The Democratic ex-president was candid in remarks to donors and advisers, according to Battle for the Soul by Edward-Isaac Dovere
For much of Donald Trump’s presidency, Barack Obama largely abided by the convention that former presidents do not publicly criticize or attack their successors.
Related: Trump family members got ‘inappropriately close’ to Secret Service agents, book claims
Continue reading...Liz Cheney has become the figurehead of the conservative Never Trumpers – but the Wyoming congresswoman was for the former president in the last election.
Related: Can ‘Never Trump’ Republicans gain party control – or is it a lost cause?
Continue reading...Anti-Trump Republicans get lots of media attention. That doesn’t mean they are relevant within the Republican party
“Over 100 Republicans, including former officials, threaten to split” from the Republican party, the New York Times declared on Tuesday. The next day the Washington Post upped the ante, headlining that the 100 Republicans were vowing “civil war”; the columnist Jennifer Rubin proclaimed the beginning of “the stampede away from the GOP”.
Sounds exciting, but what has really happened?
Continue reading...As Liz Cheney’s defiance turns her into one of the movement’s leaders some insist the party was their home long before Trump while others say it’s time to move on
Sixteen minutes and out. The purging of Liz Cheney from Republican leadership in the House of Representatives did not even go to a secret ballot. Instead a voice vote was all it took to confirm the party’s capitulation to Donald Trump and his “big lie” about a stolen election.
But Cheney went down swinging, vowing to reporters on Capitol Hill: “I will do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office,” then using a high-profile TV interview to say of would-be challengers for her seat in Wyoming: “Bring it on.”
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Here’s a quick summary of what’s happened so far today:
A new New York Times story points out just how influential Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s logo, with its bold, slanted text, was to future progressive candidates who emulated her poster’s style. It’s now seen all over the country in races big and small and was even used by a communist candidate in France.
Gavan Fitzsimons, a business professor at Duke University, told the Times that copycat posters are likely trying to get potential voters to subconsciously associate the candidate with Ocasio-Cortez.
NEW: The iconography of @AOC — my dive into how Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s logo has formed a new graphical language for progressivism.
From KY to VA to NYC and even France, imitators abound.https://t.co/eakjRoSEZn pic.twitter.com/sw9Z6oM0hz
Liz Cheney has refused to rule out running for US president if it would prevent Donald Trump from ever taking charge of the White House again, saying she will do “whatever it takes” to stop her fellow Republican.
Cheney, who on Wednesday was ousted as House Republican conference chair by her colleagues, in a voice vote behind closed doors, was asked three times on NBC’s Today show in an interview aired on Thursday whether she would run to stymie a comeback by the former president.
Continue reading...After being voted out from her role as House Republican conference chair, Liz Cheney said she planned to ‘lead the fight’ to create a stronger party in the future. The congresswoman said: ‘I will do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office.’ Cheney was one of 10 Republicans in the House who voted to impeach Trump over the US Capitol breach
The ousting of Cheney snuffs out all doubt – Republicans don’t think they can win next year’s midterm elections without Trump
Lafayette Square, outside the White House, reopened this week to strolling couples, tourists and scampering children. After nearly a year sealed off by eight-foot metal fencing, it was one more sign of life in America getting back to normal.
Then there’s the danger. For more than three months it’s been tempting for many to assume that, with Joe Biden in the White House and Donald Trump off Twitter, democracy survived its near-death experience, recovered and checked out of hospital. But the ousting of Liz Cheney by the Republican party shows that the potential for a relapse is all too real.
Continue reading...The US representative Liz Cheney, speaking in the House a day before her expected ouster from a Republican leadership post, chastised her party colleagues for not standing up to the former president Donald Trump and his false claim that the November election was stolen. ’Remaining silent and ignoring the lie emboldens the liar. I will not participate in that,’ she said.
Cheney, the No 3 Republican in the House of Representatives, was one of 10 Republicans in the House who voted to impeach Trump in January after he delivered a fiery 6 January speech to supporters, many of whom then stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to block certification of his election loss to Joe Biden
Concerns over bonds involving Trump’s then daughter in-law Vanessa and daughter Tiffany revealed in Carol Leonnig’s Zero Fail
Two Trump family members got “inappropriately – and perhaps dangerously – close” to agents protecting them while Donald Trump was president, according to a new book on the US Secret Service.
Related: A Very Stable Genius review: dysfunction and disaster at the court of King Donald
Continue reading...Far from losing influence over the party, critics say, Trump has in fact burrowed far into its DNA so that the two are now all but inseparable
Ron DeSantis was exultant. “The way Florida did it I think inspires confidence; I think that’s how elections should be run,” the state governor told reporters last November. “Rather than us be at the centre of a Bush v Gore in 2020, we’re now being looked at as the state that did it right.”
