Category Archives: Donald Trump

Ex-White House trade adviser Peter Navarro has claimed that he asked former President Donald Trump on at least two occasions to fire Dr. Anthony Fauci, he said during an interview on The Jason Rantz Show.

Navarro, who was discussing his new book, "In Trump Time," said that the media hailed the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases as a "God-like" figure, Fox News reported.

The former trade adviser, on the other hand, has a far less favorable assessment of Fauci. "That man is evil," he said during the interview on Wednesday. "Make no mistake about this. He is evil."

After disagreeing about imposing travel bans, Navarro recalled how he once got into a "screaming match" within three minutes of meeting Fauci.

"I came out of there thinking, 'Wow, that guy thinks he's smarter than he is,'" Navarro said. "More importantly, 'That guy's going to hurt us and the president.'"

The former trade adviser said that he asked Trump, at least twice, to fire Fauci. He added that he doesn't blame the former president for not taking his advice but referred to it as a "mistake for the republic."

Trump and Fauci have a history of sparring with one another, Insider's Bryan Metzger reported. Fauci often contradicted the former president's optimistic assessments of the pandemic state, while Trump called Fauci a "disaster."

In November 2020, Trump suggested that he planned to fire Fauci after Election Day.

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Peter Navarro claims he twice urged Trump to fire Fauci - Business Insider

In a recent editorialfor The Washington Post, historian J.M. Opal criticized Donald Trump by comparing him to Andrew Jackson, who Trump has saidis his favorite president. Since historian Arthur Schlesinger's masterful study "The Age of Jackson" is one of my favorite books, this got my attention.

Opal opensby mentioningthe most recent humiliating setback in Trump's post-presidential career:The "audit" of the presidential election in Arizona's largest county completely backfired,reaffirming Joe Biden's victory in that state.Thatwas one more piece of damagingnews in an unbroken chain that hasundercut Trump's attempts to spread themalignant normality he has created for his fascist cult, one which asserts thathe (and by extension they) was the real winner ofthe 2020 election.

Opal's reference to Jackson conjured up a peculiar memory. A few months after financier Anthony Scaramucci was hired and almost immediately fired as White House communications director, I interviewed himabout Trump's understanding of Americanhistory which meant that wetalkedabout Andrew Jackson. Ireferred to apassage from Jackson's 1832 message vetoing renewal of a charter for America's national bank, in which he argued that "there are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does it rains, shower favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and poor, it would be an unqualified blessing."

Scaramucci's response was about how Trump could or could not get closer to that standard by living up to the idea that "responsible government protects minorities, whether they voted for them or didn't vote for them." I've thought about that a lot in subsequent years. DonaldTrump was in a position to win a legitimate victory in 2020had hetried to expand his base rather than appeal to its worst impulses. AndTrump's abuses of powerafter losing the 2020 election give new weight to Scaramucci's observations.

As far as we can tell, Trump has not wavered in his choice of Jackson as a presidentialbeau idal.(The photograph above this article shows Old Hickory's portrait hanging near Trump in the Oval Office.) As Opal noted, one could argue that Trump'sclaim to being a latter-day Jacksonhas strengthened since the 2020 election. Trump's Big Liehas been toinsist that he was the rightful winner, and Jackson himself lost an election through what he alleged (with far more plausibility) was a "corrupt bargain."In 1824, Jackson lost to John Quincy Adams (even though Jackson probablywon the popular vote, which Trump has never done) after nocandidates won a majority in the Electoral Collegeand theelection was thrown into the House of Representatives, where Speaker Henry Clay was instrumental in securing Adams' victory. Adams later appointed Clay as secretary of state, making him next in line for the presidency under the rules of succession at that time.

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By refusing to accept Biden's victory in 2020, was Trump behaving likeJackson? Well, not so much.

"Honestly, there's very little to compare," historian Matthew J. Clavintold Salon by email. "When Jackson lost the election of 1824, despite winning a plurality of both the popular and Electoral College votes, he was outraged. Some would say rightfully so. But he did not challenge the election results. Nor he did question the election's integrity." Jackson argued instead that the Electoral College should be abolished and replaced with direct election by popular vote a constitutional change that would have altered history,undoing the presidenciesof Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison and George W. Bush, as well as Trump.

Opal makes muchthe same point, writing that "to be sure, Jackson seethed at the Corrupt Bargain, especially since he hated Clay as much as he hated any other person, no small thing. (He actually liked Adams for having supported his illicit war on Black, Creek and Seminole fighters in Spanish Florida in 1818.) Nonetheless, Old Hickory contained his legendary temper and accepted the outcome."

To avenge what he perceived as a terrible wrong, Opal continues, Jacksoncreated a "loud and proud" political coalition of "slavers and sailors, farmers and workers who believed that the people were sovereign, that government was corrupt, and that the United States had suffered too long at the hands of European empires and North American 'savages.'" They ultimately formed the Democratic Party which still exists today, although it switched sides on racial-justice issues partway through the 20th century and Jackson was legitimately elected in1828.

Trump and his allies in the Republican Party may well believe that winning a legitimate election is not possible for them and they may be right.Barack Obama's election in 2008suggested the possibility of a coalitionof racial minorities and white liberals that might controlgovernment for at least the next generation. Facing that,the Trumpers haveused theBig Lieto roll back voting rights, making it more difficult for Democratic constituencies to vote and worse yet, empowering Republican state legislatures and local officials to overturn unfavorable election results.

So Andrew Jackson tried to strengthen democracy after his defeatin 1824, as execrable as some of his personal and political views were.Trump has done exactly the opposite, effectively trying to destroy or short-circuit democracy.There's a good reason for that:Jackson had at least a plausibleclaim that he'd been cheated.Trump did not.

Biden "decisively won the majority of both the popular and Electoral College votes" in 2020, Clavin pointed out. "With absolutely no evidence of fraud, President Donald Trump claimed, and continues to claim, that he won the election. The belief that Biden stole the election is utterly absurd, and it subverts the whole idea of democracy and republicanism."

That support for American democracy makes the differences between Jackson and Trump clearin other important ways. Jackson worked hard to prevent a civil war from tearing apart the Union; Trump actively encourageda coup after losing a valid election. Jackson was a fierce patriot (and skilled fighter)who risked his life for his country on a number of occasions; Trump is a draft dodger who referred to soldiers who died in war as "losers" and "suckers."

"Jackson was a penniless frontier orphan who through sheer grit and determination became a lawyer, Army general, plantation owner, politician, and president," Clavin said."Trump is a son of privilege." He concluded with an even stronger note:"Trump's efforts to overthrow an election by sending a mob into the Capitol would certainly make him one of Jackson's arch nemeses. Trump is fortunate that Jackson is not around today, for the seventh president did not tolerate traitors or treason."

Nobody should glorify Jackson, a bonafide white supremacist who committed what could reasonably be called genocidal crimes.Like Trump, he created a cult of personalitythat whipped up his supportersinto angry mobs. Historians like Schlesinger have made the case that Jackson's populism was authentic asClavin wrote to Salon, Jackson was, "for his time, a champion of the common man" but it never extended beyond the white male population. Trump's supposed populism is largely a matter of parroting whatever he absorbed from the right-wing media ecosystem.

Like Jackson, Trump has immense sway over his followers, and in theory he could have rallied them behind causes that would have helped "the high and the low, the rich and poor." It's obvious he has no such vision, and only wanted touse hispower to amplify his tantrum over losing an election into a full-on constitutional crisis. So here's the short answer: Trump is toxic in many of the same ways Andrew Jackson was, butlacks any of his redeeming qualities.

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Is Trump like Andrew Jackson? Yeah in all the bad ways, and none of the good ones - Salon

The schedule has always been a challenge to accomplish what we need to accomplish in the timeframe, said Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) Were committed to do it and well use every available tool to get there.

And the potential hurdles are many from high-powered lawyers representing the former presidents inner circle to the tech companies sitting on potential witnesses' communications to possibly even fellow lawmakers who aided Trumps efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

But they're already getting results from some corners. A select committee aide said the panel has received responses from seven executive-branch agencies to its first, sweeping set of Trump administration document requests. The aide added that the National Archives and Records Administration, which vets the release of such material, has identified two separate tranches of Trump White House documents that it has forwarded to the former president for review, a legally required step before the committee can obtain them or fight any objections from Trump.

Now that the panel is fully staffed, it's hoping to build on those bureaucratic wins to shake loose the documents it needs while also readying a wave of subpoenas. Select panel Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said Wednesday that a list of subpoena targets would be released as soon as this week.

"Theres a lot that we have to unwind, and there are so many variables in the process," Thompson said in an interview.

Thompson told POLITICO recently that he hopes to complete the committee's inquiry this spring, an extraordinarily tight deadline for an investigation of such scope and scale. The panel is attempting to piece together Trumps pre-Jan. 6 efforts to overturn his election loss, his attempt to mobilize the Justice Department in support of that crusade and the thinking behind his effort to call supporters to Washington on the day Congress gathers to certify presidential election results.

Also on the panel's to-do list is exploring reforms to the Electoral Count Act that governs that certification process. It's a huge mandate but the select committee is clearly taking a different route than comparable congressional investigations as it builds its probe from scratch.

For example, it started hiring staff in June and already has held one public hearing and issued blanket document requests to various companies and agencies. On the other hand, the first Trump impeachment in 2019 relied on three House committees that had been fully staffed for months when the inquiry began.

We're moving with great rapidity, said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), one of the panels seven Democrats and a manager of that 2019 impeachment. We're also going to forgo some of the time-consuming steps and where we do meet resistance we intend to push back hard and fast.

That includes quick subpoenas. In other high-profile Trump-focused inquiries in recent years, lawmakers have taken a deliberate approach that often started with a request for voluntary cooperation and waited weeks before using compulsory means. Such a strategy was meant to guard against legal scrutiny when the subpoenas ultimately ended up in federal court.

But those tactics also enabled Trump to run out the clock on investigations that dogged his presidency, leaving Democrats empty-handed or fighting to obtain materials for years-old probes.

The Jan. 6 panel is hoping to get a boost from the Biden DOJ as it takes a more urgent tack in trying to obtain sensitive information. Where Trumps DOJ intervened to block House inquiries supporting executive privilege and immunity claims that Democrats viewed as outlandish Bidens administration has indicated it wont stand in the way.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., speaks during a House select committee hearing on the Jan. 6 attack on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, July 27, 2021. (Jim Bourg/Pool via AP) | Jim Bourg/Pool via AP

Schiff also expressed hope that Biden's DOJ would support House efforts to hold recalcitrant witnesses in contempt of Congress, giving sharper teeth to congressional subpoenas.

Nearly a month has passed since his panels initial document requests to federal agencies. which the committee says have resulted in thousands of pages of documents turned over to investigators. In addition, Trumps lawyers are poring over documents provided by the National Archives as they consider whether to invoke privilege to shield some records from congressional investigators. Trump is in the midst of a 30-day review period set out in public records law, due to elapse in early October.

Now, the committee is turning its attention to Trump allies and companies who may resist their demands to turn over reams of private messages and communications. Democrats are aware that any probe could be cut short by a Republican takeover of the House and are wary of efforts by Trump allies to drag their heels behavior that frustrated previous House investigations, sometimes for years.

The panels two Republican members, Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, agreed with Democrats that the committee whose members huddled at the Capitol on Monday for an update from staff wants to move as fast as it can.

You'll see us use every tool at our disposal to get answers quickly, Cheney said. While the panel wouldnt rush it," Kinzinger agreed that well be moving.

Olivia Beavers contributed to this report.

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Jan. 6 investigation accelerates as it turns toward Trump - POLITICO

Former President Donald Trump said "we'll see what happens" when asked when the country would "get President Trump back" on Saturday. Trump is pictured during his "Save America" rally in Perry, Georgia on September 25, 2021. Sean Rayford/Getty

Former President Donald Trump has suggested he could be inexplicably reinstated as president due to "tremendous voter fraud."

In remarks to conservative media network Real America's Voice, Trump seemingly indicated that baseless conspiracy theories that claim he will quickly regain the presidency if it were a possibility. Host Gina Loudon, who has also served as co-chair of the group Women for Trump, asked the former president when the country would "get President Trump back" at his rally in Perry, Georgia on Saturday.

"Well we're going to see," Trump replied. "There's been tremendous voter fraud. And it's being revealed on a daily basis and we'll see what happens."

Newsweek reached out to the office of Trump for comment.

No credible evidence of substantial voter fraud has been uncovered in the more than 10 months since Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to President Joe Biden, while the election results have long since been certified and finalized. Trump has continued to fight the outcome despite there being no legal pathway for him to be declared the winner or return to office without winning another election.

Trump said he was "looking back" to "find out what happened" during his Saturday interview, while also stressing that some states were "making their rules and regulations" for upcoming elections. The former president said that Republican-backed efforts to change voting laws on issues like ballot signature verification and voter identification would have an impact on future elections.

"I think you're going to be incredibly impressed by what's happening and I think maybe by the next election," said Trump, who has repeatedly hinted that he will be a 2024 candidate without making a firm commitment to run.

Despite Trump's claims that he "won" in 2020, his lawyers failed to convince multiple judges he appointed amid dozens of failed legal challenges in the aftermath of the election. The ex-president has continued to claim that evidence shows massive fraud was a factor in his loss, although no such evidence has been presented and further investigation have only confirmed Biden's victory.

The results of a controversial audit in Arizona's Maricopa County, conducted at the behest of the Republican-controlled state Senate, on Friday found that Trump lost the county to Biden by a slightly larger margin than in the official results. Regardless, fact-free assertions that the exercise provided evidence of fraud and calls for the election to be "decertified" persisted. Trump himself presented a wildly inaccurate summary of the results during his Georgia rally.

"We won at the Arizona forensic audit yesterday at a level that you wouldn't believe," Trump told the crowd on Saturday. "They had headlines that Biden wins in Arizona, when they know it's not true. He didn't win in Arizona. He lost in Arizona based on the forensic audit."

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Donald Trump Suggests He Might Be Reinstated Due to 'Tremendous' Voter Fraud - Newsweek

While Donald Trump battles Bill de Blasio over the mayors decision to dump the former president as operator of a Bronx golf course, the city is playing through proposing a new firm to run the Ferry Point links.

A notice published Monday shows a company called Ferry Point Links LLC is set to be awarded a 13-year Parks Department deal to take over the Jack Nicklaus-designed 18-hole course at the foot of the Bronx-Whitestone bridge.

A firm incorporated under that name in late August, state corporation records indicate sharing both an executives name and address with one of the citys biggest homeless shelter operators, CORE Services Group.

An attorney for the former president vowed to fight the city and the proposed new golf course operators for control of the links, charging Trump is a victim of political retaliation.

A spokesperson for the city Department of Parks and Recreation said that CORE will be teaming up with Bobby Jones Links, an Atlanta company that will be managing the operation of the concession. CORE Services Group did not respond to requests for comment Monday, and Bobby Jones Links was not immediately reachable.

According to the notice posted in Mondays City Record, Ferry Point Links, LLC will pay a minimum of $300,000 a year to the city or a share starting at 7% of the gross proceeds and gradually escalating to 10% by year 13, whichever is higher.

Those terms are slightly more favorable to the operator than those granted to Trump in 2012, in a 20-year deal struck to salvage a troubled project. Trump also committed $10 million to build a clubhouse.

The Parks Department and city Franchise and Concession Review Committee have a hearing scheduled for Oct. 12, with the new concession projected to launch Nov. 15 the day after the one-term presidents deadline to vacate the course.

Following the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection in Washington, de Blasio cited Trumps role in stirring up a mob to invade the U.S. Capitol as reason to terminate all city contracts held by the then-presidents firm.

The city purged its deals with the Trump Organization, which at the time included two ice rinks, the Central Park carousel and the Bronx golf course.

Inciting an insurrection against the U.S. government clearly constitutes criminal activity, de Blasio said at the time. The City of New York will no longer have anything to do with the Trump Organization.

While the other deals were about to expire anyway, the golf course was supposed to be Trumps through 2035, under a deal forged during Mike Bloombergs mayoralty. The Trump Organization, which runs high-end links from Florida to Scotland, fought back.

In a lawsuit pending in Manhattan Supreme Court, Trump Organization lawyers argue that de Blasio did not establish grounds to kill the ex-presidents 20-year deal.

In a default notice to the Trump Organization, then-Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver said that the then-presidents actions will cause the Licensed Premises to be associated with a violent insurrection against the federal government and would repel tournaments from the Trump-branded course.

The Trump Organization is demanding $30 million in damages and a freeze to de Blasios termination of the golf course deal.

Ken Caruso, an attorney representing the Trump Organization in the pending suit, said de Blasio is off course.

The city has no right to award the license to another operator, said Caruso. The Trump Organizations long-term license for this property is legally binding, enforceable, and remains in full force and effect.

He called the contract cancellation a mere pretext that Mayor de Blasio used as a cover for his political retaliation.

And Caruso said Trump would do combat with the new golf course operator, too.

The citys position has no legal merit and we will continue to vigorously defend our right to possession and control of the property for the remainder of the 20-year term, against both the city and anyone to whom the city purports to issue a replacement license, Caruso added.

Jack Brown, the registered agent for Ferry Point Links LLC, has no known history of managing golf courses. He has, however, been a major provider of homeless services under de Blasio, headquartered at the same address on Main Street in DUMBO.

Brown is CEO of CORE Services Group, which has $544 million in current contracts for family and single adult shelters and $804 million since its first city contract in 2014. The group also operates facilities in Washington.

The nonprofits filings with the Internal Revenue Service show Brown made $869,000 in 2019 from CORE and related organizations. Brown previously led a halfway house organization, Community First Services, critiqued by defense lawyers as providing inadequate services.

A 2012 New York Times investigation found that Brown left a trail of exaggerations and self-dealing as the chief executive at Community First, out-bidding himself for contracts and fabricating an academic credential. The newspaper also found that, while Community First was contractually obligated to provide inmates with support services and pathways to jobs, clients received little more than three meals a day and a bed.

Brown has defended the record of his organization and at a 2017 community meeting called the Times article riddled with inaccuracies and denied claims that there were any problems with its contracts.

CORE Services website boasts it is proud to provide critical services to more than 3,000 individuals every day.

The city launched its search for a new entity to manage the Ferry Point golf course soon after sending Trump its cancellation notice Jan. 15.

In April, the Parks Department informed concessionaires that it had entered negotiations with an unnamed company to take over the Ferry Point Park golf course, and that competitive bidding was not feasible due to the existence of a time-sensitive situation where the existing concession has been terminated.

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NYC Moves to Turn Trumps Bronx Golf Course Over to Homeless Shelter Operator - THE CITY

In the year 2021, its basically a full-time job keeping up with the many lawsuits, civil inquiries, and criminal probes against Donald Trump, which, if you can believe it, surpass the number of times a human woman has agreed to marry him. On the lawsuit front, as of March, the ex-president was facing more than two dozen, which normal people who havent spent their entire lives suing or being sued thousands of times consider a lot. When it comes to civil cases, the New York attorney general is currently looking into whether the Trump Organization manipulated the value of its assets for loans and tax breaks, and recently won a major victory in court. Then of course there are the criminal investigations, which are probably at the top of Trumps mind considering they could result in his going to prison. Obviously, theres the one being led by the Manhattan District Attorneys Office, which has already produced numerous charges against Trumps business and longtime CFO, with more indictments expected. On top of that, hes also under criminal investigation by the D.C. attorney general for inciting the attack on the Capitol, while in Fulton County, Georgia, the D.A.s office is looking at his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. And according to legal experts, the latter situation may end very badly for him!

In a new 109-page report, D.C. think tank the Brookings Institution analyzed publicly available evidence concerning Trumps and his allies efforts to pressure Georgia officials to change the lawful outcome of the election, concluding that the 45th president could be charged with multiple crimes. Obviously, one of the least helpful things Trump has going for him is his infamous phone call to Republican secretary of state Brad Raffensperger on January 3, during which Trump told the guy tofind 11,780 votesto overturn Joe Bidens win in the state. Theres no way I lost Georgia, Trump said numerous times throughout the call, though of course he did. Theres no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of votes.

