Friday on Fox News Channel, “Fox News Sunday” anchor Chris Wallace said despite President Donald Trump’s warnings of fraud during mail-in voting, has been “no history of fraud at all.”
After playing a clip of Trump objecting to mail-in voting, Wallace said, “Well, you know, I’ve done some deep dive in it, there really is no record of massive fraud or even serious fraud from mail-in voting. It’s being carried out in Republican states, being carried out in Democratic states, there is no indication that mail-in voting, as opposed to in-person voting, tends to favor one party over another.”
He continued, “If anything, it tends to favor Republicans because the people — now we’re talking outside of a pandemic — who historically have tended to vote most often by mail are elderly people, people over 65, and they tend to vote more Republican than Democratic.”
He added, “So have there been some cases? Yes, and there’s an issue sometimes with what’s called vote harvesting where instead of mailing in your ballot that you’ll get people who will go into a community and vacuum up, collect all the ballots, say they will take them in, and then the danger, of course, is that they will discard the ballots from neighborhoods that they think are going to vote for the other party. We’ve seen that in North Carolina. There was a big case involving a Republican who did that, and it helped a Republican win the election. It was so serious they had to have a new election. It’s happened sometimes in California. But when people get their ballots and mail them in themselves, no history of fraud at all.”
Thursday, during her weekly briefing, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said because voting in the United States was “under assault” from the coronavirus, it must be protected with nationwide vote-by-mail so no one is “forced” to go to a polling place and risk their health.
Pelosi said, “Voting is under assault both from a systemic nationwide campaign of voter suppression and from the coronavirus. The fear of getting sick and not to go to the polls. People should not have to choose between voting and preserving their good health and that of their families. Because no matter what you do when you go out, you bring it home. Again, no one should be forced to vote for their health or their vote.”
She continued, “In the HEROES Act, we added the balance of what we think we need to have voting at home and to protect the ballot. That would be $3.6 billion. A small price to pay for our democracy and the good health of Americans going to the polls. We will be there to expand vote at home, vote by mail some call it, including no-excuse absentee ballots, same-day registration, and again, having polling places available for those who want to participate in person for whatever reason.”
She added, “This is about the livelihood and life of our democracy. Essential to the life of our democracy is removing obstacles of participation to voting. And now, even more so now, when voting can be a risk to your health, as we saw demonstrated in Wisconsin.”
She concluded, “We don’t want anything to stand in the way of the right to vote.”
Thursday on ABC’s “The View,” Minority Leader Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) said President Donald Trump is promoting an “already discredited conspiracy” theory with his Obamagate tweets instead of focusing on the coronavirus pandemic.
Co-host Meghan McCain asked, “So Senator, President Trump has been nonstop tweeting about Obamagate, which stems from allegations Obama and senior officials used government power to spy on Trump’s campaign. Can you say with 100% certainty that this did not happen,, and it’s all a big Trump conspiracy theory to distract us?”
Schumer said, “Well, I didn’t say it, 17 intelligence agencies—these are nonpartisan, these are people who have risked their lives for us, CIA, NSA— they said it. This came from the Russians who wanted to divert attention for what they did.
He continued, “For the Senate and President Trump to spend time on this when we have a COVID crisis is just absolutely absurd. We should be focusing on helping people through this crisis, not pursuing already discredited conspiracy theories.”
Wednesday on MSNBC, Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez accused President Donald Trump of attempting to “steal the election” by opposing vote-by-mail during the coronavirus pandemic.
Host Chris Hayes said, “For more on the president’s efforts to subvert the democratic process, I’m joined by the chair of the Democratic National Committee. I’m always conflicted about, you know, stories of the variety the president tweeted. He tweets a lot of things and most of it is nonsense or lies or liable or slander or whatever. But the way he attacked absentee voting today struck me as genuinely dangerous and genuinely sort of threatening to democracy. How high on the priority list is it for you to do what you can to the safeguard administration of free and fair elections this fall?”
