THE DAILY NEWSLETTER  - WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2020

Media Winners & Losers

MEDIA WINNER:
Ben Ginsberg

For nearly the past four decades, famed election law attorney Ben Ginsberg has been a fixture of the Republican Party’s legal team. A key figure on the George W. Bush team during the 2000 Florida recount, Ginsberg has represented the GOP in scores of Congressional and state elections. But now, Ginsberg is slamming the party — and especially its standard bearer, President Donald Trump — for their rhetoric about elections being “rigged.”

In a scathing op-ed published Wednesday by the Washington Post, Ginsberg accused Trump and Republicans of manufacturing controversy in order to gain an edge.

“The president’s words make his and the Republican Party’s rhetoric look less like sincere concern — and more like transactional hypocrisy designed to provide an electoral advantage,” Ginsberg wrote.

Specifically, Ginsberg took aim at Trump calling mail-in voting “very dangerous,” and stating that only the only way he can lose the election is through cheating.

“The lack of evidence renders these claims unsustainable,” Ginsberg wrote. “The truth is that after decades of looking for illegal voting, there’s no proof of widespread fraud. At most, there are isolated incidents — by both Democrats and Republicans. Elections are not rigged.”

It's an important point on which to take a stand.

MEDIA LOSER:
Thom Tillis

The office of Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) came under fire this week over an insensitive conversation one of his staffers had with a constituent looking for answers over her health care struggles.

Bev Veals, a three-time cancer survivor, told WRAL of how she has been reaching out to state lawmakers because her husband was furloughed due to the coronavirus pandemic, and she didn’t know what would happen to her health insurance as a result. After getting in contact with Tillis’ office, Veals ended up recording a phone call with one of his staffers after getting frustrated by his unsympathetic response to her medical concerns.

“You’re saying that, if you can’t afford it, you don’t get to have it, and that includes health care?” Veals asked.

“Yeah, just like if I want to go to the store and buy a new dress shirt,” the staffer replied. “If I can’t afford that dress shirt, I don’t get to get it”

“But health care is something that people need, especially if they have cancer,” Veals protested.

“Well, you got to find a way to get it,” the staffer responded.

“So what do I do in the meantime?” She asked

“Sounds like something you’re going to have to figure out,” he said.

It's on tape, it's ugly, and the office offering a vague apology doesn't undo that damage.

BREAKING

Trump Told Bob Woodward in March That He Was Deliberately Downplaying ‘Deadly’ Coronavirus

The A-Block

The Nobel Prize

President Donald Trump has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Christian Tybring-Gjedde, an anti-immigration member of the Norwegian parliament.

Tybring-Gjedde, who is a notorious anti-immigration hardliner who has made a series of inflammatory statements on the subject, explained his nomination to Fox News in an interview.

Boys will be boys?

Donald Trump Jr. offered a glib response to the actions of Kyle Rittenhouse on Tuesday when asked about the Kenosha vigilante’s alleged killing of two people and the shooting of a third. "We all do stupid things at 17," said Trump Jr.

You first

The View co-host Joy Behar claimed on Wednesday that she won’t take the coronavirus vaccine until “after Ivanka takes it” — referring to first daughter Ivanka Trump — after the president boasted that the vaccine will be available by the end of the year.

Spot check?

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences announced Tuesday that they will begin enforcing new racial and gender “inclusion standards” for films competing for Best Picture, which will be enforced through “spot checks” of sets, according to the New York Times.

Lemmings

CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner called out President Donald Trump for continuing to hold campaign events in the fides of the coronavirus pandemic where rallygoers are not socially distanced few are wearing masks. “What you are seeing is lemmings heading for the cliff,” Reiner warned.

TMZ Under Fire

23 former employees and one current employee of celebrity news site TMZ alleged that the company fosters a “toxic workplace where the staff regularly endures verbal abuse, misogyny, racism, and other inappropriate behavior,” according to a new report.

"Hang up the phone, Jerry!"

An interview with Jerry Falwell Jr. ended up getting brought to a grinding halt after the former Liberty University president’s wife interrupted him to cut off the whole thing. Falwell's wife finally interrupted when he was talking to them about topless photos of her.

President for LIFE?

Trump's former fixer, Michael Cohen, said that the president “doesn’t have a sense of humor” and that he isn’t joking when he has repeatedly hinted at staying past two terms.

During an hour-long interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, the convicted felon said that, in his opinion, the president’s mental faculties have eroded during his nearly four years in office and that Trump really would prefer to rule the country in perpetuity. Throughout his first term, Trump has often suggested that he might run past 2024, despite being constitutionally limited to two consecutive terms in the White House.

 

Must See Clip

98(!) TIMES TRUMP DISPARAGED BABIES BY USING THEM AS AN INSULT

Mediaite's Tommy Christopher has done the research and put in the time and the results are breathtaking. 

Because, while Trump is well-known to be a frequent user of the term “losers,” he’s also displayed an odd contempt for babies over the years by invoking them in similar contexts.

Trump has invoked infanto-Americans to describe a variety of failings in adult humans. According to Trump, babies are poor business people who shake constantly, don’t know how to negotiate deals, are definitely not the best and brightest, are stupid, and are unable to retain domestic employment, but are adept at losing wars, failing to plunder petroleum resources, and paling in comparison to a varied cast of characters that include “killers,” government regimes, who foolishly won’t even dip bullets in pig’s blood or torture people to discourage terrorism, and whose insatiable demand for toys is somehow fueling monstrous trade deficits.

In the interest of posterity, especially all the babies who are currently too stupid or busy ruining America to understand them right now, Tommy has compiled a vast array of such moments.

WATCH THE MESMERIZING VIDEO EXCLUSIVELY FROM MEDIAITE

Links We Like

Where Republicans Over and Underperformed Polls in 2018
- Dan McLaughlin, via National Review
Trump is right, the 1619 Project promotes fake history, and Democrats are messing up
- Piers Morgan, via Daily Mail

Right-wing media thrives on Facebook. Whether it rules is more complicated.
- via Vox: Recode
The Electoral College Will Destroy America
- Jesse Wegman, via The New York Times
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