Inside Trump’s latest flurry of controversial Cabinet picks

In the days after President-elect Donald Trump’s victory, allies described his transition effort as far more disciplined than his first post-victory period in 2016.

Then, a 24-hour stretch — that started with Trump’s selection of Fox News host Pete Hegseth as defense secretary on Tuesday night, included tapping former Hawaii Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence on Wednesday, and culminated with his selection of bomb-throwing Florida congressman Matt Gaetz as attorney general later that day — turned that perception on its head.

Their selections — which followed Trump finding the other candidates he’d interviewed boring, and searching for firebrands — represented the ascendancy of the president-elect’s “Make America Great Again” orbit over the more traditional Republican establishment.

And they underscored the quality the president-elect values most as he prepares to return to the Oval Office: Loyalty.

Trump’s latest round of Cabinet announcements stunned much of Washington. But the hair-raising nature of Trump’s picks was intended to be a feature, not a bug, say people briefed by the team.

“People being in a state of shock was the goal, that’s exactly what the MAGA gang wants,” said one Trump ally, requesting anonymity to discuss private deliberations with the president-elect’s team. “They want people who are a total challenge to the system.”

Trump on Wednesday visited Washington, where he met privately for nearly two hours with President Joe Biden and visited lawmakers. On Capitol Hill, Republicans were gathering to choose the party’s leaders for the next Congress — with House Speaker Mike Johnson retaining his gavel, and South Dakota Sen. John Thune winning a three-way race to lead the Senate GOP.

But the real action has been at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, where the president-elect is surrounding himself with political allies old and new, such as Elon Musk — who was in the room Wednesday when Trump met with House Republicans in DC. Trump joked that he couldn’t get rid of the billionaire Tesla and SpaceX pioneer whom he’d tapped as the co-leader of what he’s calling the new Department of Government Efficiency.

“He loves Mar-a-Lago,” Trump said of Musk.

Unlike Trump Tower in 2016, where candidates strode by a rope line of reporters before stepping into the elevator to meet Trump, there are no cameras at Mar-a-Lago to capture the gauntlet of candidates traveling in to kiss Trump’s ring. Between the conservative think tanks and Trump’s own transition members, extensive work had already been done on personnel and day-one policies this time around – compared to Trump ripping up former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s 2016 transition playbook and starting from scratch.

Trump’s transition team includes close to 100 people, with some working at Mar-a-Lago and others at the campaign office in Palm Beach and in Washington. The team develops lists of candidates for key posts, runs through the pros and cons with the president-elect and then whittles those lists down for interviews. Some of the names of top contenders are handed off to research firms to be vetted.

And then there is Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles, whose iron grip on Trump is said to be among the key qualities that landed her the job. Sources close to the transition said some of the unpredictable picks shouldn’t belie the discipline Wiles has instilled.

“The discipline is that none of it leaked,” said one source close to the transition, referring to the Hegseth, Gabbard and Gaetz selections.

Inside Trump’s transition

Trump’s transition effort had begun with relatively orthodox choices — including Wiles, who led Trump’s campaign, as chief of staff. CNN reported on Monday Trump was likely to tap Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for secretary of state – an announcement he made official on Wednesday.

But Trump, frustrated by his short list of potential Pentagon chiefs, chose Hegseth, a combat veteran and strident Trump promoter in his role as a Fox News host, who had abruptly been called to travel to Mar-a-Lago on Monday and announced as Trump’s choice for defense secretary after they met the next day.

Then, on Wednesday, Trump announced Gabbard, who sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 and left the party in 2022, for director of national intelligence — another nomination sure to set off a major confirmation battle.

Gabbard, who served in the Army National Guard before joining the US Army Reserve, like Trump, has expressed an isolationist approach to foreign policy. And like Trump, she has frequently appeared to take positions more favorable to foreign leaders widely considered not just American adversaries, but in some cases, murderers, including the presidents of Syria and Russia.

Longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon told CNN he had taken Gabbard to meet with Trump about joining his first administration in 2016.

“It did not work out then, but now we have one of the strongest America First proponents nominated to take charge of an out-of-control and destructive intelligence community,” Bannon said.

To be sure, MAGA favorites have been cast aside for other roles. Donald Trump Jr. favored longtime Trump loyalist Richard Grenell to serve as secretary of state, despite questions about whether Grenell could be confirmed.

Trump believed he owed a big job to Rubio, who was runner-up for the vice presidential nomination and campaigned closely — and bilingually — with Trump in the final stretch, especially after the Florida Republican stood quietly by as comedian Tony Hinchcliffe denigrated Puerto Ricans at a Madison Square Garden rally. Rubio later had to field questions on the matter from reporters, whom he told it “wasn’t a good idea” for Hinchliffe to have been at the rally.

