There’s some fun to be had with the news that the PGA is moving its World Golf Championship to Mexico. But look at the details. PGA couldn’t find a sponsor who would associate itself with a Trump event. How much of a hit will Trump end up taking after more damage is done by the fall? Who knows. But remember, the whole edifice is likely far more precariously perched than most understand.
I was just watching the first segment of Hardball where the topic of discussion was Trump’s non-existent impulse control and the persistent theme of grievance that is driving his attacks on the press, Judge Curiel and everyone else. Everybody had their idea. But how should this surprise us? Grievance and a desire for revenge has been the essence of Trump’s campaign from the very beginning.
I’ve been working on a piece on the many substantial, albeit circumstantial, reasons to believe that Donald Trump is not only not worth $10 billion but quite likely not a billionaire at all. In other words, Trump’s vaunted alleged wealth seems to be a fraud. Now it seems Trump frenemy Mark Cuban has similar doubts. This from a radio transcript courtesy of Buzzfeed ….
I confess Trump’s ‘Trump University’ turned out to be a bit more sleazy and craven than I’d realized. Does anyone remember Tom Vu, the comical, endlessly parodied late night real estate seminar infomercial king from the 80s and 90s? Trump U seems to have been a rip off on that scale. Just look at this single passage from the Times first look at the documents released yesterday …
With all the ranting and noise, I want to catch us up on what we actually learned yesterday with Trump’s big Vets’ charities show. Summary version: Trump didn’t hand out the money, lied about handing out the money, got caught not handing out the money, coughed up the money. Four-plus months after holding his debate-skedaddle fundraiser and announcing $6 million raised, Trump was caught in a series of lies about the money, most notably that he’d apparently tried to get away without contributing any of the $1 million he pledged after repeatedly saying he already had. (Here’s a helpful timeline through May 24th, the date Trump was finally shamed into coughing up the money.)
This is particularly notable since Trump claims to be worth $10 billion, which of course means 10,000 million dollars. Why he would try to skip out on a comparatively small amount of money (for him) raises its own questions.
Furthermore, none of the new contributions announced yesterday were Trump’s own money.
Let’s look at the details.
Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY), an early endorser of Mr Trump, gets grilled about whether he’d launch racist attacks on a federal judge like the man he’s supporting for President. Collins tells Wolf Blitzer he wouldn’t but he still thinks Trump is awesome. “Donald is Donald. And he wears it on the sleeve, calls it out for what it is. People love him for speaking directly.”
Which Republican member of Congress is ready to go next?
TPM Reader DS responds to Trump’s attacks on Judge Curiel …
I had the honor of serving alongside Judge Curiel as a federal prosecutor. To put it mildly, Trump’s attacks are offensive and wrong and bear no resemblance to this fair and impartial jurist. As you point out, Judge Curiel was born and raised in Indiana and had a decorated career as a fearless prosecutor of Mexican drug cartels.
Some events are important to take note of. One of them happened on Friday when the Republican nominee for President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, again used a campaign rally to launch into a racist tirade against the federal judge presiding over two of the three fraud lawsuits against Trump’s now defunct “Trump University.” Federal Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel was born in 1953 in East Chicago, Indiana. He was a federal prosecutor from 1989 to 2006, primarily working in narcotics enforcement. He was a state judge from 2006 until 2012 when President Obama nominated him to serve as a Federal District Court Judge in the Southern District of California. While serving as US Attorney in 1997, Curiel was reportedly the targeted for assassination by members of the Arellano Felix drug cartel during his ultimately successful prosecution of the cartel.
Nor is this the first time Trump has gone after Curiel as a “Mexican” who is attacking Trump because of his ethnic heritage.
Over the long weekend I read Megan McArdle’s take on the Peter Thiel-Gawker story. It was pretty disappointing. The gist of McArdle’s argument boils down to ‘Maybe liberals should understand how big corporations feel when they get sued or lose their free speech.” And “But the ACLU also underwrites lawsuits.” These arguments are either beside the point the first case) or silly (the second). But the amazing thing about McArdle’s effort is that she goes the entire column without mentioning the only really salient issue: Thiel’s need to fund this and other revenge lawsuits secretly.
In our profile of Peter Thiel yesterday we didn’t get into the details of his political awakening, as it were, at Stanford, mostly for brevity’s sake. But it’s an interesting episode, and TPM Reader PN shares some reflections:
Just a few thoughts on Peter Thiel’s defense: I think Josh’s comments have been spot on.
On the Gawker site, the most popular—I don’t say best–defense appears to be that “outing” Thiel was beyond the pale—so the suit accomplishes belated justice (that’s dubious in itself). Setting aside whether an outing actually happened or what prevailing ethical/journalistic standards are, I think Thiel’s time at Stanford (overlapping mine) bears renewed scrutiny.