Trump Weakened His Own Standing on Human Rights

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's curious lack of devotion to American principles.  His rhetoric is more Putin than Reagan.

From RT:

Havana has blasted US President Donald Trump’s decision Friday to roll back much of Barack Obama’s policy of rapprochement and imposing new restrictions on Cuba using the pretext of human rights concerns, calling it a case of double standards.

“The United States is not in a position to give us lessons. We have serious concerns about the respect and guarantees of human rights in that country, where there are numerous cases of murders, brutality and police abuses, particularly against the African American population,” the Cuban government said in a statement, published by the Communist Party's official Granma newspaper

Trump invited this comeback.  It echoes what he himself has said, which in turn echoes Putin.

On September 11, 2013, Putin wrote in The New York Times:

My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is “what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.” It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. 

The next day, Trump told Greta Van Susteren that he agreed with Putin:

And when he criticizes the president for using the term "American exceptionalism," if you're in Russia, you don't want to hear that America is exceptional. And if you're in many other countries, whether it's Germany or other places, you don't want to hear about American exceptionalism because you think you're exceptional. So I can see that being very insulting to the world.

And that's basically what Putin was saying is that, you know, you use a term like "American exceptionalism," and frankly, the way our country is being treated right now by Russia and Syria and lots of other places and with all the mistakes we've made over the years, like Iraq and so many others, it's sort of a hard term to use.

But other nations and other countries don't want hear about American exceptionalism. They're insulted by it. And that's what Putin was saying.  

On September 27, 2015, Putin told Charlie Rose:

How long did it take the democratic process to develop in the United States? Do you believe that everything is perfect now from the point of view of democracy in the United States? If everything was perfect there wouldn't be the problem of Ferguson. There would be no abuse by the police. 

On July 21 of last year, Trump told The New York Times:

I think right now when it comes to civil liberties, our country has a lot of problems, and I think it’s very hard for us to get involved in other countries when we don’t know what we are doing and we can’t see straight in our own country. We have tremendous problems when you have policemen being shot in the streets, when you have riots, when you have Ferguson. When you have Baltimore. When you have all of the things that are happening in this country — we have other problems, and I think we have to focus on those problems. When the world looks at how bad the United States is, and then we go and talk about civil liberties, I don’t think we’re a very good messenger.

And on February 7 of this year, Trump had this exchange with Bill O'Reilly:

O'REILLY: He is a killer though. Putin is a killer.
TRUMP: There are a lot of killers. Do you think our country is so innocent? Do you think our country is so innocent?
O'REILLY: I don't know of any government leaders that are killers in America.
TRUMP: Take a look at what we have done too. We've made a lot of mistakes. I've been against the war in Iraq from the beginning.
O'REILLY: Yes. Mistakes are different then --
TRUMP: A lot of mistakes, okay? But a lot of people were killed. So, a lot of killers around, believe me.

Trumplosion

A week ago, it actually looked as if Trump might overtake Clinton in the polls.

Then he botched the first debate with Clinton and did even worse in the days to follow.  No doubt, Democratic oppo guys were throwing accelerants onto the fire.
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Michael Barbaro, Maggie Haberman, and Alan Rappeport report at The New York Times:

The tweets started around 3:20 a.m. on Friday. Inside Trump Tower, a restless figure stirred in the predawn darkness, nursing his grievances and grabbing a device that often lands him in hot water.

On his Android phone, Donald J. Trump began to tap out bursts of digital fury: He mocked Alicia Machado, a former Miss Universe and a popular Latin American actress, as a “con,” the “worst” and “disgusting.”

In a final flourish, before the sun came up, the Republican presidential nominee claimed — without offering any evidence — that she had appeared in a “sex tape.”

The tirade fit a pattern. It is when Mr. Trump is alone with his thoughts, and untethered from his campaign staff, that he has seemed to commit his most self-destructive acts.

Philip Rucker, Robert Costa, and Sean Sullivan report at The Washington Post:

Also this week, Trump raised former president Bill Clinton’s past extramarital affairs as a campaign issue, delivered his most direct attack yet on Hillary Clinton’s health and waged war with news organizations over alleged bias.

Reflecting upon Trump’s actions, Matt Borges, the Republican Party chairman in battleground Ohio, said, “Can this thing just end — please?”

“My God,” he sighed, “what a nightmare.”

...
At an intimate fundraiser Wednesday for Rep. Joseph J. Heck (R-Nev.), who is running for the Senate, McConnell asked the group of about a dozen supporters how many of them think Trump can win. About half of the attendees raised their hands. But when McConnell then asked how many thought Trump would win, no hands went up, and the room fell silent, according to a person familiar with the scene who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a closed event.

Andrew Kaczynski and  Nathaniel Meyersohn report at Buzzfeed:

Donald Trump made an appearance in an explicit 2000 Playboy video.

Trump’s role in the porn is relatively benign and centers around him breaking a bottle of champagne on a Playboy-branded limo while several of the playmates are visiting New York City. BuzzFeed News obtained the footage from the online-only Buffalo, New York–based video store Cinema Cornucopia.

