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Running for President: 'Absolutely Brutal': Why White House Runs Aren't For Everyone
"The process is cruel," former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said Thursday, announcing he would not seek the White House. He explained that the way families are exposed in presidential campaigns was ultimately the factor that convinced him and his wife to pass on a run. "Every family has its warts, has its issues ... has its things they'd rather keep private, and we do as well."
But otherwise private matters have a lot to do with modern-day campaigns. Scrutiny of presidential candidates has always existed on some level, but the trend of picking through personal lives has accelerated in the past 30 years.
https://www.npr.org/2018/12/09/674765114/absolutely-brutal-why-white-house-runs-aren-t-for-everyone?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20181210&utm_campaign=breakingnews&utm_term=nprnews
Undated: List of rallies for the Donald Trump presidential campaign, 2016
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rallies_for_the_Donald_Trump_presidential_campaign,_2016
[Donald Trump comments]:
“I have no intention of running for president.” (Time, September 14, 1987)
“If I ever ran for office, I’d do better as a Democrat than as a Republican—and that’s not because I’d be more liberal, because I’m conservative.” (Playboy, March 1990)
“I’m a registered Republican. I’m a pretty conservative guy. I’m somewhat liberal on social issues, especially health care.” (CNN, October 8, 1999)
“I’ve actually been an activist Democrat and Republican.” (CNN, October 8, 1999)
“You’d be shocked if I said that in many cases I probably identify more as a Democrat.” (CNN, March 21, 2004)
-- 2015 --
[Donald Trump comments]:
“Look, I’m a Republican. I’m a very conservative guy in many respects—I guess in most respects.” (The Hugh Hewitt Show, February 25, 2015)
“I am officially running for president.” (New York, June 16, 2015)
“Politicians are all talk and no action.” (Twitter, May 27, 2015)
“I’m no different than a politician running for office.” (New York Times, July 28, 2015)
“I’m not a politician.” (CNN, August 11, 2015)
-- 2016 --
,April 29: [Donald Trump]:
“Folks, I’m a conservative, but at this point, who cares? We got to straighten out the country.” (Burlingame, California)
June 1:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/06/01/donald-trump-lawsuits-legal-battles/84995854/
July 2: In the birther movement, Mr. Trump recognized an opportunity to connect with the electorate over an issue many considered taboo: the discomfort, in some quarters of American society, with the election of the nation's first black president.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/us/politics/donald-trump-birther-obama.html
August 15: Secret Ledger in Ukraine Lists Cash for Donald Trump’s Campaign Chief
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/15/us/politics/paul-manafort-ukraine-donald-trump.html
September 28: One of the biggest reasons that this election year seems so hostile is that one of the main party nominees has consistently shown himself to be abusive, obtuse, and ignorant. Over and over again, Donald Trump has displayed a penchant to not only misunderstand the issues, but to back his own arguments with demonstrably false information and convoluted, often irrational, logic.
https://www.mesothelioma.com/blog/authors/staff/asbestos-and-the-dangers-of-a-trump-presidency.htm
September 28: ... Trump has brought up asbestos. And like many of the statements he has made on other topics, he has proven himself to be ignorant about the actual dangers of asbestos exposure. Furthermore, his support of the asbestos industry and expanded use of the toxic substance – rather than a ban – shows that if Trump were to become president, his asbestos-related policies would likely lead to even more unnecessary deaths.
https://www.mesothelioma.com/blog/authors/staff/asbestos-and-the-dangers-of-a-trump-presidency.htm
Undated: List of post-election Donald Trump rallies
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_post-election_Donald_Trump_rallies
November 9: Donald Trump has defied all expectations from the very start of his presidential campaign more than a year ago.
Very few people thought he would actually run, then he did. They thought he wouldn't climb in the polls, then he did. They said he wouldn't win any primaries, then he did. They said he wouldn't win the Republican nomination, then he did.
Finally, they said there was no way he could compete for, let alone win, a general election.
Now he's President-elect Trump.
Here are five ways he pulled off what was unexpected by most and incomprehensible to many.
http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37918303
November 11: Suicide hotlines receive record number of calls after the election — many from LGBTQ people
Mental health professionals want people to know that they’re not alone
https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/11/13593608/suicide-hotlines-lgbtq-calls-election-depression-anxiety-trump
November 15: Colorado presidential elector seeks to block Donald Trump from White House ... Micheal Baca, a Democratic elector from Denver, is seeking support from Republican members of Electoral College
https://www.denverpost.com/2016/11/15/colorado-presidential-elector-seeks-block-donald-trump/
-- 2017 --
January 10: The November electorate was the country’s most racially and ethnically diverse ever. Nearly one-in-three eligible voters on Election Day were Hispanic, black, Asian or another racial or ethnic minority, reflecting a steady rise since 2008.
