President Donald J. Trump revisited some of the themes of his America First foreign policy this morning in an otherwise short and disjointed speech to the first virtual UN General Assembly. By turns boastful and defensive, the president exaggerated his domestic and international achievements while offering scathing criticism of China for all manner of offenses, from inflicting a pandemic on the world to poisoning the global environment. It was a slapdash performance that included multiple tendentious claims and statements easily refuted by cursory fact-checking. It was also a missed opportunity for the president, who might otherwise have used the occasion to outline a sovereignty-minded approach to international cooperation, one that would have resonated not only with his domestic base but perhaps with some in his foreign audience. Instead, he delivered a shallow and unpersuasive address.

Seventy-five years after the UNs founding in World War II, the president began, the world was again engaged in a global struggle. This time, the enemy was the China virus. Remarkably, Trump sought to frame the U.S. response to the pandemic as a public health triumph rather than what it has been: an unmitigated disaster that has resulted in far higher morbidity and mortality rates than in any other advanced market democracy. The president promised that more success was imminent. The United States would produce a vaccine, defeat the virus, and usher in a new era of unprecedented prosperity, cooperation, and peace.

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This rosy scenario left a couple of things unclear. The first was why his administration, if it is so determined to save the world with a vaccine, has chosen not to have the United States join the more than 170 other countries that are members of COVAX, a pathbreaking consortium working not only to develop a vaccine but to ensure that when one emerges it is shared equitably by humanity rather than hoarded by individual countries for their own citizens. The second mystery is how the president plans to engineer the Kantian future he apparently envisions through a transactional foreign policy grounded in nationalism, nativism, protectionism, and unilateralism.

The Internationalist

About one thing, the president was sure: We must hold accountable the nation which unleashed this plague onto the world: China. Trump repeated his by-now-familiar origin story of the COVID-19 pandemic: how China allowed the virus to spread globally and how the World Health Organization (which is virtually controlled by China) had facilitated Chinese mendacity by lying about human-to-human as well as asymptomatic transmission.

It is legitimate for Trump to call out China for its lack of transparency, to blame WHO for its early missteps, and even to brag that his own travel ban may have saved lives in the short term. It is quite another thing for him to ignore the catastrophic effects of his subsequent inaction and misinformation in ensuing weeks, when (by his own admission) he took refuge in happy talk and failed to mobilize the federal government and prepare the nation for the aggressive social distancing and other public health measures that might have prevented or at least slowed community transmission of the novel coronavirus. Holding China accountable is important. The same could be said of his administration.

Perhaps the most bizarre section of Trumps speech, because it was such a non-sequitur, was his criticism of Chinas global environmental recordits dumping of plastic into the ocean, rampant overfishing, destruction of coral reefs, toxic mercury pollution, and massive greenhouse gas emissions. These are all genuine problems, but the real issue for the president seemed to be U.S. amour-propre, or perhaps his own wounded sensibilities. Those who attack Americas exceptional environmental record while ignoring Chinas rampant pollution are not interested in the environment, he declared. They only want to punish America and I will not stand for it. The outburst made one to wonder who they might be and why the U.S. environmental record is indeed a topic of scrutiny. The latter might have something to do with a U.S. leader who continues to dispute the reality of climate change and whose administration has gone into overdrive in its efforts to dismantle domestic environmental regulations. If Chinas environmental record is fair game, so too is his administrations.

The president then pivoted, all too briefly, to the United Nations and its purposes. If the United Nations is to be an effective organization, it must focus on the real problems of the world, he declared. This includes terrorism, the oppression of women, forced labor, drug trafficking, human and sex trafficking, religious persecution, and the ethnic cleansing of religious minorities. The United Nations, of course, is deeply involved on all of these fronts, in bodies ranging from the UN Counterterrorism Committee to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, the International Organization for Migration, and the International Labor Organization. At the same time, the presidents list was curiously selective. There was no mention of many other priorities that top the UNs agenda and everyday work, from arresting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to conducting peace operations, advancing sustainable development, mitigating and adapting to climate change, and ameliorating the plight of refugees and the internally displaced.

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The president next offered a rapid-fire list of his administrations greatest hits, albeit with some poetic license in describing them. The Trump administration had built the greatest economy in history, revitalized the NATO Alliance, stood up to decades of Chinas trade abuses, withdrew from the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, and obliterated the ISIS caliphate. Trump took justifiable pride in brokering groundbreaking peace deals in the Middle East, notably between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. We intend to deliver more peace deals shortly, he promised.

The president was less persuasive when he declared, America will always be a leader in human rights, given his own well-established (and self-admitted) coziness with dictators and strongmen from Russian President Valdimir Putin to Chinese President Xi Jinping. We are standing with the people of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela in their righteous struggle for freedom,Trump said, making one wonder why the United States could not do the same in, say, Egypt or Saudi Arabia. Although selectivity has always been a hallmark of U.S. human rights policy, such hypocrisy has rarely been more obvious.

The president closed his scattershot speech by revisiting the main theme of his first address to the world body three years ago, namely, the centrality of sovereignty in international cooperation. For decades, the same tired voices proposed the same failed solutions, pursuing global ambitions at the expense of their own people, Trump asserted. But only when you take care of your own citizens, will you find a true basis for cooperation.

As Ive written elsewhere, the presidents thesis is a straw man, because the United Nations (as the word nations implies) is an intergovernmental body rather than a supranational one. It is premised on the political independence of its members, and their decision to cooperate is an embodiment and an expression of their respective sovereignties. The globalist threat to popular sovereignty, in other words, exists only in the fevered imaginations of Trumps base. It is a pity that the president is too wedded to this imagined collision between multilateralism and sovereignty, when the former is in fact premised on the latter. Indeed, many of the most diehard sovereigntists are to be found precisely where the president sees globalists running amok: the corridors of the United Nations.

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Donald Trump's Disjointed and Misleading UN Address - Council on Foreign Relations

"We're rounding the corner," he told "Fox & Friends" of the coronavirus during an interview Monday morning. "With or without a vaccine. They hate when I say that but that's the way it is. ... We've done a phenomenal job. Not just a good job, a phenomenal job. Other than public relations, but that's because I have fake news. On public relations, I give myself a D. On the job itself, we take an A+."

How, you might ask yourself, could this President give himself top marks in handling the pandemic when he had admitted to downplaying the threat it posed to the public, driven skepticism about mask-wearing, pushed unproven (and even dangerous) remedies to deal with the virus and repeatedly underestimated the death toll?

Simple! Trump lives in a fantasy world of his own creation. He always has. In that world, he is the smartest, the savviest, the coolest, the best-looking and the winningest person in the world. Objective facts fall by the wayside in that world. And Trump has always -- whether in the business world or the political one -- surrounded himself with people who affirm that his world is the real one and the actual real one is some sort of conspiracy narrative driven by his "elite" enemies in the Democratic Party and the media.

All of which allows Trump to live in a sort-of bubble. Prior to being elected president, his wealth allowed him to exist in that bubble. Now the security of the White House does the same.

The problem for Trump is that in politics what grade you give yourself matters a whole lot less than the grade the people you need to vote for you give to your performance. And, on that front, Trump is failing.

The disconnect between how Trump sees his handling of the coronavirus and how the public sees it is vast. But again, objective facts play a role here.

Put plainly: There is simply no evidence the country is "rounding the corner" on the virus as Trump suggested Monday. And while Trump is free to give himself whatever grade he wants in how he has dealt with the virus, his constituents disagree. Profoundly.

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Donald Trump gives himself an 'A+' for his handling of the coronavirus. Uh, what? - CNN

We already knew that this falls campaign, with Donald Trump fighting for his political survival, would be crazy, overwhelming, and exhausting. But, no matter how much weve come to expect the worst, its still a shock when it happens. At least it should be. On Wednesday, Trump was asked what should have been a simple question: Do you commit to a peaceful transfer of power? There is only one answer to this question in America. The answer is yes. But not for Trump. Well, were gonna have to see what happens, he responded. You know that Ive been complaining very strongly about the ballots. And the ballots are a disaster. Further pressed, he added, Well want to haveget rid of the ballots and youll have a verywell have a very peaceful... There wont be a transfer, frankly. Therell be a continuation.

No wonder, then, that Washington has been in a full uproar for weeks over the constitutional crisis that may ensue after the vote, if the results are too close to call or if there is a winner and Trump doesnt like who it is. In the wake of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburgs death, a week ago, Trump said he wants to make sure that a ninth, presumably loyal, Justice is in place before the election, in case the Court is where the outcome of the election ends up. And he appears to have the Republican votes in the Senate to make it happen.

So, yes, the prospect of the upcoming election shouldand doesinspire dread. But so does the prospect of what tomorrow might bring from the Presidentand the next day, and the day after that. The election is still forty days from now. How will we get through the rest of this week? This month? Consider that the following are things that Trump has done in the course of this long, enervating, and not-yet-over September, every single one worthy of front-page scandal, of career-ending political damage for an American elected official:

He said its an amazing thing that the coronavirus affects virtually nobody, a few hours before the United States officially surpassed two hundred thousand deaths from the pandemic.

He said that Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the worlds premier infectious-disease agency, did not know what he was talking about regarding the timetable for a coronavirus vaccine. And that Redfield did not know what he was talking about in urging the public to wear masks, to prevent infection.

He said that some people dont think mask-wearing is necessary during the pandemic. When pressed about who thinks this, at an ABC News town call, he said, Waiters. A couple days later, he was asked the same question. He again said, Waiters.

He said that there would be a vaccine in October. Or November. Or very soon. And that it would be available for everyone immediately. All of which is at odds with what the governments top public-health officials have testified to under oath.

When told this week that the Food and Drug Administration would make standards as stringent as possible for approving the vaccine, in order to increase public confidence in it, he accused his own scientific agency of being political. He then said that the F.D.A.s standards could not be implemented unless the White House approved them, and that the White House has not done so.

He said that U.S. deaths from COVID-19 would be very low if you just didnt count those who had died in blue states. That is both inaccurate and very, very alarming coming from someone whose title is President of the United States. He also said that he would give himself an A-plus for his handling of the pandemic, and that he has saved millions of lives.

He said that the Nov 3rd election result may NEVER BE ACCURATELY DETERMINED, and that Democratic governors may somehow steal ballots rather than let them be counted.

He said that climate change was nonexistent and also that it would just start getting cooler, just you watch. When told that the science does not agree with him, he said that the science is wrong. I dont think science knows, actually, he added.

He touted a super-duper secret hydrosonic missile that the Pentagon is going to deploywhich may or may not be a new hypersonic missile.

He retweeted a gif calling his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, a pedophile. He retweeted a video that made it look as though Biden had played a song called Fuck tha Police at a campaign event, which, needless to say, he had not.

He told the Fox News host Jeanine Pirro that Biden was on performance-enhancing drugs of some kindI think theres probably, possibly, drugs involved, he saidand then he elaborated on his theory during a campaign rally full of unmasked supporters. Dont underestimate him, Trump told them. Look, hes been doing this for forty-seven years,andI got a debate coming up with this guy. No, its true. You never know, you never know. They gave him a big fatshotin theass, andhe comes outandfor two hours hes better than ever before.

He compared himself to Winston Churchill. He compared himself to Abraham Lincoln. He said that Democrats are planning to destroy suburbia and put Senator Cory Booker in charge of it. He even said that Ruth Bader Ginsburgs last wish, as relayed by her granddaughterthat her Supreme Court seat not be filled by Trumpwas a fabrication cooked up by his Democratic opponents.

This September seems to be the ultimate test of whether we really, truly, finally have run out of outrage. Reading back through this list, its hard to conclude anything else. When Ginsburg died, it took less than a day for Trump to announce that he would try to replace her before the election. I was not surprised in the least bit. When Trumpafter complaining for months about a rigged election, just because he is behind in the pollssaid on Wednesday that he would not agree in advance to a nonviolent transfer of power, his words were abhorrent but not at all revelatory.

At a press conference on Tuesday, the day the U.S. officially passed two hundred thousand deaths from the pandemic, Trump was asked why he had not said anything about the grim milestone. He listened to the reporters question, then turned away. Uh, anybody else? he asked. Because of all the horrors and lies that preceded it, and all that are sure to follow, the Presidents callous disregard was not a major story but just another viral video in a news cycle full of them. Trump has succeeded in conditioning us to believe that the weeks news, while awful, is less so because the awfulness is so consistent. Awful is the new Trumpian normal, which is pretty amazing when you consider that the old Trump-era normal was already pretty bad. He has rendered us collectively incapable of outrage, just when we need it most. If we cant be appalled at the Presidents indifference toward two hundred thousand dead Americans, then there is nothing left that can horrify us. After all, the COVID-19 death toll so far is the biggest mass-casualty event in American history aside from the Civil War, the Second World War, and the 1918 flu pandemic.

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Here Are Twenty Other Disturbing, Awful Things That Trump Has Said This Month, and Its Not Over Yet - The New Yorker

Jared Kushner, the US presidents son-in-law, told journalist Bob Woodward that one of the best ways to understand Donald Trump is to study Lewis Carrolls Alices Adventures in Wonderland. Kushner paraphrased the Cheshire Cats philosophy: If you dont know where youre going, any path will get you there.

Wednesday was one of those days when to have a seat in the White House briefing room felt like stepping through the looking-glass into Blunderland, where the mad hatter has an authoritarian streak a mile wide.

Trump careered from touting miracle vaccines to building supreme court suspense, from insulting a female member of the British royal family to abruptly departing for a mysterious emergency phone call. But first, there was the small matter of kneecapping American democracy.

Perhaps it was not chance that the president, ever eager to generate media outrage, gave the first question to Brian Karem, who describes himself on Twitter as a Loud Mouth senior White House reporter at Playboy. Will you commit to make sure theres a peaceful transferral of power after the election? Karem asked.

All of his 43 predecessors would have said yes, presumably. But Trump replied: Were going to have to see what happens, you know that. Ive been complaining very strongly about the ballots, and the ballots are a disaster.

Karem shot back: I understand that, but people are rioting. Do you commit to make sure that theres a peaceful transferral of power?

Still Trump refused to commit. Get rid of the ballots and youll have a very peaceful there wont be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation. The ballots are out of control. You know it. And you know who knows it better than anybody else? The Democrats know it better than anybody else.

Later, Karem remarked on Twitter: This is the most frightening answer I have ever received to any question I have ever asked. Ive interviewed convicted killers with more empathy. @realDonaldTrump is advocating Civil War.

And Julian Castro, who served in Barack Obamas cabinet, tweeted: In one day, Trump refused a peaceful transition of power and urged the confirmation of a Supreme Court justice to hand him an election if the results are contested. This is fascism, alive and well in the Republican Party.

Trump was also questioned about the failure of a grand jury to bring charges against Louisville police for the killing of Breonna Taylor during a drug raid gone wrong.

The president declined to offer his own perspective or comfort for millions aggrieved by another case of racial injustice. Instead he read a statement from Daniel Cameron, the attorney general of Kentucky, a loyal supporter who last month delivered a prime time address at the Republican national convention.

I think hes a star, said Trump, also noting that the governor has called in the National Guard and suggesting that, when in doubt, theres always the strategy of mindless optimism: Itll all work out.

Another reporter asked about Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, urging people to vote in remarks that some interpreted as supporting Democratic candidate Joe Biden.

Trump said: Im not a fan of hers - and she has probably heard that but I wish a lot of luck to Harry because hes going to need it.

The attempt at humour hovered awkwardly in the air like a coronavirus particle.

Speaking of which, the president was ruminating on Covid-19 when he called his latest adviser, Scott Atlas, to weigh in from the podium. Trump then told reporters: I have to leave for an emergency phone call.

Karem and others demanded to know the nature of the emergency. Trump said only: I have a big call, a very big call. Could it be Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin? One wit on Twitter quipped that it was probably just Lou Dobbs of Fox Business.

Atlas has the kind of combative swagger that appeals to Trump. He denied media reports that he has clashed with coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx. He claimed Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control, misstated something when he told the Senate that 90% of the population remains susceptible to Covid-19.

Jim Acosta of CNN queried: Americans hear one thing from the CDC Dir & another thing from you, who are we to believe?

Atlas responded: Youre supposed to believe the science and Im telling you the science.

Indeed, earlier Trump had claimed, Our approach is pro-science. Bidens approach is anti-science words to remember when he heads to Florida on Thursday for the latest of his packed, nearly mask-free campaign rallies in Wonderland.

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Donald in Blunderland: Trump won't commit to peaceful power transfer at surreal press briefing - The Guardian

But that also means Donald Trump will miss the last turn of his first term as US President at the hallowed green granite UN podium, from which generations of world leaders have lectured the world.

A ripple of amusement cascaded around the cavernous chamber. Other world leaders laughing, in part perhaps at what he said, part perhaps that he would say it.

Trump took the laughter in stride.

" -- so true..." he nodded. More laughter followed.

"Didn't expect that reaction, but that's OK," he said.

The Twittersphere lit up lampooning Trump, and at this stage of his presidency, most of the gathered dignitaries thought they had the measure of the man at the microphone.

Leaders talking past each other

More than ever, leaders seem to talk past each other. With or without a live audience, UNGA has come to mirror the high-speed, highly globalized and increasingly fractured world orbiting around it.

Trump's preaching of his tremendous achievements in 2018 was a point in case -- of course his principle audience is always his electorate, and they won't be far from his mind during his address this week.

Xi, who takes the virtual podium next, will also try to put the best light on his own pickle: stuck in a stuttering trade war with the US, watching Trump polarize business partners against Beijing, while it rachets up tension with Taiwan and in the South China Sea.

We will hear about Covid-19 and the importance of working together to fight the virus repeated several times. But we'll also hear a great deal of hot air: Trump will deny that he failed to contain the virus domestically and Xi will deny that China shirked its responsibility to warn the world sooner. Meanwhile Russian President Vladimir Putin, ever the iceman in delivery and demeanor, will surely claim how much his nation is doing to help others with its vaccine development -- even though respected international medical experts criticize the speed with which Russia has rushed the jab out.

If ever there were a year for the world to have less talk, more listening and more cooperation, this would be it. But the lesson of Covid-19 in 2020 has unfortunately all too often been for leaders to talk a good game about the need to work together to fund, develop, and deliver an end to the pandemic -- but to act in national interest first when the chips were down.

Even the sophisticated interlocking of the European Union didn't stop member nations from closing borders between themselves. With a second wave of the coronavirus surging in Europe, we can expect more of the same.

Meanwhile, Johnson has been mostly absent on the world stage -- though recently shocking the world as he prepares to welch on an international treaty.

The three leaders' speech scripts will have been carefully vetted, but don't expect much coordination this week -- except perhaps on Iran, where both oppose Trump.

A changed world

In 2018, Trump had the last laugh at the UNGA. He did what he was going to do regardless of the chuckles and polite putdowns he received: China got a trade war and NATO continues to receive a hard time over funding despite the cunning of its seasoned Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

Today the world is different, and it's unlikely that much laughter will be heard in the Assembly Hall. Now, when we most need to come together we cannot.

For diplomats tight on time and short of sleep, the traditional week in New York City once afforded some lighter moments, a good dinner, an important meeting -- or as Macron did last year, a stroll down the street sans jacket, joking with journalists.

As Ukraine's newly minted President Volodymyr Zelensky observed to me in an elevator last year, New York is a great place -- though it would've been better, he said, without the attention being heaped on him at that time. The former comedian still had his self-deprecating wit.

This year, it's hard to imagine any leader would be up for idle banter. Surging second waves of the coronavirus await many leaders now, as they turn off their virtual UNGA connections and tune in to troubles at home.

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At the United Nations this week, US President Donald Trump will be denied something he loves -- a live audience - CNN

In her 2019 memoir, What Do We Need Men For?, E. Jean Carroll accused Donald Trump of rape, in a Bergdorfs dressing room in the mid-1990s. After the president denied ever meeting her and dismissed her story as a Democratic plot, she sued him for defamation. Carroll was not, of course, the first woman to say that Trump had sexually harassed or assaulted her, but unlike so many other powerful men, the president has remained unscathed by the #MeToo reckoning. So in the run-up to the November 3 election, Carroll is interviewing other women who alleged that Trump suddenly and without consent moved on them, to cite his locution in the Access Hollywood tape. Im automatically attracted to beautifulI just start kissing them, its like a magnet ... And when youre a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab em by the pussy.

Carrolls lawsuit took a dramatic turn two weeks ago, when the Justice Department intervened in an attempt to take over the presidents defense, asserting that Trump was acting in his official capacity when he claimed not to know Carroll. Meanwhile, a White House spokesperson denied all of the womens allegations, calling them false statements that had been thoroughly litigated and rejected by the American people. Read Parts 1, 2, and 3 here.

You are looking at slightly out-of-focus 2016 images taken from a 15-second video of the thenRepublican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, and a campaign staffer, Alva Johnson. Before people see the tape, Trump attorneys say that their client does not kiss Alva. After the tape is released, the lawyers say that what Trump is doing to Alva is an interaction, a word they will employ in pleadings before the judge presiding over the federal suit in which Alva claims that Trump kisses her without her consent.

Reader, we will now leave the video so we can learn who kisses whom, who sues whom, and why this kind of fight with a man is not new for Alva.

What does Trump smell like?

I dont know.

When he comes in at you.

II

Stop and think.

I dont

Alva lowers her eyes and tries to smell Trump in her minds nostril. Sweatmaybe? Alvas nose ring quivers like a damselfly. Makeup? Cosmetics? Its a cramped RV and its raining, and people are wet, and there are a bunch of guys whove been there since 6 oclock in the morning setting up chairs and tables and so Ireallyjustfreeze.

Alva looks like a choir girl but laughs with the sound of a marching band. Huuh-eh-huuh-huuh-huuh-huuh-huuh!

Ive been told by some readers of Parts 1, 2, and 3 of this series that they are surprised that we Trump accusers talk to each other like this. I think it is not how Trump accusers talk; I think it is how women talk. Which is to say that I offer Alva various animals and vegetables that Trump might smell like.

No, no, no, Alva replies. I was holding my breath.

Are you the only Black woman Trumps ever kissed?

Alva Johnson, the former director of administrative operations for the Florida Trump campaign, regards me slyly through Zoom. She is a marvel, a Black woman from Alabama, a demure nonconformist, a former big-time college athlete, listed as 6 feet tall in the University of Alabama at Birminghams sports pages (Im really 5 foot 9, but of course, as a hitter in volleyball, they fudge our heights for intimidation), slim as a lettuce leaf, with a laugh amounting to genius.

No, Im not, Alva says. Trump dated a Black woman.

What?

You dont know that?

This summer, before I talk to Alva, I visit Jill Harth, the makeup artist. We are in Jills boudoir, and the two of us are going through her giant basket of Trump photos. While Jill is flinging out all over the bed smiling photos of our current president, the man she sued in 1997 for groping her intimate private parts (she later withdrew the suit), she tells me a strange story about her American Dream Calendar Girls, a witty beauty pageant she created in the mid-90s. I am examining a photo of Trump with his arms around a group of Jills Calendar Girls, each one whiter than a boiled egg, when Jill mentions something about Trump constantly wanting to help pick the girls.

He did not even want to look at photos of women of color, she says.

I am not certain I heard her correctly. What did Trump say exactly, Jill?

He said, No! No! No! I dont want to see any Black girls! (Trump has denied that he ever excluded Black women from such events.)

So, reader, when Alva Johnson says that Trump was head over heels for a Black woman, I need to prevent myself from sagging to my knees in astonishment. Yes, Alva assures me, He dated a Black woman. Long term. For a couple of years.

No! I cry.

Listen, E. Jean, Alva says, taking in breath, if you really want to loosen up the racists from Trumps basea tuba aria of chucklesif you want the white supremacists to understand that he is not their friend, I mean, he dog-whistles, but he dated a Black woman.

Even I, a chick so white that I look like Ive been hit with a banana-cream pie, manage to loosen up the supremacists when a photo of Trump and me in the company of our ex-spouses shoots around the globe. My ex-husband is Black. The supremacists write emails to enlighten me as to the character of their godlike leader, who would never touch a woman who has been with a Black man. You understand, reader, that when the supremacists say Trump would never touch a woman who has been with a Black man, the supremacists do not say touch, nor woman, nor been with, nor Black man. I cannot give you the precise languagebecause their emails are not fit for human eyesbut I can tell you that they write such fascinating descriptions of my vagina that you might think youre reading about a dead carp that has been left out in the sun and gone bad.

Actually, Alva tells me, Prince has a song about Trumps relationship with a Black woman. Yeah, its called Trump, or Trumps Girlfriend, or something.

The song is a hilarious tip of Princes hat to Trump titled Donald Trump (Black Version), though its not actually about Trumps relationship with a Black woman, but a guy named Morriss. Kara Young, the daughter of a Black mother and a white father, begins dating Trump around 1997, seven years after Prince writes the song; and thus it is that Alva, believing that Trump cant be racist, what with the hundred rap songs about him and because, well, he dated a Black woman, and assuming that Trump is never going to winthus it is, reader, that Ms. Alva Mahaffey, born into a large Birmingham family of Black professionals (her mother, Ammie Savage, is a teacher of French, Spanish, and English; her stepdad, Jacob Savage, is a microbiologist); thus it is that little Alva, who grows up listening to her grandmother and aunts talking about the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing that killed the four little girls, about the police siccing dogs on the protesters in Kelly Ingram Park, and about how they themselves brought food to Dr. King in the Birmingham jail; thus it is that Alva, a cheerleader, a member of the church choir, Alva, who eventually becomes a human-resources professional and founds her own event-planning company, Alva, who always votes Democrat, Alva, who hosts trainings for Obama-campaign volunteers in her home in 2008, Alva, who carries Hillary Clintons book Living History around with her; thus it is that Alva decides to join the campaign staff of Donald Trump.

Naturally, Trump looking her up and down like an Airedale eyeing a rump roast as she walks toward him at a 2015 campaign rally in Birmingham, and then exclaiming, Oh! Beautiful! Beautiful! Fantastic! nearly deters the ever-professional Alva from joining his campaign.

But when I start working for him, Alva says, there are 17 other candidates in the race! Theres no wayno one expects Trump to become the Republican nominee. I mean, you have Ted Cruz. You have Marco Rubio. You have

Jeb Bush, I say, raising my head from my desk, where I have been rolling it back and forth in amazement at Alvas awful miscalculation. Of course, she wasnt the only one.

I do it to get work experience on a political campaign. I do it to network. And I know I can throw a rally.

Boy, does Alva know how to throw a rally! Two days before Super Tuesday, 32,000 people show up at her event in Madison, Alabama. Jeff Sessions becomes the first sitting U.S. senator to endorse Trump, bestowing a blessing of legitimacy upon the popinjay from New York.

Alva, who thinks she is just going to grow her event-planning business in Alabama, receives a phone call after the rally. They ask me if I can pack my bags and go to Missouri, says Alva, who has the title of director of outreach and coalitions. It sounds like a good opportunity. There are still a lot of candidates in the race, and so I talk with my family, make sure my four kids are taken care of, and I go to Missouri. Then its just kind of traveling from state to state to state. Im in a bubble. Im out with the voters and supporters, or with people who are on the fence, or coming up with concepts, or rounding up people to go knock on doors. Its a bunch of lonely people out in this world, okay? Its a bunch of lonely people who want to feel heard, and they are vulnerable. Not the white supremacists. Not those people, but the vulnerable people who are put in that echo chamber, where bad information about Trump is fake news and cant be true.

Alva is eventually promoted to director of operations for Florida, and runs the states three mobile offices. Showing the extraordinary stamina that seems to be required of campaign women, especially Black womenin this case, Alva doesnt encounter a single other Black woman on the road trying to elect TrumpAlva commits herself to taking the three RVs to every county in Florida, which is how she arrives in Tampa with the Donalds mug decorating her vehicle and his pudgy self heading toward her.

What are you wearing, Alva? I ask.

A white T-shirt. With the word Trump in red and the blue logo: Make America Great Again. And Ive got a pair of cute jeans, and heels. I always wear heels. Everyone always laughs, because I wear heels everywhere. So I am wearing burgundy-colored Nine West closed-toe pumpsI love those pumpsand my jeans are kind of tapered, but they, you know, are not tight or anything

Alva interrupts herself, and looks into the Zoom screen, arching her eyebrows in the manner of every woman in the world.

Its funny I have to say that. Because as women, were kind of conditioned to say, Im not showing this, I wasnt showing that. So I am just wearing some blue jeans, my T-shirt, heels, and, as it is raining, a baseball cap.

Prince has another song.

U dont have 2 be rich

2 be my girl

U dont have 2 be cool

2 rule my world

Aint no particular sign Im more compatible with

I just want your extra time and your

Kiss

Trump walks into the RV, Alva says. It is August 24, 2016. And hes like, Wow! This is great! Ive made sure we have volunteers and supporters there making him feel welcome, and Im in the back making certain that people get to meet himOkay, did you get his autograph? Good! Come around this way! So Im directing traffic, and I can see him looking at me. Im at work. I am in front of people I manage and who have to listen to what I tell them to do. They must take me seriously as a woman. And its even more complicated because Im a Black woman. I dont want any blurred lines. I dont want any questions about my professionalism.

Trump is about to exit when he pauses in front of Alva.

He grabs me and holds my arms at my sides. People dont seem to register that this is what is happening to me. Im as stiff as a board. And he kisses me. He tries to kiss me on the lips, but I turn my head.

Im at work! Hes my boss! There are other women there. He doesnt do this to anyone but me. I dont show emotion. I just, you know, I just keep trekking through. The story Alva got a kiss from the boss travels so fast, it beats me to Sarasota. And I remember when I call my parents that night and tell them what happens, I start crying. I remember pulling over in a Trader Joes parking lot and crying. They say, Why are you crying? And I laugh and say, I dont know why Im crying. Then I feel stupid for crying. But it is something that triggers me when Im telling the story. And it is something I feel even to this day: I know that what happened is not right. Its without my permission.

Alva cries on the phone because long ago, when she was in fourth grade, after her little sister, Aundria Mahaffey, died of leukemia, Alvas motherwho is divorced from Alvas dad, grieving her child, and trying to make ends meet on a teachers salaryturns to a teenage friend of the family to babysit Alva. Alvas mom is always careful. She believes she is putting her daughter in the safest and most nurturing place. I am 9 years old, Alva says, and the guy is a jock who chases me around for hours while I hide, cry, and try to fight him off when he finds me. I squeeze under the bed, and he pulls me out by my legs. Even when he goes away to college, hell pick me up as a big brother and will literally park his car and rape me as I try to fight him off. I am 11 when he goes off to school. This continues until I am 13, and he is a junior in college and finally has a steady girlfriend. (He denies Alvas allegations.)

When we are both adults, he sends me a friend request on Facebook. But I am grown up now. Im a woman and Im no longer hiding. I sent him a private message on Facebook about what he did to me. You know what he replies? He replies with a sad-face emoji.

Take the weekend off! Rejuvenate! Get rested! And Monday, were all going to come back, and its going to be a brand-new day!

The Florida campaign director is delivering this pep talk to the states Trump-for-president staff during a dinner meeting at a seafood restaurant in Sarasota. Alva is thinking, Were four weeks away from the election, and you want us to rest? She elbows the guy next to herwhats going on?

And he is like, You know, the thing today.

And Alva is like, What thing today?

And he says, Well, theres, you know, the video.

And Alva is like, What video?

So she Googles it, and its this Access Hollywood tape, and she cant hear it, but she is looking at the words running underneath, I just start kissing them I dont even wait . . . When youre a star, they let you do it, and Alva pushes back her chair, stands up, drops her napkin on the table, and tells her partner, who is visiting from Alabama (and who is not a fan of Trumps), that they are leaving. Good, Im ready to leave anyway, he replies, and the two of them walk out, get in their rental car, and close the door. At which point Alva restarts the video and starts to scream: Thats what Trump did to me! I knew it! I knew it! I knew I wasnt overreacting!

She never goes back. She consults with a Fort Lauderdale lawyer, Adam Horowitz, quits the campaign on his advice; and, figuring why throw the baby out with the bathwater, later submits applications for several positions with the new administration. I earned this opportunity through my hard work on the campaign, Alva says. Why should I be punished for his actions? In 2017 she hires Hassan Zavareei, a respected Washington, D.C., litigator; and, viewing the case as a former HR professional who would persuade any company she worked for to get rid of a man like Trump because of his pattern of allegations, sues Trump in February 2019 for kissing her without her consent and for paying her less than her white male counterparts.

In June 2019, William F. Jung, a Trump-appointed federal judge, dismisses the case, on the grounds that it was improperly framed as a political statement, though he says Alva can refile in a streamlined suit alleging simple battery for the kiss and wage discrimination. About a month later, Trumps lawyer Charles Harder submits the video of the interaction. Alva remembers turning her head to avoid Trumps lips, and Trump holding her more forcibly than the video shows; Zavareei submits to the court an independent forensic report concluding that the video might have been doctored, and asks to reopen discovery to obtain the original. The judge denies the motion, and Alva drops the suit in September 2019.

Alvas rakish earrings swing back and forth.

Well? I say, sucking on the end of my Sharpie.

Well, Alva says, with her sideways smile. Its embarrassing being a Black woman who worked for Trump, I can tell you that much!

Thats the big one for me, she says. I disappointed a lot of people. Not just Black people, but Black and white. But specifically Black people. I expected people to give me the Heisman arm. She laughs and throws out her arm. Its like that stiff-arm from the Heisman Trophy.

The Trump campaign is suing Alva for violating the nondisclosure agreement that she signed as a condition for working for Donald J. Trump for President Inc. For good measure, the campaigns lawyers are also asking that Alva pay its legal fees (yet to be determined). Which is rich, considering that on the deadline for Trump to appeal the state courts ruling requiring him to participate in discovery in my own lawsuit, the White House arranges for Attorney General Bill Barr and the 113,000-member Department of Justice to defend him, thereby making Alva pay for his defense in my suit with her tax dollars (and yours too, reader).

But Trump cant do much to Alva. She doesnt have any money, she tells me. She is busy writing, networking, and waiting for the end of the nightmare that is this presidency, but alas, theres nothing for old Trump to sue for, beg for, or con her out of.

So, Alva, I say, after we both pour ourselves a cocktail. If you could go back in time, what do you wish had happened when Trump came waddling up to you in that RV?

My instinct? Alva says, sipping her dry ros on ice. Id like to punch him. I mean, Im pretty strong. Hes 6 foot 3 or something, but I probably would be more aggressive. I would probably push him off me. I would put my finger in his face and tell him, Dont you ever put your hands on me. I probably would tell him that hes a future eunuch if he makes one more move.

Youre Division I, woman! I cry, growing more buoyant by the second.

As a kid I had to fight a dude off of me, so I always know its easier for me to get on top than to be pinned down.

And what if Trump comes at you again?

I would probably knee him, Alva says.

Behind her on the pale butter-yellow wall is a deers head with a 14-point rack of antlers, a buck, mounted above the fireplace.

And what would Trump do next? I ask.

Alva rocks back, closes her eyes, and out comes the whole brass section of laughter.

Im afraid that Trump would like it.

Here is the original post:

'I Moved on Her Very Heavily': Part 4 - The Atlantic

Donald Trumps astonishing suggestion at a campaign rally last weekend that the US president will deploy government lawyers to try to hit the brakes on the counting of ballots on election night relies on the complicity of one federal official more than any other.

That official is the attorney general, William Barr, who, as the leader of the justice department, directs the army of government lawyers who would sue to halt the counting of votes.

Conveniently for Trumps stated plan, Barr appears not only ready to acquiesce, he seems eager to bring the lawsuits, having laid groundwork for challenging the election with weeks of misleading statements about the integrity of mail-in voting.

To some observers, the attorney general appears to have also laid the groundwork for a further alarming step, one that would answer the question of what action the Trump administration is prepared to take if a contested election in November gives rise to large new protests.

In order for Trump to steal the election and then quell mass demonstrations for that is the nature of the nightmare scenario now up for open discussion among current and former officials, academics, thinktankers and a lot of other people Trump must be able to manipulate both the levers of the law and its physical enforcement.

In Barr, Trump not only gets all of that, critics say, but he also enjoys the partnership of a man whose sense of biblical stakes around the election imbues him with a deep sense of mission about re-electing Trump.

In a break with the relative reticence of his first 18 month in office, Barr has laid out his own thinking with a series of recent speeches, interviews and internal discussions. Even routine critics of Barr have been struck by the Barr that has now revealed himself.

The erstwhile mild-mannered Washington lawyer has been spouting attacks on election integrity and hostility toward street protests while describing, in explicitly religious terms, an epochal showdown between the forces of moral discipline and virtue which he believes he represents and individual rapacity manifesting as social chaos, embodied by leftwing protesters among others.

His abuses have only escalated as we have gotten closer and closer to the election, and as the president has felt more and more politically vulnerable, said Donald K Sherman, the deputy director of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington watchdog group, which has called for Barrs impeachment.

I cant put it more plainly than this: the attorney general is a threat to American citizens having free and fair access to the vote, and is a threat to American having their votes counted.

In recent weeks, Barr has reportedly asked prosecutors to weigh charging protesters under sedition laws, meant to punish conspiracies to overthrow the government, and to weigh criminal charges against the Seattle mayor for allowing residents to establish a small police-free protest zone. He has designated New York City, Portland and Seattle as anarchy zones that he says have refused to undertake reasonable measures to counteract criminal activities, threatening federal funding.

Such designations cleanly feed Trumps re-election narrative of public safety under threat. They also reflect a constitutionally questionable, and normally non-conservative, eagerness on Barrs part to reach the arm of federal government into local law enforcement.

Barr has demonstrated this tendency before. In June, he took the highly unusual step, as attorney general, of personally directing federal officers to use crowd suppression tactics to eject peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square near the White House.

Barr later denied giving any direct orders, but the White House stated flatly: It was AG Barr who made the decision.

Meanwhile Barr has competed with Trump to erode faith in the upcoming election, peddling baseless conspiracy theories about foreign nations printing counterfeit ballots, spreading tales about mass mail-in ballot fraud in a lie that was later retracted by the justice department and expressing frustration that the United States uses mail-in voting and multi-day voting, which are common measures to accommodate voters going back decades.

Were losing the whole idea of what an election is, Barr complained in an appearance earlier this month at Hillsdale College in Michigan.

Neil Kinkopf, a Georgia State law professor who worked in the Office of Legal Counsel under Bill Clinton, said that Barrs solicitousness for Trumps political wellbeing was historic.

I think this attorney general is demonstrably more committed to the political success of the president, and the presidents political agenda than any attorney general in history I can think of, Kinkopf said.

What drives Barr? For political observers familiar with Barrs long Washington career, which included an earlier stint as the attorney general under George HW Bush, the notion that he could help lead American democracy off a cliff might provoke some cognitive dissonance. Like other powerful Republicans and everyday voters who have enabled Trump, Barr does not appear to be motivated by personal loyalty to Trump per se, but by a sense of Trumps role in a greater plan.

Before his appointment by Trump, many insiders saw Barr as a committed institutionalist who would protect the independence of the justice department from Trumps most damaging tendencies, though Barr clearly was a strong believer in a muscular presidency.

But others saw Barr coming. They include Kinkopf, who testified against Barr before the Senate at Barrs January 2019 confirmation hearing. In his testimony, Kinkopf warned about Barrs subscription to so-called unitary executive theory, which lays out an alarming and dangerously mistaken view of an executive power of breathtaking scope, subject to negligible limits, Kinkopf said.

The attorney general sees himself clearly as fighting culture wars that are to him moral and religious

It appears that, if confirmed, William Barr will establish precedents that adopt an enduring vision of presidential power; one that in future administrations can be deployed to justify the exercise of power for very different ends, Kinkopf warned at the time.

But today even Kinkopf says he is deeply surprised by the extent to which Barr has surpassed that warning.

When I testified against him, I recognized how dangerous the unitary executive theory is, Kinkopf said. But what I didnt appreciate, and I dont think anybody appreciated, was just how fully he would deploy that theory in advance not of rule-of law values, but in order to advance both the presidents political agenda, and I think more deeply for Barr, his own social and religious commitments.

Those commitments, in turn, are a matter of public record, including in a speech Barr delivered at Notre Dame University about one year ago. In the speech, Barr described a political philosophy driven by the need to counter an individual rapacity in humans that quickly produces licentiousness and the destruction of healthy community life if not restrained. The only possible restraint, in Barrs view, are moral values [that] must rest on authority independent of mens will they must flow from a transcendent Supreme Being.

In short, Barr argued, as he has elsewhere, that the inevitable result of secularism is moral decay and social chaos.

It appears that it is just such chaos that Barr sees in the current street protests driven by the ant-racism Black Lives Matter movement. He has denounced the protesters in his Michigan speech as these so-called Black Lives Matter people and claiming they were not interested in black lives. Theyre interested in [using] props a small number of blacks who are killed by police to achieve a much broader political agenda.

If Barr gives shockingly short shrift to the motivations of protesters haunted by the recurring specter of police killings of people of color, he holds his own motivations in high esteem.

Barr appears to see himself locked in a historic struggle against literal evil, and he appears to regard the upcoming election as the climactic battle. A Trump loss, Barr recently told a Chicago Tribune columnist, would mean the United States was irrevocably committed to the socialist path. He called the election a clear fork in the road.

The attorney general sees himself clearly as fighting culture wars that are to him moral and religious, Kinkopf said. And those are deeper I think commitments for him than the commitment to federalism. And so to the extent that the balance of federal and state power gets in the way of achieving what he wants to achieve in the culture wars, hes willing to cast that aside.

So if there werent a culture war angle on it, I think he would take the position that states and local governments should be left to police their own communities, and the federal government should keep its nose out. But because he sees something at stake in the current protests that jeopardizes what he feels as being the proper order of society, hes not troubled about using federal power to pursue what he views as being the right results.

Originally posted here:

'His abuses have escalated': Barr's kinship with Trump fuels election fears - The Guardian

For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis, the election, and more, subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter.

Today Barton Gellman tells me something that I didnt know: the consent decree is gone. Heres what that means:

The 2020 presidential election will be the first in 40 years to take place without a federal judge requiring the Republican National Committee to seek approval in advance for any ballot security operations at the polls. In 2018, a federal judge allowed the consent decree to expire, ruling that the plaintiffs had no proof of recent violations by Republicans. The consent decree, by this logic, was not needed, because it worked.

The order had its origins in the New Jersey gubernatorial election of 1981. According to the district courts opinion in Democratic National Committee v. Republican National Committee, the RNC allegedly tried to intimidate voters by hiring off-duty law-enforcement officers as members of a National Ballot Security Task Force, some of them armed and carrying two-way radios. According to the plaintiffs, they stopped and questioned voters in minority neighborhoods, blocked voters from entering the polls, forcibly restrained poll workers, challenged peoples eligibility to vote, warned of criminal charges for casting an illegal ballot, and generally did their best to frighten voters away from the polls. The power of these methods relied on well-founded fears among people of color about contact with police.

So what does this mean? Lets turn the mic over to President Trumps wastrel son:

Its 1981 all over again. Trump Jr. is recruiting an army to provide election security, and I think everyone with more than a room temperature IQ knows what that means. It means descending in force on polling places in Black neighborhoods and trying to scare people into staying away. This is what Republicans routinely did until a judge stopped them, and its what theyre going to do again now that a judge has removed the leash. Apparently 40 years wasnt enough.

Follow this link:

Donald Trump Jr. Is Recruiting an Election Day Army Mother Jones - Mother Jones

Larry Neumeister, Associated Press Published 2:52 p.m. ET Sept. 24, 2020

President Trump's niece, Mary Trump, will release her tell-all-book on July 14. Here are some of the most notable excerpts. Wochit

NEW YORK Donald Trumps niece followed up her best-selling, tell-all book with a lawsuit Thursday alleging that the president and two of his siblings cheated her out of millions of dollars over several decades while squeezing her out of the family business.

Mary L. Trump sought unspecified damages in the lawsuit, filed in a state court in New York City.

Fraud was not just the family business it was a way of life, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit alleged the president, his brother Robert, and a sister, the former federal judge Maryanne Trump Barry, portrayed themselves as Mary Trump's protectors while secretly taking her share of minority interests in the family's extensive real estate holdings. Robert Trump died last month.

Messages seeking comment were sent to the Justice Department and lawyers for the president. Messages also were sent to a lawyer for Robert Trump and to email addresses listed for Maryanne Trump Barry.

New book by Mary Trump.(Photo: Simon & Schuster, left, and Peter Serling/Simon & Schuster via AP)

Mary Trump and her brother, Fred Trump III, inherited various real estate business interests when her father, Fred Trump Jr., died in 1981 at 42 after a struggle with alcoholism. Mary Trump was 16 at the time.

Mary Trump interview: Niece says shes heard President Trump use racist slurs, he retaliates on Twitter

According to the lawsuit, Donald Trump and his siblings devalued Mary Trump's interests, which included a share of hundreds of New York City apartments, by millions of dollars even before Donald Trump's father, Fred Trump Sr., died on June 25, 1999.

After the family patriarch's death, Mary Trump and her brother filed objections to the will and Donald Trump and his siblings ratcheted up the pressure to settle by cutting off health insurance to their niece and nephew, the lawsuit said.

It said the action amounted to unfathomable cruelty because Fred Trump III's third child, born hours after Fred Trump Sr.'s funeral, was having seizures and required extensive medical care including months in a neonatal intensive care unit.

As they pressured Mary Trump to accept a settlement and relinquish all interests in the Trump businesses, the uncles and aunt provided fraudulent accounting and financial statements that misrepresented the value of their father's estate at $30 million or less, the lawsuit said.

In reality, Marys Interests were worth tens of millions of dollars more than what Defendants represented to her and what she received, the lawsuit said.

In keeping with a confidentiality clause in a settlement of the dispute over Fred Trump Sr.'s will, lawyers for Mary Trump refused to say how much she received. But the numbers provided in Thursdays lawsuit make it unlikely that she would have received more than several million dollars.

Freed from gag order: Mary Trump has one word of advice for her uncle, President Trump: 'Resign'

In a lawsuit aimed at stopping the July publication of Mary Trump's book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the Worlds Most Dangerous Man, Robert Trump said the payout was substantial.

Roberta Kaplan, one of Mary Trump's lawyers, said in an interview that today she lives "at a level that is certainly miles away from the luxury her aunts and uncles enjoy.

Since her book's publication, Mary Trump has promoted it extensively. She also has released portions of 15 hours of recordings she made in 2018 and 2019 with Maryanne Trump Barry in which her aunt is heard criticizing Donald Trump, saying he has no principles at one point and Donald is cruel at another.

The lawsuit said the fraud against Mary Trump was particularly egregious and morally culpable because Defendants deliberately targeted her because they disliked her. It noted that the president, in a tweet, has said she was rightfully shunned, scorned and mocked her entire life. It cited tweets in which he described her as a mess who her grandfather couldnt stand.

In her book, Mary Trump, a psychologist, analyzed the president extensively in unflattering ways and made an assertion which he denied that he paid someone to take the SATs for him when he sought to transfer to the University of Pennsylvania.

The lawsuit, which seeks a jury trial, would have to overcome laws that limit how long someone can wait to sue over fraudulent activity.

Mary Trump maintains that she learned of the fraud only after an in depth analysis of the Trump family financial history by The New York Times that discussed how Donald Trump and his siblings inherited and built fortunes.

In a statement, she said: "Recently, I learned that rather than protecting me, they instead betrayed me by working together in secret to steal from me, by telling lie after lie about the value of what I had inherited, and by conning me into giving everything away for a fraction of its true value. I am bringing this case to hold them accountable and to recover what is rightfully mine.

A bestseller: Mary Trump's book on uncle President Trump breaks 1 million in sales

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After tell-all book, Mary Trump sues President Trump and his siblings, claims they cheated her of millions - USA TODAY

President Donald Trump will sign a series of executive orders aimed at protecting people with preexisting conditions and look for a way to prevent surprise medical bills, senior administration officials said Thursday.

Trump discussed the executive orders, which are part of his "America First" health-care plan, during his visit toCharlotte, North Carolina later in the day.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told reporters on a conference call that one of the orders would declare it the policy of the United States to "provide protections to ensure that Americans with preexisting conditions are protected regardless of whether the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional and its protections for preexisting conditions invalidated."

"The president is also taking action to protect surprise billing, a source of financial insecurity for all Americans who do have insurance that has gone unaddressed for two years now," he said.

He said the order would direct HHS to work with Congress to get legislation passed by Congress that will protect patients against surprise medical bills. If such legislation is not passed by Jan. 1, then Trump will instruct HHS to investigate executive and regulatory actions that Trump can take that will ensure that patients are protected against surprise bills, Azar said.

"He's telling [Congress] get your act together, get something passed or we'll be coming at it and you'll get what you get from us," Azar added.

The move comes as the Trump administration attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare, which has a provision that prevents insurers from discriminating against Americans with preexisting medical conditions. The Supreme Court is set to hear the latest constitutional challenge to Obamacare, the case of California vs. Texas, following the presidential election in November.

It also comes as Trump tries to pitch his vision for health care to voters ahead of the election on Nov. 3.

The death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg this month creates a new level of uncertainty over the health-care law. If a new justice were to be seated in time for that case to be heard, that could push the balance of the court in favor of repeal.

Trump has previously insisted that he would protect preexisting health conditions.

"I stand stronger than anyone in protecting your Healthcare with Pre-Existing Conditions. I am honored to have terminated the very unfair, costly and unpopular individual mandate for you!" Trump said in a tweet in early January.

In June, Trump tweeted that "Obamacare is a joke" but he would "always protect people with pre-existing conditions."

During a speech atCharlotte, Trump said the executive orders would help "restore America to full strength." He said Obamacare is "unacceptable" to him because it is "too expensive" and doesn't do "as good a job as it could have."

He also touted the elimination of Obamacare's individual mandate penality, which Congress reduced to $0 in 2017, and claimed he "protected" preexisting conditions.

"What we have now is a much better plan," he said, calling his administration the "health-care party." "A lot of that was through good management. We managed it properly. We have tremendous people working on it."

In a statement following the announcement, the Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington think tank, called Trump'sexecutive orders "a last-ditch effort to conceal his record on health-care arson."

"The president's announcement is straight out of the Twilight Zone," said Maura Calsyn, managing director of health policy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. "For years, he has promised to end the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the law that guarantees that 135 million people with preexisting conditions cannot be denied coverage or charged more based on their health history."

"An executive order is no substitute for the ACA's protections, which are especially critical for people of color, women, and people with disabilities,"Calsyn added.

John Fleming, assistant to the president for planning and implementation at the White House, told reporters Obamacare has not helped Americans and has "been anything but affordable."

"President Trump wants for all Americans to have better choice, better care and lower cost, andthis is where we kick the football off today, with this announcement," he said. "But I want to reiterate to everyone that whatever happens from this point on, with future legislation, with rules and regulations that are passed, the president is absolutely committed to coverage for preexisting conditions."

It's unclear if the president has the authority to require insurers to cover preexisting conditions.On the call with reporters, the officialsmaintained that the executive orders were legally enforceable.

"We will work with Congress, more or otherwise, to ensure that they're protected. But [Trump's] making a clear defined statement of United States policy that people with preexisting conditions are protected," Azar said.

Nicholas Bagley, a University of Michigan law professor, said unless "Congress has adopted a law prohibiting discrimination against the sick, or President Trump is exercising authority that Congress has delegated to him, his executive orders don't have legal effect."

"They have no more legal weight than a campaign slogan and that's all this executive order is," he said.

CNBC's Bertha Coombs contributed to this report.

Go here to read the rest:

Trump to sign executive orders protecting preexisting conditions and seeking a way to prevent surprise medical bills - CNBC

"I said let's turn on the evening news. Let's watch it. This is gonna be a big show tonight. Get ready. And NBC, which is one of the most crooked, one of the worst newscasts. [crowd boos]

"And I'm talking about normal NBC, not MSDNC, MSDNC is the worst, but so I turn on NBC with Lester Holt, another beauty, and they start with a hurricane, and then they went to something, and something else, and I'm saying, 'First Lady, this is getting a little embarrassing, with 20 minutes into a half hour show, they haven't mentioned the Nobel Peace Prize.'

"And then it went through the whole show and they never mentioned. And then I got nominated for a second one and they never mentioned. And when Barack Obama, Barack Hussein Obama, got nominated, no when Barack Hussein Obama got nominated, he didn't know why he was nominated. It was like right at the very beginning. He didn't do anything. He did nothing! And he got nominated. It was the biggest story I've ever seen. But that's OK. In the meantime, we're president, and they're not, right? We, we."

See, being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize is a LOT different than actually winning it. Mostly because a whole lot of people can nominate you to be in the running.

"These nominations will be submitted by members of national assemblies, governments, and international courts of law; university chancellors, professors of social science, history, philosophy, law and theology; leaders of peace research institutes and institutes of foreign affairs; previous Nobel Peace Prize Laureates; board members of organizations that have received the Nobel Peace Prize; present and past members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee; and former advisers of the Norwegian Nobel Institute."

Which is a lot of different people!

Trump seems to not understand the distinction, or chooses not to understand because either a) in his mind he has already won or b) it simply fits his convenient -- though oft-disproven -- narrative that the media is biased against him.

This is not the first time Trump has expressed confusion about how the Peace Prize works or suspicion about how they decide who wins.

Which, well, OK.

CNN's Allison Gordon contributed to this report.

Continued here:

Donald Trump seems to think he has already won the Nobel Peace Prize - CNN

By Ben SmithIn December 2015, after the demagoguery of Donald Trumps presidential campaign became clear, I asked CNNs president, Jeff Zucker, if he regretted his role in Trumps rise.

First Zucker who put The Apprentice on NBC in 2004 and made Trump a household name laughed uproariously, if a bit nervously. Then he said, I have no regrets about the part that I played in his career.

I was thinking about that exchange when Tucker Carlson of Fox News recently gleefully aired recordings of conversations with Zucker that Trumps fixer, Michael Cohen, had deviously taped in March 2016.

Zucker is heard speaking in flattering and friendly terms about Trump, or, as he called him, the boss.

You guys have had great instincts, great guts and great understanding of everything, Zucker says to Cohen of Trumps campaign.

You may have missed the recordings CNN didnt cover them, nor did The New York Times but if you can filter out Carlsons spin and Foxs campaign against CNN, theyre still revealing.

Of course TV executives work for access behind the scenes; of course, under the stirring mood music that fills CNN hour after hour, an old bond thrived between cable televisions defining executive and the president of the United States.

But the story of Trump and Zucker is a kind of Frankenstein tale for the late television age, about a brilliant TV executive who lost control of his creation. And it illustrates the extent to which this American moment is still shaped not by the hard logic of politics or the fragmented reality of new media, but by the ineluctable power of TV.

Zucker made his bones as a wunderkind producer for the Today show. He took over NBCs entertainment group in 2000, as the Friends era was ending and reality TV was beginning. The network desperately needed a new kind of hit, and Zucker found it in The Apprentice a corporate boardroom version of Survivor, the blockbuster at rival CBS. That show transformed Trump from a local blowhard into a national figure, and laid the groundwork for his presidential campaign.

When Trump ran for president, Zucker briefly dismissed him as a sideshow in an early 2015 email to his political team, according to one of its recipients. But as soon as he saw the ratings his old star could still deliver, he spent 2015 and 2016 turning CNN into a platform for his ambitions. He went so far as to turn the camera to the empty podium before Trumps rallies, while other presidential candidates seethed and suspected accurately, it turns out that the two men maintained a cozy back channel.

When the folks over there at CNN get all high and mighty about their journalistic integrity thats just not real, said Terry Sullivan, who managed Sen. Marco Rubios campaign and said he laughed out loud when he heard the recording. Theyre running a reality TV show. Thats what Zuckers good at.

The story is not, of course, quite that simple. CNN retains much of its straight news DNA and its tough Washington interview machine, and is indispensable in moments of big breaking news like Ruth Bader Ginsburgs death. But the company had hired Zucker in 2013 to restore its relevance at a moment when the internet had replaced TV as a source of the newest information. Now its signature prime-time broadcasts, from Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo, are nightly cris de coeur, featuring monologues about Trumps misdeeds, competing with MSNBC for the same enraged American audience. They feature the occasional true reality TV flourish notably, the duet between Cuomo and his brother, the New York governor, and the highly staged exit of the anchor from his basement, where he had isolated himself when he contracted the coronavirus.

In speaking to dozens of people who know Zucker over the past few weeks, I heard two distinct theories of what is going on now: One is the current version of CNN amped up outrage and righteousness is just Zuckers latest reflexive adaptation in search of ratings. The other is that Zucker, TVs Dr. Frankenstein, has been willing to dent his networks nonpartisan brand in order to kill his runaway monster, Trump.

Preston Beckman, who was NBCs executive vice president for program planning and scheduling just before Zuckers ascendancy there, said Zuckers thirst for ratings blinded him to the damage he was doing by offering saturation Trump coverage.

Hes a ratings whore and Im telling you that as a ratings whore, Beckman told me. But its one thing to be a ratings whore in prime time but its another thing to be a ratings whore when it comes to news.

Zuckers friends see a redemption story.

As a journalist, he has a conscience, a sincere commitment to the First Amendment and a deep sense of citizenship, said Ben Sherwood, another top morning show producer who went on to lead the Disney-ABC Television Group, and who has known Zucker since they worked on The Harvard Crimson together 35 years ago.

Zucker admits he isnt the most introspective person, Sherwood wrote in a book called The Survivors Club. The CNN chief is a survivor of two bouts of colon cancer in his 30s and heart surgery in 2018.

Hes constantly in motion, most at home in the control room, directing shots and popping into his hosts ears to suggest aggressive lines of questioning, suggesting stories to his digital team. People who wonder at his professional survival and resilience sometimes miss what an effective leader JZ, as hes known internally, has been at CNN, winning the deep loyalty of many of his staff with the blend of obsessiveness, decisiveness and loyalty that you need in a news leader.

Jeff is the most decisive and self-assured media executive Ive ever worked for or covered as a reporter, said NBCs Dylan Byers, a former CNN reporter, adding: But he has a North Star. The North Star is ratings.

Zuckers professional passion has never been hard news: Its been ratings, corporate success and winning at every game. His most legendary moments have dramatic tactical thrusts like his poaching of Meredith Vieira from The View on ABC for the Today show in 2006. And his relationship with Trump reflects a certain New York social world that has always blended friendship, talent management and philanthropy. Zuckers then-wife, Caryn, lunched with Melania Trump, a mutual friend said, and raised money for the private school both families children attended; Donald Trump wrote a check.

Zuckers falling-out with his old star came late. Even in the spring of 2017 after a presidency that kicked off with an attempt to ban Muslims from traveling to America he told my colleague Jonathan Mahler, I like Donald.

But the tensions were growing. Trump had chosen Fox over CNN as the main home of his rolling talk show, giving the conservative network constant access and interviews. His powerful son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who was rising inside the administration, lacked Trumps affection for Zucker and pushed the president away from him.

When AT&T moved to buy CNNs parent company, Time Warner, in 2016, Trump began attacking his old friend. He did it in public, on Twitter. He also raised Zucker in a private meeting with AT&Ts then-CEO, Randall Stephenson, in early 2017, a comment that hasnt been previously reported.

The presidents campaign against Zucker was interpreted reasonably by Zucker as an attempt to get him fired as a condition of the merger, according to three people who spoke to AT&T and Time Warner executives at the time. But Time Warner stood by him, and Trumps Justice Department sued to stop the merger. When Stephenson finally took control of the company in 2018, he didnt fire the CNN president.

Mahlers piece noted that CNN had become more focused on American politics, an unending loop of dramatic moments, conflicts and confrontations in other words, it had become Trumpier. He also noted Zuckers strange symbiosis with Trump. But that summer, CNN fired Jeffrey Lord, a genial, silver-haired former aide to Ronald Reagan who had been Trumps most stalwart defender on the network.

And by the end of that year, the lure of ratings pulled the network in a new direction: resistance. Trumps own political theater featured regular televised confrontations with CNNs White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, a different kind of win-win. But if Trump and Zucker sometimes still seemed to be winking, their audiences arent in on the joke, and the deadly serious stakes became clear when a deranged Trump supporter mailed a bomb to CNNs New York headquarters in October 2018.

Zucker didnt respond through a spokeswoman when I asked again, five years later, whether he now regrets his role in Trumps career.

But this run, too, may be coming to an end. When I spoke to former NBC colleagues of Zucker about his tenure there, the show they brought up most often wasnt The Apprentice; it was Fear Factor, in which contestants were tossed in their underwear into a pit full of rats, among other grotesque stunts. USA Today described it as perhaps the most vile program ever to air on a major network.

Fear Factor didnt age well. The show lasted six seasons, and a revival was cut short by public backlash to a stunt in which competing sets of identical twins drank donkey semen. The public got tired of it (and that donkey stunt didnt air).

After a while it was like, Jesus Christ, the host, Joe Rogan, recalled in a 2019 interview. How many times can you throw them off buildings?

Consuming the news of the last four years has felt at times like watching Fear Factor and its cruel and violent strain of reality television. Thats the sensation of doomscrolling on Twitter late at night, the unending outrage cycle that has propelled cable news to its current strong and steady ratings.

When I spoke to people at CNN, they made the point that ultimately they cover and react to the news, they dont make it. Zucker may be in the control room, and when we look back at this disorienting era, media leaders will be important, secondary figures. But this isnt reality TV, its reality, and the shows executive producer is Donald Trump.

And the part of the American electorate that was enjoying the show may get tired of this too. If Donald Trump loses in November, that may also mark the end of this era of cable television, which he had fed and fed off, and which has left its audience divided and exhausted.

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Jeff Zucker helped create Donald Trump. That show may be ending - Economic Times