<Donald Trump never wants to take any option off the table, no matter how weird, unsettling, or foolish it might be. Throughout his career, when journalists have asked the former president a hypothetical question about any topic, he never rejects the premise—his answer is pretty much always maybe or yes.

Reporters love an interview that makes news—one that brings fresh facts to the public. If a reporter gets a government official to say, under intense questioning, that, yes, he really wishes he could jack up taxes or eliminate Social Security, that is valuable information for the public on that person’s thinking. But since President Trump seems constitutionally unable to say no, the usual newsmaking logic does not apply. Worse, reporters risk giving Trump bad ideas.

Last month, for example, a reporter in Texas asked Trump whether he would consider nominating Ken Paxton, the state’s attorney general, for U.S. attorney general if he wins the presidency. “I would, actually,” Trump said. “He’s very, very talented. I mean, we have a lot of people that want that one and will be very good at it. But he’s a very talented guy.” Paxton hasn’t previously been on reported lists of candidates, and he’d be an awful choice: He’s under federal investigation, has acknowledged breaking laws that protect whistleblowers, and barely (and outrageously) escaped conviction in an impeachment trial last fall.

Perhaps Trump won’t rule things out because he doesn’t want to commit a gaffe or be seen as conceding anything, or he doesn’t actually know enough about the topic at hand and is deflecting, or (frequently) some combination of these.

At times, the stakes of these hypothetical questions are pretty low. (Would you consider a value-added tax? Sure, maybe, who knows?) In many cases, the answers are basically meaningless chaff for the daily outrage cycle. (Would you consider Tucker Carlson for vice president? “Oh wow … I like Tucker a lot! I guess I would!”) But sometimes they have real-world ramifications. In one 2019 CBS News interview, Trump declined to rule out pardoning Roger Stone, and he ultimately did pardon him. In that same interview, he considered deploying U.S. troops to Venezuela (he did not, though the idea created diplomatic upheaval because even the most tossed-off thoughts of a U.S. president can shift geopolitics). Trump laid out his general approach plainly: “Well, I don’t—I don’t take anything off the table. I don’t like to take things off the table,” he told the host, Margaret Brennan.

Interviewers know this, which is one reason they keep asking. Time’s Eric Cortellessa recently asked Trump whether he would step down following a second term or challenge the Constitution’s Twenty-Second Amendment. “I’m at a point where I would, I think, you know, I would do that,” Trump replied. “Look, it’s two terms. I had two elections. I did much better on the second one than I did the first. I got millions more votes. I was treated very unfairly. They used COVID to cheat and lots of other things to cheat. But I was treated very unfairly.”

Trump has mused about a third term previously, so Cortellessa wasn’t conjuring the issue out of nowhere. One could argue that Trump’s willingness to end democracy is the major question of this election. But following the Constitution ought to be an expectation for all candidates, rather than a campaign issue—and one could argue that bringing up a third term only provides Trump an opportunity to float seeking one. He’s now discussing the possibility in public remarks....>

<....In one May 2015 interview, both Trump and Bloomberg News reporters seemed to wink at the game they were playing.

“So what I want to ask you is, have you thought about this,” a reporter began. “Would you be willing to meet with Kim Jong Un personally to try to reach a—”

“Breaking—we have breaking news. Is this going to be breaking news, Jennifer?” Trump asked one of the interviewers, Jennifer Jacobs, eliciting laughter. “Depends on what you say,” she replied. What he said, of course, was that he would. He ultimately did meet with Kim, and the meeting was considered a botched job, one that did nothing to slow North Korea’s nuclear program or threats.

In these incidents, the reporters are part of mainstream outlets, looking to use hypotheticals to make news. But sometimes a slightly different dynamic unfolds at conservative outlets, with Trump allies who have a different goal: to make Trump seem normal. This gambit seldom works—Trump is temperamentally unable to avoid making news, and besides that, he doesn’t like to say no.

For example, in December, Sean Hannity sought to quash suggestions that Trump would abuse his powers if reelected. “Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?” Hannity asked. But Trump refused the lifeline. “Except for day one,” Trump replied. “He says, ‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’ I said: ‘No, no, no, other than day one. We’re closing the border and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.’”

Journalists should not hesitate to ask Trump tough questions. But they ought to recognize they run the risk of implanting a bad idea. In November 2015, Trump was speaking darkly about a need to crack down on terrorism: “We’re going to have to do things that we never did before.” Then, an interviewer from Yahoo News asked Trump “whether this level of tracking might require registering Muslims in a database or giving them a form of special identification that noted their religion.” You can guess what happened next: “He wouldn’t rule it out,” the interviewer reported. The backlash was swift, but so was the excitement from Trump’s base; the idea eventually morphed into his attempt to ban people from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States.

Maybe the whole Trump era is the result of a hypothetical question: In 1988, Oprah Winfrey hosted Trump on her show, where he talked about trade. “This sounds like political, presidential talk to me,” Winfrey said. “I know people have talked to you about whether or not you want to run. Would you ever?” Trump was skeptical, but he didn’t take it off the table: “I just probably wouldn’t do it, Oprah. I probably wouldn’t, but I do get tired of seeing what’s happening with this country, and if it got so bad, I would never want to rule it out totally.”>

<After claiming that Black families were more unified under Jim Crow-era laws than they are today, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) then argued that President Joe Biden's policies have kneecapped Black Americans compared to when Donald Trump was in power.

"Where we are today — America is trying to have the economic policies and the public policies so that all people can thrive," he said during an appearance on CNN's NewsTonight with Abby Philip. "And if you're actually going to compare economic policies and public policies between the 45th president and 46 [sic] president, it's without question, they were better under the 45th."

At this point, Philip cut in.

"I'm going to interrupt you on the facts, Congressmen," she told him. "The black unemployment rate was the lowest in American history under Joe Biden.... The poverty rate for Black people is the lowest under Joe Biden's [administration]. So you cannot say empirically for Black people that from a financial level things were better under Trump."

Donalds attempted to clarify.

"The economic reality is, is that even though unemployment might be lower, wages adjusted for inflation — which is the true measure of getting ahead — that has been bad under Joe Biden."

He added: "It was significantly better under Donald Trump because we did not have massive inflation and people were making more money, which means you're taking more money home, which means you can begin to prepare for your family which means you can start to prepare and begin thinking about ideas of getting assets accumulated, assets, and generating wealth."

Earlier this week, the Florida Republican made waves by claiming that Black families had a stronger sense of unity under Jim Crow laws that segregated them from white Americans.

“You see, during Jim Crow, the Black family was together. During Jim Crow, more Black people were not just conservative — Black people have always been conservative-minded — but more Black people voted conservatively,” Donalds said, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.>

Someone should explain to this cretin that those blacks who did vote during Jim Crow went Republican because Democrats were then the party which held down blacks in every way.

https://www.rawstory.com/abby-phill...

<A former Republican counsel to the House Intelligence Committee thinks it's "nuts" that House Speaker Mike Johnson named hard-right GOP Reps. Scott Perry and Ronny Jackson — both of whom tried to help overturn the 2020 presidential election — to the chamber's powerful intelligence committee.

Perry, of Pennsylvania, was "central to the plan of Jan. 6," former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified in front of Congress. But Hutchinson's testimony apparently didn't dissuade Johnson from naming Perry to the intelligence committee Wednesday.

Jackson, of Texas, meanwhile, is a self-described "ultra-MAGA" Republican who has spread various conspiracy theories and was demoted by the Pentagon after his retirement from the military. Moreover, the House Ethics Committee said last month it was investigating Jackson and fellow Texas Republican Rep. Wesley Hunt. The committee included no details of allegations against the duo, and it wasn't immediately clear whether their cases were related. The panel has until June 24 to release more information on the probes.

Selections to the committee in the past have included lawmakers with backgrounds in national security, and who have earned respect from both parties.

As such, the appointments drew the rebuke of Ira Goldman, who served as a former Republican congressional aide and worked as a counsel to the intelligence committee in the 1970s and 1980s.

"What Speaker Johnson has done is flat out irresponsible," Goldman wrote on X, formerly Twitter, Wednesday afternoon. "For the country. And for the House. In short, it's nuts."

“You’re giving members seats on the committee when, based on the public record, they couldn’t get a security clearance if they came through any other door," Goldman said, according to The Associated Press.

Presidents receive the highest level of intel briefings, Goldman said, "because, of course, that goes with the job to which the voters elected them."

"But Scott Perry & Ronny Jackson's elections to the House didn't elect them to receive those briefings as members of HPSCI," he noted. "No, that's entirely in the Speaker's discretion. Indeed it is so much in the Speaker's discretion that not only may he on his own name members to HPSCI, the rules grant him the sole discretion to remove members from HPSCI."

"This is [poop emoji] with which Speakers should not play games. Yet, how else to explain what Johnson has now done?"

Having Jackson and Perry on the committee could damage the trust between the president and the committee in handling classified information, Goldman told the AP.

In a separate tweet, he added: "It's hard for me to express how really pissed (and, as an institutional guy, disappointed) I am about this.">

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6 4.a3 c5 5.d5 Ba6 6.Qc2 Qe7 7.Bg5 exd5 8.Nc3 Bxc4 9.0-0-0 d4 10.e4 Qe6 11.Nd5 Bxd5 12.exd5 Qxd5 13.Bc4 Qb7 14.Rhe1+ Be7 15.Qf5 Kf8 16.Rxe7 Kxe7 17.Re1+ Kd8 18.Bxf6+ Kc7 19.Be5+ d6 20.Bxd6+ Kxd6 21.Qf4+ Kd7 22.Ne5+ Kc8 23.Nxf7 1-0>

Have to resume my mission in life as the 'dishonest sun' who 'puffs up legacies' with game 'dumps'.

What a f***ing joke <ursus banalus> is.

<A new ad from President Joe Biden’s campaign released in time for Thursday’s D-Day commemoration features three U.S. veterans putting Donald Trump on blast.

“He’s a draft dodger, simple as that,” said Army veteran Ed McCabe.

“I see a man who is only in this for himself,” Matthew McLaughlin, who was a Navy pilot for eight years, said of Trump. “Donald Trump has zero accountability in his life.”

“I think the election is the difference between authoritarianism and democracy,” said Curtis Register, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps.

“He’s not fit to be commander-in-chief,” said McCabe. “He’s not fit to lead a squad, and he’s definitely not fit to be president of the United States.”

Trump avoided the draft during the Vietnam War with four deferments for college and one for bone spurs in his heels, later telling radio host Howard Stern that avoiding sexually transmitted diseases was “my personal Vietnam.” He has also denigrated veterans, infamously dismissing late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) because he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

“I like people who weren’t captured,” he said in 2015.

He also reportedly referred to Americans killed in WWI as “losers” and “suckers,” and didn’t want wounded veterans around him at an event because it “doesn’t look good for me.”>

<Former President Donald Trump is calling for criminal charges against January 6 House committee members who investigated the attack on the U.S. Capitol waged by his supporters.

In a post to Truth Social Thursday afternoon, Trump raged about the four-month prison sentence handed earlier in the day to his former White House chief strategist, Steve Bannon, who in 2022 was convicted of defying a congressional subpoena issued by the January 6 House committee.

The former president said that Bannon's sentencing is "a Total and Complete American Tragedy" and instead called on law enforcement to indict the House Select Committee, which includes five current congressional lawmakers.

"The unAmerican Weaponization of our Law Enforcement has reached levels of Illegality never thought possible before," Trump wrote in part. "INDICT THE UNSELECT J6 COMMITTEE FOR ILLEGALLY DELETING AND DESTROYING ALL OF THEIR 'FINDINGS!' MAGA2024."

