The Oregon Supreme Court declined Friday to hear an insurrectionist ban challenge to former President Donald Trump's eligibility to appear on the state's ballot, reports show.
The ruling, first reported by CNN, shows the court did not comment on the merits of the challenge but opted to wait until the Supreme Court makes its own ruling.
Colorado and Maine have both ruled Trump violated the 14th Amendment on Jan. 6, 2021, when rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Those decisions are on pause as an appeal move toward the nation's highest court.
As the Iowa caucuses approach, some faith leaders in the state are speaking out against a viral campaign video that praises Donald Trump and depicts him as a vessel sent by God to save America, The New York Times reported.
“God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a caretaker,’ so God gave us Trump,” a narrator in the video says, adding that Trump “is a shepherd to mankind who won’t ever leave nor forsake them.”
Pastor Joseph Brown of the Marion Avenue Baptist Church in Washington, Iowa, who voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, said the video is "very concerning."
"The original sin of Satan or Lucifer is not that he wanted to take over God’s position but that he wanted to be like God. There is only one God, and it’s not Trump or any other man,” Brown said.
As The Times points out, the ire of religious leaders holds significant sway in Iowa since more than three-quarters of the state identifies as Christian, with 28 percent identifying as evangelicals.
Darran Whiting of Liberty Baptist Church in Cedar Rapids said, “God has ordained servant leadership, not the arrogant, self-serving righteous leadership that particular video portrays."
Despite the fact that they've become political foes, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp is taking into consideration a request from GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to help investigate Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who's been accused of having an improper relationship with the special prosecutor in Donald Trump's election interference case, Newsweek reported.
Speaking to Newsweek, Kemp said Greene had "every right" to her request and that accusations against Willis are "very troubling."
"Evidence should be presented quickly," Kemp said. "Georgians need to be able to have confidence in this trial and the Georgia General Assembly laid out a specific process to investigate matters such as these. The Congresswoman has every right to refer her complaint to the oversight commission once it commences full operations."
Kemp and Greene had a falling out when the governor rejected Donald Trump's claims of a stolen 2020 election.
Trump co-defendant Michael Roman called for both the special prosecutor Nathan Wade and Willis to be removed from his case after he filed invoices from Wade's office that showed Wade billed Willis' office around $650,000 in legal fees since he was named special prosecutor. Roman also cited sources who say Willis had a romantic relationship with Wade.
Greene says the allegations are part of Willis' "unlawful partisan pattern... to illegally politicize and weaponize her public office to wage lawfare against President Trump for the purpose of interfering in the 2024 presidential election."
A former attorney for Donald Trump says the ex-president's legal campaign has been left rudderless — and he reserved special criticism for his most high-profile lawyer, Alina Habba.
Tim Parlatore, who represented Trump during the FBI raid of his Mar-a-Lago estate regarding storage of classified documents, was talking to CNN’s Laura Coates when he made the remarks.
“With Alina Habba handling discovery, that's not something where I think anybody is really at the wheel," he said.
He was talking about Trump’s fraud case in New York, which heard closing arguments Thursday at which the former president defied the judge’s orders and gave a courtroom speech.
Parlatore was also surprised that the closing arguments were focused on the fraud accusations and attacks on what Trump called a “witch hunt” of a trial, and not on the amount of damages which is what the trial was held to decide.
“Is the dog wagging the tail, or is the tail wagging the dog?” Coates asked, suggesting that Trump's legal team is not in control of him.
"When it comes to this case, I think that in large respect it's been kind of unled for a while. I know earlier on when Ronald Fischetti was on it, he was handling it appropriately. Of course, he unfortunately passed away,” he said, referring to Trump’s former lawyer who died in November last year.
He went on, “There is nothing that I've seen that indicates that they are trying to convince this trial judge to rule in their favor. If anything, it seems like they are trying to convince this trial judge to get so mad that he makes bigger mistakes for the appeal."
Habba has been on Trump’s team since 2021, but has also become a central part of his circle, frequently being seen at Mar-a-Lago and even accompanying Trump to events such as a recent Ultimate Fighting Championship match.
