Blake Masters mingles with Donald Trump: a CNN political analyst at a Trump rally in Phoenix, Ariz, in March 2020
Similarly, in Arizona, Blake Masters won the Republican nomination for Senate with the help of Mr. Trump’s endorsement, which arrived months after Mr. Masters recorded a social media video in which he looked directly into the camera to tell viewers, “I think Trump won in 2020.” At the time, Mr. Trump made clear he was snubbing another Republican candidate who the former president believed had not done enough to support the lie that the election was rigged.
Mr. Masters agreed with Mr. Biden that he had been duly elected. He claimed that the president’s son Hunter Biden was suppressed by social media companies.
Three days after the debate, Mr. Masters mingled with attendees before a Trump rally in Mesa, Ariz. In a brief interview as he shook hands and posed for pictures, Mr. Masters said he stood by his position on election fraud.
Editor’s Note: Julian Zelizer, a CNN political analyst, is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author and editor of 24 books, including, “The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: A First Historical Assessment.” Follow him on Twitter @julianzelizer. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.
Trump’s “Never Trump”: The Impact of Biden’s Presidential Campaign on the United States Senate, House Finance and the Senate Judgment
It appears that Donald Trump will be going for the White House again. A potential launch date for the presidential campaign of Donald Trump was being considered by top aides, sources told CNN. Trump, it seems, is hoping to be the first person since President Grover Cleveland to win two non-consecutive elections.
While Trump has been hinting at another run for months, the news would certainly send shockwaves through the political world. One of the most controversial and destabilizing political leaders in US history is Trump. And as we have seen with recent Supreme Court decisions like Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization – as well as the toxic rhetoric and support for conspiracy theories within the GOP – his presidency was enormously consequential.
Biden not only defeated the incumbent president but was able to move a large legislative agenda through the congress, overcoming fierce Republican opposition and even winning a few GOP votes. The American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act stand up as a historic trifecta – a legislative track record arguably more significant than any that we have seen since President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.”
The Democrats have been shown nothing by the campaigns, but the Republicans are still unified in their beliefs. There is little that can shake the unity. The party didn’t change after Trump left the White House, and the “Never Trump” contingent failed to become a dominant force. Liz Cheney was kicked out of the party.
Even with unconventional and deeply flawed candidates such as Herschel Walker and Dr. Mehmet Oz running for key Senate seats, recent polls are showing that the GOP is in relatively good shape overall going into the midterm election on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Democrats are scrambling to defend several seats and even candidates in reliably blue states such as New York are at risk.
If Mr. Trump was going to run for president again, it might be worthwhile for Republicans to reflect on his record in turnnable races and states that ended up being big-time loser. Even some of his former aides urged him to slow down, but he is going to make a “Special Announcement” on Tuesday night. Mr. Trump likes to move fast and furious. If Mr. Trump becomes the nominee, he will probably cost the Republicans the election in battleground states but also give them a glimpse of what he can do if he stays at the top.
If a GOP victory were to occur, it would embolden Trump. At this time, he has escaped accountability. Despite ongoing criminal investigations and the House select committee investigating January 6, Trump is still a viable political figure.
The Justice Department is weighing whether to appoint a special counsel to oversee two separate investigations into Trump’s actions if he becomes the next president. But that’s unlikely to stop Trump; we’ve seen his relentless attacks on former special counsel Robert Mueller, who oversaw the Russia investigation. It will be more difficult to prosecute Trump once he is a candidate. Trump, a master of playing the victim, is sure to claim (as he has in the past) that any investigation is simply a politically motivated “witch hunt” intended to take him out of the running.
The President could be facing a shaky economy and divisions within his own party if Trump avoids prosecution. And if election deniers enter positions of power after the midterms, and Trump escapes any punishment for January 6, it’s likely he will take advantage of the loyalists who have infiltrated state and local election offices to make sure that victory is his. Trump will also come to the race having been to this rodeo before, which will mean he can perfect the technique and rhetoric that put him into office in 2016. With Musk now owning Twitter, Trump could be put back in charge of the media conversation once again. Since he was barred fromTwitter, Trump has been active at Truth Social but he has not publicly indicated that he will return.
The Trump Dream: A Post-Waveterm Opinion Report on the U.S. Election Night After the 2022 Midterm Election
The Democrats have neglected to emphasize the risks posed to democracy in their campaign, even though the GOP’s radical nature was a reason for voters to turn out in large numbers. The dangers have been outlined many times over but Democrats are still struggling to retain power.
Trump poses a serious threat in the future, but he isn’t going to win. Trump had turned off many independents and even some Republicans by 2020 and it remains unclear if he can win their support in crucial swing states. President Barack Obama had to battle hard against Romney in the reelection, but he still found a way to win.
A former CNN producer and correspondent is the author of a world affairs column. She is a weekly opinion contributor to CNN, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post and a columnist for World Politics Review. Her own views are expressed in this commentary. You can view more of the opinion on CNN.
The results of the 2022 midterm election have not been fully tallied and the crucial question – who will control Congress? – has not been answered. We can draw some initial conclusions on this day after.
Glenn Beck, the right-wing talk radio host, was half-joking when he made this suggestion the day after Tuesday’s elections, but he voiced a longing that a number of Republicans had after the midterms: a hope to linger with the visions of a red tsunami that wiped out Democratic power across the country. The party’s poor showing in the election made it too sour for them to linger on.
The movement spearheaded by Trump and his election deniers performed worse than expected. Even some of the most dramatic Republican victories looked like a rebuke of Trump and his band of anti-democratic activists.
“In exit polls, 28% of voters said they chose their House vote ‘to oppose Donald Trump.’ Before this election, only 42% of respondents said they had a positive opinion of the former president. That should alarm the party.
On election night, Trump told an interviewer, “I think if [Republicans] win, I should get all the credit. If they lose, I shouldn’t be blamed. Evidence shows that he deserves the lion’s share of the blame.
Republicans failed to achieve the resounding victory usually achieved by an opposition party against a president with a low approval rating. Democrats not only held on to control of the Senate but could increase their number by one if Georgia Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock defeats Republican Herschel Walker in a runoff election next month. And if Republicans win a House majority, it will be by just a few seats.
They could well do it. Even if Republicans take the House, the Democrats will have a great performance because of Nancy Pelosi. Biden presided over the best performance by the party in power since George W. Bush in 2002, the first election after 9/11.
Biden, in fact, has said he chose to run for president in an effort to save US democracy. If Tuesday’s result is any indication, his party can lose control of Congress, but he can still take solace in the progress they have made. These elections were a victory for democracy.
Josh Shapiro won the attorney general’s race in Pennsylvania by defeating Doug Mastriano who ran a campaign that included antisemitic innuendo against his Jewish opponent. In many contests, the far-right allies of Trump lost.
The football star Herschel Walker could still win the runoff in December. But anyone who heard him campaign or learned about his past knows he should never have been on the ballot. Trump apparently thought fame would do the trick, just as it did for him. Mehmet Oz was backed by him for the Pennsylvania seat. John Fetterman lost to Oz because he was unable to regain his verbal dexterity, a key skill for a political candidate.
Four years ago, he won his first race by a small margin. On Tuesday, his victory against Charlie Crist sent a message that he can win over the independent voters who decide elections.
Republicans are equally enthusiastic about DeSantis, but historian Nicole Hemmer suggested there are obstacles to his potential run for president. “Before declaring this the dawn of DeSantis, remember: It is just as likely the next few weeks will be the high-water mark of his presidential aspirations. The spotlight can very quickly become the hot seat, and DeSantis is both untested as a national candidate and as a Trump adversary. The particulars of the victory of Ron DeSantis make it unlikely that those who have seen an easy pivot from the era of Trump to the age of him will ever see a better outcome.
Then there was Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, another Republican who won reelection, in a rematch with Stacey Abrams. Trump despises Kemp because, like other Georgia officials, he refused to overturn the 2020 vote, despite enormous pressure from the then-president.
Trump plans to declare his candidacy soon even though he has a poor showing. Ghitis noted that most Democrats find the prospect hard to stomach, but most Republicans wish that he focused on his golf game.
On the Dawn of Ron DeSantis: What Will We Learn in 2020 From His Campaigning for the Preliminary Republican Electoral Prize?
Americans will soon have to endure another season of presidential campaigning by the most disruptive candidate in living memory, a man who has shown only disdain for democracy. It’s good to know the country has taken a step toward sanity this week, and that democracy did pretty well.
It is possible a losing streak could jeopardize the base’s loyalty to Trump and result in a violent insurrection. Since he has support from both the right-wing media and Republican elites, it is more likely that you will see Ron DeSantis challenge Trump in the GOP nomination. Trump, however, has an exceptional track record against such odds. Which means the dream of a victory by the DeSantis campaign in 2024 can be just as illusory as Tuesday’s red wave.
It’s just as likely the next few weeks are the high-water mark of his presidential ambitions, so before declaring this the dawn of DeSantis, remember. The spotlight can very quickly become the hot seat, and DeSantis is both untested as a national candidate and as a Trump adversary. Those that see an easy transition from the era of Trump to the age of DeSantis are likely in for another wave of disappointment, both because of the particulars of DeSantis winning and the persistence of Trump’s power.
He has a strongman persona that is married to his political style. As governor, he has made certain to target universities, public health workers and corporations for opposing his policies. He sent police to round up people with felony convictions who thought their voting rights had been revoked after they got back into the Voting Rights Act. He has bent the Florida legislature to his will, whipping up support for anti-gay laws, a new redistricting map and punitive legislation targeting Disney after the company criticized the state’s infamous “don’t say gay” bill.
Such actions bolstered his popularity in Florida, as did his attention to public opinion. He put in place a gas-tax holiday in the month prior to the election to focus on Hurricane Relief, rather than campaigning for the election. As a result, he appears to have won not only traditional conservatives in the state but also made more headway with Latino voters and voters in more Democratic areas like Miami-Dade. There was a time when Trumpism without Trump was a dream of many on the right.
Success in Florida and success in theory don’t mean national victory according to Sen. Marco Rubio. There are particulars of Florida that part of that. The electorate there has been more conservative in the last few years, even as the country as a whole has coalesced around left-wing policies.
Meanwhile, unlike the national party, the Democratic Party in Florida is in tatters, struggling to field and support candidates and to organize and mobilize voters. Florida is home to a specific mix of Latino voters with a lot of immigrants from Cuba and Venezuela, who support the attacks on Democrats by DeSantis.
Donald Trump is a Florida resident. The Dump Trump crowd, though bigger at the moment than at perhaps any time since 2016, does not seem to fully understand how deep and unquestioning the cult of personality around Trump still is within parts of the party.
The Best Opinions of the Week: A Tale of Two Disappearing Racehorse and Two Candidates Who voted for Pro-Abortion
Editor’s Note: Sign up to get this weekly column as a newsletter. We look back at the best opinions of the week from CNN and other outlets.
In Arthur Conan Doyle’s story, “Silver Blaze,” Sherlock Holmes investigates the disappearance of a famous racehorse and the “tragic murder of its trainer.” A police inspector asks the detective if he would like to draw his attention.
It was only a little more than a week ago that Republicans thought they’d be savoring a crushing victory – and some Democrats were starting to blame each other for what they feared would be a disaster.
According to Benjamin Wallace-Wells of the New Yorker, Republicans are about to sweep Senate races such as Walker in Georgia and Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania. Wallace-Wells said that the word that kept coming up in those conversations was a bloodbath.
People often wonder what it will take to get young people to vote, according to a letter from a University of Missouri-Kansas City student. They no longer need to guess after the 2020 midterms.
The future of us could be determined by that issue. Give us the knowledge that we can have a say in the issues that impact us with our votes, and we will turn out in droves. Hernandez and her fellow Gen Z friends saw abortion as that kind of existential issue.
On Election Day, there was a line that stretched across the campus of the University of Michigan with students waiting for over four hours. There was a palpable sense of excitement and urgency around the election on campus. For many young people, especially young women, there was one motivating issue that drove their participation: abortion rights.”
According to national exit polls, the voters between the ages of 18 and 29 were more pro-Democrat than any other age group with voters over 45 favoring Republicans.
Before the election, some pundits argued that the anger of many voters at the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade had faded after five months, and that inflation would blot out most other concerns. They also argued that President Joe Biden was out of touch for focusing a major pre-election speech on the threat election deniers running for office posed to democracy. Both of those issues got people talking.
