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Former President Donald Trump endorsed Rep. Ted Budd for a Senate seat in North Carolina, one of 17 candidates for U.S. Senate to get Trumps endorsement thus far in the election cycle.

Allison Joyce / Getty Images

UPDATE (April 19, 10:05 a.m.): Late Monday, former President Trump announced two more endorsements in a pair of South Carolina House races. With these endorsements, Trump has endorsed 103 candidates for U.S. Senate, U.S. House and state governorships so far.

Read more from Jean and Nathaniel on Trumps 2022 endorsement strategy.

Normally, a one-term presidency would be a sign for a political party to move away, regroup and pivot away from a losing brand. But Donald Trump is not a conventional former president. With the 2022 primary season beginning to pick up in earnest not counting Texass runoff elections, 12 more states will be holding their primaries in May Trumps continued influence in the GOP is again being put to the test.

Its tricky for Trump, though, as he must thread the needle of maintaining his hold on the party while at the same associating his name with winning in other words, not reminding voters of his 2020 election loss. Hes largely done this by backing some candidates who seem sure bets to win their primaries as well as supporting his fiercest allies, those who advocate the Big Lie (the idea that he actually won the 2020 election). We last looked at Trumps endorsements back in December, and while many parts of his strategy appear to be the same namely, hes still endorsing a lot of candidates there are signs that Trump is being more selective in who he backs.

When we took a look at Trumps endorsements last year, we observed he was endorsing more candidates early on in the cycle. By Dec. 7, 2021, he had endorsed 46 candidates for U.S. Senate, U.S. House and state governorships more than three times as many as he had endorsed at that point in the 2020 election cycle. It wouldnt have been surprising, then, to see the former president take an endorsement breather but thats not what happened.

Instead, Trump has continued to endorse at a furious pace. As of April 18, he has endorsed 103 Senate, House and gubernatorial candidates whereas by April 18, 2020, he had endorsed only 42 candidates for those offices.

After a brief plateau in January Trump endorsed only six Senate, House or gubernatorial candidates Trump really ramped up his endorsements in the new year. He endorsed more such candidates in February (20) than he has in any other month this cycle. Then he endorsed nine candidates in March, and 14 more in the first 18 days of April. In total, hes now made almost as many endorsements for Senate, House and gubernatorial candidates in the first few months of 2022 (49) than he did in all of 2021 (55).

Trump may not be slowing down in his endorsements, but we have observed a change in strategy. Back in December, we noted that almost half of the endorsements Trump had made to that point carried political risk: 43 percent (20 out of 46) of his Senate, House and governor endorsements were of non-incumbents in contested Republican primaries, meaning they werent necessarily locks to win. But since then, only 22 percent (13 out of 59) of Trumps Senate, House and governor endorsements have been of non-incumbents in contested Republican primaries.

In other words, Trump has been loading up on safe endorsements, like on April 6 when he endorsed seven incumbent Republican representatives, none of whom are especially likely to lose their primaries. (Incumbents rarely lose in primaries.)

In many ways, this was a return to form for Trump, who endorsed only 25 non-incumbents in contested Senate, House and governor primaries in the 2020 cycle 22 percent of his total endorsements for those offices. Perhaps he realized that, after endorsing so many candidates who may very well lose, he needed to bet on some safer horses in order to maintain the appearance that he is still a kingmaker in Republican primaries. After all, we know he still cares about that perception because he boasted just last month about his 100 percent win rate in the Texas primary (if you ignore that five of his endorsees were forced into runoffs).

But as weve written in the past, Trumps high win rate has always been artificially inflated by easy wins, and Texas was no exception: Seven of the 19 Republicans Trump endorsed for House or governor in the Lone Star State were running unopposed.

In fact, Trump may even be selectively changing his endorsements after making them to keep his win rate up and distance himself from candidates hes afraid might lose. Take Rep. Mo Brooks, who in April 2021 earned Trumps endorsement for U.S. Senate in Alabama but has been languishing at a distant third in the polls. Reports began to emerge that Trump was unhappy with Brookss performance, and on March 23, he officially rescinded his endorsement.

