Trump campaign mocks Democratic convention's 'dismal, dark, depressing' vision of country

Following the third night of the Democratic convention, Lara Trump, the president's daughter-in-law and his campaign's senior advisor, said she felt the featured speakers gave a "dismal, dark, depressing vision of America."
"Who wants to live in their America? I don't," she on the campaign's convention recap show "The Real Joe Biden."
Stacy Washington, the co-chair of Black Voices for Trump, agreed Wednesday wasn't any better than Tuesday, "which isn’t saying much. We’re getting a lot of [speakers] coming out and complaining about the president and not a lot of ideas."
“This whole night was low energy,” Boris Epshteyn, Trump 2020 strategic adviser, added.
Trump campaign senior adviser Corey Lewandowski said he thought Wednesday was the party's best chance to make its pitch. The evening featured former President Obama and vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris. "They put their best heavy hitters tonight," he said.
Washington said she had problems with the Clintons playing a big role at the convention. “They have problems," she explained. "They don’t have any solutions. They don’t even bring any coalitions anymore.”
She said it would have been better for the Democratic Party to have younger, fresher speakers except all of them are “hard left” and not “palatable” for the target Middle America audience.
Washington agreed that Obama didn’t have the same “luster” he from when he was president.
“Not only did he not bring it, but…it was actually a letdown," she said.
Lewandowski said he thought it was “demeaning” that Biden’s criteria for picking Harris was “not the best person for the job” but rather that she was a Black woman. “Joe Biden panders to race and he will lose because of it,” he said.
Paris Dennard, senior communications adviser to the RNC, said he thinks Harris will continue to “turn people off."
“When you look at this speech that she gave tonight it just reinforces that she’s an opportunist and that she’s a phony," he said.
Looking ahead to the last night of the convention, Lewandowski said it would be “Joe Biden’s moment in the sun. I don’t think it’s going to shine very brightly…but this is very important for Joe Biden."
"There’s no way the convention will end on a high note because they’re closing with Biden, Dennard added. “Hopefully [Biden] can stay on script, read the teleprompter, sit down and let us go forward with the vision to make American great again with this great American comeback that’s happening not because of Joe Biden or Kamala Harris but solely because of President Trump and the leadership he’s provided this nation.”

Trump campaign releasing Hunter Biden ad as Joe Biden accepts nomination: report

The Trump campaign reportedly plans to release a new digital ad targeting Hunter Biden Thursday, the same day his father, former Vice President Joe Biden, will accept the Democratic Party’s nomination for president.

The campaign ad, part of a seven-figure buy, will focus on Hunter Biden’s dealings with China while his father was vice president, suggesting he used his father's position for personal profit, according to Politico.
The ad shows a reporter asking Hunter Biden if negotiations for a joint investment fund with a Chinese bank took place during a 2013 flight with the vice president for a Bejing trip they took together.
The ad will run on YouTube.
In July 2019, the president asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a private phone call to investigate Hunter Biden’s involvement with Ukrainian oil company Burisma and in the fall he told reporters he thought China should also investigate the Bidens, “cause what happened with China is just about as bad as what happened in Ukraine.”
Biden’s work with the Burisma has come under scrutiny after Trump alleged that Joe Biden inappropriately used his diplomatic influence in Ukraine to help his son.
Hunter Biden said in an interview last year business never came up on the Bejing flight and said he was on the trip because of his daughter, according to Politico.
The ad also broadly paints Joe Biden as pro-China, The Hill reports.

Trump’s Ukrainian phone call eventually led to his impeachment on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress charges. He was acquitted in February.
No evidence of wrongdoing has been found on the part of either Biden and both men deny the allegations. Hunter Biden has since pledged to avoid business deals with foreign entities if his father becomes president.
The Senate has also been investigating Hunter Biden’s involvement in Ukraine.

