Confronting a failed presidency after 100,000-plus COVID deaths and the protests that are still convulsing the nation this week, Donald Trump is venting to West Wing officials that Democratic governors are allowing civil unrest to rage in American cities to damage his reelection campaign. “He feels the blue-state governors are letting it burn because it hurts him. It’s a lot like how he sees coronavirus,” an outside White House adviser told me yesterday, shortly after audio leaked of Trump berating governors on a conference call about quelling the riots.
Trump’s sense of victimhood, and his view that the crisis ignited by George Floyd’s gruesome death is largely a political problem, have resulted in a shambolic White House response, veering from Trump’s retreat to the bunker as the protests neared the White House to the culmination of police using teargas on peaceful protestors so that he could walk through a park to stage a photo op in front of St. John’s Church. “He’s paralyzed,” a former West Wing official told me.
In private, Trump has told people the street violence would subside if the other three Minnesota police officers were charged with murder, a person who spoke with Trump told me. But, always worried about seeming weak, he made no mention of the officers or police brutality during yesterday’s Rose Garden speech. “When things get dicey and hairy, it usually means he relies on his instincts,” a former West Wing official said. “And he’s decided law and order is going to win the day.”
(The White House declined to comment.)
Trump was already struggling to reboot his campaign when the gruesome Memorial Day video leaked, showing officer Derek Chauvin driving his knee into George Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes as Floyd pleaded for his life. A day after Floyd’s death, Trump promoted two operatives into senior campaign roles, moves that were largely seen as a demotion for Trump’s embattled campaign manager, Brad Parscale. As protests and riots intensified last week, Karl Rove visited the White House to offer advice on appealing to African American voters, a source briefed on the conversation said. Rove’s new role as an unofficial adviser on Trump’s team rankled some in the West Wing and on the campaign. “People aren’t happy about Rove. He’s a Bushie,” the source said. “What’s he going to tell Trump? He’s stale.”
Trump at first seemed to ignore the protests. He didn’t mention Floyd’s name for two days. But by Friday, Trump grasped the scale of the crisis when Secret Service agents rushed him into the White House bunker as hundreds of protesters demonstrated outside the White House gates. “The agents came in and weren’t messing around. It was serious,” Trump later told a friend. “Those guys aren’t going to take any shit.” That night Trump sent out an incendiary tweet threatening that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” and another on Saturday about “vicious dogs.” “Trump is pissed that they’re rioting. That’s just the old guy from Queens who’s offended by this. That’s the Archie Bunker in him,” a Trump friend told me.
Around Trump in the West Wing was a fierce debate over how to respond. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, opposed chief of staff Mark Meadows’s advice that Trump needed to give an Oval Office address to unify the country. “Meadows was close friends with Elijah Cummings. He wanted a different approach,” a former West Wing official said. Kushner argued that Trump hasn’t been successful when he’s spoken from the Oval Office in the past, a source briefed on Kushner’s thinking told me, an assessment Trump didn’t disagree with. “Trump doesn’t like giving Oval Office addresses,” a prominent Republican told me.
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.
Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.
Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
