Tag: Trump

Trump won’t be handcuffed when he surrenders: Lawyer

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New York: When former US President Donald surrenders to authorities in New York on April 4 he will not be handcuffed, according to his lawyer Joe Tacopina.
“The (former) resident will not be put in handcuffs,” he told ABC News on Friday.
He will be accompanied by Secret Service Agents who are required to protect him as a former President making the surrender complicated.
“I don’t think they’re going to allow this to become a circus, as much as humanly possible”, Tacopina said.
On a CBS TV programme he said that Trump is “not worried at all”, but added, “he’s upset, angry he is being persecuted politically”.
Trump will be produced in a New York State Supreme Court, which despite its name is the first-level judicial body in the state.
Acting State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who is expected to preside over the case, can either release him with or without bail, or order him held in custody.
Trump faces charges relating to hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels who alleged he had an affair with him in 2006.

A grand jury indicted him in the case on Thursday, but the charges will be announced only when he surrenders and it is unsealed in court.
The $130,000 payment and the affair — which Trump has denied — are not illegal, but he faced allegations of bookkeeping irregularities in recording the payments and of violating election finance laws.
The payments were allegedly recorded as fees to his former lawyer Michael Cohen who had given Daniels the money.
Cohen was convicted in a federal court on charges of violating election laws by making the payments while Trump was running for president in 2016 and sentenced to three years in prison.
He is the prime witness in the case being pursued against Trump in local courts by Manhattan prosecutor Alvin Bragg, who was elected to the post as a Democratic Party nominee.
“While our country was going to hell,” Trump posted on social media, “the radical left Democrats” have “gone too far indicting a totally innocent man in an act of obstruction and blatant election interference”.
President Joe Biden refused to be drawn into the indictment controversy as that would only back Republican assertions about a politically motivated case.
“I’m not going to talk about the Trump indictment”, he told reporters who asked him about it and stuck to “no comment” as they kept rephrasing the question.
Vice President Kamala Harris took the same line.
At a news conference in Zambia, where she was on a tour of Africa, Harris said: “I am not going to comment on an ongoing criminal case as it relates to the former president.”
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi said: “No one is above the law, and everyone has the right to a trial to prove innocence. Hopefully, the former president will peacefully respect the system, which grants him that right.”
But Republicans rallied around Trump and even his rivals for the party’s presidential nomination came out with messages of support.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, considered Trump’s main rival in the 2024 polls, said: “The weaponisation of the legal system to advance a political agenda turns the rule of law on its head.”
Former Vice President Mike Pence, who has been heavily criticised by Trump, called it an “outrage”.
Nikki Haley said on Fox TV: “This is more about revenge than it is about justice.”
Vivek Ramaswamy called it “un-American for the ruling party to use police power to arrest its political rivals”.
When a person facing charges surrenders to a New York court, the person is fingerprinted, photographed and handcuffed.
Often the alleged “perpetrator” is also paraded in handcuffs before news cameras in a ritual known locally as “perp walk”.
Trump will likely be fingerprinted and photographed.
“As far as a mugshot’s concerned, perp walk, as I said, I’m sure they’ll try to make sure they get some joy out of this by parading him,” Tacopina said of the prosecutors.
“We’ll proceed to see a judge at some point, plead not guilty, start talking about filing motions, which we will do immediately and very aggressively regarding the legal viability of this case.”
Politico reported that according to Trump’s campaign, he will go to New York from Florida, where he lives at his Mara-a-Lago resort, on April 3night.
He will appear in court at 2.15 p.m. on April 4 and return to Florida the next day, with no public events scheduled in New York.
Trump attacked Merchan saying he “hates me” and claimed that Bragg had “handpicked” him for the “witch hunt case”.
A court official said that Merchan was randomly picked for the case.
Merchan presided over two tax cases involving two Trump Organization companies that ended in their conviction and in a case involving the former chief financial officer of a Trump company, Allen Weisselberg, admitting he was guilty of charges of tax fraud.
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#Trump #wont #handcuffed #surrenders #Lawyer
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 1, 2023
Campaign shares plans on how Trump will turn himself in

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The campaign says he will spend his weekend at home in Palm Beach, and he plans to return after business at the courthouse is complete. Over the weekend he will keep his usual schedule — which almost always includes an evening dinner on the club’s patio with his family and associates and golf at his nearby clubs.
Trump has been indicted on charges related to the Manhattan district attorney’s grand jury investigation into alleged hush money payments to adult actress Stormy Daniels. The exact charges are still under seal.
His campaign does not have any other public events planned for Monday and Tuesday. Trump, according to his campaign, will be “back at it” on Wednesday. So far, the only major event on his calendar is a speech at the National Rifle Association conference mid-April in Indianapolis.
Since news of the indictment, Trump’s campaign has worked to drum up support with fundraising appeals and the coordination of surrogates and lawyers on T.V. They are bracing for what will likely be a media spectacle as Trump turns himself in.
In a sign of Trump’s successful appeals, his campaign announced on Friday that it raised $4 million in the first 24 hours following news of the indictment. A press release from the campaign noted that “25% of donations came from first-time donors” and the average contribution was only $34.
The Trump campaign is also keeping tabs of others who are trying to financially benefit off of the indictment. Chris LaCivita, a senior Trump campaign adviser, has been calling candidates and campaigns raising money off the news and telling them to stop, according to a person familiar with campaign discussions.
Law enforcement officials in Manhattan braced for potential unrest next week surrounding the arraignment of Trump, beefing up security in and around Lower Manhattan. Officials were discussing blocking off the streets around the courthouse and removing all cars in the case of a bomb threat, according to a law enforcement source.
Some 40 press vehicles that have been parked outside the courthouse since last week would make it difficult to secure the area, according to the source, who added the former president planned to arrive via motorcade.

Dozens of court officers along with NYPD units were stationed outside Manhattan Criminal Court Friday, where the District Attorney has his office. Inside the courthouse, court officers patrolled almost every floor, with the 15th floor where trials take place, closed off to reporters and the public.
“The bottom line is that everyone is working overtime, it’s a stressful situation, there are a lot of crazies out there. A woman pulled a knife on someone the other day, so we are on high alert,” said Dennis W. Quirk, President of the New York Court Officers Association, referring to a Trump supporter who pulled a knife on a family with small children Wednesday. “Our job is to get this done as quickly as we can, and make sure that no one gets hurt.”
Remarks from the former president ahead of the indictment along with more recent calls for protest from Republican leaders added to concern.
“New York put your MAGA hats on. Under our constitutional rights, we WILL support President Trump and protest the tyrants. I’ll see you on Tuesday,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) in a tweet Friday.
Greene’s tweet came after Trump called on supporters to protest the indictment and predicted “potential death & destruction” if he was charged for his alleged role in a 2016 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Additional reporting from Erica Orden and Alex Isenstadt.

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#Campaign #shares #plans #Trump #turn
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 1, 2023
‘Annoying’: Trump rivals hunker down for the indictment primary

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“As bad as it was for Trump, it was worse for DeSantis and everyone else,” said Mike Madrid, the Republican strategist and co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project. “It rallies the base—there’s this rally around the flag effect for Trump. Second, probably most importantly, it just completely sucks the oxygen out of the room.”
In a less polarized political climate, an indictment from a grand jury targeting a primary frontrunner would create an opening for another candidate, let alone an indictment that remains under seal and its specifics unknown—never mind a general election.
So far that isn’t happening, even in a GOP increasingly obsessed with electability following the loss of the White House in 2020 and disappointing midterm elections in 2022.
Across the field on Friday, GOP strategists said their candidates were hunkering down, wish-casting the news away.
“This news cycle will last days, not months,” said a senior adviser to a prospective candidate granted anonymity to discuss their camp’s political calculus, conceding the development does thrust Trump to the center of the primary.
“Annoying,” carped another 2024 hopeful’s strategist, granted anonymity for the same reason.. “We’ve already been talking about this for two weeks because Trump cried wolf,” the strategist said.
A third strategist working on a different potential GOP competitor’s campaign, also granted anonymity to discuss the dynamics of the race, acknowledged there is no way to beat Trump in the primary by cheering on the Manhattan prosecution. This person likened the indictment Thursday to news last year of the Supreme Court reaching a decision in the Dobbs case: “There was a big surprise when this came down, but you’ve been lying in wait, expecting it for a little bit.”
The GOP’s circling of the wagons is the surest sign yet that the coming months of the primary will orbit solely around the party’s standard-bearer. Every court proceeding, every new twist in the case will represent a litmus test other candidates in the field will either pass or fail.

It also underscores the narrowness of the path Trump’s opponents have to navigate: While the Never Trump movement has always consisted of an ineffectual sliver of the broader GOP—a sideshow to Trump’s main event— the movement hit rock bottom Thursday.
From former Vice President Mike Pence to Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, would-be Trump challengers castigated Democratic Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s decision to indict Trump. As Pence had it: “outrageous.” “Beyond belief,” Youngkin tweeted. Even Ohio State Sen. Matt Dolan, the U.S. Senate candidate who had not previously bowed to kiss Trump’s ring, called Bragg’s actions “politically motivated.”
And former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who vowed earlier this week to never back Trump again and who appeared to be carving a lane for himself in the GOP primary as Trump’s critic in chief, has been conspicuously silent since news of the indictment broke.
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, who’s called for the party to move on from Trump in 2024 but said he would still support him if he’s the nominee, wouldn’t distance himself too much from the former president in an interview with POLITICO last week. “You have to hold everyone to the rule of law,” Sununu said, “but clearly there’s been some hesitation on whether they could really find anybody guilty on this.”
Former New Hampshire GOP Chair Fergus Cullen said, “Never blame a politician for acting like a politician, whether you’re Chris Sununu or Nikki Haley or even Mike Pence, you’re not trying to alienate the 75 percent of primary voters” who still support Trump or remain open to him as the nominee. “Maybe someone would have the decency to not defend [Trump], or point out that this is a behavior that gives them concerns, but that’s asking a lot.”
Though the Republican field is siding with Trump in the early days of the primary, it doesn’t foreclose the possibility they will pivot when and if future criminal cases are brought against him.
In a previously booked interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Thursday evening, Pence left perhaps the most wiggle room of any possible challenger in his response about whether Trump, if convicted, should drop out of the race.
“It’s a long way to that decision,” Pence said, “I promise to answer that question if it approaches.”
Still, just one likely, longshot GOP candidate so far, Asa Hutchinson, has said Trump’s indictment should be disqualifying, evidence of a dearth of Republicans willing to endure the attendant slings and arrows of attacking Trump first. Especially not after the blowback DeSantis received by criticizing Trump on moral grounds, saying at a press conference last week he didn’t “know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star.”
The former Arkansas governor, who has yet to show signs of gaining any traction with the Republican electorate, said earlier this month Trump should drop out of the presidential race if indicted. Hutchinson seems undeterred that his stance on Trump is unpopular with the base: he has continued to prepare for an announcement next month. On Wednesday, he called a Trump donor to seek a meeting ahead of his planned campaign launch, according to a copy of the voicemail obtained by POLITICO.
“There is an opportunity for somebody who’s really good at this,” said Sarah Longwell, the Republican political strategist and publisher of the Never-Trump Bulwark. “We just don’t have that person.”

