President Donald Trump appealed to China’s President Xi Jinping to help him win the 2020 election by increasing the Chinese government’s agricultural purchases from American farmers, former National Security Adviser John Bolton writes in his bombshell forthcoming memoir.During a one-on-one meeting at the G20 Summit in 2019, Trump “stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability to affect the ongoing campaigns, pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win,” Bolton writes, according to an excerpt in the Wall Street Journal.It was one of several disturbing instances Bolton outlines of Trump appealing to foreign dictators for his own gains—a pattern of behavior that he says went far beyond the Ukraine aid saga.Trump was willing to kill off criminal probes against Turkish and Chinese companies to “in effect, give personal favors to dictators he liked,” Bolton writes, alleging that Trump was willing to intervene in probes against Turkey’s Halkbank and China’s ZTE to curry favor with either country’s leaders.“The pattern looked like obstruction of justice as a way of life, which we couldn’t accept,” Bolton writes.Several media outlets got their hands on an advanced copy of Bolton’s book, The Room Where It Happened, on Wednesday, ahead of its release next week—and despite the Department of Justice’s attempts to halt its publication.In it, Bolton paints a picture of his former boss as an idiot who thought Finland was part of Russia, a megalomaniac who governs based on gut instinct, and the butt of jokes from even his most trusted aides. He joked about executing American journalists, delivered an autographed copy of Elton John’s Rocket Man to Kim Jong Un and thought invading Venezuela would be “cool,” Bolton writes. ‘He is so full of shit’Bolton has no qualms about throwing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo under the bus in the 592-page book. He writes that, during Trump’s 2018 meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, Pompeo slipped Bolton a note that referred to Trump. It said, “He is so full of shit.”Bolton says that he and Pompeo also shared their disdain for the president after Trump had a phone call with South Korea’s president in the lead up to the 2018 summit with Kim. Pompeo told Bolton he was “having a cardiac arrest” after listening in on the call. Bolton sympathized with Pompeo, describing it as a “near death experience.”In another instance, Bolton writes that Trump once told him that former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had used a sexist obscenity to describe Nikki Haley, then the ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton doubted it was true but found it yet another example of Trump trying to pit staff against each other. In fact, Haley was so highly regarded inside the White House that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump floated the idea of her replacing Vice President Mike Pence in the 2020 ticket. Bolton said it would be a mistake, and Trump seemed to agree.Other staff routinely flirted with quitting in disgust. “What if we have a real crisis like 9/11 with the way he makes decisions?” former Chief of Staff John Kelly said as he contemplated resigning one day.“He second-guessed people’s motives, saw conspiracies behind rocks, and remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House, let alone the huge federal government,” Bolton writes, adding that Trump was singularly obsessed with winning a second term. Support for internment camps and foreign interferenceSome of the most damning revelations in the book, however, are Bolton’s accusations of Trump’s willingness to interfere in criminal investigations and use foreign powers to achieve his domestic aims. In turn, foreign leaders appeared happy to appease the president as a means of manipulation.During the same G20 meeting that he asked for Xi’s help to win the election, Trump expressed support for the Chinese government’s use of internment camps for 1 million Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, the book says. They have repeatedly been exposed as extraordinarily inhumane to China’s ethnic minority. “According to our interpreter,” Bolton writes, “Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do.”Trump Stops Saying ‘Wuhan Virus’ After Xi Strokes His EgoWhen Xi said he wanted to work with Trump for another six years, Trump replied that people thought the two-term constitutional limit on presidents should be removed. Xi replied that the U.S. had too many elections, and he didn’t want Trump to lose. Trump nodded approvingly, Bolton wrote.In another example of foreign manipulation during a 2019 phone call, Russian President Vladimir Putin compared Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó to failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. It was, Bolton writes, part of a “brilliant display of Soviet style propaganda” aimed at boosting support for Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. It “largely persuaded Trump,” he adds.Bolton says he was so alarmed by Trump’s willingness to do favors for dictators like Turkish strongman Recip Tayyip Erdogan and Xi that he discussed them with Attorney General William Barr. For example, Trump told Erdogan that Halkbank’s legal issues—related to violating the administration’s sanctions on Iran—would disappear once the “Obama people” in the Southern District of New York were “replaced by his people,” Bolton writes. Bolton claims that Barr was also worried about Trump’s behavior—but it’s not clear what resulted from their conversation. ‘Deeply disturbing’ Ukraine allegationsDemocrats and Republicans have been united in their criticism of Bolton, who refused to testify before the House during impeachment proceedings but instead took a $2 million book contract.House impeachment manager Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said on Wednesday that Bolton “ran and hid” when it truly mattered.“It is curious to me that he now has something to say when he could have stepped forward as a patriot when the stakes were high and the president was on trial,” he said. “He ran and hid in the other direction.”Here’s How John Bolton’s Lawyer Just Threw Him Under the BusIn his book, Bolton confirms that Trump did explicitly link security aid for Ukraine to investigations involving Biden and Hillary Clinton. Trump said on August 20 that “he wasn’t in favor of sending them anything until all the Russia-investigation materials related to Clinton and Biden had been turned over,” Bolton writes, adding that Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark Esper tried eight to 10 times to get Trump to release the aid.He calls Trump’s decision to hold aid “deeply disturbing” but stops short of supporting impeachment. Instead, he says Democrats badly bungled the impeachment proceedings.“I thought the whole affair was bad policy, questionable legally and unacceptable as presidential behavior,” he writes.House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) tweeted on Wednesday that Bolton’s staff “showed real courage” by testifying during impeachment hearings. “When Bolton was asked, he refused, and said he’d sue if subpoenaed,” Schiff said in a statement. “Instead, he saved it for a book. Bolton may be an author, but he’s no patriot.”Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was one of the few Democratic lawmakers to respond to the substance of Bolton’s allegations on Wednesday. In a letter to Alan Garten, chief legal officer at the Trump Organization, Menenedez said that Bolton’s description of Trump’s talks with Xi “raises new questions about other ways in which President Trump benefits personally, and financially, from the Chinese government, including through ongoing business relationships.”Specifically, Menendez asked Garten to provide more details about the Trump Organization’s leasing of office space in Trump Tower to a bank controlled by the Chinese government.The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), said in a statement Wednesday that, if accurate, Bolton’s account represents “another extraordinary abuse of American foreign policy and national security” by Trump. He said he would be consulting with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and other chairs about “next steps.” During their impeachment inquiry, Democrats called Bolton to testify but never issued a subpoena. Mopping up for Jared and IvankaBolton writes of his disdain for Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s constant efforts to insert themselves in foreign policy and domestic affairs.When Bolton learned that Kushner was going to be calling the finance minister of Turkey, he briefed Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin “on this new ‘son-in-law channel’ and they both exploded.” To Pompeo, it was yet another example of Kushner’s meddling in international negotiations, as he did with the “never quite ready Middle East peace plan.”In late 2018, Trump came under fire for writing a bizarre defense of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. But, according to Bolton, the main goal of the exclamation point-laden statement was to draw attention away from Ivanka using her personal email for government business.“This will divert from Ivanka,” Trump said, according to the book. “If I read the statement in person, that will take over the Ivanka thing.”Damning books on Trump are hardly rare, but Bolton’s book is the first to be written by such a high-ranking administration official, and a lifelong conservative, who was present for some of the most consequential foreign policy decisions. Bolton, a vocal Russia and North Korea hawk, became Trump’s third national security adviser in 2018 and had aims of withdrawing the U.S. from several international agreements, like the Iran nuclear deal. He resigned late September after clashing with Trump over several foreign policy directives. Naturally, Trump claimed he fired him.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. 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* ABC News says Trump expected to file suit seeking injunction * The Room Where It Happened due for publication next weekDonald Trump is set to sue to stop the publication of a tell-all book by John Bolton, his third national security adviser, ABC News reported on Monday.At an event in the White House later in the day, Trump said it would be up to the attorney general, William Barr, to issue any charges, but he hinted that the matter would end up in court. “We’ll see what happens. They’re in court or they’ll soon be in court,” Trump said about the book.Trump accused Bolton of not completing a pre-publication review to make sure the book does not contain classified material. That contradicts statements from Bolton’s attorney, Chuck Cooper, who says his client worked painstakingly for months with classification specialists at the White House National Security Council to make changes to avoid releasing classified material.Barr echoed Trump’s accusation. The attorney general said administration officials who have access to sensitive information typically sign non-disclosure agreements that require them to go through a clearance process before they can publish something based on information they accessed in the job.“We don’t believe that Bolton went through that process, hasn’t completed the process, and, therefore, is in violation of that agreement,” Barr said. The Trump administration is “trying to get them to complete the process – go through the process – and make the necessary deletions of classified information,” he added.The Room Where It Happened was initially scheduled for publication earlier this year but was delayed when the White House said it contained classified information.Last week, publisher Simon & Schuster announced the 23 June release of “the book Donald Trump doesn’t want you to read”. Bolton has already recorded an interview with the ABC anchor Martha Raddatz, which is due to be broadcast on Sunday night.Bolton, a former ambassador to the United Nations, was national security adviser between April 2018 and September 2019. Controversially, Bolton did not testify in impeachment proceedings against Trump which focused on Ukraine and Trump’s attempts to bully the government there to investigate his political rival Joe Biden. Trump was acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate in February.“What Bolton saw astonished him,” his publisher said. “A president for whom getting re-elected was the only thing that mattered, even if it meant endangering or weakening the nation.“Bolton argues that the House committed impeachment malpractice by keeping their prosecution focused narrowly on Ukraine when Trump’s Ukraine-like transgressions existed across the full range of his foreign policy – and Bolton documents exactly what those were, and attempts by him and others in the administration to raise alarms about them.”When news of Bolton’s book plans first broke, Trump reportedly called him a “traitor” and said he wanted to sue to stop publication.It is not clear the current threat will work. In January 2018, Trump threatened to sue to stop the publication of Fire and Fury, a book by Michael Wolff, after the Guardian broke news of its sensational content. Publisher Henry Holt responded by rushing the book to the public.Bolton’s lawyer, Chuck Cooper, wrote in the Wall Street Journal last week of “a transparent attempt to use national security as a pretext to censor Mr Bolton, in violation of his constitutional right to speak on matters of the utmost public import.“This attempt will not succeed, and Mr Bolton’s book will be published [on] 23 June.”His predecessor as national security adviser, HR McMaster, has a book due out in September.Trump books have become big business. On Sunday night, the Daily Beast reported that the president’s niece, Mary Trump, will publish one in August. It is expected to contain revelations about Trump family relationships and its tax affairs.The Associated Press contributed to this report

Ukrainian officials on Saturday said they were offered $5 million in bribes to end a probe into energy company Burisma's founder, but said there was no connection to former board member Hunter Biden whose father is running for the U.S. presidency. The Ukrainian company was thrust into the global spotlight last year in the impeachment inquiry into whether U.S. President Donald Trump improperly pressured Kiev into opening a case against his rival for the November election race. Trump wants an investigation into the Democrats' 2020 candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his son.

Tally published by coalition of news outlets compiling stats since Brazil’s health ministry was accused of seeking to conceal figuresBrazil has overtaken Britain as the country with the world’s second-highest Covid-19 death toll after a further 843 deaths pushed its total to 41,901.The tally was published on Friday night by a coalition of news outlets which has been compiling independent statistics since Brazil’s health ministry was accused of seeking to conceal the full figures last week.According to the British government 41,481 lives have been lost in the UK since late January although the number rises to more than 50,000 when suspected cases are included. Brazil’s death toll is also considered an underestimate.Only in the US, where the official death toll stands at more than 116,000, have more died.Medical experts have voiced despair at what they call Jair Bolsonaro’s calamitous response to the pandemic.The Trump-admiring former army captain has repeatedly downplayed Covid-19 as media “hysteria” and “a bit of a cold” and on 12 April, with the official death toll at 1,223, falsely claimed: “This matter of the virus appears to be going away.”Since then more than 40,000 Brazilians have died yet the far-right populist has continued to undermine social distancing by attending rallies and visiting shops. Two health ministers have been forced from government in under a month after clashing with Bolsonaro over coronavirus.During a live broadcast on Thursday Bolsonaro – who has defended his response as designed to protect the economy and jobs – again minimized the tragedy.He accused Brazilian journalists of focusing too much on the dead in order to produce “funeral TV” and claimed one former health minister, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, had produced “ficticious” Covid-19 statistics in a bid to keep Brazilians at home. “The aim was to disseminate terror.”Bolsonaro also insinuated his rivals were deliberately exaggerating the number of Covid-19 deaths in their states. “What do they hope to gain from this? Political benefits, that’s all it can be. They’re taking advantage of people who are dying to profit politically and blame the federal government,” Bolsonaro claimed.Daniel Dourado, a public health expert and lawyer from the University of São Paulo, said the president shouldered overwhelming responsibility for the scale of the catastrophe.“Bolsonaro has played a pitiful role. I’ve not heard of a single country whose president has hampered the fight against the epidemic so much. It’s as if he still hasn’t grasped the danger of the situation. He doesn’t even express sympathy to the families … It’s as if his policies are being driven by a [Freudian] death drive.”Dourado added: “If we carry on like this … it’s possible we might even catch up with the US in the number of cases. It seems preposterous to say this now. But if Brazil reopens and does what the federal government wants … things could deteriorate very fast. So I’m really worried. As incredible as it might seem, with [about] 1,000 deaths a day we could still be underestimating the impact of this pandemic.”The US has recorded more than 2 million infections, according to Johns Hopkins University, while Brazil has registered 829,902.This week a University of Washington projection found another 100,000 Brazilian lives could be lost by August, meaning Brazil might overtake the US as the country with the highest death toll.Brazil’s Covid-19 crisis is playing out against the backdrop of one of the most bitter and bizarre political crises since its return to democracy in the 1980s.Federal police are investigating at least two of Bolsonaro’s sons for suspected corruption and links to a fake news racket. Last month investigators raided addresses linked to key Bolsonaristas including a former Femen activist turned anti-abortion-militant and a multimillionaire retail magnate famed for wearing garish yellow and green suits and building Statue of Liberty replicas outside his stores.In an apparent bid to stave off the threat of Bolsonaro’s impeachment or the voiding of his 2018 election, loyalists, including top military figures, have played up the threat of military intervention against congress and the supreme court. Last month Bolsonaro’s politician son Eduardo – who is Steve Bannon’s point man in South America – warned Brazil was heading for a “moment of rupture”.Luís Francisco Carvalho Filho, the former head of Brazil’s Special Commission on Political Deaths and Disappearances, said he was deeply worried about Bolsonaro’s authoritarian vision and the long-term threat he posed to Brazilian democracy.“I was born in 1957 and I think this is the most grave moment my generation has faced. Never before has a Brazilian head of state acted with such contempt for the institutional system,” Carvalho Filho said.“Even the last presidents of the military regime played by the rules of the game. Bolsonaro is a man who tries every single day to do away with the rules of the game.”

