Only Barrier to "Anarchy, Madness and Chaos?" - Trump Claims It's He and He Alone

Source: The Washington Post:  Politics - 2020 Election - Analysis:  Written by Phillip Bump at 1:49 pm EDT, on Friday, 21 August 2020

  Dark vs. Light: Trumps Declares Himself the Only Barrier to "Anarchy, Madness and Chaos"

   It took less than 14 hours for President Trump to reinforce the central theme of former vice president Joe Biden's Democratic convention acceptance speech.

   Biden's speech centered on an unsubtle contrast: the contrast between light and dark.

   "I give you my word," Biden said.  "If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us, not the worst.  I will be an ally of the light, not of the darkness."

   "We can choose the path of becoming angrier, less hopeful and more divided.  A path of shadow and suspicion," he added later.  "Or we can choose a different path, and together, take this chance to heal, to be reborn, to unite.  A path of hope and light."

   Broadly, of course, Biden was referring to Trump's presidency as much as the toxic, draining public moment.  To some extent, the former vice president was also framing the upcoming Republican convention, which will certainly try to present a positive contrast to the negativity Americans are now experiencing.  But Biden knows as well as anyone that the Republican convention and its keynote speaker, Trump, will also portray a possible Biden presidency in the bleakest terms possible.

   Four years ago, that's precisely the tack Trump took in accepting his party's nomination.  It was a dark speech, as we wrote at the time, presenting a crime-riddled America in which people were suffering and suggesting that the election of Hillary Clinton would lead the country down an even worse path.

   Trump offered himself as a messiah to rebut that fate.

   "Nobody knows the system better than me," he asserted, "which is why I alone can fix it."

   Should Trump's speech at next week's convention be similarly grim, Biden's hoped to serve as an inoculation.  But, again, it didn't take that long.

   Speaking at a conservative group's annual meeting on Friday, Trump made an even more explicit presentation of himself as the last defender of America's future.

   "I'm the only thing standing between the American Dream and total anarchy, madness and chaos," Trump said.  "And that's what it is.  I'm representing you.  I'm just here.  And I'm not sure it's an enviable position, but that's what it is."

   The crowd applauded.

   "You know, when I made that statement, I was a little embarrassed by it because it sounds so egotistical.  It's like an egotistical statement.  I was a little embarrassed.  I'm the only one, but there was no other way to say it."

   Much of his presentation focused on the purported threat posed by socialists, anarchists and criminals, just as his speech did in 2016.  It poses an odd contrast, given that he's the president.  As when Trump said on Thursday that life under Biden was exemplified by "the smoldering ruins of Minneapolis, the violent anarchy of Portland, the bloodstained sidewalks of Chicago" - all things that have already happened during an American presidency: his.

   "We have to expose this dangerous left-wing movement.  We must defeat it," Trump said on Friday.  "And with an optimistic vision for America's future, we can be greater than ever before."

   An optimistic vision?  "Elect Biden and America will descend into anarchy and chaos" is not an optimistic vision.  It is a dark vision, exactly as Biden suggested.

   In an interview with Fox News on Friday morning, Vice President Mike Pence criticized Biden and the Democratic convention broadly for offering "a very, very negative view of America."  For example, no mention was made, he said, of "the violence that's besetting the families in major cities across the country." (Instead, Pence said, the Democrats offered, among other things, "ad hominem attacks against the president of the United States" - a tactic in which his ticket would presumably never engage.)

   None of this even coheres.  Trump and Pence concede that things are bleak, demanding both that Democrats focus on crime and that Democrats foster crime.  Trump claims an optimistic vision as he offers himself as the sole barrier to the apocalypse.

   Trump's campaign strategy in 2016 was to present everything as terrible and himself as the best solution.  That meant accepting his unpopularity but emphasizing Clinton's.  It meant casting the country as teetering.

  His strategy now, weirdly, is the same. Attacks on Biden as horrifying and socialist and anarchic and doddering, all at once.  Paint a picture of a nation more precarious than the one he criticized four years ago.  Yet offer himself, again, as the solution.

   All of this plays into Biden's framing.  The democratic convention did suggest that times are dark, but most Americans agree.  Polling data from Gallup indicates that only about 1 in 8 Americans is satisfied with the direction of the country, with a fifth pointing to the coronavirus pandemic as the most serious problem and another fifth pointing to the economy.  If the moment seems dark, that's in large part because it is.

   Biden's argument was that he can lighten the stress and tension.  That he can right the course.  Trump's argument presented on Friday is that he's the only thing keeping things from being worse.  A case for optimism vs. a case for pessimism - a contrast Biden is happy to have.

   While Biden's speech drew that comparison with an explicit, obvious metaphor, it was much better captured by a speech that preceded his.

   Brayden Harrington, 13, described meeting Biden at a campaign event in New Hampshire earlier this year and discussing the stutter that each had dealt with over the course of their lives.  It was an immensely moving speech and one that made explicit what Biden was getting at.

   There was a shadow hanging over Harrington's life, and that conversation with Biden offered a ray of light.  That was the promise Biden was making in his acceptance speech, casting Trump as part of the darkness he hoped to combat.

   It was an analogy that Trump then echoed. 

Triple Amount of COVID-19 Among Native Americans and Alaska Natives

 Source:  CNN - Health:  Written by Jacqueline Howard, with contributions by Maggie Fox; updated at 11:00 am EDT on Friday, 21 August 2020

   Covid-19 Incidence More Than Triple Among Native Americans, New CDC Report Says

Navajo Nation has lost more people to coronavirus than 13 states combined

  See video at:  https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2020/04/17/navajo-native-american-coronavirus-pkg-tuchman-ac360-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/top-news-videos/

Navajos in the time of COVID-19

    The coronavirus pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on Native American communities.  The incidence of Covid-19 cases among American Indians and Alaska Natives was 3.5 times that among White people, according to a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

   The report included data on 340,059 Covid-19 cases confirmed between January 22 and July 3 from across 23 states.  The researchers - from the CDC and other institutions across the United States - took a close look at race and ethnicity information for those cases.

   Among American Indians and Alaska Natives there were 594 Covid cases per 100,000 people.  That compares to, among White people, just 169 cases per 100,000, the team reported on Wednesday.

   Data was limited to cases that included race and ethnicity information.  The study also only compared coronavirus rates among American Indians and Alaska Natives to White people and not to other groups, as the pandemic also has hit Black and Hispanic communities at disproportionate rates.

   The CDC said Wednesday that it has provided more than $200 million in Covid-19 funding to American Indian and Alaska Native communities to support pandemic preparedness and responsive efforts, such as surveillance, laboratory capacity and infection control.

   "American Indian and Alaska Native people have suffered a disproportionate burden of Covid-19 illness during the pandemic," CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said in a news release.  "This funding approach will broaden access to Covid-19 resources across tribal communities."

   In May, Dr. Thomas Wayne Sequist, a member of the Taos Pueblo tribe of New Mexico, told the House Ways and Means Committee that many issues are exacerbated during the Covid-19 pandemic among Native American families across the United States.

   "What I've observed with the Navajo Nation is the shortage of testing there, and the lack of personal protective equipment there," he said during a hearing on the Disproportionate Impact of Covid-19 on Communities of Color.

    Covid is impacting social issues as well, he said, and families have been hit hard by the pandemic across many generations.

