#Kristen Welker
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Donald Trump, in response to a question during a 2020 presidential debate with Joe Biden, insisted that he closed down his bank account in China before his first campaign. But six years’ worth of Trump’s tax records, released Friday, reveal that wasn’t true.
“[I] had an account open, and I closed it,” Trump said with some irritation to moderator Kristen Welker, NBC White House correspondent, in the final debate of the campaign in October 2020. “I closed it before I even ran for President, let alone became President.”
Rep.-elect Daniel Goldman (D-N.Y.), who served as the Democrats’ lead counsel in the first impeachment inquiry into Trump, noted that the former President had bank accounts in China until 2018, from 2015 to 2017, according to his tax records.
“Generally, you only have bank accounts in a foreign country if you are doing transactions in that country’s currency,” Goldman tweeted Friday. “What business was Trump doing in China while he was President?”
Trump, who had accounts in a number of countries and collected income from more than a dozen foreign nations while in office, paid more in taxes in 2020 to the Chinese government than he did in American federal income tax that year, his returns revealed.
Trump also lied a month earlier to then-Fox News commentator Chris Wallace, who pointedly asked him during the first presidential debate in 2020 if he’d paid only $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017, as The New York Times had reported (which Trump immediately blasted as “fake news”).
Trump angrily responded — twice — that he had paid “millions of dollars.” His returns revealed that indeed he had paid just $750 in federal income taxes in each of those years. Trump and his wife Melania paid no federal income tax in 2020, the last full year he was in office, according to the tax records.
In addition, Trump did not annually donate his $400,000 presidential salary to charity, as he has claimed. He declared no charitable contributions of any kind on his 2020 returns.
Among the early revelations emerging in Trump’s tax records, some of the most troubling involve his financial entanglements abroad while he was President, “highlighting a string of potential conflicts of interest,” Politico noted.
Trump had multiple bank accounts in a number of foreign countries, and collected millions of dollars in income from more than a dozen nations ― including Panama, the Philippines (whose onetime dictator, former President Rodrigo Duterte, he has praised) and the United Arab Emirates during the Trump administration.
While presidents routinely place assets in blind trusts while they’re in office, Trump’s eldest sons continued to openly operate the Trump Organization and forged deals around the world with nations affected by the Trump administration’s policies and expenditures.
Trump’s returns reveal hefty financial losses in the two years before he became President, some of which he carried forward to reduce tax bills.
Trump enjoyed an adjusted gross income of $15.8 million during his first three years in office. He paid $642,000 in federal income tax in 2015, $750 in 2016 and in 2017, just under $1 million in 2018, $133,000 in 2019 and nothing in 2020.
#us politics#news#donald trump#2022#trump administration#republicans#conservatives#gop#china#trump tax returns#trump taxes#Kristen Welker#2020 presidential election#presidential debate#bradley p. moss#Daniel Goldman#tweet#twitter#Chris Wallace#the new york times#melania trump#trump organization#eric trump#donald trump jr.#pbs newshour#Panama#Philippines#Rodrigo Duterte#United Arab Emirates
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Paige Skinner at HuffPost:
Over the weekend, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said that calling in the National Guard to contain students on college campuses protesting the war in Gaza would be a “very, very bad idea” — and referenced the 1970 Kent State University massacre in Kent, Ohio, as an example.
During an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, host Kristen Welker asked Kaine if he supported the idea of the National Guard responding to the protests.
While visiting Columbia University last week, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) suggested that the National Guard may need to intervene if the protests at the school continued.
“Calling in the National Guard to college campuses for so many people would recall what happened when that was done during the Vietnam War, and it didn’t end well,” Kaine said. “The National Guard going to college campuses, Kent State and elsewhere, did not end well, and I think that would be a very, very bad idea. I think there are other ways — using campus security — but also, again, offering students more opportunities to have dialogue that is civil and constructive where people hear one another. That’s by far preferable.”
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) went on NBC's Meet The Press Sunday.
