Trump Invites Reporters to Start Demanding His Medical Records
More media outlets are beginning to report on the FBI’s uncertainty regarding whether a bullet or shrapnel wounded Donald Trump’s ear.
NBC quotes the FBI describing that their Shooting Reconstruction Team continues to investigate (though most of that story has turned into Republican flopsweat).
In a statement Thursday, the FBI said, “Since the day of the attack, the FBI has been consistent and clear that the shooting was an attempted assassination of former President Trump which resulted in his injury, as well as the death of a heroic father and the injuries of several other victims.”
“The FBI’s Shooting Reconstruction Team continues to examine evidence from the scene, including bullet fragments, and the investigation remains ongoing,” the statement added.
The NYT describes that the FBI seems to be focused on whether metal fragments, not glass from the teleprompters, hit Trump.
In a social media post Thursday night, Mr. Trump lashed out at Mr. Wray, saying: “No wonder the once storied F.B.I. has lost the confidence of America!”
Mr. Trump said there was no glass and no shrapnel. “No, it was, unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard.”
The F.B.I. said in a statement that the bureau “has been consistent and clear that the shooting was an attempted assassination of former President Trump, which resulted in his injury, as well as the death of a heroic father and the injuries of several other victims.”
It is not unusual for the type of bullet that Mr. Crooks fired from his AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle to tumble end over end and break apart after hitting even a small solid object. Gun experts say a fragment might, for instance, have hit a metal stanchion.
Still, a bullet could have grazed Mr. Trump’s ear, and the F.B.I. has not ruled that out. Investigators found eight rifle casings on the roof where the shooter was positioned.
It is not clear if investigators have eliminated other potential sources of debris. But bureau analysts appear to be focused on metal fragments, as opposed to glass from the teleprompters onstage. Photos of the teleprompters next to Mr. Trump show they were intact after the bullets were fired.
Much higher in the story, though, NYT reveals something funny: after not subpoenaing Trump in the Mueller inquiry, blowing off Trump’s efforts to extort campaign help from Volodymyr Zelenskyy, after needing a search of his home to retrieve some subset of the classified documents Trump stole, the FBI has finally asked Donald Trump for an interview.
The bureau has asked to interview Mr. Trump as part of its broader investigation, hoping to provide insights into the shooting and possibly a more complete record of his injury, the official said,
This is going to be like the Feds getting Al Capone on taxes, isn’t it?
As noted by NYT, in response to all the attention, Trump has posted on the social media site he has propped up by influence laundering, insisting he was hit by a bullet (though mentioning only glass as an alternative), and then making a claim about his hospital diagnosis.
If Trump is going to make claims about what the hospital report says, then by all means he can ask them to release his records, including the CT scan results, and give a press conference.
Perhaps now — almost two weeks after the attack — journalists will start asking him for those records?
Update: Just above the story quoting an FBI source about the possibility that metal shards injured Trump, NYT posts a visual investigations piece suggesting those (like the FBI) still considering explanations other than the bullet are speculating.
The only reason people have revisited this is because of Wray’s testimony.
Today’s visual analysis does not factor in Michael Harrigan’s comment, made about the Doug Mills photo showing something flying by Trump. Harrigan suggested the angle of the bullet was too low to hit Trump’s ear.
That is the assessment of Michael Harrigan, a retired F.B.I. special agent who spent 22 years in the bureau.
“It absolutely could be showing the displacement of air due to a projectile,” Mr. Harrigan said in an interview on Saturday night after reviewing the high-resolution images that Mr. Mills filed from the rally. “The angle seems a bit low to have passed through his ear, but not impossible if the gunman fired multiple rounds.”
[snip]
In Mr. Harrigan’s last assignment, he led the bureau’s firearms training unit and currently works as a consultant in the firearms industry.
“Given the circumstances, if that’s not showing the bullet’s path through the air, I don’t know what else it would be,” he said.
Update: Trump’s Candy Man Ronny Jackson has rolled out another propaganda report.
Note that he says Trump was “evaluated and treated for a “Gunshot Wound to the Right Ear.”
But he doesn’t say that they concluded it was a gunshot wound.
Nor does he add to the description of Trump’s treatment from his last propaganda vehicle. It’s time for a practicing physician to tell us what happened with Trump’s injury.
I wonder if Savage Librarian or anyone else wants to craft lyrics about Jackson’s propaganda set to the Candy Man.
Update: The FBI has released a statement clarifying that if Trump was hit by shrapnel, it was shrapnel from the bullet.
What struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subject’s rifle.
Other coverage
As I’ve noted repeatedly in my posts on this, I’m pushing this issue largely for normative reasons. It is inexcusable that Trump’s failure to share his medical records has been largely ignored, even as the same press scrum was chasing conspiracy theories that Biden was hiding a Parkinson’s diagnosis. Here are my past posts on this.
Ronny Jackson Memory Holes His Nephew’s Injury
Since Leaving Butler, Trump Has Foregone the Best Medical Care and Is Withholding CT Scan Results
Will Alex Jones Accuse Donald Trump of Being a Crisis Actor?
President Biden’s Address to the Nation
[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]
In case you missed his remarks broadcast and streamed Wednesday evening, here is a video and a transcript.
