Olivia Troye, a former adviser to Vice President Mike Pence, said President Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic showed a “flat out disregard for human life” because his “main concern was the economy and his reelection,” the Washington Post reports.
Troye said that the administration’s response cost lives and that she will vote for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden this fall because of her experience in the Trump White House.
“In the months before his death, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) wrote that he endured ‘pure pain’ from repeated Twitter attacks by President Trump — whom he once wanted to trust — but resolved not to be baited into responding in anger, the Baltimore Sun reports.
Wrote Cummings, in a new book to be released next week: “You can imagine it and try to dismiss it, saying he’s just a blowhard and schoolyard tough guy, using his thumbs on Twitter like fists. But the reality, the harsh cold onslaught, is just pure pain.”
Los Angeles Times: “Trump has long sought to divert attention from own misjudgments and mistakes by blaming his enemies. Now, as he struggles to overcome Biden’s lead in the polls, the president has turned familiar schoolyard taunts like ‘I’m rubber, you’re glue’ into a campaign strategy.”
“Deflecting criticism is a normal part of politics, but Trump stands out for how frequently and reflexively he redirects his opponent’s attacks. In psychology, the tactic is known as projection — a defense mechanism to deny one’s faults and attribute them to someone else.”
Said GOP strategist Rick Tyler: “I suspect he’s been doing it since the third grade, and I suspect it’s always worked for him. It’s a difficult technique for grown adults to counter.”
“A mixup with the first absentee ballots sent in North Carolina caused some voters to receive two identical ballots for the November general election,” the AP reports.
“The official added that it was unlikely that voters could have cast two ballots, a felony, because each mailing label includes an individual code making it impossible to vote twice.”
The DSCC announced they’re going in with a seven-figure investment to help Jaime Harrison (D) in the South Carolina U.S. Senate race, according to the Cook Political Report.
Michael Bloomberg will spend $5.4 million on a weeklong TV ad campaign in Florida, part of his pledge to help Joe Biden win the all-important presidential battleground state, McClatchy reports.
The ads will begin airing this weekend on broadcast TV in all 10 of the state’s media markets, aides said, and will criticize President Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The 19th analyzes the median salaries in the Trump White House and found a $33,300 chasm between the median salary for male staffers ($106,000) and the median salary for female staffers ($72,700).
That means women make nearly 69 cents on the male $1 — worse than the national gender pay gap of 82 cents on the dollar.
“Just weeks after a Republican National Convention dominated by calls for ‘law and order,’ President Trump’s campaign has returned to an almost exclusively economic message in its advertising,” McClatchy reports.
“It’s the latest strategic pivot by the Trump campaign, as polls continue to show Joe Biden holding a steady advantage in the presidential race with less than seven weeks until Election Day, and only a few weeks from the start of early voting in many key states.”
“The Brexit omnishambles threatens to become a full-blown constitutional crisis, now that Boris Johnson’s government has declared its intention to violate international law by breaking the very withdrawal treaty that Johnson negotiated, signed, declared a triumph, and ran on as the basis of his party’s reelection,” Axios reports.
“Five former prime ministers have come out against Johnson’s Internal Market Bill, which has already caused a slew of resignations from the government. The bill would allow the U.K. to unilaterally override the EU in a manner that explicitly violates Britain’s treaty obligations.”
Washington Post: “Trump spent last weekend complaining privately about Biden’s dominance in television advertising, only to tweet upon his return to Washington from a campaign swing that the ‘fake news’ was exaggerating the disparity.”
“The zigzagging messages reflected a desire by Trump and his campaign to move beyond growing Republican concern about his relatively scant advertising budget and doubts about whether he has enough money in the bank to close the race in a strong position.”
Joe Pompeo: “The 2020 election is arguably the most consequential election in modern times, as a result of the life-or-death issues that all collided in the months preceding it, from America’s bungled response to COVID-19, to the racial-justice movement that has swept over the country, to the cataclysmic wildfires that climate change has exacerbated all up and down the West Coast. But it will be just as historic and unprecedented based simply on the sheer logistics of how this election will be conducted, with any number of potential land mines lying in wait.”
“In addition to the rapid adoption of mail-in voting, and the challenge of operating polling places during a pandemic that has already killed nearly 200,000 Americans, we’ll also be contending with the whims (and tweets) of an autocratically-minded incumbent who has spent the better part of four years sowing distrust in long-standing U.S. institutions, including the electoral process. It is, one might say, the first presidential contest of the post-truth, anti-fact era.”
Said AP executive editor Sally Buzzbee: “To me, the most challenging situation would be that it takes a while for the real results to be known, and people jump to conspiracy conclusions during that period. That to me is the worst-case scenario.”
“The Pennsylvania Supreme Court extended the state’s mail ballot deadlines on Thursday, a move that could allow tens of thousands of additional votes to be counted — and will likely draw criticism from Republicans, who have argued that votes should be received by Election Day,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
“State law says mail ballots must be received by 8 p.m. on Election Day, but the high court said Thursday that ballots will be counted if they are received by 5 p.m. the Friday after the Nov. 3 election. To count, ballots arriving after Election Day must either be postmarked by Nov. 3 or have no proof they were sent afterward.”
Bloomberg Businessweek: “Zuckerberg isn’t easily influenced by politics. But what he does care about—more than anything else perhaps—is Facebook’s ubiquity and its potential for growth. The result, critics say, has been an alliance of convenience between the world’s largest social network and the White House, in which Facebook looks the other way while Trump spreads misinformation about voting that could delegitimize the winner or even swing the election.”
FBI Director Christopher Wray told the House Homeland Security Committee that Russians have been using social media, as well as “proxies, state media, online journals” and other vehicles to hurt Joe Biden and what it views as anti-Russian factions in U.S. politics, Politico reports.
Wray affirmed that Russia is continuing to take an active role in the 2020 campaign with less than 50 days until Election Day.
“Former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker is once again working closely with Vice President Pence on debate preparations and serving as Pence’s foil in practice sessions, effectively playing the role of Sen. Kamala Harris,” the Washington Post reports.
“The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the Green Party presidential ticket from state ballots, allowing state and local election officials to resume preparations for Nov. 3 and begin mailing ballots to voters,” the Washington Post reports.
“The court ruled that presidential contender Howie Hawkins and his running mate, Angela Walker, did not qualify for the ballot because the party did not submit signed filing papers in person, as required by state rules.”
“President Trump’s luxury properties have charged the U.S. government more than $1.1 million in private transactions since Trump took office — including for room rentals at his Bedminster, N.J., club this spring while it was closed for the coronavirus pandemic,” the Washington Post reports.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.