McCain: Obama must drop public option

Any hope that Donald Trump's new re-election team may have had that they could steer him into running a more conventional campaign appears to have been swept aside as he used his first major rally to whip up the crowd with a litany of grievances and personal attacks.

According to the Guardian's David Smith, during Trump's appearance in Waco late Saturday, the former president used his speech to "invoke retribution and violence" at his perceived enemies, with attacks on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) who might possibly challenge him for the Republican Party's 2024 presidential nomination.

During an appearance on MSNBC, the former assistant director for counterintelligence at the F.B.I. accused Donald Trump of jumping the gun on his possible indictment so that he can get his most rabid followers time to plan and organize violent protests.

Speaking with host Alicia Melendez, Frank Figliuzzi first talked about the frightening number of death threats that have flooded the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, before touching on the former president's call to arms when he falsely announced he was going to be arrested last Tuesday.

Trump’s payment of $130,000 to Daniels to silence her allegations of an affair with him could become the first such scandal to result in an indictment, the Times noted. But it does have precedent in one respect: “It can trace its lineage to skullduggery in 1968 and 1980,” the paper reports.

"The scandal that has ensnared Donald J. Trump, the paying of hush money to a pornographic film star in 2016, is in a rare class: an attempt not to bring to light an election-altering event, but to suppress one,” the Times noted. “The payoff to Stormy Daniels that has a Manhattan grand jury weighing criminal charges against Mr. Trump can trace its lineage to at least two other episodes foiling an October surprise.