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The Past 24 Hours or So – Protests/Race Relations, Trump Administration, and Presidential Campaign News

Read Time: 6 Minutes

Protests/Race Relations

  • A man who the authorities say drove into a group of Black people at a Southern California hotel, injuring one person, has been accused of a hate crime, prosecutors said on Monday.

The man, Dennis Wyman, 42, of Redondo Beach, struck an off-duty security guard after he yelled “racial insults” at the group last month, the Torrance Police Department said

  • Sgt. Janak Amin, a 21-year veteran with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office in Tampa has been fired and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after aiming his gun inches from a handcuffed black man’s head and threatening to kill him if the man did not give his name, according to the sheriff.

Employees at the Hillsborough County Jail had accidentally released the victim, “inadvertently” transferring him to a treatment facility for those with substance-abuse or mental-health issues, where he was not supposed to be. He then left the facility.

Once the sheriff’s office realized the mistake, they went looking for him. They found him hiding behind a trailer. When officers confronted the man and put him in a “prone position,” the handcuffed man would not give his name.

So Amin knelt down next to him. He drew his firearm and pointed it inches from the man’s head.

Then, he told the man that if he refused to give his name, he would “splatter his brains all over the concrete.” Other officers on site then intervened.

  • The House Appropriations Committee has approved a $694.6 billion defense spending bill that includes money for the Army to change Confederate base names and that seeks to block President Trump’s use of Pentagon funds for his border wall.
  • U.S. Forces Japan has joined U.S. Forces Korea in banning the display of the Confederate flag, the latest move by the military aimed at preventing racial division in the ranks.

“The Confederate Battle Flag does not represent the values of U.S. Forces assigned to serve in Japan,” Air Force Lt. Gen. Kevin Schneider, commander of U.S. Forces Japan, said Monday in announcing the ban.

  • The Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers is calling for the immediate removal of a mural containing a depiction of Ku Klux Klan riders from the Baker County Courthouse in Macclenny.

The mural, located prominently inside the courthouse in Macclenny, was painted 19 years ago with the intention of illustrating significant events in the history of the small, rural county north of Jacksonville.

Three KKK riders in white robes and hoods on horseback are depicted in one section of the mural.

  • President Trump defended a St. Louis couple who went viral after they stood outside their home brandishing weapons as a group of protesters marched past them.

“They were going to be beat up badly if they were lucky, OK, if they were lucky,” Trump asserted in an interview at the White House with the conservative outlet Townhall.

“They were going to be beat up badly, and the house was going to be totally ransacked and probably burned down like they tried to burn down churches,” the president continued.

  • President Trump falsely asserted that “more” white Americans die at the hands of police than Black Americans and criticized a reporter for asking why African Americans are still dying in law enforcement custody.

“So are white people. So are white people. What a terrible question to ask,” Trump told CBS News’s Catherine Herridge when asked about the deaths of Black Americans at the hands of police. “So are white people. More white people, by the way. More white people.”

NOTE: A study published by Harvard University researchers in June that analyzed data from 2013 to 2017 found that Black Americans were more than three times more likely than white Americans to be killed by police.

Trump Administration News

  • The Trump administration carried out the first federal execution since 2003, following a series of court battles and a Supreme Court order, released shortly after 2 a.m., clearing the way for the lethal injection to take place. 

At a penitentiary in Terre Haute, IN, federal officials executed Daniel Lewis Lee, 47, who was convicted in 1999 of killing a family of three. Lee was pronounced dead at 8:07 a.m. Tuesday.

“I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, but I’m not a murderer,” Lee said when asked if he wanted to make a final statement, according to the pool report. His final words were: “You’re killing an innocent man.”

  • President Trump is expected to finalize a rollback to the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), one of the nation’s bedrock environmental laws. A move critics say will be particularly harmful to minority communities.

The changes to NEPA, which mandates environmental reviews of major construction projects and pipelines, are being pitched by the Trump administration as a way to cut regulations, expedite energy and infrastructure projects, and give a boost to the economy.

Critics argue that Trump’s erosion of 50-year-old protections will hit minority communities the hardest since polluting industries are disproportionately likely to be located in neighborhoods with large nonwhite populations.

“The Trump administration’s NEPA rollback will further endanger those bearing the greatest burden of legacy environmental injustice and structural racism,” said Rep. A. Donald McEachin (D-Va.) on a press call.

  • The Trump administration is resisting calls — even from political allies — to withdraw a proposal to make it more difficult to bring discrimination claims under the Fair Housing Act.
  • President Trump said he signed legislation and an executive order ending Hong Kong’s preferential treatment as a punishment against China for what he called its “oppressive” actions against the people of Hong Kong.
  • President Trump said the immigration executive order his administration was planning would be “merit-based.”

