Tag: Trump re-election

Pence: Trump sees Florida, Minnesota, Arizona as keys to 270

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President Trump’s campaign is focused on winning in Florida and Arizona to create a path to 270 electoral votes and four more years in office, Vice President Pence told The Hill in an exclusive interview aboard Air Force Two.

Pence, in the midst of a cross-country trip aimed at bolstering Trump and the Senate GOP ahead of Election Day, said those two states and Minnesota, which hasn’t voted for a GOP presidential candidate since 1972, are all top Trump targets.

“Florida’s of great importance. Arizona’s of great importance. We’re going to make sure we continue to campaign in those states,” Pence told The Hill when asked about “must-win” states for Trump. Continue reading.

With bad coronavirus news at home, Trump points misleadingly to rising cases abroad

NOTE: This article is being provided free of charge by The Washington Post.

Washington Post logoThe Debrief: An occasional series offering a reporter’s insights

With coronavirus cases nearing 5 million in the United States and average daily deaths topping 1,000, the United States is the hottest hot spot in the ongoing global pandemic — a ranking that wasn’t exactly what President Trump had in mind with his “America First” doctrine.

You wouldn’t know it, however, to hear the president describe the U.S. performance in handling the virus; he called it “an amazing job, a great job” on Monday, and recited a list of other countries experiencing a rebound in infections.

In recent days, Trump has increasingly pointed to the experiences of other countries in an attempt to dilute the bad news at home and justify the largely hands-off federal response, which has included no national mandates or lockdowns. Continue reading.

Tensions flare as GOP’s Biden probe ramps up

The Hill logoTensions are ramping up over a GOP probe into the Obama administration that focuses, in part, on Hunter Biden, the son of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. 

Months into the controversial Senate Republican investigation, frustration appears to be boiling over as both sides step up their attacks in the growing shadow of the November elections.

Democrats, the Biden campaign and their outside group allies are increasingly going public with their concerns over the investigation, which they worry could spread Russian disinformation. They are targeting Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who has been spearheading the effort.  Continue reading.

Ivanka Trump in Bloomington as Native American crime office opens; dozens protest

Ivanka Trump and Interior Secretary David Bernhardt visited the Twin Cities on Monday to open an office dedicated to investigating cold cases involving missing and murdered Indigenous peoples.

The new office in Bloomington is part of the Operation Lady Justice Task Force created via executive order by President Donald Trump in November to address violence against Native Americans, particularly women and girls, which advocates say are often overlooked by law enforcement across the country. The task force, co-chaired by Bernhardt and U.S. Attorney General William Barr, aims to develop protocols for law enforcement to respond to missing and slain Native American persons cases and to improve data and information collection.

“Since his earliest days in office, President Trump has fought for the forgotten men and women of this country,” Ivanka Trump said. “Today is another fulfillment of that promise as this new office will work to ensure that the challenges American Indians and Alaskan Natives face do not go unseen or unresolved.” Continue reading

Trump keeps boasting about passing a cognitive test — but it doesn’t mean what he thinks it does

Washington Post logoAs President Trump and his team began attacking former vice president Joe Biden’s mental and physical fitness this summer, Trump began pondering his own cognitive abilities.

As part of his annual physical two years earlier, the president had taken the Montreal Cognitive Assessment — a 10-minute test designed to detect mild cognitive impairment such as the onset of dementia — and he believed he could weaponize his performance against Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

During a private campaign meeting in the Cabinet Room in early June, Trump brought up the test unprompted. In an extended riff, he talked about how well he had done — boasting that he’d been able to remember five different words, in order — and suggested challenging Biden to take the assessment, saying he was certain the former vice president would not fare as well. Continue reading.

Trump downplays virus, disputes bad polls in testy interview with Fox’s Wallace

The Hill logoPresident Trump in a testy interview with Fox News’s Chris Wallace downplayed recent surges in coronavirus cases, defended his stance on Confederate-named bases and sought to attack his fall opponent, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. 

Trump disputed polls showing him trailing Biden, eviscerating his Democratic opponent as “not competent to be president” and controlled by the “radical” progressive wing of the party.

He also complained about his inability to hold rallies in some areas of the country due to the coronavirus, accusing “Democrat-run states” of not allowing him to do so. Continue reading.

Fox News host laughs at Trump’s botched attempt to fact-check claims about Joe Biden

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump was not prepared for an interview with Fox News host Chris Wallace, one of the few people on the network still willing to challenge his lies.

In a new clip released Friday from a forthcoming interview, Wallace contradicted Trump’s claim that his 2020 opponent Joe Biden wants to defund and abolish the police.

“They want to defund the police, and Biden wants to defund the police,” Trump said. Continue reading.

New York Times shreds Trump campaign lawsuit over Russia op-ed

Washington Post logoPresident Trump’s hypocrisy accompanies him everywhere, from the Oval Office to his residences to his Twitter account and, notably, to the courthouse. Over the years, Trump has relied on the protections of the First Amendment while routinely smearing political opponents and critics in the media. Recently, his presidential campaign filed a volley of defamation actions complaining about his treatment by news organizations. Targets include The Washington Post, the New York Times and CNN.

One of those outlets just needled Trump over his legal opportunism.

The Times filed a motion Thursday to dismiss a complaint the Trump campaign filed in February over an opinion piece the newspaper published in 2019 by former executive editor Max Frankel. Coming just after Attorney General William P. Barr’s faulty summary of the Mueller report, Frankel argued that while there may not have been criminal cooperation/collusion/conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians, there was a more ambient “overarching deal.” Continue reading.