Last Call For Trump Goes Viral, Con't

As the US comes up on 200,000 dead from COVID-19, journalist Bob Woodward's book on the Trump regime, "Rage", confirms that Trump knew the virus was deadly back in February, but downplayed it on purpose, wasting months that could have saved thousands of lives.

President Donald Trump admitted he knew weeks before the first confirmed US coronavirus death that the virus was dangerous, airborne, highly contagious and "more deadly than even your strenuous flus," and that he repeatedly played it down publicly, according to legendary journalist Bob Woodward in his new book "Rage." 

"This is deadly stuff," Trump told Woodward on February 7.

In a series of interviews with Woodward, Trump revealed that he had a surprising level of detail about the threat of the virus earlier than previously known. "Pretty amazing," Trump told Woodward, adding that the coronavirus was maybe five times "more deadly" than the flu.

Trump's admissions are in stark contrast to his frequent public comments at the time insisting that the virus was "going to disappear" and "all work out fine."

The book, using Trump's own words, depicts a President who has betrayed the public trust and the most fundamental responsibilities of his office. In "Rage," Trump says the job of a president is "to keep our country safe." But in early February, Trump told Woodward he knew how deadly the virus was, and in March, admitted he kept that knowledge hidden from the public.

"I wanted to always play it down," Trump told Woodward on March 19, even as he had declared a national emergency over the virus days earlier. "I still like playing it down, because I don't want to create a panic."

If instead of playing down what he knew, Trump had acted decisively in early February with a strict shutdown and a consistent message to wear masks, social distance and wash hands, experts believe that thousands of American lives could have been saved.

We now know, in his own words, what Trump is guilty of.

Donald Trump intentionally misled the nation on the threat of COVID-19.

Frankly, this should be the end of Trump, but if there was any chance of his resignation it would have happened years ago. Luckily, we have an election in order to make that happen. In case you need a recap:

The startling revelations in "Rage," which CNN obtained ahead of its September 15 release, were made during 18 wide-ranging interviews Trump gave Woodward from December 5, 2019 to July 21, 2020. The interviews were recorded by Woodward with Trump's permission, and CNN has obtained copies of some of the audio tapes. 

"Rage" also includes brutal assessments of Trump's presidency from many of his former top national security officials, including former Defense Secretary James Mattis, former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Mattis is quoted as calling Trump "dangerous" and "unfit" to be commander in chief. Woodward writes that Coats "continued to harbor the secret belief, one that had grown rather than lessened, although unsupported by intelligence proof, that Putin had something on Trump." Woodward continues, writing that Coats felt, "How else to explain the president's behavior? Coats could see no other explanation."

The Director of National Intelligence thought Donald Trump was compromised by Putin.

Trump fired him as a result.

We get to fire Trump in less than eight weeks.

Biden, His Time, Con't

The election will come down to eight swing states: Arizona, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Florida we all know, but Politico's team is wisely adding Georgia and Minnesota as the "canary" states. Inside those eight states, there are counties that will decide the entire state. Like it or not, the hard math of the Electoral College means these counties will almost certainly decide the President in November.

Minnesota’s Iron Range. Wisconsin’s “WOW” counties. Suburban Charlotte. The city of Philadelphia. 

Each is a shorthand for the building blocks of victory in the swing states that will determine the presidential election. 

At the traditional, post-Labor Day start of the fall campaign, POLITICO is zeroing in on eight critical battlegrounds where the 2020 election will be won or lost: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The selection of these swing states is based on a variety of factors — polling, demography, past and recent election history, voter registration, interviews with state and local party officials, strategists and pollsters. The individual campaigns have also revealed the places they are prioritizing through staffing, resource allocation, TV and radio advertising and candidate visits. 

Within each of these swing states, the roadmap ahead for President Donald Trump and Joe Biden is clear. The president must max out his performance with rural voters. Biden needs a robust turnout in the big cities, particularly among African-American voters. Trump must halt his erosion in the suburbs, and turn out white working-class voters who didn’t vote in 2016. Biden has to increase his current share among Latino voters and recapture some of the places that flipped to Trump after twice voting for President Barack Obama. 