Ex-national security adviser also describes attempts to ‘raise alarms about them’, according to press release about memoirDonald Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton is set to claim in a bombshell book that the president has committed “Ukraine-like transgressions” across his entire foreign policy, far beyond the alleged misconduct he was impeached for.He will also describe his attempts and those by “others in the administration to raise alarms about them”, according to a press release on Friday about the forthcoming memoir.Bolton, a staunch conservative who previously served as Republican president George W Bush’s hawkish ambassador to the United Nations, will criticize the Democrat-led impeachment inquiry for focusing solely on Trump’s alleged bid to pressure the leader of Ukraine into damaging the reputation of Trump’s election opponent Joe Biden, while leaving out much wider accusations of similar wrongdoing.Trump was acquitted by the Republican-led Senate in his impeachment trial early in 2020.Bolton will argue in his book, The Room Where It Happened, that the Democrat-led House of Representatives committed “impeachment malpractice” by impeaching Trump over his Ukraine dealings when, it is suggested in the book, the president had committed other “Ukraine-like transgressions”.The press release for the book teases that Bolton will describe the transgressions.New York publishers Simon & Schuster boasted: “This is the book Donald Trump doesn’t want you to read.”The White House has fought to block the book, claiming in January that it contained classified information. The book is now due out on 23 June.Bolton was ousted last September after months of disagreement over America’s foreign policy approach, especially Trump’s freewheeling ways, amid revelations of searing internal divisions within Trump’s inner circle. Trump said he had “disagreed strongly” with Bolton, who claimed he was in the process of resigning when Trump moved to fire him.According to the release on Friday, the new book “argues that the House committed impeachment malpractice by keeping their prosecution focused narrowly on Ukraine when Trump’s Ukraine-like transgressions existed across the full range of his foreign policy – and Bolton documents exactly what those were, and attempts by him and others in the administration to raise alarms about them”.Critics will probably pounce on Bolton for not publicly raising concerns about these “transgressions” while they were occurring – and for later refusing to testify to the House about them. Bolton refused to provide a deposition during the impeachment inquiry.Bolton also criticizes Trump for focusing solely on his chances of re-election as he made major policy decisions. “I am hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my tenure that wasn’t driven by re-election calculations,” he writes.

