Donald Trump September 2022-

Trump opens 2024 run, says he’s ‘more committed’ than ever
(AP) — Former President Donald Trump kicked off his 2024 White House bid with a stop Saturday in New Hampshire before heading to South Carolina, events in early-voting states marking the first campaign appearances since announcing his latest run more than two months ago.

2022

28 December
Trump’s GOP foes are scared. But not as much as they should be.
By David Byler, Data analyst and political columnist
(WaPo) Trump’s foes are right to fear a repeat of 2016, but they’re thinking too small. There are so many other ways the primary could turn out badly for them.
Here are four completely speculative doomsday scenarios. None of them are likely. But they illustrate how the GOP’s problems go far beyond the potential for a divided field. …
The GOP’s real problem: Trump is out for himself, and his opponents don’t always work together well.
These scenarios are purely speculative — and arguably unlikely. But they highlight a core problem for the GOP. Trump leads his faction, in pursuit of his own goals, and the rest of the party often fails to work together against him.
If Trump’s opponents work together well — finding a competent candidate who can withstand the spotlight and beat Trump — they have a shot at taking back the party. If not, one of these nightmare scenarios, or one yet to be imagined, might come to pass.

23 December
Jan. 6 report calls for barring Trump from office
(CBS News) The Jan. 6 committee has released its final report after nearly 18 months, 11 public hearings and more than 1,000 witness interviews. The conclusion of the report was that former President Donald Trump should be barred from seeking federal office. Nikole Killion reports.
Donald Trump Is Now Forever Disgraced
By Brenda Wineapple
(NYT Opinion) On Monday, at the final public hearing of the House Jan. 6 committee, Representative Bennie Thompson said that any attempt to overturn the legitimate results of an American election, impede the peaceful transfer of power or foment an insurrection must never be allowed to happen again. To that end, Representative Jamie Raskin firmly announced that the committee was making four criminal referrals whose center, in each, was Donald Trump, the man who hatched a scheme that would, if successful, defraud Americans of their sacred right to have their vote count.
These unprecedented referrals suggest that Mr. Trump, who as president took an oath to uphold the Constitution, not only violated that oath but also committed a series of specifically indictable crimes. One of these referrals — for the crime of inciting an insurrection — is the most stunning, the most unpredictable and the most crucial, for its implications and its remedy, which includes barring the former president from holding political office.
Release of Trump’s Tax Returns Delayed Until After Christmas
(Bloomberg) — Six years of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns won’t be released until after the Christmas holiday, according to the House committee that is reviewing the documents.
The Ways & Means Committee this week voted to make the tax returns public once they were redacted to remove key identifying information, such as account numbers. The earliest the information would be released is Dec. 27.

20 December
An Early Trump Backer’s Message to the Republican Party: Dump Him
Tom Marino, one of the first members of Congress to support Trump, now says the G.O.P. “has to do whatever it has to do” to get away from him.

19 December
A Diminished Trump Meets a Damning Narrative
Former President Donald Trump’s current woes extend beyond the report by the House Jan. 6 committee, but the case the panel laid out against him further complicates his future.
(NYT) As the summer and the House Jan. 6 committee’s hearings began, former President Donald J. Trump was still a towering figure in Republican politics, able to pick winners in primary contests and force candidates to submit to a litmus test of denialism about his loss in the 2020 election.
Six months later, Mr. Trump is significantly diminished, a shrunken presence on the political landscape. His fade is partly a function of his own missteps and miscalculations in recent months. But it is also a product of the voluminous evidence assembled by the House committee and its ability to tell the story of his efforts to overturn the election in a compelling and accessible way.

11 December
The Trump campaign that isn’t
(The Hill) Four weeks after declaring his 2024 White House bid, former President Trump appears to be a candidate in name only.
Trump announced his third presidential campaign on Nov. 15 from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. … Since then, Trump has not held any formal campaign events. He has not traveled to early voting states, made any major staffing announcements or done much of anything to scare off would-be rivals.
Instead, he’s been making headlines for controversies including dining with a white nationalist and calling to suspend the rules of the Constitution to redo the 2020 election.
The failure to launch has fueled chatter that Trump is as politically weak as he’s ever been — giving others weighing 2024 campaigns more food for thought.

Heather Cox Richardson: November 26, 2022
On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, November 22, former president Trump hosted the antisemitic artist Ye, also known as Kanye West, for dinner at a public table at Mar-a-Lago along with political operative Karen Giorno, who was the Trump campaign’s 2016 state director in Florida. Ye brought with him 24-year-old far-right white supremacist Nick Fuentes. Fuentes attended the August 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and in its wake, he committed to moving the Republican Party farther to the right. Fuentes has openly admired Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and authoritarian Russian president Vladimir Putin, who is currently making war on Russia’s neighbor Ukraine. A Holocaust denier, Fuentes is associated with America’s neo-Nazis. …
Today, after the news of Trump’s dinner and the thundering silence that followed it, conservative anti-Trumper Bill Kristol tweeted: “Aren’t there five decent Republicans in the House who will announce they won’t vote for anyone for Speaker who doesn’t denounce their party’s current leader, Donald Trump, for consorting with the repulsive neo-Nazi Fuentes?”
So far, at least, the answer is no.

15-16 November
Murdoch tells Trump he will not back fresh White House bid – report
Media mogul turns to ‘DeFuture’ Ron DeSantis after ex-president’s poor showing in midterm elections
(The Guardian) Rupert Murdoch has reportedly warned Donald Trump his media empire will not back any attempt to return to the White House, as former supporters turn to the youthful Florida governor Ron DeSantis.
After the Republican party’s disappointing performance in the US midterm elections, in particular the poor showing by candidates backed by Trump, Murdoch’s rightwing media empire appears to be seeking a clean break from the former president’s damaged reputation and perceived waning political power.
Last week, Murdoch’s influential media empire, including right-leaning Fox News, his flagship paper the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post, each rounded on Trump, calling him a loser and a flop responsible for dragging the Republicans into “one political fiasco after another”.
Bret Stephens: Donald Trump Is Finally Finished
Whether or not Donald Trump’s hat is in the ring, he’s finished as a serious contender for high office.
(NYT) Last week, the realization finally dawned on his devoted supporters that Trump can no longer deliver what they want most: power. Or, let me put it in language more congenial to them: Whatever purpose they believe he was meant to serve — bringing working-class voters back to the Republican fold; restoring nationalism to conservative ideology; rejecting the authority of supposed experts — has been served. Others can now do the same thing better, without the drama and divisiveness. He’s yesterday’s man.
This is an observation made from an objective reading of political reality: Trump cost Republicans dearly in the midterms.
Heather Cox Richardson: November 15, 2022
…former president Donald Trump announced a run for the 2024 presidency tonight in a speech from Mar-a-Lago before an audience that included a number of far-right social media influencers, his wife Melania, and family members Eric, Lara, and Barron Trump and Jared Kushner, but, so far as I can tell, no members of the Republican Party leadership. Trump’s daughter Ivanka, who was a key advisor in the Trump White House, was not there, and said tonight she does “not plan to be involved in politics.”
The speech was a subdued version of his rallies, claiming he is a victim and offering a replay of his inaugural address, which focused on what he called “American carnage.” Tonight he warned “our country is in a horrible state, we’re in grave trouble” and said he was leading “a great movement” to take the country back. Compared with the midterms crowds yelling for their candidate, the lack of enthusiasm in the room seemed marked, and after about an hour, while Trump was ranting about former German chancellor Angela Merkel, the Fox News Channel cut the live feed.
Oh, how Donald Trump has fallen
Cas Mudde
Everyone thought Trump had the Republican nomination in the bag – but now, that’s not the case
(The Guardian) It is paradoxical that the midterms, in which he didn’t run, did to Trump what the 2020 presidential elections, which he lost, could not do: make him into the one thing he despises the most: a loser. And although his ideas live on in the Republican party, he himself has been deemed toxic by that same party. This is particularly ironic, as Trump himself was never interested in the ideas, just in himself.

