Trump news – live: Confusion as ex-president appears to endorse multiple ‘Erics’ in Missouri

Donald Trump blasted the proposed prisoner swap between the US and Russia, involving WNBA star Brittney Griner and ex-marine Paul Whelan in exchange for Russian weapons dealer Viktor Bout.

“She knew you don’t go in there loaded up with drugs, and she admitted it”, Mr Trump said on The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show.

Ms Griner has been in jail in Russia for months and is now on trial on drug charges.“It certainly doesn’t seem like a very good trade, does it?” the former president added, concerning Bout.

“He’s absolutely one of the worst in the world, and he’s going to be given his freedom because a potentially spoiled person goes into Russia loaded up with drugs.”

Former president Donald Trump slammed speaker of Arizona’s state house Rusty Bowers after his repeated criticisms of the former president.

The former president criticised Mr Bowers on his social media platform Truth Social this week and called on Republican primary voters to vote him out in a GOP primary.

“Remember Arizona, your so-called ‘Speaker,’ Rusty (an appropriate name because he is Rusty, just like steel gets rusty and weak) Bowers, is absolutely terrible,” Mr Trump said.

“He is ‘weak’ and wrong on everything, including your horrible Open Border and your pathetic election ‘counting.’ Vote him out!”

Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has publicly come out in support of the notion that she could hitch a ride on Donald Trump’s potential bid for the presidency in 2024, stating that she’d be “honoured” to run alongside him as his vice-president.

“I think if he asked me I would definitely give that some strong consideration,” she said when asked by hosts during an interview on America’s Real Voice last week whether she’d be interested in being the twice-impeached president’s running mate.

“I love president Trump. I never hide that fact,” she added, emphasising how she has both a “great relationship” with the one-term president and speaks with him “frequently”.

Johanna Chisholm has more.

The daughter of a man who was jailed for his involvement in the January 6 Capitol riot said former president Donald Trump “deserves life in prison.”

Guy Reffitt was handed the longest sentence associated with the riot to date, with a federal judge giving him over seven years in prison after he was convicted for five counts.

“Trump deserves life in prison if my father is in prison for this long,” Peyton Reffitt said outside the courthouse in Washington, DC.

Missouri Senate candidate Eric Greitens is controversial for a plethora of reasons, and he recently doubled down on the public perception of him with a brace of ads showing him with a group of armed “troops” hunting down his political enemies.

Mr Greitens has defended his ad campaign vociferously even as the first one was removed by Facebook for violating the platform’s “policies prohibiting violence and incitement”. Twitter also blocked users from sharing it.

Here’s more from Gustaf Kilander.

ICYMI: The 2020 election’s shadow continues to loom over the 2022 midterm cycle and November could end up being a key referendum on whether the conspiracy theories that sprung out of 2020 have any sway over the general populace.

Conspiracy-supporting candidates are openly running for office in several states, including in swing states like Michigan and Nevada just to name a few.

The Associated Press dives in to the spread of election conspiracies through the GOP’s 2022 bench and whether it will turn off voters in November.

Donald Trump’s eldest son retweeted former Mussorie governor Eric Greitens’s tweet thanking the former president for his endorsement amid the ongoing confusion.

Mr Trump had announced his backing for “Eric” for a US Senate seat to replace retiring Senator Roy Blunt.

There are two GOP front-runners named Eric in that race – former governor Eric Greitens and state Attorney General Eric Schmitt. Both of them have seemed to assume that they were endorsed by Mr Trump.

There is also a third GOP candidate named Eric McElroy.Mr Greitens on Monday tweeted: “I just had a great phone call with president Trump, I thanked him for his support! Together we will MAGA and Save America!”

In a subsequent tweet, he added: “I’m honoured to receive president Trump’s endorsement. From the beginning, I’ve been the true MAGA Champion fighting against the RINO establishment backing [Eric] Schmitt.”

“President Trump said it best when he characterised Schmitt’s campaign as ‘great dishonesty in politics’.”

Four of his tweets pertaining to the endorsement row were retweeted by Donald Trump Jr on Monday.

ICYMI: The House select committee investigating January 6 moved last week to provide transcripts of interviews with witnesses to the Justice Department, once again raising the prospect of what that would mean and whether it would spur the DOJ to take public action at a faster pace.

Though the committee has no power to indict anyone on criminal charges, the evidence it has uncovered thus far could very well be used by or have separately been gathered by investigators at the Justice Department.

So what would happen if the committee took the unprecedented step of recommending charges against a former president?

US House speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived in Malaysia on Tuesday for the second leg of an Asian tour that has been clouded by an expected stop in Taiwan, which would escalate tensions with Beijing.

The plane carrying Ms Pelosi and her delegation touched down at an air force base amid tight security, national news agency Bernama reported.

While there have been no official announcements, local media in Taiwan reported that Ms Pelosi will arrive in Taipei on Tuesday night, becoming the highest-ranking elected US official to visit in more than 25 years.

ICYMI: Hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe unloaded on Donald Trump on Monday as the former president continues his trashing of WNBA star Brittney Griner and the supposed plans of the Biden administration to secure her release from a Russian prison.

Former Congressman Joe Scarborough said the criticism was more evidence of what a “terrible” person Donald Trump is at heart.

“It once again shows just what a terrible guy this is, what a heinous human being. How cruel it is. And you cannot help but wonder if he’s saying that because she’s a black basketball player,” he said.

Read more and watch the clip in The Independent: