If This Trump Warning on 2024 Doesn’t Scare You, You’re Sleepwalking

If you ask most Americans, whether they are Democrats or unserious presidential candidates, the fate of U.S. democracy depends on how November’s election goes. If you ask Donald Trump, the election could determine the fate of the United States itself.

“If we don’t win on November 5, I think our country is going to cease to exist. It could be the last election we ever have. I actually mean that,” the former president said at a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Tuesday.

In fact, looking at Trump’s plans for a potential second term, it’s more likely that the opposite is true. He has claimed that he wants to be a dictator, but only on “day one,” and plans to install his legal allies at all levels of government. And his Cabinet? It’s sure to be full of ideologues, immigration hard-liners, and outright fascists. Even conservative judges claim he’ll shred the legal system.

But Trump’s remarks could also be a veiled threat that he should win, or else. The far right, from Trump down to militias, hate groups, and grassroots MAGA supporters, could react violently if the election doesn’t go in their favor.

As Brynn Tannehill wrote for The New Republic in March, “The election cycle either ends in chaos and violence, balkanization, or a descent into a modern theocratic fascist dystopia.” It might not be a stretch to suggest that Trump could plan another January 6–type event if he loses. After all, only months prior to the Capitol insurrection, he urged the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” on a debate stage.

But it could all be bluster, as well. Trump is no stranger to hyperbole, particularly on the campaign trail. In October 2020, for example, he suggested he might leave the country if he lost the election that year. At a rally in April 2022, he claimed to be “the most honest human being, perhaps, that God ever created.”

Donald Trump started off his campaign stop in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Tuesday with a bang, immediately launching into a vitriolic tirade about the alleged numbers of “sick” undocumented immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

“People were sick, we don’t want them coming into our country with contagious diseases, and they have it,” Trump said, despite the fact that he actively ignored the onset of the global pandemic, lied to the U.S. public about ways to treat Covid-19, and thwarted efforts to develop a vaccine. “All of a sudden you see these contagious diseases spreading, and everyone is saying, ‘I wonder where they came from.’ I can tell you where they came from.”

Even though he was arguably as far away as he could get from the Mexico border while staying within the bounds of the contiguous United States, the GOP presidential nominee used the event to go after Joe Biden’s border policies, which Trump’s campaign referred to as “Biden’s Border Bloodbath.”

Over the last few months, Trump’s campaign has successfully transformed immigration into a key issue in the upcoming election, with more than a quarter of Americans—28 percent—listing it as their top concern, according to a March Gallup poll. Behind the scenes, the former president has strong-armed Republican lawmakers into refusing bipartisan border deals to avoid giving Biden a win on the issue.

Trump has also stoked the flames of a standoff between Texas Governor Greg Abbott and the federal government over lengths of concertina wire erected by the state that have prevented federal border agents from doing their job along the Rio Grande section of the U.S.-Mexico border.

And, by now, it seems to have helped him—or at least taken a toll on his opponent. Polls suggest that immigration, in light of rising border crossings, is Biden’s worst policy issue, with seven out of 10 Americans disapproving of his approach, according to The Washington Post.

“Under Crooked Joe Biden, EVERY state is now a border state. EVERY town is now a Border Town—because Joe Biden has brought the carnage, chaos, and killing from all over world, and dumped it straight into our own backyards,” Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement ahead of Trump’s speech.

Trump is also scheduled to make a speech in Wisconsin on Tuesday night, before the state holds its presidential primary alongside Connecticut, New York, and Rhode Island. There will be 455 delegates up for grabs in the Democratic primary, and 195 delegates available on the Republican side.

It’s official: John Eastman, Trump’s former lawyer, can no longer practice law in the state of California, pending his appeal through California’s courts.

As of Tuesday, Eastman is listed as “not eligible to practice law” on the State Bar of California’s website. The move comes three days after State Bar Court of California Judge Yvette Roland recommended that Eastman’s law license be put on “involuntary inactive” status.

