Daily Archives: April 29, 2022

In the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, as cases spread rapidly and deaths mounted, then-President Donald Trump threatened to withdraw help for governors who didnt treat him nicely, and his aides barred the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from giving briefings for a staggering six months, according to a trove of new information released this week.

Emails between top officials from the CDC and Trump administration, released by a House panel on Friday, also revealed that Trump aides strong-armed the CDC into watering down its public-health guidance for churches in May 2020, just as houses of worship were emerging as particularly risky settings.

In early May, the CDC released two reports, one of which detailed how a pastor at an Arkansas church and his wife unwittingly spread the virus to 26 others, which came to balloon into a cluster of 61 people, of whom four died. The second report found that 87 percent of attendees at a choir practice in Washington had caught the virus.

The message, and accompanying recommendations that churches hold virtual or drive-in services only, was a stark contrast to Trumps ridiculously rosy suggestion in April that the country should reopen entirely and be raring to go by Easter.

Perhaps not surprisingly, when the CDC sent its draft guidance for religious communities to the White House on May 21, 2020, Trump aides immediately pushed back, the emails show.

Aides expressed concern that the guidance seems to raise religious liberty concerns and suggested the CDC be allowed to publish guidance contingent on striking the offensive passages.

White House lawyer May Davis called previous CDC guidance problematic and suggested proposed changes on top of Kellyanne [Conway] edits that removes all the tele-church suggestions. She added, [T]hough personally I will say that if I was old and vulnerable (I do feel old and vulnerable), drive-through services would sound welcome. Its not clear what the offensive passages were but the final guidelines didnt include any suggestions for tele-church or drive-in services.

House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis

The next day, Trump outright told state governors in a press briefing that they should allow churches to reopen completely.

According to extracts of a forthcoming book by New York Times journalists Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, obtained by The Hill this week, Trump went even further with governors, threatening to withdraw pandemic aid if they didnt offer reciprocity or treat him nicely.

The book, This Will Not Pass, depicts Trump as a mafia don, demanding loyalty from supplicants and political opponents alike, by turns using the largest bully pulpit in the world to beat them into submission and cajoling them in private to offer support, The Hill wrote.

In one call with governors detailed in the book, Trump threatened to cut federal funding for most states that had deployed the National Guard to help battle COVID. He told them that if they wanted the federal government to cover the costs, You have to call me and ask me nicely.

In another call with California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Trump said he would allow a COVID-addled cruise ship moored in San Francisco to dock so passengers could be treatedbut he would be watching out for the reciprocity from Newsom.

President Trumps comments, his rhetoric ,and his almost flippant attitude in some contexts made it difficult for a governor like me to really push the seriousness of the medical emergency that were in, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson told the books authors.

Meanwhile, House Democrats also released excerpts of an interview with former CDC Director Robert Redfield on Friday in which he revealed the Trump administration blocked the CDC from giving public briefings, bar a few exceptions, for the first six months of the pandemic.

It came after Nancy Messonnier, then the director of the CDCs National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, issued an early warning about the severity of the looming pandemicsomething the White House was desperately trying to downplay. She was sidelined and later resigned.

This is one of my great disappointments... [t]hat HHS basically took over total clearance of briefings by CDC, Redfield said. None of our briefings were approved.

He said it caused him PTSD for probably six months.

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'Treat Me Nicely': Trump's Pandemic Response Was Somehow Worse Than We Thought - The Daily Beast

Days before the May 3 primary, Dolan appears to be experiencing a late burst of momentum. While J.D. Vance who received Trumps endorsement last week has surged into first place according to the most recent Fox News poll, Dolan was the only other top contender to gain ground in the poll since last month. A separate poll released Tuesday by Blueprint Polling actually placed Dolan in first place with 18 percent of the vote, followed by Vance at 17 percent.

Whatever momentum Dolan is riding, it was enough to prompt Trump to release a statement Tuesday suggesting that the state senator is not fit to serve in the Senate.

I think theres mounting evidence that hes in a scenario where hes running up the middle, unmolested, with a unique message and some things in his favor, said Mike Murphy, a Republican strategist who lives out of state but donated $250 to Dolans campaign in October. Does it mean he has a lock on the race? No way. But its a competitive race, and hes in it. Hes got the momentum, as of last week.

Dolan likely has a low ceiling of support, given his dependence on Republican voters who are willing to move on from Trump a minority of the party. But in a splintered field of candidates, that could be enough.

When I made my decision to get into the race, I knew that it was going to be a tough slog, at least publicly, for a while, Dolan said in an interview. I knew that I would not be doing well in the polls until much, much later in the campaign. I think its playing out as I thought it was going to play out.

Internal Dolan polling shows him tracking to second place, according to a person familiar with the data who said the campaign has a glide path to getting a plurality of the vote.

Widely viewed as a longshot, Dolan has avoided any real attacks from his opponents, who took turns going after one another for months in a cutthroat primary that has generated nearly $70 million in ad spending. The Club for Growth a super PAC supporting former state Treasurer Josh Mandel, who has led in polls throughout most of the primary took out ads targeting Vance, Jane Timken and Mike Gibbons as each saw gains in support in recent months.

But they and other campaigns and outside interest groups never targeted Dolan, who has spent heavily on television ads with his own positive message since January.

Dolan is the lone candidate who refuses to toe the Trump line. He has accused the former president of perpetuat[ing] lies about the outcome of the 2020 election. He called the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol a failure of leadership by Trump and an attack on democracy. At a March 21 debate, Dolan was the only candidate to raise his hand when the moderator asked who believed it was time for Trump to stop talking about the 2020 election.

Yet Dolan has been careful to highlight that he considers himself a Trump supporter. Throughout the campaign, Dolans staff has been dogged about seeking corrections to any news reports that referred to Dolan as anti-Trump or a Never Trumper, according to a person working on the campaign. They would explain to reporters that Dolan had twice voted for Trump unlike Vance and that Dolan has said he would do so again if Trump were the nominee. Dolan has also said that he would not have voted to convict Trump in an impeachment trial.

Though Dolans campaign was once dismissed as a vanity project, Trump has long paid attention to a possible rise by the candidate. On Tuesday, he attacked Dolan not as an opponent of his America First agenda, but because the Major League Baseball team Dolan and his family own, the Cleveland Guardians, changed its name from the Indians after the 2021 season.

Anybody who changes the name of the storied Cleveland Indians (from 1916), an original baseball franchise, to the Cleveland Guardians, is not fit to serve in the United States Senate, Trump wrote. Such is the case for Matt Dolan, who I dont know, have never met, and may be a very nice guy, but the team will always remain the Cleveland Indians to me!

A person close to Trump insisted there was no particular reason the former president released the Dolan statement Tuesday, and that it was unrelated to polling data circulating on Twitter that day placing Dolan in the lead or in second place. The person noted that the message was something Trump has been saying for months at least since Dolan entered the race in September and that Trump just wanted to remind people about the Dolans role in the team name change.

Throughout the campaign, Dolan has said he was not part of the decision to change the name, but supports his family.

While his campaign events this week havent drawn high-profile supporters such as Trump, who held a rally Saturday to support Vance, or Donald Trump Jr., who has visited the state twice in recent days to stump with Vance Dolan has earned endorsements from three newspaper editorial boards and dozens of municipal office holders around the state. Local surrogates have also engaged in an aggressive letters-to-the-editor campaign on his behalf.

Mandel, meanwhile, has kept a low profile after traveling to campaign stops last week with Michael Flynn, Trumps former national security adviser and a leading advocate for efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. This weekend, Mandel will appear at events with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).

