Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump defied the laws of mathematics on Thursday, claiming that he could have turned around the Supreme Court’s 5-3 abortion ruling by nominating a pro-life justice to replace Antonin Scalia.
Radio host Mike Gallagher noted during an interview with the candidate that the Supreme Court “handed the pro-life movement a disappointing decision” by striking down a Texas law that made it more difficult for women to get abortions.
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Trump suggested that the 5-3 decision would have been flipped to a 5-4 decision upholding the law if he had been able to fill the vacancy left by the death of Scalia with a pro-life judge.
“Now if we had Scalia was living or is Scalia was replaced by me,” Trump said, “you wouldn’t have had that. Okay? It would have been the opposite.”
“So just to confirm,” Gallagher pressed. “Under a Donald — a President Donald Trump-appointed Supreme Court, you wouldn’t see a majority ruling like the one we had with the Texas abortion law this week.”
“No, you wouldn’t see that,” Trump insisted. “And people understand that.”
Ignoring the fact that it would have been impossible to confirm a new justice prior to the ruling, replacing Scalia with another pro-life justice would likely have had no impact on the ruling. The Texas law would still have been overturned 5-4 instead of 5-3.
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On Thursday, the Sacramento Beereported that California Assemblyman Chad Mayes, the former Assembly Minority Leader, is leaving the Republican Party and registering as No Party Preference.
"Instead of focusing on solutions for the big problems that we've got, we focused on winning elections," said Mayes in his announcement. "For me, I'm at the point in my life where I'm done with gamesmanship."
Mayes, a controversial figure who was implicated in an affair with a fellow public official, represents Yucca Valley. He is the second Republican Assemblyman this year to leave the party, after Brian Maienschein of San Diego, who Maienschein of San Diego.
Authorities in Columbus, Ohio evacuated dozens of homes after a man called 911 to report being burned by a
"Firefighters say nothing threatening was found in a northwest Columbus garage," WCMH-TV reported. "According to firefighters, a man called and reported that he received ‘RF burns’ while building some sort of ‘quantum physics generator’ in a garage. The man used words like ‘particle accelerator,’ ‘alpha rays,’ and ‘radiation’ while describing how he was burned."
On Thursday, the Washington Postreported that President Donald Trump has communicated with his lawyer Rudy Giuliani via unsecured and unencrypted phone lines that are potentially vulnerable to interception and monitoring by Russian intelligence officials and other hostile foreign powers.
"Trump is not identified by name in the House phone records, but investigators said they suspect he may be a person with a blocked number listed as '-1' in the files," stated the report. "And administration officials said separately that Trump has communicated regularly with Giuliani on unsecured lines."