Tag: melania trump

Report: Melania Trump Was Inexplicably in the Situation Room for the 2019 ISIS Raid, Told Trump to “Talk About the Dog” Afterward

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For most of her time as first lady, Melania Trump gave off the vibe that she’d literally rather be anywhere else, a conclusion lots of people came to thanks to (1) that “I Really Don’t Care” jacket, (2) the “Who gives a fuck about Christmas stuff and decoration?” recording, and (3) her refusal to try and stop the brutal January 6 attack on the Capitol because she reportedly was busy photographing rugs. (Also, her seeming disdain for her husband, the not-happy tears she reportedly cried after he won, and the fact that she delayed her move to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for nearly five months were pretty good indications.) But a new report suggests that the former first lady may have been more intimately involved in matters of government than previously thought.

In a new book set for release this week by former acting defense secretary Christopher Miller, the ex-Trump-administration official writes that Melania was, inexplicably, in the Situation Room during the US’s 2019 ISIS raid that resulted in the death of then ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. According to Miller, Melania was there with the president, Vice President Mike Pence, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, among others. He writes: “Her presence was unexpected, to say the least. I wondered how it would play in the press if word got out that the first lady had popped in to watch a major military operation,” according to a copy of the memoir that was viewed by The Hill.

As we’ve known for several years now, al-Baghdadi blew himself up after a military dog named Conan led troops into the ISIS leader’s compound and had him surrounded. (The blast also killed two of al-Baghdadi’s children and two of his wives.) But according to Miller, it was Melania who came up with the idea about how to tell the American people about the mission. “You should talk about the dog,” Miller said she told the president. “Everyone loves dogs.”

Everyone, of course, except Donald Trump, who has a well-established disdain for animals in general and dogs in particular. (The only president in more than a century to live in the White House without a pet, Trump’s ex-wife Ivana wrote in her 2017 memoir that “Donald was not a dog fan,” and that her poodle, Chappy, would “bark at him territorially” whenever he got near her closet. Trump also has a long history of denigrating ex-employees and other perceived enemies by comparing them to dogs, tweeting that his enemies have “choked like a dog,” been “dumped like a dog,” been “fired like a dog,” and, our personal favorite, been “kicked out of the ABC News debate like a dog.”)

Nevertheless, Trump chose to listen to his third wife, which apparently led to him excitedly tweeting that Conan was a “wonderful dog” who did a “GREAT JOB” on behalf of the United States, and sharing a photoshopped image of him awarding Conan the medal of honor and calling him an “AMERICAN HERO.” Later, he invited Conan for an official visit to the White House wherein he told reporters, “The dog is incredible. Actually incredible. We spent some good time with it. So brilliant and so smart.” Later, he added that “Conan was very badly hurt as you know, and they thought maybe he was not going to recover. Recovered very quickly and has since gone on very important raids.” Naturally, he also “joked” about siccing Conan on a a member of the free press known for asking tough questions, saying, “It’s trained that if you open your mouths you will be attacked. You ought to be very, very careful.”

Yet perhaps the most surprising turn of events, given what we now know about Melania’s reported role in all this? That she answered a curt and totally unambiguous “no” when asked if she was interested in adopting Conan for her son. That’s right, not even an “I’ll think about it!”

Anyway, this revelation obviously raises more questions than it answers, such as, how many other matters of grave national security did the then first lady sit in on, and will she be spearheading any overseas military operations in a potential second term?

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February 6, 2023
Trump mistook rape accuser E. Jean Carroll for ex-wife Marla Maples in deposition about photo

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Donald Trump, E. Jean Carroll, John Johnson and Ivana Trump at an NBC party, late 1980s.

U.S. District Court in Manhattan

Former President Donald Trump recently mistook his rape accuser E. Jean Carroll for his ex-wife Marla Maples when being questioned about a decades-old photo of him and Carroll by her attorney for a defamation lawsuit, a newly public court filing shows.

Trump’s belief that the writer Carroll was actually his second wife Maples sharply undercuts the New York real estate mogul’s repeated claims that he would not have even had sex with Carroll because she is “not my type.”

Carroll, 79, first alleged in a 2019 magazine article that Trump, who was president at the time, had raped her in a dressing room in the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in 1995 or 1996 after a chance encounter in the store.

Trump, 76, denied her claims, accusing Carroll of lying. He also said Carroll was motivated by a desire to generate sales of a book and political animus in making the allegations.

“She’s not my type,” Trump told The Hill news site in 2019.

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Carroll is suing Trump, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, in two cases in federal court in Manhattan for allegedly defaming her by his characterization of her claims and her purported motivation. One case was filed in 2019, after Trump first denied her allegations, and the second was filed this fall, after he repeated his claims about her motivation.

In the most recent case, she is also suing him for battery, for the alleged rape itself, under a new New York state law that opens a one-year window for adults to lodge claims of sexual abuse that otherwise would be too old to pursue because of the statute of limitations.

During an Oct. 19 deposition at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, which was made public Wednesday, Trump was shown a photo from an NBC event around 1987.

The image shows him from behind, facing Carroll and her then-husband, television journalist John Johnson, with Trump’s then-wife, the late Ivana Trump standing to his right.

“It’s Marla,” said Trump about the photo.

Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, said, “You’re saying Marla is in this photo?”

Trump replied: “That’s Marla, yeah. That’s my wife.”

