(NEW YORK) — The funeral for the late Ivana Trump, first wife of former President Donald Trump, was held on Wednesday at New York City’s St. Vincent Ferrer Church.
Ivana Trump died Thursday after suffering injuries sustained from a fall in her Upper East Side home, New York City’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said. She was 73.
She was married to the ex-president from 1977 to 1992, and they had three children together: Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka.
“Our mother was an incredible woman — a force in business, a world-class athlete, a radiant beauty, and caring mother and friend,” the Trump family said in a statement at the time of her passing.
In a statement on his Truth Social platform, former President Trump called her a “wonderful, beautiful and amazing woman, who led a great and inspirational life.”
He attended the funeral service, alongside former first lady Melania Trump and their son Barron.
Ivana Trump was found unconscious and unresponsive at the bottom of a set of stairs in her apartment, police sources said. Her death was ruled an accident, according to the medical examiner.
Known for her glamour, Ivana Trump created her own clothing line and helped design the interior for the Grand Hyatt Hotel and Trump Tower. She was also a bestselling author and worked for her former husband’s business empire as a senior executive, where she served as the CEO of Trump’s Castle, a hotel-casino in Atlantic City.
Instead of flowers, her family is asking people to donate to the Florida nonprofit Big Dog Ranch Rescue, the organization said on its website.
While there are conflicting reports as to whether Kim Kardashian‘s famous “assets” may have damaged the dress, one fashion expert says Kim wearing Marilyn Monroe’s dress on the Met Gala red carpet may have “put the kibosh” on celebs doing similar sartorial stunts.
On the Behind The Velvet Rope podcast, New York Fashion Week creator Fern Mallis suggested the reported wear and tear — literally, if some reports are to be believed — will stop curators from lending out outfits like Monroe’s “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” gown that Kim wore.
“I don’t know the truth to whether it was destroyed or whether sequins fell off or whether it was ripped in the back,” she said.
“Ripley’s has it back … but I think it’s put the kibosh on celebrities wearing historic, relevant clothes that really need to be preserved.”
Mallis also added of Kim’s red carpet accessory, “I thought it was funny that she had that fur piece, holding it around her fanny the whole time, which kind of meant that she was covering up something.”
“We all know Kim has a large booty, and there’s no way that she was the same size as Marilyn.”
Kim reportedly shed 21 pounds to fit in the dress, but in the end, her curves were too hard for the vintage Bob Mackie dress to handle: Her glam team used laces to bridge a rather large gap, which was covered by the white fur wrap to which Mallis referred.
(WASHINGTON) — On Tuesday, House Democrats passed a bill which would protect same-sex and interracial marriages, in response to the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and fear among lawmakers that other legal protections might be at risk.
Meanwhile, the Labor Department announced inflation has reached its highest rate in 40 years, a fact that is being blamed on the White House and Democratic lawmakers, with a recent ABC-Ipsos poll showing that more than 80% of Americans think the economy is either an important or very important issue affecting how they will vote in the midterm elections this November.
Senate Minority Whip John Thune spoke with GMA3 about the House vote on Tuesday, his perspective on what’s causing inflation and what he thinks is the biggest concern for voters.
GMA3: Let me bring in now Senate Minority Whip John Thune. Senator, thank you so much for being with us. I think a lot of people wouldn’t be surprised that a Republican is blaming Democrats maybe for inflation. We’re going to get to that in just a second. But I do want to ask you about the news we saw overnight, what happened in the House, the kind of a bipartisan bill came out of there to protect same-sex marriage. This, of course, in the wake of the Roe v. Wade decision with, some say, other things like same-sex marriage could be at risk. I want to ask, are you ready in the Senate to support that bill as well to somewhat codify same-sex marriage in this country?
THUNE: Well, thanks, TJ. Amy, good afternoon. We don’t know if that bill is coming to the Senate. They did pass a bill in the House last night. And if and when Senator Schumer decides to bring it up in the Senate, then we’ll consider it at that time. But as you saw, there was a fairly significant vote, bipartisan vote last night. And I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case in the Senate. But I will go across that bridge if and when we come to it.
GMA3: But would you say we do in this country? Maybe that’s something we do need to codify? Do we need to make it clear — same-sex marriage — so it doesn’t end up in the Supreme Court’s decision again?
