Author: Stop the Donald Trump

Trump visits private golf course as US battles rapid surge in coronavirus cases

Donald Trump visited one of his own private golf courses in Virginia on Saturday as America continued to see fallout from a rapid surge in coronavirus cases. The trip came a day after the US president said he would stay in Washington DC to “make sure law and order is enforced” amid ongoing anti-racism protests.

The president has been frequently criticized for the scale of his golfing habit while in office. CNN – which tallies his golfing activities – said the visit to the Trump National course in Loudon county, just outside Washington DC, was the 271st of his presidency – putting him at an average of golfing once every 4.6 days since he’s been in office. His predecessor, Barack Obama, golfed 333 rounds over the two terms of his presidency, according to NBC.

The visit comes as the number of confirmed new coronavirus cases per day in the US hit an all-time high of 40,000, according to figures released by Johns Hopkins on Friday. Many states are now seeing spikes in the virus with Texas, Florida and Arizona especially badly hit after they reopened their economies – a policy they are now pausing or reversing.

Trump has been roundly criticized for a failure to lead during the coronavirus that has seen America become by far the worst hit country in the world. Critics in particular point to his failure to wear a mask, holding campaign rallies in coronavirus hot spots and touting baseless conspiracy theories about cures, such as using bleach.

On Friday night Trump tweeted that he was cancelling a weekend trip to his Bedminster, New Jersey golf course because of the protests which have rocked the capital, including taking down statues of confederate figures.

“I was going to go to Bedminster, New Jersey, this weekend, but wanted to stay in Washington, D.C. to make sure LAW & ORDER is enforced. The arsonists, anarchists, looters, and agitators have been largely stopped,” he tweeted.

Trump’s latest visit to the golf course put him in the way of some opposition. According to a White House pool media report: “A small group of protesters at the entrance to the club held signs that included, ‘Trump Makes Me Sick’ and ‘Dump Trump’.
A woman walking a small white dog nearby also gave the motorcade a middle finger salute.”

It is not yet known if Trump actually played a round of golf. But a photographer captured the president wearing a white polo shirt and a red cap, which is among his common golfing attire.

[The Guardian]

Trump claims Bolton was against a coronavirus shutdown, but had already left months before

Jim: Later in the interview, President Trump brings Bolton back up himself. Here’s the exchange.

Mr. Bender: You’ve talked about holding China accountable for coronavirus. Do you think they sat on that information about the virus in order to tank other economies around the world?

Mr. Trump: They did something because if you look, they had very little outbreak, although now they seem to have an outbreak in Beijing, which is interesting, as of yesterday. But everybody knew they had it. I acted very early. I closed our country to China.14

By the way, Bolton disagreed. He thought we shouldn’t do it, okay? He didn’t think and you know, I was in a room full of people. You were there. And of the people, I don’t know of anybody that thought I should do it. That was a decision I made because I was seeing and hearing that China has a big problem.

Bolton and Trump had a very public blow-up and Bolton either quit or was fired months before Trump partly closed traffic from China. Perhaps confused as a result, Bender asks a follow-up:

Mr. Bender: Did you consult with Bolton on coronavirus?

Mr. Trump: No. I lost respect for Bolton’s intellect fairly early in the process.

Perhaps the president’s memory is faulty, or perhaps he’s just making things up.

[National Review]

Trump administration sues Bolton over memoir

The Trump administration on Tuesday filed a lawsuit seeking to prevent John Bolton from publishing a highly anticipated memoir describing his 17 months serving as President Trump’s national security adviser.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that Bolton’s book, due to be released on June 23, contains classified information that stands to compromise national security if published before a government review is completed.

“[Bolton] regularly came into possession of some of the most sensitive classified information that exists in the U.S. government,” the lawsuit states. “Within two months of his departure from government service, defendant had negotiated a book deal allegedly worth about $2 million and had drafted a 500-plus page manuscript rife with classified information, which he proposed to release to the world.”

The Department of Justice asked the court to declare that Bolton’s account of his time as a top Trump adviser from April 2018 to September 2019 violated his nondisclosure agreement.

The lawsuit also seeks to stop Bolton from disclosing contents from his memoir without U.S. government permission and to order his publisher, Simon & Schuster, to “retrieve and dispose of” any copies of the book held by third parties. Bolton’s attorney Chuck Cooper has denied that the book contains classified material.

“We are reviewing the Government’s complaint and will respond in due course,” Cooper said in an emailed statement early Monday. 

Simon & Schuster dismissed the lawsuit as “nothing more than the latest in a long running series of efforts by the Administration to quash publication of a book it deems unflattering to the President.” 

 “Ambassador Bolton has worked in full cooperation with the NSC in its pre-publication review to address its concerns and Simon & Schuster fully supports his First Amendment right to tell the story of his time in the White House to the American public,” the publishing company said in a statement. 

The move had been expected since Monday when reports surfaced that the administration was eyeing a lawsuit to prevent publication of the memoir, titled “The Room Where It Happened,” and comes exactly one week before it is due for public release. The book is said to offer a scathing account of the White House from the former national security adviser’s point of view.

“If he wrote a book, I can’t imagine that he can because that’s highly classified information,” Trump told reporters on Monday when asked about plans to file a lawsuit.

“I will consider every conversation with me as president highly classified. So that would mean if he wrote a book and if the book gets out, he’s broken the law and I would think he would have criminal problems,” Trump added, later claiming he hadn’t viewed the book’s contents.

The memoir’s release has been delayed for months as a result of a prepublication review process spearheaded by the White House National Security Council (NSC) that began when Bolton submitted the book for review in late December.

According to the Justice Department’s complaint, NSC official Ellen Knight had completed her review of Bolton’s book around April 27 “and was of the judgment that the manuscript draft did not contain classified information.” Knight informed Bolton that the process remained ongoing when he asked for an update thereafter, the complaint states.

It says that Michael Ellis, NSC’s senior director for intelligence, subsequently began a review of the manuscript on May 2 and raised concerns it contained classified information. An NSC attorney sent Bolton’s attorney Chuck Cooper a letter on June 8 saying the draft contained classified information and that the manuscript could not be published until the review was completed, after press reports said that Bolton planned to release the book on June 23.

After receiving that letter, Cooper penned an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal accusing the White House of a “transparent attempt to use national security as a pretext to censor Mr. Bolton, in violation of his constitutional right to speak on matters of the utmost public import.” 

The memoir is expected to contain details about Trump’s interactions with Ukraine related to his impeachment by the House of Representatives last December. Bolton has been an extremely controversial figure as a result of his refusal to testify before the chamber.

The former national security adviser later said he would testify before the GOP-controlled Senate if served a subpoena, but the upper chamber ultimately voted to bypass witnesses and eventually acquitted Trump of the impeachment charges in two largely party-line votes.

[The Hill]

Trump relaunches attack on 75-year-old protester who suffered fractured skull

Martin Gugino, the 75-year-old protester who suffered a fractured skull after being shoved to the ground by police in Buffalo, has once again become the target of President Donald Trump’s ire.

As flagged by CNN fact checker Daniel Dale, Trump told the Wall Street Journal this week that Gugino was a “professional agitator” who had put himself in harm’s way when he confronted officers during a protest against police brutality.

“I don’t like to see people hurt,” the president said. “But he put himself right into the midst of the soldiers. These police, they meant business. They were walking and he puts himself right there. And you could tell they knew him. They knew him. But he’s had a long history. Too bad he had to get hurt.”

Gugino is a longtime antiwar activist in the area, though there is no evidence that he is part of antifa or that he deliberately provoked police into shoving him to the ground, as the president has alleged.

Gugino is recovering from his wounds in an undisclosed location, as his attorney said this week that he has received several death threats since a video of him cracking his skull on the sidewalk after being shoved by an officer went viral.

[Raw Story]

Trump threatens protesters ahead of Tulsa rally

President Donald Trump threatened to crack down on protesters expected to show up at his campaign rally in Tulsa, Okla., on Saturday, the first such event since the coronavirus pandemic sidelined his campaign schedule.

“Any protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes who are going to Oklahoma please understand, you will not be treated like you have been in New York, Seattle, or Minneapolis,” Trump tweeted on Friday. “It will be a much different scene!”

Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, said Trump was referring to “destructive” protesters, noting that buildings have been burned, looted, and vandalized during recent demonstrations against police brutality.

“These things are unacceptable,” she said. “And we will not see that in Oklahoma.”

The president’s tweet came hours after Tulsa mayor G. T. Bynum imposed a curfew, citing expected rally crowds of more than 100,000, planned protests and the civil unrest that has already erupted in the city and around the nation this month.

Trump drew widespread and bipartisan criticism for his last interaction with protesters, when U.S. Park Police and other law enforcement agencies used force to clear Lafayette Square near the White House so the president could pose with a Bible in front of the historic St. John’s Church.

The latest threat also drew fire.

William Kristol, former editor of The Weekly Standard, posted on Twitter that the constitutional right “of protesters are the same in Tulsa as elsewhere in the US. So are the 1A rights of Trump supporters. It’s up to OK and Tulsa authorities to follow the law and protect all citizens. But what Trump’s doing is inciting his followers to extra-legal action.”

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., accused Trump of “threatening peaceful protesters standing up for justice.”

[USA Today]

Trump Says, ‘Fox Is Terrible!’ After Poll Shows Biden Surge

A day after Fox News’ latest national poll showed that presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden had opened up a 12-point edge over Trump, one of many such surveys in recent weeks that has Biden widening his lead, the president called the Fox poll fraudulent and claimed it was created by “haters.” 

A CNN poll released last Monday showed Biden leading by a staggering 14-point margin. Shortly after, Trump took to Twitter to announce that he had hired conservative pollster McLaughlin & Associates to analyze that poll (and others), which he said is “FAKE based on the incredible enthusiasm we are receiving.” Two days later, as part of an effort to refute a recent flurry of unfavorable polling, the Trump campaign sent a cease-and-desist letter to CNN, demanding they apologize and retract the poll, which CNN refused to do. Earlier this month, he criticized a Washington Post poll, which showed him down 10 points, as a “heavily biased Democrat Poll, just like 2016.” 

“CNN Polls are as Fake as their Reporting. Same numbers, and worse, against Crooked Hillary. The Dems would destroy America!” Trump tweeted on June 8, correctly pointing out that multiple polls showed that Hillary Clinton held a seemingly insurmountable lead in the run-up to the 2016 general election, which Trump won.

[Forbes]

Trump defends officer who shot Rayshard Brooks as police call in sick

Donald Trump has defended the police officer who shot dead Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta, as a number of officers called in sick after their colleague was charged with murder.

Garrett Rolfe, a white officer, shot Brooks, who is black, twice in the back as Brooks pointed a police Taser stun gun in his direction while running away. Rolfe faces 11 charges over the killing.

A significant number of officers did not show up for work on Wednesday night, the city’s police department said. Atlanta’s mayor suggested the city may have to call in officers from other jurisdictions.

Brooks’s death has prompted protests in the city and elsewhere as it emerged that Brooks, 27, was 18ft from Rolfe, and running away, when he pointed the Taser – which prosecutors say Rolfe knew was not functional – before being shot.

The protests over Brooks’s death have added to demonstrations against racism and police brutality across the country following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last month, where the 46-year-old was killed when a white police officer kneeled on his neck.Advertisement

Amid the outrage, Trump appeared on Fox News, where he defended Rolfe and appeared to criticize Brooks.

“You can’t resist a police officer, and if you have a disagreement, you have to take it up after the fact,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity. “It was out of control – the whole situation was out of control.”

Trump said police had been treated unfairly in the US.

He said: “It’s up to justice right now. It’s going to be up to justice. I hope he [Rolfe] gets a fair shake, because police have not been treated fairly in our country. But again, you can’t resist a police officer like that.”

The Atlanta police department sought to downplay the number of officers who did not report for duty, but admitted there were a significant number of absences.

“Earlier suggestions that multiple officers from each zone had walked off the job were inaccurate,” the department said in a tweet. “The department is experiencing a higher than usual number of call-outs with the incoming shift. We have enough resources to maintain operations & remain able to respond to incidents.”

Atlanta’s mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, told CNN there were enough officers to cover the city, but said the department may have to call in police from other agencies.

She said: “We have other partners … so, we will be fine.”

The most serious charge against Rolfe, felony murder, carries a sentence of life in prison or the death penalty, should prosecutors choose to seek it.

On Thursday, a video interview that Brooks had conducted in 2019, as part of a project about criminal reform, was shared by the company Reconnect.

In it, Brooks described how the criminal justice system treats many people unfairly. He said: “Some people, they get a tap on the wrist [from the authorities]. But some people don’t.”

Brooks discussed how people who had spent time in jail were treated on their release. He said: “You get treated like an animal. Some of the system could look at us as individuals; we do have lives, you know.”

He added: “I’m trying, I’m not the type of person to give up. I’m going to keep going till I make it to where I want to be.”

Brooks’s funeral is due to take place at a church in Atlanta on Tuesday. Actor and director Tyler Perry, who lives in the city, has offered to pay for the funeral.

In an article for People magazine, Perry said he was grappling with how to explain racism in the US to his five-year-old son.

He wrote: “I know that as his father, a black man in America, it is my duty to prepare him for the harsh reality that awaits him outside of the watchful eyes of his loving parents. It will be a hard, heartbreaking conversation, but one that I must have and will have soon.”

[The Guardian]

Trump says he made Juneteenth ‘very famous’

President Trump said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that he made Juneteenth, the annual holiday commemorating the end of slavery, “very famous” by originally scheduling a campaign rally on the date.

“I did something good: I made Juneteenth very famous,” Trump told the Journal in an interview Wednesday, referencing the news coverage of the planned rally that was moved to a later date. “It’s actually an important event, an important time. But nobody had ever heard of it.”

