Former Vice President Mike Pence on Sunday blamed "bad advice from lawyers" after former President Donald Trump incited an attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan 6, 2021.
During an interview on Meet the Press, Pence was asked if Trump had criminal liability for inciting the attack.
"Do you think that [Trump] committed a criminal act in fomenting the insurrection?" host Chuck Todd asked. "Do you think a crime was committed?"
"Well, I don't know if it is criminal to listen to bad advice from lawyers," Pence answered. "Truth is, what the president was repeating was what he was hearing from that gaggle of attorneys around. And you know, presidents, just like all of us that have served in public life, you have to rely on your team."
"I hope we can move beyond this," he continued. "This is really a time when our country ought to be healing."
Pence went on to attack the Department of Justice for "advancing political agendas."
"And then this summer when we see the Justice Department execute a search warrant against the personal residence of a former president," he complained. "I think the American people join me in hoping we can move past this contention."Watch the video below from NBC. You can also watch at this link.
Fox Business reporter Lauren Simonetti on Wednesday revealed how poorly former President Donald performed in the midterm elections.
Following Trump's 2024 announcement, Simonetti told Fox Business host Stuart Varney that Fox News had calculated the former president's midterm performance.
"The issue is Trump needs more than his base," Simonetti said. "He needs independents; he needs moderates in his camp."
"Will that speech give him those votes?" Varney wondered about Trump's dark and misleading 2024 announcement.
"A question for the ages," Simonetti replied. "Fox News took a count of the controversial races. He has a 35% success rate. Out of 37 races, 13 of Trump candidates were in."
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) insisted that Donald Trump "will never be president again" just hours before he was reportedly set to announce a 2024 campaign.
During an interview with The Washington Post, Cheney said that Trump was a "dangerous man."
"Donald Trump is very clearly a very dangerous man," she asserted. "I don't think we appreciated how dangerous he was… Post the election of 2020 and post-Jan. 6, there's absolutely no excuse and no defense; nobody can now claim we don't know how dangerous he is."
"There's no question that he's unfit for office and I feel confident that he will never be president again," she later added.
Trump was scheduled to speak at 9 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
Fox News host Dana Perino suggested on Tuesday that former President Donald Trump's health might not be a problem for a 2024 presidential run because he "ages at a different rate" than President Joe Biden.
During a Fox News segment about the 2024 race, Perino noted that former White House Secretary Jen Psaki had recently pointed out that Trump is 76 years old while Biden is 79.
But Perino said that Trump's age might not be a hindrance like it would be for Biden.
"Eh, I don't know — everybody ages at a different rate," the Fox News host told Kellyanne Conway. "So, we can maybe set that aside."
Perino asked Conway if she expected Trump to announce his candidacy later that evening.
"Well, that is the plan," Conway replied. "He feels that there is a lot of unfinished business."
Conway hinted that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and others should think twice before running for president against Trump.
"If others want to run, it's a free country," she said. "They can do that. I — I know what you know. Winning the presidency is very hard. But I want Republicans to start governing also."
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) on Monday suggested that former Democrat Tulsi Gabbard could be elected as Speaker if Republicans take control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
While speaking to conservative host Charlie Kirk, Gaetz confirmed that he would not vote for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to become Speaker.
Instead, Gaetz offered a list of people for the position, including some who are not currently members of Congress.
"I've heard people talk about [former Sen.] Jim DeMint," Gaetz explained. "I've heard the name Tulsi Gabbard, someone who might actually bring us a few folks from the left who are tired of the corrupt ruling class in this town."
Gaetz also floated the names of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former DHS Secretary Chad Wolf.
"Right now, there are a lot of the establishment Republicans in denial," he insisted, "believing that Kevin McCarthy can somehow become Speaker. What I'm here to tell you is there are definitely at least five people — actually a lot more than that — who would rather be waterboarded by Liz Cheney than vote for Kevin McCarthy."
"And I'm one of them," Gaetz added.
The congressman said he has broken with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) because she supports McCarthy.
"I'm surprised by my friend Marjorie's decision on this," he remarked.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said that she is backing House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as the next Speaker of the House because she doesn't want "weak RINO sell-out Republicans" to align with Democrats.
During a Monday interview with right-wing host Steve Bannon, Greene said that the Democrats were plotting to make Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) the next Speaker even though she will not be a member of the next Congress.
Greene said that Democrats were "scurrying around looking for any weak RINO sell-out Republican that will join them and elect their own Speaker!"
Although many far-right members of Congress have opposed McCarthy, Greene said it was time to "unify" behind the party leader.
"They are going to open the door and allow Liz Cheney possibly to become Speaker because let me tell you something, that's who the Democrats — that is who they are throwing around," Greene continued. "We have about 20 Republicans in our conference — and this is tragic news for everyone — that to this day respect Liz Cheney for what she has done and how she has worked on the Jan. 6 Committee."
Greene compared people who opposed McCarthy to so-called "never Trumpers."
"Do we want to see that challenge open the door to Nancy Pelosi handing the gavel to Liz Cheney?" she gasped. "There is no way in hell I will stand there and allow that to happen."
"You can't even mention her name in a restaurant because 50% of people start screaming and 50% start applauding," Boebert supporter Chris Brown said.
The
Journal argued that Boebert's close race was a sign that voters were tired of former President Donald Trump.
"Though most political analysts expect Ms. Boebert will prevail, Mr. Frisch's strong showing is a sign that some Republican voters are losing interest in candidates who have closely allied with Mr. Trump and practice his style of politics," the paper pointed out.
Boebert spokesperson Benjamin Stout accused Frisch of stealing the congresswoman's platform.
"He just copped her policies and ran on them," Stout complained.
Experts expect Boebert to win in the race eventually, the
Journal reported.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), a House Jan. 6 Committee member, said that "political contamination" by former President Donald Trump will result in at least 155 deniers of the 2020 election results serving in Congress next year.
CBS host Margaret Brennan reported on Sunday that her network had tallied election deniers who will serve in the new Congress. According to the tally, deniers of the election won 155 House seats and nine Senate seats in the U.S. Congress. That was in addition to 18 wins at the state level.
"That's a statement about the political contamination of the GOP by Donald Trump," Raskin told Brennan. "Kevin McCarthy and other leaders in the Republican Party are now required to make a decision about whether they're going to try rid themselves of Donald Trump and his toxic influence on the party."
"There are certain pro-Trumpists within his House caucus who refuse to accept that he's really with Trump," the Democratic lawmaker said. "And they want to get rid of McCarthy."
The congressman predicted that some of his Republican colleagues "might just vote for Trump" to become Speaker of the House.
"The Speaker of the House does not have to be a member of the House," he explained. "They talk about it repeatedly and if Trump decided he wanted to do it, it would propose a profound problem for their party because they refuse to do the right thing early on."
Former White House adviser Stephen Miller lashed out at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) after former President Donald Trump's picks underperformed in the 2022 midterm elections.
During an appearance on Fox News, Miller told host Maria Bartiromo that a fundraising advantage for Democrats was one excuse for Republicans' poor performance.
"We have to note the extraordinarily fateful decision on the part of the Senate Leadership Fund and Mitch McConnell," Miller said, "to take the money that should have been spent in Arizona to get Blake [Masters] up on TV early on and instead give it to Lisa Murkowski for a Republican battle against the Republican-backed nominee in Alaska."
Miller also suggested that Republicans lost because Democrats had better messaging on abortion than Republicans had on the border.
"You're not going to break through to any human being alive!" he exclaimed. "And so you're going to lose these close races because the Republican brand set by Mitch McConnell on down is not exciting, is not persuasive, is not convincing to voters."
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) insisted that his party is "not a cult" despite a cult-like following for former President Donald Trump.
