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Trump Now Has One Less Primary Rival

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admin
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Miami Mayor Francis Suarez speaking with attendees at the 2023 Turning Point Action Conference at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida. Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez has dropped out of the Republican presidential primary. The mayor suspended his campaign a week after he failed to qualify for the first Republican presidential debate.

“Running for President of the United States has been one of the greatest honors of my life. This country has given so much to my family and me. The prospect of giving back at the highest levels of public service is a motivator if not a calling,” Suarez said in a statement. “Throughout this process, I have met so many freedom-loving Americans who care deeply about our nation, her people, and its future. It was a privilege to come so close to appearing on stage with the other candidates at last week’s first debate.”

Suarez was the only Hispanic candidate on either side in the race for the White House.

Suarez launched his campaign a little over two months ago, attempting to mimic Ronald Reagan’s big tent policy.

Per CNBC:

Suarez, a Cuban American, touted his Hispanic heritage and billed himself as a unifier in a politically polarized country. He also ran on his record courting the tech industry to invest in Miami, and leaned into his pro-cryptocurrency views by accepting campaign donations in bitcoin.

“I will continue to amplify the voices of the Hispanic community – the fastest-growing voting group in our country,” Suarez said in Tuesday’s post.

“I look forward to keeping in touch with the other Republican presidential candidates and doing what I can to make sure our party puts forward a strong nominee who can inspire and unify the country, renew Americans’ trust in our institutions and in each other, and win,” he wrote.

Suarez was the third Republican from Florida to run for the 2024 presidential nomination, sharing that trait with Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. But while Trump has loosed a relentless barrage of attacks against the governor, the former president rarely, if ever, mentioned the mayor.

This is a breaking news story. Click refresh for the latest updates.

Biden’s Lies About Hunter’s Foreign Influence Peddling Are About To Blow Up In His Face

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Paul Crespo
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President Joe Biden hugs his family during the 59th Presidential Inauguration ceremony in Washington, Jan. 20, 2021. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris took the oath of office on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol. (DOD Photo by Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Carlos M. Vazquez II)

ANALYSIS – Where there’s smoke there’s fire. And there is a lot of smoke surrounding Joe and Hunter Biden. It is increasingly clear that Joe Biden has repeatedly lied about his involvement in, and knowledge of, his son Hunter’s overseas influence peddling businesses.

And with Biden’s Department of Justice (DoJ) and FBI dragging their feet with documents requested by congressional investigators, an official impeachment inquiry may be the only way to get to the truth.

And that official inquiry may be coming very soon.

Republicans could open an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden over ties to his son Hunter’s shady and unethical business entanglements when Congress reconvenes on September 12.

In the final presidential debate of the 2020 U.S. election between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joseph Biden, moderator Kristen Welker asked Biden: “there have been questions about the work your son has done in China and for a Ukrainian energy company when you were vice president; in retrospect, was anything about those relationships inappropriate or unethical?”

“Nothing was unethical. My son has not made money in terms of this thing about, what are you talking about, China,” Biden replied.

Biden also said he never discussed business with his son.

Well, to put it in Biden terms, that was all a bunch of malarkey.

Now, nearly three years later, Hunter has rebutted Joe Biden’s assertions directly. In court testimony in late June, Hunter acknowledged that he had been paid substantial sums in China – the first official confirmation that this was the case.

This direct contradiction creates a major problem for the White House, and Republicans insist there’s a lot more to find out.

“A lot of the things the president said about his family’s shady business dealings, we’re proving every day that they’re not true,” Republican James Comer, Chair of the Oversight and Accountability Committee, said.

An impeachment inquiry is the next logical step to find out what is true.

The Epoch Times (ET) reported: “House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said that initiating an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden would be a ‘natural step forward.’” This, following unresolved questions from the House Oversight and Accountability Committee’s investigations into the Biden family’s business dealings.

The speaker said on Monday that the impeachment inquiry could start soon. McCarthy added that an impeachment inquiry would provide Congress “the apex of legal power to get all the information they need” to investigate whether President Biden misused his office to assist family businesses.

