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Former president Donald Trump’s endorsement of “Eric” for the Republican primary election for a US Senate seat to replace retiring Senator Roy Blunt has caused a stir among the party members.
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 on the Republican primary ballot. Taking to Twitter, Mr Schmitt wrote: “I’m grateful for president Trump’s endorsement.”
However, Mr Greitens also announced that he was “honoured to receive president Trump’s endorsement”. “I just had a great phone call with president Trump, I thanked him for his support! Together we will MAGA and Save America,” he added.
Candidates backed by Donald Trump prevailed in multiple Republican primaries on Tuesday, while a statewide ballot initiative in Kansas that would have allowed new restrictions on abortion was soundly rejected.
The results showed that the former president, and his false claims that the 2020 election was tainted by fraud, still hold sway over Republican voters, while also suggesting that anger over the Supreme Court's June decision to end the nationwide constitutional right to abortion could fire up Democrats ahead of the November midterm elections.
A government watchdog group said Tuesday that the Pentagon "wiped" text messages from the cell phones of key Trump administration Defense Department officials after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, and is now urging Attorney General Merrick Garland to launch a "cross-agency investigation into the possible destruction of federal records."
American Oversight, which describes itself as a nonprofit watchdog that uses public records requests to fight corruption, filed several Freedom of Information Act requests within days of Jan. 6, 2021, seeking text messages and other communications among senior Pentagon officials including acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, his chief of staff, Kash Patel, and Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy.
In March, the Pentagon filed court documents acknowledging that text messages belonging to those individuals had been deleted -- but framed that action as standard operating procedure whenever an employee leaves the department.
Adam Steen, the GOP candidate running to unseat the powerful incumbent in Wisconsin's 63rd Assembly District, is a "rising patriotic candidate," Trump said in a statement released Tuesday by his Save America PAC, which also chastised Vos.
"Adam Steen, on the other hand, is a motivated Patriot, dedicated to making Wisconsin Great Again," Trump said. "He has had the courage to stand up strongly against 'Speaker' Vos. Adam will bravely serve the people of Wisconsin, and bring with him strength, wisdom, and a new patriotism. Adam Steen has my Complete and Total Endorsement!"
Trump, who previously threatened to endorse a challenger to Vos, called the incumbent a "RINO," or a "Republican in name only," and said Vos did not do enough "to right the wrongs that were done" in the 2020 election.
Three House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump and accuse him of inciting the Capitol riot are on primary ballots Tuesday in Michigan and Washington state -- the latest test of the former president's grip on the GOP and Republican voters.
Reps. Jaime Herrera Beutler and Dan Newhouse of Washington and Peter Meijer of Michigan all hope to fend off challengers endorsed and boosted by Trump. The three are among the last of the 10 House Republicans who after voting to impeach Trump last year now face voters.
In interviews with ABC News, all three defended the choice that could imperil their political careers -- and they haven't looked back.
"I did what I felt I needed to do," Herrera Beutler, a six-term congresswoman and senior member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, told ABC News. "I felt like it was a constitutional duty," she added. "When you read your oath of office, it says you're going to protect it and you're going to defend it.
And for me, irrespective of party, it was incredibly important to make sure I'd hold the same standard to a Republican as I would a Democrat."
