Saturday, March 16, 2024

What Republicans Are Saying About Trump Now

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Many Top Arizona Republicans Hammered Donald Trump Earlier In The Gop Primary Season Now That He’s Set To Be Nominee They’re Changing Their Tune

For most of the past year, if they mentioned Donald Trump at all, Arizona’s Republican establishment accused him of firing up the “crazies,” or of being coarse, ill-informed and inaccurate.

Today, many of the same politicians are coming to terms with the reality-TV star as their party’s presumptive presidential nominee.

Despite worries Trump will hurt down-ticket Republican candidates in November, Arizona Republican leaders say they will support him as the GOP nominee. Or they are at least open to doing so.


It is a far cry from the anger and bitterness some Arizona Republicans directed at Trump over the past several months.

Senior U.S. Sen. John McCain found himself in a bruising public feud with the real-estate mogul after Trump mocked McCain as “weak on immigration” and a “war hero” only because he got captured by the North Vietnamese.

Junior U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Arizona, last year called Trump’s views “coarse, ill-informed and inaccurate” and “not representative of the Republican Party.”

Gov. Doug Ducey, who was conspicuously absent from Trump’s three appearances in the state, is now preaching GOP unity and is a delegate to this summer’s Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

Around the country, Republicans hoping to keep control of the U.S. Senate have been doing a similar dance with their party’s incoming standard-bearer.


More Republicans Now Think Donald Trump Is ‘unfit To Be President Of The United States’ Watergate Reporter Claims

Jessica Kwong U.S.Donald TrumpRepublicansCarl Bernstein

More members of the GOP think President Donald Trump is “unfit” in various ways to be serving as commander-in-chief after reading Defense Secretary James Mattis’s resignation letter, said legendary Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein.

Bernstein, who helped uncover the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s, made his remark on CNN’s Reliable Sources show on Sunday, three days after Mattis resigned. Mattis left his post a day after Trump’s plans to withdraw troops from Syria were announced.

“It’s all one big one story and that story is about the fitness or unfitness of Donald Trump to be president of the United States,” Bernstein said. “And what the Mattis letter has done in a monumental way is to push Republicans into making some real judgments.”


Bernstein concluded: “They’re talking to each other, there is coming to be a much greater consensus that he is unfit to be the president of the United States.”

The former Washington Post reporter elaborated that Republicans were saying “that he is unfit on psychological grounds, that he is unfit perhaps because of his contempt for the law and particularly unfit in his conduct of foreign policy in such a way as to be a danger himself.”

Bernstein claimed that Mattis, as well as former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and former national security adviser H.R. McMaster were of the opinion that Trump is “unfit.”

Co Senate Candidate Should Denounce Trump & Join Cheney At The Evil Doers Encampment Outside The Shrimpy Gop Tent


The Republican challenging U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet made me laugh Tuesday when he told Colorado Politics, “Republicans may be looking around saying, ‘OK, we really want to win,’ as opposed to looking at the litmus, purity test that often is the assembly.”

Republicans are looking around and saying, ‘Ok we really want to win?’

I want to believe Bremer, because it would be good for all of us. But all I see is Republicans, well beyond the assembly, acting as if they really want to lose.

Yes, they say they want to win, but then they dress in multiple layers of ideological straight-jackets that make it impossible for them to win in Colorado.

if Bremer were right about Republicans in Colorado really wanting to win, he’d join Wyoming Republican Liz Cheney and object to Trump.


But he knows if he did, he’d join Cheney at the Evil Doers encampment far away from the already shrimpy Republican tent.

But this might set him up to win in Colorado someday.

The GOP’s continued love for Trump, and Trump’s love of the spotlight, spells death for statewide candidates like Bremer in next year’s CO election.

But Colorado’s Republicans don’t want to change course.

That’s the confounding part. You’d think they’d want to win at something they spend so much time and money at. Why waste your precious time on Earth?


Bremer was a competitive athlete, which might explain why he projects his desire to win on his fellow Republicans.

So again, here’s what Bremer thinks.

If only.

Republicans Have Embraced An Authoritarian And Are Ready To Undo Voting Rights And Outlaw Abortion What’s Next


Former U.S. President Donald Trump

They’ve been after the right to abortion for decades. The next thing they did was go after the Voting Rights Act. And just watch: They’ll go after Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Act next. 

Nothing is sacred to Republicans anymore. Not the right to vote. Not the right to be free of search and seizure in your own home. Not the right to be free of religion if you so choose. Not the right to be free of discrimination on the basis of race, sex, creed or national origin. The only “right” they respect in this day and age is the right to follow Donald Trump, and they are in the process of turning that right, at least within their own Republican Party, into an obligation. To have rights, such as those enumerated in the Bill of Rights, is a founding principle of democracy. To impose obligations, as in the obligation to adhere unquestioningly to a leader, is a principle of authoritarianism. 

In a previous decision in 2007, Roberts had written that “the way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” which is like saying “the way to stop getting wet is to come in out of the rain,” ignoring that you might be wet because someone is pouring water on you.

The 15th Amendment said that neither the United States nor “any state” could deny or abridge the right to vote “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”


Trump’s New Loyalty Test Makes It Clear: Republicans Who Vote To Acquit Are Siding With The Insurrectionists

REPUBLICANS ARE NOW SAYING THAT DONALD TRUMP WOULD HAVE ...

Donald Trump

For weeks now, Republicans in Congress have been playing a rhetorical game regarding the impeachment of Donald Trump on charges — for which he is quite obviously guilty — of inciting an insurrection. On one hand, Senate Republicans want very badly to acquit Trump, even though this would allow him to run for office again, believing that the Republican voting base is more loyal to Trump than they are to the GOP or to the nation itself. On the other hand, they don’t want to come right out and say that Trump was justified in sending a violent crowd to storm the Capitol on January 6. That sort of overtly fascist stance can hurt one’s bookings on cable news shows and cause corporate donors to put you on ice for a cycle

So Senate Republicans glommed onto what they thought was the perfect strategy to have it both ways: pretend that they are springing Trump on a technicality.


Last week, in a vote called by Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, 45 out of 50 Senate Republicans voted affirmatively on the claim that it’s unconstitutional to hold an impeachment trial for Trump now that he’s out of office. “Impeachment is for removal from office, and the accused here has already left office,” Paul argued, clearly imagining himself a true artiste of hair-splitting. 

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Want more Amanda Marcotte on politics? Subscribe to her newsletter Standing Room Only.

Maryland Gov Hogan: Bothersome That You Have To Swear Fealty To ‘dear Leader’ Or Get Kicked Out Of Gop

On the flip side, Trump has posted just one statement directly criticizing the Biden administration, lambasting it over its temporary pause on using the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine.

In the weeks after the riot, which featured his second Senate impeachment trial and his departure from office, Trump has mostly curtailed such election messaging. But Cheney’s recent criticism of his falsehoods has coincided with a much greater push on his end. In the past week alone, Trump released about a half-dozen statements questioning the legitimacy of the election.

A Trump representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump did publicly comment Sunday about Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit’s failed drug test, which he tried to tie to his election loss.

His recent messaging comes as Facebook’s Oversight Board said the social media giant was justified in barring Trump from its platform after the riot, citing the “ongoing risk of violence,” while Twitter suspended an account that was posting Trump’s statements, circumventing its ban on him.

“We’re four months after Jan. 6,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “An insurrection, something that was unthinkable in this country. And the message from people who want to get rid of Liz Cheney is to say, ‘It’s just time to focus on the future and move on.’ Like this was 10 years ago and we’ve been obsessed with it since.

More Voters Have Negative Than Positive Views Of Trump As President And Biden As A Possible President

Voters’ perceptions of Trump as president – and Biden as a possible president – differ substantially. And while voters generally hold positive feelings about their own preferred candidate, supporters of Donald Trump have more positive views of Trump’s presidency than Biden supporters have of his potential presidency.

Among all registered voters, larger shares say that if Biden wins in November, he would be a poor or terrible president than a good or great president ; 29% expect him to be an average president. Evaluations of Trump’s presidency also are more negative than positive: 53% say he is poor or terrible, while 37% view him as a good or great president. Just 9% say Trump is an average president.

Registered voters who support Biden express mixed views about how he would be as president. About half say that, if elected, he would be a great or good president. About four-in-ten Biden voters say he would be an average president. Just 7% say he would be a poor or terrible president.

Voters who support Trump are much more positive about his presidency. About eight-in-ten say he is a great or good president. While 14% view Trump as an average president, just 4% of Trump voters say he is a poor or terrible president.

Similarly, nearly nine-in-ten Trump supporters have negative views of Biden’s potential presidency, but their views are less intense: 61% of these voters say Biden would be a terrible president and 25% say he would be poor.

Voters More Confident In Biden On Several Issues And On Bringing Country Closer Together

Overall, similar shares of registered voters are very or somewhat confident in Trump and Biden to make good decisions about economic policy, although voters are more likely to say they are very confident in Trump . And about as many voters express confidence in Biden as Trump to effectively handle law enforcement and criminal justice issues.

On four of the six issues included on the survey, however, voters are more likely to say they have confidence in Biden than Trump.

About half of voters are very or somewhat confident in Biden’s abilities to handle the public health impact of the coronavirus, while 41% say they are confident in Trump.

And more voters are confident in Biden than Trump to bring the country closer together. Still, fewer than half of voters are confident in Biden to help unify the country , while just 31% are confident in Trump.

Biden also has a 13 percentage point advantage over Trump on effectively handling race relations .

Views About Prospects For Future Generations Improve Among Black And Hispanic Americans

About half of the public says life for future generations of Americans will be worse than life today, while a quarter say it will be better and a similar share say it will be about the same. Within nearly all major demographic and political groups, more say life will be worse for future generations than say it will be better.

Younger adults are somewhat more likely than older adults to say life will be better for future generations. A third of those ages 18 to 29 say this, compared with about a quarter of those ages 30 to 49 and 50 to 64 and 20% of adults 65 and older.

A third of Black Americans say life will be better for future generations, while a smaller share of white Americans say this. About a quarter of Hispanic Americans say life will be better for future generations.

There are only modest partisan differences on this question, though Democrats are slightly more optimistic .

However, Democrats have become more optimistic about how life will be for future generations of Americans since the question was last asked last fall, while Republicans have become less optimistic. In September, just 14% of Democrats said life would be better for future generations; today, roughly double that share say this . In contrast, the proportion of Republicans saying life would be better decreased from 31% to 23% over the same period.

For Republicans Fealty To Trumps Election Falsehood Becomes Defining Loyalty Test

Debra Ell, a Republican organizer in Michigan and fervent supporter of former president Donald Trump, said she has good reason to believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

“I think I speak for many people in that Trump has never actually been wrong, and so we’ve learned to trust when he says something, that he’s not just going to spew something out there that’s wrong and not verified,” she said, referring to Trump’s baseless claims that widespread electoral fraud caused his loss to President Biden in November.

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In fact, there is no evidence to support Trump’s false assertions, which culminated in a deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. But Ell, a Republican precinct delegate in her state, said the 2020 election is one of the reasons she’s working to censure and remove Jason Cabel Roe from his role as the Michigan Republican Party’s executive director — specifically that Roe accepted the 2020 results, telling Politico that “the election wasn’t stolen” and that “there is no one to blame but Trump.”

“He said the election was not rigged, as Donald Trump had said, so we didn’t agree with that, and then he didn’t blame the Democrats for any election fraud,” said Ell, explaining her frustration with Roe. “He said there was no fraud — again, that’s something that doesn’t line up with what we think really happened — and then he said it’s all Donald Trump’s fault.”

Steve Schmidt: Trump Has Done ‘tremendous Damage’ Through Incompetence Ineptitude

As lifelong conservatives, these members of the Republican resistance say they are in a unique position to reach like-minded voters who are uncomfortable with Trump’s rhetoric and actions but hesitant to back a Democrat.