Kaine rightly stated that calling in the National Guard to deal with campus protests against Israel's genocidal campaign on Gaza would cause more problems than it solves.
From the 04.28.2024 edition of NBC's Meet The Press:
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#Tim Kaine#Kristen Welker#Meet The Press#NBC News#Ceasefire NOW Protests#Ceasefire#Israel/Hamas War#Gaza Genocide#Gaza#National Guard#Vietnam War Protests#Vietnam War#Kent State Massacre
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Coat is from Veronica Beard
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Sound Advice For Future Interviewers of TFG
Okay, so I’ve spent the last two hours reading various accounts of the interview Kristen Welker did with the former guy last Friday. From all accounts, NBC should have kept Chuck Todd as moderator for Meet the Press, though I was not a fan of Mr. Todd. Not one single story I’ve seen had anything whatsoever positive to say about the interview … apparently Ms. Welker let Trump dominate with his…
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#David Pepper#Kristen Welker#Lies lies and more lies#media bias#media fact-checking#Meet the Press#Trump interview
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Peacocked Up
#political satire#editorial cartoons#politics#donald trump#political cartoon#trump#trump humor#nbc news#peacock#kristen welker#meet the press
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Donald Trump's Amorality & Evangelicals' Day of Reckoning
Evangelicals’ Fascination with Donald Trump
As far back as 2011, Evangelical Christians’ fascination with Donald Trump, culminating in his 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton, has been on a collision course with the Biblical faith that we say we hold dear. A time of reckoning with putting our faith in (at times bordering on idolatry) political parties, politicians, and politics, is upon us. And,…
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#2024 Presidential Election#Abortion#Abortion Ban#Conservatives#Donald Trump#Evangelicals#gender#Hillary Clinton#King David#Kristen Welker#Meet the Press#Ron Desantis#Supreme Court#transgender
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Covidable
Hi Everyone — Chair here.
So after almost four glorious years of outrageously defying the odds, it finally happened — and it was the Lady Eris (EG.5) strain that caught me.
Yes —
I have COVID.
Welp
First — I’m okay. Not comfortable but not extremely sick. It sucks but when you quickly take Paxlovid they say it reduces symptoms and quickens the recovery.
Second — this means that there are…
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#amptp#Beetlejuice#Bill Maher#blake lively#booster shot#covid brain#covid test#deborra-lee furness#drew barrymore#eris#fabelmans#Fran Drescher#Hugh Jackman#Jennifer Aniston#Katniss Everdeen#kristen welker#lauren boebert#Meet the Press#megyn kelly#ryan reynolds#sag aftra#shade#strike#the morning show#The Nanny#Trump#vaccine#WGA
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By Thom Hartmann
Common Dreams
Nov. 16, 2023
What baffles me is why a TV news personality who earns $2.9 million a year would go to such lengths to avoid even mentioning a solution that’s been signed onto repeatedly by virtually every Democrat in Congress for over a decade.
Why did NBC’s Kristen Welker use an incomplete frame for her question about Social Security at last week’s GOP debate, and why didn’t Lester Holt or anybody else correct her?
Here’s her question:
KRISTEN WELKER: “Americans could see their Social Security benefits drastically cut in the next decade because the program is running out of money. Former President Trump has said quote, ‘Under no circumstances should Republicans cut entitlements.’ Governor Christie, first to you, you have proposed raising the retirement age for younger Americans. What would that age be specifically, and would you consider making any other reforms to Social Security?”
The simple reality is that if a person earns $160,200 a year or less, they pay a 6.2% tax on all of their income. In other words, a person making exactly $160,200 pays $9,932.40 (6.2%) in Social Security taxes.
If you earn $12,000 a year, $56,000 a year, $98,000 a year, or anything under $160,200 a year, you also pay 6.2 cents of tax toward Social Security on every single dollar you earn. If you made $10,000 last year, you pay $620 in Social Security taxes: 6.2 percent. Like the old saying about death and taxes, you can’t avoid it.
