President Joe Biden kicked off the first campaign rally of his bid for re-election to union workers in Philadelphia on Saturday with a focus on a core constituency: working-class voters.
Hosted by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, representing more than 12.5 million workers, Biden addressed approximately 2,000 union members assembled at the Philadelphia Convention Center. “I’m proud to be the most pro-union president in American history,” Biden said. “But what I’m really proud about is being re-elected the most pro-union president in American history.”
The event came just a day after the AFL-CIO and 17 other unions, including the American Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, endorsed Biden’s re-election campaign.
The joint endorsement was the first of its kind, and came two days after a slew of environmental groups also endorsed the president. “I’m more honored by your endorsement than you can imagine,” Biden said on Saturday. “Coming this early, it’s gonna make a gigantic difference in this campaign.”
Biden spent much of his speech touting various legislative achievements, including a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, the CHIPS Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act. “I told you when I ran for president, I’d have your back, and I have,” Biden said, before adding: “But you’ve had my back as well.”
The president also took a few shots at wealthy individuals and corporations, calling on “millionaires and billionaires and big corporations to pay their fair share” in taxes. “If investment bankers in this country went on strike tomorrow, nobody would miss—notice them,” Biden said, to peals of laughter. “But if this room didn’t show up for work tomorrow or Monday, the whole country would come to a grinding halt.”
The rally comes as Biden has struggled to communicate his legislative victories: A mere 33 percent of American adults say they approve of how Biden has handled the economy, and his approval ratings continue to hover around 40 percent—only slightly higher than Donald Trump’s. “It is important we’re communicating our story back home, especially in the biggest battleground state in the nation,” Representative Brendan F. Boyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat, toldThe New York Times.
Biden’s speech sharply contrasted with his September 2022 address in Philadelphia, where the focus was on portraying “MAGA Republicans” as a threat “to the foundation of our very Republic.” Continuing his reticence on the subject, Biden made no mention of Donald Trump or his recent indictment and only acknowledged the Republican Party to criticize its economic policy. “They’re coming for your jobs. They’re coming for your future,” he said. They’re coming for the future we’re building for your kids and your grandkids.”
In March, Bloomberg reported that “Tiny D” was on a list of derogatory nicknames Trump was considering using on the Florida governor, and while it wasn’t conclusively clear at the time that the moniker referred to DeSantis’s genitals, it’s probably now safe to assume as much.
It‘s definitely true that he wasn’treading thingswhen he was president
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Elsewhere!
Trump attorney quits another case, cites “irreconcilable differences”
“He did this for one reason and one reason only, to throw you off your game.” That’s what I told Hillary Clinton backstage at Washington University in October 2016, moments away from her second presidential debate with Donald Trump. Two days prior, the world had learned, thanks to the Access Hollywood tape, that Trump liked to assert power by assaulting women. Trump retaliated by showing up at a pre-debate appearance with women who had accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault. “Yeah, I got that,” Clinton responded dryly to my pep talk. “The great news is that it didn’t work,” I insisted. She had been through worse and I thought she would be okay, but it was my job, as the campaign’s communications director, to make sure of it. She mustered a serene smile, folded her hands, and slowly shook her head. “Nope. Didn’t work.”
Gretchen Whitmer, too, has dealt with boorish men, like one on the floor of the Michigan Senate who leaned over her to say something “very inappropriate.” The man was older, but she was the minority leader and senior to him. “Keep in mind, I outrank this guy, he’s looming over me, and of course, I am the one who has to go through all the mental gymnastics about how I respond to his offensive comment,” she said in a lament familiar to all women. She stood, waiting to speak until she could look him in the eye, and said forcefully but with a smile, “What the fuck is wrong with you? You can’t talk to me that way.”
Whitmer didn’t have the pressure of considering how millions of TV viewers—and voters—might judge her ability to withstand the pressure of being president on this interaction. (Clinton would later speculate that people might have liked to see some fire from her in responding to Trump pacing behind her on the debate stage, but in the moment what was most critical was for her to keep her cool.) For Whitmer, that encounter in the state Senate was seminal. She would not quietly tolerate misogynistic behavior as women before her had to do. Her lewd male colleague learned a lesson other foes—including Trump—would come to know: Whitmer doesn’t go looking for trouble, but if you come for her, she will punch you in the mouth.
It is a disservice to Whitmer that she is perhaps known more for outlandish things men have done to her—showing up at her home and office wielding guns, voting to strip her of her emergency powers to manage the pandemic, plotting to kidnap and assassinate her—than for her political acumen and what she has accomplished. But as a woman leader who came into the national spotlight during the Trump era, combating the torrent of misogynistic energy the 2016 campaign unleashed in the world has been a defining feature of Whitmer’s job. I see Whitmer battling the same forces Clinton faced but am encouraged. This time the men who tried to stop the woman are paying for their actions. Republican legislative leaders in Michigan who fought Whitmer lost control of the legislature. Many of the plotters are in jail. Even Trump—who tormented both Clinton and Whitmer—continues to face consequences as his legal troubles mount.
Whitmer recently commented that the country “is long overdue for a strong female chief executive”—begging the question of whether America will elect a woman front and center while asserting that a woman would do the job better than a man. And no, Whitmer is not planning a primary challenge to Joe Biden this time around. She will be busy raising money for Biden, however, along with 2024 House and Senate candidates, through her just-launched Fight Like Hell PAC.
I am not one of the people who buys into the self-actualizing bullshit that a woman can’t win the presidency. Clinton proved it’s possible. She got more votes. Having interviewed Whitmer for Showtime’s The Circus and based on my three decades in the political trenches, I could see she had the talent, drive, and toughness to be a solid national candidate. But earlier this year, I headed to Michigan to pressure-test that notion by observing how those qualities came to be and what all of it may say about Whitmer’s—or any woman’s—chances of being elected president.
Whitmer sets her alarm for 5:02 a.m. every morning. Not 5 a.m. 5:02 a.m. I made sure to arrive early at her residence in Lansing as I had met her enough times to know that if you show up on time, you will be late. Nevertheless, the governor was already striding down the hallway—ready to start her 10 a.m. childcare roundtable event at 9:50—and calling out “Hi, Jen!” as I came through the door.
