I hate coons with a passion. He needs a bullet to the head.
DAMN!! How will HISTORY look back on Trump, Fox News & all his supporters during Coronavirus & AFTER he leaves office? UPDATE: Trump WON
- Thread starter playahaitian
- Start date
I hate coons with a passion. He needs a bullet to the head.
There's so much wrong with this...
Stinging Obituary Blames Trump For Man’s 'Needless' Death From Coronavirus
“Shame on all of you," read the obituary for David Nagy in the Jefferson Jimplecute newspaper.
Politics: Trump Believes That He Is Losing Because He Hasn’t Been Racist Enough
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/trump-is-losing-2020-polls-racism-black-lives-matter.html
www.bgol.us
NYT: Trump made a promise to white evangelical Christians, whose support can seem mystifying to the outside observer
Christianity Will Have Power’ Donald Trump made a promise to white evangelical Christians, whose support can seem mystifying to the outside observer. By Elizabeth Dias Elizabeth Dias covers religion for The New York Times. Photographs and Video by Jenn Ackerman and Tim Gruber SIOUX CENTER, Iowa...
www.bgol.us
Trump supporters compare cancel culture to the KKK
The tweet was gone
Wow
AI Dystopia by Mark Bauerlein | First Things Media
Conversations with Mark Bauerlein
www.firstthings.com
Cancel culture is a modern version of the KKK or lynch mobs.
Wow
AI Dystopia by Mark Bauerlein | First Things Media
Conversations with Mark Bauerlein
Cancel culture is a modern version of the KKK or lynch mobs.
Weak cac spirit on full display.
Last edited:
VERY IMPORTANT THREAD!!!!
Last edited:
This negro catapulted himself to the number 1 contender for coon of the year. I wonder what dirt the Russians uncovered?
Black Woman of the Day: Amber Ruffin Shares All the Things Trump Has Done for the Military
Would you look at that! Mere days after being interviewed by Taylor Garron for New York Magazine and ahead of the launch of her own late-night program, Amber Ruffin has landed at the top spot of the “This Week in Late Night” for pointing out everything Trump has done for the military. The...
www.bgol.us
Is there a reason they got that half a homo doing the am joy show and not her.
@easy_b
www.cnn.com
Vulnerable Republicans avoid criticizing Trump after admission to Woodward about downplaying virus
By Manu Raju and Alex Rogers, CNN
Updated 2:00 PM ET, Fri September 11, 2020
https://www.bgol.us/forum/javascript:void(0);
Hear Trump boast to Woodward about new secret weapons system 02:25
(CNN)Republican senators facing tough reelection races this fall steered clear of criticizing President Donald Trump after his stunning admission that he downplayed the severity of the crisis caused by the spread of coronavirus, dodging questions regarding his remarks or defending his overall response to the pandemic.
For months, Republican senators have praised the President's response to the health and economic crisis, the central issue in their political campaigns, even as polling suggests that a majority of Americans disapprove of it, recognizing many of their own races depend in large part on the President's performance in November.
But Democrats have seized upon Trump's latest comments made to Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward in February and March. In the interviews for Woodward's forthcoming book "Rage," the President said that he didn't want "to create a panic" about the spread of coronavirus, so he liked "playing it down" even though the airborne virus was potentially five times "more deadly" than the flu.
After CNN and other outlets reported this week on Trump's comments, some vulnerable Republican senators declined to comment.
GOP Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa declined to answer questions about Trump's remarks on Wednesday. On Thursday, she told CNN, "I haven't read it, I haven't seen it, so give me a chance to take a look."
Arizona Sen. Martha McSally said on Wednesday that she also hadn't reviewed the remarks, and her office didn't respond to a request for comment on Thursday. Maine Sen. Susan Collins wouldn't take questions on them as she left the Senate floor on Wednesday and Thursday.
Texas Sen. John Cornyn said on Thursday that he wouldn't comment since he did not have "personal knowledge" of the President's remarks and that he didn't "have any confidence in the reporting," even though Trump has not disputed its accuracy and the remarks are on tape.
"These stories seem to change every day," said Cornyn.
'Calls without us knowing:' Aides point fingers in wake of Woodward's latest book
Other Republicans defended Trump, saying that it's the President's job to calm the nation during a crisis.
North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis told CNN, "When you're in a crisis situation, you have to inform people for their public health but you also don't want to create hysteria."
Asked if it were appropriate for Trump to compare the flu to the coronavirus when the President privately acknowledged it was far deadlier, Tillis didn't directly answer. He instead pointed to briefings from the White House coronavirus task force, saying the message was to "be prepared for the pandemic; hope for the best but prepare for the worst."
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who is also facing reelection, added, "I don't think he needs to go on TV and screaming we're all going to die."
Sen. David Perdue, the Georgia Republican in a tight race, said Thursday: "I understand trying to manage the psyche of the country and also look at the actions that he took. ... I look at what he did -- and it was certainly a strong response."
"Actions speak louder than words," said Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican on the ballot in the fall. "The President tends to speak loosely. We know that. That's just his pattern."
Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner, who has perhaps the toughest reelection race of any Republican member, was asked in a telephone town hall on Thursday evening whether it was "appropriate" for Trump to "lie to the American public" by publicly downplaying the threat of coronavirus in comparing it to the flu, while knowing that it is more dangerous.
Gardner did not directly answer the question, responding that he "certainly" takes the pandemic seriously and that he worked with Democratic Gov. Jared Polis to obtain tests and masks, according to a recording of the event obtained by CNN.
Instead of addressing the President's comments, he accused the media and Democrats for not taking the pandemic seriously enough back then. He said that "unfortunately" the first question CNN asked him after he left a coronavirus briefing in January was about Trump's impeachment during the trial. And he criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for inviting people to Chinatown in San Francisco in February.
In some cases, the Republican senators themselves have underplayed or underestimated the crisis. At a recent Iowa event, Ernst told an attendee that she was also "so skeptical" of the number of Covid-19 cases and deaths, according to the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier. (She later walked back those remarks.) And in April, Graham said on Fox that he thought the United States would be able to contain the virus from claiming more than 100,000 deaths.
There have been more than 6.3 million cases of coronavirus in the US and more than 191,000 deaths, according to the latest Johns Hopkins tally.
While some top Republicans, like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, defended Trump's handling of the pandemic, a couple were sharply critical.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican who previously said she's "struggling" with whether to vote for Trump, said Thursday that some of the President's comments are "very, very, very concerning."
"Some of the things I find quite surprising and quite concerning," Murkowski told reporters.
Sen. Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican who voted to remove Trump from office during his impeachment trial, said Thursday, "I think we're always better leveling with the American public, and that maintains credibility -- rather than trying to tell them one thing when we believe another."
Neither Romney nor Murkowski is up for reelection this cycle.
Overall, a number of Republican senators facing reelection have praised Trump's handling of the pandemic. Tillis said the President made the "right call" in his response, praising him for imposing travel restrictions from China in February and boosting the number of ventilators to aid those suffering from Covid-19.
How McConnell is maneuvering to keep the Senate in GOP hands -- and navigating Trump
Graham said that "it became clear that the human transmission was greater than originally thought." He noted that Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, said on February 29 that there was "no need" for people to change their lifestyles "at this moment." (Fauci also warned then on the Today show about the threat of "community spread" from the coronavirus and cautioned that the risk level "could change.")
"He's done as good a job as you can under the circumstances," Cornyn told CNN.
Democrats have attacked Trump and Senate Republicans after the President's comments came to light. Democratic candidate Theresa Greenfield criticized her opponent Ernst on Wednesday for "failing Iowans" in her response to the President's remarks.
"First she misled Iowans by comparing #COVID19 to the flu, then said Iowa has 'fared pretty well,' and spread debunked conspiracy theories that attack health care workers," tweeted Greenfield. "We deserve better."
But GOP leaders have said Trump's management of the virus will not hurt Republicans down ticket.
"I think a much stronger dynamic that people who will be attentive to coming weeks, is just what a weak candidate Joe Biden is, and how unenthusiastic, the radical left is about Joe Biden," said Indiana Sen. Todd Young, who runs the Senate Republican campaign arm.
This story has been updated with additional developments Friday.
Vulnerable Republicans avoid criticizing Trump after admission to Woodward about downplaying virus | CNN Politics
Republican senators facing tough reelection races this fall steered clear of criticizing President Donald Trump after his stunning admission that he downplayed the severity of the crisis caused by the spread of coronavirus, dodging questions regarding his remarks or defending his overall...
Vulnerable Republicans avoid criticizing Trump after admission to Woodward about downplaying virus
By Manu Raju and Alex Rogers, CNN
Updated 2:00 PM ET, Fri September 11, 2020
https://www.bgol.us/forum/javascript:void(0);
Hear Trump boast to Woodward about new secret weapons system 02:25
(CNN)Republican senators facing tough reelection races this fall steered clear of criticizing President Donald Trump after his stunning admission that he downplayed the severity of the crisis caused by the spread of coronavirus, dodging questions regarding his remarks or defending his overall response to the pandemic.
For months, Republican senators have praised the President's response to the health and economic crisis, the central issue in their political campaigns, even as polling suggests that a majority of Americans disapprove of it, recognizing many of their own races depend in large part on the President's performance in November.
But Democrats have seized upon Trump's latest comments made to Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward in February and March. In the interviews for Woodward's forthcoming book "Rage," the President said that he didn't want "to create a panic" about the spread of coronavirus, so he liked "playing it down" even though the airborne virus was potentially five times "more deadly" than the flu.
After CNN and other outlets reported this week on Trump's comments, some vulnerable Republican senators declined to comment.
GOP Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa declined to answer questions about Trump's remarks on Wednesday. On Thursday, she told CNN, "I haven't read it, I haven't seen it, so give me a chance to take a look."
Arizona Sen. Martha McSally said on Wednesday that she also hadn't reviewed the remarks, and her office didn't respond to a request for comment on Thursday. Maine Sen. Susan Collins wouldn't take questions on them as she left the Senate floor on Wednesday and Thursday.
Texas Sen. John Cornyn said on Thursday that he wouldn't comment since he did not have "personal knowledge" of the President's remarks and that he didn't "have any confidence in the reporting," even though Trump has not disputed its accuracy and the remarks are on tape.
"These stories seem to change every day," said Cornyn.
'Calls without us knowing:' Aides point fingers in wake of Woodward's latest book
Other Republicans defended Trump, saying that it's the President's job to calm the nation during a crisis.
North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis told CNN, "When you're in a crisis situation, you have to inform people for their public health but you also don't want to create hysteria."
Asked if it were appropriate for Trump to compare the flu to the coronavirus when the President privately acknowledged it was far deadlier, Tillis didn't directly answer. He instead pointed to briefings from the White House coronavirus task force, saying the message was to "be prepared for the pandemic; hope for the best but prepare for the worst."
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who is also facing reelection, added, "I don't think he needs to go on TV and screaming we're all going to die."
Sen. David Perdue, the Georgia Republican in a tight race, said Thursday: "I understand trying to manage the psyche of the country and also look at the actions that he took. ... I look at what he did -- and it was certainly a strong response."
"Actions speak louder than words," said Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican on the ballot in the fall. "The President tends to speak loosely. We know that. That's just his pattern."
Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner, who has perhaps the toughest reelection race of any Republican member, was asked in a telephone town hall on Thursday evening whether it was "appropriate" for Trump to "lie to the American public" by publicly downplaying the threat of coronavirus in comparing it to the flu, while knowing that it is more dangerous.
Gardner did not directly answer the question, responding that he "certainly" takes the pandemic seriously and that he worked with Democratic Gov. Jared Polis to obtain tests and masks, according to a recording of the event obtained by CNN.
Instead of addressing the President's comments, he accused the media and Democrats for not taking the pandemic seriously enough back then. He said that "unfortunately" the first question CNN asked him after he left a coronavirus briefing in January was about Trump's impeachment during the trial. And he criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for inviting people to Chinatown in San Francisco in February.
In some cases, the Republican senators themselves have underplayed or underestimated the crisis. At a recent Iowa event, Ernst told an attendee that she was also "so skeptical" of the number of Covid-19 cases and deaths, according to the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier. (She later walked back those remarks.) And in April, Graham said on Fox that he thought the United States would be able to contain the virus from claiming more than 100,000 deaths.
There have been more than 6.3 million cases of coronavirus in the US and more than 191,000 deaths, according to the latest Johns Hopkins tally.
While some top Republicans, like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, defended Trump's handling of the pandemic, a couple were sharply critical.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican who previously said she's "struggling" with whether to vote for Trump, said Thursday that some of the President's comments are "very, very, very concerning."
"Some of the things I find quite surprising and quite concerning," Murkowski told reporters.
Sen. Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican who voted to remove Trump from office during his impeachment trial, said Thursday, "I think we're always better leveling with the American public, and that maintains credibility -- rather than trying to tell them one thing when we believe another."
Neither Romney nor Murkowski is up for reelection this cycle.
Overall, a number of Republican senators facing reelection have praised Trump's handling of the pandemic. Tillis said the President made the "right call" in his response, praising him for imposing travel restrictions from China in February and boosting the number of ventilators to aid those suffering from Covid-19.
How McConnell is maneuvering to keep the Senate in GOP hands -- and navigating Trump
Graham said that "it became clear that the human transmission was greater than originally thought." He noted that Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, said on February 29 that there was "no need" for people to change their lifestyles "at this moment." (Fauci also warned then on the Today show about the threat of "community spread" from the coronavirus and cautioned that the risk level "could change.")
"He's done as good a job as you can under the circumstances," Cornyn told CNN.
Democrats have attacked Trump and Senate Republicans after the President's comments came to light. Democratic candidate Theresa Greenfield criticized her opponent Ernst on Wednesday for "failing Iowans" in her response to the President's remarks.
"First she misled Iowans by comparing #COVID19 to the flu, then said Iowa has 'fared pretty well,' and spread debunked conspiracy theories that attack health care workers," tweeted Greenfield. "We deserve better."
But GOP leaders have said Trump's management of the virus will not hurt Republicans down ticket.
"I think a much stronger dynamic that people who will be attentive to coming weeks, is just what a weak candidate Joe Biden is, and how unenthusiastic, the radical left is about Joe Biden," said Indiana Sen. Todd Young, who runs the Senate Republican campaign arm.
This story has been updated with additional developments Friday.
Trump presses on after rough week with his presidential image in shambles
Analysis by Maeve Reston, CNN
Updated 11:49 AM ET, Sat September 12, 2020
Keilar fact-checks Trump: He's doing a bad job at rewriting history
CNN
Trump hosts rally with few masks and no social distancing
Trump team grilling local election officials about mail-in ballots
Biden laughs about Trump's 'Slow Joe' nickname
Why do presidents agree to speak to Bob Woodward?
Reporter to Trump: Why did you lie to the American people?
CNN Exclusive: Biden says Trump has 'no conception' of national security
McEnany says President Trump 'never downplayed the virus'
Trump supporter died from virus. His daughter has a message for Trump
Keilar fact-checks Trump: He's doing a bad job at rewriting history
Blitzer to Fauci: Who should we trust, you or President Trump?
North Carolina voter: If Trump could just not talk
What President Trump did after the 9/11 attacks
Trump supporter on not wearing a mask: It's a fake pandemic
'Let's be real': Lemon reacts to Trump causing panic over Antifa
Scaramucci: This should scare every one of your viewers
Trump hosts rally with few masks and no social distancing
Trump team grilling local election officials about mail-in ballots
Biden laughs about Trump's 'Slow Joe' nickname
Why do presidents agree to speak to Bob Woodward?
Reporter to Trump: Why did you lie to the American people?
CNN Exclusive: Biden says Trump has 'no conception' of national security
McEnany says President Trump 'never downplayed the virus'
Trump supporter died from virus. His daughter has a message for Trump
Keilar fact-checks Trump: He's doing a bad job at rewriting history
Blitzer to Fauci: Who should we trust, you or President Trump?
North Carolina voter: If Trump could just not talk
What President Trump did after the 9/11 attacks
Trump supporter on not wearing a mask: It's a fake pandemic
'Let's be real': Lemon reacts to Trump causing panic over Antifa
Scaramucci: This should scare every one of your viewers
Trump hosts rally with few masks and no social distancing
(CNN)For President Donald Trump, the past week marked a terrible kickoff off to the fall campaign as he struggled to regain his balance amid multiple revelations that underscored the costly lies that he has told about the coronavirus pandemic and his breathtaking disregard for revered American military leaders.
It is still too early to know how Trump's controversial comments -- some alleged and others on tape -- will influence voters given that many Americans' opinions of Trump have hardened and the universe of persuadable voters is shrinking.
But the unflattering portrayal of the commander in chief in two bombshells reports around the Labor Day holiday -- one in The Atlantic late last week and the other in Bob Woodward's forthcoming book -- come as the first absentee ballots are sent out and as voters traditionally start tuning into the election. It's marked an inauspicious start of the home stretch for Trump.
Two storms
Even before those developments, the President was trailing former vice president Joe Biden in the polls and was massively outraised by Biden's team in August, raising alarm among Republicans about whether the President will have enough money to match Biden's efforts through Election Day.
MORE CNN COVERAGE
Though Trump tried to massage and reinterpret his own words during this week's news conferences and a Thursday night rally in Michigan, Americans heard him on tape from February admitting to Woodward that the coronavirus was much more deadly than the flu and easily transmitted through the air -- while saying virtually the opposite publicly about a pandemic that has now claimed more than 192,000 American lives.
View Trump and Biden head-to-head polling
As much as Trump tried to shift the conversation to more favorable topics, the week was dominated by coverage of those damning admissions and the continuing fallout over his alleged comments about the military.
He seemed particularly stung that he had few defenders in the military after the reports in The Atlantic that he privately disparaged dead American soldiers as "losers" and "suckers," and proceeded to further alienate the military community during a Labor Day news conference where he argued that top Pentagon officials fight wars to keep defense contractors happy.
Those two storms buffeted his campaign after a month-long stretch in which the Wesleyan Media Project found that pro-Biden ads dominated the airwaves by a 2:1 margin. Polls show the former vice president maintaining a sizable lead nationally over Trump, with a slender edge in key battlegrounds like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, states where the race appears to be tightening. There appears to be no clear leader in North Carolina and Florida.
Hitting the trail
Trump is looking to heighten enthusiasm by hitting the campaign trail, from his rally in Freeland, Michigan, on Thursday -- where supporters did not socially distance and few wore masks -- to his stops in Minden, Nevada, and Las Vegas this weekend, and Wisconsin next week.
His campaign operatives are putting their faith in the President's formidable ground game, noting that while pro-Biden ads are dominating the air war, the former vice president has largely forgone the traditional in-person organizing that the Trump campaign has invested in. Trump Victory, a joint effort by the Republican National Committee and the campaign, says they have 2,000 field staffers in 17 states whose efforts are bolstered by some 2 million volunteers making calls and knocking on doors.
The campaign's current messaging and Biden's attempts to use Trump's comments to Woodward as a strike against the President could have a more immediate effect by galvanizing Democratic voters at the same time that the party is leading a push for them to return their ballots early. As of CNN's count late Friday for states that have made the data available, more than 11.8 million absentee ballots had been requested so far in 12 states, with Democrats leading requests in two key battleground states that disclose the party breakdown of those requests.
Trump twists history of Churchill and FDR to cover up pandemic denialism
But the Democratic advantage in ballots requested may be driven by the fact that Democrats tend to favor mail-in voting more than Republicans. In a recent CNN poll, 68% of Trump voters said they preferred to vote in person on Election Day compared to 21% of Biden's backers.
In one glimmer of encouragement for the Trump campaign this week, the Cook Political Report shifted two of their electoral college predictions to Trump's favor -- categorizing the state of Florida as a "toss up" rather than a state that "lean Democrat" and putting Nevada into the more competitive category of "lean Democrat" rather than "likely Democrat."
Those moves were a warning sign for Biden because they reflect a narrowing advantage in the Electoral College map, which was Hillary Clinton's downfall in 2016 even though she won the popular vote.
Though demographics in Nevada, where Trump heads this weekend, have increasingly favored Democrats, and Clinton narrowly won there in 2016, the state is notoriously difficult to poll and the anti-government, frontier ethos of its independent voters aligns well with Trump's message.
The economic shutdown walloped the state's economy, which depends heavily on tourism. And the pandemic has hobbled the Democrats' ability to organize in-person at the state's casinos, which has often been a central driver of turnout in Clark County where Las Vegas is located.
The US has rounded 'the final turn' on the virus?
Trump continues to see reopening the country as his path to victory, blithely tweeting praise Friday for a company that he said had ordered its workers back to the office this month.
The night before, at his Michigan rally, Trump again said the country is rounding "the final turn" in the pandemic.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, bluntly disagreed with the President's assertion.
"Look at the data, the data speak for themselves," Fauci told CNN's Wolf Blitzer when asked about the President's claim on "The Situation Room" Friday evening. "You don't have to listen to any individual. And the data tells us that we're still getting up to 40,000 new infections a day and 1,000 deaths. That's what you look at. Look at the science, the evidence and the data and you can make a pretty easy conclusion."
There has been a decline in new cases in 28 states over the past week and 14 states are holding steady, but Fauci has expressed concern about case surges in several states. On Friday, the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington increased their projections for American deaths by another 5,000, predicting 415,000 deaths by January 1.
"We are still in the middle of this and in order to get any semblance of normality, you've got to get that baseline number of infections way down," Fauci said, adding that he felt "cautiously optimistic" that the US will have a vaccine by the end of this year.
Blitzer to Fauci: Who should we trust, you or President Trump? 01:49
Fauci also made it clear that Americans may not be able to resume their normal pre-pandemic activities -- like going to a restaurant or a movie theater without a mask -- until the latter part of next year.
That is, in part, because the coronavirus vaccine may only be 70% to 75% effective and because it will take time to get enough Americans vaccinated to have "an umbrella of immunity."
Trump isn't letting that reality color his rhetoric about the virus -- or the campaign. While giving those rosy pronouncements about the status of the pandemic at his Thursday rally, he dismissed polls showing him behind Biden, noting that he won some of the states where he was down in the polls during his 2016 race with Clinton.
He said he had just seen a poll showing that he was "up" in Michigan: "I don't know if that is good or bad," he said. "Maybe we're better off being down a little bit."
"Michigan, you better vote for me," he added. "I got you so many damn car plants."
CNN holds elected officials and candidates accountable by pointing out what's true and what's not.
Here's a look at our recent fact checks.
In a preview of his campaign events this weekend, Trump dismissed Woodward, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist, as a "wack job," and claimed once again that he was simply trying to keep the nation calm at the beginning of the pandemic -- even though he has centered his entire presidential campaign on creating fear about a broad array of real and imagined threats to American life.
That strategy -- and Americans' ability to recognize the incongruence of Trump's excuses -- will be tested at the polls this fall.
After four years of sowing chaos, discord and mistruths, Trump is facing the judgment of voters once again. The revelations of the last week alone would have been disqualifiers for most other candidates seeking the Oval Office, but Trump has made a career of defying the odds. Still, even if voters ultimately give him another shot, the week's events are yet another indicator that history will not judge him favorably.
Analysis by Maeve Reston, CNN
Updated 11:49 AM ET, Sat September 12, 2020
Keilar fact-checks Trump: He's doing a bad job at rewriting history
CNN
Trump hosts rally with few masks and no social distancing
Trump team grilling local election officials about mail-in ballots
Biden laughs about Trump's 'Slow Joe' nickname
Why do presidents agree to speak to Bob Woodward?
Reporter to Trump: Why did you lie to the American people?
CNN Exclusive: Biden says Trump has 'no conception' of national security
McEnany says President Trump 'never downplayed the virus'
Trump supporter died from virus. His daughter has a message for Trump
Keilar fact-checks Trump: He's doing a bad job at rewriting history
Blitzer to Fauci: Who should we trust, you or President Trump?
North Carolina voter: If Trump could just not talk
What President Trump did after the 9/11 attacks
Trump supporter on not wearing a mask: It's a fake pandemic
'Let's be real': Lemon reacts to Trump causing panic over Antifa
Scaramucci: This should scare every one of your viewers
Trump hosts rally with few masks and no social distancing
Trump team grilling local election officials about mail-in ballots
Biden laughs about Trump's 'Slow Joe' nickname
Why do presidents agree to speak to Bob Woodward?
Reporter to Trump: Why did you lie to the American people?
CNN Exclusive: Biden says Trump has 'no conception' of national security
McEnany says President Trump 'never downplayed the virus'
Trump supporter died from virus. His daughter has a message for Trump
Keilar fact-checks Trump: He's doing a bad job at rewriting history
Blitzer to Fauci: Who should we trust, you or President Trump?
North Carolina voter: If Trump could just not talk
What President Trump did after the 9/11 attacks
Trump supporter on not wearing a mask: It's a fake pandemic
'Let's be real': Lemon reacts to Trump causing panic over Antifa
Scaramucci: This should scare every one of your viewers
Trump hosts rally with few masks and no social distancing
(CNN)For President Donald Trump, the past week marked a terrible kickoff off to the fall campaign as he struggled to regain his balance amid multiple revelations that underscored the costly lies that he has told about the coronavirus pandemic and his breathtaking disregard for revered American military leaders.
It is still too early to know how Trump's controversial comments -- some alleged and others on tape -- will influence voters given that many Americans' opinions of Trump have hardened and the universe of persuadable voters is shrinking.
But the unflattering portrayal of the commander in chief in two bombshells reports around the Labor Day holiday -- one in The Atlantic late last week and the other in Bob Woodward's forthcoming book -- come as the first absentee ballots are sent out and as voters traditionally start tuning into the election. It's marked an inauspicious start of the home stretch for Trump.
Two storms
Even before those developments, the President was trailing former vice president Joe Biden in the polls and was massively outraised by Biden's team in August, raising alarm among Republicans about whether the President will have enough money to match Biden's efforts through Election Day.
MORE CNN COVERAGE
- 'Play it down': Trump admits to concealing the true threat of coronavirus in new Woodward book
- 'Dangerous' and 'unfit': Trump's former national security advisers say he has 'no moral compass'
- Why Jared Kushner suggests reading 'Alice in Wonderland' if you want to understand Trump
- New Trump-Kim letters provide window into their 'special friendship'
Though Trump tried to massage and reinterpret his own words during this week's news conferences and a Thursday night rally in Michigan, Americans heard him on tape from February admitting to Woodward that the coronavirus was much more deadly than the flu and easily transmitted through the air -- while saying virtually the opposite publicly about a pandemic that has now claimed more than 192,000 American lives.
View Trump and Biden head-to-head polling
As much as Trump tried to shift the conversation to more favorable topics, the week was dominated by coverage of those damning admissions and the continuing fallout over his alleged comments about the military.
He seemed particularly stung that he had few defenders in the military after the reports in The Atlantic that he privately disparaged dead American soldiers as "losers" and "suckers," and proceeded to further alienate the military community during a Labor Day news conference where he argued that top Pentagon officials fight wars to keep defense contractors happy.
Those two storms buffeted his campaign after a month-long stretch in which the Wesleyan Media Project found that pro-Biden ads dominated the airwaves by a 2:1 margin. Polls show the former vice president maintaining a sizable lead nationally over Trump, with a slender edge in key battlegrounds like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, states where the race appears to be tightening. There appears to be no clear leader in North Carolina and Florida.
Hitting the trail
Trump is looking to heighten enthusiasm by hitting the campaign trail, from his rally in Freeland, Michigan, on Thursday -- where supporters did not socially distance and few wore masks -- to his stops in Minden, Nevada, and Las Vegas this weekend, and Wisconsin next week.
His campaign operatives are putting their faith in the President's formidable ground game, noting that while pro-Biden ads are dominating the air war, the former vice president has largely forgone the traditional in-person organizing that the Trump campaign has invested in. Trump Victory, a joint effort by the Republican National Committee and the campaign, says they have 2,000 field staffers in 17 states whose efforts are bolstered by some 2 million volunteers making calls and knocking on doors.
The campaign's current messaging and Biden's attempts to use Trump's comments to Woodward as a strike against the President could have a more immediate effect by galvanizing Democratic voters at the same time that the party is leading a push for them to return their ballots early. As of CNN's count late Friday for states that have made the data available, more than 11.8 million absentee ballots had been requested so far in 12 states, with Democrats leading requests in two key battleground states that disclose the party breakdown of those requests.
Trump twists history of Churchill and FDR to cover up pandemic denialism
But the Democratic advantage in ballots requested may be driven by the fact that Democrats tend to favor mail-in voting more than Republicans. In a recent CNN poll, 68% of Trump voters said they preferred to vote in person on Election Day compared to 21% of Biden's backers.
In one glimmer of encouragement for the Trump campaign this week, the Cook Political Report shifted two of their electoral college predictions to Trump's favor -- categorizing the state of Florida as a "toss up" rather than a state that "lean Democrat" and putting Nevada into the more competitive category of "lean Democrat" rather than "likely Democrat."
Those moves were a warning sign for Biden because they reflect a narrowing advantage in the Electoral College map, which was Hillary Clinton's downfall in 2016 even though she won the popular vote.
Though demographics in Nevada, where Trump heads this weekend, have increasingly favored Democrats, and Clinton narrowly won there in 2016, the state is notoriously difficult to poll and the anti-government, frontier ethos of its independent voters aligns well with Trump's message.
The economic shutdown walloped the state's economy, which depends heavily on tourism. And the pandemic has hobbled the Democrats' ability to organize in-person at the state's casinos, which has often been a central driver of turnout in Clark County where Las Vegas is located.
The US has rounded 'the final turn' on the virus?
Trump continues to see reopening the country as his path to victory, blithely tweeting praise Friday for a company that he said had ordered its workers back to the office this month.
The night before, at his Michigan rally, Trump again said the country is rounding "the final turn" in the pandemic.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, bluntly disagreed with the President's assertion.
"Look at the data, the data speak for themselves," Fauci told CNN's Wolf Blitzer when asked about the President's claim on "The Situation Room" Friday evening. "You don't have to listen to any individual. And the data tells us that we're still getting up to 40,000 new infections a day and 1,000 deaths. That's what you look at. Look at the science, the evidence and the data and you can make a pretty easy conclusion."
There has been a decline in new cases in 28 states over the past week and 14 states are holding steady, but Fauci has expressed concern about case surges in several states. On Friday, the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington increased their projections for American deaths by another 5,000, predicting 415,000 deaths by January 1.
"We are still in the middle of this and in order to get any semblance of normality, you've got to get that baseline number of infections way down," Fauci said, adding that he felt "cautiously optimistic" that the US will have a vaccine by the end of this year.
