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Is Vivek Ramaswamy The GOP’s New Trump ‘Lite’?

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Vivek Ramaswamy speaking with attendees at the 2022 AmericaFest at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona.

ANALYSIS- Who is this skinny guy with the funny-sounding name? (That was his opening line at the debate). Vivek Ramaswamy wasn’t supposed to be at the center of the first Republican presidential candidate debate in Milwaukee.

Ron DeSantis was supposed to be the viable GOP alternative to Donald Trump. A two-term governor of the third most populous state in the union, DeSantis, a Navy veteran who served in Iraq, is as conservative as they come.

And he has a proven track record of fighting the left in Florida – and winning.

But despite his solid bona fides and resume, DeSantis has a personality problem. He just doesn’t exude charm or confidence, and that’s hurting him – a lot.

Meanwhile, Ramaswamy the 38-year-old Trump-defending, Cincinnati-born, biotech billionaire (worth at least $950 million), son of Pakistani immigrants, kind of stole the show at the debate.

According to former FBI agent and body language expert, Joe Navarro: “[Ramaswamy] consistently looked the most comfortable on stage.”

He was also the most openly and unabashedly pro-Trump. He was the first candidate to raise their hand when asked who would support the former President as the party nominee even if he is convicted on felony charges that he’s facing.

He has also promised to pardon Trump if elected. But he went even farther than that.

“President Trump, I believe, was the best president of the 21st century,” Ramaswamy said in a clip from the debate Trump posted on Truth Social.

And Trump loved it.

“This answer gave Vivek Ramaswamy a big WIN in the debate because of a thing called TRUTH. Thank you, Vivek!”

The ever-smiling political newbie Ramaswamy, who seemed to be having a blast on stage, was also the target of many of his GOP rivals.

As TIME reported:

Maybe it was Ramaswamy’s consistent and confounding defense of All Things Trump. Maybe it was his smooth talk and culture-war acumen. Maybe it was just the fact that Ramaswamy frankly does not care how things were done before and might just have enough self-made money to go the distance.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie snarled that he had “had enough already tonight of a guy who sounds like ChatGPT,” an A.I. battery. He then dismissed Ramaswamy as someone on the same level as a political figure universally loathed in the GOP. “The last person in one of these debates… who stood in the middle of the stage and said, ‘What is a skinny guy with an odd last name doing up here?’ was Barack Obama. And I am afraid we are dealing with the same type of amateur standing on the stage tonight,” Christie said.

But the quick witted Ramaswamy’s riposte to Christie was a zinger: “Give me a hug like you did to Obama, and you’ll help elect me just like you did to Obama. Give me the damn hug, brother.”

Ramaswamy was referring to the 2012 incident when Christie was accused of “hugging” Obama during his visit in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy which hit days before the 2012 presidential election.

It’s a claim that Christie has been denying since then, saying: “I didn’t hug him.”

Photos at the time seem to back up Christie, but the zinger still worked.

Former U.S. Ambassador to the UN under Trump, and ex-South Carolina governor, Nikki Haley, who is of Indian descent, hit Ramaswamy too: “You have no foreign policy experience, and it shows.”

I would agree with that assessment and believe he has made a few deeply flawed important national security statements – including on Ukraine and Israel.

But he is super smart and can learn quickly.

Then Vice President Mike Pence took a Christie-like jab at Ramaswamy, attacking the very same quality that originally helped raise Trump in the GOP base – that he is not a politician.

“Now it’s not the time for on-the-job training,” retorted Pence. “We don’t need to bring in a rookie. We don’t need to bring in people with no experience.”

AS TIME noted: “Attacks during debates are the norm but this was different. Ramaswamy’s competitors really don’t like him. Not even a little.”

However, there is one important GOP rival who seems to like Ramaswamy – Donald Trump. And that could be all that matters.

Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

Tucker, Elon Real Winners Of First GOP Debate Night

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Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr
The true winners of last night’s debate are former prime-time Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk, owner of X – formerly Twitter. If you’ve spent the last 24-48 hours under a rock – here’s what transpired last night. Eight Republican candidates running to be the next President of the United States took the stage in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to talk about their visions for the future of America – and how they are the proper alternatives not only to the babbling buffoon currently in the White House Joe Biden, but also to America’s 45th President Donald Trump – now running for the office for a third time. The Wisconsin event was moderated, albeit poorly, by Fox News anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum. Of course, the debate in itself was probably somewhat staged. According to multiple reports, the candidates and their prep camps were given the questions in advance. While the debate was going on in Milwaukee, Tucker Carlson aired an opposing pre-recorded interview with America’s 45th President Donald Trump, who himself is set to be arraigned in a Fulton County, Georgia court on Thursday where he is expected to front up a bail payment of $200,000. (RELATED: Trump Agrees To Release Conditions, Including $200,000 Bond) Tucker Carlson has enacted fully-fledged revenge on his former employer and put millions of dollars in the pockets of a new corporate overlord, Elon Musk. X, formerly Twitter, has been working to position itself as the preeminent alternative to the mainstream media since the Musk buyout earlier this year. By the view numbers still rolling in on the video posted last night, they seem to have succeeded in doing that to a level even Musk himself may have never imagined. As of the writing of this piece, Tucker’s 46-minute long X video has been viewed over 186.4 million times. Mediaite noted the following in a piece published yesterday:
“The interview, which was taped this week and is dropping to coincide with the debate, is intended as additional salt in the wound for Fox executives wary that a Trump-less event will not bring in the major ratings typically expected from these kinds of nights.”
Notably, video-sharing platform Rumble which was the the first place to try and pitch itself as the free speech alternative to YouTube partnered with the RNC and probably boosted their own profits last night as well. The Rumble stream of the debate from the GOP’s channel has amassed 1.54 million views. Definitely a respectable number, but making up less than 1% of the views amassed by Carlson on X. For the record the Rumble stream via Roku is how I personally watched the debate, refusing to give my dollars to the Fox News machine. Fox News has yet to officially release numbers on last night’s debate but here are some viewership numbers reported by Mediaite from past presidential debates:
“In 2015, Fox’s primary debate – with Trump and nine other candidates – drew 24 million viewers, smashing previous records and earning the distinction of being one of the most-watched cable programs ever. Overall, 2016 was a blockbuster year for debate ratings: the 12 Republican primary events averaged 15 million viewers.”
Even if Fox’s numbers last night were close to their past viewership – which they are not expected to be without Trump – Carlson’s X video dwarfed those numbers as well. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Great America News Desk. This piece is republished with permission from American Liberty News.

‘Trump Was 100% Right Not To Debate:’ Don Jr. Slams Fox News’ ‘Un-American’ Decision

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Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr

Donald Trump Jr. and his fiancée, Kimberly Guilfoyle, expressed their clear displeasure with Fox News Wednesday evening.

In a video clip that’s since gone viral, observers can see the younger Trump at last night’s debate, castigating Fox News for its decision to restrict Trump surrogates trying to access the media spin room.

Fox justified the decision by stating that since the former president declined to debate, his team was not allowed to enter the spin room. Trump publicly snubbed Fox by appearing on Tucker Carlson’s Twitter/X show instead of attending the debate.

However, there was confusion about who could go backstage and how Trump allies might be permitted entry.

The New York Post has more:

“I’d been told by others that I would be able to go in,” Trump Jr. told reporters after a Fiserv Forum security guard turned him away. “Fox won’t let me into the spin room. They’re telling him, he works for security here, but they’re telling him that I’m not allowed to go in there.”

“Because the candidates that they’ve been boosting while trying to cut down Trump for the last, what, two years didn’t perform as they had hoped,” he went on. “So they can’t have someone who can maybe be a representative of my father.”

In political parlance, the “spin room” refers to the area where candidates and their surrogates gather after each debate to talk up their performance to the media while tearing down their rivals.

Fox News co-hosted the debate with the Republican National Committee, which set donor and polling requirements for the candidates and also asked each to sign a pledge to support the party’s eventual nominee.

Besides Trump, Fox banned surrogates for candidates who didn’t qualify for the debate.

Trump Plans to Dramatically Reverse Biden’s Open Border Lunacy

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Trump at the border wall via Wikimedia Commons

ANALYSIS – While the left immediately claimed Donald Trump’s immigration plan for his potential second term is ‘draconian,’ and ‘extreme,’ it really isn’t. It’s essentially a needed dramatic reversal to Joe Biden’s extreme open border insanity.

It’s being referred to as a ‘bolting the hatches’ and ‘bomb the cartels’ strategy. And I’m all for it. 

Especially since what we have now is total third-world chaos and thoroughly unacceptable for America.

