The first Republican presidential debate of the 2024 primary season is TONIGHT!
Watch Amanda preview the event below, LIVE from Waukesha, Wisconsin:
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Is this the real reason biotech businessman Vivek Ramaswamy launched a bid for the White House?
A lengthy report from ABC News casts a look into the decision-making behind Ramaswamy’s surprising presidential campaign with sources noting the Republican businessman is aiming to knock Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s campaign in an effort to propel Donald Trump forward.
The report noted that Ramaswamy summoned a small group of conservative operatives to discuss “exciting plans” he had for the coming months in early 2023.
Ramaswamy pitched himself as a [presidential] candidate who could make serious waves in the Republican primary at the meeting. When met with some skepticism, Ramaswamy argued that his candidacy could also dissuade Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis from entering the race, according to a source who was on the call. In the lead-up to his announcement, Ramaswamy would tell several other conservative activists that he believed that if he ran, it could stop DeSantis from running or impact his viability as a candidate if he did enter the race, sources said.
The presidential bid reportedly came shortly after a potential podcast partnership with the conservative publication The Daily Wire fell through.
Another Republican aide who advised Ramaswamy early in his campaign told ABC News that there was frustration among staff early on that the candidate was more concerned about getting his campaign podcast — titled “The Vivek Show” — off the ground, rather than strategizing around how to win the party’s nomination.
“So why is Vivek running anyway?” Morefield wrote in his column. “It’s hard to imagine it’s not for one or both of the following reasons: 1) To raise his profile and secure some sort of post in the upcoming administration. 2) To pave the way for a Trump defeat of DeSantis.”
When asked for comment on this story, Ramaswamy’s senior adviser Tricia McLaughlin told ABC News, referring to DeSantis: “Does one of your sources live in a publicly financed mansion in Tallahassee, Florida?”
Trump didn’t see this one coming…
Republican Senator Bill Cassidy (La.) predicted former President Donald Trump would lose the 2024 general election against Joe Biden if he’s ultimately the GOP’s presidential nominee.
Cassidy made the comments during a Sunday appearance on CNN and added that he thinks any other candidate in the Republican primary field is better suited to defeat Biden, a scathing rebuke of the former president he’s often supported.
“Do you think that Donald Trump should drop out of the race?” host Kasie Hunt asked.
“I think so. But, obviously, that’s up to him. I mean, you’re just asking me my opinion,” Cassidy responded.
“But he will lose to Joe Biden, if you look at the current polls. I’m a Republican. I think any Republican on that stage in Milwaukee will do a better job than Joe Biden,” he added. “And so I want one of them to win. If former President Trump ends up getting the nomination, but cannot win a general, that means we will have four more years of policies which have led to very high inflation, to a loss of purchasing power for the average American equivalent to $10,000, and to many other things which I think have been deleterious to our country’s future.”
However, Sen. Cassidy confirmed that he would vote for Trump if he becomes the Republican nominee.
The would-be assassin of former President Trump was sentenced to 262 months in prison.
On Thursday, Pascale Cecile Veronique Ferrier, a 56-year-old dual citizen of Canada and France, was selected to nearly 22 years in prison for mailing a letter containing the poison ricin in 2020 to then-President Trump and others. She pleaded guilty in January to violating biological weapons prohibitions.
In the letter, Ferrier referred to Trump as “The Ugly Tyrant Clown” and laced it with the potentially deadly ricin, saying, “If it doesn’t work, I’ll find better recipe for another poison, or I might use my gun when I’ll be able to come. Enjoy! FREE REBEL SPIRIT.”
Authorities arrested Ferrier while attempting to drive across the U.S.-Canada border while carrying a gun, a knife, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, authorities said. The letter was intercepted at a mail sorting facility in September 2020, before it could reach the White House.
In September 2020, Ferrier posted on X, then called Twitter, that someone should “please shoot [T]rump in the face.”
Ferrier told the judge that she considers herself a “peaceful and genuinely kind person” but admitted she gets angry about problems like unfairness, abuses of power and “stupid rules.” She also said she considers herself to be an “activist” rather than a “terrorist.”
U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich handed down the 262-month sentence outlined in a plea agreement with prosecutors, which also would expel Ferrier from the U.S. once she is released from prison. She will be required to be under supervised release for life, if she ever returns.
Prosecutor Michael Friedman called the sentence an “appropriately harsh punishment” that sends a clear message.
“There is absolutely no place for politically motivated violence in the United States of America,” he said. “There is no excuse for threatening public officials or targeting our public servants.”
The Republican presidential debate debacle continues…
Watch Amanda explain the situation below:
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ popularity is waning…
The popular governor slipped to its lowest level this year, according to a new Quinnipiac University national poll released Wednesday.
Eighteen percent of Republican and Republican-leaning voters said they supported the Florida governor, which is his lowest level of support in Quinnipiac’s polling of the GOP primary this year. Former President Trump, on the other hand, clocked in at a whopping 57 percent support among Republican and Republican-leaning voters. Quinnipiac noted that DeSantis was only 6 points behind the former president in February, but now he finds himself trailing Trump by 39 points.
Meanwhile, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy came in third place at 5 percent support, followed by former Vice President Mike Pence at 4 percent. Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie each received 3 percent support.
The poll comes as DeSantis continues to struggle to gain traction in the polls. An Emerson College survey released earlier this week showed Christie surpassing DeSantis by 1 point in New Hampshire.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) has officially charged former President Donald Trump in the office’s yearslong investigation into his alleged efforts to overturn Georgia’s election results.
On Monday night a grand jury voted to charge Trump on 13 charges ranging from making false statements and impersonating a public officer to conspiracy and racketeering — a charge generally reserved for organized crime. Eighteen Trump lawyers, advisers, and confidantes are charged alongside the leading GOP 2024 hopeful, including his former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Each of them faces the racketeering charge, linking the multitude of alleged crimes together.
The 98-page document dropped shortly before 11 p.m. on Monday.
The shared charge alleges the defendants participated in a “criminal enterprise in Fulton County, Georgia — and elsewhere — to accomplish the illegal goal” of keeping Trump in office, Willis (D) said Monday.
See the Trump allies charged in the Georgia Probe:
The investigation largely focused on a phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger during which the former president pressured the official to “find” enough votes to overturn the results.
However, over the weekend an exclusive report from CNN revealed Georgia prosecutors also obtained documents connecting Trump’s team to a voting system breach in Coffee County in January 2021.
CNN reports:
Together, the text messages and other court documents show how Trump lawyers and a group of hired operatives sought to access Coffee County’s voting systems in the days before January 6, 2021, as the former president’s allies continued a desperate hunt for any evidence of widespread fraud they could use to delay certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
Last year, a former Trump official testified under oath to the House January 6 select committee that plans to access voting systems in Georgia were discussed in meetings at the White House, including during an Oval Office meeting on December 18, 2020, that included Trump.
Six days before pro-Trump operatives gained unauthorized access to voting systems, the local elections official who allegedly helped facilitate the breach sent a “written invitation” to attorneys working for Trump, according to text messages obtained by CNN.
Read the full indictment below:
This is a breaking news story. Click refresh for the latest updates.
On Friday, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the appointment of special counsel David Weiss in the Hunter Biden probe.
“I’m here today to announce the appointment of David Weiss as a special counsel consistent with the Department of Justice regulations governing such matters. In keeping with those regulations, I have today notified the designated members of each House of Congress of the appointment,” Garland said.
Weiss is the federal prosecutor who has investigated the business dealings of President Biden’s son and brought charges against Hunter Biden in Delaware.
Garland said on Tuesday that Weiss told him that “in his judgment, his investigation has reached a stage at which he should continue his work as a special counsel, and he asked to be appointed.”
“Upon considering his request, as well as the extraordinary circumstances relating to this matter, I have concluded it is in the public interest to appoint him as special counsel,” Garland said.
On Friday, Trump’s lawyers attended a Washington, D.C. hearing before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Donald Trump’s alleged election meddling.
In court filings, prosecutors had argued for broad rules baring Trump’s lawyers from sharing “sensitive” materials with the former president, including witness testimony to the grand jury and recordings and transcripts of Trump associates who spoke to prosecutors. Trump’s attorneys argued that the government’s request was too broad and infringed on Trump’s First Amendment rights.
Judge Chutkan said she was not persuaded that the government has shown all information gathered in the case would fall under the protective order. She ruled that only information designated as “sensitive” should be protected.
“The defendant has the right to free speech, but that right is not absolute,” Chutkan said at the onset of the hearing. “Without a protective order, a party could release that info to the jury pool.”
Federal prosecutor Thomas Windom said Friday the restrictions were necessary to prevent the “improper dissemination of materials … including to the public.”
“The defendant has set forth an intention to set forth any information that they deem informative,” Windom told the judge.
“Defense has broadcast their strategy, and that is not to try this case in this courtroom, and your honor should address that,” he said.
Recently unsealed court filings show Special Counsel Jack Smith subpoenaed and obtained a search warrant related to former President Trump’s account on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
The case, which was decided in July, ordered X to turn over the documents sought by Smith and also fined the company $350,000 for a three-day delay in complying with a court order of the records.
According to reports from The Hill, The Justice Department (DOJ) first sought the records in January.
The filing details a months-long battle between X and the special counsel’s office over the efforts to get information tied to Trump’s account, with an appeals court backing a lower court ruling “in all respects.”
“The district court found that there were ‘reasonable grounds to believe’ that disclosing the warrant to former President Trump ‘would seriously jeopardize the ongoing investigation’ by giving him ‘an opportunity to destroy evidence, change patterns of behavior, [or] notify confederates,’” the U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. noted in its ruling.
The lower court’s March ruling also found probable cause to search Trump’s Twitter account “for evidence of criminal offenses.”
