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After Vowing Restraint On Twitter, Trump Continues Attacks On Media

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In an interview with “60 Minutes” that’s set to air Sunday, President-elect Donald Trump said he’ll be “very restrained” on social media as commander in chief. 

“I’m going to be very restrained, if I use it at all, I’m going to be very restrained,” Trump said (video above). 

But even before the “60 Minutes” interview could air, Trump was back to his old ways, launching another one of the attacks against the media that were a signature of his divisive campaign. 

The irony of Trump’s criticism of The New York Times and other outlets is that some on the left blame the mainstream media for his victory. 

On Friday, New York Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger vowed in an email to staff that the newspaper will cover Trump’s administration “fairly” and “without bias” — which sounds an awful lot like normalizing his bigotry. 

Reactions from Twitter below. 

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‘One of the Smallest Margins Since the 19th Century’: NYT Crushes Trump’s ‘Landslide’ Claim

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Donald Trump, his team, his allies, and his supporters in the right-wing media have been calling his presidential win “historic,” and a “landslide,” while using those provably false claims to declare a mandate. The voting from the election earlier this month is still not complete but Trump’s slim margin of victory is likely to shrink even further.

As The New York Times reports, the results prove Trump’s election claims are false.

Calling it, “The ‘Landslide’ That Wasn’t,” The Times’ Peter Baker reports the “latest vote count shows that Donald J. Trump won the popular vote by one of the smallest margins since the 19th century. But Mr. Trump claims a ‘powerful mandate.'”

Trump claimed falsely on election night, “America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate.”

READ MORE: Trump Spokesperson Whitewashes Record With Indefinite Sentencing Delay Remarks

But Trump’s “margin over Vice President Kamala Harris was about 1.6 percentage points, the third smallest since 1888, and could ultimately end up around 1.5 points.”

Trump won less than 50% of the popular vote, meaning he did not win a majority. His popular vote margin, according to the Cook Political Report’s vote tracker, is now at a slim 1.62 percentage points, or just less than 2.5 million votes. Some states are still counting, including California which has over 350,000 ballots left to process.

“Asked about the president-elect’s characterization of his victory,” The Times adds, “Mr. Trump’s campaign sent a statement by Steven Cheung, his communications director, attacking The Times and repeating the sweeping claims. ‘President Trump won in dominating and historic fashion after the Democrats and the fake news media peddled outright lies and disinformation throughout the campaign,’ he said.”

What is an actual landslide?

Real landslides have been unmistakable, including Lyndon B. Johnson’s in 1964 by 22.6 points, Richard M. Nixon’s in 1972 by 23.2 points and Ronald Reagan’s in 1984 by 18.2 points. In the 40 years since that Reagan victory, no president has won the popular vote by double digits,” The Times reports.

The Times also refers to Trump’s history of similar false claims.

READ MORE: ‘Prosecutors Will Be Prosecuted’: Pam Bondi Vowed DOJ ‘Deep State’ Will Be ‘Cleaned Out’

After winning the 2016 election, Trump “declared that he secured ‘the biggest Electoral College win since Ronald Reagan,’ which was true only if one did not count George H.W. Bush, [Bill] Clinton and Barack Obama, each of whom won larger totals in the Electoral College.”

“A year later, Mr. Trump claimed online to be ‘the most popular Republican in history of the Party,’ which again was true only if one did not count five other Republican presidents who were more popular since World War II, according to polls. And he regularly boasted at rallies that he won the women’s vote in 2016, which was true only if one did not count women who were not white.”

NPR’s Brian Mann commented, “Remarkable how readily Democrats ceded the narrative to Trump. One of his many talents is convincing people -including his political enemies – to view small things (a 1.6% win) as incredibly big things (a mandate to reshape American civic life).”

Daily Beast columnist Wajahat Ali, also responding to The Times’ report, writes, “Divisive president who never got 50% of popular vote now leads divided nation. He’s going to be a mess. Pure chaos.”

In his election night remarks (video below) Trump declared, “This was a movement like nobody’s ever seen before, and frankly, this was I believe this was the greatest political movement of all time. Thee’s never been anything like this in this country and maybe beyond.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: Byron Donalds ‘Not Surprised’ at Snub from Trump’s Nearly-All White Administration

 

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Trump Spokesperson Whitewashes Record With Indefinite Sentencing Delay Remarks

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New York State Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan has issued an indefinite delay in the sentencing of Donald Trump, who was found guilty in a criminal trial and convicted on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to influence the outcome of the 2016 election, in the so-called “hush money” case. In response, incoming Trump White House communications director Steven Cheung issued a statement whitewashing Trump’s record.

Trump’s attorneys have asked for the case to be dismissed, or for the judge to overturn the verdict, ABC News reports, adding: “If Judge Merchan tosses the conviction, he could order a new trial — which would be delayed for at least four years until Trump leaves office — or dismiss the indictment altogether.”

In that same order, Judge Merchan also allowed Trump’s legal team to submit a motion to dismiss, as Law.com reports.

Merchan did not schedule a new sentencing date.

READ MORE: ‘Prosecutors Will Be Prosecuted’: Pam Bondi Vowed DOJ ‘Deep State’ Will Be ‘Cleaned Out’

Professor of Law and former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance observed: “Sad day for the rule of law.”

