This evening I had the odd experience of requiring a police escort to walk to the entrance of my apartment. Because I live on a block that the NYPD currently defines as a crime scene. I confess I don’t have a lot of experience with how quickly police and bomb squad investigators retrieve objects in a situation like this. You’ve probably seen the carcass of the dumpster that withstood the primary impact of the Chelsea explosion. I was surprised to see that it’s still resting right where it fell, across the street from the site of the blast.
I continue to believe this video contains perhaps the most revealing statement Trump ever made about birtherism. It’s video from an interview we did with Trump back in April of 2011. Watch after the jump.
Why did Trump suddenly go off the rails again? I explain here.
A new Morning Call/Muhlenberg College poll of Pennsylvania is out last night shows Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump by 9 points in a head to head match up and 8 points when third party candidates are added.
A few points of context about this poll are worth noting.
After announcing to a rally in Colorado tonight (before there had been any reports on what had actually happened) that a “bomb” had gone off in New York City, Trump said this on how he’ll defeat terror and ISIS: “I will give you good results. Don’t worry how I get there, okay? Please.”
[If you haven’t read the post below, tonight’s explosion was across the street from my apartment. I and my family were not in the building at the time.]
Shortly before the Mayor’s news conference a short time ago a friend who lives in my apartment building told me that the police presence seemed to be focused on the Bed & Breakfast which is immediately east of the home for the blind which I discussed in the post below. The Police Commissioner confirmed that the explosion took place outside the Townhouse Inn of Chelsea, which is at 131 West 23rd Street.
You may have seen news of an explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan tonight. The cause of the explosion is still unknown, though there’s a flood of speculation. As it happens, the place where the explosion occurred is literally directly across the street from my apartment. My family and I were about thirty miles away when this happened. TPM’s New York office is about three and a half blocks away.
We’ve now seen one of those days which has become darkly familiar in the year of Trump. Trump is dominated, put on the receiving end of various perceived insults and assaults. In this case, it was being coerced by campaign aides into finally giving up the birther lie – which had to be addressed after the Washington Post interview and which I suspect they feared might blow up one of the debates. That was followed by a series of attacks from Hillary Clinton, a for once emboldened press corps roundly attacking Trump for the content and manner of his “major announcement”, a furious attack from members of the Congressional Black Caucus and a mix of outrage and mockery from everyone from Barack to Michelle.
The response was predictable and rapid.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an AP lede quite like this – or an article for that matter. Here’s the first paragraph.
After five years as the chief promoter of a lie about Barack Obama’s birthplace, DonaldTrump abruptly reversed course Friday and acknowledged the fact that the president was born in America. He then immediately peddled another false conspiracy.
Here’s the rest.