Tag Archives: Steve Benen

MSNBC: Maddow Blog | Trump’s response to intelligence assessment on Iran strikes takes an incoherent turn

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The intelligence about the U.S. strikes on Iranian targets can’t be conclusive and inconclusive at the same time.

As Donald Trump arrived in the Netherlands this week for an annual NATO summit, the American president reportedly hoped to take a victory lap of sorts, celebrating the success of the preemptive military strikes he approved targeting Iranian nuclear sites. As is often the case with the Republican, reality quickly got in the way.

On Tuesday, the world learned of a preliminary intelligence assessment from the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, which jolted the public and political debate. As NBC News confirmed, the initial assessment concluded that the U.S. airstrikes “were not as effective” as Trump claimed, and the mission set Iran’s nuclear program “back by only three to six months.”

Looney bird Trump is in denial:

Pressed on the efficacy of the mission and the accuracy of the intelligence, Trump said, “The intelligence was very inconclusive. The intelligence says we don’t know. It could have been very severe. That’s what the intelligence says. So I guess that’s correct. But I think we can take the ‘we don’t know.’ It was very severe. It was obliteration.”

Or put another way, according to the American president, U.S. intelligence officials don’t know, but he does know.

Trump’s response to intelligence assessment on Iran strikes takes an incoherent turn
The intelligence about the U.S. strikes on Iranian targets can’t be conclusive and inconclusive at the same time.

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trumps-response-intelligence-assessment-iran-strikes-takes-incoherent-rcna214937

MSNBC: Maddow Blog | Eager for influence, Trump rejects evidence, claims his support is at ‘an all-time high’

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When American presidents are struggling with their public support, they have plenty of credible choices. They can say they’re focused on governing, not polls. They can say they expect to see a turnaround in the near future. They can say that the only polls that matter are election results. They can even argue that they care more about being right than being popular.

What they should not do is make stuff up.

And yet, there was Donald Trump on Tuesday, arguing by way of his social media platform that his approval rating has reached “an all-time high.” The next morning, at a White House event, the Republican echoed the line, claiming that his approval rating is now “the highest it’s ever been.”

It’s really not.

Reminds me of Muammar “My People Love Me” Gaddafi’s last words!

Eager for influence, Trump rejects evidence, claims his support is at ‘an all-time high’
Why is Trump lying about his approval rating? Probably because popular presidents wield more power, while flailing presidents wield less.

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/eager-influence-trump-rejects-evidence-claims-support-time-high-rcna213952

MSNBC: Maddow Blog | ‘No Kings’ protests, special election results leave no doubt about the backlash to Trump

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In elections and special elections throughout the country, results like these have become rather common lately. After last week’s special elections in multiple states, The Downballot reported, “Overall, in 29 special elections this year, Democratic candidates have run 16.4 points ahead of the 2024 presidential results on average.” G. Elliott Morris, the former director of data analytics at FiveThirtyEight, published a related analysis that pointed in the same direction.

‘No Kings’ protests, special election results leave no doubt about the backlash to Trump
Between activism, election results and protest turnout, the prevailing political winds suggest the backlash to the president is real.

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/no-kings-protests-special-election-results-leave-no-doubt-backlash-tru-rcna213209

MSNBC: Leaked audio suggests Trump’s new Social Security chief had to Google his own job

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The apparent fact that the new Social Security commissioner, up until recently, had no idea what his job entailed does not inspire confidence.

First Frank Bisignano  tries to pass himself off as:

“fundamentally a DOGE person,”

which sets off alarms for those who don’t want Social Security cut, so Bisignano 

took steps to distance himself from DOGE-imposed changes at the Social Security Administration

but

Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon produced a statement from a purported whistleblower, who claimed that Bisignano had personally intervened to get key DOGE officials involved at the agency

Now that he is on the job, he admits that

he wasn’t familiar with the position and had to look it up online.

Bisignano said: “So, I get a phone call and it’s about Social Security. And I’m really, I’m really not, I swear I’m not looking for a job. And I’m like, ‘Well, what am I going to do?’ So, I’m Googling Social Security. You know, one of my great skills, I’m one of the great Googlers on the East Coast.”

Does he also know how to Google on the West Coast, or is he just a one-coast Googler?

This guy is running Social Security?

Does he remember his name?

Does he know where he is?

Does ….

Leaked audio suggests Trump’s new Social Security chief had to Google his own job

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/leaked-audio-suggests-trumps-new-social-security-chief-google-job-rcna208797

MSNBC: Trump admin regulators launch investigation into Media Matters, adding to pattern

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If it seems as if there have been a lot of new federal investigations into Democrats and their allies lately, it’s not your imagination.

But it’s important to remember that many of the White House’s political antagonists are, in fact, facing the kind of investigations that Trump has in mind. The New York Times reported:

The Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday opened an investigation into Media Matters, a liberal advocacy organization that has published research on hateful and antisemitic content on X, according to two people familiar with the inquiry. The regulator said in a letter sent to the organization that it was investigating the group, which is aligned with Democrats, over whether it illegally colluded with advertisers, according to the people.

…

The public has learned in recent weeks that the administration — led by a president whose second-term “revenge tour” has been unsubtle — is also investigating and/or prosecuting a variety of Democratic officials and candidates, including Rep. LaMonica McIver of New Jersey, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, New York Attorney General Letitia James and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy.

This dovetails with the president directing the Justice Department to go after Christopher Krebs, who led the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; which came on the heels of Trump pressing the Department of Homeland Security to investigate Miles Taylor, a former high-ranking DHS official. The president did this not because there’s evidence of Krebs or Taylor having done anything wrong, but because they defied him several years ago. They went on his enemies list, and now he’s exacting revenge.

Around the same time, Trump also directed the Justice Department to investigate ActBlue, the Democratic Party’s most important fundraising platform.

And did I mention the investigation into former FBI director James Comey? Because that’s underway, too.

Trump and his team are also going after law firms, universities and news organizations they consider political foes of the White House.

What’s more, given Ed Martin’s new responsibilities at the Justice Department, this overtly and abusive partisan pattern is likely to intensify.

So Trump hates everybody?

Axios recently noted, “In the final days of the 2024 campaign, Axios identified a list of perceived adversaries who fit what Trump ominously described as ‘the enemies from within.’ As president, he has taken steps to retaliate against virtually all of them.” That was two months ago. The problem is vastly worse now, and there’s no reason to believe conditions will improve anytime soon.

Trump admin regulators launch investigation into Media Matters, adding to pattern
If it seems as if there have been a lot of new federal investigations into Democrats and their allies lately, it’s not your imagination.

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-admin-regulators-launch-investigation-media-matters-adding-patte-rcna208780

MSNBC: The problem(s) with the White House’s defense of Trump’s scandalous crypto dinner

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The White House came up with a handful of talking points to defend the president’s meme coin scheme, but they were all unbelievable.

In the beginning:

When Donald Trump unveiled a meme coin a few days before his second inaugural, the ethical mess was obvious. The Campaign Legal Center’s Adav Noti explained at the time, “It is literally cashing in on the presidency — creating a financial instrument so people can transfer money to the president’s family in connection with his office. It is beyond unprecedented.”

And recently:

But when the president and his partners launched a contest of sorts last month, it took the story to a new level: Those interested in investing in Trump’s meme coin — and by extension, giving the president money — were told they’d have a chance to win special access to Trump and the White House.

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said of the scheme, “This isn’t Trump just being Trump. The Trump coin scam is the most brazenly corrupt thing a president has ever done. Not close.”

The dinner:

The gambit proved predictably lucrative. NBC News reported this week:

More than 200 wealthy, mostly anonymous crypto buyers are coming to Washington on Thursday to have dinner with President Donald Trump. The price of admission: $55,000 to $37.7 million. That’s how much the 220 winners of a contest to meet Trump spent on his volatile cryptocurrency token, $TRUMP, according to an analysis by the blockchain analytics company Nansen. The top $TRUMP coin holders at a specific time — determined by the dinner’s organizers — secured a seat.

The dinner nevertheless happened at a Trump-owned property in Virginia on Thursday night, and it was described by MSNBC’s Chris Hayes as “the Met Gala of presidential pay-for-play.” Chris added that the dinner was “the most brazen act of corruption by a president in our lifetimes, probably in a century, possibly ever.”

While the resident Bimbo dodges questions …

Once:

The president’s chief spokesperson was asked, for example, whether Trump was using the gathering to enrich himself. Instead of answering directly, [White House Press Secretary Bimbo #1] Leavitt said the president was re-elected “because he was a successful businessman.” The problem with this, of course, was (a) she didn’t answer the question; (b) he wasn’t a successful businessman; and (c) there’s no evidence to suggest Trump’s private-sector background contributed to his successful 2024 candidacy.

