Tag: Trump unfit to be president

How Reality-TV Fame Handed Trump a $427 Million Lifeline

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Tax records show that “The Apprentice” rescued Donald J. Trump, bringing him new sources of cash and a myth that would propel him to the White House.

From the back seat of a stretch limousine heading to meet the first contestants for his new TV show “The Apprentice,” Donald J. Trump bragged that he was a billionaire who had overcome financial hardship.

“I used my brain, I used my negotiating skills and I worked it all out,” he told viewers. “Now, my company is bigger than it ever was and stronger than it ever was.”

It was all a hoax.

Months after that inaugural episode in January 2004, Mr. Trump filed his individual tax return reporting $89.9 million in net losses from his core businesses for the prior year. The red ink spilled from everywhere, even as American television audiences saw him as a savvy business mogul with the Midas touch. Continue reading.

Why these two former GOP congressmen are supporting Joe Biden

Choose unity over continued division in 2020, Djou and Edwards say

The two of us should be among Donald Trump’s biggest supporters. One of us (Mickey) is a founding trustee of the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank and a former chairman of the American Conservative Union. Another (Charles) is an Afghanistan War veteran, a devout Christian and a graduate of Trump’s alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Finance. Both of us were elected to Congress as Republicans.

It is precisely because of, not despite, our backgrounds that neither of us are supporting Trump’s reelection.

We believe America is a wonderful and unique nation. The United States is the beacon of liberty to the world not because we are great or need to be great again, but because we are good. Childish name-calling, crude behavior and immature narcissism is unwarranted in any adult, let alone our president. Continue reading.

Trump can’t even keep his coup secret

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Donald Trump is escalating. Wednesday afternoon, under questioning by Brian Karem of Playboy, Trump offered what the mainstream news outlets are calling a “failure to commit” to a “peaceful transfer of power.” One might also call it “threatening a coup”.

The first time Karem asked Trump whether he would commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the election, Trump pulled his usual move, pretending that the fate of our democracy is like a reality-show cliffhanger: “Well, we’re going to have to see what happens.”

But Karem was dogged and asked him again: “Do you commit to making sure that there’s a peaceful transferral of power?” Continue reading.

Republicans try to ‘both sides’ Trump’s comments on peaceful transfer of power

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The president of the United States on Wednesday evening declined to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the 2020 election — ratcheting up previous rhetoric baselessly casting doubt on the legitimacy of what polls suggest is a likely defeat.

In response, congressional Republicans have assured there will be a transfer of power, but they have mostly refused to rebuke Trump personally. And increasingly, they’ve suggested this is a “both sides” issue.

In a series of tweets Thursday morning, Republicans from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) to Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) to the third-ranking House Republican, Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), promised a peaceful transfer of power and emphasized its importance in our constitutional republic. But in each of their statements, Trump was basically Voldemort. There was no suggestion that they were responding directly to Trump or that he actually said something wrong. Continue reading.

Allegations of racism have marked Trump’s presidency and become key issue as election nears

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In unguarded moments with senior aides, President Trump has maintained that Black Americans have mainly themselves to blame in their struggle for equality, hindered more by lack of initiative than societal impediments, according to current and former U.S. officials.

After phone calls with Jewish lawmakers, Trump has muttered that Jews “are only in it for themselves” and “stick together” in an ethnic allegiance that exceeds other loyalties, officials said.

Trump’s private musings about Hispanics match the vitriol he has displayed in public, and his antipathy to Africa is so ingrained that when first lady Melania Trump planned a 2018 trip to that continent he railed that he “could never understand why she would want to go there.” Continue reading.

‘Unfathomable’: US death toll from coronavirus hits 200,000

The U.S. death toll from the coronavirus topped 200,000 Tuesday, by far the highest in the world, hitting the once-unimaginable threshold six weeks before an election that is certain to be a referendum in part on President Donald Trump’s handling of the crisis.

“It is completely unfathomable that we’ve reached this point,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, a Johns Hopkins University public health researcher, eight months after the scourge first reached the world’s richest nation, with its state-of-the-art laboratories, top-flight scientists and stockpiles of medical supplies.

The number of dead is equivalent to a 9/11 attack every day for 67 days. It is roughly equal to the population of Salt Lake City or Huntsville, Alabama.

And it is still climbing. Deaths are running at close to 770 a day on average, and a widely cited model from the University of Washington predicts the U.S. toll will double to 400,000 by the end of the year as schools and colleges reopen and cold weather sets in. A vaccine is unlikely to become widely available until 2021. Continue reading.

Former staffer: White House politicized Bolton book review

WASHINGTON (AP) — Trump administration officials repeatedly exerted political pressure in an unsuccessful effort to block the release of former national security adviser John Bolton’s tell-all book, a career government records professional said in a court filing Wednesday.

After Bolton submitted his book for prepublication review last last year, it was Ellen Knight’s job at the White House to make sure it did not contain classified information that could possibly threaten U.S. national security.

For the first time, Knight recounted the monthslong prepublication review process that she says was replete with delay tactics, legal maneuverings and a shadow review by a political appointee who had no experience in that area. She contends the actions were aimed at discrediting her work and blocking the publication of Bolton’s book, “The Room Where It Happened.” Continue reading.

Trump won’t commit to peaceful transfer of power if he loses

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday again declined to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the Nov. 3 presidential election.

“We’re going to have to see what happens,” Trump said at a news conference, responding to a question about whether he’d commit to a peaceful transfer of power. “You know that I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots, and the ballots are a disaster.”

It is highly unusual that a sitting president would express less than complete confidence in the American democracy’s electoral process. But he also declined four years ago to commit to honoring the election results if his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, won. Continue reading.

Trump let slip 3 damning admissions — but there’s been almost no outcry

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In a series of campaign stops, President Donald Trump has in recent days let slip disturbingly candid and revealing admissions on at least three different issues, each one of which would be a stunning revelation and scandal for any other president. But for Trump, the outrages and scandals are so constant that they just fade into the background noise. So these three moments didn’t receive much widespread outrage, though they did garner some media coverage.

It’s worth focusing on each of them, though, because they’re important for understanding the president and the current state of American politics — even if we’ve lost the capacity to be shocked by Trump.

Here are the three moments: Continue reading.

Trump official in charge of ‘shaping policies’ at HHS has been a college senior: report

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The Trump administration put a college senior in charge of personnel at the Dept. of Health and Human Services, Catherine Granito. She appears to have graduated this spring.

A Politico report Monday afternoon, “Trump administration shakes up HHS personnel office after tumultuous hires,” revealed the stunning placement – including that she has been “playing a role in shaping policies in the middle of a pandemic.”

HHS has an annual budget of $1.286 trillion. As of 2015 it had 79,540 employees. Continue reading.