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  • Here’s what DeSantis, Christie and other Trump 2024 rivals are saying about the Georgia indictment | CNN Politics

    Here’s what DeSantis, Christie and other Trump 2024 rivals are saying about the Georgia indictment | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Donald Trump’s biggest detractors in the 2024 Republican presidential race offered mixed reactions Tuesday to the former president’s indictment by a Georgia grand jury.

    Trump has remained defiant in the face of the new charges against him and 18 others stemming from their efforts to overturn his 2020 electoral defeat. He now faces four separate indictments at the same time that he’s running for president as the front-runner for the GOP nomination.

    Two rivals argued that the charges Trump faces in Fulton County are similar to the election interference charges brought by federal special counsel Jack Smith in Washington, and said the federal case should take precedence.

    Here’s what Trump’s 2024 GOP opponents are saying about the latest indictment:

    Christie told Fox News that he is “uncomfortable” with what he views as an “unnecessary” indictment from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

    “I think that this conduct is essentially covered by the federal indictment,” he said. “I would have less of a problem with this if she decided, ‘OK, I’m not going to charge Donald Trump here, because he has been charged for, essentially this conduct, by Jack Smith.’”

    However, Christie said the Fulton County prosecution of Trump’s close allies, including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, was “more defensible” because they “have not been charged at the federal level” like Trump has.

    Christie defended the timing of Willis’ indictment, saying that Trump’s decision to run in 2024 was “not an excuse” for the justice system to stop operating.

    “I think all of these judges in the end will make decisions based upon the reasonable availability of all the witnesses and everyone else,” he said.

    Later, in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Christie was asked whether Willis might have brought charges against Trump because he wouldn’t be able to shut down the state case and pardon himself if he is elected president again in 2024, Christie said, “I don’t think that’s the prosecutor’s job. The prosecutor’s job is to look at how do you administer justice in this case.”

    He said Republican voters should ask themselves, “Is someone out on bail in four jurisdictions really our best chance to beat Joe Biden?”

    “Are we really going to continue to act as if this is normal conduct? It’s not,” he said.

    Hutchinson, who has long called for Trump to drop out of the race because of his conduct, said the latest indictment further strengthens his belief that the former president should not be seeking the 2024 GOP nomination.

    But much like Christie, he said he believes Willis may be stepping outside her jurisdiction, given the federal charges Trump faces.

    “Generally, state cases are deferential to the federal cases that have been brought, and I think you can make the case that Georgia should have been deferential because there’s overlap there as well, but it is what it is,” Hutchinson said.

    Another strident Trump critic, Hurd said in a statement that Trump’s latest indictment was “another example of how the former president’s baggage will hand Joe Biden reelection if Trump is the Republican nominee.”

    “This is further evidence that Trump knew he lost the 2020 election and was ready to do anything it took to cling to power,” Hurd said. “It’s time we move beyond dealing with the former president’s baggage. The Republican Party needs a leader who isn’t afraid of bullies like Trump.”

    The tech entrepreneur was sharply critical of the charges Trump faces in Georgia.

    At a NewsNation town hall Monday night, Ramaswamy said he hadn’t read the details of the indictments but painted the multiple investigations into Trump in multiple jurisdictions as an effort to negatively impact the former president’s chances of winning the 2024 election.

    “These are politicized persecutions through prosecution,” Ramaswamy said. “It would be a lot easier for me if Donald Trump were not in this primary, but that is not how I want to win this election. The way we do elections in the United States of America is that we the people – you all – get to decide who governs, not the federal police state.”

    DeSantis, Trump’s top-polling primary rival who has criticized the prosecution of the former president, told New England reporters Tuesday that the Georgia indictment is an example of the “criminalization of politics.”

    “They’re now doing an inordinate amount of resources to try to shoehorn this contest over the 2020 election into a RICO statute, which was really designed to be able to go after organized crime, not necessarily to go after political activity,” the governor told WMUR at a news conference, referring to a racketeering charge brought against Trump. “And so, I think it’s an example of this criminalization of politics. I don’t think that this is something that is good for the country.”

    DeSantis later told reporters in New Hampshire that he thinks Trump is currently leading in the 2024 GOP primary in polls in part because of how Republican voters have responded to the indictments.

    “Clearly, there’s been a change in some of the polling since the Alvin Bragg case was brought,” DeSantis said in reference to the indictment brought by the Manhattan district attorney against Trump related to an alleged hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels. “I think that’s just irrefutable.”

    Much like DeSantis, Scott, rather than criticizing Trump’s actions, lambasted the prosecution of the former president.

    “We see the legal system being weaponized against political opponents,” the senator told reporters Tuesday at the Iowa State Fair. “That is un-American and unacceptable.”

    Scott said he hopes to “restore confidence and integrity” to the legal system if he were to become president.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Abortion politics take center stage after Biden campaign capitalizes on GOP debate rift | CNN Politics

    Abortion politics take center stage after Biden campaign capitalizes on GOP debate rift | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    More than a year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Republican candidates remain split over how to move forward on abortion, a political liability Democrats are eager to exploit regardless of who becomes the Republican nominee.

    The GOP divide was laid bare on the debate stage this week, as candidates backed a 15-week abortion ban, deferred to the states or tried to split the difference. President Joe Biden’s campaign responded immediately in a new digital ad, painting the field’s top contenders as extreme on the issue – and signaling what the Democratic campaign is likely to focus on in the coming year.

    When it comes to the future of abortion access, Republican candidates are facing pressure on all sides.

    GOP-led state legislatures have passed a wave of complete or near-total abortion bans that go beyond what most Americans support. Voters have supported abortion rights ballot initiatives and candidates in several key elections over the last year. And anti-abortion and evangelical groups are demanding presidential candidates go on the offensive and get as specific as possible.

    “The debate reflected the many different views among Republicans regarding abortion policy: not only what the policy ought to be, but what level of government ought to be making the decisions,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster. “There’s no real consensus at this point.”

    Biden’s reelection campaign has also homed in on remarks GOP candidates made on abortion during the debate. In talking points sent out to surrogates Wednesday night, the campaign claimed Republicans “spent two hours shouting over each other on … who has the best plan to ban abortion nationwide,” CNN reported Thursday.

    Biden’s team followed up Friday morning with a digital ad, “These Guys,” highlighting comments former President Donald Trump, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have made on abortion, including a clip of DeSantis on the debate stage. The ad, aimed at women in seven battleground states, is part of a $25 million ad campaign CNN first reported earlier this week.

    The ad also reaffirms Biden’s stance on abortion: that the U.S. should maintain the standard set in the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which allowed for abortion up until fetal viability, generally viewed as around 24 weeks.

    “This ad is the first of many that will hold all MAGA Republicans accountable for their extreme, losing positions throughout the cycle, while also highlighting the President’s support for women and their fundamental freedoms,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement.

    Polling suggests that Americans support some legal abortion, but with limits. Seventy-three percent of respondents to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released last month said abortion should be allowed during the first six weeks of pregnancy, including 88% of Democrats and 56% of Republicans surveyed. Asked if states should allow abortion at 15 weeks, 51% of those surveyed said yes, including 75% of Democrats and 29% of Republicans.

    Only 27% of those surveyed supported allowing abortion until 24 weeks of pregnancy.

    Democrats are hoping that abortion access will continue to be an issue that helps them with voters heading into 2024. Since last year’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision overturned Roe and left abortion access up to individual states, Democrats and abortion rights activists have racked up a number of wins in special elections and ballot initiatives, and the party overperformed in the 2022 midterm elections.

    Trump – whose handpicked nominees lost key Senate races in Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia – went on to write a January social media post blaming the party’s midterm losses on “the ‘abortion issue,’ poorly handled by many Republicans, especially those that insisted on No Exceptions.”

    Tom Bonier, chief executive of TargetSmart, a Democratic political targeting firm, said he expects abortion will be an even stronger issue for his party heading into the 2024 election.

    “The evidence that we’re seeing at this point is that abortion rights as a political issue is having an even greater impact than it did last year, which is saying a lot because it had a huge impact on elections in 2022,” he said.

    Bonier cited two causes for abortion’s growing influence. Voters, he said, no longer have to imagine what life would look like after Roe. They’re experiencing it firsthand. At the same time, Republicans have not adopted their message to address the political climate, he said. That dynamic was on display in the ad released by the Biden campaign Friday.

    “It literally speaks for itself as an issue at this point, that Republicans have not moderated, that in some ways they’ve actually got further to the right,” he said.

    Nearly two dozen states have moved to ban or restrict abortion in the wake of Dobbs. Some of the bans have been blocked in court, including the six-week limit DeSantis signed in April. Abortion is currently legal in Florida until 15 weeks of pregnancy.

    Republicans have begun to coalesce around the idea of a federal abortion ban after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, an anti-abortion group, has called on candidates to support the 15-week limit at minimum, with room for states to pass more restrictive measures.

    “A number of GOP officeholders and even presidential aspirants use ‘states’ rights’ as an excuse to tape their mouths shut on abortion,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, wrote in a Thursday Washington Post op-ed with former Trump White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway. “This should not, and will not, stand.”

    Former UN Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and DeSantis all declined to commit to signing a 15-week ban, while former Vice President Mike Pence and Scott did. The latter two criticized their opponents in post-debate interviews. Scott said in a Thursday Fox News interview that it is “a problem for our nation” that some candidates said they would not commit to a 15-week ban, while Pence also took a jab at Trump.

    “Whether it be with Gov. Desantis or Nikki Haley or others onstage, frankly most of the candidates running, including the one that did not show up tonight, are all trying to relegate the question of abortion as a states-only issue,” he told CNN’s Dana Bash on Wednesday.

    Trump has not said whether he would back a 15-week ban and has suggested he would leave it with the states. In May, he criticized the six-week ban DeSantis signed as “too harsh” for the anti-abortion movement but declined to say whether he supported it personally. A month later he told the audience at a Faith and Freedom Coalition conference that while there “remains a vital role for the federal government” to play in abortion policy, people want it to be a state-level issue.

    “I believe the greatest progress for pro-life is now being made in the states, where everyone wanted to be,” Trump said. Pence used his remarks at the same conference to call on every GOP candidate to back a 15-week ban as a national standard.

    If a consensus is reached it will likely be whatever the eventual Republican nominee backs, though Ayres would advise candidates to leave the issue to the states — if that’s what they personally believe, he said.

    “Ultimately, a candidate has to look into his or her heart and soul to find a position they’re comfortable with, otherwise, they’ll never be able to articulate it effectively,” he said.

