Unnamed source tells news site Axios Trump’s speech to the rightwing event will have the message ‘I’m still in charge’
Donald Trump will reportedly tell the Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida this week he is the man to drain the Washington swamp – as Republicans’ “presumptive 2024 nominee”.
Related: Republicans failing to toe the Trumpist line feel wrath of their state parties
Continue reading...Former president Donald Trump will address the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, in Florida next week, about the future of the Republican party and the conservative movement, a source familiar with the plan told Reuters on Saturday.
Related: Trump ally Nunes sees CNN Ukraine lawsuit thrown out by New York judge
Continue reading...President says US will have to work to earn back the trust of its allies in video remarks to the G7 and Munich Security Conference
Joe Biden has pledged “unshakable” US support for the transatlantic alliance in what he portrayed as an epoch-defining struggle to safeguard democracy.
Biden used his virtual debut on the world stage on Friday, in videoconference remarks first to the G7 and then the Munich Security Conference, to assure America’s allies of his determination to bury the legacy left by his predecessor.
Continue reading...Stopping Trump, reforming Facebook and risking his life to make a Borat sequel. In an exclusive interview, the actor unveils his plans for a revolution – and reveals how it feels to come out as himself
Seven months ago, Sacha Baron Cohen was in the back of a speeding ambulance. It was an escape car, and he was fleeing a gun rally. The Borat producers had chosen the ambulance as it could blend in, accommodate a small film crew and, if necessary, hasten a trip to hospital.
Baron Cohen – dressed as Borat, himself disguised as a country singer – had just led the crowd of far-right conspiracy theorists in a singalong. At first, they happily joined in: “Obama, what we gonna do? / Inject him with the Wuhan flu.” Then one or two smelled a rat. Then they all stormed the stage.
Continue reading...Atlantic City authorities have demolished Donald Trump's former casino and hotel complex after it fell into disrepair. It was closed to the public in 2014. Trump, who opened the building on the oceanfront boardwalk in 1984, lost control of it in a 2009 bankruptcy
Continue reading...Former White House strategist Steve Bannon thought Donald Trump was suffering from early-stage dementia and campaigned covertly to remove him from office via the 25th amendment, according to a veteran TV producer.
Related: Sounds about right: why podcasting works for Pence, Bannon and Giuliani
Continue reading...Calls to investigate attack followed Trump’s acquittal in his second impeachment trial
Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, said on Monday that the US Congress will move to establish an outside, independent commission to review the “facts and causes” related to the deadly 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump in the waning days of his presidency.
Pelosi said in a letter to members of Congress that the commission would be modeled on a similar one convened after the 11 September 2001, terrorist attack on Washington and New York.
Continue reading...Infectious disease expert tells Axios he had been nervous going there when many were coming down with the virus
Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious disease expert and chief medical and coronavirus adviser to Joe Biden, revealed on Monday that he had been nervous entering the White House when many there were coming down with Covid-19 late in Donald Trump’s presidency.
Fauci is 80 years old and said that as such he was acutely aware that he was at high risk of suffering a “serious outcome” if he became infected by coronavirus, he told Axios in an interview clip posted online.
Continue reading...Democrats and Republicans both voice support for panel to ‘make sure it never happens again’
Democratic and Republican lawmakers have issued fresh calls for a bipartisan 9/11-style commission to investigate why government officials and law enforcement failed to stop the attack on the US Capitol in January, following Donald Trump’s acquittal in his impeachment on charges that he incited the insurrection.
The commission would be modeled after a panel created in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks, which reviewed what caused the atrocity and laid out recommendations on how to foresee and prevent any future incursions.
Continue reading...‘We needed more senators with spines,’ said Stacey Plaskett after vote to convict fell short of two-thirds majority needed
Democrats defended their prosecution of Donald Trump’s impeachment trial on Sunday and hinted at the possibility of criminal charges, after failing to convince enough senators the former president was guilty of inciting the deadly Capitol attack.
