15 cases of covid didn't go down to zero, but a million Tulsa tickets did go down to 6,200. so there's that
— Jeff Tiedrich (@itsJeffTiedrich) June 22, 2020
When asked about the Tulsa rally fiasco, sources close to the Trump campaign are quick to point out that campaign COO Michael Glassner is responsible for rally planning and logistics, not Brad Parscale.
— Jonathan Easley (@JonEasley) June 22, 2020
“Trump is debating revoking his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s control over the campaign, sources said.” https://t.co/mOvZlV1q0w
— Eric Schultz (@EricSchultz) June 22, 2020
Donald Trump’s exhausted trudge from Marine One toward the White House after his botched rally in Tulsa, his red tie undone, a grim look on his face, a crumpled MAGA hat in his hand, is now an iconic image of his presidency. And as always with Trump, he’s already looking for someone to blame. The most obvious candidate, according to sources, is his embattled campaign manager, Brad Parscale… Trump was so furious when he saw how thin the crowd was that he threatened to not go onstage, two sources briefed on the discussions told me. The sources said that Parscale, reading the tea leaves, is planning to step down. “He knows he can’t survive,” one source told me…
But one thing is for sure: The blame game has shifted into high gear. Trump insiders told me Trump was presented with five options of where to hold his rally. “The president chose Tulsa,” a source said. Sources also told me that if Parscale is forced out, he likely won’t be the only casualty of the rally fiasco. Trump is debating revoking his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s control over the campaign, sources said. As I previously reported, Trump has been frustrated with Kushner’s oversight of the campaign in light of polling that consistently shows Trump losing to Joe Biden. Another source of friction has been campaign spending and reports Trump has gotten that Parscale is making millions of dollars. “Did Jared allow this?” Trump asked advisers recently, according to a source. (Kushner declined to comment.)
One way to measure Kushner’s diminished influence will be found in whom Trump would choose to replace Parscale. Top candidates include 2016 veterans [Jason] Miller, David Bossie, and Corey Lewandowski, all of whom Kushner successfully kept on the outer fringe of Trumpworld. “We can’t allow Jared’s stupid disagreements to get in the way,” Trump recently told advisers, according to a source briefed on the conversation….
David Bossie, of Citizens Unite Not Timid notoriety, got himself ‘distanced’ from Trumpworld in 2019 after he was caught scamming millions of dollars from elderly Republicans. (None of which he shared with You-Know-Who.) His little buddy Lewandowski, as per a quote in Sherman’s article, “couldn’t manage a 7-Eleven”. Miller himself only came back to the Trump bunker a few weeks ago — he’s a loyalist, and cronies with all the worst Trumplodytes, but apparently he can’t keep either his mouth or his pants zipped. Get out the waders, cuz it’s gonna get even filthier between now and November.
… The Tulsa debacle takes on added resonance given that a return to rallies is central to Trump’s reelection strategy. With COVID cases spiking across Trump country, it’s unlikely that Trump will be able to pack an arena anytime soon. Deprived of the oxygen his legions of fans provide, Trump is struggling to fight political wars on multiple fronts. He’s also lost the attack line that Biden is too old for the job. “There is something off about Trump,” a West Wing official told a top Republican a few days after Trump shakily descended the ramp at West Point. “He doesn’t have the stamina.”…
My motto, at the moment: Proud to be a Democrat. Hella glad NOT to be a Republican!
"Our sources, Jared and Ivanka said"
— Tarz ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (@TheyCallMeTarz) June 22, 2020
sorry sir you can’t fire him he’s stolen so much money if you fire him everyone will know how easy it is to steal from you https://t.co/reGWBdkN6u
— kilgore trout, a ramp with no steps (@KT_So_It_Goes) June 22, 2020
Missed it by *that* much!…
Trump aides determined that about 300,000 signups for his Tulsa rally were fake and concluded an audience of about 60,000 was the worst-case scenario: https://t.co/aMXUz55OI8
— Blake News (@blakehounshell) June 22, 2020
Political horse-race touts smell blood!
Tulsa Trump is the new Fat Elvis https://t.co/8mQX9J71Bo
— John Heilemann (@jheil) June 22, 2020
Not great for the Trump campaign when even Lou Dobbs is calling the Tulsa rally "a mess" and wondering if "heads" should "roll." https://t.co/uI7VE63eYC
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) June 22, 2020
How to empty seat pic.twitter.com/SxDJ5M1sdN
— Sarah Cooper (@sarahcpr) June 22, 2020
Major Major Major Major
Chaos to the enemy! ?
Geoduck
With protests again outside the White House, the press has been booted from the building and the Shiatgibbon is wading even deeper into the racist swamps than usual with his Twitter posts.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
there have been too many “Jared and Ivanka will go back to New York…” stories for me to get even schadenfreude hopes up. We have to take the White House, the Senate and keep the House.
I think tomorrow is the virtual fund-raiser with Joe and Barack, I’m really hoping it gets headline-making numbers, so if you were thinking of donating, that might be a good day. Think of it as a way to say fuck you, Maggie Haberman.
cain
Late night ? The sun just set a few minutes ago ! ?
NotMax
Must admit to a slight curiosity as to what his golf score* was immediately après-Tulsa.
*Real score, not the usual fudged one.
joel hanes
From Juanita Jean’s establishment:
ptee
“Couldn’t manage a 7-11” is an upgrade from “couldn’t manage a popcorn stand.”
Sadly, and insult to all the 7-11 managers everywhere.
cain
I want to destroy the Republican party .. I want to see Barr and Trump’s cabinet in jail. Especially Barr. I want Trump to skip town and stuck in Russia never to return .. it will drive the fact to his supporters that he is a traitor and that they supported a traitor and they will forever STFU and stop showing how patriotic they are.
+0
Emma from FL
Now I can go to bed with a light heart and a smile on my lips. Let us pray to Loki, Anansi, Elegua, Kokopelli, and Lugh that they continue meeting punishment to our enemies.
CaseyL
Kicked in a few bucks, and will try to remember to tune in to the fundraiser tomorrow.
ETA: Sarah Cooper is a national treasure.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
The David Bossie link is interesting. Trump was angry, not because his voters are being scammed, but because the grift money was going to Bossie instead of Trump.
In personal news, I apparently am about to get my renewed passport, meaning people have gone back to work at the State Dept. I sent the application in on Feb. 20. In the intervening months it went from “In Process, expect 6-8 weeks” to “We aren’t in the office and make no promises, but here’s your case number” to “No record of this application found” and then suddenly tonight three emails in rapid succession of “It’s in process, still no promises”, “It’s been approved”, “It’s been shipped”.
I don’t need it. I’m not going anywhere in 2020. In the Before Times, we would have been in Germany right now but at this point we’re not thinking we’ll leave our neighborhood let alone the country in the foreseeable future. Still, I was getting anxious that they might have lost it, so I’ll feel better when I have a valid passport back in my hands.
danielx
Read something recently about how you need a decent candidate and/or a decent record, according to political pros. The clusterfuck known as the Trump campaign has neither (for varying values and scales of “decent”), and he isn’t going to win on personality except among people who are already true believers. He also isn’t going to put anyone in charge who can tell him to shut the fuck up and make it stick; who could anyway? Much less listen to anybody who says mass public rallies are a terrible idea at the moment, because he needs those like a tweaker needs meth.
Nobody involved can afford to admit the problem with the Trump campaign is Trump himself.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@joel hanes: There are only 6 FEC commissioners, and I’m not even sure all of those positions are currently filled.
So expect a tweet tomorrow firing them all. Problem solved!
Edited To Add: Yep. Only four commissioners right now.
Martin
Consider that Trump may fire Parscale and Jared and somehow find a way to hire worse people. Guessing John McLaughlin will make the cut. He convinced Eric Cantor that he was +34 in his primary. He lost by 11. Basically no Republican would hire him after that. He’s mister ‘unskewing the polls’.
Can’t wait until we learn that Trump is +9 in California.
mrmoshpotato
Whiny. Bitchwaffle.
This is your god emperor, Trump trash!
Doug R
I saw a tweet somewhere that there were about 2,800 paid actors plus over 980 trump* campaign people plus building staff, plus some others that meant that there were ACTUALLY only about 1,800 RUBES. Knowing how there’s a hard core that DeadHeads around with trump*, how many locals could there have been?
Which sounds about right for a city of less than half a million in the middle of a pandemic.
Martin
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: FEC didn’t have a quorum for about a year so they couldn’t do anything. That was fixed last month, so Ellen Weintraub is back on the job.
mrmoshpotato
Waahh! Ask NotMax if the sun is still up. :)
mrmoshpotato
@joel hanes: Hot! Damn! What a corrupt pile of shit!
