Alina Habba’s Desperate Move to Downplay New Russia Scandal Falls Flat

Trump campaign advisers aren’t distancing themselves from Tenet Media, the conservative media operation accused of taking millions of dollars from Russia to spread foreign propaganda. Instead, they’ve decided to defend it.

Trump campaign senior adviser Alina Habba attempted Sunday to brush off the Justice Department indictment, linking the scandal back to the “Russia, Russia, Russia hoax” in 2016.

“It’s so obvious,” Habba told Fox News Sunday morning. “The story is now that there’s a criminal investigation about a $10 million investigation into two individuals who had no idea they were being backed by a company that eventually, allegedly, had ties to Russia.”

“So in 2016 what happened? There was the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. The media peddled a story that we now know was funded by members of the DNC, their lawyers, Hillary Clinton was involved in all of this—we know that because she had to pay a fine for doing so,” Habba continued, referring to the DNC and the Clinton campaign’s failure to report the costs of the Trump-Russia dossier research to the Federal Election Commission in 2016.

Habba then went on to elevate the Durham report, an objective bust that failed to find any evidence that the FBI engaged in misconduct while investigating Trump’s ties to Russia, while damning the Mueller report—which left the possibility of Trump-Russia obstruction on the table—as a waste of “so much taxpayer dollars.”

“A $10 million payment to some podcasters who had no idea from some ties allegedly to Russia is now going to make a spin on Russia backing Trump,” Habba added.

The DOJ indictment accused Tenet and its founders of receiving nearly $10 million from employees of Russia Today as part of “a scheme to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement.

Other entities, even ones on the right, are not so quick to remain aligned with the allegedly compromised media personalities. The fallout from the alleged propaganda scheme lost Tenet’s co-founder Lauren Chen her broadcasting gig with another far-right media group, Blaze Media. Blaze wiped episodes of her podcast from Spotify and deleted her contributor page from its website shortly after the indictment was announced, with Blaze Media CEO Tyler Cardon telling Semafor that the conservative anchor had been “terminated.”

YouTube also wiped Tenet Media’s content from its platform “after careful review” following the indictment, telling NBC News that its decision to erase the channel and its affiliates was part of “ongoing efforts to combat coordinated influence operations.”

The Russian funds paid for videos by popular far-right personalities, including podcaster Tim Pool and Lauren Southern. Pool described himself as a “victim” in the Tenet scandal.

“I have been contacted by the FBI as a potential victim of a crime,” Pool posted on X on Thursday. “The FBI believes I have information relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation and have requested a voluntary interview. I will be offering my assistance in this matter.”

In a new interview, Donald Trump claims Mark Zuckerberg promised him there’s no way he’ll vote for a Democrat this November.

In a New York magazine interview published on Monday, Trump said that after the assassination attempt against him, Zuckerberg gave him a call to say that he wouldn’t vote against him.

“‘I’ve never supported a Republican before, but there’s no way I can vote for a Democrat in this election,’” Trump recalled the Meta CEO saying. “He’s a guy that, his parents, everybody was always Democrat. He said, ‘I will never vote for the people running against you after watching what you did.’”

Zuckerberg did tell Bloomberg in July, “Seeing Donald Trump get up after getting shot in the face and pump his fist in the air with the American flag is one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in my life.” But Trump’s new story follows a long-standing feud between the two men. Just last month, Trump re-upped his threat to send Zuckerberg to prison for life if he “does anything illegal” or “cheats” in the 2024 election.

And Trump’s latest claim about Zuckerberg hasn’t been confirmed by anyone but Trump himself. In response to the news, a spokesperson at Meta said, “As Mark has said publicly, he’s not endorsing anybody in this race and has not communicated to anybody how he intends to vote.”

In the same New York magazine interview, Trump also claimed he got kind words from another tech magnate that fateful week: He claims Jeff Bezos gave him a ring as well.

“You know, I got so many nice calls from people I really don’t know. Jeff Bezos called. He said, ‘It is the most incredible thing I’ve ever watched.’ And he appreciated what I did, in the sense of getting up and letting people know,” Trump said. “I said, ‘Despite the fact that you own The Washington Post, I appreciate it.’” Amazon did not respond to New York magazine’s request for comment.

