“Dead Skunk in The Middle of The Road” – Page 19

Trump’s getting desperate: Now he turns to failing Moms for Liberty

Salon – Opinion

Trump’s getting desperate: Now he turns to failing Moms for Liberty

Amanda Marcotte – August 30, 2024

Donald Trump Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Donald Trump has a woman problem — and it’s not just his pending court cases regarding his sexual assault of journalist E. Jean Carroll. Polling shows a growing divergence between male and female voters that could become the largest election gender gap in history. A new CBS poll found that 56% of women say they plan to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris, while 54% of men say they’re backing Trump. The problem for Trump is that women historically vote more than men, and the percentage of the electorate that is female grows more each presidential election cycle.

It’s not hard to see why most women despise Trump, a man who bragged about sexually assaulting women on tape. On the policy front, of course, Trump is the single person most responsible for the overturn of Roe v. Wade. The published agenda for his second term, Project 2025, includes plans for a national abortion ban and restrictions on contraception. Not only does Trump not try to hide his misogyny, but his campaign makes it a selling point in a bid to win over bitter male voters. On Wednesday, Trump posted a sexually explicit comment about Harris to Truth Social, accusing her of selling sex because she dated other men before she met her husband. As Anderson Cooper noted on CNN, this is not “out of character” for Trump, who usually calls women “pigs,” “dogs” and “nasty” for showing anything but submission to him.

Trump’s campaign is in danger if he can’t get at least a few skeptical women to vote for him. So on Friday, Trump is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the third annual Moms for Liberty summit in Washington, D.C. It’s another sign that his campaign has run out of ideas to appeal to women. Moms for Liberty’s fall from political grace has been as rapid as their rise to prominence. Associating with the group is more likely to hurt Trump with female voters than to help him.

Moms for Liberty was founded in January 2021. Initially, the group found success in helping Republicans claw back support from suburban women that had been lost during the Trump presidency. By channeling the frustrations parents felt over pandemic school closures, Moms for Liberty positioned itself as a moderate-seeming “parental rights” organization. In reality, the group was controlled by far-right activists with deep ties to Christian nationalism. When Moms for Liberty-linked school board members started taking actions like banning books and vilifying LGBTQ teachers, it provoked a nationwide backlash, with parents in affected communities coming together to kick Moms for Liberty members off their school boards.

It’s safe to say the “Moms for Liberty” brand is toxic now. One of its founders, Bridget Ziegler, got caught up in a sex scandal when a woman she and her husband were meeting for threesomes accused her husband, Christian Ziegler, of rape. (The case was eventually dropped after police claimed insufficient evidence.) With the pandemic over, all the group had left, issue-wise, was their zeal for book banning, which is a wildly unpopular position. In addition, they’re closely associated with Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, who has become something of a punchline after spending $160 million in the GOP presidential primary only to be handed a humiliating defeat by Trump.

“DeSantis and MfL appear to have lost their juice,” journalist Kelly Weill wrote in her recent MomLeft newsletter. “In 2022, the group claimed to have elected approximately half of its 500-plus school board candidates,” reaching an 80% success rate in Florida. In 2023, however, the group only won 35% of its races, and that’s after dramatically scaling back the number of candidates they were running. This month, Moms for Liberty got another shellacking, as only 6 out of 23 candidates backed by DeSantis and Moms for Liberty in Florida even won a primary.

“Big losses across the state for candidates who advanced the group’s agenda, including efforts to ban library books and restrict lessons about race, sex and gender, pointed to mounting dissatisfaction with an organization that had quickly gained sway with powerful Republicans amid the anti-mask, parental rights politics of the pandemic,” reports the Tampa Bay Times.

Despite this, Politico reports, “Republicans show no signs of changing their strategy.” Last year, Trump’s speech before Moms for Liberty drew heavily on plans outlined in Project 2025 to gut public education altogether, starting with abolishing the Department of Education. This year, Moms for Liberty head Tiffany Justice said she hopes “to hear some more plans” regarding this, because “it’s a little more complicated than just waving a magic wand and making it go away.” Democrats no doubt agree they’d like to hear more about Trump’s plan to end the Department of Education, as 64% of Americans oppose the idea.

That Trump and Republicans are sticking with Moms of Liberty suggests they’re desperate. Polling shows that since Harris replaced President Joe Biden as the nominee, there’s been a major uptick in female support for the Democratic ticket. On Tuesday, Democratic research firm TargetSmart published a new report chronicling the surge of voter registrations since Harris joined the race, including a whopping 175% spike in registrations from Black women under 30.

Harris’ appeal is a huge part of this, but it’s also driven by women’s outrage over Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio. Vance can’t seem to pull his nose out of women’s uteruses. New quotes of Vance painting childless women as “miserable cat ladies” and “sociopathic” are released practically every day. Like Trump, he has a special zeal for attacking hardworking schoolteachers, claiming teachers who do not have biological children “disorient and really disturb” him.

