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Friday, 1 November 2024:
Trump Assails Liz Cheney and Imagines Guns ‘Shooting at Her.’ Vice President Kamala Harris said that anyone who uses ‘that kind of violent rhetoric is clearly disqualified, and unqualified, to be president. The New York Times, Michael Gold and Adam Nagourney, Friday, 1 November 2024: “Former President Donald J. Trump assailed Liz Cheney, one of his most prominent Republican critics, in an end-of-campaign burst of vitriol on Thursday, saying she should be put on a battlefield ‘with nine barrels shooting at her.’ Mr. Trump’s invoking of violence intensified his dispute with one of the most prominent political families in the nation and drew criticism from leaders of both parties. Mr. Trump criticized and insulted Ms. Cheney — a former congresswoman and the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney — during an onstage interview with Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host. ‘She’s a radical war hawk,’ Mr. Trump said during the event Thursday night at the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Ariz. ‘Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.'” See also, Kamala Harris assails Trump for saying Liz Cheney should have rifles ‘shooting at her,’ Associated Press, Adriana Gomez Licon and Aamer Madhani, Friday, 1 November 2024: “Kamala Harris said Friday it was ‘disqualifying’ for Donald Trump to say former Rep. Liz Cheney, one of the former president’s most prominent Republican critics, should have rifles ‘shooting at her’ to see how she feels about sending troops to fight. The Democratic vice president has campaigned extensively with Cheney, especially in the ‘blue wall’ battleground states that make up her strongest path to victory on Tuesday, while Trump has been going after the former Wyoming congresswoman and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, over the Iraq war and U.S. military interventions abroad. Speaking to reporters after arriving in Madison, Wisconsin, Harris asked voters to consider who they’d prefer sitting in the Oval Office, driving the message she’s been emphasizing in the campaign’s closing week. Harris called Cheney ‘a true patriot’ and said Trump “has increased his violent rhetoric.” See also, Trump says ‘war hawk’ Liz Cheney should be fired upon in escalation of violent rhetoric against his opponents, CNN Politics, Eric Bradner, Friday, 1 November 2024: “Donald Trump said former Rep. Liz Cheney is a ‘war hawk’ who should be fired upon, as he raged against one of his most prominent intra-party critics while campaigning Thursday night in Arizona. ‘She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK?” the former president said at a campaign event in Glendale with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. ‘Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.’ Trump also hurled insults at Cheney, once the third-ranking Republican in House leadership, calling her ‘very dumb,’ a ‘stupid person’ and ‘the moron.’ Trump’s suggestion that Cheney should face gunfire represents an escalation of the violent language he has used to target his political foes. And it comes days before an election in which the former president — who never accepted his 2020 loss — has already undermined public confidence. In recent weeks, he has also suggested a military crackdown on political opponents he has described as ‘the enemy within.’ Cheney is perhaps the most vocal Republican critic of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and his role in his supporters’ January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol. She played a leading role on the House select committee that investigated the attack, and later was ousted from her deep-red Wyoming House seat by a Trump-backed primary opponent in 2022. Cheney responded to Trump’s comments overnight, saying: ‘This is how dictators destroy free nations…. They threaten those who speak against them with death. We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.'”
Jeffrey Epstein details close relationship with Trump in newly released tapes. Recordings from 2017 reveal Epstein talking for some ‘100 hours’ about Trump, journalist Michael Wolff says. The Guardian, Edward Helmore, Friday, 1 November 2024: “A New York author and journalist has released audio tapes that appear to detail how Donald Trump had a close social relationship with the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein that he has long denied. The tapes, released as part of the Fire and Fury podcast series by Michael Wolff, author of three books about Trump’s first term and 2020 bid for a second, and James Truman, former NME journalist and Condé Nast editorial director, include Epstein’s thoughts about the inner workings of the former US president’s inner circle. Wolff says the recordings were made during a 2017 discussion with Epstein about writing his biography. Epstein died by suicide while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges two years later. Despite his crimes, the wealthy financier was at the heart of a social circle of the rich and powerful in the US and overseas that contained many famous names. Wolff claims the excerpt tape is a mere fraction of some ‘100 hours of Epstein talking about the inner workings of the Trump White House and about his longstanding, deep relationship with Donald Trump.'”