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  • RFK Jr. is polling high for an independent. But it may not last | CNN Politics

    RFK Jr. is polling high for an independent. But it may not last | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is expected to announce Monday that he is dropping out of the Democratic presidential primary and will run as an independent. The move would come after Kennedy’s calls for a debate with President Joe Biden went nowhere and with Biden continuing to hold a 50-point advantage in primary polling.

    But while Kennedy’s bid for the Democratic nomination was largely inconsequential, he could play a big role as an independent candidate in determining the winner of the general election.

    The polling on an independent run by Kennedy is limited, but the data we do have suggests he would start out as one of the strongest third-party or independent candidates this century.

    A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted this past week among likely voters finds former President Donald Trump at 40%, Biden at 38% and Kennedy at 14% in a hypothetical November 2024 matchup. The 2-point difference between Biden and Trump looks a lot like other surveys we’ve seen and is well within the margin of error.

    But from a historical perspective, the 14% for Kennedy is quite unusual. Consider Gary Johnson, the 2016 Libertarian nominee for president. Like this cycle, the two major party nominees in 2016 (Democrat Hillary Clinton and Trump) were unpopular. Johnson, though, appears to never have hit 14% in any poll when matched up against Clinton and Trump.

    Indeed, I can’t find any instance of an eventual third-party or independent candidate getting to 14% in a national poll since Ross Perot in the 1996 cycle.

    Now, the chance of Kennedy garnering 14% of the vote next November is not high. Non-major-party candidates almost always fade down the stretch.

    We can see this, again, by using the Johnson example from 2016. The former New Mexico governor polled at 4% or above in every national poll before September 2020 that met CNN’s standards for publication. He averaged 8% of the vote in those polls and frequently registered in the double digits.

    Johnson ended up getting a mere 3% come Election Day.

    And he isn’t alone. At one point in the 1992 campaign, independent Perot led both major-party nominees; he ultimately ended up a distant third. Independent John Anderson was often polling in the 20s in national surveys of the 1980 election, before getting less than 7% that November.

    We obviously don’t know if or how much Kennedy’s polling might change between now and the election. Still, even if he ends up with the same level of support as Johnson, it could make a big difference.

    At the moment, Biden and Trump are close in the national polls. Some surveys have Biden slightly ahead. Others give Trump the edge. The same is true in swing states like Pennsylvania, where Biden and Trump are within the margin of error of each other.

    If Kennedy takes disproportionately from either Biden or Trump, it could tip the balance of the election.

    The question, therefore, is: Which one of them should fear a Kennedy candidacy more?

    The answer is far from clear at this early stage. Although Kennedy has so far been running in the Democratic primary, his favorability ratings are far higher among Republicans. He was just announced as a speaker at an upcoming Conservative Political Action Conference event, after all.

    Still, most of Kennedy’s admirers on the GOP side also hold a favorable view of Trump, according to a Quinnipiac University poll from last month. It’s tough to see Trump-supporting Republicans voting for Kennedy, even if they like him too.

    When you drill down to Democrats (and independents who lean their way) and Republicans (and GOP-leaning independents) who don’t hold a favorable view of their party’s front-runners, Kennedy is about equally liked. His favorability rating among this group of Democrats is 31%, while it’s 32% among this group of Republicans.

    In the Ipsos poll of a potential general election, Kennedy got 12% from Republicans and 9% from Democrats. This isn’t a big difference, but you could see it helping Biden in a very close election.

    The Ipsos poll also found that when an unnamed third-party candidate is matched up against Biden and Trump, Biden comes in with 43% to Trump’s 42%. That 1-point deficit for Trump (within the margin of error) is worse for him than his 2-point lead (again, within the margin of error) when Kennedy is included instead of a generic third-party candidate. Kennedy’s presence on the ballot could therefore benefit Republicans a tad more.

    One thing that does seem true from the Ipsos and Quinnipiac data is that among voters who either didn’t vote in 2020 or aren’t likely to vote this time around, Kennedy has better net favorability ratings and trails the front-runners by a narrower margin.

    This means Kennedy could drive up voter turnout but still not affect the election outcome.

    The race between Biden and Trump is so close, though, that I’m not sure either side wants to risk a Kennedy candidacy potentially taking votes away from them.

    We’ll see what happens over the next 13 months.

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  • Ramaswamy looks to distinguish himself from Trump with conservative policy address | CNN Politics

    Ramaswamy looks to distinguish himself from Trump with conservative policy address | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy is focused on a new objective weeks after his standout debate performance, when he just wanted to get his name out. Now he’s looking to differentiate himself from former President Donald Trump, display his policy chops and establish himself as an authentic MAGA-aligned Republican candidate.

    His campaign is widely touting a speech he’s giving Wednesday, when he’s also releasing a white paper on his domestic policy proposals. In a sharpening of his message toward the former president, whom he’s defended and praised since launching his campaign in February, he’s expected to focus on an issue he believes Trump failed to adequately address – shrinking the size of the federal government.

    The positioning of this first-time candidate – and the way he’s now setting out his own ideas to prove he’s not a Trump acolyte – suggests his campaign is looking for staying power in the 2024 Republican primary still dominated by the former president.

    “He needs to differentiate himself from Donald Trump,” a veteran Republican campaign strategist said, stressing the importance of candidates coming across as authentic. “If he wants to go to the next level, he needs to start figuring a way to differentiate himself [from Trump] instead of trying to be him.”

    The Ohio-based entrepreneur is expected on Wednesday to lay out the details of a policy to eliminate multiple federal agencies and implement mass layoffs of federal employees – part of his effort to set himself apart from other Republicans, including Trump, ahead of the next debate later this month.

    Contrasting Trump’s record with his own proposals is a new tactic for Ramaswamy. He has resoundingly defended the Trump administration on several issues and the former president amidst criminal indictments in four different investigations. He has repeatedly pledged to pardon Trump of any federal charges on his first day in office, frequently denouncing Trump’s legal jeopardy as “political persecution by prosecution.” During last month’s debate, he called Trump “the greatest president of the 21st century.”

    Wednesday’s speech at the America First Policy Institute, a think tank founded in 2021 by former Trump administration officials, gives Ramaswamy an opportunity to make the case for his conservative vision and how it might go further than Trump’s. Ramaswamy has regularly touted his vision for eliminating the “deep state” as going beyond what Trump’s was able to do in office and what he’s suggested for another four years. The speech is expected to detail what Ramaswamy’s campaign sees as the legal justification for his argument that the president has the authority to overhaul the structure of the federal government.

    “I think that’s going to be a groundbreaking, seismic leap for our movement. Takes the America First movement to the next level,” Ramaswamy said in a preview of his speech to reporters in Durham, New Hampshire, on Sunday.

    A policy paper prepared by the campaign and obtained by CNN spells out the legal framework Ramaswamy believes would give him authority as president to eliminate the Department of Education, the FBI and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and lay off thousands of workers in the process. It details how Ramaswamy would navigate around civil service protections for federal employees by using a loophole that he says allows for a “reduction in force” to fall under different criteria than individual firings. And it cites provisions in a 1977 law outlining a pathway for a short-term reorganization of the executive branch during the Carter administration, which Ramaswamy says are still in effect and give the president power to change the organization of any federal agency.

    “Conservatives have long been frustrated by an expansive and unaccountable federal administrative state, but the good news is that the democratically elected leader of the executive branch is already empowered by Congress to dramatically reduce the size and scope of sprawling federal agencies,” Ramaswamy says in the policy paper. “The missing element is a U.S. President who reads the law carefully and is prepared to act accordingly.”

    A graduate of Yale Law School, Ramaswamy often cites his familiarity with constitutional law as a key differentiator between himself and Trump, whom he has characterized as being naively misled by advisers in his efforts to reduce the size of the federal bureaucracy.

    “I think the combination we’re going to need is, on one hand, a president who is an outsider, who is not a product of that swamp, who is willing to have complete and total disregard for the norms of that bureaucracy, and I do have that,” Ramaswamy told the audience at a campaign event in Hollis, New Hampshire, on Sunday.

    “But it also has to be an outsider who has a first-personal understanding of the law and the Constitution of this country, or else the adviser class that comes from that same swamp is going to say, ‘Hey, here are all the reasons why you can’t do it.’”

    “I think that’s where my predecessor, Donald Trump, fell short, is the adviser class duped him,” he added.

    Ramaswamy proved last month that he could be a formidable debater, squabbling at times on stage with former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, while also trying to avoid alienating Trump-aligned voters.

    That debate earned him more attention – which has included questions about what exactly his reasoning for running for president is and whether he is a true champion of the MAGA movement who wants to usher in a new more conservative era.

    Ramaswamy has stressed in recent interviews that he’s not attracted to the allure of the presidency; he just wants to have more of an impact achieving conservative policy goals than Trump did.

    “I don’t relish the idea of being president,” Ramaswamy said in an interview with the “REAL AF with Andy Frisella” podcast. “When we started this campaign, we were playing to win, my heart was in it to win. But now it’s real, right? We’re on a trajectory, the same trajectory that Trump was. Honestly, I was talking to my wife two nights ago and saying, ‘I think this is going to happen.’ Neither of us is looking forward to it. But by the time we get out in January 2033, our older son, he won’t even be in high school yet, I think we will feel good about what we did for this country.”

    Ramaswamy, who’s restarting his podcast with a second season this week, so far has taken an always-visible-always-available approach, which may have helped boost his name recognition in the primary. A CNN poll conducted after the first debate showed Ramaswamy with 6% support among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, far below Trump’s 52%. But he was the only participant in that debate whose standing improved significantly since June polling.

    Alice Stewart, a Republican strategist and CNN political commentator, noted that Ramaswamy’s campaign is now in a moment where the scrutiny is greater.

    “This is the time when, as a campaign and a candidate, you have to be careful about what you say and how you say it because everything is going to get picked apart,” Stewart said.

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  • America’s political turmoil hampers its capacity to lead through yet another global crisis | CNN Politics

    America’s political turmoil hampers its capacity to lead through yet another global crisis | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A weekend of terror in Israel has sharpened already grave questions about the capacity of the politically fractured United States to lay out a unified and coherent response to a world spinning out of its control.

    When the House of Representatives descended into chaos last week, many Republicans, Democrats and independent experts warned that anarchy raging in US politics sent a dangerous message to the outside world. But no one could foresee just how quickly the paralysis in Washington would test the country’s reaction to a major global crisis.

    The horrific Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians, which have killed hundreds of people and shattered the country’s sense of security, thrust the Middle East to the precipice of a new era of violence and instability. This followed a period of relative calm and after US presidents spent years trying to extricate American forces from the region.

