Trump Hit With Harsh Dose Of Reality After Blatantly Trying To Rewrite History

Posted on 15/08/2024 by Boris Clair

Donald Trump offered alternative facts about the end of his tenure on Wednesday, prompting critics to pile on with some actual truths.

The former president spoke in Asheville, North Carolina, in what was supposed to be an economic address but ended up including many of his usual tangents and attacks on enemies.

At one point, he spoke at length about the “surging economy” he claims he handed over to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, asserting that “we had some of the greatest periods of economic growth and health that any country has ever seen, I think, probably more than any country has ever seen.”

“You never had it so good. Now you’re not doing so well,” he said.

In January 2021, when Trump left office, the U.S. was experiencing its deadliest month of the COVID-19 pandemic, with over 95,000 lives lost over the course of the month.

Just six days into 2021, a violent mob of Trump’s supporters had laid siege to the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election that he lost.

The unemployment rate was 6.3%, as the nation struggled to recover from the massive job losses of March and April 2020, when Trump was still downplaying COVID-19, casting doubt on government medical advice and suggesting the virus would just “go away.” (The unemployment rate was 4.3% last month).

Journalist Aaron Rupar shared a clip of Trump’s quote. Critics who can remember what life was like at the time shared some memories in return.

‘Say It To My Face’: Kamala Harris Goes After Trump For Dodging Debate Plans

Posted on 31/07/2024 by Boris Clair

Vice President Kamala Harris said on Tuesday that she hopes former President Donald Trump will meet her on the debate stage later this year despite his apparent efforts to skip out on those plans now that she’s the Democrats’ presumptive nominee to face him in November.

Harris rallied a crowd of 10,000 supporters in Atlanta on Tuesday, her first visit to Georgia after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and cleared the way for her campaign.

“This is a people-powered campaign, in fact … the momentum in this race is shifting, and there are signs that Donald Trump is feeling it,” the vice president said. “You may have noticed.”

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Vice President Harris: Donald, I do hope you’ll reconsider to meet me on the debate stage. As the saying goes, if you got something to say, say it to my face pic.twitter.com/5zykEnU3Dn

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) July 30, 2024

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Vice President Harris: Donald, I do hope you’ll reconsider to meet me on the debate stage. As the saying goes, if you got something to say, say it to my face pic.twitter.com/5zykEnU3Dn

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) July 30, 2024

Trump has now repeatedly expressed doubt about participating in the next debate, scheduled for September 10 on ABC News.

And while he said on Monday he would “probably” debate Harris at some point, he added that “everybody knows who I am,” suggesting a debate appearance may not benefit him.

In Atlanta, Harris hit the former president for backing out of those plans, repeating her ding that Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, were “just plain weird” and had a “lot to say about me.”

“Here’s the funny thing about that,” Harris said. “So he won’t debate, but he and his running mate sure seem to have a lot to say about me.”

“Well, Donald, I do hope you’ll reconsider to meet me on the debate stage,” she said, “because as the saying goes, if you’ve got something to say, say it to my face.”

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally Tuesday in Atlanta.

Harris has catapulted into the campaign over the past 10 days, raising more than $200 million (£155m) and signing up more than 170,000 volunteers. And recent polls have shown her closing the gap in most swing states.

Trump’s Ugly Calls For Violence Laid Out In Chilling New Video

Posted on 04/04/2024 by Boris Clair

The supercut also shows him urging supporters to “fight like hell” on Jan. 6, 2021, just before some of those in the crowd near the White House marched to the U.S. Capitol to attack Congress at it met to certify the electoral vote that gave the presidency to Joe Biden:

One of the four criminal cases against Trump is centered on his role in the events of the Jan. 6 insurrection.

In his personal account, Biden also accused Trump of hypocrisy for holding events for law enforcement and claiming to “back the blue” while also embracing those who attacked police in the U.S. Capitol riot.

‘Scare Tactic Much?’: Critics Pounce On Trump Over Bonkers Pennsylvania Claim

Posted on 10/02/2024 by Boris Clair

Donald Trump warned National Rifle Association members Friday that Democrats would change the name of Pennsylvania if they win in November.

