Fox News host Howard Kurtz lashed out at other media outlets that declined to air former President Donald Trump's remarks after being arraigned for the third time on Thursday.
"MSNBC talked about Donald Trump all day on the day of his arraignment, all of it unfavorable," Kurtz griped on Sunday. "Same for CNN, mostly unfavorable."
"But when Trump spoke for about a minute at Washington's National Airport, they refused to carry it," he continued. "Only Fox News aired his remarks live. This is insane. The defendant can't be granted even a few words."
Kurtz urged his "friends at the other channels" to broadcast Trump's point of view.
"Trump, of course, is the front runner for the GOP nomination," he added. "As much as the media don't like the idea, he could well win back the White House."
In his post-arraignment remarks on Thursday, Trump claimed he was being "persecuted" because he was leading President Joe Biden in the polls "by a lot." However, most national polls suggest Biden is statistically tied with Trump.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) revealed on Sunday that Republican lawmakers do not have an appetite for impeachment yet.
Fox News host Maria Bartiromo asked Greene about the prospects of impeaching President Joe Biden for unproven allegations of corruption.
"Do you feel you have enough votes in the membership to actually impeach Joe Biden?" Bartiromo wondered.
"I don't think we're quite there yet, Maria, just to be honest with you," Greene replied. "But I hope that the amount of overwhelming evidence that has come out and continues to pour out will convince those members that are still on the fence."
"And Maria, to be honest with you, I'm so thankful you're covering this issue because it's been a full blackout from the mainstream media," she added. "And these members that still aren't quite there to be able to vote for an inquiry need to hear from their people back home in their districts."
Donald Trump lawyer John Lauro stunned CNN host Dana Bash on Sunday morning after maintaining his client participated in the "peaceful transfer" of power following the ex-president's loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
During the highly combative interview where the "State of the Union" host was repeatedly forced to fact-check her guest as he talked over her, Bash at first laughed and seemed stunned at Lauro's comment about the 2020 election before reminding him of the assault on the Capitol by supporters of his client.
With Lauro asserting there was a "peaceful transfer of power," the CNN host shot back, " What happened on January 6th was not peaceful."
She then continued, "I want to ask you something about John Eastman, because you talked a lot about how he's a respected constitutional attorney."
"The transfer of power was certainly peaceful," Lauro interrupted.
"Did you see what happened on January 6th? Did that look peaceful to you?" Bash pressed.
"I'm not saying that that was in any way appropriate," the attorney stuttered. "But the ultimate power of the presidency was transferred to Mr. Biden. We all know that, as you do."
In a column for MSNBC, former U.S. Attorney Carol Lam game-planned out how the federal trial of Donald Trump in Washington, D.C. for conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election should be conducted.
With Jack Smith's case recently filed case moving rapidly forward, Lam suggested a parade of witnesses should be the central focus of making the case against the former president and that high-profile Republicans should not be exempt from having to appear.
As Lam explained, the case that the special counsel will be allowed to present won't be bound by the same rules that restrained the House select committee on Jan. 6, which means GOP lawmakers who balked at being subpoenaed then would be compelled to appear.
According to the former prosecutor, "A review of the indictment suggests that Smith will have to call 30 to 40 witnesses to substantiate everything in the wide-ranging indictment. The indictment’s description of the 'conspiracy to defraud the United States' includes tense confrontations in the Oval Office, phone calls to legislators in seven states, more than 60 lawsuits, attempts to corrupt the Department of Justice, lies to electors, and a final push by Trump on Jan. 6, 2021, to pressure his vice president not to certify Joe Biden’s victory."
With that in mind, the former prosecutor urged him to call "a veritable who’s who of the Republican Party," which should include former Vice President Mike Pence as well as key GOP lawmakers who were in contact with the former president before and during the insurrection at the Capitol.
More importantly, she wrote, those witnesses would have to testify in public.
"Government witnesses in Trump’s criminal trials will have to testify live. They will be subject to cross-examination; this is Trump’s right under the Sixth Amendment to confront the witnesses against him. And, for reasons of efficiency, trial judges expect witnesses to testify in a single session about everything relevant to the trial," she wrote before explaining, "That means Smith’s witnesses may be asked to testify about a number of events that may not flow chronologically in Smith’s presentation of the case."