ET continued:

McCarthy said on Monday that the inquiry was needed to overcome stonewalling of congressional investigators looking for transparency about the Biden family’s business records following testimony from former Hunter Biden associate Devon Archer that President Biden met with son Hunter Biden’s business partners during the time he was vice president, as well as concerns raised by whistleblowers at the IRS regarding Hunter Biden’s tax records.

The House Oversight and Accountability Committee has so far subpoenaed six different banks, receiving thousands of bank records of businesses and individuals connected to Joe Biden’s family members.

According to ET:

Those records showed that more than $20 million in payments from foreign sources have been made to the president’s relatives, including Hunter Biden, and their business associates while Mr. Biden was acting as U.S. vice president from 2009 to 2017.

Romanian, Chinese, and Russian nationals were among those making payments to the Biden family and their associates. The records also revealed that the funds were funneled through a network of at least 20 shell companies before being transferred to Biden family members.

An inquiry doesn’t mean the House will impeach Biden. But it does give Republicans far more legal power to force reluctant Biden DoJ bureaucrats and others to come forward with the truth.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Great America News Desk.

Trump Leads GOP Race For President, In Polls, Money – And Delegates

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    Paul Crespo
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    Donald Trump via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    ANALYSIS – There’s one reason former President Donald Trump didn’t participate in the first 2024 GOP primary debate in Milwaukee.

    He remains far ahead of his nearest rivals in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, both in the polls and in campaign donations.

    Of course, he also wanted to avoid being attacked or questioned by his Republican rivals, especially about his numerous federal and state indictments.

    But when you are the former president and are this far ahead, going on a friendly interview with Tucker Carlson instead of the debate seems like a very good move. (RELATED: Did Trump’s Tucker Carlson Interview On ‘X’ Really Get Over 200 Million Views?)

    While it will take a few days to see if the debates, or Trump’s interview, moved the needle at all, right now, Trump continues to dominate the Republican primary field in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

    In the RealClearPolitics average of national polls, Trump is 40 points clear of his nearest rival, Ron DeSantis.

    Trump also dominates campaign donations which rely heavily on emails of emotional appeals, having amassed over $72 million for his war chest in just eight months.

    But, while those two important metrics get a lot of attention, Trump is also already ahead in the area that’s the real key to victory: the delegate process. (RELATED: Trump Is Right To Reject RNC’s Unpatriotic Demand – But He Needs To Go Further)

    As CNN reported:

    Trump’s team has the lead in both its understanding of the delegate process and the steps the team has taken to tilt the scales in their favor, according to over a dozen Republican state party officials, veteran strategists and campaign operatives interviewed by CNN. Those interviews, alongside ones done with the allies of Flordia Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Trump campaign officials focused on delegate math, respectively, paint a clear portrait of the state of play of a crucial part of the 2024 Republican primary.

    And this tedious process is essential to clinching the GOP nomination.

    CNN continues:

    Understanding the delegate count on a state-by-state level is a wonky but necessary part of winning the presidential nomination, especially in primaries that drag on for months. Delegates – awarded to candidates after the primary or caucus takes place in each state – officially nominate a candidate at the party convention, and the candidate with the most delegates will be the party nominee.

    At the moment, that candidate appears to be Trump. CNN explains:

    In 2016, the idea that Donald Trump would eventually have deep roots with state Republican party officials seemed outlandish. But throughout his presidency, he won over or molded certain state party leadership to be more sympathetic to him. There are also structural advantages that Trump’s team now enjoys that DeSantis’s team and allies do not.

    “At the time, obviously, many state parties were skeptical of the president. They were skeptical of his conservative bona fides, they were skeptical of an ability to win a general election and sure enough, after he became the nominee, and to the seven years since, he’s done nothing but develop incredibly strong relationships with the state parties,” a Trump adviser told CNN.

    While Trump complained loudly in 2016 that the GOP delegate process was ‘rigged’ against him, it may be that the processs is now ‘rigged’ in his favor.

    The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Great America News Desk. It first appeared in American Liberty News.