   "There are entire families that have either been infected with it, or have had multiple deaths in the family, all at once.  And that is going to create a trauma that's going to be long lasting and a need for mental health services," he said.

   "We cannot flip back into complacency," Sequist said, adding the circumstances that created the crisis "existed long before Covid, and will persist long after, unless we take decisive action starting today." 

***** Note from BND:  Most Native American tribes and Alaskan Natives have very few hospitals nearby, and must travel hundreds of miles to reach medical care.  Funding for medical care is often limited, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs seems to like to complicate matters for the people they were created "to serve."  Medical care on reservations can be "spotty" at best...  The CDC has sent aid to the tribes - but getting it disbursed is another matter....  Here is an excerpt from a report in May 2020 about $8 billion in COVID-19 aid that was designated for Native American tribes and Alaska Natives:

" ...  The human and economic toll of the pandemic has been particularly devastating for tribes across the country, which were already struggling with inadequate federal resources and are now among the most vulnerable and hardest hit by the virus.  While the stimulus law mandated that $8 billion be provided to tribes by the end of April, tribal leaders say they have yet to receive any of the money, prompting a lawsuit against the Trump administration.

   But the delay stems in part from a dispute among the nation's native populations, which are feuding over who is entitled to the aid.  It pits Alaska Native corporations, for-profit businesses which serve several tribal villages in Alaska, against federally recognized tribal governments in the lower 48 states who argue the corporations should not be eligible for the coronavirus relief monies.

   The Trump administration has sided with the Alaska Native corporations.  More than a dozen tribes filed lawsuits last month challenging the Treasury Department's decision to allow the corporations to apply for the aid, saying they do not meet the definition of tribal governments.  ..."

Blizzard of Lies From Trump in Pennsylvania

Source:  CNN - Politics - 2020 Election - Facts First:  Written by Daniel Dale; updated at 7:22 am EDT on Friday, 21 August 2020

 Fact Check:  Trump Delivers Blizzard of False Claims in Pennsylvania Speech Attacking Biden

   Hours before former Vice President Joe Biden was scheduled to give his prime-time speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination, President Donald Trump attacked him at length in a speech near Biden's birthplace.

   Speaking in Old Forge, Pennsylvania, just outside of Biden's home town of Scranton, Trump delivered a wild monologue that involved unscripted musings about sharks, boxing, dishwashers and the maintenance of forests.

   It also involved a blizzard of false claims.

The fairness of the election

  Trump said of Democrats:  "The only way they're gonna win is by a rigged election.  I really believe that.  I saw the crowd outside."

   Facts First:  This is nonsense.  Trump is trailing in every major national poll and in many polls of swing states.  The existence of Trump supporters does not mean he cannot lose fairly.

Biden's availability to the media

  Trump said he had seen a news report that said Biden hasn't taken questions from journalists since July 17.

   Facts First:  We have no idea what Trump might have seen, but the July 17 date is incorrect.  Biden took questions during a formal media availability on July 28.  He also tool questions from a group of four Black and Latino Hispanic journalists on August 4.  And he has taken assorted other questions, including in a People magazine interview with Senator Kamala Harris, his vice presidential selection, on August 14.

Obama and "spying"

  Trump repeated his familiar claim that former President Barack Obama got caught spying on his campaign.

   Facts First:  Investigators engaged in lawful surveillance of Trump campaign advisers in 2016.  But there is no evidence Obama had any role in the surveillance.

    Trump has used the word "Spying" to describe lawful FBI surveillance of people affiliated with his campaign as part of its investigation into the Trump campaign's relationship with Russia; the surveillance included court-approved wiretaps and the use of a secret FBI source who reached out to Trump advisers to try to arrange conversations and meetings.  (FBI Director Christopher Wray, who was appointed by Trump, has said he would not use the word "spying" to describe what he called "surveillance activity.")

   The Justice Department's Inspector General rejected Trump's previous claims that the FBI planted spies inside his campaign, though the watchdog did find significant errors in its court applications for surveillance of former campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page.  (* CNN's Marshall Cohen contributed to this fact check.*)

New Zealand and the pandemic

  Trump said that New Zealand, which has been praised for its handling of the coronavirus, has a "massive outbreak yesterday."

   Facts First:  New Zealand did not have a "massive outbreak": it reported six new cases on Wednesday, and five more on Thursday.  While those small numbers represent an uptick in cases for New Zealand, which went 102 days without any recorded local transmission of the virus, it is a tiny uptick that does not compare with the ongoing US crisis.

   The US reported 47,408 new cases on Wednesday, according to Johns Hopkins University data, and it had reported more than 32,000 on Thursday, as of 5:15 p.m.

Trump's stance on the war in Iraq

  Trump said he had opposed the war in Iraq before it began but was ignored:  "I'd say, 'Don't go into Iraq.' But I was a civilian, nobody cared."

   Facts First:  Trump never publicly urged the US not to go into Iraq.  Rather, he expressed tentative support for an invasion in a radio interview in September 2002.  The war began in March 2003; Trump expressed some critical sentiments soon after that, but he did not emerge as an explicit opponent of the war until 2004.

The state of the pandemic

  Trump touted recent jobs growth, then said the growth is happening during what he said is "hopefully" the "closing moments of the pandemic."

   Facts First:  Hopefully or otherwise, it's just not true that the coronavirus pandemic is in its "closing moments."  The US continues to have tens of thousands of new reported cases per day.

Veterans Choice

  Trump repeated a lie he has uttered more than 150 times, saying, "We passed Veterans Choice."

   Facts First:  The Veterans Choice bill - a bipartisan initiative led by Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and the late John McCain of Arizona that allows certain veterans to be covered by the government for health care outside the VA system - was signed into law by Barack Obama in 2014.  In 2018, Trump signed the VA Mission Act, which expanded and changed the program.

Polling

  Trump referred to polls as "suppression polls," which are designed to deflate his supporters, then criticized pollsters for surveying registered voters rather than likely voters.  Some people who are registered to vote have died, he noted.

   Facts First:  There is simply no evidence that major pollsters have manipulated their numbers to suppress the enthusiasm of Trump voters, as Trump has repeatedly alleged.

   Trump is entitled to argue that polls of likely voters are more accurate than polls of registered voters. (Pollsters often switch to surveying likely voters in the late stages of a campaign, since people can more accurately assess their likelihood to vote as voting gets closer.)  But Trump's comments about deceased people are nonsensical.  The fact that some people remain on the voter rolls after having died does not make polls of living registered voters inaccurate.

 ***** Note from BND:  Trump spoke to about 200 selected people at the site in Old Forge ***** 

45 Posts Rage Tweets During Obama's DNC Convention Speech

Source: Deadline (www.deadline.com) - Business - Breaking News: Written by Ted Johnson and Dominic Patten; Wednesday, 19 August 2020 at 8:04 pm PDT

  Barack Obama's Scathing Criticism In Democratic Convention Speech Sends Donald Trump Into A Fury of Angry Tweets

      As Barack Obama delivered what was his harshest warning yet about Donald Trump, telling Democratic Convention viewers in a live speech that what is at stake is "our democracy," the current president went off on Twitter.

   Obama's remarks were unusual and even unprecedented in their criticism of a presidential successor.

