TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie tonight said he has not been issued a subpoena by federal prosecutors investigating the George Washington Bridge scandal. At the same time, he would not say whether he would testify if he were called by a separate legislative…
It’s not the senator’s first visit to Iowa this year. It’s his eighth since 2019. And while Cotton said his visits to Iowa are to help elect Republicans in November, Iowa Republicans are well aware of why political figures flock to their state.
“So we have Senator Cotton, Tom and his, wife, Anna, come out and join us because there’s a lot of people here in Iowa who like your leadership,” Nunn said. “And oh, I like to think that people come here and support Kelly and me, but it just so happens that Iowa’s 3rd (District) happens to be on the pathway to a certain house somewhere down the road.”
Less than two years out from the next Iowa caucuses, Republican politicians are coming to campaign in support of GOP candidates as they feel out a potential presidential candidacy.
But it’s still early for candidates to officially throw their hat into the ring. Cotton said he was in Iowa because it holds important races for Republicans’ goal to win back the House and Senate, like electing Nunn and re-electing U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley.
“This is a very critical election,” Cotton told reporters. “So I’m gonna keep my eyes on the election ahead of us and we’ll decide about future elections in the future.”
Cotton isn’t the only one making up his mind on running. Last week, Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley made her way around Iowa, joining Republican U.S. House candidates on the campaign trail and speaking at a private fundraiser for Gov. Kim Reynolds.
Haley, a former governor of South Carolina, has not officially entered the presidential race, but told reporters at an event supporting U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra that she plans to defend America in whatever role she can.
“If it looks like there’s a place for me next year, I’ve never lost a race,” Haley said, according to the Des Moines Register. “I’m not going to start now. I’ll put 1,000% in and I’ll finish it. If there’s not a place for me, I will fight for this country until my last breath.”
Some Republicans who ran for the 2016 presidential nomination are also making their way back to Iowa. U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz have both made stops in the state after former President Donald Trump’s defeat in 2020. Cruz, who won the 2016 Iowa caucuses, came in August 2021 to support U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson’s campaign, and promised America’s “revival is coming.”
Rubio also visited in August 2021. He said he is focused on his own re-election in Florida for 2022, but spoke about maintaining friendships in Iowa.
But the 2024 Republican caucuses may not be a free-for-all like the Democratic caucuses were in 2020. Trump lost to President Joe Biden in 2020, but still holds major sway over both the Republican party and GOP voters.
Trump brought in a huge crowd at his Des Moines rally in October 2021, where he endorsed Grassley and reiterated his claims that he won the 2020 election.
But the former president has not officially said whether he plans to run again. A Democratic super PAC filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission in March, alleging he violated campaign finance laws by spending his PAC money on events without declaring his intent to run again as a presidential candidate.
“I mean, I know what I’m going to do, but we’re not supposed to be talking about it yet from the standpoint of campaign finance laws,” Trump told reporters in September, when asked about the next presidential campaign cycle.
Trump has a 53% approval rating in Iowa, according to an October 2021 Des Moines Register/Iowa Poll. But some Republicans say there’s enough room for other candidates to win the caucuses, should the former president run again.
Those other candidates may include Trump administration alumni. Besides Haley, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has visited Iowa three times since the last presidential election, and talking about foreign policy and American security. In June, he launched ads in Iowa and South Carolina praising religious freedom wins in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Former Vice President Mike Pence is also visiting Iowa ahead of any 2024 announcements. His candidacy could draw ire of Trump supporters among the Republican base. But conservatives extended Pence a warm welcome in Carroll this April, where he spoke in support of re-electing Iowa Republicans and criticized Biden’s tenure as president.
Pence has faced backlash for his break with Trump on the validity of 2020 election results. But Pence still aligned himself with the former president on conservative victories from their tenure, like the many conservative appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts. Pence said he hopes for more conservative wins in Iowa, and nationwide.
“The good news is, despite all the setbacks we’ve seen in the last year and a half, the Republican Party is fighting back all across America and all across Iowa,” Pence said.
While many Republicans have visited Iowa ahead of the November election, other conservative favorites have yet to stop in the first-in-the-nation caucus state. Polling compiled by FiveThirtyEight shows Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis often comes in second behind Trump among voter rankings of potential candidates. DeSantis has yet to visit Iowa.
Chris Christie, former New Jersey governor and presidential candidate, has also stayed away from Iowa ahead of the midterms despite speculation of another presidential run. U.S. Sens. Josh Hawley and Ben Sasse are in the same boat.
Conservative politicians who are not on the national radar may also decide to enter the race in the coming year.
Brad Whitmore, a veteran who attended the Zach Nunn campaign event, said he thinks Cotton would be a good candidate for president. But he added, “Well, I think (Iowa Sen.) Joni Ernst is a possible candidate, too. She’d make a good president.”
— Kathie Obradovich contributed to this report.
Iowa Capital Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com. Follow Iowa Capital Dispatch on Facebook and Twitter.
Joe Biden is probably the least militaristic president of the last 40 years. He has ended a major foreign war and reduced American involvement in overseas interventions across the board.
Yet Biden has gotten little credit for his antiwar efforts. That’s a problem for those hoping to see less military violence in the world.
When a president or any politician does not get credit for their accomplishments, they have little incentive to build on them.
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Biden has ramped down conflict, but leading antiwar voices have continued to attack him on the issue. Future presidents may reasonably conclude that the antiwar lobby is fickle, unreasonable and confused – that there’s not much point in catering to them.
Biden’s main accomplishment is showing restraint in Afghanistan.
During his campaign, he promised to end the “forever wars”. In August 2021, he did just that, removing all American troops from Afghanistan after more than 20 years of conflict.
Biden was criticized for the “chaotic” withdrawal. Seventy-eight thousand Afghani allies with ties to the US were left behind. They face an uncertain and perilous future under Taliban rule.
Critics blamed Biden for the ugly spectacle of the Taliban overrunning the country following withdrawal. But such criticism was going to be leveled at any president who ended the conflict.
When you lose a war, you’re forced to watch enemies win. The US had a choice: stay in Afghanistan forever or acknowledge we lost. Biden was the first president to choose the second and pull out.
Biden has also removed troops from Iraq and reduced the combat role elsewhere. According to iCasualties.org, no Americans have died in Iraq since September 2020 — none under Biden’s presidency.
Also, Biden has drastically reduced the scale of the drone war.
Barack Obama rightly faced outrage for using of drone strikes in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Somalia. They often killed civilians.
Less reported was that Donald Trump substantially increased drone strikes and virtually ended required reporting and transparency.
Trump launched over 40 in Somalia in 2020; George W. Bush and Obama conducted over 40 strikes over nine years in the country.
Foreign Policy’s Kelsey D. Atherton looked at Trump’s almost invisible, escalating drone violence to conclude that “unaccountable machinery will continue to wage war in relative obscurity. Forever.”
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Yet unaccountable machinery has largely been halted.
Biden instituted policies that require White House approval for all drone strikes outside of active war zones. Now that the Afghan war is ended, that means approval is required practically everywhere.
Trump oversaw some 1,600 air strikes in Iraq and Syria in his first 11 months in office. Biden had four in his first year. In Trump’s last year, there were 75 drone strikes in Somalia. In Biden’s first there were 10, with no civilian casualties. In Yemen, strikes dropped from 18 to 4.
An international monitoring group concluded that strikes fell 54 percent in Biden’s first year compared to Trump’s last one. Most of those were in Afghanistan before the US withdrawal. Outside of Afghanistan, the US carried out only 67 strikes altogether.
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Antiwar activists could argue that 67 strikes is 67 too many. Biden’s also been rightly criticized for a horrific mistaken drone strike in August 2021 that killed 10 civilians, including seven children.
However, it is indisputable that Biden, personally, has massively reduced reliance on drone warfare and has increased accountability.
Biden listened to critics and took them to heart. As a result, his administration has seen less violence and less death worldwide.
But instead of praising Biden for tamping down violence, longtime critics of the drone war have largely ignored his accomplishments.
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Glenn Greenwald, an unrelenting critic of Obama’s drone war, has not written about Biden’s reduction in the drone war that I can find.
The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf, another long-time drone-war critic, does little better. He does mention Biden’s accomplishment — once, in a single sentence, linking to someone else’s article.
Biden’s successful, admirable restraint of the drone war has largely been drowned out by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He has been criticized by some antiwar voices (like Greenwald) for involving the US in it. But his response has again been remarkable for its restraint.
Biden helped organize and implement a sweeping series of global sanctions to target Russia’s economy. He’s provided billions in aid for Ukraine’s military. He has refused to send US troops into the conflict. He’s refused to establish a no-fly zone. And he has been careful to avoid situations in which US and Russia forces might collide. He’s clearly and consistently avoided escalation of this global conflict.
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There’s plenty of room to question Biden’s approach. Many have pushed him to provide more aid to Ukraine. Many have argued the US should do more to compromise with Russia.
What’s indisputable, though, is that Biden did not start the war, and has worked to keep US troops out of it.
During his term, Biden has ended one major war, vastly reduced US involvement in others, and worked actively to prevent a regional imperial war of aggression from metastasizing into a global conflict. He has reduced airstrikes, civilian deaths, and US military deaths.
There is no other president in the past 40 years, or arguably the past 70, with a better record on restraining military involvement.
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Whether or not you like Biden, if you care about reducing war and violence, it’s important to acknowledge these accomplishments.
If antiwar voices don’t seem to notice, or care when wars end, politicians are reasonably going to conclude that their concerns about violence aren’t serious, principled, or informed. If there is no political benefit to restraint, politicians will not engage in restraint.
Biden has given the antiwar movement a series of solid victories. People who care about reducing military violence need to take yes for an answer. If they don’t, it is likely that they will go back to hearing a series of “nos.” And that means more people around the globe will needlessly die.
Authorities say last weekend’s Highland Park massacre was “a well-orchestrated and carefully planned crime.” So far, they have not elaborated. They also say there’s “no clear motive” to explain why suspect Robert Crimo took a legally purchased semiautomatic rifle to a roof on a Fourth of July parade route to spray as many as 70 rounds of fire into the crowd, killing seven and wounding scores of others.
If there’s no clear motive, however, does that mean this was not a hate crime? If this was not a hate crime, why did the 21-year-old resident of Highland Park, whose dad owned a restaurant and once ran for mayor, spend weeks planning? And if it was all planned out, why leave the rifle behind? Police say it led directly to Crimo.
Too much focus on motive
The dearth of clear answers has understandably inspired speculation. Highland Park is, as well as being our culture’s ideal of suburban bliss, home to a “significant Jewish population,” according to The Forward. (I have read numbers between 30 and 50 percent; in any case, a lot).
READ MORE: Marjorie Taylor Greene suggests July 4th Highland Park mass shooting was a false flag operation
Crimo surveilled a synagogue last spring, during Passover, The Forward reported. After security confronted him (Crimo was unmistakable with face tattoos), he sat in the sanctuary for about 45 minutes before leaving. (As many as four of his victims were Jewish).
The question of motive is important to matters of law, but not, in this case, punishment. If convicted of multiple counts of first-degree murder, Crimo could face life without parole, according to state law.
Crimo surveilled a synagogue last spring, during Passover, The Forward reported. After security confronted him (Crimo was unmistakable with face tattoos), he sat in the sanctuary for about 45 minutes before leaving. (As many as four of his victims were Jewish).
The question of motive is important to matters of law, but not, in this case, punishment. If convicted of multiple counts of first-degree murder, Crimo could face life without parole, according to state law.
We need only understand how.
The path to intended violence
Jaclyn Schildkraut is the director of the Gun Violence Research Consortium. She’s also an associate professor of criminal justice at SUNY Oswego. In a recent white paper for the Rockefeller Institute (reposted by the Editorial Board), she outlined what she called the path to intended violence model. It “outlines the progressive phases individuals pass through ahead of committing acts of violence.”
There are five stages.
1. Grievance
It can be anything. It can be “real (eg, loss of a job or relationship) or perceived (eg, driven by paranoid or delusional thinking).”
2. Fixation
“Unable to move past the grievance, the individual becomes fixated on it and engages in ideation wherein they fantasize about responding to the grievance through violent means.”
3. Planning
“This often involves researching previous attacks and their perpetrators and deciding on where they will carry out their plan and surveilling it (depending on their level of familiarity with the location), among other logistical considerations.”
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4. Preparation
This includes “acquiring their weapon(s), ammunition and other elements (eg, body armor). It is at this point that they may also craft manifestos or other legacy tokens or give away personal belongings.”
5. Probing
In “which they test for security and other potential barriers to carrying out their plan at the intended location or conduct a dry run.”
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“At this point,” Schildkraut wrote, “the attack is imminent.”
Signaling before doing
We don’t yet know much about Crimo’s life, but the little we know seems to overlap with Schildkraut’s model of intended violence.
First, Crimo was familiar.
He grew up in Highland Park. He appeared so attached that he returned after first fleeing to Wisconsin. That’s when police arrested him “without incident.” He went to public school there. He attended a local nondenominational church. In short, he was a local – familiar enough with Highland Park to surveil one of its synagogues. His dad owns “Bob’s Pantry & Deli, and once ran for mayor of Highland Park.
He amassed weapons.
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A semiautomatic “similar to an AR-15” was found on the roof. Another was found in his car. His residence had more guns. He appears to have collected cutting blades. A sword, a dagger and various knives.
In planning, he studied history
USA Today reported on Crimo’s digital past. He posted a picture of a newspaper clipping referencing Lee Harvey Oswald, who killed John Kennedy from a rooftop the way Crimo killed hometown residents.
He lived amid secrecy.
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USA Today spoke to a woman who knew him for four years “from Thursday night small-group gatherings and Sunday services at Christ Church Highland Park.” She said he was “quiet and usually only offered surface-level comments when he spoke.” He lived with an uncle who said Crimo kept to himself in an adjacent apartment.
He wanted people to know his intentions.
Schildkraut calls it “leakage”: “an overt warning sign that may occur at any stage on the path. As such, it is important that individuals who become aware of these statements report them to authorities for further investigation and threat assessment immediately.”
In August 2019, Crimo tried killing himself. A month later, a family member called the cops on him, alleging a plan “to kill everyone.” (Police confiscated his cutting blades.) His digital record, since taken down by YouTube, included violent images and video that seemingly signaled, or at least suggested, what Crimo was preparing to do.
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