Trump GOP Reaps The Whirlwind On Its Anti-Abortion Absolutism

Posted on by David Kurtz

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

When Us v. Them Collapses On Itself

Republicans spent the day tying themselves in knots over the Arizona Supreme Court ruling that reinstated a Civil War-era territorial law banning nearly all abortions.

Shouts of “Shame! Shame!” erupted as Arizona Republican legislators thwarted attempts to repeal the state’s newly revived 1864 abortion ban. That made it comically more difficult for Donald Trump and other national Republicans to maintain the pretension that the Arizona mess would be quickly cleaned up.

But that pretension was itself a Russian nesting doll of bad faith and disingenuousness. Mess? What mess? This was precisely what Republicans set out to create in the half century since Roe legalized abortions nationwide. Even in Arizona itself, the GOP molded the state’s high court with this kind of outcome in mind, as the NYT reports.

It’s almost too obvious to say, but: It’s much easier maintaining a deeply unpopular political position when there’s no chance of it becoming law.

It goes beyond that, though.

A critical element of the GOP’s anti-abortion fanaticism was always a classic “us versus them” sorting exercise. On one side were God-fearing, chaste, proper, and upstanding women alongside their men and on the other side … oh my. Usually implicit but sometimes quite explicit was a fictional picture of a pro-abortion world populated by slutty liberal woman, Black women with no self respect or self control, serial baby-makers living out of wedlock, and a vile array of similarly atrocious caricatures.

Layer on top of that mean-spiritedness the MAGA Republican impulse to target, punish, and hurt its foes, and you could anticipate how this might go. Before Dobbs, it was easy for Trump et al. to use anti-abortion invective as a weapon. After Dobbs, the weaponization of abortion suddenly resulted in lots and lots of friendly fire. It wasn’t just those women who were affected, it was all women. The line between us and them blurred. What were easy cheap shots became self-inflicted wounds.

And Trump in his lizard brain knows this.

Trump Flails Hard On Abortion

Donald Trump has hung abortion politics around his own neck and now he’s drowning.

In remarks Wednesday trying to put out the fire he re-ignited earlier this week when his official non-position became “leave it up to the states,” Trump further backed himself into a corner:

  • In a significant but not altogether believable about-face from his previous campaigns, Trump said he would not sign a national ban on abortions if it came to his desk.
  • At the same time, Trump doubled down on punishing doctors who provide abortions.
  • As TPM’s Josh Marshall wrote: “It is a very clear sign of just how much Trump and his campaign feel like they’re on the run and on the ropes on this issue, partly because the Monday announcement was generally ineffective and even more after the bombshell news yesterday out of Arizona.”

Return With Us Now To Those Thrilling Days Of Yesteryear

  • Monica Hesse: Meet the ‘pursuer of nubile young females’ who helped pass Arizona’s 1864 abortion law
  • Good one:

Sean Hannity Needs Help

I’ve never seen the Fox News luminary so utterly adrift:

Keep trying, Sean:

Feel Trump’s Desperation As Criminal Trial Looms

It’s looking increasingly likely that the hush money trial will begin on schedule Monday in Manhattan:

  • Trump fails for a third time this week to delay the hush money trial.
  • TPM’s Hunter Walker: Trump Falsely Claims He ‘Just Found’ New Info Exonerating Him In Stormy Daniels Affair Case

Weisselberg Sentenced To Five Months … Again

Former Trump Org CFO Allen Weisselberg was sentenced to five months in Rikers for perjuring himself in the Trump civil fraud trial in New York.

It was the second consecutive year that Weisselberg was given a five-month Rikers sentence. The previous sentence was for tax fraud for his role in the Trump Org.

In each instance, he’ll end up serving about 100 days behind bars.

Quote Of The Day

I can’t in good conscience stay on the board of an organization representing Gerald R. Ford that doesn’t manifest his kind of guts. It’s now a place whose leadership is cowed by a demagogue creating and promulgating the greatest crisis our country has faced since the Civil War.

Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer David Hume Kennerly, in his letter resigning as a trustee of Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation for what he claims was its timidity in not giving its Distinguished Public Service medal to former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY)

Important

The House GOP melted down again after Trump ordered it to “Kill FISA.” It would be funny to watch if the national security implications weren’t so serious:

  • WSJ: Speaker Johnson’s Woes Grow After GOP Holdouts Block Spying Bill
  • Politico: Surveillance bill implodes amid GOP infighting in latest blow to Johnson
  • WaPo: House Republicans revolt against spy agency bill, signaling trouble for Johnson

It’s hard to overstate how rare it is for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to be enduring these kinds of internal procedural setbacks. Here’s a glimpse though:

2024 Ephemera

  • Politico: Trump, GOP scramble to contain abortion ‘earthquake’
  • Politico: How Biden’s campaign plans to pummel Trump on abortion
  • Semafor’s David Weigel: “Republican Secretaries of State in Ohio and Alabama have told Democrats that their presidential ticket might not qualify for their ballots, warning that the party’s nominating convention in Chicago will come too late to make their deadlines.”

So Very Afraid

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Signs That Johnson’s About To Give Up The Act

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

When House Republicans handed a 2020 election denier the gavel after ousting former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), there were strong indications the speakership might function as nothing more than a Donald Trump plaything for the foreseeable future.

Continue reading “Signs That Johnson’s About To Give Up The Act” →

Trump Falsely Claims He ‘Just Found’  New Info Exonerating Him In Stormy Daniels Affair Case

Posted on by Hunter Walker

In a post on his Truth Social account on Wednesday, former President Donald Trump seemed to suggest he was going through his infamous piles of documents when he found something that cleared him in the Stormy Daniels hush money scandal. However, the document Trump claimed to have “just found” is a widely discussed statement from Daniels that has been extensively, publicly discussed for over six years. 

“LOOK WHAT WAS JUST FOUND! WILL THE FAKE NEWS REPORT IT?” Trump asked on Truth Social, just above a photo of the document. 

The news media has already reported on the statement, which appears to be signed by Daniels. In it, the former adult film star denied her “alleged sexual relationship” with Trump. Daniels also declared, “I am not denying the affair because I was paid ‘hush money’ as has been reported in overseas owned tabloids.” 

Of course, it would later emerge that Daniels’ attorney received a $130,000 payment from Trump’s lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, in conjunction with a non-disclosure agreement as she considered going public with affair allegations before the 2016 election. Cohen ultimately pleaded guilty to multiple federal charges including campaign finance violations that stemmed from the payments. The alleged hush money payment is now at the center of one of the ongoing criminal cases against Trump, set to go to trial next week.

Daniels disavowed her statement in late January 2018 on the very same night it was released. In an interview with “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” Daniels suggested the signature didn’t look like hers. During a subsequent March 2018 interview on “60 Minutes,” Daniels admitted she had agreed to sign the statement and claimed she did so because people involved ““made it sound like I had no choice.”  

Despite how much the statement has already been publicized and litigated, Trump supporters have recently begun re-circulating it and suggesting it is new. The strategy prompted a fact check from the Associated Press last month, which noted, “Trump allies and others on social media are attempting to cast the old statement denying the affair as new information.” Now, Trump himself is getting in on the action.

Trump, who has consistently denied having an affair with Daniels, was charged by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg with falsifying business records related to the payment. The case made Trump the first president in American history to be charged with a crime as he is running to return to the White House. Since then, Trump has faced other charges, but Bragg’s case is the only one, at least so far, that’s headed to trial before the election in November. In recent days, Trump’s lawyers have filed three legal challenges to the case. As of now, the trial is set to start on Monday. 

Daniels did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story. She is set to spend the coming weekend at the EXXXOTICA Expo in Chicago, which is billed as “the largest adult event in the USA dedicated to love and sex.” 

Trump Feels on the Run on Abortion

Posted on by Josh Marshall

Today in Atlanta a reporter asked Trump whether he would sign a national abortion ban if Congress sent one to him as President. He said he would not. A clear “no.” He got asked again, and again said no. It should go without saying that there’s zero reason to believe him. If Congress passed such a law he would almost certainly sign it. But that’s not what’s interesting here. He very conspicuously did not say this in his abortion mini-speech on Monday. It’s not like he didn’t know that was an option. He and his campaign very strategically did not say this. Now he has. It is a very clear sign of just how much Trump and his campaign feel like they’re on the run and on the ropes on this issue, partly because the Monday announcement was generally ineffective and even more after the bombshell news yesterday out of Arizona. Just two days later and they’re already having to do repair work on his big announcement that was supposed to sidestep the issue for the campaign.

Biden’s campaign has settled on a very clear message they’re using in response to every new restriction and horror story. “Donald Trump did this.” It works because it’s true. Indeed, Trump himself has shown he’s unwilling and unable not to keep taking the same credit. Donald Trump did this. And he’s feeling the heat in a way his own campaign did not expect and so far is showing itself unable to deal with.

The GOP-Funded Spoiler Candidates

Posted on by Josh Marshall

Over the coming months we’re going to see a lot of articles about some secret plan Republicans have to totally undermine or destroy Democrats, like this one in the Times. These will all of course be pitched by Republicans eager to spread the word about their devious secret plans, pump up their partisans and demoralize Democrats. The one I’m flagging here has some of that. But it’s worth reading because it is what this campaign will almost inevitably come down to — third party candidates and whether Republicans will be able to elevate them enough to allow Donald Trump to win.

One thing we should expect is for all of the “major” third party candidates — Kennedy, Stein, West — to be funded in part by ultra-high-net-worth Republicans. That’s already happening to some degree.

Continue reading “The GOP-Funded Spoiler Candidates” →

Big Fibbin’ Tim Sheehy and a Whopper as Big as Montana

Posted on by Josh Marshall

TPM Reader JK checks in on a Montana Senate candidate’s absurd claims about his emergency room visit after he accidentally shot himself while visiting a National Park in Montana.

Speaking as a trauma surgeon, you’re absolutely right about Sheehy. There’s absolutely no reason for doctors to report a bullet in someone, unless it just got there. People come in with “retained missiles” all the time. If there’s a healed scar over it, it doesn’t matter at all – it just means they can’t get an MRI.  And of course it’s obvious when someone has been recently shot vs years ago. The whole story is complete nonsense from bottom to top.

Continue reading “Big Fibbin’ Tim Sheehy and a Whopper as Big as Montana” →

A Replay of 2004?

Posted on by Josh Marshall

I’d missed this from a few days ago. At NBC News, TPM alum Sahil Kapur notes that Democrats use of abortion ballot initiatives to coincide with the November election can be seen as a kind of replay of the 2004 election in which the Bush campaign got state Republican parties and activists to work to get anti-gay marriage initiatives on the ballot to goose turnout for their partisans. There are some pretty basic substantive differences, of course. Abortion rights that existed in 2022 have close to disappeared in many of these states and the ballot initiatives would bring them back and in many cases expand them. At the time legalizing gay marriage wasn’t really on the horizon in any of the states in question. But the functional similarity is a point well-taken.

Continue reading “A Replay of 2004?” →

Judge Cannon Rules For Jack Smith–Though You Wouldn’t Know It

Posted on by David Kurtz

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

One Obvious Avenue Of Appeal Is Off The Table

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has reversed herself and will not force the names of potential prosecution witnesses in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents trial to be made public at this early stage of the proceedings.

But Cannon used the occasion of ruling in favor of Special Counsel Jack Smith to slap him around a bit more, as is her wont.

For those looking for a chance for Smith to take her to the 11th Circuit on appeal sooner than later, this pre-trial dispute was the best chance of that happening because it threatened to expose witnesses to threats and intimidation. But she belatedly ruled properly, so this is out of the running now as an opportunity for the appeals court to rein her in. Stay tuned.

Clock Ticks Down To First Trump Criminal Trial

The pulse quickens as things remain on track for the New York hush-money case to begin Monday:

  • Donald Trump lost another last-ditch bid to delay the trial.
  • Aaron Blake: Why Trump’s ‘hush money’ case is bigger than hush money
  • *Coverage Alert*: TPM’s Josh Kovensky will be covering the trial in person beginning next week.

Trump Prosecution Miscellany

  • NY Mag: What on Earth Is Aileen Cannon Doing?
  • WaPo: How Donald Trump’s mug shot became a defiant and divisive 2024 symbol
  • University of Texas law professor Lee Kovarsky offers a handy cheat sheet for what the Supreme Court might do with Trump’s presidential immunity argument in the Jan. 6 case.

Whoa Arizona!

Barely 24 hours after Roe-destroying Donald Trump took the craven and elastic position that he would leave abortion policy to the individual states, Arizona’s Supreme Court showed us exactly what that will look like.

