Yesterday, Dakinikat wrote about Trump cancelling a bunch of interviews and appearances as well as his bizarre behavior when he has kept to his schedule.
This story is getting even more attention today. It’s interesting, because Trump and his goons claimed for months that Joe Biden was getting senile, and the media and Democrats finally got Biden to step down in favor of Kamala Harris.
Right now, I’m sure the Trump campaign is wishing they were running against Biden instead of the very energetic and enthusiastic Harris. Trump is 78–the oldest man ever to run for president, and he is pooped. You have to wonder if he’ll make it to the finish line.
Could Donald Trump — the man who memorably branded Jeb Bush “low energy,” claimed Hillary Clinton lacked the “stamina” to be president, and spent much of the current race hounding “Sleepy Joe” — finally have tuckered himself out?
Trump has canceled several recent interviews, and Politico Playbook reported on Friday that a campaign adviser explained to one spurned outlet that the 78-year-old candidate was simply too tired to chat at the moment:
In a conversation earlier this week, when describing why an interview hadn’t come together just yet, a Trump adviser told The Shade Room producers that Trump was “exhausted and refusing [some] interviews but that could change” at any time, according to two people familiar with the conversations.
The Trump campaign has already denied this. Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt called the story “unequivocally false,” then the official Trump War Room campaign account tried to discredit Playbook co-author Eugene Daniels, suggesting that displaying his Beyoncé fandom at a Pride event proves he’s a bad journalist….
It’s easy to see why the campaign would deny this. There are two possible explanations for an adviser offering up the “exhaustion” excuse, and neither is flattering for Trump.
First, he may actually be incredibly tired. Trump is old and seems to have poor sleep habits, as evidenced by him regularly posting to Truth Social after midnight and falling asleep repeatedly in his criminal trial this past spring. A presidential campaign is a grueling ordeal for anyone, and Trump has seemed especially “low energy” at some recent events, from last weekend’s town hall turned listening party to Tuesday night’s rally in Atlanta, where the “strangely muted” former president remarked, “I’ve been doing this for 42 days straight without a rest” [….]
But it’s also possible that “exhausted” was just an excuse the adviser came up with on the fly for why the campaign is calling off interviews where they think Trump is more likely to go off the rails. As Playbook noted, the canceled interviews were all with “neutral media outlets”; in recent weeks he’s backed out of sit-downs with 60 Minutes, CNBC’s Squawk Box, and NBC in Philadelphia. Trump has been doing lots of interviews recently, appearing on various “bro podcasts” and Fox News programs. The one challenging interview he did this week, with Bloomberg editor-in-chief John Micklethwait, turned into a bit of a fiasco, and Trump later claimed he “got hoodwinked to go on that.”
The campaign has good reason to limit Trump to lower-stakes and more sycophantic interviews. The New York Timesreported on Friday that the Trump team is worried that rambling and erratic behavior is hurting him:
[Some Trump advisers] worry that Mr. Trump’s impetuousness and scattershot style on the campaign trail needlessly risk victory in battleground states where the margin for error is increasingly narrow.
Maybe. I think he’s really exhausted. He’s an old man, and his campaign isn’t going well. His audiences are smaller and they aren’t as enthusiastic as they used to be–maybe because when he speaks, he makes no sense.
Caputo writes that Trump doesn’t sleep when he’s in his private plane, and he doesn’t like anyone else to sleep either–so they are all exhausted.
In the 18 days since the beginning of October, Trump has held at least 28 in-person public events in 25 cities spread across 12 states on both coasts, according to a review of his public schedule and press accounts. And because Trump also likes to sleep in his own bed (usually in Mar-a-Lago), the campaign often flies in and out in a day and seldom spends 48 hours away from Florida. That adds extra sleepless hours on the campaign trail. So too does Trump’s penchant for calling confidants or posting on Truth Social well after midnight.
Les Cinq Chats, Orovida Camille Pissaro
But the high-octane, no-sleep-till-Election-Day pace has come at a cost for the 78-year-old Trump.
In the past week, he’s sounded and looked more tired on the campaign trail. In a bizarre scene Monday, he cut a town hall short after two attendees had medical emergencies that interrupted the event, ordering up music and dancing on stage for 39 minutes. On Friday night, after his microphone stopped working at a rally in Detroit, Trump paced the stage, grimacing and shaking his head for nearly 19 minutes in obvious irritation. Meanwhile, on Friday morning, Politico reported he canceled an interview with the podcast The Shade Room because he was “exhausted,” which his campaign denied.
The truth, according to those who have spoken with and know Trump, is that the exhaustion is real. But it’s also explainable, given the long hours that would wear down anyone—and have worn down many on staff. One’s just not allowed to acknowledge it, let alone complain about it, during a frantic finish to a high-stakes campaign….
Inside Trump world, acknowledging that the campaign’s most punishing leg may, indeed, be taking a toll on the elderly ex-president is verboten. It’s not just that Trump personally recoils at the perception that he’s anything but a horse, it’s that the workaholic, high-energy brand is central to his political appeal.
It’s why aides responded so caustically this past week, as Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign drilled down on the he’s-exhausted attack line in an effort to frame him as weak and unstable. The vice president has launched a new phase of her campaign questioning Trump’s fitness for the campaign trail and accusing him of “hiding.”
“I’ve been hearing reports that his team . . . says he’s suffering from ‘exhaustion,’ and that’s apparently the excuse for why he isn’t doing interviews,” Harris told reporters in Grand Rapids, Michigan on Friday as she chided him for not debating her or participating in a CNN town hall. “We really do need to ask: If he’s exhausted being on the campaign trail, is he fit to do the job
Former President Donald Trump has pulled out of a string of campaign events and interviews over the last two months, often leaving his hosts frustrated after being promised a visit by the GOP presidential candidate.
The staff of The Shade Room, an entertainment site with wide reach among young and Black audiences, shortly after wrapping an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris last week were left feeling that their “feet were being dragged in the Trump campaign,” according to two sources who spoke to Politico Playbook. When they called to reschedule, a campaign official reportedly gave them a concise explanation: the former president was “exhausted.”
By Kaoru Yamada
Because of this, the official continued, Trump was “refusing [some] interviews but that could change” at any time, according to the two people familiar with the conversations. Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt pushed back against the report, telling Playbook that Trump’s alleged exhaustion is “unequivocally false” and that he “has never backed down from an interview.”
She did not provide an explanation, however, for why Trump has been flaking despite his constant criticism of Harris for not making enough media appearances. While Trump did show up to some interviews, most of them have been with friendly hosts like right-wing radio host Laura Ingraham and networks such as Fox News.
Former president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump’s microphone cut out during a campaign stop in Michigan on Friday night, leaving him fuming on stage in silence for a lengthy 17 minutes.
“To me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary—it‘s not ‘love,’ it‘s not ‘respect,’“ Trump said shortly into his speech, at which point his microphone died. Trump’s most beautiful word is unlikely to be “audio,” or “technician”.
If his comments earlier in the day are any indication, however, he was likely primed to say that the “most beautiful word” is actually “tariff.”
In any event, Trump took the tech fail in his stride—literally, as he meandered around the stage in silence while the crowd gave periodic chants of approval.
After obtaining a working mic, Trump said he would refuse to pay whoever was responsible for either providing or setting up the equipment.
I wonder if Trump is hiring incompetent people because he doesn’t pay his bills and no one wants to work for him.
The Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, an annual Catholic charity event in New York City, has traditionally been a place for the two major party presidential nominees to throw lighthearted barbs at each other, with other public figures also catching strays. This year, Vice President Kamala Harris left a recorded greeting so that she could attend a campaign event in Wisconsin, leaving former President Donald Trump to deliver a profanity-laden speech on his own to the white-tie audience Thursday evening.
Trump, complaining about his legal troubles and tossing around transphobic cracks, lashed out at Harris (“I can’t stand her”), President Joe Biden (“President Biden couldn’t be here tonight. The DNC made sure of that”), former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (“Crazy Nancy”) and others in remarks that appeared to resemble grievance more than jest. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who was seated next to the podium, also received fire, though Trump punctuated this part of the routine with seemingly half-hearted assurances that the New York senator was “a good man.”
Trump might have encapsulated his performance in one sentence during his speech. “I don’t give a s**t if this is comedy or not,” he declared, before calling former New York City mayor Bill de Blasio a “terrible mayor” who did a “horrible job — that’s not comedy, by the way, that’s a fact.” He did warn the attendees of what was to come at the beginning of the speech, too. “I’m supposed to tell a few self-deprecating jokes,” he told them. “So here it goes… nope. I’ve got nothing. I’ve got nothing!”
“I guess I just do not see the point in taking shots at myself when other people have been shooting at me for a long time,” he added.
Many of Trump’s jokes relied on the old lines of attack he has used on the campaign trail, including Harris’ laugh.
“But I must say, I was shocked when I heard that Kamala was skipping the Al Smith dinner,” he said. “I’d really hoped that she would come, because we can’t get enough of hearing her beautiful laugh. She laughs like crazy. We would recognize it anyplace in this room.”
At times, Trump sought to take on two rivals at once. “We have someone in the White House who can barely talk, barely put together two coherent sentences, who seems to have mental faculties of a child, is a person that has no intelligence whatsoever — but enough about Kamala Harris,” he said, clearly insinuating that those same qualities applied to Biden as well.
