Trump’s mental acuity faces increased scrutiny after a strange conclusion to his Monday town hall. http://on.forbes.com/63178qp6UO
Trump 2024 Run Thread
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Stillwater Townie
Deputy
How stupid again. First Trump made a hush deal with Stormy Daniels that went bad. Now he wants to make the same deal with her. If this is how Trump does business, no wonder he went bankrupt several times.Rachel Maddow has new reporting and documents showing that Donald Trump tried to launder hush money through a legal settlement with Stormy Daniels to buy her silence weeks before the 2024 election.
Politicus USA (@politicususa) on Threads
Rachel Maddow has new reporting and documents showing that Donald Trump tried to launder hush money through a legal settlement with Stormy Daniels to buy her silence weeks before the 2024 election.www.threads.net
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Stillwater Townie
Deputy
Stillwater Townie
Deputy
As to why this article makes some sense:
Opinion: Half the country will vote for Trump. What is his appeal? https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...&cvid=11612d4ad10b44fdbcdd4aba0dcb5feb&ei=107
Trump clarifies that his ‘enemy within’ comment was about evil Democrats
One of the most illuminating moments of Donald Trump’s increasingly lengthy career in national politics came during his third debate with Hillary Clinton back in 2016. (This was back when presidential campaigns had three debates coordinated by the Commission on Presidential Debates, itself a reminder of how the Trump era has diverted the political process.)
Clinton raised Russian President Vladimir Putin’s then-already-obvious interest in affecting the outcome of the race, prompting Trump to comment that Putin “has no respect” for Clinton.
“Well,” Clinton replied, “that’s because he would rather have a puppet as president of the United States.”
“No puppet,” Trump replied, clearly flustered. “You’re the puppet.”
When faced with criticism — particularly when that criticism is potent or well-aimed — Trump’s instinct is to try to turn it back on his critic. There are any number of examples littering the past nine years of political discourse, though few are as obvious and succinct as “you’re the puppet,” a very weird and very obvious effort. But things such as Trump’s recent insistence that Vice President Kamala Harris needs to complete a mental fitness evaluation certainly qualify.
So does his effort to redirect the criticism that his reelection poses a unique threat to American democracy — an argument that has an obvious through-line back to that “no puppet” moment. Critics, including from within his own party, have highlighted his effort to subvert the 2020 results and his plans to overhaul the federal bureaucracy to align with his political ideology. In response, Trump insists that it is Democrats who are trying to undermine the country, in part because of censorship — the evidence for which is generally centered on the government’s effort to limit the spread on social media of misinformation about coronavirus vaccines.
(This has been so inflated with gusts of hot air and is treated so seriously within the right’s conversational bubble that Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), believed it to be a viable response to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s question about the legitimacy of the 2020 election during the vice-presidential debate. It was not.)
After Trump told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo in an interview that aired Sunday that he believes that the “enemy from within” is as potent a threat to the nation as foreign enemies such as China and Russia — and when he further suggested that this internal enemy poses a risk to the election that should be combated with an armed response — some of those critics began more openly describing Trump as a fascist. (This was in part because retired Gen. Mark A. Milley, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during Trump’s presidency, used the term when speaking to The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward.) And so, in another interview that aired Wednesday, again on Fox News, Trump insisted that the term applies instead to his opponents.
No fascist. You’re the fascist.
Host Harris Faulkner played the snippet of Trump’s Bartiromo interview in which he explained that the “enemy from within” included “lunatics” such as Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), one of the loudest voices during Trump’s first impeachment. Faulkner noted that Harris had suggested Trump is “unhinged.” (The crowd, heavily constituted of Republicans and Trump supporters, tittered at the very idea.)
Trump, predictably, denied that he is, calling Democrats “the party of sound bites.”
“Somebody asked me, ‘Can they be brought together?’” he said, apparently meaning that he was asked whether Democrats could work with Republicans. He suggested that he said he doesn’t think they could “because they are — they’re very different. And it is the enemy from within and they’re very dangerous. They are Marxists and communists and fascists.”
