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  • Fact check: The first Republican presidential debate of the 2024 election | CNN Politics

    Fact check: The first Republican presidential debate of the 2024 election | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Republican presidential candidates delivered a smattering of false and misleading claims at the first debate of the 2024 election – though none of the eight candidates on stage in Milwaukee delivered anything close to the bombardment of false statements that typically characterized the debate performances of former President Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner who skipped the Wednesday event.

    Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina inaccurately described the state of the economy in early 2021 and repeated a long-ago-debunked false claim about the Biden-era Justice Department. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie misstated the sentence attached to a gun law relevant to the investigation into the president’s son Hunter Biden. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis misled about his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, omitting mention of his early pandemic restrictions.

    Below is a fact check of those claims and various others from the debate, some of which left out key context. In addition, below is a brief fact check of some of Trump’s claims from a pre-taped interview he did with Tucker Carlson, which was posted online shortly before the debate aired. Trump made a variety of statements that were not true.

    DeSantis and the pandemic

    DeSantis criticized the federal government for its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, claiming it had locked down the economy, and then said: “In Florida, we led the country out of lockdown, and we kept our state free and open.”

    Facts First: DeSantis’s claim is misleading at best. Before he became a vocal opponent of pandemic restrictions, DeSantis imposed significant restrictions on individuals, businesses and other entities in Florida in March 2020 and April 2020; some of them extended months later into 2020. He did then open up the state, with a gradual phased approach, but he did not keep it open from the start.

    DeSantis received criticism in March 2020 for what some critics perceived as a lax approach to the pandemic, which intensified as Florida beaches were packed during Spring Break. But that month and the month following, DeSantis issued a series of major restrictions. For example, DeSantis:

    • Closed Florida’s schools, first with a short-term closure in March 2020 and then, in April 2020, with a shutdown through the end of the school year. (In June 2020, he announced a plan for schools to reopen for the next school year that began in August. By October 2020, he was publicly denouncing school closures, calling them a major mistake and saying all the information hadn’t been available that March.)
    • On March 14, 2020, announced a ban on most visits to nursing homes. (He lifted the ban in September 2020.)
    • On March 17, 2020, ordered bars and nightclubs to close for 30 days and restaurants to operate at half-capacity. (He later approved a phased reopening plan that took effect in May 2020, then issued an order in September 2020 allowing these establishments to operate at full capacity.)
    • On March 17, 2020, ordered gatherings on public beaches to be limited to a maximum of 10 people staying at least six feet apart, then, three days later, ordered a shutdown of public beaches in two populous counties, Broward and Palm Beach. (He permitted those counties’ beaches to reopen by the last half of May.)
    • On March 20, 2020, prohibited “any medically unnecessary, non-urgent or non-emergency” medical procedures. (The prohibition was lifted in early May 2020.)
    • On March 23, 2020, ordered that anyone flying to Florida from an area with “substantial community spread” of the virus, “to include the New York Tri-State Area (Connecticut, New Jersey and New York),” isolate or quarantine for 14 days or the duration of their stay in Florida, whichever was shorter, or face possible jail time or a fine. Later that week, he added Louisiana to the list. (He lifted the Louisiana restriction in June 2020 and the rest in August 2020.)
    • On April 3, 2020, imposed a statewide stay-home order that temporarily required people in Florida to “limit their movements and personal interactions outside of their home to only those necessary to obtain or provide essential services or conduct essential activities.” (Beginning in May 2020, the state switched to a phased reopening plan that, for months, included major restrictions on the operations of businesses and other entities; DeSantis described it at the time as a “very slow and methodical approach” to reopening.)

    -From CNN’s Daniel Dale

    Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and US ambassador to the United Nations, said: “Donald Trump added $8 trillion to our debt, and our kids are never going to forgive us for this.”

    Facts First: Haley’s figure is accurate. The total public debt stood at about $19.9 trillion on the day Trump took office in 2017 and then increased by about $7.8 trillion over Trump’s four years, to about $27.8 trillion on the day he left office in 2021.

    It’s worth noting, however, that the increase in the debt during any president’s tenure is not the fault of that president alone. A significant amount of spending under any president is the result of decisions made by their predecessors – such as the creation of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid decades ago – and by circumstances out of a president’s control, notably including the global Covid-19 pandemic under Trump; the debt spiked in 2020 after Trump approved trillions in emergency pandemic relief spending that Congress had passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.

    Still, Trump did choose to approve that spending. And his 2017 tax cuts, unanimously opposed by congressional Democrats, were another major contributor to the debt spike.

    -From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Katie Lobosco

    North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum claimed that Biden’s signature climate bill costs $1.2 trillion dollars and is “just subsidizing China.”

    Facts First: This claim needs context. The clean energy pieces of the Inflation Reduction Act – Democrats’ climate bill – passed with an initial price tag of nearly $370 billion. However, since that bill is made up of tax incentives, that price tag could go up depending on how many consumers take advantage of tax credits to buy electric vehicles and put solar panels on their homes, and how many businesses use the subsidies to install new utility scale wind and solar in the United States.

    Burgum’s figure comes from a Goldman Sachs report, which estimated the IRA could provide $1.2 trillion in clean energy tax incentives by 2032 – about a decade from now.

    On Burgum’s claim that Biden’s clean energy agenda will be a boon to China, the IRA was specifically written to move the manufacturing supply chain for clean energy technology like solar panels and EV batteries away from China and to the United States.

    In the year since it was passed, the IRA has spurred 83 new or expanded manufacturing facilities in the US, and close to 30,000 new clean energy manufacturing jobs, according to a tally from trade group American Clean Power.

    -From CNN’s Ella Nilsen

    With the economy as one of the main topics on the forefront of voters’ minds, Scott aimed to make a case for Republican policies, misleadingly suggesting they left the US economy in record shape before Biden took office.

    “There is no doubt that during the Trump administration, when we were dealing with the COVID virus, we spent more money,” Scott said. “But here’s what happened at the end of our time in the majority: we had low unemployment, record low unemployment, 3.5% for the majority of the population, and a 70-year low for women. African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians had an all-time low.”

    Facts First: This is false. Scott’s claims don’t accurately reflect the state of the US economy at the end of the Republican majority in the Senate. And in some cases, his exaggerations echo what Trump himself frequently touted about the economy under his leadership.

    By the time Trump left office and the Republicans lost the Senate majority in January 2021, US unemployment was not at a record low. The US unemployment rate dropped to a seasonally adjusted rate of 3.5% in September 2019, the country’s lowest in 50 years. While it hovered around that level for five months, Scott’s assertion ignores the coronavirus pandemic-induced economic destruction that followed. In April 2020, the unemployment rate spiked to 14.7% — the highest level since monthly records began in 1948. As of December 2020, the unemployment rate was at 6.7%.

    Nor was the unemployment rate for women at a 70-year low by the end of Trump’s time in office. It reached a 66-year low during certain months of 2019, at 3.4% in April and 3.6% in August, but by December 2020, unemployment for women was at 6.7%.

    The unemployment rates for African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians were also not at all-time lows at the end of 2020, but they did reach record lows during Trump’s tenure as president.

    -From CNN’s Tara Subramaniam

    Scott said that the Justice Department under President Joe Biden is targeting “parents that show up at school board meetings. They are called, under this DOJ, they’re called domestic terrorists.”

    Facts First: It is false that the Justice Department referred to parents as domestic terrorists. The claim has been debunked several times – during the uproar at school boards over Covid-19 restrictions and anti-racism curriculums; after Kevin McCarthy claimed Republicans would investigate Merrick Garland with a majority in the House; and even by a federal judge. The Justice Department never called parents terrorists for attending or wanting to attend school board meetings.

    The claim stems from a 2021 letter from The National School Boards Associations asking the Justice Department to “deal with” the uptick in threats against education officials and saying that “acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials” could be classified as “the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.” In response, Garland released a memo encouraging federal and local authorities to work together against the harassment campaigns levied at schools, but never endorsed the “domestic terrorism” notion.

    A federal judge even threw out a lawsuit over the accusation, ruling that Garland’s memo did little more than announce a “series of measures” that directed federal authorities to address increasing threats targeting school board members, teachers and other school employees.

    -From CNN’s Hannah Rabinowitz

    Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations and governor of South Carolina, said the US is spending “less than three and a half percent of our defense budget” on Ukraine aid, and that in terms of financial aid relative to GDP, “11 of the European countries have given more than the US.”

    Facts First: This is partly true. Haley’s claim regarding the US aid to Ukraine compared to the total defense budget is slightly under the actual percentage, but it is accurate that 11 European countries have given more aid to Ukraine as a percentage of their total GDP than the US.

    As of August 14, the US has committed more than $43 billion in military aid to Ukraine since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, according to the Defense Department. In comparison, the Fiscal Year 2023 defense budget was $858 billion – making aid to Ukraine just over 5% of the total US defense budget.

    As of May 2023, according to a Council of Foreign Relations tracker, 11 countries were providing a higher share in aid to Ukraine relative to their GDP than the US – led by Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland.

    -From CNN’s Haley Britzky

    Former Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday that the Trump administration “spent funding to backfill on the military cuts of the Obama administration.”

    Facts First: This is misleading. While military spending decreased under the Obama administration, it was largely due to the 2011 Budget Control Act, which received Republican support and resulted in automatic spending cuts to the defense budget.

    Mike Pence, a senator at the time, voted in favor of the Budget Control Act.

    -From CNN’s Haley Britzky

    Christie said President Biden’s son Hunter Biden was “facing a 10-year mandatory minimum” for lying on a federal form when he purchased a gun in 2018.

    Facts First: Christie, a former federal prosecutor, clearly misstated the law. This crime can lead to a maximum prison sentence of 10 years, but it doesn’t have a 10-year mandatory minimum.

    These comments are related to the highly scrutinized Justice Department investigation into Hunter Biden, which is currently ongoing after a plea deal fell apart earlier this summer.

    As part of the now-defunct deal, Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors and enter into a “diversion agreement” with prosecutors, who would drop the gun possession charge in two years if he consistently stayed out of legal trouble and passed drug tests.

    The law in question makes it a crime to purchase a firearm while using or addicted to illegal drugs. Hunter Biden has acknowledged struggling with crack cocaine addiction at the time, and admitted at a court hearing and in court papers that he violated this law by signing the form.

    The US Sentencing Commission says, “The statutory maximum penalty for the offense is ten years of imprisonment.” There isn’t a mandatory 10-year punishment, as Christie claimed.

    During his answer, Christie also criticized the Justice Department for agreeing to a deal in June where Hunter Biden could avoid prosecution on the felony gun offense. That deal was negotiated by special counsel David Weiss, who was first appointed to the Justice Department by former President Donald Trump.

    -From CNN’s Marshall Cohen

    Burgum and Scott got into a back and forth over IRS staffing with Burgum saying that the “Biden administration wanted to put 87,000 people in the IRS,” and Scott suggesting they “fire the 87,000 IRS agents.”

    Facts First: This figure needs context.

    The Inflation Reduction Act, which passed last year without any Republican votes, authorized $80 billion in new funding for the IRS to be delivered over the course of a decade.

    The 87,000 figure comes from a 2021 Treasury report that estimated the IRS could hire 86,852 full-time employees with a nearly $80 billion investment over 10 years.

    While the funding may well allow for the hiring of tens of thousands of IRS employees over time, far from all of these employees will be IRS agents conducting audits and investigations.

    Many other employees will be hired for the non-agent roles, from customer service to information technology, that make up most of the IRS workforce. And a significant number of the hires are expected to fill the vacant posts left by retirements and other attrition, not take newly created positions.

    The IRS has not said precisely how many new “agents” will be hired with the funding. But it is already clear that the total won’t approach 87,000. And it’s worth noting that the IRS may not receive all of the $80 billion after Republicans were able to claw back $20 billion of the new funding as part of a deal to address the debt ceiling made earlier this year.

    -From CNN’s Katie Lobosco

    Trump repeated a frequent claim during his interview with Carlson that streamed during the GOP debate that his retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after leaving the White House was “covered” under the Presidential Records Act and that he is “allowed to do exactly that.”

    Facts First: This is false. The Presidential Records Act says the exact opposite – that the moment presidents leave office, all presidential records are to be turned over to the federal government. Keeping documents at Mar-a-Lago after his presidency concluded was in clear contravention of that law.

    According to the Presidential Records Act, “upon the conclusion of a President’s term of office, or if a President serves consecutive terms upon the conclusion of the last term, the Archivist of the United States shall assume responsibility for the custody, control, and preservation of, and access to, the Presidential records of that President.”

    The sentence makes clear that a president has no authority to keep documents after leaving the White House.

    The National Archives even released a statement refuting the notion that Trump’s retention of documents was covered by the Presidential Records Act, writing in a June news release that “the PRA requires that all records created by Presidents (and Vice-Presidents) be turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) at the end of their administrations.”

    -From CNN’s Hannah Rabinowitz

    While discussing electric vehicles, Trump claimed that California “is in a big brownout because their grid is a disaster,” adding that the state’s ambitious electric vehicle goals won’t work with the grid in such shape.

    Facts First: Trump’s claim that California’s grid is currently in a “big brownout” and is a “disaster” isn’t true. California’s grid suffered rolling blackouts in 2020, but it has performed quite well in the face of extreme heat this summer, owing in large part to a massive influx of renewable energy including battery storage. These big batteries keep energy from wind and solar running when the wind isn’t blowing and sun isn’t shining. (Batteries are also being deployed at a rapid rate in Texas, a red state.)

    Another reason California’s grid has stayed stable this year even during extreme temperature spikes is the fact that a deluge of snow and rain this winter and spring has refilled reservoirs that generate electricity using hydropower.

    As Trump insinuated, there are real questions about how well the state’s grid will hold up as California’s drivers shift to electric vehicles by the millions by 2035 – the same year it will phase out selling new gas-powered cars. California state officials say they are preparing by adding new capacity to the grid and urging more people to charge their vehicles overnight and during times of the day when fewer people are using energy. But independent experts say the state needs to exponentially increase its clean energy while also building out huge amounts of new EV chargers to achieve its goals.

    -From CNN’s Ella Nilsen

    Trump and the border wall

    Trump claimed to Carlson, “I had the strongest border in the history of our country, and I built almost 500 miles of wall. You know, they’d like to say, ‘Oh, was it less?’ No, I built 500 miles. In fact, if you check with the authorities on the border, we built almost 500 miles of wall.”

