The Donald Trump Score Card

Chris Wallace reacts to Trump's White House RNC, Pompeo remarks: ‘All of this has never happened before’
'I don't know what personal capacity a secretary of state has,' Wallace says after Pompeo speech
By Angelica Stabile | Fox News
August 26, 2020

Chris Wallace reacts to Trump's White House RNC, Pompeo remarks: ‘All of this has never happened before’

excerpt:

“We do need to point out that secretaries of state have never participated in political speeches,” he said. “In fact, it's a regulation of the State Department that nobody that's in the State Department can attend a political event, let alone participate in it. The State Department said, 'Well, he's operating in his personal capacity.' But I don't know what personal capacity a secretary of state has.”

 

The photo of a masked Trump supported in a large section of empty seats at the Tulsa rally is sorrowful for Trump who has been addicted to filled arenas adulating him like a rock star. It once charged his base and aided his funded raising. He was so spoiled that he would become upset if only a few seats were empty out of 20,000.

The recovery from the Great Recession has long since passed. Trump has little traction with his appeals to the down-and-outers who have been damaged by his trade wars, his mismanagement of the coronavirus, and his sabotage of the Affordable Care Act. He is telling the downtrodden that he has a feeling they will do better in 2021, a remark he made at his optics-driven Lincoln monument 'town hall' meeting to a woman about to be evicted.

 

Trump has filled the White House with his own personal swamp. It makes him a hypocritical nepotist who in 2016 railed against the government as a dissident via the mouth of Bannon whom he later fired and who was later arrested for "We Build The Wall' fraud on a yacht owned by a fugitive billionaire. He's now relying on political stunts such as attorney general Barr trying to write a narrative that criminalizes the Mueller investigation and alleges that Ukraine was responsible for the 2016 election meddling, not Russia.

Trump's 2020 campaign has been reduced to scare tactics that try to paint Biden as a radical leftist instead of grappling with the issue of why the public has become so frustrated with the abusive behavior of some police. Trump continues his support of the police, particular dissident sheriffs like Arpaio. Trump had a whole group of police officers at a grand stand photo-op event at the White House and many of them had sordid backgrounds.

Trump has shown that he has almost no redeeming attributes to use in contingency situations such as the coronavirus pandemic. The economy was the only modality for which he could muster over 50% in polls, and that one has been damaged by the coronavirus, and more than it would have been had he not so badly mishandled it.

It leaves him in a situation where he will dig a deeper hole with his appeals to bigotry and use of cheap tricks to try to garner support, such as retweeting QAnon and pardoning the deceased Susan B. Anthony (who never paid her fine because it would have acknowledged guilt), a pardon she clearly wouldn't have wanted because it acknowledges guilt. Trump wouldn't have asked why it took so long for a president to pardon her if he had taken the time to understand that fact.

 

Sounds like advanced Republican rectum speech.

 

You never heard of Ronald Reagan and his White House Office of Management and Budget? Have you ever been to America? Why do you always make such baseless statements?

 

Did he come here as an illegal?

 

The illegals unload trucks on Bandini Boulevard in Vernon. I don't think he's that tough.

 

And half of it was false assertions. The Shia fighters of Iraq kicked out or killed the ISIS fighters.

 

Amid Souring US Ties, China’s Foreign Minister Heads to Western Europe
Beijing is keen to keep Europe from mirroring Washington’s hardened China stance.
By Shannon Tiezzi
August 24, 2020

Amid Souring US Ties, China’s Foreign Minister Heads to Western Europe

excerpt:

"Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will visit Europe this week, his first trip abroad since the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the world. He will be traveling to Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, France, and Germany from August 25 to September 1, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced.

Wang has not been abroad since February, when he attended an “emergency meeting” on the coronavirus outbreak with his ASEAN counterparts in Laos. The choice of Europe as China’s return to some form of a diplomatic normal thus is striking. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian told reporters on Monday that Wang’s trip shows “the importance attached to China-European relations by both sides.”

“As COVID-19 adds to the instability and uncertainties in the international landscape, it is of even greater significance for China and Europe, two major forces, markets and civilizations in the world, to work together on strengthening international solidarity against the pandemic, upholding multilateralism, and jumpstarting the world economy,” Zhao added."