The week I spent trailing her in Michigan was a blur of activity. On Tuesday, Whitmer signed a $150 million supplemental appropriations bill that the state legislature had passed with historic speed. The next day, she signed a bill to move up Michigan’s presidential primary. Thursday was a childcare event, followed by appearances before legislators considering new economic bills and a Galentine’s Day reception at her home. She rolled out a new policy in Detroit on Friday to benefit geographically and economically disadvantaged businesses, gave a speech to a group of more than 1,000 educators, and reached a deal with the legislature on a major new tax plan.
More recently, when three students were killed at a mass shooting at Whitmer’s beloved alma mater of Michigan State, she said the time for only thoughts and prayers was over and moved forward a gun safety package the legislature approved.
Whitmer describes herself as a progressive Democrat, but observing her up close, I see her core ideology as getting shit done. At the Galentine’s Day reception, she remarked that “if you want to get something done, give it to a busy woman.” Whitmer’s office has a lot of busy women—the four-person senior team is all female—and the operation seems to be in constant motion, yet calm and empowered. Their demeanor does not change in Whitmer’s presence, and they don’t shy away from telling her tough truths. It is a clarity too often lacking in political organizations; Whitmer’s team operates with a speed and confidence I rarely see. As a former aide who remains close to Whitmer put it to me, no matter what the issue is, the process for moving forward is always the same: “Find the partners, build the coalition, get the thing done.”
First elected to the Michigan House of Representatives in 2000, at age 29, Whitmer has never lost an election. She next served for nearly a decade in the Michigan Senate, becoming the state’s first female Senate minority leader. “Anyone who understands governing and politics respects her ability,” Jeff Timmer, a Michigan-based political strategist and erstwhile Republican who once produced television ads against Whitmer when she ran for the Michigan House, told me.
After Whitmer was term-limited out of the state Senate in 2014, she thought she was done with electoral politics. As she describes it, a number of powerful men abusing the public trust compelled her to get back into politics starting in 2015, when she finished the term of the Ingham County prosecutor in Lansing who had been forced out for—wait for it—being part of a sex-trafficking ring. It was there Whitmer signed a warrant for Larry Nassar, the US women’s gymnastics team doctor later convicted of sexually abusing hundreds of female athletes. Whitmer went into the 2016 election having decided to run for governor two years later. She thought Clinton would win Michigan and the White House. After Trump won both, she felt more urgency. “I filed for office on the first possible day and spent the next two years campaigning.” She won in 2018 by nearly 10 points.
It matters that Whitmer did not have the burden of being Michigan’s first female governor. That distinction goes to Jennifer Granholm, now secretary of energy under Biden, who was elected in 2002 and won re-election in 2006. There’s a singular alienation and judgment women first through the door encounter. (For the most current example, witness the constant headwinds Kamala Harris faces as the first woman and first person of color to be vice president.)
Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer celebrate during an election night watch party at MotorCity Casino Hotel on November 09, 2022 in Detroit, Michigan.By Brandon Bell/Getty Images.
Many questions surround Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to run for president in 2024 on the Democratic ticket. Questions like, does he have any policy positions besides vaccines being bad? And will his remarks about Anne Frank come up on the campaign trail? But mostly, what does Larry David, the man who unintentionally set RFK Jr. up with his wife, Cheryl Hines, and is Hines’s boss on Curb Your Enthusiasm, think of all this? And horror of horrors, is he actually supporting Kennedy’s bid for office?
Thankfully, the answer is a resounding no, despite what the country’s leading anti-vaxxer might want people to think. Speaking to The New York Times for a profile of Hines, the son of Robert Kennedy and nephew of John F. Kennedy said of his campaign for the White House, “I feel a lot of support and love from most of her friends, including Larry.” That might lead one to believe David was backing Kennedy’s candidacy, but the Curb creator would like to disabuse people of that notion. In a text to the Times, he wrote, “Yes love and support, but I’m not ‘supporting’ him.”
That probably has something to do with, among other things, the fact that Trump ally Steve Bannon has reportedly been “supportive of Mr. Kennedy’s campaign” and “float[ed] the idea of a Trump-Kennedy ticket,” while rabid conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has “also expressed enthusiasm.” (Kennedy insisted to the Times that he has “never spoken to Mr. Bannon or Mr. Jones about my presidential campaign.”) There’s also the gross fact that when asked twice by the paper of record if he would “reject an endorsement from Mr. Jones, who lost a $1 billion lawsuit for repeatedly saying the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting that killed 20 first graders and six educators in Newtown, Conn., was a government hoax,” Kennedy chose not to respond.
Last year, Trump attorney Alan Dershowitzcomplained to The New Yorker that David snubbed him in a Martha’s Vineyard grocery store over Dershowitz’s association with the Trump administration, and when pressed, told the lawyer, “You’re disgusting.” So given the people apparently backing Kennedy’s bid for office, it’s not that surprising David would not be in favor of it. But it’s good to know Curb viewers can now watch season 12 without cringing.
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Former Vice President Mike Pence said states should bar Americans younger than 18 from receiving any gender transition procedures, adding his strong support to Republican efforts to target transgender minors.
Pence, who announced his bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination this week, made the comments during CNN’s latest town-hall-style event with GOP candidates. The former vice president told moderator Dana Bash that although he supported restoring parents’ rights in schools and ending “politically correct nonsense,” he didn’t believe a parent should be able to decide if their child should be allowed to transition or seek medical care for gender dysphoria.
“I strongly support state legislation that bans all gender transition, chemical or surgical procedures, for kids under the age of 18,” Pence said. “I’m talking as a father and I’m talking as a grandfather right now. There’s a reason you don’t let kids get a tattoo before they’re 18.”
Dana Bash on Pence proposing a total ban on gender transitions for minors: “You are so adamant about parents’ rights, but in this particular case … [you think] that the parents should not be allowed to do that.” pic.twitter.com/tGJmxJdGAP
Bash pressed Pence on his previous comments that parents should be in control of what their kids hear in schools and asked what he would say to trans kids who felt targeted by Republican efforts to limit access to medical care.
“I would tell them that I love everybody. I’d put my arm around them and their parents. But before they had a chemical or surgical procedure, I would say wait, just wait,” he said. “Most people before you’re 18 years of age, there’s a reason we got that cutoff for all kinds of categories in our society.
“You just don’t really know what you want in life. You don’t know who you are. It takes time to become an adult, figure that out.”
Pence went on to claim that mental health experts agreed with his statements. That’s not true.
The former vice president, however, said a radical gender ideology was “afoot” in America, taking hold of schools and universities.
