Tag: Trump ego

Trump uses coronavirus briefing to blast FBI agents as ‘human scum’ and ‘crooked people’ for investigating Russian ties to his 2016 campaign

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump has never been shy about holding grudges, and one grudge he continues to hold is against FBI agents who investigated Russian interference in the United States’ 2016 election. At a press briefing on Sunday, April 19, Trump denounced the FBI agents who were part of that investigation as “human scum.”

The investigation of ties between Trump’s 2016 campaign and allies of the Russian government led to prosecutions of some of the president’s long-time allies, including veteran GOP operative Roger Stone and his former campaign manager, Paul Manafort (who is now in federal prison). When a reporter asked Trump if he planned to pardon either Stone or Manafort, the president responded, “You’ll find out what I’m going to do. I’m not going to say what I’m going to do, but I will tell you the whole thing turned out to be a scam —  and it turned out to be a disgrace to our country.”

When Trump told reporters, “Now, the tables are turned” and said it was time to “investigate the investigators,” he was referring to U.S. Attorney John Durham’s current investigation of the FBI’s Russia investigation. Durham launched that investigation when Attorney General William Barr, a Trump loyalist, asked him to do so. Continue reading.

Trump’s old friend Piers Morgan watches briefings ‘with mounting horror,’ urges president to stop ‘self-aggrandizing’

Washington Post logoPiers Morgan, the outspoken host of “Good Morning Britain,” issued a personal plea Sunday to his old friend, asking President Trump to stop “playing petty politics” with the coronavirus pandemic and to “stop making it about yourself.”

Appearing on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” with host Brian Stelter, the longtime Trump ally said he was watching the president’s daily coronavirus briefings “with mounting horror.” Trump, he said, couldn’t seem to stop blaming governors or attacking Democrats, and kept wasting time quarreling with reporters.

The whirlwind news conferences were becoming “almost like a rally to him — almost like what’s more important is winning the election in November,” Morgan said. Continue reading.

The Trump administration is muzzling government scientists. It’s essential to let them speak candidly to the press again.

Washington Post logoKathryn Foxhall remembers a time when reporters could call up any doctor or researcher at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and ask them questions on the record. A journalist might even get them to open up for a “background” interview, offering candid information on the condition the expert’s name would not be used.

“There was the official story and then there was everything else,” the former editor of the Nation’s Health, an industry publication, told me. “We took this for granted.”

Foxhall watched with dismay as that openness disintegrated radically over the past two decades. Federal agencies, including the CDC, began to require media inquiries to go through a public information officer. Direct contact was minimized and tightly monitored. Interviews might take place with a public-relations “minder” present. Continue reading.

Studying Fascist Propaganda by Day, Watching Trump’s Coronavirus Updates by Night

In 2018, Jason Stanley, a philosophy professor at Yale, published “How Fascism Works.” Although it was a slim volume, it ranged broadly, citing experimental psychology, legal theory, and neo-Nazi blogs; although it was by an academic philosopher, it was a popular book that prioritized current events over syllogisms. Viktor Orbán is mentioned more times in the book than Hannah Arendt. Donald Trumpshows up dozens of times, and he is portrayed not as a distractible bozo but as a concerted aspiring strongman. “Fascist politics can dehumanize minority groups even when an explicitly fascist state does not arise,” Stanley writes. Elsewhere, in a chapter called “Sodom and Gomorrah,” he argues that Trump’s habit of extolling the heartland while decrying urban squalor “makes sense in the context of a more general fascist politics, in which cities are seen as centers of disease and pestilence.” Stanley couldn’t have known that many American cities were, in fact, about to become centers of disease, but he could have predicted that Trump would use such a development to his rhetorical advantage. “Some people would like to see New York quarantined because it’s a hot spot,” Trump said, late last month. “Heavily infected.”

Stanley isn’t, or isn’t mainly, a scholar of public policy; he is a philosopher of language. When he insinuates that Trump is a fascist—and you don’t have to be a philosopher of language to catch the insinuation—he means that Trump talks like a fascist, not necessarily that he governs like one. Still, many passages in Stanley’s book begin with a discussion of Germany in the nineteen-thirties, or Rwanda in the nineteen-nineties, before pivoting to a depiction of the contemporary United States. “Ever since my book came out, I’ve been fighting with critics who go, ‘You’re overreacting, you’re exaggerating, it’s irresponsible to call this fascism or that fascism,’ ” Stanley said. “I’ll point to a step Trump has taken—he’s using ice to round up children, he’s surrounding himself with loyalists and generals, he’s using the apparatus of government to dig up dirt on a political rival—and the response is always ‘Sure, that’s bad, but it’s not a big enough step to justify the F-word.’ I’m starting to feel like the it’s-not-a-big-enough-step people won’t be happy until they’re in concentration camps.” Continue reading “Studying Fascist Propaganda by Day, Watching Trump’s Coronavirus Updates by Night”

‘Who takes a victory lap on piles of corpses?’: Trump blasted as ‘sociopathic monster’ for bragging about 65,000 deaths

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump is being blasted for his apparent bragging about and celebrating “only” 60,000 to 65,000 coronavirus deaths. The actual number of Americans who have died so far is currently 37,095, but Trump is projecting a little less than twice that number will lose their lives to the virus he spent months ignoring until it was too late.

