Trump News

Elise Stefanik snaps over Jan. 6 'hostages' when asked if rioters should be prosecuted

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) suggested that January 6 rioters were being treated as "hostages" because they were facing jail time for their crimes.

During a Sunday interview on Meet the Press, host Kristen Welker asked Stefanik about her view of January 6.

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Trump 'blindsided' closest advisers on Jan. 6 with Twitter post encouraging more violence

Donald Trump's Twitter post on Jan. 6 that lashed out at former vice president Mike Pence while supporters of the now former president were trashing the U.S. Capitol both "blindsided" and infuriated some of his top advisers, reports ABC News.

According to the Sunday morning report, senior Trump advisor Dan Scavino, who normally does the posting on Trump's social media accounts, had to defend himself when the unattended Trump made Pence a target for the rioters with a statement on Twitter, now known as X.

In one telling exchange, Scavino told investigators working for special counsel Jack Smith that the former president was informed Pence was being moved to a secure location to protect him from the rioters, only for Trump to respond, "So what?" which stunned his aides.

Worse still, ABC is reporting, Trump was left to his own devices "with his arms folded and his eyes locked on the TV," watching the insurrection unfold and, with Scavino out of the room, attacked Pence on Twitter by writing the then VP "didn't have the courage to do what should have been done."

ALSO READ: Five unresolved questions surrounding the Jan. 6 attack

According to ABC News, "Trump's aides told investigators they were shocked by the post. Aside from Trump, Scavino was the only other person with access to Trump's Twitter account, and he was often the one actually posting messages to it, so when the message about Pence popped up, Cipollone and another White House attorney raced to find Scavino, demanding to know why he would post that in the midst of such a precarious situation, sources said."

The report adds Scavino was "blindsided" by the post and was forced to tell his colleagues, "I didn't do it."

The tweet can be seen below.

Jack Smith has new evidence about 'very angry' Trump's Jan. 6 actions: report

According to a bombshell report from ABC News, one of Donald Trump's closest advisers has described the former president's actions behind the scenes during the Jan. 6 insurrection to investigators working for special counsel Jack Smith.

The report states that senior adviser Dan Scavino, who refused to talk to the House select committee investigating the riot at the Capitol, has been more forthcoming with Smith's probe and detailed Trump's reactions as he watched the violence unfold on TV.

According to the report, "Sources said Scavino told Smith's investigators that as the violence began to escalate that day, Trump 'was just not interested' in doing more to stop it," adding, "Sources also said former Trump aide Nick Luna told federal investigators that when Trump was informed that then-Vice President Mike Pence had to be rushed to a secure location, Trump responded, 'So what?' —which sources said Luna saw as an unexpected willingness by Trump to let potential harm come to a longtime loyalist."

The report adds that former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, ex-White House counsel Pat Cipollone and his former deputy, Pat Philbin, have also provided testimony.

ALSO READ: Five unresolved questions surrounding the Jan. 6 attack

In one admission, Scavino told investigators he informed the ex-president by phone on Jan. 6: "This is all your legacy here, and there's smoke coming out of the Capitol."

The report adds that Scavino described Trump as being "very angry" on Jan. 6 — not at the protesters trashing the Capitol but instead over his belief that he won re-election and was being robbed.

You can read more here.

Trump's foreign cash haul is proof he's a 'walking national security threat': lawmaker

Responding to questions about a bombshell report from Democrats on the House Oversight Committee that Donald Trump and his family were the recipients of likely more than $8 million in foreign payments, one Democratic lawmaker suggested the cash haul is evidence he can't be trusted with the nation's security.

With the report bluntly calling the evidence "A stunning web of millions of dollars," Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) was asked by MSNBC host Paola Ramos about the implications of Trump returning back to the White House now that it is known Republicans have turned a blind eye to his financial windfall.

"The whole thing was bad, it was a lot," she told the host. "Knowing that he was taking money from Saudi Arabia at the same time that he was ignoring the advice of his own advisers and entering into this arms deal with Saudi Arabia, I mean, there's a lot of scary things in this report."

ALSO READ: Five unresolved questions surrounding the Jan. 6 attack

"And as people are on edge with war, you know, this only makes me more on edge about the possibility of him regaining access to the White House, and I honestly feel like this guy sold us out before," she continued. "We know that we still don't understand fully what the secrets look like that were sitting down at Mar-a-Lago. We know that he was reckless and intentionally reckless with our secrets and with the secrets of our friends."

