Lawyers for former President Donald Trump’s defense rested their case Friday after less than three hours of arguments in which they echoed their client in calling the impeachment case built by Democratic House managers an act of “political vengeance” and alleged that Trump’s speech preceding the Capitol riot was merely “ordinary political rhetoric.”
The defense lawyers said that Trump’s words at the Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the violent storming of the Capitol was protected free speech and that convicting him for it would amount to “canceling” him and his supporters.
“This trial is about far more than President Trump. It is about silencing and banning the speech the majority does not agree with,” said Bruce Castor, one of Trump’s lawyers. “It is about canceling 75 million Trump voters and criminalizing political viewpoints. It’s the only existential issue before us. It asks for constitutional cancel culture to take over in the United States Senate.”
Senators are now posing written questions for representatives of both sides for four hours. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the Senate president pro tempore, who is presiding over the trial, will read the questions aloud.
The defense needs only to keep only 34 Republican senators in their camp to avoid a conviction of the former president. So far, few minds of GOP senators appear to have been changed and most still expect Trump to be acquitted.
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The defense focused mainly on process and lawyerly arguments about the Senate trial and the prosecution’s case, as well as political arguments equating common Democratic rhetoric with Trump’s rally speech.
They did not address some of the prosecution’s core arguments, such as offering a complete explanation of Trump’s actions during the violence at the Capitol and a defense of why he didn’t do more to stop it once it was underway.
Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska — who are both seen as swing votes — asked Trump’s lawyers when exactly the former president learned of the Capitol breach and what actions he took to stop it, adding, “please be as detailed as possible.”
Michael van der Veen, one of Trump’s lawyer, said he could not answer the question about his own client’s actions, blaming Democrats and saying he could only “piece together a timeline” from Trump’s tweets.
“That’s the problem with this entire proceeding,” he claimed. “The House managers did zero investigation and the American people deserve a lot better.”
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, another potential Republican vote for conviction, asked if Trump was aware former Vice President Mike Pence was in danger before he sent a tweet saying Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.”
Van der Veen said no, and that the question was “not really relevant,” but Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville told reporters that he told Trump that Pence had been evacuated from the Senate Chamber and was in danger moments before Trump’s tweet was posted.
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Van der Veen seemed to grow increasingly frustrated with senators’ questions, refusing to say whether Trump lost the presidential election — “my judgment is irrelevant” — and declaring the trial “about the most miserable experience I’ve had down here in Washington, D.C.”
His lawyers also argued that Trump could not have incited an assault on the Capitol because it had been preplanned by extremists. “You can’t incite what was already going to happen,” he said.
And they attempted to equate the influence that Democrats argued Trump has with right-wing extremist groups to the support by some Democrats for largely peaceful racial justice protesters over the summer.
Van der Veen also said that extremists “of various different persuasions” had “pre-planned the attack on the Capitol” and “hijacked the event for their own purposes,” including members of Antifa. Multiple news outlets, including NBC News, have said there is no evidence that any members of Antifa were involved in the riots. On the contrary, as Democratic House managers said during their arguments, rioters were overwhelmingly tied to right-wing extremist groups like the Proud Boys.
Echoing language that was once frequently used by his client, van der Veen blasted the Democrats’ impeachment case against Trump as an “unjust and blatantly unconstitutional act of political vengeance” and a divisive “politically motivated witch hunt.”
And he repeatedly argued Trump was merely encouraging supporters to make sure their lawmakers were faithfully conducting a proper certification of the Electoral College Vote count.
“Far from promoting insurrection,” Van der Veen said, “the president’s remarks…explicitly encouraged those in attendance (at the rally) to exercise their rights peacefully and patriotically.”
Castor said Trump’s pugilistic rhetoric about members of Congress was merely about encouraging primary challenges to Republican lawmakers who he thought weren’t fighting hard enough.
“Nobody in this chamber is anxious to have a primary challenge. That is one truism I think I can say with some certainty. But that’s the way we operate in this country,” Castor said.
The defense played a dizzying and lengthy video montage of various Democrats using the word “fight,” arguing that no one had ever construed those words as literal encouragement to physically fight.
At the start of the lengthy montage, Democratic senators in the chamber were mostly stone faced. But that changed quickly, as more clips played, leading to murmurs, whispering, and some laughing.
Van der Veen said this was not an exercise in “whataboutism,” but rather, that he was making the case that “all political speech should be protected.”
