2020 Election | Messaging Matters

Trump vs. Biden

President Joe Biden

After Super Tuesday‘s results this week in both the Republican and Democratic presidential primaries, it is clear that Donald Trump and Joe Biden will have a 2024 rematch of their 2020 presidential election. Trump and Biden each won almost all of their Super Tuesday contests, with Trump losing only Vermont to Nikki Haley and Biden losing just American Samoa to someone named Jason Palmer. In the delegate count, Trump and Biden again are very well on their way to securing their respective party’s presidential nominations, with Trump thus far gaining 1,004 of the necessary 1,215 Republican delegates, and Biden getting 1,516 out of the required 1,968 delegates on the Democratic side. Haley has announced that she is abandoning her presidential campaign, but she refused to endorse Trump at this time.

Accordingly, as the nomination process now shifts to an early general election campaign between Trump and Biden, a key question is going to be: what is the 2024 presidential election about? The answer to that question may well determine who becomes our next president. For example, Trump and the Republicans will likely keep talking about trans bathroom use, and caravans of “migrants” (an apparent change from “immigrants” or “illegals”), because they either have the wrong policies or no policies at all on truly important issues such as the economy, climate change, healthcare, gun violence, etc. President Biden and the Democrats, in addition to running on their strong record of economic recovery and growth, have made “freedom” a centerpiece of their 2024 campaign thus far, which includes freedom from Republican government intrusion into women’s health decisions (i.e., abortion), freedom to vote, preserving our democracy and elections against Republican dictatorship, etc.

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Tags: 2020 Election, 2024 Election, abortion, climate change, delegates, Democrats, Donald Trump, E. Jean Carroll, economy, freedom, healthcare, immigration, January 6, Joe Biden, Nikki Haley, President, primaries, Republicans, Stormy Daniels, Super Tuesday, voters, voting

Stunned silence on Fox “News” after January 6 hearing: will they ditch Trump?

Written on June 29, 2022 by Messaging Matters in Fox "News" Watch, Media Watch

Will GOP jettison a damaged Donald Trump?

Day 6 of the hearings yesterday by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol consisted of one bombshell after another. The Committee’s witness, Cassidy Hutchinson, the top aide to former Donald Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, came to the hearing with stunning revelations to share. Among Hutchinson’s revelations:

–When Trump learned in December 2020 that the Department of Justice had not found evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election that would nullify Joe Biden‘s victory (i.e., Trump’s “Big Lie”), Trump became so angry that he threw his porcelain plate full of lunch at the White House dining room wall, leaving ketchup dripping down the wall. On other occasions, an angry Trump either threw dishes or “flipp[ed] the table cloth to let all the contents of the table go onto the floor and likely break or go everywhere.”

–Trump and other top administration officials knew about the risk of violence on January 6 days beforehand, but did nothing to stop it.

–Indeed, on January 6, Trump was upset that the Ellipse in front of the White House, where he was to speak, was not full enough for a flattering photo op. Trump was told the reason was that many of the rioters were armed with AR-15 rifles and other weapons and did not want to go through the metal detectors and have such weapons confiscated, instead choosing to march directly to the Capitol with their weapons. Upon hearing this, Trump wanted to have the metal detectors taken away and to let the armed insurrectionists onto the Ellipse, saying “they’re not here to hurt me.”

–When told that the rioters were chanting “Hang Mike Pence” and that Trump should take action to try to quell the violence (such as telling the protesters to leave the Capitol), Trump refused, saying “Mike deserves it” (for not stopping the Congressional count of Electoral Votes as Trump wished) and that the rioters were “not doing anything wrong.”

–Trump attacked his own Secret Service detail leader and tried to grab the steering wheel of the Presidential limousine when told he would not be taken to the Capitol after speaking on January 6.

When Tuesday’s hearing ended, this was the reaction by the panel at Fox “News”:

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Tags: 2020 Election, 2024 Election, Big Lie, Bret Baier, Cassidy Hutchinson, Congress, Donald Trump, Fox News, GOP, January 6, Joe Biden, John Roberts, Mark Meadows, Mike Pence, Republicans, Ron DeSantis, Sandra Smith

Donald Trump impeached for third time

Written on June 23, 2022 by Messaging Matters in Democratic Messaging, Media Watch

Next stop for Donald Trump?

Those who followed last Tuesday’s fourth hearing held by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol were treated to a stunning play-by-play of Donald Trump‘s criminal behavior in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The Committee impeached Trump’s character in every way.

Most devastating to Trump were the recordings of various telephone calls he, often accompanied by others such as Rudolph Giuliani, made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Arizona Speaker of the House Russell Bowers, pleading with them to entertain false claims of voter fraud, replace electors for Joe Biden with fake electors for Donald Trump, or “find votes” for Trump, all with the intent of overturning Biden’s election victories over Trump in those states. On such calls, Trump also made threats to these officials, such as threats of prosecution, for failing to follow through on Trump’s wishes.

While Raffensperger, Bowers and other state officials stood up to Trump, these calls by Trump were a big mistake, as he failed to insulate himself from criminal liability the way a Mafia don usually does, by letting others do his dirty work. As a result, Donald Trump faces a criminal investigation in Georgia, and members of the January 6 Committee say they have enough evidence to refer a criminal indictment against Trump to the U.S. Department of Justice. At minimum, Trump’s calls to Raffensperger and Bowers were as bad as his July 2019 phone call to Ukraine‘s President Vlodymyr Zelensky, during which Trump demanded that Zelensky investigate Joe Biden’s son Hunter to help Trump in his 2020 election efforts, in return for the U.S. providing weapons to Ukraine so it could defend itself against Russia. That call to Zelensky led to Trump’s first impeachment.

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Tags: 2020 Election, ABC News, Brad Raffensperger, Congress, Democrats, Department of Justice, Donald Trump, Georgia, impeachment, January 6, Joe Biden, Republicans, Rudy Giuliani, Russia, Twitter, U.S. Capitol, Ukraine

Superstar Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin discusses January 6 insurrection

Written on April 21, 2022 by Messaging Matters in Democratic Messaging, Democratic vs. Republican Presidents

U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin

Last night, Democratic U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland’s 8th Congressional District appeared on a monthly national call by the advocacy group American Promise. Raskin, former law professor at American University, wrote the book Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy about the extraordinary events after his 2020 re-election to Congress. On December 31, 2020 Raskin lost his son to suicide. One week later, Raskin witnessed the January 6, 2021 Republican terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol while Congress was trying to complete the Electoral College vote count to certify the election victory of President Joe Biden. Rep. Raskin is now a member of the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol. Raskin was also Lead counsel for Donald Trump‘s second impeachment trial for inciting what Raskin calls the January 6 “coup.”

Here are some highlights from the call with Rep. Raskin:

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Tags: 2020 Election, climate change, Congress, Critical Race Theory, Democrats, Donald Trump, education, Electoral College, Fascism, impeachment, Jamie Raskin, January 6, President Joe Biden, Republicans, U.S. Capitol, U.S. Constitution

Clarence and Virginia Thomas defrocked as Washington power couple

Written on March 25, 2022 by Messaging Matters in Democratic Messaging, Media Watch, Republican Messaging

Pro-seditionist Virginia Thomas

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is missing. But it gets much weirder than that. Thomas was hospitalized a week ago with “flu-like symptoms.” We didn’t hear about that for several days. Since then, there has been no information forthcoming as to Thomas’ condition, or even whether he is still in the hospital. News reports keep referring to “the Supreme Court” saying nothing, but that really means Chief Justice John Roberts, who is in charge of the Court’s administration. Such a wall against information about the health of a top government official is something we might expect from the Kremlin rather than the United States of America. We do know that Thomas missed three Supreme Court oral arguments this week, and did not even participate remotely by video.

Later this week, however, we learned new information that further feeds speculation about Justice Thomas. The Washington Post and CBS News reported yesterday that Thomas’ wife, Virginia, a prominent right-wing activist, “repeatedly pressed [Trump] White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to pursue unrelenting efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in a series of urgent text exchanges in the critical weeks after the vote.” According to the Post, “the text messages were among 2,320 that Meadows provided to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.” Virginia Thomas even attended the January 6, 2021 rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol. And when Donald Trump‘s phony 2020 election challenges reached the Supreme Court, it rejected hearing the challenges by a vote of 8-1. The lone dissenter was Clarence Thomas.

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Tags: 2000 election, 2020 Election, Clarence Thomas, COVID, Donald Trump, Ginni Thomas, January 6, John Roberts, Mark Meadows, Supreme Court, Virginia Thomas, White House

The January 6 Commission Democratic pivot

Written on May 28, 2021 by Messaging Matters in Uncategorized

The January 6 terrorist attack instigated by you know who

News headlines right now are proclaiming what has been obvious all along: that Congressional Republicans are desperately trying to block the creation of a bipartisan, independent commission to investigate the deadly January 6, 2021 domestic terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol. Given that the proposed commission would be created by legislation, and the Republican U.S. Senate minority can therefore filibuster such legislation, the commission is probably not going to happen. But who says there has to be a “bipartisan” commission regarding the January 6 attacks? The Democratic majorities of both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives have a perfectly good alternative:

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Tags: 2020 Election, 9/11 Commission, Condoleeza Rice, Democrats, Donald Trump, George W. Bush, insurrection, January 6, Pearl Harbor, Republicans, September 11, terrorism, U.S. Capitol, U.S. House, U.S. Senate