"So for me, I'm concerned for our safety and I want Americans to understand that while I know we love to live in a bubble, we're not," she told the host. "The Republicans are a threat. [GOP Sen. Tommy] Tuberville was making a huge issue for us for national security. Trump is a walking national security threat, as well as a constitutional crisis all mixed up in one."

Watch below or at the link.

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Mitch McConnell was warned days before Jan. 6 Trump could be 'instigator' of violence

In the four days prior to the deadly January 6, 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) sent a text message to then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) saying he was concerned about senators' safety prior to the scheduled certification of 2020 Electoral College votes. McConnell never responded.

Author McKay Coppins — who wrote the biography Romney: A Reckoning last year — published the ominous January 2 text message in an article for The Atlantic.

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'This is lawlessness': Trump flips out on Judge Engoron in midnight rant

Following his last rally in Iowa on Saturday night, Donald Trump went on a midnight all-cap tirade aimed at Supreme Court 1st Judicial District Judge Arthur Engoron accusing him of "lawlessness."

The former president took time out from sharing clips from his Iowa speeches to rail at the judge who is overseeing the financial fraud trial that wrapped up final arguments last week at which time New York Attorney General Letitia James increased her request for $250 million in penalties to $370 million.

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'You lied': Trump allies target 'MAGA' Mike Johnson over stalled release of Jan. 6 footage

In what appears to be another potential split between Trump surrogates and House Republican leadership, speaker Mike Johnson is getting some pressure to fulfil a promise related to footage of Jan. 6, on the third anniversary of the insurrection.

Johnson previously vowed to trickle-release all Jan. 6 footage, but the progress after the initial release has been stalled, according to Trump co-defendant and former Trump administration official Jeff Clark.

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Watch: Controversial Trump ally escorted by police out of Nikki Haley town hall

An independent journalist whose content is regularly shared by Donald Trump has posted a video which purports to show the activist being escorted by police out of a Nikki Haley town hall.

Laura Loomer, who has been floated by Donald Trump Jr. as a possible contender for an interim press secretary in a second administration for his father, said on Saturday that Haley "just called the cops" on her and had her "escorted out of her town hall in Iowa."

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Trump will be 'weakened politically and legally' at his Supreme Court appearance: expert

Donald Trump will appear before the United States Supreme Court a weakened man in more ways than one, a legal analyst said on Saturday.

Trump is set to appear before the nation's highest court in February, hoping to get the justices to side with him on the issue of his appearance on the Colorado's ballot as well as the ballots of other states that have ruled him an insurrectionist under the Constitution. But there is a lot happening between now and then, according to attorney and MSNBC expert Lisa Rubin.

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Jack Smith's secret weapon linking Trump to Jan. 6 rioters is disappearing: report

Special Counsel Jack Smith's big plan to prove links between Donald Trump and Jan. 6 rioters is reportedly going away.

Smith, who was recently hit with a sanctions motion in the federal election subversion case, previously announced in court documents his intention to use Google location data to track MAGA rioters from Trump's speech all the way into the Capitol.

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GOP congressman commemorates Jan. 6 by defending vote against honoring U.S. Capitol police

In the months following the deadly U.S. Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021, both chambers of Congress voted to award the Congressional Gold Medal — the highest civilian award in the United States along with the Presidential Medal of Freedom — to U.S. Capitol police officers who defended members of Congress during the attack. 21 House Republicans voted no.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), who was one of those 21 no votes, defended his "no" vote on his official X (formerly Twitter) account on the third anniversary of the attack that resulted in five deaths of police officers with hundreds more injured.

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Trump declines to vow not to 'overthrow the government' in a second term: report

Donald Trump has reportedly refused to sign a traditional ballot-access oath in Illinois. The oath requires the candidate to vow not to overthrow the government.

Trump, who earlier on Saturday mocked the suggestion that he would be a "dictator" if given another chance in the White House office, side-stepped "a decades-old, Illinois ballot-access tradition in which candidates pledge not to 'advocate the overthrow of the government,'" Chicago Sun Times reported on Saturday.

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NBC reporter fact-checks Trump at rally after ex-president 'cast shade on Abraham Lincoln'

Donald Trump on Saturday was fact-checked live by a NBC News reporter who was attending the former president's Iowa rally.

Trump said at his rally that the Civil War, and therefore the existence of slavery as an institution, should have been "negotiated," instead of erupting in bloodshed. He also said that no one would have ever heard of Abraham Lincoln had he simply negotiated the conflict between slave states and non-slave states.

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