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#Annoying #Trump #rivals #hunker #indictment #primary
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 1, 2023
The data’s clear: The indictment makes Republicans like Trump more

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The pre-indictment poll numbers are consistent with the political dynamic that’s existed since Trump took office six years ago: The Republican base — especially downscale voters and those who describe themselves as very conservative — rallies around Trump after scandals, even as those controversies take a toll on Trump’s overall image.
So what’s best for Trump’s chances of holding off Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the other candidates for the nomination — an indictment that rallies most of Trump’s competitors and rank-and-file Republican voters around him — likely makes it more difficult for the GOP to reclaim the presidency in 2024.
Over the past month, as the prospect of criminal charges hung over Trump, the former president was actually increasing his national advantage over DeSantis, who hasn’t officially entered the race yet, among GOP voters. The indictment does little to threaten that lead, at least in the short term — as evidenced by DeSantis and the other declared or likely candidates decrying the charges on Thursday.
But it’s not just that Republican voters think Trump is being targeted or treated unfairly. A sizable portion of them believe he’s fully innocent. In the Marist College poll, in addition to four-in-five Republicans calling the investigations into Trump a “witch hunt,” just 10 percent of GOP voters say Trump has done anything illegal. Nearly half, 45 percent, say Trump hasn’t done anything wrong, while a sizable 43 percent describe Trump’s behavior as “unethical, but not illegal.”
Similarly, in the pre-indictment Quinnipiac poll, only 20 percent of Republicans said the existence of criminal charges against Trump should disqualify him from running for president, and 52 percent said the Manhattan case was “not serious at all.”
Those numbers could change once the details of the indictment are made public. But for now, Republicans are out of step with the electorate as a whole. Fifty-seven percent of respondents in the Quinnipiac poll say criminal charges should disqualify Trump from the campaign, and only 26 percent say the allegations in the New York case aren’t serious at all.
While most Republicans say the various Trump probes amount to a “witch hunt” in the NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, it’s only 41 percent of all Americans. And 46 percent of Americans say Trump has committed crimes (compared to only 10 percent of Republicans), while another 29 percent call Trump’s actions “unethical, but not illegal.”
In another pre-indictment survey released this week, the Democratic polling consortium Navigator Research found that 57 percent of voters supported indicting Trump for “illegally using campaign funds for personal expenses — a hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels — and then lying about it,” including a quarter of Republicans, 25 percent.

And the online pollster Morning Consult offered the first data point following news of the indictment, though there has been little time for it to sink in yet. In a flash poll conducted early Friday, 51 percent of voters said they supported the indictment, but only 19 percent of GOP primary voters agreed. (Polls conducted entirely in one day, let alone a half-day, are subject to greater sources of potential error than other surveys.)
There is one message for Trump defenders that is resonating: Just because Americans don’t think Trump isn’t the victim of a “witch hunt” doesn’t mean they don’t think politics is a factor at all.
In the Quinnipiac poll, 62 percent of respondents said the district attorney’s case is mainly motivated by politics, including 93 percent of Republicans, 29 percent of Democrats and 70 percent of independents. Fewer than a third, 32 percent, said the case is mainly motivated by the law.
There are discreet limits to that argument, however. In Friday’s Morning Consult poll, voters were split between those who said the New York grand jury’s decision to indict Trump was mostly based on evidence that Trump violated the law (46 percent) and those who said the grand jury was motivated “to damage Trump’s political career” (43 percent).
The coming days and weeks will bring more data, including following Trump’s expected arraignment next week. And there’s a hint in the Quinnipiac poll about how that moment could move the needle of public opinion.
Quinnipiac’s pollsters cited Trump’s statement earlier this week that his indictment was imminent and asked his supporters to protest and “take our country back.” They asked respondents if Trump was “mainly acting out of concerns about democracy” as a candidate who could face criminal charges while campaigning for the nation’s highest office, “or mainly acting out of concerns for himself?”
Of the subgroups identified by Quinnipiac, only one thought Trump was defending democracy in urging protests against his indictment: Republicans (56 percent). Majorities of all Americans (69 percent), Democrats (98 percent) and independents (71 percent) thought Trump was mostly concerned about himself.
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#datas #clear #indictment #Republicans #Trump
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 1, 2023
‘Unlawful political interference’: Bragg defends Trump indictment against GOP attacks

