Georgia National Guard from United States, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
A prominent Republican governor is preparing to meet with top Senate leaders this week.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is meeting with two top Republican leaders in the Senate in Washington, D.C. over the next two days, a spokesperson for the governor confirmed to The Hill.
Kemp will meet with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday and National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) Chair Steve Daines (R-Mont.) on Wednesday.
The pair of meetings come after the Peach State governor told CNN’s Kaitlin Collins that he is “certainly” not running for president in 2024.
“In politics, there’s always doors opening and closing. I got a great job right now. I personally feel like having more people in the race does not help us win and beat Joe Biden,” Kemp told Kaitlan Collins on “The Source.” “So, you know, I’m certainly not running for president. But there’s always doors opening in politics depending on how things play out, and we’ll see what happens.”
The Georgia Governor reiterated that Trump should stop constantly referencing the 2020 election if he hopes to re-win the state.
“If he continues to do that, he’s going to lose Georgia in November,” Kemp said, later adding, “There is no path for us to win the White House if we can’t win Georgia.”
Obama could be the only Democrat that could defeat Donald Trump this November- Michelle Obama that is.
A recent survey, conducted by Reuters/Ipsos, found that Obama was the only Democrat to surpass Trump in a hypothetical matchup, garnering 50 percent support to his 39 percent. Only 4 percent of respondents said they would not vote at all.
Meanwhile, the poll found that in a head-to-head matchup, President Biden and Trump are neck-and-neck. They each received 40 percent of the vote, while 8 percent said they would vote for someone else, and another 8 percent said they would not vote.
Other Democrats floated as potential replacements to Biden in the poll included Vice President Harris, who received 42 percent in a head-to-head match-up with Trump, who received 43 percent. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) trailed Trump by 3 percentage points, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) trailed by 5 points in a hypothetical contest with the presumptive GOP nominee.
We Were Right……..Michelle Obama Is the only Democrat who can beat Trump.
Michelle Obama 2024 is the only way to save Our democracy.
— PoliticsVideoChannel (@politvidchannel) July 3, 2024
Obama was the top choice among Democrats to replace Biden on the 2024 ticket, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll released in February. Despite her popularity, the former first lady has repeatedly said she will not be pursuing a bid for the White House.
FLOTUS at Fayetteville, N.C. -The Arts Center speech
Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian
“As former First Lady Michelle Obama has expressed several times over the years, she will not be running for president,” Crystal Carson, the director of communications for Obama’s office, said in a statement in March.
Obama “supports President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ re-election campaign,” Carson said.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) said former President Trump should not pick fellow GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley as his running mate.
Noem was asked by Newsmax’s Eric Bolling if it would be a mistake if Trump chose Haley to be his vice presidential pick and she only has one answer. She quickly replied “yes.”
“But if he picked her, I would tell him I disagreed with him. But then I would support the ticket, because he’s still the president and the president still makes the decisions,” Noem said Tuesday.
The popular South Dakota Governor has previously said she would be Trump’s running mate “in a heartbeat.” In September, the former president said he likes “the concept” of a female vice president but hadn’t given much thought to whom he would choose.
Noem is reportedly among a group of rumored candidates, including Haley.
“And you know, I just, I’ve had a lot of disagreement with Nikki Haley over the years, and I just don’t know which Nikki Haley is going to show up every day,” Noem said, highlighted by Mediaite. “She’s a different person depending on whatever works for her political agenda.”
“So, I just, what I love about President Trump, or what I think the American people love about President Trump, is that he’s just himself and he’s just genuine,” Noem continued. “He’s just a normal human being who tells the truth, and gets up every day fighting for people. He has no reason to do this job other than the fact that he really truly does believe in America. And he wants to put the people out there — they get up every day and go to work. He wants to put them first.”
Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Donald Trump is scoring endorsements left and right…
On Tuesday, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), the No. 2 Republican in the House, endorsed former President Trump in his 2024 presidential bid.
“I am proud to endorse Donald Trump for president in 2024, and I look forward to working with President Trump and a Republican House and Senate to fight for those families who are struggling under the weight of Biden’s failed policies,” Scalise wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
I am proud to endorse Donald Trump for president in 2024, and I look forward to working with President Trump and a Republican House and Senate to fight for those families who are struggling under the weight of Biden’s failed policies.https://t.co/FTmUcORccr
In a statement reported by Fox News, Scalise focused on migration issues at the southern border and economic metrics during Trump’s first term in office.
“The economy was strong and interest rates were low — grocery costs were affordable, and families could afford to buy a house and provide for their children,” Scalise said in the statement. “The border was secure and crime was down. America had secure energy policies, keeping gas and utility prices low.”