14 November
Trump filing in suit against Twitter compares former president to Galileo
“Most people once believed these to be crackpot ideas; many still do. But crackpot ideas sometimes turn out to be true,” Trump’s lawyers argued to a federal appeals court.
The 96-page filing submitted to the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday contends that Twitter and the federal government are working to “suppress opinions and information about matters that Americans consider of vital interest.”
Those matters include the source of the virus that caused the pandemic, the efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines, the validity of the 2020 election results, and the legitimacy of documents from a hard drive allegedly belonging to President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, the court filing says.
The brief likens Trump to Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, who was persecuted by the Catholic Church for promulgating the belief that the Earth revolved around the sun.

9-12 November
Donald Trump’s Gift to Democrats
By Benjamin Hart
He’s one of the best get-out-the-vote operations that Democrats have ever had.
(New York) I spoke with Amy Walter, publisher and editor-in-chief of the esteemed Cook Political Report, about the ex-president’s drag on Republicans this year, how to think about polling’s excellent night, and the seemingly permanent era of close elections.
What’s the most surprising element of the election to you?
They did one of the hardest things in politics, which is turning a midterm election away from being a referendum on the party and the president, and onto the other side — making the election a choice instead of a referendum. It’s very hard to do, but Democrats did it thanks to three things. One, of course, is the Supreme Court abortion decision. Two, there was Donald Trump and his continued presence throughout the campaign. And three, there were candidates that, thanks in large part to Trump, made it easier for Democrats to make the case that it was a bigger risk to go for change than it was to stick with a status quo they were unhappy with.
The GOP Revolt Against Trump Is More Serious Than You Think
It’s not going to be like 2016 or 2021.
Trump’s rivals on the right suddenly see opening to sideline him
After disappointing midterms for the Republicans, some are deploying the ‘L’ word
It’s perhaps the most dreaded word in Trump’s vocabulary; a 5-letter calumny aimed at convincing fellow Republicans that now, finally, is the time to walk away: L-O-S-E-R.
It’s suddenly spreading on the right, the idea that Trump’s gravest sin — the reason to finally dump him — is not his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot or any of the other stuff he’s done, but a more practical reason: According to them, he makes Republicans lose elections.
The L-word attack has been prominent throughout the media properties owned by Fox News magnate Rupert Murdoch, including on the Wall Street Journal editorial page, which usually (though not always) staunchly defended Trump, including during past investigations. Sharp attacks on Trump from Rupert Murdoch’s news outlets
The Economist Today: “On top of his other flaws, the former president is a serial vote loser”
Trump paved Ron DeSantis’s way. Now apprentice has turned on master
Cas Mudde
Trump unleashed a revolution that opened the door to people like DeSantis. Now the Florida governor and his supporters want to continue that revolution without its original leader
(The Guardian) The day after the midterm elections, the knives were out for Donald Trump. On rightwing social media, people were emotionally debating the alleged toxicity of the former president and his hand-picked nominees, while Fox News highlighted the victory of the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, emphasizing that he is “reviled by Trump”, while heralding the “dominating win” of the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis. A Fox News contributor pronounced DeSantis “the new Republican party leader”. In fact, the idea that DeSantis is the big Republican winner of the midterms – and Trump the big loser – seems to be the broad consensus in today’s media.

Trump’s Midterm Death Ride
In the absence of yesterday’s anticipated Red Wave, the GOP’s missed opportunity has a father – and we know his name
John Schindler
(Top Secret Umbra) What happened? That requires detailed analysis which hasn’t come in yet, and this outcome, like all complex events, is far from monocausal. Surely the Dobbs decision on abortion by the Supreme Court this summer, which caught many elected Republicans flatfooted, was no help to the GOP in the midterms. More controversially, cynical Democratic support to MAGA candidates in the Republican primaries, bolstering extremists at the expense of moderates, seems to have paid dividends in the general election, given how many of those Trump wannabes went down to defeat yesterday.
That said, the clear culprit behind yesterday’s GOP debacle is Trump himself. Republicans have him to thank for running many candidates who frankly had no business being there. Hard-right neophytes with no credentials for office except kissing Trump’s ring as often as the former president demanded it, did not do well in the midterms. Neither did merely being famous. Trump’s model of being a reality TV star who says whatever he wants, no matter how fact-free or outrageous, is sui generis. Even Trump failed to replicate his success a second time. For all other Republicans, Trump’s template is a disaster.
Trump Lost the Midterms. DeSantis Won.
If the Florida governor ever intends to wrest control of the GOP from Trump, now is his moment.
By David Frum
DeSantis’ sweeping victory in Florida sets up a potential rivalry with Trump
The resounding win enhances DeSantis’ profile among Republicans and sets up a potential rivalry with Trump. Trump has already signaled he’s ready with attacks, calling DeSantis “DeSanctimonious” at a recent rally.
On Tuesday, Trump told reporters DeSantis shouldn’t consider entering the presidential race.

