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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.”
Mary Trump: Donald a ‘destroyed human being’ whose Dad was ‘incapable of loving anybody’
Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist and niece of Donald Trump, told MSNBC Monday night that her uncle is a “destroyed human being” whose inflamed criticisms of Kamala Harris are being driven by a “defense mechanism” as a reaction to the vice president becoming the Democratic nominee.
“Donald uses very frequently a defense mechanism known as projection in which he takes things that he unconsciously knows about himself but can't bear and projects them onto other people,” Mary Trump told MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell Monday night on his show “Last Word."
“That has been happening with increasing frequency over the last – well let’s see when did that happen? Yes, when Vice President Harris became his opponent for the presidency," she said.
She said Harris replacing President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee “really made him unravel in a way we haven’t seen before,” adding that Harris is clearly “getting under his skin.”
ALSO READ: ‘Kind of crazy’: Vance’s Ohio neighbors can’t help but notice his Secret Service detail
“She pushes his buttons in a way few people ever had,” Mary Trump said.
When asked by O’Donnell if her “crazy uncle” is what compelled her to become a clinical psychologist, she said “unfortunately he wasn’t the only one,” explaining that Donald Trump is one of five children “and every single one of them was and is a destroyed human being.”
“As shocking as it may seem, Donald was not the worst one in my family,” Mary Trump said.
She cautioned though that is only because “he has, unfortunately, power that continues to be bestowed on him by a bankrupt Republican party and tens of millions of Americans.”
“But the whole family system was so broken from the very beginning.”
In her tell-all memoir, “Who Could Ever Love You,” a New York Times bestseller, Mary Trump wrote that “nobody liked Donald when he was growing up, not even his parents,” adding that his father, Frank Trump, was “incapable of loving anybody.”
Watch the clip below or at this link.
‘Bad soul’ and ‘no integrity’: Republican stunned as CNN commentator unloads on J.D. Vance
A CNN commentator unloaded on a Republican former gubernatorial candidate on Monday night during a discussion on the upcoming vice presidential debate and former President Donald Trump's increasingly "dark" rhetoric.
CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins noted to her panel on "The Source" that the race between Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has been "really personal," and could set it apart from previous vice presidential debates, which are typically substantive. The segment came with the backdrop that Trump attacked Vice President Kamala Harris as “mentally impaired” and “disabled” during what he called over the weekend a "dark speech.”
Van Jones, a former Obama administration adviser agreed and emphasized the two are both veterans who have real differences in opinion and personality. He urged Walz to be careful and called Vance "p---ed" and looking for "redemption."
Former Rep. Lee Zeldin, a Long Island Republican who ran unsuccessfully for governor, told the panel he expects Vance to attack Walz over cultural issues and his response to civil unrest.
ALSO READ: The week Fox News finally faces its reckoning
Collins then played a clip of Trump telling supporters over the weekend that his Democratic opponent is “mentally impaired” and “disabled," as well as clips of Trump trying to tie exceedingly violent crimes to illegal immigrants.
"That's the kind of despicable stuff you're going to see from J.D. Vance," said Jones. "J.D. Vance has no integrity. No dignity. No morals. He changed his whole personality to fit in with Donald Trump."
Jones continued laying into the Republican senator, saying Vance lied to people in his own state for power.
"He has done nothing except write a phony book, suck up to people with big money on Wall Street, be a senator for a year-and-a-half — he is a despicable person and you're going to see the worst in American politics from this guy," said Jones. "He's a racist and he's horrible."
The attack stunned Zeldin, who was momentarily left speechless by the attack.
"Man, Van," Zeldin responded, looking around at the panel.
As Zeldin tried to defend Vance as a man of "integrity," Jones was having none of it.
"Cats and dogs? Cats and dogs? Black people eat cats and dogs? Black immigrants eat cats and dogs? That's integrity?" He fires back over Zeldin.
Zeldin tried to attack Walz over his factual recounting of his military record, insisting to Jones, "He's never served in military combat."
As Zeldin attacks Walz's grammar defense, Jones continues: "I'd rather have bad grammar than a bad soul."
