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Tag Archives: campaigns
Kyle Richards campaigns for CHRISSY TEIGEN to replace Lisa Rinna on RHOBH after lunch in LA
Kyle Richards looked very relaxed in Beverly Hills after spending the holidays with her family at one of the world’s most renowned ski destinations on Monday.
While stepping out in a white and blue ‘Aspen’ sweatsuit, the reality star, 54, smiled coyly as she walked back to her car after enjoying lunch at Il Pastaio on Monday with her youngest daughter Portia Umansky.
As she prepared to head home, the younger sister of Kathy Hilton gushed to TMZ that she thought Chrissy Teigen should replace Lisa Rinna on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
Casual: Kyle Richards looked very relaxed in Beverly Hills after spending the holidays with her family at one of the world’s most renowned ski destinations on Monday
When asked who should attempt to fill Rinna’s shoes after eight seasons on the Bravo reality series, the mom-of-four replied: ‘I always said Chrissy Teigen would be the best.’
‘It’s not an easy job, believe it or not!’ she warned.
In response to being grilled about Rinna’s recent remarks that she ‘f**king hated’ filming her final season, Richards gave a sympathetic reply.
Quality time: While stepping out in a white and blue ‘Aspen’ sweatsuit, the reality star, 54, smiled coyly as she walked back to her car after enjoying lunch at Il Pastaio on Monday with her youngest daughter Portia Umansky
Great idea! As she prepared to head home, the younger sister of Kathy Hilton gushed to TMZ that she thought Chrissy Teigen should replace Lisa Rinna on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills
‘You know, we all hate it sometimes!’ Richards, who has been a cast member of RHOBH since its inception in 2010, admitted.
Despite wanting Teigen to join the cast, the cookbook author, who is married to John Legend, has previously shut down the idea as recently as June 2022.
‘A lot of people think that I, like, love conflict or I’d be so good on, like, Real Housewives or something… I’m always like, ‘No, no,’ the mother-of-three told ET.
Not interested: Despite wanting Teigen (pictured above) to join the cast, the cookbook author, who is married to John Legend, has previously shut down the idea as recently as June 2022
During the interview, she also joked that the cast intimidates her too much, and ‘any one of them would scare the cr** out of’ her during an argument.
Still, Richards has publicly stated that she has ‘fantasized’ about Teigen, 37, joining the cast for years.
Andy Cohen agreed the former model would be a ‘gold mine’ on reality television during a chat with HollywoodLife.
True friends: In contrast to the Halloween Kills star’s thoughts about expanding the cast, Richards’ costar Erika Jayne said stated Rinna is an irreplaceable member of RHOBH; seen in 2022
As for if Rinna’s departure will help her reconcile her relationship with sister Kathy, Richards insisted that they’ll ‘always be okay.’
In contrast to the Halloween Kills star’s thoughts about expanding the cast, Richards’ costar Erika Jayne said stated Rinna is an irreplaceable member of RHOBH.
When TMZ asked how producers will ‘fill’ her absence, earlier this month, Jayne replied: ‘They can’t. She’s the G.O.A.T. [Greatest of All Time]. She’s the f**king G.O.A.T.’
![Irreplaceable: When asked how producers will 'fill' the mother-of-two's shoes, Jayne replied: 'They can't. She's the G.O.A.T. [Greatest of All Time]. She's the f**king G.O.A.T' (seen in 2019)](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2023/01/07/04/66292921-0-image-a-50_1673065816566.jpg)
Irreplaceable: When asked how producers will ‘fill’ the mother-of-two’s shoes, Jayne replied: ‘They can’t. She’s the G.O.A.T. [Greatest of All Time]. She’s the f**king G.O.A.T’ (seen in 2019)
The singer, who became fast friends with Rinna after meeting through former cast member Yolanda Hadid in 2015 on-screen of RHOBH, added: ‘I mean they can try.’
When questioned if Lisa Vanderpump should return to the show, Jayne fired back: ‘She’s the coward that ran away and couldn’t show up for the reunion, so I don’t think she is a good fit.’
As for whether Rinna’s nemesis, Kathy Hilton, should be prompted from a part-time cast member to an official Housewife, Jayne gave a surprising answer.
Maybe? As for whether Rinna’s nemesis, Kathy Hilton, should be prompted from a part-time cast member to an official Housewife, Jayne gave a surprising answer; seen in 2022
‘Kathy Hilton showed up to the reunion, and I respect that, because she came to play,’ the XXPEN$IVE singer explained. ‘I respect that, even though we have our differences. I respect that.’
Still, Jayne said she was ‘going to miss Lisa very much’ and that they will still see each other as she says Rinna is ‘a very close friend of’ hers.
‘I will still see her, but she will be missed and I think that everyone will feel it,’ she told the outlet.
Georgia court declines to halt Saturday early runoff voting
ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia appeals court ruling on Monday means that counties can offer early voting this coming Saturday in the U.S. Senate runoff election between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker.
The Court of Appeals declined a request by the state to stay a lower court’s ruling that said state law allows early voting that day.
Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger had told county election officials that early voting could not be held that day because state law says it is illegal on a Saturday if there is a holiday on the Thursday or Friday preceding it.
Warnock’s campaign, along with the Democratic Party of Georgia and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, sued last week to challenge that guidance.
Thursday is Thanksgiving, and Friday is a state holiday. The Saturday following those two holidays is the only possibility for Saturday voting before next month’s Senate runoff election between Warnock and Walker.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox on Friday issued an order siding with the Warnock campaign and the Democratic groups. He found that the law cited by the state regarding Saturday voting after a holiday does not apply to a runoff election.
Lawyers for the state filed an appeal on Monday with the Georgia Court of Appeals. They asked the court to immediately stay the lower court ruling.
