It was a bad week for Trump, and it sent a message to the GOP

CNN Investigates a Possible Investigation of Two Corrupt Tax Fraud Companies: Myth America: The Myth of the Biggest lies and Legends About Our Past

CNN Political analyst and professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, Julian Zelizer is also a political analyst. He is the author and editor of 24 books, including his forthcoming co-edited work, “Myth America: HistoriansTake on the Biggest lies and Legends About Our Past.” Follow him on Twitter @julianzelizer. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.

The price of supporting Donald Trump to the Republican Party keeps getting higher. The former president has gone through one of the most tumultuous weeks possible, with fresh evidence of why the party’s connection to him – and his potential nomination in 2024 – could be extraordinarily damaging.

A Manhattan jury found two of the companies in the Trump Organization guilty of criminal tax fraud and falsifying tax business records on Tuesday, though Trump and his family were not charged in the case.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/08/opinions/trump-terrible-week-message-republican-zelizer/index.html

On Trumpism, Hisschel Walker, the New York Post, Kayne West, and Fuentes: What has the media got to know about Trump?

And in Tuesday’s Senate runoff election in Georgia, Trump’s handpicked candidate, former football star Herschel Walker, lost to Sen. Raphael Warnock, giving Democrats a 51-seat majority in the Senate. In addition, that was also the day that Trump posed for photos with a conspiracy theorist.

On Wednesday, the Washington Post reported that a team of investigators hired by the former president’s lawyers, under a federal judge’s order, found two documents with classified markings in a Florida storage unit.

A week like this might shatter that status quo. Now that there are more Republicans, like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who could possibly do Trumpism in more effective fashion, the former president’s standing within the party inevitably becomes more precarious. There will be growing clamor to consider throwing the weight of the party, including the messages spread on conservative media, toward a viable alternative. The New York Post was disparaging Trump’s next run before this week even started.

Nor was this week some sort of one-off. He made more antisemitic comments after he chose to dine with Kayne West. Also at the table that evening was Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, who is a notorious promoter of racism of all kinds.

What has Trump (don’t) learned from the last 10 years? A reappraisal of Scott Reed’s discontent with the Republican Party

Scott Reed is a Republican strategist who commented this week on everything that happened and the two that came before. The writing on the wall, Reed told the New York Times, seems clear. “Abandonment,” he said, “has begun.”

Why might all of this matter now? turmoil is the main currency of Trump. As businessman, reality television celebrity and president, he has always counted on generating controversy as his central strategy for garnering media attention. He has used the investigations and attacks that come his way as a basis to position himself as an anti-establishment figure who can empathise with the common person.

Trump doesn’t strive to be loved but rather he seeks to weaponize the anger that he creates. Despite Trump’s name-calling and personal drama, he twice won the GOP presidential nomination – and the 2016 election. The same dynamic held true throughout his one-term presidency.

While many speculate about whether Trump has “gone too far,” this has never proven to be a concern to Republican powerbrokers such as Sen. Mitch McConnell. This isn’t the issue that motivates them.

It is not new for almost nothing that happened in recent weeks to be new to Trump. He has been involved in scandal from the moment he set foot in politics. The limits of power were always violated by the president. And he has a history of making remarks that invoke antisemitic tropes.

But now things might start to look different. The 2022 midterms could turn into a dividing line in the history of the Trump-Republican relationship. In Republican politics, partisan power drives decision-making above all else.

Republican officials and their rank and file have learned how to live with Trump because they think he can win, and because his loyal base can help them be victorious. Republicans showed that they would tolerate almost anything in order to protect him and that was even trying to overturn an election.

To be sure, none of these developments mean that he is done. I’ve argued that there are more than one way in which Donald Trump can get the nomination for the Democratic nomination in a few years.

Nonetheless, the frustration is mounting. Trump is in genuine danger with his party because of the recent elections. Republicans are paying attention to the ways in which Trump and his candidates cost the party majority power, not only because of the documents and tax fraud, but also because of his support of candidates he did not like. McConnell doesn’t have to serve as the minority leader, but he might be forgiven for many things.

In order for Trump to solidify his position, he will need to convince more Republicans that he’s not a loser and that he can deliver votes. This has become much more difficult with Republicans seeing Democrats in power in the White House, Senate, and many state legislatures and governorships they were hoping to win. Trump will have a much harder road ahead if Republicans conclude that by not fighting his nomination tooth and nail, they might end up handing Democrats a united government two years down the road.

Five Takeaways from the Final Jan. 6 Committee Hearing of the 2016 U.S. Capitol Maronius Drell-Yan Insrection

The congressional committee investigating the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol referred former President Donald Trump for four criminal charges related to an insurrection that he inspired because he couldn’t publicly accept that he’d lost an election.

That’s the state of American politics, with a divided populace and millions purposely not paying attention to the evidence presented by the committee, just two weeks ahead of the two-year anniversary of the riot.

The committee doesn’t have time. The committee is expected to be dissolved when Republicans take control of the House. The political ball will be decided by the voters, while the legal ball will be decided by the Justice Department.

“Accountability that can only be found in the criminal justice system,” committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. said. We have every belief that the work of this committee will help provide a road map to justice and the agencies and institutions responsible for ensuring justice under the law will use the information we have provided to aid their work.

The members of the committee believed there was enough evidence to charge former President Trump with four things.

That does not mean that Trump will be charged. The committee can’t make the Justice Department do what it wants. The Justice Department has its own investigation of Trump that’s been ongoing and currently run by special counsel Jack Smith.

Smith was appointed by Attorney General Garland as a way to show independence from the investigation when Trump announced he was running for president again.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/20/1144303656/5-takeaways-from-the-final-jan-6-committee-hearing

5 Takeaways from the Final Jan 6 Committee Hearing about the 2016 U.S. Sensitivity to Corrupt Practices in the House of Representatives

“Ours is not a system of justice, where foot soldiers go to jail and the masterminds and ringleaders get a free pass,” said committee member Jamie Raskin, D-Md., announcing the referrals.

The styles of U.S. politics before and after Trump were growing more and more like the antagonistic style of America’s past.

Whether anything happens to them, though, is unclear since Republicans will control the iteration of the ethics committee in the next Congress and McCarthy is in line to be the next speaker.

It’s been obvious to everyone who has covered Trump for a while, but it was affirmed by someone who was very close to Trump, Hope HIcks.

In taped testimony, which we heard for the first time Monday, Hicks said that she told Trump that the false claims of fraud were damaging his legacy.

“He said something along the lines of, ‘You know nobody will care about my legacy if I lose,’ ” Hicks said, ” ‘So that won’t matter, the only thing that matters is winning.’ “

There is plenty of evidence Trump — and his team — knew he lost, that the allegations of fraud were baseless and that he knew what he was doing, according to testimony from multiple former Trump administration officials.

“He was—he had—usually he had pretty clear eyes,” said Bill Stepien, the Trump 2020 campaign manager, according to written testimony released in a report by the committee. I think he was pretty realistic with what we thought the race was going to be and the forecast, because we thought he had an uphill climb.

We’d have to tell you that someone had told you about the votes, or that there’s something going on, or there’s something else. It’s an easier job to be telling the president about wild allegations if we’re the truth telling squad. It is harder to tell him that that wasn’t true.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/20/1144303656/5-takeaways-from-the-final-jan-6-committee-hearing

Take Away from the Final Jan 6 Committee-Hearing: “Trump Haters Aren’t All You Need,” Reply to Cannon

According to the report, Alex Cannon, one of Trump’s campaign lawyers, was on the phone in late November with MarkMeadows, his former boss, and said that he had found no reason to change the outcome of the election.

Trump was told by email that voter fraud was wrong and he continued to tout it in public and in court. He swore under oath that the numbers were true and correct and he believed them to be true.

These aren’t people who are aligned with Democrats or were “Never Trump” or “Trump Haters,” as the former president likes to say. In fact, the opposite is true in most of the testimony that’s been aired by the committee.

It’s no secret that the country is divided politically and partisanship, particularly among Republicans, has become entrenched. So despite the primary evidence — with testimony from Republicans who were aligned with Trump — people have been watching selectively.

“Although the Committee’s hearings were viewed live by tens of millions of Americans and widely publicized in nearly every major news source, the Committee also recognizes that other news outlets and commentators have actively discouraged viewers from watching, and that millions of other Americans have not yet seen the actual evidence addressed by this Report.”

So the committee said it’s releasing video summaries with each relevant piece of evidence. And it’s likely why the beginning of the hearing included so many clips of previously seen testimony from past hearings, almost like the recap of a prior season of a series on Netflix.

The majority of Democrats and independents said they paid a lot of attention to the hearings. But 56% of Republicans said they were not.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/20/1144303656/5-takeaways-from-the-final-jan-6-committee-hearing

Reply to Attorney General Garland’s Controversy: Are We Ready to Make Sense of the Mueller Investigation? The Case of Attorney General Neil Garland

Attorney General Garland has been irritated by the pace with which he is pursuing charges against Trump. It will be up to the special counsel whether to bring charges or not.

They do not have to act on what the committee has to say. You won’t hear much about the special counsel’s progress, as the DOJ tends to stay quiet about the ongoing investigations until they are presented in court.

It’s up to the voters to decide. Trump will likely retain support with his base. Republicans are the least likely to pay attention to these hearings. In a multi-candidate primary, Trump remains the front-runner for the GOP nomination.

But he’s in legal trouble in multiple states, not just federally, and many of his preferred candidates — and election deniers — lost in swing states. It is possible that the threat he poses to U.S. democracy and faith in its elections is due to the chaotic atmosphere that surrounds him, or that it is simply due to the fact that his brand isn’t a winner in competitive states where Republicans likely need to win to take over

The members of this committee hope the voters will respond to their plight, because some of them won’t be returning to congress because of their displeasure with Trump.

The First 150 Years of Kevin McCarthy’s Legislative Campaign: Where Do They Stand? When Do Republicans Want to Stop Hitting Joe Biden?

Kevin McCarthy’s seven-year-plus dream to become House speaker finally became reality early Saturday morning. The California Republican’s tumultuous journey concluded after six Republican holdouts voted “present,” allowing him to win on the 15th ballot with a lower majority threshold.

McCarthy was supposed to become speaker on January 3, but the Republicans delayed him. They were almost all Trump believers. One member of the last Congress voted to certify Joe Biden’s win.

The facts about what happened should be stated. McCarthy was backed by Trump from the beginning in his speakership campaign. McCarthy trumpeted Trump’s endorsement, and Trump, in turn, made his preference well known.

It would be hard to imagine the Republicans doing anything to stop Trump. This time, it was the same thing. Despite the many appeals from Trump, this year’s speakership process was the longest in over 150 years. It was the first time in a century that more than one ballot had been needed to elect the speaker.

The lawmakers in this group who had voting records are from the very conservative part of the GOP. This was where the strength of Trump was most evident during the final part of his presidency. Yet, Trump’s expressed support for McCarthy wasn’t enough to keep these hardcore conservatives in line.

According to the survey, more than half of GOP voters want their nominee to share their views on issues and the other two-fifths want a nominee who has the best chance of beating Biden. Trump led among the voters who wanted a candidate who shared their views, while Gov. Ron DeSantis led among those who prioritized electability, according to previously unpublished results provided by CNN polling director Jennifer Agiesta. The problem for DeSantis: not only was the group focused on shared values larger, but Trump led among them by nearly twice as much (nine percentage points) as the Florida governor led among those who emphasized beating Biden (five points).

It’s not that Republicans don’t like Trump. His overall favorable rating among Republicans in the same Fox News poll from last month was 77%. His rating with Republicans was put up in the 60s by other polls. They do not love the former president. Republican politicians aren’t scared to follow his every word.

Concerns about whether Trump can win in a few years is why some GOP voters are hesitant. In a February PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll, about a fifth of likely 2024 GOP voters said they believe the party would have a better chance of winning if it chose someone other than Trump, while 42% thought it would be better to pick another president. The doubts were especially deep among Republicans holding at least a four-year college degree, with 71% of them saying that another nominee would improve the party’s prospects and only 26% saying Trump represented the GOP’s best bet. White evangelical Christians, a core Trump group, leaned slightly towards someone else but even without a four-year college degree, the Republicans split evenly on that question.

Amid all the other uncertainties surrounding the possible indictment of Donald Trump, the flurry of events has made one thing unequivocally clear: the former president remains the center of the GOP universe.

House GOP leaders quickly began their attacks if the potential candidates tipped-toed around the possible indictment. The Republicans that do nothing to stop the investigation will be punished, and exposed, by the people, and they will be seen as a party that does not care about the people. McCarthy followed a few hours later with his call to investigate the investigators, which House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan and two other committee chairs moved into practice on Monday by demanding documents and testimony from the New York prosecutors. “You are reportedly about to engage in an unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority,” the chairs began their letter to Bragg. McCarthy was the one who moved away from Trump because he objected to public protests, which he insisted Trump had not asked for.

