Tag: Donald Trump

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The Trumps, 9/11 And The Pledge Of Allegiance

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.

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A Tale Of Two ‘Times’

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

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Nevada: Trump Rallies Canceled Due To Coronavirus Restrictions

Donald Trump

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)

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Recorded Interviews Show Trump Deliberately Misled Americans About COVID-19

(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.

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Trump Mocks Biden, Reporters For Wearing Face Masks

Donald Trump wearing a face mask

Donald Trump wearing a face mask
Donald Trump (image via Flickr/WhiteHouse)
“I’ve never seen a man that liked a mask more.” Watch Donald Trump recently mocked Joe Biden and reporters for wearing face masks in public, even though the CDC’s current COVID-19 public health guidelines say wearing masks can save lives. Watch below from NowThis News.

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Trump Retweets Lie About Armless ‘Veteran’ After It Was Debunked Years Ago

Donald Trump smirks during a press event

Donald Trump smirks during a press event
Donald Trump (photo: public domain/Flickr)
In an effort to dispute the stories about disparaging remarks allegedly made by Donald Trump about fallen military service members, radio personality Mark Simone shared a years-old photo of Donald Trump touching the face of a “severely wounded veteran.” The image has been shared often on social media, usually with a message referring to the man as a wounded veteran and sometimes inferring that he lost his arms in battle. But according to the fact-checking site Snopes the man, Henry “Bubba” Stevenson Jr., is not a “wounded veteran:”

Radio personality Mark Simone also shared this image in May 2017 with the caption: “Here’s a powerful picture that no news outlet will publish. It took place at a Trump rally when the President met a severely wounded veteran. This soldier lost both of his arms. The feeling of a handshake is lost to him. President Trump realized this, and touched his face so he could feel the human connection.”

This is a genuine photograph of Trump briefly touching the cheek of a supporter with two prosthetic arms. However, the accompanying backstory about the supporter being a veteran is inaccurate.

While Trump did touch Stevenson’s face, Stevenson is not a wounded veteran.

According to Online Chester, Stevenson was born without arms. His right limb stops just above his elbow and on his left side he has “only a nub below his shoulder.” A GoFundMe set up in 2014 to raise money for two bionic arms also stated that he “was born without arms.” This post is not an attack on Mr. Stevenson, But Simone tweeting the photo and claim again, years after being called out by Snopes, is intellectually disingenuous in an attempt to help Trump in the middle of a political firestorm.

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Trump Orders Stop To ‘Divisive’ Racial Sensitivity Training

Donald Trump has ordered the White House Office of Management and Budget to end anti-racism training programs in federal agencies calling them “un-American” and “divisive.” From the Washington Post:

In the two-page memo, OMB Director Russell Vought says Trump has asked him to prevent federal agencies from spending millions in taxpayer dollars on these training sessions. Vought says OMB will instruct federal agencies to come up with a list of all contracts related to training sessions involving “white privilege” or “critical race theory,” and do everything possible within the law to cancel those contracts, the memo states.

The memo, released on Friday, also tells all federal agencies to identify and if possible cancel contracts that involve teaching that America is an “inherently racist or evil country.”

“The President has directed me to ensure that federal agencies cease and desist from using taxpayer dollars to fund these divisive, un-American propaganda training sessions,” the memo states.

Read more at the Washington Post.

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Fox News Confirms Key Details Of ‘Atlantic’ Report On Trump

Jennifer Griffin of Fox News Channel
Jennifer Griffin, National Security correspondent for Fox News (of all outlets), reports that two former senior Trump administration officials confirmed to her reporting by The Atlantic that Donald Trump disparaged veterans and did not want to drive to honor American war dead at Aisne-Marne Cemetery outside Paris. Y’all – Fox News is confirming the story. So, there you go. Watch her report below.

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Report: Trump Called Fallen US Soldiers ‘Losers’ And ‘Suckers’

Donald Trump (image via Flickr/WhiteHouse – public domain)
Donald Trump is facing a firestorm of criticism after a report from The Atlantic (based on several sources) shared that Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris in 2018 not because his helicopter couldn’t get him there but because he reportedly didn’t understand the point in honoring our military dead.

Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day. In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.”

In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.

The article goes on to say in a 2018 meeting about planning a military parade, Trump sought to exclude injured service members because parade attendees might feel uncomfortable in the presence of amputees. “Nobody wants to see that,” Trump reportedly said. The AP confirmed several aspects of the article: “A senior Defense Department official with firsthand knowledge of events and a senior U.S. Marine Corps officer who was told about Trump’s comments confirmed some of the remarks to The Associated Press, including the 2018 cemetery comments.” Alyssa Farah, a White House spokesperson, emailed this statement to the author of the article:

“This report is false. President Trump holds the military in the highest regard. He’s demonstrated his commitment to them at every turn: delivering on his promise to give our troops a much-needed pay raise, increasing military spending, signing critical veterans reforms, and supporting military spouses. This has no basis in fact.”

Trump followed up with a series of tweets, of course:

As shown in the video above, we’ve seen Trump (who never served in the military receiving several deferments due to ‘bone spurs’) criticize military veterans like Sen. John McCain as well as Gold Star families in the past. So, none of this should really shock us as it seems to fit Trump’s mold. Former Vice President Joe Biden, whose son Beau served in Iraq in 2008 & 2009,  issued a statement criticizing the reported remarks:

“If the revelations in today’s Atlantic article are true, then they are yet another marker of how deeply President Trump and I disagree about the role of the President of the United States. I have long said that, as a nation, we have many obligations, but we only have one truly sacred obligation — to prepare and equip those we send into harm’s way, and to care for them and their families, both while they are deployed and after they return home. That’s the foundation of what Jill and I believe.

“It’s why we’ve always prioritized the health and well-being of our service members, veterans, and military families. We’ve visited troops coming home wounded in Walter Reed. We’ve hosted wounded veterans in our home to share a Thanksgiving meal. And, as the proud parents of a son who served in Iraq, we’ve made supporting military spouses, caregivers, and children a focus of our service.”

“Generations of American troops have shed blood around the world in defense of our freedoms and to protect U.S. vital interests. From the frontlines of our own Revolution to Belleau Wood to the Normandy beaches to the mountains of Afghanistan, the sacrifice and bravery of our troops and their willingness to serve our nation should be honored. Duty, honor, country — those are the values that drive our service members.

“Those are the values that have formed the core of America’s defense for centuries. And if I have the honor of serving as the next commander in chief, I will ensure that our American heroes know that I will have their back and honor their sacrifice — always.”

In related news, new polling from Military Times indicates Trump’s favorability rate plunging among both active-duty troops and officers. Perhaps more importantly, 41 percent plan to vote for former Vice President Joe Biden versus 37 percent for Trump.

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Trump Tells His Followers To Vote Twice

While in North Carolina yesterday, Trump suggested his supporters should commit voter fraud by attempting to vote both by mail and in person. Speaking with a local reporter, Trump said, “Let them send it in and let them go vote, and if their system’s as good as they say it is, then obviously they won’t be able to vote. If it isn’t tabulated, they’ll be able to vote… If it’s as good as they say it is, then obviously they won’t be able to vote. If it isn’t tabulated, they’ll be able to vote. So that’s the way it is. And that’s what they should do.” Voting by mail and then voting in person is exactly the kind of fraud Trump keeps screaming about and yet he’s telling his supporters to do that. I see what he thinks he means in trying to ‘test the system,’ but if any of his followers were to vote by mail and then cast a vote in person, it would be a felony. The White House walked that back today saying Trump never said what he said. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told Fox News this morning a bold face lie when she said “Democrats want a fraudulent system of voting.” No Democrat has ever called for such thing.