Real estate mogul, reality television star and former potential presidential candidate Donald Trump was first married to Czech former athlete Ivana Trump. After 15 years of marriage, the pair had a very public and very messy divorce in 1992, which cost him . This might have discouraged a lesser man from ever dating again, but “The Donald” is no shrinking violet. One year later he had a new bride on his arm in the person of actress and socialite Marla Maples, 17 years his junior.In 1997, the coup

Ron Galella | WireImage | Getty Images

His lawyer Alina Habba then interjected, “No, that’s Carroll.”

Trump said, “Oh, I see.”

Kaplan then said, “The person you just pointed to was E. Jean Carroll.”

When Habba repeated to Trump, “That’s Carroll,” he replied, “That’s Carroll?”

Elsewhere in the deposition, Trump said of Carroll, “She’s not my type.”

“She is not a woman I would ever be attracted to,” he added later.

The deposition was attached to a court filing last week by Carroll’s lawyers, but became public Wednesday after Trump’s lawyers dropped their opposition to it being made public.

Last week, Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered other portions of the deposition unsealed, ruling that Trump did not have a legitimate reason to keep them out of the public record in the case.

Trump married Maples in 1993, several months after the birth of their daughter, Tiffany. The couple, who began their romantic relationship while Trump was still married to Ivana, divorced six years later.

Trump married his current wife, Melania Trump, in 2005.

Kaplan has set trial in Carroll’s lawsuits to begin in April.

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January 18, 2023
Jan. 6 transcripts reveal new details

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The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol released several batches of transcripts from interviews with key staffers and allies of former President Donald Trump.

The transcripts were released as the committee wound down its work at the end of the 117th Congress, before Republicans officially take control of the House on Tuesday. The interviews, conducted over the past year and a half, were part of the investigation into the Jan. 6 attack and Trump’s role in the day’s events.

In their last public hearing, held on Dec. 19, the committee voted to refer to the Justice Department possible criminal charges against Trump and attorney John Eastman.

Here are some key details from the transcripts that were released:

John Eastman takes the 5th

Eastman, who wrote the controversial memo that proposed that former Vice President Mike Pence had the authority to delay or even reject the certification of state electors, exercised his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination at almost every major question.

When Eastman was asked why he had written in the two-page memo that seven states had transmitted dual slates of electors despite indicating to The New York Times that there we no certifications of alternate electors, he took the Fifth. He also took the Fifth when asked if he disagreed with former Attorney General Bill Barr’s comment that Trump’s election claims were “bullsh**,” and when asked about comments he made on Jan. 6.

Eastman also pleaded the Fifth when asked if he had recommendations to prevent Jan. 6 from happening again.

Hope Hicks says “we all look like domestic terrorists now”

Text messages from Trump’s communications director Hope Hicks, one of his most loyal aides, were released by the select committee on Monday.

In one exchange with Julie Radford, Ivanka Trump’s chief of staff, Hicks wrote, “In one day he ended every future opportunity that doesn’t include speaking engagements at the local proud boys chapter. And all of us that didn’t have jobs lined up will be perpetually unemployed. I’m so mad and upset … We all look like domestic terrorists now.”

Radford responded, “oh yes, I’ve been crying for an hour.”

Hicks then wrote, “She has no idea this made us all unemployable … Like untouchable … God I’m so f***** mad.”

Ginni Thomas: “I regret the tone and content” of texts with Meadows

Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, attended the rally at the Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021 before the Capitol was breached. She also exchanged texts with Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows encouraging him to pursue every effort to overturn the election.

Committee vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., asked her if she regretted sending the texts, or just that the texts became public.

“I regret the tone and content of these texts,” Thomas said. “And other than that, it was an emotional time, and I was texting with a friend who I had known a long time. So I really find my language imprudent and my choices of sending the context of these emails unfortunate.”

Kellyanne Conway texted Melania Trump on Jan. 6 because Trump has a “fear” of her

Trump 2016 campaign manager and former top adviser Kellyanne Conway resigned in the summer of 2020 but remained close to the Trump family. Conway told the committee that she was trying to get through to Trump on Jan. 6, contacting Hicks and Trump aide Nick Luna, among others. Conway said she also texted Melania Trump.

“I texted her, please — something to the effect of, you know, please talk to him, because I know he listens to her,” Conway said. “He reserves — he listens to many of us, but he reserves fear for one person, Melania Trump.”

Conway said the first lady didn’t answer because she didn’t have her phone that day.

Stephanie Grisham: Trump would never go to the Capitol because he is “afraid of people”

Melania Trump’s former chief of staff Stephanie Grisham, who also served as a White House aide, told the committee that Melania Trump lost her “independent streak” in the final weeks of the administration.

Grisham also said that Trump and chief of staff Mark Meadows tried to fire the usher at the White House after Election Day because he was preparing for the transition for then-President-elect Joe Biden to move in.

At another point, Grisham said that Trump would not have walked to the Capitol on Jan. 6 because he is “afraid of people.”

Cassidy Hutchinson: “They will ruin my life”

Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to Meadows, gave blockbuster public testimony at a House Jan. 6 committee hearing on June 28. In an interview with the committee in September, she said she couldn’t afford a lawyer and was worried about finding a pro bono attorney.

“I wanted to be able to do this on my own, and I didn’t want to feel like I was using an attorney in Trump world where I’d potentially have to be responding to their interests as well,” Hutchinson said.

Former White House attorney Eric Herschmann connected Hutchinson with Alex Cannon, she said. Cannon told Hutchinson that “they” had a lawyer for her, but did not disclose who would be paying for it. Hutchinson met with Stefan Passantino, who represented her for her first two interviews with the committee. In a February meeting, Hutchinson testified that Passantino told her they would “downplay” her role at the White House and on Jan. 6.

Hutchinson said she was uncomfortable with the arrangement but felt she had no other choice, telling the committee that she said to her mother, “I am completely indebted to these people … they will ruin my life, Mom, if I do anything they don’t want me to.”

Hutchinson said Passantino told her to keep her answers “short” and said that saying “I don’t recall” is an “entirely acceptable” response because “they don’t know that you recall some of these things.” She told the committee that testifying with him as her lawyer was “felt like (she) had Trump looking over (her) shoulder.”

“I knew in some fashion it would get back to him if I said anything that he would find disloyal. And the prospect of that genuinely scared me. You know, I’d seen this world ruin people’s lives or try to ruin people’s careers. I’d seen how vicious they can be,” Hutchinson said.

She also told the committee that Passantino also mentioned job opportunities and worked to connect her with other people on getting a job, saying, “We’re gonna get you taken care of. We want to keep you in the family.”

[Need to add that Passantino has said that he told her to tell the truth, etc., which I believe was his statement.]

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January 2, 2023
Donald Trump Calls To Terminate Constitution

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Former President Trump has claimed the Constitution can be terminated to reinstate him as president, falsely citing election fraud as grounds, after Elon Musk released information about Twitter’s role in limiting access to a story about Hunter Biden,. What do you think?

“What’s gotten into him lately?”

Elwood Staunton, Unemployed

“The Founding Fathers had some pretty strong feelings about candidate offspring and their laptops.”

Ferdinand Beser, Ingot Stacker

“Before we say no, let’s hear how much money he’s offering.”

Donna Castaneda, Fad Promoter

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December 6, 2022
Donald Trump is no Grover Cleveland | CNN Politics

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

CNN
—

Former President Donald Trump wants to do a full Grover Cleveland and match the only US president to lose a presidential election and then rise from the ashes to regain the White House four years later.

Other examples of former presidents trying to regain power have gone poorly. Theodore Roosevelt’s progressive rebellion split open a schism in the GOP; neither Herbert Hoover nor Martin Van Buren could get nominations from their parties after previous losses.

With the announcement of his third White House run, Trump is trying to emulate Cleveland, who won, lost and then won the White House in 1884, 1888 and 1892.

In many other ways, Trump, a native New Yorker, and Cleveland, the only president born in New Jersey, have little in common. Most of what’s below comes from reading about Cleveland at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center and also the University of California Santa Barbara’s American Presidency Project.

Trump, a Republican, lost the popular vote twice. He lost both the Electoral College and the popular vote to Joe Biden in 2020, but Trump also got fewer popular votes compared with Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and first lady, when he beat her in the Electoral College in 2016.

Cleveland, a Democrat, won the popular vote three times. He got more popular votes than his opponent when he won the White House in 1884 and 1892, and while he lost the Electoral College vote to Benjamin Harrison in 1888, Cleveland beat him in the popular vote. Regardless of the popular vote, Cleveland’s first win in 1884 was thanks to an extremely narrow 1,200-vote margin that delivered him New York’s decisive electoral votes.

Trump rejected his loss. The former president skipped Biden’s inauguration, still won’t admit he lost in 2020 and has infected the Republican Party with a vein of denialism.

Cleveland held the umbrella as his opponent became president. At a rainy inauguration in March 1889, Cleveland held an umbrella over Harrison’s head as the latter took the oath of office.

Trump is one of the oldest presidents. Seventy when he took office in 2017, Trump would be 78 if he wins and takes office again in January 2025. That would make him the second-oldest president after Biden.

Cleveland was a young president. Just 47 when he first took the oath of office, Cleveland was 55 when he won reelection. Cleveland died at 71, an age at which Trump was in the first half of his term.

Trump revels in the campaign. He lives for winding speeches eaten up by adoring crowds.

Cleveland barely campaigned. Candidates of the day didn’t campaign as much, but when he first won the White House in 1884, Cleveland gave just two campaign speeches.

He was similarly disinterested in campaigning four years later, which could explain his defeat in 1888, but doesn’t explain how he won again in 1892.

Trump is famous for denying scandals. One example: He disputed paying hush money to women who alleged affairs with him despite the confirmation of his former attorney Michael Cohen, who set up the payments.

Cleveland admitted an affair. Attacked by Republicans in 1884, Cleveland admitted he may in fact have fathered an illegitimate child with a woman later sent to an insane asylum.

“Ma, Ma, Where’s my Pa,” went the attack ad of the day. Cleveland turned honesty into a campaign attribute and urged supporters to tell the truth.

Trump imposed tariffs. One of Trump’s lasting policy legacies are the tariffs he imposed on China and other countries.

Cleveland fought tariffs. A reason he lost in 1892 was Cleveland’s opposition to high tariffs, an unpopular position exploited by Harrison.

There are, however, some other similarities between Trump and Cleveland.

They both married younger women. Melania Trump is 24 years younger than her husband, Donald. Cleveland married his wife Frances during his first term in the White House, still the only marriage of a sitting president conducted at the White House. Frances Cleveland was 21 at the time and had been Cleveland’s ward after her father, Cleveland’s former law partner, died.

They both considered using troops on Americans. Trump considered calling out the military on protesters in front of the White House, and some of his advisers considered trying to impose martial law as they sought to overturn his defeat in 2020.

Cleveland called out federal troops to put down the Pullman railcar strike, a controversial and unprecedented use of force against striking workers.