Dolans campaign is well aware that Trumps approval rating among Republican voters in the state is as high as 85 percent. Its approach has been to thread the needle between support for Trumps agenda Dolan joined other candidates in the primary in running an ad about closing the southern border and his unapologetic denunciations of Trumps baseless election fraud crusade.

What we sought to do from the outset was illustrate to folks that this race has to be about Ohio, said Chris Maloney, Dolans campaign consultant. You can be for pro-Trump policies and not share his personality, and thats what is taking hold among Ohio Republicans.

In contrast with Dolan, whose large investment in the race for months appeared futile as he failed to gain significant traction, Gibbons, a wealthy business owner, has taken a dive after peaking earlier this year and loaning his campaign more than $16 million.

Murphy, the Republican strategist, noted several factors are helping Dolan now. In addition to emerging unscathed after the other candidates spent months hurling insults at each other, Dolan fits the mold of pragmatic conservatives whom Ohio Republicans have traditionally chosen for Senate, including retiring Sen. Rob Portman, former Sen. and Gov. George Voinovich and current Gov. Mike DeWine.

Hes not an alien species at all to the normal comfort zone of the Ohio Republican Party, Murphy said.

Dolan and Timken have had campaign staff out on foot for more than two months, allowing them to have an established ground campaign. But Timken has been dark on broadcast television and cable for weeks in several markets, and has been completely off broadcast statewide the past week, running only $15,000 worth of cable ads. A super PAC supporting her, Winning for Women, now has only a small number of cable spots running.

Dolans campaign and the Club for Growth are leading in television ads right now, followed by the pro-Vance super PAC Protect Ohio Values, an outside expenditure group that has received $13.5 million in donations from billionaire tech executive Peter Thiel.

At a recent debate, Dolan was asked whether he could win the Republican nomination without Trumps support.

Of course I can win, Dolan said, pivoting to his record in the Ohio Legislature. The irony of this whole thing is Im the only one who has implemented Republican Trump ideas.

See the article here:

Republican who refuses to bend the knee to Trump surges in Ohio Senate race - POLITICO

At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, former President Donald Trump made his feelings known that he didnot want a coronavirus-infested cruise ship off the coast of San Francisco to come to shore.

I like the [nations case] numbers being where they are, he said in a Fox News interview. I dont need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasnt our fault.

According to This Will Not Pass, an upcoming book from New York Times political correspondents Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns, Trump had earlier called California Gov. Gavin Newsom in the middle of the night complaining about the cruise ship possibly being allowed to dock.

If we bring them ashore, Trump complained to Newsom, that could increase the total number of coronavirus cases in the country, Martin and Burns write in a passage reviewed by SFGATE.

Newsom spoke with Martin and Burns for the book and recalled needing to talk Trump down at 4:30 a.m. California time, which is three hours behind Washington, D.C.

The president was not a student of policy, Newsom knew, and sometimes he just sort of said stuff, Martin and Burns write. You had to wait him out and then ask for what you wanted which in this case, Newsom told him, was federal cooperation with bringing the boat into dock and processing the passengers for medical treatment or quarantine.

The ship in question the Grand Princess was ultimately allowed to dock. Passengers and crew were removed from the ship and transferred to locations including Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield for quarantines.

The book details Trumps other calls with governors in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as his highly transactional approach to the presidency. Martin and Burns report that governors found that Trump was most interested in helping people he got along with, and regions of the country he saw as Trump country.

According to the book,New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy went on Fox News Tucker Carlson Tonight in an attempt to communicate with Trump. (Newsom was unique among governors in having an easy cell-phone relationship with the president, Martin and Burns write.)

In that April 15, 2020, interview which is around the time American conservatives really began to sour on lockdowns Murphy defended his states stringent rules to Carlsonand apparently got a call from Trump afterward.

Trump had seen the interview and wanted Murphy to know he agreed with him, Martin and Burns write. The Fox guys, he said, were bonkers about the pandemic [Sean] Hannity especially, Trump said.

Murphy told Martin and Burns that Trump said Hannity was obsessed with the Swedish model of public health and said of the Fox News host, Listen, hes wrong.

The Swedish model is a reference to Sweden never entering a lockdown in response to the pandemic. Onlookers are still debating whether the approach was a success.

Not long after Trumps reported call with Murphy, the president fired off a series of tweets calling for other blue states to be LIBERATE[D], leaving governors confused. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz told Martin and Burns he asked Trump what exactly the president wanted but never got a firm answer.

Then, on April 22, 2020, Trump voiced his disagreement with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemps plans to reopen certain sectors of his states economy, stating, I think its too soon. The book states that the public rebuke came because Trump sought to make Kemp pay a price for his disobedience on earlier calls during which Trump and aides, influenced by former adviser Dr. Deborah Birx, asked him to slow the pace of reopening. According to Martin and Burns, Trump put White House aides Brian Jack and Kayleigh McEnany in charge of getting Kemp to stand down, but neither was successful.

Trump is currently working to topple Kemp in Georgias 2022 gubernatorial primary (mainly over Kemps refusal to decertify his states election results), though that venture does not appear to be going well for the former president.

The book releases on May 3 and covers the end of the Trump presidency and the first few months of the Biden presidency.

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Trump was COVID-panicked in calls to Gavin Newsom, other governors, trashed 'bonkers' Sean Hannity, book says - SF Gate

At a court hearing on Monday a lawyer from her office said that the attorney general would probably take action against the former president in the near future. Because her investigation is civil, Ms. James can bring a lawsuit, but not criminal charges.

At that hearing, a judge held Mr. Trump in contempt of court for failing to fully comply with a subpoena for records from Ms. James. And on Friday, despite Mr. Trumps lawyers having filed documents that they said brought him into compliance with the subpoena, the judge declined to withdraw the contempt order, which is costing Mr. Trump $10,000 a day.

Mr. Trump has long denied wrongdoing and accused Ms. James and Mr. Bragg, both of whom are Black and Democrats, of being politically motivated racists. If he ultimately is sued or indicted, his lawyers would be likely to point toward the disclaimer that his financial statements were not audited by his accountants and that they were submitted to sophisticated financial institutions that conducted their own due diligence.

Mr. Braggs office is monitoring Ms. Jamess civil investigation for potential new leads, he has said. And Ms. Jamess office is participating in the district attorneys criminal investigation, opened by Mr. Braggs predecessor, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., more than three years ago.

In December, Mr. Vance directed the two senior prosecutors leading the criminal inquiry, Mark F. Pomerantz and Carey R. Dunne, to present evidence to a grand jury with the goal of seeking an indictment of Mr. Trump.

But when Mr. Bragg took office this year, he and several of his aides raised concerns about the strength of the case, questioning whether they could prove that Mr. Trump intended to break the law. Other prosecutors in the office had raised similar concerns, people with knowledge of the matter said. In the final months of Mr. Vances tenure, three assistant district attorneys stopped working on the investigation, concerned about how rapidly it was proceeding and what they felt were gaps in the evidence against the former president.

Numerous inquiries. Since former President Donald Trumpleft office, there have been many investigations and inquiries into his businesses and personal affairs. Heres a list of those ongoing:

Mr. Bragg eventually decided to halt the grand jury presentation, prompting the departure of Mr. Dunne and Mr. Pomerantz, who stated in his resignation letter that he believed Mr. Trump was guilty of numerous felonies.

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Likelihood of Trump Indictment in Manhattan Fades as Grand Jury Wraps Up - The New York Times

Dr. Deborah Birx as President Donald Trump speaks about the coronavirus on April 23, 2020.AP Photo/Alex Brandon

Dr. Deborah Birx is out with a tell-all book about her time in the Trump administration.

Birx says her first meeting with Trump in March 2020 about COVID-19 lasted only 30 seconds.

She failed to impress on Trump that the novel coronavirus was far more serious than the flu.

Dr. Deborah Birx's first meeting with President Donald Trump about COVID-19 lasted only 30 seconds before he lost interest and turned the channel to Fox News, Birx writes in her new memoir.

Birx, a leading public-health expert and diplomat known for her work on HIV/AIDS, was persuaded by Matthew Pottinger, the deputy national security advisor at the time, to leave her post at the State Department as the US's global AIDS coordinator to serve as the coordinator of the White House's newly formed coronavirus task force.

Birx's first met with Trump on March 2, 2020, nine days before the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. By that point, public-health experts across the globe closely following the data on the virus' spread were alarmed.

Birx's goal in that meeting, she writes, was to impress upon Trump the urgency of the situation and to convey that the highly contagious and deadly COVID-19 virus, which could be spread largely by those with no symptoms, was nothing like the seasonal flu.

When Birx finally got Trump's attention in the crowded room, things didn't go as she had hoped.

"Mr. President, this is not like the flu. This is far more serious than the flu. We have to shape our response differently," she told Trump, according to the book.

Trump, she writes, flashed a "glib grimace" of a smile before responding: "Well, the people I'm talking to say this isn't going to be any worse than the flu."

"Mr. President, I don't know who are you speaking with, but I have evidence to fully support the conclusion that this outbreak is going to be nothing like the seasonal flu or even pandemic flu. This virus is very deadly," she said, according to the book.

Story continues

"Well these are good people," he replied, according to Birx. "Smart people. I trust these people. They know what they're saying."

Birx repeated her concerns about the virus, but Trump lost interest.

"His eyes return to his television screens. He reaches for the remote control, and the voice of someone at Fox News enters what passed for a conversation between us," Birx writes. "I don't hear the rest. Someone takes a few steps toward me and gestures toward the door. I've had less than thirty seconds to speak with the president."

Birx says other presidents she's worked for, including George W. Bush and Barack Obama, "had the ability to shift gears and direct their focused attention in a way President Trump has not."

"I'm not going to get him to change," she writes. "I have to change my approach. Experience has taught me that you have to meet people where they are."

In the book, "Silent Invasion: The Untold Story of the Trump Administration, COVID-19, and Preventing the Next Pandemic Before It's Too Late," published on Tuesday, Birx describes her tumultuous experience on the White House COVID-19 task force and suggests the Trump administration's handling of the virus contained numerous flaws and missteps.

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Deborah Birx's first meeting with Donald Trump lasted just 30 seconds as he flipped on Fox News, book says - Yahoo! Voices

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April 29 (UPI) -- The head of an independent government watchdog appeared in Congress on Friday to expand on a recent report and answer questions about new evidence that former President Donald Trump's administration interfered in the COVID-19 response two years ago for political purposes.

Gene Dodaro, chief of the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, was called to testify before the House select coronavirus subcommittee. In his remarks, he said that the accusations indicate that federal health agencies have work to do in ensuring that political interference doesn't compromise scientific integrity.

The GAO is Congress' main auditing and investigative agency and is often referred to as the "congressional watchdog."

Dodaro's appearance came after a GAO report last week described incidents of political interference under Trump's administration. It said that scientists at top health organizations witnessed political interference just weeks after COVID-19 arrived in March 2020. It explained that some scientists at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration said the interference they witnessed led to changing or suppressing scientific findings.

The interference, however, wasn't reported because the witnesses feared retaliation, the assessment said. It further found that all three agencies under Trump trained staff on scientific integrity, and the National Institutes of Health provided information on political interference as part of its training.

The 37-page GAO report said that interference was also seen in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response.

Dodaro told the subcommittee Friday that the report has spurred concern about the public's trust in the health agencies.

"People did not know how to report if they believed there was something inappropriate," Dodaro said during the virtual hearing. "People didn't understand how they would be protected.

"So we recommended that the four agencies develop policies and procedures in order to report and address any allegations of potential political influence."

Subcommittee Chairman Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., said before the hearing that the panel has received new evidence that support the accusations that Trump officials interfered in decision-making about the coronavirus response.

"We must never again allow politics to interfere with processes of public health," he said at Friday's teleconference.

Clyburn added that the political interference under Trump made the United States sicker and "did immense damage to our public health workforce and to public trust in our scientific institutions."

Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., the panel's ranking Republican, deflected the accusations toward President Joe Biden's administration, saying that interference by the current administration "is well-documented."

Scalise accused Biden's CDC of leaking guidance on school openings to the American Federation of Teachers -- something he said was on par with the GAO report about Trump.

The watchdog's assessment, however, continues a long string of accusations about the former president's handling of the health emergency when it arrived in the United States. Trump admitted to journalist Bob Woodward later in 2020 that he deliberately downplayed the threat of the virus. Other accusations have said that Trump exploited parts of the government's pandemic response for a political advantage in a presidential election year -- such as pushing for a COVID-19 vaccine before Election Day.

"The previous administration engaged in a persistent pattern of political interference in the nation's pandemic response, prioritizing election-year politics over protecting American lives," Clyburn said in a previous statement.

"The lifesaving work of scientists at our public health agencies must never be corrupted for the perceived political benefit of the president or for any other reason."

A report by the House subcommittee last December found that Trump's administration performed various efforts to influence or downplay the virus -- which included blocking experts from speaking publicly about health dangers, playing down testing guidance and attempting to interfere with public health guidelines.

The GAO report last week supported those findings, and said employees at the agencies witnessed political interference that "may have resulted in the politically motivated alteration of public health guidance or delayed publication of COVID-19 related scientific findings."

"For example in May 2020, a senior official from [the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response] claimed HHS retaliated against him for disclosing ... concerns about inappropriate political interference to make chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine available to the public as treatments for COVID-19," GAO officials wrote.

"The absence of specific procedures may explain why the four selected agencies did not identify any formally reported internal allegations of potential political interference in scientific decision-making from 2010 through 2021," the report states.

The GAO recommended that the agencies provide information on whistleblower protections and clarify reporting requirements for employees who witness political interference. The recommendations are intended to reduce fear of retaliation and encourage more witnesses to come forward when they should.

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Watchdog says fear at health agencies allowed Trump officials to interfere in COVID-19 matters - UPI News

(John Raoux | AP) Donald Trump Jr. is the top-billed speaker at the right-wing Utah Liberty Festival, scheduled for June 17 and 18 in West Valley City.

| April 27, 2022, 12:00 p.m.

| Updated: 10:31 p.m.

Donald Trump Jr. is the scheduled headliner at an event in Salt Lake City just before the June primary election. The eldest son of former President Donald Trump is the top-billed guest at the Utah Liberty Festival, scheduled for June 17 and 18 in West Valley City.

Other right-wing celebrities slated to attend the event include Rep. Madison Cawthorn and former Trump administration official Kash Patel.

Trump Jr., executive vice president of The Trump Organization, has been one of the most high-profile supporters of his father and was active in both of his fathers presidential campaigns.

He is no stranger to Utah, making several trips west in recent years. He campaigned for 4th District Republican Burgess Owens in 2020 and appeared at a fundraiser for his fathers first presidential campaign in September 2016.

Former Utah House Speaker Greg Hughes, who has forged a friendship with Trump Jr. in recent years, is thrilled he is coming back to Utah.

I welcomed him and his daughter to join me on the dais in the House in Feb 16. It was the start of a great friendship. The Trump family loves the people of Utah, and we love them! Hughes said in a text message.

A cache of text messages from former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows published by CNN shows Trump Jr. proposing ways to overturn his fathers loss to Joe Biden. On Nov. 5, Trump Jr. texted Meadows, We have multiple paths. We control them all.

The messages also reveal that Trump Jr. was frantically texting Meadows as rioters breached the U.S. Capitol on January 6, encouraging the chief of staff to have his father condemn the attack.

Trump Jr. will be in Utah fewer than a dozen days before the June 28 primary. It is unclear whether that could help boost GOP candidates since ballots will have already been mailed to voters.

(Chris Seward | AP) U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., speaks to the crowd before former President Donald Trump takes the stage at a rally Saturday, April 9, 2022, in Selma, N.C.

Scheduled to join Trump Jr. on the stage is North Carolina freshman Rep. Madison Cawthorn, one of the youngest members ever elected to the U.S. House.

Cawthorn has been the center of several controversies in recent years. He claimed an auto accident that left him partially paralyzed prevented him from attending the U.S. Naval Academy, but his application was rejected before the crash, the Washington Post reported. Several women have accused Cawthorn of sexual misconduct while he attended Patrick Henry College. More than 150 Patrick Henry alumni signed a letter opposing his candidacy in 2020, alleging his time there was marked by gross misconduct toward women. Cawthorn dropped out of Patrick Henry after one semester.

Cawthorn caused outrage recently, accusing his Republican colleagues in Washington of engaging in cocaine-fueled orgies. Racy photos of him wearing womens lingerie during what appears to be a party surfaced last week, Politico reported. Earlier this week, Cawthorn was caught trying to bring a loaded gun through security at a Charlotte airport, according to ABC News.

Another top guest is Kash Patel, who served as chief of staff to acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller during the Trump administration. He was also a top aide to former Republican Rep. Devin Nunes and helped discredit reports of connections between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Another guest is Dr. Bryan Ardis. He is the central figure in a faux documentary circulating in conspiracy communities that claims the coronavirus pandemic results from cobra venom being put into the water supply to sicken people and imbue them with Satanic DNA. Ardis, who claims to have uncovered the plan, alleges monoclonal antibodies could end the pandemic and blames the plot on Dr. Anthony Fauci and the Pope.

British anti-vaccine activist Andrew Wakefield, who authored a discredited study linking the MMR vaccine to autism, is also scheduled to appear.

Utah lawmaker Rep. Phil Lyman is also on the list of speakers.

Many of the same people behind last years conspiracy-theory-driven Western Conservative Action Network conference in Salt Lake City are helping to organize the June festival. Representatives for the event were unavailable for comment.

Editors noteThis story is available to Salt Lake Tribune subscribers only. Thank you for supporting local journalism.

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Donald Trump Jr. and Madison Cawthorn are coming to Utah this summer. Here's why. - Salt Lake Tribune

Former President Donald Trump refused to confirm his own administration's findings that China is brutally abusing Uighur Muslims during an interview with the authors of a new book.

"Where," Trump asked New York Times political reporters Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns during their interview with him for their book "This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America's Future."

Trump continued, "I would rather not say at this moment, but I will let you know, maybe before your book."

Trump's hesitation to criticize China isn't new, but it underlines how the president who sparked a trade war between the world's two largest economies will still pull his punches on subjects closely watched by the Chinese Communist Party.

Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton wrote in his 2020 memoir that Trump went so far as to praise the building of determent camps for Uighurs. Trump reportedly made those comments during a private 2019 meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Most of the West has roundly criticized China's treatment of Uighurs, including Trump's own administration. There are about 11 million Uighurs in the northwestern region of Xinjiang. Human rights organizations have documented numerous examples of cruel detainment and re-education efforts aimed at stamping out what Chinese leaders view as religious extremism.

The State Department declared on Trump's last full day in office that China was committing genocide and crimes against humanity.

"I believe this genocide is ongoing, and that we are witnessing the systematic attempt to destroy Uighurs by the Chinese party-state," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement at the time.

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Trump Refused to Say Whether China Was Abusing Uyghurs - Business Insider