Fox News says it 'mistakenly' cropped Trump out of photo featuring Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/06/media/fox-news-trump-crop-epstein-maxwell/index.html

Fox News said on Monday that it "mistakenly" cropped President Trump out of a photograph that featured the accused sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and his alleged accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.

"On Sunday, July 5, a report on Ghislaine Maxwell during Fox News Channel's 'America's News HQ' mistakenly eliminated President Donald Trump from a photo alongside then Melania Knauss, Jeffrey Epstein and Maxwell," a spokesperson for the network said. 

The Fox News spokesperson added, "We regret the error."

Maxwell was charged by federal prosecutors in New York on Thursday for her alleged role in recruiting and sexually abusing underage girls as part of a years-long criminal enterprise.

 

Trump "Testing is OVERRATED and not needed!" Trump Impersonator John Di Domenico

Trump Tweets: Watch Newsmax, OANN – Not Fox!

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/trump-newsmax/2020/07/05/id/975809/

President Donald Trump sent out a tweet Sunday slamming Fox News as he urged his followers to watch Newsmax TV and OANN instead.

"Fox News weekend afternoons is the worst! Getting into CNN and MSDNC territory," the president wrote on Twitter.

"Watch @OANN and @Newsmax instead. Much better!"

Trump added in another tweet on Sunday that Fox News "gladly puts up the phony suppression polls as soon as they come out. We are leading in the REAL polls because people are sick & tired of watching the Democrat run cities, in all cases, falling apart. Also, now 96% Approval Rating in the Republican Party. Another 2016!”

 

Haredi rabbi warns: 'Yeshiva students may be on the streets'

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/283070

Rabbi Yitzhak Koldetzki, the son-in-law of Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, called for a gathering of supplications and prayer in order to prevent the further deterioration of those who spend their days in yeshivas, Kikar Hashabbat reported.

Due to closures caused by the coronavirus outbreak, yeshiva students - like other students - have spent only minimal time in their yeshiva settings over the past few months. As a result, parents and educators are struggling in the face of a reality in which the spiritual level of their students has radically declined, in some cases to a "critical level."

Kikar Hashabbat quoted Rabbi Koldetzki as telling a small number of people that "the situation in general is much lighter, and there are less seriously ill [people]."

He added that "unfortunately there are certain young men who do not live in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem, who have not come to yeshiva. We are concerned that young men, a very large number of them, have not returned and have fallen into the streets. This is a life-threatening situation, when they do not come to the yeshivas."

"What the Zionists have not managed to do in 70 years, in these trials we have lost young men. We must pray that they are all healthy," he mourned, calling for special prayers until the beginning of the Hebrew month of Elul.

Drain the swamp! Lobbyists connected to Trump reap windfall in coronavirus aid money

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-07-06/lobbyists-connected-trump-reap-windfall-coronavirus-aid-money

Forty lobbyists with ties to President Trump helped clients secure more than $10 billion in federal coronavirus aid, among them five former administration officials whose work potentially violates Trump’s own ethics policy, according to a report.

 The lobbyists identified Monday by the watchdog group Public Citizen either worked in the Trump executive branch, served on his campaign, were part of the committee that raised money for inaugural festivities or were part of his presidential transition. Many are donors to Trump’s campaigns, and some are prolific fundraisers for his reelection.

Phoenix mayor says the federal government is 'declaring victory while we're still in crisis mode' as Arizona sees the highest per-capita infection rate in the US

https://www.businessinsider.com/phoenix-mayor-victory-while-state-in-crisis-mode-2020-7

Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego said Sunday that the state of Arizona opened up too quickly and criticized the federal government's response as Arizona battles the current highest infection rate per capita in the US.

Gallego said the state was struggling to administer COVID-19 tests, and said some people in the state had waited up to eight hours to get tested for the virus. She called on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to assist the state in its testing efforts.

"We were told they're moving away from that, which feels like they're declaring victory while we're still in crisis mode," she said.

 

Trump’s ’99 percent’ coronavirus comment finds little support

 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/05/hahn-coronavirus-trump-infection-348954

The president may have been referring to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistic this week that the hospitalization rate is 102.5 per 100,000. But the long-term health ramifications of the coronavirus remain unknown, and mortality rates continue to vary greatly for reasons that are not immediately clear. There are now more than 2.8 million diagnosed cases in the United States and more than 129,000 deaths.

Trump Falsely Claims ‘99 Percent’ of Virus Cases Are ‘Totally Harmless’

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/05/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-factcheck.html

 

False. No matter how you define harmless, most public health experts and respected coronavirus disease models would flatly contradict Mr. Trump’s assessment.

Experts say the president appears to have seized only on a death rate estimate of 1 percent or less that does not capture the entire impact of the disease, and excludes a multitude of thousands who have spent weeks in the hospital or weeks at home with mild to moderate symptoms that still caused debilitating health problems.

Patients fortunate enough to survive a lengthy hospitalization and weeks in an intensive care unit or on a ventilator face a long road to recovery. Many will suffer debilitating long-term effects, including impaired lung function, neurological problems and cognitive deficits, and some may require lifelong care and not regain full independence.

FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn refuses to say whether there is any validity to Donald Trump's claim that 99 per cent of coronavirus cases are 'totally harmless'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8491689/Stephen-Hahn-refuses-comment-Trumps-claim-99-coronavirus-cases-totally-harmless.html

ABC News host Martha Raddaz asked: 'We have more than 129,000 dead and more than 2.8 million cases. How many cases would you say are harmless?'

'Well, what I'd say is, you know, any case, we don't want to have in this country,' he continued to avoid directly answering the question. 'This is a very rapidly moving epidemic, rapidly-moving pandemic. And any death, any case is tragic. And we want to do everything we can to prevent that.'

During a White House speech Saturday to commemorate Independence Day celebrations, Trump reasserted that the U.S. has more confirmed cases than any other country due to bolstered levels of testing.

 

FDA commissioner pressed by Sunday show hosts over Trump's claim '99 percent' of coronavirus cases 'harmless'

https://www.foxnews.com/media/fda-commissioner-trump-99-percent-coronavirus-cases-harmless

FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn on Sunday refused to comment when pressed by multiple Sunday show hosts over President Trump’s suggestion the previous day that 99 percent of coronavirus cases were “harmless.”

 

As Trump gaslights America about coronavirus, Republicans face a critical choice

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/06/politics/us-election-trump-coronavirus-republicans/index.html

 

The gulf between reality and President Donald Trump's delusional vision of a waning coronavirus threat was on full display this weekend, as cases soared in key hotspots while he delivered speeches at Mount Rushmore and at the White House, with little physical distancing and few masks, directly contradicting the advice from his public health experts.

A majority of Americans do not approve of Trump's handling of the pandemic (or his response to the nation's racial reckoning), which has stirred consternation even in his own campaign as the President banks on an economic revival and good news about a vaccine to restore his political fortunes.

When the President's own medical advisers refuse to correct his misleading claim, the coronavirus trust gap grows

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/05/politics/trump-medical-advisers-fda-commissioner/index.html

On Saturday night, President Donald Trump made the dangerously inaccurate claim that 99% of coronavirus cases are "totally harmless." On Sunday morning, one of his top health experts failed to correct the assertion, a stunning breakdown of the government's core duty to keep Americans safe and protect the public health.

CNN's Dana Bash pressed US Food and Drug Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn repeatedly Sunday morning to explain the President's false statement in his Fourth of July speech from the South Lawn of the White House, one that minimized the devastating effects of the virus and seemed to encourage Americans to ignore the deadly risks of a pandemic that has so far claimed more than 129,000 American lives.

Hahn's refusal to specifically address Trump's misleading claim underscored the growing trust gap between Americans and this administration. Hahn apparently was afraid to correct the President -- a pattern that has repeated itself over and over again in an administration where disagreeing with or undercutting Trump has cost many appointees their jobs.

Scoop: Trump regrets Kushner advice on prison reform

https://www.axios.com/trump-kushner-second-thoughts-408d5a33-725d-442a-88e4-d6ab6742c139.html

 

President Trump has told people in recent days that he regrets following some of son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner's political advice — including supporting criminal justice reform — and will stick closer to his own instincts, three people with direct knowledge of the president's thinking tell Axios.

Between the lines: Trump never really wanted criminal justice reform, according to people who have discussed the subject with him privately. He's told them he only supported it because Kushner asked him to. Though he has repeatedly trumpeted it as a politically useful policy at times.

The president also pays close attention to Fox News' Tucker Carlson. A few weeks ago, in a brutal monologue, Carlson blamed Kushner for giving Trump bad advice.

