Category: 2020 Election

Black NASCAR driver targeted by Trump calls out the president’s ‘hate’

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump has been lambasting NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace, who is African-American, after an FBI investigation into a noose left in his garage stall found no evidence of a crime. The investigation showed that the noose had been left in the garage long before Wallace started using it, leading Trump to say that Wallace should apologize to NASCAR.

But there’s no evidence of any wrongdoing on Wallace’s part, and many believed the noose was evidence of an attempt to intimidate him. On Monday, Wallace responded to the president by denouncing his unprovoked attacks.

In a statement, Wallace told the “next generation” that “your words and actions will always be held to a higher standard than others. You have to be prepared for that. You don’t learn these things in school. You learn them from trial and tribulations, the ups and downs this crazy world provides.” Continue reading.

Fox News regrets ‘mistakenly’ editing Donald Trump out of photo with Jeffrey Epstein

AlterNet logoFox News on Monday confirmed that the network had edited President Donald Trump out of a photo in which he appeared with convicted sexual offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The incident occurred during a broadcast on Sunday covering the arrest of Epstein confidant Ghislaine Maxwell.

In a statement to Raw Story on Monday, Fox News said that it regretted “mistakenly” excluding Trump from the photo. Continue reading.

White House Hopes Americans ‘Grow Numb’ To Escalating Virus Death Toll

In recent weeks, President Donald Trump has been claiming that COVID-19 has been mostly defeated in the U.S. — which is laughable in light of how much infection rates have been surging, especially in Sun Belt states. But according to Washington Post reporters Yasmeen Abutaleb and Josh Dawsey, Team Trump has found a new coronavirus talking point: claiming that Americans can learn to live with the pandemic and the ever-climbing death count.

According to Abutaleb and Dawsey, the “goal” of Trump’s White House and campaign allies “is to convince Americans that they can live with the virus — that schools should reopen, professional sports should return, a vaccine is likely to arrive by the end of the year, and the economy will continue to improve. White House officials also hope Americans will grow numb to the escalating death toll and learn to accept tens of thousands of new cases a day, according to three people familiar with the White House’s thinking, who requested anonymity to reveal internal deliberations.”

A Trump Administration senior official, quoted anonymously, told the Post that Americans will “live with the virus being a threat.” And a former Trump official, according to the Post, said of Trump’s allies, “They’re of the belief that people will get over it, or if we stop highlighting it, the base will move on — and the public will learn to accept 50,000 to 100,000 new cases a day.” Continue reading.

Trump downplaying sparks new criticism of COVID-19 response

The Hill logoPresident Trump‘s repeated downplaying of the coronavirus pandemic is under renewed scrutiny as COVID-19 case numbers rise, and public health experts and Democrats are saying he is making it worse by effectively denying that the growing outbreaks are a problem.

The U.S. is expected to see a new high of 60,000 new COVID-19 cases a day this week, far above the peak when New York was the epicenter of the outbreak in April. Now there are four epicenters in the U.S. where hospitals are quickly becoming overwhelmed.

Outbreaks are growing in Arizona, Texas, Florida and California, which experts say are the new epicenters of the epidemic in the U.S. There is no end to these surges in sight and cases are increasing in 40 states, compared to just 10 a few months ago. Continue reading.

Enraged By Fox News Poll, Trump Urges Viewers To Change Channels

Donald Trump ended the July Fourth holiday weekend by rage-tweeting at Fox News after the outlet reported that public polling shows he would lose to presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden if the election were held today.

“@FoxNews gladly puts up the phony suppression polls as soon as they come out. We are leading in the REAL polls because people are sick & tired of watching the Democrat run cities, in all cases, falling apart. Also, now 96% Approval Rating in the Republican Party. Another 2016!” Trump tweeted Sunday afternoon.

He added, “@FoxNews weekend afternoons is the worst! Getting into @CNN and MSDNC territory. Watch @OANN & @newsmax instead. Much better!” Continue reading.

