Category Archives: Donald Trump

The Senate Intelligence Committee, which is chaired by Republican Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, released its long-awaited 156-page report detailing its investigation into allegations that Russia sought to interfere in the 2016 election.

And what did their investigation find? That Russia engaged in a deep and broad effort to influence the outcome of the 2016 race, aiming to help Donald Trump win. "The Committee found no reason to dispute the Intelligence Community's conclusions," said Burr in a statement on his committee's findings.

Which now means that the following committees and communities have concluded the exact same thing about Russia's attempted interference in the last presidential election:

* The Senate Intelligence Committee

And to be honest, Trump has made his feelings about the proof that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help him very, very clear. He's, um, skeptical.

So, yeah.

Here's the thing that the Senate Intelligence Committee report should drive home for Trump -- and everyone else: it is now entirely and completely beyond dispute that Russia sought to interfere in the last presidential election to help Trump and hurt Clinton.

In order to not believe that, you have to accept that the entire intelligence community, Mueller and his entire team and the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee are ALL in on some sort of elaborate and incredibly well-coordinated scheme to deceive the American public because, uh, they all don't like Trump or something?

It's fanciful. It's a conspiracy theory without even any nuggets of fact.

Why, then, is the President of the United States not convinced? Simple: Because he has never been able to hold these two ideas in his mind at the same time: 1) Russia meddled in the election to help him and 2) He's President anyway.

"That was a clean campaign. I beat Hillary Clinton easily. And, frankly, we beat her -- and I'm not even saying from the standpoint -- we won that race. ... We ran a brilliant campaign, and that's why I'm President."

In Trump's mind, acknowledging the fact -- and yes, it is a fact -- that Russia tried to help him win somehow robs him of the credit for winning that he obviously thinks he so richly deserves. I did this, not Russia, Trump is essentially saying. I get the credit. Not them. Me. Me!

It's, of course, obvious to anyone paying attention that both things can be true: Russia tried to interfere in the election and Trump ran a great race. Elections are very rarely won by a single factor alone. Luck, skill, your strengths, your opponent's weaknesses, uncontrollable outside events -- all of these things go into who wins and who loses. In 2016 and every other election.

Trump's blindness to the Russia reality isn't just a chapter for the history books either. Because we know Russia viewed its involvement in the 2016 race as a success and are hungry to create more chaos this November.

All of which means that the President's unwillingness to accept the FACT that Russia interfered once and they will do it again makes it much more likely that we won't be properly prepared for what's coming over the 195 days between now and November 3.

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The Senate just proved Donald Trump wrong -- again -- on Russian interference in 2016 - CNN

Donald Trump took a break from his scattershot coronavirus-pandemic management and his regular Twitter program to wish the New York Post gossip columnist Cindy Adams a happy birthday on Wednesday, writing, Happy Birthday to the great Cindy Adams of the New York Post. Cindy is 90, but looks 39 to me. She is going strong!

He also called her earlier in the week, according to Adamss column on Tuesday.

The column addressed the birthday celebration shed been planning before the crisis, which wouldve been held this coming Friday. Reached by phone on Wednesday, Adams said that with the party off, she had no plans. Im not gonna do anything, she said. She added that her housekeeper would like to make me goat curry. And I really dont think I want any goat curry for my birthday, instead of the 500 people I was going to give a huge five-course dinner to.

On the call with Trump, I remember saying, Dont worry about [Joe] Biden, he cant find his way to the urinal in the White House, Adams said. She was on speakerphone in the Oval Office, and the room erupted in laughter. I dont remember what other things we said or what Im gonna tell you about it, she said.

The cozy column and backatcha tweet caused some minor commotion on Twitter, coming as it did in the middle of a crisis that, by the confirmed numbers, has killed just under 50,000 people in the U.S., infected over 800,000 more, and generally thrown the country into varying degrees of distress. There was also Adamss waxing nostalgic about how the president used to try to date Miss Universe contestants while she was an official for the competition. In the column Adams wrote that she told Trump on the phone, If you could handle a locked skirt you can handle a locked-down country. The room broke out laughing. (At least 23 women have publicly made allegations of sexual misconduct against Trump. He has denied all the allegations.) Not that Adams was reading the comments, as it were. He tweeted whatever it was he tweeted today, she said on the phone on Wednesday.

Trump has long had a kind of codependent relationship with the New York City tabloids. If you worked for a newspaper in New York in the 1980s, you had to write about Trump, the former Post and Newsday editor and columnist Susan Mulcahy wrote for Politico a few months before Trumps election. At times, I would let several months go by without a single column mention of The Donald, she added. This doubtless upset him, as he loves Page Six and used to have it brought it to him the moment it arrived in his office.

Adams said that she and Trump have been friends for 50 years. Hes been to her home for dinner, as have many other politicians. Ive had mayors, governors, Ive had presidents here for dinner, Adams said. But they were nice, small little dinners. I never had 500 people at a dinner that I was arranging and I was paying for, and Im not ever doing it again.

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Yes, Cindy Adams Is Still Besties With Donald Trump: What Did We Expect? - Vanity Fair

What do celebrities like Samuel L. Jackson, LaTanya Richardson, Suze Orman, Valerie Jarret and Iyanla Vanzant have in common? Well, they're stuck at homelike the rest of us, and they've allbeen featured on April Ryan's new Instagram Live show, "Covid Conversations." Many know Ryan from her work as a CNN political analyst and herrole as a White House correspondent for the American Urban Radio Networks. While she's stuck at home and unable to go to the White House, she started her own show Monday through Thursday at 7 p.m.ET on her Instagram. No lights and no stage just Ryan at her desk with her phone.

