Go to Source: ABC News: Politics
Watch Live: Donald Trump Speaks at Minnesota GOP Annual Dinner
Former President Donald Trump will deliver the keynote address at the Minnesota GOP annual dinner on Friday, May 17.
The post Watch Live: Donald Trump Speaks at Minnesota GOP Annual Dinner appeared first on Breitbart.
Go to Source: Breitbart News
Trump speaks in battleground state he vowed to avoid after losing twice
It’s been more than 50 years since a Republican won Minnesota in a presidential election, but former President Trump says he’s got “a really good shot” of breaking the losing streak this November in his 2024 rematch with President Biden.
The former president is in the reliably blue state Friday evening to headline the Minnesota GOP’s annual Lincoln Reagan fundraising dinner.
Trump lost Minnesota by just 1½ points in his 2016 presidential election victory over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Four years ago, he lost the state to President Biden by more than seven points in his unsuccessful re-election campaign.
Ahead of the 2020 election, Trump promised a victory in Minnesota, saying that if he lost, “I’m never coming back.”
Fast-forward four years and Trump is back and once again predicting a victory.
“We think we have a really good shot at Minnesota,” Trump emphasized in an interview Wednesday with KSTP, a local TV station in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. “We have great friendships up there.”
Trump added that he’s “worked hard on Minnesota” and that “Tom Emmer is very much involved,” pointing to the House majority whip.
Emmer, who is joining Trump at the state GOP gala, is chairing the Trump campaign in Minnesota even though the former president and his allies helped sink Emmer’s bid last autumn to become House speaker.
As the Trump and Biden campaigns prepare for battle in seven crucial swing states that decided the 2020 election (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which were narrowly won by Biden, and North Carolina, which Trump carried by a razor-thin margin) and will likely once again in the 2024 rematch, both campaigns see opportunities to expand the map.
WARNING SIGNS FOR TRUMP, BIDEN, AS THEY CAREEN TOWARD DEBATES
Two weekends ago at a closed-door Republican National Committee retreat for top-dollar donors at a resort in Palm Beach, Florida, senior Trump campaign advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita and veteran pollster Tony Fabrizio spotlighted internal surveys that suggested both “Minnesota and Virginia are clearly in play.”
“In both states, Trump finds himself in positions to flip key electoral votes in his favor,” the survey, which was shared with Fox News, emphasizes.
And both states have sizable populations of rural white voters without college degrees who disproportionately support the former president.
Biden’s campaign disagrees that either Minnesota or Virginia are up for grabs.
While noting they are “not taking any state or any vote for granted,” Biden campaign battleground states director Dan Kanninen told reporters last week “we don’t see polls that are six or seven months out from a general election, head-to-head numbers certainly, as any more predictive than a weather report is six or seven months out.”
Kanninen highlighted that the campaign has teams on the ground in both states engaging voters.
“We feel strongly the Biden-Harris coalition in both Minnesota and Virginia, which has been strong in the midterms and off-year elections, will continue to be strong for us in the fall of 2024,” he added.
And Biden campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt, pointing to the president’s current fundraising dominance and ground-game advantage in the key battlegrounds, argued “Trump’s team has so little campaign or infrastructure to speak of they’re resorting to leaking memos that say ‘the polls we paid for show us winning.'”
But Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, who launched a long-shot and unsuccessful primary challenge against the president, insists “Minnesota’s in play.”
Phillips, in an interview this week on Fox News’ “Special Edition,” argued Minnesota’s “like a lot of states that I think a lot of my fellow Democrats don’t want to confess is the reality. … I’m telling my Democratic colleagues who are supporting President Biden, myself included, that there’s a lot of work to do.”
While Trump’s campaign looks for opportunities to expand the map in Minnesota and Virginia, Biden’s campaign appears to be eyeing swing state North Carolina and Florida.
Trump carried the Sunshine State by less than four points in 2020, but two years ago, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and GOP Sen. Marco Rubio each won re-election by nearly 20 points.
LaCivita argued the Biden campaign was playing “a faux game” in both states but insisted Trump has a “real opportunity in expanding the map in Virginia and Minnesota.”
Trump’s stop in Minnesota comes a week after he held a large rally in Wildwood, New Jersey, a red bastion in an overwhelming blue state where no Republican has carried the state in a presidential election in over three decades. Trump lost the state to Biden by 16 points four years ago.
“We’re going to win New Jersey,” Trump vowed at the rally.
Go to Source: Latest Political News on Fox News
Special Counsel urges judge to reject Hunter Biden’s request to delay tax trial
Federal prosecutors are asking a judge to deny Hunter Biden‘s request to delay his upcoming California tax trial in what is expected to be a busy summer for the president’s son, who also faces a separate criminal trial in Delaware.
In his motion, Special Counsel David Weiss said Biden’s attorney, who is representing him in the California and Delaware cases, previously agreed to the trial dates last year.
“No defendant would be afforded a continuance because he wrongly chose to lodge a jurisdictionless appeal, and this defendant should be treated no differently,” the motion states.” Defense counsel offers a handful of other reasons why he wants a trial delay of 77 days, but none of them warrant a continuance. The motion should be denied.”
HUNTER BIDEN INDICTMENT MUDDIES WEISS’ CREDIBILITY AS WHISTLEBLOWERS FEEL VINDICATED: ATTORNEY
Weiss said Biden’s attorney agreed in April 2023 to commence with the trial in Delaware, in which Biden is accused of federal gun charges, despite the tax trial being scheduled to begin on June 20. The Delaware proceeding is expected to begin June 3.
“In his latest effort to delay trial (an application for a continuance), defendant’s lead counsel’s primary reason is the weeklong June 3, 2024, trial in Delaware at which he is one of the lawyers representing the defendant with respect to firearms charges,” the court document reads. “But on March 13, 2024, and again on April 11, 2024, lead counsel told the Delaware court he was able to try the gun case in Delaware on June 3, 2024, with full knowledge that this trial would begin on June 20, 2024.”
On Tuesday, a federal judge rejected a request to delay the gun case until September. U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika said she believes “everyone can get done what needs to get done” by the trial’s start date of June 3.
SHAPLEY ATTORNEY: HUNTER BIDEN PROSECUTOR ‘ALL OVER THE MAP,’ SHOULD TESTIFY TO CONGRESS
Later that day, a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court said the tax case against Biden can also move forward.
In Delaware, Biden is accused of lying about his drug use in October 2018 while filling out a form to buy a gun that he kept for 11 days. He has pleaded not guilty.
In California, he’s charged with three felonies and six misdemeanors over at least $1.4 million in taxes he owed between 2016 and 2019.
A plea agreement reached between Biden and prosecutors was rejected by a judge who was supposed to sign off on it, forcing the case to go to trial.
Go to Source: Latest Political News on Fox News
Mayorkas forced to admit more migrants have crossed US border under Biden than Trump: ‘Several million people’
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Friday admitted that the number of migrants who have crossed the southern border under his watch outpaces that under the Trump administration — but blamed a number of hemispheric factors and a “broken” system for the border crisis.
Mayorkas was asked at an event at The Economic Club in Washington, D.C., about the border crisis, and the historic numbers of migrants the U.S. has been seeing in recent years. There were more than 2.4 million migrant encounters in FY 23, and that mark could be broken in FY 24, although monthly numbers have decreased.
“The number of encounters at the southern border is very high, but it’s very, very important, number one, to contextualize it and, number two, to explain it,” he said. From a context perspective, the world is seeing the greatest level of displacement since at least World War II.”
“So the challenge of migration is not exclusive to the southern border, nor to the Western Hemisphere,” he said. “It is global.”
Mayorkas cited violence, insecurity, poverty, corruption, authoritarian regimes and “extreme weather events” among the reasons for migration across the globe. However, he also said there were additional explanations for why the U.S. was a top destination.
“In our hemisphere, we overcame COVID more rapidly than any other country. We had, in a post-COVID world, 11 million jobs to fill, we are a country of choice as a destination, and one takes those two forces and then one considers the fact that we have an immigration system that is broken fundamentally and we have a level of encounters that we do,” he asserted.
As evidence that the system is broken, Mayorkas said that the average time between an encounter and the adjuciation of an asylum claim is seven years. He was later asked by David Rubenstein, president of the Economic Club, how many people have come across the border since President Biden took office.
“It’s several million people,” Mayorkas said.
Rubenstein asked if it was true that more people have come in under President Biden than former President Trump.
Mayorkas said it was, but said that was in part due to a suppression of migration during the COVID pandemic that followed a significant increase in migration under the last pre-COVID Trump year.
ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS FROM FOREIGN ADVERSARY HIT NEW HIGH AMID NATIONAL SECURITY FEARS
“That is true,” he said. “Now in 2019, there was almost a 100% increase in the number of encounters at the southern border over 2018. The situation in the hemisphere was propelling people to leave their country. 2020 was a period of tremendously suppressed migration throughout the hemisphere and around the world because of the COVID-19 people coming over the border illegally.”
The Biden administration has defended its record on immigration, saying it has combined additional consequences for illegal entry with broader pathways for lawful migration. It has coupled that with calls for reform and additional funding from Congress, including most recently a bipartisan Senate bill that has failed to pick up support. It has also pointed to 720,000 removals or returns of illegal immigrants since May 2023, more than in every full fiscal year since 2011.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE COVERAGE OF THE BORDER SECURITY CRISIS
Mayorkas also noted a recent drop in numbers that showed 179,725 encounters in April, compared to 211,992 in April 2023 and 189,357 in March.
Republicans, however, have blamed the Biden administration for the border crisis, saying it is the rolling back of Trump-era policies that have caused the surge in migration. Republicans in the House have passed their own border security bill, which would restart border wall construction and limit asylum claims, among other inclusions. They also impeached Mayorkas earlier this year, but those articles of impeachment have not been taken up in the Senate for a trial.
Fox News’ Jasmine Baehr contributed to this report.
Go to Source: Latest Political News on Fox News
Breitbart Business Digest: The Real Reason Americans Prefer Trump’s Economy to Biden’s
American progressives are in a state of high dudgeon, gnashing their teeth at the realization that the American people favor Donald Trump’s economy over Joe Biden’s.
The post Breitbart Business Digest: The Real Reason Americans Prefer Trump’s Economy to Biden’s appeared first on Breitbart.
Go to Source: Breitbart News
Nathan Wade’s estranged wife says he’s failed to pay spousal support since resigning from Fani Willis’ office
The estranged wife of ex-special prosecutor Nathan Wade said in a Georgia court filing Friday that Wade claims his resignation from his post at the Fulton County District Attorney’s office “constitutes a substantial change in circumstance, rendering him unable to meet his financial obligation” in their divorce proceedings.
Wade was hired in 2021 by DA Fani Willis to help prosecute the sweeping election interference case against former President Trump. She was accused by Trump and co-defendants of having an “improper” affair with Wade.
On March 15, Wade resigned after a Georgia judge gave Willis an ultimatum of either Willis or Wade quitting the case to move forward.
Joclyn Wade, from whom Nathan Wade filed for divorce, alleged in Friday’s court filing that due to her soon-to-be ex-husband’s “consistent failure to provide accurate or timely discovery or responses in this matter, [she] sought updated financial documentation from Fulton County regarding Plaintiff’s employment as a Special Assistant District Attorney.”
According to the filing, Nathan filed an emergency motion April 8 to modify his payment agreement to Joclyn. The Fulton County Chief Financial Officer revealed Nathan was issued two checks dated three days before filing his motion, totaling $53,000.
“There appears to be no plausible explanation other than Plaintiff’s deceitfulness to justify his pursuit of emergency relief from this Court on April 8, 2024, alleging essentially insolvency when he had received Fifty-Three Thousand Dollars only three (3) days prior,” the document states.
“As additional evidence of Plaintiff’s lack of candor and deceit towards this Court, both checks and corresponding invoices to Fulton County pertain to work performed in October and November of 2023. Plaintiff did not resign until March 15, 2024; thus, it is reasonable to infer that there are further outstanding payments due to Plaintiff that likely have not been disbursed as of the current date.”
On April 4, Jocelyn accused Nathan of failing to pay her court-ordered expenses and said he should be held in “contempt of court.”
She alleged that her husband, with whom an agreement in divorce proceedings was made earlier this year, had neglected to pay court-ordered medical expenses, contributing to a “worsening” health condition that could “necessitate emergency intervention.”
“Defendant urgently requires medical procedures, namely an endoscopy, colonoscopy, and ultrasound, due to severe physical symptoms she has been enduring. These symptoms have significantly impacted her ability to consume most foods, leading to a substantial weight loss, notwithstanding her already slender stature when in better health,” the filing stated.
Nathan broke his silence earlier this month about his “workplace romance” with Fani Willis, which he said was “American as apple pie.”
Nathan spoke to ABC News’ Linsey Davis in his first media interview since resigning from his role as special counsel.
“Workplace romances are as American as apple pie,” Nathan said in an interview that aired on “Good Morning America.” “It happens to everyone. But it happened to the two of us.”
Asked if he regretted the relationship, Nathan said he did because it became the focus of the case.
House Republicans have invited Nathan to interview with the House Judiciary Committee, and chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio said Nathan’s role in the case is too important to “go unquestioned.”
Nathan did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Go to Source: Latest Political News on Fox News
‘Oversight After Dark’: Lawmakers Hurl Insults at Session
To Be Trump’s Running Mate, Defend Him, but Don’t Steal the Show
Fox News invites Trump, Biden campaigns to vice presidential debate
Fox News Media has invited the Trump campaign and the Biden campaign to participate in a vice presidential debate before the 2024 election.
In a letter to the campaigns, Fox News Media said it requested the opportunity to host a vice presidential debate, and said it would be available to do so on July 23, August 13, or dates “following both nomination conventions.”
The proposed vice presidential debate would be hosted by Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, who Fox News Media President Jay Wallace said “are obvious choices as the faces of our political coverage.”
“In addition, FOX News Media has reached out to Virginia State University as a possible location, since it was selected by the CPD as the first historically Black College or University to host a Presidential debate,” the letter said.
“Despite not having a Democratic debate in 2016/2020, FOX News was able to secure town halls with Democratic candidates such as: Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Julian Castro, Amy Klobuchar and Kirsten Gillibrand.
In recognition of FOX News Media’s capabilities and reputation, we cordially extend an invitation to all concerned parties to discuss our proposal,” the letter states.
Former President Trump accepted the invitation Friday afternoon.
“On behalf of the future Vice President of the United States, who I have not yet chosen, we hereby accept the Fox Vice Presidential Debate, hopefully at Virginia State University, the first Historically Black College or University to host a Debate – Date to be determined,” Trump posted on his Truth Social. “I urge Vice President Kamala Harris to agree to this. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Go to Source: Latest Political News on Fox News