Former Proud Boys boss Enrique Tarrio has been sentenced to 22 years in federal prison after begging a judge for mercy for commanding the Capitol siege – the longest sentence handed down over January 6.

Tarrio, 39, was the final leader of the neo-fascist group convicted of seditious conspiracy to be sentenced and faced 33 years in prison. Judge Timothy Kelly ruled that Tarrio was ‘the ultimate leader of that conspiracy,’ but still did not abide by the government’s sentence request.

During his hearing, Tarrio dropped a bombshell and admitted that Trump lost the 2020 election. ‘On November 3, 2020, something that I never expected happened – my candidate lost. I felt like something was personally stolen from me.’

The Florida-native turned to blame the right-wing media saying: ‘Every media channel that I turned to told me I was justified.’ He said that he was ‘not a political zealot’ and changing the outcome of the election was not his goal on January 6.  

The far-right propagandist wasn’t in Washington on January 6 – he was arrested two days earlier in a separate case – but he was convicted of helping put in motion and encourage the violence interrupted Congress‘ certification of Biden’s electoral victory after Donald Trump‘s electoral loss. 

Wearing an orange prison jumpsuit and escorted by U.S. Marshals, the Cuban-American from Florida took the stand to ask judge Timothy Kelly for mercy, apologizing to the officers who responded during the riot and the citizens of D.C., saying he ‘blamed himself.’ 

‘Today I stand before you a different man… I wish to reorient my life’s purpose… I want to rejoin my local church and be an active part of helping others,’ Tarrio told the court. ‘I hope your honor can hear the sincerity… please show me mercy… ‘Do not take my 40s from me… God bless this entire court.’

He claimed that he had really believed the presidential election was stolen and let media coverage influence his desire to ‘protect’ right wingers from Antifa protesters.

‘I have failed as a son, as a fiancée, as a brother, as a nephew… I have been selfish,’ Tarrio said. 

Judge Kelly said of January 6: ‘That day broke our previously unbroken tradition of the peaceful transfer of power, which is truly among the most precious things that we had as Americans… that previously unbroken string is now broken. And it’s going to take time and effort to fix it.’

The judge seemed to be particularly disturbed by Tarrio’s infamously comparison of the January 6 rioters to the nation’s founding fathers.

He added: ‘[Tarrio’s] apologized here today, but I must say, comparing what Dominic Pezzola did to George Washington – the man who helped encourage the notion of a peaceful, orderly transfer of power – by relinquishing power to let someone else be chosen… it slanders the father of our country.’ 

Three fellow Proud Boys found guilty by a Washington D.C. jury of the rarely used sedition charge were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 15 to 18 years – less than prosecutors wanted.

Tarrio’s defense team argued during the sentencing hearing that the convicted sedition conspiracist is a ‘misguided patriot’ instead of a terrorist, and was just being a ‘Keyboard Ninja,’ saying things ‘he shouldn’t have,’ as reported by independent journalist Gonzo News.

Judge Kelly reminded Tarrio’s lawyers team that a jury did not buy that defense strategy when it decided to convict him, and ruled that Tarrio was at the top of the Proud Boy’s command structure during the riot.

Ultimately the judge ruled Tarrio’s crimes intended to coerce the conduct of government when his lieutenants brought down a barrier between police and rioters and thus qualified him for terrorism enhancement for his sentencing.

However, the judge again noted the Proud Boys’ crimes did not have the terror ‘intent’ of someone who blows up a building.

Tarrio’s aunt and godmother sent in letters pleading for leniency which were read by defense attorney Nayib Hassan.

‘Henry [Tarrio’s birth name] is not a monster like he’s made out to be,’ the letter read.

Tarrio’s mother, fiancée, and his younger sister also spoke of Tarrio’s character as they asked for leniency, saying his incarceration has greatly affected his family.

The younger sister teared up as she spoke, saying: ‘he is the glue that keeps us together… the idea of him not being around for all the milestones is hard to bear.’

The Justice Department has asked for Tarrio to spend more than three decades in prison, describing him as the ringleader of a plot to use violence to shatter the cornerstone of American democracy and overturn the election victory by Joe Biden, a Democrat, over Trump, the Republican incumbent.

Tarrio discussed ‘revolutions’ and ‘storming’ the Capitol complex prior to January 6, but was arrested upon entry into the capital on January 5, 2021 for a prior offense of burning the Black Lives Matter flag and on several weapons charges. 

The Miami native was supposed to be sentenced last week in Washington’s federal court, but his hearing was delayed because Judge Kelly got sick. 

Kelly, who was nominated to the bench by Trump, sentenced Tarrio’s co-defendants to lengthy prison terms – though far shorter than prosecutors were seeking.

Self-described Proud Boys organizer Joe Biggs sobbed as he was sentenced to 17 years on Thursday for his role in the riot after pleading for leniency to take care of his daughter and ailing mother.

Judge Kelly wasn’t having it, as he said Americans are the envy of the world and U.S. elections must be respected, telling Biggs: ‘You did play a role in riling up the crowd.

‘If you don’t like how an election is being conducted… you can speak out, call, write or meet with election officials. You can engage in peaceful protest. File a lawsuit.’

The judge ruled that Biggs qualified for a terrorism sentencing enhancement because he teared down a fence that stood between police and rioters.

Prosecutors on Tuesday asked Kelly to hand out a harsher punishment for Tarrio than his co-defendants, arguing he was the leader of the operation, and as a someone with a criminal record was a less sympathetic figure than Biggs, who’s a veteran.

‘We need to make sure the consequences are clear to anybody who might be unhappy with any future election as long as this case is remembered…this was a calculated act of terrorism,’ prosecutors said during the sentencing.

Ethan Nordean, who prosecutors said was the Proud Boys’ leader on the ground on January 6, was sentenced to 18 years in prison, tying the record for the longest sentence in the attack. 

Prosecutors had asked for 27 years for Nordean, who was a Seattle-area Proud Boys chapter president.

Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who was found guilty of seditious conspiracy in a separate case, was sentenced in May to 18 years in prison. Prosecutors, who had sought 25 years for Rhodes, are appealing his sentence and the punishments of other members of his antigovernment militia group.

‘Tarrio has repeatedly and publicly indicated that he has no regrets about what he helped make happen on January 6,’ prosecutors wrote in court documents. 

Lawyers for the Proud Boys deny that there was any plot to attack the Capitol or stop the transfer of presidential power.

‘There is zero evidence to suggest Tarrio directed any participants to storm the U.S. Capitol building prior to or during the event,’ his attorneys wrote in court papers.

‘Participating in a plan for the Proud Boys to protest on January 6 is not the same as directing others on the ground to storm the Capitol by any means necessary.’

Police arrested Tarrio in Washington on Jan. 4, 2021, on charges that he defaced a Black Lives Matter banner during an earlier rally in the nation´s capital, but law enforcement officials later said he was arrested in part over concerns about the potential for unrest during the certification. He complied with a judge´s order to leave the city after his arrest.

On Jan. 6, dozens of Proud Boys leaders, members and associates were among the first rioters to breach the Capitol. The mob´s assault overwhelmed police, forced lawmakers to flee the House and Senate floors and disrupted the joint session of Congress for certifying Biden´s victory.

The backbone of the government´s case was hundreds of messages exchanged by Proud Boys in the days leading up to Janury 6. 

As Proud Boys swarmed the Capitol, Tarrio cheered them on from afar, writing on social media: ‘Do what must be done.’ In a Proud Boys encrypted group chat later that day someone asked what they should do next. 

Tarrio responded: ‘Do it again.’

‘Make no mistake,’ Tarrio wrote in another message. ‘We did this.’

Tarrio led the neo-fascist group – known for street fights with left-wing activists – when Trump infamously told the Proud Boys to ‘stand back and stand by’ during his first debate with Joe Biden. 

During the month long trial, prosecutors argued that the Proud Boys viewed themselves as foot soldiers fighting for Trump as the Republican spread lies that Democrats stole the election from him.

Attorneys argued that members of the group were prepared to go to war to keep their preferred leader in power.

Defense lawyers denied there was any plot to attack the Capitol or stop Congress’ certification of Biden’s win.

The investigation has become the largest for the Justice Department in American history, and it hadn’t tried a seditious conspiracy case in over a decade.

The riots followed months of false claims by Trump and his allies that the election had been rigged against him.

A select House committee investigated the riots and in its final report accused Trump of a criminal conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

The committee estimated that from the election to Jan. 6, the president and aides made hundreds of efforts to pressure officials to overturn the results.

Targets included states he lost but that had GOP-led legislatures such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona.

Trump has since been indicted for this role in the riots, with a grand jury indictment accusing him of spreading ‘lies’ and ‘sham’ investigations while stoking an ‘angry’ mob on January 6.

Special Counsel Jack Smith said in a televised public statement following the release of the indictment that the attack on the Capitol was ‘fueled by lies’ made by Trump ‘targeted at obstructing the bedrock function of the U.S. government – the nation’s process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election.’ He pledged that his office will conduct a ‘speedy’ trial.

Trump is facing four counts including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government and obstruct the electoral count for trying to overturn the 2020 election. The 45-page indictment says he was ‘determined to remain in power’ despite ‘having lost.’

He and his six co-conspirators ‘used knowingly false claims of election fraud’ to try to ‘subvert the legitimate election results and change electoral votes’ to take down Joe Biden, according to the indictment.

He has plead not guilty.

Vice President Kamala Harris refused to address speculation about the 2024 presidential ticket, telling NBC News that she couldn’t care less about ‘high class gossip.’

She insisted she and President Joe Biden are ‘thinking about today’ but her dismissal comes amid speculation the West Wing is frustrated with her, endangering her heir apparent status, and talk that Biden, who is 79, may not run again because of his age. 

‘I’m sorry, we are thinking about today,’ she told NBC’s Craig Melvin in an interview that aired Thursday on the Today Show. ‘I mean, honestly I know why you’re asking the question – because this is part of the punditry and the gossip around places like Washington, DC. Let me just tell you something. We’re focused on the things in front of us. We’re focused on what we need to do to address issues like affordable childcare.’

When he pressed her again about whether she’d be on the 2024 Democratic ticket, Harris refused to go there. 

‘The American people sent us here to do a job. And right now there’s a lot of work to be done. And that’s my focus. Sincerely,’ she said.

Melvin also asked about an op-ed written by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times on Tuesday, suggesting Biden team up with Republican Rep. Liz Cheney for a bipartisan ticket in 2024. 

Harris said she hasn’t read the opinion piece. Friedman is one of Biden’s favorite columnists and the president is a regular reader. 

‘I really could care less about the high class gossip on these issues,’ the vice president said.

Cheney, a Republican congresswoman from Wyoming, has become one of the most outspoken critics of Donald Trump, who has not ruled out running for the White House again in 2024.

She earned Trump’s ire when she voted to impeach him for his role in encouraging the January 6th riot and when she joined the special committee investigating the insurrection at the Capitol. The former president has endorsed her opponent in the state’s GOP primary this summer. House Republicans voted her off their leadership team after she joined the panel.

Friedman said putting her on the ticket would send a powerful message. 

‘This is the democratic way of defeating a threat to democracy. Not doing it is how democracies die. I am quite aware that it is highly unlikely,’ Friedman wrote. ‘Yet, I still think it is worth raising. There is no precedent for how close we’re coming to an unraveling of our democracy, either.’