Perez said, “It’s the highest priority, Chris because we know that you’re going to see voter suppression on steroids in the months ahead. We had a conversation I know about the election in Wisconsin recently where they tried to weaponize the pandemic to suppress the vote and steal the state supreme court race. It failed miserably. That’s what you’re going to see.”
Hayes said, “I want to play for you something the president just said about voting, which struck me as deeply pernicious, this sort of voting is an honor and going off about how he doesn’t want people mail-in voting. Take a listen.”
In a clip, Trump said, “Common sense would tell you it’s massive manipulation can take place, massive. They — and you do —you have cases of fraudulent ballots where they actually print them and give them to people to sign, maybe the same person signs them with different writing, different pens. I don’t know. A lot of things can happen. If you can, you should go and vote. Voting is an honor. It shouldn’t be something where they send you a pile of stuff, and you send it back.”
Perez said, “Voting isn’t simply an honor, Chris, voting is a fundamental right. People pay the ultimate price to exercise the right to vote. And in a pandemic, the notion that you have a president going after Republican and Democratic secretaries of state in the middle of a pandemic, Secretary Benson is trying to make it easier for eligible people to exercise their right to vote. She’s trying to allow them to exercise the choice that the Michigan Constitution provides them.”
He added, “What we have to do between now and November is make sure that every single voter in every single state has a choice. The choice to vote on election day. So the choice to early vote, the more days of early voting, the more social distancing you do and the right to vote absentee with no excuse, the right to vote by mail. Republicans and Democrats agree on that. This president, in a desperate effort to steal an election, is going to stop at nothing.”
Thursday on MSNBC’s “All In,” Steve Schmidt, John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign manager, called President Donald Trump an “imbecile,” which he said was evidenced by the president announcing that he was taking hydroxychloroquine to prevent coronavirus.
Schmidt said, “We’ve seen a president of the United States standing behind the podium emblazoned with the seal of the presidency, saying inject disinfectants, saying that I’m taking this malaria drug that could kill him. Over and over again, the American people have been subjected to wave after wave of idiocy, asininity of misinformation from the president of the United States. And what it all adds up to is the most inept and incompetent response to a crisis that is conceivable to imagine. This is the worst response by an American leader, certainly by a president, but by any American leader in a time of testing crisis in our nation’s history. It’s appallingly bad. And so as we talk right now, more Americans will be dead by the dawn. We’re approaching 100,000 dead Americans because of the abject in incompetence and mishandling of this by Donald Trump.”
He added, “President Trump is many things. He’s dishonest. He’s lied to the American people more than 17,000 times. He completely is corrupt. He’s indecent. He’s vile. He’s divisive. But in this moment, the thing that matters the most, and I don’t say this to name call, but he’s an Imbecile. There is no other word for it. That’s the precise word we use in the English language to describe his comportment, to describe his behavior.”
Monday on MSNBC, Minority Leader Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) called President Donald Trump announcing he’s taking hydroxychloroquine “reckless.”
Schumer said, “Well, our role is to put pressure on the president to respect the truth, to keep the truth-tellers in office, and to let the public know when he’s doing what he always does. Even what he said about hydroxychloroquine, who knows if it’s true. He may not have been taking it for all we know. He likes to make a splash.”
He continued, “What the president did with hydroxychloroquine was reckless, simply reckless. The experts say, every expert that looked at it says it doesn’t help you against COVID. So he is giving people false hope. He may have people take it instead of going to the doctor. But it is worse than that. His own FDA says it has bad side effects, whether it affects the rhythm of the heart in many bad ways. For him to say this is reckless shows no regard for the public. Then you have to ask yourself, why did he say it? Does he have a friend or member of the family that might be benefitting? Trying to divert attention from his failure at COVID? Maybe he likes to make a splash, regardless of the consequences, As I mentioned, one thing you don’t know, maybe he is really not taking it, he lies about things characteristically, and when he hears the truth like with the inspector general, he runs away from it, fires it, pushes it aside. That’s happened throughout COVID, recently with the head of BARTA.”
Guest host Steve Kornacki asked, “When you say maybe the president isn’t taking it, do you have information or have you heard something?”