Trumps abandonment of Brooks is interesting, as Trump has largely been endorsing Republicans who agree with his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. On that front, Brooks is one of the Big Lies biggest supporters. Brooks was the first member of Congress who said he would challenge the election results, and he also spoke at the Jan. 6 rally before the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

But what it means to support the Big Lie is an ever-evolving litmus test, and Brooks seems to have made a grievous miscalculation in telling his supporters to put Trumps 2020 election loss behind them at an August 2021 rally. Trump cited this as the reason for why he was no longer supporting Brooks, though of course its impossible to disentangle the role Brookss sagging poll numbers played in Trumps decision, as we know Trump loves a winner.

But Brookss fall from grace aside, a belief in the Big Lie has been perhaps the most consistent part of Trumps endorsements since the 2020 election. Of the 111 candidates hes endorsed for governor, federal office, attorney general or secretary of state, at least 80 more than 70 percent believe that the 2020 election was fraudulent, according to our research. (To make our determinations, we checked whether Trumps endorsees had, if members of Congress, voted against certifying the election results, and whether they had taken a public stance on the issue via news reports and their social media pages. Candidates who more generally raised questions about voter fraud or wanted to increase scrutiny of voting practices werent included in our totals.)

Senate, House, governor, secretary of state and attorney general candidates running in the 2022 cycle endorsed by Donald Trump and their position on the legitimacy of the 2020 election, as of April 18, 2022

*Dropped out.

To determine whether a candidate supported Trumps false claims that he won the 2020 election, we checked whether Trumps endorsees had voted against certifying the election results and whether they had taken a public stance on the issue via news reports and their social media pages.

Sources: donaldjtrump.com, news reports

Support for the Big Lie is particularly prominent in the candidates Trump has endorsed for the House, as we identified that 81 percent (58 out of 72) of the candidates Trump has backed believe in the Big Lie. In Trumps endorsements for Senate and governors races, though, support for the Big Lie isnt quite as pronounced. Just six out of the 17 candidates Trump has endorsed for the Senate support the Big Lie, and nine out of 14 gubernatorial candidates do.

But as we wrote in December, whats really notable about Trumps endorsements this cycle is hes also taking the unusual step of endorsing election officials most notably, election officials who buy into Trumps lie that the election was stolen from him. So far, Trump has endorsed three secretary of state candidates (all Big Lie believers) in Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, states that flipped from Trump in 2016 to President Biden in 2020, and where all three incumbent secretaries of state certified their states results.

Trump has taken a similar approach in attorney general races, where four out of five of his endorsed candidates believe that the 2020 election was fraudulent. His two incumbent endorsees, Ken Paxton in Texas and Ashley Moody in Florida, both joined a failed lawsuit that tried to overturn the election results, and two non-incumbent endorsees also hail from states Trump narrowly lost in 2020, Georgia and Michigan. (The fifth endorsee, Tim Griffin, an attorney general candidate in Arkansas, hasnt taken a stance on the 2020 election publicly.)

These endorsements are notable, not only because these races dont usually attract national attention, but because they also most clearly break with Trumps pattern of choosing safer, incumbent candidates. Of the eight candidates Trump has endorsed so far for secretary of state or attorney general, six are non-incumbents.

Of course, its still an open question at this point about how consequential Trumps endorsements will be. Most Republicans still have a favorable view of Trump, but there are signs his popularity is slipping. Moreover, weve already gotten some mixed signals with his endorsement track record. In the three special elections Trump weighed in on last year,his preferred candidate lost in Texas, but won in Ohio and Louisiana. His endorsement record could be further complicated this year, too, if he continues to rescind endorsements as he did with Brooks or endorse competing candidates like he did with state Rep. Steve Carra and U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga in Michigan.

Its too early at this point to conclude anything about Trumps endorsement track record, but as we keep moving through the primary season, well be keeping a close eye on what Trumps endorsements mean for the future of the Republican Party.

CORRECTION (April 19, 2022, 5:35 p.m.): An earlier version of the table in this article mistakenly listed Kristi Noem as the governor of North Dakota. Noem is the governor of South Dakota.

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More Than 70 Percent Of Trumps Endorsees Believe The 2020 Election Was Fraudulent - FiveThirtyEight

Donald Trump Jr. called Taylor Lorenz, the Washington Post columnist who revealed the identity of the user behind the Libs of TikTok account, a "psycho" on Tuesday following the publication of her debate-inciting expose.

In a tweet, he mentioned a recent video showing a tearful Lorenz talking about the "isolating" and "horrifying" effects of online harassment.

