Ivanka And Jared’s Lawyer Threatens To Sue Over The Lincoln Project’s Times Square Billboards

Posted on by Zoe Richards

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner’s lawyer is threatening to sue The Lincoln Project for billboards the Republican group installed in Times Square that feature the two White House senior advisers smiling alongside body bags and figures that reflect a staggering coronavirus death toll.

“I am writing concerning the false, malicious and defamatory ads that the Lincoln Project is displaying on billboards in Times Square,” Marc Kasowitz — a longtime outside counsel for President Donald Trump from the New York-based law firm Kasowitz, Benson & Torres, wrote in a letter to the Lincoln Project.

“If these billboards are not immediately removed, we will sue you for what will doubtless be enormous compensatory and punitive damages,” he added.

Kasowitz decried the billboard which featured Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, smiling and appearing to gesture in the direction of figures that showed over 33,000 New Yorkers and 221,000 Americans have died from COVID-19. In a second accompanying billboard, Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, is positioned next to body bags with the quote “[New Yorkers] are going to suffer and that’s their problem.” The Kushner quote originated in Vanity Fair.

The letter comes as the the nation reached a new record high in the number of new cases reported in a single day on Thursday — 77,000 — which it broke a day later with 83,000 new cases according to data compiled by John Hopkins University.  Earlier this week, Dr. Jay Butler, deputy director for infectious diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned of a “distressing trend” as coronavirus cases are “increasing in nearly 75 percent of the country.”

The founders of The Lincoln Project have long been dedicated to electing Republicans, and the group has been a prominent critic of the Trump administration’s bungled response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which President Trump again falsely said during the final presidential debate in Nashville, Tennessee on Thursday was “going away.” 

“It will go away and as I say, we’re rounding the turn, we’re rounding the corner. It’s going away,” Trump claimed on Thursday.

In a statement late Friday responding to the threat of legal action, The Lincoln Project declined to remove the billboards and accused the couple of “indifference” to the immense loss of life caused by what they described as mismanagement COVID-19 crisis.

“The level of indignant outrage Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have shown towards The Lincoln Project for exposing their indifference for the more than 223,000 people who have lost their lives due to their reckless mismanagement of COVID-19 is comical,” The Lincoln Project wrote.

“We consider it important that in Times Square the crossroads of the world, people are continuously reminded of the cruelty, audacity and staggering lack of empathy the Trumps and the Kushners have displayed towards the American people,” the group added.

Correction: This post originally misstated that The Lincoln Project, as an organization (rather than the group’s founders), has been dedicated to electing Republicans. We regret the error.

ICYMI: Your TPM Weekend News Roundup

Posted on by David Taintor

Debate Doesn’t Move The Needle

  • It was President Trump’s last best chance to alter the trajectory of the 2020 campaign. But even with a more subdued performance, the debate Thursday night failed to shake up the race, with polls showing Trump trailing Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
  • Trump threw a lot against the wall during the 90-minute debate, little of it decipherable: Biden got money from Russia! Biden’s brother got money in Iraq! And on and on it went.
  • The President also made a number of racist appeals in his last appearance before a broad national audience before Election Day, telling moderator Kristen Welker, who is Black, that he was surely the least racist person in the room.
  • Welker, for her part, was widely praised for her job moderating. It’s no easy task, but she kept the candidates on track with sharp questions and effective follow-ups. Even Trump, who had spent the previous week baselessly attacking her, gave her kudos during the debate.
  • We also rounded up some fun reactions after the debate, from Trump both claiming he takes “full responsibility” for his handling of COVID, and yet none at all, to pundits getting roundly mocked for celebrating Trump’s so-called new tone.

Trump Throws A Fit At CBS

  • As is customary before a presidential election, both Trump and Biden sat down with “60 Minutes” for interviews. But the President did not seem too happy with how his went.
  • On Tuesday, Trump reportedly stormed out of the interview and later tweeted a brief clip of  “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl speaking with her producers without wearing a mask. “Much more to come,” Trump teased. The President reportedly cut the interview short because he was unhappy with Stahl’s questions.
  • The next day, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said there was a “high probability” that Trump would release the full “60 Minutes” interview, which is set to air Sunday evening on CBS, early.
  • Sure enough, Trump did just that on Thursday. Earlier in the day, CBS released a short clip of Stahl challenging Trump after he inflated his accomplishments.
  • CBS News on Thursday also fired back at Trump for breaking his agreement with the network and releasing the interview early. “The White House’s unprecedented decision to disregard their agreement with CBS News and release their footage will not deter 60 MINUTES from providing its full, fair and contextual reporting which presidents have participated in for decades,” the network said in a statement.

