Category: 2020 Election

Trump Attacked Generals as Weak and Too Focused on Allies, Woodward’s Book Says

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The journalist Bob Woodward’s “Rage,” which will be released next week, recounts tense conflicts between the president and his senior leaders.

President Trump denigrated senior American military officials when he told his trade adviser, Peter Navarro, during a meeting in 2017 that his top generals were weak and overly concerned with their relationships with allies, according to a new book by the journalist Bob Woodward.

And in a discussion with Mr. Woodward, Mr. Trump called the United States military “suckers” for paying extensive costs to protect South Korea.

“We’re defending you, we’re allowing you to exist,” Mr. Trump said of South Korea, to a stunned Mr. Woodward. Continue reading.

Exclusive: White House orders end to COVID-19 airport screenings for international travelers

WASHINGTON — The U.S. government on Monday will stop conducting enhanced screening of passengers on inbound international flights for COVID-19, Yahoo News has learned. 

The screening operations have been held at select airports since January, when the first cases of the disease began to emerge from Wuhan, China. Since March, incoming international flights from select high-risk countries, including much of Europe, China and Iran, among other regions, have been funneled through 15 designated airports in the United States.

As of Monday, however, international flights will no longer be funneled into select airports for screening purposes and all screenings will come to a halt, according to communications and sources. All screenings and rerouting of select international flights will cease at exactly 12:01 a.m. on Monday, Sept. 14. Continue reading.

Postal Service to Tap Republican Lobbyist to Quell Mounting Scrutiny

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Facing multiple investigations and calls for his ouster, the postmaster general turned to a G.O.P. lobbyist viewed as adept at reaching out to Democrats.

WASHINGTON — Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, moving to defend himself and top postal officials against suggestions that they are trying to help President Trump win re-election by sabotaging mail-in voting, told colleagues on Wednesday that he planned to hire a veteran Republican lobbyist to work with Congress.

Facing calls for his ouster by Democrats and a flurry of investigations on Capitol Hill, Mr. DeJoy informed postal officials that he had selected Peter Pastre, a former Republican congressional aide and insurance lobbyist, to act as a liaison for the agency with Congress and state and local governments, according to people familiar with the discussions.

The move came as the Postal Service was facing mounting political and operational crises. Mr. Trump has raised concerns about the security of voting by mail, and the independent quasi-governmental agency has struggled to overcome a delivery slowdown and a dire financial forecast — all while Democrats accuse Mr. DeJoy and the agency’s Republican-majority governing board of doing the president’s bidding. Continue reading.

Emails show HHS official trying to muzzle Fauci

Emails obtained by POLITICO show a top aide at the department dictating what the nation’s top infections disease expert should say during media interviews.

A Trump administration appointee at the Department of Health and Human Services is trying to prevent Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, from speaking about the risks that coronavirus poses to children.

Emails obtained by POLITICO show Paul Alexander — a senior adviser to Michael Caputo, HHS’s assistant secretary for public affairs — instructing press officers and others at the National Institutes of Health about what Fauci should say during media interviews. The Trump adviser weighed in on Fauci’s planned responses to outlets including Bloomberg News, BuzzFeed, Huffington Post and the science journal Cell.

Alexander’s lengthy messages, some sent as recently as this week, are couched as scientific arguments. But they often contradict mainstream science while promoting political positions taken by the Trump administration on hot-button issues ranging from the use of convalescent plasma to school reopening. Continue reading.

Lawsuit against Trump inaugural committee can continue, judge rules

The suit alleges that the committee was aware it was being overcharged for services at Trump’s Washington hotel and still spent over $1 million

A judge denied a bid Wednesday to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee and the Trump Organization misused nonprofit funds to enrich the president’s family business.

The suit, brought by Washington, D.C., Attorney General Karl Racine in January, alleges that the president’s inaugural committee was aware that it was being overcharged for services at Trump’s Washington hotel in 2017 and still spent over $1 million at the hotel, including money for a private party for Trump’s three older children.

The inaugural committee argued in part that Racine’s office failed to show a violation of the Nonprofit Act and does not allege that the committee is “continuing to act” in a manner that violates the law, court papers say. Continue reading.

Trump Said He Underestimated How Quickly The Coronavirus Would Spread Despite Reports Saying He Knew

“All of a sudden, the world was infected. The entire world was infected,” Trump said when asked about his comments to Bob Woodward.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump insisted Wednesday that he didn’t expect the coronavirus outbreak would spread to the degree it ultimately did, even as a newly released interview showed he was privately worried about how deadly and contagious the virus was in early February.

“You didn’t really think it was going to be to the point where it was,” Trump told reporters during an unrelated press conference at the White House. “All of a sudden, the world was infected. The entire world was infected.”

His comments contradict reports in an upcoming book from journalist Bob Woodward that describe a president who was fully aware of the potential danger Americans faced with the coronavirus and regarded it as “deadlier than even your strenuous flu.” Woodward pinpoints the time frame in which the president’s aides advised Trump that the pandemic would be the “roughest thing” he’d face in his presidency. Ten days later, Woodward writes, Trump reiterated the same sentiment during an interview. Continue reading.

Trump Jr. makes absurd excuse for killer Kyle Rittenhouse: ‘We all do stupid things at 17’

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The cosmic disappointment of a son only Donald Trump could have, Donald Trump Jr., was on ExtraTV on Tuesday to discuss his new book, Liberal Privilege. I believe the book is sold exclusively at the Hypocrites Handbook Book Store on Nepotism Island, in the magical land of Cowpie. Right out of the gate, Junior was asked by Extra host Rachel Lindsay what he thought of the statement Black Lives Matter, as well as the movement underneath its umbrella.

Trump Jr. stammered his way into explaining that “the phrase Black Lives Matter is obvious, ah no one in America, you know, says anything else.” Lindsay, who is Black, cut Trump Jr. off to remind him that yes, in fact, there are tons of people that say almost anything else besides Black Lives Matter. Trump Jr. responded that “no one” he knew did. Welcome through the looking glass, Extra! This is the Trump family, of course, so somehow this was the least offensive and ignorant thing Junior said in the interview. It was the first question, so he was likely just warming up those three brain cells he’s working with.

Junior went on to explain that he thought Black Lives Matter was a “very good marketing message,” and a “great catchphrase,” but that the political ideology behind it didn’t support it. As opposed to, I guess, Trump and Junior’s white supremacist agenda. Trump Jr. went on to defend his father’s lack of communication with Jacob Blake’s family and his very direct communication with the Kenosha police department. His defense was the same one we’ve already heard: Trump called someone and the Blake family had asked that their family lawyer be on the call—and we know lawyers not in Trump’s pocket spook Donald Trump—and the police department that Trump was meeting with are fighting to save businesses. Continue reading.

AP Exclusive: Pence to attend event hosted by QAnon backers

WASHINGTON — Vice President Mike Pence and top officials from President Donald Trump’s campaign are slated to attend a Montana fundraiser next week hosted by a couple who have expressed support for the QAnon conspiracy theory, according to an event invitation obtained by The Associated Press and a review of social media postings. 

The hosts of the fundraiser, Caryn and Michael Borland, have shared QAnon memes and retweeted posts from QAnon accounts, their social media activity shows. The baseless conspiracy theory posits that Trump is fighting entrenched enemies in the government and also involves satanism and child sex trafficking.

Beyond Pence, the Sept. 14 fundraiser in Bozeman, Montana, is expected to draw influential figures in the president’s orbit including Kimberly Guilfoyle, a top Trump fundraising official who is dating Donald Trump Jr., GOP chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, Republican National Committee finance chairman Todd Ricketts and RNC co-chairman Tommy Hicks Jr., the event invitation shows. Continue reading.

Trump’s lies cost tens of thousands of American lives–and Bob Woodward has the proof on tape

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It is not news that Donald Trump downplayed the severity of Covid-19 for an extended period of time, calling it a “hoax” and blaming Democrats and the media for exaggerating the seriousness of the pandemic to hurt him politically. But we live in a hyperpolarized country with a balkanized media environment, and that makes it incredibly significant that veteran journalist Bob Woodward captured Trump saying as much himself, explicitly, on tape.

In an interview Woodward recorded for his new book, Rage, on February 7, Trump said that the Coronavirus was “tricky,” that it spread via airborne transmission and was five times more lethal than seasonal influenza. “This is deadly stuff,” he added. That was three weeks before the United States would suffer the first of its almost 200,000 confirmed fatalities due to Covid-19.

Less than three weeks later, on February 26, Trump publicly compared Covid with the flu during a White House press conference. Continue reading.

Trump adds Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz to list of potential Supreme Court justices

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President Trump unveiled Wednesday his revamped list of potential Supreme Court justices that includes 20 new names, including Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas).

Why it matters: Top aides and advisers to the president urged him months ago to put together a new list of justices ahead of Election Day to pump up his base and remind them why a Republican needs to remain in the White House.