THUNE: Well, I don’t think it’s an issue. It’s not an issue. Anybody, certainly in my state of South Dakota, for that matter, across the country is talking about right now. They’re talking about inflation and gas prices and all the other things. I don’t — I think it’s an issue that right now, at least the Democrats here in Washington are talking about, because they’re trying to create an issue going into the election because they don’t want to talk about the economic issues. So, it’s not — it’s just not something the court is considering.
They made it very clear, actually, in their opinion on Dobbs that they were not dealing with anything but the precedent on abortion, that it wouldn’t affect other precedents. So, I think you had a very strong majority of people point out that Justice Thomas had a dissenting view. That’s true. But if you look at the six-person Justice majority on that opinion, they made it abundantly clear that this issue addressed specifically the issue of abortion and not other precedents.
GMA3: Senator Thune, let’s move on to the economy and inflation specifically. I’ll directly let everyone know your tweet that we know TJ was referring to. You said or you tweeted, “this level of inflation is a direct result of Dems spending since they’ve taken control in D.C.” Where do you believe costs should be and could be cut right now to rollback that tide of inflation?
THUNE: Well, I think if you look at it, Amy, when President Biden took office, the inflation rate was 1.4%, well within the Fed’s range of 2%. Now, as you said, it’s a 40-year high, 9.1% last month, year over year. What that represents, according to the Joint Economic Committee in a study they did recently, is about 700 additional dollars per month per family in this country, or about $9,000 a year in higher costs.
So, I think it comes back to the bill they passed, which we tried to discourage them from passing. And even liberal Democrat economists from the Obama administration also suggested this was a really bad idea to flood the zone with a lot of spending, which they did with the $2 trillion bill last year. That overstimulated the economy. You know, the textbook definition of inflation is too many dollars chasing too few goods. So, it started with the spending.
I think the other issue, honestly, is lack of a coherent energy policy in this country. A lot of what drives inflation is gas prices. And if you look at the price of gas, it’s doubled since the president took office. And I think a lot of that has to do, which is not having the supply. They shut down a lot of oil and gas production in this country. I think there are things you can do that, you know, one, stop the wasteful spending, unnecessary spending.
Don’t talk about raising taxes. That would be a horrible idea right now, which is on their agenda and then come up with a coherent energy policy that emphasizes American energy production so that we’re not dependent upon other countries around the world.
GMA3: What would you like to do right now given that — and again, you listed many things, and I again, somewhat said it jokingly, nobody surprised to hear a Republican put the blame at the feet of Democrats. But we had the pandemic and there were a lot of things that did happen that was kind of out of a lot of people’s control with the supply-chain issues. A lot of people came right back to the market. The demand went up really quickly. And I know you talked about the 2 trillion in spending, but a lot of that was to put money back in Americans’ pockets who were struggling coming out of the pandemic. So it was a lot of things going on there. But what can you do? What can Congress do right now — do you feel?
THUNE: Well, and honestly, TJ, to your point, there was $5 trillion in spending in 2020, all done on a bipartisan basis. The $2 trillion came last year after the president took office. And there are things we can do. I worked on a bipartisan way with Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota on a supply chain issue, the Ocean Shipping Reform Act, which is designed to get at some of those bottlenecks that we’re experiencing at the ports.
And I think, again, as I said before, focusing on and getting the administration to work with us on an energy policy that is American energy, all, you know, it should be all of the above strategy. But we ought to try to achieve energy independence in this country. I think that will drive gas prices down, which I think would have a pretty profound impact on inflation. And I just think, again, it would be a mistake right now, which the Dems are talking about, to increase taxes and come up with yet another pretty big spending bill.
They’re talking about another trillion dollars. I think that would be a huge mistake. But it shouldn’t come as any surprise to you or anybody else. It’s an even numbered year. This is an election year. So obviously we’re going to be talking about issues that we think impact people’s pocketbooks in this country. And certainly inflation represents that.
I just came from a weekend back in South Dakota, out in the western part of the state, and it is having a profound impact on the economy in a state like South Dakota, which in the summer months depends on the travel industry and that, you know, gas prices has a very consequential impact on that.
