Donald Trump's taking control of the Republican National Committee is not going over well with Republican leadership at the state level who fear they will be left out in the cold with the RNC becoming a defacto arm of his re-election bid.
According to former RNC chair Michael Steele, the only thing stopping a revolt at the state level is the fear of Trump's hardcore MAGA loyalists.
During an explanation of how the RNC works on MSNBC's "The Weekend," Steele first added the caveat that when he took over the committee he also fired everyone but it also wasn't a mere seven months before a crucial election.
Having said that, he noted that the RNC's usual function is to work on the eight key battleground states that can swing an election.
Now, he stated, help may not be on the way because the RNC may be funneling scarce cash to pay for the former president's myriad legal problems.
He then added that he was hearing grumbling from his former associates heading up their respective state Republican parties.
"I have talked to a number of former and current state party chairs and they are not happy," he told his co-hosts. "They will put on the face because they don't want to get the blowback from the MAGA nuts inside the party. But the reality is that they are not happy."
"They know what this means," he continued. "People that have been in the process of building up and putting in place players who are going to actually execute on a plan, 'Oh, I guess there is one,' but Lara Trump is now in charge."
The hosts of MSNBC's "The Weekend" had a good laugh on Saturday morning as Atlantic reporter McKay Coppins described the dysfunction of the House Republican caucus that is now reeling as their attempt to impeach President Joe Biden is dying a slow death.
With Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) no longer interested in putting impeachment to a vote in the House, Oversight Chair James Comer (R-KY) plans instead to make criminal referrals to the DOJ which are also expected to go nowhere.
Asked how House Republicans are dealing with the months of hearings that have fallen apart, Coppins stated that their mood is dark and getting darker.
"I mean, you talk to Republicans on the Hill and they know that this is over, right?" he continued. "A lot of them knew it was a farce from the beginning but they were going along and saying what we can we dredge up? It was a fishing expedition on how to hurt President Biden during an election year but their star witness has fallen apart."
"To say the least," a laughing Symone Sanders-Townsend interjected.
"The impeachment has fallen apart in pretty embarrassing fashion," Coppins added. "That's why you see people like Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) just kind of completely demoralized. By all accounts, the [GOP] House conference was especially demoralized and embarrassed. You see Republicans wanting to retire and leave. I think the White House saw that."
United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain on Thursday made clear to a key U.S. Senate panel that working-class people nationwide are deeply frustrated with the "epidemic of lives dominated by work" and the fight for livable wages while executive compensation continues to climb.
"Are the employers gonna act? Will Congress act? How can working-class people take back their lives, and take back their time?" Fain asked during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee hearing on a 32-hour workweek. "And I know what people and many in this room will say. They'll say, 'People just don't want to work,' or, 'Working-class people are lazy.'"
"But the truth is, working-class people aren't lazy, they're fed up. They're fed up with being left behind and stripped of dignity as wealth inequality in this nation, this world, spirals out of control," he continued. "They're fed up that in America... three families have as much wealth as the bottom 50% of citizens in this nation. That is criminal. America is better than this."
"So, I want to close with this: I agree there is an epidemic in this country of people who don't want to work; people who can't be bothered to get up every day and contribute to our society, but instead want to freeload off the labor of others," Fain added. "But those aren't blue-collar people; those aren't the working-class people. It's a group of people who are never talked about for how little they actually work and produce, and how little they contribute to humanity. The people I'm talking about are the Wall Street freeloaders, the masters of passive income."
The UAW leader stressed that "those who profit off the labor of others have all the time in the world, while those who make this country run, the people who build the products and contribute to labor, have less and less time for themselves, for their families, and for their lives. So our union's gonna continue to fight for the rights of working-class people to take back their lives, and take back their time, and we ask you to stand up with the American workers and support us in that mission."
After nearly seven minutes of opening remarks that led some to urge Fain to consider someday running for a political office in the United States, the UAW president took questions from Senate HELP Committee Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and other members of the panel, touching on topics including what it is like to work in a factory, corporate greed, and work-life balance.
When Sanders announced the hearing on a shorter workweek, he noted that U.S. workers "are over 400% more productive than they were in the 1940s," but work longer hours for lower wages. He argued that "the financial gains from the major advancements in artificial intelligence, automation, and new technology must benefit the working class, not just corporate CEOs and wealthy stockholders on Wall Street."
While the senator has been a friend to the UAW, backing its strike last year and previously inviting Fain to testify to the panel, the union chief in recent months has repeatedly taken aim at billionaires and anti-worker politicians, including former Republican President Donald Trump, who is set to face UAW-endorsed President Joe Biden in November.
"Donald Trump is a scab," Fain declared in January when the UAW officially backed Biden—who, during the union's walkouts, became the first sitting president to join striking workers on the picket line. "Donald Trump is a billionaire, and that's who he represents... Donald Trump stands against everything we stand for as a union, as a society."
Since the UAW's "Stand Up Strike" led to new contracts with the "Big Three" automakers—Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis—that contain pay raises and other improvements for workers, the union has launched the largest organizing drive in U.S. history.
The new auto contracts are set to expire in April 2028, which was strategically chosen to coincide with International Workers' Day, to enable unions to "begin to flex our collective muscles," Fain explained. "Even though May Day has its roots here in the United States, it is widely celebrated by workers all over the world. It's more than just a day of commemoration, it's a call to action."
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) on Friday was asked on Real Time with Bill Maher about how she can support Donald Trump after calling for accountability for the ex-president after Jan. 6.
Appearing alongside U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), Mace took to Maher's show less than a week after she made headlines in a confrontational interview about rape and Trump.
Maher opened the discussion on the topic of gerrymandering, and used Mace as an example.
"When you ran in 2020, you won by one point. Then they redistricted your area, and I think it was less Black people, and then you won in 2022 by 14 points," Maher said to Mace. "Does that explain the shift in your politics? Because you used to be a little more to the middle I think."
Mace replied by claiming she's "very much the same person" she was the last time she appeared on his show.
"The Supreme Court in October actually affirmed that my district... as you said correctly, I won by one point in 2020. When the state of South Carolina redistricted my seat, they made it 1.36 points better. One point better in 2022. I won by 14 points in '22 because I overwhelmingly post-Roe v. Wade came out swinging hard to fight for women."
Maher responded, saying, "You did switch on Trump. I mean, after Jan. 6. I could read you the quotes. You were very hard on him."
Mace said, "I was very hard. I didn't like it."
"You said, 'How do we hold a president accountable?' 'We need to find a way to hold him accountable.' 'His entire legacy was wiped out yesterday. We've got to restart. We have got to rebuild our nation and rebuild our party.' That's not where you are now," Maher continued pressing.
"Well, we've had three years of Joe Biden," she answered.
Trump cozying up to the steely Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and revering Russia's Vladimir Putin are the tell-tale signs of a democracy-deficient direction he'd like to take the country.
This week former president Donald Trump broke bread with Orbán and suggested he could end the Russian-Ukranian war by preventing even a "single penny" be allotted to fight the invasion.
"That’s why the war will end, because it’s obvious that Ukraine cannot stand on its own two feet," Orbán huffed afterward.
Jacob Heilbrunn, author of "America Last", appeared on MSNBC to touch on Trump's blueprint for a second term. Should it happen, it likely would witness Trump striking a kind of deal with both leaders while enriching himself in the process.
"In the end, it is all about the grift," he said. "Orbán is exploiting the so-called immigration crisis just the way Trump is attempting to do it on the southern border right now."
There's a reason immigration has been propped up so prominently in Trump's rants.
"But broadly, these are useful issues to claim power and then, it is about monetizing it for the family," said Heilbrunn. "That is exactly what we are seeing with the Trump family, right now, as the Republicans claim that Hunter Biden is some kind of Napoleon of crime when, in fact, as we see Kushner and Grenell and Trump himself engaging in deals in the Middle East. So, that is where I think the United States would be headed, toward a kleptocracy."
The 45th president's son-in-law managed to mint a $2 billion windfall investment from Saudi Arabia which has also been accused of being a "grift."
Just today, Kushner has also confirmed that he was finalizing major real estate deals in both Albania and Serbia.
The New York Times reported that Kushner's exploration in the Balkans "appear to have come about in part through relationships built while Trump was in office."
Heilbrunn sees parallels to Trump and his family's power plays as a troubling "form of oligarchy."
The vision for Trump's America is a "dystopian hellscape."
