Trump

New Republic - Donald Trump’s campaign and the Trump Organization paid off nine witnesses called to testify in criminal cases against Trump, an explosive new report from ProPublica reveals. Witnesses who testified in defense of Trump for his numerous criminal cases received massive raises, new jobs, cushy severance packages, and more, all conveniently coinciding with being called to testify or after providing testimony favorable to Trump—and the excuses from Team Trump couldn’t be weaker. Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, told ProPublica witness tampering is often difficult to prove because the gimmick is often not done explicitly. But the trend could assist prosecutors in their efforts to call into question the credibility of witnesses testifying in Trump’s defense for his innumerable legal battles.

Daily Beast - Former President Donald Trump left some of the country’s most powerful CEOs scratching their heads, cringing, or just outright laughing during a private meeting in the nation’s capital on Thursday. On MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Friday, CNBC anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin said he’d spoken to several CEOs who were at the gathering, including many who considered themselves pro-Trump. Among the attendees were Apple’s Tim Cook and JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon. “They walked away from that meeting, I think, a bit disheartened, a bit questioning—I don’t want to say his mental fitness—but questioning just how meandering, how, in some cases, one said to me he could not keep a thought straight,” Sorkin said. “He would go in one direction and then he’d go in another direction and... there wasn’t really necessarily a through line.”

Salon - In the thick of the pandemic, the Trump-era U.S. military launched what Reuters describes as a “clandestine operation” to spread anti-vaccine sentiments, particularly in the Philippines, as part of an apparent effort to harm Chinese interests, an initiative that ended only after President Joe Biden took office.The secret campaign, which had not been previously reported, aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and life-saving aid supplied by China, according to Reuters...As part of its campaign to sow doubt about public health measures, the Trump-era Pentagon created phony internet accounts wherein Defense Department staff impersonated Filipinos and created social media posts that questioned the utility of face masks, test kits and vaccines. The campaign also specifically singled out China’s Sinovac vaccine, Reuters reported. 

NY Times - Three months into the coronavirus pandemic, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci was at home in northwest Washington when he answered his cellphone to President Donald J. Trump screaming at him in an expletive-laden rant. He had incurred the president’s wrath by remarking that the vaccines under development might not provide long-lasting immunity. That was the day, June 3, 2020, “that I first experienced the brunt of the president’s rage,” Dr. Fauci writes in his forthcoming autobiography....

In Dr. Fauci’s telling, the Trump White House was different than any other he had experienced, not least because of its passing relationship with the truth. Mr. Trump, he wrote, “shocked me on Day 1 of his presidency, with his disregard of facts such as the size of the crowd at his inauguration” and his “aggressive disrespect for the press.”....

Dr. Fauci’s first encounter with Mr. Trump was before the coronavirus pandemic, at a White House ceremony where the president signed an executive order that called for improvements in the manufacturing and distribution of flu vaccines. After the event, Mr. Trump remarked to Dr. Fauci that he had never had a flu shot.

“When I asked him why, he answered, ‘Well, I’ve never gotten the flu. Why did I need a flu shot?’ I did not respond,” Dr. Fauci wrote. The implication was clear: The doctor was flabbergasted to discover that Mr. Trump knew so little about the purpose of vaccines.