Donald Trump during ABC News Town Hall (screen capture) In case you missed it, Donald Trump didn’t have a great time during last night’s town hall event hosted by ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos. At one point, he was asked by an undecided voter about a national mandate on wearing face masks during the coronavirus pandemic. In an odd twist, Trump pointed to his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, for failing to implement such a mandate. Note – Joe Biden is a private citizen holding no public office meaning he has no authority to enact such policies. Did Trump forget HE is currently president? “A good question is, you ask, like Joe Biden. They said, ‘We’re going to do a national mandate on masks,'” Trump said Tuesday evening. “But he didn’t do it, I mean, he never did it.” Biden has said he would encourage governors to support the use of face masks and promised to lead by example by wearing face coverings in public. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci recommend universal mask-wearing when in public and around people who don’t live in your household to help prevent coronavirus transmission. Trump also said “a lot of people” don’t like face masks. When asked who those folks were, Trump said “waiters.”
The President attempts to blame Joe Biden for not implementing a national mask mandate pic.twitter.com/nq9J6cVFoR
Additionally, Trump declared, again, that the coronavirus will just disappear citing “herd mentality.” “Over a period of time, sure, with time, it goes away and you’ll develop, you’ll develop like a herd mentality — it’s going to be herd-developed, and that’s going to happen. That will all happen.” Most people believe he meant to say “herd immunity,” but, you know, four-syllable words can be hard… Along the way, the Donald also told some wild story about Winston Churchill standing on the roof of buildings while the Nazis were bombing London during WWII telling folks, “Everything’s going to be ok.” Actually, as soon as Churchill became prime minister, he warned the UK of ‘struggle and suffering’ and told Londoners the Nazi campaign was ‘killing large numbers of women and children.’
.@GStephanopoulos presses Pres. Trump on his claims that COVID-19 will "disappear."
Stephanopoulos: "It would go away without the vaccine?"
Pres. Trump: "Sure, over a period of time. Sure, with time."
L-R President Donald Trump, former Vice President Joe Biden As the U.S. heads into the final weeks of the 2020 presidential campaign, gay dating app Hornet surveyed 10,000 gay men on who they support in the race for the White House. Twelve percent of those polled (1,200) identified as American citizens and 51 percent indicated they plan to vote for former Vice President Joe Biden. Forty-five percent said they plan to vote for Donald Trump. Those numbers align fairly closely with recent national polling. Real Clear Politics average of polls shows the former Vice President currently averaging 49.9 percent while Trump’s support is 42.9 percent. Data-crunching website FiveThirtyEight also reports Biden leads in national polling by 7 or 8 percentage points. Here’s the breakdown of responses to the question “Describe your support of Donald Trump:” • 49% said “I do not support him at all” • 11% said “I disagree with him on most issues” • 9% responded “I disagree with him on some issues and agree with him on others” • 11% said “I agree with him on most issues” • 16% responded “I fully support him” (graphic via Hornet) Overall, among the 10,000 respondents worldwide, 66 percent said they support Biden while 34 percent indicated support for Trump. What’s surprising is the American LGBTQ community historically skews to the left politically. For Trump to garner slightly higher support in this poll than current national averages raised some eyebrows. Plus, as has been widely reported, the Trump administration’s track record regarding the LGBTQ community has been hostile on numerous fronts including the transgender military ban, arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court LGBTQ people shouldn’t be protected under federal civil rights law, supporting taxpayer-funded religious adoption agencies that refuse to place children in LGBTQ homes, and opposing passage of The Equality Act. Related: White House Spokeswoman ‘Trump Has Great Record On LGBTQ Issues’ (Oh My Sides…) The Washington Blade reported that national exit polls for the 2016 presidential campaign showed Hillary Clinton garnered a lopsided 78 percent of the queer vote versus Trump’s 14 percent – which is the lowest percentage for a Republican presidential candidate in modern history. In 2012, President Obama won 76 percent of the vote compared to Mitt Romney’s 22 percent support. Of course, many point out Trump’s surprise win in 2016 seemed to defy most polls, so this poll by Hornet could be an outlier. You can check out more from the Hornet survey here.
I reported earlier today about Donald Trump’s visit to Nevada over the weekend where he held an indoor campaign rally with a few thousand supporters in violation of the current Nevada guidelines regarding gatherings of more than 50 people. I just came across this, however, which has to go in the ‘You can’t make this stuff up’ file. Watch these hundreds of Trump fans race past the barricades (barely a mask in sight) all to the tune of the Village People’s gay anthem, “Macho Man.” It’s also worth noting that Victor Willis, the only original member of the Village People still with the group, sent a cease and desist letter to the Trump campaign in June asking that the group’s music (Trump also loves using “YMCA” and “In the Navy”).
Just watched a sea of people rush to the front of the barricades ahead of tonight’s rally in Minden, NV. pic.twitter.com/pawt9D2P3Z
Donald Trump (photo: public domain/Flickr) Donald Trump told the Las Vegas Review-Journal in an interview Sunday that he doesn’t believe Nevada’s COVID-19 restrictions regarding large gatherings of over 50 people apply to him giving himself permission to hold his indoor rally in Henderson attended by a few thousand followers.
The president blamed the Democratic governor for forcing his campaign to abandon plans to hold an outdoor rally Sunday at Cirrus Aviation near McCarran International Airport and a Saturday rally in Reno, which was moved to an outdoor venue in Minden.
After failing to arrange alternative venues in the Las Vegas area, the campaign decided to hold the rally indoors at the Xtreme Manufacturing facility, owned by his friend Don Ahern, Trump said. “They canceled six different sites because the governor wouldn’t let it happen, all external sites,” the president said.
Henderson officials issued written and verbal warnings of compliance to the event organizers. Kathleen Richards, a spokeswoman for the city of Henderson, said in a statement “gatherings of more than 50 people in a private or public setting is prohibited.”
“If the governor’s directives are not followed,” she said, “the city may assess a fine of up to $500 per violation as well as suspend or revoke the business license.”
Sisolak was not targeting Trump in any way. Currently, no one is supposed to hold large gatherings of more than 50 people in Nevada. That’s the rule for everyone.
Sisolak clapped back in a lengthy thread on Twitter writing, “Tonight, President Donald Trump is taking reckless and selfish actions that are putting countless lives in danger here in Nevada.”
“The president appears to have forgotten that this country is still in the middle of a global pandemic,” added Sisolak.
Despite reports from his own White House, despite local officials in Southern & Northern Nevada reiterating to the venues the existing restrictions in State emergency directives, tonight, the President is knowingly packing thousands into an indoor venue to hold a political rally.
Early on in this crisis, when it came time to exhibit real leadership and make difficult decisions to protect the American people, he failed to develop a unified national response strategy.
Instead, he came into our State and blatantly disregarded the emergency directives and tough choices made to fight this pandemic and begin reopening our economy by hosting an indoor gathering that’s categorized as “high risk” according to his own CDC.
This is an insult to every Nevadan who has followed the directives, made sacrifices, and put their neighbors before themselves. It’s also a direct threat to all of the recent progress we’ve made, and could potentially set us back.
At a time when Nevada is focused on getting our economy back on track and protecting public health, the President’s actions this weekend are shameful, dangerous and irresponsible.
L-R CNN anchor Jake Tapper, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro There’s a strategy in public relations. During a scandal or debacle, send out a representative to do an interview with a news outlet. When asked a question about the scandal, begin spewing the talking points you’ve been told to repeat. When asked to get back to the question at hand, repeat the talking points to continue killing time out of the 7 or so minutes of the segment. When the host tries to get back to the question at hand AGAIN, become irate and say, “You’re not letting me answer the question” when you KNOW you’re just running out the clock AND you’re just repeating the scripted talking points without addressing the actual issue. This is what happens in the clip below between CNN anchor Jake Tapper and White House trade adviser Peter Navarro. Now, you might wonder why a trade adviser is speaking to the news about the coronavirus pandemic. It has nothing to do with his background, he’s just the kind of pugnacious scrapper that Donald Trump likes to see defend him. That’s why he’s doing the interview. In this appearance, Navarro has an audience of one. His boss. When Tapper asked Navarro to explain why Trump privately acknowledged the coronavirus was deadlier than the flu but said otherwise publicly, Navarro repeatedly goes down a rabbit hole with his talking points. At one point, as Navarro throws out the false statement that Trump was “called a xenophobe and a racist by Joe Biden” (he wasn’t) and later apologized for it (he didn’t), Tapper corrects him. Navarro says, “We’ll do the fact-checker on that.” “I just did,” responds Tapper. In the end, Tapper ends the segment and reminded viewers of the facts: “I would just like to remind the American people that the United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population, and the United States has more than 20 percent of the world’s coronavirus deaths. That is a fact. It does not matter how many times he insults CNN.”
Donald Trump (screen capture) After Donald Trump again urged his Twitter followers in battleground state North Carolina to vote twice, the state’s Attorney General Josh Stein reminded his constituents it’s a felony to vote twice. Twitter also blocked likes, replies, and retweets on the Donald’s tweet. By the way, if you’re going to go to the polls to ‘check on your vote,’ why not just GO VOTE? Stein’s tweet also included a link where NC voters can track their mail-in votes to make sure they are counted. Twitter tagged Trump’s tweet with a disclaimer: “This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about civic and election integrity. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible.”
NORTH CAROLINA: Do NOT do what the President directs. To make sure your ballot COUNTS, sign and send it in EARLY. Then track it ONLINE with BALLOTTRAX. Do NOT vote twice (it’s a felony), or waste your time, or unnecessarily risk exposure to more people. https://t.co/jOKYoR4hnrhttps://t.co/1cF6tJoHA4
The only GOOD thing about the President’s tweet is that he FINALLY encourages voters to VOTE BY MAIL. It’s an easy, safe & secure way to cast a ballot. To request yours: https://t.co/NPfKjxLyhz
Umm… On one of the most solemn occasions in the history of the United States, the First Lady can’t say the Pledge of Allegiance? I usually leave political spouses out of things, but this is really quite odd. p.s. it looks like the Donald forgot half of the Pledge including the “under God” part, which is ironic since he accused Democrats of leaving that out of the pledge during their convention last month.
Neither one of them has any idea what the words to the Pledge of Allegiance are. I bet the Obamas and the Bidens and the Emhoff-Harrises know them. I bet the Romneys, McCains, Bushes, Clintons, Gores and Carters know them. I bet Bernie Sanders and AOC know them. pic.twitter.com/T8ZCsWXZTo
BREAKING: Trump apparently refuses to say “under god,” during the Pledge of Allegiance. Remember the outrage by Republicans when a Democrat did this? pic.twitter.com/LaAYLHcicm
Black athletes kneeling to the flag and anthem is not offensive. The President of the United States not knowing the Pledge of Allegiance is, especially during a 9/11 ceremony. pic.twitter.com/1GQnQ4VVAY
— David Former Trump Supporter Weissman (@davidmweissman) September 11, 2020
At best, Trump got 3 words of the Pledge of Allegiance today. His speech later was weak & monotone. Watch his head & upper body against the backdrop. He’s writhing w/ involuntary movements from his degenerative neurological disease- Frontotemporal dementiapic.twitter.com/xsA0t3ooQ2
An interesting example of how the media can frame an issue. Below is the headline from the New York Times the day after the FBI announced it thought it had found a trove of missing Hillary Clinton emails. It turned out they were wrong, but the announcement swayed the election away from the Democratic presidential candidate. And then next, today’s banner on the Grey Lady the day after we learned an actual PRESIDENT lied to the American people about the severity of a pandemic that has killed nearly 200,000 Americans. Notice how small that is? #ThingsThatMakeYouGoHmm
Donald Trump during a White House press briefing (public domain) After announcing two Nevada campaign rallies planned for this weekend, the Trump campaign has canceled the events due to current limitations on public gatherings imposed by Gov. Steve Sisolak since the spring in response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. One event was scheduled for Saturday at the Reno-Tahoe International Airport and the other on Sunday at McCarran International Airport. Since late May, Nevada has limited the size of public gatherings to 50 people. Sisolak’s office on Wednesday issued a statement saying it was not involved in the cancellations. “The Governor’s Office had no involvement or communication with the event organizers or potential hosts regarding the proposed campaign events advertised by the Trump campaign. “Current statewide emergency directives include mandatory face coverings, limitations on public and private gatherings to no more than 50 people, and other measures to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. The Nevada-specific White House recommendations have consistently included recommendations to limit the size of gatherings for weeks now.” Even though the governor’s restrictions have been in place for months, the Trump campaign announced Nevada visits on Tuesday. The campaign publicly whined that this is all an attempt to censor the Donald. “Democrats are trying to keep President Trump from speaking to voters because they know the enthusiasm behind his re-election campaign cannot be matched by Joe Biden — a historically weak candidate controlled by the radical left who could hold a campaign event in a broom closet,” read a statement issued by Tim Murtaugh, communications director of the president’s re-election campaign. Meanwhile, the Reno-Tahoe Airport Authority said the rally would have violated the lease agreements that private tenants signed with the authority. “This has nothing to do with politics. The letter (to tenants) we sent is about directives and safety and not political campaigns,” Daren Griffin, president/CEO of the Reno-Tahoe Airport Authority, said in a statement to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “We would hold our tenants to the same standard whether it was a Democratic or Republican rally or any other type of gathering. We are complying with the Governor’s directive and Washoe County’s recommendation during a pandemic.” “The fact that Donald Trump was even considering holding these unsafe events in the midst of a global pandemic is just the latest example of his poor judgment and complete disregard for Nevadans’ public health and safety,” said Madison Mundy, spokeswoman for the Nevada State Democratic Party. Poll crunching website FiveThirtyEight reports Biden currently leading Trump by an average of 6.5 percentage points in Nevada. (source: Las Vegas Review-Journal)
(cover image via Amazon) Bob Woodward, the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist whose reporting on the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s led to the downfall of President Richard Nixon, has released excerpts from his upcoming book, Rage, which includes on-the-record interviews (there’s tape!) with Donald Trump from early December 2019 to July 2020. Woodward interviewed Trump 18 times on a wide range of topics. The interviews were recorded by Woodward with Trump’s permission, and CNN has obtained copies of some of the audiotapes. From CNN:
“This is deadly stuff,” Trump told Woodward on February 7.
