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Category Archives: Trumpedation

Donald Trump’s re-election playbook: 25 ways he’ll lie, cheat and abuse his power


The Guardian

Robert Reich
<span>Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters</span>
Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters

Donald Trump will do anything to be re-elected. His opponents are limited because they believe in democracy. Trump has no limits because he doesn’t.

Related: Trump bruised as polls favour Biden – but experts warn of risk of dirty tricks

Here’s Trump’s re-election playbook, in 25 simple steps:

1) Declare yourself above the law.

2) Use racist fearmongering. Demand “law and order” and describe protesters as “thugs”, “lowlife” and “rioters and looters”. Describe Covid-19 as “kung-flu”. Retweet posts from white supremacists. In your campaign ads, use a symbol associated with Nazis.

3) Appoint an attorney general more loyal to you than to America, and politicize the Department of Justice so it’s lenient on your loyalists and comes down hard on your enemies. Have it lighten the sentence of a crony convicted of lying under oath. Order investigations of industries you dislike.

4) Fire US attorneys who are investigating you.

5) Fire independent inspectors general who are looking into what you’ve done. Crush any whistleblowers you find.

6) Demean and ignore the intelligence community. Appoint a director of national intelligence more loyal to you than to America. Demand that the head of the FBI pledge loyalty to you.

7) Pack the federal courts with judges and justices more loyal to you than to the constitution.

8) Politicize the Department of Defense so generals will back whatever you order. Refer to them as “my generals”. Have them help clear out protesters. Order the military to surveil protesters. Tell governors you’ll bring in the military to stop protesters.

9) Purge your party of anyone disloyal to you and turn it into a mindless, brainless, spineless cult.

10) Get rid of accumulated experience and expertise in government. Demean career public servants. Hollow out the state department, the Departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, and public health.

11) Reward donors and cronies with bailouts, tax breaks, subsidies, government contracts, regulatory rollbacks and plum jobs. Put their lobbyists in charge of your agencies. Distribute $500bn in pandemic assistance to corporations in secret, without any oversight.

12) Coddle dictators. Don’t criticize their human rights abuses. Refuse to work with the leaders of other democracies. Withdraw from international treaties.

13) Create scapegoats. Demonize migrants and lock up asylum seekers at the border, even if they’re children. Put a white nationalist in charge of immigration policy. Blame Muslims, Mexicans and Chinese.

14) Denigrate and ridicule all critics. Describe opponents as “human scum”. Attack the mainstream media as purveyors of “fake news” and “enemies of the people”.

15) Conjure up conspiracies supposedly led by your predecessor and your opponent in the last election. Without any evidence, accuse your predecessor of “treason”. Fabricate a “deep state” out to get you.

16) Downplay real threats to the nation, such as a rapidly spreading pandemic. Lie about your utter failure to contain it. Muzzle public health experts. Urge people to go back to work even as the pandemic worsens in parts of the country.

17) Encourage armed supporters to “liberate” states from elected officials who disagree with you.

18) Bribe other nations to investigate your electoral opponent and flood social media with lies about him.

19) Use rightwing propaganda machines like Fox News and conspiracy-theory-peddling One America News to inundate the country with your lies. Ensure that the morally bankrupt chief executive of Facebook allows you to spread your lies on the biggest media machine in the world.

20) Suppress the votes of people likely to vote against you. Intimidate voters of color. Encourage Republican governors to purge voter rolls, demand voter ID and close polling places.

21) Seek to prevent mail-in ballots during the pandemic. Claim they will cause voter fraud, without evidence. Threaten to close the US postal service.

Related: Covid-19 survivors could lose health insurance if Trump wins bid to repeal Obamacare

22) Get Vladimir Putin to hack into US election machines, as he did in 2016 but can now do with more experience and deftness. Promise him that in return you’ll further destabilize America as well as Nato. Let him even place a bounty on killing US troops in Afghanistan.