U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has vowed to choose a woman as his running mate.

And there are fresh calls for him to name to a black candidate, as protests against racial injustice sweep the U.S. and the world.

Here are some of the top names in the mix.

For Senator Kamala Harris, it could be the next best thing after dropping out of the presidential race herself.

She eventually endorsed Biden but irked some in his camp when she criticized Biden in a primary debate on NBC for his past opposition to school busing.

The daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, Harris could win over black voters, a crucial part of the Democratic base.

Another contender, Amy Klobuchar, could have the opposite effect, some black leaders say.

The 60-year-old senator is a white moderate and previously served as the top prosecutor for Minnesota, but her record on police misconduct could weigh against her.

The officer charged with killing George Floyd was involved in a fatal shooting in 2006.

A decision was taken not to charge Derek Chauvin on that occasion.

It happened while Klobuchar was county attorney, although she took no part in the case.

But Klobuchar could help Biden appeal to moderate and working-class white voters in potential Midwestern battlegrounds like her home state.

"I have won in the reddest of red congressional districts and with some ease. And I've done it by going not just where it's comfortable, but where it's uncomfortable."

Another prospect is Atlanta Major Keisha Lance Bottoms.

Biden praised her leadership during the unrest that swept Georgia and she was also one of Biden’s strongest backers, having endorsed him early in the primary in June of 2019.

In contrast, U.S. Representative Val Demings of Florida only endorsed Biden in March this year.

But she’s still touted as high on the short list.

Demings has a lower national profile, but she helped manage the House impeachment proceedings against President Trump.

Elected in 2016 as a congresswoman in Florida, another key election battleground, she previously served as the first female police chief in Orlando.

Other notable contenders for vice president include Senator Elizabeth Warren, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and former Georgia House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams.

The vetting process is underway and expected to wrap up by July - as the larger fight looms for the November 3rd election.

RÍO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Two Brazilian governors came under more fire Wednesday over allegations of corruption related to COVID-19 spending, with one having his home raided and another set to face an impeachment process. Federal police raided the government palace of Para state in the Amazon region as well Gov. Helder Barbalho’s home as part of an investigation into alleged fraud in the purchase of ventilators for treating COVID-19. The search order targeted a total of 23 addresses in six states and Brazil’s federal district in Brasilia, police said in a statement.