    Israel’s response to the carnage caused by a major Iranian proxy raises the possibility of a wider regional war that would further destabilize the global order already rocked by the war in Ukraine and China’s flagrant challenges to Western power.

    A situation this dangerous requires a calm, united and thoughtful US response, supported across the political spectrum. But the turmoil in America’s politics – plagued by internal extremism, threats to democracy and the hyperpoliticization of foreign policy – means it will be an impossible task to bring the country together at a perilous moment.

    Swift efforts by lawmakers to quickly register support for Israel and to rush extra aid to its government could be hampered by the collapse of the Republican Party’s ability to govern in the House after the ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy last week by his party’s extreme elements.

    And the US is also facing an unprecedented election season. A president with low approval ratings confronting questions about his advanced age could go up against a potential Republican nominee who could be an indicted felon by Election Day. This means, at best, the United States will spend the coming months preoccupied by its own political plight. At worst, the world’s superpower guarantor of democracy could actually worsen global disruption and instability.

    Republican front-runner Donald Trump rushed to exploit the crisis for his political gain, accusing President Joe Biden of causing the conflict because of “weakness.”

    “Joe Biden betrayed Israel, he betrayed our country. As president, I will once again stand with Israel,” Trump said.

    Foreign policy issues rarely decide US elections. But the danger for Biden and the opening for Trump is that yet another crisis abroad could foment an idea that the world is in turmoil, American power is weakening and Biden is hapless. At home and abroad, chaos is Trump’s friend as he seeks to foment the classic conditions that benefit aspiring autocrats promising strongman rule.

    Fractured American governance doesn’t simply pose a material issue for Israel and for Ukraine, whose US lifeline as it battles Russia’s unprovoked invasion is now in extreme jeopardy due to far-right Republicans. The spectacle also suggests to US enemies – including Iran, the main supporter of Hamas, and Russia and China – that the US is hopelessly divided and may struggle to wield power to safeguard its interests.

    “It wasn’t my idea to oust the speaker. I thought it was dangerous,” Rep. Michael McCaul, the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “I look at the world and all the threats that are out there, and what kind of message are we sending to our adversaries when we can’t govern, when we’re dysfunctional, when we don’t even have a speaker of the House?

    “How does Chairman Xi in China look at that when he says democracy doesn’t work?” the Texas Republican added. “How does the Ayatollah look at this, knowing that we cannot function properly? And I think it sends a terrible message.”

    US sends a message of chaos and weakness

    The shuttered House created a particularly damaging symbol of the US – and the democratic system of governance it promotes around the world – in disarray. The Biden administration has the capacity to send immediate military aid to Israel, whose government has asked Washington for JDAM precision-guided munition kits and more interceptors for the Iron Dome air defense system as Hamas rockets rain down on Israeli cities. But any delay in seating a new speaker and creating a functioning majority in the House could have serious consequence.

    Republican Rep. Michael Lawler, who faces a tough reelection in a New York district that Biden would have carried in 2020 under its new lines, warned that the chaos in the House needs to end. “Given the situation in the Middle East with one of our closest allies in the world, it is critical that we bring this to a close expeditiously,” Lawler told CNN’s Dana Bash. “And so, I think it is imperative, frankly, that this nonsense stop, that Kevin McCarthy be reinstated as speaker,” Lawler added.

    Republicans left town after ousting McCarthy last week, and are expected to try to choose between Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, who has the backing of Trump, and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise this week. But given the demands of extremists in the GOP conference, the complications of a tiny majority and the fact it took McCarthy a marathon 15 rounds of balloting to win the job in January, there is no guarantee that strong, new Republican leadership will quickly emerge.

    While there is crossparty consensus over supporting Israel in the House, the US response to another murderous assault on a vulnerable democracy – Ukraine – threatens to be derailed by America’s viciously polarized politics in a way that could seriously erode Washington’s global leadership.

    Right-wing Republicans who back Trump are echoing the former president’s opposition to further US aid and ammunition to Ukraine. While there is still a majority in favor of such measures in the House and the Senate, any future Republican speaker will likely have to pass aid packages with the help of Democratic votes – the very scenario that caused McCarthy’s fall as he tried to head off a damaging government shutdown (even though that stopgap funding bill did not include Ukraine aid, as the White House had wanted).

    Already, the political showdown over Ukraine is causing deep concern in Kyiv that it will be unable to continue its fight against Russia in the current form without the more than $20 billion in assistance that the Biden administration has requested.

    In a broader sense, the possibility that a populist, nationalist wing of the Republican Party under Trump could desert a democracy under attack from Russia – and therefore reward the aggression of an autocrat who shaped his worldview as a member of the KGB – threatens to not just shatter the logic of decades of US foreign policy, but to fundamentally change the US’ role in the world and the values on which its allies believed they could depend.

    The politicization of global crises is not just confined to Israel or Ukraine. A Chinese spy balloon that wafted over US soil this year caused an extraordinary outburst of Republican fury toward Biden, which threatened to tie the president’s hands when managing the critical issue of US relations with the Pacific superpower.

    A growing sense abroad that America’s political problems are limiting its ability to lead globally could also have a devastating effect on its power. This can only play into the hands of enemies in Beijing, Moscow and Tehran, who have all sought to influence US elections, according to US intelligence agencies, and all have strong geopolitical incentives in seeing American democracy fail.

    The extraordinary and sudden Hamas attack on Israel – which has been compared to the September 11 attacks in the United States, and in terms of per capita casualties was far more bloody – falls into the category of tragedies that could change the world.

    Aside from the awful human toll – now also being felt by Palestinian civilians in Gaza, where hundreds have perished in the initial Israel reprisal attacks on the infrastructure of Hamas – the onslaught will have far-reaching strategic consequences that will be felt in the US.

    If evidence is found that Iran directly plotted the attack with Hamas, there will be huge pressure on the Israelis to respond by directly confronting the Islamic Republic, at the risk of sparking a wider regional conflagration that could draw in the United States.

    The attacks and their fallout are also almost certain to disrupt the effort, in which the US is a key player, to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and allied Arab states. Such an agreement would fundamentally reshape the region and further isolate Iran – a logical reason why it could have had an interest in perpetrating the Hamas assault. US officials are still trying to establish how, if at all, Iran was involved.

    The horror in Israel presents Biden with another fearsome foreign policy crisis as he contemplates his reelection bid – alongside the war in Ukraine and a rising confrontation with China.

    It comes at a moment of political vulnerability for the administration as it seeks to explain why it made a deal to release US prisoners from Iran that resulted in the release of $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds. The Iranian government can use the funds only to buy humanitarian and medical supplies. The deal took place far too recently for such money to be used to finance this attack. But such subtleties don’t count for much in an election year, as multiple Republican presidential candidates accused the president of funding Iranian terror.

    Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday tried to defuse the political impact of the agreement. “Not a single dollar has been spent from that account. And, again, the account is closely regulated by the US Treasury Department, so it can only be used for things like food, medicine, medical equipment,” he insisted on “State of the Union.”

    But, in a political sense, it only matters that enough Americans believe what the Republicans are saying is true.

    GOP hopeful Nikki Haley, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, for instance, implied Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that funds that Iran may not have to spend on medicine because of the hostage deal could now be spent on terror.

    “Secretary Blinken is just wrong to imply that this money is not being moved around as we speak,” Haley said, although her argument is undercut by the fact that Iran’s clerical regime has rarely seemed to prioritize the humanitarian needs of its people while building up a huge state military complex.

    Another 2024 candidate, GOP Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, went even further, accusing Biden – who has been one of the strongest Washington supporters of Israel in half a century in politics – of being “complicit” in the attacks.

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  • Tim Pawlenty Fast Facts | CNN Politics

    Tim Pawlenty Fast Facts | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at the life of Tim Pawlenty, former Republican governor of Minnesota.

    Birth date: November 27, 1960

    Birth place: St. Paul, Minnesota

    Birth name: Timothy James Pawlenty

    Father: Gene Pawlenty, a truck driver

    Mother: Virginia “Ginny” Pawlenty

    Marriage: Mary (Anderson) Pawlenty (1987-present)

    Children: Mara, 1996; Anna, 1993

    Education: University of Minnesota, B.A., Political Science, 1983; University of Minnesota, J.D., 1986

    Religion: Evangelical Christian

    Opposes abortion and same-sex marriage.

    His mother died of ovarian cancer when he was 16.

    Worked at an Applebaum’s grocery store to put himself through college and law school.

    1989-2000 – Attorney at Rider, Bennett, Egan & Arundel law firm.

    1990-1992 – Serves on Eagan City Council in Minnesota.

    January 5, 1993-January 6, 2003 – Member of Minnesota House of Representatives, from District 38B, Eagan.

    1999-2003 – Minnesota House Majority Leader.

    2000-2002 – Vice president of WIZMO, an internet consulting company.

    2001 – Plans to run for US Senate in 2002, but receives a call from Vice President Dick Cheney asking him to step aside for fellow Republican Norm Coleman.

    January 6, 2003-January 3, 2011 – Serves two terms as Republican governor of Minnesota. Elected on November 5, 2002.

    January 2007 – Senator John McCain’s (R-AZ) presidential exploratory committee announces Pawlenty will co-chair McCain’s presidential campaign if McCain runs.

    September 4, 2008 – Speaks at the Republican National Convention.

    June 2, 2009 – Announces he will not run for a third term as governor.

    January 13, 2011 – Begins tour for his book, “Courage to Stand: An American Story,” traveling to key election states New Hampshire and Iowa.

    March 21, 2011 – Announces the formation of a presidential exploratory committee, via a Facebook video.

    April 12, 2011 – On CNN’s “Piers Morgan Tonight” Pawlenty says, “I’m running for president. I’m not putting my hat in the ring rhetorically or ultimately for vice president. I’m focused on running for president.” Pawlenty’s campaign says the comments were not an official announcement.

    May 23, 2011 – Officially announces his candidacy for president, during a town hall-style meeting at the State of Iowa Historical Building in Des Moines.

    August 14, 2011 – Drops out of the presidential race.

    September 12, 2011 – Endorses Mitt Romney for president and joins Romney’s campaign as national co-chair.

    September 20, 2012 – Pawlenty announces he is stepping down as national co-chairman of Romney’s presidential campaign to take a job as president and CEO of the Financial Services Roundtable, a Washington, DC-based lobbying group. His new role formally begins November 1.

    April 5, 2018 – In a video announcement, Pawlenty officially declares himself a candidate for Minnesota governor.

    February 6, 2018 – Announces his March resignation from the Financial Services Roundtable (which later merges to become the Bank Policy Institute).

    August 14, 2018 – Loses in the Republican gubernatorial primary to Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Johnson.