"Wasn't this psycho on tv 2 weeks ago actually crying about the exact type of behavior that seems to be her exact business model. If only she tried to report on real bad actors rather than a random personalities on social... but we know that won't happen," Trump tweeted.

Trump is one of many conservatives who have expressed outrage over Lorenz's piece published by the Washington Post, with many accusing her of being guilty of harassment herself in her efforts to identify the previously anonymous user. Some also accused Lorenz of "doxxing" the user, or the act of publicly revealing private personal information about an individual or organization, according to Merriam-Webster's definition.

Lorenz identified the user behind Libs of TikTok as Chaya Raichik. The Twitter profile was opened in November of 2020 and has accrued more than 682,000 followers.

Lorenz reported that Raichik was working as a real estate agent in Brooklyn when she created the account. In the years since, the account has gained traction and popularity among right-wing figures, regularly taking aim at liberals, civil rights protesters and teachers it alleges teaches sexually sensitive content to children or promotes LGBTQ+ rights.

The Libs of TikTok account on Twitter retweeted Trump's post. Earlier Tuesday, the user tagged Lorenz in another Twitter post that read: "Hi @TaylorLorenz! Which of my relatives did you enjoy harassing the most at their homes yesterday?"

In a picture included with the post, Lorenz appeared to be shown standing outside a home.

Lorenz was accused on social media of appearing at the house of the Libs of TikTok user's relatives, though it has not been independently verified by her or the Washington Post. But the accusations have further fueled the criticism.

Right-wing political commentator Ben Shapiro tweeted that Lorenz is "a terrible journalist and worse human."

"Targeting a Twitter account that literally just posts Leftists owning themselves because that account damages the Left is pure Lorenz," he added.

New York Post writer Emma-Jo Morris criticized Lorenz for what she described as using her influence as a writer at the Post to "dox private people."

"Taylor Lorenz is a 43-year-old woman who has a byline at one of the most powerful outlets in mediawhich she uses to dox private people on twitterand then cries on MSNBC about her self-proclaimed victim status," she wrote, referencing the same video Trump mentioned.

Lorenz defended her expose in a Twitter thread Tuesday.

"Yes, an acct whose goal is driving LGBTQ ppl out of public life is bad. Gay/trans ppl targeted by the acct have had their lives destroyed, but the *point* of the story is actually a nuanced look at radicalization & how the right wing outrage cycle functions. That's worth covering," she wrote.

"This is ultimately a story about how online influence warps our political discourse and shapes policy, as well as the right wing media's symbiotic relationship w/ a massive political influencer," she added in another tweet.

Newsweek reached out to Lorenz via the Washington Post, a representative for Donald Trump Jr. and the Trump Organization for comment.

Link:
Donald Trump Jr. Calls Taylor Lorenz 'Psycho' Over Libs of TikTok Article - Newsweek

Between Texas Gov. Greg Abbott letting the state power grid collapse while hes busing migrants to D.C. to get himself on Fox News, Jared Kushner getting $2 billion from the Saudis, and Donald Trump bragging to Sean Hannity about how well he knows Vladimir Putin, theres no end to the fuckery.

But the focus on The New Abnormal this week is on Donald Trump Jr., as CNN reporter Zachary Cohen breaks down his reporting on the namesakes post-election text messages to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows scheming on how to steal the election: We either have a vote WE control and WE win OR it gets kicked to Congress 6 January 2021.

That, Cohen tells co-host Molly Jong-Fast, shows that even in those earliest days, while the election votes were still being counted, there were high-level people, very close to the former president, including his chief of staff and his namesake oldest son, talking through the details about what would happen over the next two months in the lead up to Jan. 6, as far as the strategy to overturn the election. It really puts an important timestamp on when this strategy was being drawn upeven as the votes were still being counted.

Subscribe to The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or Overcast.

Whats interesting about Donald Trump Juniors text messages, Cohen explains, is that they refer to multiple paths that we control. There was an eye to Jan. 6 as sort of the backup plan where Junior alludes to a scenario where the House of Representatives can essentially vote to install Donald Trump as president, rather than Joe Biden. So Juniors lawyer told us, Look, this was given the date that this was sent. And, uh, he was, looks like he was forwarding along someone elses ideas, but weve also learned about a text that came immediately before that from Donald Trump, Jr. that says, Look, this is what we need to do. Please read it, please get it to everyone. We need to do it because Im not sure we're doing it. So he is clearly putting a stamp of approval on things.