(Related: Today, the odds of a railroad union strike are on the rise after a third union rejected a proposed contract. Read more.)

They both promised to clean up Washington. Trump won in 2016 promising to “drain the swamp” in Washington, and Cleveland’s main issue was to put corrupt Republicans in check, something that resonated with anti-corruption Republicans known as the “Mugwumps.”

They both cut down on some immigration. The issue that most animated Trump was building a wall at the southern border. He also curbed legal immigration to the US and imposed a travel ban on certain countries. Cleveland renewed the Chinese Exclusion Act and prevented Chinese laborers from returning to the US. But Cleveland rejected a law that would have imposed a literacy test on immigrants.

They both relied on the South. Trump could not win his home state of New York like Cleveland did, but both men relied on a southern base of support for their political power.

Joshua Zeitz wrote for Politico recently that when Cleveland ran in 1892 after losing in 1888, it was largely out of boredom. Trump, meanwhile, seems to be more interested in revenge for what he falsely calls a fraudulent election.

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct Martin Van Buren’s political party. He was a Democrat.

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November 16, 2022
Tiffany Trump Charged Full Venue Price For Mar-A-Lago Wedding

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PALM BEACH, FL—Shaking her head in anger and disbelief as she scanned the invoice, Tiffany Trump reportedly received a bill from the Mar-a-Lago Club Tuesday charging her the full venue price for her wedding. “$95,000 for catering? Are you fucking kidding me?” said the 29-year-old Trump, who noted that the wedding cake looked nothing like the one she ordered and that the food “hadn’t even been that good.” “My dad insisted that I have the wedding here, so I assumed it would all be paid for. I didn’t even get a discount! God, they just gouged me on everything. They charged me $20,000 for a DJ, but I didn’t even have a DJ there! And what the hell is a napkin fee? I don’t know how I’m going to be able to afford this. I’m going to have to ask my dad for money.” At press time, reports confirmed Tiffany Trump was furious after discovering she had been charged a $1.5 million speaking fee for her father’s wedding toast.

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November 15, 2022
Obama, on the Pennsylvania campaign trail, tells Democrats

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The Democratic Party’s most powerful voices warned Saturday that abortion, Social Security and democracy itself are at risk as they labored to overcome fierce political headwinds — and an ill-timed misstep from President Biden — over the final weekend of the high-stakes midterm elections.

“Sulking and moping is not an option,” former President Barack Obama told several hundred voters on a blustery day in Pittsburgh.

“On Tuesday, let’s make sure our country doesn’t get set back 50 years,” Obama said. “The only way to save democracy is if we, together, fight for it.”

Obama was the first president, but not last, to rally voters Saturday in Pennsylvania, a pivotal state as voters decide control of Congress and key statehouses. Polls across America will close on Tuesday, but more than 36 million people have already voted.

By day’s end, voters in the Keystone State also were to have heard directly from Mr. Biden as well as former President Donald Trump. And former President Bill Clinton was campaigning in New York.

Each was appearing with local candidates, but their words echoed across the country as the parties sent out their best to deliver a critical closing argument.

Not everyone, it seemed, was on message, however.

Even before arriving in Pennsylvania, Mr. Biden was dealing with a fresh political mess after upsetting some in his party for promoting plans to shut down fossil fuel plants in favor of green energy. While he made the comments in California the day before, the fossil fuel industry is a major employer in Pennsylvania.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said the president owed coal workers across the country an apology.

“Being cavalier about the loss of coal jobs for men and women in West Virginia and across the country who literally put their lives on the line to help build and power this country is offensive and disgusting,” Manchin said.

The White House said Mr. Biden’s words were “twisted to suggest a meaning that was not intended; he regrets it if anyone hearing these remarks took offense” and that he was “commenting on a fact of economics and technology.”

Democrats are deeply concerned about their narrow majorities in the House and Senate as voters sour on Mr. Biden’s leadership amid surging inflation, crime concerns and widespread pessimism about the direction of the country. History suggests that Democrats, as the party in power, will suffer significant losses in the midterms.

Clinton, 76, addressed increasing fears about rising crime as he stumped for New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, whose reelection is at risk even in deep-blue New York. He blamed Republicans for focusing on the issue to score political points.

“But what are the Republicans really saying? ‘I want you to be scared and I want you to be mad. And the last thing I want you to do is think,’” Clinton said.

In Pittsburgh, Obama accompanied Senate candidate John Fetterman, the lieutenant governor who represents his party’s best chance to flip a Republican-held seat. Later Saturday, they appeared in Philadelphia with Mr. Biden and Josh Shapiro, the nominee for governor.

Trump will finish the day courting voters in a working-class region in the southwestern corner of the state with Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Senate nominee, and Doug Mastriano, who is running for governor.

Former U.S President Donald Trump speaks at a ‘Save America’ rally on October 22, 2022 in Robstown, Texas. The former president, alongside other Republican nominees and leaders held a rally where they energized supporters and voters ahead of the midterm election.

BRANDON BELL / Getty Images

The attention on Pennsylvania underscores the stakes in 2022 and beyond for the tightly contested state. The Oz-Fetterman race could decide the Senate majority — and with it, Mr. Biden’s agenda and judicial appointments for the next two years. The governor’s contest will determine the direction of state policy and control of the state’s election infrastructure heading into the 2024 presidential contest.

Shapiro, the state attorney general, leads in polls over Mastriano, a state senator and retired Army colonel who some Republicans believe is too extreme to win a general election in a state Mr. Biden narrowly carried two years ago.

