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Tag: iab-elections

  • First on CNN: Senators press Google, Meta and Twitter on whether their layoffs could imperil 2024 election | CNN Business

    First on CNN: Senators press Google, Meta and Twitter on whether their layoffs could imperil 2024 election | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Three US senators are pressing Facebook-parent Meta, Google-parent Alphabet and Twitter about whether their layoffs may have hindered the companies’ ability to fight the spread of misinformation ahead of the 2024 elections.

    In a letter to the companies dated Tuesday, the lawmakers warned that reported staff cuts to content moderation and other teams could make it harder for the companies to fulfill their commitments to election integrity.

    “This is particularly troubling given the emerging use of artificial intelligence to mislead voters,” wrote Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Vermont Democratic Sen. Peter Welch and Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, according to a copy of the letter reviewed by CNN.

    Since purchasing Twitter in October, Elon Musk has slashed headcount by more than 80%, in some cases eliminating entire teams.

    Alphabet announced plans to cut roughly 12,000 workers across product areas and regions earlier this year. And Meta has previously said it would eliminate about 21,000 jobs over two rounds of layoffs, hitting across teams devoted to policy, user experience and well-being, among others.

    “We remain focused on advancing our industry-leading integrity efforts and continue to invest in teams and technologies to protect our community – including our efforts to prepare for elections around the world,” Andy Stone, a spokesperson for Meta, said in a statement to CNN about the letter.

    Alphabet and Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The pullback at those companies has coincided with a broader industry retrenchment in the face of economic headwinds. Peers such as Microsoft and Amazon have also trimmed their workforces, while others have announced hiring freezes.

    But the social media companies are coming under greater scrutiny now in part due to their role facilitating the US electoral process.

    Tuesday’s letter asked Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino how each company is preparing for the 2024 elections and for mis- and disinformation surrounding the campaigns.

    To illustrate their concerns, the lawmakers pointed to recent changes at Alphabet-owned YouTube to allow the sharing of false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, along with what they described as content moderation “challenges” at Twitter since the layoffs.

    The letter, which seeks responses by July 10, also asked whether the companies may hire more content moderation employees or contractors ahead of the election, and how the platforms may be specifically preparing for the rise of AI-generated deepfakes in politics.

    Already, candidates such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appear to have used fake, AI-generated images to attack their opponents, raising questions about the risks that artificial intelligence could pose for democracy.

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  • Jared Kushner and Hope Hicks testified before grand jury investigating 2020 election interference, sources say | CNN Politics

    Jared Kushner and Hope Hicks testified before grand jury investigating 2020 election interference, sources say | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, testified before the grand jury investigating the aftermath of the 2020 election and the actions of the then-president and others, a source familiar with the testimony confirmed to CNN.

    Former Trump aide Hope Hicks also went before the grand jury, according to two sources familiar, testifying in early June.

    Some of the questions being asked in the grand jury were about whether Donald Trump was told he had lost the election, according to one of the sources familiar.

    Kushner’s and Hicks’ appearances before the grand jury are notable because both were members of the former president’s inner circle. Any indictment from the sprawling probe into the aftermath of the election, efforts to overturn the result or the January 6, 2021, attack at the US Capitol will likely rely, at least in part, on what individuals – from low-level aides to former Vice President Mike Pence – testified to under oath behind closed doors.

    A spokesman for Kushner, who served as a senior adviser to Trump during his presidency, declined to immediately comment. The New York Times first reported on his testimony.

    Several key Trump White House officials have also testified befoe the grand jury, including Pence, Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows and former White House counsel Pat Cipollone, among others.

    CNN also previously reported that Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump White House communications director who is now a CNN political commentator, met with federal prosecutors, sitting for a formal, voluntary interview as part of the ongoing special counsel probe, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

    Investigators from special counsel Jack Smith’s team have also met with several election officials from key battleground states who were targeted by Trump and his allies as part of their bid to upend Joe Biden’s legitimate victory in the 2020 presidential election.

    As CNN has reported, prosecutors met with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger late last month, and Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Arizona GOP official Rusty Bowers revealed to CNN that they have been interviewed by prosecutors in recent months.

    Benson told CNN on Wednesday that one of the areas investigators seemed focused on was “the impact of the misinformation on [election workers’] lives and the threats that emerged from that from various sources.”

    “Myself and the election officials who have – at request or simply because we have a story to tell – have been speaking to authorities, I think it’s really a reflection of our desire to ensure that the law is followed, and where there’s evidence of wrongdoing, there’s justice that is served,” Benson said.

    This headline and story have been updated with additional reporting.

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  • The chance of Trump winning another term is very real | CNN Politics

    The chance of Trump winning another term is very real | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Donald Trump is facing two indictments, with the potential for more. Political wisdom may have once suggested the former president’s bid for a second White House term would be nothing but a pipe dream. But most of us know better by now.

    Trump is not only in a historically strong position for a nonincumbent to win the Republican nomination, but he is in a better position to win the general election than at any point during the 2020 cycle and almost at any point during the 2016 cycle.

    No one in Trump’s current polling position in the modern era has lost an open presidential primary that didn’t feature an incumbent. He’s pulling in more than 50% of support in the national primary polls, i.e., more than all his competitors combined.

    Three prior candidates in open primaries were pulling in more than half the vote in primary surveys in the second half of the calendar year before the election: Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush in 2000 and Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016. Gore remains the only nonincumbent to win every single presidential nominating contest, while Bush and Clinton never lost their national polling advantage in their primaries.

    Today, Trump’s closest primary competitor, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has fallen below 20% nationally. No other contender is at or above 10%. This makes the margin between Trump and the rest of the field north of 30 points on average.

    A look back at past polls does show candidates coming back from deficits greater than 10 points to win the nomination, but none greater than 30 points at this point. In fact, the biggest comebacks when you average all the polls in the second half of the year before the election top out at about 20 points (Democrats George McGovern in 1972, Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Barack Obama in 2008).

    Obama did fall nearly 30 points behind for a brief period in the fall of 2007, though his comeback the following year and that of Republican John McCain (another eventual nominee who trailed by over 10 points nationally) points to another reason why Trump is so strong right now.

    Trump is leading not just nationally but in the early-voting states as well. He’s up by double digits in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

    Obama was within single digits of Clinton and Iowa poll leader John Edwards at this point in the 2008 cycle. Similarly, Clinton’s edge was in the single digits over Obama in South Carolina at this stage of the campaign.

    On the Republican side in 2008, the primary deck was much more unsettled than the national numbers indicated at this point. Rudy Giuliani was up nationally, but he lagged behind Mitt Romney in Iowa and New Hampshire. Romney couldn’t get much above 30% in either state, unlike Trump right now.

    McCain (whose candidacy is often held up as an example of how DeSantis might come back) was always considerably closer to the national and state front-runners than anyone is to Trump at this moment.

    Of course, winning the primary is one thing for Trump, who has led in almost every single Republican primary poll published in the past eight years.

    What should arguably be more amazing is that despite most Americans agreeing that Trump’s two indictments thus far were warranted, he remains competitive in a potential rematch with President Joe Biden. A poll out last week from Marquette University Law School had Biden and Trump tied percentage-wise (with a statistically insignificant few more respondents choosing Trump).

    The Marquette poll is one of a number of surveys showing Trump either tied or ahead of Biden. The ABC News/Washington Post poll has published three surveys of the matchup between the two, and Trump has come out ahead – albeit within the margin of error – every time. Other pollsters have shown Biden only narrowly ahead.

    To put that in perspective, Trump never led in a single national poll that met CNN’s standards for publication for the entirety of the 2020 campaign. Biden was up by high single digits in the late summer of 2019. Biden is up by maybe a point in the average of all 2024 polls today.

    Surveys in the late summer of 2015 told the same story: Clinton was up by double digits over Trump in late July and up by mid-to-high single digits by the end of August 2015.

    The fact that the polling between Biden and Trump is so close shouldn’t be much of a surprise. Elections are a choice between two candidates. Trump isn’t popular, but neither is Biden. The two, in tandem, would be the most disliked presidential nominees in polling history, if their numbers hold through the election.

    All that being said, the 2024 election will probably come down to a few swing states. Polling in swing states has been limited because we’re still over a year from the election.

    One giant warning sign for Democrats was a late June Quinnipiac University poll from Pennsylvania, a pivotal state for the past few election cycles where Trump rallied base supporters in Erie on Saturday. The state barely voted for Trump in 2016 and for Biden in 2020.

    Trump was up on Biden by 1 point in the Quinnipiac poll – a result within the margin of error, but nevertheless a remarkable achievement for the former president.

    Why? It was only the second Pennsylvania poll that met CNN standards for publication since 2015 that had Trump ahead of either Biden (for 2020 and 2024) or Clinton (for 2016).

    The good news for Democrats is that general election polling, unlike primary polling, is not predictive at this point. Things can most certainly change.

    But for now, the chance that Trump is president in less than two years time is a very real possibility.

    This story has been updated.

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  • Inside the long and winding road to Trump’s historic indictment | CNN Politics

    Inside the long and winding road to Trump’s historic indictment | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The New York grand jury hearing the case against Donald Trump was set to break for several weeks. The former president’s lawyers believed on Wednesday afternoon they had at least a small reprieve from a possible indictment. Trump praised the perceived delay.

    Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg had other plans.

    Thursday afternoon, Bragg asked the grand jury to return an historic indictment against Trump, the first time that a current or former US president has been indicted. The surprise move was the final twist in an investigation that’s taken a long and winding road to the history-making charges that were returned this week.

    An indictment had been anticipated early last week – including by Trump himself, who promoted a theory he would be “arrested” – as law enforcement agencies prepared for the logistics of arraigning a former president. But after the testimony of Robert Costello – a lawyer who appeared on Trump’s behalf seeking to undercut the credibility of Trump’s former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen – Bragg appeared to hit the pause button.

    Costello’s testimony caused the district attorney’s office to reassess whether Costello should be the last witness the grand jury heard before prosecutors asked them to vote on an indictment, multiple sources told CNN.

    So they waited. The next day the grand jury was scheduled to meet, jurors were told not to come in. Bragg and his top prosecutors huddled the rest of the week and over the weekend to determine a strategy that would effectively counter Costello’s testimony in the grand jury.

    They called two additional witnesses. David Pecker, the former head of the company that publishes the National Enquirer, appeared on Monday. The other witness, who has still not been identified, testified on Thursday for 35 minutes in front of the grand jury – just before prosecutors asked them to vote on the indictment of more than 30 counts, the sources said.

    Trump and his attorneys, thinking Bragg might be reconsidering a potential indictment, were all caught off-guard, sources said. Some of Trump’s advisers had even left Palm Beach on Wednesday following news reports that the grand jury was taking a break, the sources added.

    After the indictment, Trump ate dinner with his wife, Melania, Thursday evening and smiled while he greeted guests at his Mar-a-Lago club, according to a source familiar with the event.

    The Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into Trump has been ongoing for years, dating back to Bragg’s predecessor, Cy Vance. Its focus shifted by mid-2020 to the accuracy of the Trump Org.’s financial statements. At the time, prosecutors debated legal theories around the hush money payments and thought they were a long shot. At several points, the wide-ranging investigation seemed to have been winding down – to the point that prosecutors resigned in protest last year. One even wrote a book critical of Bragg for not pursuing charges against Trump released just last month.

