With only three weeks left until Election Day Democrats are officially in panic mode. The latest polling data shows that Republicans are set up to win big this year.
Watch Amanda break down the latest data below.
Former Vice president Mike Pence has announced his support for a Republican Congressman who voted to impeach former President Trump over his alleged role in the 2021 Jan. 6th riot.
California Republican David Valadao, who voted to impeach Trump along with nine other House Republicans represents the 21st Congressional District and is running against Democratic challenger Rudy Salas for control over the newly drawn 22nd Congressional District.
Pence is set to headline a campaign fundraiser for Valadao in Fresno, California according to The Washington Examiner.
The former vice president has been outspoken against several Trump-backed candidates, particularly those who continue to deny the results of the 2020 election, such as Arizona’s GOP candidate for governor, Kari Lake. Pence had supported candidate Karrin Taylor Robson, whom Lake beat in the primary. He said in July that Lake wanted to make the 2022 election about the past.
“So, let me say, when you get out and vote for Karrin Taylor Robson and this Republican team, you can say yes to a future of freedom for Arizona,” he said that month.
On Sept. 14, Arizona Republican secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem accused Pence of attempting to organize a “coup” against Trump after Pence certified the 2020 election results. Finchem will compete against Democratic nominee Adrian Fontes in November. If he loses, he vowed not to concede.
Pence has been speculated as an early contender for the 2024 presidency but the former Vice President has reaffirmed his sole focus is helping Republicans succeed in this year’s midterms. However, his travels to high-profile early primary states like Iowa and New Hampshire along with his refusal to rule out a potential campaign have many Americans curious.
“I can honestly tell you in 2023, my family and I will do what we have always done. We’ll reflect, we’ll pray and determine where we might best serve, and we’ll go where we’re called,” Pence told a CNN reporter at the time
President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice is calling for former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon to receive a six-month jail sentence and a $200,000 fine for defying a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
The Department’s recommendation comes ahead of Bannon’s sentencing on Friday.
A jury found Bannon guilty in July on two misdemeanor counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to testify and provide documents to the select committee. Bannon claimed executive privilege barred him from testifying before the committee despite its interest in actions he took well after his short stint in the White House.
“His effort to exact a quid pro quo with the Committee to persuade the Department of Justice to delay trial and dismiss the charges against him should leave no doubt that his contempt was deliberate and continues to this day,” the prosecutors argued according to Politico.
In their sentencing memo, the DOJ attorneys revealed newly disclosed contacts between Bannon’s lawyer, Evan Corcoran, and the select committee in which he pushed the panel to recommend dropping the charges in exchange for Bannon’s cooperation.
One attached exhibit showed that an FBI agent had interviewed the select committee’s top investigator Tim Heaphy on Oct. 7 about his interaction with Corcoran, who once worked with Heaphy at the Justice Department. Corcoran contacted him just days before Bannon’s July trial to ask about joining forces to dismiss the case, Heaphy recalled. Heaphy, who took contemporaneous notes of the call and had another staffer join as a potential witness, said “the overall ‘vibe’ of his conversation” was an “attempt to solicit the Select Committee’s assistance in their effort to delay Bannon’s criminal trial and obtain a dismissal of the Contempt of Congress charges pending against him,” according to the FBI agent’s summary of the interview.
Prosecutors also cited Bannon’s public comments about the select committee throughout his criminal proceedings, they noted that he routinely used his “War Room” podcast and public appearances at the courthouse to deride the investigation.
“Through his public platforms, the Defendant has used hyperbolic and sometimes violent rhetoric to disparage the Committee’s investigation, personally attack the Committee’s members, and ridicule the criminal justice system,” prosecutors J.P. Cooney and Amanda Vaughn wrote. “The Defendant’s statements prove that his contempt was not aimed at protecting executive privilege or the Constitution, rather it was aimed at undermining the Committee’s efforts to investigate an historic attack on government.”
A $200,000 fine is the maximum for the two counts of contempt of Congress — one for refusing to testify, and the other for refusing to produce any of the documents requested in the deposition.
Bannon is one of just two former White House officials whom the DOJ accepted a criminal contempt referral from Congress. It chose not to pursue charges against the former chief of staff Mark Meadows or White House official Dan Scavino but has charged White House aide Peter Navarro.
Election forecasters have shifted another gubernatorial race towards Republicans with less than one month to go until Election Day.
On Saturday, RealClearPolitics shifted the New York gubernatorial race from “leans Democrat” to “toss up” as Republican candidate Rep. Lee Zeldin continues to close the gap between himself and New York Gove, Kathy Hochul.
The latest change comes just a week after the polling data aggregator shifted the race from “likely Democratic” to “leans Democratic.” In August Gov/ Hochul led Zeldin by as many as 24 points but another poll in September showed the governor up by 17. However new data suggest the Republican candidate has remarkably made it a competitive race in deep blue New York, according to The Daily Wire.