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  • DeSantis faces new leadership test as Hurricane Idalia barrels toward Florida | CNN Politics

    DeSantis faces new leadership test as Hurricane Idalia barrels toward Florida | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    With the eyes of the country on Hurricane Idalia as it spins toward Florida’s Gulf Coast, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential ambitions are also under the spotlight as he puts his campaign on hold to manage the crisis at home.

    DeSantis flew back to Tallahassee from Iowa on Saturday night and has since appeared regularly on Florida televisions with updates on Idalia’s path and state efforts to prepare for the approaching storm. From behind a lectern with the state seal, the Republican governor has matter-of-factly shared logistics and warnings.

    The coming days will present a range of tests for DeSantis to navigate during a critical juncture in his governorship and White House bid. His stewardship of the hurricane response and recovery efforts will be closely scrutinized by his political opponents and Republican voters, watching whether he can lead through difficult moments, comfort the aggrieved and learn from the lessons of past storms.

    It is not clear when DeSantis will return to the campaign trail. In a text message to supporters, his campaign said it would go dark for a few days, adding: “Before we sign off, can we ask you to chip in any amount you can to support our end-of-month fundraising push?”

    For his part, DeSantis said he will be in Florida for as long as necessary.

    “You do what you need to do,” DeSantis said Tuesday. “So that’s what we’re doing. It’s going to be no different than what we did during Hurricane Ian [last year]. I’m hoping that this storm is not as catastrophic as Hurricane Ian was, but we’re gonna do what we need to do because it’s just something that’s important.”

    While no Florida executive would publicly suggest a hurricane is an opportunity to showcase leadership chops, past storms have certainly tested governors and forged their legacies. DeSantis’ predecessor, Republican Rick Scott, dealt with Hurricane Michael just weeks before the 2018 election, when he was running for US Senate against incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson. Scott leaned into managing the crisis with gusto and ultimately won his race in a recount.

    Perhaps no one did more to solidify their standing among Floridians during such disasters as former GOP Gov. Jeb Bush, whose handling of eight hurricanes during a deadly two-year stretch of tropical weather is still remembered by those who experienced the devastation. One of those hurricanes, Katrina, forever altered perceptions of the presidency of Bush’s older brother, George W. Bush, showcasing how storms can also plunge an executive into crisis.

    Those past Florida governors, though, were not running for president. Rarely have incumbent state executives faced a disaster of Idalia’s potential magnitude in the throes of a White House bid.

    The most notable recent exception is Republican Chris Christie, who as New Jersey governor in 2016 returned to his home state to manage a blizzard amid criticism for putting the presidential race ahead of his elected duties. At the time, Christie was campaigning in New Hampshire, which was just weeks away from holding the first-in-the-nation primary. Christie is once again running for the GOP nomination.

    “I don’t think any presidential candidate wants to be taken off the campaign trail. But you can’t ignore your day job,” said Alex Conant, a senior adviser to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign. “Insufficient responses to storms have ended political careers. Every governor takes the threat of a hurricane seriously because if the response is mishandled, not only are lives at stake, but there’s political fallout.”

    In the past 24 hours, DeSantis’ team has signaled it would not shy away from showcasing the governor’s storm response to Republican voters. His aides have shared posts on social media of people praising DeSantis’ activity so far, with his office press secretary writing on X, “Find you a leader that shows up like @GovRonDeSantis.” In a memo sent Tuesday, DeSantis spokesman Andrew Romeo wrote that DeSantis is “now at the helm of Florida’s hurricane response and is working with local officials across the state to do everything necessary to ensure Florida is fully prepared.”

    “This is the strong leadership in times of crisis that Americans can expect from a President DeSantis,” Romeo added.

    Just as he did last year, when Hurricane Ian slammed into Florida amid his race for reelection, DeSantis has vowed to put partisan politics aside for the time being. Though a regular critic of President Joe Biden – including over the Democrat’s response to the Maui wildfires – DeSantis said he has spoken with the president and expects the two administrations to work in concert toward Florida’s recovery.

    “There’s time and a place to have political season, but then there’s a time and a place to say that this is something that’s life-threatening. This is something that could potentially cost somebody their life, it could cost them their livelihood, and we have responsibility as Americans to come together,” DeSantis said Monday.

    (Coming off the devastation in Hawaii, Biden is facing a separate range of questions about his administration’s response to yet another natural catastrophe.)

    DeSantis’ departure from the campaign trail comes just days after the first GOP presidential debate at a moment when his team believes voters are starting to tune into the race. He is trailing Donald Trump in GOP primary polling but is aggressively challenging the former president in early nominating states.

    The Florida governor is also staving off a field of GOP contenders, who must now also balance sensitivities around Hurricane Idalia with their attempts to overcome DeSantis in the polls.

    “DeSantis is going to get a breather in terms of attacks,” said Todd Belt, director of the political management program at George Washington University and author of “The Post-Heroic Presidency.”

    “This is similar to what we see in the rally-around-the-flag phenomena,” Belt said. “When there’s something that affects the country more generally, the other party ceases attacks on the incumbent party. It helps in the polls, at least temporarily. It would look really bad for other Republicans to criticize DeSantis during this time, and the question is how long will they wait? It’s worth noting that Florida is an extremely important electoral state.”

    Storm response has already become part of DeSantis’ pitch to voters. On the campaign trail, he has often shared the story of the swift reopening of two bridges destroyed by Hurricane Ian as evidence of his executive management. DeSantis has also asserted that he could send his “Florida people” to the southern border to build a wall.

    “Come on, Joe (Biden),” he said earlier this year. “Let us get it done. We’ll do it.”

    But Ian also generated some negative attention for DeSantis. Images of the governor wearing white rain boots and campaign gear as he surveyed storm-ravaged regions provided fodder for his political detractors and were spread widely on social media by Democrats and Trump supporters.

    DeSantis was also forced to defend the late local evacuation orders last year that left many coastal residents in Lee County unprepared for Ian’s deadly turn, despite the persistent threat of cataclysmic storm surge.

    Though DeSantis said this week that the state has not changed its evacuation protocols, he and state officials have emphasized that Idalia could bring dangerous storm surge all along Florida’s west coast, even outside the projected path of the storm. This year, he has spent time warning residents who are outside the forecasted “cone” – or the probable track of the center of the storm.

    Idalia is forecast to make landfall near Florida’s Big Bend area as a Category 3 hurricane or stronger, potentially bringing record storm surge to a part of the state’s west coast that has not experienced a storm of this magnitude in more than 150 years.

    While the storm is perhaps an opportunity for DeSantis to show strength in mobilizing his administration to respond to a storm, the expected devastation also has the potential to challenge DeSantis’ limitations as a consoler in chief, a role Biden has embraced during national tragedies.

    DeSantis’ capacity for compassion has already come under fire this week following his rushed response to Saturday’s killing of three Black people by a White gunman in Jacksonville. His office on Saturday shared a video statement from DeSantis that seemed hastily shot in front of white vinyl siding in Iowa, during which he called the racially targeted attack “totally unacceptable.” The next day he attended a vigil for the victims where he called the shooter a “major league scumbag.”

    The tone of his remarks and his appearance at the vigil drew criticism from those who wanted DeSantis to acknowledge efforts by his administration to alter how Florida students learn about race and the lived experience of Black Americans.

    “A white man in his early twenties specifically went to kill BLACK PEOPLE,” Democratic state Rep. Angie Nixon, who represents Jacksonville and was photographed next to DeSantis at the vigil wearing a “Stand with Black Women” shirt, posted on X. “The governor of our state of Florida has created an environment ripe for this.”

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  • Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announces independent run for president, ending Democratic primary challenge to Biden | CNN Politics

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announces independent run for president, ending Democratic primary challenge to Biden | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Environmental lawyer and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced on Monday his independent candidacy for president, officially ending his effort to defeat President Joe Biden in the Democratic primary in favor of a long-shot general election bid.

    “I’m here to declare myself an independent candidate for president of the United States,” Kennedy said in remarks in Philadelphia.

    Kennedy’s announcement comes after several weeks of speculation about his future in the 2024 field. CNN previously reported Kennedy met with the chair of the Libertarian Party earlier this year to discuss their common beliefs. And last week, a super PAC supporting Kennedy’s presidential campaign released the results of a poll they conducted testing Kennedy’s strength in a hypothetical three-way race between Biden and former President Donald Trump.

    The campaign will host a series of events in Texas, Florida and Georgia later this month, a campaign official told CNN, pledging to travel “everywhere” in the lead-up to next year’s general election. The official said the campaign is confident they’ll gain ballot access in every state ahead of November 2024.

    Independent and third-party candidates have struggled in the past to garner substantial support in presidential elections. In 1992, Texas businessman Ross Perot mounted one of the most successful independent presidential candidacies in recent history, which ended with him receiving 8% of the vote in the general election that was ultimately won by Bill Clinton.

    On Monday, Kennedy acknowledged the unsuccessful history of independent presidential campaigns but said he’s optimistic about his chances.

    “Today, we turn a new page in American politics. There have been independent candidates in this country before, but this time it’s going to be different. Because this time, the independent is gonna win,” he said.

    Mark Gorton, co-founder of American Values 2024, the super PAC supporting Kennedy’s campaign, said the candidate will need to prove viability to voters by consistently increasing his support in the polls in order to have a realistic chance of winning the election. He feels they’ve “got a shot” to pull off a historic upset.

    “I think it’s very important that Bobby a year from now be polling at the very least in the mid-to-high 30s in order to be seen as viable as anyone,” Gorton told CNN. “We need to be getting 1%, 1.5% of the electorate each month, but that’s a doable task.”

    Kennedy’s campaign as an independent could further complicate a general election race that’s already expected to be closely contested. A Reuters/Ipsos poll of a hypothetical three-way race between Biden, Trump and Kennedy conducted last week among likely voters found 14% of voters supported Kennedy, with 40% supporting Trump and 38% supporting Biden. With over a year until the general election, it’s unclear whether the Kennedy campaign can translate that level of support into votes in November 2024. Kennedy said he hopes to win the election by pulling in both Biden and Trump supporters.

    “They say my impact is only going to draw votes from the other candidates. The Democrats are frightened that I’m gonna spoil the election for President Biden, and the Republicans are frightened that I’m gonna spoil it for President Trump,” he said. “The truth is, they’re both right. My intention is to spoil it for both of them.”

    “Voters should not be deceived by anyone who pretends to have conservative values. The fact is that RFK has a disturbing background steeped in radical, liberal positions,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement that criticized Kennedy over his positions on China, guns, the environment and abortion. “… A RFK candidacy is nothing more than a vanity project for a liberal Kennedy looking to cash in on his family’s name.”