    Facts First: This needs context. Trump and his critics are talking about different things when they use different figures for how much border wall was built during his presidency. Trump is referring to all of the wall built on the southern border during his administration, even in areas that already had some sort of barrier before. His critics are only counting the Trump-era wall that was built in parts of the border that did not have any previous barrier.

    A total of 458 miles of southern border wall was built under Trump, according to a federal report written two days after Trump left office and obtained by CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez. That is 52 miles of “primary” wall built where no barriers previously existed, plus 33 miles of “secondary” wall that was built in spots where no barriers previously existed, plus another 373 miles of primary and secondary wall that was built to replace previous barriers the federal government says had become “dilapidated and/or outdated.”

    Some of Trump’s rival candidates, such DeSantis and Christie, have used figures around 50 miles while criticizing Trump for failing to finish the wall – counting only the primary wall built where no barriers previously existed.

    While some Trump critics have scoffed at the replacement wall, the Trump-era construction was generally much more formidable than the older barriers it replaced, which were often designed to deter vehicles rather than people on foot. Washington Post reporter Nick Miroff tweeted in 2020: “As someone who has spent a lot of time lately in the shadow of the border wall, I need to puncture this notion that ‘replacement’ sections are ‘not new.’ There is really no comparison between vehicle barriers made from old rail ties and 30-foot bollards.”

    Ideally, both Trump and his opponents would be clearer about what they are talking about: Trump that he is including replacement barriers, his opponents that they are excluding those barriers.

    -From CNN’s Daniel Dale

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  • First on CNN: Burgum suffered high-grade Achilles tear playing basketball, throwing debate participation into question | CNN Politics

    First on CNN: Burgum suffered high-grade Achilles tear playing basketball, throwing debate participation into question | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    North Dakota governor and Republican presidential candidate Doug Burgum suffered a high-grade tear of his Achilles tendon while playing a game of pick-up basketball with his staff Tuesday, requiring him to be on crutches, according to a source familiar with the situation.

    Burgum, 67, will attend the candidates’ walk-through of the debate event site Wednesday afternoon and then decide whether he’s physically able to participate in the debate itself, the source said.

    Burgum is focused on the debate, the Republican Party’s first of this primary season, and understands that as much as he’d like to participate, he would have to walk on stage and stand behind a podium for two hours, the source said.

    “He is a total cowboy and isn’t phased by injuries and pain. His disposition is focused and tough. We’re going to see what happens at the walk-through and throughout the day,” the source told CNN. The governor is a lifelong athlete and is familiar with sports injuries, the source added.

    Other candidates have privately reached out to ask how he’s doing, according to the source. Republican Sen. Tim Scott and Vivek Ramaswamy posted on social media wishing the governor well.

    Burgum is one of the eight candidates in the debate lineup. The event will air on Fox News at 9 p.m. ET.

    The GOP governor, a wealthy former software executive, has described himself as the least-known contender on Wednesday night’s stage. He said Sunday on NBC that he’ll have succeeded in the debate “if we get a chance to explain who we are, what we’re about and why we’re running.”

    He reached the Republican National Committee’s 40,000-unique-donors threshold to qualify for the debate stage in July – he attracted donors by giving away gift cards worth $20 in exchange for $1 donations. He later met the polling requirements and signed the pledge to back the eventual GOP presidential nominee, both also required by the RNC to participate in Wednesday night’s debate.

    Burgum, who is currently serving his second term as North Dakota governor, announced in June his run for president in 2024 with considerably less name recognition than others vying for the GOP nomination. His campaign is primarily focused on the economy, energy and national security.

    This story has been updated with additional reporting.

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  • 8 candidates qualify for first 2024 Republican presidential debate | CNN Politics

    8 candidates qualify for first 2024 Republican presidential debate | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Eight Republicans have qualified for the party’s first 2024 presidential primary debate Wednesday night, the Republican National Committee announced Monday evening.

    The list includes North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, former Vice President Mike Pence, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott.

    Former President Donald Trump – the clear front-runner in national and early state polls – has said he would skip the debate in Milwaukee and called on his rivals to drop out.

    To make the first debate stage, the RNC required candidates to draw at least 40,000 individual donors and register at least 1% support in three national polls or in two national and two early state polls that met the RNC’s criteria. The candidates were also required to sign a pledge to back the eventual winner of the GOP primary, no matter who it is. It’s not clear whether Trump, like those who will be onstage Wednesday, has signed that pledge.

    “The RNC is excited to showcase our diverse candidate field and the conservative vision to beat Joe Biden on the debate stage Wednesday night,” RNC chair Ronna McDaniel said in Monday night’s statement.

    Here’s a look at who’s in and who’s out of the first GOP debate of the 2024 presidential primary.

    Ron DeSantis

    The Florida governor could wear the biggest target Wednesday night, as the top-polling candidate onstage in Trump’s absence. DeSantis has downsized and reshuffled his campaign in recent weeks after failing to make progress toward unseating Trump as the GOP’s standard-bearer in the primary’s early months. His turn in the national spotlight Wednesday could become a turning point in the party’s primary – either launching DeSantis forward or displacing him as the top Trump alternative.

    Vivek Ramaswamy

    The tech entrepreneur posted a video of himself shirtless, practicing tennis, on Monday in a tweet he described as his debate prep. He has also made appearances on the sorts of liberal media programs that many Republican contenders skip, such as a podcast with HBO host Bill Maher. A memo by a pro-DeSantis super PAC made public last week advised the Florida governor to attack Ramaswamy, an indication of the 38-year-old’s rise in the race.

    Mike Pence

    The former vice president faced more difficulties than some of his rivals in reaching the 40,000 donor threshold but did so with two weeks to spare. He suggested he had looked forward to a showdown with his former ticket mate. Criticizing Trump’s decision to skip the debate, Pence said Sunday on ABC News that every candidate who qualified “ought to be on the stage willing to square off and answer those tough questions.”

    Nikki Haley

    The former South Carolina governor and US ambassador to the United Nations under Trump offered a glimpse of how Republicans onstage could be more focused on chipping away at their lower-polling rivals’ support than on taking on Trump directly. On Monday, she criticized Ramaswamy, saying on social media that “his foreign policies have a common theme: they make America less safe.”

    Tim Scott

    The South Carolina senator has sought to offer a more positive contrast to rivals such as Trump and DeSantis – and he could be on a collision course with the Florida governor as they vie to become the top choice of those seeking to move on from the former president.

    Chris Christie

    The former New Jersey governor is perhaps the biggest wild card on Wednesday night’s stage. As a presidential contender in 2016, he all but ended Marco Rubio’s presidential hopes in a debate when he relentlessly mocked the Florida senator for delivering a “memorized 25-second speech.” Christie has positioned himself as a fierce Trump critic, but he won’t get a head-to-head showdown with Trump skipping the debate.

    Doug Burgum

    The North Dakota governor, who attracted donors with a gift-card scheme – $20 in exchange for $1 donations – has described himself as the least-known contender on Wednesday night’s stage. He said Sunday on NBC that he’ll have succeeded in the debate “if we get a chance to explain who we are, what we’re about and why we’re running.”

    Asa Hutchinson

    The former Arkansas governor has also positioned himself as a Trump critic. He previously complained about the RNC’s loyalty pledge requirement but told CNN’s Kasie Hunt on Sunday that he was signing the pledge because he was “confident that Donald Trump’s not going to be the nominee.”

    Donald Trump

    The former president made official Sunday on his social media platform Truth Social what he’d hinted at for months: He is skipping the first debate. Trump pointed to his sizable leads in Republican primary polls and said Americans are already familiar with his record after four years in the White House.

    Still, Trump’s campaign is attempting to seize some of the spotlight in Milwaukee. The former president has taped an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that is expected to be used as counterprogramming during the debate.

    Perry Johnson

    The Michigan businessman fell short of the RNC’s polling requirements despite a series of unusual schemes his campaign employed to rack up the minimum 40,000 donors necessary to qualify. It sold “I Stand with Tucker” T-shirts defending the former Fox News host after his firing. It also offered tickets to a concert by country duo Big & Rich to anyone who donated. And it handed out $10 gas cards to anyone willing to make a $1 contribution.

    Perry insisted after the RNC announced the debate participants that he had met the committee’s qualification requirements. “The debate process has been corrupted, plain and simple,” he said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

    Francis Suarez

    The Miami mayor, who had told Fox News it was “critical” for his 2024 chances to qualify for the debate, said he had exceeded the donor threshold, but he did not meet the RNC’s polling requirements. Suarez said in a statement Tuesday that he was “sorry” the event would not include his “perspectives,” but that he respects “the rules and process set forth by the RNC.”

    His absence could be a break for DeSantis, who has faced sharp criticism from his fellow Florida Republican.

    Will Hurd

    The former Texas congressman is one of the most outspoken Trump critics in the race – and has faced backlash for it, such as when he was booed at the Iowa GOP’s Lincoln Dinner in July after telling the Des Moines crowd that the former president was “running to stay out of prison.”

    Hurd on Tuesday criticized the RNC for its “unacceptable process” for determining the debate participants. He accused the committee of disregarding polls that included independents and Democrats who would have backed a Republican candidate. He previously said he wouldn’t sign the RNC pledge, but he appeared to have shifted his position last week when he said he was “confident” he would be onstage in Milwaukee.

    Larry Elder

    The conservative California talk radio host, who was the leading GOP candidate in the state’s 2021 gubernatorial recall, has sharply criticized the RNC’s debate qualification requirements. He said Tuesday on X that he intended sue the RNC to “halt” Wednesday’s proceedings, asserting that officials were “afraid of having my voice on the debate stage.”

    Elder had attempted to meet the 40,000 donor threshold with a radio blitz Monday, but, according to CNN’s count, was also short of the polling requirements.

    Ryan Binkley

    The little-known Texas pastor and entrepreneur got a spot in the Iowa GOP Lincoln Dinner’s speaking lineup. He tweeted Sunday that he had more than 45,000 donors. But he has not made waves in primary polling.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Bernie Sanders Fast Facts | CNN Politics

    Bernie Sanders Fast Facts | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Here is a look at the life of US Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont and former 2020 presidential candidate.

    Birth date: September 8, 1941

    Birth place: Brooklyn, New York

    Birth name: Bernard Sanders

    Father: Eli Sanders, paint salesman

    Mother: Dorothy (Glassberg) Sanders

    Marriages: Jane (O’Meara) Sanders (1988-present); Deborah (Shiling) Messing (married and divorced in the 1960s)

    Children: With Susan Mott: Levi; stepchildren with Jane (O’Meara) Sanders: Heather, Carina, David

    Education: Attended Brooklyn College, 1959-1960; University of Chicago, B.A. in political science, 1964

    Religion: Jewish, though he has told the Washington Post he is “not actively involved with organized religion”

    Although independent in the US Senate, Sanders has run as a Democrat in his two bids for the presidential nomination, in 2016 and 2020.

    His father’s family died in the Holocaust.

    During the 1960s, he spent half a year on a kibbutz in Israel.

    Was a member of the Young People’s Socialist League while at the University of Chicago.

    The longest serving independent member of Congress in American history.

    Sanders applied for conscientious objector status during the Vietnam War.

    Nominated for a Grammy Award but did not win.

    August 28, 1963 – Attends the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

    1972, 1976, 1986 – Unsuccessful bids for governor of Vermont.

    1972, 1974 – Unsuccessful bids for the US Senate.

    1981 – Wins the race for mayor of Burlington, Vermont, by 10 votes, running as an independent.

    1981-1989 – Mayor of Burlington for four terms.

    1988 – Unsuccessful bid for the US House of Representatives.

    1990 – Wins a seat on the US House of Representatives by about 16% of the vote.

    1991-2007 – Serves eight terms in the US House of Representatives.

    1991 – Co-founds the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

    2006 – Wins a seat on the US Senate with 65% of the vote.

    January 4, 2007-present – Serves in the US Senate.

    December 10, 2010 – Holds a filibuster for more than eight hours against the reinstatement of tax cuts formulated during the administration of President George W. Bush. The speech is published in book form in 2011 as “The Speech: A Historic Filibuster on Corporate Greed and the Decline of Our Middle Class.”

    2012 – Wins reelection for a second term in the US Senate. Receives 71% of the vote.

    2013-2015 – Serves as chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.

    April 30, 2015 – Announces his run for the Democratic presidential nomination in an email to supporters and media.

    May 1, 2015 – Sanders’ campaign raises more than $1.5 million in its first 24 hours.

    January 17, 2016 – Sanders unveils his $1.38 trillion per year “Medicare-for-All” health care plan.

    February 9, 2016 – Sanders wins the New Hampshire primary, claiming victory with 60% of the vote. He’s the first Jewish politician to win a presidential nominating contest.

    July 12, 2016 – Endorses Hillary Clinton for president.

    August 21, 2017 – Sanders pens a commentary article in Fortune magazine outlining his health care proposal “Medicare-for-all.”

    November 28, 2017 – Is nominated, along with actor Mark Ruffalo, for a Grammy in the Spoken Word category for “Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In.”

    February 26, 2018 – Sanders’ son, Levi Sanders, announces he is running for Congress in New Hampshire. He later loses his bid in the Democratic primary.

    November 6, 2018 – Wins reelection to the US Senate for a third term with more than 67% of the vote.

    January 2, 2019 – The New York Times reports that several women who worked on Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign had come forward alleging they had experienced sexual harassment, pay disparities and targeted disrespect by campaign members. Sanders immediately responds to the allegations, claiming that he was not aware of any of the claims and apologizes to “any woman who feels like she was not treated appropriately.”

    February 19, 2019 – Announces that he is running for president during an interview with Vermont Public Radio.

    February 20, 2019 – According to his campaign, Sanders raises nearly $6 million in the first 24 hours following the launch of his 2020 presidential bid.

    March 15, 2019 – Sanders’ presidential campaign staff unionizes, making it the first major party presidential campaign to employ a formally organized workforce.

    August 22, 2019 – Sanders unveils his $16.3 trillion Green New Deal plan.

    October 1, 2019 – After experiencing chest discomfort at a campaign rally, Sanders undergoes treatment to address blockage in an artery. He has two stents successfully inserted.

    October 4, 2019 – The Sanders campaign releases a statement that he has been discharged from the hospital after being treated for a heart attack. “After two and a half days in the hospital, I feel great, and after taking a short time off, I look forward to getting back to work,” Sanders says in the statement.

    February 3, 2020 – The Iowa Democratic caucuses take place, but the process descends into chaos due to poor planning by the state party, a faulty app that was supposed to calculate results and an overwhelmed call center. That uncertainty leads to delayed results and a drawn-out process with both Sanders’ and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s campaigns raising concerns.

    February 27, 2020 – Sanders’ presidential campaign challenges the results of the Iowa caucuses partial recount just hours after the state’s Democratic Party releases its results. In a complaint sent to the Iowa Democratic Party and Democratic National Committee, the Sanders campaign claims the state party violated its own rules by allowing the Buttigieg campaign to partake in the process because they didn’t meet the proper requirements.

    February 29, 2020 – The Iowa Democratic Party certifies the results from the state’s caucuses, with Sanders coming in second behind Buttigieg and picking up 12 pledged delegates to Buttigieg’s 14. The certification by the party’s State Central Committee includes a 26-14, vote, saying the party violated its rules by complying with the Buttigieg campaign’s partial recanvass and recount requests.

    April 8, 2020 – Announces he is suspending his presidential campaign.

    April 13, 2020 – Endorses former Vice President Joe Biden for president.

    January 28, 2021 – Sanders raises $1.8 million for charity through the sale of merchandise inspired by the viral photo of him and his mittens on Inauguration Day.

    June 20, 2023 – Launches a Senate investigation into working and safety conditions at Amazon warehouses.

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  • Pence campaign meets donor threshold to make first primary debate | CNN Politics

    Pence campaign meets donor threshold to make first primary debate | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former Vice President Mike Pence has reached the donor threshold to qualify for the first GOP presidential debate later this month in Milwaukee, an aide told CNN on Monday.

    The Republican National Committee set a requirement of 40,000 unique donors minimum to qualify for the first debate, in addition to polling requirements and a commitment to support the eventual GOP nominee. Pence had already met the polling criteria to make the stage.

    Fox News first reported on Pence reaching the threshold.

    As CNN has reported, seven other candidates have met the polling threshold and say they’ve also reached the fundraising requirements for the August debate: Former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson also meets the polling threshold for inclusion in the debate following the release of a new national poll from Morning Consult on Tuesday, though his campaign has not yet said that it has met the fundraising requirement.

    While some candidates offered gift cards or a percentage of the money raised to appeal for donations, Pence and his team relied on direct mail and asking for just $1.

    Trump, the current front-runner who was federally indicted in the special counsel’s 2020 election interference probe last week, has not yet committed to participating in the debate. If Trump attends, Pence would be sharing a debate stage with his former running mate and boss.

    “Sometimes people ask me what it would be like to debate Donald Trump and I tell people I’ve debated Donald Trump a thousand times. Never with cameras on,” Pence told reporters last week in New Hampshire.

    Pence – who often says he’s “well-known” but not “known well” – added that being on the debate stage will allow voters to “take a fresh look” at him.

    The former vice president jumped into the race in June and has cast himself as a Reagan conservative. He has called for cuts to government spending, the tax cuts enacted under the Trump administration to be made permanent, increased military spending and domestic energy production, and continued US support for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion. He’s also been outspoken against abortion and gender-affirming treatment for minors.

    Pence’s path to the nomination, however, is complicated by how voters in his party view his handling of January 6, 2021. While some Republicans have thanked Pence for his actions that day, many Trump supporters remain convinced that Pence could have stopped Congress’ certification of the election results.

    In a recent interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Pence said Trump “was wrong then, and he’s wrong now” that he – then the vice president presiding over Congress’ count of the Electoral College vote – had a right to reject the election result.

    “The American people deserve to know that President Trump asked me to put him over my oath to the Constitution, but I kept my oath and I always will. And I’m running for president in part because I think anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be President of the United States,” he said.

    Pence received more than 7,200 donations last Wednesday, the day after Trump was indicted on federal charges, according to his campaign.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • A day of legal action in Trump imbroglio previews a chaotic 2024 election year | CNN Politics

    A day of legal action in Trump imbroglio previews a chaotic 2024 election year | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A whirl of developments in a quartet of cases in four separate cities encapsulate the vast legal quagmire swamping Donald Trump and threatening to overwhelm the entire 2024 presidential campaign.

    But Monday’s hectic lawyering was just a tame preview of next year when the ex-president and current Republican front-runner may be constantly shuttling between courtroom criminal trials and the campaign trail.

    A day of legal intrigue brought revelations, judgments, disputes and filings in cases related to Trump’s bid to overturn the 2020 election, the classified documents case, efforts to thwart Joe Biden’s win in Georgia, and even in a defamation case dating back to Trump’s personal behavior toward women in the 1990s.

    It’s already almost impossible for voters who may be asked to decide whether Trump is fit for a return to the Oval Office – or at least to carry the GOP banner into the election – to keep pace with all the competing legal twists and the scale of his plight.

    A confusing fog in which all the cases blend together could work to the former president’s advantage as he seeks a White House comeback while proclaiming he’s a victim of political persecution by the Biden administration.

    But the deeper his legal mire gets, Trump’s rivals for the GOP nomination are getting braver in suggesting that his fight against becoming a convicted felon could be a general election liability. Trump’s dominance in the GOP primary has been boosted from his criminal indictments to date. But the sheer volume of cases unfolding alongside his campaign is increasingly daunting.

    In Washington, Trump’s lawyers just beat a deadline to file a brief in a dispute over the handling of evidence ahead of a trial in the election subversion case, and accused the government of seeking to muzzle his voice as he runs for a new White House term.

    In another glimpse into the breadth of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation that could prove troubling to the ex-president, CNN exclusively reported that Trump ally Bernie Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner, met Smith’s investigators for an interview on Monday. The discussion focused on what Trump’s former attorney and Kerik’s associate, Rudy Giuliani – otherwise known as Co-Conspirator 1 – did to try to convince the former president he actually won the 2020 election. The question will be a key one when the case finally comes to trial.

    Trump’s tough day in the courts had opened with a judge in Manhattan throwing out his defamation counter suit against E. Jean Carroll, which he did in stark language that recalled the ex-president’s loss in an earlier civil trial in which the jury found he sexually abused the writer.

    Then, in a surprise move in West Palm Beach, Florida, the Trump-appointed judge who will oversee his classified documents trial asked lawyers for co-defendant Walt Nauta to comment on the legality of prosecutors using a Washington grand jury to keep investigating. The fact the probe is still active despite several indictments is hardly a good sign for Trump. And Judge Aileen Cannon’s move revived debate over whether she was favoring the ex-president’s team following criticism of her earlier handling of a dispute over documents taken from Trump’s home in an FBI search.

    There were also new signs in Atlanta that indictments could be imminent in a probe into efforts to steal Biden’s election win in the key state, as it emerged that ex-Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a Republican and CNN political contributor, has been subpoenaed to testify to a grand jury.

    All of this frenzied activity unfolding on one day represents just a snapshot of the complex legal morass now surrounding Trump. It’s just a taste of the enormous strain the ex-president is about to feel as he campaigns for a return to the Oval Office. The crush of cases will also impose increasing financial demands. Already, Trump’s leadership PAC has been diverting cash raised from small-dollar donors to pay legal fees for the former president and associates that might instead have gone toward the 2024 campaign.

    In several of the cases on Monday, there were signs of the extraordinary complications inherent in prosecuting a former president and the front-runner for the Republican nomination. Judges, for instance, are faced with decisions that would normally go unnoticed by the public in the court system but that will now attract a glaring media and political spotlight.

    And while Monday was notable for a head-spinning sequence of legal maneuvering, it did not even encompass all of the pending cases against Trump. He is also due to go on trial in March – in the middle of the GOP primary season – in a case arising from a hush money payment to an adult film star. As with his other indictments, Trump has pleaded not guilty.

    For all his capacity to operate in the eye of converging storms of scandal and controversy, Trump’s mood is becoming increasingly agitated. In recent days he has attacked Smith, the Justice Department, the judge in the election subversion case, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell, and even the US national women’s soccer team after they crashed out of the World Cup on penalties.

    One of Trump’s most incendiary posts on his Truth Social network was at the center of one of Monday’s legal dramas – wrangling between Smith’s prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers over the handling of evidence at the center of the forthcoming trial.

    Prosecutors cited Trump writing on his Truth Social network on Friday, “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!” in a filing that requested strict rules on how he could use evidence that will be turned over to the defense as part of the pre-trial discovery process. Trump’s lawyers had asked for an extension to Monday’s deadline, but Judge Tanya Chutkan refused, in a fresh sign of her possible willingness to schedule a swift trial, which the ex-president wants to delay until after the 2024 election.

    In its brief, the defense proposed narrower rules than those sought by prosecutors. Spats over discovery aren’t unusual early in a trial process. But Trump’s filing added insight into how his team will approach a case in which he has pleaded not guilty.

    “In a trial about First Amendment rights, the government seeks to restrict First Amendment rights,” the attorneys said in the court filing.

    When it comes to Smith’s indictment, Trump’s lawyers are arguing that he was within his rights to claim the election was stolen. Smith’s strategy is, however, apparently designed to avoid a First Amendment trap, and alleges that the criminal activity occurred not in what Trump said, but in actions like the ex-president’s pressure on local officials over the election and on former Vice President Mike Pence to delay its certification.

    The Trump team’s filing went on to claim that the case was in itself an example of political victimization of their client, underscoring the fusion between his courtroom defense and his presidential campaign.

    “Worse, it does so against its administration’s primary political opponent, during an election season in which the administration, prominent party members, and media allies have campaigned on the indictment and proliferated its false allegations,” the filing said.

    In a Monday night order, Chutkan signaled she would hold a hearing this week on the dispute and told the parties to come up with, by 3 p.m. Tuesday, two options for when such a hearing could be held this week.

    Any prolonged debate over the terms of the pre-discovery process – let alone the many other expected pre-trial motions – will play into the hands of the defense. Trump is showing every sign that part of his motivation in running for a second White House term is to reacquire executive powers that could lead to federal cases against him being frozen. The timing of the January 6, 2021, case, and any potential conviction, is therefore hugely significant with a general election looming in November 2024.

    Trump has called for the recusal of Chutkan, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama. His legal team has called for a shift of trial venue away from the diverse US capital, potentially to West Virginia, one of the Whitest and most pro-Trump states in the nation. These pre-trial gambits are unlikely to succeed. But they help to create extreme pressure on the judge and to build a case for Trump supporters that the legal process is biased against him – a narrative that could provide especially inflammatory if he is eventually convicted.

    Trump’s rhetoric about the case has raised some concerns about the possibility of witness intimidation – especially as some of his supporters who were tried for their part in the mob attack on the US Capitol on January 6, have testified that they were spurred to action by his rhetoric.

    CNN observed increased security around Chutkan on Monday. Security is also increased around the Superior Court in Fulton County, Georgia, where a decision is expected in days on whether to hit Trump with a fourth criminal indictment.

    Any normal political candidate would have seen their political ambitions crushed by even one of the cases in Trump’s bulging portfolio of legal jeopardy. It is, however, a sign of the ex-president’s extraordinary and unbroken hold on the Republican Party and its voters that he is still the runaway front-runner in the primary.

    But one of his top rivals, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, is slowly becoming more willing to criticize Trump publicly, after being cautious about alienating Trump supporters who feel the ex-president is the victim of a political witch hunt. DeSantis told NBC that “of course” Trump lost the 2024 election, as he blitzes early voting states New Hampshire and Iowa and makes the case that the ex-president’s legal exposure is a distraction the GOP cannot afford if it is to oust Biden from the White House after a single term. It may seem absurd that DeSantis is risking his political career by stating the obvious truth about the 2020 election, but Trump has made signing up to his false reality a test of loyalty among base voters.

    And Pence, who rejected Trump’s public pressure to thwart the certification of Biden’s election – a scheme at the center of Smith’s case – indicated over the weekend that he may testify in Trump’s trial if required to do so by law.

    The spectacle of a former vice presidential running mate testifying against the man who picked him for his ticket would be an extreme twist even in the Trump era of shattered political conventions.

    Thanks to Trump’s unfathomable and widening legal nightmare, nothing about the 2024 election is going to be anywhere near normal.

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  • The anti-abortion movement is fractured over what it wants from its first post-Roe GOP presidential nominee | CNN Politics

    The anti-abortion movement is fractured over what it wants from its first post-Roe GOP presidential nominee | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Bernie Hayes has spent most Mondays since the overturning of Roe v. Wade meeting with friends outside of an Iowa Planned Parenthood trying to stop abortions one at a time. He huddles monthly with other like-minded activists plotting more wholesale paths to halting the procedure.

    Lately, Hayes, an elder at Noelridge Park Church in Cedar Rapids, has observed more dissent among anti-abortion allies who once worked in harmony. Some see the fall of Roe as a one-time chance to ban abortion entirely while others are worried about the political consequences of pushing too hard too quickly.

    “Sadly, it becomes divisive to the point where we just get fractured,” Hayes said. “I can only imagine what the division looks like on a national scale.”

    Those divisions are spilling out into the 2024 Republican presidential primary, as leading anti-abortion organizations are offering candidates conflicting guidance on an issue that has galvanized the political right for half a century. Recent polling shows Republican voters aren’t providing candidates much more clarity.

    Lynda Bell, the president of Florida Right to Life, bristled at the suggestion that Republican candidates must back a federal abortion ban.

    “There’s nothing in the Constitution that talks about abortion and this issue should be decided by the states,” she said.

    But other leaders of anti-abortion groups want GOP candidates to be unflinching in their support for more hardline policies.

    “Anyone in the pro-life movement is looking very carefully at the current candidates that are running for president, and those who are not advocating strongly on this issue are going to be the ones that are not going to get the confidence and get the vote of the pro-life movement,” said Maggie DeWitte, the executive director of the Iowa anti-abortion group Pulse Life Advocates.

    Candidates are cautiously navigating the unclear expectations of conservative voters as they search for their first presidential nominee in a post-Roe America. Former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the two highest-polling candidates for the GOP nomination, have routinely dodged questions on the trail about whether they would sign a national abortion ban and at how many weeks into a pregnancy they would support such federal legislation.

    Meanwhile, candidates who have expressed more defined views on the topic – like former Vice President Mike Pence, a backer of a federal ban, and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who said the federal government “should not be involved” in the abortion debate – have yet to gain traction with Republican voters.