Saturday, 2 November 2024:
Trump appears to emulate ‘sex act’ on microphone after he melts down over technical difficulties, Independent, Rhian Lubin, Saturday, 2 November 2024: “Donald Trump appeared to emulate performing a ‘sex act’ on a microphone stand during a campaign rally after experiencing technical difficulties. Viewers were stunned at the former president’s apparent gesture during his Milwaukee rally on Friday night in Wisconsin…. At one point, as the problems appeared to continue, the former president said: ‘You’ve gotta be kidding. Do you want to see me knock the hell out of people backstage?'” See also, Trump Needs Help. Last night he simulated oral sex in public. The Atlantic, Tom Nichols, Saturday, 2 November 2024: “I do not know how to put this gently or tastefully, so I will factually describe what happened last night in Milwaukee: A former president of the United States held a rally, during which he used a microphone holder on his podium to pantomime the act of giving fellatio. I could have put it differently. I might have said that ‘a cognitively impaired man, who has long been showing signs of serious emotional instability and has a history of sexism and racism, engaged in crude behavior in front of a large audience.’ But that wouldn’t capture an important reality: This deeply impaired man is tied in the race to become the next president and could be holding the codes to the U.S. nuclear arsenal in less than three months.”
Continue reading Aftermath of the Trump Administration, November 2024:
Sunday, 3 November 2024:
Trump, in Increasingly Dark and dour Tones, Says He ‘Shouldn’t Have Left’ the White House. Donald Trump, who sought to overturn his loss of the 2020 election, also suggested that he didn’t mind if reporters were shot. The New York Times, Michael Gold, Maggie Haberman, and Shane Goldmacher, Sunday, 3 November 2024: “With two days left in his third presidential campaign, former President Donald J. Trump told supporters at a Pennsylvania rally on Sunday that he ‘shouldn’t have left’ the White House at the end of his term, escalated his unfounded claims of voter fraud and said ‘I don’t mind’ if reporters are shot at. With the remarks, Mr. Trump used the final days of his campaign to offer voters a stark reminder of the violence that came at the end of his term when, after weeks of his false claims that he had won an election he had lost, a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol to try to prevent the certification of President Biden’s victory. Mr. Trump has not committed to accepting the 2024 election results unless he believes they are fair, and he has repeatedly suggested in recent weeks that the only plausible explanation for him losing in 2024 would be if Democrats ‘cheat.'” See also, Trump says he ‘shouldn’t have left’ the White House as he closes campaign with increasingly dark message, CNN Politics, Gregory Krieg and Kate Sullivan, Sunday, 3 November 2024: “Donald Trump, who said in Pennsylvania on Sunday that he regrets leaving the White House in 2021, is ending the 2024 campaign the way he began it — dishing out a stew of violent, disparaging rhetoric and repeated warnings that he will not accept defeat if it comes. At a rally in the must-win battleground state, the former president told supporters that he ‘shouldn’t have left’ office after losing the 2020 election; described Democrats as ‘demonic’; complained about a new poll that shows him no longer leading in Iowa, a state he twice carried; and said he wouldn’t mind if a gunman aiming at him also shot through ‘the fake news.’ Trump spent much of his speech pushing unfounded claims of cheating by Democrats in the 2024 election and sowing doubts about its integrity as polls show him and Vice President Kamala Harris deadlocked nationally. He ranted about alleged election interference this year and lamented his departure from office after losing to Joe Biden four years ago.” See also, Trump talks about reporters being shot and says he shouldn’t have left White House after his 2020 loss, Associated Press, Jill Colvin and Jonathan J. Cooper, Sunday, 3 November 2024: “Donald Trump delivered a profane and conspiracy-laden speech two days before Tuesday’s presidential election, talking about reporters being shot and suggesting he ‘shouldn’t have left’ the White House after his 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden. In remarks Sunday that bore little resemblance to the speech he’s been delivering at his recent rallies, the former president repeatedly cast doubt on the integrity of the vote and resurrected old grievances after trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat. Trump intensified his verbal attacks on what he cast as a ‘demonic’ Democratic Party and the American media, steering his rally in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, at one point to the topic of violence against members of the press. He noted the ballistic glass that is used to protect him at outdoor events after a gunman’s assassination attempt in July and pointed to openings between the panels.”
