CNN correspondent Tom Foreman on Wednesday thrashed former President Donald Trump and his allies for their false claim that President Joe Biden authorized his "assassination."
After watching video clips of MAGA figures such as podcaster and convicted criminal Steve Bannon and Fox News host Sean Hannity making false claims about the FBI having authorization to use deadly force if faced with a life-threatening danger during its search of Mar-a-Lago, Foreman declared their statements to be "absolute poppycock."
He then walked through how Trump was using bogus claims about Biden ordering his assassination to raise money for his 2024 presidential campaign before zeroing in on why the claims were nonsensical.
"What has been going on with all these ridiculous claims, and they are ridiculous?" he asked rhetorically. "[It is] standard protocol for police agencies, not just the FBI... which is to say FBI agents should have their weapons with them in case something happens. They should have handcuffs with them in case something happens."
He then emphasized that the FBI took steps to deescalate any potential tensions when it executed the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago back in 2022.
"Remember when they went in on this raid, they were wearing, like, normal polo shirts," he said. "They weren't wearing flak vests with 'FBI' on them. That was also part of the order because they didn't want to create a big spectacle around this. But agents have to be ready in case something crazy happens out there."
Foreman concluded his fact-checking segment by emphasizing that there was "no departure from the norm" whatsoever and that "for Trump World to claim that this was something else is just a flat-out lie, top to bottom."
"Reality: He has lost NV twice, and almost no chance he wins by double digits," he wrote.
One of the long-time political debates in the state has been about stashing nuclear waste on Yucca Mountain — which has massive opposition. Trump promised he is 100% against the idea which, again, Ralston called out as false.
"Trump repeatedly put Yucca in his budget!" Ralston exclaimed. "He suddenly came out against it as an election-year epiphany!"
Trump went on to claim, "That area is thriving."
Ralston couldn't figure out what he meant.
"This is all jabberwocky from him," he said.
Trump also said he's paying attention to the state's GOP Senate primary race, which he described as "tight." He claimed he'd seen polls showing GOP candidate Sam Brown "leading, actually, by quite a bit." Ralston called that absurd.
"The GOP Senate primary here is not tight," Ralston said, and the person interviewing Trump said as much. Polls this week showed Brown at 52 and opponent Jeff Gunte at 14 percent. Trump hasn't endorsed anyone.
"Sam Brown will win, and Trump signaled he will endorse him, now that he is sure Brown will win," Ralston wrote.
At one point, Trump randomly inserted that he loves "the Hispanics."
"I've been great to them. They're incredible people. They're smart and entrepreneurial people, they know I like them. And they like me. And I mean, it's somewhat of a revolution going on in terms of the vote with the Hispanic voters," said Trump.
He compared "the Hispanics" to President Joe Biden, "who doesn't know he's alive."
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is refusing to comment on the allegations at the center of Donald Trump's New York criminal trial, that he paid "hush money" to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
"You've been very clear about your disdain for the hush money case, but what about the underlying alleged conduct of paying off a porn star to keep this extramarital affair allegedly quiet?" CNN's Manu Raju asked Speaker Johnson Wednesday (video below). "You're a deeply religious man, a moral man, does that alleged crime cause you any concern about the former president's character?"
Johnson, a Christian nationalist who has said the Bible is the basis for his "worldview," and, "I am a Bible-believing Christian," would not weigh in on the indicted ex-president's alleged infidelity.
"At least 26 women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct, with allegations stretching back to the 1970s and running through 2016," Business Insider has reported.
"Melania gave birth to the couple's only son, Barron, in March 2006," BI continues. "Adult film star Stormy Daniels alleged that she and Trump had a sexual encounter just four months later, in July 2006," and "Playboy model Karen McDougal alleged that she started an affair with Trump even closer to the birth of Barron in June 2006."
Trump has denied all the allegations.
Johnson ignored the 34 felony charges brought by the State of New York. They include falsification of business records with the intent to cover up the hush money payments to unlawfully influence the 2016 presidential election.
Instead, the Speaker claimed District Attorney Alvin Bragg is "going after" Trump "for who he is."
