Category Archives: Donald Trump

Mar 7th 2020

WASHINGTON, DC

AMERICAS GOVERNMENT, as all its citizens learn at school, comprises three branches: executive, legislative and judicial. At the top of the executive branch sits the actual executivethe president. But the branch also includes an array of agencies, both the departments represented in the cabinet, and othersincluding the National Security Council and the Council of Economic Advisersthat make up the Executive Office of the President (EOP). These agencies advise on and implement presidential policy. Most of the EOP gets repopulated with a change in administration, as it should: new presidents have new policy agendas, which require new personnel.

The exception to that rule is the EOPs biggest office: the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Most of its 500-odd employees are career civil servants who take pride in providing nonpartisan advice to presidents of both parties. In 1921 Charles Dawes, the first head of the OMBs predecessor agency, the Bureau of the Budget, explained that if Congress passed a law that garbage should be put on the White House steps, it would be our regrettable duty, as a bureau, in an impartial, nonpolitical and nonpartisan way, to advise the executive and Congress as to how the largest amount of garbage could be spread in the most expeditious and economical manner. Russell Vought, the OMBs acting director, calls his office the presidents Swiss army knife. It has been central to Donald Trumps efforts to loosen environmental regulations and to cut budgets. It also played a role in the Ukraine scandal.

When Congress refused to appropriate adequate funds for Mr Trumps border wall, OMB found it. When the government shut down in 2018-19, the OMB found ways for the Internal Revenue Service to send out tax refunds, and for the Department of Agriculture to provide food stamps. The OMBs job is to understand the mechanics of federal-government operations, and explain to the president and his staff how to get things done. Its titular head is Mick Mulvaney, who is also the presidents chief of staff, but Mr Vought, a former Hill staffer and vice-president of Heritage Action, a conservative policy-advocacy group, has operational control.

The OMB staff often have backgrounds in law or public policy, and tend to like their work: for the past five years, the OMB has ranked in the top quartile of small federal agencies in the Partnership for Public Services Best Places to Work in the Federal Government survey. (It had dipped early in the Obama administration; Peter Orszag, Mr Obamas first OMB director, was widely disliked.) One senior official in a previous administration praised the offices civil servants: I thought they were just so good, so knowledgeable. They were stubbornish about making clear what they thought, but they also did a lot of, Well, if you want to do that stupid thing, heres how you do it.

As the B in the offices name suggests, one of OMBs chief duties is to write the presidents annual budget, in consultation with agencies from across the federal government. Because Congress, not the executive, appropriates funds, the presidents budget is an expression of wishes, not an allocation of funds. To translate the presidents policy priorities into budgetary terms, the OMBs Resource Management Offices (RMOs), organised by broad oversight areas, weigh competing interests from different parts of government. For the Trump administration, that meant proposing a 27% cut in the funding of the Environmental Protection Agency and a 21% cut in the State Department this year.

Another duty, as the M suggests, is managerial. Once a budget passesor, as has grown increasingly common, there is a continuing resolution, that merely keeps current funding levels constantthe OMB advises and evaluates agency performance. The OMB also oversees a range of federal functions, including procurement, IT, personnel and financial management.

Within the OMB sits the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). OIRA reviews agencies proposed regulatory changes, ensuring that benefits outweigh costs, and, for new regulations, that agencies have fully considered non-regulatory alternatives to achieve their stated goals.

OIRA has been central to Mr Trumps deregulatory effort. Just days after his inauguration, the president issued an executive order requiring two regulations to be repealed for every new one introduced. In October his administration estimated that it had actually cut eight and a half regulations for every new one. Some take issue with how Mr Trumps OIRA conducts cost-benefit analysis of these regulations. Richard Revesz of NYU Law School argues that in its deregulatory zeal, the Trump administration has made a mockery of cost-benefit analysis [by] weighing broader indirect costs [of regulation], and insisting on ignoring any indirect benefits. In delaying Obama-era environmental regulations, for instance, he argues that the administration has ignored or downplayed unquantified benefits, such as long-term improvements to air and water quality, while overstating the costs of compliance to industry.

In its keenness to deregulate, OIRA has sometimes got in its own way. According to the Institute for Policy Integrity, a think-tank, the administration has won just five of the 71 court challenges it has faced over deregulation and other agency policy.

Although Mr Vought says morale at the OMB remains healthy, one recently retired veteran demurs. Career staff were asked [] give us options to do X. They would lay out a range of options, including ones they thought would be extreme enough to be a non-starter, and usually they chose the non-starter. The department has also become unusually high-profile for the wrong reasons: it was the OMBs associate director for national security programmes, Michael Duffey, who told the Pentagon that there was clear direction from POTUS to continue to hold military aid to Ukraine.

In January the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a non-partisan auditor, found that this action violated federal law. Mr Vought disputes that: he believes that the OMB had the right to delay funding, and that the GAOs analysis stems partly from partisan animus (the GAO answers to Congress rather than the president). He also notes that the White House has delayed other tranches of foreign aid, such as to Pakistan and Gaza, over policy concerns.

When not getting rid of regulations and holding up military aid to allies, the OMB has been doing the sort of good-government things it might have done under any administration, streamlining the federal grantmaking process or implementing a law which encourages government to use data better when drafting policy. Another ex-employee says he is impressed with peoples ability to continue to do their job even when the interest in a fair process isnt being respected by the leadership of the administration. Which is about as pejorative as a retired civil servant can be.

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This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline "The toolkit"

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Donald Trumps toolkit - The Economist

The Lincoln Project a group of anti-Trump Republicans on Friday hit the president with a montage of his most insulting, offensive and ridiculous gaffes.

The group of which prominent Trump critic George Conway is a member released the supercut that contrasts Trumps speeches to those of previous presidents in response to a similar GOP attack on Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden over his own gaffes.

Every day is a new chance for Trump to debase himself further and embarrass Americans of all political stripes, Republican strategist Rick Wilson wrote in a fundraising email featuring the footage.

Check out the video here:

Wilson said the hardest part of making the ad was fitting all of Trumps own gaffes, abuse of the English language, insults, lies and crazy talk into 30 or even 60 seconds.

We will not allow Trump and his propaganda machine to gaslight America into believing hes anything other than the most unserious, indecent, least inspiring president weve ever had, he concluded. Do not let a single lie stand.

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GOP Group Hits Donald Trump With Supercut Of His Offensive, Ridiculous Statements - HuffPost

Niall Ferguson is the Milbank Family senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford

I know Joe Biden. Not well, but well enough to have a good chat when we ran into one another at the Irish embassy in Washington on St. Patricks Day last year. I must also confess to rather liking Mr. Biden. In 2015, I argued that he would win if he ran the next year.

Yet, in 2020, there has been something about his campaign that has been, well, off. One example: He was speaking last Monday at a campaign event in Texas. The crowd was fired up; their man had been on a roll since winning South Carolina two days earlier. And this is what he said: We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women are ... created by the ... go ... you know, you know, the thing.

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I hope you dont need me to tell you that Thomas Jeffersons preamble to the declaration of independence is a little more eloquent than that.

Earlier this year, The Atlantic ran a sympathetic story about Mr. Bidens boyhood stutter, suggesting that this was the reason for his verbal stumbles although Mr. Biden himself kept telling the author that this wasnt the problem.

Mr. Biden is 77 years old and it really, really shows which only adds to the mystery of his political comeback. Prior to his victory in South Carolina on Feb. 29, Mr. Biden appeared to be out of it in both senses. By Wednesday morning, he was back where he began last year: the front-runner. Not only did Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar drop out last week, but they promptly pledged their support to Mr. Biden. Most recently, former Democratic hopefuls Kamala Harris and Cory Booker have endorsed the former vice-president.

There have been primary comebacks before; indeed, an election year is incomplete without at least one. I remember vividly, as one of John McCains advisers in 2008, glumly anticipating his exit from the race only for his almost-broke campaign to turn around and propel him to the nomination after he won New Hampshire. It was that same state that made Bill Clinton the comeback kid in 1992.

But Mr. Biden lost New Hampshire, finishing in ignominious fifth place. To find a comeback this late in the game, you need to go back to the 1996 Republican nomination contest, when veteran Kansas senator Bob Dole went into the South Carolina primary having lost three states to the conservative firebrand Pat Buchanan.

The kingmaker then was Carroll Campbell, the states popular Republican governor. Just as House majority whip and South Carolina representative Jim Clyburn did for Mr. Biden, Mr. Campbell went all in for Mr. Dole, signalling to the voters in the state and nationally that he alone had a shot at beating the incumbent president. Mr. Dole won South Carolina easily, after which he won every remaining contest with the exception of the Missouri caucuses.

Of course, Mr. Dole went on to lose to Bill Clinton, so this is an analogy Mr. Biden would probably prefer to have a senior moment about. Yet, I am not so sure he would lose to Donald Trump if nominated.

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The other key take away from last week is that the majority of black voters backed Mr. Biden last week and not just in South Carolina. As the brilliant African-American writer Coleman Hughes tweeted: The fact that black voters went overwhelming for Biden is only surprising if youre unaware that black dem voters are way more conservative than white dem voters. The progressive activist class may feel itself to be channeling black Americas politics, but its not.

In the coming months, the virulence and lethality of COVID-19 will almost certainly matter more than Mr. Bidens charm and incoherence. A large outbreak in a U.S. state and/or a recession caused by the global shock of the potential pandemic could make Mr. Trump a one-term President.

St. Patricks Day is nine days away. If the luck of the Irish holds, Mr. Trump is about to be hit by a cross between Hurricane Katrina and Lehman Brothers, and the man he derides as Sleepy Joe will duly oust him from the White House.

And if COVID-19 hits only the Democratic states of the coasts? If the economy stalls for a quarter but doesnt crash? If the message sticks in the Midwest that the epidemic was a hoax? Then I fear we are in for one of the least intelligible concession speeches in you know, the thing.

Joe Biden hopes to take a big step toward the Democratic presidential nomination on Tuesday when six states cast votes, while Bernie Sanders aims for an upset win in Michigan that would keep his White House hopes alive. Reuters

Niall Ferguson/The Sunday Times, London.

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Opinion: Sleepy Joe Biden has given Donald Trump a wake-up call - The Globe and Mail

And while a major trade agreement seems unlikely on this trip, Trump was more than happy to bask in the type of adulation that doesn't typically follow him when he travels abroad.

It was all an elaborate display meant to illustrate just how close Trump and Modi are, or at least how close they want to world to believe they are. At regular intervals throughout New Delhi and Ahmedabad, larger-than-life images of the two men are plastered on signs and posts. One declared: "Two dynamic personalities, one momentous occasion."

Both men heaped praise on the other during a massive "Namaste Trump" rally in the world's largest cricket stadium, held in Modi's home state.

A massive throng, all wearing white caps, cheered eagerly as Trump praised Indian democracy, Modi and Bollywood (sometimes using haltingly pronounced Hindi nouns). The crowd appeared to thin somewhat as temperatures increased inside the stadium, but tens of thousands remained to hear the President speak.

Trump made some veiled nudges toward maintaining India's historic status as a pluralistic society, which some could view in the context of recent moves Modi's critics say are moving toward anti-Muslim Hindu nationalism.

"Your nation has always been admired around the earth as the place where millions upon millions of Hindus and Muslims and Sikhs and Jains worship side by side in harmony," Trump said.

But the US president also offered a robust defense of using immigration controls to prevent what he calls "radical Islamic terrorism," bolstering some of Modi's hardline views.

"Every nation has the right to secure and controlled borders," he said. "The United States and India are committed to working together to stop terrorists and fight their ideology."

Trump peppered his speech with applause lines, guaranteeing his crowd roared with approval when he named famous Indian cricketers or listed the titles of a few Bollywood films.

He mounted praise on Modi, calling him a "true friend" and an "exceptional leader" whose rise to leadership as the son of a tea seller was an example of the country's "limitless potential."

The whole event took on the atmosphere of one of Trump's political rallies, complete with the Elton John playlist. And that, aides say, is what Trump was looking for when he agreed to travel 8,000 miles for a night in India: an uproarious reception and the biggest crowd he's ever drawn.

Traditional performances

Before arriving in the crowds of people, Trump emerged from Air Force One to an embrace from Modi while traditional folk music from Gujarat state -- complete with blowing conch shells and persistent drumming -- began echoing. Women with rainbow flower strands stacked atop their headdresses danced to the rhythm.

"To my great friend, thank you for this wonderful visit," Trump wrote in the site's guest book.

He flew from Ahmedabad to Agra, where he took an early evening tour of the Taj Mahal, the late-afternoon sun setting the famous white marble mausoleum aglow.

Standing in front of the iconic symbol of lasting love -- which he'd never visited previously, despite naming one of his Atlantic City casinos after it -- the President stood hand-in-hand with the first lady declaring the site "truly incredible."

Before he arrived, Trump placed his expected crowd count for his "Namaste Trump" rally in the range of 6 to 10 million, but given the city's population of 8 million and the stadium's capacity of 110,000, those figures seemed high.

Whatever the final number, the crowd was massive, including along Trump's motorcade route, where thousands of hand-selected members of Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party welcomed him into Ahmedabad in India's northwest.

Trump will spend several hours with Modi, whom he describes as a friend. There are plenty of surface-level similarities between the men, like a penchant for populist nationalism and ardent followings. But their backgrounds differ vastly and they hold divergent economic views.

"That's not too much," he said on Sunday.

Trade negotiations

The real work takes place Tuesday, when Trump and Modi are expected to haggle over a festering trade dispute and discuss security-related matters.

On trade, Trump has insisted that US trade deficits be reduced and has used harsh tactics like tariffs to achieve his goals. After he applied stiff new tariffs on steel and aluminum, India responded by placing new duties on medical devices and farm products. The US then stripped India of special trade status meant for developing countries.

Trump has all but ruled out striking a grand trade deal on this trip. He said in his speech the US and India would make "very, very major" trade agreements but that they remain in the early stages. Modi, he joked, is a "very tough negotiator."

Trump did announce billions in new defense sale agreements, which the US hopes will lure India away from purchasing its hardware from Russia.

US administration officials also say Trump plans to confront Modi over troubling steps that amount to Democratic backsliding, like a new law that denies citizenship to Muslims. And Trump's offer still stands to help mediate an ongoing dispute over Kashmir between India and Pakistan, though Modi has essentially rejected his overtures.

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Trump lands in India and feels the love - CNN

Read: Americas Trumpiest ambassador

In steps Grenell, who has no intelligence background but has made it clear he will aggressively push Trumps line. The Wall Street Journal called him Trumps favorite ambassador, reporting that the president is impressed with his combative tone on TV and social media and has called Grenell someone who gets it. To be fair, its still unclear what kind of DNI Grenell will be or even how long his tenure will last. Under federal guidelines, Grenell can stay in his post only until mid-March, unless Trump nominates a permanent director by then. This would allow his tenure to continue for months as the confirmation process plays out, and as Wired noted, if a nomination fails or other nominations come and go, Grenell could stay on indefinitely. Grenell has a history of hawkish views on Russia, though in a 2016 opinion piece for Fox News he minimized Russias interference efforts, writing that it has been employing such tactics for decades. One of his first moves as acting DNI was to install Kash Patel, a partisan warrior who played an important role in Republican efforts to push back against the FBIs Russia probe, as a senior adviser. Patel reportedly has a mandate to clean house.

Robert Litt, who served as general counsel to the DNI during the Obama administration, told me that if Trump does find a willing partisan for the directors jobin Grenell or another candidatehe or she would hold the power to interfere with the intelligence communitys work to combat and monitor Russias meddling efforts. The DNI is responsible for setting priorities for intelligence collection. And if youre not looking for something, youre not going to find it, said Litt, now a lawyer with the firm Morrison and Foerster. The DNI could deprioritize looking for information and direct intelligence assets away from that.

Even without such a clear-cut move, he noted, collection and analysis could see a chilling effect. If people think their careers are going to be at stake if they talk about these things, theres going to be a natural inclination to shade your findings, he said. Hypothetically, for instance, you might say the Russians are looking to interfere in the elections, and you might omit that theyre trying to help the president, even though the evidence says they are.

The DNI also influences what information reaches Congress and the public. The 2017 report, for example, established a frame of reference on Russias 2016 efforts. Intelligence officials testimony at hearings, Litt said, shapes congressional and public understanding of these important issues. He added: If nobodys saying those things, then its hard for the narrative to take hold.

A pliant DNI could also go beyond withholding information to skewing the story, Douglas London, a professor at Georgetown who recently retired from a 34-year career in the CIA, told me. This could be picking facts, suppressing what he doesnt like and emphasizing what he does likeand in the process building a narrative that supports the presidents preferences.

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Trumps Intelligence War Is Also an Election Story - The Atlantic

Publicly, the president tried to show he had taken command and assured that Americans were safe.

The risk to the American people remains very low, he said. We have the greatest experts really in the world.

But behind the scenes, officials have prepared for scenarios in which the virus could spread out of control especially in densely populated and poor areas abroad. Its not known exactly how many people are affected in Iran, but an unofficial report published by Canadian researchers was circulated among some officials inside the White House that predicted as many as 18,000 cases a number seen as within the realm of possibility.

The National Security Council held a table-top exercise last week in which officials went through potential scenarios and mapped out needs in the case of any spike in cases.

An administration official also said the White House was considering measures that included travel restrictions for South Korea and Italy. The CDC already raised its travel advisory for South Korea to the highest level, recommending that travelers avoid all nonessential travel, but Italy still remains at the level below.

Trump on Wednesday took credit for an early decision to ban certain travelers from China shortly after the virus outbreak began.

A lot of people thought we shouldnt have done it that early, he said.

Senior administration officials have stressed in recent days that the presidents decision early on to shut down flights between the U.S. and China gave the administration much-needed time to ramp up vaccine development, explore potential treatments and examine possible disruptions to supply chains for U.S. companies.

Unfortunately what we are seeing is a political effort by the Left and some in the media to distract and disturb the American people with fearful rhetoric and palace intrigue, White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement. The virus remains low-risk domestically because of the containment actions taken by this Administration since the first of the year.

The global situation is serious and changing hourly, which is exactly why Secretary Azar continues to lead a whole-of-government response in partnership with state and local leaders that includes the best experts on infectious diseases, Deere said. Its also exactly why the White House is requesting from Congress $2.5 billion in funding to accelerate vaccine development and further support preparedness and response efforts. The President is receiving regular updates, and is prepared to take additional action to protect the American people.

White House aides have long wanted the public message on the coronavirus to delve into the public health concerns rather than the potential economic damage. But behind the scenes, aides have been running models of the possible impact on both the U.S. and global economies. The U.S. stock market took major tumbles Monday and Tuesday after the coronavirus spread to both Italy and Iran, then swung between gains and losses throughout Wednesday.

New analysis released by Moodys Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi estimated the odds of the coronavirus turning into a pandemic were now at 40 percent a development that Zandi said would result in a recession in the U.S. for the first half of 2020.

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Trumps coronavirus conflict: Science vs. politics - POLITICO

UPDATED with Trump comment: President Donald Trump defended his campaigns libel suit against The New York Times, telling reporters, They did a bad thing. And there will be more coming.

Trump also pushed back on the Times defense that the article in question was opinion, and that the lawsuit was an effort to punish an opinion writer for having an opinion they find unacceptable.

