Dems admit Trump helped GOP candidates sweep North Carolina special elections

In a major victory for both President Trump and national Republicans, North Carolina GOP state Sen. Dan Bishop was projected to win a fiercely contested special U.S. House election for the 9th District that was widely seen as a bellwether for the president's chances in the 2020 election.
And another Republican House candidate, Greg Murphy, decisively won a separate special election in North Carolina's more solidly GOP-leaning 3rd District earlier Tuesday evening -- frustrating Democrats who spent millions trying to make a splash in the state.
Even Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) Chairwoman Cheri Bustos acknowledged that the president contributed to Bishop's win, writing in a statement that "we fell an inch short tonight, but it took more than $6 million in outside Republican spending and a last-minute Trump rally" to seal Democratic candidate Dan McCready's fate in the 9th District.
McCready's campaign spent approximately $4.7 million on the race, while Bishop's spent only $1.9 million. Outside spending primarily from national party committees helped Bishop to the tune of $5.8 million, though, compared to McCready's roughly $1.4 million.
The clean sweep heartened the president, who has long emphasized the national implications at stake. Trump unloaded on McCready in the fiery rally on Monday night, telling attendees that "to stop the far-left, you must vote in tomorrow's special election."
That effort, Trump said late Tuesday, had clearly paid dividends.
"Dan Bishop was down 17 points 3 weeks ago," Trump wrote on Twitter. "He then asked me for help, we changed his strategy together, and he ran a great race. Big Rally last night. Now it looks like he is going to win. @CNN &@MSNBC are moving their big studio equipment and talent out. Stay tuned!"
He added: "BIG NIGHT FOR THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL!"
“The voters said no to radical, liberal polices pushed by today’s Democratic Party,” Bishop said in a victory speech.
GOP chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said the wins spelled trouble for Democrats in 2020, and highlighted the importance of Republican National Committee (RNC) efforts in North Carolina -- where the party will hold its national nominating convention in 2020.
"Despite being massively outspent by Democrats, @realDonaldTrump rallied voters and put Bishop over the top," McDaniel said. "A huge win for the president and our grassroots field program that's working hard to elect Republicans in 2020!"
The RNC had been active on the ground in North Carolina working on the special elections since June. The party has brought on nearly two-dozen full-time staffers and invested more than $1.5 million in the state, while also making nearly a half-million voter contacts through phone-bank work and door-to-door canvassing.
With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Bishop led McCready by 3,937 votes, 96,081 to 92,144, in the race to represent the 9th District. Bishop ran up substantial numbers in outlying areas and McCready eroded GOP advantages in suburban areas.
In 2018, the Republican candidate, Mark Harris, defeated McCready by a much smaller margin -- just 905 votes, 139,246 to 138,341. State officials ordered the unusual special election earlier this year, invalidating Harris' win after uncovering ballot fraud efforts.

North Carolina 9th district Republican congressional candidate Dan Bishop greets supporters in Monroe, N.C., Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2019. (AP Photo/Nell Redmond)

Republicans cheered Bishop's even-higher margin of victory than Harris achieved, briefly, in 2018.
“Congratulations to Dan Bishop on his definitive victory tonight in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District," National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Emmer said in a statement.
"North Carolinians rejected the Democrats’ socialist agenda and elected a representative who will defend North Carolina values, and will always fight for freedom and against socialism," he added. "I look forward to working with Dan in Congress to hold the Democrats accountable for their extreme agenda.”
Analysts had warned that the cloud from the fraud scandal could have harmed Bishop's prospects. Additionally, polls apparently showing Trump's declining national popularity -- which the president has dismissed as inaccurate -- gave Democrats some cause for optimism. The president said Monday he did not consider Bishop's race to be a bellwether for 2020.

President Donald Trump, left, gives his support to Dan Bishop, right, a Republican running for the special North Carolina 9th District U.S. Congressional race as he speaks at a rally in Fayetteville, N.C., Monday, Sept. 9, 2019. (AP Photo/Chris Seward)

Nevertheless, Bishop and Murphy were evidently boosted by pair of visits to the district Monday by both Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.
At the rally Monday, the president specifically called out McCready as a dangerous proponent of "sanctuary cities" and rolling back gun rights.
"Just recently, Mecklenburg County set free an illegal alien charged with first-degree rape and crimes against a child," Trump said, his voice rising. "Support for sanctuary cities is disloyalty to American cities -- and McCready wants sanctuary cities, with all of their protections for people who are serious criminals. Tomorrow is your chance to send a clear message to the America-hating left."
Had McCready prevailed, it might have suggested GOP erosion and raised questions about Trump's and his party's viability for 2020.
But Trump projected confidence early Tuesday evening after Murphy was projected to soundly defeat Democrat Allen Thomas in the separate special election in the coastal 3rd District to succeed the late Rep. Walter Jones Jr.
"One down, one to go," Trump wrote on Twitter.
Meanwhile, McCready, a former Marine turned financier of solar energy projects, had banked on the district's suburban moderates to carry him over the top.
The 9th District, which stretches east from the prosperous Charlotte suburbs into rural areas hugging the South Carolina border, has been held by the GOP since 1963.
In 2016, Trump won the district by 11 percentage points.

