DON JONES INDEX…

GAINS POSTED in GREEN

LOSSES POSTED in RED

3/5/21… 13,926.57 2/26/21… 13,841.94

6/27/13… 15,000.00

DOW JONES INDEX: 3/5/21…30,924.14; 2/26/21…31,493.34; 6/27/13…15,000.00)

LESSON for March 5, 2021 – “A FINE KETTLE of FISH!”

“Three days that I dread to see arrive

“Three days that I hate to be alive

“Three days filled with tears and sorrow

“Yesterday, today and tomorrow.” - Willie Nelson

Ask any Jones not enmired in the politics of politics about CPAC and you’ll probably get a blank stare.

Some, perhaps, might recognize the verbal utterance as referring to Sea Pak, which is a company that packages fresh and frozen fish.

(Their scampi is good, the fishwich slabs, not so good.)

Anyway, another kettle of fish was set to boil last week, the actual Conservative Political Action Committee – a what-do-we-do-next? convocation of the rightest of the right left of the Nazis.

CPAC held its annual meeting in Orlando, Florida, just outside Disney World, and scored a truly cartoonish headliner… the deposed 45^th President of the United State (again, not defeated by election but deposed by a coup masterminded by George Soros and Hillary Clinton (to the old-school conspiracy freeks), by reptilian space aliens (to their Q-wave successors) or by Joseph Biden and eighty some million voters (to the convention outsiders who still respect reality and science).

The conventioneers may or may not take their country back, but they had fun. The DJI didn’t, but there were a few nuggets delicious enough to highlight in yellow and a smaller few to obsess upon in red.

As in… SPEECHES GALORE!

The Independent UK posted this list of the speakers over the three days. See their biographies here.

Friday

Florida governor Ron DeSantis

Senator Mike Lee

Former governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker

Senator James Lankford

Former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi

Senator Ted Cruz

Rep. Mo Brooks

Rep. Madison Cawthorn

Senator Tom Cotton

Sen. Marsha Blackburn

Rep. Matt Gaetz

Sen. Rick Scott

Sen. Josh Hawley

Donald Trump Jr.

Saturday

Texas attorney general Ken Paxton

Former acting director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo

Senator Bill Hagerty

Trade representative Robert Lighthizer

Rep. Devin Nunes

Senator Cynthia Lummis

Rep. Burgess Owens

Rep. Darrell Issa

Rep. Andy Biggs

Rep. Lauren Boebert

House minority leader Kevin McCarthy

South Dakota governor Kristi Noem

Sunday

Former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee

Former National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow

Former US president Trump

The speeches were live streamed on Independent TV, and on the CPAC 2021 website under the “Watch Live” tab, while certain high profile speeches were carried on a number of US networks, such as Fox News and CNN, throughout the weekend.

In the US, live streaming is available as part of a subscription to Fox News’ streaming service, Fox Nation, which had exclusive access to CPAC 2021.

All politicians, no celebrities. There were a few celebrities on hand, wandering ‘round the convention, but you had to seek them out. Big names like Maj Toure (founder of Black Guns Matter), Jon Voight (co-star of “Midnight Cowboy”, “Ray Donovan more recently”), some second-tier print and electronic talking and writing heads and a few businessmen (like one JEFF BRAIN, Founder & CEO of CloutHub

Sleepy delegates were drowsily disappointed when avid Trump supporter Mike Lindell’s mike was muted for allegedly defaming Israel (See Attachment Four = a no-no to Jared and Ivanka). That dynamic due was not on the schedule, nor was Eric, but Donald Junior took the stage to excoriate RINO Liz Cheney.

"She hates Donald Trump and his policies … because she's tied to an establishment that has done nothing but fail us time and time again," he said. Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former Fox News personality and Trump campaign aide who is dating the president's eldest son, concurred, saying, "The press wants you to believe that the American conservative movement is fractured."

"If Liz Cheney were on this stage today. She'd get booed off of it. What does that say? The leadership of our party is not found in Washington D.C.," agreed Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz claimed that the media "desperately, desperately, desperately wants to see a Republican Civil War." Cruz was considered second-runner to Trump for 2024 until his Cancun crackup. Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former Fox News personality and Trump campaign aide who is dating the president's eldest son, concurred, saying, "The press wants you to believe that the American conservative movement is fractured."

The new putative GOP standard-bearers (if Djonald chooses to do something different or, like, die) were Florida’s Governor Ron deSantis and Sen. Rick Scott, who leads the party's efforts to retake the Senate majority as chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, acknowledged "all the infighting in the Republican Party," but adamantly said he wouldn't intervene.

"Many people are saying that my job is to mediate between warring factions on the right, and mediate the war of words between the party leaders," Scott said. "I've got some news for you, I'm not going to mediate anything, instead I'm going to fight for our conservative values."

“Even with Democrats controlling Congress and the White House for the first time in over a decade, many of the Republicans who spoke at the conference here said strikingly little about President Biden or the nearly $2 trillion stimulus measure the House passed early Saturday, which congressional Republicans uniformly opposed,” adjudicated the lyin’ New York Times, the morning after his address.

On the last day in February, Trump took the podium as main attraction at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) annual Trumpfest in Orlando, Florida – espousing “Trumpism” as “a political ideology focused on geopolitical deal-making and immigration restrictions” (NYT) and asking: “Do you miss me yet? Do you miss me yet?”

Apparently, they did.

While expressly calling on people to take the coronavirus vaccines that he had pressed for and hoped would help him in his re-election effort,” the Times allowed, he also mocked Mr. Biden for stumbling during a CNN town hall event, mocked transgender people who participate in women’s sports (a much more forceful attack on transgender people than his remarks while in office, when he placed significant restrictions on L.G.B.T.Q.-related rights), and pummeled his own Three Supremes for refusing to overturn the election.

“As Democrats pursue a liberal agenda in Washington, the former president’s grievances over the 2020 election continue to animate much of his party, more than a month after he left office and nearly four months since he lost the election,” according to Monday morning’s Times (See Attachment Three). “Many G.O.P. leaders and activists are more focused on litigating false claims about voting fraud in last year’s campaign, assailing the technology companies that deplatformed Mr. Trump and punishing lawmakers who broke with him over his desperate bid to retain power.”

A transcript of Reichsfuhrer Drumpf’s address is attached below as Attachment One. Subsequently, CNN reporters Daniel Dale, Holmes Lybrand and Tara Subramaniam read the transcript, called it “a speech filled with debunked lies” and, on Monday, March 1^st at 12:31 PM (ET), published a list of said alleged falsehoods under the heading “FACT CHECK: TRUMP DELIVERS LIE-FILLED CPAC SPEECH”

They prefaced their exposé as follows:

“Former President Donald Trump returned to the public stage on Sunday with a familiar kind of Trump speech -- a speech filled with debunked lies.

“Most notably, Trump's first post-presidency address, at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, included his usual lies about the 2020 election. He continued to falsely insist he was the legitimate winner and continued to falsely insist the election was "rigged."

“Trump repeated a bunch of other false claims we regularly heard from him as president, on subjects ranging from trade with China to his stance on the war in Iraq. He also offered up some new false claims about President Joe Biden's early days in office.

“We are still going through the transcript of Trump's remarks, but here is an initial breakdown of some of the things he said.”

Three hours and twenty one minutes later CNN’s Chris Cilliza also read the whole damn thing and he pulled out: “The 50 most ridiculous lines from Donald Trump's CPAC speech”. See here, or note, below. Cilliza prefaced the Ex-Presidents remarks thusly:

“Donald Trump delivered his first major post-presidential speech (Sunday), an address to the Conservative Political Action Conference laden with falsehoods and attacks (Cilizza’s opinion) on his fellow Republicans -- suggesting absolutely nothing has changed since he ceased being president on January 20.

“I went through the speech and pulled out the lines you need to see.”

And he dutifully scrolled down the roster of ridiculousness, one to fifty, with an excerpt from the speech and his response. We attached the CNN suggested corrections not as separate attachments, but within the text of Trump’s address. Cilizza’s commentary has been included below each relevant paragraph in blue. The rather smaller number of the “debunktions” by his three co-staffers has been similarly attached, but in plain text highlighted in light blue, as so. (The choice of colours is a tribute, or condemnation… take your pick… of CNN’s obvious anti-Trump bias.)

Further, in fact (to restate what may or may not be fact) there was this from the actual… maybe factual, maybe not… fact checking orifice: FactCheck.org, (see Attachment Two). More Trump statements run through the analyzer machines and determined to be false (or, at least, sketchy). Since many of said statements had to do with the treasonous conduct of his fellow-no-longer Republicans, we designated them with light red (i.e. pink, for pinko) shading. Prefaced this band of factoids:

In his first public speech since leaving office, former President Donald Trump delighted his audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference with numerous false and misleading claims, many of them criticisms of his successor.

USA Today’s Chatty Cathies (actually Jill, Jill Lawrence and David Mastio - see Attachment Five) also held a fact-chat checkfest of their own… not as extensive of the other coloured commentators, but even snarkier than CNN’s Foul Fifty…

Amidst other autopsies, left and right, of the CPAC address (rant, if you will) were these:

Predictably, the leftish anti-Trump media showed disrespect…

The Hill: “Former President Trump emerged unhinged and unchanged Sunday at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).”

And: CPAC was really a nostalgic celebration of a defeated candidate rather than a realistic examination of the GOP’s shaky future.

CNN ticked off “Six Takeaways” from the convention (See Attachment Six, of course, twice as many as Breitbart’s measly three – Attachment Twelve) calling his speech “riddled with lies” – a judgment the WashPost upgraded to “vile lies”. (See Attachment Seven). Rolling Stone called the discourse “boring” (Attachment Eight). The L.A. Times noted the “flatness of his broadsides” against Biden

Djonald Unquiet had his usual coterie of sycophants from the usual sources too.

The National Review declared: “Former president Trump won the Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll on Sunday, with 55 percent of respondents saying they would vote for Trump in the 2024 presidential primary. Attendees of CPAC also approved of Trump’s performance as president by 97 percent but only 68 percent said they wanted him to run again.”

Newsmax churned out no less than four commentaries, the first being Trump’s “triumph” at CPAC. (See Attachments Eleven A through D) and “CPAC Boos When Trump Mentions Fox News' Chris Wallace.”

But it took the snarky Breitbart… no matter if correspondent John Nolte could find only half the “takeaways” CNN did; one raised the otherwise- forbidden question Pubs dare not ask… 45’s health. (See Attachment Twelve)

And then there was the future – brilliant according to CPAC, menacing otherwise.

JONATHAN GRANOFF AND MICHAEL L. PRIGOFF of The Hill suggested invoking Section 3 of Article 14 is just as narrowly designed to apply to cases such as Trump’s. It says very plainly that any person who previously held office, took an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and has since “engaged in rebellion or insurrection” or “given aid or comfort” to such conduct is disqualified from serving again in any office that requires upholding the Constitution. It was adopted after the Civil War to prevent Confederates who attacked the Union from regaining office. Most of those whom Section 3 excluded from serving were granted amnesty in 1872, and it hasn’t been used since. “But if there was ever a time to reinvoke it, it’s now.”

Not only should Section 3 disqualify Trump from holding future. Congress must now enact a legal mechanism to enforce it. Not just Trump, the implication, but the 43 Pubs who acquitted him should also be cancelled! (DJI)

The aforesaid Times noted that the former president drew louder applause for pledging to purge his Republican antagonists from the party, since they had apparently refused to listen to reason and colluded with Barzini… uh, the Democrats… on Impeach Two.

“Get rid of them all,” Don Djonald said.

“Mr. Trump’s attack, and the enthusiastic response to his call for vengeance,” the Timesters opined, “illustrated the dilemma Republicans find themselves in.”

That dilemma is being driven home by the now-repetitive Kamala Harris tiebreaking votes in the Senate.

Newsweek pondered the also-fading influence of Fox and Friends on the Donald (Attachment Thirteen).

And a possible solution lies in the majoritarian (but far from overwhelming) consensus that Trump should be 2024’s nominee.

“Could former President Trump be — finally — beginning to fade toward the margins of American political life?” asked Niall Stanage of The Hill (3/3). On the other hand, Several possible 2024 GOP hopefuls, such as Sens. Tom Cotton (Ark.), Ted Cruz (Texas) and Josh Hawley (Mo.) and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R), “are plainly trying to stick as close to Trump as possible,” he added.

The hometown boy, Florida Governor Ron deSantis, took second place in the CPAC straw poll (See Attachment Fifteen).

The BBC reiterated the prospect of a fading Trump in a pre-impeachment consideration. “There is, of course, the possibility that Trump - despite his protestations and promises - fades from the political scene. Talk of new political parties, new media empires and new presidential campaigns could subside.”

Even after surviving impeachment, Trump faces some very real legal challenges. “New York prosecutors are investigating his payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels,” said the Brits. Georgia is looking into his phone call pressuring Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find votes" in the November election. And federal prosecutors might review his words and actions prior to the attack on the Capitol.

He also will have his hands full keeping his business empire afloat, as it faces declining revenue due to the coronavirus pandemic and a tarnished brand. Trump's company owes hundreds of millions of dollars in loans due in the next few years and Deutsche Bank, his most reliable lender, recently dropped him as a client

The National Review reported that, in a poll of potential 2024 candidates without Trump, DeSantis received 43 percent of the vote while South Dakota governor Kristi Noem drew 11 percent. Both governors are staunch Trump allies who have touted their states’ refusal to extend full lockdowns during the coronavirus pandemic.

Critics like Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) have admitted that they believe Trump would win the Republican nomination if he were to run again.

“Let me tell you this — Donald Trump ain’t going anywhere,” Cruz said during his own CPAC speech. At the same event, Josh Mandel, a GOP Senate candidate in Ohio, asserted, “We have a party led by Donald J. Trump.”

Senator Cruz of Texas… the former “lyin’Ted” turned Cancun beach boy… told the lyin’ Times that his party’s voters would pivot to the present (meaning himself, until his mental snap and birdlike flight south during the cold snap) once Mr. Biden’s agenda became more clear.

“As the American people see the bad ideas that destroy jobs and strip away our liberties, there’s a natural pendulum to politics,” Mr. Cruz said, predicting that Republican activists would “absolutely” pay more attention to the current administration later this year.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., told Fox News during an interview after his CPAC address Friday that "those who are -- seem fairly invested in this whole concept of a Republican civil war -- which I think is a D.C. thing. You can come here to see there isn't a civil war. Our voters have no interest in going back. They want to go forward."

National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) Chairman Sen. Rick Scott of Florida declared that the GOP civil war is "now canceled." He doubled down on those comments during an interview with Fox News Friday. "The civil war is canceled," he said. "We're going to focus on the issues. If you look all across the country what people are talking about is they're talking about where are we going? They're not talking about where we've been."

Scott added: "We're not going back to dial-up internet. We're not going back to flip phones and typewriters. We're going back to, where can we go in the future? What can we do to make sure we get a majority."

One faction of the party doesn't want Trump at the helm following the Jan. 6 insurrection when Trump-supporting rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to stop Congress from counting electoral votes certifying President Joe Biden's victory, which Trump relentlessly decried as illegitimate despite all evidence to the contrary.

But that segment of the party was notably absent from CPAC, which is considered a barometer of the Republican Party's base. The theme of CPAC 2021 is "America Uncanceled," but the pre-Trump GOP and establishment Republicans seemed to be "canceled" from the conference altogether.

Two months after the rioters went quietly away at dusk and Senators voted to confirm Joe Biden as President, fairly elected or not, the drama is largely over. Oh… there may be a sensational attack at the State of the Union speech (if and when it occurs), but America’s attention has shifted back to old menaces: radical Islam, of course, and in both Iran and Saudi Arabia and a slippery and slimy pandemic that keeps mutating itself out of the sights of the vaccinators. The one-six, meanwhile, has withered away to legal speculation and an increasingly fervent dragnet for increasingly clueless and irrelevant occupiers and new threats and fevers arise. Lady Gaga’s dogs. Mister (soon to be gender neutered) Potato Head.

Could it happen again – but with a further twist of the switchblade in the back?… Nixon retreated in disgrace, if not repentance; Trump, as noted in the week before last’s DJI, is already plotting a comeback. His re-election to a second Grover Clevelandian term is unlikely, barring a massive memory zap by those Jewish space lasers (or by QAnon’s answering Oblividrones, made in the USA from blueprints lifted by dedicated, patriotic hackers), but he is now favored to win the Republican nomination or, if it is stolen from him, break off and form a third party which will so divide the G.O.P. that a Democrat… a really old Joe by 2024 or worse (an even older Bern, or AOC, or Pocahontas, Marianne, Hillary) will steal yet another election.

That would be a fine kettle of fish!

FEBRUARY 26 – MARCH 4

Friday, February 26, 2021

Infected: 28,488,166

Dead: 510,458

Dow: 30,932.37

FDA panel approves J&J vaccine, pushing it nearer to joining Pfizer and Moderna in American arms.

American arms (explosive) take revenge on Iranian sponsored Iraqi militia, kill 22. President Joe releases report fingering Saudi Crown Prince in Khashoggi murder. Patsies sanctioned, Prince untouched. Biden gets Jennifer Granholm confirmed as EnSec but Senate vetoes minwage increase. McConnell says he’ll support Trump in 2024.

NASA renames its DC headquarters after “hidden figure”, mathematician Mary Jackson.

Saturday, February 27, 2021

Infected: 28,535,512

House approves Stim Three 218-212 with no Republicans supporting and two Democrats defecting. This “American Rescue” plan includes the $15 minimum wage already redlighted by Senate.

J&J greenlighting comes just in time – plague queen Walensky, asserting it works on both the South African and Brazilian variants: “We are at the precipice of having another vax in our toolbox.” The Coronavirus, meanwhile, leaps off the precipice of its own plateau (in the wrong direction). New cases are up five percent over the past five days. Deaths are up ten percent.

President Joe tours Texas blizzard aftermath with Gov. Greg Abbott and complains about private utility ERCON’s “insane” power bills.

Sunday, February 28, 2021

Infected: 28,554,274

Dead: 513K m/l

Testing positivity toll in L.A. has dropped from 19% to 2%... hospitalizations drop below 50,000. Some doctors say the experimental BAM treatment leaves plague victims “walking their dogs” (uh oh!) the next day. Some don’t. Others warn that smokers and vapor vapers are higher risk targets.

Gov. Cuomo (D-NY) sex scandals spiking as even fellow Dems force him to walk back scheme to appoint his own prosecutor… a second female says he talked dirty (he replied he was “mentoring”), a third says he asked for a kiss! (Cue Prince… the dead singer, not Harry or Salman.)

Alabama Amazon union drive nears election with employees as underdogs. McDonalds’ worker, Ruthie in Pennsylvania, turns 100 by going dancing and says “I never had a lot of money but I always had enough.”

Monday, March 1, 2021

Infected: 28,608,669

Dead: 513,091

Dow: 31,589.10

J&J starts rolling out the vaxxes: 3.9 doses to start, one billion eventually. Troubled Astra Zenica sells its stake in Moderna for $1B… perhaps hoping to get its own drugs back on track.

Golden Globes cite lack of diversity among Foreign Press judges (foreign includes Africa, Latin America and Asia – what, no press there?), who then award Best Actor to Chadwick Boseman (posthumously), Best Director to Chloe Zhou (first female since “Yentl”) and Best Picture to her “Nomadland”. Other winners include Borat, Lady Day and, for the white folks, “The Crown”. Ratings down a disastrous 60% despite critics of zoom format calling it “sweet” and “personal”.

President Joe defends battered Stim Three against Trump turncoat Rob Portman (R-Oh) who touts targeting, saying: “Nobody expects well be in Covid in a year,” then adds (Djonald’s) “Operation Warp Speed has gone extremely well.” Rick Scott (R-Fl) says the bill wastes money when America has $27T in debt (it’s actually 28!). Then he meets with Mexican President (and recent plague survivor) Obrador to try and limit (if not stop) post-Trump immigration influx.

Tuesday, March 2, 2021

U.S. Infected: 28,732,499

Dead: 516,526

Dow: 31,493.34

President Joe invokes DPA as rival Merck joins J&J to boost output as plague deaths and hospitalizations move off plateau and rise 3%. “We were so close,” say loved ones of elderly who died waiting to get shot. HHS Director Mayorga says: “It’s not a crisis, it’s a challenge.

Dr. Jah says “we’re rounding third and headed for home, but Dr. Fauci warns that variants “will come around and bite us,” Dr. Walensky (CDC) fears a Fourth Wave due to Spring Break revels and Dr. Oz saves heart attack victim at Newark Airport.

Six Dr. Seuss books banned by their publisher. Twitter censors 8,400 websites for plague mis- and dis-information, promises to investigate 11.5M more.

Wednesday, March 3, 2021

U.S. Infected: 28,736,045

Dead: 518,345

Dow: 31,170.67

Bombed Iranian-backed Iraqi militia launches more rockets against Americans in advance of the Pope’s visit on Friday. ISIS launches Islamic Crusade against women journalists in Afghanistan.

“This is a wartime effort,” says President Joe, comparing CV to WW2. He calls unmasking states like Texas and Mississippi “Neanderthals”.

Congress cancels tomorrow’s session as QAnon urges millions of (unidentified) mad militiamembers to motorvate to the Capital to repeat the one-six, “remove” Democrats and restore Donald Trump on the pre-20^th Amendment, pre-1933 March 4^th Inauguration Day. D.C. and Capitol Police joined by 5,000 National Guardsman as extreme bunkering-down occurs. Hotels in Washington raise prices.

Banned Dr. Seuss books selling for $400 on the Dark Web. Dolly Parton vaxxes up on TV, tells her fans: “Don’t be a chicken squat, get shot.”

Thursday, March 4, 2021

Infected: 28,825,407

Dead: 520,228

Dow: 30,924.14

Q-Day comes and goes – the MAGAmob fails to materialize as its “shaman”, Jacob Chansley, faces bail hearing, 20 years. He streams his defense manifesto: he saved the muffins in the Capitol break room – TV pundits say: “It’s not the letter from the Birmingham Jail.” But D.C. will stay on lockdown thru mid-May... no-show militia plotters reportedly un-unidentified, but their particulars called “secret” and security agencies point fingers at each other over 1/6 containment failure.

Elsewhere, Guardsmen and visiting nurses join to shoot up more people in high risk, remote areas as doctors call Type-A blood more plague-friendly. Vaxxes up to two million per day.

Union battles across America as President Joe picks Alabama workers over Trump-nemesis Amazon. Back-to-school battles pit frazzled parents against fearful teachers’ unions – neither side accepts mass “educator” vaccination solution. Strikes loom – but President Joe calls off military strikes against Iranian-backed militia base in Iraq due to presence of women and children as human shields.

“I’m about done with masks,” says a tired American.

Johnson & Johnson vaxxes are finally on the way, giving the index a 100 point boost (without which, we’d be in the red, again). There was a slight improvement in employment, but pretty much everything was down – so those who hope should hope for better things to come. Better weather, for example. A better means of vaccination scheduling.

Its only two weeks ‘til spring.

THE DON JONES INDEX

CHART of CATEGORIES w/VALUE ADDED to EQUAL BASELINE of 15,000

(REFLECTING… approximately… DOW JONES INDEX of June 27, 2013)

See a further explanation of categories here…

ECONOMIC INDICES (60%)

DON JONES’ PERSONAL ECONOMIC INDEX (45% of TOTAL INDEX POINTS)

CATEGORY

VALUE

BASE

RESULTS

SCORE

OUR SOURCE(S) and COMMENTS

INCOME

(24%)

6/27/13

LAST

CHANGE

NEXT

2/26/21

3/5/21

SOURCE

Wages (hourly, per capita)

1350 pts.

2/26/21

+0.36%

3/12/21

1,428.61

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wages 25.18 nc

Median Income (yearly)

600

2/26/21

+0.05%

3/12/21

667.77

668.13

http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 35,365

Unempl. (BLS – in millions

600

12/1/20

+1.61%

3/12/21

318.35

323.48

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000 6.2%

Official (DC – in millions)

300

2/26/21

+0.02%

3/12/21

382.99

382.91

http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 10,143

Total. (DC – in millions)

300

2/26/21

-0.22%

3/12/21

312.84

313.56

http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 18,451

Workforce Participation

Number (in millions)

Percentage (DC)

300

2/26/21

+0.022%

-0.016%

3/12/21

311.49

311.56

In 150,114 Out 100,662 Total: 250,776

http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 59.86

WP Percentage (ycharts)*

150

12/1/20

-0.16%

3/12/21

151.74

http://ycharts.com/indicators/labor_force_participation_rate 61.40

OUTGO

(15%)

Total Inflation

1050

2/26/21

+0.3%

3/12/21

1,018.32

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +0.3

Food

300

2/26/21

+0.1%

3/12/21

283.84

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +0.1

Gasoline

300

2/26/21

+7.4%

3/12/21

317.33

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +7.4

Medical Costs

300

2/26/21

+0.5%

3/12/21

288.50

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +0.5

Shelter

300

2/26/21

+0.1%

3/12/21

294.91

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +0.1

WEALTH

(6%)

Dow Jones Index

300

2/26/21

-1.81%

3/12/21

345.66

339.29

https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/index/DJIA 30,924.14

Sales (homes)

Valuation (homes)

150

2/26/21

-1.04%

-1.90%

3/12/21

196.44

165.43

196.44

165.43

https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-statistics

Sales (M): 6.76 .69 Valuations (K): 309.8

Debt (Personal)

300

2/26/21

+1.69%

3/12/21

279.36

274.64

http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 64,060

AMERICAN ECONOMIC INDEX (15% of TOTAL INDEX POINTS)

NATIONAL

(10%)

Revenues (in trillions)

300

2/26/21

+0.12%

3/12/21

296.46

296.80

debtclock.org/ 3,469

Expenditures (in tr.)

