Politics Election category, Page 254
Sens. Toomey, Murkowski urge Trump to resign; impeachment gains support
WASHINGTON — Two Republican senators now say Donald Trump should resign and a third says the president should be “very careful” in his remaining days in office as the House prepares to impeach Trump in the wake of deadly riots at the Capitol. Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey on Sunday joined...
Pennsylvania Republicans weigh the party’s future post-Trump
Republicans and party leaders are wondering what direction the GOP in Pennsylvania will take in the era of the post-Trump presidency and in the wake of the attack on the U.S. Capitol by an angry mob of President Trump’s supporters. Will the party return to its more moderate roots as...
Squelched by Twitter, Trump seeks new online megaphone
BOSTON — One Twitter wag joked about lights flickering on and off at the White House being Donald Trump signaling to his followers in Morse code after Twitter and Facebook squelched the president for inciting rebellion. Though deprived of his big online megaphones, Trump does have alternative options of much...
Lawmakers complete work on bills to limit Kentucky governor’s power
FRANKFORT, Ky. — In a stinging rebuke of the Democratic governor’s response to COVID-19, Republican lawmakers on Saturday gave final passage to bills limiting his emergency powers to impose restrictions meant to contain the coronavirus. After months of fuming from the sidelines as Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear restricted some business...
Dems’ momentum builds to impeach Trump; Pelosi hits rioters
WASHINGTON — Momentum built among Democrats on Saturday for a fresh and fast push to impeach President Donald Trump, even as the House speaker accused his backers who violently invaded the Capitol of choosing “their whiteness over democracy.” Nancy Pelosi’s remark came as Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., one of the...
U.S. motions expand drug claims against Honduras president
NEW YORK — U.S. federal prosecutors have filed motions saying that Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández took bribes from drug traffickers and had the country’s armed forces protect a cocaine laboratory and shipments to the United States. The documents quote Hernández as saying he wanted to “‘shove the drugs right...
Georgia’s GOP governor under fire after U.S. Senate losses
ATLANTA — Even though he wasn’t on the ballot, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has been painfully bruised by the 2020 elections. In a state long dominated by Republicans, Democrats won Georgia’s electoral votes for president in November and two U.S. Senate seats in runoff elections Tuesday, defeating Kemp’s hand-picked Senate...
Haley: Trump was ‘badly wrong’ in stoking crowd before riot
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, often mentioned as a possible 2024 GOP presidential contender, is among the latest from her party to denounce President Donald Trump’s comments stoking supporters to mount a violent assault on the Capitol. “He was badly wrong with his words,” Haley said Thursday...
A farewell to @realDonaldTrump, gone after 57,000 tweets
WASHINGTON — realDonaldTrump, the Twitter feed that grew from the random musings of a reality TV star into the cudgel of an American president, died Friday. It was not quite 12 years old. The provocative handle was given birth by a New York real estate tycoon who used it to...
Twitter bans Trump, citing risk of incitement
Twitter banned President Donald Trump’s account Friday, citing “the risk of further incitement of violence” following the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. Twitter has long given Trump and other world leaders broad exemptions from its rules against personal attacks, hate speech and other behaviors. But in a...
Illinois GOP congresswoman apologizes for quoting Hitler
CHICAGO — A freshman Republican congresswoman from downstate Illinois apologized Friday for knowingly quoting Adolf Hitler during a rally outside of the U.S. Capitol this week. Rep. Mary Miller, who was among the Republicans who tried to challenge the certification of certain Electoral College votes that went to incoming President...
Pelosi seeks to curb Trump’s nuclear power, plans to impeach
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday she has spoken to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff about preventing an “unhinged” President Donald Trump from ordering military actions including a possible nuclear strike in his final days and hours at the White House. Pelosi said in a...
President Trump won’t attend Joe Biden’s inaugurationVideo
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Friday he won’t attend President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, undercutting his message a day earlier that he would work to ensure a “smooth, orderly and seamless transition of power” to his successor. Trump offered no clues for how he would spent his...
John Fetterman taking steps toward running for U.S. Senate in 2022
John Fetterman, Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, is taking a definitive step toward running for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat in 2022. Fetterman said Friday that he is exploring a run for U.S. Senate. Previously, Fetterman had said that he was looking at running for either governor or U.S. Senate in...
‘What else could I do?’ NJ Rep. Kim helps clean up Capitol
Water bottles, clothing, Trump flags, even a U.S. flag littered the ground inside the U.S. Capitol after a mob backing President Donald Trump ransacked the building. New Jersey Rep. Andy Kim walked amid the mess shortly after voting to certify Joe Biden’s victory over Trump — and felt the weight...
Education head Betsy DeVos quits, cites Trump rhetoric
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has become the second Cabinet secretary to resign a day after a pro-Trump insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. In a resignation letter Thursday, DeVos blamed President Donald Trump for inflaming tensions in the violent assault on the seat of the nation’s democracy. She says, “There is...
Several state lawmakers joined, observed U.S. Capitol turmoil
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A West Virginia lawmaker who filmed himself and supporters of President Donald Trump storming into the U.S. Capitol is facing bipartisan calls for his resignation as federal prosecutors step up their pursuit of violent perpetrators. State Del. Derrick Evans was among lawmakers from at least seven states...
Publisher drops book by Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley
NEW YORK — A planned book by Sen. Josh Hawley, who objected to President-elect Joe Biden’s win and backed baseless claims that the election was stolen, has been canceled by its publisher in the wake a Capitol siege in Washington by a mob of pro-Trump supporters, a decision the Missouri...
GOP’s Loeffler concedes to Warnock in Georgia runoff
ATLANTA — Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler on Thursday conceded to Democrat Raphael Warnock in one of two Georgia Senate runoffs that will give control of the U.S. Senate to Democrats. Loeffler, who was appointed to the position a year ago to replace outgoing Sen. Johnny Isakson, posted a video to...
Founder of site Trumparoo among dead at Capitol
One of the people who died of a medical emergency during the storming of the Capitol was the founder of a pro-Trump social media site called Trumparoo and had coordinated transportation for several dozen people from Pennsylvania to Washington. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that 50-year-old Benjamin Phillips drove there in...
Rick Saccone resigns from Saint Vincent faculty in wake of Capitol tripVideo
Former state Rep. Rick Saccone has resigned from his teaching position at Saint Vincent College. Saccone, 62, of Elizabeth said he tendered his resignation as an adjunct instructor Thursday because of flak triggered by his social media posts a day earlier about participating in the pro-Trump demonstration in Washington, D.C.,...
Explainer: Transfer of power under 25th Amendment
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s role in inciting violence at the Capitol and his refusal to acknowledge his election defeat is prompting some lawmakers to urge his removal from office through the 25th Amendment. The amendment allows for the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet to declare a...
Insurrection marks moment of reckoning for Republicans
The insurrection at the U.S. Capitol was both stunning and predictable, the result of a Republican Party that has repeatedly enabled President Donald Trump’s destructive behavior. When Trump was a presidential candidate in 2016, Republican officials ignored his call to supporters to “knock the crap out” of protesters. Less than...
Facebook bans Trump through Biden inauguration, maybe longerVideo
Facebook will bar President Donald Trump from posting on its system at least until the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden. In a post Thursday morning, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said the risk of allowing Trump to use the platform is too great, following his incitement of a mob that later...
Ex-Chief of Staff Mulvaney quits administration in protest of Trump’s incitement of Capitol riot
Mick Mulvaney, a former acting White House chief of staff, resigned Thursday from a diplomatic post in protest of President Trump’s incitement of the rioters who stormed the Capitol. Mulvaney, a staunch Trump loyalist, quit his post as special envoy for Northern Ireland over the president’s shameful handling of the...