Obviously, Trump could be making all of this up—or it could be the case that more and more tech CEOs really are turning rightward.

Shortly after Kamala Harris released her policy agenda on Sunday evening, users on X spotted something in the metadata: Much of the language appears to have been lifted from Joe Biden’s campaign website.

On Sunday night, X user Corinne Green pointed out that the issues section of Harris’s website contained metadata with language urging voters to reelect Joe Biden. This language was visible when links to the campaign site were shared, and in the website’s description on Google searches.

Sometime late on Sunday night or early Monday morning, the website’s metadata appears to have been changed, with the language asking for Biden to be reelected having been removed.

All of this creates the impression that at least some of the Harris campaign’s policy language was copied and pasted from Biden’s documents. That would be an embarrassing miscue from the Harris campaign, which partly came into being because of a perception that a refresh was needed to garner enthusiasm in the Democratic Party. It doesn’t help that the section on her website about her Israel-Palestine policy seems very similar to what Biden’s campaign was saying. 

Harris’s policy platform should be giving the public a view of the detailed plans her administration hopes to implement if she and Tim Walz win in November. The last thing her campaign needs is an embarrassing misstep, and while this one is relatively small, she’ll need to reassure voters on the fence that her campaign isn’t a retread of Biden’s with a new face.

Kamala Harris released a damning message Monday about Donald Trump, straight from the mouths of former members of his administration.

An advertisement released by the Harris campaign one day before the presidential debate highlights how all “the best people” Trump hired to work in his White House no longer support the Republican nominee. In fact, they have gone out of their way to sound the alarm.

The video includes footage of former Vice President Mike Pence, speaking after Trump’s original January 6 indictment, alleging that Trump pressured Pence not to certify the 2020 election results. The House January 6 investigative committee concluded that the former president had “riled up a mob that hunted his own vice president.”

“Anyone who puts themself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States,” Pence said at the time.

Last month, special counsel Jack Smith filed a new indictment against Trump, following a Supreme Court ruling that claimed that the former president’s conversations with Pence were “official conduct” and could not be used as evidence against him.

The video, which will run on Fox News ahead of the debate Tuesday, also contained the harsh words of former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, former national security adviser John Bolton, and retired General Mark Milley, who called Trump a “wannabe dictator.”

Not only do their words carry a dire warning, but their criticisms have a history of getting under Trump’s skin. When Milley went after Trump in a 2023 profile in The Atlantic, the former president suggested that the then head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff deserved to be put to death.

The ad narration concluded, “Take it from the people who knew him best: Donald Trump is a danger to our troops and our democracy. We can’t let him lead our country again.”

The second presidential debate will air on Tuesday at 9 p.m. on ABC.

Besides stumbling through his speeches onstage, it appears that Donald Trump is also struggling to keep up with basic facts this election season. And even his team has given up.

In a wide-ranging interview with New York magazine’s Olivia Nuzzi, published on Monday, Trump seemed to be unaware of major news events, as well as basic details about Kamala Harris. During one part of the conversation, Trump predictably went on a tangent about Harris’s Marxist background.

“And she’s Marxist, and that’s, that’s strange in this country because this country will never be a Marxist country. She’s actually—you know, her father is a big promoter of Marxism,” said Trump. Nuzzi pushed back and attempted to fact-check Trump: Harris was raised by her mother and does not have an active relationship with her father. Trump seemed genuinely surprised by the correction.

“I don’t know …” Trump said. “Maybe that’s true, yeah. I just don’t know anything about it. I just know that he’s a Marxist professor,” he responded.

When Nuzzi asked a Trump adviser how it could be the case that Trump appears to have not done his research, the longtime adviser gave a troubling anecdote about Joe Biden’s postdebate interview with George Stephanopoulos. “I called [Trump] and said, ‘I know a little about what happened in the interview. Do you want me to read it to you?’ He said, ‘What interview?’ He didn’t even know about it. I’m like, ‘Mr. President, there’s absolutely no possibility that you don’t know?’” Trump then reportedly asked the adviser what network the interview was airing on so he could TiVo it.

This interaction paints a picture of Trump as a student who refuses to do homework—even if  it means he’ll fail.

