity of the 2020 presidential election.”

“But this goes far beyond law firms and lawyers,” Susman Godfrey said in a statement, “Today it is our firm under attack, but tomorrow it could be any of us. As officers of the court, we are duty-bound to take on this fight against the illegal executive order.”

According to the Beast, “Four firms—including the two largest firms in the country, Kirkland & Ellis and Latham & Watkins—cut deals on Friday to avoid falling victim to one of Trump’s executive orders. They agreed to provide a total of at least $500 million in pro bono work for the current administration.”

“Susman Godfrey joined the handful of firms—including Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, and WilmerHale—that have taken action against the president, calling the president’s spree of executive orders ‘so obviously unconstitutional,’” the Beast reports.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Trump: 'Not Joking' About Plans For Unconstitutional Third Term

Trump: 'Not Joking' About Plans For Unconstitutional Third Term

President Donald Trump on Saturday once again floated running for a third term as president, telling NBC News he’s “not joking” when he suggests he might run again despite the Constitution’s 22nd Amendment that says “no person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice.”

“A lot of people want me to do it,” Trump told NBC News’ Kristen Welker on Sunday. “But, I mean, I basically tell them we have a long way to go, you know, it’s very early in the administration.”

Trump added he’s “focused on the current” administration.

According to a transcript of the conversation, Welker gave Trump a scenario where Vice President JD Vance “would run for office” and “if he won, at the top of the ticket, would then pass the baton to [Trump]."

“Well, that’s one,” Trump replied. “But there are others too. There are others.”

Welker asked Trump if he could “tell [her] another” scenario where Trump could run for and win a third term.
“No,” Trump replied.

“Okay. So, but but sir, I’m hearing — you don’t sound like you’re joking. I’ve heard you joke about this a number of times,” Welker said.

“No, no. I’m not joking,” Trump replied.

“Amending the Constitution to abolish the two-term limit would be exceedingly difficult, requiring either a two-thirds vote of Congress or two-thirds of the states agreeing to call a constitutional convention to propose change,” NBC News reports. “Either route would then require ratification from three-quarters of the states.”

Still, according to Trump “a lot of people would like [him] to” seek a third term.

Read the full report at NBC News.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Putin and Trump

Putin Vow To 'Finish Off' Ukrainians Made Trump 'Very Angry,' He Says

President Donald Trump on Sunday said he’s “very angry” and “p----d off” at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s call for a "transitional administration” in Ukraine as the U.S. president pushes Russia and Ukraine for a ceasefire.

Putin on Friday “vowed his army would ‘finish off’ Ukrainian troops,” Agence France-Presse reports.

“The renewed call to essentially topple Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky was the latest demonstration of the Kremlin leader's long-standing desire to install a more Moscow-friendly regime in Kyiv,” AFP reports.

“Putin also issued a public call for Ukraine's generals to topple Zelensky, whom Putin has repeatedly denigrated, without providing any evidence, as a neo-Nazi and drug addict,” AFP adds.

Trump, in a phone call with Meet the Press’ Kristen Welker on Sunday, said he was “very angry” and “p————— off” by Putin’s posture towards Zelensky. According to the report, Trump told NBC News Putin is “not going in the right location” with his remarks.

“If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia’s fault — which it might not be — but if I think it was Russia’s fault, I am going to put secondary tariffs on oil, on all oil coming out of Russia,” Trump said.

“That would be that if you buy oil from Russia, you can’t do business in the United States,” Trump added. “There will be a 25 percent tariff on all oil, a 25- to 50-point tariff on all oil.”

Trump made the media rounds over the weekend, speaking in a separate interview Saturday with NBC News.

“During the interview, Trump also threatened ‘bombing’ and ‘secondary tariffs’ on Iran if the country did not make a deal with the U.S. to ensure it did not develop a nuclear weapon,” NBC News reports.

“If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing,” Trump said Saturday. “It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Elon Musk

GOP Strategists Fear 'Mounting Voter Frustration' Over Musk Misconduct

It’s not all sunshine and roses for Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) among Republican voters, The Hill reports.

“Republicans are facing mounting voter frustration with Trump administration cuts” spearheaded by the tech billionaire, The Hill’s Julia Mueller writes.

GOP strategist Alex Conant, who served as Marco Rubio’s communication director in 2016, told The Hill that voters “haven’t necessarily heard about the benefits”of DOGE, warning “there’s gonna be political costs” if the department slashes services Republicans support.

