Trump held what was described as his "first ever TELE-Rally" on Friday, delivering 23 minutes of stream-of-consciousness remarks on a variety of topics, including his administration's Covid-19 response to criticisms of presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden."I wanted to be with you, and this is really replacing our rallies that we all love so much," Trump told supporters dialed into a telephone call, noting that, given the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, "we're doing really well with the therapeutics and vaccines, but until that gets solved it's going to be tough to have those big massive rallies, so I'm doing telephonic rallies, and we'll call them the Trump rallies, but we'll do it by telephone."The decision to hold a tele-rally comes on the heels of a Trump campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that saw depressed turnout and forced the campaign to scrap outdoor remarks from the President at the last minute when supporters failed to materialize. Another rally, scheduled for last weekend in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was canceled shortly before it was set to happen due to weather concerns, and it has yet to be officially rescheduled. Tulsa saw a surge in Covid-19 cases following the President's rally while several staffers were forced to quarantine after eight campaign staffers on the ground tested positive for coronavirus.Trump's remarks during the Wisconsin tele-rally were largely directed at Wisconsin voters, though the President departed from the script at times to offer race-based swipes at Biden, who he warned "wants to hurt the suburbs," by enforcing Obama-era housing regulations aimed at fighting segregation.

The President also took the opportunity to tout his administration's response to coronavirus, telling supporters on the line, "We've done a great job, gotten very little credit for it. They've given credit to other people, we've, who frankly had much less to do with it than we did," later adding, "Our testing program is the best in the world, we've tested almost 50 million people, and when you do that it's going to show more cases, and so we show more cases but it's still the right thing to do."

Still, the campaign has hinted that as coronavirus cases continue to rise nationwide, the campaign may have to rethink its strategy -- the President is scheduled to participate in his first digital fundraiser Tuesday, which he'll headline with Trump Victory finance committee national chair Kimberly Guilfoyle. The fundraiser comes after two months of being outraised by the Biden campaign, which deployed star-studded digital fundraisers at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic back in March.

CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated to clarify the Trump campaign has not ruled out holding in-person campaign rallies.

The rest is here:

Donald Trump holds 'tele-rally' in campaign first amid coronavirus pandemic - CNN

Donald Trump arrived to Trump National Golf Club in northern Virginia on July 18, representing the 275th time the 45th President has visited one of his 17 golf clubs (and, for most of them, presumably played some golf) since becoming President on Jan. 20, 2017. He has now paid 277 visits to any golf course as President.

Trump has arrived to his Washington, D.C.-area golf club on Saturday morning, approximately an hour earlier than usual. Trump plays golf as reports of him checking out of the federal coronavirus response was published in the Washington Post.

Trump prefers to play golf in the mornings, while the Secret Service follows around Trump in golf carts that, so far, have cost American taxpayers nearly $765,000 to use. Trump claims to have a USGA handicap index under 5, but he is thought to have a vanity handicap that makes him seem better at the sport than he is.

The Secret Service has spent over $950,000 to stay overnight at Trump-owned properties, including his New Jersey country club.

RELATED: Why how often Trump plays golf matters

Trump ended 2017 with 91 golf course visits and was just shy of 100 visits in Year 1 as President. In his second year as President, Trump played golf 76 times. In his third year, he played golf 91 times. All but two rounds of golf has been at his clubs, playing once in Japan in Nov. 2017 with Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe and Japanese star pro Hideki Matsuyama, then playing with Abe again in May 2019.

FOLLOW Trump Golf Tally on Facebook and Twitter

The White House doesn't typically acknowledge Trump was even playing golf. That is commonplace policy, particularly when Trump isn't playing with celebrities or pro golfers or doesn't have something to flaunt. Typically, the White House press pool indicates when Trump arrives at his golf clubs, then they are held in a holding location until Trump is done and moves to his next location.

However, if he's going to the golf club for about 4-5 hours, you can be pretty sure he's playing golf. Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden has asked the White House to provide the names of Trump's golf partners, as well for his clubs to provide visitor logs to get a sense of when Trump has played golf and with whom.

The President is certainly entitled to some leisure time, and golf has been an outlet for most Commanders-in-Chief dating back to the early 20th century. However, the reluctance to even acknowledge that this President plays golf conflicts with his almost relentless criticism of his predecessor, Barack Obama, who played an estimated 333 rounds of golf as President.

Here is the original post:

Donald Trump visited the golf course for the 277th time as President - Golf News Net

WASHINGTON President Trump and his top aides decided to shift primary responsibility for the coronavirus response to the states during a critical period of weeks in mid-April, eagerly seizing on overly optimistic predictions that the pandemic was fading so the president could reopen the economy and focus on his re-election, a New York Times investigation found.

The investigation revealed that critical decisions about the handling of the virus during that crucial period were made not by the better known coronavirus task force, but by a small group of White House aides who convened each morning in the office of Mark Meadows, the presidents chief of staff.

One of their goals: to justify declaring victory in the fight against the virus. In that effort they frequently sought validation from Dr. Deborah L. Birx, a highly regarded infectious disease expert, who was the chief evangelist in the West Wing for the idea that infections had peaked and the virus was fading quickly.

Despite warnings from state officials and other public health experts, Mr. Trump stuck to a deliberate strategy by pushing responsibility onto the states almost immediately after introducing reopening guidelines. Then he quickly undermined the guidelines by urging Democratic governors to liberate their states from those very restrictions.

Interviews with more than two dozen senior administration officials, state and local health officials, and a review of emails and documents, show how a critical period in mid-April set the nation on a course to a new surge, with the United States logging more than 65,000 new cases of the virus each day.

Here are some of the key findings:

Officials in the West Wing viewed the White House coronavirus task force as dysfunctional, and they were increasingly dismissive of Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nations top infectious disease specialist, and officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who they believed had been wrong in their early judgments about the course of the virus.

As a result, important elements of the administrations strategy were formulated out of sight in Mr. Meadowss daily meetings, populated by aides who for the most part had no experience with public health emergencies and were taking their cues from the president.

The group convened each morning at 8 as the coronavirus crisis was raging in April. In addition to Dr. Birx, the participants included Joe Grogan, the presidents domestic policy adviser; Marc Short, Vice President Mike Pences chief of staff; Russell T. Vought, the presidents acting budget director; Chris Liddell, a deputy chief of staff, and Jared Kushner, the presidents senior adviser and son-in-law; Hope Hicks, the protector of Mr. Trumps brand; and Kevin A. Hassett, a top economic adviser.

In the bureaucratese of their meetings, they referred to their goal as orchestrating a state authority handoff. As Mr. Meadows would tell people, Only in Washington, D.C., do they think that they have the answer for all of America.

Dr. Birx was more central than publicly known to the judgment inside the West Wing that the virus was under control and on a downward path.

But her model-based assessment of the outlook failed to account for a vital variable: how Mr. Trumps rush to urge a return to normal would undercut the social distancing and other measures that were holding down the numbers.

During the morning meetings in Mr. Meadowss office, Dr. Birx almost always delivered what the new team was hoping for: All metros are stabilizing, she would tell them, describing the virus as having hit its peak around mid-April. The New York area accounted for half of the total cases in the country, she said. The slope was heading in the right direction. Were behind the worst of it.

During much of mid-April, Dr. Birx focused intensely on the experience that Italy had fighting the virus. In her view, it was a particularly positive comparison, telling colleagues that the United States was on the same trajectory as Italy, where there were huge spikes before infections and deaths flattened to close to zero.

Dr. Birx would roam the halls of the White House, sometimes passing out diagrams to bolster her case. Weve hit our peak, she would say, and that message would find its way back to Mr. Trump.

The president quickly came to feel trapped by his own reopening guidelines, which put him in a box of his own making.

States needed declining cases to reopen, or at least a declining rate of positive tests. But more testing meant overall cases were destined to go up, not down, undercutting the presidents insistence that the priority was to get the economy cranked up again.

The result was to intensify Mr. Trumps remarkable public campaign against testing, which was among the most vivid examples of his rejection of any informed leadership role. And it highlighted how Mr. Trump often ended up at war with his own administrations experts and stated policies.

Mr. Trump shifted from stressing that the nation was already doing more than any other country to deriding its importance. By June the president was regularly making nonsensical statements like, If we stop testing right now, wed have very few cases, if any.

The presidents bizarre public statements, his refusal to wear a mask and his pressure on states to get their economies going again left governors and state officials scrambling to address a leadership vacuum that complicated their efforts to deal with the virus.

In one case, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California was told that if he wanted the federal government to help obtain the swabs needed to test for the virus, he would have to ask Mr. Trump himself and thank him.

After offering to help acquire 350,000 testing swabs during an early morning conversation with one of Mr. Newsoms advisers, Mr. Kushner made it clear that the federal help would hinge on the governor doing him a favor.

The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, had to call Donald Trump, and ask him for the swabs, recalled the adviser, Bob Kocher, an Obama-era White House health care official.

Mayor Francis X. Suarez of Miami, a Republican, said that the White House approach had only one focus: reopening businesses, instead of anticipating how cities and states should respond if cases surged again.

It was all predicated on reduction, open, reduction, open more, reduction, open, he said. There was never what happens if there is an increase after you reopen?

Not until early June did White House officials even began to recognize that their assumptions about the course of the pandemic had proved wrong.

In task force meetings, officials discussed whether the spike in cases across the South was related to crowded protests over the killing of George Floyd or perhaps a fleeting side effect of Memorial Day gatherings.

Digging into new data from Dr. Birx, they soon concluded that the virus was in fact spreading with invisible ferocity during the weeks in May when states were opening up with Mr. Trumps encouragement and many were all but declaring victory.

Even now, there are internal divisions over how far to go in having officials publicly acknowledge the reality of the situation.

Read more:

Inside the Failure: 5 Takeaways on Trumps Effort to Shift Responsibility - The New York Times

The news cycle is jampacked with polls. But have you ever wondered how polls actually work and what they mean? USA TODAY

WASHINGTON Three months of crises from the volatile economy to racial reckoning thats grown out of George Floyds death to ongoing pandemic have taken a toll on President Trump.

At least in terms of how Americans rate his job performance.

A majority (55%) strongly or somewhat disapprove of the job Trump is doing as president, while a combined 39 percent strongly or somewhat approve, according to a survey from the Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape Project.Since April, hes been battered from both sides: His approval rating has dropped 7 percentage points. His disapproval rating has climbed 5 percentage points.

There's a bunch of dimensions here where Trump has done varying levels of worse compared to how he was doing just a couple months ago, said Robert Griffin,research director for the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group,noting the changes in Trump's overall approval rating, as well as voter sentiments on how the president has handled the pandemic and other key issues.In just about everything, youre seeing the sort of decline of how (voters are) sort of assessing his presidency.

The number of COVID-19 cases has continued to rise across the country, leading more than half of all states to haltreopening efforts and to implement new guidelines to try and tackle the ongoing rise of cases. Amid the pandemic, Americansalso still protesting against systemic racism facing Black Americans and other people of color. On top of that, the unemployment rate still hovers in double digits, though it has decreased since earlier this year.

Were just seeing ...a bad couple of months potentially for this president when it comes to his approval of the job he is doing with the American public, Griffin said.

Poll: Joe Biden leads Donald Trump by 15 points, his widest margin this year

Trump has also trailed in support in a head-to-head match-up with former vice president Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee. Over the past several weeks, polling has shown the former vice president ahead nationally and in key states. That trend is continuing, according to the Nationscape Insights analysis, a project of Democracy Fund, UCLA and USA TODAY.

When asked who they would support, nearly half of registered voters(49%) said they would support Biden in November compared to 41% who said they would support the president. That's slightly better for Biden and worse for Trump than April, when 48% of registered voters said they would support Biden and 43% said they would support Trump.

The Democracy Fund and UCLA Nationscape Project is a large-scale study of the American electorate designed to conduct 500,000 interviews about policies and the presidential candidates during the 2020 election cycle. The latest poll was conducted between July 2 and 8, surveying 6,006 Americans. There is a margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points. The older poll was conducted the week of April 9 to 15, surveying 6,118 Americans. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.2 percentage points.

The majority of Americans now disapprove of the way Trump is handling two issues that are seen by many as defining the November election, according to the survey.

When asked about Trumps handling of the coronavirus pandemic, the majority of Americans (56%) somewhat or strong disapprove of his performance, while 37% somewhat or strongly approve. That's an 8-point swing fromApril, when 45% of Americans approved of Trump's handling of the coronavirus and 48% disapproved.

When it comes torace relations, the majority of Americans (56%) somewhat or strongly disapprove of Trump's handling, with only 32% of Americans saying they approve of his handling. Trump's approval rating for race relations in April was at 34%, with 51% of Americans disapproving of his handling of race relations.

Trump's approval rating for his handling of the economy has also seen a slight change. A combined 44% of Americans somewhat or strongly disapprove of Trump's handling of the economy, with 46% of Americans saying they approve, according to the survey. That's worse than April, when half of Americans said they approved of Trump's handling of the economy and 40% disapproved.

One issue that didn't see much change was Trump's handling of health care. In both April and July, 50% of Americans disapprove of Trump's handling of health care policy. A combined 36% approved of it in July, just a 1 percentage point drop from April.

Griffin said that "there's long term trends that exists"on"how the American public perceives the two political parties and how well they handle different types of issues," such as health care and the economy.

More: Even Senate races have caught COVID-19, boosting Democrats' chances of winning control of the chamber

He noted that history is likely why there wasn't a large change in how Americans view the president's performance in those issues, even amid a recession and a global pandemic.

"(Health care) was not an issue that on the whole,the American public was ready to present in a positive light," Griffin said.

"The American public just doesn't seem to be interacting with the pandemic in that fashion. There's much more of a concern around things being reopened and schools being reopened and concerns about jobs, than sort of the debate that has been transforming into 'how are we making sure that everyone is able to pay for all the costs associated with hospitalization?' or testing or anything like that.' "

A new report suggests that wearing a cloth mask doesn't just protect others from COVID-19, it can protect you as well. USA TODAY

Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/07/17/trump-approval-rating-race-relations-rating-drop-amid-covid-19-survey-shows/5444310002/

Read more here:

Trumps COVID-19 response, race relations and overall approval ratings drop amid pandemic, survey finds - USA TODAY

CINCINNATI During a background briefing with reporters in December, President Donald Trump's reelection campaign team gave only passing mention of Ohio. Certainly no one suggested a full-scale fall advertising strategy for the state he carried convincingly in 2016.

But less than four months until this November's election, Trump is facing an unexpectedly competitive landscape in Ohio because he has lost ground in metropolitan and suburban areas, threatening the overwhelming advantages he has in rural areas, state data show.

Trump's campaign has budgeted $18.4 million in television advertising in Ohio for this fall, second only to Florida, according to campaign advertising tracking data.

Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has named Aaron Pickrell, a former top Ohio adviser to Barack Obama's presidential campaign, as a senior strategist, Biden campaign officials said. Four other campaign staff members in the state were announced Friday. But the Biden campaign has not gone so far as to book its own television advertising in Ohio, where 18 electoral votes are at stake. Trump won Ohio by 8 percentage points four years ago.

Still, Trump's heavy investment in Ohio and a series of midterm and municipal government gains by Democrats since 2016 suggest the president probably will have even more difficult terrain in other pivotal states in the industrial heartland Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin that he won by much smaller margins.

These are all big, flashing warning signs, said former Obama senior adviser David Axelrod. If he were a patient, and you were a doctor, youd look at this and say, Youve got problems, buddy.

Republican presidential candidates have been steadily losing support in Ohio's once reliably GOP suburbs around Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati. But Trump's fall was particularly sharp, according to state voting data and census records compiled by Mike Dawson, a public policy consultant and creator of ohioelectionresults.com.

For instance, in the affluent northern Columbus-area suburb of Upper Arlington, Republican George H. W. Bush won by 34 percentage points in 1992. Twenty years later, Republican Mitt Romney's winning margin there was 8 percentage points. In 2016, Trump lost Upper Arlington to Hillary Clinton by 16 percentage points.

A similar picture emerged in the 10 wealthiest suburbs outside Cleveland in Cuyahoga County. In Franklin County outside Columbus, Trump lost nine of the 10 most affluent suburbs, a sharp decline from other Republicans over the past 24 years.

The trend was worst in suburban Hamilton County outside Cincinnati, where Trump's losing margin in the 10 richest suburbs was at least 50% of Republicans' total decline since 1992.

College-educated suburbanites in Ohio, particularly college-educated women, were not as supportive of the president in 2016 as theyve traditionally been of Republican presidential nominees, and that will continue in 2020," said Karl Rove, senior adviser to President George W. Bush's presidential campaign in 2004, when the Republican won election in part by narrowly carrying Ohio. Trump has a problem with them.

Andrea Granieri, 34, from the eastern Cincinnati suburb of Anderson Township, had been a lifelong Republican, until Trump.

I could not vote for Donald Trump. I just couldnt do it," Granieri said, noting the explanation she would owe her two children some day. I could not endorse the way he talks to people and how he talks about people."

Still, Rove said that Trump maintains a clear path to carrying Ohio: Its to repeat his 2016 performance in 2020."

That includes matching and, in some instances, exceeding his overwhelming margins in the GOP-heavy counties along the Indiana border and the struggling industrial Mahoning River Valley corridor and along the Ohio River to the south.

But Rove said Trump must also do what he did in 2016 in suburban Cincinnati, Dayton, Cleveland and Columbus."

History suggests that's going to be hard, some Ohio Republicans say.

Can the electoral leakage for Republicans in these first- and second-ring suburbs continue to be offset by running up the score along the Ohio River? said former state Republican Party Chair Kevin DeWine, a former state representative and second cousin to Republican Gov. Mike DeWine. We have to be honest as Republicans and say we are dangerously close to that tipping point.

During an August 2018 special election, Danny O'Connor came within 1,700 votes out of more than 200,000 of becoming the first Democrat in 36 years to win Ohio's 12th Congressional District, which includes once solidly Republican Delaware County. Trump came to campaign for O'Connor's opponent, Rep. Troy Balderson, and helped pull him to victory.

Democrats continued making inroads in 2018, picking up six suburban state legislative seats.

That November, Erik Yassenoff, in losing his bid for a northern Columbus-area district, became the first Republican candidate for Ohio General Assembly to lose Upper Arlington.

I think youre seeing people in the suburbs align more with the urban populations," Yassenoff said.

Ohio Democratic Party Chair David Pepper has watched as younger, educated and often more racially and ethnically diverse families have sought the top schools and other comforts of Ohio's booming suburbs since the mid-2000s.

The trend was especially clear last year as Democrats scored victories in local suburban elections.

"This is where the fundamental shift has happened, what used to be the base of the Republican Party, these larger, generally white-collar suburbs around Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland and Akron," Pepper said.

In Yassenoff's Upper Arlington, voters elected their first Democrats to its City Council. In nearby Hilliard, Democrats won their first seat on the City Council in three decades. There were similar Democratic municipal gains in Republican-leaning suburbs around Toledo and Dayton, as well as in communities outside Cleveland.

Perhaps most telling, southeast of Columbus in the old Republican suburb of Reynoldsburg, Democrats swept the municipal elections and elected three Black female council members, a first for the city.

What it tells us is that more people are becoming engaged and involved," said Meredith Lawson-Rowe, among the new Reynoldsburg council members.

Even as Trumps standing began to fall after the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, Ohio was not seen as a concern, campaign officials said. But polls in other states showing close races in Iowa, Georgia and even Texas have also now shaken the firm grip on Ohio.

Biden's team and national Democrats think they can compete at a minimum to force Trump to defend Ohio, perhaps with money that could be spent in its must-win regional neighbors.

Spokesman David Bergstein of the Democratic National Committee put it simply: Id say Trump is clearly facing headwinds in Ohio and hes being squeezed."

Visit link:

Trump's trouble in suburbs key to suddenly competitive Ohio - Minneapolis Star Tribune

But perhaps what is most surprising, there are real signs that Trump's base is leaving him on the issue of the coronavirus.

Trump's numbers look even worse when you examine where he is with groups that make up that base: whites without a college degree and rural voters.

Among whites without a college degree, Trump's approval rating on coronavirus is an average of the ABC News/Ipsos and Quinnipiac polls is just 50%. That matches his disapproval rating. In other words, Trump's doing no better than even among what is supposed to be a bedrock group.

The numbers are no better for him among rural voters. In an average of the ABC News/Ipsos and Quinnipiac polls, his approval rating is at 48% among rural voters. His disapproval stands at 50%. Again, you want to be running up the score with base groups that voted for you by around 30 points in 2016. Trump's just running even here.

Now, there was no reason it had to be this way for Trump. Back in early April, Trump was getting strong ratings from all of these groups in his base.

He was averaging a 90% approval rating in the ABC News/Ipsos and Quinnipiac University polls when it came to his coronavirus performance.

He was well into the 60s with both whites without a college degree and rural voters in both polls.

What we've seen is that his base is clearly running away with him because they judge his performance over the last few months to be negative.

The big question with an election in the fall is whether these voters are merely saying they disapprove of Trump on the coronavirus but are still going to vote for him.

There are certainly some members of his base who are never going to vote for former Vice President Joe Biden, even though they dislike Trump's handling of coronavirus.

Still, there are signs that Trump's coronavirus performance is hurting him even against Biden.

Likewise, Trump's up 21 points with rural voters in the Quinnipiac poll. That looks a lot like an average of the polling.

Overall, these may seem like large margins, but they're not anywhere near as well as Trump did in 2016.

See the article here:

There are signs Trump's base is leaving him on the coronavirus - CNN

Legendary filmmaker Judd Apatow really liked Donald Trumpwhen he was on TV.

I watched [The Apprentice] all the time because I found it so hilarious that all of his opinions were so wrong and everyone he would fire was always for the wrong reason. It was so terrible and crazy that it was fun to watch, Apatow says on the latest episode of The New Abnormal.

These days, Apatow isnt laughing. When you're in show business, you meet people like Trump, you meet people who literally don't exist in the same dimension as you; they're just gone. And that's what he's like. He's like Cosby in a way, these people who are completely deluded and they've been famous and all of their wishes are attended tothey lose complete touch with reality, Apatow adds, calling Trump the abusive parent to the country.

Then! Washington Post media editor Margaret Sullivan weighs in on the Bari Weiss controversy. If Bari was truly bullied at work, then that's very regrettable and I'm sorry to hear that, but she was not forced to resign. I guess you could say cancelled herself, says Sullivan, author of the new book Ghosting the News.

Plus! How many minutes will Trumps new campaign manager last? WTF is up with the Trumps and Goya beans? How did Molly possibly survive an entire day without Twitter?! And how is the Apatow family holding up during quarantine?

For the first month or two, it's like, Oh my God, we're getting all this like special family time. But now heading into month five, they're like, I gotta get the fuck outta here, Apatow says. Even my cats are like, When are you going to get out of here? I have a life without you here.

Read the original post:

Donald Trump Is America's Abusive Dad - Daily Beast

President Donald Trump used a White House law enforcement roundtable to pitch himself as a law and order candidate while warning of a radical left push toward lawlessness. (July 13) AP Domestic

WASHINGTON Fox News host Chris Wallace fact-checked President Donald Trump's inaccurate claimduring an interview that former Vice President Joe Bidenis in favor of defunding the police, leading to a testy reaction.

In a clip releasedbetween the "FOX News Sunday anchor and Trumpthe entire interviewwill air Sundaythe president blamed "stupidly run" Democratic localgovernments for the increase in violencein some cities and impliedthe increasewas the fault of the defund the police movement.

'You can't do that': Fox News host Wallace confronts DeVos on threat to redirect funds from schools

"Its gotten totally out of control and its really because they want to defund the police, and Bidenwants todefund the police," Trump said in theclip about the presumptive Democratic nominee.

Wallace interjected, "Sir, he does not."

"Look, he signed a charter withBernie Sanders," Trump responded, referring to theunity platformreleased by Biden and the progressive Vermont senator that unveiled multiple progressive ideas andpolicy proposals.

More: Biden-Sanders unity task forces release proposals to overhaul criminal justice, immigration

The proposed Democratic Party platform does includea series of police reforms including banning choke holds, ending racial profiling and allowing victims of abuse to pursue civil litigation.

However, the platform does not support defunding the police, asBiden and his campaignhave stated on multiple occasions.

Wallace points this out, sayingthe plan"says nothing about defunding the police."

"Oh really? It says abolish, it says defund. Lets go!Get me the charter, please," Trump said, turning to speak to staff out-of-frame.

Federal agency: Supporting 'Black Lives Matter' isn't partisan or political

Wallace explainedon Fox News' "Bill Hemmer Reports"that the president had hisstaff retrievehighlights of the unity platform that found "a lot of things that he objected to that Biden has agreed to."

"But he couldnt find any indication because there isnt any that Joe Biden has sought to defund and abolish the police," the Fox News anchor said.

The Trump administration and campaign have been continuallylodging attacks and ads at Biden,claiming he wants to defund and abolishthe police.

A veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis City Council committed to dismantling its police department after the death of George Floyd. USA TODAY

Vice President Mike Pence said Friday, Joe Biden would weaken the thin blue line that separates us from chaos, and continued,You wont be safe in Joe Bidens America,seizingonremarks Biden made recently where he expressed support forredirecting some funds, but not all, to bettering social services.

Law enforcement has become a flashpoint between Biden and Trump because of protests following the May 25 death of George Floydin Minneapolis police custody.

More: George Floyd's family sues city of Minneapolis, Derek Chauvin and 3 former officers

Biden became the presumptive nominee with support from Black voters in key states who are demanding police reforms. Trump has campaigned as thelaw-and-order presidentfighting chaos that erupted at some protests.

Biden has pledgedsupport for the central cause of Black Lives Matterprotesters fighting systemic racism and proposed policing changes.

Later Friday, Trump repeated his claim on Twitter:

Contributing: Joey Garrison, Bart Jansen, Rebecca Morin

Autoplay

Show Thumbnails

Show Captions

Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/07/17/fox-news-chris-wallace-fact-checks-trump-bidens-stance-police/5461970002/

More here:

'Sir, he does not': Fox's Chris Wallace fact-checks Trump's claim that Biden supports defunding the police - USA TODAY

In the 1980 presidential election, Republican Ronald Reagan ran against the incumbent, Democrat Jimmy CarterJimmy CarterWhy Dr. Fauci is Donald Trump's worst nightmare The Memo: New shutdowns add to Trump woes The Memo: Democrats grow more bullish on Texas MORE. Reagan famously hit a home run in their one debate byaskingAmericans, at a time when the economy was staggering,Are you better off than you were four years ago? It was a close race going into the debate, but a week later Reagan won the election decisively.No one remembers Carters response.

Its the last question that President TrumpDonald John TrumpCivil rights legend Rep. John Lewis dies Biden warns of Russian election interference after receiving intelligence briefings Texas officials offer schools option to hold online-only classes until November MORE wants anyone to ask him to such devastating effect a week before the election in November, which is why Dr. Anthony FauciAnthony FauciHillicon Valley: Russian hackers return to spotlight with vaccine research attack | Twitter says 130 accounts targeted in this week's cyberattack | Four fired, dozens suspended in CBP probe into racist, sexist Facebook groups Overnight Health Care: White House blocks CDC director from testifying before House panel | Fauci urges action on masks | Administration document says counties in 'red zone' should close bars, gyms White House blocks CDC director from testifying before House panel on reopening schools MORE is a presidential nightmare.Americans are horribly worse off than they were four years ago, and they know it.Less than four months before the election, Trump is down by 15 percentage points against presumptive Democratic nominee Joe BidenJoe BidenBiden warns of Russian election interference after receiving intelligence briefings Hillicon Valley: Russian hackers return to spotlight with vaccine research attack | Twitter says 130 accounts targeted in this week's cyberattack | Four fired, dozens suspended in CBP probe into racist, sexist Facebook groups Trump campaign's Brad Parscale calls media 'criminal network' MORE in the most recentQuinnipiacUniversity poll.

The presidents reelection strategy is to revive the economy by pushing Americans back to work and children back to school without being honest about the risks from the coronavirus pandemic, which he airily waves away.Despitecoronavirus casesurgesthroughout the country, Trump claims that the pandemic is under control and that 99 percent of cases aretotally harmless.

Dr. Fauci gets in the way of that strategy by telling Americans the truth about the pandemic.He regularly reminds them that the pandemic is far from over, urges caution in reopening the economy and the schools, and unhesitatingly contradicts the presidents wildly off-base, feel-good statements.Fauci bluntly insisted that itsobviously notthe case that99 percent of the cases are harmless.

Ina mid-JuneNew York Times-Sienapoll,76 percent of respondents stated that they trusted Fauci foraccurate information about the pandemic.Only 26 percent said the same of Trump, who must have felt the way the Evil Queen did when the Magic Mirror said that Snow White was the fairest of them all.

Indeed, there are reports that the pollaccountsfor the botched attempt by the White House to kneecap Dr. Fauci with snide presidential remarks (nice man,but hes made a lot of mistakes), unflattering cartoons, an opposition-research style memorandum critical of Fauci and even an op-ed by that well known medical giant, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro,contendingthat Faucis advice should be taken withskepticism and caution.

Dr. Fauci pushed back hard, which probably stunned a president used to bending, if not breaking, any member of his administration who crosses him, and not used to having someone out-tough him. Fauci called the White House attacksbizarre; asserted that the publiccan trust me; dismissed Navarro asin a world by himself; and said "lets stop this nonsense and focus on the virus.

What happened next was extremely gratifying to anyone who likes to see bullies get their comeuppance.Numerous public health experts rallied to Faucis defense, and even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnellAddison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellMemo to Mitch: Repeal the Republican tax increase Travel industry calls for targeted relief amid coronavirus pandemic Why Dr. Fauci is Donald Trump's worst nightmare MORE (R-Ky.) said he hadtotal confidence in Fauci. Trump backed down, which he probably hates to do even more than wearing a mask in public.Trump rebuked Navarro for the op-ed and, sounding like a supplicant, insisted that hegets along very well with Dr. Fauci.

Generations from now, when historians examine the Great Coronavirus Pandemic of 2020-21, they will likely be baffled as to why the president of the United States refused to listen to, and even tried to discredit, the nations leading virologist when so many Americans were falling ill and dying from a virus.They may also have a hard time understanding how, after so many centuries of scientific progress, the American people could confer their highest office on a man who, when his personal political needs and science conflicted, rejected science and scientific expertise.

Fortunately, Dr. Fauci emerged unscathed, and perhaps even stronger, from the White Houses attempted mauling.In the absence of presidential leadership, his expertise and advice is much-needed as the coronavirus plunges its talons ever deeper into the American people.When Fauci looks at a map of the United States showing coronavirus cases, his focus is on the ugly, spreading red blotches of a pandemic that is killing Americans.When Donald Trump looks at a map like that,he sees only himself.

Gregory J. Wallance, a writer in New York City, was a federal prosecutor during the Carter and Reagan administrations. He is the author of the historical novel, Two Men Before the Storm: Arba Cranes Recollection of Dred Scott and the Supreme Court Case That Started the Civil War. Follow him on Twitter at @gregorywallance.

View post:

Why Dr. Fauci is Donald Trump's worst nightmare | TheHill - The Hill

The TAKE with Rick Klein

A president used to defining his own realities is running into some stubborn ones -- big enough to force him to maneuver around them rather than try to barrel through them.

This week saw President Donald Trump replace his campaign manager and downscale plans for his convention. One move was a tacit acknowledgement of his political standing, while the other is a nod to the health realities of the country.

The president himself largely ignored the worsening COVID-19 crisis in his public remarks this week, even while more states with Trump-allied governors caved and mandated masks. And one Republican governor who has clashed with Trump blasted him for ignoring his administration's own experts while "talking and tweeting like a man more concerned about boosting the stock market or his reelection plans."

Campaign manager for the Trump 2020 reelection campaign Brad Parscale speaks at a press conference in Des Moines, Iowa, Feb. 3, 2020.

The president is coming up against a crisis of trust. The new ABC News/Washington Post poll out Friday morning shows 64% of Americans questioning his credibility on COVID-19, with nearly as many -- 60% -- disapproving of his handling of the pandemic.

Tellingly, Trump this week backed a half step away from a confrontation with Dr. Anthony Fauci -- even as people in his White House declared open warfare on him. He has not, though, come down firmly on Fauci's side, just as he has not wavered in his pressure on schools to reopen this fall.

Trump's political response has been, in part, to try new lines of attacks out on former Vice President Joe Biden.

But the president's political predicament isn't about Biden, or Fauci, or GOP critics or who is running his campaign. It's about Trump himself, who is leading a nation that doesn't trust him at the moment.

The RUNDOWN with Alisa Wiersema

Away from the campaign trail, but still looking toward November, Trump has made repeated -- yet unfounded -- claims about widespread mail voting fraud. With just over 100 days until an election in which voters are expected to predominately cast ballots by mail given pandemic conditions, Trump's messaging on the issue appears to be increasingly scattered.

While the president frequently ties his allegations of fraud to Democrats, on Thursday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany did not indicate that the president was aware a member of his own party, Rep. Steve Watkins of Kansas, is facing new criminal charges in a voter fraud case. Watkins was endorsed by Trump in 2018 and was a speaker at a Trump rally in the lead up to the midterm election.

Noting that the president "does have very real concerns about voter fraud," McEnany proceeded to give "information" that aimed to support those concerns. Her list included "about 1% of absentee ballots nationwide" having been "thrown out" in 2016; a Postal Service truck "that may have been carrying mail-in ballots" having caught fire; and an incident in which Republicans received Democratic ballots in New Jersey. She added that the ballots "had been voided and then reissued."

President Donald Trump touts administration efforts to curb federal regulations during an event on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, July 16, 2020.

Later that day on the campaign front, Steve Guest, an RNC Rapid Response Director, tweeted, "Elizabeth Warren endorses voter fraud, says her dog will be voting Democrat," and linked to a video in which Warren jokes about her golden retriever voting for Biden. Guest added that "voter fraud is not a joking matter," citing an Atlanta-based report of a deceased cat with a human name getting a voter registration form in the mail. The report included a statement from the Georgia secretary of state's office saying that even if the cat were alive and came to the polls, it wouldn't be able to vote without a valid ID.

The increasingly scattershot messaging could be leaving a very real footprint in battleground states. Already, Democrats are touting their ability to outpace Republicans in enrolling voters to vote by mail in Florida. Sounding a warning more than a thousand miles away in Wisconsin, the chairman of the Republican Party of Fond du Lac County, Rohn Bishop, said the GOP is risking scaring away their own voters, a notion with which his fellow Republican and state Majority Leader, Jim Steineke agreed.

"Taking a stand can be lonely. Very lonely. But I think I'm right," Bishop tweeted Thursday.

The TIP with Quinn Scanlan

It's still unclear how serious Kanye West's presidential bid is, but the rapper-fashion designer is quickly approaching the point when it will be mathematically impossible for him to even hit the magic number of electoral votes a candidate needs to become president of the United States.

West successfully got his name on Oklahoma's general election ballot Wednesday by paying the $35,000 filing fee, which would be a financial feat for the average independent candidate, but is pocket change for him. But he failed to submit the 30,000 valid signatures required to get on the ballot in battleground Michigan before Thursday's 4 p.m. deadline.

In this file photo taken on November 6, 2019, US rapper Kanye West attends the WSJ Magazine 2019 Innovator Awards at MOMA in New York City.

Oklahoma's seven electoral votes wouldn't get West any closer to the presidency than he is now. He needs 270 to win, and after missing Michigan's deadline, there are only 306 electoral votes left among the states, plus the District of Columbia, where the filing deadlines have yet to pass. If he misses the last July deadlines -- in Missouri, New Jersey and West Virginia -- the maximum amount of electoral votes he could potentially achieve would be 284.

Five states have an Aug. 3 deadline, and even if he just missed Pennsylvania, which requires only 5,000 signatures and a modest $200 filing fee, his presidential aspirations would have to wait until 2024 -- assuming he doesn't forge ahead with an attempted write-in campaign -- but in most states, even write-in candidates have to submit paperwork by a deadline if they want their votes counted, and in several others, it's not an option at all.

THE PLAYLIST

ABC News' "Start Here" podcast. Friday morning's episode features ABC News Chief Business & Economics correspondent Rebecca Jarvis, who tells us about the 'K-shaped' economic recovery we're seeing. Then, ABC News contributor Dr. Darien Sutton explains why many people who recover from COVID-19 can still feel its effects for a lifetime. And, ABC News contributor and former Marine Col. Stephen Ganyard tells us about the motivations behind Russia's alleged hack of COVID-19 vaccine data. http://apple.co/2HPocUL

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Download the ABC News app and select "The Note" as an item of interest to receive the day's sharpest political analysis.

The Note is a daily ABC News feature that highlights the key political moments of the day ahead. Please check back Monday for the latest.

Continued here:

The Note: Trust in Trump's word plummets, as harsh realities sink in - ABC News

WASHINGTON Here are some snapshots from what President Donald Trump describes as the nation with the best testing in the world for the coronavirus:

In Sun Belt states where the virus is surging, lines of cars with people seeking tests snake for hours in the beating sun, often yielding results so far after the fact that theyre useless.

In Pittsburgh, adults who are afraid theyve been exposed to the coronavirus are being asked to skip testing if they can quarantine at home for 14 days to help reduce delays and backlogs.

In Hawaii, the governor will wait another month to lift a two-week quarantine on visitors because of test supply shortages and delays that potential visitors are facing in getting results.

Testing has been a challenge everywhere, says Utah Republican Gov. Gary Herbert.

The White House insists its giving states whatever they need. But public health experts say the testing system is in shambles and federal leadership is lacking. Trumps persistent salesmanship about the prowess of testing in the United States is colliding with a far different reality for those affected by the explosion in coronavirus cases.

The long lines and processing delays are contributing to the virus spread and upending plans to reopen stores, schools and other activities that are vital to the economic rebound that Trump himself is intent on bringing about.

We have the best testing in the world, the president insisted Tuesday. He falsely claimed the cases are created because of the fact that we do tremendous testing.

But U.S. testing on a per-capita basis lags other countries that have done a far better job of controlling their outbreaks. And state, local and federal officials are warning of the consequences of testing bottlenecks including tests rendered useless because results come too late.

Its essentially worthless to have a test result that comes back after 48 hours, said Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and public health professor at George Washington University who previously served as Baltimores health commissioner. She explained that after that time, the window to begin contact tracing and prevent additional infections has essentially closed.

We are nowhere near being able to rein in this virus with the amount of testing we have available at the moment, she added. Testing is the linchpin.

The Trump administration plays down the problem.

Adm. Brett Giroir, assistant health secretary, says more than half of U.S. states are processing test results in three days or less, adding everybody is doing a really good job as much as they can.

Guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that states, as they lift final virus restrictions, have a turnaround time under two days.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany suggests that its states that need to do more.

There are various different types of tests in this country, she said Thursday. Some take longer to process than others. But we have surged testing to the states and we encourage them to use it to their best ability and to process those tests as quickly as possible.

Yet even Republican governors say they need more federal help.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, chairman of the National Governors Association, is deeply critical of the administrations testing response.

We expected something more than constant heckling from the man who was supposed to be our leader, Hogan wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Post this week. Trump soon disabused us of that expectation.

On April 6, he declared that testing wasnt Washingtons responsibility after all, Hogan went on. States can do their own testing, he quoted Trump as saying. Were the federal government. Were not supposed to stand on street corners doing testing.

Whoever is responsible for testing shortfalls, the result is working against Trumps own goals to move beyond the virus and get the economy moving.

In Hawaii, Democratic Gov. David Ige said a shortage of chemical reagents used in testing was one reason the state will delay a plan to make it easier for tourists to visit. It was a huge disappointment to many in Hawaii hoping for a surge in tourism to reopen hotels, get people back to work and reduce the states 22.6% unemployment rate.

In Pennsylvanias Allegheny County, which encompasses Pittsburgh and 1.2 million residents, health officials are trying to triage the demand for tests. Dr. Debra Bogen, director of the countys Health Department, is asking adults who are concerned that they were exposed, but do not have symptoms, to put off getting tested.

Even as the White House sticks with its rosy outlook, the U.S. governments top official in charge of coronavirus testing is urging Americans not to get retested for COVID-19 to confirm theyve recovered.

Its clogging up the system, Giroir said. He said U.S. officials will soon issue guidelines explicitly recommending against the practice, except for patients in the most severe cases.

The American Clinical Laboratory Association said many of its labs are being stretched beyond capacity or dont have the supplies they need, and this week encouraged members to give priority to those most in need, especially hospitalized and symptomatic patients.

I feel a bit like a broken record nothing has really changed, said Dr. Carmen Wiley, president of the American Association of Clinical Chemistry. Theres a huge disconnect between what the task force indicates is happening and what we are truly experiencing in the field.

U.S. officials are aiming to increase the use of rapid tests to shorten turnaround times. Those tests can usually be developed in 15 minutes or less and be performed at testing sites, doctors offices and clinics. They tend to be less accurate than the tests that need to be processed at clinical laboratories.

This week U.S. health officials announced they would begin shipping rapid testing machines and kits to nursing homes in COVID-19 hot spots. The goal is to eventually provide the equipment to all nursing homes in the U.S.

The Health and Human Services Department has also been establishing surge test sites in hot spot areas to increase testing for vulnerable populations, said Devin OMalley a spokesman for Vice President Mike Pence, who is leading the coronavirus task force.

Lawrence Gostin, a public health expert at Georgetown University, called the Trump administrations claims about effective testing laughable.

The on-the-ground experience, in fact, is borne out by the data, Gostin said. We dont have the testing kits. We dont have the labs to process it. There are backlogs. All of this is very unhelpful.

___ Stobbe reported from New York. Associated Press writer Matthew Perrone in Washington contributed to this report.

Join our Facebook group for the latest updates on coronavirus in Colorado.

Read more from the original source:

Reality shows shortfalls of Trumps claim to worlds best testing for coronavirus - The Denver Post

Mary Trump's new book about President Donald Trump on display at a book store in Brooklyn. Although President Trump litigated to stop the release of his niece's book, a New York Supreme Court ruled it could be published. (Stephanie Keith/ Getty)

Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!

The title of Mary Trumps tell-all book about her family, Too Much and Never Enough, expresses my feelings perfectly. Ive read way too much about her uncle Donald and his awful relatives, to say nothing of his wives and girlfriends, but somehow its never enough. I keep thinking Im finally going to understand him as a thinking, feeling human being, but I never do. Or is it that I only pretend to want understanding, when what I really want is just more dirt?Ad Policy

Theres plenty of both in this well-written tell-all by Mary Trump, daughter of Donalds older brother, Fred. A psychologist with a PhD, she offers a portrait of family dysfunction that rings grimly true: Fred, the cruel, egotistical, tyrannical father, aided by his wife, the distant, sometimes sickly, and probably very miserable Mary Anne, destroyed in his five children much (or in Donalds case, all) of their capacity for empathy, curiosity, kindness, or independent action. Winning paternal approval was all that mattered, but only Donald managed to get a smattering of it. He managed it by becoming a flashier version of his Dad, whose depredations as a builder and landlord in Brooklyn and Queens were so notorious that one of his tenants, Woody Guthrie, wrote a song about him.

Mary Trump may be out for revenge, but who wouldnt be? She blames the sociopathy of Fred Sr. for destroying her father, Fred Jr. The oldest son was a happy-go-lucky guy who wasnt cut out for the family business and made a bid for freedom by trying to become an airline pilot, before being claimed by the alcoholism that killed him at only 42. Young Freds downward slide is chilling: He was all but ignored by his parents, who had grudgingly taken him inat one point they made him sleep on a cot in the attic of their enormous mansionbut failed to get him the high-quality medical care to which they had ready access as major hospital donors. His siblings abandoned him as well, and he died alone, while Donald and his sister Elizabeth went to the movies.

Years before, Fred Sr. essentially arranged for Marys mother to be massively cheated in her divorce settlement, leaving her and her childrenFreds grandchildren!trapped in a drafty, rundown apartment in one of his Queens developments. To cap it off, Fred Sr. cut Mary and her brother out of his will, and her aunts and uncles eventually forced her and her brother to accept a comparatively modest settlement. (You may remember a stray news item or two about the family cutting off their health insurance when her brothers baby son was desperately sick.) Years later, Mary took many boxes of legal paper to The New York Times, which in 2018finally!published a long, damning investigation of the Trump familys fraudulent tax dodging.ill-gotten gains

Theres a lot of psychiatric talk here about emotional child abuse and family dysfunction. In Mary Trumps view, Donald is still a terrified little boy. There are lessons, too: For example, if the only reason you want kids is to perpetuate your empire, do the world a favor and stay childless. Probably some version of Marys diagnosis is correctsomething, after all, makes monsters out of sweet little babies. But if you just want to hate the president, theres no shortage of fresh material. His older sister, Maryanne, did his homework for him, and he paid someone to take his SATs. He and Ivana were cheapskatesthey gave Mary and her mother regifted items for Christmas, including a handbag with a used Kleenex inside and a food basket with a missing tin (could it have been caviar?). He reportedly helped Maryanne, a now-retired federal judge, get a position on the federal bench by summoning help from Roy Cohn. Fred Sr. floated one of Donalds failing Atlantic City casinos by buying millions of dollars worth of chips and not gambling with them. There has to be some kind of Nobel Prize in hypocrisy, though, for Donalds treatment of his sister-in-law. The book recounts his saying that it might have been better to cut Marys mother Linda off from the relatively modest family support she got after the divorce and make her stand on her own two feet. This is from a man whose family fortune was based on funding from government housing programs, plus millions in tax finagling, and whose entire career was bankrolled by his father.

Over the course of the book, Mary Trump has many ways of describing her uncle. He is completely unqualified, crass, irresponsible, despicable. He is a narcissist, afflicted with what might be antisocial personality disorder or dependent personality disorder. He is perpetually lying, spinning, and obfuscating, telling the lies, misrepresentations, and fabrications that are the sum total of who my uncle is. He acts with both cruelty and possibly criminal negligence. He understands nothing about history, constitutional principles, geopolitics, diplomacy (or anything else, really). And thats just the first 15 pages.

His rise to the highest office in the land she blames on the media, which bought the myth of him as a brash, can-do self-made man and sexual dynamo; the banks, which funded his dubious ventures; and his siblings, none of whom warned the public what a disaster he would be as president. Maryanne, who as a respected public figure Mary Trump thinks might have made a difference had she spoken up during the campaign, not only remained silent (she had her own secrets to keep) but voted for him out of family loyalty.

Mary Trump, who supported Hillary in 2016, worries about the upcoming election. A large minority of people still confuse his arrogance for strength, his false bravado for accomplishment, and his superficial interest in them for charisma. This is true. Amazingly, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic Trump has botched so completely, with unemployment reaching highs not seen since the Great Depression, and the specter of mass evictions on the horizon, Trumps support hovers around 40 percent. That may not be enough to win the election, even with the disenfranchisement of many likely Biden supporters and the wild card that is our disastrous Electoral College system. But when the election is over, we will still have to face the fact that four in 10 Americans took his side.

Will Mary Trump succeed in changing minds where so many others have failed? I wish.

Follow this link:

Donald Trumps Niece Dishes the Dirt - The Nation

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he signed legislation to impose sanctions on China in response to its interference with Hong Kong's autonomy.

Trump also said that he signed an executive order ending the preferential treatment that Hong Kong has long enjoyed.