The New York Post recently reported that Joe Biden has now literally opened the floodgates at the border by welding open 114 gates in Arizona’s border wall near Tucson. 

The paper noted that in addition to endangered antelope being free to cross:

…the move is also letting an average of 1,400 migrants from as far away as China casually walk into the country daily — with overwhelmed and outnumbered border agents practically helpless to stop them.

“We thought the agents were going to tell us something,” one Ecuadorian migrant said. “But we just walked in.”

The Post added: “Smugglers are capitalizing on the floodgate blunder, driving migrants by the busload to the border and dropping them off as if they were casual tourists.”

And, unlike the mostly South American migrants who have been stopped crossing illegally into Texas, the immigrants coming to Arizona are from places as far as India, Egypt, and China.

Rather than the disheveled and exhausted South American migrants at the end of a long and arduous trek across Mexico, the migrants at Tucson now look more like folks on vacation.

The libertarian-leaning (generally not liberal) Reason outlet was also harshly critical of Trump’s new proposed immigration policies. But when I read their version of what they thought was horrible, I mostly applauded.

Trump’s plan includes:

Screening out Marxists as well as Communists – check.

Screening out potential terrorists from extremist countries – check.

Ending so-called birthright citizenship so that simply being born here from parents who entered illegally isn’t an option – check.

Quickly deporting criminal migrants – check.

Targeting Mexico’s deadly drug cartels as enemy combatants – check.

Generally making it harder to enter the United States legally (if you are willing to cross Mexico on foot, you can do more paperwork) – check.

I can easily stand behind every item noted above and below. 

According to Reason:

“Trump’s plan would involve waves of harsh new policies — and dust off old ones that rarely have been enforced, if ever,” writes Kight. One policy would “ramp up ideological screening” for would-be legal immigrants. U.S. immigration law already largely bars Communist Party–affiliated people from immigrating, but Trump would reportedly expand that to reject “Marxist” applicants. Another policy would expand the former president’s “Muslim ban” to “block more people from certain countries from entering the U.S.,” notes Axios. Trump’s platform would also include ending birthright citizenship and carrying out quick deportations of criminal migrants under “an obscure section of the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts.”

Other aspects of the plan would target drug cartels and smuggling. It would label cartels as “‘unlawful enemy combatants’ to allow the U.S. military to target them in Mexico,” Axios reports, the same designation the government has used “to justify long-term detentions of 9/11 suspects at Guantanamo Bay.” It would also authorize the Coast Guard and Navy to form a blockade in U.S. and Latin American waters to halt boats carrying drugs.

Certain aspects of the plan, if implemented, would likely run into legal challenges. One such aspect is Trump’s reported intent to use the Alien Enemies Act, signed by President John Adams in 1798, “to quickly remove smugglers and migrant criminals…without having to go through legal steps in [Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s] deportation process.” Other policies would put hopeful migrants—and even travelers—through invasive and costly procedures to enter the U.S., such as social media searches and paying bonds to come here.

Well, after four years of border violence and chaos, and an unprecedented wave of illegal immigrants being practically invited across an open border before being shuttled throughout the country and fed and housed at taxpayer expense, it is time for some cracking down.

Bolt the hatches and bomb away.

Woman Arrested for Alleged Threats Against Trump, Son Barron

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Donald Trump via Gage Skidmore Flickr

On Monday, authorities arrested a Chicago woman on charges she threatened to kill former President Trump and his youngest son, Barron.

The Hill reports:

Tracy Marie Fiorenza, 41, was charged in Florida after allegedly emailing the headmaster of a Palm Beach County school in May that she “will shoot Donald Trump Sr. AND Barron Trump straight in the face at any opportunity that I get!” according to a criminal complaint unsealed earlier this month. The charge holds a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

In a June interview with the FBI, Fiorenza confirmed she “intentionally wrote” and sent the emails from her then-residence in Plainfield, Ill., a southwestern suburb of Chicago, according to the complaint.

Fiorenza appeared in court Monday in Chicago and was told by a judge she will be transferred to Florida, where the charges were filed, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Last week, attempted Trump assassin Pascale Cecile Veronique Ferrier, a 56-year-old dual citizen of Canada and France, was sentenced to nearly 22 years behind bars in Washington, D.C., for mailing a letter containing the poison to then-President Trump. 

In the letter, Ferrier reportedly 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 in 2020 while trying to drive across the U.S.-Canada while carrying a gun, a knife, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

According to Fox News, she pleaded guilty in January to violating biological weapons prohibitions.