Related: Boris Johnson calls Trump impeachment over Capitol attack 'kerfuffle'
Continue reading...Former president celebrates second impeachment acquittal as supporters and moderates prepare to contest party direction
Donald Trump emerged from his second impeachment trial almost completely politically intact. But amid widespread laments (or celebrations, depending on the affiliation of the speaker) about the former president’s grip on the Republican party, some prominent voices suggested a changing of the guard may still be due.
Related: Mitch McConnell's impeachment speech was just a hostage video | Lloyd Green
Continue reading...The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, said on Saturday that Donald Trump was 'practically and morally responsible' for the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January – minutes after voting to acquit the former president in his impeachment trial for that very same act.
The House majority leader, Nancy Pelosi, criticised McConnell’s remarks in a press conference on Saturday and said the issue of timing 'was not the reason that he voted the way he did; it was the excuse that he used'
Continue reading...Critics say the impeachment process no longer presents a threat or deterrent to bad behavior by the most powerful figure in the land
Former president Donald Trump has repeatedly been called “Teflon Don” during his presidency – a moniker used for the late mob boss John Gotti to describe how consequences for his bad actions apparently don’t stick to him.
Related: Senate Republicans stand by their man and Trump wins his second acquittal | David Smith's sketch
Continue reading...President says the substance of the charge against Donald Trump over the January attack on US Capitol is not in dispute
US president Joe Biden has urged Americans to defend democracy following the acquittal of Donald Trump at his second impeachment trial, saying: “This sad chapter in our history has reminded us that democracy is fragile.”
In a statement on Saturday night, Biden said the substance of the charge against his predecessor over the Capitol riot on 6 January in which five people died was not in dispute, and noted the seven Republicans who voted guilty.
Continue reading...The Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, decried the decision to acquit Donald Trump of inciting a riot at the US Capitol on 6 January. House Democrats, who voted a month ago to charge Trump with ‘incitement of insurrection’, needed two thirds of the Senate, or 67 votes, to convict him. Only seven Republicans joined all 50 Democrats in voting to convict Trump.
The Democrats argued in the short trial that Trump caused the violent attack by repeating for months the false claims that the election was stolen from him, and then telling his supporters gathered near the White House that morning to ‘fight like hell’ to overturn his defeat. Five people died when they then laid siege to the Capitol.
Continue reading...Calls of ‘guilty’ and ‘not guilty’ pinged back and forth in the chamber but once McConnell said no the die was cast
If the denouement of Donald Trump’s impeachment trial had been a Hollywood film, stirring music would have struck up around the time Congressman Joe Neguse explained why he thinks the floor of the US Senate is “sacred”.
Related: Trump’s acquittal seals his grasp on the Republican party
Continue reading...Wall Street Journal says prosecutors interested in loans relating to four Manhattan properties
While there was good news for Donald Trump in Washington on Saturday, as his second impeachment trial ended in acquittal, troubling news came out of his native New York.
The Wall Street Journal reported that prosecutors in the city are investigating about $280m in loans to the Trump Organization, related to four buildings in Manhattan: Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue; a skyscraper at 40 Wall St; a hotel and residential building on Columbus Circle near Central Park; and an apartment building on the Upper East Side.
Continue reading...The former president and his supporters are likely to claim victory as they did after his first impeachment trial a year ago
Donald Trump’s highly anticipated acquittal at his US Senate impeachment trial is the least surprising twist in American politics since … well, his acquittal at his first US Senate impeachment trial a year ago.
Related: Democrats fail to secure enough votes to convict Trump in historic second impeachment trial - live
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Lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin has taken the floor again to push back against some of the comments from Michael Van der Veen.
Raskin noted that the arguments from Donald Trump’s team have been very inconsistent.
Michael Van der Veen, one of Donald Trump’s lawyers, leveled a series of serious accusations (without evidence) against the House impeachment managers.
Van der Veen accused the managers of having “fabricated evidence” and committed “fraud” in its presentations during the impeachment trial.
Continue reading...Five Senate Republicans voted with the Democrats on Saturday, that the Senate should call witnesses in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump.
Before the 55-45 vote, Trump’s impeachment lawyer Michael van der Veen warned senators that if Democrats wished to call a witness, he would ask for at least 100 witnesses and insist they give depositions in person in his office in Philadelphia – a threat that prompted laughter from the chamber.
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