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Its widely known that Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is a shameless opportunist. But could he be even more shameless and opportunistic than we believed?

Potentially yes, according to a report from The Washington Post published this week detailing just how closely Cruz worked with then-President Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 election results. Reporter Michael Kranish also revealed that Cruz has known Trumps attorney John Eastman who authored legal memos he hoped would be used to deny the certification of the election for decades. That raises questions over whether Cruz coordinated directly with the White House on legal strategy designed to undermine the election.

Cruz's barefaced opportunism is a window into the partys embrace of authoritarianism.

As a result of conspiring with Trump, Cruz lost allies and friends. But today, even as more evidence emerges tying him to Trumps Big Lie, he is far from a GOP pariah. Still, one of the most prominent lawmakers in the party, Cruz is openly eyeing another presidential run. His barefaced opportunism is a window into the partys embrace of authoritarianism.

According to the Post, Cruz and Trump began working on plans to undermine the election two days after Election Day, to the surprise of many of Cruzs aides. Cruz spoke to Trump directly on the phone, acted as a Trump surrogate spreading 2020 disinformation on Fox News and pitched himself as a legal asset because of his experience working with George W. Bushs campaign during the recount of the Florida vote in 2000. Among other things, Cruz agreed to represent Pennsylvania Republicans attempt to block certification of their states presidential results before the Supreme Court. (The Supreme Court didnt end up taking the case.) And as Cruz backed a lawsuit arguing that Texas had the authority to throw out election results in several other battleground states, some of his advisers worried he was turning his back on his conservative federalist principles.

But perhaps the most shocking possibility raised by the Posts reporting is the implication raised by Cruz and Eastmans friendship. Cruz and Eastman met while clerking for then-U.S. Appeals Court Judge J. Michael Luttig nearly 30 years ago. Cruzs plan calling for the Senate to delay the certification of the 2020 election results seemed to be running on a parallel track to Eastmans legal memo.

When asked if he and Eastman had been in contact about challenging the election, Cruz issued a cagey statement that did not rule out the possibility. Sen. Cruz has been friends with John Eastman since they clerked together in 1995, a Cruz spokesperson told the Post. To the best of his recollection, he did not read the Eastman memo until months after January 6, when it was publicly reported. And when Eastman was asked by the Jan. 6 congressional committee about his communication with Cruz, he invoked the Fifth Amendment.

Cruzs ideological commitments have long been secondary to his political ambition. While the Texas senator paints himself as a pure ideologue, he has abandoned and changed his positions on issues like immigration, foreign policy and surveillance out of concern that they could harm his presidential prospects. 0ne of Trumps fiercest critics during the 2016 primary season, Cruz refused to endorse Trumps nomination at the Republican convention, to boos from the crowd. But he has since become not just a staunch but an effective Trump ally.

Cruz's eagerness to shift positions based on how the wind is blowing extends to Jan. 6 itself. On that day, Cruz questioned the legitimacy of the election on the Senate floor. The very next day, Cruz tried to disassociate himself from Trump, sensing that perhaps his efforts to challenge the election had backfired. "I think, yesterday in particular, the president's language and rhetoric crossed the line and it was reckless," Cruz told a reporter on Jan. 7, with an entirely straight face. "I disagree with it, and I have disagreed with the president's language and rhetoric for the last four years."

Of course since then, Trump, other GOP politicians and right-wing media have successfully downplayed the events of Jan. 6, and once again changed the calculus for Cruz. Consider the way he groveled before Fox News Tucker Carlson in January after taking heat from Trumps base for describing the Jan. 6 riot as a terrorist attack. Cruz quickly apologized and called his own comments sloppy and dumb in a bid to ensure he remained likable to the right-wing populist crowd.

The main point here is not to indict Cruz. Here we have a politician obsessed with keeping his finger on the pulse of the party, who felt that his own presidential prospects would be enriched by trying to overturn an election. More important than Cruz as a self-aggrandizer is Cruz as a signpost of the direction of the party. Cruz is a consummate follower of trends and he's continually shown us that the Republican Party is sliding rapidly toward outright disdain for democracy.

Zeeshan Aleem is a writer and editor for MSNBC Daily. Previously, he worked at Vox, HuffPost and Politico, and he has also been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Nation and elsewhere.

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Ted Cruz's ties to Trump on Jan. 6 are worse than we thought - MSNBC

Updated at 5:45 p.m. ET on March 29, 2022.

At noon on January 6, 2021, then-President Donald Trump spoke to supporters at a rally near the White House. Journalists often quote his incendiary language from the speech: Fight like hell; We will not take it anymore. But Trump also laid out a precise plan of action for the crowd:

If Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election. All he has to do, all this is, this is from the No. 1, or certainly one of the top, constitutional lawyers in our country. He has the absolute right to do it

States want to revote. The states got defrauded. They were given false information. They voted on it. Now they want to recertify. They want it back. All Vice President [Mike] Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president and you are the happiest people.

Trump told the crowd how they could force Pence to act on Trumps plan.

After this, were going to walk downand Ill be there with youwere going to walk down, were going to walk down.

Anyone you want, but I think right here, were going to walk down to the Capitol, and were going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and -women, and were probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.

Because youll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated.

Trump promised the crowd that if they did as he urgedif they marched on Congress, if they showed strengththey could force a change of the election result.

David Frum: Dont let anyone normalize January 6

About 45 minutes before Trump delivered this speech, he made his last call for nearly eight hours on the White House phone system. From 11:17 a.m. until almost 7 p.m., Trump made all of his phone calls on a nongovernment phone.

We know the president spoke by phone during that gap. As the crowd came crashing toward the office of the Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy, McCarthy called the president to demand he stop the violence. Trump instead excused it. Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are. Witnesses reported seeing the president on the phone many other times during the day.

As president, Trump often avoided using official lines. He used multiple phones of his own. He borrowed phones from other people.

Trump did not grab phones at random. He thought tactically about which phone to use. When the Stormy Daniels story broke, in 2018, Trump tried to place a call to Melania Trump on one of his own phones. She recognized the number and refused to answer the call. So Trump borrowed a phone from a Secret Service agent whose number would not be recognized. The first lady picked up.

Trumps phone choices were powerfully intentional. What was he intending on January 6? The answer is obvious: concealment. But concealment of what?

Trumps actions that day were not secret. They all happened in full public view. He incited a crowd to attack Congress in order to overturn by violence his election defeat. He refused to act to protect Congress and the Constitution when the attack began, and for a long time afterward. When he finally did act, he did so ineffectively: a tweet at 2:38 p.m. faintly suggesting that the crowd be more peaceful, another at 3:13 saying so more emphaticallyall following a tweet at 2:24 p.m. once again condemning Pence for not indulging the fantasy that his vice president could overturn the election for him.

Trump did not order the National Guard to the Capitol until past 3:30. He did not release a video statement against the violence until past 4 p.m.

From the January/February 2022 issue: Trumps next coup has already begun

Trump encouraged the violence and welcomed it in real time. The whole world saw that.

But the world does not know everything about January 6not yet, anywayand Trumps phone behavior may suggest the answer to the most important remaining questions:

Trumps phone choices sought to conceal the answers to those questions. Why? One of the pivotal moments during the Watergate scandal of 1972 was the revelation that President Richard Nixons secretary had erased 18 and a half crucial minutes of a tape recorded three days after the break-in. The erasure suggested consciousness of guilt by the president, and helped end his presidency.

Trumps 7.5-hour gap likewise suggests consciousness of something. And it sure smells like guilt.

This article previously misstated the time that Donald Trump sent a tweet condemning Mike Pence.

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What Is Trump Hiding About His Phone Records? - The Atlantic

Republican activists seek drivers attention as they work to register voters to their party at a gas station in Garden Grove. REUTERS/Mike Blake

A half-dozen mostly young Republican activists stood gamely outside of a Chevron station at a busy Orange Countyintersection, jumping up and down and holding a big sign reading, Gastoo high? Register Republican.

The demonstration in Garden Grove this week drew beeps of support, and was successful in getting a few motorists to pull over to talk aboutgasprices.

The Republican Party says the SouthernCaliforniavoter registration effort is one of many it is holding outsidegasstations across the country to woo frustrated independents and voters who supported President Joe Biden, a Democrat, in the 2020 elections.