Together, these eight states represent 127 electoral votes — and a departure from the fairly static map of the pre-Trump era. Missing from this swing state list are familiar presidential battlegrounds like Colorado, Ohio and Virginia. In their stead are states like Arizona and Georgia — which haven’t voted for a Democratic nominee since the 1990s — and Minnesota, which hasn’t voted for a Republican in nearly a half-century. 

The contours of the 2020 map reflect the disruptive political forces unleashed by Trump. His path to victory in 2016 revealed the limits of the Obama coalition, and drew sharp lines of demarcation around what’s been called the diploma divide: the gap between white voters with a college degree and those without one.

Race, class and educational attainment have always played pivotal roles in presidential voting. But, as with everything else, Trump has accelerated and amplified existing differences — while harnessing them to his political advantage. 

The question is whether his brand of smash-mouth, feed-the-base politics has gone too far — or whether there is still room to grow his base. His campaign is convinced it there is. 

Still, while national polls have generated a portrait of Biden holding a commanding lead, it’s something of a mirage. In the swing states that matter, it is trench warfare: Biden’s advantage, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average, is within the margin of error in half of the eight states. And Trump is a president whose support has been notoriously difficult for pollsters to survey. 

Consider this fact: From July 2016 until Election Day in the three Rust Belt states that Trump unexpectedly picked off — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — 94 public polls were released. Trump led in just three of them.

It's not 2016. The battle is different.  Trump is hurting with seniors on COVID-19, but Biden is still underperforming significantly with Latino voters because Trump treating Cruz and Rubio like trash in 2016 hurt him, and now both have come crawling back to his boots to lick, so we're getting back to normal Latino voting percentages in Florida and Arizona.

Having said that, Trump is behind in both states.

Even if you give Trump Florida and Georgia, Biden wins with the other six states in a cake walk.

Trump knows this.  He knows a late October Surprise can win this for him, the problem is he's terrible at keeping secrets. He's already blown his Post Office mail ballot delay and COVID-19 vaccine scenarios, and he's running out of options.

That makes him extraordinarily dangerous.

Trump Goes Postal, Con't

House Democrats would definitely like to take a look at Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's alleged campaign finance felonies, as well as his apparent lying to Congress.

The House Oversight and Reform Committee is launching an investigation into embattled Postmaster General Louis DeJoy following a report alleging he pushed employees at the logistics company he led to make campaign contributions to Republican candidates and reimbursed them for the donations. 

Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat from New York who chairs the Oversight panel, said in a statement DeJoy "could face criminal exposure" for the scheme reported by The Washington Post, as well as for lying to her panel under oath, if the accusation are true. 

"We will be investigating this issue, but I believe the Board of Governors must take emergency action to immediately suspend Mr. DeJoy, who they never should have selected in the first place," she said.

Like I said earlier this month, Louis DeJoy is facing prison time from a state investigation in North Carolina over this too.

The problem is Trump can't steal the election without rigging the postal service to "lose" votes from particular ZIP codes, something a professional logistics man like DeJoy was hired to sabotage.  Trump has to cover him until after the election at least. Since Trump has appointed all seven of USPS Board Governors (Thanks again Bernie Sanders!) there's no way they will suspend DeJoy, so while this is necessary oversight, it comes far too late in order to save the voting process.

Again, a reminder to get your ballots requested and into the post office this month, rather than waiting until October. Election Day is less than eight weeks away.

StupidiNews!

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• Japanese PM Shinzo Abe, stepping down for health reasons, appears to be ready to be succeeded by his lieutenant, current chief cabinet secretary Yoshihida Suga.
• UK PM Boris Johnson is facing massive pushback on his Brexit plan that would break EU and international law by revoking his promise to keep Northern Ireland under EU customs rules.
• Apple's battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games continues as the tech giant has filed a countersuit accusing the game company of breach of contract and theft.