STORMY DANIELS SAGA & ROBERT MUELLER DRAMA WILL NOT IMPEACH TRUMP (FAKE NEWS)

STORMY DANIELS SAGA & ROBERT MUELLER DRAMA WILL NOT IMPEACH TRUMP (FAKE NEWS):

DEMOCRATS ARE HOPING TO IMPEACH TRUMP WITH DANIELS & MUELLER MESS BUT IT’S FUTILE.

TRUMP IS NOT A POLITICIAN. HE’S A POWERFUL NY BUSINESSMAN WITH MANY GREAT CONNECTIONS.

STORMY DANIELS WAS NOT RAPED AND SHE IS NOT A SEXUAL ASSAULT VICTIM.

HIRING GIULIANI IS A STRATEGY TO STOP THE BLEEDING YET FORCES DEMS TO REVEAL THEIR IMPEACHMENT STRATEGY.

TRUMP’S STRATEGY OF MAKING DEMS REVEAL ALL THEIR FUTURE PLANS AGAINST HIM IS WORKING.

IF DEMOCRATS WANT TO REGAIN POWER THEY NEED TO FIND AN AMAZING CANDIDATE FOR 2020.

DEMOCRATS STOP WASTING TIME WITH FAKE NEWS MESS AND PREPARE FOR 2020.

REAL VOTERS DON’T CARE ABOUT FAKE NEWS MESS.

DEMS SHOULD FIND A GOOD CANDIDATE & DEVELOP HIM OR HER INTO A GREAT CANDIDATE LIKE OBAMA.

NEITHER CORY BOOKER, NOR KAMALA HARRIS STAND A CHANCE AGAINST TRUMP.

MAYBE ANDREW CUOMO OR KIRSTEN GILIBRAND BUT THAT’S IT.

I REPEAT.

TRUMP IS NOT A POLITICIAN. HE’S A POWERFUL NY BUSINESSMAN WITH MANY GREAT CONNECTIONS.

STORMY DANIELS SAGA & ROBERT MUELLER DRAMA WILL NOT IMPEACH TRUMP.

TRUMP IS MAKING DEMOCRATS LOOK FOOLISH AND THEY’RE GOING TO LOSE TO GOP AGAIN IN 2020.

BECAUSE OF WASTING ENERGY ON FAKE NEW MESS.

REAL VOTERS DON’T CARE ABOUT FAKE NEWS MESS.


Post Sources: Fox News, NY Mag, CNN, Al Jazeera, TIME, Washington Post, Youtube


***** Meet the 7 Lawyers Advising Trump on Robert Mueller and Stormy Daniels


President Donald Trump is shaking up his legal team, again.

As negotiations continue with special counsel Robert Mueller on the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, the president has added a new lawyer and is considering making other changes.

The newest addition to the legal team has garnered attention for burnishing Trump on cable TV. Former federal prosecutor Joseph diGenova previously argued on Fox News that the Russia investigation was part of a “brazen plot” by FBI and Department of Justice staffers to frame Trump.

Trump’s legal team also reached out in recent days to noted D.C. powerhouse Ted Olson, solicitor general under President George W. Bush, but he declined within hours of the news becoming public. Trump is also reportedly in discussions with Emmett Flood, a veteran D.C. lawyer who worked with Bill Clinton during the impeachment.

The news contradicts Trump’s tweet on the subject earlier this month, in which he declared that he was not seeking to change his legal representation.

The Russia probe is not the only matter on which Trump is getting legal advice.

The president’s private lawyers are also currently working through separate lawsuits:

They are suing porn star Stormy Daniels for violating a hush agreement about her alleged affair with the president, while also defending Trump in a defamation lawsuit for calling former “Apprentice” contestant Summer Zervos a liar after she accused Trump of sexual assault.

Former Playboy model Karen McDougal is also suing the parent company of the National Enquirer, whose chief executive is friendly with Trump, seeking to be released from a legal agreement that bars her from speaking about an alleged affair with the president as well. Trump’s lawyers are not involved in that case.

~ Here’s a look at the lawyers representing Trump in the various matters.

~ Don McGahn

McGahn is the current White House counsel, the top lawyer tasked with advising the president on legal issues about policies and legislation. But McGahn has been at the center of controversies over Trump’s challenged travel ban, executive orders and the scandal surrounding former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s tenure in the White House, and Trump at one point handed off responsibility of Russia-related issues to his personal attorney. Before becoming White House counsel, McGahn was Trump’s lawyer on the campaign, and he previously served as a commissioner with the Federal Election Commission. McGahn reportedly threatened to quit when Trump asked him in 2017 to fire Mueller, and the president backed down.