“What Republicans should be concerned about is Musk’s effectiveness,” Conant said. “If DOGE actually breaks things that people care about and rely on, there’s gonna be political costs to that.”

Republican strategist Doug Heye warned that DOGE's efforts to slash jobs throughout the federal government will eventually show in “real job losses.”

“There’s gonna be real job losses that we’re not measuring yet, but we’re going to in the coming weeks and months,” Heye told Mueller.

Heye added the losses will have an “an impact, especially in specific communities,” and could make “life harder for the reliable voter, typically, for Trump.”

“That kind of slow burn, I think, could have an impact,” Heye added.

University of Delaware political science professor Dannagal Young said with the GOP’s near-total control of the government, “what really matters is what is going on in Republican districts with Republican voters who have Republican lawmakers who are representing them.”

Young said the trust Republicans have in Trump isn’t necessarily translating to Musk — despite the billionaire being “aligned with the Trump agenda.”

“The trust in Musk, in DOGE, while still higher among Republicans, is not ginormous,” Young noted.

“I would love to be a fly on the wall to hear what it is that Republican lawmakers are saying internally about these pressures and what fears they may have about their own re-election prospects as a result,” Young said.


“I think that the more that Republican lawmakers are hearing from angry constituents, and the more that they become aware that these angry constituents are, in fact, Republicans who maybe voted for them just a couple months ago, I think that there’s going to be perhaps intra-party conversation about the extent to which Musk has been given the keys to the castle, and how their constituents don’t love that,” he added.

Read the full report at The Hill.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Judge William Alsup

'Lies and gimmicks': Judge rejects Trump’s 'sham' firing of 20,000 federal workers

A federal judge on Thursday ruled the Trump administration must “immediately [reinstate]” tens of thousands of probationary federal employees “unlawfully [terminated]” by the government, ABC News Katherine Faulders reports.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup delivered what Faulders described as a “scathing rebuke of the Trump administration" and slammed the Department of Justice (DOJ) over its failure to present Charles Ezell, the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), for cross-examination.

As Faulders reports, the judge accused the Trump administration of using “lies and gimmicks to unlawfully terminate" the government employees.

"The government, I believe, has tried to frustrate the judge's ability to get at the truth of what happened here, and then set forth sham declarations," Alsup said. "That's not the way it works in the U.S. District Court.”

“I’m tired of seeing you stonewall on trying to get at the truth,” Alsup added, according to Politico reporters Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney.

Aslup said by firing probationary employees under the guise of poor performance, the administration “attempted to circumvent federal laws on reducing the workforce,” Politico reports.

"The reason that OPM wanted to put this 'based on performance' was, at least in my judgment, a gimmick to avoid their Reduction in Force Act,” Alsup said.

As ABC News reports, Alsup “slammed” the DOJ attorney representing the government “for refusing to make” OPM’s Ezell “available for cross-examination and for withdrawing his sworn declaration.”

"You withdrew his declaration rather than do that,” Alsup said. “Come on, that's a sham. It upsets me. I want you to know that I've been practicing or serving in this court for over 50 years. And I know how that we get at the truth, and you're not helping me get to add to the truth. You're giving me press releases — sham documents.”

Alsup said the government is refusing to make witnesses like Ezell available for cross-examination because it “would reveal the truth.

“You're afraid to do so, because, you know, cross-examination would reveal the truth,” Alsup said. “This is the U.S. District Court. I tend to doubt that you're telling me the truth.”

“I just want to say it is a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that's a lie,” Alsup remarked. “That should not have been done in our country. It was a sham in order to try to avoid statutory requirements.”

The judge also appeared to head off likely criticism from President Donald Trump, telling the courtroom his words “should not be taken as some kind of wild and crazy judge in San Francisco has said that the administration cannot engage in a reduction-in-force.”

Instead, Alsup said the Trump administration must follow established federal law to terminate employees.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Constitutional law

'Limited Options' If Trump Defies Judicial Decisions

Constitutional law experts are warning of “limited options” if President Donald Trump defies federal judges’ orders to limit the scope of his executive actions, Business Insider reports.

This, Politico reports, comes as “at least nine federal judges — from Washington, D.C., to Washington state — have halted aspects of Trump’s early-term blitz, from his effort to rewrite the Constitution’s birthright citizenship guarantee to his sweeping effort to freeze federal spending to his plans to break and remake the federal workforce.”

As courts prepare to challenge Trump's broad claims of presidential authority, his supporters are railing against perceived judicial overreach — and insist “the president’s orders are well within the powers outlined in the Constitution’s second section on the executive branch."

“It is the judicial pushback, they say, that is overstepping the constitutional boundaries laid out in the third section on the judiciary,” the New York Times reports.

“President Trump is not stealing other branches’ powers,” conservative activist Mike Davis told the Times. “He is exercising his Article II powers under the Constitution. And judges who say he can’t? They’re legally wrong. The Supreme Court is going to side with Trump.”

University of North Carolina School of Law in Chapel Hill constitutional law professor Michael J. Gerhardt said if Trump does defy a court order, “the consequences would likely fall on lower-level officials, not the president himself,” Business Insider reports.

"At the very least, you would have a possible contempt citation directed at a particular official who has refused to comply with a court order," Gerhardt said, "If they indicate they are defying it because of his order, then the court is going to include the president in the citation of contempt.”

As courts prepare to challenge Trump's broad claims of presidential authority, his supporters are railing against perceived judicial overreach — and insist “the president’s orders are well within the powers outlined in the Constitution’s second section on the executive branch."

“It is the judicial pushback, they say, that is overstepping the constitutional boundaries laid out in the third section on the judiciary,” the New York Times reports.

“President Trump is not stealing other branches’ powers,” conservative activist Mike Davis told the Times. “He is exercising his Article II powers under the Constitution. And judges who say he can’t? They’re legally wrong. The Supreme Court is going to side with Trump.”

University of North Carolina School of Law in Chapel Hill constitutional law professor Michael J. Gerhardt said if Trump does defy a court order, “the consequences would likely fall on lower-level officials, not the president himself,” Business Insider reports.

"At the very least, you would have a possible contempt citation directed at a particular official who has refused to comply with a court order," Gerhardt said, "If they indicate they are defying it because of his order, then the court is going to include the president in the citation of contempt.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Vladimir Putin and Assad

Refuting Trump Prediction, Putin Grants Russian Asylum To Assad

Russian state-owned news agency TASS, citing a source in the Kremlin, confirmed overthrown Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his family are in Moscow “after being granted asylum in Russia,” CNN’s Jim Scuitto reports.

Syrian rebel forces on Sunday advanced into Damascus “unopposed … overthrowing” Assad “and ending nearly six decades of his family's iron-fisted rule,” Reuters reports. "In one of the most consequential turning points in the Middle East for generations, the fall of Assad's government wiped out a bastion from which Iran and Russia exercised influence across the Arab world. Moscow gave him and his family asylum."

Russia’s decision to grant Assad asylum comes as Trump, early Sunday morning,” claimed Putin “ was not interested in protecting [Assad] any longer.”

“Assad is gone. He has fled his country. His protector, Russia, Russia, Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, was not interested in protecting him any longer. There was no reason for Russia to be there in the first place. They lost all interest in Syria because of Ukraine, where close to 600,000 Russian soldiers lay wounded or dead, in a war that should never have started, and could go on forever. Russia and Iran are in a weakened state right now, one because of Ukraine and a bad economy, the other because of Israel and its fighting success. Likewise, Zelenskyy and Ukraine would like to make a deal and stop the madness. They have ridiculously lost 400,000 soldiers, and many more civilians. There should be an immediate ceasefire and negotiations should begin. Too many lives are being so needlessly wasted, too many families destroyed, and if it keeps going, it can turn into something much bigger, and far worse. I know Vladimir well. This is his time to act. China can help. The World is waiting!”

As New York Times reporter Glenn Thrush noted in a tweet, Trump’s take on the Syrian geopolitical crisis “is kinda wow.”

After his slated successor tweeted his analysis in the early Sunday morning hours, President Joe Biden on Sunday heralded his administration’s role in weakening Assad's regime.

“For years the main backers of Assad have been Iran, Hezbollah and Russia,” Biden said. “But over the last week their support collapsed, all three of them, because all three of them are far weaker today than they were than when I took office.”

You can watch that video below or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Jack Smith

Smith Drops Trump Election Charges Despite 'Merits Of The Prosecution'

Special counsel Jack Smith on Monday filed a motion to dismiss federal charges against Donald Trump related to his effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, CBS News reports.

Smith, CBS reports, “asked a federal district court in Washington on Monday to dismiss the case against” the president-elect.

“In newly filed court documents, federal prosecutors working in Smith's office told U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan that they are seeking to close Trump's case because Justice Department policy forbids the prosecution of a sitting president,” CBS News reports.

CNN’s Kaitlin Collins likewise posted about the move.

“News — Jack Smith says he is dropping his election subversion case against President-elect Trump,” Collins wrote on X.

In his filing, Smith wrote the Department of Justice was confronted with an “unprecedented situation” as a result of the November 5, 2024 presidential election — and consulted with the Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) for guidance.

"After careful consideration, the Department has determined that OLC’s prior opinions concerning the Constitution’s prohibition on federal indictment and prosecution of a sitting President apply to this situation and that as a result this prosecution must be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated,” Smith wrote in his filing.

“That prohibition is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the Government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the Government stands fully behind,” he added.

Read the full filing here.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Top Tech Reporter Explains Why Musk Is Unfit For Government Position

Top Tech Reporter Explains Why Musk Is Unfit For Government Position

Tech reporter Kara Swisher on Wednesday refuted CNN conservative strategist Scott Jennings’ effusive praise of billionaire Elon Musk, arguing you “can separate” the billionaire X owner’s “heinous behavior” from his entrepreneurship — “if you have half a brain.”

Musk on Tuesday watched election returns with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago as the country overwhelmingly elected the former president to another four years in the White House. As the Washington Post reported Wednesday, Musk has future political ambitions, and has “repeatedly discussed with Trump the idea of joining a new commission to slash federal spending by as much as $2 trillion" when the he takes office next year.

Jennings on Wednesday implored his fellow panelists to “be nice” to Musk, arguing voters “want unconventional” — and Musk will bring just that to the Trump Administration.

Swisher, who’s interviewed Musk over 30 times, had less praise for the billionaire.


“I'm looking at a lot of things,” Swisher said. “The instability and the decisions that he makes are sometimes haphazard and strange, often.”

The tech reporter said Musk “is allowed to blow up rockets because he can do it and take those risks and the shareholders go along with him,” but argued “it’s a different thing when it comes to the federal government.”

“People's lives depend on it,” Swisher said. “I know you think its funny and I don't think that it's funny at all.”

The reporter went on to argue that if Trump and Musk treat the federal government like a startup, “the least among us suffer — and that’s just the way it is.”

“[Musk] has a history of doing that, lack of safety at certain of his facilities, and he has a history of firing people,” Swisher said. “And a history of not paying people. And he has a history of being haphazard and firing someone who talks back against him. And for someone who is for free speech, he clamps down on speech a lot it when he doesn't like it. So if you want that too, that's great and hah, hah if you want to do it that way.”

Swisher suggested Musk could merge X with Trump’s social media company Truth Social.

“That could be interesting and incredibly corrupt and he'll use it as a propaganda organ which is precisely why he bought it,” she said. “This was a great investment by Elon Musk in Donald J. Trump.”

Jennings argued that Musk “wasn’t elected” and merely “supports Donald Trump, and now he's going to have influence because his side won.”


“Honestly, I hear all of this carping about Elon Musk and it sounds like sour grapes from the side of the ball that shunned this guy and now they're paying for it,” he said, later arguing “you can't begrudge this man, his opportunity to participate in the political system in the way that he sees fit.”

“Nobody begrudges his ability to speak,” Swisher shot back. “What they begrudge is the flood of misinformation and all kinds of things that happen on that platform — which is uncontrolled and it's not about free speech, because he decides when and where to do it.”

Swisher noted Trump and Elon “may not be able to coexist in the same place” as they’re both “very petulant” and like attention.

"He and Trump will clash at some point, much in the same way that he clashed with the Biden Administration,” Swisher predicted.

The tech reporter added that while Trump gets credit for his space exploration and electric cars, “what he doesn't get credit for [is] his heinous behavior and bringing people down — and that troubles me.”

“And you can separate it from the entrepreneurship if you have half a brain,” the reporter added.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Melania Absent As Trump And Far-Right Agitator Laura Loomer 'Cozy Up'

Melania Absent As Trump And Far-Right Agitator Laura Loomer 'Cozy Up'

Miami New Times reporter Naomi Feinstein mapped out the last known whereabouts of Melania Trump after photos and videos surfaced of Donald Trump embracing far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer — with the former first lady nowhere to be found.

In an article entitled, “Laura Loomer and Trump Sitting in a Tree, K I S S I N G,” Feinstein noted “the former first lady has been largely absent” as her husband hits the campaign trail for the third time as the Republican candidate for president.

“When Trump and his entourage arrived in Philadelphia for the presidential debate, Melania was nowhere to be seen,” Feinstein reported, noting Loomer, “Florida's own far-right provocateur and one-time Republican congressional candidate,” was by the former president’s side instead.

