Daily Archives: May 4, 2020

President Donald Trumps town hall on Sunday was not his first with Fox News, but it was the first event of its kind at the Lincoln Memorial.

Thats why, in Trumps long battle against the fake news media, one of his comments stood out.

Responding to a question of whether he should change his tone during the COVID-19 press briefings, he said, I am greeted with a hostile press, the likes of which no president has ever seen. The closest would be that gentleman right up there [pointing to the David Chester French statue]. They always said, Lincoln, nobody got treated worse than Lincoln. I believe I am treated worse.

You see those press conferences, he said. They come at me with questions that are disgraceful, to be honest, disgraceful. Their manner and their presentation and their words. And I feel that if I was kind of them, I would be walked off the stage. I mean, they come at you with the most horrible, horrendous, biased questions. And you see it 94, and 95% of the press is hostile.

Related StoryPiers Morgan Steps Back From 'Good Morning Britain' After Developing "Mild" Coronavirus Symptoms

He then noted that on Sunday, a flotilla of boats in Florida paraded around a waterway and showed their support for him. We have tremendous, tremendous support. And yet they media, they might as well be in the Democrat party. Why? I dont know.

Trumps claim of poor treatment could have been referring merely to the media but, as a number of commentators noted, Lincoln was assassinated. Historian Michael Beschloss quickly tweeted out a photo of Lincolns burial 155 years ago on Monday.

The event was called America Together: Returning To Work, co-anchored by Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, and it primarily featured virtual questions, submitted from Americans across the country. Although Trump has complained about Fox News coverage as he did last weekend hes granted many more interviews to the network than rivals.

During this town hall, Trump did make some news on the coronavirus, insisting, We need the vaccine and I think were going to have it by the end of the year. A number of medical experts believe that such a vaccine wont be ready for another year to 18 months, but Dr. Anthony Fauci, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, has said that January is a possibility.

Some of the most interesting moments came when Trump talked of three people he knows who have died of coronavirus. He described the scene at Elmhurst Hospital in his native Queens. And he made clear that the virus was not like the flu, even as a number of his on-air supporters continue to harbor doubts about the actual death toll and whether the spate of social distancing and closures are an overreaction.

It affects older people, he said. If you have any problem, heart, diabetes, this thing is vicious. And it can take you out, and it can take you out very strongly.

Later, Vice President Mike Pence and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin joined the event. The vice president also made a bit of news. After Baier asked him why he didnt wear a mask at the Mayo Clinic, creating a bit of a sensation in coverage of the visit, Pence said that he should have.

Baier and MacCallum did ask somefollow ups such as on his claim that the U.S. closed off travel from China but Trump frequently was able to recite a series of mistruths and uncorroborated remarks. For instance, Trump claimed that Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had said that the virus would pass and not be a big deal. The president has made similar comments before. In fact, Fauci on Feb. 29 said on Today that right now, at this moment, theres no need to change anything that youre doing on a day-by-day basis.

The title of the town hall was America Together, but Trump several times took partisan swipes, even suggesting that Democrats and the left were wishing that treatments would not work because that would help him politically. I think Democrats, the radical left, would rather have people, Im not going to say die, not get better because they think Im going to get credit if hydroxychloroquine works, he said. In fact, the FDA has cautioned against using the drug to treat COVID-19 outside of a hospital or clinical trial.

Left unmentioned was Trumps recent tweet calling protesters of Michigan stay-at-home orders very good people. Some of the protesters, however, were brandishing guns, and the states governor, Gretchen Whitmer, complained that others had nooses, confederate flags and swastikas. Even the Republican president of the state senate called them a bunch of jackasses. That said, there was something a bit refreshing at hearing questions from the general public, after Trumps nightly, often chaotic COVID-19 briefings appear to have been exhausted.

On Sunday, the neoclassical temple that has been the site of civil rights marches, inauguration celebrations, even a signature scene in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, now will have a new element to its history. As Trump said in sitting down for the town hall, We never had a more beautiful set than this.

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Donald Trump, At Fox News Town Hall At Lincoln Memorial, Says Hes Treated Worse By Press Than The 16th President Was - Deadline

Donald Trump and the Federal Reserve have gone to extraordinary lengths to prop up the U.S. economy in recent weeks.

The coronavirus pandemic and the lockdowns put in place to slow its spread have ravaged the U.S. economywith the Fed and the Trump administration pumping a staggering $6 trillion in to the system since March and taking interest rates back to record lows to keep it on its feet.

Now, as the economic reality of a post-coronavirus world sinks in, president Trump and the Fed are edging closer to negative interest ratessomething legendary investor Warren Buffett has warned could have "extreme consequences."

U.S. president Donald Trump has previously indicated negative interest rates are a ... [+] possibility--though so far the Federal Reserve has demurred from taking rates below zero in order to protect the country's banking system.

Negative interest rates, meaning borrowers are paid to take out loans by the lender, have been adopted by a number of central banks around the world, led by some European central banks and the Bank of Japan.

If a central bank sets its overnight deposit rate to below zero, lenders must pay their central bank to hold their reserves. Banks could then pass those costs on to their customers, charging fees for positive balances.

Some economists believe negative interest rates can jolt life into flatlining economies, encouraging money to be invested or spent, though others fear a negative interest rate policy could keep an economy subdued.

"We're doing things that we don't know [their] ultimate outcome," Buffett said when asked about the possibility of negative interest rates in the U.S. at Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting on Saturday.

"[Negative interest rates are] probably the most interesting question that I've seen in economics," Buffett said, speaking to shareholders via webcast and warning of "extreme consequences" if a negative interest rate policy is brought in.

Back in March, Buffett said the puzzle of what negative interest rates would do to U.S. financial markets is "the most important question in the world," admitting he doesn't "know the answer."

Earlier this year, Trump indicated he'd be in favour of the Fed adopting negative interest rates in order to compete with countries that already have.

"Were forced to compete with nations that are getting negative rates, something very new," Trump told attendees at the World Economic Forum in January. "Meaning, they get paid to borrow money, something I could get used to very quickly."

While Fed chair Jerome Powell has said he doesn't think negative interest rates are "an appropriate policy," Trump isn't shy about applying pressure.

"The Federal Reserve should get our interest rates down to zero, or less," Trump tweeted in September.

"It is only the navet of Jay Powell and the Federal Reserve that doesnt allow us to do what other countries are already doing," Trump said, calling Fed policy makers "boneheads."

Meanwhile, Narayana Kocherlakota, a former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis has thrown his weight behind negative interest rates, calling for the Fed to set interest rates a "quarter percentage point below zero" and put employment above bank stability.

"Put crudely, the Fed is giving up on unemployment reductions to help keep banks and their shareholders safer," Kocherlakota wrote in a Bloomberg op-ed.

The Fed opted to keep interest rates on hold at its latest policy meeting last week, though Powell said he is willing to go further to prop up the economy ravaged by lockdowns.

"It may well be the case that the economy needs more support," Powell said, speaking at a press conference after the Fed's two-day policy meetingleaving negative interest rates on the table but keeping them at arm's length for now.

"One of the things [the Fed] wants to do is protect the banking system," William Lee, chief economist at the California-based economic think tank Milken Institute, told CNBC this weekend.

"We've learned our lesson from Japan and the Europeans; when you go to negative rates you start impairing the banking system. I think [negative interest rates] will be the last tool the Fed pulls out of its tool kit. The Fed right now is oriented toward ensuring financial markets work and work properly and stay working."

Donald Trump's support for negative interest rates puts him at odds with Fed chair Jerome Powell.

Last month, a senior official at the International Monetary Fund warned the Bank of Japan against pushing rates deeper into negative territory, cautioning it would "provide fairly limited economic stimulus while negative rates may weaken profitability in parts of the financial sector."

Coronavirus-induced lockdowns have caused central bankers and policy makers to go further and move faster than ever before, pushing some toward alternatives, such as bitcoin, a cryptocurrency.

Talk of negative interest rates in the U.S. come as bitcoin is on the verge of its third supply squeezesomething many crypto proponents think is likely to boost the bitcoin price.

"All central banks are dramatically easing their monetary policy, trying to devalue their currencies or at least prevent revaluation. Bitcoin is dramatically tightening its monetary policy," Pierre Rochard, bitcoin strategist at bitcoin and crypto exchange Kraken, said via Twitter.