Liz Cheney ousted, Republican Civil War splits party

Written on May 13, 2021 by Messaging Matters in Republican Messaging

The current Republican Party

The Republican Party Civil War, which we have been talking about for many years, hit a critical point yesterday, as U.S. House members kicked Congresswoman Liz Cheney out of her number three House leadership post as House Republican Conference Chair. Cheney’s crime was simply to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election and declare that Joe Biden is America’s legitimately accepted president, as every U.S. state formally has done, thus rejecting the “Big Lie” promoted by Donald Trump that his 7 million popular vote, 74 electoral vote loss to Biden in the 2020 election was somehow the result of a massive fraud. Trump even fomented an unprecedented, deadly terrorist attack on our U.S. Capitol to try to overturn the 2020 presidential election results based on his Big Lie. Not coincidentally, this week, more than 100 Republican former office holders, including cabinet members, national security officials, ambassadors, state governors and others, are threatening to leave the GOP and form a third party. According to this group, “forces of conspiracy, division, and despotism” are threatening to take over the Republican Party, putting our country’s freedoms at risk. Therefore, it’s fair to say that the Republican Party has moved well beyond “disarray” (a favorite word that the mainstream media frequently and incorrectly apply to the Democrats) and into full-blown crisis.

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Tags: 2012 elections, 2020 Election, Autopsy Report, Big Lie, Congress, Donald Trump, GOP, insurrection, January 6, Joe Biden, Lindsey Graham, Liz Cheney, Republicans, U.S. Capitol, U.S. House

Democrats create achievements, Republicans create acrimony

Written on May 6, 2021 by Messaging Matters in Democratic Messaging, Democratic vs. Republican Presidents, Republican Messaging

Democrats getting things done while Republicans do each other in

Right now, there is a massive split between what is going on in the Democratic Party versus the Republican Party.

The Democrats, led by President Joe Biden, have had a tremendous 100 days. First and foremost, Biden has succeeded in getting over 200 million COVID vaccinations into Americans’ arms (double his original stated goal), and taking steps to beat the pandemic using real science and competence. Next, Biden pushed through and signed the American Rescue Plan, including stimulus checks for millions of Americans, all while rejoining the Paris Agreement on climate change and undoing many of Trump’s damaging executive orders. Biden is now being compared to progressive activist President Franklin Roosevelt, who also had a very successful first 100 days (as well as being re-elected president three more times).

Meanwhile, as if to quash another Republican myth, the U.S. stock market has had the best performance during a president’s first 100 days since the beginning of John F. Kennedy‘s presidency in 1961. Biden’s popularity is substantially high (and way higher than Trump’s), especially given our polarized politics today. Biden and Congressional Democrats have also continued on offense with a positive policy agenda that includes rebuilding America’s infrastructure, creating jobs, battling climate change, support for American families, and more. While they may not get all of it passed in its current proposed form (after all, Washington is about compromise and the art of the possible), they are poised to pass a great deal more.

Time for the media to withdraw from covering Trump tantrums

Written on November 30, 2020 by Messaging Matters in Fox "News" Watch, Media Watch

The time for Donald Trump to hurt the world is quickly coming to an end

Donald Trump has been a media figure since the 1970s. Those who grew up in the New York metropolitan area during that time, or the 1980s, may remember widespread tabloid coverage of Trump and his marriages and business deals, for example, in the New York Post and the Daily News. Trump is a master media manipulator and seems to thrive on such attention.

Unfortunately, however, the mainstream media’s fascination with covering Donald Trump in a superficial, tabloid fashion have continued through all four years of Trump in the White House. Even worse, now that Trump has decisively lost the presidential election to Joe Biden, the media insist on continuing to cover Trump’s every utterance, tweet, golf round and tantrum. It’s enough already. Trump is a lame duck with just 51 days left in office, his power is waning every minute, and it’s time for the media to do what most Americans are already doing: move on from Donald Trump.

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Tags: 2020 Election, 2024 Election, CNN, Coronavirus, COVID, COVID-19, Daily News, Donald Trump, Fox News, inauguration, Joe Biden, media, MSNBC, New York Post, New York Times

The coming Trump-Biden election horse race

Written on August 5, 2020 by Messaging Matters in Democratic vs. Republican Presidents, Media Watch

How the media would like to portray the election

If the 2020 presidential election were held today, based on current polls, Joe Biden would beat Donald Trump in a landslide. In particular, Biden is ahead of Trump in crucial “battleground” states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Florida, and is even with (and in some polls ahead of) Trump in states like Arizona, Georgia and the big prize, Texas, all of which Trump won in 2016.

But our mainstream media will not let Joe Biden run away with the election if they can help it. The media want a “horse race,” and you can bet that, with barely over 90 days to go until the election, you will soon be hearing about how “the race is tightening.” Here are some ways that can happen:

Tag Archive: 2020 Election