Steve Bannon wants GOP to rally behind Donald Trump
Steve Bannon has a dire warning for Republicans — rally around President Donald Trump. During a Sunday interview with The Associated Press, the former chief strategist to Trump said he believes the GOP would lose 35 to 40 seats in the House if the election were held today, thereby ceding their majority to Democrats he’s convinced will pursue impeachment. He argued there’s still time to turn that around and is launching a group, Citizens of the American Republic, to pitch the election as a vote to protect Trump from that outcome. “You can’t look at this as a midterm and you can’t run it out of the traditional Republican playbook. If you do that, you’re going to get smoked,” said Bannon, arguing that Republicans must redouble efforts against motivated Democrats. The effort is a test of Bannon’s sway in the GOP a year after he was fired from his White House post. His relationship with Trump soured after a tell-all book published in January included searing quotes of Bannon portraying Trump as undisciplined and criticizing son Donald Trump Jr. His stock fell further after he stuck by Alabama Republican Roy Moore’s Senate campaign even after decades-old sexual misconduct allegations emerged. A reliably Republican Senate seat turned Democratic. As he attempts a comeback, Bannon acknowledged the challenges he faces, including an invigorated Democratic base. Less than three months from Election Day, Democrats need a net gain of 24 seats to retake the House, and the party is increasingly bullish about its chances after strong turnout in a series of special elections. Bannon said Republicans can gain ground if they focus on turning out Trump supporters. “This is not about persuasion. It’s too late to persuade anybody. We’re 90 days away from this election. This is all about turnout and what I call base-plus,” he said. While Bannon makes his move, many Republicans view holding the House as an uphill battle. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Bannon said his new venture will focus on rapid response and polling with the goal of framing the election as an “up or down vote” on Trump and impeachment. He is also releasing a movie about the president, “Trump@War,” geared at Trump supporters. Bannon said he was being backed by private donors, but he did not detail who was funding the effort or how much he had raised. He said his efforts were independent of the Republican National Committee, the White House or a Trump-supporting super PAC. In keeping with his midterm mission, Bannon defended the president on both policy and style, arguing that the president had an economic record to run on and has been making the right pitch on the campaign trail. On trade, Bannon backed the president’s aggressive tariffs, which have drawn criticism in agricultural states crucial to Trump’s victory. He argued they were a key part of Trump’s nationalistic economic strategy. “People in Iowa, once it’s explained to them, will fully support the president in this,” he said. “We don’t have a choice. We either win the economic war with China or we’re going to be a secondary, a tertiary power.” He said Trump’s culture wars, which have included public attacks on women and minorities, don’t present a problem, calling it his “house style” and saying people should “separate out the signal from the noise.” He argued that Trump would benefit from shutting down the government over funding for his border wall, saying it would “galvanize the populist right,” though he acknowledged it was a minority view. Bannon also pushed back against the idea that a loss of the House could be a positive development for Trump as it would give him a new foil heading into the 2020 presidential election. He called such notions “dangerously naive.” Looking ahead to 2020, Bannon said attorney Michael Avenatti, who is weighing a bid as a Democratic candidate, could be a contender. The combative attorney has been taking on Trump on behalf of a porn actress who claims a sexual encounter with the president, which Trump denies. “He’s a fighter and people are looking for fighters,” Bannon said of Avenatti, though he believes Trump would defeat any opponent. “He’s going to be a force in the primary for the simple reason that he comes across as what many of the Democrats don’t, which is a fighter.” Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Donald Trump chides Rudy Giuliani to ‘get his facts straight’ on Stormy Daniels
President Donald Trump is suggesting Rudy Giuliani, the aggressive new face of his legal team, needed to “get his facts straight” about the hush money paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election. Giuliani quickly came up with a new version. Trump on Friday chided Giuliani even while insisting “we’re not changing any stories” about the $130,000 settlement paid to Daniels to keep quiet about her allegations of a sexual encounter with Trump — a tryst Trump has denied. Hours later, Giuliani backed away from his previous assertion that the Oct. 27 settlement had been made because Trump was in the stretch run of his campaign. “The payment was made to resolve a personal and false allegation in order to protect the president’s family,” Giuliani said in a statement. “It would have been done in any event, whether he was a candidate or not.” A day earlier, Giuliani had told Fox News: “Imagine if that came out on October 15, 2016, in the middle of the last debate with Hillary Clinton.” Trump said Giuliani was “a great guy but he just started a day ago” on the defense team, and the former New York mayor was still “learning the subject matter.” Giuliani disclosed this week that Trump knew about the payment to Daniels made by Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, and the president repaid Cohen. Giuliani insisted Trump didn’t know the specifics of Cohen’s arrangement with Daniels until recently, and he told “Fox & Friends” on Thursday that the president was unaware of all the details until “maybe 10 days ago.” Giuliani told The New York Times that Trump had repaid Cohen $35,000 a month “out of his personal family account” after the campaign was over. He said Cohen received $460,000 or $470,000 in all for expenses related to Trump. While Giuliani suggested Trump knew something about the payments, even as a monthly retainer, Trump had told reporters on Air Force One last month that he hadn’t known about a settlement with Daniels. Trump’s irritation was plain Friday when reporters reminded him of his previous denial. He blasted the media for focusing on “crap” stories such as the Daniels matter and the special counsel’s investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election. The president claimed that “virtually everything” reported about the payments has been wrong. He declined to elaborate. It was the Trump team’s own missteps that yielded another day of headlines about Daniels. In his statement, Giuliani said his previous “references to timing were not describing my understanding of the president’s knowledge, but instead, my understanding of these matters.” He didn’t elaborate on that either. Giuliani’s statement correcting himself came just a day after he said, “You won’t see daylight between me and the president.” The about-face came amid concern in the White House that Giuliani’s comments could leave the president legally vulnerable. Giuliani repeated his belief that the payment did not constitute a campaign finance violation. But legal experts have said the new information raises questions, including whether the money represented repayment of an undisclosed loan or could be seen as reimbursement for a campaign expenditure. Either could be legally problematic. The episode also revived worries in Trump’s inner circle about Giuliani, who enjoys the media limelight and has a tendency to go off script. He had been widely expected to join Trump’s administration but was passed over for secretary of state, the position he badly wanted. His whirlwind press tour this week bewildered West Wing aides, who were cut out of the decision-making process when Giuliani first revealed that Trump, who often boasts about signing his own checks, had some knowledge about the payment to Daniels. No debt to Cohen was listed on Trump’s personal financial disclosure form, which was certified on June 16, 2017. Asked if Trump had filed a fraudulent form, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday: “I don’t know.” Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, is seeking to be released from a nondisclosure deal she signed in the days before the 2016 election to keep her from talking about a 2006 sexual encounter she said she had with Trump. She has also filed defamation suits against Cohen and Trump. Her attorney, Michael Avenatti, tweeted Friday that “Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Trump are making it up as they go along.” He added: “How stupid do they think all of us are?” Trump is facing mounting legal threats from the Cohen-Daniels situation and the special counsel’s investigation of possible Russian coordination with the Trump presidential campaign. Cohen is facing a criminal investigation in New York, and FBI agents raided his home and office several weeks ago seeking records about the Daniels nondisclosure agreement. Trump has been playing down his relationship with Cohen but did acknowledge last week that Cohen represented him in the “crazy Stormy Daniels deal.” Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Donald Trump acknowledges he repaid lawyer for ‘Stormy Daniels’ hush money