“We’re going to take care of DACA because I’m going to be doing, in the not too distant future, pretty soon, I’m going to be signing a new immigration action – very, very big merit-based immigration action – that based on the DACA decision, I’ll be able to do.”

  • Trump said California’s two largest school districts were making a “terrible mistake” by making students stay home for the upcoming term in the face of the resurgent coronavirus pandemic.
  • The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to reinstate Medicaid work requirements in Arkansas. Over 18,000 people lost their Medicaid coverage in Arkansas in the five months the requirements were in effect before they were blocked by the court.
  • The Defense Department has announced that U.S. troops have withdrawn from five military bases and reduced the size of its forces in Afghanistan to the mid-8,000s as part of the agreement reached with Taliban in February.

Presidential Campaign

  • Roger Stone, who was convicted of charges stemming from former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, said that he plans to start campaigning for President Trump’s reelection now that his prison sentence has been commuted, saying that he is prepared to “do anything necessary to elect my candidate, short of breaking the law.”
  • Biden told reporters that, although he supported the filibuster in the past and still harbors hopes for bipartisan compromise, the level of defiance from Senate Republicans could influence his thought process.
  • Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) said that polls showing President Trump trailing in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania do not accurately reflect the state of the race on the ground.

Speaking with reporters on a conference call, Kelly said the polls are not taking into account Trump’s support from those who turned out to vote for the first time ever in 2016.

  • Joe Biden released a plan Tuesday aimed at combating climate change and spurring economic growth in part by overhauling America’s energy industry, with a proposal to achieve entirely carbon pollution-free power by 2035.

Biden’s plan differs with the Progressive Green New Deal’s target of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions across the economy by 2030.

In the plan, Biden pledges to spend $2 trillion over four years to promote his energy proposals, a significant acceleration of the $1.7 trillion over 10 years he proposed spending in his climate plan during the primary.

Senior campaign officials who requested anonymity to discuss strategy said it would require a mix of tax increases on corporations and the wealthy and deficit spending aimed at stimulating the economy.

  • President Trump said he “could go on for days” as he railed against Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, the “radical left”, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and others in a Rose Garden event that, to many, sounded like a campaign rally.

During the nearly hour long presser in 90-degree heat, Trump claimed Biden “never did anything, except make very bad decisions, especially on foreign policy” and declared he was not the underdog and has widespread support in the fall race.

Sources:  ABC News, Associated Press, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, Independent, NBC News, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

Past 24 Hours – Special Edition

Bolton Book Revelations

Revelations Former White House National Security Adviser John Bolton’s Book, “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir”

  • “He second-guessed people’s motives, saw conspiracies behind rocks and remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House, let alone the huge federal government,” Bolton wrote about what he witnessed during his tenure
  • President Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to help him win the 2020 U.S. election, telling Xi during a summit dinner last year that increased agricultural purchases by Beijing from American farmers would aid his electoral prospects.
  • Trump told the Chinese president Xi Jinping that building concentration camps to “re-educate” Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang was the right thing to do.
  •  President Trump committed impeachable offenses that House Democrats never investigated. It alleges Trump was willing “to, in effect, give personal favors to dictators he liked” if they investigated Biden.
  • Secretary of State Mike Pompeo considered resigning from his post in disgust or frustration with dealing with President Trump. Pompeo once slipped Bolton a note that said “he [Trump] is so full of shit.”
  • President Trump said it would be “cool” to invade Venezuela and that the South American country was “really part of the United States.”
  • Bolton describes a meeting in New Jersey in 2019 where Trump tears into journalists amid his ongoing consternation about leaks and says they should be forced to give up their sources. “These people should be executed. They are scumbags”
  • Trump asked his then-Chief of Staff John Kelly if Finland was a part of Russia.
  • In a meeting with then-British Prime Minister Theresa May in 2018, a British official referred to the UK as a ‘nuclear power,’ and Trump interjected: ‘Oh, are you a nuclear power?’ Bolton writes he could tell the president’s question ‘was not intended as a joke.’
  • The president defended Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the killing of Jamal Khashoggi to distract attention from Ivanka Trump using personal email.
  • Trump cared little about North Korea’s nuclear arsenal when he met with Kim Jong Un and was more interested in making friends with the dictator as he treated the historic meeting as “an exercise in publicity.”

“Trump told … me he was prepared to sign a substance-free communique, have his press conference to declare victory and then get out of town.”

The president was fixated on getting an autographed Elton John CD of the song “Rocket Man” to Kim. Trump mocked Kim for several years using that as a nickname meant to belittle the North Korean leader.

