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‘The bell of stupidity’: Conservative’s Christmas video lampoons Trump’s latest speech
President Donald Trump was supposed to prioritize the economy at a MAGA rally last week — but instead rambled about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and other familiar foes.
In a Christmas-themed video, The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson (a Never Trump conservative former GOP strategist) and journalist Molly Jong-Fast brutally mocked the speech for failing to get the desired economic message across.
Jong-Fast told Wilson, "Let's talk about how positively b----- the whole thing is. It was meant to be a rally on affordability. Here's what was not discussed: affordability. Here's what was discussed: Marjorie Taylor Greene. He calls her Marjorie Traitor Brown."
Wilson, sounding amused, interjected, "And I'm also intrigued by how she's somehow a leftist."
Jong-Fast told the Never Trumper, "It has really been a week for Trump."
Wilson laid out a variety of ways in which Trump and the MAGA movement are having a bad Christmas, from the Epstein files to the economy.
"There is no unringing this bell of stupidity," Wilson told Jong-Fast. "They have f----- it up. They have made a giant mistake."
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Trump Supreme Court battle could be dismantled by Congress members’ own history
New evidence is emerging that could deal a major blow to President Donald Trump's case for stripping birthright citizenship to the children of immigrants.
The president has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to restore “the original meaning” of the 14th Amendment, which his lawyers argued in a brief meant that “children of temporary visitors and illegal aliens are not U.S. citizens by birth," but new research raises questions about what lawmakers intended the amendment to do, reported the New York Times.
"One important tool has been overlooked in determining the meaning of this amendment: the actions that were taken — and not taken — to challenge the qualifications of members of Congress, who must be citizens, around the time the amendment was ratified," wrote Times correspondent Adam Liptak.
A new study will be published next month in The Georgetown Law Journal Online examining the backgrounds of the 584 members who served in Congress from 1865 to 1871. That research found more than a dozen of them might not have been citizens under Trump’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment, but no one challenged their qualifications.
"That is, said Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia and an author of the study, the constitutional equivalent of the dog that did not bark, which provided a crucial clue in a Sherlock Holmes story," Liptak wrote.
The 14th Amendment states that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside," while the Constitution requires members of the House of Representatives to have been citizens for at least seven years, and senators for at least nine.
“If there had been an original understanding that tracked the Trump administration’s executive order,” Frost told Liptak, “at least some of these people would have been challenged.”
Only one of the nine challenges filed against a senator's qualifications in the period around the 14th Amendment's ratification involved the citizenship issue related to Trump's interpretation of birthright citizenship, and that case doesn't support his position.
"Several Democratic senators claimed in 1870 that their new colleague from Mississippi, Hiram Rhodes Revels, the first Black man to serve in Congress, had not been a citizen for the required nine years," Liptak wrote. "They reasoned that the 14th Amendment had overturned Dred Scott, the 1857 Supreme Court decision that denied citizenship to the descendants of enslaved African Americans, just two years earlier and that therefore he would not be eligible for another seven."
"That argument failed," the correspondent added. "No one thought to challenge any other members on the ground that they were born to parents who were not citizens and who had not, under the law in place at the time, filed a declaration of intent to be naturalized."
"The consensus on the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause has long been that everyone born in the United States automatically becomes a citizen with exceptions for those not subject to its jurisdiction, like diplomats and enemy troops," Liptak added.
Frost's research found there were many members of Congress around the time of the ratification of the 14th Amendment who wouldn't have met Trump's definition of a citizen, and she said that fact undercuts the president's arguments.
“If the executive order reflected the original public meaning, which is what the originalists say is relevant,” Frost said, “then somebody — a member of Congress, the opposing party, the losing candidate, a member of the public who had just listened to the ratification debates on the 14th Amendment, somebody — would have raised this.”
‘Get away with absolute murder’: Trump lashes out at Fox News fact-checks
Former President Donald Trump lashed out at Fox News on Tuesday in a rant on his personal social media site, TruthSocial.
According to Trump, the conservative cable news network follows any positive reporting of him with "a really negative voice" he claims is lying.