Oh yes, and he broke the law. Kurt Eichenwald reports at Newsweek:

The response of Donald Trump and his staff on September 29 to the revelation that one of his companies illegally violated the Cuban trade embargo during Fidel Castro’s presidency has exposed a growing problem for the Republican nominee: His campaign operation is disorganized and shares Trump’s disdain for facts.

Both the Trump campaign staff and the Trump Organization had been told for days byNewsweek that it was about to publish an article disclosing that a Trump company had paid at least $68,000 to explore business opportunities in Communist Cuba. Federal law at the time imposed tough restrictions against spending even a penny in Cuba, with the intent of financially starving the country, which for decades been categorized as an American enemy. While there were some exemptions, such as engaging in humanitarian work approved by the government, the Trump venture did not qualify for any of them, and once the Cuba business trip was over, consultants and Trump executives discussed ways to make the trip appear to be a charitable effort.

Newsweek’s requests for comments, documents and even an interview with Trump were ignored, which was unusual.

David A. Farenthold reports at The Washington Post:

Donald Trump’s charitable foundation — which has been sustained for years by donors outside the Trump family — has never obtained the certification that New York requires before charities can solicit money from the public, according to the state attorney general’s office.

Under the laws in New York, where the Donald J. Trump Foundation is based, any charity that solicits more than $25,000 a year from the public must obtain a special kind of registration beforehand. Charities as large as Trump’s must also submit to a rigorous annual audit that asks — among other things — whether the charity spent any money for the personal benefit of its officers.

If New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D) finds that Trump’s foundation raised money in violation of the law, he could order the charity to stop raising money immediately. With a court’s permission, Schneiderman could also force Trump to return money that his foundation has already raised.

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Refugee Politics

Margaret Talev reports at Bloomberg:

Most Americans want the U.S. to stop letting in Syrian refugees amid fears of terrorist infiltrations after the Paris attacks, siding with Republican presidential candidates, governors, and lawmakers who want to freeze the Obama administration’s resettlement program.

The findings are part of a Bloomberg Politics national poll released Wednesday that also shows the nation divided on whether to send U.S. troops to Iraq and Syria to fight the Islamic State, an idea President Barack Obama opposes, and whether the U.S. government is doing enough to protect the homeland from a comparable attack.

Fifty-three percent of U.S. adults in the survey, conducted in the days immediately following the attacks, say the nation should not continue a program to resettle up to 10,000 Syrian refugees. Just 28 percent would keep the program with the screening process as it now exists, while 11 percent said they would favor a limited program to accept only Syrian Christians while excluding Muslims, a proposal Obama has dismissed as “shameful” and un-American.

David A. Graham writes at The Atlantic:

Between April and October of 1980, amid an economic downturn, Fidel Castro announced that Cubans who wanted to leave could do so. It precipitated a mass exodus toward the United States. Around 125,000 Cubans fled the island in the Mariel boatlift. The question was what to do with them once they arrived. After all, huge infusions of refugees are often unwelcome, and rumors that the “Marielitos” included many released criminals made many Americans even less welcoming.

In May, President Jimmy Carter informed Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, then nearing the end of his first term in office, that 20,000 of the immigrants would be housed temporarily at Fort Chaffee in northwest Arkansas. Clinton backed the move by his fellow Democrat publicly, but was privately furious: “How could you do this to me? I busted my ass for Carter. You’re gonna get me beat.” Once they’d arrived, the resettlement process ground to a halt, and in June, a riot erupted, and Clinton called out the National Guard. Several months later, as he’d predicted Clinton lost his bid for reelection to Frank White, a first-time candidate for office. In the same election, Carter lost the White House. The story turned out happily for Clinton, who defeated White in 1982 and went on to become president, but Carter and Clinton reportedly still dislike each other.

The Fort Chaffee story is largely forgotten by the general public, but it’s a good bet that some governors haven’t forgotten its political lessons.

Rubio v. Paul on Cuba

David Weigel writes at Bloomberg:

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul took his time responding to this week's Cuba policy thaw. Florida Senator Marco Rubio, the son of immigrants who fled the pre-Castro regime, called a press conference that began just a few minutes after President Obama's statement ended. Paul did not respond on the day, and media requests for a reaction were rebuffed. Not until Thursday morning, when Paul appeared on West Virginia's NewsTalk 800,did he reveal his realist, libertarian response.

"The 50-year embargo just hasn't worked," Paul said. "If the goal is regime change, it sure doesn't seem to be working, and probably it punishes the people more than the regime because the regime can blame the embargo for hardship."

Paul could have left it at that–his position was consistent with his father's, with Arizona Senator Jeff Flake, and with most libertarians who considered the Cuba policy a spectacular failure. But a few hours later, Rubio appeared on Megan Kelly's Fox News show and was asked for his "thoughts on Senator Rand Paul's comments supporting the president."

"Like many people, he has no idea what he's talking about," snapped Rubio. "I would expect that people would understand that if they just took a moment to analyze that, they would realize that the embargo is not what's hurting the Cuban people. It's the lack of freedom and the lack of competent leaders."

