Over the weekend, news reports came out that the Russian government had offered bounties to Taliban forces to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan, which reportedly led to Taliban forces doing exactly that.
The most damning revelation is that Donald Trump knew all about this in March, yet has done nothing. From the New York Times:
The intelligence finding was briefed to President Trump, and the White House’s National Security Council discussed the problem at an interagency meeting in late March, the officials said. Officials developed a menu of potential options — starting with making a diplomatic complaint to Moscow and a demand that it stop, along with an escalating series of sanctions and other possible responses, but the White House has yet to authorize any step, the officials said.
Of course, according to Trump this is all fake news, and in classic form, he blamed the “Fake News @nytimesbooks” for “wanting to make Republicans look bad.” (The dastardly Books section strikes again!)
Unfortunately for Trump, even Republicans are concerned, and both Democrats and Republicans in Congress are demanding some answers.
I for one would love to never again read a sentence that contains the words “Trump” and “Russia,” but alas, you can’t always get what you want.
Politico has reported that sadly for him, Trump is now belatedly realizing that he’s a loser.
More, from Politico:
Donald Trump knows he’s losing.
The president has privately come to that grim realization in recent days, multiple people close to him told POLITICO, amid a mountain of bad polling and warnings from some of his staunchest allies that he’s on course to be a one-term president.
Maybe pretending like covid-19 isn’t a pandemic that is only growing in size and retweeting videos where people shout “white power” is actually a terrible strategy? Who would have thought.
Even some of his former advisers are issuing dire warnings about his reelection chances. “Under the current trajectory, President Trump is on the precipice of one of the worst electoral defeats in modern presidential elections and the worst historically for an incumbent president,” said Sam Nunberg, a one-time political adviser to Trump, who admittedly probably has an axe to grind with his former boss. Still, facts are facts, and Trump’s polling numbers and approval ratings are plummeting. If they continue to fall, Nunberg told Politico, Trump is “going to be facing realistically a 400-plus electoral vote loss and the president would need to strongly reconsider whether he wants to continue to run as the Republican presidential nominee.”
- A big day for Donald Trump and his online platforms! Not only was r/The_Donald banned from Reddit, Twitch has also temporarily suspended his official account for “hateful conduct.” All of this feels a little too late, but I’ll take it. [Kotaku]
- In more not great but not devastating news for Trump, the Rolling Stones are threatening to sue him for playing their songs at his campaign rallies. The Stones join the Village People, Neil Young, and the family of the late Tom Petty in being supremely pissed that Trump keeps on playing their music at his dumb rallies. [NBC News]
- Here’s a story about how CNN commentator and activist Van Jones allegedly worked with the White House on Trump’s shitty police reform bill, and then didn’t disclose his work while praising the bill. While he declined to be interviewed for the story, Jones denied on Twitter that he had “been included in any meetings about police reform (not by phone, zoom, nada.” Who to believe? Not that I really care! [The Daily Beast/Twitter]
- Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden both want a federal requirement to mask up, which, yes, seems like a good idea though difficult if impossible to enforce. [CNN]
- In a move no one could have predicted, Wisconsin’s Republican state legislators really personally love voting by mail, while working very hard to deny that right to others. [Associated Press]
- Wow, a real shocker here that two bad men are putting out untrue and also incredibly dumb ideas.
- Meanwhile, in Trump’s America, we all have adult sons that we’ve successfully hidden from the public for years, I guess!