They argued in a court filing that the ruling was erroneous for procedural reasons but also that Cox was wrong to consider the runoff a separate type of election rather than a continuation of the general election.
In a one-sentence order Monday, the Georgia Court of Appeals declined to stay the lower court ruling.
It’s not clear how many counties will open polling places for voting on Saturday.
Warnock and Walker, a former football player, were forced into a Dec. 6 runoff because neither won a majority in the midterm election this month.
Georgia’s 2021 election law compressed the time period between the general election and the runoff to four weeks, and Thanksgiving falls in the middle. Many Georgians will be offered only five weekdays of early in-person voting beginning Nov. 28.
George Lois Changed Magazines—And Pop Culture—Forever
As an art director for Esquire in the 1960s, George Lois assailed Muhammad Ali with arrows, drowned Andy Warhol in a can of soup, and prepped Richard Nixon’s profile for a close-up. He stunned minds to attention, making magazine covers that spoke so urgently, they muted an entire newsstand’s worth of bold headlines. Through Lois’s work, history was reified.
I wasn’t alive in the ’60s, but I can tell you that many of the era’s visual markers that arise in my mind were made by Lois. (And I’m surely not alone in this—the Museum of Modern Art secured several of his works for its permanent collection.) He was a fierce and uncompromising visual visionary, a provocateur whose wordless commentary refracted America through dozens of roughly 8-by-10-inch canvases. He possessed an uncanny ability to channel collective sentiment in a time of deep political divide, but more than that, he transmitted messages that America didn’t realize it was ready to embrace. Until he died this past weekend at age 91, George Lois was the greatest living magazine art director. He will be remembered as a pioneering graphic artist of the 20th century.
Before Esquire, Lois made his bones as an ad man developing campaigns for Xerox and John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign. He was Bronx-born—brash, passionate, and willing to throw down the gauntlet to defend his ideas. Rumored to be the inspiration for Mad Men’s Don Draper, Lois rejected the comparison altogether (which is fair, because Draper didn’t have nearly as tight a grip on the counterculture as Lois did). Through advertising, Lois honed his stylish and daring sensibilities, which would carry him through a decade in magazines and then on to MTV, where he rescued a flailing brand and turned it into a zeitgeist-defining entity.
In 2019, when Peter Mendelsund and I began redesigning The Atlantic, no designer had more influence on us. Lois’s work left us no choice but to contend with it, occupying, as it does, a dominant space in the cultural imagination. We studied his covers, seeking to bring a similar sensibility to The Atlantic, which is to say we tried to copy him often. A common thread in Lois’s most searing designs is the relationship of typography to image. He frequently relied on a striking central visual component to anchor the cover while the rest of the elements remained deferential. This required bravery—as well as immense trust in the public—and removed the onus from the language. He reduced the cover’s typography to Lilliputian scale in order to harness the image’s massive power.
In 1968, Lois subjected Ali to the fate of Saint Sebastian, using arrows to martyr the iconoclastic athlete. In the cover’s bottom right-hand corner sits a small headline of five words. This magazine cover, among the most famous in American history, manages to confront race, religion, and the Vietnam War in a single conceptual image that is as brutal as it is brilliant.
Over dozens of Esquire issues, he didn’t just create iconic images; he deployed existing icons in order to subvert, reframe, and recontextualize them. Take his 1964 cover of Kennedy, with a hand photographed in the foreground of the frame, wiping away an imagined tear. This meta visual move adds friction to a static image; it forces us to confront and process tragedy in a new way. It turns the magazine, newsstand price 60 cents, into something that transcends its form—into something more like art.
From Jiffy Lube ads to the campaign for “I Want My MTV” to the boxer Sonny Liston donning a Santa hat on the cover of Esquire, contemporary American culture looks and feels the way it does in part because of Lois’s genius. If you’ve ever been struck by a piece of design in our pages, you might now recognize the traces of his influence. Even if you don’t, I can tell you that it’s there (our December 2019 and November 2021 covers are both valiant attempts at homage). History has no choice but to remember George Lois; he was an integral part of the machine of remembering.
Frisch concedes race against Boebert as it goes to recount
DENVER (AP) — While conceding his tight U.S. House race to Republican Lauren Boebert, Democrat Adam Frisch said on Friday that his surprisingly strong campaign showed just how tired many GOP voters are of Boebert’s brash style.
The Associated Press has declared the election in Colorado’s sprawling 3rd Congressional District too close to call. AP will await the results of a potential recount to call the race. With nearly all votes counted, the incumbent Boebert leads Frisch by about 0.17 percentage points, or 554 votes out of over 327,000 votes counted.
The unexpectedly close margin for Boebert, one of Congress’s staunchest supporters of former President Donald Trump, was the latest indication that Trump’s influence on Republican voters could be waning amid a nationwide fight over the direction of the Republican Party. It is a question some Republican leaders raised in partly blaming Trump for their dismal midterm results even as the former president forged ahead in launching his 2024 presidential bid.
“America is tired of the circus, tired of the lack of respect for our institutions and democracy, and tired of the lack of civility in our discourse,” Frisch said. The Democrat added that he hasn’t ruled out another bid for the seat in 2024. Prognosticators, pundits and the political establishment had largely thought Frisch’s campaign futile, but the thin margin is its own small victory for the Democrat.
“We were written off by the political class, we were written off by the donor class and we were written off by the political media,” Frisch told the AP. “I wish more people didn’t take nine months to call me back.”
Frisch said he supports the mandatory recount but that it would be unrealistic to think it would flip enough votes for him to win. He called Boebert to concede the race.
In Colorado, a mandatory recount is triggered when the margin of votes between the top two candidates is at or below 0.5% of the leading candidate’s vote total. That margin was around 0.34% on Friday.
Frisch’s comments come after Boebert claimed victory late Thursday in a tweeted video of her standing in front of the U.S. Capitol.
