Tag: Trump ego

Trump Campaign Targets TV Ads To Make Trump Feel Better

Donald Trump’s reelection campaign is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on targeted campaign ads not to swing voter sentiment, but to mollify Trump, who is angry about his poor poll numbers, the Daily Beast reported on Monday.

According to the report, the campaign spent $400,000 to run ads on cable news channels Trump watches. The ads are running in Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia — all of which Trump lost in 2016 and has little shot of winning in 2020.

Hillary Clinton won Maryland in 2016 with 60 percent of the vote, and Virginia with 50 percentof the vote. The last time a Republican won Virginia at the presidential level was in 2004, while a Republican presidential candidate hasn’t won Maryland since 1988. Continue reading.

How Trump’s Idea for a Photo Op Led to Havoc in a Park

New York Times logoWhen the history of the Trump presidency is written, the clash with protesters that preceded President Trump’s walk across Lafayette Square may be remembered as one of its defining moments.

WASHINGTON — After a weekend of protests that led all the way to his own front yard and forced him to briefly retreat to a bunker beneath the White House, President Trump arrived in the Oval Office on Monday agitated over the television images, annoyed that anyone would think he was hiding and eager for action.

He wanted to send the military into American cities, an idea that provoked a heated, voices-raised fight among his advisers. But by the end of the day, urged on by his daughter Ivanka Trump, he came up with a more personal way of demonstrating toughness — he would march across Lafayette Square to a church damaged by fire the night before.

The only problem: A plan developed earlier in the day to expand the security perimeter around the White House had not been carried out. When Attorney General William P. Barr strode out of the White House gates for a personal inspection early Monday evening, he discovered that protesters were still on the northern edge of the square. For the president to make it to St. John’s Church, they would have to be cleared out. Mr. Barr gave the order to disperse them. Continue reading.

Trump says he will move Republican convention out of North Carolina

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Tuesday night signaled he will move the Republican National Convention out of North Carolina after the state and the GOP clashed over potential restrictions due to the coronavirus.

“Had long planned to have the Republican National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, a place I love. Now, @NC_Governor Roy Cooper and his representatives refuse to guarantee that we can have use of the Spectrum Arena,” Trump tweeted.

“Governor Cooper is still in Shelter-In-Place Mode, and not allowing us to occupy the arena as originally anticipated and promised,” he continued, saying the party is “now forced to seek another State to host the 2020 Republican National Convention.” Continue reading.

‘Wow!’ CNN’s Anderson Cooper is appalled by the real reason Trump went to St. John’s Church

AlterNet logoOn Monday evening, President Donald Trump appeared to cause mass disruption and chaos as federal police cleared peaceful protesters with forceful tactics outside the White House ahead of his walk to the nearby St. John’s Church.

And when CNN’s Kaitlan Collins told Anderson Cooper on air of the reported reason behind this move, the host was shocked and appalled.

“Sources are telling my colleague Kevin Liptak that, in part, the reason the president made this trip outside the gates of the White House — a really rare trip, where you do not often see the president walk out of the front door of the White House, walk across Lafayette Square, to St. John’s — was driven, in part, that he was upset by coverage of the fact that he had been rushed to the underground bunker on Friday night during the protests that you saw breaking out here, in front of the White House,” she said. Continue reading.

The Memo: Trump ratchets up Twitter turmoil

The Hill logoPresident Trump’s battle with Twitter intensified on Friday, sparking new debates around the combustible themes of race, policing and protest.

Trump has been accused of inciting violence. The president has suggested that he would like to shut Twitter down if he could.

The question is where the row might go next, given the conflicting dynamics at play.

Twitter enables Trump to go around the traditional media and communicate directly with his 80 million followers — even as he fulminates about alleged bias in Silicon Valley.  Continue reading.

Scandal-plagued construction firm wins $1.3 billion border wall contract after repeatedly wooing Trump on Fox News

AlterNet logoA scandal-plagued North Dakota company landed a $1.28 billion contract to build a small stretch of border wall after President Donald Trump repeatedly brought up the firm to officials following the CEO’s Fox News blitz.