“Understand that the Judge hasn’t ruled yet & the DA maintains the conviction is proper. But the delay in sentencing is just another chink in the armor of justice,” she noted.

U.S. Senator-elect Adam Schiff (D-CA), posting the judge’s order, remarked, “If anyone ever wanted to see what “justice delayed is justice denied” looks like in legal form, this is it.”

Meanwhile, Trump communications director Steven Cheung made several controversial claims in a statement reported by The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell: “In a decisive win for President Trump, the hoax Manhattan Case is now fully stayed and sentencing is adjourned. President Trump won a landslide victory as the American People have issued a mandate to return him to office and dispose of all remnants of the Witch Hunt cases. All of the sham lawfare attacks against President Trump are now destroyed and we are focused on Making America Great Again.”

The case was not a “hoax.” A grand jury indicted Trump and a New York jury convicted him on all counts.

Sentencing is not “adjourned,” but delayed.

Trump did not win in a “landslide victory,” nor does he have a “mandate,” political pundits and experts say.

READ MORE: Top Trump Advisor Threatens Republicans to Support Nominees or Face a Primary: Report

Earlier this week MSNBC’s Chris Hayes wrote, “The final 2024 election tally is almost in. It should end the MAGA mandate myth.”

Trump won less than 50% of the popular vote, meaning he did not win a majority. His popular vote margin, according to Cook Political Report’s vote tracker, is now at a slim 1.62 percentage points, or just less than 2.5 million votes. Some states are still counting, including California which has over 350,000 ballots left to count.

Four days ago, CNN’s Harry Enten reported Trump’s popular vote victory ranks him near the bottom: 44th out of 51.


The legal cases are not all destroyed. The Georgia case has not been dismissed. The New York case that Cheung mentions is not finished. Even the classified documents case that was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon is being appealed, at least for now.

READ MORE: Byron Donalds ‘Not Surprised’ at Snub from Trump’s Nearly-All White Administration

 

Image via Reuters

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‘Prosecutors Will Be Prosecuted’: Pam Bondi Vowed DOJ ‘Deep State’ Will Be ‘Cleaned Out’

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President-elect Donald Trump’s latest pick to become Attorney General, former Florida AG Pam Bondi, is a MAGA supporter who vowed last year that if Trump were to return to the White House, the “deep state” would be eliminated from the U.S. Dept. of Justice and the “prosecutors will be prosecuted.”

Trump’s nomination of Bondi comes after his first pick, former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) was forced to withdraw. Senators on both sides of the aisle made clear Gaetz’s chances for confirmation were slim given investigations into allegations of possible sex with a minor, possible payments for sex, and possible sex-trafficking. He has also been under investigation for possible illicit drug use and questions about possible campaign finance improprieties.

In 2023, Bondi told Fox News host Sean Hannity that “when Republicans take back the White House and we will be back you know what’s gonna happen, the Department of Justice, the prosecutors will be prosecuted, the bad ones.”

READ MORE: Top Trump Advisor Threatens Republicans to Support Nominees or Face a Primary: Report

“The investigators will be investigated because the deep state last term for President Trump, they were hiding in the shadows,” she claimed. “But now they have a spotlight on them, and they can all be investigated and the house needs to be cleaned out because now we know who most of them are. There’s a record of it and we can clean house next term, and that’s what has to happen.”

On CNN’s “Out Front,” Erin Burnett Thursday evening reported that Bondi has made “it clear she is on the exact same page as Trump when it comes to his claim that the Justice Department has been politicized.”

And she noted that “Bondi has been a very successful fighter for Trump in the 2020 election. She was on the front lines pushing Trump’s election lies. She said, ‘we’ve won Pennsylvania and we want every vote to be counted in a fair way.’ Of course, he did not win Pennsylvania.”

“During Trump’s criminal trial in New York. She was one of his top defenders,” Burnett added.

Rolling Stone on Friday also notes that Bondi has “supported retaliation against Trump’s political rivals in the past. In 2016, — during Trump’s campaign — she called for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s security clearance to be revoked, and egged on supporters who chanted ‘lock her up’ at the Republican National Convention.”

“’Lock her up, I love that,’ she told the crowd.”

READ MORE: Byron Donalds ‘Not Surprised’ at Snub from Trump’s Nearly-All White Administration

ABC News reports that “Bondi registered as a foreign agent for the government of Qatar as part of her lobbying work.”

Donald Trump was prosecuted by Special Counsel Jack Smith in two separate cases. One for his alleged actions surrounding the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and the insurrection, and his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost. The second was for Trump’s alleged removal, retention, and refusal to return classified and top secret classified documents, including some of the nation’s nuclear and defense secrets.

In a state criminal trial, Trump was convicted for “falsifying New York business records in order to conceal his illegal scheme to corrupt the 2016 election,” according to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Trump also has been facing prosecution in Georgia for his alleged efforts in that state to overturn the 2020 election. That case is ongoing, according to WMAL.

Trump’s classified documents case, largely prosecuted under the Espionage Act, was dismissed by a federal judge appointed by Trump in 2020 who was confirmed just before he left office.

The Special Counsel is now winding down his work after Trump won the presidential election earlier this month, given sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted, and Trump’s Attorney General would in all likelihood drop the case.

READ MORE: ‘I’m Not Here to Fight’: First Trans Member of Congress Responds to Johnson’s Bathroom Ban

 

Image via Reuters

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