“However adults want to live, they can live, but for children, we’re going to protect kids from radical gender ideology,” Pence said. “The state has the obligation to see to [their] safety and health and the wellbeing.”
As Donald Trump’s attorney general from February 2019 to December 2020, Bill Barr had an up close look at the way the former guy conducted himself while running the country. And, like many an American, what he came away with—after, yes, nearly two years of doing the guy’sdirty work—was that Trump is a malignant narcissist who should be kept away from the White House at all costs.
Speaking to CBS Mornings on Tuesday about the Justice Department’s probe into Trump’s handling of classified documents and potential obstruction of justice, Barr said, contrary to his ex boss’s claims, the investigation has absolutely not been a witch hunt. “In fact, they approached this very delicately and with deference to the president,” Barr said, adding that if Trump had simply returned the documents when asked, the investigation would have “gone nowhere…but he jerked them around for a year and a half.” Whether special counsel Jack Smith indicts Trump or not remains to be see but regardless, Barr said, there is “no excuse for what [Trump] did here.”
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Asked by host Gayle King what he expects the public reaction to a possible indictment might be, Barr responded: “This says more about Trump than it does the Department of Justice. He’s so egotistical that he has this penchant for conducting risky, reckless acts to show that he can sort of get away with it…and he’s done this repeatedly at the expense of all the people who depend on him to conduct the public’s business in an honorable way.” Asked about Trump’s third bid for office, the former attorney general declared him “almost unique in his inability to attract voters. He repels people other than his core base.”
Given all this, you might think that there would be absolutely no way that Barr would cast a vote for Trump in the 2024 general election, especially considering Barr has also said that Trump was responsible for January 6, and became “manic and unreasonable,” in the run-up to the attack that left five people dead. But: Surprise! (Or not, because he’s said it before.) Claiming that neither Trump nor Joe Biden are “fit for the office,” Barr said he would nevertheless go for Trump should 2024 turn out to be another matchup between the two men. He did not tell King how he sleeps at night, but presumably the answer would be “Just fine, why do you ask?”
Federal prosecutors are using a grand jury in Florida as part of their investigation into the possible mishandling of classified documents at former President Donald Trump’s Palm Beach property, a person familiar with the matter said Tuesday night. The grand jury is in addition to a separate panel that has been meeting in Washington for months to consider charges against Trump over the retention of hundreds of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and potential obstruction of the government’s efforts to reclaim the records.
It is not clear why prosecutors are using an additional grand jury, which was described to The Associated Press by a person who insisted on anonymity to discuss secret proceedings, or which witnesses might be testifying before it.
In his interview with CBS Mornings, Barr reminded people that “I’ve said for a while that I think [the documents probe] is the most dangerous legal risk facing the former president.” Wouldn’t apparently change Barr’s calculus re: voting for the guy in 2024, but nevertheless good to know!
Trumpism is about destruction, about burning it all down, about a kind of partisanship in which Republicans are unwilling or unable to make any kind of bipartisan compromise. And yet, even in a party consumed for years by Trumpism, 149 Republicans voted last week with 165 Democrats to raise the debt ceiling and spare the American economy an unprecedented meltdown. Clearly, the burn it all down wing isn’t going away, with Matt Gaetz,Andy Biggs, and Ken Buck among the 71 Republicans who voted “no.” And it’s not like all members of the “yes” group, which includes Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor Greene, are suddenly sane. But the vote signaled that a majority of Republicans could embrace bipartisan governing, or at least some version of what that looks like in 2023.
The 2024 Republican primary, however, is Trumpism run amok, with Donald Trump leading a pack of less charismatic mini-mes and little sign that the normal (a.k.a. pre-2016) GOP is coming back. Just head out to Iowa, where GOP candidates this past weekend were donning leather for Joni Ernst’s Roast and Ride. The New York Timesnoted that presidential candidates “barely touched” the economy, a subject “many voters expressed concern about.” Instead, the GOP primary crew, which didn’t include the field’s front-runner, railed “against ‘deep state’ bureaucrats, ‘woke’ corporations, and liberals indoctrinating and confusing America’s children.” Ron DeSantis’s team is clearly banking that MAGA red meat is what GOP primary voters will eat up. “The fight for the soul of the party isn’t about tax cuts or trade deals,” Jeff Roe, a top adviser to pro-DeSantis super PAC Never Back Down, told Axios. “It is this cultural combat that we have as a country.”
Perhaps it’s no surprise then to see even Republicans once considered more moderate diving headfirst into the culture wars. During a CNN town hall on Sunday, Nikki Haleyblamed teenage girls’ suicides on trans kids playing sports, a completely preposterous lie and the kind of unusual cruelty that is associated with Trumpism. In Rye, New Hampshire, Haley squandered her time with voters at a “No BS Barbecue” by making fun of transgender influencer and right-wing targetDylan Mulvaney. “Make no mistake, that is a guy dressed up like a girl making fun of women,” she said. “Women don’t act like that. And you’ve got companies glorifying that.” As Semafor’s David Weigelwrote, “The repeated riff was meant to be the applause line for one of the top candidates running on their ability to win back moderates in the suburbs who have fled the Republican Party in the Donald Trump era” and the best response the riff got was “a mixture of groans and murmurs.”
It’s baffling to me why Haley would want to mimic Trump’s cruelty, but she’s not the only one. The GOP primary field is beating upon transgender people in ways that are both morally wrong and wildly unpopular. According to Pew, “Roughly eight-in-ten US adults say there is at least some discrimination against trans people in our society, and a majority favor laws that would protect transgender individuals from discrimination in jobs, housing, and public spaces.” Yet we find GOP candidates running as furious culture warriors targeting trans kids and bodily autonomy. Candidates Tim Scott, Haley, and Pence have expressedsupport forafederal abortion ban.
Few dare mention Trump’s name on the campaign trail. Instead, they make vague callouts to the man, speaking in code, saying things about “rejecting a culture of losing (DeSantis)” or “it’s time for a new generational leader (Haley).” Pence criticized his former boss for recently congratulating Kim Jong Un, but still refused to use Trump’s name. “Whether it’s my former running mate or anyone else, no one should be praising the dictator in North Korea—or praising the leader of Russia, who has launched an unprovoked war of aggression in Ukraine.” Haley refused to criticize Trump for his Kim Jong Un bromance.