“Come January, you can be certain of two things,” said Boebert before thanking her supporters, “I will be sworn in for my second term as your congresswoman and Republicans can finally turn Pelosi’s house back into the People’s House.”
In the mold of Trump, Boebert’s provocative style has galvanized anti-establishment angst and won a loyal following on the right. With frequent TV appearances and a near-household name, the campaign cash flowed in — she raised $6.6 million in the past two years, an astronomical sum for a freshman member of the House.
Frisch campaigned on a largely conservative platform and against what he dubbed Boebert’s “antics” and “angertainment.”
The former city council member in the posh town of Aspen hoped to entice disaffected Republicans and build a bi-partisan political coalition. He rarely mentioned he was a Democrat on the campaign trail and backed removing Democrat Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House, saying he wanted to lower the partisan temperature in Washington. It was an indirect dig at Boebert that resonated with voters in a highly rural district that, though conservative, have often backed pragmatists.
“We have shown the country that extremists politicians can be defeated, loud voices are not invincible, and shouting will not solve problems,” said Frisch.
Trump criminal probes will proceed — even as he’s candidate
WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump’s early announcement of his third White House bid won’t shield the former president from the criminal investigations already confronting him as an ordinary citizen, leaving him legally and politically exposed as he seeks the 2024 Republican nomination.
The Justice Department is pushing ahead with its probes. And with the midterm elections now mostly complete and the 2024 presidential campaign months away from beginning in earnest, federal prosecutors have plenty of time to continue their work even as Trump hits the campaign trail.
“I don’t think the department is going to hesitate as a result of Trump nominating himself and anointing himself as the first candidate in the 2024 election,” said former Justice Department prosecutor Michael Weinstein. “I just think they will see that as him trying to game the system as he’s done very successfully in the courts,” and they’re prepared for his “blowback.”
Trump enters the race facing federal investigations related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and into the hoarding of top-secret government documents at his Florida estate — plus a separate s tate probe in Georgia. The Mar-a-Lago investigation has advanced especially swiftly, with prosecutors this month giving a close Trump ally immunity to secure his testimony before a federal grand jury. Justice Department lawyers in that probe say they have amassed evidence of potential crimes involving not only obstruction but also the willful retention of national defense information.
It remains unclear if anyone will be charged, as does the timetable for a decision. But former officials say the best way to ensure the outcome is seen as above reproach is to conduct a by-the-book investigation showing no special favor or ill treatment because of Trump’s former high office.
“The public will have the most faith in what you’re doing, and you will get the most successful results, if you treat Donald Trump like any other American,” said Matthew Miller, who served as Justice Department spokesman under former Attorney General Eric Holder.
Current Attorney General Merrick Garland has suggested as much, saying last summer in response to questions about Trump and the Jan. 6 investigation that “no person is above the law.” Asked in a July television interview how a potential Trump candidacy might affect the department, Garland replied: “We will hold accountable anyone who is criminally responsible for attempting to interfere with the transfer — legitimate, lawful transfer — of power from one administration to the next.”
Investigating any elected official, or candidate for office, almost always invites political speculation. Justice Department protocol cautions prosecutors against taking overt action in the direct run-up to an election, but that’s more a standard convention than a hard-and-fast rule. And the 2024 presidential contest is two years away.
Still, it’s not easy to investigate a former president or current candidate. That’s especially true in the case of Trump, who spent his presidency assailing his own Justice Department and haranguing attorneys general he himself had appointed. He has already lambasted the FBI for searching Mar-a-Lago in August, using the episode to raise funds from supporters.
Now, with his candidacy official, he and his supporters will try to reframe the narrative of the investigation as political persecution by a Democratic administration that fears him for 2024.
In fact, one risk for Democrats is that Trump — who during his announcement Tuesday declared himself “a victim” — could galvanize his supporters anew with that argument. On the other hand, the results of last week’s midterm elections suggest he may be more politically vulnerable than many had thought, including in his Republican Party.
What about past investigations of a presidential candidate? There is a recent precedent, though under different circumstances.
In 2016, the Obama administration’s Justice Department investigated Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server as secretary of state. Despite the efforts of the law enforcement officials who worked the investigation to remain above the fray, the probe became repeatedly mired in presidential politics — in ways that may not have been foreseen when it began.
Then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch expressed regret over a chance encounter she had with Bill Clinton in the final days of the investigation. Former FBI Director James Comey was blamed for harming Clinton’s candidacy by making a detailed public explanation of why the bureau was not recommending charges and then for reopening the probe 11 days before the election.
David Laufman, who supervised that investigation for the Justice Department as chief of the same section now running the Mar-a-Lago probe, said there’s a “surreal disconnect” between the political maelstrom that accompanies politically freighted investigations and the heads-down mentality of a prosecutor determined to just do the work.
“Here we were, conducting a criminal investigation with national security undertones in a way that was practically splashed on the front page of every newspaper every fricking day,” Laufman said. “And all we could do was to continue to do what we knew had to be done — to obtain all the relevant facts needed to make judgments about whether it was appropriate to recommend criminal charges.”
He said he believed the investigators working Mar-a-Lago have been the same way, praising their professionalism amid pressure from the public and even concerns about their personal safety.
In the Clinton case, Comey has said he considered recommending a separate special counsel to direct the investigation, though he ultimately did not. The option of a specially appointed prosecutor who would report to Garland exists here as well, just as the Trump-era Justice Department appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller to lead the investigation into potential coordination between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.
It’s not clear how seriously Garland would consider that. A department spokesman declined to comment.
Politics aside, in making the decision whether to bring an indictment, much will ultimately depend on the strength of the Justice Department’s case.
“If the government’s case is exceptionally strong, I think the rule of law will have a predominant weight in the attorney general’s calculus,” Laufman said.