Polls show a closer contest to replace retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey as Fetterman recovers from a stroke he suffered in May. He jumbled words and struggled to complete sentences in his lone debate against Oz last month, although medical experts say he’s recovering well from the health scare.

Obama addressed Fetterman’s stroke directly when appearing with him in Pittsburgh.

“John’s stroke did not change who he is. It didn’t change what he cares about,” he said.

Fetterman railed against Oz and castigated the former New Jersey resident as an ultrawealthy carpetbagger who will say or do anything to get elected.

“I’ll be the 51st vote to eliminate the filibuster, to raise the minimum wage,” Fetterman said. “Please send Dr. Oz back to New Jersey.”

Oz has worked to craft a moderate image in the general election and focused his attacks on Fetterman’s progressive positions on criminal justice and drug decriminalization. Still, Oz has struggled to connect with some voters, including Republicans who think he’s too close to Trump, too liberal or inauthentic.

Obama acknowledged that voters are anxious after suffering through “some tough times” in recent years, citing the pandemic, rising crime and surging inflation.

“The Republicans like to talk about it, but what’s their answer, what’s their economic policy?” Obama asked. “They want to gut Social Security. They want to gut Medicare. They want to give rich folks and big corporations more tax cuts.”

Obama and Fetterman hugged on stage after the speeches were over.

Saturday marked Obama’s first time campaigning in Pennsylvania this year, though he has been the party’s top surrogate in the final sprint to Election Day. He campaigned in recent days in Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona, while Mr. Biden has spent more time in Democratic-leaning states where he’s more welcome.

Mr. Biden opened his day in Illinois campaigning with Rep. Lauren Underwood, a two-term suburban Chicago lawmaker in a close race.

The president ticked through his administration’s achievements, including the Inflation Reduction Action, passed in August by the Democratic-led Congress. It includes several health care provisions popular among older adults and the less well-off, including a $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket medical expenses and a $35 monthly cap per prescription on insulin. The new law also requires companies that raise prices faster than overall inflation to pay Medicare a rebate.

“I wish I could say Republicans in Congress helped make it happen,” Mr. Biden said of the legislation that passed along party lines. He also vowed that Democrats would protect Social Security.

Yet his comments from the day before about the energy industry — and Manchin’s fierce response — may have been getting more attention.

“It’s also now cheaper to generate electricity from wind and solar than it is from coal and oil,” Mr. Biden said Friday in Southern California. “We’re going to be shutting these plants down all across America and having wind and solar.”

Pennsylvania has largely transitioned away from coal, but fossil fuel companies remain a major employer in the state.

As for Trump, his late rally in Latrobe is part of a late blitz that will also take him to Florida and Ohio. He’s hoping a strong GOP showing will generate momentum for the 2024 run that he’s expected to launch in the days or weeks after polls close.

Trump has been increasingly explicit about his plans.

At a rally Thursday night in Iowa, traditionally home of the first contest on the presidential nominating calendar, Trump repeatedly referenced his 2024 White House ambitions.

After talking up his first two presidential runs, he told the crowd: “Now, in order to make our country successful and safe and glorious, I will very, very, very probably do it again, OK? Very, very, very probably. Very, very, very probably.”

“Get ready, that’s all I’m telling you. Very soon,” he said.

2022 Midterm Elections

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November 5, 2022
Melania Trump joins first lady Jill Biden and other former first ladies to help develop women’s suffrage monument on National Mall

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Former first lady Melania Trump announced Wednesday that she will join the Women’s Suffrage National Monument Foundation, serving as an honorary chair alongside first lady Jill Biden and former first ladies Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton and others.

Trump tweeted that she was honored to help “secure a monument on the National Mall of enduring inspiration for women and future female leaders.”

I am honored to join @WomensMonument and serve as an Honorary Chair of the Women’s Suffrage National Monument Foundation to help secure a monument on the National Mall of enduring inspiration for women and future female leaders. https://t.co/x7eOshRho7

— MELANIA TRUMP (@MELANIATRUMP) October 19, 2022

The Women’s Suffrage National Monument Foundation was founded in 2018. In December 2020, Congress enacted Public Law 116–217, which authorized the creation of the Every Word We Utter Monument and charged the foundation with the monument’s oversight. The monument will be placed on federal land in Washington, D.C., and will “commemorate the women’s suffrage movement and the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which gave women the right to vote,” the text of the law reads.

The foundation is working with the National Park Service, along with other national committees, to help design, fund and place the monument. According to the foundation, fewer than 5% of outdoor monuments in the United States tell women’s stories.

The Women’s Suffrage National Monument is currently scheduled to be unveiled in summer 2027.

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Greg Cannella is a social media producer and writer for CBS News, focused on trending stories.

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October 20, 2022
Exclusive: Bob Woodward releasing new audiobook ‘The Trump Tapes’ with eight hours of recorded interviews | CNN Politics

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Washington
CNN
—

During a December 2019 Oval Office interview with then-President Donald Trump, Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward asked whether his bellicose rhetoric toward North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had been intended to drive Kim to the negotiating table.

“No. No. It was designed for whatever reason, it was designed. Who knows? Instinctively. Let’s talk instinct, okay?” Trump said. “Because it’s really about you don’t know what’s going to happen. But it was very rough rhetoric. The roughest.”

Trump then instructed his aides to show Woodward his photos with Kim at the DMZ. “This is me and him. That’s the line, right? Then I walked over the line. Pretty cool. You know? Pretty cool. Right?” the president said.

