Tag: Trump chaos

Biden’s Campaign Wants You All To Chill Out. Trump’s Campaign Wants You All To Freak Out.

There are still votes being counted in several swing states that will determine the race’s winner.

WILMINGTON, Delaware — We’re approaching 48 hours of ballot counting and doomscrolling and weird pop-up news conferences from Rudy Giuliani — but there is still no conclusion to the 2020 election.

Though both sides claim to be on track to win, their very different approaches to this period of uncertainty tell the larger story.

President Donald Trump and his allies, including former campaign officials and the irrepressible Giuliani, are trying to pipe more chaos into the process with tweets demanding that the counting stop and through lawsuits with questionable merit designed to cast doubt on the integrity of the process. Joe Biden and his team, meanwhile, have been a veritable fount of confidence and patience. His campaign manager opened a Thursday morning briefing by bragging that she was well rested and repeatedly returning to a message for nervous Democrats that amounted to Chill out, everyone. We got this. Continue reading.

GOP anxiety grows over Trump political roller coaster

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Senate Republicans are growing weary of the political roller coaster that is President Trump and say their prospects of keeping the Senate in November are as unpredictable as Trump himself.

After the president’s debate performance on Tuesday, which GOP senators saw as an unforced error, they view his chances of winning a second term as uncertain as ever.

The latest Trump wild card came Friday, when the president revealed he had tested positive for the coronavirus, just days after mocking Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden at the debate for frequently wearing a mask. Continue reading.

How the everyday chaos of reporting on the Trump White House played out for the world to see Saturday

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The dispatches began routinely enough for an out-of-the-ordinary day, with Pool Report No. 2 from Cheryl Bolen, the Bloomberg News White House reporter on pool duty Saturday.

“Pool took vans over to Walter Reed, arriving at 10:31 a.m. We are attempting to learn the logistics of Dr. [Sean] Conley’s update on POTUS’s health, scheduled for 11:00 a.m., and will advise soonest.” The report, sent at 10:33 a.m., was a typical transmission from the email list that provides regular updates each day on the president’s activities and is, at the most basic level, the primary source for the press to communicate what is happening with the commander in chief.

But as the media continued to wait for the president’s medical team outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, the next four hours of reports encapsulated the chaos that has been the defining feature of covering the Trump White House — this time on what might be the most consequential moment of his presidency. Continue reading.

Debates panel says changes under consideration ‘to ensure a more orderly discussion’

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Organizers are considering changes for the next two debates between President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden after their first meeting Tuesday night descended into chaos. 

The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), a bipartisan body that helps plan and execute the quadrennial meetings between presidential and vice presidential contenders, said Wednesday that the messiness of the first debate made clear that changes need to be made to make the next event more “orderly.”

“The Commission on Presidential Debates sponsors televised debates for the benefit of the American electorate. Last night’s debate made clear that additional structure should be added to the format of the remaining debates to ensure a more orderly discussion of the issues. The CPD will be carefully considering the changes that it will adopt and will announce those measures shortly,” the group said in a statement.  Continue reading.

As Clock Ticks, Trump Engulfs Himself in Chaotic News Cycles

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With early voting about to begin in some states, the days President Trump can afford to be consumed by crises of his own making are dwindling. But he has spent the last week in reaction mode.

President Trump is running out the clock on his own re-election campaign.

For much of the Trump presidency, days and controversies have run together until they’ve become an indistinguishable blur: a bombshell revelation from a former aide, or a self-sabotaging news conference, canceling out the last one. Time has seemed to pass quickly or not at all, as the constant churn of scandals, resignations, tell-all books and racist or sexist tweets has created its own political ecosystem.

At times, the constant noise has helped Mr. Trump, who thrives on chaos and wants the spotlight always on himself, and he believes he has faced few consequences for it. Continue reading.

Trump’s Tactic: Sowing Distrust in Whatever Gets in His Way

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From business competition in New York to President Barack Obama’s birthplace to mail-in voting, President Trump’s goal has been to undermine the opposition and leave people uncertain about what to believe.

Donald J. Trump leaned forward in his chair in the Capitol Hill hearing room, tossed aside his prepared remarks as too “boring” and told lawmakers on an October day in 1993 that granting gaming licenses to Native American reservations in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut — a threat to Mr. Trump’s own casinos — would be a big mistake.

There were criminal elements at work in the reservations, he warned ominously and without evidence. “It will be the biggest scandal ever, the biggest since Al Capone,” Mr. Trump said.

Then he went a step further and cast doubt on the Native Americans themselves. “If you look at some of the reservations that you’ve approved, that you, sir, in your great wisdom have approved,” Mr. Trump told Representative George Miller, a California Democrat who has since retired, “I will tell you right now: They don’t look like Indians to me.” Continue reading.

Trump’s parade of chaos and failure could trigger a historic shift for the post-corona world

AlterNet logoHistorically, in hyper-crises, local and global systems can change fundamentally. Before the coronavirus pandemic hit first China and then the rest of the globe, the question of whether the American imperial era might be faltering was already on the table, amid that country’s endless wars and with the world’s most capricious leader. When humanity emerges from this devastating crisis of disease, dislocation, and impoverishment, not to mention the fracturing of a global economic system created by Washington but increasingly powered by Beijing on a climate-stressed planet, the question will be: Has the Chinese dragon pushed the American eagle down to a secondary position?

To assess that question objectively in this unsettled moment, it’s necessary to examine on a day-to-day basis how the two contemporary superpowers handled the Covid-19 crisis, and ask the question: Who has proved better at combating the deadliest disease of modern times, President Donald Trump or President Xi Jinping? It’s chastening to note that whereas China under Xi has suppressed the latest coronavirus at the human cost of three lives per million population, the U.S. under Trump is still struggling to overpower it, having already sacrificed 145 of every million Americans.

To assess that question objectively in this unsettled moment, it’s necessary to examine on a day-to-day basis how the two contemporary superpowers handled the Covid-19 crisis, and ask the question: Who has proved better at combating the deadliest disease of modern times, President Donald Trump or President Xi Jinping? It’s chastening to note that whereas China under Xi has suppressed the latest coronavirus at the human cost of three lives per million population, the U.S. under Trump is still struggling to overpower it, having already sacrificed 145 of every million Americans. Continue reading.

History shows Trump’s house of cards will eventually fall — and reality itself with get the last word

AlterNet logoTrump has overlearned one life lesson: Impulse trumps deliberation. There have been gaps in its success but overall, it has worked beautifully. His impulsivity now reliably outwits any wit.

He just learned that lesson again with his impeachment acquittal, another spin and win for the great Trump impulse machine. He’s on a roll, so what will he do?

If you were suddenly dropped into Trump’s shoes, you might remember that you have to reign yourself in since the world is no longer doing much reigning. But then you haven’t overlearned Donald’s one life lesson. Continue reading.

‘Trump is frustrated, angry, and he wants it his way’: Washington Post reporters describe ‘chaotic’ and ‘dysfunctional’ White House

AlterNet logoThe word “chaos” has often been used to describe Donald Trump’s presidency, and Washington Post reporters Phil Rucker and Carol Leonnig depicted the Trump White House as being in a frequent state of chaos and disorganization when they appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Tuesday and discussed their new book, “A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump’s testing of America.”

A great deal of research went into the book: Rucker and Leonnig spoke to a long list of people in Washington, D.C. who had observed the Trump White House first-hand. And a recurring theme in the interviews they conducted is that chaos has been a prominent feature of Trump’s first three years in office.

“I can tell you what we heard over and over,” Leonnig told hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski as well as presidential historian and frequent MSNBC contributor Jon Meacham. And the Post reporters repeatedly heard from interviewees that they found Trump’s “rash decision-making” to be “worrisome.” Continue reading.

Trump thrives amid turmoil, and is banking that voters won’t mind

The president admitted of the even more chaotic environment: ‘I sort of thrive on it’

Donald Trump’s presidency has thrust the United States into plenty of unprecedented territory and it could again if the brash, testosterone-fueled campaign he is sculpting becomes the first featuring an impeached incumbent chief executive.

Political insiders from both parties, echoed by nonpartisan experts, said all summer that forecasting the 2020 presidential race was almost impossible for a raft of reasons. Then came Sept. 24.

That’s the day Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry over Trump’s request — which he and acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney have both since admitted, then walked back in their own ways — that Ukraine’s new government investigate Democrats. Public polling showed voters quickly moved from mostly opposing Trump’s possible impeachment by the House and removal by the Senate to mostly being in support.

View the complete November 4 article by John T. Bennett on The Roll Call website here.