Trump says Israel should “finish the problem” Because he’s a big peacenik, dontcha know: Former President Donald Trump called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war in Gaza quickly during an interview with Fox News Channel’s “MediaBuzz.” This is the first time Trump has called to end the war in Gaza since the Hamas attack in Israel on October 7. Trump’s comments in Sunday’s aired interview follow calls he made on Friday with FNC’s “Fox and Friends” host Brian Kilmeade that Israel should “finish the problem.” “You had a horrible invasion. It took place. It would have never happened if I was president, by the way,” he added Friday. On Sunday, the former president didn’t mention hostages or any other conditions that he would back to broker a ceasefire. “You have to finish it up and do it quickly and get back to the world of peace. We need peace in the world…we need peace in the Middle East,” Trump said when asked by “MediaBuzz” host Howard Kurtz what he would tell Netanyahu about the war in Gaza.
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Ankush Khardori at Politico takes a look at some polling on Trump’s legal problems: Eight months out, we had questions. Among them: If Trump is convicted of a crime, how will it affect his chances of returning to the White House? What do Americans make of his claim that he should be immune from prosecution even if he actually perpetrated a criminal scheme to steal the last election? Does the public trust the Supreme Court to decide that issue fairly? To find out, we worked with Ipsos to poll the American people — and we discovered some surprising answers to all of these questions, and several more. The bottom line is that a conviction in Manhattan may not doom Trump, but it would do real damage. More than a third of independents said a guilty verdict would make them less likely to support Trump’s candidacy. In a close race, that might matter. It also cuts against the conventional wisdom, as analysts have sometimes doubted the political impact of the prosecution in Manhattan, which concerns Trump’s alleged falsification of his company’s business records in connection with a hush-money payment to the adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Trump is lying more than ever This Washington Post fact check is worth reading if you aren’t following all the latest Trump lies: Trump frequently recycles false claims of achievement from when he was president that we have repeatedly fact-checked, including: -He created the greatest U.S. economy in U.S. history (not by any metric).-He passed the biggest tax cut in history (it ranks 8th).-He did more for Black people than any president but Abraham Lincoln (not by any metric).-He defeated ISIS in four weeks (it took the United States and coalition partners more than two years after he took office).-He was the first president to impose tariffs on China (China has faced U.S. tariffs since George Washington first enacted them in 1789).He increased government revenue even though he cut taxes (False). But there are always new lies. Here are a few: Biden was declared ‘incompetent’ to stand trial in documents case “He’s [Biden] at great jeopardy, really, but they said: ‘Look, he’s incompetent to go to court but he can be president.’ Figure that one.
No vaccine yet for MAGA fever That’s the thing about democracy. When it’s working smoothly no one notices. Public officials derided as the Deep State do their jobs, underpaid compared to the private sector, and deliver your mail, take away your trash, deposit your Social Security checks, run your police department. A small army of them administer elections in your state, unseen save for the handful of retirees you see every two years at your polling station. “Nobody knew who we were, what we did,” [Arizona Secretary of State Adrian] Fontes said ruefully. “It’s a little bit different now.” Fontes now has a bodyguard, reports The Guardian: “It’s very sad,” Fontes said. “It’s a sad state of affairs that in a civil society, in one of the most advanced civilizations that anybody could have imagined, we have to worry about physical violence.” These are troubled times in Arizona. Until 2020, election officials were the largely anonymous folk who did the important yet unseen work of making democracy run smoothly.
What did Trump actually do when he was president? This grotesque hagiography of Trump’s allegedly historically successful presidency is beyond parody. Even beyond the horror of his pandemic response was the endless chaos, the terrorist attacks, the massive foreign policy embarrassments, the rampant corruption. It was a shitshow from start to finish. But apparently people have forgotten what it was like and see him as some sort of benign caretaker at worst which is stunning. He did things. And they weren’t good. In the wake of his startling announcement that he planned to cut SS and medicare Jonathan Cohn took a look at his actual record: Instead of imagining how he might govern, you can look at what he actually did — especially on three issues that matter a lot to most Americans. Trump’s History On Abortion And Obamacare One of those issues is reproductive rights, which my colleague Alanna Vagianos has covered in depth. The issue has proved politically toxic for Republicans ever since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, ending the federal guarantee of abortion rights.
The WSJ: Influential economic advisers to Donald Trump presented the former president with a shortlist of potential candidates to lead the Federal Reserve during a meeting at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida last week, according to people familiar with the matter. In the Thursday meeting, Steve Moore and Arthur Laffer, who have long advised Trump on economic issues, recommended three candidates: Kevin Warsh, an economic-policy adviser to President George W. Bush who later served on the Fed’s board of governors; Kevin Hassett, a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Trump administration, and Laffer himself. Laffer, an economic adviser to former President Ronald Reagan, is one of the founding theorists of supply-side economics and a champion of the 2017 tax cuts Trump signed into law. I’m not familiar with Warsh but he sounds like the most normal of the three. Hasset is a Trump loyalist and Laffer is a full-blown crank. I wrote about his so-called economic success for Salon a bit ago. Laffer and Moore are heavily involved in the conomic side of Project 2025.
Even if they aren’t wearing a red hat or waving a giant Trump flag A good rule of thumb from Never Trumper Mike Madrid: Let me offer some advice when you’re talking to Republican friends, family & neighbors about not voting for Trump. This is how you can tell who is and isn’t voting for Trump. If someone says “I really don’t like the way he handles himself and his offensive tweets but I like his policies” that person is a Trump voter. This person knows what they’re doing is wrong but they’re rationalizing the behavior they know is wrong. If someone says “I don’t like Trump or his policies but no way I’d ever vote for Biden” this person is a Trump voter. This person doesn’t care, even enjoys doing the wrong thing and won’t be bothered by being forced to answer for it or think about it. If someone says “January 6th was the breaking point for me” or “Trump is mentally unfit” or “He’s dangerous” This voter has broken the fever swamp. Expect 1 in 10 Republicans to respond this way. They’re there but don’t be fooled by the first two.
This is serious. From last month in the NY Times: Former President Donald J. Trump has told advisers and allies that he likes the idea of a 16-week national abortion ban with three exceptions, in cases of rape or incest, or to save the life of the mother, according to two people with direct knowledge of Mr. Trump’s deliberations. Mr. Trump has studiously avoided taking a clear position on restrictions to abortion since Roe v. Wade was overturned in the middle of 2022, galvanizing Democrats ahead of the midterm elections that year. He has said in private that he wants to wait until the Republican presidential primary contest is over to publicly discuss his views, because he doesn’t want to risk alienating social conservatives before he has secured the nomination, the two people said. Mr. Trump has approached abortion transactionally since becoming a candidate in 2015, and his current private discussions reflect that same approach. One thing Mr. Trump likes about a 16-week federal ban on abortions is that it’s a round number. “Know what I like about 16?” Mr. Trump told one of these people, who was given anonymity to describe a private conversation.
In the last months of his presidency he pardoned a bunch of them. Following up on the post below, here’s an example of how Trump dealt with the “waste, fraud and abuse” which he now says is his actual plan to cut Social Security and Medicare: In an attempt to clean up comments he made this week about “cutting” entitlement programs, former president Donald Trump has vowed in recent days that he would reduce spending on Social Security and Medicare by targeting waste and fraud in those programs. However, a review of Trump’s record shows that, in the closing months of his presidency, he used his clemency powers to help several people convicted in major Medicare fraud cases, including commuting the sentence of a man the Justice Department had described as having “orchestrated one of the largest health care fraud schemes in U.S. history.” In his last year in office, Trump commuted the sentences of at least five people who collectively filednearly $1.6 billion in fraudulent claims through Medicare or Medicaid.
The GOPers want to cancel Joe Biden’s Stare of the Union speeches because he’s so divisive. You really can’t make this stuff up: House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) said GOP leadership should reconsider how they invite presidents to give the State of the Union address, citing President Biden‘s “divisive” speech. Emmer argued Biden’s remarks were a “hyper-partisan” campaign speech, telling Axios the president should not be invited to address Congress next year if he’s elected to a second term. The Minnesota Republican said he’s bullish on former President Trump‘s odds of defeating Biden in November, but felt Biden’s speech should have had a more unifying tone. “That was about the most divisive State of the Union — I wouldn’t extend him an invitation next year, if that’s what we’re going to get,” Emmer said during an interview at the House GOP retreat. “He’s not going to be there next year — it’ll be a different president.