In reviving a draconian, mid-19th century abortion ban passed when Arizona was still a territory, the high court upended the state’s closely watched Senate race, made it an even swingier swing state in the presidential election, put a potential November abortion-rights referendum front and center, and exposed the fundamental fraud of Trump’s position.

The most exposed person of all was likely GOP Senate nominee Kari Lake, who was on record in favor of the previously dormant ban but quickly started trying to crawfish her way out of it as soon as the court ruling landed, comically captured by TPM’s Josh Marshall:

So let’s review. Lake opposes the law she had consistently said she supported. She denounces the court decision which ruled that the old law is in effect. She thinks the decision should be left to the states. She also opposes abortion. Also, Arizona is a state.

Women’s health is obviously the core issue here, but the self-own of Republicans spending half a century forcing through the courts a deeply unpopular political position and now seeing those chickens come home to roost is one of the pleasures of being old enough to have witnessed nearly the entire story arc.

Loud And Proud

Sometimes the truth hurts:

2024 Ephemera

  • TPM’s Josh Marshall: Yep, The Polls Are Shifting To Biden
  • LOL: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) angles for a bipartisan rebrand, the Texas Tribune reports.
  • NBC News: Election worker turnover has reached historic highs ahead of the 2024 vote, new data shows

Here We Go Again

It’s time to start paying attention again to the antics of the Crazy Caucus in the House.

Under siege from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), the speakership of Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is once again hanging in the balance. As Punchbowl put it this morning, “it’s clear now the Louisiana Republican has a very stark choice in front of him — pass a Ukraine aid bill or remain speaker.”

No one except Johnson gives a hoot about his fate, but the fate of poor Ukraine is bound up in the internal tribalism of the Republican Party with a big assist from Russia, whose propaganda efforts Republicans admit they have swallowed hook, line, and sinker.

Trump Owns This

WaPo: “Six years after the Trump administration’s controversial decision to withdraw from the pact, the restraints have fallen away, one by one, leaving Iran closer to nuclear weapons capability than at any time in the country’s history, according to confidential inspection reports and interviews with officials and experts who closely monitor Iran’s progress.”

‘Despicable And Consequently Very Serious’

The woman who stole Ashley Biden’s diary and sold it to James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas was sentenced to a month in jail by a federal judge in Manhattan.

Dumb And Dumber

Right-wing provocateurs Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman have agreed to pay up to $1.25 million in fines in a settlement with New York Attorney General Letitia James for their 2020 robocall campaign to suppress the Black vote. The dumb-and-dumber duo has already been fined $5.1 million by the FEC and pleaded guilty to criminal charges in Ohio arising from the scheme.

Women Beat Men

For the first time, more TV viewers watched the NCAA women’s basketball national championship game than watched the men’s championship game.

Preach, Sister!

In her latest Vanity Fair piece, Molly Jong-Fast writes:

The situation we’re in, and will be in for the next seven months, is without precedent. And there is no handbook for US media outlets covering the rise of authoritarianism on its own shores.

She brought that same spirit to MSNBC’s Morning Joe yesterday:

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Full Panic Mode Kari Lake

Posted on by Josh Marshall

Whatever happens in Arizona in November, we got a preview of the difficulty Republican candidates will have in states where high-stakes ballot initiatives literally put abortion on the ballot. Shortly after Arizona’s high court ruled that the state must go back to the 1864 abortion law which forbids virtually every abortion, Kari Lake, probable GOP Senate nominee (and governor over the water) released a remarkable statement. She first denounced the 1864 law, which she said she supported as recently as last fall. She said she opposed today’s ruling. She then demanded Gov. Katie Hobbs and the Republican state legislature “come up with an immediate common sense solution that Arizonans can support.” She then said that the decision will be up to voters in the ballot initiative that will be on the November ballot — that is, the initiative she actually opposes.

Continue reading “Full Panic Mode Kari Lake” →

What A Time To Remind Voters What Happens When Abortion Is Left To The States

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

Look, when paving the way for the highest court in the land to overturn the federal right to an abortion becomes your legacy and then completely backfires during every election in the wake of said overturning — you’re in a tough spot!

Continue reading “What A Time To Remind Voters What Happens When Abortion Is Left To The States” →