Trump’s Wild Claims, Conspiracies, and Falsehoods Redefine Presidential Bounds, The New York Times, Peter Baker, Sunday, 3 November 2024: “It took just two minutes for former President Donald J. Trump to utter his first lie of the evening, claiming once again that the 2020 election had been stolen. By four minutes into the televised interview on Thursday night, he was claiming that this time around ‘we’re leading by a lot’ in the polls, setting up another false claim of a stolen election should he lose on Tuesday. By five minutes into the program, he had turned to assailing his successor’s record in office and was claiming that in the last few years the country had experienced ‘the worst inflation we’ve ever had.’ None of that was true. And that was just the first 300 seconds. For the rest of the evening, Mr. Trump spouted one statement after another that was fanciful, misleading, distorted or wildly false. He rewrote history. He claimed accomplishments that he did not accomplish. He cited statistics at odds with the record. He described things that did not happen and denied things that did. Public appearances by Mr. Trump throughout this year’s campaign have been an Alice-in-Wonderland trip through the political looking glass, a journey into an alternate reality often belied by actual reality. At its most fundamental, it boils down to this: America was paradise on earth when he was in charge, and now it’s a dystopian hellscape. Nuance, subtlety, precision and ambiguity play no role in the version that Mr. Trump promotes with relentless repetition. And it is a version that has found traction with tens of millions of supporters. Truth is not always an abundant resource in the White House under any president, but never has the Oval Office been occupied by someone so detached from verifiable facts. Mr. Trump’s four years in power were a nonstop treadmill for fact-checkers trying to catch up with the latest. His four years since leaving arguably have posed an even bigger challenge as he descended further into conspiracy theories, particularly around election integrity. Since leaving the White House, Mr. Trump for the first time has been held accountable in court for deception. He was convicted of 34 felonies for falsifying business records to cover up hush money to an adult film actor. He was found liable in a civil lawsuit for lying to banks about the value of his properties. He was found liable in separate lawsuits for lying about a woman who accused him of sexually assaulting her. None of that, however, has moved his base of supporters, many of whom accept his argument that the indictments and impeachments and lawsuits and judgments and conviction are part of a wide-ranging plot by partisan Democrats, the ‘deep state’ and a supposedly corrupt news media who are out to get him.”
Trump doesn’t rule out banning vaccines if he becomes president: ‘I’ll make a decision.’ In an interview with NBC News, the former president also said a push by RFK Jr. to remove fluoride in water ‘sounds OK to me.’ NBC News, Dasha Burns and Alexandra Marquez, Sunday, 3 November 2024: “Former President Donald Trump said Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would have a ‘big role in the administration’ if he wins Tuesday, telling NBC News in a phone interview that he is open to some of his more controversial ideas. Kennedy, who ran for president as an independent this year before he dropped his bid and endorsed Trump, has long spread conspiracies and falsehoods about vaccines and other public health matters. He has, for example, frequently claimed that vaccines are linked to autism, even though studies have debunked that theory for decades.”
Even though the Trump administration has been out of office since January 2021, I am continuing to post summaries of the daily political news and major stories relating to this tragic and dangerous period in US history. I try to focus on the differences between the Trump administration and the Biden administration and on the ongoing toxic residual effects of the Trump administration and Republicans. I usually post throughout the day and let the news settle for a day or so before posting.
I created Muckraker Farm in 2014 as a place to post muckraking (investigative) journalism going back to the 19th century. I hope to return to this original project soon. You can find these muckraking pieces under the Home Page link at the top of this site. Thanks for reading!