Category: 2020 Election

Club for Growth launches anti-Biden ad blitz

The conservative group will spend $5 million on ads across three battleground states next week.

The anti-tax Club for Growth is launching a multimillion dollar ad campaign going after Joe Biden, as Republicans find themselves overwhelmed by liberal outside groups in the presidential race.

The conservative organization is preparing a $5 million advertising campaign attacking the former vice president for opposing school choice. Officials with the group say the investment could grow in the weeks to come. The commercials will start on Monday and air for a week in three key swing states: Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

President Donald Trump has been swamped by liberal outside groups in recent weeks. According to outside spending data tallied by the Center for Responsive Politics, pro-Biden groups have outspent their conservative counterparts more than two to one, $91.2 million to $44.7 million. The White House-sanctioned pro-Trump super PAC, America First Action, has also been outraised and outspent by its main Democratic counterpart, Priorities USA Action. Continue reading.

Trump’s Bank Was Subpoenaed by N.Y. Prosecutors in Criminal Inquiry

New York Times logoThe subpoena, sent to Deutsche Bank, suggests that the inquiry into President Trump’s business practices is more wide-ranging than previously known.

The New York prosecutors who are seeking President Trump’s tax records have also subpoenaed his longtime lender, a sign that their criminal investigation into Mr. Trump’s business practices is more wide-ranging than previously known.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office issued the subpoena last year to Deutsche Bank, which has been Mr. Trump’s primary lender since the late 1990s, seeking financial records that he and his company provided to the bank, according to four people familiar with the inquiry.

The criminal investigation initially appeared to be focused on hush-money payments made in 2016 to two women who have said they had affairs with Mr. Trump. Continue reading.

GOP operatives push to get Kanye West on the presidential ballot: reports

AlterNet logoIn 2018 and 2019, Kanye West was President Donald Trump’s most prominent supporter in the hip-hop community, sometimes inspiring criticism from other rappers who considered the president overtly racist. But on July 4, West tweeted that he planned to run for president — running against Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden in the general election. And according to reporting from the New York Times and CNN, some Republican operatives have been trying to help West get on the presidential ballot in various states.

One of the GOP operatives cited by reporters Maggie Haberman and Danny Hakim in the Times is Mark Jacoby, who they describe as “an executive at a company called Let the Voters Decide.” Jacoby, they note, “has been collecting signatures for the West campaign” in Ohio, West Virginia and Arkansas.

Others Republicans named by Haberman and Hakim include Gregg Keller, former executive director of the American Conservative Union, and Chuck Wilton — who they describe as “a convention delegate for Mr. Trump from Vermont” and “an elector with the West operation who could potentially cast an Electoral College vote for Mr. West.” Continue reading.

Ex-Justice Dept. official says Michael Flynn secretly ‘neutered’ Obama’s moves on Russia

Washington Post logoFormer deputy attorney general Sally Q. Yates told Congress on Wednesday that President Trump’s incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn in late 2016 had secretly “neutered” Obama administration actions toward Russia, prompting an investigation that consumed the early days of Trump’s presidency.

Yates has been a target of Trump and many Republicans for her brief oversight of the investigation of Russia’s election interference and possible collusion with the Trump campaign four years ago. She testified via video before the Senate Judiciary Committee, whose chairman, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), has been highly critical of the FBI’s handling of that case.

Trump attacked Yates before the hearing began, tweeting that she “has zero credibility” and declaring her “part of the greatest political crime of the Century, and ObamaBiden knew EVERYTHING!” Continue reading.

‘Sign of desperation’: Trump slammed for ‘anti-religious bigotry’ over new attack ad showing Biden praying in a church

AlterNet logoA new anti-Biden attack ad from the Trump campaign is filled with falsehoods, and ends by mocking the Democratic presumptive presidential nominee praying in a church. Some on social media are slamming the President and his campaign for “anti-religious bigotry” and “demonizing prayer.”

“Deep in the heart of Delaware Joe Biden sits in his basement, alone, hiding, diminished,” the ad begins.

Many Americans are sitting in their basements – that’s where Biden’s office and TV studio are – and they’re sitting alone, and hiding, and diminished, so to speak, as a New York Times opinion column notes. But they are doing so because of Trump’s horrific handling of the pandemic – the worst management of the coronavirus crisis in the world. Continue reading. Continue reading.