Friday evening Trump spent several minutes rattling off a long litany of numbers, comparing his projected coronavirus deaths to other possible horrific death projections, in a clear attempt to frame his disastrous mismanagement of the pandemic. As he did, many took to social media to slam the President’s callous lack of empathy.

“We’ve already built sufficient capacity nationwide so states can begin their re-openings. And I think you’ll be hearing a lot about re-openings in the coming weeks and months,” Trump told reporters during Friday’s coronavirus briefing. Continue reading.

Trump goes on a dangerous Twitter rampage to fuel right-wing fury

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump on Friday went on a lengthy Twitter rampage that included calls to “liberate” Michigan, Minnesota, and Virginia, an open show of support for right-wing demonstrators who are disregarding stay-at-home orders in those states to protest coronavirus social distancing guidelines.

The tweets, fired off in rapid succession late Friday morning, drew condemnation from advocacy groups and other critics who said the president should be focusing his attention on the lagging federal response to the deadly virus outbreak, not urging people to revolt against state guidelines.

“Why is this your priority?” asked Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “Stop tweeting. People are dying.” Continue reading.

Smugglers sawed into Trump’s border wall 18 times in one month in San Diego area, records show

Washington Post logoSmugglers sawed into new sections of President Trump’s border wall 18 times in the San Diego area during a single one-month span late last year, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection records obtained by The Washington Post via a Freedom of Information Act request.

The breaches and attempted breaches were made between Sept. 27 and Oct. 27, according to CBP records, with five of the incidents occurring on a single day, Oct. 10. The agency withheld information about the specific locations of the incidents, citing law enforcement sensitivities. The agency said the average cost to repair the damage was $620 per incident.

The records do not indicate whether the one-month span last year is a representative sample of how frequently people are trying to breach new sections of Trump’s border barrier, which are made of tall steel bollards partially filled with concrete and rebar. The Post reported last November that smuggling crews armed with common battery-operated power tools — including reciprocating saws that retail for as little as $100 at home improvement stores — can cut through the bollards using inexpensive blades designed for slicing through metal and stone. Continue reading.

Trump appears to back those protesting social distancing measures

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Friday appeared to back protesters in three states with Democratic governors who are gathering in opposition to extended stay-at-home orders and other restrictions meant to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

One day after Trump reportedly told governors they would “call the shots” in determining when to lift social distancing guidelines in their states, Trump heightened tensions between demonstrators and the Democratic governors in Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia.

“LIBERATE MINNESOTA!” Trump tweeted, followed quickly by a call to “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” Continue reading.

Trump’s Pandemic Plan: “Absolute Authority,” No Responsibility

The novel coronavirus brings out the same old, same old President.

A week ago, President Trump foreshadowed his growing anxiety over when and how to end the Great Shutdown, a decision he is well aware will have existential consequences—for his own political future. He called the question of reopening the country amid the coronavirus pandemic “the biggest decision I’ll ever make” and “by far the biggest decision of my life.” Yet by the time Trump advertised a “Major News Conference” for Thursday evening, there was little suspense from a man who has been tweeting about a “LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL” and who declared, on March 24th, that he wanted church pews “packed” by Easter. Trump backed off the Easter deadline within days of promoting it, and he repeated the act this week, with a May 1st date and a new plan for “OPENING UP AMERICA AGAIN,” which started out on Monday as an imperial diktat from an almighty President and ended up on Thursday as a mere recommendation to individual states, without a fixed date. Many governors have already announced that they will not follow his guidance. “You’re going to call your own shots,” Trump reassured them on a conference call on Thursday afternoon, according to an audio recording, which promptly leaked. “You’re going to be calling the shots.”

This might seem a head-spinning reversal. But it is classic Trump. His two most memorable lines of the covid-19 pandemic, proclaiming “absolute authority” and “no responsibility at all,” are wildly contradictory, and yet also completely consistent with his approach to governing. The novel coronavirus is truly a new type of American crisis, but it has been met by the same old, same old from America’s President: unhinged press conferences and unfounded conspiracy theories; lies, attacks, and bizarre non sequiturs; and abrupt, seemingly incomprehensible policy shifts from a leader who has no problem changing course at the expense of his own credibility. Continue reading “Trump’s Pandemic Plan: “Absolute Authority,” No Responsibility”

Of course Trump’s authority isn’t ‘total.’ Here are 3 myths about how federalism works.

Washington Post logoThe founders designed a flexible system with many redundant safeguards against failure

This week, President Trump told reporters, “When somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total.” That claim, as many pointed out, contradicts the U.S. Constitution. While he later modified his claim, this was only the latest foray in the pandemic-prompted national discussion about federalism.

This conversation has touched on three myths about how the U.S.’s federal system operates. Let’s examine each one in turn.

1. Federalism is not a code word for states’ rights and ability to get things done.

Last week, many observers were applauding governors and chastising the federal government for inaction. In response, Nikki Haley, a Republican and the former governor of South Carolina, suggested that citizens should pay less attention to the federal government and “look no further than the governors” to “save people’s lives” and “keep the economy afloat.” Continue reading.