The Army Corps of Engineers awarded the massive contract to North Dakota-based Fisher Sand and Gravel on May 6, the Arizona Daily Star first reported. The funds will be used to build 42 miles of border wall in Arizona. That figure marks the biggest contract awarded to any company for a stretch of wall to date. Fisher previously received a separate $400 million contract last December despite little experience building projects like the border wall.

When the company’s initial bids were passed over by government officials, CEO Tommy Fisher launched a media blitz, The Washington Post reported, repeatedly appearing on Fox News in an effort to directly appeal to Trump. The president an avid viewer of cable news, frequently tweeting about segments he watches. Continue reading.

Trump’s cowardly reason for not wearing a mask exposes his true weakness

AlterNet logoAccording to some people, this crowd at a restaurant in Castle Rock, Colorado, on Mother’s Day is a demonstration of what it means to be strong and patriotic during a pandemic. Packed in like sardines, there is not a face mask in sight.

Nick Puckett@nick__puckett

Happy Mother’s Day from C& C in Castle Rock, where the owner said this is almost double a normal Mother’s Day.

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Twitter Ads info and privacyAccording to some people, this crowd at a restaurant in Castle Rock, Colorado, on Mother’s Day is a demonstration of what it means to be strong and patriotic during a pandemic. Packed in like sardines, there is not a face mask in sight.

Nick Puckett@nick__puckett

Happy Mother’s Day from C& C in Castle Rock, where the owner said this is almost double a normal Mother’s Day.

Embedded video

20.4K

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Do you think I’m kidding? If so, take a look at what Brian Kilmeade had to say Monday morning on Fox and Friends.

Lis Power@LisPower1

Kilmeade: “78,000 are dead, we understand how many got the virus and will, I get it, but at the same time can you get the military mindset with the masses, of ‘take on the enemy because we have no choice,’ sitting on the sidelines will destroy the country.”

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That is exactly the kind of rhetoric we’re beginning to hear from Trump. Continue reading.

‘A constant battle of you against the leadership of your country’: Justice Dept. rattled as Flynn fallout reaches FBI

Washington Post logoPresident Trump cast fresh doubt Friday on the future of his FBI director as federal law enforcement officials privately wrestled with fallout from the Justice Department’s move to throw out the guilty plea of former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn.

The president’s comments in a phone interview with Fox News highlight the ongoing distrust between the White House and some law enforcement officials in the wake of a nearly two-year investigation by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III into Russia’s 2016 election interference and the Trump campaign.

“It’s disappointing,” Trump said when asked about Christopher A. Wray’s role in ongoing reviews of the FBI’s handling of the Russia investigation. “Let’s see what happens with him. Look, the jury’s still out.” Continue reading.

Fact check: Trump falsely claims Obama left him ‘nothing’ in the national stockpile

Trump has repeatedly said an empty stockpile hampered his pandemic response. Budget cuts had affected it, but shelves weren’t bare, former officials said.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly complained that he inherited an empty national stockpile from the Obama administration, hamstringing his pandemic response because of a lack of emergency supplies.

“The cupboard was bare. The other administration, the last administration, left us nothing,” Trump told ABC News’ David Muir on Tuesday. “We didn’t have ventilators. We didn’t have medical equipment. The tests were broken — you saw that. We had broken tests. They left us nothing. We’ve taken it and we’ve built an incredible stockpile, a stockpile like we’ve never had before.”

It’s a sweeping claim Trump has made several times when faced with criticism that the government was slow to help states hit hard by the coronavirus and in dire need to supplies like personal protective equipment for front line workers and ventilators for an influx of patients — and one that former Obama administration and past news reports dispute. Continue reading.

George Conway: Trump went ballistic at me on Twitter. Here’s why he reacts with such rage.

Washington Post logoAmericans died from covid-19 at the rate of about one every 42 seconds during the past month. That ought to keep any president awake at night.

Not Donald Trump.

Just days ago, the president flipped out at a detailed New York Times article that described how he watches television at all hours, obsessed about how he’s covered in the news. As though to prove the story’s thesis, Trump rage-tweeted that it was a “phony story” and that the media would say “Anything to demean!”

And then, as though to prove the point again, at 12:46 a.m. on Tuesday, Trump went ballistic on Twitter — at me. Continue reading.