NEW -- Kash Patel has hawked a sketchy supplement to undo the effects of the COVID vaccine, promoted the QAnon cult, spread Trump's lies about a stolen election, and already has a 60-name enemies list of Trump critics.

Soon he could the FBI director. Should he win confirmation, it would put an end to the concept of the FBI as a non-political law enforcement agency, and unwind the reforms put in place after the abuses by J. Edgar Hoover.

Republicans and Democrats call him Trump's most dangerous pick.

huffpost.com/entry/trump-ka…

NEW -- Donald Trump incurred no legal consequences for his Jan. 6, 2021, attempted coup, and now members of his mob who assaulted police officers in his name that day will no longer be held accountable, either.

huffpost.com/entry/trump-ja… Trump has lied, repeatedly, about what the people who were sent to prison for this Jan. 6 actions did.

No, grandma taking selfies was not sent to a super max.

Here are some examples of what his "hostages" and "political prisoners" did:

Isn’t the Silk Road drug dealer guy?

Convicted by a jury?

Why is Trump releasing a convicted drug dealer? Oh. He used crypto to do his crimes.

Therefore he had to be freed.

NEW -- Trump went to Valdosta days after Helene hit and claimed he had brought truckloads of food, water and gasoline.

Turns out the only thing he brought that day was traffic from his motorcade, which pulled dozens of cops away from storm cleanup.
huffpost.com/entry/donald-t… “Today I’ve come to Valdosta with large semi-trucks, many of them filled with relief aid, and a tanker truck filled up with gasoline," the coup-attempting former president said, wearing his campaign hat in front of a wrecked furniture store.

The coup-attempting criminal former president is laser focused on the economy, as his campaign aides want, as he talked about Gov. Tim Walz and tampons in boys bathrooms. And then claims that VP Harris "crackled" while inflation increased.

(Ed note: He's talking about her laugh, so maybe he meant "cackle.")

If this actually is a news conference, in that he takes questions, rather than just ramble on endlessly and leave, here are some the reporters down there should be asking: 1) Given that your campaign is attacking Gov. Walz's military record, can you explain your choice to fake bone spurs to avoid the Vietnam War?

1a) Was it appropriate to compare your having unprotected sex with random women to what US soldiers were facing overseas?

The coup-attempting former president, who is also a court-adjudicated sexual abuser*, did not get two minutes into his speech before he introduced a new lie: That he had won Minnesota in 2020.

(Fact check: Uh, yeah. No.)

*Rape, in the common parlance, per a federal judge. Trump is claiming that inflation was high only because of higher oil costs, which he blamed on Biden.

No.

Do people really believe this?

If Trump is elected, why do people believe he will ever leave?

This time he goes in having learned his lessons from Jan 6 — that he needs to fill the top military and nat sec positions with people personally loyal to him from the start, not just in the final weeks.

https://twitter.com/igorbobic/status/1789304589130355009

Reminder that if Trump wins, there is a 99 pct chance he will have a GOP run Senate.

Which will confirm whomever he wants for whatever job he wants. Count on it.

NEW -- Biden's running against a guy who tried to end our democracy last time and talks about ruling as an autocrat next time, so why isn't that the message all day, every day?

Well ... maybe because a scary number of Americans would be okay with that?

huffpost.com/entry/biden-tr… Per Pew:

26% of Americans believe that an autocracy is a “very good” or “somewhat good” form of government, while another 28% think it’s only “somewhat bad.”
15% surveyed said they think military rule would be good, and another 23% believe it would be only “somewhat bad.”

COLLEAGUES -- If you were covering county government, and a deputy you had personally witnessed shoot an unarmed suspect in the back were running for sheriff, you'd mention that killing in every story, correct? If you were covering state government, and someone who had been caught embezzling were running for treasurer, surely that background would make it into every story, yes?

If America allows a person who attempted a violent coup on the ballot in contravention of the U.S. Constitution mainly because he and his followers are threatening to burn it all down, it seems like we’ve already given up on the rule of law and democracy.

https://twitter.com/rpsagainsttrump/status/1741132725862457599

This argument can be applied to pretty much every measure of accountability against Trump.

Can’t impeach him. His followers won’t accept it.

Can’t serve a search warrant. His followers won’t accept it.

Can’t prosecute him. His followers won’t accept it.

A candidates forum at the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas.

Trump to speak around noon PDT.

1) will he praise Hezbollah here?
2) will he disparage Netanyahu?
3) will he pronounce Hamas as Hamas? Or like the chickpea/olive oil spread? RJC chair Norm Coleman kicks it off, says any Republican appearing on stage will be better than Joe Biden.

Also says the Democratic House members who call themselves “The Squad” need a new name.

“I call them the Hamas Caucus.”

NEW -- Donald Trump attempted a coup the first time he was president because he couldn't handle the humiliation of losing.

Why does anything think he will willingly leave the White House, ever, if he is elected a second time?

huffpost.com/entry/trump-se… People who study autocrats and coups for a living worry that he won't. If Americans put him in the Oval Office, he will find a way to remain there for life.

Since it’s now fashionable to write about Devon Archer and Biden’s corruption….

Is Biden operating a hotel/bar five blocks from the White House where he accepts tens of thousands of dollars from foreign and domestic lobbyists currying favor with his administration?

No? Does Biden own country clubs where foreign nationals are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in initiation fees to join?

No?

NEW -- Lost in all the noise Donald Trump generates with WITCH HUNT and THUG and WEAPONIZATION is this simple fact:

His recklessness could have already put the lives of both American intel officers and their foreign sources in danger.

w/ @jbendery

huffpost.com/entry/donald-t… So much of the discussion of all this, going back to the FBI search, has used phrases like "national security" about things like nuclear capabilities and war plans and so on.

Missing has been the source of that information, particularly from abroad.

Trump was barely six feet from Jack Smith, but didn’t call him a thug or a maniac or deranged to his face.

Weird. Trump in Bedminster now again calling Smith all the names he was too afraid to call him to his face.

NEW -- Chris Christie is going after Trump hammer and tong on the secret documents indictment on CNN's town hall.

huffpost.com/entry/chris-ch… “He is voluntarily putting our country through this."

“This is vanity run amok. Ego run amok. ... Everyone is blaming the prosecutors. He did this.”

Trump now at the North Carolina GOP convention, where he’s giving (so far) the same speech this afternoon in Georgia. Right at the point where he starts complaining about getting indicted, he has veered off script to attack Ron DeSantis for a while.

"I got this guy in, so you think he'd have some loyalty."

NEW — Trump in Georgia, hinting at violence:

“Our people are angry.”

“And sometimes you need strength. You have to have strength, more than just normal strength. And we have to get a change because we’re not going to have a country left.”

huffpost.com/entry/trump-ja… Trump on Friday told his millions of followers on his social media site: “SEE YOU IN MIAMI ON TUESDAY!!!” ― reminiscent of his Dec. 19, 2020, Twitter post urging his followers to converge on Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6: “Be there, will be wild!”

In case CNN is looking for questions to ask the coup-attempting former president tonight, here are a few they can use: After your own campaign’s top staff and your own White House staff told you that you had lost the 2020 election, why did you continue to lie and claim that it was “stolen?”

NEW -- AND IMPORTANT -- If a serial killer or a child molester ran for president, we'd expect to see that fact in every news story about him, right?

So why do we almost never read of Trump's attempted coup in stories about *his* presidential campaign?

huffpost.com/entry/donald-t… Donald Trump is the only president who used the threat of violence and then actual violence in an attempt to remain in power — the very definition of a coup.