Trump-FoxNews war heats up

Another Fox News host, Neil Cavuto, has defended himself and his network after a series of attacks from President Trump.   As reported by the Washington Post from Cavuto's own televised commentary:

"Earlier this week, Trump complained about his coverage on the network and griped that, "Fox isn't working for us anymore!"   He even encouraged his supporters to change the channel.

"But Cavuto fired back with a declaration of independence.

"First of all, Mr. President, we don't work for you.  I don't work for you," he said on Thursday.  "My job is to cover you, not fawn over you or rip you.  Just report on you -- call balls and strikes on you."

"Both Fox News and Fox Business feature numerous opinion shows where hosts routinely shower Trump with praise.   But the networks also have news operations that report on his plunging poll numbers, his failure to keep campaign promises and his many lies.  Cavuto shared some of those falsehoods on Thursday:

     "I'm not the one who said tariffs are a wonderful thing.   You are.   Just like I'm not the one who said Mexico would pay for the wall.  You did.  Just like I'm not the one who claimed that Russia didn't meddle in the 2016 election.   You did.  I'm sorry if you don't like these facts being brought up, but they are not fake because I did.  What would be fake is if I never did."

"Then Cavuto told Trump that he was not going to get a free pass in the network's news coverage.

"Hard as it is fathom, Mr. President, just because you're the leader of the free world does not entitle you to a free pass," he said.  "Unfortunately, just a free press."

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Beyond "Trump fatigue"

This was written by Frank Bruni, regular New York  Times columnist, edited for brevity.    It captures my feelings so well I want to share it.

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"Donald Trump Has Worn Us All Out"

Frank Bruni

New York Times, August 28, 2019

Donald Trump’s presidency has baffled me, enraged me and above all saddened me, because I’m a stubborn believer in America’s promise, which he mocks and imperils.

But last week his presidency did something to me that it hadn’t done before. It absolutely flattened me. . . .

Trump had yet again said something untrue, once more suggested something absurd, contradicted himself, deified himself, claimed martyrdom, blamed Barack Obama, made his billionth threat and hurled his trillionth insult. . . . 

I was sapped . . . .What I was feeling was beyond Trump fatigue and bigger than Trump exhaustion. It was Trump enervation. Trump enfeeblement.

And within it I saw a ray of hope.

Until now it has been unclear to me precisely how Trump ends. His manifestly rotten character hasn’t alienated his supporters, who are all too ready with rationalizations and fluent in trade-offs. They’re also unbothered by many of his missteps, because he has sold those to a cynical electorate as media fables and rivals’ fabrications. He’s so enterprising and assiduous at pointing the finger elsewhere that many voters have lost their bearings. Defeat is victory. Oppressors are liberators. Corruption is caring. Mar-a-Loco is Shangri-La.

But Americans of all persuasions recognize melodrama when it keeps smacking them in the head, and he has manufactured a bruising degree of it. . . . and they can’t lay their depletion on the doorsteps of frustrated Democrats and Fake News. The president’s tweets speak for themselves, in both volume and vitriol. . . . 

The turnover in his White House and the bloat of a Trump-administration diaspora can’t be dismissed as the detritus of . . .  an unconventional management style. They’re what happens when you place a cyclone at the Resolute Desk. Everything splinters and screams, and you can’t find a safe space.

“Even Trump’s Supporters Are Getting Tired of His Daily Drama” was the headline on Jim Geraghty’s Monday column in [the conservative] National Review. . . .  Geraghty wrote that the publication’s editors “are exhausted with presidential tweets, from asking whether Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell or Chinese leader Chairman Xi is the bigger enemy, to ‘hereby ordering’ private companies to look for alternatives to operations in China.”

He linked to a lament by the conservative writer Rod Dreher, who, he noted, “is exhausted from the president behaving like ‘a clown who refuses to meet with the prime minister of Denmark because she won’t sell him Greenland.’”

Notice a theme? Apparently weariness with Trump’s wackiness does something virtually unheard-of in the United States circa 2019: It transcends partisanship.
Trump’s instinct and strategy are to conquer by overwhelming. But there’s a difference between wearing people down and wearing them out. . . . a riveting spectacle devolved into a repellent burlesque, so unrestrained in its appetites that it devoured itself.

I wouldn’t be surprised if voters consciously or subconsciously conclude that they just can’t continue to live like this and that four more years would be ruinous, if not to the country as a whole, then to our individual psyches. By the time Election Day rolls around, they may crave nothing more electric than stability and serenity. That wouldn’t be a bad Democratic bumper sticker. It’s essentially the message of Joe Biden’s campaign.

According to Morning Consult’s tracking poll, Trump’s approval rating in vital swing states has declined significantly since he took office. Take Wisconsin: His approval rating in January 2017 was 47 percent, and his disapproval rating was 41, for a net plus of six percentage points. Now his approval has fallen to 41 while his disapproval has climbed to 55, for a net minus of 14.

Maybe that reflects voters’ economic worries. I suspect it’s just as much about their exhaustion. They’ve binged on Trump and now they’re overstuffed with Trump, and if Democratic candidates are smart, they’ll not dwell on his mess and madness, because voters have taken his measure and made their judgments, and what many of them want is release from the incessant drumbeat of that infernal syllable: Trump, Trump, Trump.

They’d like a new mini-series with a different cast, and Democrats aren’t giving them that if they keep putting Trump’s name above the title. On Saturday and then again on Sunday, I turned the whole damn show off and fled to the park for fresh air. I pray that’s some sort of omen.

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A-men.    Or, in a more secular vein:   yeah, man.

Ralph

Trump: "Fox isn't working for us anymore." Really. He said that in a tweet.

President Donald Trump became irate after Fox News anchor Sandra Smith hosted Democratic National Committee communications director Xochitl Hinojosa, during which they had an amicable discussion about the upcoming Democratic primary debates.

Trump said Smith should have pushed back and given Hinojosa a hard time.   He seemed especially incensed that she didn't challenge the accuracy of polls showing each of the leading Democratic candidates leading Trump in the polls.

And he ended this particular tweet storm with this:  "The New Fox News is letting millions of GREAT people down!   We have to start looking for a new News Outlet.  Fox isn't working for us anymore.!"

Then there was a quick twitter response from Fox News' senior political analyst Brit Hume:   "Fox News isn't supposed to work for you."

Former Sec. of Defense speaks about why he resigned.

Former Secretary of Defense in the Trump administration, Gen. James Mattis, who resigned in December 2018, is writing a book, with some preliminary thoughts published now in a op-ed piece today in the Wall Street Journal.

Here's the gist:

In the essay, Mattis suggested he left his post as secretary of defense amid concerns about “keeping faith with our allies,” warning that America “cannot go it alone.”
“Nations with allies thrive, and those without them wither. Alone, America cannot protect our people and our economy,” Mattis wrote. “At this time, we can see storm clouds gathering.”

He pointedly added: “A polemicist’s role is not sufficient for a leader. A leader must display strategic acumen that incorporates respect for those nations that have stood with us when trouble loomed.”

Mattis said he “did as well as I could, for as long as I could” as secretary of defense.
In one section, he essentially wrote that he resigned when he felt his concerns about those alliances were not being taken seriously.

“When my concrete solutions and strategic advice, especially keeping faith with our allies, no longer resonated, it was time to resign, despite the limitless joy I felt serving alongside our troops in defense of our Constitution,” Mattis wrote.

Mattis went on to note his deepest concerns "as a military man," noting they are "not our external adversaries; it is our internal divisiveness."

“We are dividing into hostile tribes cheering against each other, fueled by emotion and a mutual disdain that jeopardizes our future instead of rediscovering our common ground and finding solutions,” he wrote. “All Americans need to recognize that our democracy is an experiment — and one that can be reversed. We all know that we’re better than our current politics.”

He added: “Tribalism must not be allowed to destroy our experiment.”

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This excerpt from Jim Mattis, probably the most respected person serving in the Trump administration, continues my focus on the increasing number of centrist, rational, and restrained voices who are beginning to speak out about the increasing unfitness of Donald Trump to continue as our president.

Even when they do not explicitly call for his removal from office, whether by the 25th Amendment process, by impeachment, or by defeat at the polls, their message is clear.   We cannot safely endure another four years of this presidency.

Ralph

G-7 no longer sees Trump as world leader

Some observations from the weekend's G-7 Summit meeting in Biarritz, France. 