President Donald Trump and his political lieutenants are privately hoping that former President George W. Bush will endorse Joe Biden this cycle, creating a bizarre confluence of interests with an increasing number of Democrats who are hoping for the same.To Team Trump, a Bush endorsement of Biden would allow them to hitch a formerly unpopular GOP president and the personification of dynastic politics to the Democratic Party’s 2020 ticket. They believe that Bush’s backing would drive the progressive wing of the party into a tizzy, especially if the Democratic nominee were to accept and promote it, creating internal strife for Biden at a time when he needs unity. According to two people familiar with his private remarks on the matter, Trump has said it would be “fun” if he could effectively run against both Bush and Biden. These sources with knowledge of the president’s thinking say he views both Biden and Bush as emblematic of the political establishment that he successfully ran against in the last election, and that Trump continues to harbor a visceral distaste for members of the Bush family and administration.“We would LOVE him to officially endorse Biden,” messaged a source close to the White House adding it “would be such a gift to us” citing the 43rd president’s legacy on trade, big government policies, and “constant war.”One senior Trump campaign official even said that some on the team “desperately” wanted the 43rd president of the United States to come out for Biden 2020, as it would make for easy messaging fodder. “I imagine we want it about as much as a lot of Biden people would not want it,” the official said.Bush certainly left the White House as a deeply unpopular figure, under the cloud of disastrous wars, various scandals, and a cratered economy. But his standing has improved in his years away from the political scene, including among Democratic voters. And on the few occasions he has waded back into public life, he has conveyed a more socially conscious approach to national affairs, including offering his recent support for ending systemic racism in police forces. Over time, the previously unthinkable has begun to happen, with prominent Democrats warming up to him and—now—the idea that an endorsement from him could provide an assist to the Democrats’ White House chances. “Our task is to build the broadest coalition possible,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), a leading House progressive and former co-chair of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) presidential campaign, told The Daily Beast about a hypothetical endorsement. “I began my career in public service running against Bush’s war in Iraq in 2004. But no one doubts his commitment to tolerance and inclusiveness.”Khanna argued that Bush is in a “different moral league” than Trump, particularly in regard to the latter’s fondness for promoting “divisiveness” and “fearmongering.” “His endorsement would help to highlight the enormous stakes in 2020 for our democracy,” he said. Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a top Biden booster, said he would “welcome” the endorsement, arguing that the public embracing of a high-profile Republican could have an electoral upside in critical swing states. “Ninety percent of Trump’s vote is the base. And the base isn’t going to care what George Bush says,” Rendell said. “Then there’s the 10 percent of Independents, suburban Republicans that stuck with him. … The question is: what effect does a George Bush endorsement have with them? I’d say, it adds weight to the entire picture that’s growing. I don’t think there’s any blowback on our side.”Ellen Defends Laughing It Up With George W. Bush at Cowboys GameIt is unclear if Bush will end up endorsing anyone for president this year, and he could very well sit on the sidelines and merely refuse to publicly support Trump’s reelection. According to a New York Times story published this weekend, Bush “won’t support the re-election of Mr. Trump.” But a Bush spokesperson told The Texas Tribune that the detail in the Times’ piece was “false.”Bush is hardly a Republican turncoat, having fundraised for conservative House and Senate candidates in the 2018 midterm elections in an effort to help preserve GOP congressional majorities—which, had it been successful in the House, would have preserved Trump’s sway on Capitol Hill. But his distaste for Trump has been evident for some time. And, in this case, the animus goes both ways. Two White House officials said they simply couldn’t care what Bush did or didn’t do ahead of this election, casting him as a trivial media obsession. “Elections are about the future, not the past,” said Ed Brookover, a former senior Trump adviser during the 2016 race. “President Bush performed well during his two terms, but people judge today’s candidates in today’s world. President Trump receives support from many voters who supported President Bush, as well as voters he pulled into his own orbit. President Trump’s policies and actions represent a new brand of leadership, which America has been needing for quite a while.”Dubya Was Bad, but the Donald Might Be Worse: Richard ClarkeFor Biden, the risks of accepting a Bush endorsement are fairly clear. The association with the Iraq War (which Biden supported), the use of torture, and the handling of Hurricane Katrina, alone, represents a heaping of political baggage that could outweigh any benefit. And some progressives were clear that they would struggle with having a president they had deeply reviled in their proverbial corner. “George W. Bush is a war criminal who lied to the American people in order to illegally invade a country. If nothing else, for that reason alone, I would never support accepting his endorsement,” said Charlotte Clymer, a LGBTQ activist who previously backed Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and has since thrown her weight behind Biden. But even Clymer found a bigger upside to the idea of an endorsement for party purposes, saying she wouldn’t be surprised to see Biden accept it “in order to remove our greatest national security threat in modern history: Donald Trump.”And among more establishment Democrats, the choice to welcome a potential boost from Bush now was seen as a no-brainer. “No one can ever accuse me of being a fan of former President George W. Bush,” said Jim Manley, a longtime senior Democratic Senate aide who served as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s spokesman during the latter Bush years. “But as far as I’m concerned, it would be fantastic if he were to come out and support the vice president. It would serve as a powerful rebuke to the current president.”James Carville, a former top adviser to President Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign who is now advising the pro-Biden Democratic group American Bridge, responded enthusiastically about the prospect of a Bush endorsement for the presumptive Democratic nominee.“I fought with these guys during impeachment, I fought with these guys on the Iraq War, I fought with these guys left and right,” Carville said. “We’re in a different situation now. We have a deadly pathogen that’s infected this country and we got to get rid of it.”Put another way, Carville said: “What did Churchill say? ‘If Hitler invaded hell, I would side with the devil.’” Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

"My bigger point is, there are gonna be intervening events between now and November, some of which we have no idea about now," Axelrod told Insider.

"Tremendous sincerity, what a guy," Trump tweeted of Romney. The president remains angry at the Utah senator's vote in favor of impeachment charges.