Schumer said, “No, I don’t. I just know he seems at the press conferences to go into flights of fancy, make things up. I don’t know whether he is taking it or not. I know him saying he is taking it, whether he is or not, is reckless, gives people false hope, has people avoid real medical attention, and can actually cause them trouble. It is just dangerous what he did.”
Monday on CNN, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) argued President Donald Trump should not be taking hydroxychloroquine because he was “morbidly obese.”
Host Anderson Cooper asked, “Madam Speaker, what is your reaction to the president saying he is now taking hydroxychloroquine? Are you concerned?”
Pelosi said, “As far as the president is concerned, he’s our president and I would rather he not be taking something that has not been approved by the scientists, especially in his age group and in his, shall we say, weight group — morbidly obese they say.”
Monday on ABC’s “The View,” co-host Joy Behar said President Donald Trump referring to the press as the “enemy of the people” was influenced by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Nazi Germany dictator Adolf Hitler and Communist Soviet Union dictator Joseph Stalin.
While discussing Trump praising lockdown protesters who yelled at a reporter, Goldberg asked, “Now the protest organizers apologized for the bad apples who apparently went after the reporter, but you know who retweeted the report calling them great people. Now, does it surprise anyone, does it surprise you, Joy?”
Behar said, “I’m certainly not surprised by this because let’s not forget when he called white supremacists and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville’ great people,’ quote, unquote. You know, it’s his M.O. to destroy the press because the press will tell you the truth and the truth hurts him in his re-election plan and, you know, he’s worried. He’s very worried that Joe Biden is pulling ahead. Not that this is anything new. He’s always been a denigrator of the truth calling the press the enemy of the people, which is right out of Putin’s book and Stalin and Hitler and all the dictators that he admires so much. I’m not sure he admired Hitler, but he certainly admires Putin, and that’s what they do is denigrate the press. That’s the first thing dictators do.”
Monday on ABC’s “The View,” actress Rita Wilson discussed the vote-by-mail campaign she is chairing with her husband actor Tom Hanks.
Co-host Joy Behar said, “So you and Tom are co-chairs along with Michelle Obama of ‘When We All Vote,’ a nonpartisan organization working to close the race and age voting gap. So what are you doing? Tell us what you are doing to make sure the pandemic won’t hinder people from voting in November in the election. I’m very worried about that.”
Wilson said, “Well, it’s ‘When We All Vote.’ I’m glad you mention it is bipartisan. It is important for Americans just to remember that we have this very valuable right, which is the right to vote, and Whenweallvote.org is a place that you can go to and get three friends to register to vote and also you can sign up for taking the census. But it’s a way to also ensure through your legislators that you can get either mail-in ballots or early voting. Some people want to come in early in person, and a lot of states need to be offering that opportunity to do that. It’s a way to put your voice in that, on that petition that will allow you to vote in the way that you feel most comfortable with. You know, we still are in the middle of a pandemic. We’re still taking precautions. So some people don’t feel comfortable going to a polling place, and we want to ensure that every American gets the right to vote, and if that’s by doing it mailing in, then we’ve got to make that happen. So Whenweallvote.org. go there, and all the information is there.”
Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said the Center for Disease Control (CDC) “really let the country down” over coronavirus testing.
Host Chuck Todd asked, “It does seem as if the initial guidelines, they didn’t want them put out. They’ve put down very limited guidelines with more detailed ones coming later. CDC hasn’t been able to give a briefing now in over a month. Does the president have confidence in the CDC as our lead on this pandemic?”
Navarro said, “Well, I’d say two things about that, first of all, you should ask the president that question, not me. Early on in this crisis, the CDC, which really had the most trusted brand around the world in this space, really let the country down with the testing. Because not only did they keep the testing within the bureaucracy, they had a bad test. And that did set us back.”
He added, “Going forward with these guidelines, the important thing to understand here for the American people is this — opening up this economy is not a question of lives versus jobs. The fact of the matter is, and what President Trump realized early on is that if you lock people down, you may save lives directly from the China virus, but you indirectly are going to kill a lot more people.”
Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said Congress would look into President Donald Trump’s firing of Steve Linick, the State Department’s inspector general
She said the removal of Linick “could be unlawful.”
Partial transcript as follows:
BRENNAN: Madam Speaker, late Friday, President Trump sent you a letter saying that he was going to remove the inspector general of the State Department, Steve Linick. There’s the fourth IG to be removed in six weeks. Why was Linick removed? What’s behind this?
PELOSI: Well, this is new to us and typical of the White House announcing something that is very unsavory. They would do it late on a Friday night. The fact is, as you indicated, it’s the fourth inspector general- inspectors general, that office was created after Watergate to make sure that there was integrity in the departments, the agencies of government. They’re supposed to show cause. Even Republicans in Congress are concerned about and have spoken out.
BRENNAN: Was he investigating the secretary of state? When you say unsavory, is that what you mean?
PELOSI: Well, I mean, unsavory when you take out someone who is there to enforce the- to stop waste, fraud, abuse or other violations of the law that are- they believed to be happening. So, again, let’s take a look and see. The president has the right to fire any federal employee. But the fact is, if it looks like it’s in retaliation for something that the attorney- the IG, the inspector general is doing, that could be unlawful.
BRENNAN: Was he investigating the secretary of state as Elliot Engel has said?
PELOSI: I trust the word of my chairman. Again, I just passed a big bill and I only got this letter from the president that night. But he didn’t say in his letter any reason except that he lost confidence. Well, he’s lost confidence in other IG’s because they had been investigating or looking- have reason to believe that something should be investigated that he is doing. I really do think that presidents should not have the ability to do investigations into their own actions.
Sunday on MSNBC’s “AM Joy,” former Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams said President Donald Trump and Republicans do not want vote-by-mail because they do not want to be “held accountable for their mismanagement and incompetence,” amid the coronavirus pandemic.
In a clip, Trump said, “They had levels of voting, that if you ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”
Host Joy Reid asked, “Has it been as clear to you from Republicans that what they object to with vote-by-mail is the fact that more people would get to vote and that would hurt them in being able to win.”
Abrams said, “Yes, that has been the unequivocal statement not only made by Donald Trump, it was actually made in the state of Georgia by the speaker of the House. There was a reaction when the secretary of state in Georgia agreed to expand access to vote by mail by sending out 6.9 million ballot applications. The following weeks he created a voter fraud task force basically trying to use this to intimidate people out of using a right that they hold in the state of Georgia and have held since 2005. The challenge is this if everyone can participate, then choices we make will reflect the values and the needs of our communities. And because our communities have evolved, they’re more diverse, and they’re facing the consequences of COVID-19, not simply economically but physically, they are very afraid the Republicans are deeply afraid they will be held accountable for their mismanagement and incompetence, and that’s why they don’t want voting to be expanded to every eligible American voter.”
Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) said federal lawmakers have a “moral” and “ethical” obligation to provide emergency relief to states amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Partial transcript as follows:
TAPPER: So, the position of the White House seems to be that any money for states would be premature. What’s your response, sir?
NEWSOM: Well, it’s not charity. I mean, a year ago, Jake, we were running a $21.5 billion surplus. And here we are at $54.3 billion budget deficit that is directly COVID- induced. We have been managing our budget effectively, efficiently, paying down our long-term pension obligations. We had a bond rating that went up twice last year, the highest in decades. So, we’re not looking for charity. We’re not looking for handouts. It’s social responsibility, at a time when states not just California, large and small, all across this country, cities, and counties, large and small, all across this country are facing unprecedented budgetary stress. It is incumbent upon the federal government to help support these states through this difficult time.
TAPPER: Well, the House passed a bill on Friday night with money for states, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has suggested it’s dead on arrival. Can you explain what you think will happen to California if the federal government doesn’t give you money to help you out?