As the final considerations for the State Department were being discussed, Vice President-elect JD Vance, who at other times has urged the team not to pick a “neocon,” sources said, was quiet when it came to Grenell’s defense. A source close to Vance denied that characterization.

How Trump chose Gaetz

Multiple sources close to Trump have described the president-elect as feeling he had a mandate to deliver on his campaign-trail promises — including dismantling the Justice Department — after winning the popular vote against Vice President Kamala Harris.

Much like his defense secretary pick, Trump had also grown frustrated with his options for attorney general. He had considered some candidates, including Mark Paoletta and Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, but “wasn’t blown away by anyone,” and none of them “checked the all the boxes,” a source familiar with Trump’s transition effort said. Another source said Trump was looking for more of a firebrand.

The role of attorney general has long been viewed by Trump as one of, if not the, most important positions he would fill. When he left office in January 2021, he privately griped that his biggest regret was who he had chosen to lead the Justice Department — specifically referring to his attorneys general Jeff Sessions and William Barr, both of whom, by the end of his term, he viewed as disloyal.

Now, Trump plans to scrap the Justice Department’s tradition of operating independently from White House political pressure. He has also been given reassurance by the Supreme Court’s recent decision that presidents receive immunity for official acts. Trump has told those working on the transition that this time, he wants to surround himself with people who will carry out his agenda and those he can trust — with loyalty remaining the leading prerequisite.

Gaetz — a longtime supporter of Trump who two sources familiar with his plans said spent several days at Mar-a-Lago over the past week — fit that bill, even though he is a controversial figure loathed by many Republicans on Capitol Hill in part because of his role in ousting former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in 2023 and throwing the party into weeks of chaos.

Those sources added that a slate of deputy attorneys general who weren’t expected to have reputations as controversial as Gaetz would follow, and would be tasked with executing the day-to-day operations of the department.

Trump is seriously considering naming his lead attorney Todd Blanche to serve as the next deputy attorney general, the second-highest position in the Justice Department, according to two people familiar with his thinking.

Blanche has represented Trump for the last 18 months and defended him during his criminal hush money trial in Manhattan earlier this year. Because of his proximity to Trump and Trump’s trust in him, it was widely expected inside the president-elect’s inner circle that if he won, Blanche would likely follow him into the federal government.

One person close to the matter cautioned that no final decisions have been made.

Confirmation battle looms

In choosing Gaetz, Trump is ignoring concerns about the Florida Republican’s ability to be confirmed by the Senate, which stem from his move to oust McCarthy and an ethics probe into him.

Gaetz opted to resign from Congress on Wednesday — a decision that could prevent the House Ethics Committee from releasing a long-awaited report that was expected to be made public as soon as Friday.

The committee had been probing allegations that Gaetz may have “engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, dispensed special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct.” Gaetz has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, including ever having sex with a minor or paying for sex.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said Gaetz’s resignation will allow Florida to fill his seat close to the start of the new Congress on January 3, when Republicans will have a slim majority.

“We’re grateful for that,” Johnson said.

But selections like Gaetz will soon test the willingness of Republicans on Capitol Hill to go along with Trump’s wishes.

There are already signs a heated confirmation battle is brewing.

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski called Gaetz an “unserious candidate” to helm the Justice Department. Maine Sen. Susan Collins, another Republican, said she was “shocked” by the nomination. Asked if Gaetz can win confirmation, Texas Sen. John Cornyn responded: “We’ll find out, won’t we.”

Trump has even floated circumventing the Senate entirely by filling Cabinet posts through recess appointments. Thune said Wednesday he would “explore all options” to confirm Trump’s picks.

“We always allow the president to have the benefit of the doubt, but we still have to do our role in terms of due diligence,” said Sen. Mike Rounds, another South Dakota Republican.

He would not say whether he would vote to confirm Gaetz, or predict whether Gaetz would win the Senate’s approval.

“I just don’t have a magic wand in front of me, or, for that matter, a crystal ball,” Rounds said. “I can’t tell you that.”

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/14/politics/trump-controversial-cabinet-picks/index.html

As Trump grasps unprecedented power, the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity looms large

The roiling debate over the strength of democratic restraints to keep Donald Trump in check when he returns to the White House in January has put a renewed focus on a divisive Supreme Court ruling that some fear could enable his worst impulses.

Trump’s sweeping election victory has relit fears on the left of an empowered president pushing the boundaries of his authority – only now with a precedent in hand that grants far-reaching immunity from criminal prosecution.

