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Democrat-Controlled States Refuse to Clean Voter Rolls and Fix Election Problems


By: Sen. Ron Johnson | September 03, 2024

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2024/09/03/democrat-controlled-states-refuse-to-clean-voter-rolls-and-fix-election-problems/

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President Joe Biden has vowed to veto the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, which simply requires proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. His promise was made in reaction to congressional Republicans who want to include it with any continuing resolution required to fund the next fiscal year, which begins on Oct. 1. The president’s adamant opposition to what most Americans support demonstrates just how much Democrats are dedicated to making it easier to cheat in elections.

On Dec. 16, 2020, as chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, I held a hearing titled, “Examining the Irregularities in the 2020 election.” In spite of the wailing and gnashing of teeth from the election irregularity deniers, there were many indisputable irregularities.

In Wisconsin, 170,000 faulty absentee ballots in Milwaukee and Dane County were improperly counted by election clerks. Representatives of the far-left “Zuckerbucks” program — which is designed to pour left-wing dollars into local election offices, benefiting their Democrat candidates — imposed such heavy-handed direction in Green Bay that the local election clerk resigned from the stress and allowed Zuckerberg’s minions to run the election. “Democracy in the Park” was allowed in Madison, where activists unlawfully collected 17,300 ballots. Seniors in nursing homes voted without the required voting deputies present, bordering on elder abuse for political gain. As was the case in other states, election observers were not allowed to effectively observe the election process.

More recently, as one of many examples of states cleaning voter rolls, Virginia cancelled 6,303 noncitizens’ voter registrations.

Unfortunately, the election irregularity deniers have been so effective — aided and abetted by the corporate media — that these abuses have not only been ignored, but those who wish to cheat in the 2024 election have been able to devise new election fraud schemes. Absent media scrutiny, Republicans are undertaking efforts to stop them.

In one of the most closely contested states, Wisconsin’s governor vetoed nine election reforms passed by the Republican legislature and designed to restore confidence in our state election system. The Wisconsin Election Commission refuses to remove more than 4 million ineligible voters from our out-of-date voter roll (Wisconsin has approximately 3.5 million eligible voters). Election integrity starts with clean voter rolls, and by refusing to clean up Wisconsin’s, Democrats are clearly stating that they’d rather leave room for fraud than increase confidence in our election system.

Following a pressure campaign from Senate Republicans and the Republican National Committee (RNC), Nevada just removed 90,000 voters from its lists. If Nevada can do it, why can’t the Badger State?

Biden’s Executive Order to Register Voters

Nationally, the potential for election interference and voter fraud seems to be growing, with minimal attention being paid to it. Let’s start with President Joe Biden’s executive order directing federal agencies to register voters. Does anyone seriously believe these registration drives will be done in a nonpartisan manner? How many taxpayer dollars will be spent registering individuals most likely to vote for the party of big government and more deficit spending?

The RNC and Trump campaign recently sued the Biden administration to stop this partisan activity. Will courts intervene in time?

States Cleaning Voter Rolls

The Democrats’ open border policy is guaranteed to result in widespread voter fraud. Democrat presidential nominee Harris’ vice-presidential pick, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, signed a law giving driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. That license, together with a utility bill, is all someone needs to register to vote in Minnesota. Democrats claim that because it is illegal for noncitizens to vote, illegal immigrants won’t register. We should be highly skeptical of that being an effective deterrent. Last week, the RNC sent a demand letter to Minnesota’s secretary of state following the revelation that a noncitizen in Minnesota received a ballot that he hadn’t even asked for. That is unlikely to be an isolated incident.

After all, Ohio just purged 499 illegal immigrants from its voter rolls following a multi-phase audit. But that’s in a state with Republican leadership that actually believes in election integrity and wants to make it difficult to cheat. Elsewhere, Boston officials disclosed that 70 illegal aliens contacted county election officials asking to be removed from voter registration lists. How did those Massachusetts noncitizens get registered, and how many remain on the registration lists? While it’s good to see officials in some states taking the lead to purge their voter rolls, there is much more work to be done.

Laundering Donations

In March 2023, journalist James O’Keefe first reported on a campaign financing violation dubbed “smurfing.” Unbeknownst to the “donors,” Federal Election Commission (FEC) reports show in some cases tens of thousands of small dollar donations being made in their names, totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. One example in Wisconsin detailed five “smurfs” making a combined total of 28,471 donations, worth $401,326. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., was a recipient of 531 of those donations, worth $5,147. No wonder Democrats report a resounding lead in small dollar donations!

My Senate staff has been pressuring the FEC to investigate these violations, but the FEC won’t even acknowledge whether they are investigating. Republican attorneys general such as Jason Miyares in Virginia have thankfully launched concurrent investigations to demand answers and stop this unfair practice.

Presidential Election

For well over a year, I have publicly expressed my doubts that Biden would be the Democrat nominee. I would generally add that whoever replaced him would immediately be placed on a pedestal and declared the new messiah. But even I am astonished by the extent to which my prediction has come true. Former President Donald Trump is not running against Kamala Harris, he is running against the entire corporate media, who are coordinating their efforts to defeat him.

This is not a new phenomenon. Remember the Russia hoax, which the corporate media cheered on? How about Google manipulating search results to favor Democrats and suppress Republicans? Most “journalists” in corporate media today are merely advocates for the left. Honest, unbiased reporting has largely gone the way of the dinosaur.

As alarming as the reality described above is, I have not written this column to discourage, but as a call to action. The RNC and Trump campaign have recruited 157,000 poll workers and poll watchers across the country ahead of November. Join the effort at ProtectTheVote.com, and make sure to get out and vote as soon as your state allows. We can beat the forces arrayed against us if we turn out in numbers that are too big to rig.


Sen. Ron Johnson is a Republican from Wisconsin.

Biden’s Latest Student Loan Bailout Has Election-Year Bribe Written All Over It


BY: M.D. KITTLE | APRIL 09, 2024

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2024/04/09/bidens-latest-student-loan-bailout-has-election-year-bribe-written-all-over-it/

President Joe Biden speaking in Madison, Wisconsin about his new student loan bailout.

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President Joe Biden campaigned in swing-state Wisconsin on Monday to sell his latest student loan bailout program, a multibillion-dollar election-year bribe that delivers a shaky middle finger to the Supreme Court. Not surprisingly, the Democrat’s friends in the accomplice media regurgitated White House talking points on Biden’s Plan B loan- and interest-forgiveness initiative without mentioning the cost to federal debt-burdened U.S. taxpayers. 

According to Wisconsin Public Radio

Under the proposal, debt would be canceled for people already eligible for certain federal student loan forgiveness programs. It would also cancel debt for anyone who began repaying their undergraduate loans more than 20 years ago, or graduate loans more than 25 years ago…

According to a press release, the plan would eliminate all accrued interest for 23 million people and cancel out debt for 4 million people.

The federally subsidized public radio outlet didn’t bother with details like the price tag to taxpayers. Neither did the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in its promotional piece for Biden’s new bailout. At least The New York Times, while performing its role of Biden administration water carrier, acknowledged, “Officials did not say how much the new plan would cost in coming years, but critics have said it could increase inflation and add to the federal debt by billions of dollars.” 

How could it not? The New York Post estimated Biden’s latest bribe could rival his last failed student debt forgiveness program, a $400 billion-plus unconstitutional behemoth.  

Who is going to pay to shrink student loan debt for 23 million borrowers? The complete bailout of 4 million Americans? Debt buyouts of $5,000 or better for 10 million college loan debt holders (More than $50 billion on that account alone)? 

Taxpayers. Taxpayers with student loan debt. Taxpayers without student loan debt. Taxpayers of all kinds, particularly future taxpayers. Because unless Biden and Congress suddenly wake up and begin wholesale cutting government programs to deal with a $34.6 trillion U.S. debt — and rapidly rising — this borrower forgiveness plan will be borne by today’s consumers and future generations. 

“We’re giving people a chance to make it,” Biden told an assemblage of liberals gathered in a gymnasium at Madison Area Technical College in Wisconsin’s capital city. The Democrat will need to roll up huge vote totals again in the big-government city and left-heavy Dane County if he wants to win Wisconsin, a critical battleground he won by a razor-thin margin in 2020. 

“Today, too many Americans — especially young people — are saddled with unsustainable debts in exchange for college,” Biden said in a 15-minute mumbling speech as a historic solar eclipse darkened wide swaths of the nation’s skies. An ominous sign? 

‘Presidential Do-Over’

You didn’t need special glasses to see that Biden’s bailout, coming less than seven months before the presidential election, is designed to help bailout the octogenarian’s slumping poll numbers. The most recent RealClearPolitics average of polls shows Biden and former President Donald Trump in a dead heat nationally. But Trump leads Biden in six of the seven swing states, which have a significant say over who will occupy the White House next year, according to a Wall Street Journal poll. Biden leads only in Wisconsin, by 3 percentage points, according to the poll. Trump leads by as much as 8 points in North Carolina, and as few as 2 points in Michigan.  

“Biden wants to use your tax dollars to buy votes because more and more young people are supporting President Trump,” Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement. He called Biden’s trip to Wisconsin the Bankrupting American Tour. 

“Biden’s student loan bailout for the wealthy was already struck down by the Supreme Court and his policies are driving historic inflation,” Whatley added. 

Indeed. Biden’s previous $400 billion student debt bailout order aimed at 43 million borrowers was released in the summer of 2022, months before the midterm elections. The Supreme Court struck down his executive fiat, declaring it an unconstitutional overreach of the executive branch. Biden has since dabbled around the edges, waving his presidential pen to knock out smaller amounts of outstanding student loan payments. 

The Times called it a “presidential do-over.” That’s not a thing. At least it doesn’t appear to be a legal thing. 

Last month, Kansas led 11 states in a lawsuit against Biden’s so-called SAVE Plan, which has canceled loans for more than 150,000 borrowers, according to the White House. The states charge that the president has again overstepped his authority and defied the Supreme Court. 

The Job Creators Network Foundation sued the Biden administration over its debt cancellation initiative struck down by the high court. The lawsuit, filed in Texas federal court, blocked the bailout at the district level and halted the application process, “allowing the legal challenge to go to the Supreme Court,” according to the conservative advocacy organization. 

‘A Blank Check’

Elaine Parker, president of the Job Creators Network, said Biden’s latest bailout suffers from the same fundamental problems. It illegally bypasses Congress and does nothing to hold the nation’s colleges and universities accountable for making much of the existing mess through exorbitant higher education costs. 

“In fact, every time this administration forgives more loans, it’s a blank check to these universities telling them to keep raising their tuition like they have been and overcharging these students,” Parker told me Monday afternoon on “The Vicki McKenna Show.” 

Biden’s boss, President Barack Obama, drove the massive federal takeover of the student loan program that has proved so costly. Former U.S. Rep. John J. Faso laid out the Obama-inflicted wound in September 2022. The New York Republican noted that Obama promoted the federal takeover of student lending as part of the bill that brought us Obamacare — the Affordable Care Act — in 2010. Another example of why you don’t pull a Pelosi and pass a bill “so you can find out what’s in it.” 

“At that time, Obama proclaimed that by cutting out the ‘middleman’, taxpayers would save $68 billion. Banks would no longer underwrite student loans and the federal government would directly lend to students,” Faso wrote. Every one of Obama’s promises turned out to be untrue. The program didn’t save any money. Loan defaults increased. Colleges accelerated increases in tuitions and fees and student debt skyrocketed. Today’s student loan mess was caused largely by Obama’s failed program.”

As he pitched his new attempted end-around of the Supreme Court ruling, Biden surely hoped the student loan debt-laden “folks” in swing-state Wisconsin would repay his taxpayer-funded generosity with their votes in November. The White says the new program could take effect “early this fall,” or not long before the election, the New York Post reported. Impeccable timing. 

As Parker noted, Congress passed bipartisan legislation last year blocking Biden’s student loan bailouts by executive fiat. Biden vetoed it. She said other reforms are stuck in the Senate. 

“Senate Democrats do not want to take it up and discuss anything remotely close to solutions because they are in an election year and their goal is to buy these votes,” she said. 

Listen to the full interview with Elaine Parker of the Job Creators Network Foundation. 


Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.

Media Attack New RNC Chair For Election Integrity Efforts, But GOP Critics Say He Could Do More


BY: BRIANNA LYMAN | MARCH 11, 2024

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2024/03/11/media-attack-new-rnc-chair-for-election-integrity-efforts-but-gop-critics-say-he-could-do-more/

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The Republican National Committee (RNC) replaced its chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on Friday with the now-former North Carolina Republican Party (NCGOP) chair Michael Whatley, who was the Trump-backed frontrunner. Ever since Whatley’s name was floated, the corporate media predictably deployed the “election denier” smear they assign to any Republican who has ever shown an interest in protecting the integrity of elections.

Whatley has a track record of emphasizing election integrity — and that’s enough, in the eyes of the corporate press, to paint him as a radical election-denying extremist. But with the high stakes of the 2024 election cycle, some of Whatley’s critics say he needs to amp up his election integrity efforts to another level in his anticipated post at the RNC.

Attacks From the Corporate Media

Whatley, who had served as NCGOP chair since narrowly defeating his opponents Jim Womack and John Lewis in 2019, has been the target of hand-wringing pieces from corporate media ever since he was tapped as former President Trump’s choice to lead the RNC. In an MSNBC column, North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton clutched her pearls about the “danger” Whatley poses. 

“It’s clear that Trump is looking for an RNC leader who won’t hesitate to disenfranchise voters, rig elections or dismantle our democracy,” Clayton melodramatically wrote. “[Whatley] has helped lead efforts to defy the will of the people and infringe on North Carolinians’ rights.”

CNN ran a piece entitled “Likely frontrunner for RNC chair parroted Trump’s 2020 election lies.”

Multiple outlets affiliated with States Newsroom — a network launched by a Democrat dark-money group — shuddered at the thought that Whatley teamed up with organizations like Cleta Mitchell’s Election Integrity Network that trains poll watchers, under the headline: “Trump’s pick for RNC chief worked with top election denier’s group.”

Russia hoax lawyer Marc Elias’ Democracy Docket joined in the attacks, saying Trump’s “endorsement of Whatley signals that the party is continuing down its path of pushing false election fraud narratives ahead of the November general election.”

What did Whatley do to be smeared as an election conspiracy theorist? In November 2020, he alleged that there was “massive fraud” in “places like Milwaukee and Detroit and Philadelphia.” Of course, even the Associated Press has admitted the existence of voter fraud in the 2020 election, just simply not enough for their liking to denote it as “widespread.”

As Whatley told CNN, “changes to the 2020 election process … weakened safeguards on absentee and mail-in votes in some states,” which “led to distrust by many across the country.”

Whatley’s Work on Election Integrity

Whatley’s supporters tout major wins for the state’s courts and election integrity efforts under his leadership.

“I think [election integrity] is probably [Whatley’s] greatest strength,” Nash County Republican Party Chair Mark Edwards said. “Coming out of the 2020 election there was a lot of angst and energy among Republicans about election integrity and rather than stoke some of the more outlandish and extreme and outrageous reactions to what happened in 2020, Whatley stood above it and saw that this is where the concerns of the party were.”

“He took it upon himself to grab the election integrity issue by the horns and direct that energy into productive use by setting up the Election Integrity Review Committee within the party,” Edwards added, crediting Whatley with “hiring legal staff to help head up the election integrity efforts of the party, and work very closely with Republican legislators to craft legislation that was drafted, introduced and passed and is now being implemented.”

The NCGOP established the Election Integrity Committee in 2021 to recruit, train and send out attorneys and poll watchers to observe “absentee-by-mail approval meetings, early voting polls, election day polls, county canvasses, recount meetings, and protest hearings.”

In 2022, “Whatley doubled down on his efforts to recruit and train poll observers and lawyers,” said former NCGOP legal counsel Philip Thomas. The NCGOP was unable to provide numbers for how many poll watchers were appointed over the course of Whatley’s tenure. Whatley critic Jay DeLancy, however, said it might be difficult for the NCGOP to obtain that data since individual counties appoint observers and the process is decentralized.

Senior legal fellow at the Conservative Partnership Institute Cleta Mitchell said Whatley “understands that there is more to winning elections than just turning out votes and voters.”

“He has a sense of the need to focus on the election system itself,” Mitchell added. “While sometimes he has too narrow a focus, such as thinking that volunteer lawyers on Election Day will somehow overcome the billions of dollars that the left has invested in changing the entire voting system in our country, Michael is at least aware that there is more to winning than the historic or traditional ‘If we have a good candidate and good issues and a good campaign, our side will win.’ Those days are long gone and at some level, Michael understands that.”

Whatley also created the Judicial Victory Fund, which states its goal is “raising the resources needed to support … statewide conservative judicial candidates.” NCGOP Communications Director Matt Mercer said the fund is “something that really can’t be overstated enough.”

“Whatley campaigned on ‘Reset in Raleigh’ and overturning a 6-1 Republican deficit on the Supreme Court,” Mercer said. “Whatley has been undefeated [in judicial races] in 2020 and 2022 with the Judicial Victory Fund and the partners at the county and district levels.”

Mercer also credits Whatley with helping get voter ID “past the finish line” by flipping the balance of the court, adding while the NCGOP will miss him, “it’s going to be a benefit for the RNC to have someone of his caliber there.”

The fund was particularly handy during the 2020 election for the North Carolina Supreme Court’s chief justice between Democrat incumbent Cheri Beasley and Republican Associate Justice Paul Newby. Beasley refused to concede after she lost by about 400 votes and attempted to restore thousands of ballots. Of the 2,800 of those ballots analyzed by The News & Observer at the time, 70 percent belonged to Democrats and just nine ballots belonged to Republicans.  

Some of the ballots Beasley tried to force election officials to accept were ballots that had already been counted, WRAL News reported. But the NCGOP says her attempts ultimately failed after they used resources from the Judicial Victory Fund to fight back.

Republicans also managed to flip the balance of the state’s Supreme Court in 2022 after Republicans Trey Allen and Richard Dietz won their races, giving Republicans a 5-2 majority. 

“If you’re a state party chairman and you don’t have critics, you probably aren’t doing your job,” former chairman of the NCGOP Tom Fetzer told The Federalist. “It’s something that anybody who has ever been a state party chairman accepts and deals with.”

GOP Critics Say Whatley Could Do More

Womack and John Kane, who tried to unseat Whatley in 2022, say he is being given too much credit and should be doing more for election integrity.

“He’s taking credit for [the Judicial Victory Fund] as a great accomplishment, but the credit needs to be shared with … the attorneys that were working on the judicial campaigns, there were different districts that were raising money,” Womack said. 

And when it comes to fighting to secure elections, Womack said the real effort comes from the RNC. In October, the NCGOP and RNC intervened in a lawsuit wherein Democrats attacked a state senate bill that “prevents non-citizens from voting, protects bipartisan poll watchers, and eliminates dark money in elections.”

“The RNC is taking the lead on their lawyers so the NCGOP is just saying, ‘Me too,’” Womack told The Federalist. “We do have a general counsel who is pretty good but the RNC is the one floating all these costs for the lawsuits nationwide.” Aside from the RNC’s election integrity efforts, he added, grassroots Republicans have also worked behind the scenes to ensure the state has a fair process.

This criticism was echoed by Executive Director of Voter Integrity Project of North Carolina, Jay DeLancy, who claimed the NCGOP only addressed allegations of dead people voting in the Beasley-Newby race after his organization took the lead and began investigating.

“It wasn’t [the NCGOP] idea, it was ours,” DeLancy said, adding however that he was pleased the NCGOP helped ramp up efforts. DeLancy also argued that while he has “no complaints about [the NCGOP] lawsuits” and said he gives “credit” to the “effective” legal action that was taken, securing elections starts from the bottom up.

“Election integrity takes creativity, you have to think about how the bad guys are doing things and get into the process,” he said. “What we’re more concerned with is day-to-day ground game and where people are cheating, where the rubber meets the road at the polls.”

“When things go south at the polls, we train our poll workers to pull out the law and show the clerk where they’re wrong. [NCGOP] doesn’t, they just say, ‘call us’…and log it unless they feel they can take legal action,” DeLancy added. “I would love to have seen someone who took election integrity seriously as RNC chairman but at the end of the day, all they really care about is get out the vote efforts and they’re not serious about election integrity.”

Mitchell expressed similar thoughts, saying while recruiting volunteer lawyers and poll observers is “absolutely vital,” she hopes Whatley “will be open to hearing about and understanding” that Republicans need to “fight the left on every single issue and every inflection point regarding the election system.”

“We cannot hope to counter their massive funding and organizational advantage that has nothing to do with the DNC or the normal political campaigns,” Mitchell said. “We are in a different world now and hopefully, Michael and the new RNC leadership will want to learn and do something about it. Banking early votes or ballot harvesting as a singular strategy has the left rolling in the aisles laughing at us.”

Womack and Kane also expressed concerns about whether Whatley could actually fundraise for the party.

“The state party would be broke if it weren’t for RNC subsidies,” Womack said. Kane also attributed the state party’s funds to the RNC.

Womack acknowledged, however, that Whatley likely wouldn’t need to worry about doing all the heavy lifting when it comes to fundraising because Trump would be able to drum up most of the support himself.

“Trump’s train has left the station,” Womack said. “I think he’s gonna do well regardless of who the RNC chair is so I’m guessing it really doesn’t matter who leads the RNC.”


Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist.

RNC Bolsters Early Voting Ahead of 2024 Elections


By Peter Malbin    |   Wednesday, 07 June 2023 02:21 PM EDT

Read more at https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/early-voting-republican-national-committee-bank-your-vote/2023/06/07/id/1122722/

The Republican National Committee is launching a campaign to boost early voting ahead of the 2024 election cycle. Named “Bank Your Vote,” the initiative aims to educate Republican voters on how to “lock in their votes as early as possible,” including through absentee voting and in-person early voting, the Washington Examiner reported.

“To beat Joe Biden and the Democrats in 2024, we must ensure that Republicans bank as many pre-Election Day votes as possible,” RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said. “Banking votes early needs to be the focus of every single Republican campaign in the country.”

Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., and Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., will co-chair the initiative. Republicans established BankYourVote.com and plan to partner with state parties and campaigns to outline the processes for 56 states and territories, the Washington Examiner reported.

“With innovative technology to educate voters and safeguards in place to secure the process, Republicans are prepared to win up-and-down the ballot in 2024,” Donalds said in a statement.

Bank Your Vote will use GOP infrastructure, including the party’s digital and data team as well as its election integrity team, to enhance the effort, the Washington Examiner noted.

“To take back the White House and Senate and strengthen our House majority in 2024, Republicans must play the game by today’s rules, which means maximizing our efforts to bank votes before Election Day,” Hagerty said. “We cannot afford to sacrifice most of the opportunities to bank votes in key states while Democrats run up the score.”

Republicans have not learned to vote early, author Dick Morris told Newsmax late last year, noting that in the 2022 U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania, Democrat John Fetterman received 700,000 early votes and Republican Mehmet Oz got fewer than 100,000.

“I believe we lost a series of these elections not because of mispositioning, not because of Trump fatigue or anything like that, but simply because of people won’t come out to vote early,” Morris said.

Early voting permits citizens to cast ballots in person at a polling place prior to an election. In states that permit no-excuse early voting, a voter does not have to provide an excuse for being unable to vote on Election Day, according to Ballotpedia.com.

Early voting can also take place by mail-in ballot or through drop boxes.

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Exclusive: Trump threatens third-party run


waving flagBy Kevin Cirilli and Bob Cusack – 07/23/15

See-Trump-Told-You-2b
NEW YORK — Donald Trump says the chances that he will launch a third-party White House run will “absolutely” increase if the Republican National Committee is unfair to him during the 2016 primary season. “The RNC has not been supportive. They were always supportive when I was a contributor. I was their fair-haired boy,” the business mogul told The Hill in a 40-minute interview from his Manhattan office at Trump Tower on Wednesday. “The RNC has been, I think, very foolish.”

Pressed on whether he would run as a third-party candidate if he fails to clinch the GOP nomination, Trump said that “so many people want me to, if I don’t win.” “I’ll have to see how I’m being treated by the Republicans,” Trump said. “Absolutely, if they’re not fair, that would be a factor.”

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus called Trump earlier this month asking him to tone down his controversial rhetoric. More recently, the RNC rebuked him for saying that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is not a war hero. Trump didn’t apologize but has since said that the 2008 Republican presidential nominee is a war hero.

Trump told The Hill that the GOP establishment in Washington dislikes him because he’s not part of the political class. “I’m not in the gang. I’m not in the group where the group does whatever it’s supposed to do,” he said. “I want to do what’s right for the country — not what’s good for special interest groups that contribute, not what’s good for the lobbyists and the donors.”

The real estate magnate has upended the Republican presidential primary, with recent national polls showing that he is leading the 16-candidate field. Many in the party’s establishment, pointing to his inflammatory comments about Mexican immigrants and McCain, say that Trump is badly hurting the GOP brand. Yet he is connecting with a significant chunk of GOP voters. And despite criticism from party leaders and other presidential candidates, Trump appears fueled by controversy.

His office, which has a stunning view of Central Park, is filled with family photos, golf trophies and sports paraphernalia. At various times during the interview, Trump pointed out that he isn’t a politician. But the reality TV personality has politician-like skills, answering questions he wants to answer and driving the conversation to where he wants to take it. Trump doesn’t shy away from eye contact, and while prone to complaining about reporters, he is comfortable in his own skin. 

 The 69-year-old, of course, is no stranger to the media, and on Wednesday he complimented his questioners while also urging them — on more than one occasion — “to be fair.” 

 He insisted that his remarks about McCain and immigration have not and will not hurt him, and pointed to several recent polls to make his point. 

Not surprisingly, Trump is a big fan of polls now.

At one point, he whipped out a survey that he had inside his suit pocket, and later he called on an aide to print out the latest poll numbers showing him leading former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R). “I’m surprised that I’m this high,” he said. 

Unlike former Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) four years ago, Trump is not predicting victory. He won’t utter the former Speaker’s famous “I’m going to be the nominee” statement, saying that would be “presumptuous.” He attributes his rise to being frank with voters. “I’m not surrounded by all sorts of pollsters and PR people,” Trump said. “I speak the truth. Our country is in big trouble, and I know how to turn it around.” “Competence” and “leadership” are what voters are looking for, he says.

