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warningsine · 2 months

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https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/venezuelans-vote-highly-charged-election-amid-fraud-worries-2024-07-28/

CARACAS, July 28 (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his opposition rival Edmundo Gonzalez were each claiming victory in a presidential election on Monday morning, after a vote marked by accusations of underhand tactics and isolated incidents of violence.

The country's electoral authority said just after midnight on Monday that Maduro had won a third term with 51% of the vote, despite multiple exit polls which pointed to an opposition win.

The authority said opposition candidate Gonzalez won 44% of the vote, though the opposition had earlier said it had "reasons to celebrate" and asked supporters to continue monitoring vote counts.

Maduro, appearing at the presidential palace before cheering supporters, said his reelection is a triumph of peace and stability and reiterated his campaign trail assertion that Venezuela's electoral system is transparent.

He will sign a decree on Monday to hold a "great national dialogue," Maduro added.

Fireworks sounded over Caracas, as lighted drones formed a brightly-colored image of Maduro in the sky above the presidential palace.

Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said Gonzalez had won 70% of the vote and that multiple independent exit polls and quick counts decisively showed his victory.

"Venezuela has a new president-elect and it is Edmundo Gonzalez. We won and the whole world knows it," she said in a joint statement with Gonzalez.

Gonzalez said he was not calling for supporters to take to the streets or commit any acts of violence.

A poll from Edison Research, known for its polling of U.S. elections, had predicted in an exit poll that Gonzalez would win 65% of the vote, while Maduro would win 31%.

Local firm Meganalisis predicted a 65% vote for Gonzalez and just under 14% for Maduro.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States had "serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people."

Blinken called for electoral authorities to publish a detailed tabulation of votes.

About 80% of ballot boxes have been counted, said national electoral council (CNE) president Elvis Amoroso in a televised statement, adding results had been delayed because of an "aggression" against the electoral data transmission system.

The CNE has asked the attorney general to investigate the "terrorist actions" Amoroso said, adding participation was 59%.

The CNE is meant to be an independent body, but the opposition alleges its acts as an arm of the government.

The top opposition official meant to witness the overall national count was not allowed to and there were several polling stations where opposition observers were not allowed to observe, the opposition said on Sunday night.

Earlier Machado reiterated a call for the country's military to uphold the results of the vote. The opposition says it has copies of about 40% of voting records.

"A message for the military. The people of Venezuela have spoken: they don't want Maduro," she said earlier on X. "It is time to put yourselves on the right side of history. You have a chance and it's now."

Venezuela's military has always supported Maduro, a 61-year-old former bus driver and foreign minister, and there have been no public signs that leaders of the armed forces are breaking from the government.

STREET FIGHTS

Machado has been the star of the coalition campaign, despite a ban on her holding public office that forced her to pass the torch to Gonzalez, a 74-year-old ex-diplomat known for his calm demeanor.

Gonzalez won backing even from some former supporters of the ruling party, but the opposition and observers raised questions ahead of the vote as to whether it would be fair, saying decisions by electoral authorities and the arrests of opposition staff were meant to create obstacles.

Maduro – whose 2018 reelection is considered fraudulent by the United States, among others - had warned last week of a "bloodbath" if he were to lose.

Attorney General Tarek Saab told Reuters on Sunday evening that he did not anticipate any violence and that except for some isolated incidents voting had been peaceful.

Less than a block from Saab's office in central Caracas, dozens of ruling party supporters arrived together on motorcycles outside Andres Bello secondary school, the country's largest voting center, scuffling with opposition supporters gathered outside.

The crowd dispersed after about 20 minutes, but videos on social media showed similar incidents in other locations around the country.

The Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict said on X that armed groups of the motorcycle-riding ruling party supporters known as 'collectives' were reported in six states and Caracas.

One man died of a gunshot wound in the border state of Tachira after a collective attacked people outside a polling place, the Observatory said. Reuters could not independently verify the details of the incident.

Reuters journalists in seven locations around the country had reported morning lines outside polling stations, including some that opened late or where voting was moving slowly. Many voters had arrived before dawn.

"I work cleaning houses and my four grandchildren depend on me. I earn just $15 per week and that is enough to eat one day but not the next," said Luisa Gonzalez, 61, who voted in the state of Bolivar, traditionally a ruling party bastion.

"I was a Chavista, but people have changed," she said, using the term for ruling party supporters, a reference to the late President Hugo Chavez.

Maduro's government has presided over an economic collapse, the migration of about a third of the population, and a sharp deterioration in diplomatic relations, crowned by sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union and others which have crippled an already struggling oil industry.

Maduro said if returned to power he would guarantee peace and economic growth, making Venezuela less dependent on oil income.

THE CHAVEZ LEGACY

Maduro voted early in the morning in Caracas and said the result announced by the electoral authorities would be recognized and defended by the armed forces and the police.

Maduro said he would decree a national dialogue on Monday, using a term that typically means conversations between the government and opposition, businesses, communities and others.

Many Maduro supporters speak enthusiastically of his mentor Chavez, and see Maduro, in power since Chavez's death in 2013, as a continuation of Chavez's legacy of helping the poor.

Others told Reuters they saw Maduro's record as mixed but that they would back him.

"There are things that without doubt need to improve in our country, but this government has lived through sanctions and blockades like no other. That's why I back President Maduro and think he deserves another chance," said Jose Lopez, 57, as he waited to vote in central Valencia.

Gonzalez and Machado promised major changes and said a fresh start may motivate migrants to return.

Forty-six people have been arbitrarily detained since Friday in connection with the elections, Gonzalo Himiob, the vice president of human rights organization Foro Penal, said on X late on Sunday, and at least 23 remain detained.

Saab this week denied participating in political persecution.

Migrants around the world reported difficulties registering and only a small percentage of the large Venezuelan diaspora was registered to vote.

#venezuela #elections #politics #news tag

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mariacallous · 10 months

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Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that the country’s presidential election, that in peacetime would be expected next March, will not be taking place while Ukraine remains under martial law and is in a state of war with Russia.

Western right-wing social media personalities predictably greeted this news as confirmation of their prejudices against Ukrainian democracy. Failed politician and 2020 U.S. election denier Kari Lake was among those who complained, saying on X, formerly known as Twitter, “Zelensky is considering canceling elections in Ukraine. I didn’t realize that Democracy could just be turned off & on like a TV.” Not wanting to be left out, reactionary Michael Tracey dedicated several tweets to misunderstanding Ukraine’s constitution while furiously denouncing his own followers for correcting his mistakes via X’s Community Notes feature, claiming that “it’s totally false that holding elections during Martial Law is ‘banned’ by Ukraine’s constitution.” (The Community Note is, in fact, correct, and Tracey is, of course, wrong.)

So while, I hope, everyone knows not to take such figures seriously, Americans might still have qualms over the failure to hold elections. The United States itself has a habit, rare among democracies, of keeping the vote going even during wartime, as in 1864 and 1944.

Thus, it’s worth going into detail as to why the Ukrainian government has taken this position and how the Ukrainian electorate is responding to that. This news certainly didn’t come as a surprise to anyone in Ukraine, and the pressure surrounding wartime elections has been entirely external, leaving many Ukrainians baffled. The most prominent of these interventions was made by U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, who on a visit to Kyiv in August said he believed the Ukrainian government should hold elections in 2024. While it should be noted that, in responding to Graham, Zelensky appeared to hold the door open for elections next year, he also stressed that they were legally prohibited under martial law in the same interview.

