Politics

Opinion: No, Donald Trump does not equal Alexei Navalny

Published

11 months ago

February 19, 2024

Opinion: No, Donald Trump does not equal Alexei Navalny

Alexei Navalny didn’t simply die. He wasn’t just murdered. He was tortured to death.

It didn’t happen on the rack or mid-beating, but Vladimir Putin — who had tried to eliminate him earlier — slowly killed Navalny all the same.

Putin sent the Russian dissident and anti-corruption activist to the gulag with the aim of grinding him down with hard labor, isolation, hunger and shabby medical care, until he died. Russia’s claims that he died from “sudden death syndrome,” even if true, change nothing, given that being poisoned with a Soviet-era nerve agent (2020) and thrown into an Arctic labor camp (2023) presumably increases one’s chances of falling prey to SDS.

The question of whether the timing of Navalny’s death was deliberate matters geopolitically but not morally.

If Putin ordered Navalny’s death Friday, it might shed light on his state of mind. Was Putin sending a message in advance of next month’s “election” in Russia? Does that message reflect confidence or insecurity? Was Putin buoyed by his recent military successes in Ukraine or his related political victories in the U.S. Congress? Perhaps Navalny’s death was a thumb in the eye of the West timed to coincide with the Munich Security Conference?

Or, was he, as some Russian propagandists have speculated, somehow motivated by the insidiously insipid comments of Tucker Carlson a few days earlier?

On his way back from interviewing Putin and celebrating Russia’s superiority to America in a series of embarrassing videos about Moscow supermarkets and subways, Carlson appeared at a forum in Dubai. Asked why he hadn’t questioned Putin about the then-still-alive Navalny, Carlson shrugged and said, “Every leader kills people. Some kill more than others. Leadership requires killing people.” No doubt Putin agrees.

At minimum, if Putin didn’t want the world to know about Navalny’s death Friday, the world would not know about it. The revelation itself is a statement unto itself.

What Navalny’s death — and his life — say about Putin’s Russia should be obvious to anyone who doesn’t believe “leadership requires killing.”

What it says about the moral rot on parts of the American right is another matter. For numerous right-wing and Republican figures, the real lesson of Navalny’s killing is that “Navalny = Trump,” in the words of Trump-pardoned writer Dinesh D’Souza. “The plan of the Biden regime and the Democrats is to ensure their leading political opponent dies in prison. There’s no real difference between the two cases.”

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich concurred, on X (formerly Twitter): Navalny’s death “is a brutal reminder that jailing your political opponents is inhumane and a violation of every principle of a free society. Watch the Biden Administration speak out against Putin and his jailing of his leading political opponent while Democrats in four different jurisdictions try to turn President Trump into an American Navalny. The hypocrisy and corruption of the left is astonishing.”

D’Souza and Gingrich were hardly alone in indulging this grotesque exercise in Soviet-style propaganda. On Monday, Trump himself invoked the comparison on social media. His first mention of Navalny’s name wasn’t to condemn his death or Putin’s role in it, but to cast himself as an American Navalny. “The sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our Country,” he declared before spewing the usual self-serving grievances.

Condemning such false moral equivalence was once central to American conservatism. Ronald Reagan’s United Nations Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick and National Review founder William F. Buckley led those denouncing the anti-Americanism inherent in equating undemocratic and democratic regimes. When someone told Buckley that the U.S. and U.S.S.R. were the same because they both spend a lot on the military, he replied, “That’s like saying that the man who pushed old ladies out of the way of an incoming bus is like the man who pushes old ladies into the way of an incoming bus. Both push old ladies around.”

Trump is not an innocent anti-corruption crusader brutalized and murdered for championing democracy and the rule of law. Nor does Moscow’s subway system — built with slave labor — pose some grand indictment of America, as Carlson insinuated.

There are ample plausible criticisms of the legal cases against Trump, but even if you agree with all of them (I don’t), the notion that Joe Biden is the moral equivalent of Vladimir Putin is a slander, not merely of Biden but of America itself. Indeed, one reason we know it’s not true: Publicly criticizing Putin’s treatment of Navalny can land you in a Russian cell. Criticizing Biden’s (alleged) treatment of Trump can land you in a Fox News studio.

@JonahDispatch

Politics

Trump Begins Selling New Meme Coin Days Ahead of Inauguration

Published

5 hours ago

January 18, 2025

Press Room

Trump Begins Selling New Meme Coin Days Ahead of Inauguration

President-elect Donald J. Trump and his family on Friday started selling a cryptocurrency token featuring an image of Mr. Trump drawn from the July assassination attempt, a potentially lucrative new business that ethics experts assailed as a blatant effort to cash in on the office he is about to occupy again.

Disclosed just days before his second inauguration, the venture is the latest in a series of moves by Mr. Trump that blur the line between his government role and the continued effort by his family to profit from his power and global fame. It is yet another sign that the Trump family will be much less hesitant in this second term to bend or breach traditional ethical boundaries.

Mr. Trump himself announced the launch of his new business on Friday night on his social media platform, in between announcements about filling key federal government posts. He is calling the token $Trump, selling it with the slogan, “Join the Trump Community. This is History in the Making!”

The venture was organized by CIC Digital LLC, an affiliate of the Trump Organization, which already has been selling an array of other kinds of merchandise like Trump-branded sneakers, fragrances and even digital trading cards.

But this newest venture brings Mr. Trump and his family directly into the world of selling cryptocurrency, which is regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Mr. Trump recently disclosed he intended to name a cryptocurrency advocate as S.E.C. chairman.

A disclosure on the website selling the tokens says that CIC Digital and its affiliates own 80 percent of the supply of the new Trump tokens that will be released gradually over the coming three years and that they will be paid “trading revenue” as the tokens are sold.

The move by Mr. Trump and his family was immediately condemned by ethics lawyers who said they could not recall a more explicit profiteering effort by an incoming president.

“It is literally cashing in on the presidency — creating a financial instrument so people can transfer money to the president’s family in connection with his office” said Adav Noti, executive director of Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit ethics group. “It is beyond unprecedented.”

Eric Trump, who helps run Trump Organization business operations, said on Saturday that this offering was part of a new and growing business sector that the Trump family has entered.

“I am extremely proud of what we continue to accomplish in crypto,” Eric Trump said in a statement to The New York Times. “$Trump is currently the hottest digital meme on earth.” He added: “This is just the beginning.”

But even some in the cryptocurrency industry were quick to criticize the new token.

“Trump owning 80 percent and timing launch hours before inauguration is predatory and many will likely get hurt by it,” wrote Nick Tomaino, a crypto venture capitalist and former executive at Coinbase, one of the largest crypto trading platforms, in a social media posting on Saturday.

The president-elect and his three sons had, as of late last year, already lent their name to another cryptocurrency startup called World Liberty Financial, an arrangement that included a cut of token sales for the Trump family in exchange for helping promote the new brand.

But the members of the Trump family, with World Liberty Financial, were not actually owners of the platform or officers in the company.

There are other crypto currency coins in the marketplace based on Mr. Trump that are not directly affiliated with his family like the new Trump Meme. Typically, these so-called meme coins — which were born when coins were created as a joke inspired by an internet meme or cartoonish animal faces — are largely worthless and traded more like a hobby.

With this new venture, companies associated with Mr. Trump’s family have a direct financial stake in the value of the new tokens and in the volume of their sales, which quickly surged after going on the market.

“GetTrumpMemes.com is not political and has nothing to do with any political campaign or any political office or governmental agency,” the venture’s website says, adding, “Trump Memes are intended to function as an expression of support for, and engagement with, the ideals and beliefs embodied by the symbol ‘$TRUMP.’”

The legal disclosures say the tokens are not intended to be seen as “an investment opportunity, investment contract or security of any type.” But trading of them on cryptocurrency markets began immediately, driving up the value of each token from $7 to nearly $30 as of noon on Saturday.

This suggested that the so-called fully diluted value of all the tokens as of Saturday at noon was $30 billion, a number achieved less than a day after the token went on the market, according to CoinMarketCap, a site that tracks cryptocurrency trading.

Mr. Trump and his family are clear in the marketing of the new token that the image picked for the coin had been inspired by the July assassination attempt in Butler, Pa.

“President Trump faced death and came up fighting!” the website promoting the tokens says.

Cryptocurrency markets tend to be highly volatile, in part because tokens are not backed by any tangible assets. The website for Mr. Trump’s new venture includes an extensive collection of disclaimers limiting the ability of anyone buying the token to file a class-action lawsuit related to it and warning buyers that “Trump Memes may be extremely volatile, and price fluctuations in cryptocurrencies could impact the price.”

Mr. Trump has already made clear that he will be working to promote the cryptocurrency industry.

He has announced his intention to appoint regulators who will lift restrictions on the sale of new tokens and ties between cryptocurrency companies and other more traditional financial enterprises.

This stands in contrast to efforts by Biden-era regulators to tightly regulate the industry, out of a concern that a sudden crash in the value of cryptocurrency could potentially lead to a future financial crash.

Politics

Thousands of left-wing demonstrators descend on Washington to protest Trump inauguration

Published

6 hours ago

January 18, 2025

Press Room

Thousands of left-wing demonstrators descend on Washington to protest Trump inauguration

Thousands of mainly female protesters descended on Washington, D.C. to protest President–elect Trump’s inauguration on Monday. However, the crowd is only a tenth of the half a million who turned out for the “Women’s March” in 2017.