New York’s move to “toss-up” comes a week after a Trafalgar Group poll indicated that the race is neck-and-neck. One of the biggest reasons Hochul appears to be lagging among her own party and Zeldin is surging is the growing problem of crime in the state. Trafalgar Group chief pollster Robert Cahaly told The Daily Wire last week that crime is overwhelmingly the top issue for New York voters. “It’s the only state we’ve seen crime exceed the economy,” he said.
As Zeldin mentioned in his tweet, the Hochul campaign has not agreed to more than one debate that the governor wants to hold just two weeks before the election. In return, Zeldin refused to debate Hochul at all if she would not agree to more than one, meaning New Yorkers might not see the two gubernatorial candidates on stage together at all before the election.
“I am rejecting Kathy Hochul’s offer to one single debate at the very end of October,” Zeldin said during a virtual press conference, according to the New York Daily News. “I believe that it’s important for Kathy Hochul to come back with an offer to do multiple debates in multiple parts of this state.”
“I am not playing along with her games, I am not going to be playing along with this strategy that is an insult, disrespecting the voter of New York,” he added.
Zeldin’s surge in the polls follows a recent shooting in front of his home. The Republican Congressman has made the issue of rising crime a cornerstone of his campaign.
It seems Nancy Pelosi’s hatred of former President Donald Trump almost came to physical blows last year.
According to footage released by Alexandra Pelosi, a documentary filmmaker and the daughter of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker boasted that she would “punch” former President Donald Trump if he traveled to the Capitol building on Jan. 6th, 2021.
The Daily Wire reports:
“If he comes, I’m going to punch him out,” Pelosi bragged to aides. “I’ve been waiting for this. For trespassing on the Capitol grounds, I’m going to punch him out. And I’m going to go to jail, and I’m going to be happy.”
Pelosi’s habit of bellicose language regarding Trump predated the January 6 remarks. In July 2020, the day after an interview in which President Trump indicated he might not accept the results of the November election, Pelosi told MSNBC that if Trump would not leave the White House, he would be “fumigated out.”
Speaking on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Pelosi said, “The fact is, whether he knows it yet or not, he will be leaving. Just because he might not want to move out of the White House doesn’t mean we won’t have an inauguration ceremony to inaugurate a duly-elected President of the United States.”
“I’m second in line to the presidency and just last week I had my regular continuation of government briefing,” Pelosi continued. “This might interest you because I say to them, ‘This is never going to happen. God willing it never will.’ But there is a process. It has nothing to do with the certain occupant of the White House doesn’t feel like moving and has to be fumigated out of there because the presidency is the presidency. It’s not geography or location.”
On Thursday, the Pelosi-connected House Select Committee voted unanimously to subpoena the former president over his alleged role in the Jan. 6th attack.
A new video has come to light showing a first-hand look into former Trump adviser Robert Stone’s reaction when he learned he would not be pardoned by Trump for his actions surrounding the events of Jan. 6.
In the video, Stone was shown traveling in a car on President Joe Biden’s inauguration day visibly enraged by former President Trump’s decision.
“Jared Kushner has an IQ of 70. He’s coming to Miami. We will eject him from Miami very quickly; he will be leaving very quickly,” Stone said, visibly irked. “He has 100 security guards. I will have 5,000 security guards. You want to fight. Let’s fight. F*** you, f*** you and your abortionist b**** daughter.”
The “abortionist b**** daughter” retort referred to Ivanka Trump, filmmaker Christoffer Guldbrandsen, who was part of a Danish camera crew that filmed the clip. The clip is part of an unreleased documentary titled A Storm Foretold. The team followed Stone around for roughly two years, according to The Washington Examiner.
Jan. 6 committee member reportedly hand-selected the clip from the documentary but opted not to show the footage during public hearings.
Stone previously tapped members of the Proud Boys for protection. The Danish filmmakers also filmed him meeting with the Oath Keepers — something that the Jan. 6 committee showcased during its public hearings. Members of both right-wing groups have faced charges for their activity in the run-up to the Capitol riot. Stone has not.
“Any claim or assertion that I was involved at any time in any effort of any kind by any person or group to delay, hinder or otherwise obstruct the certification of presidential electors by Congress, pursuant to the Constitution of the United States, is also categorically false,” Stone said in a statement following the public hearing Thursday.
Trump had previously commuted a sentence against Stone for alleged obstruction of congressional inquiries into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election which former president later promoted to a full pardon. However, Stone was reportedly expecting to receive a second pardon to shield him from potential prosecution over the 2020 election.
Stone has threatened to file a $25 million lawsuit against Guldbrandsen and his film partner, per the Daily Beast.
The call is coming from inside the house…
New reports indicate a key witness in the ongoing Justice Department and FBI investigation of Donald Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents is a former Trump official.
According to sources close to the matter, Walt Nauta is a Navy veteran who followed the former president to Florida after serving as a valet in the Trump White House and later provided key evidence to investigators.
The Washington Post reported Wednesday that an unnamed Trump employee had provided critical evidence to investigators — telling them that he moved boxes at the former president’s request at a time when the government was seeking the return of classified material, including some highly sensitive items, from Mar-a-Lago.
The witness account was corroborated by security-camera footage, the people familiar with the case said, giving investigators key evidence of Trump’s behavior as they probe potential crimes including obstruction, destruction of government records or mishandling classified information.
