The Atlantic Daily: Donald Trump Isn’t Letting It Go
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It’s July 2021, and former President Donald Trump is still baselessly insisting that he won the 2020 election. Meanwhile, the Republicans who broke with Trump on his voting-fraud claims are still facing consequences.
Donald Trump isn’t letting it go. Yesterday, at a Conservative Political Action Conference event in Texas, the former president repeatedly told a cheering crowd that the 2020 election had been stolen from him.
Ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, that lie, along with other false allegations of voter fraud, forms a centerpiece of Republican strategy.
The conservatives who have broken with the former president on his fraud claims are having trouble finding their place in a Trump-controlled party.
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Trump is getting his revenge in Georgia. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who stood up to the former president, now stands virtually alone, Russell Berman reports. He’s likely to lose his reelection fight in 2022.
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After spending months investigating ballot fraud, one state senator decided to tell the truth. The Michigan Republican is now “struggling to win the hearts and minds of Trump voters while engaged in a zero-sum showdown with Trump himself,” Tim Alberta reports.
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William Barr spoke about his break with Trump for the first time. Jonathan D. Karl offers an insider account of the day the former attorney general announced that there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election: “Few betrayals have enraged [Trump] more than what his attorney general did to him.”
Further reading: Fox’s Tucker Carlson is peddling a warped version of patriotism from a fake log cabin.
The news in three sentences:
(1) Cubans are protesting en masse, with President Joe Biden offering his support. (2) A Florida-based doctor is being held as a suspect in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse. (3) Israel is offering COVID-19 vaccine booster shots to severely imunocompromised adults.
Tonight’s Atlantic-approved activity:
Sally Rooney’s new novel is due out this fall. While you wait, revisit the Hulu adaptation of her last book, Normal People. The series appeared on our list of 25 great half-hour shows worth your time.
A break from the news:
Snails are helping archaeologists make sense of a 180-foot drawing of a naked man found on a hillside in England.
Every weekday evening, our editors guide you through the biggest stories of the day, help you discover new ideas, and surprise you with moments of delight. Subscribe to get this delivered to your inbox.