‘Anti-CPAC’ summit draws conservatives together with common goal: Stopping Trump

Posted on February 27, 2024 by Charles Jay

Hundreds of conservatives gathered in Washington, D.C. over the weekend, but not for the Trumpalooza clown-car event known as the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC. Instead, at the Principles First Summit the message was clear: Donald Trump poses a threat to our democracy, and if he is the Republican nominee many of them will vote for President Joe Biden despite disagreeing with him on many issues.

Speakers at the event made clear that they intend to take their anti-Trump message to the Republican primary voters who have chosen a candidate other than Trump, in particular those supporting former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. Republican political consultant Mike Madrid, a co-founder of the Lincoln Project, noted in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that it’s worth targeting these voters, writing “GOP defections will be the single largest factor in the November outcome.”

Now this all may be a pipe dream, but these voters may be more receptive to anti-Trump messaging coming from conservatives rather than from liberals. And if even a small percentage of GOP voters flip to Biden in key swing states, it could make a difference in a close election. Principles First may just help with that.

Principles First was founded in 2019 as a right and center-right movement that says it’s “concerned about the health of democracy.” It was meant to serve as an alternative to CPAC, which has become increasingly dominated by Trump’s MAGA cult.

Last weekend’s fourth Principles First conference drew about 700 participants—more than double the number who attended last year’s event, its founder Heath Mayo said. Meanwhile, at the larger CPAC event, the crowds were sparser than in previous years.

And the MAGA cult message was loud and clear at CPAC where the lobby display included a “J6 Insurrection” pinball machine. Right-wing conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec told a panel hosted by Steve Bannon:

“Welcome to the end of democracy, We’re here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on Jan. 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this right here,” Posobiec said.

Posobiec then held up his fist, and added: "All glory is not to government. All glory to God."

In his opening address to the Principles First Summit, Mayo, who had already told NPR that he would vote for Biden over Trump, had a distinctly different message about the need to put “principles first rather than party or personalities.”

”We don’t have golden statues of politicians rolling around. Our speakers will celebrate the spirit of 1776 instead of Jan. 6. And the people in this room today, we know how to spot and condemn tyranny when we see it rather than to praise it.”

.@HeathMayo welcomes the crowd to the 2024 Principles First Summit: “Here we have our 15 principles out in the hallway. We don't have golden statues of politicians rolling around. Our speakers will celebrate the spirit of 1776 instead of January 6.” pic.twitter.com/eyIR4AAA0n
— Principles First (@Principles_1st) February 24, 2024

And the star of the event was Cassidy Hutchinson, the former White House staffer who provided pivotal testimony to the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Participants lined up in the lobby to receive signed copies of her book “Enough.”

In a touching moment, Hutchinson was presented the Principles First Profiles in Courage award from last year’s recipient, former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn who held back the mob on Jan. 6 and is now running for Congress as a Democrat.

Cassidy Hutchinson receives this year's Profiles in Courage award.#PrinciplesFirst pic.twitter.com/3vMFR2kuVV
— Principles First (@Principles_1st) February 24, 2024

Hutchinson, also took part in a panel with two other anti-Trump former White House staffers, Sarah Matthews and Alyssa Farah Griffin (now co-host of “The View”). She described the “horrible attacks” that ruined her life and those of others who testified to the select committee such as Georgia election workers Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman.

“We need to push towards normalcy,” Hutchinson said. “We start in this next election. We start by doing everything we possibly can to make sure that Donald Trump never gets near the Oval Office again, and to make sure that every member of Congress that has enabled Donald Trump’s agenda is also held accountable and voted out of office.”

She emphasized the need to mobilize and educate voters, especially in the handful of swing states, about the choice in the upcoming election. “If the ticket is a binary choice between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, people need to understand on a very basic, very fundamental level that there’ll be one candidate on that ballot that will support our democracy so we can continue to thrive. And it’s not Donald Trump.”

Cassidy Hutchinson: “If the ticket is a binary choice between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, people need to understand at a very basic and very fundamental level, that there is one candidate on that ballot that will support our democracy…and that’s not Donald Trump.” pic.twitter.com/SQjty4BGqk
— Principles First (@Principles_1st) February 24, 2024

And that message was underscored by former Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, one of the two Republicans who served on the House Jan. 6 select committee. Kinzinger encouraged Nikki Haley to remain in the race, but then added: “If it’s Trump against Biden, I’m going to vote for Biden because to me, and this is what I think is important, I can disagree with a lot of stuff but democracy is truly at stake here. “

.@AdamKinzinger: "If it's Trump against Biden, I'm going to vote for Biden...I can disagree with a lot of stuff but democracy is truly at stake here." pic.twitter.com/ZDtdO3rJr7
— Principles First (@Principles_1st) February 25, 2024

Sarah Longwell, a founder of Republican Voters Against Trump, totally dismissed any notion of supporting a third-party No Labels ticket, saying it would absolutely help elect Trump.

Ukraine and its fight against Russia was also discussed by several speakers, who declared their unwavering support. Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, whose short-lived presidential campaign gained no traction, warned that Trump is going to make the GOP “a pro-Putin party.” He added: “I’m sorry. That’s not what Ronald Reagan would do.”

Fiona Hill, the former National Security Council senior director for European and Russian affairs who testified in the first House Trump impeachment inquiry, said: “We are really seeing Putin eroding the idea of the United States as well. … For Putin, this is a pivotal turning point. If the enterprise in Ukraine fails … if the United States is seen to not be stepping up then we’ve really basically lost our leadership position.”

Fiona Hill: “We are really seeing Putin eroding the idea of the United States as well…For Putin, this is a pivotal turning point. If the enterprise in Ukraine fails…if the United States is seen to not be stepping up than we’ve really basically lost our leadership position.” pic.twitter.com/HcKc7P7A7x
— Principles First (@Principles_1st) February 24, 2024

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, who faced pressure from Trump and threats from MAGA supporters after certifying Biden’s victory in 2020, said he would follow the law and the Constitution and make sure his state has “fair, honest and accurate elections” in 2024.

Former federal appeals court Judge J. Michael Luttig said Donald Trump must be held accountable for his actions relating to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

.@judgeluttig: “If all of the individuals who attacked the United States Capitol on Jan. 6 are prosecuted and imprisoned, that will all be for naught if Donald Trump is not held accountable.” pic.twitter.com/hvxXjcsmBs
— Principles First (@Principles_1st) February 25, 2024

And there was one other reason why speakers at the conference emphasized that Trump must lose the 2024 election: only a big loss could enable a sane center-right party to emerge out of the MAGA ashes. Conservative commentator Charlie Sykes said the country “needs two rational political parties.” And Jonah Goldberg , founder of the online conservative website The Dispatch, said that it’s necessary to build on the minority faction within the GOP that is “sane” and voting against Trump to reclaim the party.

Good luck with that. But there was one hopeful sign in the lobby of the Principles First Summit—and something that you wouldn’t find at CPAC.

Just hanging with @JimSwiftDC & Tay Tay at @Principles_1st summit this weekend. Jim is just as witty & fun as you’d expect. @_VoteSharp #PrinciplesFirst pic.twitter.com/c6T0lru4P7
— lisa S Marie🧂Y (@frequentbuyer1) February 24, 2024

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Mitch McConnell tries to cling to power by bending the knee to Trump

Posted on February 26, 2024 by Joan McCarter

House Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump have a long-standing mutual loathing, but that apparently won’t stop McConnell from bowing to Trump. The two men’s political teams have been in talks for McConnell’s endorsement, a reflection of just how desperate McConnell is to keep his weakening hold on his leadership position.

