Donald Trump, the one-term ex-president who is running for the Republican nomination for president once again, on Monday advocated for yet another coup against the United States.

Trump is currently under at least four criminal investigations: his unlawful retention and refusal to return classified and other White House documents; his alleged election fraud attempts in Georgia; his alleged hush money payment to two women and the campaign finance issues those raise; and his alleged attempted coup, sometimes referred to as an “autocoup, or “autogolpe” – a self-coup – and the actions he took surrounding the January 6 insurrection.

After Trump’s expected GOP challenger, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, was widely mocked two weeks ago for being unable to tell a reporter from a Murdoch outlet in the UK how he would handle the U.S. efforts to support Ukraine against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s illegal war, Fox’s Tucker Carlson submitted written questions to all current and potential GOP presidential candidates.

DeSantis, in that now-infamous interview, had responded to the Ukraine question by telling the reporter: “Perhaps you should cover some other ground?” and, “I think I’ve said enough.”

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On Monday, sharing with viewers DeSantis’ new, written response, Carlson declared the Ukraine issue is the most important question of our time: “Until tonight, no one could really say with precision where he stood on the war in Ukraine, which is arguably the most important topic in the world.”

DeSantis’ response made news largely because it is in direct opposition to current U.S. policy. The far-right Florida governor declared the war against Ukraine a mere “territorial dispute” and not in America’s “vital national interests,” as NBC News reported. (Experts disagree with DeSantis’ position, with some calling the war against Ukraine a genocide.)

Trump’s response, however, should have drawn as much attention.

Carlson, in the video below, very specifically says he submitted six questions about Ukraine to Trump, DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Kristi Noem, Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, Greg Abbott, Tim Scott, Chris Christie, Chris Sununu, Asa Hutchinson, John Bolton and Vivek Ramaswamy. (Not all responded.)

According to the segment on his show Monday night, none of those questions included a question about “regime change” in Russia.

And yet Trump’s, DeSantis’ and Pence’s responses did, so it’s possible Carlson wasn’t being fully transparent, although why he didn’t mention he asked that question seems important. And to be clear, the Biden administration has made clear regime change in Russia is not the goal.

So, first, here’s DeSantis’ response that mentions “regime change”:

“A policy of ‘regime change’ in Russia (no doubt popular among the DC foreign policy interventionists) would greatly increase the stakes of the conflict, making the use of nuclear weapons more likely. Such a policy would neither stop the death and destruction of the war, nor produce a pro-American, Madisonian constitutionalist in the Kremlin. History indicates that Putin’s successor, in this hypothetical, would likely be even more ruthless. The costs to achieve such a dubious outcome could become astronomical.”

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And here’s Trump’s response that mentions “regime change”:

“Should the United States support regime change in Russia?”

“No. We should support regime change in the United States, that’s far more important. The Biden administration are the ones who got us into this mess,” Trump wrote, according to Carlson.

“Regime change,” as most know, is the removal of a current government, often by force, which could also be called a coup.

If you google the definition of “regime change,” you’ll find this: “the replacement of one administration or government by another, especially by means of military force.”

Certainly not at the ballot box.

Some might say, as they often do, “Well, maybe Donald Trump doesn’t know what the term really means.”

He does.

May 27, 2019: Asked about his military buildup in the Middle East and his pull-out of President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, Trump told reporters, “We’re not looking for regime change. I want to make that clear.”

January 3, 2020: “President Donald Trump said Friday that America does not seek ‘regime change’ in Iran, less than a day after the U.S. launched an airstrike that killed the country’s top general, Qasem Soleimani.”

Donald Trump called for another coup Monday night.

Watch Carlson’s segment below or at this link.

We asked every potential 2024 GOP presidential candidate to answer six key questions on the war in Ukraine. As promised, their full responses are below. pic.twitter.com/tjcM4w54cR

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) March 14, 2023

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Arkansas Republican Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders has signed into law a bill further destabilizing minors in what was once called the “Land of Opportunity.” Her signature comes on the same day lawmakers sent to her desk a sprawling bill revamping Arkansas’ education system to allow wealthy families to remove funds from public elementary and secondary schools and put them into private tuition.

On Tuesday, Huckabee Sanders, barely months into her term, signed HB1410, the Youth Hiring Act, which guts child labor protections and removes what the new governor called “arbitrary” and “burdensome and obsolete” regulations that required the state to verify the age of anyone working who is under 16-years old.

Those regulations merely required “children under the age of 16 obtain an employment certificate, which is accessible to local school officials, before a company can hire them,” Quartz reports. “The change would end one of the only oversight mechanisms for child labor in the state.”

The new law “rolls back significant portions of the state’s child labor protections,” The Washington Post reports.

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Before Gov. Huckabee signed the bill into law, children under 16 were required “to verify their age and provide a description of the work schedule, as well as a parent or legal guardian’s consent, in the certificate,” according to Quartz.

While Republican governors and lawmakers across the country have taken up the mantle of “parents’ rights” as they support bans on books, sex education, and any discussion of LGBTQ people, Governor Huckabee has removed the right of parents to be informed of or consent to their young minor children getting a job.

Before Huckabee Sanders signed the Youth Hiring Act, state law prohibited “children under 16 from working more than eight hours a day, more than six days a week and more than 48 hours per week,” KNOE reported. “Opponents of House Bill 1410 have expressed concerns it will open the door to violations of these child labor requirements and put children at risk of human trafficking.”