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The letter was sent a day after Bragg’s office acknowledged that they had issued the first-ever indictment of a former president. Officials have also indicated they are working with Trump’s lawyers to negotiate his surrender. Though the timing of both his surrender and arraignment hasn’t been finalized, they are tentatively planned for Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the matter.
It’s uncharted territory for the legal system, the government and the country, which has never seen the indictment and prosecution of a former president. Though the precise evidence against Trump remains unknown, the case appears centered on hush money payments to a porn actress, Stormy Daniels, in 2016 to silence her allegations of a sexual relationship during Trump’s first presidential bid.
The indictment, which remains under seal, prompted a torrent of attacks from Trump’s allies, many of whom denounced it as a political witch hunt. While Trump himself has called for protests in the streets — and on Friday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) echoed that call — most House Republicans have instead vowed to train a microscope on the Democratic district attorney, requesting information and documents about the probe.
Tracking Trump investigations
Bragg’s office used the letter to the lawmakers, a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO, to respond to those allegations of political bias.
“Like any other defendant, Mr. Trump is entitled to challenge these charges in court and avail himself of all processes and protections that New York State’s robust criminal procedure affords. What neither Mr. Trump nor Congress may do is interfere with the ordinary course of proceedings in New York State,” the letter reads.
State judge Juan Merchan is expected to preside over the arraignment and may ultimately be called upon to preside over the criminal proceedings, according to a person familiar with the process.
Bragg’s office also used the letter to plead with Capitol Hill Republicans to encourage calm, accusing them of engaging in “unlawful political interference” in the same breath.

“We urge you to refrain from these inflammatory accusations, withdraw your demand for information, and let the criminal justice process proceed without unlawful political interference,” Dubeck wrote in the letter to Judiciary, Oversight and Administration Chairs Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), James Comer (R-Ky.) and Bryan Steil (R-Wis.).
“As Committee Chairmen, you could use the stature of your office to denounce these attacks and urge respect for the fairness of our justice system and for the work of the impartial grand jury,” she continued. “Instead, you and many of your colleagues have chosen to collaborate with Mr. Trump’s efforts to vilify and denigrate the integrity of elected state prosecutors and trial judges and made unfounded allegations that the Office’s investigation, conducted via an independent grand jury of average citizens serving New York State, is politically motivated.”
Trump dialed up his rhetoric Friday, taking aim this time at Merchan, the judge he anticipates would be presiding over his case.
Here are some of the people involved as the case against former President Donald Trump moves forward.

Michael Cohen
Trump’s former attorney testified in 2018 that he made a hush-money payment on behalf of Trump.

Stormy Daniels
The porn actress is said to have received $130,000 for her silence about an affair with Trump.

Alvin Bragg
The Manhattan DA took office in January 2022 and inherited the investigation.

Allen Weisselberg
Prosecutors gave the ex-Trump Organization CFO immunity in their hush-money probe in 2018.

Joe Tacopina
A vocal member of Trump’s legal team, he began representing Trump earlier this year.

Susan Necheles
She is one of Trump’s lawyers who was on the defense team in the Trump Organization trial.

Robert Costello
Cohen’s former legal adviser cast aspersions on Cohen’s credibility before the grand jury.

Karen McDougal
The model is another woman who received “hush money” for her involvement with Trump.

