COMMERCE, Georgia: In Donald Trump’s push to fundamentally reshape the Republican Party, few places are a higher priority than Georgia.
The former president has issued highly-coveted endorsements in races ranging from governor to state insurance commissioner. His backing of football legend Herschel Walker essentially cleared a path to the party’s nomination for a critical US Senate seat.
Trump has taken a particularly active role in shaping the governor’s race, recruiting former Sen. David Perdue to challenge incumbent Brian Kemp as retribution for his not going along with lies about the 2020 election being stolen. And in an effort to clear a path for Perdue, Trump pressed another Republican in the race — Vernon Jones — to run for Congress instead.
Trump returns to Georgia on Saturday night for a rally with Walker, Perdue, Jones and other Republicans he’s backed ahead of the state’s May 24 primary. The campaign is emerging as an early, critical test of whether the former president can live up to his professed role as a kingmaker in the GOP.
“I think it could be the start of, I don’t want to use the word downfall, but it could be the start of his influence waning,” said Eric Tanenblatt, former chief of staff to ex-Georgia Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue and a former fundraiser for David Perdue who is backing Kemp in the primary.
There are warning signs for Trump. While Walker is marching to the primary with minimal opposition, other races are more complicated. Jones, for instance, is now competing in a crowded congressional primary in which no one may clear the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff.
Perdue, meanwhile, may pose an even higher-profile challenge for the former president. He has struggled to raise money and, in a Fox News poll released this month, trailed Kemp 50 percent to 39 percent. If that dynamic holds, Kemp would be within striking distance of winning the primary outright, averting a runoff.
In remarks before Trump’s arrival at the rally in Commerce in northeast Georgia, Perdue unveiled a series of sharper attacks on Kemp as he parroted Trump’s election lies, declaring that “our elections in 2020 were absolutely stolen.” He accused Kemp of having “sold out” Georgia voters through a series of actions including refusing to call a special state legislative session before Jan. 6 to investigate or overturn the election.
Kemp was required by state law to certify the results and has repeatedly said any other course would have invited endless litigation. No credible evidence has emerged to support Trump’s claims of mass voter fraud. Federal and state election officials and Trump’s own attorney general have said the election was fair, and the former president’s allegations were also roundly rejected by courts, including by judges Trump appointed.
“By the way, where’s Brian Kemp? Where’s Brian?” Perdue asked. “He’s not here. You know why? Because he kicked sand in the face of the president the last two years and said ‘no’ every time the president asked for anything.”
Perdue promised, if elected, to “make sure that those people responsible for that fraud in 2020 go to jail” as he escalated his rhetoric to mimic Trump’s.
Trump has been obsessed with this once Republican stronghold since the aftermath of the 2020 campaign, when he became the first GOP presidential candidate to lose the state in 28 years. It could again be central to his political future if he decides to run for the White House in 2024.
That’s why his activity in the state is especially notable as Trump is essentially rallying voters behind candidates who could go on to play critical roles in certifying future elections in which he’s a participant. He’s already shown an extraordinary willingness to press officials to overturn results he doesn’t like. During his waning days in office, Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn Joe Biden’s victory, a conversation that is now the subject of a grand jury probe in Atlanta.
The results in Georgia were certified after a trio of recounts, including one partially done by hand. They all affirmed Biden’s victory.
Given the former president’s particular focus on Georgia, a stumble here could weaken his efforts elsewhere to champion candidates who have pledged loyalty to his vision of the GOP, which is dominated by election lies and culture clashes over issues related to race and gender. Some of those candidates are already struggling.
Trump rescinded his endorsement of struggling Alabama Republican Senate primary candidate Mo Brooks on Wednesday. He will travel to North Carolina next month to try to boost his pick in North Carolina’s contentious Senate primary, Republican US Rep. Ted Budd, who has lagged in polling and fundraising behind former Gov. Pat McCrory. Trump’s choice in Pennsylvania’s Senate GOP primary dropped out, and Trump has so far not sided with a candidate in key but bruising party Senate primaries in Ohio and Missouri.
