JD Vance, Trump’s VP pick, once called him a ‘moral disaster,’ and possibly ‘America’s Hitler’

 https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/15/politics/kfile-jd-vance-comments-trump/index.html?iid=cnn_buildContentRecirc_end_recirc

Vance also said that racism and xenophobia played a role in Trump’s rise.

“There is definitely an element of Donald Trump’s support that has its basis in racism, xenophobia, but a lot of these folks are just really hardworking people who are struggling in really important ways,” Vance said in a September 2016 “PBS NewsHour” Interview.

“Definitely some people who voted for Trump were racist and they voted for him for racist reasons,” Vance said in an interview at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics.

Speaking with CNN in October 2016, Vance criticized Trump for “actively antagonizing” Black voters, claiming this tactic was a long-standing Republican strategy.

“It’s not just that Donald Trump doesn’t speak to issues of special concern of minority voters or Black voters, it’s that he seems to like actively antagonizing a lot of the Black voters,” Vance said during a panel discussion.

THE TRUMP–VANCE TICKET IS A DISASTER FOR AMERICA’S DEMOCRACY AND ISRAEL’S FUTURE

 https://jstreet.org/press-releases/the-trump-vance-ticket-is-a-disaster-for-americas-democracy-and-israels-future/

“With Trump and Vance in the White House, the Israeli right would have full US support for their wildest fantasies – a judicial coup, West Bank annexation, settlements in Gaza and military confrontations with both Hezbollah and Iran,” said J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami. “Vance will enthusiastically help bulldoze the democratic foundations of our union, embed antisemitic conspiracy theories deeper into our society, and hand victory to Putin in Ukraine. We cannot afford to have Donald Trump and JD Vance in the White House.”

Where JD Vance stands on Ukraine, Israel and China

 https://thehill.com/policy/international/4773538-jd-vance-foreign-policy/

In a speech delivered at the Quincy Institute in May, Vance addressed the contradiction between his conditional support for Ukraine — “ I think we should stop supporting the Ukrainian conflict,” he said — and unconditional support for Israel. 

Trump’s Judge Cannon Found Her Legal Tutor: Clarence Thomas

 https://www.thedailybeast.com/was-it-a-mistake-to-use-a-special-counsel-to-prosecute-donald-trump?ref=home?ref=home

While Judge Cannon’s opinion is weak and might even appear to the cynical as a well-timed audition for an appointment to the Supreme Court should Trump win, there is an aspect of her decision that raises the important question of why DOJ needs any form of special counsel.

We Should Condemn Violence. And Trumpism

 https://www.newsweek.com/we-should-condemn-violence-trumpism-opinion-1925422

There is a narrative being sold that this attempted assassination was the result of unfair or misapplied rhetoric against Trump, as if he is just some peaceful character or a Republican of times past, who we simply have differences of opinion with. Don't buy into it.

What Trump said with his ‘very fine people’ comments vs. what he meant

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/06/28/what-trump-said-with-his-very-fine-people-comments-vs-what-he-meant/

It is true, as the Snopes headline indicates, that Trump said that he was not talking about the white nationalists when offering praise for some of the participants in Unite the Right. But as The Washington Post’s Fact Checker pointed out in a 2020 assessment of the controversy, it’s not clear that there were any participants who weren’t allied with the white nationalist elements that announced the rally in the first place. The Washington Post reported Aug. 10 that there would be a “white nationalist rally” in Charlottesville; does someone who attends a white nationalist rally deserve rhetorical distance from white nationalism?

Donald Trump’s New Mr. Nice Guy Act Doesn’t Even Last a Day

 https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trumps-new-unity-platform-doesnt-even-last-a-day?ref=home?ref=home

“As we move forward in Uniting our Nation after the horrific events on Saturday, this dismissal of the Lawless Indictment in Florida should be just the first step, followed quickly by the dismissal of ALL the Witch Hunts — The January 6th Hoax in Washington, D.C., the Manhattan D.A.’s Zombie Case, the New York A.G. Scam, Fake Claims about a woman I never met (a decades old photo in a line with her then husband does not count)....

Why Is Snopes.com Helping Trump Clean Up “Very Fine People”?

https://newrepublic.com/article/183082/nopes-trump-very-fine-people 

According to Trump, there were “very fine people” in both of the two groups, which included the people who went to the rally organized by neo-Nazis and people who protested the neo-Nazis. Those were your “sides.” Trump, here, said that within the group of people at the neo-Nazi rally, where “the night before” they were marching with tiki torches and chanting “Jews will not replace us,” there were “very fine people.”

What to know about Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate

 https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/15/politics/jd-vance-trump-vp-what-to-know/index.html

Other tweets liked by Vance said Trump committed “serial sexual assault,” called him “one of USA’s most hated, villainous, douchey celebs,” and, in a since-removed set of tweets, harshly criticized Trump’s response to the deadly 2017 White nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia — something Vance now defends Trump over.

KFile also previously reported that Vance deleted past anti-Trump tweets ahead of his announcement in July 2021 that he would run for the open Ohio Senate seat. Vance in February 2016 privately wondered whether Trump was “America’s Hitler,” and a few months later wrote in The Atlantic that Trump was “cultural heroin.”

Vance also said he even contemplated voting for Clinton in 2016, but ultimately said he would vote for independent candidate Evan McMullin.

Aileen Cannon’s nuking of the Trump documents case continues her trend of embracing long-shot legal theories

 https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/15/politics/aileen-cannon-handling-trump-classified-documents-case-mar-a-lago/index.html

After a year of court hearings examining far-fetched theories about presidential classification power, flimsy accusations of prosecutorial misconduct and heated debates about redacting court filings, Judge Aileen Cannon ended Jack Smith’s classified documents prosecution of former President Donald Trump on Monday for a more foundational – but nonetheless astonishing – reason.

She said Smith was unconstitutionally appointed as special counsel and that the funding of his office also violated the law. Her dismissal of the case on that rationale is at odds with several other court rulings from judges across the country that have upheld the Justice Department’s use of special counsels to spearhead politically sensitive investigations.

J.D. Vance’s journey from a ‘Never Trump’ guy to Trump’s VP pick

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/15/jd-vance-vp-pick-trump/

“I can’t stomach Trump,” Vance told NPR that August. “I’m a ‘Never Trump’ guy. I never liked him,” Vance told Charlie Rose in October 2016, weeks before Trump was elected president. That same year, he compared Trump’s candidacy to cultural heroin and reportedly told a former roommate that Trump was either a “cynical asshole” or “America’s Hitler.”

Unity’ Doesn’t Mean Covering Up the Truth About Donald Trump

 https://www.thedailybeast.com/unity-doesnt-mean-covering-up-the-truth-about-donald-trump?ref=home?ref=home

About his speech, Trump, showing his new softer side said, “I had all prepared an extremely tough speech, really good, all about the corrupt, horrible administration.” Then he added, “But I threw it away.” He then said, “I want to unite our country.” Which is an idea that held up during his conversation with with New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin all the way until when asked about how he would change his tone that policy differences were, in Goodwin’s words, “the stumbling block.”

But has he changed? As soon as the dismissal of the classified documents case was announced Monday, Trump took to Truth Social to call for the dismissal of all the other charges and cases he faces, overseen by a “Democrat Justice Department.”

Thomas uses Trump immunity ruling to question Jack Smith appointment

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/07/01/clarence-thomas-jack-smith-special-counsel-immunity/

Thomas was weighing in on what is generally considered a far-fetched legal theory pushed by Trump’s attorneys in lower courts and by some conservative legal groups. They argue that Smith was illegally appointed and funded and say the criminal cases against Trump should be dismissed.

Schumer: ‘Misguided’ dismissal of Trump classified docs case ‘must be appealed’

 https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4772736-schumer-trump-classified-documents-dismissed/

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called Florida Judge Aileen Cannon’s dismissal of the felony charges accusing former President Trump of mishandling classified documents “breathtakingly misguided” and called for her ruling to be “appealed immediately.”

“This breathtakingly misguided ruling flies in the face of long-accepted practice and repetitive judicial precedence,” Schumer said in a statement issued shortly after the ruling.