Is Trump killing people on purpose?

April 25, 2020 By Chauncey Devega, Salon- Commentary

As of Friday, the coronavirus pandemic has killed at least 50,000 people in the United States. That number is likely to be an undercount, and it’s possible we will never have a true reckoning.

This article first appeared in Salon.

At almost every juncture, Donald Trump has made decisions about the coronavirus pandemic that have led to more death. His behavior is that of a person who has no care or concern for the health, safety and welfare of the American people. Nothing could epitomize that more perfectly than his grotesque suggestion this week that “injecting” disinfectants or household cleaning products might kill the coronavirus. This would seem comical, and entirely unbelievable, if it had not actually happened.

In 2016 the Obama administration told then President-elect Trump and his advisers of the high likelihood that a pandemic would strike the nation and advised the incoming administration to take appropriate steps to reduce its impact. Obama officials also left their Trump counterparts a step-by-step guide on how to respond to a pandemic. Trump and his inner circle ignored that guidance.

Last November, the U.S. military warned Donald Trump that the country was likely to be afflicted with a devastating pandemic originating in China.

In January 2020, the Trump administration was told by its own experts that the coronavirus would spread beyond China and become a global pandemic. Again, Trump chose inaction.

Trump has deprived Democratic-led regions of the country from receiving needed medical supplies. He also waited months to begin using the Defense Appropriation Act to compel American companies to produce more ventilators, masks and other emergency equipment.

Late last year, Americans working with the World Health Organization began to warn Trump and his administration about the coronavirus pandemic. These doctors and other medical professionals were ignored.

In these examples and many others, Trump and his inner circle ignored or purged experts and other truth-tellers, and lied about, misrepresented, deflected or denied the dire threat to the American people posed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Considered in total, Trump and his regime have shown themselves to be incompetent, callous, malevolent and deeply cruel in their response to the coronavirus crisis (as well as to a plethora of other issues).

But to merely document the Trump regime’s deadly failures in response to the coronavirus pandemic is to ignore the most important question: What were Trump and his advisers’ underlying motivations?


This forensic question must be answered if we are ever to have a full accounting of the coronavirus, and see justice done for the sick, the dead and the dying as well as the damage done to the broader American community.

Media critic (and former Salon writer) Eric Boehlert summarizes the importance of determining Donald Trump’s motives this way:
As I stressed last week, the media’s preferred storyline that suggests Trump is simply incompetent doesn’t add up because Trump has made the wrong decision every single time in terms of how crises like this are supposed to be dealt with. (i.e. Be consistent, transparent, factual, and credible.) It’s increasingly not believable for the press to suggest Trump has been distracted or inept during this crisis, in part because of the level of White House uselessness has become so staggering.

Maybe Trump’s vengeful. Maybe he wants to wreck the economy to create investment opportunities? He’s under the thumb of a foreign entity? He wants to cause panic and cancel the November elections? He’s a fatalist? Who knows. And honestly, the specific “why” isn’t what matters now. What matters is asking the difficult questions and pondering what the Trump presidency is truly about, no matter what lurks in the shadows….

Now the press needs to shift some of its focus and ask the truly alarming questions about Trump and his motives. Because we still don’t know why he essentially ordered the federal government to stand down for the virus invasion.

Psychologist and psychotherapist John Gartner, contributor to the bestselling book “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump” and co-founder of the Duty to WARN PAC, has an answer: Donald Trump is a malignant narcissist. Our president’s mental pathologies inexorably compel him to hurt and kill large numbers of people — including his own supporters.

Dr. Gartner taught for many years at the Johns Hopkins University Medical School, and has private therapeutic practices in Baltimore and New York, specializing in the treatment of borderline personality disorders. In our most recent conversation, he explains that sadism and violence are central to Trump’s malignant narcissism and his decision-making about the coronavirus pandemic. Gartner also warns that Donald Trump is an abuser locked into a deeply dysfunctional relationship with the American people and that, like other sadists, Trump enjoys causing harm and suffering.

Ultimately, Gartner concludes that Donald Trump is engaging in “democidal behavior” and cautions that the tens of thousands of dead (so far) from the coronavirus pandemic are not simply collateral damage from Trump’s policies, but rather the logical outcome of Trump’s apparent mental pathologies and the poor decisions that flow from them.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Donald Trump’s behavior is very predictable. He has a very simple mind. Why do so many people treat him as some type of mystery? Why do they claim to be so “surprised” by his vile behavior?

Yes, Donald Trump is simplistic. But an atomic explosion is also very simple.

How does the human mind remain in denial about Trump’s nature when on an almost daily basis he reveals his true nature through his cruelty, lies, violence and other anti-social behavior? There are many Americans who oppose Trump who continue to claim that they are somehow surprised by his behavior?

Malignant narcissists are very sick people. They are sick in such a deep, disturbed and dark way that a normal person cannot comprehend such behavior. Therefore, normal, mentally healthy people cannot imagine or understand the mind of a malignant narcissist.

As a mental health professional, what do you see when you watch Trump’s so-called briefings about the coronavirus pandemic?

Trump is both denying responsibility by saying things such as, “I take no responsibility. We’ve done everything right.” But at the same time, Trump is also sabotaging the efforts to stop the coronavirus pandemic. This is a very important aspect of Trump’s behavior. Trump is not just deflecting blame onto the governors, he is actively interfering with the governors’ ability to do their job. Trump is not just incompetent. He is actively engaging in sabotage.

How does someone with his type of mind reconcile claims like “I have total power” with “I take no responsibility”? He has said both things within a few days of each other.

That is a function of how the psychology of a malignant narcissist is structured. When Trump says things such as, “I have total power,” that’s the grandiosity. “I’m in total control” is a function of Trump’s paranoia, where everything bad is projected outward. Therefore, anything negative or bad is someone else’s fault. Bad things are other people in Trump’s mind. The grandiosity and “greatness” are all him. Trump’s mind runs on a formula which bends and twists facts, ideas and memories to suit his malignant narcissism. This is why Trump contradicts himself so easily. He lies and makes things up. His fantasies all serve his malignant narcissism and the world he has created in his own mind about his greatness.