That was New Yorker's Susan Glasser's takeaway after watching Trump hold court with his MAGA supporters at a rally in Rome, Georgia after clinching the Republican delegates needed for the GOP's presidential 2024 nomination.
"On November 5th, the curtain closes on Crooked Joe’s corrupt reign, and the sun rises on a brand new day for Georgia and for America, right," the former president said.
Glasser's story described Trump's nearly two-hour stump speech as "rambling, unhinged, vituperative, and oh-so-revealing."
She then appeared on MSNBC to discuss it in depth.
Trump's vision, contrasted with his previous runs in 2016 and 2020, came off as dire and it disturbed her.
"There is something, you know, different this time," she stated before continuing, "It is not just the level of grievance and revenge and retribution — it's actually the dystopian hellscape. It is much worse and darker than even the American carnage speech frankly."
Glasser was also struck by Trump's struggle with the truth and the English language.
She said his "lying, rambling, ranting, much of it doesn't make much sense as you know for years he's struggled with the basics of a verb and a period — you're not going to find a lot of those there."
There is also a sense that fatigue and his 77-years in age is kicking in.
"Even beyond the delivery and certainly when it comes to age, you will come away from a performance like this," said Glasser. "And this is a guy who really struggles with his words, who is visibly diminished in his vocabulary and his delivery, just in the last few years."
Laura Ingraham made a mea culpa on Friday night for her program "The Ingraham Angle" blundering a graphic supposed to feature Fulton County DA Fani Willis next to her now resigned special prosecutor Nathan Wade.
The graphic shown during her monologue included attorney Terrence Bradley, who had served as Wade's divorce attorney and a partner in his private practice.
"Now a note about a graphic we showed at the top of the show," she said midway through the show, catching themselves on the slight. "It was supposed to be Fani Willis and Nathan Wade but accidentally we broadcast Terrence Bradley."
"That was obviously not intentional. We made a mistake and we are sorry for that."
Both men are Black and played significant roles in the separate hearings determining if Willis committed misconduct by carrying on an affair with Wade, whom she hired to help prosecute former President Donald Trump and originally 18 others for a RICO election subversion case to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Trump losing the confidence of his first veep in Mike Pence could be a bellwether moment.
"It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year," Pence said on Fox News' "The Story."
The snub was in character of a newly emboldened Pence whose undying support for Trump frayed in the lead-up to Jan. 6, 2021, when the president publicly swung at him for failing to send back electoral slates to state legislatures and hold off the certification of the election win to then President-Elect Joe Biden.
A mob, that had assembled for the "Stop The Steal" rally, ended up causing a melee at the Capitol leading to seven people dying.
"[We have] our differences on my constitutional duties that I exercised on January 6 [2021]," Pence added.
Amanda Carpenter, who served as a senior staffer to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), appeared on MSNBC to discuss the impact of Pence in a calculated way, deciding to deliver the vote of no-confidence in his former running mate and boss in former President Donald Trump for a second term.
"I agree he has a lot to answer for because I think he could have done more to stop the events of January 6, instead of enabling them; but today he didn't put out a tweet. He didn't out a statement. He went on Fox News, on live TV and said it. I think he means it."
Any thinking that Pence would stay on the sidelines as Trump defends himself in a slew of civil and criminal cases that could turn the tide of the upcoming election was put to rest with his comments.
"He woke up today and decided 'I can't do it anymore. Today is a day I am walking away!' And he is not just walking away from Donald Trump... and in today he said 'No!' and that is a huge big deal."
Pence pointed out that Trump and Pence have policy differences.
For instance, Trump switched up a policy against the Chinese-controlled social media app TikTok.
"Last week [was] his reversal on getting tough on China, and supporting our administration's effort to force a sale of ByteDance [and] TikTok," he said.
The Georgia judge delivered several setbacks for Fulton County DA Fani Willis this week.
He nixed six of the 41 counts filed in sprawling RICO election subversion case against Trump and co-defendants, made an ultimatum that either Willis or her ex-romantic flame Nathan Wade step down from the case (Wade formally withdrew) — and then suggested their testimonies under oath to defend against misconduct weren't completely on the level.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ruled that while there was insufficient evidence that Willis enjoyed a personal profit from taking extravagant trips with Wade to Napa Valley and Belize, among other gifts during their affair, he wrote "an odor of mendacity remains" and that there are “reasonable questions” about whether Willis and Wade testified truthfully about the timing of their relationship that “further underpin the finding of an appearance of impropriety and the need to make proportional efforts to cure it.”