    Trump’s allies and advisers have been building opposition research against Kennedy, intending to go on the offensive and paint Kennedy as a “liberal parading in conservative’s clothing,” one adviser told CNN, pointing to his past record as an environmental activist.

    Kennedy first launched his campaign to defeat Biden in the Democratic primary in April and frequently visited early primary states like New Hampshire and South Carolina. But his efforts did little to sway Democratic primary voters, with just 9% of likely Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire expressing support for Kennedy in a CNN/University of New Hampshire poll released in September.

    The Republican National Committee issued a statement just prior to Kennedy’s announcement, characterizing him as “just another radical, far-left Democrat.”

    Kennedy is the son of former US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of former President John F. Kennedy. Some of his siblings issued a joint statement on Monday, calling his decision to run against Biden in a general election “dangerous to our country.”

    “Bobby might share the same name as our father, but he does not share the same values, vision or judgment. Today’s announcement is deeply saddening for us. We denounce his candidacy and believe it to be perilous for our country, ” Rory Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy, Joseph P Kennedy II and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend said in a statement.

    A lifelong Democrat prior to announcing his run as an independent, Kennedy acknowledged his and his family’s long history with the Democratic Party and called the decision to disavow the party “very painful.” But he said he wants to fight against the two-party system, which he says has failed to provide Americans with viable options for the presidency. He criticized Biden’s age and competency as well as Trump’s ongoing legal troubles as a symptom of a corrupt political process.

    “That’s what two-party politics has given us, and that’s why we need to pry loose from the hammerlock of the corrupt powers in Washington, DC, and make this nation ours again.”

    The crowd of supporters in Philadelphia received Kennedy warmly, particularly when he discussed his plans to create a “tamper-proof election system” while expanding voting rights and called for the US “to pull our nation back from the brink of war with Russia.” A staunch anti-war advocate, Kennedy notably did not address the outbreak of violence between Israel and Hamas over the weekend. Prior to Kennedy’s remarks, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, a friend and informal adviser to Kennedy, spoke about the war and called for a moment of silence for victims in Israel.

    When asked by CNN following the event about Kennedy not mentioning Israel and Hamas in his remarks, Boteach dismissed the oversight and said his involvement in the event spoke loudly about Kennedy’s stance toward Israel.

    “I think that was very brave of him and showed tremendous solidarity that he asked a rabbi who’s his close friend. You know, he moved away from the political figures who could have introduced him and endorsed him,” Boteach said. “The fact that I’m the one that introduced him, I think said it all.”

    Kennedy’s lack of mention of Israel’s war with Hamas comes after he received criticism from Jewish groups in July after he falsely claimed during a dinner in New York City that “Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese” people are “most immune” to Covid-19. Kennedy strongly pushed back against the accusations of antisemitism from those groups.

    Kennedy has never held public office but has inspired a small contingent of supporters drawn to his advocacy against public health mandates and the influence of money on decisions made by government and private corporations. Kennedy founded Children’s Health Defense, an organization that regularly spreads anti-vaccine misinformation, and has promoted anti-vaccine conspiracy theories at campaign events.

    Attendees at Monday’s event spanned the ideological spectrum, with conservatives, liberals and independents all gathering in Philadelphia for the announcement.

    Walter Rodriguez, a teacher from New Jersey who identifies as an independent, said he plans to support Kennedy if he’s on the ballot in his home state. Otherwise, he said, he doesn’t plan to vote at all.

    “I’m excited about the energy they bring to the table as a candidate, and I think some of the things that he’s talking about are things that I identify with,” Rodriguez said. “Not relying so much on central control of everything, pharmaceuticals, politics. So the fact that he’s declaring himself as independent today, that is the right way to go.”

    Karl Hagstrom came to Philadelphia from Westchester County, New York. He said he supported Trump in 2016 and 2020, but said he plans to support Kennedy in 2024. He said he’s drawn to Kennedy because he feels the political outsider can bring unity to the country, unlike Trump, who he said has been too divisive.

    “Just the constant insanity, the tweeting, the negativity, the just out-of-left field reactions to things. It’s not sustainable, it’s not something that can bring people together,” Hagstrom said.

    Sarah Shulman drove to the event with a group of supporters from the Boston area. A practicing pediatrician, Shulman attended Kennedy’s Democratic campaign launch event in Boston in April and said Kennedy’s anti-corruption message and his position on vaccines inspired her to support him. She said she voted for Biden in 2020 and has never considered supporting a Republican but has felt disconnected from Biden’s message since he took office.

    “He’s speaking our language,” Shulman said of Kennedy. “A Democrat, somebody in the liberal mind that’s compassionate, caring, who also is making sense.”

    This story has been updated with additional reporting.

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  • Former Georgia lieutenant governor subpoenaed to testify before Fulton County grand jury in 2020 election probe | CNN Politics

    Former Georgia lieutenant governor subpoenaed to testify before Fulton County grand jury in 2020 election probe | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former Georgia Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan received subpoenas to testify before a Fulton County grand jury this month, a source with direct knowledge of the 2020 election interference investigation in the state told CNN.

    Duncan has been a sharp critic of Donald Trump’s efforts to upend Georgia’s election results. He recently told CNN that he was “embarrassed” when Rudy Giuliani, a former attorney for Trump, and other allies of the former president appeared before Georgia state lawmakers. While Duncan was president of the Georgia state Senate at the time, he told CNN he did not “sanction” those meetings, and that they were not “official hearings.”

    In an interview Monday with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room,” Duncan committed to testifying in front of the grand jury, saying he’ll “be there to answer the facts as I know them and to continue this process of trying to discover what actually happened during that post-election period of time.”

    “We can never repeat that in this country. Certainly I never want to see that happen in my home state of Georgia, a lot of good peoples’ lives were uprooted, a lot of peoples’ reputations have been soiled,” Duncan, a CNN political contributor and Republican, said.

    Duncan said that he would be “willing to testify and tell the truth in as many settings as I possibly can,” in response to a question about whether he’d be willing to testify in any other related trials.

    A spokesperson for the Fulton County district attorney’s office declined to comment.

    The former lieutenant governor is the third witness publicly known to receive a subpoena for grand jury testimony. CNN previously reported independent journalist George Chidi and former Georgia Democratic state Sen. Jen Jordan have also been subpoenaed.

    On December 3, 2020, while Duncan was president of the state Senate, Giuliani spread conspiracy theories about widespread irregularities and fraud in the state during a Georgia Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing about election integrity. Jordan was in attendance.

    At the hearing, Trump’s team presented a video of what they claimed was evidence of fraud from election night ballot tabulating in Fulton County, allegations that were investigated by the FBI, Department of Justice and state election officials – and proven to be erroneous.

    The recent subpoenas are the clearest indication Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis intends to seek indictments in her long-running criminal probe into efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

    Willis told CNN affiliate WXIA at an event late last month that “the work is accomplished,” adding later, “We’ve been working for two and half years. We’re ready to go.”

    Sources expect Willis’ team to spend roughly two days presenting its case before one of the two grand juries meeting regularly in Fulton County with the power to issue indictments. Willis has said she will make her charging announcements before September 1.

    The subpoenas for grand jury testimony call on the witnesses to appear before the grand jury during the month of August and state that witnesses will get a 48-hour notice when they are required to appear. Multiple people who were subpoenaed told CNN they have not yet been notified of an appearance date.

    Duncan on Monday would not comment on the timing of his expected appearance in front of the grand jury: “I don’t want to infringe on any details of the investigation, so I’ll leave that offline and off of this commentary here. But I’m committed to telling the truth – I know a number of people are around this process.”

    Duncan, Jordan and Chidi were all part of the group of 75 witnesses who previously testified before the special grand jury Willis used last year to gather evidence in her investigation.

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  • FBI working with sheriff’s office after threats to Fulton County officials | CNN Politics

    FBI working with sheriff’s office after threats to Fulton County officials | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The FBI is aware that some Fulton County officials have received threats of violence, the bureau’s Atlanta office said in a statement Thursday.

    The threats come days after a local grand jury voted to indict former President Donald Trump and others stemming from their efforts to overturn his 2020 electoral defeat in Georgia.

    The agency did not identify any specific targets, but said, “It is our policy not to discuss details of ongoing investigations. However, each and every potential threat brought to our attention is taken seriously. Individuals found responsible for making threats in violation of state and/or federal laws will be prosecuted.”

    According to the statement, the FBI Atlanta field office is working with the Fulton County sheriff’s office on the investigation.

    The statement comes amid concerns over the safety of the officials and jury members connected to Monday’s indictment and reports that the names, photographs, social media profiles and even the home addresses purportedly belonging to members of the grand jury were circulating on social media. CNN could not independently verify if the photographs, social media accounts and the homes addresses being posted actually belonged to the grand jurors.

    The Fulton County sheriff’s office said in a statement Thursday afternoon that it was “aware that personal information of members of the Fulton County Grand Jury is being shared on various platforms” and that investigators are trying to “track down the origin of threats” against the grand jurors.

    “We take this matter very seriously and are coordinating with our law enforcement partners to respond quickly to any credible threat and to ensure the safety of those individuals who carried out their civic duty,” the statement said.

    As CNN has reported, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was recently assigned additional security protection near her Georgia residence, according to a source with direct knowledge of Atlanta law enforcement movements.

    Willis, who is investigating Trump and his associates for interfering with Georgia’s 2020 election results, has recently urged local officials to stay vigilant about possible security threats. In an email less last month to county officials, the district attorney shared a racist and sexualized message she received and said similar obscene messages had been left via voicemail.

    Trump once again attacked Willis earlier this month at a New Hampshire campaign event, calling the Black district attorney a “racist,” while defending his actions in Georgia around the 2020 election.

    Willis has previously said security concerns have been escalated by Trump’s rhetoric.

    In early 2022, she asked the FBI for help in providing security for buildings and staff one day after Trump called prosecutors investigating him “racists.” The former president asked his supporters to hold “the biggest protests we have ever had” in cities like Atlanta if the prosecutors “do anything wrong or illegal.”

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  • Francis Suarez ends campaign for Republican presidential nomination | CNN Politics

    Francis Suarez ends campaign for Republican presidential nomination | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Miami Mayor Francis Suarez announced Tuesday that he was ending his bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, becoming the first major candidate to do so.

    “While I have decided to suspend my campaign for President, my commitment to making this a better nation for every American remains,” Suarez said in a statement.

    Suarez’s move comes after he failed to fully meet the requirements set by the Republican National Committee to make the first presidential debate in Milwaukee last week. He had told CNN prior to the debate that candidates who do not make the stage should drop out – even if that included himself.

    “I look forward to keeping in touch with the other Republican presidential candidates and doing what I can to make sure our party puts forward a strong nominee who can inspire and unify the country, renew Americans’ trust in our institutions and in each other, and win,” Suarez said Tuesday.

    Suarez launched his long-shot bid for the presidency just over two months ago, in mid-June, urging Republicans to unify and evoking Ronald Reagan’s call for the party to rebuild its “big tent” coalition.

    The son of Cuban immigrants, Suarez was the lone major Hispanic candidate in the Republican primary, which includes two higher-profile fellow Floridians: former President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis.

    “I will continue to amplify the voices of the Hispanic community – the fastest-growing voting group in our country. The Left has taken Hispanics for granted for far too long, and it is no surprise that so many are finding a home in America’s conservative movement,” he said Tuesday.

    Over his short-lived campaign, Suarez acknowledged he did not have the same name recognition as many of his GOP rivals.

    “My opponents have been national figures for many years. I’ve been a national figure for 60 days. So, you know, I’m competing from behind,” Suarez said earlier this month at the Iowa State Fair.

    He ultimately did not meet the polling criteria set by the RNC to make the Milwaukee debate stage, his campaign said. Candidates had to register at least 1% support in three national polls or in two national and two early-state polls that met the RNC’s criteria.

    Suarez said he had met the 40,000 individual donor threshold to qualify for the debate. His campaign employed some unconventional methods to meet that goal, including accepting bitcoin donations, offering $20 gift cards and raffling off tickets for soccer superstar Lionel Messi’s debut at Major League Soccer club Inter Miami. The pro-Suarez super PAC, SOS America, also offered a chance to win a free year of college with a $1 donation.

    Shortly after launching his campaign, Suarez stumbled in an interview on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show, indicating that he was unfamiliar with the plight of the Uyghur Muslim ethnic minority in China, whose treatment has been the subject of worldwide condemnation for years.

    The conservative talk radio host asked Suarez if he would be “talking about the Uyghurs in your campaign?”

    Suarez responded, “The what?”

    “The Uyghurs,” Hewitt said, prompting the candidate to ask, “What’s a Uyghur?”

    At the end of the interview, Suarez told Hewitt, “You gave me homework, Hugh. I’ll look at – what was it? What’d you call it, a weeble?”

    In a later statement to CNN, Suarez denied that he had been unaware of the Uyghur situation and the accusations against China of human rights abuses.

    “Of course, I am well aware of the suffering of the Uyghurs in China. They are being enslaved because of their faith. China has a deplorable record on human rights and all people of faith suffer there. I didn’t recognize the pronunciation my friend Hugh Hewitt used,” he said.

    China denies the allegations of human rights abuses against the Uyghurs in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Election officials reject calls to unilaterally block Trump from ballot using 14th Amendment but will defer to courts | CNN Politics

    Election officials reject calls to unilaterally block Trump from ballot using 14th Amendment but will defer to courts | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Election officials in key states have recently rejected calls to unilaterally remove former President Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot and are saying courts should decide whether he’s disqualified by the 14th Amendment’s “insurrectionist ban.”

    The secretaries of state who oversee elections in Michigan, Georgia, New Hampshire and Minnesota have recently said they don’t have the power on their own to invoke the 14th Amendment and block Trump from the presidential ballot.

    These officials, which include Democrats and Republicans, come from states comprising 45 electoral votes.

    Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, said Thursday in a Washington Post op-ed that this unilateral approach was “misguided” and “the courts” should decide.

    Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that this would “reinforce the grievances of those who see the system as rigged and corrupt.”

    A provision of the 14th Amendment, which was approved after the Civil War, says any American official who takes an oath to uphold the US Constitution is disqualified from holding future office if they “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or have “given aid or comfort” to insurrectionists.

    However, the Constitution doesn’t spell out how to enforce this ban, and it has been applied only twice since the late 1800s, when it was used against former Confederates.

    Liberal advocacy groups and some leading conservative legal scholars believe this arcane provision applies to Trump because of his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and block the peaceful transfer of power and for inciting the attack on the US Capitol.

    Trump denies wrongdoing regarding the January 6, 2021, attack and says these candidacy challenges have “no legal basis.” He has pleaded not guilty to separate federal and state indictments that charged him with crimes stemming from his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

    The left-leaning groups have filed major lawsuits in Minnesota and Colorado, asking courts to prohibit election officials from putting Trump’s name on the ballot. But some of these experts have also claimed the provision is “self-executing,” meaning that election officials involved in the ballot-printing process can simply disqualify Trump on their own.

    That more aggressive approach is now being rejected by election officials in key states.

    “Many states do not have a law on the books empowering the secretary of state to judge the eligibility of presidential candidates,” said Derek Muller, an election law expert who teaches at the Notre Dame Law School. “It’s no surprise that many secretaries would disclaim any such power.”

    The Democratic secretary of state in Minnesota and the GOP secretary of state in New Hampshire also said they won’t block Trump from the ballot without court intervention.

    “As long as he submits his declaration of candidacy and signs it under the penalty of perjury, pays the $1,000 filing fee, his name will appear on the presidential primary ballot,” New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan told reporters Wednesday.

    Ron Fein, the legal director of Free Speech for People, which is one of the organizations behind the anti-Trump candidacy challenges, said his group will “continue to press this critical matter in the courts” so election officials will “carry out their duty to bar Trump from their state ballots.”

    “While some secretaries of state may claim that they do not have the authority to follow the constitutional mandate of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, the bottom line remains that Donald Trump is disqualified from appearing on any state ballot based on his role of inciting, mobilizing, and facilitating the January 6th insurrection,” Fein said in a statement.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • Trump’s turn against Israel offers stark reminder of what his diplomacy looks like | CNN Politics

    Trump’s turn against Israel offers stark reminder of what his diplomacy looks like | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Donald Trump’s inflammatory and artless comments about Hamas’ horror in Israel emphasize the defining characteristic of his attitude toward foreign policy and his entire political world view: It’s all about him.

    Trump criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, lauded Hezbollah militants as “very smart” and sought political gain from the attacks that killed 1,200 people by claiming that if the last election was not “rigged,” he’d be the American president and they’d never have happened.

    The ex-president openly admitted a grievance against Netanyahu, complaining he had pulled out at the last minute from joining the US air attack that assassinated Iranian intelligence chief Qasem Soleimani in Iraq in 2020. Trump had previously fumed over the Israeli leader’s perceived disloyalty in recognizing he lost the election.

    Trump is now a private citizen, and it’s possible he wouldn’t have addressed the situation in the same way if he were president – although there were multiple examples of his tone deafness and indiscretion when he was in the White House. But he’s also the 2024 Republican front-runner for president and his statements are therefore scrutinized for clues over how he would behave in office. His latest comments add to plentiful evidence that a second Trump term would be even more riotous at home and globally disruptive than his first four years in power.

    The former president’s remarks also offered an opening to his GOP rivals, who accused him of behavior unsuitable for a potential commander in chief after an ally came under attack amid horrendous scenes of carnage in which some Americans were also killed. Some bemoaned his apparent admiration for Hezbollah, a Lebanese militia group that is hostile toward Israel.

    “He’s a fool. Only a fool would make those kinds of comments,” former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has rooted his campaign in criticizing Trump’s suitability for office, told CNN.

    “Only a fool would give comments that could give aid and comfort to Israel’s adversary in this situation,” Christie continued. “This is someone who cares, not about the American people, not about the people of Israel, but he cares about one person and one person only, the person he sees in the mirror when he wakes up in the morning.”

    The former president tried to defuse the growing controversy on Thursday evening, releasing a statement in which he insisted that “there was no better friend or ally of Israel” than him. He accused President Joe Biden of weakness and incompetence. “With President Trump back in office, Israel, and everyone else, will be safe again!” he said. The former president was continuing the clean-up on Friday on his Truth Social platform, praising what he said was the “skill and determination” of the Israel Defense Forces and later posting “#IStandWithBibi.”

    Trump’s original grievance-based analysis reflects a transactional, unorthodox approach to foreign policy that often prioritizes his own personal goals over a standard understanding of the national interest. It also highlighted a contrast with his potential 2024 election opponent. Biden reacted to the attack by using all of the tools of traditional statesmanship, including rhetoric, personal behind-the-scenes contacts with key foreign leaders and by mobilizing allies. Like Trump, Biden has had a personal and political beef with Netanyahu – but shelved his differences with him weeks before the attack and has been in constant contact with the prime minister since it occurred.

    Biden is seeking to strike a balance. He has shown the most ardent support for Israel of any recent US president and acknowledged its desire to retaliate and reestablish its sense of security after the most shocking penetration of its borders and national psyche in 50 years. But Biden is also sending private and public signals to Netanyahu that Israel’s response should not infringe the laws of war and that he should consider the humanitarian consequences of an invasion of Gaza, as he seeks to prevent the war escalating into a dangerous regional conflict that could draw in the US.

    Biden’s opponents have every right to critique his foreign policies and to ask whether a hands-off approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict meant his administration dismissed the threat from Hamas. Critics also argue his attempts to open dialogue with Iran, a key sponsor of the militant group, emboldened the Islamic Republic and threatened Israel’s security. But Biden is also forging a contrast of temperament and approach with Trump that will be at the center of his campaign’s narrative if the 2024 election is a rematch of 2020 and will boil down to this question to voters: Is Trump fit for the Oval Office?

    Trump said on Fox News on Wednesday that Netanyahu had been “hurt very badly” by the attacks. “He was not prepared, and Israel was not prepared,” the former president said. His comments were not necessarily wrong and the intelligence and political failures in Israel will be investigated after the war. But the timing and tone of criticism is questionable given that Israel, one of America’s closest allies, is suffering after a horrendous attack on civilians and is in need of support not political points scoring and second guessing. His willingness to trash Netanyahu, despite the Israeli leader’s considerable efforts to align himself politically with the ex-president, also shows how loyalty is usually a one-way street for Trump and those who he believes have crossed him are liable to get a public dressing down.

    Trump’s comments were not the first time he has appeared to seek a political benefit from his foreign policy and his positions on Israel especially. Last October, he complained that American Jews were not sufficiently grateful to him for actions like moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem when he was in the White House.

    “No President has done more for Israel than I have,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social network, adding that it was somewhat surprising that “our wonderful Evangelicals are far more appreciative of this than the people of the Jewish faith, especially those living in the U.S.” He was accused of using antisemitic tropes demanding the loyalty of American Jews. The White House said he insulted Jews and Israelis.