The former president, during an hour-plus-long speech in Harrisburg, reflected on his election win in the state back in 2016 before declaring that his campaign has to be victorious this year.

“Or we’re not gonna have Pennsylvania, they’ll change the name, they’re gonna change the name of Pennsylvania,” Trump said.

Trump went on to note efforts to reexamine naming things after historical figures, claiming that George Washington’s name has been stripped from high schools.

“That’s one even I thought was safe. Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, their names are now in danger,” he said.

It’s unclear what Trump was referring to but his Pennsylvania claim comes roughly one month after Fox News reported on the National Park Service’s proposal to remove a statue of William Penn, who the state is named after, from a park in Philadelphia.

The statue, local news site Billy Penn noted, is a small version of one atop City Hall that is arguably “the highest profile statue” in Philadelphia that “limited the height of development throughout the city.”

NPS later reversed the decision following criticism including from Pennsylvania state Representative Bryan Cutler, who claimed that President Joe Biden and his administration were trying to “cancel” Penn.

Pennsylvania Goveernor Josh Shapiro wrote that he had been in contact with the administration “to correct this decision” over the statue.

“I’m pleased Welcome Park will remain the rightful home of this William Penn statue — right here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Penn founded,” he wrote on X.

Critics mocked the former president over the Pennsylvania name claim including conservative attorney and Trump critic George Conway, who jokingly wrote that the remarks were “perfectly normal.”

Oh yes, the William Penn thing.

Scare tactic much?

— The Fact Checker (@MonitorFake) February 10, 2024

Harpersylvaina, Hurtsylvania, Embbidsylvania

— Jon Palmer (@jon_palmer4133) February 10, 2024

After 24 hours of the media slandering President Biden because of his age, all you have to do is get on stage and not say anything insa… oh too late https://t.co/3CMwFo1U2K

— I Smoked Presidential Immunity (@BlackKnight10k) February 10, 2024

The US Right’s Newest Conspiracy Is The Super Bowl-Taylor Swift-Joe Biden ‘Psyop’

Posted on 31/01/2024 by Boris Clair

It’s a conspiracy involving the deepest of deep states: The world’s most popular entertainer, America’s most popular sporting event and the president of the United States. Its goal, according to theories circulating in the outskirts of MAGA world, is to covertly compel fans to throw the 2024 election to the Democrats.

Right-wing speculation reached a fever pitch this week around pop mega-star Taylor Swift and boyfriend Travis Kelce after Kelce’s team, the Kansas City Chiefs, qualified for Super Bowl LVIII on Sunday, a victory the two celebrated with much-photographed postgame smooch. A day later, The New York Times ran a piece noting President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign is hoping for Swift’s endorsement.

Those two seemingly unrelated events — and the possibility that Swift would use her massive star power and huge online reach to help Biden beat Donald Trump — are driving right-wing media into a meltdown. And that one of the country’s biggest celebrities will use her fanbase to help Biden is already being treated as inevitable by some of the right’s biggest influencers.

“That will be a tsunami that will be very difficult to thwart,” Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk reportedly said to a group of young conservatives at a conference on Monday night, of the possibility of Swift and her massive army of supporters wading into the election. “We better be prepared. It seems as though things are aligning for that.”

But there’s more to this than the possibility of a Swift nod swinging a close election. For years, right-wing conspiracists have pushed the notion that Swift, who began her career in the conservative world of country music and was once referred to as “Aryan goddess” by white supremacists, is somehow a Democratic “agent” because she endorsed Democrats in the 2018 midterms and Biden in the 2020 presidential election. (Swift has admitted she regrets not getting involved in 2016.)

The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment on alleged collusion with Swift and the NFL.

Kelce, for his part, appeared in a Pfizer commercial promoting the Covid vaccine. Covid shots have long been the subject of right-wing conspiracies, with adherents falsely believing the government is covering up adverse reactions or that the vaccines harbor microchips.

