Donald Trump

The Washington Post reports: President Trump reaffirmed late Tuesday that he would veto this year’s proposed $740 billion annual defense bill if an amendment is included that would require the Pentagon to change the names of bases named for Confederate military leaders, his strongest rebuke against the measure amid a national reckoning over systemic racism. “I dare President Trump to …

Just in from the Lincoln Project: The Lincoln Project’s latest video, “Betrayed,” released today, lays bare the thoughts of former U.S Navy Seal Dan Barkhuff and his feelings towards the President. Many current and former American service members feel betrayed by Donald J. Trump. Navy Seal Barkhuff is just one story. We now know Trump received written briefings as early …

CNN reports: President Donald Trump’s campaign has scrapped plans to hold a rally in Alabama next weekend amid concerns about coronavirus infections rising in the US, CNN has learned. Trump was slated to travel to the state ahead of the Senate race between his former attorney general Jeff Sessions and the former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville, but plans …

The Hill reports: A federal mandate to wear masks would slow the spread of the coronavirus enough to save the economy from losing 5 percent of its value, according to a Goldman Sachs study. “We argue that a national face mask mandate could partially substitute for renewed lockdowns,” Goldman Sachs analysts Jann Hatzius, Daan Struyven, and Isabella Rosenberg wrote in …

The Insider reports: German officials were so alarmed by President Donald Trump’s “very aggressive” conversations with Chancellor Angela Merkel that they kept their calls secret, sources told CNN. In calls with the German chancellor, Trump bullied and disparaged Merkel in a “near-sadistic” fashion, according to the CNN report by Carl Bernstein, the longtime journalist known for his reporting on the …

CNBC reports: The mother of a Marine killed last year in Afghanistan said Monday that she wants a thorough investigation of reports that her son and two other Marines may have been the targets of Taliban-linked fighters who collected a bounty on U.S. soldiers offered by a Russian military intelligence unit. Felicia Arculeo, whose son Cpl. Robert Hendriks died in …

CNN reports: In hundreds of highly classified phone calls with foreign heads of state, President Donald Trump was so consistently unprepared for discussion of serious issues, so often outplayed in his conversations with powerful leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Erdogan, and so abusive to leaders of America’s principal allies, that the calls helped convince some …

The Verge reports: Twitch has temporarily banned President Donald Trump, in the latest surprise and high-profile suspension from the streaming service. Trump’s account was banned for “hateful conduct” that was aired on stream, and Twitch says the offending content has been removed. One of the streams in question was a rebroadcast of Trump’s infamous kickoff rally, where he said that …

The New York Times reports: Reddit, one of the largest social networking and message board websites, on Monday banned its biggest community devoted to President Trump as part of an overhaul of its hate speech policies. The community or “subreddit,” called “The_Donald,” is home to more than 790,000 users who post memes and viral videos. Reddit executives said the group, …

Jacksonville’s NBC News affiliate reports: Residents and visitors in Jacksonville, Fla., will be required to wear masks indoors and in public spaces to help slow the spread of the coronavirus, the city announced Monday, potentially complicating President Trump’s desire to hold the Republican National Convention there in August without masks or social distancing. The requirement will be for public and …

The Guardian reports: Donald Trump courted controversy on Monday – and perhaps sought to deflect attention from reports about Russia placing bounties on US soldiers in Afghanistan – by retweeting news footage of a white couple in St Louis, Missouri who pointed guns at protesters marching for police reform. The president’s action came a day after he retweeted footage of …

Randy Rainbow is back this morning to mock Trump’s refusal to wear a mask with “Cover Your Freakin’ Face.” The piece is set to the tune of “Put On A Happy Face” from the 1960 Broadway musical Bye Bye Birdie in which the song was performed by Dick Van Dyke. The show’s plot was inspired by Elvis Presley having been …

The Sydney Morning Herald reports: Iran has issued an arrest warrant and asked Interpol to help detain US President Donald Trump and others it believes carried out a drone strike that killed a top Iranian general in Baghdad, a local prosecutor reportedly says. While Trump faces no danger of arrest, the charges underscore the heightened tensions between Iran and the …

The Daily Beast reports: Half a dozen knowledgeable sources tell The Daily Beast that planning has long been underway for potential 2021 policy pursuits. But a prevailing interest driving Trump’s desire for another four years is not ideological. It’s reputational. Two of those sources said that one of the president’s real motivations for running is to simply avoid embarrassment. He …

The New York Times reports: United States intelligence officers and Special Operations forces in Afghanistan alerted their superiors as early as January to a suspected Russian plot to pay bounties to the Taliban to kill American troops in Afghanistan, according to officials briefed on the matter. They believed at least one U.S. troop death was the result of the bounties, …

The Daily Beast reports: Retiring Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) implored President Donald Trump to publicly wear a mask on Sunday in order to cool the politicization of mask-wearing, appealing to the president’s vanity in the process. The conservative senator ended his plea to Trump by playing to the president’s well-known obsession with appearing strong and tough. “People admire him and …

Politico reports: Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said President Trump has “picked a side” after Trump retweeted and praised a video that included a demonstrator shouting “white power.” “Thank you to the great people of The Villages,” Trump said in a post retweeting the video. “The Radical Left Do Nothing Democrats will Fall in the Fall. Corrupt Joe is …

Just in from the Democratic National Committee: “51 years ago today, the LGBTQ+ community in New York City, led by transgender and lesbian women of color, fought back against harassment, persecution, and police brutality. Their activism at Stonewall and in the years to come rippled across America and the world — changing hearts, minds, culture, and law. “One year later, …

“There’s no question. He should not have retweeted it and he should just take it down. If you watch the entire video — you can’t play it because it was so profanity laced. The entire thing was offensive. Certainly, the comment about the white power was offensive. There’s no question. “We can play politics with it or we can’t. I’m …

The Wall Street Journal reports: Coronavirus cases world-wide passed 10 million, and deaths approached half a million, as cases continued to surge in the U.S. and some states took steps to reverse their reopenings. The U.S. recorded more than 42,000 cases Saturday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, lower than the record 45,255 recorded Friday, but the second …