Some Republicans are talking loudly about the need to defeat Trump, like New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu, who at the same time announced Monday he wouldn’t be entering the 2024 race. Then there’s Chris Christie, who has been arguably the most critical of Trump so far and formally kicked off his bid Tuesday. But Christie has gone back and forth on Trump so many times he’s going to need his own lane on the George Washington Bridge. He took aim at Trump in 2016—and then endorsed him. Meanwhile, The Washington Postpoints out how Christie “is viewed negatively by many Republicans” and notes that “many prominent figures in the party who have vocally criticized Trump from a more traditional GOP posture in recent years have been rejected in party primaries.”
Another Republican candidate who has directly criticized Trump is former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, who, following a jury in the E. Jean Carroll case finding Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation, called the former president’s behavior “indefensible.” Hutchinson’s poll numbers are also low.
This year is starting to feel a lot like 2016, a primary field that contains Trump and all the other not-Trump candidates. The only difference between this contest and 2016 is that other candidates then ran (ostensibly, at least) as their own selves and not just lesser versions of the OG. Perhaps this is because the current crop of candidates have seen polling which shows the GOP base continues to struggle with a pronounced case of brain worms. They dismiss Trump’s critics out of hand and election denial runs deep, with 75% in one poll saying that Trump actually won the 2020 election. It’s possible that these 2024 candidates can’t figure out how to recon with a GOP base existing in a post-truth bubble, and are just trying to keep up with an electorate that’s completely lost its mind.
Monday’s episode of “The View” descended into major chaos during a confrontational multisegment conversation with Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.)
The Republican presidential hopeful asked to appear on “The View” after publicly sparring with panelist Joy Behar about his take on systemic racism, but little to nothing appeared to get resolved during the show.
Tempers flared as Scott argued with hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Sunny Hostin about race, LGBTQ rights and more.
Asked why he “doesn’t believe” in the idea of systemic racism, which argues that discrimination is reinforced by the way societies are organized, Scott called the concept “a dangerous, offensive, disgusting message to send to our young people today.”
Hostin tried to follow up with another question, but the legislator shut her down almost immediately.
“You had your chance to ask the question,” he warned, according to Entertainment Weekly. “I’ve watched you on the show. You like people to be deferential and respectful, so, I’m going to do the same thing.”
At several points, the bickering got so heated that the table missed their cues for commercial breaks.
When Goldberg tried to pause the conversation, Scott told her he was “just getting started.”
Appearing visibly upset, he then stood up from the table and told the audience, “I believe all people can see the success that I’ve had,” before settling back into his seat.
Senator Tim Scott appears as a guest on “The View” on June 6, 2023. (Lorenzo Bevilaqua/ABC via Getty Images)
Lorenzo Bevilaqua via Getty Images
Scott was also met with a chorus of “boos” after voicing support for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R) controversial “Don’t Say Gay” legislation, which strictly limits discussions about gender and sexuality from public schools.
The crowd roared after Scott called DeSantis’ dispute with Disney “the right issue as relates to our young kids and what they’re being indoctrinated with.”
While Goldberg didn’t agree, she chastised the audience for being rude.
“Not here. I’m sorry, sir. Do not boo. This is ‘The View,’” Goldberg yelled. “We accept we don’t have to believe everything people say, but you can’t boo people here, please. You cannot do it.” Not long after, Scott made his exit.
The senator has been trying to elevate his platform since announcing his 2024 bid for Republican presidential candidate last month.
He joined a crowded pack of GOP hopefuls that includes former President Donald Trump, Gov. DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.
The Guardianreports that “lawsuits from various communities whose rights have been violated have been stacking up against” against DeSantis, and “residents [who] are already struggling with costs of living” are being forced to cover the tab. “The list of legal challenges precipitating from DeSantis’s unconstitutional laws is endless,” Democratic state senator Lori Berman told the outlet. “We’ve seen Floridians rightly sue many if not all of the governor’s legislative priorities, including laws that restrict drag shows for kids, prohibit Chinese citizens from owning homes and land in Florida, suppress young and Black and brown voters, ban gender-affirming care and threaten supportive parents with state custody of their children, and of course, all the retaliatory legislation waged against Disney for coming out in support of the LGBTQ+ community,” she said. And fighting these suits—which falls to taxpayers—does not come cheap.
For instance, when it comes to DeSantis’s feud with Disney—which landed on the governor’s bad side for having the audacity to speak out against his “Don’t Say Gay” law—lawyers representing the governor are reportedly charging nearly $1,300 per hour in fees. (“Disney is a perfect example. It doesn’t hurt any Floridians. There is nothing. It’s creating a legal issue out of nowhere and now Disney sued so they have to respond and that is going to cost taxpayers’ money,” Democratic state senator Tina Polsky told The Guardian. “The whole Disney case is just because of DeSantis’s ego and his hurt feelings.”) When it comes to defending DeSantis’s “anti-woke” laws, the DC-based firm Cooper & Kirk was reportedly paid nearly $2.8 million as of last June. In December, reports the Miami Herald, DeSantis racked up nearly $17 million in legal costs—and counting.
And of course, state Republicans are apparently more than happy to have taxpayers cover the “soaring” tab:
With Republicans rushing to DeSantis’s defense, perhaps the most glaring example of the legislature’s endorsement of his legal wars is the $16m incorporated into the state’s $117bn budget to be used exclusively for his litigation expenses.
“We’re in a litigious society,” the state Senate president told the Tallahassee Democrat, with the Senate budget chair adding, ironically: “We want the governor to be in a comfortable position to speak his mind.” In an interview with The Guardian,Fentrice Driskell, Florida’s Democratic House leader, said: “The legislature is supposed to be a check on executive power. By giving him a carte blanche to go and fight these wars in court, it’s basically just saying that there are no checks and balances when it comes to the state government in Florida. It’s a waste.”
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Something you’re probably already aware of (but we’ll mention anyway for emphasis) is that Republicans are on a quest to destroy reproductive rights in America, and have already made the country a terrifying place to be pregnant, should you need or want to get an abortion. A good indication of how outrageous the situation has gotten? That a GOP candidate for the White House felt the need to declare she doesn’t think people who undergo abortions should be subject to capital punishment.
Yes, during a CNN town hall in Iowa on Sunday, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley told the audience, “I think we can all come together and say any woman that has an abortion shouldn’t be jailed or given the death penalty. Can’t we start there?”