23) If it still looks like you’ll be voted out, try to postpone the election.

24) If you’re voted out of office notwithstanding all this, refuse to leave. Contest the election, claim massive fraud, say it’s a conspiracy, get your cult of a political party to support your lies, get your propaganda machine to repeat them, get your justice department to back you, get your judges and justices to affirm you, get your generals to suppress any subsequent rebellion.

25) Declare victory.

Memo to America: beware Trump’s playbook. Spread the truth. Stay vigilant. Fight for our democracy.

“Bor Gullet will know the truth”


Apparently TOTUS is not warning of the possibility of contracting COVID19 other than asking for a signed declaration of no fault if you contract COVID 19 while packed in a closed space to listen to more lies. So much for empathy for his supporters. MA

Trump Warns protestors ahead of Tulsa Rally
President Trump on Friday warned individuals against protesting in Tulsa, Okla., ahead of his Saturday campaign rally there, suggesting any demonstrators would be treated harshly.

Donald Trump wearing a suit and tie: Trump warns protesters ahead of Tulsa rally© Pool/UPI Photo Trump warns protesters ahead of Tulsa rally“Any protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes who are going to Oklahoma please understand, you will not be treated like you have been in New York, Seattle, or Minneapolis,” Trump tweeted Friday. “It will be a much different scene!”

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

Any protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes who are going to Oklahoma please understand, you will not be treated like you have been in New York, Seattle, or Minneapolis. It will be a much different scene!

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Trump has heavily criticized Democratic leaders in New York, Seattle and Minneapolis for not sufficiently cracking down on demonstrations that have erupted across the country to protest racism and police brutality in the wake of the death of George Floyd.

The city of Tulsa has announced a curfew for Friday and Saturday in order to prevent violent protesting around Trump’s rally, which has been shrouded in controversy since the president initially announced plans last week to hold it in Tulsa on June 19.

Trump was forced to move the date to June 20 after widespread outcry over the campaign’s decision to not just stage the event on Juneteenth, an annual holiday that marks the end of slavery in the United States, but to stage it in Tulsa, the site of one of the deadliest incidents of anti-black racial violence in the country in 1921.

The Trump campaign has also faced criticism for holding the large-scale event during the coronavirus pandemic, prompting concerns from the city’s health department.

The campaign plans to distribute masks and hand sanitizer to attendees as well as perform temperature checks before the rallygoers enter Tulsa’s BOK Center. The venue holds 19,000 people, and the campaign said it has received more than 1 million requests for tickets.

Attendees have also been asked to sign a coronavirus waiver.

Trump has been repeatedly criticized for his handling of the protests in the wake of Floyd’s killing at the hands of police in Minneapolis.

While Trump has expressed outrage at Floyd’s death, he has also sharply criticized protests that have at times turned violent and has demanded that states more forcefully crack down on the demonstrations.

Trump earlier this month threatened to dispatch active-duty troops to areas that do not sufficiently suppress the demonstrations. The president has more recently excoriated Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) and Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan (D) for failing to dispel a group of protesters that have occupied part of the city.

“You have a governor who doesn’t do a damn thing about it, and you have a mayor that doesn’t know she’s alive,” Trump told reporters on Monday.

“If they don’t do the job, I’ll do the job,” Trump continued, without offering specifics.

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Liars Poker?


“In the United States of America, all of us are equal under the law. Period. Say that as loud as you can”-Tucker Carlson.

This quote from a monologue by Mr. Carlson taken alone would indicate that he is a centrist or a liberal mined person. If you read the entire statement you will find that Mr. Carlson has not changed but issued a convoluted statement that says nothing of import or different that what he says daily. There are several on air personalities who side and perhaps adore the current administration and the leaders(?) thereof. The only thing as citizens we can and should do is to get to the polls to elect representatives who will do the job of representing us all “EQUALLY!”. We have had many years of  mealy mouthed office seekers who in the end have their own interests in mind along with what ever their party’s goal’s are no matter the detriment to the voters whom they “swore” on a bible to serve honestly. It should be clear to all that as voters and citizens that we are under attack from inside our own government by the  very people we elected. TOTUS and Bitch McConnell separately have “greased the already slippery slope of anarchy which will (if we let it) cause more division. The action or inaction in the current pandemic is the best indicator of how poor this administration and his abettors have served us.

