Jake Tapper Abruptly Ends Interview With Trump Aide: ‘Just Answer The Question’

The CNN host asked White House trade adviser Peter Navarro why the president misled the public on the coronavirus. It didn’t go well.

CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday abruptly ended an interview with White House trade adviser Peter Navarro following a tense exchange about President Donald Trump’s decision to initially downplay the threat of the coronavirus.

During a segment on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Tapper asked Navarro to discuss a Feb. 7 recording with journalist Bob Woodward, released last week, in which Trump said the virus is five times deadlier than the flu.

In the weeks following the recorded conversation, Trump continued to hold large rallies despite knowing the virus was airborne and deadly. On Feb. 26, he told reporters that the flu was more dangerous than the coronavirus. Continue reading.

Trump busted for claiming he received non-existent ‘Bay of Pigs Award’ in baffling Twitter rant

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Following news that billionaire Michael Bloomberg is sinking $100 million into Florida to boost Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and defeat Donald Trump in November, the president first attacked Bloomberg on Twitter and then laid claim to an award that he stated was bestowed upon him by some of Florida’s Cuban-Americans.

As CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale explains, there is no such thing as the awkwardly named “Bay of Pigs Award.”

According to Trump, “Sleepy Joe Biden has spent 47 years in politics being terrible to Hispanics. Now he is relying on Castro lover Bernie Sanders to help him out. That won’t work! Remember, Miami Cubans gave me the highly honored Bay of Pigs Award for all I have done for our great Cuban Population!” Continue reading.

Former FBI Agent Peter Strzok: Trump Clearly ‘Compromised By The Russians’

“They hold leverage over him that makes him incapable of placing the national interests … ahead of his own,” Strzok said.

A former FBI agent who worked on then-special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election said it’s “clear” that President Donald Trump was “compromised by the Russians.”

Former FBI counterintelligence officer Peter Strzok told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he believed the Kremlin gained “leverage” over Trump through certain “financial entanglements.”

“Look, I think it is clear: I believed at the time in 2016, and I continue to believe that Donald Trump is compromised by the Russians,” Strzok told host Chuck Todd. “And when I say that, I mean that they hold leverage over him that makes him incapable of placing the national interests, the national security, ahead of his own.” Continue reading.

Trump makes it clear: He revels in the killing of his political opponents

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For all the demands that former Vice President Joe Biden condemn rioting and looting, no serious observer actually thinks he supports violence in the streets. The most plausible criticism of Biden is that he’s a creature of the existing political system — a product of and adherent to the established institutional order. He doesn’t want violence and chaos to shake the foundations of society.

President Donald Trump, on the other hand, really does relish chaos, and he cares little for any institutions that he doesn’t see as directly benefiting him. And in a new Fox News interview this weekend, he made clear that he’s not just a fan of violence — a view he has expressed repeatedly, even if he occasionally reads from scripts that say the opposite — but he is actively pleased by the deaths of his political enemies.

While discussing with host Jeanine Pirro the fact that U.S. Marshals — a part of the Justice Department, a part of Trump’s administration — killed the avowed antifa activist Michael Forest Reinoehl, the president expressed no regret at his death. In fact, he was triumphant about the killing.

Here’s the section of the transcript, per Factba.se: Continue reading.

RNC Chair Ridiculed For Criticizing Joe Biden’s Coronavirus Response

“Ronna’s right, it’s time to vote President Biden out of office and elect Trump to fix the mess of the last four years,” one critic cracked.

Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel faced ridicule on Sunday after she attacked Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden for what she called his “disastrous record responding to the coronavirus.” 

Unlike the leader of McDaniels’ party, the former vice president has not been in office during the COVID-19 pandemic that has killed more than 190,000 people and infected more than 6.5 million in the U.S. 

“Joe Biden can’t run from his disastrous record responding to the coronavirus,” McDaniel tweeted. “The truth hurts, Joe!”  Continue reading.

