Lake was a notable Georgia GOP voice of opposition to Trump during the 2016 campaign and shortly after. Ahead of Trump's arrival, Loeffler's campaign pointed to a2017 comment from Lake acknowledging that he didn't vote for the president and suggesting that Trump might leave office before his first term was up. Said Loeffler spokesman Stephen Lawson:

"Doug Collins hiring a Never Trumper to lead his campaign affirms how he really feels about our president. Congressman Collins is a career politician who only backed President Trump after his choice candidate was crushed in the primary. His entire campaign is built on lies, and his record as a fake conservative and total fraud is finally being exposed."

The reply from Collins campaign spokesman Dan McLagan:

"Attacking staff is sad. It's also silly since Kelly herself was a Mitt Romney never Trumper and her top strategists have been attacking the President for years. Kelly, Inc. sounds frightened and weak. Like mewling little kittens."

At the same time, the Collins campaign also riposted this morning with news that Loeffler's newly hired legislative director in Washington, Wesley Coopersmith, has an anti-Trump history: "Friends don't let friends vote for con-artists"...here's looking at you Florida #nevertrump," he posted in March 2016.

Loeffler also released thisgauzy digital video welcoming Trump back to Georgia, which he carried by five percentage points in 2016. "He continues to fight for all Americans. He's the only person that can do it again. Joe Biden has no clue what's at stake in this election," Loeffler says.

Meanwhile, Democrat Jon Ossoff, the nominee to challenge Republican incumbent David Perdue in Georgias other U.S. Senate race, welcomed Trump to town in a different way.

Ossoff took aim at the White House'snew policy for hospitals to report coronavirus data directly to the federal government -- and bypass the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Ossoff assailed Trumps decision to ignore, undermine and smear the CDC and called for the White House to guarantee the public uncensored access to the data. Said Ossoff:

"The accuracy, credibility, and transparency of COVID-19 data is essential to our national public health effort. Today's move raises grave concerns that the Administration is placing this information under political control, whereby its credibility will be in doubt, and it could be manipulated to serve partisan ends.

***

Republican congressional candidates Karen Handel (Sixth District) and Rich McCormick (Seventh District) will also be on hand when Trump steps out of Air Force One, we're told.

But GOP congressional candidates still enmeshed in north Georgia runoffs have apparently been left off the invitation list.

In the Ninth District, thats state Rep. Matt Gurtler and firearms retailer Andrew Clyde. In the 14th, construction executive Marjorie Taylor Greene faces neurosurgeon John Cowan.

The decision has at least one advantage: Greene has achieved some renown for her endorsement of QAnon conspiracy theories and racist comments. Having her in the same camera frame with President Trump might be inconvenient.

***

In decades past, when a president is both unpopular and a member of one's own party, there has been a temptation for state leaders to be suddenly called out of town when a presidential visit is announced. But that was then.

In today's polarized climate, there is little upside for a Republican who wants to distance himself or herself from Trump. In fact, refusing the president can be dangerous.

Consider the case of former U.S. attorney general Jeff Sessions hopes for a senatorial comeback were dashed Tuesday by former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville -- and President Trump.

Tuberville had Trumps backing in the Republican primary runoff to take on Alabama Democratic Sen. Doug Jones. During the Alabama campaign,Trump repeatedly criticized Sessions for recusing himself from an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

***

The Trump event will be containedwithin the Hartsfield-Jackson universe, so the impact on Atlanta traffic should be minimal.

***

We told you on Tuesday that the Trump Administration had eliminated the Atlanta-based US Center for Disease Control and Prevention as a first recipient and compiler of coronavirus data from hospitals across the nation.More this morning from The New York Times:

The new instructions were posted recently in a little-noticed document on the Department of Health and Human Services website. From now on, the department not the C.D.C. will collect daily reports about the patients that each hospital is treating, the number of available beds and ventilators, and other information vital to tracking the pandemic.

Officials say the change will streamline data gathering and assist the White House coronavirus task force in allocating scarce supplies like personal protective gear and remdesivir, the first drug shown to be effective against the virus. But the Health and Human Services database that will receive new information is not open to the public, which could affect the work of scores of researchers, modelers and health officials who rely on C.D.C. data to make projections and crucial decisions.

But don't expect Trump to address the coronavirus or the sidelining of the CDC this afternoon. Instead, the president is expected to announce a new federal ruleto speed up the environmental review process for proposed highways, gas pipelines and other major infrastructure. Critics are describing the move as a dismantling of a 50-year-old environmental protection law.

***

ProPublica reports that sincePresident Trump took office, the Comptroller of the Currency has quietly shelved at least six investigations into discrimination and redlining by major banking institutions -- including Atlanta-based Cadence Bank:

Flagstar Bank, a leading lender in Michigan, wrongly charged Black homeowners more through a network of mortgage lending affiliates, OCC officials concluded in 2017. That same year, agency examiners found that Colorado Federal Bank, an online lender, was doing the same to female borrowers.

Another inquiry by OCC officials concluded that Chicago-based MB Financial, a lender acquired by Fifth Third Bank last year, charged Latinos too much on mortgage loans. Cadence Bank, a lender in several Southern states, was turning away minority borrowers in Houston, according to an OCC investigation. Fulton Bank, a lender based in Pennsylvania, had been discriminating against minorities in parts of Richmond, Virginia, and its home state, regulators concluded.

***

National Archives employees working at home during the pandemic have used this time to improvepublic access to black history documents, including records of Martin Luther King Jr. and U.S. Rep. John Lewis.

More than 5,000 documents and photos have been tagged with descriptive keywords to make them more searchable online, the federal agency said. Now that additional records have been identified, archivists are beginning the process of transcribing them.

The trove of documents connected to Lewis includes congressional speeches and resolutions, pictures and even FBI reports of his activity during the Civil Rights Movement.

***

An endorsement of President Donald Trump by state Rep Vernon Jones was rewarded with a trip to the White House on Monday.

Jones, a Democrat who lives in either Lithonia or Atlanta depending on who you ask, was asked to join a roundtable with Trump and other guests "positively affected by law enforcement." The goal of the discussion was to counteract public debate about police brutality and reforms.

Among the other invitees was Jo Etta Northcutt, whose family credits an off-duty officer with saving her grandson from an attempted kidnapping at a Florida hotel. Northcutt said she lives in Atlanta and currently feels less safe -- withcrime on the upswing and protests occurring in the streets.

Jones's remarks centered on his time as DeKalb County CEO, and he spoke about tending to the families of police officers who died in the line of duty. He said most officers are acting honorably and "we have to stand with them."

***

Fulton County's elections office is once again accepting absentee ballot requests submitted by email, the AJC'sMark Niesse and Ben Brasch report.

The county's reversal came quickly after complaints that its refusal to process emailed ballot requests would reduce voting access and violate Georgia voting laws.

Fulton, the most populous county in the state, initially rejected emailed absentee ballot requests following struggles to manage a flood of applications before the June 9 primary election. Many voters in Fulton said they never received their absentee ballots, forcing them to wait in line for hours to vote in person during the coronavirus pandemic.

Voters who emailed absentee ballot requests Monday and part of Tuesday received a response from Fulton asking them to instead send paper applications by mail.

The county on Tuesday restarted processing absentee ballot requests for the Aug. 11 runoff, with some limits meant to avoid problems that surfaced before the primary. Only one absentee ballot application may be attached to each email. Absentee ballot applications submitted by email must be less than 5 megabytes in size, legible and in pdf or jpg file format.

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The Jolt: Jockeying for position ahead of Donald Trump's visit to Atlanta - Atlanta Journal Constitution

When future scholars write the history of the administration of Donald Trump, he may end up being called among many other things the conspiracy theorist president. Trump famously began his ascent to power with the false and racist birther claim that Barack Obama was not really an American.

Trump and his followers have also legitimized bizarre conspiracy theories against Hungarian American financier and philanthropist George Soros. It now appears continued attacks toward Soros will be a part of the presidents re-election campaign.

Soros has been a punching bag for authoritarians, anti-Semites and conspiracy theorists around the world since 1992, when he became famous as The Man Who Broke the Bank of England by making more than US$1 billion by shorting the British pound.

Born in Budapest in 1930, Soros barely survived the destruction of European Jewry by the Nazis. Living in New York City since 1956, he has combined a long career as a successful capitalist while doing philanthropy under the banner of his Open Society Foundations.

Attacks on Soros have circulated on the margins of mainstream politics for years, tinged with anti-Semitism and fuelled by half-truths and outright lies. Russia has always been at the heart of anti-Soros propaganda, and its now joined by China in promoting attacks, distortions and lies. Over the last few years, these conspiracies have entered mainstream debate in Hungary, Poland, Brazil and the United States.

The Trump movement attempted to scapegoat Soros as part of its Make America Great Again rhetoric. Trump supporters accused Soros, among other things, of supporting the caravan of migrants attempting to enter the United States from Central America, being behind the attacks on Brett Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court nomination (a falsehood Trump himself tweeted about) and promoting an elitist globalist agenda that undermined American jobs and culture.

Most incredibly, in recent weeks Soros has been accused of paying Black Lives Matter protesters who demonstrated across the United States after the police killing of George Floyd.

Trump has major liabilities in his quest for re-election: his incompetent handling of the coronavirus pandemic, his polarizing opposition to protesters after the Floyd killing and the decline of the U.S. economy since the outbreak of COVID-19. Loss of support among suburban white women, members of the military elite and moderate Republicans are now a threat to his electoral prospects.

Attacking China, stoking nationalist resentments, uncritically defending the police, claiming economic competence and bashing Joe Biden will be Trumps major electoral strategy. But Republican attacks on Soros are also likely to circulate widely until the election.

Soros is a perfect foil to try to convince people that Trump stands for the average American. What better scapegoat than a wealthy, uber-liberal currency speculator who helped fund Obama and Hillary Clinton, supports abortion, gay and trans rights and gives generously to the electoral campaigns of liberal public defenders and prosecutors? In Trumpist rhetoric, Soros is soft on crime and promotes the values of cultural liberalism and global elites over the average American.

Soross history of supporting Palestinian rights and calling for a negotiated peace settlement created an opportunity for the White House to exploit. Rhetoric about big finance linked to a globalist Jewish philanthropist understandably concerns Jewish voters and others opposed to anti-Semitism, but anti-Soros rhetoric can unify evangelical Christian Zionists, pro-Israel Republicans, interventionist neo-conservatives and far-right extremists.

Attacking Soros is also part of a Trumpist appeal to conservative Black voters, now being led Candace Owens, a young media figure and Republican activist.

Prone to gaffes that expose her ignorance about history and politics, Owens has gained a massive online presence among far right-wing Trump supporters by directly challenging the mainstream Democratic Party narrative on racism, police violence and poverty in America. Shes also attacked George Floyds character. Whats more, Owens has spread anti-Soros paranoia online, giving it a cooler, hipper and younger flavour.

The core of the Trumpist scapegoating of Soros is an attempt to blame Soros for the Black Lives Matter protests and calls for defunding the police. The lie that Soros is paying for the protests that have swept through the United States and is promoting riots is deeply corrosive to American democracy.

Conspiracy theories work best when lies, exaggerations and paranoia are linked to real things in the world that can be distorted by spin. Soross recent pledge of US$220 million to support civil rights and racial equality groups like Black Voters Matter will add fuel to extremist fire.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson will play a major role in all this. During a recent segment on his show, former Missouri governor Eric Greitens attempted to link Soros to anti-police violence and made reference to a George Soros-funded prosecutor involved in the case of the couple in St. Louis who stood in front of their house with guns while anti-racism protesters marched on their street.

None of this is likely to save Trump from going down to an electoral defeat in November. While there are legitimate criticisms to be made of the role of billionaires like Soros in politics and economic life, the divisiveness of anti-Soros paranoia will take years to repair.

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How Donald Trump will try to scapegoat George Soros to win re-election - The Conversation CA

President Donald Trump speaks during an event to announce proposed rollbacks to the National Environmental Policy Act regulations in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, January 9, 2020.

Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

President Donald Trump on Wednesday finalized a rollback to the country'slandmark environmental law,the National Environmental Policy Act, by speeding up approval for federal projects like pipelines, highways and power plants.

NEPA was signed into law by President Richard Nixon 50 years ago and requiresfederal agencies to consider the environmental consequences of infrastructure projects before they are approved. The law has also been vital in allowing communities to weigh in on how such projects impact climate change and their own health and safety.

In a major victory for the energy industry, the administration's changes will aim to decrease the number of infrastructure projects that will be subject to NEPA review, effectively shortening long permit processes that have historically delayed projects.

Trump made the announcement at the UPS Hapeville Airport Hub in Atlanta, Georgia. The president pointed to some U.S. infrastructure projects that have been delayed due to extensive litigation and permit processes: "All of that ends today," he said. "We're doing something very dramatic."

The move is the latest effort from the Trump administrationto roll back a slew of environmental regulationsin place to combat accelerating climate change and protect natural habitats from drilling and development. The administration has so far rolled back more than 100 environmental rules, and previously announced its intent to weaken NEPA in January.

Environmentalists swiftly condemned Trump's announcement, arguing that the decisioncurtail the public's right to have a say in the development of pipelines and other projects in their neighborhoods and disproportionately affects poor and minority communities, many of whom live in areas with higher rates of pollution.

"The Trump administration's anti-environment agenda is a racist agenda. Dismantling NEPA is a blatant attempt to silence the working class communities of color who are resisting the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure into their communities,"said Lisa Ramsden, senior climate campaigner of Greenpeace USA.

Gina McCarthy, president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the administration's roll back of NEPA is a clear effort to allow industries to more easily pollute communities and limits the ability of communities to have input on projects.

"People have a right to weigh in before a highway project tears up their neighborhood or a pipeline goes through their backyard," McCarthy said in a statement. "Steamrolling their concerns will mean more polluted air, more contaminated water, more health threats and more environmental destruction."

"Now more than ever our leaders should be helping people breathe easier, not handing out favors to oil drillers, pipeline developers and other polluters,"McCarthy said.

However, Republican officials and the oil and gas industry have long complained of lengthy, burdensome approval process for projects that are often under scrutiny of environmental groups.

The American Petroleum Institute was one of the industry groups that was urging the administration last year to modernize and speed up NEPA reviews in a way that "strengthens our economy andenhances environmental stewardship."

The move to dismantle NEPA will likely be challenged in court and also comes before the November election. Under a different administration, Congress could potentially put an end to Trump's weakening of NEPA by a majority vote and the president's signature. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, who recently unveiled a $2 trillion climate change plan, has vowed to reverse Trump's environmental rollbacks.

"This may be the single biggest giveaway to polluters in the past 40 years," said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity.

"NEPA's dismantling is a win for corruption, a win for polluters, and a win for those that profit off the destruction of our planet," Hartl said. "Everyone else loses."

More here:

Trump weakens environmental law to speed up permits for pipelines and other infrastructure - CNBC

The race for Texas' 23rd Congressional District, a perennial November battleground, is never without drama. But the Republican nominating battle is especially delivering this time thanks lately to dueling endorsements by two of the biggest GOP names that could possibly get involved.

As early voting got underway two weeks ago, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz shook up the runoff by endorsing conservative underdog Raul Reyes and then three days later, President Donald Trump backed national GOP favorite Tony Gonzales. The whirlwind week set off a wave of speculation about behind-the-scenes machinations and recriminations, while Democrats watched the GOP fracture with glee.

Cruz's endorsement in particular complicated Gonzales' closing pitch that the former Navy cryptologist is the best choice to unify the party and keep the seat red in November. But in an interview after Trump's endorsement, Gonzales maintained he is still the strongest candidate to do that, and the president's backing only reinforces it.

"We have a lot of momentum," Gonzales said, "and its going to take everybody if we're gonna hold this seat, and Tony Gonzales is the only one who can hold this seat."

In the runoff's final hours, Trump's campaign is making sure voters know who his choice is. On Monday, the campaign sent a cease-and-desist letter to Reyes, citing a "misleading" mailer from Reyes featuring the president's image.

"So there is no doubt, let us be absolutely clear about this: President Trump and the Trump Campaign unambiguously endorse Tony Gonzales," top Trump staffer Michael Glassner wrote in the letter.

Later Monday, Gonzales' campaign released a robocall from Trump telling voters, "Tony will work for you in Congress, and by working for you, he's working for me."

Reyes, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, said Friday he "still very much love[s]" Trump despite the snub.

"We think hes made this endorsement in error, but its happened and its out there," Reyes said during an online interview with the GOP activist Duke Machado. "People are just going to have to decide: Do you want an establishment guy whos gonna pay lip service to keeping Texas red, or the guy from Del Rio who understands what youre saying about the problems we have here?"

Gonzales and Reyes are vying for the Republican nomination to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Helotes, who has endorsed Gonzales along with the top Republican leaders in the House. The seat is national Democrats' best pickup opportunity this fall in Texas, and they are bullish about their already selected nominee: Gina Ortiz Jones, who lost to Hurd two years ago by a razor-thin margin.

On the Republican side, the high-level endorsement drama added to a runoff that had already been bitter for weeks, with Reyes attacking Gonzales as a GOP establishment tool and Gonzales hitting Reyes as a risky bet in the general election. The better-funded Gonzales has been blasting away at Reyes on TV and in mailboxes, though he avoided direct criticism during the interview, saying the contrast between the two is one of coalition-building.

"I've been able to bring people together that otherwise would not be together," Gonzales said.

Gonzales has had Hurd's endorsement since early in the primary, and Reyes has hammered at it while arguing that Gonzales would continue the legacy of the moderate lawmaker who occasionally splits with his party and Trump. Reyes was already challenging Hurd in the primary before the incumbent announced last summer he would not seek reelection.

"You want Will Hurd 2.0? My opponent is your guy," Reyes told Machado.

Gonzales finished first in the nine-way March primary 5 percentage points ahead of Reyes and has had a decisive financial advantage since the start of the race, raising well over $1 million. On their pre-runoff campaign finance filings covering April 1 through June 24 Gonzales reported raising nearly three times as much as Reyes did and spending more than twice as much. He ended the period with just under $400,000 cash on hand to Reyes' $59,000.

They are both far behind Jones, who easily won her March primary and entered July with $3 million in the bank, according to campaign figures.

National Republican leaders had signaled some support for Gonzales in the primary but made it official weeks into the two-man race, with Gonzales announcing endorsements from the top two Republicans in the House, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Minority Whip Steve Scalise. But in an effort to show he was bringing the party together, Gonzales also secured and emphasized the support of people like Alma Arredondo-Lynch, the third-place primary finisher and a feisty Hurd critic. Like Reyes, she had also been running against Hurd prior to his retirement announcement.

Those had been some of the most notable endorsements in the runoff until the first week of early voting came around.

A few days before Cruz endorsed Reyes on June 30, the senator brought up the runoff at the end of an unrelated phone call with Trump, according to a person close to the senator who was granted anonymity to describe the private conversation. Cruz let Trump know he would be backing Reyes and told the president about comments that Gonzales made in late September saying he had not "fully developed a position" on the House's Trump impeachment inquiry, which was in its early stages then.

Gonzales' interest in a Trump endorsement was not a secret he had said during the primary that he hoped to eventually earn the president's support. And it looked like the stars were aligning on the first day of early voting, when Gonzales wrote on Facebook that he would have "HUGE news to share later this week."

A day later, Cruz made the Reyes endorsement official, saying the district "deserves strong conservative representation." He also tapped funds in his leadership political action committee to launch a six-figure TV ad buy for Reyes that vowed he would be a strong Trump ally if elected. A Hurd-led super PAC that had boosted Gonzales in the primary, the Future Leaders Fund, had already announced plans to spend six figures on TV in the runoff.

The all-in endorsement was a somewhat curious play by Cruz, who has built a reputation for going against party leaders' preferences but has largely stayed out of intraparty contests down-ballot this cycle in Texas. The only other competitive House nominating contest that Cruz waded into this year in Texas was the primary for the district where he lives in Houston and that was to back favorite Wesley Hunt, the top national GOP recruit challenging Rep. Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, D-Houston.

Cruz's Reyes endorsement was not entirely a mystery, though. If Reyes prevails Tuesday, it would set up a high-stakes test study of Cruz's longtime political theory that Republicans win when they run unapologetic conservatives who energize the base versus more moderate candidates who, in Cruz's view, fruitlessly chase independent voters.

Gonzales' campaign had a simpler explanation for Cruz's intervention, pointing out that Reyes also employs the main political consulting firm that works with Cruz, Axiom Strategies. Gonzales spokesperson Matt Mackowiak called Cruz's move a "catastrophic endorsement of a candidate who cannot win" in November and "strategically indefensible."

Two days after Cruz waded in, word of his conversation with Trump got out in a New York Times story, which noted it was "now unclear what the president will do."

Within 24 hours, Trump answered the question, tweeting his endorsement of Gonzales.

Gonzales and his team celebrated and moved quickly to get the endorsement in front of voters, cutting a new ad highlighting it.

On Friday, Reyes offered a theory for why Trump got involved.

"My best guess is Kevin McCarthy pulled in there and said, 'We've got to get this guy out of the fire,'" Reyes said, suggesting the House minority leader is less interested in helping the 23rd District than lining up candidates who would support him for speaker if they win in November.

McCarthy has not shied away from the runoff in the homestretch, starring in a robocall Wednesday that promoted Gonzales as "the only candidate who can win Texas 23." The call did not mention Reyes, but McCarthy said that if Gonzales loses Tuesday, "we'll be handing Nancy Pelosi a seat that Republicans once held."

As for Cruz, he reiterated his support for Reyes earlier Wednesday, including him in a new effort to raise over $100,000 each for 25 conservative candidates this cycle. The fundraising pledge is only for the general election. And on the eve of the runoff, Cruz is holding a tele-town hall with Reyes.

Things were already bitter and personal between the runoff candidates before Cruz and Trump got involved.

Gonzales has singled out the Reyes Cartel for attacking him, his campaign workers and even my own mother. Those tensions appear to go back to the primary, when Gonzales mom filed a police report accusing a Reyes supporter of surveilling her son.

One of Reyes top hits on Gonzales is that he is too cozy with the League of United Latin American Citizens, which Reyes has called an anti-Trump open borders group. Gonzales has said Reyes is making hay out of a "one-time donation that went to help underprivileged children."

Gonzales has seized on the circumstances of Reyes leaving an administrative job with Southwest Texas Junior College in 2017. A Gonzales TV ad claims Reyes was fired from the job, though Reyes says he resigned, and a spokesperson for the school confirmed that to The Texas Tribune last week.

Amid the back-and-forth Tuesday, Reyes issued a news release denouncing Gonzales losing, lying, liberal LULAC-loving campaign. And Reyes said Friday that a post-runoff reconciliation would be difficult.

"We intend to win, Duke, but if he does win, he's gonna wanna try and heal some things you cant come back from that," Reyes told the online interviewer, adding that there were "integrity issues" at play.

Even before Trump endorsed Gonzales, there was tension around the president's specter in the runoff. After Reyes sent out a mailer featuring images of Trump superimposed alongside him, a Trump campaign adviser, Katrina Pierson, took to Twitter to call the piece "misleading, and possibly unethical" and remind voters that the president had not endorsed in the runoff at that point.

The jockeying for Trump's support has been a boon to Democrats, who see the president as a general-election liability in the district, which he lost by 4 percentage points in 2016. Republicans figure Democrats will link whomever they nominate to Trump regardless of his endorsement and Jones has done little to disprove their suspicions.

"No matter who wins the Republican runoff for TX-23, the general election will be the same," she wrote in a fundraising email Thursday. "I'll face off against a Trump puppet who will support the Trump administration's extreme agenda regardless of how much it harms Texas families."

View post:

Donald Trump, Ted Cruz back opposing candidates in competitive GOP runoff to replace U.S. Rep. Will Hurd - The Texas Tribune

This weeks Supreme Court decisions on Donald Trumps finances and tax returns will allow us to finally answer the question that has hung over his presidency from the earliest days:

Is Donald Trump a brilliant businessman and a visionary statesman or is he a bogus billionaire who has been propped up by Russian money?

The information on Trumps finances may not come out in time to impact his re-election campaign but it will have a profound impact on his legacy. The Court considered two cases. In the first, Trump v. Vance, the ruling means that Trumps accounting firm will have to hand over financial records to the New York County District Attorneys office. Once Trump is no longer president, prosecutors could use the information to accuse him of crimes. At any time, they could use the information to accuse his children or his associates of crimes. The other decision, Mazars v. Trump, keeps Congress away from Trumps records but only until they can make a better case on the separation of powers issues. Both decisions were 7-to-2 votes with two Trump justices, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, voting with the majority and against Trump.

Eventually the decisions announced today may help explain Trumps love affair with Russia and its leader Vladimir Putin. From the earliest days of his presidency Trump has advocated policies towards Russia that are not grounded in any coherent foreign policy and that have been at odds with the foreign policy goals of most of the Republican Party.

Alone amongst the 2016 Republican presidential candidates, Trump had a different view of Russia and Ukraine. The first solid evidence came on July 11, 2016 when the Republican platform meeting began. Trump operatives moved to delete language from the platform that would call for providing lethal defensive weapons to the Ukraine and replace it with softer language calling for appropriate assistance. A few weeks later Trump gave an impromptu news conference from his golf course in Doral, Florida. His suggestion that Russia find Hillarys 30,000 emails made big news. But he also had a less-well-coveredexchange about Crimea and Russia:

QUESTION: I would like to know if you became president, would you recognize (inaudible) Crimea as Russian territory? And also if the U.S. would lift sanctions that are (inaudible)? TRUMP: Well be looking at that. Yeah, well be looking.

Once in office, Trump proceeded to do things that raised suspicions about his relationship with Russia. He fired the FBI Director James Comey in an attempt to stop an investigation into Russian interference in the campaign, a move that made it look as if he had something to hide. Even after a Republican Senate had issued a report proving Russian interference Trump continued to call the story a hoaxgoing so far as to say publicly that he believed Vladimir Putins denials over the evidence of his own intelligence community. He threw American journalists out of an Oval Office meeting with the Russian Ambassador, he took notes away from the interpreter who sat in on a meeting with Trump and President Putinleaving no record of the meeting. He has consistently badmouthed NATO and caused rifts in what has been, for decades, the strongest alliance against Russia. In an embarrassing press conference in Helsinki, Trump, a man who is always eager to prove his machismo, instead played lap dog to Vladimir Putinresulting in howls of condemnation from all across the spectrum, including many Republican Senators. Not too long after that, he withdrew American troops from Syria, leaving it to the Russians. And it wasnt long after that that he held up military aid to Ukraine in order to try and get dirt on Joe Biden. Trumps habit of doing things for Russia led House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in a famous Oval Office meeting, to assert that with Trump All roads lead to Putin.

His pattern of doing catering to Putins interests resulted in the fact that, in his first three years in office, Trump left behind a long list of disgruntled foreign policy advisors, many of whom quit in protest. And Republican Senators repeatedly departed from their usual fawning praise of the president to object to his foreign policy moves.

This year alone, as the country and the world reeled from the coronavirus pandemic and protests against police brutality against African-Americans, Trump continued to confound and disappoint even his Republican supporters when it came to moves that were seen as favorable towards Russia. In June he announced plans to bring home 9,500 American troops out of the 35,000 stationed in Germany. Once again, this sudden move drew strong objections from Republicans as well as Democrats.

Early this year a SEAL team raided a Taliban outpost and discovered $500,000 in cash. This led to an investigation indicating that the Russians had been providing Taliban fighters with bounties for killing American soldiers. Trump was apparently briefed on this in late March, although it was in his written briefing, which, he apparently rarely reads. This did not become public until the New York Times reported the story on June 26th. Until that story Trump had continued making favorable statements about Putin, even insisting that Russian be reinstated into the G-7. Faced with an embarrassing situation, Trump dismissed the intelligence as a hoax.

Democrats were outraged and demanded an explanation but received only White House spin. And while Republicans largely stayed silent, one Republican Senator, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, said Congress should investigate, asking did the commander in chief know? And if not, how the hell not?

Trumps romance with Putin has never been easily explained. It is unlikely that it is a case of kompromat, which is usually associated with sexual or personal misconduct of one sort or another. Sexual misconduct is unlikely to bother Trump and his supporters. He has already admitted to extra-marital affairs and to grabbing women inappropriately. He has paid off multiple women with whom he had affairsone of whom was an adult film actress.

The other explanation that comes to mind stems from Trumps out of control narcissism. It is possible that he is so obsessed with the possibility that he won in 2016 solely because of Russian interference that he has gone out of his way to deny any wrongdoing on the part of Russia. In spite of Trumps rhetoric and veto threat, the Senate did pass a tough Russian sanctions bill early on in the administration. And in late 2017, Trumps administration reversed its stance in the Republican platform and approved the sale of lethal weapons to Ukraine.

The final explanation might be found in his financial dealings. Trump has a long history of doing business with shady Russian characters with ties to Russian intelligence.[1] His behavior in office, beginning with his refusal to release his tax returns and the vehemence with which he has fought any transparency when it comes to his business affairs, leads one to wonderwhat does he owe Russia? The Courts decisions may eventually answer this question one way or the other.

[1] See for instance, Timothy Snyder, The Road to Unfreedom, Crown Publishing, 2018. And House of Trump, House of Putin, by Craig Unger, Dutton Books, 2018.

Original post:

Does Trump owe Russia? The Supreme Courts ruling on the presidents taxes may eventually give us answers - Brookings Institution

As Donald Trumps celebration speeches, tweets, and interviews sound increasingly authoritarian, should we be worried?

The answer, of course, is yes.

Trump has routinely relied on authoritarian appeals to keep his followers attentive and engaged with his messages. Those authoritarian appeals like the rest of his rhetoric violate democratic norms and endanger democracy.

In 2016, researchers found that the Republican party had an authoritarian voter problem that it could not control, even if it had wanted to. Trump, it turns out, is just the symptom, wrote Amanda Taub in Vox. The rise of American authoritarianism is transforming the Republican Party and the dynamics of national politics, with profound consequences likely to extend well beyond this election.

Research found that authoritarian voters tended to support authoritarian leaders as a response to experiencing certain kinds of threats. If a political candidate could make people believe that the threats exist, then they could activate their authoritarianism.

A Vox/Morning Consult survey found that 44% of white respondents nationwide scored as high or very high authoritarians. There were authoritarian voters in both political parties, but more than 65% of people who scored highest on the authoritarianism questions were GOP voters. They asked respondents what made them fearful and found that they most fear threats that come from abroad but they also feared internal threats that they viewed as undermining the stability of the social hierarchy. These internal threats could be in the form of rising diversity or any changes, political or economic, that disrupt social hierarchies or were viewed as threatening authoritarian voters status quo as they know it.

In response to scary and frustrating instability, authoritarian voters seek a strong leader who promises to suppress the scary changes, if necessary by force, and to preserve the status quo. If there was a choice to be made between democracy and the stability of the social hierarchy, authoritarian voters were likely to choose stability over democracy.

Since 2015 Trump has used rhetorical strategies like American exceptionalism and ad populum [essentially, the argument that because many believe something it must be so] to appeal to these authoritarian voters. Taken together these appeals created a narrative that told three truths about the relationship between Trump and his followers. First, Trump loved his people (who loved each other and loved him) and his country. Second, Trump would use his powers to crush their shared enemies, which would restore American greatness and authoritarian voters place in the social hierarchy. And third, Trump would break the phony political rules because the system itself was so broken and corrupted that violating the rules was actually more democratic than following the rules.

It was this last bit that most worried scholars of authoritarianism and democratic erosion. The Harvard professors of government Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt warned the nation in 2016 about Trumps dangerous authoritarianism and how leaders like him had historically eroded democratic norms en route to eroding democracy. America was at risk, not necessarily because Americans have grown more authoritarian (the United States electorate has always had an authoritarian streak), they wrote on 16 December 2016, rather its because the institutional filters that we assumed would protect us from extremists, like the party nomination system and the news media, failed. Trump was uncontrollable. He had taken advantage of Americans authoritarian streak and used it to overpower the already weakened democratic gatekeepers.

Trumps most dangerous authoritarianism came from his refusal to honor the democratic norms around the peaceful transition of power. Therefore, perhaps the most prominent way that Trumps authoritarian voters demonstrated their loyalty and their willingness to violate democratic norms to elect Trump was in their willingness to stand guard at polling places on election day to prevent election rigging.

It started on 27 July 2016 the day after Hillary Clintons Democratic party nomination acceptance speech when the Republican dirty trickster and sometime Trump political adviser Roger Stone appeared with Breitbart News Milo Yiannopoulos for his Milo Show to warn Trump that Clinton was planning to use widespread voter fraud to steal the election. Stone advised Trump to begin talking about it constantly. The message to the nation ought to be, if theres voter fraud, this election will be illegitimate, we will have a constitutional crisis, widespread civil disobedience, and the government will no longer be the government, Stone told Yiannopoulos.

Two days later, the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones posted an emergency message to Donald Trump on InfoWars which, like Stone had done, warned Trump about Clintons impending election fraud. Its imperative that the Trump campaign make this one of the central issues: if she steals the primary, then shes going to steal the general election, advised Jones. Im asking the American people to support you in standing up to this witch, Jones concluded, speaking directly to Trump through his InfoWars video. Im asking the American people to take action and really cause a grassroots brushfire because if you think Hillarys gonna stop with stealing the nomination, if you think shes not going to try to steal the general election, I got a bridge in Brooklyn I want to sell you.

On 1 August 2016 Trump told his rally crowd in Columbus, Ohio, that Bernie Sanderss primary was rigged. And Im afraid the election is going to be rigged, I have to be honest, Trump said, echoing what he had heard over the previous three days from the conspiracy theorist and dirty trickster.

Im telling you November 8, we better be careful because that elections going to be rigged, Trump told Sean Hannity that same night, and I hope the Republicans are watching closely, or its going to be taken away from us. Within two weeks, Trumps campaign had posted a website to recruit poll watchers to watch closely so that the election didnt get taken away from us.

BREAKING screamed a headline of the Christian Times on 30 September 2016, Tens of Thousands of Fraudulent Clinton Votes Found in Ohio Warehouse. After clicking on the headline to read the story, internet users saw a photo of Hillary Clinton looking forlorn with her head in her hand. They did it once. Theyll do it again was written in red next to Clintons photo. Beneath her image it read, We already know that Hillary stole the primary. We cant let her steal the presidency. Join the Stop the Steal team to find out HOW Hillary plans to steal the election and what YOU can do to stop her! Stop the Steal was Roger Stones website, active since at least March 2016, that purported to organize Trump supporters to stop election rigging, first during the primary and then during the general election.

It turned out that the article was written by Cameron Harris, just out of college and hoping to find a break as a political consultant. He had made up the whole website, the story and the Clinton ballots, according to what he told the New York Times on 18 January 2017, because he wanted to support Trump and also make some money from ad revenue.

Trumps supporters got the message, according to a story by Dana Milbank in the 18 October 2016 Washington Post: Retiree Gerald Miller, a volunteer at Donald Trumps rally here [shared] Trumps concern that the election may be rigged by the Clinton campaign. It is enough to skew the election. They can swing it either way. He told Milbank that Donald Trump is going to holler fraud if he doesnt win. I think were on the verge of a civil war, a racial war. This could be the spark that sets it off.

Many others at Trumps Colorado Springs, Colorado, rally agreed with Miller. Likewise, on 13 October 2016, Trump supporters in Cincinnati, Ohio, told the Boston Globes Matt Viser and Tracy Jan that they had no doubt that Clinton planned to rig the election. Viser and Jan reported that anger and hostility were the most overwhelming sentiments among Trump supporters, along with a deep sense of frustration, an us-versus-them mentality, and a belief that they are part of an unstoppable and underestimated movement.

Even though Trump supporters felt powerful, Viser and Jan reported that they were worried that Democrats will load up buses of minorities and take them to vote several times in different areas of the city. Theyve heard rumors that boxes of Clinton votes are already waiting somewhere. A Trump supporter named Jeannine Bell Smith worried that were going to have a lot of election fraud. They are having illegals vote. In some states, you dont need voter registration to vote. Another Trump supporter named Steve Webb told Viser and Jan that Trump said to watch your precincts. Im going to go, for sure. Ill look for well, its called racial profiling. Mexicans. Syrians. People who cant speak American. Im going to go right up behind them. Ill do everything legally. I want to see if they are accountable. Im not going to do anything illegal. Im going to make them a little bit nervous.

Trump made a big deal out of the election being rigged throughout the last months of the election. But it turned out that he didnt actually sign up many official poll watchers, even though his loyal followers, like Steve Webb, would have gladly served. A 3 November 2016 Associated Press investigation found that while Trump regularly warns his crowds to closely watch polling places to prevent Democrats from stealing the election, he had failed to enlist many to serve as official poll watchers in major population centers.

The AP had done spot-checks throughout the nation, asking election officials about what the AP had expected would be a surge of Republican poll watcher registrations. It found that Democratic monitors will far outnumber Republicans on election day, and that there were even fewer Republican poll watchers signed up compared with previous elections. The Trump team seeks volunteers on his website, wrote the AP, but its unclear what the campaign does with its list voters in Arizona and Virginia who signed up were never contacted. The AP wrote that it was not clear why there is a discrepancy between Trumps rhetoric urging poll watchers and the lack of signups. Perhaps there was a failure by the campaign to organize or perhaps trying to prevent election rigging had never been a true campaign priority. All the AP could conclude was that there has been no surge in Trump poll watchers.

A Pew survey on 27 October 2016, found that 56% of registered voters thought that Trump had little or no respect for the nations democratic institutions and traditions. Yet, neither did many of Trumps supporters. Only 49% of Trump supporters agreed that the freedom of the press to criticize political leaders was essential to maintaining a strong democracy and only 69% of Trump supporters thought it was very important that people have a right to non-violent protest.

Those authoritarian voters who would violate democratic norms to elect Trump won the election, of course. Trumps authoritarian appeal combined American exceptionalism and ad populum to praise his followers as the best of America. Trump promised to love them and crush their shared enemies. He used narrative laundering to mainstream conspiracies about election rigging to cast doubt on the democratic process. In so doing Trump catered to his authoritarian followers fears and maintained his base of support. It shouldnt surprise us now, then, to hear Trump making authoritarian appeals to rally his base, attack his opposition, and violate what he calls the phony democratic norms.

But in the end, we see that Trump doesnt really mean it he doesnt actually sign up poll watchers he just takes advantage of authoritarian appeals to rally his base. Thats why Trump is Americas authoritarian PT Barnum, using authoritarianism to keep his voters attentive and engaged and eroding democracy in the process.

Adapted from Jennifer Merciecas just published book about Trumps rhetoric: Demagogue For President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump, Texas A&M University Press and reprinted with permission

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Authoritarian voters pushed Trump to victory. Can they do it again? - The Guardian

"Covid-19 continues to spread in the Los Angeles area and the virus is going to impact how we start the new school year," LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner said in a statement. "The health and safety of all in the school community is not something we can compromise."

Elsewhere, New York City, where cases are down to their lowest figures since mid-March, has proposed a "blended learning" plan that would see a mix of remote and in-person learning. Columbus, Ohio, is pursuing a similar strategy for younger students. But the schools superintendent, Talisa Dixon, has been adamant that those protocols are all subject to change.

Despite the complexities and warning signs, Trump has ignored public worries and declined to offer meaningful guidance on how to reopen schools, instead insisting on forging ahead.

"SCHOOLS MUST OPEN IN THE FALL!!!," he tweeted last week.

Playing with lives

"Normally, people don't play with kids' lives. They'll play with adults' lives, but they don't play with kids' lives," Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said last week after her union announced that it would spend an additional $1 million on TV and digital ads calling on GOP leaders to pass legislation that would help fund a safe return.

Weingarten, a longtime union leader who has jousted with leaders from both parties, said she was taken aback -- if not surprised -- by the administration's hostile tone and its insistence, along with those of leaders in some of the states hardest hit by the virus, on moving forward with limited or vague precautionary standards.

"This new thing from Florida and from Texas of 'we're going to open five days a week and we're going to open as normal' -- this was new in the mix and clearly a pressure campaign by the administration," Weingarten said, "because they look, frankly, at schools as if it was child care as opposed to education."

The risks of returning children to schools without adequate protections in place are well-documented -- and easy to find. They are spelled out on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's own website, along with a detailed set of instructions and best practices for teachers and administrators. (The AFT has also published its own detailed plan.)

On Tuesday, CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield said he thinks "a majority of counties" are currently positioned to reopen schools, based on "case counts, the percent positive, the availability of testing and the resilience of the health system they have." He did not offer any further details.

Trump's trust deficit

For a president already struggling in both national and swing state polls, it is not simply the risk of losing the schools battle that could further weaken his position heading into the fall -- it is the fight itself. The battle has pitted Trump and DeVos against educators, health experts and, in many cases, concerned parents who, more than three weeks into a "summer" that began for many last spring, are still getting mixed messages from local and national leaders.

"Donald Trump doesn't make it possible for you to sit on the fence," said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, explaining how a clash over schools that divides Americans along partisan lines could further damage Trump in swing suburbs.

With each passing day, the political implications for Trump's reelection become more stark. Already playing from behind, and at a trust deficit with many voters on his handling of the coronavirus, the prospect of a protracted new fight, Murray said, is likely to further alienate the less committed voters Trump is already struggling with in the polls.

"The folks that are in the middle, the moderate folks, the White college-educated women living in the suburbs, are looking at what is happening realistically. They're looking at what is happening in their own neighborhoods, whether it's Covid or whether it's the marches in support of Black Lives Matter among their own White neighbors and saying (his message) does not comport with how I see the world, and Donald Trump is just trying to divide us," Murray told CNN. "And I think that just builds on top of it."

The absence of any feasible working plan from the administration came into stark relief during DeVos' more than 20-minute-long interview on Sunday with CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union."

In passing off the fundamental issue, DeVos cited the success of "other countries in Europe and elsewhere in the world, where students have gone back to school and have done so very successfully." Many of those places, however, have largely brought the coronavirus pandemic under control -- their caseload dropping as the US rate climbs -- using more holistic approaches that created an environment in which returning to the classroom posed less of a risk to students and teachers.

Competing agendas

The pressure campaign being waged by the administration provoked a response last week, from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the School Superintendents Association, AFT and National Education Association, which reiterated their commitment to a safe return, but warned against proceeding without adequate safeguards in place.

"We call on Congress and the administration to provide the federal resources needed to ensure that inadequate funding does not stand in the way of safely educating and caring for children in our schools," the groups said in a joint statement. "Withholding funding from schools that do not open in person fulltime would be a misguided approach, putting already financially strapped schools in an impossible position that would threaten the health of students and teachers."

Vice President Mike Pence on Monday in a call with governors took a softer stand than Trump. He made clear the administration's desire to see schools return, but assured those listening that the decision would ultimately reside with state and local officials. He also indicated that the White House supported new funding for schools.

"You should also anticipate we're in active discussions with leadership in the Congress about additional education funding support in the upcoming relief bill," Pence said.

Democrat Jamaal Bowman, who is leading his primary race to represent New York's 16th district in Congress, which includes parts of The Bronx, in New York City, and suburban Westchester, said the absence of a plan and funding to back it will disproportionately harm students in underserved communities -- even as the electoral hurt to Trump would likely be focused in the wealthier suburbs.

"When you have the resources, you expect the resources to continue to be present and serve your family and your community," Bowman said of more affluent areas. "When you have less, generally, you tend to just want to have what you need in order to survive and get by. That has been the case historically."

DeVos's hinting that she might seek to divert federal dollars to parents whose school districts do not open fully, or at all, in the fall, Bowman added, was a signal that the administration could seek to use the crisis as cover to put a more lasting dent into public schooling.

"It's the move towards privatization," said Bowman, who founded a public middle school and served as its principal before running for office. "It's driven by market-based ideology and the so-called, quote-unquote 'choice movement.' So when we talk about vouchers and money moving with kids at the whim of the parents, that's what we're talking about. And it's an example of disaster capitalism within the public education sector."

Republicans, especially in traditionally red states, have sought to reassure parents but focused more on the economic implications of the re-start.

"We need to get (students) back in," South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, said last week. "People have to go to work. Parents have to go to work. Teachers want to go to work. Everybody wants to get the schools started. But we have to be sure that we're doing so safely."

"I'm confident if you can do Home Depot, if you can do Walmart, if you can do these things, we absolutely can do the schools," DeSantis said. "I want our kids to be able to minimize this education gap that I think has developed."

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'Normally, people don't play with kids' lives': Trump's push to reopen schools becomes another partisan fight - CNN

When President Trump wore a face mask in public for the first time this weekend, his supporters were exultant.

Goodnight, Joe Biden, tweeted Boris Epshteyn, a campaign advisor. Game on, declared Sebastian Gorka, an official who recently rejoined the administration. Campaign manager Brad Parscale simply tweeted a photo of the masked president touring Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., with the familiar Trump slogan #AmericaFirst.

With all the crowing, youd think Trump and his orbit had long seen wearing a mask as a no-brainer and political win. But Trumps journey to don a mask is far more circuitous than what his allies portray.

So Trump wore a mask whats the big deal?

Well, up until this weekend, the president hadnt worn a mask in public, despite increasing pressure to do so. Trump had forgone facial coverings at White House events, at his campaign rally in Tulsa, Okla., and at a Memorial Day commemoration where elderly veterans were present.

He did wear one while touring a mask factory in Arizona and a Ford plant manufacturing ventilators in Michigan, in keeping with the facilities policies, but he removed the covering when he was in view of the press. (NBC News obtained a behind-the-scenes photo of a masked Trump at the Michigan visit.)

That made his appearance at Walter Reed, wearing a navy mask with a gold presidential seal, a milestone, one he explained was due to the circumstances of his visit.

I think when youre in a hospital, especially in that particular setting, where youre talking to a lot of soldiers and people that, in some cases, just got off the operating tables, I think its a great thing to wear a mask, Trump said. Ive never been against masks, but I do believe they have a time and a place.

Has Trump really never been against masks?

None of us can know his innermost thoughts, but the president has certainly sent out conflicting signals.

First, lets recall that his administration, along with many other medical experts, originally downplayed the importance of masks, partially because of concerns that increased public demand could make it harder for healthcare professionals and other essential workers to get the equipment they needed. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nations top infectious diseases expert, said in March that masks werent necessary a claim that his critics, including close Trump allies, have recently revived to discredit him.

As knowledge about the new coronavirus improved, however, the advice from experts changed. By early April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued voluntary guidance to wear facial coverings when people could not physically distance.

Trump appeared unenthused about the suggestion. Speaking about the freshly issued guidelines, he declared: This is voluntary. I dont think Im going to be doing it.

He went on to explain his hesitation: I dont know, somehow, sitting in the Oval Office behind that beautiful Resolute Desk the great Resolute Desk I think wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens, I dont know. Somehow, I dont see it for myself.

Has he ever said wearing a mask was a bad thing?

Not explicitly. But hes come close to implying that there is something strange or wimpy about wearing a mask.

Trump complained he couldnt hear a masked reporters question during a May news conference and suggested the journalist was wearing one to be politically correct.

His most frequent pointed observations have been about his rival, Joe Biden. After the presumptive Democratic nominee was photographed wearing a face covering at a Memorial Day observance, Trump shared a tweet by former Fox News personality Brit Hume that knocked Bidens masked appearance. The president later called Bidens decision to wear a mask outside unusual, but also said he wasnt criticizing the choice.

He has continued to bring up Bidens mask-wearing, such as saying last week on Fox News that the former vice president has got the largest mask I think I have ever seen. It covers up a big proportion of his face.

Biden, for his part, called Trump an absolute fool for retweeting Humes criticism. And he was underwhelmed by the presidents change of heart over the weekend.

Its gotten bad enough that even Donald Trump finally decided to wear a mask in public. Im glad he made the shift, Biden said in a speech Tuesday. But Mr. President, its not enough. We wont be able to turn the corner and get American people back to work safely without presidential leadership.

Why does it matter if Trump wears a mask?

For months, the White House has offered a consistent explanation for why Trump doesnt wear masks: He is tested for coronavirus daily, as are the people around him, making masks unnecessary.

That may be the case, but by declining to wear a mask, the president had passed up a chance to set an example for the country. Polls have found that Republicans are less likely to wear masks than Democrats or independent voters, and officials in conservative communities, where the virus is hitting hardest right now, have said that Trump helped seed suspicion about mask-wearing among his most ardent supporters.

But there are signs that public opinion, especially among Republicans, may be moving toward masks. An Axios/Ipsos survey on Tuesday found that nearly two-thirds of Americans cover their faces every time they leave the house. The biggest increase was among Republicans, 45% of whom say they wear a mask all the time a 10-point jump from two weeks ago.

So will masks be the new status symbol for Trump fans?

Perhaps. The White House kept up its pro-mask messaging on Tuesday, with First Lady Melania Trump tweeting a picture of herself wearing a face covering.

But it may require seeing the president in a mask more than once to sway some of his skeptical fans.

More:

How Trump went from shunning to wearing a mask in the pandemic - Los Angeles Times

Whatever the reason, the president supports married St. Louis attorneys Mark and Patricia McCloskey, says Missouri Governor Mike Parson.

"I think the president didn't like what he's seeing and the way these people were being treated," Parson said, explaining that he'd just gotten off a phone call with Trump. "I know the attorney general was represented in that phone call today, so I think you'll see some kind of actions I think they're going look into it."

The McCloskeys were little-known residents of a Central West End mansion until June 28, when protesters marched onto Portland Place on their way to Mayor Lyda Krewson's house. Mark McCloskey would later say in television interviews an angry mob smashed through a gate to the private street and would have surely stormed the couple's home, murdered them and set the house ablaze if he had not held the marauders at bay with his rifle.

That's not how it played out in a video that showed the McCloskeys respond to people walking past his house on the street by screaming at them and brandishing his gun. Patricia McCloskey strode out on the lawn, aiming a pistol at people on the sidewalk.

In a devastating profileover the weekend, St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Jeremy Kohler revealed a long history of the couple suing or threatening to sue people including family members and neighbors over property. In at least one case, they cited an incident in which Mark McCloskey ordered a neighbor off a disputed triangle of grass at gunpoint as an example of them asserting possession of land that belonged to the homeowner's association.

So the showdown with protesters wasn't exactly out of character, but it was the first to draw worldwide attention, thanks to a wealth of videos and photographs of the gun-wielding couple.

"That couple had every right to defend their property," Parson said at this afternoon's briefing on ... the state's response to the coronavirus.

Pressed for proof that protesters were actually on the couple's property, the governor said he didn't have all the facts. However, he was sure that the McCloskeys were right and St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner had to be stopped.

Gardner has not filed any charges against the McCloskeys but has said she is investigating their actions on June 28. On Friday, an attorney for the couple confirmed investigators had seized a rifle through a search warrant.

Parson says the McCloskeys' actions were protected under the state's Castle Doctrine, which he championed during his time in the legislature.

"What they should not go through is a prosecutor attempting to take their constitutional rights away by filing charges against them for protecting their property," Parson said.

The governor lamented that it is "very difficult" to remove an elected official from office, apparently meaning Gardner, but said that was something state lawmakers should address in a future legislative session. He added that he explained to Trump that his powers as governor were limited in forcing out officials.

"We got to explain to him why it's very difficult for an elected official in the state, for a governor ... how you can remove someone from office what powers you have as a governor," Parson said. "I don't want to make it sound like he's going to come in here and remove somebody from office, but I guarantee you the president is focused on what's happening here."

Update: Gardner released a statement this evening in response to Trump and Parson:

"Today, both the Governor and Donald Trump came after me for doing my job and investigating a case. While they continue to play politics with the handling of this matter, spreading misinformation and distorting the truth, I refuse to do so. As I always do, I am reviewing all the available facts and the law and will apply them equally, regardless of the people involved.

"It is unbelievable the Governor of the state of Missouri would seek advice from one of the most divisive leaders in our generation to overpower the discretion of a locally elected prosecutor. It is also incredible that at a time when our nation is dealing with a rapidly spreading deadly virus and our State reported a record number of new infections, they are launching these dog-whistle attacks against me. They should be focused on their jobs, and Ill focus on mine."

We welcome tips and feedback. Email the author at doyle.murphy@riverfronttimes.com or follow on Twitter at @DoyleMurphy.

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Mike Parson Says Donald Trump Will Take 'Actions' to Support the McCloskeys - Riverfront Times

The Trump-backed Tony Gonzales was trailing Cruzs pick, Raul Reyes, by just 11 votes out of 24,533 with all polling locations reporting, according to unofficial results. Gonzales campaign said the race was not over.

"We will fight all the way to the end to ensure the integrity of this election and that every legal vote is counted," Gonzales campaign spokesperson Matt Mackowiak said in a statement.

Hurd's district is one of Democrats' best pick-up opportunities this fall nationwide. The party's nominee is Gina Ortiz Jones, who lost to Hurd by a razor-thin margin in 2018.

Gonzales, a former Navy cryptologist backed by Hurd and House leaders, nabbed Trump's endorsement earlier this month, just three days after Cruz endorsed Reyes. Cruz had lobbied Trump to stay out of the runoff.

Trump also starred in a robocall for Gonzales that went out Monday and held a tele-town hall with him on the eve of the runoff.

Trump had endorsed another candidate in the Texas runoffs, Ronny Jackson, the former White House doctor running to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Clarendon. Jackson easily defeated his rival, Josh Winegarner, on Tuesday night.

View original post here:

Texas congressional candidate backed by Donald Trump remains in too-close-to-call runoff with Ted Cruzs pick - KSAT San Antonio

Cillizza: What's the conventional wisdom going into tonight? Tuberville? Sessions? Or a real toss up?

Sessions says that Tuberville -- who declined debate invitations from Sessions -- is not vetted nor prepared to be a US senator. Tuberville has carried an advantage in fundraising with support coming from the Washington, DC-based Club for Growth.

Cillizza: Donald Trump has made his views on this race VERY clear. How much has that hurt Sessions/helped Tuberville?

Trump is 0-2 in his past endorsements during Alabama Senate contests -- he lost with Luther Strange ahead of the 2017 GOP runoff against Roy Moore. He then endorsed Moore in the general election, which was won by Doug Jones.

Cillizza: Is this rightly seen as a referendum on Trump because he has been so involved? As in, if Sessions wins, is that a message to Trump?

Sharp: I have not heard whether a Sessions' win would be a referendum on Trump. Sessions has, aside from the recusal issue, praised Trump and his agenda while on the campaign trail.

The president has not physically been involved in this race like he was during the 2017 special election contest when he campaigned in Huntsville for Luther Strange (the speech remembered more as the first time the president addressed kneeling NFL football players), and he rallied for Roy Moore days ahead of the general election in Pensacola, Florida.

The President did not hold a rally for Tuberville ahead of the runoff, so his involvement in the race has been centralized on Twitter. Alabama Republicans have long been torn over the Trump-Sessions dispute. Sessions was a popular Senator among Alabama Republicans from 1997-2017. The last time Sessions ran, in 2014, he won without any opposition in the primary. Just a couple of years ago, Alabama Republicans were proud that Sessions became attorney general. Rare is it for someone in this state to get so close to the line of succession to the presidency. The state has had one vice president (William Rufus King, who served six weeks before his death in 1853), one speaker of the House (William Bankhead from 1936-40), and Birmingham native Condoleezza Rice (a longtime California resident) served as secretary of state.

Sharp: I have not heard that it matters. "Lou Saban" was uttered by the President during statements he made in support of Tuberville last night, on the eve of the election. It did prompt reporters in Alabama to look up the name, "Lou Saban," who turns out was actually was a prolific football coach during an astonishing six-decade career. He was the AFL's coach of the year in 1964, while leading the Buffalo Bills. But I've checked out his stats and I don't see any Alabama football connections with this Saban.

The other Saban, University of Alabama head football coach Nick Saban, is well known in his own right. GOP campaign strategist and candidates in Alabama will sometimes say that the only endorsement that matters more than the current president is one from Nick Saban. And I don't sense that Nick Saban is getting involved in Alabama politics right now, if ever.

Cillizza: Finish this sentence: "Doug Jones is rooting for ________ to win tonight." Now, explain.

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Will Jeff Sessions have the last laugh on Donald Trump on Tuesday? - CNN

The Donald Trump administration has abandoned a directive that would have forced thousands of foreign students out of the country. US officials announced last week that international students at schools that had moved to online-only classes due to the coronavirus pandemic would have to leave the country if they were unable to transfer to a college with at least some in-person instruction.

The scrapping brings relief to thousands of Indian students who are studying in American universities.

Indians are the second largest student community with over 200,000 students or a fifth of the one million foreign students taking up courses in the US. American district judge Allison Burroughs announced at an online hearing on Tuesday that the government had agreed to rescind last weeks requirement that international students take at least one in-person class, even amid the resurgent coronavirus pandemic and as colleges prepare online-only coursework, Bloomberg reported.

A senior U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official, however, said the administration still intended to issue a regulation in the coming weeks addressing whether foreign students can remain in the United States if their classes move online.

The July 6 move by the administration blindsided many universities and colleges that were still making plans for the fall semester, trying to balance concerns about rising cases of the novel coronavirus in many U.S. states and the desire to return to classes.

A flurry of lawsuits were filed challenging the rule including one brought by Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology and another by a coalition of state governments. Dozens of big companies and colleges and universities filed "friend-of-the-court" briefs opposing the rule.

Trump, who is pushing schools across the country to reopen in the autumn, said he thought Harvard's plan not to hold in-person classes was ridiculous. The universities argued the measure was unlawful and would adversely affect their academic institutions.

ET reported that large technology companies such as Google, Microsoft, Twitter and Paypal had told the US court that deporting students would hurt American educational institutions as well as the US economy. In all, 19 companies and local unions, like the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, the Software Alliance and the Information Technology Industry Council, had signed the brief in a case where Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and 180 other colleges have filed, opposing the July 6 directive by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The revocation of the rule by the Trump administration came ahead of the July 15 ICE deadline for universities to declare whether they would be conducting courses only online in the upcoming semester starting in September.

Continued here:

Donald Trump abandons plan that would have forced out tens of thousands of foreign students - Economic Times

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has reiterated his pledge to soon sign a "very strong" merit-based immigration act that will also take care of the immigrants brought to the country illegally as children, many of whom are of Indian or South Asian descent.

Trump, who is seeking re-election in November, has long sought to overhaul the US immigration system to be based on merit rather than family ties. Immigration remains one of Trump's signature campaign issues.

"We are going to be signing an immigration act very soon. It is going to be based on merit, it is going to be very strong," Trump told reporters at a Rose Garden press conference at the White House on Tuesday.

"We are going to work on DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) because we want to make people happy and I will tell you even conservative Republicans want to see something happen with DACA," he said.

The DACA programme provides for work permits and other protections for people brought to the US as children by undocumented parents. It affects an estimated 700,000 young people, many of whom are of Indian or South Asian descent.

President Trump had tried to cancel the Obama-era programme, but the Supreme Court last month said it could stay in place.

"They always turned it down. They used it as politics. I am using it to get something done, but we will be signing a very powerful immigration act. It will be great, it will be merit-based. The country has tried to get it for 25 or 30 years," he said in response to a question.

"It will be strong on the border, but you will come in legally and you will be able to come in legally and very importantly, we will be taking care of people from DACA in a very Republican way," the president said.

He said the Democrats had their chance and they blew it.

"But we are going to take care of DACA because I am going to be doing it in the not-too-distant future, pretty soon I am going to be signing a new immigration action, very, very big merit-based immigration action based on the DACA decision," he said.

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Donald Trump says he will soon sign new merit-based immigration act to take care of illegal immigrants - Economic Times

Image of the Week: Either the U.S. president succumbed to weeks of expert consensus on masks, or he had an attack of common sense. Which is more likely?

On a July 11 tour of the Walter Reed military hospital outside Washington, exactly 99 days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend everyone wear masks in public, U.S. President Donald Trump finally decided to agree. It may not be the first time this year hes actually worn a maskhe claimed, almost flippantly, to have worn one at a factory in Arizona a couple of months back, but apparently took it off before the press could photograph him in it. But this is the first time he is flaunting it, embracing the look, flanked by military men all wearing similar face-covering fashions. He told Fox he sort of liked how he looked in it, comparing himself to the Lone Ranger. Leaving the White House for the hospital, he reassured everyone that hes never been against masks, but I do believe they have a time and a place. This might be as close as well get to Trump acquiescing to health officials on anything during this pandemic. Emblazoned with the presidential seal, his broad black mask carries more symbolism than it should, its debut occurring the same day that the U.S.recorded 66,528 new cases of COVID-19, a new daily record. Arizona has more cases per-capita than literally any other state or country in the world, while Florida, Texas and Californias numbers continue to skyrocket as well. As different states flatten their curves at varying levels, one cant help but think that thousands of deaths, not to mention a whiplash news cycle and a flurry of political backpedalling, could have been prevented by leaders who simply listened to health officials from the start.

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The look on Donald Trumps face when hes been proven wrong - Maclean's

July 14, 2020, 10:03 PM

5 min read

Speaking about her influential uncle for the first time since the publication of her explosive new book, Mary Trump -- President Donald Trumps niece -- on Tuesday called on the president to step down.

"If you're in the Oval Office today, what would you say to him?" ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos asked her in an exclusive interview.

"Resign," Mary Trump responded.

She said that, after being perverted by the familys deep-seated issues," her uncle was destined to become a man utterly incapable of leading this country, and its dangerous to allow him to do so.

I saw firsthand what focusing on the wrong things, elevating the wrong people can do the collateral damage that can be created by allowing somebody to live their lives without accountability, she said. And it is striking to see that continuing now on a much grander scale.

The cover art for the book, "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man," left, and a portrait of author Mary L. Trump, Ph.D. The book, written by the niece of President Donald J. Trump, was originally set for release on July 28, but will now arrive on July 14.

Mary Trump recalled visiting with her uncle in the Oval Office three months after he was inaugurated.

"He already seemed very strained by the pressures ... and I just remember thinking, 'He seems tired. He seems like this is not what he signed up for,'" she said.

Tuesdays exclusive interview with ABC News, to air on "World News Tonight With David Muir" and more on "Good Morning America" Wednesday, comes on the same day that Simon & Schuster is releasing her much-anticipated book, "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man."

The book presents a scathing depiction of the sitting president, largely drawing, Mary Trump says, from the authors own memories, conversations with family members, and legal, financial and family documents.

Mary Trumps uncle Robert, the presidents younger brother, unsuccessfully urged a court to block the books release. And another legal effort by Robert Trump to block Mary Trump from publicly promoting the new book also failed, with a New York judge ruling Monday that she was free to speak publicly.

In Tuesdays interview, Mary Trump doubled-down on the claim in her book that Donald Trumps father her grandfather was a sociopath.

He was incredibly driven in a way that turned other people, including his children [and] wife, into pawns to be used to his own ends, Mary Trump said. Its impossible to know who Donald might have been under different circumstances and with different parents. But clearly he learned the lesson.

According to Mary Trumps account, tensions within the family reached a boiling point in 1999, after her grandfather died and she learned that he had essentially cut her and her brother out of his will. When she and her brother then filed a lawsuit, the rest of the family sought to cause us more pain and make us more desperate," ending the medical insurance they had always received through their grandfathers company, Mary Trump wrote.

They eventually reached a settlement, but on Tuesday she described the settlement as unfair.

Her own father, Fred Trump Jr., died in 1981. He was Donald Trumps eldest brother.

The White House on Tuesday referred ABC News to its previous statements about the book. The White House previously said: "Mary Trump and her books publisher may claim to be acting in the public interest, but this book is clearly in the authors own financial self-interest."

"President Trump has been in office for over three years working on behalf of the American people why speak out now? The President describes the relationship he had with his father as warm and said his father was very good to him. He said his father was loving and not at all hard on him as a child," the statement continued.

ABC News Lucien Bruggeman, Nadine Shubailat and John Santucci contributed to this report.

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A message for President Donald Trump from his niece: 'Resign' - ABC News

The President, trailing in his reelection race as time ticks away, is trying everything to lure the presumptive Democratic nominee into a fight. His team taunts Biden for hiding in his basement during lockdown, and blast the 77-year-old as senile while Trump, 74, boasts about acing cognitive tests. Republicans claim Biden is China's pocket and accuse him of leading (or being led) by leftist anarchists, as Trump stokes a backlash against Black Lives Matter. And now that Trump has finally worn a mask, his flacks say he carries it off better than Biden, who's had one for weeks.Presidents seeking reelection must disqualify their rival as a potential replacement in the Oval Office. In 2012, Barack Obama's team went after Mitt Romney early and hard -- ruthlessly framing him as a heartless vulture capitalist -- an image the Republican later exacerbated with his own errors. George W. Bush eviscerated Democrat John Kerry as a ditherer, while allies shredded the Democrat's record as a Vietnam War hero, raising doubts about whether he was tough to lead a traumatized wartime nation only three years after 9/11.

But in the 2020 race, nothing seems to be sticking. Trump's mocking nickname for his foe -- "Sleepy Joe" -- is not cutting through like "Crooked Hillary," "Low Energy Jeb" and "Little Marco" did for rivals in 2016. And with Biden laying low, Trump is not getting the chance to weaken him: He needs the former vice president on TV all the time, making his signature verbal gaffes and stumbling into mistakes under the pressure.

A tale of two magic kingdoms

The jilted doctor

'50 years from now, people are going to be reflecting historically on this'

On Monday, speaking during a webinar with the Stanford School of Medicine, Dr. Anthony Fauci called the global coronavirus pandemic an epidemiologist's "worst nightmare." "One thinks about the worst nightmare of an infectious disease person who's interested in global health and outbreaks -- is the combination of a new microbe that has [a] spectacular ... degree of capability of transmitting, and also has a considerable degree of morbidity and mortality -- and here it is, it's happened," he said. "I think 50 years from now, people are going to be reflecting historically on this, the way we used to reflect on the 1918 outbreak," he said.

Speaking of phased reopenings...

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Donald Trump just can't land a punch on Joe Biden - CNN

Mary, on the other hand, gives us an early glimpse that the adult Donald is no more dedicated a reader than he was when he was younger and allegedly paid someone else to take his SAT exams for him. As someone who has written books for Random house, I particularly enjoyed the scene when Trumps Random House editor takes her out to lunch to fire her as her uncle's underpaid ghostwriter, and the following exchange occurs.

Donald told me he likes what Ive done so far, I said. The editor looked at me as if Id just proven his point for him. Donald hasnt read any of it, he said.

Mary is relieved to be fired, Bolton expresses a similar sentiment as he hands in his resignation letter. Its like the only thing worse than being fired by the guy with the youre fired catch phrase is having to work for him.

The fundamental patheticness of the guy who pretended to be his own press secretary, the tacky guy with showy hotels begging the world to love him is in full display in both books. Bolton talks about how Trump would "in effect, give personal favors to dictators he liked, in order to further curry favor with them. For Trump the difference between a fascist dictator and a celebrity he wanted to befriend was nothing at all.

Here is how Mary describes her uncle: Besides being driven around Manhattan by a chauffeur whose salary his fathers company paid, in a Cadillac his fathers company leased to 'scope out properties,' Donald's job description seemed to have included lying about his 'accomplishments' and allegedly refusing to rent apartments to black people.

Both books show a president with no moral compass, in Boltons massive opus of self-justification, he chronicles President Trump encouraging President Xi of china to build concentration camps "According to our interpreter," Mr. Bolton wrote, "Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do." Yes, Bolton alleges that Trump signed off on the concentration camps and hoped that Xi would help him with his reelection.

Mary Trump notes that His pathologies have rendered him so simple-minded that it takes nothing more than repeating to him the things he say to and about himself dozens of times a dayhe's the smartest, the greatest, the bestto get him him to do whatever they want, whether it imprisoning children in concentration camps, betraying allies, implementing economy-crushing tax cuts, or degrading every instruction thats contributed to the united states rise and flourishing of liberal democracy.

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John Bolton and Mary Trump Seem to Agree on One Thing: Donald Trump Should Not Be in the White House - Vogue

A long-expected upturn in US coronavirus deaths has begun, driven by fatalities in states in the south and west, where cases have been surging calamitously, according to data on the pandemic.

The number of deaths per day from the virus had been falling in May and June and even remained down as states like Florida and Texas saw explosions in cases and hospitalizations and reported daily US infections broke records several times in recent days, the Associated Press reports.

Scientists warned it wouldnt last. A coronavirus death, when it occurs, typically comes several weeks after a person is first infected. And experts predicted states that saw increases in cases and hospitalizations would, at some point, see deaths rise too.

Now thats happening. Its consistently picking up. And its picking up at the time youd expect it to, said William Hanage, a Harvard University infectious diseases researcher.

According to an Associated Press analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University, the seven-day rolling average for daily reported deaths in the US has increased from 578 two weeks ago to 664 on July 10, though still well below the heights hit in April.

Daily reported deaths increased in 27 states over that time period, but the majority of those states are averaging under 15 new deaths per day. A smaller group of states has been driving the nationwide increase in deaths.

California is averaging 91 reported deaths per day while Texas is close behind with 66, but Florida, Arizona, Illinois, New Jersey and South Carolina also saw sizable rises.

New Jerseys recent jump is thought to be partially attributable to its less frequent reporting of probable deaths.

The impact has already been felt by families who lost kin and by the health care workers who tried to save them.

Rublas Ruiz, a Miami intensive care unit nurse, recently broke down in tears during a birthday dinner with his wife and daughter. He said he was overcome by the number of patients who have died in his care.

I counted like 10 patients in less than four days in our ICU and then I stopped doing that because there were so many, said the 41-year-old nurse at Kendall Regional Medical Center who lost another patient Monday.

The virus has killed more than 134,000 people in the US and more than a half-million worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University, one of the most reliable trackers of the pandemic, though the true numbers are believed to be higher because a lack of official reporting of deaths or misclassification of cause of death by authorities.

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Donald Trump wears mask in public for first time as it happened - The Guardian

Donald Trump arrived to Trump National Golf Club in northern Virginia on July 11, representing the 273rd time the 45th President has visited one of his 17 golf clubs (and, for most of them, presumably played some golf) since becoming President on Jan. 20, 2017. He has now paid 275 visits to any golf course as President.

Trump has arrived to his Washington, D.C.-area golf club on Saturday morning. He is playing golf after cancelling a planned rally in New Hampshire, with reports of likely poor attendance.

Trump prefers to play golf in the mornings, while the Secret Service follows around Trump in golf carts that, so far, have cost American taxpayers nearly $765,000 to use. Trump claims to have a USGA handicap index under 5, but he is thought to have a vanity handicap that makes him seem better at the sport than he is.

The Secret Service has spent over $950,000 to stay overnight at Trump-owned properties, including his New Jersey country club.

RELATED: Why how often Trump plays golf matters

Trump ended 2017 with 91 golf course visits and was just shy of 100 visits in Year 1 as President. In his second year as President, Trump played golf 76 times. In his third year, he played golf 91 times. All but two rounds of golf has been at his clubs, playing once in Japan in Nov. 2017 with Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe and Japanese star pro Hideki Matsuyama, then playing with Abe again in May 2019.

FOLLOW Trump Golf Tally on Facebook and Twitter

The White House doesn't typically acknowledge Trump was even playing golf. That is commonplace policy, particularly when Trump isn't playing with celebrities or pro golfers or doesn't have something to flaunt. Typically, the White House press pool indicates when Trump arrives at his golf clubs, then they are held in a holding location until Trump is done and moves to his next location.

However, if he's going to the golf club for about 4-5 hours, you can be pretty sure he's playing golf. Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden has asked the White House to provide the names of Trump's golf partners, as well for his clubs to provide visitor logs to get a sense of when Trump has played golf and with whom.

The President is certainly entitled to some leisure time, and golf has been an outlet for most Commanders-in-Chief dating back to the early 20th century. However, the reluctance to even acknowledge that this President plays golf conflicts with his almost relentless criticism of his predecessor, Barack Obama, who played an estimated 333 rounds of golf as President.

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Donald Trump visited the golf course for the 275th time as President - Golf News Net

The anti-Trumpers are at it again only this time, theyre Republicans.

Kevin, a lifelong Republican voter and pastor from Arizona, says he voted for Trump in 2016 with high hopes for the future. He knew that Trump didnt have the same political experience as the other contenders, but he was optimistic he could grow into his new role.

Now he says: Ive seen how he has tried to divide our country and that is not something I want, nor what our country should have This man is an absolute danger to our country.

Kevins experience of voting for Trump and then quickly realizing hed made a mistake is one of many being used by Republican Voters Against Trump (RVAT), which wants to boot Trump out of office later this year. The group is seeking testimony from former Trump voters through its website, which displays the best quotes so far with pride. (Id vote for a tuna fish sandwich before I vote for Donald Trump again, reads one.)

Sarah Longwell, a Republican consultant who co-founded RVAT, said they have received hundreds of testimonies in recent months.

The group is funded by millionaire neoconservative pundit Bill Kristol, who was formerly chief of staff to the vice-president under George HW Bush, but uses testimony from distinctly non-political voices to make an impact.

One of the reasons they are so compelling is because you can tell how authentic they are, how deeply they feel this a lot of them want to get something off their chest, says Longwell. The testimonies are not scripted or paid for, but they are the result of a lot of workshopping.

Jeffrey Farmer, from Massachussetts, certainly fits the bill of a non-polished but frustrated voice: he is immunocompromised and angered by Trumps response to the pandemic. And he is certainly the voice of a media-trained, focus-group prepped politico just a person who formerly backed Trump.

I dont even know why Im doing this stupid thing, because this is not what I do. I dont do social media or anything. But I cant take this any more, he says.

Farmer voted for Trump in 2016 because of how much he disliked Hillary Clinton, but describes him as being Like a Tasmanian devil, who spends all day complaining on Twitter instead of doing his job.

This guy couldnt lead his way out of a wet frickin paper bag, says Farmer.

Longwell, herself a disgruntled Republican, says she initially started looking for answers after Trump won the presidency.

I have been alarmed by him from the beginning, she says and so, around 2017, she began to search for answers. I wanted to know how the party got taken over by Donald Trump, she says. She ran focus groups with soft Trump voters who voted for him 2016 but rated him as doing somewhat badly or very badly and tried to understand how to persuade them against him.

The key thing, she found, was for them to hear from people like themselves.

One thing we found is that the cultural aspect played a big role in [the 2016 election], she says. Youd get women whod say I voted for him and I cried, or, I voted for him and then I had to take a shower afterwards. But they were surrounded by people who talk about how all Democrats are socialists or whatever, she says.

As a lifelong supporters of the Republican party though, does she really want Biden to win? Longwell says that she absolutely, unequivocally does.

Donald Trump has a negative impact on the future of the Republican party, says Longwell. He has sort of hijacked the party and really poisoned the country, and has turned it into a nationalist populist party. Theres a section of Republicans who do not find that attractive, and Im one of them.

The best thing for the party long term is for him to get defeated soundly, and for the party to rethink its direction.

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The Trump supporters who changed their minds: 'I'd rather vote for a tuna fish sandwich' - The Guardian