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Washington has never discussed Colin Kaepernick


Who is in Charge of the NFL? TOTUS or GOODELL? MA.

Charean Williams  5 hrs ago NBC Sports

During Friday’s PFT Live draft, Washington came up as one of the teams that should consider signing Colin Kaepernick.

Washington, though, has never discussed the former 49ers quarterback.Doug Williams, the first black quarterback to win a Super Bowl who now serves as Washington’s vice president for player development, explained it’s because of the city the team represents.

“I think what happened here, we’re in a heavily, heavily military area,” Williams said on The Dan Patrick Show on Friday, via NBCSportsWashington.com. “And I think the guy that sits on Pennsylvania Avenue — 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — made such a big stink of it, the fans in this area . . . might’ve been a tough situation for both the team and [Kaepernick].”

Williams, of course, was talking about President Donald Trump. In 2017, while talking about players who take a knee for the national anthem, the president called for NFL owners to “get that son of a b—- off the field.”

“You don’t want to bring people into a situation where nobody is going to be happy,” Williams said. “I think that’s probably what happened, why he didn’t come up during that time.”

Kaepernick has not played since 2016, parting ways with the 49ers in the 2017 offseason. The NFL has backballed him for being the first player to protest social injustice and police brutality during the national anthem.

Kaepernick has not gotten anything more than a visit to the Seahawks in 2017.

But the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, and the protests that have followed, have given NFL players a bigger voice. And many are using that voice to call for Kaepernick to get a second chance.

Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said Thursday a team interested in Kaepernick had called him.

Patrick asked Williams about the Chiefs as a potential landing spot for Kaepernick since Andy Reid gave Michael Vick a job when the quarterback got out of prison.

“[Reid] told me — he was as real as real can get — he had two sons, and they had gotten in a little trouble,” Williams said. “He said, ‘Hey, my son got in trouble.’ He said, ‘Everybody deserves a second chance.’ And you know what? That was good enough for me. And I think if anybody could stomach that and handle Kaepernick and mentor him and understand where he’s coming from.Slide 10 of 50: David Horsey/Seattle Times

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CORONAVIRUS 


 

By Lydia O’Connor   06/11/2020 08:39 pm ET Updated 1 day ago

Huffpost

Trump Campaign Says You Can’t Sue If You Get COVID-19 At His Rally

The president won’t acknowledge that coronavirus is still a threat — unless it could get him sued.

Those registering for President Donald Trump’s massive rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, next week will notice a message on his campaign website when they sign up: You may contract COVID-19 at the rally, but it’s not Trump’s fault.

The legal disclaimer is the closest Trump has come in weeks to acknowledging that the coronavirus is still rapidly spreading across much of the country. The number of cases leapt past 2 million this week while outbreaks grow in 21 states and more than a dozen see record surges.

But that isn’t stopping his return to holding rallies on June 19, a day recognized as the end of slavery in the U.S. The Tulsa rally venue ― an indoor arena with a 19,000-person capacity ― is a prime breeding ground for the virus to spread, especially if basic safety measures aren’t put into effect. In its message to registrants, the Trump campaign says catching the virus is “an inherent risk” of attending

By clicking register below, you are acknowledging that an inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19 exists in any public place where people are present. By attending the Rally, you and any guests voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19 and agree not to hold Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.; BOK Center; ASM Global; or any of their affiliates, directors, officers, employees, agents, contractors, or volunteers liable for any illness or injury.

By agreeing not to hold Trump or others involved in the event liable if they get sick, attendees waive their right to sue.

“We are looking forward to the tremendous crowds and enthusiasm behind President Trump,” Michael Glassner, the Trump campaign’s chief operating officer, said in a statement announcing the rally.

The registration page doesn’t note any social distancing guidelines that will be in effect at the rally and does not note that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends people wear masks indoors when it’s difficult to keep a safe distance from others. People at Trump’s rallies are generally packed shoulder to shoulder.

Though cases, hospitalizations and deaths continue to climb in many of the states that have reopened their economies, Trump hasn’t changed his tune on the dangers of the pandemic and insists that everything is under control. Bucking guidance from the CDC and those on his own coronavirus task force, Trump rarely wears a mask in public and has scheduled more rallies in states that are struggling to contain the virus.

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J.F. Roxburgh 1888-1954 et al


Roxburgh’s goal was to develop students with good character and moral courage, young men that would be “acceptable at a dance and invaluable in a shipwreck.”

It is clear to me that goal was not achieved with our current administration and the Neer do well Congress that supports him. There is little blame to be placed on his voting supporters as they as many of us have been spoofed by our elected officials and the certain parts of the news media. Looking at the current chain of events from 2016 until now, we are, in the vernacular of many “deep Dodo”. This administration has created havoc around the world through withdrawal from climate and trade pacts, assessing tariffs on countries for no other reason than the thinly veiled racism. Pounding our southern neighbors through returning and requiring immigrants to remain there until their number is called ( often years at this point), building a wall that has no effect aside from encroaching on American land owners while at the same time cutting their  farms in half. There is no Rhyme or reason to this administration other than the aggrandizement of this President and his cohorts. All of the executive orders and barely legal actions of the administration abetted by the GOP members of Congress have served only to incite the divide created by a lackluster Congress and gleefully joined by TOTUS. This scam of a Presidency has brought shame on all United States citizens but is acknowledged only by the citizens who have the wherewithal to recognize and embrace the multi nationality that made America in spite of the hundreds of years of inequality. If you are afraid of folks who are different or do not look like you then you are in the wrong country as this has been the case for the existence of the United States. If you allow the status quo to continue we will always have inept and criminal representation in government.

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Trump took shelter in White House bunker as protests raged


Coward of the country did what cowards do-Hide! MA
By JONATHAN LEMIRE and ZEKE MILLER, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secret Service agents rushed President Donald Trump to a White House bunker on Friday night as hundreds of protesters gathered outside the executive mansion, some of them throwing rocks and tugging at police barricades.

President Donald Trump walks across the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Saturday, May 30, 2020, after stepping off Marine One as he returns from Kennedy Space Center for the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)© Provided by Associated Press President Donald Trump walks across the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Saturday, May 30, 2020, after stepping off Marine One as he returns from Kennedy Space Center for the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

 

Trump spent nearly an hour in the bunker, which was designed for use in emergencies like terrorist attacks, according to a Republican close to the White House who was not authorized to publicly discuss private matters and spoke on condition of anonymity. The account was confirmed by an administration official who also spoke on condition of anonymity.

The abrupt decision by the agents underscored the rattled mood inside the White House, where the chants from protesters in Lafayette Park could be heard all weekend and Secret Service agents and law enforcement officers struggled to contain the crowds.

Friday’s protests were triggered by the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after he was pinned at the neck by a white Minneapolis police officer. The demonstrations in Washington turned violent and appeared to catch officers by surprise. They sparked one of the highest alerts on the White House complex since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001 .

“The White House does not comment on security protocols and decisions,” said White House spokesman Judd Deere. The Secret Service said it does not discuss the means and methods of its protective operations. The president’s move to the bunker was first reported by The New York Times.

The president and his family have been shaken by the size and venom of the crowds, according to the Republican. It was not immediately clear if first lady Melania Trump and the couple’s 14-year-old son, Barron, joined the president in the bunker. Secret Service protocol would have called for all those under the agency’s protection to be in the underground shelter.