“The abortion-rights side seemingly went a perfect five-for-five when it came to ballot initiatives, recognizing a state right to abortion in Michigan, California and Vermont,” wrote law professor Mary Ziegler. “Kentucky, a deep red state, turned away an attempt to say that the state constitution did not protect a right to abortion. Voters in Montana rejected the abortion measure which would have imposed criminal penalties on health care providers.
John Avlon saw the midterms as “a repudiation of former President Donald Trump’s election lies and at least many of the top-ticket candidates who parroted them.”
“What a relief,” wrote Roxanne Jones. “It finally feels like a majority of voters want to re-center American politics away from the toxic, conspiracy theory-driven rhetoric we’ve experienced over the past several years.”
“Plenty of voters are worried about unchecked progressivism on the left, but they’re even more worried about unchecked extremism on the right,” observed Tim Alberta, in the Atlantic.
“That extremism takes many forms: delegitimizing our elections system, endorsing the January 6 assault on the Capitol, cracking jokes and spreading lies about the assault on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband. Donald Trump is one of the people who are embodied by the extremism that so many swing voters rejected on Tuesday.
If she had succeeded, she would have been the first black woman governor of a US state. After her second straight electoral loss, America is still waiting for that breakthrough.”
In 2010, Sophia A. Nelson lost to Brian Kemp in the Georgia governor’s race, and she was very sad about the loss this time around.
In Texas, Democrat Beto O’Rourke lost to incumbent Republican Greg Abbott for governor. In the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Nicole Russell wrote that after “his third huge loss, it’s time for him to stop running for offices in Texas. We have had enough of Beto for a long time. … His liberal policies are unwelcome and unwanted in Texas.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/13/opinions/five-lessons-midterms-opinion-columns-galant/index.html
What is the Sexiest Man Alive? After all, what happens when Russia pulls its troops out of the city of Kherson
In a new sign its invasion is faltering, Russia pulled troops out of the city of Kherson, the only regional capital it captured in Ukraine since the February invasion. President Vladimir Putin might be able to retain control of his nation for a period of time, despite the debacle of the war. But continuing defeat on the battlefield is going to have an impact: “Whatever happens … Putin wants to reestablish Russia as a great power on the back of its military strength, but so does his ambitions of constructing a legacy as one of the nation’s great state builders.
Sara Stewart said that Chris Evans has not aged well since he was first given the accolade by Mel Gibson in 1985.
A great time to ask, can we get rid of peoples’ Sexiest Man Alive tradition?
“Think about the inherent ridiculousness of declaring anyone the sexiest person alive. Sexiness is subjective. The joke is that people give their own tastes as if they are everyone’s. And by making their subject male, they’re tacitly saying: See, we’re not objectifying women, we’re so evolved. Men can be objects of lust too! Maybe that was (arguably) a subversive statement in the 1980s, when Playboy, Penthouse and other magazines imposed a misogynist ideal of sexiness at the newsstands. But now? Not so much.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/13/opinions/five-lessons-midterms-opinion-columns-galant/index.html
Five Lessons Midterms: Why I’m So Glad You’ve Done This Before I Die: When Elon Musk Decides to Quit Twitter
The new season of “The crown” tells the story of the royals through the turbulent 1990s, including Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s divorce in 1992, a fire that destroyed much of Windsor castle, and Elizabeth’s “annus horribilis” in 1992.
But as Thomas noted, “The Crown” hasn’t “masqueraded as a documentary or claimed to perfectly replicate private moments between royal family members. It used loose outlines, filled them in with artistic license, and relied on the intelligence of the audience to tell the difference. Its creator and writer, Peter Morgan, is a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for ‘services to drama,’ not history…”
Elon Musk is going to have to try to fix Twitter without the help of journalist Roxanne Jones. She’s had enough. Jones deleted his profile on the day that Musk was the new owner. I decided to say goodbye and good riddance after 12 years of having a mostly “dysfunctional” relationship with the social media site.