In January, the California state bar began disbarment proceedings against Eastman for helping to lead Donald Trump’s efforts to undermine the 2020 presidential election results and prevent the certification of votes, which included a direct appeal to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Eastman also helped try to create slates of fake pro-Trump electors in states won by Joe Biden, and helped Trump spread election fraud falsehoods, including at the January 6, 2021, rally in Washington, D.C., that turned into the Capitol insurrection. While Roland rejected the charge that Eastman’s speech helped incite the January 6 riot, she did slam his actions as “exceptionally serious ethical violations.”

Roland also said the “scale and egregiousness of Eastman’s unethical actions far surpasses” that of Donald Segretti, the lawyer who helped Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign try to sabotage the Democrats.

Eastman can still win his legal credentials back on appeal, as the California Supreme Court has the final say. But if his legal career does come to an end, his legacy isn’t great, even without his election wrongdoing: He once questioned Kamala Harris’s citizenship, arguing that she might be ineligible for the office of vice president because, he claimed, she wasn’t a U.S. citizen at birth. His argument even extended into claiming that birthright citizenship itself might not be constitutional.

Eastman may not be the last Trump ally to lose their legal license: A Washington, D.C., ethics board is currently considering whether to disbar former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, and Sidney Powell could be disbarred as a result of her October guilty plea to six misdemeanor counts related to the 2020 election in Georgia.

* The headline of this article has been corrected. Eastman has not been officially disbarred yet.

The Daily Caller had to issue a full retraction of an Easter Sunday hit piece on President Joe Biden after it emerged the publication hadn’t performed even the most basic reporting.

The outlet, founded by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and political pundit Neil Patel, had accused Biden of sparking an Easter controversy by implementing a ban on religious symbolism on eggs during the annual White House Easter Egg Roll—but left out a key detail. In reality, the 146-year-old event had implemented a ban on religious iconography decades ago.

The Daily Caller article was subsequently amended, archived, and replaced with a brief notice.

“Following the publication of this article, the Daily Caller became aware of additional context that undercut the central assertion of this article and its newsworthiness,” the publication wrote. “The ban of religious symbolism on eggs as part of the White House Easter egg art contest has been longstanding, dating back decades, and the Biden administration did not make any modifications to this rule. While the Caller did not explicitly state at any point that the rule was new, this additional context rendered the main thrust of the article misleading to readers, who could reasonably have come to the conclusion that the rule was new.”

“With that additional context included, the news value of the article was significantly diminished, leading the senior leadership at the Caller to the decision to retract,” the notice continued. “We sincerely regret the error and are taking the necessary steps to ensure similar mistakes can be avoided in the future.”

It was just another attempted attack on the president by conservatives after they berated him for recognizing Easter alongside the Transgender Day of Visibility, which has been celebrated on March 31 since 2009 but happened to align with the major Chrisitian holiday this year.

According to Fox News contributor Kayleigh McEnany, Donald Trump doesn’t deserve such a high bond in his New York civil fraud trial because his was a “victimless crime,” and not nearly as bad as Sam Bankman-Fried’s or Bernie Madoff’s.

Speaking on Fox News Tuesday, Trump’s former press secretary lamented that Madoff’s bond was at $10 million, despite his conducting “the largest Ponzi scheme ever, or at least among them.” She also complained that Bankman-Fried’s $250 million bond was the highest ever until Trump’s civil fraud case.

It’s not a surprise that the former president would enjoy favorable coverage from Fox News, as well as his former press secretary. But Trump’s civil fraud case is hardly a victimless crime: He defrauded banks and taxpayers to the tune of millions of dollars, which he has shamelessly even admitted to reporters in the past. His financial dealings have also resulted in big penalties: In 2018, the Trump Foundation was shut down due to misuse of charity funds.

It seems that as the 2024 election approaches, Fox News will bend over backward to protect Trump’s image, despite the various criminal and civil charges against him, and make every attempt to trash President Biden and the Democrats.

Trump and his co-defendants owe more than $464 million in the bank fraud case, but the former president successfully posted bond Monday night. The bond will prevent the state attorney general from seizing his assets while Trump appeals.

Stock in Donald J. Trump has—literally and figuratively—taken a nosedive.

On Monday night, it emerged that the only group willing to loan Trump a dime to cover the $175 million bond from his New York bank fraud trial is a company owned by the so-called “king of subprime car loans,” billionaire Don Hankey.