NBC host Chuck Todd pointed out in a Sunday interview that Republicans largely maintained "the same leadership" despite underperforming in the midterm elections.
"And of course, Donald Trump is sort of the leader out there," he said. "If there's no change there, do you think that's a problem for Republicans going forward?"
"First, we're not a cult," Cassidy offered without prompting. "We're not like, OK, there's one person who leads our party. If we have a sitting president, she or he will be the leader of our party."
U.S. Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) on Sunday defended former President Donald Trump after his Senate candidates performed poorly in the midterm elections.
During an interview on Fox News Sunday, host Shannon Bream asked Banks if Trump's expected 2024 campaign is a "good thing or a bad thing for the GOP."
"It shouldn't be a surprise to anybody," Banks said. "Donald Trump remains a very popular figure in the Republican Party, in each corner of the country. And remember, when he was on the Ballot in 2016 and 2020, we won a lot more seats than when he wasn't on the ballot in 2018 and 2022."
"His picks had a rough time," Bream pointed out.
"But he wasn't on the ballot!" Banks exclaimed. "And that's something to remember too. He supported many candidates who did win around the country as well. The 2024 primary is in front of us. We're still unpacking what happened last Tuesday, trying to figure out where our party goes from here. And over the next couple of weeks, that will be our focus on Capitol Hill, picking up the pieces moving forward."
Far-right Fox News personality Tucker Carlson suffered a dramatic rebuke from voters in the 2022 midterms.
Nikki McCann Ramirez described Carlson as having a "type" in a new report for Rolling Stone magazine.
"He likes hardline nationalists who can cosplay anti-elitism while pretending they didn’t go to an Ivy, or have an heiress mother, or have the richest people in the country funding their campaign," Ramirez reported. "He likes the kind of candidate who blends hateful nativism and a fear of the impending collapse of Western Civilization™, with mockery of blue-haired, cat-owning coastal liberals. Turns out Tucker’s type may not be super electable."
With Republicans pointing fingers at each other over disappointing results, Carlson may be second only to Donald Trump in creating the dynamics that resulted in Republicans doing far worse than expected.
"Carlson enjoys a position as a kingmaker and agenda setter for GOP politics," Ramirez wrote. "Look no further than how he almost single-handedly converted the 'great replacement' conspiracy theory from a white nationalist talking point to a major policy concern for conservatives. If there’s a man besides Donald Trump with the power to catapult local political hopefuls into national political figures — and who wielded that power with unbridled enthusiasm in the lead-up to the election — is it not the man with the most-watched cable news show in the country?"
The report noted that J.D. Vance, who successfully held a GOP-controlled Senate seat in Ohio, was the only candidate Carlson pushed hard who won.
"Blake Masters lost to Mark Kelly in Arizona, where gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake is already resorting to claims of election rigging to explain her deficit to Democrat Katie Hobbs. In Washington state, the extremist-affiliated House candidate Joe Kent is on the verge of an unexpected defeat at the hands of Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez," Ramirez reported. "Vance, Kent, and Masters, were among Carlson’s most frequent guests on his flagship Fox News program Tucker Carlson Tonight. According to weekday cable segment data from watchdog group Media Matters, Vance, Kent, and Masters appeared on Carlson’s show 17, 14, and 10 times respectively in the year before the election (11/1/21-11/10/22). Vance and Kent were among the 20 most frequent guests on the show in that time period."
The first “Black Panther” film adhered to a longstanding practice in Afrofuturist stories and art by engaging in what I call “acts of recovery” – the process of reviving and celebrating elements of Black culture that were destroyed or suppressed by colonization. This practice is often linked to “Sankofa,” an African word from the Akan tribe in Ghana that roughly translates to “it is not taboo to fetch what is at risk of being left behind.”
“Wakanda Forever” pulls from the past in the same way, but with a twist: Talokan is inspired not by African cultures, but by Mesoamerica, a vast area that covers most of Central America and part of Mexico.