A Trump spokesman didn’t respond to questions, but the former president, allies say, has been frustrated by Perdue’s failure to gain traction. While Trump has put great stock in his endorsement record, he has so far refused to open his checkbook — despite his PAC opening the year with $120 million.
Meanwhile, some top national Trump antagonists, including Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, have not backed away from seeking reelection despite Trump promising for more than a year that he’d make sure they were defeated.
Kemp, who is holding his own Saturday meeting with the Columbia County Republican Party in suburban Augusta, reported having $12.7 million in his main campaign account as of Jan. 31. That far outpaced Perdue, who had less than $1 million in cash on hand through January.
The incumbent governor has vowed to provide an initial investment of at least $4.2 million on TV ads ahead of Georgia’s primary. Other Trump detractors are stepping up spending, including GOP 2.0, a super PAC founded by Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who isn’t seeking reelection but has been staunchly criticized by the former president for his defense of Georgia’s 2020 election results.
Duncan, a Republican, said Trump’s endorsement isn’t the “golden ticket” it once was, and his group is launching its first 30-second television spot timed to coincide with the former president’s rally. In it, Duncan decries politicians “who would rather talk about conspiracy theories and past losses, letting liberal extremists take us in the wrong direction.”
“You almost feel bad for David Perdue. That (he’s) walking off the plank that Donald Trump has put out there for him here in Georgia,” Duncan said in an interview. “We’re going to see a rally show up that’s once again going to confuse Georgians and who knows what Donald Trump’s gonna say,” Duncan said.
“He’s out to settle a score,” Duncan added, referring to Trump, “and that’s no way to keep conservative leadership in power.”
Despite such concerns, Trump isn’t backing down. Just this week, he threw his support behind the virtually unknown John Gordon to challenge Attorney General Chris Carr. He’s also endorsed Patrick Witt to go up against Insurance Commissioner John King. The Republican incumbents are the statewide officials most closely aligned with Kemp, the leading target of Trump’s ire.
Randy Evans, Trump’s former ambassador to Luxembourg, said the former president making so many endorsements up and down the Georgia ballot will allow Trump’s preferred candidates to reinforce each other.
Evans said Saturday’s event could lift that group: “The earned media from Trump just changes every dynamic.”
But Tanenblatt countered that Trump trying to influence so many races — including obscure down-ballot ones — just to antagonize Kemp over a 2020 election that is long since settled “almost trivializes the president’s endorsement.”
“I don’t think because he’s the former president, and someone who Republicans would prefer over President Biden, that if he endorses someone, it automatically means that they’re the heir apparent to win,” he said.
Trump returns to Georgia confronting test of his grip on GOP
https://arab.news/ggs7q
Trump returns to Georgia confronting test of his grip on GOP
- The campaign is emerging as an early, critical test of whether the former president can live up to his professed role as a kingmaker in the GOP
It’s 30 years since apartheid ended. South Africa’s celebrations are set against growing discontent
- South Africa is still the most unequal country in the world in terms of wealth distribution, according to the World Bank, with race a key factor
- While the damage of apartheid remains difficult to undo, the ANC is increasingly being blamed for South Africa’s current problems
PRETORIA: South Africa marked 30 years since the end of apartheid and the birth of its democracy with a ceremony in the capital Saturday that included a 21-gun salute and the waving of the nation’s multicolored flag.
But any sense of celebration on the momentous anniversary was set against a growing discontent with the current government.
President Cyril Ramaphosa presided over the gathering in a huge white tent in the gardens of the government buildings in Pretoria as head of state.
He also spoke as the leader of the African National Congress party, which was widely credited with liberating South Africa’s Black majority from the racist system of oppression that made the country a pariah for nearly a half-century.
The ANC has been in power ever since the first democratic, all-race election of April 27, 1994, the vote that officially ended apartheid.
But this Freedom Day holiday marking that day fell amid a poignant backdrop: Analysts and polls predict that the waning popularity of the party once led by Nelson Mandela is likely to see it lose its parliamentary majority for the first time as a new generation of South Africans make their voices heard in what might be the most important election since 1994 next month.
