Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Trump’s tariff obsession came up in conversation this morning and I realized that many people may not have seen this great documentary about Trump and trade. If you’re curious about why he is so stuck on it, this explains it:

As FRONTLINE and NPR explore in the new documentary Trump’s Trade War, Trump has taken an aggressive stance on trade for decades. He has pushed a tariff strategy since he first toyed with the idea of running for president in the late 1980s — a message that bore notable similarities to the one that helped propel his 2016 campaign.

As the film recounts, Trump’s ire was then directed at Japan’s trade practices.

“The fact is, you don’t have free trade. We think of it as free trade, but you right now don’t have free trade,” Trump said in a 1987 episode of Larry King Live that’s excerpted in Trump’s Trade War. “A lot of people are tired of watching the other countries ripping off the United States. This is a great country.” He shared similar sentiments in an interview with Oprah.

“He believed from the beginning that there’s really nothing worse than being laughed at,” Marc Fisher, author of Trump Revealed, tells FRONTLINE and NPR in the above scene from the documentary. “And he came to see the Japanese as laughing at the United States and taking advantage of the United States by stealing the jobs, by dumping product here.”

After the Japanese economy cratered, though, Trump would shift his focus to a rising economic power: China. The first time former advisor Steve Bannon came face to face with Trump, a significant amount of their meeting was spent discussing China, Bannon says in the film.

“He’s been a guy that’s watched Lou Dobbs for 30 or 40 years,” Bannon says, referring to the TV commentator who has long criticized free trade and globalization. “And the only thing he had formed as a world view was China.”

He watched Lou Dobbs and saw ships unloading Japanese cars and that was that.

That’s the Great Billionaire Businessman who knows more about the economy than anyone in the history of America.

You know he’s actually an imbecile and I know he’s actually an imbecile but a whole lot of people in this country are deluded that his gibberish is some kind of genius. Go figure.

I have no idea if these attitudes are reflective of the MAGA movement as a whole but if they are, it’s good news:

While Trump has yet to commit to accepting the outcome of the presidential election, several of his supporters who attended rallies in Michigan Friday said they’re ready to do so even if he loses.

Jordan Walton, 24, of Warren, is a restaurant worker and Trump supporter who was too young to vote in 2016. In his first opportunity to participate in a presidential election, Walton backed the former president’s reelection bid in 2020. But unlike some Trump voters, he accepted Trump’s loss as legitimate that year.

“It sucks. But yeah, he lost,” Walton said before heading into the town hall event in Warren.

He said he expects a close election this time and would accept another Trump loss. “Ain’t going to be happy, but you know, it is what it is,” he said.

Walton plans to vote in person, but said Trump’s past railing against absentee voting hurt the Republican presidential candidate’s chances four years ago. “Well, I think he kind of screwed himself to be honest, because he wasn’t promoting among his voters vote-by-mail,” Walton said.

[…]

Thomas Van Overloop, a 19-year-old currently studying at Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, said he wanted to make sure his first vote in a presidential election is cast at the polls, likening it to a rite of passage. 

While Trump disputed, and continues to dispute, his 2020 electoral loss in Michigan, Van Overloop said he doesn’t plan on contending any election results, should Harris win the state.

“I wasn’t a big fan of (Jan. 6) and the stolen election thing,” he said. “I think we’ve got to look to the future instead of looking back.”

Standing across from a table urging Trump voters to request an absentee ballot, David Ortez, 28, of Northville, said he plans to vote in-person on Election Day because he likes “the vibes.” He said he likes going with other people in his life to go vote together, saying it feels like more of an “event” than absentee voting.

Ortez said he would accept another Trump loss and doesn’t think the election was stolen four years ago. He said he’s had conversations with other Trump supporters who disagree, but he said when that happens, he nods his head and tries to avoid an argument.

No matter who wins in what he expects will be a close presidential race, he said he hopes voters will accept the outcome and doesn’t want to see a repeat of Jan. 6. “No crazy s***. We don’t need that. We have too much nonsense in the world right now, and we don’t need more violence. That’s the last thing we need,” said Ortez, who works at a hospital.

While some Trump voters say they’re certain Trump’s 2020 loss was illegitimate, Lauren Marougy, 38, of Commerce Township, hasn’t made up her mind on the matter. “I don’t know, like I really don’t know. I think he won,” she said after a long pause. Marougy said it’d be sad if Trump really did win the 2020 election but didn’t end up in the White House. “I wouldn’t really want to believe that,” she said.