She then cautioned, "It also seems like the special counsel has pulled every lever in his control to narrow and simplify the trial — for example, by indicting only Trump and not his six alleged co-conspirators. But Jack Smith’s indictment still tells a big story, about Donald Trump’s desperate and wide-ranging attempt to overturn the results of a presidential election. With the limited time left on the clock before the 2024 presidential election, Smith’s biggest challenge will be telling that story to a jury as quickly as he can."
Former president Donald Trump appeared before ardent supporters in the deeply conservative southern state of Alabama on Friday, dismissing the latest federal indictment against him a day earlier as an "illegal and unconstitutional travesty."
Trump, who is facing sweeping conspiracy charges over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, called the indictment "ridiculous."
"It's an act of desperation by a failed disgraced crooked Joe Biden and his radical left thugs to preserve their grip on power," Trump told the crowd.
A day after his visit to largely hostile Washington, Trump received a warm reception at the Republican summer dinner in Montgomery, Alabama's state capital.
The 77-year-old billionaire won Alabama by landslides in 2016 and 2020, and all six Republicans the state sends to the House of Representatives in Washington endorsed his re-election bid ahead of the evening engagement.
He is also backed by Alabama's senior senator, lieutenant governor and agriculture commissioner, although the junior senator and the governor have yet to endorse any candidate in the Republican primary.
Trump was 39 points ahead of his closest rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, in FiveThirtyEight's national polling average on Friday -- the kind of lead that has never been surmounted in modern primary contests.
The former reality TV kingpin and property mogul, estimated by Forbes to be worth $2.5 billion, has won the backing of more than 80 members of Alabama's House and Senate, dwarfing the roster of five lawmakers backing DeSantis.
"DeSantis is a nice guy, but Donald has been there," Robert Nail, a resident of the state's largest county, Baldwin, told local news portal AL.com.
"He knows what to do and will hit the ground running. This nonsense with indictments is just background noise."
But Trump makes his bid for a historic return to the White House charged with 78 felonies in three separate criminal probes.
He is due to go on trial in New York in March next year over allegations that he misrepresented "hush money" payments to a porn star, and is scheduled to be tried in May over his handling of national security secrets.
He was in court on Thursday for a preliminary hearing over his alleged election interference and is expected to soon be charged by state prosecutors over similar allegations in a separate case focused on the southern state of Georgia.
Donald Trump during a campaign appearance Friday night stirred fears of nuclear war in an attack on Joe Biden.
“We have a very dangerous situation because other countries with nuclear weapons and the weaponry is so powerful and we have a man that can’t two sentences together and he’s in charge of whether or not we have a nuclear war and I don’t like that and you don’t like that either,” Trump said before pivoting to his claims that his legal troubles are the result of political persecution.
“Biden and his protectors know he cannot win this race any other way, so now they’re trying something that hasn’t been tried in this country. Election interference.”
The former president delivered his remarks at the Alabama Republican Party Summer Dinner in Montgomery on Friday.
Donald Trump’s disparaging rhetoric against his Washington D.C. jury pool may not be actionable but is “incredibly damaging” to the former president, a legal expert said Friday.
CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen during an appearance on CNN’s “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer” said Trump’s characterization of Washington D.C. in a post on his Truth Social website could get him into trouble as his trial unfolds.
Eisen’s comments follow the magistrate judge presiding over Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 election conspiracy case during Thursday’s arraignment admonishing the former president not to commit any crimes while he is awaiting trial, specifically telling Trump that it is a crime to "influence a juror or try to threaten or bribe a witness or retaliate against anyone" connected to the case, which Trump told the judge he understood.
Trump in an all-caps rant said “CONSIDERING THE FACT THAT I HAD TO FLY TO A FILTHY, DIRTY, FALLING APART, & VERY UNSAFE WASHINGTON, D.C., TODAY, & THAT I WAS THEN ARRESTED BY MY POLITICAL OPPONENT, WHO IS LOSING BADLY TO ME IN THE POLLS, CROOKED JOE BIDEN, IT WAS A VERY GOOD DAY!”