Bill Barr had deep links to the origins of Central American migration crisis long before Trump

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We look at how decades of U.S. military intervention in Central America have led to the ongoing migrant crisis, with Salvadoran American journalist Roberto Lovato, author of the new book “Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas.” Lovato recounts his own family’s migration from El Salvador to the United States, his return to the country as a young man to fight against the U.S.-backed right-wing government responsible for grave human rights violations, and his embrace of journalism to tell the stories of people on the margins. “I’m unforgetting a history of not just El Salvador, but the United States and of myself,” says Lovato.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González, as we spend the rest of the hour looking at how decades of U.S. military intervention in Central America has led to the migrant crisis of today. Continue reading.

Biden leans into COVID-19 to argue Trump mishandled economy

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Joe Biden is seeking to force President Trump to play defense on the one issue where he’s had a consistent polling advantage: the economy. 

The Biden campaign is increasingly using the coronavirus pandemic to make the case that Trump has failed voters on economic issues. 

In recent days, it has sought to connect COVID-19’s economic fallout, from record-high unemployment to the closures of businesses and schools, directly to Trump.  Continue reading.

Trump’s political henchmen are corrupting the administration to keep Americans in the dark

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September 12, 2020

Last night, at about 10:30, reporter Dan Diamond posted another blockbuster story in Politico. Political appointees at the Department of Health and Human Services have been altering the weekly scientific reports issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) following the course of the coronavirus pandemic. They believe the reports are undermining Trump’s cheery pronouncements about the disease, and claim there is a “deep state” at the CDC determined to hurt the president.

Since 1981, career scientists have compiled weekly Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports to inform Americans about trends in disease. These records are not controversial. But in April, Trump passed over scientists to install one of his campaign advisers as assistant secretary of HHS for public affairs. Michael Caputo was a long-time Republican operative, an associate of Roger Stone who had worked for Russia’s Gasprom Media to improve the image of Vladimir Putin in the US.

Caputo promptly began trying to change the CDC reports on Covid. Although he has no background in medicine or science, he and his team claim that the scientists are exaggerating the dangers of Covid-19. An aide, Paul Alexander, wrote an email to CDC Director Robert Redfield calling for retroactive modifications to two reports, saying, “CDC to me appears to be writing hit pieces on the administration.” Alexander, recruited by Caputo from his position as an assistant professor of health research at Hamiliton’s McMaster University in Canada, has demanded that the CDC stop issuing reports until he is given the right to review them before publication and to make line edits. Continue reading.

Trump holds Nevada rally, Biden gets $100 million boost from Bloomberg in Florida

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President Trump is on a campaign swing out West this weekend, while former vice president Joe Biden attended a church service in Wilmington, Del., but has no public events. The president holds a Latinos for Trump roundtable in Las Vegas on Sunday morning, followed by two fundraisers and an evening rally in Henderson, Nev.

Biden, who is leading Trump in the money race, got even more good news in the form of a pledge by former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg to spend at least $100 million in Florida to help elect the Democratic presidential nominee.

Trump’s Nevada visit comes as he continues to defend his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, after the release of an interview with Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward in which Trump acknowledged he played down the severity of the virus. Continue reading.

The president who says the coronavirus will go away makes the same prediction about global warming

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There are a range of policy issues on which President Trump’s approach varies dramatically from that of his opponent in this year’s presidential contest, former vice president Joe Biden. But on none is the difference more stark than on the issue of climate change.

Even on the coronavirus pandemic, Trump at least will occasionally pay lip service to the need to follow the lead of scientific experts. But on atmospheric warming — manifested dramatically in recent weeks in massive wildfires on the West Coast — Trump is far more likely to smirk.

Consider an exchange that took place in California at an event focused on the fires. Wade Crowfoot, head of the state’s Natural Resources Agency, called on Trump to recognize the role of climate change in the historic conflagrations. Continue reading.