~ Ty Cobb

A former federal prosecutor and a white-collar defense lawyer at the law firm Hogan Lovells in Washington, D.C., Cobb was at one point in charge of overseeing the legal strategy and media response to investigations into the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia. Trump has reportedly considered firing Cobb, who repeatedly said during 2017 that the Russia investigation would be finishing soon and encouraged the president to cooperate with Mueller. In September, Cobb was overheard by a reporter talking openly at a Washington restaurant about the investigation.

~ John Dowd

A noted white collar defense attorney in Washington, Dowd joined Trump’s legal team in June. He argued in December that a president cannot obstruct justice, a controversial legal theory that many experts disagree with. And in March, he told a reporter that he hopes Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will shut down the Russia investigation, a break from Cobb’s talk of cooperating with Mueller. The remark led to questions about whether the president’s legal strategy on the Russia investigation was moving to a more aggressive stance.

~ Michael Cohen

Cohen is a personal lawyer, spokesperson and close confidant of Trump’s. He’s been working for Trump for years, closely enough that he has hired his own lawyer to help him with the Russia probe. He’s known as a particularly aggressive advocate on Trump’s behalf, Trump’s “pit bull or consigliere,” as ABC puts it, for threatening legal action against critics, yelling at reporters and vigorously defending his boss on Twitter.

~ Jay Sekulow

Sekulow is on Trump’s personal legal team advising him on Russia issues, and one of the lawyers who often appears in television hits. On Sunday on ABC, Sekulow said of Donald Trump Jr.’s Russian meeting, “Well, I wonder why the Secret Service, if this was nefarious, why the Secret Service allowed these people in.” The Secret Service responded and said it did not vet the meeting. Sekulow is Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law & Justice and hosts his own talk show, and before joining Trump’s team he had spent his legal career representing conservative groups.

~ Joseph diGenova

Trump added Joseph diGenova, a Washington lawyer and former U.S. attorney, to his legal team in March. Two months earlier, diGenova had gone on Fox News and endorsed the conspiracy theory that the FBI and Justice Department framed Trump. “There was a brazen plot to illegally exonerate Hillary Clinton and, if she didn’t win the election, to then frame Donald Trump with a falsely created crime,” he said. “Make no mistake about it: A group of F.B.I. and D.O.J. people were trying to frame Donald Trump of a falsely created crime.” It also emerged that during the investigation of President Bill Clinton in 1997, diGenova published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal arguing that sitting presidents can be indicted, a legal question that may take on new relevance under Mueller’s investigation.

~ Marc Kasowitz

Trump’s personal attorney, Kasowitz has represented Trump for years, including in divorces, bankruptcy cases and the sexual misconduct allegations that surfaced during the presidential campaign. He’s known for a fiery temper—in an email outburst published by ProPublica, Kasowitz told an unidentified person, “”F–k you… And you don’t know me, but I will know you. How dare you send me an email like that. I’m on you now. You are f–king with me now. Let’s see who you are. Watch your back b—h.” Kasowitz then reportedly left Trump’s legal team, but he has recently been working with Trump on the Zervos lawsuit.

TRANSGENDER PEOPLE ALLOWED TO ENLIST IN U.S. MILITARY JAN 1, 2018 (TRUMP'S STRATEGY)

TRANSGENDER PEOPLE ALLOWED TO ENLIST IN U.S. MILITARY JAN 1, 2018 (TRUMP'S STRATEGY):

TRUMP CHOSE NOT TO APPEAL COURT'S LATEST RULING.

IS THIS TRUMP'S WAY OF REACHING OUT TO THE GAY COMMUNITY AHEAD OF 2020??

TRUMP MAY BE MUCH WISER THAN WE ALL REALIZE.


Sources: Reuters


****** U.S. military to accept transgender recruits on Monday: Pentagon


Transgender people will be allowed for the first time to enlist in the U.S. military starting on Monday as ordered by federal courts, the Pentagon said on Friday, after President Donald Trump’s administration decided not to appeal rulings that blocked his transgender ban.

Two federal appeals courts, one in Washington and one in Virginia, last week rejected the administration’s request to put on hold orders by lower court judges requiring the military to begin accepting transgender recruits on Jan. 1.

A Justice Department official said the administration will not challenge those rulings.

“The Department of Defense has announced that it will be releasing an independent study of these issues in the coming weeks.

So rather than litigate this interim appeal before that occurs, the administration has decided to wait for DOD’s study and will continue to defend the president’s lawful authority in District Court in the meantime,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

In September, the Pentagon said it had created a panel of senior officials to study how to implement a directive by Trump to prohibit transgender individuals from serving. The Defense Department has until Feb. 21 to submit a plan to Trump.

Lawyers representing currently-serving transgender service members and aspiring recruits said they had expected the administration to appeal the rulings to the conservative-majority Supreme Court, but were hoping that would not happen.