Hankey owns Knight Specialty Insurance Company, the group that underwrote Trump’s bond, and is also believed to be the largest shareholder in Axos Financial, according to MSNBC’s Lisa Rubin. Axos is no stranger to lending Trump a hand with his financial woes, either. In 2022, the financial institution refinanced more than $50 million of Trump’s loans on Trump Tower and Trump National Doral Miami, according to documents filed with the Office of Government Ethics.

Hankey told Forbes that Knight initiated the deal with the criminally charged GOP presidential nominee, and explained that Trump had used both cash and investment-grade bonds to secure the money with his insurance company. Hankey added that he had never met Trump but had been a supporter of his previous campaigns.

“This is what we do at Knight insurance,” Hankey told Forbes on Monday. “I’d never met Donald Trump. I’d never talked to him on the phone. I heard that he needed a loan or a bond, and this is what we do. So, we reached out, and he responded.”

Trump and his co-defendants still owe more than $464 million in the case, but the bond—which comes ahead of Trump’s Thursday deadline—will keep New York Attorney General Letitia James from seizing his real estate assets while he appeals the case. It’s unclear how long the case will take to appeal, but that won’t stop the interest on his disgorgement from accruing at a rate of more than $111,000 a day.

* This headline has been updated to reflect the correct Trump trial.

Michigan Representative Tim Walberg’s remarks last week urging Israel to deal with Gaza like “Hiroshima and Nagasaki” has drawn swift condemnation, with several Democrats calling the Republican’s comments extreme and shocking. But some Democratic lawmakers have been noticeably silent.

Twenty-two Democrats voted in November to censure Michigan Representative Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American member of Congress. Tlaib was punished for supposedly “promoting false narratives” about Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel and allegedly calling for the destruction of Israel for using the phrase “From the river to the sea.” Walberg himself also voted to censure Tlaib, saying in a statement that he “will not support the right to call for a violent genocide.”

How do those 22 Democrats feel about Representative Walberg’s comments, which outright allude to dropping nuclear bombs on Palestinians in Gaza?

Journalist Marisa Kabas reached out to those Democrats for her newsletter, The Handbasket, to see if they would weigh in on Walberg’s comments and whether they believed he should be censured. Only three responded: Representatives Ritchie Torres from New York, Greg Landsman from Ohio, and Brad Schneider from Illinois. While they all condemned Walberg’s remarks, only Landsman said he would vote to censure Walberg.

It’s a clear double standard, especially since pro-Palestinian activists point out that “From the river to the sea” has to do with the Palestinian right to self-determination between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

Walberg’s spokesman, Mike Rorke, said that the congressman’s remarks were taken out of context, stating that “he clearly uses a metaphor to support Israel’s swift elimination of Hamas, which is the best chance to save lives long-term and the only hope at achieving a permanent peace in the region.”

So far, there has been no discussion among members of Congress to censure Walberg, nor has there been any criticism from within his own party. The only pushback from a right-leaning figure has come from former Representative Justin Amash, who is currently running for the Republican nomination for Michigan’s seat in the U.S. Senate.

“The people of Gaza are our fellow human beings—many of them children trapped in horrific circumstances beyond their individual control. For him to suggest that hundreds of thousands of innocent Palestinians should be obliterated, including my own relatives sheltering at an Orthodox Christian church, is reprehensible and indefensible,” Amash, who is Palestinian American, said on X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday.

House Speaker Mike Johnson is trying out some new language to describe the riotous mob that swarmed the U.S. Capitol on January 6: innocent Americans that were just there, “walking through the building.”

In an interview with Newsmax’s Eric Bolling on Monday night, the Republican leader seemed to suggest that the 2,000 people who charged the halls, destroyed federal property, and interrupted the peaceful presidential transfer of power—1,265 of whom have been charged by federal authorities—were actually mere innocent bystanders.

“I made a commitment immediately after I got the gavel that we would start releasing that,” Johnson said, referring to tapes of the insurrection. “Originally we were trying to blur some of the faces to protect the innocent, you know, people who were there and just happened to be walking through the building.”

“But then we realized a lot of this is out there in the public anyway,” Johnson continued. “We had to hire new staff to do it, they’re up late … it’s a 24-hour operation, all that tape will be out there as soon as possible. Thirteen thousand hours are available now.”