Blitzer to Fauci: Who should we trust, you or President Trump? 01:49
Fauci also made it clear that Americans may not be able to resume their normal pre-pandemic activities -- like going to a restaurant or a movie theater without a mask -- until the latter part of next year.
That is, in part, because the coronavirus vaccine may only be 70% to 75% effective and because it will take time to get enough Americans vaccinated to have "an umbrella of immunity."
Trump isn't letting that reality color his rhetoric about the virus -- or the campaign. While giving those rosy pronouncements about the status of the pandemic at his Thursday rally, he dismissed polls showing him behind Biden, noting that he won some of the states where he was down in the polls during his 2016 race with Clinton.
He said he had just seen a poll showing that he was "up" in Michigan: "I don't know if that is good or bad," he said. "Maybe we're better off being down a little bit."
"Michigan, you better vote for me," he added. "I got you so many damn car plants."
CNN holds elected officials and candidates accountable by pointing out what's true and what's not.
Here's a look at our recent fact checks.
In a preview of his campaign events this weekend, Trump dismissed Woodward, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist, as a "wack job," and claimed once again that he was simply trying to keep the nation calm at the beginning of the pandemic -- even though he has centered his entire presidential campaign on creating fear about a broad array of real and imagined threats to American life.
That strategy -- and Americans' ability to recognize the incongruence of Trump's excuses -- will be tested at the polls this fall.
After four years of sowing chaos, discord and mistruths, Trump is facing the judgment of voters once again. The revelations of the last week alone would have been disqualifiers for most other candidates seeking the Oval Office, but Trump has made a career of defying the odds. Still, even if voters ultimately give him another shot, the week's events are yet another indicator that history will not judge him favorably.
Trump called him 'my African-American.' His life hasn't been the same since
https://www.cnn.com/profiles/john-blake
By John Blake, CNN
(CNN)If Gregory Cheadle had not cracked a joke, his life would be a lot less complicated today.
His troubles began when he attended a rally by then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in Redding, California, in June 2016. Cheadle was a California congressional candidate at the time, and he stood out as a Black Republican.
As Cheadle watched from the VIP section of the overwhelmingly white crowd, Trump went into an extended riff about a Black supporter who had assaulted an anti-Trump protester at an Arizona rally. Trump wondered aloud where his supporter was when Cheadle decided to play along and shouted, "I'm here!"
"Oh, look at my African-American over here," Trump responded with a smile, pointing at Cheadle as some people in the crowd cheered. "Look at him. Are you the greatest?"
Cheadle laughed along with everyone else, but that soon changed. He left the rally early, took a nap at a friend's house, and by the time he woke up, he had gone viral.
His phone was filled with texts and voicemails from reporters wanting interviews. There also were angry messages from family and friends wanting to know why he let Trump insult him. His Facebook page was filled with both Black and White people calling him "Uncle Tom" and the N-word and threatening to kick his butt.
"Oh, you got to be kidding," he thought at the time. "America doesn't have anything better to do than this?"
Cheadle was about to discover the loneliest place in the universe may be reserved for a man who becomes known as Trump's Black buddy.
"Man, I did it for a joke," he says now. "When I did it, people around me burst out laughing." He sighs before adding: "Then the joke turned sour."
How Cheadle's life changed
President Trump's "great relationship with the Blacks" is back in the news. As the 2020 presidential race heads into the home stretch, one of its biggest storylines has been Trump's vigorous attempt to recruit more Black support. Many of the top speaking slots at last month's Republican National Convention were reserved for Black speakers.
The Trump campaign has also purchased ads in local Black radio stations and newspapers. In what may be another close election, Trump's ability to pick off more Black voters could make the difference between winning and losing. Some polls suggest that Trump is actually performing better with Black voters than he did four years ago.
President Donald Trump shakes hands with Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina at the White House in February 2018. Scott was one of several prominent Black speakers at the Republican National Convention last month.
What's happened to Cheadle since that day in 2016, though, shows how tough the Trump campaign's challenge is going to be. For starters, he is no longer Trump's "African-American friend."
Cheadle, 63, a real estate broker and a volunteer at a hospital emergency room, says he is a very different man than the one who went to hear Trump four years ago. He's lost friends and gone into hiding. Trump's shout-out even shook up his love life.
"I was dating a woman and we broke up because of that," he says. "The whole thing was kind of stupid. She was an influential Democrat and she just couldn't handle the pressure of even being seen in public with someone associated with Trump."
Cheadle says he has since lost respect for some Black Republican conservatives. He compares them to ventriloquists' dolls -- puppets employed by powerful white people to mouth political platitudes that hurt Black people.
He also says he was deflated by how the Republican party reacted to the death of Herman Cain, a former Republican presidential candidate. Cain, who was Black, died after contracting coronavirus soon after attending a Trump rally without wearing a mask.
"It was sad that he died, but even more sad that he was not given any honor by the Republican Party," Cheadle says. "It was like, 'He's dead. No problem. Goodbye.'"
Former 2012 Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain at a Trump rally on June 20 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Cain died of Covid-19 in July.
Only 8% of Black Americans voted for Trump in 2016. Cheadle doesn't think Trump will pick up more Black support in November.
"I would be surprised if he did as well (with Black voters) as he did last time," he says.
Yet polls show that about 10% of Black voters still support Trump today. Ravi Perry, a political scientist, is not surprised by that number. Ever since the mid-1960s, when he says the Republican Party adopted an anti-civil rights agenda, about 10% of Black voters have supported the GOP.
"Even when Obama was on the ticket, he got like 95% of the Black vote," says Perry, chairman of the political science department at Howard University in Washington. He says some Black Republicans have long put more emphasis on conservative principles than skin color. They like Trump's record of appointing conservative federal judges, for example.
But Perry is not optimistic about Trump's chances of plucking off more Black voters in November because of how Trump is perceived. One recent poll found that more than 8 in 10 Black voters think the President is a racist.
"I don't think there's much they can do (to sway voters)," Perry says of Trump's Black campaign surrogates. "All they can do between now and November is ignore the racial elements of the Trump administration."
Why he soured on Trump
Cheadle won't play along with that strategy. The divorced father of three is a gregarious man whose voice rises when he starts talking about Trump's treatment of Blacks. He grew up in inner-city Oakland and Cleveland and still remembers seeing race riots erupt during the mid-1960s.