NEWSOM: Well, these same folks that say it’s dead on arrival, I hope they will consider this. The next time they want to salute and celebrate our heroes, our first responders, our police officers, and firefighters, consider the fact that they are the first ones that will be laid off by cities and counties. The folks that are out there, the true heroes of this pandemic are health care workers and nurses. Those county health systems have been ravaged. Their budgets have been devastated and depleted. Their budget counts depleted since this pandemic. They’re the first ones to be laid off. So, we have got to square our rhetoric with the reality. Twenty percent of Americans are unemployed. In a few weeks, over 100,000 Americans will have lost their lives. These are Depression-era unemployment numbers, and we have to own up to that. So, I’m not looking to score cheap political points, but I do want to make this point, Jake. We have an obligation, a moral, an ethical obligation to American citizens all across this country to help support cities, states and counties.
Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) called “rethinking some fundamental tenets about the way our government and society works,” a “silver lining” of the coronavirus pandemic.
Sanders said, “George, to tell you the truth, that if there’s any silver lining in this midst of this terrible, terrible, and unprecedented moment in American history in terms of the economy and in terms of the pandemic, is that maybe we start rethinking some fundamental tenets about the way our government and society works. And we should ask ourselves, among other things, is health care a human right that all of us deserve? Because we’re human beings. Or is it simply a health care benefit that somehow we lose when we lose our jobs?”
He continued, “You know, Mr. Navarro talked about the great economy, a beautiful economy that existed before the pandemic — well, half of people in America were living paycheck to paycheck. I don’t think it’s beautiful economy that when paychecks stop for two weeks, millions and millions of people don’t have enough money to buy the food that they need to feed their families. We need an economy that works for all, not just Trump and his billionaire friends. We need an economy that says we shouldn’t have three people on top owning more wealth than the bottom half of the American society. We need an economy that says health care is a human right, like every other country. We’re not getting ripped off by the pharmaceutical industry.”
He added, “There’s a lot to be done. And if there’s anything that I hope we learn out of this horribly painful experience is that maybe we create an economy and a government that works for all, not just the few and wealthy campaign contributors.”
Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” host Jake Tapper said President Donald Trump and his team were attacking his critics with “deranged and indecent” attacks “unmoored from reality.”
In a clip, former President Barack Obama said, “More than anything, this pandemic has fully, finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they’re doing. A lot of them aren’t even pretending to be in charge.”
Tapper said, “The criticism from Obama comes at a time when President Trump and his team are launching an unprecedented smear campaign against any rival. Leveling wild and false allegations against critics in the media and political rivals that range from bizarre false conspiracy theories to spreading false allegations of pedophilia to even suggesting one TV anchor committed murder. These smear campaigns are unmoored from reality. They’re deranged and indecent and seem designed to distract from us from this horrific health and economic crisis.”
Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said there has been no spike in coronavirus cases in the states that are reopening.
Host Jake Tapper asked, “Let me ask you, this is intrigue to me because some states have been reopening despite warnings of dire consequences from health experts, states like Georgia and Colorado began reopening weeks ago, and it seems at least so far that we have not seen a dramatic spike in new cases from those two states, Georgia and Colorado. What have you seen from those states? Is there any cause for concern that they reopened early? Is it still too early to tell? Or are they taking measures such as social distancing and masks that make this reopening work?”
Azar said, “Jake, I think your question is very insightful. We are seeing that in areas that are opening, we’re not seeing the spike in cases. We still see spikes in some areas that are, in fact, closed, very localized situations. And so this is going to be very important for us to watch the circumstances on the ground. With reopening, what’s the key to reopening? First, we need to have good surveillance. So we need to look for influenza-like illness and other respiratory disease. We have a great surveillance system for that. We look for spikes and early indicators. We have adequate testing capacity. We need to make sure anybody who is symptomatic is tested and that we have adequate asymptomatic surveillance in areas of greatest burden. Senior living, congregate living situations like prisons or m facilities where people are close together. So we look for early indicators. Then we use the traditional public health tools to surge in there. We would test everybody there. We would do contact tracing and isolation. That’s where places like Georgia and Colorado, as they reopen, it’s these tools that allow us to be reopened, but do so in a safe way that lets the economy function but allows us to use the traditional tools of public health to move forward as we would with any other disease.”
