Donald Trump is fending off new questions about his political potency after a miserable week of poor polling and his controversial release of digital trading cards.
The former president finds himself heading into the end-of-the-year holidays on a low note as his 2024 comeback presidential campaign shows few signs of gaining traction and he seems to have lost at least some of his once-vaunted political touch.
He’s also facing the possibility on Monday the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by Trump loyalists will recommend criminal charges against him for inciting the riot.
Trump, who announced the launch of his campaign last month, had already failed to respond forcefully to widespread criticism of his role in the underwhelming Republican performance in the midterm elections.
He was hit last week by a one-two punch of poor poll results.
Both surveys say Trump has fallen far behind Republican rival Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the battle for Republican primary voters in the race that will likely take off later next year. One showed him losing badly to President Joe Biden in a hypothetical rematch.
But the worst blow of the week was a surprise self-inflicted one.
Trump on Wednesday told supporters to expect a “MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT!” the next day. “American needs a superhero!” he added.
Speculation ran wild that he might be planning to announce a big move to jump-start his sputtering White House campaign or perhaps even an attention-grabbing run for speaker of the House in the new Congress.
Instead, Trump announced the release of a set of $99-a-pop digital trading cards showing cartoon images of himself in various heroic poses.
The Trump cards are known as nonfungible tokens, or NFT’s, which are stored on internet platforms and have unique identifiers that supposedly prevent them from being copied, forged or stolen.
The head fake drew instant mockery from Democrats and liberals, who called them “cringe-worthy” and worse.
President Biden, usually not known as an effective social media troll, boasted that he had some year-end “MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENTS” of his own, including lowering gas prices, keeping the economy growing and enacting protection for same-sex marriages.
Perhaps more worrisome for Trump was the dismayed reaction from his own usually loyal MAGA supporters. They too were clearly expecting the kind of political bombshell that has become a defining part of Trump’s playbook.
“Whoever advised him on that, I’d fire them immediately,” Michael Flynn, the one-time national security adviser said on a right-wing video show.
Right-wing flame thrower Steve Bannon also derided the launch, suggesting that it would undermine the MAGA message that Americans are under existential attack by Biden’s policy.
“I love the folks down there (at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort), but we’re at war,” Bannon said on his podcast. “They oughta be fired.”
Others questioned Trump’s embrace of NFT’s even as enthusiasm for crypto assets has significantly cooled especially following the collapse of FTX.com.
The financial questions about the NFT’s eased a bit on Friday when reports claimed the initial 45,000 cards quickly sold out and prices were rising fast on secondary markets.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., suggested that Trump’s sagging public image reflect a belated recognition he is a better huckster than political leader.
“The American people have gotten wise to him,” the powerful Senate majority leader told CNN. “It took a while. But they are onto him.”
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"I am absolutely thrilled to have my friends joining me for this next tour," Wynonna Judd said.
The Chiefs needed overtime to do it, but they were able to clinch their seventh consecutive AFC West title with a 30-24 victory over the Texans on Sunday. After throwing three picks to keep the Broncos in the game last week, quarterback Patrick Mahomes had a terrific day in Houston. He finished 36-of-41 passing for [more]
The criminal referral, which is nonbinding, is the culmination of a year-long investigation that included more than 1,000 witnesses, 10 televised public hearings and over 1 million documents.
The House Jan. 6 select committee released an executive summary on Monday, highlighting a series of revelations and accusations against key Trump figures.
Kari Lake will have two days to prove that the governor election in Arizona was stolen. But the judge set a high bar for her to cross.
Trump apparently "instructed" a photographer to not take any pictures for several hours as the Capitol riots unfolded, lawmakers said in a report.
The extremist congresswoman from Georgia accused her Colorado counterpart of "high school drama."
The House Jan. 6 select committee is set to hold its last meeting Monday and expected to vote on its final report, which will reveal how far it will go in accusing former President Trump of deep involvement in what it says was a plot to overturn the 2020 election. The committee, meanwhile, has interviewed scores of witnesses and heard their dramatic testimony in front of TV cameras, delivering a slate of bombshells about the inner workings of the Trump White House leading up to Jan. 6 and on the day itself. After the panel's creation, Trump expressed frustration he had no defenders on the committee, a dynamic he blamed on House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, Calif.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Monday issued a terse response to the House Jan. 6 select committee’s decision to refer criminal charges against former President Trump to the Justice Department. “The entire nation knows who is responsible for that day. Beyond that, I don’t have any immediate observations,” McConnell said in a…
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/FECWhile federal campaign finance regulators aren’t known for their aggression, things have gotten so bad that they’re practically begging Congress to give them more weapons to go after political scams—including a recurring donations scheme favored by Donald Trump that has fleeced unwitting supporters for years.But the recurring donations tactic is just one issue the Federal Election Commission highlighted last week when it published it
Former President Donald Trump can't be reinstated by the decision the Supreme Court makes in Moore v. Harper — or any other case, legal experts say.
My guess – after watching Monday's hearing on a motion to dismiss Kari Lake's lawsuit – is that Lake may as well reach for her matches.
State Senator Nathan Dahm (R-Broken Arrow) has filed an amendment that would declare Oklahoma as a sovereign state.
McConnell's statement on Monday is the senator's latest salvo in a long-standing and deeply acrimonious feud between him and Trump.
“I’m not endorsing anybody. I have no idea what’s going to happen in the Republican primary,” Carlson said.
House tax writers voted to disclose the long-sought information and dinged the IRS for delaying a routine audit of the former president.
Kari Lake and other promoters of election-conspiracy claims are celebrating the decision to hold a two-day election trial.
The 2022 midterm elections had all the makings of a red wave, but four key issues held Republicans back, according to GOP pollster Wes Anderson.
(Bloomberg) — A special House committee’s vote to refer former President Donald Trump for potential criminal charges in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol brings fresh attention to a Constitutional ban on insurrectionists holding office.Most Read from BloombergMusk Will Resign as Twitter CEO and Focus on Engineering TeamsMessi Evacuated by Helicopter After Crowds Swarm World Cup WinnersAmazon Ring Cameras Used in Nationwide ‘Swatting’ Spree, US SaysMusk Lashes Out at Unhappy In
Former Vice President Mike Pence on Monday urged the Justice Department against indicting former President Trump ahead of a House panel’s expected announcement to refer Trump on criminal charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the Capitol. “I hope the Justice Department understands the magnitude, the very idea of indicting a former president…
