Attention to the Unseen

Politico reports: The farther behind Donald Trump has fallen in the competition for campaign dollars, the more he’s milked government resources to make up the difference. Millions of boxes of food doled out to needy families — with letters signed by the president taking credit stuffed inside. An $8 billion program for drug-discount cards to seniors featuring Trump branding — intended to arrive before the Nov. 3 election. A $300 million advertising blitz to “defeat despair” over the coronavirus pandemic…

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The Daily Beast reports: President Trump’s influential supporter Rupert Murdoch is telling close associates he believes Joe Biden will win the election in a landslide. The Australian-born billionaire is disgusted by Trump’s handling of COVID-19, remarking that the president is his own worst enemy, that he is not listening to advice about how best to handle the pandemic, and that he’s creating a never-ending crisis for his administration, according to three people who have spoken with Murdoch. In response to…

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The Washington Examiner reports: Republican Sen. Ben Sasse excoriated President Trump in a telephone conference call with constituents this week, saying he had mishandled the coronavirus response, “kisses dictators’ butts,” “sells out our allies,” spends “like a drunken sailor,” mistreats women, and trash-talks evangelicals behind their backs. Trump has “flirted with white supremacists,” according to Sasse, and his family “treated the presidency like a business opportunity.” He said Trump could drive the Senate into the hand of the Democrats and…

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Jonathan Chait writes: Rudy Giuliani has spent at least two years attempting to find some kind of Ukrainian dirt that can be used to discredit Joe Biden. Now he has unveiled his October surprise: emails, or images of what purport to be emails, between Hunter Biden and Burisma officials. The conservative New York Post has a credulous account of how Rudy came across these emails. The Post claims somebody brought the computer to a repair shop in Delaware, but then…

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Elizabeth Neumann writes: Everything we saw during the first presidential debate is indicative of how President Donald Trump behaves in the White House. His business model is chaos. He has no organization, no leadership, and sees every interaction as a contest or a battle, even when it doesn’t have to be. Chris Wallace now knows how so many administration staffers feel — and how I felt when the president got in the way of me doing my job. He is…

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