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In fact, not everyone in Haley’s party would like to “start there,” given that a group of conservative lawmakers in her home state want to classify abortion as murder. (Women who undergo abortions in South Carolina already face prison time.) Meanwhile in Alabama, a bunch of Republican lawmakers want to change the laws so that women can be charged with murder for an abortion, potentially affecting women who miscarry as well.
And then, of course, there is Haley herself, who is hardly the friend to pregnant people she made herself out to be. For one thing, during the town hall on Sunday, she refused to rule out signing a six-week abortion ban (and absurdly suggested Joe Biden and Kamala Harris support abortion at “37 weeks, 38 weeks, 39 weeks”—an argument straight out of Donald Trump’s playbook). Oh, and last month, she lamented how hard it is to get a national abortion ban passed given the makeup of Congress.
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But perhaps the wildest thing that’s come out of Haley’s mouth was her claim this past weekend that one third of teenage girls are suicidal in part because trans women are allowed to play sports.
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To be clear, there is absolutely no evidence this is the case. As Tyler Black, a psychiatrist who focuses on mental health, tweeted, “If there is one thing that I can promise in this world, and stake my entire knowledge and expertise as a suicidologist on, it’s that young teenaged girls are not made more suicidal by the presence of trans people.” Meanwhile, Anne Marie Albano, founder of Columbia University’s Clinic for Anxiety and Related Disorders, gave Haley some homework: “If Nikki Haley cared about kids, she’d state that surveys show teens are worried about violence & hate being perpetrated against their peers, about gun violence, climate & political unrest in the US. And, she’d do something about all that & not tell lies.”
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley suggested in an interview that United States forces “need to align” with non-European countries including Russia to enhance global security, a remark her campaign characterized as a gaffe.
Asked by WMUR-TV for a segment Wednesday on regions of the world to which she felt the U.S. could pay more attention, Haley — who served the Trump administration as United Nations ambassador, first said “the Arab world,” saying the U.S. needs Arab countries “to kind of join with us” on opposing Iran.
“You see Saudi Arabia making deals with China, that’s not good for us. We need them to be with us, and then we need to align with others, Russia, Australia, Japan, Israel,” Haley added.
“We need to start focusing on the allies that we have besides the Europeans and make sure that we have more friends — one, for our needs, so that we’re not dependent on an enemy for energy or medicines or anything else, and then two, to make sure that we build those alliances so that the world is more safe.”
On Saturday, Haley’s campaign said the candidate misspoke when she included Russia with the other countries.
“This is completely ridiculous, she obviously misspoke,” spokesman Ken Farnaso told The Associated Press on Saturday. “No one one has been tougher on Russia than Nikki Haley.”
Asked to comment on the interview, Haley in a statement to AP called the country an “enemy” and referred to President Vladimir Putin as a “thug.”
“I fought them at the U.N. and I will continue to fight them,” Haley said. “They want to destroy us and our allies and they are not to be trusted.”
During her tenure as U.N. ambassador during the Trump administration, Haley was critical of Russia, denouncing its invasion of Crimea, condemning the country for “holding the hands” of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as the countries sparred over sanctions. She also referred to Russian corruption as a “virus” which is “impeding our ability to achieve complete denuclearization in North Korea.”
A divide has emerged within the Republican field on how the U.S. should handle Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In response to a query earlier this year from then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Haley said U.S. support for Ukraine was critical against an anti-American regime that is “attempting to brutally expand by force into a neighboring pro-American country,” saying a Russian victory would only make countries like China and Iran “more aggressive.”
At the time, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has since entered the GOP primary race, argued that stopping the aggression wasn’t a vital U.S. strategic interest, characterizing the situation as a “territorial dispute.”
A number of fellow Republicans were critical of DeSantis’ initial remarks. Trump, who had called on European countries to share more of the financial burden of defending Ukraine, said DeSantis’ answers were “following what I am saying.” A day later, Haley said she agreed with Trump that “DeSantis is copying him,” writing in an op-ed that the characterization of the war as a “territorial dispute” represented “weakness.”
Following those critiques, DeSantis said his earlier comments referenced ongoing fighting in the eastern Donbas region, as well as Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea. Ukraine’s borders are internationally recognized, including by the United Nations.
For months, Stand for America, a super PAC supportive of Haley, has been aiming to draw a contrast between the former South Carolina governor and DeSantis.
DES MOINES, IOWA – JUNE 03: Republican presidential candidate former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley speaks to guests during the Joni Ernst’s Roast and Ride event on June 03, 2023 in Des Moines, Iowa. The annual event helps to raise money for veteran charities and highlights Republican candidates and platforms. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Scott Olson via Getty Images
“While DeSantis changes his policy positions based on the mood of his donors and television hosts, Haley never backs down,” SFA Lead Strategist Mark Harris said in a release last month.
On Saturday, a spokesman for Never Back Down, the super PAC supporting DeSantis, called Haley’s remark to WMUR “almost as bizarre as her aligning with woke Disney,” a reference to the former South Carolina governor’s critiques of DeSantis’ ongoing dispute with the entertainment giant, whose jobs she has said her home state “will happily accept” should it choose to leave Florida.
The U.S. has been upping its military aid to Ukraine as Russia’s invasion enters its 16th month. In late May, President Joe Biden approved a new aid package that totals up to $300 million and includes additional munitions for drones and an array of other weapons.
To date, the U.S. has committed more than $37.6 billion in weapons and other equipment to Ukraine since Russia attacked on Feb. 24, 2022. This latest package will be done under presidential drawdown authority, which allows the Pentagon to take weapons from its own stocks and quickly ship them to Ukraine, officials said.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) finally released its guidelines for its first primary debate, which will be hosted by Fox News and held in Milwaukee on August 23. Hoping to stave off embarrassment for the party, GOP participants, expected to be in the double-digits, must pledge their support for the eventual nominee—which Trump infamously refused to do during the 2016 primary—and agree to forgo any unsanctioned debates.
In order to qualify for the debate stage, candidates must poll over one percent in either three national polls or two national polls and one state poll, and also boast at least 40,000 unique campaign donors spread across 20 states and territories.
The RNC said that a second debate could be held the following day if a high number of candidates qualify, but so far has not explained how they would divide up the field. In 2016, the party gave the ten top polling candidates spots on the main debate stage and relegated the stragglers to an undercard debate.
