Category: 2020 Election

How the Republican Convention Created Money Woes in Two Cities

New York Times logoDonors are wondering why they gave to a Charlotte event that has mostly been scrapped. And Jacksonville fund-raisers find money is on hold because of concerns about the surge in virus cases.

WASHINGTON — The abrupt uprooting of the Republican National Convention from Charlotte to Jacksonville has created a tangled financial predicament for party officials as they effectively try to pay for two big events instead of one.

Tens of millions of dollars have already been spent in a city that will now host little more than a G.O.P. business meeting, and donors are wary of opening their wallets again to bankroll a Jacksonville gathering thrown into uncertainty by a surge in coronavirus cases.

Organizers are trying to assuage vexed Republicans who collectively gave millions of dollars for a Charlotte event that has mostly been scrapped. The host committee there has spent virtually all of the $38 million it raised before the convention was moved, leaving almost nothing to return to donors, or to pass on to the new host city. Continue reading.

Investigative journalist who’s covered Trump for 35 years explains why you need to take Mary’s Trump’s book seriously

AlterNet logoMary Trump’s book deserves your close attention because the president’s niece has two advantages that the small band of us who have studied Trump closely over the years do not.

First, she’s family. No one knows you like your family. Your family knows how you behaved at crucial moments when life changing events occur — births, deaths, divorces, medical emergencies and weddings — as well as mundane events like Saturday breakfast.

The 55-year-old daughter of Donald Trump’s older brother is the first Trump family insider to go public about his behavior since he announced his run for the presidency more than five years ago. Her most chilling anecdote is about how as first son Fred Trump Jr. was rushed to a hospital where he died, Donald and his sister Elizabeth went to the movies and the parents stayed home. Continue reading.

 

Trump could sink the House GOP in suburbia

President Donald Trump’s continuing erosion among well-educated voterslooms as perhaps the most imposing headwind to Republican hopes of recapturing the House of Representatives in November — or even avoiding further losses in the chamber.

In 2018, a suburban revolt against Trump powered Democrats to sweeping gains in white-collar House districts from coast to coast. The backlash left the GOP holding only about one-fourth of all House districts that have more college graduates than the national average, down from more than two-fifths before the election, according to a new CNN analysis of census data.

Now, recent national and district-level polls signal that many of the well-educated voters souring on Trump are also displaying more resistance to Republican congressional candidates than in 2018 — potentially much more. Continue reading.

Here’s why a new rule could result in Trump losing his diploma from Wharton

AlterNet logoIn 2019, a college admissions scandal rocked the country. Thus far it has resulted in 53 people being charged with cheating the system, paying for people to take standardized tests and paying their way into schools. Over the 7-year investigation, the FBI uncovered everyone from celebrities to wealthy families for conspiracy to commit felony mail fraud and honest services mail fraud.

In response to the scandal, the University of Pennsylvania announced that would revoke the degree of any graduate found to have given false information in an admission application, cheated on an exam or tampered with their records, The Daily Pennsylvanian reported.

“Penn’s new policy details the investigation process after potential misconduct is discovered,” the college paper reported. “An investigation can be launched if information is found that confirms or suggests wrongdoing in the process of obtaining the degree. Graduates will have the option to come to an agreement to possibly voluntarily give up the degree, or a formal investigation and hearing will be launched. Continue reading.

Biden criticizes Trump camp for taking aim at Tammy Duckworth

Washington Post logoJoe Biden sharply criticized President Trump’s campaign Tuesday for attacking Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), escalating a conflict between Trump and one of Biden’s potential running mates who is a Purple Heart recipient and a double amputee.

Speaking at a virtual fundraiser that Duckworth also attended, the presumptive Democratic nominee said it was “disgusting, sickening” of Trump’s circle to question her patriotism and that it was a “reflection of the depravity of what’s going on in the White House right now.”

The back-and-forth began Sunday, when Duckworth was asked on CNN about activists’ demands that statues of George Washington be removed because he owned slaves. Duckworth replied that there should be a “national dialogue on it at some point,” and when pressed further, she added, “I think we should listen to everybody. I think we should listen to the argument there.” Continue reading.