“What we wanted to create is a movement among rank-and-file Republicans to give them a sense of community and a sense of encouragement from walking away from this president,” said Tim Miller, a former spokesman for the Republican National Committee. He is now an adviser to Republican Voters Against Trump, a super PAC that he said will “create a permission structure for them to say for the first, maybe only, time that they won’t vote for a Republican.”

Trump retains widespread support among Republicans in polls — 90 percent of those who identified as Republicans said they would vote for Trump, and 71 percent viewed him very favorably, according to a New York Times/Siena University poll released last week.

But Republicans advocating for Biden said cracks are forming that they believe they can tap into. Trump trailed Biden by 20 points among independent voters, the NYT/Siena poll found, and just 61 percent of self-identified Republicans said they viewed the country as being on the right track. The president’s support among the groups that were key to his win in 2016 — seniors, non-college-educated whites and men — has also been shrinking in multiple polls over the past two months.

Why Would Kathy Hochul Keep The Man Most Responsible After Cuomo For The Nursing

Former President Donald Trump ripped into embattled Gov. Andrew Cuomo at a New York State Republican Party fundraiser Thursday night — alluding to the governor facing impeachment after a state investigative report branded the three-term Democrat a serial sexual harasser of female underlings.

Trump also was bullish that the Republicans have a chance to win the governorship.

“Cuomo’s got real problems,” Trump said at the event held at the Trump National Golf Course in Briarcliff.

He gave a shout out to the state Senate Republican Minority Leader Robert Ortt, who would participate in a Senate trial to remove Cuomo if the Assembly impeaches him.

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Have Expressed Reluctance Or Misgivings But Havent Openly Dropped Their Backing

Why some Republicans are now targeting Trump, GOP senators

Paul Ryan and John Boehner, the former speakers of the House: Both have expressed their dislike of the president, but have not said whom they will support in November.

John Kelly, a former chief of staff to the president: Mr. Kelly has not said whom he plans to vote for, but did say he wished “we had some additional choices.”

Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska: She has said that she’s grappling with whether to support Mr. Trump in November. She told reporters on Capitol Hill in June: “I am struggling with it. I have struggled with it for a long time.”

She said: “I think right now, as we are all struggling to find ways to express the words that need to be expressed appropriately, questions about who I’m going to vote for or not going to vote for, I think, are distracting at the moment. I know people might think that’s a dodge, but I think there are important conversations that we need to have as an American people among ourselves about where we are right now.”

Mark Sanford, a former congressman and governor of South Carolina: Mr. Sanford briefly challenged the president in this cycle’s Republican primary, and said last year that he would support Mr. Trump if the president won the nomination .

That has since changed.

“He’s treading on very thin ice,” Mr. Sanford said in June, worrying that the president is threatening the stability of the country.

Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.

Senate Republicans Decided Bipartisanship Was In Their Interest This One Time

While infrastructure is proving to be an area where Senate Republicans are willing to break with Trump, it’s too early to say whether this is the start of a trend.

For one, some of the 18 Republican senators who voted to close debate on the infrastructure bill may still end up ultimately voting against it. But ultimately the votes are expected to be there for the bill’s passage, meaning that in this case Republican senators seem to have calculated that doing something for their constituents and demonstrating that the Senate isn’t totally broken is worth the tradeoff of handing Biden a major bipartisan win.

That doesn’t mean that it’ll be smooth sailing for Biden’s legislative agenda heading forward, however. McConnell, after all, said in May that “one hundred percent of my focus is standing up to this administration,” and with Republicans entrenched against any sort of voting rights legislation, it’s unclear what major policy areas if any could be ripe for bipartisan agreement after infrastructure.

The vast majority of Republicans are opposed to the legislation. House Republicans are as tightly bound to Mr. Trump as ever, with many continuing to support his election lies and conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6 attack at the Capitol. And with the approach of the 2022 elections, members of his party will have less and less room to maneuver away from a figure whom their base still reveres.

The Gop Might Still Be Trumps Party But That Doesnt Mean Theres Room For Him

Throughout his presidency, Donald Trump crossed lines that no other president has come close to. And if there was ever any doubt, the final months of his presidency put that to rest.

From the moment President Biden was declared the winner, Trump refused to accept the results of the election, repeatedly dismissing them as rigged or fraudulent, even going so far as to pressure Republican officials, like Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, to overturn them. This culminated in the events of Jan 6. At a rally that day, Trump told his supporters that the election was being stolen and said, “Now, it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy. And after this, we’re going to walk down, and I’ll be there with you, we’re going to walk down, we’re going to walk down.” A few hours later, some of those supporters stormed the Capitol, threatening officials and destroying property. They also disrupted the certification of the Electoral College vote, usually a ceremonial affair. Five people died.

List Of Republicans Who Opposed The Donald Trump 2020 Presidential Campaign

This article is part of a series about

This is a list of Republicans and conservatives who opposed the re-election of incumbent Donald Trump, the 2020 Republican Party nominee for President of the United States. Among them are former Republicans who left the party in 2016 or later due to their opposition to Trump, those who held office as a Republican, Republicans who endorsed a different candidate, and Republican presidential primary election candidates that announced opposition to Trump as the presumptive nominee. Over 70 former senior Republican national security officials and 61 additional senior officials have also signed onto a statement declaring, “We are profoundly concerned about our nation’s security and standing in the world under the leadership of Donald Trump. The President has demonstrated that he is dangerously unfit to serve another term.”

A group of former senior U.S. government officials and conservatives—including from the Reagan, Bush 41, Bush 43, and Trump administrations have formed The Republican Political Alliance for Integrity and Reform to, “focus on a return to principles-based governing in the post-Trump era.”

A third group of Republicans, Republican Voters Against Trump was launched in May 2020 has collected over 500 testimonials opposing Donald Trump.

West Virginia Unions Pressure Manchin To Back Biden On Infrastructure Plan

Looking for new GOP leaders to emerge

There are Trump voters who seem ready to move on. Tricia Moore is an attorney and the president of the Licking County GOP women’s group. Asked if Trump remains the leader of the party, she starts her answer by giving the former president his due: “Trump is a bigger-than-life figure. I think he is not afraid to say what he believes in, not afraid to say things that are unpopular.”

But she then makes it clear that she’s already looking to others as the future of the party: “I think that there are other Republicans that are coming out strong and standing for these conservative values that are going to step forward.” Moore notes that she’s been watching Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis closely and likes what she sees.

Still, it’s hard to get past Trump’s dominance, something he’ll deploy to influence next year’s midterms.

And that complicates things, according to Ohio Tea Party activist Tom Zawistowski. He says Trump’s time as president is to be applauded, but he also says Trump could have won reelection if he’d been better organized, more disciplined and had surrounded himself with better people.

Now Zawistowski wonders about Trump’s next phase. “What’s Trump 2.0 really look like?” he asks. “How much did he learn from this experience?”

“The problem there is that Trump’s like the big elephant in the room,” Zawistowski says. “If he says, ‘I’m endorsing this person,’ well, I got news for you: That’s probably who’s going to win.”

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With Trump Off The Ballot Republicans Look To Regain Votes In The Suburbs

Trump’s influence in Ohio — even after defeat — so far has showed no signs of decline.

In the Ohio legislature, where the GOP controls the agenda with a super-majority, Republicans are looking to enact new restrictions on voting, following Trump’s baseless claims of fraud in the 2020 elections. There have even been proposals to rename a state park after Trump and to honor him with a state holiday. U.S. Senate hopefuls are jockeying to be the most pro-Trump Republican candidate. And the fact that a Cleveland area GOP congressman, Anthony Gonzalez, voted to impeach Trump in January has made him a handy target for Republicans looking to catch Trump’s eye, and maybe an endorsement.

But even at the Licking County GOP gathering, there were a number of opinions about the former president and the role he should play going forward in Republican politics.

The guest speaker at the event was GOP consultant Matt Dole, whose remarks offered a bit of consolation to audience members who may have loved Trump but were far less fond of his Twitter habit.

“We had to defend whatever Donald Trump did on a day in and day out basis,” Dole told his audience of about 50 Republican Party members. He added that they were all for Trump’s policies, “but sometimes his tweets got in the way.”

Republicans wish Trump were still in office, but according to Dole, they are now free to go on offense and focus on attacking the policies of Biden and the Democrats.

Republicans Who Voted To Convict Trump In Impeachment Trial Face Backlash

  • The seven Republicans who sided with Democrats by voting to convict former President Donald Trump have been rebuked in their states and criticized by other factions within the party.
  • The rift over Trump comes as the GOP hopes to win back the House and Senate in the 2022 midterm elections.

Backlash has been swift and unrelenting for the few Republicans in Congress who voted alongside Democrats in Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial.

Some of the seven senators who voted to convict Trump on the charge of inciting the deadly Capitol riot are facing censure and criticism from within the party. One Republican who voted to impeach Trump in the House was reportedly even denounced by members of his own family.

“Oh my, what a disappointment you are to us and to God!” read a letter to Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., signed by multiple family members who support Trump, The New York Times reported Monday.

“It is now most embarrassing to us that we are related to you. You have embarrassed the Kinzinger family name!” read the letter dated Jan. 8, five days before he voted to impeach Trump.

The rift between Republicans who have vocally condemned Trump over the Jan. 6 invasion and those who want to keep him as a party leader comes as the GOP hopes to win back the House and Senate in the 2022 midterm elections. Trump, who maintains , has strongly indicated he plans to remain active in politics.

His state’s Republican Party censured him hours after the final vote.

Most Republicans Still Believe 2020 Election Was Stolen From Trump Poll

May opinion poll finds that 53% of Republicans believe Trump is the ‘true president’ compared with 3% of Democrats

Last modified on Fri 4 Jun 2021 19.39 BST

A majority of Republicans still believe Donald Trump won the 2020 US presidential election and blame his loss to Joe Biden on baseless claims of illegal voting, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll.

The 17-19 May national poll found that 53% of Republicans believe Trump, their party’s nominee, is the “true president” now, compared with 3% of Democrats and 25% of all Americans.

About one-quarter of adults falsely believe the 3 November election was tainted by illegal voting, including 56% of Republicans, according to the poll. The figures were roughly the same in a poll that ran from 13-17 November which found that 28% of all Americans and 59% of Republicans felt that way.

Biden, a Democrat, won by more than 7m votes. Dozens of courts rejected Trump’s challenges to the results, but Trump and his supporters have persisted in pushing baseless conspiracy theories on conservative news outlets.

US federal and state officials have said repeatedly they have no evidence that votes were compromised or altered during the presidential election, rejecting the unsubstantiated claims of widespread fraud advanced by Trump and many of his supporters. Voter fraud is extremely rare in the US.

  • Reuters contributed to this report

‘nothing There’: More Republicans Are Calling Out Trump’s Election Lies

Donald Trump now owns the Republican Party

WASHINGTON — The more we learn about Donald Trump’s baseless, false and discredited claims about the 2020 election, the more baseless, false and discredited those claims have become.

Just consider the revelations over the past week — from Republicans:

  • In Michigan, a GOP-led investigation by its state Senate concluded that it “found no evidence of widespread or systematic fraud in Michigan’s prosecution of the 2020 election.”
  • Regarding Arizona, a report co-authored by former Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson criticized the so-called “audit” of the election results in that state, saying it “does not meet the standards of a proper election recount or audit,” and that it’s being conducted by an “inexperienced, unqualified contractor.”
  • And over the weekend, ABC’s Jon Karl writing for the Atlantic had former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr debunking Trump’s claims about the 2020 election results. “If there was evidence of fraud, I had no motive to suppress it. But my suspicion all the way along was that there was nothing there,” Barr said. “It was all bullsh!#.”

Predictably, Trump lashed out at those GOP findings.

“Michigan State Senators Mike Shirkey and Ed McBroom are doing everything possible to stop Voter Audits in order to hide the truth about November 3rd,” the former president said in a statement, which even included those state senators’ phone numbers.

Even Bill Barr doesn’t buy them.


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