Friday, September 11, 2020
Tucker Carlson accuses Lindsey Graham of convincing Trump to talk to Woodward
Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Wednesday accused Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) of convincing President Trump to sit for interviews with Bob Woodward for the journalist's forthcoming book "Rage" that reveals remarks by the president downplaying the coronavirus threat publicly while acknowledging its severity in private.
Why Trump talked, though he feared an ‘atrocious’ book from Woodward
https://www.foxnews.com/media/why-trump-talked-though-he-feared-an-atrocious-book-from-woodward
For all his attacks on fake news, Trump on some level craves the approval of the establishment media. He recently spent 40 minutes talking to a New York Times reporter, despite years of attacks on his hometown paper as biased and “failing.” And who is more of an establishment Beltway figure than Woodward?
But as officials in the Nixon, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43 and Obama administrations learned, charming Woodward is a strategy that only goes so far. It’s hard for officials to say no to him when you realize you’ll be in the book anyway and many of your colleagues, and rivals, are probably cooperating.
But Trump’s calculation wasn’t all wrong. Although his coronavirus comments sparked a media explosion, the book is filled with lengthy presidential quotes, making the case on issues from the pandemic to race relations to foreign policy.
Trump twists history of Churchill and FDR to cover up pandemic denialism
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/11/politics/donald-trump-churchill-fdr-pandemic/index.html
President Donald Trump is now not just downplaying the coronavirus -- he's resorting to absurd historical allusions about great World War II leaders to try to disguise his culpability in 190,000 American deaths.
Thursday, September 10, 2020
Bnei Brak mayor apologizes for 'bad joke' train video
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/287018
Bnei Brak Mayor Avraham Rubinstein issued an apology Thursday evening in response to the uproar over a video in which an actor pretended to block haredi passengers from boarding a train from the predominantly-secular city of Bat Yam.
"I am sorry for the way things happened, in particular I am sorry for the damage to the good name of the railway workers and the Transportation Ministry," Rubinstein said.
The video was commissioned by the Bnei Brak municipality through a public relations office, with the aim of protesting the removal of the city from the light rail programs in the Gush Dan region.
The actor stood between the haredi passengers and the train, physically preventing them from boarding, and proclaimed: "Haredim, do not board!"
US official claims pressure to downplay intelligence reports
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54096520
An intelligence analyst at the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has said he was put under pressure to downplay the threat of Russian interference in the 3 November election as it "made the president look bad".
In a whistleblower complaint, Brian Murphy said he had been demoted for refusing to alter reports on this and other issues such as white supremacy.
The directives were illegal, he said.
The White House and DHS have both denied the allegations.
US intelligence agencies concluded that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election but President Donald Trump has rejected allegations that his election victory was influenced by Russia, at times questioning findings from his own agencies.
Mr Murphy says he was under pressure from the White House to exaggerate the number of migrants with links to terrorism at a time when the administration was implementing tougher measures to halt the flow of undocumented migrants reaching the US-Mexico border, and making the case for a wall.
Trump's historic dereliction of duty laid bare
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/10/politics/donald-trump-coronavirus-bob-woodward-book/index.html
It matters who the president is.
The fallout from the Woodward bombshells just 54 days before the election goes beyond White House palace intrigue. Trump's own narrative of the crisis has now been shattered. His frequent complaints that no one could have foreseen the magnitude of the challenge from Covid-19 are shown to be flagrantly untrue. Woodward reports that Trump was told by his national security adviser, Robert O'Brien, on January 28 that the virus would be the greatest national security threat of his presidency.
A Striking Reversal: Trump’s Attacks on the Military and Defense Contractors
President Trump mounted a public attack unusual even for him over the Labor Day weekend, accusing his military leadership of advocating war “so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy.”
Even for a president who has never hesitated to contradict himself for political advantage, it was a remarkable shift. His questioning the patriotism and judgment of America’s military leaders, even accusing them of pursuing global conflicts to profit the military-industrial complex, marked an election-year shift in which he has turned against two of the remaining institutions he spent most of his first term embracing as pillars of his “America First” policy.
Mr. Trump himself has consistently championed American arms sales, forgiving Saudi Arabia for the killing of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the high civilian death toll from the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen — justifying it because the country buys billions of dollars annually in American weapons.
As one of these officials noted, Mr. Trump’s critique of the military-industrial complex was not an effort to embrace a warning that President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued in his famed 1961 farewell address — an apolitical moment, since Eisenhower was leaving office.
Instead, one former senior defense official said, Mr. Trump appeared angry at the Republican national security officials who last month publicly declared that he was a danger to the Constitution, and especially at military contractors who were not donating more to his strapped campaign or, in his view, sufficiently grateful for how he has defended their sales. Mr. Trump never considered limiting sales to Saudi Arabia even after the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, was implicated in international investigations of the Khashoggi killing.
“Trump has lost the right and authority to be commander in chief,” said Anthony C. Zinni, a retired four-star Marine general who commanded American forces in the Middle East. “His despicable comments used to describe the honorable men and women in uniform, especially those who have given the last full measure, demonstrated the lack of respect for those he is charged to lead. He must go.”
“Just as he is endlessly frustrated by a media that will not bend to his whim, he’s frustrated by a military that takes an oath to the Constitution and not to the president,” he said.
Judge Andrew Napolitano: Trump goes on the attack --against the military
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/judge-andrew-napolitano-trump-attacks-the-military
I was appalled at the allegations against President Donald Trump leveled in a recent article in The Atlantic. The article claimed that the president referred to American soldiers killed in World War I and buried in France as “losers” and “suckers.” It also offered that the president is disdainful in general of military personnel who have been captured by the enemy or killed in combat.
I am loyal to my friends, but foremost I am loyal to the truth. So, when special counsel Robert Mueller made allegations about the unlawfulness of Trump’s behavior in the White House, it was my job at Fox to explain that the allegations offered that Trump committed numerous criminal acts of obstruction of justice while president.
In the history of the U.S., no general has started a war. Trump himself has ordered his generals to attack Iran, Iraq and Syria without congressional authorization. None of the generals did so on his own.
Then, as if to pour gasoline on this fire, an unprovoked Trump offered this gem: “I'm not saying the military’s in love with me, the soldiers are, the top people in the Pentagon probably aren’t because they want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy.”
Does the president have a cavalier attitude about the truth? Does he mean what he says? Is his presidency -- in his own mind -- showmanship or reality? I don’t know the answers to these questions, and it troubles me to be asking them. But the voters will answer in November.
White House asked DOJ to defend Trump in defamation case, Barr says
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/09/politics/barr-carroll-trump-defamation/index.html
The White House asked the Justice Department to take over the defense of President Donald Trump in a defamation lawsuit filed by a woman who has accused Trump of sexual assault in the 1990s, Attorney General William Barr said Wednesday.