Democratic House candidate Dan McCready talks to volunteers at his campaign office in Waxhaw, N.C., outside Charlotte, Saturday. (AP Photo/Alan Fram)

As voters headed to the polls Tuesday afternoon, a new balloting controversy surfaced briefly when North Carolina election officials did not act on a request by the state Republican Party to extend hours at a single precinct.

A voter enters a precinct at the West Charlotte Recreation Center Tuesday. (John D. Simmons/The Charlotte Observer via AP)

The state GOP asked that the voting site stay open an extra hour and 45 minutes because they said some voters were showing up at an old voting location in Union County, a Republican-heavy area east of Charlotte.
The State Board of Elections met and discussed the GOP request, but took no action.
However, by a 5-0 vote of the state board, one polling site in Mecklenberg County was kept open 25 minutes past the 7:30 p.m. ET closing time due to a reported gas leak.

Attendees line up outside hours before President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Fayetteville, N.C., Monday Sept. 9, 2019 (AP Photo/Chris Seward)

The 3rd District, where Murphy won easily early in the night, was less closely watched because it was strongly expected to stay Republican-controlled. Still, Republicans from the president on down sounded the victory drums.
“Congratulations to Dr. Greg Murphy on his decisive victory tonight in North Carolina’s 3rd Congressional District," Emmer said in a statement.
"Dr. Murphy is a selfless servant who is dedicated to conservative values," Emmer continued. "Today, North Carolinians rejected the socialist agenda of the Democrats and voted for freedom. I look forward to working with a consistent conservative like Dr. Murphy in Congress.”

Greg Murphy was elected to Congress from North Carolina's 3rd District Tuesday. (Molly Urbina/The Daily Reflector via AP, File)

The 3rd district extends from the Virginia border and Outer Banks to the Marine Corps' Camp Lejeune, and inland to Greenville. Trump won the district vote comfortably in 2016, and Murphy said at a Trump rally that he would have the "president's back" if elected.
Thomas is a former Greenville mayor who questioned Murphy's "blind loyalty" to Trump.
Fox News' David Lewkowictz and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

George Soros Cartoons

Jon Ossoff to launch run for US Senate seat in Georgia, challenge Perdue

Jon Ossoff, who was seen as the Democratic boy wonder in his failed Georgia congressional bid in 2017 that was supposed to show President Trump's weakness in historically red states, announced Monday night that he will run for US Senate in Georgia, according to a report.
Ossoff, 32, will become the fourth Democrat to challenge U.S. Sen. David Perdue, a first-term Republican and former Fortune 500 chief executive who has long stood in support of President Trump. His decision to take on Perdue instead of competing for soon-to-retire Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson’s seat, is part of his effort to “mount a ruthless assault on corruption in our political system,” according to a report in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“We have squandered trillions on endless war. We have squandered trillions on bailouts for failed banks. We have squandered trillions on tax cuts for wealthy donors. Then we’re told there’s nothing left over for the people,” Ossoff said. “The corruption must be rooted out. And Sen. David Perdue is a caricature of Washington corruption.”
Isakson will step down at the end of this year due to health reasons. His interim replacement will be selected by Gov. Brian Kemp until an election in 2020 will determine his ultimate successor.
Fox News’ Ron Blitzer contributed to this report.

NRA sues San Francisco over 'domestic terrorist organization' declaration

The National Rifle Association filed a lawsuit against San Francisco Monday over the city's recent declaration that the gun-rights lobby is a "domestic terrorist organization."
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against the city and county of San Francisco and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. It accuses city officials of violating the gun lobby's free speech rights for political reasons and claims the city is trying to blacklist anyone associated with the NRA from doing business there.

The gun rights lobby asked the court to step in "to instruct elected officials that freedom of speech means you cannot silence or punish those with whom you disagree."
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution last week that said the U.S. is “plagued by an epidemic of gun violence,” and accused the NRA of using “its considerable wealth and organization strength to promote gun ownership and incite gun owners to acts of violence.” The resolution called on other cities, states and the federal government to follow suit and also declare the NRA a “domestic terrorist organization.”

