Howdy, it’s the weekend. That is The Weekender ☕
The fitting-wing Washington Examiner revealed a humorous non-story on Friday headlined, “Donald Trump Jr. appreciates however rejects supply to run NRA.” I name it a non-story as a result of the Nationwide Rifle Affiliation by no means really provided Don Jr. the place — the Examiner aggregated a report from The Reload gun journal about an NRA board member suggesting in an electronic mail that Don Jr. could be match. And Don Jr. solely rejected the supposed “supply” as a result of the Washington Examiner referred to as somebody “near” him to ask about it.
The official purpose the supply near Don Jr. gave was that the previous president’s son is simply too tied up engaged on his father’s marketing campaign and has not too long ago begun “shifting in as a key surrogate” for his father whereas he sits in a courtroom in Manhattan all day for his legal trial. Don Jr., who’s a very large gun man and has performed loads of disgraceful trophy looking in his day, was apparently, within the Examiner’s phrases, “very appreciative of the suggestion.”
There’s in all probability no lie in Don Jr.’s rationale for rejecting the supply however there’s one other attainable underlying purpose. Even among the largest gun nuts have been distancing themselves from the gun group, which has been tormented by corruption and monetary mismanagement for five-plus years. Simply earlier this yr, the NRA’s former longtime chief Wayne LaPierre was discovered answerable for spending hundreds of thousands of NRA funds on his personal private, extravagant life-style. A jury discovered LaPierre should repay $4.4 million to the NRA and that its retired finance chief, Wilson Phillips, should repay $2 million.
That’s small potatoes in comparison with the fines being imposed on Don Jr.’s father, however maybe he doesn’t need to contact any extra doubtlessly fraudulent organizations with a ten foot pole.
Right here’s what now we have on faucet for you this weekend:
- Kate Riga coated Supreme Court docket oral arguments this week. She unpacks why the conservative justices’ dealing with of the Idaho abortion case foreshadowed what was to return the next day on Trump’s grasp at immunity.
- Hunter Walker discusses his reporting on “the mom of all Twitter information” and the way extraordinarily thrilling Elon Musk is for the far proper.
- Khaya Himmelman weighs in on the RNC’s newest “election integrity” scheme.
Let’s dig in.
— Nicole Lafond
The Finish Of Arguments
On Tuesday, I felt fairly assured about Thursday’s Supreme Court docket arguments over Donald Trump’s immunity claims.
It wasn’t my major beat (Josh Kovensky is our go-to Trump malfeasance man), however due to my expertise overlaying the Supreme Court docket, I used to be subbing in whereas he coated the hush cash trial in New York. I’d learn the briefs and had sufficient exterior experience to get a way that even for this Court docket, Trump’s arguments have been each too flimsy and too excessive. A Court docket with an originalism fetish shopping for that the framers meant to insulate the President, kinglike, from any authorized repercussions if he dedicated crimes in the midst of his official acts? It’s a stretch.
I felt completely in a different way exiting arguments Wednesday on an unrelated case, a rigidity between federally regulated emergency room care and Idaho’s draconian abortion ban. There too, I used to be nicely conscious of the Court docket’s partisan lean on the problem. However the case was really easy, Idaho’s argument so, nicely, dumb.
The federal government argued that in hospitals taking part in Medicare, emergency room workers should stabilize sufferers beneath the Emergency Medical Therapy & Labor Act (EMTALA). Because the regulation doesn’t specify kinds of remedy, it appears apparent that such a requirement stretches to abortion, if that’s what a pregnant affected person must be stabilized. Idaho’s ban solely contains an exception to save lots of the girl’s life — a way more slim assurance, although the state’s lawyer pretended in any other case (to the purpose of lying).
Federal legal guidelines preempt conflicting state ones. States habitually should abide by mandates, even ones they don’t like, when accepting federal funding. These are bedrocks of our system.
As a substitute of placing apart their clear private dislike for abortion, the conservatives twisted themselves into knots to create a world the place a near-total abortion ban doesn’t hurt ladies, the place Idaho medical doctors aren’t airlifting out pregnant sufferers moderately than risking operating afoul of the ban’s punishments, the place medical doctors don’t have to sit down and watch sufferers painfully deteriorate till they’re certain dying is nearer. And the justices did so with notable pique in direction of the liberals, who insisted on bringing such real-world anecdotes into the colloquies.
It was the results-oriented Court docket at work, with out a difficult case to cowl its tracks. I feared that standard knowledge on the Trump immunity case was about to be blown out of the water.
It was. After Thursday’s arguments, the justices appeared inclined to ship the case again down for additional litigation on the immunity query, virtually guaranteeing Trump’s desired delay for the brunt of Jack Smith’s Jan. 6 prosecution (they went so nicely for him that Trump’s lawyer declined to provide a rebuttal, the one time I’ve ever seen that occur).
With that flourish, the Court docket is completed with arguments for the time period. We now face a pair uneasy months, ready for choices from on excessive.
— Kate Riga
The Nice Proper Hope
Since taking on the positioning previously referred to as Twitter in 2022, Elon Musk has arguably made himself probably the most distinguished promoter of far proper conspiracy theories and debunked race science.
So, what occurs when one of many world’s richest folks acquires one in all its largest megaphones and makes clear to the perimeter that they’re a fellow traveler?
This previous week we checked out one instance that exhibits how Musk’s distinctive model of political engagement has impressed and excited a key determine concerned within the effort to overturn former President Trump’s 2020 election loss.
Ivan Raiklin is a former Inexperienced Beret and longtime affiliate of Trump’s ex-national safety adviser, retired Military Gen. Michael Flynn. Together with selling numerous debunked conspiracy theories concerning the 2020 presidential race, Raiklin was the writer of the “Pence Card” menu that helped encourage Trump allies’ plans to have the previous vice chairman reverse the election outcomes.
Within the months since, Raiklin has stored diving down the rabbit gap. He’s presently a part of the touring street present for Flynn’s documentary that we advised you about final week. Raiklin is touring the nation with a pile of paper printouts and bits of string that he claims illustrate a “Deep State” conspiracy to take down Flynn, Trump, and others on the precise. The schtick additionally features a “goal” listing Raiklin has cooked up as a part of a scheme to have Musk launch their Twitter direct messages to show … nicely, one thing.
Primarily based on his feedback, Raiklin’s fishing expedition was impressed by the “Twitter Recordsdata” undertaking Musk launched quickly after taking on that firm the place he launched a trove of inner paperwork and correspondence from its executives. The story of Raiklin’s effort to publish what he has referred to as “The Mom Of All Twitter Recordsdata” is a transparent signal of how a lot Musk has excited the precise. It’s additionally additional proof that most of the identical individuals who pulled the 2020 election into the fever swamps are persevering with to spin unhinged conspiracy theories forward of the following one.
And the narratives they’re spinning this time round could also be much more wild. The story in Raiklin’s piles of paper and string entails the shutdown of the worldwide web, potential assassination plots, and Flynnworld’s ongoing fixation on Pence. It’s an actual bizarre one and an indication of simply how a lot weirder issues would possibly get.
— Hunter Walker
The RNC’s Newest “Election Integrity” Scheme
Donald Trump’s marketing campaign and the Republican Nationwide Committee not too long ago introduced a plan to deploy greater than 100,000 volunteers to observe the voting course of in key battleground states within the upcoming presidential election. This most up-to-date Republican “election integrity” effort is rooted in election lies, highlighting Trump’s continued obsession with baseless claims concerning the final election. Democrats see it as an indication that Trump is planning to cry voter fraud as soon as once more if he doesn’t win this fall.
This initiative is described by the RNC and the Trump marketing campaign as “probably the most intensive and monumental election integrity program within the nation’s historical past,” and can embrace the deployment of legal professionals to observe early voting, mail poll processing, put up election audits, canvassing, and recounts, in addition to logic and accuracy voter machine testing.
Each battleground state may also have an “Election Integrity Hotline,” the RNC outlined, the place legal professionals will deal with points from ballot watchers and voters and information watchers by way of “the suitable election code and supply readability on how numerous points ought to be answered, resolved, or escalated.” However the DNC stated it sees by way of the charade.
Democratic Nationwide Committee Fast Response Director Alex Floyd stated in an announcement: “Donald Trump is aware of he’s operating a dropping marketing campaign, so he’s working along with his handpicked crew of election deniers on the RNC to as soon as once more lay the groundwork to undermine our democracy and unfold baseless lies a few rigged election.”
— Khaya Himmelman
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