Trump on his interactions with Kim

Trump’s take on his relationship with Kim – and his admission that he didn’t have a broader strategy behind the threats he made about having a “much bigger” nuclear button – are part of a new audiobook that Woodward is releasing. Titled, “The Trump Tapes,” the book contains the 20 interviews Woodward conducted with Trump from 2016 through 2020.

CNN obtained a copy of the audiobook ahead of its October 25 release, which includes more than eight hours of the journalist’s raw interviews with Trump interspersed with Woodward’s commentary.

Simon & Schuster

The interviews offer unvarnished insights into the former president’s worldview and are the most extensive recordings of Trump speaking about his presidency — including explaining his rationale for meeting Kim, his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Trump’s detailed views of the US nuclear arsenal. The audio also shows how Trump decided to share with Woodward the letters Kim wrote to him – the letters that helped spark the DOJ investigation into classified documents Trump took to Mar-a-Lago.

“And don’t say I gave them to you, okay?” Trump told Woodward.

Woodward said in the book’s introduction that he is releasing the recordings in part because “hearing Trump speak is a completely different experience to reading the transcripts or listening to snatches of interviews on television or the internet.”

He describes Trump as “raw, profane, divisive and deceptive. His language is often retaliatory.”

“Yet, you will also hear him engaging and entertaining, laughing, ever the host. He is trying to win me over, sell his presidency to me. The full-time salesman,” Woodward said. “I wanted to put as much of Trump’s voice, his own words, out there for the historical record and so people could hear and judge and make their own assessments.”

Most of the interviews were conducted for Woodward’s second Trump book, “Rage,” which revealed that Trump told Woodward on February 7, 2020, that Covid-19 was “deadly stuff” but still downplayed it publicly.

While the blockbuster revelations were published in Woodward’s book, the audio clips of the interviews are a stark reminder of how Trump acted as president and provide a candid look into Trump’s thinking and motivations as he gears up for another potential run for the White House in 2024.

In the interviews, Trump shares his views about the strongmen he admires – including Kim, Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – and reveals his overarching conviction that he’s the smartest person in the room.

In a June 2020 interview, which followed the nationwide protests over George Floyd, Woodward asked Trump whether he had help writing his speech in which Trump declared himself the “president of law and order.”

“I get, I get people. They come up with ideas. But the ideas are mine, Bob. The ideas are mine,” Trump told Woodward in a June 2020 interview. “Want to know something? Everything is mine. You know, everything. Every part of it.”

The 20 interviews contained in the audiobook begin in March 2016, when Woodward and his then-Washington Post colleague Robert Costa interviewed Trump while he was a presidential candidate. The rest of the interviews were conducted in 2019 and 2020.

Trump on process of writing his speeches

In the December 2019 interview, Woodward questioned Trump about North Korea’s nuclear program, prompting the president to boast about US nuclear weapons capabilities while seemingly revealing a new – and likely highly classified – weapons system, which was one of the more eye-raising episodes from “Rage.”

Woodward says that he never could establish what Trump was referring to, though he notes that Trump’s comment reaffirmed the “casual, dangerous way” the former president treated classified information.

“I have built a weapons system that nobody’s ever had in this country before,” Trump told Woodward. “We have stuff that you haven’t even seen or heard about. We have stuff that Putin and Xi have never heard about before.”

Throughout the interviews, Trump references his relationship with Putin, blaming the FBI’s investigation into Russia’s election interference for ruining his chances to improve the relationship between the two countries.

“I like Putin. Our relationship should be a very good one. I campaigned on getting along with Russia, China and everyone else,” Trump said in a January 2020 interview. “Getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing, all right? Especially because they have 1,332 nuclear f***ing warheads.”

In a moment of rare self-reflection, Trump noted that he had better relationships with leaders “the tougher and meaner they are.”

“I get along very well with Erdogan, even though you’re not supposed to because everyone says what a horrible guy. But you know for me it works out good,” Trump said in a January 2020 interview.

“It’s funny, the relationships I have, the tougher and meaner they are, the better I get along with them. You know?” he continued. “Explain that to me someday, okay. But maybe it’s not a bad thing. The easy ones are the ones I maybe don’t like as much or don’t get along with as much.”

Woodward’s audiobook also includes never-before-heard interviews with Trump’s then-national security adviser Robert O’Brien, his deputy Matthew Pottinger, as well as behind-the-scenes audio with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

During a call with Woodward in February 2020, Trump hands the phone over to Kushner to set up interviews with other Trump advisers.

“What I heard from the president is basically that I now work for you, so I will make myself available around that schedule and I will make sure I get you a good list,” Kushner said.

Jared Kushner on plans for Woodward to talk to other Trump advisers

“I want you to know I have no illusions that you work for me. I know you work for Ivanka, right?” Woodward joked.

Kushner laughed. “Okay, fine, you get it. You get it. That’s probably why you’re Bob Woodward. That’s true.”

Throughout the recordings, a cast of Trump advisers, allies and family – including Donald Trump Jr., Melania Trump, Sen. Lindsey Graham, Hope Hicks and others – can be heard in the background. The audio gives an inside glimpse of Trump’s inner circle, like an exchange from 2016 when Trump was asked whether he expects government employees to sign non-disclosure agreements, and his son chimed in.

“I’m not getting next week’s paycheck until I sign one,” Donald Trump Jr. joked.

Donald Trump Jr. on signing non-disclosure agreements

In the epilogue of “The Trump Tapes,” Woodward declares that his own past assessments critical of Trump’s presidency did not go far enough. In “Rage,” Woodward wrote, “Trump is the wrong man for the job.”

Now, Woodward says, “Trump is an unparalleled danger. The record now shows that Trump has led — and continues to lead — a seditious conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election, which in effect is an effort to destroy democracy.”

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October 18, 2022
Truth Social Exec Forced Off Board After Ignoring Trump Demand To Gift Stock To Melania: Report

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A co-founder of Truth Social’s media parent company was forced off the board of the firm after he ignored demands by Donald Trump to gift some of his stock to Melania Trump, a whistleblower has told The Washington Post.

Trump pushed for the giveaway to his wife even though he had already been given 90% of the stock in the Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) in exchange for the use of his name and some other “minor involvement,” former company executive Will Wilkerson told the Post.

The company co-founder reportedly dodged the request, telling Trump that it would leave him with a tax bill he couldn’t pay. “Do whatever you need to do,” Trump snapped back, according to Wilkerson.

He was forced off the board five months later in what Wilkerson believes was payback for failing to turn over a “small fortune” to Melania Trump, the newspaper reported Saturday.

The incident was one of a series of bombshell revelations supported by several documents viewed by the newspaper about bitter infighting in the Trump business, technical screwups, questionable financial representations, and what Wilkerson insisted were violations of Securities and Exchange regulations, according to the Post.

Wilkerson submitted a whistleblower complaint to the Securities and Exchange Commission in August regarding the company. Wilkerson’s attorney’s told the newspaper that he is also cooperating with current investigations into Trump Media by the SEC and by federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York.

Wilkerson was fired from his job Thursday as TMTG senior vice president of operations after he spoke to The Post.

Trump Media said in a statement responding to several specific questions from the Post regarding Wilkerson’s information that Trump as company chairman had hired former California Republican congressman Devin Nunes as CEO to “create a culture of compliance and build a world-class team to lead Truth Social.”

The statement complained that the Post “sent us an inquiry rife with knowingly false and defamatory statements and other concocted psychodramas.”

It did not specifically address any of the Post’s questions, according to the newspaper.

The new information follows a lengthening list of bad news for Trump’s Truth Social and media venture.

Digital World Acquisition Corp. — the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that Truth Social needs to go public — revealed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing last month that investors had already backed out of $139 million in commitments of the $1 billion previously announced by the company.

There’s likely more to come. Investors, who agreed to put up the money nearly a year ago, can now drop their commitments because Digital World missed its initial Sept. 20 deadline to merge with Trump Media. That deadline was extended by three months after shareholders refused to approve its bid for a 12-month extension. But investors can still pull out.

A major web-hosting operator complained in August that Truth Social owed about $1.6 million in contractually obligated payments, an allegation suggesting the operation’s finances are in “significant disarray,” Fox Business News reported.

Trump insisted last month that he was unconcerned about any Truth Social money woes because, he explained, “I’m really rich,” he posted on the social media platform. “I don’t need financing.”

Yet in the next sentence he asked: “Private company, anyone???” in what appeared to be an invitation to investors.

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October 15, 2022
E. Jean Carroll battery and defamation trial against Donald Trump begins: What to know | CNN Politics

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New York
CNN
—

The civil battery and defamation trial for columnist E. Jean Carroll against former President Donald Trump is set to begin Tuesday.

Carroll alleges Trump forcibly raped and groped her in a Manhattan luxury department store dressing room in the mid 1990’s. Trump denies the charges and has said Carroll is “not my type.”

Unlike his dramatic courtroom appearance in New York state court earlier this month, Trump is unlikely to appear in the Manhattan federal courtroom, his lawyers have said, unless he is called to testify in Carroll’s case or opts to take the stand in his own defense. Because it is a civil case, he is not required to appear.

Jury selection begins Tuesday and the trial is expected to last up to two weeks.

Trump is not being criminally prosecuted on Carroll’s rape allegations. Carroll did not specify an amount in her civil lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court but is seeking monetary damages and a retraction of an October 2022 social media statement Trump made about Carroll.

Here’s what to know:

Nearly four years after Carroll first went public with the allegations in 2019, a jury is expected to be empaneled. Federal District Judge Lewis Kaplan is expected to winnow down a pool of about 100 prospective jurors.

The attorneys have asked the judge to quiz the jury pool on issues like their potential biases and their knowledge of Carroll, Trump and the pending legal matters Trump is facing in unrelated cases like his recent indictment in New York County criminal court.

The jury will remain anonymous to the public and the attorneys, the judge ruled. The decision was in part influenced by Trump’s threats to the state Supreme Court judge overseeing his criminal case in New York.

Attorneys for Carroll and Trump could give opening statements late in the day Tuesday.

Carroll filed the suit last November under New York’s 2022 Adult Survivors Act that opened a look-back window for sexual assault allegations like Carroll’s with long-expired statutes of limitations.

The former Elle columnist first came forward with her story in June of 2019 publishing an excerpt from her book “What Do We Need Men For” in New York Magazine ahead of the book release.

“And, while I am not supposed to say it, I will. This woman is not my type,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“In the meantime, and for the record, E. Jean Carroll is not telling the truth, is a woman who I had nothing to do with, didn’t know, and would have no interest in knowing her if I ever had the chance. Now all I have to do is go through years more of legal nonsense in order to clear my name of her and her lawyer’s phony attacks on me. This can only happen to ‘Trump’!”

The lawsuit argues the denial of Carroll’s allegations is defamatory and caused her emotional, reputational and professional harm.

Trump’s lawyer corrects him after error during deposition

Carroll’s account of the alleged rape after encountering Trump at Bergdorf Goodman in the fall of 1995 or spring of 1996 is detailed in the lawsuit.

She recalled telling Trump she was 52 at time. Both are now in their 70’s.

She helped Trump shop for “a girl” when he recognized her leaving the store, Carroll says.

“Hey, you’re that advice lady!” he said to her, according to the lawsuit. “Hey, you’re that real estate tycoon!” she replied.

Trump steered what started out as light-hearted shopping to the lingerie department where he suggested Carroll try on a bodysuit, the suit alleges. Carroll says Trump then guided her toward a dressing room, where she jokingly suggested he try on the lingerie.

Once in the dressing room Trump “lunged at Carroll, pushing her against the wall, bumping her head quite badly, and putting his mouth on her lips,” according to the lawsuit. With Carroll fighting back, Trump pushed her against the wall again, “jammed his hand under her coatdress and pulled down her tights,” the lawsuit says.

“Trump opened his overcoat and unzipped his pants. Trump then pushed his fingers around Carroll’s genitals and forced his penis inside of her,” the suit alleges.

Carroll eventually pushed him off with her knee and ran out of the dressing room to exit the store, according to the lawsuit.

The former president categorically denies that the interaction and assault ever happened.

After Carroll went public, Trump said he “never met this person.”

Trump’s counsel has made several legal attempts to dismiss the litigation with Carroll and once tried to countersue her, alleging Carroll violated New York’s anti-SLAPP law prohibiting frivolous defamation lawsuits – a claim rejected by Judge Kaplan.

Carroll first sued Trump for defamation in 2019 for statements he made denying the allegations at the time. That case has been paused pending further litigation about how to handle the case because Trump was president when he made the statements at issue in the lawsuit.

Attorneys for the career advice columnist have indicated that Carroll will likely take the stand to tell her account to the jury.

Trump, however, is unlikely to appear in the Manhattan federal courtroom, his lawyers have said, unless he is called to testify in Carroll’s case or opts to take the stand in his own defense.

Trump’s attorney told the court that Trump wanted to attend the trial but claimed it would be a burden on the city and court staff to accommodate him given the security protection he receives.

Judge Kaplan has not decided whether he’ll instruct the jury about Trump’s absence from the defense table.

Jurors are expected to see at least some parts of Trump’s video deposition taken last October for this case. Excerpts of the deposition were previously unsealed in court filings ahead of the trial.

Carroll’s lead attorney, Roberta Kaplan, a civil attorney who’s represented women in high-profile sexual assault litigation like victims of Jeffrey Epstein, indicated that her team can put on Carroll’s case without Trump making an appearance. (Carroll’s attorney and the judge are not related.)

Two longtime friends of Carroll, who’ve confirmed that she confided in them soon after the alleged incident more than two decades ago, can testify to corroborate Carroll’s story, Judge Kaplan ruled over objections from Trump’s legal team.

Carroll has said when she confided in journalist Lisa Birnbach, her friend told her she’d been raped and should report the incident to the police at the time.

When she told former local TV anchor Carol Martin a day or so later, Martin warned Carroll that she was no match for Trump’s army of lawyers and said it was best to keep it to herself – which is ultimately what Carroll did until 2019, she says.

Two other women who allege Trump physically forced himself on them can also testify about their allegations, the judge ruled.

Jessica Leeds has alleged that Trump, seated next to her on a plane, groped her on a flight from Texas to New York in 1979. Leeds, who first came forward during the 2016 presidential election, said in a deposition for this case that Trump acknowledged remembering her from the plane when she saw him at an event sometime after the alleged incident.

People Magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff similarly alleges that Trump groped her and tried to forcibly kiss her in 2005 when Stoynoff was at Mar-a-Lago to interview Trump and a then-pregnant Melania Trump on their first wedding anniversary.

Trump denies both incidents ever happened.

Attorneys for Carroll are expected to show the jury a black and white photo of Trump where he is interacting with several people, including with his then-wife Ivana, Carroll and her then-husband.

A transcript of his October 2022 deposition revealed that Trump mistook Carroll for his ex-wife Marla Maples when he reviewed the photo during the deposition.

“I don’t know who – it’s Marla,” Trump said when shown the photo. “That’s Marla, yeah. That’s my wife,” he says when asked to clarify.

E. Jean Carroll: ‘I’m not sorry’ (2019)

Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, then interjected and said “no, that’s Carroll,” according to the transcript.

Carroll’s lawyers have said the photo proves Trump had in fact met Carroll and she could be his “type.”

Trump’s comments on the 2016 campaign trail denying allegations from Leeds and Stoynoff can also be admitted as evidence, the judge ruled.

Like Carroll, Trump has asserted that the allegations are false and implausible in part because the women aren’t attractive or his ‘type.’

Jurors may also hear the controversial “Access Hollywood” tape on which Trump can be heard telling show host Billy Bush how he would use his stardom to aggressively come on to women.

Trump has chalked up his graphic language on the tape, which first surfaced during his 2016 Presidential election campaign, as “locker room talk” that wasn’t actually true.

Judge Kaplan ruled that a jury could reasonably find that Trump admitted in the Access Hollywood Tape “that he in fact has had contact with women’s genitalia in the past without their consent, or that he has attempted to do so,” and the jury may view accounts from Leeds and Stoynoff as support for that argument.

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April 12, 2021