San Francisco Supervisor Catherine Stefani told the Associated Press she drafted the resolution after a July 28 high profile shooting in Gilroy, Calif., where a gunman entered a festival with an AK-style rifle and killed three people and injured at least 17 more before turning the gun on himself. Gilroy is located about 80 miles southeast of San Francisco.
At least three mass shootings — in El Paso, Texas; Dayton, Ohio; and in the West Texas towns of Odessa and Midland—have occurred since then, and Democrat leaders in Congress Monday urged President Trump to push Republicans to support gun control legislation to expand background checks.

Corporate America has also taken a political stance on gun control in recent years. Delta Airlines ceased discounts for NRA members, and Walmart, CVS, Walgreens and Albertsons chains have all asked customers to not openly carry firearms into their stores, even in states where it is legal to do so.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Soros calls Trump’s China stance his ‘greatest’ foreign policy achievement, warns on Huawei

George Soros, the left-wing billionaire, offered partial praise for President Trump in an op-ed published Monday night over his tough stance on China but went on to urge Congress not to allow the president to use Huawei—the second-largest smartphone maker in the world—as a bargaining chip in his fight for reelection.
Soros, who famously shorted the British pound in 1992 and made a $1 billion profit, penned the op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. He said perhaps Trump's only foreign policy win during his presidency was "the development of a coherent and genuinely bipartisan policy toward Xi Jinping ’s China," and his administration's move to declare Beijing a "strategic rival."
Soros also praised the administration's move to place Huawei on the Commerce Department’s so-called "entity list," which prevents U.S. companies from dealing the telecom giant.
Huawei has called the action by the Trump administration a violation of "free-market competition."
Soros wrote about the tense competition in the 5G market and said the U.S. has a commanding lead over China. But he warned that Trump "may soon undermine his own China policy and cede the advantage to Beijing."
He said he believes Trump wants to free himself from any constraints by Congress and be able to remove Huawei from the list at his own discretion. China has insisted that Huawei be removed from the list as a prerequisite for any trade agreement.
"In my view, he wants to arrange a meeting with President Xi Jinping as the 2020 election approaches and make a trade deal with him, and he wants Huawei's status on the table as one of his bargaining chips," Soros wrote.
Soros called on Congress to act and pointed to Rep. Mike Gallagher,  R-Wis., and Sen.  Mitt  Romney, R- Utah, for introducing amendments that would require Congress’ blessing for removal.
"As founder of the Open Society Foundations, my interest in defeating Xi Jinping’s China goes beyond U.S. national interests," he wrote. "As I explained in a speech in Davos earlier this year, I believe that the social-credit system Beijing is building, if allowed to expand, could sound the death knell of open societies not only in China but also around the globe."

CIA slams CNN's 'misguided' and 'simply false' reporting on alleged CIA spy's extraction from Kremlin

The Central Intelligence Agency on Monday evening slammed what it called CNN's "misguided" and "simply false" reporting, after the cable channel's chief national security correspondent authored a hole-filled piece claiming that the CIA had pulled a high-level spy out of Russia because President Trump had "repeatedly mishandled classified intelligence and could contribute to exposing the covert source as a spy."
The extraordinary CIA rebuke came as The New York Times published a bombshell piece late in the evening, which largely contradicted CNN's reporting. According to the Times, CIA officials "made the arduous decision in late 2016 to offer to extract the source from Russia" -- weeks before Trump even took office.
Concerns about media reporting on Russian election interference drove the decision, according to the Times, which described the source as "the American government’s best insight into the thinking of and orders” from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"Former intelligence officials said there was no public evidence that Mr. Trump directly endangered the source, and other current American officials insisted that media scrutiny of the agency’s sources alone was the impetus for the extraction," the Times wrote.
The purported spy refused the 2016 offer of extraction, the Times reported, citing family concerns. But the CIA "pressed again months later after more media inquiries" threatened the source, and he relented, according to the paper.
The whirlwind developments continued into the night on Monday, when NBC News exclusively reported that a possible Russia spy was now living under apparent U.S. protection, using his true identity, in Washington, D.C. -- and that his life could be in danger. Sources told NBC News that the Russian living in Washington was the same individual who was referenced in the reporting by CNN and the Times, and NBC said he "fits the profile of someone who may have had access to information about Putin’s activities."
An NBC reporter who knocked at the Russian's door was confronted by unidentified men in an SUV, presumed to be security personnel, within minutes. Speculation about the purported spy's identity, using publicly available records, quickly circulated on social media after NBC News' report revealed identifiable details about his living situation.

