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Navalny in prison: How a thorn in Putin's side reaches the outside world

For one hour each week, imprisoned Russian dissident Alexey Navalny is allowed to send and receive messages with the outside world.

Navalny’s hand-written missives are transmitted through his lawyer to his staff in exile in Vilnius, Lithuania, who work to share his calls for action against Russia’s war in Ukraine, expose Kremlin corruption and push back on disinformation and propaganda.

“He’s still very much involved in the functioning of our organization despite being in prison,”Vladimir Ashurkov, executive director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said in an interview with The Hill. 

Navalny’s messages, written in a distinct voice – described as defiant, sarcastic, witty and still upbeat – are published to tens of millions of followers across social media.

A thorn deep in Vladimir Putin’s side, Navalny authored the Russian president’s profile in Time Magazine’s recent list of the 100 most influential people, calling him an “an evil madman with an army, nuclear weapons, and membership in the U.N. Security Council” who the world must stop. 

Ashurkov describes communication with Navalny as a “trickle… but still effective.” 

​​“He’s in good spirits and he is raising his voice against the war, even from the harsh conditions of Russian prison.”

Ashurkov spoke to The Hill in Washington, where he was meeting with members of Congress to raise the issue of efforts to break through Russian propaganda about the war in Ukraine.

Navany and his team have one of the most popular Russian-language YouTube channels, which has racked up hundreds of millions of views on investigative videos exposing Putin’s lavish lifestyle and his inner circles’ hidden wealth. 

Ashurkov says they have struggled to reach a broader audience with factual information about the war in Ukraine since tech giants were forced to shut down much of their operations in Russia.

Google, which owns YouTube, and Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp, have had to scale back or end advertisement sales on their platforms there, limiting the reach Navalny’s video’s and posts. Google’s Russian subsidiary filed for bankruptcy last week after its bank account was seized by Russian authorities. 

Navalny has issued a call for more resources to break through the propaganda blackout, with a post on his Twitter account last month calling it the “informational front” in the battle against Putin.

“Truth and free information hit Putin’s insane regime just as hard as Javelins,” read the tweet. “One shot from [a] Javelin costs $230,000. For the same money we would get 200 million ad views in different formats and provide at least 300,000 link clicks or at least 8 million views on a video with the truth about what is happening in Ukraine.”

The Anti-Corruption Foundation is also lobbying the Biden administration to sanction 6,000 Russians that the group has identified across the government, and individuals in business and culture that they say contribute to the propaganda supporting the Kremlin’s war. 

The U.S., U.K. and European Union have issued hundreds of sanctions against individuals and businesses – including Putin, his family members and top Russian officials and their families – since Feb. 24, when Russia launched its invasion.  

Ashurkov said their list focuses on the “next level of officials,” with an average age of 45, that they say still have a choice in abandoning Putin’s war. 

“We want to create a motivation for them to step out, to not support the war, to raise their voice against the war. And that’s what we have been talking to people in the Capitol and in the government about,” Ashurkov said.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price told The Hill that they “will take a very close look” at the Anti-Corruption Foundation’s sanction request list. 

“We very much appreciate the efforts on the part of organizations, like Mr. Navalny’s, to shine a spotlight on corruption, to shine a spotlight on injustice, to shine a spotlight on repression in Russia and around the world,” Price said.  

Navalny’s place in history as one of the most prominent Putin-opposition figures appears rooted in a fearlessness against the overwhelming power of the Russian state. 

“A lot of us thought or worried that once Navalny was put away into a gulag that he would be forgotten, and that was the idea,” said Izabella Tabarovsky, senior program associate at the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute.

“But he continues to speak to people, clearly his spirit hasn’t been broken, and his influence, I think, continues to remain strong,” Tabarovsky said.

A lawyer by training and a former politician, Navalny, 45, gained prominence in the early 2000s rallying an anti-Putin political movement that brought out tens of thousands of people to the streets of Moscow. 