David Pecker
The former National Enquirer CEO has been linked to Cohen’s efforts to pay off Daniels and McDougal.
“The Judge ‘assigned’ to my Witch Hunt Case … HATES ME,” Trump posted on social media, complaining about Merchan’s handling of the separate proceedings brought by the district attorney’s office against the Trump Organization, which Trump said Merchan treated “viciously.”
Bragg’s office suggested that the House GOP inquiries appeared to be functioning more as interference for Trump than as legitimate congressional oversight, a concern Dubeck said was “heightened” by some of the committee members’ own statements about their goals.
She cited Greene’s statement that “Republicans in Congress MUST subpoena these communists and END this!” as well as Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s (R-Fla.) call to scrutinize lawmakers who are “being silent on what is currently happening to Trump.”
From a legal standpoint, individual lawmakers’ comments and motives aren’t typically given weight when a congressional committee takes actions. Trump routinely pointed to the comments of individual committee members’ plans to make use of his tax returns in his failed efforts to block Congress’ effort to obtain them.
Greene called for Trump supporters to gather Tuesday in New York, indicating she would be there herself. “We MUST protest the unconstitutional WITCH HUNT!” she tweeted. Her tweet was a departure from her reaction a day after Trump first suggested that he could be arrested, when she told reporters on the sidelines of the House GOP retreat that she would not be going to New York.
As of Friday, though, there were no indications of significant street protests or organized activities centered on the courthouse. Bragg arrived at around 7:30 a.m., amid signs of significantly heightened security, with little other movement aside from a large media presence.
In her letter, Dubeck also provided some details about the federal funding Bragg’s office has used in connection with Trump-related matters — money that House Republicans have suggested could now be under threat because of the indictment. Additionally, House Republicans received a second document on Friday detailing federal grant money the office has obtained.
None of that federal grant funding, she noted, has been used in the current investigation. She said the office has spent approximately $5,000 of federal funds — funds that the district attorney’s office helped recover during forfeiture actions — on expenses related to the investigation of Trump or the Trump organization.
“These expenses were incurred between October 2019 and August 2021,” Dubeck noted, adding that most were used to support Bragg’s predecessor’s successful defense of its probe of the Trump organization before the Supreme Court.
A spokesperson for Jordan didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter from Bragg’s office. Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y) said at an event on Friday that Republicans should “cease their intervention in an ongoing prosecution in a local prosecutor’s office.”
But House Republicans have already started laying some groundwork for a potential subpoena of the Manhattan district attorney, a move they haven’t publicly ruled out. They also appeared to make the case in their second letter to Bragg that they believe a subpoena would survive a legal challenge.
Comer, who noted that he hasn’t spoken with Trump recently, called the indictment a “political stunt” but said he needed more information before Republicans decided where to go next.
“I think before the next step we’ll have to see what, in fact, these charges were and then go from there,” Comer said in an interview on Friday.
Dubeck, in her letter, urged them to reach a “negotiated resolution … before taking the unprecedented and unconstitutional step of serving a subpoena on a district attorney for information related to an ongoing state criminal prosecution.”
Wesley Parnell contributed to this story.

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#Unlawful #political #interference #Bragg #defends #Trump #indictment #GOP #attacks
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 31, 2023
A popular phrase coined by a judge in 1985 led to the appearance of ham sandwiches on the Hill on Friday, another show of support for Donald Trump by a GOP lawmaker.

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Barry Moore offered ham and cheese sandwiches from his office in Longworth.

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#popular #phrase #coined #judge #led #appearance #ham #sandwiches #Hill #Friday #show #support #Donald #Trump #GOP #lawmaker
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 31, 2023
How Trump Can Squash DeSantis Once and For All