    The specific charges against Trump still remain under seal and are expected to be unveiled Tuesday when Trump is set to be arraigned.

    There are questions swirling even among Trump critics over whether the Manhattan district attorney’s case is the strongest against the former president amid additional investigations in Washington, DC, and Georgia over both his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his handling of classified documents at his Florida resort.

    Trump could still face charges in those probes, too, which are separate from the New York indictment.

    But it’s the Manhattan indictment, dating back to a payment made before the 2016 presidential election, that now sees Trump facing down criminal charges for the first time as he runs again for the White House in 2024.

    It was just weeks before the 2016 election when Cohen, Trump’s then-lawyer, paid adult film actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep silent about an alleged affair with Trump. (Trump has denied the affair.) Cohen was later reimbursed $420,000 by the Trump Organization to cover the original payment and tax liabilities and to reward him with a bonus.

    That payment and reimbursement are keys at issue in the investigation.

    Cohen also helped arrange a $150,000 payment from the publisher of the National Enquirer to Karen McDougal to kill her story claiming a 10-month affair with Trump. Trump also denies an affair with McDougal. During the grand jury proceedings, the district attorney’s office has asked questions about the “catch and kill” deal with McDougal.

    When Cohen was charged by federal prosecutors in New York in 2018 and pleaded guilty, he said he was acting at the direction of Trump when he made the payment.

    At the time, federal prosecutors had determined they could not seek to indict Trump in the scheme because of US Justice Department regulations against charging a sitting president. In 2021, after Trump left the White House, prosecutors in the Southern District of New York decided not to pursue a case against Trump, according to a recent book from CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig.

    But then-Manhattan District Attorney Vance’s team had already picked up the investigation into the hush money payments and begun looking at potential state law violations. By summer 2019, they sent subpoenas to the Trump Org., other witnesses, and met with Cohen, who was serving a three-year prison sentence.

    Vance’s investigation broadened to the Trump Org.’s finances. New York prosecutors went to the Supreme Court twice to enforce a subpoena for Trump’s tax records from his long-time accounting firm Mazars USA. The Trump Org. and its long-time chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg were indicted on tax fraud and other charges in June 2021 for allegedly running an off-the-books compensation scheme for more than a decade.

    Weisselberg pleaded guilty to the charges last year and is currently serving a five-month sentence at Rikers Island. Prosecutors had hoped to flip Weisselberg to cooperate against Trump, but he would not tie Trump to any wrongdoing.

    Disagreements about the pace of the investigation had caused at least three career prosecutors to move off the investigation. They were concerned that the investigation was moving too quickly, without clear evidence to support possible charges, CNN and others reported last year.

    Vance authorized the attorneys on the team to present evidence to the grand jury near the end of 2021, but he did not seek an indictment. Those close to Vance say he wanted to leave the decision to Bragg, the newly elected district attorney.

    Bragg, a Democrat, took office in January 2022. Less than two months into his tenure, two top prosecutors who had worked on the Trump case under Vance abruptly resigned amid a disagreement in the office over the strength of the case against Trump.

    On February 22, 2022, Bragg informed the prosecution team that he was not prepared to authorize charges against Trump, CNN reported. The prosecutors, Carey Dunne and Mark Pomerantz, resigned the next day.

    In his resignation letter, Pomerantz said he believed Trump was guilty of numerous felonies and said that Bragg’s decision to not move forward with an indictment at the time was “wrong” and a “grave failure of justice.”

    “I and others believe that your decision not to authorize prosecution now will doom any future prospects that Mr. Trump will be prosecuted for the criminal conduct we have been investigating,” Pomerantz wrote in the letter, which was reviewed by CNN.

    At that point, the investigation was focused on Trump’s financial statements and whether he knowingly misled lenders, insurers, and others by providing them false or misleading information about the value of his properties.

    Prosecutors were building a wide-ranging falsified business records case to include years of financial statements and the hush money payments, people with direct knowledge of the investigation told CNN. But at the time, those prosecutors believed there was a good chance a felony charge related to the hush money payment would be dismissed by a judge because it was a novel legal theory.

    Dunne and Pomerantz pushed to seek an indictment of Trump tied to the sweeping falsified business records case, but others, including some career prosecutors, were skeptical that they could win a conviction at trial, in part because of the difficulty in proving Trump’s criminal intent.

    Despite the resignations of the prosecutors on the Trump case, Bragg’s office reiterated at the time that the investigation was ongoing.

    “Investigations are not linear so we are following the leads in front of us. That’s what we’re doing,” Bragg told CNN in April 2022. “The investigation is very much ongoing.”

    At the same time that Bragg’s criminal investigation into Trump lingered last year, another prosecution against the Trump Org. moved forward. In December, two Trump Org. entities were convicted at trial on 17 counts and were ordered to pay $1.6 million, the maximum penalty, the following month.

    Trump was not personally charged in that case. But it appeared to embolden Bragg’s team to sharpen their focus back to Trump and the hush money payment.

    Cohen was brought back in to meet with Manhattan prosecutors. Cohen had previously met with prosecutors in the district attorney’s office 13 times over the course of the investigation. But the January meeting was the first in more than a year – and a clear sign of the direction prosecutors were taking.

    As investigators inched closer to a charging decision, Bragg was faced with more public pressure to indict Trump: Pomerantz, the prosecutor who had resigned a year prior, released a book about the investigation that argued Trump should be charged and criticized Bragg for failing to do so.

    “Every single member of the prosecution team thought that his guilt was established,” Pomerantz said in a February interview on “CNN This Morning.”

    Asked about Bragg’s hesitance, Pomerantz said: “I can’t speak in detail about what went through his mind. I can surmise from what happened at the time and statements that he’s made since that he had misgivings about the strength of the case.”

    Bragg responded in a statement saying that more work was needed on the case. “Mr. Pomerantz’s plane wasn’t ready for takeoff,” Bragg said.

    Prosecutors continued bringing in witnesses, including Pecker, the former head of American Media Inc., which publishes the National Enquirer. In February, Trump Org. controller Jeffrey McConney testified before the grand jury. Members of Trump’s 2016 campaign, including Kellyanne Conway and Hope Hicks, also appeared. In March, Daniels met with prosecutors, her attorney said.

    And Cohen, after his numerous meetings with prosecutors, finally testified before the grand jury in March.

    The second week of March, prosecutors gave the clearest sign to date that the investigation was nearing its conclusion – they invited Trump to appear before the grand jury.

    Potential defendants in New York are required by law to be notified and invited to appear before a grand jury weighing charges.

    Behind the scenes, Trump attorney Susan Necheles told CNN she met with New York prosecutors to argue why Trump shouldn’t be indicted and that prosecutors didn’t articulate the specific charges they are considering.

    Trump, meanwhile, took to his social media to predict his impending indictment. In a post attacking Bragg on March 18, Trump said the “leading Republican candidate and former president of the United States will be arrested on Tuesday of next week.”

    “Protest, take our nation back,” Trump added, echoing the calls he made while he tried to overturn the 2020 election.

    Trump’s prediction would turn out to be premature.

    Trump’s call for protests after a potential indictment led to meetings between senior staff members from the district attorney’s office, the New York Police Department and the New York State Court Officers – who provide security at the criminal court building in lower Manhattan.

    Trump’s lawyers also made a last-ditch effort to fend off an indictment. At the behest of Trump’s team, Costello, who advised Cohen in 2018, provided emails and testified to the grand jury on Monday, March 20, alleging that Cohen had said in 2018 that he had decided on his own to make the payment to Daniels.

    Costello’s testimony appeared to delay a possible indictment – for a brief time at least.

    During the void, Trump continued to launch verbal insults against Bragg, calling him a “degenerate psychopath.” And four Republican chairmen of the most powerful House committees wrote to Bragg asking him to testify, which Bragg’s office said was unprecedented interference in a local investigation. An envelope containing a suspicious white powder and a death threat to Bragg was to delivered to the building where the grand jury meets – the powder was deemed nonhazardous.

    The grand jury would not meet again until Monday, March 27, when Pecker was ushered back to the grand jury in a government vehicle with tinted windows in a failed effort to evade detection by the media camped outside of the building where the grand jury meets.

    Pecker, a longtime friend of Trump’s who had a history of orchestrating so-called “catch and kill” deals while at the National Enquirer, was involved with the Daniels’ deal from the beginning.

    Two days after Pecker’s testimony, there were multiple reports that the grand jury was going into a pre-planned break in April. The grand jury was set to meet Thursday but it was not expected to hear the Trump case.

    Instead, the grand jury heard from one last witness in the Trump case on Thursday, whose identity is still unknown. And then the grand jury shook up the American political system by voting to indict a former president and 2024 candidate for the White House.

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  • Federal appeals court upholds Justice Department’s use of key obstruction law in January 6 cases | CNN Politics

    Federal appeals court upholds Justice Department’s use of key obstruction law in January 6 cases | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    The federal appeals court in Washington, DC, has upheld the Justice Department’s use of a key criminal charge against hundreds of January 6 rioters, saying they can be charged with obstructing Congress.

    The appeals court said obstruction can include a “wide range of conduct” when a defendant has a corrupt intent and is targeting an official proceeding, such as the congressional certification of the presidential election on January 6, 2021.

    The major ruling affects more than 300 criminal cases brought in the wake of the Capitol riot. The Justice Department has used the charge – obstructing on official proceeding – as the cornerstone of many of the more serious Capitol riot cases, where defendants were outspoken about their desire to stop Congress’ certification of President Joe Biden’s Electoral College win or were instrumental in the physical breach of the Capitol building.

    In the cases that prompted the appeal, the defendants had allegedly assaulted law enforcement at the Capitol, which overwhelmed the protection around members of Congress in the building and caused the Electoral College certification to stop for hours.

    The statute makes it a felony to alter, destroy or mutilate a record, document or other object with the intent of making it unavailable in an official proceeding, or to “otherwise” obstruct, influence, or impede any official proceeding.

    The ruling has been hotly anticipated in the January 6 investigation, and a loss for the Justice Department would have imperiled hundreds of cases against individual rioters.

    But the three judges on the panel weren’t united in their interpretation of the law, with each writing separately about how the obstruction statute should be interpreted.

    “The broad interpretation of the statute – encompassing all forms of obstructive acts – is unambiguous and natural,” Judge Florence Pan of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit wrote Friday in the 2-1 majority opinion.

    The holding from Pan also lays out how prosecutors may use the obstruction charge, which carries a 20-year maximum prison sentence, when weighing defendants’ actions on January 6.

    The circuit court’s opinion – which is now binding precedent in DC federal courts, unless additional appeals change the ruling – could potentially be used against future defendants in January 6-related cases, including ones being looked at by special counsel Jack Smith’s office, which is investigating former President Donald Trump and his allies.

    Yet their opinions on Friday left unsettled a key question on how the Justice Department could use the charge against others with potentially less clear corrupt actions.

