Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments -- now including a war in the Middle East.
Trump's threats to destroy Iranian civilization are a gift to the regime. They will alienate even its fiercest opponents, who believe the Islamic Republic has spent decades erasing 2500 years of Iranian civilization. It's malpractice for the U.S. president to threaten the same. https://t.co/BkANT7T08Q
Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments -- now including a war in the Middle East.
Tom Nichols on the Defense Department in wartime:
The United States is in the middle of a major war, but that didn’t stop Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Thursday from firing General Randy George, America’s most senior Army officer. George was the Army’s chief of staff, and he was cashiered along with another four-star general, David Hodne, and Major General William Green Jr., the top Army chaplain, in what has been a rolling purge by Hegseth of senior officers—particularly those close to the secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll.
Why were these men fired while U.S. forces are fighting overseas? The Defense Department has given no official reason for their dismissals, but likely they are the latest victims of Hegseth’s vindictive struggles with the Army, which he feels treated him poorly—the service “spit me out,” he said in his 2024 book—as he struggles in a job for which he remains singularly unqualified.
Hegseth began his tenure by acting against what he sees as a Pentagon infested with DEI hires. He pushed for the removal of the then–chairman of the Joint Chiefs, C. Q. Brown, who is Black, and he fired a raft of female military leaders, replacing them all with men. But dumping the Army chief of staff in the middle of a war, without explanation, is a reckless move even by Hegseth’s standards. George is a decorated combat veteran who was slated to stay in his job until 2027, and he has never publicly feuded with Hegseth—despite having good reason to do so.\
On Trump's bad address to the nation:
A speech that should have been a clear explanation of why the United States is fighting a nation of 92 million people began instead in shambolic style. He discussed the operation that captured the president of Venezuela, perhaps hoping to make listeners believe that the Iran war will be a similarly short operation. He then said that Iran has taken losses never seen “in the history of warfare”—as if the destruction of, say, the Axis in World War II had never happened.
Trump offered little that was new, instead repeating the same lines from a short video presentation the night that he ordered attacks on the Islamic Republic, more than one month ago. He listed—rightly and correctly—the various offenses that the fanatical Iranian regime has perpetrated against the United States and other countries for nearly a half century. But he couldn’t help himself: He patted himself on the back for killing the Iranian terror mastermind Qassem Soleimani in his first term, and for canceling the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by Barack Obama. (“Barack Hussein Obama,” of course.) The United States, Trump claimed in a strange moment, had emptied out all the banks in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia as part of that deal—“all the cash they had”—to send that “green, green” currency to Iran.
Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. Trump is showing his age. Sometimes, it's amusing, but sometimes it's disturbing. Cognitive decline is no joke when it involves someone who can wipe out all life on Earth.
President Trump gave an 18-minute speech intended to defend his accomplishments in the first year, and argue that the “Golden Age” he promised in his presidential campaign last year was building steam.
The speech was, in typical form, largely strung together from familiar lines he uses at White House events, rallies and speeches. And, in Trumpian style, there were a long list of exaggerations and misleading statements.
But notably absent from the president’s remarks was his argument from recent weeks that “affordability” was nothing but a “hoax” and a “con job” by Democrats — a line that made his own advisers cringe.
Mr. Trump, always more comfortable with what he calls his “weave” of free association rather than reading from a teleprompter, raced through his talk as if he was late to an important dinner. There were no digressions, unlike his speech in Pennsylvania a week ago when he repeatedly veered from the topic. At times he seemed to be yelling — almost as if he didn’t believe he had to take the time to convince his audience of how well his first 11 months had gone.
As usual, Trump lied. Daniel Dale at CNN:
Inflation under Trump: Near the end of the speech, Trump falsely claimed, “Inflation is stopped.” Inflation hasn’t stopped; the year-over-year inflation rate in September, 3.0%, was the same as the rate when Trump returned to office in January – in fact, if you go to multiple decimal places, the September rate was a tiny bit higher – and September was the fifth consecutive month the year-over-year rate had increased.
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After noting that the price of eggs has plummeted since March, Trump added, “And everything else is falling rapidly.” That is not true even if he was talking specifically about grocery prices, which are up this year. Consumer Price Index data shows that a far greater number of grocery items have increased in price since he returned to office than have decreased. The most recent available CPI figures at the time he spoke on Wednesday, for September, showed that average grocery prices were up about 2.7% from September 2024; about 1.4% from January 2025, the month Trump returned to office; and about 0.3% from August to September.
