By Frank Ordonez, Updated September 1, 20229:31 PM ET
President Joe Biden speaks outside Independence Hall on Sept. 1, in Philadelphia. Evan Vucci/AP
President Biden on Thursday warned Americans that democracy is under attack from a faction of the Republican party led by former President Donald Trump, and called on Democrats, mainstream Republicans and independents to “speak up, speak out, get engaged — vote, vote, vote.”
In a rare prime time speech, Biden attacked his predecessor, saying that “too much of what’s happening in our country today isn’t normal.” The speech came just two months ahead of midterm congressional elections, where Democrats are fighting to keep their slim majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives.
Biden said the Republican party is “dominated, driven, intimidated by Donald Trump” and his supporters, calling it “a threat to this country.”
Former U.S. President Donald Trump leaves Trump Tower to meet with New York Attorney General Letitia James for a civil investigation on August 10, 2022 in New York City. James Devaney/GC Images
Former President Donald Trump claims that he “will do whatever” he can to bring down “the temperature” following last week’s FBI’s raid of his Florida home and club, Mar-a-Lago. But even a glimpse of Truth Social — Trump’s social media company — shows that the MAGA website has been a haven for private, doxxed information not only about authorities involved in the federal raid, but also of their families.
A review of Truth Social postings by Rolling Stone shows Trump supporters have spent the past week doxxing both Judge Bruce Reinhart, the magistrate judge who approved the Mar-a-Lago warrant, and an FBI agent involved in preparing the request, as well as their families. The information includes their purported home addresses, phone numbers, places of worship, private offices, and similar information about the men’s families and junior employees.
The first public hearing of the January 6th Congressional Committee, as seen on TV, on June 9, 2022. The first hearing included video clips of the insurrection and testimony. Video of Donald Trump’s speech at the Ellipse in Washington DC on January 6th, the day of the insurrection.\By Mark Peterson/Redux.
If you’re reading this, then you probably already know: Donald Trump is reportedly thinking about running for president a third time. As he would only be one of a handful of ex-presidents to run again after losing reelection, there aren’t a lot of historical parallels for this, should he announce. But it would kind of be like the bubonic plague announcing a comeback and expecting people to be happy about it. Or your oncologist telling you your stage IV cancer had returned. Or the worst president in modern history, the one who incited a violent coup because his ego is so fragile he couldn’t admit he’d lost, deciding to take another stab at terrorizing the nation for another four years. Something like that.
Does Trump actually have a shot at winning? That he has a greater than 0% chance of doing so should terrify everyone in this country, as well as the people living in the countries he’d probably drop a bomb on if given the chance—and considering the 74,223,369 who voted for him last time, including those who have publicly stated he’s a danger to society but would nevertheless still vote for him again, his odds are clearly a lot higher than that.
Though a New York Times/Siena College poll this week found nearly half of the party’s primary voters wanting someone else in 2024, Trump still leads the field—and thus remains the favorite to take the Republican nomination if he runs. And as Politico noted Tuesday, Trump “could launch his third campaign any day now.”
In short, if you’ve been paying any attention at all, this news has no doubt caused you to panic, driven you to drink, or ripped through your stomach like a batch of bad oysters shucked by Mr. Mar-a-Lago himself, who you know ignores the “employees must wash hands before returning to work” sign. To be clear, given the circumstances, these are appropriate responses.
But maybe you still need convincing. Or maybe you know a person who knows a person who still needs convincing. Whatever your situation, the following is a list of some of the many reasons why Donald Trump should never be allowed inside the White House again. Not even as a guest! Not even as a school trip chaperone standing quietly and respectfully in the back. It doesn’t include literally every reason, seeing as our fingers would break off before we could get through every single one. But for anyone wondering if it would really be that bad, it should be enough to convince them that yes, it would really be that fucking bad.
Cassidy Hutchinson testified in the January 6 committee hearing that Trump attacked his security detail, threw his lunch against the wall and raged at staff on Jan. 6 for not letting him go to the Capitol alongside rioters.
Cassidy Hutchinson says Trump wanted a bigger crowd at his rally, and he said:
"I don't fucking care that they have weapons. They're not here to hurt me. Take the fucking mags away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here.” #January6thHearingspic.twitter.com/cRJkpIkv7C
Irate that he could not storm the Capitol with his supporters on January 6, Donald Trump physically assaulted a member of his security detail and attempted to grab the steering wheel of the car he was in, a former top White House aide said in an explosive public testimony Tuesday.
According to Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, the ex-president entered a secure vehicle after his January 6 speech believing he was going to be driven to Capitol Hill, where he’d just urged supporters to march and “fight” on his behalf — even though he’d been warned they were armed and that he may be engaging in illegal conduct.
But Robert Engel, the head of his security team at the time, said that was not possible and that he was instead being transported back to the White House. Trump was incensed, Hutchinson told the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack, recounting what Engel and former Deputy Chief of Staff Tony Ornato told her after the incident.
“I’m the fucking president,” Trump allegedly said. “Take me up to the Capitol now.”
Former President Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Delaware, Ohio, on April 23, 2022. Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein said former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election was something not even former President Richard Nixon would have imagined.
In an op-ed in The Washington Post, the two reporters known for uncovering the Watergate scandal said they thought Nixon defined corruption until they saw Trump’s presidency. In 1972, the Nixon administration coordinated a break-in at the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters. The administration attempted to cover up its involvement until Nixon was forced to resign in 1974.
Woodward and Bernstein said the news media, the Senate Watergate Committee, special prosecutors, a House impeachment investigation, and the Supreme Court exposed Nixon’s conduct, a contrast to Trump’s attempt to prevent the peaceful transition of power. “These instruments of American democracy finally stopped Nixon dead in his tracks, forcing the only resignation of a president in American history,” the reporters wrote.
As for Trump, Woodward and Bernstein said his “diabolical instincts exploited a weakness in the law,” referring to the 1887 Electoral Count Act.” In a deception that exceeded even Nixon’s imagination, Trump and a group of lawyers, loyalists and White House aides devised a strategy to bombard the country with false assertions that the 2020 election was rigged and that Trump had really won,” they said.
from article…
In the weeks leading up to the certification, Trump and his allies continued to claim that he lost the election because it was rigged, even waging lawsuits in several key states.”
We watched in utter dismay as Trump persistently claimed that he was really the winner. ‘We won,’ he said in a speech on Jan. 6 at the Ellipse. ‘We won in a landslide. This was a landslide.’
He publicly and relentlessly pressured Pence to make him the victor on Jan. 6,” Trump supporters on January 6,2021 stormed the Capitol. Woodward and Bernstein said Trump’s actions were “clearly sedition — conduct, speech or organizing that incites people to rebel against the governing authority of the state. Thus, Trump became the first seditious president in our history.”
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