GMA3: Senator Thune, it is an election year, as you point out. And according to the latest Pew Research poll, 62% of Americans believe that abortion should be legal in all, or at least most cases. Obviously, we saw the sweeping reversal of Roe versus Wade. I’m curious, how do you see women losing their reproductive rights that they’ve had for nearly five decades? How do you see that impacting Republicans? I know you’re up for reelection as well in these midterms.
THUNE: Right. Well, and I think it’s an issue that it will in certain areas of the country, act probably as a motivator for people to vote. I think in the end, Amy, it does get trumped by these other economic issues. It’s an issue that people care — certainly intensity behind it on both sides, which is the reason, I think for the past 50 years, there’s been so much tumult in the country and why the court decided to take it up.
But, you know, again, remember, it doesn’t do away with abortion. It simply returns that power to the states and their elected representatives. And it’s, I think, one of those issues you have to find political consensus around. And I think each state, at least right now, will probably do that slightly differently in how it plays out in the election. I don’t think it’s anybody’s guess. I think it’s an issue and I think in certain places it will be more prominent than it is in other places.
But I think in most areas of the country, people are going to be focusing on these pocketbook economic issues. I think that’s ultimately going to be what they vote on.
(CHICAGO) — Just 16 days after a man wielding an AR-15-style rifle allegedly killed seven people and injured more than 40 at a Fourth of July parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, the town’s mayor pleaded with Congress to pass a federal assault weapons ban, saying, “today is the day to start saving lives.”
But Mayor Nancy Rotering quickly learned during her testimony Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee that enacting such a law will be a major challenge. Republican committee members — including two from Texas, where on May 24 a gunman firing an AR-15-style rifle killed 19 students and two teachers — argued that such a ban will not stop massacres and only infringe on the Second Amendment rights of law abiding citizens.
Rotering testified about being in the middle of the Independence Day shooting rampage. She graphically detailed the chaos, panic and bloodied bodies lying on the street of “an All-American Midwestern town,” telling the committee, “I will be haunted forever.”
“Less than a minute is all it took for a person with an assault weapon to shoot 83 rounds into a crowd, forever changing so many lives,” Rotering told the panel. “And the most disturbing part, this is the norm in our country.”
She began her statement by describing a “perfect summer day” with 3,000 people lining the parade route, waving American flags and cheering the marching bands and colorful floats of her city’s first post-pandemic Fourth of July Parade in two years.
“Music and cheering were all we could hear as we headed down the street,” Rotering testified. “I looked left and waved to my husband in the crowd. What I didn’t know at that moment was that just to my right on a one-story rooftop, a 21-year-old was preparing to traumatize my hometown forever with an assault weapon.”
She said that as she and her city council colleagues headed down the parade route, she noticed that a marching band had gone silent and she heard a “tat, tat, tat” sound she initially mistook for a drum cadence.
“I then saw a sea of marching band members sprinting down the sidewalk, some with tubas entwined around their bodies,” Rotering told the committee. “I realized later that the sound I heard wasn’t drum cadence. It was the sound of an assault weapon.”
She said she and her colleagues immediately started an emergency evacuation, screaming at paradegoers to run, repeatedly shouting, “shooter.”
“Adults stared back, not comprehending,” she said. “But the kids knew immediately this wasn’t a drill and they yelled to everybody, ‘run, hide.’ They knew what was happening.”
She said among those killed were Kevin and Irina McCarthy, who were at the parade with their 2-year-old son, Aiden. She said good Samaritans found the boy under his father’s body.
Rotering also told the horrific story of 22-year-old Cassie Goldstein, who she says was forced to leave her mortally wounded mother, Katherine, behind as bullets rained down on the crowd.
“When the shooting stopped, Cassie returned to find her mother lifeless,” said Rotering, as a group of Highland Park residents attending the hearing sat behind her.
She told the committee of hot shrapnel melting into the arms and legs of the victims.
“Highland Park had the uniquely American experience of a Fourth of July parade turned into what had now become a uniquely American experience of a mass shooting,” Rotering said. “How do we call this freedom?”
She noted that in 2013 following the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Middle School in Newtown, Connecticut, Highland Park passed a ban on assault weapons and large capacity magazines, but lamented that local laws have little effect as long as such weapons are still being legally sold in neighboring Illinois towns.