President Donald Trump acknowledged Thursday he repaid his personal lawyer for hush money given to porn actress Stormy Daniels after claiming previously he didn’t know about the payments. But the money, paid just before the 2016 election to stifle her claims of an affair, “had nothing to do with the campaign,” the president tweeted. Trump said his attorney Michael Cohen received a monthly retainer, which he used to pay the actress to sign an agreement not to talk about her allegations and thus “stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair.” Trump’s tweets outlining the arrangement came after Rudy Giuliani, one of his attorneys, said Wednesday that Trump reimbursed Cohen for $130,000 paid to Daniels. During an appearance on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” Giuliani said the money to repay Cohen had been “funneled … through the law firm and the president repaid it.” Asked if Trump knew about the arrangement, Giuliani said: “He didn’t know about the specifics of it, as far as I know. But he did know about the general arrangement, that Michael would take care of things like this, like I take care of things like this for my clients. I don’t burden them with every single thing that comes along. These are busy people.” Speaking on “Fox and Friends” Thursday, Giuliani said Trump didn’t know all the details until “maybe 10 days ago.” While stressing that Trump denies the relationship, he said Cohen may have seen $130,000 as “cheap.” “They said it wasn’t true,” Giuliani said. “However, imagine if that came out on October 15, 2016, in the middle of the last debate with Hillary Clinton. Cohen didn’t even ask. Cohen made it go away. He did his job.” The comments appeared to contradict statements made by Trump several weeks ago, when he said he didn’t know about the payment to Daniels. Giuliani later suggested to The Wall Street Journal that while Trump had repaid the $130,000, Cohen had settled the payment to Daniels without Trump’s knowledge at the time. Giuliani’s revelation was hardly a shock in the West Wing, where many aides assumed the president at least had knowledge of Cohen’s work on his behalf. In briefings and media appearances, however, White House aides have sought to avoid staking out a clear position on the matter, directing reporters to Trump’s own comments. Still, the way Giuliani announced it — on live television and imprecisely — surprised Trump staffers and raised fresh worries about the president’s uneven legal team. Law firms advance expenses for clients as a matter of course, so there’s nothing inherently improper about a lawyer covering a particular payment and then being reimbursed for it. In this case, though, the client who apparently reimbursed the expense was running for president and the money was paid just days before the election. That raises questions about whether Cohen’s law practice was functioning as a vendor for the campaign and the expense was therefore an unreported campaign expenditure. If so, that could be legally problematic. Asked aboard Air Force One last month whether he knew about the payment, Trump said flatly: “No.” Trump also said he didn’t know why Cohen had made the payment or where he got the money. In a phone interview with “Fox and Friends” last week, however, Trump appeared to muddy the waters, saying that Cohen represented him in the “crazy Stormy Daniels deal.” The White House referred questions to the president’s personal legal team. Giuliani, a former New York City mayor and ex-U.S. attorney who joined Trump’s legal team last month, said the president had repaid Cohen over several months, indicating the payments continued through at least the presidential transition, if not into his presidency. He also said the payment “is going to turn out to be perfectly legal” because “that money was not campaign money.” No debt to Cohen is listed on Trump’s personal financial disclosure form, which was certified on June 16, 2017. Giuliani also described the payment to Daniels as “a very regular thing for lawyers to do.” Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, called the comment “a stunning revelation.” “Mr. Trump evidently has participated in a felony and there must be serious consequences for his conduct and his lies and deception to the American people,” he said. Giuliani made the statements to Fox host Sean Hannity, who has his own connection to the case. It was recently revealed in court that Hannity is one of Cohen’s clients. Hannity has described his personal dealings with Cohen as centered on real estate advice and said that it “never rose to any level that I needed to tell anyone that I was asking him questions.” Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, says she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, months after his third wife gave birth to his youngest child, and was paid to keep quiet as part of a nondisclosure agreement she is now seeking to invalidate. She has also filed a defamation suit against Trump after he questioned a composite sketch she released of a man she says threatened her to stay quiet. The White House has said Trump denies having a relationship with Daniels. Cohen had said previously: “Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly.” He notably did not include the president personally. Asked about Cohen’s denial, Giuliani said he didn’t know whether Cohen had made the payment without asking Trump but that he had “no reason to dispute that.” Cohen himself is under increasing legal pressure. He is facing a criminal investigation in New York, and FBI agents raided his home and office several weeks ago seeking records about the nondisclosure agreement. Daniels’ lawsuit over the hush deal has been delayed, with the judge citing the criminal investigation. Giuliani’s revelation seemed aimed at reducing the president’s legal exposure. But outside experts said it raised a number of questions, including whether