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Prescription drug prices: Trump repeated his false claim that an executive order he issued on prescription drug prices will cut those prices by “as much as 400, 500, and even 600%.” These figures are mathematically impossible; if the president magically got the companies to reduce the prices of all of their drugs to $0, that would be a 100% cut. You can read a longer fact check here.
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Investment in the US this year: Trump repeated his false claim that there has been “$18 trillion” in investment in the US during his second presidency, saying Wednesday, “I’ve secured a record-breaking $18 trillion of investment into the United States.” This figure is fiction. At the time he spoke on Wednesday, the White House’s own website said the figure was “$9.6 trillion,” and even that is a major exaggeration; a detailed CNN review in October found the White House was counting trillions of dollars in vague investment pledges, pledges that were about “bilateral trade” or “economic exchange” rather than investment in the US, or vague statements that didn’t even rise to the level of pledges. You can read more here.
I was wondering how Trump found his troop pay money without a congressional authorization/appropriation. He found it by taking it away from troop housing money. Always a con artist. https://t.co/voaRTB8e5F
— David Frum (@davidfrum) December 18, 2025
One week into the shutdown, Republicans are trying to stay on message — but President Donald Trump is making that difficult.Erica Orden at POLITICO:
Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune want to show Democrats there’s no daylight inside the GOP: Republicans will only negotiate a deal to extend expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies once the government is back open.
But Trump is causing major headaches by going off script, Dasha Burns and Jordain Carney report. On Monday, Trump pointed to health care negotiations with Democrats that didn’t appear to exist, but would have contradicted Johnson and Thune’s red line about no ACA talks until the shutdown ends.
On Tuesday, the White House further complicated matters by sending a memo stating some federal workers might not receive backpay after the shutdown’s over. Republicans scrambled to refute that message. After all, Trump himself signed legislation in 2019 guaranteeing all federal workers would be paid following a shutdown — and many Republicans voted for it.
President Donald Trump is deploying the Justice Department to punish and prosecute his perceived enemies and advance his political agenda. But his color commentary — and that of senior members of his administration — about the cases is threatening to derail them in court.
Public comments by Trump and high-ranking officials including Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have already become flashpoints in high-profile cases. Judges overseeing criminal proceedings against Luigi Mangione, charged with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, and Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran man who was illegally deported by the Trump administration, have warned the administration to stop making remarks that could prevent the defendants from having fair trials, or have suggested they may already have violated rules against doing so.
In two other criminal cases — against former FBI Director James Comey and against alleged Charlie Kirk shooter Tyler Robinson — remarks by Trump and others are all but certain to show up in court filings as the defendants argue their cases should be thrown out. The defense lawyers in all four cases would need to convince the judges that the comments prevent their clients from receiving a fair trial because potential jurors have been prejudiced.
And as the Justice Department, at Trump’s urging, pursues the potential prosecution of Trump foes Letitia James, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), John Bolton, John Brennan and others, Trump’s tendency to proclaim the guilt of an unconvicted defendant or publicly pressure prosecutors to bring charges will likely continue to create significant legal headaches.
Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments.
Bondi says she is going to target "hate speech." She does not have to look very far.
The Trump administration unveiled a new crackdown Friday on journalists at the Pentagon, saying it will require them to pledge they won’t gather any information — even unclassified — that hasn’t been expressly authorized for release, and will revoke the press credentials of those who do not obey.
Under the policy, the Pentagon may revoke press passes for anyone it deems a security threat. Possessing confidential or unauthorized information, under the new rules, would be grounds for a journalist’s press pass to be revoked.
As President Donald Trump and his administration have threatened an increasingly harsh crackdown on the political left in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination last week, a growing number of allies have suddenly expressed a narrower view of Americans’ free speech rights.
Yes, they say, they support the First Amendment. But they also suggest the times call for a new approach – one that’s often at odds with their former rhetoric.
The other case in point is Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming. In an interview with Semafor, Lummis was remarkably blunt about her own sudden recalculation.
“Under normal times, in normal circumstances, I tend to think that the First Amendment should always be sort of the ultimate right,” she said, “and that there should be almost no checks and balances on it.”
Then she added: “I don’t feel that way anymore.”
The Wyoming senator suggested a crackdown on people saying “insane things” and connected it to political violence like Kirk’s assassination.
Just two years ago, Lummis introduced the “Free Speech Protection Act,” which would have barred the government from directing online platforms to censor constitutionally protected speech. “If we let the Biden administration restrict our freedom of speech,” she said at the time, “there is no telling what other sacred freedoms they will come for next.”
Lummis said out loud what plenty of others have suggested. High-profile Trump allies have also downplayed the importance of protecting free speech rights at this moment, suggesting drastic times call for drastic measures.
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On Fox News on Thursday, former Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said ABC’s suspension of Jimmy Kimmel amid clear pressure from the Trump administration “has nothing to do with the First Amendment.”
“For all the concern about ‘The First Amendment! The First Amendment!’ I mean, they are apoplectic, Jesse,” McEnany told host Jesse Watters. “What about all the amendments that Charlie Kirk lost? Because Charlie Kirk has no amendments right now. None.”
And perhaps most strikingly, Trump suggested Thursday that Kirk himself might suddenly reevaluate his views on free speech if he were alive today.
“For all the concern about ‘The First Amendment! The First Amendment!’ I mean, they are apoplectic, Jesse,” McEnany told host Jesse Watters. “What about all the amendments that Charlie Kirk lost? Because Charlie Kirk has no amendments right now. None.”
And perhaps most strikingly, Trump suggested Thursday that Kirk himself might suddenly reevaluate his views on free speech if he were alive today.
“There is an ideology that has steadily been growing in this country which hates everything that is good, righteous and beautiful and celebrates everything that is warped, twisted and depraved,” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller wrote Thursday on X. “It is an ideology at war with family and nature. It is envious, malicious, and soulless.”
Other senior administration officials spoke of a broad plan to focus on public speech and rhetoric, declaring that those who speak in violent terms about Trump and his allies will face consequences. Some suggested a more expansive campaign, calling out schoolteachers and college instructors who have made public statements criticizing Kirk since his death, and promising to deport noncitizens who do the same.
The statements from Trump and his top advisers provided early insight into how the president will respond to both the personal loss and political juncture he faces in the wake of Kirk’s fatal shooting Wednesday on a Utah college campus. Trump appeared to be positioning himself to launch a campaign against some of Kirk’s — and his — opponents who have spoken out since the conservative activist’s death.
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Miller called out “people in positions of institutional authority,” noting the social media posts of “educators, health care workers, therapists, government employees” who he said had cheered Kirk’s death. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said he had directed consular officials “to undertake appropriate action” against foreign visa applicants and holders who praised or rationalized the shooting.
EARHARDT: We have radicals on the right as well. How do we fix this country?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 12, 2025
TRUMP: I'll tell you something that's gonna get me in trouble but I couldn't care less. The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don't want to see crime. The radicals on the left… pic.twitter.com/snOESz3x5a
The short-term funding bill only deals with discretionary spending and won't affect spending levels for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, according to GOP leadership aides.But in the GOP's separate budget reconciliation package, lawmakers have instructed the Energy and Commerce Committee to cut some $880 billion, which will be very difficult to do if they don't touch Medicaid.
The bottom line: It was unclear if Friday's Democratic demands on Medicaid apply to the CR or the bigger tax and spending package that has yet to fully take shape. But both House leaders are signaling to their rank-and-file that they expect party loyalty on next week's vote.
Medicaid serves lower-income adults, children, pregnant women, and people with disabilities, as well as dually-enrolled Medicare-Medicaid older adults. Despite the talking point that people on Medicaid "don't work," 92% of adults under 65 who are on Medicaid and don't receive other social security benefits work full or part-time.
While 80 million Americans are insured through Medicaid, many people don't think of themselves as "on Medicaid" -- even when they are.
Why? Because Medicaid is not branded as Medicaid in most states. If you tell a patient in South Carolina they might lose Medicaid, their eyes may glaze over. Tell them Healthy Connections is at risk? You have their attention. In Tennessee, Medicaid is TennCare and in Ohio it is the Buckeye Health Plan. In Florida, Medicaid sounds like an orange juice brand: Simply Healthcare. (Seriously, it feels like that moniker should have an exclamation point behind it.)