That got Paul thinking, and he took to social media today to pummel Rubio

The Political Impact of the Cuba Decision

At Politico, James Hohmann and Kyle Cheney writes that younger Cuban-Americans in Florida may accept the president's decision to establish full diplomatic relations with Cuba.  But....

Critics of the president’s move say they expect older Cuban-Americans with vivid memories of the Castro regime’s oppression to become more politically engaged – and to turn against Democrats in 2016.

Republican operatives who worked for Republican Gov. Rick Scott this year believe that challenger Charlie Crist’s expressed support for easing relations with Cuba cost him votes. The Scott campaign’s internal polling shows that the governor racked up big margins among Cuban-American voters but also made inroads with Venezuelan expatriates who blame the Castro brothers for recent turmoil in their home country.

The core of the Republican argument is that older voters who oppose loosening the embargo care the most about the issue and will vote on it. They believe that few people who want to relax tensions are motivated to vote.

“The people who are most passionate about this issue do not have short memories,” said Republican consultant Adam Goodman, CEO of the Tampa-based Victory Group.

Post-Election Conferences

Politico reports on a conference at Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas on Thursday and Friday:

“The bottom line is that the Obama campaign [had] a candidate that was very hard to lay a glove on because he was somebody that the American people, by and large, had decided that they just liked,” said Romney’s deputy campaign manager Katie Packer Gage.
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“It was one of the most frustrating things in our campaign,” Gage added. “In focus group after focus group, when you would sit down with this sort of narrow slice of voters — undecided female voters who had voted for Barack Obama in 2008 — they weren’t ready to vote for Barack Obama yet, but when we would test message point after message point after message point, there was almost nothing that would stick to this guy because they just liked him personally.”
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The Obama team believes that the selection of Paul Ryan cost Romney Florida, eating into his support among Cubans because of his past opposition to the embargo, galvanizing Sunshine State volunteers for Obama and raising doubts among seniors over what his budget plan might do to Medicare.

We needed to make this a state-by-state race, and we needed to take a state like Florida and turn it into a battle over each precinct,” [national field director Jeremy] Bird said.
...
“Traditionally you win a primary and somebody drops out because resources just stall,” said Gage. “When we came out of our short-lived win in Iowa, you would have typically seen several candidates drop out at that point, but all of these candidates had one or two big, big donors that could keep them alive a while longer. And that’s what created this long slog effect.”

Gage said Romney’s inner circle thought frequently about how to persuade mega-donors like Sheldon Adelson and Foster Friess to stop financing the conservatives like Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, who both forced Romney to the right.

Politico also reports on a meeting of GOP  operatives:

The Romney campaign is in the process of transferring all of its voter contact data to the RNC — a database that includes one million donor contacts and 2.2 active email addresses from theRomney list, as well as 300 pages of strategy memos and analytics information.

How to build on those contacts in the next four years and continue to grow the party’s email database is the central question facing the GOP now, said veteran GOP strategist Peter Pasi, a partner at Emotive who did digital work for Rick Santorum’s campaign, among others, and who attended Thursday’s meeting.

“How can we build structures … that can last 10 years and be refined no matter who’s the chairman and who’s in the White House?” he told POLITICO earlier this week, adding that the party needs to build “a digital infrastructure that reflects kind of a movement and a belief — not just [one] campaign.”

In addition to building that database, Republicans need to figure out how to standardize their voter information to include all kinds of data like the Obama campaign did in 2012. The Obama campaign was able to micro-target voters by cross-referencing such things as television-viewing habits and information collected from Facebook and email.

“The Obama campaign found a way to integrate social media, technology, email databases, fundraising databases and consumer market data,” said GOP digital strategist Vincent Harris, who did digital work for Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry in 2012. “That does not exist on the Republican side to that degree.”

CNN "Gut Check" asked IOP director Trey Grayson for lessons from the Harvard conference:

GUT CHECK: What are the three bullet points that future campaign advisers are going to take away from the lessons learned in the 2012 presidential campaign?

GRAYSON: 1. Even with all the analytics and data that campaigns have and use, the individual contact of going door-to-door or friend-to-friend on Facebook is still the most effective way to reach voters 2. Utilizing social media to reach those voters that you otherwise could not reach. For example, Obama supporters were Facebook friends with 98% of U.S. voters. 3. Diminishing returns of television advertising late in the campaign.

Filling Gaps in the White House Website, Part 24

A couple of weeks ago, the president answered questions from Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez. One answer recalled the "no preconditions" incident in the 2008 nomination campaign:

For years, I have said that it is time to pursue direct diplomacy, without preconditions, with friends and foes alike. I am not interested, however, in talking for the sake of talking. In the case of Cuba, such diplomacy should create opportunities to advance the interests of the United States and the cause of freedom for the Cuban people.

We have already initiated a dialogue on areas of mutual concern – safe, legal, and orderly migration, and reestablishing direct mail service. These are small steps, but an important part of a process to move U.S.-Cuban relations in a new and more positive, direction. Achieving a more normal relationship, however, will require action by the Cuban government.