Tag: Trump unfit to be president

Two dozen former Republican lawmakers come out against Trump on first day of GOP convention

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Two dozen former Republican lawmakers on Monday came out to endorse Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on the first day of the 2020 Republican National Convention.

Fox News reports that the list of former GOP lawmakers is headlined by Jeff Flake, the former Arizona senator who frequently clashed with the president before retiring in 2018.

The other Republicans endorsing Biden are former Sens. John Warner of Virginia, Gordon Humphrey of New Hampshire, and former Reps. Steve Bartlett of Texas, Bill Clinger of Pennsylvania, Tom Coleman of Missouri, Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, Charles Djou of Hawaii, Mickey Edwards of Oklahoma, Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland, Jim Greenwood of Pennsylvania, Bob Inglis of South Carolina, Jim Kolbe of Arizona, Steve Kuykendall of California, Ray LaHood of Illinois, Jim Leach of Iowa, Connie Morella of Maryland, Mike Parker of Mississippi, Jack Quinn of New York, Claudine Schneider of Rhode Island, Chris Shays of Connecticut, Peter Smith of Vermont, Alan Steelman of Texas, Bill Whitehurst of Virginia, Dick Zimmer of New Jersey, and Jim Walsh of New York. View the post here.

The Memo: Michelle Obama shines, scorching Trump

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It was Michelle Obama’s night — again.

The former first lady was the standout speaker, by some distance, on the first night of the Democratic National Convention Monday.

Obama took the fight directly to President Trump in a pre-taped but emotive speech. She accused him of being “clearly in over his head” and being “the wrong president for our country.”  Continue reading.

Mary Trump: The president ‘understands he is not the person he pretends to be’

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This is the fifth and final installment of DCReport’s “Inside the Mind of Donald J. Trump: The World’s Most Dangerous Man.” You can read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

Lee tells DCReport: It feels as if the contributors to “The Dangerous Case” have come full circle with Mary Trump’s book: Our independent public health analysis at the beginning of the presidency meets her intimate household observations at the end of this term, in a seamless expert consensus. But it was dismay at the lack of focus on her expertise that got me started. This was the impetus of our DCReport series, “Inside the Mind of Donald J. Trump.”

Mary Trump is the antithesis of her uncle in almost every respect. To the extent that he is a superficial con man, she is deeply authentic and brave in examining herself. To the degree that he inflates himself to an unreal demigod status at the slightest granting of power, she remains humble and grounded, no matter her sudden catapult as a towering figure in the literary world and perhaps in the history of nations (for what other leader’s outspoken family member was also a psychological expert?). Most exceptionally, she is willing to step up to do what is right, in spite of her natural inclinations.

Continue reading “Mary Trump: The president ‘understands he is not the person he pretends to be’”

Trump was content to let people suffer from COVID-19 in blue states until infections soared among ‘our people’ in Republican states: report

AlterNet logoLast week — with the number of new coronavirus infections surging in many Sun Belt states — reporters were quick to report a change in tone from President Donald Trump, who resumed his coronavirus press briefings, encouraged mask wearing (something he mocked in the past) and even canceled the in-person part of the Republican National Convention that had been planned for Jacksonville, Florida. Trump’s plummeting poll numbers have often been cited as a key reason for his change in tone, but here’s another one: many of the Sun Belt surges are occurring in either red states such as Texas and Georgia or swing states with Republican governors (Florida and Arizona, for example). And Trump is expressing a level of concern that he wasn’t expressing when the pandemic was killing so many Americans in blue states and blue cities.

Ashley Parker and Philip Rucker, in a July 27 article for the Washington Post, examine the toll that Trump’s response to the pandemic has been taking on his reelection campaign. And the article discusses the abundance of dangerous COVID-19 increases in states with a lot of Trump supporters.

“In the past couple of weeks,” Parker and Rucker report, “senior advisers began presenting Trump with maps and data showing spikes in coronavirus cases among ‘our people’ in Republican states, a senior administration official said. They also shared projections predicting that virus surges could soon hit politically important states in the Midwest — including Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, the official said. This new approach seemed to resonate, as he hewed closely to pre-scripted remarks in a trio of coronavirus briefings last week.” Continue reading.

Mary Trump has a message for the president: ‘Resign’

The president’s niece claimed in an ABC News interview that her uncle is “utterly incapable of leading this country, and it’s dangerous to allow him to do so.”

WASHINGTON — Mary Trump says that if she were in the Oval Office today, she would call on President Donald Trump, her uncle, to resign from office.

That’s a much different message than the one she relayed to him in April 2017 when she visited the White House.

In an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos to promote her new tell-all book about Trump, Mary Trump said that when she was in the Oval Office four months into her uncle’s presidency, she told him, “Don’t let them get you down.” Continue reading.

75-year-old man shoved by Buffalo police responds to Trump tweet: ‘Black Lives Matter’

The Hill logoMartin Gugino, the 75-year-old man police shoved to the ground during a recent protest in Buffalo, N.Y., on Tuesday said “Black Lives Matter” when pressed for comment after President Trump promoted a baseless conspiracy theory about him on Twitter.

In a tweet citing right-wing One America News Network on Monday morning, Trump wrote, “Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment.”

“I watched, he fell harder than was pushed,” he added. “Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?” Continue reading.

Protesters’ breach of temporary fences near White House complex prompted Secret Service to move Trump to secure bunker

Washington Post logoPresident Trump was rushed to a secure bunker in the White House on Friday evening after a group of protesters hopped over temporary barricades set up near the Treasury Department grounds, according to arrest records and people familiar with the incident.

The security move came after multiple people crossed over fences that had been erected to create a larger barrier around the White House complex around 7 p.m.

Secret Service officers detained at least four protesters, who were charged with unlawful entry at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, according to arrest records. The incident took place near the border between the White House lawn and Treasury Department, about 350 feet from the East Wing, and close to a Treasury fence line that has been at the center of past security failures. Continue reading.

Trump is slipping — and his usual allies are turning into critics

AlterNet logoThe editorial board of the Trump-supporting Washington Examiner has condemned the president’s attacks on Joe Scarborough, arguing that “observers might even someday look back at this incident as the instant when things began to unravel.” I laughed derisively when I read that, but it’s probably true that there will be people who say this. In itself, the Scarborough incident is nothing new or particularly noteworthy. Accusing a former Republican congressman and impeachment manager at Bill Clinton’s Senate trial of murder is not categorically different from accusing Ted Cruz’s father of involvement in the assassination of a president. Making baseless accusations against his critics is on page one of Trump’s playbook. I don’t think there’s anything game-changing about this story at all, but it coincides in time with a major downturn in the president’s fortunes. It’s quite possible that in retrospect, the two things will look causally related.

For one thing, the Washington Examiner is not alone. The New York Post and the Wall Street Journal have also published editorials blasting Trump over his actions with Scarborough. Why these staunchly pro-Trump editorial boards have chosen this incident as their bridge-too-far is anybody’s guess, but they’ve both put their foot down. Everywhere we look, there are surprising breaks with the president. On Tuesday night, Sean Hannity of Fox News took the extraordinary step of chastising his listeners for following Trump’s example and not wearing masks or observing social distancing guidelines: “If you can’t social distance, please wear the mask. Do it for your mom, your dad, your grandma, your grandpa.” Also, on Tuesday, Twitter humiliated it’s most valuable patron by adding a disclaimer to a Trump tweet explaining his claims about vote-by-mail are untrue.

Trump doubles down on conspiracy theory about woman’s death, ignoring grieving widower’s plea for peace

Washington Post logoPresident Trump and the White House on Tuesday continued to promote a baseless conspiracy theory about a woman’s 2001 death, ignoring her grieving widower’s plea for peace and putting renewed pressure on social media companies about the president’s toxic use of their platforms.

Twitter issued a public apology to the family of Lori Klausutis, whose death Trump has repeatedly weaponized to attack ­MSNBC host Joe Scarborough. But the social media company rejected a request from her widower, Timothy J. Klausutis, to delete Trump’s conspiracy-laden tweetsaccusing Scarborough of a debunked murder plot, saying his wife “deserves better.”

“We are deeply sorry about the pain these statements, and the attention they are drawing, are causing the family,” Twitter said in a statement Tuesday. “We’ve been working to expand existing product features and policies so we can more effectively address things like this going forward, and we hope to have those ­changes in place shortly.” Continue reading.