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‘Should Not Be Normalized’: Warnings Issued After Trump Calls Pelosi an ‘Animal’ on Eve of Election

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History and political experts are issuing warnings after Donald Trump repeatedly called Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi an “animal” at a campaign rally during which he strongly suggested he will announce another run for president next week.

Marietje Schaake, the former President of the CyberPeace Institute (CPI), which advocates “for respect of laws and norms in cyberspace to ensure people’s rights and fundamental freedoms,” issued a strong warning.

“Dehumanizing and political violence are close neighbors,” said Schaake, columnist and former Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from the Netherlands. “Trump is playing with fire and knows it, still chooses to call Pelosi (and gang members) an animal. It is appalling and should not be normalized.”

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough delivered a heartfelt yet stern warning, calling those who can’t find any sympathy for Pelosi after her 82-year old husband of nearly 60 years was “bashed in the brains” by an attacker who has spouted far right wing conspiracy theories and ideologies “sick.”

Scarborough also likened the dehumanization of Pelosi to “how Nazis turn people into, they dehumanize them.”

READ MORE: ‘Have They No Decency?’: GOP Slammed as Pelosi Reveals How She Learned Her Husband Was Brutally Bludgeoned in New Interview

“People have been lying about Nancy Pelosi and have been spreading, spreading just the most vile attacks against Nancy Pelosi for so long that she’s been turned – again, she’s been, you look at what I just said about how Nazis turn people into, they dehumanize them, and they dehumanize this woman who actually is a woman of great faith,” Scarborough said Tuesday on “Morning Joe.”

“And if you don’t like that, tough, I really want to say another word. I’ll just say ‘tough luck,’ because she has anybody that’s talked to her for more than five minutes knows. She is a Catholic of deep faith and and a kind warm and you may not like it may not like politics, it’s that we’re supposed to be a nation where Jefferson and Hamilton can hate each other’s politics, right? But she’s been dehumanized to such a point that I know you. I know you people. I know. I won’t say your names of course. But I know you’ve dehumanized Nancy Pelosi. You’re a good person. You live in a good, good neighborhood. You got a good family. You go to a good church, but you’ve dehumanized Nancy Pelosi so much that you can’t even feel sympathy. You can’t even relate to her having an 82-year old husband, who was beaten up, bashed in the brains, had to be rushed to emergency surgery in the middle of the night. And you have allowed politics to dehumanize her so much that you don’t feel any emotion for that.”

“And I just ask that you, you, you I ask it. However you got to that point. If you’re Christian, just you know, we should pray about that today. If you’re not that’s fine. I hope you can meditate on it. I hope you can think about it. Because that’s a real sickness. And that’s your sickness. Nancy Pelosi is not the one who’s sick. You’re the one who’s sick. If you don’t feel pain for her and her family.”

CNN’s Jake Tapper, pointing to Anderson Cooper’s interview with Speaker Pelosi in which she reveals for the first time how she learned of the attack on her husband Paul, blasted Trump.

READ MORE: ‘Carefully, Precisely, Surgically’: Russian Oligarch Tied to Putin Admits to Interfering in US Elections

“While this interview was airing, with Speaker Pelosi sharing her heartbreak after an intruder looking for her broke into her house and attacked her husband, prompting a national conversation about dehumanizing rhetoric, Donald Trump called her an ‘animal’ to an Ohio rally.”

Political scientist Brian Klaas, an associate professor in global politics at University College London, warned: “Trump, just tonight, has called Pelosi ‘an animal,’ days after she was targeted in an assassination attempt and has suggested journalists who don’t reveal sources should be jailed, where, he implies, they will be raped. Do not vote for his disciples. This is a very dark path.”

(Klass is correct on Trump calling for journalists to be jailed, specifically, journalists involved in the leak of the Supreme Court’s draft decision striking down Roe v. Wade.)

Immediately after Trump’s speech Monday night MSNBC’s Medhi Hasan tweeted, “This morning on CNN, Kevin McCarthy said the best way to avoid violence is for *Biden* to tone down his language.”

“Tonight, Trump called Nancy Pelosi, whose husband was attacked 10 days ago, an ‘animal.’ Yes, an ‘animal.’ And it won’t even be a headline tomorrow morning.”

The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, speaking on CNN Tuesday morning told viewers that calling Speaker Pelosi an “animal” is “a dehumanizing thing to say about somebody who is third in line for the presidency and whose husband was just attacked in in in a break-in attempt where she was the target. So, you know, highly motivated.”

“Yeah. Donald Trump has a very long history of demanding to be treated with some level of humanity while dehumanizing others,” Haberman continued, as Mediaite reported. “And this was no exception. But this was pretty striking given everything that we know that’s going on right now.”

Haberman added, “Trump’s idea of strength is violence.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

 

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Donald Trump Indicted by Manhattan Grand Jury on Felony Charges: NYT

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Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States, has been indicted by a Manhattan grand jury investigating his role in a hush money payoff scheme that allegedly was designed to aid his election chances in 2016, according to multiple news reports.

“Mr. Trump will be the first former president to face criminal charges. The precise charges are not yet known, but the case is focused on a hush-money payment to a porn star during his 2016 campaign,” The New York Times was first to report. “The unprecedented case against Trump will have wide-ranging implications.”

CNN, citing sources, also reports Trump has been indicted.

Trump’s attorney, Susan Necheles, confirms to CBS News’ Graham Kates that the ex-president has been indicted.

This is a breaking news and developing story. Details may change. This story will be updated.

Image via Shutterstock

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New Poll Sends Trump Damning Message About 2024 if He’s Criminally Indicted

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Biden Beats Trump – But Barely – in Latest Poll

A new Quinnipiac poll is offering damning news to Donald Trump: The majority of Americans think he should not even be allowed to run for president if criminal charges are filed against him.

That majority, 57%, includes nearly nine in ten Democrats (88%), more than half (55%) of independents, and even close to one-quarter (23%) of Republicans.

“Yes, say Americans, it was all about him and not the country’s well-being when Trump proclaimed he was targeted for arrest,” says Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy. “And, yes he should be forever banished from office if he is charged as a criminal.”

The poll serves up even more bad news for the ex-president. Despite the right’s attempts to paint Trump’s alleged hush money payoff as a mere bookkeeping issue, or Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg‘s case against him, as one GOP lawmaker said recently, “wrongful persecution,” the majority of Americans – 55% – say the accusations against Trump are “serious.”

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

Conservatives’ attempts to paint the investigation as political, however, appear to be working, at least among Republicans and independents.

More than nine out of ten Republicans (93%) and 70% of independents say they believe the investigation is motivated by politics, while two-thirds of Democrats (66%) say it is motived by the law.

Still more troubling news for the Trump team.

Exposing the growing partisan divide across the country, the majority of Americans, nearly six in ten (58%) say Trump has had a mainly negative impact on the Republican Party.

But inside the GOP, the view is far different.

The vast majority of Republicans (72%) say Trump has had a positive impact. Just 21% say he has had a negative impact. (The poll does not appear to take into account former Republicans who left the GOP because of Trump.)

READ MORE: Watch: House Dem Mocks Republicans by Thanking Them for Taking Time Away From ‘Trump’s Memorial Service to David Koresh’

Echoing the “positive impact” they believe Trump has had on their party, 79% of registered Republicans say they are supporters of his MAGA movement. The poll does not appear to define “support,” nor the various “levels” of support some Republicans now express, including “ultra MAGA.”

Meanwhile, when offered a choice between Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, or 11 other Republican candidates or potential candidates, Trump gets a plurality of voters: 47%. DeSantis gets one-third, 33%. Pence gets just 5%, and Haley – who has already officially declared she is running – gets even less, at 4%.

There’s little change when GOP voters are asked who they would choose in a head-to-head matchup between Trump and DeSantis. Trump gets 52%, DeSantis 42%.

And even more bad news for Team Trump: In a head-to-head matchup among registered voters, President Joe Biden would beat Donald Trump, although by a slim margin: 48% to 46%.

There is one piece of good news for the DeSantis campaign, which technically does not exist yet. DeSantis would beat Biden, also by a slim margin: 48% to 46%.

But some believe DeSantis will not run, especially given his poor campaign pre-launch. Others, like top Trump critic and former Republican George Conway, say DeSantis shouldn’t even bother.

“It makes no sense for DeSantis to run this cycle,” Conway said Thursday morning, unrelated to the Quinnipiac poll. “To beat Trump, DeSantis would have to go hammer and tong in a one-on-one race against him. DeSantis isn’t capable of that, it isn’t going to be one-on-one, and even if he were and it was, DeSantis would end up alienating a good chunk of the GOP base. And no matter what, Trump would try to destroy the GOP if it ever became clear he wouldn’t get the nomination. Trump would run as a third-party candidate to take the GOP nominee down. The smart play for DeSantis is to fleece donors by pretending to run, and pocket the cash for 2028, when he’ll still be only 49.”

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House Republican Suggests Coordinating With Trump Legal Team Over Bragg’s ‘Wrongful Persecution’

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Republicans are stepping up their war against Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg as he considers charges against Donald Trump.

House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has already called for committees to delve into Bragg’s investigation of Trump’s hush money payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels, and GOP lawmakers are weighing subpoenas for the county prosecutor to testify about his probe, reported The Daily Beast.

“It is pretty clearly a wrongful persecution of a free American citizen who happens to be the former president of the United States,” Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) told the website. “Because of those circumstances, I think it’s appropriate for Congress to inquire into what drove that decision making process for Bragg.”

Higgins suggested that Republicans would coordinate their timing on a potential Bragg subpoena with the former president’s legal team to avoid interfering with their defense.

READ MORE: ‘Crazy stuff’: Morning Joe panelists burst out laughing at Trump’s latest campaign riff

“[A subpoena] would be an interesting conversation amongst my colleagues,” he said, “[but] the appropriate timing of something like that should include consideration whether or not that case is moving towards permanent closure, and allow that to happen.”

However, other Republicans are pressing for a more extreme response to Bragg’s grand jury investigation, which some of them have suggested is funded by billionaire philanthropist George Soros.

“It’s time to arrest Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg for prosecutorial misconduct after hiding hundreds of pages of exculpatory evidence,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. “Bragg is on the verge of indicting an innocent former President and top Presidential candidate against the opposing ruling party. Bragg is breaking the law and trying to incite civil unrest with his Soros funded political war. Hold him accountable!”

Republican senators don’t have the power to go after Bragg as the minority party, and some House Republicans seem to think their pressure has already had an effect on Bragg’s probe.

“But you know, [Bragg] seems like he’s kind of, you know, maybe, I don’t know, maybe backed off a little bit,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX). “But we’ll have to see, we’ll see what he does.”

 

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