Republicans are widely expected to gain a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and perhaps even in the Senate in midterm congressional elections in November. Voter displeasure at highgasprices might help get them there.

In addition to turning out its deeply conservative base, the party wants to win back moderates who fled the dramatic turns and right-wing nationalism of former President Donald Trump, as well as gain new supporters.

But the response at the busy intersection in Garden Grove, which is in a highly competitive Republican-leaning congressional district, shows it is not an easy trick to pull off.

Four people stopped to fill out forms at the groups table. One said he was homeless but could use his parents address. Three were already registered as Republicans, while one was an independent.

Thegasis so high because of Biden and the Biden administration, said Ernie Nueva, 69, who pulled over when he saw the group.

Nueva says it now costs $100 to fill the tank on his Nissan Titan V8 truck up from $60 before the latest spike drove fuel prices to nearly $7 per gallon in parts ofCalifornia. A lifelong Democrat, he voted twice for Trump and last year changed his voter registration to Republican.

David Wakefield also blames Biden for high gas prices, saying that the United States needs to become more self-sufficient, producing more fuel. He is considering canceling a planned driving vacation later this month to see friends and family in NorthernCalifornia, Idaho and Utah.

But he also is already a reliable Republican voter.

Its a great issue in the short run, but its not clear how its going to hold up in November, said Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at theCal State Los Angeles.

In recent years, U.S. voters have been driven to the polls more by cultural and social division, rather than other public policy issues, Sonenshein said. While the highgasprices are certainly not good for Democrats, they may not prove powerful enough to drive turnout or lead voters to switch parties.

The cost of fuel might also come back down before the election, weakening Republicans argument, he said.

Economists say prices started to rise as travel and economic activity picked up after pandemic lockdowns eased, both in the United States and worldwide leading to fears of tighter global oil supply.

Those trends worsened when Russias invasion of Ukraine shook world petroleum markets. But the party in power generally is blamed for economic woes, and Biden and the Democrats are already becoming the focus of anger by some consumers.

The Republican National Committee has conducted similar registration drives at service stations inCaliforniaand other states, including Arizona, North Carolina and Florida.

RNC spokesperson Mike Joyce said the registration drives atgasstations had been successful, drawing in voters of all political stripes who are angry aboutgasoline prices.

The RNC did not give data showing how many new voters had signed up during these events, except to say that the number was in the thousands.Majorities are won in the margins and with every new voter registered, we are one step closer to finally retiring Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer for good, said RNC Spokesperson Emma Vaughn, referring to the Democratic U.S. House speaker and Senate majority leader.

At the Chevron in Orange County, scores of motorists loudly honked their support for the tiny group during the nearly four-hour demonstration.

David Duprat, 38, a passenger in a car that wasgassing up, feels every penny of the increase ingasprices. He drives to the construction sites where he works and lives on a tight budget while also trying to help his mother.

He doesnt blame Biden for highgasprices, but overall, he feels that Democratic policies have contributed to the high cost of living inCalifornia. He has never voted before, but plans to do so in November as a Republican.

I really, really want to make sure my voice is heard, he said.

Motorist Benjamin Kohn, a liberal Democrat, is also feeling the rise ingasprices. But he thinks both parties are pushing black-and-white interpretations of events that are more nuanced.

He has no intention of switching sides over gas prices, and on his way out of the Chevron he honked his horn like many of the other passing motorists. Then he stuck his head out the window of his minivan.

Its complicated, he yelled, and drove away.

Originally posted here:
At OC Gas Station Republicans Woo Voters Angry Over High Gas Price - Times of San Diego

On Thursday, in a dim conference room in the bowels of a Washington, D.C., hotel, about 150 conservatives gathered for a day of group therapy. They had all been traumatized by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which had left them questioning their assumptions about the world. But Vladimir Putins war of aggression wasnt what confounded them most; for these conservatives, a mix of D.C. professionals and college students leavened with a handful of older cranks, the hawkish response to Russian aggression by most elected Republicans was the real problem.

