The Donald Trump Score Card

Trump moved the coronavirus task force meeting out of the White House and didn't attend it. He hasn't attended a task force public briefing since late April when the last one was held.



Measures to protect Trump from coronavirus scale up even as he seeks to move on
By Kevin Liptak and Kaitlan Collins, CNN
Updated 11:18 PM ET, Fri June 26, 2020

Measures to protect Trump from coronavirus scale up even as he seeks to move on - CNNPolitics

excerpt:

"None of the nation's top health experts -- dropped off in the circular drive in front of the Department of Health and Human Service -- seemed overly concerned that Trump wasn't there. The coronavirus task force meeting had been moved from the White House Situation Room to the health agency's headquarters without much explanation. Vice President Mike Pence arrived with his security in tow and several aides were driven from the West Wing in black suburbans.

As the meeting got underway, the President was back at the White House tweeting about attempts to tear down statues and abruptly canceling a planned trip to New Jersey so he could, he claimed, ensure that "law and order" is maintained over the weekend.

His absence at the meeting across town seemed largely unremarkable to his staff; Trump hasn't attended a formal task force meeting since April, two sources familiar with his attendance say."

 

Trump Seems Resigned Biden Will Win: ‘He’s Going to Be Your President’
‘PEOPLE DON’T LOVE ME’
The remark comes after Trump told an Arizona reporter that Biden “will complete” the border wall.
Justin Baragona, Contributing Editor
Published Jun. 25, 2020 11:12PM ET
Updated Jun. 26, 2020 10:18AM ET

Trump Seems Resigned Biden Will Win: ‘He’s Going to Be Your President’

excerpt:

"For the second time this week, President Donald Trump appeared almost resigned to the idea that former Vice President Joe Biden will beat him in November, telling Fox News’ Sean Hannity that Biden “is going to be president because some people don’t love me.”"

 

And just think, a few weeks ago in March it was just one China man coming in from China ... just one. And Trump said it would all go away in two weeks, huh?

 

Biden can complete the wall and Trump should complete his mental health treatment.

 

Trump cowered away from being the wartime president during a deadly pandemic whose remedy required real expertise that he lacked.

He has instead opted for being the valiant warrior for his pet cultural wars, the fictitious ones that lend themselves well to being waged via Twitter.



Measures to protect Trump from coronavirus scale up even as he seeks to move on - CNNPolitics

excerpt:

"Those tasked with getting Trump reelected have grown worried about polls showing voters rejecting how he's handled the outbreak so far. Yet Trump himself has shown little willingness to readopt the wartime stance he once assumed daily from the White House briefing room, leaving the public messaging to others.

"At some point in the future, historians will marvel at the fact that the President lost ground during a pandemic and then during mass riots," the Fox News host Tucker Carlson said during his opening monologue Thursday night. "Both crises should have highlighted his strengths. They were naturals for him."

"An awful lot of people voted for Donald Trump precisely to avoid a moment we are now in," Carlson said.

 

Trump said that if Biden doesn't complete the border wall, the public would revolt.

A preponderance of the evidence shows that Trump's wall is low on the public agenda with most not in favor of it.

Congress, including the Republicans, was clearly not in favor of it. Trump failed at convincing Congress to appropriate money for it, which is why Trump had to resort to declaring a (fake) national emergecy and repurpose military money to pay for it. A federal appeals court has ruled that his repurposing is illegal.

It's another instance of Trump not being in touch with reality and worried that his monument wall might not be completed if he isn't reelected.

 

Trump packaged his border wall in the wrong manner. His bigoted, anti-immigrant persona poisoned a view that the public once had that a border wall might be useful.

Now Trump is becoming so desperate that he's trying to coerce Biden to finish the wall for him because he claims that the public will revolt against Biden when he is the new president if he doesn't complete it.



Americans Used to Support a Border Wall. What Changed Their Minds?
By Emily Ekins
This article appeared in the The Federalist on January 14, 2019.
January 14, 2019

Americans Used to Support a Border Wall. What Changed Their Minds?

excerpt:

"There are useful lessons here about how Americans changed their minds on the border wall. Facts and numbers about the cost-ineffectiveness of building a 2,000-mile wall across diverse geological terrain were available before 2015 and did not change many minds. Telling people that it costs money the country doesn’t have didn’t work. Explaining that unauthorized immigration will still continue despite a tremendous amount of money spent also hasn’t been particularly persuasive.

Instead, many people changed their minds about a border wall when they came to view it as a symbol of exclusion and animus toward immigrants and racial minorities and thus immoral. While many advocates of the border wall insist the wall is a humanitarian cause and is necessary for border security, they are talking past those who view it as a racialized symbol.

Perhaps there’s something to be learned here. Sometimes persuasion requires more than simply facts and reason. But persuasion needs the flavor of righteousness for people to care enough to change their minds and for it to stick."

 

The coronavirus has crippled Trump's ability to implement his agenda. An example is the damage that the virus and Trump's lackluster reponse inflicted onto the economy, the only metric that Trump has scored higher than 50% approval consistently.

Another example concerns migrant children in dentention centers that are susceptible to the virus. Court rulings against Trump stemming from the virus can spoil Trump's desire to maintain a strongarm persona against outsiders.



Government must release migrant children in detention centers because of coronavirus, judge orders
Dennis Romero
Published Sat, Jun 27 202012:23 AM EDT
Updated Sat, Jun 27 202012:57 AM EDT

Government must release migrant children in detention centers because of coronavirus, judge orders

 

The White House should have used a bird from North Korea or Russia. It likely would have been fond of Trump instead of attacking him.

 

The American eagle attacking Trump is reminiscent of the adorable, fuzzy, tribble creatures on Star Trek instinctively being able to recognize a Klingon and squeak loudly at one. The Klingons would shy away from the tribbles, like Trump cowering away from the eagle.

Animals sometimes seem to be able to instinctively recognize an adversary.

 

Pence's visits to FL and AZ have been postponed due to a resurgence of coronavirus cases.

Trump's visit to NJ was canceled. Speculation is that it was because of a quarantine that Gov. Murphy ordered for visitors from other states that have been experiencing a resurgence of the virus. Trump denies it and says he's staying in DC to preserve law and order.



Trump Campaign Postpones Pence Events In Arizona And Florida After Coronavirus Spikes

Trump says he canceled New Jersey trip to ensure 'law & order is enforced' in Washington, DC

 

He's being Bunker Boy again?

 

The 'law and order' Trump has repeatedly used copyrighted music without permission.


Rolling Stones Working With BMI to Stop Trump’s Use of ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ at Rallies
BMI says that campaign usage is covered by a Political Entities License, and songwriters can deny use. The Stones are threatening to sue if Trump persists.
By Chris Willman
June 27, 2020

Rolling Stones Working With BMI to Stop Trump’s Use of Song at Rallies – Variety

 

The net worth of The Stones is more than Trump's... They can hire better lawyers.

 

It's consistent with Trump's obsession with not wanting to see an empty seat at his rallies.



Video appears to show Trump campaign removing social-distancing stickers in Tulsa
Washington Post shares clip of volunteers apparently pulling stickers saying ‘do not sit here’ from seats in BOK Center
Guardian staff
Published on Sat 27 Jun 2020 17.16 EDT

Video appears to show Trump campaign removing social-distancing stickers in Tulsa

excerpt:

"The story was originally reported in Billboard magazine, which said thousands of the stickers were removed. Billboard quoted Doug Thornton – a senior executive at the firm that owns the BOK Center – as saying: “They also told us that they didn’t want any signs posted saying we should social distance in the venue.”

Trump’s Tulsa rally was held as coronavirus cases were rising in Oklahoma and sparked widespread condemnation from local health officials, as well as the president’s critics.

