Trump news: McConnell decries censure of Jan 6 panel Republicans as Dems vow to probe Mar-a-Lago docs

Fox News co-host Brian Kilmeade of Fox & Friends on Monday delivered one of the network’s strongest rebukes yet of Donald Trump’s ongoing claims that he won the 2020 election and was specifically victorious in states including Arizona, Michigan and Georiga.

Speaking on his radio show, Mr Kilmeade responded to a listener who shared his worry that Mr Trump’s ongoing efforts to relitigate his election defeat on the national stage would harm the GOP’s chances of retaking the House and Senate in November. Mr Kilmeade agreed.

“Nobody cares about 2020. Nobody. And everything that he said and the challenges that he made should have been done before the election,” said the Fox host, adding: “[T]hey did a recount in Arizona, and the recount showed no difference almost, and he came out and said it showed that [Joe Biden] won Arizona.”

Referring specifically to the claim that he won Arizona, Mr Kilmeade said that Mr Trump’s assertion was an “outright lie”, and appeared to address the former president: “[P]lease stop wasting our time with that, because [you’re] capable of doing so much more”.

Rep Hal Rogers told CNN on Tuesday that he had apologised to Rep Joyce Beatty, the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, after a minor confrontation over the issue of face masks on the House subway ended with Mr Rogers telling the Democratic congresswoman, “kiss my ass”.

Moments earlier, members of the CBC had gathered on the steps of the House and demanded such an apology from Mr Rogers, a Republican from Kentucky.

“My words were not acceptable,” he told CNN’s Manu Raju.

A Republican running to unseat a GOP congresswoman who voted to impeach Donald Trump after the Capitol insurrection complained about the treatment of January 6 rioters in an interview with The Independent.

Joe Kent, the Trump-endorsed candidate running to unseat Rep Jaime Herrera-Beutler, falsely claimed to The Independent’s Andrew Buncombe that “many” of those accused of offenses in connection to January 6 were being held without charges or access to a fair trial. In reality, some have been held without bond but all have been charged and many have already had trials and received sentences after pleading guilty.

“They should have their fair day in court. That right is due to them as American citizens. They shouldn’t be locked away in essentially a DC gulag,” said Mr Kent.

A contractor and subcontractor originally set to work with Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA organisation have pulled out of plans to create a K12 “online educational academy” with the group after realising the extent of Mr Kirk and the organisation’s views.

The Washington Post reported that educational firm StrongMind, based in Arizona, withdrew from its contract with Mr Kirk’s organisation after its own employees expressed disgust at the idea of creating a K12 curriculum that aligned with Turning Point’s far-right ideology.

Mr Kirk and other members of his conservative youth organisation have a history of right-wing views and making statements considered racist or otherwise extremely offensive; Mr Kirk himself recently complained on a podcast that left-leaning immigration policies were supposedly aimed at “diminishing and decreasing white demographics in America”.

Read more from The Independent’s Bevan Hurley:

Florida Gov Ron DeSantis played down rumours of his supposed falling out with former President Donald Trump on Monday as the two remain at the top of the list of contenders for the GOP nomination in 2024.

Mr DeSantis and Mr Trump have differed in recent weeks on the issue of vaccinations; Mr Trump, whose administration oversaw the period during which the Covid-19 vaccines were developed in the US, is a full-throated supporter of the jabs while the Florida governor has cozied up to anti-vaccine circles in the GOP and refused to share whether or not he received a booster shot.

“That’s total bunk”, he said during an interview.

“Donald Trump’s a friend of mine,” Mr DeSantis added to FoxNews.com. “He is proud when people do well, and it’s not just me, but obviously he’s a Florida resident, and he appreciates the job that we’ve done. He’s told me that many times, not only with helping with the election, but just how we govern the state.”

Read more from The Independent’s Graig Graziosi:

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was unwilling to make the same strong denouncement of the RNC’s resolution which declared the actions of the January 6 rioters “legitimate political discourse” on Tuesday as did his Senate colleague Mitch McConnell, as Mr McCarthy continues to work to maintain a relationship with the former president.

Mr McCarthy walked away from a reporter who attempted to ask him a question about the resolution, urging her instead to make an appointment with his office:

The reporter, ABC News’s Rachel Scott, noted that the minority leader had answered a question on the issue earlier in the same setting, quipping that “anyone who broke inside” was not involved in “legitimate” discourse.

Read more from The Independent’s Alex Woodward:

MSNBC host and civil rights activist Rev Al Sharpton called on Joe Rogan to do more to address the history of racist remarks made by the podcast host and others on his show, The Joe Rogan Experience, during an interview.

Speaking with TMZ on Tuesday, the reverend said that “it’s not about a meeting, it’s about what he would want to do to show the community that he’s offended. That he’s seriously sorry”.

“We’re not lonely. We’re not looking for a meeting, we’re looking for penance,” said Mr Sharpton, adding that Mr Rogan could dedicate time to community works or other tangible efforts to make up for his actions.

Stephanie Grisham, the penultimate White House press secretary under President Donald Trump who also served as Melania Trump’s chief of staff, tore into her West Wing counterpart in a scathing message posted to Twitter on Tuesday.

Ms Grisham, who resigned in protest after the January 6 attack, referred to Mr Meadows as “ inauthentic, dishonest, manipulative, (fake) crying, backstabbing, & self-aggrandizing” in a tweet touting conservative columnist Amanda Carpenter’s piece for The Bulwark documenting Mr Meadows’s ascent to power.

Mr Meadows, as the final White House chief of staff under Mr Trump, has emerged via revelations from the January 6 committee as a main point of contact for desperate Trump allies who sought an end to the violence on Capitol Hill as the riot unfolded last year.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did not mince words on Tuesday when asked about the resolution passed by the Republican National Committee condemning Reps Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for their participation in the effort to investigate the attack on the Capitol.

The shocking statement which referred to the bloody assault on Congress as “legitimate political discourse” was an expression of the party’s continued total loyalty to President Donald Trump and his false claims about the 2020 election, which the party apparatus as a whole embraced wholeheartedly.

The Senate Republican leader made what amounted to a defense of Reps Cheney and Kinzinger from the highest-profile Republican elected official thus far, telling reporters: “We all were here. We saw what happened. It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election, from one administration to the next. That’s what it was.”

He went on to say it was “not the job” of the RNC to make such statements about sitting Republican officials.

Doug Emhoff, husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, was promptly removed from the premises of a Washington DC-area school on Tuesday after a security situation developed following his arrival.

White House pool reports indicated that Mr Emhoff was at Dunbar High School when “a security issue” required his immediate removal to a secure location. A statement from DC Public Schools indicated that the incident stemmed from a bomb threat.

Students and faculty at the school were evacuated as well.