Summary
Here’s a rundown of Sunday’s events. We’ll be back tomorrow for all Monday’s news.
- Coronavirus: Trump authorizes plasma treatment amid attacks on FDA. After expressing frustration at the slow pace of approval for coronavirus treatments, and causing controversy by publicly linking the Food and Drug Administration to the “deep state” conspiracy theory, the US president on Sunday announced the emergency authorization of convalescent plasma, a method which has been used to treat flu and measles, for Covid-19 patients.
- ‘Donald is cruel’: Trump sister criticises president in bombshell secret tapes. Donald Trump’s older sister, a former federal judge, can be heard sharply criticizing her brother in a series of recordings released on Saturday, at one point saying of the president: “He has no principles.”
- White House says Trump doesn’t know of QAnon, despite his tacit endorsement. Donald Trump does not know what QAnon is, chief of staff Mark Meadows told Fox News Sunday – despite the president having tacitly endorsed it in the White House briefing room this week.
- James Comey says ex-Trump adviser Steve Bannon ‘in a world of trouble’. The former FBI director has said Steve Bannon is “in a world of trouble”, after the former Trump campaign manager and White House adviser was arrested on a charge of skimming donations from a fundraising campaign for a wall on the border with Mexico.
- California wildfires: more storms feared as huge blazes burn on. Firefighters in California prepared on Sunday for high winds and thunderstorms that threatened to spark new blazes and further spread existing fires, as officials warned capacity was stretched to levels “not seen in recent history”.
- Hurricane Marco and Tropical Storm Laura bear down on Louisiana. Residents in low-lying coastal areas of Louisiana and Cuba were evacuating on Sunday, while roads turned to rivers in Haiti’s capital city, as twin hurricanes threatened the Caribbean and US Gulf Coast.
- Louisiana shooting: police killing of Black man sparks outrage and protests. The mother of a man shot dead by Louisiana police on Friday night said her son was intelligent, shy and had sought therapy for social anxiety. Her lawyers said they plan to sue over the death of Trayford Pellerin, who police said had a knife and was trying to enter a convenience store.
- Biden indicates he could run for second term if he beats Trump in November. Joe Biden, who will be the oldest US president ever inaugurated if he beats Donald Trump in November, has indicated he could run for a second term.
More a campaign-style press announcement than traditional news conference, Trump abruptly ends the proceedings after taking only three questions, including one from One America News Network.
The US president insisted today’s announcement, which comes one day after he accused “the deep state, or whoever, over at” the FDA of deliberately slowing coronavirus vaccine and therapy development, “has nothing to do with politics” despite its conspicuous timing on the eve of the Republican national convention.
CNN notes that convalescent plasma has already been used in the treatment of more than 60,000 Covid-19 patients and while “promising signs” have resulted from some studies, “there is not yet randomized clinical trial data on convalescent plasma to treat Covid-19”.
Trump announces emergency authorization for coronavirus plasma treatment
As Donald Trump took the podium for tonight’s news conference in the James S Brady Briefing Room, the FDA sent out a press release saying it has said it issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for investigational convalescent plasma for the treatment of Covid-19 in hospitalized patients as part of the agency’s ongoing efforts to fight Covid-19.
Trump hails the 100-year-old treatment strategy as a “historic breakthrough”.
“This is a powerful therapy that transfuses very, very strong antibodies from the blood of recovered patients to help treat patients battling a current infection. It’s had an incredible rate of success.”
Updated
The US has crossed the threshold of 176,000 confirmed deaths from Covid-19, just seven months after the first cases were diagnosed in China and with the outbreak far from under control.
The American death toll is the highest in the world by a significant margin and reached 176,645 on Sunday, according to the Johns Hopkins University world coronavirus tracker.
The total includes cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases.
But a CBS News/YouGov poll released Sunday found Americans view the severity of the pandemic and the effectiveness of the government’s response through a partisan lens.
According to the poll, a 57% majority of registered Republican voters consider the number of coronavirus fatalities “acceptable” when “evaluating the US efforts against the coronavirus pandemic”, compared with 31% of voters overall. That’s in stark contrast with the 90% of Democrats and 67% of independents who said the death toll was “unacceptable”.
Top Democrats and Republicans blamed each other for stalled talks on coronavirus aid legislation, a day after the House of Representatives approved $25bn in new funds for the US Postal Service.
