Fact-Check by CBS News (June 13, 2023):The National Archives and Records Administration, or NARA released a statement detailing how presidential records are meant to be handled. "The PRA requires that all records created by Presidents (and Vice-Presidents) be turned over to [NARA] at the end of their administrations," the Archives said.
Prosecutors are not relying on the PRA to bring charges against Trump. He is instead charged with retaining national defense information under a different law known as the Espionage Act, a 1917 statute that has been used to prosecute other high-profile cases related to the retention or dissemination of classified information.
TRUMP: You know who I listen to? Myself. I saw what happened. I watched that election, and I thought the election was over at 10 o'clock in the evening.
Q: Were you calling the shots, though, Mr. President, ultimately?
TRUMP: As to whether or not I believed it was rigged? Oh, sure. It was my decision.
Fact-Check by ABA Journal (August 3, 2023):John Lauro, a lawyer for former President Donald Trump, is pointing to an advice-of-counsel defense in the case accusing Trump of trying to subvert the 2020 election results. Trump thought that he could ask then-Vice President Mike Pence to halt the count of presidential electors based on a "very detailed memorandum from a constitutional expert," Lauro told Fox News. Trump "got advice from counsel--very, very wise and learned counsel--on a variety of constitutional and legal issues," Lauro told NPR. "So it's a very straightforward defense."
Heading into the final day of the Republican Party's first national gathering since the Supreme Court's landmark decision, which has allowed more than a third of states to ban nearly all abortions, the issue has barely received a passing mention. Main-stage speakers have instead leaned into economic populism, and isolationism.
But most GOP delegates are fine with abortion not taking center stage, saying they have little interest in divisive social issues that could damage the nominee at a moment when Trump appears on a glidepath to victory. While Democrats and abortion-rights groups stage press conferences outside the convention and attempt to use GOP vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance's past statements to bring abortion back into the political spotlight, the GOP is choosing not to engage.
Mr. Trump also amplified posts from Laura Loomer, a right-wing activist, who had posted copies of Ms. Harris's birth certificate and had spread false accusations that Ms. Harris has lied about her race. [Laura Loomer responded to Trump's NABJ interview by posting Harris's birth certificate, which lists her mother's ethnicity as "Caucasian.]
Ms. Harris, whose father is from Jamaica, and whose mother was Indian American, has long identified with both her Black and South Asian heritage.
It took Trump all of 10 days running in a head-to-head against the first woman and first incumbent of Black and Indian-American heritage to openly question her background: "I don't know. Is she Indian or is she Black?" Trump said, raising questions that echoed the ex-President's persistent & discredited questions about former President Barack Obama's place of birth. "I respect either one, but she obviously doesn't because she was Indian all the way and then all of the sudden she made a turn and she went, she became a Black person."
Harris has always identified as a product of a multicultural family, being born of Jamaican and Indian immigrants.
Some Democrats have suggested the former president was saying there would be no more elections if he won. Instead, Trump repeatedly argued his comments were because Christians do not vote in large numbers.
"That statement is very simple. I said, 'Vote for me; you're not going to have to do it ever again.' It's true, because we have to get the vote out. Christians are not known as a big voting group," Trump said. "This time, vote. I'll straighten out the country, you won't have to vote anymore. I won't need your vote. You can go back to not voting," he added.
"You meant you won't have to vote for you because you have four years in office. Is that what you meant?" Ingraham asked. Trump repeated his argument that Christians tend not to vote in large numbers.
Under current law, seniors that earn less than $25,000 per year ($32,000 for married couples) of "combined income"--that is adjusted gross income and half of their Social Security benefits--pay no taxes on Social Security retirement benefits. Above that amount, 50% of Social Security benefits are subject to income tax, with the revenue going toward the Social Security retirement trust fund.
