Jamie Raskin Issues Dire Warning to Trump Running Mate J.D. Vance

In a speech at the Democratic National Convention Monday night, Jamie Raskin addressed not only his fellow party members but also Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance.

Raskin, who led Donald Trump’s impeachment over the January 6 insurrection, gave Vance a warning about the former president’s violent supporters. “Remember what the mob chanted as they stormed the Capitol?” Raskin asked. “Hang Mike Pence.”

“J.D. Vance, do you understand why there was a sudden job opening for running mate on the GOP ticket? They tried to kill your predecessor!” Raskin continued. “They tried to kill him because he would not follow Trump’s plan to destroy and nullify the votes of millions of Americans.”

Former Vice President Mike Pence has announced he cannot support Donald Trump after he was threatened by Trump’s fans for refusing to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

“I believe anyone that puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States, and anyone who asks someone else to put them over the Constitution should never be president of the United States again,” Pence said in March.

In a statement to The Hill, Trump fired back at Raskin over his comments.

“Jamie Raskin is a disgusting piece of trash who has such a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, he is willing to politicize talking about assassinations just one month after an attempt was made of President Trump’s life. These are the people Democrats are highlighting at their convention,” a Trump spokesperson said.

While the Democratic National Convention was kicking off in Chicago, Donald Trump was posting to Truth Social, claiming that Vice President Kamala Harris had rejected a debate against him on Fox News on September 4.

“Comrade Kamala Harris has just informed us that she will NOT do the FoxNews Debate on September 4th,” Trump wrote. “I am not surprised by this development because I feel that she knows it is very difficult, at best, for her to defend her record setting Flip-Flopping on absolutely everything she once believed in, including her statements that THERE WILL BE NO FRACKING IN PENNSYLVANIA and her HORRIBLE Performance on the Border, our ‘Border Czar,’ where millions of criminals and people from mental institutions and terrorists, have been allowed to pour into our Country, totally unchecked and unvetted. It’s called, and she LOVES IT, an OPEN BORDER!!!”

But, according to Trump, the show would go on—with or without his Democratic opponent.

“Rather than the debate on September 4th, I have agreed to do a Tele-Town Hall, anchored by Sean Hannity, for Fox,” Trump continued. “It will take place in the Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania—Details to follow!”

The September 4 debate was not originally in the cards. Traditionally, a presidential cycle has two debates between the presidential candidates, as well as one debate between the potential vice presidents. But during a short-notice press conference at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month, Trump spontaneously announced that he was willing to face off against Harris three times before November: September 4 on Fox News, September 10 on NBC News, and another September 25 debate on ABC News. (Trump mixed up the stations of the last two debates, but got the dates correct.)

Harris’s camp had not initially signed on to the Fox debate, and it’s currently unclear whether she’s actually rejected the date outright, as Trump suggested. The first official debate is scheduled for September 10.

The drama of it all may be an aggressive strategy for Trump to reframe himself as unafraid to show down against the famed prosecutor after he stunningly disappointed some of his fans by backing out of one of the debates earlier this month. (He has since flip-flopped.) Fans were so upset by the supposed strongman’s decision that they got the hashtag “#TrumpIsACoward” trending on Truth Social after the news broke.

Representative Nancy Pelosi isn’t worried about what people are saying regarding her role in President Biden withdrawing from the 2024 presidential election.

The former speaker of the House told CNN Monday morning that “I have my relationship with the president, and I just wanted to win this election. So if they’re upset, I’m sorry for them. But the country is very happy … I don’t know who they are, but, you know, that’s their problem, not mine.”

Pelosi’s public comments were a major factor in Biden’s decision to step away. After Biden had a disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump on June 27, calls for him to drop out of the race began, and Pelosi refused to reject those calls, cryptically saying that the decision was up to the president.

Pelosi and Biden have reportedly not spoken since the president made the decision to step down, with Biden upset with the former speaker. Other Democratic leaders, including Senator Chuck Schumer, Representative Hakeem Jeffries, and former president Barack Obama were also in favor of Biden stepping down.

The move was attacked by Republicans as a “coup,” and Harris’s entry into the presidential race has led to them spiraling further and further into conspiracy theories as the new Democratic ticket continues to rise in the polls. Pelosi, meanwhile, has recently published a memoir about her time in politics, called The Art of Power.

Pelosi may have even played a role in selecting Harris’s running mate, reportedly speaking favorably about “her former House colleagues” whenever she was asked about V.P. prospects before the Harris campaign’s announcement, a nod to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s time in the House. Based on the results of her actions, her comments on Monday seem like she has no regrets.

Donald Trump delivered a strangely low-energy speech on Monday at a factory in York, Pennsylvania.

While the crowd at Precision Custom Components started off cheering at the former president’s compliments about Pennsylvania and promises to bolster American manufacturing, any initial enthusiasm appeared to wane as Trump proceeded through his remarks in a monotone reading voice.

“Kamala puts America last, I put America first,” Trump said, sounding completely dejected. He frowned as the crowd cheered.

For once, the former president was actually able to stay more or less on topic (although his talking points were still devoid of facts or actual policy ideas). He just seemed to hate every second of it, and the crowd responded in kind.

Trump’s claim that “caravans” of immigrants coming to the U.S. for free healthcare was met only by the echoes of his own remarks. Laments over “reckless spending” on healthcare, complaints that the supposed electric vehicle mandate is “absolutely so crazy,” and promises to clean up a supposedly graffiti-covered Washington, D.C., were met with total silence. Even promises to “liberate our workers with the largest regulatory cuts” did not evoke a single clap.

While his dulled speaking style didn’t prevent him from flying through topics, it did prevent him from getting any responses from the crowd for several minutes at a time. His awkward delivery made it unclear when the audience, or the people standing behind him, should clap, and pauses didn’t come easily or often in the Republican nominee’s speech.

In one particularly outrageous moment, Trump said, “The union—the United Auto Workers, I think the people in that union are going to vote for me overwhelmingly because I’m going to bring car industry back.”

Just last week Trump said he would fire striking workers during a conversation with billionaire technocrat Elon Musk. The next day, the United Auto Workers filed federal labor charges against Trump and Musk, accusing them of “illegal attempts to threaten and intimidate workers who stand up for themselves by engaging in protected concerted activity, such as strikes.”

Shawn Fain, the president of the UAW, is scheduled to speak Monday night at the Democratic National Convention. “He doesn’t have a clue, it’s sad,” Trump said about Fain, blaming him for a decline in U.S. car manufacturing. As he started to compliment military industrial manufacturers, such as the factory where he stood, he took off on another tangent.

“What would happen if we had a war? We won’t, with me. But you will have World War III, I believe, without me. But we won’t have—but what would happen if we did? And let’s say it was with China, but they give us all of our steel. So we’ll have to call China for steel so we can fight a war with them. How stupid are these people?” Trump rambled.

After stewing in Tim Walz’s “weird” label for several weeks, Donald Trump has finally cooked up a comeback: No, you.

“You know, he said we’re weird,” Trump told a small crowd in York, Pennsylvania, on Monday during an event that was supposed to focus on the economy. “That J.D. and I are weird. I think we’re extremely normal people.”

“We’re like you, we’re exactly like you,” the Epstein-socializing, family-separating, woman-hating, millionaire former reality TV star and convicted felon said about himself and his vice presidential pick, J.D. Vance, who became the target of an online joke that he had screwed a couch.

“He is weird,” Trump continued, referring to Walz. “Did you ever see him go on the stage and go, like, crazy? Between his movement and her laugh, there’s a lot of crazy. I’d say a step further than weird, weird is a nice word by comparison.”

But just moments earlier, Trump had failed to demonstrate how not weird he is by refusing, once again, to admit that he lost the 2020 presidential election and, later, choosing to refer to himself in the third person.

“Everyone was better off when you had a gentleman named President Donald J. Trump at the helm. Does anybody know him? Whoever he may be,” he said to muted applause.