Adding to the confusion, many states offer Medicaid coverage contracted through private companies. These types of plans are state-funded, private insurance-branded programs (called managed care organizations) often featuring actual private insurance logos, a fact that further distances them from their federally funded origin. No wonder Tennesseans shrug when we talk about Medicaid recipients. They don't think, or even know, they are one. And if they do not know the issue applies to them, they may be less likely to oppose cuts.
In every state, we need to call Medicaid by its real name.
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This is why healthcare advocates need to translate the impact of cuts at the individual, family, and community level. Instead of saying "Republicans want to reduce Medicaid by $880 billion" try, "If Republicans' Medicaid plans come to fruition, you could lose your Buckeye Health Plan health insurance." Or try explaining how these cuts could erode their child's access to care. Nearly half of U.S. children rely on Medicaid and 40% of all births are covered by Medicaid. Cutting the program would destabilize pediatric practices, many of which already operate on thin margins. If parents think they already have to wait too long to get a well-child visit, just wait until these cuts take effect.
When Donald Trump emerged on stage with a bandaged ear he somberly — and emotionally — recounted how he survived an assassination attempt.
And then, he veered straight back into MAGA mode.
Over the course of a 90-plus-minute speech in Milwaukee — the longest acceptance speech by a presidential nominee in history — Trump boasted about meeting with the head of the Taliban and how he “got along very well” with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. He went off on MS-13, immigration, crime declining in Venezuela by 42 percent and the media calling him a braggart. He called the streets of Washington a “killing field.” And he cracked a joke about Hannibal Lecter: “He would love to have you for dinner.”
Trump’s crowning moment — set up to be a triumphant return to center stage just five days after a bullet pierced his ear at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania — turned into a meandering speech that resembled his usual rallies with macabre descriptions of a nation in decline.
If he stopped at the 25 minute mark, it would have gone down as a brilliant convention speech and proof that he was a changed man after the assassination attempt. But he’s now just proving he hasn’t changed.
— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahDispatch) July 19, 2024
Important caveat:
The rambling doesn’t matter. The sound bites were made. Tomorrow the clips will be Hulk Hogan intro and fist pumping 🇺🇸 glory. Shared on social to many impressionable people who don’t spend hours watching a political speech. The warrior image is cast.
— Luke Russert (@LukeRussert) July 19, 2024
Juliette Kayyem at The Atlantic:
When Donald Trump insinuated this week that his successor and the FBI were out to kill him, he showed how central violence has become to his conception of political leadership. The former president declared Tuesday on Truth Social, his social-media platform, that he “was shown reports Crooked Joe Biden’s DOJ, in their illegal and UnConstitutional Raid of Mar-a-Lago, AUTHORIZED THE FBI TO USE DEADLY (LETHAL FORCE).”
Trump has a way of projecting his own vices onto others. His view of presidential power is absolute—to the point that his lawyer recently argued before the Supreme Court that ordering the military to assassinate a political rival “could well be an official act.” There is probably some limiting principle to this particular argument, but the fact that the issue is even under discussion is not a good sign for our democracy. Perhaps he believes that Biden was out to shoot him because he thinks that’s an order that presidents can freely give.
The genesis of the former president’s complaint is that, when the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 to obtain classified documents that were at the center of an investigation, agents were explicitly authorized to use force. This was not remotely unusual: FBI agents are routinely armed. The “reports” that Trump saw misinterpreted the parameters of the search, which—as the security analysts Asha Rangappa and Tom Joscelyn explained in Just Security—was guided by elaborate restrictions on when weapons could be used. The FBI subsequently said it followed a “standard policy statement limiting the use of force.” Attorney General Merrick Garland noted today that similar conditions were used in a search related to classified documents at Biden’s home in Delaware.
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Since the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, Trump has become more and more apocalyptic in his language. This week, he sent another dangerous signal to his supporters: FBI agents are an armed enemy, ready to assassinate the former president. Unless, of course, Trump and his mob get to them first.
On Truth Social Thursday, Trump posted a video containing a clip of a “Trump or Death” flag being waved. The flag has been making appearances outside Trump New York criminal trial.
The person behind the flag is a Trump flag vendor who does pro-Trump banner drop stunts at sports stadiums. Trump recently praised his mugshot being unfurled during the national anthem at a Yankees game.
Donald Trump compared President Joe Biden’s administration to the secret police force of Nazi Germany in remarks at a private, closed-door donor retreat on Saturday afternoon.
