Trump’s Messages to Followers Take a Disturbing Turn

While team Trump’s fundraising emails have always been out there—even earning a dedicated Twitter account just to track the ridiculous rhetoric—their language has taken a notably dark turn recently. On Wednesday, that turn only intensified further when Trump’s campaign sent an email blast with the subject “Haul out the Guillotine!”

At first blush, it sounds like an encouragement of retribution in line with Trump’s recent comments seeking revenge and promising to unleash violence on his political enemies. But the email instead blames the other side for political violence, claiming “the sad and horrific truth is that this is still the sick dream of every Trump-Deranged lunatic out there,” adding, “and it’s not just me they want gone, they’re really coming after you!”

The emails, written by Trump’s campaign but styled to sound like they’re coming directly from Trump, intend to provoke supporters into donating. A fundraising email sent last week falsely claimed Biden directed the FBI to assassinate Trump, saying, “He tried to publicly torture and humiliate me … but he failed. He tried to raid my home and take me out with deadly force … but he failed.”

TrumpEmails, which has for years tracked and compiled all of Trump’s fundraising emails, noted in a Daily Beast article a few years ago, “At first, I found the breathless hyperbole amusing in a darkly comedic kind of way. After a while, though, I realized the target audience took things more seriously, and I started thinking about the impact of this messaging being mainlined into the inboxes of millions of voters.”

The flip-flop of baiting people to open the email with a call to violence before flipping to tell supporters they’re future victims of an extremist mob, just to shake a few shekels, is particularly noteworthy given that Trump has been trying to once again mobilize his insurrectionist base to violence on his command.

Justice Samuel Alito is less than thrilled about all the news coverage on his seemingly compromised ethics.

In a secret tape released late Tuesday by Rolling Stone, the conservative justice can be heard arguing that a series of ProPublica pieces from 2023, which detailed lavish gifts Justice Clarence Thomas accepted from a Republican megadonor, was nothing more than a political hit piece.

Alito’s comments were recorded by advocacy journalist Lauren Windsor during the Supreme Court Historical Society’s annual dinner on June 3, an opportunity leveraged by many right-wing activists to cozy up to members of the nation’s highest judiciary.

“They don’t like our decisions, and they don’t like how they anticipate we may decide some cases that are coming up. That’s the beginning of the end of it,” Alito said, before going a bit conspiratorial regarding one of the nation’s most prestigious investigative news outlets: “There are groups that are very well-funded by ideological groups that have spearheaded these attacks. That’s what it is.”

“They look for any little thing they can find and they try to make something out of it,” Alito added. “That’s what it is.”

Last week, Thomas effectively admitted to pocketing favors from billionaire real estate developer and Nazi memorabilia collector Harlan Crow by retroactively amending his previous financial disclosures. The gifts included private school tuition for his nephew; the renovation of the home where his mother still lives; and undisclosed trips on the billionaire’s yacht and private jet, and at his private resort.

Another ProPublica piece revealed that Alito himself had also accepted undisclosed lavish gifts from Republican billionaires.

It wasn’t the only revelatory conversation that Windsor recorded with Alito that evening. In another tape released Monday, Alito forewent any illusion of neutrality, speaking with incredible candor about his belief that conservatives cannot negotiate with the left and need to focus on “winning,” while agreeing with a statement from Windsor that the country needs to return to a “place of godliness.”

Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez easily dismantled Republicans’ arguments that Donald Trump’s guilty verdict was rigged, while Hunter Biden’s was just.

“What would Republicans point to as a ‘two-tiered’ system of justice when the president’s son was just convicted of a crime?” Ocasio-Cortez asked rhetorically during a short interview with CNN’s Manu Raju Tuesday evening.

“I mean, if anything, this shows the difference that Democrats are willing to accept when our justice system works as functions and as designed. We’re not here contesting the results. We’re not here trying to defund the FBI or the Department of Justice because we don’t like the outcome of a given trial. We respect the judicial process,” said Ocasio-Cortez.

Some Republicans, such as House Speaker Mike Johnson, have been quick to assert that Hunter Biden’s conviction is somehow a completely unrelated “separate instance” of justice amid the so-called weaponization of the Justice Department that Trump’s allies have been alleging for weeks.