The conference, Up From Chaos, was a summit of all the wings of the right that would prefer a more hands-off American response to Russias invasion of Ukraine. The organizers were The American Conservative, the paleoconservative publication founded by Pat Buchanan; and American Moment, a newer organization that tries to sell the next generation of the right on its version of national conservatism. We were acutely worried that the seven years of foreign-policy gains that we made [since Donald Trump launched his campaign] were going to go away, Saurabh Sharma, one of the conferences organizers, told me.

Anne Applebaum: Ukraine must win

The event wasnt a Putin apologia like those found in some corners of the right. Instead, the phrase of the day seemed to be Putin is bad, but The attendees, who included paleocons, libertarians, and hard-core MAGA acolytes, offered variations on that tune according to their policy preferences: Putin is bad, but we dont want a nuclear war. Putin is bad, but why should we trust the American foreign-policy establishment? Putin is bad, but the media is in thrall to the U.S. intelligence apparatus. The broad consensus: Putin is bad, but why is that our problem?

This is not an ism-based movement. There is a specific policy outcome motivating the type of factions we brought here today, which is that we dont want another war, Sharma said. And people have their own isms that they bring to the table. The result was a conference of the right where Tulsi Gabbard was invited but figures such as Ted Cruz were absent.

In fact, Cruz was the target of a jab onstage from a fellow Republican senator, Rand Paul, who suggested that the Texans advocacy for sanctions on Russian energy was simply intended to boost the bottom line of the energy industry in his home state. President Joe Biden, though, received some praise for his comparatively restrained response to the crisis. Saagar Enjeti, a conservative pundit and podcaster, went so far as to say that Bidens 79-year-old ailing heart may be the only thing standing in between us and World War III.

The most common object of the attendees ire was not the Democrats, but instead the traditional enemy of the isolationist right, neoconservatives. Time and time again, speakers mocked foreign-policy hawks and criticized Republicans who had supported the Iraq War. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was the target of repeated scorn. Perhaps the biggest applause line of the entire conference was delivered by the Ohio Senate candidate J. D. Vance, who mocked the intelligence of Bill Kristol, the neoconservative pundit and Never Trumper. Donald Trumps greatest foreign-policy triumph was not so much any of his decisions, but rather that he broke the neocon Republican orthodoxy, Dan Bishop, a second-term representative from North Carolina, told the crowd.

Still, a sense that neocons and foreign-policy elites were winning seemed to permeate the room. For a D.C. conclave, the gathering featured few boldface names. Of the four elected officials who spoke, Rand Paul and Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky are best known for being libertarian gadflies, while Bishop and Representative Matt Rosendale of Montana are backbenchers who are relatively new to Washington. Vance, who hasnt even been elected to any office and may never be, gave what might have been the most high-profile speech. (Unusually for a speaker at a Washington conference, Vance hung around as an attendee after his speech, sitting quietly in the back as the fellow Peter Thiel ally David Sacks, a wealthy Silicon Valley entrepreneur, addressed the crowd).

Tom Nichols: The moral collapse of J. D. Vance

The first time that Ive ever actually had donors push back against all the crazy things that I say over the course of my Senate campaign is on this Russia-Ukraine thing, Vance said. The craziest idea Ive had in the last year and a half is that we should not be involved in a nuclear war with Russia.

Sharma framed skepticism of the U.S. response as a test of political courage for the few on the right who were still willing to stand up for a more sober foreign policy where the rubber meets the road. It is a test that few on the right are passing so far. Even Trump has expressed openness toward more aggressive action against Russia in some public statements about the conflict. (He has also praised Putin as a genius.)

The challenge for the isolationist wing of the right is finding more allies. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is one of the most popular political figures in the United States, and the Russian army is falling back from the outskirts of Kiev. It seems, at least for the time being, that the hawkish response to the invasion of Ukraine has succeeded. The war in Europe, and the fight over the future of the Republican Partys foreign policy, are likely to be long. But for now, the rights isolationists are on their own.

Original post:
The 'Putin Is Bad, But' Republicans - The Atlantic

With Ketanji Brown Jackson, the most experienced Supreme Court nominee in decades, about to be confirmed on a largely party line vote, Republicans are blaming Democrats for politicizing the High Court. They need to look in the mirror.

Despite the protests of a number of justices, liberals as well as conservatives, many Americans believe the Supreme Court is increasingly political.

While both sides have contributed to this sentiment, the burden of blame over the past two decades rests with Republicans.

The latest example is Justice Clarence Thomas wife Ginnis private text messages to President Trumps chief of staff after the 2020 election, spinning the loony conspiracy theory that the election was stolen. Calling it the greatest heist in our history, Ginni Thomas told Mark Meadows it was time to release the Kraken.

An unhinged spouse of a Supreme Court Justice isnt a public matter, except that she referred in the texts to her best friend, a term the Thomases apparently use to describe their relationship. Justice Thomas was the sole vote on the Court siding with Trump in his attempt to keep his records on efforts to overturn the election from the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 mob assault on the Capitol.

With the lack of Supreme Court ethics or legal rules for its members, Thomas wont be forced to recuse himself from these political matters, much less be forced to resign.

This only reinforces the politicization of the Court.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) rationalized his predictable vote against Judge Jackson because she refused to take a position on changing the size of the Court, or packing it, as McConnell says.

The prospect of court packing is bogus. President Biden, merely for show, tapped a bipartisan study commission chaired by his campaign lawyer. It did not call for expanding the court.

It actually was McConnell who changed the size of the Court for almost a year from nine to eight when, as then majority leader, he refused to even allow a vote on President Obamas nominee, Merrick Garland, to fill a vacancy. Republicans insisted it was protocol not to approve a Supreme Court nominee in a presidential election year. In 1988 a Democratic-controlled Senate approved a Republican nominee, Anthony Kennedy, for the High Court.

Then, in 2020 McConnell rushed through Donald Trumps nomination of Amy Comey Barrett, approved on a partisan vote eight days before the presidential election.

The following year, showing her appreciation, Justice Barrett went to a McConnell event to insist justices arent partisan hacks.

This distinctly different treatment of nominees based on party doesnt pass any non-political smell test.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) blamed the poisonous environment on the Democrats treatment of Trumps nominee Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 and promised there would be no personal attacks on Brown Jackson then he asked about Jacksons faith, and with other GOP Judiciary Committee members, proceeded to depict this moderately liberal and respected jurist as a criminal-coddling, pedophile-pampering, racial radical. She even was asked to define whats a woman.

On a higher note, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) said the politicization of the Court all began in 1987 when Democrats attacked Republican nominee Robert Bork.

Hes off on his history.

In 1970 Republican congressmen, led by then Rep. Gerald Ford, sought to impeach Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. At the same time Democrats rejected a Richard Nixon nominee, Clement Haynsworth, and the president then tapped an abominable choice, J. Harrold Carswell. He too was rejected.

Moreover Bork, highly intelligent and highly right-wing, was defeated decisively with opposition from southern conservative Democrats like Alabamas Howell Heflin and Louisianas John Breaux, who worried the nominees racial views threatened to rekindle old wounds. Borks nomination also was opposed by a half dozen Republicans, including Virginias John Warner, one of the most respected and nonpartisan members in the Senate.

More than Bork or any other episode the politicization of the Court flows to 2000 when the Republican justices stopped a recount of Floridas vote in the presidential election, handing the presidency to George W. Bush, who had lost the popular vote. Later one of the five-member majority, Justice Sandra Day OConnor, expressed regret over that political decision.

The Bush v. Gore outcome paved the way for two more 5-to-4 partisan decisions with political ramifications: the 2010 Citizens United case, which opened the special interest money spigots in federal campaigns, and three years later, the Shelby County decision, which facilitated some Southern states enacting voting restrictions, especially aimed at minorities, with little federal oversight.

McConnell, Graham and company are right: the Supreme Court has become a political football and they have been among the leading quarterbacks.

Al Hunt is the former executive editor of Bloomberg News. He previously served as reporter, bureau chief and Washington editor for The Wall Street Journal. For almost a quarter century he wrote a column on politics for The Wall Street Journal, then The International New York Times and Bloomberg View. He hostsPolitics War Roomwith James Carville. Follow him on Twitter@AlHuntDC.

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Republicans should know about politicizing the Supreme Court they did it - The Hill