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Ex-Obama Official Warns What A Second Trump Win Means For SCOTUS

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    Duncan Lock, Dflock, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

    A second Trump presidency will have a lasting impact…

    Former adviser to President Barack Obama recently predicted on a podcast that if Trump wins the November election he will secure a “MAGA court majority” for years to come.

    Pod Save America co-host Dan Pfeiffer sounded alarm bells over the former President’s past Supreme Court picks and cautioned listeners against supporting the presumed Republican nominee.

    “Think about the stakes of the Supreme Court. If Donald Trump wins, he will almost certainly get two more appointments. By the end of Trump’s second term — were he to win — [Clarence] Thomas will be 82, [Samuel] Alito will be 78,” he said.

    Pfeiffer and his co-hosts agreed the pair will “definitely” be retiring in a second Trump term. Pfeiffer also noted Justice Sonia Sotomayor will also be 72 when Trump would be leaving a second term.

    Trump would ultimately have five appointments to the Supreme Court, creating a “MAGA” majority for decades, the political advisor argued.

    “If he gets two appointments, that means he will have appointed five Supreme Court Justices, all of whom will be around or below the age of 60 when he leaves office,” he said. “That is a court majority — a MAGA court majority that will rule for decades. We can win the next however many presidential elections and absent something sort of extraordinary happening, Trump’s fingerprints will be all over the Supreme Court and so I think we should make this a big issue.”

    Giuliani Enters Plea In Arizona Election Interference Case

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    Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    On Tuesday, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and others pleaded not guilty to nine charges he is facing in Arizona in relation to a case focused on efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

    The Hill has more:

    Giuliani entered his not guilty plea remotely at an arraignment held in a courtroom in Phoenix. Numerous other individuals charged in the case, including former Arizona GOP Chair Kelly Ward, also entered not guilty pleas at their arraignments on Tuesday.

    This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.

    Report: Trump Opts Not To Testify In Hush Money Trial

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    Gavel via Wikimedia Commons Image

    Former President Donald Trump will not take the stand after all in the weekslong criminal hush money trial.

    “We’ll be resting pretty quickly — resting meaning resting the case. I won’t be resting,” Trump said outside the courtroom Tuesday morning. “I don’t rest. I’d like to rest sometimes, but I don’t get to rest.”

    The decision to keep Trump off the stand comes after weeks of uncertainty. The former president hinted to reporters he could testify, a risky move legal experts warmed Trump against. However, Trump would often flip-flop on the matter and at other times ignoring persistent questions on the issue. 

    Last week, Trump’s own attorneys signaled they were unsure whether their client would take the stand, just days before the Manhattan district attorney’s office was expected to rest its case-in-chief.  

    “That’s another decision that we need to think through,” Trump attorney Todd Blanche told the judge on Thursday.  

    The former president faces 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payment Cohen made to porn actress Stormy Daniels in the lead-up to the 2016 election to stay quiet about her alleged affair with Trump, which he denies.  

    This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.

    Trump Campaign Loses It Over ‘The Apprentice’ Film – Vows Lawsuit

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    Image via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    Donald Trump is not pleased with his portrayal in a film that just premiered at the illustrious Cannes Film Festival and is vowing to take legal action.

    The Trump campaign reportedly plans to sue the filmmakers behind the new biopic film, “The Apprentice,” which follows the former president’s early years in the real estate business, for including what it calls “blatantly false assertions.” 

    “We will be filing a lawsuit to address the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement to The Hill. “This garbage is pure fiction which sensationalizes lies that have been long debunked. As with the illegal Biden Trials, this is election interference by Hollywood elites, who know that President Trump will retake the White House and beat their candidate of choice because nothing they have done has worked.”

    “This ‘film’ is pure malicious defamation, should not see the light of day, and doesn’t even deserve a place in the straight-to-DVD section of a bargain bin at a soon-to-be-closed discount movie store, it belongs in a dumpster fire,” Cheung continued.

    “The Apprentice,” directed by Ali Abbassi premiered Monday at the Cannes Film Festival, where it reportedly received an eight-minute standing ovation. The film stars Sebastian Stan as a then-New York real estate developer Trump and Jeremy Strong of “Succession” as the future president’s real-life former attorney and mentor Roy Cohn.

