Donald Trump

Trump urges backers to cast multiple ballots

 

Linda Starkweather

NY Times - Donald J. Trump has long used strongman-style threats to prosecute people he vilifies as a campaign tactic, dating back to encouraging his 2016 rallygoers to chant “lock her up” about Hillary Clinton. And during his term as president, he repeatedly pressed the Justice Department to open investigations into his political adversaries. But as November nears, the former president has escalated his vows to use the raw power of the state to impose and maintain control and to intimidate and punish anyone he perceives as working against him. After Democrats replaced President Biden with Vice President Kamala Harris as their 2024 nominee — and Mr. Trump’s lead in the polls eroded — Mr. Trump’s targets expanded. He has been laying the groundwork to claim that there was large-scale voter fraud if he loses, a familiar tactic from his 2016 and 2020 playbooks, but this time coupled with threats of prosecution. Those who may face criminal scrutiny for purported efforts at election fraud, Mr. Trump has declared, will include election workers, a tech giant, political operatives, lawyers and donors working for his opponent. 

Over the past month, he has shared a post calling for former President Barack Obama to be subject to “military tribunals” and reposted fake images of well-known Democrats clad in prison garb. He has threatened the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg with a life sentence for helping state and local governments fund elections in 2020. He stoked fears of voter intimidation by urging police officers to “watch for the voter fraud” at polling places because some voters may be “afraid of that badge,” and warned that people deemed to have “cheated” in this election “will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” “WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again,” Mr. Trump wrote on his website Truth Social on Saturday. He added: “Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.” In his latest book, “Save America,” Mr. Trump threatened Mr. Zuckerberg, who in 2020 donated, with his wife, more than $400 million to nonpartisan groups that helped local election agencies deal with the Covid-19 pandemic, such as by expanding access to mail-in balloting. Mr. Trump has falsely portrayed that effort as an illegal contribution to the 2020 Biden campaign.

 “We are watching him closely, and if he does anything illegal this time he will spend the rest of his life in prison” Mr. Trump wrote. (Amid Mr. Trump’s threats, which he has also posted on social media and delivered in interviews and at rallies, Mr. Zuckerberg has sought to smooth things over, describing the former president's raised-fist response to the attempted assassination as “badass” and saying he would not get involved this election cycle.) 

Mr. Trump’s portrayal of people he perceives as his political opponents as election criminals is particularly striking in light of his own record. He has been convicted of 34 felonies for altering business records to cover up a hush-money payment in the 2016 election that violated campaign finance laws, and he has been charged in both federal and state court with conspiring to fraudulently alter the outcome of the 2020 election. Whenever Mr. Trump’s own actions come under legal scrutiny, he portrays law enforcement efforts as illegitimate and politicized. ”

Roll Call -  Donald Trump on Friday said he does not enjoy running for president and criticized state and federal prosecutors for not offering him plea deals, capping a rough seven days for the Republican presidential nominee.  The former president was nearly 90 minutes late to a press appearance at his Los Angeles-area golf club. Once he arrived, he declared himself the “border president,” saying of that issue: “Probably got elected on that in 2016. … I hope you will call me ‘the border president’ again.”

Some Republican political strategists and pollsters have noted Trump often is more subdued at his once-raucous rallies and other public events. He offered a potential clue with California’s South Bay behind him.  We don’t want this for our country,” he said of Democratic policies. “That’s why I’m doing this. I don’t like doing this.”

Trump focused heavily on the U.S.-Mexico border and vowed anew to finish building a wall along the 1,951-mile boundary, trying to blend his typical spiel on the issue with criticisms of his general election foe, Vice President Kamala Harris, whom he dubbed the “godmother of sanctuary cities” and “defund the police” while contending “she was right there at the beginning” of both as a prosecutor and attorney general in California.

She oversaw a “fire sale of plea deals” in those roles, he claimed before adding that “the only one they don’t make a plea deal with is Trump.” That was a curious remark from a multiple-time defendant who has repeatedly contended he has not broken any laws. Plea deals require defendants to at least partially admit some guilt. MORE

Daily Beast - Elon Musk, the billionaire king of bad takes, came up with a new one to cement his reign on Sunday night.Responding to a second potential assassination attempt on Donald Trump’s life, the X owner questioned why no one was trying to kill the Democratic president and vice president.“And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala,” he posted, adding a thinking-face emoji.

A near-instantaneous firestorm of criticism predictably followed, with several people telling him to “delete your account” and others tagging the U.S. Secret Service’s X account.

“This is literally incitement,” the grassroots action group DemsMight wrote, while others pointed out that the post was grounds for the revocation of Musk’s government contracts, including a pair of NASA contracts worth roughly $4 billion that his company SpaceX won in 2021.Others took the opportunity to clown on Musk. “Another example of why your children hate you,” the actor Billy Baldwin observed.The New York Times reporter Dave Itzkoff remarked dryly, “and they say this site has advertising problems.”