Tag: Donald Trump

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Laughable: Quisling Touts Trump As “Most Pro-Gay President” In History

Richard Grenell for Log Cabin Republicans (screen capture)
The Log Cabin Republicans, an organization representing conservative LGBTQ voters, recently released a misleading video featuring Richard Grenell, the openly gay former Ambassador to Germany, praising the Donald as the “most pro-gay president in American history.” That’s certainly some serious hyperbole (and a lie), but it was right up the Donald’s alley as he retweeted the clip with the caption, “My great honor!!!” The video, which has been viewed over 5.2 million times on Twitter at this writing, is meant to attack former Vice President Joe Biden’s record on LGBTQ issues. In the clip, Grenell (who briefly served as acting Director of National Intelligence) points to Trump being the “first president in history to be pro-gay marriage from his first day in office.” What Grenell doesn’t note is that marriage equality was the law of the land by that time, decided in 2015 by the U.S. Supreme Court. It’s not exactly an act of courage to acknowledge the law. When asked about the issue shortly after his electoral win in 2016, Trump told CBS News reporter Lesley Stahl his personal view on the matter was “irrelevant” and that he considered the matter “settled.” He added, “I’m fine with that.” Hardly a glowing endorsement of marriage equality. Especially when, during the campaign, he sent mixed signals about gay rights. While Trump mentioned “L. G. B. T. citizens” during his nominating convention speech (in a halting cadence that sounded like he’d never used the phrase in his life), he went on to tell Fox News he would “strongly consider” appointing judges who might overturn same-sex marriage. Grenell also mentions the Trump administration’s supposed push to end the criminalization of homosexuality around the world. You might recall the initiative, announced to be headed up by Grenell himself, was unknown to Trump when he was asked about it. And, since the announcement of the campaign, there’s been no news or apparent action on the issue. NBC News also reported that State Department deputy spokesperson Robert Palladino downplayed Grenell’s new effort, describing it as “long-standing,” “bipartisan” and “really is not a big policy departure.” Additionally, Trump’s administration has attacked the LGBTQ community 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, and supporting taxpayer-funded religious adoption agencies that refuse to place children in LGBTQ homes.

Just this week, the Trump Administration intrinsically erased LGBTQ people from an updated foreign policy on gender and women’s empowerment by the U.S. Agency for International Development. Throughout the video, Grenell ignores that transgender people even exist as he only uses the terms “gay and lesbian.” Grenell also alleges that Biden believes “gays are security risks,” which is a pretty far stretch as Grenell is referencing an off-hand statement made almost 47 years ago. Biden was reportedly ‘startled’ by a question about gays serving in the military and civil service at an informal event with neighbors in 1973. According to the conservative Free Beacon, Biden responded, “My gut reaction is that they [gay people] are security risks but I must admit I haven’t given this much thought,” he said. “I’ll be darned!” You’ll note Grenell doesn’t mention the incident happened back in 1973, and he also doesn’t include the part of Biden’s response that said he hadn’t given the subject much thought. In reality, Biden’s movement on LGBTQ rights has pretty much mirrored the nation’s perspective. He’s publicly evolved to become a champion for gay rights – most memorably coming out in support of same-sex marriage in 2012 just days before President Obama. While Joe Biden has promised full-throated support for the Equality Act, which would extend existing civil rights protections to LGBTQ people, Trump and the majority of his fellow Republicans have stood firmly against the legislation. Biden has also named a fierce Black lesbian, Karine Jean-Pierre, as the chief of staff for vice presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris. If you want the facts, click over to GLAAD for an extensive list of Trump’s attacks on the LGBTQ community. For information about Biden’s plans for LGBTQ equality, check out my report on his proposals for our community here.

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Trump Repeats Same Talking Points Day After Day

CNN’s John Berman notes that Donald Trump repeats the same statistics during White House press briefings even when the briefings are weeks apart. It’s especially interesting since Trump has often criticized former Vice President Joe Biden for reading from prepared remarks. But, as the panel here notes, repetition – while not always ‘truth’ – does work in politics.

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Trump Considers Pardon For Edward Snowden, Previously Called For His Execution

L-R Edward Snowden, Donald Trump (images: publio domain)
Donald Trump said on Saturday that he would consider issuing a presidential pardon to whistleblower Edward Snowden, who has remained in exile in Russia since disclosing highly classified information from the National Security Agency. After leaking the info to the Guardian in 2013, Snowden left the U.S. traveling to Hong Kong and then to Moscow in order to avoid being arrested. To some, Snowden is seen as a civil liberties hero, but to others, he is seen as a traitor for revealing secret intelligence documents. Back in 2014, Trump called Snowden a ‘spy’ tweeting, “A spy in the old days, when our country was respected and strong, would be executed.”

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Lindsey Graham Claps Back At Trump Floating Harris ‘Birther’ Theory

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) took a moment this morning to clap back against Donald Trump’s comment yesterday when he floated a birther theory that Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) might not be eligible to run for vice president. Trump told reporters on Thursday, “I heard today that she doesn’t meet the requirements. I have no idea if that’s right. I would have assumed the Democrats would have checked that out before she gets chosen to run for vice president.” Ahem, Harris was born in Oakland, California – on US soil – in 1964. The 14th Amendment makes it very clear she is a natural-born citizen and can run for veep. Graham made note of this on Twitter:

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#ThrowBackThursday: The Real Numbers From Obama/Biden Administration

L-R Former President Barack Obama, Donald Trump
I saw some folks trashing the results of the Obama administration years, so just a reminder here. For instance, unemployment dropped from nearly 10 percent o 4.7 percent. The current unemployment rate under Donald Trump is 10.2 percent. The Dow Jones had increased by 63.6 percent at the 43-month point in Obama’s administration, while the Dow has increased much less at 40.8 percent. Overall, by the time Obama left office, the Dow had jump 143.8 percent. We’ll have to see how that shakes out for Trump. Oh, and Obama was never impeached. There’s always that… More at FactCheck.org.

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Funny: Donald Trump Interviews Donald Trump

(screen capture)
Using footage from the now-infamous interview of Donald Trump by Axios’ Jonathan Swan, Justin T. Brown gives us Trump interviewing Trump. As one YouTube commenter wrote, “Somehow he is still losing the argument with himself.” Brilliantly edited. Just hit play.

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Two-Thirds Of Americans Oppose Delaying Presidential Election

L-R President Donald Trump, former Vice President Joe Biden
Via Reuters:

Two-thirds of registered American voters oppose delaying the Nov. 3 presidential election due to the coronavirus pandemic, and more than half think President Donald Trump floated the idea of postponing it last week to help himself politically, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling released on Wednesday.

The national public opinion poll was conducted from July 31 to Aug. 4, shortly after Trump said without providing evidence that a surge in mail-in voting would lead to widespread voter fraud and suggested the election be delayed.

The idea was immediately rejected by Democrats and Republicans in Congress, who have sole authority to change the election date.

Most Americans also rejected the suggestion. The poll showed 66% of registered voters oppose postponing the November vote, including 8 out of 10 Democrats and 5 in 10 Republicans.

Another 23% of registered voters – mostly Republicans – supported an election delay and 11% said they were not sure.

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Interview: Trump On COVID-19 Deaths ‘It Is What It Is’

Donald Trump

Donald Trump speaking to Axios (screen capture)
Other than Fox News’ Chris Wallace, I think this is the first extended example of a journalist going back and forth with Donald Trump on actual COVID-19 facts and data. Axios’ Jonathan Swan got a 38 minute sit down with Trump. In this clip, Trump argues about his ‘great success’ in addressing the coronavirus pandemic. Trump, it seems is comfortable with the ratio of death to diagnosed cases, while Swan is talking about the proportion of deaths to population in countries. Swan: “Oh, you’re doing death as a proportion of cases. I’m talking about death as a proportion of population. That’s where the U.S. is really bad. Much worse than South Korea, Germany, etc.” Trump: “You can’t do that.” Swan: “Why can’t I do that?” As Swan points out, for example, South Korea has a population of 51 million but has experienced only 300 deaths from COVID-19 which factors out to 0.0005 percentage of the population has died from the virus. The U.S. has a population of 328,000,000+ but has suffered over 155,000+ deaths from coronavirus which means our percentage of the population that has died is much higher at .047. You’ll note in the clip, Trump hands Swan a graph with only four countries listed showing the U.S. being ‘the best.’ Talk about pick and choose. In the second clip below, as Trump argues the virus is ‘under control,’ Swan points out 1,000 Americans are dying on average each day. “It is what it is,” says Trump. Trump also admits he didn’t attend the funeral of civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) because “he didn’t come to my inauguration.” However, Trump does wish accused sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell “well.” Full interview at the end of this post.