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
Bus plunges off a bridge in South Africa, killing 45 people; 8-year-old child is lone survivor
- Authorities said the bus carrying worshippers was traveling from the neighboring country of Botswana to the town of Moria, which hosts a popular Easter pilgrimage
CAPE TOWN, South Africa: A bus carrying worshippers headed to an Easter festival plunged off a bridge on a mountain pass and burst into flames in South Africa on Thursday, killing at least 45 people, authorities said.
The only survivor of the crash was an 8-year-old child, who was receiving medical attention, according to authorities in the northern province of Limpopo. They said the child was seriously injured.
The Limpopo provincial government said the bus veered off the Mmamatlakala bridge and plunged 50 meters (164 feet) into a ravine before busting into flames.
Search operations were ongoing, the provincial government said, but many bodies were burned beyond recognition and still trapped inside the vehicle.
Authorities said they believe the bus was traveling from the neighboring country of Botswana to the town of Moria, which hosts a popular Easter pilgrimage. They said it appeared that the driver lost control and was one of the dead.
Minister of Transport Sindisiwe Chikunga was in Limpopo province for a road safety campaign and changed plans to visit the crash scene, the national Department of Transport said. She said there was an investigation underway into the cause of the crash and offered her condolences to the families of the victims.
The South African government often warns of the danger of road accidents during the Easter holidays, which is a particularly busy and dangerous time for road travel. More than 200 people died in road crashes during the Easter weekend last year.
The Zionist Christian Church has its headquarters in Moria and its Easter pilgrimage attracts hundreds of thousands of people from across South Africa and neighboring countries. This year is the first time the Easter pilgrimage to Moria is set to go ahead since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Macron says G20 must agree before inviting Putin to summit
BRASILIA: French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday that members of the G20 would have to agree before Russian leader Vladimir Putin is invited to attend the group’s summit in Brazil in November.
“The meaning of this club is that there must be consensus with the 19 others. That will be a job for Brazilian diplomacy,” he said during a joint press conference in Brasilia with his counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
If such a meeting can be “useful, it must be done,” Macron said, though he warned division on the matter could scuttle any Russian invitation.
Brazil, the current chair of the G20 group — which represents 80 percent of the global economy — has opposed the US-led drive to isolate and punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, arguing that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Western countries share some of the blame for the war.
Putin missed last year’s G20 summit in the Indian capital New Delhi, avoiding possible political opprobrium and any risk of criminal detention under an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant.
In September 2023, Lula said there was “no way” that Putin would be arrested if he attended the Rio de Janeiro summit.
Shortly after, he backtracked and said that it would be up to the justice system to decide on Putin’s eventual arrest and not his government.
Biden, Trump provide campaign split-screen with dueling NYC events
WASHINGTON: Joe Biden and Donald Trump were on the campaign trail in New York on Thursday as the Democratic president prepared to host a star-studded fundraiser and his Republican predecessor and 2024 rival paid tribute to a fallen police officer.
Trump made a short statement after attending the wake of police officer Jonathan Diller, who was shot and killed on Monday during a traffic stop.
“We have to stop it. We have to get back to law and order,” said the 77-year-old billionaire, who refrained from criticizing his 81-year-old rival directly.
Trump’s entourage contrasted his solemn trip with a lavish fundraiser Biden will headline later alongside former Democratic presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, which organizers say has reaped an eye-watering $25 million.
“President Trump will be honoring the legacy of Officer Diller and paying respects to his family, friends, and the NYPD,” said the Republican’s spokesman Steven Cheung.
“Meanwhile, the Three Stooges — Biden, Obama, and Clinton — will be at a glitzy fundraiser in the city with their elitist, out-of-touch celebrity benefactors.”
The White House said Biden had called New York Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday to offer his condolences over Diller’s killing.
The Democrat has not been in contact with the officer’s family but “grieves” with them, his spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said, adding that the president “has stood with law enforcement his entire career and continues to stand with them.”
Jean-Pierre said on Wednesday that Biden was “deeply grateful for the sacrifices police officers make to keep our communities safe.”
Biden’s fundraiser will feature a debate between the three Democratic leaders, hosted by late-night TV comic Stephen Colbert.
Singers Lizzo and Queen Latifah, among others, will perform at the event, to be held at Radio City Music Hall in midtown Manhattan in front of 5,000 people.
The star-studded fundraiser is the first event of its kind to feature the three Democratic presidents.
According to NBC News, guests can pay $100,000 for a photo with the trio.
“The numbers don’t lie: today’s event is a massive show of force and a true reflection of the momentum to reelect the Biden-Harris ticket,” Jeffrey Katzenberg, the campaign’s chief fundraiser, said in a statement, referring to Vice President Kamala Harris.
He contends that Biden will raise more money in one evening than Trump did in the entire month of February.
Biden has better-stocked campaign coffers than his Republican opponent, who is using some of the funds raised from his supporters for legal expenses in the multiple lawsuits he is facing.
Trump’s trial for allegedly covering up 2016 hush money payments to a porn star when he was running for his first term in office begins in New York on April 15.
He devotes much of his campaign rhetoric to attacking illegal immigration and criticizing his Democratic rival for being lax on policing.
But the Republican, who faces 88 felony counts for a wide variety of alleged criminality, is also a harsh critic of law enforcement, regularly accusing the FBI of pursuing a politically motivated “witch hunt” against him.
Lula, Macron find common ground, despite Ukraine shadow
BRASILIA: French President Emmanuel Macron and his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Thursday displayed their unity on major global issues, while skirting differences on the war in Ukraine.
Macron wrapped up his three-day tour of the Latin American giant with a solemn, but warm, trip to the presidential palace in the modernist capital Brasilia.
The French leader paid tribute to “the spirit of resistance” of Lula’s government for “restoring democracy” after a crowd of extreme-right supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro stormed the seats of power in the city in January 2023.
Lula hailed a relationship between the two countries as one that created “a bridge between the global South and the developed world.”
While the two men firmly reset the frosty ties of the Bolsonaro years, they retain deep differences over the war in Ukraine, a subject which only briefly reared its head.
While France and the West support Kyiv wholeheartedly, Lula has in the past said that Ukraine and Russia share responsibility over the conflict and has refused to isolate Moscow.
Responding to a question from a journalist, Macron said that Brazil, as the current chair of the G20, could invite Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to a summit in Rio de Janeiro in November if other members agreed.
“The meaning of this club is that there must be consensus with the 19 others. That will be a job for Brazilian diplomacy,” he said.
If such a meeting can be “useful, it must be done,” Macron said.
Lula responded only that “diversity” must be accepted in organizations like the G20.
Putin missed last year’s G20 summit in the Indian capital New Delhi, avoiding possible political opprobrium and any risk of criminal detention under an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant.
In September 2023, Lula said there was “no way” that Putin would be arrested if he attended the Rio de Janeiro summit.
Shortly after, he backtracked and said that it would be up to the justice system to decide on Putin’s eventual arrest and not his government.
Lula’s only remarks on the conflict were that “the two stubborn” leaders will “have to get along,” referring to Putin and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.
However, he highlighted that Ukraine was not Brazil’s priority, and turned to a crisis in his own neighborhood, that he and Macron agreed upon: Venezuela.
Both leaders condemned the exclusion of the main opposition coalition’s chosen candidate, Corina Yoris, 80, from July 28 elections.
“We very firmly condemn the exclusion of a serious and credible candidate from this process,” Macron said.
Lula described the situation as “serious” and said there was “no legal or political explanation for banning an opponent from being a candidate.”
“I told Maduro that the most important thing to restore normality in Venezuela was to avoid any problems in the electoral process, that the elections be held in the most democratic way possible.”
From the protection of the Amazon to cooperation in the building of submarines and economic ties, the two leaders showed off the broad Franco-Brazilian partnership over the three-day visit.
Macron and Lula also brushed over tensions about the long-delayed EU-Mercosur free trade agreement, which Brazil has pushed for and France has blocked.
Macron blasted the deal as “a really bad agreement” and said it should be buried in favor of a new one that “is responsible from a development, climate and biodiversity point of view.”
Lula said he was “very calm” and noted only that Brazil “does not negotiate with France” but with the EU.
The two leaders’ close relationship was highlighted by a warm meeting in the Amazon, in which they were pictured beaming and clasping hands, to the delight of Brazilians who spawned a raft of memes comparing the images to a wedding album.
Philippine president warns of countermeasures in response to Chinese aggression at sea
- Marcos said the Philippines "seek no conflict with any nation,” but would not be “cowed into silence”
- His remark follows repeated aggressive action by Chinese coast guard ships in disputed South China Sea waters
MANILA: The Philippine president said Thursday that his government would take action against what he called dangerous attacks by the Chinese coast guard and suspected militia ships in the disputed South China Sea, saying “Filipinos do not yield.”
Ferdinand Marcos Jr. did not provide details of the actions his government would take in the succeeding weeks but said these would be “proportionate, deliberate and reasonable in the face of the open, unabating, and illegal, coercive, aggressive and dangerous attacks by agents of the China coast guard and Chinese maritime militia.”
“We seek no conflict with any nation, more so nations that purport and claim to be our friends but we will not be cowed into silence, submission, or subservience,” Marcos wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Marcos’s warning is the latest sign of the escalating disputes between China and the Philippines in the contested waters that have caused minor collisions between the coast guard and other vessels of the rival claimant nations, sparked a war of words and strained relations.
China and the Philippines, along with Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei, have overlapping claims in the resource-rich and busy waterway, where a bulk of the world’s commerce and oil transits.
Chinese officials in Manila or Beijing did not immediately respond to Marcos’s public warning, which he issued during Holy Week — one of the most sacred religious periods in the largely Roman Catholic nation.
China’s defense ministry accused the Philippines of escalating the South China Sea disputes by undertaking provocative moves and spreading “misinformation to mislead the international community.”
“It is straying further down a dangerous path,” Senior Col. Wu Qian, the Chinese defense ministry’s top spokesperson, said in a statement issued Thursday by the Chinese Embassy in Manila.
Both China and the Philippines said they were acting to protect their sovereignty. Wu said China remained “committed to properly managing maritime differences,” while Marcos said he had been in touch with international allies who had offered to help the Philippines.
Marcos said he issued his statement after meeting top Philippine defense and national security officials, who submitted their recommendations. These include the use of faster military vessels instead of chartered civilian boats when the Philippine navy delivers a new batch of personnel and supplies to the disputed Second Thomas Shoal, two Philippine security officials said.
The shoal, the site of frequent hostilities since last year, has been occupied by a small Philippine naval contingent but surrounded by the Chinese coast guard and other vessels in a decades-long territorial standoff.
It’s unclear if Marcos approved that recommendation. The two Philippine officials separately spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of a lack of authority to discuss the issue publicly.
In the latest hostilities on Saturday, the Chinese coast guard used water cannons that injured several Philippine navy crewmen and heavily damaged their wooden supply boat near the Second Thomas Shoal. The cannon blast was so strong it threw a crewman off the floor but he hit a wall instead of plunging into the sea, Philippine military officials said.
The Philippine government summoned a Chinese embassy diplomat in Manila to convey its “strongest protest” against China. Beijing accused the Philippine vessels of intruding into Chinese territorial waters, warning Manila not to “play with fire” and saying China would continue to take actions to defend its sovereignty.
The United States condemned the actions by the Chinese coast guard. In a telephone call with Philippine defense chief Gilberto Teodoro Jr. Wednesday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reiterated a warning that it is obligated to come to the aid of the Philippines under a 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty if Philippine forces, aircraft and ships come under armed attack, including anywhere in the South China Sea, Pentagon Press Secretary Pat Ryder said.
Beijing has warned Washington to stay away from what it says is a purely Asian dispute, but the US has said it would press on with Navy patrols as it has done for more than 70 years in accordance with international law to help safeguard freedom of navigation and overflight in the South China Sea.