The fourth component of Trump’s malignant narcissism is sadism. That part of Trump’s mind is more hidden. People such as Trump are malignant-narcissist sadists because they, at some deep level, are driven to cause harm to other people. Trump’s life is proof of this. He enjoys ripping people off and humiliating people. He does this manically and gleefully. He has lied more than 16,000 times. He threatens people online and elsewhere. I believe that Donald Trump is also a sexual sadist, who on some basic level enjoys and is aroused by watching people be afraid of him. In his mind, Trump is creating chaos and instability so that he can feel powerful.

Professor of psychiatry and psychoanalyst Otto Kernberg called that phenomenon “omnipotent destructiveness.” The bullying, the violence, the destruction, frightening people, humiliating people, getting revenge and the like — such behavior is what Donald Trump has done his whole life. It is who Donald Trump really is. Unfortunately, too many people are still in denial of that fact.

If Donald Trump is primarily obsessed with omnipotent destruction, how is that fueling his behavior?

Donald Trump has to create a field of negative corrupting energy around himself. For example, he pressures the scientific experts to bend the truth to his dreamworld during his press conferences. The scientists are basically Trump’s hostages. The American people are hostages as well to Donald Trump. We are being abused by him. We know that Trump is lying. We know that he’s doing nothing to help us. We feel helpless to do anything to stop him. It is causing collective mental despair. In this way Donald Trump is inducing feelings of rage and outrage — and he keeps doing it. It is not that all Americans are suckers or dupes, it is that Trump is a master at such cruel and manipulative behavior. Donald Trump knows exactly what he is doing to the physical and emotional health of the American people.

I envision Donald Trump as a megalomaniacal puppet master. The American people are his little marionettes. The American people must acknowledge that relationship to cut the strings.

That is a great analogy. Donald Trump is a master at getting negative attention, and the more people he can shock and upset, the better. Donald Trump has been doing such a thing for years.

The pandemic has provided Trump with the opportunity to use his skill at doing such things into overdrive. America, with this coronavirus crisis, is now “The Trump Show.”

Society is a type of family. Leaders are fathers, mothers, and other types of parental authority figures. In that role, Donald Trump is abusing the American people.

Yes, the American people are being abused by Donald Trump. This is a key dimension of sadists. I also believe that Donald Trump is democidal. I would even go so far as to say that he is a “democidal maniac”. If you look at human history there is one trait that all malignant narcissistic leaders have in common: They kill mass numbers of their own people. Why would Donald Trump be any different?

Trump has had many public moments where one can see the convergence of his rage, misogyny and violence. Trump’s press conferences have been a showcase for his pathologies. There is so much rage when a reporter makes clear that Trump is lying or asks him a basic question that challenges his self-delusions and fantasies. Trump’s rage at women who challenge him, in particular nonwhite women such as PBS reporter Yamiche Alcindor, is palpable.

It is probably not lost on Trump that the people who are being disproportionately killed by the coronavirus are people in Democratic blue states and cities: nonwhite people, poor people, other marginalized people in this society, working-class people. These are the people who Donald Trump sees as “less than,” inferior to him, the types of people he likes to grind down under his heel.
In the course of a week, we literally had Trump’s cultists, his spokespeople, saying, “People should sacrifice themselves for the economy.” Literally go out and die. Of course the real meaning there is, “I want you to go out and die so that I can be re-elected because I’m dependent on the economy.” Trump and his allies have been telling people to go out and risk their lives as an act of loyalty to “the economy.” And of course Trump is willing to see people die to ensure — at least in his mind — that he will be re-elected. In many ways he is positioning himself as a god who demands human sacrifice.

Such behavior and beliefs are common among malignant narcissists. Malignant narcissists like Donald Trump view other human beings as kindling wood to be burned for their own personal enrichment and enlargement and expansion.

Beyond mere negligence, much of Trump’s and his regime’s behavior is malevolent. Trump and his sycophants knew that potentially millions of Americans could die but chose to do nothing. His administration has gone so far as to purge people from the government who were trying to warn the public.

Again, that behavior is part of the psychology of malignant narcissistic leaders. They are democidal. Malignant narcissistic leaders kill many of their own people through wars and political terror, but also through willful incompetence. These types of leaders actively do things that will kill large portions of the population. Causing harm is a type of addiction for them. Donald Trump’s addiction is only getting worse.

Donald Trump is a human predator. That is what he does. He will not change. At this point, I hold the American people, the news media, the Republican Party and its voters ultimately responsible for the calamity that is Trump’s reign.

The 2020 presidential election will decide either the life or death of America.

What would you tell those Americans and others who would object to your analysis of Trump and the danger he represents? Because many people would protest that whatever Trump’s flaws may be, of course he loves America, and it’s inconceivable we would have a president who would actively seek to harm the American people.Follow the facts to the obvious and true conclusion. If all the facts show that Donald Trump is a malignant narcissist with these powerful sadistic tendencies, this omnipotent destructiveness, where he’s getting pleasure and a sense of power from dominating people and degrading people and destroying people and plundering people and laying waste to people, both psychologically and physically, then to deny such obvious facts is willful ignorance.

What do you think Donald Trump will do if, shortly before Nov. 3, it appears clear that he is going to lose the election?

Rather than making a prediction as to Trump’s specific actions, it is more helpful to describe the type of actions he will take. Rather than trying to say, “This is the move he’ll make.” Like in a relationship, Donald Trump is the abuser. He is the husband or father who is abusing his partner or children or other relatives. The American people are like a woman who is leaving her abuser. She tells her abuser, “That’s it! I am done with you!” She has her keys in hand and is opening the door of the house or apartment to finally leave. What happens? The democidal maniac Donald Trump will attack us, badly. Make no mistake. Donald Trump is going to find a way to attack and cause great harm to the American people if he believes that he will lose the 2020 election

Kamala Harris, Trump’s Voters, and Shawn Fain

By Michael Albert

July 22, 2024

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.