Ryan has coveredpresidents for more than20 years and is the realest interviewer I've ever met. Other than celebrities, Ryan has also had a number of politicians on "Covid Conversations," includingRep. Karen Bass and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries. From finance and relationship advice to the time Kim Fields met Michael Jackson and Prince, Ryan's show offers rich, honest reflection that we need to make it through thesedangerous times.

Ryan and I discussed her show, her assessment of President Trump and his response to the coronavirus pandemic,and how physical distancing has given her a new perspective on covering the news.Watch my "Salon Talks" with April Ryan here, or readour conversation below.

People who have homes and who have the luxury of staying home have been stressed out during quarantine. They can't handle it. ButI feel like we're from Baltimore, so we're wired a little differently.

D. Watkins, you are right. We're wired differently. Bishop Walter Scott Thomas from Baltimore said to me, "Baltimoreans are not like any other resident of any other city because this is the only city where you have the word failure built into your existence." I said, "Wow, that's so true." To stop from failing, it's about surviving and trying to get out. My thing is, we have seen the bottom, we've seen rock bottom, and we know how to deal at rock bottom.

All of us are struggling. People who had the privilege before have lost paychecks or have had their paychecks cut, and what was privilege before coronavirus the new BC is now a different privilege. Those who are the hourly workers are yearning to go back to work, to pay their rent, to pay for food, to pay for doctors for their kids, versus people who are still getting a check and their companies are saying, "Oh, work from home right now." We're considered the ones who are privileged.

If you work at a market or if you deliver packages for Amazon, you are on the front lines right now. When I check in with my family and the people who I have to take care of and send money to, the stories are different than when I talked to some of my artist friends who are like, "Oh, I can't create in this space." I'm like, "You're not in jail, you're not homeless, you should be thankful."

This is the time, this is the creative space. This is the time. I'm using it. First of all, I thank God for everyone. I thank God for those on the front lines, the doctors, the nurses, ambulance drivers, those who take care of people. I thank God for those who are working at Amazon. I'm not taking my dog to the groomer, I'm not taking my dog to the vet, I'm not taking my children to the hairdresser, I'm buying all kinds of shampoos. I got the dog a nail grinder. I've been ordering. I'm trying not to go out. I've been ordering from Instacart. Thank God for them.

They have to work and I thank God for all of them. To be quite frank, we cannot be so high that we don't understand what's going on and understand the plight of everyone. I told my kids, I said, "Look, if mommy loses her paycheck, mommy's going to Amazon. If mommy loses her paycheck, she's going to be going to Instacart or something." And that's the reality of life. Things have changed. It's like that book, "Who Moved My Cheese?" You cannot stay and die, you have got to live and survive. This is a time to be creative and to really take the emotion out of it and look at what is.This is fighting time, survival. D, we've been through it. We live it in Baltimore.

As the great Toni Morrison says, "This is the time when artists go to work."

Right, exactly. So, what are my strengths? What are my strengths? What am I doing? Not only my strengths to do something else or to create, but also to preserve my mind. Because if you keep watching the news, if you're innocent and if you're watching the president vacillate or give misinformation and you're like, "What more?" You got to be able to learn how to pull away and find yourself.

I joke about this, running from 'rona, I'm finding myself, or running to myself, finding out who I am. You've got to laugh to keep from crying. I wake up in the morning in panic sometimes and I can't go there, and that's happened at least twice to me. I've had terrible dreams and I cannot go there. I am the head of my household with two daughters. And you know as a parent yourself, if you are out of line, everyone else is out of line.

Exactly.

You've got to keep the morale up and you've got to keep it going. So, what am I doing? I am working every day from home, because I'm one of those people, like millions of people globally, who have underlying issues. I'm not going to the White House right now questioning the president, but I am talking to the people who talk to the president, who are in his ear, my sources. He doesn't know whoI'm talking to, but I'm talking to people and still getting the stories out in real time.

I'm talking to Susan Rice, former national security adviser, I'm talking to Jeh Johnson, former head of Homeland Security, who says, "We are in a national security crisis." This is not just national emergency, this is a national security crisis. I've talked to the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, who says that there is still a need for testing kits, masks and ventilators in Detroit, as the president is talking about opening up the nation.

Since you bring up Michigan, have you been seeing these crazy anti-social-distancing rallies in Michigan and other places? What's going on with that?

The president wants to open it up because it will look like a victory for him. We haven't hit the numbers that were anticipated and now we're opening it up and it looks like a victory. Butyou can't say it's a victory when people are still being infected and there's a chance of more people dying. And you see, when China reopened, more people were infected again, and some people were re-infected. So, this is something you've never seen before. People want to do this anti-distancing and I don't call it social distancing, we're socially connected, but we're physically distant. We need to say "physical distancing," to be correct. But, at the end of the day, we have to stop. This is not about President Trump, this is not about Joe Biden, this is about people and their lives. This is not a political thing. The economics does play into it and I get it, but you cannot open up full societies, particularly societies that are being hit.

Michigan has been hit hard and Michigan is a very blue-collar state. You've got a lot of auto industry there, you've got so much there. And I get it, but we have to be very cautious in our steps forward, and the question is, is the psyche going to allow us to be like we used to be?

You've covered a couple of White Houses. Is this your fifth president? Fourth president?

Fourth president. I started with Bill Clinton. I was there for Monica Lewinsky. I'm older than I look, D. But here's the thing, this president let's start by saying he wanted to drain the swamp and he wanted to bring new faces into Washington. That's red flag No. 1, scarlet red flag No.1. You need people at a time such as this, when there's that hidden variable that can come and upset the apple cart, who know what to do. He destroyed his national intelligence security team. He was warned about this and he called it the Democratic hoax. Yes, he may have shut down travel from China, but he kept calling it a hoax. He didn't take it seriously enough and he kept saying it's nothing but the flu, and now 100 percent of the nation is shut down, stay-at-home orders because of this.

This president, he believes that he knows everything. At one point, he was almost to the point where he was an MD, and I'm like hmm. So the bottom line is this president wants the world to get back to normal well, all of us do. He's listening to Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx about keeping it shut down, but the question is, did it have to be the way it is now? Listening to the former national security adviser and former UN ambassador, Susan Rice, she said this could have been prevented. It would not have been this bad if they would have dealt with it. Not only that, they shut down the offices that they set up for pandemics. They disregarded the advice of Susan Rice and others. Her counterpart, she says she met with him for 12 hours on various occasions, Michael Flynn, and Michael Flynn didn't say anything. They dismantled the office that would handle this, and they don't have a crisis management team right now.

How long do you think this is going to last?

Dr. Fauci and many of the infectious disease officers are saying that it's a work in progress with the antibodies. They thought the antibodies from those who had this were show up really well for the vaccination, but now they're saying it's a work in progress. It didn't pan out the way they thought. So, understandthat they're looking for a vaccine and the vaccine will take at least a year to a year and a half, and then once you get the vaccine you have to mass market it. Once you mass market it, you still have to go through the process of immunizingnot just the nation, but the world. This is going to be an ebb and flow for at least two years.

Do you think we're going to be home for two years?

I don't know what we're going to be, but this is going to be an ebb and flow for two years. And I don't believe the stuff about the summer, because I'm going to tell you about the summer. New Orleans is warm and they still have it. Louisiana was hit hard. California has it, and that's a warm state. So, I don't believe the warm weather thing.

One of the things that a lot of us have found joy in during the pandemic is your new Instagram Live show. You are having real, serious and moving conversations with everyone from Suze Orman toKim Fields, Iyanla Vanzant and Samuel L. Jackson.

We've had a lot of great guests. And we're going to get someone who deals with skin and hair because I'm going to tell you something, as a black woman who's never done her hair, I'm going to have someone talk about natural hair and skin in the midst of this, because we're not able to go to the store like we used to. This show is my first attempt to heal because I didn't understand it. I knew if I was hurting, I knew other people were hurting. I wanted to give information, I wanted to uplift and inform. We are so bogged down with bad news.

It hurt me when I started seeing the reports that people were fighting in the house. Domestic violence has risen, child abuse is on the rise. It is bothering me to hear those things as my children and I the first couple of days we were like, "Look, the best way for us to get along is come together and give each other space." We have been doing very well. I've discovered my children think that they are chefs, they are making anything. My daughter made some kind of lemon-zest mashed potatoes with garlic in it. I was like, "Oh, yes." Thenshe fried steak. She said, "Mommy, I need some white wine." I said, "I'm not giving you my white wine," and I was looking on Instacart to see if I had any white cooking wine, they didn't have it. I said, "Here, take this moscato." I don't drink anyway, so I said, "Here, take this moscato." It was thebest steak I've ever had. It was restaurant style, it was better than Ruth's Chris. I didn't need to put any white sauce on it.

I love it.

We're finding ways to come together. I knew a lot of my friends were hurting and I said, if I'm hurting, if they're hurting, let me do something. That's when I got Iyanla on. Before that, Sabrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin, asked me, "Could we do something together?" She wanted to do something with me, Iyanlaand Bishop Vashti McKenzie, and I said, "Yeah, let's do it," and we did it and it was such an outpouring. I said, "Wait a minute, there's something here. People are hurt."

How do you select your guests?

It's people that cross my path that I like, or they like me. D, we're blessed to be in this business and we come across some fascinating individuals and fascinating stories.We talk real stuff because we are in such a hard time. It's not only hitting our health, our family, but it's hitting our pocketbook, and I want to inform. That's the nature of what I do and who I am. Mine is about information, giving you something that you can use, but if there's a laugh along the way to ease the pain, let's do that. I want to uplift, inform, and give you a how-to. I want you to be able to come through this, and it's my therapy.I'm human like everyone else. I have opened my eyes in panic at least two nights, and last night I had a terrible dream, a terrible dream. It is my therapy.

We're going to have a love counselor, once again because you think your home is your palace. But for some, it's become their prison because their safe space is not their homebut their school or their workplace. Because at home, they could be dealing with an abusive spouse or someone who's drinking or it's just not safe. That really has bothered me, because my mother, growing up in Baltimore, no matter what happened, my home was my castle. I've tried to make that for my children as well, and it hurts me to hear that. We are hurting right now as people in the midst of this, and it hurts my heart to hear that people don't have the tools to get along.

I don't know how long we're going to be in this thing. I got to teach my children how to cook and I got to learn how to do theirhair. It's tough not to be at the White House every day, because I have underlying issues. I'm still working, but it's tough because that is in my blood. I let that go about a week into it. I said, "OK, you got this." I'm watching the briefings, but it's tough.

We're happy you're healthy.

I had to run from death threats, and now I've got to run from 'rona. People are like, "Why aren't you in the briefing room?" I'm like, "Look, No. 1, I got underlying issues, and 'rona exacerbates those things, and will kill you." If I ran from death threats and had a bodyguard, do you think I'm going to sit there and let 'rona kill me? No, I'm a runner.

Is there going to be an April Ryan talk show after this? I think we need it. You're covering the survival skills and the coping mechanisms, and the fun stuff, and the steak recipes.

From your mouth to God's ear.I've always wanted a TV show and if that's for me, God bless. I thank God that I'm able to do my hair and do my own makeup. I sat there and watched in the makeup chair at CNN, watched all the great makeup artists. So, if they want to put a camera here, I'm ready to go, let's do it.