The report also notes that Trump both publicly pressured and personally contacted a number of Republican officials in the state, including Attorney General Chris Carr and Governor Brian Kemp, to get their help in declaring him the victor. (The men did not go along with the plot, which might explain why Trump pretended to endorse Stacey Abrams for Georgia governor over the weekend.) The report, penned by Norman Eisen, Joshua Matz, Donald Ayer, Gwen Keyes Fleming, Colby Galliher, Jason Harrow, and Raymond P. Tolentino, notes that the then president called Carr and Kemp in December to beg them to go along with his increasingly desperate plans to decertify his loss. The authors warn that criminal liability could extend to Trump allies as well, including Rudy Giuliani.

Among the charges Trump himself could be hit with, the authors believe, are criminal solicitation to commit election fraud; intentional interference with performance of election duties; conspiracy to commit election fraud; criminal solicitation; and state RICO violations, in addition to violations of more than a dozen other Georgia state statutes. We conclude that Trumps post-election conduct in Georgia leaves him at substantial risk of possible state charges predicated on multiple crimes, the report states.

Referencing the fact that Trump would likely claim that everything he did was just part of his job as president, the report declares: Stated simply, soliciting and then threatening senior state officials to alter the outcome of a presidential election does not fall within any reasoned conception of the scope of presidential power.

A spokesman for Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week that the investigation is active and ongoing but declined to reveal any details. Prosecutors have reportedly appeared before a grand jury seeking subpoenas for witnesses and documents; hiredthe states top experts on racketeering and conspiracy laws; interviewed at least four of Raffenspergers closest advisers; and started coordinating with the congresspeople probing the events surrounding January 6.

Trumps advisers have reacted to the Georgia probe exactly how one would expect if one paid attention for the last five years. This is simply the Democrats latest attempt to score political points by continuing their witch hunt against President Trump, and everybody sees through it, Jason Miller said in a statement following the launch of the investigation in the spring.

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Nothing to see here, just the governor of South Dakota seemingly abusing her position of power to get her daughter a real estate license

Given that she refuses to do anything about COVID-19, Kristi Noem has lots of time on her hands for such pursuits. Per the Associated Press:

Just days after a South Dakota agency moved to deny her daughters application to become a certified real estate appraiser, Governor Kristi Noem summoned to her office the state employee who ran the agency, the womans direct supervisor, and the state labor secretary. Noems daughter attended too. Kassidy Peters, then 26, ultimately obtained the certification in November 2020, four months after the meeting at her mothers office. A week after that, the labor secretary called the agency head, Sherry Bren, to demand her retirement, according to an age discrimination complaint Bren filed against the department. Bren, 70, ultimately left her job this past March after the state paid her $200,000 to withdraw the complaint.

According to the AP, Peters applied to become a certified residential appraiser, which would result in a substantial increase in earnings, in September 2019; in late July 2020, the program that Bren directed moved to deny the license, which reportedly occurs when an applicants work samples dont meet minimum compliance with national standards.On July 26, Bren received a text telling her to be at the governors office the following morning to discuss appraiser certification procedures.

Besides Noem and Peters, Bren said the meeting included Labor Secretary Marcia Hultman; Brens supervisor; the governors general counsel; and, participating by phone, the governors chief of staff and a lawyer from the states Department of Labor and Regulation.

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Report: Trump May Be Hit With Multiple Criminal Charges Over His Effort to Overturn the Election in Georgia - Vanity Fair

At first, I couldn't believe what the president said.

My question was quite simple and I anticipated a simple answer. I sought reassurance that whatever else, a peaceful transfer of power after an election one of the cornerstones of the American experience that has made us unique, a fundamental example of why other nations look up to us was not up for debate.

Since George Washington gave up the reins of power and retired to his farm, like an American Cincinnatus, the peaceful transfer of power from president to president has been an example the rest of the world respects and has emulated.

We have taken this for granted. Donald Trump treated this tradition as personal toilet paper.

Whatever else happened during the four years that Donald Trump was president, I expected him and the GOP to uphold this American tradition. Hence, one year ago, on Sept. 23, 2020, I asked Donald Trump whether, come "win, lose or draw," he would accept a peaceful transfer of power. Until he came along, I would never have thought to ask a president such a question. I might as well have asked if they intended to continue breathing.

But Trump was different. The time was different. That briefing, in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House, came during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. The White House press corps had voluntarily reduced our numbers to just 14, in a room that routinely had hosted as many as 110 reporters during Trump's tenure in the White House. Trump, through his press secretary, had routinely skirted this mandate by inviting "guests" from favored news organizations to stand at the back of the room and ask questions. I routinely showed up to counter-program the Trump lackeys.

On the day in question last year, someone with an assigned seat didn't show up for the presidential briefing and rather than allowing a Trump acolyte to take the open seat which was the last seat in the last row I took it myself.

Mind you, I did not believe Trump would call on me. He and I had a past. I had sued him to keep my press pass. He'd called me "fake news" and "that Playboy guy," and had told me to sit down and shut up on several occasions. Once he threatened to walk out of a news conference in the Rose Garden if I didn't shut up. I didn't, and he didn't walk out. He took the question while complaining the whole time.

On Sept. 23, 2020, he surprised me again. Not only did he take my question, but he picked me first and I did not hesitate. The only issue on the minds of millions of Americans then was whether or not Trump would respect the results of the upcoming election. What Trump said to me and told the nation that day was the match that lit the fire leading to the "Big Lie," an insurrection, one dead rioter, dead and beaten Capitol Police officers, and a nation that is still divided, sore and angry. More importantly, Trump has never admitted that he lost the election and he threatens our democracy daily.

