Tucker Carlson: What Butler rally tells us about Trump and his support

'Tucker Carlson Tonight' host explains why millions of Americans truly love the president

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    SEATTLE — When a U.S. Marshals task force killed a self-described antifa activist in Washington state in September, the Trump administration applauded the removal of a “violent agitator” who was suspected of murder. Last week, local investigators concluded a monthslong homicide inquiry with the announcement that the activist, Michael Reinoehl, had most likely fired at authorities first, effectively justifying the shooting. But a review of investigation documents obtained by The New York Times suggests that investigators for the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office discounted key pieces of contradicting evidence that indicate Reinoehl may never have fired or pointed a gun. While investigators found a spent bullet casing in the back seat of Reinoehl’s car and pointed to that as evidence he probably fired his weapon, the handgun they recovered from Reinoehl had a full clip, according to multiple photos compiled by Thurston County authorities showing Reinoehl’s handgun. The gun was found in his pocket. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times The federally organized task force, made up primarily of local law enforcement officers from Washington, had been seeking to arrest Reinoehl for the Aug. 29 shooting death of a supporter of the far-right group Patriot Prayer during the summer’s raucous street protests over race and policing. The arrest operation quickly erupted into gunfire, and Reinoehl died in the street near his car in a residential neighborhood in Lacey, Washington. The sheriff’s office in Thurston County, where the shooting occurred, was not part of the task force. In announcing its conclusions, the sheriff’s office wrote that “witness statements indicate there was an exchange of gunfire, which was initiated by Reinoehl from inside his vehicle.” A spokesman, Lt. Cameron Simper, said that while investigators could not conclude for certainty that Reinoehl had fired his weapon, he said it was “highly likely.” But one of the witnesses that Thurston County investigators relied on to reach their conclusion that Reinoehl had fired his gun was an 8-year-old boy. His father, Garrett Louis, who had rushed to his son’s side during the shooting, has consistently said he believed that officers opened fire first without shouting any warnings. Of the two other witnesses whom investigators cited to support the conclusion that Reinoehl fired his gun, one did not see it happen and the other was not sure. Fred Langer, a lawyer representing Reinoehl’s family, said the law enforcement conclusions defy common sense. “They are covering for themselves,” Langer said. “The physical evidence doesn’t support what they are saying.” Reinoehl had been a consistent fixture at racial justice protests in Portland, Oregon, last summer, carrying a gun as a volunteer security officer among the protesters and writing online that the protests were part of a war with the potential to “fix everything.” On Aug. 29, when a caravan of Trump supporters drove into downtown Portland, clashing with left-wing activists, Reinoehl was on the streets. Video footage shot by bystanders appears to show that Reinoehl approached Aaron Danielson, the Patriot Prayer supporter, as Danielson walked through the area with a can of bear repellent and an expandable baton. Reinoehl appears to have shot Danielson, killing him, before running into the night. He later claimed in an interview with Vice News that he had fired in self-defense. Five days after the shooting, Portland police issued a warrant for Reinoehl’s arrest on suspicion of murder. The Pacific Northwest Violent Offender Task Force, whose local law enforcement officers were deputized as federal marshals, traced Reinoehl’s path up to Washington state and prepared a plan to take him into custody. The investigation by Thurston County investigators that was obtained by The Times provided key new details, including witness statements, from their monthslong inquiry into the events preceding Reinoehl’s death. Officers believed that Reinoehl had a .380-caliber handgun, an AR-style rifle and a shotgun, according to the accounts they gave to investigators. They said they had received information — apparently from an informant — that Reinoehl had said he would not be taken alive. Officers described their concern that Reinoehl was associated with “antifa,” the loose network of activists who have mobilized to confront far-right groups and protest law enforcement violence. On Sept. 3, the officers took up surveillance positions near the apartment where Reinoehl was staying, according to their statements. Once on the scene, their chosen radio frequency only worked for some officers, leaving others unable to communicate. Just before 7 p.m., the team watched as Reinoehl exited the apartment and headed toward his vehicle. Sgt. Erik Clarkson of the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department, a senior officer on the scene, told the others “to let him drive if no one was close enough to interdict him,” but his command was not heard as a result of the radio problem, according to his statement. Officer Michael Merrill of the Lakewood Police Department decided to move in and gunned his Ford Escape toward Reinoehl’s parked Volkswagen Jetta. No video has emerged to show what transpired next, and a murky mix of sometimes contradictory information has been used to explain it. None of the officers wore a body camera, nor were cameras mounted on their vehicles. One of the officers on the scene, a deputy U.S. marshal named Ryan Kimmel who did not fire his weapon, declined to provide a statement during the investigation. James Oleole, a Pierce County sheriff’s deputy in the passenger seat of Merrill’s Ford Escape, said that as law enforcement vehicles pulled up and officers announced themselves, Reinoehl was in the driver’s seat of his Jetta and made moves with his arms “consistent with the moves that someone makes when they are attempting to grab a gun they have on their person.” Although he did not see a gun, Oleole said, he began firing his AR-15 rifle through his own windshield at Reinoehl. Merrill, thinking the glass shards from the windshield meant he was under fire, exited the Ford Escape, saw what he believed was Reinoehl reaching for a gun and also opened fire. A third officer, also from the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department, had followed the others in an SUV and blocked Reinoehl’s Jetta from an angle. Also believing that Reinoehl was reaching for a gun, he opened fire with his 9 mm handgun. As the officers unleashed a hail of bullets, a total of 40 in all, Reinoehl exited the Jetta and ran for cover behind a truck parked behind him. The three officers reported that he was continuously reaching around his waistband or pocket. A Washington state Department of Corrections officer, who had arrived in a third vehicle, saw Reinoehl round the rear of the truck and begin to pull “a small dark item” from his pocket. That officer also fired, and Reinoehl fell. Although no officer said Reinoehl shot at them, and only one described him raising something that might have been a gun, investigators concluded that Reinoehl had most likely fired a shot — pointing to a spent shell casing they found in the back seat of the Jetta that matched the .380-caliber handgun found in his pocket. Investigators never found a bullet matching it amid the dozens sprayed around the scene, and all of the gunshots that pierced the Jetta’s front windshield were determined to be incoming rounds fired by officers. Simper of the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office said it was possible that Reinoehl fired through an open passenger-side window. The final report also does not address that the handgun’s six-round clip was still full when officers recovered it. Simper said it was possible that Reinoehl had loaded an extra round in the chamber before firing and that the gun had malfunctioned and failed to load a round from the clip after he took a shot. To reach their conclusion that Reinoehl fired his gun, investigators also cited the accounts of three witnesses. One of them, Chad Smith, had initially told journalists that he saw Reinoehl shooting at officers but later said he did not see Reinoehl shooting. He reported to investigators that he believed that Reinoehl shot first because the first shot he heard sounded less powerful than later ones. Another witness told investigators he believed there was an exchange of gunfire. The man, who asked not to be identified publicly, said in an interview Friday that he could not be sure Reinoehl had fired a weapon. Louis’ 8-year-old son told officers that Reinoehl was shooting at the agents. But when asked what kind of gun Reinoehl fired, he described it as “big” and “two-handed,” a description that did not match Reinoehl’s pocket-size handgun. Louis said that his children were taught that police officers were “heroes” but that the investigator who interviewed his son had phrased his questions in a way that prompted the boy to say that Reinoehl had fired his weapon. “He initially told me for the first 24 hours that he didn’t know that guy had a weapon,” he said. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. © 2021 The New York Times Company

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  • How a Defeated Trump Is Making a Muddle of the GOP

    WASHINGTON — Republican lawmakers are passing voting restrictions to pacify right-wing activists still gripped by former President Donald Trump’s lie that a largely favorable election was rigged against them. GOP leaders are lashing out in Trumpian fashion at businesses, baseball and the news media to appeal to many of the same conservatives and voters. And debates over the size and scope of government have been overshadowed by the sort of culture war clashes that the tabloid king relished. This is the party Trump has remade. As GOP leaders and donors gather for a party retreat in Palm Beach, Florida, this weekend, with a side trip to Mar-a-Lago for a reception with Trump on Saturday night, the former president’s pervasive influence in Republican circles has revealed a party thoroughly animated by a defeated incumbent — a bizarre turn of events in U.S. politics. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times Barred from Twitter, quietly disdained by many Republican officials and reduced to receiving supplicants in his tropical exile in Florida, Trump has found ways to exert an almost gravitational hold on a leaderless party just three months after the assault on the Capitol that his critics hoped would marginalize the man and taint his legacy. His preference for engaging in red-meat political fights rather than governing and policymaking have left party leaders in a state of confusion over what they stand for, even when it comes to business, which was once the business of Republicanism. Yet his single term has made it vividly clear what the far-right stands against — and how it intends to go about waging its fights. Having quite literally abandoned their traditional party platform last year to accommodate Trump, Republicans have organized themselves around opposition to the perceived excesses of the left and borrowed his scorched-earth tactics as they do battle. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader, excoriated businesses this week for siding with Democrats on GOP-backed voting restrictions, only to backpedal after seeming to suggest he wanted corporations out of politics entirely. They are doing relatively little to present counterarguments to President Joe Biden on the coronavirus response, his expansive social welfare proposals or, with the important exception of immigration, most any policy issue. Instead, Republicans are attempting to shift the debate to issues that are more inspiring and unifying within their coalition and could help them tar Democrats. So Republicans have embraced fights over seemingly small-bore issues to make a larger argument: By emphasizing the withdrawal from publication of a handful of racially insensitive Dr. Seuss books; the rights of transgender people; and the willingness of large institutions or corporations like MLB and Coca-Cola to side with Democrats on voting rights, the right is attempting to portray a nation in the grip of elites obsessed with identity politics. It is a strikingly different approach from the last time Democrats had full control of government, in 2009 and 2010, when conservatives harnessed the Great Recession to stoke anger about President Barack Obama and federal spending on their way to sweeping midterm gains. But Biden, a white political veteran, is not much of a foil for the party’s far-right base and is unlikely to grow more polarizing with the country at large. “2010 had the veneer of philosophical and ideological coherence, but we don’t even bother paying lip service to that now,” said Liam Donovan, a Republican lobbyist. “Trump made grievances that were the aperitif into the entree.” While this approach may not be the political equivalent of a well-balanced meal — a plan for long-term recovery — that does not mean it is a poor strategy for success in the 2022 elections that will determine control of the House and Senate. Even Democrats see the risk that Republican messaging on cultural issues will resonate with a large segment of voters. Dan Pfeiffer — a former aide to Obama who suffered through what his boss called the 2010 “shellacking” — warned members of his party this week that they should not simply roll their eyes when Republicans lament “cancel culture.” “Republicans are raising these cultural topics to unite their party and divide ours,” he wrote in an essay. “Therefore, we must aggressively move the conversation back to the economic issues that unite our party and divide theirs.” Longtime Republicans do not much deny that. “Democrats have done the one thing I never thought could happen this quickly: They’ve caused Republicans to take their eyes off what divides us and made us set our eyes on the true opposition,” crowed Ralph Reed, a Republican strategist. That may be on overly rosy assessment given that Trump is still hungry for payback against his intraparty critics, with a series of contentious primaries on deck and Democrats poised to reap the benefits of an economic recovery. But there is no doubt that Republicans are rallying around a style of post-Trump politics that makes that prefix superfluous. In particular, they are eager to highlight immigration at a moment when there is a surge of undocumented migrants at the border. Besides being Trump’s signature issue, it also has the strongest cultural resonance with their heavily white base. An NPR/Marist survey last month found that while 64% of independent voters approved of Biden’s handling of the pandemic, only 27% supported his approach to immigration. At a private lunch last month on the same day House Democrats pushed through Biden’s stimulus