“Local government cannot do this alone,” Rotering said. “Congress must take action. You must federally ban assault weapons and large capacity magazines. Today is the day to save lives.”
But Rotering’s plea was met with stiff resistance from Republican members of the committee, who uniformly agreed that renewing the federal assault weapons ban that was enacted in 1994 and expired in 2004, is not the answer to curbing mass shootings.
“These bans would be ineffective and not consistent with the right to self-defense,” said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. “We also know restrictive gun control will hurt vulnerable communities that need to defend themselves against the horrible spike in violence.”
Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, both of Texas, agreed with Grassley, saying they support tougher laws that go after the perpetrators of the violence instead of the guns, which Cornyn described as “inanimate objects.”
Cruz cited a shooting that occurred Sunday at a shopping mall in Greenwood, Indiana, in which three people were killed before an armed good Samaritan shot and killed the suspect who was firing an AR-15-style weapon.
“If the objective is to stop mass murderers, gun control doesn’t work,” Cruz said. “The state of Illinois has the strictest gun control laws of any state in the country, Highland Park has even stricter gun control laws than the state of Illinois. Consistently, if you look across the country with the jurisdictions with the strictest gun control laws, almost without exception, they have the highest crime rates and the highest murder rates.”
In June, Congress a passed a bipartisan gun safety law, the first major piece of federal gun reform in almost 30 years, that was signed into law by President Joe Biden. The legislation — which followed back-to-back mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York — expands federal background checks for buyers under the age of 21, provides financial incentives for states to pass “red flag” laws and other intervention programs and closes the so-called “boyfriend loophole” denying people convicted of domestic violence access to firearms.
But Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, a retired military veteran, testified before the committee that banning AR-15-style rifles needs to be made a priority for Congress. She called the rifles “weapons of war” designed to kill and critically maim people far more efficiently than conventional semi-automatic firearms.
“The leading cause of death of Americans under the age of 16 in this country isn’t cancer, isn’t car accidents, it’s gun violence. Only in America,” Duckworth said. “I’m urging this committee to demonstrate courage in supporting a ban on assault weapons and large capacity magazines.”
Duckworth said that since the assault weapons ban expired, mass shootings in the United States have tripled. Mayor Rotering noted that Highland Park was the 309th mass shooting in the United States this year.
Sen. Dick Durbin, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, ended the hearing by acknowledging the divisiveness of the debate over gun control.
“You saw a good illustration today of the political aspects of this issue involving guns, why we do so little,” Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, said. “Once every 30 years, we’re going to do a gun safety bill? God forbid if that is what happens.”
(ATLANTA) — Georgia’s so-called “heartbeat law” can go into effect, a federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday, making the state the latest to institute a six-week ban on abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade.
The court additionally allowed the ban to take effect immediately — instead of later this summer, as was initially expected — in an unusual move abortion rights advocates criticized as “horrific.”
The bill, which Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law in 2019, had been blocked from going into effect since a lower court ruled it unconstitutional.
Under the legislation, abortions in the state are banned after about 6 weeks. There are exceptions for medical emergencies, “medically futile” pregnancies and rape and incest — if a police report has been filed. The law also redefines “natural person” under Georgia law to mean “any human being including an unborn child” — including an embryo or fetus at any stage of development.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit lifted an injunction on the law on Wednesday, citing precedent from the Supreme Court’s landmark decision last month in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned Roe.
The appeals court also vacated an order blocking the expanded definition of natural person, ruling that the redefinition “is not vague on its face,” as abortion-rights advocacy groups had argued. The decision does allow for challenges to specific Georgia statutes amended by the redefinition, according to the plaintiffs in the case.
The court’s ruling typically wouldn’t have taken effect until it issued an official mandate — usually 28 days after a decision. But the court additionally issued a stay on the lower court’s injunction on Wednesday, allowing the abortion ban to immediately go into effect.
Previously, abortion up to 21 days and six days of pregnancy had been legal in Georgia.
Gov. Kemp, one of the defendants in the case, celebrated the court’s decision.
“We are overjoyed that the court has paved the way for the implementation of Georgia’s LIFE Act, and as mothers navigate pregnancy, birth, parenthood, or alternative options to parenthood — like adoption — Georgia’s public, private, and non-profit sectors stand ready to provide the resources they need to be safe, healthy, and informed,” he said in a statement.
The organizations that filed the lawsuit called the move by the court to stay the injunction “highly unorthodox” and “outside of the normal court procedures.”
“This is a highly unorthodox action that will immediately push essential abortion care out of reach for patients beyond the earliest stages of pregnancy,” the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Georgia, Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood Southeast and Planned Parenthood Federation of America said in a joint statement. “Across the state, providers are now being forced to turn away patients who thought they would be able to access abortion, immediately changing the course of their lives and futures. This is horrific.”
Abortion-rights advocates vowed to continue to preserve abortion access in Georgia following the decision.
“Soon, Georgians past the earliest stages of pregnancy will face that same barrier, and it will be insurmountable for some. People who can’t afford to leave the state will be forced to seek abortion outside the health care system or remain pregnant against their will,” Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement.
“This is a grave human rights violation, and Planned Parenthood, along with its partners, will do everything in our power to fight back and ensure all people can get the health care they need, regardless of where they live,” Johnson’s statement added.
Stacey Abrams, the Democratic candidate facing off against Kemp in the race for governor, called the law “draconian.”
“What has been done with this law is an assault on our liberties and we will fight back,” she said in a video message on Twitter.
Since Roe fell, several other states, including Tennessee, Ohio and South Carolina, have instituted bans on abortion at around 6 weeks, before many women even know they are pregnant.
We know Maya Hawke as Robin Buckley on Stranger Things, but did you know she is also a singer? Her sophomore album, Moss, is about to come out and she credits Taylor Swift as her inspiration.
Chatting on Kyle Meredith with …, Maya explained she wanted Moss to have a “cohesive feeling,” which she explained was a sound like “a pulse without a beat … Smooth but not soft.”
In other words, she was inspired by Taylor’s album folklore. “I was super inspired by folklore, to which, like, I started wanting to work with JonathanLowe, who mixed folklore,” she divulged.
She managed to get in touch with Lowe, who signed up to mix Moss — as well as Maya’s new single, “Thérèse.” Maya is thrilled with the end result and said the sound is not only “smooth,” it also embodies the “idea that you could both run to it and fall asleep to it on an airplane.”
She said that’s the same vibe folklore has and that’s what she aspired to achieve with Moss.
“What’s so amazing about [folklore] … was kind of that combination of it being both motivating and moving forward without it being, like, the way some pop music — that I love — wakes you up from your nap when it comes up in the playlist,” Maya said. “I didn’t want anything to wake you up in that way. I wanted it all to feel like it could be a part of a dream.”
After the April 2021 Mortal Kombat reboot surprised industry prognosticators with a strong theatrical showing just as theaters were opening back up, Warner Bros.-owned New Line is reportedly stacking up its quarters for a Mortal Kombat sequel.
Deadline reports Simon McQuoid will return as the director to the follow-up to his unexpected hit.
The film performed well both in theaters and with a simultaneous HBO Max release, with the film making more than $84 million from theaters worldwide. While those aren’t Avengers numbers by any stretch, the film reportedly cost just $55 million to make and was a solid performer for HBO’s then-nascent streaming service.
Based on the hit video game series, Mortal Kombat attracted more than 3.3 million sets of eyeballs in its first weekend on HBO Max, according to Business Insider, beating out the streaming debuts of bigger films like The Matrix Resurrections and eventual Oscar winner Dune.
Jake Owen just released the music video for his new song, “1×1”.
Chase Rice will return Friday with a new song, “Key West & Colorado.” The track is available for preorder now.
Kacey Musgraves’ debut single from 2012, “Merry Go ‘Round,” is officially RIAA double Platinum. To commemorate the occasion, she posted a memory of when the photo for the single art was taken on social media.
The Killers have announced the release date for the band’s new single, “Boy.”
The track, which Brandon Flowers and company debuted live at Spain’s Mad Cool festival earlier this month, is set to arrive August 5. You can presave it now.
“Boy” will follow The Killers’ recent one-two punch of albums: 2020’s Imploding the Mirage and 2021’s Pressure Machine.
The single will premiere just in time for The Killers’ North American headlining tour, which kicks off August 19 in Vancouver.