The January 6 committee was made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans, and five of its members, all Democrats, are still in office today: Representatives Bennie Thompson of Mississippi; Adam Schiff of California; Pete Aguilar and Zoe Lofgren of California; and Jamie Raskin of Maryland.

Liz Cheney, one of the former Republican lawmakers on the committee, lost her reelection bid in 2022, as did former Democratic Congresswoman Elaine Luria. Former GOP Representative Adam Kinzinger and ex-Democratic Representative Stephanie Murphy announced in fall 2021 that they would not seek reelection.

Trump has previously claimed that the January 6 committee "deleted" all of its evidence related to its investigation after Representative Barry Loudermilk, Republican chairman of the House Administration's Subcommittee on Oversight, said that some of the evidence gathered in the investigation was not preserved. Loudermilk later wrote in a report regarding his subcommittee's investigation into the January 6 panel that lawmakers had "failed to archive" video recordings and transcripts of some of the witness interviews.

Much of the committee's probe was made public in an 845-page report and through televised hearings. Several transcripts of witness interviews have also been made available to the public.

In the final days of its investigation, the January 6 House committee made criminal referrals to the Justice Department and recommended that Trump face charges over his actions surrounding the Capitol attack. The DOJ later indicted Trump, who was charged with attempting to unlawfully remain in office after losing to President Joe Biden in 2020.

During an appearance on CNN Thursday night, Lofgren said Trump's allegations about evidence being deleted were "garbage."

"You know, he is not that familiar with the truth," the congresswoman told CNN's Kaitlan Collins. "We've seen that throughout. I mean this whole thing on Bannon. Bannon was held in contempt because he didn't honor a subpoena. Very simple."

Kinzinger also responded to Trump's claims in a post to X, formerly Twitter, by sharing a link to the January 6 committee's final report.

"Once again, all evidence can be found here, on the public and available World Wide Web," the former congressman wrote.

After his guilty verdict in July 2022, Bannon filed an appeal, which paused the start of his prison sentence while the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reviewed his request. Last month, the appeals court upheld Bannon's conviction and federal prosecutors asked the court to order that Bannon begin his sentence. Federal Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee who has presided over the case, on Thursday agreed with prosecutors.

Newsweek reached out to Bannon's lawyer, David Schoen, via email for comment Thursday night.>

<House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) appeared on Fox News on Wednesday and was asked about President Biden’s new executive order on immigration. Johnson, as you might expect, was not a fan.

“This half-measure executive order he just did actually exacerbates the problem,” Johnson told host Neil Cavuto. The House speaker noted that limits on the number of people seeking asylum would kick in only once a certain level of immigration had been reached.

“It makes no sense,” Johnson continued. “And everyone wants to know around the country, why would they do that? Because they want to turn these people into voters. That’s the only thing, the only rational explanation for what they have done.”

This is rhetoric that comes just short of the “great replacement theory,” an argument that seeped from the racist fringes of conversation into the mainstream. The unfounded theory holds that there’s a secret plot to reshape American society by intentionally encouraging immigrants to enter the country.

Johnson’s argument mirrors his embrace of legislation aimed at curtailing already illegal, rare occurrences of voting by noncitizens, an issue that allows his party to talk both about immigration and election security — two of Donald Trump’s favorite issues. But it also means that the speaker is endorsing a historically aberrant view of immigration, one that is at a remarkable distance from the once-common idea that immigration is beneficial and a mark of U.S. exceptionalism.

But, then, this sort of hostility to social and cultural change is a hallmark of his party at the moment — particularly the large majority of his party that, like Johnson, is aligned with Trump.

On Thursday, the Pew Research Center released an extensive report looking at Americans’ views on race, gender and cultural issues. It included questions that help delineate the unique ways in which Trump supporters view those issues and the extent to which insecurity about the status of White men, in particular, is elemental to the movement.

Take a question about whether the diversity of America’s population strengthens the country. Overall, Americans were more likely to say that diversity strengthened society than they were to say that it weakened society by a 54-point margin. Among Biden supporters, the gap was 78 points. Among Trump supporters? Only 30. Less than half of Trump supporters said that America’s diversity strengthened society.

That was just one question. The research included several similar queries, ones aimed at elucidating how comfortable Americans are with different aspects of that diversity.

We isolated six of them, two related to each of three subjects: race, immigration and gender. The results are below, broken out by the total population, by Biden supporters and by Trump supporters. (The “overall” label applies to all members of those groups, so all Biden supporters, for example.) Some thoughts follow the chart.

Race: First, notice the divide between younger and older responses on the questions of race. Younger Americans, as we’ve noted in the past, are more likely to be non-White, which probably plays a role here. Notice, too, that the views of Black respondents are stronger than those of the overall group, even within the subset representing Biden supporters. (There were not enough Black Trump supporters to break out their responses.)

Also notice the staggering low numbers among White Trump supporters, almost none of whom consider slavery to have ongoing effects and almost none of whom believe that Whites have systemic advantages in society. Instead, many Trump supporters and White Republicans in general view Whites as targets of unfairness and discrimination — a sentiment that has long been a driving element of Trump support....>

<....Immigration: The divide between younger and older respondents is seen here, too, but more dramatically so among Trump supporters on the question of openness to immigration. Younger Americans are also more likely to have family members who are immigrants or to be immigrants themselves.

Gender: Just as Trump supporters are less likely to believe that there are systemic obstacles for Black Americans, they are also more likely to believe that systemic obstacles for women have been overcome. For these questions, Pew broke out responses by gender and age, showing that Trump-supporting men, particularly those under the age of 50, believe that systemic sexism is a thing of the past.

They are also more likely to see gains made by women in American society in zero-sum terms, with 4 in 10 Trump-supporting men under the age of 50 thinking that those gains have come at the expense of men. Biden-supporting men under 50 are also more likely than Biden-supporting women to hold that view, but at less than half the rate of Trump supporters in that group.

Perhaps Pew’s most pointed question on this subject centered on the increase in racial diversity in the United States over time, largely a function of the increase in immigration since the end of the baby boom. Most Americans, including most supporters of Biden and Trump, see the decline in the percentage of Whites in the population as neither good nor bad. But Trump supporters are 35 points more likely to say “bad” than “good,” compared with a 14-point gap overall.

Nearly 1 in 5 Trump supporters views [sic] the increased diversity in the United States as very bad for society.

There is research that shows that White Republicans are more triggered by reports of the decline in the density of the White population in America and that the idea of hard lines of racial identity is overly simplistic. Pew’s research makes obvious how the former concern manifests on the right.

So does Johnson’s rhetoric, of course. He knows that he will harvest more political utility from claiming that Democrats are engaged in a plot to subvert White political dominance — which, of course, was the subtext to his comments — so that’s what he presents.

He is giving Trump’s base what it wants.>

<[Event "MetroWest CC June 98"] [Site "Natick Mass"]
[Date "1998.06.??"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Michael, William G"]
[Black "Curdo, John"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C74"]
[WhiteElo "1729"]
[BlackElo "2320"]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Nxe5 Qe7 5.Nd3 Bxc3 6.dxc3 Nxe4 7.Be2 O-O 8.Nf4 c6 9.c4 d6 10.O-O Bf5 11.a4 Nd7 12.Ra3 Rad8 13.Re3 Ne5 14.Bd3 Qg5 15.Rxe4 Bxe4 16.Bxe4 Qe7 17.Re1 f5 18.Bd3 Rde8 19.Bd2 Qh4 20.g3 Qd8 21.h4 Qb6 22.Bc3 Ng4 23.Rf1 Re7 24.Bxf5 Ne3 25.Bxh7+ Kxh7 26.Qh5+ Kg8 27.Ng6 1-0>