    At Monday’s premiere, Abassi recalled, “When we did this movie, everyone said, ‘Why do you want to make a movie with Trump? You know, if you want to tell something about the world, do it in a nice way, in a metaphorical way.”

    But, he said to applause, “There is no nice, metaphorical way to deal with the rising wave of fascism. The messy way, the banal way, is only the way of dealing with this wave on its own terms, at its own level.”

    “It’s not going to be pretty,” he added, “but I think the problem with the world is that the good people have been quiet for too long.”

    Hours before its Monday premiere, Variety reported that Dan Snyder, the billionaire investor in the film, was not happy with its final creative direction. Sources told the outlet that Snyder, the former owner of the Washington Commanders and friend of Trump, invested in the biopic through film company Kinematics because he thought it would be a flattering depiction of the former president. 

    When he saw a cut of the film in February, he was reportedly furious and Kinematics’ lawyers were brought in in an attempt to stop the film’s release, Variety reported.

    Michael Cohen Admits To Crime Against Trump Organization

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    IowaPolitics.com, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

    A surprising development…

    On Monday, former President Donald Trump’s “fixer” Michael Cohen admitted to Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche that he lied and previously stole money from the Trump Organization. The surprising admission comes as Trump’s team continues to cast the prosecution’s star witness as unreliable and untrustworthy.

    Trump’s 34 charges correspond to documents generated in repaying Cohen a total of $420,000 in 2017.

    Prosecutors say the amount included $130,000 to reimburse Cohen for the hush money payment at the center of the case, $50,000 for the tech firm bill and additional funds to “gross up” the amount for tax purposes and pay Cohen’s bonus.

    But Cohen admitted on the stand that he didn’t actually pay the tech firm, RedFinch Solutions, $50,000, despite telling the Trump Organization’s then-CFO he needed to be reimbursed for that amount.

    “You did steal from the Trump Organization based on expected reimbursement from RedFinch?” asked Todd Blanche, Trump’s attorney.

    “Yes, sir,” Cohen replied.

    Cohen’s testimony is expected to last through midday. It is unclear if the defense plans to put up a case or whether Trump himself will testify.

    The judge indicated that closing arguments in the case would be next Tuesday, delaying what was previously expected to be a near close of the trial before Memorial Day weekend, according to The Hill.

    Potential VP Flips On Trump Deportation Stance

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    (Miami - Flórida, 09/03/2020) Presidente da República Jair Bolsonaro durante encontro com o Senador Marco Rubio..Foto: Alan Santos/PR

    Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R) is changing his tune on Trump’s deportation plan.

    “Yes,” Rubio said during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, where he was asked whether he supports Trump’s plan to use the military to deport illegal immigrants from the country. “We cannot absorb 25, 30 million people who entered this country illegally. They’re here illegally, what country on earth could tolerate that?” 

    The comments were in stark contrast to Rubio’s previous stance on the issue, most notably as a primary rival of Trump’s in 2015. Rubio was critical of the Trump plan to round up and deport the millions of illegal immigrants living in the United States, panning the idea as “not a workable plan.”

    Pushed on why his stance has changed since campaigning against Trump nearly a decade ago, the Florida Senator argued that the situation itself has changed since then.

    “When I said that back in 2013 when I was involved in immigration reform, we had 11, 12 million people that had been here for longer than a decade, now we’ve had almost that number in the last three years alone,” Rubio said, noting that he believes some of those who have entered the country more recently could include “terrorists.”

    Trump has vowed to implement a plan of mass deportation if he wins November’s election, promising last month to use the National Guard if needed to deport illegal immigrants from the country.

    Rubio has been floated as a potential contender for vice president among other popular Florida Republicans such as Rep. Byron Donalds and former primary rival Gov. Ron DeSantis.

    Former Situation Room Officer Says Pence Came ‘Close’ To Being Killed on Jan. 6

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      Elvert Barnes, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

      A former Situation Room officer said former Vice President Mike Pence came “close” to being killed on Jan. 6, 2021, during the riot at the U.S. Capitol.