   "Donald Trump hasn't grown into the job because he can't," Obama said in his speech.  "and the consequences of that failure are severe.  170,000 Americans dead.  Millions of jobs gone while those at the top take in more than ever.  Our worst impulses unleashed, our proud reputation around the world badly diminished, and our democratic institutions threatened like never before."

   As Obama was delivering his remarks live from the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, Trump tweeted, in all caps, "HE SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN, AND GOT CAUGHT!"

   Trump has long made unfounded claims that Obama was behind the FBI investigation of contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russian sources in 2016.  Factcheck.org says that investigators have found no evidence of illegal spying.

   He then tweeted,"WHY DID HE REFUSE TO ENDORSE SLOW JOE UNTIL IT WAS ALL OVER, AND EVEN THEN WAS VERY LATE? WHY DID HE TRY TO GET HIM NOT TO RUN?"

   Obama stayed out of the 2020 primary race and did not endorse until the race was all but over.

   Obama also used the speech to lay out the case for Joe Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris.  His remarks were preceded by a video of a moment in early 2017 when Obama awarded Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  He said that Biden "made me a better president - and he's got the character and the experience to make us a better country."

   "Tonight, I am asking you to believe in Joe and Kamala's ability to lead this country out of these dark times and build it back better," Obama said.  "But here's the thing: no single American can fix this country alone.  Not even a president.  Democracy was never meant to be transactional - you give me your vote; I make everything better.  It requires an active and informed citizenry."

   Obama's words about Trump were notable because the 44th president has shown relative restraint in criticizing his successor, weighing in only occasionally as parts of his agenda were rolled back.

   Historian Michael Beschloss tweeted out, "No former President has ever attacked his incumbent successor at a convention like Barack Obama tonight, or even come close."

   Standing in front of an exhibit on the U.S. Constitution, Obama said, "I have sat in the Oval Office with both of the men who are running for president.  I never expected that my successor would embrace my vision or continue my policies.  I did hope, for the sake of our country, that Donald Trump might show some interest in taking the job seriously; that he might come to feel the weight of the office and discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care."

   Obama added, "But he never did.  For close to four years now, he's shown no interest in putting in the work; no interest in finding common ground; no interest in using the awesome power of the office to help anyone but himself and his friends; no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves."

   As the president live-tweeted during the speech, some observers noted that Trump was merely proving Obama's point.  Jonathan Martin, national correspondent for The New York Times, wrote, "Shorter Obama: come on, man, guy is just watching TV all day." 

US Senate Intelligence Committee Finds Direct Links Between Trump Associates and Russia And That Trump Lied To Mueller

 Source: The Washington Post - National Security - Donald Trump - 2020 Election -  Written by Greg Miller, Karoun Demirjian and Ellen Nakashima, with contributions from Tom Hamburger, Shane Harris, Rosalind S. Helderman and Matt Zapotosky  on Tuesday, 18 August 2020 at 8:56 pm EDT

Senate Report Details Security Risk Posed By 2016 Trump Campaign's Russia Contacts

     An exhaustive investigation led by members of President Trump's own political party portrays his 2016 campaign as posing counterintelligence risks through its myriad contacts with Russia, eager to exploit assistance from the Kremlin and seemingly determined to conceal the full extent of its conduct from a multiyear Senate probe.

   The long-awaited report from the Senate Intelligence Committee contains dozens of new findings that appear to show more direct links between Trump associates and Russian intelligence, and it pierces the president's long-standing attempts to dismiss the Kremlin's intervention on his behalf as a hoax.

   Like the Mueller report before it, the nearly 1,000-page Senate document does not explicitly accuse the Trump campaign of direct collusion with Russian intelligence.  But the Senate report carries particular weight because it is the first major investigation of Russian interference in 2016 to be conducted by a Republican-controlled committee and endorsed by both Republicans and Democrats.

   The report's language is often stark, describing Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's receptivity to Russian outreach as a "grave counterintelligence threat" that made the campaign susceptible to "malign Russian influence."

   At one point, the document concludes that members of Trump's transition team probably fell prey to Russian manipulation that they were too callow to recognize.  Kremlin operatives "were capable of exploiting the transition team's shortcomings," the report says.  "Based on the available information, it is possible - and even likely - that they did so."

   Other sections of the report may furnish Trump supporters new material to use in attacking the FBI and one of its informants.  The probe is particularly critical of the credibility and sourcing of a "dossier" assembled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele as part of an opposition research effort funded by Democrats.

***** Note from BND: In October 2015, Fusion GPS was contracted by conservative political website The Washington Free Beacon to provide general opposition research on Trump and other Republican presidential candidates.  In April 2016, the DNC separately Fusion GPS to investigate Trump, while The Free Beacon stopped its backing in May 2016.  Fusion GPS is the source of the "Steele dossier." *****

   But Trump will have difficulty taking exculpatory advantage of a report that is replete with damning details about his conduct and that of his associates.

Senator Mark Warner

   The Senate probe is the first to flatly declare that a longtime partner of Manafort was, in fact, a Russian intelligence officer.  The report also for the first time cites evidence that the alleged operative, Konstantin Kilimnik, may have been directly involved in the Russian plot to break into a Democratic Party computer network and provide plundered files to the anti-secrecy group Wiki-Leaks.

   The committee determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally directed the hack-and-leak campaign.

   In one of its most startling passages, the report concludes that one of Trump's core claims of innocence cannot be credited.  In written testimony to the team of federal prosecutors led by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, Trump insisted that he could not recall ever discussing the WikiLeaks dumps with political adviser Roger Stone or any other associate.

   "Despite Trump's recollection," the Senate report said, "the committee assesses that Trump did, in fact, speak with Stone about WikiLeaks and with members of his campaign about Stone's access to WikiLeaks on multiple occasions."

   The document describes Trump and associates of his campaign as often incapable of candor.  It offers new proof that former national security adviser Michael Flynn lied about his conversations with Russia's ambassador to the United Sates, raises troubling questions about Manafort's decision to squander a plea agreement with prosecutors by lying to Mueller's team, and accuses Blackwater founder Erik Prince of "deceptive" accounts of his meetings with a Russian oligarch in the Seychelles weeks before Trump was sworn into office.

   The overall portrait that emerges from the report's 966 pages is of repeated encounters between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives, but no formal collusion.  The two sides shared the same objective - the defeat of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton - and basked in one another's admiration.  But more because of ineptitude than any principled commitment to the sanctity of American democracy, the partnership was never consummated, the committee determined.

   The report is the last of five installments in the Senate probe that confirm the broad outlines presented in 2017 by U.S. intelligence agencies: that Russia waged a massive campaign of cyber-intrusions and social media disinformation at first to disrupt the 2016 election, then to try to sway its outcome.

   The document would read more like a harrowing historical account were it not for mounting evidence that many of the same forces of disruption are lining up for the 2020 election. The top U.S. counterintelligence official recently warned that Russia is again waging a far-reaching interference campaign and favors Trump in the upcoming election.

   The United States has taken some steps to thwart Moscow's plans, including a reported effort by the State Department to flood Russian citizens' cellphones with offers of reward money for information on the Kremlin's operations.

   But Trump continues to amplify many of Russia's divisive messages.  Attorney General William P. Barr has intervened in criminal cases against Trump allies Stone and Flynn.  And Trump supporters on Capitol Hill, including Sen. Ron Johnson (R- Wis), have reportedly accepted material from Russian-tied sources to discredit former vice president Joe Biden, Trump's opponent in November.