Trump was widely criticized for scheduling the rally on June 19 in Tulsa, Okla., the site of one of the bloodiest acts of racial violence in 1921, with many critics charging that it was a racially insensitive decision.

Trump eventually postponed the rally, acknowledging “many” of his African American friends and supporters had reached out asking him to change the date.

Juneteenth has been a day to mark the end of slavery in the United States for more than 150 years and is recognized as a holiday in 47 states and the District of Columbia.

Trump told the Journal that a black Secret Service agent informed him of the meaning of Juneteenth. He also claimed he polled those around him and none had heard of the annual holiday. Trump was surprised to learn from an aide during the interview with the Journal that the White House put out a statement marking the occasion last year.

“Oh, really? We put out a statement? The Trump White House put out a statement?” Trump said. “OK, OK. Good.”

Trump’s Tulsa rally is scheduled to take place on Saturday evening, marking his first campaign rally since March. It is expected to draw a substantial crowd to Tulsa’s BOK Center, raising concerns about the potential for the event to spread the novel coronavirus. The campaign plans to conduct temperature checks and distribute masks and hand sanitizer to attendees.

The Trump campaign’s announcement of the rally coincided with nationwide protests over the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man. Trump’s handling of and rhetoric on the demonstrations has also come under sustained scrutiny in recent weeks.

Trump, who signed an executive order Tuesday to incentivize police reform, acknowledged in the Journal interview that there is “some” systemic racism in the United States but asserted that the country had made substantial progress in rooting out racism from its institutions.

“I’d like to think there is not” systemic racism, Trump told the Journal. “But unfortunately, there probably is some. I would also say it’s very substantially less than it used to be.”

[The Hill]

Twitter labels video tweeted by Trump as ‘manipulated media’

Twitter labeled a video tweeted by President Donald Trump on Thursday night as “manipulated media” because it attributes to news media a nonexistent story on race.

The video depicts a fake CNN headline that states, “TERRIFIED TODDLER RUNS FROM RACIST BABY,” as a Black toddler runs ahead of a white toddler in the same direction and ominous music plays.

The video then displays the words, “WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED,” and shows the original clip of two children running toward each other on a sidewalk before embracing as Harry Connick Jr.’s version of the Carpenter’s “Close to You” plays.

“AMERICA IS NOT THE PROBLEM,” the video proclaims. “FAKE NEWS IS.”

“IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING,” it says. “ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT FAKE NEWS DUMPSTER FIRES.”

The video of the toddlers went viral on social media last year. On CNN it was presented as what it was — a look at a friendship between two toddlers, identified as Maxwell and Finnegan.

“With all the racism and hate going on I just think it’s a really beautiful video,” Maxwell’s father, Michael Cisneros, said in a video CNN posted online and labeled as being from WPIX television in New York City.

CNN responded Thursday night to Trump’s post, saying on Twitter, “CNN did cover this story — exactly as it happened. Just as we reported your positions on race (and poll numbers). We’ll continue working with facts rather than tweeting fake videos that exploit innocent children. We invite you to do the same. Be better.”

The video tweeted by Trump appears to be watermarked Carpe Donktum, a Trump-supporting creator who has made other manipulated content. It comes as Trump faces criticism over his response to weeks of protests over the in-custody death of George Floyd.

[NBC News]

Trump Praises Scientists for Developing AIDS Vaccine That Doesn’t Exist

President Donald Trump on Tuesday falsely suggested that scientists have developed a vaccine for AIDS, the late stage of HIV infection in which the virus badly damages the immune system.

“They’ve come up with the AIDS vaccine,” Trump said during a press conference on police reform, referring to scientists. “As you know, there’s various things, and now various companies are involved.”

Trump later appeared to backtrack those comments, saying, “AIDS was a death sentence, and now people live a life with a pill. It’s an incredible thing.”

The White House did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment on Trump’s statement.

It’s possible Trump was referring to daily antiretroviral drugs, which have proved very effective in controlling HIV, a disease that was considered a death sentence nearly 40 years ago. Left unchecked, the virus progresses into AIDS, an advanced form of the disease.

People at risk of HIV can also now take prevention medication, also known as pre-exposure prophylaxis or PrEP. PrEP can reduce the risk of infection by at least 74% in people who take the drug consistently, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Roughly 1.1 million people in the U.S. are currently living with HIV, and nearly 40,000 Americans become infected with the virus each year, according to government data.

Last year, Trump’s pledged to end the HIV epidemic in the United States by 2030, a goal that public health advocates have cheered and sought for years.

The comment came as the U.S. also works to develop a vaccine for the deadly coronavirus, which has infected more than 2.1 million Americans and killed at least 116,341, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. 

Earlier Tuesday, Trump administration officials said the coronavirus vaccine will be provided free of charge to Americans who can’t afford it. 

[CNBC]

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