“Debates are not a vanity project but a critical opportunity to find the next President of the United States,” RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel told The Washington Post. “If you can’t find 40,000 unique donors to give you a dollar and at least 1 percent of the primary electorate to support you, how can you expect to defeat Joe Biden?”
The debate rules are a long time coming. “By this time in 2015,” Vanity Fair’sCharlotte Kleinwrote Friday, “the date and venue for the first debate had already been reported, and the GOP, after streamlining the debate schedule, was wrestling with how to fit the robust 2016 field onstage.”
Still, there’s much we don’t know about how the debate will unfold, and the main question mark is whether the stage will even include the former president and current Republican frontrunner, Donald Trump. Early last month, The New York Timesreported that Trump was likely to bail on at least one of the first two debates, and The Washington Postrevealed that Trump had spoken privately with Tucker Carlson about the prospect of having the former Fox News host moderate a separate, non-RNC sanctioned debate, which would disqualify Trump under the current RNC rules.
Trump could play a will-he-won’t-he game for months, as he doesn’t need to make a decision until August 21st, which is the deadline for candidates to submit their qualifications and pledge to support the nominee.
The qualification requirements may prove prohibitive for a number of current and likely candidates. In a collection of recent national polls compiled by Real Clear Politics, only Trump, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Tim Scott averaged over one percent. One likely candidate who could struggle to qualify is former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who is expected to enter the race next week and has pledged to directly attack Trump for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Christie struggled to attract small donors when he ran for president in 2016, and is hovering just around one percent in Real Clear Politics’ polling compilation.
There is at least one candidate, however, who wishes the standards were even stricter. The New York Timesreported that two Republicans familiar with the DeSantis campaign said the candidate’s team was hoping for a higher qualification threshold, “which would have been likely to thin out the stage,” giving the Florida Governor more opportunities to directly challenge his main rival, who is currently clobbering him in the polls.
Trump addressed the prospect of a DeSantis debate showdown last week. “They say he’s not a very good debater, but maybe he is,” he said. “We’ll find out. Maybe we’ll find out. Because unless he gets close, why would anybody debate?”
If you caught last month’s disastrous CNN town hall with Donald Trump, there were a few things that likely stood out to you. The ex-president’s continued insistence that the 2020 election was “rigged,” obviously. Or his claim that January 6 was actually Mike Pence’s fault. Or his outrageous suggestion that before Roe v. Wade was overturned, people could “kill a baby in the ninth month…or after the baby is born,” and his disgraceful smears against writer E. Jean Carroll. But in addition to the avalanche of lies, there was another aspect of the proceedings that made the live broadcast extremely weird and unsettling: The audience, which loudly cheered on Trump’s falsehoods throughout the night and laughed when he, for example, attacked the woman a jury had just found him liable of sexually abusing and defaming. And apparently, that was by design.
As Tim Alberta reports in a new Atlantic profile of CNN boss Chris Licht, rather than assembling “an ordinary collection of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents” for the event—as CNN had said it would—most of the people in New Hampshire that night were “diehards, fanboys, political zealots who were likelier to show up at a rally with a MAGA flag than come to a coffee shop with a policy question.” Because, for some reason, that’s exactly what Licht wanted:
Licht had come to Manchester with bigger ambitions than lifting CNN out of the viewership basement for a single evening in May. He believed that Trump owed his initial political ascent in part to the media’s habit of marginalizing conservative views and Republican voters. That needed to change ahead of 2024. Licht wasn’t scared to bring a bunch of MAGA enthusiasts onto his set—he had remarked to his deputies, in the days before the town hall, about the “extra Trumpy” makeup of the crowd CNN was expecting.
Of course, others at the network did not feel the same way, which may have had something to do with it being a terrible idea to basically hold a rally for the guy who tried to overturn the last presidential election and then incited an insurrection when things didn’t go his way.
In the final days before the event, concerns about the audience makeup spiked as Licht’s description of the crowd—“extra Trumpy”—wound its way through Slack channels and text-message threads.
All of these concerns, it turned out, were warranted.… [Moderator Kaitlan] Collins did an admirable job but was steamrolled by Trump in key moments; her questions, which came almost entirely from the candidate’s ideological left, served to effectively rally the room around him. Not that the room needed rallying: The crowd was overwhelmingly pro-Trump, and because CNN wanted an organic environment, it placed few restrictions on engagement. The ensuing rounds of whole-audience applause—I counted at least nine—disrupted Collins’s rhythm as an interviewer. So did the ill-timed bouts of laughter, such as when Trump mocked E. Jean Carroll, and the jeering that accompanied Collins’s mention of the Access Hollywood tape. By the end of the event, it was essentially indistinguishable from a MAGA rally. People throughout the room shouted, “I love you!” during commercial breaks and chanted, “Four more years!” when the program ended.
Incredibly, Licht—who, when asked by Alberta if he’s a conservative, answered, “I would never put myself into a category. I think it depends on what we’re talking about”—has been unwilling to admit that the town hall was an epic disaster. His immediate take on the night was that despite there being “expected” backlash, Collins gave a “masterful performance,” “fact-checked Donald Trump in real time,” and “made a ton of news.” Speaking to Alberta, he said he had no regrets about the “extra Trumpy” crowd, or letting the audience “cheer at will,” or even “devoting the first question to [Trump’s] election lies,” despite the fact that the former guy was going to obviously keep pushing the lie that he won. In fact, the only thing Licht said he would have done differently was maybe have the audience say if they’d voted for Trump in 2020 or were planning to the next time around.
Given how the night unfolded, that tweak was probably not necessary.
As Ron DeSantis kicked off his presidential campaign last week, Donald Trump was asked during a golf tournament about meeting the Florida governor on the debate stage. “They say he’s not a very good debater, but maybe he is,” Trump said of his acolyteturned adversary. “We’ll find out. Maybe we’ll find out. Because unless he gets close, why would anybody debate?”
The question posed by Trump only adds to the uncertainty around the Republican primary debates, which are supposed to begin this summer. The Republican National Committee announced in April that the first debate would take place in August in Milwaukee, hosted by Fox News, along with Rumble, the conservative streaming platform, and the Young America’s Foundation as partners. But the RNC has yet to publicly announce a specific date or venue, nor the criteria for candidates to qualify for them. (Fox News declined to provide any details beyond pointing to the RNC’s prior comments.) Even less information is known about the second debate, other than that it will take place at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Southern California.