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Follow Eric Tucker at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP
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More on Donald Trump-related investigations: https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump
GOP hopefuls turn to Pence to broaden appeal before election
NEW YORK (AP) — In Donald Trump’s assessment, Mike Pence “committed political suicide” on Jan. 6, 2021.
By refusing to go along with the then-president’s unconstitutional push to overturn the results of the 2020 election, Pence became a leading target of Trump’s wrath and a pariah in many Republican circles.
But the final weeks of this year’s intensely competitive midterm elections suggest that the former vice president’s fortunes have shifted as he lays the groundwork for his own potential 2024 White House campaign. The man who was booed last year at a conservative conference is now an in-demand draw for Republican candidates, including some who spent their primaries obsessively courting Trump’s endorsement, in part by parroting his election lies.
Pence has traveled the country, holding events and raising millions for candidates and Republican groups, including signing fundraising solicitations for party committees.
For some campaigns in tight races, Pence is seen as something of a neutralizing agent who can help broaden their appeal beyond Trump’s core base of support. That’s the case in Arizona, with a critical Senate race this year and where the 2024 presidential campaign will be hotly contested. Last week, Pence endorsed Senate nominee Blake Masters, who has struggled to pivot from the primary and win over moderates in a state where one-third of voters are registered independents.
“He takes a little bit of the edge off Masters with a lot of voters,” veteran GOP strategist Scott Reed said. “You know Masters is new to this, first-time candidate, said some silly things he probably regrets during the campaign. But now it’s all about undecided voters in Maricopa County. There’s not a lot more science behind this.”
The endorsements can seem jarring given that Pence has spent much of the past year pushing back on Trump’s election lies, which spurred the violent mob that descended on the Capitol on Jan. 6 while Pence was trying to preside over the formal congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election victory. Pence and members of his family had to be rushed to safety and were held for hours in an underground loading dock as the marauders roamed the building’s hallways. Some rioters chanted “Hang Mike Pence!” and erected a makeshift gallows outside.
Pence agreed to endorse Masters even though Masters, during the primary, baselessly denied the 2020 election results. Masters recorded a video in which he said he thought Trump had won and claimed on his website that “if we had had a free and fair election, President Trump would be sitting in the Oval Office today.” Trump endorsed Masters in June, saying in a statement: “Blake knows that the “Crime of the Century” took place, he will expose it and also, never let it happen again.”
Pence made no mention of that in Phoenix on Tuesday.
“What I came here to Arizona to say is not only is Blake Masters the right choice for the United States Senate, the people of Arizona deserve to know Blake Masters may be the difference between a Democrat majority in the Senate and a Republican majority in the Senate,” Pence said.
The former vice president, along with Masters and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, took just three questions, two of them from conservative websites. When a television reporter noted that Masters has questioned the 2020 election, a spokesman for Masters cut him off before he could finish his question.
Masters is not the only election denier Pence has endorsed or assisted.
Two days after the Masters event, Pence was in Georgia headlining a fundraiser for Burt Jones, the nominee for lieutenant governor. Jones not only embraced Trump’s claims of widespread election fraud and called for a statewide investigation into the 2020 race, but he also signed on to be one of his state’s fake alternate electors — a scheme now under criminal investigation.
Last month, Pence was in New Hampshire for Senate nominee Don Bolduc, a retired Army general who also spent his primary campaign telling voters the race was stolen from Trump.
Marc Short, a longtime Pence adviser, declined to set a red line for candidates Pence would and would not endorse.
“It’s more about making sure that he’s being a team player where he needs to be,” Short said. “I think as a lot of these candidates look to solidify the party behind them, Pence can be helpful.”
There is no evidence of any widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines in the 2020 election, underscored by repeated audits, court cases and the conclusions of Trump’s own Department of Justice. Still, support of false election claims run deep among GOP candidates this year.
The Masters endorsement notably came days after a debate in which he made headlines for seeming to have shifted from his most outrageous rigged election claims. Masters instead blamed Trump’s loss on “big tech,” “big media” and the FBI, and under repeated questioning, acknowledged he hadn’t seen evidence the vote count or results were manipulated, as Trump has claimed. (After the Pence visit, Masters told Fox News he stood by what he had said on his now-modified website, adding: “I think if everyone followed the law, President Trump would be in the Oval Office.”)
Short said Pence was happy to support candidates who had moved past 2020, as the former vice president has urged the party to do.
“If people sort of acknowledged a mistaken position before, he certainly wants to reward that,” Short said. “I think he wants to help conservatives first and foremost, but if people who were elected are now adopting new position about the events of Jan. 6,” Short said, “then that’s a positive.”
Jones and Bolduc have also tried to distance themselves from their previous statements.
In interviews, Jones has tried to play down the fake elector slate as a “procedural move,” while noting that voters rarely mention the 2020 race.
“Look he’s been consistent that he does not believe the 2020 election was rigged. He said that Joe Biden is president,” said Jones campaign spokesman Stephen Lawson, who noted that Pence and Jones have a long-standing relationship and, like Masters, share former Pence staff.
“For us, it was sort of a no-brainer because the vice president’s still very well liked in Georgia, very well received. And we’re in that final stretch where any Republican coming to raise money, support, is a value add,” he said.
“I think it’s certainly a nod to more mainstream kind of moderate Republicans. I think that’s a fair assessment,” he said.
Bolduc claimed throughout the primary race that the 2020 election had been stolen. During a debate, he proclaimed that “Trump won the election, and damn it, I stand by” and adding, “I’m not switching horses, baby.”
But right after the GOP primary — and a day after appearing with Pence — he told Fox News it was time to move on. “You know, we live and learn, right? And I’ve done a lot of research on this and I’ve spent the past couple of weeks talking to Granite Staters all over the state from every party. And I have come to the conclusion, and I want to be definitive on this: The election was not stolen,” Bolduc said. He described Biden as “the legitimate president of this country.”
(Earlier this month Bolduc changed his position again, saying he wasn’t sure what happened with the election. “I can’t say that it was stolen or not. I don’t have enough information.”)
Reed, the party strategist, said he understood the rationale behind Pence’s endorsements.
“He’s a big picture party guy. And it doesn’t surprised me that he’s hustling as hard as he is for people who may not be 100% Pencers,” he said. “By doing these kinds of events,” he added, “they’re going to take another look at him if he decides to run.”
Pence’s political future is an open question. Trump, who is widely expected to run again, remains deeply popular with Republican primary voters and would almost certainly be an early front-runner for the 2024 nomination. Pence has said his own decision about running will not be influenced by Trump, though allies often voice skepticism that Trump ultimately will end up on the ballot.
Beyond his endorsements, Pence has spent his time since leaving office performing a careful balancing act. He has distanced himself from Trump’s most corrosive statements while promoting what he calls the Trump-Pence agenda. Pence, like generations of could-be candidates, has used the primaries as an opportunity to forge new relationships and build goodwill, and continues to align himself with conservative causes. His trips often include college visits and speeches before anti-abortion groups.
Other potential 2024 candidates have campaigned for the Republican cause, including Texas Sen. Ted Cuz, who is on a monthlong, 17-state “Take Back America” bus tour. Trump has held rallies and finally begun spending a small part of his vast political fortune to help his favored candidates.
“I think he and all these guys are out there really helping the Republicans to win back the House and win back the Senate. It’s an effort that everybody needs to contribute to,” said David McIntosh, president of the influential Club for Growth, who has joined Pence at several events.
McIntosh, who has been at odds with Trump in recent months, said he believes the electorate is “moving on” from 2020 “to what’s on the ballot this election.” He said candidates such as Masters “want to show that they’ve got support from all different types of Republicans, everyone that’s out there, so there’s a unity theme.”
“It’s always been my view,” he added, “that leaders like that help themselves by helping.”
But being popular enough that candidates want to campaign with you is very different from being popular enough to be competitive in a presidential primary, and right now, Pence routinely polls in the single digits, far lower than Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“Around here people talk about DeSantis and Trump,” said Georgia GOP strategist Brian Robinson, adding that attention is largely focused on the Nov. 8 midterms.
Pence’s policy group recently held a retreat in Utah at the Montage Deer Valley that was attended by GOP donors such as Matthew J. Bruderman, a New York investor who praised Pence’s election-year efforts.
“He’s been extremely effective and deserves credit for continuing to help elect people who he believes will help advance conservative principles,” Bruderman said by email, adding that he would “support him or any fiscal conservative of courage and character that wins the nomination” in 2024.
Art Pope, another donor who attended the retreat, said he “personally would love to see Vice President Pence run in 2024.”
“Yes there are frictions and there are divisions” in the GOP, he said, but the party is uniting behind its nominees now that primaries are over.
“Vice President Pence is both benefiting for that unity and helping lead that unification,” he said.
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Associated Press writer Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix contributed to this report.
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Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter, https://twitter.com/ap_politics
Ohio GOP House candidate has misrepresented military service
WASHINGTON (AP) — Campaigning for a northwestern Ohio congressional seat, Republican J.R. Majewski presents himself as an Air Force combat veteran who deployed to Afghanistan after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, once describing “tough” conditions including a lack of running water that forced him to go more than 40 days without a shower.
Military documents obtained by The Associated Press through a public records request tell a different story.
They indicate Majewski never deployed to Afghanistan but instead completed a six-month stint helping to load planes at an air base in Qatar, a longtime U.S. ally that is a safe distance from the fighting.
Majewski’s account of his time in the military is just one aspect of his biography that is suspect. His post-military career has been defined by exaggerations, conspiracy theories, talk of violent action against the U.S. government and occasional financial duress.
Still, thanks to an unflinching allegiance to former President Donald Trump — Majewski once painted a massive Trump mural on his lawn — he also stands a chance of defeating longtime Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur in a district recently redrawn to favor Republicans.
Majewski is among a cluster of GOP candidates, most running for office for the first time, whose unvarnished life stories and hard-right politics could diminish the chances of a Republican “red wave” on Election Day in November. He is also a vivid representation of a new breed of politicians who reject facts as they try to emulate Trump.
“It bothers me when people trade on their military service to get elected to office when what they are doing is misleading the people they want to vote for them,” Don Christensen, a retired colonel and former chief prosecutor for the Air Force, said of Majewski. “Veterans have done so much for this country and when you claim to have done what your brothers and sisters in arms actually did to build up your reputation, it is a disservice.”
Majewski’s campaign declined to make him available for an interview and, in a lengthy statement issued to the AP, did not directly address questions about his claim of deploying to Afghanistan. A spokeswoman declined to provide additional comment when the AP followed up with additional questions.
“I am proud to have served my country,” Majewski said in the statement. “My accomplishments and record are under attack, meanwhile, career politician Marcy Kaptur has a forty-year record of failure for my Toledo community, which is why I’m running for Congress.”
With no previous political experience, Majewski is perhaps an unlikely person to be the Republican nominee taking on Kaptur, who has represented the Toledo area since 1983. But two state legislators who were also on the ballot in the August GOP primary split the establishment vote. That cleared a path for Majewski, who previously worked in the nuclear power industry and dabbled in politics as a pro-Trump hip-hop performer and promoter of the QAnon conspiracy theory. He was also at the U.S. Capitol during the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.
Throughout his campaign Majewski has offered his Air Force service as a valuable credential. The tagline “veteran for Congress” appears on campaign merchandise. He ran a Facebook ad promoting himself as “combat veteran.” And in a campaign video released this year, Majewski marauds through a vacant factory with a rifle while pledging to restore an America that is “independent and strong like the country I fought for.”