“[Loomer] was later seen backstage at the September 10 debate, in the spin room with Trump immediately after, and then by his side in New York City and Pennsylvania for September 11 remembrance ceremonies,” Feinstein added.


The Miami-based reporter, quoting Internet personality Mike Sington, noted Trump has been seen “hanging out with” Loomer. The "Internet personality" also included a video “with their hands all over each other at Mar-a-Lago.”

"Loomer has been traveling with Trump all week for reasons that remain unclear,” journalist Aaron Rupar wrote in a separate tweet.

Feinstein and other journalists are hardly the only members of the media taking note of the connection between Trump and Loomer. The Drudge Report on Friday featured a photo of the pair with the headline “ Loomer MAGA Love.”

“Has [Trump] found his soulmate?” The Drudge Report asked.

Still, it’s not a match made in heaven for everyone in Trump’s corner. Far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on Thursday called out Loomer over an “extremely racist” tweet that claimed if Vice President Kamala Harris wins in 2024, “the White House will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center.”

“This does not represent President Trump,” Greene wrote on X.

But that misrepresentation doesn’t appear to bother Trump, who on Friday defended his connection to Loomer, calling her “a supporter of mine.”

“I don’t control Laura,” Trump said at a news conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA. “Laura has to say what she wants. She’s a free spirit.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Sarah Longwell

Former Trump Voters Still Won't Back Him After Biden Debate

Two-time Donald Trump voters who’ve since soured on the former president still don’t plan to back him after his debate with President Joe Biden, according to a focus group spearheaded by conservative strategist Sarah Longwell.

Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark and prominent “Never Trumper,” joined CNN on Friday to discuss the fallout from Biden’s much-maligned performance at the first presidential debate held on Thursday.

Longwell said she hosted a focus group Friday morning with “two-time Trump voters who are out on Trump — people who did not want to vote for him again.”

Noting “some of them had been leaning Biden prior to last night's debate,” Longwell said, “this morning, they told us that they just didn't think they could get there on Biden.”

“I will say, though, they were very clear about Trump still,” the Republican strategist said. “One of the things you heard from all the voters in the focus group is that Trump is a liar. Trump is a bad person. They don't want to vote for Trump. There was nothing about last night in Trump's performance that brought these voters who don't like Trump back to him.”

“The problem is that those voters needed to be persuaded to vote for Joe Biden, not just against Trump, and that didn't happen last night. That's what we heard,” she added.

CNN then played audio of the “double haters” who voted twice for Trump but are now undecided.

"It's like watching a train wreck,” Melanie from Kansas told the focus group. “I don't like either of the candidates. It's like, which one's worse? Biden’s cognitive stuff is just — it's evident. And then Trump is just a horrible human.”

Karen from Massachusetts agreed.

"It is shameful that that's country has these two candidates to pick from: You have a felon, and a gentleman who has certainly done his best, in his mind, for his country — but it's time for him to step away.”

Explaining the responses from her focus group, Longwell said “the double haters … have always sounded like this."

“The thing is, they don't hate Joe Biden, actually,” Longwell noted. “They just think he's too old. They do hate Donald Trump. They think he's a bad person of bad character. And so Joe Biden had to show up last night and convince those people that he could do the job.”

“Because that didn't happen last night, you just heard a lot of people talking about being embarrassed, feeling like, ‘Is this the only thing we could, the best we can do in this country?’” Longwell added.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Ex-Treasury Chief Summers Warns Of 'Worldwide Economic Warfare' If Trump Wins

Ex-Treasury Chief Summers Warns Of 'Worldwide Economic Warfare' If Trump Wins

Lawrence Summers, who served as the 71st Secretary of the Treasury under former President Bill Clinton, warned of “worldwide economic warfare” if Donald Trump implements his policy proposalspolicy proposals, Bloomberg reports.

Summers spoke with Bloomberg Television’s Wall Street Week with David Westin on Friday, describing Trump’s policy ideas as “a prescription for the mother of all stagflations.”

According to Bloomberg, Summers’ comments came on the heels of Trump, in a meeting with Republicans on Capitol Hill Thursday, floating “using tariff hikes as a way to pay for some income tax cuts.”

Trump in that meeting “also proposed a minimum 10 percent universal import levy and a punitive rate for China,” Bloomberg reports.

Speaking to Westin on Friday, Summers warned there’s never “been a more inflationary presidential economic policy platform in my lifetime,” comparing the proposal to “George McGovern in 1972.”

