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Politics

Trump wins CPAC straw poll by nearly 50 points


Former President Donald Trump blew away the competition in Sunday’s Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll, winning with 70 percent of the vote. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis came in second place at 21 percent.

The rest of the contenders only got one percent or less of the votes each. The ones that got one percent include Sens. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem. Former Vice President Mike Pence got zero percent of the votes.

Trump spoke at the CPAC convention in Dallas, where he discussed the lawsuits he filed against Facebook, Twitter and Google. He also expressed disappointment with his former Attorney General William Barr and his Supreme Court pick Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Former President Trump accused the social media companies of interfering in the 2020 election, suppressing negative news coverage of President Joe Biden, and censoring discussions on his unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud.

“And then Trump, the President of the United States, was banned from the social media, as we call it, by sleazebags. I was banned by sleazebags. I was banned by bad people,” former President Trump said. “They’re far worse. I don’t say I’m perfect, but they’re far worse than I am, I will. They are far worse. In other words, the entire system was rigged against the American people and rigged against a fair, decent and honest election.”

Trump’s callout of former Attorney General Barr is related to Barr’s stepping down after his Justice Department found no sign of major fraud in the election. The callout of Justice Kavanaugh is related to the Supreme declining to hear a lawsuit contesting the results in four states.

Trump also made headlines Sunday when he praised the Jan. 6 Capitol rioters. “These were peaceful people, these were great people,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News. He went onto say his speech before the attack was full of “love in the air”. According to the Justice Department, 140 police officers were assaulted in the ensuing riot.

Hundreds of Trump supporters have been charged with various crimes. More than 50 have been charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer.

FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: “We are taking Mark Zuckerbucks, Jack Dorsey and the other Silicon Valley billionaires to Federal court. And we will keep on fighting until we have stopped this assault on our liberties and until we have restored the sacred right to freedom of speech for every single American. Who would have thought, who would have thought? In addition to their malicious attacks on free speech these Silicon valley tyrants are also attacking our democracy itself. The big tech election interference in 2020 was an outrageous assault upon our republic and upon the American voter. A terrible thing has happened to our country. We are being laughed at all over the world, our election has been studied by other countries. They are not going to do it that way. At the same time, the big tech giants work together to suppress and diminish news coverage that was negative for Joe Biden. Look at all these stories that came up and they were wiped out. Anything negative for Biden or the radical left Democrats, they just suppress. Furthermore, these big tech companies interfered with and undermined the sacred integrity of the ballot box by censoring any honest discussion of election fraud. You say election fraud, you get canceled. Political violence was legitimized and encouraged by the left. And then Trump, the president of the United States, was banned from the social media, as we call it, by sleazebags, I was banned by sleazebags, I was banned by bad people. They’re far worse. I don’t say I’m perfect, but they’re far worse than I am, I will. They are far worse. In other words, the entire system was rigged against the American people and rigged against a fair, decent and honest election. I’m very disappointed that Bill Barr was unable to hold anyone accountable for the countless abuses of power by the Democrats. He didn’t hold the corrupt officials who spied on our campaign, remember I said this spying on our campaign and boy, that was like a lightning rod went off. Not the authors of the phony dossier. They weren’t held responsible, not the women who slandered and lied and defamed Brett Kavanaugh. They said Brett Kavanaugh, he had an affair. They didn’t go after them. They lied so badly. Not any of the numerous criminal referrals for lying to Congress over and over again, not any of the illegal leakers, not any of the people that were responsible for corrupting our elections — there is no greater crime. He wanted nothing to do with it, he just didn’t want to do it. But perhaps it’s understandable because he did become a different man, I always liked him. But I said, Bill, you got to move your ass. Our country is under attack. But he became a different man when the Democrats viciously stated that they wanted to impeach him. They went wild. We want to impeach him. We’re going to impeach Bill Barr. We’re going to impeach him. He became different. I understand that. I didn’t become different. I got impeached twice. I wouldn’t change. I became worse. I became worse. And we’re disappointed in the Supreme Court. I’m disappointed. But with Brett Kavanaugh there screaming, we’re going to impeach him every time — we’re going to impeach him. And you know what, how does he get out of that? By voting for the Democrats? So it’s a very sad thing. We will take back the House. We will take back the Senate. And then after witnessing all that has gone wrong in our country in such a short period of time with our borders, with our economy, with crime, we will take back that glorious White House. “