Security Threat

John Bolton, former National Security Adviser and author of The Room Where It Happened, was a guest on The View (11/24/2020). When asked if there was concern that Trump could become a potential security threat after leaving office he said

I do think that there's reason to worry. But on the other hand, I'd say he didn't pay an awful lot of attention to most of his intelligence briefings when they were given at least during my tenure. Much of the time during the briefings was consumed by him talking. Lyndon Johnson once said “I don't learn very much when I am talking.” Nobody told Donald Trump that. So, fortunately, the amount of things that he could disclose that would be damaging are a lot more limited than people might think. 

Tolls of the Pandemic

In response to a question about how the newly-elected administration is transitioning, Dr Vivek Murthy, the head of Biden's coronavirus task force, said:

Health workers are really struggling right now after months of dealing on the front lines of this pandemic. They can't understand why people aren't wearing masks. They can't understand why we're not doing more as a country. This will stand as one of the greatest tolls of this  pandemic -- psychological strain and trauma it is causing our healthcare workers. 

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The View  11/19/2020

Still Waiting

President Donald Trump acknowledged publicly for the first time that President-elect Joe Biden won the election, more than seven days after media outlets including NBC News called the race for Biden.

The president's comments, made in a seemingly offhand post on social media, come as his campaign continues to challenge the results of the election in court and as his administration holds up formal transition processes. In subsequent tweets, Trump wrote that he would not concede.

The seeming acknowledgement of defeat came on Twitter, in response to a post by the Fox News show "Watters' World" that suggested that Biden "didn't earn" the presidency.

"He won because the Election was Rigged," Trump wrote, repeating an allegation that has been debunked by election officials around the country and his own Department of Homeland Security.

Shortly after writing that Biden had won, though, Trump wrote in another post that he conceded "NOTHING" and claimed that "WE WILL WIN!" 

"He only won in the eyes of the FAKE NEWS MEDIA," Trump wrote.

The flurry of tweets come as the president continues to argue without evidence that the election was rigged against him, energizing his base even in defeat.

A White House official, when asked if Trump was admitting defeat, told NBC News: "It looks like it." The official added that it may be the beginning of Trump conceding the presidential race.

To date, more than 97% of the expected votes in the 2020 race have been tabulated. NBC News is projecting that Biden will snag 306 electoral votes, compared to Trump's 232. It takes 270 electoral votes to win.

Biden also leads Trump in the popular vote by a margin of more than 5 million votes, though the popular vote is not legally significant.

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CNBC  11/15/2020

Headline

 

Why Donald Trump Lost

In the final, furious days of his reelection campaign, President Donald Trump often turned his public rallies into personal therapy sessions, at which the embattled and embittered President rued what might have been.

Autopsies examining why Trump became the first president in 28 years to lose reelection may list Covid-19 as the proximate cause. But that is only part of the story.

Like the patient with chronic disease, Trump's political demise wasn't caused by the coronavirus but by the underlying and familiar deficiencies of character and leadership of America's first reality show president. 

Donald Trump defeated Donald Trump.

Even before the pandemic, many Americans had grown weary of Trump's act --

• the seemingly endless tweets, tantrums and conspiracy theories that dominated his days and ours;
• the petty battles in which he seemed to delight, as chaos reigned around him;
• the penchant to lie so habitually that he galvanized a cottage industry for fact-checkers;
• the preening self-absorption and shocking lack of empathy for others;
• the apparent lack of seriousness or interest in the substance of the job;
• the blatant contempt for the rules, norms, laws and basic institutions of democracy;
• and, perhaps worst of all, his divisive, ugly appeals to racism and White supremacy.

His apparent calculation was that people would tire of the hardships required, and he didn't want the blame. Trump didn't want to throttle down the economy upon which he planned to run, though the virus itself would do that. He knew the steps necessary would particularly inflame his anti-government base. So after reluctantly embracing a brief regimen of partial shutdowns and social distancing in the spring, he declared the mission accomplished and prematurely urged a return to business-as-usual.

The virus didn't kill Trump's re-election. He did, by reminding the majority of Americans yet again through his bungling of the worst pandemic in a century, just how costly and exhausting a reality show president can be.

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condensed from an opinion piece by David Axelrod, published by CNN

Been There, Done That

 

Trump Attacks the Democratic Process

• BBC presenter Ros Atkins delivered a brutal assessment of President Donald Trump's efforts to claim fraud as several states continue to tally votes in the US presidential election.
• "International election observers are accusing the president of a gross abuse of office," Atkins said. 
• Trump has made several false claims and multiple calls to stop vote counts in several key states as the margins between him and Joe Biden tighten in some key battleground states.

Trump falsely declared victory early Wednesday even though votes were still being counted, and then called for vote counts to stop. His reelection campaign brought forward lawsuits in several key states like Michigan and Pennsylvania to stop vote counting. 

"The counting of votes after election day is a standard part of the electoral process," Atkins said. "International election observers are accusing the president of a gross abuse of office."

The president also falsely claimed there was electoral fraud, saying, with no evidence, that the election is being stolen.

Leaders across the world were also shocked by Trump's behavior, and some compared what's happening in the US to something they'd expect from undemocratic nations. 

German parliamentarian Norbert Röttgen told NPR that Trump's attempt to claim he won the election when he clearly had not showed "a total lack of respect for the law."

Trump echoed the same remarks he's made since Tuesday in a televised speech today from the White House press briefing room, further undermining the democratic process. 

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper described Trump's demeanor as similar to that of "an obese turtle on his back, flailing in the hot sun."