Trump also took shots at the transgender community, suggesting that if Harris lost, Schumer could still become the first woman president given “how woke” the Democratic Party has become. Schumer forced an uncomfortable smile as Trump mocked him for looking so “glum,” the second time in a fake-baby voice and accompanied by a back-rub.
For the apotheosis of his entire “poisoning of the blood” campaign, Donald Trump has planned a spectacular extravaganza in Madison Square Garden on 27 October, a week before the election. When JD Vance sings Trump’s fulsome praises to introduce him, his ominous tribute will not inspire comparison to the night in the Garden of 19 May 1962, when Marilyn Monroe sang Happy Birthday, Mr President to John F Kennedy.
By Mary Fedden
Trump’s climactic rally will not be in the spirit of any past presidential event ever held there. His gathering for the great racist replacement theory will be the culmination of his spiraling descent since the Charlottesville rally in 2017 when neo-Nazis chanted, “Jews will not replace us.” “Fine people on both sides,” Trump said then. Now, at his night at the Garden, Trump will revive the memory of the infamous American Nazi mass rally held there on 20 February 1939 through his reflected Hitlerian rhetoric.
In the last week, Trump has pledged to deploy the military against “the enemy within”, domestic opponents he claims are worse than foreign adversaries – those Hitler called “Feind des Volkes”, or “enemy of the people”. Trump has threatened to destroy CBS, ABC and the New York Times. About ABC, after it conducted the debate in which he performed disastrously, he called to “take away their license”. After Kamala Harris’s 60 Minutes interview, having refused his own, he tweeted on 10 October: “TAKE AWAY THE CBS LICENSE.” About the Times, he said on 9 October: “Wait until you see what I’m going to do with them.” He has singled out by name journalists for the Times and the New Yorker as “FAKE OBAMA LOVING ‘JOURNALISTS”. At every rally he denounces the “fake news”, a drumbeat for years, echoing Hitler’s pejorative slur, “die Lügenpresse” – “the lying press”.
Trump traveled on 11 October to Aurora, Colorado, where he claimed a Venezuelan gang had seized control, “scum” and “animals” who have “invaded and conquered” and “infected” the town, a description dismissed as false by its Republican mayor. “We have to clean out our country,” said Trump. His language represented the Nazi idea of “Rassenhygiene” – “race cleansing” that required purification, not an academic interest in genetics but a program of eugenics for designating inferior races to be isolated or eliminated.
As Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, “A people that fails to preserve the purity of its racial blood thereby destroys the unity of the soul of the nation in all its manifestations. A disintegrated national character is the inevitable consequence of a process of disintegration in the blood.”
The former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, retired general Mark Milley, according to Bob Woodward in his new book War, told the veteran journalist: “No one has ever been as dangerous to this country as Donald Trump. Now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is the most dangerous person to this country.” Trump had stated that for Milley’s communication with his counterparts in China on January 6 to reassure them that the US military was stable, he deserved “DEATH” – to be executed.
At least one person in the media is taking Trump’s fascism seriously. But what about the voters? There have been so many reports of voters complaining about the economy and demanding specific policy information from Harris, but not from Trump. Do these low information voters have a clue about what Trump is threatening to do to our country? I don’t think so.
My insomnia is worse than ever these days. I don’t know how I’m going to survive until November 5. I was up last night until around 5AM and then I slept until 9 or so. I’m hoping I can stop worrying for awhile today and take a nap. Sending my love to anyone who reads this post and to all the wonderful people who have visited this blog over the years.
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There are only 19 days to go until November 5. I believe that Kamala Harris will win, but I was also sure Hillary Clinton would win in 2016.
Both Harris and Trump have been holding rallies and giving interviews. She speaks in complete sentences and discusses her policies in a coherent fashion. He can’t complete a sentence, mispronounces words, rambles nonsensically, and has no understanding of his own policies. And, of course, he is a pathological liar.
Harris is a former prosecutor who is committed to the rule of law. Trump is a convicted felon out on bail, with multiple indictments hanging over his head. How can the race be close?
One positive development is that Trump’s dementia and his violent rhetoric and threats are getting more attention in the media. He and his advisers may well live to regret driving Joe Biden out of the race.
I feel as if my life is on hold until I know who will win this election. If Harris wins, my life will continue on its current track. If Trump wins, everything will change–and not in a good way. In addition, the chaos we have all lived through in the past 9 years will continue and most likely get much worse. That’s where things stand right now, as I see it.
State of the Race
In the latest national polls, Harris leads by a few points.
In the presidential contest, Vice President Kamala Harris leads former President Donald Trump by five points among likely voters, including those who are undecided yet leaning toward a candidate. The race gets closer, however, among registered voters nationally. Here, three points separate the two candidates.
Harris (52%) leads Trump (47%) among likely voters nationally, including those who are undecided yet leaning toward a candidate. Earlier this month, two points separated Harris (50%) and Trump (48%) among likely voters.
The contest is tighter among registered voters. Among the general electorate, Harris receives 51% to 48% for Trump. In early October, the same margin separated Harris (50%) and Trump (47%) among the broader electorate.
Trump (54%) leads Harris (44%) among independents who are likely to vote, widening the 4-point edge Trump (50%) had against Harris (46%) previously.
Trump (53%) leads Harris (47%) among men who are likely to vote while Harris (57%) has the advantage over Trump (42%) among women.
While members of Gen X divide (51% for Harris to 48% for Trump), Harris has majority support among GenZ/Millennials (53%) and among Baby Boomers/the Silent-Greatest Generations (55%).
While the gap between the two remained steady compared with a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted a week earlier, the new poll, which closed on Sunday, gave signs that voters – particularly Democrats – might be more enthused about this year’s election than they were ahead of the November 2020 presidential election when Democrat Joe Biden defeated Trump.
Some 78% of registered voters in the three-day poll – including 86% of Democrats and 81% of Republicans – said they were “completely certain” they would cast a ballot in the presidential election. The share of sure-to-vote poll respondents was up from 74% in a Reuters/Ipsos survey conducted Oct. 23-27, 2020, when 74% of Democrats and 79% of Republicans said they were certain to cast ballots.
The poll had a margin of error of around 4 percentage points.
A record number of early votes have been cast in Georgia on Tuesday as residents headed to the polls in a critical battleground state that is grappling with the fallout from Hurricane Helene and controversial election administration changes that have spurred a flurry of lawsuits.
More than 328,000 ballots were cast Tuesday, Gabe Sterling of the Georgia secretary of state’s office said on X. “So with the record breaking 1st day of early voting and accepted absentees we have had over 328,000 total votes cast so far,” he said.
The previous first day record was 136,000 in 2020, Sterling said.
The swing state is one of the most closely watched this election, with former President Donald Trump trying to reclaim it after losing there to President Joe Biden by a small margin four years ago, leading Trump and his allies to unsuccessfully push to overturn his defeat.
Those efforts have loomed large this year as new changes to how the state conducts elections have been approved by Republican members of the State Election Board, leading Democrats and others to mount legal challenges, many of which have yet to be resolved even as Election Day nears.
Despite the massive turnout on Tuesday, the process appeared to go smoother this year for some Atlanta-area voters who spoke with CNN.
“Last time I voted, I voted in the city and the lines were out the door. They only had like, maybe like three people working,” said Corine Canada. “So people honestly just started leaving because it was like that. Yeah, like, ‘This is too long. I can’t sit here (and) wait, I have to go back to work.’ But here, no, it was easy.”
Dementia Don
Yesterday Trump appeared at the Economic Club of Chicago and gave a disastrous interview. He mostly talked about his plan to put high tariffs on imports, and continued to claim that these tariffs would be paid by foreign countries and not by Americans paying higher prices. Other news from the interview: he would not commit to allowing a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the election.
Donald Trump continued his pre-election economic event tour on Tuesday with a lengthy interview with Bloomberg at the Economic Club of Chicago. It was a total mess.
Bloomberg Editor-In-Chief John Micklethwait did not take it easy on Trump, and it quickly became clear that the former president has no conception of the mechanics of or the potential ramifications of the economic platform he’s running on. Bluntly, the former president was incoherent when pressed with real questions about his policies.
Micklethwait spent most of the interview attempting to break Trump out of what the former president repeatedly referred to as “the weave,” his term for his rambling digressions — with ever-decreasing intelligibility — and general inability to focus on a given topic for more than a few seconds during his rallies and interviews.
Micklethwait didn’t weave along with Trump, however, repeatedly working to bring him back on topic and answer the actual questions. The grilling exposed Trump’s total cluelessness with regard to his own economic policy, and led Trump to attack Micklethwait as biased….
The central pillar of Trump’s economic plan is widespread tariffs on all imported goods, with penalties appearing to increase depending on how much he dislikes the country. Economists have warned that such a policy could have devastating effects on American consumers, who would be saddled with increased costs for all imported goods.
When questioned about the specifics of his plan, and if he was aware of its pitfalls, Trump seemed ignorant of basic economic principles, insisting that other countries, not American consumers, would pay for the tariffs.
A bit more:
Micklethwait tried to explain the actual impact. “Three-trillion worth of imports and you will add tariffs to every single one of them, and push up the cost for all of these people to buy foreign goods,” he said. “That is just simple mathematics.”
Trump countered that he was “always good at mathematics,” and that high tariffs — and thus costs — would force companies to move production into the United States.
Anxiety, by Edvard Munch
“That will take many, many, many years,” Micklethwait said, to which Trump replied that high enough penalties would make the move immediate as if companies could simply wand wave production plants, orchards, wineries, factories, and the like into existence.