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The advice-to-DeSantis column urged him to ignore Trump’s weaknesses — his porn-star hush money liability, his vulgarity and cruelty, his serial lies. Instead, DeSantis should take aim at Trump’s strengths, such as his border wall vows, his North Korea diplomacy, his so-called populism and so on. Savaging Trump’s positives might not alone turn the election, but playing offense instead of defense would give DeSantis the agency he needs to win.
Agency is the very thing Trump must deny DeSantis. By continuing to attack DeSantis by name, Trump elevates him from wannabe to genuine contender. Blasting DeSantis with a hailstorm of criticism will only raise the governor’s name recognition and direct fatigued but curious Trump voters toward an alternative. Bad idea.
If ever a presidential candidate needed to run a Rose Garden campaign in which the incumbent denies his opponent the attention he needs to gain voter share, it’s Trump. Trump’s not the incumbent, you say? That’s not the way he sees the “rigged” 2020 election. By running for the restoration of the crown, Trump can avail himself to a virtual Rose Garden campaign of proclamations, press conferences and media events. He might even think about skipping the primary debates as beneath him, though it might be too tempting for him to pass up a format in which he excels.
By making Joe Biden his 2024 opponent instead of Ron DeSantis, Trump would rob DeSantis the dignity of being a competitor. Added to that is the fact that attacking Biden every time he opens his mouth instead of DeSantis would play to Trump’s advantage by making 2024 be seen as a Trump-Biden rematch rather than a double-elimination tournament. There is so little policy difference between Trump and DeSantis that when Trump whacks him it’s almost as if he’s whacking himself. It leaves everybody, even pundits, a little confused. But when Trump whacks Biden, a slow-moving target if ever there was one, his supporters feel the full force of his rage. And they smile.
As the pseudo-incumbent president, Trump must never allow the DeSantis name to pass through his lips. By starving his opponent of equal billing, Trump could turn DeSantis into a no-name nobody unworthy of consideration. But that doesn’t mean Trump should ignore DeSantis. Just the opposite. This would only require a slight modification of Trump’s current strategy.
Instead of relying on lame nicknames like “Meatball Ron,” “Ron Desanctimonius,” and “Shutdown Ron,” Trump could disparage and diminish his opponent with a steady stream of oblique but stinging references. “There’s this kid from Florida…” Trump could say. “Have you heard about this Florida RINO who thinks he can be president?” “There’s this Jeb Bush Republican who wants to take your Social Security away.”
By taking advantage of DeSantis’ status as a relatively unknown nationally, Trump could portray him as an old school Republican who was for the Covid shutdown before he was against it, as a humorless whiner, as a paint-by-numbers, flip-flopping politician unworthy of graduation from governor to president, and just another palooka like the line-up Trump vanquished during the 2016 primaries.
Trump, who possesses the comic timing of a Vegas headliner, could make a running joke out of DeSantis, coloring him like a blank slate into whatever picture he wants. No offense meant to supermarket managers, but DeSantis looks like one, and Trump should capitalize on his lookist talents by ridiculing DeSantis’ very person — his whiny voice, his knickers-in-a-twist mien before the microphone and his dull rhetoric. Do we really need to remind Trump of his great skills as a political bully? As the original prophet who lived on locusts and wild honey in the desert, he should act like it!

DeSantis understands that voters crave fresh meat with their elections, hence his campaigns against DEI programs, critical race theory, LGBTQ issues, “woke” this and that, and his support for book bans and school choice. Trump’s policy shop has lagged in coming up with new issues upon which he can rage, which has made him a little bit of a copycat candidate. It might not be too late for Trump to carve a piece of this action out for himself, but surely the fellow who came up with the Wall and the Muslim ban can do better. His idea for futuristic “Freedom Cities” built on government land and sporting vertical-takeoff-and-landing vehicles is a good start. Who doesn’t want to live like the Jetsons? But one new idea he seems ready to advocate, the invasion of Mexico to destroy the drug cartels, might not be the ticket. For one thing, he can’t very well damage what wall he did build with an assault on our southern neighbor. Whatever he decides, he must stop resting on his demagogic laurels! A nation hungers for political entertainment!
Trump should remind voters that he was a president who kept America out of war, helped calm the Middle East, took on China, got Europe to pay its NATO bills, helped defeat ISIS, moved the embassy to Jerusalem and jawboned the Iranians. Trump can sketch DeSantis as a governor, a mere road-paver, and not a president you can go into war with. What, Trump might ask aloud, has the pudgy Tallahassee briefcase-toter accomplished? Fought Disney for months upon months and got beaten thanks to a legal loophole?
Treat DeSantis like a shadow. Invent some new issues to campaign on. Hammer Biden at every rally and TV appearance. And prepare for November 2024.
******
I look like a supermarket manager, too. Note to the Federal Election Commission: This is not an in-kind campaign contribution. Send new Trump policy ideas to [email protected]. No new email alert subscriptions are being honored at this time. My Twitter feed longs for another Carly Fiorina campaign. My Mastodon account is as pasty as Ron DeSantis. My Post account always votes for Harold Stassen. My RSS feed would never vote for a Harvard Law School graduate.