This is the same McConnell who blistered Trump in a floor speech after the Kentucky senator voted to acquit Trump in the impeachment proceedings after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. He accused Trump of “a disgraceful dereliction of duty” and said, “There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of [Jan. 6].” McConnell accurately said the crowd was worked up with “an intensifying crescendo of conspiracy theories, orchestrated by an outgoing president who seemed determined to either overturn the voters' decision or else torch our institutions on the way out.”

The attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, he said, “was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.”

So let’s just give him another shot at it, McConnell has apparently decided.

Sources involved in the negotiations give a weak explanation. “We’ve reached the part of the primary where the party is coming together,” one source told The Hill. “The absolute worst thing that can happen to this country is electing Joe Biden for four more years, and you can expect to coalesce around that point over the next nine months,” the source continued. So much for protecting our institutions from the guy who tried to “torch” them.

The likelier explanation is that McConnell’s grasp on his leadership position is weakening as the MAGA contingent in the Senate chips away at him. They have blocked his No. 1 priority—Ukraine funding—for months. They rebelled against him to kill the border deal that would have secured that funding.

Earlier this month, the Senate’s answer to the House Freedom Caucus held a press conference during which Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas was asked if he thought it was time for McConnell to step aside. “I think it is,” Cruz replied.

“Everyone here also supported to the leadership challenge to Mitch McConnell in November [2022,]” he continued. By “everyone,” he meant Sens. Rick Scott of Florida, Mike Lee of Utah, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, J.D. Vance of Ohio, Roger Marshall of Kansas, and Eric Schmitt of Missouri. “I think a Republican leader should actually lead this conference and should advance the priorities of Republicans,” Cruz continued.

Chances are pretty good that a Trump endorsement won’t be good enough to stop them. After all, House Speaker Mike Johnson has been in Trump’s pocket since he was elected to the position, and that hasn’t smoothed his way with the MAGA contingent of the GOP conference.

Trump is relishing the chance to humiliate his old foe McConnell, gloating, “I don’t know if he’s going to endorse me, I just heard he wants to endorse me. … Everybody’s getting in line, they’re all getting on board.”

McConnell warns fellow Republicans not to 'go wobbly' on Ukraine

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Why conservative attacks on Trump and his GOP sycophants are the most cutting

Posted on February 26, 2024 by Dartagnan

The op-ed sections of various traditional media outlets have provided ample opportunity over the past few years for Donald Trump’s many detractors to vent their contempt and frustration. This is an opportunity to call out not only Trump’s heinous behavior but also the behavior of those who continue to pledge their support to him, in spite of—or because of—his actions. Based on the sheer amount of impassioned invective alone, there’s little doubt that Trump has proven to be the most polarizing figure in our nation’s political history.

Most of that criticism has come from the left side of the political aisle. Adam Serwer’s essay in The Atlantic, aptly titled ”The Cruelty Is the Point,” described the malicious Trump mentality and its attraction for Trump’s supporter base as well as could be imagined. Charles Blow of The New York Times certainly deserves accolades for his tireless efforts in the wake of the 2016 election to contextualize, among other things, Trump’s appeal in terms of racism. And though it’s not clear whether she’d identify as left-leaning, Jane Mayer’s investigative work produced what is undoubtedly some of the best journalism about Trump. Obviously this list omits a lot of stellar writers whose political sensibilities, one way or another, have combined to form a durable and thorough evisceration of Trump and Trumpism.

But a discrete line of attack from certain conservatives, many of whom have styled themselves “Never Trumpers,” has also emerged as particularly acute over the past eight years. The writings of The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin, The Atlantic’s David Frum and Tom Nichols, and certain pieces written by David French and even Robert Kagan have been unusually acute in conveying an almost-palpable indignation and outright disgust. And this is not just aimed at Trump but at their fellow conservatives who have so obsequiously debased themselves by adhering to him.

Of course, liberals are outraged and disgusted by Trump as well. But there is a wounded betrayal infusing the critiques by these (some could be called “former”) conservatives that invigorates their rhetoric to levels that even the most ardent anti-Trump voices from the left can’t quite capture. Something that makes their feelings of disgust stand out with a peculiar, inscrutable resonance that liberals, by definition, lack to adequately express.

This phenomenon is important because it provides a unique reminder of just how far the Republican Party has fallen. To fully comprehend it, though, it’s helpful to try to imagine ourselves experiencing the events of the past eight years from the same vantage point as these now-disaffected Republicans.

This is the point where many will remind us that these same Republicans (some of them former die-hard neo-cons who led the cheerleading for George W. Bush’s disastrous Iraq War) are responsible for Trump’s ascension in the first place. That it also led to the descent of the GOP into its current putrescent, cadaverous state is the natural, inevitable outcome of their efforts. The only way to understand that is to imagine—as Democrats—what our reactions would be under similar circumstances. And putting it mildly, that is not easy.

First, you have to assume that for the better part of their waking political lives these folks—like Democrats—proceeded under the assumption that theirs was the “proper” course for the country, that their values were “good” values that ultimately portended a “good” result for the nation. They never, ever anticipated that someone possessed of such pervasive duplicity, outright fraudulence, and raw criminal mindset as Donald Trump could ever establish such complete, unquestionable domination of their party. They never anticipated that all of the racist dog-whistles their party relied upon for decades to muster their voters would suddenly be unleashed and openly normalized. They never foresaw that, facing the threat of demographic irrelevancy, their party and its leader would revert to openly embracing violent, murderous dictators and welcoming their meddling in our elections as an effort to preserve their political power.

For Democrats to really appreciate the overwhelming degree of cognitive dissonance that clearly discomfits these “Never-Trumpers,” some analogies have to be drawn from an “alternate universe.” Imagine that instead of the morally upright, civic-minded fellow we all know, Barack Obama had spent the entirety of his life as a self-aggrandizing, misogynist blowhard with a long track record of corrupt business ventures, serial infidelity, and dependence on Russian financial largesse. Imagine him crudely projecting his own moral decrepitude on his opponent and eagerly allying himself with some of the most insidious and criminal personages in the country to attain the presidency. Imagine that instead of Michelle, Sasha, and Malia flanking him his offspring were the likes of Melania, Ivanka, Donald Jr., and Eric, for whom the only salient characteristics were grifting off their father’s existence. Imagine him eagerly and actively soliciting the assistance of our most ruthless strategic enemies to gain the presidency.

Would Democrats enthusiastically elect such a person to represent them? Not very likely, but let’s just imagine they did. And in one of his first official acts as president, Obama proceeded to dispatch his openly racist underlings to implement a policy of child kidnapping toward undocumented immigrants and permanently separating them from their mothers and fathers. Imagine a long train of his own hand-picked officials resigning to write books decrying his absolute incompetence and sociopathic instability. Imagine him trying to condition military assistance to an erstwhile ally upon inventing political dirt on his presumed opponent in the next election. Meanwhile, imagine his fellow Democrats in Congress ignoring, then emulating his behavior. And they refused to criticize him and actively engaged themselves in performative, imitative acts, rubber-stamping his selection of political candidates. And all of those candidates invariably displayed the same corrupt tendencies before they went on to overwhelmingly lose in the next election.