“Few days in the life of our nation can compare to that day, when freedom was born,” Ramaphosa said in a speech centered on the nostalgia of 1994, when Black people were allowed to vote for the first time, the once-banned ANC swept to power, and Mandela became the country’s first Black president. “South Africa changed forever. It signaled a new chapter in the history of our nation, a moment that resonated across Africa and across the world.”
“On that day, the dignity of all the people of South Africa was restored,” Ramaphosa said.
The president, who stood in front of a banner emblazoned with the word “Freedom,” also recognized the major problems South Africa still has three decades later with vast poverty and inequality, issues that will be central yet again when millions vote on May 29. Ramaphosa conceded there had been “setbacks.”
The 1994 election changed South Africa from a country where Black and other nonwhite people were denied most basic freedoms, not just the right to vote. Laws controlled where they lived, where they were allowed to go on any given day, and what jobs they could have. After apartheid fell, a constitution was adopted guaranteeing the rights of all South Africans no matter their race, religion, gender or sexuality.
But that hasn’t significantly improved the lives of millions, with South Africa’s Black majority that make up more than 80 percent of the population of 62 million still overwhelmingly affected by severe poverty.
The official unemployment rate is 32 percent, the highest in the world, and more than 60 percent for young people between the ages of 15 and 24. More than 16 million South Africans — 25 percent of the country — rely on monthly welfare grants for survival.
South Africa is still the most unequal country in the world in terms of wealth distribution, according to the World Bank, with race a key factor.
While the damage of apartheid remains difficult to undo, the ANC is increasingly being blamed for South Africa’s current problems.
In the week leading up to the anniversary, countless South Africans were asked what 30 years of freedom from apartheid meant to them. The dominant response was that while 1994 was a landmark moment, it’s now overshadowed by the joblessness, violent crime, corruption and near-collapse of basic services like electricity and water that plagues South Africa in 2024.
It’s also poignant that many South Africans who never experienced apartheid and are referred to as “Born Frees” are now old enough to vote.
Outside the tent where Ramaphosa spoke in front of mostly dignitaries and politicians, a group of young Black South Africans born after 1994 and who support a new political party called Rise Mzansi wore T-shirts with the words “2024 is our 1994” on them. Their message was that they were looking beyond the ANC and for another change for their future in next month’s election.
“They don’t know what happened before 1994. They don’t know,” said Seth Mazibuko, an older supporter of Rise Mzansi and a well-known anti-apartheid activist in the 1970s.
“Let us agree that we messed up,” Mazibuko said of the last 30 years, which have left the youngsters standing behind him directly impacted by the second-worst youth unemployment rate in the world behind Djibouti.
He added: “There’s a new chance in elections next month.”
US intel suggests Putin may not have ordered Navalny death in prison: WSJ
- The Russian prison service said that Navalny collapsed on February 16 after a walk at the isolated camp
WASHINGTON: US intelligence agencies believe that while the Russian president was ultimately responsible for the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, he didn’t order it to take place when it did, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.
The finding, which the Journal said was based on both classified intelligence and an analysis of public facts, raises new questions about Navalny’s death in a remote Arctic prison camp, which led to a new round of sanctions against President Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Among those facts was the timing of the opposition leader’s death in mid-February, which overshadowed Putin’s reelection a month later.
While the new finding does not question Putin’s responsibility for Navalny’s death, the CIA and other US intelligence agencies believe he probably didn’t order it “at that moment,” the Journal said, quoting people familiar with the matter.
It said that some European officials, briefed on the US finding, were skeptical that the 47-year-old dissident could have been targeted without Putin’s prior knowledge, given the tight controls in today’s Russia.
President Joe Biden and several other world leaders have publicly expressed little doubt about the matter. “Make no mistake. Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death,” Biden said after the stunning news of the death emerged.
The Russian prison service said that Navalny collapsed on February 16 after a walk at the isolated camp. It said attempts to revive him failed.
Navalny had seemed relatively healthy and in good spirits when seen in a video just a day earlier.