Bill de Blasio attempts to defend his wife's $1.1M salary for staff

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio attempted to defend first lady Chirlane McCray against backlash on Wednesday after it was discovered she had private staff that's getting paid millions in taxpayer money.
McCray, who is reportedly looking to run for Brooklyn borough president, has a staff of 14 people, sources told The CIty.
McCray’s office provided The CIty with names of eight full-time employees whose salaries added up to about $1.1 million. However, according to current and former employees in the Mayor’s office -- and public records -- McCray’s staff makes closer to $2 million.
"That article [referring to The City story] didn't take into account the work that's being done," de Blasio said. "This work is about the needs of the people of this city."
He added, "The mental health crisis is much deeper because of the coronavirus, across the whole city, that's one of the things she's been working on intensely, but also as the co-chair of the internal task force this extraordinary task force on racial inclusion that has been moving big policy changes."
This news comes as the mayor is considering laying off up to 22,000 municipal workers in the fall due to budget constraints related to COVID-19.
Fellow contender for the Brooklyn borough presidency, City Councilman Antonio Reynoso (D-Brooklyn), slammed the spending, according to The New York Post.
“With over 22,000 layoffs of city workers looming, the mayor can’t seriously expect to keep funding full-time, highly paid speechwriters and professional videographers for his wife’s political ambitions. It’s wrong, and it needs to stop,” Reynoso said.

President shoots holes in Obama, Harris praise of 'Slow Joe' in ALL-CAPS tweetstorm

As Kamala Harris was giving her vice-presidential nomination speech, President Trump called to mind tensions between Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his running mate that played out during the primary season.
And as former President Barack Obama delivered his own address during the Democratic Convention, the president questioned why Obama had waited so long to endorse his former running mate.
“BUT DIDN’T SHE CALL HIM A RACIST???” Trump wrote on Twitter as the third night of the convention concluded with Harris’ remarks. “DIDN’T SHE SAY HE WAS INCOMPETENT???”
“WHY DID HE REFUSE TO ENDORSE SLOW JOE UNTIL IT WAS ALL OVER, AND EVEN THEN WAS VERY LATE? WHY DID HE TRY TO GET HIM NOT TO RUN?” Trump wrote as Obama delivered a speech which, in a rare move for the stately former president, called his successor out by name.
"HE SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN, AND GOT CAUGHT!"  Trump added later. 
Obama did not endorse Biden until April, when he was all but assured the nomination. Bernie Sanders had already dropped out of the race and endorsed Biden. There were reports of tension between Obama and Biden all throughout the campaign trail, with the New York Times reporting Obama told Biden last August “you don’t have to do this.” One Democrat who spoke with Obama said he reportedly told him: “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f--k things up.”
While Harris has not called Biden ‘a racist,’ she did condemn the former vice president for bragging of his work with segregationist senators last summer during the height of primary debates.
Biden touted his ability to “get things done” decades ago by working with southern segregationist senators.
"It concerns me deeply,” Harris told Fox News in 2019 of Biden’s comments.
She continued, "If those men had their way, I wouldn't' be in the United States Senate and on this elevator right now."
Later, Harris made her mark, if short-lived, on the primary campaign trail in a personal moment when she called her now-running mate out for his past stance against bussing.
"There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools and she was bused to school every day. That little girl was me," Harris, of Indian and Jamaican descent, said at the time.

Bill Clinton Cartoons

UN crisis looms as US readies demand for Iran sanctions

 

FILE - In this July 20, 2015, file photo, members of the Security Council vote at United Nations headquarters on the landmark nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers. The United States is planning a new diplomatic line of attack on Iran after a resounding defeat in the U.N. Security Council. Having lost its long-shot bid to indefinitely extend an international arms embargo on Iran last week, the Trump administration is poised to call for the re-imposition of all U.N. sanctions that had been eased under the 2015 nuclear deal from which the U.S. withdrew two years ago.(AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — After a resounding defeat in the U.N. Security Council, the United States is poised to call for the United Nations to reimpose sanctions on Iran under a rarely used diplomatic maneuver — a move that is likely to further isolate the Trump administration and may set off a credibility crisis for the United Nations.

The sanctions had been eased under the 2015 nuclear deal that President Donald Trump withdrew from two years ago. But last week the U.S. lost its long-shot bid to indefinitely extend an international arms embargo on Iran and has now moved to a new diplomatic line of attack.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is set to travel to New York on Thursday to notify the Security Council president that the United States is invoking the “snapback” mechanism in the council’s resolution that endorsed the nuclear deal. It allows participants to demand the restoration of all U.N. sanctions in a complicated procedure that cannot be blocked by a veto.

