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GOP Rep. Thomas Massie, once targeted by Trump, gives former president ‘full endorsement’

GOP Rep. Thomas Massie, once targeted by Trump, gives former president ‘full endorsement’

Rep. Thomas Massie – who former President Donald Trump once said should be ousted from the Republican Party – announced on Friday that he is endorsing Trump for president. In a statement issued on Friday, the Kentucky Republican endorsed Trump, and urged conservatives, libertarians, and independents to join him in casting their vote for the GOP presidential candidate. “Donald Trump will put Americans first by securing our liberties at home and preventing needless wars abroad. He will make America Healthy Again by empowering small farmers and taking on special interests that have corrupted our healthcare system. He has even committed to freeing Ross Ulbricht who was wrongfully sentenced,” Massie declared in the statement. “For these and many other reasons, he has my full endorsement,” Massie added. GOP LAWMAKER RIPS TRUMP FOR WADING INTO HOUSE REPUBLICAN PRIMARY: ‘UNHELPFUL AND UNWARRANTED’ In a written comment to Fox News Digital on Sunday, Massie explained that he determined the 2024 presidential contest is “too important” for him to not “weigh-in.” “I had a great conversation with [Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] on Friday and then with Donald Trump on Saturday,” Massie noted. “I want to be part of the alignment that puts the focus back on regular people instead of corporations and bureaucracy,” he continued. “One of the other pressing issues of our day is that our meddling overseas has put us on the brink of war, and I believe Trump is the only one who can pull us back from that. For these reasons and those mentioned in my endorsement, I came to the conclusion that this presidential election is too important for me not to weigh-in on.” Trump publicly castigated Massie in March 2020, calling for the congressman to be tossed from the Republican Party.  “Looks like a third rate Grandstander named @RepThomasMassie, a Congressman from, unfortunately, a truly GREAT State, Kentucky, wants to vote against the new Save Our Workers Bill in Congress. He just wants the publicity. He can’t stop it, only delay, which is both dangerous,” Trump wrote, finishing the sentence in another post by adding, “& costly.” “Workers & small businesses need money now in order to survive. Virus wasn’t their fault. It is ‘HELL’ dealing with the Dems, had to give up some stupid things in order to get the ‘big picture’ done. 90% GREAT! WIN BACK HOUSE, but throw Massie out of Republican Party!” Trump tweeted. TRUMP SCORCHES REP. MASSIE OVER THREAT TO DELAY CORONAVIRUS BILL, WANTS HIM BOOTED FROM GOP Trump fired off the attack on Massie just before the lawmaker demanded a recorded vote on a massive COVID-19 pandemic-related spending measure. Massie’s demand for a recorded vote was ultimately rejected, but the lawmaker had earned the ire not only of Trump, but also of many lawmakers who returned to D.C. during the episode. Despite Trump’s attack, Massie went on to win a resounding victory in the June 2020 Republican primary in Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District. Trump later changed course, issuing a full-throated endorsement of Massie shortly before the lawmaker’s 2022 primary victory. JOHN KERRY CALLS REP. MASSIE AN ‘A–HOLE’ FOR CORONAVIRUS PACKAGE OBJECTIONS CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Last year, Massie endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president before the governor announced his White House bid.  DeSantis ultimately dropped out and endorsed Trump in January 2024 after Trump won the Iowa caucuses. In June, Massie told Spectrum News that Trump was “endorsing non-conservatives in Republican primaries right now.” 

Ex-Vatican ambassador, Pope Francis critic calls Harris ‘infernal monster’

Ex-Vatican ambassador, Pope Francis critic calls Harris ‘infernal monster’

A former Vatican leader who was excommunicated earlier this year has urged Catholics to back former President Trump, arguing that Vice President Harris will build the “most ferocious dictatorship” if elected. Former Roman Catholic Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, who previously served as the Vatican’s ambassador to the U.S., wrote in an open letter Tuesday to American Catholics that Trump is “the only possible choice” as “voting for Kamala Harris is morally inadmissible and constitutes a very grave sin.” “In this election you must choose between two radically opposed ways of conceiving the government of your Nation: you are called to choose between democracy and dictatorship, between freedom and slavery,” Vigano wrote. Vigano wrote that while Trump has “serious problems in his positions” on abortion and assisted procreation, the former president aims to protect the “fundamental freedoms of citizens.” RFK JR URGES CATHOLICS TO VOTE FOR TRUMP IN NEW AD “In Donald Trump’s America, every Catholic can practice their Faith and educate their children in it without interference from the State,” the former archbishop wrote. Vigano called Harris “an infernal monster who obeys Satan,” arguing that in her America, Catholics and Protestants “are considered fundamentalists to be marginalized and eliminated, and their children are considered the property of the State.” “Trump’s America can become great and prosperous again,” he wrote. “Harris’ America is destined for invasion and for moral, social, and economic destruction: the most ferocious dictatorship.” Under the Biden-Harris administration, Vigano described American cities as having become “dumps filled with derelicts and criminals, drug dealers and addicts, prostitutes and robbers,” while schools have turned into “dens of indoctrination and corruption” starting in kindergarten. HARRIS’ CATHOLIC DINNER SNUB IS JUST THE LATEST IN CAREER FULL OF SWIPES AT THE FAITHFUL, CRITICS CHARGE Vigano also accused Harris as being a “puppet” of former President Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and liberal megadonor George Soros. Trump, Vigano argues, is “committed to freeing America” from what he called the “tentacled grip” of the so-called “deep state.” Vigano served as the Vatican’s ambassador to the United States, also known as the Apostolic Nuncio, from 2011 to 2016. In July, Vigano was found guilty of schism and excommunicated from the Catholic Church after years of intense disagreements with Pope Francis. Schism is the act of withdrawing submission to the pope or from the communion of Catholics who are subject to him. Catholics historically voted for Democrats until the 1960s and early 1970s, when crime and cultural issues came to the fore alongside economic concerns. Today, Catholic voters are evenly split between the two parties, and whichever side captures the majority is usually the side that wins the White House. Fox News Digital’s Chris Pandolfo contributed to this report.

Dems need to ramp up early voting efforts to match GOP momentum in North Carolina: analyst

Dems need to ramp up early voting efforts to match GOP momentum in North Carolina: analyst

The Democratic Party needs to get competitive with Republicans in battleground North Carolina to turn out more voters before Election Day, says a former political consultant from the Tar Heel State.  Thomas Mills is publisher and founder of PoliticsNC, a website described as “Analysis, commentary, and opinion of North Carolina and national politics from the perspective of a center-left, 30-year veteran of the campaign battlefield.” Mills, who worked on the direct mail team for the Democratic National Committee in 2004, identified two problems that Democrats need to address, quickly, to compete in the state: early voting and low African American voter turnout. “They [Republicans] seem to be on the right track right now. Democrats, on the other hand, need to boost their turnout. I mean, what we don’t know is how people are voting,” Mills told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview. “Some of these Republicans that are going to the polls may not actually be voting for Republicans. So, until we count the votes, we don’t know a whole lot.” Mills said that this cycle, Republicans are voting at “levels much higher than they have in the past.” NORTH CAROLINA VOTERS WILL DECIDE ON AMENDMENT TO EXPLICITLY BAR NONCITIZENS FROM VOTING IN ELECTIONS “The big question is, ‘What is driving the GOTV vote this cycle?’ They [Republicans] historically have not put any emphasis in North Carolina on early voting. In fact, in 2020, they actually told Republicans not to vote early, to vote on Election Day,” Mill said. “This year, they’ve taken a different tack. And they’re actively telling Republicans to go vote early.” Mills added that Republicans appear to be leading in early voting, which started on Oct. 17, but that until every ballot is counted, the parties won’t know whether these early votes represent any new voters. “Right now, they have more votes than Democrats,” he added. “The question is, are these voters that would have been voting on Election Day that are voting early, or are there new voters in the group that they’re hoping are going to push their margins up?” Early voting gives operatives the opportunity to go after less frequent voters, but North Carolina is not seeing a ton of new voters coming into the electorate this cycle, Mills said. BALANCE OF POWER: HELENE COULD SHIFT POLITICAL WINDS TOWARD TRUMP, NORTH CAROLINA, LAWMAKERS SAY The other key issue that could “hurt” Democrats in the battleground state, according to Mills, is low turnout among Black voters, a key voting bloc among Democrats. “Historically, African-Americans have been a pretty major part of the Democratic coalition, and they make up somewhere around 20% of the overall vote, and they vote at roughly 90% for Democrats. And what I saw when I was looking, comparing early votes from 2020 to 2024, is, a few days ago, they were down by about 67,000 votes or so from 2020, which four days into the early vote is not a catastrophe, because there’s going to be probably more than a million African Americans voting.” According to Mills, African Americans do not appear to be changing their voting behaviors, but there is rather a “depressed turnout” among the demographic. “If Democrats want to get them in the polls, they need to start trying to figure out what those are and getting them to go vote,” he said. “They have time to fix it, but they do need to figure out what the issue is, where the problems are and increase turnout.” Hurricane Helene recently made a deadly sweep across the southeast, impacting several counties in North Carolina ahead as the state was preparing for early voting to begin. Mill said he believes the event will have some effect on voter turnout, but that it won’t hurt either party. “I think when you have a natural disaster like that, it does affect turnout some because of accessibility, but more because people have either left the area because they don’t have water, they don’t have power, or they’re just too concerned with trying to take care of basic needs,” he said. “They’re not thinking about voting.”