Marougy said she would accept a Trump loss in November. “I accepted it last time,” she said. “I mean, what can I do? I’m not going to like lose my mind over it.” She said she wouldn’t protest his loss, “Because it wouldn’t get me anywhere.”

I can’t imagine there’s going to be another January 6th even if Trump calls for one. They know it’s futile. And J6 was always motivated as much as a (lame) answer to the Women’s March, which naturally turned violent, as anything else. But this time I worry about some discrete militia types deciding to do a little terrorism instead of protest. Blow up a building or two, something along those lines. That would not surprise me at all. But a big protest in DC? I doubt it.

And I think a whole lot of the MAGA types will react the way those quoted above did. After year after year of listening to their Dear Leader lie and whine and complain, I would guess that many of them are tired of it. They’ll vote for him of course. And if he wins again they will feel vindicated. But if he loses, there’s a big part of them that will be resigned if not relieved. He’s exhausting for everyone.

A very big baby penguin!

Meet Pesto, the internet’s favorite fuzzy baby penguin! https://t.co/ZFZVHNJSWZ pic.twitter.com/kzrnTpiemf

— Good Morning America (@GMA) September 23, 2024

The Smithsonian Magazine wrote it up:

In late January, caretakers at Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium in Australia were ecstatic when a king penguin chick successfully emerged from his shell. The baby, which they named Pesto, was the only king penguin born at the aquarium in the last two years. He weighed less than a pound.

They’ve since watched as the youngster grew—and kept growing. As of Wednesday, Pesto weighs a whopping 51.8 pounds, according to the aquarium. 

His fame took off when the aquarium threw a gender reveal party (they can’t tell through a blood test.) Now he’s an internet superstar.

But why is Pesto such a big boy?

Caretakers chalk up his unusual size to a “hearty appetite”—he eats more than 25 fish a day—and good genes. His biological father, a king penguin named Blake, is one of the biggest and oldest penguins at the facility, weighing in at around 39 pounds, per New Atlas’ Bronwyn Thompson.

However, Pesto is being raised by a younger couple, Tango and Hudson, who have been taking good care of him, according to the aquarium. For reference, they both weigh just about 24 pounds. As Jacinta Early, the aquarium’s education supervisor, tells BBC News’ Tiffanie Turnbull, Pesto “eclipses” the pair, “which also makes him look comically large.”

Right now, Pesto is still covered in fuzzy brown down. But in the coming months, his baby feathers will be replaced by black, white and orange plumage.

“He’s going to start losing that really adorable baby fluff,” says Early to the Associated Press’ Rod McGuirk. “It might take him one to two months to really get rid of it. Then he’ll be nice and sleek and streamlined.”

Around the same time, he may also lose some weight. As he matures, he’ll likely settle in at closer to 33 pounds, per NPR. Still, Pesto will probably always be a “big boy,” Smale tells CNN’s Lilit Marcus.

“He’s already significantly taller than his dad,” she adds.

Apparently they usually weigh between 31 and 37 lbs. Wow. But they aren’t as big as the emperor penguins which can weight up to 100 lbs! What???

Luckily these birds are not on the endangered species list. In fact, their numbers are increasing. They are very, very cool.

He’s going to prosecute Google because there are too many negative stories on the page?

He’s out of his friggin’ mind. What an infantile moron.

Does anyone know about it? Not if they watch Fox. They barely even mention the stock market highs.

Varney spends less than 10 seconds on the Dow hitting ANOTHER all time high, then quickly pivots to bashing Harris while unflattering photos of her flash on the screen pic.twitter.com/d5S60K4Dnw

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 27, 2024

T%his is why we can’t have nice things.

I mean, he really hates them,…

Media Matters found a number of examples of JDs irrational hostility toward childless people, particularly women who haven’t given birth. It’s creepy and bizarre:

Vance on conservative podcast: Childless American leaders are “more sociopathic” than those with children, and they make the country “less mentally stable.” In a November 2020 interview, Vance said that “so many people, especially in America’s leadership class,” don’t have the “cadences of life” that come with having children, adding, “I worry that it makes people more sociopathic and ultimately our whole country a little bit less, less mentally stable.” He went on to say that the “most deranged” and “most psychotic” posters on Twitter “are people who don’t have kids at home.” [CNN.com, 7/30/24] 

Vance tweet: “Our country’s low birth rates have made many elites sociopaths.” [CNN.com, 7/30/24; Twitter/X, 3/21/21]

Vance to Sebastian Gorka: Kamala Harris is part of a “childless cabal of people who don’t really care about the future.” On the July 12, 2021, edition of America First with Sebastian Gorka, Vance said: “Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC, all of these people. It’s like a party where the next generation of leaders, none of them have kids. … The entire Democrat Party is like this childless cabal of people who don’t really care about the future.” [America First with Sebastian Gorka, 7/12/21]

Vance tweet: “Paul Krugman is one of many weird cat ladies who have too much power in our country.” [Twitter/X, 7/25/21]

Vance tweet: “We should give miserable, childless lefties less control over our country and its kids.” [Twitter/X, 7/27/21]

Vance on Fox: “If you want to experiment on somebody’s kids, Kamala Harris, AOC, and so forth, have your own kids.” On the July 30, 2021, edition of Fox News Primetime, Vance said he was “sick of these bureaucrats experimenting on my children” by requiring kids to be vaccinated against COVID-19 and recommending masking in schools in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Vance added: “That’s experimenting on our kids. If you want to experiment on somebody’s kids, Kamala Harris, AOC, and so forth, have your own kids — lay off of mine.” [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 7/30/21]

Vance on Fox: Democrats are the party that “doesn’t have kids,” so they are “dominated by a bunch of sociopaths who don’t care about America’s children.” On the August 4, 2021, edition of Fox News Primetime, Vance said that Democrats “feel comfortable experimenting on children” because they are “increasingly the party in the movement that doesn’t have kids.” He went on to say, “I think basically what we’ve done is that we’ve allowed the Democrats to become dominated by a bunch of sociopaths who don’t care about America’s children. And we just need to call it out.” [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 8/4/21]

Vance on Fox: The left “has effectively been taken over by a lot of childless people, by the AOCs of the world, the Kamala Harrises of the world.” On the August 8, 2021, edition of Fox’s The Next Revolution, Vance said that he supported giving parents extra votes to represent their children. He explained that this would counterbalance “the left,” which he said “has effectively been taken over by a lot of childless people, by the AOCs of the world, the Kamala Harrises of the world. Those people now run the agenda of the Democratic Party, and we’ve got to push back against that.” [Fox News, The Next Revolution, 8/8/24]

Vance campaign email: “We’ve allowed ourselves to be dominated by childless sociopaths” who “don’t have a direct stake in this country.” An August 2021 campaign email, written in Vance’s voice and obtained by CNN.com, highlighted “the serious issue of radical childless leaders in this country,” adding, “We can’t have people who don’t have a direct stake in this country making our most important decisions.” The email continued, “We’ve allowed ourselves to be dominated by childless sociopaths – they’re invested in NOTHING because they’re not invested in this country’s children.” [CNN.com, 7/30/24]

Vance campaign email: “Our country is basically run by childless Democrats” who “don’t have a direct stake in it.” A second Vance campaign email read, “Our country is basically run by childless Democrats who are miserable in their own lives and want to make the rest of the country miserable too… What I want to know is: why have we turned our country over to people who don’t have a direct stake in it?” [CNN.com, 7/30/24]

Vance tweet: “The cat ladies, man. They must be stopped.” Vance was responding to a poll which found a “significant percentage fear having children because of climate crisis.” [Twitter/X, 9/14/21] 

Vance on conservative podcast: Journalists are “miserable and unhappy” because their biological clocks have run out. On the September 20, 2021, edition of the Moment of Truth podcast, Vance attacked people “who can’t have kids” because they “passed the biological period when it was possible” as “miserable” people who pursue “racial or gender equity” to give “their life meaning.” He also claimed that “a core part of what’s wrong with journalism in America is that you have a group of people who are dealing with their own, like, psychotic breaks” because “one of the weird lies the elites have been told is “hat it’s very easy to start a family when you’re 45,” but “God says otherwise.” [American Moment, Moment of Truth, 9/20/21]

Vance on Breitbart: “The Kamala Harrises, they don’t have kids” but “want to take our kids and brainwash them so that their ideas continue to exist in the next generation.” On the October 4, 2021, edition of Breitbart News Daily, Vance claimed that the left’s “next generation leaders,” including “the Kamala Harrises, they don’t have kids. And so there’s this weird way where they want to take our kids and brainwash them so that their ideas continue to exist in the next generation.” Vance added: “If you want to brainwash children, have your own kids to brainwash.” [Breitbart News, Breitbart News Daily, 10/4/21]

It appears that the Trump campaign vetters (whoever they were) didn’t think any of this was relevant. The Bulwark reports:

The opposition-research dossier put together by the Trump campaign on JD Vance—and allegedly stolen from them by foreign hackers—was published on Thursday by journalist Ken Klippenstein on his Substack.

And what stands out is not what’s in the 271-page file, but what was left out.