(Caveat: the transcript at C-SPAN is awful)
Transcript:
My fellow Americans, I’m speaking to you tonight from behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. In this sacred space, I’m surrounded by portraits of extraordinary American presidents. Thomas Jefferson wrote the immortal words that guide this nation. George Washington showed us presidents are not kings. Abraham Lincoln implored us to reject malice. Franklin Roosevelt inspired us to reject fear.
I revere this office, but I love my country more. It’s been the honor of my life to serve as your president. But in the defense of democracy, which is at stake, I think it’s more important than any title. I draw strength and find joy in working for the American people. But this sacred task of perfecting our union is not about me, it’s about you. Your families, your futures.
It’s about we the people. And we can never forget that. And I never have. I’ve made it clear that I believe America is at an inflection point. On those rare moments in history, when the decisions we make now determine our fate of our nation and the world for decades to come, America is going to have to choose between moving forward or backward, between hope and hate, between unity and division.
We have to decide: Do we still believe in honesty, decency, respect, freedom, justice and democracy. In this moment, we can see those we disagree with not as enemies but as, I mean, fellow Americans—can we do that? Does character in public life still matter? I believe you know the answer to these questions because I know you the American people, and I know this: We are a great nation because we are a good people. When you elected me to this office, I promised to always level with you, to tell you the truth. And the truth, the sacred cause of this country, is larger than any one of us. Those of us who cherish that cause cherish it so much, the cause of American democracy itself. We must unite to protect it.
In recent weeks, it has become clear to me that I need to unite my party in this critical endeavor. I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America’s future, all merited a second term. But nothing, nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition.
So I’ve decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. It’s the best way to unite our nation. I know there was a time and a place for long years of experience in public life. There’s also a time and a place for new voices, fresh voices, yes, younger voices. And that time and place is now.
Over the next six months, I will be focused on doing my job as president. That means I will continue to lower costs for hard-working families, grow our economy. I will keep defending our personal freedoms and civil rights, from the right to vote to the right to choose. I will keep calling out hate and extremism, making it clear there is no place, no place in America for political violence or any violence ever, period. I’m going to keep speaking out to protect our kids from gun violence, our planet from climate crisis as an existential threat.
I will keep fighting for my Cancer Moonshot, so we can end cancer as we know it because we can do it. I’m going to call for Supreme Court reform because this is critical to our democracy—Supreme Court reform. You know, I will keep working to ensure American remains strong, secure and the leader of the free world.
I’m the first president of this century to report to the American people that the United States is not at war anywhere in the world. We will keep rallying a coalition of proud nations to stop Putin from taking over Ukraine and doing more damage. We’ll keep NATO stronger, and I will make it more powerful and more united than any time in all of our history. I will keep doing the same for our allies in the Pacific. You know, when I came to the office, the conventional wisdom was that China would inevitably pass, surpass the United States.
That’s not the case anymore. And I’m going to keep working to end the war in Gaza, bring home all the hostages and bring peace and security to the Middle East and end this war. We are also working around the clock to bring home Americans being unjustly detained all around the world.
You know, we’ve come so far since my inauguration. On that day, I told you as I stood in that winter—we are stood in a winter of peril and winter of possibilities. Peril and possibilities. We are in the group of, we were in the group of the worse pandemic in the century. The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War. We came together as Americans. We got through it. We emerged stronger, more prosperous and more secure.
Today we have the strongest economy in the world, creating nearly 16 million new jobs—a record. Wages are up, inflation continues to come down, the racial wealth gap is the lowest it’s been in 20 years. We are literally rebuilding our entire nation—urban, suburban and rural and tribal communities. Manufacturing has come back to America. We are leading the world again in chips and science and innovation. We finally beat Big Pharma after all these years to lower the cost of prescription drugs for seniors.
And I’m going to keep fighting to make sure we lower the cost for everyone, not just seniors. More people have health care today in America than ever before. I signed one of the most significant laws helping millions of veterans and their families who were exposed to toxic materials. You know, most significant climate law ever, ever in the history of the world. The first major gun safety law in 30 years.
And today, the violent crime rate is at a 50-year low. We are also securing our border. Border crossings are lower today than when the previous administration left office. I’ve kept my commitment to appoint the first Black woman to the Supreme Court of the United States of America. I also kept my commitment to have an administration that looks like America and be a president for all Americans. That’s what I’ve done.
I ran for president four years ago because I believed and still do that the soul of America was at stake. The very nature of who we are was at stake. That is still the case. America is an idea. An idea stronger than any army, bigger than any ocean, more powerful than any dictator or tyrant. It’s the most powerful idea in the history of the world. That idea is that we hold these truths to be self-evident.
We are all created equal, endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. We’ve never fully lived up to it—to this sacred idea—but we’ve never walked away from it either. And I do not believe the American people will walk away from it now.
In just a few months, the American people will choose the course of America’s future. I made my choice. I’ve made my views known. I would like to thank our great vice president, Kamala Harris. She is experienced, she is tough, she is capable. She’s been an incredible partner to me and a leader for our country.
Now the choice is up to you, the American people. When you make that choice, remember the words of Benjamin Franklin hanging on my wall here in the Oval Office, alongside the busts of Dr. King and Rosa Parks and Cesar Chavez.
When Ben Franklin was asked, as he emerged from the convention going on, whether the founders have given America a monarchy or a republic, Franklin’s response was: “A republic, if you can keep it.” A republic, if you can keep it. Whether we keep our republic is now in your hands. My fellow Americans, it’s been the privilege of my life to serve this nation for over 50 years.