    Trump’s remarks Wednesday on Hezbollah, which has the capacity to rain even more carnage on Israel, also appeared inappropriate in the circumstances. “They’re vicious, and they’re smart. And, boy, are they vicious, because nobody’s ever seen the kind of sight that we’ve seen,” Trump said during a political event in Florida. His statement was in keeping with his habit of praising foreign adversaries he sees as tough even if they rule with an iron fist, infringe basic humanitarian values and are US adversaries. He’s rarely concealed his admiration of Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean tyrant Kim Jong Un, for instance. And he added to his long record of praising Vladimir Putin – an accused war criminal because of atrocities committed during the war in Ukraine – when he recently described the Russian leader as “a genius.”

    Trump often appeared to be willing to cede national interests to his political benefit while in office. For instance, at a summit with Putin in Helsinki he sided with Putin who dismissed findings by US intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the 2016 election in attempt to help him.

    The former president is advocating a return to his “America First” nationalist foreign policy, prizes tough talk and ruthlessness on the global stage, and remains disdainful of allies and the international security architecture that has been the foundation of American power since the end of World War II. While these are positions that would represent a sharp transformation of US foreign policy, it is quite legitimate for him to present them to voters and try to win support for his vision.

    Yet his recent comments will only reinforce the impression often left by his actions as president that his own aspirations are most important. They also show Trump’s quintessential contempt for the rules of politics, foreign policy and even basic human decency, which explain why he horrifies many Americans and foreign governments. But this behavior is key to his authenticity for grass roots Republicans who abhor the codes of what they see as establishment elites.

    Trump during the Florida event criticized Israel for not taking part in the raid that killed Soleimani. “I’ll never forget that Bibi Netanyahu let us down. That was a very terrible thing, I will say that,” he said. It was not immediately clear whether Israel had considered an operational role in the strike or whether Trump had broken a confidence with an ally or even revealed classified information.

    The ex-president has a record however of loose talk on government secrets. He has been indicted over the alleged mishandling of national security material among classified documents he hoarded at his Mar-a-Lago resort after leaving office. Last week, ABC News reported that Trump allegedly shared US secrets about the submarine service and nuclear weapons with an Australian billionaire. Trump denies all wrongdoing.

    The ex-president’s GOP rivals, who have struggled to exploit his political vulnerabilities without alienating his super loyal supporters pounced on his criticism of Netanyahu.

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis accused Trump of throwing “verbal grenades” at Israel. “Now’s not the time to be doing, like, what Donald Trump did by attacking Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, attacking Israel’s defense minister, saying somehow that Hezbollah were ‘very smart,’” DeSantis said in New Hampshire. “Now’s not the time to air personal grievances about an Israeli prime minister.” Former Vice President Mike Pence hammered Trump’s foreign policy – even though he was part of the former president’s administration that repeatedly challenged American values. Pence also claimed that Trump had somehow changed in his years out of office, a debatable proposition that looks self-serving since it appears intended to create plausible distance from Trump’s excesses while in office.

    “He’s simply not expressing, and his imitators in his primary, are not expressing the same muscular American foreign policy that we lived out every day,” Pence said on a local New Hampshire radio.

    What Trump is expressing is his idiosyncratic, convention-busting brand of foreign policy rooted in his personal prejudices, grievances and search for political advantage that will once again rock the world if he wins the 2024 election.

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  • Commission on Presidential Debates announces dates and locations for 2024 general election debates | CNN Politics

    Commission on Presidential Debates announces dates and locations for 2024 general election debates | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The first presidential debate is set for mid-September 2024, the Commission on Presidential Debates announced Monday, setting up the earliest ever start to the presidential debate schedule.

    The bipartisan commission, which has sponsored every general election presidential debate since its founding in 1987, will host three next year, with the first on September 16 at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas.

    The second debate will be on October 1 at Virginia State University in Petersburg, Virginia, and the third will be on October 9 at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

    There will also be one vice presidential debate on September 25 at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania.

    Typically, the first debate has been in late September or early October. In 2020, the first debate was on September 29, but amid an uptick in pandemic-era early voting, the Trump campaign called for an additional early September debate.

    The schedule tweak also means that the debates will end earlier than they ever have. There will be 27 days between the last debate and Election Day on November 5. That’s compared to 12 days in 2020 and 20 days in 2016.

    However, it’s not certain the debates will actually happen.

    Last year, the Republican National Committee voted to withdraw from its participation in the commission, with RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel saying at the time that commission is “biased and has refused to enact simple and commonsense reforms.”

    The scheduling change could make it more likely that the eventual Republican nominee participates in the debates, as the lack of a debate before voting started was one of McDaniel’s specific criticisms.

    In 2020, the second scheduled presidential debate was canceled after then-President Donald Trump refused to take part in the event when the commission proposed doing it virtually because of coronavirus concerns. Instead, Trump and then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden participated in dueling town halls.

    While the University of Utah hosted the 2020 vice presidential debate, the other three schools will host debates for the first time, with the commission’s co-chairs noting that Virginia State University will be the first historically Black college or university to host a general election debate.

    All of the debates will start at 9 p.m. ET and will run for 90 minutes without commercial breaks, according to the commission’s statement, but details about format and moderators will be announced next year.

    To receive an invitation to the debate, candidates need to be constitutionally eligible to serve as president, to be on the ballot on enough states to win a majority of the electoral votes, and to register at least 15% in polls from organizations selected by the commission.

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  • Republican voters think Trump is electable. They may be right | CNN Politics

    Republican voters think Trump is electable. They may be right | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A plurality of Americans and independents think Donald Trump should have been charged with a crime in each of his four indictments, according to ABC News/Ipsos polling. A majority of Americans said in a new AP-NORC survey that they definitely won’t vote for the former president in the 2024 general election.

    Yet, Trump continues to hold a mammoth lead for the Republican presidential nomination and is polling within the margin of error of President Joe Biden in a hypothetical general election matchup.

    While paragraphs one and two seem contradictory, they’re really not. Americans don’t like Trump, but Republicans do. And general elections aren’t referendums on one candidate but a choice between two or more – and Americans, as a whole, dislike both Trump and Biden.

    If anything, Trump’s position within his party has become stronger since the beginning of the year. A majority (54%) of Republicans have a strongly favorable opinion of him in Fox News polling released this week, which is up 11 points from the end of last year. No other Republican candidate for president reaches even half of Trump’s current percentage.

    If you’re going to win a primary over Trump – who is expected to skip next week’s first GOP presidential debate in Milwaukee – there needs to be some outside force that makes Republicans deviate from the candidate they love.

    You could make the argument that four indictments just might do that.

    The problem is Republican voters have been consistent in what they think about the different Trump indictments. Despite the charges against the former president, ranging from his efforts to overturn the 2020 election to allegations that he mishandled classified documents, Republicans see them all the same way. Between 14% and 16% of Republicans believe Trump should have been charged, according to recent ABC News/Ipsos surveys. The vast majority don’t.

    Republicans justify their stance by saying that the charges are politically motivated. Over 80% of Republicans agree in the new polling from ABC News/Ipsos and the AP that both the Fulton County district attorney in Georgia and the Department of Justice are playing partisan politics.

    This has caused Republicans to not only stick to Trump but also double down on him. His primary polling advantage has swelled from the single digits at its lowest point to nearly 40 points today over his nearest competitor, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

    You might also expect Republicans to abandon Trump if they think he can’t beat Biden in a general election – even if they like the former president and believe he is getting a raw deal. After all, he has been indicted four times, and a majority of Americans say they definitely won’t vote for him in November 2024.

    That reasoning hasn’t worked, either. Republicans by and large still say Trump is more electable than DeSantis.

    Indeed, I’m not sure they’re wrong. Trump is running neck and neck with Biden in general election surveys. Fox News and Quinnipiac University have the matchup within the margin of error nationally, and Trump has been ahead of Biden in more polls this year than during the entirety of the 2020 campaign.

    If we see Trump overperform in the swing states relative to his performance nationally this cycle – like he did in 2016 and 2020 – you could make the argument that he should be favored over Biden if the election were held today.

    Moreover, Trump is polling no worse against Biden nationally than his Republican rivals. If anything, he’s been doing slightly better, on average, this summer.

    The reason is simple: Biden’s polling is awful for an incumbent. He has one of the highest disapproval ratings on record for an incumbent at this point in his presidency: in the mid-50s, on average. Biden’s favorable rating generally runs a point or two better than Trump’s, though that isn’t saying much with the former president’s favorable rating in the high 30s, on average.

    After all, the AP-NORC poll found that a majority of Americans probably or definitely would not vote for Biden in 2024 – just as was true for Trump in the same survey.

    A situation in which a lot of voters don’t like either major-party nominee is one all too familiar to political analysts.

    Just seven years ago, both Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton had unfavorable ratings north of 50%. It wasn’t the same majorities that disliked both candidates. Most voters liked at least one of them.

    But a sizable bloc of the electorate (18%) disliked both candidates, according to the 2016 exit polls. Today, a slightly higher percentage of the electorate, on average, likes neither Biden nor Trump.

    You might think the edge for 2024 should go to the man who has a slightly higher average favorable rating (Biden). But that math didn’t work in 2016. More voters who disliked both Trump and Clinton went with Trump, and it won him the election.

    A lot of Republicans may be betting on that math again, and who is to say they’re incorrect? After all, history and the current polling tells us not to dismiss Trump’s chances.

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  • 2 Trump co-defendants ask judge to break apart Georgia election interference case and hold separate trials | CNN Politics

    2 Trump co-defendants ask judge to break apart Georgia election interference case and hold separate trials | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Two Trump co-defendants in Georgia who requested speedy trials asked a judge Wednesday to formally separate their cases from the sprawling overall indictment, a move that would undercut Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ attempt to hold one massive trial for all 19 defendants in the election interference case.

    Former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell and pro-Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro separately asked the judge overseeing the case to “sever” their trials from the other defendants. If granted, this would break apart the case and allow their cases to go to trial as soon as October.

    These are the first attempts in court by former President Donald Trump’s co-defendants to break apart the case. The motions filed Wednesday are part of the increasingly convoluted pretrial wrangling among Trump, his 18 co-defendants and Willis, who wants a trial for all 19 defendants to occur in October.

    Powell and Chesebro, who both deny wrongdoing in the case, already invoked their right to a speedy trial, which would need to begin before early November, per Georgia law. Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee ordered Chesebro’s trial to begin October 23. Powell’s request is pending. Trump wants to slow things down and opposes that timeline.

    Trump’s lawyers have also said they want to sever his case from the other defendants but haven’t yet filed a motion in court.