This boast of a smoothly run election just six months ago makes DeSantis’s actions this week all the more curious. The governor suddenly found it necessary to impose sweeping reforms that limit mail-in voting and ballot drop boxes – and signed the new law live on the Fox News network on Thursday with no other media allowed.
Continue reading...Donald Trump’s adult children reportedly cost taxpayers $140,000 in Secret Service security in the month after the clan’s patriarch left the White House in January.
Related: The sleazy, sordid Matt Gaetz scandal: are the walls now closing in on him?
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Hello everyone, this is Julia Carrie Wong picking up the blog from the San Francisco bay area, where we’re bracing for unusually early fire weather amid another climate crisis-fueled drought.
Suffice it to say that it's very unusual that NorCal has seen Red Flag Warnings straight through calendar this year. Vegetation is very rarely dry enough to trigger in spring, even with strong winds, but vegetation remains at/near record dry levels in many places. #CAwx #CAfire https://t.co/97rlEVhytM
That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Julia Carrie Wong, will take over the blog for the next few hours.
Here’s where the day stands so far:
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Mike Jordan reports for the Guardian:
Idaho’s governor, Brad Little, has a bill signed into law that aims to restrict critical race theory from being taught as a subject in schools and universities.
The bill, H377, prevents teachers from “indoctrinating” students into belief systems that claim that members of any race, sex, religion, ethnicity or national origin are inferior or superior to other groups. Signed into law last week, H377 also makes it illegal to make students “affirm, adopt or adhere to” beliefs that members of these groups are today responsible for past actions of the groups to which they claim to belong.
Related: Idaho governor signs bill to ban critical race theory from being taught in schools
Continue reading...Analysis: Trump will try to have it both ways over the verdict – decrying censorship but also eyeing an eventual return
It was not so much “Release the Kraken!” as “please tell the Kraken to pace around the room a few more times while we think about it”.
Facebook’s oversight board ruled that Donald Trump should remain banned from the platform for incendiary posts on the day of the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol. But it also told the company that its “vague, standardless penalty” should be reviewed within six months.
Continue reading...Donald Trump’s Facebook account should not be reinstated, the social media giant’s oversight board said on Wednesday, barring an imminent return to the platform.
However, the board has punted the final decision over Trump’s account back to Facebook itself, suggesting the platform make a decision in six months regarding what to do with Trump’s account and whether it will be permanently deleted.
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We’re wrapping up today’s live US politics coverage for the evening. It’s been a day of major developments with global reach here in the United States, as well as sustained infighting within the Republican party over Republicans’ allegiance to Donald Trump and his lies. Here’s an updated summary:
This time, Elon Musk’s SpaceX prototype did not explode
SpaceX’s Starship prototype SN15 sticks the landing! https://t.co/QX9P6d14mt #SpaceX #Starship pic.twitter.com/mO4N0fuzZK
SpaceX makes a statement with SN15 Starship landing, coming amid the bid protests on the NASA lunar lander contract. https://t.co/PQ4nrRtqU6
For Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship program more smoke, fire and shrapnel. But at least "the crater is in the right place." Next up: SN15. https://t.co/50DX5ONogF
Continue reading...Ex-president unveils retro webpage featuring series of statements resembling blogposts ahead of Facebook oversight board’s decision on his suspension
Banned by Facebook and Twitter, Donald Trump has gone back to the future with an online communication tool that might be described as a glorified blog.
His retro webpage, billed “From the Desk of Donald J Trump”, appears at DonaldJTrump.com/desk and features a small photo of the 45th president writing in a book on his desk.
Continue reading...Republican who voted to impeach Trump under increasing fire from members of her own party who are loyal to former president
Liz Cheney, the Wyoming Republican who voted to impeach Donald Trump, is coming under fire from members of her own party after her tweet that the former president did not lose the election unfairly. The spat illustrates the split between Republicans loyal to Trump and those willing to criticize the former president.
“The 2020 presidential election was not stolen,” Cheney tweeted. “Anyone who claims it was is spreading THE BIG LIE, turning their back on the rule of law, and poisoning our democratic system.”
Continue reading...Mitt Romney was loudly booed at the Utah Republican party convention on Saturday, and called a 'traitor' and a 'communist' as he tried to speak. 'Aren’t you embarrassed?' the Utah senator asked the crowd of 2,100 delegates at the Maverik Center in West Valley City. 'I’m a man who says what he means, and you know I was not a fan of our last president’s character issues.'
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