Before an appeals court this week, lawyers for Donald Trump made a "legally insane" argument this week that will hurt his re-election bid and then the former president made things worse by going on Fox News where his "poor impulse control" was once again on display.
That is the opinion of MSNBC analyst Michael A. Cohen -- no relation to former Trump "fixer" Michael Cohen -- in a column where he admitted he was stunned by Trump's attorneys' attempt to argue that an American president is immune from all criminal charges including murder.
As much as that will haunt Trump's bid to be re-elected, Cohen claimed it paled in comparison to the former president boasting during a Fox News town hall that he is responsible for Roe v. Wade being overturned.
Regarding the appeals court presentation from the Trump legal team, Cohen wrote: "Only a president, they asserted, who has first been impeached by the House and then convicted by the Senate can be charged and prosecuted for a crime committed while in office," before adding, "From a political perspective, this is an even more insane argument. Next fall, Joe Biden can run ads claiming that Trump believes he has the right to kill his political rivals — and they would be 100% true. One has to imagine that outside the MAGA cult, there are a few Americans who might find the idea of an unaccountable political leader a tad unnerving."
Labeling that argument "the second-worst political gaffe committed by Trump," Cohen focused on the Trump abortion claim as yet another unforced error by the former president that will blow up in his face as the 2024 presidential election grows nearer.
"There is, quite simply, no greater political vulnerability for Republicans right now than abortion," he wrote and then explained, "Trump didn’t just lean into the issue. He gave it a bear hug. There is perhaps no greater gift that Trump can give to his political opponents than trumpeting his role in overturning Roe v. Wade. One can fully expect to see this quote appear in millions of dollars’ worth of campaign ads this fall."
Calling the former president "the gift that keeps on giving" for Democrats, he claimed, "He is a politician and man of such poor impulse control and so prone to self-aggrandizement that he simply can’t help but make dumb, politically inadvisable statements," and then added, "Trump’s high floor is matched by a low ceiling — and that ceiling will keep falling as long as Trump keeps saying dumb things about abortion and his lawyers beclown themselves and their client in court. Yes, there are reasons for Biden supporters to be concerned about 2024, but there’s also one big reason to feel pretty good."
Donald Trump urged President Joe Biden to open a war at the U.S.-Mexico border in an early morning social media post.
The former chief executive has been credited in some quarters as an "anti-war" president, and he complained about U.S. involvement in airstrikes on Houthis in Yemen and military aid to allies like Ukraine and Israel, but he also suggested a military operation along the southern border might be necessary.
"So, let me get this straight," Trump posted. "We’re dropping bombs all over the Middle East, AGAIN (where I defeated ISIS!), and our Secretary of Defence [sic], who just went missing for five days, is running the war from his laptop in a hospital room."
The Pentagon's inspector general has announced an investigation into the handling of defense secretary Lloyd Austin's ongoing hospitalization for prostate cancer surgery and whether department policies were followed in notifying the White House.
"Remember, this is the same gang that 'surrendered' in Afghanistan, where no one was held accountable or FIRED," said Trump, who signed an order to immediately withdraw all troops from the country after his election loss in November 2020. "It was the most embarrassing 'moment' in the history of the United States. Now we have wars in Ukraine, Israel, and Yemen, but no 'war' on our Southern Border. Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Crooked Joe Biden is the worst President in the history of the United States!"
During a segment on polling showing older voters are abandoning Donald Trump in droves, MSNBC host and "Morning Joe" regular Jonathan Lemire suggested Trump's being back in the spotlight is reminding people that he is not all there and the "crazy" is coming out again.
Speaking with co-host Joe Scarborough, Lemire said that the ban of Trump on X, formerly known as Twitter, has kept people from seeing his daily diatribes since his Truth Social platform has such little reach.
However, now that the former president is in the news on a daily basis due to his crushing legal problems, people are recalling the chaos that accompanies him — and they are balking at voting for him.
