FRIDAY 7/19/24
Donald J. Trump’s presidential nomination acceptance speech Thursday evening began with the calm-voice unity he promised after last Saturday’s assassination attempt.
“I was beginning to tell the great job my administration had done on immigration on the southern border,” Trump said, describing the attempt by Thomas Matthew Crooks at the ex-president’s rally in Butler County, Pennsylvania. A chart Trump turned to on his right saved him from taking the bullet directly.
“I said to myself, ‘wow, what was that?’ It can only be a bullet…
“I felt safe because I had God on my side.”
Trump’s speech, which CNN clocked in at one hour, 32 minutes was as “unifying” and as touchy-feely as the ex-president has ever been in public for about the first half hour but then turned quickly into his finishing the rally he tried to begin in Butler County five days earlier.
Trump said he will be a president "for all of America, not for half of America ... We are one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.” We must not demonize others with whom we disagree, Trump added.
We should “stop weaponizing the Justice department,” he said, calling out “highly respected federal judge” Aileen Cannon, who on Monday dismissed Trump’s classified documents case in Florida.
“If Democrats want to unify our country, they should drop these witch hunts which they’ve been doing for eight years.”
He called out “crazy Nancy Pelosi” and touted his administration’s work on “right to try,” giving Americans access to pre-approved drug trials.
Trump promised to end President Biden’s wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
“We’re dealing with fierce people, and we don’t have fierce people, except when cheating on elections.”
From there, Trump’s free-flowing, off-Teleprompter hour repeated, “drill, baby, drill,” an oft-told assertion that the Biden administration has stifled US oil production, which is not true. He kept returning to the “border crisis.”
Trump repeated his plan to deport illegal immigrants. He tied in his regular rally call-out of Silence of the Lambs character Hannibal Lecter to mentally ill immigrants he said other countries are sending here.
“I will end our illegal immigration crisis by closing our border and completing the wall,” which Trump misleadingly stated he built most of.
“I will bring back the American Dream,” Trump continued. “That’s what we’re going to do. You don’t ever hear about the American Dream anymore.
“Starting day one, we will drive down prices and make America affordable again.” The next Trump administration would cut its $36 trillion in debt and “we will reduce your taxes.”
Details to come?
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Tester Calls for Withdrawal – Jon Tester of Montana has become the second Democratic US senator to call for President Biden to withdraw from the presidential race (per NPR’s Morning Edition). Tester is in a tight race to win his fourth term this November against Republican candidate Tim Sheehy, a former US Navy Seal. The winner in this red state could very well determine which party controls the Senate next year.
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Gershkovich Sentenced to 16 Years – American reporter Evan Gershkovich was sentenced to 16 years in a high-security Russian penal colony, “after a hurried, secret trial that the US government has condemned as a sham,” his employer, The Wall Street Journal, reports. The court’s verdict came after three days of hearings and was considered a foregone conclusion, as espionage trial acquittals are considered exceedingly rare.
News of Gershkovich’s sentencing came amidst reports Friday that US and Russian officials were closing in on a prisoner swap that would free the WSJ reporter.
--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa