Trump compares himself to Al Capone in dictator comments at Hannity town hall: Live – The Independent

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Former president made the remarks at a Sean Hannity hosted Fox News town hall as his Republican rivals prepared four their fourth debate
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Donald Trump at a Fox News townhall on 5 December 2024
Donald Trump bizarrely compared himself to Al Capone when saying he would act like a dictator if re-elected president, but “just for day one”.
At a Fox News town hall event on Tuesday evening with Sean Hannity, the twice-impeached former president was repeatedly asked about potentially abusing his presidential powers to go after his perceived enemies — something his allies have said he will do.
Meanwhile, Eric Trump’s second appearance in the witness stand of the Trump Organization’s New York fraud trial did not go ahead on Wednesday, supposedly at the behest of his father. Mr Trump is scheduled to testify on Monday and will still be under a gag order after a judge denied an attempt to fast-track an appeal.
Elsewhere, as 10 pro-Trump fake electors in Wisconsin settle a civil case against them for their part in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election results in that state in favour of Mr Trump, a grand jury in Nevada has indicted six Republicans for a similar scheme.
Lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, known as the architect of the plot to throw the election to the former president is cooperating with authorities there after his guilty plea in Georgia.
Donald Trump has claimed that his verbal errors are him being sarcastic while speaking at a Town Hall event in Iowa on 5 December. The former President referenced mix-ups he made with current President Joe Biden with former President Barack Obama. “I’ll say our real president is Barack Hussein Obama. They’ll say ‘he doesn’t know who the president is, he thinks it’s Barack Hussein,’ no I’m being sarcastic,” Trump told the crowd. Mr Trump has also suggested that his predecessor is having a big influence on President Biden.
Eric Garcia writes:
Nearly three years since the violence, Republicans are seeking to rewrite the narratives around January 6 to frame it either as a normal peaceful protest in part of the American tradition or as a set-up by federal law enforcement. It also comes as the de facto leader of the party, Mr Trump, has said if he is re-elected, he would pardon inmates, even as he faces a federal investigation for his role in the riot and efforts to overturn the election.
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Republican attempts to rewrite history will not go the way they expect, Eric Garcia writes
A grand jury in Nevada has voted to indict six Republicans, including the party’s state chair, after they falsely pledged the state’s electoral votes to Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
Nevada’s Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford announced felony charges on Wednesday, marking another round of state-level criminal charges against participants in a so-called “fake elector” plot that sought to overturn Joe Biden’s victory, a scheme central to federal and state charges against the former president.
“When the efforts to undermine faith in our democracy began after the 2020 election, I made it clear that I would do everything in my power to defend the institutions of our nation and our state,” Mr Ford said in a statement.
“We cannot allow attacks on democracy to go unchallenged,” he added. “Today’s indictments are the product of a long and thorough investigation, and as we pursue this prosecution, I am confident that our judicial system will see justice done.”
Alex Woodward is following this developing story for The Independent.
The state’s GOP chair and other Trump allies face felony charges
Donald Trump’s attorneys are set to wrap up the case for the defence in his civil fraud trial in New York next week, with the former president set to be the final witness, giving testimony for the second time at the trial.
His son Eric Trump was also set to take the stand again on Wednesday (6 December) in his capacity as executive vice president of the Trump Organization overseeing the management and operation of the global real estate empire.
Unexpectedly on Tuesday though, Trump family attorney Clifford Robert told the court that the defence “has decided not to call” Eric Trump to the stand. He offered no explanation.
It was not until Tuesday evening that former president Trump stepped forward with an explanation as to why Eric would not be appearing in court again.
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Developing story…
Donald Trump has predicted that ‘vicious people’ around President Joe Biden will bring him down. “There are people in that Oval Office who are evil people, bad people, smart people. Young, vicious. They’re communists,” Mr Trump told Sean Hannity at a Town Hall in Iowa on Fox News on 5 December. The former President mocked President Biden’s frailty, drawing laughter from the audience. Mr Trump added that he doesn’t think Mr Biden will “make it” as the Democrats’ nominee in 2024.
Federal prosecutors have given notice that they plan to introduce evidence of former president Donald Trump’s embrace of and support for charged and convicted January 6 rioters as a way to demonstrate what he intended to happen when a riotous mob of his supporters stormed the US Capitol to prevent certification of his 2020 election loss.
In a court document filed on Tuesday, prosecutors working under special counsel Jack Smith said that some of the evidence they intend to present is from before or after the criminal conspiracy in which the ex-president is charged with participating, but stressed that the evidence is admissible under rules allowing the government to use it to “establish his motive, intent, preparation, knowledge, absence of mistake, and common plan”.
In particular, prosecutors say they will use evidence that predates the alleged conspiracy at issue to demonstrate Mr Trump’s “encouragement of violence,” including his now-infamous exhortation to the extremist group known as the Proud Boys that they should “stand back and stand by” during his 29 September 2020 debate with now-president Joe Biden.
Andrew Feinberg has the full story.
Prosecutors intend to use Mr Trump’s offers of pardons for convicted rioters to demonstrate how he signals that ‘the law does not apply to those who act at his urging’
President Joe Biden has told a group of Democratic donors on Tuesday that he might not have decided to stand for re-election at 81 years of age if former president Donald Trump wasn’t seeking to reclaim the presidency in next year’s general election.
Mr Biden, the oldest person to ever serve as America’s chief executive, is looking to be elected to serve another four-year term in the White House, which would end when he is 86 years old. He announced his candidacy for re-election in April, approximately six months after Mr Trump launched his campaign for the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination against the man he lost to three years ago.
The 46th president’s advanced age has led a small number of Democrats to call for him to stand aside in favour of a younger, presumably more vigorous candidate who, in his critics’ telling, would easily best Mr Trump.
But while speaking at a fundraiser outside Boston on Tuesday, Mr Biden said Mr Trump’s persistence on the political scene is why he is not stepping aside in favour of a new generation.
“If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running. But we cannot let him win,” he said.
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Ahead of the fourth GOP debate in Alabama, Donald Trump is in his most comfortable polling position yet.
The ex-president remains atop the GOP field in a major way, having consolidated support from six in 10 Republican voters nationally according to a NewsNation/Decision Desk HQ poll released on Monday. Though Mr Trump will not appear this Wednesday for the debate held by NewsNation alongside his GOP fellows, his decision to skip the 2023-24 debate cycle appears to not have hurt his chances in the slightest.
Indeed, the poll shows few pieces of good news for his opponents. Mr DeSantis and Ms Haley are statistically tied, at 11 and 10 per cent respectively, while the former president’s base of support appears to trust him more on the most important issues to voters this year, including the economy.
John Bowden reports.
Ex-president is expected to skip fourth GOP debate as he spurns rivals
Far-right Florida Rep Matt Gaetz has claimed that the press is “green-lighting” the assassination of former President Donald Trump by reporting on what a second Trump term would look like.
On Monday, Mr Gaetz tweeted “They’re obviously green-lighting assassination” and included a screenshot from a Washington Post op-ed by Post Opinions contributing editor Robert Kagan bearing the headline “A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending”.
Responding to Mr Gaetz, Condé Nast Legal Affairs Editor Luke Zaleski noted that “There is nothing you can say or do to confront Maga gaslighting that won’t be met with more MAGA gaslighting”.
“They’ll say anything to make themselves the victim and hero in everything. And there is nothing you can say to do anything about it. That is the MAGA gaslighting paradox,” he added.
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Washington Post editor writes most Americans may not care about move to dictatorship if they ‘can go about their daily business … just as many Russians and Hungarians do not care’
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Donald Trump at a Fox News townhall on 5 December 2024
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