300

2/26/21

-0.18%

3/12/21

222.58

222.18

debtclock.org/ 6,692

National Debt (tr.)

450

2/26/21

+0.30%

3/12/21

331.78

330.80

http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 28,013

Aggregate Debt (tr.)

450

2/26/21

+0.12%

3/12/21

383.21

382.73

http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 82,580

GLOBAL

(5%)

Foreign Debt (tr.)

300

2/26/21

+0.37%

3/12/21

292.24

291.15

http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 7,114

Exports (in billions – bl.)

150

2/26/21

+3.15%

3/12/21

158.05

https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/index.html 190.0 nc

Imports (bl.)

150

2/26/21

-1.68%

3/12/21

136.82

https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/index.html 256.6

Trade Deficit (bl.)

150

2/26/21

+2.25%

3/12/21

108.68

https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/index.html 66.6

SOCIAL INDICES (40%)

ACTS of MAN

(12%)

World Peace

450

2/26/21

-0.4%

3/12/21

400.68

399.08

Awful African awfulness abounds: massacres in Ethiopia, 279 schoolgirls kidnapped in Nigeria. The latter are ransomed, leading to debate over whether government ransom policy just encourages criminals and terrorists. Myanmar stormtroopers open fire, kill 18 protesters, anti-coup UN rep fired. (If he goes home, he’s an idiot!) Post-Trump border crossings rise to 78K/mo.

Terrorism

300

2/26/21

+0.3%

3/12/21

246.30

245.56

Pope going to Iraq. Assassination chatter matters. Iran refuses US nuke talk overtures, attacks Israeli ships – surrogates bomb US base. Again.

Politics

450

2/26/21

-0.1%

3/12/21

434.69

434.26

Senate alt-right loser Kelly Loeffler sells WNBA Atlanta Dream, to players’ relief. Kissy guy Cuomo crawls on his scaly belly for forgiveness but gets Clintoned anyway (doctoring nursing home death stats doesn’t help). Senate confirms EdSec Cardona but forces out Neera Tanden – Dems cry racism. Leftists decry Biden’s repurposing of migrant camps and kiddie cages. Pols promise “2000 investigations” of one-six.

Economics

450

2/26/21

-0.5%

3/12/21

399.93

397.93

Best Buy cuts 5,000 jobs. Disney closing brick and mortar stores to concentrate on digital sales. Restaurants suffering from “digital dine and dashes”. Texas freeze means gas prices will rise to $3/gal. (Trump disagrees… $7!) ERCOT’s gouger-in-chief thrown under the bus.

Crime

150

2/26/21

+0.2%

3/12/21

258.83

258.31

California man accused of burying wife alive on the beach. Mystery woman finds Lady Gaga’s two French bulldogs (Gustav and Koji) “tied up” – suspects still at large, shot dogwalker out of danger. Chicago jacker steals car with two kids inside – drops them off safely. Swedish mass stabber stabs eight. Laurel MD police chief arrested as serial arsonist.

ACTS of GOD

(6%)

(with, in some cases, a little… or lots of… help from men, and a few women)

Environment/Weather

450

2/26/21

-0.2%

3/12/21

416.45

415.62

More storms wheel into Pacific Coast but spring springs up in Midwest. Iceberg larger than New York City breaks off of Antarctica, heads north. Leftover storm dirtied water in Jackson MS will cost $2B to clean.

Natural/Unnatural Disaster

450

2/26/21

-0.2%

3/12/21

416.41

415.58

Gravesite accident buries NY worker in cemetery plot. SUV with 25 illegals packed in crashes near border, 13 die. Newborn rescued from Boston garbage can. Navy sailors rescue four cats on sinking ship. Deputies rescue 73 year old woman from a sinking car in Florida. Mount Sinabum erupts in Indonesia, huge earthquake north of New Zealand fails to generate tsunami.

LIFESTYLE/JUSTICE INDEX (15%)

Science, Tech, Education

600

2/26/21

-0.1%

3/12/21

652.20

651.55

NASA astronauts take a walk in space. Brilliant (and prophetic?) meteors light up the sky over… Canada? Brilliant Canadian Elon Musk’s rocket lands from space jaunt then blows up. 45% of college students said to be “addicted” to smartphones. Volvo going all-electric by 2030.

Equality (econ./social)

600

2/26/21

-0.3%

3/12/21

570.49

568.78

Post-Wuhan violence against Asians spiking… stabbings in New York, arson at L.A. Japanese Buddhist temple, serial Arab attacker finally caught. Annenberg study calls Netflix anti-black (solution: insert blactors into royalish dramas like “Bridgerton”). Louisiana chooses to refuse to release video of cops beating black man Ronald Green to death.

Health

600

2/26/21

+0.2%

3/12/21

506.81

507.82

Tiger Woods transferred to orthopedic hospital, doctors optimistic over his ability play golf (less so on the issue of professional golf). WGC tournament rivals wear black pants and red shirts in tribute. TikTok removes “extreme” diet posts.

Plague

nc*

- 202.21

- 102.21

Reasearchers trumpet that no test subjects on J&J vax have died… yet. Brazilian variant now infecting those who survived other strains.*

Freedom and Justice

450

2/26/21

+0.1%

3/12/21

448.89

449.34

FBI director Wray dismisses MAGA contention that one-six was an Antifa false (black) flag, blames Oath Keepers and Proud Boys. Pround Boy leader promptly released on bail. Riots anticipated in Minneapolis with Floyd trial nearing, massive police presence mobilized. Congress passes George Floyd Justice in Policing bill; Senate ‘Pubs vow to filibuster ban on lethal chokeholds. Coroners say Capitol policeman Sicknick poisoned by bear spray; no suspect(s) identified yet. French Ex-Prez Sarkozy gets a year in the Bastille for corruption. Ex-NFL star Kellen Winslow gets 14 for rape.

* Approval and subsequent rollout of Johnson & Johnson vax give our “Plague” sub-category a 100 point New Vax boost. New strain variants get minus 25, but these remain only UK, Brazilian, South African, Californian and New York.

MISCELLANEOUS and TRANSIENT INDEX (7%)

Cultural incidents

450

2/26/21

+0.1%

3/12/21

487.86

488.35

Prince Harry tours Bel Air with James Corden, calls “The Crown” fiction, but better than the UK tabloids. Meghan accused of bullying, accuses Royal Family of besmirchment; Prince Philip, 99, recovers from heart “procedure”. Next Oprah on Sunday! And Cuomo’s kiss! “The tears, the drama – it’s almost unsurvivable!” tabloids wail. MLB spring training off to a confused but welcome start. Japan proposes ban on foreigners watching 2022 Olympics. Actor/author/linebacker Emmanuel Acho replaces disgracist Chris Harrison on “Bachelor”. (Bless him!)

Miscellaneous incidents

450

2/26/21

+0.1%

3/12/21

471.64

472.11

Volunteer plumbers head to Texas to fix thousands of busted pipes. Kangaroo escapes from kangaroo farm in Alabama. RIP broadcaster/NFL star Irv Cross, civil rights fighter Vernon Jordan, reggae rastaman Bunny Wailer.

The Don Jones Index for the week of February 26th through March 4th, 2021 was UP 84.63 points.

The Don Jones Index is sponsored by the Coalition for a New Consensus: retired Congressman and Independent Presidential candidate Jack “Catfish” Parnell, Chairman; Brian Doohan, Managing Editor. The CNC denies, emphatically, allegations that the organization, as well as any of its officers (including former Congressman Parnell, environmentalist/America-Firster Austin Tillerman and cosmetics CEO Rayna Finch) and references to Parnell’s works, “Entropy and Renaissance” and “The Coming Kill-Off” are fictitious or, at best, mere pawns in the web-serial “Black Helicopters” – and promise swift, effective legal action against parties promulgating this and/or other such slanders.

Comments, complaints, donations (especially SUPERPAC donations) always welcome at feedme@generisis.com or: speak@donjonesindex.com

BACK

See further indicators at Economist – https://www.economist.com/economic-and inancialndicators/2019/02/02/economic-data-commodities-and-markets

ATTACHMENT ONE – from CPAC via rev transcripts Re-blue #s

DONALD TRUMP CPAC 2021 SPEECH TRANSCRIPT

Former President Donald Trump spoke at CPAC (the Conservative Political Action Conference) on February 28, 2021. It was his first public address since leaving office. Read the transcript of his full speech remarks here.

Donald Trump: (01:24)
Well, thank you very much. And hello, CPAC. Do you miss me yet? Do you miss me yet? A lot of things going on.

1. At root, Trump wants to be loved. Forever. And away we go!

Donald Trump: (01:36)
There’s so many wonderful friends, conservatives and fellow citizens in this room and all across our country. I stand before you today to declare that the incredible journey we’ve begun together, we went through a journey like nobody else. There’s never been a journey like it. There’s never been a journey so successful. We began it together four years ago, and it is far from being over. We’ve just started.

2. Never been a journey that incredible? Um, these two dogs and a cat would disagree.

Crowd: (02:04)
USA USA USA USA.

Donald Trump: (02:11)
Our movement of proud, hardworking, and you know what? This is the hardest working people, hard working American Patriots is just getting started. And in the end we will win. We will win.

Donald Trump: (02:29)
We’ve been doing a lot of winning as we gather this week, we’re in the middle of a historic struggle for America’s future, America’s culture, and America’s institutions, borders, and most cherished principles. Our security, our prosperity, and our very identity as Americans is at stake, like perhaps at no other time.

3. During Trump's four years, Republicans lost the House majority, the Senate majority and the White House.

Donald Trump: (02:56)
So no matter how much the Washington establishment and the powerful, special interests may want to silence us, let there be no doubt. We will be victorious. And America will be stronger and greater than ever before.

Donald Trump: (03:18)
I want to thank my great friends, Matt and Mercedes Schlep. Matt, thank you. Thank you. Mercedes, thank you very much. And the American Conservative Union for hosting this extraordinary event. They’re talking about it all over the world, Matt. I know you don’t like that, but that’s okay, all over the world.

Donald Trump: (03:39)
I also want to pay my love and respect to the great Rush Limbaugh who is watching closely and smiling down on us. He’s watching and he’s loving it and he loves Catherine. Catherine, thank you for being here, so great. Thank you Catherine. He loved you, Catherine. I will tell you that. Fantastic. Thank you Catherine very much.

Donald Trump: (04:15)
To each and every one of you here at CPAC, I am more grateful to you than you will ever know. We’re gathered this afternoon to talk about the future of our movement, the future of our party, and the future of our beloved country. For the next four years, the brave Republicans in this room will be at the heart of the effort to oppose the radical Democrats, the fake news media, and their toxic cancel culture. Something new to our ears, cancel culture. And I want you to know that I’m going to continue to fight right by your side. We will do what we’ve done right from the beginning, which is to win. We’re not starting new parties. They kept saying, he’s going to start a brand new party. We have the Republican party. It’s going to unite and be stronger than ever before. I am not starting a new party. That was fake news, fake news.

4. Some news! Trump says he won't start a Trump-centric third party! Of course, if you think he might not change his mind about that, well, you must have missed the last four years. On the other hand, if he loses in the primaries to somebody like Nikki Haley, Little Marco Rubio, Mike Pence, even Ted Cruz… “vengeance is mine,” saith Me!

Donald Trump: (05:22)
No. Wouldn’t that be brilliant? Let’s start a new party and let’s divide our vote so that you can never win. No, we’re not interested in that. No we have tremendous, Mr. McLaughlin just gave me numbers that nobody’s ever heard of before, more popular than anybody. That’s all of us. It’s all of us. Those are great numbers. And I want to thank you very much. Those are incredible numbers. I came here and he was giving me 95%, 97%, 92%. I said, they’re great. And I want to thank everybody in this room and everybody all throughout the country, throughout the world, if you want to really know that. Thank you though. Thank you.

5. He's right. A third party led by Trump would doom Republicans.

6. OK, so Trump's pollster -- John McLaughlin -- gave him numbers before coming on stage that said he was "more popular than anybody"? Like, in the universe?

7. 97% what? Approval? Also, is it 92 or 97? Or 95?

Donald Trump: (06:02)
We will be united and strong like never before. We will save and strengthen America. And we will fight the onslaught of radicalism, socialism, and indeed it all leads to communism once and for all. That’s what it leads to. You’ll be hearing more and more about that as we go along. But that’s what it leads to. You know that. We all knew that the Biden administration was going to be bad. But none of us even imagined just how bad they would be and how far left they would go. He never talked about this. We would have those wonderful debates. He would never talk about this. We didn’t know what the hell he was talking about actually.

Donald Trump: (06:48)
His campaign was all lies. Talked about energy, I thought I said, “This guy actually, he’s okay with energy.” He wasn’t okay with energy. He wants to put you all out of business. He’s not okay with energy. He wants windmills, the windmills. The windmills that don’t work when you need them. Joe Biden has had the most disastrous first month of any president in modern history. That’s true. Already the Biden administration has proven that they are anti jobs, anti-family, anti borders, anti energy, anti-women, and anti science. In just one short month, we have gone from America first to America last. You think about it, right? America last. There’s no better example than the new and horrible crisis on our Southern border. We did such a good job. It was all worked. Nobody’s ever seen anything that we did. And now he wants it all to go to hell. When I left office just six weeks ago, we had created the most secure border in us history.

9. Trump has been consistent about very few things in his life. His hatred of windmills is one of them.

Donald Trump: (08:06)
We had built almost 500 miles of a great border wall that helped us with these numbers because once it’s up, they used to say, “A wall doesn’t work.” Well, you know what I’ve always said, walls and wheels. Those are two things that will never change. The wall has been amazing. It’s been incredible and little sections of it to complete, They don’t want to complete it. They don’t want to complete little sections in certain little areas. They don’t want to complete. But it’s had an impact that nobody would have even believed. It’s amazing considering that the Democrats’ number one priority was to make sure that the wall would never, ever get built, would never, ever happen, would never get financed. We got it financed. We ended catch and release, ended asylum fraud, and brought illegal crossings to historic lows. When illegal aliens trespass across our borders, they were properly caught, detained and sent back home. And these were some rough customers. I want to tell you some rough customers were entering our country.

10. The total amount of new wall built on our southern border by Trump? About 80 miles, according to the BBC.

11. [narrator voice] Mexico didn't pay for it.

Donald Trump: (09:16)
It took them the new administration only a few weeks to turn this unprecedented accomplishment into self-inflicted humanitarian and national security disaster by recklessly eliminating our border, security measures, controls, all of the things that we put into place. Joe Biden has triggered a massive flood of illegal immigration into our country, the likes of which we have never seen before. They’re coming up by the tens of thousands. They’re all coming to take advantage of the things that he said that’s luring everybody to come to America. And we’re one country. We can’t afford the problems of the world, as much as we’d love to. We’d love to help. But we can’t do that. So they’re all coming because of promises and foolish words.

Trump falsely claimed that since President Joe Biden took office there has been “a massive flood of illegal immigration into our country, the likes of which we have never seen before.” Border apprehensions are up, but not close to approaching record numbers.

In January, there were 75,198 southwest border apprehensions — a 6% increase from the prior month, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. In a Feb. 9 interview, Deputy Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz estimated that the numbers were still rising in February with about 3,000 migrants a day, as the Wall Street Journal reported in a Feb. 10 article on the increasing numbers.

The CBP does not have February statistics available, but at 3,000 a day that would be 84,000 apprehensions — which is far short of the record high, contrary to Trump’s claim. There were more than 200,000 border apprehensions in February 2000, for example, in a decade when annual totals often topped 1 million.

Donald Trump: (10:11)
Perhaps worst of all, Joe Biden’s decision to cancel border security has single-handedly launched a youth migrant crisis that is enriching child smugglers, vicious criminal cartels, and some of the most evil people on the planet. You see it every day, just turn on the news. You’ll see it every day. Under my administration, we stopped the child smugglers. We dismantle the criminal cartels. We greatly limited drug and human trafficking to a level that nobody actually thought was possible. And the wall helped us a lot. And we protected vulnerable people from the ravages of dangerous predators. And that’s what they are dangerous, dangerous predators.

Donald Trump: (10:58)
But the Biden administration has put the vial coyotes back in business and it has done so in a very, very big way. Under the new administration, catch and release has been restored. Can you imagine? We work so hard, catch, you know where that is? You catch them, you take their name, they may be killers. They may be rapists. They may be drug smugglers. You take their name and you release them into our country. We did the opposite.

Donald Trump: (11:29)
We not only didn’t release them, we had them brought back to their country. Illegal immigrants are now being apprehended and released along the entire Southern border, just the opposite of what it was two months ago. They weren’t coming because they couldn’t get in. Once they think they can get in, they’re coming. And they are coming at levels that you haven’t even seen yet, by the hundreds of thousands, by the millions they’ll be coming.

Donald Trump: (11:54)
The Biden administration is now actively expediting the admission of illegal migrants, enabling them to lodge frivolous asylum claims and admitting them by the thousands and thousands and thousands a day, crowded together in unsanitary conditions, despite the ongoing economic and public health crisis, COVID-19, or as I call it, the China virus.

12. The CPAC crowd cheered and applauded after this. Which tells you everything you need to know.

Donald Trump: (12:26)
There’s no masks. There’s no double mask. That was a new one that came out two weeks ago. First Fauci said, “You don’t need masks, no masks, no good. No, no.” Then all of a sudden, you want them; and now he wants double masks. No social distancing, no nothing, no nothing. And together, and it’s sad actually. And it’s sad for them. And it sad for our country, what the Biden administration is doing to push young migrants into the hands of human traffickers and coyotes is dangerous, immoral, and indefensible, hard to believe it’s happening. Biden has failed in his number one duty as chief executive enforcing America’s laws. This alone should be reason enough for Democrats to suffer withering losses in the midterms and to lose the White House decisively four years from now.

Crowd: (13:28)
USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA.

Donald Trump: (13:59)
Actually, as you know, they just lost the White House. But it’s one of those things. But who knows, who knows? I may even decide to beat them for a third time. Okay? For a third time. True. Joe Biden defunded the border wall and stopped all future construction, even on small open sections that just needed to be finished up routine little work, it’s already been bought. Wait until the contractors get to them. And they say, “No, it costs us much more money not to finish this small section than if we finished it.” That’s going to be nice. Wait until you see those bills start pouring in.

13. Biden won 306 electoral votes. He also beat Trump in the popular vote by more than 7 million. So, yeah.

14. Well, he didn't beat "them" twice. Also, a Trump 2024 candidacy would be hard to stop for Republicans and a very likely general election loss.

Donald Trump: (15:01)
He revoked the executive order cracking down on deadly sanctuary cities. He has effectively ordered a shutdown of ICE, halting virtually all deportations, everyone, murderers, everybody, no more. Let’s not deport people and restricting our law enforcement professionals. And they are great professionals. You have many of them represented here today, from conducting almost any immigration enforcement of any kind. The Biden policy of releasing criminals into the US interior is making America into a sanctuary nation where criminals, illegal immigrants, including gang members and sex offenders are set free into American communities.

· Trump distorted the facts when he said Biden “effectively ordered a shutdown of ICE.” Instead, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been directed to prioritize national security and public safety threats, as well as those “convicted of an aggravated felony.”

“ICE has not been shut down. Instead, the Biden administration has put into place priorities to focus ICE enforcement efforts,” Sarah Pierce, an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, told us, referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “These priorities include noncitizens with serious criminal records.”

Here’s what happned: On Biden’s first day in office, Acting Homeland Security Secretary David Pekoske issued “a 100-day pause on certain removals to enable focusing the Department’s [enforcement] resources where they are most needed.” Pekoske’s memo also set interim priorities for enforcement, directing immigration officials to focus on national security and public safety threats as well as those apprehended entering the U.S. illegally after Nov. 1.

The 100-day pause included exceptions — allowing for the deportation of those suspected of terrorism and those whose “removal is required by law.” The 100-day pause, however, was quickly blocked by U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton’s temporary restraining order, allowing deportation proceedings to continue, Pierce said.

In a Feb. 2 letter to the homeland security secretary, dozens of law professors and legal experts wrote that immigration officials “continue to engage in enforcement activities, including deportations, that appear at odds with the policies issued.” The letter argued that the Biden administration had the authority to halt deportations, despite the court ruling.

On Feb. 18, Tae D. Johnson, the acting director of ICE, issued interim guidance for enforcement and removals until the department completes its review and the secretary issues new guidelines.

The interim guidelines placed priorities on deporting those who pose a public safety or national security threat – including active gang members, suspected terrorists and those “convicted of an aggravated felony” as defined by section 101(a)(43) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Those felonies include: murder, rape, drug trafficking, firearm trafficking and any “crime of violence” that results in a prison sentence of at least one year.

The memo “does not eliminate immigration enforcement,” Jennifer Minear, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said in a statement at the time.

“Prioritizing enforcement doesn’t mean disregarding it,” Minear said. “Despite what some critics may claim, this memo does not block immigration enforcement, but rather makes very clear that ICE officers retain discretion and that no one is completely off limits from apprehension, detention, or removal.”

We won’t know the impact of Biden’s immigration policies on enforcement or deportation for quite some time, at least until permanent policies are put into effect. But Trump distorts the interim policies when he says Biden “effectively ordered a shutdown of ICE” and halted deportations of murderers and “virtually all deportations.”

Donald Trump: (15:45)
They have no idea who’s coming up. And remember with the caravans, these countries, not only the three of them, but many, many countries all over the world. They’re not giving us their best and their finest, because they’re intelligent. They’re not giving us their best and their finest. Remember I said that. I said that a long time ago, when I made the first remarks, when I came down the escalator with our great future first lady who says, hello, who loves you as much as I love you. But I said that a long time ago. And we turned out to be 100% correct.

15. Remember when Republicans insisted that Trump was disqualified after he said that Mexico was sending people "bringing drugs ... bringing crime. They're rapists"? Yeah, now he is touting that he was right.

16. I'm the man who loves you -- Donald Trump, basically

Donald Trump: (16:29)
Biden’s radical immigration policies aren’t just illegal. They’re immoral. They’re heartless. And they are a betrayal of our nation’s core values. It’s a terrible thing that’s happening.

Donald Trump: (16:43)
The Republican party must hold Joe Biden and the Democrats accountable. They ripped up the diplomatic agreements we negotiated with Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to shut down illegal immigration. They got a fortune, they got paid $500 million a year. When I came into office, those countries were refusing to take back illegal alien gang members, including MS 13, the most vicious probably of them all. No matter where you go in the world, MS 13, they do things that even the worst don’t think about. So I asked how much do we pay these countries? How much do we pay them? Sir, we pay them approximately $ 500 million a year. It’s a lot of money.

Donald Trump: (17:34)
I mean, it’s peanuts compared to the way other countries rip us off, but that’s a lot of money. I said, “Okay, we aren’t going to pay them anymore because they wouldn’t take back the criminals.” And this was true with the Obama administration. It was true for many, many years. So we’d catch a murderer. We’d want to bring them back to Guatemala, or Honduras, or El Salvador. They wouldn’t take them back. “No, we don’t want them.” We’d fly them in. They wouldn’t let the plane land. We’d bus them in. They wouldn’t let the buses get anywhere near the border.

Deportations to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador

Trump repeated an old false claim about Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, saying that before he took office, those countries were "refusing to take back illegal alien gang members, including MS-13." He added soon after: "We'd fly 'em in, they wouldn't let the plane land. We'd bus 'em in, they wouldn't let the buses get anywhere near the border."

Facts First: This remains false. In 2016, just prior to Trump's presidency, none of the three countries was on the list of countries that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) considered "recalcitrant" (uncooperative) in accepting the return of their citizens from the US.

Randy Capps, director of research for US programs at the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington think tank, noted to CNN in 2019 that in the 2016 fiscal year, the last full year before Trump took office, ICE reported that Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador ranked second, third and fourth for the country of citizenship of people being removed from the US. The same was true in the 2017 fiscal year, which encompassed the end of Barack Obama's presidency and the beginning of Trump's. ICE did not identify any widespread problems with deportations to these countries.

ICE officials said there were some exceptions to the three countries' general cooperativeness, but Trump's general declaration that the countries were uncooperative was never true.

Donald Trump: (18:08)
And I said, “We’re not going to pay them anymore.” So after I said that, and I stopped payment, like a term that we use in the world of business, let’s stop payment. So we stopped payment. They were delinquent. We stopped payment and they very quickly came to the table and we made a deal, very quick deal. We still kept the money. We still didn’t pay because… Or we made a deal.

Donald Trump: (18:38)
And when illegal aliens came across our border, they were rapidly deported and lovingly accepted by those countries from where they came. And it worked out great. So now they accept the people and that we ultimately got along very well with those countries, those three countries and many countries throughout the world, because they respected us again. They didn’t respect us. They couldn’t believe what they were getting away with. But now, Joe Biden has wrecked this great deal, wrecked it. And they’re already doing what they were doing before and they’re taking the money. And that’s just a small portion of what’s going on.

Donald Trump: (19:18)
To top it all off, the Biden people are pushing a bill that would grant mass amnesty for millions of illegal aliens while massively expanding chain migration. That’s where you come in and everybody comes in, your grandmother, your father, your mother, your brother, your cousins. They come in so easily. So, so crazy. So crazy. It even requires that the US government provide a legal border crosses with taxable funded lawyers, lawyers, everybody need a good lawyer? You can’t have one. They get the lawyers, they get lawyers. They’re probably very good too.

Donald Trump: (19:55)
The Democrat immigration bill is a globalist corp. You take a look at the corporatist, big tech attack on hardworking citizens of every race, religion, color, and creed. And Republicans must ensure that it never is allowed to become federal law, which is what they want to do.

