When White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany took to the lectern on Monday to address reporters, it was presumably her intention to defend President Donald Trump. That is, as she sees it, her job. But whatever her intentions, the defense she offered of the president was anything but.
She portrayed the president as uninformed, steadfastly resistant to new information, and recklessly bumbling his way through presidential duties.
Addressing the most recent international scandal plaguing the White House, McEnany said the president was never briefed on intelligence reports that Russia put bounties on the heads of American soldiers to incentivize Afghanistan fighters to kill them. She said the intelligence community did not have a "consensus" on the reports of the Russian bounties.
"This has not been briefed to the president, because it was not, in fact, verified," she said.
But CNN's Kaitlan Collins pointed out that "not everything in his daily briefings, or in the presidential daily brief, that's the written document, is airtight. They let the president know about what they're hearing."
McEnany responded by saying the intelligence agencies brief the president "as necessary," but didn't explain why it wouldn't have been necessary to brief the president on these findings. Asked if the president has a specific message for Moscow in light of the reports, McEnany said no, "because he has not been briefed on the matter." She said there were "dissenting opinions."
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There's reason to doubt McEnany's denials — it's quite possible Trump was briefed on the findings about the Russian plot, and he simply dismissed them because of his fondness for President Vladimir Putin. Her remarks could indicate that Trump clung to qualifications and caveats of uncertainty in the reports, even if the overall conclusions of the intelligence community on the matter were solid.
But even if we accept McEnany's claims as true, they're a damning indictment of the president. They suggest he has no interest in hearing intelligence reports with any nuance in them, and that he insists on not being briefed about facts unless they're entirely certain. This is a disastrous position for a president to take because presidents must always act with some level of uncertainty. Not being briefed about uncertain matters is a childish and frankly negligent practice for a president to engage in.
One plausible interpretation of McEnany's defenses of the president is that, while the reports about the bouties were made available to the president in written form, no one ever verbally briefed him on the matter. This, too, would be another damning fact about the president, because it implies his lack of interest in reading prevented him from knowing vital information as he has been in repeated contact with Putin.
The idea that Trump is simply too lazy or incompetent to be fully informed about matters he should know came up in another McEnany defense of the president. Discussing the fact that the president shared a video on Twitter of his own supporter cheering the words "white power" at a counter-protester, McEnany said the president was unaware these words were in the video.
"Does the president retweet other people's tweets and video without knowing the full contents of what he's retweeting?" asked a reporter.
"He did not hear that particular phrase," she said.
"Did he listen to the video before he retweeted it?" the reporter asked again.
"He did, and he did not hear that particular phrase," said McEnany.
This is hard to believe because the chants of "white power" occurred after less than 10 seconds into the short video. Again, the most likely interpretation seems to be that Trump and McEnany are lying. But even if McEnany is telling the truth, it again suggests an ignorant, bumbling president who can watch a video of his own supporters and not even realize that they're spewing vile racist slogans. This may be better than a president who is intentionally spreading racist vitriol, but it's still deeply disturbing and disqualifying for the office.
But perhaps worst of all was the White House's response to the raging coronavirus pandemic in the United States.
Tamara Keith of NPR noted that "cases are on the rise, this is a very serious time," and asked: "What is the president's message to the American people, and why aren't we seeing him publicly talk to the public, encourage them to do things to stay safe?"
McEnany played down the dangers, noting (correctly) that the population of those infected appears to be younger than has previously been the case, meaning the risk of death is much lower. But she didn't acknowledge that these spikes in cases are likely to spread to more vulnerable members of society, and she referred to the intense flare-ups as mere "embers that need to be put out." She gave no indication that the president is going to take any personal steps to address the rising crisis, such as by personally embracing the use of masks to prevent the spread.
Once again, this message — put out by the White House press secretary — reflected a president who is disengaged, ignorant of the risks, and unwilling to put in the effort it would take to acknowledge and address a major crisis. Instead, he seems to be hoping everything will just work itself out without his having to make any sacrifices or work hard at all.
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Now, to repeat, McEnany is a known liar. Trump lies constantly. So there's no reason to believe that the White House's excuse-making is anything more than the lastest round of intentional deceptions. McEnany's claims about Trump not being briefed, in particular, seem to contradict his own Sunday night tweet. But even if McEnany's assertions were true, they make the president look terrible. So what must they be hiding if they prefer telling such lies instead of admitting the truth?
Wearing a mask has somehow become part of the Republican Party's ongoing war against science and facts. For some reason, President Donald Trump refuses to wear a mask and has mocked some of those who do so. He hasn't mandated masks at his events and at a GOP conference in Arizona.
Supporters have been dogged about their stance against masks, taking to municipal meetings to clutch their throats and pretend they are somehow suffocating.
Public opinion has turned against the mask-phobic and many have posted videos of irate white women having public meltdowns when asked to put one on. Since the winds shifted, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has decided that masks are important.
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Predictable, Republicans unleashed on McConnell treating him like a traitor to their pro-COVID advocacy.
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On the other side, it prompted many to ask where McConnell has been for the last 75 days and why McConnell has been so unwilling to weigh in on the mask battle until now.
The US presidential election is being shaped by the two crises that have defined 2020 so far: the coronavirus pandemic and the national reckoning over police brutality and racism.
The term “unprecedented” has been used widely to describetheseevents, but they are just the latest versions of the two oldest and biggest problems in American politics: government dysfunction and racial injustice.
The “winning” years
In 2016, Donald Trump presented appealingly easy solutions to these problems.
Untainted by government, he would “drain the swamp” of bureaucrats and his business acumen would fix problems that conventional politicians could not, from trade deficits to crumbling infrastructure. Harnessing racialresentment and a backlash against Black Lives Matter, Trump promised white Americans an end to the painful reckonings of the Obama years, instead offering them a fantasy of black gratitude for white success.
For three years, Trump crafted a re-election narrative around his “winning” approach, based mainly on an economy that was already booming by the time he became president. The partisan polarisation of the 2016 election continued into his presidency.
Trump’s approval rating has always been relatively low despite the strong economy, but it has also been resilient in the face of scandal. Trump faced few crises in this period not of his own making, although there was one that foreshadowed the disasters to come: Hurricane Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico in 2017.
The federal government response to the hurricane was slow, uncoordinated and under-resourced. Trump showed little interest in it and took no responsibility for it. He briefly appeared on the island to congratulate himself and throw paper towels to residents. When the death toll was revealed to be nearly 3,000, revised up from initial reports of 64, Trump claimed Democrats made up most of the deaths “to make me look as bad as possible”.
Pandemic politics
The Puerto Rican tragedy was largely ignored and forgotten, but COVID-19 has replayed many of its themes on an even bigger scale.
Even now, as experts stress the need for widespread testing, Trump complains that testing inflates coronavirus numbers, and says it should slow down.
You can’t fight a pandemic with racial slurs. After a very brief “rally round the flag” boost in polling, voter ratings of Trump’s handling of the pandemic have been poor, and are dropping.
Meanwhile, the kinds of experienced public servants Trump and his allies deride are enjoying much higher approval as Americans rediscover the virtues of scientific expertise.
The pandemic itself may be less electorally consequential for Trump than its economic effects. It is very rare for presidents to win re-election during a recession.
The wave of Black Lives Matter protests following George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis has damaged not just Trump’s electoral prospects, but the political order he represents.
For decades, conservatives have used the prospect of black unrest to scare white moderates, and Trump’s Nixonian rhetoric suggests he expected the same effect this time.
Instead, public opinion has solidified in support of the large, multiracial protests. The protests have changed minds, including white minds, about the systemic nature of racism in the United States. Racist backlashes may be less potent when there is a polarising white president in power.
Trump has floundered in response to the protests. He has paid lip service to the cause of justice for George Floyd, but has shown more genuine sympathy for those who worry about being called racist.
Ultimately, he has retreated to his comfortable daydreams of black gratefulness. When announcing better-than-expected job numbers, Trump said:
Hopefully George is looking down right now and saying this is a great thing that’s happening for our country.
Biden is hard to paint as a radical. He has been quick to distance himself from proposals such as defunding police, and he has never supported “Medicare for all”, despite its popularity with the Democratic base and relevance during the pandemic. As president he would be unlikely to bring the kinds of lasting changes that most Democrats want to see.
This is why Trump and his allies cast Biden as “sleepy” and senile. They warn that he would easily be manipulated by radicals, and Trump is really running against the “far left”. So far, however, this approach has compelled Trump to talk a lot about his own physical and mental fitness.
Biden, whose support stems from a perception that he is safe and familiar, having served as vice president in the Obama adminstration, chooses instead to display certain vulnerabilities. This helps explain his rising support among older Americans during the pandemic.
And in a year when race is a defining election issue, Biden has a vast advantage with African American and Hispanic voters, despite parts of his legislative record and his cringeworthy “you ain’t black” interview. He also owes his nomination to African American voters. As Juan Williams put it bluntly, “Joe Biden would be retired if not for the black vote”.
The polls look bad for Trump, but the race remains unpredictable
Averages of national polls currently show Biden leading Trump by between nine and ten points. Even without the pandemic, Trump was never going to have an easy contest against Biden.
Polls still show Trump’s supporters are a lot more enthusiastic about voting for Trump than Biden’s supporters are about voting for Biden, which could be important if voting becomes a health risk.
But enthusiasm for the Democratic candidate may not matter. The 2018 midterm was effectively a referendum on Trump, and the 2020 election will be an even more focused one.
There is reason to believe the race could tighten, if only because no candidate has won a presidential election by more than 9% since 1984, and partisan divisions have become a lot sharper since then. Many conservative-leaning Americans who are undecided about the election may return to Trump. Closer to the election, many pollsters will restrict their samples to people who they believe are likely to vote, rather than just able to vote. These likely voter screens may reveal Trump’s standing is stronger than it currently looks.
Of course, the election isn’t decided by a national popularity contest. Democrats are haunted by the 2016 election, in which Hillary Clinton got 2.8 million more votes than Trump but still lost the state-based electoral college. Currently, The Economist’s election forecast gives that scenario about a 10% chance of happening again.
Polls show Biden leading in most of these contests, but these leads are smaller and more volatile than his national lead. The quality of many state polls has also been questionable, raising the possibility they will repeat the same mistakes as last time.
Biden is discouraging complacency. Referencing a recent NYT/Siena poll that showed him leading Trump nationally by 14%, Biden tweeted:
COVID-19 has sabotaged the usual election-year registration drives that bring millions of new voters into the electorate, which could disadvantage Democrats who traditionally benefit from younger voters.
An uncertain result hinging on a prolonged mail ballot count could lead to the nightmare scenario of a disputed election outcome.
Would Trump accept defeat?
Trump already seems to be preparing to dispute the election. He has repeatedly claimed, with no evidence, that mail voting will facilitate massive voter fraud.
These fraud claims have been repeatedlydebunked, and Twitter was so worried about Trump attacking the electoral process that, for the first time, it flagged two of his tweets as misleading.
Trump may believe, with reason, that Republicans could benefit from in-person voting disarray on election day. Minority voters are far more likely than white voters to have to wait for long periods in lines at polling places.
In 2018, a federal court ruled for the first time since 1982 that Republicans could mount “poll watching” operations without prior judicial approval. This involves organising volunteers to challenge the eligibility of voters at polling places. Courts have previously found these tactics are used to intimidate and exclude minority voters, and they result in even longer delays. Republicans reportedly want to recruit 50,000 poll watchers for the 2020 election, including retired military and police officers.
These claims have also been thoroughly debunked, including by Trump’s own lawyers.
Trump’s resistance to the factual possibility that he could lose has raised fears he might not accept a defeat. Biden, noting that military leaders criticised Trump’s handling of Black Lives Matter protests, has fantasised that the military would escort him from the White House if he tried to “steal the election”.
Extensive lawsuits are a more likely scenario than military intervention, but there is also the danger Trump’s supporters would not accept the legitimacy of a Biden victory.
Given Trump has oftenwarned his supporters that their enemies will take away the Second Amendment (the right to bear arms), there is a possibility of a violent backlash, even if it only consists of isolated incidents.
At the same time, it is increasingly normal that large parts of the population dispute the legitimacy of the president. From Bill Clinton’s impeachment to George W. Bush’s contested victory; from Trump’s “birther” conspiracies about Obama to his own impeachment last year, refusals to accept the lawfulness of the presidency, on grounds real or imaginary, have become a standard part of America’s political repertoire.
A lot can happen in four months, as we’ve already seen this year. The outcome of this race is far from certain, but its ugliness is guaranteed.
When the University of Waterloo, where I teach and research, issued a statement to the media saying that the university “unequivocally believes that there is no place for the use of the N-word in class, on campus or in our community,” I felt — as we say in Black culture — “some type of way.” By this I mean I was stunned, confused, misunderstood and scared. I immediately stopped teaching. No, I didn’t quit my job. I stopped doing my job because I wanted to keep it. Ironic, I know. The statement placed me in a veritable Catch-22.
That very week, I was preparing my lecture on Sharon Bridgforth’s novel love conjure/blues. This Black cultural performance text features a character named “Nigga-Red” — a queer, masculine, Black woman. Further, the white sheriff in the text uses the N-word once in a derogatory way.
My dilemma doesn’t end here, as it might for a white professor. After all, I am a Black man, born in the United States, living in Canada. I belong to multiple Black communities, where we use the N-word in six or seven culturally rich ways, as beautifully explained by novelist Gloria Naylor in a 1986 essay published in the New York Times: “What’s in a Name?” I can’t help but bring my Black body, Black voice, Black speech and Black soul to work.The university’s pronouncement that there is “no place for the word in class,” chilled me. I froze when I reviewed my assignment: Bridgforth describes her text as a “performance literature/a novel that is constructed for breath,” which means students must read the book out loud. How could I continue to teach?
After the university released its statement, however, I struggled with a hurtful and completely preventable question — am I even welcome?
Cultivated ignorance
Professionally, I am a scholar of speech communication. My research squarely theorizes the N-word. For example, my first book is titled Your Average Nigga. A full half of the book’s six chapters deal with the N-word. Part of the book is used in my department’s public speaking curriculum.
If the university finds no place on campus and community for the N-word, then the statement censors my language, and constructively banishes me, not only as a Black man, but also as a Black studies scholar. I refuse to accept that the problem is my research or me; nor do I believe that if I stop using the word in my personal life, teaching and research that white supremacy and anti-Blackness will end. The problem is just the opposite.
Your Average Nigga: Performing Race, Literacy and Masculinity by Vershawn Ashanti Young.
To forbid the N-word actually serves the purposes of white supremacy and resuscitates racism rather than defeat it. I say this because we know our society oppresses Black people. But do you know that we are also culturally suppressed in predominantly white spaces? Barring the N-word functions as a too-easy way to quash the six or seven insightful ways the word functions in Black culture.
The university’s proscription, to be blunt, is a form of cultivated ignorance about Black lingo. The university is a microcosm of society, and neither seems eager to do the interesting and important work to understand Black peoples, Black communities and Black rhetoric. Anthony Stewart calls Canadians out in this regard in his book Visitor: My Life in Canada.
Stewart, a Black Canadian, says he has always “felt like a visitor,” although he had never lived anywhere else. “That is a conversation Canadians have avoided having in public and need to begin having if Canada,” he says, “is going to live up to its claims of diversity and tolerance.”
Lack of consultation with Black faculty
If society were interested in Black culture then prohibiting the N-word would never be the first thing that comes to mind. I direct this specifically to my university community. If the university were truly interested, it would have consulted scholars of Black language before issuing its uninformed and consequentially harmful statement. Kofi Campbell, a University of Waterloo vice-president and dean who is Black, penned a letter to the university president, calling for such a consultation.
I am one of five or six tenured Black faulty on a campus that employs hundreds of educators. I think I am the only African American. The absence of and lack of conference with what amounts to a mere handful of Black people does not occur by chance. My friend and scholar Joni L. Jones explains more about how this power dynamic works in her speech and essay “Six Rules for Allies.” This lack of consultation says unequivocally that Black voices and our presence do not matter.
‘Six Rules for Allies’ by Joni L. Jones.
Forbidding the N-word is like trying to squash unequivocal racists, which is unproductive because racism is now a neoliberal problem that we all traffic in daily. Racisms are part of our policies and everyday — even liberal seeming — behaviour. This is what institutional and systemic racism means. Please, don’t get this twisted.
Everyday racism
Everyday seemingly innocent policies and procedures that negatively and disproportionately affect Blacks is what the #BlackLivesMatter protests around the globe are about.
I believe we should leave the Black cultural uses of the N-word relatively alone. I personally do not say the word when I teach unless it is a direct quote from a text. I know words can abuse.
From a rhetorical perspective, I refer to the Greek term apophasis, a device wherein the speaker brings up a subject by either denying it, or denying that it should be used. In other words, a white teacher could use the word in a lecture, saying it should not be casually uttered, while fully intending to spread its derogatory shame.
Because of this, and also knowing there are multiple sensitivities, misunderstandings, and intentional illiteracy about the word, I stick to my notes and refer to the word as the N-word. I think that is respectful in mixed company.
When I assign literature that uses the word, I do not censor students’ reading the word aloud. Many decline. That’s their academic choice. My Black students may use the word in discussion if they, like me, belong to cultures that embrace the multifarious positive cultural meanings of the word. Non-blacks, and whites especially, may not casually use the word. I agree with linguist John McWhorter that “whites who ask, ‘Why can’t we use it if they do?’” are simply disingenuous.
I understand that the university thought that it was being an ally when it took its abrupt step to bar a word. But true allies treat Blacks as partners, not patrons. They do not demand that Blacks abandon our culture, and certainly do not suppress our language. Allies consult! They don’t just take over.
President Donald Trump promoted a video on Twitter Sunday morning showing a man in a golf cart with Trump campaign gear shouting "white power."
The video, which Trump said was from the Florida retirement community known as The Villages, featured a parade of golf carts, some with pro-Trump signs, driving past anti-Trump protesters who were shouting curses at them. The man who is heard shouting "white power" was responding to protesters shouting "racist."
The tweet was removed from his feed hours later.
"Thank you to the great people of The Villages," Trump had written. "The Radical Left Do Nothing Democrats will Fall in the Fall. Corrupt Joe is shot. See you soon!!!"
Deputy White House press secretary Judd Deere attempted to clean up the president's mess by saying, "President Trump is a big fan of the Villages. He did not hear the one statement made on the video. What he did see was tremendous enthusiasm from his many supporters."
On CNN's Sunday talk show "State of the Union," Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar tried to make excuses for Trump's tweet by saying that "obviously neither the president, his administration nor I would do anything to be supportive of white supremacy or anything."
The facts: Sunday was hardly the first time that Donald Trump has shared white supremacist, anti-Semitic or other kinds of hateful messages on Twitter.
Through his behavior, words and public policies he advances, Trump has repeatedly shown himself to be a white supremacist.
The phrase "white power" is a racist slur and a threat of violence against nonwhite people. Innumerable Black and brown people, and many others as well, have been killed under its banner.
Trump recently visited Tulsa, Oklahoma, the site of one of the United States' worst instances of white-on-black terrorism, for his first "comeback rally," which was originally scheduled for "Juneteenth."
Trump believes that Hispanics and Latinos are a natural-born race of rapists and murderers who only want to come to America to brutalize white people. Trump has repeatedly sought to enact policies that bar Muslims from entering the United States. He has tried a series of maneuvers to minimize or eliminate immigration to the U.S. from nonwhite countries.
Trump and his regime have imprisoned tens of thousands of nonwhite migrants and refugees. Cruelty against nonwhite people continues to be the Trump regime's unifying political strategy.
Donald Trump obsessively threatens Barack Obama, the country's first black president, with charges of treason and then imprisonment or worse. (Traditionally, treason was punishable by death.) Trump was also a key voice in the racist "birther" conspiracy which claims that Obama was not a "native-born" U.S. citizen and therefore ineligible to be president.
As revealed by a series of lawsuits in the 1970s, Donald Trump and his father would not rent apartments to Blacks and Latinos.
Trump and the Republican Party have enacted public policies aimed at restricting the civil rights and human rights of Black and brown people.
Trump infamously described the white supremacists and racist hoodlums who rampaged through Charlottesville, Virginia, in August of 2017, killing Heather Heyer and injuring many others, as "very fine people." Not surprisingly, when the president Trump the "white power" video on Twitter he also described his supporters seen in the clip as "great people."
Ultimately, "white power!" is Donald Trump's value system and brand name. The same is true of today's Republican Party. But even in his moment of "white power" honesty, Trump cannot escape the lies.
Whiteness itself is a lie. There are no "white" people. As historians, social scientists and others have exhaustively documented, whiteness is a socially constructed identity that first came into existence in the 15th and 16th centuries, but was not fully solidified until the 18th and 19th centuries. Throughout its history, the definitions and boundaries of who counted as "white" have constantly shifted. Historian Nell Irvin Painter, author of "The History of White People," explores this in a new essay for NBC News:
White identity didn't just spring to life full-blown and unchanging, which is what most people assume. Whiteness is severely under theorized, leaving millions unaware of a history whose constant characteristic is change. Whiteness has changed over time, over place, and in the myriad situations of human ranking.
Let me say it again: Whiteness has a history whose meanings change. Neither scholars nor ordinary people have been able to agree upon the definition of white people — who is white and who is not — nor on the number of races that count as white. Disagreement reigns and has reigned since the modern scientific notion of human races was invented in the 18th-century Enlightenment. Nota bene: invented in the 18th century.
Before the Enlightenment, people classified themselves and others according to clan, tribe, kingdom, locale, religion and an infinity of identities dependent on what people thought was important about themselves and others. Before the Enlightenment, Europeans could see human difference, they could see who was tall, who short, who light-skinned, who dark, differences they explained according to religion, cultural habits, geography, wealth and climate, among the most usual characteristics, but not race.
In the most fundamental ways, white-on-black chattel slavery, European colonialism and imperialism helped to establish whiteness as a meaningful social identity in the West and other parts of the world.
White people are not victimized or otherwise discriminated against in America as a group because of their racial identity. In reality, white people as a group control every major social, political, economic and cultural institution in this country.
Trump's most recent endorsement of white supremacy through his sharing of a "white power" message on Twitter is not, contrary to what some have suggested, a preview of his 2020 re-election strategy. He campaigned on racism and white supremacy in 2016, and that lifted him to the presidency. Trump is simply continuing with the only strategy he understands, and the one he knows will appeal to his supporters. In all, white supremacy is the connective tissue of the Age of Trump.
The commentariat often describes Donald Trump's racism and white supremacy as an example of "dog whistle politics" or, alternatively, "air raid sirens" and "foghorns" directed at his base. That is true enough. But there is also a better description.
Trump may be best understood as a white supremacist flasher who leaps out of the bushes and opens his trench coat, exposing his ugliness to hapless passersby. Then he flees and denies it ever happened, relishing the thrill of what he just inflicted on the public.
But in a most unfortunate situation for America and the world, the deviant is not hiding behind a dumpster in a fetid alley. Instead he is in the Oval Office and has an audience of tens of millions who are titillated by his vile performances.
It seems as if it happened ages ago, but you may recall that at the beginning of the year the United States came very close to going to war with Iran. There had been a number of skirmishes over the previous months and Iran's proxies had been lobbing rocket attacks at bases in Iraq, none of which was particularly unusual. But after an American contractor named Nawres Waleed Hamid was killed in one of those attacks, the Trump administration decided to retaliate by assassinating Iran's most illustrious military leader, Gen. Qassem Soleimani. It was an extreme provocation and only the surprising forbearance of the Iranian leadership prevented the region from being plunged into war.
After some very tense days in both countries, the crisis passed and we immediately turned our attention to President Trump's impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate.
At the time, Trump was reported to have been so upset by the death of this American contractor that he simply couldn't let it pass, so he almost launched a major new war in the Middle East. It's interesting, then, that the New York Times reported this past weekend that Trump was told that Russian agents had put a bounty on American soldiers' lives in Afghanistan and didn't even bother to issue a warning to the Russian government.
Of course, Trump's record on empathy for the deaths of American troops, even soldiers in distant lands, isn't exactly stellar, so isn't entirely surprising. His excuse for the Soleimani assassination was an anomaly. But still, putting a bounty on Americans is an extremely provocative act; one would expect some kind of response.
According to the Times, and as later confirmed by the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, Trump was briefed on this in March, but made a great show of insisting that Russia be allowed back into the G7 throughout this past spring so he didn't seem overly concerned. Setting aside the pretext for the Soleimani assassination, he is typically very cynical about these things. (Recall that he excused Russian President Vladimir Putin's killing of journalists by saying, "Well, I think that our country does plenty of killing, too.")
Since the story broke, Trump and the White House have offered a number of responses. Trump tweeted that he knew nothing about this and was never briefed. He also mischaracterized the story and said, oddly, that "there have not been many attacks on us." Is the thinking here that even if it did happen, we didn't lose many people, so what's the big deal?
The president carried on with his weekend, playing golf with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., tweeting incessantly about the arrests of four people for defacing a monument, and otherwise acting entirely unconcerned about this story.
His completely unqualified and sycophantic minion John Ratcliffe, the new director of national intelligence, weighed in to say that Trump hadn't actually been briefed. The White House did the same. You'll note that Ratcliffe didn't deny that the story was accurate, which means the intelligence community really dropped the ball if they didn't bother to tell the president about it, especially while he was out there pushing hard for Russia to be allowed back into the G7.
Trump finally stepped up on Sunday night and suggested that the whole thing is a hoax, as we all knew he would.
Since Graham had spent the day on the golf course with Trump, this is a strange exchange. Did the subject not come up? But more importantly, in none of these tweets and statements does the president indicate even the slightest interest in finding out more about this. Nor does anyone seem even slightly interested in why the intelligence professionals wouldn't tell the president about such a thing, even if it were just a rumor. The story says they found piles of American money — and you know Trump would at least be interested in that.
We know for sure Trump doesn't read his daily briefings, and we know that he gets angry whenever someone brings up Russia in the truncated oral briefings he prefers. You may remember that he also wanted to personally hold peace talks with the Taliban at Camp David, planning a surprise summit that fell apart after the Taliban killed an American and 11 other people in a car bombing just before the meeting. (I wonder if that one was part of the bounty scheme?) Perhaps intelligence briefers didn't want to combine bad news by suggesting that Russia and the Taliban, Trump's supposed partners in peace, were actually sabotaging him.
It's also possible that, just as Trump was so consumed by his "big trade deal" with Chinese President Xi Jinping last January that he ignored all the alarm bells about the growing threat of a pandemic, this spring he was obsessed with planning his big G7 pageant hosted by the U.S. (but sadly, not at his Doral golf resort, as he had once proposed). He wanted to show off for Putin, get him back in the club and put on a big extravaganza just before his convention. He didn't want to get into a beef over something silly like a few dead American soldiers. How would that help him get re-elected?
Considering Trump's total lack of empathy for the 128,000-plus people who have died of COVID-19 in just four months, I think there's also a good chance that his aides told him about this, he only halfway listened and didn't much care. After all, it's obvious that Trump is more concerned about saving the statues of dead Confederate generals than he is about saving the lives of American citizens.
Little did we know, back in 2016, that when Trump blithely excused Putin's assassinations of his own people by saying "our country does plenty of killing, too," he saw that as part of his job description.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) gave a passionate floor speech in the fall of 2018 where she proclaimed that as a Supreme Court judge, Brett Kavanaugh would vote to uphold existing caselaw about a woman's right to choose. Suffice to say, Monday it became clear Kavanaugh would not be doing that.
"Interest groups have speculated that Judge Kavanaugh was selected to do the bidding of conservative ideologues, despite his record of judicial independence," Collins said on the Senate floor. "I asked the judge point-blank whether he had made any commitments or pledges to anyone at the White House, to the Federalist Society, or to any outside group on how he would decide cases. He unequivocally assured me he had not.
"Lisa Blatt, who has argued more cases before the Supreme Court than any other woman in history, testified: 'By any objective measure, Judge Kavanaugh is clearly qualified to serve on the Supreme Court.' 'His opinions are invariably thoughtful and fair….' Ms. Blatt, who clerked for and is an ardent admirer of Justice Ginsburg, and who is, in her own words, 'an unapologetic defender of a woman’s right to choose,' said that Judge Kavanaugh 'fit[s] in the mainstream of legal thought.' She also observed that 'Judge Kavanaugh is remarkably committed to promoting women in the legal profession.'”
It's clear that all of those who question Collins' support turned out to be correct, and Collins' years of experience in politics didn't prevent her from being duped.
One day after expressing concern that the Trump administration might have been aware of an offer by the Russians to pay a bounty for the murder of U.S. military members by terrorists, the South Carolina Republican was seen heading out for a round of golf with the embattled president.
Following the bombshell report from the New York Times, Graham tweeted, "Imperative Congress get to the bottom of recent media reports that Russian GRU units in Afghanistan have offered to pay the Taliban to kill American soldiers with the goal of pushing America out of the region."
Those concerns didn't seem to be enough for Graham to keep his distance from the president who was implicated in the report, with CNN's Kaitlan Collin's tweeting, "Dressed for golf, President Trump just left the White House with Sen. Lindsey Graham."
That, naturally, set off Twitter users wondering what the two would be talking about on the greens with one commenter labeling it "Treason on the links."
President Donald Trump was excoriated Sunday morning after approvingly retweeting a video of a supporter in Florida's Villages community shouting the racist hate slogan, "White Power."
"If it wasn't already clear, Trump is now openly campaigning as a white supremacist candidate," tweeted journalist Judd Legum.
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The president's early morning tweet highlighted right-wing counter protesters in the retirement community who faced off against anti-racist demonstrators. In the video, a man in a golf cart with a "Trump 2020" flag raises his fist and chants the slogan at protesters.
"Thank you to the great people of The Villages," the president tweeted. "The Radical Left Do Nothing Democrats will Fall in the Fall. Corrupt Joe is shot. See you soon!!!"
Critics immediately took Trump to task over the post.
"Again showing your true colors," saidThe Nation's Dave Zirin. "Bigot. Racist. Swine."
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"How many times does Trump have to explicitly say he’s a racist before his supporters believe him?" wondered journalist Jules Suzdaltsev.
272 uniformed officers with the New York Police Department have filed for retirement since the city began seeing protests in response to the May 25 murder of Black Minneapolis resident George Floyd by a white police officer. Countless other NYPD officers are planning to call in sick on July 4 to show their displeasure with the city’s police reform efforts following Floyd’s slaying.
The New York Post reports that the 272 retiring officers represent a 49 percent spike compared to the 183 who filed for retirement during the same period last year.
Explaining the mass retirement, Police Benevolent Association president Patrick Lynch recently said, “[NYPD officers] at their breaking point, whether they have 20 years on the job or only two. We are all asking the same question: ‘How can we keep doing our job in this environment?’ And that is exactly what the anti-cop crowd wants. If we have no cops because no one wants to be a cop, they will have achieved their ultimate goal.”
Other officers are planning a July 4 labor strike as retaliation for proposed cuts to the NYPD’s nearly $1 billion annual budget.
Two flyers being passed around by officers state, “NYPD cops will strike on July 4th to let the city have their independence without cops… The people and this city doesn’t honor us, why honor them?” The images provide instructions for a sickout, a form of labor protest that encourages workers to simultaneously call in sick to work, depriving a facility of its ability to operate.
Ed Mullins, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, called the mass retirements an “exodus” and said morale is “at the lowest levels I’ve seen in 38 years.”
“People have had enough and no longer feel it’s worth risking their personal well-being for a thankless position,” he said. “There is no leadership, no direction, no training for new policies. Department brass is paralyzed (and) too afraid to uphold their sworn oath in fear of losing their jobs. Sadly, the people of this city will soon experience what New York City was like in the 1980s.”
Multiple government watchdog groups have called for an investigation after a Mexican company received rapid approval on a multi-million-dollar mining contract in Colorado shortly after it expressed support for President Donald Trump's border wall.
Days after Trump's election in 2016, Enrique Escalante, the chief executive of Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua (GCC), told Reuters that the company was "ready to lend its services" to build the border wall which the president promised during his campaign.
"For the business we're in, Trump is a candidate that does favor the industry quite a bit," he told the outlet.
The announcement drewheadlines around the world as outlets seized on the idea of a Mexican firm helping to build the wall.
The company has seen business boom since Trump's inauguration with some help from the administration.
About a year after the announcement, the company's subsidiary, GCC Energy, received "quick approval" to expand operations in the King II coal mine near Hesperus, Colo., The Durango Herald reported. The company has operated the mine since 2007 and had asked the Bureau of Land Management for a 950-acre expansion.
But the request did not go through the normal process. The expansion was granted by the Interior Department in Washington rather than the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) state office in Denver.
Normally, a mining company which operates on BLM land in Colorado has to go through the Denver office and can then appeal to the Interior Board of Land Appeals, which is part of the Interior Department. But the GCC expansion was instead approved by Katharine MacGregor, then the department's deputy assistant secretary for land and minerals management, which meant the decision could not be appealed.
Watchdog groups cried foul over the move.
"Even by the Trump administration's standards, trading a coal mine for the border wall is a shocking level of corruption," Kyle Herrig, the president of the progressive watchdog group Accountable.US, told Salon. "Our public lands belong to all Americans — not to foreign corporations that pander to the president by pledging allegiance to his divisive and dangerous political agenda."
GCC Energy did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company told The Herald that it would have been forced to shut down if it did not receive approval to expand. Steven Hall, a spokesman for the BLM office in Denver, told the outlet that the decision "reflects the Trump administration's orders to expedite energy development" and "streamline decision-making processes."
The mine had long drawn complaints from residents, who cited "impacts on health, noise, traffic and water safety," according to The Herald. The complaints prompted numerous public comments calling for the BLM to conduct an environmental impact analysis before approving the expansion. BLM later said the analysis was unnecessary, The Herald reported.
A BLM spokesman told Salon that the agency did complete an environmental assessment and found no significant impact.
"The premise of this story is completely ridiculous. The Bureau of Land Management's review of the King II Mine in Colorado followed the BLM's longstanding and lawful protocols, including multiple opportunities for public involvement," the agency said in a statement to Salon. "Further, this is only the first step before mining on this tract can occur – the operator still must obtain additional permits under [Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act], and the [Assistant Secretary for Lands and Minerals] still must approve a mining plan."
Activists cast doubt upon the agency's argument.
"This is yet another example of the Trump administration tripping over itself to grant favors to the mining industry. It's also symptomatic of President Trump's refusal to nominate a director of the Bureau of Land Management, pushing decisions all the way to Washington rather than letting them be made on the ground in the states that are most affected by them," Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities, a nonpartisan conservation and advocacy group, told Salon.
"Whether or not the offer to help build the border wall had any impact on the rushed mine expansion is almost beside the point," he added. "This administration will always put profits over people, risking public health and our public lands to extract every bit of coal, oil and gas available."
The Trump administration's push to expedite energy projects and bypass environmental reviews is well-reported. But critics said the decision to bypass the normal process to approve the mine expansion was "an attempt to silence opponents and deny people an opportunity to have their voices heard," The Herald reported at the time.
Last year, Casey Hammond, the current acting assistant secretary for land and minerals management, announced that the company was approved to expand the mine by another 2,462 acres, which is expected to extend the life of the mine for at least another two decades.
Along with support from within the administration, the company also paid tens of thousands to lobby officials to the law firm WilmerHale, which has extensive ties to the Trump administration and the president's family.
WilmerHale "represents at least two of President Donald Trump's family members who also are White House officials — his daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law, Jared Kushner — as well as former campaign chairman Paul Manafort," Politico reported in 2017.
Last year, Trump quietly appointed Gail Ennis, who previously earned $2 million per year at WilmerHale and donated thousands to Trump's campaign, to oversee the Interior Department's Office of the Inspector General. Staffers at the office reported that they were silenced during Ennis' brief tenure at the agency. Ennis currently serves as the inspector general at the Social Security Administration.
The Trump administration also appointed former WilmerHale attorney Jeffrey Kessler as the assistant secretary for enforcement and compliance at the Commerce Department.
Donald K. Sherman, the deputy director of the Washington-based watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told Salon that the Interior Department's inspector general should "investigate the GCC deal immediately."
"What we see is that patronage and cronyism are core values of the Trump administration, especially when they involve the president's vanity project at the Southern border," he said. "This situation reeks of favoritism, and I think the administration's record of self-dealing doesn't afford them the benefit of the doubt. This needs to be looked into."
The questions over GCC's business boom after supporting Trump's border wall come after a small scandal-plagued North Dakota company landed a $1.28 billion border wall contract — the largest yet — after its chief executive repeatedly appeared on Fox News in an effort to win over the president.
The Interior Department, run by former lobbyist David Bernhardt, has also been accused of favoritism, ethics violations and blocking scientific reports.
An ethics complaint filed by the Campaign Legal Center, a government watchdog group, described a "disturbing pattern of misconduct" by numerous top officials at the department, which it said was filled with former lobbyists that are cozy with their previous employers.
"The inspector general should investigate the officials involved in the abnormal approval of the mining company's expansion and hold them accountable if their actions fit the pattern of disregard for ethical norms demonstrated across the Department of Interior since 2017," Kedric Payne, the group's general counsel and director of ethics, told Salon.
This week, a group of Whole Foods workers in Cambridge, Massachusetts, walked out after being told they couldn't wear Black Lives Matter masks because they weren't part of "the company dress code."
Prior to the incident, wearing masks with other symbols or logos, including ones that featured the New England Patriots, were reportedly acceptable.
This is according to a report in the Boston Globe, which details how Whole Foods worker Savannah Kinzer and a few of her colleagues wore BLM-themed masks on Wednesday. A manager told them they either had to remove the masks or go home. Seven of them walked out. On Thursday, Kinzer showed up and passed out more masks, but they were met with the same fate. Dozens of workers were sent home again.
Visitors to the Whole Foods Market website are greeted with a prominent message that reads: "We support the Black community and meaningful change in the world." "Racism has no place here," the site's headline states.
The story from Boston is merely one of many reports of many of Whole Foods workers being sent home for wearing masks featuring the phrase or iconography of "Black Lives Matter." There are similar reports from workers at Whole Foods stores in New Hampshire and Seattle, Washington. In Philadelphia, protesters protested in front of one Whole Foods after a similar incident occurred.
In a statement to Salon, a Whole Foods Market spokesperson said:
In order to operate in a customer-focused environment, all Team Members must comply with our longstanding company dress code, which prohibits clothing with visible slogans, messages, logos or advertising that are not company-related. Team Members with face masks that do not comply with dress code are always offered new face masks. Team Members are unable to work until the comply with dress code.
Whole Foods is one of several companies that pays lip service to the civil rights movement publicly while taking action against workers donning Black Lives Matter apparel or protesting.
Earlier this month, "Boycott Starbucks" trended on Twitter after BuzzFeed published a report on how the coffee retailer stated its employees were also prohibited from wearing BLM attire because of the company's "dress code policy."
"My skin color incites violence at Starbucks. Should I not come to work?" Calvin Bensen, a 22-year-old barista, told BuzzFeed News. "It is silencing and Starbucks is complicit. Now more than ever, Starbucks needs to stand with us."
After the backlash, Starbucks announced it would allow employees to wear BLM attire. The company also announced it would provide 250,000 Starbucks-branded Black Lives Matter shirts for baristas and other employees.
"Until these arrive, we've heard you want to show your support, so just be you," the company stated in a letter. "Wear your BLM pin or t-shirt. We are so proud of your passionate support of our common humanity."
More recently, as Salon previously reported, the Trader Joe's grocery store in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood put signs up stating that they had closed "indefinitely" after dozens of the store's clerks had, that very week, asked permission to take time off to attend Black Lives Matter protests. Workers told Salon their manager appeared to be OK with the request at the time.
"We were told that our participation would be kind of an excused absence, and we wouldn't be punished or anything for going to the protest — and like I said, myself and others were directly approached by management," Trader Joe's Crew Member Erin Or told Salon. "It was like this idea that 'this is okay, we want you to go, that this is something you should do, and it's good to support this movement.'"
Since the store closure, employees have gathered nearly 25,000 signatures to reopen the store, which is said to be happening on July 1st. The company's spokesperson denies that the surprise closure was retaliatory or had anything to do with the employees' approved time off to attend a march.
Yet the store's employees believe the company is not telling the truth and that the inexplicable closure was suspect.
"There's a gross lack of transparency between management and crew that has caused me unnecessary anxiety which prevents me from performing my job to the best of my abilities," Or said at a Thursday press conference this week. She added that she has been singled out and faced consequences that her white coworkers have not. "Because of the lack of communication and inconsistent disciplinary policy, I feel that any error or miscommunication at work can lead to me losing my job."
Indeed, transparency around job expectations and disciplinary processes are one of the five demands workers at the store are asking for in writing.
These stories speak to another social shift: Service workers and grocery clerks appear to have more political capital than they did pre-pandemic, which has driven more of them to publicly speak out about corporate hypocrisy and inadequate conditions. In the case of corporations "supporting" Black Lives Matter, many observers believe cases such as Whole Foods' epitomize performative allyship.
With pandemic cases on the rise and more protests slated in Washington D.C. over police brutality against African-Americans, Donald Trump announced on Friday afternoon that he was forgoing his weekend trip to a New Jersey golf course because he was sticking close to the White House in the interest of maintaining "LAW & ORDER."
According to the president on Friday, "I was going to go to Bedminster, New Jersey, this weekend, but wanted to stay in Washington, D.C. to make sure LAW & ORDER is enforced. The arsonists, anarchists, looters, and agitators have been largely stopped ... I am doing what is necessary to keep our communities safe — and these people will be brought to Justice!"
However, as CBS News White House Correspondent Mark Knoller tweeted, that was then and this is now and the president headed out to the links on Saturday at a course in Virginia where the weather appeared to be more conducive for a round of golf.
"Pres Trump now at his Sterling, VA golf club where it’s partly cloudy and 80°, heading to 92°. He canceled his weekend at his NJ golf club where rain is in the forecast. By my count, it’s the president’s 80th time at his Virginia club," he tweeted as commenters noted that Trump likely had a change of heart about New Jersey due to weather considerations.