      “It’s important to me that we don’t forget that it did come that close, and that we did have discussions, ‘If we lose the [vice president,] if the 25th [Amendment] is invoked,’” Mike Stiegler said in an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “We started running through all of these game plans because it was getting close.”

      Stiegler also agreed with Stephanopoulos when he referred to the Jan. 6. riot as one “of our own people” and “inspired” by Trump.

      “But at the time, that’s not even in the forefront of our mind,” Stiegler continued. “It doesn’t matter how we got here. We’re here. How do we execute? How do we move forward?”

      Pence faced threats of violence on Jan. 6 for refusing to overturn the 2020 election. He was at the Capitol when rioters broke in and was taken to an underground loading dock amid the attack, according to the Secret Service.

      In March, Pence said that he will not endorse his former boss, saying he was “incredibly proud” of the Trump administration’s record, but “there were profound differences between me and President Trump on a range of issues.” 

      “In each of these cases, Donald Trump is pursuing and articulating an agenda that is at odds with the conservative agenda that we governed on during our four years,” Pence said. “And that’s why I cannot in good conscience endorse Donald Trump in this campaign.”

      Trump To Attend Son’s Graduation

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        Donald Trump via Gage Skidmore Flickr

        It’s a big day for the Trump family…

        Barron Trump, 18, will graduate from Oxbridge Academy in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Friday. The graduation ceremony is private. 

        According to Fox News, Barron Trump will go to college, but it is unclear which university he has selected. The former president has previously floated the possibility of his son attending his own alma mater, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Tiffany Trump also graduated. Eric Trump attended Georgetown University.

        The former President had been pushing for weeks to attend his son’s high school graduation as he is currently required to be there for court proceedings in the ongoing hush money trial.

        Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. He maintains his innocence.

        Hannity Backs Biden’s Plan To Cut Mics At Debates To Curtail Trump’s Aggression

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

          Shortly before Joe Biden and Donald Trump agreed to presidential debates in June and September on Wednesday morning, Sean Hannity appeared on “Fox & Friends” to hail the incumbent president’s unexpected proposal for a debate as “excellent news.”

          Hannity even backed Biden’s suggestion to mute a candidate’s microphone if they aren’t answering a question. The Fox News host argued that this would reduce Trump’s “aggressiveness.” Hannity maintained that Trump’s combative behavior and taunting during the first 2020 debate with Biden likely hurt him.

          He expects that this time will be different. Addressing the new format, Hannity said, “This will put rails in place so that one person talks at a time, and the more Joe talks, I think the worse he does.”

          “I think Donald Trump will wipe the floor with him, and I don’t care if we get the State of the Union jacked up Joe with caffeine, Red Bull, or whatever, or we get regular Joe that could barely walk off the stage last night.”

          As Mediaite reports:

          In a video posted to social media on Wednesday, Biden needled Trump over his ongoing criminal trial in Manhattan and said he beat him in two debates in 2020.

          “Make my day, pal,” the president said.

          Trump responded to Biden’s proposal by accepting on Truth Social and calling Biden the “worst debater I have ever faced.”

          Article Published With The Permission of American Liberty News

          Star Witness Michael Cohen Admits He Wanted Top Role In Trump Admin.

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            Gage Skidmore Flickr

            On Thursday, former Donald Trump “fixer” Michael Cohen admitted he would have liked to have been considered to fill the role of chief of staff during the Trump Administration.

            Cohen, who testified Thursday that he was offered a role in the White House, said he didn’t want to go to the White House and rather wanted to serve as Trump’s personal attorney.

            When asked if he wanted to work in the White House, Cohen responded, “No sir.”

            Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche asked Cohen if the truth is that he really wanted to work in the White House. Cohen responded, “No sir.”

            Blanche then asked Cohen if he had hoped to be named the White House chief of staff, to which he denied.

            Blanche then outlined several conversations Cohen had with other individuals, including his daughter, about the possibility of serving as chief of staff under Trump.

            Cohen, who testified that he spoke with Trump about serving as his personal attorney, said he wanted a hybrid position, one with access to Trump but not considered a White House employee.