Friday on MSNBC’s “Deadline,” network national affairs analyst John Heilemann called President Donald Trump an “idiot” and a “moron.”
In a clip, Trump said, “Don’t forget, we have more cases than anybody in the world, but why? Because we do more testing. When you test, you have a case. When you test, you find something is wrong with people. If we didn’t do any testing, we would have very few cases. They don’t want to write that. It’s commonsense.”
Heilemann said, “The man is an idiot. Can I just say it at the start? Listening to that sound, he’s just an idiot. He’s just a moron. The idea of the president of the United States stands up and says, ‘the problem with testing is that if we test, we have more cases.’ That’s what he said. If we test, we have more cases. You know what? The testing doesn’t make the cases. The testing reveals the cases. The number of cases out there is the number of cases out there. The testing helps us know how many there are. He literally believes that the problem with testing is that it’s somehow gives us more cases, and that’s bad. It’s bad for his politics. So just the sheer idiocy of his comments.”
Thursday on MSNBC’s “The Last Word,” former Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams said, given the coronavirus pandemic, all Americans should be eligible to vote by mail in November.
Abrams said, “Whether you’re thinking about what happened in Georgia in 2018 when thousands were denied the right to be heard or what we saw happen in Wisconsin, 52 people at last count contracted COVID because they were forced to cast their ballot in person. We know vote by mail is the safest and most accessible way of making sure every American can be heard on November 3. The reality is it’s safe. That there is no fraud of any consequence. In fact, in every single state that has used vote by mail regularly, Oregon for the last 20 years, the number of people who committed fraud is negligible.”
She continued, “What is more telling, they don’t want the voices of people suffering from COVID-19 suffering from a collapsed economy and suffering from the crowdedness of Donald Trump, they don’t want their voices heard at the ballot. But what we can do through the heroes package is ensure that everyone in America who wants to vote by mail can do so so we can also create accessible spaces for people to vote early and in-person on the day of. Because if you’re disabled or homeless, if you’ve been displaced by COVID, if you have language barriers and if you’re Native American, we need you to be able to go into the polling places and make sure there is enough space to meet the CDC guidelines. You got to get as many people as possible to vote by mail. Every state can do it. We simply have to invest in it and put in the guardrails to make it possible for every American eligible to vote.”
Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” Minority Leader Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) said Republicans were living in an “alternative universe” of conspiracy theories aimed at former President Barack Obama and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
Schumer said, “The White House censured agency after agency. They’ve gotten their minions and Fox News and everyone else to personally and vitriolically attack people who tell the truth. I’ll tell you something, in this huge crisis, if you avoid the truth, you’re going to make it worse. And you’re going to make it worse for everybody, including I would say to the Republican Party and Donald Trump, for yourselves.”
He continued, “Instead of doing what they’re supposed to do, Senate Republicans, coming up with answers to the COVID crisis, having oversight hearings finding out why small business is not getting over-lending, why we’re not testing, why hospitals are still hurting and not getting the money they need, instead of oversight hearings on that they come up with conspiracy theories on Obama. Chairman Johnson wants to go after Biden and this Hunter Biden conspiracy theory, which came from the Russians of all people. This is amazing to me. What alternative universe do they live in? Spending their time on discredited conspiracy theories against Obama, against Biden instead of dealing with the biggest crisis we had in decades and decades and decades. What universe are they in? What is in their heads? They don’t have to agree with me on everything that should be done about the crisis, but why aren’t they talking about it instead of absurd, often Russian-generated conspiracy against their political enemies?”
Wednesday on ABC’s “The View,” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) declared the “racist and misogynistic” lockdown protesters opposing her order were “calling for violence.”