   A Russian lawyer who met with Manafort, Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner at Trump Tower before the 2016 election also had more "significant connections" to the Kremlin than has been previously reported, the Senate probe concludes.

   The "dirt" that Natalia Veselnitskaya offered  on Clinton was "part of a broader influence operation targeting the United States that was coordinated, at least in part, with elements of the Russian government," the report states.

   The Senate probe was conducted in an unusually bipartisan fashion given the polarized atmosphere in Congress. For most of the past three years it was led by Sens. Richard Burr (R-NC) and Mark R. Warner (D-Va), though Burr stepped down earlier this year amid investigations of his stock sales at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic.

   There were partisan differences, however, in how to interpret the outcome of the probe, which includes some findings likely to be seized upon by Trump supporters.

   The panel concluded that the FBI's handling of Russian threats to the election was "flawed," for example, and that the bureau gave "unjustified credence" to allegations about Trump's Russia ties made in the dossier compiled by Steele, "based on an incomplete understanding of Steele's past reporting record."

   The committee said it did not rely in any way on Steele's memos, but it included references to separate sources related to one of his dossier's most explosive allegations.  The report cited "testimony and other information provided by several witnesses" referring to the possible existence of compromising tapes and witness accounts of Trumps' conduct with women during past visits to Moscow.

   The panel agreed that the FBI overestimated Steele's reliability and that Manafort and other aides exposed the campaign to undue Russian influence.  But its leaders were divided along party lines in how they interpreted other findings, and several members - including the committee's acting chairman, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla) - endorsed dissenting conclusions about Trump's culpability.

   "After more than three years of investigation by this Committee, we can now say with no doubt, there was no collusion," a group of six panel Republicans, including Rubio, wrote in a statement that instead accused the Democratic party of coordinating with foreign actors to produce Steele's dossier.

***** Note from BND:  Please note that Marco Rubio is one of Trump's chief ass-lickers. *****

Senator Marco Rubio with 45

   The FBI's conduct remains under investigation by Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham, who was tapped by AG Barr to explore the origins of the Russia probe.

   A former FBI lawyer is expected to plead guilty Wednesday to falsifying a document in the Russia case.  Durham is also likely to interview former CIA director John Brennan on Friday, according to a person familiar with the investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity. 

   Five Democratic senators - including Kamala D. Harris (Cal), the party's 2020 vice-presidential nominee - asserted that the report "unambiguously shows that members of the Trump Campaign cooperated with Russian efforts to get Trump elected."  Referring specifically to their findings on Manafort, the Democrats wrote, "This is what collusion looks like."

   Warner, the ranking Democrat on the panel, did not sign onto the Democrats' dissent but noted "a breathtaking level of contacts between Trump officials and Russian government operatives that is a very real counterintelligence threat to our elections."  

   Burr and Warner launched the probe before Trump's inauguration in January 2017.  Since then, Mueller released a 448-page report on Russian interference, and Trump was impeached and acquitted after Democrats accused him of coercing Ukrainian leaders to interfere in the 2020 election.  The Senate probe involved interviews with more than 200 witnesses and gained access to classified materials relating to Russian disinformation efforts.

   And although it covered much of the same turf as Mueller's investigation, the committee's work was different in nature.  Mueller ran a criminal probe; the Senate committee conducted an intelligence investigation - a distinction that helps explain some of the nuanced differences between their conclusions.

   Mueller eventually secured the convictions or indictments of six Trump aides.  The Justice Department later sought to withdraw charges against one, Flynn, and Trump commuted the sentence of a second, Stone.

***** Note from BND: Judges are still deciding whether Flynn's case will be dropped, or not. *****

   The special counsel also indicted  26 Russians, charging 12 military officers with involvement in the hacks and 13 Russians with manipulating social media to influence U.S. opinion.  Kilimnik was charged with obstruction of justice.

Donald Trump Jr (left) and Jared Kushner 

   The intelligence Committees's report notes that it had made referrals to the Justice Department "for potential criminal activity" suspected during the course of its investigation.  As The Washington Post reported late last week, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort were among those flagged to federal prosecutors because the committee believed that their testimony was contradicted by information unearthed by Mueller.

   It is unclear whether the Justice Department took action on the referrals.

Michelle Obama's Speech at the DNC Convention And Trump's Tweets In Response

SOURCE:  Twitter -  posted by @realDonaldTrump  on Tuesday, 18 August 2020

-  at  7:00 am EDT (2 parts):  "Somebody please explain to @MichelleObama that Donald J. Trump would not be here, in the beautiful White House, if it weren't for the job done by your husband, Barack Obama. Biden was merely an afterthought, a good reason for that very late & unenthusiastic endorsement....."

 "....My Administration and I built the greatest economy in history, of any country, turned it off, saved millions of lives, and am now building an even greater economy than it was before. Jobs are flowing, NASDAQ is already at a record high, the rest to follow. Sit back & watch!"

-  at 7:10 am EDT:  "Looking back into history, the response by the ObamaBiden team to the H1N1 Swine Flu was considered a weak and pathetic one. Check out the polling, it's really bad. The big difference is that they got a free pass from the Corrupt Fake News Media!"

-  at 7:16 am EDT:  "The ObamaBiden Administration was the most corrupt in history, including the fact that they got caught SPYING ON MY CAMPAIGN, the biggest political scandal in the history of our Country. It's called Treason, and more. Thanks for your very kind words Michelle!"

-  at 11:27 am EDT:  "People forget how divided our Country was under ObamaBiden. The anger and hatred were unbelievable. They shouldn't be lecturing to us. I'm here, as your President, because of them!"

Source:  The Washington Post - "The Plum Line" - Opinion:  Written by Greg Sargent; posted at 10:11 am EDT on Tuesday, 18 August 2020

 Trump's Unhinged Twitter Meltdown Shows Michelle Obama Drew Blood

      President Trump unleashed a torrent of rage tweets about Michelle Obama's speech at the Democratic convention that was spectacularly cringe-worthy even by his standards - but it only underscored how effectively the former first lady made the case against him, in ways that are significant, but not immediately apparent.

   The strength of her scorching indictment of trump - delivered on Monday night - resides in the fact that everyone, or at least a majority, knows it is true.  As Trump's meltdown shows, his only available response is to swap in an entirely invented tale, one hermetically sealed off from reality in just about every conceivable way.

   Her case, boiled down, is that Trump inherited a country that, for all its deep problems and lingering inequalities, was on the mend following another previous crisis.  Trump proceeded to utterly wreck the place through his incompetence, malevolence, corruption and depraved conviction that stoking as much civil conflict and racial incitement as possible helps him.

   Trump's substitute tale, reflected in a series of tweets, runs as follows: Trump won the White House only as a reaction to Barack Obama's failures - to "the job done by your husband," as he sneered.  Trump then built the "greatest economy" in the known universe, then voluntarily turned off that economy in a benevolent and responsible effort to save "millions of lives."

   Now, goes this story, Trump is "building an even greater economy."  And the real failure in handling pandemics was by "ObamaBiden" on H1N1.  Obama and Biden presided over the "most corrupt" administration ever, including launching the Russia investigation.