"The problem with FoxNews is that every time they put on someone who is positive and touting all of the good things I have done for the Country, they always feel it necessary to follow up with a really negative voice, often people who are storytellers and willing to outright lie," Trump complained.
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He said that the daytime Fox anchors don't counter anything from those he claims are the "negative voice."
"The daytime anchors are no match for these lunatics, and they get away with absolute murder. The net result is NOTHINGNESS, so what’s the purpose in watching?" asked Trump.
The CBS News show "60 Minutes" recently reported that Trump backed out of an interview when he was informed he would be fact-checked to his face.
Trump ‘demented’ over signs that Harris is winning Republicans away from him: strategist
Former President Donald Trump is falling apart as he sees polls, like the latest New York Times/Siena College survey, showing Vice President Kamala Harris tempting Republican voters away from him, Democratic strategist Maria Cardona argued on CNN Tuesday.
Her assertion came after a heated back-and-forth between herself and former Trump administration official Matt Mowers over the former president's repeated lies about FEMA aid to states devastated by Hurricane Helene.
The latest Times/Siena poll, noted anchor Brianna Keilar, "shows Harris gaining ground with Republicans. Do you think the Trump campaign should be worried, Matt?"
"No, I wouldn't be too worried because I think he's still in a margin of error race," said Mowers, adding that in battleground states, "most polling shows a one to two-point race in either direction, depending on the poll, for Trump or for Harris. This is really tight."
Cardona, however, disagreed.
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"Here's why this really matters, and why Donald Trump and the Trump campaign are worried," said Cardona. "And in fact, you see, in Donald Trump's demented approaches to his rallies now, in his speeches with upping the lies and completely going off script, is because they are worried about what they are seeing.
"I think the critical piece in this New York Times poll is that voters are now seeing the vice president as the agent for change."
In other words, Cardona continued, "Voters are now seeing her, and I think Donald Trump is helping her do this. And her underscoring this every chance she gets is really important. Voters see her as the one who actually worries about issues that are important to them. They see her as the one representing their needs, and that is something that she's going to talk to every single day between now and the election."
Watch the video below or at the link here.
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Brains behind Trump’s crypto project leave ‘trail of lawsuits, unpaid debt’: NY Times
Former President Donald Trump appears to be getting into the cryptocurrency business, and the New York Times reports that the "serial entrepreneurs" he has brought in to helm his foray have checkered pasts.
According to the Times, Trump crypto business partners Chase Herro and Zachary Folkman have been "leaving behind a trail of lawsuits and unpaid debt and taxes" in their assorted ventures.
Herro, for one, describes himself as a "dirtbag of the internet" and an ace salesman, whereas Folkman once ran a pickup artist advice firm called Date Hotter Girls.
Despite the shadiness of their business histories, the two men have earned endorsements from Donald Trump Jr., who said recently that, "You could put them in a boardroom at Goldman Sachs, and they're going to smoke the people in the room."
RELATED: Voter exhaustion is part of Trump's grift
Some experts on the cryptocurrency industry who spoke with the Times, however, expressed skepticism that the two men could "smoke" anyone.
Eswar Prasad, an economics professor at Cornell University, told the Times that Herro and Folkman "did not appear to have the technical or financial savvy to make the venture work."
And John Reed Stark, a former senior Securities and Exchange Commission official, told the Times that Herro and Folkman's pitch for their brand of cryptocurrency is "a bunch of nonsense, and a terrible opportunity for investors."
To back up this point, the Times noted that Herro and Folkman have "a history of jumping from project to project" and "together or separately, they have formed at least 17 companies, gravitating to the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, both tax havens."
‘How do you defend that?’ Legal expert claims Trump is playing into Jack Smith’s hands
A bombshell court filing by special counsel Jack Smith includes a key detail that shows Donald Trump is playing right into his prosecutor's hands, a legal expert argued Monday.
In their weekly "Jack" podcast, analyst Allison Gill and former Justice Department Assistant Director Andy McCabe cited a piece of the filing in which Smith points to Trump's "disregard for the truth."
"Jack Smith has all this proof. It's cited in redacted footnotes in this motion," Gill said. "The evidence includes [Mike] Pence, as his running mate, telling him they lost. To 'take a bow.'" He goes on to tell Trump they could run again in 2024."
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Smith also said in the filing that he "intends to show a huge pattern of false voter fraud claims," summarized Gill.
"The defendant and his co-conspirators also demonstrated their deliberate disregard for the truth and thus their knowledge of falsity when they repeatedly changed the numbers in their baseless fraud allegations from day to day," Smith wrote.
"At trial, the government will introduce several instances of this pattern in which the defendant and co-conspirators' lies were proved by the fact that they made up figures from whole cloth," the filing continued.
"It's about the totality of the evidence. The pattern, right?" said Gill.
McCabe wondered how Trump's defense can prepare for that when the case goes to trial.
"How do you defend against that? Do you just say, 'Oh, we were dumb. We didn't know. We were mistaken all six times,'" McCabe speculated.
"I had seen those numbers somewhere," Gill chimed in with her own mock defense. "But they kept changing the numbers."
"From 32,000 to 250,000. I mean, it's that blatant," said McCabe.
"Yeah, and he does it all the time," said Gill before slipping into her Trump impression: "'We have 3 million illegal immigrants. Ten million. Twenty-five million, 345,000 children.' Like, he makes these numbers up. 'I had 107,000 people at my rally in New Jersey.'"
"He just makes them up out of whole cloth and the fact pattern here is what is important," said Gill. "He has a history and a pattern of creating numbers out of whole cloth that Jack Smith says will prove that these allegations of fraud are baseless."
Elon Musk’s X appeal denied by Supreme Court over Trump criminal investigation
An appeal brought by Elon Musk's X (formerly Twitter) social media platform over special counsel Jack Smith's request for former President Donald Trump's Twitter records without him being notified was denied Monday.
According to NBC News, the case is connected to Smith's investigation into Trump's alleged interference in the 2020 presidential election.
"X's lawyers said the Supreme Court should intervene so that prosecutors cannot take similar actions in the future without the person involved being made aware that their data is being handed over to the government," NBC News reported.
In January 2023, Smith's team got a warrant letting him seize records without notifying Trump or his representatives. Smith argued that evidence could be destroyed if the seizure was known about.
Musk's company resisted and was fined $350,000 before it complied.
Although Smith already had the evidence, Musk's appeal was designed to stop such action from happening again. X's lawyers argued that Trump did not have a chance to say that his records should be protected because of his role as president.
‘Tough spot’: Investigation finds Trump’s ‘prized possession’ sinking in massive debt
A beloved building belonging to former President Donald Trump appears to be drowning in debt as problematic financial deadlines loom, according to a new financial analysis.
Trump's 63-story high rise at 40 Wall St. in New York City is currently worth $2 million less than the $118 million Trump owes on his $160 million mortgage — and its income continues to plummet, according to a recent Forbes report.
"The building is simply not earning enough money to cover the loan," Forbes reported. "Adding to the headaches: Trump, who doesn’t own the land on which the building sits, has just nine years left until his ground rent escalates dramatically."
Trump, with $566 million of legal liabilities and just $413 million in cash, will reportedly have to pay his $118 million debt to Ladder Capital by July.
But the building's operating income has nearly halved from about $21 million in 2018 to $12.8 million in 2023, according to Forbes.
"That leaves the Republican presidential candidate in a tough spot as the November election approaches, short on funds to save one of his prized possessions," according to Forbes.
ALSO READ: White supremacist ideas go mainstream: How the GOP is embracing a dangerous narrative
Should Trump clear this hurdle, he'll face another in 2023, Forbes reported.
That's when the German company that owns the land underneath 40 Wall St. is scheduled to implement a near sixfold increase to the cost of Trump's lease, according to the report.
"That shift would cause Trump’s ground rent to soar from $2.8 million in 2032 to $16.3 million the following year," Forbes reported.
"If the rest of 40 Wall Street’s financial picture remained the same as it is today, that would leave Trump with a negative $5 million in net operating income in 2033."