Whitmer said, “Well, I do think that the fact of the matter is these protests, you know, in a perverse way make it likelier that we’re going to have to stay in a stay-at-home posture. The whole point of them supposedly is they don’t want to be doing that, and that’s why I’m asking that everyone with a platform call on people to do the right thing. You know, these have been really political rallies where people come with Confederate flags and Nazi symbolism and calling for violence. This is not appropriate in a global pandemic, but it’s certainly not an exercise of democratic principles where we have free speech. This is calls to violence. This is racist and misogynistic, and I ask that everyone who has a platform uses it to call on people to observe the best practices by the CDC, and to stop encouraging this behavior because it only makes it that much more precarious for us to try to reengage our economy which is what everyone says they want us to be able to do.”
When asked about threats to her, Whitmer said, “Well, I would be not truthful if I said it didn’t bother me. It certainly does. I’m fortunate that the Michigan State Police is an incredibly talented professional organization that oversees the security of myself and my family and I’m grateful for that, but the fact of the matter is the Michigan capitol is one of the few capitols in the country where people can come with bearing arms, and what we saw last week and what we anticipate seeing tomorrow is those arms being used to intimidate others, being brandished in a way that is to strike fear into others, and that is not legal activity. So this is a terribly concerning development in that we have legislators who are showing up to work wearing bulletproof vests. That is disenfranchising thousands of people in our state if their legislator doesn’t feel safe to go to work and do what their job is. No one should stand in our way of doing our jobs. I respect people’s right to dissent, but that does not extend to endangering other people’s lives and we take it very seriously.”
Tuesday on MSNBC’s “All In,” Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) said Attorney General Bill Barr “should resign” for dropping the case against former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and not investigating the police and district attorney’s office for their handling of the Ahmaud Arbery killing in Brunswick, GA in February.
Harris said, “This attorney general should resign. He has not been an attorney general representing the people of America. He’s not been the people’s attorney. He has been the hand of Donald Trump.”
She continued, “Let’s look at it. When we talk about the work of the United States Department of Justice, it is supposed to do justice. Well, when you have an attorney general in Barr, who allows Michael Flynn to withdraw his plea when he pled guilty to two counts that were violations of federal law, that’s not justice. When you look at Bill Barr allowing Roger Stone and reducing the recommended sentence from I believe it was seven to nine years to something like three years, that’s not justice.”
She added, “When you look then at Ahmaud Arbery and the fact that he was a young man, 25 years old, taking a jog and was cut down in life, and I’ve asked the Department of Justice and Bill Barr to investigate that and open an investigation into the police department there, the D.A.’s office there, and a civil rights violation and investigate whether there was one. When you look at Breanna Taylor, a woman who is 26 years old, Chris, an EMT, today is international nurse’s day. This young woman had a dream of becoming a Nurse, and she’s sitting in her apartment when she is killed by the police who were at the wrong place, trying to serve a warrant. There should be an investigation. That’s not justice, what has happened to those two young people. There is not justice coming out of Bill Barr’s Department of Justice. He should resign, let the career people who are there who are thankfully still sticking in with it, let them do the work of justice. This man doesn’t understand what it means to do justice. He does whatever is at the pleasure of President Trump, and he should resign.”
Tuesday on ABC’s “The View,” co-host Joy Behar called President Donald Trump a “disgusting racist” while discussing his exchange with CBS News White House correspondent Weijia Jiang.
In a clip, Trump said, “Well, they’re losing their lives everywhere in the world. Maybe that’s a question you should ask China. Don’t ask me. Ask China that question. OK, when you ask them that question, you may get a very unusual answer. Yes, behind you, please.”
Jiang said, “Sir, why are you saying that to me, specifically?”
Behar said, “You know what, Whoopi, we all know now that he’s a racist. He’s a disgusting racist. We knew it when he attacked Mexicans. We knew it when he defended Charlottesville people. And we know it when he goes after China and he goes after a Chinese-American girl. He is a racist. He throws red meat to his base on a regular basis, and anybody who still supports this guy needs to look in the mirror and ask themselves if they are racist also. That’s all I have to say about him. I’ve had enough of him.”
Guest co-host Ana Navarro said, “Good for those two women for standing up. I think they’re doing us proud, and the question that he was being asked was not a challenging question. It was a normal question. It was a rational question. It was a logical question. If you don’t have what it takes to answer even the simplest of questions, really, you’re better off going on your tirades and tantrums on Twitter.”