Now, high-profile conservative figures are promoting the unfounded idea that Swift, the NFL and the Democratic Party are together involved in a “psyop” campaign to deliver the election to Biden. Fox News host Jesse Watters recently suggested that Swift was a “front for a covert political agenda” and bizarrely called her a “Pentagon asset” — which, of course, the Pentagon denied.

“As for this conspiracy theory, we are going to shake it off,” a Pentagon spokesperson told the Daily Beast.

By that logic, Swift’s appearances at Chiefs games isn’t to cheer on her boyfriend or even to promote her tour — it’s really to get the country to vote blue in November.

“I wonder who’s going to win the Super Bowl next month. And I wonder if there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall. Just some wild speculation over here, let’s see how it ages over the next 8 months,” former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who has embraced far more dangerous conspiracy theories than this one, tweeted Monday.

“You don’t have to take my word for it. The New York Times already said it’s working on what the Biden administration calls the ′Taylor strategy,’” Jack Posobiec, a conspiracy theorist known for promoting “Pizzagate”, said at Turning Point Action’s Restoring National Confidence Summit on Tuesday, the same event where Kirk mentioned Swift. (The Times article referenced no such strategy.)

“It’s not about her, it’s about the machine that’s around her,” Posobiec said, suggesting Swift is somehow in cahoots with Democrats.

The theory has some truth behind it: Biden has struggled with young voters, who are a major part of Swift’s fanbase and a reason Biden aides are hopeful an endorsement will arrive before the election. Swift’s endorsement could help encourage some of her 279 million Instagram followers to register to vote, or even to raise cash for Biden.

But just ask former Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen, who earned Swift’s endorsement in a 2018 Senate race, if the pop megastar can guarantee a victory. (Bredesen lost to GOP Senator Marsha Blackburn by 11 points.)

Though even as the conservative podcasting and media spheres hype the dangers of a Swift endorsement to Trump, some of the most right-wing members of Congress aren’t convinced there’s anything political to the Swift-Kelce coupling.

“I’m a sports fan and if I’m watching a game, I’m watching the game,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) told HuffPost. Greene herself has been involved in online conspiracism, and said she’s seen some of the speculation about Swift, but didn’t care to comment.

“Taylor Swift, she’s an entertainer,” Greene said. “Apparently, she’s dating a football player.”

Other House Republicans said they hadn’t heard of what’s going on. Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) said he only wanted the Chiefs to win the Super Bowl. “She’s not adding to anything to help them be more successful,” Burlison said.

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) joked that maybe Swift is a “double deep plant” who will actually help Republicans.

“I remember when she was country — she was in Nashville, and I like country music,” he said. “I’m not a pop person.”

Nikki Haley Explains Why ‘Insecure’ Trump Is His ‘Own Worst Enemy’

Posted on 28/01/2024 by Boris Clair

Nikki Haley called Donald Trump his “own worst enemy” while appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.

With the Republican presidential primary down to two candidates, Haley has been enduring a majority of Trump’s rage in recent weeks.

But the former South Carolina governor told “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker that she thinks the former president’s outbursts only prove how he’s unfit for a second term as president.

“I laugh every time I see one of his tweets, every time I see him throw a temper tantrum, because I know Donald Trump very well,” said Haley, who served as his U.N. ambassador for two years.

“When he feels insecure, he starts to rail, he starts to rant, he starts to flail his arms and he starts to get upset.”

“When he feels threatened, he starts to throw all kinds of things out there,” she continued. “I would always tell him he was his own worst enemy. He’s proving that right now.”

Recently, Trump’s attacks on Haley have gotten increasingly racist. He has resorted to mocking Haley by her given name, Nimarata, and suggesting she is ineligible for office as the daughter of Indian immigrants. (Haley was born in South Carolina, making her eligible for the presidency.)

Haley, seen here hosting a rally in North Charleston, South Carolina, on Jan. 24, slammed Trump as "insecure" on "Meet the Press" this weekend. — Haley, seen here hosting a rally in North Charleston, South Carolina, on Jan. 24, slammed Trump as “insecure” on “Meet the Press” this weekend.

Elsewhere in the interview, Haley also said she thinks that Trump’s lack of composure in the courtroom is a cause for concern.