Pentagon spokeswoman Heather Babb said in a statement: “As mandated by court order, the Department of Defense is prepared to begin accessing transgender applicants for military service Jan. 1. All applicants must meet all accession standards.”

Jennifer Levi, a lawyer with gay, lesbian and transgender advocacy group GLAD, called the decision not to appeal “great news.”

“I’m hoping it means the government has come to see that there is no way to justify a ban and that it’s not good for the military or our country,” Levi said. Both GLAD and the American Civil Liberties Union represent plaintiffs in the lawsuits filed against the administration.

“COSTS AND DISRUPTION”

In a move that appealed to his hard-line conservative supporters, Trump announced in July that he would prohibit transgender people from serving in the military, reversing Democratic President Barack Obama’s policy of accepting them.

Trump said on Twitter at the time that the military “cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.”

Four federal judges - in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Seattle and Riverside, California - have issued rulings blocking Trump’s ban while legal challenges to the Republican president’s policy proceed.

The judges said the ban would likely violate the right under the U.S. Constitution to equal protection under the law.

The Pentagon on Dec. 8 issued guidelines to recruitment personnel in order to enlist transgender applicants by Jan. 1.

The memo outlined medical requirements and specified how the applicants’ sex would be identified and even which undergarments they would wear.

The Trump administration previously said in legal papers that the armed forces were not prepared to train thousands of personnel on the medical standards needed to process transgender applicants and might have to accept “some individuals who are not medically fit for service.”

The Obama administration had set a deadline of July 1, 2017, to begin accepting transgender recruits.

But Trump’s defense secretary, James Mattis, postponed that date to Jan. 1, 2018, which the president’s ban then put off indefinitely.

Trump has taken other steps aimed at rolling back transgender rights. In October, his administration said a federal law banning gender-based workplace discrimination does not protect transgender employees, reversing another Obama-era position.
In February, Trump rescinded guidance issued by the Obama administration saying that public schools should allow transgender students to use the restroom that corresponds to their gender identity.

OBAMA & HILLARY CAMPAIGN TOGETHER TUESDAY IN ‪#‎CHARLOTTE‬ (BATTLEGROUND STATES)

‪#‎HillaryClinton‬

OBAMA & HILLARY CAMPAIGN TOGETHER TUESDAY IN ‪#‎CHARLOTTE‬, NORTH CAROLINA:

HILLARY HAS REQUIRED DELEGATES BUT CAN’T WIN WITHOUT OBAMA’S POLITICAL GENIUS.

DONALD TRUMP WILL CAMPAIGN IN RALEIGH SAME DAY.

NORTH CAROLINA REMAINS A BATTLEGROUND STATE.

Sources: Charlotte Observer, ABC News, Hillary Clinton Events, Youtube

***** 7 things to know about Tuesday’s Clinton-Obama rally in Charlotte

President Barack Obama returns to Charlotte on Tuesday for his first campaign appearance with presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

They’ll hold a rally at the Charlotte Convention Center – three short blocks from where, four years ago, Obama accepted his own renomination before a packed house at Time Warner Cable Arena.

The visit is Clinton’s second in two weeks to what’s expected once again to be a battleground state. It’s her first visit to Charlotte since a March 14 rally at Grady Cole Center, a day before she won the state’s primary. Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee,will be in Raleigh.

Obama and Clinton will arrive in Charlotte together at 2:25 p.m. on Air Force One and travel to the Convention Center for the 3 p.m. event. Doors open at 1.

Here are some things to keep in mind about Tuesday’s visit.

~ 1. Expect heavy traffic. If you’re going to the rally or just going to work, be prepared for afternoon traffic tie-ups.

Police say to expect intermittent road closures between Charlotte Douglas International Airport and uptown. Though the exact route hasn’t been disclosed for security reasons, previous presidential visits have caused congestion, even on Interstate 77.

Brevard Street and Martin Luther King Boulevard between Caldwell and College streets are expected to close at 9:30 a.m. One lane of Stonewall Street is expected to close for TV satellite trucks.
“We don’t anticipate huge gridlock based on the time frame, but we do expect some delays,” said Deputy Chief Jeff Estes of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.
Blue Line service uptown will be interrupted from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Trains will run north to the Carson Street Station, where passengers can board a bus to the transit center. For questions, call CATS customer service at 704-336-RIDE (7433).

~ 2. Critical time for Clinton. Clinton will arrive in Charlotte amid renewed and potentially damaging focus on the federal investigation of her use of a private email server as secretary of state.

On Saturday, the FBI interviewed her in Washington for more than three hours.

And even Democrats are still shaking their heads at the news that former President Bill Clinton met with Attorney General Loretta Lynch on an airport tarmac in Arizona last week. Lynch has insisted Bill Clinton was making a social call and that they talked only about family. But she also acknowledged that the meeting had the appearance, to many, of a conflict of interest.