Facebook’s fact-checkers have ruled claims in Trump ads are false — but no one is telling Facebook’s users

Washington Post logoFact-checkers were unanimous in their assessments when President Trump began claiming in June that Democrat Joe Biden wanted to “defund” police forces. PolitiFactcalled the allegations “false,” as did CheckYourFact. The Associated Press detailed “distortions” in Trump’s claims. FactCheck.org called an ad airing them “deceptive.”Another site, the Dispatch, said there is “nothing currently to support” Trump’s claims.

But these judgments, made by five fact-checking organizations that are part of Facebook’s independent network for policing falsehoods on the platform, were not shared with Facebook’s users. That is because the company specifically exempts politicians from its rules against deception. Ads containing the falsehoods continue to run freely on the platform, without any kind of warning or label.

Enabled by Facebook’s rules, Trump’s reelection campaign has shown versions of the false claim on Facebook at least 22.5 million times, in more than 1,400 ads costing between $350,000 and $553,000, a Washington Post analysis found based on data from Facebook’s Ad Library. The ads, bought by the campaign directly or in a partnership with the Republican National Committee, were targeted at Facebook users mainly in swing states such as Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, Florida and Pennsylvania. Continue reading.

Foreign policy experts struggle to explain Trump’s devotion to Vladimir Putin

AlterNet logoAmericans who are old enough to remember the Cold War find it ironic that President Donald Trump has such a favorable view of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump’s relationship with Putin is the focus of an op-ed that Jim Sciutto, CNN’s chief national security correspondent, wrote for its website — and according to Sciutto, their relationship is one that foreign policy experts and former members of Trump’s administration have a hard time explaining.

“When interviewing current and former Trump administration officials for my upcoming book, ‘The Madman Theory: Trump Takes on the World,’ I found that explaining Trump’s deference to Russia was one of the most difficult questions for them to answer,” Sciutto explains. “And even they acknowledged the record fails to back up the president.”

Sciutto asked Susan Gordon, former principal deputy director of national intelligence, what Trump believes he needs Putin for — and she responded, “To not be an adversary. To not drive up (Trump’s) need to respond militarily. To not force (him) to spend money in places (he doesn’t) want to. To not have someone who (he) won’t deal with. To not create another front where (he has) to engage militarily. (Russia) are so powerful that to have them as an enemy is not in (the) best interest of what he’s trying to achieve globally, and from a U.S. perspective.” Continue reading.

Pence’s hyped-up claims of ‘voter fraud’ in Indiana

Washington Post logo“Make no mistake about it. The reality of voter fraud is undeniable. We’ve seen case after case around the country where there have been prosecutions. … In my own state of Indiana in 2012, there was a Democrat super PAC that was involved in our elections, that literally, there was a group of people that were prosecuted for falsifying ballots. This happens, Martha.”

— Vice President Pence, remarks during an interview on “The Story With Martha MacCallum,” July 28

Everyone sometimes mixes up dates, and Pence did not get the year right. In 2012, the most noteworthy voter fraud case in Indiana involved a Republican — when former secretary of state Charlie White was convicted of six Class D felony charges, including voter fraud, perjury and theft. “Prosecutors said he voted and took pay as a Fishers Town Council member of a district in which he no longer lived,” the Indianapolis Star reported.

Pence actually meant to say 2016. We have noted before that there are relatively few cases of voter fraud, not “case after case.” But for the purposes of this fact check, is Pence correct when he claims that people associated with a Democratic super PAC were prosecuted for “voter fraud” and “falsifying ballots”? Continue reading.

With bad coronavirus news at home, Trump points misleadingly to rising cases abroad

NOTE: This article is being provided free of charge by The Washington Post.

Washington Post logoThe Debrief: An occasional series offering a reporter’s insights

With coronavirus cases nearing 5 million in the United States and average daily deaths topping 1,000, the United States is the hottest hot spot in the ongoing global pandemic — a ranking that wasn’t exactly what President Trump had in mind with his “America First” doctrine.

You wouldn’t know it, however, to hear the president describe the U.S. performance in handling the virus; he called it “an amazing job, a great job” on Monday, and recited a list of other countries experiencing a rebound in infections.

In recent days, Trump has increasingly pointed to the experiences of other countries in an attempt to dilute the bad news at home and justify the largely hands-off federal response, which has included no national mandates or lockdowns. Continue reading.