Since the rally, eight Trump staffers have tested positive for the virus and many more have been directed to self-quarantine. On Friday night, according to ABC News, campaign staff who were in Tulsa were emailed and told they “are required to obtain a negative Covid-19 test this weekend”"

 

Trump's remarks to the governor of North Carolina sum up his obsession with the appearance of packed attendance which far exceeds any concerns about people spreading the virus.


Workers removed thousands of social distancing stickers before Trump’s Tulsa rally, according to video and a person familiar with the set-up
By Joshua Partlow and Josh Dawsey
June 27, 2020 at 3:05 p.m. EDT

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...29c3be-b801-11ea-9b0f-c797548c1154_story.html

excerpt:

"Trump had told Gov. Roy Cooper during a May 29 phone call that he would not hold a socially-distanced convention in Charlotte because he had never had an empty seat since he came down the escalator at the start of his presidential campaign in 2015."

 

Trump Says Biden Will Finish the Border Wall: There Would Be a ‘Revolution If They Didn’t’
Darragh Roche
June 26, 2020

Trump Says Biden Will Finish the Border Wall: There Would Be a ‘Revolution If They Didn’t’

excerpt:

"President Donald Trump has claimed that former Vice President Joe Biden will finish the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border if he wins the presidential election in November. Trump warned that Biden would have to finish construction or face the consequences.

“What he wants open borders, he wants people pouring into our country, and he wants, you know, drugs and all the other problem,” Trump told Fox 10 Phoenix during his visit to a section of the wall in Arizona.

“You’ll never solve it without this,” he said. “No, he’ll complete it. You’d have a revolution if they didn’t do it.”

“People are so happy with it,” the President said. “And this is a large piece but wherever we have the wall, it just stops a dead. You can’t get over it. It stops at dead.”"

 

Trump can build walls, issue orders to curtail visas, and mock the virus as the China virus and Kung Flu to the delight of his bigoted faithful, but the market realities persist in spite of his attempts to throw a wrench in the global gearbox.



Urged by Trump to Decouple, U.S. Companies Want More China Faster
Brendan Murray. Bloomberg
June 28, 2020

Urged by Trump to Decouple, U.S. Companies Want More China Faster

excerpt:

"With the extra speed comes a price that’s as much as double the cost of standard transpacific service, which is already skyrocketing because the world’s biggest shipping companies have scaled back capacity by about 25% this quarter and may cut it 10% in the third quarter, according to industry observers. They’re downshifting because broadly they see demand recovering only slowly and plenty of fog on the global economic horizon.

But for now, shipping demand from some companies remains brisk, justifying the added import cost of fast delivery to meet the burst of online shopping for everything from protective medical gear to baby pools for the backyard.

Haifa, Israel-based Zim Integrated Shipping Services Ltd., which operates the Melina, Honolulu-based Matson Inc. and CMA CGM SA of France are among those offering the express service between China and the U.S. — the kind of links that show the difficulty President Donald Trump faces to achieve a “complete decoupling” of the worlds largest economies and bringing production back home."

 

He lost me at "some"

 

Another rmilitary-themed 4th of July event for Trump in 2020 at U.S. taxpayer expense.



1,700 troops will support Trump's 4th of July celebration plans, Pentagon says
Savannah Behrmann, USA TODAY
Published 9:28 p.m. ET June 26, 2020
Updated 12:05 p.m. ET June 28, 2020

Pentagon: 1,700 troops will support Trump's July Fourth celebration

excerpt:

"WASHINGTON – The Pentagon announced Friday that for the second year in a row, the Department of Defense will provide troops and substantial support to President Donald Trump's expanded Independence Day celebrations.

About 1,700 troops will provide support to the Department of the Interior with "Salute to America" celebrations in Washington, D.C., as well as flyovers of other cities, including New York, Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia and the Mount Rushmore National Memorial, Lt. Col. Chris Mitchell, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement.

"The highlight of this year's celebration will be our salute to the Great Cities of the American Revolution.," Mitchell said. "The flyovers will begin in Boston and proceed to New York City, Philadelphia and Baltimore. From there they will join other Department of Defense and heritage aircraft in the Salute to America over our nation's capital.""