Bitcoin's looming supply squeeze, called a halving, is set for May 12 and will see the number of bitcoin rewarded to those that maintain the bitcoin network, known as miners, halved.

"The halvening is an important event for bitcoin, but its just one element in the perfect storm that bitcoin is enjoying at the moment," said Alex Mashinsky, chief executive of cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius Network.

"Governments around the world are implementing unprecedented fiscal stimulus, which risks causing high inflation across fiat currencies, which reinforces bitcoins value proposition as a deflationary asset. As a result, many first time retail investors are flocking to bitcoin as a way to protect their wealth."

The Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett, who's previously branded bitcoin "probably rat poison squared," told Berkshire Hathaway shareholders the coronavirus pandemic could have an "extraordinarily wide" range of possible outcomes.

A severely weakened U.S. banking systempotentially leading to a bitcoin and cryptocurrency adoption spikeis one coronavirus outcome that even Buffett might have missed.

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Donald Trump And The Fed Could Be About To Destroy The U.S. Banking System - Forbes

The look on her face will be remembered as one of the defining images of the coronavirus crisis. As Dr Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House response to the pandemic, sat listening to Donald Trump musing about disinfectant as a treatment for Covid-19, her eyes blinked, her mouth tightened, and she appeared to be in pain.

As a cellular immunologist, Birxs anguish was all too understandable. But she is not only a scientist, she is a diplomat, and since Trump made his contentious remarks last week she has declined to criticize his flight of fancy.

Other leading scientists have felt less obliged to be circumspect. Trumps constant antics are a danger to the American people, said John Holdren, a Harvard environmental scientist who was Barack Obamas White House science adviser through both his presidential terms.

Holdren told the Guardian the current approach to science and expertise within the Trump administration is a shame on many levels. Trumps talking nonsense risks misleading the public, and it distracts top scientists who spend emotional energy neutralizing the damage he causes when they should be tackling the virus.

Three months into the pandemic, with the number of confirmed cases passing 1 million, the tension that has been simmering for months between Trump and the scientific world is at boiling point. His improvisation about injecting disinfectant encapsulated the sense of demoralization of despair, almost that many American scientists now feel about the drift from evidence-based leadership.

They are doing everything they can to undermine science at a time when it is critically important, as are facts. We have come to an extreme level, said Gina McCarthy, who led the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) until Trumps accession in 2017.

Science is so assailed at present that the situation raises a startling question: are we losing the fight for reason in the pandemic? McCarthy, who now heads the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), said she frets America may prove incapable of withstanding the anti-science assault unleashed by Trump.

I have been worried that people wouldnt notice the attack happening. These things are difficult to explain they are not soundbites and our country has for a long time taken for granted the fact that we make science-based decisions. That is simply not true any more.

Science has played no role in virtually all the top appointments Trump has made.

The accusation that in three short years Trump has succeeded in severing historic ties between the US government and science-based decision making is one of the more chilling charges leveled at his presidency. Science has after all been at the core of the American experiment, ever since Franklin Roosevelt created the White House Office of Scientific R&D in 1941.

Not only was scientific endeavor instrumental in winning the second world war through the atomic bomb and innovations such as radar and communications technology it was also central to Americas postwar economic success. In recent times, Obama inherited that legacy and ran with it, promising on his first day in office in 2009 that we will restore science to its rightful place.

In his first set of presidential appointments, Obama brought into his administration five science Nobel prizewinners and 25 members of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine. They became known as the dream team.

By contrast, Holdren said, Trump is the exact opposite. Science has played no role in virtually all the top appointments he has made.

The roll call of officials Trump has entrusted with protecting Americans from Covid-19 tells its own story. With no Nobel laureates in sight, Trump relied initially on Alex Azar, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), who is a lawyer and former drug company boss; followed by Mike Pence, a career politician and evangelical Christian; and most recently Jared Kushner, the presidents son-in-law, whose expertise lies in real estate.

Trumps top team have in turn promoted individuals in their own mold. As Reuters has reported, Azar gave the job of coordinating the fight against coronavirus within HHS, to an individual whose job immediately before joining the Trump administration was as a dog breeder running a small business called Dallas Labradoodles.

The clash between science and the White House is the culmination of a long confrontation. As Jeffrey Sachs, a globally renowned economist at Columbia University, told the Guardian: The Republican party has been on an aggressive anti-science campaign for decades, mainly because scientists are in favor of environmental regulations while the Republicans are the party of polluters.

In Trump Republicans have found a leader who regards his own innate abilities to divine the truth as superior to evidence-based science. In one of the most telling moments of his daily White House coronavirus briefings, Trump was asked what metrics he would use to decide when Americans could emerge from lockdown.

He raised his right hand, placed his index finger against his temple, and said: The metrics right here. Thats my metrics.

That faith in his own instincts over and above fact has been a characteristic for years. Trump is famous for believing that exercise is misguided, because people are born with a finite amount of energy in them, like batteries.

Until he entered presidential politics he was opposed to vaccinating children, claiming falsely that vaccines cause autism.

Given these tendencies, when Trump snatched unexpected victory in 2016 the scientific community braced itself for what they knew would be an uncomfortable ride.

The attack began in the very first week of Trumps presidency. Scientists, including public health experts, were barred from communicating with the public about their work and new restrictions were imposed on the EPA.

Since then the Union of Concerned Scientists has recorded no fewer than 139 major attacks from the Trump administration on scientific integrity. For the Unions Michael Halpern, the mindset was summed up by Sharpiegate in September 2019 when the White House redrew the path of Hurricane Dorian to include Alabama so that the president would not have to admit he made a mistake.

To the shock and dismay of the science community, the national weather agency was forced to play along.

Sharpiegate was the harbinger of whats happened with the pandemic, Halpern said.

When the nation is dealing with a hurricane that threatens the lives of thousands it is serious enough, but a pandemic threatening millions of Americans is on another level. The sidelining of expert advice that has been a trademark of this presidency has burst into full view, with Trumps belief in his own intellectual prejudices pitted directly often in front of TV cameras against the evidence-based advice of his own bewildered officials.

Many scientists were dreading that the president would be faced by a test just like coronavirus, Halpern said. It has had immediate and catastrophic consequences.

All the major mistakes that have been made by the Trump administration in handling the pandemic can be ascribed to this failure to listen to, and trust, scientific advice. Trump was slow to mobilise the federal government because he failed to heed scientific warnings; instead he chose to follow his hunch that a miracle would happen and the virus would disappear.

His obsession with the anti-malarial drug chloroquine as a potential game changer in treating Covid-19 caused havoc in the US and around the world, with recent studies suggesting the drug has no beneficial qualities and plenty of side-effects.

In contrast to other countries like South Korea where public health agencies have spearheaded successful efforts to contain Covid-19, in the US the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been sidelined. Its last press conference was in March.

The assault on science does not end with the White House. Trumps vocal disdain for evidence-based thinking has emboldened an army of quacks, pseudoscience groups and conspiracy theorists who have stepped up their proselytizing online and in protests across the country.

The presidents remarks about injecting disinfectant not only led to some people poisoning themselves by drinking cleaning fluid, it also encouraged peddlers of industrial bleach to reinforce their claims that they had a miracle cure for coronavirus.

Del Bigtree, a leading anti-vaxxer who produced the film Vaxxed based on the views of the disgraced British former physician Andrew Wakefield, told the Guardian that viewership of his online show the HighWire has increased exponentially during the pandemic.

If there is a silver lining in the current browbeaten state of American science, it lies paradoxically in the pandemic itself. The crisis has not only brought the confrontation to a head, it also offers a possible way out of it.

All the scientists consulted by the Guardian agreed that the cause of evidence-based leadership would emerge from the current crisis stronger.

Naomi Oreskes, an historian of science at Harvard, pointed out that Americans remain generally favorable to the scientific mission. A recent Pew survey found that 73% of Americans thought that science had a positive impact on society.

The impression that anti-science sentiment is on the rise is false its what the merchants of doubt try to stoke because they want us to think that, to distrust science, Oreskes said.

McCarthy believes that Covid-19 has handed science an unexpected gift. People are beginning to see the costs when you dont tell the truth and you sideline those who do.

McCarthy predicts that a final collision is coming between the merchants of untruths led by Trump and a majority of the American people demanding real facts and real science.

It will be the people against polluters, experts against those winging it, scientists against the peddlers of misinformation. The question is, who is going to win?

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Pandemic brings Trump's war on science to the boil but who will win? - The Guardian

Donald Trump is getting nervous. Internal polls show him losing in November unless the economy comes roaring back.

But much of the economy remains closed because of the pandemic. The number of infections and deaths continue to climb.

So what is Trumps re-election strategy? Reopen the economy anyway, despite the risks.

Remove income support, so people have no choice but to return to work.

Trumps labor department has decided that furloughed employees must accept an employers offer to return to work and therefore forfeit unemployment benefits, regardless of Covid-19.

Trumps ally, Iowas Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, says employees cannot refuse to return to work for fear of contracting the disease. Thats a voluntary quit, making someone ineligible for benefits.

GOP officials in Oklahoma are even threatening to withhold the $600 a week of extra unemployment benefits Congress has provided workers, if an employer wants to hire them. Safety is irrelevant.

If the employer will contact us we will cut off their benefits, says Teresa Thomas Keller of the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission.

Forcing people to choose between getting Covid-19 or losing their livelihood is inhumane. It is also nonsensical. Public health still depends on as many workers as possible staying home. Thats a big reason why Congress provided the extra benefits.

Hide the facts.

No one knows how many Americans are infected because the Trump administration continues to drag its heels on testing. To date only 6.5m tests have been completed in a population of more than 200 million adults.

Florida, one of the first states to reopen, has stopped releasing medical examiners statistics on the number of Covid-19 victims because the figures are higher than the states official count.

But its impossible to fight the virus without adequate data. Dr Anthony Fauci, the administrations leading infectious disease expert, warns that reopening poses a really significant risk without more testing.

Not surprisingly, the White House has blocked Fauci from testifying before the House.

Pretend its about freedom.

Weeks ago, Trump called on citizens to LIBERATE states like Michigan, whose Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, imposed strict stay-at-home rules.

Michigan has the third-highest number of Covid-19 deaths in America, although it is 10th in population. When on Thursday Whitmer extended the rules to 28 May, gun-toting protesters rushed the state house chanting: Lock her up!

Rather than condemn their behavior, Trump suggested Whitmer make a deal with them.

The Governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire, he tweeted. These are very good people, but they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely!

Meanwhile, the attorney general, William Barr, has directed the justice department to take legal action against any state or local authorities imposing lockdown measures that could be violating the constitutional rights and civil liberties of individual citizens.

Making this about freedom is absurd. Freedom is meaningless for people who have no choice but to accept a job that risks their health.

Shield businesses against lawsuits for spreading the infection.

Trump is pushing to give businesses that reopen a liability shield against legal action by workers or customers who get infected by the virus.

This week, he announced he would use the Defense Production Act to force meat-processing plants to remain open, despite high rates of Covid-19 infections and deaths among meatpackers.

Were going to sign an executive order today, I believe, and thatll solve any liability problems, Trump said.

The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, insists that proposed legislation giving state and local governments funding they desperately need must include legal immunity for corporations that cause workers or consumers to become infected.

We have a red line on liability, McConnell said. It wont pass the Senate without it.

But how can the economy safely reopen if companies dont have an incentive to keep people safe? Promises to provide protective gear and other safeguards are worthless absent the threat of damages if workers or customers become infected.

The biggest obstacle to reopening the economy is the pandemic itself.

Any rush to reopen without adequate testing and tracing far more than now under way will cause a resurgence of the disease and another and longer economic crisis.

Maybe Trump is betting that any resurgence will occur after the election, when the economy appears to be on the road to recovery.

The first responsibility of a president is to keep the public safe. But Donald Trump couldnt care less. He was slow to respond to the threat, then he lied about it, then made it hard for states especially those with Democratic governors to get the equipment they need.

Now hes trying to force the economy to reopen in order to boost his electoral chances this November, and hes selling out Americans health to seal the deal. This is beyond contemptible.

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Donald Trump's four-step plan to reopen the US economy and why it will be lethal - The Guardian

US President Donald Trump has tweeted the following:

Intelligence has just reported to me that I was correct, and that they did NOT bring up the CoronaVirus subject matter until late into January, just prior to my banning China from the USAlso, they only spoke of the Virus in a very non-threatening, or matter of fact, manner...

Geopolitical tensions between the US and China are heating up which should b a catalyst for risk-off. More on this here:

As for what currency to trade AUD/JPY is the FX markets risk-barometer and could be offering a short opportunity as outlined in the following article:

In recent trade, the Global Times wrote a piece in response to the news:Pompeo's anti-China bluff strategy reveals all-or-nothing mentality to fool US voters GT

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US President Donald Trump: Intelligence has just reported to me that I was correct on China - FXStreet

If your sense of time has become a flat circle these last couple of months, it might be hard to remember what was going on in February 2020. But as a reminder, that was when Donald Trump declared that there would be no more than 15 coronavirus cases total in the U.S. Shortly thereafter, he nudged that number up just slightly, claiming that the disease would prove nowhere near as bad as the 2009 H1N1 flu outbreak, which killed roughly 12,500 Americans. At the end of March, he shifted expectations a tad, saying that if the U.S. death toll clocked in between 100,000 and 200,000, it would mean his administration had done a very good job. Later, when strict social distancing measures began to flatten the curve, he opined that 60,000 dead Americans would be a win. Now, as the U.S. has surpassed that figure, the president has adjusted his yardstick for success once again, casually declaring that, actually, maybe 100,000 people will die.

Speaking to reporters before departing for a weekend at Camp David, Trump shared that hopefully were going to come in under 100,000 lives lost, and if thats the case, itll mean he saved something like 1 millions lives, or 1.5 million or hey, lets just call it 2.5 million lives.

The president did not take questions but if he had, and someone had asked him about the fact that he tacked on another 40,000 Americans from his latest prediction, one can assume he would have claimed to have never said such a thing because thats what he does every time hes caught in a monumental lie which is frequently. Presumably this wont be the last time between now and November that he revises both the number of dead Americans the country should consider a success, and how many hell take credit for saving. Next month, 250,000 coronavirus deaths will presumably mean he did a bang-up job and hey, how about those 300 million people he saved?

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Surprise: the Trump administration doesnt want Anthony Fauci testifying before Congress

Surely this has nothing to do with the White House wanting to avoid any expert testimony that could make the president look bad:

The White House issued a statement about Faucis testimony shortly after The Washington Post published a story Friday afternoon quoting a spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee, who said the White House was refusing to allow Fauci to appear at a subcommittee hearing next week. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has been a prominent face in the Trump administrations response to the coronavirus as a lead scientist in the coronavirus task force. He has walked a fine line in delivering scientific information to the public that at times has contradicted President Trumps statements. Trump at one point retweeted a Twitter post that called for Fauci to be fired, but he later denied he was considering firing him. Fauci has urged extreme caution as some cities and states move to reopen businesses, warning that doing so imprudently could lead to a resurgence of the coronavirus.

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Trump Casually Doubles the Number of Americans Hed Be Okay Losing to the Coronavirus - Vanity Fair

The 45th president, a deeply divisive leader, was running for re-election on immigration, trade and the economy. Then the coronavirus crisis hit.

73 years old

Born in Queens; recently changed his primary residence from Manhattan to Palm Beach, Fla.

45th president of the United States

Former reality show host and New York City real estate developer who never ran for political office until his 2016 presidential campaign

Mr. Trumps handling of the coronavirus pandemic has not been a defining issue of his presidency for long, but how his administration has responded is likely to be critical not only to his legacy, but also to how some swing voters who are open to both him and Joseph R. Biden Jr. make their decision in November.

Before the coronavirus crisis consumed his White House, his 2016 rallying cry of build the wall still echoed in his re-election campaign. Construction of a wall along the countrys southern border, intended to halt the flow of undocumented immigrants into the country, has been slow going, but an immigration crackdown has remained one of the policy issues that enlivens his base. Mr. Trump has even tried to use immigration as a way to change the subject from criticism of his administrations handling of the pandemic.

Mr. Trump has also made eliminating federal regulations a priority, with a focus on dismantling Obama-era environmental regulations. So far, he has failed to achieve his top legislative priority when he came into office: repealing the Affordable Care Act. But he has pleased Republicans, in particular, with his commitment to appointing conservative judges to the federal bench at a record-setting pace.

Mr. Trump touts two trade deals as his signature policies, even as they mark a break from Republican free-trade orthodoxy in favor of a populist approach: an initial trade agreement with China, and his revised accord with Mexico and Canada. His foreign policy doctrine can be summed up by the phrase America First, a banner under which Mr. Trump has over the years questioned the founding tenets of alliances like NATO, and demonstrated a reluctance to engage in overseas military operations.

For almost the first time in his presidency, the answer appears to be no. The first two years of his administration were defined by the looming investigation of the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who in March 2019 wrapped up his report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. Mr. Mueller did not reach a conclusion on whether Mr. Trump illegally obstructed justice, but found no evidence of a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Mr. Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives months after the Russia investigation concluded, for seeking to pressure Ukraine to smear his political rivals. In February, after five months of hearings, Mr. Trump was acquitted in the Senate, along party lines, of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Many aides and allies have been making the case to Mr. Trump that he is no longer running against a political opponent, but rather against the virus, and that his re-election in November depends on convincing voters that his administrations response saved lives.

Through daily White House news conferences, Mr. Trump has been trying to reshape the narrative and convince voters that his response to the health crisis was adequate, despite the fact that he repeatedly played down the threat of the virus and was slow to absorb the scale of the risk. He has also been eager to restart the economy, so that he can claim credit for the economic gains that he was running on before the virus washed them away, while pinning the blame for the spread of the virus elsewhere, like on China or the World Health Organization.

Mr. Trump, famous for telling falsehoods and making inflated claims about himself, has long claimed to be a billionaire. The question of how much Mr. Trump is really worth has been a moving target, and one he refuses to answer. He has continued to refuse to release his tax returns, and its now a battle being fought in the courts.

He has tried to shield his tax returns from Manhattan state prosecutors, an effort that was rejected by a federal judge. The Justice Department has helped his attempt to block a subpoena demanding the release of eight years of his personal and corporate tax returns.

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Donald Trump: Who He Is and What He Stands For - The New York Times

Donald Trump receives questions from journalists on April 30.Jim Loscalzo / CNP via ZUMA Wire

For much-needed reporting on the coronavirus crisis and more, subscribe to Mother Jones newsletters.

A full-fledged right-wing freakout in the announcement planned by the FBI for the hope that then-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn would lie in a January 2016 interview, was, inevitably, drawn to political operative Roger Stone. President Donald Trump on Thursday suggested he could forgive Flynn and Stone, who have each been found to have lied to federal investigators about the Russia Russia scandal.

What they did to Gen. Flynn, and by the way, to Roger Stone and others, was a disaster and a disgrace, and it should not be allowed to happen again in this country, Trump said when asked about forgiveness to Flynn.

(embedded) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LTVOYYeZ60 (/ embedded)

Interestingly, Trump and his supporters, are not saying that Flynn and Stone are not lying to federal investigators. Instead they indicate that lying to investigators is not important.

Trump and his supporters begin on the premise that the Trump-Russia scandal is a fornication, a claim that has been initiated by the failure of special counsel Robert Mueller and congressional Democrats to prove a criminal conspiracy between Trump and Russia campaign. As a result, Tump and company say, investigations into their behavior are unfair, with any resulting product prosecution being overstated.

This is Trumps main gaslight. The lies of Flynn and Stone, and Trump himself, helped prevent investigators from finding out what really happened during the Trump and Russia campaign in 2016, benefiting Trumps first and foremost, who misrepresented so much that losses. In the pardon of Stone and Flynn, the president will reward them for that service, and will use the pandemonium and its mass of supporters to drown anyone who has noticed the con.