After President Trump's behavior at the last G-7, expectations of any real consensus was so low that the host, France's President Emmanuel Macron, decided to skip the signing of a final communique this year.    And it was obvious that the other leaders were treating Trump with the primary goal of not setting off his temperamental bad reactions.   They have learned to couch everything within a blanket of flattery for him and to avoid topics that upset him.

For example, the U.K.'s new Prime Minister Boris Johnson was the one who very very gently broached the subject of Trump's imposed tariff's on China.   But first he overly praised the U.S.s economy, giving Trump credit for the accomplishment and then sort of gently slipped in at the end that they didn't think tariffs were a good idea.

This description makes it sound like the other leaders were walking on eggshells;   but, actually, I think they've moved beyond fear of him -- because he literally does not have the power of the de facto leader any longer.  It's more that they are just moving on without him -- and, since he's there, they're trying to keep him from blowing up what the others are trying to accomplish.

The problem with this, however, is that the group rotates where they meet and who organizes and chairs the meeting.  And next year, the host will be the U.S. and Trump.

Peter Nicholas wrote further about the meeting for The Atlantic, as quoted below"

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The most striking photograph to emerge from the G7 summit meeting in Biarritz, France, is one of an empty chair.

[Trump skipped the meeting where climate change was to be discussed.  He later told reporters he was not going to 'exchange America's wealth for windmills.' which don't work very well anyway, he claimed.]

The White House put out a statement that Trump was busy talking to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and couldn’t make it—though both of those leaders found time to show up for the session. No one waited for Trump . . . .

Which is becoming the norm.

With Trump at odds with much of the free world, the free world seems to be moving on without him. At the G7, leaders seemed to have given up on the prospect of forging a consensus with him on trade, climate, and even whether Russian President Vladimir Putin is friend or foe. The summit appeared to be organized in ways that diminished the likelihood of a Trumpian tantrum.

Leaders ditched the tradition of ending the summit with a full-blown communiqué—a joint statement—reflecting common values and a strategy for confronting the most vexing problems. They may have been scarred by the blowup at the end of the G7 last year in Canada. 

Trump withdrew from the communiqué and, after leaving Canada, insulted the summit’s host, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, sending out tweets calling him “very dishonest and weak.”

Nothing like that happened in this go-round (at least as of this writing. . . .  Still, Trump’s counterparts made clear that if he wasn’t willing to be a partner, they might go it alone. . . . 

French President Emmanuel Macron, acting independently, invited the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, to the summit for private talks aimed at defusing tensions with the West. Trump didn’t talk to Zarif, but Macron did. . . . 

“I did it on my own,” Macron said of Zarif’s appearance at the summit, adding that he kept Trump fully briefed on the diplomatic overture to Iran.

Trump had also sought to persuade his G7 counterparts to readmit Russia to the club, from which it was suspended following its annexation in 2014 of Ukraine’s Crimea. The leaders argued about it during a dinner Saturday night. Trump’s view is that Russia’s presence would be helpful in resolving disputes. . . . 

That argument fell flat. Even his newest G7 friend, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, was unmoved. “We are opposed because we see no evidence from recent Russian behavior which would warrant readmission to the G7,” a British official told me.

“There has been a pattern of malign behavior from Russia—whether it’s 2016 [U.S.] election interference, the chemical attack in Salisbury [England], the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, or actions supporting the Assad regime [in Syria]—which is at odds with the principles and broader ideas around the G7.”

Next year, Trump may have more sway. The G7 will take place in the U.S., and Trump, as host, is free to invite guests, including Putin.

“Would I invite him? Certainly I would invite him,” Trump told reporters.

Trump never seemed all that eager to be in Biarritz. He looked distracted at times. His aides had told reporters that climate change is a “niche” issue that shouldn’t be a particular focus, perhaps the real reason Trump skipped the meeting. . . . 

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As host for the 2020 G-7 meeting, Trump is pushing the idea of holding it at his own Doral Golf Club in Florida.   But this would seem to be in direct violation of our Constitution's Emolument's Clause in that the president would benefit financially from the meeting -- an issue that has been ignored by the Trump organization now for three years.   But this would be even more blatant in that it would not just be people deciding on their own to stay at his hotels -- but our government would actually be hosting a major event at a Trump property -- with guest countries and all their entourages paying their expenses to the Trump Organization.

Something else for Rep. Elijah Cummings and his Government Oversight Committee to hold hearings on.