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Doug R: I’ve heard that rumor several places about the actors but I still don’t know how credible it is. That makes me feel kinda bad about the maskless attendees now, if most of them were starving actors just trying to make a few extra bucks.
Amir Khalid
You can change the sales and marketing team as much as you want. But when everyone knows the product is bad, none of your changes will help you sell it. You really need to
improvefix the product.President Trump is a bad product.
Mallard Filmore
@Martin:
And when Trump loses California, that there is PROOF of voter fraud!
joel hanes
The most important news from the weekend was *confirmation* of suspicion that Roger Stone was the link between Trump himself and Russian saboteurs.
HumboldtBlue
Roy Halladay tossed a no-hitter at the Reds a ways back.
I wonder how much of our sports stories will be reminiscing about what was a pretty fucking glorious past.
Mass gatherings at stadiums has put everyone off.
Roger Moore
@Martin:
It’s an amazing concept, but Trump has somehow managed to continue scraping through the bottom of the barrel, through the floor under the barrel, and on down to bedrock.
Amir Khalid
@Roger Moore:
… and all the way to China.
Kent
@Doug R: Crisis actors! They are a real thing!
Another Scott
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’ve been donating to Uncle Joe monthly for a while, but just kicked in a few dollars more.
Here’s hoping they take in a mountain of money, and put it to good use.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
rikyrah
rikyrah
@Another Scott:
I have taken to donating a few bucks with most text messages.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mallard Filmore: Trump said he won California in 2016, the only reason he didn’t was all the illegals voting for Clinton.
rikyrah
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
thanks for the reminder. Will have to donate
West of the Rockies
@Doug R:
Any source for those numbers? That’s pretty astonishing if true!
Captain C
Trump pretty much always seems to be genuinely surprised to find out what’s going on in his organizations. Unless he’s taking credit for something that didn’t actually happen.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid:
Remain vigilant Amir. If you see something(Orange) say something.
Jinchi
In the aftermath of eight staffers coming down with coronavirus during the Tulsa fiasco, the White House has decided to stop testing for symptoms. Trump is really stupid enough to believe that the problem is too much testing.
rikyrah
???
rikyrah
rikyrah
????
rikyrah
Ruckus
@Amir Khalid:
You are going with bad?
I mean McDs is bad, well for some level of an attempt at food, at least bad. shitforbrains is far worse than bad. Horrible, disastrous, decaying feces level, maggots and worms level….
rikyrah
???
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
It’s maggots from here on out!
rikyrah
tokyokie
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Well, maybe not an orangutan, but something orange and decidedly stupider.
JWR
@mrmoshpotato:
Shades of Ritchie Blackmore’s Deep Purple at the first California Jam back in 1974, upon hearing that Black Sabbath had finished their set early and they’d have to go on before dark. “What? Without our lightshow?!!”
Captain C
@rikyrah: Nobody’s taking a vacation in Arizona in the summer, Martha.
rikyrah
Jinchi
@Doug R: Sorry I don’t believe 2800 actors were hired to attend Trump’s rally and none of them tweeted the story.
rikyrah
Amir Khalid
Saudi Arabia has reportedly decided to go ahead with this year’s Haj, at the end of July. But it will be open only to foreigners already resident there. (And to Saudi nationals, I presume, but the BBC story at the link doesn’t say.) An announcement on Saudi state media said pilgrim numbers would be strictly limited, but did not say how many.
I still think it’s a bad idea.
Ruckus
@Jinchi:
He’s too stupid to understand why it gets light during the day and dark at night.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: Magnets?
rikyrah
Jinchi
@Ruckus: There are some mysteries in the universe humans just were never intended to understand.
rikyrah
Ruckus
@rikyrah:
There really is something wrong with that republican bot. It’s like all that’s up in that orange melon is putrid, rancid cottage cheese from 1946 and the wiring is all shorted out.
rikyrah
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
I was hoping that you’d know….
rikyrah
?????
Ruckus
@Jinchi:
You think he’s human? I mean over the years there have been a number of vile, obnoxious, idiotic, entities that would pass for human, but shitforbrains is human? I think I’ve heard everything.
joel hanes
@Ruckus:
The answer is “angular momentum is conserved”.
That’s how a diffuse cloud of dust becomes a star and planets, all rotating.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: I’ve have decided that all technical questions can be answered by magnets or multi-port fuel injection. Magnets seemed the better fit.