Donald Trump: (20:18)
We must stand tall in the party. We have to do this. We have to stand tall as the party for law abiding Americans and others, when they’re in our country. Border security is just one of the many issues on which the new administration has already betrayed the American people. He didn’t talk about this stuff. I debated him. He wasn’t talking about this. What he signed with those executive orders, they weren’t things that were discussed. We didn’t know all about him and the press because they’re fake news. They’re the fakest fakers there are.

17. "We love you. You are very special." -- Donald Trump to violent rioters who stormed the US Capitol on January 6.

Donald Trump: (20:56)
The press refused to ask the questions. And when I asked the questions on television, on the debate, Chris Wallace, in this case, and others refused to let him answer. They refused to let them answer the questions. Maybe we could have found something. Or if the media did its job, which they don’t, they’re callous indifference to working family is equally clear when it comes to the critical matter of getting America’s children back to school. And they must get back and get back right now, right now, crazy. Terrible. Terrible.

Donald Trump: (21:49)
The Biden administration is actually bragging about the classroom education they are providing to migrant children on the border. While at the same time, millions of American children are having their futures destroyed by Joe Biden’s anti-science school closures. Think of it. We’re educating students on the border, but our own people, children of our citizens, citizens themselves are not getting the education that they deserve. There’s no reason whatsoever why the vast majority of young Americans should not be back in school immediately. The only reason that most parents do not have that choice is because Joe Biden has sold out America’s children to the teacher’s unions.

· He also twisted the facts when he misleadingly suggested that children being held in immigration detention facilities are getting a better education than U.S. students during the pandemic.

Trump’s statement about Biden’s “anti-science school closures” is wrong. All decisions about whether to open or close U.S. schools during the pandemic are made at the state and local levels, not by the federal government. Biden has been criticized for not providing financial incentives to encourage school reopenings, but he cannot force schools to reopen and neither could Trump when he was president.

Trump also exaggerated when he said that the U.S. isn’t educating “our own people” in classrooms. As we wrote, nearly two of three U.S. students — an estimated 66.1% of K-12 students — attend schools that offer either traditional in-person instruction every day or hybrid instruction. The rest are learning via virtual classrooms.

As for teaching migrant children in detention facilities, Biden is merely following federal law — as past administrations have done, although the Trump administration was criticized for failing to provide adequate schooling.

“While the children are in federal detention centers, officials must provide shelter, food, and schooling, but leaders in some of the nation’s largest states and school districts question whether the education needs of the children are being met,” Education Week wrote in 2018 when Trump was president.

The Biden administration last month opened the first center for children who crossed the border illegally without parents or a legal guardian. But the teachers are not in the classroom with the students. “While youth attend class in a physical classroom, for the time being, teachers are providing live, virtual instruction – like many schools during the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to a Department of Health and Human Services press release on the Texas facility.

Donald Trump: (22:48)
His position is morally inexcusable. You know that. Joe Biden has shamefully betrayed America’s youth. And he is cruelly keeping our children locked in their homes, no reason for it whatsoever. They want to get out. They’re cheating the next generations of Americans out of the future that they deserve. And they do deserve this future. They’re going to grow up and they’re going to have a scar.

Biden and schools

Trump called for children to return to school "immediately," then said, "The only reason most parents do not have that choice is because Joe Biden sold out America's children to the teachers unions." He said Biden is "cruelly keeping our children locked in their homes."

Facts First: It's not true that Biden, who has called for the reopening of most schools by his 100th day in office, is personally keeping children locked out of school or that Biden's position on the issue is "the only reason" some schools continue to offer only virtual instruction. While the federal government can issue guidelines for the reopening of schools, it is up to state and especially local officials to make the actual decisions on when to reopen. Also, the current guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not tell schools that they cannot reopen. It says: "At any level of community transmission, all schools have options to provide in-person instruction (either full or hybrid), through strict adherence to mitigation strategies."

Biden's administration can be fairly criticized for shifting from its original position on what would count as meeting his goal of having a majority of schools open within 100 days. (You can read more here on its shifting explanations. But it's not fair to say Biden is the one person keeping children out of classrooms. Recent polling shows a majority of adults support waiting until any teacher who wants a vaccine can get it.

And it's worth noting that Trump himself could not open schools as president even when he wanted to; Trump suggested in 2020 that he might cut off federal funding to schools that did not reopen, but experts said he could not unilaterally carry out that threat, and he did not end up trying.

Donald Trump: (23:14)
It’s a scandal of the highest order. And one of the most graven acts by any president in our lifetimes. It’s the teacher’s union, it’s the votes and it shouldn’t happen. And nobody has more respect for teachers than I do. And I’ll bet you, a lot of the people within that union, they agree with everything I’m saying. Even the New York Times is calling out the Democrats. The mental and physical health of these young people is reaching a breaking point. Tragically, suicide attempts have skyrocketed and student depression is now commonplace and at levels that we’ve never seen before.

Donald Trump: (23:53)
The Democrats now say we have to pass their $1.9 trillion boondoggle to open schools, but a very small part of it has to do with that. You know where it’s going, it’s going-

Donald Trump: (24:03)
Well, part of it has to do with that, you know where it’s going, it’s going to bail out badly run Democrats, that is so much of it. But billions of dollars for schools remain unspent from the COVID relief bills that were passed last year. So on behalf of the moms, dads, and children of America, I call on Joe Biden to get the schools open and get them open now. They’re a great thing to do. When I left office and we’re very proud of this because this was something that they said could not be done. The FDA said it, everybody said it. Any article you read said it couldn’t be done. It would be years and years, I handed the new administration what everyone is now calling a modern day medical miracle. Some say, it’s the greatest thing to happen in hundreds of years, two vaccines produced in record time with numerous others on the way, including the Johnson and Johnson vaccine that was approved just yesterday.

18. Donald Trump is taking credit for the production of the Covid-19 vaccine. And, no, he is (still) not an epidemiologist or a virologist or, um, a medical doctor at all.

Donald Trump: (25:15)
And therapeutic relief also, if you’re sick, we have things now that are incredible. What has taken place over the last year under our administration would have taken any other precedent at least five years. And we got it done in nine months. Everyone says five years, oh, five years.

· Trump touted the rapid production of COVID-19 vaccines, baselessly adding that it “would have taken any other president at least five years.”

· In touting the rapid production of COVID-19 vaccines, Trump baselessly claimed this couldn’t have happened under any other administration. “What has taken place over the last year under our administration would have taken any other president at least five years. And we got it done in nine months.”

· When he made the claim several months ago, he said it would’ve taken two or three years under the last administration. But as we wrote then, there’s no support for Trump’s claim.

· He went on to accurately desribe the key idea behind Operation Warp Speed: to pay companies to start manufacturing a vaccine before it’s approved so it can be distributed more quickly. Trump called it “a calculated bet or a calculated risk.” But that same strategy was used in 2009 for the H1N1 influenza vaccine.

· The COVID-19 pandemic involves a much larger effort, but there’s no reason to think a different administration wouldn’t have done the same. In fact, other countries took the same approach.

· “All the major vaccine development efforts around the world are trying to do the same thing right now, and the major concept is doing the manufacturing before you do the trials,” Dr. Nicole Lurie, a former assistant secretary for preparedness and response during the Obama administration, told us several months before any vaccine got approval in the U.S.

· Lurie also noted that the previous work and investments in science enabled the fast work on COVID-19 vaccines. “What the success is really due to is the success of science,” she said.

· As we’ve written, the technology behind the authorized COVID-19 vaccines has been studied for many years, and a focus on rapid vaccine methods was recommended by a presidential advisory group after the H1N1 pandemic.

Donald Trump: (25:40)
Can you imagine if you had to go through what all of the countries of the world who are now getting the vaccine or soon will be getting it from various companies, but can you imagine if all of those countries had to go through what they’ve been going through over the last year? You’d lose hundreds of millions of people. I pushed the FDA like they have never been pushed before. They told me that loud and clear. They have never been pushed like I pushed them. I didn’t like them at all, but once we got it done, I said, I now love you very much. What the Trump administration has done with vaccines has in many respects, perhaps saved large portions of the world. Not only our country, but large portions of the world.

19. Well, modesty has never been a Trump trait ...

Donald Trump: (26:38)
Not only did we push the FDA far beyond what the bureaucrats wanted to do. We also put up billions and billions of dollars, 10 billion to produce the vaccines before we knew they were going to work. It was called a calculated bet or a calculated risk. We took a risk because if we didn’t do that, you still wouldn’t have the vaccines. You wouldn’t have them for a long time. So think of that, we took this bet. We made a bet because we thought we were on a certain track, but you’d be starting to make them right now. It’d be a long time before you ever saw. It takes 60 to 100 days to manufacture and inspect new doses. And that means that 100% of the increased availability that we have now was initiated by our administration. 100%. In fact, the director of National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, he’s Fauci’s boss, actually, I think he’s a Democrat too, by the way, recently said that our operation warp speed was absolutely breathtaking and that the Trump administration deserves full credit, which we do. And as conservatives and Republicans, never forget that we did it. Never let them take the credit because they don’t deserve the credit. They just followed now, they’re following our plan, but this has been something that they really call, they call it an absolute miracle. Joe Biden is only implementing the plan that we put in place. And if we had an honest media, which we don’t, they would say it loud and clear. By the time I left that magnificent house at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, almost 20 million Americans had already been vaccinated. 1.5 million doses were administered on my final day alone. 1.5 million in a day. Yet Biden said just a few days ago that when he got here, meaning The White House, there was no vaccine. He said, there’s no vaccine. Oh, good. Say it again, Joe. Now I don’t think he said that, frankly, in a malicious way. I really don’t. I actually believe he said that because he didn’t really know what the hell was happening.

20. Trump said his administration would distribute 40 million Covid-19 vaccines before he left office. He, um, didn't do it.

21. Except that he said 40 million would be vaccinated. And, as The Washington Post noted, Trump's administration didn't even deliver 20 million vaccines until January 7.

Donald Trump: (29:28)
Never let them forget. This was us. We did this. And the distribution is moving along, according to our plan. And it’s moving along really well. We had the military, what they’ve done, our generals and all of the people, what they’ve done is incredible. But remember, we took care of a lot of people, including, I guess on December 21st, we took care of Joe Biden. Cause he got his shot. He got his vaccine. He forgot. It shows you how un-painful all that vaccine shot is. So everybody go get your shot. He forgot so it wasn’t very traumatic obviously, but he got his shot and it’s good that he got his shot. Last year, I predicted to you that the extremism, corruption and incompetence of the Biden administration would be literally unprecedented in American history. Unfortunately he has proven me 100% right. Already as president, Biden has urged Congress to pass legislation shredding your Second Amendment. Your Second Amendment is in far bigger trouble than you now, and for four years I fought like hell to save your Second Amendment. And we saved it 100%.

22. Biden has called for an end to the gun show loophole and a ban on assault weapons. Which does not suggest the 2nd Amendment is about to be abolished.

Donald Trump: (30:49)
We saved it. He signed an order to conduct politically correct far left indoctrination trainings in every department of the federal government, including the US military after I had terminated these horrible things that were being preached to our military and he wants it to go forward. It’s insane within his first few hours Biden eliminated our national security travel bands on nations plagued by terrorism. His first priority was to open our borders to un-vetted travelers from Libya, Yemen, Syria, Somalia, and many other countries where strict vetting cannot occur. Countries that have tremendous problems. Countries with tremendous terrorism problems. We did it a travel ban. It was a real achievement.

Donald Trump: (31:43)
We told those countries, sorry, straighten out your act. We don’t want people coming in where they had an ideology or a problem. We just couldn’t have it. And it was incredible, how it worked was incredible. And he terminated it. We had to get it approved. It went all the way up to the Supreme Court of the United States. We got it approved and he terminates it. In addition, he’s already increased refugee admissions by nearly 10 times, but in effect, it’ll soon be hundreds of times as millions of people flow up through our soon to be open borders. And by the way, the border patrol and ICE, these are some of the great heroes of our country. These are incredible people. I got to know them very well.

Donald Trump: (32:29)
Your families still cannot go out to eat at local restaurants. But Joe Biden is bringing in thousands upon thousands of refugees from all over the world. People that nobody knows anything about, we don’t have crime records. We don’t have health records. What are they bringing in with them? When I left office, we had virtually ended the endless wars, these endless wars, they go on forever. They go on forever. I would go to Dover and I would see caskets, coffins coming in. I’d see the parents and the wives and husbands. I would see the kids. Endless wars, 19 years in Afghanistan. We have it down to almost nothing left and I hear they might want to go back in. Iraq, remember I used to say, don’t go in, but if you’re going to go in, keep the oil, well, we went in and we didn’t keep the oil. We had made historic peace deals in the middle East. Like nobody thought were even possible with not a drop of bloodshed.

Refugees

Trump said: "Your family still can't go out to eat at local restaurants, but Joe Biden is bringing in thousands upon thousands of refugees from all over the world. People that nobody knows anything about. We don't have crime records. We don't have health records."

Facts First: While it is true that Biden is planning to significantly increase the number of refugees the US accepts, it's wrong to suggest that the US doesn't know "anything about" the refugees it brings in. Refugees are rigorously vetted; the admissions process includes an interview assessment by US government personnel, medical screening, and various types of background checks, including fingerprint checks against databases maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense.

Trump reduced the maximum number to a historic low of 15,000 for the 2021 fiscal year; Biden plans to raise the cap to 62,500 for 2021 and then to 125,000 in his first full fiscal year, 2022.

President Barack Obama set a cap of 85,000 in his last full fiscal year in office, 2016. Obama raised the cap to 110,000 for his final partial fiscal year, 2017.

Trump's stance on the war in Iraq

Trump repeated his usual false claim about his pre-war stance on the war in Iraq.

"Iraq: remember I used to say don't go in, but if you're gonna go in, keep the oil. Well, we went in and we didn't keep the oil," he said.

Facts First: Contrary to his repeated claims, Trump did not publicly express opposition to the invasion of Iraq before it occurred. He began criticizing the war in 2003, after the invasion, but he also said that year that American troops should not be withdrawn from Iraq. He emerged as an explicit opponent of the war in 2004.

We could not find any examples of Trump saying anything before the war about keeping Iraq's oil. (We asked the Trump-era White House communications staff if it could provide any evidence; we never got a response.) Trump appeared to be describing comments he made during the war, in which he did talk about taking Iraq's oil, as if he made them during the run-up to the war.

You can read a longer fact check here.

Donald Trump: (33:40)
And by the way, not one American soldier has been killed in Afghanistan in over a year. Think of that. Not one. Those troops have largely come home. At the same time, the new administration unilaterally withdrew our crippling sanctions on Iran, foolishly giving away all of America’s leveraged before negotiations have even begun. Leave the sanctions negotiated. Does anybody understand what I’m saying here? Are there any good business people? You don’t have to be a good, are there any bad business people? They took off the sanctions. They took off the sanctions.

US deaths in Afghanistan

Trump said, "Not one American soldier has been killed in Afghanistan in over a year."

Facts First: This is true if you are talking specifically about combat deaths but not true if you count all deaths. There have been at least three US soldiers killed in Afghanistan since February 28, 2020, one in a non-combat vehicle rollover and two in other non-combat incidents.

Donald Trump: (34:35)
They say, well, we’re going to not have any sanctions. Let’s negotiate a deal. I don’t know, Matt Schlep. I don’t think you would have done that, do you think so, Matt? I don’t think so. Mercedes wouldn’t have. Now you do that, you make a deal and then you do what they want it. I will tell you something and I said it, had we had a fair election, the results would have been much different and we would have had a deal with Iran within the first week. They wanted those sanctions off. He took them off for nothing, for nothing. Now you watch how tough they negotiate. In another horrendous surrender he agreed to get back into the World Health Organization.

23. There is zero evidence that the 2020 election was fraudulent or stolen. None.

Donald Trump: (35:24)
For approximately $500 million a year, which is what we were paying. When I withdrew from the WHO and you know the whole story with that, they called it badly. They really are puppets for China. They called and they wanted us to stay in. I said, how much are we paying approximately $500 million? How much is China paying a much larger in terms of population country, sir, they’re paying $39 million. I say, why are we paying 500 million and they’re paying 39? I could tell you why. Because the people that made the deal are stupid, that’s why.

Donald Trump: (36:00)
And I had no idea how popular it was. I didn’t even know if I would be able to politically, because people were so happy when I did get out, but I said, so if we went in, we could get it for 39 million, which is what China, not 500 million, which is what we were stupidly paying. And they said, we can make a deal, we want you to go in, we can make a deal. Okay, and I decided not to do it, but we could have had it for 39. We could have had it for the same as China. And they decide now to go back into the World Health Organization and pay 500 million, what the hell is wrong with them? No, no, this is just emblematic.

Donald Trump: (36:46)
It’s a tremendous amount of money, but compared to trillions, it’s not, but it’s a tremendous amount of money. Why would China pay 39 million? And we’re paying almost 500 million. Why? So we could have made the same deal that China had 39 million. And they just say, we’re going back in. We’re going back into the World Health Organization. They go back in, they pay 500. It is so sad, just like the Iran and the World Health Organization, Joe Biden put the United States back into the very unfair and very costly Paris Climate Accord without negotiating a better deal.

Donald Trump: (37:24)
They wanted us so badly back in. I’ll tell you they wanted us. I was getting called from all of the countries. You must come back into the Paris Accord. I said, tell me why, give me one good reason. First of all, China doesn’t kick in for 10 years, Russia goes by an old standard, which was not a clean standard and other countries, but we get hit right from the beginning would have cost us hundreds of thousands and millions of jobs. It was a disaster, but they go back in, I could have made an unbelievable deal and gone back in, but I didn’t want to do that. Surrendering millions of jobs and trillions of dollars to all of these other countries, almost all of them that were in the deal. So they have favorable treatment, we don’t have favorable treatment. And we just said, we’re going back in. To go back in, they wanted us so badly, you could’ve negotiated, if you wanted to go back in which frankly, we have the cleanest air, the cleanest water and everything else that we’ve ever had. So I don’t know why we have to.

Donald Trump: (38:23)
What good does it do when we’re clean, but China is not and Russia is not an India is not. So they are pouring fumes, you know the world is actually a small piece of the universe, right? They’re pouring fumes and we’re trying to protect everything and building products for three times more than is necessary. No, they could have made a great deal. If they were going to go back in, that’s fine. But they could have made a great deal and said, instead of just saying we’re back in. These people. And in one of his first official acts, which was incredible, because again, he talked about energy. He never said he was going to do this. He canceled the Keystone XL Pipeline destroying not the 8,000 or the 9,000 or the 11,000 jobs that you hear.

Biden and the Keystone Pipeline

Trump claimed that Biden had not said during his campaign that he was planning to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline.

"In one of his first official acts -- which was incredible, because again, he talked about energy, he never said he was going to do this -- he canceled the Keystone pipeline," Trump said.

Facts First: This is misleading. Biden's campaign announced in May 2020 that he would cancel the Keystone XL pipeline if elected, and reiterated that position later in the campaign. An initial search of newspaper and television archives did not turn up any examples of Biden personally speaking about his plan to kill Keystone, so there may be a narrow basis for Trump's claim that Biden himself "never said" he would do so. But given that the Biden campaign's announcement was widely reported, the facts don't support Trump's broader suggestion that the cancellation was a surprise move.

Donald Trump: (39:11)
But 42,000 great paying jobs on just about day one, right? He never talked about that during a debate because he wouldn’t have gotten away with it. Well, he would have, because they cheated so much, it probably wouldn’t have been. No, but that was not a topic of conversation. Remember fracking, you can frack. Oh, we love fracking. During the primary no fracking. As soon as he got through that, he said, no, of course everybody can frack. No fracking. You wait till you see what happens with your gasoline. Wait till you see what happens and we cannot let this stuff continue to go on. One of my proudest accomplishments as president was to make America energy independent, the United States became the number one energy superpower on Earth. Number one.

Biden and fracking

Trump claimed Biden reversed his stance on fracking between the primary and the general election, stating, "During the primary, 'no fracking.' As soon as he got through that, he said 'no, of course, everybody can frack.'"

Facts First: While Trump's characterization of Biden's stance on fracking is inaccurate, there is some basis for the Trump campaign's continued criticism that Biden flipflopped on the issue. Biden's written plan never included a complete ban on fracking but his comments over the course of the campaign did create confusion about his position on the issue.

During the July 2019 Democratic primary debate, CNN's Dana Bash asked whether there would be "any place for fossil fuels, including coal and fracking, in a Biden administration?" to which Biden responded, "No, we would -- we would work it out. We would make sure it's eliminated and no more subsidies for either one of those, either -- any fossil fuel."

After the primary, Trump referenced these past remarks from Biden in the final presidential debate, prompting the former vice president to falsely insist he never said he opposed fracking. Biden then tried to clarify his position and claimed his past opposition was specifically about fracking on federal land only. But Biden did not go so far as to express the unbridled support for fracking Trump implied and his comments should not be construed as such.

Biden's plan during the general election proposed "banning new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters," not ending all new fracking anywhere or ending all existing fracking on public lands and waters. A week after taking office, Biden signed an executive order ordering a moratorium on new oil and gas leases on federal land and water areas.

· The former president misleadingly said 42,000 jobs were lost to Biden’s cancellation of the Keystone pipeline project. The company behind the pipeline told us 1,000 workers would be let go and a total of 11,000 construction positions won’t be filled.

· Trump repeated an old, misleading claim about the number of jobs created by the Keystone XL pipeline project. He said that Biden canceled the project, “destroying not the 8,000 or the 9,000 or the 11,000 jobs that you hear. But 42,000 great paying jobs on just about day one, right?”

· As we wrote last month, Terry Cunha, a spokesman for TC Energy, the company behind the pipeline, told us that 1,000 unionized jobs would be lost in the subsequent weeks due to Biden’s Jan. 20 cancellation of a March 2019 permit for the pipeline, which was supposed to run from Alberta, Canada, to Nebraska.

· Even those 1,000 jobs were temporary construction jobs. “The project was prepared to hire 11,000 union workers during the construction of the project,” Cunha said.

· As for Trump’s 42,000 figure, the comes from a 2014 estimate from the State Department, which gave that figure for direct jobs, indirect jobs from suppliers and “induced” jobs, created by the workers and suppliers spending money. But the number of permanent jobs, the State Department said, would be significantly lower. It estimated the project “would generate approximately 50 jobs during operations,” including 15 temporary contractors.

Donald Trump: (40:09)
Became number one. Bigger than Saudi Arabia, bigger than Russia by a lot. We left them all in the dust. They were all in the dust. But if the Democrats have their way, we are heading from energy dominance to energy disaster. That’s what’s happening. You have to see what’s going on. Everything’s being closed up. It’s a disaster. The blackouts we saw in California last summer and all the time and the windmill calamity that we’re witnessing in Texas. Great state of Texas. We love Texas, but it’s so sad when you look at it, that’ll just be the start. How bad is wind power. So I talk about it all the time at CPAC, right? We went to CPAC. Remember last I said, we’re going to watch the president, well, Alice, the wind isn’t blowing. I don’t believe we’ll have any electricity. I remember we would kid, but I wasn’t actually kidding.

Donald Trump: (41:03)
It’s such an expensive form of energy. It’s so bad for the environment. It kills the birds. It destroys the landscapes. And remember, these are structural columns with fans on them. They wear out, and when they wear out all over the country, you see them, nobody takes them down. They’re rotting. They’re rusting, how this is environmentally good for our country. And it costs many, many times more than natural gas, which is clean and can fuel our great factories. Wind can’t do that. And solar, I love solar, but it doesn’t have the capacity to do what we have to do to make America great again, sorry it just doesn’t have it. Under the radical Democrat policies, the price of gasoline has already surged 30% since the election. And we’ll go to $5, $6, $7 and even higher.

24. He really, really hates windmills. Here's why

Gas prices

Trump said, "Under the radical Democrat policies, the price of gasoline has already surged 30% since the election."

Facts First: This is misleading. First, Trump was ignoring the impact of factors unrelated to either party's policies, particularly the severe winter storm in February that caused prices to spike in February. Second, by comparing gas prices today to gas prices at the time of the election, Trump appeared to be assigning blame to President Joe Biden for the portion of the increase that occurred during the Trump presidency; there has been a much smaller increase, about 13%, if you compare current prices to prices on Biden's first full day in office.

The increase in the national average at the pumps is indeed in the ballpark of 30% if you compare prices the weekend Trump spoke at CPAC ($2.71 per unleaded gallon, according to data provided to CNN by AAA) to prices on Election Day in early November ($2.12) -- that's about a 28% spike. But it's unfair for Trump to hold Democrats responsible for increases in November, December and the first 19 days of January, when Trump himself was in office. The national average on Biden's first full day as president, January 21, was $2.39; the $2.71 price this past weekend was about 13% higher than that.

Asked about Trump's claim, AAA spokeswoman Jeanette Casselano said in an email that prices have steadily increased since the end of November because of higher crude oil prices driven by optimism about coronavirus vaccines, while "the recent spikes (the last 2 weeks) are a direct result of the winter storm that hit Texas and took 26 refineries offline."

· Trump falsely claimed “radical Democrat policies” have sparked a 30% jump in gas prices “since the election.” Experts say market forces are behind an increase in crude oil prices.

Trump falsely blamed Democratic policies for an increase in gas prices since the election. The jump is due to a rise in crude oil prices, which has nothing to do with the Biden administration, experts say.

As we’ve written before, presidents, of both parties, often get blame or credit for changes in gas prices, but the reality is they have little influence. (Trump may have had a tad more, given his uncharacteristic involvement in oil matters, experts told us back in 2018.)

In his speech, Trump claimed Democrats would cause an “energy disaster” in the U.S., going on to falsely suggest the Texas power outages in February were due to wind power. He mentioned “the windmill calamity that we’re witnessing in Texas,” but, as we’ve written, the outages were largely due to a sharp decline in energy from fossil fuels and nuclear power plants, according to Texas power grid operators.

After critcizing wind energy as “bad for the environment,” Trump turned to gas prices. “Under the radical Democrat policies, the price of gasoline has already surged 30% since the election. And we’ll go to $5, $6, $7 and even higher,” he said.

Trump starts the clock at the November election. Weekly gas prices have gone up 25% from $2.112 the week ending Nov. 2 to $2.633 for the week ending Feb. 22, the most recent figure from the Energy Information Administration before Trump spoke. It’s unclear why Democrats would be responsible for gas prices while Trump was still president, and two days before Trump left office, the weekly price was $2.379.

But regardless, experts say the recent increase is due to the market, not who is in the White House — as well as that cold winter weather that affected Texas.

Tom Kloza, the global head of energy analysis and a co-founder of the Oil Price Information Service, told us that so far under Biden, the “normal machinations of oil markets” have affected gas prices.

Most of the hike in prices at the pump “can easily be ascribed to crude oil prices going up,” Kloza said. The price per barrel was in the $40s in November and now tops $60. But nothing Biden has done in his short time as president has affected crude prices, he said.

Why have crude prices jumped? Kloza points to “money flow” as investors buy oil as a commodity. Another issue was a surprise cut in output by Saudi Arabia, announced in January. But later this week, when the OPEC Plus countries meet, Kloza said it’s likely Saudi Arabia will increase output. “So there’s going to be more supply.”

Jeanette McGee, a spokeswoman for AAA, told us the higher crude oil prices were “driven by market optimism of the vaccine.” And recent increases are due to the impact of winter weather.

“The recent spikes (the last 2 weeks) are a direct result of the winter storm that hit Texas and took 26 refineries offline. Until refineries operations are back on track, we expect prices to continue increasing this month with the national average hitting at least $2.80/gallon,” McGee said.

In a Feb. 25 post, AAA said prices should stabilize: “As refineries restart and resume normal operations, supply is expected to increase in impacted areas and should bring stability to pump prices.”

Kloza, too, said he expects gas prices to peak at about $2.80.

The Biden administration clearly has different energy policies than the Trump administration. For instance, on his first day in office, Biden ordered a review of fuel economy standards that Trump had instituted in rolling back standards set by then-President Barack Obama. That means gas mileage could improve. But Kloza noted such a change is a slow process.

Donald Trump: (42:01)
So enjoy that when you go to the pump and they’ll say that’d be about $200 to fill up your van. Remember they used to go to the little small vans. They got away from the big ones that everybody wanted. They went to the small ones. Well, you know what? Probably a good investment. As long as these guys have their say because you know, it’s a shame what’s happening. Energy prices are going to go through the roof. And that includes your electric bills. That includes any bill having to do with energy, our biggest cost. We will now be relying on Russia and the middle East for oil. And they talk about Russia, Russia, Russia. What’s better than what this guy has done for Russia. I had oil where they were actually paying you to take it. Okay. Remember they were going to give you 37 a barrel, but you had to take it away.

Donald Trump: (42:47)
You had free oil almost for a period of time and one way I was proud of it, but we also had to save the energy industry and it worked out well. And I dealt with Russia and Saudi Arabia and they cut back on production and we got it back up. But now it’s going the opposite because now they are taking this incredible energy independence away from the people of our country. And you’re going to see costs go like you have never seen them go before. It’s a very sad and very stupid thing that they’re doing. The Biden policies are a massive win for other oil producing countries and a massive loss for the United States and our great citizens, Joe Biden and the Democrats are even pushing policies that would destroy women’s sports.

Donald Trump: (43:28)
A lot of new records are being broken in women’s sports. Hate to say that ladies, but got a lot of new records, they’re being shattered. For years, the weightlifting, every ounce is like a big deal for many years. All of a sudden somebody comes along and beats it by a hundred pounds. Boom. Now young girls and women are in sets that they are now being forced to compete against those who are biological males. It’s not good for women. It’s not good for women’s sports, which worked so long and so hard to get to where they are. The records that stood for years, even decades are now being smashed with these. Smashed. If this is not change women’s sports, as we know it will die. They’ll end, it’ll end.

Donald Trump: (44:23)
What coach, if I’m a coach, I want to be a great coach. What coach, as an example, wants to recruit a young woman to compete, if her record can easily be broken by somebody who was born a man. Not too many of those coaches around, right? If they are around, they won’t be around long because they’re going to have a big problem when that record is we’re oh and 16, but we’re getting better. No I think it’s crazy. I think it’s just crazy what’s happening. We must protect the integrity of women’s sports so important after. And I don’t even know, is that controversial? Somebody said, well, that’s going to be very controversial. I said, that’s okay. You haven’t heard anything yet.

Donald Trump: (45:31)
As you can see, the early weeks of the Biden administration have nothing less than, they’ve been a catastrophe for American workers and for American families, the task of our mission. And for us, it’s our movement. As I said, a movement like has never been seen, I think we could probably say, never been seen anywhere in the world. And nobody’s ever seen a movement like this. I’d grow up and I’d watch somebody who came in second in New Hampshire or first in Iowa and that was the end. And they became famous for the rest of their lives. We won the election twice. I mean, think about it, twice. The task for our movement and our party is to stand up to this destructive agenda with confidence and with result, the future of the Republican party is as a party that defends the social economic and cultural interests and values of working American families of every race, color, and creed. That’s why the party is growing so rapidly and is becoming a different party. And it’s becoming a party of love. You have to see outside the streets. I mean, there’s such love. The flags. Amazing. That’s right now, it’s a party that’s incredible. The people, the spirit, and there are, as you probably heard a little while ago, I mean, there’s more spirit now than there’s ever been, including even before the election, more spirit now than we’ve ever seen, because people are seeing how bad it can be. And again, I want to thank Rush and Catherine, because what he did to get the word out has been incredible. Some people are irreplaceable as Sean Hannity would say and he said Rush is irreplaceable, but his spirit lives on. And that’s something that we need and we love. Republicans believe that the needs of every citizen must come first. In fact, America must come first. We don’t put it first.

25. I thought about it. Trump still lost to Biden in 2020.

26. "Spurred By The Capitol Riot, Thousands Of Republicans Drop Out Of GOP" -- NPR, 2/1/2021

Donald Trump: (48:03)
America must come first. We don’t put it first. They don’t put it first. Over the past four years my administration delivered for Americans of all backgrounds like never before, like never before. We built the strongest economy in the history of the world, raised wages and achieved the lowest African-American, Hispanic-American, Asian-American unemployment rates ever, ever, ever recorded. It was so great for everybody of all backgrounds that even after the China virus, we are leading the world. Nobody’s even close. We’re leading it in the comeback. Our economic comeback has been incredible. That’s because the financial and economic foundation we built was so strong, that unlike other countries who are having a hard time, we didn’t break. We came roaring back, and now our stock market and your 401(k)s are again at record levels, higher than ever before, actually.

· He repeated the false claim that, during his presidency, “we built the strongest economy in the history of the world.” As we’ve previously written, the economy grew faster under other U.S. presidents.

· Trump also claimed that the U.S. is “leading” the rest of the world in the economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, even though China’s economy expanded in 2020 while the U.S. economy contracted.

Trump repeated a familiar false talking point that his administration “built the strongest economy in the history of the world,” which he said allowed the U.S. to withstand the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic.

“It was so great for everybody of all backgrounds that even after the China virus, we are leading the world. Nobody’s even close,” he said.

The U.S. economy under Trump wasn’t even the best in U.S. history.

As we’ve written before, Trump’s best year in real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product growth was a 3% increase in 2018. GDP growth has been higher 17 times since 1981, including most recently under then-President Barack Obama in 2015.

Furthermore, while the U.S. economy is projected to have contracted by a smaller percentage (3.4%) than several countries with advanced economies in 2020, according to the International Monetary Fund, it is not the world leader in recovering from the pandemic-caused global recession.

As Fortune magazine reported in January, GDP in China — where the SARS-CoV-2 virus first emerged — is estimated to have grown by 6.5% in the fourth quarter of last year, “propelling it to a stronger than expected full-year expansion of 2.3% and making it the only major [economy] to avoid contraction.”

Fortune also noted that “economists expect China’s GDP will expand 8.2%” in 2021, “continuing to outpace global peers, even as other large economies begin to recover with vaccines being rolled out.”

Donald Trump: (49:05)
Many people have asked, “What is Trumpism?” A new term being used more and more. I’m hearing that term more and more. I didn’t come up with it. But what it means is great deals, great trade deals. Great ones, not deals where we give away everything, our jobs, our money, like the USMCA replacement of the horrible NAFTA. NAFTA was one of the worst deals ever made, probably the worst trade deal ever made, and we ended it. A lot of people forget, we ended it.

27. So, if I look up "Trumpism" in the dictionary, this then is the definition: "Great deals, great trade deals, great ones, not deals where we give away everything, our jobs, our money, like the USMCA replacement of the horrible NAFTA. NAFTA was one of the worst deals ever made, probably the worst trade deal ever made. And we ended it." Er, OK?

Donald Trump: (49:33)
Now we have the USMCA-Mexico-Canada. It’s incredible what it’s done for our farmers, who are doing fantastically. Did you see grain prices and grain sales are at an all-time high? Wheat, all-time high. So many elements of farms and farmers, and they love me. Remember, it’s going to be very close in Iowa. Well, it wasn’t close. We won in a landslide, Iowa, because our farmers know, and they put up with it, and we did a lot of work with the tariffs and all these things that we had to do to get it. Now the farmers are doing great, but they’re setting records.

Donald Trump: (50:08)
It means low taxes and eliminating job-killing regulations, Trumpism. It means strong borders, but people coming into our country based on a system of merit. They come in and they can help us, as opposed to coming here and not being good for us, including criminals, of which there are many. It means no riots in the streets. It means law enforcement. It means very strong protection for the Second Amendment and the right to keep and bear arms. It means support for the forgotten men and women who have been taken advantage of for so many years. They were doing great. They were doing great before that horrible thing from China came in and hit us, and now they’re starting to do really well again.

28. Uh...

Donald Trump: (51:06)
If you think about it, we built the economy twice. We built it then, and then like every other country in the world, it went down, and then we built it again. Now it’s higher in many ways, certainly in the stock market, it’s higher in many ways than it was before. That’s because of the foundation, and no country comes even close to competing with our comeback. It means a strong military and taking care of our vets, but a strong military, which we have totally rebuilt. We have rebuilt it. Our military has never been stronger than it is today. It was tired. It was depleted. It was obsolete. Now we have the best brand-new equipment ever made, and it was all produced right here in the USA. Isn’t that nice? We take care of our vets. We had a poll recently just before leaving office. The vets had a 91% approval rating for the way we took care of them. That’s the highest number in the history of the polls, the vet polls.

Donald Trump: (52:16)
On top of all of that, we have even created the Space Force, the first new branch of the United States military in nearly 75 years. The mission of the Democrat party is to promote socialism. They want to promote socialism, ultimately leading, unfortunately, to communism, and that will happen. If you look at Venezuela, you look at some of these countries, that’s why some of our biggest supporters are from South America, Latin America, because they’ve seen what goes on with all of this cancel culture, and you can’t speak, and let’s cut them off and let’s not give them words. The mission of our movement and of the Republican party must be to create a future of good jobs, strong families, safe communities, a vibrant culture, and a great nation for all Americans, and that’s what we’re creating.

29. Mars Awaits!

30. "I beat the socialist. That's how I got elected. That's how I got the nomination. Do I look like a socialist? Look at my career — my whole career. I am not a socialist." -- Joe Biden, September 2020. And Nixon: “I am not a crook.” And that lawyer recently face-apped on CNN and elsewhere: “I am not a cat.” (DJI)

Donald Trump: (53:17)
Their party is based upon unvarnished disdain for America, its past and its people. You see that happening. It’s horrible the way they treat the legacy of our country, the culture of our country. Our party is based on love for America and the belief that this is an exceptional nation, blessed by God. We take great pride in our country. We teach the truth about history. We celebrate our rich heritage and national traditions. We honor George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and all national heroes, and of course, we respect our great American flag.

Donald Trump: (54:24)
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Audience: (54:48)
We love you. We love you. We love you. We love you. We love you. We love you. We love you. We love you. We love you. We love you.

Donald Trump: (54:48)
Thank you.

Audience: (54:48)
We love you. We love you. We love you.

Donald Trump: (54:48)
Thank you very much, so nice.

Audience: (54:49)
We love you.

Donald Trump: (54:51)
I started that hearing… Really, we’re getting word of that, hearing that during some of the rallies, especially the latter rallies, where we set records. We had 56 unbelievable packed rallies, and nobody’s ever had anything like we had. We started hearing, “We love you.” I asked somebody, because we really liked Ronald Reagan. He was a great President. We had others, but I said, “Did anybody ever say that to Ronald Reagan or to any of our great…” and to the best of all of these political professionals’ knowledge and pollsters’, nobody’s ever heard that chant before, Matt, so it’s an honor. Believe me, it’s an honor. It’s a great honor. It’s a great honor. When you think about, we love you, you say that about, I hate to say it, am I a politician? I don’t know. Maybe I’m a politician. I hate to admit it, but that’s really… It’s an honor that you would say it.

31. Trump is saying here that his are the first rallies where people yelled and chanted "I love you." Yes, seriously.

32. Trump unleashes new threat to American democracy

[confused face emoji]

Donald Trump: (55:48)
We believe in patriotic education and strongly oppose the radical indoctrination of America’s youth. It’s horrible. We are committed to defending innocent life and to upholding the Judeo-Christian values of our founders and of our founding. We embrace free thought. We stand up to political correctives, and we reject left-wing lunacy, and in particular, we reject cancel culture.

Donald Trump: (56:40)
We know that the rule of law is the ultimate safeguard. We affirm that the Constitution means exactly what it says, as written, as written. They want to change it. They want to change it. They want to get rid of it, frankly. We believe in law and order. We believe that the men and women of law enforcement are heroes who truly deserve our absolute support. We don’t defund the police. We are not defunding the police. We believe in standing up to China, shutting down, outsourcing, bringing back our factories and supply chains and ensuring that America, not China, dominates the future of the world. That’s what’s going to happen. By the way, we took in hundreds of billions of dollars from China during my administration, hundreds. They never gave us 25 cents. It was a one-way street. We took in hundreds of billions. During negotiations, they would say, “Look, the one thing, we don’t want any more of these tariffs, these tariffs.” Those tariffs, we took in so much money, and what happened is, they became competitive. What happened with people, they wouldn’t go to China. They’d build a lot of it back in our country. They would make it here instead. In addition to that, we were taking in billions and billions and billions of dollars from China. But in all fairness to China, we made a trade deal with them. This was prior to COVID. Once COVID happened, I no longer cared so much about the trade deal, because what happened with that was just disgraceful.

33. Quick reminder: Trump told rioters who beat and taunted Capitol Police officers on January 6 that he loved them and that they were very special.

Past tariffs on China

Trump repeated a familiar claim about how, before he took office, China "never gave us 10 cents," but then, under him, the US took in "hundreds of billions" from China because of his tariffs.

Facts First: This was wrong in two ways. First, studies repeatedly showed that it's not true that China paid Trump's tariffs; Americans bore the majority of the cost. Second, Trump's claim that the government had not previously received "10 cents" from tariffs on China is also false. The US has had tariffs on China for more than two centuries; President Barack Obama imposed new tariffs on China; FactCheck.org reported that the US generated an "average of $12.3 billion in custom duties a year from 2007 to 2016, according to the U.S. International Trade Commission DataWeb."

China also made tens of billions of annual purchases of US exports under Obama -- more than $100 billion in goods purchases every year from 2011 through 2016."

Donald Trump: (58:21)
But that’s one of the things, that’s one of the reasons that right now our farmers are doing so good. I used to tell China, “Look, look, go and get a lot of wheat. Get a lot of different things, all of the things we just talked about, you better go out and do it, because this country has not been treated fairly by you for many, many years, many, many years.” We used to lose $504 billion trade deficit with China, 504, not million. $504 million is a lot, right? You know that through the World Health Organization. Now take 504 million and make it $504 billion, we had deficits with China. It was absolutely insane that this could keep going. It’s amazing that you still have a country left.

The trade deficit with China

Trump repeated one of the most frequent false claims of his presidency -- his lie that, in the past, the US used to have a trade deficit of about $500 billion with China.

"We used to lose $504 billion trade deficit with China...not million; $504 million is a lot...now take $504 million, make it $504 billion; we had deficits with China," he said.

Facts First: Trump was wrong again. The US had never had a $504 billion (or $500 billion) trade deficit with China before Trump took office. The record was set in the Trump era: a $380 billion deficit in goods and services trade with China in 2018.

The goods and services deficit with China declined to $308 billion in 2019. (We don't have final figures for 2020.)

Donald Trump: (59:06)
The people that did this to our country, they should be ashamed of themselves. They should be ashamed of themselves. Companies that leave America to create jobs in China and other countries that have ripped us off for years should not be rewarded. They should be tariffed, fined and punished. They should not be rewarded. That’s what the Biden administration is doing. But of course, as you know, they have a very close, personal relationship with China, so I don’t expect much to happen. It’s a shame, because it really is a threat. It’s a tremendous economic threat. Thank God we’ve rebuilt our military, but it’s a tremendous economic threat. Never forget it. These are the convictions that define our movement today and must define the Republican party in the years ahead. Very simple, it’s really quite simple, isn’t it?

Donald Trump: (01:00:07)
Another one of the most urgent issues facing the Republican party is that of ensuring fair, honest and secure elections. Such a disgrace, such a disgrace, such a disgrace. We must pass comprehensive election reforms, and we must do it now. The Democrats used the China virus as an excuse to change all of the election rules without the approval of their state legislatures, making it therefore illegal and had a massive impact on the election. Again, you have to go to the legislatures to get these approvals. This alone would have easily changed the outcome of the election at levels that you wouldn’t have even believed. Even with COVID, even with all of the things, the numbers are staggering. We can never let this or other abuses of the 2020 election be repeated or happen again, can never let that happen again. You see what’s going on. We’ve been set back so greatly with other countries and with the world. We need election integrity and election reform immediately. Republicans should be the party of honest elections that can give everyone confidence in the future of our country. Without honest elections, who has confidence? Who has confidence? This issue is being studied and examined. But the reality is you cannot have a situation where ballots are indiscriminately pouring in from all over the country, tens of millions of ballots. Where are they coming from? They’re coming all over the place, where illegal aliens and dead people are voting, and many other horrible things are happening that are too voluminous to even mention, but people know.

34. Again, zero evidence of any widespread fraud in the 2020 election. None.

35. "So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state." -- Donald Trump, in a January phone call with Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Trump repeated his attack on mail-in voting and claimed that dead people voted in the election.

"(T)ens of millions of ballots. Where are they coming from? They're coming from all over the place." He then claimed that "dead people are voting."

Facts First: Both of these claims are wrong. As we have fact checked many times before, mail-in voting is not rife with fraud and there were not tens of millions of ballots that came from unknown origins. CNN looked into several claims of dead people's ballots being cast in the election and found no evidence of widespread fraud.

Donald Trump: (01:02:20)
I mean, it’s being studied, and the level of dishonesty is not to be believed. We have a very sick and corrupt electoral process that must be fixed immediately. This election was rigged, and the Supreme Court and other courts didn’t want to do anything about it.

36. The Supreme Court, with a 6-3 conservative majority and three justices appointed by Trump? That one? Man, rigged!

Audience: (01:02:39)
You won. You won. You won. You won. You won. You won. You won. You won. You won. You won. You won. You won. You won. You won. You won. You won. You won. You won. You won. You won. You won. You won.

Donald Trump: (01:02:39)
We did.

Audience: (01:02:39)
You won. You won. You won. You won.

Donald Trump: (01:03:09)
If you just take that one element where they didn’t go through legislatures, it’s illegal. You can’t do it. It’s in the Constitution. They didn’t have the courage, the Supreme Court. They didn’t have the courage to act, but instead, used process and lack of standing. I was told the President of the United States has no standing. It’s my election. It’s your election. We have no standing. If you’re think of it, we had almost 20 states go into the Supreme Court so that we didn’t have a standing problem. They rejected it. They rejected it. They should be ashamed of themselves for what they’ve done to our country. They didn’t have the guts or the courage to make the right decision. They didn’t want to talk about it. You had the case led by the great State of Texas. 18 states went in, “You don’t have standing. Oh, let’s not talk about it.” They didn’t have the guts to do what should be done, and that’s on top of all of the other forms of cheating. But this is the most basic of all, they would have local courts and local politicians change the rules, in some cases, a day or two before the election. This should never be allowed to happen to another presidential candidate or presidential race, should never be allowed to happen.

Donald Trump: (01:04:43)
Today I want to outline the steps that we must take to have an election system in this country that is honest, fair and accurate. We need one election day, not 45, 30, one day like it’s been. The Republicans don’t get this and the other things I’m going to say, that you should, like the Supreme Court, be ashamed of yourselves. One day, one day, and the only people that should be allowed to vote by mail are people that can be proven to be either very sick, or out of the country, or military where they can’t do it. One day. They have millions and millions of ballots sitting around all over the place for long periods of time. Gee, I wonder what happens with those ballots? I wonder what happens? It’s common sense. It’s a disgrace. It’s an absolute disgrace. There should be a legitimate reason for someone to vote absentee, has to have a reason. We should eliminate the insanity of mass and very corrupt mail-in voting.

37. Trump cast a ballot via mail in the 2020 election. And he was not "very sick or out of the country or military where they can't do it." F*** you old people, retirees, disabled veterans – states like Georgia are going to cancel you and then we’ll balance the budget by reducing Social Security and Medicare.

Donald Trump: (01:06:03)
We must have voter ID, voter ID. To get into the Democrat National Convention, when they had the convention, you needed voter ID. You needed an ID card. You couldn’t get in unless you had an ID. So many people told me you can’t get in that place. You need ID. Nobody had ID. You need voter ID. They know that. There’s a con job. They’re conning everybody. They know that. They know the wall was good. They knew the wall would work, but they didn’t want to have it, because we wanted it. I made one big mistake in the wall. I should have said, “We will not have a wall.” Then they would have said, “Let’s build a wall.” I made a big mistake. I made a big mistake. I’m sorry. It took us a year and a half extra. Because of that mistake, we will not have a wall. “We need a wall immediately,” said Chuck Schumer.

Donald Trump: (01:07:13)
We need universal signature matching. They want to pass a bill where you don’t have to match signatures, where signatures don’t mean anything. Now they know it, just like with the wall, just like with voter ID, when you need to go into anything that’s Democrat run, you need it. But for voting, which is our most sacred institution, you don’t. They don’t want to let you have it. There should be a 100% requirement to verify the citizenship of every person who votes, and there must be a chain of custody protections for every ballot, every ballot. You saw what happened in Detroit and Philadelphia and many other places, swing states mostly, all over, but swing states mostly. You saw what happened? You saw what was going on.

Donald Trump: (01:08:13)
You saw that more people… You take a look at the votes. When you have more votes than you have people, that’s a problem, right? Is that a problem? We have a little problem adjusting in Detroit. We seem to have more votes than we have people, a lot more votes, an election-changing number. We’re not talking about a number where you catch… No, these are election-changing numbers. In Pennsylvania, they had hundreds of thousands of more votes than they had people voting. What’s that all about? What’s that all about? Cheating, they say. Yeah, I’d say so.

38. (Detroit) Nope!

Trump repeated many of the misleading and outright false claims about alleged voter fraud in the 2020 election that he made in the months after the election.

He repeated unsupported claims about dead people and “illegal aliens” voting; he talked about “corrupt mail-in voting”; he advanced allegations of widespread “cheating”; and he made wild and unsubstantiated accusations about “tens of millions of ballots … indiscriminately pouring in from all over the country.” None of that is accurate.

Here we’ll dispatch with one of the more outrageous of his election fraud claims: that there were more votes than voters in Detroit and in Pennsylvania.

Trump repeated another of his arguments about voter fraud, claiming that in multiple cities there were more votes than people. He specifically called out Detroit, Michigan, which came under scrutiny shortly after the election when Republican county election officials tried to block the certification of election results.

"We have a little problem adjusting in Detroit, we seem to have more votes than we have people. A lot more votes. An election changing number," Trump said.

Facts First: It's false that there were more votes than people in Detroit. The city saw 250,138 votes cast this election, less than half the number of registered voters (504,714) and far fewer than the 670,031 people in the city as of 2019, according to the US Census Bureau.

Trump's insistence that there are "more votes than people" likely refers to precincts that are out of balance, which means the number of voters recorded didn't match the number of ballots cast in certain places. However, former and current Michigan state officials told CNN these imbalances are often clerical errors which are addressed as part of the canvassing process and not indicative of widespread fraud.

· As evidence of election “cheating,” Trump claimed that in Detroit there were “more votes than we have people” and in Pennsylvania “they had hundreds of thousands of more votes than they had people voting.” Neither of those is true.

· Let’s start with the claim about Detroit. We’ve heard this from Trump before. In a video he posted to social media on Dec. 2 — which he billed as perhaps “the most important speech I’ve ever made” — Trump similarly claimed that in Detroit “there were more votes than there were voters.”

· Nearly 50% of the city’s 504,714 registered voters cast a ballot, according to the city’s unofficial election results. And 94% of them voted for Biden.

· As we wrote back in early December, Trump appears to be talking about a minor issue with out-of-balance precincts. In Detroit, the number of ballots cast versus the number of voters checked into polling precincts differed by a mere 357, Mayor Mike Duggan said on Nov. 18. Such discrepancies, which aren’t unique to this election, can occur through a scanner error or if a voter who checks in decides not to vote or spoils a ballot, meaning they ask to void the ballot and re-do their vote.

· Trump called the amount of such votes an “election-changing number,” but as we say, the number was 357. He lost the state by more than 150,000 votes.

39. (Pennsylvania) Also, nope!

Trump also claimed that "in Pennsylvania, they had hundreds of thousands of more votes than they had people voting."

Facts First: This is false. State officials and fact checkers have repeatedly explained that the claim that Pennsylvania had more votes than registered voters is just not true; Trump may have been relying on an incorrect figure from a Republican state legislator, who had relied on incomplete data.

Trump made the similarly bogus claim that in Pennsylvania, “they had hundreds of thousands of more votes than they had people voting.” We debunked a similar claim from Trump in his Jan. 6 speech at the “Save America” rally that preceded the storming of the Capitol.

The claim is “based on incomplete and inaccurate data,” according to the Pennsylvania Department of State.

The claim originated with a group of Republican legislators in Pennsylvania who compared the total ballots reported as being cast with data contained in the Department of State’s Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors, or SURE, system. But data in the SURE system was incomplete at the time because some counties had not yet finished entering voter histories.

“At the time of the legislators’ release, these counties included Philadelphia, Allegheny, Butler and Cambria, which would account for a significant number of voters, and other provisional voter histories in a number of other counties are also not yet complete,” the statement from the Pennsylvania Department of State said.

Donald Trump: (01:08:50)
In the history of our country, and it has taken place for years in Pennsylvania, in Detroit and various other places, but there’s tremendous, never like this, because they used COVID as a way of cheating. That’s what happened, and everybody knows it. Hundreds of thousands and millions of ballots, they used it as a way of getting what they’ve wanted for many years, and the Republicans have to do something about it. They’d better do something about it. Our election process is worse than that, in many cases, of a third-world country. You know that. You saw what was going on.

Donald Trump: (01:09:26)
Even if you consider nothing else, it is undeniable that election rules were illegally changed at the last minute in almost every swing state, with the procedures rewritten by local politicians… you’re not allowed to do that… and local judges. They want more time. They want this. They want that. All done by local politicians or local judges, as opposed to state legislatures as required by the Constitution of the United States. These are numbers that are massive. These aren’t little numbers. These are numbers that in each state is a transformative number. It changes the outcome of the election, and it’s not close. Regardless of your political views, this should concern you as a constitutional matter. The Supreme court, again, didn’t have the guts or the courage to do anything about it, and neither did other judges.

Donald Trump: (01:10:24)
Democrats even admitted in Time Magazine, which is I would say on the liberal side, that they couldn’t… They couldn’t hold it in. They had to brag about it, because what they did, they had a brag about it. They couldn’t do it. You got to read this story. It’s a disaster. It’s a disaster for our country that we can allow something so corrupt to happen. Read that article. I really encourage you. You read that article.

Donald Trump: (01:10:52)
Yet all of the election integrity measures in the world will mean nothing if we don’t have free speech. That’s where we’re at now. If Republicans can be censored for speaking the truth and calling out corruption, we will not have democracy, and we will have only left-wing tyranny. We can do this. We can do this. We’re smarter than they are. We’re tougher than they are. For some reason, we just don’t. We don’t get it done. We let them attack our businesses, and we don’t attack their businesses. I believe your numbers are bigger than their numbers, but you’re nicer than they are. You’re not as vicious as they are.

· Encouraging Republicans to get tougher, Trump said, “We let them attack our businesses, and we don’t attack their businesses.” But Trump has a history of attacking businesses that have crossed him politically.

· Arguing that Republicans need to fight back on free speech issues, Trump said Republicans have allowed Democrats to “attack our businesses, and we don’t attack their businesses.”

· Trump, Feb. 28: We’re smarter than they are. We’re tougher than they are. For some reason, we just don’t. We don’t get it done. We let them attack our businesses, and we don’t attack their businesses. I believe your numbers are bigger than their numbers, but you’re nicer than they are. You’re not as vicious as they are.

· But Trump is no stranger to attacking businesses.

· Last August, Trump called for a boycott of Goodyear tires after a photo circulated on social media of what was purported to be a diversity training slide that noted that MAGA attire was inappropriate for the workplace.

· On Aug. 19, Trump tweeted, “Don’t buy GOODYEAR TIRES – They announced a BAN ON MAGA HATS. Get better tires for far less! (This is what the Radical Left Democrats do. Two can play the same game, and we have to start playing it now!).”

· The company later issued a statement saying the image did not come from the corporate office and that as part of the company’s zero tolerance policy for harassment or discrimination, “we ask that associates refrain from workplace expressions in support of political campaigning for any candidate or political party.”

· In August 2018, Trump tweeted support for those who planned to boycott Harley Davidson after the company announced it was moving its production of motorcycles for the European Union to its overseas facilities to avoid tariffs imposed there in retaliation for U.S. tariffs imposed by Trump.

· “Many @harleydavidson owners plan to boycott the company if manufacturing moves overseas. Great! Most other companies are coming in our direction, including Harley competitors. A really bad move! U.S. will soon have a level playing field, or better,” Trump tweeted on Aug. 12.

· On the campaign trail in 2015, Trump frequently vowed he was “never eating another Oreo again” because its parent company is “closing a factory in Chicago and they’re moving to Mexico.” As we wrote, some Oreo production moved to Mexico, but a downsized Chicago plant remained. And there were still three plants in the U.S. making Oreos.

· In July, CNN ran a list of 30 instances in which Trump “has explicitly advocated cancellations, boycotts and firings.” Similarly, in July 2019, Business Insider listed 21 instances in which Trump had targeted companies “with calls for boycotts, threats of taxes and other ominous warnings.”

Donald Trump: (01:11:35)
In the past, we would debate. I would have it. I’d debate. You’ve seen me for many years. They’d throw something. I debate. They debate. Who knows who wins. People go. They vote. They see what happens, but they would have an idea. They would disagree. The public would hear it. The debate and discourse would take place, and then somebody would make a decision. You would win. You would lose. The public would make up its mind. But now there is no debate, because they refuse to allow our side to even speak or be heard.

Donald Trump: (01:12:03)
There is no debate because they refuse to allow our side to even speak or be heard. They don’t want debate, because we have easy victories in a debate, very easy victories. It’s is called common sense. It’s called other things, but it’s called common sense. So they don’t want a debate. The time has come to break up big tech monopolies and restore fair competition. Republicans, conservatives must open up our platforms and repeal section 230 liability protections. And if the federal government refuses to act, then every state in the union where we have the votes, which is a lot of them, big tech giants, like Twitter, Google, and Facebook should be punished with major sanctions whenever they silence conservative voices. And governor Ron DeSantis of Florida and in Texas and in other States are doing this. If they do what they’re doing, Florida, and that legislation will pass. And Texas and others will have tremendous power to do what’s right and what’s fair.

Donald Trump: (01:13:33)
We have no time to waste, Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in Congress are racing to pass a flagrantly unconstitutional attack on the first amendment and the integrity of our elections known as HR 1. Do you know what HR 1 is? It’s a disaster. Their bill would drastically restrict political speech, empower power the federal government to shut down decent. And turn the Federal Election Commission into a partisan political weapon. In addition, it virtually eliminates voter ID requirements nationwide, effectively ends all registration deadlines. Can you believe this? Requires States to give ballots to felons, automatically registers every welfare recipient to vote, and puts unaccountable unelected bureaucrats in charge of drawing congressional districts. That’s going to be a lot of fun. This monster must be stopped. It cannot be allowed to pass. Now more than ever is the time for tough strong and energetic Republican leaders who have spines of steel. We need strong leadership. We cannot have leaders who show more passion for condemning their fellow Americans than they have ever shown for standing up to Democrats, the media, and the radicals who want to turn America into a socialist country. Instead of attacking me and more importantly the voters of our movement, top establishment Republicans in Washington should be spending their energy in opposing Biden, Pelosi, Schumer, and the Democrats. I’ve said to some of them, I said, “You know, during the Obama years, and now during Biden, if you spent the same energy on attacking them, you’d actually be successful as you do on attacking me, in many cases.” The Democrats don’t have grandstanders like Mitt Romney, little Ben Sasse, Richard Burr, Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Pat Toomey, and in the house, Tom Rice, South Carolina, Adam Kinzinger, Dan Newhouse, Anthony Gonzalez. That’s another beauty. Fred Upton, Jaime Herrera Beutler, Peter Meyer, John Katko, David Valadao. And of course the warmonger, a person that loves seeing our troops fighting, Liz Cheney. How about that? The good news is in her state, she’s been censured, and in her state, her poll numbers have dropped faster than any human being I’ve ever seen. So hopefully they’ll get rid of her with the next election. Get rid of them all. Democrats are vicious. Remember this, it’s true. Democrats are vicious.

40. Wait, aren't Democrats "fellow Americans" too?

41. Oh no, he's not bitter. Just listing off all the Republicans who voted for his impeachment. All good! Water under the bridge! What about Pence? (DJI)

Donald Trump: (01:16:52)
He said evil, well, there is evil there, but they’re vicious, they’re smart, and they do one thing. You got to hand it to them. They always stick together. You don’t have Mitt Romney’s in the group. They always stick together. Fortunately, for the Republican party, the Democrats have horrible policies like open borders, sanctuary cities, defunding the police, and the ridiculous, totally ridiculous green new deal. So, they stick together, they’re smart. They’re vicious, they got everything going, but their policies are no good. So hence, we have, congratulations, the Republican party. After this, they may not stick with those policies. We have to be careful. No, their policies are horrible. Think of it, defund the police. How did that work out? But if Republicans do not stick together, the rhinos that we’re surrounded with will destroy the Republican party and the American worker, and will destroy our country itself, the rhinos, Republican in name only, but the Republican party is united. The only division is between a handful of Washington DC establishment political hacks, and everybody else all over the country.

Donald Trump: (01:18:19)
I think we have tremendous unity. When you look at the crowds outside that want your seats so badly, they will take your seat in two seconds. They want your seat. Congratulations. Congratulations on getting in by the way. I’m very impressed. And that’s why I’m announcing that I will be actively working to elect strong, tough and smart Republican leaders.

42. Trump takes a pause from bashing Republicans to note that anyone who leaves in the audience is immediately replaced by someone else. Because he is so popular. I mean, this guy invented people yelling "I love you" at political rallies

Crowd: (01:18:44)
USA, USA, USA, USA, USA, USA, USA, USA, USA.

Donald Trump: (01:19:13)
Speaking of that, I heard Jim Jordan did a great job. Right? Thank you. I heard that from Mark Meadows. I heard it, oh, there he is. Look at that. Hi Jim. I heard you were great. In fact, I hated to follow you. I want to follow other people. I could name them too. I like to follow other people. I heard you were great. Thank you Jim, very much. Jim Jordan. A great, great athlete. People don’t know he was a great wrestler, tremendous numbers of victories. He was a champion. He was college champion for a long period of time. He’s a winner and a leader and he doesn’t play games. He likes to win. He likes to win. And we have a lot of people in our party that like to win Jim, right? But I heard you were great, thank you very much. But we want Republican leaders who are loyal to the voters and who will work proudly for the vision that I’ve laid out today. And what is it? So simple, right? So simple, military, law and order, great trade deals, great education. So simple.

Donald Trump: (01:20:18)
I don’t, does anybody get it? What are they doing? Does anybody get it? It has just been stated that President Trump’s endorsement is the most powerful asset in politics. Do you believe that? Who would’ve thought that was going to happen? Who would have thought that’s going to happen, Jim? In last year’s congressional primaries, 120, listen to this, it’s crazy. 120 of 122 candidates I endorsed won, 120. That’s almost as good as Jim’s wrestling record. And the two that lost were beaten by people claiming to be more Trump than their opponent. So I like those two people very much also. In the Senate, I was undefeated in endorsements with a record of 21 and 0, my endorsement of Mitch McConnell, at his request-

Crowd: (01:21:16)
Boo.

Donald Trump: (01:21:16)
It’s all right, it’s all right. Now, he made a request. He asked for my endorsement, brought him from one point down to 20 points up, and he won his race in the great state, and actually the great Commonwealth of Kentucky. And he won it very easily. And I said, “I wonder if I’m doing the right thing here.” But you know what? I did what I did. But he went from one point down to 20 points up very quickly, immediately actually. And he won his race. And if you compare that to his other elections, I’m sure you’ll see something interesting. But you know what? We got a Republican elected. And now we have to use Republicans to take care of the election frauds and all of the other things that are happening that shouldn’t be allowed to happen in our country. It’s very simple. Because of my efforts campaigning, we had huge gains in the House, and I helped keep many senators in their seats, and they will admit it, so that it’s now 50/50, instead of Republicans being down anywhere from eight to 10 seats.

43. Patently false.

44. Worth noting: Republicans lost the House majority in 2018. And the Senate majority in 2020.

Donald Trump: (01:22:25)
And they’ll admit it, we’d be down eight to 10 seats if I didn’t campaign. We held rallies for some of the senators that were down. And nobody talks about that. Nobody wants to talk, the press doesn’t talk about it. With me at the top of the ticket, not a single Republican member of Congress lost their race for the first time in decades. We won 26 of 26 toss up races. Toss up. Think of that, 26 of 20, and those are toss up. Those are races that could go any way. We were expected to lose 25 seats, and instead we won 15 seats, and almost, oh, why couldn’t we have done a couple of more, almost cost crazy Nancy her job. We’ll do that the next time around. I received almost, listen to this number, because you know, the fake news doesn’t ever talk about these numbers. I just heard this one for the first time. I received almost 1.5 million more votes than all of the Republican House candidates combined.

Donald Trump: (01:23:34)
So how the hell is it possible that we lost? It’s not possible. I got more votes. I got more, which is me, when I say I, I’m talking about we. We, we got more votes than any incumbent, any incumbent president in the history of our country, almost 75 million votes. And that doesn’t include the votes and ballots they threw out. If you include them, you’ll see numbers that are much different. We did even better in the second election than we did in the first, you know I won the first? And we won the second, we did much better. Sort of strange, right? How did you do? Well, we did much better the second time. Oh, you did? Really? What a disgrace, what a disgrace to our country. I got over 11 million, very close to 12 million more votes than we got in 2016. And I was told by John McLaughlin that if you, the great pollster, that if you get to, we had 63 in 2016, 63 million.

45. Trump got 74,222,960 votes. Which is a lot! But not as many as the 81,283,361 Biden got.

46. [narrator voice] He didn't.

Donald Trump: (01:24:39)
Sir, if you get to 66 million, you have it made. We got to almost 75 million. Then what the hell happened? What happened? What happened when they closed all of the counting booths? What happened at 3:00 in the morning? What happened at 3:02 in the morning? What happened? No president has ever lost an election after carrying Florida, Ohio, and Iowa. And I won them all. And I won them by a lot.

Florida, Ohio and Iowa

Trump claimed that "no president has ever lost an election after carrying Florida, Ohio and Iowa."

Facts First: This needs context. Richard Nixon won Florida, Ohio and Iowa in 1960 but lost the election to John F. Kennedy. Unlike a previous version of this claim, in which Trump declared that nobody at all ever lost the election after winning those three states, this "no president" version is not flat false because Nixon was not an incumbent president at the time. Still, Trump omitted the fact that somebody has won these three states and been defeated.

Also, of course, this historical tidbit does not tell us anything about the legitimacy of Trump's defeat.

By a lot. I won 94% of the primary vote, no incumbent president who received more than 75% of the primary vote has ever lost an election. I had a record number, and no president has ever, ever, and we’re talking about a much lower number than we got, has ever lost an election. Thanks to my coattails, thank you. We have to have a sense of humor. Thanks to my coattails, democrats failed to flip a single state legislature. Think of it, or a legislative chamber, because Republicans came out to vote for me. Now they say it differently. The press, the fake news spins it differently.

47. Coattails are a thing that happens when you win. Trump did not win.

Trump repeated the claim that some nefarious vote-dumping occurred in the earlier hours of the morning after the election.

"What happened at 3:02 in the morning?" Trump asked the CPAC audience.

Facts First: There's nothing inherently suspicious or mysterious about large batches of votes being reported late at night or even after Election Day.

Votes from mail-in ballots were often reported later on Election Day and afterwards because they couldn't be counted ahead of time in many states, including Michigan and Pennsylvania. And in several lawsuits over the election, judges determined the witness affidavits claiming they saw literal late night dumps of ballots were baseless and not evidence of fraud.

Donald Trump: (01:25:58)
They say, “Despite how well they did, Trump didn’t win.” That’s such a lie. And many legislators, many legislators told me, they said, they were going to lose their race. It wasn’t going to happen. And then what happened is one in particular told me from a great swing state, said, “You know, I thought I was going to lose my position, lose my race. And I went out with my wife the night before the election. And I saw all these Trump signs and the American flags and the spirits on the streets.” I said, “You know, darling, I think we’re going to win.” He said, “But you were far, far, far more popular than me.” They do lots of polls. You were way, way ahead of me, sir. And the next day I was right. He said, he won the election by a lot, and you lost the election. And sir, it’s not possible that you lost, because you got a lower number than I did. And you were so far ahead of me. You’re the person that brought everybody out to vote.

Donald Trump: (01:26:57)
And I happen to agree with that 1, 000%. never forget that conversation. He couldn’t believe it. And I’ve heard it from more than one. And in November, 18 of 19 bellwether counties, you heard about the bellwether counties? 18 of 19 bellwether counties that have correctly predicted every presidential election election for decades. Many decades, voted for Trump, not for Biden. And it was a shocker to those people that go for the stats. It was a shocker. They voted for Trump, 18 of 19 voted for Trump. There’s never been anything like that. And yet did Biden win? No. If you want to help us take back the future of our country, go to DonaldJTrump.com. I don’t do this. I’ve never done this, but it’s time that we have to put forces together, because these people with their big tech and their fake news media right back there, okay? And you know, when you talk about election, they turn off.

Trump repeated various versions of his usual lie that he won the 2020 election. He said that Democrats "just lost the White House," said that "it's not possible" that he lost, said "no" after asking the rhetorical question "did Biden win?" and said another election win in the future would be his "third."

Facts First: This is all false. Trump lost the 2020 election, fair and square. Democrat Joe Biden won a 306-232 victory in the Electoral College -- earning over seven million more votes than Trump, good for a margin of 51.3% to 46.8%.

Donald Trump: (01:28:04)
When you talk about, they probably have them going, because they also care about ratings. But when they talk about election, they turn off the cameras. You know why? It’s a very sore subject, okay? They don’t like that subject. There’s only one way to contribute to our efforts, to elect America first Republican conservatives, and in turn to make America great again, and that’s through Save America, PAC, and DonaldJTrump.com. So go out there and do whatever you can because we’re going to help a lot of great people. We know the right people to help. We need your help to win, and to fight big tech and the radical left and the DC establishment. We need to save your second amendment, which is under siege. We need to help protect funding for our military and for our great vets. And that’s what we’re doing. As we discussed earlier, we’re in a struggle for the survival of America as we know it. This is a struggle. This is a terrible, terrible, painful struggle. The path ahead will not be easy, but we will win. We are going to win. Ultimately we always win.

48. So, if the media turn off their cameras when Trump talks about the 2020 election, how do we have so much footage of this speech? It's a miracle!

Donald Trump: (01:29:11)
And when we do, history will show that this was the moment when we could have given up, when we could have despaired. But instead, we chose to keep on pushing forward. The greater the challenge and tougher the task, the more determined we must be to pull through to triumph. We have to have triumph. We have to have victory. With the talent and dedication of everyone here today, and you have tremendous, not only dedication, tremendous talent in this room. I know many of you. That is exactly what we will do. We will go on to victory. We will summon the spirit of generations of American Patriots before us, like those heroes who crossed the Delaware, conquered the Rockies, stormed the beaches, won the battles, and tamed the unknown frontiers. We will persist, and we will prevail. We’re tougher than they are. We’re stronger than they are. Together, in the coming years, we will carry forward the torch of American Liberty. We will lead the conservative movement and the Republican party back to a totally conclusive victory.

49. Certainly sounds like he isn't going to quietly recede into the background...

Donald Trump: (01:30:26)
And we’ve had tremendous victories. Don’t ever forget it. With your help, we will take back the House. We will win the Senate. And then, a Republican president will make a triumphant return to the White House. And I wonder who that will be? I wonder who that will be? Who, who, who will that be? I wonder. Standing before you today, I am supremely confident that for our movement, for our party, and for our country, our brightest days are just ahead. And that together we will make America prouder, freer, stronger and greater than it ever has been before. Thank you CPAC, God bless you, and God bless America. Thank you all. Thank you.

50. Yeah, this feels like a good place to end.

Speaker 2: (01:31:34)
(Singing)

ATTACHMENT TWO – from factcheck.org

FactChecking Trump’s CPAC Speech

By Eugene Kiely, Lori Robertson, Robert Farley and D'Angelo Gore

Posted on March 1, 2021

· Trump falsely claimed that since President Joe Biden took office there has been “a massive flood of illegal immigration into our country, the likes of which we have never seen before.” Border apprehensions are up, but not close to approaching record numbers.

· He also twisted the facts when he misleadingly suggested that children being held in immigration detention facilities are getting a better education than U.S. students during the pandemic.

· Trump falsely claimed “radical Democrat policies” have sparked a 30% jump in gas prices “since the election.” Experts say market forces are behind an increase in crude oil prices.

· Trump touted the rapid production of COVID-19 vaccines, baselessly adding that it “would have taken any other president at least five years.”

Trump spoke on Feb. 28 in Orlando at the conclusion of the conference. We include here a sampling of his inaccurate claims.

No ‘Massive Flood of Illegal Immigration’

The former president made wildly off-target claims about Biden’s immigration policies.

For sure, Biden has reversed many of Trump’s immigration policies. But the new president did not “cancel border security,” trigger record numbers of illegal border crossings and stop deportation of murderers, gang members and sex offenders, as Trump claimed.

Trump, Feb. 28: Joe Biden has triggered a massive flood of illegal immigration into our country, the likes of which we have never seen before. … So they’re all coming because of promises and foolish words.

There has been an increase in the number of people caught crossing the border illegally, but Trump is wrong to say it has been “the likes of which we have never seen before.”

Misleading Deportation Claim

Trump also misrepresented Biden’s enforcement and removal policy, falsely referring at one point to “Biden’s decision to cancel border security.”

Trump, Feb. 28: He has effectively ordered a shutdown of ICE, halting virtually all deportations, everyone, murderers, everybody, no more. Let’s not deport people.

On Feb. 18, Tae D. Johnson, the acting director of ICE, issued interim guidance for enforcement and removals until the department completes its review and the secretary issues new guidelines.

The memo “does not eliminate immigration enforcement,” Jennifer Minear, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said in a statement at the time.

Educating Children at Detention Centers

Trump also twisted the facts when he suggested children being held in immigration detention facilities are getting a better education than U.S. students during the pandemic.

Trump, Feb. 28: The Biden administration is actually bragging about the classroom education they are providing to migrant children on the border. While at the same time, millions of American children are having their futures destroyed by Joe Biden’s anti-science school closures. Think of it. We’re educating students on the border, but our own people, children of our citizens, citizens themselves are not getting the education that they deserve.

Gas Prices

But regardless, experts say the recent increase is due to the market, not who is in the White House — as well as that cold winter weather that affected Texas.

Jeanette McGee, a spokeswoman for AAA, told us the higher crude oil prices were “driven by market optimism of the vaccine.” And recent increases are due to the impact of winter weather.

Kloza, too, said he expects gas prices to peak at about $2.80.

Keystone Jobs

Trump repeated an old, misleading claim about the number of jobs created by the Keystone XL pipeline project. He said that Biden canceled the project, “destroying not the 8,000 or the 9,000 or the 11,000 jobs that you hear. But 42,000 great paying jobs on just about day one, right?”

As we wrote last month, Terry Cunha, a spokesman for TC Energy, the company behind the pipeline, told us that 1,000 unionized jobs would be lost in the subsequent weeks due to Biden’s Jan. 20 cancellation of a March 2019 permit for the pipeline, which was supposed to run from Alberta, Canada, to Nebraska.

Even those 1,000 jobs were temporary construction jobs. “The project was prepared to hire 11,000 union workers during the construction of the project,” Cunha said.

As for Trump’s 42,000 figure, the comes from a 2014 estimate from the State Department, which gave that figure for direct jobs, indirect jobs from suppliers and “induced” jobs, created by the workers and suppliers spending money. But the number of permanent jobs, the State Department said, would be significantly lower. It estimated the project “would generate approximately 50 jobs during operations,” including 15 temporary contractors.

Vaccine Boast

In touting the rapid production of COVID-19 vaccines, Trump baselessly claimed this couldn’t have happened under any other administration. “What has taken place over the last year under our administration would have taken any other president at least five years. And we got it done in nine months.”

When he made the claim several months ago, he said it would’ve taken two or three years under the last administration. But as we wrote then, there’s no support for Trump’s claim.

He went on to accurately desribe the key idea behind Operation Warp Speed: to pay companies to start manufacturing a vaccine before it’s approved so it can be distributed more quickly. Trump called it “a calculated bet or a calculated risk.” But that same strategy was used in 2009 for the H1N1 influenza vaccine.

The COVID-19 pandemic involves a much larger effort, but there’s no reason to think a different administration wouldn’t have done the same. In fact, other countries took the same approach.

“All the major vaccine development efforts around the world are trying to do the same thing right now, and the major concept is doing the manufacturing before you do the trials,” Dr. Nicole Lurie, a former assistant secretary for preparedness and response during the Obama administration, told us several months before any vaccine got approval in the U.S.

Lurie also noted that the previous work and investments in science enabled the fast work on COVID-19 vaccines. “What the success is really due to is the success of science,” she said.

As we’ve written, the technology behind the authorized COVID-19 vaccines has been studied for many years, and a focus on rapid vaccine methods was recommended by a presidential advisory group after the H1N1 pandemic.

Voter Fraud

Trump repeated many of the misleading and outright false claims about alleged voter fraud in the 2020 election that he made in the months after the election.

Here we’ll dispatch with one of the more outrageous of his election fraud claims: that there were more votes than voters in Detroit and in Pennsylvania.

Trump, Feb. 28: You take a look at the votes. When you have more votes than you have people, that’s a problem, right? Is that a problem? We have a little problem adjusting in Detroit. We seem to have more votes than we have people, a lot more votes, an election-changing number. We’re not talking about a number where you catch. … No, these are election-changing numbers. In Pennsylvania, they had hundreds of thousands of more votes than they had people voting. What’s that all about? What’s that all about? Cheating, they say. Yeah, I’d say so.

Let’s start with the claim about Detroit. We’ve heard this from Trump before. In a video he posted to social media on Dec. 2 — which he billed as perhaps “the most important speech I’ve ever made” — Trump similarly claimed that in Detroit “there were more votes than there were voters.”

Nearly 50% of the city’s 504,714 registered voters cast a ballot, according to the city’s unofficial election results. And 94% of them voted for Biden.

As we wrote back in early December, Trump appears to be talking about a minor issue with out-of-balance precincts. In Detroit, the number of ballots cast versus the number of voters checked into polling precincts differed by a mere 357, Mayor Mike Duggan said on Nov. 18. Such discrepancies, which aren’t unique to this election, can occur through a scanner error or if a voter who checks in decides not to vote or spoils a ballot, meaning they ask to void the ballot and re-do their vote.

Trump called the amount of such votes an “election-changing number,” but as we say, the number was 357. He lost the state by more than 150,000 votes.

The claim is “based on incomplete and inaccurate data,” according to the Pennsylvania Department of State.

‘Attacking’ Businesses

Arguing that Republicans need to fight back on free speech issues, Trump said Republicans have allowed Democrats to “attack our businesses, and we don’t attack their businesses.”

Trump, Feb. 28: We’re smarter than they are. We’re tougher than they are. For some reason, we just don’t. We don’t get it done. We let them attack our businesses, and we don’t attack their businesses. I believe your numbers are bigger than their numbers, but you’re nicer than they are. You’re not as vicious as they are.

But Trump is no stranger to attacking businesses.

Last August, Trump called for a boycott of Goodyear tires after a photo circulated on social media of what was purported to be a diversity training slide that noted that MAGA attire was inappropriate for the workplace.

On Aug. 19, Trump tweeted, “Don’t buy GOODYEAR TIRES – They announced a BAN ON MAGA HATS. Get better tires for far less! (This is what the Radical Left Democrats do. Two can play the same game, and we have to start playing it now!).”

The company later issued a statement saying the image did not come from the corporate office and that as part of the company’s zero tolerance policy for harassment or discrimination, “we ask that associates refrain from workplace expressions in support of political campaigning for any candidate or political party.”

In August 2018, Trump tweeted support for those who planned to boycott Harley Davidson after the company announced it was moving its production of motorcycles for the European Union to its overseas facilities to avoid tariffs imposed there in retaliation for U.S. tariffs imposed by Trump.

“Many @harleydavidson owners plan to boycott the company if manufacturing moves overseas. Great! Most other companies are coming in our direction, including Harley competitors. A really bad move! U.S. will soon have a level playing field, or better,” Trump tweeted on Aug. 12.

On the campaign trail in 2015, Trump frequently vowed he was “never eating another Oreo again” because its parent company is “closing a factory in Chicago and they’re moving to Mexico.” As we wrote, some Oreo production moved to Mexico, but a downsized Chicago plant remained. And there were still three plants in the U.S. making Oreos.

In July, CNN ran a list of 30 instances in which Trump “has explicitly advocated cancellations, boycotts and firings.” Similarly, in July 2019, Business Insider listed 21 instances in which Trump had targeted companies “with calls for boycotts, threats of taxes and other ominous warnings.”

Bogus Economic Brag

“It was so great for everybody of all backgrounds that even after the China virus, we are leading the world. Nobody’s even close,” he said.

The U.S. economy under Trump wasn’t even the best in U.S. history.

ATTACHMENT THREE – the NEW YORK TIMES

TRUMP’S REPUBLICAN HIT LIST AT CPAC IS A WARNING SHOT TO HIS PARTY

In his first public appearance since leaving office, Donald Trump went through, by name, every Republican who supported his second impeachment and called for them to be ousted.

Trump Targets Republicans Who Supported His Impeachment

Former President Donald J. Trump told the Conservative Political Action Conference on Sunday that he would not form a new party, then called for ousting Republicans who had backed his second impeachment.

Hello, CPAC, do you miss me yet? Do you miss me yet? [cheers] We went through a journey like nobody else. There’s never been a journey like it. There’s never been a journey so successful. We began it together four years ago, and it is far from being over. We’re not starting new parties. You know, they kept saying, “He’s going to start a brand new party.” We have the Republican Party. It’s going to unite and be stronger than ever before. I am not starting a new party. Instead of attacking me and more importantly, the voters of our movement, top establishment Republicans in Washington should be spending their energy in opposing Biden, Pelosi, Schumer and the Democrats. Grandstanders like Mitt Romney, little Ben Sasse, Richard Burr, Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Pat Toomey. And in the House, Tom Rice, South Carolina, Adam Kinzinger, Dan Newhouse, Anthony Gonzalez — that’s another beauty — Fred Upton, Jaime Herrera Beutler, Peter Meijer, John Katko, David Valadao — and of course, the warmonger, a person that loves seeing our troops fighting: Liz Cheney, how about that? And that’s why I’m announcing that I will be actively working to elect strong, tough and smart Republican leaders. We will take back the House. We will win the Senate. And then a Republican president will make a triumphant return to the White House. And I wonder who that will be.

By Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman

· Published Feb. 28, 2021Updated March 1, 2021, 9:15 a.m. ET

ORLANDO, Fla. — After days of insisting they could paper over their intraparty divisions, Republican lawmakers were met with a grim reminder of the challenge ahead on Sunday when former President Donald J. Trump stood before a conservative conference and ominously listed the names of Republicans he is targeting for defeat.

As Democrats pursue a liberal agenda in Washington, the former president’s grievances over the 2020 election continue to animate much of his party, more than a month after he left office and nearly four months since he lost the election. Many G.O.P. leaders and activists are more focused on litigating false claims about voting fraud in last year’s campaign, assailing the technology companies that deplatformed Mr. Trump and punishing lawmakers who broke with him over his desperate bid to retain power.

In an address on Sunday at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, his first public appearance since he left the White House, Mr. Trump read a sort of hit list of every congressional Republican who voted to impeach him, all but vowing revenge.

“The RINOs that we’re surrounded with will destroy the Republican Party and the American worker and will destroy our country itself,” he said, a reference to the phrase “Republicans In Name Only,” adding that he would be “actively working to elect strong, tough and smart Republican leaders.”

Mr. Trump took special care to single out Representative Liz Cheney, the third-ranking House Republican, and Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader. He called Ms. Cheney “a warmonger” and said her “poll numbers have dropped faster than any human being I’ve ever seen.” Then he falsely claimed he had helped revive Mr. McConnell’s campaign last year in Kentucky.

Ms. Cheney and Mr. McConnell have harshly criticized Mr. Trump over his role in inciting the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, and Ms. Cheney has repeatedly said that the G.O.P. should cut ties with the former president.

With his refusal to concede defeat and his determination to isolate G.O.P. leaders who criticize him, the former president has effectively denied Republicans from engaging in the sort of reckoning that parties traditionally undertake after they lose power.

Even with Democrats controlling Congress and the White House for the first time in over a decade, many of the Republicans who spoke at the conference here said strikingly little about President Biden or the nearly $2 trillion stimulus measure the House passed early Saturday, which congressional Republicans uniformly opposed.

Mr. Trump was the exception, repeatedly taking aim at the Biden administration. “In just one short month, we have gone from America first to America last,” he said, criticizing the new president on issues ranging from immigration to the Iran nuclear deal. “We all knew that the Biden administration was going to be bad, but none of us even imagined just how bad they would be and how far left they would go.”

Yet even as he dutifully read his scripted attacks on his successor, the former president drew louder applause for pledging to purge his Republican antagonists from the party.

“Get rid of them all,” he said.

Mr. Trump’s attack, and the enthusiastic response to his call for vengeance, illustrated the dilemma Republicans find themselves in.

Mr. Biden does little to energize conservative activists. Indeed, Mr. Trump and other speakers at the event drew more applause for their criticism of Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, Mr. Biden’s chief public health adviser for the virus and a figure of enmity on the far right, than for their attacks on the president.

More consequentially for Republicans, the attention-craving Mr. Trump, denied his social media weaponry, knows he can reliably energize the G.O.P. rank-and-file and draw publicity by excoriating his intraparty critics.

The attention surrounding Mr. Trump and his potential plans for the future are forestalling a focused attack on Mr. Biden and the Democratic-controlled Congress.

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who used his speech on Friday to hail Mr. Trump’s leadership of the party, said in a brief interview that his party’s voters would pivot to the present once Mr. Biden’s agenda became more clear.

Mr. Trump made a specific pitch for people to donate to two committees associated with him, a notable move given that he has been the Republican National Committee’s biggest draw for the last four years. He gave an explicit description of “Trumpism” as a political ideology focused on geopolitical deal-making and immigration restrictions, and painted the Republicans who voted for impeachment as decided outliers in an otherwise united party.

In some ways, the former president’s re-emergence at CPAC represented a full-circle moment. He first tested the right’s political waters in 2011 when he appeared at the conference and used his speech to belittle other Republicans and denounce China as a growing power.

To the delight of the party’s current lawmakers, however, Mr. Trump announced on Sunday that he would not create a breakaway right-wing party. “We’re not starting new parties,” he said of an idea he was privately musing about just last month. Less satisfying to many Republican leaders, at least those ready to move on, was the former president’s musing about a potential run in 2024. “Who knows, I may even decide to beat them for a third time,” he said, bringing attendees to their feet.

Mr. Trump, of course, lost the election last year.

But that did not stop him from repeatedly, and falsely, claiming in his speech that he had won. After mostly sticking to his prepared text for the first hour of his 90-minute speech — and listing what he said were the accomplishments of his tenure — the former president grew animated and angry as he veered off the teleprompter to vent about his loss.

“The Supreme Court didn’t have the guts or the courage to do anything about it,” Mr. Trump said of a body that includes three of his appointees. He was met with chants of “You won, you won!”

At one point, Mr. Trump did something he never did as president — expressly called on people to take the coronavirus vaccines that he had pressed for and hoped would help him in his re-election effort. But he mocked Mr. Biden for stumbling during a CNN town hall event and attacked him over comments the president made about the limited number of vaccines available when he took office.

Mr. Trump also mocked transgender people who participate in women’s sports. The comments represented a much more forceful attack on transgender people than his remarks while in office, when he placed significant restrictions on L.G.B.T.Q.-related rights.

The former president’s aides had been looking for an opportunity for him to re-emerge and debated whether to put on a rally-type event of their own or take advantage of the forum of CPAC, which relocated to Mr. Trump’s new home state from suburban Washington because Florida has more lenient coronavirus restrictions.

Mr. Trump and his aides worked with him on the speech for several days at his newly built office above the ballroom at Mar-a-Lago, his private club near the Atlantic Ocean. Without his Twitter feed, Mr. Trump has been using specific moments — the death of the radio host Rush Limbaugh and Tiger Woods’s car crash — to inject himself into the news cycle.

Outside prepared statements, though, he has said far less since Jan. 20 about the future of the G.O.P. and his own lingering ambitions.

Interviews at CPAC suggested that a number of conservatives, while still supportive of Mr. Trump, are ambivalent about whether he should run again in 2024. That was borne out in the conference’s straw poll, during which the former president enjoyed overwhelming approval — but also more uncertainty about whether he ought to lead the party in three years.

Thirty-two percent of those who participated in the straw poll — a heavily conservative and self-selecting constituency — said they did not want Mr. Trump to run again or were unsure if he should.

A number of would-be candidates, most notably Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, enjoyed rousing receptions at the conference.

Yet Mr. Trump has essentially frozen the field for the moment. And he made clear in his speech that for now, he is serious about a third bid.

This is new territory for Republicans, who were mostly eager to move on from their losing nominees in 2008 and 2012.

For now, though, Mr. Trump and the 2020 election are far more resonant. From the start on Sunday, the crowd provided Mr. Trump with the adulation he craves, chanting, “We love you! We love you!” at one point. And he made clear that he believes that news organizations, and his supporters, still want the sugar high of his appearances.

After stepping up to the lectern, Mr. Trump, gone for just five weeks, asked the room, “Do you miss me yet?”

ATTACHMENT FOUR – from Guardian UK

MYPILLOW CEO MIKE LINDELL HAS MIC MUTED AT CPAC FOR SPOUTING VACCINE AND ELECTION CONSPIRACIES

Lindell equates getting coronavirus vaccine to receiving ‘mark of the beast’ pledging allegiance to the devil

by Namita Singh

5 days ago

MyPillow’s outspoken Trump-supporting chief executive was censored during an interview at CPAC – an event branded “America Uncanceled” – after he launched into conspiracy theories linking the coronavirus vaccine with the devil.

Mike Lindell was speaking on Sunday to Liz Willis, the host of conservative YouTube channel Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN), when he delivered a somewhat meandering set of conspiracy theories relating to the pandemic, the presidential election and Israel.

“In Israel right now, from the prime minister on down, we don’t know what happened, but obviously, he congratulated Biden, but after that, we got a little suspect,” Mr Lindell said during the segment that was edited out by RSBN on their YouTube channel.

According to an unedited version that can still be accessed on the channel’s account on Rumble, Mr Lendell claimed that Israel has made it so that without a vaccine, a person cannot go shopping or get a job.

“Right now with the vaccine over there, they are making the whole country take it so you can’t go in shopping malls, you wouldn’t be able to get a job, and if this happens, it is the start for the world, the worst thing that could happen to this world,” he said.

“I’m telling you with the vaccine… if you get a vaccine, which is only 95 per cent effective, they say, then they want you to do another one in six months, six months,” he continued. “Well, I’m telling you when you get that, what do you care what someone else does, if that person wants to come to a mall and they don’t want to get a vaccine. This is our bodies, this is ‘mark of the beast’ stuff.”

The phrase “mark of the beast” appears to reference a quasi-religious conspiracy theory that holds Covid vaccines to be the work of the devil and that by getting it, a person is unwittingly pledging allegiance to Satan.

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After he finished talking, Willis said: “We do have to be super careful. I hate to do it. You know I love you but due to YouTube’s guidelines, we will get our whole platform shut down, if you talk about vaccines.”

“Well, this is all in Israel,” said Mr Lindell. “I know. We love you, we love you,” said Willis before moving on to the next topic.

MyPillow’s CEO has been a vocal supporter of election fraud conspiracy theories floated by former president Donald Trump. Mr Lindell has also repeatedly claimed that the voting machines by the company Dominion Voting Systems allowed widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential elections and influenced the votes in favour of president Joe Biden.

Dominion Voting Systems has since filed a defamation suit against Mr Lindell, a month after he urged the company to “please sue me”.

ATTACHMENT FIVE – from USA Today

IS DONALD TRUMP A DECLINING PARODY OR A TERRIFYING THREAT? MASTIO & LAWRENCE ON CPAC 2021

Can we agree with Trump? Yes, we are 'in the middle of a historic struggle for America’s future, America’s culture, and America’s institutions, borders and most cherished principles.'

David Mastio and Jill Lawrence

Donald Trump emerged from his luxurious Palm Beach exile to wallow in the warmth of devotees at the Conservative Political Action Conference 170 miles away in Orlando. Is he a spent supernova, or a giant barely submerged land mine that could obliterate the landscape at any time? Either way, we've seen our future. There will be no avoiding him. Deputy Editorial Page Editor David Mastio and Commentary Editor Jill Lawrence consider his Sunday speech, all 90-plus minutes:

David: Trump’s CPAC comeback speech revealed a sad little man, angry at local courts and politicians and disappointed in the federal judges he seated, but who “didn’t have the guts or the courage” to bow to him. Trump tried to carry on as if he hadn’t been impeached after the Capitol was ransacked by a mob, but even the lies seemed faintly ridiculous. “We will win. We’ve been doing a lot of winning,” was the wacko fib he launched his speech with, as if he hadn’t cost Republicans control of the House of Representatives, the Senate and the White House. Trump Republicans know that truth.

And even with a golden Trump idol on hand, 45% of CPAC attendees, in the organization’s straw poll, said they’d vote for someone other than the former president in the 2024 Republican primary. That’s a disappointing showing for a man out of the limelight for only a few weeks and way up from 2019, the last time the straw poll was taken, when fewer than 20% were looking for an alternative to Trump.

If he can’t get to 90% support at CPAC, the core of the Trumpian Republican base, he’s going to be weaker nationwide. Maybe Republicans are looking for a new messenger, even if they’ll stick with the redefined platform of Trumpism. That’s the one optimistic takeaway I saw anyway in a crowd happily nodding along to nonsense.

Jill: I had no luck finding any sliver of hope. Trump came out to the strains of Lee Greenwood’s totemic Republican song about being “proud to be an American," and then his whole speech was an attack on America, laced with ad hominem attacks on his enemies, from Joe Biden (cruel, anti-science and not grateful enough to Trump for his COVID shot) to Liz Cheney (“warmonger”), including a callout of every member of Congress who voted to impeach or convict him. That is frightening.

Checking the facts: Trump clings to his election falsehoods at CPAC

Even more frightening was his checklist of voter suppression measures for state legislators — no early voting, “eliminate the insanity of mass ... mail-in voting,” voter ID required, and (cue the outrage) get rid of automatic registration for felons and welfare recipients. Why? Because our election system is worse than a third world nation and, oh yeah, he won, but maybe he didn’t, but he will again. Maybe in 2024.

Fact-checking is a useless exercise for a speech like this one. It was a swollen greatest-hits parade of lies, laughable braggadocio, deliberate double talk, ugly insults, ugly transactionalism and — from the man who tried to overturn an election, incited a deadly riot and is under investigation in many civil and criminal cases — the despicable (from him) claim that "we know that the rule of law is the ultimate safeguard. We affirm that the Constitution means exactly what it says, as written. As written."

Most disastrous first month in history

David: Maybe I am drunk on relief that Trump is no longer in office, but I found a lot to be positive about in the quality of the lies Trump delivered. They were down, way down.

He referred to “Joe Biden’s anti-science school closures,” when every parent who has been awake and home-schooling or hybrid schooling their kids knows who was president when schools closed and when they failed to open this fall. Those are Donald Trump’s school closures, if any president has anything to do with them.

He called Biden’s first month in office the “most disastrous … in modern history.” Please, is that even plausible? It doesn’t take some fact-checking whiz kid to point out that’s not true; it merely takes consciousness, or a look at Biden's approval ratings. If anything, this has been the most boring first month in history. We’re reduced to getting worked up about Neera Tanden’s mean tweets.

Trump says his listeners are going to face “$5, $6, $7" a gallon gas. Yeesh. Gas prices are going to triple? I’ll take that bet.

RINOs are out to “destroy our country itself.” Everyone knows that the Republicans in name only are plotting just that.

I know this is wildly optimistic, but I’ll just say it: Trump is becoming a parody of himself, and his hold on the Republican Party is only going to weaken. Four years is a long time, and without constant access to American brains, Trump is going to fade.

Jill: There were actually a few points on which I found myself nodding in full agreement with Mr. Trump. For instance, when he said that “we’re in the middle of a historic struggle for America’s future, America’s culture, and America’s institutions, borders and most cherished principles,” why yes, yes we are. “Our security, our prosperity and our very identity as Americans is at stake, like perhaps at no other time.” Yes to that, too.

He is the threat. He and those who follow him and believe him when he calls the Republican Party “the party of love.” I truly hope you are right that he is fading. Listening to him echo his Jan. 6 speech, I was haunted by the prospect of more violence, more killing, from those who aren’t satisfied by a conference at an Orlando Hyatt or watching it on TV.

I suppose there is some encouragement in the “mere” 55% support level for Trump in the straw poll, but isn’t second-place Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis just a mini-Trump? Together they’ve got 76% of that crowd. But that’s homecourt advantage… if CPAC had held its convention in Kentucky, Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell would be crowding Dolt .45. (DJI) Not enough to give me hope. And you know what did better than anyone? Trump’s agenda at 95%. Whatever the heck that means. Sex, lies and racism? Deadly riots fueled by Trump delusions? Corruption and grifting and cozying up to despots? How about potentially criminal, irrefutably fatal dereliction of duty in the face of a pandemic?

No, I’m not over it yet.

I just wish I didn’t have to be reminded of it again. And again. And again.

Trump will be with us, world without end, God help us.

David Mastio, a libertarian conservative, is the deputy editor of USA TODAY's Editorial Page. Jill Lawrence, a center-left liberal, is the commentary editor of USA TODAY. Follow them on Twitter: @DavidMastio and @JillDLawrence

ATTACHMENT SIX – from CNN

SIX TAKEAWAYS FROM THE TRUMP-DOMINATED CPAC

By Eric Bradner and Michael Warren, CNN

Updated 1:30 AM ET, Mon March 1, 2021

(CNN)Former President Donald Trump turned the Conservative Political Action Conference into his first post-presidential rally Sunday evening, pledging in a speech riddled with falsehoods to purge his enemies from the Republican Party and hinting repeatedly at another run for the White House in 2024.

But before Trump closed out the annual conservative gathering, held in Orlando, Florida, this year, a cadre of ambitious Republicans eyeing 2024 presidential runs of their own tried to put their spins on Trump's populist message, echoing his grievances against big tech, the media and liberal "cancel culture" in efforts to tap into the "Make America Great Again" base Trump built.

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley called for a break-up of leading tech companies. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem leaned into a cultural battle over statues of founding fathers. Florida Sen. Rick Scott promised not to intervene against pro-Trump candidates in primaries from his perch as the chairman of the Senate GOP's campaign arm. And Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said the GOP is "not just the party of country clubs," a reflection of Trump remaking the party's base into a largely White, rural and working-class coalition even as the former President lives at a private club he owns.

Here are six takeaways from CPAC 2021:

Trump targets intra-party rivals, nods at 2024 run

Trump devoted large portions of his speech, which lasted more than 90 minutes, to false claims about election fraud.

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He also said repeatedly that he could run for president again in 2024. And he suggested his near-term political focus will be on exacting retribution against the 17 Republicans in Congress who voted to impeach him in the House or to convict him in the Senate following the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.

Trump named each of those Republicans, saving for last Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, whom he called a "warmonger." He said they should all be ousted in 2022 primaries.

"Get rid of them all," he instructed the conservative audience.

Trump concluded his speech by predicting that in the coming years, "a Republican president will make a triumphant return to the White House."

"And I wonder who that will be," he said, in a typical nod toward a third campaign in 2024. "I wonder who that will be. Who? Who? Who will that be? I wonder."

Trump wins the straw poll, DeSantis second

The results of the famed CPAC straw poll for the 2024 GOP nomination were announced Sunday afternoon. Unsurprisingly, a 55% majority of attendees favor Trump in 2024 -- his first-ever victory in the unscientific poll. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis came in second with 21% and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem in a distant third at 4%.

It wasn't all good news for Trump, though: While 97% said they approved of the job he did as president, about one-third of a self-selecting, Trump-friendly conservative crowd wasn't eager to back a Trump 2024 presidential bid. Just 68% said they wanted him to run for president again in 2024. Another 15% said they don't want Trump to run, and 17% said they were unsure.

2024 Republican prospects seek their own breakout moments at Trump-dominated CPAC

An informal and nonscientific survey, the CPAC straw poll can be a bellwether for the party -- or, more often, a show of organizing strength. While 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney won four CPAC straw polls between 2007 and 2012, Trump won none of the four pre-2016 straw polls before his own nomination.

In a second poll question that excluded Trump, DeSantis lapped the field in front of his home-state crowd in Orlando with 43% support. Noem finished second with 11%, followed by Donald Trump Jr. at 8%, then former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz with 7% each.

No one else topped 3% in either straw poll. In both the poll that included Trump and the one that excluded him, former Vice President Mike Pence finished at 1%.

More lies about the election results

In the real world, the 2020 election was conducted fairly -- though results were counted slowly in some states adapting to an influx of mail-in ballots amid the pandemic -- and President Joe Biden won handily. But in Orlando, on CPAC's main stage, in offshoot panel discussions and in the crowd, Trump-promoted fantasies about the outcome being rigged were treated as truth well before the former President himself parroted the lies during his speech Sunday evening.

Goya Foods CEO falsely says election was illegitimate, Trump is 'the real, the legitimate, and the still actual president'

"There was widespread voter fraud in way too many states, most especially in big cities run by the Democrat machine. That is fact," Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union and a CPAC organizer, said in a panel discussion hours before Trump spoke Sunday. (It is not a fact.)

Goya Foods chief executive Robert Unanue had claimed earlier in the day that Trump is "the real, the legitimate, and the still actual president of the United States." (Biden is president; Trump is not.)

Hawley, the Missouri Republican who objected to certifying electoral college votes from key swing states, effectively attempting to disenfranchise those states' voters and overturn the results of the 2020 election, bragged about his efforts, claiming he was standing up for "election integrity." (His actions would have disenfranchised tens of millions of voters if successful.)

Cruz makes light of Cancun trip

Days after Cruz was discovered fleeing to Cancun to escape a snowstorm and the power and water outages it had caused in his home state, the Texas senator was spinning it into a joke.

"I gotta say, Orlando is awesome. It's not as nice as Cancun -- but it's nice," he said as he kicked off his Friday speech at CPAC.

The comment underscored how quickly Cruz has turned what appeared to be an embarrassing and damaging episode into a punchline -- a jab at the political press. And if the crowd's laughter and cheers were an indication, he'll have escaped Cancun politically unscathed with the conservative base.

Noem and DeSantis stand out

One star of this year's CPAC might have been Noem, who was among the only speakers to articulate a vision of conservatism that -- while consistent with Trump -- sought to more broadly define the party's principles.

"We must more closely articulate to the American people that we are the only ones who respect them as human beings," Noem said. "That we are the only ones who believe the American people have God-given rights. We are not here to tell you how to live your life, how to treat you like a child or criminal because you go to church or you defend yourself."

She bragged about her state's lax coronavirus restrictions, and echoed Trump's complaints about attempts to remove founding fathers from the public square, characterizing such moves as efforts to use those founders' flaws -- such as slave ownership -- "to condemn their ideals and the greatest Constitution the world has ever seen."

Noem, Hawley and Cruz were among the 2024 prospects that got the strongest reception. Another popular figure in Orlando: DeSantis, who kicked things off Friday morning with a message that previewed what was to come in the following days: A conference focused less on policy differences than on a willingness to fight against the left.

"Now, anyone can spout conservative rhetoric. We can sit around and have academic debates about conservative policy," DeSantis said. "But the question is, when the Klieg lights get hot, when the left comes after you: Will you stay strong or will you fold?"

Little mention of Biden

The brand-new Biden administration was almost an afterthought at the confab. The most forceful denunciation of the President was a characteristically over-the-top assessment from his immediate predecessor.

"Joe Biden has had the most disastrous first month of any president in modern history," Trump said. "Already the Biden administration has proved that they are anti-jobs, anti-family, anti-borders, anti-energy, anti-women and anti-science. In just one short month, we have gone from America first to America last."

Trump's attacks on Biden were another norm shattered by the former President, who is not following prior ex-presidents' practice of staying quiet in the early stages of the new chief executive's term. Trump was also unique in that he was the only major speaker to offer much in-depth criticism of Biden at all.

To the extent that the current President was mentioned by the event's other speakers, it was to criticize Biden as weak, ineffectual, and under the control of the Democratic Party's left wing. Cruz, for instance, mentioned "Joe Biden and the radicals in his administration."

While Pompeo went after the Biden administration's foreign policy moves, several speakers focused on familiar culture-war grounds.

"Joe Biden and his allies in Congress are promising to flat out decimate the Second Amendment and destroy the promise of liberty and freedom that is America," said Wayne LaPierre, the CEO of the financially troubled National Rifle Association, on Sunday.

ATTACHMENT SEVEN – from WashPost

TRUMP’S BIG CPAC LIE UNMASKS A VILE TRUTH. DEMOCRATS IGNORE IT AT THEIR PERIL.

Greg Sargent

March 1, 2021 at 10:11 a.m. EST

Amid the stream of delusion, depravity, malevolence and megalomania that characterized Donald Trump’s speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference on Sunday, one message should be regarded as arguably more important than all the others combined.

It’s this: The former president told his audience that the Republican Party’s success in coming years depends, in no small part, on its commitment to being an anti-democracy party.

Trump didn’t say this in precisely those words, of course. But that message blared through all the background noise like a loud, clanging alarm bell.

This will require Democrats to redouble their focus on passing their big package of pro-democracy reforms as soon as possible — and to be prepared to nix the legislative filibuster to get it into law. It may be tempting to dismiss or ignore Trump’s deranged rantings, but Democrats should see this one message as an actionable one.

Trump reveals an important truth

As expected, Trump’s CPAC speech doubled down on the big lie that the election was stolen from him — and then some. Aaron Rupar tallies up at least five different ways he told this lie, which drew at least one standing ovation.

But embedded in that big lie was an unintentional truth. It was revealed when Trump uncorked an extended riff suggesting that the GOP’s future prospects depend on what he called “election reforms.”

“Another one of the most urgent issues facing the Republican Party is that of ensuring fair, honest, and secure elections,” Trump declared. “We must pass comprehensive election reforms, and we must do it now.”

By “election reforms,” Trump actually meant a redoubled commitment to making it harder to vote. We know this, because he said so: He went on to declare that Democrats had used the “China virus” as an “excuse” to make vote-by-mail easier.

“We can never let that happen again,” Trump said. “We need election integrity and election reform immediately. Republicans should be the party of honest elections.”

This is absurd (GOP legislatures also facilitated vote-by-mail) and full of lies (the election’s legitimacy was upheld in dozens of courts). But that doesn’t change its underlying meaning, which is unambiguous: Trump lost because voting wasn’t hard enough; Republicans must push as forcefully as possible in the opposite direction; this is “urgent.”

The rub of the matter is that all across the country, Republicans are acting on exactly this reading of the situation.

Republicans are acting on the big lie

In a good piece, the New York Times reports on the extraordinary new barrage of efforts by GOP lawmakers to make voting harder in many states. These include sharp cuts to early voting; restricting vote-by-mail in numerous ways; and in the most extreme cases, proposals to allow state legislatures to appoint presidential electors in defiance of the state’s popular vote.

Meanwhile, in numerous states, Republicans are gearing up to use this year’s decennial redrawing of electoral maps to entrench extreme gerrymanders. They have openly declared that this will help them win back the House in 2022, and some experts believe redrawn maps might ensure that this happens even if Democrats again win the national House popular vote.

Crucially, these efforts are increasingly animated by the same lie about the election’s illegitimacy that Trump told at CPAC. As the Times reports, they are “led by loyalists who embrace” Trump’s “baseless claims of a stolen election.”

In other words, Republicans are widely acting upon this lie as their excuse to continue entrenching anti-democratic and anti-majoritarian advantages wherever possible.

Democrats must respond

This simply requires Democrats to pass the For the People Act in the Senate and House. It includes numerous provisions that would make voting and registration easier; curb restrictions on voting and vote-by-mail; mandate nonpartisan redistricting commissions; and restore voting rights protections gutted by the Supreme Court.

The GOP actions also require Democrats to be prepared to end the legislative filibuster when Republicans block the package in the Senate. Yes, Democrats face major obstacles to this in the form of Sens. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.).

But a case must be made to those holdouts that Democrats cannot allow Republicans to grind their agenda to a screeching halt — in the face of multiple short and long term crises facing the country — through the exercise of minority rule, facilitated by what has become yet another cynically-wielded tool of counter-majoritarian obstructionism.

“The Big Lie about 2020 is built on an ugly truth: Trump and the Republican Party have turned their backs on our constitutional vision of government of, by, and for the people,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) told me in an emailed statement.

“You heard it from Trump himself,” Merkley continued. “We’ve got to get the For the People Act signed into law ASAP so the next elections are decided by the will of the voters, not rigged by corrupt politicians.”

Democrats keep telling us that the prospects for civic renewal in the wake of Trumpism’s continued degradations — and the GOP’s ongoing slide into authoritarianism — depend on making government and democracy more functional and responsive. If they really believe this, that imposes obligations on them to do just that.

Put another way, Democrats constantly point out that the GOP is increasingly captive to Trump and that Trump and his party remain captive to his destructive mythology about the stolen election. But this can’t be reduced to mere partisan messaging.

Instead, taking this idea seriously requires acting where possible to prevent the GOP’s increasing radicalization from further wrecking our democratic system. We know exactly what this will look like. Trump just told us so himself.

ATTACHMENT EIGHT – from – rolling stone

AT CPAC TRUMP CLAIMS GOP AS HIS OWN, NAMES BLACKLIST OF REPUBLICANS AGAINST HIM

Like a mob boss, Trump said, “Get rid of them all,” while railing against Republicans who have gone against him

By PETER WADE

The twice-impeached former president made his first public appearance since leaving office.

On Sunday, Trump was the main speaker at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). And according to a Fox News commentator, the event had the cult-like, MAGA hat-wearing attendees calling it TPAC instead of CPAC, because of their seeming undying devotion to him.

So, even though Trump’s speech stretched over 90 boring minutes, he did not disappoint his diehard fans in attendance. However, whether they will admit it or not, other members of the GOP establishment may not have been as thrilled — especially those who’ve ever had a moment of integrity and stood up to him.

Before Trump got around to naming names, he started his speech by first making some news and attempting to squash rumors that he wants to start his own political party.

“I want you to know that I’m going to continue to fight right by your side. We will do what we’ve done right from the beginning — which is to win,” Trump said.

“We’re not starting new parties. You know, they kept saying, ‘He’s going to start a brand new party.’ We have the Republican Party. It’s going to unite and be stronger than ever before, I am not starting a new party,” Trump said.

Of course, Trump called the stories that he’d start a new party “fake news” and then mocked the idea by sarcastically explaining how dumb it is.

“That was fake news, fake news,” Trump said. “Now, wouldn’t that be brilliant? Let’s start a new party and let’s divide our vote so that you can never win. No, we’re not interested in that.”

But, to no one’s surprise, according to the Washington Post, it was Trump who started those rumors when he “entertained the creation of a new ‘MAGA Party’ ” for weeks after losing the election.

Later in the speech, Trump contradicted his inter-party unity message by railing against many of those in the GOP who have dared speak against him.

Trump compared “top establishment Republicans in Washington” to “radical Democrats” and then blasted each by name.

“We cannot have leaders who show more passion for condemning their fellow Americans than they have ever shown for standing up to Democrats, the media, and the radicals who want to turn America into a socialist country,” Trump said.

“Instead of attacking me and more importantly, the voters of our movement, top establishment Republicans in Washington should be spending their energy in opposing Biden, Pelosi, Schumer and the Democrats. I’ve said to some of them, I said: ‘You know, during the Obama years and now during Biden, if you spent the same energy on attacking them, you’d actually be successful. As you do all attacking me, in many cases.’ ”

Trump then rattled off a list of who he called “grandstanders,” and tossed in a few nicknames for good measure.

“The Democrats don’t have grandstanders like Mitt Romney, little Ben Sasse, Richard Burr, Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Pat Toomey.”

The former president then paused as the crowd loudly booed those he named.

Trump continued, “And in the House, Tom Rice… Adam Kinzinger, Dan Newhouse, Anthony Gonzalez — that’s another beauty. Fred Upton, Jamie Herrera Beutler, Peter Meijer, John Katko, David Valadao.”

Trump finally got around to Liz Cheney, who has publicly criticized the former president numerous times for his actions of January 6th, voted to impeach him and said he shouldn’t have been invited to CPAC.

“And of course, the warmonger, a person that loves seeing our troops fighting, Liz Cheney. How about that?” Trump added, “The good news is in her state she’s been censured. And in her state, her poll numbers have dropped faster than any human being I’ve ever seen.”

Trump, who moments earlier spoke about party unity, and the need for it to win, then said:

“So hopefully they’ll get rid of [Cheney] with the next election, get rid of them all.”

ATTACHMENT NINE – from the Los Angeles Times

Making his first public appearance since leaving office not six weeks ago, former President Trump lashed out Sunday at his successor — and some fellow Republicans — during a fact-challenged and grievance-laden speech in which he teased another presidential run in three years.

In an address seemingly designed to assert continued control over his political party at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Fla., Trump made clear he’s not over his defeat and continued to lie about the outcome. But he reserved his strongest vitriol not for President Biden, who won by 7 million votes, but Republicans who he believes didn’t fight hard enough on his behalf.

Frustrated by GOP lawmakers who broke with him over his months-long, falsehood-filled campaign to overturn an election, he expressed particular contempt for the 17 Republican lawmakers who joined Democrats voting to impeach and convict him for his role in inciting a mob of supporters to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6 to stop the counting of electoral votes. Five people, including a police officer, died in the insurrection.

Trump did not speak to the crowd of 1,400 activists about the riot or mention those who partook in it. He focused instead on punishing Republicans who he believes betrayed him in the aftermath, making it clear he would be supporting efforts by more pro-Trump candidates to oust them next year in primaries.

“Get rid of them all,” he said. Solicitation to murder? (DJI)

The 90-minute speech to some of his most diehard supporters made clear Trump is unchanged, despite having been defeated electorally and banned from Twitter, his beloved social media platform. CPAC offered him his largest audience since departing Washington on Inauguration Day, hours before Biden’s swearing-in. The enthusiastic audience erupted in cheers when Trump hinted at another presidential campaign in 2024 by saying his political journey was “far from over.” In continuing to perpetuate the falsehood that the election had been stolen from him, he quipped he “may decide to even beat [Democrats] a third time.”

More than anything, the speech confirmed that Trump’s post-presidential project will be focused on something other than philanthropy or a library: revenge.

Even as he described the GOP as “unified” and tamped down his own talk of forming a third party separate from the GOP, Trump name-checked every lawmaker of his own party who supported the Democratic impeachment effort against him, singling them out as “grandstanders” and calling for their defeats in primaries next year.

Calling Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the No. 3 Republican in the House and one of his most outspoken critics, a “warmonger,” Trump claimed with glee that her poll numbers were going down. “Hopefully they’ll get rid of her with the next election,” he said.

Referring to the group as “Republicans In Name Only,” or “RINOs,” Trump told supporters the more independent lawmakers “will destroy the Republican Party, the American worker, and our country itself.”

He also savaged the Supreme Court, claiming the justices, three of whom he appointed, “didn’t have the courage to act” in backing his legal election challenges that had already been dismissed by dozens of lower courts. “They should be ashamed of themselves for what they’ve done to our country.”

Trump continued to perpetuate the falsehoods that underpinned the attack on the Capitol, claiming again that “the election was rigged.” He called for Republicans to alter state election laws to eradicate mail and early voting, claiming falsely that Democrats “used the China virus to change all the election rules.”

Trump was far more animated in attacking Republicans than he was in going after Biden.

“Joe Biden has had the most disastrous first month of any president in modern history,” Trump said. Deviating from his scripted remarks in the teleprompter, he added: “That’s true.”

Of course, Biden’s approval rating — 56% in last week’s Gallup poll — is higher than Trump’s ever was. And Biden gets even higher marks for his response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The “flatness of his broadsides” against his former campaign rival carried the tone of a lament, acceptance of the reality that Biden, now ensconced in the Oval Office, has already set about reversing many of his administration’s policies, specifically with regard to immigration and foreign policy.

Complaining about Biden having rejoined the Paris climate accord and the World Health Organization, Trump suggested Biden had already “gone from ‘America first’ to America last.” And he claimed that the new administration was “recklessly eliminating our border security measures” and triggering “a massive flood of illegal immigration into our country the likes of which we have never seen.”

Although officials at the border are seeing an uptick in attempted crossings that began in late 2020, it’s far smaller than the influx of migrants seen in 2019 after Trump put some of his strictest immigration policies in place. Biden has yet to repeal Title 42, the controversial policy Trump put in place last March in the name of public health that effectively closed the border and pathways to migrate legally.

Trump, who called on Biden to reopen America’s schools and suggested the Democratic administration’s fealty to teachers unions was “a scandal,” sought to claim credit for the vaccination efforts currently underway.

“I handed the new administration what everyone is now calling a modern-day medical miracle,” Trump said, focusing on his administration’s pressure on pharmaceutical companies and the FDA to fast-track the development of a vaccine.

He did not, however, discuss the dearth of distribution plans Biden encountered upon taking office after a transition period in which Trump’s administration refused to cooperate with the incoming officials. But Trump did refer to Biden’s criticism on that score, joking that he “didn’t really know what the hell was happening.”

“Never let them forget, this was us,” Trump said, referring to the country’s ongoing recovery.

Just before Trump took the stage, the conference released the results of its straw poll of attendees — a sign that Trump’s grip on the Republican Party, and its 2024 presidential nomination should he choose to seek it, is not ironclad. Although he was the top choice to be the GOP nominee again in 2024, drawing 55% of the total vote, 32% of the activists present said they hoped he wouldn’t run again, a significant percentage considering the pro-Trump bent of the party’s base.

Two Republican governors who also spoke at CPAC, Ron DeSantis of Florida and Kristi Noem of South Dakota, finished behind Trump in the 2024 straw poll.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), one of the pro-impeachment Republicans Trump singled out, said earlier in the day that the former president’s focus on retribution would continue to divide their party.

“I think we are a party that’s been for too long peddling in fear, using fear as a compelling way to get votes. And fear does motivate,” he said in an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

“But after a while, fear can destroy a country, can destroy narratives, and it can destroy a democracy,” he said. “And we have to quit peddling that.”

A few other elected Republicans also aired misgivings about Trump’s bid for continuing dominance of the GOP, questioning whether the conservative gathering hosting him reflects the party as a whole.

“CPAC is not the entirety of the Republican Party,” Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican who voted to convict Trump in his second Senate impeachment trial, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Cassidy was one of seven Republicans who joined Democrats in a 57-43 vote to convict Trump, short of the two-thirds tally necessary to convict him.

Without naming Trump, Cassidy urged against “putting one person on a pedestal and making that person the focal point.”

“Over the last four years we lost the House, the Senate and the presidency — that has not happened in a single four years under a president since Herbert Hoover,” Cassidy said in the CNN interview, which aired hours before Trump’s CPAC speech. “If we idolize one person, we will lose, and that’s kind of clear from the last election.”

Even among Republicans who are working hard to remain in Trump’s good graces, some have parted ways with the ex-president’s continuing false claim that the election was rigged.

“Did Joe Biden win this election fair and square?” interviewer Chris Wallace, host of “Fox News Sunday,” asked Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.). “Absolutely,” Scott replied.

“Joe Biden is the president,” Scott continued. “We went through the constitutional process. Joe Biden won the election.”

The Florida Republican also pledged support for all Republican senators seeking reelection — a stance that flies in the face of the Trump camp’s threats to mount GOP primary challenges to those deemed insufficiently loyal to the ex-president. Scott said he believed Trump is “going to be helpful” in reelecting incumbent Republican senators, without mentioning those Trump has vocally attacked.

Times staff writer Molly O’Toole contributed to this report.

ATTACHMENT TEN – from the national review

Trump Wins CPAC Straw Poll, DeSantis Runner-Up

By ZACHARY EVANS

February 28, 2021 5:45 PM

Former president Trump won the Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll on Sunday, with 55 percent of respondents saying they would vote for Trump in the 2024 presidential primary.

The poll is conducted annually at CPAC by secret ballot. Florida governor Ron DeSantis received 21 percent in the same survey, while no other candidate broke roughly five percent.

Attendees of CPAC also approved of Trump’s performance as president by 97 percent but only 68 percent said they wanted him to run again.

However, in a poll of potential 2024 candidates without Trump, DeSantis received 43 percent of the vote while South Dakota governor Kristi Noem drew 11 percent. Both governors are staunch Trump allies who have touted their states’ refusal to extend full lockdowns during the coronavirus pandemic.

Bottom of Form

The straw poll itself has historically been a poor indicator of future presidential prospects. Utah senator Mitt Romney won the straw poll four times, in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2012, while Kentucky senator Rand Paul won the poll in 2014, 2015, and 2016.

CPAC attendees in 2021 indicated that “election integrity” was the most important political issue for them, along with “Constitutional rights” and immigration. Foreign policy and pro-life concerns were ranked among the lowest concerns for attendees.

ZACHARY EVANS is a news writer for National Review Online. He is a veteran of the Israeli Defense Forces and a trained violist.

MORE IN U.S.

ATTACHMENT ELEVEN (A through D) – from newsmax

(A) TRUMP TRIUMPHED AT CPAC

By Conrad Black Tuesday, 02 March 2021 11:49 AM

The following article appears first and foremost in American Greatness

President Trump gave a memorable address on Sunday evening to the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC).

For such a boffo performance, the Emmy mistakenly awarded to New York Governor Andrew Pinocchio Cuomo should be retrieved and redirected to the immediate former president.

In one mighty swinging oratorical stroke of 90 minutes, Trump asserted authority over his party, arraigned the new administration for the complete failure to accomplish anything useful in the first 40 of its vaunted 100 days, and then rolled through the Biden executive orders like a bulldozer.

The fiasco at the border enjoyed a full exposure, as it is replete with hypocrisy about the infamous cages, effectively sidelining the Immigration and Customs Enforcement service without abolishing it, and turning the United States into what Trump called a "sanctuary country" for whoever globally wants to come to it.

The Green Terror and the companion assault upon the American energy industry, the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline, the absurdity of wind energy — all were poured forth with great strength and fluency, extraordinarily good syntax, and to withering effect.

Trump set the record straight on vaccines and the pandemic.

His forcefully advanced claim to have saved a huge number of lives by pressing so effectively for early vaccine development and approval is evidently true and already must prevail in the minds of Americans above the frequently disorderly spectacle of the daily televised briefings he hijacked from the vice president and often permitted to turn into bear-baiting sessions for the delectation of his most insolent media enemies.

It was refreshing to hear the former president lay the unconscionably prolonged shutdown of most of America’s public and secondary schools directly at the door of the greedy and irresponsible teachers’ unions, who must accept the blame for the steady deterioration of education standards in U.S. state school systems for the past 30 years or more.

The outright asininity of easing sanctions on Iran in advance of discussions over its nuclear military program was evident and irrefutable.

The dangers of the new administration’s apparent indifference to Chinese trade and currency manipulation skulduggery was well formulated and must have scored strongly with the huge number of his viewers preoccupied with job security.

The tactical calculation that he had put into his address became clearer as he went along. Trump directly addressed the suburban female vote which was a soft point in the last election by hammering the Biden administration’s green light for former male transsexuals to participate in female sports.

It is an insane state of affairs and Trump was probably correct in forecasting the complete collapse of female sports as a serious field of activity if the Biden rule of unhandicapped admission of transgender female athletes is not revisited.

The ex-president wisely ignored the widespread advice of his opponents within or near the Republican Party to avoid complaints of the irregularity and dishonesty of the presidential election and to make verbal war specifically upon his enemies within the Republican Party.

President Trump emphasized the theme of unity and claimed that the Republican Party was unified . . . behind him.

It's absolutely vital that the bipartisan political class — backed by the totalitarian, woke media and big attack social media cartel — does not get away with the complete suppression of the grave doubts about the integrity of the 2020 presidential election.

Everyone who watched television in those days, even on the most rabidly Trump-hating networks, is aware of the improbable cascades of Joe Biden votes that came in en bloc in the middle of the night, unverifiable, all thanks to hastily jammed-through executive and judicial orders in certain states and of dubious constitutionality taken in supposed response to the pandemic.

Trump was wise not to raise the issue again of the popular vote, which Biden undoubtedly won, but to stick with the unanswerable arguments that he possesses challenging the honesty of the result.

He was also correct to heap blame on the U.S. Supreme Court for its cowardice.

As the Constitution consigns to the state legislatures the administration of elections, it is only the courts and ultimately the high court that can police and judge the integrity of electoral disputes between executive and legislative parties.

That abdication of the Supreme Court over the motion of the attorney general of Texas supported by 16 other state governments was the court’s worst failure since the infamous Dred Scott decision of 1857, which helped bring on the Civil War.

So much for the Democratic caterwauling about a packed Trumpian court.

The concerted, air-tight media effort to stifle any question of the integrity of the 2020 presidential election must not be allowed to succeed.

Orthodox opinion counseled the ex-president not to denounce by name the anti-Trump forces within the Republican Party, but he was right to do so.

All the Republicans who advocated his conviction in either spurious impeachment in the last year should be expelled from the party, and challenged in their next primary.

These were false charges; it is perfectly in order for a Republican to oppose Trump’s renomination, but siding with the Trump-hate movement and endorsing these unfounded, Pelosian smear jobs attacking Trump as a criminal who advocated a violent assault on the Capitol is an intolerable outrage.

Fortunately, Trump has lit the flame of aggrieved righteousness about the last election and it will be impossible to extinguish it.

It appears that Senate leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has thought better of his outrageous comments after the last impeachment, that Trump was guilty as charged but that the Senate was not the appropriate place for such a charge to be heard.

This level of hostility in high places within the Republican Party cannot be tolerated, but Trump was right to lay off him for now.

Sunday’s CPAC meeting made it obvious that Trump still rules the Republican Party.

His nearest polling rival is his strong supporter, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, but he trails 55% to 21% and the next candidate is below five percent.

Sens. McConnell (Kentucky), Mitt Romney (Utah), Ben Sasse (Nebraska), Susan Collins (Maine), Bill Cassidy (Louisiana), are all anti-Trump who won’t face the voters for four to six years, but Senator Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Congresswoman Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and the other members of the Congress who voted to impeach deserve to be booted from office at the next election.

Joe Biden, who has been commendably muted in his references to Trump, including the impeachment nonsense, is going to have to seem more alert and knowledgeable.

Even the most benign encounters with the press leave the audience worried about his mental focus. He’s almost halfway through his uneventful honeymoon; after Easter, it is going to become steadily more difficult.

His great success to date was a one-casualty counterattack on Iran for one of its innumerable terrorist acts. It was a relief, but it doesn’t amount to a coherent policy where the Democrats, going back to Jimmy Carter, on Iran, have never had one before.

The Mitch McConnell-Peggy Noonan-Karl Rove dream of a return to the pre-Trump party of post-Reagan amiable Democratic lookalike losers, the McRomBushes, is not going to happen.

Trump isn’t "disgraced," and the Democrats are now going to have to try to govern with their present ramshackle coalition of antagonistic elements riding off in all directions and without a constant pillory of Trump.