Monday on CNN, Brian Stelter declared President Donald Trump’s exchange with CBS News White House correspondent Weijia Jiang was “racist.”
In a clip, Trump said, “Well, they’re losing their lives everywhere in the world. Maybe that’s a question you should ask China. Don’t ask me. Ask China that question. OK, when you ask them that question, you may get a very unusual answer. Yes, behind you, please.”
Jiang said, “Sir, why are you saying that to me, specifically?”
Stelter said, “I think what we saw in that exchange is something that has racial overtones. It is racist to look at an Asian-American White House correspondent and say, ‘Ask China.’ This isn’t happening in a vacuum. This is part of a pattern of behavior from the president that goes back many years. He doesn’t have the benefit of the doubt that someone might have if, for the first time in their life, they made a comment like that to a reporter. But the president has been rattled by Weijia Jiang’s questions in the past. He has treated her and other female reporters differently in the past. And he’s also had this pattern of reacting to minority journalists in a very specific and different way, Wolf.”
He continued, “For example, a few years ago President Trump said to April Ryan, a black correspondent, to follow up with the Congressional Black Caucus because he kind of just assumed they were friends. And here today, he’s saying to a Chinese-born journalist, ask China. Now, of course, he says he would have said the same thing to anyone. But the pattern suggests otherwise. The pattern suggests a racial reaction to certain individuals in the press corps. And that’s deeply, deeply disturbing.”
Monday on MSNBC, “All In,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said the American people are in pain, at home and paying attention to Republicans’ unwillingness to fund food stamps and food banks in the next coronavirus stimulus package.
Pelosi said, “We are seeing record-breaking unemployment rates and so many people signing up for it. It breaks your heart, but we have the unemployment insurance that will be renewed in this legislation, as well as cash payments, direct payments, people are craving that. I guess, what advantage we have, sad as it is that people see what is happening, even though they are working from home but listening to their constituents, there’s a lot of pain and heartache. People don’t know if they’re going to be able to put food on the table. Moms have said, Brookings Institution put this out last week, one in five children are food insecure. They don’t know where their next meal is coming from. They don’t know if they’re going to be able to pay the rent. This is very, very personal, and we want to be addressing the personal concerns in a way that is monumental because it is big. We’ve never seen anything like it, and we have to be brave, get up there, just make the case. This is the plan. These are the resources. This is how we want to do this, and as we do it, we want to be worthy of those who lost their lives, worthy of those fighting for other people’s lives and plan to do that.”
Hayes asked, “In this case, my understanding is it’s coming from Mitch McConnell in the White House, we’re done here. There is a headline that gave me a chuckle, ‘The GOP Rekindles Deficit Concerns Adding Snag to Talks on Aid.’ Is it your sense there is like—what is your read of the posture of the White House and Senate Republicans towards additional legislative rescue relief like you’re proposing?”
Pelosi said, “Well, it’s interesting to see what they’re saying, becoming renewing their fiscal hawk positions that they can barely remember. I have confidence in going big with what we do. When I saw them give a $2 trillion addition to the national debt in order to give 83% of the benefits to the top 1%, that was so irresponsible in terms of nothing for the economy except put mountains of debt on our children. With this, we are saying these are investments. All of these things are for the good of helping people in personal lives but also a stimulus to the economy. Ask any —well, almost any, I don’t know who they would drum up, economist they will tell you food stamps, imagine they are against SNAP, against expanding the opportunity for people to have access to food stamps at a time where the papers and news is full of families in long lines at food banks. And we have to help those food banks as well. So this is personal. It’s heartbreaking, really. So I have confidence in the American people. America has a big heart, a heart full of love, and people care about each other. What they see what we’re doing, it will be big because the problem is big and needs are big of the American people, that it will be more attention paid to what the Republicans are saying or doing and then a judgment can be made. But I’m optimistic always. I see everything as an opportunity, the bigger the challenge, the bigger the opportunity.”
