Democratic Presidential
nominee Joe Biden tells CNN's Anderson Cooper he believes President Donald
Trump and his allies are "rooting for violence" because it exploits
fear for their political gain.
The Trump Show finale and identity politics:
Running takeaways
Donald Trump closes out the 2020 Republican convention
in true Trump fashion: It’s clear he's determined to win or lose as Donald
Trump.
By TIM
ALBERTA
08/27/2020
06:24 PM EDT
Updated:
08/27/2020 10:24 PM EDT
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/27/watch-trump-rnc-convention-night-4-403914
It’s the
season finale of The Trump Convention Show, but don’t hold your breath for a
surprise ending.
When Donald
Trump accepts the Republican Party’s nomination for president on Thursday
night, capping the 2020 GOP convention, he will in many ways be back to where
he started five summers ago: observing the wreckage of a battered society,
decrying the incompetence of America’s political class and declaring himself
the cure to the country’s many ailments.
The
difference between tonight and his 2015 campaign announcement — or his 2016
convention address, or his 2017 inaugural, for that matter — is that Trump is
no longer the outsider. This government and this political culture and this
Republican Party are his. So, while it may still be modestly useful to rail
against crooked politicians and violence in the streets, Trump can’t simply
fall back on complaining about the status quo. He is the status quo.
A
reelection campaign is always going to come down to the question, “Are you
better off now than you were four years ago?” Earlier this year, the answer for
most voters was probably yes. But today it’s an overwhelming no. To that end,
Americans don’t want to hear about how well they were doing back in February;
they want to hear about how well they’ll be doing next February.
This has
been the Achilles heel of the convention: None of the featured speakers, not
even Vice President Mike Pence, have attempted to articulate in concrete terms
the value proposition of another four years of Republican rule. It would
certainly be a plot twist if Trump, perhaps the least policy-minded president
in American history, swooped in and rescued the party in this regard, wrapping
the convention with a visionary speech that detailed the ways in which he would
improve voters’ lives if given a second term in office.
But that
seems unlikely. Trump is going to do what he has done in every big moment since
gliding down that gilded escalator in the summer of 2015. He’s going to
instigate and exaggerate. He’s going to lift up grievances and put down
adversaries. He’s going to tie his message together by driving Americans apart.
It ultimately doesn’t matter that his campaign has been disrupted by a global
pandemic or that his once-humming economy has been crippled because of it. It
ultimately doesn’t matter that he’s down big — because even if he were up big,
the message would be the same.
Donald
Trump is determined to win or lose as Donald Trump.
10:16 P.M.
ET
The Odd
Couple
Winning a
national campaign requires building a coalition, and having a coalition often
requires the reconciliation (or at least, the coexistence) of sharply diverging
views. That dynamic was on display Thursday night with regards to two of the
final three speakers: Senator Tom Cotton and criminal-justice reform advocate
Alice Johnson.
Johnson,
who served more than two decades in federal prison, is free today thanks to
Trump commuting her life sentence for drug trafficking. In her speech to the
RNC, Johnson said, "Six months after President Trump granted me a second
chance, he signed the First Step Act into law. It was real justice reform. And
it brought joy, hope, and freedom to thousands of well-deserving people. I
hollered Hallelujah! My faith in justice and mercy was rewarded. Imagine
getting to hug your loved ones again. It’s a feeling I will never forget. And
to think, this first step meant so much to so many. I can’t wait because we’re
just getting started.”
Interestingly,
just 10 or 15 minutes earlier, that same lectern in Washington was occupied by
Cotton. The Arkansas senator was the single most outspoken opponent of the
First Step Act, both in public and private settings. When the fate of the
bipartisan legislation hung in the balance, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell debating whether to bring the bill to the floor, Cotton warned
McConnell — and any other Republican lawmaker who would listen — that they
would “get Willie Horton’d” in their next campaign, a reference to the infamous
television ad that played on white fears by telling the story of a black
parolee who raped and murdered a woman.
Cotton
isn't just against legislation to lighten sentencing for non-violent criminals;
he is for measures to make laws even harsher and penalties even stiffer.
"If anything,” Cotton said in a 2016 speech, “We have an under-incarceration
problem.”
Politics
has always been a game of strange bedfellows. And there’s nothing unusual about
a senator breaking sharply with the policy of a president of his party. Still,.
hearing from Cotton and Johnson in the space of 15 minutes was a stark reminder
of the competing interests that exist inside of the party on issues of race
relations and criminal justice.
