Politics

Once Alarmed, Mainstream Pennsylvania Republicans Unite Around Mastriano

Published

2 years ago

August 19, 2022

Once Alarmed, Mainstream Pennsylvania Republicans Unite Around Mastriano

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Earlier than Pennsylvania’s main, a lot of the state’s Republican institution agreed that Doug Mastriano could be a catastrophe because the nominee for governor.

Andy Reilly, the state’s Republican nationwide committeeman, had joined a stop-Mastriano effort by rival candidates, who feared that the far-right state senator and prolific spreader of election conspiracy theories would squander an in any other case winnable race.

But on a heat night final month, Mr. Reilly opened his suburban Philadelphia dwelling for a yard fund-raiser for Mr. Mastriano, who gained his main in Could. Company chipped in $150 for ribs and pulled pork and listened to Mr. Mastriano, recent from an uproar over his presence on Gab, a social media web site that may be a haven for hate speech.

Mr. Reilly later defended Mr. Mastriano as the higher alternative to steer Pennsylvania over his Democratic opponent, Josh Shapiro. “The query is can Doug Mastriano preserve the Republican Social gathering base and all of the factions collectively?” Mr. Reilly stated.

In probably the most intently watched governor’s races of the yr, Pennsylvania Republican officers who had warned that Mr. Mastriano was unelectable have largely closed ranks behind him, after he proved to be the overwhelming alternative of base Republicans. On Friday, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida plans to headline a rally with Mr. Mastriano in Pittsburgh, a bearhug from one of many get together’s hottest nationwide figures.

Mr. Shapiro, the state legal professional common, has used an enormous fund-raising benefit to batter Mr. Mastriano in TV assault advertisements as an extremist on abortion and on the 2020 election, opening a double-digit lead in polls. Nonetheless, Democrats stay anxious they might lose to Mr. Mastriano due to the free-floating anger of the citizens this yr, with most voters fearful primarily concerning the economic system.

Whether or not the current run of Democratic successes nationally — together with the local weather and drug-pricing legislative bundle and the resounding defeat of an anti-abortion measure in Kansas — can shift the basic midterm equation stays unclear.

“The atmosphere that Joe Biden has created for Josh Shapiro makes this yr in all probability the one yr {that a} Mastriano-type candidate might win in a purple state like Pennsylvania,” stated Matt Brouillette, the top of a conservative political group within the state that opposed Mr. Mastriano within the main. “Whereas the Democrats need to give attention to Jan. 6 and Roe v. Wade, the citizens is targeted on placing meals on their desk and filling up the tanks of their automobiles.”

The Democratic nervousness was on show just lately at a celebration picnic in liberal State School, the house of Pennsylvania State College. At Mr. Shapiro’s point out of Mr. Mastriano throughout a speech, a girl shouted, “You higher win!”

There was nervous laughter. The concern displays the alarm of Democrats that if Mr. Mastriano, 58, turns into governor, he would signal extreme abortion restrictions and would have the ability to subvert the 2024 presidential election within the swing state in favor of the G.O.P. nominee.

“I hear it each single day,” Mr. Shapiro informed the gang. “They’re fearful about their rights being ripped away from them.”

Mr. Mastriano, a retired Military officer who led Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election in Pennsylvania, marched on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, passing police barricades breached by different marchers. He has boasted that as governor, “I get to decertify all or any machines within the state.” He has known as for compelling all 9 million registered voters within the state to re-register, which consultants say would violate federal legislation.

“These are harmful, excessive positions he’s taken, and these are issues I do know the individuals of Pennsylvania reject,” Mr. Shapiro, 49, stated in an interview.

Mr. Shapiro in contrast the unusually excessive turnout in deep-red Kansas in favor of abortion rights to how the difficulty is motivating his personal supporters. “We now have seen unimaginable depth in our marketing campaign post-Dobbs,” he stated, referring to the Supreme Courtroom resolution leaving it to states to guard or deny abortion entry.

Many ladies who attended his occasions agreed, saying that abortion is their most essential concern. “I used to be the technology that was younger when Roe vs. Wade grew to become the legislation of the land, and I’ve recognized ladies whose well being was ruined due to an unlawful abortion,” stated Bonnie Hannis, 80, who got here to listen to Mr. Shapiro in rural Clinton County.

“I’m excited to defend my reproductive rights,” stated Gianna Renzo, 19, who grew up within the county and is now a pupil at Princeton. “I see ladies my age who’re sometimes from Republican households, they usually’re going to come back over to the Democratic aspect” due to abortion.