But some fault must be placed on Trump’s new ragtag team, as well. Neither Susan Wiles nor Chris LaCivita, Trump’s co-campaign chairs, was on the 2016 or 2020 team. And though it seems like Trump may appear to be course-correcting by bringing back Corey Lewandowski, his adviser from 2016, the former president told Nuzzi he wasn’t trying to fix a failing campaign.

“I just like him. Corey’s a character,” Trump said. “But I’m very happy with everybody.”

Donald Trump is still setting the stage to claim a stolen election in November.

Over the weekend, the Republican presidential nominee called for the imprisonment of his enemies, demanding that those involved with what he considers election interference should be prosecuted and jailed.

“CEASE & DESIST: I, together with many Attorneys and Legal Scholars, am watching the Sanctity of the 2024 Presidential Election very closely because I know, better than most, the rampant Cheating and Skullduggery that has taken place by the Democrats in the 2020 Presidential Election,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Saturday. “It was a Disgrace to our Nation! Therefore, the 2024 Election, where Votes have just started being cast, will be under the closest professional scrutiny and, WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again.”

That’s a convenient reversal of where Trump was just last week, when he admitted that he lost the 2020 presidential election “by a whisker.”

“We cannot let our Country further devolve into a Third World Nation, AND WE WON’T!” Trump continued, warning his followers to not support people in positions of authority overseeing the upcoming election. “Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.”

Trump’s tirade did not, however, refer to himself, despite the fact that he’s criminally charged with election subversion in Washington, D.C., and Georgia. Legal experts believe that Trump’s own admission of losing the 2020 election could damn his chances of surviving his January 6 trial, a case that was considered practically dead after the Supreme Court granted the former president wide-ranging immunity in July.

Donald Trump’s campaign team is worried that he’s going to mess up in his debate against Vice President Kamala Harris Tuesday.

The staffers reportedly don’t know if a “happy Trump” or “angry Trump” will show up  at the National Constitution Hall in Philadelphia, where ABC News will be hosting the debate, according to unnamed sources who spoke to The Guardian.

If Trump is frustrated, he may resort to personal insults, taking aim at Harris’s race and gender and hurting voters’ perceptions, which some of his fellow Republicans have criticized as counterproductive. Trump could also go into one of his angry rants, which gets his MAGA base excited but could alienate independent and swing voters.

After President Biden’s poor showing in June’s debate with Trump, Biden faced criticism and pressure that led to him dropping out of the race. Harris’s entry to the top of the Democratic debate has reversed Trump’s momentum, making his campaign desperate for a winning attack line or other means to regain their polling edge.

So Trump’s team hopes that a strong, winning performance can improve his standing. Ever since Harris entered the race, the Trump-Vance campaign has floundered, with damaging revelations about Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance. His comments about people without children and his inability to interact normally with the public have not helped the campaign’s prospects.

Meanwhile, Harris’s selection of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz seems like a masterstroke in comparison, thanks to Walz’s strong record as a teacher and military veteran. The Democratic vice presidential candidate has also produced some powerful sound bites and hit Republicans hard with one of the strongest and simplest Democratic attack lines in years: calling them weird.

Like in June’s debate, each candidate’s microphones will be muted when it’s not their turn to speak, which is a relief to Trump staffers who think his interruptions will make him look bad. Unlike with Biden, Harris will have rhetorical skills that she honed in her days as a prosecutor, which could easily rattle a convicted felon showing signs of cognitive decline.

Nikki Haley is now working in communications—and she’s going to tweet whatever she wants.

On Friday, the failed Republican presidential candidate went deep in the archives to mock conservative pundit Lauren Chen, who was implicated this week in a Justice Department indictment on a massive Russian disinformation scheme.

A company Chen co-founded, Tenet Media, was found to have been funded by Russia as part of “a scheme to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging.” And just a few days after the indictment, Tenet Media shuttered its doors.

“Karma’s a bitch,” Haley posted on X (formerly Twitter), quoting a Chen post from 2023 where the pundit said Haley “should move to Ukraine and run for its presidency then,” referencing Haley stating her support for Ukraine at a CNN town hall.

