Trump attacks Biden over his family's international enterprise offers during campaign speech

Reese Gorman

July 29, 09:06 PM July 29, 09:06 PM

Former President Donald Trump railed towards President Joe Biden and his family’s company dealings throughout his marketing campaign rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, in a speech that sparsely attacked his closest opponent Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), and in its place concentrated on Biden.

Trump greatly attacked allegations of corruption and self-working inside Biden’s spouse and children, his psychological condition, plan, and the overall economy under his administration.

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With this kind of a enormous guide in the polls, Trump only sporadically attacked DeSantis all through the rally, indicating if he have been to arrive again from this deficit, it would be the “greatest comeback in political heritage.” He also referred to him as a “son of a bi***” when citing how DeSantis would give “no comment” when asked if he was operating for president just before he had declared.

At the moment, polls display Trump with a main guide in excess of the Florida governor. In accordance to the Actual Obvious Politics polling common, Trump is at 52.4%, and DeSantis is at 18.2%. Each and every other candidate is under 6%.

In light-weight of the polling, he spent most of his time attacking Biden.

He concentrated a large amount on the latest conclusions by the Home Oversight, Judiciary, and Methods and Suggests Committees, and throughout his speech, he commended Chairmen Jim Jordan (R-OH) of Judiciary, and James Comer (R-KY) of Oversight, for their work investigating the Biden household.

He dubbed Biden “Crooked Joe,” expressing he took that name absent from Hillary Clinton, who he used to phone “Crooked Hillary” during the 2016 election, and claimed it is now Biden’s name right after the evidence the Property investigations experienced uncovered.

“A bombshell FBI doc laying out a massive bribery scheme in which Hunter and Joe Biden shook down a Ukrainian electricity boss, shook him down, an electrical power manager, a massive just one for $10 million. So that, as the executive explained, ‘Hunter can safeguard us through his father from all forms of troubles,’” Trump said.

He was referencing the FBI-generated FD-1023 idea sheet released earlier this thirty day period, that alleged Mykola Zlochevsky, the head of the Ukrainian vitality enterprise Burisma, explained to a compensated FBI informant that he had paid every single hen Vice President Joe Biden and Hunter Biden $5 million to force the Ukrainian federal government to fireplace Viktor Shokin, a prosecutor allegedly investigating Burisma. The allegations are unverified.

Trump alluded, with no any evidence, that the cause Biden wishes to give Ukraine military assistance as they battle from a Russian invasion is mainly because of these alleged payments from Ukraine.

Trump also attacked Biden on his son’s organization specials in excess of in China, boasting his associates would route cash by way of different accounts just before they would end up in a Biden family member’s lender account.

“They took in tens of millions,” Trump reported. “This is the most important scandal in US historical past, and most likely the globe, and yet the media would not want to report on it.”

He identified as on Republicans to act on the info that has occur out of the House’s investigations, saying that “any Republican that doesn’t act on it need to be promptly primaried.”

“The biggest complaint that I get is that the Republicans obtain out this facts, and then they do practically nothing about it. They don't do something about it,” Trump stated. “It all dies. You know they die. The radical lunatic Democrats they impeach me, they indict me, they rig our elections, and the Republicans just do not battle.”

Trump did not right connect with for the Home to impeach Biden, but he did get shut by calling on them to "act" on the information and facts being uncovered.

Donald Trump indicted: Poll shows DeSantis losing significant 2024 support since charges

Emily Jacobs

April 01, 09:16 PM April 01, 09:49 PM

Former President Donald Trump's lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis among 2024 Republican presidential primary voters has tripled since news of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's indictment, a new poll found.

The Yahoo-YouGov poll, conducted from Thursday to Friday and released Saturday, showed Trump ahead of DeSantis 57% to 31%, respectively. The 26 point difference is three times the eight percent lead Trump held in the same poll when it was conducted two weeks ago. In that survey, the former president was beating the Florida governor 47% to 39%. DeSantis was ahead of Trump 45% to 41% when the poll was conducted in February.

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When the two GOP frontrunners are pitted against a wider, 10 candidate field of declared and potential challengers, Trump maintains steady support while DeSantis's numbers plunge. The former president holds 52% support in the larger primary field, up from 44% in the last poll. DeSantis, meanwhile, dropped from 28% to 21%.

No other declared or potential candidate included in the survey, including former Vice President Mike Pence and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, polled in the double digits. Haley had 5% support and Pence had 3%, a far cry from Trump's 54% and DeSantis's 21%.

Of the Republicans and GOP-leaning independents polled, 54% chose Trump as their preferred nominee in 2024, while only a third said they would prefer a different candidate. That is a three point jump from the 51% who said they preferred the former president in the last survey. Results were more split when respondents who weren't aligned with Republicans were included, however.

The surge in support appears to indicate what many political observers had predicted after Trump revealed the looming indictment earlier this month: that the former president being charged would boost his 2024 candidacy, especially with Republicans.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who has a complicated relationship with the former president, called the indictment an "enormous political gift" for Trump.

Speaking during an episode of his Verdict with Ted Cruz podcast on Friday, the Texas senator lamented Bragg's indictment as "devastating to the rule of law [and] to the confidence the American people will have in our justice system" before remarking that if he were a Democrat, he "might well report Alvin Bragg to the Federal Election Commission for making the single greatest in kind contribution to a presidential campaign in history."

"Look, Trump put out almost two weeks ago that he was about to get arrested, and he said he was gonna get arrested the next day," he said. "And Bragg delayed and delayed and delayed. A lot of national Democrats were freaking out and were pressuring Bragg, ‘Don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. This will help Trump.’"

Bragg, a Democrat who has refused to prosecute a number of offenses since taking office last January, indicted the former president Thursday on charges related to hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016. The indictment marks the first time a former U.S. president has been criminally charged.

Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer, testified before Congress in 2019 that he paid Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, $130,000 during the 2016 campaign to prevent her from going public about an affair she claimed to have with Trump in 2005. Cohen, who pleaded guilty and served time over the alleged payment, told lawmakers Trump reimbursed him in monthly installments.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing and vowed to fight the charges.

DeSantis opens legislative session with education overhaul: 'All eyes are on Florida'

Jeremiah Poff

March 07, 04:30 AM March 07, 04:30 AM

The Florida legislature will gavel into session Tuesday with an ambitious agenda that includes a number of education reform bills, including one that expands the state's rules on teaching gender identity and sexual orientation in grade schools.

Spearheaded by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), the 2023 legislative session in the Sunshine State promises to be a repeat of sorts of the 2022 session that saw the Republican-controlled state legislature pass several education-related bills, including the infamous Parental Rights in Education Act that was dubbed the "Don't Say Gay" bill by Democratic politicians and liberal pundits due to its provision barring classroom instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation before fourth grade.

DESANTIS PLANNING PRODUCTIVE LEGISLATIVE SESSION IN FLORIDA AS 2024 LOOMS

Now, with a new supermajority in the legislature and a governor fresh off a double-digit electoral romp, Florida Republicans are poised to build upon the 2022 session by expanding prohibitions for classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity so students are not exposed to the topics before high school. The legislature also plans to take up bills that would add Florida to a growing list of states with universal school choice programs, ban diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, departments in Florida universities, and give university boards of trustees more power to fire tenured faculty.

For DeSantis, the session provides an opportunity to further champion a conservative governing agenda ahead of an expected campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Jessica Anderson, the executive director for Heritage Action, touted the "historic education initiatives" and said DeSantis and the Florida legislature's agenda could serve as a blueprint for other states to follow.

"Gov. DeSantis’s bold legislative agenda will build on Florida’s leadership to strengthen parental rights, keep the Left’s radical gender ideology out of classrooms, and expand education freedom for families across the state," Anderson told the Washington Examiner. "Thanks to Gov. DeSantis’s leadership, all eyes are on Florida as a leader in the education freedom and parental rights movement."

School choice

Filed as HB 1, universal school choice is poised to come to Florida as the proposed expansion to the state's school choice program, which would allow students and families to use public funds to pay for private school tuition and other education-related expenses. Utah and Iowa have already enacted similar programs this year, joining Arizona and West Virginia as the first states to enact universal school choice.

Higher education

HB 999 is DeSantis's signature higher education reform bill that he proposed at a press conference in January. The major provision of the bill is the elimination of DEI departments at Florida's public universities. Universities are also barred from requiring diversity statements in hiring.

"We are ... going to eliminate all DEI and [critical race theory] bureaucracies in the state of Florida — no funding, and that will wither on the vine," DeSantis said at the January press conference. "That's very important because it really serves as an ideological filter, a political filter ... people want to see true academics, and they want to get rid of some of the political window dressing."

The bill would also allow university boards of trustees to initiate post-tenure reviews for tenured faculty at any time and would give university presidents wider latitude in hiring new faculty members.

Prohibiting classroom instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation

The expansion of last year's Parental Rights in Education Act would prohibit classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity before high school. The 2022 law currently only bans it before fourth grade. The bill also prohibits schools from requiring teachers and staff to address students by pronouns that do not correspond to the student's biological sex.

The 2022 parental rights law drew national outrage, including from the Walt Disney Company, which vowed to fight for its overturn. DeSantis and the legislature responded by stripping the company of special privileges that allowed it to essentially self-govern the area in and around Disney World.