Donald Trump

CNN reports: President Donald Trump’s campaign is demanding CNN retract and apologize for a recent poll that showed him well behind Joe Biden. The demand, coming in the form of a cease and desist letter to CNN President Jeff Zucker, was immediately rejected by the network. “We stand by our poll,” said Matt Dornic, a CNN spokesman. The CNN poll …

The Dallas Morning News reports: President Trump plans to announce a plan for “holistic revitalization and recovery” during a trip to Dallas on Thursday built around a high-dollar fundraising dinner expected to bring in $10 million. It’s his first campaign foray since the COVID-19 pandemic began three months ago. Ahead of the dinner, the president and several senior administration officials …

Just in from Gallup Polling: President Donald Trump’s job approval rating has fallen to 39% amid nationwide protests about racial injustice. His ratings this year had been the best of his presidency but are now back near his term average of 40%. The latest reading is from a May 28-June 4 poll, conducted as protests occurred throughout the country after …

Jonathan Swan reports at Axios: My phone blew up yesterday with texts from White House aides, current and former, who seemed at their wits’ end over President Trump’s tweet that the 75-year-old Buffalo protester who was rushed to the hospital after being shoved by police last week “could be an ANTIFA provocateur.” Why it matters: They rarely register the president’s …

Morning Consult reports: As President Donald Trump leans on religion to reconnect with his political base ahead of the November election, most Americans dismiss the notion that he himself is a man of faith. Only 27 percent of registered voters in a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll said they somewhat or strongly agree that Trump himself is religious, while 55 percent …

The Daily Beast reports: The OAN segment was reported by Kristian Rouz, a Russian journalist who pulled double duty working for the Russian state propaganda channel Sputnik as well as OAN. He cited The Conservative Treehouse as evidence that Gugino was using a “police tracker” on his phone during the encounter. The Conservative Treehouse post had, indeed, falsely claimed that …

Deadline Hollywood reports: Here’s the first trailer for Ivy Meeropol’s documentary Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn, which will debut on HBO later this month. The feature film, which had its world premiere at the 2019 New York Film Festival, is another insight into the infamous attorney who prosecuted the Meeropol’s grandparents, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and later …

The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle reports: President Donald Trump put forth an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory Tuesday that Martin Gugino, a 75-year-old Amherst man injured in an incident with Buffalo Police last week, could be an “antifa provocateur.” On Tuesday morning, Gugino declined comment in a text to the USA TODAY Network New York, saying only, “No comment other than Black …

Fox News reports: A Catholic archbishop said the “deep state” is “fiercely waging war against” President Trump amid the coronavirus pandemic and riots following the death of George Floyd. Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano of Rome urged Trump on Sunday to fight against the so-called “deep state,” mainstream media, and the “deep church” in an open letter. “In recent months we …

The Daily Beast reports: With their boss growing increasingly agitated with the state of his re-election campaign and with the efforts of Republican critics to undermine it, President Donald Trump’s team hatched a plan. They’d run a series of hard-hitting ads and place them on networks that they knew the president and congressional Republicans would watch. And so, over the …

“I would say that the last week was a very bad week for the president in terms of politics, in terms of his potential reelection prospects. “I mean when you’re getting called out by the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, and the archbishop of the Catholic Church of Washington, when you’re getting called out by everybody from Jim Mattis to former …

Axios reports: Republican senators on Tuesday largely avoided discussing President Trump’s tweet alleging without evidence that a 75-year-old Buffalo protester, who was seriously injured after being shoved by police, is an “antifa provocateur.” Our thought bubble: It’s the classic dodging mechanism, which we’ve grown accustomed to during the Trump presidency. Whenever senators and Trump advisers don’t want to weigh in …

The Washington Post reports: The National Park Service will remove most of the tall metal fencing surrounding Washington’s Lafayette Square by Wednesday, the agency said. Officials erected the fence early last week to bar access to the park near the White House, which sits south of it. The fencing first appeared shortly after police aggressively cleared a crowd of largely …

The Washington Post reports: Last August, Axios reported that President Trump repeatedly asked top national security officials to consider using nuclear bombs to weaken or destroy hurricanes. Now, one congresswoman wants to make it illegal for Trump, or any president, to act on this idea, which experts say would be both ineffective and extremely dangerous. On June 1, Rep. Sylvia …

The Daily Beast reports: The video of cops in Buffalo pushing an elderly man so hard that his head smashed off the ground and blood started gushing from his right ear shocked people across the nation. But President Trump isn’t convinced it’s real. Tweeting Tuesday morning, the president pushed a baseless conspiracy theory with no evidence that the scene was …

Reuters reports: President Donald Trump’s decision to cut U.S. troop levels in Germany blindsided a number of senior national security officials, according to five sources familiar with the matter, and the Pentagon had yet to receive a formal order to carry it out, Reuters has learned. Sources familiar with the matter said a number of U.S. officials at the White …

Phillip Bump writes for the Washington Post: The president who now fancies himself an expert on polling began the day by sharing a poll number that is by now pretty obviously made up. Trump keeps talking about how his approval rating among Republicans is 96 percent, without ever citing a poll that includes that figure. He used to repeatedly claim …

Politico reports: Donald Trump is planning to restart rallies in the next two weeks in a major turning point for the president since the coronavirus shut down traditional campaigning. Trump’s advisers are still determining where the rallies will take place and what safety measures will be implemented, depending on the type of venue chosen. Campaign manager Brad Parscale is expected …

Mediaite reports: President Donald Trump continued to rail against a new CNN poll showing him trailing Joe Biden, sharing a statement from “highly respected pollster” McLaughlin & Associates. The new poll from CNN shows Biden 14 points ahead of Trump — 55 to 41 — and puts the president’s approval rating at 38 percent. The statement the president shared says …

Politico Europe reports: Bella ciao, Donald Trump — or at least that’s what former U.S. Ambassador to the EU Anthony Gardner is hoping American voters decide in November. In an interview with Jack Blanchard, the editor of POLITICO’s London Playbook, on Monday, Gardner said Trump evokes memories of Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and that former Trump officials who are …