WATCH LIVE: Sarah Huckabee Sanders holds White House briefing after Trump calls for Session to un-recuse himself
August 1, 2018, 12:24 PM ET
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Trump reacts to Biden's fall: 'You have to be careful – even if you have to tiptoe down a ramp'
June 01, 2023
In the middle of a speech to an audience at a campaign event in Iowa this Thursday, Donald Trump was informed that President Joe Biden had taken a pretty hard fall while on stage at the U.S. Air Force Academy graduation ceremony in Colorado.
"Well, I hope he wasn't hurt," Trump said, adding, "The whole thing is crazy -- you gotta be careful about that ... because you don't want that, even if you have to tiptoe down a ramp."
Trump was referring to an incident during his presidency when news cameras captured him in June of 2020 appearing to have trouble walking down a stage ramp after giving a commencement speech at West Point. Numerous news outlets at the time used the video to speculate about the then-president's health.
Biden's fall Thursday, which the White House blamed on a misplaced sandbag, invited similar speculation from his critics, some saying it shows the double standard in how the media covered the two incidents.
After his fall Biden, who is now 80, stood back up with some help and walked away unassisted.
Watch the video below or at this link.
\u201cTrump reacts to Biden falling on stage earlier today: "You got to be careful about that. Because you don\u2019t want that. Even if you have to tiptoe down a ramp."\u201d— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1685648176
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Rolling Stone reported that there is a war for online influencers between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis as the two campaigns kick into high gear.
DeSantis is reportedly "offering access and (in one case) a job to buttress the governor’s online army," Rolling Stone reported.
Another "get" for both would be the conservative alternative to "The Onion," known as "The Babylon Bee." Trump has been known to tweet stories from the site, not knowing they were jokes. "The Bee reciprocated the affection with shots at the president’s enemies."
But Rolling Stone reported that in Februrary far-right activist and Trump supporter Laura Loomer spotted a $21,500 payment from DeSantis' PAC to the Bee during his governor's race. Owner of the Bee, Seth Dillon, told her that the money was for "joke/speechwriting," Rolling Stone reported.
"In text messages reviewed by Rolling Stone, Dillon claimed to Loomer that the payments were about helping DeSantis fight Democrats, not Trump."
Dillon told Loomer: “You could consider us speech writing consultants. We help him find funny angles on Democrats. We don’t attack Trump for him. That’s silly and false. They have never suggested that we write anything about Trump.”
Regardless, Trump was furious, a source told Rolling Stone. Loomer told Trump about it as the two dined one evening. Trump's campaign finance data for the committee or the Save America PAC doesn't show he's paid Loomer for any work she's done in the past several months.
“You don’t spend that much money on The Babylon Bee if you’re running for Governor, in fact, you don’t spend money on The Babylon Bee if you’re running for anything!” Trump wrote.
It has sent the conspiracy mill spinning with suspicion about the relationship between Dillon and DeSantis. He gave about $40,000 to DeSantis' "Empower Parents PAC" before the gubernatorial election. Dillion was also on hand for DeSantis' "Digital Bill of Rights" law, Rolling Stone reported.
“If a campaign pays you for a specific task or a specific email rental or whatever it is, that doesn’t mean you’re in their pocket and you’re gonna do what they say. Nobody from the DeSantis team has ever given me an order or implied such or ever will give me an order that I will comply with,” Dillon said in a Twitter Spaces conversation last week, Rolling Stone reported.
“I voted for Trump multiple times. The country was better off when he was running it,” Dillon continued when asked about the top GOP candidates. “I’m good friends with people in the Trump family and so you know this idea that I view MAGA as a whole as a cult and I’m on DeSantis’ team is just silly. I’m not bought and paid by DeSantis.”
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'Tell it to God': Evangelical pastor spars with Ted Cruz over Uganda’s 'Kill the Gays' law
June 01, 2023
A Florida pastor with ties to GOP Governor Ron DeSantis insists his recent remarks attacking U.S. Senator Ted Cruz should not be viewed as an endorsement of the biblical call for gay people to be executed. But he’s not saying he is opposed to it either.
As The Daily Beast first reported, Tom Ascol, the senior pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, Florida, blasted the Texas Republican Senator, who surprised many when he called Uganda’s new “Kill the Gays” law “horrific & wrong.”
“Any law criminalizing homosexuality or imposing the death penalty for ‘aggravated homosexuality’ is grotesque & an abomination. ALL civilized nations should join together in condemning this human rights abuse,” Cruz actually tweeted.
That would be the same Ted Cruz who in 2015 claimed gay people were waging a “jihad” against Christians.
Pastor Ascol, who delivered the invocation at Governor DeSantis’ second inauguration, has been called the man who could bring evangelicals from Donald Trump and deliver them to Ron DeSantis.
On Tuesday Ascol tweeted, “Tell it to God, Ted.”
He then quoted the Book of Leviticus, writing: “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.”
“Was this law God gave to His old covenant people ‘horrific and wrong’?” Ascol asked.
Ascol two hours later tweeted, “Amazing how many professing Christians, even self-designated ‘conservative’ ones, are embarrassed by God’s Word. Just quote some unpopular words of God & watch what happens. Many so-called Christians react the same way that unashamed unbelievers do. It’s a commentary.”
Cruz did not reply, but some others did.
David Smith, whose Twitter bio reads, “25 yrs trusting Jesus!” replied: “We no longer live under the Levitical laws @tomascol.”
“If so, we would have to apply the same standard to adultery. (Leviticus 20:10) I agree that all of these things are sin, but where does grace come in? Jesus was clearly in no hurry to condemn in John 8:1-11.”
Pastor Ascol apparently liked the reply from Steven Hasty, which reads: “Many of you are missing the point. If you’re understanding this Tweet to mean Pastor Tom thinks we should start executing homosexuals, you’re missing it. Instead, he’s challenging the standards of Cruz. Where does Cruz derive his standards?”
Apparently whether or not it’s acceptable to execute LGBTQ people isn’t an issue (except it is, since the entire “debate” its based on Uganda’s new “Kill the Gays” law.)
“Pastor Tom” told Hasty, “You are exactly right. Some people don’t read carefully. Others, evidently, don’t reason well. Thanks for clarifying & accurately expressing what I *actually* wrote. Keep pressing on.”
Ascol didn’t say whether or not he supports the execution of LGBTQ people, he’s merely debating, as Hasty put it, “standards.”
The Daily Beast also reports, “Ascol’s tweet…certainly seemed to suggest that the execution of gay people had a biblical blessing,” and notes that “even on careful reading, most reasonable people would assume Ascol was suggesting that Uganda’s anti-gay law is not intrinsically ‘horrific and wrong.'”
Ascol, The Beast adds, “has repeatedly called for homicide charges against any woman who has an abortion for whatever reason. He has compared choosing to terminate a pregnancy to retaining a killer for hire.”
“’It’s like saying if I don’t murder someone, but I just contracted a murderer to murder someone, I’m not culpable,’ Ascol said on a Christian radio show in 2022.”
The tweet posted to the top of Ascol’s Twitter page says, “If your commitment to the authority of Scripture is limited by cultural sensitivities then it’s not really Scripture’s authority to which you are committed.”
Supporting or opposing the execution of LGBTQ people isn’t about “cultural sensitivities.”
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