A week before that, he reportedly had been the subject of high-level talks over a potential prisoner swap that could have freed him.
Navalny had been serving a 19-year prison sentence on charges he and his backers insist were fabricated.
He had earlier survived a poisoning that US and other investigators blamed on the Kremlin. Russian officials have denied culpability in the poisoning or in his death.
A number of prominent Kremlin opponents have died, been jailed and or forced into exile in recent years.
Reached by AFP, the National Security Council declined to comment on the report.
Some US officials say in internal memo Israel may be violating international law in Gaza
- The submissions to the memo provide the most extensive picture to date of the divisions inside the State Department over whether Israel might be violating international humanitarian law in Gaza
WASHINGTON: Some senior US officials have advised Secretary of State Antony Blinken that they do not find “credible or reliable” Israel’s assurances that it is using US-supplied weapons in accordance with international humanitarian law, according to an internal State Department memo reviewed by Reuters.
Other officials upheld support for Israel’s representation.
Under a National Security Memorandum (NSM) issued by President Joe Biden in February, Blinken must report to Congress by May 8 whether he finds credible Israel’s assurances that its use of US weapons does not violate US or international law.
By March 24, at least seven State Department bureaus had sent in their contributions to an initial “options memo” to Blinken. Parts of the memo, which has not been previously reported, were classified.
The submissions to the memo provide the most extensive picture to date of the divisions inside the State Department over whether Israel might be violating international humanitarian law in Gaza.
“Some components in the department favored accepting Israel’s assurances, some favored rejecting them and some took no position,” a US official said.
A joint submission from four bureaus — Democracy Human Rights & Labor; Population, Refugees and Migration; Global Criminal Justice and International Organization Affairs – raised “serious concern over non-compliance” with international humanitarian law during Israel’s prosecution of the Gaza war.
The assessment from the four bureaus said Israel’s assurances were “neither credible nor reliable.” It cited eight examples of Israeli military actions that the officials said raise “serious questions” about potential violations of international humanitarian law.
These included repeatedly striking protected sites and civilian infrastructure; “unconscionably high levels of civilian harm to military advantage“; taking little action to investigate violations or to hold to account those responsible for significant civilian harm and “killing humanitarian workers and journalists at an unprecedented rate.”
The assessment from the four bureaus also cited 11 instances of Israeli military actions the officials said “arbitrarily restrict humanitarian aid,” including rejecting entire trucks of aid due to a single “dual-use” item, “artificial” limitations on inspections as well as repeated attacks on humanitarian sites that should not be hit.
Another submission to the memo reviewed by Reuters, from the bureau of Political and Military Affairs, which deals with US military assistance and arms transfers, warned Blinken that suspending US weapons would limit Israel’s ability to meet potential threats outside its airspace and require Washington to re-evaluate “all ongoing and future sales to other countries in the region.”
Any suspension of US arms sales would invite “provocations” by Iran and aligned militias, the bureau said in its submission, illustrating the push-and-pull inside the department as it prepares to report to Congress.
The submission did not directly address Israel’s assurances.
Inputs to the memo from the Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism and US ambassador to Israel Jack Lew said they assessed Israel’s assurances as credible and reliable, a second US official told Reuters.
The State Department’s legal bureau, known as the Office of the Legal Adviser, “did not take a substantive position” on the credibility of Israel’s assurances, a source familiar with the matter said.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the agency doesn’t comment on leaked documents.
“On complex issues, the Secretary often hears a diverse range of views from within the Department, and he takes all of those views into consideration,” Miller said.
MAY 8 REPORT TO CONGRESS
When asked about the memo, an Israeli official said: “Israel is fully committed to its commitments and their implementation, among them the assurances given to the US government.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Biden administration officials repeatedly have said they have not found Israel in violation of international law.
Blinken has seen all of the bureau assessments about Israel’s pledges, the second US official said.
Matthew Miller on March 25 said the department received the pledges. However, the State Department is not expected to render its complete assessment of credibility until the May 8 report to Congress.