Friedman’s op-ed was published the same day as a Wall Street Journal editorial suggesting Hillary Clinton could make her political comeback in 2024. 

‘Several circumstances – President Biden’s low approval rating, doubts over his capacity to run for re-election at 82, Vice President Kamala Harris’s unpopularity, and the absence of another strong Democrat to lead the ticket in 2024 – have created a leadership vacuum in the party, which Mrs. Clinton viably could fill,’ Democratic strategists Douglas E. Schoen and Andrew Stein wrote in the Journal.

Biden and Harris are both suffering from low approval ratings.  A recent USA Today poll found that just 40 percent of voters approved of Biden’s job in the White House. Harris’ approval rating sat at 32 percent.

Voters have given Biden low marks for his handling of the economy. Inflation hit a 40-year high of 7 per cent this week. Meanwhile COVID cases continue to rise due to the Omicron variant.

Americans are facing empty grocery shelves, high prices at the gas pump and a shortage of services as businesses close due to staff contracting COVID.  

Biden, 79, has said both publicly and privately he will run again in 2024. He is the nation’s oldest president. 

Clinton – who won the popular vote in 2016 but lost the electoral college to Trump – would be 77 years old if she ran and won in November 2024, taking office in January 2025. 

Harris, too, has suffered criticism. Biden gave his vice president – the first woman and black American in the job – a high-profile portfolio but she has failed to deliver major progress on stopping the root causes of migration, which is causing a serge in immigrants at the border, and on advancing voting rights.

Her heir-apparent status appeared in danger amid reports of frustration among West Wing staff with her and her team while her allies insist she is being under utilized and has been given the most difficult tasks of the administration.

She joined Biden in Atlanta on Tuesday for his speech on voting rights, where he called for the Senate to kill the filibuster. Harris traveled separately to the city but she climbed aboard Air Force One after Biden landed. They were pictured walking off the plane together.

Trump pleads not guilty at arraignment for 2020 election indictment

By Katelyn Caralle, U.S. Political Reporter

Updated: 16:47 EDT, 3 August 2023

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Donald Trump would beat both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in respective hypothetical match-ups if the 2024 election were held today, a new poll reported on Tuesday suggests. 

The Republican former president leads Biden by a six-point margin in the latest Harvard CAPS-Harris survey exclusively obtained by The Hill, yet another dire poll for a White House that’s been plagued by sinking approval ratings and multiple crises.

Forty-seven percent of survey respondents would back Trump in 2024, compared to 41 percent who support Biden. Twelve percent said they were undecided. 

Harris fares even worse than her boss, trailing Trump by 11 percentage points. 

The vice president received 38 percent of the hypothetical vote, while Trump had 49 percent — two points higher than he’d score against Biden. 

While Biden has made his intention to run for a second term known, Trump has repeatedly teased a 2024 bid but has yet to say for sure if he’ll mount a third presidential campaign. 

And when Biden selected Harris as his running mate, making history in the process, she was widely thought to be the one to take up his mantle when the 79-year-old commander-in-chief was finished.

But her deep unpopularity — which is even greater than Biden’s — has left left-wing operatives concerned about who to put up in the next presidential election cycle. 

In perhaps good news for Harris, she does come out on top in a hypothetical match-up against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. The GOP governor scored 38 percent of support in the Harvard survey, with Harris coming in slightly higher at 40 percent. 

The former House Republican who was elected to lead the Sunshine State with Trump’s support has been a rising star within the GOP, particularly with his vocal criticism of the Biden administration and resistance to its COVID-19 public health guidelines. 

He’s come second to Trump in multiple GOP voter polls about 2024, though the former president is still widely seen as the favorite candidate so far. 

Although the presidential election is still a long way away, Biden’s unpopularity still a bad sign for Congressional Democrats looking to hold onto their slim majority in November’s midterm elections. 

