ND Gov. Chides State GOP for ‘Divisive’ Anti-LGBT Resolution

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ND Gov. Chides State GOP for ‘Divisive’ Anti-LGBT Resolution

North Dakota’s Republican governor on Thursday blasted an anti-LGBTQ resolution that was passed by hundreds of delegates at his party’s recent state convention, calling it insulting and divisive.

The resolution—one of dozens of party policy statements passed by more than 900 delegates Friday and Saturday at the state GOP convention in Medina—states that many “LGBT practices are unhealthy and dangerous, sometimes endangering or shortening life and sometimes infecting society at large.”

Gov. Doug Burgum issued a statement Thursday denouncing the resolution.

“As I’ve long said, all North Dakotans deserve to be treated equally and live free of discrimination,” Burgum said. “There’s no place for the hurtful and divisive rhetoric in the NDGOP resolutions.”

The state GOP’s executive director, Corby Kemmer, issued a statement Wednesday apologizing for the language in that resolution.

“The resolutions were presented for an up or down vote, and no one resolution was voted on individually,” Kemmer said.

“The intent of the delegates was to stand up for individual and religious liberties, and, unfortunately, this language falls woefully short of that goal,” he said.

“We regret any offense this may have caused, and we will be reconsidering this resolution at a future meeting to bring it more in line with what delegates were attempting to communicate,” he added.

It was not clear when the resolution might be reconsidered. Former U.S. Rep. Rick Berg, the state GOP’s chairman, didn’t immediately reply to Thursday phone messages seeking comment.

State Rep. Josh Boschee, a Fargo Democrat who is the North Dakota House minority leader and the only openly gay member of the Legislature, said the GOP resolution contains “blatant lies.”

“This is nothing to help the image of North Dakota,” Boschee said. “This is just a gut punch to see they would approve language like this.”

North Dakota Republicans wield supermajority control in the Legislature and hold every statewide office.

The Legislature has defeated measures several times in past years that would have banned discrimination based on sexual orientation in housing, government, public services and the workplace.

Burgum has long been critical of the GOP-led Legislature’s stance on social issues, including being outspoken on its failure to pass the anti-discrimination bill. Burgum supported the legislation last year.

Republican former Gov. Jack Dalrymple chided lawmakers when they killed a similar bill in 2017, telling them in a statement that they had missed an opportunity to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination.

The Republicans held their convention in-person despite the coronavirus threat, and on Wednesday, the state Health Department sent a letter to convention-goers telling them that someone who attended the event had tested positive for COVID-19 and warning them to take precautions.

WATCH: Portland’s Do-Nothing Mayor Gets Tear-Gassed by Feds

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WATCH: Portland’s Do-Nothing Mayor Gets Tear-Gassed by Feds

(Headline USA) The mayor of Portland, Oregon, was tear gassed by U.S. government authorities late Wednesday as he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with unruly rioters at a fence guarding a federal courthouse.

Although federal agents came to the city to protect federal property after Wheeler refused to contain the violent protests, the rioters now claim to be protesting the presence of those same federal agents.

Long forgotten are any underlying motives of social justice as the true source of Antifa’s anarchist grievance—the political authority of President Donald Trump—has taken center stage in the evolving demonstrations of Portland and other left-wing cities.

Mayor Ted Wheeler, a Democrat, said it was the first time he’d been tear gassed. He appeared slightly dazed and coughed as he put on a pair of goggles someone handed him and drank water.

He didn’t leave his spot at the front, however, and continued to take gas. Around Wheeler, the protest raged, with demonstrators lighting a large fire in the space between the fence and the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse and the pop-pop-pop of federal agents deploying tear gas and stun grenades into the crowd.

It wasn’t immediately clear if the federal agents knew Wheeler was in the crowd when they used the tear gas.

Earlier in the night, Wheeler was mostly jeered as he tried to rally demonstrators who have clashed nightly with federal agents but was briefly applauded when he shouted “Black Lives Matter” and pumped his fist in the air.

The mayor has opposed federal agents’ presence in Oregon’s largest city, but he has faced harsh criticism from many sides and his presence wasn’t welcomed by many, who yelled and swore at him.

“I want to thank the thousands of you who have come out to oppose the Trump administration’s occupation of this city,” Wheeler told hundreds of people gathered downtown near the federal courthouse. “The reason this is important is it is not just happening in Portland … we’re on the front line here in Portland.”

Some Portland residents, including City Council members, have accused Wheeler of not reining in local police, who have used tear gas multiple times before federal agents arrived early this month in response to nearly two months of nightly protests since George Floyd was killed. Others, including business leaders, have condemned Wheeler for not bringing the situation under control before the agents showed up.

Protesters in the crowd held signs aloft that read “Tear Gas Ted” in reference to the Portland Police Bureau’s use of the substance before federal agents arrived.

When the mayor left the protest, around 12:40 a.m., some protesters surrounded him and shouted angrily at him as he walked away. One person shouted, “You’ve got to be here every single night!”

While taking questions Wednesday night—and before he was tear gassed—Wheeler was criticized for the actions of his own police department, not defunding the local police, national movement that seeks to redirect funds from policing to community needs like housing and education, and not having Portland police protect people from federal agents. The mayor said he wants to use the energy of the protests to make changes.

Wheeler then addressed the much larger crowd from a raised balcony, saying “I am here tonight to stand with you.”

Earlier Wednesday, the City Council banned police from cooperating with federal agents or arresting reporters or legal observers.

Wheeler’s tense nighttime appearance downtown came hours after attorneys for Oregon urged a judge to issue a restraining order against agents deployed to quell the protests.

The arguments from the state and the U.S. government came in a lawsuit filed by Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, who accuses federal agents of arresting protesters without probable cause, whisking them away in unmarked cars and using excessive force. Federal authorities have disputed those allegations.

The lawsuit is part of the growing pushback by far-left activists to the Department of Homeland Security sending federal agents to Portland and announcing they would be going to Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico, to fight rising crime.

While the rioters themselves are the source of the problem, their liberal leaders claim that the move is deepening the country’s political divide and potentially setting up a constitutional crisis months ahead of the presidential election. Democratic mayors of 15 cities condemned the use of federal officers in a letter to the U.S. attorney general.

The court hearing focused on the actions of more than 100 federal agents responding to protests outside the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse, which has been a target for the demonstrations.

The state acknowledged that federal agents have the right to defend the courthouse but argued that they had overstepped.

Rosenblum, the state attorney general, said she wanted the court to “declare it not acceptable for federal officers to use unconstitutional, police-state-type acts to detain citizens of Oregon without cause.”

David Morrell, an attorney for the U.S. government, called the motion “extraordinary” and said it was based solely on “a few threadbare declarations” from witnesses and a Twitter video.

“The Hatfield courthouse did not damage itself,” he said, calling the protests “dangerous and volatile.”

Police say protesters have tried repeatedly to break into the federal courthouse and set fires around it and that the federal agents drive them back with tear gas and stun grenades.

Federal authorities have defended their response, saying officials in Oregon had been unwilling to work with them to stop the vandalism against the the U.S. courthouse and violence against federal officers.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

McConnell Readies Roll-Out of $1 Trillion CARES II Relief Package

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McConnell Readies Roll-Out of $1 Trillion CARES II Relief Package

(Headline USA) Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is set to unveil a $1 trillion COVID-19 rescue package on Thursday, pushing past a Republican revolt over big spending and differences with the White House as the virus panic worsens.

The package, called CARES II, is made up of separate bills from 10 senators as McConnell seeks to replicate an earlier strategy to launch negotiations with Democrats.

But the path will be tougher this time. GOP senators and President Donald Trump are at odds over priorities, and Democrats say it’s not nearly enough to stem the health crisis, reopen schools and extend aid to jobless Americans.

The Republican leader is expected to deliver a speech shortly after the Senate opens, and then senators will begin rolling out their separate parts of the package, according to a Republican granted anonymity to discuss the plans.

“Very productive meeting,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said while exiting a session late Wednesday at the Capitol.

The centerpiece of the GOP effort remains McConnell’s liability shield to protect businesses, schools and others from coronavirus-related lawsuits.

The package is not expected to provide any new money for cash-strapped blue states and cities, which are clamoring for funds, after recklessly squandering their own funds to provide relief and social programs for illegal immigrants and demanding federal agencies foot the bill for their refusal to follow federal laws and guidelines.

Republicans instead propose giving $105 billion to help schools reopen and $15 billion for child care centers to create safe environments for youngsters during the pandemic.

The $600 weekly unemployment benefit boost that is expiring Friday will be reduced, likely to $200, and ultimately adjusted according to state jobless benefits rates. Many have noted that the boost—beyond what some essential workers would make in wages—offered a disincentive to work.

But some centrist Republicans said they prefer a phased approach.

“We cannot allow there to be a cliff in unemployment insurance given we’re still at about 11% unemployment,” said Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio.

The bill is likely to be silent on the potential housing crisis as a federal eviction moratorium on millions of rental units expires in days.

One key holdup in the talks was Trump’s push for a payroll tax cut, according to a Republican granted anonymity to discuss the private talks. Hardly any GOP senators support the idea. Instead, McConnell and some other Republicans prefer another round of direct $1,200 cash payments to Americans.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said there will be another boost for small business lending in the Paycheck Protection Program. “It’s going to be big,” he said.

The bills will also include tax breaks for businesses to hire and retain workers and to help shops and workplaces retool with new safety protocols.

The breakthrough on testing money was key after days of debate between Republicans and the White House. Republicans wanted $25 billion, but the Trump administration said the $9 billion in unspent funds from a previous aid deal was sufficient. The two sides settled on adding $16 billion to the unspent funds to reach $25 billion, senators said. There will also be fresh funds for vaccines.

Of the $105 billion for education, Republicans want $70 billion to help K-12 schools reopen, $30 billion for colleges and $5 billion for governors to allocate. The Trump administration wanted school money linked to reopenings, but in McConnell’s package the money for K-12 would likely be split between those that have in-person learning and those that don’t.

Democrats already approved House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s more sweeping $3 trillion package two months ago.

In what they hoped to leverage as a reversal of the earlier situation, when their bickering and efforts to negotiated led to major delays in the original stimulus bill, some now claimed that Republicans were the ones taking too long.

“We are just days away from a housing crisis that could be prevented,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

McConnell calls his proposal a “starting point” in negotiations with Democrats. Congress in March approved the massive $2.2 trillion CARES package, the biggest of its kind in U.S. history.

Still, some Republicans said they are unlikely to approve any new aid.

“I just don’t see the need for it,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told reporters on Wednesday.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Google, Twitter Tighten Censorship Noose on Conservatives Ahead of Election

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Google, Twitter Tighten Censorship Noose on Conservatives Ahead of Election

Big Tech mega-companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter appear determined to influence the 2020 presidential election and prevent President Donald Trump’s second term.

Google was caught red-handed on Tuesday blacklisting conservatives and right-leaning news websites.

Google controls 90 percent of all American internet searches, and the global information juggernaut flexed its muscles by censoring sites like The National Pulse, Breitbart, Citizen Free Press, the Daily Caller, Red State, The Bongino Report and more.

But people like Mediaite reporter Charlie Nash eventually caught on.

The blacklisting spanned at least the United States and Western Europe.

Internet searches would not produce links to the censored websites, only adversarial articles about them from mainstream news outlets and biased fact-checking sites.

After Trump was elected in 2016, Google produced an 85-page internal document called “The Good Censor,” which caused an uproar when it leaked to the public.

The document called for the abandonment of free speech for the “safety and civility” of society and conveniently gave Google permission to manipulate information to achieve desired political results.

Once the lid was blown off Tuesday’s blacklisting scheme, Google backpedaled, restored the conservative sites’ search functions and claimed the entire affair was caused by a technical glitch.

Twitter, on the other hand was out in the open with its own major censorship moves.

The site, which once adamantly denied shadow-banning conservative users, recently appeared to have sanctioned the practice in its official polices.

A screenshot posted last week—which the social media platform quickly proceeded to remove—appeared to show two of the secretive lists that it maintained allowing algorithms to censor conservative media.

On Tuesday“Twitter Safety” announced it had banned 7,000 accounts for supposedly trafficking in “QAnon” conspiracy theories, and another 150,000 accounts were limited all because the social media company said there was potential for “off-site harm”—an impossible standard.

But as many users noted, Twitter allows the violent communist group Antifa to organize on its platform, Islamic radicals are also active, and even transparently dangerous pedophile accounts are allowed without accountability.

After the site began implementing misleading fact checks against President Donald Trump, the president issued an executive order affirming that any social media platforms that censored for political purposes would be subject to greater liabilities under the Communications Decency Act.

However, the feud seems to have done little but to embolden some of the biased companies to further antagonized dissenting viewpoints with impunity.

For example, a Virginia judge ruled recently that Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., could not hold Twitter accountable in a libel suit that said several parody accounts had caused malicious harm by falsely impersonating him and his family.

Probes EXPOSE Unethical and Criminal Conduct by Prominent NeverTrumpers

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Probes EXPOSE Unethical and Criminal Conduct by Prominent NeverTrumpers

NeverTrump Republicans complain that President Donald Trump lacks morals and ethics — so much so that the “real conservatives” are helping radical Democrats pursue the White House, flip the Senate and crush traditional America.

But a look beneath the surface shows a corrupt cesspool of former GOP consultants and fat-cat politicians who are intent on cashing in by backstabbing loyal voters.

One need look no further than the Lincoln Project.

The super PAC was co-founded by NeverTrump zealots George Conway—who publicly trashes his wife Kelly Conway for supporting the president—Steve Schmidt, Rick Wilson and John Weaver.

The group’s sole mission is to peel away Trump voters by broadcasting far-left propaganda from a “Republican” angle.

The NeverTrump leaders have routinely spouted Democrat talking points on MSNBC and CNN, including calling the president a Russian asset, racist, and crook.

According to FEC filings, the Lincoln Project has raised $19.4 million, mostly from deep-pocketed progressives.

But unlike President Trump, co-founder John Weaver actually is a Russian agent.

Weaver is a former consultant for squishy Republicans John McCain and John Kasich. Yet, newly revealed U.S. Department of Justice documents show that he registered as a Russian foreign agent for the uranium conglomerate TENEX last year and received a sweetheart six-figure deal.

TENEX’s parent company is Rosatom, the Russian state-owned corporation that owns Uranium One and was notoriously tied to Bill and Hillary Clinton during her tenure in the Obama administration.

Weaver has taken to calling President Trump a “tax fraud” and a “tax crook” as Democrats attempt to exploit the president’s private tax records prior to his becoming an elected official.

However, the New York Post recently reported that Weaver owes the IRS $313,655 and the federal tax agency has placed a lien for the amount against his Austin, Texas home.

Not to be outdone, rabid anti-Trumper Rick Wilson owes the IRS $389,420. He has a federal tax lien against his Tallahassee, Florida, home.

The Post further reported that Wilson’s bank attempted to foreclose on his house in 2016, the same year President Trump destroyed Wilson’s establishment GOP gravy train.

“It’s very clear that this isn’t about Trump and Republicans,” a GOP source said. “It’s about making money to help pay off their massive personal debts.”

Steve Schmidt, a former George W. Bush and McCain consultant, once took credit for finding former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

He now calls Republicans a “mindless” cult and praises House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., as “literally the only serious national leader the country has.”

Other NeverTrump fellow travelers have also made headlines as of late.

Larry Householder
Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder leaves the federal courthouse after an initial hearing following charges against him and four others alleging a $60 million bribery scheme. / PHOTO: Associated Press

Matthew Borges, a lobbyist and former chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, was arrested on Tuesday in connection with a $60 million public corruption scheme.

Borges co-founded another NeverTrump political action committee Right Side PAC along with Trump ally-turned-enemy Anthony Scaramucci.

The group raises money on the promise of turning 2016 Trump voters into 2020 Joe Biden voters.

“We want to take an opportunity to kind of reset things,” Borges told Axios. “And the first way to do that is cut out the cancer and start rebuilding… We’re not trying to become Democrats.”

According to law enforcement officials, Borges and three other lobbyists allegedly conspired with the Ohio Speaker of the House of Representatives to secure $1.3 billion of taxpayer funding to save a troubled company called FirstEnergy.

Following the bailout, a nonprofit controlled by the House Speaker received $60 million from FirstEnergy.

BETO O’ROURKE: Texas GOP a ‘Death Cult’ That ‘Wants You To Do the Dying’

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BETO O’ROURKE: Texas GOP a ‘Death Cult’ That ‘Wants You To Do the Dying’

Failed presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke said on Tuesday that the Texas GOP is a “death cult” due to its “failure” to manage the coronavirus pandemic.

Texas is one of several states experiencing a recent surge of coronavirus cases.

Naturally, O’Rourke argued that the Lone Star State’s Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who has reintroduced certain restrictions, and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who is enforcing them, are to blame. 

“This is one of the most craven, callous failures of leadership that I’ve ever witnessed in my life,” O’Rourke told MSNBC.

Because Abbott will not issue another mandatory shelter-in-place order, he is putting ethnic minorities and front-line workers at risk, O’Rourke said. 

“In other words, let’s get on with the dying, knowing full well that it will be those front-line workers making $7.25 an hour, which is the minimum wage in Texas,” O’Rourke said.

“It will be African Americans, it will be Latinos and Mexican Americans who will be doing the dying right here in Texas,” he continued. “… This is a death cult. The Texas GOP. Only they want you to do the dying.”

Contrary to his claim, many Democrat leaders vocally encouraged blacks and other minorities to engage in reckless public gatherings during June protests for racial “justice.”

Some, at the time, speciously claimed that “racism” was a greater health risk than the actual virus.

Ironically, O’Rourke compared Texas’s response to New York’s, claiming that Gov. Andrew Cuomo has navigated the pandemic far more successfully than has Abbott.

The numbers, however, say otherwise.

In Texas, 4,319 people had died from COVID-19 as of Wednesday. In New York, 32,218 people had died.

Moreover, O’Rourke’s word choice was ironic given his personal history and affinity with cults. A report back in March found that O’Rourke was a member of a hacking group called Cult of the Death Cow when he was a teenager.

O’Rourke claimed that there was a “profound value in being able to be apart from the system and look at it critically and have fun while you’re doing it.”

Joining Cult of the Dead Cow allowed him to do just that, he said.

DHS Secretary: ‘We Will Not Retreat’ from Portland Until Violence Stops

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DHS Secretary: ‘We Will Not Retreat’ from Portland Until Violence Stops

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said federal agents in Portland “will not retreat” as violent protests continue in the city.

Wolf defended the Department of Homeland Security’s mission in Portland even as Democrats and city leaders demanded that the federal officers leave.

Federal officers’ role is crucial, Wolf said, especially since local law enforcement is still being regularly bombarded by angry and violent rioters.

“What is occurring in Portland in the early hours of every morning is not peaceful protesting,” Wolf said during a press conference on Tuesday.

“We have been forced because of local law enforcement presence to take measures such as arrests to protect our officials,” he added.

Rioters in the city need to know that they cannot get away with the violent destruction of property and repeated attempts to do bodily harm to men and women in uniform, Wolf said.

“While I look forward to the day that our officers are redeployed back to their regular day-to-day mission, we will not shrink from our duty because of this violence,” he added.

“If you are a violent rioter looking to inflict damage to federal property or law enforcement officers, you need to find another line of work … We will not retreat. We will continue to protect our facilities and our law enforcement officers.”

Democrats have been waging a “disgusting” smear campaign against federal officers who are just trying to do their jobs, Wolf said.

The officers are not misidentifying themselves, nor are they snatching people and throwing them into unmarked vehicles at random, he said.

They are “trained officers” who wear “insignia on their uniforms that read ‘police,’ and they have patches that indicate which agency they are from,” he explained.

“They are civilian police officers. These police officers are not stormtroopers,” Wolf said, and they will be “ready” to withdraw if — and only if — “the violence stops.”  

Cancel Culture Finally Forces Planned Parenthood to Own Founder’s Racist Legacy

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Cancel Culture Finally Forces Planned Parenthood to Own Founder’s Racist Legacy

Left-wing cancel culture has come for one of its own—though in name only.

Perhaps no one is more responsible for ravaging the African–American community than Margret Sanger.

The celebrated founder of the nationwide abortion complex Planned Parenthood was an atrocious racist and eugenicist.

This week, woke mobs finally came for the long-deceased feminist icon and demanded her name be stricken from the organization’s flagship New York City abortion facility.

Karen Seltzer, board chair for Planned Parenthood of Greater New York, responded by praising Sanger’s commitment to “reproductive health” while begrudgingly acknowledging “her racist legacy” and the “overwhelming evidence for Sanger’s deep belief in eugenic ideology.”

Seltzer also said Planned Parenthood’s activities would continue unabated.

“The removal of Margaret Sanger’s name from our building is both a necessary and overdue step to reckon with our legacy and acknowledge Planned Parenthood’s contributions to historical reproductive harm within communities of color,” Seltzer said in a statement.

Despite her widely known past, Sanger has achieved sainthood on the feminist political left.

But the current so-called anti-racist movement has complicated the Democrat Party’s longstanding Sanger worship.

Born in New York, Sanger came to prominence in the early 20th Century and New Deal era for her advocacy of sterilizing “the feeble minded” and promoting “birth control”—which included abortion—to stem “the rising stream of the unfit.”

Sanger, a progressive, aligned herself with segregationists and even the Ku Klux Klan. She spearheaded programs like the “Negro Project,” which attempted to reduce the black population in the American South.

Her monstrous legacy isn’t lost on Alveda King, a pro-life activist and niece of Martin Luther King, Jr.

King has called Planned Parenthood one of the most racist organizations in the nation’s history.

“More African-Americans have died from abortion than from AIDS, accidents, violent crimes, cancer, and heart disease—combined,” she explained in a May 2018 op-ed. “And since 1973 [Roe v. Wade], abortion has reduced the black population by more than 25 percent.”