Further deliberations between the department’s bureaus are underway ahead of the report’s deadline, the US official said.
USAID also provided input to the memo. “The killing of nearly 32,000 people, of which the GOI (Government of Israel) itself assesses roughly two-thirds are civilian, may well amount to a violation of the international humanitarian law requirement,” USAID officials wrote in the submission.
USAID does not comment on leaked documents, a USAID spokesperson said.
The warnings about Israel’s possible breaches of international humanitarian law made by some senior State Department officials come as Israel is vowing to launch a military offensive into Rafah, the southern-most pocket of the Gaza Strip that is home to over a million people displaced by the war, despite repeated warnings from Washington not to do so.
Israel’s military conduct has come under increasing scrutiny as its forces have killed 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the enclave’s health authorities, most of them women and children.
Israel’s assault was launched in response to the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, in which Israel says 1,200 people were killed and 250 others taken hostage.
The National Security Memorandum was issued in early February after Democratic lawmakers began questioning whether Israel was abiding by international law.
The memorandum imposed no new legal requirements but asked the State Department to demand written assurances from countries receiving US-funded weapons that they are not violating international humanitarian law or blocking US humanitarian assistance.
It also required the administration to submit an annual report to Congress to assess whether countries are adhering to international law and not impeding the flow of humanitarian aid.
If Israel’s assurances are called into question, Biden would have the option to “remediate” the situation through actions ranging from seeking fresh assurances to suspending further US weapons transfers, according to the memorandum.
Biden can suspend or put conditions on US weapons transfers at any time.
He has so far resisted calls from rights groups, left-leaning Democrats and Arab American groups to do so.
But earlier this month he threatened for the first time to put conditions on the transfer of US weapons to Israel, if it does not take concrete steps to improve the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.
President Joe Biden says he’s ‘happy to debate’ Donald Trump. Trump says he’s ready to go
- Biden had previously been vague, saying in March that whether he debated Trump “depends on his behavior”
- During the 2020 general election, Biden was notably irritated by Trump’s antics in the chaotic first debate
NEW YORK: President Joe Biden said Friday that he is willing to debate his presumptive Republican opponent, Donald Trump, later this fall – his most definitive comment yet on the issue.
Trump said he was ready, though he questioned Bidens’s willingness.
Biden’s comment came during an interview with the Sirius XM radio host Howard Stern, who asked him whether he would participate in debates against Trump.
“I am, somewhere. I don’t know when,” Biden said. “But I’m happy to debate him.”
Until now, Biden’s reelection campaign had declined to commit to participating in the debates, a hallmark of every general election presidential campaign since 1976.
Biden himself had also been vague, saying in March that whether he debated Trump “depends on his behavior.” The two men debated twice during the 2020 general election — a campaign year constrained significantly by COVID-19 restrictions — and Biden was notably irritated by Trump’s antics in the chaotic first debate that year.
“Will you shut up?” Biden told Trump at one point during the first debate.
Trump campaign officials have said for some time that the former president is prepared to debate Biden anytime, and Chris LaCivita, Trump campaign senior adviser, quickly responded to Biden’s remarks on the social media site X: “OK let’s set it up!”
Later Friday, Trump reacted to Biden’s new public willingness to debate by saying “everyone knows he doesn’t really mean it” but suggested either next Monday evening, Tuesday evening or Wednesday evening, when Trump will be campaigning in Michigan. The former president is suggesting evenings because he is otherwise attending proceedings for his hush money criminal trial in New York.
Trump is required to be in court every day but Wednesdays. In a statement on his own social media platform, Trump also challenged Biden to debate at the Manhattan courthouse on Friday night, since both men were in New York at the same time. Biden has since returned to Washington.
Yet Friday is also Melania Trump’s birthday, and the former president had already said earlier in the day that he was flying back to Florida to spend the day with his wife once his trial had wrapped for the day.
As Trump left court for the day in New York on Friday afternoon, he repeated his challenge and said: “We’re ready. Just tell me where. I will do it at the White House. That would be very comfortable, actually.”
Trump did not participate in any of the Republican primary debates this cycle.
The Commission on Presidential Debates has already announced the dates and locations for the three general election debates between the presidential candidates: Sept. 16 in San Marcos, Texas; Oct. 1 in Petersburg, Virginia; and Oct. 9 in Salt Lake City. The lone vice presidential debate is slated for Sept. 25 in Easton, Pennsylvania.
A dozen news organizations, including The Associated Press, wrote to the Biden and Trump campaigns earlier this month to urge both candidates to participate in the debates.
Biden engages in relatively fewer press interviews than his predecessors, and his aides tend to choose outlets and media avenues outside the traditional press corps that covers the president in Washington. His interview with Stern on Friday, which ran well over an hour, took on an informal and introspective tone and spanned topics that included Biden’s upbringing, family, and his favorite president (Thomas Jefferson, Biden said).
The interview also occurred the day after The New York Times issued a statement criticizing Biden for shunning formal interviews and conducting fewer news conferences than his predecessors. The newspaper said that its publisher, A.G. Sulzberger, has urged senior Biden officials to agree to presidential interviews not just with the Times but with other news outlets.
Still, the timing of the Stern interview was coincidental; a person familiar with the plans said the White House has been working with the Sirius XM host for weeks to arrange the conversation. The person was granted anonymity to discuss internal planning processes.
Less the “shock jock” of old, Stern still commands a loyal audience. And he’s become known for his conversational interviewing skills. He can turn talks with celebrities into revealing discussions, often by asking things others might be afraid to, but not in confrontational ways.
Gaza war casts shadow over White House correspondents’ dinner
- The gala dinner and a surrounding series of society events are taking place as the Gaza protest movement has been spreading to colleges across the country, and as police crackdowns on some campuses have led to hundreds of arrests
WASHINGTON: The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, which annually brings reporters, politicians and a glitzy array of celebrities together in a mostly lighthearted affair, will take place Saturday under very different circumstances, including a call for a boycott by Palestinian journalists.
With President Joe Biden heading a long list of VIP guests, more than two dozen Palestinian journalists this week issued an open letter urging their American colleagues to boycott the dinner.
“You have a unique responsibility to speak truth to power and uphold journalistic integrity,” said the letter. “It is unacceptable to stay silent out of fear or professional concern while journalists in Gaza continue to be detained, tortured, and killed for doing our jobs.”
According to the New York-based Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ), at least 97 journalists — including 92 Palestinians — have been killed since war erupted on October 7 with Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel. At least 16 others have been wounded.
In addition to the boycott call, an anti-war coalition is planning a demonstration not far from the Washington Hilton hotel where the dinner is to take place.
The anti-war group Code Pink, part of the coalition, said it planned to “shut down” the dinner to protest “the complicity of the Biden administration in the targeting and killing of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli military.”
It said its action would be “nonviolent” but offered no details.
For months, Biden’s every move has been shadowed by protesters angry over US support for the Israeli military offensive in Gaza. He has been met by shouts of “Genocide Joe” and noisy calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
The gala dinner and a surrounding series of society events are taking place as the Gaza protest movement has been spreading to colleges across the country, and as police crackdowns on some campuses have led to hundreds of arrests.
At the dinner, in keeping with longstanding tradition — interrupted during the Donald Trump years — Biden will sit on the dais keeping a steady smile on his face as a guest comedian rips into him.
This year it will be Colin Jost, a longtime writer and actor with NBC’s “Saturday Night Live,” who seeks to entertain the crowd of VIPs in their tuxedos and flowing evening gowns. (Jost’s wife, actress Scarlett Johansson, is expected to be there.)
The 81-year-old US president, also in keeping with tradition, will then deliver a speech, sure to include some self-mockery, some ribbing of the press and, no doubt, some sharp-elbowed jabs at Trump, his presumptive opponent in November’s presidential election.
The annual dinner has been organized since 1920 by the influential White House Correspondents’ Association, which honors top reporters and awards journalism scholarships.
Last year, 2,600 people attended.
The association declined an AFP request to comment on the boycott call and the planned demonstration.