The lawyers repeatedly said the impeachment fell short of the high legal standards expected in a criminal case, even though impeachment is a political process, not a legal one, and the Senate is not a court of law.
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The short allotment used by Trump’s legal team means the trial is likely headed to a quick conclusion.
And because neither side is expected to request witnesses, closing arguments — and a final vote on conviction — could happen before the weekend is over.
Both sides are eager to move on, with Democrats needing Senate floor time to advance their Covid-19 relief bill and Republicans eager to put the trial and the uncomfortable questions it raises behind them.
Trump’s defense came one day after Democratic House impeachment managers rested their case against Trump by focusing on the damage his supporters caused at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and warning that he could incite further violence if he is not convicted.
That marked the end of two days of methodical and at times emotionally wrenching arguments from Democrats that included the showing of graphic and devastating never-before-seen footage from inside the Capitol during the riot.
It would take 67 senators — including at least 17 Republicans — to convict Trump.
Already this week, 44 of the 50 Republicans in the Senate have voted to declare the entire proceedings unconstitutional because Trump is no longer president, making it unlikely that any evidence would persuade them.
However, the question-and-answer phase of the trial later Friday could indicate more clearly what some Republican senators are thinking.
Trump is the first president to have been impeached twice by the House, and he is the first former president to be put on trial in the Senate. He was impeached Jan. 13 on an article charging him with “incitement of insurrection” for his role in the riot.
NEW YORK (AP) — In a new video posted early Election Day, Beyoncé channels Pamela Anderson in the television program “Baywatch” – red one-piece swimsuit and all – and asks viewers to vote.
In the two-and-a-half-minute clip, set to most of “Bodyguard,” a four-minute cut from her 2024 country album “Cowboy Carter,” Beyoncé cosplays as Anderson’s character before concluding with a simple message, written in white text: “Happy Beylloween,” followed by “Vote.”
At a rally for Donald Trump in Pittsburgh on Monday night, the former president spoke dismissively about Beyoncé’s appearance at a Kamala Harris rally in Houston in October, drawing boos for the megastar from his supporters.
“Beyoncé would come in. Everyone’s expecting a couple of songs. There were no songs. There was no happiness,” Trump said.
She did not perform — unlike in 2016, when she performed at a presidential campaign rally for Hillary Clinton in Cleveland – but she endorsed Harris and gave a moving speech, initially joined onstage by her Destiny’s Child bandmate Kelly Rowland.
“I’m not here as a celebrity, I’m not here as a politician. I’m here as a mother,” Beyoncé said.
“A mother who cares deeply about the world my children and all of our children live in, a world where we have the freedom to control our bodies, a world where we’re not divided,” she said at the rally in Houston, her hometown.
“Imagine our daughters growing up seeing what’s possible with no ceilings, no limitations,” she continued. “We must vote, and we need you.”
Harris used the song in July during her first official public appearance as a presidential candidate at her campaign headquarters in Delaware. That same month, Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles, publicly endorsed Harris for president.
Beyoncé gave permission to Harris to use the song, a campaign official who was granted anonymity to discuss private campaign operations confirmed to The Associated Press.
Outside of sports and a “Cold front coming down from Canada,” American news media only report on Canadian events that they believe are, or will be, influential to the US. Therefore, when Justin Trudeau’s announcement, having finally read the room, that Canada will be reducing the number of permanent residents admitted by more than 20 percent and temporary residents like skilled workers and college students will be cut by more than half made news south of the border, I knew the American media felt Trudeau’s about-face on immigration was newsworthy because many Americans would relate to Trudeau realizing Canada was accepting more immigrants than it could manage and are hoping their next POTUS will follow Trudeau’s playbook.
Canada, with lots of space and lacking convenient geographical ways for illegal immigrants to enter the country, though still many do, has a global reputation for being incredibly accepting of immigrants. On the surface, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver appear to be multicultural havens. However, as the saying goes, “Too much of a good thing is never good,” resulting in a sharp rise in anti-immigrant sentiment, which you can almost taste in the air. A growing number of Canadians, regardless of their political affiliation, are blaming recent immigrants for causing the housing affordability crises, inflation, rise in crime and unemployment/stagnant wages.
Throughout history, populations have engulfed themselves in a tribal frenzy, a psychological state where people identify strongly with their own group, often leading to a ‘us versus them’ mentality. This has led to quick shifts from complacency to panic and finger-pointing at groups outside their tribe, a phenomenon that is not unique to any particular culture or time period.
My take on why the American news media found Trudeau’s blatantly obvious attempt to save his political career, balancing appeasement between the pitchfork crowd, who want a halt to immigration until Canada gets its house in order, and immigrant voters, who traditionally vote Liberal, newsworthy; the American news media, as do I, believe immigration fatigue is why Kamala Harris is going to lose on November 5th.
Because they frequently get the outcome wrong, I don’t take polls seriously. According to polls in 2014, Tim Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives and Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals were in a dead heat in Ontario, yet Wynne won with more than twice as many seats. In the 2018 Quebec election, most polls had the Coalition Avenir Québec with a 1-to-5-point lead over the governing Liberals. The result: The Coalition Avenir Québec enjoyed a landslide victory, winning 74 of 125 seats. Then there’s how the 2016 US election polls showing Donald Trump didn’t have a chance of winning against Hillary Clinton were ridiculously way off, highlighting the importance of the election day poll and, applicable in this election as it was in 2016, not to discount ‘shy Trump supporters;’ voters who support Trump but are hesitant to express their views publicly due to social or political pressure.
My distrust in polls aside, polls indicate Harris is leading by a few points. One would think that Trump’s many over-the-top shenanigans, which would be entertaining were he not the POTUS or again seeking the Oval Office, would have him far down in the polls. Trump is toe-to-toe with Harris in the polls because his approach to the economy—middle-class Americans are nostalgic for the relatively strong economic performance during Trump’s first three years in office—and immigration, which Americans are hyper-focused on right now, appeals to many Americans. In his quest to win votes, Trump is doing what anyone seeking political office needs to do: telling the people what they want to hear, strategically using populism—populism that serves your best interests is good populism—to evoke emotional responses. Harris isn’t doing herself any favours, nor moving voters, by going the “But, but… the orange man is bad!” route, while Trump cultivates support from “weird” marginal voting groups.
To Harris’s credit, things could have fallen apart when Biden abruptly stepped aside. Instead, Harris quickly clinched the nomination and had a strong first few weeks, erasing the deficit Biden had given her. The Democratic convention was a success, as was her acceptance speech. Her performance at the September 10th debate with Donald Trump was first-rate.
Harris’ Achilles heel is she’s now making promises she could have made and implemented while VP, making immigration and the economy Harris’ liabilities, especially since she’s been sitting next to Biden, watching the US turn into the circus it has become. These liabilities, basically her only liabilities, negate her stance on abortion, democracy, healthcare, a long-winning issue for Democrats, and Trump’s character. All Harris has offered voters is “feel-good vibes” over substance. In contrast, Trump offers the tangible political tornado (read: steamroll the problems Americans are facing) many Americans seek. With Trump, there’s no doubt that change, admittedly in a messy fashion, will happen. If enough Americans believe the changes he’ll implement will benefit them and their country…
The case against Harris on immigration, at a time when there’s a huge global backlash to immigration, even as the American news media are pointing out, in famously immigrant-friendly Canada, is relatively straightforward: During the first three years of the Biden-Harris administration, illegal Southern border crossings increased significantly.
The words illegal immigration, to put it mildly, irks most Americans. On the legal immigration front, according to Forbes, most billion-dollar startups were founded by immigrants. Google, Microsoft, and Oracle, to name three, have immigrants as CEOs. Immigrants, with tech skills and an entrepreneurial thirst, have kept America leading the world. I like to think that Americans and Canadians understand the best immigration policy is to strategically let enough of these immigrants in who’ll increase GDP and tax base and not rely on social programs. In other words, Americans and Canadians, and arguably citizens of European countries, expect their governments to be more strategic about immigration.
The days of the words on a bronze plaque mounted inside the Statue of Liberty pedestal’s lower level, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” are no longer tolerated. Americans only want immigrants who’ll benefit America.
Does Trump demagogue the immigration issue with xenophobic and racist tropes, many of which are outright lies, such as claiming Haitian immigrants in Ohio are abducting and eating pets? Absolutely. However, such unhinged talk signals to Americans who are worried about the steady influx of illegal immigrants into their country that Trump can handle immigration so that it’s beneficial to the country as opposed to being an issue of economic stress.
In many ways, if polls are to be believed, Harris is paying the price for Biden and her lax policies early in their term. Yes, stimulus spending quickly rebuilt the job market, but at the cost of higher inflation. Loosen border policies at a time when anti-immigrant sentiment was increasing was a gross miscalculation, much like Trudeau’s immigration quota increase, and Biden indulging himself in running for re-election should never have happened.
If Trump wins, Democrats will proclaim that everyone is sexist, racist and misogynous, not to mention a likely White Supremacist, and for good measure, they’ll beat the “voter suppression” button. If Harris wins, Trump supporters will repeat voter fraud—since July, Elon Musk has tweeted on Twitter at least 22 times about voters being “imported” from abroad—being widespread.
Regardless of who wins tomorrow, Americans need to cool down; and give the divisive rhetoric a long overdue break. The right to an opinion belongs to everyone. Someone whose opinion differs from yours is not by default sexist, racist, a fascist or anything else; they simply disagree with you. Americans adopting the respectful mindset to agree to disagree would be the best thing they could do for the United States of America.
PHOENIX (AP) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent proponent of debunked public health claims whom Donald Trump has promised to put in charge of health initiatives, said Saturday that Trump would push to remove fluoride from drinking water on his first day in office if elected president.
Fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear and tear, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The addition of low levels of fluoride to drinking water has long been considered one of the greatest public health achievements of the last century.
Kennedy made the declaration Saturday on the social media platform X alongside a variety of claims about the heath effects of fluoride.
“On January 20, the Trump White House will advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water,” Kennedy wrote. Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, “want to Make America Healthy Again,” he added, repeating a phrase Trump often uses and links to Kennedy.
Trump told NBC News on Sunday that he had not spoken to Kennedy about fluoride yet, “but it sounds OK to me. You know it’s possible.”
The former president declined to say whether he would seek a Cabinet role for Kennedy, a job that would require Senate confirmation, but added, “He’s going to have a big role in the administration.”
Asked whether banning certain vaccines would be on the table, Trump said he would talk to Kennedy and others about that. Trump described Kennedy as “a very talented guy and has strong views.”
The sudden and unexpected weekend social media post evoked the chaotic policymaking that defined Trump’s White House tenure, when he would issue policy declarations on Twitter at virtually all hours. It also underscored the concerns many experts have about Kennedy, who has long promoted debunked theories about vaccine safety, having influence over U.S. public health.
In 1950, federal officials endorsed water fluoridation to prevent tooth decay, and continued to promote it even after fluoride toothpaste brands hit the market several years later. Though fluoride can come from a number of sources, drinking water is the main source for Americans, researchers say.
Officials lowered their recommendation for drinking water fluoride levels in 2015 to address a tooth condition called fluorosis, that can cause splotches on teeth and was becoming more common in U.S. kids.
In August, a federal agency determined “with moderate confidence” that there is a link between higher levels of fluoride exposure and lower IQ in kids. The National Toxicology Program based its conclusion on studies involving fluoride levels at about twice the recommended limit for drinking water.
A federal judge later cited that study in ordering the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to further regulate fluoride in drinking water. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen cautioned that it’s not certain that the amount of fluoride typically added to water is causing lower IQ in kids, but he concluded that mounting research points to an unreasonable risk that it could be. He ordered the EPA to take steps to lower that risk, but didn’t say what those measures should be.
In his X post Saturday, Kennedy tagged Michael Connett, the lead attorney representing the plaintiff in that lawsuit, the environmental advocacy group Food & Water Watch.
Kennedy’s anti-vaccine organization has a lawsuit pending against news organizations including The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking action to identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy is on leave from the group but is listed as one of its attorneys in the lawsuit.
What role Kennedy might hold if Trump wins on Tuesday remains unclear. Kennedy recently told NewsNation that Trump asked him to “reorganize” agencies including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and some agencies under the Department of Agriculture.
But for now, the former independent presidential candidate has become one of Trump’s top surrogates. Trump frequently mentions having the support of Kennedy, a scion of a Democratic dynasty and the son of former Attorney General Robert Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy.
Kennedy traveled with Trump Friday and spoke at his rallies in Michigan and Wisconsin.
Trump said Saturday that he told Kennedy: “You can work on food, you can work on anything you want” except oil policy.
“He wants health, he wants women’s health, he wants men’s health, he wants kids, he wants everything,” Trump added.