If you read it, you will see that it is much more than opinion, Trump said at a press conference to talk about the administrations response to the coronavirus. It is beyond an opinion.

The article, headlined The Real Trump-Russia Quid Pro Quo, was written by Max Frankel, the former executive editor of the Times, ran on March 27, 2019.

PREVIOUSLY: The New York Times says that a libel suit filed by the Trump campaign over a 2019 opinion piece is an effort to use the courts to try to punish an opinion writer for having an opinion they find unacceptable.

President Donald Trumps campaign filed the libel suit Wednesday against the NYT over an opinion piece that claimed that it had an overarching deal with Vladimir Putin: help in defeating Hillary Clinton in 2016 in exchange for a pro-Russia foreign policy.

The article, headlined The Real Trump-Russia Quid Pro Quo, was written by Max Frankel, the former executive editor of the Times, ran on March 27, 2019.

There was no need for detailed electoral collusion between the Trump campaign and Vladimir Putins oligarchy because they had an overarching deal: the quid of help in the campaign against Hillary Clinton for the quo of a new pro-Russian foreign policy, starting with relief from the Obama administrations burdensome economic sanctions. The Trumpites knew about the quid and held out the prospect of the quo, Frankel wrote.

The lawsuit (read it here) claims the article selectively refers to previously-reported contacts between a Russian lawyer and persons connected with the campaign.

The Trump campaign claims that the article insinuates that these contacts must have resulted in a quid pro quo or a deal, and the defamatory article does not acknowledge that, in fact, there had been extensive reporting, including in The Times, that the meetings and contacts that the defamatory article refers to did not result in any quid pro quo or deal between the Campaign and Russia, or anyone connected with either of them.

A spokesperson for the Times said, The Trump Campaign has turned to the courts to try to punish an opinion writer for having an opinion they find unacceptable. Fortunately, the law protects the right of Americans to express their judgments and conclusions, especially about events of public importance. We look forward to vindicating that right in this case.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, currently the Democratic front-runner to take on Trump in the 2020 presidential election, also responded to the lawsuit today.

Lets be clear: we have a president who believes he is above the law and can do and say whatever he wants without consequences, Sanders said. Donald Trump has ignored the Constitution, disregarded the will of Congress, and attacked the judiciary. Trump has called the press the enemy of the people, and now taking a page from his dictator friends around the world is trying to dismantle the right to a free press in the First Amendment by suing the New York Times for publishing an opinion column about his dangerous relationship with Russia.

The Trump campaign is represented by Charles Harder, who has represented Donald and Melania Trump in other legal threats and libel actions.

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Donald Trump On His Campaigns Lawsuit Against The New York Times: There Will Be More Coming - Deadline

Here on this website, we ask a lot of questions. Usually theyre questions about people of means and fame and power and the situations they get into. We try to glean from these peoples business some sort of lesson that us non-stars can use. So we ask questions like, why? Also, what for? And how?

But sometimes, we dont have to because others do that work for us. So here now from the Daily Mail, a question: Did he try the goat? Donald Trump ate NOTHING from a vegetarian menu at first stop in Indian visit and was presented with challenging choices at beef-free state dinner.

Yes, did the president try the raan ali-shan on his 36-hour trip to India, where he met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a strict vegetarian, several times, usually over a banquet of food? Trump didnt eat the vegetables, according to the Washington Post. But did he eat the meat? What did he eat and when did he eat it?

Whats the big deal? you, a person who understands boundaries and never logs on except for right now for some reason, asks. The big deal is that this guy has a pretty exclusive relationship with beef. He loves steak and he loves it rock hard, baby. Hamburgers line his guts. Sometimes, he orders the meatloaf. A source close to Trump told CNN prior to this trip, I have never seen him eat a vegetable.

Folks like the presidents son Eric calls the general outcry over whats in daddys mouth a sign of liberal overreach into personal lives. Who cares what the guy eats? Mind your own arteries! To others, Trumps lack of curiosity speaks to a larger lack of curiosity for the world and the people in it. Both arguments are fairly compelling, but there is something undeniably disconcerting about a grown man who wont eat his vegetables no matter how many airplane noises you make on the forks way to his sloppy, wet maw. Plus, one hopes a president would take care of his mind and body, since he works for the people. One hopes, too, that he wouldnt offend by, say, yucking New Delhis yum.

Curiously, for one luncheon, per the menu posted online, the chef changed the traditional samosa to one filled with broccoli. As Jaya Saxena of Eater said, Given that one of the most traditional fillings for samosas is potato, its not like the hotel needed to find a new vegetarian option, especially considering that fried potatoes are in fact a favorite of nonadventurous eaters in the White House and beyond. Clearly, this is a move to ensure the president spends his entire time in the country suffering from cruciferous farts. I suppose the president routed them on this one, though. He did not try it, reportedly.

So the next issue is goat, which is a meat. Trump likes meat but does he like goat? Unfortunately, we dont know. Journalists werent allowed in the state dinner, so there are no well-observed accounts about what he ate like hes some ingenue on the occasion of her first big profile.

So I guess were left with a big blackout. The lights went out at the opportune moment. No one else was in the room where it happened (it being whether or not the president ate a dish). So what now? Whats the lesson we can take from nothing? Maybe in the dearth of the knowable, theres hope for the best. We can dream a dream that he tried every dish and remarked kindly on it with a little self-deprecation, and asked a question or two about it. Then they moved on to discussing, I dont know, arms deals or whatever those two were up to. Also, maybe, the lesson is that it doesnt matter what the president did or didnt do. You can try the goat. Youll probably like it.

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What Did Donald Trump Eat in India, and When Did He Eat It? - Vanity Fair

Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States on the coronavirus outbreak:

Trump is highly concerned about the market and has encouraged aides not to give predictions that might cause further tremors.In a Twitter post, he misspelled the word coronavirus as caronavirus and wrote that two cable news stations are doing everything possible to make the Caronavirus look as bad as possible, including panicking markets, if possible. Likewise their incompetent Do Nothing Democrat comrades are all talk, no action. USA in great shape!

.Privately, Trump has become furious about the stock markets slide, according to two people familiar with the presidents thinking, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal details. While he has spent the past two days traveling in India, Trump has watched the stock markets fall closely and believes extreme warnings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have spooked investors, the aides said. Some White House officials have been unhappy with how Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar has handled the situation, they said.

The good news, I guess, is that at least Trump is concerned about something. Eventually, he might decide that happy talk wont save his bacon and he actually needs to do something substantive about the spread of the virus. The big questions are (a) how long this will take and (b) whether he can find someone competent to run this effort. I cant think of any previous president that Id be worried about on this score, but there you have it.

Trump has a simpleand surprisingly effectiveapproach to marketing: When someone else is in charge, everything is in terrible shape. When hes in charge, everything is perfect. This is fairly benign when it applies to things that Trump has no control overwhich is nearly everythingbut not so benign when it interferes with things that Trump really does need to address. Thats whats happening now. On the bright side, at least he hasnt yet appointed Jared Kushner as our new coronavirus czar.

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Donald Trump Is Worried About . . . The Stock Market - Mother Jones

Editor's note: John Avlon is a CNN senior political analyst. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.

(CNN) -- You'd be forgiven for thinking that there are no rules in politics and there's nothing more to learn from history.

After all, a guy who got caught on tape bragging about sexually assaulting women got elected president by winning a majority of white women over the first female presidential nominee.

Donald Trump was a populist outsider who violated all the rules of politics. He did not care about the Republican Party and he didn't try to build a broad coalition. But he was beloved by his base, even as the GOP establishment warned he would be a disastrous nominee.

Now, many people are seeing a replay of that same script with the rise of Bernie Sanders. There's no question that this outsider has built a populist movement and moved the debate inside the Democratic Party decidedly to the left. His supporters are passionate and quick to condemn the Democratic establishment.

And after two caucuses and one primary, Bernie Sanders is the Democratic front-runner after trailing Joe Biden in the polls for most of the campaign. Now, he has momentum.

But can Bernie win? That's the 270-electoral vote question.

Because the No. 1 issue for Democrats this election is simple: Beating Trump.

And interestingly, according to a January CNN poll, 45% of Democrats thought Biden had a better chance of beating Trump in November, while Sanders trailed in second at 24%.

Typically, the most ideologically extreme candidate is the one worst positioned to win over swing voters in swing states. Barry Goldwater and George McGovern are iconic -- if dated -- examples. Both lost in landslides.

But what if this time it's different?

As Pete Hamby wrote in Vanity Fair, "Instead of asking if Sanders is unelectable, ask another question: What if Sanders is actually the MOST electable Democrat?"

Now this might sound like magical thinking, but Hamby explains: "In the age of Trump, hyper-partisanship, institutional distrust, and social media, Sanders could be examined as a candidate almost custom-built to go head-to-head with Trump this year."

Bernie is a political celebrity: People know what he stands for, for better or worse. He is authentic and admirably consistent about his self-described democratic socialist views.

But there's plenty to suggest that those views play better in a polarized Democratic primary than in a general election.

Let's take a look at the ideological divisions inside the Democratic Party.

On the surface, the party is basically split evenly between liberals and moderates. But dig a little deeper and you'll see, according to Pew, only 15% of Democrats identify as very liberal, where a democratic socialist agenda would logically fall. Beyond that, 32% describe themselves as liberal, 38% as moderate and 14% as some flavor of conservative. It is not a far-left party, despite the youthful energy inspired by Sanders' promises of free health care and free college. A fractured center lane makes it tough to match Sanders so far in first-past-the-post totals.

Panning out to the overall American electorate, just 27% of Americans identify as Democrats, according to the most recent Gallup tracking poll, with 30% describing themselves as Republicans and 42% declaring as independents. Likewise, Gallup makes it clear that America remains a center-right nation, with 37% of Americans calling themselves conservative, 35% moderate and just 24% liberal.

The takeaway: Any nominee is going to need to win votes beyond their base to win the presidency -- and a far left candidate will presumably have more work to do.

Now, Bernie's electoral argument is the same as Trump's -- he'll drive turnout by connecting with working-class voters who've been alienated by the establishment. That may be the case. But it's notable that the new voters who Sanders' claims will turn out for him have not done so in the three caucuses and primaries to date.

Then there's the label "socialism" -- the umbrella under which democratic socialism lives. It's really not popular: Gallup shows that more Americans say they would vote for a gay, Muslim or atheist president than a socialist. There's a reason why Team Trump rails against socialism and wants to run against Sanders.

You can argue that Americans vote on authenticity, not ideology. And that's a fair point in the Trump era.

But the center-right center of gravity is tougher to argue. Democrats need to understand why Reagan and Nixon won 49 states in landslide reelections, while Clinton and Obama had to fight for their second terms, despite strong records amid economic recoveries.

The electoral college also seems to favor the GOP, with Trump and George W. Bush winning the White House despite losing the popular vote. That means running up margins in New York and California isn't enough. Democrats can't afford to write off Florida or ignore the warnings of swing-district congressmen about the down-ticket impact of Sanders.

Bottom line: Could Bernie win? Sure -- anything is possible. But possible is not the same thing as probable. Donald Trump is a historically unpopular President despite a strong economy to date. But, a lot can and will happen before November.

According to a recent Washington Post/ABC poll, the top-tier Democrats beat Trump by different margins in head-to-head matchups.

The same thing is largely true for swing states such as Pennsylvania and Michigan, which is a far better gauge of who might win the presidency.

Bernie Sanders has built a movement and he has momentum. But there are plenty of rational reasons to think that nominating a democratic socialist in a center-right country is a real risk -- and could deliver Donald Trump a second term.

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Can Bernie Sanders beat Donald Trump? Here's the reality - KCTV Kansas City