For former federal prosecutor Ryan Goodman during an appearance alongside investigative reporter Michael Isikoff on CNN's "Out Front" — a pall will hover over Willis' credibility as she moves the case against Trump and company forward and could invite other agencies such as the Georgia State Bar Association to sanction them.
"That's the exact quote: 'an odor of mendacity,'" he said. "So that is an invitation to somebody to bring up an ethics charge."
Isikoff, who co-authored the book featuring interviews with Willis titled "Find Me The Votes," attempted to correct Goodman.
"Well, I just wanted to correct Ryan, the 'odor of mendacity' quote, which is in that opinion... if you read it closely, he's not referring to Fani Willis' testimony," he charged.
He added that McAfee "never specifically says that Fani Willis gave testimony that that he does not believe or that was contradicted."
Willis and Wade said the relationship ended in the summer of 2023. They both said that Willis either paid for things herself or used cash to reimburse Wade for travel expenses.
McAfee wrote that there was insufficient evidence that Willis had a personal stake in the prosecution. And he said he was unable to “conclusively establish by a preponderance of the evidence” whether Willis and Wade began dating before or after he was hired as special prosecutor.
But it was Goodman who set the record straight; reading directly from the judge's ruling that "reasonable questions about whether the district attorney and her hand-selected lead SADA [Wade] testified untruthfully about the timing of their relationship further underpin the finding of an appearance of impropriety on their part."
He was once a loud Never-Trumper. Now he's ready to "walk over broken glass" to back the MAGA leader.
In 2016, Ben Shapiro said he would "never... ever" vote for Donald Trump. Fast forward to 2024, and Shapiro is planning to host a fundraiser in The Don's honor.
The outspoken pundit suggested that he was cornered into voting for the 45th president once Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis bowed out of the contest.
“My calculus is very simple, America was better off under Donald Trump than it is under Joe Biden,” said Shapiro. "At home, America was safer and more prosperous."
He added: “I will always be honest with you about Donald Trump, he wasn’t my first choice in the primaries. He’s a deeply flawed human. I’ve been open in my criticisms of Trump on both character and policy… But Donald Trump is the man standing between America and a second Joe Biden term.”
He considers Biden to be "the worst president of my lifetime."
Shapiro reinforced his committal to Trump saying not only will he be voting for the former president, but that he would "walk over broken glass to vote for him" and that "actually go into my own pocket to vote for him."
In 2016, Shapiro broke down the rationale of opposing the real estate tycoon's maiden try for the White House, writing, "if we don’t say 'no' to Donald Trump now, we will continue drifting ever further left, diluting conservatism into the vacillating, demagogic absurdity of Trumpism. Conservatism will become the crypto-racist, pseudo-strong, quasi-tyrannical, toxic brew leftists have always accused it of being."
Four years later he flip-flopped saying he was justified in his concerns about Trump's characters, but "wrong" about Trump's policies.
But the central reason for his change of heart was that "the Democrats have lost their f---ing minds."
The suspected hypocrisy didn't sit well with some.
"So pathetic," wrote Christian Conservative attorney Heath Mayo. "Not only is this absurd, but it’s also downright stupid. Trump’s just going to take your money and pay his legal bills. How are you this blind?"
@LoganDavis said: "Ben has to keep dancing the dance, or else his customers move on to another extremist outlet willing to entertain."
"Stunning if there are still people that will give," writes @Yode1J. "Fool me once, twice or 500 million times."
Former Vice President Mike Pence spurred celebrations Friday when he announced on Fox News he would not be endorsing Donald Trump's bid to regain the White House.
"It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year," Pence said. "There are profound differences between me and President Trump on a range of issues, and not just our difference on my constitutional duties that I exercised on January the 6th."
Pence cited Trump's positions on the national debt, a "commitment to the sanctity of human life" and his position against a bill calling on TikTok to free itself from its Chinese owners.
"Donald Trump is pursuing and articulating an agenda that is at odds with the conservative agenda," Pence said.
This announcement spurred cheers from a former Trump aide, a Republican political consultant who served Jeb Bush, and a self-professed Republican Party "escapee," to name a few.
"Thank you, @Mike_Pence," wrote Trump's former White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin.
"People who are planning to vote for Trump next time I have a [question]," replied Tim Miller, a former political director for Republican Voters Against Trump. "Why do you think you know him better than his...VP?"
"Only FOUR of Trump’s 44 former Cabinet officials have endorsed him," noted former prosecutor Ron Filipkowski. "His VP won’t endorse him. It’s insane for any president to even have anything close to 44 Cabinet officials in one term. He['s] incompetent, insane, unfit, & his own former officials know that better than anyone."
Pence was not the only former conservative vice president to urge voters away from Trump. Moments after Pence made his announcement, the political group Republicans Against Trump released a video featuring former Vice President Dick Cheney.
“In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump," Cheney said.
"He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters rejected him. He's a coward, a real man wouldn't lie to his supporters. He lost his election and he lost big. I know it, he knows it and deep down, I think most Republicans know it."
While speaking with Fox Business' Stuart Varney, Bream was asked about the GOP impeachment inquiry, which has all but run aground in recent weeks after the arrest of former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, who was charged with fabricating bribery allegations against Biden.
"Is the Biden impeachment now unlikely?" Varney asked Bream.
"I think it's increasingly unlikely," she replied. "Especially with another GOP House member — who, by the way, was a vote against this, Ken Buck — saying that he's out even sooner than expected. I think Republicans are trying to be realistic with the margins that they have. And the speaker seems to be signaling, 'Eh, maybe we're not going to push this to the floor for a vote.'"
Bream noted that Republicans still plan to hold a public hearing with Hunter Biden next week after having previously held a hearing behind closed doors.
However, she seemed skeptical that this effort would bear any fruit either.
"They say the investigation continues," she said. "But I think the impeachment vote getting to the floor? A little bit less likely today."
White House counsel Edward Siskel on Friday sent a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) that essentially spiked the football on the GOP's impeachment inquiry, and he encouraged the speaker to formally drop the impeachment probe and concentrate on solving problems that matter to American voters.
"There is too much important work to be done for the American people to continue wasting time on this charade," Siskel argued. "It is obviously time to move on, Mr. Speaker. This impeachment is over."
"The View" co-host Joy Behar thinks she has a winning campaign slogan for President Joe Biden: "Vote for me — I'm the only one who's not nuts."
Her creative idea for a catchy lawn sign came amid a discussion about "spoiler" candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who's running as an independent against Biden and the GOP's presumptive nominee Donald Trump.
Kennedy, a notorious anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist, has said that he's thinking of the controversial football player, Aaron Rodgers, as a potential running mate. While Rodgers has a solid fan base, he shares anti-vaccine policies with Kennedy. In the past, Rodgers has also repeated Alex Jones' conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook shooting.
A source told CNN that several years ago, Rodgers said, “Sandy Hook never happened … All those children never existed. They were all actors."
This week, however, Rodgers is spinning a different story, saying he has "thoughts and prayers" for the children and families.
“As I’m on the record saying in the past, what happened in Sandy Hook was an absolute tragedy. I am not and have never been of the opinion that the events did not take place," Rodgers said.
"He may have found a soul mate and running mate in Aaron Rodgers," quipped Behar of Kennedy.
She asked the panel which presidential candidate stands to lose the most in the 2024 election with a candidate like Kennedy. According to former White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin, before Trump came along anti-vaccine people were primarily "California granola liberals."
That has changed, she explained. "In the MAGA era it's a lot more on the right."
Sunny Hostin called the two men, "a nightmare ticket."
"Anti-vaxxers will certainly vote third party, but a third party always spoils," she said. "Third-party always spoils, and I want to mention this. There are citizens to save our republic, and it's led by former House minority leader Richard Gephardt. He's called on all third-party candidates to sign a pledge to leave the race in six swing states by July 1st if they have not qualified in enough states.
"They're putting a lot of investment behind it. Donald Trump tried to overthrow the federal government. That's the only thing we need to talk about. We have to prevent someone coming from the electoral process and ruining the democracy. You should listen to it, and they are gearing up with the ads."
Behar added, "I think Joe Biden should just get up at the podium and say, 'Vote for me, I'm the only one who's not nuts.'
