Tag: GOP OK with Trump sleaze

Trump Says He ‘Learned From Nixon’ — But Did He?

Donald Trump on Friday morning defended his behavior and comments surrounding the Russi investigation, saying he “learned a lot from Richard Nixon” about how to handle probes into his administration.

“I learned a lot. I study history,” Trump said in an interview with Fox & Friends — referring to what he learned from Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre,” in which Nixon fired Department of Justice officials looking into his handling of the Watergate scandal.

“And the firing of everybody — I should’ve in one way, but I’m glad I didn’t because look at the way it turned out. They’re all a bunch of crooks and they got caught.” Continue reading.

The Trump campaign’s egregious editing of a CNN clip

Washington Post logoRegular readers know that The Fact Checker has been keeping close tabs on misleading or manipulated campaign videos. We have faulted both the Biden campaign and the Trump campaign for using snippets of quotes in misleading ways or out of context.

But this Trump ad, “American Comeback,” is unusual because CNN has written a cease-and-desist letter to President Trump’s reelection campaign, saying that remarks of two of its stars have been edited to give a false impression. The network said it would refuse to air the ad. The campaign rejected the complaint, saying the ad was “demonstrably accurate.”

That’s wrong. This is yet another clear example of how campaign ad-makers twist quotes and images to leave a false impression. The ad suggests Trump’s move to restrict travel by non-U.S. citizens from China is a key factor in the United States avoiding as many as 2 million deaths during the coronavirus outbreak.

HINT:  Maximum Pinocchios

Republicans made a deal with the devil — and the bill is coming due

AlterNet logoDonald Trump’s approval ratings over the coronavirus pandemic are in free fall, having tumbled 10 points over the last month, to 39% in a new Emerson poll. This comports with the FiveThirtyEight tracking of Trump’s overall approval, which shows that after a short rally-round-the-flag response to the coronavirus, the public is starting to understand that the man who goes on TV and suggests injecting household cleaning products is a complete imbecile. Moreover, he’s the principal reason the U.S. has a massive shortfall in testing and four times as many official cases of COVID-19 as the second most hard-hit country, Spain. (This is without taking into account, unfortunately, how much the Chinese government may have fudged that nation’s numbers.)

That said, Trump’s overall approval numbers still aren’t dipping below his baseline of about 42%, which appears to be immovable. That’s because Trump’s base voters care about sticking it to the liberals more than they care about anything else, including their own health, their jobs or protecting our country from total collapse.

That puts Republicans running in 2020, especially endangered incumbents in swing states, in quite a bind. Yes, we’re talking about you, Susan Collins — along with other precarious GOP senators like Cory Gardner of Colorado, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Martha McSally of Arizona. To align themselves fully with the orange overlord is to alienate the possible swing voters who aren’t too keen on the “inject disinfectants” platform. But if they try to distance themselves from President Clorox Chewables too much, they risk bringing down Trump’s Twitter wrath unto them and alienating those base voters they will absolutely need to have any hope of surviving what looks to be a tough election cycle for their party. Continue reading.

Trump Organization Seeking Aid From U.K., Ireland For Golf Resorts

Donald Trump’s dual roles as a president and a private businessman with his hand out to foreign governments raise ethics concerns.

In yet another mind-blowing business situation for an American president, Donald Trump’s company is seeking handouts from foreign governments for three struggling golf resorts.

The Trump Organization is after aid from the British and Irish governments to cover most of the wages of employees who have been furloughed because of COVID-19 lockdowns, Bloomberg reports.

Ironically, the 2,000 Trump employees laid off in his own country won’t get the same government help. Continue reading.

President Trump made 18,000 false or misleading claims in 1,170 days

Washington Post logoWhen we last updated our database of President Trump’s false or misleading claims, it was on Jan. 19, the end of his third year as president. The president’s most frequently repeated false claim was that he presided over the best economy in the history of the United States.

The next day, the first confirmed case of the novel coronavirus was reported in the United States. So, with this update through April 3, we’ve added a new category — coronavirus — that already has more than 350 items. Much has changed in the world, with stay-at-home orders, massive economic disruption and topsy-turvy securities markets, but one thing has remained constant — the president’s prolific twisting of the truth.

As of April 3, Trump’s 1,170th day in office, our database shows that he has made 18,000 false or misleading claims. That’s an average of more than 15 claims a day, though since our last update 75 days ago, he’s been averaging just over 23 claims a day. That’s slightly higher than the 22 a day he recorded in 2019. Continue reading.

Trump Says COVID-19 Supply Is Under Control, He Doesn’t Need A Czar

Meanwhile, health care workers treating coronavirus patients don’t have enough masks, and officials are turning to the black market.

President Donald Trump is rejecting calls to put a single military commander in charge of medical supplies for the COVID-19 pandemic.

He says that his administration has the supply situation under control and that appointing a new “czar” makes no sense when he’s already got several military commanders working on the federal response.

But the calls for a czar, a single authority, are coming from a lot of people, including Democratic elected officials and advocates for frontline medical workers. They say the supply situation remains a crisis, especially when it comes to the widespread shortages of protective gear.  Continue reading.

Whistleblower’s attorney says team now representing ‘multiple’ officials as impeachment inquiry expands

Washington Post logoAn attorney for the whistleblower who sounded the alarm about President Trump’s pressure on Ukraine said Sunday that “multiple” whistleblowers have come forward, deepening a political quagmire that has engulfed the president as well as several of his Cabinet members.

The news comes as House Democrats are accelerating their impeachment inquiry and subpoenaing documents related to Trump’s efforts to push foreign countries to investigate one of his political opponents, former vice president Joe Biden.

“I can confirm that my firm and my team represent multiple whistleblowers in connection to the underlying August 12, 2019, disclosure to the Intelligence Community Inspector General,” the whistleblower’s attorney, Andrew Bakaj, said in a tweet. “No further comment at this time.”

View the complete October 6 article by Felicia Sonmez and Toluse Olorunnipa on The Washington Post website here.