After Trump lashed out at a New York jury’s $83.3 million defamation judgment last week, Haley said Americans can “see that he’s completely distracted; they see that he’s going on these rants about how he’s the victim, and I think that’s exactly what we don’t need a strong leader to be.”

“These court cases are going to keep happening. One by one, we’re going to keep seeing him in a courtroom and we’re going to see him come out and do a press conference,” she said. “That’s not what you want a president to be, but more than that, that’s not what we want Russia to see, that’s not what we want China to see and that’s not what we want Iran to see.”

In addition to his personal attacks on Haley, Trump has also tried to strong-arm her potential donors.

On Wednesday in a Truth Social post, he said anyone who donates money to his opponent would be “barred from the MAGA camp.”

Haley called his warning “totally unhinged” during an interview on Fox News on Friday and her campaign later announced it had received $1 million in donations after Trump’s threat.

Watch Haley’s full interview on “Meet the Press” below:

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Ron DeSantis Drops Out Of Presidential Race

Posted on 21/01/2024 by Boris Clair

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who entered the 2024 presidential race with a bankroll rivalling that of coup-attempting former President Donald Trump, dropped his bid for the Republican nomination on Sunday — and endorsed Trump on his way out.

“Nobody worked harder and we left it all out on the field,” DeSantis said in a video posted on X, formerly Twitter, before going on to say, “If there was anything I could do to produce a favourable outcome ― more campaign stops, more interviews ― I would do it.”

“But I can’t ask our supporters to volunteer their time and donate their resources if we don’t have a clear path to victory. Accordingly, I am today suspending my campaign.”

DeSantis then added that he was backing Trump over former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, the remaining major candidate in the race.

“It’s clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance,” he said, adding, “He has my endorsement because we can’t go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear, a repackaged form of warmed over corporatism that Nikki Haley represents.”

At a campaign stop in Seabrook, New Hampshire, Haley acknowledged DeSantis’ announcement.

“I want to say to Ron, he ran a great race. He’s been a good governor, and we wish him well. Having said that, it’s now one fella and one lady left,” she said.

The announcement comes just days after DeSantis claimed he had gotten his “ticket punched” to continue his campaign despite finishing a distant second to Trump in the Iowa caucuses. Late polls in that state showed that DeSantis could finish third behind Haley. When DeSantis ultimately finished just two percentage points ahead of her, he tried to spin it as a victory ― even though he had previously said he had to win Iowa to win the nomination.

DeSantis was polling even worse in New Hampshire and South Carolina than he had been in Iowa, and his campaign seemed uncertain of a strategy going forward. His first stop after Iowa was a campaign visit to South Carolina, a contest that is a full month after New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary on Tuesday. He was to return to New Hampshire on Friday, but then was planning to head back to South Carolina on Saturday.

Republicans who feared Trump could not win a general election, particularly wealthy party donors, had initially lined up behind DeSantis after his nearly 20%-point reelection as governor in November 2022. That star power allowed him to continue collecting donations of unlimited size in a state account and eventually transfer more than $80 million into a federal super PAC created to support him.

But DeSantis’ high point in the campaign turned out to be just after that reelection victory, when some polls showed him actually ahead of Trump for the 2024 nomination.

That began to change quickly. Trump entered the race just weeks after those midterm elections and soon began attacking DeSantis in speeches, online and even in television ads.

DeSantis chose not to enter the race himself until the end of Florida’s legislative session in May, by which point he was polling only in the 20s both nationally and in Iowa and New Hampshire.

The poor polling resulted in weaker fundraising, which resulted in two rounds of staff layoffs and shakeups ― even though much of the logistical work of the campaign was effectively outsourced to the relatively flush Never Back Down super PAC.

An even bigger problem for DeSantis, though, may have been something even the best fundraising could do nothing about: his personality. Longtime Florida Republicans told HuffPost a year ago that DeSantis has never seemed to enjoy interacting with people.

That trait, as it turns out, became a major liability in a primary race that still places a high value on personal interactions with primary voters in the early voting states.