This year, taxation of benefits is projected to raise about $94 billion. We estimate that eliminating taxation of Social Security benefits for seniors would cut taxes and thus reduce revenues by about $1.8 trillion between 2026 and 2035. This includes $1.05 trillion less in revenue for Social Security and $750 billion less revenue for Medicare.
Indeed, it often seems as if the Republican Party is wholly unaware of the fact that it has a criminal leading its 2024 ticket. Trump himself recently declared with confidence, "You're not going to teach a criminal not to be a criminal," as if the maxim were just common sense. A day later, the former president echoed the line at an unrelated event.
"A criminal is a criminal," the GOP nominee said. "They generally stay a criminal and we do not have time to figure it out."
Some worried about the high cost of such a policy. Others confessed they don't understand what he's proposing to do. Yet others wondered aloud if Trump was serious. And numerous Trump allies said his announcement came as a surprise to them.
Some wondered if Trump was serious about his call for government-mandated coverage of IVF, or whether he simply said it to mute Democratic attacks that a Trump victory would threaten access to IVF.
"We are going to be, under the Trump administration, we are going to be paying for that treatment," Trump told NBC News last month when asked what he'd do about IVF if elected. "We're going to be mandating that the insurance company pay."
There is scant evidence of a Republican appetite for that plan in Congress.
While he has not yet committed to a single policy, the ex-president has typically proposed raising tariffs by 10%, or by 60% on goods imported from China, up from approximately 1% and 11% now, respectively.
Goldman Sachs economists projected prices on consumer goods would go up by 0.1% for every percentage increase in the effective tariff rate and raise inflation rates for one year, noting that in addition to the price of imported goods going up, it's also likely the price of domestic goods would increase, because U.S. manufacturers would "opportunistically" raise their prices to take advantage of having less competition in the marketplace.
Economists broadly believe Trump's proposed tariff plan would hurt the U.S. economy, with an analysis by the nonpartisan think tank Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) concluding the proposal would "[inflict] significant collateral damage on the US economy," citing a range of factors including decreased consumer spending, increasing unemployment rates and worse economic growth.
Moody's projected Trump's tariff plan would result in a reduction of 675,000 U.S. jobs and increase the unemployment rate by 0.4%, with Moody's chief economist telling CNN, "If Trump increases tariffs as he has proposed, the economy would likely suffer a recession soon thereafter."
"Trump really seems to think that we'd be better off as an autarkic economy," says [a Harvard analyst]. "Harris helped to implement a lot of buy-American rules, so it seems she's bought into the anti-globalisation stuff to some extent."
"Not as bad as the other candidate" would be a poor campaign slogan. It is, however, an accurate summary of Ms Harris's economic plans. ¦
TRUMP: It depends on the jobs. Look, I think it's the greatest job in government. You show up to the office once a month and you say, "let's see, flip a coin." And everybody talks about you like you're a god. "Oh, what will he do?" I mean, before, the guy used to walk into my office. He was like begging.
Q: You talked about removing him once.
TRUMP: I did because he was keeping the rates too high. And I was right.
TRUMP: Well, I don't comment on that, but I will tell you that. If I did, it's a smart thing. If I'm friendly with people, if I can have a relationship with people, that's a good thing, not a bad thing, in terms of a country. He's got 2,000 nuclear weapons, and so do we. China has a lot less, but they'll catch us within five years. Russia never had a president that they respect so much, but more importantly, or less importantly, I guess, I went into Russia, and people said, oh, he likes Putin, and Putin likes him.
TRUMP: We're going to lower taxes still further for companies that are going to make their product in the USA. We're going to protect those companies with strong tariffs, because I'm a believer in tariffs. But to me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is tariff, and it's my favorite word. It needs a public relations firm to help it, but to me, it's the most beautiful word in the dictionary. But tariffs are two things, if you look at it. Number one is for protection of the companies that we have here and the new companies that will move in because we're going to have thousands of companies coming into this country. We're going to grow it like it's never grown before, and we're going to protect them when they come in because we're not going to have somebody undercut them.
