Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has once again acknowledged the calls for him to run for the U.S. presidency, revealing that he was approached “out of the blue” by political parties.
As one of Hollywood’s most recognizable and highly paid actors, Johnson has expressed a serious consideration for a presidential run, especially after a poll indicated that 46% of Americans would support his campaign.
This isn’t the first time he has mentioned his interest in the role, having done so in interviews in both 2021 and 2017. Johnson visited Capitol Hill to address military recruitment issues, engaging with senators and the U.S. Capitol Police.
The US Capitol Police tweeted: “We talked to a potential new recruit today… and we think he will pass the fitness test.”
Earlier this week, during an appearance on Trevor Noah’s Spotify podcast “What Now?”, Johnson shared that the poll results had prompted both political parties to reach out to him, inquiring about his interest in running for the presidency at the end of 2022.
“That was an interesting poll that happened and I was really moved by that,” he said.
“I was really blown away and I was really honoured. I’ll share this little bit with you – at the end of the year in 2022, I got a visit from the parties asking me if I was going to run, and if I could run.”
Johnson also appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, saying: “It’s crazy, it’s wild. This run for president talk has been in the ether for the past couple of years and it never stops being surreal.”
He added that “down the road for sure” he would consider running for president but at the moment he is a “proud girl dad” – with the youngest of his three children aged five.
Johnson said he already knows what it is like “to have an occupation that takes me away from being a daddy” which is currently the “most important thing to me”.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson endorsed Joe Biden through a video interview in September 2020. At the time, he identified himself as a “political independent and centrist,” emphasizing that he had voted for candidates from both the Democratic and Republican parties in the past.
More than 300 individuals were taken into custody close to the US Capitol following a demonstration against the Israel-Hamas conflict.
More people may be arrested soon, so the number could go up. The police mentioned that they have already charged three individuals with attacking a police officer.
Many people were caught by the police in the Cannon House Office Building. This is a place where protests are not allowed.
The people protesting asked President Joe Biden and Congress to work towards stopping the fighting in Gaza.
The protest in Washington DC was planned by two smaller, left-leaning Jewish organizations, Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now. These groups are against the State of Israel.
The police blocked off streets near the Capitol building on Wednesday because a lot of protesters were walking in the road. Some of the group then went inside a building called the Cannon House Office Building, where congressional staff work. Hundreds of additional people gathered outside the building. They sang in both Hebrew and English.
The people inside were wearing black T-shirts with the words “Jews say stop fighting now” and “Not in our name”. Some people held signs that said “Stop fighting” and sang songs while sitting on the ground in the rotunda.
The Capitol police told the protesters to stop their demonstration and when they didn’t listen, we started arresting them. Some people were seen getting their hands tied with plastic handcuffs and being taken away in vans by the police. Three people who were taken into custody were later accused of attacking a police officer.
A person leading a protest at the Capitol used a loudspeaker to ask for “fairness, fairness, and the ability to do what we want”.
“The woman said that the only way to be truly safe is to calm down and deal with the main reasons behind this terrible violence. ”
The protest happened when President Biden arrived in Israel to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his team.
Mr Biden said that Israel had the right to retaliate for the Hamas attack on October 7th, which resulted in the deaths of 1,400 people.
Palestinian health officials say that around 3,000 people have died in Israeli attacks on Gaza as revenge.
A man from the Proud Boys group was given a prison sentence of 10 years for leading the attack on the US Capitol. He broke into the building using a police shield and recorded himself smoking a celebratory cigar.
Dominic Pezzola, a 46-year-old man who used to be in the US Marine, had a physical altercation with the officers during the attack on Congress on January 6, 2021.
He was found guilty of attacking police officers and interfering with a government process.
Another member of the Proud Boys group, Ethan Nordean, will receive his punishment for a more severe charge of seditious conspiracy on Friday.
A video selfie taken during the riot shows Pezzola smoking a celebratory cigar inside the Capitol building.
On Friday, Pezzola, who was feeling emotional, showed some regret for what he did. The judge heard from his wife, daughter, and mother. His mother said he was a great child who never caused any problems.
After the judge finished giving the prison sentence and left, he shouted: “Trump won. ”
The Proud Boys, a group that began as a social club for drinking, considered themselves as supporters of Donald Trump and were one of the first to participate in the demonstration at the Capitol on January 6th. The people causing a disturbance broke through the police lines and went inside the building to try to stop Congress from approving Joe Biden‘s win in the election.
Pezzola and Nordean were part of a group. They were taken to court with three other people from the same group. These people include a former chairman named Enrique Tarrio, and two military veterans named Joe Biggs and Zachary Rehl.
On Thursday, Biggs and Rehl were given prison sentences of 17 and 15 years each. Tarrio will be given his punishment next week and could possibly go to prison for 33 years.
Proud Boy extremists are now targeting drag shows.
Out of the group of five people, Pezzola was the only one found not guilty of seditious conspiracy. This charge is given to those who are accused of planning to overthrow the government or use force to stop laws from being enforced.
But the prosecutors said that Pezzola’s violent actions during the riot deserved a severe punishment.
Prosecutors wrote in a document that Pezzola’s actions and testimony clearly show that he wanted to scare or force the government to act a certain way. “He did bad things related to terrorism on January 6th. ”
On Friday, Judge Timothy Kelly told Pezzola that he had an important part in the Capitol riot, even though he wasn’t a leader in the Proud Boys group.