Report: Presidential Contender Told Allies He’s Running to Sabotage Ron DeSantis

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    Vivek Ramaswamy speaking with attendees at the 2022 AmericaFest at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona.

    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?”

    Joe Biden (aka JRB Ware’) Facing ‘Inferno of Allegations’ – What’s Next?

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    Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    ANALYSIS – If you only followed establishment news, you would think that only former president Donald Trump is in a heap of legal trouble. Well, regardless of whether Trump’s legal woes are justified or a witch hunt by a weaponized Department of Justice (DoJ) and politicized local prosecutors, he isn’t the only president in increasingly hot water.

    Whether it’s through his son Hunter, or by his own doing, Joe Biden is also facing what one congressman called an “inferno of allegations.”

    Pennsylvania Republican and House Oversight Committee member Scott Perry said on a Newsmax TV interview on Thursday that where there’s smoke there’s fire, and Joe Biden has “gotten himself into an inferno of allegations and credible claims of influence peddling that seems like it’s filled with probable cause.”

    Newsmax reported:

    Perry made the comments on “Rob Schmitt Tonight” in a discussion about the president’s use of at least one email alias when he was vice president. The Oversight Committee has demanded that the National Archives turn over unredacted material related to the alias and its use that overlaps with Hunter Biden’s time in Ukraine.

    “I think it’s really long past time where the Oversight Committee and the Congress itself to play hardball with these agencies that somehow think that this information that belongs to the American people somehow solely belongs to them as though it’s their personal possession,” Perry told Schmitt.

    Joe Biden’s use of email aliases during his time as vice president is the latest bombshell to come from investigations into Hunter’s shady foreign business deals.

    As the New York Post reported:

    President Biden used at least three pseudonyms during his vice presidency to send messages to his son Hunter concerning both family and official government business — including meetings with Ukrainian leaders, emails found on the first son’s abandoned laptop show.

    Then-Vice President Biden emailed Hunter under the aliases “Robin Ware,” “Robert L. Peters” and “JRB Ware” between 2014 and 2016, keeping his son abreast of scheduled talks with then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Kyiv Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, among other communications The Post first revealed in 2021.

    The elder Biden had one of his aides, John Flynn, send his daily schedule to the private email address “[email protected]” at least 10 times between May 18 and June 15, 2016, copying Hunter on a May 26 message with a note about an “8.45am prep for 9am phonecall [sic]

    Biden had pressured Poroshenko five months earlier to fire Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin, who was investigating the natural gas company Burisma Holdings, where Hunter earned roughly $1 million per year while serving on the board between 2014 and 2019.

    Joe Biden also used the “JRB Ware” alias in 2016 to discuss plans for the Penn Biden Centerin Washington, DC, and where improperly kept classified material was found late last year.

    The revelation of these Biden aliases has prompted House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) to ask the National Archives to turn over unredacted records where Biden relied on the aliases when communicating with his son Hunter and his son’s business partners Eric Schwerin and Devon Archer.

    Archer told the committee on July 31 that Joe Biden got on phone calls with his son’s foreign business associates nearly two dozen times.

    Schwerin also visited the Old Executive Office Building to meet with then-Vice President Biden around the time the Obama-Biden administration was making big changes to US-Ukraine policy.

    So, what should happen next? Well, Congressman Perry has an answer for that.

    Newsmax quoted Perry as saying:

    I think the subpoenas have to start. I think the impeachment inquiry is overdue again. We have probable cause. I think in any other criminal case instance right now that this would be completely fulfilling the probable cause requirement.

    I think it’s our duty to ferret this out, so the American people know about their president, whether they can trust him or not.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    GOP Senator Turns on Trump, ‘He Will Lose’

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    Bill Cassidy via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    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.

    Pelosi Knew – Tucker Carlson Interviews Capitol Police Chief Again over Jan 6

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    Nancy Pelosi via Gage Skidmore flickr

    ANALYSIS – The original interview Tucker Carlson did with former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund about the Capitol Riot never aired on Fox News because Tucker was fired just before. Still, a lot about that interview has leaked. 

    I wrote about some of Sund’s claims earlier in August

    In that piece, I note that the Jan 6 riot was not a false flag operation, and most of the rioters were confirmed Trump supporters. However, in many ways, it was allowed to happen.