He returned to his criticism of Schiff, suggesting that Schiff is among those who “made up the Russia hoax” — that is, the investigation into whether Trump’s 2016 campaign had knowingly worked with the Russian effort to swing the results to his advantage. (A lengthy probe into the matter identified several members of Trump’s campaign who had been in contact with Russian agents and determined that the campaign had at least welcomed the Russian effort.)
And again Trump shrugged at the threat posed by foreign countries (including Russia) as easy to handle — more so than the threat from his political opponents.
“The more difficult are, you know, the Pelosis,” he said, referring to former speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and, apparently, her husband, Paul.
Shortly before the 2022 election, a deranged man broke into the Pelosis’ San Francisco house in an apparent effort to force Nancy Pelosi to admit that the Russia probe was contrived. Paul Pelosi, who doesn’t work in politics, was struck with a hammer in the attack.
“These people, they’re so sick, and they’re so evil,” Trump continued. “If they would spend their time trying to make America great again, we would have — it would be so easy to make this country great.”
All of this, all of Trump’s response to the criticism of his initial comments Sunday, serves to bolster that criticism. Saying that Democrats are evil and sick and incapable of working with Republicans is commentary aimed at suggesting that no political agreement can be practically or morally achieved. Comparing the opposition of Democrats to that of foreign adversaries — casting it as worse than that of those adversaries, in fact — elevates the idea that internal enemies should be dealt with in the way we might deal with an invasion force from a foreign power.
“I think the bigger problem are the people from within,” he’d told Bartiromo after she’d asked about unrest on Election Day. “We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical-left lunatics. And I think they’re the — and it should be very easily handled by — if necessary, by National Guard or, if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”
Trump had an answer ready for critiques of his comments: No threatening. You’re the ones who are threatening.
“They were saying I was, like, threatening,” Trump continued. “I’m not threatening anybody. They’re the ones doing the threatening. They do phony investigations” — again a reference in part to the Russia probe but also to the criminal investigations he has faced. Two of them, of course, center on his obvious effort to subvert the results of the democratic election in 2020.
“It’s called weaponization of government. It’s a terrible thing,” Trump concluded. “They’re the threat to democracy.”
In much the same way that Hillary Clinton was Vladimir Putin’s puppet
This is the part of Politics Trump will never understand. His words and their affects on OTHER GOP politicians down ballots. Trump says something super stupid and it can cost A GOP Candidate X the race in a down ballot state that is a really tight race. Trump only cares of what people think of him and not others and his words hurt other GOP candidates. His harsh words invigorate the other side to turn up to defeat Trump, and down ballot Republicans fall victim to Trump's rhetoric pushing massive Opposition turn out. In an effort to defeat Trump, they also take out weaker GOP candidates and Cost the GOP local, state and Federal elected positions. But Trump sees these people as acceptable collateral as long as he can get POTUS title.
GOP cringes over Trump’s vow to wield military against opponents
Former President Trump’s incendiary comments about deploying the military and using other powers of the executive branch to pursue his political enemies, including a sitting member of Congress, is putting downballot Republican candidates on the defensive.
GOP strategists have said for months that the fates of Senate and House Republican candidates are largely tied to Trump’s performance.
Republicans have grown more optimistic about their prospects of capturing Democratic-held Senate seats in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as Trump has gained ground on Vice President Harris in those states.
But Trump’s provocative comments about deploying the military to handle the “enemy from within” and “radical-left lunatics,” such as Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a prosecutor during Trump’s first impeachment trial, have put Republican candidates in an awkward spot.
“He certainly makes it difficult for downballot Republicans because people [in the media] will continually ask them to react to something outrageous Donald Trump has said when they really want to concentrate on their own race and their own message,” said Republican pollster Whit Ayres.
Trump defended his comments during a Fox News town hall that aired Wednesday.
“I thought it was a nice presentation. That wasn’t unhinged,” he told Fox News host Harris Faulkner when the host played a clip of his controversial remarks.
“It is the enemy from within, and they’re very dangerous,” Trump asserted. “They’re Marxists and communists and fascists, and they’re sick.
“These people — they’re so sick, and they’re so evil,” he said, singling out Schiff and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
A Republican strategist who requested anonymity to comment candidly on Trump’s remarks called them a problem for candidates downballot.
“It would be really disturbing to most Republican legislators if that were to occur because that’s not how we work as a country, that’s not how we behave as a democracy,” the strategist said of deploying the military against political enemies.
“If he were to try that, there would be a large pushback from Washington,” the source said.
The strategist said Trump is getting carried away by trying to project an image of strength.
“One of the things that he’s doing is projecting strength. It’s an undercurrent of this over-the-top ridiculous statement. He’s showing voters that he’s strong. Many people do want to see a strong president, but they would not agree with him going to that end,” the operative said.
Some Republican senators have tried to warn Trump away from threatening political vengeance if elected to a second term.
“This is not the direction we want this country to go,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said in June when Trump suggested he would prosecute his political enemies.
“I don’t want to see a tit-for-tat on prosecution. I think that’s the wrong direction. I think that’s the wrong path for us to go down,” he warned at the time.
But other Republicans, such as Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), have embraced Trump’s bellicose rhetoric.
After federal prosecutors indicted Trump in June of last year, Biggs posted on social media: “We have now reached a war phase. Eye for an eye.”
Other Republican officeholders have struggled to explain or respond to Trump’s comments in recent interviews.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) sparred recently with CNN’s Jake Tapper over the comments, insisting that Trump was talking about criminals coming over the border. The CNN host cut him off by pointing out that Trump included Schiff as one of the “radical-left lunatics” who needed to be addressed.
Rep. Byron Donalds (Fla.), a prominent House Republican, tried to dismiss Trump’s comments out of hand.
“Obviously, we don’t want to have the United States military — we’re not going to have that be deployed in the United States. That’s been long-standing law in our country since the founding of the Republican,” Donalds told CNN in an interview Tuesday.
But other Republicans warn that Trump’s comments can’t be taken lightly.
Former Trump Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said he fears Trump would try to use the military against U.S. citizens.
“We should always take the comments of political leaders and other leaders seriously, absolutely,” Esper, a Republican, told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.
“I saw over the summer of 2020 where President Trump and those around him wanted to use the National Guard in various capacities in cities such as Chicago and Portland and Seattle,” he recalled, noting Trump’s response to the Black Lives Matter protests during his fourth year in office.
Retired Gen. Mark Milley, who served as chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Trump, told journalist Bob Woodward that Trump is a “fascist to the core.”
Milley alluded publicly to his concerns about Trump during his retirement speech in 2023, when he said, “We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, to a tyrant or dictator or wannabe dictator.”
“It does create difficulties for Republican candidates who are asked to comment on Trump’s statements,” said Steven S. Smith, a political science professor at Washington University in St. Louis.
But he observed that most voters have already made up their minds about Trump, and that he has made similar comments in the past.
“Those who support him are not going to change their views on the basis of these additional comments. The real question is, is there a small, very small percentage of Americans whose views on Trump will be affected by this? The answer is, yeah, potentially,” he said.
“It does keep some of these Republicans a bit off-message. It means that their free airtime is being used to respond to questions like this rather than to frame how voters are thinking about [the GOP candidates],” Smith said.
Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) was pressed on Trump’s recent comments during a CNN interview Wednesday afternoon.
He conceded that a new Republican administration shouldn’t weaponize the justice system against political opponents but also tried to defend Trump by claiming the “left” had pursued politically motivated investigations and prosecutions of Trump and his allies.
“I’m not saying we should do a tit for tat at all, that’s not what should happen. But we do need to look at who’s trying to destroy our American system. Who’s trying to destroy the democracy that we have and taking a very, very hard look at it,” Mullin said.
“We’re too good of a country to do that,” he said of using national security assets against political opponents. “At the same time, we can’t be weaponizing our U.S. government against individuals, and we know that the left has done that. We’ve seen what they’ve done to President Trump. We’ve seen what they did after Jan. 6.”
Trump’s comments about using the power of government to punish political opponents has put the issue of democracy back in the spotlight two and a half weeks before Election Day, an issue on which Harris and Democrats have a decisive advantage with voters.
Sen. Bob Casey, the vulnerable Democratic incumbent in Pennsylvania, tried to score points on his opponent, hedge fund CEO David McCormick, at a debate Tuesday evening by criticizing him for hiring “fake electors” to work on his campaign.
Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist, said Republican candidates will respond to Trump’s comments differently, depending on the needs of their races.
“Every Republican candidate is going to have to answer in a way that suits them the best, that helps them with voters. Some may try to reinterpret what Trump has said and others may deflect,” he said. “Other candidates may completely dodge.”
One candidate who has leaned into Trump’s views is Republican Kari Lake, who is trailing Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) in the Arizona Senate race.
Lake said in a recent interview that federal prosecutors who charged Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to stop the certification of the 2020 election are “tyrants” and urged that they be fired.
She made her comments in an interview with Brandon Straka, a social media influencer who pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct for his actions on Jan. 6.
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This is ANTI American.....he is blaming the US for Putin s actions..
After lying that Zelenskyy started Ukraine's war with Russia, Trump says he "largely blames" Biden for the war and adds that Biden "instigated" it.
www.threads.net
After lying that Zelenskyy started Ukraine's war with Russia, Trump says he "largely blames" Biden for the war and adds that Biden "instigated" it.
Aaron Rupar (@aaron.rupar) on Threads
After lying that Zelenskyy started Ukraine's war with Russia, Trump says he "largely blames" Biden for the war and adds that Biden "instigated" it. (Putin apparently is blameless in Trump's eyes)
www.threads.net
That's not actually all he said. He also mentioned safety/security.
He's bad enough without having the mischaracterize what he says.
mugatu
Ranger
Do you have transcript or footage? Curious what else he said. Because this is horrible. Security almost sounded like a misspeak to be corrected to sport as I hear the pacing of his words. Did you have anything beyond this clip?
Funny I listened to what he said in the clip you just posted twice. Both times he said “security “ before he said sport and entertainment yet you and Shannon Watts both left that part out. Strange
Honest question.....is there a possibility he has a lead and is choosing to run the ball?
mugatu
Ranger
Yes. I heard it first too. But very quickly moves to entertainment. The discussion of 2nd amendment and we can't take is fine and where he shpuld have left it. Any inclusion of sport shouldn't exist when talking of gun safety regarding school shootings.Funny I listened to what he said in the clip you just posted twice. Both times he said “security “ before he said sport and entertainment yet you and Shannon Watts both left that part out. Strange
Yes. And it looks like, for a change, his handlers might have convinced him that it is best for him to limit the number of times per day that he tries to sabotage his own campaign.
He was talking about the 2nd amendment
Donald Trump’s crypto project, World Liberty Financial, published a 13-page document on Thursday, describing its mission, how tokens can be allocated, and indicating that the Republican presidential nominee and his family could take home 75% of net revenue.
www.threads.net
CNBC (@cnbc) on Threads
Donald Trump’s crypto project, World Liberty Financial, published a 13-page document on Thursday, describing its mission, how tokens can be allocated, and indicating that the Republican presidential nominee and his family could take home 75% of net revenue.
www.threads.net
mugatu
Ranger
I know that. That's the part that I said I was fine with. Should have left it there and the "you can't take that away" or after the word safety. But the inclusion of the last of that is not good. Sport shooting shouldn't be mentioned when talking about families of school shootings.
If my son was shot in school and anyone trying to explain protecting gun rights listed "so they could go to the range for an afternoon", even in a list of other reasons...that's not ok and diminishes the loss and pain. Saying our hands are tied because of 2nd amendment or allowing families to protect themselves in their homes. Those are OK. But to include sport shooting in that list shows he doesn't care about those families or children.
Un…clutch…the…pearls. Like JD said, the dude says enough legitimately stupid stuff every day without the selective editing. But, by all means, continue digging.
mugatu
Ranger
Got a shirt I was gonna order for you. What size do you want?