    Pan’s majority opinion didn’t decide how the courts should define corrupt action taken by rioters – potentially putting limits around how the Justice Department could use the charge in the future.

    Pan and Walker split on whether the definition of “corruptly” would mean that prosecutors would have to prove a defendants’ actions were to benefit themselves or others people, if they charge obstruction related to January 6.

    That question could arise again in future appeals, and the judges weren’t clear which interpretation may be the controlling law now in DC.

    “Because the task of defining ‘corruptly’ is not before us and I am satisfied that the government has alleged conduct by appellees sufficient to meet that element, I leave the exact contours of ‘corrupt’ intent for another day,” Pan wrote. She noted that the rioter cases that prompted the appeal left no room for disputing corrupt intent, seeing as the defendants were alleged to have assaulted police.

    In his concurring opinion, Circuit Court Judge Justin Walker took a narrower approach to the obstruction law, finding that it requires a defendant to act “with an intent to procure an unlawful benefit either for himself or for some other person.”

    Even so, Walker found that the obstruction law that the DOJ has charged rioters with applies in this case.

    “True, the Defendants were allegedly trying to secure the presidency for Donald Trump, not for themselves or their close associates,” Walker wrote. “But the beneficiary of an unlawful benefit need not be the defendant or his friends. Few would doubt that a defendant could be convicted of corruptly bribing a presidential elector if he paid the elector to cast a vote in favor of a preferred candidate – even if the defendant had never met the candidate and was not associated with him.”

    DC Circuit Judge Greg Katsas disagreed with his colleagues in the 2-1 decision. Katsas sided with a lower-court judge, who had thrown out obstruction charges against some January 6 rioters because the actions during the insurrection didn’t deal specifically with the mutilation of documents or evidence in an official proceeding.

    Katsas argued that his colleagues’ interpretation of the obstruction law was too broad and would allow for aggressive criminal prosecutions any time a protester knew they may be breaking the law. He contended that the law requires that a defendant was trying to “seek an unlawful financial, professional, or exculpatory advantage” while the January 6 cases in question involve “the much more diffuse, intangible benefit of having a preferred candidate remain President.”

    Walker, however, wrote in his opinion that that law applied even under Katsas’ reading.

    “The dissenting opinion says a defendant can act ‘corruptly’ only if the benefit he intends to procure is a ‘financial, professional, or exculpatory advantage.’ I am not so sure,” Walker wrote. “Besides, this case may involve a professional benefit. The Defendants’ conduct may have been an attempt to help Donald Trump unlawfully secure a professional advantage – the presidency.”

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Draft GOP autopsy of 2022 midterms urges candidates to stop ‘rehashing old grievances’ | CNN Politics

    Draft GOP autopsy of 2022 midterms urges candidates to stop ‘rehashing old grievances’ | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A draft Republican autopsy report on the party’s worse-than-expected showing in the 2022 midterm elections urges GOP candidates to move past complaints about how the 2020 and 2022 elections were run – a clear criticism of former President Donald Trump, who continues to falsely claim his loss was a result of widespread voter fraud.

    The report does not mention Trump, the leading contender for the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination, by name.

    But it takes direct aim at his grievances over the 2020 presidential election and false claims of widespread voter fraud in 2022.

    Voters’ distaste for relitigating those elections, the draft report states, is among “the obvious lessons of the 2022 election cycle.”

    “The Republican candidates in 2022 who delivered results and had a vision for the future did much, much better than those stuck in the past and rehashing old grievances,” the draft report says.

    CNN obtained a portion of the draft report, which was expected to be circulated this week at a Republican National Committee meeting in Oklahoma City – however, a source familiar with the presentation said it was likely to be scuttled following reports of its contents.

    The draft report was first reported by The Washington Post.

    Some GOP officials bristled at the upbeat nature of the report – and the notable lack of Trump mentions – which was commissioned before the former president widened his lead in 2024 primary polling.

    The report urges Republican candidates to offer an “aspirational message” that contrasts with President Joe Biden on issues such as taxes, school choice and border security, and to move past complaints about previous elections.

    “America has always been a nation focused on the future. The American people want to move forward and rarely, if ever, are concerned about what happened in the past. The balance of survey data makes it clear that voters are done with the 2020 and 2022 elections. They have no patience for endless conversations relitigating previous elections from Democrats and Republicans,” the draft report states. “Those who don’t heed that lesson from 2022 will be more likely to lose in 2024 and successive cycles.”

    The draft report describes “election integrity” as critical, but it also urges Republican campaigns to focus on tactics that Trump and some 2022 candidates eschewed, including mail-in voting.

    “Republican campaigns must push our supporters to vote early in person or by mail. Republicans cannot continue to give Democrats a head start,” the draft report says.

    Trump and a slew of Trump-backed Republican candidates who lost in 2022 – including Arizona gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake and Senate candidate Blake Masters and Pennsylvania GOP nominee for governor Doug Mastriano – had campaigned on claims of voter fraud. Lake has still not conceded the Arizona governor’s race.

    “Republicans have only won the popular vote once in the last eight presidential elections. Clearly, something is not working for us,” the draft report says.

    It also describes the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to overturn Roe v. Wade’s federal protections of abortion rights as politically damaging in the midterm elections.

    “It is true: We underestimated the impact of Dobbs, and we failed to defend our position on the sanctity of life even though more Americans agree with us than with Democrats,” the draft report says. “Democrats will continue to engage on this issue, so we must learn our lesson.”

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  • DeSantis expected to enter 2024 presidential race next week | CNN Politics

    DeSantis expected to enter 2024 presidential race next week | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to enter the 2024 GOP presidential race next week, two Republicans familiar with the matter told CNN, initiating his much-anticipated bid to wrestle the future of the party from former President Donald Trump.

    DeSantis will file paperwork declaring his candidacy next week with the Federal Election Commission, one Republican said, with a formal announcement expected the following week in his Florida hometown of Dunedin. DeSantis is likely to soft-launch the campaign as early as Wednesday to coincide with the filing of the paperwork, according to a Republican consultant close to the governor’s political team.

    However, another source cautioned that the planning remains a moving target, and DeSantis is known to surprise even his closest allies and advisers with last-minute changes. DeSantis, who often boasts that he runs an operation free of leaks, may be further motivated to throw out the script to vex the media outlets who have preempted his announcement, the source said.

    “With him, it’s always a possibility,” the source added.

    But the machinery for a launch is already in motion as dozens of his top fundraisers and donors have been summoned to South Florida under the assumption they will be asked to begin building up a war chest for a DeSantis presidential campaign. By officially submitting his paperwork, his supporters can begin soliciting donations on his behalf.

    About 100 hotel rooms have been reserved at the Four Seasons in Miami, which will host receptions for donors, briefings with DeSantis’ political team and sessions where attendees will dial for dollars, according to two sources familiar with the details. The goal is for each fundraiser to bring in between $100,000 and $150,000.

    A spokesman for DeSantis’ political operation did not respond to a request for comment.

    An announcement around the Memorial Day weekend is on the earlier side of the timeline that the governor’s political operation had targeted six months ago when it eyed a launch after Florida’s legislative session. This suggests DeSantis is responding to donors and supporters anxious to see him get in the race and more directly challenge Trump. Polling shows the former president remains firmly in the lead while DeSantis has lost some momentum during the belabored rollout of his expected campaign, which has included a book release and tour, a dozen appearances at local GOP fundraisers, an international trip, the creation of a super PAC, a donor retreat near Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and a blitz through conservative media.

    Along the way, DeSantis has stumbled at times, drawing poor reviews for his oscillating takes on the Russia-Ukraine war, prolonging his clash with Disney into a second year and getting caught flat-footed as Trump unveiled endorsements from Florida Republicans in Congress just before the governor visited Washington to build support.

    However, DeSantis’ allies believe the trajectory of the race will change significantly once he is officially a candidate and responds to Trump’s broadsides and more vigorously shares his vision for the country.

    According to The New York Times, DeSantis told donors and supporters during a call Thursday that there were only three credible candidates in the race – himself, President Joe Biden and Trump – and that only he and Biden had a chance of winning the general election.

    DeSantis said on the call, which was organized by Never Back Down, a super PAC closely aligned with the governor, that data from swing states was “not great for the former president and probably insurmountable because people aren’t going to change their view of him,” the Times reported.

    DeSantis has spent the last couple of weeks tying up loose ends – rapidly signing dozens of bills that have reached his desk, meeting with donors in Tallahassee and South Florida, and shoring up endorsements to boost his launch. He spent Saturday in Iowa, where he appeared to one-up Trump, making an unannounced visit to a BBQ joint in Des Moines – minutes from where the former president had canceled a rally due to threat of weather. While in the state, DeSantis laid the framework for his case against Trump.

    “If we make 2024 a referendum on Joe Biden and his failures and we provide a positive alternative for the future of this country, Republicans will win across the board,” DeSantis told Iowa caucus voters in Sioux Center. “If we do not do that, if we get distracted, if we focus on the election in the past or on other side issues, then I think the Democrats are going to beat us again, and I think it will be very difficult to recover from that defeat.”

    On Friday, DeSantis will travel to another early nominating state, New Hampshire, to meet with state lawmakers – many of whom endorsed him earlier this week – for a policy round table, according to three sources familiar with the planning.

    Never Back Down has in recent weeks rolled out dozens of key endorsements for the governor in Iowa and New Hampshire. On Wednesday, the super PAC also announced endorsements from 99 Florida lawmakers – a show of force from the rank-and-file Republicans who helped push DeSantis’ agenda through the state legislature this spring.

    “Governor Ron DeSantis and the Florida legislature have worked together to achieve historic results and produce conservative victories for the people of Florida – turning the state into a beacon of freedom and the fastest growing state in the nation,” Never Back Down spokeswoman Erin Perrine said.

    Trump’s campaign dismissed the Florida endorsements as politically motivated, noting that DeSantis had not yet signed the state budget, for which he has line-item veto power over the pet projects of state lawmakers.

    “There are some brave legislators who have stood up to DeSantis’ Swamp-like behavior and resisted his intimidation tactics in order to do what is right for Florida and the country,” Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said. “Those who he can’t control – including almost the entirety of the Florida federal congressional delegation – have endorsed President Trump because he’s the only candidate who can beat Joe Biden and take back the White House.”

    This story has been updated with additional reporting.

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  • Harris becomes first woman to deliver commencement address at West Point | CNN Politics

    Harris becomes first woman to deliver commencement address at West Point | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday became the first woman to deliver a commencement address at the graduation ceremony at the US Military Academy in West Point, New York, warning graduates they were “an increasingly unsettled world where long standing principles are at risk.”

    In the history-making speech, Harris discussed themes of global security and prosperity, arguing that America’s democratic ideals “inspire billions.”

    “In the face of all these challenges, America plays a singular role of leadership,” the vice president told the graduates. “Cadets, global security and global prosperity depend on the leadership of the United States of America. And a strong America remains indispensable to the world.”

    Taking aim at Russian aggression in Ukraine, Harris called Moscow’s unprovoked invasion “an attack on international rules and norms that have served as the foundation of international security and prosperity for generations.” She also slammed China for “modernizing its military and threatening both the freedom of the seas and rules of international commerce.”