A recent NBC survey released on Sunday shows Republicans with a slight edge over Democrats in the upcoming races. Forty-six percent of voters said they would prefer Republicans to control Congress in 2023, compared to 44 percent who support Democrats staying in power.

NBC’s last poll in January had Democrats with a slight edge over the GOP for a 47 to 46 percent margin. 

The same poll shows Biden’s approval rating at 40 percent, the lowest number recorded by NBC so far in the Democrat’s presidency. 

They’re also contending with pervasive supply chain issues and 40-year record-high inflation, both of which are sending the cost of living skyrocketing for millions of everyday Americans. 

Russia’s war in Ukraine is also taking a toll on Biden’s White House tenure. Aside from forcing prices at the pump to skyrocket, multiple polls show US voters both fearing an imminent war with Moscow and having little faith in their president to navigate the international crisis.  

Sunday’s survey saw respondents asked ‘how much confidence’ they have in Biden’s ability to navigate Russia’s brutal attack. 

The largest share — 44 percent — said they have ‘very little’ faith in the president, while 27 percent have ‘just some’ confidence in him, for a combined 71 percent.

Only 28 percent of Americans polled said they share ‘a great deal’ or ‘quite a bit’ of support for Biden’s handling of Ukraine — a far cry from the confidence the president has sought to project through decades of foreign policy experience in the Senate.

And a majority of people seem to believe Biden’s actions so far have put the country on a path toward direct conflict with Russia, despite the US’s stated preferred policy of de-escalation through diplomacy.  

Sixteen percent of Americans said they believe their nation is already at war with Russia based on Biden and his officials’ handling of the crisis. A whopping 44 percent said the devastating conflict ‘will be within the next year.’

Just 34 percent were confident the US would not be embroiled in a war with Moscow.   

And 56 percent of respondents to a Monday Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey said Biden is ‘not tough enough’ and six percent believe he is being ‘too tough’ on Russia.

Thirty-six percent of those polled said the president’s response to Putin has been ‘about right.’

Supreme Court will hear Republicans’ bid to increase state authority over election laws in case with massive implications for 2024

• The case, Moore v. Harper, deals with North Carolina’s Congressional map
• Multiple state courts have struck down the Republican legislature’s redistricting proposal, which would give their party control over 11 of 14 House seats
• The GOP is arguing that striking down the map is a violation of a Constitutional provision that gives legislatures unilateral authority over state election laws 
• It’s a legal theory known as Independent State Legislature Doctrine
• The Supreme Court has struck down arguments using the theory in the past
• It has the potential to boost the power of Republican-led legislatures in battleground states like Michigan ahead of the next presidential race

By Elizabeth Elkind, Politics Reporter For Dailymail.Com

Published: 16:31 EDT, 30 June 2022 | Updated: 17:23 EDT, 30 June 2022

Republicans say they will STOP paying Trump’s legal fees for his election lawsuits if he runs for president in 2024

• RNC official says any announcement of a 2024 run would mean it would have to stop paying Donald Trump’s legal bills as he battles investigations
• The committee’s  ‘neutrality policy’ which bars it from taking sides in primaries
• The official told ABC News that payments would have to stop if Trump ran again
• It paid at least $1.73 million to law firms representing Trump during the past year

By Rob Crilly, Senior U.S. Political Reporter For Dailymail.Com

Published: 15:58 EDT, 28 July 2022 | Updated: 15:58 EDT, 28 July 2022

Donald Trump‘s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, was raided by the FBI on Monday, a high-profile move in the ongoing investigations into the former President.

While the FBI has not yet commented on why it conducted the raid, details indicate it was likely a part of an ongoing investigation into Trump’s removal of sensitive White House documents at the end of his term.

FBI agents reportedly focused their search of the property on the former President’s office space, removed papers and documents, and even broke open a safe.

The raid does not suggest that criminal charges are near or even expected – but the FBI would have needed a search warrant that was court authorized. 

How the raid could effect the 2024 election remains to be seen, but if convicted of violating removing documents from the White House Trump could face up to three years and prison and be barred from holding public office.