Mr. Mastriano, the sponsor within the State Legislature of a six-week abortion ban with no exceptions, has appeared to modulate that place currently, saying lawmakers will write no matter invoice they select and “my private views are irrelevant.”

However there are few indicators that he has broadened his attraction to impartial and swing voters, particularly within the suburbs, who’ve performed a pivotal function in current Pennsylvania elections. He was supported by 82 p.c of Republicans in a Fox Information ballot in late July, however independents most well-liked Mr. Shapiro by 28 factors.

Mr. Mastriano declined to remark for this text.

He has routinely snubbed the state’s TV information shops and newspapers that may assist him attain a broader viewers. It’s a purposeful technique geared toward thrilling conservatives who imagine that Democrats have “the media of their pockets,” as he just lately put it.

This week, he stated he wouldn’t take part in conventional debates run by impartial information organizations due to what he known as their “hidden partisan agenda.” He proposed debates wherein every candidate names a moderator — a nonstarter for the Shapiro marketing campaign, which known as the thought an “apparent stunt.”

Mr. Mastriano speaks nearly solely to far-right podcasters like Stephen Okay. Bannon, conservative discuss radio hosts and Fox Information. On a current swing by way of northwest Pennsylvania, he dismissed a Pittsburgh TV station that sought to interview him, and even the small-circulation Meadville Tribune.

One results of that strategy is that he seldom has to area powerful questions. And his poor fund-raising — he ended the first season with simply $400,000 in his marketing campaign account, in contrast with $13.4 million for Mr. Shapiro — has left him unable to run TV advertisements all summer season to counter a barrage of assaults from his opponent.

The Shapiro advertisements use Mr. Mastriano’s phrases to color him as exterior the mainstream, not simply on abortion and election denial, however on homosexual marriage, which he has stated ought to “completely not” be authorized, and on world warming, which he known as “pretend science.”

“You’ve mainly bought a one-person governor’s race proper now by way of voter contact,” stated Christopher Nicholas, a Republican marketing consultant within the state. “All the parents who hearken to these far-right podcasts, I believe he maxed out his vote potential. He has to maneuver previous his base.”

At a current look by Mr. Mastriano on the York County Honest, there have been no indicators on the sprawling fairgrounds directing potential voters his method. Exterior the corridor the place he was to look, a big crowd on bleachers on the appointed hour turned out to be ready for the Sizzling Canine Pig Races.

Mr. Mastriano confirmed up inside on the county Republican sales space. He didn’t give a speech, however shook fingers and posed for footage with a number of dozen supporters.

Donna VanDyne, an insurance coverage agent, supported a no-exceptions abortion ban, claiming that victims of rape or incest who give delivery alter. “Once they have their child, they’ve one another and turn out to be help techniques for each other,” she stated.

Daybreak Smith, an aspiring trainer’s aide, repeated a debunked conspiracy idea Mr. Mastriano had unfold about voting machines. “They switched President Trump’s votes to Joe Biden’s votes with the Dominion machines,” she claimed.

Wayne Liek, a retired truck driver, recalling prayers he stated in class within the Nineteen Sixties, agreed with Mr. Mastriano that the Constitutional separation of church and state was, as Mr. Mastriano described it, “a delusion.”

A core of Mr. Mastriano’s reputation with Republicans is his embrace of views related to Christian nationalism, the idea that america was based as a Christian nation, and infrequently intertwined with far-right conspiratorial pondering.

Few attendees appeared conscious of the furor over Mr. Mastriano’s presence on Gab. His marketing campaign had paid $5,000 to broaden his help with customers of the social media web site, which is called a haven for white nationalists. A publish by Mr. Mastriano in July criticizing Democratic insurance policies drew dozens of replies that have been antisemitic insults of Mr. Shapiro.

Gab’s founder, Andrew Torba, defended Mr. Mastriano in movies laced with antisemitic vitriol. Mr. Mastriano distanced himself from Mr. Torba on July 28, saying that he rejected “antisemitism in any type.’’

At a later look the place he did give a speech, in Cochranton, Mr. Mastriano stated: “It’s humorous, they need to name us extremists. They’re the extremists.’’

He attacked Mr. Shapiro for suing, as legal professional common, to maintain a masks mandate in colleges and to uphold Gov. Tom Wolf’s shutdown of nonessential companies early within the pandemic. Mr. Mastriano first gained a following for main protests towards restrictions to stop the unfold of Covid. Fury at these orders lingers for a lot of conservatives.

Requested concerning the fits, Mr. Shapiro stated that he personally opposes mandates for masks and vaccines, however because the state’s prime lawyer he was required to characterize the governor and government department in litigation. He prevailed in each instances.

Earlier than he campaigned in State School, a blue island in a sea of purple in central Pennsylvania, Mr. Shapiro had visited Lock Haven in close by Clinton County.

Mike Hanna Sr., a retired Democratic state lawmaker from the realm, stated Mr. Mastriano “has a powerful base right here, similar to Trump.” However Mr. Hanna stated the previous president had misplaced help since inciting the mob that attacked the Capitol.

“I hunt with a bunch of veterans, they usually simply shake their heads,” Mr. Hanna stated. “Trump has completed lots to erode his standing along with his base, and Mastriano’s participation in all that, and the intense positions he’s taken, have completed the identical factor.”

“It’d be lots scarier for us,” Mr. Hanna stated, “if the Republicans had chosen a reasonable.”

Politics

Republican aims to break decades long Senate election losing streak in this blue state

Published

23 mins ago

April 20, 2024

Press Room

Republican aims to break decades long Senate election losing streak in this blue state

EXCLUSIVE – It’s been over a half century since a Republican won a Senate election in blue state New Jersey.

But real estate developer and hotelier Curtis Bashaw is optimistic about his party’s prospects in November’s elections to end the decades-long losing streak.

Bashaw, one of the two leading contenders in a multi-candidate field in June’s GOP Senate primary in New Jersey, emphasized “I believe this is a once in a generation opportunity.”

“I can’t wait to see how we prove to the rest of the country that New Jersey is a lot more purple than people realize,” he added in a national digital exclusive interview with Fox News.

THIS POPULAR FORMER GOP GOVERNOR AIMS TO FLIP A SENATE SEAT IN HIS DEEP BLUE STATE

Real estate developer and hotelier Curtis Bashaw, a Republican candidate for Senate in New Jersey, stands in front of the historic Congress Hall hotel in Cape May, N.J., on April 10, 2024 (Curtis Bashaw campaign)

A major reason for Bashaw’s optimism is the prospect of a three-way race in New Jersey. Longtime Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, who was indicted last year on federal corruption charges, is not running for re-election as a Democrat and instead is mulling an independent bid, which polls indicate would potentially take votes away from likely Democratic Senate nominee Rep. Andy Kim.

EMBATTLED DEMOCRATIC SENATOR MAY TESTIFY AGAINST HIS WIFE

Bashaw, an entrepreneur and historic preservationist who is recognized in the Garden State for leading the restorations of the historic Congress Hall and the Virginia Hotel in Cape May, at the southern tip of the Jersey shore, is a first time politician.

“I’m a political outsider,” Bashaw emphasized. “I’m a business guy. I built a business over 35 years restoring landmark abandoned hotels.”

And he highlighted that he grew his business from 25 to 1,000 employees.

“I’m in it because I want to unshackle small business from over regulation,” he said.

Rep. Andy Kim in front of the U.S. Capitol

File photo of New Jersey Democrat Rep. Andy Kim, at the U.S. Capitol. (Fox News Digital/ Jon Michael Raasch)

Bashaw’s chief rival for the GOP nomination is Christine Serrano Glassner, who’s served for four years as mayor of Mendham Borough, in the northern part of the state.

Bashaw holds a formidable fundraising advantage in the Republican race – thanks in part to a large self-investment in his campaign.

He also enjoys an advantage on the primary ballot, as he has the county line in two-thirds of the state’s 21 counties.

SIX KEY SENATE SEATS REPUBLICANS AIM TO FLIP IN NOVEMBER

New Jersey has long allowed counties to print ballots that include a prominent party line, which are widely viewed as helping candidates with establishment backing. Kim sued in federal court to overturn the county lines in the Democratic Primary. But the GOP county lines were upheld.

“New Jersey is made up of thousands and thousands and thousands of small businesspeople. We are going to get to them really quickly and our name ID will go up really fast,” Bashaw said.

And pointing to a busy schedule on the campaign trail ahead of the primary, Bashaw showcased that “I go to six coffees a day. I go talk to every single county in our state. I put a lot of miles on the car.”

Donald Trump endorses Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania's 2024 Senate race

Former President Donald Trump greets attendees during a campaign event in Schnecksville, Pa., Saturday, April 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Joe Lamberti) (AP Photo/Joe Lamberti)

Asked about former President Donald Trump, who is the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee, Bashaw told Fox News “I’m supporting this ticket top to bottom.”