"Hong Kong will now be treated the same as mainland China," Trump said during a lengthy speech in the White House Rose Garden that quickly drifted away from that legislation to touch on a variety of campaign issues.

"No special privileges, no special economic treatment and no export of sensitive technologies. In addition to that, as you know, we are placing massive tariffs and have placed very large tariffs on China."

China's foreign ministry said on Wednesday Beijing will impose retaliatory sanctions against U.S. individuals and entities in response to the law targeting banks, though the statement released through state media did not reference the executive order.

"Hong Kong affairs are purely China's internal affairs and no foreign country has the right to interfere," the ministry said.

The law, dubbed the Hong Kong Autonomy Act, would slap mandatory sanctions on Chinese officials and companies that helped back Beijing's imposition of a security law that clamps down on dissent in Hong Kong. The sanctions bill passed both houses of Congress earlier this month.

U.S. President Donald Trump attends a news conference in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, U.S., July 14, 2020.

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

The Trump administration has been openly critical of Beijing'ssweeping national security law aimed at limiting Hong Kong's autonomy and banning literature critical of the Chinese Communist Party.

Earlier this month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described the new law as an "Orwellian move" and an assault "on the rights and freedoms of the people of Hong Kong."

The security law is the latest issue to ratchet up tensions relations between Washington and Beijing. The Trump administration has previously blamed China for the unfolding health crisis caused by the coronavirus, and it has criticized Beijing for its illegal territorial claims in the South China Sea.

The world's two largest economies are also struggling to mend trade relations, with intellectual property theft proving to be a major sticking point.

Trump began his speech in the Rose Garden focused on targeting China's actions, but quickly pivoted to lash out at an array of his political opponents especially presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

Biden's "entire career has been a gift to the Chinese Communist Party," Trump said, adding that "it's been devastating for the American worker."

"Biden expressed more fawning praise about China on an ordinary day than about America," Trump claimed. He quoted Biden saying recently that the U.S. has "never lived up to" its founding ideals.

Trump also spent a significant chunk of the speech railing against what seemed to be the bulk of Biden's campaign platform. The president attacked Biden on issues including immigration, energy policy, school choice and military funding, among others.

"There's never been a time when the two candidates were so different," Trump said.Trump also said he will be signing a "very powerful" merit-based immigration act, without providing specific details. The Supreme Court recently ruled against Trump over his effort to end the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program, known as DACA, which shielded hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation and allowed them to receive work permits.

Biden's campaign did not immediately provide a response to the president's attacks.

The Trump administration for months has hinted that the U.S. would take steps to punish China for failing to prevent the virus, which was first observed in the Chinese city of Wuhan, from spreading throughout the globe.

The pandemic has killed more than half a million people worldwide and wrought havoc on the global economy, with leaders at every level of government imposing extreme measures to try to slow the spread of the disease. The United States has reported more deaths and infections from Covid-19 than any other nation, and a recent surge of new cases in numerous states suggests the crisis is far from over.

Trump has placed the blame for the devastation squarely with China, and has frequently referred to the coronavirus in terms that associate it with the country such as the "Chinese Virus" over the objections of critics who call those names xenophobic.

"China's secrecy, deceptions and cover-up allowed it to spread all over the world ... and China must be held fully accountable," Trump said in anIndependence Day speech at the White House.

The pandemic has thrown into question the status of Trump's long-sought trade deal with Beijing, the first phase of which was signed by both nations earlier this year. Trump said last week that America's relationship with China has been "severely damaged" and that he isn't even thinking about the next stage in possible trade negotiations.

In a CBS News interview earlier Tuesday, Trump doubled down: "Look, we made a great trade deal but as soon as the deal was done, the ink wasn't even dry and they hit us with the plague. So right now I'm not interested in talking to China about another deal. I'm interested in doing other things with China."

Reuters contributed to this report.

Read this article:

China vows retaliation after Trump slaps sanctions on it for interference in Hong Kong - CNBC

Donald Trump defended his retweet this week of Chuck Woolerys claim that Centers for Disease Control officials and others are lying about the coronavirus.

CBS News Catherine Herridge asked Trump, You reposted a tweet yesterday saying that CDC and health officials are lying. You understand this is confusing for the public. So who do they believe? You, or the medical professionals like Dr. Fauci?

I didnt make a comment, Trump told Herridge. I did. I reposted a tweet that a lot of people feel. But all I am doing is making a comment. Im just putting somebodys voice out there. There are many voices. There are many people that think we shouldnt do this kind of testing, because all we do, its a trap.

Portions of the interview aired on CBS This Morning on Wednesday and CBS Evening News with Norah ODonnell on Tuesday.

In a tweet on Sunday, Woolery wrote, The most outrageous lies are the ones about Covid 19. Everyone is lying. The CDC, Media, Democrats, our Doctors, not all but most, that we are told to trust. I think its all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election. Im sick of it.

Trump retweeted the comment, which triggered questions from White House reporters on whether Trump was attacking his own health officials about the coronavirus.

On Wednesday, USA Today published an op ed from Trumps trade adviser, Peter Navarro, in which he attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who is a member of the White Houses coronavirus task force.

Navarro wrote that Fauci has a good bedside manner with the public, but he has been wrong about everything I have interacted with him on.

So when you ask me whether I listen to Dr. Faucis advice, my answer is: only with skepticism and caution, he wrote.

Alyssa Farah, the White House director of strategic communications, wrote on Twitter that Navarro op-ed didnt go through normal White House clearance processes and is the opinion of Peter alone. @realDonaldTrump values the expertise of the medical professionals advising his Administration.

In her interview, Herridge also asked Trump why he thought African Americans were still dying while in law enforcement custody.

So are white people. So are white people. What a terrible question to ask. So are white people. More white people by the way. More white people, Trump said. He said that the killing of George Floyd was terrible, but also said, what a terrible question to ask.

Read the rest here:

Donald Trump, In CBS News Interview, Defends His Retweet Of Chuck Woolerys Claim That CDC Officials Are Lying About COVID-19 - Deadline

The United States Postal Service has long been the most popular government agency. The last Gallup poll on the question found 74 percent of Americans rated it as excellent or good as compared to 60 percent for NASA or 50 percent for the IRS. Despite years of cash trouble (mainly the fault of Congress), most people like their good old mail carrier. Indeed, as I have written, this country could not function without the USPS.

So it should come as no surprise that President Trump is taking the agency apart. Jacob Bogage reports at The Washington Post that the USPS is facing huge problems under Louis DeJoy, a big Trump donor who was recently appointed postmaster general. DeJoy supposedly wants it to run more like a business, and has implemented structural changes that have fouled up deliveries. It's yet another example of how Trump's authoritarian rot is dissolving the American state and raising the possibility of interference with the 2020 election.

Let me start with some background. As noted, the USPS has struggled since 2006, when Congress and President Bush imposed absurd retirement benefit funding requirements in the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. As my colleague Jeff Spross writes, this required the agency to pre-fund its retiree health benefits over the next 75 years, and immediately knocked its budget into the red. As I have argued before, fully pre-funding even normal pensions is absurd for a permanent government agency, but this is even worse requiring the USPS to sock money away for future employees who aren't even born yet.

As a result, the collapse in ordinary mail volume thanks to the coronavirus pandemic landed on an agency that was already struggling to keep its head above water. More than half of its mail trucks are outdated Grumman Long Life Vehicle models, kept in service long past their planned retirement dates, and have an alarming habit of catching on fire. They also have no air conditioning as a result, hundreds of mail carriers have suffered heat exhaustion over the last few years, and some have even died of heatstroke.

Now, as the Post reports, the USPS has also seen a huge spike in demand for package delivery as people shop more online under quarantine, which has cushioned the blow somewhat. But the agency is still reeling, and now the Trump administration is making the problems worse. Congress authorized USPS to borrow $10 billion as part of a coronavirus relief package, but Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is refusing to hand over the money until it turns over much of its operations to him. (This was not remotely stipulated in the law and is probably illegal.)

Meanwhile, DeJoy is pushing a lot of business consultant mumbo-jumbo on the agency. He has limited overtime, instructed mail carriers to leave mail behind that will slow down their delivery routes, and required that they park no more than four times along their delivery routes. Trump, meanwhile, has demanded the USPS quadruple its rates on packages.

This betrays an alarming lack of understanding about what makes the USPS work. Its primary advantage is daily, inexpensive service to almost every house and business in the country. Efficiency is important, but reliability is even more so. People will not turn to it if their mail is randomly delayed or lost, which is liable to happen if it is left behind, much less if it costs four times what it currently does. Indeed, several cities are reporting severe problems with mail service of late. And limiting parking along the delivery route is simply bizarre it could easily make the route take longer by forcing mail carriers to walk longer distances. (It sounds very much like the plutocrat knee-jerk belief that the way to improve efficiency is to abuse one's employees.)

It is hard to explain what is going on here. Part of it is surely the Republican hatred of public services of any kind. GOP dogma holds that government is bad by definition, and if there is a popular and successful agency, by God they will ruin it out of spite. Part of it is just the general malicious incompetence that saturates every part of the Trump administration. Part of it probably has to do with Trump's feud with Jeff Bezos he seems to think that by punishing the USPS he can hurt Amazon.

But it's also impossible not to notice that Trump has been screeching paranoid lies about voting by mail for the last few months, falsely portraying it as some kind of Democratic conspiracy to commit voter fraud. The pandemic will surely still be raging come November, and people will therefore want to vote by mail if they can. Indeed, the USPS is already warning people to submit their ballots early. Trump or his toadies may be calculating that Democrats are more likely to vote by mail, therefore ruining mail delivery might mean enough ballots are lost or unable to be delivered in time to tip the election to Trump.

If that were to happen, it would be straight-up election theft. However, it might actually boomerang on Trump and other Republican candidates, which have historically relied on mail-in ballots to drive turnout among their elderly voters. Trump's own campaign has a large absentee ballot operation, but Trump's howling has apparently made his crackpot base leery of mail-in voting themselves missing the intended message that mail-in voting is fraud only when Democrats do it. And if the pandemic is bad enough, many older Republicans may not vote at all for fear of catching COVID-19.

Whatever the reason, it's just one more potential accelerating catastrophe to add to the pile caused by Trump's disastrous misrule. The U.S. could not possibly have become a rich country without the connective social tissue of efficient mail service. But it seems the president is determined to cause as much destruction on his way down as he can.

Editor's note: This piece originally mischaracterized the nature of the 2006 USPS reform law. It has been corrected. The Week regrets the error.

Follow this link:

Donald Trump is destroying the Post Office - The Week

Meanwhile, the foreign hackers havent been in hibernation. The APT acronym stands for Advanced Persistent Threat. The Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear groups are persistent ursine offenders. Theyre doing this the entire time, a Washington, DC cyber-security expert familiar with political campaigns tells me. But the media are interested now because theres an election coming.

Nor were the American media much interested in Russian hacking before the Trump campaign of 2016. There are grounds to believe that Russian hackers were inside American servers during Obamas first term. During his second term, the evidence could no longer be denied. In 2014, Dutch intelligence infiltrated the Fancy Bear group and concluded that it had hacked the Obama White House, the State Department and the Democratic Party. In August 2015, the Cozy Bear group was linked to a spear-phishing attack on the Pentagons email system which caused the temporary shutdown of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs communications.

The Obama administration knew this, but the Democrats didnt declare Russian hacking to be a national security crisis until Donald Trump won the 2016 election. In American politics, truth is a partisan commodity. So Robert Muellers failure to implicate Trump in the 2016 leaks hasnt stopped the Democrats and most of the American media from claiming that Trump is dubiously accommodating to Vladimir Putin.

Its the height of responsible statecraft for Hillary Clinton to have committed Obamas first-term State Department to a reset with Russia, but its treason for Trump to try the same. Its statesmanlike of Obama to have looked the other way in 2014 and 2015, when Russian hackers were inside the servers of the White House and the Pentagon. But its somehow irrelevant that Trump defended the integrity of the 2018 midterms by directing the US military to block the Internet Research Agency, the St Petersburg-based troll farm that had spread misinformation during the 2016 campaign.

No wonder that Trumps base will look for the hands of the deep state in the timing of this latest expos of Russian hacking. Americas intelligence agencies seem to have shaped much of the Russian hacking narrative. They might be doing it again now.

If a Covid-19 vaccine is found, the recipe will be shared quickly. The opportunity the Cozy Bear hackers see in the Covid-19 honeypot might not be strategic, but commercial: the chance to get ahead in the manufacture and sale of vaccines. This looks more like a criminal enterprise than a political one, but if the Democrats use it to attack Trump, they will make a political error.

Read more from the original source:

Russian hackers have given Donald Trump his chance to refight the last election - Telegraph.co.uk

Donald Trump Jr has announced plans to self-publish a book about Joe Biden. Unfortunately, the cover image he released contained a grammatical mistake.

The presidents oldest son announced Liberal Privilege: Joe Biden and the Democrats Defense of the Indefensible by tweet, writing: Blown away by what Biden has gotten away with, more details next week! Libs already triggered!

He expanded, a little, in an interview with the news site Axios, promising to provide a picture of his fathers challenger for the presidency that the press ignores, in time for the party conventions in August.

He was self-publishing, he said, in order to fire a shot across the bow of the traditional publishing industry, confident he can reach more than 5m followers on Twitter and more than 3m on Instagram without outside help.

The internet, alas, was quick to notice that such help often includes basic editing.

The released cover for Trump Jrs book included a misplaced apostrophe, Democrats instead of Democrats.

Sharp-eyed users also contended that a reference to the authors first book, Triggered, failed to hyphenate best-selling although whether that is an error is up for debate. The Guardian style guide, for instance, counsels the use of bestselling as one word.

Trump Jrs first book, subtitled How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us, did indeed reach No 1 on the relevant New York Times bestseller list, although the same paper revealed that the Republican National Committee helped get it there by buying copies in bulk.

Reviewing Triggered, the Guardian offered a taste of what might be to come in Liberal Privilege and its likely reception: As for the Bidens, Don Jr had this to say on Fox News: I wish my name was Hunter Biden. I could go abroad, make millions off of my fathers presidency Id be a really rich guy! It would be incredible!

Where to start? Moscow?

But the review also noted Trump Jrs effective work as a surrogate for his father, saying his book was best viewed as the opening salvo of the Trump child with real political chops. Trump Jr features prominently on lists of possible Republican presidential candidates for 2024.

Trump Jr, 42, told Axios his girlfriend, Fox News host turned Trump campaign official Kimberley Guilfoyle, would narrate the audio version of his new book.

Guilfoyle recently tested positive for Covid-19.

While his father attempts to govern during the pandemic, Trump Jr has been in quarantine, using the time to write.

Thats how we came up with the idea for her to do the audio book, he said. We would take turns reading the chapters out loud for flow Love in a time of Covid.

In a statement, Bidens press secretary, TJ Ducklo, said Trump Jrs book would be filled with disgusting lies and smears the latest in a series of desperate and pathetic attempts to distract from the presidents historic bungling of the coronavirus response.

Read more:

Donald Trump Jr to self-publish book about Biden will he fix the typo first? - The Guardian

"I'm going to Walter Reed to see some of our great soldiers who have been injured," said Trump on Thursday. "Badly injured. And also see some of our Covid workers, people who have such a great job. And I expect to be wearing a mask when I go into Walter Reed. You're in a hospital so I think it's a very appropriate thing."

"Trump -- who has stubbornly refused to wear a mask in public, ridiculed those who have and done little to encourage his supporters to embrace the common sense public health measure -- has said he will wear a mask during a visit to Walter Reed National Medical Center on Saturday.

"He is also expected to be photographed wearing it, a photo opportunity that some of the President's aides practically begged him to agree to and hope will encourage skeptical Trump supporters to do the same."

It might be too late -- from both a public health perspective and a political one.

"Sometimes, American politics is complicated. Right now, it's extremely simple: the public has reached a harshly negative judgment of the president's handling of the most important issue facing the country, and the issue is so paramount that there's little room to wiggle out of it."

What's remarkable about where Trump finds himself now is that it's almost entirely due to his own personal vanity.

"Cloth face coverings are recommended as a simple barrier to help prevent respiratory droplets from traveling into the air and onto other people when the person wearing the cloth face covering coughs, sneezes, talks, or raises their voice. This is called source control. This recommendation is based on what we know about the role respiratory droplets play in the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19, paired with emerging evidence from clinical and laboratory studies that shows cloth face coverings reduce the spray of droplets when worn over the nose and mouth. COVID-19 spreads mainly among people who are in close contact with one another (within about 6 feet), so the use of cloth face coverings is particularly important in settings where people are close to each other or where social distancing is difficult to maintain."

Given that, why hasn't Trump been wearing a mask? Because he thinks it makes him look weak and/or bad. Not kidding.

What, exactly, do you make of that Trump quote other than that he isn't going to wear a mask because of vanity?

"Wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens -- I just don't see it," he said. Why not? Because, based on the science, what an American president would be saying by wearing a mask when meeting with foreign leaders is that he is following best practices to keep himself -- and those around him -- safe.

But of course, that's now how Trump sees mask-wearing. He sees it as a sign of weakness or lack of masculinity.

"He makes a speech and he walks onto the stage wearing this massive mask ... and then he takes it off, he likes to have it hang off usually the left ear. I think it makes him feel good, frankly. He's got the largest mask I think I've ever seen. It covers up a big proportion of his face. And I think he feels he looks good that way."

So, yeah. Because he thinks that masks make him (and people generally) look bad or not manly or tough or something, Trump has resisted wearing one in public for months on end. Which has had a deeply deleterious effect on public health and his own political prospects.

View post:

How Donald Trump's vanity may have doomed his reelection bid - CNN

Last year, POLITICO reported that a top Trump administration health official was using tax dollars to hire GOP consultants to boost her image. Now, an inspector general report confirms the story.

White House officials have said the interviews are a necessary exercise to determine who would be willing to serve in a second term if President Donald Trump is reelected. But officials summoned for the interviews say the exercise is distracting from numerous policy priorities, like working to fight the pandemic, revitalizing the economy or overhauling regulation, and instead reflect the White Houses conviction that a deep state is working to undermine the president.

Its an exercise in ferreting out people who are perceived as not Trump enough, said one person briefed on the meetings.

If theyre spending time trying to hunt down leakers, thats time theyre taking away from advancing an agenda, said a former senior administration official whos spoken with officials undergoing the interviews. And thats irresponsible.

The interview process, along with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows ongoing hunt for leakers, shows how the White House less than four months before the presidential election remains consumed by loyalty and optics despite urgent policy problems such as a raging coronavirus pandemic, nationwide worries about reopening schools and historically high unemployment. This weeks White House drama over Anthony Fauci, the nations top infectious-disease doctor, highlighted the persistent internal concern about whether government officials are in line with Trumps preferred policy approaches such as the presidents desire to downplay the latest coronavirus surges.

The reinterviewing exercise is being led by Johnny McEntee, a 30-year-old who's been a Trump aide since the 2016 campaign and was installed earlier this year as chief of the White House personnel office and is responsible for filling thousands or jobs across the federal agencies.

