In 2024, Trump voters are motivated by one thing above all: Revenge

Posted on by Dartagnan

Americans typically frame their politics as a contest between “right” and “wrong.” In our two-party system today, voters usually believe both they and their party are completely in the right, while those on the opposite side are completely wrong. And this belief persists even after one side concedes defeat: Yes, my party lost the election, but your party is still wrong.

There’s nothing unusual about this. Americans have generally viewed elections that way since the founding of the republic. One side is invariably left unhappy with the result, but they’ll invariably lick their wounds, galvanize behind a new candidate, and try again next time. There’s usually been no burning sense of resentment, no designs of revenge held against the voters who repudiated their decision the last time around. When Barack Obama beat John McCain in 2008, Democratic voters didn’t want “revenge” on McCain voters. That was just the way things were in those halcyon days.

Until Donald Trump, that is. Trump himself has been soundly and decisively dismissed by most Americans. He was repudiated by multiple impeachments that he richly deserved, and emphatically rejected by an electoral and popular majority of American voters in the 2020 election. Now, in 2024—amidst a swirling maelstrom of serious legal and criminal charges against him—Trump has made revenge the central focus of his campaign.  He’s still insisting to his supporters that his 2020 loss was fake (it wasn’t), and that they’ve been insidiously victimized by some type of amorphous, pervasive fraud and Democratic chicanery that essentially played them for fools. It’s a con that Trump started cultivating well before the 2020 election itself, that only went into overdrive after his failed coup of Jan. 6, 2021. 

As Tom Nichols, writing for The Atlantic, observes, the Republican electorate has swallowed Trump’s fiction and internalized it. Republicans have transformed Trump’s embarrassments into an insult against their own personal identities and belief systems. It’s an offense that demands and necessitates revenge against those fellow Americans who dared to insult them.  

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As Nichols observes:

These voters are not settling a political score. Rather, they want to get even with other Americans, their own neighbors, for a simmering (and likely unexpected) humiliation that many of them seem to have felt ever since swearing loyalty to Trump.

A lot of people, especially in the media, have a hard time accepting this simple truth. Millions of Americans, stung by the electoral rebukes of their fellow citizens, have become so resentful and detached from reality that they have plunged into a moral void, a vortex that disintegrates questions of politics or policies and replaces them with heroic fantasies of redeeming a supposedly fallen nation.

It’s terribly difficult and gut-wrenching to admit that one’s choices were wrong. For some people, it’s impossible. For voters who fatefully cast their lot with Trump (and have been subjected over and over to glaring examples of his unfitness), there is no way to save face but by “plunging into that moral void,” as Nichols puts it.

They have to ignore Trump’s 91 criminal charges and his wholesale moral bankruptcy. They have to invent preposterous stories about President Joe Biden and his family. They have to believe, Nichols points out, that violence may be the only path to get their way—and it’s all to salvage their own sorry egos from the unforgivable slight of being wrong. So, egged on by their media bubble and abjectly Trump-dependent political leaders, these voters invent horrors that don't exist, imagine dire threats that they'll never personally face, and conjure up enemies they'll never encounter. It's all, as Nichols seems to imply, a coping mechanism to internally justify their own bad choice.

He wants revenge, and so do his supporters.

But, Nichols asks, against whom are they seeking violence and revenge? Why, Democrats, of course. Those neighbors who had that Biden-Harris 2020 sign have left them seething for four years, as has the local election board that processed all those mail-in votes. As Nichols observes, “When people talk about ‘resorting to violence’ they are, by default, talking about violence against their fellow citizens, some of whom have already been threatened merely for working in their communities as election volunteers.”

Unlike in previous elections, the motivation of these Trump loyalists isn’t really about policy, and it’s not really about “the border” or trans kids. It’s about a sense of revenge that Trump has cynically, deliberately cultivated in them. So they can finally come out on top.

As Nichols writes:

Much like Trump himself, these voters are unable to accept what’s happened over the past several years. Trump, in so many ways, quickly made fools of them; his various inanities, failures, and possible crimes sent them scrambling for ever more bizarre rationalizations, defenses of the indefensible that separated them from family and friends. If in 2016 they suspected, rightly or wrongly, that many Americans looked down on them for any number of reasons, they now know with certainty that millions of people look down on them—not for who they are but for what they’ve supported so vocally.

Nichols—a conservative, adamant “never-Trumper”—gets it mostly right here about Trump’s base, but he omits an important fact: that “what they’ve supported so vocally” is in fact quite telling about “who they are.” Still, he effectively dispenses with all the time and pixels wasted by major media in trying to “understand”—via visits to homey small-town diners and such—Trump voters’ motivations, ostensibly in the vain hope “that more listening and more empathetic nodding would put things right in a few years.”

That time has mercifully passed. Assuming Nichols is right, then there’s precious little to be gained by trying to understand Trump voters or ascribe any rationality to them. Revenge is a raw human emotion, not something that can be dealt with through discourse or reason. As Nichols cogently explains, more than anything, Donald Trump’s loyal base wants revenge “on their fellow citizens” for their attacks, critiques, and disparagement of Donald Trump.

No doubt they’ll be sorely disappointed when they don’t get it.

GOP candidate compared deporting illegal immigrants to Nazis, ‘not opposed’ to fast-tracking DACA citizenship

Posted on by Latest Political News on Fox News

A Republican running for Congress in North Carolina previously compared deporting illegal immigrants to Nazi Germany, and said he was "not opposed" to fast-tracking citizenship for recipients of Deferred Action Childhood Arrivals (DACA), also known as "Dreamers."

Pat Harrigan, a candidate running to represent North Carolina's 10th Congressional District, made the comments in an Oct. 2022 interview with WFAE 90.7, a public radio station that services the Charlotte area, while a congressional candidate in a different district ahead of the midterm elections.

"There has to be a pathway to citizenship. Look, from my perspective, you look at countries that have rounded up and exported people from their country. It's a list of countries that we don't want to be involved with. It's Russia. It's North Korea. It's China. It is Nazi Germany," he said when asked about a "pathway to citizenship" for individuals in the U.S. illegally.

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"This horse has left the stables on this topic. And the vast, vast majority of immigrants that have come to this country are here because they're trying to build a better life for themselves and for their families," he said.

The interviewer then asked Harrigan about "Dreamers," those brought to the U.S. as children of illegal immigrants, and whether there should be a process for them to gain citizenship more quickly.

"I think we need to look at exactly how we do that, but I'm not opposed to it. I do think it’s incredibly important that we have to gain control of the southern border and gain control of our immigration system first, prior to allowing any type of assimilation program on a widespread basis. Critically important that we do that one-two step," he responded.

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The topic of immigration came up while Harrigan was being asked about former President Donald Trump, and whether he should run again for the White House in 2024.

Harrigan dodged the question, saying he was "laser focused" on his midterm race, which he later lost. However, the interviewer pressed him, noting his expressed disagreement with Trump's "personal behaviors," but that he agreed with him on certain policy points.

"I certainly share President Trump's perspective — at least a portion of his perspective — on our southern border. I absolutely believe our southern border is a very real and present danger for the national security of this country," Harrigan responded, citing statistics concerning individuals suspected of terrorism infiltrating the U.S.

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Harrigan added that he "absolutely" believed the border needed to be secured, but that he diverged with Trump on the issue of labor.

"We have a massive labor crisis in this country right now. And quite frankly, we are wasting the best opportunity that we have had in the last 50 years to regenerate and regrow the American manufacturing capability, domestic manufacturing, because we don't have any labor to support it. We have to have an ample flow of immigrants into this country," he said.

"I'm very pro-immigration," he added.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Harrigan said the "use of an oppobook by establishment politicians to attack … a decorated combat veteran" exposed their "fear" of his commitment to America-first policies.

"I understand the true cost of freedom and the need for strong national security. My stance is clear: secure our borders first, complete the wall, deport illegal aliens who have broken our laws, and reinstate Trump’s border policies before considering any pathway to citizenship," he said.

"I will fight to rectify the border crisis caused by Biden and radical democrats, advocate for Trump’s policies and push for the impeachment of DHS Secretary Mayorkas for failing to protect our nation," he added.

Harrigan's campaign also pointed Fox News Digital to an ad it released addressing the border crisis.

North Carolina's 10th Congressional District is currently represented by Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry, who briefly served as speaker pro tempore following former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's ouster in October. It is a deep-red district considered a safe seat for Republicans.

McHenry announced in December that he would not seek re-election.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

DOJ further acknowledges Hunter Biden’s laptop is real, contents match Apple iCloud backups

Posted on by Latest Political News on Fox News

Federal prosecutors further acknowledged in court documents filed Tuesday that the laptop Hunter Biden dropped off at a computer store is in fact real, adding that the contents on the laptop matched what had previously been obtained through a search warrant on the president’s son’s Apple iCloud.

