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WATCH: Trump Gives Interview to ‘Judge Jeanine’ and Refuses to Commit to Sean Spicer

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The Company Trump Keeps…

In a preview clip for an interview to air Saturday on Fox News’ “Justice with Judge Jeanine,” President Donald Trump says he’s considering canceling daily press briefings all together. Trump has been his own self-inflicted disaster, reportedly refusing to keep his press secretaries in the loop then coming down on them for not properly delivering his message. In reality, he sacrifices his team’s credibility – including even that of Vice President Mike Pence – for quick gratification and deflection.

President Trump in the interview clip refused to definitively stand by his embattled Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, but offered praise for Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Both have lost the confidence of many across the nation.

Pirro, who publicly supported Trump during the 2016 election, asks Trump in the clip if he is moving so “quickly” that his communications team can’t “keep up” with him. It’s a stunning twisting and turning of the situation that is typical for Fox News.

Trump, who ran on the platform of having a great business mind, like most Republicans offers as a solution to just cancel the press briefings. Republicans often decide rather than fixing something they will just get rid of it (see: ObamaCare).

Rather than support his team by talking about their professional skills, Trump describes Sarah Huckabee Sanders as “a lovely young woman,” and Sean Spicer as “a wonderful human being, a great man.”

That’s when Pirro asks if Spicer will be around for the long haul. “He’s doing a great job but he gets beat up,” Trump responds. Asked if he will be there “tomorrow,” Trump looks away, shrugs, says, “yeah, well, he’s been there from the beginning.”

Hardly a gushing endorsement.

It’s truly stunning that Trump this week would turn to “Judge Jeanine,” the stage name of Fox News host and former district attorney Jeanine Pirro, to help repair his damaged image.

In 2006 Pirro, was forced to announce, while running to be New York Attorney General, “that she was the subject of a federal investigation into whether she illegally taped her husband’s conversations,” the New York Times reported at the time. Trump today is in the middle of a firestorm for suggesting that he, possibly illegally, secretly recorded conversations with Jim Comey, the FBI Director he fired this week. Trump donated to Pirro’s 2006 campaign, which she lost. Before losing the attorney general campaign, Pirro that same year ran for the U.S. Senate, but pulled out rather than lose to Hillary Clinton.

The New York Post in 2006 reported, “In a devastating blow to her campaign, Republican attorney-general candidate Jeanine Pirro admitted yesterday she is under federal investigation for discussing with former city Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik how to secretly record her bad-boy husband to see if he was cheating.”

Kerik, of course, is former Rudy Giuliani Police Commissioner who is now a convicted felon. 

It’s all just more proof of Trump’s poor decision-making skills, which he demonstrated this week. The day after firing Jim Comey, Trump met with President Richard Nixon’s Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, in the Oval Office. The firing weas “Nixonian,” and now Trump suggests he secretly recorded Jim Comey – also “Nixonian.” Trump also hid a meeting he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, the man so many Trump associates seem to always exclude from mentions when asked if they have any ties to Russia. Trump also refused to allow U.S. media into the meeting but allowed a Russian government photographer access, which security professionals call a huge bereach of protocol.

Trump was reportedly surprised to see photographs of their meeting, posted by the Russian government’s news agency, TASS, on the internet, with the President of the United States almost huging the Russian Ambassador, whom U.S. intelligence agencies consider a top Russian spy.

Video via Yashar‏/Twitter

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RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

Christian Nationalist Group Working to Get Its ‘Biblical Worldview Spread Across the Nation’

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Last week, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed legislation prohibiting transgender people from using public school facilities that match their gender identity. That legislation was crafted by the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, a right-wing organization that seeks to elect “godly leaders in our nation at every level” and then use them to “restore the Judeo-Christian foundation of our nation.”

Following the signing of this legislation into law, Jason Rapert, a longtime religious-right activist and ardent Christian nationalist who founded the NACL, took a victory lap, crediting his organization for the law and celebrating its success in pushing back “against the things of the devil in our country.”

As Rapert reported, this legislation had first been proposed by Arkansas school board member David Naylor during an annual NACL meeting and then brought to the Arkansas state legislature by state Rep. Mary Bentley, who serves on the board of the NACL.

On Friday, Rapert interviewed Bentley on his “Save The Nation” program, where she celebrated the NACL’s efforts “to get our biblical worldview spread across the nation.”

“Thank goodness we’ve got some common sense left here in Arkansas,” Bentley said. “[It was because of the NACL] that we were able to get that passed as model policy and bring it forth. I just love seeing grassroots come together and school board members coming to the capitol and going to the governor’s desk and just seeing it all work and flow just exactly how we want to. So, for the folks that are supporting NACL and what we’re doing, this is what we want to do across the country.”

“This is an example of the power of the NACL’s ability with model legislation,” Rapert replied. “This was brought by one of our members, and this policy actually could be immediately adopted by school boards in every school district across this country. If the school board wanted to adopt it, this is the model that they can utilize. And in addition to that, just like you did, go and pass it for the state so that this is going to apply to all the school boards in your state.”

Rapert and Bentley agreed that Arkansas has now blazed the trail on this issue, thereby making it easier for legislatures in other states to enact the same law.