Said Eisen: “We've seen a stream of these disparaging comments attacking judges, attacking prosecutors. He went a little too far yesterday, in my opinion, when he attacked the potential jury pool in the District of Columbia when he talked about the filth and decay in D.C.”
“These are the people who live in the District of Columbia, who are going to be sitting on a jury involving Donald Trump…Is it actionable? We're not there yet. Is it incredibly damaging to him? Yes, it is. And I will say there's an ambiguity to that Truth Social posting. It could, any judge or prosecutor who looks at that thinks ‘gee, is he insinuating harm?"
“So it shortens his runway, should he cross the line intentionally or otherwise? I think that will be tested in these many trials in the pre-trial period ahead.”
A day after being arraigned in the Jan. 6 election conspiracy case, Donald Trump took to social media to vent his grievances, claiming repeatedly that he’s the victim of political persecution.
The former president wrote on his Truth Social platform that he’s being charged with “FAKE crimes.”
“Isn’t it TERRIBLE that a Political Opponent can haphazardly charge you with FAKE crimes in the middle of your campaign in order to interfere with your time & message, and there is nothing you can do to stop this travesty of ‘justice,’” Trump wrote.
“They had 2.5 years to file, long before the campaign started. Another Russia, Russia, Russia HOAX. Should not be allowed to happen!”
The former president in another post wrote: “Every one of these many Fake Charges filed against me by the Corrupt Biden DOJ could have been filed 2.5 years ago, but they waited and waited until I became dominant in the Polls, and then they filed them all, including locals, right in the middle of my Campaign. They want anybody but “TRUMP.” Not fair and perhaps, not legal. ELECTION INTERFERENCE!!!”
Several of Trump’s other posts shared links to reports from right-wing media that backed his narrative.
In one post, Republican strategist Garrett Ventry in a Fox News interview says: “You have to ask — Why are they doing this now, 2 1/2 years later…because Trump continues to SURGE in the polls…Biden continues to take a NOSEDIVE in the polls…and this continues the investigations that Republicans are doing…as they continue to get closer to Joe Biden.”
Conservative columnist Charlie Hurt in another Fox interview says: “Every time there’s something more devastatingly damaging that happens in the criminal probe of the Biden Crime Family, you have another shoe drop with one of these indictments against Donald Trump.”
A Texas man who threatened two Arizona officials and their children and who called for polls workers to die in a mass shooting has been sentenced to prison, the Associated Press reported.
Frederick Francis Goltz, 52, was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in federal prison on Friday.
"Prosecutors say court documents showed that Goltz threatened several people — including a lawyer with the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office and a Maricopa County elections official — on far-right social media platforms," the AP's report stated.
"Maricopa County, which encompasses Phoenix, became a target of Trump supporters after Democratic President Joe Biden won Arizona by more than 10,000 votes, with Maricopa County putting him over the top. But even a Republican-backed review of the election in the county ended without producing proof to support Trump’s false claims of a stolen election," the AP continued.
Goltz pleaded guilty earlier this year to interstate threatening communications. The judge also ordered him to serve three years of supervised release after his prison term ends.
Ukraine on Friday issued postage stamps featuring US F-16 fighter jets, which it says it urgently needs Western allies to deliver to protect it from Russian attacks.
Hundreds of people queued up in Kyiv's main post office to buy the newly designed stamp with a matching envelope.
Ukraine's Ukrposhta post office service said it was releasing the design, called "Exterminators of Evil", to stress "the urgent need for this type of aviation".
"While we are all waiting for the arrival of the F-16s, we have decided to launch our new stamp," said Ukrposhta director general Igor Smelyansky.
The latest eye-catching stamp, aimed at collectors, shows one of the Kremlin towers being ground into inexistence by a kitchen grater with holes in the shape of fighter jets.
The Post Office described the Kremlin as "a symbol of the empire of evil".
The artwork is by Ukrainian illustrator Maksym Palenko.
The stamp was released in a print run of 600,000. A set of four identical stamps (without envelopes) costs 156 hryvnia ($4.22).
The proceeds will go towards buying drones for the armed forces.
Previously, Ukraine's post office has released hugely popular stamps featuring soldiers at the front, a painting by British street artist Banksy and a soldier making an obscene gesture towards a Russian warship.
- 'We need the real planes' -
Collectors waiting to buy the new stamp said they liked the latest design but wanted Ukraine to have the planes for real.
"The design is great but it would be better if the F16 planes flew over here instead of stamps," laughed Volodymr, a military veteran in a camouflage T-shirt.
"Very interesting design. I hadn't even expected this," said Yevgeny, a retiree in a traditional embroidered shirt.
"Let's rub them (the Russians) out and drive them off our land."
Sergiy, a laborer, said he was sure Ukraine would get the planes, just as it had received long-awaited weapons systems.
"(The planes will arrive -- just like our victory. It's an irreversible process," he insisted.
US President Joe Biden gave the green light in May for Ukrainian pilots to be trained up on F-16 fighter jets.
The US-made aircraft is "renowned as one of the finest and most co-effective jet fighters worldwide" and has the capacity to "change the balance of power in favor of Ukraine", the Ukrainian post office said.
During the 2020 presidential race, MAGA Republicans and right-wing media pundits accused "Real Time" host Bill Maher of "Trump derangement syndrome" for warning that if Donald Trump lost, he would not concede defeat. But Maher's prediction was spot on.
When Trump lost to Democratic now-President Joe Biden, he falsely claimed that the election was stolen from him through widespread voter fraud and made an aggressive effort to overturn the election results. That effort, on August 1, 2023, resulted in a four-count federal criminal indictment.
Special counsel Jack Smith alleges that Trump showed a brazen contempt for U.S. democracy when he lost the election but conspired to stay in office anyway. However, many Trump defenders have insisted that Trump genuinely believed he won and was merely exercising his 1st Amendment rights.
Journalist Will Saletan, in a listicle published by the conservative website The Bulwark on August 4, grapples with the question: "When Donald Trump conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election, as alleged in this week's indictment, did he really believe it had been stolen?"
"The indictment charges Trump with 'dishonesty, fraud and deceit' in his efforts to impede certification of the results," Saletan explains. "It says his claims about the election 'were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false.' The phrase 'knowingly false' appears 33 times in the document."
Saletan continues, "This part of the case — what Trump knew or believed —might be hard to prove, because he routinely insists that he did win the election. And while Trump has a long record of spouting falsehoods, he also has a record of appearing to believe his own b—---t."
The journalist goes on to say that although Smith "can't read Trump's mind," the four-charge indictment "does outline several incidents that illuminate Trump's dishonesty."
Those incidents, according to Saletan, are: (1) "Trump privately admitted that allegations he promoted were untrustworthy," (2) "Trump faulted Mike Pence for excessive honesty," (3) "Trump told leaders of the Department of Justice to say things he knew they didn't believe," (4) "Trump misrepresented several conversations he had witnessed," and (5) "Trump refused to look at evidence that contradicted him."
"Together, these incidents expose Trump's fundamental duplicity," Saletan argues. "He promoted allegations that he privately doubted or derided. He criticized Pence for being too honest. He told DOJ officials to publicly endorse accusations they didn't believe. He lied about conversations he had directly witnessed. And when he was offered evidence that would set him straight, he refused to look."
When former President Donald Trump was arraigned on federal charges in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, the magistrate judge referred to him as "Mr. Trump" — and he is enraged about it, according to The Daily Beast which cited reporting by CNN.
According to the Beast, Trump has gotten accustomed to being called "Mr. President," and expected Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya to address him the same way.
He was "in a sour and dejected mood" as he drove from the courthouse, sources told CNN, which reported that he was "pissed off."
Thursday's appearance on charges relating to efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election was the former president's third criminal arraignment.
He has also been charged with business record fraud by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and was indicted in a separate federal case concerning the concealment of highly classified national defense information at Mar-a-Lago. The district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, Fani Willis, is also weighing whether to seek an indictment against him for election interference in that state.