"It may not be until the spring or summer when Americans start paying attention because right now most Americans aren't. They are simply not paying attention," Lemire explained. "When they do, the [President Joe] Biden camp believes even if they're lukewarm on the president, have reservations about his age, whatever it might be, they'll not want to go back to the chaos of Donald Trump."
"The people simply haven't heard Donald Trump in a while, he's become background noise," he continued. "And his reach is so much smaller than it used to be. We can't overlook the fact, the downgrade from the audience he had on Twitter to now Truth Social— no one hears that, those tweets don't break through. His campaign is more disciplined but he is not."
He elaborated, "The crazy doesn't break through because it is confined. Confined to the conservative news media space and when it starts breaking through to the wider public and Americans start listening, the Biden campaign believes his numbers will go down, and that's to their advantage."
European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said the paring back of key interest rates in the eurozone will only happen if the ECB was convinced inflation would reach its 2% target, dampening hopes among investors for early cuts, as she also waded into the US presidential election. She could not suggest a date, "But if we reach 2%, as we expect for 2025 - and data confirms this in the coming months - I am very confident that interest rates will fall," the president said on Thursday evening on the French television station France 2. Market watchers have recently speculated the ECB could i...
Reflecting on the closing arguments in the $370 million financial fraud trial in Manhattan that has engulfed Donald Trump, former prosecutor Charles Colemann Jr. claimed the former president did himself no favors with his rant when allowed to speak by Judge Arthur Engoron.
Speaking with host Jonathan Lemire on MSNBC's "Way Too Early," Coleman was asked about Trump's diatribe where he attacked both his prosecution and court officials that led Engoron to warn the former president's lawyers to "control your client."
Asked if Trump helped or hurt his case with the judge who holds the former president's financial, future in his hands, the former prosecutor said it could hardly have gone worse for Trump.
"I guess it was to no one's surprise that Trump burst into that rant yesterday," host Lemire prompted. "What's your reaction, though, as to what role it could play in the outcome? Did he help or hurt himself?"
"Well, Jonathan, in the long run, I do think that he hurt himself," Coleman replied. "I think that what he was trying to do was force the judge into a position where, by denying him an opportunity to speak, he would have created an issue for appeal for himself."
"Judge Engoron basically gave him the rope, and he hung (sic) himself, predictably," he continued. "What he ended up doing was creating a space where this is one less thing that becomes an appealable issue in the long run for an appeal. That he might be able to go back and say, 'Look, I was treated unfairly and my rights were abridged in some way, shape, form or fashion.'"
"Kudos to the judge for allowing this to happen. I believe it was a calculated risk by the bench. He understood that there was a risk that this could happen, but, ultimately, it didn't play a factor in the way Donald Trump wanted it to," he concluded.
Former President Donald Trump has now taken to claiming that he was no longer a candidate for president when he tried pressuring multiple officials to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 election.
The reason Trump is saying this is because he wants to argue that all actions taken to overturn the election were done as official presidential acts, and thus deserve to be granted immunity by the courts.
However, Politico reports that this new claim by Trump is blatantly false, as it was contradicted by statements Trump himself made three years ago about the election.
"Even after the votes had been counted and certified, Trump filed lawsuits contesting the results — and he claimed he was doing so not as the outgoing president, but as a candidate," the publication writes. "It’s even what he told the Supreme Court in a Dec. 9, 2020 brief filed by his lawyer at the time, John Eastman. 'He seeks to intervene in this matter in his personal capacity as a candidate for reelection,' Eastman wrote."
In addition to the court filings, Trump also posted on his Twitter account that the 2020 election "was a long way from over" weeks after the election had ended.
Politico goes on to document how judges overseeing Trump cases have already picked up on this contradiction and have determined that he was acting "not in his official capacity as sitting President."
What's more, the publication notes that Trump only started claiming that the election was over and he was no longer a candidate late last month, suggesting that the entire ploy is simply a bid to evade legal accountability rather than a sincere defense.
A Donald Trump ally who is frequently cited by the former president has an interesting new conspiracy theory: Nikki Haley can control the weather.