Judge Kelly said that what happened was a disgrace for the whole country.
During the trial, Pezzola argued that the people in the crowd were protesters who were trespassing, not an invading force. He kept minimizing his own actions during the riot.
He also said that he acted that way because he fell back on his military training when he saw the police trying to break up the crowd by using non-lethal weapons.
“In the army and Marine Corps, you never go in the opposite direction and escape,” Pezzola stated.
“You are trained to not consider the instinct to flee. ” You are trained to move toward the danger.
In an interview with the Washington Post after he was found guilty, Pezzola said the trial was completely unfair and repeated strange claims that the riot was a planned event by government officials and informants.
Ethan Nordean, who was seen as a leader in the Proud Boys, is scheduled to be sentenced on Friday.
During the trial, the prosecutors mentioned that he played a role in planning and organizing the group both before and during the riot. This included soliciting donations for communication devices and safety equipment.
Over 1,100 people have been arrested for causing riots. Out of those arrested, 630 people have admitted their guilt and over 110 people have been found guilty.
The Oath Keepers founder, Stewart Rhodes, received the longest prison sentence to date, which is 18 years, in May.
Former US president, Donald Trump has been accused of planning to rig the 2020 election in his favour.
He is charged with four counts, including conspiring to defraud the United States, interfering with a witness, and conspiring to violate the rights of citizens.
A probe into the circumstances leading up to the disturbance at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, comes to a close with the indictment.
The 77-year-old candidate for president, Mr. Trump, rejects accusations of malfeasance. He referred to the case as “ridiculous” on social media.
The Republican senator has already faced charges for mishandling secret documentsand fabricating financial records to hide a hush-money payment to a porn star.
The election probe has concentrated on Mr. Trump’s conduct between the two months between his defeat to Joe Biden and the violence in Washington, DC, where his supporters rushed Congress as lawmakers formally proclaimed the Democrat the winner.
Special attorney Jack Smith, who is in charge of the investigation, declared that the attack on the nation’s capital on January 6, 2021, was a first for the seat of American democracy.
“It was fueled by lies, just as the indictment alleged.”
In his brief closing remarks, Mr. Smith vowed to work towards “a speedy trial,” stressing that the former president “must be presumed innocent until proven guilty.”
On Thursday in Washington, DC, Mr. Trump is scheduled to appear in court.
Six anonymous co-conspirators are listed in the 45-page indictment: four solicitors, a justice department employee, and a political consultant.
A “conspiracy to impair, obstruct, and defeat the function of the federal government through dishonesty, fraud, and deceit” is alleged in the court document against Mr. Trump.
In response to Mr. Trump’s charges of voter fraud in 2020, the prosecution states: “These claims were false and the defendant knew that they were false.”
Additionally, according to the report, Mr. Trump made an effort—which was unsuccessful—to persuade Vice President Mike Pence to try to prevent Mr. Biden from being sworn in as President on January 6, 2021.
The defendant and co-conspirators “exploited the disruption as violence broke out by stepping up their efforts to levy false allegations of election fraud and persuade members of Congress to further delay the certification based on those allegations.”
The indictment also cites the various senior Trump campaign employees and US government officials who are alleged to have told the outgoing president that he had lost and that there was no proof of voter fraud.
The Republican Party’s selection process for its next presidential nominee is currently being led by Mr. Trump, who is currently facing 78 criminal counts in total across three cases.
Whoever prevails will face off against President Biden, the presumed Democratic nominee, in November 2024.
With these most recent accusations, Mr. Trump will have three criminal trials to attend over the course of the next 12 to 18 months, which will make a second presidential campaign more difficult.
These are the most serious allegations he has yet to face, according to BBC North America editor Sarah Smith.
But in a statement, the Trump team claimed that the indictment from Tuesday amounted to electoral meddling.
The campaign claimed that the persecution of President Trump and his followers was “illegal and reminiscent of authoritarian, dictatorial regimes like the former Soviet Union, Nazi Germany in the 1930s, and others.”
The statement concluded, “These un-American witch hunts will fail.”
Republican challengers for 2024 were eager to comment. While Florida Governor Ron DeSantis claimed the allegations demonstrated the “weaponization of the federal government,” Vice President Mike Pence stressed the president should never place himself above the Constitution.
According to a joint statement from Democratic leaders in Congress, “This indictment is the most serious and consequential thus far and will stand as a stark reminder to generations of Americans that no one, including a president of the United States, is above the law.”
Numerous senior Trump administration officials and advisers, including Mr. Pence and former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, were questioned as part of the probe.
In a related investigation, Georgian prosecutors are looking into whether the former president improperly coerced local officials to ignore Mr. Biden’s election triumph.
This month, Atlanta prosecutors are likely to decide whether or not to charge Mr. Trump.
Republicans in other states are purportedly aiding Mr. Trump’s campaign to prevent Mr. Biden from gaining office, and this is being looked into.
To demonstrate that Mr. Trump lost due to widespread voter fraud, state prosecutors in Michigan prosecuted a former Republican candidate for attorney general and another Trump supporter with interfering with voting machines.
Trump became the first US president to ever be impeached twice as a result of the riot at Congress, which resulted in his second impeachment by the House of Representatives.