Ruckus
@joel hanes:
See, it is possible for humans to understand….
Joel, republicans haven’t possessed you have they?
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well yes, those would be some pretty damn large ports….
joel hanes
Secret Service tells press to leave White House grounds in highly unusual move
Craigie
I feel ashamed, but the gloating just doesn’t get old.
Poe Larity
Jared has nothing to prove, he’s been on the cover of Time.
joel hanes
@Ruckus:
To be scrupulously fair, conservation of angular momentum is only half the answer.
The other half is gravity. (And its corresponding anti-force, comedy.)
Craigie
@Jinchi:
It’s also not very likely that there are 2800 actors in the whole of Oklahoma.
Jackie
@rikyrah: I do love how Jennifer Rubin goes straight to the point!
Martin
@Craigie: There’s only about 11 main roles. Obviously there are more during the dance numbers, but yeah, nowhere near 2800 can fit on a stage even across multiple acts.
Kristine
@rikyrah: yup—that’s what I do, too.
Mary G
@rikyrah: I like that CNN anchor. When Murtaugh tried the “Trump was only joking” about slowing tests on her, she said she didn’t think 120,000 dead Americans was funny, does the president?
Felanius Kootea
Sarah Cooper falling off the chair at the end is just … perfection!
hitchhiker
Down in Baton Rouge we have this good man speaking truth in public. Most satisfying 3 minutes and 19 seconds of the day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=199&v=bEUNnvGA-1g&feature=emb_logo
Can he run for something? I’d donate.
Martin
@hitchhiker: That guy was amazing.
rikyrah
Achrachno
@West of the Rockies: The hired actors numbers seem not to be well sourced. I’d like to think I’m wrong but I’m afraid he really did manage to turn almost 6000 suckers and staffers. Big face-plant, but maybe not the biggest ever.
JWR
@hitchhiker:
@Martin:
Oh yeah. And don’t you just love how shopping lady had to walk out half-way through to, “use the restroom”? One board member later said something like, that we’re going at this amongst ourselves, doesn’t that tell you that it’s time? That we’ve been doing this all wrong? So yeah, dude was awesome!
KrakenJack
One benefit of the open grifting is the example that it sets. You can bet that everyone involved is scraping off every penny they can and lying about the work they’ve done. The net result being that Trumps campaign cash will dissipate like a wet fart.
We’ve still got to fight for every vote just to overcome the massive cheating, but it would be that much harder if they had a fully effective campaign organization. We have no reason to expect Parscale’s or Jared’s replacements to be any more competent or less corrupt than the originals.
Also, I find it very hard to believe the Tulsa rally organizers would hire actors when their minimum estimates were for 60,000 people.
JWR
Lol! at Colbert’s cold open.
Luciamia
Okay, the bloodhounds aren’t snapping at his behind yet, but the baying is getting louder.
mrmoshpotato
Republican stupidity you say?
LOL
Also
Let’s “debate” whether or not Whoopi should slap John McCain’s daughter on camera, and then let Whoopi decide. (She’ll probably go “Fuck it!” and punch John’s daughter.)
ETA – How is Lou not dead yet from a rage-induced heart attack?
prostratedragon
Only somewhat more than 11 million seconds till the end of the day Nov.3, and 18 million till noon on Jan. 20.
JWR
@mrmoshpotato:
Speaking of Mt Rushmore, wasn’t Trump having a hissy fit some time ago about the “no fireworks” policy there? Welp, problem solved, apparently. From June 12:
Oh well, I’m sure they’ve raked the floor.
daryljfontaine
@Emma from FL: Coyote smiles.
D
Sister Golden Bear
@Achrachno: I personally saw an actual Craig’s List ad—couched in strategically vague phrasing, but clearly seeking actors to round out the rally. But don’t know if it whether it was truly from the campaign, or just some rando who posted it for unknown reasons.
mrmoshpotato
@Amir Khalid: He’ll drown in the Indian Ocean off of Western Australia.
James E Powell
I knew it was a bad idea, but I watched Maggie’s flawed candidate running a flawed campaign bit. First, what an a hole. Second, what I think she means is that she and the NYT are gearing up to launch a smear campaign against Biden and to carry on through the summer to make sure the campaign stays close.
As Jennifer Rubin points out in the tweet that @rikyrah: quoted above, they’ve not got much of an argument against Biden. Maggie and the NYT times are going to help them find one.
Keith P.