No one should be surprised.

Everyone should be outraged.

But some, including high-ranking members of the Republican Party, continue to defend Trump and millions of Americans still believe him no matter what they saw on television, no matter what they were told in news reports and no matter what the reality is.

Kellyanne Conway described this phenomenon as "alternative facts" and that is where millions of Americans, courtesy of a consummate con man, dwell today in the gray nether regions of a constructed fiction where Trump and his minions believe he won; where taking a de-worming drug designed by scientists for horses is preferable to taking a vaccine designed by scientists for humans and where Trump is universally respected and/or feared by the leaders of the rest of the world and where only he can save us.

Trump came closer than most of us know to staging a coup, even after he warned us about that last September. Recent news reports and a new book by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa highlight a six-point plan for Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election results.

Other news reports show that Trump and his team knew shortly after the election that there was no basis for challenging its results, and that Sen. Lindsey Graham apparently thought the arguments proposed to challenge the election results amounted to the logic of a "third grader." Still they lied to us.

Now we know what Trump meant when I asked him last year if he would "commit to a peaceful transferal of power after the election." This is what he said:

"We're going to have to see what happens. I've been complaining very strongly about the ballots and the ballots are a disaster. . . get rid of the ballots . . . and there won't be a transfer, frankly, they'll be a continuation. The ballots are out of control. You know it . . ."

"No I don't," I replied.

Trump's traitorous, convoluted and muddy thinking, his flash over substance, his obfuscation of facts and his total disregard for the truth and decency was horrifying then and has largely overwhelmed American politics now.

There are those so convinced that Trump got screwed in the 2020 election that they'll defend the treasonous actions of the insurrectionists on Jan. 6, while at the same time denying that Trump whipped them into a frenzy or that they were in a frenzy at all. With the same breath, there are those who will say the insurrection was a peaceful protest, an FBI, Black Lives Matteror antifa violent action, that it did not occur or was justified or shudder was even patriotic. The actions of that day were the actions of domestic terrorists. I was there. I witnessed it.

Look where we are now.

Division. Denial of facts. It was all there in the statement Trump made. He provided the roadmap to an insurrection on Sept. 23, 2020. People followed it. People died.

A year later, the United States looks even more lost than it was a year ago.

Donald Trump doesn't care. He wants to bring it all down and is trying to run a shadow presidency as he ridicules everything Joe Biden does.

Make no mistake. Biden has his faults. His handling of the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Haitian problem on the border and the alliance with Australia and the U.K., which has created major friction with France, are all wounds that have been self-inflicted and damaging.

But Biden respects the Constitution, and anyone with a modicum of intelligence can see he is trying to work for all of us, not just himself. He has rallied to get Congress and the country to unify working hard to get a bipartisan infrastructure package passed and constantly urging Americans to come together as he pushes hard for voting rights and increased taxes on the rich.

Trump never did that and never could. A year after he fanned the flame of insurrection in a White House briefing, we can clearly see the consequences of those actions. The threat of a coup was real spurred by Trump's disregard for truth, an obsession with being branded a loser and a narcissistic view of the universe that boils down to this: For Donald Trump, we don't matter. Only his own desires matter.

As Kurt Bardella wrote recently in USA Today, "We cannot let our guard down. Today's GOP has patterned itself after extreme and radical factions. Despots who are intent on normalizing violence to achieve their political objectives."

These actions in the GOP are rooted in Donald Trump's words. After he became president, Trump found levers to pull that sated his twisted needs for self-glory and adulation. He is addicted to that. His putrid, warped sense of self cannot permit him to let go and he continues to try and pull us down into the toilet with him.

In the 1993 western "Tombstone," Doc Holliday (played by Val Kilmer) is asked what makes a man like Johnny Ringo, the film's villain. "A man like Ringo has got a great big hole right in the middle of him," he says. "He can never kill enough or steal enough or inflict enough pain to ever fill it."

Like Johnny Ringo, Donald Trump seeks revenge for being born.

A year after he told us, in response to my question about the election, how he would bend reality to suit his needs, he still tries. Since he has had some success in retaining his base (and more importantly for him, in raising money), there are other Republicans following his act.

United we stand. Divided we fall. Trump is the king of division. For the rest of us to stand he must fall. He must be prosecuted. He must be culled from the body politic.

Only then can we possibly hope to address "Trumpism."

Trump showed us his hand a year ago. Time is long overdue to show him the back of ours.

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Exactly a year ago, Donald Trump told us exactly who he was and how far he would go - Salon

Right-wing prophet and conspiracy theorist Robin Bullocks circular arguments in defense of former President Donald Trump and his lies have gotten crazier in recent weeks, but his latest is simply dizzying in its self-serving ludicrousness.

On Monday, Bullock appeared on the Elijah Streams YouTube Channel and proclaimed that God told him to advise Trump to ignore his aides and instead listen to charlatans such as himself when it comes to the 2020 election. What makes this is particularly entertaining is that Bullocks supposed revelations about Trump somehow returning to power have all been dead wrong.