Though Summers conceded Trump could be following the time-honored tradition of presidential candidates “not [being] serious about the things they say,” the former Treasury secretary described Trump’s public policy platform as an “irresponsible set of proposals.” Between the former president's economic platform and anti-immigration rhetoric, Summers warned of “more wage inflation pressures” if Trump wins the 2024 election. Such pressures, according to Summers, could force another rate hike by the Federal Reserve.

“This could easily be a prescription for a 10 percent mortgage rate,” Summers said. “… This is really dangerous stuff.”

Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt hit back at Summers’ assessment, claiming the former president’s “first-term pro-growth economic policies created record-low mortgage, interest and unemployment rates and made inflation virtually non-existent.”

“Americans can expect President Trump’s second-term economic agenda will have the same impact and end Joe Biden’s inflation crisis that continues to rob working families of thousands of dollars every month,” Leavitt said.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Andrew Ross Sorkin

Top Business Executives Spooked By Trump's Bizarre Behavior In Meeting

New York Times financial columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin on Friday delivered a “brutal” report on Donald Trump’s meeting with top U.S. chief executive officers (CEOs), telling CNBC that those who met with the former president found him “meandering,” and walked away from the event “less predisposed” to voting for him over President Joe Biden.

Trump on Thursday met with about 100 corporate leaders, including Apple’s Tim Cook, JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon and Citigroup’s Jane Fraser, at a Business Roundtable event in Washington D.C., Financial Times reports.

According to Financial Times, at least one attendee said Trump “came across as solid, almost business-like, and not something else like we sometimes see.”

But Sorkin’s sources in the room told a different story, according to a CNBC report labeled by Biden spokesperson James Singer as “brutal.”

“I will say, I was surprised,” Sorkin said of his sources' reactions to the event.

The New York Times columnist continued:

I spoke to enough CEOs who I would say walked into the meeting being Trump supporter-ish — or thinking that they might be leaning that direction — who said that he was remarkably meandering, could not keep a straight thought, was all over the map. Which may not be surprising, but was interesting to me because these were people who I think might have been actually predisposed to him, actually walked out of the room less predisposed to him — actually predisposed to thinking, "this is not necessary."

“As one person said, 'This might not be any different or better than a Biden thought, if you’re thinking that way,'” Sorkin added.

In the meeting, Trump, Financial Times reports, “discussed his right-wing economic agenda and bashed President Joe Biden’s handling of global events, from the U.S.’s withdrawal from Afghanistan to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Hamas’s attack on Israel.”

According to the report, he also “told his audience he would consider lowering the 21 per cent corporate tax rate even further, after cutting it from 35 per cent in 2017.”

Watch Sorkin's report below or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Trump Complains As His 'Few Dozen' Supporters Rally In New York

Trump Complains As His 'Few Dozen' Supporters Rally In New York

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Monday detailed Donald Trump’s frustration with courthouse security as “a few dozen” supporters “are kept cornered off a bit of a distance” from the former president’s Manhattan “hush money” trial.

Opening statements in the Manhattan district attorney’s 34 felony count case against Trump began Monday morning as prosecutors alleged the former president lied “over and over and over” in an “illegal” conspiracy to hide hush money payments to adult film star Stephanie Clifford, whose stage name is Stormy Daniels, the New York Times reports.

According to Collins, Trump is growing increasingly frustrated as he views “this all through the lens of the campaign trail.”

“I think big picture, when you look at what Trump has been saying, his mindset going into this, he’s complaining about the gag order incessantly,” Collins told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. "I’m told privately the idea that he can't directly attack the judges family, the prosecutors in this case — he can go after [Manhattan District Attorney] Alvin Bragg— but not other members of the team … it has been a big thing of his.”

“The other thing: there's a lot of security outside the courthouse,” Collins noted. “Understandably, we saw what happened last week. It is a former president who is going on trial.”


Collins appeared to be referencing the death of Max Azzarello, who succumbed to his injuries on Saturday after setting himself on fire across the street from the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse on Friday.

Collins continued, “Trump has been complaining that his supporters — when there's only a few dozen, it's not a huge group because we've been live outside the courthouse for several weeks now — that they can't come closer to the courthouse.”


“Because he is viewing this all through the lens of the campaign trail and what that means going into it and the fact that they are kept cordoned off a bit of a distance so people can get in and out of the courthouse has been driving him crazy,” Collins concluded.

Watch the video below, via CNN, or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

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.