But Saturday’s vote failed to shift a stalemate over the next phase of coronavirus aid since 6 August, when talks between the White House and Democratic congressional leaders broke down over funding levels and unemployment benefits.
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said the Republican-controlled chamber would “absolutely not pass” the postal bill.
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on Sunday criticized the Democratic vote as “a largely messaging bill” and blamed house speaker Nancy Pelosi for failing to agree on broader legislation that included supplemental unemployment benefits.
“And Trump gives bread and circuses without the bread. So we’ll see the circus this week with his convention.”
“I haven’t heard from the speaker yet. I am going to make a phone call to her today,” Meadows said on ABC’s This Week.
“My challenge to the speaker this morning would be this: If we agree on five or six things, let’s go ahead and pass those.”
Pelosi shot back on CNN’s State of the Union, saying Trump was stalling needed coronavirus relief for cities and children for political gain, signaling that negotiations were likely to make little progress during the Republican national convention, which gets underway this week.
“This is like ancient Rome. Trump fiddles while Rome burns, while America burns,” she said.
One of the only Democrats on the list of speakers for the Republican national convention is Georgia state representative Vernon Jones, whom the Atlanta Journal-Constitution described as “a polarizing figure in Georgia politics”.
Jones endorsed Donald Trump in April, prompting other Democrats in the state to call him an “embarrassment” and “traitor”.
Jones told the newspaper he endorsed Trump because the president‘s policies helped black voters, veterans and farmers. In response to backlash against the endorsement, Jones said he would resign. A day later, he said he would not resign.
Jones posted social media messages supportive of Trump in the past and has leaned Republican on many issues through his career. Jones champions increased access to guns, more aggressive immigration restrictions and limited government. In 2004, he endorsed Republican George W Bush for president.
In 2008, Jones backed Barack Obama and attempted to use the president’s image in his own race for the state senate that year. Jones’s campaign sent a campaign mailer featuring a photo edited to make it look like he and Obama attended an event together. The Obama campaign had to clarify it had not endorsed Jones’s candidacy in the race, which he ultimately lost.
After the RNC announced Jones would be speaking at the convention, Georgia state representative Scott Holcomb, a Democrat, said Jones’s political weight was not equivalent to that of the many Republicans who turned out to support Joe Biden at the Democratic national convention last week.
“The Democratic convention included heavyweight Republicans who support Joe Biden out of principle and love for country,” Holcomb told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “The Republicans have a washed-up state representative who yields no influence in his home state. Good luck with that.”
Donald Trump will announce the emergency authorization of convalescent plasma for Covid-19, a treatment that already has been given to more than 70,000 patients, the Washington Post has reported, citing officials familiar with the decision.
The action will be highlighted at a news conference later on Sunday afternoon, the newspaper said.
According to the Post:
Many scientists and physicians believe that convalescent plasma might provide some benefit but is far from a breakthrough. It is rich in antibodies that could be helpful in fighting the coronavirus, but the evidence so far has not been conclusive about whether it works, when to administer it and what dose is needed. On CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb said the blood product – derived from patients who have survived Covid-19 – is “probably beneficial” for covid-19 patients. The issuance of an emergency authorization would make it easier to get in some settings. But he also said it already is widely available, so the change would be “incremental”.
The announcement comes as Trump has put extraordinary pressure on federal agencies to test and approve treatments and, especially, a vaccine against the novel coronavirus, which has already killed more than 170,000 Americans. The president’s political advisers believe that having a vaccine by Election Day is key to his prospects for winning.
Updated
Donald Trump is back at the White House after spending the morning at his private golf club in Sterling, Virginia.
As has become customary for Trump’s regular weekend trips to the Loudoun county property, groups of supporters and protesters gathered outside the entrance awaiting his departure.
A White House pool report described the scene:
As pool was holding just outside the club prior to departure a short pro-Trump parade of three Jeeps and a pickup was driving back and forth repeatedly, flying American flags and Trump 2020 banners with slogans such as “Latinos for Trump” and “Women for Trump.” Several had “Trump National Rapid Response Team” signs attached to them as well. A big rig (without trailer) seemed to be part of the group and would blow its horn as it passed by.
A string of pro-Trump and pro-Biden folks were on foot along the sidewalks near the entrance of the club expressing their various opinions as well.
Since arriving at the White House at 1.45pm, America’s most prominent media critic has turned his Twitter fingers toward Fox News anchor Chris Wallace:
“Next we’ll turn to people of the Biden inner circle”, said by Chris Wallace of @FoxNews after unsuccessfully GRILLING Mark Meadows. Then all softball questions to a group of Biden lightweights, including Senator Chris Coons of Delaware.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2020
Chris Wallace “forgot” to ask a very weak and pathetic Schumer puppet, Senator Chrisie Coons, why Biden fought me when I put an extremely early BAN on people coming into our Country from heavily infected China. Biden later admitted I was right! But why no question?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2020
Today marked Trump’s 274th day he’s spent at a golf course he owns in the 1,312 days since he’s taken office.
The Trump administration is considering fast-tracking an experimental Covid-19 vaccine for use in the US ahead of the 3 November elections, according to the Financial Times.
One option being explored would involve the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) awarding “emergency use authorisation” in October to the potential vaccine, which was developed by Oxford University and licensed to AstraZeneca, the newspaper reported.
The AstraZeneca study has enrolled 10,000 volunteers, whereas the US government’s scientific agencies have said that a vaccine would need to be studied in 30,000 people to pass the threshold for authorisation. AstraZeneca is also conducting a larger study with 30,000 volunteers, although the results from that will come after the smaller trial.
Making a vaccine available before the election could allow US president Donald Trump to claim he has turned the tide on a virus that has killed more than 170,000 Americans following widespread criticism of his handling of the pandemic. In his convention speech on Thursday night, Joe Biden, Mr Trump’s Democratic opponent, said that the US response to the virus was the “worst performance of any nation”.
However, if the Trump administration does rush through emergency authorisation ahead of the election by skirting normal government guidelines, it could dent already shaky public confidence in the safety of vaccines ahead of one of the largest mass-immunisation programmes in US history.
FT: Trump eyes fast tracking UK Covid 19 vaccine before election #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/dNhcxAnJLY
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) August 23, 2020
Updated
Trump coronavirus presser on the way – possibly
Donald Trump has been to his golf club in Virginia today but not long ago, according to the White House pool report, he left it.
In the words of the same report: “The president’s schedule shows no public events today but Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany tweeted last night to expect a 6pm press conference with the president, ‘concerning a major therapeutic breakthrough on the China Virus’.
“She indicated health secretary Alex Azar and Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr Stephen Hahn will attend.”
On Saturday, Trump caused predictable consternation by tweeting that “the deep state or whoever over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics. They’re hoping to delay the answer until after 3 November. Most- must focus on speed.”
Chief of staff Mark Meadows backed the president up on the Sunday shows, of course, while on CBS’s Face the Nation, a former FDA commissioner, Scott Gottlieb, was asked about Trump’s remark.
“Well, I’m not sure exactly what he’s talking about,” he said, speaking for the nation, before defending the FDA’s honour.
Gottlieb also said he thought Trump’s tweet may have been “about plasma … I think the president scoped into that tweet a comment on vaccines” and said of the trailed announcement on Sunday: “I would guess it’s the emergency use authorization for plasma.”
He expanded: “What plasma is is basically taking the antibodies from people who’ve recovered, so it’s a blood product, and infusing them in people who are sick. And if you use it early enough in the course of the disease, there is some precedent for it being beneficial in the treatment of viruses. And so it is a good therapeutic to have in the overall armamentarium.
“But the bottom line is it’s widely available right now, patients are getting it. The EUA, the emergency use authorization, will enable probably easier access in certain settings, but it’s incremental, and you know, incremental gains are important here.”
The NFL hopes to start its season next month, but there are already concerning signs for a league that will not follow the likes of the NBA in playing in an isolated bubble.
The NFL said on Sunday that a testing lab in New Jersey had recorded positive Covid-19 tests for several teams.
“Saturday’s daily Covid testing returned several positives tests from each of the clubs serviced by the same laboratory in New Jersey,” the NFL said in a statement on Sunday morning. “We are working with our testing partner, BioReference, to investigate these results, while the clubs work to confirm or rule out the positive tests.”
The Cleveland Browns, Chicago Bears and Minnesota Vikings all said they had presumed positive tests among players and staff. None of the cases are thought to be serious. Buffalo Bills general manager Brandon Beane said he believes 10 of the league’s 32 teams have been affected by the positive tests.
Donald Trump’s “narcissism” will lead him to attempt to dominate this week’s Republican National Convention, according to former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci.
Trump’s daughter-in-law and adviser, Lara Trump, says the president will make an appearance every night of the convention. Scaramucci says Trump wants to show he can win the election single-handedly.
“Knowing his personality, he thinks it’s the right way for him to do it. He thinks it’s all about him, him all the time,” Scaramucci told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday. “The classic narcissism is to annihilate everybody around you and then show everybody that you can do it all alone, you can do it by yourself.
“It’s all about me and watch me. I’m going to win this without your help. And so I’m sure he was advised by some smart, somewhat courageous people inside the campaign not to do that. That level of saturation is beyond ridiculous.”
He added that the Trump campaign would attempt to depict Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as being too close to progressive Democrats such as Bernie Sanders.
“That’s what the president’s going to try to do. He’s going to swing the pendulum completely to the left. He’s going to try to radicalize the vice president,” Scaramucci said.
“You got to think about what the president does to people. He wants to divide people, cares less about the unity of the country, and more about his political survival.”
James Comey was also asked about last week’s senate intelligence report.
CBS Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan says that “the conclusion here was that Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort represented a, quote, ‘grave counterintelligence threat’ to the US because of his close work with Russian intelligence officer Konstantin Kilimnik. This goes farther than what Mueller concluded and made public. Why? Why is the public just now hearing about it?”
In response, Comey says: “Because the Senate Intelligence Committee was looking at all information they could gather. Mueller was approaching it as a prosecutor, trying to see what evidence he could bring into court to prove something beyond a reasonable doubt. And so the Senate Intelligence Committee could look much more broadly and, as you said, came to this conclusion that the head of Trump’s campaign was funneling information to a Russian intelligence officer, someone he likely knew was a Russian intelligence officer. Let that sink in and then ask yourself, so there was nothing to investigate here, as Bill Barr says, it was a hoax? The Republicans have exploded that nonsense.”
Brennan also asks about criticism of the FBI, which Comey once headed up, over the hacking of Democratic servers by Russia. The report says the agency should have done more to alert party officials.
“That’s fair criticism,” says Comey. “I think at the time, our folks thought that just telling an institution that the Russians are inside your house was enough. But I think part of what may have led to a lack of urgency at the DNC and at the FBI is that nobody anticipated this wasn’t normal intelligence gathering by the Russians, this was an effort to weaponize. And if anybody had seen that, I think they would have yelled a little bit more loudly.”
Comey is also asked if he took blame as the former director of the FBI.
“I sure think it was a miss ... a mistake, I’m not going to quibble on words,” he says. “Yeah, it was a miss. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to us that the Russians were doing something that they had never done before, which is to weaponize and actually fire stolen material at our democratic process. And, look, looking back in hindsight, it seems obvious. I don’t know the answer as to why nobody in the intelligence community, none of the analysts, saw this coming. And it ought to be something that we’re asking ourselves.”
Comey says Bannon in 'a world of trouble' after arrest
The former FBI director James Comey has said Steve Bannon is “in a world of trouble” after Donald Trump’s former campaign chief was arrested on a charge of skimming donations from a fundraising campaign for a border wall with Mexico.
“It’s another reminder of the kind of people this president surrounds himself with,” Comey said during a Sunday morning appearance on CBS’s Face the Nation.
Bannon is the latest figure with close ties to the president to have found himself in trouble with the law. Others includ his former campaign chair Paul Manafort, his former lawyer Michael Cohen and his former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
BANNON BUST: Former @FBI Dir. @Comey says former @WhiteHouse adviser and strategist #SteveBannon is in for a "world of trouble" following his arrest and indictment by @SDNYnews for fraud.
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) August 23, 2020
"It is another reminder of the kind of people this president surrounds himself with." pic.twitter.com/oPltGCHMGu
Comey is also a former US attorney for southern district of New York, where Bannon was indicted last week. “At this point they could almost start their own crime family,” said Comey of Trump’s circle. “It’s a very serious case. The southern district of New York has laid it out in a very detailed indictment called a speaking indictment, and he’s in a world of trouble.”