But Johnson also promoted a Trump talking point, falsely claiming that "the case is patently absurd, you've had every legal analyst across the board acknowledge as much."
CNN's @mkraju: "You've been very clear about your disdain for the hush money case, but what about the underlying alleged conduct of paying off a porn star to keep this extramarital affair allegedly quiet?"
Speaker Mike Johnson: "I'm not gonna comment on that." pic.twitter.com/G9BPWLwxhU
— The Recount (@therecount) May 22, 2024
Former President Donald Trump is fundraising over a repeatedly debunked conspiracy theory that claims President Joe Biden was planning to assassinate him when the FBI searched his home for classified documents in 2022.
"Joe Biden was locked & loaded ready to take me out & put my family in danger," Trump said in a fundraising email
reportedly sent out on Tuesday night.
The campaign email headline, in all caps, reads: "Biden's DOJ was authorized to shoot me!"
While Julie Kelly claimed newly revealed court records show the Federal Bureau of Investigation was authorized to use deadly force against Trump when they searched his home for classified documents, the Federal Bureau of Investigation explained otherwise.
“The FBI followed standard protocol in this search as we do for all search warrants, which includes a standard policy statement limiting the use of deadly force,” the bureau reportedly said in
an official statement.
"No one ordered additional steps to be taken and there was no departure from the norm in this matter."
Or, as Washington Post columnist Philip Bump explained Wednesday morning, "The deadly-force document
shared by Kelly constrains how and when firearms might be used."
News that Trump had included the incendiary language to describe a blatantly false claim stunned political analysts who took to social media to share their views.
"This is patently nuts," wrote CNN political commentator David Axelrod. "And dangerously provocative!"
"Another outright lie from the former President of the United States," added former chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee Donna Brazile. "Chaos…Mayhem and another simply outrageous lie."
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) has a plan to incarcerate Attorney General Merrick Garland if he does not turn over tapes of President Joe Biden's interview with special counsel Robert Hur.
After two contempt resolutions against Garland passed out of committees, Republican leadership said they planned to press all their members to vote for contempt in the full House.
On Wednesday, Luna told War Room host Steve Bannon she had a "plan B" if Garland did not turn over the tapes, which were being withheld because the White House claimed executive privilege.
"There's something called inherent contempt, which hasn't been done since the early 1900s," Luna explained. "And actually, during my time when I was recovering from having my son, I read through the House rule book twice, and I actually found this on one of the pages."
"And so what this would allow is the Speaker of the House to essentially use the sergeant of arms as an enforcement authority," she continued. "And because Garland has not complied not just with one subpoena but two subpoenas, it would actually enable the sergeant of arms to go get Garland and basically hold him until he brings forward that information, or force him to essentially divulge and bring forward those recordings."
Luna said she would force a vote on the House floor ten days after Garland's criminal contempt vote.
"So that's my plan B. I'm planning on bringing this vote to the floor, which I can, ten days after we vote on contempt of Congress criminal out of Congress," she remarked.
Former President Donald Trump has been called out for hypocrisy by political spectators who note the defendant who cried "deadly force" Tuesday Night told the Supreme Court last month presidents should have free rein to use deadly force.
The brouhaha began with right-wing writer Julie Kelly's claim that recently revealed court records show the Federal Bureau of Investigation was authorized to use deadly force against Trump when they searched his home for classified documents in 2022, Philip Bump explained in a Washington Post column Wednesday morning.
"The deadly-force document shared by Kelly constrains how and when firearms might be used," Bump noted. "It is self-evidently ludicrous."
Bump's article on this swiftly fact-checked conspiracy theory includes a comment from the FBI confirming the Mar-a-Lago search warrant was strictly protocol.
On Wednesday morning, Greene doubled down on her claim in a tweet that includes an upside-down American flag, a symbol representing the former president's false claim the 2020 election was fraudulent.
"I posted this on the day the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago after Merrick Garland ordered it and gave the green light to kill anyone that stood in the way," Greene wrote. "Democrats declared war on us and weaponized the full power of the justice system the minute they took power."
Greene's message was quickly flooded with contemptuous responses, one of which provided telling context.
"Trump is arguing in the Supreme Court that presidents should be allowed to assassinate their political opponents," replied X user @SundaeDivine. "So I don't know why you're undercutting him."