Vance’s infamous “childless cat ladies” comment was not listed among the liabilities that the Trump campaign assessed about the then-prospective running mate.

That comment from Vance—which was made, among other places, during a 2021 Fox interview with Tucker Carlson—ended up dogging both him and the Trump campaign in the weeks after he was selected, helping Kamala Harris’s campaign drag down his favorability ratings and define him negatively. Taylor Swift, among others, referenced the “childless cat lady” dig when announcing her support for Harris.

[…]

The exclusion suggests that Trump campaign researchers either missed Vance’s incendiary remarks or thought they were no big deal. The former, however, seems implausible as the document posted by Klippenstein included dozens of other citations of Vance’s appearances on Carlson’s show.

Indeed, much of the oppo file, Klippenstein notes, consists of a copious scrubbing of the public record that is “factual and intelligently written.” It’s typical opposition research assembled with open-source information available online and in the news media concerning Vance’s prior criticisms of Trump, his “obstructionist” stance on Ukraine funding, his support of abortion restrictions, opposition to marijuana legalization, support of “pseudo Christian values,” and comments on race.

Vance comes across as a right-leaning classical liberal who became a Trump era conservative populist. There was nothing obviously disqualifying in it, which explains, in part, how he got selected for the post.

Maybe they just didn’t see what a problem such misogynist commentary might cause. But it sounds as though someone wants to present Vance as a regular Trump guy instead of the tech-bro authoritarian ideologue he really is. This guy isn’t Marge Greene or even Tim Scott.

It’s all about him:

Trump to Zelenskyy: Pulitzer Prize winner. He got a picture of the bullet. pic.twitter.com/LGp6jCgNBr

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 27, 2024

Trump, standing aside Zelenskyy, lies that he's "leading in the polls," decries "the impeachment hoax" that stemmed from him trying to extort Ukraine in 2019, and claims that Zelenskyy called him to congratulate him on Zelenskyy's victory (you do the math on that one) pic.twitter.com/tC6RUstFSV

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 27, 2024

Trump: I have a very good relationship with President Putin

Zelenskyy: I hope we have more good relations with us

Trump: Oh, ha ha I see pic.twitter.com/5vgHy0xT0t

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 27, 2024

Trump standing next to Zelenskyy: "He wants a fair transaction to take place … I'm sure President Putin wants it to stop." pic.twitter.com/rHokqs0Jtg

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 27, 2024

“It takes two to tango” “I have a very good relationship with Putin.”

Trump wants something that’s “good for both sides.”

I feel sick. He’s standing next to a man whose country was invaded, trying to defend his people and this asshole says “I’m sure President Putin wants it to stop.”

He will give this country and the rest of Europe to his pal Putin if he gets in again. He is an immoral imbecile.

A comparison of the statements made by Donald Trump and Kamala Harris on Ukraine over the last 24 hours pic.twitter.com/ZRvsZsLM1P

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 27, 2024

If you haven’t seen this Barbara Walters interview of Donald Trump form 1990, take the time to watch it. Walters was known in this period for her interviews of powerful people and boy did she have Trump’s number.

Imagine what that Orange Liberace wannabe would do if someone interviewed him like that today? Imagine any reporter throwing all that at him today?

Ever since the 2004 election one of the Republican Party’s favorite tactics against Democratic opponents is the swift boat attack. You’ll recall that Sen. John Kerry was the Democratic presidential nominee and since the country was at war in Iraq and Afghanistan the campaign was emphasizing his heroic Vietnam war record. Some veterans, angry at Kerry’s later anti-war activities, contended that Kerry, a swift boat officer, was lying about his wartime actions and the GOP coordinated a full-fledged smear campaign which has become known as swift boating.

The operation was run by none other than Chris LaCivita, Donald Trump’s 2024 co-campaign manager so I suppose it’s not too surprising that the campaign believes it’s found a way to swift boat Kamala Harris. Since that inane accusation that she was lying bout being Black didn’t really work out, they seem to think that calling into question the veracity of Harris’s claim to have worked at McDonald’s when she was a teenager is some kind of stolen valor. (As the Daily Show quipped, “How dare she disrespect our men and women in uniform like that!)

Trump has been pounding this theme for the last couple of weeks at every event, screaming that she is a liar, as if lying about working at a burger joint 41 years ago disrespects a sacred American institution which disqualifies her for the presidency. He’s so upset about this that he’s promising to go to a McDonald’s himself and “work the fries” for half an hour to prove … what? That she couldn’t possibly have scooped the fries as well as he does? I don’t get it.

He brought it up at this rally in Indiana, Pennsylvania on Monday

I think I’m gonna go to a McDonald’s next week, some place. “I’m gonna go to a McDonald’s, and I’m going to work the french fry job for about a half an hour. I want to see how it is.”

“But she said she worked, and grew up in terrible conditions, she worked at McDonald’s, it was such—SHE NEVER WORKED THERE! And these FAKE news reporters will never report it. They don’t want to report it because they’re FAKE! They’re FAKE! They don’t want to report it,”

“She never worked at McDonald’s, but it was a big part of her résumé.

Here he was in New York on Thursday

Is he mad about it @KamalaHarris working at McDonalds because he loves it so much? https://t.co/ZCAAdiOAzy

— Chip Douglas (@TheComixKid) September 26, 2024

LaCivita needs to drill him a little better on this one. He got the talking points all confused. The problem was supposed to be that she’d never listed it on her résumé, not that it was big part of it.

The LA Times reported on how this whole story took off in the right wing media sphere:

On Aug. 29, the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news website, published a report that questioned whether Harris had worked at McDonald’s, saying that the job was not listed on a resume she submitted a year after college and noting that biographers had not mentioned the work either. Trump’s campaign seized on the story, demanding that Harris prove she worked for the chain.

The Free Beacon story found it very odd that she didn’t have it on the professional résumé, that listed her work as a law clerk, assistant at the Federal Trade Commission and an internship with former California senator Alan Cranston. Her summer job at the fry station wasn’t exactly relevant. ( Full discIosure: I worked at Uncles Pizza Parlor when I was a teenager and I never once listed it on a résumé or even a job application. I do, however, have a burn scar on my right forearm to prove it.)

But here we have Trump getting the story backwards and saying it was a “big part of her resume” because he is addled and doesn’t make sense half the time anyway.

For some reason he really likes this smear and often gets very animated and loud when he talks about it, I would guess because he thinks his working class followers will be very offended that she would lie about doing the job that they do, as if they identify strongly as fast food professionals. Trump knows nothing about what it’s like to work in a job like that since he was born wealthy and never worked anywhere that didn’t have his name on it but he does love to eat McDonald’s so maybe this particularly aggrieves him?

MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle interviewed Harris this week and asked about the McDonald’s job and Harris explained why she has brought it up in this campaign. She replied:

Part of the reason I even talk about having worked at McDonald’s is because there are people who work at McDonald’s in our country who are trying to raise a family — I worked there as a student, I was a kid — who work there trying to raise families and pay rent on that. And I think part of the difference between me and my opponent includes our perspective on the needs of the American people and what our responsibility then is to meet those needs.

Kamala Harris confirms that she did in fact work at McDonald's and says, "Part of the reason I even talk about having worked at McDonald's is because there are people who work in McDonald's who are trying to raise a family." pic.twitter.com/kBhw8A6xZo

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 25, 2024

She’s right about that and Trump and his team seem to think he needs to show more of a common touch because he’s been doing something very different in this campaign. He’s been trying to mingle with “real people” something he never did much of before. This week he went to a grocery store and you would have thought he’d made a quick trip to Mars:

Trump’s first time at a grocery store pic.twitter.com/eWHZO77mfd

— Wu Tang is for the Children (@WUTangKids) September 24, 2024

These “real people” events are always strange and very inauthentic for Trump. He used to avoid such corny moments, perhaps understanding his appeal better back when he was still seen as a reality TV celebrity. He was quoted saying back in 2016:

Don’t forget that when I ran in the primaries, when I was in the primaries, everyone said you can’t do that in New Hampshire, you can’t do that. You have to go and meet little groups, you have to see — cause I did big rallies, 3-4-5K people would come . . . and they said, “Wait a minute, Trump can never make it, because that’s not the way you deal with New Hampshire, you have to go to people’s living rooms, have dinner, have tea, have a good time.” I think if they ever saw me sitting in their living room they’d lose total respect for me. They’d say, I’ve got Trump in my living room, this is weird.

But this year he’s going to go to McDonald’s and make french fries to prove that Kamala Harris is a liar. Now that’s what I call weird.

Salon

My whole life I’ve been hearing about Neville Chamberlain and appeasement from the right wing, not to mention the “sell-out at Yalta.”

Take a look at this:

He relented and agreed to a meeting with Zelensky tomorrow. I wonder if he’ll tell him that he should just surrender when he wins the election because he’ll sure as hell make sure there’s no more military support once he takes office?

These rambling answers seem to really please much of the media (not Haake who does try to persist) because he’s talking to them. It doesn’t matter that he can’t answer any questions because he is completely clueless. He’s talking and that seems to be all that matters.