@mrmoshpotato: Lou is what the medical community calls “reanimated”.
CarolDuhart2
@rikyrah: Empty promises..nobody is going anywhere, especially folks who could use 4K in travel credits. Stuck on stupid, which is why she’s trailing to the astronaut. And even if you could get the credit, what’s open?
mrmoshpotato
@CarolDuhart2: I know, right! “Go! Go get infected like there isn’t a global pandemic! Here! Here’s 4000 dollars! Have fun (potentially dying)!”
CarolDuhart2
@mrmoshpotato: What they don’t get, is that a big chunk of the travel industry relies on the very people who must now stay at home-retirees and others who are immunocompromised and and have the free time to actually go somewhere. If they have to worry about going to the grocery store, travel for anything other than medical and other absolutely necessary things is <i>out</i)
Not to mention that the only way a 4k credit is useful is if you actually have spent at least that much. A $300 trip to your vacation home doesn’t count, and I doubt that RV trip costs get that high either. So this is a credit to the airlines, but the places you could fly is pretty limited too.
So what happened to the vaunted Republican hard headed embrace of reality and business sense here?
SFAW
@rikyrah:
But but but I heard esteemed
shillprofessor Jonathan Turley talking about how The Criminal Barr was just trying to arrange a “job swap” for Jay Clayton [SEC head], so that Clayton could “return to New York.” So Barr was just trying to help out a buddy. Or something.“On Point” had Turley and Stuart Gerson (former AG, GHWB era, I think), and they basically concluded that it was just bad optics. Meghna kept asking, in effect, “why was Berman fired, and why did Barr’s justification keep changing?” Turley was his usual scumbag self, although he attempted to sound high-minded.
But I really wish Meghna had had at least one guest who was not a Rethug mouthpiece.
SFAW
@Doug R:
Having seen that tweet: although I may be the only one, I’m pretty sure that tweet was a joke. The tweeter said it was something like 2826 actors — meaning, not a rounded number — which indicated (to me, at least) that he/she was joking.
Chris Johnson
@cain:
I don’t believe he is welcome in Russia. No, hear me out: it’s not that he hasn’t done great service to Russia, the Kremlin etc. I think Jared is more likely to be the knowing traitor taking specific direction from Russia, but that might be Central Casting talking: however, Trump is disqualified from being an effective collaborator as he’s a hysterical child, the wrecking ball wielded by the Russians.
I think he’s aware of Russia as I think he got beat up in the 80s and turned, due to trying to cheat the Russian Mob in real estate deals. That seems… plausible.
But what on earth does Russia stand to gain from providing a safe haven for Donald Trump in the end? Absolutely nothing. Trump is not a talented and brave spy. Trump is an old cow filled with dynamite. He is a sacrificial asset. One thing we’ve got to understand is that whatever Russia’s continuing plan is… and equally important, Russia does not do elaborate plans, but stochastic chaos-based ones, at this time… their game involves Trump being destroyed.
My best guess is that they want to make it look like a heroic demise, to whoever’s dumb and crazy enough to believe it. Crazy is good because crazy is stochastic terrorists, they’re PLAYING to the crazy. At no point do they need to seize and hold power in legitimate ways: that’s not possible for Trump and they knew that going in. It’s all about doing maximum damage while they have control, because the window for that is gradually closing.
Don’t look for direct, or coherent, control of Trump and his people, and don’t look for a hero’s welcome back to Russia for Trump (on the other hand, McConnell? Jared? Barr?). Trump is meant to die a shabby death and become a martyr to the crazy, so that they will go to war against us once we get back control of the country.
That becomes the new challenge: literally domestic Reds (hats. with MAGA written on ’em) waging terrorist war on the US. Hell, I’ve seen some of those ‘ironically’ crying alliance to Russia a YEAR ago, and that’s nothing to what we’ll see when we inevitably get the country back.
artem1s
@rikyrah:
Some of his voters… the demographics of Trump voters has always been another one of the GOP lies. The 27% factor was in play on Saturday. The rest of his base will still vote for him as long as they think it will put money in their pockets and Wall Street keeps riding bubble. The White ‘Working’ Class, Chamber of Commerce guys were never going to attend his rallies anyway. Those guys attend the rubber chicken dinner fundraisers at the private country club before or after the rally. Since Dump isn’t crowing about the money he raked in over the weekend, I’m assuming the country club fundraisers are as dead as the rallies.