Last night, President Donald Trump moved in the direction of Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia GOP congressional candidate well-known for dabbling in dark conspiracy theories generated by QAnon adherents and others. From the Associated Press:
WASHINGTON _ President Donald Trump said Monday in an interview that a plane loaded with “thugs" was headed for the Republican National Convention last week “to do big damage." He provided few details.
The convention concluded Thursday night with Trump's nomination acceptance speech on the South Lawn of the White House, and he has complained frequently since then about protesters who accosted audience members as they left. Trump made the claim about the plane in an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham, who asked him who he thought was controlling Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
“People you've never heard of. People that are in the dark shadows," Trump responded.
Ingraham said his response sounded like a conspiracy theory.
“No, people you haven't heard of," Trump continued. “We had somebody get on a plane from a certain city this weekend, and in the plane it was almost completely loaded with thugs wearing these dark uniforms, black uniforms with gear and this and that. They're on a plane."
Ingraham asked him where they were coming from.
“I'll tell you some time but it's under investigation right now," Trump said. “But they came from a certain city, and this person was coming to the Republican National Convention and there were like, seven people on the plane like this person, and then a lot of people were on the plane to do big damage. They were coming."
Ingraham asked if they were headed for Washington.
“This was all, this was all happening," Trump said. Ingraham asked where they were getting their money.
“The money is coming from some very stupid rich people that have no idea that if their thing ever succeeded, which it won't, they will be thrown to the wolves like you've never seen before," Trump said.
Ingraham soon went to a commercial break, and when the program returned she asked Trump about women voters.
The exchange on Fox News can be seen at the tail end of this clip.
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Speaking of Marjorie Taylor Greene: She’s raffling off the AR-15 she used in her first campaign ad as a general election fundraiser. The 14th District congressional candidate on Monday also got a shout-out during a Dalton campaign rally for U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler. From the Chattanooga Times Free Press:
A crowd member Loeffler called out by name was Republican congressional candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene, who along with Loeffler was in Washington, D.C., on Thursday to watch Trump officially accept the Republican nomination.
It didn't take more than two minutes for Loeffler to mention “how swiftly and violently the radical left would move to replace the American ideal with socialism."
“The Left is coming after the president nonstop. They're coming after me," Loeffler said. “They know that we don't owe anyone in Washington: the swamp, the fake news, the career politicians, we don't owe them anything. All we owe to the American people — Georgians — [is] our best to protect and defend the values that made this country great."
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Already posted: A poll commissioned by Stacey Abrams’ voting rights group found President Donald Trump and Joe Biden are neck-and-neck in Georgia and that most Democrats plan to vote early rather than cast their ballots on Election Day:
The survey released Monday by the left-leaning Public Policy Polling firm mirrored other recent polls that show a close race in a state that's long been reliably Republican, and found Trump's disapproval rating (52%) in Georgia outweighs his approval numbers (46%).
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The Twitter account of the late Herman Cain, the 2012 presidential candidate and Atlanta radio host who died of COVID-19 last month, came to life over the weekend. Family members had sent out messages via Cain’s account since his death -- but the Washington Post has these additional details:
The account soon changed its name to the Cain Gang and changed its bio to “Official Twitter for Team Cain. Formerly run by Herman Cain, now supervised by his team and family. The mission continues."
After the initial bout of confusion, the account continued tweeting generally about politics, to little fanfare. On Sunday, however, it again made headlines, for sending out a tweet, which has since been deleted, reading, “It looks like the virus is not as deadly as the mainstream media first made it out to be," with a link to the conservative political website the Western Journal...
Not everyone thought the new posts were a good idea. “People were mostly careful and respectful when Herman Cain passed away from COVID-19, and boy that is going to disappear quickly now that his family and comms team have decided to keep tweeting out new political content under his name," tweeted Donald Moynihan, a professor of public policy at Georgetown University.
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U.S. Sen. David Perdue and his Democratic opponent, Jon Ossoff, are both channeling their party’s presidential nominees on the recent unrest in Wisconsin.
Perdue’s campaign tweeted: “You won’t be safe in Jon Ossoff’s America.” That echoes President Donald Trump’s closing message about Joe Biden at the Republican National Convention.
And this morning, Ossoff evoked Biden with a lengthy statement about the violence. It included this:
“The violence such as that witnessed in Kenosha and Portland is unacceptable. I condemn in the strongest terms rioting, looting, and violence — whether instigated by fringe actors on the extreme left or the extreme right — and I continue to urge peaceful protest instead of violence. The overwhelming majority of Americans want domestic tranquility and peace on our streets …
“I further condemn President Trump's deliberate efforts to pour fuel on the fire. President Trump has not just failed to de-escalate tensions and unite the country; he continues to inflame and divide. The answer is neither to smear and ignore those who have peaceably assembled in the millions demanding criminal justice reform, nor is it to ‘defund the police.' President Trump should call upon the Senate to immediately pass the George R. Floyd Justice in Policing Act, and then get to work on a new Civil Rights Act."
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Likewise, U.S. Senate candidate Matt Lieberman is also calling for calm and “common ground” amid the current unrest in a new 30-second spot. The ad is also the first to invoke his father, the former U.S. senator of Connecticut — in a picture of him standing between the late John McCain and Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
“It hasn’t always been this way,” Lieberman says. “When my dad Joe Lieberman served in the Senate, finding common ground was considered a good thing. And when I was a teacher, no parent ever asked me if I was a Democrat or a Republican.”
Lieberman has only a fraction of the funds that Raphael Warnock, the establishment-backed Democrat in the race, can muster. But he is rivaling Warnock in recent polls in the crowded free-for-all November special election for U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s seat.
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House Majority, the main super PAC supporting Democratic candidates in U.S. House races, announced it has spent $1.3 million on ads that will run on Atlanta area broadcast and cable stations. The spots will focus on health care and prescription drug costs, drawing contrasts with the policies of President Donald Trump during the coronavirus pandemic, the group said in a press release.
The PAC didn’t say whether it would focus its spending on U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Marietta, in the Sixth District or would also invest in the campaign of Carolyn Bourdeaux in the Seventh.
