A journalist who attended President Donald Trump’s rally in Tulsa last week said Friday he has tested positive for the coronavirus, the AP reports.
Archives for June 26, 2020 at 10:42 pm EDT
Roger Stone Ordered to Report to Prison on July 14
“A federal judge has ordered Roger Stone to report to prison July 14, granting him a two-week delay because of the coronavirus pandemic, but not the two months that President Trump’s confidant had requested with prosecutors’ assent,” the Washington Post reports.
Trump Explains His Change In Weekend Plans
President Trump on Twitter:
“I was going to go to Bedminster, New Jersey, this weekend, but wanted to stay in Washington, D.C. to make sure LAW & ORDER is enforced. The arsonists, anarchists, looters, and agitators have been largely stopped… I am doing what is necessary to keep our communities safe — and these people will be brought to Justice!”
Most Americans Will Be Banned from Travel to Europe
“The European Union will bar most travelers from the United States, Russia, and dozens of other countries considered too risky because they have not controlled the coronavirus outbreak,” the New York Times reports.
“The exclusion of the United States, an important source of tourism to the European Union, represented a stinging rebuke to the Trump administration’s management of the coronavirus scourge.”
Justices Won’t Force Texas to Offer Mail Voting
“The Supreme Court declined Friday to force Texas officials to offer mail-in ballots to all voters in the state because of the threat of the coronavirus, not just those over 65,” the Washington Post reports.
“The justices, without comment, turned down a request from the Texas Democratic Party to reinstate a district judge’s order that would affect the upcoming primary election in July and the general election in November.”
Russia Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops
“American intelligence officials have concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan — including targeting American troops — amid the peace talks to end the long-running war there,” the New York Times reports.
“Islamist militants, or armed criminal elements closely associated with them, are believed to have collected some bounty money… Twenty Americans were killed in combat in Afghanistan in 2019, but it was not clear which killings were under suspicion.”
“The intelligence finding was briefed to President Trump… Officials developed a menu of potential options — starting with making a diplomatic complaint to Moscow and a demand that it stop, along with an escalating series of sanctions and other possible responses, but the White House has yet to authorize any step.”
House Votes to Make D.C. the 51st State
“For the first time since the establishment of the District of Columbia 230 years ago, the House of Representatives voted to declare the city as the nation’s 51st state, a legislative milestone that supporters say begins to right historic wrongs,” the Washington Post reports.
Every House Republican voted against the bill, and one Democratic congressman — Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN) — also voted “no.”
CNN: Why D.C. should (and should not) be a state.
Trump Losing the Battle for the Suburbs
“Recent polls show President Trump losing ground to Joe Biden across a wide range of demographic groups, but his standing with suburban voters is particularly sobering for his re-election chances,” Bloomberg reports.
“Biden leads Trump 60% to 35% in suburban areas, according to an NPR/PBS/Marist poll released Friday. Trump won those areas in 2016, 49% to 45% for Hillary Clinton, as he made inroads in working-class suburbs that formerly supported Democrats.”
“Suburban women are particularly problematic for Trump. Women from suburbs and small cities support Biden 64% to 35%. Men from the same places support Biden 48% to 44%.”
Founder of Re-Open Maryland Tests Positive
“A Maryland man who organized rallies to pressure Gov. Larry Hogan to lift the state’s stay-home order says he has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, and does not plan to provide names of people with whom he had contact to public health officials for contact tracing,” the Washington Post reports.
Working Class White Women Are Turning on Trump
“President Trump’s storied grip on the white working class is weakening among women, threatening both his reelection prospects and his party’s efforts to improve its standing with female voters,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
“While working-class men remain among Trump’s most loyal backers, defections among their wives, sisters and daughters are a big part of the president’s recent slide in opinion polls.”
