Eric Trump claims Putin could tell Donald Trump was ‘a very strong person’
Former president Donald Trump began his day with a bizarre phone interview on Fox Business in the course of which he referred to Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats as “the n-word”, dismissed climate change as “a thing called weather”, and insisted he would continue running on the supposed theft of the 2020 election despite the host’s suggestion it could hurt the Republicans at the polls.
His excitable morning comes after an event over the weekend, Mr Trump appeared to promise a return to the White House. “With the support of everyone in this room, we will take back the House, we will take back the Senate and we will take back our country,” he said at the “American Freedom Tour” in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. “And then most importantly in 2024, we are going to take back our beautiful White House”.
Following his remarks, Congresswoman Liz Cheney warned that the ex-president could face criminal penalties over the 6 January riot, telling NBC that her select committee is considering whether to recommend criminal punishment for the “kind of supreme dereliction of duty that you saw with President Trump”.
Hardcore Trump ally kicks off re-election campaign
Matt Gaetz, the far-right Florida congressman known for his anti-woke pro-Trump style, his general disgust with Democrats and the “deep state” and his entanglement in a sex trafficking investigation, has announced he will indeed be running for re-election this year.
“It’s choose your fighter time,” he declared to a crowd in Fort Walton Beach this weekend. “I’m your Florida man. I’m ready to take the fight to Washington and I hope you’ll fight with me.”
Read more below:
Andrew Naughtie21 March 2022 17:20
Trump on nuclear deterrence: the n-word
Donald Trump’s musings on Vladimir Putin this morning ranged from the revisionist to the bizarre, but one one of the more worrying moments (given he could conceivably become president again) came when he was asked to discuss Mr Putin’s threats of nuclear force.
Speaking of the US’s nuclear-armed submarine fleet, he proposed: “And you should say, ‘Look, if you mention that word one more time, we’re going to send them over, and we’re gonna be coasting back and forth up and down your coast’.”
Andrew Naughtie21 March 2022 16:50
Trump pressed on whether to run on 2020 “fraud” lie
Donald Trump’s Fox Business interview this morning saw something unusual: a Fox host, Stuart Varney, suggesting that he stop talking about the fictional “theft” of the 2020 election if he wanted the GOP to succeed in 2022 and 2024.
The ex-president, who still talks about what’s known as the “big lie” whenever he can, did not agree:
Andrew Naughtie21 March 2022 16:19
Trump on climate: “just weather”
In a phone interview with Fox News this morning, Donald Trump delivered a characteristically offbeat assessment of the realities of climate change.
“Nobody is more into the climate than I am,” Mr Trump said, calling the Green New Deal a “hoax”. Pressed on whether the climate is changing because of human activity, he responded:
In my opinion, you have a thing called weather and you go up and you go down. If you look into the 1920s they were talking about global freezing. Okay, in other words, if globe was going to freeze, and then they go global warming then they couldn’t use that because the temperatures were actually quite cool, and many different things so that now they just talk about climate change. The climate has always been changing.
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Andrew Naughtie21 March 2022 16:10
Cowboys for Trump founder abandons plan to ride horse to Capitol riot trial
The founder of Cowboys for Trump decided to walk, not ride, to court for his trial on charges that he illegally entered the US Capitol grounds on the day a pro-Trump mob disrupted the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election victory.
Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin, who is set to be the second person tried on charges stemming from the U.S. Capitol riot, arrived outside US District Court in Washington DC on Monday on foot, dressed in a stetson and suit, after driving into the capital with a horse-trailer on the back of his truck.
The New Mexico elected official told NBC News his choice to leave the saddle at home for his first appearance in court was a decision he arrived at out of respect for the court and to avoid creating a “spectacle”.
Read the full story from The Independent’s Megan Sheets and Morgan Lee below.
Johanna Chisholm21 March 2022 15:33
Justice Thomas misses oral arguments due to illness
Justice Clarence Thomas was absent from Supreme Court oral arguments on Monday due to illness.
“Justice Thomas is unable to be present today but will participate in consideration and decision of the cases on the basis of the briefs and the transcripts of oral argument,” Chief Justice John Roberts said, The Hill reported.
The longest-serving member of the US Supreme Court, and the oldest conservative judge on the bench, was hospitalized with an infection on Friday after experiencing flulike symptoms, the court said in a statement.
His illness, they added, was not related to Covid.
Johanna Chisholm21 March 2022 15:06
Trump mocks Lindsey Graham as a ‘progressive’
Once a friend, now a foe. Donald Trump appears to be turning on a select group of Republican politicians who were once deemed as friendly to the former president’s administration.
At a fundraising dinner over the weekend in Florida, Mr Trump mocked longtime supporter Lindsey Graham by labelling him a “progressive”.
“There are a couple of senators. And we have our progressive senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham,” Mr Trump said on Friday during the Lincoln Day fundraising dinner organised by the Palm Beach County Republican Party at Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
Read the full story from The Independent’s Gustaf Kilander below.
Johanna Chisholm21 March 2022 14:33
Sen. Dick Durbin calls out Josh Hawley’s attacks against Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson
Democratic Senator Dick Durbin didn’t hold back when he was asked to comment on Republican Senator Josh Hawley’s attacks against Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson ahead of her Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this week.
During an interview with the Illinois senator on the ABC program This Week, George Stephanopoulos asked him what he thought about Mr Hawley’s tweets that called into question Ms Jackson’s record on sex offenders, which have since been debunked by independent fact-checkers the ABC host adds.
“He’s wrong. He’s inaccurate and unfair in his analysis,” Mr Durbin said in response, adding that Mr Hawley, “was a man who was fist-bumping the murderous mob that descended on the Capitol on January 6th of the last year. He doesn’t have the credibility he thinks he does”.
Watch the full video excerpt below.
Johanna Chisholm 21 March 2022 14:02
ICYMI: Biden is right to investigate Putin’s war crimes. He should investigate American war crimes too
If the US is to have a shred of moral credibility in calling out war crimes in Ukraine, it must also allow international bodies to evaluate the prolific war crimes of the American military, writes The Independent’s Josh Marcus in an opinion piece.
Much as Vladimir Putin alone holds much of the power to end the war in Ukraine, only the US really has the power to allow the American military to be investigated. One of the perks of being a superpower is you get to decide which rules apply to you. But if we want to live in a world where such arbitrary and hypocritical uses of power are a thing of the past — in Ukraine, Afghanistan, or anywhere else — Americans must move beyond half-hearted commitments to international justice.
Josh Marcus, writing in Biden is right to investigate Putin’s war crimes. He should investigate American war crimes too
Read the full voices contribution from The Independent’s Josh Marcus below.
Johanna Chisholm21 March 2022 13:32
How the White House has prepared for attacks on Ketanji Brown Jackson
On Monday, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson will begin the intense vetting process as she seeks to not only become the first Black woman to sit on the nation’s highest court but also the first public defender.
The Senate Judiciary Committee begins confirmation hearings for Ms Jackson’s nomination to the Supreme Court and while Republicans sitting on the committee may be gearing up to grill her over her public record, Democratic heavyweights are readying to counter.
The White House has prepared for any attacks that the judge might be soft on crime, by heralding her law enforcement credentials. And Democratic strategists, like Karen Finney, told The Independent how Republicans’ attacks on Ms Jackson’s high-qualified record can be viewed as an attempt to minimize her many contributions and “put her in a box”.
“I think from the beginning, one of the things that is among the many things that make Judge Jackson, just a remarkable nominee for the Supreme Court is the fact that she has experience in the legal system from different perspectives,” said Ms Finney.
Read the full story from The Independent’s Eric Garcia below.
Johanna Chisholm21 March 2022 13:04
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