In a series of interviews with Woodward, Trump revealed that he had a surprising level of detail about the threat of the virus earlier than previously known. “Pretty amazing,” Trump told Woodward, adding that the coronavirus was maybe five times “more deadly” than the flu.
Trump’s admissions are in stark contrast to his frequent public comments at the time insisting that the virus was “going to disappear” and “all work out fine.”
The book, using Trump’s own words, depicts a President who has betrayed the public trust and the most fundamental responsibilities of his office. In “Rage,” Trump says the job of a president is “to keep our country safe.” But in early February, Trump told Woodward he knew how deadly the virus was, and in March, admitted he kept that knowledge hidden from the public.
“I wanted to always play it down,” Trump told Woodward on March 19, even as he had declared a national emergency over the virus days earlier. “I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.”
(screen captures via CNN) Instead, Trump’s decisions allowed many Americans to doubt the severity of the virus and nearly 200,000 Americans have died from COVID-19. Even earlier, on January 28 the discussion turned to the coronavirus outbreak in China during a national security briefing with Trump. “This will be the biggest national security threat you face in your presidency,” national security adviser Robert O’Brien told Trump. “This is going to be the roughest thing you face.” The new book also includes some tough opinions from many of Trump’s former top national security officials on his presidency. Former Defense Secretary James Mattis is quoted as calling Trump “dangerous” and “unfit” to be commander in chief. Former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said he “continued to harbor the secret belief, one that had grown rather than lessened, although unsupported by intelligence proof, that Putin had something on Trump.” Woodward writes that Coats felt, “How else to explain the president’s behavior? Coats could see no other explanation.” You can hear some of Trump’s chat with Woodward in the tweet below, and much more on CNN here.
This is President Trump on tape, on February 7, saying that the coronavirus is "more deadly than your – you know, your, even your strenuous flus." But he minimized the threat in public. On February 26, he told the public "I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away." pic.twitter.com/TOHTpqYtvZ
In audio clips from Woodward's interview, playing on @CNN now, Trump says he thinks China's Xi has the virus under control and says clearly that the Coronavirus is more deadly than the flu. Trump lied to the public repeatedly after this.
On February 7th He knew it is “deadly stuff” and “it goes trough the air” yet he kept holding big rallies for ANOTER MONTH (here he’s on March 2nd). He doesn’t give a damn (even) about his supporters lives. #TrumpKnewpic.twitter.com/deHovrCUtm
Think about this – Trump knew this was an extremely contagious, deadly airborne virus since at least February and yet he went on TV for months mocking masks and refusing to encourage or mandate people wearing them.
By the way, if you’re going to go to the polls to ‘check on your vote,’ why not just GO VOTE? Stein’s tweet also included a link where NC voters can track their mail-in votes to make sure they are counted. Twitter tagged Trump’s tweet with a disclaimer: “This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about civic and election integrity. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible.” 
And then next, today’s banner on the Grey Lady the day after we learned an actual PRESIDENT lied to the American people about the severity of a pandemic that has killed nearly 200,000 Americans. Notice how small that is? #ThingsThatMakeYouGoHmm 
Instead, Trump’s decisions allowed many Americans to doubt the severity of the virus and