Publisher moves up release of book by Trump niece

Mary Trump’s account describes the president as scarred as a child by a lack of parental attention.

The publisher of a tell-all book written by President Donald Trump’s niece Mary is planning to rush the book out next Tuesday despite ongoing litigation aimed at bottling up the insider account of life in the Trump family.

Simon & Schuster announced Monday that “due to high demand and extraordinary interest” the firm is moving up the book’s publication date by two weeks, to July 14 from July 28.

The publishing house also revealed new details about the scathing portrait of her uncle that Mary Trump will unveil in the book: “Too Much and Never Enough, How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.” Continue reading.

Trump expected to refile paperwork to end DACA this week

The Hill logoPresident Trump is expected to refile paperwork this week to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that offers protections for thousands of young immigrants, according to multiple people familiar with the planning.

Trump was initially expected to move to once again rescind the Obama-era program last week, but it was pushed back, according to one source. The exact timing remains in flux, but Trump is now expected to file the paperwork this week.

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows hinted in an interview with Fox News earlier Monday that the president was readying executive action on immigration issues, though he did not offer specifics. Continue reading.

President Trump says Bubba Wallace should apologize, calls noose incident a ‘hoax’

Washington Post logoPresident Trump said Monday on Twitter that NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace should apologize to those who stood beside him after his racing team discovered a noose in his garage stall at Talladega Superspeedway on June 21, describing the incident as a “hoax.” Trump added an assertion that the Wallace incident and NASCAR’s ban on the Confederate flag at its races have led to historically low television ratings for the stock-car circuit.

The tweet was the latest in a string of racially tinged overtures Trump has made to his political base as he runs for reelection amid a national reckoning prompted by the death in May of George Floyd, a black man, in Minneapolis police custody and the nationwide protests that followed. In recent weeks, Trump has threatened to veto a defense-spending bill if it includes a provision to rename bases honoring Confederate generals, promised lengthy prison sentences for those who damage federal monuments and stoked a cultural war in a pair of Independence Day speeches. Appearing before Mount Rushmore on Friday night, he pledged to “safeguard our values, traditions, customs and beliefs.”

After investigating, the FBI announced June 23 that no hate crime had been committedbecause the rope, which had been tied into a noose-like knot and used as a garage door pull, had been in that particular garage since October, when NASCAR previously raced at Talladega. Continue reading.

Supreme Court rules states can penalize faithless electors

Axios logoThe Supreme Court unanimously ruled Monday that states can penalize faithless electors, the members of the Electoral College who do not support the winner of their state’s popular vote in a presidential election.

Why it matters: The 2016 presidential election saw 10 electors vote for someone other than their state’s chosen candidate — highlighting how faithless electors could have the potential to swing an election.

  • 32 states and Washington, D.C. require their electors to cast their Electoral College votes for the winner of their respective statewide popular vote.
  • Before 2016, a modern presidential election had never seen more than one faithless elector — prompting states to move ahead with their legal challenge.

Continue reading.

Here’s Trump’s one last line of defense before his approval ratings ‘collapse into the teens’: reporter

AlterNet logoAppearing on MSNBC’s “AM JOY” with guest host Tiffany Cross, Vanity Fair journalist Gabriel Sherman said Donald Trump’s chances of staying in office hinge on working with Fox News personalities and should the network turn on him — specifically as the coronavirus pandemic grows worse — he stands no chance of being re-elected.

Asked by host Cross if there is “any way to penetrate that layer of ignorance of the Fox News viewer or the Fox News anchor,” Sherman said that is the only thing that is keeping the president’s re-election hopes afloat.

“You know, what you pointed out is that Fox News is really the last line of defense that Donald Trump has,” Sherman explained. “Consistently Donald Trump’s approval ratings have been in the low 40s to low 30s. That is largely because that 30 percent core of supporters that are unmovable are the diehard Fox News viewer.” Continue reading.