Trump's options in July 2025 will be to seek another loan, use his own money or declare bankruptcy on the property, according to Forbes.
The Forbes analysis argued option one would represent a struggle, option two would be fiscally uncomfortable and option three would make history.
"It would be his seventh bankruptcy," Forbes reported, "although it’d break new ground for him by being his first not involving a hotel."
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‘The bell of stupidity’: Conservative’s Christmas video lampoons Trump’s latest speech
President Donald Trump was supposed to prioritize the economy at a MAGA rally last week — but instead rambled about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and other familiar foes.
In a Christmas-themed video, The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson (a Never Trump conservative former GOP strategist) and journalist Molly Jong-Fast brutally mocked the speech for failing to get the desired economic message across.
Jong-Fast told Wilson, "Let's talk about how positively b----- the whole thing is. It was meant to be a rally on affordability. Here's what was not discussed: affordability. Here's what was discussed: Marjorie Taylor Greene. He calls her Marjorie Traitor Brown."
Wilson, sounding amused, interjected, "And I'm also intrigued by how she's somehow a leftist."
Jong-Fast told the Never Trumper, "It has really been a week for Trump."
Wilson laid out a variety of ways in which Trump and the MAGA movement are having a bad Christmas, from the Epstein files to the economy.
"There is no unringing this bell of stupidity," Wilson told Jong-Fast. "They have f----- it up. They have made a giant mistake."
- YouTube www.youtube.com
Trump Supreme Court battle could be dismantled by Congress members’ own history
New evidence is emerging that could deal a major blow to President Donald Trump's case for stripping birthright citizenship to the children of immigrants.
The president has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to restore “the original meaning” of the 14th Amendment, which his lawyers argued in a brief meant that “children of temporary visitors and illegal aliens are not U.S. citizens by birth," but new research raises questions about what lawmakers intended the amendment to do, reported the New York Times.
"One important tool has been overlooked in determining the meaning of this amendment: the actions that were taken — and not taken — to challenge the qualifications of members of Congress, who must be citizens, around the time the amendment was ratified," wrote Times correspondent Adam Liptak.
A new study will be published next month in The Georgetown Law Journal Online examining the backgrounds of the 584 members who served in Congress from 1865 to 1871. That research found more than a dozen of them might not have been citizens under Trump’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment, but no one challenged their qualifications.
"That is, said Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia and an author of the study, the constitutional equivalent of the dog that did not bark, which provided a crucial clue in a Sherlock Holmes story," Liptak wrote.
The 14th Amendment states that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside," while the Constitution requires members of the House of Representatives to have been citizens for at least seven years, and senators for at least nine.
“If there had been an original understanding that tracked the Trump administration’s executive order,” Frost told Liptak, “at least some of these people would have been challenged.”
Only one of the nine challenges filed against a senator's qualifications in the period around the 14th Amendment's ratification involved the citizenship issue related to Trump's interpretation of birthright citizenship, and that case doesn't support his position.
"Several Democratic senators claimed in 1870 that their new colleague from Mississippi, Hiram Rhodes Revels, the first Black man to serve in Congress, had not been a citizen for the required nine years," Liptak wrote. "They reasoned that the 14th Amendment had overturned Dred Scott, the 1857 Supreme Court decision that denied citizenship to the descendants of enslaved African Americans, just two years earlier and that therefore he would not be eligible for another seven."
"That argument failed," the correspondent added. "No one thought to challenge any other members on the ground that they were born to parents who were not citizens and who had not, under the law in place at the time, filed a declaration of intent to be naturalized."
"The consensus on the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause has long been that everyone born in the United States automatically becomes a citizen with exceptions for those not subject to its jurisdiction, like diplomats and enemy troops," Liptak added.
Frost's research found there were many members of Congress around the time of the ratification of the 14th Amendment who wouldn't have met Trump's definition of a citizen, and she said that fact undercuts the president's arguments.
“If the executive order reflected the original public meaning, which is what the originalists say is relevant,” Frost said, “then somebody — a member of Congress, the opposing party, the losing candidate, a member of the public who had just listened to the ratification debates on the 14th Amendment, somebody — would have raised this.”
