Trump Goes on Bonkers Rant About His Shooting Investigation

Donald Trump is demanding the FBI and the Justice Department turn over their investigation into the September assassination attempt at a golf course in Florida to local authorities—namely, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

“The Kamala Harris/Joe Biden Department of Justice and FBI are mishandling and downplaying the second assassination attempt on my life since July,” Trump said in an official campaign statement Monday. “The charges brought against the maniac assassin are a slap on the wrist. It’s no wonder, since the DOJ and FBI have been coming after me nonstop with Weaponized Lawfare since I announced my first Historic Campaign for the Presidency.”

Trump has worked to loop both agencies into a conspiracy, baselessly claiming that they haven’t taken the recent attempts on his life seriously. Meanwhile, at a court hearing on Monday, Justice Department Mark Dispoto told a federal judge that he has plans to bring more aggressive charges against Ryan Wesley Routh, the man who allegedly attempted to take Trump’s life earlier this month, including attempted assassination charges that could land Routh in prison for life.

“The TRUTH would be followed, wherever it leads,” Trump continued. “OUR JUSTICE SYSTEM IS CORRUPT AND DISCREDITED, especially as it pertains to the 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump. LET FLORIDA HANDLE THE CASE!”

Last week, DeSantis signed an executive order announcing the appointment of a statewide prosecutor to investigate the alleged attempt on Trump’s life. In a statement decrying Routh’s actions as “domestic terrorism,” DeSantis’s office tasked myriad state agencies to expedite their investigation into the attempted attack.

“This deranged would-be assassin broke Florida law, and we will not wait on the federal government to act,” said Attorney General Ashley Moody. “Florida is launching its own investigation, and I have directed my statewide prosecutors to assist FDLE and FHP, as we work quickly to uncover the facts behind this latest attempt on President Trump’s life and provide trust and transparency to the American people.”

North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson rejected multiple offers to connect him with I.T. specialists who could investigate a string of racist and disturbing messages posted on a porn website reportedly under his alias.

The rejection—which allegedly followed another denial for legal assistance—sowed seeds of doubt among his staffers, WRAL reported Monday. The mass exodus from Robinson’s campaign over the weekend, which included the exit of his campaign manager and finance director, could be related to Robinson’s decision to try to cover things up.

On Thursday, a bombshell CNN report revealed that Robinson had written on a pornography website’s message board about his desire to own slaves, peeping in womens’ locker rooms, and enjoying transgender porn.

The comments were made long before Robinson entered electoral politics. CNN connected the account to Robinson via a “litany” of common biographical details and a shared email address. He also used his full name on his site account.

In a meet-and-greet with voters in Wilkes County on Monday, Robinson warned that he’s considered “everything up to legal counsel to take CNN to task for what they have done to us.”

“We are going after them,” he said. “We are not gonna let CNN throw us off of our mission. Our mission is to win this race.”

Some of the former staffers on Robinson’s campaign doubted the veracity of the Hitler-quoting politico’s threat, according to WRAL. But Robinson’s campaign doubled down, insisting that the beleaguered North Carolinian would definitely follow through on suing the news media behemoth.

“That is entirely false,” Mike Lonergan, a spokesperson for the Robinson campaign, told WRAL. “Lieutenant Governor Robinson is in the process of retaining aggressive legal counsel to investigate who did this and how; we will leave no stone unturned, and will use every legal means to hold CNN and whomever else is involved accountable.”

On Friday, Senator Thom Tillis had urged Robinson to follow through on the legal action, fearing that political fallout over the investigative report could hurt Donald Trump’s chances in the battleground state.

“If the reporting on Mark Robinson is a total media fabrication, he needs to take immediate legal action,” Tillis posted on X. “If the reporting is true, he owes it to President Trump and every Republican to take accountability for his actions and put the future of NC & our party before himself.”

Melania Trump got a big check to speak at a political event—but whoever paid it isn’t known to the public.

CNN reported Monday that the former first lady received $237,500 to speak at an April event for the Log Cabin Republicans, a conservative LGBTQ group, according to her husband Donald Trump’s latest financial disclosure form. But the president of the group, Charles Moran, told the network that the Log Cabin Republicans didn’t pay her.

Melania Trump has rarely appeared publicly during her husband’s 2024 presidential campaign, but has spoken at two political fundraisers held by the Log Cabin Republicans. The other fundraiser was held in July, and an unnamed source told CNN that a request was made to a political donor about another payment. It’s not clear if Trump was paid for that appearance, and the former president has not released a financial disclosure covering that time frame.

Former ambassador to Germany and Trump ally Ric Grenell reportedly made the request on behalf of the former first lady, and has helped her with other business ventures in the past. This kind of payment to a presidential candidate’s spouse to appear at political events is not normal and ethically questionable. If the money came from somewhere other than where the disclosure form states, the former president may be in legal trouble.

The former first lady was paid $250,000 by the Log Cabin Republicans for an event in December 2022, one of three such payments she received that month for speaking appearances. Donald Trump’s disclosure forms show that she made $330,000 in the past year for a licensing agreement for NFT trading cards, and her book, Melania, is due to be released next month.

It seems that Melania isn’t missing any opportunities to make money, similar to her husband. The former president has also sold NFT trading cards, as well as his own branded Bibles and assassination-themed sneakers, and engaged in a cryptocurrency scam. Maybe the first lady wants to make sure she’s financially covered regardless of whether her husband returns to the White House. The question is how ethically questionable the source of her latest benefactor must be for it to be kept a secret.

Donald Trump’s attempt to grab another electoral vote and complicate Kamala Harris’s efforts to win the presidential election may have just hit a wall.

A conservative effort to change how Nebraska awards its Electoral College votes was shot down Monday by Republican state Senator Mike McDonnell, who said he won’t support any changes to the state’s unique system. In a statement, McDonnell said, “After deep consideration, it is clear to me that right now, 43 days from Election Day, is not the moment to make this change.”

Nebraska is one of two states (the other is Maine) that award one Electoral College vote to the winner in each congressional district and two more votes to the winner of the state’s popular vote. Republicans sought to make Nebraska’s Electoral College votes a winner-take-all system, in an effort spearheaded by Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

Last week, Graham met with Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen and more than a dozen Republican state lawmakers, including McDonnell, to push a bill that would change the state’s vote allocation system in the Electoral College. Much of Nebraska leans Republican, with the exception of its 2nd congressional district, which includes the Democratic-leaning city of Omaha, represented by McDonnell.

It appears that McDonnell’s opposition will doom the effort, which would have taken away a critical Electoral College vote for Harris and the Democrats. Nebraska’s legislature has 33 Republicans, 15 Democrats, and one progressive, registered nonpartisan. So far, 17 legislators have pledged to vote “no” on changes to the electoral law, including McDonnell, according to the Nebraska Democratic Party. In Nebraska, 33 votes are required to overcome a filibuster.

If Nebraska would’ve changed its electoral vote allocation, it would have pushed Maine to try and do the same to make up for the loss, since it delivered one vote to Donald Trump and three to Joe Biden in 2020. But Maine’s laws prevent any such changes so close to Election Day. It seems that yet another of Trump’s election schemes has been foiled.

Kamala Harris’s campaign doesn’t intend to let Donald Trump simply walk away from his second debate with the vice president. They plan to humiliate him over it. 

The Democratic National Committee has planned a series of static and mobile billboards to follow Trump around the country that attack him for his cowardly behavior, NBC News reported Monday. The billboards depict the former president in a chicken suit beside the words, “There’s no debate: Donald Trump’s a chicken.”

The first billboard is set to appear outside of Trump’s rally in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Monday. A pro-Harris study group at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where Trump is scheduled to speak, will send inflatable chickens, according to NBC News.  

The DNC’s foray into psychological warfare comes after Harris accepted CNN’s invitation to  appear in another presidential debate on October 23. Trump claimed on Saturday that it was “too late” for another presidential debate because early voting had already begun in some states. 

At a Democratic fundraiser in Manhattan on Sunday, where Harris raised $27 million according to her campaign, the Democratic nominee taunted Trump for avoiding another face-off. 

“My opponent seems to be looking for an excuse to avoid when he should accept,” said Harris. “I feel very strongly that we owe it to the American people and to the voters to meet once more before Election Day and continue the conversation.”

According to polling from the The Washington Post, Harris saw a slight improvement compared to Trump following the debate on September 10. 

In an 2023 interview with The New Republic, George Conway suggested that this kind of localized ad campaign would be the perfect way to make Trump go crazy. “The more he gets attacked the more he will talk about things he shouldn’t be talking about,” Conway said. “I think you could even get him thrown into jail, by running the right ad.”