Saturday’s march, rebranded as the “People’s March,” is taking place at three different locations with demonstrators advocating for a wide range of left-wing causes and showcasing a united front to the new administration.

This morning, a kickoff event took place in Franklin Park for “gender justice” and bodily autonomy, and then demonstrators walked downtown before making their way towards the Lincoln Memorial for the day’s main event.

Demonstrators participate in the “People’s March” on Washington January 18, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Activists were rallying in opposition to the incoming Trump administration’s policy objectives two days before the presidential inauguration. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

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“It’s really healing to be here with all of you today in solidarity and togetherness, in the face of what’s going to be some really horrible extremism,” Mini Timmaraju, the head of advocacy group Reproductive Freedom for All, told the crowd as events kicked off.

Other protesters gathered at two other parks also near the White House, with one group focused on democracy and immigration and another on local Washington issues,

Vendors hawked buttons that said #MeToo and “Love trumps hate,” and sold People’s March flags for $10. Demonstrators carried posters that read “Feminists v. Fascists” and “People over politics.”

Lillian Fenske, 31, drove six hours from Greensboro, North Carolina, to participate. Her signs expressed concern over oligarchs and the disunity. “America is not for sale,” said one, while another said simply, “Divided We Fall.”

Protestors representing a variety of rights groups attend the "People's March on Washington" on January 18, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Protesters representing a variety of rights groups attend the “People’s March on Washington” on January 18, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Activists were rallying in opposition to the incoming Trump administration’s policy objectives two days before the presidential inauguration. (Bryan Woolston/Getty Images)

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There is a heavy police presence, although law enforcement is not expecting a repeat of the violent scenes seen across the city ahead of Inauguration Day in 2017, where protesters shattered glass storefronts and torched cars, with police arresting more than 200 people in demonstrations that spanned several days.

The enthusiasm behind the so-called resistance movement to Trump has waned somewhat, with many progressive voters expressing feelings of exhaustion and disappointment following Trump’s landslide win in November. He dominated both the Electoral College and the popular vote to defeat Vice President Kamala Harris after a historic campaign cycle.

Demonstrators during the People's March,

Animated pro-choice and cliamte protesters holding signs at the march. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

The 2017 Women’s March took place on the day after Trump’s inauguration. Celebrities like America Ferrera, Madonna, Ashley Judd, Cher, Katy Perry, Amy Schumer, Scarlett Johansson, Julianne Moore, Michael Moore, Debra Messing, Patricia Arquette and others attended the march.

President-elect Trump is expected to leave Mar-a-Lago later today and head to Washington.

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Trump’s advisers have not detailed how he will spend the first part of the day, and the only public event on Trump’s schedule is an evening reception and fireworks show at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia.

Donald Trump giving his inaugural address in 2017

President-elect Trump delivers his inaugural address on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2017,, in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

On Sunday, there will be a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery and a “Make America Great Again” rally, at which Trump will deliver remarks, followed by a candlelit dinner.

Monday is Inauguration Day when Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance will participate in the swearing-in ceremony, which has been moved indoors due to the forecasted frigid temperatures.

Fox News’ Brooke Singman, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Michael Dorgan is a writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business.

You can send tips to michael.dorgan@fox.com and follow him on Twitter @M_Dorgan.

Politics

Harris joins a decades-old tradition for vice presidents in her final days in office

Published

6 hours ago

January 18, 2025

Press Room

Harris joins a decades-old tradition for vice presidents in her final days in office

WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris, in one of her last public appearances in the role, signed her ceremonial desk drawer at the White House on Thursday, a tradition that dates back nearly a century.

As a crush of current and prior staffers gathered in Harris’ formal office at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, she thanked them for their “extraordinary commitment” to public service and prioritizing the hopes and dreams of the American people.

“We have each taken on a life and a calling that is about doing work in the service of others, and doing it in a way that is fueled yes with ambition, yes with a sense of almost stubbornness about not hearing no and knowing we can make a difference,” Harris said.

Kamala Harris’ and other vice presidents’ signatures on a desk drawer in Harris’ office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

(Susan Walsh / Associated Press)

Then, as Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff snapped pictures, Harris used a Sharpie to sign her desk drawer, a tradition that dates back to the 1940s and has been carried on continuously since the Ford administration. The vice president noted that she has met every one of her predecessors who signed the desk with the exception of Presidents Eisenhower and Truman.

As onlookers chanted, “MVP! MVP!” Harris, who unsuccessfully challenged President-elect Donald Trump for the White House in 2024, was asked what she planned to do next. Speculation about whether she would run for governor of California has been swirling.

“I’ll keep you posted,” she said, smiling.