 

Case in point from the NY Times:

"In an abrupt swerve from the dire tone of the convention’s first night, Mr. Trump staged a grab-bag of gauzy events and personal testimonials aimed in particular at female and minority voters. In videos recorded at the White House, Mr. Trump pardoned a Nevada man convicted of bank robbery and swore in five new American citizens, all of them people of color, in a miniature naturalization ceremony."

 

The videos of his naturalization ceremony were recorded inside the White House with Trump making a lofty entrance with military honor guards at the sides of the doorway, the same style as autocrats.

He used this video from inside the White House for the RNC convention, melding his campaigning with White House officials and property.

 

The coronavirus has put a major dent in Trump fundraising abilities which rely on his rock star rallies at packed venues to charge up his base and donations.



Trump goes dark on TV as early voting looms
The president is getting badly outspent in key battleground states.
By ALEX ISENSTADT
08/26/2020 04:30 AM EDT

Trump goes dark on TV as early voting looms

excerpt:

"August has been a blowout: Trump has been outspent on TV more than 2-to-1 over the past month, according to the media tracking firm Advertising Analytics. And in the past two weeks, Joe Biden is outpacing the president more than 5-to-1.

The shortfall comes at a pivotal moment in the campaign, with Biden essentially monopolizing TV advertising in key battlegrounds before the start of early voting. Trump has ceded the airwaves in Michigan and Pennsylvania, where he’s gone dark in August. In Wisconsin, Trump has been outgunned more than 8-to-1.

The president is not slated to be on the airwaves anywhere during the final week of the month, as Republicans hold their convention.

It’s a jarring turn of events for a reelection effort that has long promoted itself as a financial powerhouse and until recently had a heavy TV presence. And it’s exceedingly rare to see a sitting president go dark so close to an election. But the Trump campaign has seen its long-standing cash advantage over Biden dwindle to just about $20 million, according to the most recent financial disclosures, even as Biden pours money into commercials."

 

For the most part, Republicans in DC are quiet about Trump's melding of White House property and officials with his electoral activities.

Pompeo used a hastily arranged U.S. taxpayer trip to Jerusalem to plug Trump at the RNC convention, claiming that he was only acting in 'personal capacity'. He's the first sitting secretary of state to engage in such behavior that can be deemed to be in political capacity, not personal. Jerusalem is the controversial location of the new U.S. embassy that is being built to the chagrin of Palestinians and other groups in the Middle East.

 

Trump Leverages Powers of Office as He Seeks to Broaden Appeal
In an abrupt swerve from the dire tone of the convention’s first night, President Trump staged a grab-bag of gauzy events and personal testimonials aimed at female and minority voters. His program blurred the lines between campaigning and governing.
By Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin
Aug. 26, 2020
Updated 1:03 p.m. ET

Trump Leverages Powers of Office as He Seeks to Broaden Appeal

excerpt:

"Had there been any doubt about the dimensions of Mr. Trump’s political persona, and the license he is willing to take with his role as the country’s chief executive, the first two nights of the Republican convention would have dispensed with it. Mr. Pompeo’s appearance, the pardon and the parade of family members who would pay tribute to the president were stark reminders of Mr. Trump’s ability to impose his will on the party’s signature event of the election cycle.

When reports were first published that Mr. Trump was considering hosting part of the convention from the White House, a handful of Republican lawmakers objected, pointing to potential ethics violations. But once it became clear that the president intended to use his taxpayer-funded residence for the convention, G.O.P. officials quickly muted their criticism.

And in keeping with Mr. Trump’s preferences, and not wanting to remind viewers of the coronavirus, nobody who appeared during the course of the evening wore a face mask."

 

In her high-volume, screeching RNC convention speech, Guilfoyle referred to her mother as an immigrant, even though Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory and its residents are U.S. citizens.

Guilfoyle seems be trying to portray herself as a first generation American with an immigrant mother who is in Trump's orbit (because she's dating his son), which somehow is supposed to make the Latino community comfortable with Trump after all the nasty remarks he has made about Latin Americans during his term.

 

Trump sounded like he thought Puerto Rico was on the other side of the planet in a big ocean when he was looking for an excuse for his lax response to a hurricane.

 

"it's an island, surrounded by... big water" ~ Donald J. Trump

 

Why does a troll do anything?

Answer: To get attention and to incite others.

 

Trumps campaign paid 2.3 million from donors to his businesses. :Illegal. Again.

 

He thinks the laws are made for us, not for him.