Biden bids adieu. Anoints Vice President Harris. What next? In particular, who runs to become the next Vice President? How can anyone who has endured the last few weeks (months, years, decades?) even guess at that, much less offer a serious plausible proposal for that? Well, I think I can.

What was the final cause of Biden’s decision? We can only guess but I would bet the big donors and a few Party power brokers—read Pelosi and Obama—finally said enough is enough. But regardless, who now rums?

Barring some kind of perversity or miracle, I think it will be Kamala Harris. She has Biden’s support. She can be an overwhelming or even unanimous choice to avoid a contentious convention. She can fight and debate. A prosecutor for a felon. And for kickers Harris can access funds that were raised for Biden and that others can’t access. But there arises another question. Who runs along with Harris? Who does Harris and the convention settle on to become Vice President?

For that calculation, the key point is to beat Trump and Vance. So I hope they settle on someone who can inject some real excitement, some real hope. Someone who is not a political insider but is also not a ridiculous transplant from an entirely unrelated domain. So not a politician. Not an actor. Not a singer. Not an athlete. Not even a TV talk show star. Okay, maybe Jon Stewart, I guess. But who would I actually want?

My favorite is Shawn Fain, President of the UAW. To me, if the aim is to beat Trump, this pick is obvious. Peel off much of Trump’s working class support. Election over. Arouse an incredible army of volunteers. Double over. Show Vance who the real deal working class hero is. Triply over. Midwest strength and how about if as a bonus, at the optimistic edge, Fain brings along with himself million worker Harris/Fain marches in New York, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, Las Vegas, San Francisco, phoenix, Houston, Birmingham, Augusta, and Miami. Take that Trump. Time for you to weep. And Trump voters. Here is a reason for you to change teams. More on Fain at the end, below.

But why is beating Trump paramount? Well, if anyone reading this doesn’t already know, we could consider the Republican National Convention. Hulk Hogan? Hannibal Lector? Donald Trump? That isn’t parody. It is actuality. It is real farce. But for me the RNC farce raised still another question. How could anyone watch Trump’s convention, that flaunt farce him in our faces, center stage, no masquerade, star bright, and still decide support Donald Trump?

Does it give you a headache to consider my question about Trump’s voters? Do you suffer sleeplessness if you mull “why” so many of your fellow Americans support Trump? It breaks my brain too. Crushes my heart too. So why ask why? Indeed why worry about why? Why not just ignore why Trump’s supporters support Trump? Why not just look away? Netflix calls. Olympics are imminent. Escape beckons. What, me worry? Not me. Less painful to look away.

But I do worry. Why do roughly half of U.S. voters still support Trump. I understand and I too feel the inclination to look away. Nonetheless, I worry about how so many voters can visibly see what’s repeatedly flaunted before them, not to mention peruse Project 2025, and still support Trump.

I worry about that not solely because to Stop Trump it will help to know why so many voters support Trump. I also worry about it because beyond the election, to arrive at a fundamentally transformed society we cannot have half the voting population remain Trumpist. But to avoid having that, we have to successfully communicate with Trump’s voters. And successful communication will not happen while we have no notion why Trump’s voters feel as they do. Much less can we successfully communicate with Trump’s voters while we aggressively avoid Trump’s voters.

Sanders says that even just accounting for only one issue, global warming, no one in the U.S. should cast a vote for Trump. Drill baby drill is, even taken alone, disqualifying. “You are going to boil and drown me. I’d rather you lose.” But even beyond that, no one should believe Trump cares even a whit for other than the rich, and actually, plausibly, for other than himself. Okay, Sanders is absolutely right about all that. So we of course need to convincingly demonstrate Sanders’ two claims, and other similar ones, as well.

But at the same time, if we are going to be heard by Trump supporters, don’t we need to recognize that to offer such observations alone has been and will remain essentially irrelevant. Trump supporters will mostly not believe, mostly not register, mostly not even hear such communications. Or they will hear them only as lies to reject. They will discount or never register evidence regarding the dangers of Trump’s agenda if we who offer such evidence—whether we do it on late night TV to millions or at a bus stop or bar to one—don’t acknowledge why Trump’s supporters support Trump and don’t sincerely and respectfully address their warranted concerns.

So why do people support Trump? Don’t we who despise not just Trump but also what Trump is preparing to do as President via his Project 2025 need to know why Trump’s supporters support him despite the dangers to others and even to themselves if we are to effectively convey to them valid facts, figures, and implications? Well, wait a minute. Why? For what reason do we need to know their reasons?

The reason we need to know Trump’s voters reasons is that in a vacuum, which is to say absent shared compelling explanations of their reasons, anti-Trump voters will fill the explanation vacuum on the fly. And we know that the answer many will grab on the fly is that it’s because everyone who supports Trump is crazy. Or is out of this world racist, sexist, and authoritarian. Or is mind bogglingly greedy. Or whatever other vile characterization one finds comfortable as a summary—like, oh, perhaps everyone who supports Trump is deplorable.

We know it is undeniably easy for anti-Trump voters to think such thoughts. After all, if no one should rationally support Trump, doesn’t it follow that anyone who does support Trump has some perverse and irrational attribute causing their aberrant choice? And if irrational perversity is at work, then isn’t it reasonable for us to conclude that there is no point even trying to impact that?

No. My point is that our spontaneous answers tend to preclude effective communication with Trump’s supporters. Our spontaneous answers tend to lump all who support Trump into a single mass with common immutable motivations. We then see only an abyss. And we look away. But what if, albeit with some exceptions, our spontaneous answers are not dead end wrong?