4 November
Trump team eyes Nov 14 for 2024 presidential bid announcement – Axios
(Reuters) – Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s inner circle is discussing announcing the launch of a 2024 presidential campaign on Nov 14, Axios reported on Friday, citing three sources familiar with the discussions.
Trump teased a strong possibility of a comeback during a rally in Iowa on Thursday.
“And now, in order to make our country successful and safe and glorious, I will very, very, very probably do it again,” the former president said during the rally on Thursday night, teasing a 2024 bid.

14 October
The Supreme Court, for Now, Is Playing a Central Role in Discrediting Donald Trump
But the former President will continue to search relentlessly for friendly judges nationwide between now and 2024.
By David Rohde
In a bland, single-sentence order on Thursday, the Supreme Court rejected a request from former President Donald Trump that the country’s highest tribunal intervene in the legal fight over the documents seized from his Mar-a-Lago home.
The former President’s Supreme Court loss was no surprise. Legal analysts had said the Court would likely reject his request that his lawyers be given access to the hundred and three classified documents that Justice Department officials considered the most sensitive among the roughly eleven thousand retrieved.
So far, Trump’s legal gambits have fared poorly at the Court, even though a third of the Justices are his appointees. The Court rejected multiple Trump-backed challenges to the 2020 election, and it rejected his request that the January 6th committee be denied access to certain White House documents.

25 September
“Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America”
“This is the book Trump fears most.” – Axios
From the Pulitzer-Prize-winning New York Times reporter who has defined Donald J. Trump’s presidency like no other journalist: a magnificent and disturbing reckoning that chronicles his life and its meaning from his rise in New York City to his tortured post-presidency.
Few journalists working today have covered Donald Trump more extensively than Maggie Haberman. And few understand him and his motivations better. Now, demonstrating her majestic command of this story, Haberman reveals in full the depth of her understanding of the 45th president himself, and of what the Trump phenomenon means.
Trump dishes to his ‘psychiatrist’
(Politico Playbook) It has arrived: The first excerpt from Maggie Haberman’s hotly anticipated new book, “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America”, was published this morning by The Atlantic. And it’s certain to generate buzz.
Culled from three sit-down interviews Haberman had with Donald Trump, the piece is chock full of eye-popping, quotable moments. (Trust us: You’re going to want to read the whole thing.)
Three Conversations With Donald Trump
The former president tried to sell his preferred version of himself, but said much more than he intended.
By Maggie Haberman
(The Atlantic) For much of the past decade, reporting on Trump has been my full-time job as a correspondent for The New York Times. To fully reckon with Donald Trump, his presidency, and his political future, people need to know where he comes from. The New York from which Trump emerged was its own morass of corruption and dysfunction, stretching from seats of executive power to portions of the media to the real-estate industry in which his family found its wealth. The world of New York developers was filled with shady figures and rife with backbiting and financial knife fighting; engaging with them was often the cost of doing business. But Trump nevertheless stood out to the journalists covering him as particularly brazen.

24 September
No former U.S. president has ever been charged with a crime. But former President Trump is facing deepening legal troubles.
The many investigations surrounding Donald Trump: Jan. 6, Mar-a-Lago, taxes and more
(NPR) New York Attorney General Leticia James announced Wednesday that former President Trump and his children, Ivanka, Eric and Donald Jr., are facing a civil suit alleging at least a decade of fraud.
James alleges that Trump has inflated his net worth by billions of dollars; she’s asking that Trump and his children get restricted from doing business in New York and is seeking $250 million in damages.
It’s a civil case, but James also said she believes Trump violated state and federal criminal laws, and sent a referral to the Department of Justice. And the list goes on!