Bannon has pleaded not guilty. He faces up to 20 years in jail if convicted. “It’s a very serious fraud case with a huge amount of money stolen from innocent victims,” Comey said. “That’ll drive up potential punishments.
“You know he’s in trouble because the indictment lays it out in such detail, including excerpts from texts. If you’re Steve Bannon [or] you’re his lawyers, you’re reading this saying, ‘I’m going down here.’ I don’t know what the next steps are for him and his co-defendants, but that’s what I meant by ‘world of trouble.’”
Bannon was released on a $5m bond, backed by $1.75m in cash or real estate. He has until 3 September to get the collateral together. Three other men, Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea, were also arrested in the alleged scheme to defraud the ‘We Build the Wall’ online campaign, which authorities said raised more than $25m.
Comey has become a fierce critic of Trump since he fired him early in his presidency.
You can read more about the troubles of Trump’s advisers below:
Updated
Trump campaign releases speakers for RNC
The Trump campaign has released its list of speakers for this week’s Republican National Convention.
While many on the list are what you may expect - Melania, Ivanka and Eric Trump; pro-Trump Republicans such as Senator Tom Cotton and South Dakota governor Kristi Noem; and long-term supporters such as UFC president Dana White - there are other speakers placed there presumably to stir up some controversy or push a new narrative.
NEW: @IvankaTrump will introduce her father at the RNC on the WH South Lawn Thursday night “in her personal capacity, as the President’s daughter,” per @PressSec. As such, the WH insists, her appearance is in “full compliance with the Hatch Act.” pic.twitter.com/TuEHa6MDZc
— Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) August 23, 2020
Patricia and Mark McCloskey, the white couple who pointed guns at Black Lives Matter protesters in St Louis, will speak, as will Nick Sandmann, the high school student who successfully sued the Washington Post and CNN over claims he acted confrontationally towards a Native American leader during a Washington DC march in 2019.
At a time of protest against discrimination and police brutality in the US, the Trump campaign also appears to want to make attempts at showing it is inclusive, something that is undermined by the president’s racist dog whistling. Prominent speakers of colour at the convention will include Tim Scott, the only black Republican senator, former presidential candidate Ben Carson, White House adviser Ja’Ron Smith and Alice Marie Johnson, a former prisoner whose sentence was commuted by Trump.
NEW: @IvankaTrump will introduce her father at the RNC on the WH South Lawn Thursday night “in her personal capacity, as the President’s daughter,” per @PressSec. As such, the WH insists, her appearance is in “full compliance with the Hatch Act.” pic.twitter.com/TuEHa6MDZc
— Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) August 23, 2020
Ivanka Trump’s appearance will come under some scrutiny as, under the Hatch Act, government employees are not supposed to act actively promote a political agenda. However, the White House insists the president’s daughter is acting in a “personal capacity” as a family member.
Updated
The soaring oratory had been replaced by visible anguish. Barack Obama stood in Philadelphia, where the signing of the constitution laid the foundation stone of American democracy, and warned that his successor is ready to tear it all down to cling to power.
Last week’s unprecedented attack by a former president on an incumbent at the virtual Democratic national convention crystalised fears that Trump poses a more severe danger to the 244-year-old American experiment than any foreign adversary.
Whereas in 2016 Vladimir Putin’s Russia meddled in an election, now it is the current occupant of the White House who seems hellbent on subverting an American election.
“The greatest threat facing the nation was an insider threat and still is,” Frank Figliuzzi, a former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence, told the MSNBC network this week. “The insider threat is sitting in the Oval Office.”
Trump will this week be nominated by the Republican party for a second term as president. He will give his acceptance speech from the White House, a break from tradition that signals the formidable tools of incumbency at his disposal. This time, critics say, Trump is running two campaigns.
One is a brutally partisan attempt to demonize his opponent Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris, the first woman of colour on a major party ticket, whom he has already dubbed “mean”, “nasty” and “a mad woman”. The other is an insidious and potentially catastrophic campaign against the integrity of the election itself.
You can read the full story below:
Going back to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows’ appearance on ABC earlier.
He said the Donald Trump would sign a bill giving funding to the embattled United States Postal Service, which will be under pressure with mail-in voting at the election, if Democrats agree to include other economic relief measures.