“That’s what happens when you can be a leader,” Bentley asserted. “Once you make a trail, it’s a lot easier for people to follow once you get that trail made.”

“Thank you again for being a part of the NACL,” Bentley declared. “It’s just what we need in this nation right now to have it moving forward, to get our biblical worldview spread across the nation.”

This article was originally published by Right Wing Watch and is republished here by permission.

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Pence Ordered to Comply With Subpoena, Testify Before Special Counsel’s Grand Jury

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Mike Pence, the ex-vice president, must testify before Dept. of Justice special counsel Jack Smith’s grand jury investigating the January 6, 2021 insurrection, a federal judge has ruled, rejecting his claims of executive privilege.

The judge is requiring Pence to answer questions about his conversations with Donald Trump leading up to the insurrection, and to answer any questions related to any possible illegal acts Donald Trump may have committed, according to ABC News’ senior investigative reporter Katherine Faulders and CNN’s Abby Phillip.

Judge James Boasberg, the chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, “outright rejected Trump’s executive privilege challenge, but ruled more narrowly on Pence speech and debate challenge,” Faulders adds.

The judge, apparently citing Pence’s “speech and debate clause” claim, said “that Pence can still decline to answer questions related to his actions on January 6 itself, when he was serving as president of the Senate for the certification of the 2020 presidential election,” CNN reports.

READ MORE: ‘We’re Not Gonna Fix It’: TN Republican Says Congress Can Do Nothing to Stop Gun Violence – Calls for Christian ‘Revival’

NBC News reports Judge Boasberg “did, however, grant Pence a partial victory as to his argument that he was shielded from having to testify about Jan. 6 because of his constitutional role as part of the legislative branch.”

In what some legal experts dismissed as a faulty argument, “Pence’s legal team had argued that the Constitution’s ‘speech and debate’ clause should prevent special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutors from eliciting any testimony about communications or activity related to Pence’s role as president of the Senate in presiding over the certification of the election results.”

Overall CNN calls it “another win for special counsel Jack Smith, who is investigating the Trump-aligned effort to subvert the 2020 election. Smith subpoenaed Pence for testimony and documents earlier this year.”

Pence can still appeal.

Watch MSNBC’s report below or at this link.

This is a breaking news and developing story.

This article has been updated to add video.

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RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

‘Taking Guns Away Is Not the Answer’: Scalise Encourages Prayer After Nashville School Mass Shooting

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The official line from House Republicans on Monday’s mass shooting at a private Christian elementary school in Nashville is to encourage prayer and making schools “safer,” but “taking guns away is not the answer.”

GOP Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the second-most powerful Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, on Tuesday encouraged prayer, waiting for more facts, and looking into mental health option, despite his record of voting against them. Six people, including three nine-year olds and three adults, were shot to death after a shooter shot through the doors of Covenant Presbyterian Elementary School.

“The first thing in any kind of tragedy I do is I pray,” Scalise told a reporter Tuesday when asked if there’s anything Congress can do to reduce gun violence and deaths. “I pray for the victims. I pray for their families.”

On Monday, U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) also encouraged prayer over action. “We’re not gonna fix it,” he declared point-blank, while calling for a Christian “revival.”

READ MORE: Tennessee Governor Slammed After ‘Praying’ for Nashville School Community Without Mentioning Mass Shooting

Scalise was shot in 2017 in a rare act of left-wing gun violence by a man angry at then-President Donald Trump. He and House Republicans have repeatedly used that attack to target Democrats and their policies.

“I really get angry when I see people trying to politicize it for their own personal agenda,” Scalise continued, referring to shootings, “especially when we don’t even know the facts. There are facts coming out.”

“It looks like the shooter originally went to another school that had real stronger, much stronger security and ultimately went to this school,” Scalise said, which is false. According to a CNN report, the shooter had previously “scouted” a second location but had a detailed plan and maps of The Covenant School.

“Let’s get the facts,” Scalise insisted, suggesting no action should be taken before any investigations into this shooting are complete.

The Washington Post in a continually-updated report notes, “There were more school shootings in 2022 — 46 — than in any year since at least 1999.”

It adds, “There have been 376 school shootings” since Columbine, in 1999, and, “More than 348,000 students have experienced gun violence at school since Columbine.”

But Scalise urged Americans to “work to see if there’s something that we can do to help secure schools.”

READ MORE: New WSJ Poll Is Devastating for DeSantis and His ‘Anti-Woke’ Policies

And he insisted reducing the number of guns in America, currently believed to be over 400 million – more than the total population of the country – is “not the answer.”

“We’ve talked about things that we can do, and it just seems like on the other side, all they want to do is take guns away from law abiding citizens, before they even know the facts. The first thing they talk about is taking guns away from law abiding citizens. And that’s not the answer, by the way. So why don’t we number one, keep those families in our prayers and see if there were things that were missed. Along the way, we’ve talked about the need to improve mental health in this country, and that’s been a driver of a lot of these shootings as well.”

But just last September, Scalise, along with all but one House Republican, voted against a bill that would “increase access to mental and behavioral health care.”

He also skipped a vote one week earlier on the Mental Health Justice Act of 2022.

Watch Scalise’s remarks in this clip, below or at this link.

 

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