A source close to the president told NBC the raid is only likely to galvanize the president to announce a 2024 bid. 

The source also said the raid could spurn Trump to announce his candidacy in the hopes of shielding himself from prosecution through the long-held precedent that sitting presidents not be convicted of crimes.

Why is Donald Trump being investigated, and what is the evidence against him?

Trump is currently the subject of two FBI investigations – one into his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and his culpability for the January 6 Capitol riots, and the other into his removal of White House documents at the end of his term. 

Though Monday’s raid could be in relation to the January 6 investigation, previous actions by investigators indicate it is most likely a part of his removal of sensitive White House documents.

At the end of their terms presidents are required under the Presidential Records act to hand over all documents from their time in office to be stored in the National Archives. Another federal law, 18 U.S. Code § 2071, forbids the ‘concealment, removal, or mutilation,’ of federal documents.

Sensitive documents were previously found at Mar-a-Lago when the National Archives removed at least 15 boxes of records from the Florida resort, it was revealed in February.

National Archives officials said in a letter to Rep. Carolyn Maloney, chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform which is overseeing the investigation, that they recovered ‘items marked as classified national security information within the boxes’ at the former president’s home that month.

In the months following that discovery, Trump aides and attorneys were interviewed on numerous occasions in relation to other classified documents investigators thought the president was illegally holding, with a team of investigators even paying a visit to Mar-a-Lago in early June.

During that trip the investigators met with Trump’s attorneys, Bobb and Evan Corcoran, according to CNN, and were brought to a room where a number of boxes marked ‘Top Secret’ were being stored. 

Days later, Trump’s attorneys were contacted by the investigators and asked to better secure the room they’d been shown. A padlock was reportedly placed on the door of the room.

Why has the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago now?

Trump was in New York City at the time his Florida resort was raided. His son, Eric, said he received a call from investigators informing about the raid and that he then conveyed the news to his father. 

Eric said he was informed on that call that the raid was a part of a National Archives investigation.

‘The purpose of the raid, from what they said, was because the National Archives wanted to, you know, corroborate whether or not Donald Trump had any documents in his possession,’ he told Sean Hannity on Monday.

If Eric’s account is accurate, it is very nearly certain the raid was a part of an evidence collection into the ongoing documents investigation.  

The FBI is barred from taking any actions that could be politically influential within 90 days of an election, and the raid occurred nearly exactly 90 days from the November midterms.

Though Trump is not currently a government official he remains an overwhelming presence in the political arena. It is possible the FBI felt it was now or never to obtain evidence from Mar-a-Lago or else face the risk of compromising their ability to gather it later due to the 90 day election buffer.   

What charges could Donald Trump face and what does this mean if he decides to run for President in 2024?

If found to have violated the Presidential Records Act and federal law which prosecutes anyone who ‘willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away,’ the president could face up to three years in prison and be fined.

More importantly however is the stipulation in 18 U.S. Code § 2071 which says anyone found in violation ‘shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States.’

If found guilty of a violation of that code Trump would not be barred from running in 2024 – charges and convictions for most crimes does not disqualify one from being on the ballot – but he could be prevented from holding office even if he were elected to the presidency.

Trump has not yet officially declared his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election, though he has dropped strong hints over the past few months. 

If he were elected and sworn in before being convicted, however, it is likely he could stay any repercussions owing to a long-held precedent that sitting presidents not be charged with crimes.

If he returned to the oval office it is also possible he could avoid any conviction altogether as he would have four years to maneuver and manipulate the personnel and workings department of justice and the FBI to his favor.  

The raid is also likely to solidify Trump’s plans to run in 2024, a source close to the former president told NBC, and spurn him to announce his bid sooner rather than later.

‘If he wasn’t running before, he is now,’ the source said, ‘It pisses him off that they can do this to him. One way to get it to stop is to control the government again.’