He was frequently targeted and imprisoned on criminal charges – of fraud, corruption, embezzlement – that he and his supporters have condemned as politically motivated. His reach and influence grew with the rise of social media while his efforts exposing and publicizing government graft, theft and corruption made him a target for intimidation and violent attacks. 

In August 2020, Navalny nearly died from a chemical poisoning attack and was flown unconscious from Russia to Germany for treatment amid international outrage and concern over his survival.

He spent a year recovering in Berlin and, during that time, rooted out the alleged Russian Federal Security (FSB) service agent who carried out the assassination attempt. He even spoke by phone to the agent, who explained in detail the operation before Navalny revealed himself as the target they failed to kill. 

Ashurkov called Navalny’s story “epic” and “miraculous.” 

“It’s gained [a] biblical scale over the last two years,” he said.

Navalny is currently serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence for parole violation for leaving the country – despite the fact he was unconscious when he was first flown out of Russia. 

He was convicted in March on further charges of fraud and contempt of court and sentenced to nine years. He is expected to be transferred to an even more isolated maximum security prison. 

His appeal was rejected on Tuesday, drawing international condemnation. 

“The denial of Navalny’s appeal is another example of the Kremlin’s quest to suppress dissent and civil society,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. “We respect the brave citizens of Russia who protest their government’s brutal war and endemic corruption, despite threats, criminal charges, detentions and poisonings.”

European Union Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borell denounced the Russian court’s decision deplorable and the charges politically motivated and called for Navalny’s “immediate and unconditional release.” 

“His transfer to a strict regime colony is another step to silence a critical voice,” Borell tweeted. 

In his final appeal to the court, Navalny called the conviction and sentence against him “pointless.” 

“You might intimidate someone in the short term… but in general, what you are doing, what your people are doing, is just historical nonsense,” he told the court. “And you will surely all suffer a historic defeat. Just like you will suffer a historic defeat in this stupid war that you started, that your Putin started, because it has no purpose and no meaning.”

His supporters and long-time observers say Navalny’s commitment to being outspoken and heard is critical to the movement he has built.

“One of Navalny’s messages has always been, ‘do not be afraid’ — this is why they’re doing such daring things,” Tabarovsky said.

“He’s at Putin’s mercy, yet here he is sending an article to Time magazine about Putin – to me that’s a very powerful message, he’s saying ‘I’m not afraid and you shouldn’t be afraid either.’ I think that’s very, very powerful and very important.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Friends with benefits: Sussmann trial is a black eye for the FBI

With the jury out in the trial of former 2016 Clinton campaign counsel Michael Sussmann, the usual odds-takers appeared on cable news, rating the chances of a conviction. Despite the seemingly overwhelming evidence against Sussmann, the jury’s makeup seems strikingly favorable for the defense. 

One verdict, however, appears to need little deliberation. It concerns the Department of Justice, and particularly the FBI. The trial confirmed what many have long alleged about how top officials eagerly accepted any Russia collusion claim involving former President Trump’s 2016 campaign. Special counsel John Durham’s investigation, which led to Sussmann’s trial, is an indictment of a department and a bureau which, once again, appeared willfully blind as they were played by Hillary Clinton’s campaign. 

Despite the trial judge’s rulings imposing strict limits on the scope of the trial evidence, Durham’s case still revealed new information on how the Russia collusion theory was pushed into the FBI and the media by the Clinton campaign. Perhaps the most ironic moment came when Sussmann’s defense team outed Clinton as personally approving the campaign’s effort to spread the claim that the Trump organization maintained a secret channel to the Kremlin through Russia’s Alfa Bank. 

That claim turned out to be a real tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory without support. Durham previously disclosed how researchers tasked with supporting the claim were afraid it was so unsupported that they would be mocked. They argued, according to Sussmann’s indictment, that anyone familiar with analyzing internet traffic “would poke several holes” in the theory. One researcher warned: “Let’s assume again that they are not smart enough to refute our ‘best case scenario.’ You do realize that we will have to expose every trick we have in our bag to even make a very weak association.”

Yet, the Clinton campaign did not seem remotely concerned about even minimal inquiries that might expose the lack of proof. The researchers were told to just create a “very useful narrative.” 

During the trial, Clinton campaign general counsel Marc Elias and campaign manager Robby Mook both said the campaign trusted the media more than the FBI to run with the story. They were right: Slate quickly ran it, and then Clinton and one of her aides, Jake Sullivan (now President Biden’s national security adviser), released statements expressing alarm about the claim as if it were news to them. 

The Clinton campaign similarly pushed the infamous Steele dossier into the news, too, after secretly helping to fund it. And both the Steele dossier and the Alfa Bank claim were pushed to friends in the FBI. 

Regardless of what the jury decides regarding Sussmann, the combined record of the Steele dossier and the Alfa Bank claim makes certain echelons within FBI look like the equivalent of unindicted co-conspirators.

On the witness stand in Sussmann’s trial, for example, FBI general counsel James Baker was asked why it took him so long to turn over the most damaging evidence — a text message to him in which Sussmann said he was not representing any client in pushing the Alfa Bank claim to FBI officials. Baker explained that Sussmann was his friend and told prosecutors that “this is not my investigation. It’s yours.” In other words, there was no reason for the Justice Department to expect that Baker, a former top Justice lawyer, would help to make the case against Sussmann. 

Later, the supervisory agent for the FBI’s Trump-Russia probe, Joe Pientka, sent a note to FBI special agent Curtis Heide, stating: “People on 7th floor to include Director are fired up about this server.” Pientka then messaged Heide making sure a case had been opened: “Reachout and put tools on … it’s not an option — we must do it.”

That description of the apparent eagerness of then-FBI Director James Comey and others only magnifies concern over the bureau’s alleged bias or predisposition on the Trump investigation. That same eagerness led the FBI to pursue the Russia investigation for years despite being warned early by U.S. intelligence that the Steele dossier contained not just unsupported allegations but possible Russian disinformation.

When FBI investigators were given Sussmann’s allegation, they were told by supervisors that it came from the Justice Department, not Sussmann. Even with that framing, however, investigators found what the Clinton campaign researchers feared — in Baker’s words, that there was “nothing there.” 

The FBI, however, went on to pursue the other Russia collusion claims. That effort would result in a conviction of FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith for making false statements by altering key evidence to obtain secret surveillance orders against Trump associate Carter Page. Another trial witness, the FBI’s Heide, admitted he is under investigation for allegedly withholding exculpatory information contradicting the premise of the Russia investigation.

Previously, of course, another special counsel, Robert Mueller, never found any basis for criminal charges related to Russia collusion. But what is now even more striking is how so much of this information about “fired up” FBI officials and the role of the Clinton campaign mysteriously escaped Mueller and his team.

The question now is whether Durham will be given the same opportunity as Mueller to write a report on his findings. All of these disclosures were made despite limitations placed on Durham by the court. Clearly, Durham is sitting on more information about how the collusion claims were packaged and pushed to friends in the media and the FBI. 

Before Mueller declined to press criminal charges on any Russia collusion allegations, Democrats in Congress insisted that he should not just issue a report but that the report should be released unredacted, including ordinarily secret grand jury material.

There is no such hue and cry for a similarly unredacted report by Durham. 

If Durham does not issue such a report, much of the true story behind the Russia collusion scandal could be buried. Indeed, even if control of Congress were to flip to Republicans in November, the Justice Department could refuse to turn over investigatory material and information. That is precisely what many in Washington undoubtedly would like to happen.

Yet, after the glimpses offered in the Sussmann prosecution of still undisclosed evidence, the public deserves to have a full Durham report on how these scandals were conceived and crafted among “friends.”

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. Follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.

Source: TEST FEED1

Russia takes small cities, aims to widen east Ukraine battle

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine (AP) — Russia asserted Saturday that its troops and separatist fighters had captured a key railway junction in eastern Ukraine, the second small city to fall to Moscow’s forces this week as they fought to seize all of the country’s contested Donbas region.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said the city of Lyman had been “completely liberated” by a joint force of Russian soldiers and the Kremlin-backed separatists, who have waged war in the eastern region bordering Russia for eight years.

Lyman, which had a population of about 20,000 before Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, serves as a regional railway hub. Ukraine’s train system has ferried arms and evacuated citizens during the war, and controlling the city would give Russian troops another foothold for advancing on larger Ukrainian-held cities.

The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin held a telephone call Saturday with the leaders of France and Germany in which he warned against the continued transfers of Western weapons to Ukraine and blamed the conflict’s disruption to global food supplies on Western sanctions.

During the 80-minute call, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron urged an immediate cease-fire and a withdrawal of Russian troops, according to the chancellor’s spokesperson. Both urged Putin to engage in serious direct negotiations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to end the fighting, the spokesperson said.

A Kremlin readout of the call between Macron, Putin and Scholz phone call said the Russian leader affirmed “the openness of the Russian side to the resumption of dialogue.” The three leaders agreed to stay in contact, according to the readout.

But Russia’s recent progress in Donetsk and Luhansk, the two provinces that make up the Donbas, could further embolden Putin. Since failing to occupy Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, Russia has set out to seize the last parts of the region not controlled by the separatists.

“If Russia did succeed in taking over these areas, it would highly likely be seen by the Kremlin as a substantive political achievement and be portrayed to the Russian people as justifying the invasion,” the British Ministry of Defense said in a Saturday assessment.

On Tuesday, Russian troops took over Svitlodarsk, a small municipality that hosts a thermal power station, while intensifying efforts to encircle and capture the larger city of Sievierodonetsk.

Fighting continued Saturday around Sievierodonetsk and nearby Lysychansk, which are the last major areas under Ukrainian control in Luhansk province. Zelenskyy called the situation in the east was “difficult” but expressed confidence his country would prevail with help from Western weapons and sanctions.

“If the occupiers think that Lyman or Sievierodonetsk will be theirs, they are wrong. Donbas will be Ukrainian,” he said.

The governor of Luhansk had warned that Ukrainian soldiers might have to retreat from Sievierodonetsk to avoid being surrounded but reported Saturday that they had repelled an attack.

“We managed to push back the Russians to their previous positions,” Gov. Serhii Haidai said. “However, they do not abandon their attempts to encircle our troops and disrupt logistics in the Luhansk region.”

Speaking on Ukrainian TV later Saturday, the governor said the Russians had seized a hotel on the outskirts of Sievierodonetsk. The advance of Russian forces raised fears that residents would experience the same horrors as people in the southeastern port city Mariupol in the weeks before it fell.

Sievierodonetsk Mayor Oleksandr Striuk said Friday that some 1,500 civilians in the city with a prewar population of around 100,000 have died there during the war, including from a lack of medicine or because of diseases that could not be treated. About 12,000 to 13,000 residents remain in the city, Striuk said.

Just south of Sievierodonetsk, volunteers worked to evacuate people amid a threatening soundtrack of air raid sirens and booming artillery. AP reporters saw elderly and ill civilians bundled into soft stretchers and slowly carried down apartment building stairs Friday in Bakhmut, a city in northeast Donetsk province.

Svetlana Lvova, the manager of two buildings in Bakhmut, tried to convince reluctant residents to leave but said she and her husband would not evacuate until their son, who was in Sieverodonetsk, returned home.

“I have to know he is alive. That’s why I’m staying here,” Lvova, 66, said.

A nearly three-month siege of Mariupol ended last week when Russia claimed the city’s complete. The city became a symbol of mass destruction and human suffering, as well as of Ukrainian determination to defend the country. More than 20,000 of its civilians are feared dead.

Mariupol’s port reportedly resumed operations after Russian forces finished clearing mines in the Azov Sea off the once-vibrant city. Russian state news agency Tass reported that a vessel bound for the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don entered Mariupol’s seaport early Saturday.

The Kremlin said that Putin emphasized during “an in-depth exchange of views” with Macron and Scholz that Russia was working to “establish a peaceful life in Mariupol and other liberated cities in the Donbas.”

