25% of U.S. registered voters say a candidate must share their views on immigration in order to secure their vote.
 
Full story: https://on.gallup.com/3zKvsNl

Very awkward moment- Congressman Matt Gaetz tries to interrupt former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s interviews, taunting him “Hey Kevin, what night are you speaking?”

But…but…but Joe Biden will get us into more wars (as he has really pulled us out of all wars):

J.D.Vance last night:

"A lot of people recognize that we need to do something with Iran—but not these weak little bombing runs.  If you're going to punch the Iranians, you punch them hard.”

Donald Trump has spoken to a family member of Corey Comperatore, the firefighter who was killed at the Trump rally in Butler, a source familiar tells ABC News.

The interview was conducted more than two weeks before Trump was shot in the ear by a gunman at a Pennsylvania rally—an attempted assassination that shocked the country and highlighted the growing danger of political violence.
 
Here are five takeaways from the June 25 interview:
 
Federal Reserve
Trump said he would allow Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to serve out his full term through Jan. 31, 2028. That would ensure Powell continues working deep into a potential second Trump administration.
 
“I would let him serve it out,” Trump said, “especially if I thought he was doing the right thing.”
 
Tax Cuts
The former president said he would like to bring the corporate tax rate down from its current rate of 21% to as low as 15%. If that target proves too difficult to achieve, he would be content to bring it down to 20%, a figure he justified by saying he liked its "simplicity.”
 
Role for Dimon?
Trump says he’s changed his view of JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon, whom he assailed last year as a “highly overrated Globalist.” The Republican said he could envision Dimon—thought to be contemplating a political career—as “somebody that I would consider” for Treasury secretary.
 
If Dimon does get tapped, he could find an administration full of former executives, such as North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, who led the startup Great Plains Software Inc. before selling it to Microsoft Corp., and Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, a former Carlyle Group Inc. co-CEO.
 
“Youngkin is prime time,” Trump says. “I’d love to have him in my administration.”
 
Defending Taiwan
Trump was cool to the idea of defending Taiwan from Chinese aggression, a long-standing tenet of US foreign policy that enjoys broad bipartisan support. His skepticism is grounded partly in what he regards as the practical difficulties in defending an island across the globe as well as a desire to see Taiwan pay the US for its protection.
 
“I mean, how stupid are we? They took all of our chip business,” Trump said. “They’re immensely wealthy.
 
“I don’t think we’re any different from an insurance policy,” he continued. “Why are we doing this?”
 
Presidential Pardon
Trump insisted he would not pardon himself if convicted of a federal crime in the cases pending against him.
 
“I wouldn’t consider it,” he said.

Next on his mind: inflation. Trump has been endlessly critical of Biden’s stewardship of the economy. But he sees, in the anger generated by high prices and interest rates, an opportunity to woo voters who typically don’t support Republicans, such as Black and Hispanic men. Trump says he’ll bring down prices by opening up the US to more oil and gas drilling. “We have more liquid gold than anybody,” he says.
 
Third is immigration. He believes harsh restrictions are key to boosting domestic wages and employment. He characterizes immigration restrictions as “the biggest [factor] of all” in how he’d reshape the economy, with particular benefits for the minorities he’s eager to win over. “The Black people are going to be decimated by the millions of people that are coming into the country,” he says. “They’re already feeling it. Their wages have gone way down. Their jobs are being taken by the migrants coming in illegally into the country.” (According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the majority of employment gains since 2018 have been for naturalized US citizens and legal residents—not migrants.)

Trump’s language turns apocalyptic. “The Black population in this country is going to die because of what’s happened, what’s going to happen to their jobs—their jobs, their housing, everything,” he continues. “I want to stop that.”
 
Drilling for oil aside, Trump hasn’t detailed a plan for lowering prices. His personal conviction that the robust tariffs he’s proposing will produce a US windfall isn’t shared by mainstream economists, who warn that they’ll spur further inflation and amount to a tax increase for US households. A report from the Peterson Institute for International Economics estimates that his tariff regime would impose an additional annual cost of $1,700 for the average middle-income family. And Oxford Economics, a nonpartisan research group, estimates that Trump’s combination of tariffs, immigration restrictions and extended tax cuts could also increase inflation and slow economic growth.

As president, Trump shattered the long-standing Republican orthodoxy of favoring free trade. He says he’ll go further if reelected. At Mar-a-Lago he offers an impassioned defense of US tariffs—he’s been studying McKinley, dubbing him “the Tariff King”—to make it clear he intends to ratchet up levies not just on China but on the European Union, too.
 
“McKinley made this country rich,” Trump says. “He was the most underrated president.” In Trump’s reading of history, McKinley’s successors squandered his legacy on costly government programs such as the New Deal (“the whole thing with the parks and the dams”) and unjustly poisoned an important tool for economic statecraft. “I can’t believe how many people are negative on tariffs that are actually smart,” Trump says. “Man, is it good for negotiation. I’ve had guys, I’ve had countries that were potentially extremely hostile coming to me and saying, ‘Sir, please stop with the tariff stuff.’”
 
To the consternation of many business and consumer groups, Biden maintained Trump’s tariffs on China, even increasing ones on steel, aluminum, semiconductors, electric vehicles, batteries and other goods. “This is going to add price inflation across the board, all in the name of ‘tough guy’ election-year politics,” Yaël Ossowski, deputy director of the Consumer Choice Center, a nonpartisan advocacy group, said in May.
 
In Trumpworld, however, Biden’s actions are seen as validation that Trump was right—and his Democratic critics were wrong—about the threat China poses to the US economy and security. Trump is eager to prescribe more of the same medicine, including to European allies. In addition to targeting China for new tariffs of anywhere from 60% to 100%, he says he’d impose a 10% across-the-board tariff on imports from other countries, citing a familiar litany of complaints about foreign countries not buying enough US goods.
 
“The ‘European Union’ sounds so lovely,” Trump says. “We love Scotland and Germany. We love all these places. But once you get past that, they treat us violently.” He mentions reluctance in Europe to import US automobiles and agricultural products as key drivers of the more than $200 billion trade deficit, a statistic he considers a critical measure of economic fairness.
 
As with so much else, Trump views trade in personal terms. He speaks of it as though it were a private negotiation between himself and recalcitrant foreign leaders who understand full well that they’re exploiting the US and therefore must be curbed. He’s animated as he recounts a conversation with Angela Merkel, then Germany’s chancellor. “Angela, how many Fords or how many Chevrolets are there in the middle of Munich right now?” he remembers asking.
 
He mimics Merkel’s German accent in reply: “Oh, I do not believe many.”
 
“How about none?” he says he shot back.

Biden to push for Supreme Court ethics reform, term limits and amendment to overturn immunity ruling, sources say
 
President Joe Biden is seriously considering publicly endorsing major reforms at the Supreme Court, a move that would make him the first sitting president in generations to back seismic changes to the way the nation’s highest court operates, according to two sources familiar with the deliberations.
 
Chief among the changes Biden is planning to publicly back are term limits for the nine justices, who currently serve lifetime appointments. The president is also said to be preparing to throw his support behind an ethics code for the court that would contain an enforcement mechanism, which was notably absent from the code the court adopted last year.
 
(...)
 
Additionally, Biden is considering whether he should push for a constitutional amendment that would effectively reverse the historic ruling from the court earlier this month that gave presidents immunity for some actions they take while in office.
 
(...)
 
The reforms backed by Biden would need congressional approval and the constitutional amendment would require ratification by 38 states in a process that seems nearly impossible to succeed.
 
The issue of lifetime appointments was illuminated by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2020, who was one of just a few justices this century to die while serving on the bench. Her death gave then-President Donald Trump an opportunity to appoint his third justice to the court, infuriating some Democrats who had wanted the liberal icon to step down during Barack Obama’s presidency.
 
(...)
 
The Supreme Court has faced dismal approval ratings in recent years, with the public’s view of the court worsening after a series of highly charged rulings – chief among them is the conservative majority’s 2022 reversal of Roe v. Wade – and the controversies over ethics and transparency among some of the justices, including conservative Justices Thomas and Samuel Alito.
 
Biden has cited the Roe decision and others in his reelection bid.
 
Asked about reproductive rights and the Supreme Court in an interview Tuesday with BET News’ Ed Gordon that aired on “CBS Evening News,” Biden warned about what he believes a future Trump presidency would mean in terms of future appointments to the bench.
 
“There’s probably gonna be two more appointments to the court. There’s probably two people who are going to resign – uh resign, retire,” Biden said. “Just imagine – if he has two more appointments on that, what that means forever.”
 
News of Biden’s forthcoming announcement was met with immediate praise from some progressive court reform groups.
 
(...)

Nikki Haley: "Donald Trump has my strong endorsement. Period." (Note that Trump doesn't applaud)

Has anyone else noticed the deafening lack of curiosity by major news organizations about the assassination attempt? Most breaking news is coming from local stations. Why in the world are news orgs so decidedly uninterested in finding out more information? Where is Trump's medical report? Why do we know so little about the shooter? This was a major crime and news has moved on faster than a school shooting. Wait...I answered my own question....