          Trump's story is pure disinformation

   Here's the reality: Trump largely inherited the economic trends he enjoyed for three years.  Trump was compelled into acting on the novel coronavirus only when his efforts to lie the crisis out of existence grew impossible to sustain.  His dithering helped cost tens of thousands of live, while the handling of H1N1 was relatively smooth and effective.

**** Note from BND:  AT this moment the Johns Hopkins Database says that 171,013 Americans have died from COVID-19; and most scientists agree that there is an under-count of at least 20 to 30,000 deaths... ****

   Trump is by far the most corrupt, self dealing president of the modern era.  An the Russia probe uncovered important truths about a foreign attack on our democracy that actually happened, to his benefit, an accounting he corruptly tried to derail.

   If anything, Michelle Obama's account was charitable.  She declared that Trump is "clearly in over his head" and "cannot meet the moment."  That's all true, but it undersells his malevolent intent.

   The former first lady also noted the long stretch of job creation during the past administration, the expansion of health care to 20 million people and the grounding of the response to infectious-disease crises in science and expertise.  She then contrasted that with the loss of more than 150,000 lives and the resulting economic catastrophe.

   She rightly noted that Trump mocks Black LIves Matter even as people of color keep dying and cited his moral equivocating about white supremacists and the violent removal of protesters for Trump's Bible photo op.  She charged that Trump brings only "chaos, division, and a total and utter lack of empathy."

           Trump has no response

   The truth of all of this is everywhere, all around us, confirmed daily.  Trump can substitute only pure invention.  Indeed, his campaign ads proceed as if the coronavirus and economic crises simply do not exist.

   But this shows weakness.  The fundamental premises of his alternate history are rejected by large majorities, who disapprove of Trump's handling of the coronavirus, say it is not under control, believe Trump acted too slowly on  it, view the recovery negatively, and prioritize containing the virus over herding people back to work, which Trump wants to do. 

   Which brings us to one last way the former first lady told the truth:

"Right now, folks who know they cannot win fair and square at the ballot box are doing everything they can to stop us from voting.  They're closing down polling places in minority neighborhoods.  They're purging voter rolls.  They're sending people out to intimidate voters, and they're lying about the security of our ballots."

   And this means:

"We've got to vote early, in person if we can.  We've got to request our mail-in ballots right now, tonight, and send them back immediately and follow-up to make sure they're received.  And then, make sure our friends and families do the same."

   After the speech, Trump retweeted a bunch of nonsense purporting to debunk claims that he's trying to sabotage mail balloting.  But Trump himself confirmed the truth of her allegation when he said on Monday:  "The only way we lose the election is if the election is rigged."

   Similarly, Trump has explicitly said mail balloting will inevitably mean the outcome is rigged.  If Trump loses amid a lot of mail balloting, which people will utilize to protect themselves from the pandemic he exacerbated, the results cannot be legitimate.

   Even as the U.S. Postal Service pursues operational changes that the USPS itself says could delay the delivery of mail ballots, Trump is telegraphing that he will seek to dismiss all late-arriving ballots as illegitimate.  Meanwhile, GOP lawyers are working to protect laws that will invalidate those ballots, even if they arrive late due to pandemic conditions and operational delays - through no fault of the voters.

   So Obama's ultimate claim, stated indirectly, is right:  Faced with his inability to make his catastrophic record disappear with lies, Trump is plainly persuaded he cannot win a free and fair election.  So he's trying to corrupt it.

   As she noted, to overcome that effort to evade an uncorrupted election, Democrats may have to win overwhelmingly.  But that very fact itself stands as searing an indictment of Trump's record - and his efforts to evade accountability for it at the hands of the voters - that anyone could ask for.

Monday's Crazy Trump Comments (34) with Chris Cillizza's and My Own Comments

 Source;  CNN - The PO!NT With Chris Cillizza - Analysis by Chris Cillizza, Editor-at-large; updated at 11:03 am EDT, Tuesday, 11 August 2020

  ****With my, BND's own, personal, snarky comments posted after Chris's, between the asterisks****

The 34 Wildest Lines From Donald Trump's Wildly Inaccurate Coronavirus Press Conference

      Late Monday afternoon, President Donald Trump took to the podium in the White House briefing room to give one of his semi-regular updates on the fight against coronavirus.  And even by the remarkably low standard for truth that he has set in office, it was a doozy.

   "They're all at least pretty bad, but that was one of the worst Trump press conferences in a while from a truth standpoint," tweeted CNN fact checker Daniel Dale.  "Fast and furious lying."

   I went through the transcript of Trump's remarks - and his Q&A with reporters - and picked out the lines you really need to see.  They're below.

 1.  "I thought I would start talking about some mail-in voting that was just revealed, just the news, half a million incorrect absentee ballot applications were sent out all across the state of Virginia, including to many dead people."

   Yes, due to a printing error, a group sent more than 500,000 absentee ballot applications with an incorrect return address on them. The group acknowledged the error and the director of elections in Fairfax County (Virginia) told a local TV station that there was no evidence "this organization was acting maliciously."   As for Trump's claims the ballots were sent to "many dead people," well, I don't see any reporting on that.  Also, isn't the press conference supposed to be  focused on the US's fight against coronavirus?  And away we go!

 2.  "Our system is not equipped for it.  The Post Office is not equipped for it."

   "The Postal Service has ample capacity to adjust our nationwide processing and delivery network to meet projcted Election and Political Mail volume including any additional volume that may result as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic." - statement from the US Postal Service

**** The USPS handles billions of Christmas cards each year, but can't handle voting.... Yep.****

 3.  "And your numbers will be - in 90 days or less, your numbers will be very good, I think, much better on the coronavirus or the China virus."

   It's not at all clear where Trump's prediction that the coronavirus pandemic will get better in the next 90 days is coming from.  In fact, most experts - of which Trump is not one - say that the pandemic could worsen as flu season approaches.

 4.  "From what I understand, the answer is yes."

   Trump was briefly whisked away from the press conference before returning to the podium.  The President was asked by a reporter whether the person shot by the Secret Service as he approached a checkpoint on Monday was armed.  He said said yes.  The Secret Service acknowledged later on Monday that the man was not armed.

**** Did you see the video clip of this?  The Secret Service agent approaches and says, "Mr Prsident." The president turns to him slowly and says , "Excuse me?" and the agent responds.  Trump looks at the cameras and says, "Oh, OK," then walks very slowly off, like he's been heavily sedated... ****

 5.  "The world has been, you look back over the centuries, the world has been a dangerous place, very dangerous place, and it will continue I guess for a period of time."

   So true!

 **** It will be dangerous until Trump is safely behind bars, along with his minions. ****

 6.  "I don't know if anybody got to walk outside, but there were a lot of terrific-looking people ready to go, if something was necessary - people at the highest level of law enforcement, there's nobody like these people."

   "Terrific-looking people..."

**** Yep, the first thing the Secret Service checks agents for, is how photogenic they are... ****

 7.  "I think we'll have a vaccine before the end of the year, very substantially and we may have a therapeutic resolvement very quickly, very, very quickly and frankly that's the one I'd rather have faster, because you in, you give a transfusion or a shot to people that are very ill and they'd be able to come out of the hospital, the next day or a few days later."

   Paging Dr. Trump, Dr. Donald Trump please pick up the white phone.

**** Perhaps he should have volunteered to take Putin's vaccine that's already out, without trials... ****

 8.  "If we had much smaller testing, we would have fewer, but we feel that having testing is a very important thing."

   OK, for the billionth time: Testing does not create cases.  It identifies them.

**** Maybe once he's in prison, we can use him for a test subject for all types of medical trials? ****

 9.  "The new wall is being built, which people don't talk about.  They used to talk about nothing but the wall.  Now that it is being built, they're not talking about it so much."

   "Trump campaigns on border wall progress.  There's not much of it." - from The Los Angeles Times, 23 June 2020

*** Since Trump was sworn in, a little over 3 miles of his precious border wall has been newly built.  He has "reconstructed" and "re-enforced" about 297 miles of previously exiting wall. ****

 10.  "It should have never been allowed to happen.  It should have never been allowed to escape China."

   Two things are true here.  First China was not at all transparent in the scope and seriousness of Covid-19.  Second, the virus is very contagious and it's not at all clear that even if China had been transparent, the virus would have stayed only in that country.

 11.  "We must stop politicizing the virus and instead be united in our condemnation of how this virus came to America, how this virus came to the world."

   Reader, he really did say this.

 12.  "But the payroll tax is a big deal for people.  It's a tremendous saving for people.  And we are going to do it."

   "I'm not a fan of that, I've been very clear about that." - South Dakota Senator John Thune, the Number 2 ranking Republican, on the payroll tax cut

**** Payroll taxes support the Social Security program, from which the Republicans have already stolen billions of dollars without any replacement or repayment. ****

 13.  "I don't think a man of deep religion would be agreeing to the Bernie Sanders plan."

   Trump previously suggested that Joe Biden, a Catholic, was "against religion."  His evidence for such a major claim appears to be based on a joint agreement of principles released by Sanders and Biden.  The 110-page document mention the word "religious" three total times by my count; It advocates banning religious bias in law enforcement, urges passage of legislation that would do that, and advocates a review of the administration's immigration policies for possible evidence of religious bias.  And that's it.

**** Gimme a break - the man doesn't know one religion from another, can't quote a single verse from the Bible or Torah or Koran, and only sees the inside or outside of a church or place of worship for a publicity photograph. ****

 14.  "And I think it's one of the reasons why, if you look at polls, which I'm not a big believer in polls, I wouldn't - if I was, I guess I wouldn't be standing here right now."

   Shot...

**** But he certainly follows them.... ****

 15.  "And by the way, our poll numbers are going up very rapidly, as you know, and Joe's are going down very rapidly."

   Chaser.

 16.  "But no, if you look at the manifesto, I call it the manifesto, a lot of people are calling it the manifesto, my opinion, it's further left than where Bernie was before."

   "I call it the manifesto, a lot of people are calling it the manifesto"

**** Look - he learned a new word! ****

 17.  "But the individual mandate will always be with us - the individual mandate termination will always be, they can't start it up."

   Wait, so we will have the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act?  Or we will always have the termination of the individual mandate?  I.  Don't.  Know.

 18.  "And I saw that Senator Schumer said today on a show, I don't remember which show but he said today on a show we should meet and we should do something but you know, where has he been for how many weeks have you been negotiating?"

   Donald Trump watches a lot more cable television than you do.  Like, a lot more.

**** Trump spends his time getting his make-up on, doing his hair, golfing, speaking nonsense in front of cameras, and all the rest of the time he's binge watching cable news and ratings of cable news. ****

 19.  "It would have been so much easier than doing it the way we did it, but we did something that's very important and frankly it's been well received, very well received."

   This is Trump on the quartet of Executive Orders he signed over the weekend.  "The pen-and-phone theory of executive lawmaking is unconstitutional slop,"  said Nebraska Republican Senator Ben Sasse about the moves.

**** Bullshit.  He signed one Executive Order and three Memoranda.  All of them were illegal, as he has NO authority to touch taxes - that is the duty of Congress, not a president. ****

 20.  "Well, I think it's, I've been to Gettysburg numerous times.  It's a national park.  It's a national historic site.  It's incredible.  You know it's the history.  It's incredible, actually, to me."

   "It's the history."

**** Bet you he doesn't know who led which side of the battle there, how long it lasted, or any other fact about Gettysburg.  -  And exactly how many times, and when, was he there?  As a student at his private military school? ****

 21.  "The White House would be very much easier for the Secret Service.  You see what just went on here.  They're all here.  Just like you have your seats, they have their seats at the White House.  So there wouldn't be any expense or any extraordinary expense and the White House would be a lovely place to do it also."

   Trump is considering delivering his acceptance speech of the 2020 Republican presidential nomination at either Gettysburg - or the White House, which is sort of dicey, legally speaking.

**** He should deliver his speech from inside Air Force One, while it's sitting on the tarmac at Andrews Air Force base.  Other than the drive there and back - or the flight in Marine One, it wouldn't cost tax payers much....  I'm surprised he hasn't announced it at his hotel in DC, actually... ****

 22.  "And you know who else is not happy with us winning?  Russia.  The phony people that tell you the story, the fake news stories about Russia."

   The intelligence community, special counsel Robert Mueller and the Republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee all agree on this: Russia engaged in a broad and deep campaign to meddle in the 2016 election.

**** According to multiple studies, Russia, China and Iran are running hidden heavy interference campaigns in this 2020 election...  ALl you have to do is check intelligence sources to see it. ****

 23.  "So if we win the election, we'll have deals with a lot of countries very fast."

   What evidence did Trump provide for this bold claim?  Oh, none.

**** Again, I love his use of the royal "we"  -  NOT! ****

 24.  "So you will have a crash like you've never seen before.  And I've been very good at predicting these things."

   OK, so if Biden wins, the stock market will crash.  Because, uh, Trump is an expert prognosticator?  Or something?  On a related note: "We have it totally under control.  It's one person coming in from China.  We have it under control.  It's going to be just fine."

 25.  "So I don't know.  You know hat I'm telling you?  I'll tell you who's meddling in our elections.  The Democrats are meddling."

   Trump was asked directly whether Russia was seeking to meddle in this election.  This was how the President responded.  Not exactly reassuring.  (Also US intelligence has made very clear Russia is seeking to interfere in the 2020 contest.)

 26.  "Take a look now at this one in Virginia, where they mailed out 500,000 applications and they're going to people that aren't supposed to be getting an application."

   Just to reiterate:  The issue in Virginia was that more than 500,000 absentee ballot applications had an incorrect return address on them.  Not that people who got them who shouldn't have.

 27.  "No, I wouldn't have done that.  I think it's - I think it's been amazing what we've been able to do."

   Trump was asked, if 160,000 Americans had died on President Obama's watch, whether he would have called for the 44th president to resign.  So, um, this is Trump's tweet from 2014: "If this doctor, who so recklessly flew into New York from West Africa, has Ebola, then Obama should apologize to the American people & resign!"

**** This man has always been, and always will be, a lying bag of racist, disgusting shit wrapped in a human skin... ****

 28.  "The closest thing is in 1917, they say right, in the Great - the Great Pandemic certainly was a terrible thing where they lost anywhere from 50 to 100 million people.  Probably ended the Second World War, all the soldiers were sick."

   World War II ended on 8 May 1945.

**** What a complete and total dope.  He really learned his stuff at his military school and in college, and out in the real world, didn't he? ****

 29.  "And you know at the beginning there was a big shortage of ventilators.  Nobody had stockpiles or anything comparable to what you had to have."

   NOPE!

**** Again, he had the ventilators and there was a pandemic plan left for him by the previous administration.  He let the ventilators up-keep expire and he tossed the pandemic plan in the trash can. We, the people of America, are paying for his own personal elitism. ****

 30.  "So no, I think we're a very large country.  We are one person."

   So, uh,  well,  what?

**** What the hell is that supposed to mean? ****

 31.  "But they've done a - really an extraordinary job.  They'll never be given the credit and I'm not talking about me."

   [Narrator voice:] He's talking about him.

 32.  "[Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's] great.  He's - and I hear he's doing well.  He's recovered from having Covid.  Having Covid-19, as they say."

   "As they say."

**** Yep... Brazil is right behind the US with COVID-19 Cases and deaths...  and now the "first lady" of Brazil has tested positive for the virus....   Great job, doing very well!!! ****

 33.  "Well, look, the Obama campaign spied on our campaign."

   NOPE!

 34.  "I think it's the political crime of the century and they've been caught.  So let's see what happens to them all."

   Yeah... this feels like a good place to end.

****  No words... The man is an ego-maniacal narcissistic boil on the mass of American humanity.  He needs to be excised and sterilized from society. ****

Flouting State Health Decrees, Trump Holds Two "Press Conferences" At His Golf Club

Source:  The Washington Post -  Politics - Coronavirus : "The Debrief:  An Occasional Series Offering a Reporter's Insights"  written by Toluse Olorunnipa, with contributions by David Farenthold, at 4:55 pm EDT on Saturday, 8 August 2020

Calling It a 'Peaceful Protest,' Trump Flouts Coronavirus Guidelines With Golf Club Gathering

  

Bedminster, N.J.  -  Just before 7 p.m. Friday evening, members of President Trump's private golf club here began streaming into a gilded ballroom by the dozens.  Some carried wine glasses - few wore masks.

   The happy hour scene just steps from the golf course was orchestrated by Trump, who decided late Friday to hold an impromptu news conference and invite his club members to gather indoors in defiance of state restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus.

   With coronavirus cases nearing 5 million in the United States and average daily deaths topping 1,000, Trump's retreat to the confines of his private club offered him an opportunity to create a kind of alternate reality in which his presidency is not being beset by numerous crises.

   After walking into the room to the sound of applause and "Hail to the Chief" playing over a loudspeaker, Trump told the crowd that newly released job numbers showed a resurging economy, the border wall was continuing to be built and executive orders were being drawn up to circumvent an intransigent Congress.

   The pandemic, he told the room, "is disappearing.  It's going to disappear."

   Many in the crowd behaved as if the pandemic had already vanished, forgoing guidelines on social distancing, face coverings, and avoiding nonessential gatherings.

   Playing dual roles as president and business owner, Trump seemed happy to facilitate a carefree evening for his members - despite the health risks.

   In the few minutes Trump spent focusing on the health crisis, he presented misleading or incomplete statistics indicating other countries were facing a new "surge" of infections and the the United States' position as the world's epicenter for the coronavirus was primarily due to the large number of tests being performed, an argument health experts have continuously said is incorrect.

   "We're constantly showing cases, cases, cases, cases going up," Trump said.  "Well, the reason cases are up [is] because we're doing, one of the reasons, we're doing a lot of testing."

   But health experts say it will take vigilant mitigation practices by the public - not positive spin or wishful thinking - to gain control of a virus that has killed at least 158,000 Americans.

   Little of that was on display when Trump's well-heeled golf members began making their way into the grand ballroom under a light drizzle Friday.  Some people had their temperature checked at the door, many didn't.  The group of more than 100 mingled in one small section of the 5,000-square-foot ballroom, with mere inches between each person.

   Asked by reporters if they had been tested for the coronavirus before the impromptu conference, no one in the crowd responded.

   After reporters noted the lack of social distancing in the crowd, a club official just told the crowd to "spread out a little bit" because "the tweets are going out."  Masks were also handed out shortly before Trump arrived.

   Again on Saturday, Trump gathered a few dozen of his supporters in the grand ballroom of his Bedminster club to witness the signing of four executive orders he said will help the unemployed during the pandemic after his administration failed to reach a deal with Congress, but that are likely to be challenged in the courts.

   This time, attendees were handed masks before they walked in, and encouraged to wear them.  Almost everyone did, though social distancing continued to be the exception rather than the rule.

   New Jersey guidelines limit most indoor gatherings to 25 people or 25 percent of a room's capacity, whichever is lower.  People are required to wear masks and maintain a distance of at least six feet.

   The office of New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy (D) referred questions about Trump's club event to the Bedminster police and the New Jersey attorney general's office.

   "At this time we're not going to comment on an alleged violation," Steven Barnes, a spokesman for the attorney general's office, said Friday.  The Bedminster police did respond to a request for comment.

   Asked Friday why he was staging an event in defiance of state guidelines, Trump denied that the gathering was unlawful.  He cited an exemption that allows for indoor gatherings of up to 100 people for political events or protests.

   "You have an exclusion in the law.  It says peaceful protest or political activity, right?" Trump said.  "And you can call it political activity, but I'd call it peaceful protest because they heard you were coming up and they know the news is fake."

   The question drew boos from the crowd and Trump's response was greeted with applause.  The president walked away as his club members continued to cheer.

   But as the news conference ended, it remained unclear why Trump decided to stage the unscheduled event.

   His lengthy opening statement consisted largely of a rundown of many of the things he has been saying for several weeks.  He attacked presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, pledges to protect the suburbs, railed against "anarchists" in Portland, Ore., blasted Democrats in Congress, previewed the legally dubious executive orders he signed Saturday and rehashed his administration's actions on opioids and prescription drug prices.

   He promised an executive order soon that would require health insurers to cover preexisting conditions for all their customers.

   "This has never been done before, but it's time the people of our country are properly represented and properly taken care of," he said.

   In fact, it has been done before and is a central plank of the Affordable Care Act, the law enacted under President Barack Obama that the Trump administration is seeking to strike down in a case before the Supreme Court.

   Members in the crowd were mostly silent through the president's remarks, a far cry from the kind of raucous rallies he held before the pandemic.  At some point between Trump's remarks on the "favored-nations clause" for pharmaceuticals and the personnel policies at the Tennessee Valley Authority, a little girl in a yellow dress took a seat on the floor.

   Before the 40-minute news conference, Trump briefly stepped out to privately address some of the members of his club, which reportedly has a six-figure initiation fee.  He promised a one-of-a-kind show to the group, which included men in golf shorts and gem-tone polo shirts, women in sundresses and a smattering of children in miniaturized versions of these outfits.

   "You'll get to meet the fake news tonight.  You'll get to see what I have to go through," he told the group, according to CNN, which pulled the audio from a hot mic.  "Who's there?  Oh, all my killers are there, wow.  So you'll get to see some of the people that we deal with every day."

   But the club's ballroom, described on a company website as "lavishly decorated" with "exquisite French doors, crystal chandeliers and sconces," struck some as a poor choice to hold a news conference in the middle of a pandemic that has decimated the economy.

