Category: 2020 Election

Trump pitches Trump as suburbs’ guardian, foe of climate rules

The president touted moves to cut regulations and said a November loss to Joe Biden would destroy suburban America

For the third time in as many days, President Donald Trump set his sights on a familiar target: regulations.

In a rambling and fear-mongering speech Thursday afternoon at the White House, Trump, fresh from a trip to Atlanta where he unveiled new rules to make construction projects easier to build by limiting the study of their environmental ramifications, touted his administration’s moves to cut regulations. He said his loss at the ballot box in November to former Vice President Joe Biden, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, would destroy suburban America.

“Joe Biden and the radical left want to significantly multiply what they’re doing now,” Trump said of his campaign opponent. “What the end result will be is you will totally destroy the beautiful suburbs,” he said. “Suburbia will be no longer as we know it.” Continue reading.

‘It was like being preyed upon’: Portland protesters say federal officers in unmarked vans are detaining them

Washington Post logoFederal customs officials said Friday that their agents had detained a demonstrator in Portland, Ore., in a widely seen video circulating online that showed two men in apparent military garb taking a young man wearing all black into custody, defending the apprehension by describing the man as being suspected of attacking federal agents and property.

This defense came as federal authorities were under criticism for their tactics from elected officials, civil rights activists and demonstrators, including one in Portland who described being “terrified” during a similar encounter.

In a statement on Friday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said that its agents had taken the action in the video and that they “had information indicating the person in the video was suspected of assaults against federal agents or destruction of federal property.” Continue reading.

Who would kick millions off health insurance in the middle of a pandemic? Yes, Trump.

Washington Post logoIn the midst of a pandemic — when Americans most need health insurance, and millions can’t find work — the Trump administration wants to kick Americans off their health insurance if they aren’t working.

Heartless, but it’s true.

This week, the Trump administration and the state of Arkansas asked the Supreme Court to allow reinstatement of Medicaid work requirements. This disastrous policy was struck down by lower courts last year after causing 18,000 low-income Arkansans to lose their insurance. Subsequent research found that 95 percent of residents targeted by the policy were working, or had qualified for an exemption. They were kicked off Medicaid all the same. Continue reading.

GOP to Trump: Change tune on mail-in voting or risk ugly November

Republican officials throughout the country are reacting with growing alarm to President Donald Trump’s attacks on mail-in ballots, saying his unsubstantiated claims of mass voting fraud are already corroding the views of GOP voters, who may ultimately choose not to vote at all if they can’t make it to the polls come November.

Behind the scenes, top Republicans are urging senior Trump campaign officials to press the President to change his messaging and embrace mail-in voting, warning that the party could lose the battle for control of Congress and the White House if he doesn’t change his tune, according to multiple GOP sources. Trump officials, sources said, are fully aware of the concerns.

The impact could be detrimental to the GOP up and down the ticket, according to a bevy of Republican election officials, field operatives, pollsters and lawmakers who are watching the matter closely. Every vote will count in critical battleground states, they argue, fearful that deterring GOP voters from choosing a convenient option to cast their ballots could ultimately sway the outcome of races that are decided by a couple of percentage points. Continue reading.

Corporate Lobbyists Run Amok In Trump’s White House

The Donald is in a funk. He’s been outsmarted by an inert virus. His poll numbers are tanking, and even his demagogic pep rallies are falling flat.

So, who to turn to for political comfort? Why, of course, Trump’s true loyalists: his diehard cadre of Washington’s corporate lobbyists. I don’t merely mean those elites of K-Street and Wall Street who dominate his Cabinet, constituting the official Trump government of, by, and for corporate greed. He also has a “kitchen cabinet.” Operating out of public view, it’s an unofficial collection of highly paid influence peddlers who’re still practicing the dark art of bending government power to the wishes of selfish corporate interests. Each of them is paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by brand-name clients — from Amazon to Walgreens — to get favors from Trump. In turn, these little-known lobbyists have now adopted The Donald as their chief client, funneling millions of special-interest dollars into his reelection campaign with the understanding that he’ll keep channeling tax breaks, regulatory exemptions and public dollars to the corporate donors. It’s the Washington money-go-round, merrily corrupting our government.