In addition to Tenet Media folding as a result of the indictment and the consequent negative publicity, Chen also lost her job at another conservative media outlet, Blaze Media. Meanwhile, Haley, who withdrew from the presidential race in March and subsequently endorsed Donald Trump, just took a job at a public affairs firm.

Tenet Media, which worked with right-wing influencers like Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, Lauren Southern, and Benny Johnson, is now a black mark on the résumé of Chen and her husband, Liam Donovan, the company’s other founder. Being singled out as a useful tool for a Russian disinformation campaign is not going to land her a cushy new job, unlike Nikki Haley.

Despite the funny tweet, it’s worth remembering that Haley is still backing Trump, who isn’t exactly a staunch supporter of Ukraine himself. But, seeing as she isn’t working in politics anymore, she can collect her P.R. paycheck and not have to worry about being called out herself.

Florida is reportedly sending police officers to the homes of people who signed a petition supporting an abortion rights ballot initiative.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s administration has begun investigating thousands of verified signatures that helped to put a state constitutional amendment protecting the right to abortion on the ballot in November. The amendment would overturn Florida’s current six-week abortion ban.

Petition organizers collected about 100,000 more signatures than they needed, surpassing the 900,000 that are required by the state and ensuring that their policy would be on the ballot. Now the Department of State’s spokesperson Ryan Ash claims that his agency has “uncovered evidence of illegal conduct with fraudulent petitions.”

Supervisors in Hillsborough, Orange, Palm Beach, Osceola, Alachua, and Broward counties have been requested to gather around 36,000 signatures for state review, according to the Tampa Bay Times. One supervisor with 16 years of experience told the Times that the state’s request was entirely unprecedented. Not only had the state requested signatures that had already been verified, but they did so for a validated petition, not a rejected petition, which are typically the basis of fraud investigations.

Multiple residents in Lee County have reported being visited by law enforcement following up on their petition signatures.

Fort Myers resident Isaac Menasche shared in a Facebook post Wednesday that a “detective investigating petition fraud” had come to his home.

“I had indeed signed a petition seeking to have the right to an abortion placed on the ballot in Florida. I remembered doing so and the circumstances surrounding it,” wrote Menasche, noting that he doesn’t usually sign petitions.

“The experience left me shaken. What troubled me was he had a folder on me containing my personal information—about 10 pages. I saw a copy of my drivers license and copy of the petition I signed. It was obvious to me that a significant effort was exerted to determine if indeed I had signed the petition.”

Menasche wrote that it was “troubling” that such resources were being allocated to the investigation and wondered if the same would have been done for a less divisive issue than abortion.

Florida state Representative Anna Eskamani responded to the reported police encounter in a post on Facebook Friday.

“This is unhinged and undemocratic behavior being pushed by Governor Ron DeSantis in an effort to continue our state’s near total abortion ban,” Eskamani wrote. “It’s clear voter intimidation and plain corruption—continue to call it out and fight back.”

At his press conference Friday in New York, Donald Trump not only complained heavily about the defamation judgment that he’s appealing, but also about his own lawyers.

Trump said, “I have all of this legal talent, but legal talent cannot overcome rigged judges, they can’t overcome a 4 percent Republican area, and I’m disappointed in my legal talent, I’ll be honest with you. They’re good, they’re good people. They’re talented people.”

After that, however, Trump went off on a tangent about some kind of dress involved in his defamation trial, wondering why his lawyers didn’t mention it, as it somehow exonerated him.

Later in the press conference, Trump criticized one of his lawyers for telling him not to attend the defamation trial in 2023, and seemed unsure if it took place while he was still president.

The attacks on his own lawyers were a small part of Trump’s incoherent ramblings during his Friday press conference, from his bizarre choice to mention other sexual assault allegations against him to attacking E. Jean Carroll and basically inviting another lawsuit. It could all be more examples of his increasing cognitive decline, or his famously thin skin.

Either way, maybe the former president should avoid attacking his lawyers, considering they may be the only people standing between him and actual legal consequences for his actions. Then again, the Supreme Court did give him a huge favor with its immunity ruling earlier this summer, which was a big reason why his hush money sentencing was delayed for a second time. Still, keeping his mouth shut and focusing on his campaign would be the smart thing to do for Trump, but that’s never been his strong suit, and his campaign knows it.