9:47 p.m.
ET
Come on,
man
"President
Trump does not dabble in identity politics.”
That was a
line spoken by Ben Carson, the world famous neurosurgeon turned presidential
candidate turned secretary of Housing and Urban Development, during his address
to the Republican National Convention on Thursday night.
Carson is
right. Trump does not dabble in identity politics; he dives in head first.
A strong
case could be made that Trump has exploited identity politics in ways that no
American politician ever has.
Whether
it’s telling four congresswomen of color to go back to their countries, or
describing majority-Black cities as “infested” by sinister things, or accusing
the nation’s first black president of being born in Kenya despite documentary
evidence to the contrary, Trump’s political rise is inextricable from his
manipulation of racial animus and overt appeals to white grievance.
Carson knows
this better than most. Back when they were rivals for the Republican
presidential nomination in 2016, Trump, noting that he was a Presbyterian — a
“middle of the road” denomination — called into question the legitimacy of
Carson’s church. “I mean, Seventh-day Adventist, I don’t know about,” Trump
told a crowd. Carson, responding to these remarks a few days later, told the
AP: "Donald Trump is Donald Trump. It doesn’t surprise me that he’s doing
that. I would only be surprised if he didn’t.”
There is no
shortage of hyperbole being deployed at this GOP convention, and more than a
few outright lies. But it’s tough to think of any statement more preposterous
than, “President Trump does not dabble in identity politics.”
9:32 p.m.
ET
A change in
script
Something
noteworthy in the speech by Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes: In his prepared
remarks, Reyes, recalling the recent death of his father, was set to say:
"When he passed, he had by his bedside his Bible, Book of Mormon, family
photos and a pen President Trump gave me to give him.”
But when he
delivered the speech, Reyes altered the wording in a slight yet significant
way. “When he passed, he had by his bedside his scriptures, family photos, and
a pen President Trump gave me to give him.”
Removing a
reference to the Book of Mormon — and substituting the word “scriptures,” lingo
familiar to evangelical viewers at home — could be coincidental. But probably
not.
During his
runs for president in 2008 and 2012, Mitt Romney’s membership in the Mormon
church was a serious liability with Christian conservative voters. The attempts
to demonize Romney for his faith ranged from whisper campaigns on the religious
right to crude comments from his rivals, such as when Mike Huckabee, who was
his biggest competitor in the Iowa caucuses, said to a reporter from The New
York Times, “Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?” At
another point in the campaign, Robert Jeffress, the prominent pastor of a
Dallas megachurch, denounced Romney’s religion as a “cult” and implored
evangelicals to oppose him.
Jeffress’s
view of Mormonism was not out of the mainstream of protestant Republican
thought back then. And it’s hard to imagine attitudes have changed much since.
Given the obstacles that faced Romney—even as the party’s nominee in 2012,
Christian activists expressed uneasiness with his religion—it wouldn’t be
surprising if Reyes thought at the last minute to strike that reference from
his speech, or if a party official either asked him to.
9:08 P.M.
ET
The
extended family
One thing
continues to strike me throughout this convention — how the duty of humanizing
President Trump has been embraced by his staffers rather than his family
members.
Tonight, so
far, we’ve heard testimonials from two White House staffers that were more
intimate than anything offered by the president’s wife or children. Dan
Scavino, the White House social media director, told of meeting Trump three
decades ago while working at a golf course: "Donald Trump believed in me
when I was a teenage golf caddie and he was already one of the wealthiest, most
famous people on the planet. He saw my potential, even when I couldn’t. … He
saw potential in me. A spark. The possibility that I could be more, do more,
and achieve more than even I thought was possible.”
Ja’Ron
Smith, a deputy assistant to the president, and one few Black staffers at the
White House, told of how Trump has responded to tragedies involving the Black
community: “In the wake of the murder of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and
LeGend Taliferro — a moment of national racial consciousness—I have seen his
true conscience. I just wish every American could see the deep empathy he
showed to families whose loved ones were killed in senseless violence."
As I wrote
last night, it’s odd that the president’s family members haven’t used their
remarks to help give a window into Donald Trump the person. Filling that void
tonight—and throughout the convention — has been the job for others.
Here are
three other things I’m watching:
More Black
voices than ever
An
unprecedented number of Black speakers have already been featured at the 2020
Republican convention, part of a strategy designed to not only chip away at Joe
Biden’s huge advantage with Black voters but to defang allegations of racism
that have turned many college-educated white voters against President Trump.