Ukrainian authorities have reported that Kremlin-installed officials in seized cities have started airing Russian news broadcasts, introduced Russian area codes, imported Russian school curriculum and taken other steps to annex the areas.

Russian-held areas of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region have switched to Moscow time and “will no longer switch to daylight-saving time, as is customary in Ukraine,” Russia’s state RIA Novosti agency quoted Krill Stremousov, a Russian-installed local official, as saying Saturday.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian navy said Saturday morning that Russian ships “continue to block civilian navigation in the waters of the Black and Azov seas” along Ukraine’s southern coast, “making them a zone of hostilities.”

The war in Ukraine has caused global food shortages because the country is a major exporter of grain and other commodities. Moscow and Kyiv have traded accusations over which side was responsible for keeping shipments tied up, with Russia saying Ukrainian sea mines prevented safe passage.

The press service of the Ukrainian Naval Forces said two Russian missile carriers “capable of carrying up to 16 missiles” were ready for action in the Black Sea. It said that only shipping routes which had been established through multilateral treaties could be considered safe.

Ukrainian officials pressed Western nations for more sophisticated and powerful weapons, especially multiple launch rocket systems. The U.S. Defense Department would not confirm a Friday CNN report saying the Biden administration was preparing to send long-range rocket systems to Ukraine.

Russia’s U.S. ambassador on Saturday branded such a move as “unacceptable” called on the Biden administration to “abandon statements about the military victory of Ukraine.”

A Telegram post published on the Russian embassy’s official channel cited Anatoliy Antonov, Moscow’s top diplomat in Washington, as saying that “the unprecedented pumping of weapons into Ukraine significantly increases the risks of an escalation of the conflict.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry said the Russian navy successfully launched a new hypersonic missile from the Barents Sea. The ministry said the recently developed Zircon hypersonic cruise missile had struck its target about 1,000 kilometers away.

If confirmed, the launch could spell trouble for NATO voyages in the Arctic and North Atlantic. Zircon, described as the world’s fastest non-ballistic missile, can be armed with either a conventional or a nuclear warhead, and is said to be impossible to stop with current anti-missile defense systems.

Moscow’s claims, which could not be immediately verified, came a week after Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu announced that Russia would form new military units in the west of the country in response to Sweden and Finland’s bids to join NATO.

___

Karmanau reported from Lviv, Ukraine. Andrea Rosa in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Andrew Katell in New York and AP journalists around the world contributed.

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Watch live: Biden delivers commencement address at University of Delaware

President Biden is slated to deliver remarks Saturday morning at the University of Delaware commencement ceremony.

The event is scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. ET.

Watch the live video above.

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Kim Kardashian endorses Rick Caruso for LA mayor

Reality television star and businesswoman Kim Kardashian announced Friday she is endorsing Rick Caruso (D) for mayor of Los Angeles. 

In a video posted by Caruso to Twitter, Kardashian said she met with the mayoral candidate, adding “I really believe in what he stands for.”

Kardashian pointed to two major issues in the race — crime and homelessness — that she said she believes Caruso is ready to tackle. 

“I think that with him he can offer a better path to a better life for people that are homeless in California and in Los Angeles. I really believe in what he stands for. I was really inspired by him,” she said. 

Caruso embraced the endorsement from Kardashian in a Friday tweet.

“Kim, it was a privilege to speak with you and your family about the policies I intend to implement as mayor. We must do better. This is our hometown, and we need to care for our city and her people. Thank you for your confidence. I won’t let you down. #CarusoCan,” he tweeted. 

Kardashian said she stays out of politics, but her family was thrown into political the political foray after Kanye West, her ex husband, decided on a bid for president in 2020. 

West has previously been supportive of former President Trump.

Caruso is running as a Democrat in the primary election that will take place on June 7, but primary challengers have slammed him for his tied to the GOP.

Caruso will also face off against Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) in a race to replace Mayor Eric Garcetti (D). Caruso and Bass currently lead the group in terms of media coverage and fundraising of nine Democrats in vying for the nomination, according to Ballotpedia.

Caruso was previously registered as a Republican until 2011 when he dropped the affiliation, and refused to define his political party. Before running for mayor, he registered as a Democrat. 

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Insidious firearms industry messaging fuels our epidemic of gun violence

During the first year of the pandemic, government researchers noted that the nation’s gun-related homicide rate rose by nearly 35 percent, the highest level in 25 years. Yet statistics on the rise in gun violence in the U.S. fail to convey the emotional impact and horrific scenes still playing out in Uvalde, Texas.

Like Parkland and Sandy Hook, this latest school shooting in Uvalde left distraught parents, teachers, community members and the nation grasping to make sense of a senseless attack that left 19 children and two teachers dead.

So far, the number of mass shootings, including the May 14 attack in Buffalo, N.Y., suggests the nation is on track to have another deadly year.

There are many likely causes for the rise in gun violence in the U.S., including racism, easy access to guns, mental health issues and other factors. However, we can no longer afford to ignore the role the U.S. and global firearms industry plays in perpetuating this public health epidemic.

As public health practitioners, we study how the private sector promotes products and choices that are harmful to health, known as “commercial determinants of health.” Just as the pandemic exposed how systemic racism, poverty and other social determinants impact the health outcomes of individuals and communities, it also exposed the role of the global firearms industry as a commercial determinant of health.

For decades, the firearms industry has worked to minimize the truth about firearm violence through highly effective marketing and lobbying. (These are the same tactics used by the alcohol and tobacco industries to direct focus away from the diseases caused by their products.) For the past 30 years, the National Rifle Association — which will hold its annual meeting this weekend less than 280 miles from the town of Uvalde — has alone spent a sizable portion of its budget (now $300 million) on limiting gun legislation.

At the same time, guns have become more lethal due to competition within the firearms market, and gun producers and distributors play a major role in making these increasingly lethal weapons easier to access and own.

The results are literally lethal with more than 250,000 people worldwide dying from firearms every year. In the U.S. 90 percent of the burden of firearm violence falls on civilian populations, and the societal costs have reached more than $150 billion annually. Low- and middle-income countries globally, as well as communities of color in the U.S., suffer disproportionately from gun violence.

During the pandemic, we saw the firearms industrial machinery in full swing. Gun shops lobbied state governments to be designated as “essential businesses” in order to remain open, while gun advocacy groups peddled panic and fear, arguing that people must be able to protect themselves during these uncertain times. As a result of all these tactics, gun sales skyrocketed. March 2020 marked the second-largest month for firearms sales in U.S. history with 1.9 million sold. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, nationwide background checks for individuals purchasing firearms were up 41 percent compared to 2019.

To fully pinpoint the causes of increasing gun violence, we must expand our focus beyond individual users and their motivations to include the systemic incentives of the firearms industry and its supporters. We need to better understand the global gun industry’s motives, tactics and transnational practices, its associated markets and the marketing and lobbying efforts utilized to increase the potency and availability of firearms.

Sadly, the attack in Buffalo followed by the tragedy at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde may not be the last mass shooting in the U.S. this year. Although gun violence seems like it is contagious, it is not an intractable public health problem but one we can solve with evidence-based policies to limit access to guns and other steps.

The U.S. does have the tools to zero in on the root causes of gun violence and more importantly to slow and stop its spread; it now needs the political will to do so.

Such action could have saved innocent lives in Uvalde and will save many more lives in the years to come.

 Adnan A. Hyder is director of the Center on Commercial Determinants of Health (CCDH) and a professor of Global Health at Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University. Nino Paichadze is associate director of the CCDH and an assistant research professor of Global Health at the GW Milken Institute School of Public Health. 

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Paul Ryan says lawmakers climb ranks of Congress by 'being an entertainer'

Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) said in an interview Thursday that there is a difference between the way lawmakers climb the ranks in Congress now and 10 years ago, adding that lawmakers in both parties today are “entertainers.”

“In the old days, like 10 years ago, if you wanted to do really well in Congress, if you wanted to succeed, you climbed a meritocracy. The measurement of success was policy and persuasion,” Ryan said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

“That’s not necessarily what motivates people anymore. There’s a lot of entertainers in Congress from both parties,” he said. 