Who are these no-name corrupters? David Urban is one, considered the best-connected corporate huckster in the Trump swamp. He’s an old college pal of both Pentagon chief Mark Esper and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Moreover, he’s become such a close buddy of Donald himself that he’s known as a “Trump Whisperer,” able to work around the furies that rage in that strange orange head. Continue reading.

Pompeo says protesters and mainstream media are attacking American way of life

Washington Post logoSecretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday that the American way of life and its founding principles are “under attack,” focusing his criticism on voices in the mainstream news media and protesters who have torn down statues of historical figures.

Speaking as he unveiled the first report of the Commission on Unalienable Rights, Pompeo said the events roiling the United States are antithetical to the nation’s ideals. Both Pompeo and the 60-page report, made public by the commission after a year of work, said property rights and religious freedom are the foremost unalienable rights.

“And yet today, the very core of what it means to be an American, indeed the American way of life itself, is under attack. Instead of seeking to improve America, leading voices promulgate hatred of our founding principles,” he said in his speech at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Continue reading.

Unpublished White House report recommends stricter coronavirus measures in hard-hit states

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

Washington Post logoAn unpublished report by the White House Coronavirus Task Force dated Tuesday suggests that at least 18 hard-hit states — including California, Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma and Texas — enact stricter measures such as mask requirements and increased testing. The report was first published by the Center for Public Integrity.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) on Thursday sued to stop Atlanta from enforcing some of its coronavirus-related rules, including its recent mandate to wear a face covering in public.

The lawsuit alleges that Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) lacked the authority to implement a mask requirement and that she must obey Kemp’s executive orders, including one signed Wednesday night that explicitly bans municipalities from enacting their own mask ordinances. Continue reading.

Republicans scale back convention in Jacksonville due to coronavirus concerns

The Hill logoRepublicans announced Thursday they will scale back the Republican National Convention in August as coronavirus cases rise in Florida, where President Trump is expected to deliver a speech accepting his party’s nomination for reelection.

Ronna Romney McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), informed members of the decision in a letter on Thursday that blamed the pandemic for the changes.

The letter states that admittance to the convention in Jacksonville, Fla., will be limited only to regular delegates for the first three days, amounting to a crowd of about 2,500 people. Trump shifted the site of the celebration from North Carolina to Florida when it appeared the Jacksonville site might allow for large gatherings. Continue reading.

Senator Melisa Franzen Responds to Minnesota Women for Trump Event

SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA -DFL Party State Senator Melisa Franzen (District 49) released the following statement in response to the today’s Women for Trump event in Minnesota:

“Donald Trump has consistently failed to take the COVID-19 pandemic seriously, and the impact of that stunning failure has fallen disproportionately on women, especially women of color. 

“Trump’s inability to implement any meaningful COVID-19 testing, tracing, and mitigation strategy has allowed this deadly virus to spread throughout the country, taking over 138,000 American lives and costing millions of Americans their jobs.

“Women, and particularly women of color, have lost their jobs at much higher rates as a result of the economic damage brought on by Trump’s negligent response to this pandemic. No amount of campaign stunts can paper over the fact that Donald Trump has been a terrible president for women across Minnesota and across America.”

Trump’s flawed Rose Garden assault on Joe Biden

Washington Post logoPresident Trump’s media event Tuesday — which was mostly an extended monologue — was like watching our database of Trumpian claims unroll in real time. So many of Trump’s rhetorical favorites were tossed out — that he had built the best economy in U.S. history (no), that he inherited few ventilators (no), that he overrode his aides to impose some travel restrictions on China (no), that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) “danced” in the streets in defiance of the coronavirus (no), that he “rebuilt” a “totally depleted” military (no), that the European Union was formed to take advantage of the United States (no). It went on and on.

But rather than rehash old ground, in this roundup we will focus on Trump’s claims against his election rival, former vice president Joe Biden. Violating norms and protocol, the president used the august setting of the Rose Garden for a sustained campaign-style attack. Here are some of the more noteworthy claims he made. We don’t award Pinocchios in roundups, but many of these statements are wildly off-course. Continue reading “Trump’s flawed Rose Garden assault on Joe Biden”