    Harris’ comments come as President Joe Biden is seeking a second White House term next year. To date, the pair has leaned heavily on a message of saving democratic values at home and strengthening alliances abroad, even as relations with Russia and China remain contentious.

    During Biden’s trip to the G7 summit earlier this month, the group of industrialized nations agreed to counter China’s “malign practices” and “coercion” and pledged to choke off Russia’s ability to finance and fuel its war.

    “To the Class of 2023: You join the greatest fighting force the world has ever seen,” Harris said Saturday. “And in years to come, I promise you, you will be tried, and you will be tested.”

    “And I am so very confident that you will rise to each occasion. Whatever comes your way. You are ready. And you are ready because you are true leaders of character.”

    Harris previously made history in 2021 as the first woman to give a commencement address at the US Naval Academy. Last year, she spoke at the US Coast Guard Academy’s graduation ceremony.

    Biden is expected to address graduates at the US Air Force Academy on June 1.

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  • Another historic week in the investigation and prosecution of Donald Trump | CNN Politics

    Another historic week in the investigation and prosecution of Donald Trump | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump was arrested and arraigned on federal charges this week in a never-before-seen moment in American political and legal history that captured the attention of a nation that has for years been captivated by his norm-busting episodes.

    The former president’s booking at a federal courthouse in Miami on charges related to his alleged mishandling of classified government documents is just the latest twist in his post-presidency legal drama – which has now become a key issue in the GOP primary contest as Trump mounts a third White House bid.

    Here’s the latest on Trump’s legal troubles:

    On Tuesday, Trump pleaded not guilty to 37 charges related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents.

    “We most certainly enter a plea of not guilty,” Trump attorney Todd Blanche told the judge.

    Trump’s aide and co-defendant, Walt Nauta, was also arrested, fingerprinted and processed. He had an initial appearance Tuesday but will not be arraigned until June 27.

    The DOJ recommended that both Trump and Nauta be released with no financial or special conditions. Prosecutor David Harbach said that “the government does not view either defendant as a flight risk.”

    The federal criminal charges Trump faces were brought following an investigation by special counsel Jack Smith, who attended Tuesday’s arraignment.

    In the indictment unsealed last week, the Justice Department charged Trump with 37 felony counts, alleging he illegally retained national defense information and that he concealed documents in violation of witness-tampering laws in the Justice Department’s probe into the materials.

    The charges are drastically more serious than those he faces in a separate New York case and present the possibility of several years in prison if Trump is ultimately convicted.

    For his part, Nauta, who serves as Trump’s personal valet, faces six counts, including several obstruction- and concealment-related charges stemming from the alleged conduct.

    In her first order after the indictment,US District Judge Aileen Cannon – a Trump appointee – told DOJ and Trump attorneys’ parties to get the ball rolling to obtain security clearances for the lawyers who will need them.

    Both of Trump’s attorneys – Blanche and Chris Kise – have already been in touch with the Justice Department about obtaining the necessary security clearances to try the case, a source familiar with the outreach told CNN Thursday evening.

    Cannon’s order reflects how the case concerns highly sensitive, classified materials – adding another layer of complexity to the high-stakes, first-of-its-kind federal prosecution of a former president.

    How long the proceedings stretch out, and whether the trial takes place before or after the 2024 election, will depend in part on how efficiently Cannon manages her docket. Thursday’s move by Cannon suggests an interest, at least for now, in moving the proceedings along without delay.

    In an expected, procedural step Friday, Smith’s team asked the judge to bar Trump and his defense team from publicly disclosing some of the materials shared in the criminal case as part of the discovery process. Lawyers for Trump and Nauta do not oppose the requested protective order, according to the new filing, and Cannon has referred the matter to a magistrate judge.

    Trump had already been indicted earlier this spring in a separate case, this one brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in New York state court.

    Trump has been charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records over hush money payments made during the 2016 campaign to women who claimed they had extramarital affairs with Trump, which he denies. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

    The case has remained relatively quiet since Trump pleaded not guilty to all of those charges in April, with the judge setting a trial date in New York County for March 2024.

    Still, the former president’s legal team has been attempting to move the case to federal court, and on Thursday his attorneys asked a federal judge to deny Bragg’s motion to remand the case back to the state Supreme Court, again arguing that the charges are related to his duties as president and therefore should not be heard in state court.

    A hearing on the issue is scheduled for June 27.

    Trump still has other active investigations looming over him, including a probe by Smith, the special counsel, into the January 6, 2021, US Capitol riot and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

    And in Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has recently indicated that she’s likely to make charging decisions public in August as part of her probe into efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.

    In a letter obtained by CNN last month, Willis announced remote workdays for her staff in August and asked judges to refrain from in-person hearings for parts of that month.

    Trump has insisted that any criminal charges will not stop his 2024 campaign, and so far he’s keeping to that commitment.

    On Wednesday, his campaign said it had raised more than $7 million since the former president was indicted in the federal case.

    “The donations are coming in at a really rapid pace,” campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in an email.

    Meanwhile, his GOP primary opponents have been weighing in on the new charges in a number of different ways, with some casting the prosecution as political while also stressing that the charges are concerning.

    Trump can still run for president after being indicted or if he is eventually convicted.

    Still, the existing indictments, as well as a potential conviction ahead of the 2024 election, could make it more difficult for Trump to win back the White House.

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  • These are the big ideas Republicans are pushing for 2024 | CNN Politics

    These are the big ideas Republicans are pushing for 2024 | CNN Politics

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    A version of this story appeared in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.



    CNN
     — 

    Amend the Constitution! Touch the third rail! Think big and make things better!

    This is the big ideas period of American politics – a time that occurs roughly every four years in the lead-up to a presidential election – when candidates push expansive proposals, usually short on specifics.

    While the big ideas generally have little chance of becoming law, they speak to what the people who want to be president think will move primary voters.

    With President Joe Biden currently a lock for the Democratic nomination, most of the intellectual action this year is among Republicans.

    Below are some of the big ideas of the moment, which are usually unique to one or two candidates as opposed to positions that are standard for the party. I view these as distinct from the daily political issues – things like abortion rights, foreign policy, border security and gender rights, where there is a sliding scale of positions.

    Nikki Haley: Biden ‘likely’ won’t make it to end of second term

    Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who is 51, wants to impose a “mental competency” test for older candidates over 75.

    With both of the current leading candidates – Biden and former President Donald Trump – well beyond when most people would consider retirement, age is already a major issue this year.

    It’s a smart way to tap into fears that Biden, in particular, has lost a step. But it’s hard to imagine it actually put into use. Who would administer this test? Who would assess the results? Why not all candidates?

    The point of the democratic system is that voters should get to choose. This proposal would necessarily limit their choices.

    On the other hand, age limits are not an entirely crazy idea. Corporations impose them on executives, for instance. Pilots have a mandatory retirement age of 65, although that could be raised in the near future to deal with a pilot shortage.

    Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy speaks during the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland.

    Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech founder, wants to raise the legal voting age to 25. It’s hard to imagine how this would work since the current voting age of 18 is guaranteed in the 26th Amendment.

    Democrats like former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have in recent years pushed to go in the opposite direction, arguing to lower the voting age to 16.

    Ramaswamy says there would be exceptions to raising the voting age, such as for people who join the military or otherwise meet a “national service requirement.” Others could pass the same test given to naturalized immigrants.

    “I want more civic engagement. My hypothesis is that when you attach greater value to the act, we will see more 18-to-25-year-olds actually vote than do now,” Ramaswamy told The Washington Post.

    01 nikki haley town hall cnn 030823

    Nikki Haley calls for raising retirement age

    Nikki Haley and former Vice President Mike Pence are among those pushing to change the age at which Americans can access retirement benefits.

    While both Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are swearing up and down that they will protect these key parts of the social safety net, Haley and Pence are calling for a more honest discussion about the nation’s finances.

    In their telling, raising the retirement age would only affect the youngest Americans – people in their 20s and younger, generations sure to live and work longer than their forebears.

    But specifics are hard to come by, as CNN’s Jake Tapper found when he asked Haley at a CNN town hall in early June what retirement age she is proposing. She said more calculations are needed to come up with a specific retirement age for people currently in their 20s.

    Meantime, she said, “we’re going to go tell them ‘Times have changed.’ I think (Trump and DeSantis are) not being honest with the American people.”

    DeSantis did recently acknowledge in New Hampshire that Social Security is “going to look a little bit different” for younger generations.

    Pence, at his own CNN town hall in early June, said raising the eligibility age for Social Security is one option to have the tough conversation about national spending, but not the only one.

    “It also could include letting younger Americans invest a portion of their payroll taxes in a mutual fund, like the TSP (Thrift Savings Plan) program that 10 million federal employees are in today,” he said.

    trump missouri rally

    Trump slams 14th Amendment at rally

    Both former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis want to revoke birthright citizenship, or the right of every person born in the US to be an American citizen.

    They complain that even babies born to undocumented people become citizens. Birthright citizenship is guaranteed in the 14th Amendment, the key post-Civil War amendment that was meant to protect former slaves.

    Trump has been teasing an end to birthright citizenship for years, but there is not currently a meaningful effort to change the Constitution.

    Trump has pledged to sign an executive order. DeSantis has said he would lean on Congress and the court system. Actually changing the Constitution would be nearly impossible in today’s political environment.

    Former President Donald Trump’s most outside-the-box ideas have a futuristic “Jetsons” feel.

    He wants to build new “freedom cities” on federal land to reopen the American frontier and give people a chance at home ownership. He argues the plan could revitalize American manufacturing.

    And he envisions freeing Americans from hellish commutes by looking to the skies, taking the initiative to innovate vertical-takeoff vehicles. CNN’s report on Trump’s proposals notes that technology is already underway by industry, but a long way from being available to consumers.

    A government-planned city might seem like a strange proposal for a candidate whose party has long embraced free market ideals. But the idea of a planned city is not completely foreign – just look at Washington, DC.

    Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during a town hall event in Hollis, New Hampshire on June 27, 2023.

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to undo Trump’s greatest bipartisan achievement: The First Step Act, a criminal justice and sentencing reform law.

    The product of intense bipartisan negotiations during Trump’s term in office, the law was hailed for rethinking harsh prison sentences for nonviolent drug offenders.

    But the political landscape has changed since 2018, when Trump signed the law as president and DeSantis voted for it as a congressman. Now, DeSantis calls the law the “jailbreak bill.”

    Both men want to impose the death penalty for drug offenders, an especially awkward pivot for Trump, who has bragged about his compassion in setting drug dealers like Alice Johnson free when he commuted her sentence. The case helped build support for the First Step Act. Her crime could have made her eligible for the death penalty under his new plan.

    Trump still brags about the First Step Act, and repealing it would take help from Democrats in the Senate.

    DeSantis, meanwhile, is moving to the right of Trump on crime and even vetoed a bipartisan criminal justice law in Florida that passed easily through the Republican-dominated legislature.

    Pence also said in his CNN town hall he would “take a step back” from the First Step Act – though it is unclear what that means in practical terms.

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  • Biden raised $72 million in his first quarter of fundraising since announcing reelection bid | CNN Politics

    Biden raised $72 million in his first quarter of fundraising since announcing reelection bid | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden raised $72 million for his reelection effort and for the Democratic Party in his first quarter of fundraising since launching his reelection bid in April, his campaign announced Friday.

    The showing could help quell some concerns about the president’s ability to fundraise as he seeks a second term. His campaign boasted an average contribution of $39 from nearly 400,000 donors and said 97% of all donations were less than $200.

    Biden’s campaign, which has yet to open a headquarters and maintains a skeletal staff several months in, also boasted a sizable war chest, with $77 million in cash on hand at June 30, the end of the quarter.

    While the president’s fundraising haul is stronger than any other 2024 presidential contender, it falls short of the record-breaking $86 million raised in 2011 by President Barack Obama for his reelection campaign and the Democratic National Committee in his first quarter of fundraising after launching his second-term bid.

    Obama’s campaign also boasted 158,000 more individual donors in that quarter than Biden’s reported total. Donor contribution limits were lower in the 2012 cycle than they are now: Individual donors could give a maximum of $2,500 to Obama’s campaign when he ran for a second term. This cycle, the individual limit is $3,300. The disparity in maximum contributions between the two cycles is even higher when totaling the maximum allowed contribution to joint fundraising committees.

    Obama launched his campaign three weeks earlier in the second quarter of 2011 than Biden did this year, and as a result, Biden campaign officials noted that they raised more per day than Obama’s campaign did in that quarter.

    Responding to questions about the fewer number of individual donors for Biden compared with Obama’s first quarter of reelection fundraising, Biden campaign officials pointed to a “very different” political climate that has made grassroots fundraising more challenging across the board this year, with political fatigue setting in on both the right and the left.

    Still, the campaign officials said there were signs of enthusiasm, adding that 30% of campaign donors this past quarter had not previously donated to Biden’s 2020 campaign.

    A fundraising sweepstakes to meet the president was especially successful, raising nearly $2 million, campaign officials said. And campaign merchandise that embraced the “Dark Brandon” meme drove over half of the campaign store’s revenue, according to the officials.

    Biden campaign officials declined to disclose the breakdown between funds raised for the campaign versus those raised for the DNC and state parties that are participants in Biden’s joint fundraising operation, noting that Biden’s campaign is heavily integrated with those entities as part of its strategies. That breakdown will become available when the campaign files its report with the Federal Election Commission by Saturday’s deadline.

    In another point of comparison, in 2019, President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee raised a combined $105 million in the second quarter, though Trump’s reelection operation had been well underway for more than two years at that point.

    “Let’s not forget the months of hype about then-President Trump’s “Death Star” his team spent all of 2019 building, which completely fell apart by summer 2020 while the Biden campaign’s rebel alliance surpassed them and then continued to break fundraising records until Election Day,” Biden campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz said in response to the comparison. “That’s not exactly the playbook we’re looking to replicate.”

    Trump’s 2024 campaign reported last week that the former president’s joint fundraising committee had raised more than $35 million in the second quarter of the year. Trump launched his comeback bid for the White House in November. The campaign of his chief rival for the GOP nomination – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis – reported that it had raised $20 million through June 30 over the six weeks since he announced his candidacy in late May.

    Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez touted the latest fundraising totals as evidence of “incredible enthusiasm” for the president’s agenda and campaign.

    “We’ve seen incredible enthusiasm for President Biden and Vice President Harris’ agenda – including their commitment to restoring democracy, fighting for more freedoms and growing the economy by growing the middle class. While Republicans are burning through resources in a divisive primary focused on who can take the most extreme MAGA positions, we are significantly outraising every single one of them – because our team’s strength is our grassroots supporters,” Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • RFK Jr. hearing encapsulates a political era when truth is upside down | CNN Politics

    RFK Jr. hearing encapsulates a political era when truth is upside down | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    In a Donald Trump-influenced era of through-the-looking-glass politics, everything seems upside down, traditional loyalties are scrambled, history can be rewritten and truth is just what anyone wants it to be.

    A Republican-run House hearing Thursday encapsulated the current political circus ahead of another tense election. In a head-spinning spectacle, a Kennedy family scion and candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination was greeted as a hero by Republicans. But he was slammed by Democrats, including by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries as “a living, breathing, false flag operation.”

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was given a platform by pro-Trump Republicans because his conspiracies about vaccine and Covid-19, and claims that the government has tried to censor him gel with their efforts to shield Trump by claiming that the political weaponization of government is a Democratic and not a GOP transgression.

    The marriage of convenience in a fiery hearing underscored how populism and the bending of truth pioneered on the right by Trump also has significant currency on the left. It illustrated how the character of mainstream American politics is under siege from fringe voices and extremist positions that once struggled to be heard but in recent years found a footing on social media, the campaign trail and even in Congress and the White House.

    As an example of his creation of alternative realities – a tactic frequently used by Trump – Kennedy forcibly denied that he had ever been anti-vaccine, racist or antisemitic. Yet CNN fact checks show he has repeatedly shared unfounded conspiracy theories with a false link between autism and childhood vaccines. He has also claimed that man-made chemicals could be making children gay or transgender. And just last week, he was hit by new claims of conspiracy mongering, racism and antisemitism over remarks at a dinner in New York City in which he claimed that “Covid-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

    Despite this controversy, Kennedy brazenly appeared to be inventing new truths even during the hearing. He said, for instance, “In my entire life, and while I’m under oath I have never uttered a phrase that was either racist or antisemitic.” At another moment he said: “I’ve never been anti-vaccine,” then added: “But everybody in this room probably believes that I have been because that’s the prevailing narrative.”

    Jack Schlossberg, the grandson of President John F. Kennedy, criticized his relative in a social media video Friday, calling his candidacy an “embarrassment.”

    “I’ve listened to him. I know him. I have no idea why anyone thinks he should be president. What I do know is, his candidacy is an embarrassment. Let’s not be distracted, again, by somebody’s vanity project.” Schlossberg said.

    In an odd flipping of the normal political order, Democrats in the hearing effectively sought to undermine the candidacy of the son and nephew of assassinated party heroes, former Attorney General Robert Kennedy and President John F. Kennedy. The top Democrat on the House Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, Virgin Islands Delegate Stacey Plaskett, for instance, condemned committee chair Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan for letting Kennedy air what Democrats regard as extreme views. “It’s a free country. You absolutely have a right to say what you believe,” she said, adding: “But you don’t have the right to a platform, public or private.”

    Plaskett’s comments did raise serious questions about whether there are limits – if any – on a prominent personality’s right to free speech even if they are saying things that are not true, as well as the extent to which misinformation has swamped politics and elections. But most of the hearing stayed away from such topics and was dominated by Republican attempts to score points and shield Trump and Democratic attacks on Kennedy.

    One of the ex-President’s top allies, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, the fourth ranking House Republican, revived conservative claims that the Democratic-leaning officials in the federal government suppressed a story about a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden before the last election, a move she argued had been instrumental in his father beating Trump for the presidency. She cited this theory when asking Kennedy whether he believed there was censorship amounting to government interference in the 2020 election.

    Former Twitter executives admitted under oath this year that the social media network temporarily suppressed a story about the laptop but said there was no government interference in the decision. CNN has previously reported that allegations the FBI told Twitter to suppress the story are unsupported, and a half-dozen tech executives and senior staff, along with multiple federal officials familiar with the matter, denied any such directive was given.

    But the specific truth in this case isn’t necessarily important to Republicans who were using Kennedy to further create the impression of government interference to prevent Trump retaining the White House. The more public confusion there is the better it is for the ex-president politically. Of course, claims that Democrats are the ones really guilty of election interference are a direct attempt to whitewash Trump’s own behavior – since he used the tools of his office to try to subvert the 2020 election and to stay in power.

    Thursday’s hearing is not the first time political reality has seemed mixed up or traditional loyalties subverted. Just last week for instance, Republicans subjected FBI Director Christopher Wray to a fearsome grilling in a hearing while Democrats unusually defended the bureau – long regarded as one of the most conservative organs of the US government. The GOP storm was whipped up by allies of Trump who want to discredit investigations into his effort to overturn the 2020 election and his hoarding of classified documents in his Florida resort. Trump has already been indicted in the latter case and there are growing signs he will be charged in the former. He denies any wrongdoing and claims the investigations are politically motivated.

    It’s not that Republicans don’t have genuine ground for oversight. Independent government watchdog reports and internal investigations for instance have found deficiencies and mistakes in some investigations involving Trump. In the Russia probe, there were mistakes in the use of a dossier complied by a former British spy and in applications for surveillance warrants. More recently, an agreement with the Justice Department under which Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to two tax misdemeanors and struck a deal to resolve a felony gun charge is within the right of Congress to investigate. But neither case so far supports the wild claims that a corrupt liberal deep state is conducting schemes designed to suppress conservatives that are often made by Trump and his fellow Republicans.

    There is plentiful evidence that the ex-president is the one who weaponized government to go after his political enemies and to evade accountability. For instance he sacked former FBI chief James Comey and told NBC News it was because of the Russia investigation. He used his position as president and the prospect of military aid to seek to coerce Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into opening an investigation into Joe Biden and his son in a phone call that later led to his first impeachment. And Trump, by pressuring multiple officials in key swing states and by lambasting poll workers and making claims of widespread voter fraud, apparently used executive power to try to defy the will of voters in 2020.

    Voters also risked being misled by Washington’s hall of mirrors on another occasion this week. In a more frivolous, but still misleading example of the way it’s often hard to work out what is true, the Biden campaign debuted a campaign video that appeared to show one of Trump’s most fervent allies, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene praising Biden as fulfilling the historic mission of great Democratic presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. The words were those of Greene but they were selectively edited from a speech in a video that disguised her true intent, which was to condemn historic government spending by Democrats on education, health care, and social safety net programs that Republicans claim are akin to socialism.

    This example of things being not quite what they seem was more of a cheeky case of campaign trolling than the wholesale refashioning of truth evident Thursday. The hearing at one point degenerated into both Republicans and Democrats accusing each other of trying to censor their questions and witnesses.

    One veteran Democrat, Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia, summed up how the session had in itself warped reality. “I never thought we’d descend to this level of Orwellian dystopia. Suddenly, the tools of the trade are not to get at the truth but to distract, distort, to deflect and dissemble,” Connolly said.

    Oddly, several members on the Republican side of the committee nodded their heads in agreement – apparently convinced the Orwellian behavior in question was on the part of what they see as a tyrannical, censoring government rather than in the obvious truths turned upside down.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Disney rocks DeSantis ahead of expected White House bid announcement | CNN Politics

    Disney rocks DeSantis ahead of expected White House bid announcement | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    “DeSantisland” was likely not the happiest place on Earth on Thursday.

    As Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis gears up for an expected jump into the 2024 presidential race next week, his powerful adversary, Disney, trampled his pre-launch buzz by scratching a $1 billion plan for an office campus that could have brought 2,000 jobs to the state.

    The move was the latest twist in a bitter feud between DeSantis and one of the most important corporations operating in the Sunshine State, rooted in a political collision over the Republican governor’s hardline conservative ideology that will become his pitch to GOP primary voters. And it raises the question of whether Floridians are paying a big price for his political ambitions.

    Disney’s power play showed that CEO Bob Iger wasn’t bluffing when he asked whether Florida wanted the firm to “invest more, employ more people, and pay more taxes” last week. The timing of the Thursday announcement seemed calculated to damage the governor ahead of the most important week of his political career to date, when he is expected to soft launch his White House bid and make the all-important sell to fundraising bundlers. Disney did not specifically blame DeSantis for the move, partly citing “changing business conditions.” But the message was clear.

    “When you are involved in a situation like this, it doesn’t happen very often that events like this are random or coincidental,” said Mark Johnston, a professor of marketing and ethics at the Crummer School of Business at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida.

    Disney’s latest swipe at DeSantis set off multiple political reverberations. It offered a huge opening for ex-President Donald Trump and other Republican primary candidates to argue DeSantis is blundering through an ill-conceived battle with the corporate giant and to accuse him of squandering jobs and business in pursuit of higher office.

    Trump’s campaign gleefully declared that DeSantis got “caught in the Mouse Trap,” after predicting weeks ago that the governor would lose his face-off with Mickey Mouse. (In that same statement, the campaign claimed the GOP front-runner, while in office, was known as the “job’s President.”)

    The fact that some of the new jobs in the Disney project were expected to be transferred from California also undercut a narrative central to the DeSantis platform that businesses and citizens are fleeing liberal areas for a dynamic state dubbed “DeSantisland” by his supporters and which he calls “the free state of Florida.”

    More fundamentally, the latest sign DeSantis was outmaneuvered by Disney threatens to highlight damaging perceptions Trump and other critics are seeking to sow about his candidacy – that despite his thumping reelection win in November, DeSantis lacks basic political skills and strategic nous. This theme has been gathering steam following a series of missteps by DeSantis – who for months was seen as a severe threat to Trump – as he prepped his campaign. His collision with Disney also calls into question whether the bullying persona that the governor adopted to appeal to the conservative base is grounded in reality.

    In other words, has DeSantis picked an enemy – that after decades of mastering societal currents and protecting its image in the courts – is tougher and better at politics than he is? If so, what might this augur for his capacity to thrive in a coming clash with a candidate who is as feral as Trump?

    In a series of moves over the last year, DeSantis created the “Mouse trap” for himself. He recently slammed Disney during a visit to South Carolina, a key primary state and declaring: “They may have run Florida for 50 years before I got on the scene, but they don’t run Florida anymore.”

    The dispute between the governor and Disney dates back to the firm’s objections to legislation that DeSantis signed last spring that restricted the teaching of sexual orientation and gender identity for kindergarten through third grade, dubbed by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay bill.” The measure is part of his targeting of cultural issues and his campaign against “woke” diversity, equity and inclusion policies. The strategy is calculated to appeal to conservatives who believe America’s traditional values are under attack from a more diverse and inclusive society. But the governor’s clash with Disney – a huge firm that appeals to millions of mainstream Americans and has sought to become more inclusive in recent years – could hint at difficulties DeSantis might have in selling such policies toward more moderate voters in a general election.

    DeSantis claimed in his recently published autobiography that Disney had been pressured by “leftist activists” to take a position that alienated Floridians, including parents and children, and that had nothing to do with its core business. He justified his subsequent effort to take control of a special tax district that gave Disney wide autonomy by saying that it had ceased to act in the interests of Florida. “The Walt Disney Company had decided to bite the hand that had fed it for more than fifty years,” he wrote.

    Disney, in response to the governor’s moves, has accused DeSantis of infringing its right to free speech and has launched a lawsuit that could shadow his presidential campaign.

    In keeping with his bruising political persona, DeSantis reacted defiantly to Disney’s announcement that it would halt the office project. Jeremy T. Redfern, a spokesman for his office said, “Disney announced the possibility of a Lake Nona campus nearly two years ago. Nothing ever came of the project, and the state was unsure whether it would come to fruition.” Redfern also took a swipe at the entertainment empire: “Given the company’s financial straits, falling market cap and declining stock price, it is unsurprising that they would restructure their business operations and cancel unsuccessful ventures.”

    Whatever the economic backdrop of this dispute, it has enormous political implications, as could be seen from the swift reactions of some his potential GOP primary rivals.

    Trump’s camp issued several statements, including one that crowed that “President Trump is always right,” and recirculated his previous prediction that DeSantis would be “absolutely destroyed by Disney.” The situation is a win-win for Trump: It allows him to portray DeSantis as weak and politically naive and also to take shots at an impressive economic and political record in Florida the governor is using as a bedrock of his campaign. Trump has long styled himself as a famed dealmaker, and while this persona may not be justified by his years of questionable investments and business failures, it remains a powerful one among GOP primary voters, and could help him drive home his attacks on the DeSantis business record.

    “Ron DeSantis’ failed war on Disney has done little for his limping shadow campaign and now is doing even less for Florida’s economy,” the Trump campaign said in a statement.

    Another possible GOP primary candidate, former Vice President Mike Pence, also leveraged the Disney announcement to jab DeSantis. He argued the governor should have simply taken the win in the legislature over the teaching of gender issues in schools.

    “I like Walt Disney, not woke Disney,” Pence said on Fox Business. “I just don’t believe it’s in the interests of the people of any state for a government to essentially go after a business that they disagreed with on a political issue.”

    Democrats also weighed in, foreshadowing general election attacks they could make against DeSantis should he win the Republican nomination.

    “Gov DeSantis is more interested in running for President than running the state of Florida” and is trying to “out-Trump Trump” in the GOP primary, Florida Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on the “Situation Room.”

    “And now the people of Florida are paying the price,” he said.

    Given his political exposure on Disney and the combative political image that is central to his White House hopes, DeSantis probably has no option but to further escalate the showdown.

    “He wants Republicans to know that ‘I am not going to give in just because somebody clamored for it, because the winds changed,’” said Scott Jennings, a veteran of the George W. Bush White House and a CNN political commentator.

    So the feud with Disney is unlikely to end while DeSantis is a presidential candidate, even though it may eventually end up hurting both the well-known entertainment giant and the state that hosts Disney World – and that he calls home.

    “I think that there’s a growing sense that – how does this end in a positive way?” said Johnston, the Rollins College professor. “It’s not Disney needs to lose and the state needs to win or vice versa. It’s how do we do this so that both sides can walk away from this and we can go back to having a great relationship between Disney and the state of Florida.”

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  • Chris Sununu will decide on 2024 presidential bid ‘in the next week or two’ | CNN Politics

    Chris Sununu will decide on 2024 presidential bid ‘in the next week or two’ | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu said Sunday he will decide “in the next week or two” if he wants to mount a bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and enter an already crowded field of candidates.

    “When I start doing something, I’m 120% in,” the governor said on CNN’s “State of the Union” in an interview with Jake Tapper. “Pretty soon, we’ll make a decision, probably in the next week or two. And we’ll either be go or no-go,” he added.

    Sununu’s remarks come as the list of 2024 GOP hopefuls continues to expand, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott entering the race last week.

    Currently in his fourth term, the New Hampshire governor said figuring out where he could be most effective would factor into his 2024 decision.

    “I still have a 24/7 job,” he said. “The money has been lined up. The support’s been lined up. There’s a pathway to win. All that – those boxes are checked. The family’s on board, which is always a big one. I just got to make sure it’s right for the party and right for me,” he said.

    Sununu also said he wanted to ensure he wasn’t more useful outside the presidential race as he looks to steer the Republican Party away from the chaos of its current primary front-runner, former President Donald Trump.

    “Making sure that when it comes to where I want to see the party go … that maybe I talk a little differently, I talk with a different approach. I want more candidates to be empowered. Can I do that more effectively as a candidate? Can I do that more effectively as someone who’s kind of traveling the country, maybe speaking a little more freely?” Sununu said.

    “I just want what’s best for the party,” he continued. “It doesn’t have to be the Chris Sununu show all the time.”

    With Trump leading in current GOP primary polling, Sununu said the former president was playing the “victim card.”

    “Former President Trump is doing better than anybody thought. He is playing this victim card. The media, the DA in New York, all these things have kind of worked in his favor very much,” the governor said. “Just the fact that we are talking about Donald Trump as a victim, I mean, that is unique in itself. But that is not lasting, necessarily. That does not mean the support he has today turns into a vote nine months from now.”

    Sununu avoided harsh criticism of his other potential rivals, calling DeSantis a “very good governor” and praising him for embarking upon a retail politics tour of New Hampshire. The two met for an hour earlier this month when the Florida governor visited the Granite State to meet with state legislators.

    But Sununu suggested Sunday that DeSantis’ focus on cultural fights back in Florida avoided more important issues, such as government efficiency.

    “I’m not saying we shouldn’t talk about the culture war stuff, don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I just don’t believe government is going to solve a culture war.”

    DeSantis’ recent pledge to consider pardoning some participants in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol was not “disqualifying” for a presidential candidate, Sununu said, even if it’s not something he would do himself.

    Meanwhile, Sununu said the agreement in principle struck by the White House and Republican negotiators on raising the debt ceiling was likely a win since some members of both parties are now balking at the deal.

    “It is a miracle, I mean release the doves,” the governor said. “Washington is actually moving forward. Both sides seem pretty frustrated, which means it’s probably a pretty good deal, actually.”

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  • George W. Bush Fast Facts | CNN Politics

    George W. Bush Fast Facts | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at the life of George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States.

    Birth date: July 6, 1946

    Birth place: New Haven, Connecticut

    Birth name: George Walker Bush

    Father: George Herbert Walker Bush, 41st President of the United States

    Mother: Barbara (Pierce) Bush

    Marriage: Laura (Welch) Bush (November 5, 1977-present)

    Children: Barbara and Jenna (November 25, 1981)

    Education: Yale University, B.A., 1968; Harvard Business School, M.B.A., 1975

    Military: Texas Air National Guard, F-102 fighter pilot, 1968-1970

    Religion: Methodist

    After John Quincy Adams, George W. Bush is the second president to be the son of a previous president.

    His grandfather, Prescott Bush, was a US senator from Connecticut. His younger brother, Jeb Bush, served as the governor of Florida and ran for president in 2016.

    His interests include oil painting, golf, bicycling and baseball.

    1968-1970 – Pilot, Texas Air National Guard.

    1977-1986 – Founder/CEO of Arbusto Energy, an oil exploration firm. In 1982, the name is changed to Bush Exploration.

    1978 – Runs for an open seat in the House of Representatives and loses to his Democratic challenger, Kent Hance.

    1984 – Bush Exploration merges with Spectrum 7 Energy Corp. Bush is named CEO of the new company.

    1986 – Harken Energy Corporation purchases Spectrum 7 and Bush is appointed to Harken’s board of directors.

    1988 – Works on his father’s presidential campaign.

    1989 – Along with a group of partners, purchases the Texas Rangers baseball franchise.

    1989-1994 – Managing general partner of the Texas Rangers baseball team.

    1994-2000 – Governor of Texas.

    November 3, 1998 – Is elected to a second term as governor of Texas with 68.8% of the vote. He is the first governor in Texas history to be elected to consecutive four-year terms.