Then imagine the world is stricken by the worst pandemic in a century, and rather than rallying to protect Americans, the Democratic president is more concerned with his own political viability. He and his closest advisers openly plan to leverage the pandemic against his political opposition, hiring quack physician advisers to ridicule the medical establishment and encourage the American people to eschew protecting themselves. All of this is being done, mind you, with the eager cooperation and praise of the Democratic Party and Democratic voters, many of whom begin to outdo themselves with public displays of obsequious sycophancy. During this interlude, nearly 1 million Americans die, a large number of those deaths stemming directly or indirectly from this president’s malevolent inaction.

Obviously at this point, any moral justification or excuses for such a hideous transformation affecting a political party would have long since evaporated. Which brings us back to reality, a reality that these “conservatives” appalled by Trump surely recognize: that Democrats would never, ever have allowed this to happen. Period.

But Republicans didn’t do that. In fact, they did the exact opposite, affirming and cementing their abandonment of all morality, all respect for the nation and its institutions, probably forever. Every action by Republicans since Trump lost in 2020 has revealed their party and almost all of its voters as swirling ever-downward in a nihilistic death spiral, from which there appears to be no return. Rather than acknowledge their gross, self-destructive miscalculation, they’ve simply doubled down like lemmings, eagerly chasing Trump as they rush toward the cliff’s edge.

And all during this time they’ve continuously excoriated—at times violently threatening—any Republican who refuses to go along with them. The storming of the Capitol by members of Trump’s voting base on Jan. 6 didn’t change their minds. Trump’s second impeachment didn’t change their minds. The serial lies about the election and Trump’s submergence beneath the weight of harsh criminal and civil liability didn’t change them, either.

The “Never-Trumpers” were, from the outset, operating under at least the assumption that their beliefs and goals were rooted in some semblance of civic responsibility, one which they—misguidedly or not—believed would serve the nation. Whether that belief was actually well-founded is or not is beside the point; the sad reality is that for them, there simply is no longer any place to go. As David French obliquely pointed out in his latest piece in The New York Times, their fellow Republicans really don’t want them. And Democrats don’t particularly need them, either. They have lost their tribe and realistically don’t seem to stand much chance of ever getting it back in their lifetimes. They could, of course, become Democrats (Jennifer Rubin said in 2020 she’s already one). That may just be a bridge too far for some of them, for whatever reasons.

But they still have a voice—an unusually strong one, because their acute sense of betrayal has put them in an uniquely shrewd position to bear witness to the self-destruction their party has wrought. Historically (in this country, at least), a political party must have some commonality of purpose, rooted in some actual benefit to the society that sustains it. When the whims of a single leader become the sole reason a party continues to exist, that party is no more than a cult, and when cults finally die they tend to collapse. This country has, however, never seen a political party abandon itself the way the modern Republican Party has abandoned itself to Trump, and there’s a chance that the cult will continue for some time even after Trump himself departs the stage.

But ultimately—maybe sooner, maybe later—it will implode. And after that happens, somebody (at least) has to be around to pick up the pieces, however ugly and painful a task that’s going to be.

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ICYMI: Trump’s dire VP shortlist, and Sinema’s uncertain future

Posted on February 24, 2024 by Jen Hayden

Republicans proceed with impeachment effort to spread Russian disinformation

Because who needs facts?

Trump daughter-in-law: ‘We get ahead and succeed by merit and merit alone'

Sure, if you count the added benefit of generational wealth.

Time's almost up for Sinema to run again—if she even wants to

The future is looking uncertain for Miss Independent.

Cartoon: Worst president ever

Watch what happens when you stir up a hornet’s nest.

Trump's shortlist of VP candidates is all about who will go the lowest

From Byron Donalds to Ron DeSantis, it’s a list of the worst of the worst.impr

Every warning of post-Roe America is coming true, and there’s worse ahead

Republicans want to roll back women’s and pregnant people’s rights to somewhere around the Bronze Age.

VP wannabe Kristi Noem thinks it's just great that Trump 'broke politics'

Noem takes kissing the ring to a whole new level.

Ron DeSantis hired an anti-vaxxer, and now Florida kids are paying the cost

Florida’s surgeon general is giving more questionable guidance.

GOP congresswoman who used IVF wants to ban IVF

So it’s okay for her to use it, but not her constituents?

Trump's lawyers call for dismissal of classified documents case, citing presidential immunity

Because presidential immunity worked so well for him last time …

Click here to see more cartoons.

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Former GOP officials warn of ‘terrifying possibilities’ if Trump immunity claim accepted

Posted on February 16, 2024 by Iowa Capital Dispatch

by Jacob Fischler, Iowa Capital Dispatch

Accepting former President Donald Trump’s claim of presidential immunity would embolden future presidents to use military force to stay in office indefinitely, a group of anti-Trump Republican former officials warned in a Tuesday brief to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Rejecting Trump’s immunity claim, which he has said should protect him from prosecution on charges of lying to and encouraging supporters who turned violent on Jan. 6, 2021 and attacked the U.S. Capitol, is essential to preserve American democracy, the officials wrote in a friend-of-the-court brief.

The 26 former U.S. Department of Justice attorneys, lawmakers and others who authored the brief were elected Republicans or served in Republican administrations. They include former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, former U.S. Sen. John Danforth of Missouri and former U.S. Rep. Mickey Edwards of Oklahoma.

Trump, who is the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, asked the court Monday to further delay his trial in District of Columbia federal court as the justices consider his presidential immunity claim. Trump’s attorneys asked the justices to adopt a broad view of presidential immunity, which they said was critical for protecting the power of the office.

In Tuesday’s brief, the Republican officials said the implications of the former president’s argument present “terrifying possibilities.”

“Under former President Trump’s view of absolute immunity, future first-term Presidents would be encouraged to violate federal criminal statutes by employing the military and armed federal agents to remain in power,” they wrote.

“No Court should create a presidential immunity from federal criminal prosecution, even for official acts, that is so vast that it endangers the peaceful transfer of executive power that our Constitution mandates.”

While Trump argues that such a “lurid hypothetical” of a president using the military or armed federal agents should not prevent him from being granted immunity, the former Republican officials say the particular allegations against the former president weigh heavily against accepting his argument.

For one, they write, the federal indictment against Trump alleges he used the Department of Justice as a tool in his fake elector scheme.

Specifically, the amici point out, the indictment alleges that a letter signed by Trump’s acting attorney general pressured states to replace legitimate Biden electors with false ones supporting Trump.

“Under Mr. Trump’s vast rationale for federal criminal immunity, a future President would be emboldened to direct the Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security, as well as the Attorney General, to deploy the military and armed federal agents to support efforts to overturn that President’s re-election loss,” they wrote.

The framers of the Constitution meant to limit executive power and highly valued a peaceful transfer of power, the officials wrote.

Alexander Hamilton wrote in a Federalist Papers entry that the Constitution meant to prevent a “victorious demagogue” from staying in power, they wrote. Accepting Trump’s broad interpretation of presidential immunity would threaten that protection and encourage future presidents to go to extreme lengths to stay in power, they said.

“What kind of Constitution would immunize and thereby embolden losing first-term Presidents to violate federal criminal statutes — through either official or unofficial acts — in efforts to usurp a second term?” they wrote. “Not our Constitution.”

Constitutional experts weigh in

In addition to the former Republican officials, several constitutional law experts filed an amicus brief Tuesday arguing that Trump is not immune from federal prosecution.

The six law professors argued that Trump’s dual claims that he is immune because his actions were taken while he was still president, and that he is protected from any criminal prosecution following his Senate impeachment trial acquittal, are a “misreading of constitutional text and history as well as this Court’s precedent.”

The absolute immunity argument “finds no support” in the Constitution, the experts wrote.

“Seeking to distinguish the president from a British King, the Constitution’s framers and ratifiers repeatedly indicated that a president ‘may be indicted and punished’ after ‘commit[ting] crimes against the state,’” the experts wrote, citing debates at several state conventions about the federal Constitution.

Like the former Republican officials, the professors of law and politics asked the Supreme Court to deny Trump’s request to further delay the trial court’s proceedings.

On Trump’s impeachment clause argument, the constitutional law experts wrote: “The framers viewed the impeachment process as entirely distinct from criminal prosecution and thus thought that a verdict against an officer in one proceeding should have no impact on the other.”

The brief’s authors include Frank O. Bowman III, of the University of Missouri School of Law, Michael J. Gerhardt, of the University of North Carolina School of Law, Brian C. Kalt of Michigan State University College of Law, Peter M. Shane, of the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law and New York University School of Law, Laurence H. Tribe, professor emeritus of Harvard University and Keith E. Whittington, professor of politics at Princeton University and forthcoming chaired professor of law at Yale Law School.

FEB. 20 DEADLINE

Also on Tuesday, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. set a Feb. 20 deadline for Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is prosecuting the case for the Justice Department, to respond to Trump’s request for a stay in the trial.

The one-week deadline suggests the justices are seeking a speedy resolution to the issue.

Attorneys for Trump filed the request with the Supreme Court late Monday following a ruling last week from a three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, comprising judges appointed by members of both parties, upholding a lower court’s decision to reject Trump’s immunity claim.

Trump’s stay request noted the former president would appeal the decision to the Supreme Court, as well as petition for a rehearing by the full D.C. Circuit. Trump asked that pretrial activity in the federal district court not proceed while those appeals are ongoing.

The immunity issue, which does not address the merits of the case Smith’s team has compiled against Trump, has gone on for months and delayed the scheduled March 4 trial date.

Trump made a pretrial motion to U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan in October seeking to throw out the four-count indictment based on his presidential immunity theory.

Chutkan denied the request, and Trump appealed her decision to the D.C. Circuit.

The Supreme Court also heard arguments last week in a case over whether Colorado could bar him from the presidential primary ballot because a provision in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment disallows insurrectionists from seeking office. The justices met Colorado’s argument with skepticism. A decision is expected soon.

Iowa Capital Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com. Follow Iowa Capital Dispatch on Facebook and Twitter.

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Trump spent years exploiting immigrants he now claims are ‘poisoning’ our country

Posted on February 14, 2024 by Charles Jay

Former President Donald Trump used language right from Hitler’s playbook when he claimed that immigrants coming to the U.S. are “poisoning the blood of our country.” What’s particularly scary is just how many Trump supporters embrace his fascistic rhetoric about immigrants. Rolling Stone reported on the results of a University of Massachusetts Amherst poll that found that 35% of Trump’s 2020 voters agree with his dark message about the threat posed by immigrants.

But what they probably don’t realize is the total hypocrisy of Trump’s rhetoric. That’s because for decades, including during Trump’s presidency, his company relied on undocumented workers to fill jobs as housekeepers, waiters, groundskeepers, and stonemasons at his properties, The Washington Post reported.

The newspaper wrote:

Using them brought a double advantage: Trump could reap the financial benefit of undocumented labor — the ability to pay his employees lower wages and fewer benefits — and the political benefit of attacking it.

The subject of immigration and the border crisis has become the hot button issue for Republicans. House Republicans narrowly impeached Cuban-born Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas Tuesday evening for allegedly failing to enforce immigration laws. But for decades, the Trump Organization ignored the employment eligibility of its workers.

In December 2019, The Washington Post shared that its reporters had spoken with 48 undocumented immigrants who had worked for the Trump Organization at 11 of its properties, including five golf courses in New Jersey and New York and the Mar-a-Lago private club in Florida. Trump has said he was unaware that his properties had hired undocumented workers.

One of the undocumented workers, Sandra Diaz, an immigrant from Costa Rica who used a fake Social Security card to get hired, worked as Trump’s personal housekeeper at his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey. She described her duties to The Washington Post as follows:

Moving quickly through the two-story house in the mornings, Diaz carried out Trump’s fastidious instructions. In his closet, she would hang six sets of identical golf outfits: six white polo shirts, six pairs of beige pants, six neatly ironed pairs of boxer shorts. She would smear a dollop of Trump’s liquid face makeup on the back of her hand to make sure it hadn’t dried out.

In late 2018, Diaz and her successor as Trump’s personal housekeeper at Bedminster, Victorina Morales, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, approached The New York Times through their immigration lawyer to talk about their experiences working at the Trump golf club.

Diaz, who worked at Bedminster from 2010-2013, is now a legal resident of the U.S., the Times reported. Morales was still working at Bedminster when she went public about her immigration status; she no longer works at the club and has filed an application for asylum status.

Morales told the Times that she could no longer keep silent because she felt hurt by Trump’s public comments equating Latin American immigrants with violent criminals and by abusive comments from a supervisor at the golf club about her intelligence and immigration status.

“We are tired of the abuse, the insults, the way he talks about us when he knows that we are here helping him make money,” Morales told The Times. “We sweat it out to attend to his every need and have to put up with his humiliation.”

That led to more reports in The Washington Post and other major news outlets. Here’s an interview the two women gave to NowThis News.

YouTube Video

After the women came forward, the Trump Organization began cracking down. It audited employees’ immigration papers and started using the federal E-Verify online system to check documents to confirm employment eligibility for new hires. Dozens of undocumented workers were either fired or quit in the runup to the 2020 election campaign.

In May 2019, CNN interviewed 19 of the undocumented immigrants who had worked at Trump golf clubs in New York and New Jersey:

YouTube Video

But after 2020, this story about undocumented workers at Trump properties simply faded away. It’s important to keep Trump’s hypocrisy in the forefront as he has made immigration the major issue of his 2024 presidential campaign and is dehumanizing immigrants with fascistic rhetoric worse than when he ran in 2016.

The New York Times reported that Trump plans to introduce even more draconian immigration laws if elected than he did in his first term, which was marked by such cruel policies as separating children from their parents at the border. Trump’s plans for a second term include: deporting millions of people who don’t have legal status, setting up massive camps along the border to hold people awaiting deportation, a renewed Muslim travel ban, and the end of birthright citizenship.

Todd Schulte, the president of FWD.us, an immigration and criminal justice advocacy group, told The New York Times:

“Americans should understand these policy proposals are an authoritarian, often illegal, agenda that would rip apart nearly every aspect of American life — tanking the economy, violating the basic civil rights of millions of immigrants and native-born Americans alike.”

It’s worth noting that about 200 undocumented Polish construction workers laid the foundation for Trump’s real estate empire when they were hired in 1980 to demolish a department store on Fifth Avenue on the future site of Trump Tower. In August 2016, just months before the presidential election, Time Magazine reported about how the Polish workers were exploited, “putting in 12-hour shifts with inadequate safety equipment at subpar wages that their contractor paid sporadically, if at all.” Trump denied that he knowingly used undocumented workers, instead blaming the contractor. But documents reviewed by Time showed that Trump sought out the Polish workers for the demolition project when he saw them working on another job.