The former president also insisted that his tariff proposal would not result in the loss of jobs that are dependent on trade, because companies that moved to the U.S. would not be subject to the tax. “All you have to do is build your plant in the United States and you don’t have any tariffs,” he said…..
Micklethwait’s attempts to keep Trump on topic earned him no grace from the former president, who hates few things more than being contradicted.
When Micklethwait asked Trump to address a report by The Wall Street Journal estimating that his economic proposals would raise the national debt by upwards of $7 trillion, the former president fell back on his standard playbook: bashing the interviewer.
“What does The Wall Street Journal know? They’ve been wrong about everything, and so have you by the way, you’ve been wrong,” Trump replied, crossing his arms and curling into his seat.
“You’ve been wrong all your life on this stuff,” he added.
There’s more at the link. I didn’t encounter a paywall when I clicked on the link at Memeorandum.
Former president Donald Trump is campaigning on the most significant increase in tariffs in close to a century, preparing an attack on the international trade order that would likely raise prices, hurt the stock market and spark economic feuds with much of the world.
Trump’s trade plans, a staple of his stump speeches, have fluctuated, but he consistently calls for steep duties to discourage imports and promote domestic production. The former president has floated “automatic” tariffs of 10 percent to 20 percent on every U.S. trading partner, 60 percent levies on goods from China, and rates as high as 100, 200 or even 1,000 percent in other circumstances.
These proposals would go far beyond the disruptive trade wars of his first term even if they are only partially implemented. They would wrench the nation out of the system of global interdependence that arose in recent decades, making the U.S. economy much more isolated and autonomous, like it was in the late 19th century. (Trump last week falsely claimed that the United States was never richer than in the 1890s, when it had high trade barriers.)
“To me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is tariff. And it’s my favorite,” Trump said in Chicago on Tuesday. “I’m a believer in tariffs.”
The consequences would be far-reaching: Americans would be hit by higher prices for grocery staples from abroad, such as fruit, vegetables and coffee. Domestic firms dependent on imports would need to either figure out new supply chains or raise costs for consumers. U.S. manufacturers would almost certainly see sharp declines in orders from abroad as foreign nations impose retaliatory tariffs.
“We are talking about a plan of historic significance: It would be enormous, and the blowback would be even more enormous,” said Douglas A. Irwin, an economist at Dartmouth College who authored a 2017 book on the history of U.S. trade policy. “This would stand way off the charts.”
Companies and governments around the world have begun preparing contingency plans for the potential Trump tariffs. Diplomats and business leaders from Latin America, Europe, Asia and even Canada have in recent weeks asked their U.S. counterparts about Trump’s intentions and authorities, according to interviews with several domestic and international economic advisers, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect private planning.
While some business leaders and congressional Republicans remain optimistic that the former president is engaged in election-year posturing, Trump has repeatedly insisted that tariffs represent an unmitigated positive for the U.S. economy, recently calling them “the greatest thing ever invented.” Tariffs have been a constant bedrock of his economic agenda since he first ran in 2016, along with lower taxes, increased energy production and deregulation.
You should watch the interview Trump did yesterday at the Economic Club of Chicago. You might think you’ve got a pretty good idea of the big guy’s solipsism, his buffoonish overconfidence, his utter inability to engage on matters of policy. Watch a few answers, and you’ll be forced to conclude: It’s way worse than you thought.
Victor Wang, Emotional tension and psychological drama
Bloomberg News editor-in-chief John Micklethwait began by asking Trump simple questions, like how he plans to pay for the $7 trillion hole his proposals would blow in the federal deficit. Trump responded with his ordinary magical thinking about making that sum back through a combination of growth and tariffs. “To me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is ‘tariff,’” he said. “It’s my favorite word . . . the most beautiful word.”
Micklethwait asked how Trump planned to follow through on his promises of trimming the fat of wasteful spending. Trump responded with a lengthy story about him personally spending months negotiating with Boeing over a contract for new planes to serve as Air Force One, which ultimately saved the government more than a billion dollars. A cool story—until you remember the federal government spends an average of nearly $17 billion a day.
It takes a certain amount of ego and delusion to run for president. Trump has those characteristics in excess. But what stood out at the talk yesterday was the degree to which these are now the only elements undergirding his vision. Gone is the talk about surrounding himself with the best people. Dropped is the pretense that his answers are coherent. (Trump has started referring to his meandering logorrhea as “the weave.”) The pitch instead is that some sort of mad genius remains within him: Trust me, I’m the deals guy! I’ll get the best deals!
But there’s a lot more to guiding the economy than dealmaking, and even the most capable, hard-nosed, mano-a-mano negotiating with individual vendors can only take you so far.
There’s more about the interview at the link. There’s no paywall.
Donald Trump on Tuesday dodged the question of whether he will allow for a peaceful certification of election results if Kamala Harris defeats him in three weeks.
During an interview at the Economic Club of Chicago, Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait asked Trump if he would commit “to respecting and encouraging a peaceful transfer of power,” especially in light of Jan. 6, 2021, which the journalist called “unruly and violent.”
Trump didn’t answer the question. Instead, he rejected the premise and blamed Micklethwait as “a man that has not been a big Trump fan over the years.” He also falsely claimed that he allowed for a peaceful transfer of power in 2020, when Joe Biden defeated him.
“Come on, President Trump, you had a peaceful transfer of power compared to Venezuela, but it was by far the worst transfer of power for a long time,” Micklethwait insisted.
The audience booed and Trump thanked them. The former president then admitted that people were angry when they arrived in Washington to protest the results that January—but according to him, they were perfectly behaved.
“It was love and peace, and some people went to the Capitol,” Trump said. “And a lot of strange things happened there, a lot of strange things, with people being waved into the Capitol by police.”
For perhaps the first time, Trump downplayed his crowd size.
He added that he left the White House the morning he was supposed to and that only a fraction of the protestors were among those who breached and defaced the Capitol.
“Not one of those people had a gun, nobody was killed, except for Ashli Babbitt,” he said.
MAGA-friendly CNBC host Joe Kernen dropped an interesting nugget right as Squawk Box went to commercial break on Tuesday.
“Well, Trump canceled, and he was going to come on,” Kernen said.
Not only did Trump once love going on CNBC, but Kernen’s revelation comes on the heels of Trump declining or canceling a number of other high-profile opportunities to make a pitch to voters on mainstream TV. Trump refused to debate Kamala Harris a second time, which would’ve aired on CNN. Trump then refused CNN’s offer to host a town hall. And Trump of course also recently backed out of a 60 Minutes interview.
Still Tension, Wassily Kandinsky
The explanation for all this is not that Trump has suddenly become camera shy. It’s that his campaign undoubtedly realizes his rapidly degrading condition doesn’t play well with audiences beyond the MAGA cult. As a result, they’re retreating to the safer terrain of nonstop rallies and fawning Fox hits….
The reason Trump’s campaign isn’t keen to get him in front of swing voters on mainstream platforms was on stark display Tuesday when Trump did a rare event that wasn’t a festival of sycophancy.
By any objective standard, Trump’s Economic Club of Chicago interview was a disaster. He came out of the gates with an asinine proposal for 2,000 percent tariffs on imported cars, then was quickly reduced to insulting the moderator, Bloomberg’s John Micklethwait, when Micklethwait rightly pointed out that his his economic proposals are an inflationary disaster. (Watch below.)
By the end of the event, Trump had veered into making an impassioned defense of the big lie and his coup attempt, bragging about his crowd size on January 6 and absurdly claiming the events of that day were just “love and peace.” (Watch below.)
OAKS, Pa. — The town hall, moderated by South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem (R), began with questions from preselected attendees for the former president. Donald Trump offered meandering answers on how he would address housing affordability and help small businesses. But it took a sudden turn after two attendees required medical attention.
And so Trump, after jokingly asking the crowd whether “anybody else would like to faint,” took a different approach.
“Let’s not do any more questions. Let’s just listen to music. Let’s make it into a music. Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?” he said.
For 39 minutes, Trump swayed, bopped — sometimes stopping to speak — as he turned the event into almost a living-room listening session of his favorite songs from his self-curated rally playlist.
He played nine tracks. He danced. He shook hands with people onstage. He pointed to the crowd. Noem stood beside him, nodding with her hands clasped. Trump stayed in place onstage, slowly moving back and forth. He was done answering questions for the night….
As Trump stood onstage in his oversize suit and bright red tie, swaying back and forth, it was almost as if he were taking a trip back to decades past. Trump’s decision to cut short the question-and-answer portion of the town hall and instead have the crowd stay to listen to his favorite songs was a somewhat bizarre move, given that the election was only 22 days away. Vice President Kamala Harris has called Trump, 78, unstable and questioned his mental acuity.
Some in the crowd began to leave. Some looked around, wondering whether he was done speaking for the night and how much longer the dance — or sway — session would last. Many stayed holding their cameras and watched as Trump took in the music, at times looking over at a screen beside him that showed videos of James Brown singing “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’sWorld” and Sinéad O’Connor performing “Nothing Compares 2 U.”
For 38 minutes or so, former President Donald Trump was in a happy place. After some people collapsed at his town hall, Trump got frustrated, decided he’d had enough softball questions from Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) and asked to play music. For nearly 40 minutes, Trump kept asking for more music, swaying oddly in front of the crowd, occasionally closing his eyes, and retreating to a comforting place in his mind, like being wrapped in a warm blanket.
The Anxiety Monster, by Jeremy Campbell
For those of us who’ve had family members slip into dementia, it was a familiar sight. Both of my grandmothers suffered it near the ends of their lives. Even before they were sent to nursing homes, they started to exhibit increased frustration and even anger. My maternal grandmother accused her caretaker of purposely turning the shower knob too tight so she would have to come in and see my grandmother naked. But she also liked to sing old-time songs she remembered. She had her happy place—an oasis in a time of increasing confusion. Then, there were other times she was completely lucid. She would talk about the situation in the Middle East (which was still a thing back then, too) with total clarity. There were good days and there were bad days.
It isn’t like we haven’t seen Trump’s behavior with our own eyes. It isn’t like media hasn’t noticed it, either. And yet, no one seems to want to talk about the distinct possibility that Trump is well on the way to the same state my grandmothers found themselves in and that millions of Americans find friends and family in – severe cognitive decline, if not outright dementia.
For 38 minutes or so, former President Donald Trump was in a happy place. After some people collapsed at his town hall, Trump got frustrated, decided he’d had enough softball questions from Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) and asked to play music. For nearly 40 minutes, Trump kept asking for more music, swaying oddly in front of the crowd, occasionally closing his eyes, and retreating to a comforting place in his mind, like being wrapped in a warm blanket.
For those of us who’ve had family members slip into dementia, it was a familiar sight. Both of my grandmothers suffered it near the ends of their lives. Even before they were sent to nursing homes, they started to exhibit increased frustration and even anger. My maternal grandmother accused her caretaker of purposely turning the shower knob too tight so she would have to come in and see my grandmother naked. But she also liked to sing old-time songs she remembered. She had her happy place—an oasis in a time of increasing confusion. Then, there were other times she was completely lucid. She would talk about the situation in the Middle East (which was still a thing back then, too) with total clarity. There were good days and there were bad days.
It isn’t like we haven’t seen Trump’s behavior with our own eyes. It isn’t like media hasn’t noticed it, either. And yet, no one seems to want to talk about the distinct possibility that Trump is well on the way to the same state my grandmothers found themselves in and that millions of Americans find friends and family in – severe cognitive decline, if not outright dementia.
Angry, frustrated, confused, unable to focus. And now, he retreats to his happy place in a time of stress. Put it all together and ask yourself if that’s someone you’d trust to take care of your kids in a house with a working stove.
With three weeks left before Election Day, former President Donald J. Trump is pushing to the forefront of his campaign a menacing political threat: that he would use the power of the presidency to crush those who disagree with him.
In a Fox News interview on Sunday, Mr. Trump framed Democrats as a pernicious “enemy from within” that would cause chaos on Election Day that he speculated the National Guard might need to handle.
A day later, he closed his remarks to a crowd at what was billed as a town hall in Pennsylvania with a stark message about his political opponents.
“They are so bad and frankly, they’re evil,” Mr. Trump said. “They’re evil. What they’ve done, they’ve weaponized, they’ve weaponized our elections. They’ve done things that nobody thought was even possible.”
And on Tuesday, he once again refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power when pressed by an interviewer at an economic forum in Chicago.
With early voting underway in key battlegrounds, the race for the White House is moving toward Election Day in an extraordinary and sobering fashion. Mr. Trump has long flirted with, if not openly endorsed, anti-democratic tendencies with his continued refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election, embrace of conspiracy theories of large-scale voter fraud and accusations that the justice system is being weaponized against him. He has praised leaders including President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary for being authoritarian strongmen.
But never before has a presidential nominee — let alone a former president — openly suggested turning the military on American citizens simply because they oppose his candidacy. As he escalates his threats of political retribution, Mr. Trump is offering voters the choice of a very different, and far less democratic, form of American government.
“There is not a case in American history where a presidential candidate has run for office on a promise that they would exact retribution against anyone they perceive as not supporting them in the campaign,” said Ian Bassin, a former associate White House counsel under Barack Obama who leads the advocacy group Protect Democracy. “It’s so fundamentally, outrageously beyond the pale of how this country has worked that it’s hard to articulate how insane it is.”
Harris and Waltz are also calling attention to Trump’s cognitive issues and threats. They have three weeks left to educate the public an get legacy media to focus on Trump’s age and obvious dementia.
Take care everyone and keep hope alive, as Jesse Jackson used to say.
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Elizabeth Blackadder, Cat and Irises, 2001, watercolor
Good Afternoon!!
It’s a long weekend here in Massachusetts (Indigenous Peoples Day), and I’m planning to try to relax and read something other than politics news. Lately I can’t tolerate watching cable news, but I’ve been obsessed with keeping up with everything that is happening in the presidential campaigns. I spend too much time on social media, but it’s the only way to find out what Trump is really up to, because of the legacy media’s compulsive sanewashing of Trump’s demented behavior and speech patterns.
If you use social media, you may have seen Trump’s bizarre behavior during his speech at the Detroit Economic Club. The speech was supposed to be about economics but, since Trump has no comprehension of economics, he did his usual nonsensical rambling act. The New Republic: Watch: Trump Completely Loses Train of Thought in Awkward Speech.
Donald Trump drifted in and out of coherency during an awkward, weaving speech Thursday at the Detroit Economics Club, where he ranted about tariffs and railed against government mandates on electric vehicles….
But while explaining his fears that Kamala Harris’s policies would cause domestic manufacturing to leave the United States, Trump seemingly got carried away by the tide of his own weave and swept out into a sea of complete nonsense.
“And, it’s so simple, I mean, you know. This isn’t like Elon with his rocket ships that land within 12 inches on the moon where they wanted to land,” Trump said. “Or, he gets the … engines back—that was the first I realized, I said, ‘Who the hell did that?’ I saw engines about three, four years ago. These things were coming—cylinders, no wings, no nothing—and they’re coming down very slowly, landing on a raft in the middle of the ocean someplace, with a circle, boom!”
“Reminded me of the Biden circles that he used to have, right?” Trump said, seemingly referring to President Joe Biden’s campaign events that took precautions for Covid-19, in an awkward non sequitur.
“He’d have eight circles, and he couldn’t fill ’em up. But then I heard he beat us with the popular vote. He couldn’t fill up the eight circles, I always loved those circles, they were so beautiful, so beautiful to look at,” Trump continued.
Trump claimed that Biden “used to have the press stand in those circles, cause they couldn’t get the people. And then I heard we lost, no we’re never gonna let that happen again.”
“But—” he continued. “We’ve been abused by other countries, we’ve been abused by our own politicians, really, more than other countries.”
There are more examples of Trump’s insane rambling at the TNR link. But it’s not just rambling–it’s dementia; and it seems to be getting worse all the time. He flits from tangent to tangent, because his executive functioning is failing, likely from damage to his frontal lobes. You can watch the video clip at the TNR link.
This is disgusting, but I’m going to post it anyway. Trump appeared to either break wind (or foul his diaper) at least twice during his speech in Detroit. This is something that was happening even when he was in the White House. Reporters also noticed it happening during his fraud trial. WTF?!
Donald Trump attacked the city of Detroit in a speech he was giving while stumping for votes in Detroit.
The former US president and Republican nominee was speaking on Thursday at the Detroit Economic Club in the city, which is the biggest city in Michigan – one of the most crucial swing states in the 2024 US election.
But Trump, whose speeches are frequently rambling and lengthy discourses rather than set piece deliveries, could not stop himself from lambasting the city in which he was speaking by pointing to Detroit’s recent history of economic decline from its heyday as the home of American car production.
As he was speaking about China being a developing nation, Trump said: “Well, we’re a developing nation too, just take a look at Detroit. Detroit’s a developing area more than most places in China.”
He later returned to the theme, warning of an economic disaster if his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, wins in November’s election.
“Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s your president. You’re going to have a mess on your hands,” Trump said….
Democrats in the state reacted angrily to the insults and saw a chance to score political points.
Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer posted on Twitter/X: “Detroit is the epitome of ‘grit,’ defined by winners willing to get their hands dirty to build up their city and create their communities – something Donald Trump could never understand. So keep Detroit out of your mouth. And you better believe Detroiters won’t forget this in November.”
Former President Donald Trump is aware his rhetoric about migrants has become increasingly toxic, yet he has decided to double down on that strategy in the final weeks of the campaign cycle.
According to Rolling Stone’s Naomi Lachance and Asawin Suebsaeng, the ex-president is even rebuffing advice from his campaign team to “play it safe” as voters prepare to head to the polls on November 5. Lachance and Suebsaeng cited two unnamed sources close to Trump in their report, writing that Trump intended to “slam his foot on the gas” rather than pull back on his anti-immigrant message.
Agnes Miller Parker, Siamese Cat and Butterfly, 1950, wood engraving
“That’s how you lose,” Trump reportedly said in response to one of his aides.
The publication’s other unnamed source said the ex-president paid close attention to which lines at his rallies garnered the biggest reactions from his audiences. This includes not only his false claim that there are 13,000 undocumented immigrants freely roaming the United States who have been convicted of murder elsewhere (most of those 13,000 are currently incarcerated), but also his call to be a “dictator” on “day one” of a second term….
The former president recently demonstrated his willingness to take his condemnation of migrants to a new low on Friday night, posting a lengthy screed to X (formerly Twitter) in which he promised to use an 18th century law to round up, detain and deport immigrants. That law — the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 — would allow for the detainment of migrants without trial based solely on their country of birth. The last time that law was used was to force Japanese-Americans into detention camps during World War II.
“November 5th, 2024 will be LIBERATION DAY in America,” Trump tweeted. [W]e will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them the hell OUT OF OUR COUNTRY.”
And you’re not safe if you’re a legal immigrant, as Trump and Vance have both made clear in their attacks on Haitians in Springfield, Ohio.
Mark Milley, a retired US army general who was chair of the joint chiefs of staff under Donald Trump and Joe Biden, fears being recalled to uniform and court-martialed should Trump defeat Kamala Harris next month and return to power.
“He is a walking, talking advertisement of what he’s going to try to do,” Milley recently “warned former colleagues”, the veteran Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward writes in an upcoming book. “He’s saying it and it’s not just him, it’s the people around him.”
By Elizabeth Blackadder
Woodward cites Steve Bannon, Trump’s former campaign chair and White House strategist now jailed for contempt of Congress, as saying of Milley: “We’re gonna hold him accountable.”
Trump’s wish to recall and court-martial retired senior officers who criticized him in print has been reported before, including by Mark Esper, Trump’s second secretary of defense. In Woodward’s telling, in a 2020 Oval Office meeting with Milley and Esper, Trump “yelled” and “shouted” about William McRaven, a former admiral who led the 2011 raid in Pakistan in which US special forces killed Osama bin Laden, and Stanley McChrystal, the retired special forces general whose men killed another al-Qaida leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in Iraq in 2006.
Milley was able to persuade Trump to back down, Woodward writes, but fears no such guardrails will be in place if Trump is re-elected.
Woodward also describes Milley receiving “a non-stop barrage of death threats” since his retirement last year, and quotes the former general as telling him, of Trump: “No one has ever been as dangerous to this country.”
The longtime Donald Trump ally and friend Roger Stone said Republicans should send “armed guards” to the polls
in November to ensure a Trump victory, according to video footage by an undercover journalist.
The video, first published by Rolling Stone, shows an embittered Stone, still angry about the 2020 election and ready to fight in 2024. Stone described the former US president’s legal strategy of constant litigation to purge voter rolls in swing states.
“We gotta fight it out on a state-by-state basis,” said Stone. “We’re already in court in Wisconsin, we’re already in court in Florida.”
When the journalist, posing as a member of a rightwing voter turnout organization, pressed Stone for details on efforts to make sure Trump wins in 2024, Stone told him that the campaign has to “be ready”.
Mary Feddon, Tabby
“When they throw us out of Detroit, you go get a court order, you come in with your own armed guards, and you dispute it,” said Stone. In Detroit in 2020, there was a chaotic scene at a ballot counting center when GOP vote challengers pounded on the walls of the center and demanded to be let in.
Filmed at an August event in Jacksonville, Florida, called A Night with Roger Stone, the footage also reveals Stone’s lasting anger toward former attorney general Bill Barr, who he calls “a traitorous piece of human garbage”.
While in office, Barr acted as a staunch Trump ally, even pushing for a lighter sentence for Stone, when the operative was found guilty of witness tampering and obstruction of justice in connection with a congressional inquiry into Russian interference during the 2016 election. Barr lost favor with the former president when he declined to publicly back Trump’s false claims of a stolen election, drawing outrage from Trump’s closest allies.
“Once we get back in, he has to go to prison,” Stone exclaimed. “He has to go to prison, he’s a criminal.”
Donald J. Trump took his seat at the dining table in his triplex penthouse apartment atop Trump Tower on the last Sunday in September, alongside some of the most sought-after and wealthiest figures in the Republican Party.
There was Paul Singer, the billionaire hedge fund manager who finances Republican campaigns and pro-Israel causes, and Warren Stephens, the billionaire investment banker. Joining them were Betsy DeVos, the billionaire former education secretary under Mr. Trump, and her husband, Dick, as well as the billionaire Joe Ricketts and his son Todd.
Some politicians might have taken the moment to be charming and ingratiating with the donors.
Not Mr. Trump. Over steak and baked potatoes, the former president tore through a bitter list of grievances.
He made it clear that people, including donors, needed to do more, appreciate him more and help him more.
By Miroco Machiko
He disparaged Vice President Kamala Harris as “retarded.” He complained about the number of Jews still backing Ms. Harris, saying they needed their heads examined for not supporting him despite everything he had done for the state of Israel.
At one point, Mr. Trump seemed to suggest that these donors had plenty to be grateful to him for. He boasted about how great he had been for their taxes, something that some privately noted wasn’t true for everyone in the room.
The rant, described by seven people with knowledge of the meal who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations, underscored a reality three weeks before Election Day: Mr. Trump’s often cantankerous mood in the final stretch. And one of the reasons for his frustration is money. He’s trailing his Democratic rival in the race for cash and has had to hustle to keep raising it.
Not only does Ms. Harris have far more money to buy ads and pay for staff after raising $1 billion in less than three months as a candidate — a sum greater than the total Mr. Trump raised all year — but she has also been freed from having to plead directly to donors anymore. She raised more than twice as much as Mr. Trump in July, August and September.
Good! Let him keep wallowing in self-pity, driving away people who could donate to his campaign.
I’ll end with something truly unbelievable: On October 16, Fox News and Trump are planning a town hall on women’s issues! From the press release:
FOX News Channel’s (FNC) Harris Faulkner will present a town hall with Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump focusing on issues impacting women ahead of the election and news of the day at Reid Barn in Cumming, Georgia. The event, which will be held with an audience entirely composed of women, will pre-tape on October 15th and air on October 16th on The Faulkner Focus (11 AM-12 PM/ET). FOX News has a standing invitation to Vice President Harris for a townhall event of equal stature which has been extended to her campaign multiple times since she became a candidate for president in August.
In commenting on the town hall, Faulkner said, “Women constitute the largest group of registered and active voters in the United States, so it is paramount that female voters understand where the presidential candidates stand on the issues that matter to them most. I am looking forward to providing our viewers with an opportunity to learn more about where former President Trump stands on these topics.”
Orovida Pissarro, Cat and Mouse, 1966
Faulkner joined FNC in 2005 and currently serves as the anchor of The Faulkner Focus and a founding co-host of Outnumbered. At 11 AM/ET, The Faulkner Focus features interviews with top newsmakers and analysts and is cable news’ most-watched program in the timeslot, averaging nearly 2 million viewers. Outnumbered features an ensemble of four female panelists and one male breaking down the day’s headlines from all perspectives and dominates the competition at 12 PM/ET with 1.8 million viewers. Both programs outpace broadcast program’s NBC’s TODAY Third Hour, TODAY with Hoda & Jenna, The Kelly Clarkson Show, NBC News Daily, ABC’s GMA3, CBS’ The Talk and The Drew Barrymore Show.
As the first Black woman to helm back-to-back weekday cable news programs, Faulkner has also played integral roles in FNC’s election coverage over the last several cycles. She is the lead of the network’s “Voter’s Voices” segments and recently presented a series titled, ”Families in Focus,” where she interviewed the family members of the then-presidential candidates during the 2024 primaries. Additionally, Faulkner has hosted a variety of primetime specials and townhalls focused on current events, including forums focused on policing in America, the ongoing conversation of justice in the country and education during the COVID-19 pandemic, among other topics.
That should be good for a laugh.
Have a nice weekend everyone!!
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This is going to be a brief post, because I’m not feeling well today. It’s just a cold, but I’m really tired and not up to doing much.
The election is less than a month off. I got my mail-in ballot a couple of days ago, and I plan to send it in today or tomorrow. I can’t wait to vote for Kamala Harris. I would have done it already, but there are a bunch of ballot questions I have to read about first. One that I know I will vote for will end the practice of requiring students to pass standardized tests (MCAS) in order to graduate.
Kamala Harris and Howard Stern
Harris has given a bunch of interviews this week, and more are coming. Of course the mainstream media is not happy, because she chose interviewers who are likely to reach voters who don’t follow the news day to day like us politics junkies.
“DON’T CALL IT A ‘MEDIA BLITZ’ — After avoiding the media for nigh on her whole campaign, VP KAMALA HARRIS is … still largely avoiding the media,” the two authors of Playbook wrote.
The specific media the authors are talking about here is “legacy media,” also called the “mainstream media.” Think CNN, the New York Times or Fox News. Politico accuses Harris of skirting outlets like those in favor of alternative venues, such as podcasts and late-night TV.
The complaint comes after Harris’ team announced her latest media schedule. On Monday, she’s slated to appear on CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” and then on Thursday, she plans to stop in Nevada for a Univision town hall. She was interviewed on the wildly popular sex and dating podcast “Call Her Daddy” in an episode that was released on Sunday, and later this week, she’s scheduled to appear on “The View,” “The Howard Stern Show” and “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.”
The Playbook authors admit that the “60 Minutes” interview and the Univision town hall may offer some value to voters, but they take issue with the other appearances on her schedule.
“Let’s be real here: Most of these are not the types of interviews that are going to press her on issues she may not want to talk about, even as voters want more specifics from Harris,” the authors wrote. “Instead, expect most of these sit-downs to be a continuation of the ‘vibes’ campaign Harris has perfected.”
Harris and Stephen Colbert
Politico’s real gripe, though, is that Harris is doing a disservice to voters by avoiding difficult interviews with news outlets like, well, Politico. This is something that only news outlets like Politico care about. Voters don’t care. Anyone reading or watching exclusive news interviews with Harris is already an engaged voter and has probably already decided who they’re going to vote for in November.
Harris is employing a smart strategy. When your opponent in an election is Donald Trump, and tens of millions of people will vote for you based on the fact that you’re not Trump, you can afford to spend time courting, and possibly energizing, the folks who are less engaged with politics. “Call her Daddy” is the fifth-most popular podcast on Spotify. Is it really not worth an hour of Harris’ time to appear in front of that audience?
Politico says its criticism is warranted because somebody needs to ask Harris the tough questions that voters want answered. But she’s already doing that. CBS News released a preview of Harris’ “60 Minutes” interview, and it shows her talking about her proposed economic policies. What tough questions is she not answering? Politico never says.
Here’s a tough question: Who cares? To complain that a presidential candidate is not doing interviews with the same outlets that have had almost exclusive access to presidential candidates forever reeks of superciliousness. It’s also counterintuitive. Essentially saying to Harris, “Come do an interview with us so we can kick your ass” is not a persuasive argument. When I was in college studying journalism, my professors often warned that journalists tend to display a uniquely annoying type of arrogance. That’s exactly the type of self-important pretense that we’re seeing here.
Harris is doing exactly what she needs to do, and she’s not going to be intimidated by the likes of Politico, or even The New York Times. She was on 60 Minutes on Monday. Yesterday she went on The View, The Howard Stern Show, and Stephen Colbert. I haven’t heard/seen the first two, but I did watch Colbert’s show last night. Harris was great and the audience reaction was enthusiastic, to put it mildly. More interviews are coming.
I’m sure by now you’ve heard about the new book by Bob Woodward that is coming out next week. As usual, Woodward kept quiet about important information in order to increase sales. The biggest revelation is that Donald Trump sent Covid tests to Vladimir Putin during the time when Americans were desperate for tests and thousands of people were dying every day. In addition, Trump has stayed in contact with Putin since he left the White House.
As the coronavirus tore through the world in 2020, and the United States and other countries confronted a shortage of tests designed to detect the illness, President Donald Trump secretly sent coveted tests to Russian President Vladimir Putin for his personal use.
Putin, petrified of the virus, accepted the supplies but took pains to prevent political fallout — not for him, but for his American counterpart. He cautioned Trump not to reveal that he had dispatched the scarce medical equipment to Moscow, according to a new book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward.
Putin, according to the book, told Trump, “I don’t want you to tell anybody because people will get mad at you, not me.”
Four years later, the personal relationship between the two men appears to have persisted, Woodward reports, as Trump campaigns to return to the White House and Putin orchestrates his bloody assault on Ukraine. In early 2024, the former president ordered an aide away from his office at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida, so he could conduct a private phone call with the Russian leader, according to Woodward’s account.
The book does not describe what the two men purportedly discussed, and it quotes a Trump campaign official casting doubt on the supposed contact. But the unnamed Trump aide cited in the book indicated that the GOP standard-bearer may have spoken to Putin as many as seven times since Trump left the White House in 2021.
The book does not describe what the two men purportedly discussed, and it quotes a Trump campaign official casting doubt on the supposed contact. But the unnamed Trump aide cited in the book indicated that the GOP standard-bearer may have spoken to Putin as many as seven times since Trump left the White House in 2021.
“Trump was the most reckless and impulsive president in American history and is demonstrating the very same character as a presidential candidate in 2024,” Woodward writes in the book, “War,” which is set to be released Oct. 15.
Trump denied sending the tests to Putin but, unfortunately for him, the Kremlin has confirmed the report.
The Kremlin confirmed on Wednesday that former United States President Donald Trump sent Russian President Vladimir Putin Covid-19 testing kits during the height of the pandemic, as reported by American journalist Bob Woodward in a new book.
“We also sent equipment at the beginning of the pandemic,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in a written response on Wednesday, Bloomberg reported. That the U.S. and Russia exchanged medical equipment during the pandemic was already known.
But Woodward writes in his book that when Trump was still president in 2020, he “secretly sent Putin a bunch of Abbott Point of Care Covid test machines for his personal use” during a time period when Covid tests were scarce.
I’m not sure why “journalists” aren’t asking about the top secret documents that Trump was storing at Mar-a-Lago when he spoke to Putin. Remember, not all of the documents have been returned.
According to CNN, Bob Woodward’s latest book reveals that Trump has spoken to Vladimir Putin as many as seven times since leaving the Presidency.
“In one scene, Woodward recounts a moment at Mar-a-Lago where Trump tells a senior aide to leave the room so “he could have what he said was a private phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.”
“According to Trump’s aide, there have been multiple phone calls between Trump and Putin, maybe as many as seven in the period since Trump left the White House in 2021,” Woodward writes.
Woodward asked Trump aide Jason Miller whether Trump and Putin had spoken since he left the White House. “Um, ah, not that, ah, not that I’m aware of,” Miller told Woodward.
“I have not heard that they’re talking, so I’d push back on that,” Miller added.
Woodward writes that Biden’s Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines “carefully hedged” when asked about whether there were any post-presidency Trump-Putin calls.
“I would not purport to be aware of all contacts with Putin. I wouldn’t purport to speak to what President Trump may or may not have done,” Haines said, according to Woodward.”
According to WaPo’s version of the Woodward story the incident where Trump asked an aide to leave the room happened in early 2024.
This is unsurprising. After all, Trump has repeatedly described speaking to Putin in advance of the Ukraine invasion, including fairly explicitly during the debate with Joe Biden.
“When Putin saw that, he said, you know what? I think we’re going to go in and maybe take my – this was his dream. I talked to him about it, his dream. The difference is he never would have invaded Ukraine. Never.”
But the confirmation that Trump keeps speaking to Putin is important for several other reasons.
We still don’t know where all the stolen documents are
If Trump was speaking to Putin before the Ukraine investigation and at least as recently as earlier this year, he was speaking to him during the investigation into his stolen documents, during the period when Trump was hiding boxes from his attorney to make sure he could steal documents.
Trump was going back and referring to some of these documents during the period he worked with Putin.
And perhaps most importantly, there were presumably classified documents loaded onto his plane on June 3, 2022 that got flown back to Bedminster, and probably some remained hidden at Mar-a-Lago (the FBI failed to search a room off Trump’s suite).
The FBI has never found the missing classified documents.
Trump was charged with hoarding some of America’s most secret documents in his basement. And during that entire period, he was checking in regularly with the leader of a hostile foreign country, the one who keeps helping him get elected.
After Donald Trump was asked in a Monday interview about the future prospects of Gaza, the former president made a curious claim: “You know, I’ve been there, and it’s rough.”
Perhaps he merely meant he has been to Palestinian territory, since he did visit the West Bank in 2017? Or maybe he was just talking about having been to the broader region?
Nope.
Trump’s campaign said Monday night that he meant what he said about having been to Gaza in particular – and the campaign insisted the claim is true.
“President Trump has been to Gaza previously and has always worked to ensure peace in the Middle East,” campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told CNN.
Leavitt, though, did not provide a single detail about Trump’s supposed trip to Gaza. And she did not respond when we repeatedly asked for even the most basic information, like the year of the supposed visit.
So we were highly skeptical – because Trump has a long history of making things up, because of the lack of public evidence, because the Times of Israel has reported that Trump had never even visited Israel before his presidency, and because the Trump campaign had offered a substantively different comment to The New York Times earlier Monday.
That earlier comment, which a campaign official provided only on condition of anonymity, did not say Trump had actually been to Gaza. Instead, the anonymous campaign official tried some spin, correctly saying that Trump has been to Israel but wrongly saying, “Gaza is in Israel.”
We asked three former Trump officials who worked on Middle East policy whether they know of any proof for the former president’s claim, and the campaign’s claim to CNN, that Trump has been to Gaza itself. The only one who has responded, Trump-appointed former Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Schenker, said in an email: “As far as I know, he’s never traveled there. He did not go in 2017 when he visited Israel. I think this story is probably already over.”
Pretty much everything that comes out of Trump’s mouth is a lie.
I’m going to end with a serious piece by Tom Nichols at the Atlantic: The Moment of Truth. The subhead is “The reelection of Donald Trump would mark the end of George Washington’s vision for the presidency—and the United States.”
Last November, during a symposium at Mount Vernon on democracy, John Kelly, the retired Marine Corps general who served as Donald Trump’s second chief of staff, spoke about George Washington’s historic accomplishments—his leadership and victory in the Revolutionary War, his vision of what an American president should be. And then Kelly offered a simple, three-word summary of Washington’s most important contribution to the nation he liberated.
“He went home,” Kelly said.
The message was unambiguous. After leaving the White House, Kelly had described Trump as a “person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about.” At Mount Vernon, he was making a clear point: People who are mad for power are a mortal threat to democracy. They may hold different titles—even President—but at heart they are tyrants, and all tyrants share the same trait: They never voluntarily cede power
The American revolutionaries feared a powerful executive; they had, after all, just survived a war with a king. Yet when the Founders gathered in 1787 to draft the Constitution, they approved a powerful presidential office, because of their faith in one man: Washington.
Washington’s life is a story of heroic actions, but also of temptations avoided, of things he would not do. As a military officer, Washington refused to take part in a plot to overthrow Congress. As a victorious general, he refused to remain in command after the war had ended. As president, he refused to hold on to an office that he did not believe belonged to him. His insistence on the rule of law and his willingness to return power to its rightful owners—the people of the United States—are among his most enduring gifts to the nation and to democratic civilization.
Forty-four men have succeeded Washington so far. Some became titans; others finished their terms without distinction; a few ended their service to the nation in ignominy. But each of them knew that the day would come when it would be their duty and honor to return the presidency to the people.
All but one, that is.
Donald Trump and his authoritarian political movement represent an existential threat to every ideal that Washington cherished and encouraged in his new nation. They are the incarnation of Washington’s misgivings about populism, partisanship, and the “spirit of revenge” that Washington lamented as the animating force of party politics. Washington feared that, amid constant political warfare, some citizens would come to “seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual,” and that eventually a demagogue would exploit that sentiment.
Today, America stands at such a moment. A vengeful and emotionally unstable former president—a convicted felon, an insurrectionist, an admirer of foreign dictators, a racist and a misogynist—desires to return to office as an autocrat. Trump has left no doubt about his intentions; he practically shouts them every chance he gets. His deepest motives are to salve his ego, punish his enemies, and place himself above the law. Should he regain the Oval Office, he may well bring with him the experience and the means to complete the authoritarian project that he began in his first term.
Today’s illustrations are by Walter Chandoha, a famed cat photographer.
It’s difficult to believe that Trump’s lying could get any worse, but it has. He is now spreading outrageous lies at a level no one has seen before, to use one of his favorite phrases. And when Trump lies, MAGA Republicans follow his example. Lately, Trump has been spreading dangerous lies about the government’s efforts to aid communities devastated by Hurricane Helene.
MAGA Republicans are now lying about the federal response to Hurricane Helene in much the same way they lied about Haitian migrants bringing chaos and disease to Springfield, Ohio. Both disinformation efforts are flat-out lies, and both are designed to demonize immigrants. Immigration was the issue Trump was so eager to run on that he demanded Republican lawmakers reject the strong border bill a bipartisan group of lawmakers had hammered out.
The federal response to Hurricane Helene has drawn bipartisan praise, with Republican governor Henry McMaster of South Carolina thanking Biden by name for what McMaster called a “superb” response.
But on Sunday, September 29, two days after the hurricane hit, the right-wing organization started by anti-immigrant Trump loyalist Stephen Miller posted: “Billions for Ukraine. Billions for illegal aliens. And what for the Americans? Reprogram every single dollar that FEMA has dedicated to support illegal aliens to go towards Americans who are facing unprecedented devastation!”
Yesterday, in Saginaw, Michigan, Trump echoed Miller, claiming that the Biden administration is botching the hurricane response because it has spent all the money appropriated for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on “illegal immigrants.” “They spent it all on illegal migrants.… They stole the FEMA money just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them,” he said. Today, he claimed that “a billion dollars was stolen from FEMA to use it for illegal migrants, many of whom are criminals, to come into our country.”
Early this morning, X owner Elon Musk posted to his more than 200 million followers: “Yes, they are literally using YOUR tax dollars to import voters and disenfranchise you! It is happening right in front of your eyes. And FEMA used up its budget ferrying illegals into the country instead of saving American lives. Treason.” On Wednesday, Dana Mattioli, Joe Palazzolo, and Khadeeja Safdar of the Wall Street Journal broke the story that Musk has been financing groups with ties to Miller since 2022.
But of course, it is NOT happening in front of anyone’s eyes.
Walter Chandoha, The Mob
As always, Trump’s false claims represent projection of his own behavior onto others. Back to the Richardson piece:
Congress also appropriated money for a different fund, the Shelter and Services Program (SSP), which is part of Customs and Border Protection but is administered by FEMA. Established under the Trump administration in 2019, SSP gives grants to states and local governments to provide shelter, food, and transportation to undocumented immigrants. After Trump’s accusation, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement: “These claims are completely false. As Secretary Mayorkas said, FEMA has the necessary resources to meet the immediate needs associated with Hurricane Helene and other disasters. The Shelter and Services Program (SSP) is a completely separate, appropriated grant program that was authorized and funded by Congress and is not associated in any way with FEMA’s disaster-related authorities or funding streams.”
Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post did not leave the story there. “Trump has a habit of assuming other politicians act in the same way as he would,” Kessler wrote. So he looked into why Trump would have accused Biden “of raiding the FEMA disaster fund to handle undocumented migrants. It turns out that’s because he did this.”
In the middle of hurricane season in 2019, Kessler explains, Trump took $155 million from the FEMA disaster fund and redirected it to pay for detention space and temporary hearing locations for immigrants seeking asylum. “No, Biden didn’t take FEMA relief money to use on migrants,” the article title reads, “but Trump did.”
Unfortunately, Trump supporters actually believe his nonsensical lies, and that could lead to people failing to get the help they need from FEMA. Read more examples at the Substack link above.
WYFF4 in Greenville, SC, posted FEMA’s responses to several rumors that have been fed by the MAGAs:
Fact: FEMA has enough money right now for immediate response and recovery needs. If you were affected by Helene, do not hesitate to apply for disaster assistance as there is a variety of help available for different needs.
Fact: This is false: FEMA does not ask for or generally accept any cash donations or volunteers for disaster response. We do encourage people who want to help to volunteer with or donate cash to reputable voluntary or charitable organizations. After a disaster, cash is often the best way to help as it provides the greatest flexibility for these reputable organizations working on the ground to purchase exactly what is needed. If you encounter someone claiming to represent FEMA and asking for donations, be careful as that is likely a scam. Government employees will never solicit money. Learn more about how to help after a disaster: How to Help After Hurricane Helene
Fact: This is false. No money is being diverted from disaster response needs. FEMA’s disaster response efforts and individual assistance is funded through the Disaster Relief Fund, which is a dedicated fund for disaster efforts. Disaster Relief Fund money has not been diverted to other, non-disaster related efforts.
Fact: Rumors about FEMA turning away donations, stopping trucks or vehicles with donations, confiscating and seizing supplies often spread after a disaster. These are all false. FEMA does not take donations and/or food from survivors or voluntary organizations. Donations of food, water, or other goods are handled by voluntary agencies who specialize in storing, sorting, cleaning, and distributing donated items. FEMA does not conduct vehicle stops or handle road closures with armed guards — those are done by local law enforcement.
And this one in particular could badly hurt desperate survivors:
Fact: This is false. One type of assistance that is often approved quickly after you apply is Serious Needs Assistance, which is $750 to help pay for essential items like food, water, baby formula, breastfeeding supplies, medication and other emergency supplies. There are other forms of assistance that you may qualify to receive once you apply for disaster assistance. As your application continues to be reviewed, you may still receive additional forms of assistance for other needs such as support for temporary housing and home repair costs. Learn more about the types of assistance available. If you have questions about your disaster assistance application and what you qualify for, contact us at 1-800-621-3362 to speak with a FEMA representative.
It’s sickening that Trump and his followers are pushing this nonsense, and they will continue to do so.
In the wake of the devastation of Hurricane Helene in the United States this week, a new storm emerged on social media – false rumors about how disaster funds have been used, and even claims that officials control the weather.
Local and national government officials say they are trying to combat the rumors, including one spread by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
By Walter Chandoha
One of the more far-fetched rumors is that Helene was an engineered storm to allow corporations to mine regional lithium deposits. Others accuse the administration of President Joe Biden of using federal disaster funds to help migrants in the country illegally, or suggest officials are deliberately abandoning bodies in the cleanup.
Republican Congress member Marjorie Taylor Greene posted on X Thursday night: “Yes they can control the weather. It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.”
The conspiracy theories come at a pivotal time for rescue and recovery efforts following the storm, one of the deadliest U.S. hurricanes this century. And the presidential election between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris is just over a month away.
Republicans and Democrats alike say the rumors are causing problems.
“I just talked to one Senator that has had 15 calls TODAY about why we don’t stop …….. ‘fill in the blank,'” said Kevin Corbin, a Republican in the North Carolina Senate – a state that is one of the hardest hit by Helene. “98% chance it’s not true and if it is a problem, somebody is aware and on it,” he wrote on Facebook.
“I’m growing a bit weary of intentional distractions,” he added.
White House officials on Friday accused some Republican leaders and conservative media of intentionally peddling rumors to divide Americans in a way that could harm disaster relief efforts.
“Disinformation of this kind can discourage people from seeking critical assistance when they need it most,” a White House memo said. “It is paramount that every leader, whatever their political beliefs, stops spreading this poison.”
GREENSBORO, N.C. — Denver Riggleman, who served as senior technical advisor to the January 6th Committee, said he believes there is a significant risk of violence during the vote count of the Nov. 5, 2024 election because supporters of Republican nominee Donald Trump are so deeply immersed in conspiracy theories.
“They still have a plan to probably use lawfare to go after some of these certain states, but violence is certainly possible,” Riggleman told Raw Story. “I would say it’s actually probable. And I think it’s because you have people that are so riled up with these conspiracy theories and this good-against-evilvendetta that Donald Trump and I think a lot of the far right and the Christian nationalist type of individuals have been pushing into sort of the MAGA communications ecosystem.
Walter Chandoha’s daughter Marie feeding cats.
“It scares the hell out of me, as someone who’s dealt in counterterrorism for so long, to know that some of the same people who are around him — or a lot of the same people around him — for January 6th, 2021,” Riggleman added, “are the same people in his campaign today and the same people who were authors of Project 2025.”
A former Republican congressman and former military intelligence officer, Riggleman spoke to Raw Story after taping a message to North Carolina Republicans and independent voters on behalf of the Harris campaign at a recreation center in Greensboro on Thursday.
“Violence is bubbling right beneath the surface,” Riggleman said, citing the brutal attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the two assassination attempts on Trump this past summer. Riggleman identified variations on the QAnon conspiracy theory as a driving force of political violence.
“QAnon and that whole conspiracy theory mindset of ‘the Deep State’ or ‘globalists,’ or ‘false flags,’ that has bubbled into almost a mainstream belief, I would say within 30 to 35 percent of the Republican Party,” he said. “So, now it’s a battle of good against evil, as far as they’re concerned. The Democrats, independents and the RINOs — whoever they are — represent what’s evil. And I think that should scare the hell out of people. Because once you start dehumanizing people, that’s when violence is possible.
Read more at Raw Story.
Walter Chandoha, Cat and kitten
The Washington Post declines to use the word “lie”: As Trump makes false claims about hurricane relief, White House calls it ‘poison.’
EVANS, Ga. — Former president Donald Trump doubled down on misinformation about Hurricane Helene in an appearance in this storm-ravaged state Friday, repeating the falsehood that the White House used disaster funds for migrants.
Speaking at a news conference after a state disaster briefing, Trump again falsely said the U.S. government is unable to fund the storm response because it used the money on people “who came into the country illegally” — claims that the White House slammed in a memo Friday as “poison.”
Trump’s comments that the White House is “missing $1 billion” that was used for migrants, as he said Friday, have created a swirl of misinformation around the Helene response. The White House warned Friday that the falsehoods could keep hurricane victims from seeking the assistance they critically need, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency launched an anti-rumor tool that counters Trump’s claims.
The Biden administration said in its memo — which did not name Trump but included a headline that did — that Republicans are spreading “bald-faced lies” about the hurricane response and are “using Hurricane Helene to lie and divide us.”
“It is paramount that every leader, whatever their political beliefs, stops spreading this poison,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates wrote in the memo, adding: “This isn’t about politics — it’s about helping people.” [….]
The federal government has mounted a huge response following routine protocol, sending supplies, meals and more than 1,000 personnel; taking aid applications from affected residents; and coordinating with state and local agencies. Search-and-rescue efforts are ongoing in remote areas. The response faces logistical challenges because of the scope of the damage, across six states, and some residents have complained about waiting for on-the-ground aid.
Trump’s claims, however, have focused on undermining confidence in the federal response and tying his political opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, to that negative picture.
He has sought to blame the hurricane devastation on immigration, on Thursday falsely saying that those affected by the hurricane are getting “no help” because the federal government has instead spent its money “on people that should not be in our country.” In response to questions from The Post, Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt claimed that Harris “stole” money from FEMA and repeated the claim that the federal government had no funding, without providing evidence.
Good Lord, will be ever be rid of this evil monster Trump?
Hurricane Helene hit especially hard in heavily Republican areas of Georgia and North Carolina — a fact that could work to Donald Trump’s disadvantage in the two swing states.
Research has shown that major disasters can influence both voter turnout and voter preference. And Helene has pushed this contest into novel territory: It’s the first catastrophic event in U.S. history to hit two critical swing states within six weeks of a presidential election, based on a POLITICO’s E&E News analysis of data compiled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The challenge for Trump: The parts of western North Carolina and eastern Georgia that were flooded by the monster storm are largely Republican. In 2020, he won 61 percent of the vote in the North Carolina counties that were declared a disaster after Helene. He won 54 percent of the vote in Georgia’s disaster counties.
Both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris this week visited Georgia, a state that President Joe Biden won by just 11,779 votes in 2020. Georgia and North Carolina each have 16 electoral votes, and polls show that Trump is leading Harris by about 1 percentage point in each state, well within the margin of error.
“There’s going to be a lot of [voting] alterations, and it probably is going to affect turnout,” said Andy Jackson, director of the John Locke Foundation’s Civitas Center for Public Integrity, a free-market think tank in North Carolina.
Now, both states face crucial decisions in the next few days about how to help people register and vote after massive flooding ripped away roads, shuttered towns and dispersed residents. Those include whether to extend next week’s voter registration deadlines, grant more time for voters to cast absentee ballots, and set up new polling places in areas where floods destroyed roads.
State records show that nearly 40,000 absentee ballots were mailed to voters in the 25 North Carolina counties that were declared a disaster following Helene. Fewer than 1,000 have been returned.
It was a stark ultimatum, delivered by President Joe Biden’s most senior aide.
At 5:30 a.m. Thursday, before the sun had risen above his Washington home, White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients was on a Zoom call with two Cabinet secretaries and the executives of the shipping companies negotiating with workers who had gone on strike at critical docks along the East and Gulf coasts, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.
With the nation’s economy — and much of the president’s legacy — hanging in the balance just weeks before the election, White House chief economist Lael Brainard told management that it needed to come up with a new offer to the striking longshoremen. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg stressed that Hurricane Helene magnified the importance of a deal. Labor Secretary Julie Su expressed optimism that the union would agree to a temporary extension if raises were included.
Then in a surprising move, as the call was wrapping up, Zients told the board members of the U.S. Maritime Alliance that he was going to tell Biden in about an hour that they had agreed to propose a new offer to the union. By that point, the shipping executives had agreed to do no such thing. Zients was saying they would.
“I need the offer today — not tomorrow. Today,” Zients said on the call. “I’m going to brief the president in an hour that you believe you can get this done today.”
Walter Chandoha in his studio.
Less than 12 hours later, White House officials were celebrating a deal to reopen the ports until January — postponing the issue until after this November’s election. The agreement provides collective if temporary relief to skittish Democrats from the White House to Capitol Hill, while buoying Vice President Kamala Harris, along with Friday’s strong jobs report.
But the resolution of the strike also highlights Biden’s distinctive approach to labor unrest, one that has defied even his Democratic predecessors and sparked unease in some parts of the party. Even as White House officials claim vindication about their strategy, questions persist about whether Biden’s pro-union advocacy will be codified as the new Democratic approach — or represents a rare aberration in a long bipartisan tradition of siding more closely with management.
The agreement reached Thursday provides a 62 percent increase in wages for dockworkers and extends other terms of the current contract until Jan. 15. The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) initially demanded 77 percent wage hikes but has moderated its request. Numerous difficult sticking points could scuttle a deal before the new January deadline, but if the deal holds, the pay gains amount to a $24-an-hour bump in the top pay rate over six years.
Trump really wanted the strike to last till election day. Just more evidence that Biden is a great president. I hope he will be an important resource for President Kamala Harris. See also this piece at CNN: Here are all the winners in the port strike deal.
Trump is running on lies and absolutely no substance. Reporters are demanding details on policy from Harris, but not from Trump–because he has no clue about policy and couldn’t care less about communicating anything except lies, lies, and more lies.
It’s probably right to call Kamala Harris the change candidate. Though she’s the vice president, she’s running against forces that struck down Roe and stripped the basic freedoms from half the country. So, for many, voting for her is voting for the restoration of individual liberty.
But I believe she’s a change candidate for another reason.
To understand, you have to reimagine Donald Trump. Think of him less as the Republican challenger to a Democratic administration and more as a kind of over-incumbent. He’s more or less an omnipresence, as if he were now sitting in the White House. His face is everywhere. His words are everywhere. The man takes up all the oxygen in every room.
Joe Biden is the president. Harris is his second in command. But since 2015, they and the rest of us have been living in the era of Trump.
And the dominant trait of our era has been negation.
As president, Trump was against fairness and balanced budgets when he cut taxes for the rich. He was against free trade and free labor when his administration tried to complete a border wall. He was against peace and diplomacy when he sabotaged relations with US allies. He was against competence when his negligence killed over a million people in the pandemic. And he was against democracy and the rule of law when he tried and failed to overturn a free and fair election.
What Donald Trump started as president, he has continued as the GOP nominee, the main difference being that the scale of negation is so massive that his own campaign is now about nothing, literally nothing.
There are no serious policies. There are no serious plans to solve problems. He isn’t giving anyone a reason to vote for him. Trump is only “s— talking America,” as Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro put it, for the purpose of negating Kamala Harris and his enemies.
And to hide the blindingly obvious fact that Trump’s campaign is about nothing, he has made up fantastical lies about the economy being the worst on the planet, America being a “failing nation,” foreign leaders “laughing at us,” big cities being overrun by criminals, thugs slitting throats, gangs raping women and, of course, Haitian immigrants eating cats and dogs. Trump’s latest whopper is about the United States government refusing to help hurricane victims if they’re Republicans.
As Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote: “At this point, the Trump campaign rests entirely on denouncing things that aren’t happening — an imaginary bad economy, imaginary runaway crime and now an imaginary failure of Biden and Harris to respond to a natural disaster.”
Of course, his campaign is about nothing, because he believes in nothing.
Read the rest at Raw Story.
Trump is everywhere, dominating the news, spreading his lies much more quickly than they can be fact-checked. It makes no sense that this criminal, this monster, is actually permitted to run for president of the United States. Yet it is happening. I hope and pray he can be defeated.
Take care yourselves and your loved ones, everyone!
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The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
Four years later, the personal relationship between the two men appears to have persisted, Woodward reports, as Trump campaigns to return to the White House and Putin orchestrates his bloody assault on Ukraine. In early 2024, the former president ordered an aide away from his office at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida, so he could conduct a private phone call with the Russian leader, according to Woodward’s account.
But the confirmation that Trump keeps speaking to Putin is important for several other reasons.
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