http://www.pewresearch.org/2017/01/10/how-america-changed-during-barack-obamas-presidency/
February 9:
https://www.thecut.com/2017/02/an-unprecedented-number-of-women-plan-to-run-for-office.html
February 12: Trump is said to have told some senators in a private meeting at the White House that he and former Senator Kelly Ayotte, a New Hampshire Republican, would have won in the state if not for voters bused in from elsewhere.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2017/02/12/senator-says-trump-mental-health-questioned-gop-colleagues/9xQd8bBPYSc1JdqeFICjfI/story.html
February 13: Minnesota’s Al Franken tells CNN’s “State of the Union” that the concern arises “in the way that we all have this suspicion” that “he lies a lot. He says things that aren’t true. That’s the same as lying, I guess.”
Franken cites Trump’s groundless claim that he would have won the popular vote in the presidential race if not for 3 million to 5 million immigrants in the country illegally voting for his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.
http://fortune.com/2017/02/13/al-franken-trump-mental-health/
April 27: He misses driving, feels as if he is in a cocoon, and is surprised how hard his new job is.
President Donald Trump on Thursday reflected on his first 100 days in office with a wistful look at his life before the White House.
“I loved my previous life. I had so many things going,” Trump told Reuters in an interview. “This is more work than in my previous life. I thought it would be easier.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-100days/exclusive-trump-says-he-thought-being-president-would-be-easier-than-his-old-life-idUSKBN17U0CA
May (undated): The November electorate was the country’s most racially and ethnically diverse ever. Nearly one-in-three eligible voters on Election Day were Hispanic, black, Asian or another racial or ethnic minority, reflecting a steady rise since 2008.
http://www.pewresearch.org/2017/01/10/how-america-changed-during-barack-obamas-presidency/
May 29: [in a new tweet, Trump again] ... accused reporters of falsifying the controversy over claims that his campaign aides colluded with Russians' election hacking effort.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/29/politics/trump-hasnt-changed-neither-has-washington/index.html
June 1: Donald Trump’s white nationalist campaign attracted anti-immigrant, pro-Russia politicians from across Europe. In particular “Brexit” leader Nigel Farage, the proudly racist and sexist former head of the nationalist UK Independence Party, made an unprecedented trans-Atlantic push for Trump. Farage attended the Republican convention, did media appearances to support Trump, joined in raising the rabble at Trump rallies, and even defended Trump’s ugly Access Hollywood statements as just the bragging of an “alpha male.” Farage is also an admirer of Trump adviser Steve Bannon, with a Breitbart-friendly relationship that extends back at least three years. And now Trump and Farage have something else in common:
Nigel Farage is a “person of interest” in the US counter-intelligence investigation that is looking into possible collusion between the Kremlin and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, the Guardian has been told.
Farage says he’s never even been to Russia … though he refuses to say if he’s received payment from RT or other Russian state media. Farage has met with Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, with Assange-friendly whackadoodle Roger Stone, and seems to have just incidentally been involved with a lot of people whose names keep showing up on the FBI radar.
“He’s right in the middle of these relationships. He turns up over and over again. There’s a lot of attention being paid to him.”
Farage has some recent FBI experience. In July, the FBI nabbed Farage’s top aide, for laundering drug money through the dark net.
The aide, George Cottrell, previously ran the UKIP offices as well as Farage’s personal blog. He was arrested by the FBI when Farage and Cottrell came to the US for the Republican Convention. Cottrell was later found guilty of wire fraud for offering to help criminals launder funds.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/6/1/1667871/-Nigel-Farage-joins-other-Trump-associates-as-person-of-interest-in-FBI-investigation
June 16: House Russia investigators are planning to call on Brad Parscale, the digital director of President Donald Trump's campaign, as the congressional and federal probes dig into any possible connections between the Trump digital operation and Russian operatives ... Parscale played a critical role behind the scenes on the Trump campaign, directing online spending and voter targeting with the use of a highly sophisticated data bank built by the Republican National Committee ...
http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/16/politics/russia-investigators-trump-digital-director/?iid=ob_lockedrail_bottomlist
June 21: A Homeland Security (DHS) official told a Senate panel that election systems in 21 states were targeted in Russian cyber attacks in the 2016 presidential election.
"None of these systems were involved in vote tallying."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dhs-official-election-systems-in-21-states-were-targeted-in-russia-cyber-attacks/
June 23: The House Intelligence Committee plans to interview the digital director for President Donald Trump's campaign, Brad Parscale, as it continues to investigate whether any collusion occurred between the campaign and Russia
http://www.businessinsider.com/brad-parscale-trump-russia-investigation-2017-6
July 20: Top homeland security and intelligence officials in President Trump's administration have thrown their support behind the intelligence community's conclusion that Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential campaign, breaking from the president's own wariness to endorse the findings.