Many MAGA Republicans have quickly taken up a new lie: that even President Joe Biden’s son’s conviction is proof of a vast conspiracy against Trump.

After Hunter Biden was found guilty of federal gun charges Tuesday, the Trump campaign released a statement that ended with well wishes for President Biden’s son—and then quickly took it back.

The initial statement sent to CNN, attacked the “Biden crime family” but seemed conciliatory to Hunter.

“This trial has been nothing more than a distraction from the real crimes of the Biden Crime Family, which has raked in tens of millions of dollars from China, Russia and Ukraine. Crooked Joe Biden’s reign over the Biden Family Criminal Empire is all coming to an end on November 5th, and never again will a Biden sell government access for personal profit. As for Hunter, we wish him well in his recovery and legal affairs,” the Trump campaign said.

An hour later, the Trump campaign sent a statement to wider reporters and journalists striking the last line from the statement. Why did they do this? They haven’t commented, but Donald Trump himself is not known for being conciliatory. His holiday messages on social media always mention the “haters and losers,” even, famously, a 2013 tweet commemorating the September 11, 2001, attacks.

The rest of the campaign’s statement is not so surprising. The convicted felon and Republican presidential nominee is simply echoing some of the conspiracy theories spouted by his supporters in Congress and right-wing media, for instance that the trial is just a distraction from supposed bigger Biden crimes that have already been debunked.

A new report from the Win Without War Education Fund, a progressive foreign policy advocacy group, details how the U.S. government’s failure to intervene in Gaza has allowed an Egyptian company to exploit American citizens and Palestinians desperate to secure passage away from the Israeli military’s ceaseless bombardment. 

For nearly eight months, there was only one way out of Gaza: the Rafah crossing, a thin strip of land on Gaza’s southern border. The crossing has since been seized by the Israeli government, preventing the transfer of essential aid and humanitarian workers, as well as blocking the only means of escape. Before Israel seized the crossing, the only way to use it would be to get your name on a list that is maintained by the Egyptian government.

To expedite the process, many families turned to one company, Hala Consulting and Tourism Services, which promised to help get people’s names on Egypt’s list—for a steep price. Hala is part of the Orjani Group, which is owned by Ibrahim Al Arjani, a close ally of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, and one of the most powerful men in Egypt. 

By the end of April, Hala had raked in at least $88 million by charging people to cross, according to an investigation from The Times. By the time Israel seized the border crossing days later, the price for a “coordination fee” had ballooned from $4,000 to $10,000 per name.  

The burden of this cost was far too steep for most Gazans, who have been forced to leave their homes, families, and friends amid the ruins of their cities. Instead, the price was thrust onto their family members and allies in the United States, who turned to private charities as a last resort for fundraising. 

Once Hala received money to add a family member to the list, it would still take up to a month for that person to move to the top of the list. In that time, a lot could change, as the dangers in Gaza are ever present.  

Family members of those trapped in Gaza were forced to pay Hala’s exorbitant fees because the U.S. government has refused to pressure Israel to stop its relentless assault. Washington has even failed to expedite the evacuation of U.S. citizens. 

Texas attorney Maria Kari, who works with hundreds of Americans who are trapped, or have family members trapped, in Gaza, said that the State Department has been slow and at worst unresponsive to her efforts to secure humanitarian parole for her clients and their families.

One woman interviewed for the WWWEF report, identified only by her first name, Shifa, turned to GoFundMe to raise money to get the names of her 50 family members in Rafah on the list after exhausting all other options.

“We’ve exhausted absolutely every avenue to save their lives,” Shifa, a Palestinian American lawyer, told WWWEF. “We submitted correspondence to the State Department. We’ve submitted all the applications to expedite this process. We’ve reached out to immigration attorneys. We have done it all; no response.”

Because of the high costs, waiting period, and lack of government support, Shifa was forced to make difficult decisions about which family members to prioritize. “Time is of the essence. We’ve exhausted every avenue possible,” she said. “They’re waiting to either leave or die.”