The Obama-Clinton visit comes eight years after an intense presidential primary fight between the two. Aides to Obama and Clinton told The Associated Press that the foe-to-friend narrative will be a key part of Tuesday’s events, with Obama acting as a character witness for his former secretary of state.

~ 3. Fewer no-shows. Two high-profile Democratic candidates have said this time they’ll appear with the president and his former secretary of state.

U.S. Senate candidate Deborah Ross and gubernatorial candidate Roy Cooper both plan to be at the Convention Center. Both were no-shows last month when Clinton spoke at the State Fairgrounds in Raleigh.

One politician who won’t be there: Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts. The mayor, who ushered Clinton onstage in March, is on a family vacation.

~ 4. Why North Carolina? Because it’s an increasingly important presidential battlefield.

In 2008, Obama became the first Democrat in 32 years to carry the state, and he won by a slim 14,000 votes. Four years later, Republican Mitt Romney won the state by 2 percentage points. But it was the only Southern swing state that he won.

Polls compiled by Real Clear Politics show the 2016 race a virtual tie. Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics rates it as leaning Democrat.

~ 5. Trump’s in North Carolina, too.

A few hours after the Clinton-Obama event ends in Charlotte, Trump is scheduled to address a rally at the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts in Raleigh. Will he or Clinton get the bigger crowd? Reporters and others will be counting.

Even with the president by her side, Clinton will have to share the day’s North Carolina media coverage with Trump, who will get the last word at his 7 p.m. event.

North Carolina was in the GOP column in 2012, and Trump needs to keep it there in 2016 if he hopes to become president. No Republican has won the White House without carrying North Carolina since Dwight Eisenhower in 1956.

Clinton, who is leading in the polls in most battleground states, doesn’t have to win North Carolina to get the necessary 270 electoral votes. She only has to get Trump to spend precious time and money here so he can’t spend it in states such as Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania – probably must-win states for Clinton.

~ 6. Who’s paying? The Clinton campaign is paying to rent the Convention Center.

A spokesman for the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority said the contract is being finalized, but the Clinton campaign is “definitely paying” and being treated like any other rental client.
Her campaign will also pick up the tab for the costs of bringing the president to town.

~ 7. Also on stage … Warming up the crowd for Clinton and Obama on Tuesday will be four Tar Heel Democrats – three of them candidates this year.

Cooper and Ross will each get some time at the microphone in the Convention Center ballroom.

N.C. Democratic Party Chairwoman Patsy Keever will also speak, as will U.S. Rep. Alma Adams – she of the extensive hat collection. The congresswoman will be returning to her new home, Charlotte, and may or may not try to get a photo op with Clinton wearing one of her hats.

Obama will depart Charlotte by 5:05 p.m., according to the White House press office.

According to The Associated Press, the last time Obama and Clinton traveled together was 2012 when they visited newly democratic Myanmar, a pet issue of Clinton’s.

While Obama and Clinton are only expected to be in Charlotte for a few hours, their schedules leave room for a possible unannounced stop around town that could showcase their personal rapport.

HILLARY CLINTON MAKES HISTORY BUT CAN'T WIN WITHOUT OBAMA & SANDERS

HILLARY CLINTON MAKES HISTORY BUT CAN'T WIN WITHOUT HELP FROM OBAMA & SANDERS:

YOUNGER VOTERS WILL NOT SUPPORT HILLARY MINUS HELP FROM HER FRIENDS.

TRUMP & GOP LEADERS SHOULD BE SOMEWHAT NERVOUS.

OBAMA IS STILL A POLITICAL GENIUS ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL.

Sources: CNN, NBC, Jimmy Fallon Show, YouTube

****** Bernie Sanders vows to work with Hillary Clinton as Democrats move toward party unity

~ Story highlights

• Sanders met with Obama for the second time this primary season
• He also met with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid

Democrats took giant steps toward party unity Thursday as Bernie Sanders vowed to work together with Hillary Clinton to defeat Donald Trump in November and President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden formally endorsed Clinton for president. 

Sanders' decision to continue his White House bid even after Clinton became the party's presumptive presidential nominee has had Democrats on high alert as they seek to quickly change gears and take on Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Sanders' first explicit promise on Thursday to join forces with Clinton to take on the Republicans will help quell concerns among Democrats about divisions in the party.

Emerging from the White House after a meeting with Obama that lasted more than an hour, Sanders warned that a Trump presidency would be a "disaster" and that he would "work as hard as I can to make sure that Donald Trump does not become president of the United States."

"I look forward to meeting with (Clinton) in the near future to see how we can work together to defeat Donald Trump and to create a government which represents all of us and not just the 1%," Sanders told reporters.

The senator thanked both Obama and Biden for showing "impartiality" during the course of the Democratic campaign. 