These opinions are not confined to American conservatives either, with the president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Tiny Kox, telling European Pravda in May that Ukraine is expected to “organize free and fair elections,” shortly before walking those comments back in a subsequent interview.

For the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians, the idea of holding elections next spring is absurd. A recent poll conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found that 81 percent of respondents thought that elections should not be held until after the end of the war. This view is shared across the country, with those in the eastern and southern regions most impacted by the ongoing conflict also overwhelmingly opposing holding elections during the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Ukrainian civil society has also reached the same conclusion, with more than 200 civil society institutions, NGOs, and human rights networks officially declaring their opposition to holding wartime elections. The prospect of holding elections next year had already been deemed “impossible” by Ukraine’s leading election monitoring NGO Opora in July, long before Graham arrived in Kyiv for his moment in front of the cameras.

For those who are unaware of what martial law is, in most countries it entails the suspension of a civilian government, replacing it with a military administration enacted during times of war, and it normally involves the curtailment of peacetime political freedoms such as freedom of speech and the freedom of assembly. While martial law is never a positive political development for a nation-state, at times of war, such as the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, such legal measures become unfortunately necessary to save lives.

Both constitutionally and legally speaking, the Ukrainian government is simply following Ukrainian law. The Ukrainian constitution and martial law legislation clearly prohibit presidential, parliamentary, and local elections from taking place under martial law, and Zelensky’s comments last week were merely a repetition of what other Ukrainian government officials have said on this topic in recent months. Other European countries, such as Germany, have similar provisions for postponing wartime elections.

In response to Kox’s comment in May, Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said: “The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe should clearly understand that there is a Constitution and laws of our country that we have to live by, and we will figure it out on our own. No elections can be held during martial law.”

Similarly, in June, Ruslan Stefanchuk, the speaker of Ukraine’s parliament, said: “If elections were possible during martial law, it could lead to the rupture of the state, which our enemy is waiting for. That is why I think the most correct and wise decision is to hold elections immediately after the end of martial law.”

Speaking in August, Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said: “It will be very difficult to hold elections in the country under such conditions. Indeed, there is martial law, there is war. When we end the war, then we will talk about elections.”

Some might dismiss the position of Ukrainian officials due to their own self-interest in remaining in power. If Zelensky were trying to cling to power against the wishes of Ukraine’s electorate, martial law would seem to provide the Ukrainian government with the legal and constitutional power to do just that.

However, this theory collapses on contact with Ukraine’s opinion polls. A survey taken this summer on a potential presidential election in Ukraine showed that more than 70 percent of respondents were planning to vote for Zelensky, with more than 50 percent of respondents supporting his ruling Servant of the People party.

The scale of the commanding lead that Zelensky has over his political opponents is nearly unheard of in any democracies, let alone Western ones. Few leaders around the world have the same level of popular support and legitimacy that Zelensky’s government currently holds. This is not a government that is in doubt about its democratic legitimacy, and if there were elections in March, the results would be almost guaranteed to be a landslide victory.

It is also true that Zelensky’s government under martial law banned 11 opposition political parties last March. However, the part that is often left out by those complaining about this is that these parties had explicit links to the Russian government and were in many cases actively assisting the Russian invasion. It’s hard to imagine any country not responding the same way when under invasion. For example, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s government banned Oswald Mosley’s pro-Nazi British Union of Fascists at the outbreak of World War II. Again, none of this means that Ukraine is no longer a functioning democracy—it is merely a democracy that is currently fighting off an invading army.

The final point is also the most overlooked by external observers pressuring the Ukrainian government into violating its constitutional obligations: the matter of safety. Holding elections while Russia continues to bombard civilian targets in Ukraine on a daily basis is not just dangerous; it is outright irresponsible. The Russian military has a track record of systematically targeting any large congregations of Ukrainian civilians. In October, Russia bombed a cafe where people had gathered for a wake, leaving 59 people dead.

In any wartime election, polling stations would become high-value targets for a Russian dictatorship that is hellbent on destroying Ukrainian democracy and a Russian military that carries out war crimes against civilians as its modus operandi.

Furthermore, 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory is under Russian occupation, and those citizens have just as much right as those living in Kyiv or Lviv to participate in Ukrainian elections, but trying to organize those under Russian occupation would put participants and organizers under mortal peril. Ukraine does not have the means of ensuring the safety of its electorate during this democratic process, and it’s arguable that no democratic nation could ensure the safety of its citizens under these conditions.

Lastly, while this situation has not arisen in Western democracies since the end of World War II, the United Kingdom also did not hold elections between 1940 and 1945, and at no point during that time were substantial parts of Britain occupied by Nazi Germany. Most of democratic Europe was occupied during World War II, but during World War I, France and other nations suspended elections. I have never heard anyone try to say this meant those countries ceased being democracies. The United States was able to hold elections during wartime because the front line was mercifully distant; Ukraine does not have that luxury.

Given that the overwhelming majority of Ukrainian politicians, Ukrainian civil society, and the Ukrainian electorate have categorically rejected the notion of holding elections while the country remains locked in an existential war with Russia, there is little excuse for external observers to be piling additional pressure onto Kyiv to hold a dangerous, illegal vanity contest with an already foregone conclusion.

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thundergrace · 1 month

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August 21, 2024

Texas’s highest criminal court announced on Wednesday it would again consider the case of Crystal Mason, a Texas woman who was sentenced to five years in prison for trying to cast a provisional ballot in the 2016 presidential election when she was ineligible to vote.

The announcement from the Texas court of criminal appeals is the latest step in a nearly eight-year case that has captured national attention because of the severity of Mason’s sentence. Mason, who lives in Fort Worth, attempted to vote in 2016 while on supervised release – which is like probation – for a federal tax felony. Texas, like several other US states, bars people convicted of a felony from voting until they have completed their sentence.

[...]

Sorrells has also defended the decision to appeal the case. “I want would-be illegal voters to know that we’re watching,” Sorrells said in May. “And that we’ll follow the law and we will prosecute illegal voting.”

The timing is no coincidence. This is purely voter intimidation. Once again, they're trying to make an example of this woman. It's blatant, and it's disgusting. These people are evil. And because I know some people will try it - it's not even that she was charged and convicted (even though the people monitoring her release testified that they did not tell her she couldn't vote), the controversy was in her sentencing. Five years in prison for not understanding that you can't vote even while on probation for a felony crime is ridiculous.

#voter intimidation #voter suppression #decision 2024

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justinspoliticalcorner · 5 months

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Eric Cortellessa at Time:

Donald Trump thinks he’s identified a crucial mistake of his first term: He was too nice. We’ve been talking for more than an hour on April 12 at his fever-dream palace in Palm Beach. Aides lurk around the perimeter of a gilded dining room overlooking the manicured lawn. When one nudges me to wrap up the interview, I bring up the many former Cabinet officials who refuse to endorse Trump this time. Some have publicly warned that he poses a danger to the Republic. Why should voters trust you, I ask, when some of the people who observed you most closely do not? As always, Trump punches back, denigrating his former top advisers. But beneath the typical torrent of invective, there is a larger lesson he has taken away. “I let them quit because I have a heart. I don’t want to embarrass anybody,” Trump says. “I don’t think I’ll do that again. From now on, I’ll fire.” Six months from the 2024 presidential election, Trump is better positioned to win the White House than at any point in either of his previous campaigns. He leads Joe Biden by slim margins in most polls, including in several of the seven swing states likely to determine the outcome. But I had not come to ask about the election, the disgrace that followed the last one, or how he has become the first former—and perhaps future—American President to face a criminal trial. I wanted to know what Trump would do if he wins a second term, to hear his vision for the nation, in his own words.

What emerged in two interviews with Trump, and conversations with more than a dozen of his closest advisers and confidants, were the outlines of an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world. To carry out a deportation operation designed to remove more than 11 million people from the country, Trump told me, he would be willing to build migrant detention camps and deploy the U.S. military, both at the border and inland. He would let red states monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans. He would, at his personal discretion, withhold funds appropriated by Congress, according to top advisers. He would be willing to fire a U.S. Attorney who doesn’t carry out his order to prosecute someone, breaking with a tradition of independent law enforcement that dates from America’s founding. He is weighing pardons for every one of his supporters accused of attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, more than 800 of whom have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury. He might not come to the aid of an attacked ally in Europe or Asia if he felt that country wasn’t paying enough for its own defense. He would gut the U.S. civil service, deploy the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit, close the White House pandemic-preparedness office, and staff his Administration with acolytes who back his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen. Trump remains the same guy, with the same goals and grievances. But in person, if anything, he appears more assertive and confident. “When I first got to Washington, I knew very few people,” he says. “I had to rely on people.” Now he is in charge. The arranged marriage with the timorous Republican Party stalwarts is over; the old guard is vanquished, and the people who remain are his people. Trump would enter a second term backed by a slew of policy shops staffed by loyalists who have drawn up detailed plans in service of his agenda, which would concentrate the powers of the state in the hands of a man whose appetite for power appears all but insatiable. “I don’t think it’s a big mystery what his agenda would be,” says his close adviser Kellyanne Conway. “But I think people will be surprised at the alacrity with which he will take action.”

The courts, the Constitution, and a Congress of unknown composition would all have a say in whether Trump’s objectives come to pass. The machinery of Washington has a range of defenses: leaks to a free press, whistle-blower protections, the oversight of inspectors general. The same deficiencies of temperament and judgment that hindered him in the past remain present. If he wins, Trump would be a lame duck—contrary to the suggestions of some supporters, he tells TIME he would not seek to overturn or ignore the Constitution’s prohibition on a third term. Public opinion would also be a powerful check. Amid a popular outcry, Trump was forced to scale back some of his most draconian first-term initiatives, including the policy of separating migrant families. As George Orwell��wrote in 1945, the ability of governments to carry out their designs “depends on the general temper in the country.” Every election is billed as a national turning point. This time that rings true. To supporters, the prospect of Trump 2.0, unconstrained and backed by a disciplined movement of true believers, offers revolutionary promise. To much of the rest of the nation and the world, it represents an alarming risk. A second Trump term could bring “the end of our democracy,” says presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, “and the birth of a new kind of authoritarian presidential order.”

[...] The spectacle picks up where his first term left off. The events of Jan. 6, during which a pro-Trump mob attacked the center of American democracy in an effort to subvert the peaceful transfer of power, was a profound stain on his legacy. Trump has sought to recast an insurrectionist riot as an act of patriotism. “I call them the J-6 patriots,” he says. When I ask whether he would consider pardoning every one of them, he says, “Yes, absolutely.” As Trump faces dozens of felony charges, including for election interference, conspiracy to defraud the United States, willful retention of national-security secrets, and falsifying business records to conceal hush-money payments, he has tried to turn legal peril into a badge of honor. [...] In a second term, Trump’s influence on American democracy would extend far beyond pardoning powers. Allies are laying the groundwork to restructure the presidency in line with a doctrine called the unitary executive theory, which holds that many of the constraints imposed on the White House by legislators and the courts should be swept away in favor of a more powerful Commander in Chief.

Nowhere would that power be more momentous than at the Department of Justice. Since the nation’s earliest days, Presidents have generally kept a respectful distance from Senate-confirmed law-enforcement officials to avoid exploiting for personal ends their enormous ability to curtail Americans’ freedoms. But Trump, burned in his first term by multiple investigations directed by his own appointees, is ever more vocal about imposing his will directly on the department and its far-flung investigators and prosecutors.

[...] Trump’s radical designs for presidential power would be felt throughout the country. A main focus is the southern border. Trump says he plans to sign orders to reinstall many of the same policies from his first term, such as the Remain in Mexico program, which requires that non-Mexican asylum seekers be sent south of the border until their court dates, and Title 42, which allows border officials to expel migrants without letting them apply for asylum. Advisers say he plans to cite record border crossings and fentanyl- and child-trafficking as justification for reimposing the emergency measures. He would direct federal funding to resume construction of the border wall, likely by allocating money from the military budget without congressional approval. The capstone of this program, advisers say, would be a massive deportation operation that would target millions of people. Trump made similar pledges in his first term, but says he plans to be more aggressive in a second. “People need to be deported,” says Tom Homan, a top Trump adviser and former acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “No one should be off the table.”

[...] As President, Trump nominated three Supreme Court Justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, and he claims credit for his role in ending a constitutional right to an abortion. At the same time, he has sought to defuse a potent campaign issue for the Democrats by saying he wouldn’t sign a federal ban. In our interview at Mar-a-Lago, he declines to commit to vetoing any additional federal restrictions if they came to his desk. More than 20 states now have full or partial abortion bans, and Trump says those policies should be left to the states to do what they want, including monitoring women’s pregnancies. “I think they might do that,” he says. When I ask whether he would be comfortable with states prosecuting women for having abortions beyond the point the laws permit, he says, “It’s irrelevant whether I’m comfortable or not. It’s totally irrelevant, because the states are going to make those decisions.” President Biden has said he would fight state anti-abortion measures in court and with regulation.

Trump’s allies don’t plan to be passive on abortion if he returns to power. The Heritage Foundation has called for enforcement of a 19th century statute that would outlaw the mailing of abortion pills. The Republican Study Committee (RSC), which includes more than 80% of the House GOP conference, included in its 2025 budget proposal the Life at Conception Act, which says the right to life extends to “the moment of fertilization.” I ask Trump if he would veto that bill if it came to his desk. “I don’t have to do anything about vetoes,” Trump says, “because we now have it back in the states.”

Presidents typically have a narrow window to pass major legislation. Trump’s team is eyeing two bills to kick off a second term: a border-security and immigration package, and an extension of his 2017 tax cuts. Many of the latter’s provisions expire early in 2025: the tax cuts on individual income brackets, 100% business expensing, the doubling of the estate-tax deduction. Trump is planning to intensify his protectionist agenda, telling me he’s considering a tariff of more than 10% on all imports, and perhaps even a 100% tariff on some Chinese goods. Trump says the tariffs will liberate the U.S. economy from being at the mercy of foreign manufacturing and spur an industrial renaissance in the U.S. When I point out that independent analysts estimate Trump’s first term tariffs on thousands of products, including steel and aluminum, solar panels, and washing machines, may have cost the U.S. $316 billion and more than 300,000 jobs, by one account, he dismisses these experts out of hand. His advisers argue that the average yearly inflation rate in his first term—under 2%—is evidence that his tariffs won’t raise prices. [...]

Trump’s intention to remake America’s relations abroad may be just as consequential. Since its founding, the U.S. has sought to build and sustain alliances based on the shared values of political and economic freedom. Trump takes a much more transactional approach to international relations than his predecessors, expressing disdain for what he views as free-riding friends and appreciation for authoritarian leaders like President Xi Jinping of China, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary, or former President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil. That’s one reason America’s traditional allies were horrified when Trump recently said at a campaign rally that Russia could “do whatever the hell they want” to a NATO country he believes doesn’t spend enough on collective defense. That wasn’t idle bluster, Trump tells me. “If you’re not going to pay, then you’re on your own,” he says. Trump has long said the alliance is ripping the U.S. off. Former NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg credited Trump’s first-term threat to pull out of the alliance with spurring other members to add more than $100 billion to their defense budgets.

[...] Trump has historically been reluctant to criticize or confront Putin. He sided with the Russian autocrat over his own intelligence community when it asserted that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. Even now, Trump uses Putin as a foil for his own political purposes. When I asked Trump why he has not called for the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been unjustly held on spurious charges in a Moscow prison for a year, Trump says, “I guess because I have so many other things I’m working on.” Gershkovich should be freed, he adds, but he doubts it will happen before the election. “The reporter should be released and he will be released,” Trump tells me. “I don’t know if he’s going to be released under Biden. I would get him released.” America’s Asian allies, like its European ones, may be on their own under Trump. Taiwan’s Foreign Minister recently said aid to Ukraine was critical in deterring Xi from invading the island. Communist China’s leaders “have to understand that things like that can’t come easy,” Trump says, but he declines to say whether he would come to Taiwan’s defense.

[...] Yet even his support for Israel is not absolute. He’s criticized Israel’s handling of its war against Hamas, which has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza, and has called for the nation to “get it over with.” When I ask whether he would consider withholding U.S. military aid to Israel to push it toward winding down the war, he doesn’t say yes, but he doesn’t rule it out, either. He is sharply critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, once a close ally. “I had a bad experience with Bibi,” Trump says. In his telling, a January 2020 U.S. operation to assassinate a top Iranian general was supposed to be a joint attack until Netanyahu backed out at the last moment. “That was something I never forgot,” he says. He blames Netanyahu for failing to prevent the Oct. 7 attack, when Hamas militants infiltrated southern Israel and killed nearly 1,200 people amid acts of brutality including burning entire families alive and raping women and girls. “It happened on his watch,” Trump says.

[...] Another inside move is the enforcement of Schedule F, which allows the President to fire nonpolitical government officials and which Trump says he would embrace. “You have some people that are protected that shouldn’t be protected,” he says. A senior U.S. judge offers an example of how consequential such a move could be. Suppose there’s another pandemic, and President Trump wants to push the use of an untested drug, much as he did with hydroxychloroquine during COVID-19. Under Schedule F, if the drug’s medical reviewer at the Food and Drug Administration refuses to sign off on its use, Trump could fire them, and anyone else who doesn’t approve it. The Trump team says the President needs the power to hold bureaucrats accountable to voters. “The mere mention of Schedule F,” says Vought, “ensures that the bureaucracy moves in your direction.”

TIME Magazine interviewed 2024 GOP Republican nominee Donald Trump twice over the span of just over two weeks, and in those interviews, Trump told Time's Eric Cortellessa his plans for what his 2nd term would be.

His plans would include a full-scale fascist takeover of the United States should he get elected to a 2nd term are as follows:

He would enact draconian anti-immigration policies such as deporting 11M+ undocumented immigrants and build concentration camps for not just undocumented immigrants but those opposed to his agenda.

He would also aid and abet in cruel anti-abortion policies that invade the privacy of a pregnant person and criminalize those who obtain abortions.

He would destroy the nonpartisan civil service system by enacting Schedule F to give jobs to his MAGA cronies.

He would pardon every domestic terrorist who participated in the J6 Capitol Insurrection that he incited.

He would endanger national security by refusing to come to the aid of our allies if attacked, effectively doing China and Russia's bidding.

He would summon the National Guard and the military to put down protests against him and his anti-American regime.

He would turn the DOJ into his partisan political tool to go after his critics.

The Project 2025 agenda would be used to guide Trump into making decisions that would end America as a beacon of freedom and democracy.

These interviews he gave to Time should be a remind that America does not vote to put the tyrant back in office and that re-electing Joe Biden is essential to keeping America free.

See Also:

Time: Full transcript of Time's two interviews with Trump.

Read the full article at Time Magazine.

#Donald Trump #2024 Elections #2024 Presidential Election #Fascism #Joe Biden #Schedule F #Abortion #Immigration #Eric Cortellessa #Time Magazine #Time #Unitary Executive Theory #Life At Conception Act #Project 2025

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marksmangeek · 2 months

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What’s Next After Joe Biden Steps Down from the 2024 Elections?

The political landscape in the United States has shifted dramatically with President Joe Biden’s decision to step down from the 2024 presidential race. As the Democratic Party grapples with this unexpected development, several key questions and potential scenarios emerge about the future of the party and the upcoming election.

Immediate Reactions and Interim Leadership

Following Biden’s announcement, Vice President Kamala Harris has become the most likely interim leader of the Democratic Party. Her role as vice president positions her as a natural successor, and she has already garnered significant attention and support from various factions within the party. However, her potential candidacy will need to be officially endorsed by the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

Potential Candidates and Primaries

The race for the Democratic nomination is now wide open, with several high-profile politicians likely to throw their hats into the ring. Potential candidates include:

Kamala Harris: As the current vice president, she has a strong platform but will need to consolidate support from various party factions.

Gavin Newsom: The Governor of California has been seen as a rising star in the party, known for his progressive policies and strong leadership.

Pete Buttigieg: The Secretary of Transportation and former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has maintained a significant national profile since his 2020 presidential run.

Elizabeth Warren: The Senator from Massachusetts remains a powerful voice within the progressive wing of the party.

Amy Klobuchar: The Senator from Minnesota offers a more centrist approach that could appeal to moderate voters.

The DNC will need to organize a series of debates and primaries to allow these candidates to present their platforms and vie for the nomination.

Impact on the General Election

Biden’s decision to step aside has significant implications for the general election. The Democratic Party must quickly rally around a new candidate who can unite the party and appeal to a broad base of voters. This includes addressing concerns about Biden’s health and ensuring that the new candidate can effectively challenge the Republican nominee, presumably former President Donald Trump.

Strategic Shifts and Campaign Focus

With a new candidate, the Democratic Party may need to adjust its campaign strategies. Key issues that will likely be emphasized include:

Healthcare and Pandemic Response: Continuing Biden’s efforts in managing the COVID-19 pandemic and improving healthcare access.

Economic Recovery: Building on the current administration’s efforts to strengthen the economy and address income inequality.

Climate Change: Promoting aggressive policies to combat climate change, a central issue for many Democratic voters.

Social Justice: Ensuring that issues of racial and social justice remain at the forefront of the campaign.

Republican Response

The Republican Party will closely monitor the Democratic transition, adjusting their strategies accordingly. Trump’s campaign is likely to capitalize on the perceived instability within the Democratic Party, using it as a point of criticism. However, the Republicans will also need to address their internal challenges and unify their base.

Voter Mobilization and Engagement

The uncertainty surrounding Biden’s departure places a premium on voter mobilization and engagement. Both parties will intensify efforts to reach out to key demographics, including young voters, minorities, and independents. The importance of voter turnout cannot be overstated, especially in swing states that will determine the election’s outcome.

Conclusion

Joe Biden’s decision to step down from the 2024 election marks a significant turning point in American politics. The Democratic Party faces the urgent task of selecting a new candidate who can inspire and unite voters. Meanwhile, the Republicans will seek to exploit this transition to their advantage. As both parties navigate this evolving landscape, the 2024 election promises to be one of the most consequential in recent history, shaping the direction of the United States for years to come.

#donald trump #joe biden #2024 elections #president biden #election #2024 election

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mikerickson · 6 months

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8/5/2024 - 8/8/2024

Time for the latest installment of my "Don't post about a vacation until after I'm back home" series:

We were killing time in a mall before leaving for the airport on Friday when I noticed the overhead lights swaying in a store. Felt like a massive train was rolling by just outside, but I knew we weren't close enough to the NJ Transit line to actually feel it. Turns out it was a ⋆⭒˚.⋆4.8 earthquake⋆⭒˚.⋆.

Our flight got delayed for three hours while the runway was inspected for damage. While waiting to get dinner in the terminal, the lights started swaying again and we felt a 3.8 aftershock six hours after the first.

@perilous-pursuit-of-perfection and @humdrumhootenanny picked us up from the airport and let us stay with them and we didn't take a single group photo the entire weekend, but just trust me.

Next day we went to the Ohio statehouse in Columbus for a free tour. Learned that Ohio bounced around three previous capitals before the state legislature passed a law to create a permanent capital. Also Abraham Lincoln was in this building giving a speech to the state assembly when he received a telegram informing him he'd won the 1860 Presidential Election.

Next day went to the Columbus Art Museum and I was trying to get that picture of Morning Sun by Edward Hopper but this hipster couple stood in front of it chatting for honestly more than 10 minutes so I left and came back later. Also there was a cool exhibit from 2023 about "Final Girls" in horror slasher movies. Slumber Party Martyrs by Robin F. Williams was my favorite.

We also went to a Field of Corn, except the corn was made out of concrete. Andrew climbed and stood on top of one without killing himself and it was very impressive.

Day of the eclipse we left for the National Museum of the US Air Force super early and hit no traffic, and were directed to park surprisingly close to the exit. Got to see literally dozens of planes from pre-WWI up through current models (was not expecting to see an actual F-22 on display). Also the B2 stealth bomber is enormous in person and really does look otherworldly compared to "normal" planes.

The sunlight started getting noticeably dimmer about a quarter to 3 PM, and the rate of dimming felt exponential. Things started getting dark very quickly in the last minute. The museum was having a huge event for the day so there were maybe a few thousand people there with us. I thought that would take away from the experience and be distracting, but it kinda made the whole thing even more thrilling to hear a massive crowd around us cheer and shout when the sun disappeared. Totality honestly looked fake. It looked like a hole was punched in an old CRT computer monitor. The air got noticeably colder and you could see stars in the sky. The entire horizon looked like a sunset in every direction at the same time. Honestly got emotional and lost my breath in a physiological reaction; it felt like I got punched in the gut without the pain. About 2 1/2 minutes later a very bright pinpoint appeared in the bottom right quadrant and the sun started coming back. A few minutes after that, looking to the northeast where the shadow continued it just looked like a massive thunderstorm without any clouds.

Managed to beat the crowd out of the museum parking grounds and hit zero traffic on the 1-hour drive back to Columbus. The eclipse was even still happening when we got back to the house.

Other than the earthquake (which, who the fuck saw that coming), this trip went exactly as I planned for, which is such a relief considering how much I was stressing myself out over the weather in the week beforehand.

#life

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eretzyisrael · 1 month

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by Corey Walker

Far fewer protesters showed up to anti-Israel demonstrations outside of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago this week than expected, according to reports.

Only a few thousand demonstrators showed up to the “March on the DNC 2024,” falling far short of organizers’ expected turnout of 30,000 to 40,000 people.

Reporters covering the DNC, where the Democratic Party’s 2024 presidential nominee will be announced this week, shared pictures of large piles of unclaimed signs sitting on the ground. The signs read “Victory to the Palestinian Resistance” and “End US Aid to Israel!”

The majority of anti-Israel protesters outside the DNC marched “peacefully,” according to reports. However, some activists breached the outer security perimeter of the conference, which was being held in the United Center. The police scuffled with the agitators and repelled them from the premises.

“At no point was the inner perimeter breached, and there was no threat to any of the protectees,” the Chicago Police Department posted on X/Twitter.

Rally participants bellowed chants accusing US President Joe Biden and his vice president, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, of supporting a so-called “genocide” in Gaza. Protesters are demanding that the US government cease all aid to Israel and freeze weapons transfers to the Jewish state.

Some demonstrators suggest that Biden’s decision not to run for re-election has mollified many pro-Palestinian voices. After ending his presidential campaign, Biden immediately endorsed Harris for president.

“If it was still Biden, I think there would be a lot more people out here. It’s a very different attitude. I think people are hoping against hope that she’ll do the right thing,” a protester told the Christian Science Monitor, referring to Harris.

“We were hoping that there’d be more,” another protester added.

#dnc #democratic national convention #protesters #kamala harris #joe biden

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jeffhirsch · 1 month

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Seasonality Works! Trade the Cycles & Profit from History

Source: Super Boom (April 2011) by Jeffrey A. Hirsch, Fig. 1.3 p12, 500+ Percent Moves Follow Inflation

Earlier this month when we signed off on the final page proofs and sent the 2025 Stock Trader’s Almanac to press, I took pause to reflect upon the historic seasonal research my late father and founder of the Almanac, Yale Hirsch, accomplished and that we now continue. When Yale published the 1st edition of the iconic Stock Trader’s Almanac in 1968 who would have thought that many of the patterns and trends would still be working today? There have been changes and updates. Some trends have gone to the indicator graveyard while new patterns have emerged.

Perhaps the most quintessential Almanac pattern ever just completed for the second time in Almanac history. Remember my Super Boom forecast for Dow 38820 published in 2011

Look at this chart of the 4-Year Presidential Election Cycle! We first sent this chart to members in July 2021. It guided us through the covid bull market, called the midterm bear, pre-election year bull and current election year strength.

The market continues to follow the trends of our seasonal and 4-year cycle patterns we track and monitor. In our July Outlook, we maintained our bullish outlook for 2024, but cautioned that the market was possibly due for some mean reversion (a pullback) once NASDAQ’s 12-Day Midyear Rally ended in mid-July. NASDAQ did top out on July 10 while DJIA and S&P 500 topped about one week later.

The market has recovered in line with historical election year strength in August, but the correction is not likely over. With President Biden stepping aside our Open Field election year is back in play. This does not mean we are heading into the red for the year, but it does suggest the market may continue to struggle over the next few months during the seasonal weak period and leading up to this now more uncertain election. But remember since 1952 there have been “Only Two Losses Last 7 Months of Election Years” (page 80 STA 2024). Any potential September/October market weakness could set up a solid Q4, end-of-year rally, most likely beginning after Election Day.

For over five decades, top traders, investors and money managers have relied upon the Stock Trader’s Almanac. The 2025, 58th Annual Edition shows you the cycles, trends, and patterns you need to know in order to trade and invest with reduced risk and for maximum profit.

Limited time offer available now! Get the 2024 & 2025 Stock Trader's Almanacs for Free, while 2024 supplies last! Subscribe to my digital service, Almanac Investor, now and get the 2024 and 2025 Stock Trader’s Almanacs as free bonuses. Receive the 2024 STA now and be first to get the 2025 edition this fall hot off the press!

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butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway · 1 month

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I'm going to start doing election/candidate analysis and reporting, because it's something I can do that makes me feel less helpless and angry right now. Focuses the mind.

Some polls:

To be clear, I will cover all these topics for each Nov 2024 Presidential candidate on the ballot in order of ranking [most people's No. 1 priority to fewest people's No. 1 priority] so nothing will get skipped.

I'll break down candidate groups by current political/party affiliation [and will discuss any relevant past affiliations]. I'll also discuss any available/involved party/political group platforms [in conversation with their candidate if they have one on the ballot].

I'll do my best to cite sources and contextualize, but I will also be transparent about my biases. I highly recommend people who plan to monitor this series do so only as a **starting** place for their candidate research. What I'm doing is essentially a lit review, putting the candidates/groups involved in the election, their policies, and their pasts in conversation with each other and with our current moment. Please do not presume it to be comprehensive or exclusive in that.

If I missed any valued areas, or if you're not sure where yours goes, feel free to add it in the comments or tags for me.

#democracy and dual power #<- new tag for this stuff #no promises i'll be consistent about that lol but i'll do my best

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ridenwithbiden · 5 months

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26 MINUTE READ (w/o ads)

APRIL 30, 2024 7:00 AM EDT

Donald Trump thinks he’s identified a crucial mistake of his first term: He was too nice.

We’ve been talking for more than an hour on April 12 at his fever-dream palace in Palm Beach. Aides lurk around the perimeter of a gilded dining room overlooking the manicured lawn. When one nudges me to wrap up the interview, I bring up the many former Cabinet officials who refuse to endorse Trump this time. Some have publicly warned that he poses a danger to the Republic. Why should voters trust you, I ask, when some of the people who observed you most closely do not?

As always, Trump punches back, denigrating his former top advisers. But beneath the typical torrent of invective, there is a larger lesson he has taken away. “I let them quit because I have a heart. I don’t want to embarrass anybody,” Trump says. “I don’t think I’ll do that again. From now on, I’ll fire.”

Six months from the 2024 presidential election, Trump is better positioned to win the White House than at any point in either of his previous campaigns. He leads Joe Biden by slim margins in most polls, including in several of the seven swing states likely to determine the outcome. But I had not come to ask about the election, the disgrace that followed the last one, or how he has become the first former—and perhaps future—American President to face a criminal trial. I wanted to know what Trump would do if he wins a second term, to hear his vision for the nation, in his own words.

Trump remains the same guy, with the same goals and grievances. But in person, if anything, he appears more assertive and confident. “When I first got to Washington, I knew very few people,” he says. “I had to rely on people.” Now he is in charge. The arranged marriage with the timorous Republican Party stalwarts is over; the old guard is vanquished, and the people who remain are his people. Trump would enter a second term backed by a slew of policy shops staffed by loyalists who have drawn up detailed plans in service of his agenda, which would concentrate the powers of the state in the hands of a man whose appetite for power appears all but insatiable. “I don’t think it’s a big mystery what his agenda would be,” says his close adviser Kellyanne Conway. “But I think people will be surprised at the alacrity with which he will take action.”

Every election is billed as a national turning point. This time that rings true. To supporters, the prospect of Trump 2.0, unconstrained and backed by a disciplined movement of true believers, offers revolutionary promise. To much of the rest of the nation and the world, it represents an alarming risk. A second Trump term could bring “the end of our democracy,” says presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, “and the birth of a new kind of authoritarian presidential order.”

Trump steps onto the patio at Mar-a-Lago near dusk. The well-heeled crowd eating Wagyu steaks and grilled branzino pauses to applaud as he takes his seat. On this gorgeous evening, the club is a MAGA mecca. Billionaire donor Steve Wynn is here. So is Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who is dining with the former President after a joint press conference proposing legislation to prevent noncitizens from voting. Their voting in federal elections is already illegal, and extremely rare, but remains a Trumpian fixation that the embattled Speaker appeared happy to co-sign in exchange for the political cover that standing with Trump provides.

At the moment, though, Trump’s attention is elsewhere. With an index finger, he swipes through an iPad on the table to curate the restaurant’s soundtrack. The playlist veers from Sinead O’Connor to James Brown to The Phantom of the Opera. And there’s a uniquely Trump choice: a rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” sung by a choir of defendants imprisoned for attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, interspersed with a recording of Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. This has become a staple of his rallies, converting the ultimate symbol of national unity into a weapon of factional devotion.

The spectacle picks up where his first term left off. The events of Jan. 6, during which a pro-Trump mob attacked the center of American democracy in an effort to subvert the peaceful transfer of power, was a profound stain on his legacy. Trump has sought to recast an insurrectionist riot as an act of patriotism. “I call them the J-6 patriots,” he says. When I ask whether he would consider pardoning every one of them, he says, “Yes, absolutely.” As Trump faces dozens of felony charges, including for election interference, conspiracy to defraud the United States, willful retention of national-security secrets, and falsifying business records to conceal hush-money payments, he has tried to turn legal peril into a badge of honor.

In a second term, Trump’s influence on American democracy would extend far beyond pardoning powers. Allies are laying the groundwork to restructure the presidency in line with a doctrine called the unitary executive theory, which holds that many of the constraints imposed on the White House by legislators and the courts should be swept away in favor of a more powerful Commander in Chief.

In our Mar-a-Lago interview, Trump says he might fire U.S. Attorneys who refuse his orders to prosecute someone: “It would depend on the situation.” He’s told supporters he would seek retribution against his enemies in a second term. Would that include Fani Willis, the Atlanta-area district attorney who charged him with election interference, or Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan DA in the Stormy Daniels case, who Trump has previously said should be prosecuted? Trump demurs but offers no promises. “No, I don’t want to do that,” he says, before adding, “We’re gonna look at a lot of things. What they’ve done is a terrible thing.”

Trump has also vowed to appoint a “real special prosecutor” to go after Biden. “I wouldn’t want to hurt Biden,” he tells me. “I have too much respect for the office.” Seconds later, though, he suggests Biden’s fate may be tied to an upcoming Supreme Court ruling on whether Presidents can face criminal prosecution for acts committed in office. “If they said that a President doesn’t get immunity,” says Trump, “then Biden, I am sure, will be prosecuted for all of his crimes.” (Biden has not been charged with any, and a House Republican effort to impeach him has failed to unearth evidence of any crimes or misdemeanors, high or low.)

Such moves would be potentially catastrophic for the credibility of American law enforcement, scholars and former Justice Department leaders from both parties say. “If he ordered an improper prosecution, I would expect any respectable U.S. Attorney to say no,” says Michael McConnell, a former U.S. appellate judge appointed by President George W. Bush. “If the President fired the U.S. Attorney, it would be an enormous firestorm.” McConnell, now a Stanford law professor, says the dismissal could have a cascading effect similar to the Saturday Night Massacre, when President Richard Nixon ordered top DOJ officials to remove the special counsel investigating Watergate. Presidents have the constitutional right to fire U.S. Attorneys, and typically replace their predecessors’ appointees upon taking office. But discharging one specifically for refusing a President’s order would be all but unprecedented.

Trump’s radical designs for presidential power would be felt throughout the country. A main focus is the southern border. Trump says he plans to sign orders to reinstall many of the same policies from his first term, such as the Remain in Mexico program, which requires that non-Mexican asylum seekers be sent south of the border until their court dates, and Title 42, which allows border officials to expel migrants without letting them apply for asylum. Advisers say he plans to cite record border crossings and fentanyl- and child-trafficking as justification for reimposing the emergency measures. He would direct federal funding to resume construction of the border wall, likely by allocating money from the military budget without congressional approval. The capstone of this program, advisers say, would be a massive deportation operation that would target millions of people. Trump made similar pledges in his first term, but says he plans to be more aggressive in a second. “People need to be deported,” says Tom Homan, a top Trump adviser and former acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “No one should be off the table.”

For an operation of that scale, Trump says he would rely mostly on the National Guard to round up and remove undocumented migrants throughout the country. “If they weren’t able to, then I’d use [other parts of] the military,” he says. When I ask if that means he would override the Posse Comitatus Act—an 1878 law that prohibits the use of military force on civilians—Trump seems unmoved by the weight of the statute. “Well, these aren’t civilians,” he says. “These are people that aren’t legally in our country.” He would also seek help from local police and says he would deny funding for jurisdictions that decline to adopt his policies. “There’s a possibility that some won’t want to participate,” Trump says, “and they won’t partake in the riches.”

As President, Trump nominated three Supreme Court Justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, and he claims credit for his role in ending a constitutional right to an abortion. At the same time, he has sought to defuse a potent campaign issue for the Democrats by saying he wouldn’t sign a federal ban. In our interview at Mar-a-Lago, he declines to commit to vetoing any additional federal restrictions if they came to his desk. More than 20 states now have full or partial abortion bans, and Trump says those policies should be left to the states to do what they want, including monitoring women’s pregnancies. “I think they might do that,” he says. When I ask whether he would be comfortable with states prosecuting women for having abortions beyond the point the laws permit, he says, “It’s irrelevant whether I’m comfortable or not. It’s totally irrelevant, because the states are going to make those decisions.” President Biden has said he would fight state anti-abortion measures in court and with regulation.

Since leaving office, Trump has tried to engineer a caucus of the compliant, clearing primary fields in Senate and House races. His hope is that GOP majorities replete with MAGA diehards could rubber-stamp his legislative agenda and nominees. Representative Jim Banks of Indiana, a former RSC chairman and the GOP nominee for the state’s open Senate seat, recalls an August 2022 RSC planning meeting with Trump at his residence in Bedminster, N.J. As the group arrived, Banks recalls, news broke that Mar-a-Lago had been raided by the FBI. Banks was sure the meeting would be canceled. Moments later, Trump walked through the doors, defiant and pledging to run again. “I need allies there when I’m elected,” Banks recalls Trump saying. The difference in a second Trump term, Banks says now, “is he’s going to have the backup in Congress that he didn’t have before.”

That’s one reason America’s traditional allies were horrified when Trump recently said at a campaign rally that Russia could “do whatever the hell they want” to a NATO country he believes doesn’t spend enough on collective defense. That wasn’t idle bluster, Trump tells me. “If you’re not going to pay, then you’re on your own,” he says. Trump has long said the alliance is ripping the U.S. off. Former NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg credited Trump’s first-term threat to pull out of the alliance with spurring other members to add more than $100 billion to their defense budgets.

But an insecure NATO is as likely to accrue to Russia’s benefit as it is to America’s. President Vladimir Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine looks to many in Europe and the U.S. like a test of his broader vision to reconstruct the Soviet empire. Under Biden and a bipartisan Congress, the U.S. has sent more than $100 billion to Ukraine to defend itself. It’s unlikely Trump would extend the same support to Kyiv. After Orban visited Mar-a-Lago in March, he said Trump “wouldn’t give a penny” to Ukraine. “I wouldn’t give unless Europe starts equalizing,” Trump hedges in our interview. “If Europe is not going to pay, why should we pay? They’re much more greatly affected. We have an ocean in between us. They don’t.” (E.U. nations have given more than $100 billion in aid to Ukraine as well.)

Trump has historically been reluctant to criticize or confront Putin. He sided with the Russian autocrat over his own intelligence community when it asserted that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. Even now, Trump uses Putin as a foil for his own political purposes. When I asked Trump why he has not called for the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been unjustly held on spurious charges in a Moscow prison for a year, Trump says, “I guess because I have so many other things I’m working on.” Gershkovich should be freed, he adds, but he doubts it will happen before the election. “The reporter should be released and he will be released,” Trump tells me. “I don’t know if he’s going to be released under Biden. I would get him released.”

America’s Asian allies, like its European ones, may be on their own under Trump. Taiwan’s Foreign Minister recently said aid to Ukraine was critical in deterring Xi from invading the island. Communist China’s leaders “have to understand that things like that can’t come easy,” Trump says, but he declines to say whether he would come to Taiwan’s defense.

Trump is less cryptic on current U.S. troop deployments in Asia. If South Korea doesn’t pay more to support U.S. troops there to deter Kim Jong Un’s increasingly belligerent regime to the north, Trump suggests the U.S. could withdraw its forces. “We have 40,000 troops that are in a precarious position,” he tells TIME. (The number is actually 28,500.) “Which doesn’t make any sense. Why would we defend somebody? And we’re talking about a very wealthy country.”

Transactional isolationism may be the main strain of Trump’s foreign policy, but there are limits. Trump says he would join Israel’s side in a confrontation with Iran. “If they attack Israel, yes, we would be there,” he tells me. He says he has come around to the now widespread belief in Israel that a Palestinian state existing side by side in peace is increasingly unlikely. “There was a time when I thought two-state could work,” he says. “Now I think two-state is going to be very, very tough.”

Yet even his support for Israel is not absolute. He’s criticized Israel’s handling of its war against Hamas, which has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza, and has called for the nation to “get it over with.” When I ask whether he would consider withholding U.S. military aid to Israel to push it toward winding down the war, he doesn’t say yes, but he doesn’t rule it out, either. He is sharply critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, once a close ally. “I had a bad experience with Bibi,” Trump says. In his telling, a January 2020 U.S. operation to assassinate a top Iranian general was supposed to be a joint attack until Netanyahu backed out at the last moment. “That was something I never forgot,” he says. He blames Netanyahu for failing to prevent the Oct. 7 attack, when Hamas militants infiltrated southern Israel and killed nearly 1,200 people amid acts of brutality including burning entire families alive and raping women and girls. “It happened on his watch,” Trump says.

On the second day of Trump’s New York trial on April 17, I stand behind the packed counter of the Sanaa Convenience Store on 139th Street and Broadway, waiting for Trump to drop in for a postcourt campaign stop. He chose the bodega for its history. In 2022, one of the store’s clerks fatally stabbed a customer who attacked him. Bragg, the Manhattan DA, charged the clerk with second-degree murder. (The charges were later dropped amid public outrage over video footage that appeared to show the clerk acting in self-defense.) A baseball bat behind the counter alludes to lingering security concerns. When Trump arrives, he asks the store’s co-owner, Maad Ahmed, a Yemeni immigrant, about safety. “You should be allowed to have a gun,” Trump tells Ahmed. “If you had a gun, you’d never get robbed.”

On the campaign trail, Trump uses crime as a cudgel, painting urban America as a savage hell-scape even though violent crime has declined in recent years, with homicides sinking 6% in 2022 and 13% in 2023, according to the FBI. When I point this out, Trump tells me he thinks the data, which is collected by state and local police departments, is rigged. “It’s a lie,” he says. He has pledged to send the National Guard into cities struggling with crime in a second term—possibly without the request of governors—and plans to approve Justice Department grants only to cities that adopt his preferred policing methods like stop-and-frisk.

To critics, Trump’s preoccupation with crime is a racial dog whistle. In polls, large numbers of his supporters have expressed the view that antiwhite racism now represents a greater problem in the U.S. than the systemic racism that has long afflicted Black Americans. When I ask if he agrees, Trump does not dispute this position. “There is a definite antiwhite feeling in the country,” he tells TIME, “and that can’t be allowed either.” In a second term, advisers say, a Trump Administration would rescind Biden’s Executive Orders designed to boost diversity and racial equity.

Trump’s ability to campaign for the White House in the midst of an unprecedented criminal trial is the product of a more professional campaign operation that has avoided the infighting that plagued past versions. “He has a very disciplined team around him,” says Representative Elise Stefanik of New York. “That is an indicator of how disciplined and focused a second term will be.” That control now extends to the party writ large. In 2016, the GOP establishment, having failed to derail Trump’s campaign, surrounded him with staff who sought to temper him. Today the party’s permanent class have either devoted themselves to the gospel of MAGA or given up. Trump has cleaned house at the Republican National Committee, installing handpicked leaders—including his daughter-in-law—who have reportedly imposed loyalty tests on prospective job applicants, asking whether they believe the false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen. (The RNC has denied there is a litmus test.) Trump tells me he would have trouble hiring anyone who admits Biden won: “I wouldn’t feel good about it.”

Policy groups are creating a government-in-waiting full of true believers. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 has drawn up plans for legislation and Executive Orders as it trains prospective personnel for a second Trump term. The Center for Renewing America, led by Russell Vought, Trump’s former director of the Office of Management and Budget, is dedicated to disempowering the so-called administrative state, the collection of bureaucrats with the power to control everything from drug-safety determinations to the contents of school lunches. The America First Policy Institute is a research haven of pro-Trump right-wing populists. America First Legal, led by Trump’s immigration adviser Stephen Miller, is mounting court battles against the Biden Administration.

The goal of these groups is to put Trump’s vision into action on day one. “The President never had a policy process that was designed to give him what he actually wanted and campaigned on,” says Vought. “[We are] sorting through the legal authorities, the mechanics, and providing the momentum for a future Administration.” That includes a litany of boundary-pushing right-wing policies, including slashing Department of Justice funding and cutting climate and environmental regulations.

Trump’s campaign says he would be the final decision-maker on which policies suggested by these organizations would get implemented. But at the least, these advisers could form the front lines of a planned march against what Trump dubs the Deep State, marrying bureaucratic savvy to their leader’s anti-bureaucratic zeal. One weapon in Trump’s second-term “War on Washington” is a wonky one: restoring the power of impoundment, which allowed Presidents to withhold congressionally appropriated funds. Impoundment was a favorite maneuver of Nixon, who used his authority to freeze funding for subsidized housing and the Environmental Protection Agency. Trump and his allies plan to challenge a 1974 law that prohibits use of the measure, according to campaign policy advisers.

Another inside move is the enforcement of Schedule F, which allows the President to fire nonpolitical government officials and which Trump says he would embrace. “You have some people that are protected that shouldn’t be protected,” he says. A senior U.S. judge offers an example of how consequential such a move could be. Suppose there’s another pandemic, and President Trump wants to push the use of an untested drug, much as he did with hydroxychloroquine during COVID-19. Under Schedule F, if the drug’s medical reviewer at the Food and Drug Administration refuses to sign off on its use, Trump could fire them, and anyone else who doesn’t approve it. The Trump team says the President needs the power to hold bureaucrats accountable to voters. “The mere mention of Schedule F,” says Vought, “ensures that the bureaucracy moves in your direction.”

It can be hard at times to discern Trump’s true intentions. In his interviews with TIME, he often sidestepped questions or answered them in contradictory ways. There’s no telling how his ego and self-destructive behavior might hinder his objectives. And for all his norm-breaking, there are lines he says he won’t cross. When asked if he would comply with all orders upheld by the Supreme Court, Trump says he would.

But his policy preoccupations are clear and consistent. If Trump is able to carry out a fraction of his goals, the impact could prove as transformative as any presidency in more than a century. “He’s in full war mode,” says his former adviser and occasional confidant Stephen Bannon. Trump’s sense of the state of the country is “quite apocalyptic,” Bannon says. “That’s where Trump’s heart is. That’s where his obsession is.”

These obsessions could once again push the nation to the brink of crisis. Trump does not dismiss the possibility of political violence around the election. “If we don’t win, you know, it depends,” he tells TIME. “It always depends on the fairness of the election.” When I ask what he meant when he baselessly claimed on Truth Social that a stolen election “allows for the termination of all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” Trump responded by denying he had said it. He then complained about the “Biden-inspired” court case he faces in New York and suggested that the “fascists” in America’s government were its greatest threat. “I think the enemy from within, in many cases, is much more dangerous for our country than the outside enemies of China, Russia, and various others,” he tells me.

Toward the end of our conversation at Mar-a-Lago, I ask Trump to explain another troubling comment he made: that he wants to be dictator for a day. It came during a Fox News town hall with Sean Hannity, who gave Trump an opportunity to allay concerns that he would abuse power in office or seek retribution against political opponents. Trump said he would not be a dictator—“except for day one,” he added. “I want to close the border, and I want to drill, drill, drill.”

Trump says that the remark “was said in fun, in jest, sarcastically.” He compares it to an infamous moment from the 2016 campaign, when he encouraged the Russians to hack and leak Hillary Clinton’s emails. In Trump’s mind, the media sensationalized those remarks too. But the Russians weren’t joking: among many other efforts to influence the core exercise of American democracy that year, they hacked the Democratic National Committee’s servers and disseminated its emails through WikiLeaks.

Whether or not he was kidding about bringing a tyrannical end to our 248-year experiment in democracy, I ask him, Don’t you see why many Americans see such talk of dictatorship as contrary to our most cherished principles? Trump says no. Quite the opposite, he insists. “I think a lot of people like it.” —With reporting by Leslie Dickstein, Simmone Shah, and Julia Zorthian

#TIME #Time Magazine #Trump #Project 2025

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