“My challenge to the speaker [Nancy Pelosi] this morning would be this – if we agree on five, six things — let’s go ahead and pass those,” Meadows said. “I spoke to the President early this morning. He’s willing to sign that, including Postal Service reform, that making sure that the money is there to make sure that deliveries of first class mail are handled quickly, efficiently, on time.”
Donald Trump is set to travel to Charlotte on Monday, to attend in person as delegates to the Republican National Convention renominate him for US president, and the RNC chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, says the event does not pose a health risk.
“We tested everybody [for Covid-19] before they came to Charlotte, we tested everybody onsite,” McDaniel told CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday.
“We are doing things that allow people to live their lives, have a convention and do it in a healthy and safe way, which most Americans are doing.”
McDaniel also attacked Joe Biden for saying he would impose lockdown orders in the US if public health officials recommended doing so during the pandemic.
“This is a realistic way of opening up our country and doing it in a healthy and safe way and the Democrats are saying shut it all down,” she said.
Poll: 75% of Republicans think US is better off than four years ago
Joe Biden may have work to do if he wants to persuade Republican voters to swap sides in November’s election.
A CBS poll has found that 75% of Republicans think the US is better off now than it was four years ago, and 82% of those say it is due to their confidence in Donald Trump. In addition, 67% of Republicans think the economy is in good shape, 73% think Covid-19 is being handled well by the government and 64% think deaths from the virus are lower than the numbers reported. As for the recent anti-racism protests across the US, 81% of Republicans say too much attention has been paid to discrimination.
Among all voters, the picture was different. Only 35% think the country is better off than it was four years ago, 35% think the economy is good, 38% say the battle against Covid-19 is going well, and 44% think too much attention is paid to discrimination.
Biden’s speech at the Democratic National Convention was well received, including by many Fox News pundits, but it appears he was mainly preaching to the converted. Of voters who watched “a lot” of the DNC, 71% were Democrats, 17% independents and 11% Republicans. 66% of Democrats said they were enthusiastic about voting before the convention, compared to 69% now.
Biden retains his overall lead over Trump among all voters by 52% to 42%, although Trump lost the popular vote last election but won the electoral college.
The CBS poll had a margin of error of 3.6 points.
Trump campaign senior advisor, Jason Miller, was asked this morning about the incredible number of the president’s associates who have been arrested, faced charges, plead guilty or been convicted of a crime since he took office.
The most recent was Steve Bannon, the former White House strategist who last week was accused of defrauding people who gave tens of millions to a private fund which allegedly existed to finance the construction of a wall on the border with Mexico.
Miller said people should instead think of all the people who work with the president who have not had encounters the criminal justice system.
“I think you take a look at the great people that president Trump has surrounded himself with, some of the brilliant women and some of the brilliant leaders that we have within this administration, some of our Cabinet members.” Miller told NBC’s Meet the Press. “And I would say that overall, the president’s had a very good track record of hiring excellent people.”
In addition to Bannon, six other close associates of the president have been in legal trouble in the past three years. The Guardian’s national affairs correspondent, Tom McCarthy, outlined the pattern here:
A similar list was listed on Meet the Press. In response, Miller said: “There are a number of folks on the list that you pointed out there, Chuck, who have made some serious mistakes in their life that had nothing to do with President Trump, and they’re going to have to be accountable for all of that.”
Donald Trump may have a genuine reason to delay November’s election after all: an asteroid is heading towards Earth and could hit us the day before polling.
It’s probably not quite time to start building your underground shelter though. CNN reports the chances of the asteroid hitting us are less than 1%. Asteroid 2018VP1 isn’t huge either - it has a diameter of around 6ft.
Donald Trump yesterday suggested the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was deliberately delaying the approval of a Covid-19 vaccine in order to harm his chances of reelection.
Trump also said the “deep state”, a conspiracy theory that people within the government are working to thwart the president could be behind the delay. During Mark Meadows’ appearance on ABC, the White House chief of staff said Trump’s tweet was actually about “cutting red tape”.
.@GStephanopoulos: So Trump does believes there are those in the FDA who are trying to delay testing vaccines and therapeutics for political purposes?
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) August 23, 2020
Mark Meadows: “I believe that there are a number of people that do not see the same sense of urgency.” https://t.co/P6iz1jjwYE pic.twitter.com/C2lLlPTAJ5
“That’s what the tweet was all about,” Meadows said. “And I think you’re going to hear an announcement later today which really – he had to make sure that they felt the heat. If they don’t see the light, they need to feel the heat because the American people are suffering.”