The X user was referencing a court battle that unfolded in the U.S. Supreme Court on April 25, when Trump's attorneys argued Trump could not be prosecuted on election interference charges because his actions leading up to the U.S. Capitol riots on Jan. 6, 2021, were protected by his since-relinquished office.
This conflict of claims was not lost upon the world of social media Wednesday morning.
"These same idiots are saying Trump has such powers in his SCOTUS immunity argument," wrote X user @GOPMongos.
"While the right pretends outrage over FBI agents being authorized deadly force which they didn’t exercise, Trump is currently arguing to SCOTUS that as president he could have his political rival assassinated and he’d have immunity," added X user Francis Wegner.
Wilson explained to Times Radio this week why the film had gotten under Trump's skin.
"Apparently, the critics thought it was great, but his campaign team are absolutely furious about it," the Times Radio host noted.
"You know, Donald Trump's history with Roy Cohn is an area that most Americans have no clue about," Wilson said. "Roy Cohn was an attorney who counseled Joseph McCarthy during the 1950s McCarthy Army hearings, in which he was hunting alleged imaginary communists throughout the government."
"He met Trump in the 1970s because he had done some work for Trump's father, Fred Trump, and saw in Donald Trump the kind of amoral, unethical, post-truth environment," he continued. "A lot of the things that Roy Cohn taught Trump, never apologize, never back down on a point. If someone attacks you, attack them back 100 times more."
Wilson said he had heard from people who saw the film.
"I've also heard from someone who saw it at Cannes directly — and said it will drive him out of his mind, it will make him crazy, and it apparently has already done so," he noted. "And so, you know, it portrays him in a very unflattering light, which is not a difficult thing to achieve."
The host said her colleagues at the Times had seen the film.
"Apparently, it shows Trump having liposuction, having scalp reduction surgery to conceal his bald patch, and indeed, physically assaulting his former wife, Ivana, and we now hear that his presidential campaign is threatening legal action," she observed. "I mean, this could potentially have a further effect on this already absolutely extraordinary presidential campaign."
Wilson agreed: "It really could, and one of the things that we saw in 2020 was that the race looked a lot like it did right now before COVID hit."
"There will likely be big externalities in this campaign that we have yet to contemplate, and there will likely be big externalities in this campaign that we have yet to process in a fundamental way," he added.
Donald Trump and his allies are falsely claiming President Joe Biden, the U.S. Dept. of Justice, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation had a plot to assassinate his top political rival, the ex-president, during the execution of a search warrant in 2022 at Mar-a-Lago. Critics, including law enforcement experts, are blasting Trump and his MAGA associates for the "dangerous" lie.
On Tuesday a U.S. District Judge unsealed court documents in Special Counsel Jack Smith's Espionage Act case against Trump where he faces 40 felony counts, most over his alleged unlawful removal, retention, and refusal to return classified documents including some of the nation's top nuclear secrets.
One of those filings, as The Washington Post reported, was a law enforcement documents that included a standard statement reminding FBI agents on the Bureau's policy on the use of deadly force, "which says officers may resort to lethal force only when the subject of such force poses an 'imminent danger of death or serious physical injury' to an officer or another person."
But on Tuesday, Trump explosively posted on Truth Social, "WOW! I just came out of the Biden Witch Hunt Trial in Manhattan, the 'Icebox,' and was shown Reports that Crooked Joe Biden’s DOJ, in their Illegal and UnConstitutional Raid of Mar-a-Lago, AUTHORIZED THE FBI TO USE DEADLY (LETHAL) FORCE. NOW WE KNOW, FOR SURE, THAT JOE BIDEN IS A SERIOUS THREAT TO DEMOCRACY. HE IS MENTALLY UNFIT TO HOLD OFFICE — 25TH AMENDMENT!"
"TRUMP ALERT," it begins. "BREAKING FROM TRUMP: BIDEN'S DOJ WAS AUTHORIZED TO SHOOT ME!"
"You know they're just itching to do the unthinkable... Joe Biden was locked & loaded ready to take me out & put my family in danger."
Attorney and former FBI Special Agent Asha Rangappa observed, "Including the deadly force policy [in] an ops plan is SOP [standard operating procedure]. But just so I make sure I’m following the plot, according to Trump’s position in court, what he is accusing Biden of would be perfectly legal and within the scope of his 'official' powers, right?"
Trump repeatedly has insisted presidents must have complete and total "absolute immunity." His attorneys have argued in federal court and before the U.S. Supreme Court a president could order Seal Team Six to assassinate his political rival and it would be lawful, as was noted here:
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) was among the top allies who falsely characterized the court filing.
"The Biden DOJ and FBI were planning to assassinate Pres Trump and gave the green light," she posted to her official federal government account on X. "Does everyone get it yet???!!!! What are Republicans going to do about it?"
She also wrote: "This is grounds for impeachment of Wray and Garland. Trump and team was cooperating the entire time with the FBI," Greene claimed, both of which are false.
"Was deadly force authorized against Biden for his docs? Were they going to shoot SS then Pres Trump, Melania, and Barron too??? Speaker Mike Johnson fully funded the DOJ and FBI plus new building and tied our hands behind our backs to hold them accountable. We have the power of the purse and Johnson has handed the purse to Chuck Schumer. All of this is unforgivable."
Fox News Business host Maria Bartiromo also promoted the false claims Wednesday morning:
NBC News' Ryan Reilly mockingly explained the situation: "GOP members of Congress think the feds wanted to assassinate Trump and so they did a raid on his place in Florida when they knew him to be in New Jersey because Mar-A-Lago was closed for the season."
Meanwhile, critics are sounding the alarm on Trump's and the GOP's lies.
"This is wildly irresponsible, even for professional troll like Marjorie Taylor Greene," wrote conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg. "FBI knew Trump wasn’t there. It was all coordinated with Secret Service in advance. This is deeply dangerous bullshit."
"Trump wasn’t there," said talk radio host Joe Walsh, a former GOP U.S. Congressman, responding to U.S. Rep. Greene's remarks. "Everything was coordinated with Secret Service & local law enforcement. Even for you, this is a deeply irresponsible and dangerous thing to say."
David Axelrod, the former top Obama strategist and White House advisor, remarked, "This is patently nuts...and dangerously provocative!"
If presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump defeats incumbent President Joe Biden in November, he would — under the United States' current rules and presidential term limit — be required to leave office on January 20, 2029.
But some of Trump's critics fear that if he becomes president again, he will refuse to leave the White House when the time comes.
Bloomberg News' Joshua Green reports that this fear is being expressed by more than a few U.S. voters in focus groups.
Seiji Carpenter, vice president at David Binder Research, described an April focus group and told Bloomberg News, "We were talking to Latino men and Asian American-Pacific Islander women in battleground states, and they went straight to the issue of: What if Trump won't give up power?"
Carpenter added that this is a "real concern" among voters that David Binder Research has spoken to.
GOP strategist Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark and an outspoken Never Trump conservative, is also encountering this fear in focus groups she has been conducting.
At one of them, Longwell — who supported President Joe Biden in 2020 and is supporting him again in 2024 — asked voters, "Does anybody think he may not abide by the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution and leave office after the 2028 election? Anyone worried about that?"
A Pennsylvania man in that focus group said of Trump, "I wouldn't put it past him, now that he owns the RNC. To say, 'Don Jr. is going to do the next term, and he'll get two. And then Barron (Trump) will get two.' And we'll just have some fake monarchy."
Green points out that even some voters who have their criticisms of Biden are worried that if Trump wins a second term, he won't respect the 22nd Amendment.
The Bloomberg News journalist reports, "As far-fetched as it may sound, the prospect of Trump overriding or simply ignoring the constitutional provision that limits a president to serving two terms seems to be pushing some undecided voters toward Biden, despite significant reservations about the incumbent's age, turmoil in the Middle East and high inflation. Now, strategists in both parties are probing to see how widely this sentiment has spread, particularly among the undecided voters likely to sway the election."
Alma, Wisconsin-based voter Lori McCammon voted for Trump in 2016 but has since come to view him as an authoritarian and isn't supporting him this year.
McCammon told Bloomberg News, "Based on what I’ve heard from him and figures like Steve Bannon, this would be our last free and fair election."
The extent of Donald Trump staggering legal costs came to light in recent filings with the Federal Election Commission.
The filings show the Save America leadership PAC, which Trump has used as a legal slush fund, owes $1.1 million to five different law firms and last month paid nearly $3.3 million more for legal consulting, with its biggest debt – $837,000 – owed to Blanche Law, the firm founded by his lead counsel in the hush money trial, reported The Daily Beast.
The PAC paid nearly $854,000 to defense counsel Todd Blanche's firm over two weeks in April, when his Manhattan criminal trial began, and the attorney also represents him in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case and his federal election interference case in D.C.
Save America also owes $168,000 in debt from last month to a firm associated with Steven Yurowitz, another attorney on the hush money case, and $96,000 to Dhillon Law Group, the firm founded by California Republican National Committee member Harmeet Dhillon, who last year ran unsuccessfully for RNC chair.
Dhillon told The Daily Beast the PAC was current in all of its obligations to the firm and she was "proud" to have them as a client.
The PAC's legal debt jumped by $245,000 from March to April, but the filings also showed it had paid off some of those debts and eliminated its debt to the law firm Robert & Robert for its work on the New York fraud case.
Save America paid close to $3.3 million to nearly a dozen firms for legal consulting in April, including more than half a million dollars to Chris Kise, who has worked on both the hush money and classified documents cases, and $390,000 to John Lauro, who is working with Blanche on the election interference case.
The PAC also paid $174,000 to James Otis Law Group LLC, the firm founded by D. John Sauer, who argued Trump's immunity claim before the U.S. Supreme Court, and $140,000 to the firm belonging to Trump lawyer and spokesperson Alina Habba.
WASHINGTON — Republican lawmakers don't care that a newly minted GOP senate candidate isn't a Donald Trump ally because he will ultimately ensure the party's dominance should he win election.
The MAGA Republican candidate lost the Maryland GOP primary by a considerable margin last week, and Republicans now believe they can win the seat because their candidate is a former governor who won two terms.
Former Gov. Larry Hogan is already trying to distance himself from the party, with his first campaign ad explaining why he's pro-choice. It comes after Hogan refused to speak to reporters on the topic during his GOP primary. Meanwhile, as governor, Hogan vetoed greater access to reproductive healthcare. The Democratic state legislature overrode his veto, so he simply eliminated the funding altogether.
As governor, Hogan ran the state as the executive, but as a senator, Hogan would be just one of 100, and cast a vote for a Republican leader for the branch. Hogan claimed he would vote to codify Roe, although such a measure would never come up for a vote in a Republican-controlled Senate.
Regardless, many Republicans just want to win, a sentiment that seems to be at the forefront of GOP lawmakers who spoke to Raw Story this week.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said that he was excited about Hogan because "he has a strong chance at prevailing in November."
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) said that he would happily send Hogan money and was looking forward to meeting him.
"You gonna write him a check?" he asked Raw Story. "You should write him a check."
Sen. Cynthia Lummis' (R-WY) eyes lit up when she heard Hogan's name. Raw Story asked if she was excited about him.
"I am! I am!" she said. "I think it's wonderful that there is someone who can serve in the Republican Party who is viewed as a, uh, solid, Maryland policymaker."
She gave Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) props for working with Hogan to get him through the GOP primary and onto the ballot.
Even if there is a concern that Hogan could be a "thorn" in the GOP's side, she said what is important is that he appoint Republican leadership.
"If you don't have the gavels in the Senate you don't set the agenda. It's a huge disadvantage," Lummis explained. She urged her colleagues to "open our pocketbooks to Republicans across the spectrum who are willing to help us take the majority so we can set the agenda. And then we can have our own" internal party battles.
Another pro-Trump lawmaker, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), said that Hogan is probably the only Republican in the state who could win the seat.
"I'd rather have a senator with an 'R' behind their name than a 'D,'" Johnson said, referring to Democrats. He explained that no official will have 100% agreement with each other all of the time."