The micro-Blogging community of 239.8% million users won’t see much change from that act. But for me, quitting Twitter was an act of power and self-care. I was setting boundaries for what I will, and will not, allow in my life.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/13/opinions/five-lessons-midterms-opinion-columns-galant/index.html
Five Lessons in the Age of Lotteries: How Much Did Bill and his Wife Buy? What Would We Do? How Many Million Dollars Does It Take to Compute?
Bill and his wife usually don’t buy lottery tickets due to the fact that it feels like burning a $20 bill on a barbecue grill.
We are interested in the fact that many people, like us, ignore lotteries until they soar to staggering amounts. Even a $100 million prize hasn’t raised much eyebrow. As though that’s too piddling to care? Most people wouldn’t change their lives for $100 million.
What would we do with all of that money? We helped the children, donated to charities, and bought several homes. What else are we supposed to do? Build a ‘money bin’ and swim around in it like Scrooge McDuck? Unwise. Money makes you liquid, but it is not liquid at all.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/13/opinions/five-lessons-midterms-opinion-columns-galant/index.html
The Man of Steel and the MAGA of the Donald Trump Era: When J. Shuster, Helen Louise Cohen, and Donald Cox Were Together
The story of the Man of Steel’s origins is well-known. At the age of 18,Joseph Shuster and classmates came up with a revolutionary idea: Superman. He was the first superhero, a concept so unprecedented that, as Siegel detailed in his unpublished memoir, every newspaper syndicate in the US rejected it for being too fantastic for children to relate to.”
But as Schwartz wrote, Shuster had a relationship with Helen Louise Cohen, a fellow resident of Cleveland, who might have borne a resemblance to Superman’s eventual wife Lois Lane. She sent sketches of Superman, as well as a drawing of Cohen, and letters that were written in neat script.
Ultimately, she broke it off, choosing instead to marry “a dashing officer, later awarded the Legion of Merit and eventually becoming a colonel in the Army’s 88th Infantry Division.” During World War II, he wasn’t able to see clearly enough to join the military.
Cohen would later tell her sons, as Schwartz noted, that “Shuster was simply too mild-mannered for her.” He was able to keep his sketches and letters, as the family is sharing them with the world.
Did Donald Trump lose in the midterms? Plenty of people declared that he did, from liberal pundits to the Murdoch newspapers — the latter delivering a double whammy from the front page of The New York Post (“TRUMPTY DUMPTY”) and the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal (“Trump Is the Republican Party’s Biggest Loser”).
It’s tempting to see the strength of the MAGA forces ebbing at last, the calendar leaf turning over on the Trump era. How can you declare defeat for a movement which is refusing to accept defeat? Mr. Trump and his supporters have been feeding off each other’s worst tendencies for so long, it’s impossible to separate his temperament or strategy from that of the Republican Party.
Consider Dan Cox, the Trump loyalist who lost the governor’s race in Maryland by more than 25 points. In his statement, Cox said he had called Moore to recognize him as the winner. The Trumpist version of concession was that the other side had won and what someone else said were the facts. Our internal data shows a huge shift of swing voters to our side and a huge turnout of Republicans, but neither of the events have been reported to have occurred.
Mehmet Oz and Melania Trump: How an Emotionally-Averse Couple Can Get Into Dilemma at Mar-a-Lago
Marriage is not easy. Couples will sometimes bicker on each other’s nerves. So consider just how bumpy things could get if someone’s thin-skinned, emotionally erratic, accountability-averse husband started criticizing her for his high-profile screw-ups.
This apparently has been happening at Mar-a-Lago, where, postelection, Donald Trump is flipping out over his key role in the Republicans’ face plant in the Pennsylvania Senate race. Mr. Trump backed his old buddy Mehmet Oz, and the celebrity doctor turned out to be a loser. The former president has since been shifting the blame for his poor pick onto everyone else — including Melania Trump, according to The Times. (Mr. Trump, of course, hopped on Truth Social to denounce the “Fake Story” and insist he “was not at all ANGRY.”)
Mrs. Trump must have been used to her husband throwing his temper around. Still, this round of ragey finger-pointing must be particularly galling, considering that Mr. Trump didn’t just undermine Republicans’ chances in an eminently winnable Senate race. He helped kneecap the party up and down the Pennsylvania ballot, giving the Democrats in the crucial swing state one of their best Election Days in ages.