    March 7, 1999 – Announces he has formed a presidential exploratory committee.

    November 7, 2000 – The US presidential election takes place, but is too close to call.

    November 17, 2000 – The Florida Supreme Court blocks certification of the statewide ballot after an appeal is filed by lawyers for Vice President Al Gore.

    December 8, 2000 – A statewide recount is ordered by the Florida Supreme Court of thousands of questionable ballots.

    December 12, 2000 – In the case, Bush v. Gore, the US Supreme Court reverses the Florida Supreme Court’s ruling and suspends the state’s recount. The 5-4 decision paves the way for Bush to be sworn in as president, even though he lost the popular vote.

    December 13, 2000 – Gore concedes.

    January 20, 2001 – Bush is sworn in as the 43rd president of the United States.

    September 11, 2001 – During a morning visit to an elementary school in Sarasota, Florida, Bush is told that two planes have flown into the World Trade Center in an apparent terrorist attack. He leaves the school and boards Air Force One as aides fear for his safety.

    September 12, 2001 – Visits the Pentagon.

    September 14, 2001 – Visits Ground Zero and gives a speech to firemen, police and other rescue workers.

    January 29, 2002 – In the State of the Union address, he refers to North Korea, Iraq and Iran as “an axis of evil.”

    March 17, 2003 – Says that Saddam Hussein has 48 hours to leave Iraq to avoid war.

    March 19, 2003 – In a televised address, says that military operations have begun in Iraq.

    May 1, 2003 – Lands on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, decorated with a “Mission Accomplished” banner, and declares major combat operations in Iraq are over.

    September 23, 2003 – Addresses the United Nations on Iraq, Afghanistan and weapons of mass destruction.

    November 27, 2003 – Bush surprises US troops in Baghdad by joining them for Thanksgiving dinner. It is the first trip to Iraq by a US president.

    December 14, 2003 – In a televised address, discusses the capture of Saddam Hussein.

    March 9, 2004 – Secures the GOP nomination for president after winning primaries in four states.

    November 2, 2004 – Wins reelection over Democratic candidate John Kerry.

    January 20, 2005 – Sworn is for a second term.

    April 8, 2005 – Bush along with Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush attend the funeral for Pope John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square.

    March 1, 2006 – Bush and wife Laura make a surprise visit to US troops in Afghanistan. The president also meets with President Hamid Karzai.

    June 13, 2006 – Bush makes a surprise visit to Iraq, meeting with new Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and with American troops stationed in Baghdad.

    June 9, 2007 – Meets Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican.

    November 9, 2010 – Bush’s memoir, “Decision Points,” is published.

    November 14, 2010 – A special “State of the Union with Candy Crowley” airs featuring a joint interview with Bush and his brother, Jeb.

    November 16, 2010 – Attends the groundbreaking ceremony of George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum at Southern Methodist University.

    September 11, 2011 – Participates in a memorial at Ground Zero to mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.

    May 31, 2012 – Bush’s official White House portrait is unveiled.

    April 25, 2013 – Dedication ceremony of the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum. All five living presidents attend.

    August 2013 – Undergoes a procedure to treat a blocked artery.

    November 11, 2014 – “41: A Portrait of My Father,” a biography written by Bush, is published.

    February 28, 2017 – A book of Bush’s paintings, “Portraits of Courage: A Commander in Chief’s Tribute to America’s Warriors” is published.

    April 20, 2021 – A book of Bush’s paintings, “Out of Many, One: Portraits of America’s Immigrants” is published.

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  • Biden kicks off reelection bid with union rally in Philadelphia | CNN Politics

    Biden kicks off reelection bid with union rally in Philadelphia | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden kicked off his reelection campaign Saturday at a union rally in his frequent haunt of Pennsylvania, the state that remains an intersection of his personal and political identities that he hopes can propel him to a second term.

    The first official rally of his final political campaign was a moment for Biden to underscore recent economic wins that undergird his argument for another four years in the White House.

    “Just think back. Remember what it was like when I came to office, we came into office. Remember the mess we inherited,” Biden told the audience in Philadelphia. “Now look at where we are today.”

    To a roaring crowd, who repeatedly cheered “four more years,” the president touted several accomplishments, including the bipartisan infrastructure law, a coronavirus relief package, a bipartisan semiconductor chip manufacturing law and the recently negotiated debt ceiling deal that helped avert a US default.

    Biden also criticized recent Republican tax proposals while describing what he called his middle-class vision for the American economy, referring to it several times as “Biden-omics.”

    Biden made only brief mention of Donald Trump, the current front-runner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, steering clear of the former president’s recent federal indictment and arraignment but hitting him on infrastructure.

    “Under my predecessor, infrastructure week became a punchline,” Biden said. “On my watch, we’re making infrastructure a decade headline.”

    First lady Jill Biden, who spoke shortly before her husband, highlighted the president’s optimism. Wearing a corsage to mark their 46th wedding anniversary Saturday, the first lady recalled how she met Biden following the death of his first wife and baby daughter in a tragic car accident that also injured his two sons.

    “What I love about Joe is that even though he has faced unimaginable tragedies, his optimism is undaunted,” Jill Biden said. “His strength is unshakeable.”

    She added that the president was “not done.”

    “He’s ready to finish the job,” she said. “He’s ready to win, and with your help, he will.”

    Though his economic wins were the centerpiece of Biden’s opening campaign event, polls show many voters give him poor marks for his handling of the economy, particularly as prices have soared post-pandemic. Recent figures have shown inflation easing, however, and fears of an imminent recession have faded.

    Biden has said more Americans will come to reward him for his economic stewardship once the benefits of some of his signature legislative achievements, including a new infrastructure law, begin taking hold.

    Labor groups that threw their backing behind Biden ahead of his speech include the AFL-CIO, which said it was the earliest point in a presidential election cycle it had ever endorsed a candidate.

    “There’s absolutely no question that Joe Biden is the most pro-union president in our lifetimes,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. “From bringing manufacturing jobs home to America to protecting our pensions and making historic investments in infrastructure, clean energy and education, we’ve never seen a president work so tirelessly to rebuild our economy from the bottom up and middle out.”

    Supporters cheer before Biden speaks at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

    Biden, who made his first stop after announcing his reelection bid a legislative conference for North America’s Building Trades Unions in Washington, has long relied on union support for his political ambitions.

    “I’m more honored by your endorsement than you can imagine – coming this early, it’s going to make a gigantic difference in this campaign,” Biden said during Saturday’s event in Philadelphia, where he called himself “the most pro-union president in American history.”

    Not all unions have thrown their support behind Biden’s reelection bid. The powerful United Auto Workers said last month it was holding off on endorsing Biden, citing concerns over his policies that would encourage a transition to electric vehicles, according to a memo from the union.

    The UAW has more than 400,000 members, and Biden has touted its support in the past. Last year he called American autoworkers “the most skilled autoworkers in the world.” The group’s membership is mostly concentrated in Michigan, a presidential election battleground.

    Biden also rankled union members last year when he signed legislation that averted a nationwide rail strike – a step he said was necessary to prevent a stoppage of important freight movement.

    Biden’s campaign has leaned into his economic record, including releasing a 60-second ad titled “Backbone” last month. The spot struck a populist tone, mixing audio of the president speaking about “investing in places and people that have been forgotten” and a narrator ticking through the administration’s work to boost infrastructure and manufacturing in the country.

    “Joe Biden’s building an economy that leaves no city, no town, no American behind,” the narrator says.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Trump once said a president under felony indictment would grind the government to a halt and create a constitutional crisis | CNN Politics

    Trump once said a president under felony indictment would grind the government to a halt and create a constitutional crisis | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump said in 2016 that a president under indictment would “cripple the operations of our government” and create an “unprecedented constitutional crisis” – years before he himself was indicted on federal charges while running for a second term as president.

    Trump made the comments nearly seven years ago about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign.

    “We could very well have a sitting president under felony indictment and ultimately a criminal trial,” Trump said during a November 5, 2016, campaign rally in Reno, Nevada, reviewed by CNN’s KFile. “It would grind government to a halt.”

    Just days earlier, on October 28, then-FBI director James Comey publicly announced they had reopened the investigation into Clinton’s handling of classified information related to her use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state.

    Now, Trump finds himself under the exact situation he repeatedly described after he was charged in early June with 37 federal counts related to retention of classified documents and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

    A tentative trial date had been set for mid-August by the case’s judge, but it is likely to be pushed back. The special counsel’s office asked for a December trial. The flexibility of when the trial will begin leaves uncertainty if the case will conclude before the 2024 election.

    But Trump, the current front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, will not be disqualified from the presidency even if convicted, and he told Politico in June that he won’t leave the presidential race if he is convicted of the charges.

    At another rally on November 3, 2016, in Concord, North Carolina, Trump made similar comments.

    “If she were to win, it would create an unprecedented Constitutional crisis that would cripple the operations of our government,” he said. “She is likely to be under investigation for many years, and also it will probably end up – in my opinion – in a criminal trial. I mean, you take a look. Who knows? But it certainly looks that way.”

    “She has no right to be running, you know that,” Trump said. “No right.”

    Trump added at a November 5, 2016, rally in Denver that as “the prime suspect in a far-reaching criminal investigation,” Clinton’s controversies would make it “virtually impossible for her to govern.”

    The comments aren’t the only ones from Trump’s past campaigns that could have aged poorly with his legal troubles. In another comment, made when running for reelection, Trump acknowledged only the sitting president could reveal classified information.

    CNN previously reported in an exclusively obtained audio recording that Trump said as president he could have declassified a document about plans to attack Iran that he was showing aides after leaving office, but recognized he could not do so now that he is no longer president.

    “And you know the newspapers and the press and the fake news they went and said he just gave away classified information,” Trump said at a rally in Pennsylvania in September 2020 when discussing his conversations with author Bob Woodward on nuclear weapons. “First of all, I’m allowed to do it, I’m the President so I’m allowed to. I’m the one – I’m the only one that’s allowed.”

    In September, CNN’s KFile reported that Trump previously called for lengthy jail sentences for those who mishandled classified information.

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  • 2024 GOP candidates race to meet donor and polling thresholds to make August debate stage | CNN Politics

    2024 GOP candidates race to meet donor and polling thresholds to make August debate stage | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Donald Trump hasn’t yet committed to the first Republican presidential primary debate in August – but some of the former president’s most vocal critics within the party’s 2024 field are still working to qualify for the stage.

    The race to meet the 40,000 unique donors threshold set by the Republican National Committee as a minimum to qualify for the first debate – in addition to polling requirements and a commitment to support the eventual GOP nominee – is unfolding ahead of a showdown that could be the best chance for lower-polling candidates to break out from the pack seeking to stop Trump from winning a third straight presidential nomination.

    The threshold, which also requires at least 200 unique contributors from 20 or more states and territories, is a test of candidates’ ability to appeal to grassroots donors across a broad swath of the United States.

    Several candidates and their aides say they have already met that donor threshold, including Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, former United Nations ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

    Lesser-known candidates are trying zany, rule-bending approaches to up their donation totals. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum is swapping $20 gift cards for $1 campaign contributions. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez’s super PAC is offering entries to a free college tuition sweepstakes in exchange for contributions to his campaign.