BUT those people who make over $160,200 a year pay absolutely nothing — no tax whatsoever — to fund Social Security on every dollar they earn over that amount. After Warren Buffett or Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos pay their $9,932.40 in Social Security taxes on that first $160,200 they took home on the first day of January, every other dollar they take home for the rest of the year is completely Social Security tax-free.
If somebody makes $1,602,000, for example, it would seem fair that, like every other American, they’d pay the same 6.2% ($99,324) in Social Security taxes. But, no: they only pay the $9,932.40 and after that they get to ride tax-free.
If somebody earned $16,020,000 it would seem fair that they’d pay the same 6.2% to support Social Security as 96 percent of Americans do, but no. Instead of paying $1,004,400 in taxes, they only pay $9,932.40.
Hedge fund guys who make a billion a year — yes, there are several of them — can certainly afford to pay 6.2% to keep Social Security solvent. At that rate, they’d be paying $62 million on a billion-dollar income in Social Security taxes as their fair share of maintaining America’s social contract.
But, because the tax rate is capped to “protect” the morbidly rich while sticking the rest of us with the full bill for Social Security, those titans of Wall Street pay the same $9,932.40 as the doctor who lives down the street from you and earns $160,200 a year.
This is, to use the economic technical term, nuts.
And, while every wealthy person in America knows all about this because it’s such a huge benefit to them, I’ll bet fewer than five percent of Americans know how this scam for the rich works. (I searched diligently, but couldn’t find a single survey that asked average folks if they knew about the cap.)
There is no other tax in America that works like this. Most have loopholes designed to promote specific socially desirable goals, like the deductibility of home mortgage interest or children, but no other tax is designed so that anybody earning over $160,200 is completely exempt and no longer has to pay a penny after their first nine thousand or so dollars.
And here’s where it gets really bizarre: if millionaires and billionaires paid the exact same 6.2% into Social Security that most of the rest of us do (and paid it on their investment income, which is also 100% exempt today), the program would not only be solvent for the next 75 years, but it would have so much extra cash that everybody on Social Security could get a significant raise in their monthly benefit payments.
But because America’s morbidly rich don’t want to pay their share for keeping Social Security solvent, Republicans are having a debate about how badly they can screw working class retirees.
They ask:
“Shall we cut the Social Security payments?”
“How about raising the retirement age from 67 (Reagan raised it from 65 to 67) to 70 or even 72?”
“Or maybe we should just hand the entire thing off to JPMorgan or Wells Fargo and let them run it, like we’re doing with Medicare? We could call it Social Security Advantage!”
“Or how about turning Social Security into a welfare program by ‘means testing’ it, so rich people can’t draw from it and every budget year it can become a political football for the GOP like food stamps or WIC?”
Responding to Welker’s severely incomplete question, Chris Christie hit all four:
GOVERNOR CHRISTIE: “Sure, and we have to deal with this problem. Now look, if we raise the retirement age a few years for folks that are in their thirties and forties, I have a son who’s in the audience tonight who’s 30 years old. If he can’t adjust to a few year increase in Social Security retirement age over the next 40 years, I got bigger problems with him than his Social Security payments.
“And the fact is we need to be realistic about this. There are only three things that go into determining whether Social Security can be solvent or not. Retirement age, eligibility for the program in general, and taxes. That’s it. We are already overtaxed in this country and we should not raise those taxes. But on eligibility also, I don’t know if out there tonight and if you’re watching Warren, I don’t know if Warren Buffett is collecting Social Security, but if he is, shame on you. You shouldn’t be taking the money.”
Christie was the only one of the five Republicans on the stage who even dared mention taxes.
Nikki Haley said:
“So first of all, any candidate that tells you that they’re not going to take on entitlements, is not being serious. Social Security will go bankrupt in 10 years, Medicare will go bankrupt in eight.”