    CIA Sued Over Role In Hunter Biden Laptop Election Cover-Up

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    Donny Ferguson
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    The New Headquarters Building (NHB) of the CIA. The Central Intelligence Agency, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

    A nonprofit legal watchdog has filed a federal lawsuit against the Central Intelligence Agency, seeking documents and records over an election-year government effort to cover up reporting seen as damaging to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.

    In particular, the group seeks information on the agency’s role in a letter signed by 51 intelligence officials that falsely claimed the Russian government “planted” evidence of criminal activity on a laptop owned by Biden’s middle-aged son Hunter.

    Judicial Watch filed the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the CIA for all “communications of the spy agency’s Prepublication Classification Review Board (PCRB) regarding an October 19, 2020, email request to review and ‘clear’ a letter signed by 51 former intelligence community officials characterizing the Hunter Biden laptop story as having ‘all the earmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign,’” the group announced.

    “The Deep State CIA, it seems, engaged in election interference and a political operation against the American people to help Joe Biden and hurt Trump,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “And now the CIA is ignoring FOIA law to cover up its role in the scandal, censoring and suppressing the Hunter Biden/Joe Biden laptop story just before the presidential election.”

    In October 2020, the New York Post broke a bombshell story revealing that Hunter Biden’s laptop, which he abandoned at a Delaware computer shop, contained photographs of Hunter Biden engaged in drug use and using prostitutes, as well as emails describing what appear to be shady foreign business deals.

    Fearing the story could damage Biden’s presidential campaign, social media companies attempted to suppress the sharing of the Post’s reporting.

    The Biden campaign also reached out to intelligence officials, including the CIA and FBI, seeking their help in falsely discrediting the story.

    “In a May 10, 2023, report the House Judiciary Committee revealed that on October 19, 2020, three days before the second presidential debate between President Donald Trump and Democrat candidate Joe Biden, then-Acting CIA Director Michael Morell sent the PCRB the finalized letter for review, calling it a ‘rush job,’ and quickly secured its approval,” Judicial Watch reports.

    Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit after the CIA failed to respond to a May 11, 2023, FOIA request for:

    Records and communications of the Prepublication Classification Review Board, Central Intelligence Agency, including emails, email chains, email attachments, text messages, cables, voice recordings, correspondence, statements, letters, memoranda, reports, presentations, notes, or other form of record, regarding an October 19, 2020, email request to review and “clear” a letter involving the Hunter Biden laptop story potentially having Russian involvement or being a Russian disinformation plot.

    An investigation by the House Judiciary Committee and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence found that the CIA, or a CIA employee, may have helped the Biden campaign find signers for the false letter.

    One former CIA employee, David Cariens, reveals that while speaking with the PCRB in October 2020 to review materials for his memoir, a CIA employee “asked” him to sign the false letter.

    “When the person in charge of reviewing the book called to say it was approved with no changes, I was told about the draft letter,” said Cariens.

    “The person asked me if I would be willing to sign. . . . After hearing the letter’s contents, and the qualifiers in it such as, “We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails provided to the New York Post by President Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement . . .’ I agreed to sign,” Cariens said.

    “If accurate, this information raises fundamental concerns about the role of the CIA in helping to falsely discredit allegations about the Biden family in the weeks before the 2020 presidential election,” Judicial Watch notes.

    Another former CIA officer, Marc Polymeropoulos, criticized the CIA’s involvement in his testimony to the House Judiciary Committee in the following exchange:

    Q. Does what [Former CIA official David Cariens] described there, that interaction with the [Prepublication Classification Review Board], sound like a quid pro quo to you?

    A. I can’t comment on this. This is—to me, this is something that the [Prepublication Classification Review Board] in my experience would never engage in something like that. They are just straightforward back and forth in terms of approval. The idea they would have a comment on any other thing that they were working on, that to me is not even close to what I’ve experienced with them.

    Q. Does that concern you?

    A. If it’s true, it would concern me, for sure. But I just—I have a hard time believing that occurred. If it did, that’s incredibly unprofessional.

    The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Great America News Desk. It first appeared in American Liberty News.

    READ NEXT: Longtime ACU/CPAC Leader David Keene Speaks Out After Vice Chair’s Resignation

    Bolton Reacts To Trump Mugshot: ‘He Looks Like A Thug’

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    admin
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    The White House from Washington, DC, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

    Former Trump administration national security advisor John Bolton called his old boss a “thug” after seeing his booking photo.

    During an interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, Bolton suggested that the mugshot may have been deliberately staged to portray the former president as tough.

    Collins began the interview by asking, “I just wonder, as someone who worked inside the West Wing when Donald Trump was president, what is it like for you to see his mug shot tonight?”

    Bolton responded, “I thought it was carefully staged. They must have thought about what look they wanted. He could have smiled. He could have looked benign. Instead, he looks like a thug. I think it’s intended to be a sign of intimidation against the prosecutors and judges. That’s what they picked, and we’ll see that picture everywhere.”

    Breitbart has the transcript:

    Collins said, “So, you think they actually spent time deciding, you know, should he smile in this? Should he have this scowl that he appears to have gone with?”

    Bolton said, “Almost as much time as they spent combing his hair.”

    Collins said, “He posted the mug shot, you know, shortly after on his own social media account, along with the phrase, never surrender. I mean, a bit ironic, given he had just surrendered at the Fulton County Jail behind me. But how do you expect him to try to use this to his political advantage, as he’s running for president?”

    Bolton said that Trump would use the latest development in Georgia to his political advantage in the Republican primary as he has thus far: “Well, I think in the same way he’s used the other three indictments. I think the evidence is that the indictments have proven the law of diminishing margin of utility. If anything, they’re not undercutting his support. They’re building it up.”

    Trump Is Right To Reject RNC’s Unpatriotic Demand – But He Needs To Go Further

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    Norman Leahy
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    Gage Skidmore Flickr

    Former President Donald Trump is right: There’s no reason he should sign a GOP loyalty oath in order to participate in the candidates’ debates.

    Such oaths, which the Republican National Committee employed in the 2016 presidential primary – only to see the last remaining candidates, including Trump, abandon it – aren’t just signs of a party’s weakness; they are also profoundly silly and even un-American.

    Yes, we swear plenty of legally enforceable oaths – in court cases, for example, or declarations on tax forms and other legal documents. But oaths binding candidates to support someone who they’ve campaigned against, throwing elbows, mud and other rhetorical barbs at them for months to convince voters the guy was a bum?

    I’ll defer to what Sen. Ted Cruz said of such an oath back in the 2016 presidential primary:

    Cruz has dodged the question of whether the pledge still holds by insisting he will be the nominee. Though on Friday, in an apparent reference to Trump, Cruz said, “I don’t make a habit out of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my family.”

    We all know that Cruz eventually did support Trump’s candidacy and became one of his biggest defenders in the Senate (which was amusing).

    But the oath? Nah. The 2016 primary should have been instructive to party leaders that such commitments are transactional at best and unenforceable in fact. Which brings us to the state parties.

    They have been long-time players in loyalty oaths, often attempting to bind voters to the party’s eventual nominees. While such pledges are even sillier and utterly unenforceable, that hasn’t stopped new ones from cropping up this year. Consider the case of Florida‘s pledge:

    Christian Ziegler, the chairman of the Florida GOP, said in an email that the loyalty pledge is an effort to “ensure maximum unity” headed into the 2024 general election.

    “The days of outlier party grifters – such as Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger – using Republican Party resources to secure a title and then weaponize that title against our own team must end,” Ziegler said, referring to two former House members, who are among Trump’s most vocal GOP critics.

    “Contested primaries are part of the process,” he said, “but we must always remember that the Democrats are the true threat to the America we love and we must be unified to defeat every single one of them.”

    The true threat to America is noxious oaths that bind us to men rather than pledges or oaths that bind individuals to uphold the law or tell the truth.

    You know, like the only oath that should ever matter for a presidential candidate: the one the Constitution requires:

    I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

    Every other partisan oath is legally dubious, intellectually suspect and, in the end, not worth the paper it’s printed on.

    The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of  Great America News Desk. It first appeared in American Liberty News.

    Longtime ACU/CPAC Leader David Keene Speaks Out After Vice-Chair’s Resignation

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    Victoria Churchill
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    Charlie Gerow speaking at the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. [Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons]

    Longtime Conservative leader Charlie Gerow has resigned as Vice Chairman of the American Conservative Union (ACU/CPAC) and as a Board Member of the ACU Foundation (ACUF).

    His resignation follows several recent resignations of other officers and directors of ACU/CPAC/ACUF.

    Like other former directors and officers, Gerow cited growing concerns with the sexual battery charges against ACU/CPAC Chairman Matt Schlapp, financial questions, and internal management problems.

    Gerow’s resignation comes on the heels of the organization’s Treasurer, former Congressman Bob Beauprez’s resignation 3 months ago who brought up questions of financial and office mismanagement in his letter to the Board of Directors. POLITICO.com also reported earlier today that attorney Tim Ryan also resigned earlier this week.

    In resigning, Gerow issued the following statement:

    “It is with deep sadness and true regret that I have joined several of my colleagues in resigning from the Board of ACU/CPAC. I have consistently exercised my fiduciary duties to the organization and have always done my very best to fulfill all of my responsibilities to this very vital organization. I know I have done the right things.
    It was a great honor to serve the conservative movement in my leadership roles at CPAC/ACU/ACUF and I will continue to pray that the difficulties they are encountering will be dealt with openly and honestly.
    Although I will not now be able to participate in the August Board meeting, I am calling on my former colleagues to authorize an independent investigation into the charges against Matt Schlapp, to conduct an independent forensic audit of the organization’s finances, to obtain a written opinion of counsel that the organization is in full compliance with its own by-laws and all applicable law and to thoroughly review all the exit interviews of the large number of staff who have recently left CPAC/ACU/ACUF.”

    Gerow also cited his long record of service to the conservative cause.

    The loss of Gerow is a great one for the ACU and the conservative movement as a whole.

    Former ACU Chairman David A. Keene spoke exclusively to American Liberty News this evening about Gerow’s decision to depart his role on the CPAC board.

    “Charlie has always spoken the truth as he sees it, and is a valuable part of both the ACU and the conservative movement as a whole. It is a shame that he feels that he can not be a part of it any longer.”

    Keene served as Chairman of the ACU Board from 1984 to 2011 and his term overlapped with both Schalpp and Gerow’s respective tenure on the board. Keene was succeeded in his role as board Chairman by Al Cardenas, who served in the role until 2014. Schlapp has been Chairman for nearly a decade since then, when he was unanimously elected to the position.

    Keene also noted that CPAC has changed in the era of Schlapp’s chairmanship and that the loss of Gerow is the severing of a link to the original Reagan era of the organization. Once, the annual CPAC conference was a gathering place for conservatives of all stripes. Keene observed that in the past dozen years, the event evolved into “more of a show than a conference” drawing many more corporate sponsors than traditionally conservative grassroots organizations and think tanks. In the past several years, it has been an event showcasing the likes of 45th President Donald Trump and Schlapp himself.

    When asked if those golden days of CPAC can be returned to, Keene stated that the possibility exists, but that it would take “new leadership” to go back to a time when a more diverse group of conservatives could call CPAC home. Still, Keene believes that the gathering is a “vital part of the conservative experience” and those in charge have an obligation to make sure it stays that way.

    The Editor-in-Chief of The National Pulse, Raheem Kassam noted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter that “Matt Schlapp has single-handedly made CPAC an irrelevant and corrupt sideshow.  He HAS TO GO.”

    CPAC responded tweeting: “CPAC remains committed to compliance. Having a board that is unified toward the goal of defeating the left and winning on important issues and the next election is critical to saving America.”

    In February of this year, the Washington Post reported that “Schlapp received a $150,000 payment in 2021 for ‘business services’ and he started receiving annual compensation of $600,000 in mid-2022 according to tax documents.” Those records also show that his wife Mercedes received $175,000 for “strategic communications”, per the Post.

    It remains unclear if the remaining board members will support an investigation into Schlapp’s alleged misconduct in the wake of the recent resignations.

    This article originally appeared in American Liberty News. Republished with permission. Continue to check back with American Liberty News for updates as this story develops.

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

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    Paul Crespo
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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

    By
    Victoria Churchill
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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

    By
    admin
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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.

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