When FBI agents first interviewed Nauta, he denied any role in moving boxes or sensitive documents, the people familiar with the situation said in interviews before Nauta’s name became public. But as investigators gathered more evidence, they questioned him a second time and he told a starkly different story — that Trump instructed him to move the boxes, these people said.
Nauta’s information marks the most direct look into Trump’s actions and instructions leading up to the FBI’s August 8th raid.
The Justice Department is now ensnared in a contentious legal battle against the former President who has claimed no wrongdoing in the situation. The DOJ is investigating whether Trump violated the Espionage Act by improperly handling the sensitive materials.
Last month, a Florida judge appointed an independent third party, known as a special master, to oversee the documents alleged by the DOJ to contain information sensitive to national security.
Former President Trump has responded to the House Select Committee’s unanimous vote to subpoena him.
On Thursday, the House Select Committee voted 9-0 to subpoena the former president over his alleged role in the Jan. 6th Capitol attack.
On Friday, Trump published a letter to the committee of “partisan hacks” accusing them of refusing to investigate what he considers basic questions surrounding the riot.
The former president refused to state whether he intends to honor the panel’s subpoena.
“The Unselect Committee has willfully ignored the fact that days before January 6, 2021, I recommended and authorized thousands of troops to be deployed to ensure that there was peace, safety, and security at the Capitol and throughout Washington, D.C. on January 6th because I knew, just based on instinct and what I was hearing, that the crowd coming to listen to my speech, and various others, would be a very big one, far bigger than anyone thought possible,” Trump wrote.
Despite Trump’s ire towards the House panel a source close to the former president insists he “loves the idea of testifying.” The source told Fox News, that if Trump does in fact testify he plans to “talk about how corrupt the election was, how corrupt the committee was, and how Nancy Pelosi did not call up the National Guard that Trump strongly recommended for her to do three days earlier on January 3, 2021.”
“They didn’t cover the reason for January 6—the largest crowd—it wasn’t set up by me,” Trump said. “The committee didn’t cover election fraud, which was massive, and they didn’t cover why Pelosi didn’t call the National Guard.”
“They didn’t do their job. I believed the crowd was going to be bigger—just my instinct—and they had the chance to call up the National Guard three days before Jan. 6, and if they did, Jan. 6 would have been a very different day,” Trump said. “But they didn’t do it.”
He added: “They were derelict in their duty. I gave them the authorization and the recommendation to call up the National Guard.”
With less than a month until Election Day, candidates are working to capitalize on the issues important to voters. As Democrats focus on abortion most Republican candidates have focused their campaigns to address issues a little closer to home for most Americans; crime and the economy.
My co-host John Solomon addresses the heart of the issue in a recent article.
See what I have to say below:
ANALYSIS – More trans lunacy. Men can become women by just ‘identifying’ as women, says the left, and Joe Biden, except when it comes to the draft. This is according to a chart provided by the U.S. Selective Service System.
The chart, linked to a recent tweet by the Selective Service, notes almost “all male U.S. citizens and male immigrants residing in the United States who are 18 through 25 years of age” are required to register, and ‘trans’ individuals “who are born male and have changed their gender to female” are explicitly included.
Apparently, it’s biology after all.
The stark contrast between Biden’s rhetoric and executive action on gender identity and this latest announcement and rules for a potential draft has caused anger and confusion.
As The Blaze reports:
Despite passing an executive order mandating that military members be treated according to their gender identity and not their biological sex, the Biden administration still requires biological men who identify as women to register for the military draft, while those who are “born female and have changed their gender to male” are off the hook.
This specific ruling was linked to a recent tweet from the Selective Service reminding parents that even “if your son is an only son and the last male in your family to carry the family name, he is still required to register with SSS.”
Before diving deeper into the accompanying chart, many parents expressed anger, and some suggested their sons would ‘identify’ as female to avoid registering.
However, Fox News reports that:
The policy pre-dates the Biden administration, but the White House expressed support for all people to be included in the draft last year.
“The administration supports section 513 and the registration requirement for all citizens, which further ensures a military selective system that is fair and just,” the White House said last year as Congress weighed adding women to a measure in the National Defense Authorization Act that would require them to register for the draft.
President Biden ultimately signed the National Defense Authorization Act last year without the provision including women.
Fox News further explained:
Selective Service System spokesperson Micheal Migliara told Fox News Digital later Tuesday that Congress would have to make changes that would authorize women to register with the agency.
“The Military Selective Service Act authorizes the registration of ‘male persons’, ages 18-25. In order for the Selective Service to be authorized to register women, Congress would have to pass legislation amending the current law,” Migliara said. “While there is currently no draft, registration with the Selective Service System is the most publicly visible program during peacetime and ensures operational readiness in a fair and equitable manner. If authorized by the President and Congress, our Agency would rapidly provide personnel to the Department of Defense, while at the same time providing an Alternative Service Program for Conscientious Objectors.”
What is a man? What is a woman? For the Selective Service – ‘It’s still biology, stupid.’ ALD
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
