Barack Obama may be the greatest presidential orator in modern American history. But his comments yesterday about the killing of George Floyd were awkward and strained. The reason is that Obama told the same story about America that he’s been telling since he entered national politics 15 years ago. It’s a hopeful story about a country that is more united than divided. And it’s never ...
On Sunday, Alexander Burns of The New York Times reported that Joe Biden is “seeking big Democratic ideas.” With his congressional allies, the former vice president is “racing to assemble a new governing agenda” that is “far bolder than anything the party establishment has embraced before.” As examples of this “exponentially bigger” agenda, Burns cited conversations the Biden campaign is having about massive new investments ...
Tara Reade’s allegation against Joe Biden is not going away. Reade, who worked on his Senate staff in the 1990s, accuses Biden of sexually assaulting her in a hallway. Last week, The Intercept discovered a 1993 call to the talk-show host Larry King from a woman who Reade says was her now-deceased mother. The call, which refers to “problems” that the woman’s daughter had while ...
If he wants to attack Donald Trump’s response to COVID-19, Joe Biden has an embarrassment of options. The presumptive Democratic nominee could slam Trump for ignoring his own advisers’ warnings about the potential severity of the virus. Biden could skewer the president for his administration’s inability to develop a coronavirus test. He could blast the Trump administration for failing to adequately stockpile personal protective equipment. ...
Mainstream news descriptions of the right-wing media’s approach to COVID-19 typically go something like this: At first, prominent conservatives on television and radio downplayed the threat; only when Donald Trump himself acknowledged that the coronavirus was likely to kill large numbers of Americans did his enablers on Fox News and talk radio reverse course. …
The American people have done Donald Trump a giant favor. By telling pollsters they want to extend social-distancing restrictions, they’ve persuaded him—for the moment—to act in his own political self-interest. Trump has great difficulty accepting short-term pain in exchange for long-term gain—even though in the case of COVID-19, doing so is his best reelection strategy. Luckily for him, ordinary Americans are demanding that he do ...
The lesson of COVID-19, influential politicians and commentators are claiming, is that the United States must delink itself from China. “China unleashed this plague on the world,” Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas recently told Sean Hannity, “and China has to be held accountable.” Cotton, who has proposed legislation to ban Americans from buying Chinese pharmaceuticals, isn’t alone. Representative Jim Banks of Indiana has urged Donald ...
Not long ago, commentators were declaring that “Bernie Sanders’ revolution is coming” and “It’s Bernie’s party’s now.” Pundits were delivering eulogies over the supposedly lifeless body of Joe Biden’s campaign. The moderate candidates in the Democratic presidential race who hadn’t yet dropped out were lagging behind Sanders. The only chance of stopping the Vermont senator’s socialist takeover of the Democratic Party, aides to Michael Bloomberg ...
Figuring out why Pete Buttigieg dropped out of the presidential race yesterday is easy. He had gotten trounced in South Carolina, appeared likely to get trounced on Super Tuesday, and, according to FiveThirtyEight, had a less than 1 percent chance of winning a plurality of pledged delegates overall. The more interesting question is how Buttigieg—who dazzled the national media, captivated big donors, and came close ...
If the Democratic National Committee is trying to rig the presidential race against Bernie Sanders, it’s doing a lousy job. By letting Michael Bloomberg into last night’s debate in Nevada, the DNC did the Vermont senator an enormous favor. Sanders is clearly the Democratic front-runner. He tied for first place in Iowa; he won New Hampshire; he’s ahead in national polls; he’s way ahead in ...