He is not an unusual character in the Black community. Virtually every major Black leader -- Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Malcolm X and even Obama -- has blended conservative principles like self-help and economic empowerment with progressive ideas.
But Cheadle remains skeptical about the Democratic Party. He doesn't like Obamacare and didn't vote for Obama because he says Obama was an "elitist" who never did much for Black people. He doesn't think Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, has done much for Black people, either.
And Cheadle still reveres the Republican Party, or at least the 19th-century version of it, which was willing to go to war to end slavery.
"They freed the slaves," he says of the party of Lincoln. "They literally gave their lives for the cause."
That's part of the history Cheadle carried with him when he went to hear Trump speak in 2016. He thought the media portrayals of Trump were too harsh, and he wanted to have an open mind.
Many thought that Trump's comment that day -- "my African-American" -- was condescending. Cheadle didn't think so at the time.
Trump, speaking at that June 2016 rally, has struggled to win over Black voters.
"We're so polarized and sensitive in this country now. It's frightening," he said a day after the rally.
Some of the attention Cheadle received after that 2016 rally was positive. He appeared on CNN and PBS, and Stephen Colbert's show featured him in a segment. He started getting recognized more when he went out in public to campaign for his congressional seat.
But as the threats and verbal abuse continued to pour in, he started thinking of what happened to Gabrielle Giffords, the former congresswoman from Arizona, who was wounded by a gunman in 2011 at a political event.
"I pretty much went into hiding," Cheadle says. "I didn't want to really be in public because it was too ugly. This is gun country up here. People don't play."
Cheadle ending up moving from Northern California to Southern California after he lost his congressional bid. He then made another move. He left the Republican Party last year because of what he describes as its "pro-white agenda" and Trump's inflammatory racial rhetoric.
Cheadle says he was bothered by Trump's comments last year when he told four congresswomen of color to "go back" to where they came from. He also didn't like the fact that the overwhelming majority of Trump's cabinet and judicial appointments went to white men. "When you look at the White House, it really is a white house," he says.
But he refuses to call Trump a racist because the term is so loaded. Instead he says Trump has a "white superiority complex."
"When you say someone is racist, it's damning but it's not productive," he says.
How he's voting in 2020
The George Floyd racial protests and the resurgence of Black Lives Matter also hit Cheadle deeply. He says the Floyd video made "me sick to my stomach."
And his politics have evolved so much in recent years that he no longer calls himself a conservative.
"A conservative means you're in favor of the status quo, and the status quo is keeping the white superiority complex in power," he says. "I'm not for that. I am an independent, an independent thinking person."
But he hasn't made another big decision -- who he's going to vote for in November. He calls himself undecided between Biden and Trump.
https://www.bgol.us/forum/javascript:void(0);
Man Trump called 'my African-American' leaves GOP 01:52
"You're asking me to choose between projectile vomit and diarrhea," he says.
Cheadle does like Biden's vice-presidential pick, Kamala Harris. She would be the first vice-president who is Black and South Asian. He believes Harris' race could make her more empathetic toward Black people.
"If I vote for Biden, it'll probably be because I'm voting for Harris," he says.
And Cheadle hasn't given up on politics. He plans on running for office again.
Does he ever worry that he'll forever be known as Trump's "African-American?" Just last month, a news crew from India contacted him seeking an interview about his famous exchange with Trump.
"It doesn't worry me," he says. "In the overall scheme of things, I'm happy that it happened. It's given me a platform to use to better my people. All of that headache and the names I've been called is a small price to pay."
Trump has since found new Black allies, including former NFL running back Herschel Walker, who recently said "it hurt my soul" to hear people call Trump a racist.
We'll find out in November if these Black supporters make any difference.
In the meantime, Cheadle has finally got enough distance from that Trump rally in 2016 to start working on his memoir. He already has a title.
It's called, "My African-American."
www.cnn.com
https://www.cnn.com/profiles/john-blake
By John Blake, CNN
(CNN)If Gregory Cheadle had not cracked a joke, his life would be a lot less complicated today.
His troubles began when he attended a rally by then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in Redding, California, in June 2016. Cheadle was a California congressional candidate at the time, and he stood out as a Black Republican.
As Cheadle watched from the VIP section of the overwhelmingly white crowd, Trump went into an extended riff about a Black supporter who had assaulted an anti-Trump protester at an Arizona rally. Trump wondered aloud where his supporter was when Cheadle decided to play along and shouted, "I'm here!"
"Oh, look at my African-American over here," Trump responded with a smile, pointing at Cheadle as some people in the crowd cheered. "Look at him. Are you the greatest?"
Cheadle laughed along with everyone else, but that soon changed. He left the rally early, took a nap at a friend's house, and by the time he woke up, he had gone viral.
His phone was filled with texts and voicemails from reporters wanting interviews. There also were angry messages from family and friends wanting to know why he let Trump insult him. His Facebook page was filled with both Black and White people calling him "Uncle Tom" and the N-word and threatening to kick his butt.
"Oh, you got to be kidding," he thought at the time. "America doesn't have anything better to do than this?"
Cheadle was about to discover the loneliest place in the universe may be reserved for a man who becomes known as Trump's Black buddy.
"Man, I did it for a joke," he says now. "When I did it, people around me burst out laughing." He sighs before adding: "Then the joke turned sour."
How Cheadle's life changed
President Trump's "great relationship with the Blacks" is back in the news. As the 2020 presidential race heads into the home stretch, one of its biggest storylines has been Trump's vigorous attempt to recruit more Black support. Many of the top speaking slots at last month's Republican National Convention were reserved for Black speakers.
The Trump campaign has also purchased ads in local Black radio stations and newspapers. In what may be another close election, Trump's ability to pick off more Black voters could make the difference between winning and losing. Some polls suggest that Trump is actually performing better with Black voters than he did four years ago.
President Donald Trump shakes hands with Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina at the White House in February 2018. Scott was one of several prominent Black speakers at the Republican National Convention last month.
What's happened to Cheadle since that day in 2016, though, shows how tough the Trump campaign's challenge is going to be. For starters, he is no longer Trump's "African-American friend."
Cheadle, 63, a real estate broker and a volunteer at a hospital emergency room, says he is a very different man than the one who went to hear Trump four years ago. He's lost friends and gone into hiding. Trump's shout-out even shook up his love life.