You must move quickly, says the Lord. I heard those around you, and I heard this conversation, Steve. I heard those around you that advised you saying, do not listen to the prophets this time. Thus said the Lord. They have their own agenda. They are planning their own future and it does not include you,' God said, according to Bullock.

But I heard this. Listen to this prophet what Im talking about this because I have a mantel from heaven to say these things. This is an anointing to speak into the political realm. Im a prophet to the nations and a prophet to this nation and a prophet from Jerusalem to speak, Bullock continued.

And the Lord says this and I heard these things. I heard a conversation say, dont listen to the prophets this time. Wait. Do this, do that. I heard their conversation but the Lord says they have their own agenda in their minds and it dont include President Trump. It dont include him at all. They plan on running his time out, Bullock added of Trumps sycophants.

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Right-Wing Prophet Claims God Wants Donald Trump to Only Listen to Right-Wing Prophets - HillReporter.com

In May of this year, Donald Trump began tellingassociates that he plans to run for president in 2024 if he is healthy enough. In July, he told dinner pals that he is running. Just this month, he reiterated that he is likely to runagain.The twice-impeached ex-president is increasing his media appearances and planning campaign-style rallies in Georgia and Iowa.

Trump's humiliating defeat to Joe Biden which he refuses to acknowledge even occurred has fomented a yearning for redemption. Whether he actually runs again remains uncertain, but he wants his supporters to be ready, willingand primed.

As Trump keeps his millions of supporters in suspense, they must answer one difficult question: Do they really want to continue to support a man who despises them and hurts them?

Donald Trump has always abhorred his supporters. He does not feelan ounce of empathy or affection for those who profess their devotion to him. He sees his supporters as weak, stupidand inferior. They are losers to him. He hates his supporters as much as he wants to destroy his detractors.

Actions speak louder than words. Just look at Trump's actions toward his supporters.

The best example is his detached, irresponsibleand inept handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hundreds of thousands of Americans died on his watch. He relied on conspiracy theories, magical thinking, blatant liesand distractions to fool the American public. Trump followers in red states have died in huge numbers because they erroneously and foolishly believed he was the benevolent master of their fate. Nothing could be further from the truth. He was, in fact, an accessory to murder. His supporters' lives meant nothing to him.

Another example is Trump's incitement of the insurrection of the Capitol on Jan.6. He was willing to overthrow democracy in order to remain in power. So he fabricated the Big Lie, knowing full well that his cult followers would carry out his anti-democratic mission. Was he on the front line with his supporters? Of course not because he is a coward. He watched it all unfold on television as he cheered them on fromthe protected and comfortable surroundings of the White House. Trump wanted the election undermined and demanded that followersaccomplish that goal. The result was failure, destruction, deaths, arrestsandwidespread condemnation. Trump has left his followers dangling in defeat. He has taken no responsibility for his incitement andhas demonstrated no concern or remorse for his loyalists who face damaging legal consequences. He has thrown them under the bus because he detests them.

Millions of aggrieved Americans have tethered themselves to Trump's fake persona of superiority and strength. They think he is the answer to their prayers. They think he cares about their lot in life. They think he will remedy their grievances. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Trump is a shameless opportunist. He manipulates people to achieve his personal goals, then discards them. He does not care if his supporters are racists, felons, crooksor murderers. He does not care if they are xenophobes or misogynists. He will accept the support of anyone who will blindly follow his lead and put him on a pedestal after all, exalted status is what he longs for. He desperately wants to be a dictator so that his grifting and corrupt impulses can run wild. And, remember, dictators only care about themselves and loathe people who expect anything from them.

Trump scorns those who are weak or foolish enough to need him. He does not want to be needed he wants others to serve and satiate his needs. He thrives on their praise, adulationand unconditional loyalty. The whole concept of public service is foreign to him because he perceives every interaction is a transactional game that must be won. And winning, for him, inevitably means defeat and humiliation of the other person. In Trump's psyche, even his supporters need to be humiliated and defeated.

It is puzzling that Trump supporters have not realized that he does not give a damn about their grievances or station in life. His Republican Party literally has no platform or set of guiding principles all that was abandoned during the 2020 campaign.Nor does theRepublican Partyhave a single substantive policy initiative on the table. Other than conservative judicial appointments, Trump did absolutely nothing for his supporters during his miserable presidential term. Except, of course, to let them be killed by a virus and incite them to a failed overthrow of democracy.

Until Trump is goneand the Republican Party reinvents itself, Trump supporters are all alone to fend for themselves. Their cult leader is an illusion. He is a pied piper leading them only to destruction. He has brought them only pain and suffering andsold them a bill of goods consisting of lies and conspiracy theories.

All because he despises his supporters. That's the best reason why they should dump him now, before he harms them even more.

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Trump's planning to run again in 2024: Will his supporters ever realize he hates them? - Salon

Donald Trump returned to his beloved rally stage over the weekend to perform his greatest hits in front of a Georgia crowd. It was a large and ecstatic crowd. What else is new? If there was any hope of Trump's fans getting tired of him, there is no sign of it yet.