Thomas Bossert, the president's homeland security adviser, said there was no question that Russia had meddled in the 2016 election ...
"There is a pretty clear and easy answer to that and that is yes," Bossert said when asked if he backed the conclusion from U.S. intelligence agencies. He added that more should be done to "punish" Russia and other groups for interfering in the election process.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/343063-trump-officials-russia-meddled-in-the-election
July 20: Facebook had a rough year in 2016. It’s been trying to fight the widely held view it influenced the election while at the same time trying to teach users to spot fake news. It was clearly hoping, as 2017 dawned, to put this behind it, but scandal has a way of pulling everyone in, and sure enough, Facebook is on the spot in the Trump-Russia probe.
http://uproxx.com/technology/facebook-trump-russia-probe/
July 21: Russia’s ambassador to Washington told his superiors in Moscow that he discussed campaign-related matters, including policy issues important to Moscow, with Jeff Sessions during the 2016 presidential race, contrary to public assertions by the embattled attorney general, according to current and former U.S. officials.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/sessions-discussed-trump-campaign-related-matters-with-russian-ambassador-us-intelligence-intercepts-show/2017/07/21/3e704692-6e44-11e7-9c15-177740635e83_story.html?tid=a_breakingnews&utm_term=.478c059daf83
July 21: "I am confident that the Russians meddled in this election, as is the entire intelligence community," CIA Director Mike Pompeo said Thursday ... "This threat is real. The U.S. government, including the Central Intelligence Agency, has to figure out a way to fight back against it and defeat it. And we're intent upon doing that."
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/intelligence-director-says-agencies-agree-russian-meddling-n785481
July 21: President Trump said on Thursday that only “three or four” of the United States’ 17 intelligence agencies had concluded that Russia interfered in the presidential election — a statement that while technically accurate, is misleading and suggests widespread dissent among American intelligence agencies when none has emerged.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/06/us/politics/trump-russia-intelligence-agencies-cia-fbi-nsa.html
July 21: ... [Dan] Coats [National Intelligence Director] said that the reason only four of 17 intelligence agencies signed onto the January assessment describing the Russian effort is that the other agencies were not involved in gathering and analyzing the intelligence ... But, he added, there was no disagreement inside the intelligence community [all 17 agencies, such as the U.S. Coast Guard, etc].
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/intelligence-director-says-agencies-agree-russian-meddling-n785481
July 29: ... according to ... Anthony Scaramucci, [Trump] still doubts Moscow's involvement in the election campaign.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/28/politics/white-house-russia-sanctions/index.html
August 4: According to a transcript [leaked about Trump phone calls] published Thursday by The Washington Post, President Donald Trump boasted about his election victory, pressured his Mexican counterpart to remain quiet about a border wall and called New Hampshire a "drug-infested den" in a phone call with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/04/politics/leaking-donald-trump-democrats/index.html
August 4: Many Americans may know New Hampshire as the Granite State or the “Live Free or Die” state. President Donald Trump apparently knows it as “a drug-infested den.”
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/3/16089836/trump-new-hampshire-drug-infested-den
September 7: ... Facebook has been dragged into the Russia mess. The social media giant told congressional investigators it sold $100,000 in political ads during the presidential election to a so-called Russian troll farm that wanted to target US voters.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/07/us/five-things-september-7-trnd/index.html
September 22: On Friday, the Department of Homeland Security notified nearly half of the U.S. states that their election systems were targeted by Russia-affiliated hackers in an attempt to influence the 2016 election. In most of the states targeted, the hackers were engaged in preliminary activities like scanning. In other states hackers attempted to infiltrate systems and failed, but in a small selection of states, with only Illinois confirmed so far, the election systems were compromised successfully. According to Homeland Security, none of these attempts were aimed at the systems that actually tabulate the votes themselves.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/22/electronic-voting-state-hacking-russian-government-cyber-actors/
October 9: Facebook had employees 'embedded' in the offices of Donald Trump's campaign to help his staff create the adverts that won the election, Trump's digital director has claimed.
During an interview with CBS News, Mr Parscale said that Facebook employees 'would show up for work every day in our offices' to help maximize their use of the social media website and target voters ...
Brad Parscale says Hillary Clinton's campaign rejected a similar offer of help from the social media giant, a move that seems to have put her at a disadvantage in the run up to the November vote.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4962402/Facebook-employees-worked-INSIDE-Trump-campaign.html
October 16: [Yahoo correspondent Michael Isikoff]: ... Russians who worked for a St. Petersburg "troll factory" were required to watch Netflix's "House of Cards" to help them write messages that would influence Americans against their own government.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/16/politics/russia-house-of-cards-us-politics-michael-isikoff/index.html
October 16: “House of Cards” may have helped sway the election. Russian trolls paid to criticize Hillary Clinton online watched the Netflix drama in order to better understand American politics ...