    Whoever is the GOP nominee will face an electorate that has so far handed anti-abortion advocates a series of stinging defeats since the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson last summer. In the immediate aftermath of the court’s ruling, Kansans voted overwhelmingly to keep abortion legal in the state. In November, Michiganders at the ballot box enshrined abortion access in the state constitution. This week in Wisconsin, liberal justice Janet Protasiewicz started her term on the state Supreme Court after winning a spring race, during which she campaigned on protecting abortion access.

    The enthusiasm displayed by abortion-rights activists in the past 12 months will be tested again on Tuesday when Ohioans will decide whether to raise the threshold for passing a constitutional amendment, a referendum that would have significant implications for a fall ballot question ensure “every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s reproductive decisions.”

    “We need to start winning hearts and minds,” Hayes said. “I don’t think we can worry about a federal ban until you can do that.”

    Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a national anti-abortion group, has clashed with the GOP contenders for the nomination as the organization enforces its own red line for presidential candidates: a 15-week federal ban.

    When Trump’s campaign suggested in April that abortion should be decided at the state level, Marjorie Dannenfelser, the organization’s president, called it “a morally indefensible position for a self-proclaimed pro-life presidential candidate to hold.” It was a stunning break between one of the country’s most influential anti-abortion groups and the president who nominated the three Supreme Court justices that helped secure the movement’s watershed victory. Trump and Dannenfelser later met to clear the air, though Trump has still evaded outlining his views on the issue.

    Dannenfelser similarly said it was “not acceptable” when another candidate, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, stated “it’s not realistic” to expect a gridlocked Congress to find consensus on federal abortion legislation.

    And, in a blistering rebuke this week, Dannenfelser questioned DeSantis’ leadership after he once again declined to back a federal abortion.

    “A pro-life president has a duty to protect the lives of all Americans,” she said. “He should be the National Defender of Life.”

    DeSantis dismissed the criticism during a campaign stop in New Hampshire, where he noticeably drops references to his state’s new abortion law – which bans most abortions after six weeks – from his stump speech.

    “Different groups, you know, are gonna have different agendas, but I can tell you this: Nobody running has actually delivered pro-life protections,” DeSantis said. “I have done that.”

    South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott seized on the fissure between DeSantis and the leading abortion group, writing in a social media post that, “Republicans should not be retreating on life.” He added, “We need a national 15-week limit to stop blue states from pushing abortion on demand.”

    Scott, though, also struggled to define the federal role in the next frontier for the anti-abortion movement after he entered the presidential race in May.

    The anti-abortion movement is not totally aligned behind Dannenfelser. Carol Tobias, the president of the National Right to Life Committee, said she thought it was a mistake to have a political litmus test for Republican presidential candidates on abortion and argued doing so would only serve to splinter the party ahead of the general election. It “doesn’t help” for SBA Pro-Life America to set a 15-week national ban as its standard for GOP candidates, Tobias said, arguing that there were more realistic goals to work towards, like ensuring zero tax dollars are used to fund abortions

    “If we’re not going to get a national law on abortion through Congress, why focus on it?” Tobias told CNN.

    Republican voters appear similarly divided. A New York Times/Siena College national survey released this week found more Republicans favored some exceptions (33%) than a total ban (22%). Meanwhile, one-third said they believed abortion should be mostly or always legal.

    But among White evangelical Republican voters – whose influence is especially pronounced in the early nominating contests in Iowa and South Carolina – opposition is higher. More than three-fourths responded that abortion should be always or mostly illegal.

    Further complicating the calculus for the Republican field is that the GOP voters least likely to vote for Trump are among the most likely to support at least some protections for abortion. For those Republicans who said they are not open to voting for Trump, only 11% support a total ban while more than half said they want abortion to be legal in most situations.

    The clashing opinions underscore the political tightrope Republican candidates are walking after their party underperformed in the 2022 midterms in an election held just months after Roe v. Wade was overturned. Some Republicans – including Trump – have blamed it for the party’s losses, pointing to South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham’s failed attempt to push a federal ban through Congress last year as strategically unsound.

    “I thought, ‘What is Lindsey Graham doing?’” Bell said. “The Supreme Court just said it was a state decision. I was baffled.”

    But there are also fears within the anti-abortion movement that Republicans won’t act to preserve their chances at the ballot box.

    “Some say, ‘Let’s just ignore it,’” Hayes, the Cedar Rapids church elder, said. “For me the worst thing can happen is that it’s either very diluted or taken out of the platform all together. I hope we won’t go there. But if we’re going to talk about it, we need to do it in a smart way.”

    In Hayes’ state, Republicans that control Iowa’s government moved to ban most abortions in the state as early as six weeks into pregnancy. Gov. Kim Reynolds signed the measure into law at last month’s Family Leadership Summit, where most of the GOP field had assembled to speak directly to the state’s evangelical and Christian voters. Many Republican candidates heaped praise on Reynolds for signing the law, though most have not advocated for similar legislation at the federal level.

    Trump, who has notably not weighed in on Iowa’s law, did not attend the summit and has privately said he considers abortion a losing issue for Republicans. Publicly, he called Florida’s six-week abortion ban “too harsh,” testing conservatives who once celebrated Trump’s place in ending Roe.

    “I think many in the pro-life movement were disappointed to hear him talk about life not being a winning issue, and sort of attacking the heartbeat bill and some of the other legislation that’s coming down as being ‘too harsh,’” DeWitte said. “I think that really turned off people in the pro-life movement.”

    Joni Lupis, a pastor and president and director of March For Life New York, said she is wary of candidates who aren’t taking a stance on the issue or offering realistic answers.

    “Let’s be honest: The president can’t just declare no more abortion in the whole world,” Lupis said. “They can say they will but it doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. That’s politics and we’ll have to wait and see what they have to do. I like a person that says what they believe. If you believe something, you should stand behind and declare it.”

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  • Kentucky Republicans seek to nationalize gubernatorial race as state Democrats keep focus local | CNN Politics

    Kentucky Republicans seek to nationalize gubernatorial race as state Democrats keep focus local | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Kentucky Republicans are seeking to tie Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear to President Joe Biden as they work to take back the governor’s mansion in November, a strategy that state Democrats have pushed back on with a focus on local issues.

    Biden remains unpopular in the deep red state, and with the 2024 presidential election on the horizon, the Republican gubernatorial nominee and Kentucky’s Attorney General, Daniel Cameron, is in a tight race to lock down the state for the GOP.

    At the historic Fancy Farm picnic in Western Kentucky this weekend, Cameron told a combined crowd of Democrats and Republicans, “Andy Beshear and Joe Biden are liberal elites that have a lot of rules for you, and none for themselves.”

    “The governor has the audacity to lecture Kentuckians on right and wrong when he and Joe Biden can’t even tell the difference between a man and a woman,” he added, to loud boos from the Democratic side.

    Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell similarly tied Kentucky’s governor to the president telling voters, “Biden and Beshear aren’t working for Kentucky. Andy might as well be on the White House payroll.”

    The Beshear campaign, however, has argued the race is not about Biden or national politics. Beshear didn’t mention Biden once in his speech Saturday – focusing instead on how he handled major crises like the Covid-19 pandemic, tornadoes that devastated the state, as well as floods and a mass shooting in which Beshear knew one of the victims.

    “Daniel Cameron will show up for a political rally but not for tornado survivors,” Beshear said at the picnic.

    The dueling messages came as Beshear, Cameron, and candidates for other state offices across Kentucky descended on the town of Fancy Farm for their annual picnic and barbecue this weekend, a tradition that has become a mainstay of state politics.

    The picnic took on particular importance this year as it showcased each side’s messaging posture in a race that carries significant implications for 2024’s elections.

    The Kentucky race will test whether a Democratic incumbent can survive in a deep-red state where his party’s voter registration advantage has been erased in recent years and the political environment is increasingly dominated by national themes.

    Though he has remained popular, Republicans argue that Beshear’s 0.4-percentage-point-victory was the result of an unfavorable political landscape – one that has shifted drastically in recent years.

    One Kentucky GOP voter, Brian Smith, told CNN on Saturday of Beshear: “I think he’s absolutely chasing the National Democratic Party. But when decisions needed to be made about supporting small businesses, about keeping kids in school and keeping churches open, he was on the wrong side of those decisions.”

    Another Cameron supporter came to the picnic in a Biden mask, carrying a sign that read “Beshear’s #1 fan.”

    But Jeremy Edge, a Beshear supporter, told CNN, “I think they’re trying to make Andy out as some sort of radical, which is a mess because he is a straight arrow kind of dude, and the negative stuff, it’s kind of gross.”

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  • Kentucky voters weigh in on McConnell’s health scare | CNN Politics

    Kentucky voters weigh in on McConnell’s health scare | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell spoke Saturday at the Fancy Farm picnic, one of Kentucky’s classic political events, but his remarks were largely drowned out by jeers from the Democratic side of the crowd, who stomped their feet and yelled, “RETIRE,” and “DITCH MITCH” as he spoke.

    McConnell’s appearance at the picnic comes amid recent questions about his health and political future. Late last month, he froze mid-sentence during a press conference in the US Capitol and had to be led away from the podium by his fellow senators and his aides. The Republican leader, 81, later returned and answered questions from the press, telling CNN’s Manu Raju, “I’m fine.”

    In a statement several days after the incident, McConnell’s office said that he plans to continue to serve as Senate minority leader until the end of the 118th Congress. However, they did not say whether he plans to run for leader again in 2025, or for reelection to the Senate in 2026.

    Speculation about McConnell’s future has become more common since he suffered a concussion and broken ribs after a fall in March. He was hospitalized and spent several weeks recuperating, including some time at an inpatient rehabilitation facility.

    Earlier Saturday, McConnell entered the Graves County Republican Party Breakfast to a standing ovation and applause. But voters expressed some concern about how his health will affect his ability to continue serving in the Senate.

    “This is my 28th Fancy Farm and I want to assure you it’s not my last,” McConnell told the crowd. “The people of this state have chosen me seven times to do this job, and I want you to know how grateful I am,” he added.

    One young voter at the Graves County breakfast, Garrett Whiten, told CNN, “I think his time is probably about up.”

    “I’m against older candidates, the current president, Mitch McConnell,” he added. “I think that they’ve run their course in politics, I think they’d be good for backing people now. But I think politics now is more of a young man’s game.”

    However, some are willing to vote for him if he runs in 2026, despite their concerns.

    “I’d vote for him. I, like all of his supporters, are concerned about – I want him to be healthy and safe,” said Phil Myers.

    “But if he’s the Republican nominee, I will vote for him again, as I’ve voted for him every time he’s run, and I’d support him every way I could.”

    Myers maintained that McConnell has “never backed down from a challenge. If I were 80 years old, and had a concussion, it’d take me a couple of months or a year to get over that. I mean, it’s normal, what doctors will tell you, that’s normal for a person that age.”

    He continued, “He’s a very smart man. I mean, he’s been able to keep things from far left California, some of those ideas they have from being national policy. So I support Mitch McConnell.”

    CNN has previously reported that McConnell also fell two other times in 2023, once on a trip to Finland to meet with the nation’s president, and at Reagan National Airport in Washington, DC, as he was exiting a plane.

    McConnell freezes in press conference and is unable to finish statement

    McConnell survived polio as a child, resulting in a slight limp that has grown more pronounced in recent years. In 2019 he suffered a fall at home in Kentucky and fractured his shoulder.

    Every year, on the first Saturday in August, Kentucky’s politicians descend on the rural town of Fancy Farm in the Western corner of the state. While the voters and their families eat barbecue, play bingo, compete in a 5k race and enter raffles, candidates for every office from governor to state auditor to agricultural commissioner gather to give speeches and glad-hand with their constituents.

    The picnic is hosted by St. Jerome, a Catholic Church in town, and boasts “the world’s largest one-day barbecue” as well as a long history of political speeches.

    “While each picnic brings something unique, they all have three things in common: hot weather, hot barbecue and hot politics,” the Church’s website reads.

    “Some of the nation’s most prominent politicians have addressed the crowds from the speakers’ stand, dating back to US Vice-President Alben Barkley, a native of the nearby town of Wheel, Kentucky,” the Church adds. “Attending in 1975 was Presidential candidate George Wallace, who had survived an assassination attempt to another part of the country. He told the crowd he was still ‘a little gun-shy’ after a photographer’s flash bulb exploded twice during a misty rain.”

    Republicans at Saturday’s picnic were deferential toward the Senate Republican leader, giving him another standing ovation as he entered. Rep. James Comer began his remarks by saying “I want to thank Senator Mitch McConnell for the close working relationship that he and I have,” and McConnell joked that the event’s emcee, David Beck, took longer to introduce the senator than he was allotted to speak.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Trump heads to South Carolina after a week filled with his legal drama | CNN Politics

    Trump heads to South Carolina after a week filled with his legal drama | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump is set to visit South Carolina on Saturday, wrapping up a week that has been defined by his historic third indictment.

    Trump’s Saturday trip to the early-primary state – he’ll visit Columbia, South Carolina, for the state GOP’s Silver Elephant Dinner – follows a Friday night stop in Alabama. The two were his first campaign events after his arraignment Thursday in Washington,DC, in special prosecutor Jack Smith’s investigation into his efforts to remain in the White House despite losing the 2020 election to President Joe Biden.

    In Montgomery on Friday night, Trump conflated his actions in seeking to overturn the 2020 election with those of Democrats, including Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Stacey Abrams after the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election, in the wake of their losses. He said he faces “bogus charges.”

    He also said if he is elected in 2024, he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Biden’s family.

    “When they indicted their political opponent and they did that, I said, well, now the gloves are off,” Trump said of Biden. “The Republicans better get tough, and they better get smart, because most of them look like a bunch of weak jerks right now. … You have to fight fire with fire. You can’t allow this to go on.”

    Trump’s campaign on Friday went on the attack against the prosecutors who have brought cases against or are investigating the former president. It released a video attacking those prosecutors one day after Trump was arrested and arraigned for a third time.

    The video attacks Smith, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis, dubbing the group the “Fraud Squad.”

    “Meet the cast of unscrupulous accomplices he’s assembled to get Trump,” the narrator says in the video of Biden.

    The video also uses footage of Biden falling off his bike and tripping up the stairs to Air Force One.

    Lashing out over the costs of defending himself and his allies in myriad legal battles, Trump also called for the Supreme Court to “intercede.”

    “CRAZY! My political opponent has hit me with a barrage of weak lawsuits, including D.A., A.G., and others, which require massive amounts of my time & money to adjudicate,” Trump complained on Truth Social. “Resources that would have gone into Ads and Rallies, will now have to be spent fighting these Radical Left Thugs in numerous courts throughout the Country. I am leading in all Polls, including against Crooked Joe, but this is not a level playing field. It is Election Interference, & the Supreme Court must intercede.”

    His campaign has used the legal proceedings as a fundraising tool, hauling in small-dollar donations.

    “Trump is in THE AIR!” his campaign said in an email to supporters Thursday. “Before he arrives at the courthouse for his hearing, can 10,000 pro-Trump patriots sign on to defend him & end the witch hunt?”

    A handful of GOP presidential candidates, including former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Texas Rep. Will Hurd and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, have criticized Trump’s actions.

    Hurd, on Fox News on Thursday, said that Trump’s court appearance was the “third time in four months in courts. It’s unacceptable, we didn’t have to be here.”

    Former Vice President Mike Pence’s campaign is selling T-shirts and hats branded with the phrase “Too Honest,” referencing a phrase Trump allegedly uttered to Pence when he refused to go along with the then-president’s request to reject electoral votes and change the outcome of the 2020 election.

    According to the federal indictment, in one conversation on January 1, 2021, Trump told Pence he was “too honest” when the then-vice president said that he lacked the authority to change the results.

    After Trump was indicted earlier this week, Pence said that “anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president” and added that Trump “was surrounded by a group of crackpot lawyers who kept telling him what his itching ears wanted to hear.”

    However, much of the Republican field has so far refused to take aim at Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, which are at the heart of the federal charges he faces in Washington.

    Trump’s top-polling rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, on Friday said he would pardon Trump if he is elected in 2024. He also defended the former president, arguing that the laws federal prosecutors say Trump broke were “never intended to apply to this type of situation.”

    The Florida governor, who was campaigning in Iowa, told reporters his candidacy for president would be focused on the future and starting to heal “divisions in this country.”

    DeSantis indicated that he would pardon Trump if he were convicted, echoing comments he recently made on “Outkick” with Clay Travis.

    “I’ve said for many weeks now, I don’t think it’s in the best interest of the country to have a former president – that’s almost 80 years old – go to prison. Just like Nixon or Ford pardoned Nixon, you know, sometimes you got to put this stuff behind you,” he said.

    DeSantis’ comments underscored the reality that most of Trump’s 2024 GOP rivals see little to gain by angering a base that is still largely supportive of the former president.

    South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott on Friday criticized the Justice Department for the “weaponization of their power” in his first on-camera reaction to the third indictment and arraignment of Trump.

    Scott told reporters following an immigration roundtable event in Yuma, Arizona, he believes DOJ spends “a lot of time hunting Republicans” while protecting Democrats, specifically referencing the president’s son Hunter Biden.

    “My perspective is that the DOJ continues to weaponize their power against political opponents. It seems like they spend a lot of time protecting Hunter Biden and Democrats and a lot of time hunting Republicans,” Scott said.

    The most recent polls show that Trump remains the clear front-runner in the 2024 GOP primary. A poll of likely Republican caucusgoers in Iowa from The New York Times/Siena College released Friday showed Trump with 44% support, compared to DeSantis’ 20% and Scott’s 9%, with no other candidate topping 5%.

    His lead is even wider nationally. Trump holds the support of 54% of likely GOP primary voters, a New York Times/Siena College poll released earlier this week found, while DeSantis has 17% support and no other candidate exceeds 3%.

    Just 17% of likely Republican primary voters think that Trump has “committed any serious federal crimes,” and only 10% more say that although they don’t think he committed a serious crime, he “did something wrong in his handling of classified documents.” Three-quarters (75%) say that after the 2020 elections, Trump “was just exercising his right to contest the election,” while only 19% believe he “went so far that he threatened American democracy.” And 71% say that regarding the investigations Trump is facing, Republicans “need to stand behind Trump.”

    The Republican base could be at odds with the broader electorate: Two-thirds of Americans (65%) say that the charges Trump faces over efforts to overturn the 2020 elections are serious, according to a new poll from ABC News and Ipsos conducted after Trump’s latest indictment.

    There are broad partisan gaps in views of the seriousness of the new charges, with 91% of Democrats calling them serious along with 67% of independents, though just 38% of Republicans agree. The gap between Democrats and Republicans widens to 65 points when looking at those who call the charges “very serious” (84% of Democrats feel that way vs. 19% of Republicans; 53% of independents say the same).

    While many of Trump’s rivals are carefully avoiding direct confrontation with the former president, Trump is taking direct aim at DeSantis.

    Top Trump advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita sent an open memo on Thursday attacking DeSantis’ efforts to reboot his campaign.

    “DeSantis’s campaign is marred by idiocy,” the memo reads, as it touts Trump’s lead in polls over his GOP rivals.

    The memo compared DeSantis’ campaign to Sen. John McCain’s 2008 bid and argued both campaigns overspent and didn’t fundraise enough. The late McCain and Trump had a bitter feud for years.

    “John McCain did not spend the opening week of his reboot explaining why his staff produced a video with Nazi imagery, and defending his comments that slavery provided ‘some benefit’ to enslaved Americans – while attacking black Republicans publicly in the process,” the memo reads, referencing several recent missteps DeSantis and his campaign have made.

    Developments on Capitol Hill also underscored that most of the GOP has not abandoned Trump.

    North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, a member of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s Republican leadership team, on Thursday called on Congress to scrutinize the federal investigation into Trump’s actions.

    Tillis said in a statement that the new indictment carries “a heavy burden” to show that “criminal conduct actually occurred.”

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  • Deadly communal violence flares in India a month before world leader summit | CNN

    Deadly communal violence flares in India a month before world leader summit | CNN

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    Gurugram and New Delhi
    CNN
     — 

    Separate outbreaks of violence this week, including the alleged shooting of three Muslim men by a police officer on a train, have exposed the deep communal fissures in India weeks before it welcomes Group of 20 (G20) leaders to the capital.

    Violence erupted in the northern state of Harayana state on Monday after a right-wing Hindu organization led a religious procession in the city of Nuh.

    Clashes spread to several districts of the finance and tech hub, Gurugram, also known as Gurgaon, home to more than 1.5 million people and hundreds of global firms, where violent mobs predominantly targeted Muslim-owned properties, setting buildings ablaze and smashing shops and restaurants.

    At least six people died, including a cleric who was inside a mosque that was set alight, and more than 110 people have been arrested, authorities said.

    Gurugram’s district counselor urged residents to remain home and ordered the closure of some private education institutes and government offices.

    As the violence unfolded, about 1,300 kilometers (807 miles) south in Maharashtra on a train traveling to Mumbai, another deadly attack demonstrated the depth of the country’s sectarian divide.

    Haryana Police conduct checks near Nuh Chowk on August 1, 2023 in Gurugram, India.

    A police officer opened fire on a moving train, killing four people, including a senior constable and three Muslim passengers, according to local reports and some family members CNN has spoken with.

    In a video that has emerged of the aftermath and quickly gone viral, the officer can be seen standing over a lifeless body, rifle in arm, as terrified travelers huddle at the end the coach.

    The officer glances at the body, then scans the carriage before saying: “If you want to vote, if you want to live in Hindustan (India), then there’s only (Narendra) Modi and Yogi (Adityanath).”

    Referencing the country’s leader, and the Hindu monk turned chief minister of India’s most populous state, he appeared to be advocating for their popular, but deeply divisive policies.

    One of the victims, Asgar Ali, was a bangle seller on his way to take a new job in Mumbai when the fatal attack took place, his cousin Mohammed told CNN, adding that Ali is survived by a wife and four children.

    “We haven’t heard a lot from the authorities,” he added. “But I believe this happened because we are Muslim.”

    Police have arrested the officer and a motive is yet to be determined, authorities have said. However, opposition politicians and activists have called the attack a “hate crime” that targeted India’s Muslim minority population.

    Police haven’t released the names of the passengers. CNN has contacted the Maharashtra police but is yet to receive a response.

    Asaduddin Owaisi, a member of parliament and leader of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen political party called it a “terror attack that specifically targeted Muslims.”

    Another lawmaker and member of India’s main opposition Congress party, Jairam Ramesh, said it was a “cold-blooded murder” that was the result of a polarized media and political landscape.

    The image of India that Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) want to project is one of a confident, vibrant, and modern superpower – and it will be one they want on display in India when G20 leaders meet in New Delhi next month.

    But analysts say these scenes of violence underscore an uncomfortable reality as the BJP’s Hindu nationalist policies gain momentum in the world’s largest democracy after nearly a decade of Modi’s rule.

    On Wednesday, hundreds of members from the Hindu extremist right-wing Bajrang Dal group took to the streets in several cities, including Delhi, burning effigies and chanting slogans against Muslims in protest against what they called “Islamic jihad and terrorism.”

    Asim Ali, a political researcher based in New Delhi and no relation to Asgar Ali, said that official silence over sectarian assaults and rhetoric is encouraging for the radical groups and such attacks have become “more brazen” since BJP ascended to power nearly a decade ago.

    “When you don’t take action against these elements, the message that gets sent is that it’s okay,” he told CNN. “If the government spoke (against it), it would help.”

    Ethnic violence has been raging in the northeastern state of Manipur for the last two months, a topic that has received little public comment from Modi.

    Ali fears sectarian tensions may only worsen next year as India heads into a bitterly fought election with Modi seeking a third term and an opposition building a coalition to unseat him.

    The latest communal violence come against a broader rise in hate crimes against minority groups.

    A study by economist Deepankar Basu noted a 786% increase in hate crimes against all minorities between 2014 and 2018, following the BJP’s election victory.

    The BJP, however, says it does not discriminate against minorities and “treats all its citizens with equality.”

    But Basu’s study shows – and news reports indicate – the brunt of these hate crimes targeted Muslims. And activists point to a host of recent incidents that they say contribute to India’s sharp communal divide.

    Last month, the BJP chief minister of the state of Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma, blamed Muslims for the soaring prices of tomatoes. His accusation came weeks after he lashed out at former US President Barack Obama, saying Indian police should “take care of” the many “Hussain Obama” in the country, referring to the country’s Muslims.

    Former US President Obama is not a Muslim.

    Meanwhile Adityanath, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh who was referenced by the police officer allegedly involved in the train shooting, is among the most divisive of the BJP politicians.

    Since he took office, the state has already passed legislation that, critics say, is rooted in “Hindutva” – the ideological bedrock of Hindu nationalism.

    It has protected cows, an animal considered sacred to Hindus, from slaughter, and made it increasingly difficult to transport cattle. It also introduced a controversial anti-conversion bill, which makes it difficult for interfaith couples to marry or for people to convert to Islam or Christianity. Some cities named after historic Muslim figures have also been renamed to reflect India’s Hindu history.

    Adityanath is also known for his provocative rhetoric against Muslims.

    He once praised former US President Donald Trump’s travel ban barring citizens of several Muslim-majority countries and called for India to take similar measures, according to local channel NDTV.

    India has one of the largest Muslim populations in the world with an estimated 170 million adherents, roughly 15 percent of its 1.4 billion population.

    Adityanath’s cabinet members have previously denied allegations they are promoting Hindu nationalism.

    But prominent Muslim author and journalist, Rana Ayyub, who has written extensively about India’s sectarian shift, says the current political rhetoric “emboldens” radical right wing groups who feel increasingly protected and untouchable in today’s India.

    “It feels like an Orwellian novel playing out in front of you,” she said, adding she fears for the safety of her Muslim friends and family. “I think the silence of the country is a tacit approval for these hate politics.”

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  • Trump and team seek to destroy credibility of his election subversion trial before a date is even set | CNN Politics

    Trump and team seek to destroy credibility of his election subversion trial before a date is even set | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Donald Trump and his legal team are escalating efforts to discredit and delay a trial over his alleged attempt to overturn the 2020 election, as his fight to avert criminal convictions becomes ever more indistinguishable from his presidential campaign.

    The former president’s attorney Sunday vowed to petition to relocate the trial from Washington, DC, claiming that a local jury won’t reflect the “characteristics” of the American people. And as prosecutors seek a speedy trial, he warned that his team will seek to run out the process for years in an apparent attempt to move it past the 2024 election.

    Trump demanded the judge set to hear the case recuse herself in a flurry of assaults on the process that may fail legally, but will play into his campaign narrative that he is a victim of political persecution by the Biden administration designed to thwart a White House comeback.

    Trump pleaded not guilty when he was arraigned in Washington last week – his third such plea in a criminal case in the past four months. But his new efforts to tarnish an eventual trial in this case mirror his long-term strategy of seeking to delegitimize any institution – including the courts, the Justice Department, US intelligence agencies and the press – that contradicts his narrative or challenges his power.

    They unfolded as the precarious nature of his position after his third indictment began to sink in and the ramifications for the 2024 election widened.

    Mike Pence, speaking on CNN this weekend, did not rule out providing testimony in a Trump trial if compelled, which would be a staggering potential scenario for a vice president to provide evidence against his ex-running mate.

    Trump’s former Attorney General William Barr, meanwhile, dismissed one of the arguments the ex-president and his allies have turned to – that he was simply exercising his right to freedom of speech in seeking to reverse the election result in 2020. Barr, who told Trump there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud during his final weeks in office, also said Sunday that “of course” he would appear as a witness at the trial if asked.

    Trump’s status as the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination has left his rivals with a painful political tightrope walk as they seek to take advantage of his plight while avoiding alienating GOP primary voters. But several candidates stiffened their criticism of the former president over the issue this weekend as campaigning heated up.

    Pence said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that in the tense days ahead of Congress’ certification of President Joe Biden’s election, Trump asked him to put loyalty to him above his oath to the Constitution and halt the process. “I’m running for president in part because I think anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States,” Pence told Dana Bash.

    And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis went a tiny bit further in his criticism of Trump, while still arguing that the Biden administration is weaponizing justice against the former president. On a campaign swing through Iowa on Friday, DeSantis – who is battling to preserve his tottering status as the No. 2 Republican in primary polls – said Trump’s false claims about election fraud were “unsubstantiated.”

    In a subsequent interview with NBC, DeSantis added: “Whoever puts their hand on the Bible on January 20 every four years is the winner.”

    “Of course, he lost,” DeSantis said. “Joe Biden’s the president.” The Florida governor also, however, chastised people in the media and elsewhere for acting like “this was the perfect election.”