Ralph

AP Fact-checks the president on economy

The Associated Press put out this report after checking President Donald Trump's public claims about the economy.    As usual, they found that what the president says is not true.   He is lying to the American people.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is painting a false picture of a U.S. economy unaffected by his trade war with China and other countries.

He describes a blue-sky world in which rapidly escalating tariffs have no impact on American consumers even as a raft of businesses and economists say otherwise, chastising those who caution of potential weakness in the economy as partisans.
"Our Country, economically, is doing great - the talk of the world!" he tweeted Sunday.

He's glossing over the facts.

Some economists have put the costs to an average U.S. household from Trump's pending tariffs on imports from China at $1,000 per year or more, not taking into account the most recent tax hike the president announced Friday of up to 30% on goods. Trump also insisted that economists don't believe his trade disputes with China could spur recession, but in fact most analysts believe a downturn could start in the next two years.

The claims capped a week in which Trump repeatedly misrepresented his administration's record, also citing false progress on veterans' health care, boasting misleadingly about his judicial nominations and blaming President Barack Obama for a policy of separating migrant families that he himself started.

A look at the claims:
ECONOMY
TRUMP: "I think our tariffs are very good for us. We're taking in tens of billions of dollars. China is paying for it." — remarks Friday night to reporters before leaving for the Group of Seven summit in France. . . . 

TRUMP: "The tariffs have cost nothing, in my opinion. ...And we're not paying for the tariffs; China is paying for the tariffs, for the one-hundredth time." — remarks on Aug. 18 to reporters in Morristown, New Jersey.

THE FACTS: Americans, in fact, are paying for the tariffs. . . . As he escalates a trade war with China, Trump refuses to recognize a reality that his own chief economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, has acknowledged.  . . .  In a study in May, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, with Princeton and Columbia universities, estimated that tariffs from Trump's trade dispute with China were costing $831 per U.S. household on an annual basis, before tariffs were recently escalated. . . . 

A report this month by JPMorgan Chase estimated that tariffs would cost the average American household $1,000 per year  . . . Trump has since bumped up the scheduled levies even higher. . . . 

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And these figures do not even address the economic effects on certain professions, like farmers, who largely lost their market for soy beans because of the tariffs Trump put on this major crop for Midwestern American farmers, sold mostly to China.   And, if farmers have no market, then merchants in our farming region will suffer too when our farmers have to reduce their spending on everything from farm equipment to new shoes for their kids.

Yes, our federal government has been giving farmers some monetary assistance to offset the lost income -- but it's never enough to compensate.

Ralph

One more voice flipping on Trump

Add another to my list of significant people who are beginning to speak out critically of President Trump.   The latest is the former chief political correspondent for Fox News, Carl Cameron.    I don't know his political persuasion, either now or in the past, but I am sure he did not say things like this on air at Fox News.

According to an interview by MSNBC's Ari Melber Friday,  Carl Cameron said that there was not "enough time in the day" to list all the problems President Trump currently faces.

Cameron, who left Fox News two years ago, told Melber Trump's problems are now impacting American's global standing.   "We like to think of ourselves as world leaders.   The president is not leading. . . .  The United States of America's reputation is at stake because the president is being irresponsible and violating our values and our traditions, Cameron said.

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And then Sunday's Wall Street Journal hit the stands, with its editorial highly critical of the president for his escalating trade war with China.

"The trouble with trade wars, like shooting wars," the Journal wrote in its editorial, is that once they start you never know how they're going to end.   The enemy gets a vote, and sometimes events escalate in ugly fashion.  Take Friday, which saw China retaliate for Donald Trump's recent tariffs, Mr. Trump blow a gasket, markets tank, and Mr. Trump impose even more tariffs."

"The newspaper said Trump then "began tweeting like a bull in a China shop,' and scoffed at his 'order' that American companies no longer have anything to do with the world's second-largest economy.

"'Order?  Somebody should tell Chairman Trump that this isn't the People's Republic of America."    The editorial then explains that have been trying to shift production out of China to avoid the tariffs;  but that supply chains supply chains developed over decades can't be changed overnight, and no other country has China's huge and relatively skilled workforce, infrastructure, and network of suppliers."  . . . 

"In a final dig, the editorial asks:  'What was that again about trade wars being easy to win?'"

Let me emphasize again:    This is the conservative editors of the establishment Republican Wall Street Journal.