Outgoing Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), who has often clashed with his party over its full-on embrace of Donald Trump, was asked if saw in Hogan a potential replacement for his own role, to which Romney asked if that role was as "the irritant" of the GOP conference.
Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz (HI) said that he isn't concerned because there have been a number of popular former Republican governors who couldn't make the jump to the federal level.
"The question is, who do you want to chair the Judiciary [Committee]?" he asked. "The question is, who do you want to confirm Supreme Court justices? Who do you want in charge of environmental policy? I mean, I don't think this takes clever framing. This is a federal race."
House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) has found some surprising common ground with House Democrats — over a proposal to force disclosure of presidential tax returns.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the bill, also sponsored by Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA), "would force presidents and vice presidents to disclose their tax filings for the two years before entering the White House, for the years while in office, and for two years afterward" and "compel them, along with close family members such as children, siblings and in-laws, to disclose payments from foreign entities as well as large gifts and loans from family members."
It remains unclear whether this bill, which Comer praises as "a good product" that resolves a "gray area" in ethics law, will gain traction in the House or pass the Senate. However, it is a surprising development after former President Donald Trump spent years refusing to release his tax returns, with the blessing of Republicans in Congress.
Ultimately, in 2020, many of Trump's tax returns were leaked to The New York Times, which revealed a number of damning details about how he used business losses to avoid paying income tax for years.
The motivation for the bipartisan teamup on the issue appears to be for Republicans to obtain more disclosures about the Biden family's financials, whom the bill would also impact. Comer has for months led an investigation to impeach President Joe Biden for allegedly laundering international bribes, although no evidence of this has turned up, even from the GOP committee members' own witnesses.
In recent weeks, Comer has floated the idea of quietly ending the impeachment inquiry with a simple criminal referral to the Justice Department rather than a vote on articles of impeachment, which would effectively end the matter.
Many Democrats appear opposed to the legislation, with one leadership aide calling it “a political stunt masquerading as a legislative proposal, coming from none other than the chief architect of extreme MAGA Republicans’ failed impeachment effort.” The White House also opposes the bill, saying that “We’re always happy to look at Congressman Comer’s bright ideas,” but that Biden has already disclosed all relevant financial information.
Newly released grand jury transcripts show Donald Trump's attorney in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case refused to answer questions about his client during a contentious exchange.
Timothy Parlatore, who quit the case shortly after Trump was indicted last year, accused a Department of Justice lawyer of not following the rules on attorney-client privilege, setting off a tense dialogue shown in court records unsealed by federal judge Aileen Cannon and reported by Newsweek.
"Are we really doing this?" Parlatore said, and another DOJ lawyer interrupted and reminded Trump's attorney that he was a witness and shouldn't be asking questions.
The grand jury ultimately handed up an indictment against Trump on 40 federal charges related to his mishandling of sensitive government documents stashed at his private resort in Palm Beach, Florida, after leaving the White House in January 2021, and Parlatore testified before grand jurors Dec. 22, 2022, at a federal courthouse in Washington, D.C.
"It's privileged, which is something that she knows, if – it's something that every attorney does know," Parlatore told federal prosecutors.
DOJ lawyers Julie Edelstein, Brett Reynolds and Anne McNamara questioned Parlatore, asking the attorney why Trump had not allowed him to discuss their conversations if he was cooperating with their investigation.
"The question you just asked seems to indicate that, for somebody to be cooperative, they should waive their attorney-client privilege, which is absolutely wrong," Parlatore said, after objecting to the line of questioning.
Edelstein told him that she was not asking him to waive attorney-client privilege but said she was obligated to ask about their discussions of the matter.
"Do you understand that that's not something that should be even suggested?" Parlatore said.
Reynolds intervenes and reminded Parlatore he was the witness, and Edelstein steps in and adds that she has asked him a question, which Parlatore again says is improper, but she explains her obligation.
"You made a representation to this grand jury about what was said at a meeting," Edelstein said, "and I asked you the basis of that representation."
Parlatore again said the question is improper, adding that she cannot ask what the former president had said to him, and his testimony ends a short time later, with both sides thanking one another.
"Thank you," Parlatore said, "and I apologize if some of the answers were a little bit more convoluted just because of the weird dynamic here, but I appreciate your time. Thank you."