    The fast-moving developments since Trump’s indictment last week are offering a preview of one of the most monumental criminal trials in American political history. They also suggest this case, and two others in which Trump has pleaded not guilty – to mishandling of classified documents and to charges arising out of a hush money payment to an adult film actress – are certain to deepen a corrosive national political estrangement.

    Defense teams have the right to use every courtroom mechanism within legal bounds to their client’s best advantage. Attempts to delay trials with pre-trial litigation are not unusual and prosecutors and defense lawyers often differ over matters of procedure and evidence. But Trump’s case is unique, given the visibility of the accused, the fact that he’s a former president running for another White House term, and that he is using his power and fame to mount a vitriolic campaign outside the courtroom to drain public confidence in the justice system. It is becoming increasingly clear that there is no distinction between his legal strategy and his political one in an election that is now consumed by his criminal exposure and the possibility of convictions.

    In posts on his Truth Social network that highlighted a furious state of mind, Trump on Sunday demanded the recusal of Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee who is presiding over the case, and a venue change out of the capital. He blasted special counsel Jack Smith as “deranged” and claimed that the US was being “destroyed.” On Saturday night, in a speech in South Carolina, Trump demanded that Senate Republicans do more to protect him.

    His threatening rhetoric is already having a direct impact on pre-trial preparations as both parties shadow box ahead of a decision by the judge on a trial date.

    Smith’s prosecutors asked the court late Friday to impose strict limits on how Trump can publicize evidence that will be handed over as part of the discovery process. Trump’s team sought an extension of a Monday afternoon deadline to file on the matter, but Chutkan refused their request. Prosecutors want the judge to impose a protective order limiting how Trump could use such evidence because of his previous public statements about witnesses, judges, attorneys and others. In their filing, they included a screenshot of a Truth Social post in which Trump warned: “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”

    Trump’s lawyer John Lauro argued on “State of the Union” Sunday that the special counsel was seeking to withhold evidence about the case from the press and the American people that “may speak to the innocence of President Trump.”

    Trump is seeking to delay and prolong the trial so that the country won’t have a final answer on his alleged culpability until after the election. If Trump wins the White House in November 2024, he will again gain access to executive powers and status that could freeze federal prosecutions against him or mitigate any guilty verdicts.

    Lauro said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday that he had not known any similar case go to trial within two or three years of an indictment. He also said on other talk show appearances that he planned to relitigate the 2020 election, which he said had never been drawn out in court, as a way of challenging Smith’s charges. Trump, however, made multiple attempts to have the 2020 result overturned in court, and judges repeatedly threw out his claims of voter fraud as having no merit.

    Lauro also further revealed his hand on defense strategy by arguing that despite being told multiple times by officials and campaign advisers that he lost the election, Trump’s actions were not criminal since he was convinced he won.

    “The defense is quite simple. Donald Trump … believed in his heart of hearts that he had won that election,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “And as any American citizen, he had a right to speak out under the First Amendment. He had a right to petition governments around the country, state governments, based on his grievances that election irregularities had occurred.”

    But Barr, a conservative Republican who had been a staunch Trump defender until the very end of his administration, said that while Smith’s case was certainly “challenging,” he didn’t think it “runs afoul of the First Amendment.”

    Trump’s prospective defense raises the possibility that any future politician could create an alternative reality that bears no relation to the facts of an election outcome, and then take actions designed to retain power.

    Barr sought to clear up what he said was confusion about the case. “This involved a situation where the states had already made the official and authoritative determination as to who won in those states, and they sent the votes and certified them to Congress,” Barr said on “Face the Nation.”

    “The allegation, essentially, by the government is that, at that point, the president conspired, entered into a plan, a scheme that involved a lot of deceit, the object of which was to erase those votes, to nullify those lawful votes.”

    Another claim by Trump’s team being amplified on conservative media is that the former president cannot get a fair trial in Washington, where he won only 5% of the vote in the 2020 election. Lauro instead suggested one of the most pro-Trump states in the union, where the ex-president racked up nearly 70% of votes cast in the last election. “I think West Virginia would be an excellent venue to try this case,” he said on CBS.

    Most legal experts think a change of venue is unlikely. Such a step would implicitly strike at the heart of the legal system since it would suggest that verdicts and juries in one jurisdiction are more valid than those elsewhere and could set a precedent that politicians could choose juries in politically advantageous regions.

    Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, one of the handful of Republicans running for the 2024 nomination on an explicitly anti-Trump platform, insisted that Trump could get a fair trial in the nation’s capital.

    “I believe jurors can be fair. I believe in the American people,” Christie said on “State of the Union.”

    Christie: I believe DC jurors can be fair to Trump

    Christie, a former federal prosecutor in a blue state, also rejected the argument that Trump’s post-election conduct is protected by the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech. He argued that proof of Trump’s culpability lies in his failure to immediately seek to stop the ransacking of the US Capitol by his supporters during the certification of Biden’s victory on January 6, 2021.

    “He didn’t do that. He sat, ate his overdone hamburger in the White House Dining Room he has off the Oval Office and enjoyed watching what was going on,” Christie said.

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  • Trump already taped Tucker Carlson interview that is expected to air on GOP debate night, sources say | CNN Politics

    Trump already taped Tucker Carlson interview that is expected to air on GOP debate night, sources say | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump has already taped an interview with Tucker Carlson that is expected to be used as counterprogramming for the first GOP primary debate Wednesday, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

    Trump confirmed Sunday he will not participate in the debate in Milwaukee. Stating that the public already “knows who I am,” Trump wrote on his social media platform: “I will therefore not be doing the debates!”

    It is unclear what platform the interview with Carlson will be published on. The sources said that it would be released around the time of the debate Wednesday night.

    For weeks, the former president had privately and publicly floated skipping Wednesday’s debate, given his lead in the polls. He is expected to spend Wednesday evening at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

    CNN previously reported that Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel and David Bossie, who heads the RNC debate committee, visited Trump at his Bedminster home in recent weeks to encourage him to participate, according to a Trump adviser. The former president was noncommittal on his plans during this meeting.

    Fox News President Jay Wallace and the network’s chief executive, Suzanne Scott, had also encouraged Trump to participate in the debate. Trump has feuded with Fox News, as has former prime-time host Carlson, who was ousted from the network in April.

    Fox News informed the Trump campaign on Monday that they will no longer provide credentials to some surrogates of the former president to attend the spin room at the debate given Trump is not planning on participating, three sources with direct knowledge of the matter told CNN.

    Fox News is in charge of credentials for the spin room. However, the RNC manages credentials for the actual debate, and sources said those tickets are still expected be honored.

    Several of Trump’s advisers and top surrogates had been planning to attend both the debate and represent the former president in the spin room despite his absence, CNN previously reported. Some of Trump’s surrogates are credentialed through outside media groups and will not be impacted. Former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, Reps. Byron Donalds and Matt Gaetz of Florida and other Republicans are slated to attend the debate.

    Members of Trump’s campaign, including senior advisers Jason Miller, Steven Cheung and Chris LaCivita, were also planning on being in the spin room.

    Members of Trump’s teams and his surrogates, however, are still planning on traveling to Milwaukee and are working on a resolution with the network as well as the RNC, two Trump advisers told CNN. The former president’s aides also believe they will be able to find new credentials, one of the advisers said, and are confident they will be in the spin room on Wednesday.

    Fox News did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.

    Trump’s absence leaves former Vice President Mike Pence, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on the debate stage.

    To qualify for the debate, candidates must have at least 40,000 unique donors, with at least 200 unique donors per state, and must reach at least 1% in three national polls meeting the RNC’s requirements or at least 1% in two national polls and two polls from separate early voting states.

    Candidates are also expected to sign a loyalty pledge expressing their commitment to unite and back the eventual Republican nominee, regardless of who that is.

    The GOP field has used Trump’s expected absence to throw shots at the former president, with DeSantis on Monday saying Trump “owes it to people” to debate, arguing voters – even ones who appreciate the former president’s record – won’t “look kindly” at him sitting this one out.

    In a recent interview, Haley said it would be “hard to earn” voters’ support “if you’re absent.”

    And Christie told Newsmax earlier this month that if Trump “didn’t show up, it would be much more trouble for him, adding: “I doubt that I’ll miss an opportunity to bring his name up, especially if he decides to chicken out and not show up.”

    Ramaswamy, a frequent defender of Trump, struck a different tone than his opponents Monday night. “I have no issue with him skipping the first couple of debates,” the entrepreneur told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source,” noting that he thought the former president should debate at some point this year.

    “The truth is, many people in this country didn’t know who I was six months ago, so, this is a good opportunity for me to introduce myself to the country,” he said.

    CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect that some Trump surrogates can still attend the debate itself but not appear in the spin room, which would require credentials from Fox.

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  • Nikki Haley’s gender is rarely mentioned on the campaign trail but always present | CNN Politics

    Nikki Haley’s gender is rarely mentioned on the campaign trail but always present | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    When Nikki Haley took the Republican presidential debate stage alongside her seven male rivals last month, she shone a spotlight on her gender only once – evoking a former British prime minister.

    “This is exactly why Margaret Thatcher said, ‘If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman,’” the former South Carolina governor interjected as Chris Christie and Vivek Ramaswamy sparred during the Milwaukee debate.

    Haley, the only female competitor in the GOP race, has not made her gender central to her campaign pitch. Instead, she has zeroed in on the need for a new generation of leadership.

    Republican voters who are considering supporting Haley told CNN they welcome the fact that she doesn’t lead with her gender as she campaigns, but many said her experience as a mother and a military spouse were part of her appeal.

    “It’s not necessary to point out that a female would bring a fresh perspective,” said Melinda Tourangeau, a Republican voter from New Hampshire. “She has one, she’s nailing it and I think that stands on its own merits.”

    GOP strategists say that by simply showing up as who she is, and weaving elements of her gender into her pitch, Haley is likely to boost her support among suburban female voters – a constituency that helped fuel President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020.

    “There’s no need for her to light her hair on fire and [stress] the fact that she’s a woman because she uses her ability and experience as a way to connect with voters,” said GOP strategist Alice Stewart, a CNN political commentator who advised former Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann on her 2012 presidential bid. “What suburban women want is a candidate that’s going to speak the truth, and Nikki Haley is out there being truthful about Donald Trump’s record. She’s being truthful about what we can actually accomplish in the future on abortion.”

    When Haley, a former US ambassador to the United Nations under Trump, speaks on the campaign trail about personal experiences that have informed her policy positions, she underscores her identity as a mother, wife and female politician.

    “I am pro-life because my husband was adopted, and I live with that blessing every day. I am pro-life because we had trouble having both of our children,” Haley has said in explaining her stance on abortion.

    She expanded on that position at the Milwaukee debate last month in calling for a “respectful” approach to the divisive topic.

    “Can’t we all agree that we should ban late-term abortions?” Haley said. “And can’t we all agree that we are not going to put a woman in jail or give her the death penalty if she gets an abortion?”

    Haley also spoke of the difficulty of enacting a federal abortion ban, pointing to the difficulty in overcoming the Senate’s 60-vote threshold to break a filibuster.

    It was a nuanced perspective for a GOP candidate, and one that caught voters’ attention.

    “When she talked about abortion, I liked that because although she is totally pro-life, she is willing to make some concessions because she said it’s not about her. It’s about what the country thinks,” a female GOP voter from South Carolina told CNN after the debate. “She’s trying to meet people where they are or at least do away with late-term abortions and things like that.”

    Hear Nikki Haley answer questions about abortion

    Haley’s campaign said it raised more than $1 million in less than 72 hours following that first primary debate. The campaign also said it raised more online in the 24 hours after the debate than it had on any other day since Haley launched her presidential bid in February.

    GOP strategists believe that Haley’s approach to the abortion issue was a key factor in that surged interest.

    “I think there are two key issues that she addressed on the debate stage that are helping in fueling their fundraising drive, and the nuanced position on abortion is one and her strong support for Israel,” Stewart said.

    In her stump speeches, Haley also draws from personal experiences – highlighting her role as mother – to speak against the participation of transgender girls in girls’ sports.

    “The idea that we have biological boys playing in girls’ sports, it is the women’s issue of our time,” she said during a CNN town hall in June. “My daughter ran track in high school. I don’t even know how I would have that conversation with her.”

    Similarly, when Haley speaks about standing up for veterans’ families, she speaks about her husband, Michael Haley, a major in the South Carolina National Guard whose brigade deployed to Africa earlier this year in support of the United States Africa Command. He previously served in Afghanistan in 2013 when his wife was serving as governor, which meant she was a working mom alone at home with two children.

    “The first three months when he deployed to Afghanistan, one of them was crying every night,” Haley said at the Iowa State Fair this summer. “I feel for every military family out there because it is survival mode.”

    When asked about her gender, Haley’s campaign noted that it is a part of who she is but not her only defining trait.

    “Nikki is proud to be a woman, a military spouse, a mom, a governor, an ambassador, and an accountant. All these experiences make her the tough and honest leader she is. She brought this toughness to the establishment as South Carolina governor. She brought it to the UN when she took on the world’s dictators. And she will bring it to the White House,” campaign spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas said in a statement.

    Haley is the fifth prominent Republican woman to run for president, following Margaret Chase Smith in 1964; Elizabeth Dole, who dropped out before the 2000 primaries; Bachmann in 2012; and Carly Fiorina in 2016.

    In comparison to Haley, Fiorina spoke more often and more directly about her gender. That move was dictated, at least in part, by Trump attacking her looks and the leading opposition candidate also being a woman.

    “[Whether] or not you’re ready to … support me, in your heart of hearts, every single one of you know you would love to see me debate Hillary Clinton,” Fiorina told voters on the stump.

    Haley’s competition this cycle is different, and so is her tact.

    “She is a woman, but she leads with her merit and experience,” said Iowa state Sen. Chris Cournoyer, a Haley supporter who touted the fact that the former governor does not play the “woman card.”

    At an August event in New Hampshire for female Republican voters, Haley’s identity as a woman was celebrated.

    “Nikki Haley is an empowered woman, who empowers women, and she really gets it as a former state representative,” Elizabeth Girard, the president of the New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women, said as she introduced Haley, who served three terms in the South Carolina House prior to her election as governor.

    SE CUpp unfiltered 0216

    SE Cupp: Nikki Haley promises youth, but will her policies reflect that?

    But when Haley took the stage – facing a gaggle of female voters – she didn’t tailor her message to the audience. She ticked through her regular stump speech, closing out with her signature call for a new generational leader and a candidate who can win the general election.

    Many of the potential female voters in the room that day appreciated Haley’s approach.