“Some exceptions”? Who are the “some exceptions”? Who are the Trump supporters whose reasons for supporting him will remain until November and perhaps for a long time thereafter immutably, untouchable vile?

First, the seriously rich do indeed support Trump for clear and what are for them rationally warranted albeit horribly vile reasons. For example, Trump will lower their taxes. Trump will aid their efforts to obstruct unionization and to crush labor resistance. Trump will remove restrictions on their profit-seeking pursuits. No more pollution controls, no more workplace or product safety requirements, no more minimum wage, no more climate policy, and so on. Trump promises to fulfill every rich person’s wish list. Trump says drill baby drill. So the rich say, “go Donald.” Trump in absolute control? The rich say, “great. Donald is my guy” and pay his bills. Okay, we can’t budge their greedy minds. But on election day, in the tally, they are still at best a few percent of the population.

Second, truly grossly misogynist and/or racist voters support Trump also for clear and I guess in their clouded eyes rationally warranted reasons. Trump will not coddle women, Latins, immigrants, and Blacks. Trump will instead degrade, denigrate, deny, and deport or at least diminish all those and in that way he will elevate his supporters. Get control Donald, and then get them. You must be for me if you are against them. So “go Donald. You are my guy.” But how many voters are like this? I don’t know and neither do you, but I think it is not all that many.

Structural sexism and racism are still incredibly serious cancers of our society. But are they widely this personally strong, this personally overt, this personally aggressive, so that they individual people’s all other concerns? Even fear of fascism once one stares that in the eyes? Again I would estimate this just adds a few more percent to Trumps rock solid Election Day tally and then Trumpism’s on-going flock.

So, who else is in the unreachable base? Religious fundamentalists who seek a Christian nation and think Trump is saved so Trump can do or is doing God’s work so that for them Trump’s personal history is literally beside the point. He is God’s chosen one. “Go Donald. You are God’s guy so you are my guy too.” Are those reasons valid and immovably entrenched in the heads of religious fundamentalists? Even if they are, how many more voters does that add beyond the above two categories? Sum it all up. Is it even thirty percent of his voters? I think not.

The above says to me that it isn’t only undecideds at play in the coming election. I think it is also soft supporters on both sides. And who is soft support for Trump? It is people who have supported Trump because their friends are doing so and they don’t want any friction with their friends. It is people who have supported and even clung to Trump because they hated Biden, or they thought Biden was too weak or too old. Trump is more robust. Trump is tougher. It is people who supported Trump because he is entertaining and they feel that being entertaining is the only positive attribute either Trump or any candidate can have, so they will vote for the candidate with more entertainment sense and that is Trump. It is people who javelin thought Trump understands them. Trump is not an elitist asshole to avoid. Trump is a guy to have fun with. It is people who have thought Trump bullies the bad guys, but not us. Trump lies to the bad guys, but not to us. It is people who have thought Trump will shake up the government and, indeed, will shake up everything, and who have figured that the ensuing Trumpian chaos might lead to some good. After all, everything is certainly broken. Everything does deserve to be shaken up. None of that seems immutably unreachable to me.

And what resides behind all of that soft Trump support including from so many desperate white and now also some Black and Latin workers, and including from lots of lonely scared and impoverished people, and including even from millions of women?

We can see people who have very real grievances from economic hardship to oxycodone addiction and fentanyl death. People who have had their dignity trampled, their voice silenced. Plus a team, MAGA, that beckons them. A team which they receive some sense of efficacy from. A team which they receive a degree of, yes, camaraderie from. Which they receive a degree of, yes, solidarity from. A team whose members that look like them. A team that doesn’t dismiss, deny, and denigrate them, which the only other big team repeatedly does all day long and late night too. They see a MAGA team that they feel emboldened by. A MAGA team that they don’t want to leave. They feel some power in it, some efficacy.

Do we want to talk and act in ways that can weaken Trump’s support rather than to look away and ignore looming defeat until it snuffs out more lives and smothers more hope? If so, don’t we have to hear Trump’s supporters’ reasons. And don’t we have to listen to and really hear their either partially or probably more often than not entirely valid grievances? And don’t we have to acknowledge their feelings and then and only then ask, okay, but how does what Trump will deliver improve anything for you? There will be mostly and perhaps even entirely silence. If there are answers, you are communicating. Great. Converse more. Ask them how does each specific agenda item of Trump’s Project 2025 help you? Ask them specifically why various agenda items don’t hurt you. Demonstrate the truth. Conversation then progressing, ask why they think the Democrats’ plans to do so and so and to do such and such, accurately described, wouldn’t be helpful. And finally, when it won’t feel like slapping them upside their head, ask which is better, authoritarian fascism that squeezes and constricts populations unto death, or admittedly oppressive business as usual that we can, however, push to be better, even much better, to then seek still more gains?

You may need to counter all kinds of prejudices, biases, confusions, and sometimes even perverse values. It won’t be fun. To worry about this stuff may engender in you headaches and sleeplessness. But isn’t it necessary to do just that if we are to Stop Trump now and beyond November stop Trumpism and move toward a fundamentally better world?

Are the above observations and the derivative prescription seriously wrong? If so, please write to tell me why, so I don’t keep pounding out misguided words. Or is the above mostly right? If so, please don’t give up. Organize.

I said above that I would provide a bit more about Shawn Fain, my VP pick, to close this article. In Trump’s acceptance speech at the RNC he said the UAW should immediately fire Shawn Fain. The reason he offered was some blather about Chinese auto plants. Fain replied and I think his reply tells us a lot.

“Last night, Donald Trump once again attacked our union on a national stage. That should tell you everything you need to know about the man and the candidate. As we’ve said for many months, he stands for everything we stand against. Trump claims to be attacking us in the name of protecting American auto workers.

