Fogbow

Trump considers federal abortion ban a vote-loser and is unlikely to support one
Allies say Trump believes states should rule on reproductive rights and that support for federal ban could cost him 2024 election

Hugo Lowell and Lauren Gambino
Thu 20 Apr 2023 13.41 BST

Donald Trump considers a federal abortion ban a losing proposal for Republicans as the party prepares to enter the first presidential election since the supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade – and is unlikely to support such a policy, according to people close to him.

The former president has told allies in recent days that his gut feeling remains leaving the matter of reproductive rights to the states – following the court’s reasoning in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization that ended 50 years of federal abortion protections.

But Trump’s crystallizing stance appears to be, in essence, a recognition that a federal abortion ban could cost him in the 2024 election should he become the Republican nominee, mainly because a majority of Americans simply do not support making abortion mostly or entirely illegal.

The thinking is informed in part by Republicans’ losses in the midterm elections they were supposed to dominate, which interviews showed were tied to the supreme court ruling. And in the six states where abortion-related questions were on the ballot in 2022, voters chose to reject further limits.

The issue has emerged as an early litmus test for Republican presidential candidates, and Trump’s reluctance to endorse national restrictions would put him squarely at odds with prominent leaders of the anti-abortion movement who are demanding federal action.

Yet his refusal to embrace the most hard-line position of party activists provides an opening for potential rivals such as Florida governor Ron DeSantis and his former vice-president Mike Pence to run to his right on an issue.

Worried about the political risks of being viewed as draconian on abortion, Trump’s allies told him they were surprised last week to see DeSantis, his expected rival in the 2024 race, sign into law and become the face of the state’s six-week abortion ban.

The feedback to Trump – which is shaping his stance – was that for all the claims by DeSantis that he was supposedly an electable alternative to Trump for the GOP nomination, the Florida governor would undermine his chances in a general election by becoming the face of a six-week abortion ban.




https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... ban-stance

Trump vows to investigate prosecutors, says Biden represents anarchy
Campaign event of former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in Manchester

Nathan Layne
Thu, April 27, 2023 at 10:18 PM GMT+2
By Nathan Layne

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (Reuters) -Donald Trump said on Thursday that if he wins the 2024 presidential election, he will order the Justice Department to investigate "radical" county and state prosecutors whom he accused, without evidence, of targeting conservatives.

In a campaign speech, the former president, who faces multiple criminal investigations, said the prosecutors were "persecuting conservatives" and touched on his policy positions and personal grievances as he painted himself as a victim of the so-called Deep State.

"On day one of my new administration, I will direct the DOJ to investigate every radical district attorney and attorney general in America for their illegal, racist ... enforcement of the law," Trump told more than 1,000 supporters in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Trump faces at least four criminal investigations including a federal probe into his alleged role in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters and a recent New York indictment related to a hush money payment to a porn star. Trump has denied wrongdoing and called the investigations politically motivated.

The call for federal probes of prosecutors fits what critics have described as Trump's increasingly authoritarian rhetoric on the campaign trail. On Thursday, he repeated plans for a "truth and reconciliation commission" as part of a purge of the federal bureaucracy.

Trump also sought to reframe the choice between him and President Joe Biden. Biden, a Democrat, launched his re-election campaign two days ago with a video promising to protect personal freedoms from "extremists" linked to the former Republican president.

Trump said the U.S. was a "failing nation" and pointed to economic data on Thursday showing U.S. economic growth slowed dramatically in the first three months of 2023.




https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-paints ... 26040.html

"On day one of my new administration, I will direct the DOJ to investigate every radical district attorney and attorney general in America for their illegal, racist ... enforcement of the law," Trump told more than 1,000 supporters in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Pro-Trump pastors rebuked for ‘overt embrace of white Christian nationalism’
Mainstream Christian leaders criticize Pastors for Trump for distorting religious teachings and endangering democracy

Peter Stone in Washington
Mon 1 May 2023 09.00 BST

A far-right religious group with ties to Donald Trump loyalists Roger Stone and retired Army Lt Gen Michael Flynn, is planning events with pastors in swing state churches in Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and elsewhere to spur more evangelical backing for the former US president’s 2024 campaign.