The former president’s comments came as he was talking about his legal troubles, attacking the prosecutors in the cases and bemoaning the recent indictments in Arizona of several of his former top aides, along with 11 so-called fake electors from the 2020 election.
“These people are running a Gestapo administration,” Trump said, according to audio of the luncheon provided to NBC News. “And it’s the only thing they have. And it’s the only way they’re going to win in their opinion.”
“Once I got indicted, I said, well, now the gloves have to come off,” Trump added, saying Biden is “the worst president in the history of our country. He’s grossly incompetent. He’s crooked as hell. He’s the Manchurian candidate."
Marianne LeVine, Josh Dawsey and Maegan Vazquez at WP:
He called [Jack] Smith — who is prosecuting federal cases involving Trump’s handling of classified documents and his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol — a “f---ing a--hole.” He continued to mock another prosecutor, District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) of Georgia’s Fulton County, for her past relationship with former special prosecutor Nathan Wade, calling her “Mrs. Wade” and “a real beauty.”
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The event, according to the audio and attendees, was quintessential Trump. At one point, as if he were at an auction, he told the crowd: “Anyone who makes a $1 million donation right now to the Republican Party … I will let you come up and speak.” Two donors then came to the stage, and one told the crowd: “Donald J. Trump is the person that God has chosen.”
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“When you are Democrat, you start off essentially at 40 percent because you have civil service, you have the unions and you have welfare,” Trump said. “They get welfare to vote and then they cheat on top of that. They cheat.”
Our books have discussed Trump's low character, which was on display yesterday in Ohio. Marisa Iati at WP:
Former president Donald Trump ratcheted up his dehumanizing rhetoric against immigrants Saturday by saying that some who are accused of crimes are “not people.”
“I don’t know if you call them people,” he said at a rally near Dayton, Ohio. “In some cases they’re not people, in my opinion. But I’m not allowed to say that because the radical left says that’s a terrible thing to say.”
Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, was in Ohio to stump for Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, who is in a tight three-way race for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. Moreno, a businessman, is facing Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose and state Sen. Matt Dolan in Tuesday’s primary.
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Later in the rally, Trump warned it will be a “bloodbath for the country” if he is not elected. The comment came as he was promising to hike tariffs on foreign-made cars, and it was not clear exactly what Trump was referring to with his admonition.
“Now we’re going to put a 100 percent tariff on every single car that comes across [the] line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those guys — if I get elected,” he said. “Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole. That’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country.”
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Immigration is shaping up to be an explosive issue in the presidential campaign. Trump and President Biden staged dueling visits to Texas border towns last month, castigating each other for a recent surge in illegal immigration.
Trump said the influx of migrants was “a Joe Biden invasion.” Biden blamed Trump for the death of a $20 billion bipartisan bill to increase detention capacity and hire thousands of Border Patrol officers.
Trump’s comments Saturday represent an escalation of his long-harsh language on the topic. Since beginning his 2016 campaign by calling Mexican immigrants “rapists,” Trump has made inflammatory attacks on migrants a theme of all of his campaigns. He accused immigrants in October of “poisoning the blood of our country” — a remark some likened to the “contamination of the blood” concept that Adolf Hitler laid out in “Mein Kampf.” Trump has rejected that comparison and has continued to use similar language.
Trump has been referring to nonwhite people as "animals" for a very long time.
Trump began attacking DeSantis again right after DeSantis signed legislation to allow the release of grand jury documents in the Epstein case. https://t.co/LQ04FSD9M1
— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) March 16, 2024
Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good.
David Siders at Politico writes about the RINO slur: "Republican In Name Only."
Reminding base voters of the stakes of the primaries — the “potential elimination of many, many RINOs” — said Tom Tancredo, a former Republican congressman from Colorado, “helps fuel the fire.”
While the RINO term has been employed in some form for more than 100 years, its meaning has shifted over time. In previous decades, a Republican risked getting tagged as a RINO for supporting tax increases, gun control or abortion rights. Today, in a reflection of the GOP’s murkier ideological grounding in the Trump era, it’s a term reserved almost exclusively for lack of fealty to Trump.
The phrase’s significance, said Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist who was a co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, is in its ability to “enforce discipline among the tribe.”
“What used to be about ideology is now about loyalty,” Madrid said. “The party no longer has orthodoxy, so now it’s, ‘You’re not loyal.’”
