Trump says he wants to buy Glock on gun store tour: Live updates

Donald Trump attempted to tamp down on the boos from the audience after he mentioned Senator Lindsey Graham during a rally in Summerville, South Carolina.

Attorneys for former President Donald Trump argue that an attempt to bar him from the 2024 ballot under a rarely used “insurrection” clause of the Constitution should be dismissed as a violation of his freedom of speech.

The lawyers made the argument in a filing posted Monday by a Colorado court in the most significant of a series of challenges to Trump’s candidacy under the Civil War-era clause in the 14th Amendment. The challenges rest on Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden and his role leading up to the violent Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“At no time do Petitioners argue that President Trump did anything other than engage in either speaking or refusing to speak for their argument that he engaged in the purported insurrection,” wrote attorney Geoffrey Blue.

Trump also will argue that the clause doesn’t apply to him because “the Fourteenth Amendment applies to one who ‘engaged in insurrection or rebellion,’ not one who only ‘instigated’ any action,” Blue wrote.

The former president’s lawyers also said the challenge should be dismissed because he is not yet a candidate under the meaning of Colorado election law, which they contend isn’t intended to settle constitutional disputes.

Donald Trump, who is facing two separate federal indictments and dozens of criminal charges in four states, posed with a handgun with his face engraved on the grip during a tour of a gun store in South Carolina.

A spokesperson for the former president said he bought the weapon, then later clarified that he only wanted to. In a video of the exchange on social media, Mr Trump can be heard telling the seller “I want to buy one” as he points to a bronze-coloured Glock pistol.

Mr Trump posed with the gun alongside South Carolina’s Republican Attorney General Alan Wilson before a campaign rally.

Federal statutes prohibit firearm sales to any person who is under felony indictment, and lying on a transaction form to determine eligibility could also include additional criminal charges.

Mr Trump, who faces 91 criminal charges, and who famously told supporters in 2016 that he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” without losing voters, has vowed to protect and expand Second Amendment protections if elected, joining Republican candidates for the GOP’s nomination who have rejected the role of high-powered weapons and proliferation of firearms in the gun violence crisis.

The judge overseeing the classified documents case in Florida, Aileen Cannon, has scheduled two hearings on 12 October to hear Special Counsel Jack Smith’s arguments regarding possible conflicts of interest for the Trump lawyers representing Mr Trump’s co-defendants and staff members Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira.

The Court will hold two separate Garcia hearings on October 12, 2023, in the Fort Pierce Division. Defendant Carlos De Oliveira’s hearing will commence at 1:00 P.M. Defendant Waltine Nauta’s hearing will commence at 3:00 P.M.,” the judge wrote. “Defendants De Oliveira and Nauta, associated defense counsel, and attorneys for the Office of Special Counsel must be present.”

The Democratic Party is divided on the issue of New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez’s resignation as he faces federal bribery charges.

The senator is accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash and gold from three New Jersey businessmen with ties to Egypt. In exchange the senator, formerly chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, provided sensitive information “to benefit the government of Egypt”. He is also accused of interfering in a criminal investigation of the businessmen’s allies.

Mr Menendez has denied the allegations and while he has stepped down from his committee post, he is digging his heels and refusing to resign from the Senate.

Yet a growing list of Democrats across his home state and in Congress are calling for the senator to step down. The list includes New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy and a cadre of Democratic county chairs in the state, as well as prominent members of the party in the House and Senate. Several of New Jersey’s Democratic House members broke ranks with their Senate counterpart almost immediately, including Bill Pascrell, Josh Gottheimer, Tom Malinowski, Frank Pallone and Mikie Sherill.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the party’s most prominent members in the House, joined those calls on Sunday.

“I think what is here in this indictment is quite clear. And I believe [resignation] is in the best interest to maintain the integrity of the seat,” Ms Ocasio-Cortez said on CBS over the weekend, following a number of other Democrats who had already released similar statements.

The New York Democrat was asked why she does not own an electric vehicle made by union workers on CBS’s Face the Nation. “We are actually looking into trading in our car now,” responded Ms Ocasio-Cortez, known informally as AOC. “So we are looking into it and hopefully we will soon.”

Elon Musk is the CEO of Tesla and Ms Ocasio-Cortez has sparred several times with him on social media platform X/Twitter, also owned by Mr Musk.

She said she bought her Tesla during the pandemic to commute between her New York City district and Washington DC. However, Ms Ocasio-Cortez said there are now vehicles manufactured by unions that have the required range for the journey.

“Our car was purchased during the pandemic when travel – before a vaccine had come out. So, travel between New York and Washington, the safest way that we had determined was an EV. But that was prior to some of the new models coming out on the market that had the range available.”

When Félix Llerena arrived in Miami in 2017, he quickly got involved in the city’s politically active community of Cuban exiles. He was soon drawn to President Donald Trump for his aggressive approach toward Cuba’s communist government and his stated affinity for Cuban American culture.

Today, Llerena is ready to apply for citizenship and vote for the first time. He’s more skeptical of the former Republican president. And his mother was able to come to the United States earlier this year under an immigration program created by Democratic President Joe Biden‘s administration that’s admitted tens of thousands of Cubans and other people from countries with expatriate communities in South Florida.

Both parties’ efforts affect Llerena’s life and fulfill different priorities he has. While he’s leaning toward a Republican candidate next year, he says he tries to avoid sticking to one side.

“I do not worship politicians,” he said. “They are simply doing their job. I do not defend political or partisan interests.”

During an interview with MSNBC broadcast over the weekend, Hillary Clinton was asked by former Biden White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki if she believed Donald Trump when he said it would be very unlikely for him to try to pardon himself if he wins in 2024.

“I don’t believe him on anything. Why would I start believing him on that? You know, the thing about him – and I’m not the only person who’s noticed this – is he engaged in what psychologists call projection. So, whenever he accuses somebody else of doing something, it’s almost guaranteed he’s doing it himself or he’s already done it,” she said. “Or whenever he denies thinking about doing something or doing it, it’s almost guaranteed he is thinking about it or he’s already done it.”

Former prosecutor Mary McCord appeared on MSNBC’s Why Is This Happening? podcast, speaking about the upcoming federal trial against Donald Trump.

“Unless the Supreme Court decides to change the rules, there will be no cameras in the courtroom,” she said. “So, we’re going to have to be relying on journalists who are reporting out throughout the day about what’s happening, and that’s raising a lot of debate about whether the rule that has been part of the federal rules for a very long time is a good rule.”

“I have somewhat mixed feelings about it because I think I think the whole American public ought to be able to see this trial, and probably ought to be able to see it from almost all trials because it’s transparency. Talk about the double, you know, or more than double standard, there’s no better way to kind of test out how our criminal system works than by having people see it,” she added.

Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, was once asked if she would “take a bullet” for Donald Trump.

Loyalty to Mr Trump was so important in his White House that staffers set up “leak traps” to find out who was giving information to the press, the paper noted.