After a protracted legal battle, Trump settled a lawsuit in 1998 regarding the workers over union pension violations, agreeing to pay nearly $1.4 million. Time reported the settlement details in 2017 after going to court to get the records unsealed.

Time reported that in 1990, Daniel Sullivan, a labor consultant and FBI informant hired by Trump in 1980 to deal with the problem of the undocumented Polish workers, told People magazine:

“It was disgusting how he used people,” Sullivan said. “I said, ‘Don’t exploit them like that. Don’t try to f-ck these poor souls over.’ It baffled me then, and it makes me sick even now that he knowingly had these Poles there for the purpose of Trump Tower at starvation wages. He couldn’t give a sh-t because he’s Donald Trump and everybody is here to serve him. Over time he became more and more monstrous and arrogant. I asked myself, ‘How long is it going to take for all of this to catch up with him?'”

It certainly hasn’t so far.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who like other Republican politicians has bowed the knee to Trump, even brought up the issue of Trump’s hiring of undocumented immigrants to work at or construct some of his properties during a February 2016 Republican presidential debate. But that didn’t stop Trump from winning the nomination with his promise to build a wall along the southern border and have Mexico pay for it.

Someone has been poisoning our democracy, and it sure isn’t hard-working immigrants.

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Morning Digest: Why the GOP’s big new Senate recruit is a longshot

Posted on February 12, 2024 by Daily Kos Elections

The Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from the Daily Kos Elections team.

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Leading Off

● MD-Sen: Out of nowhere, former Gov. Larry Hogan announced a bid for Maryland's open Senate seat right before Friday's candidate filing deadline. But despite his personal popularity, he faces enormous obstacles in winning a state that last elected a Republican senator in 1980.

Hogan's entry was unexpected because he rejected entreaties from GOP leaders to run for Senate in 2022 and trashed the idea of running just last year, after Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin announced his retirement.

"The thing that surprised me the most was that my wife said, 'Why don't you run for the Senate?'" Hogan told NewsNation. "I told her she was crazy. I mean, I didn't have any interest in being a senator."

Hogan even derided the very idea of serving in Congress in that same interview. "The Senate is an entirely different job," he said. "You're one of 100 people arguing all day. Not a lot gets done in the Senate, and most former governors that I know that go into the Senate aren't thrilled with the job."

It's likely Hogan won't get the chance to experience that same disenchantment. Former governors who managed to defy their home state's political leanings have rarely met with success when seeking the Senate. The last decade or so is replete with examples: Montana's Steve Bullock, Tennessee's Phil Bredesen, and Hawaii's Linda Lingle all won multiple terms in states that normally back the opposite party but all failed when they sought to become United States senators.

It's not hard to understand why. It's much easier to gain separation from national party politics in state office, something Hogan achieved by presenting himself as a relative moderate and frequent critic of Donald Trump. But that's considerably harder to pull off in the context of a Senate race, when your opponents can readily link you to unpopular D.C. figures whose caucus you're looking to join.

Hogan was also last on the ballot in 2018, long before the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision upended American politics. Today, he'll face a difficult time answering for his views and actions on abortion: The ex-governor calls himself "pro-life," and in 2022, with the Dobbs ruling looming, he vetoed a bill to expand abortion access in the state. (Lawmakers overrode him.)

That will pose a special problem for him in Maryland, where an amendment to enshrine the right to an abortion will appear on the ballot in November. One poll showed 78% of voters backing the proposal.

A hypothetical poll of a Hogan Senate bid conducted last year also points to the challenge he'll face. The survey, taken by Democratic pollster Victoria Research on behalf of a pair of political firms, found Hogan trailing Democratic Rep. David Trone by a 49-34 margin, showing just how close Democrats are to locking down this seat.

The same survey had Hogan leading a second Democrat, Prince George's County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, 42-36, but even then, he was far from a majority. (The self-funding Trone likely performed so much better due to his heavy spending on TV ads, while Alsobrooks has advertised minimally.)

Hogan's decision to run will, however, likely force Democrats to sweat a race they'd much rather not have to worry about at all. But yet another hurdle looms: the May 14 GOP primary. While Hogan is by far the best-known candidate in the Republican primary, which had until now largely attracted no-names, he's loathed by the MAGA brigades and could be vulnerable if a Trumpist alternative catches fire.

Indeed, in 2022, Hogan's hand-picked candidate in the race to replace him, Kelly Schultz, lost the primary to hard-right extremist Dan Cox 52-43. Cox had some help from Democrats, who much preferred to face him in the general election, which Democrat Wes Moore won in a 65-32 blowout. Hogan is far better known than Schultz ever was, but there are still no guarantees for him.

Senate

● CA-Sen: A super PAC backing Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff is taking a page from the candidate's playbook and running ads ostensibly "attacking" Republican Steve Garvey as "too conservative for California." Standing Strong PAC's goal, just like Schiff's, is to elevate Garvey to the second slot in the March 5 primary, since it'd be easier for Schiff to beat him in the general election compared to another Democrat. Politico says this new effort is backed "by an initial six-figure buy."

● MT-Sen: Republican Rep. Matt Rosendale finally launched his long-awaited second bid for Senate on Friday, though he was immediately greeted with an endorsement for businessman Tim Sheehy by Donald Trump. The two will face off in the June 4 GOP primary for the right to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, who defeated Rosendale 50-47 in 2018. Democrats would prefer to take on the far-right Rosendale and have been spending heavily to boost his fortunes in the primary.

● NJ-Sen: Democratic Rep. Andy Kim won the endorsement of the Democratic Party in New Jersey's populous Monmouth County on Saturday, defeating former financier Tammy Murphy by a wide 57-39 margin among delegates. While Murphy has secured the backing of several other county Democratic organizations, Monmouth was the first to put the matter to a vote rather than allowing party leaders to hand-pick a candidate.

The victory ensures that Kim will receive preferential placement on primary ballots in Monmouth, which typically casts about 6% of the vote in statewide Democratic primaries. Kim has called for eliminating these special spots on the ballot, known as the "county line," but told the New Jersey Globe's Joey Fox in September, "I'll work within the system we have" to secure the Democratic nomination for Senate.

Fox called the developments in Monmouth "hugely consequential" and noted that two other smaller counties, Burlington and Hunterdon, will soon award their endorsements using similar procedures. Several other counties will also hold open conventions, according to a guide published by the Globe.

On the Republican side, former News 12 reporter Alex Zdan, who covered Democratic Sen. Bob Menedez's first corruption trial in 2017, kicked off a bid on Friday. However, even if Zdan wins the GOP primary, there's little chance he'd face the spectacularly wounded Menendez: Following his most recent federal indictment on corruption charges, the incumbent has yet to announce whether he'll seek reelection and has scored in the single digits in every poll of the Democratic contest. He also did not compete for the endorsement in Monmouth County.

House

● GA-13: Army veteran Marcus Flowers, who ran against Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in 2022, announced he'd challenge Rep. David Scott in the May 21 Democratic primary on Friday. While Flowers never stood a chance against Greene in northwestern Georgia's rural, heavily white 14th District—he got blown out 66-34—he was able to raise an enormous $16 million thanks to his opponent's notoriety.

If he can continue cultivating that same network despite lacking an easy villain to run against, Flowers could conceivably threaten the 78-year-old Scott, who has faced questions about his health. Scott must also contend with a redrawn 13th District that is mostly new to him. That seat, however, is based in the Atlanta suburbs and shares nothing in common with the district Flowers sought last cycle.

● NJ-03: Assemblyman Herb Conaway won the backing of the Monmouth County Democratic Party in a blowout on Saturday, ensuring he'll enjoy favorable placement on the ballot in the June 4 primary. Conaway defeated Assemblywoman Carol Murphy, who represented the same district in the legislature, by an 85-15 margin among delegates. However, Monmouth makes up just 22% of New Jersey's 3rd Congressional District; the balance is in Burlington and Mercer counties, which have yet to issue endorsements.

And Murphy picked up two key endorsements of her own in her bid to succeed Rep. Andy Kim. The Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters, which the New Jersey Globe's David Wildstein describes as one of the state's "most politically potent" unions, gave Murphy its support on Friday, while EMILY's List followed suit the next day.

● NY-01: CNN anchor and No Labels co-founder John Avlon has stepped down from the network and plans to run for New York's 1st Congressional District, reports Puck News' Dylan Byers. It's not clear, however, what party banner Avlon might run under, or whether he'd pursue a bid as an independent. The closely divided 1st District, based in eastern Long Island, is currently represented by first-term Republican Nick LaLota. Several Democrats are already running, though chemist Nancy Goroff, who unsuccessfully sought this seat in 2020, has far outraised the rest of the field.

● TN-02: Former state Rep. Jimmy Matlock, who had been considering a challenge to Rep. Tim Burchett in the Aug. 1 GOP primary, has opted against a bid. Burchett was one of eight Republicans who voted to oust Kevin McCarthy as House speaker in October, and as Politico's Ally Mutnick reports, the deposed speaker's allies "were hoping to back a challenger" and considered Matlock a possibility. There's still time for an alternative to emerge, though, as Tennessee's filing deadline is not until April 4.

● WA-04: In a piece discussing Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers' Thursday retirement announcement, the Seattle Times' Jim Brunner suggests that Rep. Dan Newhouse might be the next House Republican from the state of Washington to call it quits. Brunner reports that there's "been rampant speculation in state Republican circles that Newhouse may be the next to announce his retirement" and says that the congressman did not answer when asked if he'd run for another term.

Newhouse was one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and is one of only two still left in Congress (the other is California Rep. David Valadao). Newhouse survived the top-two primary last cycle thanks in part to a badly divided field of unhappy Republicans: The incumbent took just 25.5% to Democrat Doug White's 25.1%, while his nearest GOP detractor, Donald Trump-endorsed former police chief Loren Culp, finished just behind with 22%.

Newhouse has only drawn a single intra-party challenger this time, former NASCAR driver Jerrod Sessler, who ran last time but ended up in fourth place with just 12%. Sessler has raised very little for his second go-round, but Newhouse's own fundraising has been modest: He brought in just $154,000 in the fourth quarter of last year and reported $331,000 in the bank.

Washington's 4th District, which is based in the central part of the state, is also the state's most conservative, supporting Trump by a 57-40 margin. If Newhouse quits, it will almost certainly stay in Republican hands.

● WI-08: Without warning, Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher announced his retirement on Saturday, following a week in which fellow Republicans hammered him mercilessly for voting against impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Though Gallagher is just 39 years old and serving his fourth term, he claimed to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's Lawrence Andrea that the toxic environment in the House had not prompted him to quit.

"I feel, honestly, like people get it, and they can accept the fact that they don't have to agree with you 100%," said Gallagher, despite the fact that members of his own party savaged him for his impeachment vote.

In an op-ed, Gallagher said he opposed the effort to oust Mayorkas because he feared it would "pry open the Pandora's box of perpetual impeachment," but his words carried little weight with his caucus. ("'They impeached Trump, but if we impeach them back they'll impeach us again!'" Georgia Rep. Mike Collins mocked.)

The ruckus had already caused one far-right Republican consultant, Alex Bruesewitz, to say he was considering a challenge to Gallagher in the Aug. 13 primary, but more established politicos are now certain to enter the fray. Whoever secures the GOP nomination will be the heavy favorite in the 8th District, a conservative seat based in northeastern Wisconsin that backed Donald Trump by a 57-41 margin in 2020.

That wasn't always the case, though. When Gallagher, a Marine Corps veteran, first ran for Congress following GOP Rep. Reid Ribble's retirement ahead of the 2016 elections, the 8th had gone for Mitt Romney by just a 51-48 margin in 2012. But as in so many other rural white areas, the bottom dropped out for Democrats when Trump was on the ballot: He carried the district 56-39 over Hillary Clinton, and Gallagher, who'd easily won the Republican nod, crushed Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson 63-37.

Gallagher cruised to reelection in each of his subsequent campaigns and did not even face a Democratic opponent in 2022. Whoever wins the GOP nomination in the race to succeed him should similarly have little trouble in November.

Legislatures

● LA Redistricting: A federal judge has struck down Louisiana's legislative maps for violating the Voting Rights Act by discriminating against Black voters and has ordered the state to produce remedial plans. The court said it would set a deadline for new maps after receiving further submissions from the parties but said it would give the Republican-run legislature "a reasonable period of time" to act.

Much like another federal court found in a different lawsuit, the judge presiding over this case determined that lawmakers had diluted Black voting strength by dividing up Black populations between districts instead of drawing seats where Black voters would have an opportunity to elect their preferred candidates. New maps would likely lead to the election of more Democrats, which could in turn break the effective supermajority control that the GOP often wields in both chambers.

Prosecutors & Sheriffs

● Maricopa County, AZ Sheriff: Maricopa County's Republican-run Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 along party lines to name Russ Skinner as sheriff, following Democrat Paul Penzone's resignation last month. But while state law required the board to pick an appointee from the same party, Republican supervisors in effect circumvented that rule.

Skinner had been registered as a Republican since 1987 and only switched his party registration to Democratic the day after Penzone announced his intention to step down a year before the end of his second term. While Arizona's process for filling vacancies in the state legislature gives the former official's political party a key role in screening candidates for the county board's consideration, the process for replacing Penzone as sheriff had no such restriction.

The appointment could have big implications for the 2024 elections in this county of 4.6 million people. Maricopa, which covers the Phoenix metropolitan area, is home to three-fifths of Arizona's population and is the fourth-largest county nationwide. Like the state itself, it's also a former longtime Republican bastion that has been moving to the left in the Donald Trump era, flipping to Joe Biden in 2020.

Following his appointment, Skinner said he had "no intention of switching back" to the GOP and was unsure about whether to run for a full term, but Democratic Supervisor Steve Gallardo had wanted to appoint a Democrat who could be an "effective candidate" for this fall's race. Several candidates had announced they were running before the appointment. The lone Democrat is former Phoenix police officer Tyler Kamp, while the four Republicans include 2020 nominee Jerry Sheridan and 2020 primary loser Mike Crawford. More candidates could join ahead of the April filing deadline.

Grab Bag

● Arizona: Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs has signed a bill that moves Arizona's primary from Aug. 6 to July 30 in order to alleviate pressure on elected officials who now expect more frequent recounts due to a separate law passed in 2022. The state's candidate filing deadline would also move up a week. Both of these changes are now reflected on our bookmarkable 2024 elections calendar.