Horror author Stephen King has apologized after jokingly tweeting that the recent House Speaker election was as agonizing as a vacation to Utica.  

The Misery writer, who is a frequent user on Twitter, with more than 7 million followers likened the industrial upstate New York city to the speakership debacle in which a vote to elect McCarthy to House Speaker took 15 attempts over multiple days.

‘The Speakership is like that old joke: First prize is a week in Utica. Second prize is TWO weeks in Utica,’ he joked.

But the residents of Utica did not take the jibe lying down, and King’s tongue-in-cheek comment was met with backlash from residents and lawmakers of 65,000 strong city who rose to defend its reputation. 

It came as McCarthy needed several days to win 20 Republicans who initially did not support his speakership.

He finally won the position following 15 rounds of voting.

His comments appeared to touch a nerve with those associated with the city. 

‘Utica is a great city!’ Utica councilman Delvin J. Moody tweeted. ‘I am a utica native and proud to be so. The speakership is a whole over cluster mess.’

‘Hey, man… Utica is a great city,’ New York Rep. Marcus Molinaro said.

‘Utica is far from ‘The Dead Zone’ these days Mr. King. Come and see how #OneidaCounty has grown,’ Oneida County Executive Anthony J. Picente Jr. tweeted.

Others got personal with King: ‘You are not Funny and your books are not that good,’ stated one.

‘So what if insult 330k in metro area!! So typical of the superior attitude you have about yourself?’ added another.

‘Hmmmmm…. Semi famous people who think there important and opinion matters….’ jabbed one Twitter user.

‘Remember when Stephen King was relevant? Yeah never,’ chimed another. 

King, author of The Shining, Carrie and other blockbusters, later apologized acknowledging that his comment was inappropriate. 

‘I sincerely apologize to all the people from Utica I offended. I guess I should have said Cleveland?or Salt Lake City?’ he wrote. 

‘Thanks for the apology Stephen King’, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul tweeted. ‘A reminder not to pick a fight with 20 million New Yorkers!’ 

He also acknowledged that Utica has been referenced in his work before and that his daughter had even served as a minister at Unitarian Universalist Church in the city. 

Last year, King testified at a trial to block a $2.2billion merger between Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster calling the proposed plans post-merger ‘a little bit ridiculous.’

King told a court that if the two mammoth publishing houses merge and still fight against each other for books it will be like ‘a husband and wife bidding against each other for the same house.’ 

He is among a group of people standing against the $2.2billion merger at the antitrust trial, along with publishing executives and authors’ agents.

Penguin Random House, the largest book publisher in the United States, said it planned to buy rival Simon & Schuster in November 2020.

The publishing house is owned by German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. Simon & Schuster is owned by ViacomCBS, now Paramount Global. The Justice Department filed its lawsuit in a bid to block the merger in November 2021.

King is fighting against his own publisher Simon & Schuster, who has represented him for years – as many fear that the ‘Big Five’ publishing houses becoming four will do harm to the industry. 

He has published more than 60 novels and sold over 350 million copies worldwide. 

The paperback advance he received for Carrie in 1974 was $400,000 – which today is the equivalent of $2.4million. 

Biden hit by shock new poll which shows just 33% of voters would re-elect him if the 2024 election was today: Most Americans say they’re worse off than in 2020 – with the midterms less than a month away

• A majority of American voters want someone other than President Joe Biden to run in 2024 if they election was today, the Fox News poll found
• More than 50% also said they don’t think Biden is trustworthy and honest 
• Democrats still hold a slim lead among voters in a generic Congressional ballot
• But Republicans edge out among voters who say they’re certain to vote Nov. 8
• 89% of people surveyed said inflation and rising prices are a top concern 

By Elizabeth Elkind, Politics Reporter For Dailymail.Com

Published: 14:33 EDT, 16 October 2022 | Updated: 19:38 EDT, 16 October 2022