Trump Adviser Gets 10 Years In Child Sex Case
“George Nader, who was a key witness in the Russia investigation and informally advised President Trump’s team on foreign policy, was sentenced on Friday to 10 years in prison by a federal judge in Virginia, stemming from his convictions on child sex charges,” CNN reports.
Push to Throw Out Obamacare Is Nightmare for GOP
“President Trump insists on the campaign trail that he wants to protect insurance coverage for people with preexisting conditions. His legal team just told the Supreme Court otherwise,” the James Hohmann reports.
“The Trump team’s core argument is that every Republican who voted for the tax cuts three years ago knowingly voted to destroy the 2010 law in its entirely, not just to get rid of the mandate that individuals buy health insurance. And, because the Supreme Court previously upheld the constitutionality of the law on the grounds that the individual mandate is a tax, Trump’s lawyers say that the whole system became invalid once Congress got rid of the penalty for not carrying health insurance.”
“The brief is full of little gifts like this to Joe Biden and Democrats who hope to ride his coattails down the ballot.”
Trump Cancels Weekend Trip to New Jersey
President Trump abrubptly canceled his weekend trip to his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, the New York Times reports.
Trump previously said he would not honor New Jersey’s quarantine order in making the trip.
Vote-By-Mail Demonizing Drives Down GOP Participation
“President Trump’s extreme opposition to mail-in ballots is more likely hurting him and down-ballot Republicans than it is helping him,” the Washington Examiner reports.
“Mounting evidence in voter registration data, a survey, and organizer anecdotes shows that instead of preventing the voting method from being a major factor in the November election, his stance is turning Republican voters off from using the method entirely, which could have the effect of depressing Republican votes.”
Another Poll Shows Biden Well Ahead Nationally
A new NPR/PBS/Marist poll finds Joe Biden leading Donald Trump nationally in the presidential race, 52% to 44%.
Trump’s approval rate is 41% to 57%.
Trump Retreats to His Hannity Bunker
Susan Glasser: “June began poorly for President Trump, and it’s ending worse. Despite his optimistic pronouncements about the coronavirus, the pandemic is surging across the American South and West. Trump’s poll numbers against Joe Biden are cratering. His former national-security adviser is selling a book that calls him a corrupt fool who’s unfit for office. The number of jobless Americans continues to climb. But, luckily, there are some things Trump can still count on—like the Fox News host Sean Hannity.”
“On Thursday night, with America deep in a crisis that shows no sign of easing, Trump appeared at a Fox News ‘town hall’ led by Hannity. It was a reassuringly safe space for the President. There was not a single mention of the terrifying spike of COVID-19 cases in Texas or Arizona or anywhere else. No one so much as alluded to the hundred and twenty-five thousand or so Americans who have already died from the disease. And Hannity—Trump’s close friend and confidant, who has been called his shadow White House chief of staff—refrained from citing the recent wave of national polls, including one by Fox, that show Trump losing to Biden by double-digit percentage points.”
A Reality TV Presidency Is Crushed by Reality
Ezra Klein: “Trump has spent the past three years and 158 days playing president on TV and social media. But he has not spent that time doing the job of the president. A strong economy that carried over from Barack Obama’s presidency hid Trump’s dereliction of duties. But then a crisis came, and presidential leadership was needed, and the American people saw there was no plan, and functionally no president.”
“Every insider account of Trump’s presidency — from Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury to Bob Woodward’s Fear to Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker’s A Very Stable Genius to Anonymous’s A Warning to Omarosa Manigault Newman’s Unhinged to John Bolton’s The Room Where It Happened — has painted fundamentally the same picture: a chaotic, lawless administration orbiting around a reckless, distractible, corrupt, overmatched, and disinterested chief executive.”
Fauci Says Trump’s Testing Strategy Not Working
Dr. Anthony Fauci told the Washington Post that the Trump administration’s current testing strategy for coronavirus has proven inadequate.
Said Fauci: “Something’s not working. I mean, you can do all the diagramming you want, but something is not working.”