bill, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., with the ear of McConnell, confidently predicted that the influx at the border would be the party’s ticket back to the majority. “I think this is a central issue in the campaign in 2022 — in part because it’s not clear to me that Joe Biden is strong enough and has the political willpower to do what is necessary and get the border under control,” Cotton said in a subsequent interview. It is not just conservatives who are focusing on the border. Rep. John Katko, R-N.Y. and a moderate who represents an upstate district that went heavily for Biden, warned that immigration flare-ups would be “hung around” Biden’s neck if he was not careful. “It’s not a good issue for people in the suburbs; it’s not a good issue for moderate Republicans; it’s not a good issue for moderate Democrats; it’s certainly not a good issue for independents,” he said. With much to gain from blaming the issue on Democrats, Republicans have all but abandoned a comprehensive immigration agreement, despite the pleadings of the business lobby. But that is hardly the only issue on which Republicans are growing uncomfortable with industry, although they are being selective in their choices. McConnell, for instance, continues to hold up the 2017 tax cuts, which slashed the corporate rate, as the crown jewel of the party’s legislative accomplishments in the Trump years, and he is highly unlikely to join a union picket line anytime soon. But he plainly sees a political upside in confronting MLB and the corporate titans, like Delta and Coca-Cola, that have denounced Georgia’s voting bill — an intervention that itself would have been unlikely in a pre-Trump era. “Corporations will invite serious consequences if they become a vehicle for far-left mobs to hijack our country from outside the constitutional order,” he warned this week, later adding that he had no problem with businesses continuing to fund candidates. Others in the party have gone even further, threatening the antitrust exemption professional baseball enjoys — a distinctly Trumpian retribution tactic. Recent party polling indicates that, more than any issue, Republican voters crave candidates who “won’t back down in a fight with the Democrats,” a finding that showed up in a survey by GOP firm Echelon Insights earlier this year. People who have gravitated to the right “feel the way of life that they have known is changing rapidly,” Kristen Soltis Anderson, the Republican pollster who conducted the survey, said in an interview with Ezra Klein. Republicans have sought to stoke those fears, wielding liberal positions on issues like policing or transgender rights as culture war bludgeons, even if it means dispensing with some conservative values. In Arkansas this week, a drive by conservative legislators to make it illegal for transgender children to receive gender-affirming medication or surgery drew a veto from Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican. He argued that the bill would “set new standard of legislative interference with physicians and parents” and that it failed to make exceptions for children who had already begun hormone treatments. Still, he was overridden by his party’s lawmakers, and Trump assailed him as a “lightweight RINO.” Yet it is the willingness to engage in brass-knuckle political combat that is most important in the party right now. “It has become the overarching virtue Republicans look for in their leaders,” said Reed, the GOP strategist. He said that in an earlier, less tribal era, the party would have backed off the divisive Georgia bill limiting voting access. “After business and the media circled the wagons, we would have called the Legislature back in, done some fixes and moved on,” he said. “Now we just dig in.” The shifting culture of the GOP is on clear display in Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis is emerging as presidential timber, almost entirely because he has weaponized news coverage critical of his handling of the coronavirus. DeSantis’ actual response to the crisis is not what delights conservatives; rather, it is how he bristles at skeptical coverage, just as Trump did when he was excoriating the “fake news.” The most recent example came this week when “60 Minutes” aired a segment that suggested DeSantis had improperly made Publix grocery stores, which are ubiquitous in Florida, distributors of the coronavirus vaccine after the company contributed $100,000 to him. DeSantis did not cooperate with CBS for the piece. But with the sympathy of other Republicans, he cried foul about the segment after it ran and was rewarded with a coveted prime-time interview on Fox News to expound on his grievance. “This is the beating heart of the Republican Party right now; the media has replaced Democrats as the opposition,” said Scott Jennings, a Republican strategist in Kentucky. “The platform is, whatever the media is against today, I’m for, and whatever they’re for, I’m against.” That has made for an odd alchemy in the capital, where a number of business-oriented Republicans increasingly find themselves politically homeless. Notable among them is the Chamber of Commerce, which angered GOP lawmakers by cozying up to Democrats but is now aghast at Biden’s proposed corporate tax hike. “It’s a weird time,” said Tony Fratto, a former Bush administration official who supported Biden but represents business clients who are uneasy with a tax increase. “I don’t know where to go, but a lot of people don’t feel comfortable with where the parties are right now.” Except, perhaps, for one recently retired Florida man. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. © 2021 The New York Times Company