The legislation, which was crafted as a compromise between the parties, also includes several other provisions, including some designed to speed up the counting of ballots. One measure demanded by Republicans reduces the time voters have to correct problems with their mail-in ballots from five business days to five calendar days. Many parts of the new law are temporary, including the adjustments to the election calendar, which will revert back to its prior schedule after this year.

‘Chaos’ is the word for Republicans, and the media has finally noticed

Posted on February 8, 2024 by Mark Sumner

For many years, the news media has loved "Democrats in disarray" stories. Those stories always seem to pop up in election years—especially years when things are going well—to assure readers that Democrats are divided, or they’ve lost the Black vote, or they don’t trust their leaders. Something. Anything that shows the Democratic Party as disorganized and incapable of running an effective government.

Somehow, that same media has seemed to largely ignore the MAGA cancer gnawing away at the Republican Party in both the House and Senate. Sure, there was some fun to be had in watching then-Rep. Kevin McCarthy get his dignity slowly stripped away in 15 rounds of voting for speaker, then watching McCarthy get ousted less than 10 months later. But through it all, news outlets went on pretending that the Republican rebellion in the House was a matter of a few ultra-extremists, and that Senate Republicans represented the affable senior league.

Well, the media can’t ignore it now. With both the House and the Senate GOP leaderships disintegrating, and with nothing getting done amid a festering cauldron of boiling egos, the media has to say it: Republicans are in chaos.

At The Washington Post, a headline from Wednesday mentions “unrest” and “chaotic, bugled votes.” The phrase “dysfunction in the House Republican conference” also makes an appearance as the Post explains how, despite Speaker of the House Mike Johnson slavishly following Donald Trump’s every whim and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell still laboring under the illusion that he has the power to get a bill through his own caucus, neither of them can get a damn thing done.

The Atlantic gets both “chaos” and “Trump” into one Wednesday headline as the outlet rightly points out that things gang aft agley is a hallmark of Trumpism. Chaos is also dead certain to be generated when legislators subvert their own goals, to follow the orders of a leader who sees their inability to act as a good thing. The Atlantic also gets in a “fiasco” when describing the failed attempt to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, as well as pointing out that while Johnson benefited from “conservative rebels” to land his tall chair, he doesn’t appear so fond of rebellion these days.

CNN leaves “chaos” out of its own headline, referring to “disasters” when talking about Republican defeats on both ends of the Hill. But it does launch the article with “Chaos has been a common theme for the 118th Congress.” CNN then gets more specific in pinning the problems on Republicans. In doing so, it comes up with what may be the best and funniest description of Johnson’s problems in trying to rule over “a rambunctious and anemic majority.” Like a bunch of college bros who are low on iron.

Barron’s is not exactly a reliable source of Republican criticism, but they did choose to run a Wednesday article from French news agency AFP, which couldn’t help but notice “back-to-back legislative defeats” amid “Republican chaos.” Republicans earn another “dysfunction” and pick up an “embarrassed,” along with a “missteps,” and finish off with a quote of Johnson admitting that things in the House are a “mess.” That’s pretty much a clean sweep in the Ineffectual Sweepstakes. AFP also puts some numbers around just how awful things are in the House.

Rank-and-file conservatives have repeatedly tanked legislation pushed by the leadership, meaning Republicans were able to pass only 27 bills that became law last year, despite holding 724 votes.

Note that leaders generally bring up a bill for a vote only when they expect to win. Somewhere along the line, Republicans apparently banned basic math. Also worth noting: “rank-and-file conservatives” used to have a meaning that included something about being conservative. It is now simply a measure of how well someone follows the will of Trump.

Roll Call drops in to visit Democrats seeking cover amid “House GOP chaos” and gets a nice quote from Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse, who points out that House Republicans aren’t only unproductive, they’re also unpopular. The article also gives a nod to Democratic “unity” that is keeping their votes together, even as Republicans stalk around the floor snarling at each other.

Even The New York Times joins in with an article about “deepening Republican disarray.” And, okay, they didn’t use “chaos,” but give them a break. They probably bought “disarray” in bulk, and now they need to use it up somewhere.

At NBC News, Republicans earned a “rough week” for abandoning the border security deal they wrote. That article also spills a surprising amount of words in saying positive things about Democrats, including President Joe Biden.

Finally, here’s a rare Fox News link because it seems okay to pitch Rupert Murdoch a penny when his folks are writing about how Republicans are “shooting blanks” and “misfired” on impeaching Mayorkas. But the rest of the article descends into blaming Democrats for the loss because Rep. Al Green came from the hospital to cast a vote and threw off the count. Democrats didn’t just thwart the Republican scheme; they also somehow threatened the “Hippocratic Oath.” And Fox is just so frustrated that they actually called this the “119th Congress.” (It’s the 118th.)

Overall, any week where Republican chaos can be so obvious that it causes the news media to momentarily halt the Dems-in-disarray storylines seems like a good one. The only thing left to complain about is … alliteration. Couldn’t someone pull out a “Republican rat’s nest” or even a “MAGA muddle”?

The media should work on that. They’re probably going to need it again.

Disinformation is a growing problem in American politics, but combating it in Latino media poses its own special challenges. Joining us on this week's episode of "The Downballot" is Roberta Braga, founder of the Digital Democracy Institute of the Americas, a new organization devoted to tackling disinformation and building resiliency in Latino communities. Braga explains how disinformation transcends borders but also creates opportunities for people in the U.S. to import new solutions from Latin America. She also underscores the importance of fielding Latino candidates and their unique ability to address the issue.

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For Republicans, it’s now ‘Trump First, Putin Second, America Third’

Posted on February 8, 2024 by Dartagnan

From a domestic perspective, the Republican Party’s embarrassing failure to follow through on its Fox News-goaded attempt to impeach Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas proved to be a blessing. It was wholly performative theater, without any legitimacy. The party’s abrupt, equally embarrassing turnabout on immigration—an issue that Republicans had planned on wielding against Democrats going into 2024—was just more evidence of the GOP’s terminal dysfunction.

As schadenfreude-y as it may have been for Democrats to watch as the Republicans immolated themselves on the altar of immigration, the rest of the world was far more concerned about how the U.S. would follow through on its prior strategic commitments to Ukraine and Israel. By Wednesday morning, aid packages to both nations were hopelessly consigned to the quicksand of GOP intransigence and finger-pointing. Since aid to those countries was tied—at Republicans’ insistence—to border legislation, the Republicans’ pathetic submission of their much-vaunted immigration concerns to Donald Trump’s electoral whims may have doomed the prospects of further aid to Ukraine and Israel for the remainder of the fiscal year.

(Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer is now crafting separate packages, without immigration reform included, but their likelihood of success appears murky.)

From the perspective of our allies, however, what occurred this week is seen less as habitual Republican dysfunction and more as the total abandonment of American resolve. In a week’s time, we have proved ourselves, as Anne Applebaum presciently warned last month in The Atlantic, worse than an unreliable ally: We’ve become “a silly ally”—one that can no longer be taken seriously by the rest of the world.

Applebaum isn’t alone in that assessment. Tom Friedman’s Tuesday opinion piece in The New York Times, acidly titled “The G.O.P. Bumper Sticker: Trump First. Putin Second. America Third,” explains just how damaging and consequential the Republicans’ actions this week have been to the nation.