"I was dating a woman and we broke up because of that," he says. "The whole thing was kind of stupid. She was an influential Democrat and she just couldn't handle the pressure of even being seen in public with someone associated with Trump."
Cheadle says he has since lost respect for some Black Republican conservatives. He compares them to ventriloquists' dolls -- puppets employed by powerful white people to mouth political platitudes that hurt Black people.
He also says he was deflated by how the Republican party reacted to the death of Herman Cain, a former Republican presidential candidate. Cain, who was Black, died after contracting coronavirus soon after attending a Trump rally without wearing a mask.
"It was sad that he died, but even more sad that he was not given any honor by the Republican Party," Cheadle says. "It was like, 'He's dead. No problem. Goodbye.'"
Former 2012 Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain at a Trump rally on June 20 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Cain died of Covid-19 in July.
Only 8% of Black Americans voted for Trump in 2016. Cheadle doesn't think Trump will pick up more Black support in November.
"I would be surprised if he did as well (with Black voters) as he did last time," he says.
Yet polls show that about 10% of Black voters still support Trump today. Ravi Perry, a political scientist, is not surprised by that number. Ever since the mid-1960s, when he says the Republican Party adopted an anti-civil rights agenda, about 10% of Black voters have supported the GOP.
"Even when Obama was on the ticket, he got like 95% of the Black vote," says Perry, chairman of the political science department at Howard University in Washington. He says some Black Republicans have long put more emphasis on conservative principles than skin color. They like Trump's record of appointing conservative federal judges, for example.
But Perry is not optimistic about Trump's chances of plucking off more Black voters in November because of how Trump is perceived. One recent poll found that more than 8 in 10 Black voters think the President is a racist.
"I don't think there's much they can do (to sway voters)," Perry says of Trump's Black campaign surrogates. "All they can do between now and November is ignore the racial elements of the Trump administration."
Why he soured on Trump
Cheadle won't play along with that strategy. The divorced father of three is a gregarious man whose voice rises when he starts talking about Trump's treatment of Blacks. He grew up in inner-city Oakland and Cleveland and still remembers seeing race riots erupt during the mid-1960s.
He is not an unusual character in the Black community. Virtually every major Black leader -- Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Malcolm X and even Obama -- has blended conservative principles like self-help and economic empowerment with progressive ideas.
But Cheadle remains skeptical about the Democratic Party. He doesn't like Obamacare and didn't vote for Obama because he says Obama was an "elitist" who never did much for Black people. He doesn't think Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, has done much for Black people, either.
And Cheadle still reveres the Republican Party, or at least the 19th-century version of it, which was willing to go to war to end slavery.
"They freed the slaves," he says of the party of Lincoln. "They literally gave their lives for the cause."
That's part of the history Cheadle carried with him when he went to hear Trump speak in 2016. He thought the media portrayals of Trump were too harsh, and he wanted to have an open mind.
Many thought that Trump's comment that day -- "my African-American" -- was condescending. Cheadle didn't think so at the time.
Trump, speaking at that June 2016 rally, has struggled to win over Black voters.
"We're so polarized and sensitive in this country now. It's frightening," he said a day after the rally.
Some of the attention Cheadle received after that 2016 rally was positive. He appeared on CNN and PBS, and Stephen Colbert's show featured him in a segment. He started getting recognized more when he went out in public to campaign for his congressional seat.
But as the threats and verbal abuse continued to pour in, he started thinking of what happened to Gabrielle Giffords, the former congresswoman from Arizona, who was wounded by a gunman in 2011 at a political event.
"I pretty much went into hiding," Cheadle says. "I didn't want to really be in public because it was too ugly. This is gun country up here. People don't play."
Cheadle ending up moving from Northern California to Southern California after he lost his congressional bid. He then made another move. He left the Republican Party last year because of what he describes as its "pro-white agenda" and Trump's inflammatory racial rhetoric.
Cheadle says he was bothered by Trump's comments last year when he told four congresswomen of color to "go back" to where they came from. He also didn't like the fact that the overwhelming majority of Trump's cabinet and judicial appointments went to white men. "When you look at the White House, it really is a white house," he says.
But he refuses to call Trump a racist because the term is so loaded. Instead he says Trump has a "white superiority complex."
"When you say someone is racist, it's damning but it's not productive," he says.
How he's voting in 2020
The George Floyd racial protests and the resurgence of Black Lives Matter also hit Cheadle deeply. He says the Floyd video made "me sick to my stomach."
And his politics have evolved so much in recent years that he no longer calls himself a conservative.
"A conservative means you're in favor of the status quo, and the status quo is keeping the white superiority complex in power," he says. "I'm not for that. I am an independent, an independent thinking person."
But he hasn't made another big decision -- who he's going to vote for in November. He calls himself undecided between Biden and Trump.
https://www.bgol.us/forum/javascript:void(0);
Man Trump called 'my African-American' leaves GOP 01:52
"You're asking me to choose between projectile vomit and diarrhea," he says.
Cheadle does like Biden's vice-presidential pick, Kamala Harris. She would be the first vice-president who is Black and South Asian. He believes Harris' race could make her more empathetic toward Black people.
"If I vote for Biden, it'll probably be because I'm voting for Harris," he says.
And Cheadle hasn't given up on politics. He plans on running for office again.
Does he ever worry that he'll forever be known as Trump's "African-American?" Just last month, a news crew from India contacted him seeking an interview about his famous exchange with Trump.
"It doesn't worry me," he says. "In the overall scheme of things, I'm happy that it happened. It's given me a platform to use to better my people. All of that headache and the names I've been called is a small price to pay."
Trump has since found new Black allies, including former NFL running back Herschel Walker, who recently said "it hurt my soul" to hear people call Trump a racist.
We'll find out in November if these Black supporters make any difference.
In the meantime, Cheadle has finally got enough distance from that Trump rally in 2016 to start working on his memoir. He already has a title.
It's called, "My African-American."
Trump called him 'my African American.' His life hasn't been the same since
If Gregory Cheadle hadn't cracked a joke at a June 2016 Trump rally, his life would be a lot less complicated today. The Black former Republican has a lot to say about the fallout from that day and who he'll vote for in the 2020 presidential election.
www.cnn.com