SCOTUS Signals Danger For Voting Rights

  • The Supreme Court deadlocked on Monday over whether to grant a Republican effort to prevent Pennsylvania from counting mail-in ballots up to three days after Election Day.
  • That marks a win for voting rights advocates, but as TPM’s Tierney Sneed reports, the conservative Supreme Court dissenters could spell trouble for similar cases in the future.
  • The Supreme Court also upheld a ban on curbside voting in Alabama on Wednesday. State Republicans argued that because Alabama does not have a law explicitly allowing for curbside voting that it should not be allowed.
  • And in North Carolina, a crucial swing state in the presidential race, Republicans asked the Supreme Court to undo a six-day extended deadline that allowed mail-in ballots to be received by the state.

Is this feature useful? Let us know. 

A Court Fight Is Brewing Over A Ballot Slip-Up Affecting 29K Pittsburgh-Area Voters

Posted on by Tierney Sneed

Republicans have gone to federal court to make it easier for them to challenge the ballots of nearly 29,000 Pittsburgh-area voters who were caught up in ballot-sending flub in recent weeks.

Continue reading “A Court Fight Is Brewing Over A Ballot Slip-Up Affecting 29K Pittsburgh-Area Voters” →

Why Is Socialism Becoming Less Scary?

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. 

In her extraordinary new documentary film, “The Big Scary ‘S’ Word,” director Yael Bridge examines the surprising rebirth of American socialism. “Socialism is as American as apple pie,” notes one of the film’s interviewees, Harvard University philosopher and activist Cornel West. That statement becomes the film’s theme. 

Continue reading “Why Is Socialism Becoming Less Scary?” →

Graham’s Closing Argument Muffled As Barrett Confirmation Slips Under The Radar

Posted on by Kate Riga

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was supposed to put his uncomfortably close reelection race to rest with his starring role in an October drama: the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett. 

Continue reading “Graham’s Closing Argument Muffled As Barrett Confirmation Slips Under The Radar” →

Fauci: It’s Been ‘Several Months’ Since Trump Last Showed Up At COVID Task Force Meeting

Posted on by Cristina Cabrera

White House COVID-19 task force member Anthony Fauci said on Friday that it’s been a while since President Donald Trump attended a meeting with the team.

Continue reading “Fauci: It’s Been ‘Several Months’ Since Trump Last Showed Up At COVID Task Force Meeting” →

Boogalooer Accused Of Firing Into MN Police Precinct During George Floyd Protests

Posted on by Matt Shuham

A man connected to the so-called “boogaloo” movement has been charged federally with crossing state lines to participate in a riot, and is accused of firing rounds from an assault rifle into a Minneapolis police precinct as it burned to the ground.

Continue reading “Boogalooer Accused Of Firing Into MN Police Precinct During George Floyd Protests” →

The White House Is Inexplicably Still Blaming The Debate Commission For Trump’s Woes

Posted on by Zoe Richards

Just hours after the final presidential debate, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Friday was still dragging out President Donald Trump’s attack on the debate commission suggesting that it was at fault for voters not getting to hear more from the President on key election issues — even though Trump laid the ground work for that weeks ago.

“Unfortunately, because the Commission on Presidential Debates, really decided to cancel the second debate, what that meant is that the American people were deprived of a lot of the information that they were entitled to,” McEnany told reporters.

The comments come the morning after President Trump took the debate stage in Nashville, Tennessee, for a final face-off with Democratic rival Joe Biden. 

McEnany described the post-debate Trump as “quite happy, quite enthused,” to reporters outside the White House and said that Trump believed Americans had “endorsed his performance at the debate.”

“When you debate on the merits there’s a clear victor and that’s President Trump,” McEnany said, even though a number of snap polls have indicated that Biden had out-performed the President in the final showdown. 

The press secretary’s comments on Trump’s debate performance appeared to preface the scathing attack that followed against the debate commission. Perhaps at a loss to offer further praise for Trump’s performance, she turned on debate organizers, accusing them for depriving Americans the chance to hear from both candidates when last week’s debate was cancelled. 

McEnany took pains to rewrite the debacle on Friday by attributing a decision by Trump to bow out of the second debate to the CPD. She suggested that the American people were robbed of the opportunity to hear more from both candidates ahead of Election Day when the Oct. 15 debate in Miami, Florida, was cancelled after Trump said he would not participate in a virtual contest after announcing he had tested positive for coronavirus.

What To Expect On Election Day In Seven States: AK, HI, NM, OR, UT, WA, And WY

Posted on by Josh Kovensky

The election is less than two weeks away now. Millions of Americans have already voted. And COVID-19 case counts are, once more, climbing.

This week, we have our final installment in our series of state-by-state looks at how election officials are trying to keep voting safe in the pandemic, and the chaos that might ensue in this extremely unusual general election.

Continue reading “What To Expect On Election Day In Seven States: AK, HI, NM, OR, UT, WA, And WY” →