As Friedman wrote, even before the immigration and foreign aid bill collapsed under the weight of Republican cowardice:

There are hinges in history, and this is one of them. What Washington does — or does not do — this year to support its allies and secure our border will say so much about our approach to security and stability in this new post-post-Cold War era. Will America carry the red, white and blue flag into the future or just a white flag? Given the pessimistic talk coming out of the Capitol, it is looking more and more like the white flag, autographed by Donald Trump.

There is no serious doubt that House Republicans rejected the Senate’s painstakingly crafted immigration legislation, which satisfied nearly all prior GOP demands for border enforcement, at the behest of Donald Trump. Trump prefers to do nothing, effectively maintaining the status quo at the border for another full year so he can use it as a campaign talking point, assuming he's still eligible to hold public office.

Fearing Trump's wrath, House Republicans swiftly pronounced the immigration and foreign aid package "dead on arrival" before most had even read it. Meanwhile, Republican senators began to quaver at the prospect of being primaried by Trump-chosen challengers for the audacity of trying to actually pass meaningful legislation. Faced with Trump’s continued vise-like grip on their party, upper chamber Republicans opted to jettison the legislation altogether.

But, as Friedman observes, there’s another key player in the mix: Vladimir Putin. Putin is well-aware that Trump will abandon Ukraine—and likely NATO—the instant he returns to power. Friedman recognizes that Trump’s interests—and thus the interests of a supine Republican Party intent on enabling Trump’s dictatorial ambitions—now necessarily dovetail with Putin’s.

After Ukraine inflicted a terrible defeat on the Russian Army — thanks to U.S. and NATO funding and weapons — without costing a single American soldier’s life, Putin now has to be licking his chops at the thought that we will walk away from Ukraine, leaving him surely counting the days until Kyiv’s missile stocks run out and he will own the skies. Then it’s bombs away.

This week, one of Putin’s primary assets, the propagandist and “useful idiot” Tucker Carlson, is purportedly being wined and dined in Moscow so he can provide cover for Republicans to gut Ukrainian aid. Carlson’s paywalled, one-on-one interview with Putin, and how it might enable the murderous dictator’s “outreach” to Republicans, is already the talk of Russian state television.

As reported Wednesday by The Washington Post’s Robyn Dixon and Natalia Abbakumova:

State television propagandist Vladimir Solovyov, one of the Kremlin’s anti-Western attack dogs, seemed to suggest that Carlson’s interview would torpedo any last hope for approval of new American military aid for Ukraine.

Solovyov said Carlson’s visit came “at the worst possible time for the West,” and he begged Carlson to join the Russian Union of Journalists, which Solovyov heads.

As Friedman points out, this eagerness of Republicans to betray American strategic interests in order to satisfy both Trump and Putin transforms America’s credibility with our allies into a mere afterthought.

If this is the future and our friends from Europe to the Middle East to Asia sense that we are going into hibernation, they will all start to cut deals — European allies with Putin, Arab allies with Iran, Asian allies with China. We won’t feel the change overnight, but, unless we pass this bill or something close to it, we will feel it over time.

America’s ability to assemble alliances against the probes of Russia, China and Iran will gradually be diminished. Our ability to sustain sanctions on pariah nations like North Korea will erode. The rules governing trade, banking and the sanctity of borders being violated by force — rules that America set, enforced and benefited from since World War II — will increasingly be set by others and by their interests.

The saddest fact is that no one should really be surprised by Republicans’ behavior. For a substantial segment of their caucus, their order of loyalty really is “Trump first, Putin second, America third.” Evidently they feel that the risk of betraying their own constituents on the immigration issue is well worth the effort and impact, if it means pleasing their two masters. And if they have so small a regard for their own constituents, there’s little doubt they feel even less toward the American republic writ large.

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Appeals Court cuts down every piece of Trump’s immunity claim—with flair

Posted on February 7, 2024 by Mark Sumner

On Tuesday, a federal appeals court ruled that Donald Trump is not immune to prosecution for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. The 57-page ruling takes apart the claims that Trump made one by one, thoroughly dismembering his arguments to conclude that Trump’s declaration of “categorical immunity from criminal liability” is “unsupported by precedent, history or the text and structure of the Constitution.”

As The New York Times notes, the unanimous ruling is unlikely to be the last word on executive immunity, but the appeals court “handed Mr. Trump a significant defeat.” Not least of all in determining that, as far as the court is concerned, it’s very much Mr. Trump.

For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant. But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution.

There’s nothing about this ruling that is going to make Trump happy.

Trump's former attorney Tim Parlatore predicts he's likely bothered by being referred to as "citizen Trump" in yesterday's ruling denying him presidential immunity. pic.twitter.com/E7RDId3wfU
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) February 7, 2024

Mother Jones has sifted the ruling for some of the best lines, and that definitive stripping away of Trump’s former title is just one of them. There’s also the section where the court notes that during his second impeachment trial, Trump’s legal representative tried to have it the other way. In 2021, they argued that Trump shouldn’t be impeached because he was out of office and the proper place to deal with this was in court by writing “[w]e have a judicial process” and “an investigative process ... to which no former officeholder is immune.’”

The judges also noted that Trump wasn’t alone in making this argument: Thirty senators, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, also argued that once he left office, Trump was no longer the proper subject of impeachment and was subject to the courts.

But the portion of the ruling most likely to get wide play is one in which the judges point out the pure silliness of what Trump is suggesting.

It would be a striking paradox if the President, who alone is vested with the constitutional duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” were the sole officer capable of defying those laws with impunity.

This is connected to what others have described as the center of the judges' reasoning: Giving the president the kind of immunity Trump seeks would “collapse our system of separated powers by placing the President beyond the reach of all three Branches.” It would immediately elevate the president to an all-powerful dictator, unbounded by anything Congress or the courts might do.

In addition to declaring that he should have absolute immunity, Trump’s appeal included a backup claim that because he had been impeached and Republicans had voted to save him in the Senate, taking him to court on the same issues would be “double jeopardy.” But the court also swiftly dealt with that assertion, making it clear that impeachment and indictment were unrelated.

The ruling gives Trump until Feb. 12 to file an appeal with the Supreme Court. Otherwise, the district court can once again move forward on charges of election interference. The ruling is so definitive that numerous experts have suggested the Supreme Court might not take up an appeal from Trump.

“My guess is that he’ll be a convicted felon when he gets on the stage to accept the Republican nomination for president.” Chris Christie predicts the Supreme Court will not hear Trump’s appeal, and the trial will begin in May. pic.twitter.com/6n5CXOejRc
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) February 7, 2024

However, some are suggesting that because special counsel Jack Smith originally tried to convince the Supreme Court to hear the case before it was sent back to the appeals court, this could be an opening for Trump’s attorneys to press the court to take up the case.

Trump has responded to the ruling with numerous repetitions of his assertion that presidents must have a level of immunity that no president has ever enjoyed in real life.

When Trump brought this appeal, legal experts agreed that the issues around presidential immunity were novel and that whatever the court determined it would be making new law. Now a three-judge panel for the United States Court of Appeals has filled in those gaps, and their ruling seems so definitive that they may be the last word on this topic.

Except for Trump. He’ll keep on demanding absolute immunity. Even if he’s doing it from a prison cell.

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