Arkansas Republican Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Fox News contributor Mara Liasson have both refused to back Donald Trump’s 2024 White House run, as the GOP continues to turn away from the former president.
Ms Sanders, a former aide of Mr Trump, dodged the question when asked whether she will endorse his third presidential bid in an appearance on Fox News on Sunday. Instead, she simply said that she has “a great relationship with him”.
Meanwhile, also on the network, Ms Liasson said that there is “no doubt” that conservative media outlets have “a strong desire to move on from Donald Trump”.
This comes as Mr Trump had a busy weekend venting on Truth Social about his treatment since a large trove of classified material was recovered from Mar-a-Lago.
His ire was reignited following the discovery of a small number of classified documents from President Joe Biden’s time as vice president at his home and an office he once used.
Meanwhile, a judge has unsealed portions of a transcript from Mr Trump’s deposition stemming from E Jean Carroll’s lawsuit against him, where he denied raping her in the 1990s.
George Conway blasts GOP Rep Jim Jordan for ignoring Trump’s wrongdoing
“Hillary Clinton mishandled classified documents. Joe Biden mishandled classified documents. But the only one who gets his home raided is President Trump — and he didn’t even do anything wrong!” Mr Jordan claimed on Twitter on Friday evening.
“You wanted to lock Hillary up. You want to impeach Biden. But the only one who you say didn’t do anything wrong is Donald Trump, who not only mishandled documents but also spent over a year refusing to give them back when asked,” the husband of former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway responded.
Oliver O’Connell16 January 2023 14:15
Sarah Huckabee Sanders refuses to back Trump’s 2024 bid
Arkansas Republican Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders has refused to back Donald Trump’s 2024 White House run, as the GOP continues to turn away from the former president.
Ms Sanders, a former aide of Mr Trump, dodged the question when asked whether she will endorse his third presidential bid in an appearance on Fox News onSunday.
“Your bio, on your official page as Governor, describes you as a ‘trusted confidant of President Trump,’” asked Shannon Bream. “Have you talked to him about his ’24 run? Will you endorse him in that?”
Ms Sanders stressed that she has a “great relationship” with the former president but stopped short of endorsing his bid to be re-elected, saying her “focus isn’t 2024”.
“I love the president, have a great relationship with him,” she said.
“I know our country would be infinitely better off if he was in office right now instead of Joe Biden,.
“But right now, my focus isn’t 2024. It’s focusing here in Arkansas and doing what we can to empower the people of this state, and make sure that I’m delivering on the promises that I laid out over the course of the last two years.”
When pressed further, she continued to refuse to give a straight answer.
“My focus isn’t on 2024,” she said.
“It’s on what we can deliver in this legislative session. I’m not going to set an arbitrary timeline. I’m not really focused on that at all.”
Rachel Sharp16 January 2023 13:50
Republicans demand visitor logs in Biden classified papers case
Newly empowered House Republicans on Sunday demanded the White House turn over all information related to its searches that have uncovered classified documents at President Joe Biden‘s home and former office in the wake of more records found at his Delaware residence.
“We have a lot of questions,” said Rep James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee.
Oliver O’Connell16 January 2023 13:30
Texas brewery faces threats after cancelling Kyle Rittenhouse event
A Texas brewery has called the influx of threats it has received “crazy” after it cancelled an event with Kyle Rittenhouse.
The teenager shot and killed two racial justice protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin in 2020, but he was later cleared of wrongdoing at trial.
The Southern Star Brewery in Conroe, Texas was targeted after saying on Friday that a “rally against censorship” with Mr Rittenhouse would no longer be held there. It was initially scheduled to take place later in January.
Gustaf Kilander has the story.
Oliver O’Connell16 January 2023 12:30
Buttigieg: In the spotlight for better or worse
The nation’s transportation secretary usually holds one of the most public-facing roles in any presidential administration. A core aspect of the Cabinet job is to travel the country, doling out millions of public dollars and attending ribbon-cutting ceremonies for new bridges and overpasses and ports.
Even by those standards, Pete Buttigieg has spent an inordinate amount of time in the national spotlight delivering the largesse of the big infrastructure and domestic spending bills. But at the same time, the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and onetime mayor of South Bend, Indiana, also has been the public face of a string of transportation-related crises, all amid steady speculation about his future political prospects.
Oliver O’Connell16 January 2023 11:15
Trump calls on GOP to get back what McConnell ‘gave up’ in debt ceiling fight
Late on Saturday night, Donald Trump issued a rallying call to Republicans to use the upcoming debt ceiling as leverage to “get back almost everything McConnell gave up to the Radical Left”.
The former president has spent a lot of time on Truth Social railing against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for negotiating the $1.7 trillion bipartisan government funding bill with Democrats.
Mr Trump has since called for a primary challenger to Mr McConnell and those Republicans who voted with him on the bill. Many of the former president’s posts about “Old Crow” McConnell have also included racist attacks against his wife, former Trump transportation secretary Elaine Chao.
Oliver O’Connell16 January 2023 09:45
Schiff calls for national security threat assessment of Biden’s handling of classified papers
California Rep Adam Schiff says that the handling of classified documents discovered at President Joe Biden’s home and former office must be assessed to see if it endangered US national security.
Speaking on This Week on Sunday, Mr Schiff told Jon Karl of ABC News that Attorney General Merrick Garland made “the right move” in appointing a special counsel to investigate the discovery of the classified papers.
Oliver O’Connell16 January 2023 08:15
Watch: Chris Christie asks why White House withheld Biden papers case from American people
Oliver O’Connell16 January 2023 06:15
Analysis: Why Trump, not Biden, faces more peril from the new special counsel probe
The appointment of a new special counsel to investigate Joe Biden is actually bad news for Donald Trump, Justice Department veterans tell Andrew Feinberg.
Oliver O’Connell16 January 2023 05:15
Trump says US has become an ‘Investigation Nightmare’
In a follow-up that continues the strange formatting of labelling Truth Social posts as “Page 1”, “Page 2” etc, the former president summed up his argument succinctly: “I DID NOTHING WRONG, AND JOE DID.”
He then complained: “Our Nation has become an “Investigation Nightmare,” despite the many other problems we have, which are many.”
Mr Trump continued: “It is NOW time for the USA to stop these RIDICULOUS INVESTIGATIONS, and that includes those D.C. inspired Local & State Which Hunts, and get back to the business of properly running our Country!”
Protestations of innocence don’t pair well with calls to stop the investigation into the thing you are accused of doing — or all the investigations into the things you are accused of doing — if you are innocent and all the evidence shows that (as he says), then there should be nothing to worry about.
And yes, he misspelled “witch”.
Oliver O’Connell16 January 2023 04:15