Nowhere else on Earth could a kid with a stutter from modest beginnings in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and in Claymont, Delaware, one day sit behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office as the president of the United States, but here I am.
That’s what’s so special about America. We are a nation of promise and possibilities. Of dreamers and doers. Of ordinary Americans doing extraordinary things. I’ve given my heart and my soul to our nation, like so many others. And I’ve been blessed a million times in return with the love and support of the American people. I hope you have some idea how grateful I am to all of you.
The great thing about America is, here kings and dictators do not rule—the people do. History is in your hands. The power’s in your hands. The idea of America lies in your hands. You just have to keep faith—keep the faith—and remember who we are. We are the United States of America, and there are simply nothing, nothing beyond our capacity when we do it together. So let’s act together, preserve our democracy. God bless you all and may God protect our troops. Thank you.
~ ~ ~
This is an open thread.
Fraudulent Failson Judgement: JD Vance “Ain’t From Here”
As always with DC’s gossip press, they exercise almost none of the scrutiny with Donald Trump that they do with others.
One recent example comes in the treatment of Joe Biden and Trump’s sons’ involvement in campaign decision-making.
There was a whole flood of stories because Hunter Biden was part of his father’s decision on whether to stay in the race, as he has been involved in past such decisions.
Hunter Biden has joined meetings with President Joe Biden and his top aides since his father returned to the White House from Camp David, Maryland, on Monday evening, according to four people familiar with the matter.
The president’s son has also been talking to senior White House staff members, these people said.
While he is regularly at the White House residence and events, it is unusual for Hunter Biden to be in and around meetings his father is having with his team, these people said. They said the president’s aides were struck by his presence during their discussions.
A federal jury in Delaware found Hunter Biden guilty last month on gun-related charges. He remains under indictment accused of tax-related felonies, to which he has pleaded not guilty. Shortly after the jury found him guilty, he returned to his home in California.
One of the people familiar with the matter said Hunter Biden has been closely advising his father since the family gathered over the weekend at Camp David after Thursday’s debate. This person said Hunter Biden has “popped into” a couple of meetings and phone calls the president has had with some of his advisers.
Another person familiar with the matter said the reaction from some senior White House staff members has been, “What the hell is happening?”
The insinuation, of course, is that no convicted felon should be involved in such decisions.
The gossip press exhibited no such qualms that Paul Manafort — whose tax fraud was an order of magnitude greater than what Hunter is accused of, and who was hiding the foreign clients with whom he was sharing campaign strategy — was back advising Trump.
Crazier still, the gossip press seems to have little awareness that since May 30, there’s always a convicted felon involved in strategy meetings involving Trump.
I’m more interested in the double standard regarding the involvement of Trump’s sons in campaign decision-making.
Sure, in the Mueller investigation, Don Jr avoided charges for accepting campaign help from the Agalarovs because Mueller rightly figured the failson could argue he had no idea you shouldn’t do that. But both sons have been implicated in their Daddy’s fraud, first when they misused charity donations to benefit Pops, and then when they fiddled with real estate valuations.
Hunter Biden undoubtedly sold on his father’s influence — though he has not been criminally charged with doing so — but Trump’s sons have been involved in fraudulent claims about their father so he’d get that influence. They’re just conmen like their Daddy, selling the brand.
And on top of the fact that Don Jr has long been targeted by foreign spies and Neo-Nazis, he’s painfully stupid. As Michael Cohen testified, “Mr. Trump had frequently told me and others that his son Don Jr. had the worst judgment of anyone in the world.”
Yet, in all the reviews (or, in some cases, shameless beat sweeteners) of the sons’ involvement in Trump’s recent decisions, there has been no question about whether their cooperation in Dad’s fraud or their poor judgment should disqualify them from such a role.
That’s particularly true given their decisive role in picking JD Vance. The stories describe how the sons, especially Don Jr, were able to convince their Dad to ignore the counsel of actual political consultants like Kellyanne Conway and instead pick an inexperienced extremist who once called Trump America’s Hitler as his running mate.
With the clock ticking to the Republican National Convention last week, Donald Trump met privately to discuss his running mate search with two of his closest advisers: his sons.
The conversation quickly turned tense when the former president indicated that he was leaning toward Doug Burgum, until recently the largely unknown governor of North Dakota — but someone whose low-maintenance, no-drama personality would never threaten to outshine Trump.
That’s when Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump chimed in.
“Don Jr. and Eric went bats— crazy: ‘Why would you do something so stupid? He offers us nothing,’” a longtime Republican operative familiar with the discussion told NBC News.
“They were basically all like ‘JD, JD, JD,’” the operative said.
Trump ratified his sons’ recommendation here Monday, selecting Sen. JD Vance of Ohio as his vice presidential candidate. Trump called Vance with the news 20 minutes before announcing it on social media, a source familiar with the call said.
In choosing Vance, Trump made a different calculation than he did in 2016 and leaned fully into his MAGA base. Back then, he looked to his daughter and her husband — the more establishment-friendly Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner — for strategic advice. This time, his red meat-throwing sons have a more central role. And instead of going with a longtime traditional Republican like Mike Pence, Trump chose the MAGA warrior Vance.
Apparently, Don Jr — he of the poor judgment — was impressed by Hillbilly Elegy, a memoir that treats Trump’s people as deplorables.
The eldest Trump son, who had been a fan of “Hillbilly Elegy” before the campaign, had come to like Vance personally, and the two developed a close friendship after Vance won his Senate race.
And so, in spite of the fact that JD Vance actually underperformed Republicans in his Senate race, Trump was convinced that Peter Thiel’s errand-boy will help him win the Rust Belt.
Thanks to Vice President Harris’ accession to the candidacy, media outlets are stumbling over each other to invite Andy Beshear on to explain how furious he is that Vance monetized calling people from Eastern Kentucky, “lazy.”
I want the American people to know what a Kentuckian is, what they look like, because — let me just tell you — that JD Vance ain’t from here. The nerve that he has to call the people of Kentucky, of Eastern Kentucky, lazy.
Listen, these are the hard-working coal miners that powered the industrial revolution, that created the strongest middle class the world has ever seen, powered us through two World Wars. We should be thanking them, not calling them lazy.
And in his first solo appearance, JD Vance attempted to make a joke about Diet Mountain Dew, which flopped.
Which has led superstars like AOC …
… and Mallory McMorrow to make fun of him.
There are already reports that, in light of Biden ceding the ticket to Kamala, the campaign may be regretting that decision.
Even the selection of Ohio’s Senator J. D. Vance as Trump’s running mate, campaign officials acknowledged, was something of a luxury meant to run up margins with the base in a blowout rather than persuade swing voters in a nail-biter.
Even in Pennsylvania or Michigan, JD’s extremism, especially on choice, will be a liability. And only a spoiled brat like Don Jr would have missed that Hillbilly Elegy insulted Trump’s deplorables, it didn’t celebrate them.
I suppose I should take solace from the fact that NYT is wasting beat sweeteners pretending that Don Jr is anything but a less effective conman than his Daddy.
By all means let Don Jr steer Daddy into stupid decisions.
It just gives smart girls one more thing to laugh at.
The Kennedy Injection
WaPo has a story about negotiations between Trump and RFK Jr over a potential position “overseeing a portfolio of health and medical issues” in a hypothetical second Trump term. It follows the release of a video on July 16 recording a call between the two men.
The possibility of an RFK Jr role in a Trump Administration is not new. As the NBC report on the recording described, such an idea was floated and (like this one) dismissed during the 2016 transition.
I want to look closely at this report, though, for what it might say about (what I assume is) a giant ratfuck otherwise intended to help Trump win.
The two stories and public developments describe these events:
- July 13: RFK Jr publicly comments about the Trump shooting, including on Hannity, and describes sending a note to Trump
- Later on July 13: “a person who knows both men reached out to Kennedy on Saturday night” and RFK Jr says he’d be willing to speak to Trump
- Still later on July 13: Tucker Carlson sends RFK Jr a group text with a phone number used by Trump
- Still on July 13: RFK Jr and Trump speak by phone
- July 14: Video reportedly recorded
- July 15: RFK Jr and Trump meet in Milwaukee
- July 15 or 16: RFK Jr departs Milwaukee for unforeseen reasons
- July 16: NBC publishes the video, which was posted by RFK III; RFK Jr claims its release was unintentional
- July 21: After Biden drops out, RFK Jr makes a bid to get involved in his replacement, but also accuses Trump of secretly representing corporate interests
- July 22: RFK Jr interviews with WaPo, revealing the discussions
It all reads like RFK Jr tried to make a demand on July 15, Trump refused, and everything since has been RFK Jr trying to damage Trump for that refusal (possibly, with today’s story, as an attempt by Trump allies to do damage control).
It comes amid recent polling that show RFK Jr draws more away from Trump than he does (or did) from Biden. That is, if this is part of a larger ratfuck to fund third party candidates to draw away from a Democratic nominee, it may be backfiring, having the opposite effect.
A nomination-plus-position would have ended that risk. But thus far at least, it failed.
Biden’s Timing: Undercutting Bibi
There are many things that explain the timing of President Biden’s decision to drop out of the race. Most importantly, after staying reasonably steady with Trump in the polls, the combined weight of the Democratic firing squad, and — probably — some bounce from the shooting attempt on Trump had started a real hemorrhaging in Biden’s polling. He had to drop when he did to stave off a collapse in the polls.
His former colleagues in the Senate were prepping to move en masse against him. He had asked Chuck Schumer for a week to consider Schumer’s warning, and time was up.
His COVID diagnosis likely gave him a few days to reflect on the decision before him.
Biden almost certainly didn’t base his timing on Bibi Netanyahu’s visit this week (though he deferred explaining it for a few days, which may put that address after Bibi’s). But the timing is wildly auspicious.
While he remains a wildly successful President, Biden dropped out of the race because his age prevents him from running effectively. They are different skills. His age benefits the former but hinders the latter.
But Biden’s policies on Gaza were the primary thing that cut what otherwise might have been a natural lead on Trump. It’s not that Biden is popular. It’s that Trump is so unpopular a Democrat should start out ahead. Or should have, before Israel started slaughtering Palestinian civilians. Some of the activists that have most aggressively targeted Biden are claiming credit (inaccurately, but they should claim credit anyway) for his decision to drop out.
And among Biden’s most stubborn beliefs was not that he was the best candidate to beat Trump, but that he could reason with — that he could moderate — Bibi. It was a foolish belief born of a lifetime of dealing with the man. It was perhaps a naive blindness to the way that Bibi has repeatedly shivved Democrats in the back, not least when Trump first partnered with Russia during the 2016 transition to undermine Obama’s effort to rein in West Bank settlements.
I’ve long expected Bibi’s visit to be part of some partisan attack on Biden, replete with a continued unwillingness to consider ceasefire deals because Bibi is less worried about Israeli and US hostages than he is about retaining power. I fully expect Bibi to yoke his own political future to that of Donald Trump.
But the timing of the visit, coming as it is when Kamala Harris will be more focused on making calls and wooing endorsements, undercuts much of the power of it.
While the Vice President is scheduled to meet with Bibi, separately from Biden, I can’t imagine anyone will expect her to play a major role in this week’s events.
And that provides her space.
I don’t expect that she’ll disavow Biden’s failed Israeli policies, least of all when he is still pursuing a ceasefire. At least not yet.
But because Bibi’s visit will occur when everyone expects Harris to be focused on other things, it’s about the one way that she’ll get a pass on the inevitable centering of Israel in US politics.
Kamala does have distance from Biden on Gaza. She was the person to whom many activists have expressed their dismay. And that distance gives her options going forward.
In virtually every other scenario, Kamala would be tied to a Biden policy that has been deeply unpopular among Democrats. But because of the timing, she may be able to keep that distance.
Update: Some of the Biden staffers who quit over his Gaza policy are speaking favorably about Kamala.
Update: Kamala refused (er, um, declined) to preside over Bibi’s joint session.
Dems Coalesce around Vice President Kamala Harris
We’re filling up thread quickly and I’m about to go to bed.
So I’m starting a new thread.
Since President Biden dropped out and endorsed the Vice President, she has formally taken over the campaign, raised $27.5 million in small donations, and collected endorsements from dozens of prominent Democrats (including a notable one from PA Governor Josh Shapiro, undoubtedly one of the leading candidates to be Kamala’s running mate).
About the only one publicly considering a challenge — aside from Marianne Williamson — is turncoat Joe Manchin, a 76-year old retiree looking to replace the 81-year old former nominee.
Dems are in array.
And the Republican nominee, a felon, fraudster, and rapist, has announced he is afraid to do a debate with a prosecutor like Kamala Harris. He’s also wailing about his sunk cost.
Update, Monday: Manchin has now given up the ghost of a renewed POTUS bid.
More endorsements:
Roy Cooper (with Josh Shapiro, among the most likely VP candidates)
Andy Beshear, who calls out JD Vance for dissing Kentuckyians
Tony Evers
Wes Moore
Mark Kelly
Jared Polis
Pete Buttigieg
Dick Durbin
Kirsten Gillibrand
Brian Schatz
Ron Wyden
Bob Casey
John Fetterman
Catherine Cortez Masto
AOC
Ayanna Pressley
Delia Ramirez
Greg Casar
Jamaal Bowman
Tennessee’s entire delegation
All 50 Democratic Chairs
Kathy Hochul
Phil Murphy
AFT
SEIU
Update: Nancy Pelosi endorses:
Biden Drops Out of Race, Endorses Vice President Harris
Per letter posted to Xitter.
Update: A follow-up tweet endorsed Kamala.
My fellow Democrats, I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus all my energies on my duties as President for the remainder of my term. My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made. Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.
Harris accepts!
On behalf of the American people, I thank Joe Biden for his extraordinary leadership as President of the United States and for his decades of service to our country. His remarkable legacy of accomplishment is unmatched in modern American history, surpassing the legacy of many Presidents who have served two terms in office.
It is a profound honor to serve as his Vice President, and I am deeply grateful to the President, Dr. Biden, and the entire Biden family. I first came to know President Biden through his son Beau. We were friends from our days working together as Attorneys General of our home states. As we worked together, Beau would tell me stories about his Dad. The kind of father—and the kind of man—he was. And the qualities Beau revered in his father are the same qualities, the same values, I have seen every single day in Joe’s leadership as President: His honesty and integrity. His big heart and commitment to his faith and his family. And his love of our country and the American people.
With this selfless and patriotic act, President Biden is doing what he has done throughout his life of service: putting the American people and our country above everything else.
I am honored to have the President’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination. Over the past year, I have traveled across the country, talking with Americans about the clear choice in this momentous election. And that is what I will continue to do in the days and weeks ahead. I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party—and unite our nation—to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda.
We have 107 days until Election Day. Together, we will fight. And together, we will win.
President Biden is a great public servant who knows better than anyone what it takes to defeat Donald Trump. His remarkable work to lower prescription drug costs, fix the damn roads, bring supply chains home, address climate change, and ensure America’s global leadership over decades will go down in history. My job in this election will remain the same: doing everything I can to elect Democrats and stop Donald Trump, a convicted felon whose agenda of raising families’ costs, banning abortion nationwide, and abusing the power of the White House to settle his own scores is completely wrong for Michigan. [my emphasis]
For my entire life, I’ve looked at my dad in awe. How could he suffer so much heartache and yet give so much of whatever remained of his heart to others?
Not only in the policies he passed, but in the individual lives he’s touched.
Over a life time I have witnessed him absorb the pain of countless everyday Americans who he’s given his personal phone number to, because he wanted them to call him when they were hurting. When their last hopes were slipping through their hands.
That unconditional love has been his North Star as a President, and as a parent. He is unique in public life today, in that there is no distance between Joe Biden the man and Joe Biden the public servant of the last 54 years.
I’m so lucky every night I get to tell him I love him, and to thank him. I ask all Americans to join me tonight in doing the same.
Thank you, Mr. President. I love you, Dad.
Endorsements:
The Clintons
John Kerry
Josh Shapiro
Chris Coons
Mark Warner
Tim Kaine
Elizabeth Warren
Adam Schiff
Jon Ossoff
Tammy Baldwin
Mazie Hirono
Steny Hoyer
James Clyburn
Pramala Jayapal
Jamie Raskin
Eric Swalwell
Lucy McBath
Dan Kildee
Annie Kuster
Ilhan Omar
Cori Bush
Deborah Ross
Summer Lee
Katie Porter
Tish James
Keith Ellison
Gabrielle Giffords
Alex Soros
Not endorsing:
Nancy Pelosi
Obama
Reed Hastings (one of the donors who led the attack on Biden)
Will Peter Baker Exhibit the Same Tenacity about Medical Records on the Trump Shooting as He Did a Parkinson’s Conspiracy Theory?
Something funny happened on Xitter.
In an attempt to demonstrate the double standard and cowardice of the captive media, I tweeted at Peter Baker asking if he was ever going to exercise the same diligence about getting a medical report on Donald Trump’s shooting injury as he was at engaging in conspiracy theories about a Parkinson’s doctor.
Jesse Singal screen capped the tweet, admitted “it would be good to know exactly what happened” but then scolded that my single tweet was a weird thing, “to spend one’s resources on…”
Singal babbled on in telling ways, if you’re into that kind of thing.
But his complaint is useful illustration of something larger.
Given replays, I have no reason to doubt that the teleprompters were not hit by any bullets Thomas Crooks shot; I accept that early reports that Trump was hit by glass from his teleprompter were wrong.
I have no preconception about what we would learn from a medical report on the treatment Trump got. It might be something as banal as the news that plastic surgeons had to do some quick reconstruction to replace cartilage in Trump’s ear. Though Eric Trump has already revealed that Trump did not require stitches, which is the most detailed report we’ve gotten.
What I do know is there once used to be a norm in the United States that presidents and presidential candidates were expected to offer some transparency, however feigned, about two subjects: their finances and their health.
Biden has done that. Indeed, the report he released from his January physical not only described that he had been screened for Parkinson’s, which was ruled out, but it provided explanations for the things, like his halting step, that had raised concerns about Parkinson’s. Sure, by all means question that — but before you do, at least cross check the visitor logs on which you’ve built a conspiracy theory to see if they back your insinuations (which these never did).
Biden has similarly released several reports about the progression of his COVID, down to his temperature, treatment, and oximeter levels (one, two, three). Given the current state of COVID treatment, I have no big worries about his diagnosis (just as I have no preconceived notion about what Trump’s medical treatment would reveal). But it’s good to have. It is an important part of democracy. At the very least, such reports offer reassurances that if something were to happen — such as the time Trump got pre-vaccination COVID and almost killed Chris Christie, before walking into a debate with Joe Biden — we would know about it.
Obviously, we never got anything remotely reliable as to Trump’s medical records. He had two hack doctors write up his reports, one of whom disclosed alarming details about a cover-up after the fact. He had at least one medical event that remains unexplained.
And so, even if Trump’s entire right ear had been replaced, I doubt we’d know about it.
But, particularly amidst an otherwise diligent effort to learn what happened, I would expect that journalists would nevertheless demand such reports. If Trump refused to provide such reports, I would expect that to be a story — certainly a far bigger story than Peter Baker’s baseless insinuations about Biden’s health.
And yet, crickets. Either they asked and were refused that basic information, or they have stopped bothering to ask for basic transparency from Trump, knowing he’ll refuse.
Either way, the failure to demand a formal medical report after a shooting attempt represents the utter collapse of the most basic kind of journalism.
Do not obey in advance, Tim Snyder has written about how to resist fascism.
Ask for the medical report, even if you know they’ll refuse. If they do refuse, that — by itself — is a story.
Update: Shortly after I posted this, Trump released what purports to be a medical report from Candy Man Ronny Jackson.
It serves as an excellent test of whether self-imagined journalists are exercising any assessment of source credibility. More on this tomorrow.
Boiled Frog Journalism: Is Trump an Agent of Saudi Arabia, and Other Pressing Questions Buried under Biden’s Age
A jury found Robert Menendez guilty on all charges yesterday, including those alleging he accepted payments from Egypt and Qatar (I didn’t follow the trial closely enough to figure out which country ultimately provided the gold). The verdict marks DOJ’s first successful conviction under 18 USC 219, basically, working for a foreign country while serving as a member of Congress.
Henry Cuellar faces the same charge.
While the RNC largely overshadowed the verdict, Chuck Schumer, Cory Booker, and Governor Phil Murphy have all called on Menendez to step down.
The reasons why he should resign seem obvious: You can’t continue to serve the people of New Jersey after a jury determined you were actually using your position of power to serve two wealthy foreign countries.
Is Trump a Saudi foreign agent?
And yet we are two days into Trump’s nomination party, and no one has asked — much less answered — whether Donald Trump is a business partner, paid foreign agent, or merely an employee of Saudi Arabia.
This is not a frivolous question. Since Trump left office, his family has received millions in four known deals from the Saudis:
- A deal to host LIV golf tournaments. Forbes recently reported that Trump Organization made less than $800K for about half the tournaments it has hosted. But Trump’s role in the scheme has given credibility to an influence-peddling scheme that aims to supplant the PGA’s influence. When Vivek Ramaswamy learned that two consultants to his campaign were simultaneously working for LIV, he forced them to resign to avoid the worries of influence-peddling. Yet Trump has continued to host the Saudis at his properties.
- A $2 billion investment in Jared Kushner’s private equity firm, in spite of the fact that analysts raised many concerns about the investment, including that he was charging too much and had no experience.
- A deal to brand a property in Oman slated to open in 2028, which has already brought Trump Organization $5 million. The government of Oman is a key partner in the deal, signed with a huge Saudi construction firm.
- A newly-announced deal with the same construction firm involved in the Oman deal, this time to brand a Trump Tower in Jeddah.
These Saudi deals come on top of Trump’s testimony that Turnberry golf course and his Bedford property couldn’t be overvalued because some Saudi would be willing to overpay for them.
But I believe I could sell that LIV Golf for a fortune, Saudi Arabia. I believe I could sell that to a lot of people for numbers that would be astronomical because it is like — very much like owning a great painting.
[snip]
I just felt when I saw that, I thought it was high. But I could see it — as a whole, I could see it if this were s0ld to one buyer from Saudi Arabia — I believe it’s the best house in the State of New York.
And while Eric Trump, not his dad, is running the company, Eric also has a role in the campaign and his spouse Lara has taken over the entire GOP.
Trump never fulfilled the promises to distance himself from his companies in the first term. A very partial review of Trump Organization financial records show the company received over $600K from the Saudis during his first term. As far as I’m aware, no one has even asked this time around.
Which means as things stand, Trump would be the sole beneficiary of payments from key Saudi investors if he became President again. Trump would be, at the very least, the beneficiary of a business deal with the Saudis, as president.
Admittedly, under the Supreme Court’s latest ruling on gratuities, it might be legal for Trump to get a bunch of swank branding deals as appreciation for launder Saudi Arabia’s reputation (one of the things for which Menendez was just convicted).
But that doesn’t mean it should be ignored, politically. It doesn’t mean American voters shouldn’t know these details. It doesn’t mean journalists (besides NYT’s Eric Lipton, whose most recent story on this was buried on page A7) shouldn’t demand answers.
What deals has Trump made with Putin and/or Orbán?
At some point at the RNC, Don Jr claimed that his Daddy would get poor coverage from real journalists because “they lied about Russia Russia Russia.”
Only, they didn’t.
In guilty pleas, Trump’s people confessed that they were the ones lying. George Papadopoulos lied to hide when he learned of the Russian hack-and-leak operation. Mike Flynn lied to hide his efforts to undermine Barack Obama’s foreign policy with Russia. Micahel Cohen lied to hide his contact with the Kremlin during the campaign in pursuit of the kind of Trump Tower deal Trump has since inked with the Saudis.
Don Jr was spared charges, in part, because he’s too dumb to be expected to know he shouldn’t accept campaign dirt from Russian nationals.
Robert Mueller found that Trump’s campaign manager briefed someone Treasury has since labeled a Russian spy, Konstantin Kilimnik, on his plan to win the Rust Belt, even while discussing a deal to carve up Ukraine and get tens of millions in benefits. Kilimnik passed on polling data and the campaign strategy to Russian spies. Amy Berman Jackson ruled that Paul Manafort lied to hide that.
At the time the FBI obtained Roger Stone’s cell site location in August 2018, they had reason to believe he had gotten advance notice of both the dcleaks and the Guccifer 2.0 releases. Stone had multiple contacts with Trump about the releases and prosecutors hoped to obtain a notebook where Stone documented all of those conversations. A jury found that Stone lied to hide whence he learned all this.
Trump pardoned all but Cohen and Jr for the lies they told to hide what really happened with Russia. And we still don’t know why the clemency for Roger Stone Trump stashed in his desk drawer had a Secret document on Macron associated with it.
And Trump has only gotten more shameless since. In 2019, during his impeachment for extorting Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden and his kid, Trump was warned that among the Ukrainians from whom Rudy Giuliani was soliciting dirt on the Bidens was at least one Russian agent, Andrii Derkach.
Trump did nothing to stop Rudy from sidling up to a Russian agent. And when Rudy came back, Bill Barr set up a side channel to ingest that dirt — a side channel the resulted in an FBI informant with self-professed ties to Russian spies attempting to frame Joe Biden for bribery, an attempt to frame Biden that likely goes a long way to explain why the plea deal against Hunter Biden collapsed.
Once upon a time, it was a big deal that Trump refused to let an activist make the RNC platform’s defense of Ukraine more hawkish.
Now, however, Trump no longer hides that he’s willing to let Putin dismember Ukraine. He welcomed Viktor Orbán’s pitch of a plan to do just that — but there has been no readout from Trump’s side of what happened. Orbán, however, has told other EU nations that Trump will moved for “peace” immediately after being elected — a replay of what Flynn lied to cover up in 2017 — largely by withdrawing US support for Ukraine.
In the past, Trump has gone even further than this, suggesting he’ll do nothing as Putin invades NATO states.
Meanwhile, JD Vance is, if anything, even more pro-Russian than Trump, as are some of the Silicon Valley oligarchs who now back Trump’s campaign since the Vance pick.
Trump’s plan of capitulation to Russia will go a long way to ending the Western rules-based order, the greatest wish of Putin and Xi Jinpeng.
And thus far we know just one of the things that Russia seems to be doing to help Trump’s campaign: detaining WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich until Trump gets elected, just as Iran held onto hostages to help Reagan get elected. Avril Haines recently made clear Russia is planning on helping in other ways as well.
That’s how “Russia Russia Russia” has worked. It’s a shameless lie that Mueller found nothing, a lie built off years of propaganda. Indeed, Trump’s willing acceptance — or, in Rudy’s case, outright solicitation — of Russia’s help to get elected has only gotten more brazen. Yet rather than call Don Jr on his “Russia Russia Russia” lie, reporters simply let the pressing question of whether Trump will end the alliance of democracies in a second term go unasked.
What happened to the missing classified documents?
Amid the focus on Aileen Cannon’s stall then dismissal of Trump’s stolen documents charges, something has been missed: There appear to be documents missing. Here’s what we know:
- According to the indictment that Judge Cannon just threw out, after Trump tricked Evan Corcoran into searching only about half the boxes containing stolen documents, he flew to Bedminster with “several” of the boxes he had excluded from the search.
- In July 2022, Trump and Walt Nauta snuck back to Mar-a-Lago from Bedminster — to check on the boxes, one witness told Jack Smith.
- When the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago on August 8, 2022, they failed to search a closet in his bedroom to which he had added a new lock.
- Several searches overseen by Tim Parlatore found no new documents, though he did find a new classified document folder.
Given FBI’s failure to do a complete search adn Parlatore’s failure to find documents at Bedminster, the most likely way to learn what happened to them would be to get Walt Nauta to flip, something that, as I suggested here, his indictment might normally have done. But (correct, as it turned out) expectations that the prosecution would go away kept Nauta from cooperating.
And as a result, we have literally no idea how many documents Trump managed to withhold from the FBI’s search, or what he did with them.
The continued focus on Joe Biden’s three year seniority over Trump
Again, this kind of betrayal of America once mattered in Trump’s campaigns.
No longer.
It’s not happening because journalists are so cowardly they can be cowed with a mere “Russia Russia Russia” chant.
And it’s not happening because journalists have lost all sense of proportion — and for many of them, all sense of public good.
Journalists are making much of a confrontation between Jason Crow and Biden, related by Julia Ioffe, in which Biden insisted he had been great on foreign policy.
The campaign did not, however, dispute this next part, about Crow and his Bronze Star. In a video of the Zoom that I was able to view, you can hear Biden chastising Crow, who asked about the importance of national security to voters. “First of all, I think you’re dead wrong on national security,” the president says, the emotion at times garbling his words. “You saw what happened recently in terms of the meeting we had with NATO. I put NATO together. Name me a foreign leader who thinks I’m not the most effective leader in the world on foreign policy. Tell me! Tell me who the hell that is! Tell me who put NATO back together! Tell me who enlarged NATO, tell me who did the Pacific basin! Tell me who did something that you’ve never done with your Bronze Star like my son—and I’m proud of your leadership, but guess what, what’s happening, we’ve got Korea and Japan working together, I put Aukus together, anyway! … Things are in chaos, and I’m bringing some order to it. And again, find me a world leader who’s an ally of ours who doesn’t think I’m the most respected person they’ve ever—”
“It’s not breaking through, Mr. President,” said Crow, “to our voters.”
“You oughta talk about it!” Biden shot back, listing his accomplishments yet again. “On national security, nobody has been a better president than I’ve been. Name me one. Name me one! So I don’t want to hear that crap!”
It’s another instance where Biden responds stubbornly when Democrats try to push the president to drop out of the race. And that’s why reporters are gleefully dunking on Biden’s comments.
But it’s also an instance where Biden is making a really good point: He has restored America’s alliances to what they were before Trump destroyed them.
And the press is only telling that story — and doesn’t even realize that they are only telling that story — as part of their singular obsession with Biden’s age.
It’s a confession, really, that they have abdicated any concern for the kind of accomplishments of which Biden is justifiably bragging (ignoring Gaza). They have been bullied out of covering any of Trump’s glaring betrayals of the country the leadership of which he wants to monetize.
Trump might literally be an agent of a foreign power — just like Robert Menendez has been adjudged — and this mob calling themselves journalists would exhibit the least interest, much less persistent concern. Journalists don’t even care that both of Trump’s most suspect foreign allegiances involve the exploitation of journalists for political gain, first Jamal Khashoggi and then Gershkovich. Journalists have ignored that recent history, even after he picked Vance, someone who formally asked Merrick Garland to criminally investigate Robert Kagan (a neocon whom Vance called left wing) for inciting insurrection because he discussed liberal states resisting Trump in a second term.
Trump might literally sell out the next journalist who opposes him to be chopped up by some foreign dictator. And yet the press corps seems not to give a rat’s ass.
Because Joe Biden is three years older than Donald Trump.