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a reception for graduates of Russian military education institutions in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, on Thursday, June 27, 2019. (Alexei Druzhinin, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

"CNN's narrative that the Central Intelligence Agency makes life-or-death decisions based on anything other than objective analysis and sound collection is simply false," CIA Director for Public Affairs Brittany Bramell said in a statement.
Bramwell continued: "Misguided speculation that the President's handling of our nation's most sensitive intelligence — which he has access to each and every day — drove an alleged exfiltration operation is inaccurate."
According to the report by CNN chief national correspondent and former Obama administration official Jim Sciutto, the decision to carry out the extraction "occurred soon after a May 2017 meeting in the Oval Office in which Trump discussed highly classified intelligence with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and then-Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. The intelligence, concerning ISIS in Syria, had been provided by Israel."
The disclosure "prompted intelligence officials to renew earlier discussions about the potential risk of exposure," CNN reported.
Sciutto later posted on Twitter, after the Times report was published, that the double agent in jeopardy had the "remarkable ability to take photos of presidential documents," as well as "direct access" to Putin.

"CNN's narrative that the Central Intelligence Agency makes life-or-death decisions based on anything other than objective analysis and sound collection is simply false."
— CIA Director for Public Affairs Brittany Bramell

It was not clear from the CNN piece how exactly Trump's comments in the Oval Office would have further compromised the Russian source.
Numerous other holes quickly surfaced in CNN's reporting. Commentator Aaron Mate pointed out in a Twitter thread that several major news organizations had previously cited a high-level official in the Russian government as a source -- suggesting that the intelligence community itself, not Trump, had compromised the spy.
For example, The Washington Post reported in June 2017 of "'sourcing deep inside the Russian government' -- so deep that it purportedly 'captured Putin’s specific instructions' to launch a pro-Trump influence campaign," Matte noted.
And the Times reported in August 2018 of "anonymous intel officials complaining that their 'vital Kremlin informants have largely gone silent.'" But "if these Kremlin informants are so vital, why are US intel officials talking about them?" Matte asked.
The source resurfaced in May 2019, when the Times "reported on intel fears of this source being exposed."
"Again, the irony is lost that it's the ones who are complaining who are the ones revealing this supposed source," Matte wrote. "So there's a pattern here of intel leaks in order to: create a false link between Trump-Russia; to reveal supposed high-level Russian sources that advance the Russiagate narrative & then falsely blame Trump for these sources' supposed vulnerability."
Fox News understands that the CIA typically makes the decision to withdraw an asset only after a long deliberative process, and that the move would not ordinarily be taken based on a single event involving classified information, as CNN implied.
CNN has been faulted for its inaccurate intelligence reporting in the past. In December 2017, CNN falsely reported that Donald Trump, Jr. had advance access to hacked WikiLeaks emails, in what Glenn Greenwald called "one of the most humiliating spectacles in the history of the U.S. media." Several of the organization's much-touted journalists were forced out earlier that year for a separate false Russia bombshell.
CNN did not immediately reply to Fox News' request for comment. Sciutto claimed on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" late Monday that the Times had "confirmed" his reporting. Numerous other news organizations, including Vox, The Hill, and the Guardian, picked up CNN's original story uncritically.
The developments led to speculation as to who had leaked the information to CNN -- especially in light of previous anti-Trump leaks that found their way from the intelligence community to CNN's airwaves -- and led commentators to again fault the accuracy of CNN's initial reporting.
"In their fervor to blame President Trump for mishandling classified information, CNN potentially risked lives," a source familiar with the matter told The Daily Wire. "They had multiple on-the-record quotes from Administration officials telling them. Their story was not only wrong, but irresponsible and dangerous, and CNN decided to run with it anyway."
Fox News' Catherine Herridge contributed to this report.

2019 Townhall Cartoons

Kuwait’s ruler, 90, in US hospital and cancels Trump visit

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Kuwait’s 90-year-old ruling emir has cancelled a visit Thursday with President Donald Trump at the White House after being admitted to a U.S. hospital following an earlier health scare last month.

Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah will undergo unspecified tests during his hospitalization, the state-run KUNA news agency reported late Sunday. It did not elaborate.

It quoted Sheikh Ali Jarrah Al Sabah, the minister of the emir’s diwan council, as saying Sheikh Sabah would reschedule his visit with Trump.

“Sheikh Ali prayed to Allah the Almighty to bestow His Highness the Emir with good health,” KUNA said.

A White House statement said Trump was aware of the emir being hospitalized.

“The president wishes his friend, the Emir, a speedy recovery and looks forward to welcoming him back to Washington as soon as he is feeling better,” the statement said. “The Emir is a well-respected leader and has been a tremendous partner of the United States in tackling challenges in the region.”

On Aug. 18, Kuwait acknowledged the emir suffered an unspecified medical “setback.”

That came after visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote on Twitter that he was “praying for emir’s speedy recovery,” without elaborating.

Sheikh Sabah has ruled Kuwait since January 2006. A longtime diplomat, he pushed for diplomacy to solve regional issues, such as the ongoing boycott of Qatar by four Arab nations, and hosted major donor conferences for war-torn nations like Iraq and Syria.