Republicans
will be sprinting through the finish line in this regard. At least three
additional Black speakers will be prominently featured Thursday night: White
House adviser Ja’Ron Smith; HUD Secretary Ben Carson; and criminal justice
activist Alice Johnson.
It can’t be
overstated how unique this effort has been. Never in the GOP’s modern history have
Black voices been elevated like at this convention. It remains to be seen
whether these sustained attacks on Biden’s racial rhetoric help neutralize
Trump’s vulnerability on the issue, but Republicans were smart to have Black
surrogates leading this effort instead of the president himself.
Looking for
more conventions coverage?
The
Covid-19 election is here and both parties have reimagined their conventions.
This week, it's the Republicans' turn. Check out our 2020 national convention
page for the latest news, video, live interviews and analysis.
Like
father, unlike daughter
Ivanka
Trump doesn’t try to go viral like Donald Trump Jr. or go negative like Eric
Trump. Nor does she shy away from the spotlight like Tiffany Trump or Barron
Trump. If there’s one Trump child who exerts a normal, steadying — if not
always consistent — influence on their father, it’s the president’s oldest
daughter.
What Ivanka
offers behind closed doors — a mature, cosmopolitan attitude of moderation — is
not always (or even often) effective at shaping policy. That much is evident in
the president’s rhetoric and behavior, let alone his decisions.
And yet,
while he may ignore that voice of relative reason in private, Trump is smart
enough to know that it sells in public. This is especially true when it comes
to the demographic Republicans worry about most: college-educated white women.
In trying to connect with these voters, people around the president say, there
simply isn’t a Trump surrogate who compares to his oldest daughter.
For the
second time, Ivanka will play the important role of introducing her father
ahead of his speech at the convention. And for the second time, she will
attempt to redefine his rough edges, presenting him as a man who is so caring
and compassionate that sometimes his intensity gets the better of him. It’s not
clear this strategy will sell — but if someone’s going to try, it might as well
be Ivanka.
2024 vision
There’s
only one aspiring president of the United States speaking Thursday night —
Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton — and it’s no accident that he’s got the stage to
himself.
Unlike many
Trump allies in Washington, Cotton has no interest in restraining the
president. Rather, he wants Trump unleashed, arguing for an even harder line on
almost every issue than what the president’s advisers suggest. In this sense,
Trump has come to view Cotton, perhaps more than any other Republican elected
official, as a potential heir apparent to the MAGA empire, someone who
understands the conservative base and believes in his bones the nationalism
Trump preaches.
Cotton’s
chief liability is charisma — to be precise, he doesn’t have any. This much has
been clear throughout his rise on Capitol Hill. That said, 99 percent of
Americans have never seen or heard Cotton during that time. This is his first
impression on millions and millions of voters ahead of an almost-certain
presidential campaign four years from now. The substance of Cotton’s speech
matters, but arguably more important to his national future is the way he
presents. He’s spent the past few years in training, working with top
Republican consultants to refine his style and inject some life into his
delivery. Tonight will be remembered as the launch of the next phase of his
career — for better or worse.
Republican convention delivers whirlwind of lies
great and small
Speaker after speaker piled falsehood upon falsehood
to recast Trump as a saintly feminist preoccupied with the nation’s health
David Smith
in Washington
@smithinamerica
Thu 27 Aug
2020 06.10 BSTLast modified on Fri 28 Aug 2020 00.57 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/27/republican-convention-lies-trump-rnc
As
Hurricane Laura roared towards the southern US coast, the Republican national
convention unleashed Hurricane Liar.
There were
lies aplenty at the last convention in Cleveland four years ago but, in those
innocent days, reporters were still reluctant to call a lie a lie. Donald Trump
blew that up on his first day in office when he and his officials claimed his
inauguration crowd was bigger than Barack Obama’s.
Now there
is no getting away from the fact that Republicans are commandeering more than
two hours a night of primetime television to lie and mislead so brazenly,
frequently and shamelessly that there’s a chance the American public will
simply be worn down into submission and untruth will be normalised.
As the New
York Times columnist Frank Bruni noted, all conventions tell “extravagant fibs”
but this one is “less a feat of pretty storytelling than an act of pure
derangement”. Wednesday night was another opportunity to deny Trump’s record,
deny the severity of the coronavirus pandemic and climate crisis, and deny
reality itself.