Trump’s convention bash upended by Florida’s coronavirus crisis

MIAMI — President Donald Trump redirected the Republican National Convention to Florida after North Carolina’s Democratic governor couldn’t “guarantee” a full venue in August because of the coronavirus pandemic.

But with coronavirus cases skyrocketing in Florida as Trump’s poll numbers drop in his must-win battleground state, it looks like the president won’t get his full-blown festivities there, either.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a close Trump ally, refused to say on Tuesday whether he would lift a rule mandating that indoor gatherings stay under 50 percent capacity — which would hold the Jacksonville convention to 7,500 people. Two octogenarian GOP senators, Lamar Alexander and Chuck Grassley, announced they wouldn’t attend the convention amid the pandemic, which has hit the elderly the hardest. Continue reading. Continue reading.

Trump’s attacks on mail voting are turning Republicans off absentee ballots

Washington Post logoPresident Trump’s relentless attacks on the security of mail voting are driving suspicion among GOP voters toward absentee ballots — a dynamic alarming Republican strategists, who say it could undercut their own candidates, including Trump himself.

In several primaries this spring, Democratic voters have embraced mail ballots in far larger numbers than Republicans during a campaign season defined by the coronavirus pandemic. And when they urge their supporters to vote by mail, GOP campaigns around the country are hearing from more and more Republican voters who say they do not trust absentee ballots, according to multiple strategists. In one particularly vivid example, a group of Michigan voters held a public burning of their absentee ballot applications last month.

The growing Republican antagonism toward voting by mail comes even as the Trump campaign is launching a major absentee-ballot program in every competitive state, according to multiple campaign advisers — a delicate balancing act, considering what one strategist described as the president’s “imprecision” on the subject. Continue reading.

They Can’t Stomach Trump. They’re Sufficiently Comfortable With Biden.

New York Times logoSome voters who disliked both nominees in 2016 chose a third-party candidate instead. Now, many of them are shunning President Trump and are ready to back Joe Biden.

In Florida in 2016, J.C. Planas, a former Republican state representative, was uncomfortable with Hillary Clinton but detested Donald Trump, so he wrote in former Gov. Jeb Bush for president.

In New Hampshire that year, Peter J. Spaulding, a longtime Republican official, supported the Libertarian ticket.

And in Arizona, Lorena Burns, 56, also voted third party, seeing the choice between Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton as a contest between “two bads.” Continue reading.

‘As bad as it gets’: Here’s what GOP consultants secretly admit about Trump

AlterNet logoFox News and AM talk radio are full of GOP strategists and consultants who are happy to go on the air and recite pro-Trump talking points, but it’s often the anonymous quotes in outlets outside the right-wing bubble that offer insights on what Republicans are really thinking about President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign. Never Trump conservative Tim Miller interviewed nine different GOP consultants for a Rolling Stone article published this week, and they candidly discussed Trump’s chances of winning a second term.

“I’m sure some, if not most, Republican consultants and candidates snicker at Trump from time to time,” Miller writes. “In private. At the bar. Very quietly. Off the record.” But Miller also stressed that some of them showed “an emotional alliance with the president that is deeper than they might let on in mixed company.”

Some of the consultants admitted that unless things change between now and November, former Vice President Joe Biden will be sworn in as president in January 2021. According to one consultant, “Every shred of evidence points to a likely ass kicking in the fall” — and the consultant wasn’t referring to Biden. Another admitted, “Well, it’s as bad as it gets right now,” and one of the consultants told Miller, “I’ve got Trump down in Texas.” Continue reading.

Mary Trump book: How she leaked Trump financials to NYT

Axios logoIn her new memoir, President Trump’s niece reveals how she leaked hordes of confidential Trump family financial documents to the New York Times in an effort to expose her uncle, whom she portrays as a dangerous sociopath.

Why it matters: Trump was furious when he found out recently that Mary Trump, a trained psychologist, would be publishing a tell-all memoir. And Trump’s younger brother, Robert, tried and failed to block the publication of “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.”

  • Axios obtained a copy ahead of the expected release later this month.

Behind the scenes: In what reads like a scene out of Spotlight, Mary Trump tells the story for the first time of how she secretly gave the New York Times much of the source material for its 14,000 word investigation of how “President Trump participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the fortune he received from his parents.” Continue reading.