Laura Loomer, who supports Trump and has even been floated by Donald Trump Jr. as a potential interim press secretary should his father get a second chance at the White House, posted about her theory on social media.
"Is the Deep State activating HAARP to disrupt the Iowa Caucus?" Loomer asked, citing the short-hand for the subject of weather-controlling conspiracy theories. "We all know [Haley] has a lot of friends in the defense industry and Military industrial complex."
Loomer continued:
"She’s losing in Iowa, and now Iowa is set to get hit with a ONCE IN A DECADE blizzard as Trump is set to dominate the Iowa Caucus. Is the Deep State using HAARP to rig the Iowa Caucus? Looks like weather manipulation to me. Take a look at this weather radar below and how the incoming snow storm accelerated out of nowhere."
Trump's former lawyer Jenna Ellis chimed in about the apparent theory.
"I realize it’s 2024 and I need to up my game, but I still did not have Haley controlling the weather as an actual defense for Trump performing poorly on my Bingo card," she wrote on Thursday.
The Intellectualist also pointed out the conspiracy theory to followers.
"The suggestion here is that Nikki Haley is conjuring up a snowstorm to harm Trump’s chances in Iowa," it wrote.
One political account included insults against Loomer.
"Alt-right nutjob activist Laura Loomer apparently believes Nikki Haley is using Deep State military connections to manipulate the weather and make it snow in Iowa ... to hurt Trump in the caucuses on Monday. Not making this up...," the account wrote.
A Haley-supporting account further replied with, "I know MAGA love conspiracy theories but I figured 'Nikki Haley is controlling the weather' would be beyond the pale for even them."
Former federal prosecutor Kristy Greenberg was astonished by the flagrantly uncouth display by the former president inside the Lower Manhattan courtroom on Thursday where closing remarks were made in Trump's $370 million civil fraud trial.
"It's so hard to sit there in the courtroom and see somebody have so much disrespect for a judge, for the court of law, for how these proceedings are supposed to work," she said during an appearance on CNN's "The Source" with Kaitlin Collins.
Christopher Kise then asked Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron if Trump could share some comments, and without agreeing to abide by certain conditions, Trump launched into his diatribe.
“What’s happened here, sir, is a fraud on me,” he said, accusing officials of singling him out and doing so because they “want to make sure I don’t win again.”
He then started in on Engoron, accusing him of ignoring him.
“I know this is boring to you,” he told the judge.
Then Engoron snapped at the attorneys: “Control your client."
Greenberg, who was seated in the courtroom, said the display was bizarre.
"The attacks on — the personal attacks on the judge — this is a judge who had a bomb threat this morning," she said. "That's why the amount of security that was in the courthouse was unlike anything I have seen. and I have been other days when various Trump family members have testified, and this was heightened.
After initially denying him the right to give a personal speech during closing arguments at his civil fraud trial in New York, Justice Arthur Engoron relented at the last minute and let him speak — only to have to cut him off after a few minutes as he veered into attacks on the court.
It may have been a mistake on Engoron's part, suggested legal analyst Lisa Rubin on MSNBC Thursday; instead, she argued, he should have stuck to his guns.
"I have to say, when I saw that ... it's like what are we doing?" said anchor Chris Hayes. "It is really, there's a bomb threat at the guy's house. He's had his court staff members clerk, her life turned upside down, dragged, social media, email."
"275 single-spaced cases of threat pages of threats," interjected Rubin.
"It just is this test," said Hayes. "This guy is a sort of, it's almost one in a billion of how rare it is to have someone who is that untethered and unmoored and shameless and sort of, I would say sociopathic. And you just have to say no and mean no. That's a lesson."
"Yes, and stick with the no," said Rubin. "Because if you don't stick with the no, they're going to railroad you time and time again. He will have far less success and doing that in federal courts, which are set up not to allow cameras in the courtroom or press conferences. Our litigants have more security in this courthouse, don't typically have email exchanges with the casualness we see here. That being said, the lesson of these trials is you know who we're dealing with. When someone shows you who is they are, as Maya Angelou said, believe them the first time."