The argument that Flynn and Stone were railroads, long popular talking points on the right, came to light Wednesday, when the federal prosecutor in Flynns case revealed handwritten letters Bill Priestap, head of the FBIs counterintelligence, made before FBI agents in an interview with Flynn in the White House in January 2016. Agents know that Flynn spoke in December 2016 to Sergey Kislyak, the ambassador of Russia in the US, about sanctions imposed by President Barack Obama on Russia, is a clear violation of the Logan Act. Preistap wrote: What is our purpose? Truth / Admittance or for him to lie, so we can chase him or shoot him?

Those are material missteps in the investigation of Russian election interference.

While conservative pundits treat these records as smoking evidence that framed Flynn, legal experts say the FBIs tactics against Flynn are unusual. Federal agents often try to catch targets in situations where they will admit crimes or lies, which will open themselves up to prosecution. In a guilty plea, Flynn admitted to lying to FBI agents. (He also said under oath that he did not believe the FBI had entered him.) Flynns lawyers are trying to move his plea not to trespass, and also demand that the case be dismissed. The judge handling the case was not ruled on those requests.

Trump also confirms in Stones lawyers arguments that the self-described dirty cheater has been unfairly convicted because the DCs premier female judge in social media posts criticized Trump; the judge in the case denied this contention.

Stone and Flynns lies are part of a pattern. Muellers report, despite its oppressive conclusions, has undeniably revealed that the president and his advisers reacted to the declarations of Russias campaigns in perpetuity. Some lies are public: Trump claims there is no business in Russia. In fact, at the time his employees were looking for the Kremlin helped promote a Trump-branded project there. Trumps campaign spokesman Hope Hicks said in November 2016 that there was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign. Mueller mentioned more than 100 contacts by campaign in Russia alone.

Along with Stone and Flynn, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen and former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos went to jail for lying to federal agents or lawmakers. Former Trump campaign aide Rick Gates and campaign chairman Paul Manafort have been found lying to investigators, among other crimes. The Justice Department said in February that it was looking into whether Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater and Trumps campaign adviser, had lied to the House Intelligence testimony in the 2017 testimony.

Reliable Trump boosters like Sen. Lindsey Graham (RS.C.), Rush Limbaugh, and Alan Dershowitz laughed at the perjury charges as a process of crime, suggesting they were charges brought by prosecutors because they couldnt find more serious thing. However, Mueller and prosecutors have repeatedly said that the Trump associates falsity is detrimental to their efforts. The investigation established that many individuals associated with the Trump Campaign lied to the Office, and to Congress, about their contact with Russia-related individuals and related matters, Mueller wrote. Those are material missteps in the investigation of Russian election interference.

Trump has no passive observer. He actively encouraged the organizations stonewall Mueller and Congress, hoping for forgiveness for those who refused to cooperate. Muellers report examined 10 instances in which Trump could have interfered with justice to interrupt the investigation. That includes Trumps pressure on former-FBI James Comey to stop investigating Flynn in 2017. And one of Trumps lawyers, John Dowd, left Flynns attorney in late 2017 suggesting that Trump would have supported Flynn if he had not been given evidence by prosecutors about Trump. (Dowd denies that this is an explicit offer of a pardon in exchange for silence.)

Trump himself declined to be interviewed by Mueller. And as reported by Mother Jones, the president appears to have lied to the written answers he gave Mueller in which he claimed to miss Stones 2016 communications about WikiLeaks. Stones trial testimony by Gates and former Trump campaign chairman Steve Bannon revealed that Trump spoke during a campaign with Stone about WikiLeaks, and campaign officials viewed Stone as a conduit to WikiLeaks.

Flynn and Stones attorneys argued that because prosecutors did not prove that their clients had conspired with Russia, their lies to investigators should be set aside. So most of this case has to do with the question: So what? Stone attorney Bruce Rogow said in his closing comments on Stones trial. Prosecutors and judges in those cases have repeatedly denied those claims.

Federal District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson, at Stones sentencing, spoke at length on Stones dishonesty, saying he had stopped a key part of the Russia House investigation. His pride in his own lies is a threat to our most fundamental institutions, he said, to the very foundation of our democracy.

He was not accused, as some have complained, for standing up for the president, Jackson said. He has been accused of disguise for president.

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Donald Trump's defense of Michael Flynn and Roger Stone is a giant gaslight - The Media Hell