    But to put the entire thing on the record, Carlson did the interview again – and posted it to X, formerly known as Twitter. And it is damning to those Democrats who benefited from the Capitol Riot.

    Much of what Sund has said coincides with or dovetails with facts I have written about previously, especially how the Sergeant at Arms for both the House under Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the Senate under Democrat Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, both declined National Guard support until it was too late.

    The same occurred with the Democrat Mayor of Washington, DC, Muriel Bowser who specifically stated that troops not be deployed unless the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) approved. 

    She added that she believed her police department was “well trained and prepared to lead the way” to ensure Jan. 6 unfolded safely. They weren’t. And they didn’t.

    This despite President Donald Trump offering the National Guard to them more than once.

    *(Note that the graphic above is incorrect in one detail – Officer Brian Sicknick was NOT killed defending the Capitol. He died later of natural causes (a stroke) unrelated to the riot.)

    In the case of Pelosi, Carlson is direct: “So this is an event that Pelosi herself has likened to Pearl Harbor and 9/11 — you know, the worst thing that’s ever happened on American soil — and she’s in charge of allowing the National Guard to come in and respond but she doesn’t for 71 minutes? What is that?”

    But Sund adds more details and perspective to the event that makes the lead up even more damning for the Democrats.

    The Blaze reported:

    In the interview, Sund indicated critical intelligence pertaining to possible threats ahead of the Jan. 6 protest was withheld from the Capitol Police and that the absence of such intelligence was cited by the congressional sergeants at arms — who were reporting to then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at the time — as cause not to reinforce the Capitol in advance with the National Guard and federal assets.

    However, the outlet added the former Chief now understands that the intelligence was there. It just wasn’t provided to his department:

    According to the former chief, “We now know FBI [and] DHS was swimming in that intelligence. We also know now that the military seemed to have some very concerning intelligence as well,” adding that the FBI field office in Washington and other outfits “didn’t put out a single official document specific to January 6. That’s very unusual.”

    During a conference call on Jan. 5, 2021, with the leaders of the Metropolitan Police Department and the FBI Washington field office along with National Guard, military officials, and others, “not one person on that call talked about any concerns from the intelligence … that was out there.”

    “This was handled differently. … It’s almost like they wanted it to be watered down, the intelligence to be watered down for some reason,” said Sund. “It wasn’t right the way the intelligence was handled and the way we were set up on the Hill.”

    The question is – did these federal security agencies make the decisions not to forward this intelligence on their own, or where they told not to send it?

    In the interview, Sund noted that then-acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley had “both discussed locking down the city of Washington, D.C., because they were so worried about violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6.”

    Sund added: “On Sunday and Monday, they had been discussing locking down the city, revoking permits on Capitol hill because of the concern for violence.” 

    He continued: “You know who issues the permits on Capitol Hill for demonstrations? I do. You know who wasn’t told? Me.”

    This deserves much more investigation. The Jan 6 Committee was a partisan circus and designed only to blame Trump.

    I have argued that the Pentagon leadership was extremely wary of bringing in the National Guard or any federal assets to DC due to the extreme overreaction by Democrats over Trump sending federal officers to quell riots in Portland a few months earlier.

    Democrats also were apoplectic with rage at Trump’s actions to stop violent rioters outside the White House on June 1st

    There was also the incessant talk in the media about Trump using the military for a ‘coup,’ which Miller has stated as a constraint several times. These all remain valid explanations for the Pentagon’s preferred inaction. 

    And maybe for the Mayor’s decision to initially reject Guard troops.

    But what about Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer? What did they know and when did they know it? And why did they veto reinforcing the Capitol till the chaos had already begun?

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    Report: Trump to Skip First Debate to Participate in Rival Event with Tucker Carlson

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    Tucker Carlson via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    Former President Donald Trump has reportedly finalized his plans to skip the first Republican presidential debate and instead participate in an event with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

     The New York Times reported the news noting the former president has spent the last several days soliciting feedback from aides and allies on whether to participate in the debate.

    When The Hill contacted for comment on the reported agreement between Trump and Carlson, an aide for the former president said his campaign “hadn’t confirmed anything on our end” and cautioned against “getting too far ahead” as it relates to the former president’s plans.

    Trump, the front-runner for the GOP nomination, has for weeks signaled a hesitation to participate in the Aug. 23 debate, which is being hosted by the Republican National Committee and will be broadcast on Fox News.