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Has Donald Trump’s medication made him especially erratic? Is this how dramatically he would be imploding under the circumstances anyway, cornered and desperate in the face of potential defeat? Has this whole week been a collective hallucination induced by seven months of quarantine? Life is a banquet of terrifying mysteries!
- A raspy-voiced, coughing Donald Trump told Sean Hannity on Thursday evening that he was in perfect health and hoped to hold back-to-back rallies in Florida and Pennsylvania this weekend. Trump did not say whether he had tested negative for coronavirus, nor did a statement from Sean Conley announcing that Trump had “completed his course of therapy for COVID-19” and could likely return to public events on Saturday. The Trump campaign tried to use that statement, from a physician who has admitted to lying to the public to keep Trump happy, to push for an in-person debate next week. Yeah, good, ok. (That debate has been officially canceled.)
- Trump now reportedly plans to hold another superspreader event at the White House instead, but with an already erratic maniac now dialed up to 11 (whether by steroids or poll numbers or both), that decision could change another three or four times. To wit: After shutting down coronavirus-relief talks on Twitter earlier this week, Trump has now scrambled back to the negotiating table with an offer of $1.8 trillion, desperate to (make voters think he wants to) pass another relief package before the election. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has declined to play along.
- (Barenaked Ladies voice) Iiiit’s been one week since Trump announced his diagnosis, and White House spokesperson Brian Morgenstern once again repeatedly refused to provide the date of Trump’s last negative test. Instead, the reality TV president will undergo a televised “medical examination” by this very legit doctor, as absolutely no one requested. Meanwhile, Dr. Anthony Fauci today acknowledged that the Rose Garden nomination ceremony was obviously a superspreading event, and newly confirmed cases at an Indiana school attended by some of Amy Coney Barrett’s children suggest that the honoree’s family may have brought the outbreak home. Unfortunately we may never know for certain: The White House has prohibited contact tracing the Rose Garden event, to prevent the public from learning when Trump became infected, and how many people he transmitted the disease to.
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As Trump’s miserable poll numbers show no signs of improving, his demands for a manufactured distraction from his coronavirus failures (national and personal) have become increasingly unhinged.
- Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pledged to find and release another tranche of Hillary Clinton’s emails before the election, a day after Trump lashed out at him on Fox News for failing to recreate 2016 in all its glory. Another “But Her Emails” news cycle would be on the tame end of Trump’s wishlist—Trump has been railing against Attorney General Bill Barr for not indicting Barack Obama or Joe Biden for made-up crimes, and suggested that behind the scenes, he’s been pressuring Barr directly to do so.
- To keep public focus on the reality that the most powerful man in the world has lost his whole mind, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced legislation that would create a commission to evaluate a president’s fitness for office and determine whether presidents should be removed under the 25th Amendment. The House won’t be in session until after the election, and the bill would die in the current Senate anyway, but it’s certainly the right conversation to be initiating.
At this point in the 2016 election cycle, the Access Hollywood tape had come out, and Donald Trump’s candidacy was widely seen as finished. Four years later, Trump’s wild thrashing should be read as a reminder that he senses imminent defeat, but we also know that he’ll do anything in his power to reverse that fate. Ignore the polls, ignore the tantrums, and get to work with us this weekend → votesaveamerica.com.
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On today's new episode of With Friends Like These: It’s easy to feel superior to John Allen Chau, the evangelical Christian who died attempting to bring the Bible to the North Sentinelese. We should ask ourselves if maybe it’s a little too easy. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your pods →
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Several of the men charged in the plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) have ties to the boogaloo movement, which includes both self-proclaimed white nationalists and other pro-gun extremists interested in igniting civil war, and/or overthrowing the government and law enforcement. Ironically, a sitting Michigan sheriff came to the suspects’ defense in this berserk interview: “Are they trying to kidnap? Because a lot of people are angry with the governor, and they want her arrested. So are they trying to arrest or was it a kidnap attempt? Because you can still in Michigan if it's a felony, make a felony arrest.” In two other details that are both completely predictable and utterly unacceptable, a) the plotters railed against Whitmer and organized their scheme in private Facebook groups for months, and b) President Trump reacted to the news of Whitmer’s foiled kidnapping by attacking her on television.
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- The U.S. reported 56,000 new confirmed coronavirus cases on Thursday, the highest daily increase since mid-August. In technical epidemiology terms, this is what is known as “the wrong direction.”
- The White House reportedly blocked a CDC order that would have required everyone to wear masks on all forms of public and commercial transportation. In technical epidemiology terms, this is what is known as “the type of shit that sent us in the wrong direction.”
- Two friends of Amy Dorris, who recently came forward to accuse Trump of sexually assaulting her at the 1997 U.S. Open, recalled her telling them the same story at the time.
- Judge Amy Coney Barrett failed to disclose two talks she gave hosted by anti-choice student groups on her Senate paperwork. Just a whole bunch of coincidental omissions of her very clear stance on Roe v. Wade, nothing to see here!
- Tonight’s South Carolina Senate debate has been canceled because Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who attended a hearing with an infected GOP senator, refused to take a coronavirus test.
- Steve Scully, the moderator of the second presidential debate, claimed someone hacked into his Twitter account to send one boring tweet to Anthony Scaramucci.
- New York Attorney General Letitia James has been investigating a $21.1 million tax break that Trump received for preserving a forest on his Seven Springs estate, which was appraised by one of Trump’s close business partners.
- In other highly suspicious increments of $21 million, Trump’s tax records revealed that he received that amount in unusual payments from the Las Vegas hotel he co-owns with his friend Phil Ruffin in 2016, just when his presidential campaign and businesses were running low on funds. If those payments were used to finance Trump’s campaign, they may constitute an illegal campaign contribution.
- Twitter has announced policy changes aimed at making it harder to share misinformation about the election, like prohibiting retweets of misleading posts that don’t include additional commentary. In other words, you can still RT Donald Trump falsely declaring himself the winner, but only if you quote-tweet it with “THIS!” Thank you, Jack.
- Kamala Harris’s uncle has provided the only debate analysis that matters, in a terrific set of accessories.
- (Yanking the lever on the 2020 News Generator) Ok, let’s see, furry poisonous caterpillars that make people vomit are spreading across Virginia. Good stuff.
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Minor cosmetic tweaks to Facebook posts containing misinformation are all it takes to evade fact checking, according to a new analysis by the advocacy group Avaaz. Bad actors can get around Facebook’s misinformation policies by simply changing a post’s font or background color, even when Facebook has applied a warning label to otherwise identical versions. Avaaz found that pattern in misleading posts across a range of topics, from COVID-19 to mail-in voting, in what looked to be orchestrated efforts to spread falsehoods. Of the 1,776 posts the group examined (all of which had been debunked by Facebook’s independent fact-checkers), only 42 percent were labeled.
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The ACLU is urging the Senate to delay a vote on the Supreme Court nomination until after the next president is inaugurated. This isn’t about a particular nominee – it is about the time and careful deliberation required to adequately vet them. Trump is threatening the very legitimacy of the Court – and all of us – by trying to rush through a nominee. This decision will shape civil liberties in our country for generations. Hurrying a nomination means that the Senate cannot meaningfully do its job with so little time left in this term and it means that the people already voting, including you, won't be heard. You’re your voice heard with the ACLU. Tell your senator to delay the vote – click here to add your name today.
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An Ohio federal judge has blocked the GOP secretary of state's order barring counties from setting up more than one ballot drop box site.
A staggering 47,000 people have signed up to be poll workers in North Carolina.
Brittney Woodrum has raised nearly $75,000 for coronavirus relief by climbing all 54 of Colorado's14,000-foot peaks.
You made Mitch McConnell very sad.
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