Immediately after the indictment, Trump took to his Truth Social account to proclaim, "CONSIDERING THE FACT THAT I HAD TO FLY TO A FILTHY, DIRTY, FALLING APART, & VERY UNSAFE WASHINGTON, D.C., TODAY, & THAT I WAS THEN ARRESTED BY MY POLITICAL OPPONENT, WHO IS LOSING BADLY TO ME IN THE POLLS, CROOKED JOE BIDEN, IT WAS A VERY GOOD DAY!"
WASHINGTON – This week’s indictment and arraignment of former President Donald Trump was something some lawmakers trapped in the U.S. House Gallery on Jan. 6, 2021 didn’t expect to see, but there were no celebrations when the moments arrived. A part of them still mourns.
The first thought to flash through many minds wasn’t of Trump arrested, it was flashbacks of themselves and others facing likely injury and potential death — “hang Mike Pence” still rings in many ears.
January 6 and being trapped in the Gallery with my colleagues, worrying about my staff and all of the staff inside the Capitol and around the campus. It truly, it all came flooding back to me,” Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) told Raw Story the night the indictment was announced.
Escobar attended most of the House Jan. 6 select committee’s 10 hearings last year, along with a rotating cast of close to three-dozen other lawmakers who were also trapped alongside her Jan. 6, 2021, in the balcony overlooking the House floor.
That includes Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA). She says this week’s Trump indictment sent a wave of thoughts and emotions through her that have ebbed and flowed throughout the week.
“For me, it was stunning and shocking. Staggering … Sad for our country,” Dean told Raw Story. “Crazy yet not surprising.”
Congress is in recess for the month of August. While many of the members left stranded in the House gallery — the “Gallery Group,” to some — on Jan. 6 have remained quiet this week, a handful have shared their reactions to Raw Story and on social media.
Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO)
“I remember consoling my friend and colleague who had just spoken to her family. I remember telling my fellow members to take off their pins so we couldn’t be identified. My Ranger training kicked in and I remember gripping my pen to use as a weapon if necessary.”
I was in the House gallery when Trump’s incited mob stormed the Capitol. 🧵 1/5 — Rep. Jason Crow (@RepJasonCrow) August 1, 2023
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA)
“I was in the House Gallery on January 6 as insurrectionists attempted to take over our nation’s capital. Trump urged these actions and then simply sat there as they unfolded, refusing to even immediately tell his supporters to go home. Our democracy survived, but barely.”
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS); chairman of Jan. 6 select committee
“January 6th was a test of American democracy, but the fair trials of those responsible will further demonstrate this Nation’s commitment to the rule of law and hold accountable those who attempted to undermine it.”
Two years ago, when I chaired the first Select Committee hearing, I was moved by the courageous testimony of four brave police officers who came to the defense of the Capitol and American democracy on January 6, 2021. — Bennie G. Thompson (@BennieGThompson) August 1, 2023
Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT), then a member of the House
“January 6th will be remembered as one of the darkest days in American history. I was in the House chamber when rioters breached the Capitol, and I saw firsthand the devastation of the insurrection. Make no mistake: the tragic events of that day — and the lies and conspiracies pushed by former President Donald Trump and his followers — did tremendous damage to our democracy.”
“We have an independent judicial system for a reason — to ensure no one is treated with a separate standard of justice. No one is above the law.”
'Watch the trial'
Rep. Escobar of Texas and the others say they’re eagerly awaiting the trial.
“The indictments and a trial are so important. We cannot forget what happened January 6. We cannot ignore it. We cannot give anyone a pass,” Escobar said. “And frankly, the American public needs to read those indictments and they need to watch the trial.”
Still, Escobar fears Trump, who as a 2024 presidential candidate is leading all others for the Republican nomination, damaged American democracy for years to come.
“The fact that there are millions of Americans who are so deeply radicalized by Fox News and by extremist Republicans and by the MAGA movement, that they are willing to look past everything that Donald Trump has done, and that they actually see him as a victim,” Escobar said. “It is shocking to me. It is terrifying to me. Far more than what Donald Trump is doing, what is terrifying to me, is the millions of Americans who cannot see the truth through all the lies that they've been told.”