Ryan served as House speaker from 2015 to 2019 before leaving Congress. 

“The old meritocracy that takes 10, 20 years to climb, of being a good policy maker, you can just leap frog that whole process, be a really good entertainer, have an incredible [digital] presence and forget about policy making and curate a brand for yourself,” Paul said. 

Former President Trump was notorious for using Twitter to spread his viewpoints on issues and gained popularity through the platform.

And lawmakers like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), a progressive firebrand and millennial, have shown adeptness at communicating with constituents through social media.

Ryan said he believes the rise of the entertainer in Congress has hurt bipartisanship as it is “bad for a brand” if a person compromises on an issue.

“If you are going to entertain, if you are going to try to show that you’re better than everyone else within your own ecosystem” it makes it more difficult to be willing to compromise, Paul added. 

His comments come as lawmakers are in talks about gun control measures following the Uvalde, Texas, elementary school shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers. 

A bipartisan group of five Democrats and five Republicans came together to begin discussions on a proposal, although it is unclear whether the talks will amount to anything. 

Since the shooting, Democrats have pushed for gun control measures like background checks, while Republicans are focusing on ways to up school security.

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Parent of Uvalde shooting victim says police 'took too long to get in there'

Alfred Garza, the parent of a 10-year-old girl who was killed in the Uvalde, Texas, elementary school shooting, chastised the police for taking too long to confront 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos.

“It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that it just took too long to get in there and, you know, had they gotten there sooner, and someone would have taken immediate action, we might have more of those children here today,” Garza told CNN. “Including my daughter.”

His comments came after Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw confirmed Friday police waited almost an hour to engage the shooter while he was inside the school.

McCraw said 19 officers were waiting in the hallway of the school, but the incident commanding officer thought the shooter barricaded himself and there was no longer a threat to the children. 

“From the benefit of hindsight where I’m sitting now, of course, it was not the right decision. It was a wrong decision. Period. There was no excuse for that,” McCraw said. 

Video also showed police holding back parents who wanted to rush into the school to rescue their children.

Jennifer Gaitan, whose daughter was in the school, told CNN she got into a confrontation with one of the officers. 

“We were asking and begging [authorities] to do something,” Gaitan said. “I feel like they were not concerned about the real trauma that was happening inside.”

“They waited too long because I was out here. And I’m not the only parent that witnessed it.”

Two federal agents told NBC News federal officers were told to wait and not immediately confront the shooter. The agents waited for around 30 minutes before ignoring local police and entering the building to take out the shooter.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott (Texas) has said every official on the scene will be investigated so a thorough timeline can be made available to the parents and public.

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$2.4 million raised for 4 children left parentless following Uvalde shooting

A GoFundMe has raised $2.4 million for four children who were left without parents after the Uvalde, Texas, elementary school shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers. 

Irma Garcia, who taught at Robb Elementary school for 23 years, died on Tuesday while she was protecting her children from the shooter. 

Shortly after the tragedy, her husband of almost 25 years, Joe Garcia, died from a heart attack, likely caused by the stress from the incident. 

The deaths leave their children: Cristian, 23; Jose, 19; Lyliana, 15; and Alysandra, 12, without parents. 

A GoFundMe created two days ago by Debra Austin, Irma Garcia’s cousin, has already reached above and beyond its $10,000 goal, raising $2,451,710 for the children.

“Please keep our family in your thoughts and prayers. I truly believe Joe died of a broken heart and losing the love of his life of more than 25 years was too much to bear,” Austin wrote in the GoFundMe description after Joe Garcia died. 

This is one of several fundraisers that have been started since the shooting occurred as many children were also left injured from the shooting. 

GoFundMe has created a page where the public can view all verified fundraisers started to collect money for victims of the tragedy. 

Local law enforcement has come under scrutiny after video and details from 911 calls to dispatchers revealed that police waited to engage the shooter for an extended period of time on Tuesday.

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he is “livid” about the information he first received about the police’s response to the shooting. He said he was given “inaccurate” information.

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