Twice:

At the same briefing, [Bimbo #1] Leavitt also argued that Trump was attending the crypto dinner in his “personal time,” which made even less sense, given that presidents while in office don’t have the luxury of simply taking off the presidential hat and acting as a private citizen for a while. Ethical norms and legal standards always apply to the nation’s chief executive, especially when interacting with those eager to give them financial rewards.

Thrice:

But I was especially interested in [Bimbo #1]Leavitt’s third point: Trump’s assets, she insisted, are in a “blind trust” managed by his adult sons, which necessarily mitigates potential ethical conflicts.

This almost resembles a credible point, but there’s a problem: Trump’s “trust” isn’t actually “blind.”

When the president’s first term began, many urged the Republican to avoid ethical quandaries by utilizing a blind trust, but Trump refused. After he was elected to a second term, he did transfer assets into a trust controlled by his eldest son, but to call it “blind” is to stretch the definition to an unreasonable degree.

Indeed, The New York Times spoke to Dennis Kelleher, the chief executive of Better Markets, a nonprofit that pushes for more transparency on Wall Street, who emphasized the family connection. “This is not a blind trust with an independent trustee, where people can have confidence that the conflicts of interest are in fact removed,” he explained.

In other words, after having plenty of time to come up with a defense for Trump’s meme coin scheme, the White House came up with a handful of talking points, and all three fell apart rather quickly.

The conclusion:

All things considered, that’s not too surprising: Defending the indefensible isn’t easy.

The problem(s) with the White House’s defense of Trump’s scandalous crypto dinner
The White House came up with a handful of talking points to defend the president’s meme coin scheme, but they were all unbelievable.

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/problems-white-houses-defense-trumps-scandalous-crypto-dinner-rcna208749

MSNBC: In making his case against South Africa, Trump relied on ‘evidence’ that wasn’t real

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“These are burial sites,” Trump said, pointing to his video of South Africa. “Over a thousand of white farmers.” His evidence, however, wasn’t real.

Ordinarily, Donald Trump isn’t the kind of guy who’s overly concerned with evidence. The president relies on preconceived ideas, assorted conspiracy theories, rumors he’s heard via conservative media and routine assumptions he creates out of whole cloth, but he’s never shown any real interest in concepts such as proof and substantiation.

But when he sat down with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, and Trump wanted to make a case against his guest’s home country, the Republican suddenly became deeply invested in evidence, holding a pile of printed articles that he offered as support for his baseless claims about South Africa. The American president even showed a video intended to bolster his “white genocide” conspiracy theories: It featured what Trump said were “burial sites” of “over 1,000” white farmers in South Africa.

But the evidence of racial persecution against white South Africans was not what Trump said it was. The New York Times reported:

A New York Times analysis found that the footage instead showed a memorial procession on Sept. 5, 2020, near Newcastle, South Africa. The event, according to a local news website, was for a white farming couple in the area who the police said had been murdered in late August of that year. The crosses were planted in the days ahead of the event and were later removed.

The Washington Post came to the same conclusion about the validity of the video shown in the Oval Office. (An NBC News report didn’t include a related analysis.)

“These are burial sites right here. Burial sites. Over a thousand of white farmers,” Trump declared as if he were certain that his evidence was real.

He was plainly and demonstrably wrong. The American president didn’t just peddle conspiracy theories more commonly found on fringe websites, he also aired “video evidence” that he brazenly misrepresented.

In making his case against South Africa, Trump relied on ‘evidence’ that wasn’t real
“These are burial sites,” Trump said, pointing to his video of South Africa. “Over a thousand of white farmers.” His evidence, however, wasn’t real.

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/making-case-south-africa-trump-relied-evidence-wasnt-real-rcna208493

MSNBC: It’s not just Medicaid: Why the Republicans’ bill would likely force Medicare cuts, too

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The CBO said the GOP’s megabill would lead to $500 billion in cuts to Medicare. Two days later, 215 House Republicans voted for it anyway.

As the fight over the Republicans’ so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act unfolded, much of the focus turned to Medicaid, and for good reason. Despite Donald Trump’s promise not to cut the health care program, the GOP legislation would cut roughly $700 billion from Medicaid in the coming years, and with just hours remaining before the bill reached the floor, party leaders added new and punitive Medicaid provisions to shore up support from far-right members.

