Trump plays down Air Force One plane switch as criticism grows over ‘decoy’ passengers – US politics live

Peggy Flanagan, Minnesota’s lieutenant governor, won the Democratic primary for US Senate in a race centered on immigration enforcement after the Trump administration crackdown turned deadly and destructive earlier this year.

Flanagan ousted congresswoman Angie Craig in yet another example of progressive campaigns toppling moderates amid an anti-establishment wave among Democrats.

“It’s time to fight for what people actually need,” Flanagan recently told the Guardian. “And so often I think Democrats are like: ‘What do we think we can win?’ Instead of: ‘What are the fights that we should be picking?’”

Flanagan will now face Michele Tafoya, a Republican former National Football League sideline reporter, in November. If she wins, Flanagan will become the first Native American woman in the Senate.

Meanwhile, the state’s gubernatorial race proved a rebuke of Donald Trump’s endorsement power as Mike Lindell, an election denier and pillow salesman, lost to Lisa Demuth, the Minnesota house speaker. Demuth will face Amy Klobuchar, a Democratic US senator, in November, where Klobuchar is favored to win.

Lindell’s significant campaign liabilities had led his own party to speak out against his campaign. He is contending with ongoing defamation cases because of his election denialism, as well as a potential campaign finance violation for handing out free pillows at a parade. He recently stepped down as CEO of MyPillow, which faces legal claims for unpaid bills.

Minnesota leans Democratic. It has not elected a Republican statewide since ۲۰۰۶, when Tim Pawlenty won a second term as governor and a Republican presidential candidate has not won the state since ۱۹۷۲.

David Crowley, the Milwaukee county executive, pulled off a last-minute victory after re-entering the Wisconsin governor’s race and snagging an endorsement from Tony Evers, the outgoing governor.

The race came down to the wire, with Francesca Hong and Crowley running close to each other as each batch of results came in. Polls had shown Hong as a clear frontrunner in the race but with large chunks of voters still undecided and an ever-changing field of candidates, polling was difficult. Polls in Michigan similarly showed the progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed with a more sizeable lead than he ended up with in his victory in the Democratic primary for US senate.

Hong, a chef and former restaurant owner from Madison, ran on a platform that included childcare for all, free school meals and a one-year moratorium on the construction of new datacenters, which differentiated her from her Democratic colleagues in the governor’s race.

Tony Evers, a Democrat who has served as governor since ۲۰۱۹, did not seek re-election. He endorsed Crowley, who re-entered the race after leaving it earlier in the cycle.

Crowley’s pitch to voters in the waning weeks of the campaign was electability: he felt he was more poised to win against Tom Tiffany, a Republican congressman and ardent Trump supporter who ran unopposed in the Republican primary. Tiffany voted against certifying the results of the ۲۰۲۰ election, which Trump lost.

Crowley previously told the Guardian:

We knew that the stakes were too high for me to sit on the sideline, and that we need the best candidate, not just with executive leadership, but somebody who has a proven track record of getting things done. And that’s what voters want. They want someone they can trust. And that’s why we got back into this race.

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President Donald Trump said he slipped away from Air Force One after a trip last month in Turkey because the Secret Service and military wanted him on a “different plane” due to a threat that he insisted didn’t scare him.

When US intelligence allegedly found a credible threat that Iran plotted to kill him last month, Trump left Air Force One in a catering truck, an episode first reported by the Washington Post and also by the New York Times.

Trump downplayed the extraordinary nature of the subterfuge, as well as the risk to the people – White House officials, security and support staff, and reporters – he left on the plane, AP reported.

“They wanted me to go on a different flight, different plane,” Trump told reporters after returning from an event in Ohio, saying he had little choice in the matter.

“I guess there was a threat out there. I didn’t really ask too much about it,” he said. “I get a lot of threats.”

While the president was reportedly snuck out the side door of the plane, more than a hundred aides, officials and reporters were kept onboard to fly towards Britain, without being told there was a threat to their lives.

It comes as Democrats called for a congressional briefing over a stunning charade. Critics now question why reporters and the public had been deliberately misled.

“It appears that the idea was we can reduce the danger to president Trump by offering up ۱۰۰ or so people to be killed by the Iranians in his place,” said Steven Cash, executive director of the Steady State and a former CIA intelligence officer and senior adviser to the Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence branch.

Richard Blumenthal, a Democratic senator for Connecticut, called the operation “unprecedented and surreal” and “downright scary” on CNN. “There has to be a congressional briefing because it involves not just the safety of the president.

“I want to know what precautions were taken to make sure that all of the passengers on that Air Force One, which was judged too dangerous for the president to fly on, what precautions were taken to keep the staff and reporters on that plane safe?”

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In other developments:

• David Crowley, the Milwaukee county executive, pulled off a last-minute victory after re-entering the Wisconsin governor’s race and snagging an endorsement from Tony Evers, the outgoing governor. The race came down to the wire, with Francesca Hong and Crowley running close to each other as each batch of results came in. Republican Tom Tiffany easily secured his party’s nomination.

• In Minnesota, lieutenant governor Peggy Flanagan handily won the Democratic primary for US Senate, beating moderate US representative Angie Craig in a race animated by anti-ICE sentiment. She will face Michele Tafoya in the general.

• In the Republican bid for Minnesota governor, House speaker Lisa Demuth scored an upset, beating pillow salesman Mike Lindell, who had gotten Trump’s endorsement. She will face Amy Klobuchar in the general.

And in hotly contested congressional races:

• Luke Bronin beat incumbent John Larson in Connecticut’s first congressional district.

• Matt Little won a three-way race in Craig’s district, Minnesota’s third congressional district.

• Michael Alfonso, the ۲۶-year-old son-in-law of transportation secretary Sean Duffy, won the Republican nomination in Tiffany’s district, Wisconsin’s seventh congressional district.

• Rebecca Cooke won the Democratic primary in her third try to unseat Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin’s toss-up third congressional district.