I'm a kid from Baltimore who just happened upon this. I feel like the black female Forrest Gump. I happened upon this and if people like it, I'm like, "Wow, OK." Next I'm having Jonathan McReynolds, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, the head of the Democratic Caucus, and also the back part of that half hour is the head of the Congressional Black Caucus, Congresswoman Karen Bass. Then, I'm going to have the hair doctor, Dr. Kendrick, and then Valerie Jarrett.

We've got some big names that we reached out to, we're going to see. We've got a lot of how-tos. This is a time of creativity we're trying to foster. We want to be there for you. So, I'm just honored that you would think of me and that you're watching.

Let me tell you something, you find out who you are in the midst of this trying time. My daughter, my youngest daughter, will pop the chain off every bike that's in this house. I wound up figuring out how to undo the chain and put it back on right. Normally I'm like, "Let's go to the bike shop," and I said, "I can do this," and so I'm figuring stuff out. I got a snake. If we have a clogged toiletI can do that too, because I'm not calling people in here. I think this is the time that we find out our strengths and our limitations.

Since I was a little kid, I ate from carry-outs, the corner store. Now I cook breakfast.

What do you cook for breakfast?

French toast.Sometimes I make egg sandwiches.

Wait a minute, you make your own French toast? You make homemade French toast?

I dip the bread in the egg and a little cinnamon, a little nutmeg, a little bit of vanilla.

Yes! Yes, you are. I'm proud of you.

These days are short, they're not long. I break away and do a little bit of writing, orwe do our interviews.It's just blessed, I'mjust taking it one day at a time.

My kids are doing online work, and I'm working during the day. I normally don't do this during the day because I'm still working during the day. The president's on at 5:30, and I watch that until it's time for me to do my IG Live. ButI make sure the girls are doing their work and then we come together, we play around, I sit with them and fix lunch for them. Thenwe have dinner in the evenings or they'll make dinner themselves, and it's been such a blessed time of talking with them and being with them, and they're so funny. If you can find the little pieces of joy in this, look for them, because it's so easy to be negative. Butfind thelittle pieces of joy because you're going to fall back on them. This is a moment that you're going to say, "We got through that together." This is atime of creativity for everyone.

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April Ryan on her Instagram show, Donald Trump and lockdown as a "creative space" - Salon

Ramadanthe Muslim holy month of fastinghas officially started across the world, with politicians and celebrities alike sharing messages to the Muslim community on social media.

President Donald Trump issued a presidential message on Thursday, expressing wishes to all Muslims in the U.S. and around the world.

"For millions around the globe, this holy month is an opportunity to renew and strengthen their faith through rigorous fasting, devout prayer, reflective meditation, reading the Quran, and charitable deeds," read the message. "These acts are closely aligned with the universal values that the Islamic faith promotespeace, kindness, and love and respect for others.

"Over the past months, we have seen how important the power of prayer can be during challenging times. Today, as the holy month of Ramadan commences, I pray that those who are observing this sacred time find comfort and reassurance in their faith. Ramadan Mubarak."

Democrat Presidental 2020 candidate and former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden shared his message from his blog: "As Muslim families across America and around the world celebrate the beginning of Ramadan, Jill and I want to extend our best wishes to all who are observing this holy month," he writes.

"Americans of all backgrounds have come to respect the discipline and values of Ramadan. We have stood in awe of athletes like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Ibtihaj Muhammad as they abstained from food and drink during the heat of competition. We have seen Muslims give generously to strengthen our communities and lift up the most marginalized among us. Above all, we have felt the sense of unity, joy, and deep reflection that this month creates for our Muslim friends and neighbors."

Other politicians across the world gave their wishes to mark the start of the holy month. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shared his message on his YouTube page, which talked about how Ramadan would be different for many Muslims this year. "While there is no doubt that Ramadan will be different this year, I know that people will still find ways to bring its true meaning to life."

He also asked Canadians to continue to observe social distancing, keeping shopping trips to once a week and holding celebrations with family members online.

Queen Rania of the Kingdom of Jordan shared her Ramadan message on her Instagram account. "Ramadan is always a time of great mercy and blessings," she wrotes. "Though we will miss sharing this holy month with friends and family gathered around Iftar, we have faith that God will soon reunite us and keep our beloved Jordan safe and healthy."

The U.K. Prime Minister's account (@10DowningStreet) shared its message to Muslims, reminding everyone in the country to observe social distancing rules. The U.K. is currently in lockdown due to the coronavirus, which was extended last week for a further three weeks.

"Ramadan Mubarak to all Muslims in the U.K. and around the world," the message says. "This year Ramadan will be different. During this holy month, it is vital that we all stay at home so we can protect our NHS and save lives."

The graphic below, provided by Statista, illustrates the differing fasting times across the world during Ramadan 2020.

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Ramadan Mubarak: Donald Trump, Justin Trudeau, Queen Rania and Others Share Messages to Mark Muslim Holy Month - Newsweek

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Like many hotels in America, Donald Trumps luxury downtown DC hotel has taken a massive hit from the COVID-19 pandemic and is asking its landlord for a break on its monthly rent. But this particular property is unique in that the landlord takes its orders from the president himself.

The Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC, operates out of a federally owned property, an old post office building just blocks from the White House. In 2013, the Trump Organization signed a lease to operate a hotel in the building and promised to pay at least $3 million a year in rent. When Trump took office, he refused to sell or give up control of his businesses; he simply declared that his two adult sons and some company executives would take charge of the daily operations. The hotel has been a bright spot in Trumps portfolio during his presidency, if not always as a business then at least as a symbol. Many of his properties have seen declines in revenue, but the DC hotel, which opened in 2016, just days before the election, injected tens of millions of dollars of new revenue into the Trump Organization and has become a popular hangout for lobbyists and foreign officials seeking to get Trumps attention. The president himself dines at the steakhouse in the hotels lobby on a regular basis.

But for all the attention the hotel has gotten, in the months before the pandemic began spreading, it reportedly had an occupancy rate of around 57 percent, less than what hotel business experts say is needed to turn a profit, and the Trumps had begun shopping around their 60-year lease on the property. All that suggests that the hotel was not as profitable as it might appear. The hotel has remained open through the pandemic, unlike most other luxury hotels in DC, but with an occupancy of about 2 percent, according to an official with the hotel workers union.

That, apparently, is not cutting it. TheNew York Times reported on Tuesday that the Trump Organization has approached the General Services Administration (GSA), the federal agency that operates as landlord for the Trump hotel and other government-owned properties, about some kind of break on the rent. The Trump Organization confirmed to theTimes that they had done so:

The Trump Organization is current on its rent, according to Eric Trump, the presidents son, but he confirmed that the company had opened a conversation about possible delays in future monthly payments.

The younger Mr. Trump said the company was asking the G.S.A. for any relief that it might be granting other federal tenants. The president still owns the company, but his eldest sons run the day-to-day operations.

Just treat us the same, Eric Trump in a statement on Tuesday. Whatever that may be is fine.

But will it be fine? TheTimes also reported that the Trump Organization has asked Palm Beach County in Florida for a break on its rent for property it leases from the county for a golf courseand that county officials are fretting that if they refuse to give the Trumps a break, they may be shorted on federal pandemic aid.

The decision will be up to the GSA, but agency officials all ultimately work for Trump. The kind of conflict of interest could have been avoided. In the lease that Trump signed in 2013, a clause prohibited federal office holders from participating in the arrangement. But after he had already taken office, the GSA determined that it did not apply to Trump, because he wasnt a federal office holder when he signed the deal. Steven Schooner, a law professor at George Washington University who specializes in government contracting and who has long been a critic of the GSAs decision not to apply the conflict-of-interest rule to Trump, says this is the scenario the rule was designed to prevent.

Under no circumstances should GSA reduce the rent, Schooner said. Any reasonable person would worry about the undue pressures and the inherent risk of favoritism that the government might show to such a well-connected contractor.

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Like You, Donald Trump Wants a Break on His Rent - Mother Jones

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Its only mid-April (yes, I had to check) and President Donald Trump is already accusing Democrats of trying to steal the election out from under [him]. Heres an email Trumps re-election campaign sent out to supporters Friday afternoon:

As with many Trump statements, its a futile and counterproductive exercise to try to debunk it in full, but he (okay, his campaigns digital fundraising staffer) is referring to a push, mainly by Democrats, to expand absentee voting access before the fall. In case you havent heard, theres a global pandemic thats shut down life as we know it in the United States, and turned the act of in-person-votingor working at a voting precinctinto a life-threatening proposition. Wouldnt it be nice to vote without dying? And some states, such as California, Oregon, and Washington, already make it possible for anyone to cast their vote by mailin fact theyve been doing it a long time with no real issues or fraud. (Incidentally, there was a big case of absentee-ballot fraud in 2018which ended in a do-over election and the indictment of a Republican campaign worker.)

Trumps full of bluster, but lets not lose sight how insane this is. The sitting president is accusing his opponents of trying to steal the election simply because they want to make sure people are able to vote safely in a pandemicand hes doing it just to raise money. At least its going to a good place.

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Donald Trump Is Already Accusing Democrats of Stealing the Next Election - Mother Jones

First he was the self-described wartime president. Then he trumpeted the total authority of the federal government. But in the past few days, President Trump has nurtured protests against state-issued stay-at-home orders aimed at curtailing the spread of the coronavirus.

Hurtling from one position to another is consistent with Mr. Trumps approach to the presidency over the past three years. Even when external pressures and stresses appear to change the dynamics that the country is facing, Mr. Trump remains unbowed, altering his approach for a day or two, only to return to nursing grievances.

Not even the presidents re-election campaign can harness him: His team is often reactive to his moods and whims, trying but not always succeeding in steering him in a particular direction. Now, with Mr. Trumps poll numbers falling after a rally-around-the-leader bump, he is road-testing a new turn on a familiar theme veering into messages aimed at appealing to Americans whose lives have been disrupted by the legally enforceable stay-at-home orders.

Whether his latest theme will be effective for him is an open question: In an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released on Sunday, just 36 percent of voters said they generally trusted what Mr. Trump says about the coronavirus.

But the president, who ran as an insurgent in 2016, is most comfortable raging against the machine of government, even when he is the one running the country. And while the coronavirus is in every state in the union, it is heavily affecting minority and low-income communities.

So when Mr. Trump on Friday tweeted LIBERATE, his all-capitalized exhortations against strict orders in specific states including Michigan were in keeping with how he ran in 2016: saying things that seem contradictory, like pledging to work with governors and then urging people to liberate their states, and leaving it to his audiences to hear what they want to hear in his words.

For instance, Mr. Trump did not take the opportunity to more forcefully encourage the protesters when he spoke with reporters on Friday.

These are people expressing their views, Mr. Trump said. They seem to be very responsible people to me. But he said he thought the protesters had been treated rough.

In a webcast with Students for Trump on Friday, a conservative activist and Trump ally, Charlie Kirk, echoed the message, encouraging a peaceful rebellion against governors in states like Michigan, according to ABC News.

On Fox News, where many of the opinion hosts are aligned with Mr. Trump and which he watches closely, there have also been discussions of such protests. And Mr. Trump has heard from conservative allies who have said they think he is straying from his base of supporters in recent weeks.

So far, the protests have been relatively small and scattershot, organized by conservative-leaning groups with some organic attendance. It remains to be seen if they will be durable.

But Mr. Trumps show of affinity for such actions is in keeping with his fomenting of voter anger at the establishment in 2016, a key to his success then and his fallback position during uncertain moments ever since.

In the case of the state-issued orders, Mr. Trumps advisers say his criticism of certain places is appropriate.

Stephen Moore, a former adviser to Mr. Trump and an economist with FreedomWorks, an organization that promotes limited government, said he thought protesters ought to be wearing masks and protecting themselves. But, he added, the people who are doing the protest, for the most part, these are the deplorables, theyre largely Trump supporters, but not only Trump supporters.

On Sunday, Mr. Trump again praised the protesters. I have never seen so many American flags, he said.

But Mr. Trumps advisers are divided about the wisdom of encouraging the protests. At some of them, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, a Democrat, has been compared to Adolf Hitler. At least one protester had a sign featuring a swastika.

One adviser said privately that if someone were to be injured at the protests or if anyone contracted the coronavirus at large events where people were not wearing masks there would be potential political risk for the president.

But two other people close to the president, who asked for anonymity in order to speak candidly, said they thought the protests could be politically helpful to Mr. Trump, while acknowledging there might be public health risks.

One of those people said that in much of the country, where the numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths are not as high as in places like New York, New Jersey, California and Washington State, anger is growing over the economic losses that have come with the stringent social-distancing restrictions.

And some states are already preparing to restart their economies. Ohio, where Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, took early actions against the spread of the virus, is planning a staged reopening beginning on May 1.

Still, as Mr. Trump did throughout 2016, as when he said torture works and then walked back that statement a short time later, or when he advocated bombing the Middle East while denouncing lengthy foreign engagements, he has long taken various sides of the same issue.

Mobilizing anger and mistrust toward the government was a crucial factor for Mr. Trump in the last presidential election. And for many months he has been looking for ways to contrast himself with former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and a Washington lifer.

Vice President Mike Pence, asked on NBCs Meet the Press about the presidents tweets urging people to liberate states, demurred.

The American people know that no one in America wants to reopen this country more than President Donald Trump, Mr. Pence said, and on Thursday the president directed us to lay out guidelines for when and how states could responsibly do that.

And in the presidents tweets and public statements, I can assure you, hes going to continue to encourage governors to find ways to safely and responsibly let America go back to work, he said.

But Mr. Trump himself has seemed at sea, according to people close to him, uncertain of how to proceed. His approval numbers in his campaign polling have settled back to a level consistent with that before the coronavirus, according to multiple people familiar with the data.

His campaign polling has shown that focusing on criticizing China, in contrast with Mr. Biden, moves voters toward Mr. Trump, according to a Republican who has seen it.

Trump finally fired the first shot with his more aggressive stance toward the Chinese government and its leader, Xi Jinping, said Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trumps former chief strategist. Xi is put on notice that the death, economic carnage and agony is his and his alone, Mr. Bannon said. Only question now: What is Americas president prepared to do about it?

Mr. Trumps campaign manager, Brad Parscale, has advocated messages that contrast Mr. Trump with Mr. Biden on a number of fronts, including China.

But inside and outside the White House, other advisers to Mr. Trump see an advantage in focusing attention on the presidency.

Kellyanne Conway, the White House counselor, has argued in West Wing discussions that there is a time to focus on China, but that for now, the president should embrace commander-in-chief moments amid the crisis.

Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey and a friend of Mr. Trumps, said on ABCs This Week that he did not think ads criticizing Mr. Biden on China were the right approach for now.

Ultimately, Mr. Trumps advisers said, most of his team is aware that it can try to drive down Mr. Bidens poll numbers, but that no matter what tactics it deploys now, the presidents future will most likely depend on whether the economy is improving in the fall and whether the viruss spread has been mitigated. Those things will remain unknown for months.

This is going to be a referendum, Mr. Christie said, on whether people think, when we get to October, whether or not he handled this crisis in a way that helped the American people, protected lives and moved us forward.

Continued here:

Trump, Head of Government, Leans Into Antigovernment Message - The New York Times

For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis and more, subscribe to Mother Jones' newsletters.

In the middle of a horrific crisis claiming the lives of thousands of Americans a day, President Donald Trump decided it was a fine time to undermine democracy.

Last week, as the coronavirus continued to burn through the United States, Trumps campaign sent out an email from him soliciting contributions for his reelection effort and made a dangerous accusation: the 2020 election cannot be trusted. The first line of the emailwhich likely was sent to hundreds of thousands, if not more, people on Republican and conservative email listsreads, Its no secret that the Democrats are trying to steal the Election out from under me. The letter asserts that Democrats have been plotting against me from the very beginning and are deploying fraud to rig the game because they know they cant beat me at the ballot box.

Less than seven months from Election Day, Trump was trying to undermine the process and cast doubt on its legitimacy. Without spelling out the matter at hand, he was responding to recent calls for an expansion in voting-by-mail as a way to hold elections safely during a pandemic. His letter referred to possible chaos from ballot harvestinga term for volunteers or political operatives collecting absentee or mail-in ballots. But there has been no proof that such activity leads to significant fraud. Seventeen states already have some form of mail-in elections, and many others allow for absentee voting through the mail. (Remember, Trump falsely insisted after the 2016 election that there had been millions of fraudulent votes cast against him.)

So as the country struggles with how to hold elections during a pandemiclook at the mess that occurred recently in Wisconsin when Republicans successfully fought to hold an election that the governor wanted to postponeTrump is telling his supporters that he (and they) are victims of a dark plot to rig the election. This echoes his demagogic rhetoric from the 2016 campaign trail. He repeatedly insisted then that he could only lose due to shenanigans, contending that rampant fraud was being mounted to swipe that election from him. He devised a nonsensical paradigm: if he won, the election was honest; if he lost, the election was crooked.

His rhetoric during that campaign was treacherous in and of itself; Trump was inviting his supporters to disbelieve the election results, should he lose. But it harmed American democracy in another critical way. His talk of a tainted election influenced how President Barack Obama and his top aides responded to the ongoing Russian attack on the election. With Trump griping about the contest being rigged, Obama and his crew feared confronting the Russian assault (which was helping Trump) too forcefully in public; they worried that Trump would point to such action as evidence of the non-existent rigging he was decrying. That is, because Trump was raising unfounded questions about the election, the Obama White House did not want to introduce into the mix other concerns about its legitimacywhich Trump could use as ammo. (See? Obama says the Russians are helping me? Theyre just doing that to cheat and rig the election against me.) Trumps trash-talking of the election boxed in the Obama administration, and Obama, rightly or not, opted to not highlight Moscows intervention in the campaign to the degree he could have. (Obama and his advisers tended to believe that Hillary Clinton would win, despite Moscows effort, and that the Russian interference could be addressed after the election.) This year, as Trump administration officials have warned that Russia again is interfering in the American election, Trump once more is pushing a baseless allegation of voting fraud as a diversion.

One thing Trump is good at is setting up narratives. He told his supporters in 2016 that a Trump loss would be evidence of a dishonest election. Consequently, if he had failed, he had his folks ready to believe Trump had been swindled and primed for a holy-hell reaction. Trump recently has created a self-serving plot line for the coronavirus crisis: if the situation improves, he can claim credit; if it does not, the governors are to blame. And now hes jeopardizing the 2020 election by establishing a risky cover story: the Democrats are attempting to rip off the voters and stop Trump with illegal means.

And Trump is trying to raise money with this pitch. His letter asks its conservative and Republican recipients to send his campaign money it can use for an Election Defense Fund. A reader who clicks on the donation button is directed to a page requesting between $5 and $2800 dollars. The fine print at the bottom of the page notes that the money will go to the Trump campaign and the Republican Party in a 75/25 split. Maybe a donation will end up at an election defense fund. Maybe it will not.

Trump has been trampling on norms since he tramped into the White House. And much of the public and media has become inured to his creeping authoritarianism. In any normal circumstance involving any normal presidential candidate, a charge that the other party is stealing the election would prompt headlines, scrutiny, and a demand for proof. It would provoke cable television outrage. Whats the evidence? What harm does such a talk do? Does this encourage disrespect for elections and discourage voting? How could a president be so irresponsible and reckless with his rhetoric and so cavalier about undercutting American democracy? This email drew no such attention.

Trumps excesses and extremes have been normalized. They no longer shock. Some barely even seem to warrant comment. After all, whats one fundraising letter when Trump is profoundly mismanaging the US governments response to a pandemic, lying, bullying, and proclaiming his own greatness at the daily Trump follies to distract from his actions and inaction that have contributed to the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans? Yet this give-me-money missive is a double-warning. First, Trump can be expected to continue to push this line in the coming months to sabotage the election. Second, he may well be preparing to deny results that do not keep him in the White House. While the nation is fixated on public health and economic crises of the moment, Trump and his lieutenants are looking ahead to the fall and readying an attack on the foundation of American self-governance. He is signaling how ugly this election will be and how much damage he is willing to cause to protect his own political health.

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Here We Go: Trump Has Started Accusing the Dems of Stealing the 2020 Election - Mother Jones

Donald Trumps conduct in a week when Wednesdays record number of coronavirus deaths doubled next day to a new record of 4,591 can only be understood if you realize that the president is not a 73-year-old man with the experience and maturity that suggests. Trump is actually a 10-year-old having aged in reverse dog years. He has the crimped emotions and empathy of a deluded superhero (only I can fix it), the limitations of a C-student, and the work ethic of a pre-teen who resents any challenge to his fragile ego and responds positively only to praise. All he does now is try to make to reality disappear.

Seeing Trump as a captive of his immaturity is a way to anticipate and perhaps defend against his dangerous behavior that is getting worse as the stakes get higher. A know-it-all, hes opening the countrys parks, gyms, and restaurants not just against the advice of experts and the views of 80 percent of the country, but of usual sycophants like Sen. Lindsey Graham and a long list of CEOs, who constituted the highest IQ on a call ever but who for all their smarts, found their names read off without their permission. If you took a drink every time Trump called them and red state governors people who love our country as opposed to Democrats, whom he calls half-wits and whiners, youd be intoxicated by 7 p.m.

Trump requires close supervision, strict limits on his screen time, and guidance on how to tell real doctors from single-named celebrity ones like Dr. Oz.

To advance his plan, Trump cited large areas where the virus has been totally eradicated to justify premature emancipation. Is the large area hes referring to called Mars? Or is it South Dakota, one of those 29 states ready to open any moment, yet with a spot so hot the Smithfield plant in Sioux Falls had to close after 777 workers tested positive?

Thats tragic for those who consider bacon one of the four major food groups, and for Trumps argument. If a part of the country isnt infected, just give it a few days without social distancing and it will be. If an area is opened before it should be, wait a few days, and it will be reinfected. If Trump did his homework, hed know that after the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who acted to stop Democrats from harming the presidents economy, called students back to Liberty University, he saw the town hit by 78 new cases.

Parental guidance is advised. Trump requires close supervision, strict limits on his screen time, and guidance on how to tell real doctors from single-named celebrity ones like Dr. Oz, who told Trumps good buddy Sean Hannity that a mortality rate of 2 to 3 percent is an appetizing trade-off for jump-starting the economy. He needs a constant reminder that car accidents and smoking arent contagious.

Hes right about one thing: We cant believe the job hes done.

And how about getting Trump to put in a days work on a matter of life and death? Until D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowsers mid-March stay-at-home directive confined him to the White House,Trump spent much of the crisis at rallies and golfing. Hes home (mostly alone) now but still needs to spend less time in front of the TV, which only generates ill-advised tweet storms, and attend a meeting or two of his task force in the Situation Room, where the seating chart changes daily depending on who up and whos down in the presidents clique.

If Trump had anyone on staff not afraid of his cruel temper, he might have fixed his testing problem before the press noticed that his Power-Point presentation passing as a plan did nothing to increase that essential step in the process. While hes taken credit for tests that are the envy of the world and sniffed that hes president, not a guy clutching swabs in a parking lot 2,000 miles away, hes still stuck on his March 6 lie that anybody who wants to get a test can get a test and that Barack Obama didnt leave him one when the virus didnt exist back then.

At a rate of 3 million tests in three months, a majority of the country would be tested in six years. Cornered, Trump turned to Dr. Deborah Birx. After a word salad shes as famous for as for her scarves didnt fool anyone, Trump took his ball and left, clocking his shortest briefing ever on Thursday.

That didnt end the criticism. The next morning he was assailed by his arch-nemesis Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whos held his fire the last couple of weeks to move from the ungrateful ledger to the grateful one to wheedle ventilators out of the national stockpile Jared Kusher thought was his. Cuomo pleaded that a national problem required a national strategy and federal funds. Why dont you show as much consideration to your states as you did to your big businesses and your airlines? he asked. What am I supposed to do, send a bouquet of flowers?

Trump still has a childlike belief he can spin the virus, putting 60,000 deaths on the house, having chosen a model that predicted 2.2 million fatalities if he did nothing and by that faulty reasoning, congratulating himself for a job so well done no one can believe it.

What no one can believe, except the hardest core of his base, is that a con man in a gimme cap and a superhero cape clings to the notion he alone can fix everything, including a broken Dow Jones, and get us all to Splash Mountain at Disneyland without testing Mickey. Hes right about one thing: We cant believe the job hes done. On top of all the deaths that wouldnt have happened if thered been an adult in the White House, its too much to take in.

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Donald Trump Keeps Trying to Make Reality Disappear - The Daily Beast

U.S. President Donald Trump listens to a question with Vice President Mike Pence during the daily coronavirus briefing at the White House in Washington on April 23, 2020. or the next two months, and maybe longer, the process of accepting new permanent U.S. residents, people who can become citizens, will be suspended.

JONATHAN ERNST/Reuters

With his sudden declaration on Monday that, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!, Donald Trump distilled his presidency, and his brand, into a single tweet.

On Wednesday, Mr. Trump signed that executive order. For the next two months, and maybe longer, the process of accepting new permanent U.S. residents, people who can become citizens, will be suspended. But the border will remain open for many temporary foreign workers people who do not enjoy the same rights as Americans, and who wont become citizens.

During the Trump era, Canadians have been allowed to feel superior on a host of issues, immigration not least among them. Our self-image is accurate to an extent.

Under the Harper Conservative government, Canada regularly accepted around a quarter of a million immigrants a year far above the American immigration rate. The Trudeau Liberal government has been steadily boosting that level, to more than 300,000 a year, the most since the 1910s.

The COVID-19 pandemic, and the shutdown of international travel, will slow the flow this year. For decades, Canada has been considerably more comfortable with immigration the welcome of new citizens than the U.S. Once the crisis passes, that reality will remain. But like the U.S., albeit to a lesser extent, Canada does have a system for importing in an underclass of low-wage, temporary, non-citizen workers. And employers reliance on that system exploded over the past decade.

In some areas, such as certain types of labour-intensive agriculture, the use of temporary foreign workers has become so ingrained as to have become necessary. Elsewhere in the job market, from fast food to retail, there is no reason for employers to be allowed to import low-wage, temporary workers. There may be shortages of trained people in some highly skilled and often highly remunerated fields, but Canada has no lack of people capable of working a drive-thru.

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The abuse of Canadas official Temporary Foreign Worker program peaked in 2012, when employers brought in 200,000 people. Fast food restaurants appear to have used the program to deflate wages, the opposite of what should have happened in a tight labour market. If theres high demand for lower-wage workers, then their wages should rise and in a labour market marked by a high degree of inequality, thats desirable. Instead, the TFW program was used to tamp down wages at the bottom of the income scale.

The Harper government recognized the problem, and by 2015 the TFW program was significantly cut back to 73,000 new temporary work visas. It has risen slightly under the Trudeau government, to about 84,000.

However, even as the official program for temporary, non-citizen labour was being trimmed, an unofficial program was sprouting. In 2018, more than 350,000 permits were issued to foreign students to study in Canada. These students are mostly coming to attend a legitimate university or college program. But as The Globe and Mail reported last year, some are being recruited to work in fields such as fast food and trucking, with paid attendance at a questionable career college as their legal route into the domestic job market.

The student visa system is in effect being abused by businesses, private schools and recruiters to bring in temporary, low-wage workers. These workers are even forced to pay for their temporary, minimum-wage employment.

In an ideal world, everyone working in Canada would be either a citizen or on a clear path to becoming a citizen, as landed immigrants and refugee claimants are. This page has repeatedly argued that a widespread reliance on guest workers with lesser rights represses low-end wages, and is un-Canadian.

The bottom line is that Mr. Trump got things backward. He is shutting down immigration, while leaving the door open for temporary non-immigrants. Canada should be doing something closer to the opposite.

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There are legitimate debates about exactly how many immigrants is the right number whether the high rate of immigration under the Harper Conservatives, or the slightly higher and rising rate under the Trudeau Liberals. Either way, the path to the creation of new Canadians must remain open, and will. As for the temporary importation of non-permanent, low-wage, never-to-be-Canadians? Beyond agriculture, that path should be narrowed, and rarely trod.

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Canada should study Donald Trumps immigration plan, and do the exact opposite - The Globe and Mail