Joe Biden

Attorneys representing E. Jean Carroll delivered a swift smackdown to former President Donald Trump as he demanded a new trial after she successfully sued him for defamation and sexual abuse.

As reported by Law and Crime News' Adam Klasfeld, Carroll's legal team delivered a scathing court filing in which it ridiculed Trump for wanting a do-over of a trial where he was ordered to pay its client $5 million.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) blasted Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) on Thursday over her effort to impeach President Joe Biden.

During his House floor speech, McGovern noted that Boebert intended to force a vote on her impeachment articles against Biden for allegedly failing to secure the southern border.

President Joe Biden on Thursday called religious freedom a "core principle" for India and the United States, in a gentle nudge as he welcomed India's Hindu nationalist prime minister, Narenda Modi.

Modi has faced criticism over the rights of religious minorities in India, with rights groups alleging a blind eye to vigilante violence against Muslims and Christians.

Former U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Helotes, announced Thursday he is running for president, becoming the first Texan with experience in elective office to enter the Republican primary.

Hurd, who represented Texas in Congress from 2015-21, begins his campaign as a major underdog. He is an unabashed moderate and a Donald Trump critic in a party where many remain loyal to the former president and frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination.

Hurd revealed his decision in a Thursday morning interview on CBS and followed it up online with an announcement video that began with Hurd listing illegal immigration, inflation and other problems before addressing the current and former presidents.

“President [Joe] Biden can’t solve these problems — or won’t,” Hurd said. “And if we nominate a lawless, selfish, failed politician like Donald Trump — who lost the House, the Senate and the White House — we all know Joe Biden will win again.”

Hurd is poised to be the highest-profile Texan running for president this election cycle, which began with speculation that bigger names, like U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and Gov. Greg Abbott, could vie for the White House. Both now appear unlikely to do so.

A former CIA officer, Hurd represented the 23rd Congressional District, a massive district in South and West Texas that includes hundreds of miles of Mexican border. It was a national battleground district while Hurd held the seat, with both parties pouring millions of dollars into the November elections.

Hurd first won the seat in 2014 and prevailed in hard-fought reelection battles in 2016 and 2018, even as district voters supported Democrats at the top of their tickets those years. Hurd opted against running for a fourth term in 2020, though the seat remained in the GOP column with the election of Hurd’s endorsed candidate, Tony Gonzales.

Hurd’s time in Congress was marked by his willingness to buck his party. He voted against repealing the Affordable Care Act, and he supported universal background checks for gun purchases and protections against LGBTQ discrimination.

Hurd also worked across the aisle within the Texas delegation, going on a road trip with then-Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-El Paso, in 2017 that they broadcast live online.

Hurd split with Trump in some highly visible ways. Hurd was among the Republicans who called on Trump to drop out of the 2016 presidential race after the release of the 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape that depicted Trump boasting about groping women. And as Trump pushed to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, Hurd repeatedly called it the “most expensive and least effective way" to secure the border.

Democrats persistently criticized Hurd as being less independent than he appeared. They pointed out that, for example, he joined most House Republicans in voting against Trump’s first impeachment in 2019.

Hurd was the only Black Republican in the House when he announced his retirement in August 2019.

Even before he revealed he would not run for reelection, Hurd had made trips to early-voting states, raising the prospect he could seek the presidency. He has spent the past few years continuing to try to raise his national profile, visiting states like New Hampshire, releasing a book and making regular appearances on cable TV.

Hurd has emphasized that the GOP needs a nominee who can not only defeat Biden but also grow the party. He has called Trump a “proven loser,” noting Republicans have lost congressional majorities — not to mention the White House — since Trump came to power in 2016.

It remains to be seen how much Hurd’s message will resonate with GOP voters. He is seldom included in primary polling and is much less well-known than Trump’s other competitors, such as former Vice President Mike Pence and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. To the extent primary voters are looking for a clean break from Trump, other contenders, such as former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, are already vying for their support.

Hurd may end up as the highest-profile Texan in the primary. Cruz had considered running for president again this election cycle but has said in recent months that he is focused on his reelection to the Senate. Abbott has not ruled out a White House bid, but the possibility seems less likely as he oversees an anticipated series of special legislative sessions this summer.

Hurd is not the only Texan in the primary. Ryan Binkley, a Dallas-area businessman and pastor, announced a long-shot campaign in April.

During a Thursday morning appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," a normally unflappable Johnathan Lemire went off on a tirade aimed at House Republicans for wasting time trying to rally support for the impeachment of President Joe Biden.

Coming after Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) suggested she will continue to push for impeachment hearings, Lemire lashed out at her antics while the GOP sits back and allows her to waste everyone's time.

"Oh, my god, thank god we don't have a $31 trillion debt that Donald Trump basically gave us and these same Republicans gave us," host Joe Scarborough prompted before noting reports that Boebert and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) are in open warfare with other over who should be leading the charge for impeachment.

"It's dishonorable, dishonest and unserious," Lemire exclaimed. "That is what this is -- this is unserious. It is not a party that is showing any interest in governing; it is just about gestures and playing to the lowest common denominator, whether it's the Fox News viewer, the podcast listener or the person who will write them a check for their next campaign."

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"There's no Biden crime family, but it's not stopping the Republicans from trying to spin this up into something, to do Donald Trump's bidding in terms of censuring Adam Schiff yesterday," he added. "This is rare. It's only happened three times this century. The last representative to be censured: Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) two years ago. He tweeted out an animated image of him murdering a colleague, a Democratic congresswoman, and threatening to kidnap President Biden."

"He was censured, rightly, for that behavior," he added. "Adam Schiff was censured for this behavior; the behavior of simply doing his job, of investigating Donald Trump's behavior. They dropped the $16 million fine that was on the table last week, but he still has now been censured."

Watch below:

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday issued an angry demand for Republican allies to launch investigations into the multiple criminal probes he faces.

In a furious Truth Social post, the former president also insinuated without any evidence that the FBI planted top-secret government documents in boxes he stashed at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Rank and file Republican House members are losing patience with the party's leadership for allowing committee chairs to keep launching politically-motivated investigations into Democrats that go nowhere, and floor impeachment proposals on the House floor.

That is the opinion of Brendan Buck, the former top advisor to ex-House Speaker Paul Ryan during an appearance on MSNBC's "Way Too Early" on Thursday morning when discussing Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert's desire to impeach President Joe Biden.

The morning after special counsel John Durham was grilled over his investigation into the FBI that came up empty-handed, Buck called the series of hearings being conducted by House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) and James Comer (R-KY) "politically dumb."

He then told host Jonathan Lemire that their patience is growing thin with the time-wasting jihads initiated by the rightwing extremists in the caucus.

IN OTHER NEWS: Conservative despairs as Trump indictments 'are making him stronger in the GOP nomination fight'

"I feel for [House Speaker] Kevin McCarthy," Buck began. "A not insignificant part of the job of being speaker is stopping your members from doing something politically dumb -- and that's clearly what is going on here."

"But the reality is, House members are losing patience with a lot of these investigations. That's because they rushed out right after the election and said that, pretty plainly, that Joe Biden is part of some corruption deal with his son," he continued. "In fact, Jim Jordan and James Comer, the two party chairman came out and said they have direct evidence that Joe Biden was part of some schemes with overseas dealings. Of course, six months later, we've not seen any of that."

"So, at some point, your members get tired, lose patience, and they want to see action -- that's what came to a head with Rep. Lauren Boebert. Kevin McCarthy has put that to bed, but I wouldn't be surprised if that doesn't bring itself back up in the not-too-distant future," he added.

Watch the video below or at this link.

Conservative Rich Lowry has written a despairing new column in Politico lamenting that Republican voters seem to love former President Donald Trump the more he gets hit with criminal charges.

Lowry argues that this dynamic was on full display during Trump's interview with Fox News' Bret Baier in which he "he talked about having boxes with his clothes mixed in with classified documents, maintained he didn’t have time to comply with federal demands for the return of documents, and stated baldly, once again, that he won the 2020 election."