    “I think that’s a good thing,” Kim Rice, 50, told CNN after the event when asked about Haley not making her gender a focus of her pitch. “I don’t think that should be the reason people vote for her. I think her policy points are her strongest points. That’s what should draw people to her.”

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  • Biden advisers plotted impeachment response plan ahead of McCarthy’s impeachment inquiry announcement | CNN Politics

    Biden advisers plotted impeachment response plan ahead of McCarthy’s impeachment inquiry announcement | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden’s team has begun to execute an impeachment playbook more than a year in the making: Discredit the investigators while sticking to the business of governing.

    Biden’s aides spent the August congressional recess honing their plans after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy suggested in late July he was likely to open an impeachment inquiry.

    But they’d been hiring staff and gaming out possible scenarios for months before that, consulting veterans of past impeachments and determining the contours of their response.

    The principal objective for Biden’s team is countering what many Democrats fear could become an ingrained narrative of self-dealing about the president – despite a lack of any evidence so far of wrongdoing.

    “If you don’t answer it, it can sink into the voter psyche. They’re walking that line,” a person familiar with White House thinking said.

    On Wednesday evening, Biden made his first public comments on McCarthy’s impeachment inquiry, linking the inquiry to the upcoming showdown over funding the government. Congress faces a September 30 deadline to keep the government open and McCarthy is facing deep divisions within his own conference about how to handle the matter.

    “Well, I tell you what, I don’t know quite why, but they just knew they wanted to impeach me. And now, the best I can tell, they want to impeach me because they want to shut down the government.”

    “So look, look, I got a job to do. Everybody always asked about impeachment. I get up every day, not a joke, not focused on impeachment. I’ve got a job to do. I’ve got to deal with the issues that affect the American people every single solitary day.”

    The impeachment inquiry comes at a fragile political moment for the president. Widespread concern about his age and reelection prospects have caused jitters in Democratic circles. Some allies have voiced private concern at how intense attention on his son Hunter Biden could become a drag on him, politically and emotionally.

    But Biden’s advisers believe the inquiry announced Tuesday by McCarthy could be used to their advantage if Republicans are viewed as overstepping in their claims or shirking their governing responsibilities, according to officials who laid out their plans.

    An impeachment inquiry would give Republicans broad new powers to request documents and testimony about the Bidens. Even an inquiry with shaky foundations lacking support from a majority of lawmakers will still consume time and energy inside the White House.

    While House Republicans have so far failed to surface anything showing President Biden profited from his son’s business, they have found that Hunter Biden used his father’s name to help advance deals. A former partner, Devin Archer, testified that there were “maybe 20 times” when Joe Biden was placed on speakerphone during meetings with his and Hunter Biden’s business partners, though said “nothing” of importance was ever discussed during these calls.

    Even as Republicans continue failing to produce direct evidence tying the president to his son’s foreign business dealings, some polls already show concern among voters. Sixty-one percent of Americans said in a CNN poll released last week they think Biden had at least some involvement in Hunter Biden’s business dealings, with 42% saying they think he acted illegally, and 18% saying that his actions were unethical but not illegal.

    For now, the White House views the situation from a communications standpoint rather than as a legal issue. They have yet to formally hear from any of the committees involved.

    “We see this as a political communications battle as opposed to a legitimate impeachment inquiry,” a source familiar with the White House’s strategy said.

    The aggressive messaging posture, that source said, represents a recognition that there’s a need to fill the vacuum and push back on Republicans.

    With the prospect of a government shutdown looming if lawmakers cannot come to agreement on a new spending package by September 30, Democrats also see an opportunity to point out what they view as a fractured conference unable to perform the basic duties of their jobs.

    As early as last summer, the White House began laying the ground to respond to Republican investigations in the event of a GOP takeover in the House of Representatives. In the hours after McCarthy opened the inquiry, the White House launched an aggressive messaging strategy centered on the lack of evidence so far linking the president to anything illegal.

    The crux of the West Wing’s message: House Republicans “can’t even say what they’re impeaching him for,” White House spokesman Ian Sams told CNN on Wednesday.

    The response strategy taking shape included a blitz of cable news appearances by Sams, social media posts and a letter from the White House to news executives urging them to intensify their scrutiny of House Republicans.

    Biden’s campaign also seized on the impeachment announcement, blasting an email with Vice President Kamala Harris’ name telling supporters it was time to “stand behind our president” while criticizing House Republicans by name for launching the inquiry.

    “Kevin McCarthy, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and MAGA Republicans just launched a beyond ridiculous impeachment inquiry into President Biden,” the fundraising email reads.

    The email from Harris was the “best performing” email sent in her name this cycle, two sources familiar with the campaign’s fundraising efforts said. They declined to offer an exact dollar amount raised. The sources said the email expanded their active email list by 700,000, helping them grow the universe of fundraising emails that users actually see, instead of having them go to spam, the sources said.

    “We believe this is the latest example of MAGA extremism that regular voters, regular American people will reject to our advantage,” one of the sources said.

    The email is the first of what is expected to be several efforts by the Biden campaign to use the new inquiry to its advantage and raise money off the effort.

    The close association between former President Donald Trump and House Republicans who pushed for the inquiry – Trump discussed the matter with members over the past several days – has also provided an opening for Biden’s aides to paint the step as an exercise in MAGA extremism.

    Talking points distributed by the Democratic National Committee on Wednesday suggested Biden supporters cast the impeachment as “McCarthy doing Trump’s bidding.”

    “As Trump pressured Kevin McCarthy and House Republicans to move forward with a baseless impeachment, McCarthy immediately obliged,” one of the talking points reads.

    Still, for all of the preparation, impeachment-related steps are unwelcome for any White House. In the past, those proceedings have become all-consuming distractions, despite best-laid efforts to rise above or ignore. Like during the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, the Biden White House has sought to separate its response operation from the ongoing work of the administration.

    That includes building a team of two dozen lawyers, legislative staff and communications advisers to push back against a potential impeachment. Along with spokesman Sams, the White House last summer named Dick Sauber to serve as a special counsel and Russ Anello, a former Democratic staff director of the House Oversight Committee, as an adviser to response to oversight requests.

    Biden’s campaign also brought on Ammar Moussa, an official at the Democratic National Committee, to act as the campaign’s rapid response director whose portfolio includes responding to issues like an impeachment inquiry. The campaign sent around talking points to allies after McCarthy’s announcement, and will continue preparing its surrogates with information on impeachment matters for television appearances.

    And a Democratic group, Congressional Integrity Project, has been one of the outside entities leading the charge on messaging against the impeachment efforts, including through polling memos and fact sheets. One of the group’s objectives is targeting the 18 House Republicans in districts Biden won.

    “While McCarthy is trying to avoid a vote on an impeachment inquiry to save the Biden 18 from going on the record, the American people deserve to know where the Biden 18 stand on an evidence-free impeachment, and we will hold them accountable for the promises they made to the American people when they ran for their office,” said Kyle Herrig, executive director of the Congressional Integrity Project.

    Biden himself has yet to directly weigh in since McCarthy’s announcement, but he made implicit nods to the possibility over the past months, suggesting it was an attempt to distract from an improving economy.

    “Republicans may have to find something else to criticize me for now that inflation is coming down. Maybe they’ll decide to impeach me because it’s coming down,” he said during an event at a manufacturing facility in Maine. “I don’t know. I love that one.”

    That comment aside, it’s unlikely Biden himself will make a habit of commenting on the proceedings going forward. He stared ahead without answering when questioned about the matter during an event at the White House on Wednesday focused on efforts to cure cancer.

    An element of the White House strategy is keeping him focused on his governing duties, including plans to deliver what the White House has billed as a “major economic address” in Maryland on Thursday. He also continues focusing on foreign policy with a trip to the annual United Nations meetings in New York next week.

    “The White House is going to do it from the standpoint of making sure they can answer everything legally from a communications standpoint, while keeping Joe Biden and Kamala Harris above the fray and focused on governing and communicating the domestic agenda,” a source familiar with the matter said.

    This story has been updated with additional developments on Wednesday.

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  • Hopes begin to fade for Republicans looking to stop Trump | CNN Politics

    Hopes begin to fade for Republicans looking to stop Trump | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Republicans opposed to Donald Trump are having to come to terms with an uncomfortable truth: Time is running out to deny him the party’s presidential nomination and thus far almost nothing has worked.

    That fact has been glaringly apparent from polling, primary debate performances and, most recently, a new memo from a political action committee focused on stopping the former president.

    The memo, from the Club for Growth-aligned Win It Back PAC, said that despite the group spending around $6 million and churning out upward of 40 ads to undercut Trump’s support in the early-nominating states of Iowa and South Carolina, almost all of those attacks had failed to land. The type of attack, the memo found, that did work was when self-identified former Trump supporters expressed concern over his ability to beat President Joe Biden or fatigue over “the distractions he creates and the polarization of the country.”

    In essence, the Win It Back PAC memo illustrated that all the money and time spent on attacking Trump – or avoiding attacking him in hopes of snatching up his supporters if Trump somehow exited the race – had been wasted. Trump’s rivals and the party at large are having to face the fact that the window to oust him from his front-runner status is closing in a very real way.

    “The problem if you’re trying to take Trump out of the primary, you’re kind of running out of time,” said Adam Brandon, the president of the conservative advocacy group FreedomWorks. “I think people are operating under the old rules. You go to a place like California, it’s now winner-take-all. … This thing could be over on March 5.”

    (Under current California GOP rules, a candidate who wins a majority of the vote in the state’s March 5 primary would be awarded all of its delegates.)

    Officials with Kansas billionaire Charles Koch’s network, which is committed to supporting a Trump alternative, said internal research shows that focusing on Trump’s electability resonates with the primary voters they hope to peel away from the former president’s camp.

    Earlier this year, the deep-pocketed network – whose political spending in the past has rivaled that of the Republican National Committee – announced plans to back a rival to Trump in the 2024 primary.

    “We continue to find that a major portion of Trump’s current supporters are seriously concerned about his ability to beat Joe Biden, his baggage and how it impacts other races, and are open to an alternative candidate who can win,” Americans for Prosperity Action spokesman Bill Riggs said in an email to CNN.

    The Koch-aligned group has spent about $11 million to date on TV and digital advertising and mailers that target both Trump and Biden.

    “Our ads are focused on persuading those soft Trump voters, not people who are never voting for Trump or already voting for Biden,” Riggs added. “We all agree America can’t risk another four years of the Biden administration – Republican voters just need to see someone step up and show they can be that new leader.”

    Riggs said no decision has been made yet on an endorsement in the primary.

    Discussions of some kind of major late-primary shift have ramped up recently. A few influential donors have looked more seriously at pushing Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin to jump into the Republican race after the state’s legislative elections this November. Youngkin and his team have delicately responded to 2024 speculation, saying the governor’s main focus right now is on the state elections. Their responses are unlikely to temper the calls to nudge him in the race.

    David Kochel, a longtime Iowa Republican strategist who ran Mitt Romney’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns in the state, said a late Youngkin entry would be “plausible” and get a hard look from donors who are worried the field hasn’t sorted itself out yet.

    “There’s a little bit of a ‘the grass is greener somewhere else’ effect here,” he said. “Youngkin looks like he’s fresh and new, he won in a really difficult environment in a tough state with a unique approach, and he hasn’t been tainted by the messiness of this campaign.”

    One advantage Youngkin would have is that Iowa voters tend to break late for their candidates as caucusgoers watch the political process play out, Kochel said.

    “You’d be adding one more person to the mix, and it would be complicating the race that much more, but at a time when I think everybody’s trying to sort this out and figure out who’s the strongest to take on Trump,” Kochel said. “If (Youngkin) wants to be part of that conversation, he is going to have to decide pretty soon. But he’d certainly get a lot of attention.”

    A late-entrant Youngkin, however, would be playing catch-up on key fronts in the 2024 race: forming a formidable campaign and matching the rest of the field’s national fundraising network; ballot access and filing deadlines. For example, the early-voting states of Nevada and South Carolina have filing deadlines before the Virginia elections.

    Those facts are apparent to other Republicans in the campaign sphere, who are also skeptical that Youngkin’s mild-mannered approach to politics could break out in a primary where future voters haven’t been attracted to moderation in politicking or policy proposals.

    “Give me a break. You can’t wait until November 15 and miss all these filing deadlines,” a veteran GOP fundraiser said of Youngkin. “He had a window to get in, he could’ve been the fresh face in June, and that’s when he should’ve done it. Now it’s cocktail party chatter, but it’s not realistic.”

    Whether Youngkin enters the field or not, the primary race has not unfolded in the way anti-Trump Republicans had hoped. The rest of the field has largely refrained from focusing their criticism against Trump, with only a few candidates – including former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Vice President Mike Pence and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis – directly calling out the former president at the Republican debates so far. Discussion of the many indictments facing Trump has been largely absent from the stage.

    Even more worrying for Republicans opposed to Trump: While his lead in the primary has increased over time, candidates like DeSantis and Pence, who have premised their campaigns on being conservative Trump alternatives, have struggled to gain enough traction to move away from the rest of the field or trigger any kind of worry from the former president or his supporters. Thus far, Trump backers have stuck with him and have refused to seriously consider any other candidate, even when those candidates forcefully contrast their governing records with Trump’s.

    “It’s not about the divisions within the party, it’s about having a pitch to where the Republican Party is now, which is more populist, and honestly, more entertainment-focused,” a Republican strategist said.

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  • House speaker crisis is a symptom of historic Republican divisions | CNN Politics

    House speaker crisis is a symptom of historic Republican divisions | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    You might have thought it was a Democrat who recently said that House Republicans were in the “same stupid clown car with a different driver.” And while I’m sure many Democrats feel that way, it was Republican Rep. Dusty Johnson who uttered that memorable phrase.

    The South Dakota congressman was referring to the current House mess after eight Republicans voted (with Democrats) to oust Kevin McCarthy as speaker.

    But whether or not the House Republican majority elects a new speaker anytime soon is irrelevant. What we’re seeing now is something we haven’t seen in modern times.

    This episode is symptomatic of a historic Republican divide in the House: It’s not just over ideology but also over trust in their leaders to compromise in a way that makes the party happy.

    Much of the recent discussion over House Republican divisions tries to frame it along the right-left ideological spectrum. Those who voted against McCarthy are more conservative, on average, than the GOP at large – and this is a very conservative House majority. But there are plenty of Republicans who are quite conservative and didn’t vote McCarthy out (think Texas Rep. Chip Roy, for example).