 While some of his Republican rivals, such as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, must do well in Iowa, and others Iowa State Lineare looking to New Hampshire, including Bush, Trump doesn’t see his path to victory as state-specific. And he was tight-lipped on how he’s preparing for the Aug. 6 Fox News debate, which will only allow for the top 10 candidates by poll standing to appear on the stage. “I’ve got a lot of knowledge having to do with government. For the debates, I’ll work on that,” he said. “As far as the debate is concerned, these politicians debate every night. That’s all they do is talk. I don’t do that. I do other things. I’m a job creator.”

 He said he’d appoint judges to the Supreme Court with a “conservative bent,” praising Justice Samuel Alito and criticizing Chief Justice John Roberts. “Jeb Bush was the one that pushed Roberts through his brother, and Roberts gave us ObamaCare,” Trump said. “Roberts was a terrible choice. We wouldn’t be talking about ObamaCare right now if we didn’t have Roberts.”

He spoke favorably of setting term limits in Congress without offering specifics and didn’t rule out endorsing congressional candidates in 2016. Trump did not show his hand on whether he might endorse a primary challenger to McCain, who has one such competitor in his Arizona race. 

Trump said he agreed with Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in opposing President Obama’s trade policy.

“You know the funniest thing about Bernie Sanders? The one thing we agree on is trade,” the billionaire said with a smile. “He knows the country is ripped off. And I know the country is being ripped off. The difference is that I can do something about it and he can’t. He’ll never be able to negotiate with China.”

 Trump said that despite his tough talk about China, he’d be able to have a working relationship with its leaders. To accentuate his point, Trump brought The Hill six floors down to note that the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China rents space in his building. “They just renewed their lease and you know why? They love Trump,” he said. 

He said that Sanders is a sort of “duplicate” of liberal favorite Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who he said has pushed Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner for 2016, to the left.Constancy

“She’s had a huge impact on Clinton,” Trump said. “Hillary is going way left, and I sort of laugh because I know Hillary very well. … The interesting part about Hillary is that her donors are all the hedge fund guys and the business guys and the real estate guys. And they’re all saying, ‘Do you think she means it?’ And I say, ‘Of course she doesn’t mean it — you know her.’ ”

Trump has long said he loves his job of striking deals and making money. But now that job is on hold as he attempts to become the 45th president. Trump says he’s enjoying running for commander in chief, though he knows it’s early in the game.  “It’s very hard for a very successful person to run for political office — especially for president,” he said, after asking for business cards. “I get that now more than anything.”

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Todd Starnes: McCain Started All Of This Mess


waving flagPublished July 20, 2015, By Todd Starnes, Fox Nation

URL of the original posting site: http://nation.foxnews.com/2015/07/20/todd-starnes-mccain-started-all-mess

Donald Trump is doubling down, refusing to apologize to Sen. John McCain and saying he’s got nothing to apologize for. In case you were at the beach over the weekend, here’s what the dustup is all about:

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The New York Daily News called him an embarrassment to the nation. His fellow Republicans say he’s unfit to hold office.

But what’s missing from the mainstream media coverage is context.

The-Worlds-Oldest-Living-RinoSenator McCain started all of this mess when he called Donald Trump’s supporters a bunch of “crazies.” I don’t seem to recall the Republican National Committee telling Senator McCain to apologize.

What about the time McCain called Senator Ted Cruz a “whacko bird.” Or the time he called Tea Party members “hobbits.” Anybody remember when Senator McCain called Evangelical Christians “agents of intolerance”?

The Republican Party’s righteous indignation seems to be a bit selective. It’s just a shame the GOP Establishment doesn’t impugn Democrats with as much gusto as they do conservatives.

Watch Todd Starnes’ American Dispatch above and sound off!

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Todd Starnes is host of Fox News & Commentary, heard on hundreds of radio stations. Sign up for his American Dispatch newsletter, be sure to join his Facebook page, and follow him on Twitter. His latest book is “God Less America.”

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