TRUMP: Could I ask you, how are those plants that you mentioned, [I asked the car manufacturers]. "those giant plants that you're building in Mexico, how is that coming along, have you finished them?" "No, sir, they abandoned the project when they heard you're running. They abandoned the project when they saw that you were winning and doing well." I said, "wow, how beautiful," all the things. I told them, I told them, and I said it publicly, they're not going to sell one car into the United States. I said, "if I run this country, if I'm going to be president of this country, I'm going to put a 100, 200, 2,000 percent tariff, they're not going to sell one car into the United States," because we're not going to destroy our country, because I know you're an anti-tariff guy, but I'm the exact opposite.
The former president painted a picture of a bleak and dystopian country, highlighting instances of civilians being attacked in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere.
He called for police squad cars to be parked on every corner. Trump called for passing laws to give police more authority and strengthen qualified immunity so law enforcement does not fear repercussions.
He called for a "no-holds-barred national campaign to dismantle gangs and organized street crime in America." The former president called for efforts to defeat violence "and be tough and be nasty and be mean if we have to."
"We're living in such a different country for one primary reason: There is no longer respect for the law, and there certainly is no order. Our country is now a cesspool of crime," Trump said.
There are 7 countries with "high application" of capital punishment for drug offenses, according to hri.global. Do those 7 countries have the fewest drug problems? We'll compare deaths from drugs per million people, from WorldLifeExpectancy.com--there's no pattern:
"It sounds horrible, doesn't it? But you know what? That's the ones that don't have any problem. It doesn't take 15 years in court. It goes quickly, and you absolutely--you execute a drug dealer, and you'll save 500 lives," Trump continued.
"It's terrible to say, but you take a look at every country in this world that doesn't have a problem with drugs, they have a very strong death penalty for people that sell drugs," he said.
The ads focus on taxpayer-funded gender transitions for people in prison and immigrant detainees. They use Vice President Kamala Harris' comments from a 2019 [questionnaire] in which she said she supported transgender inmates having access to gender-affirming surgery.
"Kamala is for they/them," one ad says. "Trump is for you."
The Trump campaign is betting that with time dwindling until Nov. 5, the issue of transgender rights will sway voters more than the economy or immigration. Trump has underscored that on the campaign trail, often repeating a line about "keeping men out of women's sports"--it often gets the most applause at his rallies.
"President Trump has always been the law and order President and he continues to reiterate the importance of enforcing existing laws," the campaign's communications director wrote in a statement to POLITICO. "Otherwise it's all-out anarchy, which is what Kamala Harris has created in some of these communities across America."
Trump has a long history of endorsing police violence, having said that police reaction to the racial unrest in response to the murder of George Floyd in 2020 "was a beautiful thing to watch." In a 2017 speech, he said: "When you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon--rough, I said, 'Please don't be too nice.'"
"The ballots are a disaster," he said earlier this month to a British TV host, without offering evidence and despite having voted by mail himself in recent elections. "Any time the mail is involved, you're going to have cheating. It's too bad people don't say it. They don't want to say it."
That message is complicating plans by officials at Trump's campaign to orchestrate aggressive efforts in key battleground states to persuade voters to cast their ballots early and by mail. Party officials say the efforts are crucial to win the election.
Trump advisers say their get-out-the-vote effort will include persuading people to vote by mail if they believe it is the method the person is likely to use based on their voting history, including making sure ballots are mailed to people who request them.
"Within minutes of their arrival, their cellphones were confiscated and placed in magnetically sealed pouches. There would be no leaks of information. It was only then that the delegates received a copy of the platform language the Trump team had meticulously prepared, which slashed the platform size by nearly three-quarters."
Said Trump on a phone call to delegates: "This is something that ultimately you'll pass. You'll pass it quickly."
Politico: Trump doesn't want to talk about abortion. Most GOP delegates are fine with that.
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The above quotations are from Interviews and analysis of presidential hopefuls for 2024.
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