Taken together, the political and legal alignment will usher Trump into a second term with unprecedented power following a campaign in which he vowed to fire special counsel Jack Smith “within two seconds” of his inauguration and has flirted with the idea that President Joe Biden himself “could be a convicted felon.”

“For 250 years, the possibility of criminal prosecution operated as a guard rail on the conduct of our presidents,” said Neil Eggleston, a veteran attorney who served as White House counsel in the Obama administration. “That guard rail is now gone, and I see few if any others that will constrain President Trump.”

In a highly anticipated ruling on July 1 that came over the objection of the three-justice liberal wing, the Supreme Court held that Trump enjoyed “absolute” immunity from prosecution for actions taken within his core constitutional powers and a more limited immunity for other official actions.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that Congress couldn’t criminalize a president’s conduct when he is “carrying out the responsibilities of the executive branch.”

Based on their statements at oral argument, it was clear that several conservative justices saw the ruling not as a gift to Trump but rather as a way to head off spiraling and potentially politically motivated prosecutions. And while the decision may accomplish that – complicating any effort to prosecute Biden once he leaves office, for instance – it is also widely viewed as removing a check on a president who chafed at the concept of boundaries.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned in her dissent that the decision would set up future presidents to be “a king above the law.” Noting an often-quoted hypothetical about Navy SEALs being ordered to kill political opponents, Sotomayor relayed worst-case scenarios.

“Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune,” she wrote. “Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.”

Justice Department ‘problem’

But just how far that immunity extends is murky. The Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision left many questions unanswered and lower courts have not yet wrestled with them. And they may not get the chance: Within hours of Trump winning, Smith was discussing with Justice Department officials how to wind down the federal cases against him.

It’s not likely that Trump or anyone else will have a firm sense by January of what constitutes “official actions” that are entitled to immunity, for instance. It is doubtful that the White House or prosecutors will know for certain when they can overcome the “presumptive immunity” the Supreme Court said applies to most of a president’s actions. It’s also not clear how the court defines the “core” constitutional functions of a president that the opinion said are entitled to “absolute immunity.”

Much of that analysis, the majority wrote, “is best left to the lower courts.”

What is exceptionally clear in the Supreme Court’s ruling from July is the notion that a president’s discussions with Justice Department officials are completely immune from prosecution. Smith’s first indictment in the election subversion case alleged Trump pressured Justice Department officials to “conduct sham election crime investigations” and send letters to states falsely claiming Election Day problems as part of a broader effort to encourage them to submit fake electors for certification.

But the Supreme Court majority ruled that a president’s power to direct the Justice Department’s investigative and prosecutorial work is within his exclusive constitutional authority. Trump, the majority ruled, “is therefore absolutely immune from prosecution for the alleged conduct involving his discussions with Justice Department officials.”

When Smith submitted a new indictment this summer, Trump’s alleged interactions with the Justice Department were gone.

Going forward, those interactions are of particular concern for ethics experts. The same would presumably apply to Trump’s oversight of intelligence services and the military, though the high court wasn’t explicit on those points.

“At least for the short term, the problem is the Justice Department,” said Richard Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush. “The president has near-complete control.”

That is particularly alarming, Painter said, given Trump’s rhetoric during the campaign. The former president has vowed to “go after” Biden and “the entire Biden crime family.” He has also called on Vice President Kamala Harris to be prosecuted.

Some checks remain

Trump’s supporters brush aside the remarks as campaign hyperbole – an extension of the “lock her up” chants at his 2016 rallies that were meant to intimidate Hillary Clinton but never materialized once he entered office.

Others pointed to institutional checks on a president’s power that were in place during Trump’s first term – and remain today. While the Supreme Court granted former presidents wide immunity, the ruling made no such promises to aides in the White House or Justice Department. That could create a line of defense against a president pushing to the edge of the law.

On the other hand, Trump has made clear that he learned from his first term – when White House aides frequently stepped in to thwart him – and has made clear that, this time around, he will install loyalists instead. And a president has significant pardon powers.

The Supreme Court on Friday is also considering whether to hear arguments in an appeal from former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, who wants to move his Georgia federal election subversion case to federal court – where he will raise his own immunity claims. A decision could come as soon as Tuesday.

The Supreme Court’s immunity ruling this year also doesn’t change the way federal prosecutors think about evidence, the law and the types of cases that can actually move forward before a judge. Even the conservative Supreme Court and several lower courts repeatedly blocked Trump, who according to a study last year had the worst win rate at the high court of any modern president.

“There’s no law against the president expressing his opinion about who should or shouldn’t be prosecuted, but the Constitution and ethics rules prohibit prosecutors from selecting people for prosecution based on their political views,” Rod Rosenstein, a veteran attorney who worked in the Justice Department in three presidential administrations, told CNN.

“The department didn’t investigate people unless it was justified by the facts and the law during President Trump’s first term,” he said. “And it probably won’t do so in his second term.”

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/08/politics/trump-grasps-unprecedented-power-supreme-court-immunity/index.html

Trump promised to get revenge. Here are his targets.

Donald Trump ran a campaign based on retribution. Now he is perfectly positioned to carry it out.

For years, Trump has peppered his speeches and social media posts with vengeful calls for his political opponents, his critics and members of the media to be prosecuted, locked up, deported and even executed. In the waning weeks of the 2024 campaign, he escalated those promises of retaliation to a fever pitch.

Now that he’s won, he has both a popular mandate — and the power — to begin implementing his platform of punishment.

Many Trump supporters dismissed the threats as campaign rhetoric aimed at whipping up his base. They noted that his exhortations against his enemies only rarely led to action during his first four years in office.

But others — including some of Trump’s closest advisers — have warned ominously that he’s far more likely to follow through in a second term. He won’t be inhibited by the need to run for reelection. He will be emboldened by a Supreme Court ruling that grants presidents broad immunity from criminal accountability after they leave office. And he is expected to be surrounded by aides more willing to dispense with norms to carry out his wishes.

Based on Trump’s own words, here are the people who have the most to fear.

President Joe Biden

Trump has frequently called Biden corrupt and, in June, reposted a Truth Social message that said he should be “arrested for treason.” In a speech last year, Trump vowed: “I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family.”

Vice President Kamala Harris

Trump has described Harris’ failure to control migration as so severe that people have been “murdered because of her action at the border.” He told a campaign rally in Pennsylvania in September that Harris “should be impeached and prosecuted” for her role in permitting what he termed an “invasion” of the U.S. by undocumented immigrants.

Former President Barack Obama

In 2020, Trump accused Obama of “treason” for what Trump describes as the FBI’s surveillance of his 2016 presidential campaign over its ties to Russia. In fact, the email snooping was aimed at a former foreign policy adviser to that campaign.

In August of this year, Trump reposted a message on Truth Social calling for “public military tribunals” for Obama.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

“Lock her up!” was a memorable refrain of Trump’s 2016 campaign rallies, alluding vaguely to Clinton’s use of a private email account while secretary of state and the ensuing FBI investigation, which did not lead to any charges.

In an interview in June of this year, Trump suggested Clinton should face the same sort of criminal prosecutions brought against him. “Wouldn’t it be terrible to throw the president’s wife and the former secretary of state … into jail?” Trump told Newsmax. “It’s a terrible, terrible, path that they’re leading us to and it’s very possible that it’s going to have to happen to them.”

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi

In September, Trump said Pelosi should face criminal charges in connection with her husband’s sale of Visa stock a few months before the Justice Department sued the company for alleged antitrust violations. “Nancy Pelosi should be prosecuted for that,” Trump said.

He also said Pelosi should be prosecuted for failing to ensure adequate security at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump supporters stormed the building as Congress was preparing to certify Biden’s win in the 2020 presidential race.

In a speech Monday, Trump said Pelosi “could’ve gone to jail for” theatrically ripping up a copy of Trump’s State of the Union address while sitting behind him on the House rostrum in 2020.

New York Attorney General Letitia James

James earned Trump’s ire as a result of the lawsuit she brought alleging widespread fraud in Trump’s business empire. The case resulted in a judgment of more than $450 million against Trump, who has appealed.

Last November, Trump said on Truth Social that James “should be prosecuted” for her role in the suit. In January, he said at a campaign rally in Iowa that James “should be arrested and punished accordingly.”

Trump has also reportedly expressed enthusiasm about plans some of his legal supporters have discussed to prosecute James for election interference.

A lot more at https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/06/trump-retribution-enemy-list-00187725

Biden extends a shock olive branch after Trump's crushing election win

President Joe Biden has called Donald Trump to congratulate him for his dominant victory over Kamala Harris and invited him to the White House.

The 81-year-old commander-in-chief extended the olive branch to the president-elect a week after calling his supporters 'garbage' and hours after he was confirmed as his successor.

The White House confirmed Biden and Trump spoke on the phone on Wednesday afternoon and 'emphasized the importance of working to bring the country together' as well as a 'smooth transition'.

It was a similar tone Kamala Harris took when she called the 78-year-old to finally concede the election after Trump swept the majority of the swing states.

Trump and Biden frequently exchanged very personal jabs during the campaign, with the Republican targeting the president's decline and the Democrat saying he was the sort of person he would like to 'smack in the a**'.

Biden has said he will go to Trump's inauguration, after the president-elect skipped his in 2020 and instead flew straight to Mar-a-Lago. 

Harris had a warning for the president-elect, lecturing him even as she congratulated him.

'She discussed the importance of a peaceful transfer of power and being a president for all Americans,' a senior Harris aide said.

Harris, during her campaign, repeatedly vowed to a be a president 'for all Americans.'

She will concede to the nation at Howard University later today - almost 12 hours after the election was called for her Republican rival. Trump is spending the day at his home at Mar-a-Lago.

The calls came hours after Trump was declared the winner, leaving Democrats reeling and in shock.

Harris's concession call, which was confirmed shortly before 2 pm ET, came after Michigan was called for the president-elect, giving him the third state in the 'blue wall' of states that would decide the election.

Trump's team confirmed the Harris call and said the president-elect acknowledged Harris' 'professionalism' and 'tenacity.'

'President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris spoke by phone earlier today where she congratulated him on his historic victory,' Trump communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement.

'President Trump acknowledged Vice President Harris on her strength, professionalism, and tenacity throughout the campaign, and both leaders agreed on the importance of unifying the country.'

Trump now has 292 electoral votes to Harris' 224. It takes 270 to win the presidency.

Harris is on track to do worse than Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential election. She could even be on pace to have the worst Electoral College result of any Democrat since the 1988 race.

Democrats were counting on the 'blue wall' to give Harris the White House. But Trump won the trio of states - Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14050517/Biden-Trump-White-House-2024-election-invite.html

IT'S GAME OVER FOR KAMALA HARRIS.

Donald Trump's Chances of Winning Election Plunge With Betting Markets

Over the past few days, the chances of Donald Trump winning the 2024 presidential election have deteriorated noticeably with a number of leading betting companies.

Kalshi, a prediction market website, gave Trump a 64 percent chance of victory at 9 p.m. ET on October 29, against 36 percent for Democratic rival Kamala Harris. However, as of 8 a.m. ET on Friday, Trump's chances had declined to 56 percent, against 44 percent for Harris. With Polymarket, another predictions website where customers can buy and sell shares on events taking place, Trump's odds of winning fell from 67 percent on October 30 to 63 percent on November 1. The same period saw Harris's odds improve from 33 percent to 37 percent.

Polling indicates the 2024 presidential election remains close, with an analysis of recent surveys by election website FiveThirtyEight released on Friday giving Harris a 1.2 point national lead, with 47.9 percent of the vote against 46.8 percent for Trump. However, overall, FiveThirtyEight has Trump as favorite with a 53 percent chance of victory, against 47 percent for Harris. Due to the Electoral College system, a candidate can win the most votes but lose the election overall, as happened to Hillary Clinton in 2016.

On October 29, bookmakers Bet365, PaddyPower and Betfair all gave Trump odds of 1/2 (66.7 percent) on achieving victory on November 5. However, by November 1, the first two of these had lengthened his odds to 4/7 (63.6 percent) whilst they moved to 8/15 (65.2 percent) with Betfair. Over the same period, Trump's odds on winning went from 8/15 (65.2 percent) to 8/13 (61.9 percent) with Betfred.

Newsweek contacted the Donald Trump and Kamala Harris presidential election campaigns for comment on Friday by email outside of regular office hours.

In response, on Wednesday, Trump, wearing an orange fluorescent vest, was photographed in a garbage truck featuring his campaign branding during a visit to Wisconsin. Addressing reporters Trump said: "How do you like my garbage truck? This truck is in honor of Kamala and Joe Biden."

The Republican nominee later joked he'd agreed to wear the orange vest, which sparked a viral reaction on social media, after his team told him it made him look thinner.

At a rally in Green Bay, Trump said his initial reaction to the suggestion was "no way," but his team replied: "If you did, you know, it actually makes you look thinner."

The former president continued: "They got me. I said, 'I want to wear it on stage.' I may never wear a blue jacket again.'"

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trumps-chances-winning-election-plunge-betting-markets-1978489

Barbie doll version of Kamala Harris kym?

Mel Gibson Says Kamala Harris Has ‘Got the IQ of a Fence Post,’ Voices Support for Donald Trump

Kamala Harris has decidedly proven to be the more popular presidential candidate among talent in the entertainment industry this election, with recent campaign rally appearances including Bruce Springsteen, Eminem, Julia Roberts and Spike Lee. But Donald Trump can now count a new Hollywood name among his supporters: Mel Gibson. In a new video published by TMZ on Thursday evening, Gibson offered a brief interview to a cameraman while heading toward TSA at an airport.

“I don’t think it’s going to surprise anyone who I vote for,” Gibson said. The cameraman, after some thought, answers with, “I’m gonna guess Trump. Is that a bad guess?”

“I think that’s a pretty good guess,” Gibson responded. “I know what it’ll be like if we let her in. And that ain’t good. Miserable track record. No policies to speak of. She’s got the IQ of a fence post.”

Gibson, one of the most in-demand marquee actors of the end of the 20th century and an Oscar-winning director for “Braveheart,” hasn’t been the most vocal political mind in the press in recent years, though he was documented saluting former President Trump near a UFC match in 2021. The actor’s jab at Harris echoes a frequent line of attack against Harris by Trump, who has been wont to call her a “low IQ” candidate in recent campaign appearances.

Earlier this year, Trump voiced his own love for Gibson on his social media platform Truth Social, sharing a meme featuring images of a clean-cut Gibson and the actor’s more battle-worn look in “Braveheart,” captioning each with “Me voting for Trump” in 2016 and 2024, respectively. He added the line, “Either way, Mel Gibson is GREAT!”

After helming box office triumphs like “The Passion of the Christ” and “Apocalypto,” Gibson largely exited the industry for several years after he was arrested for a DUI in 2006 and was recorded unleashing an anti-Semitic rant. Leaked tapes in 2010 documented further racist remarks by Gibson, including the use of slurs, to his then-girlfriend, Oksana Grigorieva. She later alleged that he was physically abusive.

Since that hiatus, Gibson has continued to work regularly as an actor. He made a prestige comeback in 2016 with the war drama “Hacksaw Ridge,” which landed him an Oscar nomination for directing, as well as nods in best picture and best actor for star Andrew Garfield.

https://variety.com/2024/film/news/mel-gibson-kamala-harris-fence-post-trump-1236190421/

Kamala Harris Gets Bad Sign from New National Poll

Vice President Kamala Harris' narrow lead over former President Donald Trump is shrinking, with a new national poll indicating the 2024 presidential race is tightening just weeks before Election Day.

A recent Emerson College survey of 1,000 likely voters shows Harris leading Trump by just one percentage point, with 49 percent supporting Harris and 48 percent backing Trump. The poll has a margin of error of three percentage points.

The race is now nearly deadlocked, with both candidates splitting the national vote and drawing closer in key battleground states. Harris, who was two points ahead of Trump late last month, is now barely edging out the Republican nominee.

This narrowing gap could be a worrying sign for Harris.

Spencer Kimball, Executive Director of Emerson College Polling, said that while the margin between the candidates has held steady since early September, with Harris maintaining a slight edge, "it is less than Biden's four-point lead in Emerson's 2020 national polls at this time."

The poll also reveals a clear gender divide. Trump leads among men, with 56 percent backing him, compared to 42 percent who support Harris.

Fifty-five percent of women support Harris, while 41 percent say they support Trump.

This gap reflects broader U.S. election trends, where men tend to lean toward Trump, while women tend to favor Harris.

Voter sentiment also remains deeply polarized, according to the survey.

Among those who have already made up their minds, 80 percent said they decided who they were voting for more than a month ago. Early deciders tend to favor Trump (52 percent), while those deciding more recently favor Harris (60 percent).

Three percent of voters are still undecided, and although that's a small percentage, it could still shift the outcome of the election, especially in such a close race. Kimball noted that while undecided voters slightly lean toward Harris, the poll's margin of error means their final choice could tip the scales either way.

A Good Week for Trump

This shrinking gap is especially troubling for Harris, given how past elections have played out.

As Kimball pointed out, Joe Biden had a stronger lead over Trump at this stage in the 2020 election, which provided a buffer heading into the final weeks of the campaign.

Similarly, Hillary Clinton had a significant edge over Trump in 2016, before Trump made a dramatic comeback in the final weeks before the election.

On Thursday, Nate Silver's forecast confirmed the momentum shifting toward Trump, noting that his chances of winning are at their highest since August. The updated model reflected several strong polling numbers in Trump's favor in crucial swing states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

Silver's latest projections show Trump holding a slight edge in the Electoral College, with a 50.2 percent chance of winning, compared to Harris' 49.5 percent — despite Harris having a 75 percent chance of winning the popular vote.

https://www.newsweek.com/kamala-harris-trump-lead-shrinks-new-poll-1971354

Trump is ‘fascist to the core,’ Milley says in Woodward book

Retired Gen. Mark A. Milley warned that former president Donald Trump is a “fascist to the core” and “the most dangerous person to this country” in new comments voicing his mounting alarm at the prospect of the Republican nominee’s election to another term, according to a forthcoming book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward.

Milley, 66, served for more than a year as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Trump before continuing in the role under President Joe Biden.

Upon stepping down in September 2023 after more than 40 years in the military, Milley laid out his apparent concerns about Trump in a pointed retirement speech. “We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, to a tyrant or dictator or wannabe dictator,” he said.

Woodward’s new book, “War,” due out Tuesday, follows Milley in the years after the Trump administration as he wrestles with escalating fears over the president he once served.

Milley was a source for Woodward’s 2021 book, “Peril,” sharing his worries about Trump’s mental stability and national security decisions, according to excerpts of his new book. Upon seeing Woodward again at a reception in March 2023, he told the author that his concerns had grown more dire.

“I glimpsed it when I talked to you back — for ‘Peril,’ but I now know it. I now know it,” he said.

“No one has ever been as dangerous to this country as Donald Trump,” the general told Woodward. “Now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is the most dangerous person to this country.”

By the following year, Milley was receiving a “nonstop barrage of death threats” that he attributed to Trump’s political rhetoric and his fixation on retribution for his perceived enemies, Woodward writes.

After retiring, Milley installed bulletproof glass and blast-proof curtains at his home.

He also fears being recalled to uniform to be court-martialed “for disloyalty,” should Trump win against Vice President Kamala Harris in November, Woodward writes.

“He is a walking, talking advertisement of what he’s going to try to do,” Milley warned former colleagues, according to the book, in reference to a 2020 Oval Office meeting with Milley and former defense secretary, Mark T. Esper, in which Trump threatened to court-martial two military officers, Stanley McChrystal and William H. McRaven, who had been critical of the president after retiring.

“I will order them back to active duty and then I will court-martial them!” Trump yelled, according to Woodward. Esper wrote a similar account of the meeting in his own 2022 book.

“He’s saying it and it’s not just him, it’s the people around him,” Milley told colleagues.

Milley, who formerly served as chief of staff of the Army, had a strained 16-month tenure in the Trump administration. In 2020, after the police killing of George Floyd, he joined the president and other top administration officials to appear outside a church for a photo opportunity in Washington, after Trump had ordered demonstrators be removed from Lafayette Square near the White House.

Milley later apologized for being there. “My presence in that moment, and in that environment, created the perception of the military involved in domestic politics,” he said at the time.

Another clash came after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, when Milley called his then-counterpart in the Chinese government, Gen. Li Zuocheng, to reassure him that the country and its international relations would remain stable.

“My task at that time was to de-escalate,” Milley told the Senate Armed Services Committee in testimony to Congress later that year. “My message again was consistent: calm, steady, de-escalate. We are not going to attack you.”

Afterward, Trump wrote in a post on his social media platform that if Milley was giving China “a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States,” it would amount to “an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”

Numerous national security officials, retired military leaders and Republicans have announced their support for Harris, according to a tally by The Post.

Milley could not be reached for comment Saturday, and the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/10/12/mark-milley-donald-trump-fascist/

Exclusive: Harris' lead over Trump narrows to 46% vs 43%, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds

Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris led Republican Donald Trump by a marginal three percentage points - 46% to 43% - as the two remain locked in a close race to win the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.

The four-day poll completed on Monday showed Trump, who had trailed Harris by six points in a Sept 20-23 Reuters/Ipsos poll, was the preferred candidate for a range of economic issues and that some voters might be swayed by his claims that immigrants in the country illegally are prone to crime, assertions that have been largely discredited by academics and think tanks.

The poll had a margin of error of about 3 percentage points.

Respondents rated the economy as the top issue facing the country, and some 44% said Trump had the better approach on addressing the "cost of living," compared to 38% who picked Harris.

Among a range of economic issues the next president should address, some 70% of respondents said the cost of living would be the most important, with only tiny shares picking the job market, taxes or "leaving me better off financially."

Trump had more support than Harris in each of those areas as well, although voters by a margin of 42% to 35% thought Harris was the better candidate to address the gap between wealthy and average Americans.

Trump appeared buoyed by widespread concerns over immigration, currently at its highest level in America in over a century. Some 53% of voters in the poll said they agreed with a statement that "immigrants who are in the country illegally are a danger to public safety," compared to 41% who disagreed. Voters had been more closely divided on the question in a May Reuters/Ipsos poll, when 45% agreed and 46% disagreed.

At campaign rallies all year, Trump has called attention to crimes committed by immigrants in the country illegally. While there is little data about the immigration status of criminals, studies have generally found that immigrants are not more likely than native-born Americans to engage in criminality.

Harris has led Trump in each of the six Reuters/Ipsos polls on their matchup since she entered the race in late July. The latest poll showed Harris up two percentage points - 47% to 45% - among the voters who appeared most likely to cast ballots in November. About two-thirds of eligible voters turned out in the 2020 presidential election, according to an estimate by the Pew Research Center.

Voters trusted the mental acuity of Harris above that of Trump in the latest poll, with 55% agreeing with a statement that she was "mentally sharp and able to deal with challenges," compared to 46% who said the same of Trump.

While national surveys including Reuters/Ipsos polls give important signals on the views of the electorate, the state-by-state results of the Electoral College determine the winner, with seven battleground states likely to be decisive. Polls have shown Harris and Trump are neck-and-neck in those battleground states, with many results within the margins of error.

Harris entered the race after Democratic President Joe Biden ended his reelection effort following a poor debate performance against Trump in June. Trump at the time was widely seen as the front-runner, partly based on his perceived strength on the economy after several years of high inflation under the Biden administration.

The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll surveyed 1,272 U.S. adults online, nationwide, including 1,076 registered voters. Among these, 969 were considered the most likely to turn out on Election Day.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/harris-lead-over-trump-narrows-46-vs-43-reutersipsos-poll-finds-2024-10-08/

Trump says US will go to hell if he loses presidential election

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump stated that the United States will "go to hell" if he loses the November election, News.Az reports citing TASS .

"Look, we gotta win, and if we don’t win, this country’s going to hell," he said, The Guardian reported. "You know, there’s an expression, this could be the last election we ever have, and it’s an expression that I really believe, and I believe that this could be the last election we ever have."

US businessman Elon Musk earlier said the upcoming US presidential election could be the last for the country if Trump doesn’t reclaim the White House. According to Musk, if Democrat Kamala Harris wins, illegal immigrants will keep coming, become citizens and get the right to vote in the next elections. With the votes of these immigrants, the Democratic Party will be beyond any competition four years later, so the only choice will be among Democratic nominees at the party’s primaries, the businessman said.

The US will hold a presidential election on November 5. Incumbent US President Joe Biden was expected to run on the Democratic Party ticket, but after his disastrous performance at the June debate with Trump, he decided to quit the race and instead supported the nomination of his Vice President Kamala Harris. Her candidacy was later formally endorsed at a Democratic Party Convention.

https://news.az/news/trump-says-us-will-go-to-hell-if-he-loses-presidential-election

America is fucked big time if that desi cunt gets voted into the White House. The whole country will stink to high hell and this stench shall reverberate for many decades to come.

2024 US Presidential Election: Melania doesn’t want to be ‘first lady 24/7’ if Donald Trump wins - report

Melania Trump has reportedly made a deal with her husband Donald Trump ahead of the 2024 United States presidential election. Melania has apparently told the former president that she doesn't want to be a full-time first lady if he gets re-elected as the president. 

A Trumpworld insider told the publication that Melania has "made a deal" with her husband that if he wins the presidency she will not have to be on "first lady duty 24/7". 

According to the report, Melania is planning to spend a part of every month in New York City with her son, Barron Trump, amid speculations that he will attend New York University in the fall. 

A source told the publication, "She's a hands-on mother, and is already planning to spend part of every month — and potentially every week — in NYC." 

While mentioning Barron and the need for an additional adjustment to college life in case his father wins, the source added, "Barron has never been completely on his own before — and with the added stress of him being both a freshman in college and potentially the son of a president in a predominantly Democratic city, [Melania] wants to be close." 

"The added attention he'll get if his father is president worries Melania who is also concerned about the reaction at his school over Barron's ever-present Secret Service," the sources said, further adding that Melania is an "extremely protective mother". 

The source said that Melania "feels safe in NYC and in Trump Tower herself, and it's Barron's home, and that's why she wants him to go to school in NYC." 

"She can provide both emotional and physical support by being close. Everyone remembers how she delayed moving to Washington, DC, until Barron finished school," the source added. 

Trump's criminal trial was 'very hard' on Melania 

Trump last month said that his historic criminal trial was "very hard" on his wife Melania, who was a notable absentee from the close family members who attended court in support of the former president. 

In an interview aired on Fox, Trump said, "She's fine, but I think it's very hard for her. She has to read all this crap." 

"I think it's probably in many ways, it's tougher on my family than it is on me," he added. 

A jury convicted Trump on all 34 felony charges of falsifying business records in the final stages of the 2016 presidential campaign to cover up a sex scandal involving porn star Stormy Daniels. 

It was the first criminal conviction of a former president in US history and means Trump is now running in the November 5 presidential election as a felon. 

https://www.wionews.com/world/2024-us-presidential-election-melania-doesnt-want-to-be-first-lady-247-if-donald-trump-wins-report-736754

TRUMP WILL DEFINITELY PREVAIL. MAGAGA!!!!!!