The evidence of that is explicit. On ads on Facebook last year, one right-wing PAC spent heavily blistering Republicans who voted to impeach Trump or to investigate the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, labeling them “RINO turncoats” or “RINO traitors” — even “RINO communist traitors.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has begun running social media messages asking voters to choose “RINO Establishment vs. Trump” — juxtaposing an image of him and Trump against one of George P. Bush and his father, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Claire Wirth, a Republican running to unseat Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), is calling out “RINO Republicans” in a video, suggesting Massie’s crime is that he “turned his back on President Trump.”
The use of RINO has become so widespread that it can now include almost any Republican, including some of the most conservative stalwarts in the party. During just the past six months, the list of Republicans Trump has branded with the term includes Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and “RINO Congressman Peter Meijer.” “Loser Liz Cheney” is a Republican-In-Name-Only. So is Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, former President George W. Bush and the entire Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. Rejection of Trump’s false claims of election fraud — or worse, a vote to impeach the former president — are common threads among those targeted by the former president for the insult.
Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses the political impact of COVID.
On March 11, 2020, Trump addressed the nation about the crisis.
He screwed up. The next day, Ellie Hall reported at Buzzfeed:
President Donald Trump addressed the nation Wednesday night to announce how the government plans to combat the spread of the coronavirus. He spoke for about 9.5 minutes during primetime television — and got three huge things wrong, spreading confusion and sending his aides and experts scrambling to get the right information out.
1. The 30-day European travel ban DOES NOT apply to US citizens or permanent residents.
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2. The European travel restrictions actually DO NOT apply to cargo.
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3. Insurance companies are waiving copayments for COVID-19 testing, NOT treatment.
In Defying the Odds, we discuss the 2016 campaign. The 2019 update includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms. The 2020 race, the subject of our next book, is well underway. It unfolds as Coronavirus presents unprecedented challenges to public policy and the electoral process.
The fundamentals usually determine elections. But campaigns can matter at the margins, and in a close race, the margins matter.
At the close, Trump's campaign is incompetent.
Anna Palmer and Jake Sherman at Politico:Was chance that GDP growth story would be big last-minute Trump boost but doesn’t even look likely to register. Several things undermine:
— Matt Grossmann (@MattGrossmann) October 29, 2020
1 Coverage is elsewhere
2 COVID fears
3 Market reaction
4 News outlets not touting as pure good news
5 Conservative media/Trump pre-occupied
JUST TAKE A LOOK AT HOW TRUMP talked about the weekly jobless claims on Thursday -- he said they were boring: “Weekly jobless claims, this is boring but it’s really good, just hit a seven-month low.” He then went on to talk about Fox News’ JOHN ROBERTS.
TRUMP ON GDP, in Tampa: “You see the number today? 33.1 GDP. The biggest in the history of our country by almost triple, right? Almost triple. Now it’s very much bigger than any GDP we’ve ever had. You have to go back to the 1950s, and then it’s less than half. This is the greatest number, 33.1%.” HE THEN continued on, talking about other items.
THE PRESIDENT SEEMS TO BELIEVE HUNTER BIDEN is a better closing message. HERE’S TRUMP IN TAMPA: “I get a call from all the experts, right? Guys that ran for president six, seven, eight times. Never got past the first round, but they’re calling me up, ‘Sir, you shouldn’t be speaking about Hunter. You shouldn’t be saying bad things about Biden because nobody cares.’ I disagree. Maybe that’s why I’m here and they’re not. But they say, ‘Talk about your economic success. Talk about 33.1%, the greatest in history.’ Now, look, if I do, I mean, how many times can I say it? I’ll say it five or six times during the speech. 33.1.”
“But you look at that and you look at Tucker Carlson, what he did the other night. Great. Great. And followed up by Sean and followed up by Laura. And the next day, nothing at all, right?”
MUCH OF THIS IS EERILY REMINISCENT of 2016, when HILLARY CLINTON’S email issues dominated the final days of the campaign. But this time, TRUMP is trying to inject into the campaign a story that’s only existing in the right-wing mediasphere. As we have mentioned, the WSJ and other right-leaning, nonpartisan and left-leaning outlets haven’t found any evidence that JOE BIDEN got involved in his son’s business activities. On Thursday night, Sinclair’s JAMES ROSEN reported that the FBI is looking into HUNTER BIDEN -- but, again, this story seems to be chiefly carried by Sinclair.
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz told "Axios on HBO" he doesn't think the Trump campaign's focus on the Biden family's business dealings are having any sway with voters. The big picture: After watching the Trump-Biden debate with "Axios on HBO" on Thursday night, Cruz said he thought Trump had done very well. But when asked whether he thought voters were moved by the release of the Hunter Biden emails, Cruz replied, "I don't think it moves a single voter." Cruz also said that "one of Biden's best points was when he said, 'All of these attacks back and forth about my family and his family, they don't matter. What matters is your family.'"
Trump likes rallies. Susan Milligan reports at US News:
But voters in battleground states do not approve of Trump's largely maskless, packed rallies, a poll released Wednesday by the Democratic super PAC Priorities USA found. And more troubling for the president, voters in those states also overwhelmingly blame the president for the second wave of coronavirus infections across the country.
The survey of six battleground states – Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – found that majorities of voters saw Trump "much less" or "somewhat less" favorably because of his practice of holding in-person rallies, with people standing shoulder to shoulder and not wearing masks.
...Dareh Gregorian at NBC:
In Arizona, 56% saw Trump less favorably because of his rallies compared to 26% who saw him "much more" or "somewhat more" favorably; in Florida, the split was 58% unfavorable to 22% favorable; in Michigan, it was 57% unfavorable to 25% favorable; in North Carolina, it was 55% unfavorable to 25% favorable; in Pennsylvania, the divide was 58% unfavorable to 22% favorable; and in Wisconsin, it was 55% unfavorable to 25% favorable, according to the poll.
Despite warnings from public health officials and protests from some local political leaders, Trump has conducted an active in-person campaign during the pandemic, stepping up his rally schedule in recent weeks while he remains stubbornly behind Biden in the polls.
A crowded Trump rally in steamy Tampa, Florida, on Thursday resulted in 17 attendees needing medical attention, with a dozen being taken to the hospital, fire officials told NBC News.
Trump spoke for just under an hour in 87-degree heat at the event outside of Raymond James Stadium to a largely mask-less group of supporters.
A fire truck at the rear of the rally sprayed water in the air to rain down on some rallygoers, but the heat was too much for some attendees, many of whom had been waiting for hours. Tampa Fire Rescue said one of the attendees fainted and another had a seizure. The other 10 who were taken to the hospital were just listed as "sick" with no other details.
The incident came two days after 30 rallygoers in Omaha, Nebraska, needed medical attention after transportation issues resulted in hundreds of attendees being stuck for hours in the freezing cold. Officials said seven were taken to area hospitals with a variety of ailments.
For months, President Donald Trump and his campaign have been systematically lowering expectations for Joe Biden by painting him as a senile old man who can’t string two sentence together. So when he performed far better than anticipated at the Democratic National Convention Thursday night, even the ultra-conservative hosts on Fox News seemed surprised.
Donald Trump Jr., however, seemed to be riding high during an appearance on Fox following the closing night of the DNC. He was swiftly brought back down to earth by Laura Ingraham. “He did beat expectations, Don,” she said as the broad smile disappeared from Trump Jr.’s face. “I mean, people were expecting him to flub every line and have a senior moment.”
Trump Jr. couldn’t deny the reality of what she was saying, so he resorted to falsely accusing Biden of supposedly lying about President Trump’s Charlottesville comments about the “very fine people” on both sides of that 2017 clash between white supremacists and anti-racists.
In 1968, former Alabama governor George Wallace carried several Southern states under the banner of the American Independent Party. A few years earlier, he had literally stood in the schoolhouse door as federal officials arrived to integrate the University of Alabama. Now he was running as a fighter for the little guy, attacking the “pseudo-intellectuals and the theoreticians and some professors and some newspaper editors and some judges and some preachers” who looked down on “the pipe-fitter, the communications worker, the fireman, the policeman, the barber, the white-collar worker.” Wallace boasted that he would run over demonstrators who tried to lie down in front of his car. Though he never did any such thing, his supporters cheered the threat. Columnist David Broder wrote: “When Wallace has finished his harangue, the emotion is closer to that of a lynch mob -- a pack of angry, frustrated men and women, who see his cause, not just as a chance for victory but as a guarantee of vengeance against all who have affronted them for so long.”
We are now in the process of defeating the radical left, the Marxists, the anarchists, the agitators, the looters, and people who, in many instances, have absolutely no clue what they are doing...Their goal is demolition. Our goal is not to destroy the greatest structure on Earth, what we have built: The United States of America.
This attack on our liberty, our magnificent liberty, must be stopped, and it will be stopped very quickly. We will expose this dangerous movement, protect our nation’s children, end this radical assault, and preserve our beloved American way of life.
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Make no mistake: this left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution. In so doing, they would destroy the very civilization that rescued billions from poverty, disease, violence, and hunger, and that lifted humanity to new heights of achievement, discovery, and progress...Their goal is not a better America, their goal is the end of America.
Day after day, we are exposing the depravity, dishonesty and sickness of the corrupt Washington establishment — and with your help, we are going to complete the mission and DRAIN THE SWAMP! #KAG2020 pic.twitter.com/SM5hocqoNi— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 11, 2019
Our system is under attack: the property system, the free enterprise system, and local government. Anarchy prevails today in the streets of the large cities of our country, making it unsafe for you to even go to a political rally here in Madison Square Garden, and that is a sad commentary. Both national parties in the last number of years have kowtowed to every anarchist that has roamed the streets. I want to say before I start on this any longer, that I'm not talking about race. The overwhelming majority of all races in this country are against the breakdown of law and order as much as those who are assembled here tonight. It's a few anarchists, a few activists, a few militants, a few revolutionaries, and a few Communists. But your day, of course, is going to be over soon. The American people are not going to stand by and see the security of our nation imperiled, and they're not going to stand by and see this nation destroyed, I can assure you that.
The liberals and the left-wingers in both national parties have brought us to the domestic mess we are in now.
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I'm talking about law and order. The Supreme Court of our country has hand-cuffed the police, and tonight if you walk out of this building and are knocked in the head, the person who knocks you in the head is out of jail before you get in the hospital, and on Monday morning, they'll try a policeman about it. I can say I'm going to give the total support of the presidency to the policemen and the firemen in this country, and I'm going to say, you enforce the law and you make it safe on the streets, and the president of the United States will stand with you. My election as president is going to put some backbone in the backs of some mayors and governors I know through the length and breadth of this country.
You had better be thankful for the police and the firemen of this country. If it were not for them, you couldn't even ride in the streets, much less walk in the streets, of our large cities. Yes, the Kerner Commission Report, recently written by Republicans and Democrats, said that you are to blame for the breakdown of law and order, and that the police are to blame. Well, you know, of course, you aren't to blame. They said we have a sick society. Well, we don't have any sick society. We have a sick Supreme Court and some sick politicians in Washington, that's who's sick in our country.
The America First presidency collided with a global pandemic Wednesday night. The result did not appear to reassure skittish markets or a nervous nation.
President Donald Trump relied on a familiar playbook as he spoke in a prime-time address from the Oval Office, announcing sweeping new restrictions on travel from Europe and scattered executive actions to help workers and businesses rocked by what he labeled a “foreign virus.”
He blamed allies for not adopting tough immigration measures that he said had prevented a wider outbreak in the U.S. But the combative approach and small-bore measures seemed only to highlight the president’s struggles to confront the most consequential moment of his presidency.
And even in a 10-minute address, Trump couldn’t stick to the facts.
He overstated the European travel restrictions, saying he was “suspending all travel” from the continent, and suggested they would also apply to trade. He tweeted later that trade wouldn’t be affected, and the Department of Homeland Security clarified that the restriction applies generally to foreigners who’ve been in Europe within 14 days.
He said U.S. health insurers had agreed to waive co-payments for coronavirus treatment. A spokeswoman for America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group, said its members had agreed only to waive co-payments for testing.
To those claiming what Trump said the speech was correct, here’s the transcript of the relevant section pic.twitter.com/40L0YOTQec— Frida Ghitis (@FridaGhitis) March 12, 2020
The White House inadvertently aired Trump talking off-camera before giving his address, including him saying "ah, fuck" and asking if "anybody has any white stuff" pic.twitter.com/gygZIPlsOa— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) March 12, 2020
Trump immediately after his #COVID19 speech, when he didn’t realize the cameras were still on—you have to see this for yourself.— Leah McElrath 🏳️🌈 (@leahmcelrath) March 12, 2020
WATCH 🚨👇🏼🚨pic.twitter.com/DEpaqE4L85