Jill Biden to attend vigil for Nashville shooting victims; Pope Francis sends condolences
March 29, 2023, 5:02 PM ET
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The Republican Party is planning to hold its first US presidential primary debate on August 23, organizers said Friday, announcing that candidates will be made to sign a pledge agreeing to support the eventual nominee.
Former president Donald Trump, the runaway frontrunner in the early stages of the contest, has so far declined to commit to backing the eventual winner, saying in a radio interview in February that it would "depend on who the nominee was."
US media reported last month that Trump was reluctant in any case to share the limelight with lower-polling rivals and had discussed skipping one or both of the first two debates.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) said it will also require anyone hoping to make the debate stage to have garnered one percent of the vote in three approved polls and have 40,000 unique donors.
"The RNC is committed to putting on a fair, neutral, and transparent primary process and the qualifying criteria set forth will put our party and eventual nominee in the best position to take back the White House come November 2024," chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said.
Fox News will host the first showdown in Milwaukee while a second will take place at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.
CNN reported in May that Trump had told allies he wanted to give the Reagan Library a wide berth, complaining that the board of trustees was headed by the chief executive officer of The Washington Post -- a paper he often criticizes.
Milwaukee -- population 580,000 -- is the largest city in Wisconsin, a swing state that Democrat Joe Biden won by just 20,000 votes in 2020. It is also set to host the 2024 Republican National Convention, where the party names its presidential election candidate.
The Republican field is made up of seven major candidates so far, with more set to announce next week.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis trails Trump by more than 30 points in the polling averages, while no other hopeful is posting double figures.
The RNC said it would stage an overflow debate on August 24 if enough candidates meet the criteria to require splitting the field over two nights.
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The head of the top weapons contractor in the United States said Thursday that he's happy with the debt ceiling agreement negotiated by the congressional Republicans and the Biden White House, a deal that proposes a military budget increase while imposing two years of caps on other discretionary federal spending—impacting funding for education, housing, and more.
James Taiclet, the CEO of Lockheed Martin, said at a conference that the bill now awaiting President Joe Biden's signature is "as good an outcome as our industry or our company could ask for at this point," noting that it calls for "3% growth for two years in defense where other areas of the budget are being reduced."
"I think we're in a real strong position at this point," said Taiclet, adding that "there's sufficient funding in the president's budget."
Biden's $886 billion military spending request for fiscal year 2024—a $28 billion increase over current levels—is the topline military budget number set by the debt ceiling legislation, though war hawks in both parties are already exploring ways to dump even more money into the Pentagon's overflowing coffers.
If finalized in the appropriations process, military outlays will account for close to 56% of the U.S. federal government's total discretionary spending in fiscal year 2024, Lindsay Koshgarian of the National Priorities Project noted Thursday.
"This represents a massive shift of resources away from domestic programs and toward the military: the already-gargantuan military budget will increase by $28 billion (3.3%), while domestic spending will take a cut of $63 billion (8.2%)," Koshgarian wrote. "Cuts to many domestic programs will need to go deeper, because domestic spending includes veterans' programs, which are protected from cuts in the current deal."
"The only reason there’s a budget deal at all right now is because House Republicans threatened to tank the economy by refusing to allow the U.S. to pay its bills unless they got cuts for programs they don't like," she added. "They succeeded, and as others have shown, the people to pay the price will be the poorest and most down on their luck. Worse, the current deal could set a new precedent for more of the same: unnecessary military increases while domestic programs are slashed."
Lockheed Martin, one of the contractors that has been price-gouging the Department of Defense for years, is poised to be one of the top beneficiaries of the larger Pentagon budget—much of which will likely wind up benefiting private companies.
As Responsible Statecraft's Eli Clifton reported Thursday, Lockheed "received 73 percent of its net sales from the U.S. government in 2022 and invested $13 million in lobbying the federal government."
"Their lobbyists heavily focus their efforts on the defense budget," Clifton added, citing OpenSecrets.
William Hartung, senior research fellow at Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said Friday that the newly passed debt limit deal "unnecessarily privileges the Pentagon over other essential programs."
"There's no reason to exclude the Pentagon from the budget freeze," he added. "Congress should push the current proposed military spending total of $886 billion back to FY2023 levels in the appropriations process that will play out over the course of this year."
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Trump insiders 'unnerved' and angry as the DOJ pores over lawyer's notes about Mar-a-Lago documents: NYT
June 03, 2023
Donald Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran's habit of dictating his notes into his phone has aides to the former president furious and "unnerved" now that the Department of Justice has the phone and has transcribed his musings, reports the New York Times.
On Saturday the Times reported that while Corcoran was working with the former president while searching for sensitive documents held at Mar-a-Lago, he used his phone to detail the conversations and the advice he was giving the president -- and what he said could be central to an indictment of the former president.
As the report notes, in March Federal Judge Beryl A. Howell "pierced the privilege that would have normally protected Mr. Corcoran’s musings about his interactions with Mr. Trump. Those protections were set aside under what is known as the crime-fraud exception, a provision that allows prosecutors to work around attorney-client privilege if they have reason to believe that legal advice or legal services were used in furthering a crime."
RELATED: 'Too dumb to even play dumb': Legal expert says Trump is in deep trouble even if Iran document is lost
As part of the judge's order, Corcoran turned over his phone which contained a "voice memo Mr. Corcoran made last year — during a long car drive for a family event the morning after" he met with Trump over the disputed documents that are at the center of one of special counsel Jack Smith's investigations.
What Corcoran said has Trump insiders fearing the worst.
According to the Times, "Mr. Corcoran’s notes, which have not been previously described in such detail, will likely play a central role as Mr. Smith and his team move toward concluding their investigation and turn to the question of whether to bring charges against Mr. Trump. They could also show up as evidence in a courtroom if a criminal case is ultimately filed and goes to trial," with the report adding, "The level of detail in the recording is said to have angered and unnerved close aides to Mr. Trump who are worried they contain not only direct quotes from sensitive conversations."
The report adds, "...according to a description of the recorded notes, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Corcoran if he had to comply with the subpoena. Mr. Corcoran told him that he did. That exchange could be useful to prosecutors as they collect evidence on whether Mr. Trump sought to obstruct the subpoena process and interfere with the government’s broader efforts to retrieve all of the sensitive records that he took with him from the White House."
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