The State Department is expected to announce Pompeo’s travel plans on Wednesday, but he and Trump have made no secret of their intention to invoke snapback, especially since their attempt to extend the arms embargo suffered an embarrassing defeat last Friday. The U.S. won just one other “yes” vote, with China and Russia opposed and the 11 other members abstaining.

Just like the arms embargo extension, the administration’s snapback plan is bitterly opposed by China and Russia as well as the other Security Council members, including U.S. allies Britain and France, and could set the stage for a battle over the legitimacy of the U.N.’s most powerful body.

Alone among the council’s 15 members, the U.S. argues that as an original participant in the nuclear deal it retains the right to demand restoration of sanctions. The others, which still support the deal, maintain the U.S. lost that standing when Trump pulled out of the accord in 2018, but it isn’t clear if they can stop the invocation of snapback through technical procedural means.

The U.S. argument is highly controversial. It has been ridiculed by the Chinese, Russians and Europeans, and not even the biggest Iran hawks in the United States all agree with it.

Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton, no slouch when it comes to anti-Iran positions, has long said that the U.S. lost its snapback standing when it withdrew from the deal and that moving ahead is not worth the damage it could do to U.S. veto power in the council.

In a stunningly rare moment of agreement, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif praised Bolton this week. “At least he is consistent — a trait notably absent in this U.S. administration,” Zarif tweeted.

And, former U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman, a top Obama administration negotiator of the nuclear agreement, said: “It was never expected that someone who withdrew from the (deal) would have standing to in fact bring the snapback provision.”

Thus, the administration’s insistence on moving ahead has set the stage for a contentious dispute and the possibility that the U.S. call would simply be ignored by other U.N. members. That outcome would potentially call into question the Security Council’s ability to enforce its own legally binding decisions.

Under the terms of Security Council Resolution 2231, which enshrined the nuclear deal and to which the U.S. remains a party, the invocation of snapback for significant Iranian noncompliance starts a 30-day clock during which the council must vote affirmatively to continue the sanctions relief that Iran was given in return for curbs on its nuclear program.

Pompeo is expected to present evidence of significant noncompliance, likely the latest reports of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, on Thursday. Iran does not deny violating some terms of the deal but says its actions have been forced by the U.S. withdrawal and the Trump administration’s reimposition of U.S. sanctions.

As envisioned by the Obama administration, which led the negotiations that culminated in the nuclear deal, the United States or any other permanent member of the council could use its veto to block the continuation of sanctions relief. In theory, that would result in the reimposition of sanctions.

But whether any other council member will respond to the U.S. move by introducing a resolution to extend sanctions relief is an open question. Some U.N. experts believe the others will just ignore the Americans, leaving the Trump administration in the possible position of having to introduce its own resolution to extend sanctions relief for the sole purpose of vetoing it.

“We don’t know if any country will do that,” said Richard Gowan, the U.N. director of the International Crisis Group. “If the general view of the council is that the U.S. doesn’t have standing, it’s quite possible that no council member will even engage at that level.”

“The U.S. could actually table a resolution of its own and then veto it, just to show that it is going through the procedural motions, although that would look a little bit farcical,” Gowan said.

___

Lee reported from Washington.

After years of big moments, Bill Clinton’s DNC role shrinks

WASHINGTON (AP) — Few people ever have logged more time on Democratic National Convention stages than Bill Clinton.

But when the former president delivered his 11th speech to his party’s faithful gathered virtually on Tuesday, it was like none in his four decades of convention moments.

Clinton’s remarks to the fully online gathering were pre-recorded at his home in Chappaqua, New York, like many of the speakers in a political year upended by the coronavirus. And they were brief at just under 5 minutes, which was all the former president was allotted by a party eager to show it is moving out of the politics of the past.

Clinton didn’t mince words. He tore into President Donald Trump repeatedly, making reference to his own understanding of the demands of the role.

“If you want a president who defines the job as spending hours a day watching TV and zapping people on social media, he’s your man,” Clinton said.

He added of the pandemic, “Denying, distracting and demeaning works great if you’re trying to entertain and inflame. But in a real crisis, it collapses like a house of cards.”

Even abbreviated, Clinton’s appearance was tricky for his party. Many Democrats are searching for new leaders, even as they nominate former Vice President Joe Biden, and pushing for a liberal agenda that leaves behind the centrist politics of the Clinton era. Further complicating the moment for Clinton is the #MeToo movement, which has forced some women to reevaluate Clinton’s history of sexual misconduct allegations.

The former president spoke early in the evening, shortly after former President Jimmy Carter. Clinton’s remarks went beyond the blistering speech he delivered during his 2016 convention address — when he helped the party formally choose his wife, Hillary, as its presidential nominee.

Clinton stressed what he described as Trump’s economic failures amid the coronavirus’ spread, arguing that the fallout on families and businesses wouldn’t be nearly as dire had Trump not so bungled the federal government’s response.

“At a time like this, the Oval Office should be a command center. Instead, it’s a storm center,” Clinton said. “There’s only chaos. Just one thing never changes — his determination to deny responsibility and shift the blame. The buck never stops there.”

Clinton praised Biden, calling him a “go-to-work president. A down-to-earth, get-the-job-done guy.” But he focused most of his energy on Trump, imploring the audience, “You know what Donald Trump will do with four more years: blame, bully and belittle.”

Clinton, who turns 74 on Wednesday, is three years younger than Biden and remains a force within the party — even though it has left behind many of the market-based reforms and centrism he popularized in the 1990s.

Former California Gov. Jerry Brown, who unsuccessfully ran against Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 1992, said it’s impressive how the former president has continued to carve out a role for himself in Democratic politics. But nothing lasts forever.

“If you hang around long enough,” the 82-year-old Brown said, “you won’t fit.”

Clinton was a visible part of the 2016 convention and campaign, even as Trump repeatedly raised the former president’s past — and invited a group of the former president’s accusers to attend a debate. The move was an attempt to counter the criticism Trump received after video surfaced of Trump bragging about kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women who weren’t his wife.

This time, Clinton’s role was limited in a way he hasn’t experienced since the conventions of 1980 and 1984, when he spoke but wasn’t among the keynote headliners. His debut for most of the country came in 1988 — before rising star New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was born — when his speech was so long that he famously drew applause when he declared, “In conclusion.”

Four years later, Clinton was the nominee and delivered his acceptance speech. He addressed the convention as president in 1996 and 2000. But he may be best known for his convention speech in 2012, when he was widely credited for making a more passionate and crisp case for why Barack Obama deserved a second term than Obama did himself.

That address from eight years ago went well over Clinton’s allotted time and lasted nearly 50 minutes — or 10 times how long he spoke Tuesday.

___

Associated Press writer Kathleen Ronayne in Sacramento, Calif., contributed to this report.

Trumps vows to work with Kimberly Klacik to 'bring Baltimore back'

President Trump Tuesday praised the Republican woman running for the late Rep. Elijah Cummings’ former Baltimore seat as someone who will “bring Baltimore back.”
“Kimberly will work with the Trump Administration and we will bring Baltimore back, and fast,” the president said of Kimberly Klacik, 38, who is running against Rep. Kweisi Mfume, 71. Mfume defeated her in April's special election. They will now face each other again in November.
“Don’t blow it Baltimore, the Democrats have destroyed your city!” Trump added.
Klacik gained attention this week after a campaign ad she posted walking the streets of what she calls the “real” Baltimore: “crumbling infrastructure,” “abandoned homes” and “crime” went viral with hundreds of thousands of views.
“Do you care about Black lives? The people that run Baltimore don’t,” Klacik says in the video titled “Black Lives Don’t Matter To Democrats” as she walks through empty streets.
Her video also got attention from other prominent Republicans, including Donald Jr. and Eric Trump, Trump senior adviser Brad Parscale and Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, who wrote, “Wow. Just wow.”
Trump has been sharply critical of Democrats’ leadership in Baltimore in the past, including Cummings, calling the city once a “rodent infested mess.”
"I really just want to get in office and show people that you [can] have a better quality of life," Klacik told Laura Ingraham Tuesday. "It is possible, especially if you vote Republican."
Klacik has excited Republicans over potentially flipping the seat, but political scientist Matthew Crenson called her bid for the deeply blue district “practically impossible," according to WJZ-TV.
Mfume held the 7th District seat for a decade until 1996 when he left to become president of the NAACP, according to the Baltimore Sun.