Staunchly pro-Trump Congressman Matt Gaetz unleashed a long volley of attacks on Democrats during the first night of the Republican National Convention, even coining a new insult “Woketopians” to belittle the progressive opponents of President Donald Trump.
The first night of the Republican National Convention was a little scattershot. It seemed to be partially about counter-programming the Democratic National Convention last week, partially intended to fire up the base and partially aimed at winning back some of those 2016 Trump voters who are having second thoughts.
Trump had promised an "uplifting" convention, but aside from an opening video and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott's closing speech, which largely wasn't about President Trump at all, the night painted an image of a liberal dystopia that would take hold if Democrat Joe Biden is elected.
The campaign to normalize the George W. Bush presidency is part of a broader campaign to separate the Republican Party from Donald Trump. We should reject the whole project, and call Bush what he is: a war criminal abroad and a villain at home.
Steve Bannon, President Trump's former political adviser, has been arrested alongside three other people in connection with an online fundraising scheme that federal prosecutors in New York say was responsible for defrauding hundreds of thousands of people.
Bannon and the three other defendants are alleged to have orchestrated a scheme around an online crowdfunding campaign called "We Build the Wall," which has raised over $25 million, according to prosecutors. The campaign was advertised as an effort to build portions of the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and support maintenance operations.
Joe Biden currently has a robust lead in polls. If the election were held today, he might even win in a landslide, carrying not only traditional swing states such as Florida and Pennsylvania but potentially adding new states such as Georgia and Texas to the Democratic coalition.
But the election is not being held today. While the polls have been stable so far this year, it’s still only August. The debates and the conventions have yet to occur. Biden only named his running mate yesterday. And the campaign is being conducted amidst a pandemic the likes of which the United States has not seen in more than 100 years, which is also causing an unprecedented and volatile economy.
Both Twitter and Facebook have removed a post shared by President Trump for breaking their rules against spreading coronavirus misinformation.
Twitter temporarily blocked the Trump election campaign account from tweeting until it removed a post with a video clip from a Fox News interview from Wednesday morning, in which the president urged schools to reopen, falsely claiming that children are "almost immune from this disease."
Facebook also removed a post containing the same video from Trump's personal page. Both Facebook and Twitter said the post violated their rules on COVID-19 misinformation.