Neither of those assertions are even remotely true, but, of course, this was a GOP debate. She continued:
“But for like my kids in their twenties, you go and you say we’re going to change the rules, you change the retirement age for them. Instead of cost of living increases, we should go to increases based on inflation. We should limit benefits on the wealthy.”
Her other solution, apropos of nothing, was to end government responsibility for Medicare and privatize the entire program by shutting down real Medicare and throwing us all to the tender mercies of the health insurance billionaires:
“And then expand Medicare Advantage plans. Seniors love that and let’s make sure we do that so that they can have more competition. That’s how we’ll deal with entitlement reform and that’s how we’ll start to pay down this debt.”
Ramaswamy’s answer was so incoherent and off-topic I won’t repeat it here. Suffice it to say he rambled on about the cost of foreign wars (Ukraine, Israel) “that many blood-thirsty members of both parties have a hunger for.” Apparently, Vivek doesn’t realize that Social Security isn’t part of our government’s overall budget but has its own segregated funds and trust fund.
Since it’s creation in 1935, Social Security never has and never will contribute to the budget deficit or influence any other kind of government spending.
Tim Scott said we should take a cue from Reagan, Bush, and Trump and just cut billionaires’ income taxes again because that does such a great job of stimulating the economy (not) and then claw back the inflation-based raises people on Social Security have received the past three years.
“Number two, you have to cut taxes. … So what we know is that the Laffer Curve still works, for the lower the tax, the higher the revenue. And finally, if we’re going to deal with it, we have to take our annual appropriations back to pre-2020, pre-COVID levels of spending, which would save us about a half a trillion dollars in the next budget window. By doing that, we deal with Social Security and our mandatory spending.”
DeSantis was equally incoherent, also refusing to answer the question about raising the retirement age and completely avoiding any mention of the sweetheart deal his billionaire donors get on their Social Security taxes. Instead, he said we needed to get inflation under control and stop Congress from “taking money from Social Security,” something Congress has never done and legally never will be able to do.
All this incoherence aside, Republicans appear to have a plan to deal with Social Security.
House Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson has been pushing a “Catfood Commission” just like Reagan’s 1983 commission that raised the retirement age to 67, reaffirmed the cap on taxes, and made Social Security checks taxable as income. He no doubt expects his commissioners will provide “recommendations” Republicans can run with to cut benefits without raising taxes on their billionaire donors, all while blaming it on the commissioners just like Reagan did in 1983.
When Johnson said that his “top priority” was creating such a commission “immediately” and that his Republican colleagues had responded to the idea “with great enthusiasm,” Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee responded on Xitter:
“A week into his tenure, MAGA Mike Johnson is ALREADY calling for closed-door cuts to the Social Security and Medicare benefits American workers have earned through decades of hard work.”
But back to the original question. I understand why Republicans refuse to even consider lifting the cap on Social Security taxes so their morbidly rich donors won’t have to start paying their fair share of Social Security to keep the program solvent.
What baffles me is why a TV news personality who earns $2.9 million a year would go to such lengths to avoid even mentioning a solution that’s been signed onto repeatedly by virtually every Democrat in Congress for over a decade.
I’ve been watching Kristen Welker on television for years, and she’s generally been a pretty straight shooter as a reporter. Ditto for Lester Holt, who sat right beside her. This, frankly, astonished me.
Were they afraid Republicans would exact revenge on them if they raised the question of the tax cap?
Or was it precisely because they’re making millions, just like most of the executives they answer to?
More broadly, is this why we almost never hear any discussion whatsoever in the media — populated with other news stars who also make millions a year, managed by millionaire network executives — about lifting the cap?
One hopes the answer isn’t that crass...
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
#social security#social security tax#social safety net#republicans#republican party#corporate media#journalism#2024 presidential election
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Pelosi Refused to Hand Over Communications Surrounding Jan. 6, Democrats Destroyed Evidence from Jan. 6 Committee, Refused to Call in National Guard, and Pelosi Hired Camera Crew to Follow Her That Day | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim Hoft
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Former President Donald Trump said Sunday that he didn’t respect lawyers and members of his campaign who told him he lost the 2020 presidential election, and that it was his decision to buy into the theory that the election was rigged.
“In many cases, I didn’t respect them,” Trump said during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” when asked why he decided to ignore his lawyers and advisers who told him he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden. “But I did respect others. I respected many others that said the election was rigged.”
Trump, the current frontrunner in the GOP presidential primary, is facing indictments related to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. In the federal case against him, prosecutors cited the fact that Trump was told repeatedly by his lawyers that he had lost the election. Trump’s campaign lost dozens of lawsuits trying to challenge his 2020 defeat in the weeks after the election, with their baseless conspiracy theories swatted away.
When pressed about how he came to the conclusion that the election was rigged, Trump said it was his own decision.
“You called some of your outside lawyers — you said they had crazy theories. Why were you listening to them? Were you listening to them because they were telling you what you wanted to hear?” NBC host Kristen Welker asked.
“You know who I listen to? Myself. I saw what happened. I watched that election, and I thought the election was over at 10 o’clock in the evening,” Trump said. “It was my decision. But I listened to some people. Some people said that,” he added later.
#us politics#news#republicans#conservatives#donald trump#2020 election#meet the press#nbc news#2023#conspriacy theories#Kristen Welker
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Trump handled himself well.
Welker made it clear that she is a Democrat, supports the Democrats and tried to put words in Trump's mouth. Did not work!
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The Sunday News Shows were pretty interesting...
Sen. Marco Rubio goes on 'This Week' & speaks about a "Pro- Hamas Wing"(?). He's obviously Pro- Israel, but he tries 2 equate 1,200 Israeli deaths (hundreds killed by 'Friendly Fire') & the relocation of 90,000 Israeli squatters w/ over 30,000 dead Palestinians & the relocation of over 1.5 Million Gazans. Netanyahu faces criminal charges when he leaves Office, so he's motivated 2 keep his Campaign of Genocide going. Netanyahu & the Likud Party's lust 4 a 'Greater Israel' has made Bibi determined 2 force the Palestinian Population on Egypt, & Marco Rubio seems okay w/ that.
Sen. Rafael Warnock appeared on 'Face The Nation', & pretty much echoed Sen. Rubio on Israel. He called 'The State' of Israel an Ally, but R they? The History isn't lining up w/ the Washington D.C. narrative. AIPAC is definitely getting their money's worth! Warnock then stumbled over the question of Black Voter Apathy. Blackfolk want Freedom of Expression more than the Right 2 Vote 4 Anti Black Racist 'A' or Anti Black Racist 'B'... What's his view on Black Business & Job Development in Georgia? What about Black Home Ownership? Can We get ALL of these bootlicking Ministers out of Our Politics? We need POLICY, not Sermons. How many of them actually LIVE in 'The Hood'?
Following a curious disclaimer by Kristen Welker, she proceeded 2 grill Former RNC Chairwoman & Current NBC Contributer, Rona McDaniel on 'Meet The Press'. Nothing out of the ordinary 4 Kristen, but her Panel took it up a notch. Chuck Todd started by saying NBC owed Kristen an apology 4 interviewing McDaniel(???) He went on 2 slam his 'colleague' & question NBC's decision to hire her. The other Panelists more or less agreed w/ Chuck... I found that curious. NBC has been criticized 4 its Democratic Party affiliation; Chuck Todd came across like a 'Cool Kid' who didn't want Rona McDaniel sitting @ his lunch table. I thought they were supposed 2 B 'Teammates' who agree 2 disagree... I found Myself thinking about The NY Yankees acquiring Roger Clemens. Imagine if the Players shunned 'The Rocket', bcuz of his actions during his tenure w/ the Boston Red Sox? He 'beaned' A LOT of them over the Years... Where R the Adults in The Room?!
It's pretty clear that The Powers That B believe that They have dumbed down & polarized the American Public, 2 the point that Proxies call tell Us anything. Meanwhile, Conspiracy Theories of a Cancelled 2024 Presidential Election R growing. When Alexa & Siri both have it in their Algorithm, that's cause 4 concern. Nevermind the Fact that Joe Biden just signed the 2023 Budget @ the end of the 1st Quarter of 2024. When can We expect the 2024 Budget 2 B passed? Congress is awash in Lobbyist $$$, & Our Elected Officials R actually Corporate Vassals. This degree of decadence destroyed Rome, Mali, & Kongo; America is walking the same path. The Southern Invasion is only speeding up a historical Cycle.
I have said that 2024 is a Year of Affirmation, & it's clear what Politicians R affirming. Lucky 4 Us, Real Change doesn't come from Congress, it comes from The Streets.
-It's gonna B a HOT SUMMER Family!
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“When NBC made the decision to give her NBC News’ credibility, you got to ask yourself, what does she bring NBC News?” Tpdd said. “And when we make deals like this, and I’ve been at this company a long time, you’re doing it for access. Access to audience. Sometimes it’s access to an individual. And we can have a journalistic ethics debate about that. And I’m willing to have that debate. And if you told me we were hiring her as a technical adviser to the Republican convention, I think that would be certainly defensible. If you told me we’re we’re talking to her, but let’s see how she does in some interviews and maybe vet her with actual journalists inside the network to see if it’s a two-way, what she can bring the network.”
So I do think, unfortunately, this interview was always going to be looked through the prism of who is she speaking for? I think you did everything you could do. You got put into an impossible situation booking this interview, and then all of a sudden, the rug pulled out from under you. You find out she’s being paid to show up.”
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John Deering, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
* * * *
LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN
March 24, 2024 (Sunday)
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
MAR 25, 2024
The Senate passed the appropriations bill shortly after midnight on Saturday morning, and President Joe Biden signed it Saturday afternoon. In his statement after he signed the bill, Biden was clear: “Congress’s work isn’t finished,” he said. “The House must pass the bipartisan national security supplemental to advance our national security interests. And Congress must pass the bipartisan border security agreement—the toughest and fairest reforms in decades—to ensure we have the policies and funding needed to secure the border. It’s time to get this done.”
House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has refused to bring forward the national security supplemental bill to fund Ukraine, Israel, the Indo-Pacific, and humanitarian aid to Gaza. He has also refused to bring forward the border security measure hammered out in the Senate after House Republicans demanded it and passed there on February 13. Johnson is doing the bidding of former president Trump, who opposes aid to Ukraine and border security measures.
Congress is on break and will not return to Washington, D.C., until the second week in April.
By then, political calculations may well have changed.
MAGA Republicans appear to be in trouble.
The House recessed on Friday for two weeks in utter disarray. On ABC News’s This Week, former representative Ken Buck (R-CO), who left Congress Friday, complained that House Republicans were focusing “on messaging bills that get us nowhere” rather than addressing the country’s problems. He called Congress “dysfunctional.”
On Friday, NBC announced it was hiring former Republican National Committee (RNC) chair Ronna McDaniel as a political analyst. Today the main political story in the U.S. was the ferocious backlash to that decision. McDaniel not only defended Trump, attacked the press, and gaslit reporters, she also participated in the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
In an interview with Kristen Welker this morning on NBC’s Meet the Press—Welker was quick to point out that the interview had been arranged long before she learned of the hiring— McDaniel explained away her support for Trump’s promise to pardon those convicted for their participation in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by saying, “When you’re the RNC Chair, you kind of take one for the whole team.”
That statement encapsulated Trump Republicans. In a democracy, the “team” is supposed to be the whole country. But Trump Republicans like McDaniel were willing to overthrow American democracy so long as it kept them in power.
That position is increasingly unpopular. Former representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) wrote on social media: “Ronna facilitated Trump’s corrupt fake elector plot & his effort to pressure [Michigan] officials not to certify the legitimate election outcome. She spread his lies & called 1/6 ‘legitimate political discourse.’ That’s not ‘taking one for the team.’ It’s enabling criminality & depravity.”
McDaniel wants to be welcomed back into mainstream political discourse, but it appears that the window for such a makeover might have closed.
In the wake of Trump’s takeover of the RNC, mainstream Republicans are backing away from the party. Today, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) said she could not “get behind Donald Trump” and expressed “regret that our party is seemingly becoming a party of Donald Trump.” She did not rule out leaving the Republican Party.
In Politico today, a piece on Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, by Adam Wren also isolated Trump from the pre-2016 Republican Party. Pence appears to be trying to reclaim the mantle of that earlier incarnation of the party, backed as he is by right-wing billionaire Harlan Crow (who has funded Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas over the years) and the Koch network. Wren’s piece says Pence is focusing these days on “a nonprofit policy shop aimed at advancing conservative ideals.” Wren suggested that Pence’s public split from Trump is “the latest sign that Trumpism is now permanently and irrevocably divorced from its initial marriage of convenience with…Reaganism.”
Trump appears to believe his power over his base means he doesn’t need the established Republicans. But that power came from Trump’s aura of invincibility, which is now in very real crisis thanks to Trump’s growing money troubles. Tomorrow is the deadline for him to produce either the cash or a bond to cover the $454 million he owes to the people of the state of New York in fines and disgorgement of ill-gotten gains for fraud.
Trump does not appear to have the necessary cash and has been unable to get a bond. He claims a bond of such size is “unprecedented, and practically impossible for ANY Company, including one as successful as mine," and that "[t]he Bonding Companies have never heard of such a bond, of this size, before, nor do they have the ability to post such a bond, even if they wanted to.” But Louis Jacobson of PolitiFact corrected the record: it is not uncommon for companies in civil litigation cases to post bonds of more than $1 billion.
Trump made his political career on his image as a successful and fabulously wealthy businessman. Today, “Don Poorleone” trended on X (formerly Twitter).
The backlash to McDaniel’s hiring at NBC also suggests a media shift against news designed to grab eyeballs, the sort of media that has fed the MAGA movement. According to Mike Allen of Axios, NBC executives unanimously supported hiring McDaniel. A memo from Carrie Budoff Brown, who is in charge of the political coverage at NBC News, said McDaniel would help the outlet examine “the diverse perspectives of American voters.” This appears to mean she would appeal to Trump voters, bringing more viewers to the platform.
But former Meet the Press anchor Chuck Todd took a strong stand against adding McDaniel to a news organization, noting her “credibility issues” and that “many of our professional dealings with the RNC over the last six years have been met with gaslighting [and] character assassination.”
This pushback against news media as entertainment recalls the 1890s, when American newspapers were highly partisan and gravitated toward more and more sensational headlines and exaggerated stories to increase sales. That publication model led to a circulation war between Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal that is widely—and almost certainly inaccurately—blamed for pushing the United States into war with Spain in 1898.
More accurate, though, is that the sensationalism of what was known as “yellow journalism” created a backlash that gave rise to new investigative journalism designed to move away from partisanship and explain clearly to readers what was happening in American politics and economics. In 1893, McClure’s Magazine appeared, offering in-depth examinations of the workings of corporations and city governments and launching a new era of reform.
Three years later, publisher Adolph Ochs bought the New York Times and put up New York City’s first electric sign to advertise, in nearly 2,700 individual lights of red, white, blue, and green, that it would push back against yellow journalism by publishing “ALL THE NEWS THAT’S FIT TO PRINT.” Ochs added that motto to the masthead. With his determination to provide nonpartisan news without sensationalism, in just under 40 years, Ochs took over the paper from just over 20,000 readers to more than 465,000, and turned the New York Times into a newspaper of record.
In that era that looks so much like our own, the national mood had changed.
LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
#John Deering.#The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette#political cartoons#TFG#dysfunctional congress#history#Letters From An American#Heather Cox Richardson#yellow journalism#McDaniel#RNC gaslighting
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez lashed out at protesters at a Brooklyn movie theater who demanded the lefty lawmaker call Israel’s military campaign in Gaza a “genocide,” which she claimed she’d already done, video of the confrontation shows.
Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) was with her fiancé, Riley Roberts, when she lost her cool and dropped an f-bomb as a couple of protesters badgered her at Alamo Drafthouse Cinema around 5 p.m. Monday.
The protesters complained that Ocasio-Cortez, 34, hasn’t publicly called Israel’s bombing of the Palestinian territory a “genocide” as they accosted her inside the downtown Brooklyn theater, according to the footage.
“I need you to understand that this is not OK,” she told one male protester who held an iPhone near her face.
“It’s not OK that there’s a genocide happening and you’re not actively against it,” the protester shot back.
“You’re lying,” Ocasio-Cortez countered as she walked down an escalator with her beau.
The protesters continued to trail behind the Democrat, who was visibly aggravated as she made her way toward the exit. Between sets of escalators, Ocasio-Cortez got in the face of the protesters to again defend herself before walking away.
The video then cuts to everyone going outside, with Roberts turning around to confront the rabble-rousers.
“Stop,” he said as Ocasio-Cortez walked ahead of him. “OK, stop.”
The lawmaker then went on a tirade when she was asked if she was afraid the video clip would go viral.
“You’re gonna cut it … and you’re gonna clip this so that it’s completely out of context,” Ocasio-Cortez fumed.
The congresswoman has not publicly called Israel’s retaliatory bombardment in Gaza a genocide, but on Monday she suggested otherwise.
“I already said that it was and y’all are just gonna pretend that it wasn’t over and over again. It’s f–ked up, man,” she railed. “And you’re not helping these people, and you’re not helping them, you’re not helping them.”
The video ended as the protesters continued to berate Ocasio-Cortez while she walked ahead with Roberts.
The Post has sought comment from the congresswoman’s office and her campaign.
Ocasio-Cortez did not directly call Israel’s military action a genocide during a “Meet the Press” interview in late January as she sidestepped a question about whether using the term was going overboard.
“Some of your colleagues have accused the president of supporting genocide, including [Rep.] Rashida Tlaib [D-Mich.]. Do you agree with that word, ‘genocide,’ that the president’s been supporting a genocide, or does that go too far?” host Kristen Welker asked her during the interview.
Ocasio-Cortez replied that young people throughout the country were “appalled at the violence and the indiscriminate loss of life.” She cited a recent United Nations International Court of Justice decision that stated Israel has a responsibility to prevent a genocide.
“They are still determining whether it’s a genocide. Do you think that term is responsible given it’s still under investigation?” Welker pressed.
“I believe that they are. They’re still determining it. But in the interim ruling, the fact that they said there’s a responsibility to prevent it, the fact that this word is even in play, the fact that this word is even in our discourse, I think, demonstrates the mass inhumanity that Gazans are facing,” the congresswoman replied.
Following Monday’s confrontation, an old tweet resurfaced online in which Ocasio-Cortez said protesting was supposed to make people “uncomfortable,” with some social media users calling the past message ironic.
“The whole point of protesting is to make [people] uncomfortable,” she tweeted in December 2020. “Activists take that discomfort w/ the status quo & advocate for concrete policy changes. Popular support often starts small & grows. To folks who complain protest demands make others uncomfortable … that’s the point.”
The progressive firebrand has called for a cease-fire in Gaza while criticizing Israel numerous times since Hamas terrorists launched a surprise attack that killed 1,200 Israelis.
She also condemned Hamas in the “strongest possible terms” shortly after the bloody attack.
About 30,000 Palestinians have been killed during Israel’s military action, Hamas-backed health officials have said.
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