  • “I think Putin thinks he can play him like a fiddle,” Bolton said of the world leader many policy experts consider the leading U.S. adversary. “It’s a very difficult position for America to be in.”

In The Past 24 Hours Or So

Your Daily Dose of Trump and His Administration News

12/2

  •  Frank Wuco, a former naval intelligence officer and conservative talk radio host who promoted fringe conspiracy theories in radio appearances, is now a senior adviser at the State Department Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance.
  • Trump says the U.S. will designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorist groups for their role in trafficking narcotics and people. 
  • President Trump signed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act despite protests from officials in Beijing, who complain that the legislation meddles in their domestic matters. The legislation imposes sanctions on individuals who commit human rights violations in Hong Kong and blocks them from entering the United States. It would also require the State Department to provide an annual report to lawmakers on whether Hong Kong remains “sufficiently autonomous” from China.
  • China’s government announced Monday that it would suspend visits from U.S. military ships and aircraft to Hong Kong, blaming the U.S. for supporting the pro-democracy protests that have rocked the city for months. China’s foreign ministry pointed to legislation signed by President Trump last week, which imposes sanctions on individuals suspected of committing human rights violations in the province, as evidence of U.S. interference in Chinese affairs.
  • Federal appeals court in DC has temporarily stayed a lower court’s ruling that former White House counsel Don McGahn must testify to Congress while the court considers Trump administration’s appeal. Panel of judges will hear arguments January 3rd.
  • President Trump and the first lady traveled to Afghanistan Thursday to pay a surprise Thanksgiving visit to US troops. This is the president’s first trip to the country.
  • Newsweek has fired a writer assigned to cover President Trump and his family after she inaccurately reported that the president “spent Thanksgiving tweeting and golfing rather than visiting troops in Afghanistan,”
  • President Trump announced the U.S. is talking to the Taliban and claimed they are eager to make a deal, less than three months after he suddenly called off official negotiations. It was unclear in what capacity the negotiations were taking place, and whether they amounted to official negotiations or back-channel meetings.
  • Despite President Trump’s announcement this week that Taliban officials want a cease-fire, the militant group pushed back and said its position has not changed since negotiations with the US were canceled in September.
  • Google and YouTube have taken down hundreds of video advertisements for President Trump in recent months, according to a new report from CBS News’s “60 Minutes.” A review of the Google and YouTube’s advertising archives found that more than 300 video advertisements for the president had been removed, primarily during the summer, for violating policies.
  • As lawmakers return from their Thanksgiving recess this week, the House is slated to move into its third phase of its impeachment inquiry into President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine. The House Judiciary Committee — the panel that holds jurisdiction over drafting any article or articles of impeachment — is gearing up to hold its first hearing, entitled “The Impeachment Inquiry into President Donald J. Trump: Constitutional Grounds for Presidential Impeachment,” on Wednesday. The panel will hear from legal scholars as it weighs whether the evidence turned up in their weeks-long impeachment inquiry warrants the drafting of articles aimed at removing the president from office.
  • After repeatedly claiming that the impeachment process was violating his rights by not letting him participate, Trump is now declining to participate. The Trump White House on Sunday told the House Judiciary Committee that it will not participate in Wednesday’s impeachment inquiry hearing. 
  • President Trump announced Monday that his administration would immediately reimpose steel and aluminum tariffs on two South American countries, blaming the governments of Brazil and Argentina for devaluing their currencies and hurting the U.S. economy.
  • Rudy Giuliani, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, Former national security adviser John Bolton, Acting Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, and Energy Secretary Rick Perry continue to defy House subpoenas to testify.
  • Ukraine’s president says in a new interview that he never discussed a “quid pro quo” with President Trump, but criticized any blocking of U.S. security aid for his country at a time when it is at war with Russia. “I never talked to the president from the position of a quid pro quo. That’s not my thing,” Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with Time published Monday. “I don’t want us to look like beggars. But you have to understand. We’re at war,” he said. “If you’re our strategic partner, then you can’t go blocking anything for us. I think that’s just about fairness. It’s not about a quid pro quo. It just goes without saying.”
  • Trump continues to pretend President Zelensky’s refusal to criticize their phone calls is an actual defense. Trump Tweeted: “Breaking News: The President of Ukraine has just again announced that President Trump has done nothing wrong with respect to Ukraine and our interactions or calls. If the Radical Left Democrats were sane, which they are not, it would be case over!”
  • Trump’s Acting Commissioner of the Customs and Border Protection agency, Mark Morgan, broke federal ethics rules to fund happy hours, asking outside entities to pay for the social events even after being warned it was a violation.
  • Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) and Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), who were Trump’s first endorsements from Congress, have now both pleaded guilty – Collins for insider trading and Hunter for misuse of campaign funds. When they were charged in mid-2018, Trump called them “very popular Republican Congressmen” and criticized Sessions for the timing of the indictments.
  • President Trump’s 2020 campaign announced Monday it will no longer allow reporters from Bloomberg News to obtain credentials to cover Trump campaign events.
  • The House Judiciary Committee will hear from four constitutional scholars about the “constitutional framework through which the House may analyze the evidence gathered” in the impeachment inquiry into President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine when the next phase of its investigation begins.
  • Trump Tweeted: “In the 3 decades before my election, NATO spending declined by two-thirds, and only 3 other NATO members were meeting their financial obligations. Since I took office, the number of NATO allies fulfilling their obligations more than DOUBLED, and NATO spending increased by $130B!”

