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Received — 13 September 2024 Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories

Trump says he will not debate Harris again


Donald Trump will not debate Kamala Harris again, the former president said Thursday.

“THERE WILL BE NO THIRD DEBATE!,” Trump wrote in all caps on Truth Social, referencing the first as his June debate with President Joe Biden and the second as his debate with Harris on Tuesday.

Harris’ campaign, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment, had challenged Trump to an additional debate immediately following their showdown earlier this week, and Fox News offered to host it.



“We owe it to the voters to have another debate,” Harris said Thursday at a rally in North Carolina minutes after Trump’s announcement.

But Trump on Wednesday told “Fox & Friends” he “probably” would not agree to another debate with the network and on Thursday confirmed he would not debate the vice president again at all, citing what he characterized as a decisive victory in a contest widely viewed as having gone favorably for Harris.

“When a prizefighter loses a fight, the first words out of his mouth are, “I WANT A REMATCH,”” Trump wrote Thursday.

Both campaigns claimed they won Tuesday’s face off, during which Harris largely managed to sidestep questions about the Biden administration’s records and her own past positions by getting under Trump’s skin, spurring the former president to go on meandering rants about crowd sizes and unsubstantiated claims that Haitian migrants in Ohio are eating people’s pets.

Immediately following the debate, Trump told reporters in the spin room “this was my best debate.” But he has bashed ABC News for what he called “a rigged deal,” citing a handful of times moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis fact-checked him live. But even some Republicans acknowledged that Trump’s performance had been lackluster, with Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) calling it “a missed opportunity” and some GOP strategists telling POLITICO they were not impressed.

Asked Wednesday on “Fox & Friends” about Fox’s offer of a debate moderated by Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier, he derided those anchors and offered Fox opinion pundits Sean Hannity, Jesse Watters and Laura Ingraham instead.

Trump’s team was uncertain about whether or not the former president would be willing to commit to another debate.

On Wednesday morning, Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Trump who helped with negotiations for the ABC News debate, told CNN the Trump campaign had already committed to a debate with NBC on September 25.

And later that day, Lara Trump, the RNC co-chair, said her father in law would be open to another.

“I think he’s very open, I think the American people deserve to see these two people and hear their ideas,” she told Fox News.

Trump’s pollster, Tony Fabrizio, released a memo after the debate claiming the former president actually received a boost after his debate performance, which was widely panned by Republicans as a missed opportunity.

“We found that despite the best efforts of Kamala Harris and media to portray the debate as some kind of overwhelming win for her, voters did not see it this way as support for her remained flat,” Fabrizio wrote in a “confidential memorandum” that was sent to reporters. “The only change we saw was a 2-point bump for President Trump in both ballot configurations.”

Harris’ campaign on Wednesday posted to X a full recording of the debate, calling it “our newest ad.”

Received — 5 September 2024 Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories

Hackers breach social media accounts of Lara and Tiffany Trump


Hackers apparently breached the social media accounts of Lara and Tiffany Trump on Tuesday, distributing what the former president’s son said were two fake posts touting a family cryptocurrency venture.

The posts on the social network X appeared to come from the accounts of Lara Trump, the co-chair of the Republican National Committee, and Tiffany, the younger of the former president’s two daughters.

Eric Trump quickly declared them a hoax in his own X post.

“This is a scam!!!” Eric Trump said. “@LaraLeaTrump and @TiffanyATrump‘s Twitter profiles have been compromised!!” The posts by Lara Trump and Tiffany Trump were then deleted.

Eric Trump then posted “@twitter was amazing” and the accounts of Lara and Tiffany Trump were locked down “within minutes.”

It was an embarrassing breach for the family considering former President Donald Trump’s close relationship with Elon Musk, who acquired the platform previously known as Twitter in 2022 and supports him in the presidential race.

Both phony posts referenced World Liberty Financial, a Trump family cryptocurrency project that has yet to formally launch. The former president, who has called himself the first ‘crypto president’ and whose campaign is receiving substantial contributions from the industry, teased its announcement in a video released last week.

An official account for World Liberty Financial confirmed the hack in a separate post on X. “ALERT: Lara’s and Tiffany Trump's X accounts have been hacked. Do NOT click on any links or purchase any tokens shared from their profiles,” the company said. “We're actively working to fix this, but please stay vigilant and avoid scams!”

World Liberty has itself been the target of scammers ahead of its launch. The Independent, a British newspaper, reported Monday that cyber criminals have drawn tens of thousands of users to a counterfeit version of the site.

The breach comes nearly a month after the Trump campaign confirmed some of its internal communications were compromised. U.S. intelligence officials said that Iran was responsible for the hacks that targeted officials on the Trump campaign and also to hack the Harris campaign as well.

X had no immediate comment.

Received — 12 June 2024 Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories

Hunter Biden verdict throws ‘sand in the gears’ of GOP’s attacks on legal system


Republicans are scrambling to prevent Hunter Biden’s conviction on felony gun charges from undermining their argument that the judicial system is being weaponized against Donald Trump.

They just can’t agree on how.

Trump’s campaign cast the conviction of his rival’s son on Tuesday as a “distraction from the real crimes of the Biden Crime Family,” while some hard-line supporters dismissed the proceedings as “fake.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson argued that Hunter Biden’s conviction “doesn’t” undercut Republicans’ claims of a two-tiered justice system because the evidence against him was “overwhelming.”

And still other Hill Republicans went so far as to describe the verdict as a “step towards ensuring equal application of the law.”

Republicans’ divergent responses to the verdict on Tuesday afternoon offered a real-time glimpse into the party’s struggle to reconcile what should have been a political win — the criminal conviction of the president’s son — with the guilty verdict rendered against their own standard bearer.

“It throws a bit of sand in the gears of people suggesting the Biden Department of Justice has been engineered to go after Trump,” said Jason Roe, a GOP strategist and former chair of the Michigan Republican Party.

But, Roe conceded, “one feature of the modern Republican Party is ignoring facts that don’t support the argument and sometimes embracing the conspiracy theories that do.”

Trump’s team made no mention of either Hunter Biden or the former president’s own legal troubles in its response to the Delaware jury’s decision.

“This trial has been nothing more than a distraction from the real crimes of the Biden Crime Family, which has raked in tens of millions of dollars from China, Russia and Ukraine,” Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a prepared statement. “Crooked Joe Biden’s reign over the Biden Family Criminal Empire is all coming to an end on November 5th, and never again will a Biden sell government access for personal profit.”

The statement appears to be a modified version of one initially provided to CNN, which included well wishes for Hunter Biden “in his recovery and legal affairs.”

Trump and his allies have long accused the president of profiting off his son’s business dealings, even as they have struggled to substantiate the charges. A GOP impeachment inquiry in the House has stalled. House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.), who has been leading investigations into Biden, called the verdict a “step toward accountability” but blamed the Department of Justice for not investigating his business dealings and providing the president cover.

The rendering of a guilty verdict against the president’s son less than two weeks after a jury convicted Trump of 34 counts of falsifying business records in a Manhattan criminal trial appeared to mollify other Hill Republicans — at least a little.

“Today’s verdict is a step towards ensuring equal application of the law, regardless of one's last name,” Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) posted on X.

Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-Okla.) wrote on X that he is “glad to see that justice has been served. Nobody is above the law, including the President’s son.”

But others were conspiratorial, suggesting without evidence that the Department of Justice did not proceed with other cases against Hunter Biden that could potentially tie back to the president. Hunter Biden is facing a separate trial in California on federal tax charges. That case isn’t expected to go to trial until the fall.

The “gun charges are a giant misdirection,” former Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller argued in a post on X. “DOJ is Joe’s election protection racket.”

“Never forget DOJ tried to avoid this trial & verdict by giving Hunter a sweetheart plea deal. Until the judge exposed them,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) posted on X. Last summer, a plea deal with federal prosecutors that would have spared him from an election year trial fell apart.

And Charlie Kirk, a Trump ally and conservative commentator, warned his millions of followers on X not to “fall for” a “fake trial trying to make the Justice system appear ‘balanced.’”

Others tried to have it both ways. Kash Patel, a former national security adviser to Trump, said the verdict “demonstrates a fleeting moment of justice for all” — while also arguing that the trials of the former president and his rival’s son “expose the inequities in our legal system based on its weaponization.”

And then there was Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who said: “The Hunter Biden gun conviction is kinda dumb tbh.”

Biden said in a statement Tuesday that he “will accept the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process as Hunter considers an appeal.” He previously told ABC News that he would not pardon his son.

Received — 7 June 2024 Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories

Trump heads west for $500K-per-couple, California buck-raking swing


Former President Donald Trump once declared California a “symbol of our nation’s decline” — but he sure likes its cash.

A week after he was convicted in a wide-ranging hush money trial, the former president is making a fundraising swing through the West Coast with stops in San Francisco — his first visit to the city in more than a decade — and Los Angeles. Trump is already raking in cash and trying to close the fundraising gap with President Joe Biden. His campaign and the Republican National Committee said they raised $141 million, while an associated super PAC took in $70 million, in May.

Trump’s visits to San Francisco, Beverly Hills and Newport Beach over the next three days for private events are expected to bring in millions. Top tickets for the Thursday fundraiser, hosted by Silicon Valley venture capitalists Chamath Palihapitiya and David Sacks and his wife, Jacqueline, at their palatial “Billionaires Row” home overlooking San Francisco Bay, went for $500,000 per couple. The event is expected to rake in at least $12 million, according to a person familiar with the fundraiser.

The fundraiser is for the former president’s Trump 47 Joint Fundraising Committee, which sends the first $6,600 from each donor to his campaign, with the rest of the money going to his Save America leadership PAC, the RNC and 42 state parties.

Trevor Traina, Trump’s former ambassador to Austria and a personal friend of Sacks, said tech donors in particular have been driven by recent policy decisions from the Biden administration over things like regulation and crypto policy. Just last week, Biden faced criticism from the crypto community when he vetoed legislation that would have rolled back an SEC guidance on crypto accounting.



“You look at the biggest companies here, every one of them is getting sued from Apple to you name it. It’s like the frog boiling in hot water,” he said. “People who normally are heads down focused on business have come to the conclusion that it's time to get involved.”

Vice President Kamala Harris also paid her home state of California a visit this week to attend a fundraiser in downtown San Francisco and Oakland, and was met by pro-Palestinian protests. Trump is expected to face protesters as well, with a giant three-story-tall inflatable Trump chicken being launched in the Bay area, according to local reports. 

Trump’s West Coast swing comes on the heels of the guilty verdict, but also at a time when presidential fundraising typically accelerates the most, with donors tuning in more as the general election campaign kicks off in earnest. In 2020, Trump’s campaign fundraising doubled from May to June and continued to grow as the summer went on.

The massive cash haul since the verdict should help Republicans continue to cut into what had been a significant fundraising advantage for Biden and the Democratic National Committee. April was the first month where Trump and the RNC outraised their Democratic counterparts, but Biden and the DNC still had a major advantage in terms of cash on hand — $146 million to $88 million as of the end of the month. Both sides also still have some money in joint fundraising committees.

Shaun Maguire from the Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Sequoia Capital wrote on X that he donated $300,000 to Trump in the hours after the guilty verdict. “The timing isn't a coincidence.”



Aides say the former president has been dialed in on fundraising — whether it is making personal appeals to donors over the phone or turning up the charm offensive at intimate, big-ticket dinners.

Just hours after his guilty verdict was handed down from the judge, Trump made his way uptown to a private dinner with a small group of some of the biggest donors in Republican politics to collect millions for his super PAC. The dinner was hosted by billionaire Pepe Fanjul and was attended by Blackstone Group CEO Steve Schwarzman and supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis.

Catsimatidis said Trump was in "high spirits" at the intimate fundraiser, also attended by Eric Trump, and the former president asked the attendees about current events and who should be his vice president.

Some of Trump’s top surrogates have been drumming up donations as well. On Wednesday, his son Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle appeared at a fundraiser with former Trump administration official Cliff Sims in Alabama, and they are expected to host another fundraiser for Trump in London later this month. John Ratcliffe, Trump’s former director of National Intelligence, hosted a fundraiser in Palm Beach, Florida, last week while Trump was tied up in court.

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