“It strikes me that they’re way behind schedule on everything,” said one media executive involved in discussions with the RNC. “I sort of expected by now that we would at least know the date of the first debate, and at least something of a schedule for the rest of the fall.”
Though the RNC has yet to put out the criteria for candidates hoping to debate, chair Ronna McDaniel has been in frequent communication with candidates and campaigns about the process, according to a source familiar with discussions. Still, by this time in 2015, the last presidential cycle with a wide open Republican primary, the date and venue for the first debate had already been reported, and the GOP, after streamlining the debate schedule, was wrestling with how to fit the robust 2016 field onstage.
Behind the scenes, networks have been pitching the RNC to host debates, with Axios reporting Friday that CNN chief Chris Licht told the RNC “that CNN would air the debate not just on its linear feed, but also potentially on the linear networks of other Warner Bros. Discovery channels.” In addition, the outlet noted that “Licht also has offered to partner with a conservative-leaning outlet on the debates,” which could “include giving a journalist from the partner outlet a co-moderator spot.” Meanwhile, NBC News is making its pitch with Lester Holt as moderator alongside colleagues from CNBC and Telemundo. According to Axios, DeSantis’s team has pushed back against the RNC about CNN or NBC hosting debates.
Low-polling candidates—like Asa Hutchinson, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, and Vivek Ramaswamy—would presumably jump at the chance to enter a nationally televised debate—and DeSantis, running well behind Trump in the polls, could surely benefit. Asked whether DeSantis plans to participate in the primary debates, a spokesperson for the campaign referred Vanity Fair to a quote he recently gave Ben Shapiro, in which he said, “Debates are an important part of the process” and that he “look[s] forward to participating in them.” (Still, DeSantis also recently toldGlenn Beck that “corporate media…shouldn’t be involved in our process because they’re hostile to us as Republicans.”)
By the time of the first debate, there could be several more declared candidates, like Mike Pence, Chris Christie, and Chris Sununu. The show will likely go on even if Trump skips it. “If we get announced as a sponsor of a debate, we’ll have that debate whether or not candidates decide to show up,” said the media executive involved in discussions.
Trump is likely to opt out of “at least one of the first two debates of the 2024 Republican presidential nominating contest,” The New York Timesreported last month. The former president, per the Times, “has made it clear that he does not want to breathe life into his Republican challengers by sharing the stage with them.” Trump, who opted out of a primary campaign debate in 2016, suggested as much during a talk radio appearance in April, claiming, “People don’t debate when they have these massive leads” in polling. He has privately complained, per multipleoutlets, that the first debate is too early, and publicly grumbled about the setting of the second, the Reagan Library, where Washington Post publisher Fred Ryan is the longtime chairman of the board.
There are a lot of things we can expect from a Ron DeSantis presidency, should the Florida governor win the Republican primary and then the general election. For one thing, it would be terrifying, given DeSantis’s takes on free speech, LGBTQ+ rights, abortion, science, and treating human beings like chattel. For another, it would more than likely involve his body man carrying a spoon at all times, in order to avoid any unfortunate pudding incidents. But one thing that remains a mystery? Whether Ron would be addressed as President “Deh-Santis” or “Dee-Santis”…because apparently, the candidate himself doesn’t know.
Some presidential candidates struggle to nail their message. Ron DeSantis is struggling to nail his NAME. In the early days of his campaign, DeSantis has gone back and forth between pronouncing his name Dee-Santis and Deh-Santis. Why it matters: DeSantis’s dissonance on how to say his name—for years an issue of confusion for his campaign teams—is a curiosity as many GOP leaders and donors wonder whether the Florida governor is ready for the scrutiny of a presidential campaign.
According to the outlet, in his first week as an official GOP candidate, DeSantis went with “Dee” on at least two occasions, including for a radio interview and in the video announcing his bid for office:
But then, in a twist:
DeSantis pronounced it “Deh-Santis” during interviews with Fox News, Glenn Beck, Erick Erickson, and Mark Levin this past week.
And there’s more:
Early in his political career, DeSantis, 44, appeared to use “Dee-Santis” more often—then began a slow and still-incomplete evolution to “Deh-Santis.” During the 2018 race for Florida governor, the candidate and his wife pronounced his name differently in his television ads: He said “Dee-Santis” in his first TV spot, and she said “Deh-Santis” in another. When a reporter noted the differences, a campaign spokesperson at the time said the candidate “prefers ‘Dee-Santis.’” The dueling pronunciations have tripped up others. When DeSantis was sworn in for his second term as governor in January, Florida’s chief justice pronounced his name “Dee-Santis”—and the governor repeated back, “Deh-Santis.”
Asked by Axios for the correct, official pronunciation, DeSantis’s campaign, bizarrely, did not answer—while the DeSantis-aligned super PAC Never Back Down declined to say. It’s not clear why, but it seems like there’s a strong possibility they don’t actually know, because DeSantis hasn’t decided.
Naturally, the Trump campaign has seized on this as evidence that the governor is unfit for the White House. “Ron DeSantis is a phony who can’t decide how to pronounce his name,” Trump campaign spokesperson told Axios. “If you can’t get your name right, how can you lead a country?” On Thursday, Trump himself declared:
Donald Trump is currently facing many a legal problem. For starters, there are the 34 class E felonies he was charged with last month in relation to a hush money payment made in the run-up to the 2016 election. Then there’s the Justice Department’s investigation into his handling of classified documents, which is expected to result in a second indictment. Rounding things out is a DOJ probe of the violent January 6 insurrection and the plot to overturn the 2020 election, as well as a Fulton County investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the election in Georgia, both of which also have the potential to lead to criminal charges. Trump has, of course, insisted he did nothing wrong. But apparently he also has a plan for how to make himself feel better about all of this: fire everyone who investigated him should he win a second term.
Rolling Stonereports that, in recent months, the extremely well-adjusted and not-at-all authoritarian ex-president has asked close advisers if “we know” the names of the Justice Department staffers and senior FBI agents who have worked on the federal probes involving him. And, spoiler alert, it’s not because he wants to connect with them on LinkedIn or send each one their own Edible Arrangement. Rather, it’s because he plans, as he’s told advisers, to have the DOJ “quickly” and “immediately” get rid of the officials and agents who worked on his federal probes, according to the outlet. (Trump would obviously only have the power to have federal employees dismissed, though there’s definitely a nonzero chance he’s at least wondered aloud if he could do the same to state officials.) Rolling Stone also notes that Trump has taken to saying he’d fire FBI director Christopher Wray on the first day of a potential second term, despite heartily praising the guy when he hired him. (Last week Ron DeSantis also said he would get rid of Wray, so on that point the 2024 rivals apparently agree.)