"He is destroying Haitian's ability to go to school because he's a racist," an emphatic Jones said.
He later added: "You're a better man than to defend [Vance.]"
Watch the clip below or at this link.
‘Congressman!’ ABC host interrupts Vance surrogate for deflecting pet-eating claims
ABC News host Martha Raddatz interrupted a top surrogate for Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance Sunday after he refused to deny false claims that Haitians are eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.
Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN), who is helping Vance prepare for the vice presidential debate by playing the part of Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, appeared on ABC's This Week program.
"Trump last night called Kamala Harris mentally disabled," Raddatz noted. "He said that Joe Biden became that way, she was born that way. Do you think Kamala Harris is mentally disabled? Do you approve of that kind of language?"
"I think Kamala Harris is the wrong choice for America," Emmer stated. "I think Kamala Harris is actually as bad or worse as the administration that we've witnessed for the last four years, Martha."
"Congressman, do you approve of that language?" the host interrupted. "Do you approve of that language, Donald Trump calling her mentally disabled, mentally impaired?"
"I think we should stick to the issues," Emmer admitted.
Raddatz moved on to the topic of immigration.
"I can't believe we're still talking about this, but the baseless claims elevated by Vance and Trump that Haitian migrants were eating their pets," the host said. "If the moderators in the debate ask Vance about this, should he finally make clear it is not true?"
"That's such a distraction," Emmer deflected. "The people in the mainstream media want to put up these shiny objects to distract people from what they see happening every day."
ALSO READ: Is this the October Surprise?
"Congressman!" Raddatz exclaimed. "Vance and Trump have talked about this issue. They brought it up."
"You've got to focus on the issues," Emmer said. "They will focus on the issues. The issues are very clear."
Emmer declined to say that Vance's claims about Haitians eating pets were false.
Watch the video below from ABC or at the link. .
‘Let me finish!’ Kevin McCarthy snaps at CNN’s Manu Raju when confronted with Trump smears
A combative Kevin McCarthy continued to talk over CNN host Manu Raju on Sunday morning multiple times when confronted with Donald Trump's attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris and immigrants living in the United States,
The "Inside Politics" segment got off to an awkward start when CNN's Raju pointed out it is the one-year anniversary of the former House speaker's ouster which led him to eventually leave Congress.
What followed was Raju repeatedly attempting to get the California Republican to address Donald Trump calling Harris a "mentally disabled person" during a speech in Wisconsin on Saturday, only to have McCarthy blow off the questions with multiple rants about 425,000 illegal immigrants allegedly living in the U.S.
ALSO READ: Is this the October Surprise?
When Pressed over Trump and running mate J.D. Vance's smears of Haitian immigrants eating people's pets in Ohio, McCarthy again deflected when asked if Trump should admit he was wrong.
"I would continue to lay out the facts," McCarthy parried.
"There are no facts, " Raju interjected.
"Let me finish my sentence, I appreciate your engagement, "McCarthy replied. "When you ask a question, let me finish."
"Sure," the CNN host replied only to have McCarthy once again repeat his claim about the 425,000 immigrants in the country "illegally" without addressing the beleaguered Haitians in Springfield, Ohio.
"That's not what the Haitian migrants ––," Raju interrupted.
"I know what you're talking about, but I'm trying to make a point here!" McCarthy snapped. "Because you want to pick one specific issue, you want to know why people are upset."
Watch below or at the link.
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Campaigning in this state ‘could cost Trump elsewhere’: report
When Kamala Harris emerged as the presumptive 2024 Democratic nominee in July, Donald Trump's "path to winning a 270-vote Electoral College majority" became much more difficult.
Newsweek reported that a University of North Florida (UNF) Public Opinion Research Lab poll published that month showed Trump "ahead of Harris by seven points."
Now, a new September 2024 poll by the Independent Center and The Bullfinch Group "showed Trump had a 1-point lead over Vice President Kamala Harris in Florida (48 percent to 47)," according to Newsweek.