Plus University of California Law professor Rick Hasen, the co-director of the universitys Fair Elections and Free Speech Center and the author of Cheap Speech: How Disinformation Poisons Our Politicsand How to Cure It, explains how if we had the same polarized politics of today, but the technology of the 1950s, we likely wouldn't have had Jan. 6 and the insurrection and millions of people believing the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen.

Listen to The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher.

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Donald Trump Jr. Was Up to His Ears in the Plot to Steal the Election for His Daddy - The Daily Beast

Kimberly Guilfoyle gives an address to the Republican National Convention on August 24, 2020 in Washington, DC.Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Kimberly Guilfoyle, the fiance of Donald Trump Jr., has met with the January 6 committee.

Guilfoyle was seen arriving for a meeting with the panel on Monday and left after more than 9 hours.

The panel wanted to learn about her conversations with Trump on January 6, 2021.

Kimberly Guilfoyle, the fiance of Donald Trump Jr., met with the January 6 panel investigating the Capitol riot for nine hours on Monday.

Guilfoyle arrived for a meeting with committee investigators at around 10 a.m. on Monday and left nine hours later, per CNN.

The January 6 panel subpoenaed the former Fox News personality and advisor to former President Donald Trump in March. This subpoena was issued after she backed out of a meeting with the panel in February, claiming that committee members "notorious for leaking information" were present at the meeting without her knowledge.

The committee already has Guilfoyle's phone records, obtained through subpoenas to communications companies.

In a March 3 letter to Guilfoyle, committee chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson said the panel wanted to speak to the former Fox News host about her conversations with the former president on the day of the riot and about her fundraising activities before the "Stop the Steal" Ellipse rally. Guilfoyle claimed to have raised $3 million for the former president's January 6 rally, an event that preceded the violent Capitol riot.

The letter also mentioned comments Guilfoyle made at the rally.

"You told the crowd, 'We will not allow the liberals and the Democrats to steal our dream or steal our elections,' and were filmed backstage prior to your speech telling people to 'Have the courage to do the right thing. Fight!'" it said.

"Ms. Guilfoyle met with Donald Trump inside the White House, spoke at the rally that took place before the riot on January 6th, and apparently played a key role organizing and raising funds for that event," said chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson in a statement at the time.

Story continues

Thompson added that the subpoena would compel Guilfoyle to testify after she "backed out of her original commitment to provide a voluntary interview."

To date, more than 800 people have spoken with the House January 6 committee.

Guilfoyle is the third Trump family member to have spoken to the panel in the last weeks. Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner, both voluntarily appeared before the January 6 panel for a combined 14 hours of closed-door testimony.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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Donald Trump Jr.'s fiance, Kimberly Guilfoyle, spent 9 hours talking to the House January 6 committee - Yahoo News

On Thursday, the Republican National Committee voted to withdraw its partys candidates from participation in the official presidential debates. Their unanimous vote to separate from the Commission on Presidential Debates is historic and comes after months of suggestions by the RNC and its chairperson Ronna McDaniel that the party would do so. While it is unclear whether such a move would bar a Republican standard bearer from participating if he or she chose to do so, such a move is a serious threat to the democratic process. It should also infuriate any potential 2024 Republican nominee who believes they could win a debate against President Joe Biden.

The Commission on Presidential Debates sponsors the general election debates between the partys presidential nominees (typically in three sessions) and the partys vice presidential nominees (in one session). The RNCs decision to withdraw from participation would not impact debates in the party primaries, which are typically formed from agreements among media organizations, a political party, and the potential candidates from a given party.

Republican Party leadership has been voicing anger over the rules that the Commission on Presidential Debates maintains and has suggested bias in the process, specifically around choices over moderator selection. Those concerns also extend to the timing of debates, term limits for members of the board of directors, and codes of conduct for staff and moderators. The party has demanded that the process and the commission be reformed.

The scope of reforms and the ability to influence the debate process is important to dissect. There are certain aspects of presidential debates that are set by the commission such as sites, moderators, etc. Other aspects of the debates are negotiated between campaigns and the commission, including minutiae like the position of podiums and the temperature of the air. The bigger picture issues, that (as noted above) RNC complaints center on, are typically determined by the commissions board of directors. That board is bipartisan in nature and many members have deep experience in politics and presidential debate procedure and history.