But as important as the future of Medicaid is, the legislation’s impact on Medicare matters, too.

If people were to dig into the 1,000-page bill to look for the provisions related to Medicare cuts, they won’t find them. But there’s a difference between the literal text of the legislation and the practical effects of the legislation.

In fact, as The Washington Post reported, the Congressional Budget Office found that the Republicans’ megabill would add so many trillions of dollars to the national debt, “it could force nearly $500 billion in cuts to Medicare” — with some cuts taking effect as early as next year. As the Post noted, the higher deficits would force budget officials “to mandate across-the-board spending cuts over that window that would hit the federal health insurance program for seniors and people with disabilities.”

…

But that doesn’t change the bottom line: The CBO told the House that the Republicans’ reconciliation package would lead to $500 billion in cuts to Medicare, and two days later, 215 House Republicans voted for it anyway.

It’s not just Medicaid: Why the Republicans’ bill would likely force Medicare cuts, too
The CBO said the GOP’s megabill would lead to $500 billion in cuts to Medicare. Two days later, 215 House Republicans voted for it anyway.

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/medicare-cuts-medicaid-republicans-reconciliation-bill-rcna208484

MSNBC: Trump admin blocks Harvard from enrolling international students, escalating radical fight

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The administration has gone from eliminating Harvard’s grants to targeting its tax-exempt status to halting its ability to enroll international students.

Harvard University has faced an unprecedented and radical offensive from Donald Trump and his team, which to date has focused on eliminating federal grants to the school, while simultaneously targeting Harvard’s tax-exempt status.

There is, however, a third element of the offensive. The New York Times reported:

The Trump administration on Thursday halted Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students, a major escalation in the administration’s efforts to pressure the college to fall in line with the president’s agenda. The administration notified Harvard about the decision after a back-and-forth in recent days over the legality of a sprawling records request as part of the Department of Homeland Security’s investigation, according to three people with knowledge of the negotiations.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi [Bimbo #2] Noem personally sent a letter to the university, which she posted to X later Thursday, that read in part, “I am writing to inform you that effective immediately, Harvard University’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification is revoked.”

This development is extraordinary, but it does not appear out of the blue: In mid-April, while canceling nearly $3 million in DHS grants to Harvard, Noem simultaneously demanded that the university turn over records on foreign students alleged to have engaged in “illegal and violent activities.” Failure to cooperate would jeopardize Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification — which allows schools to admit international students.

Evidently, [Bimbo #2] Noem has now followed through on that threat.

This may well be the undoing of Kristi [Bimbo #2] Noem, as she learns that that the tentacles of Harvard’s alumni extend everywhere.

Trump admin blocks Harvard from enrolling international students, escalating radical fight
The administration has gone from eliminating Harvard’s grants to targeting its tax-exempt status to halting its ability to enroll international students.

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-admin-blocks-harvard-enrolling-international-students-escalating-rcna208587

MSNBC: Democratic senator questions whether RFK Jr. is the one ‘making decisions’ at HHS

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“Either you’re lying, or you’re not the one making decisions,” Democratic Sen. Patty Murray told Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

When Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sat down with CBS News last month, the network’s chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook, pressed the Cabinet secretary on some of his most controversial decisions from recent months. RFK Jr., however, repeatedly said he wasn’t aware of the actions LaPook was describing.

Last week, the spectacularly unqualified HHS secretary ran into a similar problem during back-to-back appearances before House and Senate committees: Lawmakers kept asking Kennedy about steps he and his department have taken, and he kept responding with answers such as “When did I do that?” and “I don’t know about that.”

This week, it happened yet again, during Kennedy’s appearance before the Senate Appropriations Committee. Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, for example, asked about HHS cutting funding for ALS research. The secretary said the senator’s question was the first he’d heard about this.

As the hearing progressed, and the problem persisted, Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington raised a highly provocative point.

“Secretary Kennedy, listening to your testimony last week frankly left me pretty confused and concerned about what’s happening at your department,” the senator said. “You repeatedly claimed that staffing and funding cuts that have been reported on publicly and even confirmed by [HHS] staff are not happening. So either you’re lying, or you’re not the one making decisions.”

Or perhaps the brain worms have left him hopelessly debilitated? Perhaps a fresh road-kill buffet would help?

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/democratic-senator-questions-whether-rfk-jr-one-making-decisions-hhs-rcna208188