From asking the crowd what it must be like to be married to Hillary Clinton and eliciting a raucous rendition of "Lock Her Up!" to complaining about the border as his followers chanted "Build That Wall," Trump delivered his tried and true staples. He declared that he loves law enforcement and the military and the 2nd Amendment and even bragged about making people say Merry Christmas once again. And when he asked, "Is there anything as fun as a Trump rally?" he truly brought the house down. In the end, they all danced awkwardly to the 70s hook-up song, YMCA before heading home spent and satisfied.

This stuff never gets old, apparently.

But for all the familiar old saws, Trump spent most of his time pushing the Big Lie, taking it to even higher levels of delusion, implying that President Obama stole his two elections and asserting that the Arizona "fraudit" went his way:

He also got huge applause trashing Republicans he believes betrayed him by failing to cheat, at one point suggesting that Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams would be a better governor than the current GOP governor Brian Kemp.His followers loved every minute of it, lustily booing Kemp and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. In their minds, as in Trump's, the Democrats and RINOs are one in the same: They are the enemy.

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It's hard to know if the rally crowd represents the average Trump follower but the polls indicate that he isstill massively popularwith Republicans so it stands to reason they are generally happy with the Trumpism on display at his gatherings. As so many have marveled when asked what they like about him,he says what they're thinking.

I couldn't help but ponder that when I read some recent analyses of the 2020 election once again looking at the question of "what does the white working class voter really want?" The Washington Post's Monkey Cage blogturned the spotlighton the upcoming Virginia governor's race and looked at the three big cultural markers that separatethe urban from the rural voters:faith, gun ownership and race.

I don't think I have to explain the differences among the Democrats and Republicans on those issues. Democratic strategist James Carville blames the urban voters for being elitist and chasing away voters with their big city ways. Analyst Ruy Teixeirabelievesthat Democrats are out of step culturally with the mainstream of America and, as a result, have put a ceiling on their appeal. Teixeira makes a number of suggestions as to how to become more culturally palatable to Real Americans and suggests:

The way to lift that ceiling is clear: move to the center to embrace the views enumerated above, all of which are compatible with a robust program of full employment, social safety net expansion and public investment. Indeed, the ironic aspect of this is that the public writ large, including the median voter, are more open to such a program than they have been in decades, yet the Democrats' cultural leftism interferes with their ability to focus on their popular economic program and avoid unpopular positions that have little to do with that program.

In other words, he believes that delivering a popular economic program will bring them back as long as the Democrats don't upset them with all this cultural leftism. But after crunching the numbers, the Monkey Cage analysts found that it's not urban arrogance or cultural leftism that's at the root of the problem and neither are different attitudes about gun ownership or faith. The problem israce.This is evident by the fact that rural white voters simply refuse to acknowledge that racism exists:

[I]f voters in urban and rural areas acknowledged White privilege at the same rate, the urban-rural voting divide would be relatively small, just eight points. That the divide is actually 32 points speaks to the powerful role that racism plays in fueling this gap. Perhaps it's no surprise, then, that Virginia Republican candidate Glenn Youngkinattacked the teaching of critical race theory, making it a cornerstone of his campaign.

Our findings suggest that messaging isn't the problem, as Carville asserted. Rather, rural Americans prefer Trump's racially charged politics and denial that racism exists. Fueled by a core disagreement over racism in the United States, the urban-rural divide is likely to continue in 2021 and beyond.

This analysis tracks with earlier findings in the wake of the 2016 election when the media decided that Trump's win was based upon the "economic anxiety" of the white working class and spent months chasing them through diners in the South and the rustbelt to prove it. Then, as now, the analysis just didn't add up. Non-college educated voters exist throughout the country but the ones who loved Trump were those white, mostly rural, and often more affluent Fox News viewers who were filled with grievance and resentment against people of color.

Larry Sabato of the University of Virginiabegs to differwith both of these analyses. He agrees that economic insecurity had little to do with non-college educated votes for Trump in 2020 but believes it's "fundamentally" about ideology. He writes:

I find that support for Donald Trump among white working class voters reflected conservative views across a wide range of policy issues including social welfare issues, cultural issues, racial justice issues, gun control, immigration, and climate change. In other words, the rejection of the Democratic Party by white working class voters is fundamentally ideological. This fact makes it very unlikely that Democrats will be able to win back large numbers of white working class voters by appealing to their economic self-interest.

I don't know which of these analyses are correct, although I'm deeply skeptical that taming the "cultural left" will have any effect on those who are allegedly so offended by it that they will instead vote for the likes of Donald Trump.I am convinced that racism lies at the heart of most of the grievance and hostility that animates the right, and I also think that easily evolves into a more holistic worldview that encompases grievance across the entire ideological spectrum leading to conspiratorial thinking and an abandonment of critical thinking. Still, I'm not sure that adds up to a coherent ideology. It's more of a tribal identity.

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Trumpism's appeal rests on the fact that Trump himself is very careful to stay within the bounds of all those issues Sabato lists. He uses his rallies to feel them out and adjust accordingly. In that way he is the ultimate follower, not a leader. What he does isexpresstheir loathing for racial and religious minorities and immigrants, gun control advocates, climate change, tolerance, equality and pluralism in the crude, bullying, hostile way that validates their existing beliefs. Basically, he completes them.

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Trump's revival: How his rallies reveal him to be the ultimate follower - Salon