Viewpoint: What Donald Trump gets wrong about Somalia

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-53268582

President Donald Trump is making Somali-American congresswoman Ilhan Omar one of the bogeywomen of his campaign for re-election to the White House in November - and by proxy her country of birth, Somalia.

In his most recent attack, at a campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, he tore into the 37-year-old alleging that she wanted to bring the "anarchy" of Somalia to the US.

"She would like to make the government of our country just like the country from where she came - Somalia. No government, no safety, no police, no nothing, just anarchy. And now, she's telling us how to run our country. No, thank-you."

Ms Omar, who arrived in the US as a child refugee in 1995, is the congressional representative for Minnesota, which includes the city of Minneapolis where African-American George Floyd was killed by police in May, reigniting Black Lives Matter protests.

 

But it was Ms Omar's Somali heritage the president chose to focus on in Tulsa, perhaps to distract from all the turmoil and unrest closer to home.

In response Ms Omar said his remarks were "racist". She added that his anger came out of a recent poll that had shown him trailing his rival, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, in her state, which is home to a large Somali-American community.

Top ultra-Orthodox MK threatens party will exit coalition if yeshivas shuttered

https://www.timesofisrael.com/top-ultra-orthodox-mk-threatens-party-will-exit-coalition-if-yeshivas-shuttered/

MK Moshe Gafni has threatened to withdraw his ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism Party from the coalition if the government decides to close down yeshivas in the face of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Following reports that both the Health Ministry and National Security Council were pushing for yeshiva closures ahead of Monday’s coronavirus-focused cabinet meeting, Gafni told Hebrew media on Sunday that such a move would force him to turn to his party’s rabbinic leadership and “advise them not to be partners in such a government.”

 

Trump's 4th of July Speech on the National Mall. Trump's America vs. Our America

Republican Senator called out for slamming Obama for TWO Ebola deaths while Trump has 130,000

FDA commissioner refuses to defend Trump claim

Trump claims 99% of US Covid-19 cases are 'totally harmless' as infections surge

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/05/trump-claims-99-of-us-covid-19-cases-are-totally-harmless-as-infections-surge

“We got hit by the virus that came from China,” the president said, prompting a strange whoop and applause from someone in the audience. “We’ve made a lot of progress. Our strategy is moving along well. It goes out in one area, it rears back its ugly face in another area. But we’ve learned a lot. We’ve learned how to put out the flame.”

The number of infections now regularly tops 50,000 per day, higher than in April when the US was in the first grip of infections. Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, warned this week: “I think it’s pretty obvious that we are not going in the right direction.”

Trump returned to his now familiar and baseless complaint that America has a high caseload because it performs more tests. “Now we have tested almost 40m people. By so doing, we show cases, 99% of which are totally harmless. Results that no other country can show because no other country has the testing that we have, not in terms of the numbers or in terms of quality.”

 

It was unclear how the president arrived at the “99%” harmless figure.

Trump uses July 4th address to put forward a dangerously misleading claim

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/05/politics/donald-trump-july-4-coronavirus/index.html

 As the nation marked a somber Fourth of July with many Americans confined to their homes amid an alarming rise in coronavirus cases, President Donald Trump used his stage on the White House's South Lawn Saturday to put forward a mystifying -- and dangerously misleading claim -- that 99% of coronavirus cases in America are "totally harmless."

The President's assertion without evidence about the virus was his latest attempt to minimize the threat of the coronavirus as it ravages the United States with cases rising across the country, and as an increasing number of top Republican officials from the nation's governors to members of Congress pleaded with Americans to redouble their efforts to curb the spread of the virus, warning of the dangerous consequences if current trends continue.

It was in that same speech that he made his latest puzzling claim about the virus, as he described the administration's flawed and lagging response to the pandemic as a great American success story and falsely suggested, once again, that the rise in cases in the US is due to increased testing.

It is unclear how the President could be under the impression that 99% of cases are "totally harmless." There have now been at least 2.8 million cases of coronavirus in the United States, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University. While the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about 35% of cases are asymptomatic, those patients can still spread the virus. As of Saturday, Johns Hopkins estimated that the fatality rate for the US was 4.6%. The White House has not returned CNN's request for comment on the President's claim.

The commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration on Sunday declined to defend the President and repeatedly refused to say whether Trump's remark is true or false.