More recently, the House Republican campaign committee released a biography that describes Majewski as a veteran whose “squadron was one of the first on the ground in Afghanistan after 9/11.” A campaign ad posted online Tuesday by Majewski supporters flashed the words “Afghanistan War Veteran” across the screen alongside a picture of a younger Majewski in his dress uniform.
A biography posted on his campaign website does not mention Afghanistan, but in an August 2021 tweet criticizing the U.S. withdraw from the country, Majewski said he would “gladly suit up and go back to Afghanistan.”
He’s been far less forthcoming when asked about the specifics of his service.
“I don’t like talking about my military experience,” he said in a 2021 interview on the One American Podcast after volunteering that he served one tour of duty in Afghanistan. “It was a tough time in life. You know, the military wasn’t easy.”
A review of his service records, which the AP obtained from the National Archives through a public records request, as well as an accounting provided by the Air Force, offers a possible explanation for his hesitancy.
Rather than deploying to Afghanistan, as he has claimed, the records state that Majewski was based at Kadena Air Base in Japan for much of his active-duty service. He later deployed for six months to Qatar in May 2002, where he helped load and unload planes while serving as a “passenger operations specialist,” the records show.
While based in Qatar, Majewski would land at other air bases to transfer military passengers, medics, supplies, his campaign said. The campaign did not answer a direct question about whether he was ever in Afghanistan.
Experts argue Majewski’s description of himself as a “combat veteran” is also misleading.
The term can evoke images of soldiers storming a beachhead or finding refuge during a firefight. But under the laws and regulations of the U.S. government, facing live fire has little to do with someone earning the title.
During the Persian Gulf War, then-President George H.W. Bush designated, for the first time, countries used as combat support areas as combat zones despite the low-risk of American service members ever facing hostilities. That helped veterans receive a favorable tax status. Qatar, which is now home to the largest U.S. air base in the Middle East, was among the countries that received the designation under Bush’s executive order — a status that remains in effect today.
Regardless, it rankles some when those seeking office offer their status as a combat veteran as a credential to voters without explaining that it does not mean that they came under hostile fire.
“As somebody who was in Qatar, I do not consider myself a combat veteran,” said Christensen, the retired Air Force colonel who now runs Protect Our Defenders, a military watchdog organization. “I think that would be offensive to those who were actually engaged in combat and Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Majewski’s campaign said that he calls himself a combat veteran because the area he deployed to — Qatar — is considered a combat zone.
Majewski also lacks many of the medals that are typically awarded to those who served in Afghanistan.
Though he once said that he went more than 40 days without a shower during his time in the landlocked country, he does not have an Afghanistan campaign medal, which was issued to those who served “30 consecutive days or 60 nonconsecutive days” in the country.
He also did not receive a Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, which was issued to service members before the creation of the Afghanistan campaign medal if they deployed overseas in “direct service to the War on Terror.”
Matthew Borie, an Air Force veteran who worked in intelligence and reviewed Majewski’s records at AP’s request, said it’s “odd” that Majewski lacks many of the “medals you would expect to see for someone who deployed to Afghanistan.”
There’s also the matter of Majewski’s final rank and reenlistment code when he left active duty after four years of service.
Most leave the service after four years having received several promotions that are generally awarded for time served. Majewski exited at a rank that was one notch above where he started. His enlistment code also indicated that he could not sign up with the Air Force again.
Majewski’s campaign said he received what’s called a nonjudicial punishment in 2001 after getting into a “brawl” in his dormitory, which resulted in a demotion. Nonjudicial punishments are designed to hold service members accountable for bad behavior that does not rise to the level of a court-martial.
Majewski’s resume exaggeration isn’t limited to his military service, reverberating throughout his professional life, as well as a nascent political career that took shape in an online world of conspiracy theories.
Since gaining traction in his campaign for Congress, Majewski has denied that he is a follower of the QAnon conspiracy theory while playing down his participation in the Capitol riot.
The baseless and apocalyptic QAnon belief is based on cryptic online postings by the anonymous “Q,” who is purportedly a government insider. It posits that Trump is fighting entrenched enemies in the government and also involves satanism and child sex trafficking.
“Let me be clear, I denounce QAnon. I do not support Q, and I do not subscribe to their conspiracy theories,” Majewski said in his statement to the AP.
But in the past Majewski repeatedly posted QAnon references and memes to social media, wore a QAnon shirt during a TV interview and has described Zak Paine, a QAnon influencer and online personality who goes by the nom de guerre Redpill78, as a “good friend.”
During a February 2021 appearance on a YouTube stream, Majewski stated, “I believe in everything that’s been put out from Q,” while characterizing the false posts as “military-level intelligence, in my opinion.” He also posted, to the right-wing social media platform Parler, a photo of the “Trump 2020” mural he painted on his lawn that was modified to change the zeros into “Q’s,” as first reported by CNN.
Then there’s Majewski’s participation in the Jan. 6 insurrection. Majewski has said that he raised about $25,000 to help dozens of people attend the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol. He also traveled to the event with his friend Paine, the QAnon influencer, and the two later appeared in social media postings near the Capitol.
Majewski acknowledged he was outside the Capitol, but denies entering the building. Still, he lamented the decision on a QAnon livestream a week after the attack, stating that he was “pissed off at myself” for not going into the building.
“It was a struggle, because I really wanted to go in,” Majewski said on the livestream, which was first unearthed by the liberal group Media Matters.
Majewski has not been charged in connection with the attack. But he has falsely stated that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump and said that the insurrection “felt like a setup” by police who were targeting Trump supporters.