    Raskin: Trump could learn from early Georgia trials

    In the filing, Powell’s attorneys also argued that she “did not represent President Trump or the Trump campaign” related to the 2020 election because she never had an “engagement agreement” with either.

    “She appears on no pleadings for Trump or the Campaign,” Powell’s attorneys wrote. “She appeared in no courtrooms or hearings for Trump or the Campaign. She had no contact with most of her purported conspirators and rarely agreed with those she knew or spoke with.”

    Despite these assertions, Trump publicly announced in mid-November 2020 that he “added” Powell to his “truly great team” of lawyers working on the election. One week later – after she promoted wild conspiracy theories that millions of votes were flipped as part of an international anti-Trump scheme – the Trump campaign dropped her from the legal team and said she was “practicing law on her own.”

    In an effort to distance Powell from the other Trump lawyers charged in the Georgia case, her attorneys pointed out that she “went her own way” after the 2020 presidential election and that “many of her purported coconspirators publicly shunned and disparaged Ms. Powell beginning in November 2020.”

    In the filing, Powell’s attorneys also lauded her legal career and her commitment to “integrity” and “the rule of law.” They also amplified the debunked right-wing claim that her former client, retired Gen. Michael Flynn, was the victim of “charges completely concocted against him by a politicized FBI.”

    Kenneth Chesebro Jan 6

    CNN reveals where accused Trump co-conspirator was on Jan. 6

    Additionally on Wednesday, Chesebro’s attorneys asked the judge to force Willis to “disclose” the identities of the 30 unindicted co-conspirators named in the indictment. Chesebro, who was the architect of the Trump campaign’s fake electors plot, said he needs these names to help his defense.

    Earlier this month, after the indictment was filed, CNN published a report identifying many of the unindicted co-conspirators based on public information that matches what was in the indictment.

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  • Pence intensifies attacks on Trump as GOP primary heats up | CNN Politics

    Pence intensifies attacks on Trump as GOP primary heats up | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former Vice President Mike Pence on Sunday intensified his attacks on his former boss, hitting former President Donald Trump over everything from his abortion messaging to comments about the war in Ukraine.

    “When Donald Trump ran for president in 2016, he promised to govern as a conservative. For four years, we did govern as conservatives, but, today, Donald Trump makes no such promise,” Pence told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”

    “He’s embracing the politics of appeasement on the world stage, walking away from our role as leader of the free world. He’s willing to ignore the debt crisis facing Americans. And he wants to marginalize the right to life,” Pence said.

    The comments from Pence represent a significant escalation in his campaign attacks on Trump. While the former Indiana governor has repeatedly denounced Trump’s actions on January 6, 2021, he has been more cautious about going after the Republican front-runner on other issues.

    Asked about Trump’s comments to NBC that he would get Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a room and “have a deal worked out,” Pence said: “Look, the only way this war would end in a day, as my former running mate says, is if you let Vladimir Putin have what he wants, which, frankly, other candidates for the Republican nomination are advocating as well.”

    Pence similarly sought to distance himself from Trump on abortion at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition’s fall banquet Saturday night. Speaking to a friendly crowd of evangelical conservatives, Pence reiterated his support for a federal ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy as a minimum, saying, “It’s an idea whose time has come.” Pence said Trump and other GOP candidates want to relegate the abortion issue to the states, “but I won’t have it.”

    And earlier this month, Pence called on his party to turn away from what he described as a growing threat of populism led by Trump and “his imitators.” The former vice president said that Trump often sounds “like an echo” of President Joe Biden and that Trump was ignoring a coming US debt crisis.

    The stream of attacks comes as Trump continues to hold what has proven to be an unshakeable position atop the Republican field of candidates vying to take on Biden next year, according to a CNN poll released earlier this month.

    More than 4 in 10 in the potential GOP primary electorate say they have definitely decided to support Trump for the nomination (43% are definite Trump backers, 20% are firmly behind another candidate, and 37% have no first choice or say they could change their minds).

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  • Tom Vilsack Fast Facts | CNN Politics

    Tom Vilsack Fast Facts | CNN Politics

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    Here’s a look at the life of US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.

    Birth date: December 13, 1950

    Birth place: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

    Full name: Thomas James Vilsack

    Father: Bud Vilsack

    Mother: Dolly Vilsack

    Marriage: Christie (Bell) Vilsack (1973-present)

    Children: Jess and Doug

    Education: Hamilton College, B.A., 1972; Albany Law School J.D., 1975

    Was mentioned as a possible running mate for John Kerry during the 2004 presidential election process.

    Adopted as an infant from an orphanage by Bud and Dolly Vilsack.

    Ran for mayor of Mount Pleasant, Iowa, after his predecessor was shot and killed at a city council meeting.

    1975-1998 – Practices law.

    1987-1992 – Mayor of Mount Pleasant, Iowa.

    1992 – Elected to the Iowa Senate.

    1994 – Wins reelection to the Iowa Senate.

    1998 – Becomes the first Democrat elected governor of Iowa in more than 30 years.

    January 15, 1999-January 12, 2007 – Governor of Iowa.

    2004 – Chair of the Democratic Governors’ Association.

    November 9, 2006 – Vilsack files a statement of candidacy to run for the White House in 2008, becoming the first prominent Democrat to do so.

    February 23, 2007 – Drops out of the 2008 presidential race.

    March 26, 2007 – Endorses Hillary Clinton and becomes co-chairman of her national campaign.

    April 2007 – Joins Minneapolis-based international law firm Dorsey and Whitney as a managing partner.

    December 17, 2008 – Is nominated by President-elect Barack Obama to be agriculture secretary.

    January 21, 2009 – Is sworn in as the 30th secretary of the Department of Agriculture after a unanimous US Senate confirmation.

    July 19, 2010 – Calls for the resignation of USDA official Shirley Sherrod after an excerpted video clip of Sherrod is posted online, in which Sherrod discusses an incident involving a White farmer. Vilsack contends that he made the decision without conferring with the White House.

    July 21, 2010 – Vilsack apologizes to Sherrod after video of the full speech shows that her remarks from the clip were taken out of context. Vilsack offers Sherrod another job with the Department of Agriculture, which she later declines.

    January 15, 2016 – President Obama names Vilsack his Cabinet-level point person to address the problem of heroin and other opiate use in rural communities.

    January 13, 2017 – Vilsack steps down as agriculture secretary one week early.

    February 1, 2017 – Becomes the president and CEO of the US Dairy Export Council (USDEC).

    April 10, 2017 – Colorado State University announces that Vilsack and his wife, Christie Vilsack, will join the university as advisers.

    February 10, 2020 – Vilsack comes forward to claim the $150,000 Powerball prize he won on January 22 in the Iowa Lottery.

    February 23, 2021 – The US Senate confirms Vilsack for a second stint as agriculture secretary by a vote of 92-7. Vilsack is sworn in on February 24.

    April 9, 2022 – Vilsack, who is fully vaccinated and boosted, announces he has tested positive for Covid-19 and has “mild” symptoms.

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  • DC grand jury that handed up 2020 election indictment against Trump meets again | CNN Politics

    DC grand jury that handed up 2020 election indictment against Trump meets again | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A federal grand jury reconvened on Tuesday for the first time since handing up an indictment last week against former President Donald Trump related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

    CNN spotted grand jury members at the federal courthouse in Washington, an indication that the investigation into election interference is not over.

    The grand jury has been hearing evidence in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the aftermath of the election leading up to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol for nearly a year. In the Trump indictment, prosecutors refer to six unnamed co-conspirators, raising questions about whether they also could face charges in the case.

    One of the co-conspirators identified by CNN is ex-Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani. On Monday, Bernie Kerik, a longtime Giuliani associate who coordinated with him after the 2020 election, met with investigators at the special counsel’s office. Kerik spoke with investigators about Giuliani’s efforts to try to uncover election fraud in 2020, according to his attorney Tim Parlatore.

    Prosecutors allege in the indictment that the co-conspirator identified as Giuliani “was willing to spread knowingly false claims” about supposed election fraud.

    A political adviser to Giuliani, Ted Goodman, previously told CNN that they were acting in good faith and that the indictment “eviscerates” the First Amendment.

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  • Asa Hutchinson says he has qualified for the Republican debate | CNN Politics

    Asa Hutchinson says he has qualified for the Republican debate | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Sunday he has qualified for the first GOP primary debate, which will take place Wednesday in Milwaukee. Hutchinson joins a crowd of White House hopefuls looking for a breakout moment onstage.

    “I’m pleased to announce that we have met all the criteria that the RNC set to be on the debate stage. We’ve met the polling criteria and now we’ve met the 40,000 individual donor criteria,” Hutchinson told CNN’s Kasie Hunt on “State of the Union.”

    Hutchinson said he had submitted 42,000 individual donors to the Republican National Committee.

    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.

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

    Hutchinson, a vocal critic of GOP front-runner and former President Donald Trump, has pushed back against the pledge, saying he did not think it should be a requirement to participate in the debates. But he told Hunt on Sunday that he will sign it, saying that he’s “confident that Donald Trump’s not going to be the nominee.”

    Hutchinson also said he expects the debate to be “even more important without Donald Trump on the stage because this is the first time voters are going to be able to contrast the candidates and their positions.”

    The former Arkansas governor had previously met the polling threshold but lagged in meeting the donor requirement. His campaign announced Friday it was raffling off movie tickets to attract sufficient contributors.

    Hutchinson has been among the most vocal critics of the RNC’s debate qualification rules and said last month that some of the inventive gambits by his fellow candidates to attract the requisite donors “illustrate how silly this whole concept is.”

    Sunday’s announcement, which comes just days ahead of the first GOP debate, will put Hutchinson onstage with the six other candidates who have qualified.

    Former Vice President Mike Pence, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and South Carolina Gov. Tim Scott have all qualified so far. Trump, who leads the GOP race, is expected to skip the debate and sit for an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

    In an interview with CNN’s Jim Acosta on Saturday, Hutchinson called Trump’s decision to skip the debate a “mistake.”

    “It looks to me like he’s just saying, ‘I’m more important than the debate. I’m more important than the party. I’m more important than presenting and defending my position for the American people.’ I think it’s a mistake on his part,” Hutchinson said.

    Also on Sunday, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo that she’s “still holding out hope that President Trump will come. I think it’s so important that the American people hear from all the candidates.”

    She added that more candidates could qualify for a spot on the stage Wednesday.

    “We’re at seven right now that have officially qualified … and then we’ve got some that are on the cusp, so we’re going to be looking at polls the next few days. There are three or four that are waiting for 1% in one more national poll to make that debate stage,” McDaniel said.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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