In response, the head of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, said, “It sure seems like Vance lacks an empathy gene—thank goodness he’s not a teacher.”

This rhetoric seems like it will only further alienate female voters, especially mothers who tend to have close relationships with local teachers and know they don’t need to be parents to be skilled professionals. (For one thing, most start teaching full-time at age 22. That’s five years younger than the average age of a first-time parent, and 12 years younger than when Vance had his first child.) It just reinforces the accusation of the Harris campaign that Vance is “weird” and out of touch with how normal Americans live.

But it’s not like Trump and Vance have a lot of options for reaching out to female voters. Moms for Liberty’s brand is failing and their views are unpopular, but they do have “Moms” in their name and female leaders for Trump to be photographed with. If you squint hard enough, that could look like Trump playing nice with women. Moms for Liberty doesn’t offer much, but it’s the best the Trump campaign can do.

How California Became a New Center of Political Corruption

The New York Times

How California Became a New Center of Political Corruption

Ralph Vartabedian – August 29, 2024

Over the last 10 years, 576 public officials in California have been convicted on federal corruption charges, according to Justice Department reports, exceeding the number of cases in states better known for public corruption, including New York, New Jersey and Illinois. (Getty Images)More

LOS ANGELES — Jose Huizar’s downfall at Los Angeles City Hall was as stunning as his rise to success, a political tragedy that, like many in the land of dreams, has become a familiar one.

Born to a large family in rural Mexico and raised in poverty near the towering high-rises of downtown Los Angeles, he overcame enormous odds to graduate from the University of California, Berkeley, Princeton University and UCLA law school.

He returned to his old neighborhood in East Los Angeles to run for the school board and eventually the City Council, where he gained control of the influential committee that approves multimillion-dollar commercial development projects across the city.

His spectacular fall — after FBI agents caught him accepting $1.8 million worth of casino chips, luxury hotel stays, a liquor box full of cash and prostitutes from Chinese developers — was cast by federal prosecutors as an epic Hollywood tale. They persuaded a judge in January to sentence him to 13 years in prison on charges of tax evasion and racketeering.

“He was the King Kong of LA City Hall for many, many years,” Mack E. Jenkins, chief of the criminal division at the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles, told the court. “And with his fall, a lot of devastation was left in his wake.”

This week, when Huizar is scheduled to report to prison, he will become the third recent Los Angeles City Council member to go down on charges of corruption, part of a much larger circle of staff aides, fundraisers, political consultants and real estate developers who have been charged in what federal authorities called an “extraordinary” recent wave of bribery and influence-peddling across California.

Two other members of the City Council, Mitchell Englander and Mark Ridley-Thomas, were convicted earlier on various corruption charges, as was the former head of the city’s Department of Water and Power. A fourth City Council member, Curren Price, is facing charges of embezzlement, perjury and conflict of interest.

Over the last 10 years, 576 public officials in California have been convicted on federal corruption charges, according to Justice Department reports, exceeding the number of cases in states better known for public corruption, including New York, New Jersey and Illinois.

California has a larger population than those states, but the recent wave of cases is attributable to much more than that, federal prosecutors say.

A heavy concentration of power at Los Angeles City Hall, the receding presence of local news media, a population that often tunes out local politics and a growing Democratic supermajority in state government have all helped insulate officeholders from damage, political analysts said.

In Los Angeles, Huizar’s influence was even greater than that of most other council members: Not only did his district include downtown Los Angeles, where billions of dollars of foreign investment was transforming the skyline, but he also controlled the Planning and Land Use Management Committee that approves major developments all over the city.

“When you have that kind of power, pay-to play schemes run amok,” said U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada, whose office has led many of the recent prosecutions in Los Angeles. “I wouldn’t call it ordinary what these folks did. It is extraordinary.”

Huizar, 55, pleaded guilty to racketeering, a charge often used in prosecuting organized crime or street-gang cases. The $1.8 million in bribes he received was twice the amount that recently convicted Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey was charged with accepting.

In March, a jury convicted Raymond Chan, a former Los Angeles deputy mayor whom prosecutors called the “architect” of the Huizar conspiracy, also on racketeering charges. In all, more than 50 key political figures and executives in Los Angeles and San Francisco have been convicted since 2019. Many more were investigated or resigned after allegations surfaced.

California also had cases of corruption in the days, now in the distant past, when Republicans held statewide office.

But political analysts say the Democrats’ present lock on political power leaves little opportunity for Republicans to effectively raise the issue of corruption as a campaign issue.

“When a political party enjoys that much uncontested power, there’s no penalty for stepping over ethical or legal lines,” said Dan Schnur, a former head of the state Fair Political Practices Commission and a former Republican who is now an independent.

A two-year-old reform effort to curb some of the extraordinary power conferred to individual council members in Los Angeles has foundered.

“When you talk about reducing individual council member discretion over land use, there is real pushback,” said Nithya Raman, a council member who sits on the city’s charter reform committee.

What happened in Los Angeles had been playing out on a smaller scale for years in the small industrial cities of Los Angeles County that have been described as a “corridor of corruption”: South Gate, Bell, Lynwood and Vernon, among others, where civic leaders were prosecuted for taking bribes or tapping into city funds.

“You have large immigrant populations, largely marginalized communities that do not have the resources to watch their politicians closely,” said Estrada, whose parents emigrated from Guatemala. “I think you have a pretty unique cauldron of factors in Los Angeles and the greater Los Angeles area that allow for these things to happen.”

The arrival of large-scale investments from China starting in 2011 heightened the risks.

Over the next half-dozen years, about $26 billion of direct investment from Chinese firms and their billionaire owners arrived in the state.

Downtown Los Angeles underwent a dramatic revival. New high-rise condos and hotels went up, abandoned warehouses were converted into loft apartments and galleries and expensive restaurants opened.

The 40-year-old Grand Hotel, a rundown eyesore used until recently by the city as a homeless shelter, was at the center of one investor’s grandiose plan.

The investor, Wei Huang, a billionaire owner of the development company Shen Zhen New World, bought the hotel in 2010 with plans to convert it into a 77-story tower, the highest in the western United States.

What he needed was help managing the byzantine political approval process. He found it, federal prosecutors said, with Huizar, who had been elected to the council in 2005.

Starting in 2013, federal prosecutors said, Huizar took the first of 20 all-expenses paid trips to Las Vegas with Huang, during which he was supplied with about $10,000 worth of casino chips each time.

Their involvement deepened just before a 2015 election, when Huizar faced allegations from his deputy chief of staff that he had sexually harassed her. Huang, prosecutors said, provided him with $600,000 of collateral for a loan to settle out of court.

But it was the free casino chips in Las Vegas that would ultimately unravel the arrangement. During one trip to the Cosmopolitan casino in 2016, its security chief, a former FBI agent, spotted Huizar playing a $16,000 pile of chips at a card table. When he asked his identity, he became flustered and walked away, leaving the chips.

“Who walks away from $16,000 of casino chips?” said Carlos Narro, who was then the chief of the FBI’s public corruption section in Los Angeles, who got a call from the security chief.

In short order, Narro had the casino’s video of the scene at the card table and flight records. With those, the FBI got court approval for wire taps and searches of Huizar’s text messages and emails.

Ultimately, the investigation found that Huang had paid roughly $1.8 million to Huizar, but that was only part of a much wider network of corruption, investigators found. The wide-ranging racketeering indictment to which Huizar pleaded guilty also targeted a City Hall aide, a deputy mayor, a lobbyist and a political fundraiser, all of whom were also convicted.

Huang was also indicted and is now a fugitive, believed to be in China. His company was fined $4 million.

Also included in the indictment were three other large development projects whose backers, prosecutors said, obtained Huizar’s help in exchange for bribes.

The scandal was almost inevitable, said Miguel Santana, the former top administrative officer of Los Angeles.

“The depth of power that a council member has around development in their own districts almost facilitates the level of corruption that took place,” Santana, now president of the California Community Foundation. “That level of power still exists today.”

San Francisco has had its own round of corruption cases, many of the recent ones surrounding the former Department of Public Works chief, Mohammed Nuru, who pleaded guilty in 2021 to accepting gifts, including a tractor for his ranch outside the city, a Rolex watch and millions of dollars, from various people with business before the city.

Florence Kong, the owner of a recycling company, pleaded guilty to offering some of the bribes in exchange for city contracts. Zhang Li, a Chinese developer also accused of offering bribes, signed a deferred prosecution agreement.

Now scheduled to surrender to prison by Saturday, Huizar made a public apology at his sentencing hearing, saying he had long been dedicated to his community. “Shiny things were dangled in front of me, and I could not resist the temptation,” he said in a letter to the judge asking for leniency. “The money, the fancy dinners, luxury flights. It was there for the taking, and I could not say no.”

Estrada, the U.S. attorney, said that Huizar’s corruption offended him as a Latino.

“It feels like a real betrayal,” Estrada said. “Because for those of us whose families came from Latin America, and know that system, there’s just rampant corruption there. You come to this country, you have more opportunities, you are offered to be part of a system that is theoretically supposed to operate cleanly.”

‘Morning Joe’ Shames Trump’s Arlington Cemetery Photo Op: ‘Beyond Condemnation’

Daily Beast

‘Morning Joe’ Shames Trump’s Arlington Cemetery Photo Op: ‘Beyond Condemnation’

Michael Boyle – August 28, 2024

MSNBC’s Morning Joe tore into former President Donald Trump following visit to Arlington National Cemetery that has sparked outrage among veterans. In addition to Trump’s awkward thumbs up photo on Monday it was later reported that two Trump campaign staffers got in a physical altercation with cemetery workers who tried to stop the candidate from using the occasion to attack his political rivals, arguing that it violates federal law.

“I know a lot of military veterans were very uncomfortable with the idea that Trump was there at all,” correspondent Jonathan Lemire, who was filling in for Joe Scarborough said Wednesday morning. “Some of these veterans were sort of just aghast that even in any way, shape, or form, our Arlington National Cemetery, arguably the most sacred place in our country, was being used as a backdrop for political purposes.”

“Is nothing sacred?” added contributor Mike Barnicle about Trump’s behavior at the ceremony. “That is sacred ground. And the idea that any candidate of any party would, intentionally or unintentionally, use that sacred ground as a prop for a political campaign is beyond condemnation.”https://www.youtube.com/embed/hPdWaNanrrw

Barnicle continued, “It’s terribly upsetting, obviously, to people who have buried loved ones in Arlington National Cemetery. It’s terribly upsetting to many veterans. It’s terribly upsetting to people who view it as a spectacle.”

Most importantly, Barnicle argued, “It ought to be terribly upsetting to any American who values what the military does for this country worldwide, and has done for this country for centuries, and will continue to do for this country.”

Trump Staff Accused of Getting Physical With Arlington National Cemetery Official

Lemire also noted that this scandal “comes just days after Trump suggested that a civilian medal, the Medal of Freedom, was better than the Medal of Honor, because the army soldiers who receive the Medal of Honor are often either killed or wounded.”

“And of course,” he continued, “we’ve been reminded of late how Trump used to refer to veterans, even deceased soldiers, as ‘suckers and losers,’ a comment confirmed by his own chief of staff.”

Amidst the backlash, Trump released a statement of support from family members of the Marines whose grave he was photographed smiling and giving the thumbs up this week. Campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung told The Daily Beast on Wednesday, “There was no physical altercation as described and we are prepared to release footage if such defamatory claims are made.” He did not reply to requests for the footage.

“Sick and tragic”: Veterans, Democrats criticize Trump for “incident” at Arlington National Cemetery

Salon

“Sick and tragic”: Veterans, Democrats criticize Trump for “incident” at Arlington National Cemetery

Nicholas Liu – August 28, 2024

Donald Trump Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Two members of Donald Trump’s campaign staff pushed and verbally abused an official at Arlington Memorial Cemetery while the former president was participating in a wreath-laying ceremony on Monday, NPR first reported.

A source with knowledge of the incident told NPR that the official tried to prevent staffers from filming and photographing in Section 60, a restricted area where recent U.S. military casualties are buried. According to the source, officials had already made clear that only cemetery staff were permitted to film and photograph in that area, and when one of the officials tried to prevent Trump campaign staffers from entering, the staffers verbally abused and pushed the official aside.

Arlington National Cemetery, in a statement to NPR, said it “can confirm there was an incident, and a report was filed.”

“Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate’s campaign,” the statement continued. “Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants.”

Trump was in Arlington to mark the third anniversary of a suicide bombing at Abbey Gate at Kabul Airport in 2021 during the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. Thirteen U.S. service members were killed in an attack, which Trump has cited to criticize President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris over the administration’s handling of the evacuation.

On Tuesday, Trump posted a statement from relatives of two service members killed in the bombing. “We would like to express our heartfelt thanks and appreciation to president Donald J. Trump for his presence at the recent Section 60 gathering, honoring our children and their fallen brothers and sisters,” the Truth Social post read. “On the three-year anniversary of the Abbey Gate bombing, the president and his team conducted themselves with nothing but the utmost respect and dignity for all of our service members, especially our beloved children.”

The statement also said that the family members accepted the presence of an official videographer and photographer at the event, though their approval does not override existing rules by the cemetery that regulate behavior near the grave sites of many other veterans. In the end, Trump got his photo, which depicts the former president smiling widely and giving a thumbs-up behind the graves of the two Marines.

Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung pushed back on the altercation story in a statement to NPR, saying that “we are prepared to release footage if such defamatory claims are made.” (As of Wednesday morning, no such footage has been released.)

“The fact is that a private photographer was permitted on the premises and for whatever reason an unnamed individual, clearly suffering from a mental health episode, decided to physically block members of President Trump’s team during a very solemn ceremony,” Cheung claimed.

Predictably, reports of an altercation on hallowed ground sparked outrage from veterans and veterans’ groups. Liberal veterans organization VoteVets demanded that Trump take action against the staffers who took part in the incident. “If Donald Trump respects the fallen (he doesn’t) he will fire the people who fought with Arlington National Cemetery staff,” the group said in a statement on social media. “The fact is, Trump staff did this because he wanted them to do it. He sees Section 60 as Suckers and Losers too,” the group said, referring to Trump’s past alleged comments about veterans.

Former Rep. Max Rose, D-N.Y., who fought in Afghanistan, called the photograph and the alleged altercation that made it possible a “sick and tragic” affair. “Trump and his team care only about using the military as a prop,” he wrote on X. “No respect for our nation’s fallen heroes. Trump only cares about himself.”

Rep. Mickie Sherrill, D-N.J., a former Navy lieutenant, said that the former president using Arlington National Cemetery as a “photo-op” was to be expected from Trump, as “disrespecting veterans is par for course.”

Criticism over Trump’s comments about veterans exploded in 2020 after multiple Trump White House sources provided examples of him disparaging veterans for a report by The Atlantic. According to one story, he resisted visiting the grave sites of American World War I veterans in Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France because “it’s filled with losers” who were “suckers” for getting killed. At a briefing given by then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joe Dunford, Trump reportedly turned to aides and said: “That guy is smart. Why did he join the military?”

Trump has denied those claims, but some public statements he’s made are more difficult to dismiss: In 2015, he described former Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., as “not a war hero” because he was shot down and captured by North Vietnamese forces.

It’s not just words that have put a spotlight on Trump’s record with veterans. During his administration, Trump gave authority over Department of Veterans’ Affairs policy to a trio of business executives with memberships at his Mar-a-Lago club and personal ties to him, sparking a 2021 investigation by congressional Democrats that found the arrangement “violated the law and sought to exert improper influence over government officials to further their own personal interest.” Investigations by ProPublica also found that Trump’s Veterans Affairs officials enriched large companies while imposing longer waits for benefits on veterans, weakened the department by cutting its staff and retaliated against whistleblowers over reported abuse and malpractice at VA facilities.

If Trump was sometimes reluctant to visit military cemeteries during his presidency, some commentators observe that he now sees the political benefits of putting it in his schedule.

“The idea that any candidate of any party would use, intentionally or unintentionally, use that sacred ground as a prop for a political campaign is beyond condemnation,” journalist Mike Barnicle said on MSNBC. “It’s terribly upsetting, obviously, to people who have buried loved ones in Arlington National Cemetery.”

Trump team involved in ‘incident’ with staff at Arlington cemetery

Politico

Trump team involved in ‘incident’ with staff at Arlington cemetery

Paul McLeary – August 28, 2024

Members of the Trump campaign were involved in a confrontation with Army staff at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday while the former president took part in a photo session in a section for troops who have died in recent conflicts.

The incident, which reportedly involved pushing an employee and verbal abuse, came as former President Donald Trump visited the cemetery to mark the three-year anniversary of the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan, where 13 service members were killed in a bombing at the Kabul airport.

NPR first reported that families of two of the Marines killed at the airport invited Trump to Section 60 of the cemetery, where federal law prohibits political or campaign-related photography. NPR, citing a person with knowledge of the incident, said Trump’s team verbally abused and pushed a staffer when that person attempted to block the photographer who was with the campaign.

The photos came after Trump laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

The cemetery released a statement confirming there was an “incident,” and added that “federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities” at any military cemetery, including photography “in direct support of a partisan political candidate’s campaign. Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants.”

Trump adviser Chris LaCivita said in a statement to POLITICO that “for a despicable individual to physically prevent President Trump’s team from accompanying him to this solemn event is a disgrace.”

Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesperson, confirmed that an incident occurred but denied there was any altercation.

Cheung posted on X Wednesday what appeared to be communicationbetween the campaign and Arlington staff that recommended against bringing additional photographers “outside the main media pool,” but allowed a Trump photographer to accompany him. The communication does not specify the photographer can follow Trump to the gravesite. Staff at the cemetery had worked for days to coordinate the visit with the Trump campaign.

Appearing on CNN Wednesday, former Trump Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the incident “should be investigated” and that the cemetery “has a lot of rules” for what people can or cannot do there. The “principle is that no person or party [on] either side should ever use Arlington National Cemetery or any of our cemeteries or battlefields for partisan political purposes, or break the so-called rules.”

The incident is the latest in a string of controversies involving Trump and veterans. On Aug. 15, he said the civilian President Medal of Freedom was “much better” than the military’s Medal of Honor because recipients of the military’s highest award for valor are “either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead.”

The Veterans of Foreign Wars, which has 1.5 million members, called the comments “asinine” and said they not “only diminish the significance of our nation’s highest award for valor, but also crassly characterizes the sacrifices of those who have risked their lives above and beyond the call of duty.”

Trump Team Clashed With Official at Arlington National Cemetery

The New York Times

Trump Team Clashed With Official at Arlington National Cemetery

Chris Cameron – August 28, 2024

Former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, is joined by U.S. Marine Cpl. Kelsee Lainhart for a wreath-laying ceremony on Monday, Aug. 26, 2024, at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)More

ARLINGTON, Va. — Members of Donald Trump’s campaign team and an official at Arlington National Cemetery confronted each other during the former president’s visit to the cemetery Monday, the military cemetery said in a statement Tuesday.

The altercation was prompted, according to Trump campaign officials, by the presence of a photographer in a section of the cemetery where U.S. troops who were killed in recent wars are buried. The cemetery released a statement saying that federal law prohibits political campaigning or “election-related” activities within Army cemeteries, including by photographers.

An official with the cemetery tried to “physically block” members of Trump’s team, Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesperson, said in a statement. Cheung added that the cemetery official was “clearly suffering from a mental health episode” and that the campaign was prepared to release footage of the confrontation to support its account of the clash. The campaign did not provide that footage after several requests.

Chris LaCivita, a top Trump campaign adviser, added in a separate statement that the cemetery official was “a disgrace and does not deserve to represent the hallowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery.”

Cemetery officials did not provide their own account of the encounter, saying instead that “there was an incident, and a report was filed.” In an additional statement Wednesday, a spokesperson for the cemetery said that “to protect the identity of the individual involved, no further information about the incident is being released at this time.”

The cemetery added that it had “reinforced and widely shared” to the Trump campaign the federal laws prohibiting campaign activities by photographers “or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate’s campaign.”

News of the altercation was first reported by NPR.

VoteVets, the liberal veterans group, called on Trump to fire the members of his team involved in the confrontation.

Trump had visited the cemetery for a wreath-laying ceremony honoring 13 U.S. troops who were killed in a suicide bombing at Abbey Gate at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, during the United States’ withdrawal from that country three years ago. Trump has blamed President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for the bombing and America’s chaotic withdrawal, and repeated his attacks on the subject in campaign events after his visit to the cemetery.

Trump had laid three wreaths at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery on Monday morning, the third anniversary of the Abbey Gate bombing. Two of the wreaths were for Marines killed: Staff Sgt. Darin Taylor Hoover and Sgt. Nicole Gee. A third was dedicated to all 13 troops killed.

Trump was accompanied for the laying of the wreaths by family members of the slain troops, as well as Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews and Cpl. Kelsee Lainhart, two Marines who were injured in the Abbey Gate attack. Vargas-Andrews lost his right arm and left leg in the attack, and Lainhart was paralyzed in the attack and now uses a wheelchair.

Trump then accompanied the families and Marine veterans to Section 60 of the cemetery, reserved for those recently killed in America’s wars abroad, including at Abbey Gate.

That part of Trump’s visit was private and closed to the press. Cheung, the Trump campaign spokesperson, pointed to a screenshot of an email that he argued gave the campaign photo access to Section 60. That excerpt, however, says that “former President Trump may have an official photographer and/or videographer outside of the main media pool,” but it does not suggest Trump’s photographer was given special access.

The campaign also shared text messages from family members of the veterans consenting to having Trump’s campaign media attend the event at Section 60. The campaign did not provide evidence that the cemetery gave it permission to have a photographer at Section 60 — which the cemetery said in its statement would be a violation of federal law.

Trump will do anything, including disrespecting our military, for a political stunt: Trump staff had physical altercation with Arlington cemetery official

Reuters

Trump staff had physical altercation with Arlington cemetery official, NPR reports

Reuters – August 28, 2024

Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Trump holds rally in Glendale, Arizona

Flags-in ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia

(This Aug. 27 story has been refiled to fix a typo in paragraph 3)

(Reuters) – Two members of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign staff had a “verbal and physical altercation” with an Arlington National Cemetery official during a visit by Trump this week, NPR reported on Tuesday.

Trump on Monday participated in a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery honoring the 13 servicemembers killed during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.

Later in Detroit, Trump blamed Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic rival for the White House, and President Joe Biden for what he termed a “catastrophic” withdrawal.

Citing an unnamed source, NPR reported that when a cemetery official tried to prevent Trump campaign staffers from filming and photographing in an area where servicemembers are buried, the Trump staff “verbally abused and pushed the official aside.”

Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung disputed the report. “There was no physical altercation as described and we are prepared to release footage if such defamatory claims are made,” Cheung said.

Arlington National Cemetery confirmed in a statement that an incident had occurred and that a report was filed.

It did not respond to requests for a copy of the report or an explanation of why the Trump campaign was allowed to visit the cemetery as part of his campaign.

(Reporting by Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Michael Perry)

Out of Place

The Atlantic

Out of Place

Charles Sykes – August 28, 2024

Donlad Trump stands next to an Honor Guard member during a visit to the Arlington National Cemetery — (Andrew Leyden / NurPhoto / Getty)

On Monday, Donald Trump visited the Arlington National Cemetery to honor the memory of 13 fallen service members. What happened next was a reminder of how little the former president understands about service, sacrifice, and heroism.

On Monday, Donald Trump visited the sacred ground of Arlington National Cemetery, where many of America’s war dead are buried, and posed for photos. In the strangest of these pictures, the former president is smiling and giving a thumbs-up by the grave of a Marine. It’s an image of a man who has no idea how to behave around fallen heroes.

Trump was at Arlington ostensibly to honor the memory of the 13 service members who were killed in a suicide bombing during the chaotic final days of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. The event was supposed to be respectful and private; according to a press-pool note, the families of the troops had asked that there be no media coverage in the area where the service members were buried. But Trump seemed to have other ideas.

According to a report by NPR, Trump’s campaign staff got into a verbal and physical altercation with a cemetery official who tried to stop campaign staffers from filming and taking photographs in the area of the cemetery reserved for recently fallen soldiers.

The cemetery confirmed that an incident took place on Monday but did not provide any details, instead noting in a statement that federal law prohibits “political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries.” The Trump-campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement that “there was no physical altercation as described,”and added in a post on X that Trump had been allowed a private photographer on the premises. But in his statement, Cheung also accused the cemetery official who’d tried to block Trump’s staff of “clearly suffering from a mental health episode.”

It’s hard to see Trump’s Monday visit as anything but a campaign stop intended to court the military vote. Speaking to a group of National Guard members in Detroit later that day, he blamed President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for the failures of the Afghanistan withdrawal.

By now, Trump’s use of the military as a prop for his own ends should surprise no one. Despite his vigorous avoidance of military service, Trump has a long history of denigrating the service of others, even as he poses as a defender of the nation’s military.

As a candidate for the Republican nomination in 2015, he mocked Senator John McCain’s status as a prisoner of war. “He’s not a war hero,” Trump said at the time. “I like people who weren’t captured.”Later, as president, he told his then–chief of staff John Kelly that he didn’t want “any wounded guys” in his planned Independence Day parade: “This doesn’t look good for me.”

Recently, he suggested that the civilian Medal of Freedom is “actually much better” than the military’s Medal of Honor, “because everyone gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, that’s soldiers, they’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets, or they’re dead.”

But Trump is especially out of place around the nation’s fallen troops. As reported by The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, Trump went to Arlington Cemetery with Kelly on Memorial Day 2017 and visited the gravesite of Kelly’s son Robert, who had been killed in Afghanistan. Standing next to the former Marine general, Trump said: “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?”

In 2018, Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, near Paris; as Jeffrey reported, Trump told staff members that the cemetery was “filled with losers.” Trump also “referred to the more than 1,800 Marines who’d lost their lives at Belleau Wood as ‘suckers’ for getting killed,” according to Jeffrey’s reporting.

Jeffrey’s story is very much a sore spot for a candidate who wants to wrap himself in the flag. Trump has denied the reporting, but it was confirmed to CNN by Kelly: “What can I add that has not already been said? … A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs, are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’”Kelly went on to corroborate other details in Jeffrey’s article. “God help us,” he concluded.

Monday’s wreath-laying at Arlington was, in part, Trump’s attempt to clean up the mess he has created, and to establish some credibility as a champion of men- and women-at-arms. But in the end, it merely served to remind Americans how little he understands about service, sacrifice, and heroism.

Related: Trump’s medal of dishonor Trump: Americans who died in war are “losers” and “suckers.”

More than 200 Bush, McCain, Romney alums endorse Harris for president, criticize Trump

USA Today

More than 200 Bush, McCain, Romney alums endorse Harris for president, criticize Trump

Joey Garrison, USA TODAY – August 27, 2024

WASHINGTON — More than 200 Republicans who previously worked for either former President George W. Bush, the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., or Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president in an open letter Monday obtained exclusively by USA TODAY.

The letter from alums of the three Republican presidential nominees prior to former President Donald Trump comes on the heels of a Democratic National Convention last week in Chicago that showcased Republican detractors of the GOP nominee. At least five former aides to former President George H.W. Bush also signed the letter, which has 238 signatures in all.

A similar group of about 150 anti-Trump former staffers of Bush, McCain and Romney pledged support for President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

“We reunite today, joined by new George H.W. Bush alumni, to reinforce our 2020 statements and, for the first time, jointly declare that we’re voting for Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz this November,” the letter reads. “Of course, we have plenty of honest, ideological disagreements with Vice President Harris and Gov. Walz. That’s to be expected. The alternative, however, is simply untenable.”

Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris delivers her acceptance speech during the final day of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Aug. 22, 2024.

(Read the letter here.)

Among those who signed the letter in support of Harris and her running-mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, include: former McCain chiefs of staff Mark Salter and Chris Koch; Joe Donoghue, former legislative director for McCain; Jennifer Lux, press secretary for McCain’s 2008 campaign, and Jean Becker, longtime chief of staff for George H.W. Bush.

Also backing Harris are David Nierenberg, Romney’s 2012 campaign finance chair; David Garman, under secretary of Energy for George W. Bush; and Olivia Troye, a former advisor to both George W. Bush and Vice President Mike Pence. Troye spoke from the stage of the DNC convention last week.

More: ‘Embarrassing’: Mitt Romney hits his fellow Republicans for traveling to Donald Trump’s hush money trial

President George W. Bush speaks during an interview on Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at his office in Dallas about his recollections of Sept. 11, 2001.

“At home, another four years of Donald Trump’s chaotic leadership, this time focused on advancing the dangerous goals of Project 2025, will hurt real, everyday people and weaken our sacred institutions,” the letter says, referring to the Heritage Foundation’s policy blueprint that the Trump campaign has sought to distance itself from.

“Abroad, democratic movements will be irreparably jeopardized as Trump and his acolyte JD Vance kowtow to dictators like Vladimir Putin while turning their backs on our allies. We can’t let that happen.”

The animosity between the camps of McCain, Romney, and Bush and Trump is well-documented.

More: Kamala Harris raised $82 million during the Democratic convention

More: Why won’t George W. Bush talk publicly about Donald Trump? It’s simple.

Romney, who voted to impeach Trump as a senator, said he won’t support Trump in the 2024 election, but he hasn’t endorsed Harris either. Bush, whose family has long been at odds with Trump, did not attend last month’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, though has refrained form criticizing Trump publicly. As a candidate in 2015, Trump said McCain was “not a war hero.” Four years ago, McCain’s widow, Cindy McCain, endorsed Biden over Trump.

Others who signed the letters include: Reed Galen, McCain’s deputy campaign manager and co-founder of the Lincoln Project; Jim Swift, a former Republican operative who is now senior editor of The Bulwark, an anti-Trump news and opinion site; and former McCain campaign strategist Mike Murphy.

Citing 2020 exit polling and other voter data, the group claims it was “moderate Republicans and conservative independents in key swing states” who were pivotal in Biden’s victory that ultimately delivered the presidency Biden − Americans who “put country far before party,” they write in the letter.

The group called on more moderate Republicans and independents to “take a brave stand once more” and support Harris over Trump in the fall.

More: Donald Trump lashes out against ABC News, questions whether he’ll participate in Sept. 10 debate

September 13, 2023: Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) announces his intention to not run for reelection. Romney, who is 76, announced in a release, "the next generation of leaders must take America to the next stage of global leadership.". — September 13, 2023: Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) announces his intention to not run for reelection. Romney, who is 76, announced in a release, “the next generation of leaders must take America to the next stage of global leadership.”.

The Harris campaign has worked to highlight its backing from Republicans who oppose Trump, launching a “Republicans for Harris” group this month and featuring Republican speakers at last week’s convention.

Republicans who addressed the convention included former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., who served on the House panel that investigated Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election; former Trump press secretary Stephanie Grisham; former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, Mesa, Ariz. Mayor John Giles; and Troye, who worked as a homeland security and counterterrorism adviser to Pence. Pence has said he won’t endorse Trump for president.

Over the weekend, a dozen prominent Republican attorneys who worked for former President Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush endorsed Harris for president. The group included conservative former federal appellate Judge Michael Luttig, who plans to vote for a Democratic president for the first time.

Former Illinois Republican U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger speaks during the final day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center.

Trump Picked Worst Possible Spot For New Border Wall Stunt

HuffPost

Trump Picked Worst Possible Spot For New Border Wall Stunt

Ed Mazza – August 26, 2024

Donald Trump boasted of building the “Rolls-Royce” of walls during a visit to a segment of border barrier in Montezuma Pass, Arizona, last week.

There was just one problem: That segment of wall was actually built by the administration of President Barack Obama, according to The Washington Post.

The Cochise County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that the portion where Trump spoke was built under the Obama administration, the Post added.

The newspaper said a nearby extension was started under the Trump administration ― at a cost of $35 million a mile ― but didn’t get very far, with much of the construction material left in piles at the site.

Trump in 2016 repeatedly vowed to build a “big beautiful wall” across the nearly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border if elected.

He has claimed that he completed the task.

“I did finish the wall,” he said on CNN earlier this year. “I built a wall.”

He didn’t.

His administration replaced about 400 miles of existing wall and added about 52 miles of new wall.

Some of the wall built under Trump fell in a storm.

A 2022 report found the wall built under Trump was breached thousand of times using “inexpensive power tools.” Others reported the wall could be breached with a primitive ladder made from about $5 in material.

A report last year also found it did significant environmental and cultural damage to the region.

Trump also promised Mexico would pay for his wall.

It didn’t.