Trump news today: Allies turn on DeSantis amid rift, as Capitol riot probe to
Trump holds rally in Florence, AZ
Donald Trump is catching flak for deploying a modified version of an official government seal in an announcement about a new golf course. Beyond questions of taste, the announcement – sent out on Martin Luther King Jr. Day – was met with questions about whether Mr Trump is using taxpayers’ money officially granted to him as a former president to promote his private business interests.
As speculation about a rift between Mr Trump and Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis continues to grow, aides to the former president have blamed the story not just on the media but on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Their rationale, as issued via anonymous quotes, is that Mr DeSantis fuelled the latest stories by criticizing Mr Trump’s lockdown policies on a podcast run by a former McConnell adviser.
Mr McConnell’s office has so far declined to comment on the story, though it is commonly agreed that he and the former president have been at daggers drawn since the 6 January insurrection last year.
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Trump adviser says to expect more campaigning in months ahead
An adviser to former President Donald Trump told CNN this week that the ex-president is eager to show his relevance to the GOP this midterm season.
In that regard, he’s likely to step up his campaigning efforts in the months ahead, even as he has yet to say whether he will run again in 2024.
“[W]e will see more engagement from him in the coming months,” Bryan Lanza told the network.
John Bowden18 January 2022 18:00
Raskin: Jan 6 committee will have Watergate-style hearings
Rep Jamie Raskin, a member of the January 6 panel, said on Monday that he and his fellow lawmakers would be in for daily hearings throughout 2022 as the committee sought to educate the American people about what led up to the attack on the Capitol.
He made the comments to Medhi Hasan on MSNBC.
“[W]e’re going to have hearings for the American people, which I hope will seem somewhat like the Watergate hearings did, in that they will be a daily occurrence so people can follow the unfolding narrative,” said the congressman.
John Bowden18 January 2022 17:23
Roger Stone’s view on Ron DeSantis
Daily Beast reporter Zachary Petrizzo writes that longtime Trump ally and hardcore right-wing agitator Roger Stone has taken to railing against the Florida governor in private – including in the most personal of terms.
Andrew Naughtie18 January 2022 17:01
Report: DeSantis-Trump tensions still on the rise
The New York Times’s Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman write that Donald Trump’s irritation about Ron DeSantis goes back “months” – and that the dispute is about more than a former president’s easily bruised ego:
At its core, the dispute amounts to a stand-in for the broader challenge confronting Republicans at the outset of midterm elections. They are led by a defeated former president who demands total fealty, brooks no criticism and is determined to sniff out, and then snuff out, any threat to his control of the party.
That includes the 43-year-old DeSantis, who has told friends he…
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