In his statement, Majewski said, “I deeply regret being at the Capitol that day” and “did not break the law,” while calling for those who did to be “punished to the fullest extent of the law.”
The mischaracterizations extend to his professional career, in which he has repeatedly described himself as an “executive in the nuclear power industry,” including in a campaign ad last spring.
But a review of his now-deleted resume on the website LinkedIn and a survey of his former employers do not support the claim.
He most recently worked for Holtec International, a Florida-based energy conglomerate that specializes in handling spent nuclear fuel. But he is not listed among the executives and members of the corporate leadership teams in current or archived versions of the company’s website.
A spokesman confirmed Majewski was a former Holtec employee, but declined to offer details on his position or role, which Majewski’s LinkedIn page described as “senior director, client relations.”
Majewski’s campaign declined to address his claim of being an executive, but said he participated in weekly conference calls with executives.
Majewski also described himself on LinkedIn as “project manager – senior consultant” for First Energy, an Ohio based power company, a position that he stated he held since shortly after leaving the military. The company, Majewski explained in a biography posted to his website, quickly recognized him for his “intellect and leadership capabilities”
Yet records from his 2009 bankruptcy raise questions about his seniority. They show he was an “outage manager” who earned about $51,000 a year. In the bankruptcy, Majewski and his wife gave up their home, two cars and a Jet Ski to settle the case, court records show.
Still, in a nationalized political environment, some Republicans suggest none of this will matter to voters.
“At the end of the day, this will be a question of whether they want Nancy Pelosi leading the House or Kevin McCarthy,” said Tom Davis, a former congressman who led the House Republican campaign arm during George W. Bush’s presidency. “These elections have become less about the person. I wouldn’t say candidates don’t matter, but they don’t matter like they used to.”
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LaPorta reported from Wilmington, North Carolina. AP investigative researcher Randy Herschaft in New York contributed to this report.
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Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ap_politics
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This story has been corrected by deleting the reference to the social media platform Parler as being defunct.
Menyr Lets You Build A Whole Damn World For Your RPG Campaigns
Menyr, which pitches itslef as a “story-telling engine”, is a toolbox that lets players create an entire digital world for their role-playing games, from landscapes to settlements, then play through them. Launched on Kickstarter earlier this month, it has already blown past its funding goal.
It has been developed by NOG, a small game studio who normally specialise in Unreal Engine stuff and real-time graphics work, and who have worked with companies like EA and Ubisoft. Here, though, the whole thing is their idea and their work, with NOG promising that Menyr will let players build worlds up to an enormous 60 square miles. Here’s a trailer:
NOG say Menyr works like this: first you build the game world, either through procedural generation, using manual brush tools or a combination of both. Then you do the same for castles, dungeons and townships. Then you can import 3D models and “2D assets” for your characters and other objects (or use some pre-existing templates), put it all together, input or download some rules and go at it, either online or locally.
It loses the tangible joys of tabletop gaming by making everything digital, of course, but is also hoping that degree of customisation and possibilities its toolkit offers more than outweigh that.
Interestingly, NOG are advertising Menyr as something that will be free to download and use, as its hoped that their attached marketplace, where players can sell everything from custom rules to character models (and from which NOG will take a cut), will generate enough revenue to keep the lights on.
G/O Media may get a commission
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For $10 or more, you can help hospitalized kids get access to video games—and get some sweet games for yourself too, including Lego Star Wars – The Complete Saga.
As such the Kickstarter—which asked for AUD$67,000 and is at $AUD$272,000 at time of posting—isn’t actually giving you Menyr, but an escalating series of limited edition items like D20s and fancy character models. You can check out more at the Kickstarter page, which also has information on stuff like a closed beta and some of the finer technical points of how it all works.
Trump’s PAC faces scrutiny amid intensifying legal probes
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sitting on top of more than $115 million across several political committees, Donald Trump has positioned himself as a uniquely indomitable force in the GOP who would almost certainly have the resources to swamp his rivals if he launched another presidential campaign.
But that massive pile of money is also emerging as a potential vulnerability. His chief fundraising vehicle, Save America PAC, is under new legal scrutiny after the Justice Department issued a round of grand jury subpoenas that sought information about the political action committee’s fundraising practices.
The scope of the probe is unclear. Grand jury subpoenas and search warrants issued by the Justice Department in recent days were related to numerous topics, including Trump’s PAC, according to people familiar with the matter who requested anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. The subpoenas seek records as well as testimony and ask at least some of the recipients about their knowledge of efforts to engage in election fraud, according to one of the people.
The subpoenas also ask for records of communication with Trump-allied lawyers who supported efforts to overturn the election results and plotted to line up fake electors in battleground states. A particular area of focus appears to be on the “Save America Rally” that preceded the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, the person said.
The investigation is one of several criminal probes Trump currently faces, including scrutiny of how documents with classified markings wound up at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago club. Regardless of Save America’s ultimate role in the investigations, the flurry of developments has drawn attention to the PAC’s management, how it has raised money and where those funds have been directed.
Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich slammed the subpoenas, saying a “weaponized and politicized Justice Department” was “casting a blind net to intimidate and silence Republicans who are fighting for his America First agenda.” Representatives for the Justice Department have declined to comment.
While Trump has more than $115 million held across various committees, the vast majority of it is stored at Save America. The PAC ended July with more than $99 million cash-on-hand, according to fundraising records — more than the Republican and Democratic national campaign committees combined.
Trump has continued to shovel up small-dollar donations in the months since, frustrating other Republicans who have been struggling to raise money ahead of the November midterm elections.
Save America is set up as a “leadership PAC” designed to allow political figures to fundraise for other campaigns. But the groups are often used by would-be candidates to fund political travel, polling and staff as they “test the waters” ahead of potential presidential runs. The accounts can also be used to contribute money to other candidates and party organizations, helping would-be candidates build political capital.
