Trump saying he wanted to "play down" COVID-19 isn't news. We *knew* he was. Likewise, *of course* he knew how deadly it was. Advisers told him.
You want news? How about 5 major-media reports confirming the Trump White House knew of the virus in November 2019? #ProofofCorruption
PS/ "News" is shocking—not something one previously had reason to suspect. I think this week we'll hear as "news" many things long self-evident. Trump admitting to what everyone in America already knew isn't news. The White House lying about 2019 COVID-19 intelligence *is* news.
PS2/ Media is going to do the silly and stupid things it does—but Americans needn't play along. *We* decide what's important: discovering when the White House learned about COVID-19—November 2019—or "learning" that yes, as we all *knew*, *Trump* knew he was downplaying the virus.
PS3/ When actual news comes out about Trump, I tweet it, whether it comes from ABC News, NBC News, The Times of Israel, and others—like my research on when the Trump White House learned of the virus—or Bob Woodward. But I can't pretend non-news is news just because it's "new."
PS4/ I *strongly* urge people not to adopt any new timeline for the White House's virus response that sets the beginning of Trump's recognition of the virus danger at late January. That is false—that is not what happened. But I'm afraid that's the new line that is being sold now.
PS5/ I'm glad we're hearing Trump's words. But I saw this happen with FEAR and the Trump-Russia issue—a book that seemed to be "hard" on Trump wrongly said there was no collusion. Now, a book that seems "hard" on Trump will *revise the pandemic timeline* in a way that aids Trump.
PS6/ In any event, I'll say no more—as anyone who reads Chapter 42 of Proof of Corruption and sees my sourcing will understand why this is upsetting. It's far easier than many think for a book that seems hard on Trump to in fact be doing him a much bigger solid than any critique.
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The most sober, terrifying thing I can say as a Trump presidential historian is that what happened tonight was not about you, me, or America.
He's going to do what he's going to do based on how he convinces *himself* to do it.
Nothing else matters. He's not listening to anyone.
However it came to pass—childhood trauma, genetics, dementia—this US president is now functionally a psychopath. He lives in his own reality. He converses only with himself. All America is now downstream from a madman who's not listening to anyone or anything but his own madness.
The 25th was made for this moment.
It won't be used because Trump nominated cowards.
Impeachment was made for this moment.
It won't be used because America elected cowards.
The federal courts were made to stop this.
They won't because lifetime appointments reward cowardice.
I'm watching the Trump speech because I have to for my job and it's the most batshit crazy presidential speech I've ever heard in my nearly 50 years alive
Where it's coherent—which is only intermittently—it's on its face the largest tureen of turd soup any POTUS has ever served
I'm not in the first instance saying I don't understand how anyone could believe what the man is saying but rather how anyone could *understand* what he's trying to say
In the rare moments I think I understand what he's saying, it is the biggest most insane lie I have ever heard
What the President of the United States appears to be saying tonight is that our entire government is secretly run by China and has been for years and as far as evidence of that claim is concerned there really does not seem to be any whatsoever
(🚨) PROOF EXCLUSIVE: I’ve published 1,500+ pages of bestsellers on the coup plot Trump is about to move to Stage 2. One-sentence or one-post summaries do it no justice.
1/ I understand that there are many people out there who say, OK, he is going to lie about election interference. He always does that. It is noise, not news.
These people (and their blitheness) are wrong, and wrong in a way that is going to be dangerous to the United States now.
2/ There is a reason many are demanding the Thursday speech not be televised. There is a reason many are saying it could be the most deranged presidential speech ever.
But in a way, *that* is the noise. It presumes that what matters is what he says, not what he is going to *do*.
If I'd told you that on the evening of July 4th on the nation's 250th birthday it would be 11:15PM, Trump would not yet have spoken, there would only be a few hundred people in attendance, and the event stage would be featuring a foreign opera, you would've had me committed
Whoa he just showed up and he looks absolutely livid at the tiny, low-energy crowd
Every time he strays from his milquetoast script it is either to make up lies about a Communist threat, babble repetitiously, or whine about how he has been treated
This crowd is so small I kid you not you can hear *individual people* cheering
(🚨) So to be very clear, FIFA rules do *not* allow the USMNT to appeal the Balogun red card *on the basis of claiming the referee erred*.
But.
Under the circumstances, the USMNT should appeal on the very different grounds ESPN just reported on: misapplication of VAR protocols.
As ESPN explains, there's no doubt the card was issued on the basis of still images and slow-mo vids shown to the ref by VAR—and we know this because the ref didn't think the play was even a *yellow* card in real time. But such evidence can't be sent to a ref *in this situation*.
So considering the situation—the USMNT facing the biggest game in its history without its best player by far because of a red card almost the entire world agrees was absurd—it would be *scandalous* if the USMNT didn't at least *try* to appeal on the technical basis of VAR misuse.
It is not that the phrase Trump insisted be on new passports confirms that he doesn't know what a passport is.
It's that for a year not one person who works for him was willing to tell him so.
They will remain cowards when he declares martial law.
Donald Trump is a rabid dog. He has been a menace his whole life, assaulting and raping and defrauding with impunity. That is no longer news. What is news is that he is surrounded by an impenetrable cloud of cowardice. No one will stop him from the things he is about to do to us.
Because he's not just a rabid dog and a moral troglodyte but a knuckle-dragging moron, Trump told everyone around him to put a message on new passports that only makes sense if you've no idea what a passport is. No one stopped him. Not one corrected him.