In the court documents, the Department of Justice said the IRS and FBI obtained a search warrant for tax violations in August 2019 and were able to get access to Hunter’s Apple iCloud account.

By September 2021, Apple produced backups of data from various electronic devices Hunter backed up to his iCloud account.

"Investigators also later came into possession of the defendant's Apple MacBook Pro, which he left at a computer store," the court filing reads. "A search warrant was also obtained for his laptop and the results of the search were largely duplicative of information investigators had already obtained from Apple."

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In 2020, John Paul Mac Isaac, a computer repair shop owner who turned over the laptop belonging to the president’s son to authorities and members of the press, said a man he believed to be Hunter dropped off three laptops in his store in April 2019. Only one of the laptops was salvageable, and while repairing the laptop, Mac Isaac said he discovered disturbing material.

Mac Isaac could not get in touch with the customer, and said he first searched the emails by keyword in June or July 2019.

The laptop saga began in October 2020, when the New York Post reported about a 2015 email from a Ukrainian energy executive to Hunter, thanking him for introducing him to his father, that it obtained from the hard drive of Hunter's laptop. Joe Biden was vice president at the time of the message, and his son then enjoyed a lucrative position on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy firm, raising concerns of attempted influence-peddling with his powerful father. 

The laptop's content included a peek into Hunter's overseas business dealings, as well as more sordid material like homemade sex tapes and videos showing him using illegal drugs. 

The laptop was widely dismissed by print and television outlets, especially The New York Times, The Washington Post, MSNBC and CNN. 

Twitter and Facebook blocked or limited sharing of the New York Post's article about Biden. Twitter even locked the New York Post out of its account for weeks.

But in February 2023, the first son admitted that the laptop at the center of a federal investigation belonged to him in a letter from his lawyers.

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At the time, journalist Miranda Devine, who authored the book "Laptop from Hell," tweeted about Hunter’s admission, saying it was not Russian disinformation or a "plant," as the president and 51 dishonest former intel officials pretended. The 51 intel officials she referred to were the 51 intelligence experts who signed a letter casting doubt on the scandal.

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In June 2023, the DOJ said it knew in December 2019 that the laptop was "not manipulated in any way" and contained "reliable evidence," but was "obstructed" from seeing all available information, according to an IRS whistleblower involved in the probe.

The admission revealed the DOJ knew the laptop was not manipulated nearly a year before the intelligence officials and President Biden declared it was planted as part of a Russian disinformation campaign.

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Court records allege that the searches revealed incriminating evidence, like the first son’s addiction to controlled substances and his possession of a firearm.

For example, the court documents say prior to Oct. 12, 2018, when Hunter obtained a firearm, he took photos of crack cocaine and drug paraphernalia on his phone. He also sent messages "routinely" about purchasing drugs.

During the two days after Hunter purchased the firearm, he messaged his girlfriend about meeting a drug dealer and smoking crack, court documents say.

The documents also show Hunter messaged about sleeping on a car and smoking crack, efforts by his then-girlfriend to discard the firearm, and how his devices contained photos and videos of "apparent cocaine, crack cocaine and drug paraphernalia."

New letter exposes Republicans’ latest absurdity in their impeachment stunt

Posted on by Walter Einenkel

The Republican-led House Homeland Security Committee kicked off the new year by wasting everybody’s time with new impeachment hearings against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. And on Wednesday, Chair Mark Green sent a letter to Mayorkas asking that the secretary provide written testimony since he “declined to appear” before the committee.

But that’s not exactly true. Also on Wednesday, NBC News obtained a letter from DHS contradicting Green’s assertion that Mayorkas “declined” anything. According to NBC, after the Republican-led committee originally requested that Mayorkas testify in person on Jan. 18, DHS replied that the secretary could not testify on that date due to scheduling conflicts. Specifically, Mayorkas would be hosting a delegation from Mexico to discuss immigration issues. In other words, the exact issue Republicans are pretending to be interested in working on as lawmakers.

In the letter, DHS explained that Mayorkas remained willing to testify in front of the committee at another date, but as DHS spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg described it in a statement following Green’s letter, Republicans’ “rush to impeach” Mayorkas seems to be taking precedence over having a reason to impeach him.

This is just the latest example of Committee Republicans’ sham process. It’s abundantly clear that they are not interested in hearing from Secretary Mayorkas since it doesn’t fit into their bad-faith, predetermined and unconstitutional rush to impeach him. Last week, the Secretary offered to testify publicly before the Committee; in the time since, the Committee failed to respond to DHS to find a mutually agreeable date.

Instead, they provided this offer of written testimony to the media before any outreach to the Department. [Homeland Security Committee] Republicans have yet again demonstrated their preference for playing politics rather than work together to address the serious issues at the border.

Mayorkas has long been a target for the do-nothing Republicans in Congress because immigration has been an amorphous boogeyman they use to (successfully) frighten their base. Sometimes, though, Republican lawmakers can’t keep their conspiracy theories straight, such as when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene mistakenly claimed during another hearing that the FBI was part of the Department of Homeland Security.

As a DHS official told NBC, Mayorkas has testified 27 times in 35 months—more than any other Biden Cabinet official—and has answered hundreds of questions concerning immigration and the southern border. The first two-hour hearing that Green chaired last week was unable to bring up a single piece of evidence that might rise to the level of impeachment.

Green’s choice to try and paint Mayorkas as dodging these circus-like impeachment proceedings is possibly twofold: It allows Republicans a chance to throw suspicion on Mayorkas’ as guilty of something while also ensuring that the secretary won’t publicly embarrass them the way he recently humiliated Sen. John Hawley.

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House Homeland GOP calls for Mayorkas written testimony; DHS slams ‘bad-faith’ impeachment push

Posted on by Latest Political News on Fox News

Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee are seeking written testimony from DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas amid a lengthy back-and-forth with the agency over him potentially testifying at an impeachment hearing -- as DHS is blasting what it says is a "bad-faith, predetermined and unconstitutional rush" to impeach him.

Chairman Mark Green sent a letter to Mayorkas offering him the opportunity to submit written testimony ahead of the second impeachment hearing on Thursday -- which will focus on the victims of illegal immigrant crime.

"As stated in earlier letters to you, your perspective on the crisis at the border and actions you have taken as secretary are valuable for the Members of the Committee and the American public to hear. Regretfully, every invitation for almost half a year we extended to you to testify focused specifically on the border crisis has been rejected or subject to endless delay tactics," Green said, requesting written testimony instead.

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Republicans, who held the first hearing earlier this month, have accused Mayorkas of a "dereliction of duty" and a "willful violation of his oath" in his handling of the crisis at the southern border, where there have been record levels of migrant encounters. They have said that the expansion of "catch-and-release" and the rollback of Trump-era policies have fueled a historic crisis with devastating effects on the country.

The administration says it is dealing with a hemisphere-wide crisis and needs more funding and reform from Congress. It has pointed to more than a million returns of migrants in FY 2022 and FY 2023 and a record seizure of fentanyl by officials at the border.

Green’s office had invited Mayorkas to testify in person at the hearing earlier this month. DHS replied, saying he could not testify at the hearing on Thursday due to other commitments including hosting a Mexican delegation, but was open to testifying at a future date and said it would work to find a date and hearing structure with committee members.

Republicans painted that response as a refusal to testify, arguing that they have been trying to get Mayorkas to testify at a border-specific hearing since August. DHS has fiercely denied that the letter counted as a refusal to testify and said that Mayorkas has testified 27 times in 35 months, more than any other Cabinet member, including at a Worldwide Threats hearing before the committee in November. DHS says that Republicans did not provide any alternate dates or options to DHS, nor did they respond to attempts to identify a date. 

Spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg tore into what she said was the "latest example of Committee Republicans’ sham process."

"It’s abundantly clear that they are not interested in hearing from Secretary Mayorkas since it doesn’t fit into their bad-faith, predetermined and unconstitutional rush to impeach him. Last week, the Secretary offered to testify publicly before the Committee; in the time since, the Committee failed to respond to DHS to find a mutually agreeable date," she said.

"Instead, they provided this offer of written testimony to the media before any outreach to the Department. CHS Republicans have yet again demonstrated their preference for playing politics rather than work together to address the serious issues at the border," she said.

Homeland Republicans, in turn, said that Mayorkas has now "tacitly refused" three times despite what they say is flexibility.

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"Secretary Mayorkas can object all he wants, but the paper trail is clear--he has consistently, tacitly refused to show up," the majority said on X, formerly known as Twitter after accusing Mayorkas of "indefinite delays."

Democrats on the Committee backed the administration and called the impeachment push "just another political stunt."

"They refused to accept his offer to testify at a later date because it doesn't fit with their arbitrary, rushed timeline dictated by extreme MAGA Republicans Illegitimate impeachment," they said, calling the impeachment illegitimate.

Meanwhile, Fox confirmed that the hearing will be the last hearing and the next step will be for the committee to schedule a markup of the impeachment articles.

Fox News' Kelly Phares contributed to this report.

Experts bash White House claims of shrouding Hunter Biden’s art buyers: ‘Proved as abstract’ as his art

Posted on by Latest Political News on Fox News

Top legal and ethical experts weighed in on art gallerist Georges Bergès' revelation of Hunter Biden's knowledge of his art buyers, saying the American people were "misled."

Fox News Digital reached out to several legal and ethical experts on Bergès' revelation during his closed-door, transcribed interview with the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees earlier this month.

Bergès told the committees that an agreement to shield the knowledge of Hunter Biden's buyers from him was not put in place for months after the White House's statement that a "system" had been "established" to do so.

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Hunter Biden's gallerist said that the first son knew the identities of approximately 70% of those buyers.

"The White House effort was the ultimate example of closing the barn door after the horse has bolted," George Washington University law professor and Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley told Fox News Digital.

"The clear message given repeatedly to Congress and the public was that an ethical plan was in place to prevent such knowledge," he continued.

"The ethical claims of the White House proved as abstract as Hunter's art pieces," Turley said. "In reality, the breach had occurred long before the ethical plan was implemented."

"The testimony that Bergès did not have interactions with the White House on the plan further undermines these claims. Indeed, Bergès admitted that he was reading these statements from the White House with no knowledge of what they were referencing. Yet, Bergès and the Bidens proceeded knowing that the public was being misled."

Former Bush administration ethics chief Richard Painter told Fox News Digital that the White House's "whole arrangement of keeping the buyers secret was completely the wrong way to go."

Painter said the White House "should have had nothing to do" with Bergès, and that the "best approach" for Hunter Biden would have been to "not sell the art at all during his father's presidency and certainly not sell it at those prices."

"The worst option is what they chose, which is to keep it all, to say it's all going to be confidential, and Hunter Biden won't know and nobody will know," Painter said. "And this is exactly what I said happens, is that the word gets around."

"Of course you find out who bought the art," Painter continued. "People hang the art on the wall."

"They don't stick it in closet," he added.

Attorney Sol Weisenberg said that we "don’t know right now the full ethical implications, if any, of this latest White House falsehood regarding Hunter Biden’s special privileges and ethical/legal lapses."

"It is simply another example of the Biden family’s leisurely approach to influence peddling," Weisenberg said. "As a citizen, I would rather know who is buying the paintings and how much they are paying than operating under the false illusion that Hunter and the family are being kept in the dark about the source of this latest largesse."

Fox News Digital reached out to Bergès and the White House for comment.

Bergès' interview with the committees came as part of the House Republicans' impeachment inquiry into President Biden.

House investigators, during his interview, showed Bergès a statement made by then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki on July 9, 2021.

"After careful consideration, a system has been established that allows for Hunter Biden to work in his profession within reasonable safeguards," she said. "All interactions regarding the selling of art and the setting of prices will be handled by professional galleries, adhering to the highest industry standards. Any offer out of the normal court would be rejected out of hand."

Psaki added, "The galleries will not share information about buyers or prospective buyers, including their identities, with Hunter Biden or the administration, which provides quite a level of protection."

When pressed further, Psaki stressed that "it would be challenging for an anonymous person who we don’t know and Hunter Biden doesn’t know to have influence — so that’s a protection." 

However, Bergès testified that at the time of the White House’s July 2021 statement, he had an agreement with Hunter Biden which called for him, instead, "to disclose to Hunter Biden who the purchasers of his art were." Bergès said that contract was agreed to in December 2020. 

Bergès said that it was not until September 2021 that a new agreement with Hunter Biden was created. That agreement stated that "the gallery will not disclose the name of any buyers of artist’s artwork to artist or any agent of artist."

Bergès stressed, though, that there was not a "White House-involved agreement," and that Hunter Biden did know the identities of approximately 70% of the buyers of his art. Meanwhile, Bergès testified that he had spoken to President Biden both on the phone and in person.

The art gallerist previously told Fox News Digital he "never violated the agreement we had with Hunter Biden."

"If he knew the identities of some of the buyers — it’s because they were his friends or by happenstance," Bergès said. "My obligation to Hunter is to not disclose the buyers — which I haven’t." 

Fox News Digital's Brooke Singman contributed reporting.