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  • Prince Philip was an 'inspiration and role model' to the Armed Forces

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  • The true story of how Prince Philip's DNA solved a Russian Romanov murder mystery

    It was the mystery that captured the imagination of the world, as a Russian Imperial dynasty was ruthlessly executed before details of their disappearance obfuscated for decades. In 2018, the true story of how the Duke of Edinburgh helped piece together the murders of Tsar Nicholas II and his family was told by the Science Museum in an exhibition detailing how his DNA provided the key. The Duke, who offered a blood sample to experts attempting to identify bodies found in unmarked graves in 1993, provided a match with the Tsarina and her daughters, related through the maternal line, proving once and for all their fate. The research by that team, known in detail only to scientists until recently, was put on display for the first time, with graphs of the Tsar’s own DNA exhibited alongside details of the Duke’s contribution of five cubic centimetres of blood. The Duke is the grand-nephew of the Tsarina, with her older sister Victoria Mountbatten his maternal grandmother. He was invited to assist the investigation into her murder by Dr Peter Gill and his team at the Forensic Science Service, who used mitochondrial DNA analysis to determine they have proved "virtually beyond doubt" that bones found in a grave in Yekaterinburg in July 1991 were those of the Romanovs. The Duke was keenly aware of his family history, reported to have once answered a question about whether he would like to travel to Russia with the words: "I would like to go to Russia very much, although the ba----ds murdered half my family." The Science Museum exhibition, The Last Tsar: Blood and Revolution, was designed to explore the decades of scientific development that have helped experts piece together what happened to the Romanov family, opened in the centenary of their executions.