   "Who decided it would look good for Trump to speak to a bunch of rich Trump club members about the need to deliver unemployed Americans relief," Amanda Carpenter, a former aide to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex) and a Trump critic who wrote a book titled Gaslighting America: Why We Love It When Trump Lies To Us, wrote on Twitter.  "All this shows is that Trump isn't in Washington, isn't working with urgency, and is supported by wealthy loyalists who can't be bothered with masks."

   As for the president, he has expressed no qualms about the optics of meeting with large groups of wealthy supporters at a time when so many are struggling.  He is scheduled to hold fundraisers in the Hamptons and near the Jersey Shore this weekend before returning to Washington on Sunday.

 

Jonathan Swan Interviews 45 on Axios

SOURCE:  The New York Intelligencer - The National Interest :  Written by Jonathan Chait,  10:58 am EDT, Tuesday, 4 August 2020

The 9 Wildest Answers In Trump's Interview With Jonathan Swan

   President Trump's campaign spent the past several weeks trying to center the presidential campaign on cogency.  His message has combined spreading baseless claims that Joe Biden is trying to get out of debating him and offering his time to right-leaning but tough interviewers.  The latter part of the strategy has backfired spectacularly.  Two weeks ago, he rambled through a jaw-dropping interview with Chris Wallace.  Last night, he gave a shorter but equally disastrous performance with Jonathan Swan.

   The interview contained so many crazy and disqualifying moments that they crowded each other out, and none of them is likely to register in the public memory.  (In this way, it was a synecdoche for the entire Trump era.)  But in an attempt to impose some order on the surreal events, here is a ranking of the wildest moments, measuring every moment by a combination of novelty and political damage, using my proprietary, secret formula.

9.  John Lewis will be remembered for skipping Trump's inauguration

   Asked how history would remember the late civil-rights icon, Trump replied, "I don't know.  I really don't know.  I don't know John Lewis.  He chose not to come to my inauguration.  He didn't come to my State of the Union speech."

   Prompted by Swan to give a nod to Lewis's history in civil-rights activism, Trump instead returned to to skipping the inauguration, which he emphasized this was "a big mistake."

8.  Having many different tests is good

   The coronavirus testing system in the United States has been a disastrous hodgepodge.  There is no uniform standard, it is difficult for parts of the system to coordinate or communicate with each other, and even people who do get tests have to wait so long for the response that the signal is useless.

   Trump presented this state of affairs as if it was good.  "We've come up with so many different kinds of tests," he boasted.  "The only thing we have now is some people have to wait longer than we'd like them to."

7.  The only problem with his Tulsa death rally was too few people attended

   Swan asked Trump why he would hold a huge maskless indoor rally during a pandemic.  Trump's reply, incredibly, was to boast about the size of the crowd and insist it was twice as large as news reports (and photos) indicated:

   "We had a 19,000 seat stadium.  First of all, we had 12,000 people, not 6,000, which you reported.  But, you couldn't even get in.  It was like an armed camp - 120 Black Lives Matter people there, and Tulsa... "

   When Swan tried to clarify and ask why he felt it was wise to hold such a rally during a pandemic, Trump explained, "That area was a very good area at the time.  It was an area that was pretty much over ...  Oklahoma was doing very well as a state."  And then he held a large concentrated indoor event with lots of cheering and shouting, after which the virus seemed to have spread.  Who could have known?

6.  "The manuals" say you shouldn't test too much

   Trump has repeatedly said he doesn't like coronavirus testing because it shows how many cases you have, which makes him look bad.  This time he attributed this position to undefined manuals and books.

  Trump:  There are those that say, you can test too much.  You do know that.

  Swan:  Who says that?

  Trump:  Oh, just read the manuals.  Read the books.

  Swan:  Manuals?  What manuals?

  Trump:  Read the books.  Read the books.

  Swan:  What books?

   Trump changed the topic rather than explain.

5.  The virus cannot be contained any better than it is now

   On several occasions, Trump replies to questions about the coronavirus response by insisting the U.S. is containing the virus as well as it possibly could.  When Swan points out that 1,000 Americans are now dying per day, Trump replies, "They are dying.  That's true.  And you have - it is what it is.  But that doesn't mean we aren't doing everything we can.  It's under control as much as you can control it."

   At another point, he conceded, " They are dying.  That's true.  And it is what it is."

   When Swan asks about the long delay between testing and results - a delay that renders the tests all but useless - Trump again shrugs, saying, "It's three or four or five days, there's nothing you can do about that."

4.  Defending Putin's bounties on U.S. soldiers

   This was the first clip Axios released from the interview.  In it, Trump denied that Russia is paying bounties to the Taliban to kill American troops, denied that reports of the bounties were in his intelligence briefing (they were), defended Russia for arming the Taliban, and admitted he didn't even bring up the issue in his last phone call with Vlad.

   On its own,the clip seemed crazy, but in the context of the surrounding interview, it was almost sober.

3.  Ghislaine Maxwell might be innocent?

   Trump has previously expressed his well-wishes for Jeffrey Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.  "Mr. President, Ghislaine Maxwell has been arrested on allegations of child-sex trafficking," he asked.

   "You don't know that," replied Trump.  Swan noted that we do in fact know that Maxwell has been arrested.

  Trump then explained she was in jail:  "Good luck.  Let them prove that somebody is guilty."  It is weird for President Lock Her Up to give an obviously guilty sex trafficker the benefit of the doubt.

2.  Nonsense chart exchange

   Trump is attempting to obscure the fact that the U.S. currently has a much worse outbreak than almost any peer country.  The method of obfuscation he is trying to use - most likely, that his aides have prepped for him - is to cite the raw numbers of tests performed and the death rate of patients who have coronavirus.  This allows him to avoid the fact that the U.S. has far-higher rates of both coronavirus infections and deaths.

   Unfortunately for Trump, he cannot remember his lines, and so he simply hands over the charts that have been given him without coherently explaining what they're supposed to mean.  "Well, right here, the United States is lowest in numerous categories.  We're lower than the world.  We're lower than Europe."

   Swan looks at the chart and realizes Trump has given him the proportion of patients who die who already have the coronavirus.  That number, of course, means very little.  The problem is not that the coronavirus kills more people who have it here than who have it elsewhere.  The problem is that way more people have it here.

   When Swan points out that he is citing the percentage of people who die as a proportion of the public, not the proportion who die as a share of patients, Trump seems not to understand what he is even saying.  "You have to go by - you have to go by - here, look.  Here is the United States.  You have to go by the cases."

   He looks like an addled used-car salesman trying to up-sell a customer on Tru-Coat, but he can't remember what it's called, so he keeps saying "it's for your car."

1.  The Civil Rights Act hasn't worked out very well

  Swan:  Lyndon Johnson!  He passed the Civil Rights Act.

  Trump:  Ask, ask: how has it worked out?  If you take a look at what Lyndon Johnson did.  How has it worked out?

  Swan:  You think the Civil Rights Act was a mistake?

   Trump changed the subject back to his administration and the fact that black unemployment was low.  (Before it became very high.)

   Even the most racist Republicans at least give lip service to supporting the Civil Rights Act.  The standard racist demagogic move is to imply that the civil rights movement turned bad after ending de jure segregation.  Claiming it was a mistake to end segregation is not a popular or clever idea.