There’s no reason to give Johnson the benefit of the doubt on whom he’s referring to, especially since he unequivocally admitted in December that the conservative party was working on a project to doctor footage of the January 6 insurrection in an effort to thwart the identification of the rioters in an investigation by the Justice Department.

“We have to blur some of the faces of persons who participated in the events of that day because we don’t want them to be retaliated against and to be charged by the DOJ,” Johnson said at the time. “That’s a slow process to get it done, we’re working steadily on it. We’ve hired additional personnel to do that and all of those tapes ultimately will be out so everybody can see them and draw their own conclusions.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. thinks that President Joe Biden is worse for American democracy than the guy who attempted to overturn the 2020 election results and said he’d be a dictator “on day one”—all because the independent candidate’s conspiracy-laden social media posts keep getting taken down.

In an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett on Monday night, Kennedy accused Biden of “weaponizing the federal agencies” in order to censor political speech, citing deleted posts while claiming that the major tech companies essentially hand over their data to U.S. intelligence agencies.

“I can say that because I just won a case in the Federal Court of Appeals, and now before the Supreme Court, that shows that he started censoring not just me—37 hours after he took office, he was censoring me,” Kennedy continued.

“No president in the country has ever done that. The greatest threat to democracy is not somebody who questions election returns, but a president of the United States who uses the power of his office to force the social media companies—Facebook, Instagram, Twitter—to open a portal and give access to that portal to the FBI, to the CIA, to the IRS.”

But if it’s between Donald Trump and Biden, Kennedy said the latter is the worse pick for the country because the First Amendment is the “most important.”

“So just to be clear, you’re saying you could make an argument that President Biden is a worse threat to democracy than Donald Trump?” prompted Burnett.

“Absolutely,” Kennedy responded. “What president in history has ever tried to censor political opponents? What president has weaponized the federal agencies?”

But the kind of speech Kennedy is fighting for isn’t the kind that’s protected by the First Amendment. The 70-year-old has been singled out by members of Congress for using his social media platforms to spread baseless conspiracies, including the debunked lies that vaccines cause autism, that the Covid-19 vaccine was “targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people” and spare people who are “Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese,” and that Jews in Nazi Germany had more freedom to roam about than American citizens living through the pandemic.

“This is not the kind of free speech that I know of,” Representative Stacey Plaskett said in July, during a hearing on the alleged weaponization of the federal government. Kennedy testified during that hearing.

Meanwhile, Trump has openly celebrated RFK Jr’s contributions in the race—or rather, his potential to pull votes away from Biden.

“RFK Jr. is the most Radical Left Candidate in the race, by far. He’s a big fan of the Green New Scam, and other economy killing disasters,” Trump wrote on Truth Social last week. “I guess this would mean he is going to be taking votes from Crooked Joe Biden, which would be a great service to America.”

“It’s great for MAGA, but the Communists will make it very hard for him to get on the Ballot,” Trump continued. “He is Crooked Joe Biden’s Political Opponent, not mine. I love that he is running!”

Donald Trump’s gag order in his hush-money trial has been expanded after he repeatedly attacked the judge’s daughter, and the former president has responded to the decision with shame and humility.

Nah, just kidding.

On Truth Social Tuesday morning, Trump complained that the expanded gag order was unfair, that the case against him shouldn’t have been brought, and that Judge Juan Merchan should be recused with the case thrown out. And for good measure, he called the whole thing “ELECTION INTERFERENCE at its worst!”

Trump was slapped with a gag order last week prohibiting him from talking publicly about jurors, witnesses, prosecutors, court staff, and the family members of the last two. The gag order was expanded Monday night to include the family members of the court and the judge’s family.

The expanded terms of the gag order still allow Trump to talk about the judge and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, but it’s anyone’s guess as to whether the former president will limit his insults and criticism to just those two. He’s already proven he can’t abide by other gag orders in the past, and was even hit with a $5,000* fine for violating the order in his bank fraud trial.

Trump is on trial for allegedly using his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen to cover up an affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election, and faces 34 felony counts for falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime. The trial is scheduled to begin on April 15 with jury selection.

Can the former president keep his mouth shut until then?

*This article originally misstated the amount Trump was fined for violating the gag order.