The trailer for ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.’
A theory of time
The idea that African knowledge and contributions to science and culture have been erased and must be recovered is central to Afrofuturism. The term, which was coined in 1994, describes a cultural movement that pulls from elements of science fiction, magical realism, speculative fiction and African history.
On its home page, the Afrofurist listserv, an email list organized by social scientist Alondra Nelson in 1998, pointed to this process of recovery as a central tenet of the genre:
“Once upon a time, in the not-so-distant past, cultural producers of the African diaspora composed unique visions on the world at hand and the world to come. This speculation has been called AfroFuturism – cultural production that simultaneously references a past of abduction, displacement and alien-nation; celebrates the unique aesthetic perspectives inspired by these fractured histories; and imagines the possible futures of black life and ever-widening definitions of ‘blackness.’”
This fascination with uncovering the ways in which Black contributions have been erased and suppressed means that Afrofuturist works often mine the past as a first step toward creating visions of the future.
Afrofuturist scholars such as Kinitra Brooks even describe Afrofuturism as a theory of time. For her, the “present, past, and future” exist together, creating the opportunity to push against the systemic devaluation of Black people that occurred during slavery and Jim Crow segregation, and persists in contemporary anti-Black violence.
Looking back to see tomorrow
This recovery can take many forms.
Several Black writers published serialized novels of speculative fiction, such as Martin R. Delany’s “Blake: Or the Huts of America,” a slave revolt story written between 1859 and 1861. Pauline Hopkins’ “Of One Blood: Or, the Hidden Self,” published in 1903, tells the story of mixed-race Harvard medical students who discover Telassar, a hidden city in Ethiopia, home to an advanced society possessing technology and mystical powers.
Both narratives refuse to depict Black culture as backwards or impotent, and instead celebrate Black empowerment and the rich cultural legacies of Black people.
Curator Ingrid Lafleur has long talked about how Afrofuturist visual aesthetics relies on recovering ancient African cosmology. You can see this practice in the work of musical artists such as Sun Ra, who used Egyptian symbolism throughout his work, and visual artists such as Kevin Sipp, who remixes and reimagines African cultural symbolism to create sculptures and visual work that fuse past styles and symbols with contemporary practices.
Simply put, a reverence for ancestral knowledge and culture is the beating heart of Afrofuturism, and has become an integral part of Afrofuturism’s mission to forge a better future.
Mesoamerica takes center stage
The first “Black Panther” film celebrated an array of African cultures.
Costume designer Ruth Carter deliberately infused elements from across the continent in every scene. For example, the headdress worn by Queen Ramonda, played by Angela Bassett, was inspired by the isicholo, a South African hat traditionally associated with married women. And Lupita Nyong'o’s Nakia wore clothing inspired by the Suri tribe.
And so the film highlighted African cultures not by depicting them as fragile or foundering, but as paragons of artistry and sophistication.
In “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” these themes are explored both in the way the mantle of Black Panther presumably passes to Princess Shuri, and in the depiction of Namor and the kingdom of Talokan.
While Talokan is an underwater society inspired by the myth of Atlantis, Marvel Studios has signaled that the people of Talokan sought refuge underwater in response to colonial invasion.
By invoking the complexities of this history – and seemingly leaning heavily on parallels to Mayan culture – the film celebrates a society that scholarship has long noted for its achievements in architecture, mathematics, astronomy and language.
History books reference these accomplishments. But in popular culture, there’s little attention given to this cultural landscape.
Namor and the kingdom he leads are poised to remind a global audience of the rich world of Mesoamerica that thrived – until European contact beginning in 1502 led to conquest, decline and eradication.
Today, immigration, trade and drug trafficking dominate discussions of Central America and Mexico in the U.S. media. This film, on the other hand, invites the viewer to appreciate the profound cultural legacy of Mexican and Central American civilizations.
