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“He’s our president and I would rather he not be taking something that has not been approved by the scientists, especially in his age group and in his, shall we say, weight group — morbidly obese, they say” — Speaker Pelosi to
@andersoncooper
on CNN.
Notably Colin Powell in
@jaketapper
interview doesn’t just eviscerate Trump for lying, dividing and threatening the Constitution, but also condemns GOP lawmakers for not speaking up and acting. “We’re not a country of just a president. We have a Congress. We have a Supreme Court”
Literally every Washington power player -- Democratic and Republican, past and present -- is at McCain's funeral, except the sitting president, who is tweeting his grievances about the DOJ and FBI.
Watching returns from Georgia, it’s hard not to think about the hundreds of election workers who again tonight are carefully doing democracy’s business under unprecedented scrutiny, amid a raging pandemic, and with a president relentlessly and baselessly calling them thieves.
Trump: “Nancy’s in a situation where it’s not easy for her to talk”
Pelosi: “Mr. President, please don’t characterize the strength that I bring to this meeting as the leader of the House Democrats who just won a big victory"
Schumer: “Elections have consequences, Mr. President”
To recap:
-Trump pressured Pence to subvert the vote, which VP can’t do
-Trump told his supporters to march on the Capitol, where Pence was doing his constitutional duty
-They chanted “Hang Mike Pence”
-Trump hasn’t spoken to Pence, nor condemned the chants for his assassination
Keep in mind Trump is reading his speech from a prepared text, which presumably means that a number of aides helped him compose this litany of lies and attacks on the integrity of America’s democracy.
Obama, in McCain eulogy, condemns today's politics that are "mean" and "petty," and based on "bombast, insult, phony controversies and manufactured outrage." This politics, he says, "pretends to be brave and tough, but in fact is born in fear."
Rep. Peter Meijer, one of the Republicans who voted to impeach, tells
@HallieJackson
on
@MSNBC
that he’s buying body armor and altering his daily routines because his life is in danger.
Obama: “Do what you think is right. Doing what feels good—what’s convenient, what’s easy—that’s how little kids think. Unfortunately a lot of so-called grown-ups, including some with fancy titles and important jobs, still think that way, which is why things are so screwed up.”
During the 2016 campaign, whenever Trump made racist or xenophobic comments there was a small but reliable chorus of Republican office holders who spoke out. Today, there’s silence, nine hours later.
Asked why Dr. Fauci isn't at today's briefing, Trump said, "He's not here because we weren't discussing what he's best at."
Fauci is best at mitigating infectious diseases, according to his credentials, and sits on the coronavirus task force.
So much to chew over in Trump’s Rose Garden speech, but I’m stuck on this: He claimed previous presidents have told him they wish they’d built a border wall. Really? Obama? Bush 43? Clinton? Bush 41? Carter? None has signaled in any way that he is pro-wall.
Mitt Romney, who has endured years of Trump’s schoolyard taunts, and who withstood harassment at the airport yesterday by Trump’s mask-less supporters, receives sustained applause in the Senate chamber as he delivers an affirmation of democracy and truth.
Just in from
@JoeBiden
: “We are a nation in pain, but we must not allow this pain to destroy us. We are a nation enraged, but we cannot allow our rage to consume us. We are a nation exhausted, but we will not allow our exhaustion to defeat us.”
As Trump retaliates against political critics by revoking or reviewing their security clearances, it is worth remembering that the president himself revealed highly classified information to Russians in an Oval Office meeting.
This briefing makes clear that the paramount concern for Trump is Trump — his self-image, what people write and say about him in the media, and whether he is praised or criticized.
....better off without them. The vast amounts of money made and stolen by China from the United States, year after year, for decades, will and must STOP. Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing..
It is striking — and rare — to see regular people confront the president with tough, challenging and urgent questions, and then to follow up or push back. Trump can’t simply yell “fake news” or demean them as he so often does with journalists.
Trump’s campaign still owes the city of El Paso more than $500,000 in fees associated with his February rally. County commissioner calls the debt “ridiculous and unconscionable.”
I’ve been to a
#MAGA
rally every night for the last five nights. I get why Trump thinks he’s hugely popular & his movement is history's biggest. There’s incredible energy & adulation out here. Trouble is, it’s just one part of America, and he doesn’t see the rest of the country.
Trump has long attacked Obama by claiming that the world was laughing at his leadership.
Today, world leaders at the UN laughed at Trump's claim that his administration has accomplished more than any in US history.
Just in: Joe and Jill Biden are going to Kenosha tomorrow to hold a “community meeting” to “bring together Americans to heal and address the challenges we face.”
Trump and advisers calculated that he shouldn’t speak to the nation because he had nothing to say, no tangible policy or action to announce, nor did he feel an urgent motivation to try to bring people together. So he let his tweets speak for themselves.
David Perdue is just gross.
He mispronounced
@KamalaHarris
' name just now warming up the stage for
@realDonaldTrump
to score race-baiting, cheap political cheers.
Melania and I were treated very nicely yesterday in Pittsburgh. The Office of the President was shown great respect on a very sad & solemn day. We were treated so warmly. Small protest was not seen by us, staged far away. The Fake News stories were just the opposite-Disgraceful!
David Reminck, editor of
@NewYorker
, writes that coronavirus is forcing Americans to admit: “Donald Trump is incapable of truth, heedless of science, and hostage to the demands of his insatiable ego.”
This is obvious, but still should be said: Giuliani’s reveal that Trump repaid Cohen $130,000 for hush money to Stormy Daniels renders the repeated denials to the American people from POTUS and his press secretary false and untrue.
You know what’s interesting about
#GlobalCitizen
? There has been zero mention of Trump. None. Nada. (At least in the first hour.) The president who’s been omnipresent was a non entity as celebrities performed beautiful music and paid tribute to heroes everywhere.
Why aren’t they firing no talent Samantha Bee for the horrible language used on her low ratings show? A total double standard but that’s O.K., we are Winning, and will be doing so for a long time to come!
Since the U.S. death toll surpassed 60,000 yesterday, Trump has tweeted about:
-Michael Flynn
-CNN
-MSNBC
-Brian Williams
-Don Lemon
-Joe Scarborough
-Sweden
-Roger Stone
-His poll numbers
-Jim Comey
-Hillary Clinton’s campaign
-Rep. Jim Ryun’s birthday
Sleepy Joe Biden was in charge of the H1N1 Swine Flu epidemic which killed thousands of people. The response was one of the worst on record. Our response is one of the best, with fast action of border closings & a 78% Approval Rating, the highest on record. His was lowest!
CPAC, which today confirmed an attendee was infected with coronavirus, is where then-acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney accused the press of hyping coronavirus, which he described as a media ploy to try to bring down Trump.
Mick Mulvaney said multiple times in
@jonkarl
interview that Trump is angry and upset by El Paso shooting. But Americans haven’t seen the president since Friday. He’s been at his golf club.
Trump is losing his cool, again, with
@Yamiche
, who routinely gets under his skin with probing questions. The president wouldn’t let her state her question first before interrupting to trash her personally and the media generally.
Trump says NFL players are “unable to define” what they’re protesting. The players actually have been quite clear in articulating that they are protesting racial injustice and police brutality.
The NFL players are at it again - taking a knee when they should be standing proudly for the National Anthem. Numerous players, from different teams, wanted to show their “outrage” at something that most of them are unable to define. They make a fortune doing what they love......
The surgeon general is giving journalists “straight talk from the nation’s doctor” and instructing the press to have “no more bickering, no more partisanship, no more criticism or finger-pointing” in news coverage.
He did not mention the president’s twitter feed.
The president of the United States is heaping praise on North Korea’s dictator and China’s “president for life,” but is attacking the free press and personally disparaging American journalists.
Trump is not going to love how many empty seats there are for his speech at the VFW convention. Municipal Auditorium in downtown Kansas City is about half full.
Just watched the whole
@60Minutes
piece on Betsy DeVos. Pretty rough.
@LesleyRStahl
seemed to know more about the nation’s public schools than the education secretary.
John Brennan's public service:
-CIA station chief in Saudi Arabia
-CIA chief of staff
-Director of Terrorist Threat Integration Center
-Director of National Counter terrorism Center
-White House Homeland Security Adviser
-CIA director
-Briefed three presidents
A Trump quote for the ages: “You ever notice they always call the other side 'the elite.' The elite! Why are they elite? I have a much better apartment than they do. I’m smarter than they are. I’m richer than they are. I became president and they didn’t.”
Trump just said of government shutdown over border wall, now in third week: “This is not a fight I wanted. I didn’t want this fight.”
Back in December, Trump said on camera, "I am proud to shut down the government for border security."
Just in --> A rare joint statement from Justice Dept, State Dept, FBI, intel agencies warning on the eve of Super Tuesday elections that "foreign actors continue to try to influence public sentiment and shape voter perceptions."
Trump says he believes Kim Jong Un was not responsible for what happened to Otto Warmbier.
"Those prisons are rough...He tells me that he didn’t know about it and I will take him at his word.”
Echoes of Trump previously taking Vladimir Putin at his word.
U.S. intelligence agencies warned Trump more than a dozen times in the President’s Daily Brief during January and February, the period during which Trump dismissed the danger,
@gregpmiller
&
@nakashimae
report
13-year-old Brayden Harrington shares how Joe Biden helped him overcome his stutter at
#DemConvention
:
"I'm just a regular kid, and in a short amount of time Joe Biden made me more confident about something that's bothered me my whole life."
Trump says El Paso's leaders are "full of crap" when they say the wall didn't lower crime.
In fact, crime stats show El Paso was one of America's safest cities before fencing in late 2000's and after, no demonstrable change in violent crime.
Trump also is reviewing security clearances of James Clapper, James Comey, Michael Hayden, Sally Yates, Susan Rice, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.
What do they have in common? They're political critics of Trump. Looks like a Trump blacklist.
So far this Saturday morning, the president has rage tweeted about:
-Gov. Kemp
-The Supreme Court
-Gov. Ducey
-AG Barr
-The Bidens
He also said he agrees with a radio host’s suggestion to “declassify everything.”
He has said nothing yet about the raging pandemic.
The Lincoln Memorial is one of the nation’s most hallowed sites. It honors the president who freed slaves and united the country, and was host to civil rights history. Tonight Trump is staging a “big show” inside the memorial and complaining he’s treated worse than Lincoln.
The Ronald Reagan Foundation demands the Trump campaign quit using Reagan’s image and likeness in Trump’s reelection campaign — an intriguing
@ktumulty
scoop
Two years ago, Rex Tillerson was chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil, one of the most powerful industry titans in the world.
Today, after being recruited to leave Exxon and join the government, he is being tweet-mocked by the president of the United States as "dumb as a rock."
In five years covering Trump, I haven't seen an hour like the past one:
-Trump declares self "president of law and order"
-Trump mobilizes military
-Military police fire tear gas at peaceful protesters to clear street in front of St. John's
-Trump visits St John's for photo opp
There are curfews in place tonight in more American cities than he can count, Brian Williams says on MSNBC — more curfews than any time since MLK’s assassination in 1968.
That’s where we’re at in America in 2020.
Trump says Omarosa (a senior staffer paid $180,000 by taxpayers) skipped work, missed meetings, was vicious and not smart, but he kept her employed for a year because she said nice things about him
...really bad things. Nasty to people & would constantly miss meetings & work. When Gen. Kelly came on board he told me she was a loser & nothing but problems. I told him to try working it out, if possible, because she only said GREAT things about me - until she got fired!
A signal to dictators everywhere that they will face no consequences for brutally murdering journalists or critics because it’s simply “a mean, nasty world”
America in 2019: The president, after spending the day tweeting alone in the White House, phones into a supporter’s Saturday night TV show and declines to say whether he is working on Russia’s behalf.
The National Park Service is diverting $2.5 million, which is collected by entrance fees to pay for improvements at parks nationwide, to fund Trump's July 4 spectacle -- to which his political donors get VIP tickets, via
@eilperin
@jdawsey1
&
@DanLamothe
News via
@BobMooreNews
--> None of the eight victims still being treated at El Paso's University Medical Center agreed to meet with President Trump today when he visited the hospital
“How do you make a broken family whole? The same way you make a nation whole — with love and understanding, and with small acts of kindness, with bravery, with unwavering faith” — Jill Biden at DNC.
“As
@Yamiche
Alcindor stands and rams through her questions, she is becoming the symbol of American journalism: strong, unflappable and polite,”
@ErikWemple
writes
To build a wall Trump has:
-Delivered primetime Oval Office address
-Toured the border
-Shut the government down for 35 days
-Warned of rapists, murderers, drugs, terrorists coming from Mexico
Right now Trump is folding to Democrats having secured $0 for the wall
Trump’s message two weeks out, based on call with staff:
-Dr. Fauci is a “disaster” who is a “bomb” every time he’s on TV
-Other health officials are “idiots”
-Americans no longer care about the pandemic and just think “whatever”
-News reports are “fake”
Lordy did
@KFILE
find a tape -- Mick Mulvaney, Trump's new White House chief of staff, said during the campaign that Trump's border wall idea was "simplistic" and "absurd and almost childish."
Not all veterans of foreign wars hate the "fake news." One vet just came up to me after Trump's speech to shake my hand, thank me for my reporting and whispered, "I have one question: How do you put up with this bullsh-- every day?"
“Stick with us. Don’t believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news," Trump says at Veterans of Foreign Wars convention. Scores of veterans, right on cue from commander in chief, point to press riser and boo and hiss.
Trump took Vladimir Putin at his word on Russian election interference.
He took MBS at his word over the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
And today in Hanoi he took Kim Jong Un at his word over the death of Otto Warmbier.
On the firing of State Department inspector general Steve Linick, a White House official says, "Secretary Pompeo recommended the move, and President Trump agreed.”
This is relevant because officials say Linick had begun an investigation into possible misconduct by Pompeo.
Overnight reaction from Danish leaders:
“An insult”
“Lacks even basic diplomatic skills”
“Please show more respect”
“An insult to the royal house”
“A spoiled child”
“Trump lives on another planet”
“Quite absurd”
“It was incoherent, it was rambling, there’s no specifics, there’s boogeymen and grievances all over the place... It really looks almost mentally like he’s unraveling under pressure,”
@SteveSchmidtSES
tells
@NicolleDWallace
of President Trump’s pandemic update.
U.S. intelligence agencies were issuing ominous, classified warnings in January and February about the global danger posed by the coronavirus while Trump and lawmakers played down the threat and failed to take action that might have slowed the spread
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was on my shuttle to NY this morning looking fab and reading her Washington Post. 🗞 Her fans were buzzing as RBG exited LaGuardia’s Delta terminal.
The 2020 presidential election is 52 days away and Trump is on the campaign trail talking about 2016 candidate Hillary Clinton's emails and saying she and her lawyer should go to prison.
The president was convinced to pause the daily coronavirus briefings because advisers concluded his performances were damaging. But instead of adjusting his pandemic messaging, he’s still praising himself, attacking reporters and airing grievances — just all on Twitter.
Just in from Pelosi and Schumer: “It's Christmas Eve and President Trump is plunging the country into chaos. The stock market is tanking and the president is waging a personal war on the Federal Reserve – after he just fired the Secretary of Defense."
Christie on ABC says Trump is like your 72-year-old relative: “When people get older, they become more and more convinced of the fact that what they’re doing is the right thing and it becomes harder to convince them otherwise."
Five days at 1600 Pennsylvania:
-First Lady launches
#bebest
campaign to teach kids to always put kindness first
-White House communications staffer jokes about McCain being irrelevant: “He’s dying anyway”
-White House refuses to say sorry
Just got off phone with a former Trump Org employee who echoed
@KatyTurNBC
reporting on Weisselberg subpoena: “Alan knows everything and anything about all the financials...He knows every dollar that goes in and every dollar that leaves. He knows where all the bodies are buried.”
Brian Williams on why MSNBC cut away from Trump’s remarks tonight: “It was not rooted in reality — and at this point, where our country is, it’s dangerous.”
Worth reminding everyone that “caravans” of migrants crossing the border have nothing to do with DACA, a program for immigrants who arrived as kids years ago. Those who’ve come since 2012 are ineligible. There is no “DACA bandwagon.”
DACA is dead because the Democrats didn’t care or act, and now everyone wants to get onto the DACA bandwagon... No longer works. Must build Wall and secure our borders with proper Border legislation. Democrats want No Borders, hence drugs and crime!
Just observing that this is the morning of Barbara Bush’s funeral in Houston and the official presidential messages so far are about “flunkies,” “drunk/drugged up losers” and “the horrible Witch Hunt.”
The contrast between Trump and Cuomo in their daily briefings, on both substance and style, is extraordinary when you consider both executives are navigating the same pandemic, have access to the same data and science, and have the same responsibility to inform and protect.
Putting things into perspective — In the midst of a pandemic claiming the lives of tens of thousands and the jobs of tens of millions, the president of the United States has determined he has more to lose politically than to gain by briefing the public with daily updates.