Donald Trump doesn’t know what the conspiracy theory QAnon is, his chief of staff Mark Meadows told Fox News Sunday this morning.
The baseless conspiracy theory has been identified by the FBI as a potential domestic terrorist threat and last week, Trump praised followers of the conspiracy theory during a press conference at the White House.
But when asked by Fox News Sunday if the president condemns the group, Meadows said: “We don’t even know what it is.”
QAnon followers believe without evidence that Trump is fighting a group of “global elites” engaged in pedophilia, human trafficking and the harvesting of a supposedly life-extending chemical from the blood of abused children.
At the White House last week, Trump said: “I don’t know much about the movement other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate,” he said.
It was his first public comment about QAnon, but he has previously retweeted accounts which promote the conspiracy.
A reporter at the press conference pointed out that QAnon followers believe Trump is “secretly saving the world from this satanic cult of pedophiles and cannibals”. The president replied: “I haven’t heard that but is that supposed to be a good thing or a bad thing?”
“If I can help save the world from problems, I’m willing to do it,” he continued.
Meadows told ABC on Sunday he had to “Google” QAnon to figure out what it was and that it was not a “top 20 priority” for the White House.
“You know when we look at that – there are a number of conspiracies that we ought to be talking about,” Meadows told This Week with George Stephanopoulos.
More from Mark Meadows’ appearance on ABC’s This Week, where he discussed tapes of Donald Trump’s sister describing the president as “cruel”.
The tapes were recorded by Trump’s niece, Mary, who released a tell-all book about her family earlier this summer.
“The president that I have the privilege of serving is not the one that’s being described on a 15-hour ... secret tape. I mean, what family member tapes another family member for 15 hours secretly?” said Meadows, the White House chief of staff.
Trump’s sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, is also heard on the tape saying someone else took the president’s university entrance exams for him. It is, of course, hard for Meadows to have in-depth knowledge of an incident that allegedly happened decades ago, but his rebuttal was hardly robust, and mainly revolves around the fact that the president reads a lot.
“This is politics as usual by a niece that was written out of a will that would apparently – just has an axe to grind because she wants Joe Biden to be president. I can tell you this, that this president each and everyday is ... well prepped but does more than any president that I’ve ever been able to have the privilege of researching and reading about in terms of wanting to make sure that we have ... advance critical, critical agendas for the hard working American people on Main Street,” said Meadows.
Donald Trump looks like he is attempting to reach out to one of his strongholds this weekend: evangelical Christians.
Yesterday, he attacked Democrats saying they had removed the word “God” from the pledge of allegiance at the Democratic National Convention.
The website Politifact said Trump’s claim was false.
“Some Democratic caucus members omitted ‘one nation under God’ from the Pledge of Allegiance during [convention] meetings,” the fact-checking website wrote. “But the line was not excluded from any of the convention’s primetime televised spots.
“On the first night … participants sang the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ instead of saying the Pledge of Allegiance. On the second, third and fourth nights, ‘under God’ was included in the pledge.”
Two Democrat Caucus Meetings removed “UNDER GOD” from the Pledge of Allegiance. It sounded not only strange, but terrible. That’s where they’re coming from!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2020
Trump has returned to the subject this morning, with a more specific accusation, which may be true. He highlights two unspecified “Democratic Caucus Meetings” which omitted God from the pledge. His claim that it is a partywide move from the Democrats is still false, however.
The White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has appeared on ABC’s This Week and has been talking about his boss, Donald Trump.
Meadows responded to tapes released this weekend of Trump’s sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, describing her brother as “cruel” and having “no principles”.
“Obviously, he’s been public with his response,” Meadows said. “You know, just another day and another attack that we continue to see.”
He also attacked Mary Trump, the president’s niece and the source of the tapes. “What family member tapes another family member for 15 hours secretly?” he said.
Meadows added that he had not met Barry and she had not shown up for the funeral of the president’s brother last week.
The Republican convention is coming up, of course, and on Saturday it was confirmed that Trump will appear in person in Charlotte, North Carolina on Monday, as the party seeks to put on a more physical event than the Democrats’ remote-controlled version, which played out to millions last week.
Trump’s big speech will be at the White House on Thursday. The president will not be in contravention of the Hatch Act himself, because he and Vice-President Mike Pence are exempt. But their staff is not and they should not be engaging in political activity while on official duty. Not that anything is going to be done about that.
Blumenthal: 'In the wasteland, only cockroaches and Mitch McConnell may survive'
This morning, we’ve published a powerful long essay from Sidney Blumenthal, the senior adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton who has become a well-reviewed biographer of Abraham Lincoln but who remains a bête noire to many in Lincoln’s party.
It’s a stinging read on what Donald Trump’s rise to power has done to the GOP, and what might be left when he’s gone – either later this year, or after another four-year term:
Central to Trump’s unique selling proposition is that he dispenses with the dog whistles. His vulgarity gives a vicarious thrill to those who revel in his taunting of perceived enemies or scapegoats. He made them feel dominant at no social price, until his catastrophic mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic and economic crisis. Flouting a mask is the magical act of defiance to signal that nothing has really changed and that in any case, Trump bears no responsibility.
Here’s the full piece – I think it’s worth your time:
Joe Biden: I could run for second term if elected
ABC News has released more of its interview with Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee for president, and Kamala Harris, the California senator who is now his VP pick.
Biden is 77 but will be 78 on inauguration day if he is elected, comfortably the oldest president ever inaugurated, taking the record from one Donald J Trump. If Biden ran again in 2024 he would be 82 at inauguration day, and 86 on handing over power four years after that. He has previously referred to himself as a transitional president in waiting, suggesting he may serve only one term if elected.
The current incumbent of the Oval Office, of course, was 70 when he took power in 2017 and has faced tough questions about his own health and mental ability. But that hasn’t stopped him questioning his challenger on the same grounds.
Asked about such attacks on ABC, Biden said: “Watch me. Mr President, watch me. Look at us both. Look at us both, what we say, what we do, what we control, what we know, what kind of shape we’re in.
“I think it’s a legitimate question to ask anybody over 70 years old whether or not they’re fit and whether they’re ready. But I just, [the] only thing I can say to the American people, it’s a legitimate question to ask anybody. Watch me.
“We haven’t spent nearly enough time building the bench in the Democratic Party,” Biden added. “…So [what] I want to do is make sure when this is over, we have a new Senate, we won back statehouses, we’re in a position where we transition to a period of bringing people up to the visibility that they need to get to be able to lead nationally. And that’s about raising people up. And that’s what I’m about.”
The interviewer asked: “So you’re leaving open the possibility you’ll serve eight years if elected?
Biden replied: “Absolutely.”
Good morning…
…and welcome to another day of coverage of US politics, the presidential election campaign, the coronavirus pandemic and everything else that crosses Washington’s vision.
There was extraordinary news from the Washington Post late on Saturday night, as it published the contents of conversations between Donald Trump’s older sister, the retired judge Maryanne Trump Barry, and Mary L Trump.
The president’s niece recorded them – surreptitiously, but legally under New York law – as she wrote her barnstorming bestselling book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.
- “He has no principles.”
- “My God, if you were a religious person, you want to help people. Not do this.”
- “His goddamned tweet and lying, oh my God.”
- “What has he read? No. He doesn’t read.”
- “It’s the phoniness of it all. It’s the phoniness and this cruelty. Donald is cruel.
- “I’m talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy shit.”
Chris Bastardi, a spokesman for Mary Trump, said: “Mary realised members of her family had lied in prior deposition. Anticipating litigation, she felt it prudent to tape conversations in order to protect herself.”
Trump, who held a funeral for his brother Robert Trump this week, issued a statement after the Post story ran:
Every day it’s something else, who cares. I miss my brother, and I’ll continue to work hard for the American people. Not everyone agrees, but the results are obvious. Our country will soon be stronger than ever before!”
Trump played golf on Saturday, while a couple of friendly sources – Steve Hilton of Fox News (and formerly David Cameron’s side) and Mike Huckabee of TBN – broadcast presidential interviews.
On Sunday morning, the president surfaced on Twitter to conflate unsourced claims about election security and Covid preparedness, which seemed likely to prove… provocative.
More, of course, to come. In the meantime, here’s David Smith with More Of This Sort Of Thing:
