Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) tweeted out attacks on democratic elections from his self-isolation after testing positive for the coronavirus.
The Utah Republican says he'll return from isolation to vote on the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett for the Nov. 3 election, which he appeared to question repeatedly on Twitter while watching the vice presidential debate.
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Other social media users were alarmed by Lee's remarks.
About halfway through the debate, a fly appeared to fly into Mike Pence's hair. It's unclear if the fly was stuck to his hair product or simply stayed for a short nap but it rested for several minutes as Pence shook his head from side to side.
It only added to the laundry list of unfortunate humiliations Pence faced on debate night. First, it appeared that he had pink-eye or something that could be coronavirus related, according to the Ophthalmology Times. Then reviews of Pence's debate performance weren't turning out well as his analysts claimed he was being smoked by Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA).
It prompted many reactions. See them in the tweets and video below:
Still suffering from an infection of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, President Donald Trump unleashed an extended and aggressive tirade on Twitter following a period of relative radio silence while he was hospitalized.
He seemed to have returned from Walter Reed Medical Center with a vengeance. His furious tweeting, often in all caps, targeted his favorite subjects, including the Russiainvestigation, the media, Hillary Clinton, and former Vice President Joe Biden.
He called for "arrests" out of the Justice Department's review of the handling of the Russia investigation, based on dubious reporting of selectively declassified documents from his own administration that showed no evidence of any clear crimes:
Attorney General Bill Barr, who has previously denigrated the administration's predecessors and whipped up hopes that the investigation would punish the president's enemies, appears to be disappointing Trump. Barr has previously said that the president's tweeting about ongoing investigations make it "impossible" for him to do his job, but that hasn't deterred Trump.
Trump also called on California — a state he'll certainly lose — to vote for him, and retweeted a vile smear comparing New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to Nazis.
The day before, Trump tweeted that he was ending negotiations with Democrats on a new round of pandemic relief funds, criticizing the high dollar figures House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked for. But then, he baffled observers by echoing Fed Chair Jerome Powell's remarks that Congress should pass more stimulus without worrying about "overdoing it." That alone made people question his mental stability. He then abruptly shifted to new demands for a narrow stimulus bill, seemingly completely reneging on his declaration that negotiations were over.
He also tweeted excessively about declassifying documents in the Russia investigation. However, it was unclear how serious these tweets were; Trump has previously made similar claims on Twitter, only for the Justice Department to reject the idea that his tweets constituted official declassification orders. He ended up reversing himself, saying he had already made the declassifications, though he also continued to tout reports that claimed his declassification was a new event.
One of the president's tweets seized on random user's conspiratorial tweet for more than two and a half years ago, demanding that something must be done about:
Who should do something about it? It's not clear.
It also should be noted that claiming Biden shouldn't be allowed to run, based on completely bogus and frequently debunked allegations, is not exactly a sign of confidence in the president's 2020 campaign.
The day-long run of tweets and retweets marked the most frantic stretch of Trump's public activity since he left the presidential suite at Walter Reed Medical Center and returned to treatment at the White House. They also underscored the degree to which Trump remains fixated on his grievances over the Russia probe, and often on obscure aspects of that investigation that are unintelligible to all but its most careful followers.
There were several possible explanations for Trump's erratic behavior. Many seized on the fact that the president has been prescribed Dexamethasone for his COVID-19 infection, a steroid that can reportedly effect mood and cause agitation and aggression. Some have argued that, given the seriousness of the president's infection and the medications he's on, the 25th Amendment should be invoked, and Vice President Mike Pence should act as president until Trump has recovered.
It's certainly possible that the drugs are affecting the president's behavior. But there are other possible explanations as well.
Trump may just be making up for lost time when he wasn't tweeting much in the hospital. He may be trying to distract from the fact that he's been infected as the result of a pandemic he can't control. He may be terrified about the polls that increasing show Biden with a formidable lead over him in the election. And he could have fewer tasks and people to keep him busy, given that he's likely in some kind of isolation at the White House. (He reportedly went to the Oval Office on Monday, but it's not clear if he actually had any work to do.) He may just be bored.
But the cause of his extreme behavior isn't all that important, nor is the fact that we've seen the president act in disturbing ways before. This level of frenzy and disorder should not be acceptable in a president for any reason or amount of time.
In a new video from the Rose Garden at the White House, a very orange President Donald J. Trump appeared out of breath and a bit disoriented. "Perhaps you recognize me, it's your favorite president!" he started. And then it continued to go downhill from there.
A tweet by The New York Times' Maggie Haberman cast doubt on whether the video was actually shot Wednesday at all considering the splicing and strange time-keeping by the president himself.
“I got back a day ago from Walter Reed Medical Center — I spent four days there and didn’t have to, I could’ve stayed at the White House,” Trump said.
Except for the fact that Trump returned to the White House on Monday, which would have been two days ago.
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Referring to COVID-19 once again as the "China Virus," Trump didn't stop there.
"This was China's fault! They are going to pay a big price," he said.
And now, the people have spoken - or tweeted, as the case may be.
People are acting shocked—shocked, I tell you!—that the Trump/GOP strategy on coronavirus is essentially one of promoting herd immunity with the possible downside of as many as 2.5 million dead Americans.
We shouldn’t be surprised. It’s simply the logical extension of conservative policies on pretty much everything for the past 90 years—policies that have killed a hell of a lot more than just 2.5 million people.
Republicans simply don’t believe it’s part of the job of government to provide for the “general welfare” of the American people; instead, government—in their minds—should only run the police and the military, while maintaining a stable currency so business can function. Here are some other beliefs driving Republican policies:
Government shouldn’t help the elderly avoid poverty—Social Security should only go to those who set aside money during their working years, and be run by private insurance companies, as George W. Bush told us in 2005. Republicans have tried to cripple, privatize or destroy Social Security year after year ever since the 1930s when it was created.
Government shouldn’t pay for health care anywhere, anytime because that should come out of people’s own pockets. If they want protection from serious illness or accidents, they can buy private insurance. Republicans have tried to cripple, privatize or destroy Medicare and Medicaid since the 1960s when these programs were created.
Government shouldn’t protect citizens from being poisoned by industrial pollution or protect our rivers, lakes, oceans or air; these are all the jobs of private industry. Since 1920 when Republican Warren Harding successfully ran for president on the platform of “Less government in business and more business in government,” GOP politicians have championed deregulation and privatization as the solution to almost all problems.
Government shouldn’t provide education, according to conservative theology. As the late billionaire David Koch put into his platform when he ran for vice president in 1980 on the Libertarian ticket, “We advocate the complete separation of education and State. Government schools lead to the indoctrination of children and interfere with the free choice of individuals. Government ownership, operation, regulation, and subsidy of schools and colleges should be ended.” Today, billionaire Education Secretary Betsy DeVos continues Koch’s work.
Reflecting conservative philosophy dating back to the 1920s, Koch even called for “the abolition of the governmental Postal Service,” “the abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency,” and “the abolition of the Food and Drug Administration.”
After the Republican Great Depression struck in 1929 and about a third of Americans lost their jobs, homeless exploded, and hunger stalked the land, Republican President Herbert Hoover’s treasury secretary, Andrew Mellon, famously argued that saving the economy and American workers was the duty of the private sector, not government. Instead of helping out working people, Mellon’s advice was just to let everything crash, and the very, very rich (like himself) would eventually pick up the pieces and start over.
“Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate,” Mellon said. “Purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down… enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people.”
Back in 2000, when Mike Pence was running for Congress, he laid out clearly a more modern version of the same philosophy. About 340,000 Americans died that year from smoking-related illness, but, Pence wrote, “Despite the hysteria from the political class and the media, smoking doesn’t kill.”
Instead, much like Trump saying that most people who get COVID-19 don’t die from it and that lots of Americans die from the flu, Pence added, “In fact, 2 out of every three smokers does not die from a smoking related illness and 9 out of ten smokers do not contract lung cancer.”
Instead, Pence—the man who today is heading up our coronavirus effort—said we should be wary of “Government big enough to protect us from our own stubborn wills.”
After all, Pence pointed out, “[A] government of such plenary power, once conceived will hardly stop at tobacco. Surely the scourge of fatty foods and their attendant cost to the health care economy bears some consideration. How about the role of caffeine in fomenting greater stress in the lives of working Americans? Don’t get me started about the dangers of sports utility vehicles!”
Which should remind us that Republicans even fought against seat belt laws and other car safety regulations, as well as nutrition labeling on children’s cereals and baby food, and country-of-origin labeling on any foods. And they continue to block action on climate change, which is killing Americans from coast to coast via floods, hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes and heatstroke.
If Mike Pence was just fine with hundreds of thousands of Americans dying from an entirely preventable tobacco addiction, why would he fret about a mere quarter-million who have died so far from a novel virus?
Republicans simply don’t believe that protecting the people of America is a legitimate function of government. And they’re strengthened and disciplined in that belief by the hundreds of millions of dollars industry and hard-right billionaires shower on them every year at every level of elected politics.
We’re literally the only developed country in the world where this bizarre belief is held by about half of the nation’s politicians, and much of that can be traced to the influence of Libertarian billionaires like the Kochs and their network, but it is what it is.
So let’s stop being “amazed” that Trump, Pence and their GOP allies refuse to mandate or even federally facilitate widespread testing and contact tracing, or have the Postal Service deliver five masks to every American, or pick up the medical or burial costs of people infected because of this administration’s lack of action.
This is nothing new; it’s what Republicans always do.
As someone who studies the U.S.‘s image, I am curious about the geopolitical implications of the leader of the free world falling victim to the pandemic, and how America’s allies, adversaries and others might use this moment, or ones in the weeks and months ahead, to their advantage.
I am also reminded of a famous quote from the Austrian diplomat Klemens Wenzel Furst von Metternich, who in 1848 said, “When France sneezes, the whole of Europe catches a cold.” He probably didn’t think his warning about the global implications of a respiratory disease would ever literally come true.
American adversaries like Russia, allies like the United Kingdom and regions with mixed relations like the Korean peninsula are all watching carefully to see what this illness at the top might mean for them, even as the president returns to the White House.
Given the overall decline in America’s standing in the world in recent years, it may be that Trump’s illness isn’t at important as the U.S. national security community would think. Or, the world may continue to wait cautiously until Trump’s health is out of the woods.
A cautious eye from Russia
Russia is a formidable adversary with a curious relationship to Trump. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1989, Russia sought to expand its influence in world affairs, seeking to regain power and prestige lost since the heyday of the Cold War.
In 2016, Russia covertly influenced the U.S. presidential election. Through a coordinated social media campaign, hacking operations and exploiting contacts within the Trump campaign, Russia violated and destabilized America’s election process. There is evidence that Russia is at it again.
It is clear, though, that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to exert dominance over the United States and would lose substantial leverage were Trump to succumb to COVID-19. According to author Angela Stent, Putin is someone who looks for the weaknesses, vulnerabilities and distractions in an opponent – even a larger one – and then moves in.
Perhaps Putin’s past as the 1976 judo champion of Leningrad has informed his approach to politics. Although Russia is no longer the superpower it once was, Putin has sought to leverage America’s indecision against itself, whether it was Obama’s hesitancy to intervene in Syria in 2015, or infighting between the president and the Senate over the existence of Russian interference in the U.S. electoral process.
The United Kingdom, by contrast, would likely retain a close, strong relationship with the United States, with deep economic ties and similar interests of promoting freedom and democracy around the world. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Trump also share a personal bond, having won populist support campaigning against their nations’ political establishments.
But that is only the latest in a long tradition of connections between American presidents and British leaders dating back to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill during World War II. Those political connections, with more recent chapters involving Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, as well as Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, are supported by historic and cultural ties as well.
Those bonds, both personal and policy, would likely endure, regardless of what may happen to Trump – and despite the fact that many British people dislike the president.
The Korean situation
The Korean peninsula has a long and complex history, particularly since the division of the two Koreas at the 38th parallel at the close of World War II. Both Koreas are highly nationalistic, but would likely react in different ways if faced with a weakened Trump.
The isolated nation of North Korea has had at times a tempestuous relationship with the United States, detonating nuclear weapons to capture the world’s attention and extract economic concessions from the international community.
Critics have said Kim simply played Trump as a novice on the world’s stage, using these meetings to bolster North Korea’s standing in the world. That may have helped further consolidate Kim’s personal power in a failed state where military generals may be waiting for their opportunity to seize control.
Others have said Trump bungled the relationship by failing to prevent Kim from developing more nuclear weapons. But Trump has managed to achieve key face-to-face meetings with Kim. Trump’s demise might destabilize U.S.-North Korean relations, prompting North Korea once again to threaten to use nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, in South Korea, whose national security depends on U.S. military power and assurances of mutual defense against North Korean and Chinese aggression, confidence in the American president to do the right thing in world affairs has faltered. South Koreans have largely disapproved of Trump’s policies on climate change, the Iran nuclear deal and the U.S.-Mexico border wall.
Trump’s relatively quick return to the White House may slow these international reevaluations, but the unpredictable nature of COVID-19 means they’ll all be keeping a close eye on what happens next.
In many ways, a vice president’s most important constitutional duty is simply to stay alive. Beyond breaking ties in the US Senate, the vice president essentially has no real constitutional duties beyond replacing a deceased or incapacitated president.
Such matters of life or death could not weigh heavier in the upcoming presidential election, which features the oldest candidates of all time — President Donald Trump is 74 and his opponent, Joe Biden, is 77.
And Trump, as we all know, was hospitalised in recent days after contracting COVID-19 — and, according to his doctor, is still not “out of the woods” when it comes to making a full recovery.
With the health of Trump (and Biden, who has so far tested negative for COVID) at the forefront, it’s even more vital for Americans and the world to learn more about Vice President Mike Pence and his fellow vice presidential candidate, Senator Kamala Harris, as they meet in their only debate this week (Thursday AEDT).
How vice presidents differ from their presidents
A vice president becoming president outside of an election is by no means a remote possibility. It has happened nine times in US history and includes some of America’s most well-known presidents – Lyndon Johnson, Harry Truman and Theodore Roosevelt.
One of the chief reasons these former vice presidents are so well-known is that, on taking office, they diverged in key areas from the presidents they served under, from Johnson’s doubling down on the US presence in Vietnam to Truman’s more confrontational approach to the Soviet Union.
In the case of Andrew Johnson, who became president after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865, the divergence was essentially a reversal: the Southern-born Johnson largely sought to obstruct Reconstruction efforts following the end of the Civil War.
Most vice presidents, however, serve their presidents faithfully until it’s their turn to run for the higher office. In modern times, they are often given considerable responsibilities, too.
Dick Cheney came to the office with much more experience in Washington than his running mate, George W. Bush, and assumed more duties than most — if not all — vice presidents in modern history, particularly with the administration’s “War on Terror” after the September 11 attacks.
This week’s debate will be a rare opportunity for Pence and Harris to show the nation who they are without Trump and Biden in the room — and, potentially, how they differ from their running mates.
Harris is already familiar to some Democrats, having participated in nearly half a dozen debates as a presidential candidate herself last year in the lead-up to the Democratic primaries.
Many will be watching to see just how much daylight she allows between herself and Biden. Though Harris and Biden are allies now, she fiercely criticised him in the Democratic debates for his close relationships with pro-segregationist US senators and his stance on the bussing of Black students to white schools in the 1970s.
Pence, meanwhile, will likely stick closely to the Trump campaign script, despite the fact he has diverged with Trump on many issues in the past.
Before the two were running mates in 2016, for example, Pence called Trump’s pledge to ban Muslim immigration to America “offensive and unconstitutional”. And while Trump railed against illegal immigration, Pence
endorsed pathways to citizenship for undocumented migrants.
These days, however, Pence is very much a Trump loyalist and fully supportive of the administration’s agenda – even when talking off the record with journalists. He will no doubt offer a full-throated defence to any attacks Harris makes against the president or their administration’s policies in the debate.
Pence offers a predictable counterpart to Trump
Pence’s role in the Trump administration has less to do with a specific portfolio and is more tied to his personality.
An evangelical Christian and former governor of Indiana, Pence is conventional, predictable and methodical – a helpful counterweight to Trump’s unconventional, unpredictable and instinctual manner.
The public spat in the White House between the president and Democratic lawmakers in 2018 perhaps most clearly illustrated the differences between Pence and Trump. While Trump and the Democrats tried to score points against one another, Pence sat silent and almost motionless, giving the president the limelight.
But Pence’s differences with Trump go beyond just demeanour.
While Trump has had a troubled history with women that includes at least 18 allegations of sexual misconduct, Pence refuses to meet alone with women other than his wife of 35 years.
And while Trump has mastered the art of insulting political opponents, Pence pledged not to engage in negative campaigning after an election loss in 1990.
Pence is clearly a politician from an earlier era, but it works for the Trump administration.
Pence and Harris will likely be significantly more disciplined and restrained in this week’s debate than Trump and Biden were in theirs — a spectacle that featured countless interruptions and personal attacks.
Neither Pence nor Harris will likely diverge too far from their running mates on key issues, either, regardless of their personal views.
It’s not hard to understand why they would be so supportive of candidates they have explicitly criticised in the past — both are likely favourites to be their respective party’s nominees for president in 2024. This week’s debate offers a short preview of what might be to come.
It's a civics lesson young students and academia won't have to read about in history books - because they are living it firsthand right now. Voter suppression. It seems to be the only way Republicans can ensure their unethical, sharp-tongued, bully-based candidate stays in the White House - but at what cost to our democracy?
Voter suppression is not a new strategy in campaigning, but the way in which it's being manipulated currently is indeed something unique to this GOP variety. Voter suppression is normally used to influence the outcome of an election by discouraging or preventing specific groups of people from voting. Political campaigning attempts to alter likely voting behavior by changing the opinions of potential voters through persuasion and organization, activating otherwise inactive voters, or registering new supporters.
The current Republican regime doesn't care about changing hearts and minds...they care about suppressing the vote. It may actually be the only way they will stand a chance at winning the 2020 election - and they know it.
Governor Greg Abbott (R-TX) shamelessly just removed all but one ballot drop-off box location in the state's largest counties. Under his new order, counties like Harris, with 12 drop-off locations, and Travis, with four, can each have only one location. The stunt has resulted in people driving up to 50 miles to literally wait in their cars as the line stretches around the parking lot...to put their ballot in a drop-box so they don't have to mail it in case it doesn't make it in time - or at all.
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“This haphazard decision by Gov. Abbott, to change the rules of the game at the last moment, is confusing to voters, and will serve to depress Texas votes, plain and simple,” Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins said Friday at a news conference. “This decision should not stand. To force hundreds of thousands of seniors and voters with disabilities here in Harris County, and millions of voters across the state of Texas to use a single drop-off facility in these massive counties is not only prejudicial, but it’s dangerous."
Republicans in Pennsylvania are conducting their own shenanigans by introducing a resolution to create a state legislative committee “to investigate, review and make recommendations concerning the regulation and conduct of the 2020 general election... before and after the Nov. 3, 2020, General Election.”
It's worth noting that Texas and Pennsylvania are states where Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has had a consistent upward trend versus President Donald J. Trump in the 2020 election cycle.
Voter ID laws have been estimated by the U.S. Government Accountability Office to reduce voter turnout by 2-3 percentage points, translating to tens of thousands of votes lost in a single state. That's because over 21 million U.S. citizens do not have government-issued photo identification.
According to the ACLU, 70 percent of Georgia voters purged in 2018 were Black; one in 13 Black Americans cannot vote due to disenfranchisement laws; one-third of voters who have a disability report difficulty voting; only 40 percent of polling places fully accommodate people with disabilities; across the country, counties with larger minority populations have fewer polling sites and poll workers per voter; six in ten college students come from out of state in New Hampshire, the state trying to block residents with out of state drivers’ licenses.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Trump's disinformation campaign aims to discredit the voting process from every angle, be it mail-in voter fraud or ballots being found in a a Wisconsin ditch - both of which have proven unfounded. In September, Donald Trump Jr. issued a call for “every able-bodied man and woman to join Army for Trump’s election security operation because the “radical left” was going “to add millions of fraudulent ballots that can cancel your vote and overturn the election.”
There's also the 250 court battles currently being waged across the country in relation to voter suppression efforts.
The message from Democrats to voters is to make a plan to vote and show up early. The one thing Republicans can't fight is high voter turnout from Democrats - and democracy is counting on it.
No one knows why the president all of a sudden Tuesday put the kibosh on stimulus talks. Maybe it’s the meds Donald Trump is on. Maybe he’s crazy. Maybe he’s stupid. Maybe he’s bad at politics. Maybe he’s going to take the country down with him. Maybe, as the wags on Twitter often say, it’s a combination of all the above.
One thing’s for sure, everyone’s puzzled. The Washington press corps is expressing bemusement openly. Axios’ Jonathan Swan said that, “I truly don’t understand this, and nor do a number of people who advise the president. It’s like he’s trying to lose.”
NBC News’ Capitol Hill correspondent Kasie Hunt said that, “I will never understand how a president who has time and time again demonstrated that he acts first in his own self interest is refusing to accept an offer to spend $2.2 trillion boosting the economy weeks before facing voters in his reelection bid. It makes no sense.”
The Hill’s Krystal Ball is not a serious journalist but instead a terrible pundit. Even so, she got this much right when she said the Democrats “literally wanted to help Trump give out money to millions of Americans just before the election and he said no.”
Jacob T. Levy is a professor of political theory at McGill University in Montreal. He gave voice to Trump’s thinking about how to practice “the art of the deal.” “He’s telling us quite clearly what he’s doing: holding the stimulus hostage to his reelection,” Levy said. “‘Vote for me and you’ll get $1.6 trillion; don’t, and you’ll get nothing for months to come.’ I’m not saying it’s a good strategy, but it’s the kind of thing Trump thinks powerful people do in negotiations: ‘You have more to lose than I do, and I’m ready to walk away.’ The counter-party being, not the Democrats, but the whole electorate.”
I think this is close to being right. The president has demonstrated time and again the extortionist gestalt of his criminal mind. Quid pro quo is his go-to. Give me what I want and I’ll reopen the federal government. Give me what I want and I’ll give Ukraine the money it needs to fight Russia. Give me what I want and I’ll give cities and states the personal protective gear they need to fight the covid pandemic. Give me what I want or the road to a traditional peaceful transfer of power will be paved with bodies.
It doesn’t work. It never, ever works. For whatever reason, Trump has not learned people do not like being forced into deals. Every time he’s tried forcing US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi into one, she’s handed his ass to him. Anyway, this gambit doesn’t explain why he’d say no to money right now, just before the election, as Kasie Hunt said, when it would most help him politically. It’s here I think we must turn to something I’ve found quite helpful in this epoch of Trump: political psychology.
First, agreeing with the Democrats would give his enemies something they want. Pelosi wants billions for cities and states facing a double dilemma. They must spend to combat the new coronavirus but they are losing revenues doing so. Trump doesn’t want to help “blue states,” because that would make him look weak. (Bear in mind he probably believes, literally, that only Democrats live in “blue states.”) More important is the president’s need for someone to blame. This is his mess. He must clean it up, or get out of the way. He won’t get out of the way, of course, but to stay in power, he must manufacture at least a cartoon image of a scapegoat. Hence, all the talk about “badly run cities” looking for a government bailout, a talking point in keeping with the GOP’s traditional dog whistling in which “cities” is a byword for “Black.” The president is willing to hurt himself politically if it takes that to hurt the Democrats in kind.
In other words, it’s masochism. This is, after all, the same president who made himself sick trying to prove the covid pandemic is nothing to worry about. His are, after all, the same supporters who deny themselves free money to pay for better health care (the Affordable Care Act, in other words), even as the pandemic rampages through their communities. Masochism is the ego state of suicide bombers, literal and political. It is a phenomenon nearly everyone understands but ignores collectively till it’s too late.
Masochism is also exploitable. Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans have been trying for three months to figure out Trump’s chances of winning reelection, and thus figure out the best use of their time before Election Day. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death answered that question, and the president has all but acquiesced. White House advisor Larry Kudlow this morning told the Post: “We’ve only got four weeks to the election, and we have a justice of the Supreme Court to get passed. It’s too close to the election—not enough time to get stuff done at this stage in the game.”
McConnell would rather not bother with a stimulus, perhaps because he’s protecting his conference from being primaried. Jonathan Bernstein said that, “Most mainstream conservatives, even those who think (along with virtually all economists) that government spending would boost the economy and therefore help Trump and his party in November, are more worried about being dismissed as sell-out RINOs by accepting a deal with” Pelosi. Or perhaps because he’s helping lay the ideological groundwork for a new Democratic administration. If they are going to resist his fiscal demands, and Joe Biden is planning to demand trillions, now’s the time to pretend the Republicans never wanted to explode the national debt. It was all Trump’s fault.
McConnell’s chore is made easier by a president willing to hurt himself if that’s what it takes to “win.” Of course, he isn’t—unless by “winning,” you mean “losing.”
President Donald Trump insisted -- in all capital letters -- that he was "entitled" to ask for another four-year term as repayment for a debunked conspiracy theory he revived weeks ahead of the election.
The president announced Tuesday night during a marathon Twitter spree that he had declassified documents he claims will prove a conspiracy involving President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and intelligence officials to spy on his campaign -- and the next day demanded four more years.
"NOW THAT THE RADICAL LEFT DEMOCRATS GOT CAUGHT COLD IN THE (NON) FRIENDLY TRANSFER OF GOVERNMENT," he tweeted, "IN FACT, THEY SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN AND WENT FOR A COUP, WE ARE ENTITLED TO ASK THE VOTERS FOR FOUR MORE YEARS. PLEASE REMEMBER THIS WHEN YOU VOTE!"
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It's not clear whether the president was seeking an unconstitutional third term, an automatic second term or simply more votes in the Nov. 3 election.
President Donald Trump keeps sabotaging his own re-election campaign with just weeks to go, and one conservative says his presidency appears to be in freefall.
The president returned to the White House from the Walter Reed Medical Center, where he was briefly treated for the coronavirus, and instead of being chastened he's doubling down on all the bad behavior that's made him deeply unpopular, wrote The Bulwark's Charlie Sykes.
"Trump is held hostage by his own sweaty self; pinioned by his narcissism, callousness, and addiction to cruelty," Sykes wrote.
Democrat Joe Biden has opened up a 16-point lead nationally in a CNN poll, and a slew of other polls show the former vice president with double-digit leads -- and that's before Trump spiked negotiations on a coronavirus stimulus bill in a possibly steroid-induced fugue.
"Instead of a relief package we got Trumpism on steroids. Literally," Sykes wrote. "Indeed, it may really have been the worst political blunder in memory. Even his closest aides were flummoxed."
Trump seemed to realize as much, and soon began negotiating with himself on Twitter, but Sykes said he appears finished.
"We wake up today, with the growing sense that Trump is in freefall," Sykes wrote. "The polls are ghastly and you can sense the mood of the country shifting."
President Trump spent Tuesday night tweeting madly for hours about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and various conspiracy theories about the 2016 election. Twitterati speculated that his experimental drug cocktail and steroid treatment for COVID-19 might be making him manic and grandiose. But how could you tell, really? This is pretty much his normal modus operandi. The only reason one might suspect that his drug treatment was contributing to the burst of energy and wild commentary is that he is a 74-year-old man with co-morbidities who has been seriously ill with a disease that has killed more than 210,000 Americans. Since he didn't even make one of his "proof of life" videos on Tuesday, it's possible someone else was tweeting for him. But in the end the best guess is that Trump was lying in bed with Fox News on as usual, scrolling through his Twitter feed and incoherently venting his spleen — just as he might do on any other Tuesday night.
Sick or high or just having a normal one, it is perfectly understandable that Trump would be melting down in spectacular fashion. His only concern for the last four years has been getting re-elected for four more years, and that's not going well at all at the moment. This tumultuous last couple of weeks brought him only one piece of good news: the death of a beloved liberal icon, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The insensitive glee with which Trump and his GOP accomplices greeted that event, and their shameless hypocrisy in insisting on filling the seat just weeks before the election, was a true high point for the Republicans this year. I hope they enjoyed their moment, because everything that's happened to them since then has amounted to an epic train wreck.
While Republicans were still swilling champagne, the New York Times reported out a major exposé based upon Trump's long-hidden tax returns. It turns out he didn't bother to pay federal income taxes in most recent years — apparently that's for the little people. In normal times that would have been a huge scandal, but Trump managed to distract everyone away from that by acting like a deranged barbarian in the first presidential debate with Joe Biden, quickly followed by the news that the White House had become a major COVID cluster, with dozens of people diagnosed with the virus, including the president, the first lady, at least three senators and several of Trump's top aides and campaign officials.
After all that, I think we've all been wondering how the American people would react. From the looks of the polling so far, they're not pleased. In fact, the vast majority seems to believe that Trump and his administration were asking for trouble and they got it.
According to a CNN/SSRS poll released on Monday, 63% said Trump acted irresponsibly in handling the risk of getting the virus and giving it to others. Only 33% said he had done the right thing, which means even some of his own voters aren't impressed with his actions. And 69% said they couldn't trust what the White House was saying about Trump's health. Considering the Soviet-style propaganda campaign they've been running at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, that's no surprise.
Election polling is no better for Trump. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll has Biden up by 14 points nationally, as does a new FPU/Herald poll. CNN/SSRS has Biden up by 16 points. Nate Silver at 538 says getting COVID has hurt him in more ways than one:
The White House is apparently in total chaos, which isn't really news, but there does seem to be a certain desperation that isn't always present. This is likely because of Trump's atrocious messaging to the public over the past few days, in which he's pretending he has "beaten" the virus with his strength and virility, and telling people to stop letting the virus "dominate" their lives. But there are those who willingly ride along and amplify his message:
The lack of empathy in that comment even makes a Fox News host do a double take. But the attitude reflected there absolutely reflects the ongoing thinking of the Trump administration and Republican officials, even with a major outbreak amid their own ranks. They clearly don't care that most people can't get the kind of medical treatment they have available, much less the full-spectrum VIP care the president receives. Those who die, as Trump would say, are obviously losers. They let that virus dominate them.
So too, apparently, are the millions of people still on unemployment, facing eviction, losing health insurance and unable to feed their families. The long delayed second stimulus seemed to be gathering some steam in the last week or so with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin deep in negotiations with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with a couple of major sticking points (help for state and local governments and a $400 weekly stipend on top of unemployment insurance) yet to be hashed out. It was unclear whether they could finally come to terms but any hope for that was dashed when Trump awakened from one of his COVID fevers and tweeted that he was pulling out of all talks for a stimulus and would only resume them if he wins the election. He instructed McConnell to put all of his focus on getting Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court.
Considering that recent polling suggests that 74% of voters want the government to prioritize COVID relief over confirming Barrett, it was bizarre for Trump to take the blame for the collapse of the talks. But perhaps the sickly president was being manipulated:
It sounds to me as if McConnell has given up and just wants to make sure he gets his justice on the court before the whole house of cards collapses.
Someone must have wised the president up to the fact that he had made a massive blunder, because by late Tuesday night he had reversed field and was issuing edicts about stand-alone bills to rescue the airline industry and send $1,200 checks out immediately. Apparently it dawned on him that trying to blackmail people into voting for him might not be the smart move. Maybe someone was able to explain to him that getting money to people before the election could actually be helpful. But who knows?
The fact is that that we have a president in the grips of a serious virus which is known to have serious neurological effects on many people who contract it. He's also on some strong drugs that can have unpredictable side effects. Even on a good day, Trump never fully understands the governing aspects of his job, nor does he care about anything except how it affects him personally. The country is in the hands of someone who is clearly unable to carry out his duties and he's making disastrous decisions that affect the lives of tens of millions of people.
In other words, it's business as usual in Washington.
Is President Donald Trump actively trying to lose the 2020 presidential election?
I don't actually believe that's what he's doing, but it would easy to get that impression.
On Tuesday afternoon, Trump effectively torpedoed the ongoing congressional negotiations for a second round of stimulus funds, which were likely his best hope of turning around his re-election chances:
Here's the background: House Democrats passed a massive $3 trillion package in May that would supplement the economic assistance of the CARES Act, which aimed at fighting the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting recession. The Democrats' package included an additional round of direct payments to individuals and families, unemployment insurance funds, and aide to state and local governments struggling with reduced tax revenues. Republicans in control of the Senate, however, refused to pass the bill and decided to sit on their hands, only beginning to negotiate with the Democrats at the end of July when the CARES Act funds were drying up.
Those talks went nowhere as much of the GOP balked at more spending, and the funding lapsed. Trump tried to use executive power to extend a fraction of the benefits, but the effect was marginal at best. The economy needs more stimulus to avoid continued financial strain, a fact that lead GOP negotiator, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, has seemed aware of. Even Trump himself favored a second round of stimulus checks to individuals, likely believing it would boost his approval heading into the election.
But now Trump is — or at least wants to appear be — pulling the plug. Jeff Stein, a Washington Post reporter who has followed the negotiations closely, explained what this means:
Trump perhaps thinks he can win by running on a pledge to pass the stimulus after the election.
He's almost certainly wrong, and his framing is disastrous for his own side. First, he's criticizing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for insisting on a supposedly overly generous package, which is at odds with Trump's ostensible populist messaging and disregard for the deficit in other cases. Second, a recent poll found that 74 percent of voters said that the Senate should focus on economic relief instead of approving a new justice for the Supreme Court. Explicitly saying you're going to do the exact opposite is like a slap in the fact to voters, especially those who are struggling most. Even putting aside the context of the stimulus negotiations, rushing through the Supreme Court nomination was not overwhelmingly popular with voters to begin with. And it opens up the Republicans to attacks over health care and abortion where they're particularly vulnerable.
As it stands, the Trump's electoral chances are not looking great. New polling this week suggests Trump's debate performance hurt him with voters. His COVID diagnosis, as well as his subsequent decision to continue playing down the seriousness of the pandemic, probably hurt him even more. And the most recent data on the economic recovery was discouraging, especially as experts fear a third wave of outbreaks is coming as temperatures decline.
None of this is to say Trump couldn't still win. In fact, I've argued repeatedly that despite steep odds, there remained paths to victory for the president. But his best shot has always relied on significant signs of improvement in voters' personal economic welfare, where stimulus checks from the government could have the most direct impact. And on Tuesday, Trump seemed to be flushing those hopes down the toilet.