“It was necessary to know all the main problems of the United States of America,” said Isikoff. “Tax problems, the problem of gays, sexual minorities, weapons.”
http://www.indiewire.com/2017/10/house-of-cards-2016-election-russian-trolls-1201887887/
October 19: CIA Director Mike Pompeo ... a former Republican congressman and Trump ally, was asked at an event in Washington if he could say with absolute certainty that the election results were not skewed as a result of Russian interference. Pompeo replied: “Yes. Intelligence community’s assessment is that the Russian meddling that took place did not affect the outcome of the election.”
... In fact, U.S. intelligence agencies in January said that they had made no assessment one way or the other on the impact of Moscow’s hacking and propaganda campaign ...
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia/cias-pompeo-asserts-russian-meddling-did-not-sway-u-s-election-result-idUSKBN1CP028
October 19: The FBI, CIA, National Security Agency and Office of the Director of National Intelligence ... all agree that not only was the meddling the work of the Russians, but it was designed to help Republican Donald Trump's campaign and hurt Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/19/politics/cia-pompeo-russia-meddling-election/index.html
October 20: Pompeo [said] that outside interference remains a threat to the midterm elections in 2018 and the next presidential election in 2020.
http://expressnewsline.com/2017/10/20/north-korea-months-from-perfecting-nuclear-capabilities.html
October 31: President Trump on Tuesday belittled former foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty this week to lying to federal agents investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, tweeting that “few people knew the young, low level volunteer named George, who has already proven to be a liar.”
But interviews and documents show that Papadopoulos was in regular contact with the Trump campaign’s most senior officials and held himself out as a Trump surrogate as he traveled the world to meet with foreign officials and reporters.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/for-low-level-volunteer-papadopoulos-sought-high-profile-as-trump-adviser/2017/10/31/dc737a42-be5f-11e7-8444-a0d4f04b89eb_story.html?utm_term=.42bf882ab520
November 1: ... during the campaign in March 2016, Trump had touted [George] Papadopoulos, calling him an "excellent guy" who was an "energy and oil consultant" in an interview with The Washington Post.
[Nowadays from Trump] "The Fake News is working overtime. As Paul Manaforts [sic] lawyer said, there was 'no collusion' and events mentioned took place long before he [George Papadopoulos] came to the campaign. Few people knew the young, low level volunteer named George, who has already proven to be a liar. Check the DEMS!" Trump tweeted.
Papadopoulous was also emailing with high-level staffers, such as Manafort, about his potential Russian contacts during the campaign and received encouragement for his efforts.
According to previous reporting, Manafort, Gates, Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and senior strategist Steve Bannon were all [also] unpaid "volunteers" while doing extensive, high-level work for the campaign.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/31/politics/donald-trump-george-papadopoulos/index.html
November 3: Donna Brazile, the former interim chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, pushed backed on Friday against President Trump's claim that she admitted in a forthcoming book that Hillary Clinton "stole" the Democratic primary.
In a series of tweets, Brazile accused Trump of misquoting her book, an excerpt of which was published by Politico on Thursday, and said she would rather have the president attack her than use her words to justify his own brand of politics.
"Today’s lesson: Being quoted by Donald Trump means being MIS-quoted by Donald Trump. Stop trolling me," she tweeted, along with the hashtag #NeverSaidHillaryRiggedElection.
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/358637-brazile-on-trump-invoking-her-mr-president-please-go-back-to-attacking-me
November 4: Former Democratic National Committee head Donna Brazile writes in a new book that she seriously contemplated setting in motion a process to replace Hillary Clinton as the party’s 2016 presidential nominee with then-Vice President Biden in the aftermath of Clinton’s fainting spell, in part because Clinton’s campaign was “anemic” and had taken on “the odor of failure.”
But then, she writes, “I thought of Hillary, and all the women in the country who were so proud of and excited about her. I could not do this to them.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/brazile-i-considered-replacing-clinton-with-biden-as-2016-democratic-nominee/2017/11/04/f0b75418-bf4c-11e7-97d9-bdab5a0ab381_story.html?utm_term=.c678d2d8f84d
November 5: Following Donna Brazile's claim that Hillary Clinton's campaign bankrolled the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 presidential election [with some people claiming the Committee rigged the primary in favor of Clinton], the former interim chair of the DNC says she found "no evidence" the Democratic primary was rigged.
"I found no evidence, none whatsoever," she told ABC's "This Week."