“His problem is that the more people see him, the less they like him,” said one influential New Hampshire Republican, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Riot Roh-Roh: Trump Drags Nikki Haley In Massive January 6 Blunder

Posted on 20/01/2024 by Boris Clair

Donald Trump blamed former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley for security during the January 6, 2021 attack on Friday as he seemingly confused former House speaker Nancy Pelosi with his Republican rival.

The former president – while touting the amount of supporters at the Concord, New Hampshire rally – claimed the former South Carolina governor gets crowds of “like nine people” in the state before bringing up the insurrection.

“By the way, they never report the crowd on January 6. You know Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley. You know they – do you know they destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything, deleted and destroyed all of it. All of it,” Trump claimed.

“Because of lots of things like Nikki Haley is in charge of security — we offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guards, whatever they want. They turned it down. They don’t want to talk about that. These are very dishonest people.”

Trump has previously pointed his finger at Pelosi for security breakdowns when the riot took place, claiming that the former House speaker turned down his offer to activate the National Guard as his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.

The House speaker isn’t in charge of security at the Capitol and doesn’t direct the National Guard.

Drew Hammill, a spokesperson for Pelosi, told The Associated Press last year that the former House speaker – who he noted was a “target of an assassination attempt” that day – “was no more in charge of Capitol security than Mitch McConnell was.”

“This is a clear attempt to whitewash what happened on January 6th and divert blame,” Hammill wrote of the claim.

A number of critics on X mocked Trump for his remarks, questioning whether he “can identify a fucking whale.”

[Goes on about Jan. 6 tapes and records being destroyed]

“Because of lots of things. Like, Nikki Haley is in charge of security. Did you know we offered her 10,000 troops?” https://t.co/AkulfF3Dbk

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) January 20, 2024

No one was as surprised to find this out as Nikki Haley.

— Machine Pun Kelly 🇺🇦 (@KellyScaletta) January 20, 2024

Trump Pushes For Total Immunity — Including For Events That ‘Cross The Line’

Posted on 18/01/2024 by Boris Clair

Former President Donald Trump, who faces federal criminal charges over his unprecedented efforts to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election, argued on Thursday that presidents should have complete immunity from prosecution for any crime they may commit while in office.

“EVEN EVENTS THAT ‘CROSS THE LINE’ MUST FALL UNDER TOTAL IMMUNITY, OR IT WILL BE YEARS OF TRAUMA TRYING TO DETERMINE GOOD FROM BAD,” Trump wrote in all capital letters on his social media platform, Truth Social.

He added: “SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO LIVE WITH ‘GREAT BUT SLIGHTLY IMPERFECT.’ ALL PRESIDENTS MUST HAVE COMPLETE & TOTAL PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY, OR THE AUTHORITY & DECISIVENESS OF A PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES WILL BE STRIPPED & GONE FOREVER. HOPEFULLY THIS WILL BE AN EASY DECISION. GOD BLESS THE SUPREME COURT!”

Trump’s lawyers argued in federal court earlier this month that his actions seeking to overturn the 2020 election, leading up to the violent January 6, 2021, attack on Congress, were official acts and that he is, therefore, immune from prosecution by the Justice Department, which has charged him with three counts of conspiracy and one count of obstructing an official proceeding.

However, the US District Court of Appeals judges seemed likely to reject that argument. Trump’s comments on Thursday signaled that he hopes the conservative 6-3 Supreme Court will take up the matter and rule in his favor.

Trump’s bid for total immunity has drawn bipartisan criticism. Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, his leading 2024 presidential primary rival, dismissed it as “ridiculous”, while Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) called it “antithetical to what we all believe in”.

Still, Trump has picked up momentum following his resounding win in the Iowa caucuses earlier this week. He currently has the support of a majority of Senate Republicans, and more are expected to hop on the bandwagon in the coming weeks.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), in his endorsement of Trump last week, said that Trump would almost certainly be the GOP nominee and that Republicans needed to get behind him to oust Democrat Joe Biden from the White House.

“I’ll take the mean tweets,” Lee added, referring to Trump’s rants online. “I choose Trump.”

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