(WASHINGTON) — As midterm elections heat up, political campaigns are beginning to think differently and trying some unorthodox methods to win.
Recently, there have been efforts by Democratic PACs to steer Republican voters to specific candidates in primaries.
In Maryland, one Democratic PAC, DGA Action, ran ads promoting Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Cox, who is endorsed by former President Donald Trump.
Other races are taking similar approaches.
ABC News Political Director Rick Klein spoke with “START HERE” Wednesday about this strategy and its effectiveness.
START HERE: Rick, why would Democrats try to help a Trump Republican win a primary?
KLEIN: Because they think that Trump Republican would be easier to beat. You know, in some ways, this is one of the oldest tricks in the book. You try to choose your own opponent because you think you can beat the other person.
And you do it in this case with the kind of false praise of saying, Oh, this person is 100% MAGA or 100% pro-life. Of course, that’s a badge of honor inside a Republican primary and the Democrats that are spending millions of dollars to boost those far-right opponents, they know that.
But what makes this different is we’re talking about individuals who are flat-out election deniers. In the case of Cox, the person that Democrats are boosting in the state of Maryland, this is someone who bused supporters into the Capitol on January 6, although he says he didn’t enter himself. And as the riot was ongoing, he tweeted and later deleted that [then-Vice President] Mike Pence is a traitor.
There’s a lot of history of screwing around and the other side’s primary, but the stakes this time could be different.
START HERE: Rick, what if it doesn’t work? Because I’m trying to think of the last really Trumpy candidate that was seen as a walkover. Oh, that’s right. His name was Donald Trump. A lot of people said Hillary Clinton got what she wished for. She still lost. So why should Democrats think that will not happen again?
KLEIN: Yeah, it’s a huge risk. And forget Maryland, because Maryland’s probably not a battleground state in 2024. But guess what is: Pennsylvania.
That’s where Democrats spent money to try to boost Doug Mastriano, a state senator who again was at the Capitol on January 6 and is one of the staunchest Trump supporters in the nation. He’d be in a position, if he’s governor, to name the next secretary of state to oversee the next election. That’s a dangerous place to have an election denier.
You also saw Democrats try to do this and succeed in Illinois. They failed in Colorado, another battleground state. But the other consequences of this misfiring are vast. And it’s why even some Democrats are saying, ‘wait a second, this is not a time to be playing politics as usual.’ You have to be careful about this. Already with the data that ABC has compiled, along with FiveThirtyEight, we’re talking about more than 120 Republican candidates on the ballot this fall for major offices like secretary of state or governor or for Congress who deny the legitimacy of the last election. That’s just different than we’ve seen in the past and underscores how risky this strategy really is.
START HERE: And there’s no reason to think that if another election came along featuring Donald Trump or not, that that wasn’t seen as favorable to Republicans, that these same people would not say no, that you should throw those results out. Rick, in the meantime, I’m trying to figure out what even this midterm election landscape looks like compared to a couple of months ago, because a lot of people figured Republicans were kind of a lock to take back the House and the Senate. President Biden’s approval hasn’t been so hot, but all that, of course, was before Roe v. Wade was overturned. Is there a different sense now of where each party stands?
KLEIN: Yeah, there’s an interesting trend that’s starting to emerge, Brad, where the president’s numbers are still pretty bad historically; about as bad as any president at this point in his term. And the numbers in the House kind of reflect that. The Democrats are almost certainly going to lose control of the House. But something different is happening in Senate races.
You’re seeing Democrats begin to do a little bit better on what we call the generic ballot. Do you support a Democrat or a Republican? And abortion rights and gun violence and all the other issues they may be adding into that. Despite the drag that inflation has. But the other thing that’s happening is that Republicans are putting up a lot of flawed candidates, some of whom, as we’ve been discussing, put up there because of Democrats meddling in primaries, other cases, just because Trump has been such a loud voice.
In places like Georgia [and] Ohio, [and] like Pennsylvania’s governor’s race and Senate race with Dr. Oz. You have a situation where the Republicans may not have their best choice on the playing field and it might boost Democrats’ chances. And it has a lot of Democrats thinking, ‘you know what, we’ve got a shot at keeping the Senate despite all of the headwinds we’re facing this year.’