"They said in the beginning that they would not put their thumb on the scales and they kept their word and I appreciate that very, very much," Sanders said. 

He added that he will monitor a "full counting of the votes" in California, where Clinton won the Democratic primary contest on Tuesday. The results will show "a much closer vote," Sanders predicted.

In a press briefing Thursday afternoon, White House spokesman Josh Earnest described the meeting as a "friendly conversation that was focused on the future," and said Obama congratulated Sanders on his "remarkable accomplishment" in the Democratic race. 

Shortly after the meeting, the White House released a video in which Obama enthusiastically backed Clinton and acknowledged the historic achievement of her becoming the first woman to win a major party's presidential nomination. He will join Clinton on the campaign trail for the first time next week in Wisconsin.

"I don't think there's ever been someone so qualified to hold this office," Obama said in the video of Clinton, whom he defeated eight years ago. 

He also thanked Sanders in the video for running an "incredible campaign" and for shining a spotlight on issues such as economic inequality and the influence of money in politics.

Sanders' high-profile meeting with Obama and his public remarks afterward come just days after Sanders declared that he intends to continue his 2016 campaign. At a rallyTuesday night, Sanders had declined to acknowledge that Clinton had secured the necessary delegates to win her party's nomination. He vowed to forge ahead to the District of Columbia's primary next week, and then on to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta said their camp would would like to quickly mend fences and unify the party. 

"Nothing has been scheduled yet, but I think both sides want to make sure that it happens and happens soon," Podesta told CNN's Wolf Blitzer. He added that they would "welcome" Sanders campaigning for Clinton. 

"If you go back to 2008 after it became clear that President Obama had won the pledged delegates and was going to be the nominee of the Democratic party, that's exactly what Hillary did," he said. "Even after that hard-fought campaign, she went out and endorsed him, asked that his name be put into the nomination by acclimation, she campaigned with him."

The Sanders-Obama meeting Thursday marked the two men's second White House sitdown this primary season and the fourth time they've spoken in the last month. White House officials hoped Obama could prod the Vermont senator toward eventually acting as a unifying figure for the Democratic Party.

In a taping of "The Tonight Show" with Jimmy Fallon on Wednesday, Obama said he was hopeful that the party will "pull things together."

"The main role I'm going to be playing in this process is to remind the American people that this is a serious job," Obama said. "You know, this is not reality TV. I've seen the decisions that have to be made and the work that has to be done."

Since clinching her party's nomination, Clinton has stuck to a conciliatory tone when it comes to her rival.

In her victory speech in Brooklyn Tuesday night, Clinton congratulated Sanders for an "extraordinary campaign" and sought to reach out to his supporters. 

"Let there be no mistake: Sen. Sanders, his campaign, and the vigorous debate that we've had about how to raise incomes, reduce inequality, and increase upward mobility, have been very good for the Democratic Party and for America," Clinton said. 

Thursday helped shed light on Sanders'intentions and state of mind -- particularly the role he hopes to play in his party -- as the general election kicks off in earnest.

Sanders sat down in the afternoon with his longtime friend and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who has publicly said Sanders should "give up." Reid described the meeting to reporters afterward as a "good visit," and emphasized that Sanders has the good will of the Senate Democratic caucus. The Nevada senator said Sanders made no mention of changing the reality that Clinton is the party's presumptive nominee, and quipped that Sanders appears to have "accepted that."

Reid also echoed other Democratic leaders, saying, "I'm not pushing him to do anything."

Prior to that meeting, one source familiar with Reid's thinking said he believes Sanders can be helpful in Senate races, including in raising money, and is open to any number of ways to unite the party. 

Sanders also met with Biden late Thursday afternoon to discuss some of the issues central to his campaign, including income inequality, big money in politics and "the need to reform our politics," according to a statement from Biden's office. Later in the evening during a speech in Washington, Biden endorsed Clinton, saying "God willing," the former secretary of state would be the next president.

To cap off a whirlwind day of meetings, Sanders held an evening campaign rally in Southeast Washington. 

The senator delivered his usual stump speech, touching on issues of economic, social, racial and environmental justice. But his remarks also reflected on the arc of his unlikely campaign and what he and his supporters have achieved over the last year. 

The pundits had underestimated his political revolution, Sanders said. "Well, here we are -- it's mid-June, and we're still standing."

At the event, Sanders supporters acknowledged that the senator was unlikely to be the Democratic nominee for president. They expressed a mix of disappointment and pride -- and frustration with what they said was a lack of viable options. 

Sam Mbulaiteye, a researcher from Silver Spring, Maryland, said he was disappointed that Obama endorsed Clinton earlier in the day. 

"I think Bernie's message is closer to Obama's message in 2008 -- it's a message of change, hope and about the future," Mbulaiteye, 50, said. 

