Long before Trump had his congressional allies elect him speaker and then nicknamed him MAGA Mike, Mike Johnson was repulsed by the idea of Trump becoming president. Johnson, then a state legislator, on Facebook, August 7, 2015: “The thing about Donald Trump is that he lacks the character and the moral center we desperately need again in the White House… I am afraid he would break more things than he fixes. He is a hot head by nature, and that is a dangerous trait to have in a Commander in Chief… I just don’t think he has the demeanor to be President.”
Johnson has never made a more prescient statement but with the current cult-like state of Republican politics with their perilous nature, endorsing Trump was literally a professional necessity, considering the potential career ramifications. McCarthy didn’t and now look at him… skulking around the Halls of Congress— with his security detail— sucker-punching poor Tim Burchett. Soon after that insane incident (see the video below), McCarthy-hater Matt Gaetz filed charges with the Ethics Committee against the former Speaker. This is exactly the kind of mayhem and institutional anomie that Trump has asked his allies on the Hill to gin up so that voters get disgusted and think it's time for a "strong man" to come in and clean things up. At this point, virtually no one thinks McCarthy will run for reelection next year. Instead, he's expected to use his gigantic treasure trove of campaign contributions in primaries against his fsr right enemies, few of whom have serious challengers... at least not yet.
Not to be outdone, Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin, a close friend of McCarthy's, an anti-union multimillionaire— and mixed martial arts fighter— jumped out of his chair to try to fight Teamsters Union president Sean O’Brien at a hearing of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Chairman Bernie Sanders had to tell Mullin to “Sit down. You’re a United States Senator, sit down.” Zach Shrewsbury is running for the Senate in West Virginia. He told me that "Mullins reaction to social media comments is evidence of how low the bar is for American politicians anymore. A sitting U.S. Senator acting like a teenager is unacceptable and beyond unprofessional. Senator Sanders was correct in trying to calm the situation as well. Maybe Senator Mullins should check himself before he challenges the Teamsters to a fight."
Meanwhile Marjorie Traitor Greene called Darrell Issa (R-CA) a pussy and said he has no balls, Jared Kushner was running around telling his family and friends that Trump had promised to make him Secretary of State if he wins and Señor Trumpanzee himself…
I’m probably the only person in L.A. who doesn’t know or want to know anything about the Kardashians, other than that none of them live in my neighborhood an anymore and that they’ll do anything for some publicity. Apparently Kim Kardashian had some kind of run in with Señor Trumpanzee that ended badly and the incident wound up in Jonathan Karl’s new book about the Trump shot-show, Tired of Winning (out today). She wanted to get some people unjustly incarcerated freed from prison and asked Trump to give them clemency and Trump said he’d do it if she could get some football players she’s friends with to visit him and the White House and be in a photo with him. She tried and no one wanted to get anywhere near him and his toxicity. He wound up cursing her out and hanging up the phone on her.
Trump’s response— through a “spokesperson” (pure Trump)— was “Disgraceful and talentless John Carl [sic] is a back-bencher who could never get his own show for obvious reasons. Excerpts previously released from this ‘book’ have already been thoroughly debunked. This filth either belongs in the discount bargain bin in the fiction section of the bookstore or should be repurposed as toilet paper.”
I bet that quote will wind out on the paperback edition.And, no doubt, Jenna Ellis will have her own glorious Trump quote one day soon too. ABC News leaked some testimony from the Georgia case of Ellis’ taped plea bargain.
Ellis, in her proffer session, informed prosecutors that senior Trump White House official Dan Scavino told her “the boss” would refuse to leave the White House despite losing the election, and alluded to two other instances she said were “relevant” to prosecutors— but appeared to be prevented from disclosing those in the video portions obtained by ABC News due to attorney-client privilege, which hindered portions of her proffer.
…Ellis, who at one point was one of Trump's most loyal lieutenants, frequently appeared on TV and in high-profile legislative sessions spreading false claims of election fraud following the 2020 election. In total, the Trump campaign paid her nearly $195,000 for her legal services between 2019 and 2021, according to Federal Election Commission records.
In the video of prosecutors' Oct. 23 proffer session with Ellis, she said that one of Trump's top White House aides, Dan Scavino, allegedly told her "in an excited tone" at a White House Christmas party weeks after the 2020 election that "the boss is not going to leave under any circumstances."
Ellis specifically noted during the proffer session that the alleged comment from Scavino, who worked for Donald Trump for decades at the Trump Organization before joining his first presidential bid, came in response to her apologizing over the lack of success with their election challenges in court, culminating with a Supreme Court loss that indicated their ability to challenge the election "was essentially over."
"And he said to me, in a kind of excited tone, 'Well, we don't care, and we're not going to leave,'" Ellis said of the alleged Dec. 19 conversation with Scavino. "And I said, 'What do you mean?' And he said 'Well, the boss', meaning President Trump— and everyone understood 'the boss,' that's what we all called him— he said, 'The boss is not going to leave under any circumstances. We are just going to stay in power.'"
Ellis continued, "And I said to him, 'Well, it doesn't quite work that way, you realize?' and he said, 'We don't care.'"
…[Sidney] Powell Powell, meanwhile, explained to prosecutors her plans for seizing voting machines nationwide and claimed that she frequently communicated with Trump during her efforts to overturn the 2020 election— though both now claim she was never his attorney.
In the session, Powell reiterated the false assertion that Trump won the election— but acknowledged in the video that she didn't know much about election law to begin with.
"Did I know anything about election law? No," she told Fulton County prosecutors. "But I understand fraud from having been a prosecutor for 10 years, and knew generally what the fraud suit should be if the evidence showed what I thought it showed."
The Hollywood Reporter reported that since the world’s greatest businessman launched Truth Social in early 2022, it has taken in $3.7 million— and lost $73 million.
And late Monday, Michael Flynn was exposed— by his sister— for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from his legal defense fund.