Trump has told advisers he worries about his safety, while both privately and publicly praising the work of the Secret Service.

Trump traveled to Florida on Saturday to view the first manned space launch from the U.S. in nearly a decade. He returned to a White House under virtual siege, with protesters — some violent — gathered just a few hundred yards away through much of the night.

Demonstrators returned Sunday afternoon, facing off against police at Lafayette Park into the evening.

Trump continued his effort to project strength, using a series of inflammatory tweets and delivering partisan attacks during a time of national crisis.

As cities burned night after night and images of violence dominated television coverage, Trump’s advisers discussed the prospect of an Oval Office address in an attempt to ease tensions. The notion was quickly scrapped for lack of policy proposals and the president’s own seeming disinterest in delivering a message of unity.

Trump did not appear in public on Sunday. Instead, a White House official who was not authorized to discuss the plans ahead of time said Trump was expected in the coming days to draw distinctions between the legitimate anger of peaceful protesters and the unacceptable actions of violent agitators.

On Sunday, Trump retweeted a message from a conservative commentator encouraging authorities to respond with greater force.

“This isn’t going to stop until the good guys are willing to use overwhelming force against the bad guys,” Buck Sexton wrote in a message amplified by the president.

In recent days security at the White House has been reinforced by the National Guard and additional personnel from the Secret Service and the U.S. Park Police.

On Sunday, the Justice Department deployed members of the U.S. Marshals Service and agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration to supplement National Guard troops outside the White House, according to a senior Justice Department official. The official could not discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

___

Lemire reported from New York. Associated Press writer Michael Balsamo contributed to this report.

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Why Are So Many Republicans Remaining Silent?


Conor Friedersdorf
a person sitting in a dark room© The Atlantic / GettyEditor’s note: The opinions in this article are the author’s, as published by our content partner, and do not necessarily represent the views of MSN or Microsoft.

Earlier this month, Representative Adam Kinzinger told his constituents that he is worried by the excessive number of conspiracy theories he has seen circulating lately on social-media sites.

“As leaders, we have a choice,” he told his constituents in a video message posted to Facebook. “There’s far too many who will simply reflect back that paranoia, to feed fuel to that fire, if it’ll help their reelection … We need to push back against these attempts to divide and destroy us.”

Days later, President Donald Trump disseminated a conspiracy theory for the ages. In the midst of an ongoing pandemic that has killed 100,000 Americans, he attacked a cable-television host, former Representative Joe Scarborough, with a thinly veiled murder allegation. “A lot of interest in this story about Psycho Joe Scarborough,” Trump wrote. “So a young marathon runner just happened to faint in his office, hit her head on his desk, & die? I would think there is a lot more to this story than that? An affair? What about the so-called investigator?”

 

In fact, there is no evidence of an affair or foul play in the staffer’s death almost 20 years ago. Kinzinger quickly pushed back against the leader of his political party. “Completely unfounded conspiracy,” he wrote on Twitter. “Just stop. Stop spreading it, stop creating paranoia. It will destroy us.”

Why was his principled stand so lonely?

There are many reasons, besides general concern about conspiracy theories, that a Republican member of Congress would want to speak out on behalf of a former representative being unfairly attacked.

As members of a coequal branch of government charged with checking and balancing the executive, legislators might also feel duty-bound to rebuke flagrant abuses of the presidential pulpit, if only to deter future executive misbehavior. As public figures, they’d presumably all hope for defenders if the president were spreading thinly veiled murder accusations about them.

And even if they’re not concerned for Scarborough as a victim, they might have noticed that Trump’s attack on a political adversary did collateral harm to the still-grieving widower of the woman who died. “The President of the United States has taken something that does not belong to him—the memory of my dead wife—and perverted it for perceived political gain,” that widower wrote in a letter to Twitter asking that Trump’s tweet be removed. “I would also ask that you consider Lori’s niece and two nephews who will eventually come across this filth in the future.”