And he hit President Biden on border enforcement.
“Fiscal Year 2023 surpassed Fiscal Year 2022 as the worst year at the border with the most migrant encounters on record, 169 individuals on the terrorist watchlist apprehended attempting to enter illegally, and over 27,000 pounds of fentanyl seized by the CPB,” Scalise said. “In Joe Biden’s America, our communities aren’t safe.”
On Wednesday, Trump solidified his support from House GOP leaders with Tom Emmer’s official endorsement.
“Democrats have made clear they will use every tool in their arsenal to try and keep Joe Biden and his failed policies in power. We cannot let them. It’s time for Republicans to unite behind our party’s clear frontrunner, which is why I am proud to endorse Donald J. Trump for President,” Emmer said in a statement posted Wednesday to X, formerly known as Twitter.
Emmer had previously indicated in an interview with The Hill last year that he might not endorse a candidate in the primary.
Former President Donald Trump is scheduled for a probation interview Monday, a standard part of the sentencing process for those convicted in New York state court.
The interview, aimed at influencing his upcoming sentencing in July, will take place later today.
The pre-sentencing probation interview will be done over a special virtual network with added security measures, and the interviewer will be a female, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation. The call is not expected to be held over Zoom, those sources added.
Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, was convicted last month on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the historic case. The probation interview is required by the court as part of the former president’s pre-sentencing report.
Judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over the hush money case, permitted Blanche to be present for the probation interview after prosecutors did not object. The Trump defense team is scheduled to submit their sentencing recommendation on June 13.
The former president is scheduled to be sentenced for all 34 felony counts in New York on July 11, days before the Republican National Convention begins.
Trump will conduct the interview from Mar-a-Lago in Florida with Blanche by his side.
The probation officer will record Trump’s lack of criminal history, employment record, current financial status, and observations regarding his “physical and mental condition,” all of which Merchan will consider in his sentencing.
On Wednesday, the FBI and other U.S. intelligence agencies disclosed alarming developments regarding Iran’s alleged interference in the 2024 presidential election. The joint statement, released by the FBI, Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), confirmed that Iranian cyber actors attempted to share stolen information from the Trump campaign with the Biden-Harris campaign.
The report indicated that Iranian hackers sent unsolicited emails containing nonpublic Trump campaign data to individuals connected to the Biden-Harris campaign in late June and early July. While the agencies found no evidence that the recipients responded to the emails, the incident has sparked concerns about foreign interference in the U.S. election.
The Biden-Harris campaign condemned the Iranian cyber activity, emphasizing its cooperation with law enforcement since being informed of the phishing attempts. Campaign spokesperson Morgan Finkelstein stated that the emails targeted the personal accounts of staff members rather than official campaign addresses, adding, “We condemn in the strongest terms any effort by foreign actors to interfere in U.S. elections.”
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign accused Iran of trying to help the Harris-Biden ticket and demanded clarity on whether the stolen material had been used. Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt questioned, “What did they know, and when did they know it?”
Karoline Leavitt speaking with attendees at the 2022 Student Action Summit at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida. [Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore ]
The matter has now drawn attention on Capitol Hill, with House Intelligence Committee members weighing in. Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) noted that there was no evidence the Biden campaign responded to the unsolicited emails, while praising Harris and Biden for recognizing that foreign election interference is unacceptable.
Iran, for its part, has denied any involvement. The Iranian Mission to the United Nations issued a statement rejecting the accusations, calling for the U.S. to provide substantiated evidence.
This revelation follows reports last month of internal communications from the Trump campaign being hacked, including emails that were allegedly leaked to Politico. The leaked documents included a 271-page dossier on Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, detailing potential vulnerabilities in his political record.
The developments have intensified concerns regarding foreign influence and interference in the 2024 election, as well as the need for investigations and safeguards to ensure the integrity of the electoral process.
The White House from Washington, DC, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fox News anchor Bret Baier suggested this week that former President Donald Trump may be the “holdup” preventing a potential Fox News debate between him and Vice President Kamala Harris. During an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt, Baier expressed his belief that the Harris campaign would likely agree to a debate on Fox News.
“I actually believe – this is me talking – that the Harris campaign would do a Fox debate,” Baier said, adding that Trump seems hesitant to move forward with the idea.
Others feel differently, as The Daily Caller reports:
CNN’s Chris Wallace said on Sept. 13 that there is no chance that Harris will debate Trump on Fox News.