Vice-President
Mike Pence portrayed Trump as America’s saviour from Covid-19. “Before the
first case of coronavirus spread within the United States, President Trump took
the unprecedented step of suspending all travel from China,” he said, a false
statement since there were several exceptions to the ban that still allowed
tens of thousands to travel.
Putting on
a patriotic show at Baltimore’s Fort McHenry, scene of a battle that inspired
The Star-Spangled Banner, Pence also avoided some brutal truths: no mention of
Trump praising China’s early response, his constant downplaying of the threat,
failing to deliver testing or protective equipment, waffling over face masks
for months or ruminating about miracle cures. There was no mention of the
180,000 death toll, the highest in the world by far.
Other lies
came in the convention’s ongoing attempt to perform triage and rewrite not only
history but Trump’s personality. Someone waking from a four-year coma this week
would be gratified to learn the president is a Mount Rushmore-worthy paragon of
dignity, humility and kindness and a grandmaster of geopolitical chess.
Kayleigh
McEnany, who famously began her tenure as White House press secretary by
pledging “I will never lie to you,” did just that from a different podium in
the bleakly empty Andrew W Mellon Auditorium in Washington.
McEnany
told a story of how she underwent a preventive mastectomy and how Trump called
to see how she was doing. “I can tell you that this president stands by
Americans with pre-existing conditions,” she claimed about the man who has
worked tirelessly, in Congress and in court, to reverse the law that protects
130 million Americans with pre-existing conditions.
Perhaps
McEnany’s closest rival as the most shameless defender of Trump’s mendacity is
Kellyanne Conway, the outgoing White House counselor. She said: “For decades,
he has elevated women to senior positions in business and in government. He
confides in and consults us, respects our opinions, and insists that we are on
equal footing with the men … For many of us, ‘women’s empowerment’ is not a
slogan.”
Trump’s
cabinet is dominated by men, he faces multiple allegations of sexual harassment
(which he denies), he has frequently and publicly bullied female reporters and
he mocked women’s appearance online. He has also packed the country’s courts
with judges who threaten women’s reproductive rights and revoked protections
against sexual assault and discrimination at work and school.
For good
measure, Conway claimed that Trump had taken “unprecedented action” to combat
the opioid epidemic. In fact he did not declare a national emergency, and fatal
overdoses in 2019 increased more than 10% from 2016.
Sometimes
it’s the little lies. Madison Cawthorn, the Republican nominee for North
Carolina’s 11th congressional district, who uses a wheelchair because of a car
accident, commented: “James Madison was just 25 years old when he signed the
Declaration of Independence.” No, Madison did not sign the Declaration of
Independence.
Cawthorn
later claimed he “ad-libbed” the line. “After speaking all of that truth... I
was afraid the fact checkers were going to get bored. I wanted to give them
something to do,” he tweeted.
And then
there was Richard Grenell, former acting director of national intelligence, who
said: “I’ve watched President Trump charm the chancellor of Germany, while
insisting that Germany pay its Nato obligations.” Charm? Over to Angela Merkel
for whether she saw it that way.
Some of the
deceit was wildly exaggerated scaremongering about what would happen if
Democrat Joe Biden wins November’s election. Senator Marsha Blackburn of
Tennessee warned darkly: “If the Democrats had their way, they would keep you
locked in your house until you become dependent on the government for
everything.
“That
sounds a lot like Communist China to me – maybe that’s why Joe Biden is so soft
on them. Why Nancy Pelosi says that ‘China would prefer Joe Biden’.”
Sister
Deirdre “Dede” Byrne, a retired army colonel, told viewers: “President Trump
will stand up against Biden/Harris who are the most anti-life presidential
ticket ever, even supporting the horrors of late-term abortion and
infanticide.”
No, Biden
and vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris do not support infanticide. Even
having to point that out somehow plays into the liars’ hands, like agreeing to
a debate with a creationist or a flat-earther. Such is the current landscape of
partisan cable news and wild west social media.
Congresswoman
Elise Stefanik of New York recalled Trump’s impeachment, which has been largely
forgotten at both conventions, and called it “illegal” – another Pinocchio.
The
president’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, got in on the act with a fake Abraham
Lincoln quotation and a red scare: “This is not just a choice between Republican
and Democrat or left and right. This is an election that will decide if we keep
America America or if we head down an uncharted frightening path towards
socialism.”
It was left
to Pence to deliver perhaps the biggest lie of the night, so bold that it hid
in plain sight in the Baltimore night. “America needs four more years of Donald
Trump in the White House,” he said. Worth a factcheck, surely.
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