That message apparently moved Utah Senator Mitt Romney to speak out Wednesday morning, when he tweeted, “I know Joe Scarborough. Joe is a friend of mine. I don’t know T. J. Klausutis. Joe can weather vile, baseless accusations but T.J.? His heart is breaking. Enough already.”

 

The same morning, Representative Liz Cheney told reporters in Washington, “I do think the president should stop tweeting about Joe Scarborough. I think we’re in the middle of a pandemic. He’s the commander in chief of this nation, and it’s causing great pain to the family of the young woman who died. So I would urge him to stop it.” But this trio was among the rare exceptions of the 197 Republicans in the House and 51 Republicans in the Senate. Silence was the rule. There was no rebuke from the GOP House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (who sidestepped questions about the matter, professing ignorance) or Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell; no reaffirmation of basic decency as a valuable norm by a few dozen members; no call from a frustrated caucus to refocus presidential attention on the disease ravaging the country rather than one accidental death.

Perhaps that dereliction of the duty to protect and defend basic decency should not surprise anyone at this point. Trump bullied Ben Carson and Ted Cruz, implying that Cruz’s father killed JFK and likening Carson to a pathological killer. “Now those targets count as Trump’s most faithful servants,” Jonathan Chait observed in a recent New York magazine column. Trump has been conditioned to expect reward rather than rebuke from prominent GOP officials after he behaves badly.

But I didn’t want to infer too much from silence. So I reached out to the offices of the Republican members of Florida’s congressional delegation, who represent the state where Scarborough served and the dead woman lived, seeking comment. I tried Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, as well as Representatives Matt Gaetz, Neal Dunn, Ted Yoho, John Rutherford, Bill Posey, Daniel Webster, Gus Bilirakis, Ross Spano, Vern Buchanan, Gregory Steube, Brian Mast, and Francis Rooney. I also reached out to the Republican Party leadership of the counties of Escambia, Okaloosa, Santa Rosa, and Walton, in Scarborough’s former district.

I have yet to receive a response from any member of the congressional delegation. The one GOP county official who replied to me defended Trump’s conduct. No one expects every member of Congress to comment on every controversy. But the president’s indecent behavior makes the silence among his many supporters in the GOP conspicuous. “There are many in the GOP power structure and pro-Trump media who have lost loved ones in unspeakable ways who would be gutted if the president spread malicious lies exploiting their tragedy,” the CNN anchor Jake Tapper wrote.

Yet despite the widower’s pleas, most “sit silently.” And that silence, like past silence on Trump indecencies, all but guarantees more abuses of this kind by the president. I’m hoping to be able to update this story with responses from Republican officials; my email address is conor@theatlantic.com.

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Commentary: Trump is a genius at distracting us from his deadly incompetence. This is how a thug acts


 

 

By Scott Martelle, Los Angeles Times

55 mins ago

This is how a thug acts.

Twitter at long last has affixed fact-check links to a couple of tweets by President Donald Trump that include verifiably false details, in this case claims by the president that mail-in balloting leads to election fraud.

Note that Twitter didn’t remove the tweets, and hasn’t gone so far as to add fact-check links to the president’s baseless insinuations that MSNBC co-anchor Joe Scarborough might bear responsibility for a congressional aide’s long-ago natural death.

Trump’s response: Take out the flamethrower and scorch away.

Um, no, calling out bald-faced lies by a politician is not interfering with an election.

As slow and insufficient as Twitter’s response to Trump’s serial lies and grotesque insinuations has been, this moment spotlights just how Trump manipulates a moment to turn it into something it is not.