“I would say that there is an absolutely 0%, what’s lower than 0, chance that she would agree to debate on Fox,” Wallace said. “Let me tell you a quick story. Back in 2019 when she was running, the president of Fox News and I, who was seen as being pretty even handed, went to meet with a bunch of the Democrats to try and get them to do town halls or do an interview. [Democratic Massachusetts Sen.] Elizabeth Warren met with us, [independent Vermont Sen.] Bernie Sanders met with us, the only Democrat who refused to meet with us off-the-record just to consider the possibility of going on Fox was Kamala Harris. There is a 0% chance that she will agree to an interview on Fox.”
Harris accepted an Oct. 23 debate with CNN, but Trump said it is “too late” because of how close it would be to the November election.
“As President Trump has said, only losers request a rematch. Kamala Harris lost the debate, and she knows it,” Karoline Leavitt, Trump campaign national press secretary, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Following the Sept. 10 debate on ABC News, Trump has declared there will be no further debates. Meanwhile, Harris has agreed to a CNN debate on Oct. 23. A prior Fox News debate proposal, which Trump had agreed to, never materialized.
Georgia National Guard from United States, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Georgia Governor Bian Kemp (R) says Kamala won’t make it to the White House without the Peach State. During an interview, the Republican governor insisted “the road to the White House is going to run through Georgia”
Kemp, interviewed Tuesday on the eve of Vice President Harris’ two-day bus swing through Georgia, said his state “should be one that we win if we have all the mechanics that we need. And I’m working hard to help provide those in a lot of ways and turn the Republican vote out.”
“It’s my belief that we cannot afford four more years of [President] Joe Biden and Kamala Harris or Kamala Harris and [Minnesota Gov.] Tim Walz, which I think would probably be worse than even Biden and Harris were,” Kemp said.
The governor was interviewed a couple of days after Trump praised Kemp in a social media post “for all of your help and support in Georgia, where a win is so important to the success of our Party and, most importantly, our Country.”
“I look forward to working with you, your team, and all of my friends in Georgia to help MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” the Republican presidential nominee added.
Republican strategists agree that to recapture Georgia, Trump will need assistance from Kemp’s well-oiled and funded political machine to turn out GOP voters.
Kemp said he’s “working hard” to “turn the Republican vote out and make sure that we win this state in November.”
“How that looks and how that goes will really be up to kind of how things play out and what states are in play and who’s going where and when,” Kemp added.
“I’ve got other responsibilities in my duties with the Republican Governors Association, traveling around the country helping to raise money to win North Carolina and hold New Hampshire in our column and also helping our legislative races here.”
Former Fox News star Tucker Carlson says that if Donald Trump taps Nikki Haley as his running mate not only will he not vote for the ticket but he will openly advocate against it.
“I would not only not vote for that ticket, I would advocate against it as strongly as I could,” Carlson said this week during an interview with conservative media personality Tim Pool.
“That’s just poison,” Carlson added, blasting Haley as “not left, but … neoliberal in the darkest, most … nihilistic way” and saying she “has no real popular support.”
Carlson called Haley a “creature of the oligarchs” and said her joining Trump’s campaign “would be reason to oppose the ticket.”
Carlson recently brushed aside suggestions that he could be a potential vice presidential pick for Trump after an Axios report indicated Melania Trump is advocating for Trump to tap Carlson for the role. (RELATED:Tucker Carlson Shoots Down Vice President Rumors)
“God would have to yell at me very loud,” Carlson said at the American Principles Project Foundation’s annual Christmas gala, where he gave a speech, according to Semafor.
Presidential debates will look different this year…
CNN has reportedly finalized the rules for the first presidential debate scheduled for June 27 in Atlanta.
CNN said there will be two commercial breaks during the debate, and candidates will not be allowed to consult with other members of their campaign during that time.
The network also noted that candidates’ podiums and positions will be determined by a coin flip, their mics will be muted outside of speaking time, and they will only be provided with a pen, a notepad and a bottle of water.
There will be no opening statements. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump will each have two minutes to answer questions — followed by one-minute rebuttals and responses to the rebuttals. Red lights visible to the candidates will flash when they have five seconds left, and turn solid red when time has expired. And each man’s microphone will be muted when it is not his turn to speak.
Candidates will not be allowed to bring props or prepared notes.
Additionally, for the first time in recent history, the debate between presidential contenders won’t have a studio audience.
To qualify to participate in the televised debate a candidate must have received 15% support in four separate national polls, and be on the ballot in enough states to reach 270 electoral college votes. Candidates must also meet the requirements outlined in Article II, Section 1 of the US Constitution to serve as president.
Currently, Independent candidate Kennedy is on the ballot in six states, totaling 89 potential Electoral College votes.
