Tag: Trump campaign

Trump campaign staffer went on a QAnon program to recruit volunteers: report

AlterNet logoAlthough President Donald Trump and members of his reelection campaign have avoided mentioning the far-right QAnon cult by name, that doesn’t mean they don’t welcome the support of QAnon devotees — and Trump campaign spokesperson Erin Perrine, according to Media Matters’ Eric Hananoki, was clearly trolling for QAnon votes when she appeared on the QAnon program “The Common Sense Show.” That appearance, Hananoki notes, was “previously unreported.”

Followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory are extreme even by Trumpian standards and believe that Trump was sent to the White House to combat an international child sex ring — and that a mysterious figure named “Q” is giving them periodic updates about their battle.

Media Matters, Hananoki reports, has learned that Perrine went on “The Common Sense Show” — which is part of QAnon’s Patriot Soapbox network — on October 24, 2019, and encouraged the audience to “sign up and attend a Trump Victory Leadership Initiative training” and “talk to their local GOP party, their state party.” Hananoki notes that Perrine was the Trump campaign’s deputy communications director at the time but has since been promoted to director of press communications for the campaign. Continue reading.

Trump hits road to ignite stalled campaign

The Hill logoPresident Trump will travel to Georgia on Wednesday, his 10th trip to a 2020 battleground state since May as he tries to reinvigorate a reelection campaign that has stalled out with the coronavirus crisis.

Trump is trailing presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in national and swing-state polls, and his rhetoric has seemed out of step with voters on both COVID-19 and protests over systemic racism. 

His falling poll numbers have alarmed Republicans, who worry the party could end up losing the Senate majority. The White House has sought to get Trump out on the road more often in the last several weeks, something past presidents have used to rejuvenate themselves.  Continue reading.

Trump ad falsely suggests Biden supports defunding police

Washington Post logoThe Trump campaign has a problem. Former vice president Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has firmly rejected calls from left-wing activists to “defund police.” But clearly the Trump campaign wants to tag him with the somewhat confusing slogan. So it produced an ad that slickly tries to get around this uncomfortable fact.

The Trump campaign must think the effort is a winner. Ben Taber, an account manager at Advertising Analytics, says that as of July 13, the Trump campaign had spent $6.7 million placing the ad on network television and on local stations in Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Arizona, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nevada, Iowa, New Mexico and Michigan.

But, factually, the ad is a loser.

The Facts

The scenes of mayhem in the ad come from some of the recent looting that took place after George Floyd’s death in police custody in Minneapolis. Okay, so these images are technically Donald Trump’s America, not Joe Biden’s. But we will leave that aside. Continue reading.

Trump Campaign, Fox News Fabricate Lie To Smear Biden

President Donald Trump’s media allies are distorting a quote from presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden in order to falsely claim that Biden called police “the enemy.” The lie followed a now well-trod path from Trump’s campaign to his propagandists in Fox News prime time.

Biden has called for police reform following the brutal killing of George Floyd by officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota. While describing some of his campaign’s proposals during an interview with progressive activist Ady Barkan published by NowThis News on Wednesday morning, Biden highlighted the problem of police militarization and how it impacts public perceptions of law enforcement.

The Defense Department has provided more than $5 billion in free surplus military equipment to local law enforcement since 1996, including at least $760 million after the Trump administration lifted restrictions implemented by President Barack Obama, according to a CNN analysis. Public outcry in response to police usage of military-style equipment against protesters has led to a bipartisan push in Congress to reform or end that program. 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.

Trump second-term plans remain a mystery to GOP

The Hill logoRepublican lawmakers say they have little to no idea what President Trump’s agenda would be if he wins a second term, making it difficult for GOP candidates to coordinate campaign messages ahead of November.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said last year he wanted the 2020 election to be a referendum on socialism, but instead it’s turning into a referendum on Trump, a scenario that GOP senators wanted to avoid.

Congressional Republicans say Trump spends too much time going after critics on Twitter and not enough time articulating his vision for a possible second term. They would prefer more contrasts between their party and Democrats on issues such as taxes and regulation — areas they think could be part of a winning formula in the fall. Continue reading.

Kimberly Guilfoyle, Top Fund-Raising Official for Trump Campaign, Tests Positive for Coronavirus

New York Times logoShe is the third person in proximity of President Trump known to have contracted the virus.

Kimberly Guilfoyle, the girlfriend of President Trump’s eldest son and a top fund-raising official for the Trump re-election campaign, tested positive for the coronavirus on Friday before a Fourth of July event at Mount Rushmore, a person familiar with her condition said.

Ms. Guilfoyle traveled to South Dakota with Mr. Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr., in anticipation of attending a huge fireworks display where the president was set to speak. They did not travel aboard Air Force One, according to the person familiar with her condition, and she was the only person in the group who tested positive.

As a routine precaution, people who come in close contact with Mr. Trump are screened for the virus. Continue reading.

Can we please stop debating whether Trump’s Nazi moments are accidents?

On Wednesday morning, progressive Jewish group Bend the Arc noticed a strange similarity between one of the t-shirts President Trump currently sells in his online campaign store, and the conspicuously comparable official Nazi party logo, the Iron Eagle.

The similarities are undeniable: a stern-eyed eagle, facing rightward, wings spread as it perches on a circular icon featuring a country’s national symbol.

Within hours, the Trump campaign responded to Bend the Arc’s tweet, noting that multiple Democrats have worn various iterations of the eagle iconography — ones which bear a vague resemblance to, but are not nearly as similar as, the Third Reich’s logo.

A new dilemma for Trump’s team: Preventing super-spreader churches

Courting religious voters, the president fought for churches to open up quickly after the shutdowns. The consequences include coronavirus clusters tied to churches.

One month after President Donald Trump ordered the nation’s governors to immediately reopen churches, his administration is facing a difficult dilemma.

Clusters of Covid-19 cases are surfacing in counties across the U.S. where in-person religious services have resumed, triggering questions about whether his administration should reassess its campaign to treat houses of worship the same as other essential businesses, or leave them alone and risk additional transmission of the deadly coronavirus — including in communities that are largely supportive of the president.

An outbreak at a Pentecostal church in Oregon, where hundreds of worshipers resumed gathering over Memorial Day weekend, forced an entire county to return to phase one of its reopening after local officials traced 258 cases of Covid-19 back to the facility. In West Virginia, six health departments across the state have reported coronavirus outbreaks linked to churches. One of them, a Baptist church in Greenbrier County, had 34 congregants test positive for the virus. And in Texas, which hit an all-time high of new cases last week, health officials have received numerous reports of church-related exposures. Continue reading.

Trump Campaign Recruiting Voter Suppression ‘Army’ Across States

Eight state Republican parties are actively recruiting for Donald Trump’s 2020 Election Day voter suppression efforts.

Trump’s reelection campaign and its allies are aiming to recruit up to 50,000 volunteers to challenge any votes and voters they deem suspicious in targeted states, as the New York Times reported recently. This is part of a $20 million effort to undermine voting rights and make it difficult to participate in the November election.

The effort comes, the paper noted, after the expiration of a decades-old court order prohibiting the Republican Party from suppressing minority voting under the guise of preventing fraud. Continue reading.