READ MORE: Trump now bleeding support in GOP-dominated state as more women voters gravitate to Biden
"Thomas Gift, an associate professor of political science and director of the Centre on U.S. Politics at University College London, previously said that while Harris 'looks likely' to lose Florida, Trump may still need to work harder to appeal to voters in the state than he would like," the news outlet reports.
"The mere fact that Trump may have to campaign vigorously in Florida could divert resources from true swing states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan," told Newsweek.
"Even if Harris loses Florida, which certainly looks likely, this could cost Trump elsewhere if he's forced to devote scarce time, resources, and energy into shoring up his lead in the Sunshine State."
Although Democrats lost Florida voters in 2022, the Tampa Bay Times reports that it's possible for the party to pick up traction in upcoming elections.
READ MORE: Deep-red 'Republican stronghold' thought to be an 'easy win for Trump' is now a swing state
"Democrats remain convinced they are on the voters’ side of the issues," the Tampa Bay Times reports. "They point to voters raising the minimum wage in 2020 and the polling popularity of this year’s constitutional amendments on abortion access and legal marijuana."
The newspaper notes that if Democratic lawmakers "are to derive hope from any part of the state, it might be from the Orlando area, which has produced promising young leaders during the Trump era." US Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) — an Orlando native — became the first Gen Z House member in 2022.
"The people are on our side in terms of policy but not politics," Frost said. "So how do we solve that? We talk about our policy more."
State Rep. Anna Eskamani (D-Orlando) — who flipped her district four years before Frost's victory — told the newspaper "that sometimes Republicans make her think of 'The Crown' on Netflix, a show where characters have their own ambitions but acquiesce without question to their" leader.
READ MORE: 'Don’t listen to Trump': Florida conservatives turn on ex-president over new comments
"Everyone gets in line to do what the crown says," Eskamani emphasized. "If you don’t get in line, you don’t really have a place in the Republican Party."
Newsweek's full report is available here. Tampa Bay Times' report is here.
‘I’m ready for you’: MSNBC’s Ruhle throws down the gauntlet after Fox News whining
A smiling Stephanie Ruhle slapped aside complaints and whining from Fox News personnel who spent the greater part of Thursday seemingly obsessed with her interview with Vice President Kamala Harris. She then made an offer to Donald Trump.
Appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," co-host Joe Scarborough joked that Mika Brzezinski spends an inordinate amount of time watching Fox News and then pointed out that Ruhle and her Harris interview dominated their version of the news for the entire day.
ALSO READ: Dysfunction on display: Republicans complain Speaker Johnson is no Pelosi
"I noticed [Fox personality] Howie Kurtz was saying you launched a softball interview with Kamala Karris, and you seem to be the running banner for about 30 minutes," Scarborough prompted his guest as Brzezinski exclaimed, "30 minutes? All day!" as her co-host continued and joked, "What a softball interview this interview was. Of course, nothing, nothing like Donald Trump and Sean Hannity, I'm sure. But I'm just curious what your thoughts were about Fox News desperately suggesting that she bombed a softball interview."
"Well to Fox News, I would say 'thank you,' because, as I learned from Donald Trump, all press is good press, so I am thrilled to be all over their air waves all day long," Ruhle joked.
After some snarky banter about Trump selling $100,000 watches, coins, trading cards and bibles, Ruhle pushed back, calling complaints about the interview a bunch of hot air.
"That's nonsense," she told the co-hosts. "Anybody who watched the interview I did with Vice President Harris, we sat down for 25 minutes and talked about one single topic, the economy. It is the number one issue for voters. If Donald Trump would like to sit down and have that same conversation, I'm ready for you."
'I think it's hugely important," she added. "It's a vulnerability for both candidates. It's tricky, Joe, because you obviously want to cover all of these topics, but to just do it with one candidate, it's hard, because many people feel like she's speaking in platitudes; she's speaking about an economic vision, and she's not giving details. She's got an 80-page detailed policy proposal."
"Do I think that she answers every single question and gives people exactly what they want?" she asked. "She doesn't. You know why? Because she's a politician, and none of them do."
Watch below or at the link.
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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.”
