White House Furious at Josh Hawley Over Latest Abortion Gambit |
President Trump’s inner circle is reportedly fuming at Republican Senator Josh Hawley for starting a new anti-abortion dark-money group with his wife in an effort to reignite political discourse on the issue—one the GOP expects to lose in the upcoming midterms.
Hawley hopes the group, called the Love Life Initiative, will be a “strong voice advocating for life.” Trump’s team begs to differ.
“Clearly, Senator Hawley and his political team learned nothing from the 2022 elections, when the SCOTUS abortion ruling [that reversed Roe v. Wade] resuscitated the Democrats in the midterms,” an anonymous adviser told Axios. They went on to argue that what they see as positive economic growth should be the theme for the midterms instead. “Picking a fight on an issue like abortion in a midterm is the height of asinine stupidity.”
This rift also comes amid monthslong rumors of Hawley’s potential presidential aspirations in 2028, as he could challenge Vice President JD Vance to rip the GOP away from the MAGA wing post-Trump.
MAGA world is calling for a mass deportation of Muslims, following a mass shooting in Australia—ignoring the reality that it was a member of the local Muslim community who intervened and stopped the violence.
At least 15 people were killed Sunday in a horrific attack at Sydney’s Bondi Beach. Two men—a father-son duo—allegedly opened fire on a crowd of Jewish Australians on the first night of Hanukkah. The country’s leadership has declared the incident a terrorist attack.
The suspects have been identified by authorities as 50-year-old Sajid Akram and his son, 24-year-old Naveed Akram. The elder Akram moved to Australia in 1998, while the junior was born in the country.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the suspects were “driven” by an antisemitic ideology. He also rejected accusations that recent Muslim immigration into Australia was to blame, noting that the pair had engaged in an “extreme perversion of Islam” while underscoring the actions of the day’s hero—Ahmed Al Ahmed—who ran toward the danger and grappled a gun away from one of the attackers.
But halfway across the world, American politicians were more interested in broadcasting a simpler message—even if it didn’t accurately reflect the events. Across social media, Republicans lawmakers issued similar statements suggesting that Muslims are a threat to peaceful society that must be deported.
“The Religion of Peace strikes again,” posted Representative Randy Fine. “How many Muslim attacks do there have to be until we say enough?”
Senator Tommy Tuberville went a step further, claiming that “Islam is not a religion. It’s a cult.”
“Stop worrying about offending the pearl clutchers,” Tuberville wrote. “We’ve got to SEND THEM HOME NOW or we’ll become the United Caliphate of America.”
Even local politicians hopped on the islamophobic bandwagon. Retweeting a message celebrating the “AUSTRALIAN HERO” (but that did not mention his religion), New York City Councilmember Vickie Paladino claimed that the world was suffering from a “global jihad” that “cannot” be ignored.
“We need to take very seriously the need to begin the expulsion of Muslims from western nations, or at the very least the severe sanction of them within western borders,” Paladino wrote.
New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani—the economic powerhouse’s first Muslim mayor—did not take the same approach. In a lengthy missive, Mamdani recognized the “growing pattern of violence targeted at Jewish people across the world,” and implored New Yorkers to follow in Al Ahmed’s footsteps, urging the city to “confront hatred with the urgency and action it demands.”
MAGA Republicans are already pushing conspiracy theories about the shooting at Brown University over the weekend, claiming that one of the victims was targeted for her conservative beliefs.
Sophomore student Ella Cook was one of the two people killed Saturday when a shooter opened fire during a review session for an economics exam. The gunman has not yet been taken into custody or identified, but the victims have—and apparently that’s all MAGA thought they needed to crack the case.
Some Republicans began to claim that Cook, who served as vice president of the Brown chapter of College Republicans of America, was targeted for her politics. Of course, none of them bothered to mention Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, an Uzbek student who was studying neuroscience who was also killed Saturday, or the eight others who were injured.
William Branson Donahue, founder and chairman of the College Republicans, claimed to have been “told” that Cook was “allegedly targeted for her conservative beliefs, hunted, and killed in cold blood.”
“Losing Charlie three months ago rocked our worlds. The entire College Republicans community is weeping this evening learning of the news. This was an attack on our family,” he wrote on X Sunday night.
It seems that Donahue quickly realized the story didn’t quite add up, but rather than remove the original post, he just wrote a second post beneath it.
“This was the report I received that came from students immediately after the news broke. The story is evolving. We are waiting for the official police report and receiving updates from the chapter,” Donahue said.
His follow-up post did not receive nearly as much attention as his initial one. At time of publishing, his conspiracy post had received 833 comments, 3,500 reposts, and 13,000 likes. His tepid attempt to walk it back had just 116 comments,........