NOTE: 2019 is the 5th consecutive year collective defense spending among NATO members has gone up. They began spending more in 2014, when Obama was still president and NATO members agreed to work toward spending 2% of GDP on defense by 2024.

  • A report by the Republican controlled Senate panel cleared Ukraine of election interference. Some Republican senators recently questioned whether Kyiv tried to sabotage Donald Trump’s campaign in 2016. But the GOP-led Intelligence Committee looked into the theory, and found no evidence to support the claim.

In The Past 24 Hours Or So

Your Daily Dose of Trump and His Administration News

11/8

  • The Trump administration has made it easier to sell U.S. firearms outside the United States, including assault rifles and ammunition. The proposed rule changes, which would move oversight of commercial firearm exports from the U.S. Department of State to the Department of Commerce, could be enacted as soon as the end of this year, the sources said late on Wednesday.

NOTE: While the State Department is primarily concerned with international threats to stability and maintains tight restrictions on weapons deals, the Commerce Department typically focuses on making it easier for U.S. companies to sell products overseas.

  • In his new book, Don Jr writes about a visit to Arlington National Cemetery before his father’s inauguration and compares the sacrifice of the soldiers buried there to his. “In that moment, I also thought of all the attacks we’d already suffered as a family, and about all the sacrifices we’d have to make to help my father succeed — voluntarily giving up a huge chunk of our business and all international deals.”
  • The White House sent its nomination for outgoing Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s replacement to the Senate. Nominee Dan Brouillette currently serves as the deputy secretary at the Department of Energy.
  • Jennifer Williams, an aide to VP Pence who listened to the call between Trump and the Ukrainian President told impeachment inquiry investigators that she found the conversation to be unusual because it was political in nature.
  • A lawyer for the Ukraine whistleblower has sent the White House a cease and desist letter to stop Trump’s attacks. “Your client, the President of the U.S., is engaging in rhetoric and activity that places my client and their family in physical danger.”
  • Trump’s Acting Chief Of Staff Mick Mulvaney ignored a subpoena to appear before House committees for a closed-door deposition.
  • President Trump says they’re going to impose a 21 year old age limit for vaping. He says it’s coming next week.
  • Trump refutes China’s claim the 2 sides have reached a deal to slowly rollback tariffs. The President says he has not agreed to such a deal at this point, negotiations are continuing and China ‘wants a deal more’ than the US.
  • After weeks of Republicans demanding that Schiff open up the doors and allow the public to see the impeachment proceedings, Trump says this morning: “They shouldn’t be having public hearings.”
  • Trump says he’s considering visiting Russia in May. He told reporters that Vladimir Putin invited him to a May Day parade.
  • Trump tweeted: “I will be announcing the winners of the #MAGACHALLENGE and inviting them to the @WhiteHouse to meet with me and perform. Good luck!”

NOTE: The MAGA Challenge is a Twitter challenge among Trump supporters, in which they upload Trump-friendly raps to the internet.

  • Trump will host the Bulgarian Prime Minister Borissov at the White House later this month, the White House announced Friday. The two leaders plan to discuss security in the Black Sea region, energy and “countering malign influence,” Grisham said.
  • The House committees running the impeachment inquiry into Trump released the transcript of their closed-door deposition with the National Security Council’s top Ukraine expert Alexander Vindman and Deputy Assistant to the President, Fiona Hill.
  • Months before Trump asked Zelensky to investigate the Bidens, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman – both Giuliani clients who are currently awaiting trial – urged then-Ukrainian President Poroshenko to announce those investigations in return for a state visit to DC.
  • White House counsel Pat Cipollone told top NSC lawyer John Eisenberg in July to talk to Trump about NSC aides’ concerns that Ukrainians were being unduly pressured. Eisenberg never did that nor reported the complaints to DOJ.