Much of the money Trump has amassed was raised in the days and weeks after the 2020 election. That’s when Trump supporters were bombarded with a nonstop stream of emails and texts, many containing all-caps lettering and blatant lies about a stolen 2020 election, soliciting cash for an “election defense fund.”
But no such fund ever existed. Instead, Trump has dedicated the money to other uses. He’s financed dozens of rallies, paid staff and used the money to travel as he’s teased an expected 2024 presidential run.
Other expenses have been more unusual. There was the $1 million donated last year to the Conservative Partnership Institute, a nonprofit that employs Cleta Mitchell and former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, both of whom encouraged Trump’s failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
There was the $650,000 “charitable contribution” in July to the Smithsonian Institution to help fund portraits of Trump and the former first lady that will one day hang in the National Portrait Gallery, according to the Smithsonian spokesperson Linda St. Thomas.
Much of the money has also funded a different sort of defense fund — one that has paid the legal expenses of Trump confidants and aides who have been called to testify before the Jan. 6 committee.
Overall, Trump’s sprawling political operation has spent at least $8 million on “legal consulting” and “legal expenses” to at least 40 law firms since the insurrection, according to an analysis of campaign finance disclosures.
It’s unclear how much of that money went to legal fees for staffers after a congressional committee started investigating the origins of the attack. But at least $1.1 million has been paid to Elections LLC, a firm started by former Trump White House ethics lawyer Stefan Passantino, according to campaign finance and business records. An additional $1 million was paid to a legal trust housed at the same address as Passantino’s firm. Passantino did not respond to a request for comment Monday night. Payments have also been made to firms that specialize in environmental regulation and real estate matters.
As of July, only about $750,000 had been doled out to candidates for Congress, with an additional $150,000 given to candidates for state office, records show. Trump is expected to ramp up his political spending now that general-election season has entered full swing, though it remains unclear exactly how much the notoriously thrifty former president will ultimately agree to spend.
Trump has long played coy about his 2024 plans, saying a formal announcement would trigger campaign finance rules that would, in part, force him to create a new campaign committee that would be bound by strict fundraising limits.
In the meantime, Trump aides have been discussing the prospect of creating a new super PAC or repurposing one that already exists as gets he closer to an expected announcement. While Trump could not use Save America to fund campaign activity after launching a run, aides have discussed the possibility of moving at least some of that money into a super PAC, according to people familiar with the talks.
Campaign finance experts are mixed on the legality of such a move. Some, like Richard Briffault, a professor at Columbia Law School and an expert in campaign finance, said he didn’t see a problem.
“There may be some hoops he has to jump through,” he said. But “I don’t see a problem with it going from one PAC to another … I don’t see what would block it.”
Others disagree.
“It is illegal for a candidate to transfer a significant amount of money from a leadership PAC to a super PAC. You certainly can’t do $100 million,” said Adav Noti, a former Federal Election Commission attorney who now works for the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington-based good governance group focused on money and politics.
And whether or not Trump would face any consequences is a different matter.
For years, the FEC, which polices campaign finance laws, has been gridlocked. The commission is split evenly between Republicans and Democrats, and a majority vote is needed to take any enforcement action against a candidate.
Indeed, legal experts say Trump has repeatedly flouted campaign finance law since launching his 2016 White House run, with no consequence.
More than 50 separate complaints alleging Trump broke campaign finance laws have been filed against him since his 2016 campaign. In roughly half of those instances, FEC lawyers have concluded that there was reason to believe that he may have broken the law. But the commission, which now includes three Trump-appointed Republicans, has repeatedly deadlocked.
The list of dismissed complaints against Trump is extensive. In 2021, Republicans on the commission rejected the claim, supported by the FEC’s staff attorneys, that a Trump orchestrated hush-money payment by his former lawyer to pornographic film star Stormy Daniels amounted to an unreported in-kind contribution. In May, the commission similarly deadlocked over whether his campaign broke the law by hiding how it was spending cash during the 2020 campaign.
And over the summer, the commission rejected complaints stemming from Trump’s threat to withhold $391 million in aid for the Ukraine unless the Ukrainian officials opened an investigation into the relationship President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden had with a Ukrainian gas company called Burisma, which the FEC’s attorney’s determined was a potential violation of campaign finance law.
“There is no legal basis whatsoever for believing that Congress intended the FEC to police official acts of the government that may be intended to assist an officeholder’s reelection,” the commission’s three Republicans said in a written statement late last month.
That means any enforcement action would likely have to come from the Justice Department.
“He has nothing to fear from the Federal Election Commission until either its structure is changed or there is turnover among the FEC Commissioners,” said Brett G. Kappel, a longtime campaign finance attorney who works at the Washington-based firm Harmon Curran and has represented both Republicans and Democrats. “That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have anything to fear from the Justice Department, which is already apparently investigating Save America. From what I can see, there are multiple wire fraud allegations that could be the subject of a Justice Department investigation.”
In the meantime, Trump and Save America continue to rake in contributions from grassroots supporters, blasting out fundraising solicitations with aggressive demands like “this needs to be taken care of NOW” and threatening donors that their “Voter Verification” canvass surveys are “OUT OF DATE,” even as some of the Republican Senate contenders Trump endorsed and helped drag across the finish line in primaries are struggling to raise cash.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has urged those candidates to ask Trump for money, which the former president has so far proven reluctant to provide. That has left the candidates, some of whom presented themselves as McConnell antagonists during their primaries, to grovel to McConnell and the Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC he controls and has $100 million in reserve.
It also strengthens McConnell’s hand in his long-simmering feud with Trump, who has urged GOP senators to oust the Kentucky Republican. Some close to Trump acknowledge the candidates could use the money, but said he doesn’t see it as his responsibility to fill the void.
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Colvin reported from New York.