Trump repeats anti-immigrant ‘poisoning the blood’ remarks at rally: Latest

Trump’s latest remarks in New Hampshire have drawn warnings about his increasingly violent, autocratic rhetoric on the campaign trail.

Jennifer Mercieca, an historian of American political rhetoric and professor at Texas A&M University who wrote 2020’s Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump, says that the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president “seesAmerican democracy as a sham and he wants to convince his followers to see it that way too.”

“Putin hates western values like democracy and the rule of law, so does Trump,” she told The Washington Post.

Republicans have largely shrugged off his statements. Here’s how we got here:

Following Donald Trump’s widely condemned statements in New Hampshire on Saturday, when he repeated his inflammatory statement that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of the country,” Joe Biden’s presidential campaign said his likely 2024 rival was “channeling his role models.”

“Tonight Donald Trump channeled his role models as he parroted Adolf Hitler, praised Kim Jong Un, and quoted Vladimir Putin while running for president on a promise to rule as a dictator and threaten American democracy,” spokesperson Ammar Moussa said.

“He is betting he can win this election by scaring and dividing this country,” he added. “He’s wrong. In 2020, Americans chose President Biden’s vision of hope and unity over Trump’s vision of fear and division – and they’ll do the same next November.”

Final witness testimony closed a key chapter in a lawsuit that strikes at the heart of the former president’s persona as a successful businessman, a narrative that launched his presidential campaign and is now at the centre of a blockbuster lawsuit alleging a decade of fraud.

But the trial isn’t over just yet.

Melania Trump delivered remarks at a naturalisation ceremony at the National Archives in Washington DC on Friday, a rare – and ironic – public speaking appearance from the former first lady, whose husband is accused of withholding government documents from the very same agency.

Her appearance comes in the middle of a federal criminal case targeting Donald Trump and his allegedly illegal retention of Archives documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate, where Ms Trump also lives.

The former president has also repeatedly attacked the National Archives and baselessly accused the archivists and civil servants of corruption and conspiracies against him following a protracted effort to get him to return documents in his possession.

So what was Melania doing there?

Ron DeSantis says his rival for the Republican nomination for president will try to “delegitimise” any results in the GOP race for the 2024 nomination that are not in his favour.

Donald Trump continues to channel “blood and soil” rhetoric at rallies and in interviews as he campaigns for the Republican nomination for president in 2024.

While outlining his anti-immigration agenda during a campaign rally in New Hampshire on Saturday, the former president claimed that immigrants from South America, Africa and Asia are coming from “mental institutions and prisons all over the world” and are now “poisoning the blood of country”.

Despite a lack of evidence to support his inflammatory statements, the leading candidate for the 2024 Republican nomination continues to revive them, drawing comparisons to the words of Adolf Hitler and statements fuelling white supremacist attacks.

On Friday, following a four-day trial in Washington DC, Rudy Giuliani was ordered to pay more than $148m for defaming two former election workers in Georgia, not including the tens of thousands of dollars he was ordered to pay in other sanctions throughout the case.

In April, Fox News reached a last-minute, record-breaking $787m settlement with Dominion Voting Systems that averted one of the biggest-ever defamation trials in American history moments before it was due to begin.

So within eight months, the financial fallout from 2020’s election lies reached more than $935m.

There are likely more settlements and verdicts to come.

A legal effort to disqualify Donald Trump from Colorado’s ballots in 2024 elections could end up in front of the US Supreme Court after arguments in front of the state’s highest court earlier this month.

The case in Colorado is among dozens of legal challenges across the country that throw his eligibility into question, pointing to a constitutional amendment that prohibits anyone who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from holding public office.

So far, no courts have found himineligible.

An appeal to the Colorado Supreme Court, where all seven justices are Democratic appointees, challenges not only whether the former president was responsible for provoking his supporters to riot at the US Capitol on January 6, but also whether that should make him ineligible for returning to the White House.

Trump has been known to pick random targets in his long-winded speeches, but the latest rant to go viral is, indeed, a fake.

On Friday, screenshots quoting Trump on an apparent tirade against Panera’s Charge Lemonade spread like wildfire across the internet following a post by comedian Keaton Patti.

The fast casual chain is currently facing two lawsuits blaming its caffeinated lemonade for the deaths of two people.

He went from “America’s Mayor,” praised as a hero in his handling of the aftermath of 9/11 in New York City, to Donald Trump’s attorney, accused of spreading election fraud claims after the 2020 election.

Kelly Rissman has this look at some of his more… interesting late-career moments: