Daily Archives: July 4, 2023

Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during a Moms for Liberty summit in Philadelphia on Friday. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images hide caption

Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during a Moms for Liberty summit in Philadelphia on Friday.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is facing criticism from within and beyond his party after his presidential campaign shared a video touting his record of opposing LGBTQ rights and attacking former President Donald Trump for his past support.

The more than a minute-long video was made by the Twitter account Proud Elephant and shared by the DeSantis War Room his campaign's "rapid response" account on Friday, the last day of June.

"To wrap up 'Pride Month,' let's hear from the politician who did more than any other Republican to celebrate it," the War Room account wrote.

The video opens with a clip of then-candidate Trump pledging to "do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens" in a speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention, just weeks after a gunman killed 49 people at a gay club in Orlando.

That's followed by several interview snippets in which Trump says he would let Caitlyn Jenner use a bathroom of her choice at Trump Tower and that he would allow transgender women to compete in Miss Universe (which he co-owned until 2015).

Meanwhile, upbeat music plays in the background as pictures of among others Trump holding a rainbow flag, his campaign website's "LGBTQ for Trump" T-shirts and his 2019 tweet celebrating Pride Month float across the screen. A drag queen called "Lady MAGA" appears on screen, saying "make America great again."

Then the tone of the video changes dramatically. There's a photo of DeSantis, edited to show lasers shooting out of his eyes, accompanied by the word "no." The music shifts to a thumping bass beat as a montage of headlines, memes and movie snippets begins.

It features headlines about DeSantis' policies, like "DeSantis Signs 'Most Extreme Slate of Anti-Trans Laws in Modern History'" and "Pride event in St. Cloud canceled after DeSantis signs 'Protection of Children Act' into law."

There are brief clips of Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman in "American Psycho," Leonardo DiCaprio as Jordan Belfort in "Wolf of Wall Street" and Brad Pitt as Achilles in "Troy." There are flashes of bodybuilders and the chiseled figure known online as "Gigachad," interspersed with clips of DeSantis walking purposefully, signing legislation and riding in a helicopter.

That's overlaid with tape from commentators and newscasters slamming the governor's actions, including describing them as "some of the harshest, most draconian laws that literally threaten trans existence."

The video has been viewed more than 22 million times as of Monday morning, according to Twitter.

And it has sparked plenty of backlash, including from DeSantis' Republican challengers, LGBTQ politicians on both sides of the aisle and the nation's largest conservative LGBTQ group.

NPR has reached out to DeSantis' team for comment.

The Log Cabin Republicans, an organization that advocates for LGBTQ conservatives, said in a Twitter thread that DeSantis' rhetoric had "ventured into homophobic territory," calling it "divisive and desperate."

Charles Moran, the group's president, told Morning Edition on Monday that the ad does not have a clear point or purpose.

"You've got some strange imagery of Ron DeSantis being between two oiled-up, hunky type of men," he said. "I mean, the ad smacked of both homophobia and homoeroticism at the same time."

Moran said that the Republican Party has "already basically agreed upon" advocating for equal rights for LGBTQ individuals, pointing to polls that show widespread support for marriage equality.

A May Gallup poll shows that the percentage of Republicans approving of same-sex relationships dipped from 56% last year to 41% this year.

"A misguided attack like this shows that they really don't have a focus and don't have anybody on their team who is truly understanding where the movement is," Moran added. "And that's that style of attack is ... going to backfire and is not helpful for his campaign or the GOP in general."

Former Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican and vocal Trump critic, also questioned the helpfulness of the video, adding that "outrage over outrage is the only way these guys know how to campaign."

Similar criticisms have been echoed by a slew of LGBTQ Republicans, including Jenner, who tweeted that DeSantis had "hit a new low."

"You can't win a general, let alone 2028 by going after people that are integral parts of the conservative movement!" she added.

Richard Grenell, Trump's former acting director of national intelligence and the first openly gay Cabinet member called the video "undeniably homophobic."

Christina Pushaw, the rapid response director for DeSantis' campaign, responded in a tweet that opposing the federal recognition of Pride Month is not homophobic.

"We wouldn't support a month to celebrate straight people for sexual orientation, either... It's unnecessary, divisive, pandering," she wrote. "In a country as vast and diverse as the USA, identity politics is poison."

(The Clinton administration first recognized Pride Month in 1999. Trump broke with precedent by not recognizing Pride Month until 2019, the third year of his presidency.)

Criticism also came from within the Biden administration. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg the first openly gay Cabinet member to be approved by the Senate alluded to DeSantis "trying to prove his manhood," and asked who he is aiming to help.

"I just don't understand the mentality of somebody who gets up in the morning, thinking that he's gonna prove his worth by competing who can make life hardest for a hard-hit community that is already so vulnerable in America," Buttigieg said on CNN.

Trump's team has slammed the video, with campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung telling CNN it showed "a desperate campaign in its last throes of relevancy."

And several of their GOP primary challengers have spoken out against it, too.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told CNN on Sunday that he is not comfortable with the video, nor with "the way both Gov. DeSantis and Donald Trump are moving our debate in this country."

He called their back-and-forth a "teenage food fight," describing it as inappropriate for leaders and distracting from the bigger issues facing the country.

"It certainly doesn't make me feel inspired as an American, on the Fourth of July weekend, to have this type of back-and-forth going on at all, and it's wrong to be doing it, and it's narrowing our country, and making us smaller," Christie added.

Separately, former Texas Rep. Will Hurd told CNN he doesn't believe LGBTQ rights should be a focus of the campaign.

He pointed to what he considers more pressing issues like the economy, artificial intelligence and international relations.

"I wish they would focus their attacks on war criminals like Vladimir Putin, not my friends in the LGBTQ community," Hurd said. "It is 2023. We should be talking about how do we embrace our differences ... we're better together."

While the video paints Trump as a staunch ally of the LGTBQ community, his administration notably took several steps to significantly roll back protections for it.

Among them, it banned transgender service members from the military, walked back Obama-era non-discrimination protections and guidance for schools on transgender students, appointed judges with anti-LGBTQ track records and sought to block questions about sexual orientation from the census.

And it appears Trump would go even further if reelected to a second term.

In a speech on Friday, he said he would sign an executive order to cut federal funding for any school "pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children," according to the Associated Press.

He also vowed to sign an executive order instructing federal agencies "to cease the promotion of sex or gender transition at any age," adding that hospitals and health care providers should lose federal funding if they provide gender-affirming care for minors.

Both Trump and DeSantis have spoken out against transgender women participating in women's sports and described gender-affirming care for minors as "mutilation," NBC News reports.

DeSantis who said while campaigning for governor in 2018 that "getting into bathroom wars, I don't think that's a good use of our time" has taken a more hardline stance in recent years, signing a slew of bills that roll back protections for gay and transgender individuals.

Last March he signed a bill that critics have branded "Don't Say Gay," which bans public school teachers from holding classroom instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity.

This spring, Florida enacted what the Human Rights Campaign calls "a record six expressly anti-LGBTQ+ bills into law," more than the last seven years combined.

Among them are bills that ban transition-related care for minors, bar trans people from using the public facilities that align with their gender identities and prohibit schools from requiring students or employees to refer to each other with pronouns that don't align with their assigned sex at birth.

Another bill, aimed at keeping children from attending drag shows, was blocked by a federal judge late last month (just days before the Supreme Court, in an unrelated case, ruled that a web designer was entitled to refuse same-sex wedding work).

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DeSantis slammed over Trump attack ad over LGBTQ rights - NPR

The top spokesperson for a super PAC supporting Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said that former President Trump is the “runaway front-runner” in the 2024 GOP presidential primary.

“Look right now in national polling, we are way behind,” the spokesperson, Steve Cortes, said during a Twitter Spaces event Sunday night. “I’ll be the first to admit that. I believe in being really blunt and really honest. It’s an uphill battle, I don’t think is an unwinnable battle, but clearly, Donald Trump is the runaway front-runner, particularly since the indictments.”

“That was not the case before the indictments. It is the case afterwards,” Cortes added. “And it is understandable that a lot of folks want to rally to [Trump] when he’s been unfairly prosecuted, really, but persecuted.”

Cortes served as a senior advisor to Trump’s 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns, but announced in May that he would be endorsing DeSantis for the GOP nomination in the 2024 presidential election. He now serves as an advisor and spokesman for the Never Back Down PAC, which backs DeSantis for the GOP nomination.

He wrote in an op-ed at the time that DeSantis was “the best possible option to win the presidency,” adding that the “America First movement” is larger than any one individual.

In response to an email from The Hill, Cortes said he remained convinced that DeSantis had a strong path to winning the GOP presidential nomination.

“The former president has debated through two successive presidential cycles, so of course he possesses a lot of experience in that arena. But I am convinced that Governor DeSantis will outperform expectations and inform large audiences about his amazing life, political record, and winning agenda for the presidency,” Cortes said in the email.

“Taking on an incumbent or former president in the primary always represents a significant challenge. I gladly embraced that reality in joining the team. All of us on Team DeSantis remain convinced that the governor has a strong path to the nomination, and the best chance of any Republican to defeat Biden in the general election.”

In the Twitter Spaces event, Cortes said that while DeSantis remains the “clear underdog,” he believes the GOP primary is a two-man race between the former president and the Florida governor.

He also noted that in the first four primary states, the polls are “a lot tighter” than what they are showing on the national scale.

“There’s a lot of other folks in the race, who I think most of whom are not truly running for president,” Cortes said. “They’re running for other positions or for sort of branding reasons or, you know, other and I think in some cases, frankly, some nefarious reasons that their right. I think it’s a two-man race. We’re clearly the underdog. We are clearly fighting uphill, but I think we have an amazing story to tell.”

“If we do not prevail — and I have every intent on winning, I didn’t sign up for this to come in second — but if we do not prevail I will tell you this, we will make President Trump better for having this kind of primary,” he added.

Politico first reported the conversation between Cortes and Twitter user @CryptoLawyerz, an anonymous account, on Twitter Spaces.

DeSantis press secretary Bryan Griffin reiterated the campaign’s confidence in a statement to The Hill, saying that the Florida governor has been “underestimated in every race he has won, and this time will be no different.”

“Donald Trump has to explain to Republican voters why he didn’t do the things he is now promising in his first term as president,” he said. “Governor Ron DeSantis over-delivered on his promises as governor and has the national vision we need to restore our country, clean out DC, and lead our Great American Comeback. This campaign is a marathon, not a sprint; we will be victorious.”

This story was updated at 5:26 p.m.

Original post:

DeSantis PAC spokesperson calls Trump the runaway front-runner - The Hill

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Western allies are hedging against Donald Trump - Financial Times

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) on Sunday dismissed far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greenes (R-Ga.) latest stunt as just more stupid stuff from a radical Republican caucus.

Greene, during a speech at Donald Trumps latest 2024 campaign rally in South Carolina on Saturday, demanded the former presidents two impeachments be expunged.

Trump was first impeached in 2019 for attempting to extort Ukraine. His second impeachment was in 2021 for inciting the Capitol riot amid his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.

Lieu, an impeachment manager in Trumps insurrection impeachment, scoffed at Greenes demand.

There is no such thing known as an expungement of an impeachment in the United States Constitution, the California Democrat told MSNBC.

This is totally a made-up process. It is nothing more than a glorified press release with a fake vote, he added.

Lieu noted that Trumps impeachment following the insurrection received bipartisan support in the House and Senate, even though a majority of Senate Republicans voted against conviction.

You cant just erase that, he said. It was televised. Millions of people saw it.

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Rep. Ted Lieu Gives Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's Donald Trump Call A Blunt Reality Check - Yahoo News

Glenn Kirschner on Saturday said it seems like special counsel Jack Smith still has a good bit of investigating to go in his probe into former President Donald Trumps alleged mishandling of classified documents.

MSNBCs Jonathan Capehart asked Kirschner, a former U.S. Army prosecutor and current legal analyst for the network, what he made of a New York Times report that said Smiths probe is still investigating aspects of the case, even after Trumps indictment.

What I make of this is that Jack Smith is just getting warmed up, Kirschner replied. It seems like he is intent on investigating all of the potential crimes, of not only Donald Trump but anybody else down at Mar-a-Lago, anybody else in Florida who may have been involved in assisting, facilitating, or who may be covering up, who may be an accessory after the fact, to Donald Trumps crimes.

Kirschner explained how in the big investigations it is common to ask the grand jury to vote out one indictment with perhaps one or two defendants, and a limited number of charges and continue to investigate in the grand jury any other crimes and then ask the grand jury to return a subsequent, or what we call a superseding, indictment.

It could mean additional charges for existing defendants, or adding additional defendants to the charges, he said.

Watch the video here:

The former president also remains under investigation for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, and for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia.

He faces trial in the Stormy Daniels hush money case in 2024.

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Ex-Prosecutor Warns Donald Trump: 'Jack Smith Is Just Getting Warmed Up - Yahoo! Voices

Robert Montgomery

Most of us are not psychologists, but we can easily recognize when a spoiled child is having a tantrum. Often, they will sit on the floor and kick. As they grow up, they always want their own way and pout or cry if they dont get it. Many become bullies as older children and even as adults. I cannot help but be reminded of such persons by the behavior of Donald J. Trump.

There are two main issues with spoiled persons. One is their desire for something and the second is power to get what is wanted. When people want something, there are ways to get it that are usually acceptable and even sometimes admired, such as hard work so that the work will be rewarded with fulfillment of the desire. We are constantly seeking to make this possible in our democracy. However, a spoiled person may use unacceptable and wrong means to gain what is desired. We saw that Donald Trump was greatly disappointed when he did not win the 2020 election and he immediately lied, saying that he had won. This encouraged his followers to believe the same thing even though many courts rejected the Big Lie of massive fraud. Numerous false stories were made up about the election. But it did not stop there.

More: Opinion: Understanding past wrongs is first step in preventing them from happening again

Because Trump did not have the power to overturn the election, that did not stop him and his followers from trying to do just that as we clearly heard and saw on TV on Jan. 6, 2021. A frustrated spoiled child sits on the floor and kicks, as we have seen, and the former President and his followers did the adult equivalent of that as they tried to do the anti-democratic thing by exercising coercive force on the nation to get their way. They said they wanted to take back the country as if the country we all live in had somehow been taken away from them.

A major question in all societies is who should exercise power? Democracies have an orderly means for settling the matter of who should exercise power. It is through the whole process of trying to persuade the electorate by speeches and writings that are then followed by elections. The speeches and writings are backed by political parties that present different policies and programs for the future. They represent different governing philosophies and vie for approval from the electorate. The competition should remain within legal boundaries, but the law protecting the Capital or the Seat of Power was clearly broken by Trump and his followers, acting like spoiled children. I have been wanting to say that for a long time.

More: Opinion: Religions and nations often try to use each other leading to coercive power

No society, including American society, has been perfect, but democracy provides a way to continually improve society. This will never be evenly done, but we can constantly correct cases where the desire of some, especially those who are used to getting their way, becomes harmful. Also, through democracy we have a way to balance power between those contending for power. This is the purpose of elections as well as courts of law. We will always have spoiled people, who probably learned to be that way in early life, often a privileged life. Parents can play a part in the correction of such people, but so can teachers. Beyond these, there is the school of hard knocks, which seems built in to much of life. It can also be part of the judgement that comes with bad behavior

Our democracy is meant to enable the life of most people to proceed so that the proper use of our desires and power is encouraged and rewarded. At the same time, for those who have desires that bring harm to others and use unlawful means to obtain those desires will be hindered and blocked. This applies to all of life, including to government and to economic affairs, where power and its social effects can be very harmful to many.

Democracy is the government devised by the founders to create a society in which law prevails among equals. That is why we say No one is above the Law and not only say it, but attempt to carry this principle. This requires both courage and effort from as many people as possible in our society, We also welcome as many nations as possible to join us in the movement for freedom and democracy.

Rev. Robert L. Montgomery, Ph.D, lives in Black Mountain.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Opinion: Who should exercise power? Not bullies such as Donald Trump.

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Opinion: Donald Trump is a bully who never grew up, throws tantrums to get what he wants - Yahoo Sports

Donald Trump, once again, wants us not to believe our own lying ears. The template for this defense was set on October 7, 2016, when the Washington Post published a tape of Trump laughing crudely as he described to the Access Hollywood host Billy Bush his ability to do what he wanted with women (grab em by the pussy), because when youre a star, they let you do it. The gaslighting that followed the leaking of that tape was a master class in Trumps ability to obfuscate, bluster, and brazen his way out of the trouble that his big mouth had got him intoeven if it meant denying that he meant what everyone had heard him say.

We are about to find out now whether Trumps deny-it-even-if-you-said-it approach has any chance of succeeding in a federal courtroom, where he stands accused of thirty-seven criminal counts of taking classified documents from the White House and obstructing efforts by the government to reclaim them. Trumps own words, captured on tape on July 21, 2021, about one such documentan alleged Pentagon war plan for Iranfigured prominently in the indictment, given that Trump was recorded at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, claiming that he possessed it and admitting that he knew showing it off was wrong. On Monday, CNN broadcast the audio. Talk about a gotcha tape.

With the sounds of papers rustling in the background, Trump is heard complaining about General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He said that I wanted to attack Iranisnt it amazing? Trump told his visitors, who included book advisers to his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows. A few days earlier, I had reported about Milleys concerns in the final months of Trumps Presidency that Trump might provoke a military conflict with Iran as part of his effort to remain in power, despite losing the 2020 election. This, Milley told others, was one of the nightmare scenarios that he was working to prevent. At Bedminster, Trump apparently brandished the Pentagons attack planwhich he claimed had been presented to him by Milley. This totally wins my case, Trump said. You know, except, like, it is highly confidential. He added, See, as President, I could have declassified it; now I cant, but this is classified.... its so cool. The tape ends with a line that was not included in the federal indictment: Trump asking, Bring some Cokes in, please? The whole exchange was happening, in other words, not in some top-secret facility but with someone standing by to fetch drinks, in Trumps office, right near the pool at his country club.

To legal observers and, indeed, to pretty much anyone who could hear, the audiotape sounded like an admission of guilt. But this is Trump, a serial liar for whom an obvious defense presents itself: that he was not telling the truth to his visitors when he claimed to be showing them secret papers. And, sure enough, by Tuesday, Trump told reporters on his way back from a New Hampshire campaign appearance, It was bravado, if you want to know the truthbravado here being a Trump synonym for bullshitting. This is the 2023 equivalent of dismissing the Access Hollywood tape as mere locker-room talk that had nothing to do with Trumps actual behavior toward women. He even suggested that the papers he is heard shuffling through were just building plans. For Trump, its better to be a liar than a convict.

The damning evidence against Trump would not exist if not for his rift with Mark Milley, a remarkable feud between the Commander-in-Chief and the nations top general that had been a secret backdrop to the public drama that played out after the 2020 election. At the time the tape was made, in the summer of 2021, Trump was apoplectic that Milleys fears about him were becoming public. Two recently published booksone by the journalists Carol Leonnig and Phil Rucker of the Post, and the other by Michael Bender, then of the Wall Street Journalhad reported new details about Milleys efforts, including regular land the plane phone calls with Meadows, the White House chief of staff, to prevent Trump from drawing the military into his quest to overturn the 2020 election. Milley was even quoted fretting about Trump and his supporters staging a Reichstag momenta fear that seemed eerily prescient on January 6, 2021, when a violent mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, seeking to block congressional certification of Trumps defeat. Trump, in turn, publicly denounced Milley and said that he had only picked him as chairman in 2018 to spite James Mattis, his soon-to-quit Defense Secretary at the time.

One thing the books did not reveal was Milleys concern throughout the volatile post-election period that Trump might escalate a confrontation with Iran. I learned about this as part of my reporting for The Divider, a book on Trumps Presidency I was working on with my husband, Peter Baker of the Times, and decided to publish the information then, given its relevance to the new disclosures about the Trump-Milley rift. The resulting July 15, 2021, piece described repeated meetings after the election, during which Milley objected to the prospect of strikes, which were being pressed on Trump by a circle of Iran hawks around the President as well as by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Milley even flew to Israel to have a meeting with him, at his home in Jerusalem, to urge him to back off. If you do this, youre gonna have a fucking war, Milley told Netanyahu. Iran was in fact the subject of the final meeting Milley had with Trump, on January 3, 2021, when the chairman and other national-security advisers were summoned to the Oval Office on a Sunday afternoon to debate the matter one last time. At the end of the meeting, Trump raised the upcoming January 6th rally of his supporters to Milley and his acting Defense Secretary, Christopher Miller. Its gonna be a big deal, Milley heard Trump say. Youre ready for that, right?

The reporting about his rift with Milley seemed to have greatly rattled Trump. In the summer of 2021, he was just a few months out of office, an unhappy exile spending most of his time at his clubs in New Jersey and Florida. In interviews, he fulminated about the rigged election and ran through his many grievances. While working on The Divider, Peter and I sat through two such performances, which were guided less by our questions than by whatever Trump wanted to talk about. Milley was still very much on his mind. During our second interview with Trump, in November of 2021, months after these initial stories had come out, he told us that the chairman was weak and stupid and had made up a lot of that stuff after I was done.

None of which was particularly useful for us authors, but it was certainly revealing of Trumps mind-set as the events that would result in this unprecedented federal criminal case against a former President were taking shape. To listen to the tape is to hear Trump reduced to his reckless and menacing essence: an angry, vengeful man who obsessed over his negative press and sought to weaponize secret information to smite an enemy. When Meadowss ghostwriters showed up at Bedminster that day, the former President saw a chance to plant his story about Milley. It worked, by the way: the book that Meadows ultimately published in November of 2021, The Chiefs Chief, included a detailed account of the meeting in Bedminster, with the sound of children laughing at the pool outside drifting into the room as Trump, dressed in a sport coat and a crisp white shirt, recalled a four-page report typed up by Mark Milley himself that purportedly contained the generals own plan to attack Iran.

No one made much of this attack on Milley when Meadowss book came out. If anything, it underscored Trumps own ignorance about the role of the Pentagon in dealing with its Commander-in-Chief. It is the militarys job, and that of its chairman as the Presidents senior military adviser, to draw up war plans for any number of scenarios. Presenting such a plan to Trump on Iran is hardly proof of advocacy to use it.

What Milley had been so worried about in the final days of Trumps Presidency was the spectre of an erratic leader, one who was cavalier with the nations secrets, impetuous in his thinking about war and peace, and consumed with himself and his effort to stay in power. All this was only confirmed by Trumps rant against him. This totally wins my case, Trump had said in the taped interview that will now be used against him in court. But it already seems clear that the case it proved was Milleys.

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Why Donald Trump Was So Mad at Mark Milley That He Confessed ... - The New Yorker

Olivier Dacourt

Olivier Dacourt enjoyed a successful 18-year professional career playing for clubs such as Inter Milan, Roma, Everton and Leeds United, as well as making 21 appearances for France.

The former midfielder won a couple of Serie A titles and Confederations Cups during his time as a football, but off the pitch he had some notable moments too, including a run-in with business magnate and then-future American president Donald Trump.

When asked about suing Trump, Dacourt responded to FourFourTwo: "Haha - yes!

"Wow, that was a long time ago. As investors we bought some apartments in Manhattan, but there was a lot of trouble with it so we sued Trump because he was the previous owner. There were around 30 of us. Of course, we didnt know that we were suing the future president of America!"

That's not the only story Dacourt has of an incident involving someone high-profile outside of football, though. Indeed, while playing at Everton during the 1998/99 season, Dacourt lived next door to Gerry and the Pacemakers lead singer Gerry Marsden in Liverpool.

The neighbours struck up a bond in that period, playing golf and going clay pigeon shooting together, as Dacourt explains.

"Gerry was unbelievable with me, and I actually didnt know anything about his music background. He took me to play golf and we went clay pigeon shooting. He didnt have to do that, but he was a very kind person.

"I was sad when I received the call [in 2021] to tell me that he had died. But hed had a great life."

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Suing Donald Trump and clay pigeon shooting with Gerry Marsden ... - Yahoo Life

When Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016, a great many newsrooms that had been lulled into thinking the election was all but a blue formality suddenly found themselves staring into a harsh new red light.

Its well-documented that major news organizations were way off the mark in calling the 2016 presidential electionso much so it prompted a reckoning within the industry about how journalists should cover the political horse race while ensuring the issues voters care about remain front and center.

Seven years later, how should the media cover Trumpagain a candidate for president, but now facing a slew of state and federal chargesin the 2024 election? Northeastern experts say journalists should seek a better balance of issues-based reporting and tread carefully when it comes to covering defendant Trump in the context of an election.

Not the odds, but the stakes

Invoking the prominent journalist and media critic Jay Rosens credo of not the odds, but the stakes, Peter Mancusi, an associate teaching professor of journalism at Northeastern and former editor and member of the Spotlight Team at The Boston Globe, says that coverage of Trump and the 2024 election should focus more on whats at stake for democracy, and less on the candidates chances of winning.

In other words, Mancusi agrees with the popular critique of the media that emerged post-2016: that there was an excess of horse race coverage, which experts say diminishes the publics knowledge of substantive issues and sows distrust. According to one analysis, matters of policy accounted for just 10% of overall coverage during the 2016 cycle. Additional research suggests that in the lead-up to the election major media publications covered Trump far more favorably despite his low polling initially, which helped propel him in the polls.

Meg Heckman, an associate professor of journalism and media innovation at Northeastern, says that too much attention on the odds and, by extension, the oddsmakers can be problematic in 2024. As it pertains to Trump, it risks further normalizing the former presidenta tension that many journalists felt early in the 2016 cycle that became the source of much handwringing in press, she says.

Heckman and Mancusi both acknowledge that its not easy to cover Trump. There is no playbook for this, Heckman says. But now that the former president is also a criminal defendant in two separate casesan unprecedented development in American politicsreporters should take great care not to downplay the gravity of the situation.

It is completely appropriate for journalists to cover the indictment of a former president, says Heckman, who covered the New Hampshire primary for years at The Concord Monitor. As many have said, this is an unprecedented situation. Novelty is a news value, and the watchdog role of the press dictates it should be covering the indictment of an elected official intensely particularly given that what Trump is accused of doing in the federal case involves matters of national security and public well-being.

But Heckman said the press should scrupulously avoid commenting on how Trumps legal troubles sway voters opinion of him.

Where it gets a little problematic is to the extent coverage is limited to how the indictments are impacting Trumps poll numbers, she adds. Its a small part of the story, but it needs to be just that.

Were used to seeing questions about poll numbers when a candidate says something they shouldnt on the campaign trail, or has an unscripted encounter with a voterthats all normal stuff, Heckman says. Being indicted on really serious federal chargesthats radically different, and should be treated as such.

Framing and context

When more than 2,000 Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an effort to stop lawmakers from certifying President Joe Bidens victory, the stakes for democracy became crystal clear, Mancusi says.

Trumps strategy to outright deny the results of the 2020 presidential electionits predictable and observably direct impact on democratic processes and public trustperhaps marked a turning point in the presss relationship with Trump the newsmaker, Mancusi says.

If the mainstream media was already in the midst ofa sea change prior to Jan. 6 as it concerns Trump, the birth of The Washington Posts democracy team heralded a whole new chapter. Mancusi says that the proliferation of the democracy beat, which focuses on issues of transparency, voting rights, poll access, among others, signaled a new direction for political journalism. Increased attention to issues of democracy provides critical framing and context for reporters, who otherwise might get caught up in the he said, she said style of reporting that some experts say leads to an environment where false claims and half-truths are more likely to go unchallenged.

He said, she said journalism describes the expectation that reporters give equal voice to both sides in a dispute or story. Reporters shouldnt avoid reaching out to both sides, but rather position dubious or outright false claims within a context that flags them as such, Mancusi says. Reflexively seeking the other side without the proper context can lead to a fallacy of bothsidesism, or false balance, Heckman says.

To me, its all about framing and context, Mancusi says. That should be the organizing principle journalists should adopt when covering the 2024 campaign.

Inherent to all democracies worldwide is the fundamental assumption of a free press. As a result, the issues facing democracy take on even greater importance in the media, Mancusi says.

Lots of reporters are framing their stories in different ways, given the threats, he says. And the defense of democracy seems to be a common theme.

Andrew Donohue, managing editor of Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting, writing in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attacks, summarized the crisis facing democracy todayin a post-truth world: Even if this anti-democratic movement doesnt succeed over the next month, its shown a path to undermining the legitimacy of an election. Its exposed how much of our system relies on the integrity of the officials in county canvassing boards, state legislatures, and the offices of each secretary of state.

Back to basics

In some ways, the lessons of 2016 really call for a return to basics, Mancusi says. That means continued rigorous fact-checking and asking tough questions.

Referencing a recent Fox News interview between Bret Baier and Trump, Mancusi says that journalists with access to Trump ought simply to continue to ask pointed questions targeting inconsistencies and past lies, leveraging the evidence presented in the indictments to drill down to the truth.

Mancusi says hes already noticed that news organizations are starting to change their tune ahead of 2024. For one, major TV stations have shied away from airing lengthy unedited footage of Trump rallies and speeches. Mancusi and Heckman agree that to do so this time around would be inappropriate.

Another change: the willingness to label Trump a liar.

During his first term, it took quite a while before the newspapers would even or even use the word lie, Mancusi says. For a long time, they would use language like, [Trump] mischaracterized or falsely asserted, but never that he lied.

After a certain point, [the media] crossed the river, Mancusi adds.

Heckman noted that when Trump first burst on the political scene, it had a destabilizing effect on the profession.

Journalism, especially political journalism, relies heavily on professional norms and routines, Heckman says. There are some very good reasons for that.

For one, the news can be very chaotic and, by definition, unpredictable, she adds. It makes sense that journalists have a set of professional routines and norms that they follow when things get hectic.

As reporters and their editors grappled with how to cover a candidate who, according to The Washington Posts official tally, lied to or misled the public on 30,573 occasions during the course of his presidency, those norms and routines were to some degree upended or jettisoned. Whats more, Heckman says outliers like Trump demand we reconsider them.

A trial start date in the case involving Trumps alleged mishandling of classified documents is tentatively scheduled for Aug. 14.

Tanner Stening is a Northeastern Global News reporter. Email him at t.stening@northeastern.edu. Follow him on Twitter @tstening90.

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How Should the Media Cover Donald Trump in 2024? - Northeastern University