“You would think they would have learned their lesson” from Trump’s defeat in 2020 and the GOP’s surprisingly weak showing in 2022, said Jennifer Horn, a former state Republican party chair in New Hampshire, who has emerged as a staunch Trump critic. It’s like they’re addicted to him. The GOP cannot break their addiction to Trump.

In South Carolina, Wilson also expects the same kind of bifurcated reaction. Wilson thinks that a Trump indictment might reinforce what he feels was the dominant sentiment at the conference the Palmetto Family Council held in Charleston last weekend for GOP leaders and potential candidates. He said that the sentiment was based on the belief that Americans can and should focus on what is going on today, as opposed to what happened in the past. “People want to be focused on what we are doing for the next four, eight, twelve, twenty years from now, not looking in the rear-view mirror,” he added.

“I think there are core Trump voters that this galvanizes,” says Dave Wilson, a conservative strategist in South Carolina with close ties to the evangelical community. “I think that there is a much broader group of Republican/conservative voters that this may give enough pause to, to then say, ‘I’m going to at least look at everybody else in the field.’”

Once Trump posted that he could be arrested as soon as Tuesday, his allies hurried to declare that any such action would increase the odds of him winning the nomination and the presidency. “If the Manhattan DA indicts President Trump, he will ultimately win even bigger than he is already going to win,” far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia declared in a tweet Saturday. The people who want to arrest Trump don’t appreciate the backlash they will get, insisted the conservative commentator.

Those drawn to Trump are likely to dominate the initial party reaction to any indictments, Robinson said. But he also believes those voices won’t necessarily prevail when votes are cast next year. Robinson said the mostly college educated Republicans were hesitant about nominating Trump a third time because of the uproar over any indictment. “But this is the stuff they don’t want. This is the stuff that causes them a headache. This is the stuff they prefer to move on from.”

There is no guarantee that broad sentiment will amount to sufficient support for the GOP alternative to deny Trump a third nomination. A CNN poll of GOP primary voters shows that it’s difficult.

But Robinson cautioned that it may be unrealistic for the 2024 hopefuls to believe enough Republican voters will reach that conclusion on their own. If another candidate wants voters to pass over a figure that looms as large over the party as Trump, Robinson maintains, they will need to give them an explicit reason to do so – and the prospect of sustained legal trouble could provide them a powerful argument in making that case. Someone would say “We can’t be having this, this is not what the election should be about.” Robinson said.

The House GOP attack on Bragg comes after McCarthy has already provided thousands of hours of January 6 security footage to Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who used it to try to whitewash the attack. McCarthy has also allowed Greene to lead an investigation of alleged mistreatment in Washington, DC, jails of the January 6 rioters, who Trump has continued to defend and signal that he would pardon if reelected.

What Do We Really Want to Learn from 2020 Midterm Elections? Investigating the Demographics of the 2016 Midterm Biden Campaign in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Arizona

All of this followed a midterm election when Republicans underperformed historical patterns for the party out of the White House in large part because too many swing voters discontented about the economy and disenchanted with Biden still viewed the GOP alternative as too extreme. The five states that chose Biden as the nominee in 2020 lost crucial statewide races because they had shifted from Trump to Biden four years earlier. Exit polls in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Arizona found that nearly three-fifths of voters in those critical battlegrounds viewed Trump unfavorably.

Which is why Democrats are watching because of McCarthy’s tattoos of the Trump stamp onto the House GOP. Multiple elections in the past year show that there’s a new plan for the country, and it’s completely ineffectual, said Dan Sena, former executive director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “Defending Donald Trump has never been a winning electoral strategy-ever.”

Matt Bennett, executive vice president for public affairs at Third Way, a centrist Democratic group, agreed that Republicans, “may be getting the broader electorate very wrong here, as they did in 2022.” But whatever the near-term partisan consequences, Bennett, like Sena and Horn, believes the much larger and more ominous signal is the continuing indication that Republicans, especially in the House, are willing to break almost any convention to protect Trump.

“It’s profoundly dangerous and bad,” Bennett said. This is how countries get into serious trouble by being quisling to strong men.