But the group, Pastors for Trump, is drawing sharp rebukes from mainstream Christian leaders for being extremist, distorting Christian teachings and endangering American democracy, by fueling the spread of Christian nationalism.

The Tulsa, Oklahoma-based evangelical pastor and businessman Jackson Lahmeyer leads the fledgling Pastors for Trump organization. Lahmeyer told the Guardian it boasts over 7,000 pastors as members and that he will unveil details about its plans on 11 May at the Trump National Doral in Miami, an event Trump will be invited to attend.

Stone, a self styled “dirty trickster” who Trump pardoned after he was convicted of lying to Congress, is slated to join Lahmeyer in speaking on 11 May according to the pastor. Lahmeyer added he will talk more about his pro Trump group at a ReAwaken America evangelical gathering on 12 and 13 May at the Doral.

Lahmeyer said the pastors group intends to sponsor a “freedom tour” with evening church meetings in key swing states this summer, an effort that could help Trump win more backing from this key Republican voting bloc which could prove crucial to his winning the GOP nomination again.

Lahmeyer described the genesis of Pastors for Trump in dark and apocalyptic rhetoric that has echoes of Trump’s own bombast. “We’re going down a very evil path in this country,” he said. “Our economy is being destroyed. It’s China, the deep state and globalists.

“China interfered in our 2020 elections,” he added. “This is biblical what’s happening. This is a spiritual battle.’

But those ominous beliefs have drawn sharp criticism.




https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... ationalism

Flatpoint High wrote: ↑Mon May 01, 2023 11:02 pm 2es0y23ikcxa1.jpg

Slim Cognito wrote: ↑Wed May 17, 2023 8:18 am viewtopic.php?p=193951#p193951

I cross posted this in the DeSantis thread but I'm on my phone and didn't know how to copy the full blurb so I'm taking the easy way out. The fight between trump and desantis is heating up in Florida big time. This story almost made me giggle.

“Donald Trump has so deeply disparaged the state of Florida by calling it the ‘worst state,’ we at Never Back Down will help him leave by offering financial assistance to help him move to his beloved California, so he can be close to his good buddy Gavin Newsom, whom he loves so intensely and gets along with so well. The good news is that since so many people are moving to the state of Florida, thanks to the incredible success of Governor Ron DeSantis, no one will notice when Trump leaves. The state of Florida will be better off when Trump takes his Soros-fueled, dumpster fire of a campaign to San Francisco, where it will fit right in.”

Trump’s allies attempt to undermine prosecutors endangering his 2024 bid
Ex-prosecutors express criticism as key Republican allies attempt to derail investigations into former president

Peter Stone in Washington
Wed 17 May 2023 11.00 BST

As Donald Trump’s legal troubles mount at the federal, state and local levels, the ex-president and his lawyers are banking on their political allies in the Republican party to make attacks on a New York prosecutor who has charged Trump with criminal offenses, and to also get them to help derail investigations that endanger his 2024 campaign.

Former prosecutors and members of both parties have voiced strong criticism about the drives by Trump, his lawyers and Republican House allies to attack prosecutors who have filed charges against Trump or are investigating him, calling such moves antithetical to democratic principles and the rule of law.

Such criticism has not deterred Trump, his lawyers or pliable Republicans from trying to discredit prosecutors with political attacks that in part reflect Trump’s lack of success in convincing courts to curb prosecutors.

In April, the House judiciary committee chairman, Jim Jordan, a key Trump ally, publicly launched an inquiry into the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, soon after he filed a 34-count indictment of Trump for falsifying business records tied to alleged hush money payments that Trump made in 2016 to Stormy Daniels, the porn star who claimed Trump had an affair with her.

In a Fox News interview last month, Jordan echoed Trump’s attacks on Bragg for “interfering” in the coming election charging that “Alvin Bragg used federal tax dollars to go after a former president, to indict a former president for no crime, [which] interferes with the federal election”.




https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... stigations

bill_g wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2023 7:52 am Soros fueled. Soros fueled? WTF.