More than 80 percent of Planned Parenthood’s abortion facilities are located in inner-city neighborhoods.

King said she believes its a business model that “was specifically engineered to target them [blacks].”

Dems Steamed over Trumps’ Goya Support; Demand Bean-Gate Ethics Probe

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Dems Steamed over Trumps’ Goya Support; Demand Bean-Gate Ethics Probe

Two Democratic senators are calling for an ethics review into whether Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and a senior White House adviser, violated federal ethics rules by tweeting her support for the Goya Foods brand.

In a letter sent to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics on Monday, Sens. Tom Carper, D-Del., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., claimed that Ivanka Trump’s tweet violated a federal rule barring public officials from using their position to endorse a private product, according to Politico.

The senators encouraged the agency to investigate the tweet, which shows Ivanka Trump holding up a can of Goya beans, and whether it proves Ivanka Trump misused her position.

“The timing of her remarks creates the appearance, at least, that praise for Trump Administration officials may elicit later endorsements from these same officials,” the letter states.

The federal ethics law Carper and Warren were referring to prevents federal employees from using their positions “for the endorsement of any product, service, or enterprise, or for the private gain of friends, relatives, or persons with whom the employee is affiliated in a nongovernmental capacity.”

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway was also accused of violating this law in 2017 after she endorsed Ivanka Trump’s product line.

Conway reportedly received ethics counseling after a complaint was filed, but no substantive action was taken beyond that.

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Ivanka Trump’s tweet does not violate this law because it “was made in her personal capacity voicing her personal support.”

“This complaint is another politically motivated, baseless attack from an organization with a vendetta against all of the administration,” McEnany added, pointing out that the Democrats are only complaining because the CEO of Goya, Robert Unanue, voiced praise for the Trump administration a few days prior.

“We’re all truly blessed at the same time to have a leader like President Trump who is a builder,” Unanue said during a July 9 round table event.

Ivanka Trump also defended her tweet through a spokesperson, arguing that she has “every right” to personally express her support for a brand.

“Only the media and the cancel culture movement would criticize Ivanka for showing her personal support for a company that has been unfairly mocked, boycotted and ridiculed for supporting this administration—one that has consistently fought for and delivered for the Hispanic community,” White House spokesperson Carolina Hurley said in a statement.

Following the media meltdown over his daughter’s tweet, President Trump took to Instagram for his own message of solidarity with the Hispanic community.

 

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PELOSI: COVID-19 is the ‘Trump Virus’

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PELOSI: COVID-19 is the ‘Trump Virus’

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the coronavirus should be called the “Trump virus” because of the president’s handling of the pandemic.

Pelosi was responding to Trump’s coronavirus press briefing at the White House on Tuesday in which he urged Americans to wear face masks while in public.

“Well, I think with the president’s comments today, he recognized the mistakes he has made by now embracing mask-wearing and the recognition this is not a hoax,” Pelosi told CNN.

“It is a pandemic that has gotten worse before it will get better because of his inaction,” she claimed. “In fact, clearly, it is the Trump virus.”

Trump should have encouraged Americans to wear masks “months ago,” Pelosi argued.

“If he had said months ago, let’s wear masks, let’s not—let’s socially distance instead of having rallies and whatever they were, then more people would have followed his lead,” Pelosi said. “He’s the president of the United States.”

When asked directly whether she believes Americans have died because of the president, Pelosi said: “Yes, that’s what I am saying. I think it’s clearly evident, so let’s hope the president comes closer to embracing the reality of this pandemic—this Trump virus.”

Just over a week ago, the San Francisco liberal was criticized herself for insisting she had no regrets about her initial downplaying of the virus, going so far as to encourage citizens to participate in mass gatherings for the Chinese New Year.

Blue states have been particularly hard-hit by the spread, including her home state of California, which surpassed New York this week for having the most cases after Democrats again encouraged mass gatherings in June to protest racial injustice.

Yet, Pelosi’s new phrase for the coronavirus is even more ironic given Democrats’ knee-jerk reaction against Republicans when they referred to COVID-19 as the “Wuhan virus” or the “China virus.”

Indeed, Pelosi was one of several congressional Democrats who accused Republicans of racism and xenophobia for pointing out that the coronavirus originated in Wuhan, China.

Yet somehow it’s appropriate to refer to the coronavirus as the “Trump virus,” thereby absolving China of any blame for the initial spread of the pandemic, as several critics pointed out:

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