Two sources familiar with the matter told Rolling Stone that Trump’s allies have told him they’re working to determine the names of the people he wants to “purge” for the crime of investigating him, which is worrisome on a number of levels. For example:
The identities of law enforcement personnel involved in the Mar-a-Lago investigation have been a flashpoint between Trump and the Justice Department since the FBI executed a search warrant on his residence in August 2022. Prosecutors unsealed a copy of the search warrant with the names of agents redacted, but the former president posted a copy of the document with the names of two FBI agents involved in the search. The search kicked off an “unprecedented” number of threats against FBI agents and an attack by an armed Trump supporter on the FBI’s Cincinnati field office.
Speaking of the former guy’s desire to rid the government of anyone who isn’t sufficiently loyal to him, Axios reported last summer that the “heart” of Trump’s plan for a second term involves giving himself the power to fire thousands of career employees who actually know what they’re doing and replace them with people whose specific expertise is in bowing down to him.
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TFW your dual goals of trashing the debt deal and claiming the president is mentally incompetent don’t align so well
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Seems like we can probably interpret that as a “no”
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Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign tweeted this solemn video to honor fallen U.S. soldiers on Memorial Day on Monday:
But the 54-second clip shared by the @TrumpWarRoom account ― which was posted after Trump had written an unhinged, all-caps rant all about himself to mark the day on his Truth Social platform ― prompted a deluge of critical comments.
They also brought up Trump’s multiple deferments to avoid combat in the Vietnam War and his description of American war dead as “losers” and “suckers.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and Donald Trump, both declared candidates in the 2024 presidential election, are swatting back and forth at each other over how each handled the COVID-19 pandemic.
Though most critics of Trump’s actions during the pandemic have accused him of undermining public health guidance, downplaying the severity of the disease and pushing a litany of unverified treatments, DeSantis claimed during a podcast appearance Thursday that Trump had actually delegated too much power to Dr. Anthony Fauci, then the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, throughout the pandemic.
“I think he did great for three years, but when he turned the country over to Fauci in March of 2020, that destroyed millions of people’s lives,” DeSantis said of Trump on “The Glenn Beck Program,” a day after announcing his candidacy. “And in Florida, we were one of the few that stood up, cut against the grain, took incoming fire from media, bureaucracy, the left, even a lot of Republicans, had school open, preserved businesses.”
In reality, Florida had the third-highest number of COVID-related deaths in 2021, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In terms of deaths per capita, Florida ranked 18th among the states for that year. In general, blue states had the lower rates of deaths while red states had the highest, data shows.
Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis talk to each other at a 2018 “Make America Great Again” rally in Tampa, Florida, when DeSantis was running for governor.
CARLOS BARRIA via Reuters
Trump also repeatedlyignored and undermined Fauci’s guidance on the pandemic and loudly criticized him when the doctor’s comments on the health crisis veered from Trump’s vision for reopening the economy.
In a campaign video Thursday, Trump took his own swipe at DeSantis, saying he was the one who poorly managed the COVID-19 response.
“When the Ron ‘DeSanctimonious’ facts come out, you will see that he is better than most Democrat governors but very average, at best, compared to Republican governors, who have done a fantastic job,” Trump said in a campaign video.
“Even [former New York Gov. Andrew] Cuomo did better,” Trump hurled at DeSantis, referencing COVID-19 deaths in each state. “He shut down everything, including the beaches.”
From a public health perspective, neither Trumpnor DeSantis did a good job of protecting people during the COVID-19 pandemic, and both put many people at risk for the sake of political gain, critics and infectious disease experts say.
DeSantis jabbed at Trump again during an appearance on “The Ben Shapiro Show” on Friday.
“He responded [to the pandemic] by elevating Anthony Fauci and really turning over the reins to Dr. Fauci, and I think to terrible consequences for the United States.”
DeSantis asserted that he would have ousted Fauci had he been in Trump’s position during the first years of the pandemic.
“If I’m president — somebody like Fauci is in the government, I will bring them in and I will tell them two things. You’re fired,” the Florida governor said, even though the president would not actually have the power to directly fire someone like Fauci, who was not a political appointee.
These days, CNN seems to be caught between two adages: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again,” and “Insanity is when you do the same thing repeatedly and expect different results.”
Considering the first town hall didn’t help CNN’s rep and that Pence hasn’t actually officially announced his 2024 presidential candidacy (or criticized Trump for allegedly expressing approval of rioters chanting “Hang Mike Pence” on Jan. 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol), many Twitter users decided the only reasonable response was mockery. Pure and simple brutal mockery.
Given that Mike Pence isn’t a declared candidate for President, can anyone get one of these CNN town halls? Can I do one? https://t.co/SteLEeWt8d
CNN will be hosting another clown town hall with moral coward & zealot Mike Pence where he will gaslight us with his four years of tRump into something it wasn’t & where he will defend tRump for only trying to lynch him once. The show will be titled “Hanging around with Mike.”
Interesting that CNN is describing this as a “Republican Presidential Town Hall” since Mike Pence hasn’t officially declared yet… pic.twitter.com/HeJAr2BMdH
After Bash said she was “looking forward” to the event, she also got the Twitter treatment from critics, including one who called her a “paid-shill who works for a right wing network that prioritizes ratings and profits over the preservation of our Democracy.”
Of course you are. Because you are a paid-shill who works for a right wing network that prioritizes ratings and profits over the preservation of our Democracy https://t.co/t1xGi7haej
Having stepped in a manure pile with Trump, why would CNN jump on it again? Its reputation is already in the toilet, does it really need to go lower? https://t.co/Yj2BmOJknT
But one person decided to support the CNN town hall: Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who praised Pence for not being “afraid to do events on networks that are not in lock step with his ideology.”
Looking forward to watching it. Unlike Governor DeSantis, Vice President @Mike_Pence is not afraid to do events on networks that are not in lock step with his ideology. https://t.co/n9kQza0xMn
According to RealClearPolitics, Pence is only polling 4.7% among Republicans, with the caveat being that he actually hasn’t declared his candidacy, something that could change before the June 7 town hall.