This article originally appeared in American Greatness

Conrad Black is a financier, author and columnist. He was the publisher of the London (UK) Telegraph newspapers and Spectator from 1987 to 2004, and has authored biographies on Maurice Duplessis, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Richard M. Nixon. He is honorary chairman of Conrad Black Capital Corporation and has been a member of the British House of Lords since 2001, and is a Knight of the Holy See. He is the author of "Donald J. Trump: A President Like No Other" and "Rise to Greatness, the History of Canada from the Vikings to the Present." Read Conrad Blacks' Reports — More Here.

(B) Trump to Newsmax TV: 'Can't Imagine' Someone Else Winning 2024

By Sandy Fitzgerald | Monday, 01 March 2021 11:32 AM

Former President Donald Trump, while praising the enthusiastic reaction from the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference's audience to his speech, told Newsmax TV that he doesn't like to "play games" about who could defeat him for the 2024 GOP nomination, but he "can't imagine" someone else winning, should he decide to run.

"I'm not sure that anybody should be able to win, other than us," Trump told Newsmax TV's Mark Halperin during a back-stage interview at the convention Sunday. "Look, I've done a good job for this party. We had the greatest economy in history, and then we rebuilt it a second time."

The foundations the administration built, he added, "were so strong that no other country could even compete with us in terms of what we've done the second time," or after COVID-19, which he referred to as the "China virus" pandemic.

"We've done a great job, and I think based on the job performance, I'm not sure that anybody should be able to win, other than us," Trump said.

However, he said he has not yet decided to run in 2024, "but I love our country. I'm going to do what's right for our country."

Trump also pointed to the straw poll that was taken at the convention, which showed that 55% of the attendees questioned think he should be the 2024 GOP nominee and said he's "never seen poll numbers like that."

The CPAC reaction, said Trump, "felt good. The crowd is incredible. The enthusiasm is, I think even beyond what we had before the election, and we had great election results more than any presidential candidate's ever gotten, as you know, with the votes, but this crowd is just incredible. They love the country and they just want to see it succeed."

He said he chose to give the speech, rather than leave it to GOP leaders like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell or Rep Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., "because we have to save our nation" from what's going on with the Biden administration.

"We have to stop some of the things that are going on that are so bad for our country," he told Halperin. "When you look at the border, when you look at what's happening with energy independence, when you look at so many different elements of what they're doing, they'll destroy our country."

He said he was asked to make the speech with CPAC, as he's been with the organization "for a long time."

"They've done a fantastic job here," he said. "I thought it would be a great place to express my views. Everybody wanted to hear it. The crowds outside are incredible. The whole place is just alive with energy. They love our country."

AND

(C) CPAC Boos When Trump Mentions Fox News' Chris Wallace

By Charlie McCarthy | Sunday, 28 February 2021 08:16 PM

Not everyone connected to a perceived conservative television network was popular at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

The CPAC crowd booed loudly Sunday when former President Donald Trump mentioned Fox News commentator Chris Wallace, who moderated last year's first presidential debate.

New York Post's Jon Levine tweeted:

"Trump name drops Fox News' Chris Wallace who is immediately booed by the audience and I heard at least one 'lock him up.'"

Political strategists said Wallace's inability to take control of the debate, lack of pressing Biden to respond to questions, and constant interjections when the then-president was speaking all helped Biden.

Trump dropped Wallace's name at CPAC while attacking the mainstream media.

"We didn't know all about [President Joe Biden] in the press because they're fake news, they're the biggest fakers there are," Trump said. "But the press refused to ask the questions. And when I asked the questions on the television, on the debate, Chris Wallace, in this case, and others, refused to let him answer."

The crowd booed Wallace.

"They refused to let [Biden] answer the questions," Trump continued, per Mediaite. "Maybe we could have found something or if the media did its job, which they don’t."

Trump delivered the keynote speech at the annual conservative conference, held in Orlando, Florida, this year. It was his first public appearance since leaving office.

and

(D) Trump slams 'establishment' Republicans McConnell, Cheney in CPAC speech

Trump's speech was his first public address since leaving the White House

ORLANDO, Fla. – Former President Donald Trump attacked a litany of "establishment" Republicans in his Sunday keynote address at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), even as some in the GOP continue to deny that there is a civil war within the party.

"Now more than ever is the time for tough, strong and energetic Republican leaders who have spines of steel," Trump said in his first public address since leaving office. "We cannot have leaders who show more passion for condemning their fellow Americans than they have ever shown for standing up to Democrats, the media and the radicals who want to turn America into a socialist country."

Trump's comments came as many in the GOP are denying that there is a civil war in the party between the pro-Trump faction and the side of the party that wants to move on from his presidency.

SEN. RICK SCOTT SAYS GOP WILL FLIP AT LEAST FOUR DEM SENATE SEATS IN 2022

"The civil war is canceled. The Republican civil war is canceled," Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said in an interview with Fox News at CPAC. Scott is the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC). "We're gonna focus on the issues. If you look all across the country what people are talking about is they're talking about where are we going. They're not talking about where we've been."

Added Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., in an interview with Fox News: "Those who are – seem fairly invested in this whole concept of a Republican civil war – which I think is a D.C. thing. You can come here to see there isn't a civil war. Our voters have no interest in going back."

Trump made similar comments during his Sunday speech – essentially saying that there is not a GOP civil war because the pro-Trump wing of the party has already won it.

TRUMP WINS CPAC STRAW POLL BY WIDE MARGIN

"The Republican party is united," Trump said. "The only division is between a handful of Washington, D.C., establishment political hacks and everybody else all over the country."

The crowd at CPAC is not necessarily representative of the Republican Party at large – it billed itself as a pro-Trump gathering ahead of time. But the rank-and-file supporters and activists on the ground were highly supportive of the former president, with a significant proportion wearing Trump gear of just about every form – from masks to shirts to yarmulkes.

There was also a massive gold statue of Trump on display.

Trump Sunday also turned his fire directly toward "establishment" Republicans, saying that they should be focusing on opposing Democrats, who now control the House, Senate and White House.

"Instead of attacking me and more importantly the voters of our movement, top establishment Republicans in Washington should be spending their energy in opposing Biden, Pelosi, Schumer and the Democrats," Trump said.

IS TRUMP THE GOP'S FUTURE? HERE'S WHAT CPAC ATTENDEES THINK GOP/GOOP

Trump accused the members of Congress who voted to impeach him or convict him of the impeachment charge of inciting an insurrection of being "grandstanders." The CPAC crowd booed as he named those members.

Trump spent the most time on Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., who he said is a "warmonger" who "loves seeing our troops fighting."

"The good news is in her state she's been censured and in her state her poll numbers have dropped faster than any human being I've ever seen," Trump said. "So hopefully they'll get rid of her with the next election."

The former president in a statement earlier this month said he would be involved in running primary campaigns against Republicans, as he lambasted Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. He doubled down on that Sunday.

"That's why I am announcing that I will be actively working to elect strong, smart and tough Republican leaders," Trump said. "We want Republican leaders who are loyal to the voters and who will vote proudly for the vision that I've laid out today."

TRUMP DECLARES HE WON'T START A NEWS PARTY AT CPAC. SAYS SPECULATION OTHERWISE WAS 'FAKE NEWS'

Donald Trump Jr. more explicitly addressed what the Trump efforts to get involved in GOP politics in 2022 will be in a Friday interview with Fox News at CPAC. He said there are "plenty" of Republican incumbent senators that he would be willing to support primary challenges against and that the former president will be involved in choosing which races to focus on.

"I don't think we have to blindly support, you know, establishment candidates that don't do anything,' Trump Jr. said. "I think that's a mistake and I think we've seen too much of that from the establishment, where they blindly throw cash, time, money and energy to help failing candidates who have no charisma, no personality, no political chops, get over the line simply because they've been there a few years."

That appeared to be an attack on Scott, who has repeatedly said that the NRSC will support all GOP incumbents.

DONALD TRUMP JR. SLAMS 'BLINDLY' SUPPORTING GOP INCUMBENTS, SAYS 'THERE'S PLENTY' OF GOP SENATORS TO PRIMARY

Trump also touted his success in endorsing House and Senate candidates, before attacking McConnell explicitly. McConnell since Jan. 6 has publicly condemned Trump and said he was responsible for the attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.

"Jan. 6 was a shameful day. A mob bloodied law enforcement and besieged the first branch of government. American citizens tried to use terrorism to stop a democratic proceeding they disliked," McConnell wrote in the Wall Street Journal. "There is no question former President Trump bears moral responsibility. His supporters stormed the Capitol because of the unhinged falsehoods he shouted into the world’s largest megaphone."

"My endorsement of Mitch McConnell, at his request ... brought him from one point down to 20 points up" in Kentucky, Trump said.

Trump also took credit for Republicans' success in House races, other Senate races and in state legislatures.

During his grievance-filled speech, Trump also railed against President Biden on immigration and school re-openings, hinted that he might run for president in 2024, and repeated several times false claims that he won the 2020 presidential election.

Trump also reprised the viral moment from a previous CPAC appearance when he hugged an American flag that was on the stage. On Sunday, Trump hugged an American flag when he walked out to deliver his address.

Fox Nation is a sponsor of CPAC.

ATTACHMENT TWELVE – from Breitbart

John Nolte: Three Big Takeaways from Donald Trump’s CPAC Speech

Former President Trump returned to the political fray at CPAC on Sunday with a stem-winder of a speech that signaled, at least to me, three big things worth pointing out.

1. It Is Still Trump’s Republican Party

Never, at least in my lifetime, has a former president or a losing candidate remained in control of the Republican Party. Trump is both. He served a single term as president. He lost his 2020 reelection bid. Nevertheless, this is still his party to command. There is no competition.

Why is this?

One very simple reason: the people are still with him, and the people are still with him because he never betrayed us, never went soft, never fell for any fake media narratives. Also, some three-quarters of Republican voters believe the Democrats cheated in 2020, and not without cause.

Trump also received more raw votes in 2020 than anyone in history other than His Fraudulency Joe Biden. Trump won millions more votes than even Barack Obama.

Trump is very popular. His ideas are popular. His willingness to stand up to the fascist media and increasingly dangerous Democrat party is popular.

He speaks truths no one else has the courage to speak, and Republicans see him as their champion — their only champion.

2. If He Remains Healthy, Trump Will Run Again in 2024

It sure sounded, at least to me, as though Trump intends to run again in 2024. He’ll turn 78 that year, and if his health holds, what would stop him? The temptation would be just too great to turn down.

Think about it…

To begin with, if Trump runs again in 2024, he is all but assured something unprecedented: the Republican nomination. Think about what it means to know you will win the GOP nomination… It means Trump knows that in 2024, he will have a 50/50 chance of winning back his presidency. Whoever wins the GOP automatically becomes one of only two people who will become president.

The lure of knowing you have a 50/50 chance of becoming president has to be something beyond enticing.

And what happens if Trump does win back the presidency? He makes fools of his enemies. He makes history. He vindicates his loss.

How tantalizing is that?

No one can know what’s in Trump’s mind, but on Sunday he sounded like a man who has no intention of going away, of surrendering after what he sees, and not without cause, as being cheated out of his reelection.

3. Social Media Blacklisting Is a Blessing in Disguise

Try to imagine an alternate universe where Trump was not blacklisted from every social media platform and where, for the last six weeks, he’d been popping off daily on Twitter and elsewhere, lashing out at Biden, the media, Liz Cheney, and what all… Would his Sunday speech have been as powerful and anticipated and, dare I say, as presidential as it was?

No.

In the end, social media, most especially his tweeting, diminished Trump, especially in the final year of his presidency, when things got serious with the race riots and coronavirus. He just never grew into the job. Never learned to use the aura and mystery of the presidency. Never could raise himself above it all.

This blacklisting created a forced absence, and this six-week absence enhanced the stature of his CPAC return.

Because no one knew what he was thinking, the speech was much more anticipated and important than it would have been otherwise.

Also of note is how disciplined the speech was. This was more of a State of the Union than a campaign speech. Trump had things he wanted to say, ideas to pass along, and instead of playing to the crowd, he pretty much stuck to the script.

This is a very good thing … if he sticks to it.

In many ways, Joe Biden is president because, at a very late age, in his 70s, he grew into a politician with more stature. The smarmy, wannabe-Rat Packer we’d known for decades gave way to a more disciplined, sober, and grandfatherly presence. Whatever you think of him, Biden is not the guy he was, even in 2012. That creep would never have become president.

Trump turns 75 this year. Maybe his advanced age combined with the 2020 loss and his inability to pop off on Twitter whenever the mood strikes, has forced a discipline on him he would not have otherwise embraced. And maybe now, he will see that — as outrageous as the blacklisting is — this discipline and gravitas, the mystery, aura, and weight that come from wondering what a president-in-waiting has to say about things, is a much better look.

I sure hope so.

ATTACHMENT THIRTEEN – FROM newsweek

They Took It Away': Fox & Friends Hosts on Trump's CPAC Claim He Won 2020 Election

BY DANIEL VILLARREAL ON 3/1/21 AT 8:30 PM EST

While discussing former President Donald Trump's repeatedly disproven claim that the 2020 presidential election was "stolen" from him, Fox & Friends' co-host Steve Doocy repeated the claim, stating, "He won last time—they just took it away from him."

The Quote

Speaking on the Monday installment of the Fox News talk program Fox & Friends, co-host Pete Hegseth noted that during Trump's Sunday speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Trump said, "We may just have to beat them for the third time."

Trump's CPAC line alluded to the former president's belief that he won the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, Hegseth noted.

"Because he won last time," Doocy interjected, "they just took it away from him."

"There you go, exactly," Hegseth replied. "Everyone in the crowd got it right away."

Trump lost the 2020 election by over 7 million popular votes and 74 electoral votes.

On a Fox News broadcast, Fox & Friends' co-hosts Steve Doocy and Pete Hegseth claimed that the 2020 presidential election was "stolen" from former President Donald Trump (pictured), a claim Trump has repeatedly made since November 2020. Trump repeated his claim while addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) held in the Hyatt Regency on February 28, 2021 in Orlando, Florida.

Why it Matters

A Fox News spokesperson told Newsweek that Doocy was paraphrasing Trump's claim rather than repeating it as fact. Earlier in the broadcast, Doocy referred to Trump's line of wanting to win "a third time" as a "joke."

"Apparently, he thinks that he won," Doocy said in an earlier segment of the March 1 broadcast. "He said it was all rigged, but the Electoral College and also Mike Pence have made it clear in the last couple of months, he did not win according to the rules."

Doocy and Hegseth's comment still raised eyebrows because it appeared to repeat a baseless claim that Trump began stating months before the 2020 election. Trump's claims of fraud inspired some of the rioters, according to court documents, who participated in the January 6 insurrection to invade the Capitol in hopes of overturning President Joe Biden's Electoral College victory.

Over 60 court cases alleging that fraud stole the election, filed by the Trump campaign and Republican officials, were dismissed or withdrawn from courts due to lack of evidence.

Two former Trump Administration heads have also said that there's no evidence that the election was stolen. Both former Attorney General William Barr, the head of the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, and Chris Krebs, the former head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the federal agency in charge of maintaining election security, said so.

The Counterpoint

Republican Ohio Representative Jim Jordan told Doocey on March 1 that the claims of a "stolen" election actually refer to "unconstitutional" changes made by state voting officials during the pandemic.

Before the 2020 election, various states expanded ballot drop-off locations, prolonged their early voting periods and made mail-in ballots more widely available. Jordan and other Republicans have claimed that these changes were illegal because they were instated without legislative approval, as required by the Constitution.

However, opponents say that the changes were legal because they were enacted by state election boards. These boards were created by state legislatures and empowered by state law to change voting rules without seeking further legislative approval, they say.

Nevertheless, in mid-February, the national Republican Party set up a Committee on Election Integrity to examine state election laws and suggest changes.

· Trump Jr. Says Father's Speech Was 'Incredible ... Because I Was Involved'

Worries of "fraud" have also compelled Republican legislators in 43 states to introduce at least 253 bills tightening voting requirements, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a liberal-leaning legal institute at New York University.

Georgia's new laws, for instance, would require photo identification for absentee ballots and limit the number and hours of ballot drop-off boxes. One Arizona legislator introduced a bill that would allow state lawmakers, rather than the popular vote, to determine an election's winner.

Numerous studies have shown that voter fraud in the U.S. is extremely rare. Democratic voting rights activists say Republican efforts to change voting rules are merely an "anti-democratic" scheme to prevent more people from voting.

Some Republicans say that increased voter turnout in recent elections proves that new voting laws don't discourage voting.

Trump's claim of a stolen election continues to be believed by 75 percent of Republican voters.

ATTACHMENT FOURTEEN – from The Hill

DESANTIS'S RISING GOP PROFILE FUELS 2024 TALK

BY JULIA MANCHESTER - 03/03/21 06:00 AM EST 348

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has seen his star rise over the past year as Republicans look to him as a potential successor to former President Trump.

DeSantis’s profile grew early on after he took his cue from Trump by not shutting down his state in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Though Florida has suffered heavy losses from the pandemic, the governor’s approach earned him broad support from conservatives.

Since then, DeSantis has only grown more popular among the Republican Party’s grassroots, with some already pushing for him to be the 2024 presidential nominee.

“What’s so appealing about Ron is very simple: He is the most influential and important person in the state that is the Republican Party center of the universe right now,” said Florida-based Republican strategist Ford O’Connell.

Recent statewide polling shows DeSantis’s popularity on the uptick. A survey from Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy released on Monday found the governor with a 53 percent approval rating, up from his 45 percent approval rating last July.

DeSantis’s growing support was on full view at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), which was held in his home state. The governor delivered the opening remarks from the stage in Orlando and later emerged as the top potential 2024 candidate behind Trump in a straw poll conducted among the event’s attendees.

The decision to hold the annual conservative gathering in the Sunshine State was directly tied to DeSantis’s handling of the pandemic. Unlike other states that imposed statewide shutdowns in response to the coronavirus, DeSantis has kept Florida relatively open, leaving many decisions on shutdowns and mandates to the counties.

“If you know anything about Florida, you know that we are always made fun of — ‘Florida man, Florida woman,’” said Charles Hart, the chairman of the Orange County Republican Party. “We’re not ‘Florida man,’ ‘Florida woman’ anymore; we’re the free state of Florida now.”

Despite Republican praise heaped upon DeSantis, the pandemic has hit the state hard. Over the past week, it has been among the states with the highest number of new daily cases per 100,000 people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Around 31,000 deaths have been recorded in the state since the start of the pandemic, according to Johns Hopkins University data, and Florida’s COVID-19 trends overall have been comparable to California, a state that took a different approach toward the virus but that has also seen a high number of positive cases and deaths.

Still, the governor has been quick to tout his administration’s handling of the pandemic by emphasizing the state’s tourism-driven economy.

“If you are working hard to earn a living, we got your back in the state of Florida,” DeSantis said during a state of the state address on Tuesday.

The governor during his speech also boasted of the vaccine rollout process, particularly among the state’s large elderly population.

“We are prioritizing our senior citizens for vaccinations,” DeSantis said. “Florida is putting seniors first because it is the best strategy to save lives and is the best way to honor our elders from whom we draw inspiration.”

But DeSantis has also faced blowback for his handling of the vaccine distribution. Critics have accused the governor of favoring more affluent communities linked to his donors when setting up vaccination sites.

Florida’s agriculture commissioner, Nikki Fried (D), called for a congressional investigation into the state’s vaccine distribution under DeSantis on Monday. That move came after a similar call from Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.), a former GOP governor-turned-Democrat. Fried and Crist are said to be mulling potential bids against DeSantis, who is eligible to run for reelection in 2022. However, DeSantis has not made an official announcement yet.

Critics have also hit DeSantis for coming out against President Biden’s $1.9 trillion federal stimulus package. The governor has argued it would punish states with lower unemployment rates, like Florida, by not allotting as much money.

“There’s going to be a big question that he’s going to have to answer on the campaign trail. ... When Floridians needed help the most, he wanted to politicize and pick fights with the White House,” said Florida-based Democratic strategist Christian Ulvert.

The governor’s supporters say much of the criticism against him during the pandemic originated at a time when Democratic governors, including New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, were being lauded. Now, some of those high-profile governors — including Cuomo and California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) — are under fire for their handling of the public health crisis.

Democrats in Florida acknowledge they face an uphill climb in challenging DeSantis in 2022. The Florida Democratic Party is struggling to regroup as it grapples with a mountain of debt following a disappointing general election in which Republicans made sweeping gains up and down the ballot.

But the party says it’s optimistic about the number of potential contenders thought to be considering a challenge against DeSantis.

“You’re going to have a pretty healthy pool of folks looking at it,” Ulvert said. “I’m a believer that if we as Democrats stay mission-focused, which is, the opponent is Ron DeSantis, a primary might not be a bad thing. It could galvanize and energize a base vote that needs to be energized.”

A reelection win in 2022 could certainly boost DeSantis going into a possible 2024 presidential bid. Also advantageous would be his hailing from a state that holds considerable sway in Republican Party politics, especially now that Trump has relocated there after leaving the White House.

The former president remains the key variable as Republicans consider who will be their next nominee for the White House. Trump teased a possible 2024 run during his CPAC speech on Sunday, though he has not said definitively whether he will mount another presidential bid.

“To be frank, if the president decided to run, I think there is no doubt he would end up being our party’s nominee,” said Christian Ziegler, the vice chairman of the Florida Republican Party.

Speculation has swirled around other potential candidates as well, including Florida Sens. Rick Scott (R) and Marco Rubio (R) and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R), who came in behind DeSantis in the CPAC straw poll.

But if Trump is taken out of the equation, DeSantis seems to be the clear front-runner, one who has energized the grassroots more than any other Republican.

“Those of us who are politicos in Florida can’t believe how long people have slept on Ron DeSantis at the national level,” said Shawn Frost, a Florida-based consultant. Slept on? Huh?

The GOP is now the party of Trump and no longer the home of conservative Republicans like former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who have demonstrated independence from Trump and who were CPAC no shows.

Trump’s continued dominance over the GOP is dangerous for the party. He is more of a threat to his fellow Republicans than he is to Biden or Democrats. As long as Trump reigns supreme and dominates the GOP, he chokes off fresh candidates and fresh approaches that might revive his party. U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) got it right when he said, “if we idolize one person, we will lose”.

Brad Bannon is a Democratic pollster and CEO of Bannon Communications Research. He is also the host of a radio podcast “Deadline D.C. With Brad Bannon” that airs on the Progressive Voices Network. Follow him on Twitter @BradBannon.

ATTACHMENT FIFTEEN – from

Morning Consult (Reproduced from DJI 2/19)

TRUMP EMERGES FROM IMPEACHMENT TRIAL WITH STURDY BACKING FROM GOP VOTERS

BY ELI YOKLEY

February 16, 2021 at 6:00 am ET

54% would support him in a hypothetical 2024 primary, a return to pre-riot numbers

· 59% of GOP voters said Trump should play a “major role” in the Republican Party going forward, up 18 points since a Jan. 6-7 survey.

· The share of Republicans who said Trump is at least somewhat responsible for the events of Jan. 6 is down 14 points, to 27%, from early January.

· Overall, 51% of voters disapproved of Trump’s acquittal by the Senate.

Former President Donald Trump has emerged from his second impeachment trial relatively unscathed with Republican voters in yet another sign of his continued strength with the party’s base.

According to a Morning Consult/Politico poll conducted at the conclusion of the Senate’s weeklong trial, a majority of Republican voters (54 percent) said they would support Trump in a hypothetical 2024 presidential primary election – matching the share who said the same in late November, before his standing dipped in a survey conducted shortly after the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.

Trump has not said whether he will take another shot at a second term, but suggestions that the trial and fallout from the insurrection would doom the former president’s comeback chances are not borne out by trend data among Republican voters.

Compared with another survey conducted immediately after the Jan. 6 events, the share of GOP voters who said Trump should play a “major role” in the Republican Party has increased 18 percentage points, to 59 percent, continuing an upward trend that started before the Senate trial began. By comparison, just 17 percent said he should play no role at all, at odds with the expectations of some Republican officials, such as Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), that the trial would spell the end for Trump.

The base’s increased appetite for the former president’s continued presence on the political stage came as Republican voters became less likely to blame Trump for the events that led to the riot.

Compared with the Jan. 6-7 survey, the share of Republicans who said Trump is very or somewhat responsible for the events fell 14 points, to 27 percent. Over the same time period, the share of GOP voters who blamed President Joe Biden for the riot increased 4 points (to 46 percent) while the share who blamed congressional Democrats increased 10 points (to 58 percent).

Republicans’ views on responsibility for the Capitol insurrection stand in sharp contrast to the broader electorate: 64 percent of voters overall said Trump is at least partly responsible — as the House impeachment managers argued, pointing to his inflammatory and false rhetoric alleging the 2020 presidential election was stolen. The number is virtually unchanged from the initial post-riot survey.

Similarly, most minds appear to be made up when voters were asked whether they approved of the House’s vote to impeach Trump, though the fact that a solid majority of voters backed the move illustrates why some Republican officials may be eager for the party to move past No. 45.

Fifty-eight percent of voters — including 52 percent of independents and nearly 1 in 5 Republicans — said they approve of Trump’s impeachment, roughly matching the share who said the same after the House’s Jan. 13 vote.

Additionally, 51 percent of voters, including 76 percent of Democrats and nearly half of independents, said they disapproved of the Senate’s acquittal of Trump. Seventy-nine percent of Republican voters approve of the Senate’s acquittal.

Republican senators who supported Trump’s conviction, such as retiring Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina and Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who was just re-elected in November, have faced fierce criticism from their state parties for their votes, echoing the Wyoming Republican Party’s move to censure Republican Rep. Liz Cheney after she voted for Trump’s impeachment.

Amid Republican lawmakers’ attempts at distancing themselves from Trump and the general bad news for the Republican Party in recent weeks, the share of its voters who said the GOP is heading in the right direction has fallen 5 points since immediately after the Capitol riot, to 46 percent.