    What’s also going on is a split over whether Republicans should try to govern by way of compromise. Are people willing to line up behind the compromises House GOP leaders have made with Democrats to keep the government going?

    Analyzing roll call votes in Congress can offer some answers. Not surprisingly, the Republican representative who has been the least friendly to party leadership this Congress is Florida’s Matt Gaetz, according to a metric produced by the academics at Voteview.

    More importantly, the difference on this score between those House Republicans most open to compromise and friendly to party leadership and those most opposed (i.e., the top fifth and bottom fifth percentiles) is wider than it has been in the past 80 years. These lawmakers on the edges of the conference are so important because of how narrow the current GOP majority is – all it takes is a few members to topple the speaker, as we saw earlier this month.

    Representatives like Gaetz didn’t pop out of nowhere. They are in the Congress because people elected them.

    Specifically, many of the same people who really like former President Donald Trump.

    Take a look at a question asked in our latest CNN/SSRS survey published on Thursday. We asked whether Republicans in Congress should “stand firm on beliefs without compromise, even if not much gets done in Washington, or work across the aisle to get things done in Washington, even if it means losing out on some high-priority policies?”

    A majority of voters who are behind Trump in the 2024 GOP primary contest (52%) wanted Republicans in Congress to stand firm. Among Republicans not behind Trump, just 23% preferred lawmakers who didn’t compromise. Most (77%) yearned for congressional Republicans who worked across the aisle.

    Of course, most Republicans (58%) are backing Trump in the primary, the CNN poll found. Part of Trump’s appeal is that he isn’t a conventional Republican who does business as usual.

    Therefore, it shouldn’t be surprising that a majority of Trump supporters (56%) approve of McCarthy being removed as speaker after he made a deal with Democrats to avoid a government shutdown.

    Among all other Republicans, only 37% approved of McCarthy’s ousting.

    I should note that among Republican voters, the idea of compromising to avert a government shutdown isn’t terribly different than it was a decade ago. What does seem to have changed, to some degree, is the people in Congress.

    GOP lawmakers who were seen as anti-establishment a decade ago – like Kentucky’s Thomas Massie, who voted to retain McCarthy as speaker – are apparently not anti-establishment enough these days.

    Folks like Massie have been pushed aside for folks like Gaetz. For at least some Republicans in Congress, this now is the party of Trump.

    Another key difference is that the current size of the House GOP majority is more reminiscent of the late 1990s and early 2000s than the tea party era of a decade ago.

    Some 25 years ago, NBC polling found that Republicans were far more open to compromise than they were to standing on principle. When it came to negotiations with Democratic President Bill Clinton, 63% of Republicans wanted compromise and only 28% wanted to stand on principles when forced to pick between the two choices.

    Today, Republicans again have a slim majority in the House – but with a party electorate willing to tolerate a lot in the name of principle. It’s no surprise then that we’re dealing with a House GOP leadership fight that seems more fitting of an Aaron Sorkin script than the real world.

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  • Abortion divides Iowa GOP voters ahead of crucial first primary debate | CNN Politics

    Abortion divides Iowa GOP voters ahead of crucial first primary debate | CNN Politics

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    Sioux City, Iowa
    CNN
     — 

    Ask Lisa McGaffey if she has ever voted for a Democrat and there is no pause.

    “Oh, heavens, no,” she says quickly and emphatically. “Oh, no. There’s no – abortion. … They have to have a chance to grow up. They have to have the chance. You never know who that’s going to be.”

    McGaffey is a loyal Donald Trump supporter and is grateful for his three appointments to the conservative Supreme Court majority that erased Roe v. Wade last year and returned the question of abortion rights to the states.

    Two-hundred miles away, in the fast growing Des Moines suburbs, Betsy Sarcone takes a different view.

    Iowa, like Florida, in recent months enacted a law outlawing most abortions at six weeks. Sarcone – a single mother and a Catholic and Republican who told us, “I don’t believe in abortion” – thinks that is too restrictive.

    “I agree with a time limit,” Sarcone said in a recent interview in her West Des Moines home. “I’ve had three babies grow inside me. I agree when you feel them kicking and you feel them moving – that’s in my heart, is a time when that (a cutoff to abortion access) would be. Which is around say, like 18 weeks, something like that typically. So in my heart, that’s what I feel. I again, I just I don’t know that much further than that it’s somebody’s place to judge.”

    Abortion is among the fault lines in the 2024 Republican campaign, and a likely debate topic in Wednesday’s first primary season showdown between Republican candidates – all of whom support abortion restrictions. It’s also an issue that splits GOP voters, even those who share an opposition to the procedure. Sarcone and McGaffey, for example, are among a group of Iowa Republicans we are tracking as part of a CNN project designed to view the 2024 campaign through the eyes of voters – to see firsthand if their views change over the course of the cycle, and if so, why.

    Among that group is also Chris Mudd, a businessman in Cedar Falls and a Trump supporter, who signals a potential warning for GOP hopefuls on abortion.

    “I’m a pro-life guy,” Mudd told us. “But I think it is a losing issue for Republicans.” Of the six-week bans enacted in Florida and later in his home state of Iowa, Mudd said: “I think that was a mistake.”

    Among Republican candidates there’s some disagreement over whether a national ban should be a priority, or whether the issue is best left to the states.

    Trump, for example, has called the six-week ban signed by DeSantis in Florida “too harsh.” The GOP front-runner is choosing to skip the Milwaukee debate.

    Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina favors a federal law banning most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Mike Pence, the former vice president and Indiana governor, supports a six-week federal ban.

    GOP rivals Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum describe themselves as staunchly “pro life” but argue the principled conservative position is that each state should make its own law. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has said she would sign a 15-week national ban, but also frequently notes the votes aren’t there in the current congressional balance of power and that the federal conversation is best put aside unless and until there is more consensus.

    Democrats see opportunity in almost any Republican conversation about abortion, citing how the issue has consistently helped galvanize voters in elections – from ballot initiatives to last year’s midterms – since the Dobbs decision.

    The last public poll on the issue in Iowa was in March, for the Des Moines Register.

    A clear majority, 61% of Iowans, said abortion should be legal in all or most cases. But the first competition here is the Republican caucuses, and the poll found that 59% of Republicans and 64% of evangelicals believed abortion should be illegal in most or all cases.

    Sarcone, a suburban Des Moines real estate agent, made a point worth remembering as the candidates debate for the first time this week.

    “I don’t know that I will have any candidate that I agree with on everything,” she said. “So the character, the leadership, the military is very important to me.”

    To that end, she listed DeSantis as her early favorite, despite her opposition to a six-week ban, but said she would consider Haley, Scott and perhaps others, too.

    Our first visit with this voter group, before the first debate, was to get a sense of how they rate the candidates and the issues early on.

    McGaffey, an administrator at the Jolly Time Pop Corn company, was the only member of the group who brought up the abortion issue in our conversations.

    Mudd, the pro-Trump businessman who’s wary of the GOP leaning too heavily into abortion, listed the economy as his lead issue.

    Similarly, attorney Priscilla Forsyth from Sioux City said abortion was not an issue on her debate priority list.

    “Issues like abortion are not my issue,” she said. “A lot of the social issues are not. It’s all the economy, really.”

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  • Arizona GOP’s rebuff of one-day, in-person, primary highlights party’s rift over election security | CNN Politics

    Arizona GOP’s rebuff of one-day, in-person, primary highlights party’s rift over election security | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Arizona state Republican chairman Jeff DeWit this week rejected a Maricopa County GOP proposal to hold a one-day state-run presidential primary in 2024, highlighting a continued fracture in the Republican Party in the wake of persistent election denialism stemming from the 2020 presidential election.

    DeWit explained why he had not called for a vote on the proposal in a Thursday email to members of the party’s executive committee. He said the GOP doesn’t have the money to conduct its own contest — or the time to implement a plan and clear potential legal hurdles.

    The decision by DeWit, who worked on former President Donald Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns, is likely to trigger backlash from conservatives in the state. The Arizona Republican Party has been driven rightward by Trump-aligned conservatives who distrust its elections and refuse to accept the losses of Trump in 2020 and a statewide slate that included gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake, another prominent election denier, in 2022.

    The Washington Post reported on the development earlier Saturday.

    Arizona has emerged in recent years as one of the nation’s most important swing states – a former Republican bastion that has shifted leftward in recent years, with Democratic victories in 2018, 2020 and 2022 Senate races and President Joe Biden defeating Trump by less than 11,000 votes out of more than 3.3 million cast in the 2020 presidential election.

    Most Arizona voters cast their ballots by mail — an option that has soared in popularity since the state legislature approved no-excuse mail-in voting in 1991 and in 2007 green-lit the creation of a permanent early voting list, allowing residents to sign up to have their ballots mailed to them each election cycle.

    Those voting norms, once championed by Republicans who controlled the state’s government, are now being targeted by conservatives who have parroted Trump’s false conspiracy theories about widespread election fraud.

    The Maricopa County GOP passed a resolution on August 26 asking the state party to back out of the state-run presidential primary and hold its own one-day affair.

    “The actions taken by the MCRC are in solidarity with President Donald J. Trump, who has been persecuted, arrested and indicted for taking the very same positions,” Maricopa County Republican Party Chairman Craig Berlin said in a video posted this week on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

    DeWit’s rejection of that proposal came just before Friday’s deadline for parties to withdraw from the government-run election. Paul Smith-Leonard, communications director for the Arizona secretary of state’s office, confirmed that no party had opted out of the presidential primary.

    DeWit said in his email that the party has “no well-articulated plan” to replace the presidential primary and “no money with which to communicate this change to Arizona Republican voters.”

    “As a result, the Party would almost certainly be forced back into the (presidential primary) by court order. There is simply not enough time or resources to make that shift in this presidential election cycle while upholding the requirement of the Bylaws that the Party act fairly to all primary candidates,” he said.

    DeWit also cited the state party’s lawyer, saying that the state GOP is “very nearly certain” the state would face federal and state lawsuits alleging that such a shift would amount to “massive voter disenfranchisement.”

    Instead, he proposed allowing the Maricopa County GOP to run a parallel primary election — one that would take place solely in Maricopa County, and be funded by the county party.

    The rift is the latest evidence that, despite narrow losses in 2018, 2020 and 2022, many Republicans in the state reject a return to the tactics at which the party once excelled — including following up with conservative voters to make sure their mail-in ballots are returned.

    There has been no broad reckoning for the party after those losses. Following her 2022 defeat, Lake launched a series of legal challenges seeking to reverse Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs’ victory.

    Following Trump’s loss in 2020, the conservative-led Arizona state Senate hired Cyber Ninjas, an inexperienced Florida-based firm, to conduct a partisan review of the over 2 million votes cast in Maricopa County.

    The sham “audit” pointed to inconsistencies that largely resulted from the inexperienced reviewers’ lack of understanding of how elections operate in Arizona. Elections experts debunked virtually all of the claims Cyber Ninjas and its subcontractors made about ballots they characterized as questionable and Maricopa County’s handling of cybersecurity.

    Its final report, released by the state Senate, was issued in September 2021, and showed that the results of reviewers’ hand recount were nearly identical to the county’s tally. Still, the report has turned into fodder for Trump-aligned conservatives, including Lake, to sow distrust in Arizona’s election process.

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  • Kevin McCarthy opens impeachment inquiry without passing budget despite once criticizing Democrats for the same | CNN Politics

    Kevin McCarthy opens impeachment inquiry without passing budget despite once criticizing Democrats for the same | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    In 2019, then-Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy vehemently criticized Democrats for initiating an impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump without first passing a budget and securing government funding to prevent a shutdown.

    Fast forward four years later and McCarthy, now the House Speaker, is pushing ahead with a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden while in the midst of another budget crisis and an unresolved looming government shutdown.

    McCarthy called for the inquiry, even as House Republicans have yet to prove allegations that Biden profited off of his son’s foreign business dealings, to appease far-right members of the Republican caucus who have threatened his speakership.

    In 2019, McCarthy said Democrats were prioritizing a politically-driven impeachment of Trump over the government’s basic responsibilities.

    “This is the day that Alexander Hamilton feared and warned would come,” he said at a news conference on December 5, 2019. “This is the day the nation is weaker because they surely cannot put their animosity or their fear of losing an election in the future in front of all the other things that the American people want.”

    “They don’t even have a budget,” he added. Congress passed a spending package two a few weeks later, averting a government shutdown.

    McCarthy did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

    Now Congress faces a looming deadline at the end of the month to fund the government and some conservative members of the Republican caucus say they will not support a bill that doesn’t contain spending cuts.

    In comments made on radio shows and in press conferences in 2019 reviewed by CNN’s KFile, McCarthy repeatedly said Democrats’ actions demeaned the impeachment process to a point that every subsequent president could be impeached – something he said he hoped wouldn’t happen.

    “This is exactly what Alexander Hamilton warned us about, that with impeachment, that you would have a party actually grab it and, and not worry about the rule of law, but just the animosity that you have. And I’ve never seen the animosity in our lifetime,” said McCarthy to California local radio station KERN in late December 2019. “I’m sure there’s been animosity like this before, but not to this level. And maybe social media and other things drive it.

    “And if you, and if you lower it to this level, when they ended up with just those two articles, every president would’ve been impeached. And what does it mean for the future? Have we, have we now demeaned impeachment so low that everybody’s gonna have this?” he added.

    “Sometimes something happens so bad we need to learn from and come back from at this moment in time,” McCarthy continued. “I hope that’s the moment of where we are.”

    Trump was impeached for the first time by the House of Representatives in 2019 on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The impeachment proceedings were initiated after allegations that he solicited foreign interference from Ukraine to benefit his 2020 reelection campaign and obstructed the subsequent congressional investigation.

    Trump was acquitted by the Senate in early 2020.

    McCarthy made similar comments at a press conference in November 2019.

    “I think what Republicans are doing is standing up for the constitution,” said McCarthy. “I think it’s the same thing that Alexander Hamilton warned us about, that you would use it for political gain from the same basis of going forward.

    “I think what Republicans are standing up for is the idea of what they ran on. First thing, I think a majority should do is pass a budget, which the Democrats have not done. They should actually make sure that they fund the government, which we have not done. We’re working to now have another continuing resolution, so our troops are not being provided the resources they need or the pay raise that they have earned.”

    McCarthy also lamented that impeachment has “overtaken every single committee” and emphasized “what is not being done in Congress.”

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