    But the biggest question ahead of the August 23 showdown on Fox News is whether some of Trump’s foremost critics – including former Vice President Mike Pence, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and former Texas Rep. Will Hurd – will qualify for the stage.

    Though they have raised substantial sums before, and Burgum has vast personal wealth to spend on the race, some candidates lack the small-dollar conservative base of donors that candidates like Trump and DeSantis have cultivated. And late entrances by Pence and Burgum further complicate their paths to the debate, which is being held in Milwaukee.

    Pence, in a Tuesday interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source,” indicated that he has not yet met the donor threshold.

    “You bet we’ll be on that debate stage. We’re working every day to get to that threshold,” Pence said. “I’m sure we’re going to be there.”

    However, the paltry second-quarter fundraising haul of $1.2 million that Pence’s campaign announced Friday underscored just how far the former vice president has to go to catch his top rivals.

    Pence – who often jokes on the campaign trail that he has already debated Trump many times in private – said he is hopeful his former ticket mate decides to take the stage.

    “I intend to be on that debate stage in late August, and I look forward to squaring off,” Pence said.

    Hutchinson said Friday on “CNN This Morning” that he has not yet reached 40,000 donors but believes he will eventually hit that mark.

    “It’s just a question of how quickly we can get there, but we want to be on that debate stage,” he said.

    The former Arkansas governor has been among the most vocal critics of the RNC’s debate qualification rules, pushing back for weeks against the minimum donor threshold.

    Hutchinson said Friday that some of the inventive gambits by his fellow candidates to attract the requisite donors “illustrate how silly this whole concept is. They’re telling campaigns you’ve got to reach these limits to make sure you get 40,000 donors. You can do that by your rhetoric and getting people fired up, you can do that by gimmicks, and so we’re going to have to do what we need to do to get there.”

    Hurd does not appear yet to have met the minimum donor threshold. “Will fully intends on meeting the donor and polling thresholds,” a campaign aide said Wednesday.

    North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum speaks to guests during a campaign stop at the Westside Conservative Breakfast Club meeting on June 9, 2023, in Ankeny, Iowa.

    Burgum, a wealthy former software executive, is offering $20 so-called “Biden economic relief cards” in the form of Visa or Mastercard gift cards to 50,000 donors who give at least $1. One solicitation Tuesday described it as a “better deal than anything you are seeing during Amazon Prime Day.”

    Burgum’s campaign on Friday announced an $11.7 million fundraising haul in the second quarter, but $10.2 miliion of that candidate’s own money.

    Perry Johnson, the little-known Michigan businessman, was at one point selling “I stand with Tucker” T-shirts backing the fired Fox News opinion host for $1.

    A super PAC backing Suarez on Thursday launched what it called “Francis Free College Tuition” – soliciting $1 contributions that would go to the candidate’s campaign to enter a sweepstakes that would offer the winner a year of paid college tuition up to $15,000.

    Suarez, unlike many other GOP candidates still racing to meet the donor threshold to qualify for the debate, has backed the RNC’s rules.

    “I do think there should a minimum criteria because time is valuable,” Suarez said Wednesday on “CNN This Morning.” “I think the Republican Party has tried to set a relatively low bar, and they’ve tried to create a diverse candidate pool so that people have options.”

    Ramaswamy’s campaign has said he already met the donor threshold – but his campaign recently launched a program to pay grassroots fundraisers 10% of the money they raise.

    Whether Christie would meet the donor threshold was a major question but one he seemed to settle on Wednesday night.

    “I am glad to be able to tell people tonight, Anderson, that last night we went past 40,000 unique donors in just 35 days,” Christie told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on “AC360.”

    Scott’s campaign on Wednesday also announced it had surpassed the 40,000 donor threshold, along with a $6.1 million second quarter fundraising haul. Scott, a prolific fundraiser as a Senate candidate, was widely considered a virtual lock to reach that minimum donor threshold.

    Another key benchmark to qualify for the debate stage is polling. Candidates must reach at least 1% in three national polls, or at least two national polls and two polls from separate early-voting states – Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina or Nevada.

    The RNC set criteria to determine which polls meet its standards to qualify toward the debate. The first poll to meet those RNC standards, a national survey by Morning Consult, found that Trump, DeSantis, Scott, Haley, Ramaswamy, Pence, Christie and Hutchinson had all reached the 1% minimum to count toward making the debate stage.

    Others still have zero qualifying polls toward the minimum qualifications for the first debate.

    Larry Elder, the conservative talk radio host and failed California gubernatorial nominee who is seeking the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination, complained in an opinion piece published Wednesday by The Hill that the RNC “has rigged the rules of the game by instituting a set of criteria that is so onerous and poorly designed that only establishment-backed and billionaire candidates are guaranteed to be on stage.”

    “That’s not what our party is about: We are the party of free speech, debate and the exchange of ideas. With 16 months until the general election, Republicans should have as many voices as the stage will accommodate. Anything short of that is elitism,” Elder said.

    The third requirement to make the August debate is a pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee in the 2024 general election.

    Some candidates, including Christie, have grumbled about the pledge but indicated they will agree to it because failing to do so would leave them no real path to the sort of attention needed to win the GOP nomination.

    Trump has privately discussed skipping either one or both of the first two Republican presidential primary debates, CNN reported in May. Since then he has not publicly said he would participate in the debate.

    DeSantis on Wednesday criticized Trump in an interview with Iowa conservative radio host Howie Carr over his refusal to commit to the debate.

    “Nobody is entitled to this nomination. You have got to earn the nomination,” DeSantis said, adding that debates are “important parts of the process.”

    “I will be in Milwaukee for the first debate, and I’ll be at all the debates because the American people deserve to hear from us directly about our vision for the country, and about how we’re going to be able to defeat Joe Biden,” he said.

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  • Manchin: Americans want a ‘reasonable, responsible middle’ | CNN Politics

    Manchin: Americans want a ‘reasonable, responsible middle’ | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Sen. Joe Manchin declined to say Sunday whether he would run on a centrist presidential ticket but the moderate West Virginia Democrat said Americans were sick of the political division in the country.

    “We cannot basically have a divided country, and we cannot withstand that,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union” in an interview with Dana Bash. “There’s a movement going on that people want, to bring the extremes back to the sensible and reasonable, responsible middle.”

    Manchin would not respond when asked by Bash if he would consider running for president on a ticket of the business-friendly centrist group No Labels, which is seeking to get on the presidential ballot in all 50 states.

    Manchin, who holds a pivotal vote in the narrowly divided Senate, has refused to say whether he thinks President Joe Biden deserves a second term in office. He has also been critical of certain aspects of the president’s agenda, and last week he called on Biden to negotiate on the debt ceiling instead of pursuing “an ideological agenda.”

    Manchin, who is up for reelection next year, told NBC News on Sunday that any decision about his political future would be made at the end of the year.

    “My filing date is January 15 in 2024, and I will make my decision maybe a little bit before that, but not until the end of the year, I can assure you,” he said.

    The Democrat would rank among the most vulnerable senators this cycle if he chooses to run for a third full term in deep-red West Virginia – a state former President Donald Trump won by nearly 40 points in 2020.

    Asked about Trump’s recent indictment by a Manhattan grand jury, Manchin said that “no one is above the law” but also that “no one should be targeted by the law, especially through the political process.”

    “So we’ll just wait and see next week. I hope they are very thorough in the job they do, and basically people should have faith in this judicial system of ours,” the senator told Bash.

    Manchin said he did not believe the former president was being targeted but added, “You have to remove all doubt. You have to make sure – cross every ‘T,’ dot every ‘I’, as they say.”

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  • Americans hold mixed views on getting back to ‘normal’ after Covid-19, new polling shows | CNN Politics

    Americans hold mixed views on getting back to ‘normal’ after Covid-19, new polling shows | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Three years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Americans’ views of the disease’s impact have stagnated into a complex set of mixed feelings, recent polling suggests, with few believing that the pandemic has ended but most also saying that their lives had returned mostly – if not entirely – to normal.

    The US Senate passed a bill last week that would end the national Covid-19 emergency declared in March 2020. The US House approved the measure earlier this year, and the White House has said President Joe Biden will sign it despite “strongly” opposing the bill. The administration had already planned to wind down the emergency by May 11.

    In a recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey about the Biden administration’s original plan to end the public health emergency by May, 59% of Americans said they expected the decision to have no impact on them or their family, with the remainder about evenly split between the 20% who thought it would have a positive effect and the 21% who thought the impact would be negative.

    Only 24% of Americans personally feel that the pandemic is over, a recent Monmouth University poll found, with 20% saying it will end eventually and 53% saying that it’ll never be over. Those numbers were very similar to Monmouth’s polling last fall, suggesting that a sense of some lingering abnormalcy may well be the new normal.

    Relatively few Americans say either that their lives have completely returned to a pre-pandemic normal or that their lives are still completely upended by it. The Monmouth poll found a 69% majority saying that their daily routine was at least mostly back to what it was pre-pandemic – but only about a third, 34%, say that things were completely the same as they were three years ago. Another 20% said things were partially back to normal, and 11% that they were still not normal at all.

    Declaring to pollsters that the pandemic is over may be something of a political statement for ordinary Americans as well. Republicans were 17 points likelier than Democrats to say that their own routines were mostly back to normal, the Monmouth poll found, and 28 points likelier to say that the pandemic had completely ended.

    The results of the Monmouth survey echo a February Gallup poll that found 33% of Americans saying that their life was completely back to pre-pandemic normal, 20% saying that they expected it would eventually return to normal and nearly half that their life would never fully return to the way it was pre-pandemic. Gallup also found that views about the pandemic’s trajectory were nearly unchanged from their polling in October, when 31% thought normalcy had completely returned.

    “The 47% who don’t foresee a return to normalcy may be getting used to a ‘new normal’ that, for some, means occasional mask use, regular COVID-19 vaccines and avoidance of some situations that may put them at greater risk of infection, particularly at times when COVID-19 infections are spiking,” Gallup’s Megan Brenan wrote.

    About half of Americans, 48%, are continuing to mask up in public on at least some occasions, the Monmouth poll found, though only about 21% said they do so most or all of the time. In KFF polling from earlier this year, 46% of Americans said they’d taken some form of precautions – including mask-wearing or avoiding large gatherings, travel or indoor dining – over the winter due to news about the triple threat of Covid-19, the flu and RSV.

    In KFF’s latest poll, just over half the American public said they’d been boosted against Covid-19, but only 23% reported receiving the latest bivalent version of the booster vaccine.

    At the broader societal level, in a CNN poll last fall, more than 6 in 10 Americans said they believed the pandemic had permanently reshaped multiple aspects of the American landscape, from healthcare (66%) and education (63%) to the economy (61%) and the way most people do their jobs (69%).

    But while the public sees the pandemic’s effects as far-reaching and ongoing, they’re also not top of mind. In a Quinnipiac University survey released last week, fewer than 1% of Americans picked Covid-19 as “the most urgent issue facing the country.”

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