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Quartz also reports that Governor Huckabee, who mentions her own three children in her official state biography, signed the law stripping rights from parents and children just weeks after the U.S. Dept. of Labor fined a slaughterhouse cleaning company $1.5 million for child labor violations, involving over 100 children. That fine includes $150,000 for two locations in Huckabee’s state of Arkansas.

This week Huckabee Sanders flooded her Twitter page with tweets praising her education legislation, including from former Trump Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and other “school choice” activists who call taking public education funds and handing them to private and faith-based institutions education or school “choice.” She posted not one tweet mentioning her stripping parents’ rights and children’s protections from state law.

The New York Times is under fire for the second day in a row over its coverage of transgender people – now for its response to the criticism of its coverage of transgender people, and also its warning to its own journalists made by the Old Gray Lady’s executive editor.

On Wednesday, two very separate, yet damning letters were sent to The Times. One, an open letter signed by nearly 200 current and former Times contributors, criticized the paper’s coverage of transgender people. It was not only fact-based and chock-full of examples, but it also took a deep dive into The Times’ biased history of poor reporting on LGBTQ people overall.

The second open letter came from 100 or more LGBTQ organizations and leaders, including GLAAD and HRC, also criticizing the paper’s coverage of transgender people. While there were some similarities to both letters, they were clearly unrelated and from very different groups.

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Wednesday afternoon, The Times sent a statement to several publications that had reported on one or both letters. It accomplished being both defensive and dismissive. Rather than acknowledging any room for opportunity or growth, rather than welcoming honest criticism and offering to sit down with LGBTQ people or groups, The Times’ statement chalked up its biased coverage to having a different “mission” than GLAAD.

“We understand how GLAAD sees our coverage. But at the same time, we recognize that GLAAD’s advocacy mission and The Times’s journalistic mission are different,” the Times’ response from a spokesperson reads.

On Thursday, rather than take some time to review its policies on its coverage, or even its “journalistic mission,” The Times published an opinion piece defending one of the people accused of being anti-transgender, noted author J.K. Rowling.

The campaign to characterize J.K. Rowling as a transphobe “is as dangerous as it is absurd,” writes Pamela Paul. https://t.co/Pa6lVo0vNV

— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) February 16, 2023

Regardless of your opinion of Rowling, regardless of your opinion of her public statements about transgender people, publishing a defense of Rowling was a clear shot across the bow, a definite – if you will – middle finger to the transgender community, and every one of The Times’ contributors who signed a letter that might have jeopardized their careers at the paper of record, along with the 100 LGBTQ organizations and leader who sent the separate letter.

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“The New York Times isn’t defending J.K. Rowling,” The Human Rights Campaign warned on Twitter, suggesting the op-ed had a greater purpose, “they’re emboldening transphobic views and giving people a free pass to discriminate against and harm trans people.”

But it gets worse.

On Thursday, New York Times executive editor Joe Kahn published a statement chastising its contributors, falsely conflating both the contributors’ letter and GLAAD’s letter, and making clear he does not agrees its coverage is biased, and making clear nothing will change.

Semafor’s Max Tani posted Kahn’s letter to Twitter.

“Yesterday, The New York Times received a letter delivered by GLAAD, an advocacy group, criticizing coverage in The Times of transgender issues. It is not unusual for outside groups to critique our coverage or to rally supporters to seek to influence our journalism. In this case, however, members of our staff and contributors to The Times joined the effort. Their protest letter included direct attacks on several of our colleagues, singling them out by name,” Kahn wrote.

Again, there are two separate letters. Times contributors and staffers signed onto a different letter from the GLAAD letter, yet Kahn appears to suggest they are one and the same.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Wesley Lowery went even further, tweeting: “pretty wild that the NYT response is to…lie about the origin of the letter.”

“Participation in such a campaign is against the letter and spirit of our ethics policy,” Kahn says, condemning those who signed the letter. “That policy prohibits our journalists from aligning themselves with advocacy groups and joining protest actions on matters of public policy. We also have a clear policy prohibiting Times journalists from attacking one another’s journalism publicly or signaling their support for such attacks,” he adds.

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“Our coverage of transgender issues, including the specific pieces singled out for attack, is important, deeply reported, and sensitively written. The journalists who produced those stories nonetheless have endured months of attacks, harassment and threats,” he writes, indicating that he believes they are the real victims, not the transgender people harmed The Times’ biased coverage – coverage cited by right wing lawmakers and officials to defend anti-trans policies and legislation.

Kahn wholly denies any room for growth, any error, any opportunity to do better, claiming, “any review shows that the allegations this group is making are demonstrably false.”

After both stating The Times welcomes “discussion, criticism and robust debate,” and then stating, “Even when we don’t agree, constructive criticism from colleagues who care, delivered respectfully and through the right channels, strengthens our report,” Kahn levels what appears be a threat.

“We do not welcome, and will not tolerate, participation by Times journalists in protests organized by advocacy groups or attacks on colleagues on social media and other public forums.”

The Daily Beast called it “a stern newsroom memo defending the coverage and condemning contributors and staffers who railed against it.”

But The Daily Beast also notes the opinion piece published Thursday, ‘In Defense of J.K. Rowling,’ was written by columnist Pamela Paul, who notably wrote a piece questioning the legitimacy of trans women. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, has been [a] leading critic of trans issues.”

Image: Osugi / Shutterstock