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#Trump #Squash #DeSantis
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 31, 2023
‘O.J. Simpson on steroids’: Team Trump preps for a post-indictment frenzy

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Trump was in Florida at his Mar-a-lago resort when the news of the indictment came down. Both he and his advisers were blindsided by it, people close to the former president say.
But while the news was sudden, their preparations for it weren’t. Over the past two weeks, Trump and his campaign have been keeping tabs on which Republicans were dismissing the case and boosting the ex-president. After Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appeared to mock Trump during a press conference last week for finding himself in a scandal with a porn actress, Trump lashed out, insinuating DeSantis would soon experience false accusations of his own. Unsatisfied with that Truth Social post, Trump deleted it and replaced it with another that went even further, not only suggesting without evidence DeSantis could be faced with allegations from not only a woman but a man, too, and that it could also come from someone “underage.”
The message was deliberate and unambiguous: Defend me or else. When the time came on Thursday, Trump’s fellow Republicans did just that. DeSantis, seen as the leading 2024 primary opponent to Trump, called the indictment “un-American,” and said he would not assist with any extradition request (Trump’s lawyers have said he will turn himself in). RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel called the news “a blatant abuse of power from a DA focused on political vengeance instead of keeping people safe.” And in a pre-recorded video message, GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy called the indictment “wrong” and said the country was “skating on thin ice.”
While many Republicans believe the indictment could boost Trump’s prospects by further solidifying his already-loyal base of supporters, they are also sanguine about the long-term damage it might cause. The case being brought against Trump is historic (no ex-president has ever been indicted). And future charges stemming from his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, and his possession of classified documents loom and could harm him even more in a general election, should he end up the nominee.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 31, 2023
Trump indicted on charges relating to hush money to porn star

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New York: Former President Donald Trump has become the highest-ranking former US official to be indicted as he pursues his bid to get the Republican Party nomination for next year’s election.
While there has been no formal announcement from the Manhattan prosecutor that he has been indicted, several media outlets reported on Thursday that the grand jury had voted to indict Trump on charges relating to hush money paid to a porn star.
Michael Cohen, the former lawyer for Trump, who handled the payment and was the key witness against Trump, issued a statement confirming the indictment.
Trump in a call to ABC TV said that the indictment was “an attack on our country” and an attempt to “impact an election”.
The exact charges were not immediately known as the grand jury hearings and its vote are secret.
Neither the alleged affair nor the payments are of themselves illegal and the potential charges he faces are falsifying business records for allegedly hiding the payments as lawyer’s fees and illegally using the payments to further his election.
Under New York legal procedures, a grand jury – a panel made up of citizens – holds a secret preliminary hearing on allegations to determine whether there is a prima facie case to bring charges for trial.
Stormy Daniels, the porn star, alleged that she had an affair with Trump in 2016.

On the eve of the election in 2016, Cohen paid her to buy her silence and he was himself convicted in relation to the payments.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 31, 2023
DeSantis calls Trump indictment ‘un-American’ and says he won’t assist in extradition

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“The weaponization of the legal system to advance a political agenda turns the rule of law on its head. It is un-American,” DeSantis said on Twitter. “The Soros-backed Manhattan District Attorney has consistently bent the law to downgrade felonies and to excuse criminal misconduct. Yet, now he is stretching the law to target a political opponent.”
“Florida will not assist in an extradition request given the questionable circumstances at issue with this Soros-backed Manhattan prosecutor and his political agenda,” he continued.
Under Florida law, the governor can intervene in an extradition matter if it is contested. But as of now, Trump’s lawyers have indicated that Trump is expected to surrender.
DeSantis’ stance on the indictment was being closely anticipated because, as a likely political rival, he has been hit hard by Trump and his allies in recent weeks, including over his previous comments on Trump’s legal troubles when he said: “I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair.”
Trump is currently connected to several ongoing investigations, including one over his handling of classified documents at his Florida home at Mar-a-Lago and an ongoing probe in Atlanta.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 31, 2023