Mbulaiteye was undecided on whether to support Clinton or Trump in the general election. "In terms of being anti-establishment, Trump is closer to Bernie Sanders," he said.

Jenn Fendrick, a 32-year-old stay-at-home-mom from Fairfax, Virginia, lamented "the end of an era" and said she would vote for Clinton in November -- but "not enthusiastically."

This is "hopefully not the end of his movement, though," she said of Sanders. "He's definitely too old to run again."

CHRISTIE ENDORSES TRUMP; GOP ESTABLISHMENT LEADERS SHOULD STEP UP

CHRISTIE GIVES TRUMP HIS STAMP OF APPROVAL (ANOTHER ENDORSEMENT):

THIS ENDORSEMENT MEANS TRUMP WILL WIN THE EAST COAST TOO.

ESTABLISHMENT LEADERS SHOULD ASK TRUMP TO CHOOSE RUBIO OR CHRISTIE AS VP PICK.

IF NOT HILLARY WILL WIN.

Sources:  Bloomberg, CNN, Fox News, YouTube

**** Chris Christie Delivers Major Blow to Party Elites Resisting Trump

Trump gained a powerful surrogate responsible for the lowest moment in the campaign of one of his last Republican adversaries: Marco Rubio.

The united Republican establishment front against Donald Trump started to crumble in a potentially profound way on Friday when New Jersey Governor Chris Christie backed the New York billionaire for president with an enthusiastic endorsement.

The move, combined with the endorsement of Maine Governor Paul LePage later Friday, adds the establishment bona fides of two sitting U.S. governors to a devoutly outsider campaign. It also comes just days after Trump’s first two congressional endorsements in Representatives Chris Collins of New York and Duncan Hunter of California. 

In Christie, Trump also gained a powerful surrogate responsible for the lowest moment in the campaign of one of his last Republican adversaries: Marco Rubio.  

The New Jersey governor also opened a door for other Republican Party elites, who spent recent days rushing to boost Rubio, and invited them to walk through. If beating Hillary Clinton outweighed all other factors, as the New Jersey governor argued, then other objections to Trump's campaign—such as his bombastic and nativist rhetoric—should take a back seat. 

As a twice-elected governor of a blue state and former chairman of the Republican Governors Association, Christie could serve as Trump’s ambassador to establishment donors, lawmakers and behind-the-scenes operators across the nation.

'Rewriting the playbook'

Wasting no time in showing what he brings to the campaign, Christie seized his new role as Trump standard bearer with zeal, undermining Rubio's core pitch for his nomination—his electability—and belittling him as a performer delivering "one act after the other."

"The single most important thing for the Republican Party is to nominate the person who gives us the best chance to defeat Hillary Clinton," Christie said at a Fort Worth news conference with Trump. "I can guarantee you that the one person Hillary and Bill Clinton do not want to see on that stage come next September is Donald Trump. They know how to run the standard political playbook against junior senators and run them around the block. They do not know the playbook with Donald Trump, because he is rewriting the playbook."

The Christie endorsement comes four days before a burst of nomination contests take place on March 1, known as "Super Tuesday." After winning three of the first four states by large margins, a string of victories next Tuesday could make Trump all but unstoppable, which is why rivals Rubio and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas aggressively attacked him in a televised debate Thursday night.

Within hours of Christie's endorsement, Trump landed the backing of LePage, who praised the real estate mogul's business acumen on the Howie Carr Show, a syndicated radio program.

The final frontier of resistance

Trump has shown broad appeal within the party, as he himself explained on Friday. "I won in a landslide," he said, referring to the South Carolina primary. "I won evangelicals. I won military. I won the vets. I won everything. I won men. I won women. I won Hispanics. I won every single category."

But the one group of Republicans who have continued to overwhelmingly oppose him are lawmakers and influential consultants. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who helped lead the charge in 1994 elections that handed the party its first House majority in four decades, said it's time to re-think that.

"This Chris Christie endorsement of Trump is real signal to GOP establishment that they had better begin thinking about Trump as the future," Gingrich said on Twitter, adding in another posting, "this is a huge step for Trump" that will have a big impact on Super Tuesday.

The establishment pushes back

Meanwhile, two former aides to Jeb Bush, an ex-rival who waged bitter fights with Trump and Christie during the primary, fiercely criticized the governor. "Like Trump, Chris Christie is a pathetic, corrupt man with a tiny ego. I'm sure they bonded discussing their insecurities over a big meal," Tim Miller, Bush's former communications director, wrote on Twitter.

David Kochel, the former Jeb Bush strategist, seemed to evoke Christie's weight.

For Christie, throwing his support behind Trump could be seen as payback against Rubio after a bitter primary fight. As Christie climbed in New Hampshire, the state where he put all his chips, the pro-Rubio super PAC Conservative Solutions spent large amounts of money on TV ads in the Granite State attacking the governor.