For most presidential candidates, debates are valuable. They serve as a large-scale, long-format means of detailing their plans and policies to the American public. Thus, it is surprising that the Republican Party would opt out of these debates during this cycle. First, it is always challenging for a presidential challenger to get as much airtime as a sitting president. Because of the nature of the office and the committed press coverage to a sitting President, the incumbent already has a leg up on the competition when it comes to delivering their message to the public. While there have been rumors that President Biden may not seek a second term, the Republican Party must operate under the assumption that he will seek reelection. As a result, the presidential debates offer a challenger an opportunity to be on the same playing fieldin some sense literallyas the sitting president.

Second, presidential campaigns are always a clash and contrast of ideas, and there is no grander stage for that to be played out than in a debate. There are no other opportunities for presidential (and vice presidential) candidates to face off, directly, across from one another, than in the commission sponsored debates. If a candidate is confident that they are a better candidate, with a more electable set of ideas, and would bring to the office a style and approach far superior to that of their opponent, they should clamor for the opportunity.

Third, Republicans have been quite confident in their debate performances in recent elections. On July 2, 2019, President Donald Trump tweeted his own opinion of the 2016 Commission on Presidential Debate-sponsored events stating, As most people are aware according to the Polls I won EVERY debate including the three with Crooked Hillary Clinton. In the following election cycle, the sitting president claimed to have won both debates once again.[1] After the first debate, he told the press corps, [b]y every measure, we won the debate easily last night. He even went on to suggest that despite his own desire for more debates, then-former Vice President Joe Biden wanted to opt out. Days after the second debate, President Trump tweeted about his winning, Debate Poll Average: 89% Trump. 11% Sleepy Joe Biden! Although, it should be noted it was not clear what poll average or specific polling the president was referencing with that claim.

Even the Republican National Committee chairperson praised Trumps debating in 2020. Ms. McDaniels statement tweeted by the official GOP account insisted that President Trump dominated tonights debate by aggressively highlighting that he accomplished more for the American people and the following day noted, President Trumps stellar performance in the second debate. Given this confidence, former President Trumps flirtation with another run in 2024, and polling suggesting he would be the Republican frontrunner, he should be embracing the opportunity to face off against the man who beat him in the 2020 race.

Fourth, withdrawing candidates from the commission-sponsored debates will not guarantee that those debates will be canceled. If the debate is not canceled and the Republican standard bearer opts not to attend, the event could provide President Biden or whoever is the Democratic nominee in 2024 if he were not to run, unfettered access to the American public. Those types of debates have happened in House and Senate races in which a candidate opts not to participate and either multiple candidates get more time than they would have otherwise, or a single candidate gets the entirety of the airtime.

Presidential debates are an important part of the democratic process in the United States. Failure to appear at one robs the American public from having a better understanding of what a candidate believes on a variety of issues, what that candidates demeanor and temperament as president would be like, and what management style he or she would bring to the Oval Office. In a country the size of the United States, the public does not have frequent access to the president or to presidential candidates, and so making an informed decision at the ballot box should require as much factual information about each candidate as is possible. Commission-sponsored debates allow for that possibility. Additionally, presidential candidates these days are kept in carefully protected bubbles in which surprises and curveballs rarely appear. It is at the commission-sponsored presidential debates when the public has the rare opportunity to see a president and/or a presidential candidate forced from that bubble and required to face the public directly.

Particularly in an era of misinformation, disinformation, questionable attack advertising, a social media environment fostered by woefully inept leadership, and a huge cadre of Americans across the political divide who consume news in echo chambers, the commission-sponsored debates serve a vital democratic value. The Republican National Committee should reconsider its decision to withdraw or at least make public that it would take no punitive action against a candidate who sought to participate in the forums. And finally, the Commission on Presidential Debates is not immune from reform or criticism. Where genuine and reasonable reforms or changes can be enacted, the commission should consider them insofar as the integrity of the process is maintained, the changes do not bias a single candidate or party, and the American public gets to hear from the partys standard bearers.

[1] As a reminder, during the 2020 cycle, there were three presidential debates scheduled. The initially scheduled second debate was canceled because President Trump contracted COVID-19. The final and second debate was held on October 22nd.

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Donald Trump should be furious the RNC nixed presidential debates - Brookings Institution