21 September
The 4 major criminal probes into Donald Trump, explained
Keeping track of all the criminal investigations of Trump isn’t easy, so we did it for you.
By Ian Millhiser
(Vox) If all the criminal investigations into former President Donald Trump end in conviction, then Trump will be a true renaissance man of crime.
The FBI searched Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida residence because, as federal prosecutors said in a fiery court filing in August, they believed not only did the former president possess “dozens” of boxes “likely to contain classified information” but also that “efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation.” In that search, the FBI said it did remove over 100 classified documents, some of which reportedly contained information about nuclear weapons. That’s all part of just one investigation into possible violations of the Espionage Act, the improper handling of federal records, and obstruction of a federal investigation.

Trump Endorsed QAnon Because He’s Stuck
He’s grasping at straws, not solidifying his political base.
By Juliette Kayyem
(The Atlantic) For a man who believes in nothing, has no coherent ideology or value system except his own continuing relevance, obsesses over conspiracies, and subsists on grievance and anger, Donald Trump took a long time to fully embrace QAnon. For some time, the former president has been flirting with the cult—which believes, among other preposterous things, that Democrats are part of a global child-sex-trafficking ring that Trump will ultimately defeat. But lately, that courtship has turned into a consummated marriage, as Trump incorporated QAnon tropes into an Ohio rally and started spreading them on his social-media service.

16 September
What to know about Judge Raymond Dearie, the Mar-a-Lago search special master
(NPR) Republican President Ronald Reagan appointed Dearie, then 41, to serve as a federal judge in New York in 1986, and he assumed senior status in 2011. Justice Department lawyers have said that Dearie has “substantial judicial experience” and is thus qualified for the special master job.
Dearie, 78, a former chief judge of the federal court in the Eastern District of New York, was one of the special master candidates suggested by Trump whom the Justice Department did not object to.
[Judge Aileen] Cannon directed Dearie to issue interim reports and recommendations “as appropriate” during the review and set a Nov. 30 deadline to complete his work. The Justice Department has said it will appeal the order for a special master.

8 September
Steve Bannon Is in Big Trouble in New York
(New York) Donald Trump pardoned Bannon in the closing hours of his presidency (despite a previous falling out between the two), voiding the indictment of his onetime campaign manager. But because some of the donors Bannon allegedly defrauded live in New York, the state had jurisdiction to pick up the legal baton — and presidential pardons only apply to federal crimes.
Bannon charged with fraud, money laundering, conspiracy in ‘We Build the Wall’
Trump ally and right-wing activist Stephen K. Bannon surrendered to prosecutors in New York on Sept. 8, facing a state-level criminal indictment.
(WaPo) Stephen K. Bannon has been charged with money laundering, fraud and conspiracy in connection with the “We Build the Wall” fundraising scheme, for which he received a federal pardon during Donald Trump’s final days in the White House.
Bannon, 68, was convicted this summer of contempt of Congress and is awaiting sentencing in that matter. He surrendered to prosecutors in Manhattan Thursday morning on the charges outlined in a newly unsealed state indictment and is expected to appear in court in the afternoon.

6 September
Material on foreign nation’s nuclear capabilities seized at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago
Some seized documents were so closely held, only the president, a Cabinet-level or near-Cabinet level official could authorize others to know
(WaPo) A document describing a foreign government’s military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities, was found by FBI agents who searched former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and private club last month, according to people familiar with the matter, underscoring concerns among U.S. intelligence officials about classified material stashed in the Florida property.
Some of the seized documents detail top-secret U.S. operations so closely guarded that many senior national security officials are kept in the dark about them. Only the president, some members of his Cabinet or a near-Cabinet-level official could authorize other government officials to know details of these special-access programs.
Documents about such highly classified operations require special clearances on a need-to-know basis, not just top-secret clearance. … But such documents were stored at Mar-a-Lago, with uncertain security, more than 18 months after Trump left the White House.
Trump Reportedly Had Information About a Foreign Government’s Nuclear Secrets at Mar-a-Lago, and Yeah, That’s Exactly as Bad as It Sounds
He held on to this information despite a subpoena demanding he turn over every classified document in his possession, and a signed statement from his attorney claiming he’d done so.