“So tell us why, when Lordstown closed in 2019, when Trump was President, and our members were on strike for 40 days, he said nothing and did nothing. Tell us why Trump pushed to move auto jobs out of Michigan to drive down wages.

“Tell us why Trump ‘renegotiated NAFTA’ for the disastrous USMCA, under which manufacturing jobs continue to leave the country and the trade deficit with Mexico has gone up, not down. Tell us why Trump blamed the 2008 auto crisis on the autoworkers. We’ll tell you why. Because Donald Trump always has and always will side with the billionaire class against the working class.

“Trump doesn’t want to protect American auto workers. He wants to pad the pockets of the ludicrously wealthy auto executives. He wants to cut the corporate tax rates of his golfing buddies and keep the stock buybacks and Wall Street manipulation going. He wants autoworkers to shut up and take scraps, not stand up and fight for more.

“Trump talks about the electric vehicle transition as the reason our industry is under threat. Our members don’t go to work every day because they’re passionate about combustion engines. It’s about our families and our communities getting our fair share of the record auto profits, electric or not. The threat we face is corporate greed run wild, and that’s what Donald Trump enables and celebrates.

“America’s autoworkers aren’t the problem. Our union isn’t the problem. The working class isn’t the problem. Corporate greed and the billionaires’ hero, mascot, and lapdog, Donald Trump, are the problem. Don’t get played by this scab billionaire. Stand up and fight for more.”

My reaction: Fain for Vice President and Harris-Fain will resoundingly defeat Trump-Vance.


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Michael Albert

Michael Albert`s radicalization occurred during the 1960s. His political involvements, starting then and continuing to the present, have ranged from local, regional, and national organizing projects and campaigns to co-founding South End Press, Z Magazine, the Z Media Institute, and ZNet, and to working on all these projects, writing for various publications and publishers, giving public talks, etc. His personal interests, outside the political realm, focus on general science reading (with an emphasis on physics, math, and matters of evolution and cognitive science), computers, mystery and thriller/adventure novels, sea kayaking, and the more sedentary but no less challenging game of GO. Albert is the author of 21 books which include: No Bosses: A New Economy for a Better World; Fanfare for the Future; Remembering Tomorrow; Realizing Hope; and Parecon: Life After Capitalism. Michael is currently host of the podcast Revolution Z and is a Friend of ZNetwork.

INCLUDING TRUMPS YOUNGER BROTHER
COVID death toll tops 170,000 in America — but Trump spent Saturday golfing with ex-NFL kicker
on August 15, 2020
By Bob Brigham

Donald Trump and Jay Feely (Twitter)

The coronavirus death toll in America crossed 170,000 on Saturday, NBC News reported.

The president of the United States was not in Washington, DC to respond to the pandemic or work to revive stalled negotiations over an additional stimulus bill, but was instead spending another weekend golfing at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster.

HuffPost White House reporter S.V. Dáte, who has been tracking Trump’s time on the links, reports it was Trump’s 86th day golfing at Bedminster, with 269 total days spent at golf course out of Trump’s 1,304 days in office.

Dáte noted that since the reports of Russia paying bounties broke, Trump has spent 14 days golfing while only having 4 days with his daily intelligence briefing on the schedule.
Defend democracy. Click to invest in courageous progressive journalism today.

Jay Feely, a former football kicker, posted a photo with the Donald Trump on Saturday, saying that he was golfing with the president during the pandemic. The photo features Trump wearing a red hat with “Make America Great Again” in large letters.

Had the distinct honor to play golf today with @POTUS and be his partner!

Truly enjoyed talking about our families, politics and his earnest desires for our great country.

he’s still got game. pic.twitter.com/h25q446Stb
— Jay Feely (@jayfeely) August 15, 2020

Feehy, who played arena football after college, was a Pro Bowl alternate for the NY Giants in 2005.

This was not the first eyebrow-raising photo Feely has posted on Twitter. In 2018, criticized for posting a prom photo with a gun.

Wishing my beautiful daughter and her date a great time at prom #BadBoys pic.twitter.com/T5JRZQYq9e
— Jay Feely (@jayfeely) April 22, 2018


President announces his younger brother Robert Trump has died: ‘He was my best friend’

TRUMP HAS NO FRIENDS

Published on August 15, 2020 By Bob Brigham

Donald Trump and Robert Trump (Twitter)

The White House announced Saturday evening that the president’s younger brother, Robert Trump, has passed away.

“It is with heavy heart I share that my wonderful brother, Robert, peacefully passed away tonight,” Trump said in a statement.

“He was not just my brother, he was my best friend,” Trump claimed.

“He will be greatly missed, but we will meet again. His memory will live on in my heart forever. Robert, I love you. Rest in peace,” Trump wrote.

Trump visited his brother in a New York hospital on Friday while en route to his Bedminster Golf Club, where he spend Saturday golfing as the COVID-19 death toll crossed 170,000.

No cause of death was listed in the statement released by the White House. Trump was asked why his brother had been hospitalized but did not answer the question.

BECAUSE HE WAS HOSPITALIZED WITH CORONAVIRUS AKA TRUMPVIRUS

Robert Trump, the president’s younger brother, dead at 71
By JIM MUSTIAN today

 In this Nov. 3, 1999, file photo, Robert Trump, left, joins then real estate developer and presidential hopeful Donald Trump at an event in New York. President Donald Trump's younger brother, Robert Trump, a businessman known for an even keel that seemed almost incompatible with the family name, died Saturday night, Aug. 15, 2020, after being hospitalized in New York, the president said in a statement. He was 71. The president visited his brother at a New York City hospital Friday after White House officials said Robert Trump had become seriously ill. (AP Photo/Diane Bonadreff, File)


NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump’s younger brother, Robert Trump, a businessman known for an even keel that seemed almost incompatible with the family name, died Saturday night after being hospitalized in New York, the president said in a statement. He was 71.

The president visited his brother at a New York City hospital on Friday after White House officials said he had become seriously ill. Officials did not immediately release a cause of death.

“It is with heavy heart I share that my wonderful brother, Robert, peacefully passed away tonight,” Donald Trump said in a statement. “He was not just my brother, he was my best friend. He will be greatly missed, but we will meet again. His memory will live on in my heart forever. Robert, I love you. Rest in peace.”

The youngest of the Trump siblings had remained close to the 74-year-old president and, as recently as June, filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Trump family that unsuccessfully sought to stop publication of a tell-all book by the president’s niece, Mary.

Robert Trump had reportedly been hospitalized in the intensive care unit for several days that same month.

Both longtime businessmen, Robert and Donald had strikingly different personalities. Donald Trump once described his younger brother as “much quieter and easygoing than I am,” and “the only guy in my life whom I ever call ‘honey.’”

Robert Trump began his career on Wall Street working in corporate finance but later joined the family business, managing real estate holdings as a top executive in the Trump Organization.

“When he worked in the Trump Organization, he was known as the nice Trump,” Gwenda Blair, a Trump family biographer, told The Associated Press. “Robert was the one people would try to get to intervene if there was a problem.”

Robert Stewart Trump was born in 1948, the youngest of New York City real estate developer Fred Trump’s five children.

The president, more than two years older than Robert, admittedly bullied his brother in their younger years, even as he praised his loyalty and laid-back demeanor.

“I think it must be hard to have me for a brother but he’s never said anything about it and we’re very close,” Donald Trump wrote in his 1987 bestseller “The Art of the Deal.”

“Robert gets along with almost everyone,” he added, “which is great for me since I sometimes have to be the bad guy.”

In the 1980s, Donald Trump tapped Robert Trump to oversee an Atlantic City casino project, calling him the perfect fit for the job. When it cannibalized his other casinos, though, “he pointed the finger of blame at Robert,” said Blair, author of “The Trumps: Three Generations that Built an Empire.”

“When the slot machines jammed the opening weekend at the Taj Mahal, he very specifically and furiously denounced Robert, and Robert walked out and never worked for his brother again,” Blair said.

A Boston University graduate, Robert Trump later managed the Brooklyn portion of father Fred Trump’s real estate empire, which was eventually sold.

Once a regular boldface name in Manhattan’s social pages, Robert Trump had kept a lower profile in recent years. “He was not a newsmaker,” Blair said.

Before divorcing his first wife, Blaine Trump, more than a decade ago, Robert Trump had been active on Manhattan’s Upper East Side charity circuit.

He avoided the limelight during his elder brother’s presidency, having retired to the Hudson Valley. But he described himself as a big supporter of the White House run in a 2016 interview with the New York Post.

“I support Donald one thousand percent,” Robert Trump said.

In early March of 2020, he married his longtime girlfriend, Ann Marie Pallan.

The eldest Trump sibling and Mary’s father, Fred Trump Jr., struggled with alcoholism and died in 1981 at the age of 43. The president’s surviving siblings include Elizabeth Trump Grau and Maryanne Trump Barry, a retired federal appeals judge.

Authors Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher described Robert Trump as soft spoken but cerebral in “Trump Revealed: The Definitive Biography of the 45th President”: “He lacked Donald’s charismatic showmanship, and he was happy to leave the bravado to his brother, but he could show flashes of Trump temper.”

___

AP researcher Jennifer Farrar contributed to this report from New York.

SAY IT IN GERMAN

Trump does not rule out building detention camps for mass deportations

By Tim Reid and Ted Hesson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump does not rule out building detention camps on U.S. soil for migrants in the country illegally if he wins a second White House term, he told Time magazine in an interview published on Tuesday.

Trump was asked whether he would build new detention camps as part of his campaign pledge to carry out the biggest deportation of migrants in the country illegally.

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"I would not rule out anything," Trump said. "But there wouldn't be that much of a need for them" because, he said, the plan is to deport migrants in the U.S. illegally back to their home countries as quickly as possible.

"We're not leaving them in the country," Trump said. "We're bringing them out."

Trump has made illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border a centerpiece of his campaign against President Joe Biden, a Democrat who is running for a second four-year term. Immigration is a top issue for voters, according to national opinion polls.

Trump said he would use National Guard troops to assist in his planned deportation efforts, but also did not rule out deploying active military forces to help.

"I don't think I'd have to do that. I think the National Guard would be able to do that. If they weren't able to, then I’d use the military," he said.

Trump was asked about the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, a post- Civil War law that prohibits the deployment of the military against civilians.

"Well, these aren’t civilians. These are people that aren't legally in our country. This is an invasion of our country," Trump said.

Trump has used dehumanizing terminology to describe immigrants in the U.S. illegally, calling them "animals" when talking about alleged criminal acts, and saying they are "poisoning the blood of our country," a phrase that has drawn criticism as xenophobic and echoing Nazi rhetoric.

In his campaign speeches, Trump rails against the prosecutors who have brought the four criminal cases he currently faces, including Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Georgia's Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis.

Asked if he would instruct his attorney general in a future Trump administration to prosecute Bragg and Willis, he said, "What they've done is a terrible thing," but "no, I don't want to do that."

Trump was also asked about an interview he gave last year when he said he would want to be a dictator for a day to close the southern border and expand domestic energy production.

Trump told Time: "That was said sarcastically. That was meant as a joke."

On Ukraine, Trump said if elected in November "I’m going to try and help Ukraine, but Europe has to get there also and do their job."

Trump has been unclear whether he would continue sending military aid to Ukraine in its war against Russia if he becomes president.

Trump said a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians - a bedrock of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East - was probably no longer feasible.

"I'm not sure a two-state solution anymore is gonna work," Trump said. The animosity between Israelis and the Palestinians, was now so intense it makes a two-state solution "very, very tough."

Trump also said he "wouldn't feel good" about hiring anybody in a new administration who believed Biden won the 2020 election. Trump has never stopped making the baseless claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him because of fraud.

He said if he wins in November, he would serve one more term, "and then I'm gonna leave."

(Reporting by Tim Reid; additional reporting by Doina Chiacu; editing by Ross Colvin and Jonathan Oatis)

Trump sets out stark vision for second term in Time interview


AFP
April 30, 2024

Former US president Donald Trump: — © POOL/AFP Spencer Platt
Danny KEMP

Donald Trump set out a stark vision for an authoritarian second term in an interview with Time magazine published Tuesday, ranging from possible mass deportations of migrants by the US military and detention camps to pregnancy monitoring to enforce abortion bans.

The Republican former president, who will face Democrat incumbent Joe Biden in November’s election, also warned of a crackdown on the “enemy from within” if he secures a White House comeback and failed to rule out political violence if he does not.

Trump, 77, was in court in New York Tuesday for his porn star hush money trial. The interview took place at his Florida home in early April and then by telephone, giving an unusually detailed view of the policies that he normally only paints in broad strokes during campaign rallies.

“I think the enemy from within, in many cases, is much more dangerous for our country than the outside enemies of China, Russia, and various others,” Trump said in the interview when asked if he would be willing to suspend parts of the US Constitution to deal with opponents.


Former US President Donald Trump looks on in the courtroom, during his trial for allegedly covering up hush money payments linked to extramarital affairs, in New York City, on April 29, 2024. Trump, 77, is accused of falsifying business records to reimburse his lawyer, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 hush money payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels just days ahead of the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton. – Copyright POOL/AFP Seth Wenig

On immigration, a potentially decisive issue in the 2024 election amid record numbers of people illegally crossing the southern US border with Mexico, Trump said he would have “no choice” but to launch mass deportations.

This would primarily involve the US National Guard “but if I thought things were getting out of control, I would have no problem using the military,” Trump said.

“These aren’t civilians. These are people that aren’t legally in our country. This is an invasion,” Trump told Time magazine when the interviewer pointed out that US laws prevent the military from being used against civilians on US soil.

Trump said he “would not rule out anything” on setting up migrant detention camps but believed they would not be necessary because his deportation program would be successful.

– Abortion bans –

On abortion, another hot-button election topic, Trump repeated his stance that he would leave the issue for the individual US states to decide whether to prosecute those who violate bans on the procedure.

Trump has claimed credit after the conservative-leaning US Supreme Court featuring three Trump-appointed judges overturned the federal right to abortion in 2022, prompting several Republican-led states to introduce full or partial bans.

Asked if states should monitor women’s pregnancies to see if they have had abortions in defiance of a ban, Trump replied: “I think they might do that.”

He would not commit to vetoing any attempt to introduce a nationwide US abortion ban.

Trump meanwhile refused to rule out the possibility of unrest if he loses in November. His supporters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in a bid to overturn his election loss to Biden.

Trump said that “I think we’re going have a big victory and I think there will be no violence” — but when pushed, added that “if we don’t win, you know, it depends.”

The Republican, who was impeached over the January 6 unrest, also failed to rule out prosecuting Biden if he wins the election.

“Biden, I am sure, will be prosecuted for all of his crimes, because he’s committed many crimes,” he added, without specifying them.

Trump says 'Biden, I am sure, will be prosecuted' in explosive Time Magazine interview

Matthew Chapman
April 30, 2024 

Former U.S. President Donald Trump (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Former President Donald Trump came as close as he ever has to outright saying he would try to get President Joe Biden thrown in prison if he wins another term in office, in an interview released on Tuesday by TIME Magazine.

During the interview, Trump gave seemingly contradictory answers when asked about jailing Biden, although he did say he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate him.

"I wouldn’t want to hurt Biden," Trump said initially. "I have too much respect for the office."

The former president then shifted gears and vowed Biden would face charges if the Supreme Court didn't grant his demands for total immunity to break the law as president.

"If they said that a President doesn’t get immunity, then Biden, I am sure, will be prosecuted for all of his crimes," Trump explained.

The Supreme Court ruling in question is set to come down after oral arguments in which the justices broadly appeared skeptical of the idea presidents enjoy universal immunity for anything done in office, but at least some appeared open to excluding some "official acts" from prosecution.

Biden has not been charged with any criminal offense. For months now, House Republicans have been running an impeachment investigation, looking for evidence that Biden took international bribes when he was serving as vice president, but have failed to unearth any compelling evidence of this and are quietly acknowledging the investigation is going nowhere.

Trump, however, is no stranger to casually demanding his opponents' imprisonment, going all the way back to when he whipped his supporters into chants of "Lock Her Up" against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign, over her use of a personal server for government business which may have inadvertently retained some classified information. She was never found to have broken any law, although ironically, Trump himself is now being prosecuted for the unlawful retention of boxes of highly classified national defense information concealed at Mar-a-Lago.

More recently, in 2019, Trump found himself impeached over a scheme in which he tried to extort the president of Ukraine into announcing a criminal investigation into the Biden family, although he was not convicted in the Senate.

Trump on prospect of election-related violence: 'If we don’t win, you know, it depends'

Brad Reed
April 30, 2024 

Trump supporters rioting at the US Capitol. (Shutterstock.com)

In an interview with Time Magazine, former President Donald Trump wouldn't dismiss the prospect of violence by his supporters in the 2024 presidential election.

“If we don’t win, you know, it depends,” Trump said when asked about the prospect of political violence. “It always depends on the fairness of the election.”

Related to this, Trump also gave the magazine a menacing statement about the purported "fascists" that he blames for his criminal prosecutions.

"I think the enemy from within, in many cases, is much more dangerous for our country than the outside enemies of China, Russia, and various others," he stated.

After losing the 2020 election, Trump infamously refused to concede even after losing dozens of court cases challenging the results.

He then called on his supporters to come to Washington D.C. for what he promised would be a "wild" protest of the certification of the election, and then asked them to march to the United States Capitol building, where they violently clashed with police officers, broke into the Capitol, and sent lawmakers fleeing for their lives.

Trump remained silent on the riot for three hours despite pleas from his own family members before eventually calling on the rioters to go home.

The Capitol riot was far from the only instance of Trump-inspired violence during his political career.

In 2018, a Trump supporter named Cesar Sayoc send multiple pipe bombs to many of Trump's critics including former President Barack Obama and former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

In 2022, Trump supporter Ricky Shiffer fired a nail gun at an FBI field office and tried to infiltrate the building before he was fatally shot by law-enforcement officials.

Instead of condemning violent actions by his supporters during the January 6th riots, Trump in recent months has lauded them as "patriots" who are being held as "hostages" by the federal government despite the fact that many of them were convicted of assaulting police officers.

Trump: 'There is a definite antiwhite feeling in the country' that 'can't be allowed'

Brad Reed
April 30, 2024 

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images


Former President Donald Trump thinks that white Americans are facing discrimination that he says "can't be allowed."

In an interview with Time Magazine, the former president was asked about polls showing that his supporters believe that "antiwhite racism" is now a greater problem than prejudice leveled against other minorities.

"There is a definite antiwhite feeling in the country,” Trump replied in response. “And that can’t be allowed either.”

It's not clear what actions Trump would take to block this "antiwhite feeling in the country" although Time notes that Trump advisers say he will rescind all Biden administration executive orders related to boosting diversity and inclusion.

Trump has a long history of deploying racist dog whistles, starting with his failed quest to prove that former President Barack Obama was born in Kenya and was thus not eligible to be president.

In reality, Obama was born in Hawaii, as Trump himself finally acknowledged in 2016.

This continued throughout his first presidential campaign, when he argued that a judge could not fairly oversee the Trump University fraud case because of his "Mexican" heritage, and during his presidency, when he told four Democratic congresswomen of color to "go back" to their home countries even though all of them are American citizens.

Trump reveals plans to surveil pregnant women and deport millions if re-elected


In sweeping interview with Time, ex-president says he would prosecute Bidens and fire any US attorney who disobeyed him


Ed Pilkington

Tue 30 Apr 2024 


Donald Trump has warned that Joe Biden and his family could face multiple criminal prosecutions once he leaves office unless the US supreme court awards Trump immunity in his own legal battles with the criminal justice system.

In a sweeping interview with Time magazine, Trump painted a startling picture of his second term, from how he would wield the justice department to how he would surveil pregnant women to enforce abortion laws.


Trump made the threat against the Biden family in an interview with Eric Cortellessa of Time, in which he shared the outlines of what the magazine called “an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world”.

Trump made a direct connection between his threat to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Bidens should he win re-election in November with the case currently before the supreme court over his own presidential immunity.

Asked whether he intends to “go after” the Bidens should he gain a second term in the White House, Trump replied: “It depends what happens with the supreme court.”

If the nine justices on the top court – three of whom were appointed by Trump – fail to award him immunity from prosecution, Trump said, “then Biden I am sure will be prosecuted for all of his crimes, because he’s committed many crimes”.

Trump and his Republican backers have long attempted to link Biden to criminal wrongdoing relating to the business affairs of his son Hunter Biden, without unearthing any substantial evidence. Last June, in remarks made at his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, Trump threatened to appoint a special prosecutor were he re-elected “to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family”.

Trump is currently in the thick of four active prosecutions himself, one of which is currently at trial in New York. He is accused of election interference in 2016 tied to hush-money payments to the adult film actor Stormy Daniels.

Last week, the supreme court heard oral arguments in Trump v US in which the former president made a case for broad immunity from prosecution for former presidents including himself. The justices appeared unlikely to grant his request in full, though they sounded willing to consider some degree of immunity for acts carried out as part of official presidential duties.


Several of Trump’s comments in the Time interview will ring alarm bells among those concerned with the former president’s increasingly totalitarian bent.

Trump’s remarks raise the specter that, were he granted a second presidential term, he would weaponize the justice department to seek revenge against the Democratic rival who defeated him in 2020.

Despite the violence that erupted on 6 January 2021 at the US Capitol after he refused to accept defeat in the 2020 election, which is the subject of one of two federal prosecutions he is fighting, Trump also declined to promise a peaceful transfer of power should he lose again in November.

Asked by Cortellessa whether there would be political violence should Trump fail to win, he replied: “If we don’t win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of an election.”

Pouring yet more gasoline onto the fire, Trump not only repeated his falsehood that the 2020 election had been stolen from him, but said he would be unlikely to appoint anyone to a second Trump administration who believed Biden had legitimately prevailed four years ago. “I wouldn’t feel good about it, because I think anybody that doesn’t see that that election was stolen – you look at the proof,” he said.

Overall, the interview conveys a picture of a second Trump presidency in which the occupant of the Oval Office would be determined to wield executive power unconstrained by any historical norms or respect for long-accepted boundaries.

His plans to dominate the Department of Justice would see him pardon most of the more than 800 people who have been convicted of rioting on January 6 and summarily fire any US attorney who disobeyed his instructions.

On abortion, he said that all decision-making power over reproductive rights had been handed to the states following the supreme court’s overturning of the right to a termination in Roe v Wade. He said he might contemplate Republican states putting pregnant women under surveillance to monitor whether they had abortions beyond the state’s designated ban.

“I think they might do that,” Trump said.

Some of his most fearsome policies for a possible Trump 47 presidency concern immigration. He told Time that one of his first priorities would be to initiative a mass deportation of millions of undocumented people.

To achieve that historically unprecedented goal, he would be prepared to deploy the US military and national guard to secure the border and to carry out massive sweeps of potential deportees. He said he would not rule out building new migrant detention camps to house those earmarked for removal, though most of the deportations would happen instantly.