The interviews can take the form of general questions, such as an appointees career goals, but can also veer into territory meant to test a persons perceived loyalty, like asking for the appointee's thoughts on the U.S. relationship with China or probing questions about why an appointee was chosen for his or her current job. Interviewers have also asked people to give examples of ways they are supporting the administration.

It just seems like you could be a rocket scientist, but all they care about is whether you are MAGA, said one senior administration official familiar with the interview process. It is fair to do something to prepare to fill jobs in a second term, but right now, it is hard to know what the metrics are with this personnel office for being successful. There is no set criteria for what makes a good political appointee.

McEntee, a former body man for Trump, did not respond to a request for comment. A White House official who defended the process said its part of the personnel offices preparations for a second term, including gauging the officials postelection plans.

The head of the presidential personnel office under President Barack Obama called the interviews unusual. I could definitely see that kind of questioning being uncomfortable and creating unease among political appointees, said Rudy Mehrbani, who also vetted appointees while in the White House counsels office under Obama. If you are working in one subject area like Peace Corps or USAID, that does not mean you are signing on to the administrations position on funding for reproductive rights.

Political appointees at the Defense Department, including a top layer of officials undersecretaries are going through reinterviews with the White House personnel office this month, according to a current Defense official and two former officials. During the interviews, the representatives from the personnel office are forcing senior leaders to answer questions about their loyalty to the president with an eye toward keeping their jobs in a second Trump term, the people said.

Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman countered that the interviews with the White House personnel office were set up by the Defense department so that our political appointees could discuss second-term opportunities at the department and throughout the administration.

In other areas of the government, the personnel tests come at a moment when Trump appointees are already struggling to manage portfolios that have ballooned during the pandemic. For instance, HHS staff have now spent more than five months juggling the round-the-clock response to the coronavirus while handling other ongoing policy goals, like the presidents focus on securing lower drug prices before the election a balancing act that officials described as exhausting even before facing de facto loyalty tests.

Five political appointees in disparate roles across HHS said theyd either scheduled their meetings with the personnel office or were awaiting an appointment.

The interviews also have exposed some Trump appointees to unexpected risks: Labor Department officials were forced to quarantine after meeting with a White House personnel staffer who later tested positive for the novel coronavirus, Bloomberg Law first reported.

You would think they would want to shore up the bench in response to the pandemic or start getting ready to fill expected gaps because people get sick or they leave, Mehrbani added. In the run up to a transition, historically, there is lots of turnover. Those are the things the personnel office should be tending to.

For Trumps true believers, the interviews are viewed as a mandatory part of working in the Trump administration.

If were going to extend this amount of capital on you, and push for you, they should ask more questions. Im glad theyre doing it finally, one White House official said. The fact that PPO is finally considering whether people are aligned with the president its long overdue.

Lara Seligman contributed to this report.

More here:

Trump team launches a sweeping loyalty test to shore up its defenses - POLITICO

Donald Trumps campaign promise to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border was vintage Trump: controversial, huge, symbolic. But he also meant a real wall.

"I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I'll build them very inexpensively," Trump said when he launched his campaign for the White House. "I will build a great, great wall on our southern border. And I will have Mexico pay for that wall."

Trumps passionate supporters loved when he made that promise in 2015 and applaud that hes talked about the wall through the three and half years of his presidency. If they judge him on changing the conversation in Washington on immigration, the president definitely achieved that.

RELATED:Browse 102 campaign promises individually rated on the Trump-O-Meter

But Trumps election didnt result in an actual wall being built. Trump couldnt get Congress to pass legislation that would have addressed costs or logistics of an actual wall. Mexicos leaders rejected Trumps rhetorical demands to pay for it. And its unclear that the Trump administration has the ability, money or time to complete such a complex project.

The Trump administration was able to reinforce and rebuild about 200 miles of fencing and barriers some of it existing before he took office. Trump has repeatedly referred to these efforts as building a wall along the 2,000 mile border. But this most repeated of his campaign promises is largely unfulfilled. Compared with before Trump took office, the numbers of people apprehended crossing the U.S. Mexican border were down in 2017 and 2018, then increased dramatically in 2019 as families in Central America fled crime and other instability. Crossings are down this year, most likely due to the coronavirus pandemic.

As Trump reaches the fourth anniversary of being nominated as the GOPs candidate for president, PolitiFact offers an account of the progress on 102promises he made in the 2016 campaign. Our Trump-O-Meter promise tracker finds that roughly 49% of Trumps promises can be described as either broken or not achieved.

Among Trumps Broken Promises were to establish the right to carry a concealed weapon in all 50 states; invest $550 billion in infrastructure; repeal Obamacare, and end birthright citizenship.

Trumps unfulfilled campaign promises are broken most often because he would have needed to change laws to achieve his goals but was unable to get action through Congress. (PolitiFact rates campaign promises based on outcomes, not intentions or effort.)

Our tracking project which we have done for 11 years including the promises of President Barack Obama and more than two dozen governors and mayors shows Trump kept roughly 24% of his promises. Typically he achieved progress when he could act on his own without Congress or the promise didnt require complex administrative action. As promised, he took no salary for his presidency. He began the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris climate agreement. He rolled back regulations. He refused to say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas."

His most substantial kept promise: cutting taxes. When Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress in 2017, they passed a wide-ranging bill that lowered taxes for many people and businesses. Trumps promises on taxes were ambitious, and he didnt get everything he wanted in the tax law. But he got enough to earn ratings of Compromise on his tax promises to eliminate the marriage penalty (it was reduced but not eliminated), lower the business tax rate to 15% (it was lowered to 21%), eliminate the estate tax (also reduced but not eliminated) and cut taxes for "everyone."

With roughly five months left in Trumps term, PolitiFact has rated Trumps remaining promises Compromise (about 20%) or Stalled (5%). At a similar point in 2012, Obamas promises were rated Promise Broken at 16%, Promise Kept at 37%, Compromise at 14%, and the rest Stalled (10%) or In the Works (22%).

How much will Trumps policy success or failure matter as voters go to the polls? The coronavirus pandemic has changed the political equation for answering that question. The coronavirus pandemic arrived unexpectedly in the final year of Trumps first term. It is a wild card in assessing his record, given its most direct impact on the day-to-day lives of Americans.

Nevertheless, Trump had three years to achieve his campaign promises before the pandemic. He may yet move more legislation through Congress to address that and other issues. PolitiFact will be updating promise ratings as circumstances warrant. Prior to the Trump-O-Meter, PolitiFact tracked former President Barack Obamas campaign promises for eight years on The Obameter. Obamas final tally was 24% of his promises rated Promise Broken; 48% promises rated Promise Kept, while another 28% of his promises were part of a Compromise.

How Trump achieved progress or fell short

Trump scored legislative victories with the passage of his tax bill, an increase in defense spending, and, with the backing of many Democrats, a criminal justice overhaul.

Trump has also managed to win confirmation of judges at an unusually fast clip, thanks to strong support from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. Trump signed massive spending bills and coronavirus relief packages, which had bipartisan support.

He has not succeeded in his promise to repeal and replace Obamacare, even when his party controlled both chambers of Congress. The Trump administration has not forwarded a repeatedly promised infrastructure bill to Congress. And, even before the enormous outlays required by the pandemic, his promise to cut domestic spending did not happen.

Much like his predecessor,Trump faced obstacles in working with Congress due to intense partisan polarization. But experts suggested he has fueled those very partisan fires that inhibit his own agenda.

"We have not had a president so distant from the legislative process as Trump since at least the 1920s," said Steven S. Smith, a political scientist at Washington University in St. Louis.

Trump tended to punch back against even modest deviations from his position. "He has mean-tweeted virtually every congressional leader at some point," said Gregory Koger, a University of Miami political scientist.

Like Obama, Trump has made stronger use of his executive powers, which dont require the agreement of Congress. Trump has been able to make progress on his environmental agenda by rolling back the actions of his predecessor through executive orders and regulations, rather than winning legislative votes.

"But as for regulatory changes and executive orders, what one president can do, the next president can undo," said John J. Pitney, Jr., a Claremont McKenna College political scientist and author of "Is Congress Broken?"

This means that if Joe Biden wins the 2020 presidential election, he would be able to overturn many of Trumps policies on immigration, the environment, and climate change, among other issues.

Any president has the tools to put their mark on foreign policy, and Trump has done so. Some of his biggest foreign policy promises were kept: pulling out of the Iran nuclear agreement, leaving the Paris climate accord, quitting the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, renegotiating the North American Free-Trade Agreement, providing strong backing for Israel including moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, and curtailing the Obama-era thaw with Cuba.

RELATED:Our only agenda is to publish the truth so you can be an informed participant in democracy. Donate today.

Some of these moves will be hard to reverse, while others could be changed by a Democratic administration.

Some say the biggest impact from Trumps approach may be intangible. "The area that may be irreversible is American leadership in the world," Pitney said. "We have made our allies wary of American leadership during the Trump administration, and they are not likely to again accede to a U.S. leadership role that makes them vulnerable."

Then again, Trump had promised during his campaign to adopt an America First approach. He said he would build the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, he demanded that U.S. allies pay us for more for their defense, he pledged to impose tariffs on trading partners, and he said he would keep out Muslims and immigration from terrorism-prone countries.

History may question the wisdom of these policies, but Trumps rhetoric during the 2016 campaign gave clear signs that the rest of the world would find fault with some American policies on his watch. Dissatisfaction abroad with U.S. leadership under Trump suggests he has kept that promise.

PolitiFact reporter Miriam Valverde contributed to this report.

RELATED:Read more Trump-O-Meter reports on all 102 of President Donald Trump's 2016campaign promises.

View post:

The Trump-O-Meter: Where President Donald Trump's campaign promises stand in the summer of 2020 - PolitiFact