It’s been 36 years since a Republican carried New Jersey in a White House race, but Trump is planning a campaign stop in the state next month.

“Donald Trump thinks New Jersey’s in play. I agree with him. Trump believes he can flip the country from blue to red. I believe we can flip this Senate seat from blue to red,” Bashaw said.

He argued that “there’s a massive opportunity to pull” New Jersey’s large pool of unaffiliated voters “to the Republican tent…. We are going to pull those unaffiliated voters our way this fall.”

National Republicans to date have not made any investments in the Senate race in the Garden State.

But National Republican Senatorial Committee communications director Mike Berg said “we’re keeping a close eye on New Jersey.”

A national Democratic Senate campaign aide, asked about the contest, told Fox News that “Democrats have won every New Jersey Senate race since 1978 and 2024 will be no different.”

Curtis Bashaw is optimistic Republicans will break a 52-year-long losing streak in Senate elections in New Jersey

Real estate developer and hotelier Curtis Bashaw, a Republican candidate for Senate in New Jersey, stands in front of the historic Congress Hall hotel in Ridgewood, N.J. on April 17, 2024 (Curtis Bashaw campaign)

Bashaw, in his interview, spotlighted a couple of key issues, including crime.

“New Jerseyans are not feeling safe and secure in their homes,” he argued.

On immigration and border security, another key issue Republicans are spotlighting, he charged that New Jersey “is now a border state. There are illegals coming into all of our counties.”

“The woke ideology has permeated through our culture and we now have in our state, schools keeping secrets from parents about very, very, personal decisions,” he claimed, as he defended parental rights in public education.

On the issue of abortion, which Democrats are spotlighting, Bashaw pointed to the two-year-old blockbuster decision by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority that overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, which for a half century had legalized abortion nationwide.

“I believe that the Dobbs decision was the correct decision,” Bashaw said.

But he added that “I don’t support a federal ban,” which some in his party are backing.

The Dobbs decision moved the fight over abortion back to the states, and in New Jersey abortion is legal in all stages of pregnancy.

“New Jersey’s decided it,” Bashaw said, before charging that “the Democrats are the extremists on this issue, passing legislation allowing abortions up until the day of birth.”

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in New Hampshire.

Politics

NPR suspends journalist who publicly accused network of liberal bias

Published

50 mins ago

April 20, 2024

Press Room

NPR suspends journalist who publicly accused network of liberal bias

NPR has suspended a veteran editor who wrote an essay criticizing the public broadcaster for having what he described as a lack of politically diverse viewpoints.

Uri Berliner, an award-winning business journalist who has worked at the network for 25 years, will be off the job for five days without pay. Berliner acknowledged the suspension Monday in an interview with National Public Radio. He did not respond to The Times’ request for comment.

The suspension came after Berliner put a harsh spotlight on NPR with an April 9 opinion piece for the Substack newsletter the Free Press. He said the decline in NPR’s audience levels is due to a move toward liberal political advocacy and catering to “a distilled worldview of a very small segment of the U.S. population.” The overall thrust of the piece asserted that NPR has “lost America’s trust.”

An NPR representative said the network “does not comment on individual personnel matters, including discipline. We expect all of our employees to comply with NPR policies and procedures, which for our editorial staff includes the NPR Ethics Handbook.”

Berliner was told by management last week that he violated company policy by failing to secure its approval to supply work for other news outlets, according to an NPR news report by media correspondent David Folkenflik. Berliner was informed that he will be fired if he violates that policy again.

Berliner’s essay has been seized on by right-wing media outlets that frequently accuse NPR and other mainstream news sources of a liberal bias.

On Monday, conservative activists resurfaced years old social media posts by current NPR Chief Executive Katherine Maher, in which she expressed her disdain for former President Trump. In one 2020 post, she called Trump a racist.

Maher took on her NPR role in January. She previously headed the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, and has no previous experience in journalism. NPR has said Maher was not in an editorial role at the foundation when she made the social media posts, adding that she “is entitled to free speech as a private citizen.”

Berliner’s essay said the network began to lose its way after Trump’s 2016 election victory.

“I eagerly voted against Trump twice but felt we were obliged to cover him fairly,” Berliner wrote. “But what began as tough, straightforward coverage of a belligerent, truth-impaired president veered toward efforts to damage or topple Trump’s presidency.”

Berliner said the network overplayed the investigation of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign in the 2016 presidential election. He also said the news operation turned a blind eye to the story of the laptop abandoned by President Biden’s son Hunter in October 2020, out of concern that coverage of the matter would help reelect Trump.

Berliner was also critical of NPR’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas war and the origins of the COVID-19 virus, as well as the organization’s focus on race and identity, which he said “became paramount in nearly every aspect of the workplace.”

Edith Chapin, NPR’s chief news executive, rejected Berliner’s analysis in a memo to staff after his piece was published.

“We’re proud to stand behind the exceptional work that our desks and shows do to cover a wide range of challenging stories,” she wrote. “We believe that inclusion — among our staff, with our sourcing, and in our overall coverage — is critical to telling the nuanced stories of this country and our world.”

Politics

NY AG Letitia James asks judge to void Trump's $175M bond in civil fraud case

Published

8 hours ago

April 19, 2024

Press Room

NY AG Letitia James asks judge to void Trump's $175M bond in civil fraud case

New York Attorney General Letitia James is pushing the judge in former President Donald Trump’s civil fraud case to void the $175 million bond that Trump previously posted to appeal his New York civil lawsuit.

In her 26-page filing obtained by Fox News Digital, James questions whether the insurance company has sufficient funds to back it up.

Trump’s bond was posted by California-based Knight Specialty Insurance Company (KSIC), but James argued that the insurer was “not authorized” to write business in New York, stating it is a small insurer that is not authorized to write business in New York and is not regulated by the state’s insurance department, had never before written a surety bond in New York or in the prior two years in any other jurisdiction, and has a total policyholder surplus of just $138 million.

The company has a total policyholder surplus of just $138 million, the filing states. According to New York state law, smaller businesses like KSIC are not permitted to expose themselves to liabilities, like a bond, or any potential loss greater than 10 percent of their surplus.

NEW YORK AG TAKES VICTORY LAP AFTER TRUMP FRAUD RULING: ‘JUSTICE HAS BEEN SERVED’

New York Attorney General said she is “prepared” to ask the judge to seize former President Donald Trump’s assets if he cannot pay the $354 million judgement handed down in his civil fraud case. (ABC News/Screenshot/Brendan McDermid-Pool/Getty Images)

“Based on KSIC’s policyholder surplus in its most recent annual financial statement of $138,441,671, the limitation of loss on any one risk that KSIC is permitted to write is $13.8 million,” the lawyers wrote. “The face amount of the bond exceeds this limitation by $161.2 million.”

James also wrote in the filing that “KSIC is not qualified to act as the surety under this standard because its management has been found by federal authorities to have operated affiliated companies within KSIC’s holding company structure in violation of federal law on multiple occasions within the past several years.”

“KSIC does not now have an exclusive right to control the account and will not obtain such control unless and until it exercises a right to do so on two days’ notice,” the filing read.

James also wrote that the Court should not rely on KSIC’s financial summary attached to the bond as evidence that KSIC has sufficient capacity to justify writing a $175 million bond.

“That is because KSIC sends 100% of its retained insurance risk to affiliates in the Cayman Islands, where lax regulations allow KSIC to use this risk transfer to reduce the liabilities it carries on its books in a way that artificially bolsters its surplus, a practice New York regulators have dubbed “shadow insurance” and about which they have sounded the alarm,” the filing read.

For these reasons, James writes that the Court should deny the Motion and require Defendants to post a replacement undertaking within seven days of the Court’s ruling.

NY AG LETITIA JAMES BOOED AT FDNY CEREMONY WITH CHANTS OF ‘TRUMP! TRUMP! TRUMP!’

Democrat New York Attorney General Letitia James and former President Donald Trump. (Getty Images)

In September, Judge Arthur Engoron ruled that Trump and the Trump Organization had committed fraud while building a real estate empire by deceiving banks, insurers and others by overvaluing his assets and exaggerating his net worth on paperwork used in making deals and securing financing.

The judge also prohibited Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation or legal entity in New York for two years.

The former president has repeatedly slammed the case against him and denied any wrongdoing, calling it a “witch hunt.”

James brought the lawsuit against Trump, accusing Trump and the Trump Organization of fraudulent business practices. James claimed Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric, as well as his associates and businesses, committed “numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentation” on their financial statements.

Trump has pleaded not guilty on all counts.

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The judge is expected to hold a hearing Monday to discuss the issues raised by the attorney general’s office. The hearing is set to run in conjunction with opening statements in Trump’s New York criminal trial.

Fox News’ Brooke Singman and Timothy Nerozzi contributed to this report.