They left a mark, and Christie never quite recovered despite landing a devastating blow against Rubio in his final debate of the Republican race. 

Speaking to reporters while campaigning Friday, Rubio characterized the endorsement as an act of desperation by Trump after the debate.

"Chris is an articulate guy. You know, Donald probably needs a life-line after last night, so he called in Chris Christie. I respect that," Rubio said. "I have more than my fair share of endorsements."

DONALD TRUMP'S PLAN TO SNAG HILLARY'S BLACK VOTERS (2016 GOP TSUNAMI COMING)

@realDonaldTrump

DONALD TRUMP'S PLAN TO SNAG HILLARY'S BLACK VOTERS (2016 GOP TSUNAMI COMING):

BLACK VOTERS ARE ANGRY WITH OBAMA & KEY DEMOCRAT LEADERS FOR ABANDONING THEM.

~ How Donald Trump Defeats Hillary Clinton

Obama’s BLACK supporters are crucial to a Trump win, and pollsters say he has a chance with this bloc.

If Donald Trump becomes the next president of the United States, there will be plenty of surprises along the way. One of the biggest will be the help he gets from BLACK voters.

According to Republican pollsters and Trump’s allies, the GOP poll-leader — who has been dogged by accusations of racism, most recently for tweeting out a chart that exaggerated the share of murders committed by BLACKS — is poised to out-perform with this demographic group in a general-election matchup with Hillary Clinton.

“If he were the Republican nominee he would get the highest percentage of black votes since Ronald Reagan in 1980,” said Republican messaging guru Frank Luntz, referring to the year Reagan won 14 percent of that bloc of voters. “They listen to him.

They find him fascinating, and in all the groups I have done, I have found Obama voters, they could’ve voted for Obama twice, but if they’re African-American they would consider Trump.”

Another longtime Republican pollster and veteran of multiple presidential campaigns has tested Trump’s appeal to blacks and Hispanics and come to the same conclusion. “He behaves in a way that most minorities would not expect a billionaire to behave,” explained the pollster, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid damaging relationships within the party. “He’s not a white-bread socialite kind of guy.”

There’s more. The rest of Trump’s path to general-election victory, as laid out to POLITICO by pollsters, his campaign and his former advisers, looks like this:

After winning the nomination on the first ballot, Trump unifies the party he has fractured behind him and reinvents himself as a pragmatic businessman and family man at the Republican National Convention.

News of small-scale terror plots on American soil, foiled or successful, keep voters in a state of anxiety.

Trump minimizes his losses with Hispanics by running Spanish-language ads highlighting his support for a strong military and take-charge entrepreneurial attitude, especially in the Miami and Orlando media markets.

He draws the starkest possible outsider-insider contrast with Hillary Clinton and successfully tars her with her husband’s sexual history.

If he does all that, holds Mitt Romney’s states, and drives extraordinary levels of working-class white voter turnout in the suburbs and exurbs of Ohio and Virginia, as well as in the Florida panhandle and Jacksonville, he can flip those three Obama states and rack up 266 electoral votes.

Winning any one of Iowa, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Colorado, Nevada or New Mexico would put him over the top and make Donald John Trump the 45th president of the United States.

Shrinking Democrats’ edge with BLACK voters is just one of the counterintuitive wrinkles to the scenario in which Trump stuns the world and wins the White House. His path also includes playing the gender card against Clinton, a Karl Rovian gambit to turn his opponent’s strength — her feminist appeal — into a weakness.

In October, Roger Stone, Trump’s former longtime political adviser who left the campaign amid acrimony in August, published “The Clintons’ War on Women,” a book that portrays Bill Clinton as a serial sexual abuser and Hillary Clinton as complicit in silencing his victims.

Trump has seized on that line of attack this month.

He greeted the New Year by tweeting, “I hope Bill Clinton starts talking about women’s issues so that voters can see what a hypocrite he is and how Hillary abused those women!” on Jan. 2.

Five days later, his campaign released an Instagram video that features images linking the Clintons to Monica Lewinsky, Anthony Weiner and Bill Cosby and declares Trump “the true defender of women’s rights.”

It is an especially audacious move for Trump – who left the first of his three wives for his then-mistress and was the subject of a since-recanted accusation of marital rape – but one that has already re-injected Bill Clinton’s sexual history into the political conversation.

Before he’ll get the chance to take on Clinton though, Trump will have to win the primary. With less than three weeks to go until the Iowa caucuses, polls show Trump leading nationally and in nearly every state except for Iowa, where he and Ted Cruz are neck-and-neck.

If Cruz wins Iowa on Feb. 1, as many expect he will given his campaign’s organizational muscle and the endorsements he has landed from many of the state’s top conservatives, Trump would need to finish a solid second to hold together his double-digit lead in New Hampshire.

Eight days later, Trump would likely need a win in New Hampshire to defend his frontrunner status heading into the Feb. 20 vote in South Carolina, where polls show him in the low 30s, roughly 10 points ahead of the Texas senator’s second-place standing.

Winning South Carolina and avoiding embarrassment in the Nevada caucuses three days later would set Trump up to win big in the 12 Super Tuesday states, including six of South Carolina’s southern neighbors, that vote on March 1.

If Trump fends off Cruz on Super Tuesday, and establishment voters rally around a single candidate too late or too tepidly, Trump could land major delegate hauls in winner-take-all states like Florida and Ohio, which vote on March 15, and from there roll on to the nomination.

It’s a scenario that requires many unreliable voters to show up at the polls for Trump and for the businessman to avoid the kind of last-minute reevaluation that drove voters away from Howard Dean’s 2004 Democratic primary campaign.

It’s still possible for big-money Republican donors, who so far have sat on the sidelines, to find an effective attack on Trump and get it on the air.

And even if Trump wins a plurality of the delegates, if no candidate enters Cleveland with the 1,236 needed to win the nomination, he would find himself negotiating on hostile territory in the case of a contested convention.

But Republican insiders are increasingly coming to grips with the possibility of nominating Trump.

While many Republicans say Trump’s nomination would hand the presidency to Clinton, others see the former secretary of state as a deeply flawed candidate who could squander Democrats’ structural advantages in the race, including in a matchup with Trump.

“I’m not willing to say he’s the most electable candidate for president because of the hostility he has generated from women and Latinos,” said Luntz. But he added, “I’m unwilling to write Trump off any more. It’s foolish.”

Already, Trump has been laying groundwork in the African-American community that could pay dividends in a general election.

With the help of his political and business adviser Michael Cohen, Trump has spent years cultivating BLACK faith leaders.

Last year, he held meetings with black pastors in Georgia and at Trump Tower in New York. Trump’s team has also made a pair of black female video bloggers, Lynette “Diamond” Hardaway and Rochelle “Silk” Richardson, prominent surrogates online and on the trail.

Still, he has alienated Hispanics and women and his favorability rating with all voters is further underwater than Clinton’s.

Indeed, a race between Clinton and Trump could open the window for a third candidate to spoil Trump’s chance.

Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, who ran for president as the Libertarian Party’s nominee in 2012 and is again seeking the party’s nomination, told POLITICO he views a Trump nomination as an opportunity to poach Republican voters. “It’s ripe pickings,” said Johnson, citing Trump’s positions on trade, his support for eminent domain and his plan to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has also reportedly polled on a three-way matchup with Trump and Clinton, and it is unclear how the entrance of a second billionaire and third New Yorker would reconfigure the race.

While few if any Republicans view Trump as the party’s most electable nominee, some say he would bring unique assets to a general election.

“You can say whatever you want about Donald but it’s going to be really tough to nail Donald on abortion,” said the veteran Republican pollster who has studied Trump’s appeal. “It’s going to be really tough to nail Donald on gay marriage. It’s going to be really tough to nail Donald on Planned Parenthood. It’s just not who he is, while Cruz has fought and died on every one of those hills.”

Though Trump has been dogged by allegation of sexism, and he apparently insinuated that Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly was menstruating when she asked him tough questions during the first Republican debate, his former political aide Sam Nunberg, said the businessman can still attract many female voters.

Though Nunberg left Trump’s campaign in August, in a recent poll conducted for another client, Nunberg asked women in Connecticut who opposed marijuana legalization who they respected more:

A politician who is also charitable and a world-renowned businessman, father and grandfather or an “Elderly woman who not only openly allows her husband to have affairs but tries to silence the women.” The figure with the favorable abstract framing of Trump beat the figure with the negative abstract framing of Clinton by more than 20 points, according to Nunberg.

The limited sample, tilted framing and withholding of candidate names all qualify the finding, but it does suggest that if Trump can somehow shed his baggage and impose his preferred narrative on the match-up with Clinton, he can appeal to female voters.

“He’s a masculine figure and that will attract women to him,” said Nunberg. “It’s their dirty little secret. They like Donald Trump.”

Campaign manager Corey Lewandwoski said Trump’s operation remains focused on winning the nomination, but suggested that the businessman would outperform recent Republican nominees in rust belt states ravaged by free trade, naming Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

In a follow-up conversation, Lewandowski took a more expansive view of Trump’s general election prospects, suggesting the businessman could expand the electoral map to include California, Illinois and New York.

Several Republican strategists and pollsters laughed off the suggestion.

But 2015’s lesson for 2016 may be this: Never say never.

Sources: Politico, Youtube