Trump ignores science at dangerous indoor rally - CNN

Politics

Trump ignores science at dangerous indoor rally – CNN

Published

4 years ago

September 14, 2020

The event in Nevada — his second rally in the state in as many days — did not only risk the health of those present, thousands of whom were packed together inside a manufacturing facility in defiance of the state’s ban on local gatherings of 50 people or more. It also has the potential to turn into a super spreader event that could seed Covid-19 outbreaks in the wider community. Trump hadn’t held an indoor rally in nearly three months, since his last one, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, after which the city saw a surge in cases and multiple campaign staffers along with Secret Service agents tested positive for the virus.

The jarring scenes of the indoor event clashed with footage from the first weekend of NFL games that went ahead in cavernous empty stadiums, reflecting how almost alone the President, who might be expected to set an example, is responsible for the most dangerous breaches of his own government’s coronavirus recommendations.

CNN’s Brian Stelter reported that major television networks, including CNN, decided not to send their crews and correspondents into the rally for their own safety. It’s not unusual for media companies to take steps to shield their employees in war zones abroad, but such precautions are exceedingly rare on home soil.

The same ditching of inconvenient facts to service Trump’s personal whims, political goals and conspiracy theories will likely be highlighted again on Monday when the President visits one of the raging Western wildfires in California, where more than 3 million acres have burned this year and 22 people have died since mid-August. The President insists that the fires are caused by poor forest management. Scientists argue that they have been exacerbated by climate change.

Accelerating efforts to reshape reality

As the election fast approaches, the administration’s broader attempt to reshape reality to benefit and accommodate an unrestrained President is accelerating, including among government officials who appear to be trying to stop the full story of the coronavirus emergency from coming out. Trump’s decision not to share what he knew about the deadly potential of the disease back in February — detailed in Bob Woodward’s new book — may have cost tens of thousands of lives. The economic effects of the pandemic are devastating. Yet as his incessant demands to open states — based on political motives rather than scientific rigor — show, the President is still not taking the human toll of Covid-19 with consuming seriousness.

A similar effort to create a reality that Trump would prefer is underway as he repeatedly lies about what he says is a Democratic attempt to rig the vote in November. In fact, his own political appointees in the Department of Homeland Security are accused of trying to conceal the full extent of Russian election interference designed to prop up his trailing campaign. CNN reported last week that the same whistleblower who raised that complaint had also cautioned that officials had also modified intelligence assessments to downplay the threat posed by White supremacists and to line them up with false comments made by the President about Antifa and leftist and anarchist groups.

New signs of politically-motivated investigations at the Justice Department are meanwhile adding to Attorney General William Barr’s reputation as Trump’s personal enforcer and also to concerns that an investigation he ordered into the origins of the Russia probe is being cooked up to offer Trump a pre-election surprise.

Across Washington, it seems to be a similar story as the truths and facts are remolded to support a President who admitted last week that his worldview and perception of reality are filtered through hour after hour of Fox News opinion shows whose counsel he appears to value over some of the highly qualified experts in his own government.

In a new example of the President picking conspiratorial or fantastical positions that match his political goals, rather than those rooted in fact and science, he complained over the weekend that California’s raging wildfires were the result of poor forest management. This is in line with his previously expressed belief that state governments need to “rake” and “clean” forest floors to remove the kindling for wildfires. Many scientists have said that drought and longer fire seasons are a direct consequence of climate change and have produced peer-reviewed studies to back up their conclusions. But such a conclusion is inconvenient to the President’s desire to promote fossil fuels and would require him to challenge conservative orthodoxy.

View Trump and Biden head-to-head polling

“Talk to a firefighter, if you think that climate change isn’t real,” the Democratic mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” on Sunday. “It seems like this administration are the last vestiges of the Flat Earth Society of this generation.”

One of Trump’s top economic advisers, Peter Navarro, warned in several academic papers that climate change was one of the most serious potential environment challenges of the age. But in an interview with Tapper, in which he repeatedly refused to answer questions about the new Woodward book, Navarro seems to have changed his views to accommodate those of Trump.

“For many, many years, particularly because of budget cutbacks, there was no inclination to manage our forests. That’s actually a real issue,” Navarro said.

An all-powerful President

The triumph of Trump’s political ideology over fact and truth underscores the way he has systematically removed restraining personalities and forces from his administration. In many cases, the government now runs much like a massive version of the Trump organization, all working to fulfill the desires of the all-powerful boss. While Trump had now-disgraced legal fixer Michael Cohen in his business life to impose his will, he now has loyalists who are working to subvert what they see as the “Deep State” opposition in the bureaucracy to a President who demands total loyalty.

It’s not clear that the power grabs of the President will be anything like a decisive factor in the election, despite warnings by former President Barack Obama during the Democratic convention that the very future of American democracy and the integrity of the republic are on the ballot.

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Trump’s efforts to stifle good governance draw big headlines in Washington but don’t resonate as much elsewhere in a country staggering amid a pandemic and consequent economic disaster that have destroyed the rhythms of normal life. Political maneuverings at the top of a government agency can often seen arcane. One lesson from countries in places like Eastern Europe, where democracy has been challenged, is that damage to good governance only becomes clear in retrospect, following months and years of erosion.

Yet Trump, a President who was impeached for trying to use government power to coerce a foreign nation, Ukraine, to interfere in a US election, appears to be sending a warning of how he would behave in a second term freed from any future accountability from voters. Government agencies and departments often reflect the priorities and interests of a President. But the recent attempts by Trump aides to reshape facts, truth and data is highly unusual.

Trump aides part with reality in Woodward defense

Troubling revelations by Woodward about Trump’s negligence amid a pandemic that has killed more than 194,000 Americans were compounded by new suggestions of fact-twisting by top Trump officials.

A federal health official told CNN on Saturday that Trump’s communications team at the US Department of Health and Human Services pushed to change language of weekly science reports released by the CDC.

Former Trump campaign aide turned chief HHS spokesman Michael Caputo and his team demanded to see reports out of the CDC before they are released, a senior administration official said. The story was first reported by Politico.

The source said some federal health officials at the CDC believe the interference to be an effort to change communications by the CDC’s scientists so as not to contradict the President, who argues that the pandemic is all but over and it’s time to fully reopen the country.

Caputo defended the behavior and praised Dr. Paul Alexander, who has reportedly been adding political content to CDC reports tracking the emergency.

“Dr. Alexander advises me on pandemic policy and he has been encouraged to share his opinions with other scientists,” Caputo said in a statement. “Like all scientists, his advice is heard and taken or rejected by his peers.”

The news is likely to stir more alarm at the way the administration has often prioritized the President’s political goals — on issues like masks and economic and school openings — in ways that repeatedly ignored science and facts.

The administration’s credibility on such issues and the need to separate politics and epidemiology will be incredibly important in convincing Americans to take a vaccine to end the pandemic when one is eventually widely available.

Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel pushed back Sunday on the idea that Trump had managed the pandemic according to his political requirements rather than as the massive public health emergency that it is.

“I disagree that the President took political calculations into a global pandemic,” McDaniel, one of a string of Trump allies sent to Sunday talk shows to try to push back against the Woodward revelations.

But when she was asked by “Meet the Press” anchor Chuck Todd on NBC why the US had 25% of the world’s Covid-19 deaths, she repeated a misleading claim that has come to typify the misinformation and illogical responses often used by Trump aides throughout the pandemic. “Well, we do have more testing,” McDaniel said.

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Trudeau questions Poilievre's judgment, says the Conservative Leader 'will do anything to win' – The Globe and Mail

Published

4 hours ago

April 24, 2024

Harry Miller

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is flanked by Minister of Housing Sean Fraser, right, and Treasury Board President Anita Anand, left, during a press conference in Oakville, Ont., on April 24.Cole Burston/The Canadian Press

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau criticized Pierre Poilievre over his judgment, a day after the Conservative Leader visited a protest against carbon pricing that featured a “Make Canada Great Again” slogan and a symbol that appeared to be tied to a far-right, anti-government group.

Mr. Trudeau accused Mr. Poilievre of exacerbating divisions and welcoming the “support of conspiracy theorists and extremists.”

“Every politician has to make choices about what kind of leader they want to be,” the Prime Minister said at a press conference Wednesday in Oakville, Ont.

“He will do anything to win, anything to torque up negativity and fear and it only emphasizes that he has nothing to say to actually solve the problems that he’s busy amplifying.”

On Tuesday, Mr. Poilievre stopped at a protest against carbon pricing near the New Brunswick-Nova Scotia border while on his way from PEI to Nova Scotia. Video of the protest shows an expletive-laden flag directed at Mr. Trudeau that was a symbol of the anti-vaccine-mandate protests that gripped Ottawa two years ago, as well as an anti-carbon-tax sign and a van with the slogan “Make Canada Great Again” written on it.

“We saw you so I told the team to pull over and say ‘hello,’” Mr. Poilievre said to the protesters in one of the videos posted online. He thanked them for “all you’re doing.”

“We’re going to axe the tax and its going to be in part because you guys fought back,” Mr. Poilievre said in the videos. “Everyone hates the tax because everyone’s been screwed over. People believed his lies. Everything he said was bullshit, from top to bottom.”

When asked to take a picture in front of the flag with the expletive, Mr. Poilievre responded: “Let’s do it in front of something else.”

One of the vans at the protests has what appeared to be a symbol of the anti-government, far-right group called Diagolon. Mr. Trudeau tried on Wednesday to tie that to Mr. Poilievre. The Conservative Leader has previously disavowed the group.

In a statement Wednesday through his lawyer, the group’s leader, Jeremy MacKenzie, said he was Mr. Poilievre’s biggest detractor in Canada. He also criticized Mr. Trudeau, saying “both of these weak men are completely out of touch with reality and incapable of telling the truth.”

Mr. Poilievre’s office defended the Conservative Leader’s visit to the protest in a statement on Wednesday.

“As a vocal opponent of Justin Trudeau’s punishing carbon tax which has driven up the cost of groceries, gas and heating, he made a brief, impromptu stop,” spokesperson Sebastian Skamski said.

“If Justin Trudeau is concerned about extremism, he should look at parades on Canadian streets openly celebrating Hamas’ slaughter of Jews on October 7th.”

During his press conference, Mr. Trudeau also pointed out that Mr. Poilievre has done nothing to reject the endorsement of right-wing commentator Alex Jones earlier this month. Mr. Jones, on X, called Mr. Poilievre “the real deal” and said “Canada desperately needs a lot more leaders like him and so does the rest of the world.”

Mr. Jones was ordered to pay nearly $1-billion in damages to the families of the victims of the deadly 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, which he portrayed as a hoax.

“This is the kind of man who’s saying Pierre Poilievre has the right ideas to bring the country toward the right, towards conspiracy theories, towards extremism, towards polarization,” Mr. Trudeau said.

In response to the Prime Minister’s remarks, Mr. Skamski said “we do not follow” Mr. Jones “or listen to what he has to say.”

“Common-sense Conservatives are listening to the priorities of the millions of Canadians that want to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime,” he added.

“It is the endorsement of hard-working, everyday Canadians that Conservatives are working to earn. Unlike Justin Trudeau, we’re not paying attention to what some American is saying.”

With a report from The Canadian Press.

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Politics Briefing: Younger demographics not swayed by federal budget benefits targeted at them, poll indicates

Published

9 hours ago

April 24, 2024

Harry Miller

Hello,

The federal government’s efforts to connect with Gen Z adults and millennials through programs in last week’s federal budget has not yet worked, says a new poll.

The Angus Reid Institute says today that the opposition Conservatives are running at 43 per cent voter support compared to 23 per cent for the governing Liberals, while the NDP are at 19 per cent.

Polling by the institute also finds the Liberals are the third choice among Gen Z and millennial voters, falling behind the NDP and Conservatives.

According to the institute, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is viewed more positively among Gen Z adults than Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, with Poilievre at 29 per cent approval and Trudeau at 17 per cent. Poilievre also has a higher favorability than Trudeau’s approval among younger and older millennials.

Gen Z adults were born between 1997 and 2012, while the birth period of millennials was 1981 to 1996.

The poll conclusions are based on online polling conducted from April 19 – three days after the budget was released – to April 23, among a randomized sample of 3, 015 Canadians. Such research has a probability sample of plus or minus two percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Asked about the poll today, Trudeau said the budget is aimed at solving problems, helping young people and delivering homes and services such as child care.

“I am confident that as Canadians see these measures happening, they will be more optimistic about their future, the way we need them to be,” Trudeau told a news conference in Oakville, Ont.

He also said he expected Canadians to be thoughtful about the future when they vote. “I trust Canadians to be reasonable,” he said.

The Globe and Mail has previously reported that Trudeau’s government has set an internal goal of narrowing the Conservative Party’s double-digit lead by five points every six months. A federal election is expected next year.

This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, written by Ian Bailey. It is available exclusively to our digital subscribers. If you’re reading this on the web, subscribers can sign up for the Politics newsletter and more than 20 others on our newsletter sign-up page. Have any feedback? Let us know what you think.

TODAY’S HEADLINES

Pierre Poilievre visits convoy camp, claims Trudeau is lying about ‘everything’: CBC reports that the Conservative Leader is facing questions after stopping to cheer on an anti-carbon tax convoy camp near the border between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, where he bluntly accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of lying about “everything.”

Smith defends appointment of task force led by doctor skeptical of COVID-19 measures: The Globe and Mail has published details of the little-known task force that was given a sweeping mandate by the government to assess data used to inform pandemic decision-making. Story here.

Canadians should expect politicians to support right to bail, Arif Virani’s office says: The office of Canada’s Justice Minister says, warning that “immediate” and “uninformed reactions” only worsens matters.

Parti Québécois is on its way back to the centre of Quebec politics: The province’s next general election isn’t until 2026, a political eternity away, and support for separating from Canada remains stagnant. But a resurgent Quebec nationalism, frustration with Ottawa, and the PQ’s youthful, upbeat leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon have put sovereignty back on the agenda.

Anaida Poilievre in B.C.: The wife of the federal Conservative Leader has been on a visit to Kelowna in recent days that was expected to conclude today, according to Castanet.net.

Ontario to do away with sick note requirement for short absences: The province will soon introduce legislation that, if passed, will no longer allow employers to require a sick note from a doctor for the provincially protected three days of sick leave workers are entitled to.

Australian reporter runs into visa trouble in India after reporting on slaying of Canadian Sikh separatist: In a statement, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said Indian authorities should safeguard press freedom and stop using visa regulations to prevent foreign journalists covering sensitive subjects.

Canadian military to destroy 11,000 Second World War-era pistols: The Ottawa Citizen reports that the move comes as the Canadian Forces confirmed it has received the final deliveries of a new nine-millimetre pistol as part of a $19.4-million project.

B.C. opposition leader in politics-free oasis: The first hint that there may be more to Kevin Falcon, leader of the official opposition BC United party, than his political stereotype comes when you pull up to his North Vancouver home – a single-level country cottage rancher dwarfed on one side by large, angular, modern monstrosity. A NorthernBeat profile.

TODAY’S POLITICAL QUOTES.

“Having an argument with CRA about not wanting to pay your taxes is not a position I want anyone to be in. Good luck with that Premier Moe.” – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the Canada Revenue Agency weighing in on Saskatchewan’s government move to stop collecting and remitting the federal carbon levy.

“That’s not something that we’re hoping for. We’re not trying to plan for an election.“ – NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, at a news conference in Edmonton today, on the possibilities of an election now ahead of the vote expected in the fall of 2025.

THIS AND THAT

Commons, Senate: The House of Commons is on a break until April 29. The Senate sits again April 30.

Deputy Prime Minister’s day: In the Newfoundland and Labrador city of Mount Pearl, Chrystia Freeland held an event to talk about the federal budget.

Ministers on the road: Cabinet efforts to sell the budget continue, with announcements largely focused on housing. Citizens’ Services Minister Terry Beech and Small Business Minister Rechie Valdez are in Burnaby, B.C. Defence Minister Bill Blair is in Yellowknife. Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault is in Edmonton. Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Natural Revenue Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau are in the Quebec city of Trois-Rivières.

Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu is in Lytton, B.C., with an additional event welcoming members of the Skwlāx te Secwepemcúl̓ecw band to four new subdivisions built after the 2023 Bush Creek East wildfire. International Development Minister Ahmed Hussen is in Sault Ste. Marie. Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly is in Québec City. Diversity Minister Kamal Khera is in Kingston, Ontario. Immigration Minister Marc Miller and Tourism Minister Soraya Martinez Ferrada are in Whitehorse. Justice Minister Arif Virani and Families Minister Jenna Sudds are in North York, Ont. Veterans Affairs Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor is in Charlottetown.

Meanwhile, International Trade Minister Mary Ng is in South Korea leading a group of businesses and organizations through to tomorrow.

GG in Saskatchewan: Mary Simon and her partner, Whit Fraser, on the last day of their official visit to Saskatchewan, is in Saskatoon, with commitments that include visiting the Maternal Care Centre at the Jim Pattison Hospital and meeting with Indigenous leaders.

Ukraine needs more military aid, UCC says: The Ukrainian Canadian Congress says Canada should substantially increase military assistance to Ukraine. “As President Zelensky stated, “The key now is speed,’” said a statement today from the organization. The appeal coincides with U.S. President Joe Biden signing into law an aid package that provides over US$61-billion in aid for Ukraine. “We call on the Canadian government and all allies to follow suit and to immediately and substantially increase military assistance to Ukraine,” said the statement. An update issued on the occasion of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s February visit to Ukraine noted that, since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the Canadian government has provided $13.3-billion to Ukraine.

New chief commissioner of the Canadian Grain Commission: David Hunt, most recently an assistant deputy minister in Manitoba’s environment department, has been named to the post for a four-year term by Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay.

PRIME MINISTER’S DAY

In Oakville, near Toronto, Justin Trudeau talked about federal-budget housing measures, and took media questions.

LEADERS

Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet is in the Quebec city of Victoriaville, with commitments that include a meeting at the Centre for Social Innovation in Agriculture

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, in the Vancouver Island city of Nanaimo, attended the sentencing of deputy party leader Angela Davidson, also known as Rainbow Eyes, convicted of seven counts of criminal contempt for her participation in the Fairy Creek logging blockades on Vancouver Island.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, in Edmonton, held a media availability.

No schedule released for Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre.

THE DECIBEL

James Griffiths, The Globe’s Asia correspondent, is on the show t to discuss Article 23 – a new national security law in Hong Kong that includes seven new offences related to sedition, treason and state secrets that is expected to have a chilling effect on protest. The Decibel is here.

OPINION

The Liberals’ capital-gains tax hike punishes prosperity

“In her budget speech this month, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland pointed to 1980s-era tax changes by the Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney as a precedent for boosting the tax take on capital gains. … If one were to leave it at that, the Liberals come off quite well, having decided to boost the inclusion rate for capital gains – the amount subject to tax – to two-thirds, well below that of the latter years of the Mulroney government. But Ms. Freeland was only telling half the story.” – The Globe and Mail Editorial Board

The Liberals weight-loss goal shows they are running out of options

“The bad polls are weighing down the Liberals, so they have decided to shed some weight: They aim to cut the Conservatives’ lead by five percentage points by July. Like middle-aged dieters beginning a new regime, they’ve looked in the mirror and decided they have to do something. They’ve committed to it, too.” – Campbell Clark

Fear the politicization of pensions, no matter the politician

“Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland don’t have a lot in common. But they do share at least one view: that governments could play a bigger role directing pension investments to the benefit of domestic industries and economic priorities. Canadians, no matter who they vote for, should be worried that these two political heavyweights share any common ground in this regard.” – Kelly Cryderman

The failure of Canada’s health care system is a disgrace – and a deadly one

“What can be said about Canada’s health care system that hasn’t been said countless times over, as we watch more and more people suffer and die as they wait for baseline standards of care? Despite our delusions, we don’t have “world-class” health care, as our Prime Minister has said; we don’t even have universal health care. What we have is health care if you’re lucky, or well connected, or if you happen to have a heart attack on a day when your closest ER is merely overcapacity as usual, and not stuffed to the point of incapacitation.” – Robyn Urback

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Politics

Pecker’s Trump Trial Testimony Is a Lesson in Power Politics

Published

15 hours ago

April 24, 2024

Harry Miller

David Pecker, convivial, accommodating and as bright as a button, sat in the witness stand in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday and described how power is used and abused.

“What I would do is publish positive stories about Mr. Trump,” the former tabloid hegemon and fabulist allowed, as if he was sharing some of his favorite dessert recipes. “And I would publish negative stories about his opponents.”

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