He’s tweeted spurious insinuations about MSNBC co-anchor Joe Scarborough and the long-ago death of an aide. He’s thrown out inane one-liners such as “OBAMAGATE MAKES WATERGATE LOOK LIKE SMALL POTATOES!” He’s spun lies about the spread of the coronavirus and his response to it, retweeted a cascade of conservative takes on events and his actions, posted free plugs for books and television segments that align with his world view, and attacked the media (he cheered announced staff cuts at the Atlantic; what kind of president cheers job losses?), Democrats and a smattering of fellow Republicans who have the temerity to oppose him.

He has also, most troublingly, tweeted his support for blatant attempts at intimidation by armed anti-government protesters who joined demonstrations in states whose Democratic governors froze many public interactions to halt the spread of the deadly coronavirus.

This is how a thug acts. But it’s also how Trump works to deflect public attention from his historically inept presidency. He creates controversies, then turns them into us vs. them fights to keep his base engaged and his critics outraged. In a divided country Trump makes the divide the issue, at the expense of the public well-being.

Trump’s attacks on the mail-in voting option as a way to conduct an election amid the coronavirus pandemic is an effort to undermine public faith in the November election. And his attack on Twitter for supposed censorship (pointing out a lie is not censorship in any accepted definition) is an attempt to distract the electorate from his initial lie.

Trump is preparing the ground to, once again, claim victimhood. If he loses in November, he’ll scream (well, tweet) “foul!” and “unfair!” and somehow draw in President Barack Obama and Jeff Bezos and his expanding cast of political critics real and imagined to argue that he is the target of some vast left-wing socialist lamestream media conspiracy (it’s not beyond imagination that he’ll claim it was concocted in a Wuhan research lab) and that we need to TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK NOW! (emphasis in the imagined original tweet).

This is standard procedure for Trump. Attack, debase and devalue in the hope that he emerges victorious from the verbal battlefield. Never mind the carnage. Never mind the truth.

Never mind what’s best for the country.

———

ABOUT THE WRITER

Scott Martelle, a veteran journalist and author of six history books, is a member of the Los Angeles Times editorial board.

———

©2020 Los Angeles Times

Visit the Los Angeles Times at www.latimes.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. 

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Trump calls ousted HHS whistleblower Rick Bright a ‘disgruntled employee’ before House coronavirus hearing


Kevin Breuninger
a person wearing a suit and tie: Rick Bright, deputy assistant secretary for preparedness and response for Health and Human Services (HHS), speaks during a House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee hearing in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, March 8, 2018.© Provided by CNBC Rick Bright, deputy assistant secretary for preparedness and response for Health and Human Services (HHS), speaks during a House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee hearing in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, March 8, 2018.

President Donald Trump on Thursday tore into ousted federal scientist-turned-whistleblower Dr. Rick Bright just before Bright was set to testify before Congress that the U.S. “missed early warning signals” about the coronavirus.

“I don’t know the so-called Whistleblower Rick Bright, never met him or even heard of him,” Trump tweeted Thursday morning.

“But to me he is a disgruntled employee, not liked or respected by people I spoke to and who, with his attitude, should no longer be working for our government!” Trump said.

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

I don’t know the so-called Whistleblower Rick Bright, never met him or even heard of him, but to me he is a disgruntled employee, not liked or respected by people I spoke to and who, with his attitude, should no longer be working for our government!

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Bright in late April was removed as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and transferred to a job with fewer responsibilities at the National Institutes of Health. He filed a formal whistleblower complaint to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel after his removal.

Lawyers for Bright say he was sidelined in retaliation for his pushback on the Trump administration’s efforts “to provide unfettered access to potentially dangerous drugs, including chloroquine … which is untested and possibly deadly when used improperly.”

Bright is scheduled to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health at 10 a.m. ET.

In his opening statement, Bright is expected to say that Covid-19 could potentially make 2020 the “darkest winter in modern history” if leaders can’t mount a more coordinated response to contain the outbreak.

“Our window of opportunity is closing. If we fail to develop a national coordinated response, based in science, I fear the pandemic will get far worse and be prolonged, causing unprecedented illness and fatalities,” Bright’s written testimony says.

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