Tag: Iowa

Trump Celebrates ‘Record’ Sales of Nonexistent Health Insurance Policies

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As usual, President Donald Trump is either ignorant or lying about his own policies. This time, it’s so ridiculously obvious that correcting the record might sound fake.

During an event Thursday at Northeast Iowa Community College in Peosta, Trump was very excited to report that “incredible” numbers of people were signing up for association health plans, a form of coverage his administration is making easier to buy. He’s right about one thing: That truly is incredible, in that it’s the opposite of credible.

Trump didn’t use the term ”association health plans” in his remarks, but he did repeatedly praise Alexander Acosta, the secretary of labor, whose department published the regulations governing these policies last month, so it’s clear what Trump is referring to.

“I hear it’s like record business that they’re doing,” Trump said. “We just opened about two months ago, and I’m hearing that the numbers are incredible. Numbers of people that are getting really, really good health care instead of Obamacare, which is a disaster.”

To recap: zero people have actually enrolled in this insurance because it is literally impossible to do so until Sept. 1 at the earliest. And as for Obamacare being a “disaster,” its current problems have a lot to do with Trump himself.

Association health plans are policies that allow small companies in the same industry to band together to buy health benefits for their employees. These already existed before Trump, and before the Affordable Care Act became law in 2010.

President Barack Obama’s administration made them comply with the Affordable Care Act’s rules requiring health plans to provide a minimum, basic set of benefits (things like prescription drugs and maternity care) and limited how insurers could set prices based on the health status of the workers.

The Trump administration is changing that. These association health plans could evade the benefit rules and also charge premiums based on workers ages, occupations and places of business.

Association health plans may save some employees and employers money because they offer skimpier benefits, although those savings could be negated if an employee needs care not covered by her plan and has to pay out of pocket.

And these plans are designed to attract healthy consumers, so the more of them that leave the Affordable Care Act exchanges to join association health plans, the more costly the exchange customer base becomes and the higher premiums for those customers will be.

[Huffington Post]

Trumps suggests creating law that has been enacted since 1996

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President Trump in a rally on Wednesday evening said immigrants who enter the United States should not be eligible for welfare benefits for five years, though such a law has already existed for 20 years.

“The time has come for new immigration rules which say that those seeking admission into our country must be able to support themselves financially and should not use welfare for a period of at least five years,” Trump told a crowd in Cedar Rapids, Iowa at the U.S. Cellular Center.

The president said his administration would be “putting in legislation to that effect very shortly.”

But such a law is already in effect and has been in place since 1996.

Known as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA), the legislation was passed during the administration of former President Bill Clinton and said that an immigrant is “not eligible for any Federal means-tested public benefit” for 5 years, which starts on the date the immigrant enters the country.

Trump has long pushed for more aggressive immigration policies, seeking to build a wall on the United States’ border with Mexico.

[The Hill]

Donald Trump Tells Non-Christians At Rally To Identify Themselves

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After boasting about his support among Christian conservatives at a Iowa rally on Wednesday, Donald Trump asked non-Christians to identify themselves.

The Republican nominee first asked the crowd in Council Bluffs to raise their hands if they were Christian conservatives. The crowd cheered loudly and a sea of hands went up.

“Raise your hand if you’re not a Christian conservative,” Trump then said. “I want to see this, right? Oh there’s a couple people, that’s all right.”

“I think we’ll keep them, right?” Trump asked the crowd. “Should we keep them in the room, yes? I think so.”

While the Republican nominee’s jocular tone suggested he wasn’t seriously suggesting throwing non-Christian attendees out of the event, he has made similarly off-color “jokes” before.

(h/t Talking Points Memo)

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Trump Says He Would Like to ‘Hit’ DNC Speakers Who Disparaged Him

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Donald Trump, after hearing speeches at the Democratic convention this week, said Thursday he wanted to “hit a number of those speakers so hard, their heads would spin.”

“They’d never recover,” he said.

Trump often uses the term “hit” to mean verbally attack, rather than physical contact.

The Republican nominee zoomed in on one speaker especially, though he didn’t mention his name.

“I was going to hit one guy in particular, a very little guy,” Trump said to laughs at a campaign rally in Davenport, Iowa. “I was going to hit this guy so hard his head would spin, he wouldn’t know what the hell happened.”

Trump said this individual “came out of nowhere” and had done work with Trump in the past. “He made deals with me. ‘Will you help me with this? Would you make this deal and solve the problem?’ I solved the problem,” Trump said.

His campaign did not respond to a request asking to clarify who Trump was talking about.
Several speakers this week have gone after Trump in Philadelphia, including Michael Bloomberg. The former New York City mayor made a surprise endorsement over the weekend for Hillary Clinton, and described Trump in his DNC speech Wednesday night as a “dangerous demagogue.”

Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine also targeted Trump, mocking the businessman’s tendency to accentuate his promises with a plea of “believe me.”

“He said a lot of things about me, I never met the guy,” Trump said. “I mean the things that were said about me. I mean, should I go through some of the names?”
Trump recalled telling a friend this week that he wanted to retaliate against the people who slammed him at the convention, mentioning current New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio by name.

“I was going to say that de Blasio is the worst mayor in the history of the city, but I didn’t say it,” Trump said to laughs. “He’s a terrible mayor. I was going to say that, but now I won’t say it.”

Trump said his friend, who he labeled a “very great governor,” urged him to stay focused on attacking Clinton, not other Democrats.

“He said, ‘Don’t hit there. Don’t hit down. You have one person to beat. It’s Hillary Rodham Clinton,'” Trump recalled, adding that he initially objected to the advice. “I said, ‘But I really want to. I don’t like what they’re saying because a lot of it is lies. Not all of it but a lot of it is.’ I said, ‘I just really … it makes me feel good.’ ”

Ultimately, he said, he conceded and decided not to launch into verbal assaults against the Democrats.

“But every once in a while I still wake up, I say ‘boy, I wanna,'” Trump said, growling as he stopped himself from saying more. “Someday!”

(h/t CNN)

Reality

Donald Trump’s RNC speech borrowed heavily from Richard Nixon, using the dog whistle term “the law and order candidate.” And just like Nixon, it appears he’ll also have an enemies list.

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Trump Admits He Lost Iowa Because He Has No Idea How to Run a Campaign

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Donald Trump on Wednesday morning acknowledged that his campaign may have needed a more robust operation in Iowa, noting that he only recently learned what the term “ground game” means.

Trump said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” when asked if his campaign needed better organization to win in Iowa.

“I think we could’ve used a better ground game, a term I wasn’t even familiar with. You know, when you hear ‘ground game,’ you say, ‘What the hell is that?’ Now I’m familiar with it.”

 

“I think in retrospect we should’ve had a better ground game, I would’ve funded a better ground game. But people told me my ground game was fine. And I think by most standards it was.”

Trump came in second place in the Iowa caucus, despite polls showing he had a good chance of winning the state.

At the beginning of his Wednesday interview on “Morning Joe,” it seemed Trump was not thrilled to talk about his second place finish.

“So let’s talk about Iowa. What happened?” “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski asked Trump.

After a long pause, Trump simply responded, “OK.”

The hosts then asked if Trump could hear them, and he said he could.

When asked again what happened in Iowa, Trump responded, “Well, I think I did well there,” adding that he could have done better if he “did a little more work there.”

“The caucus system is a complex system that I was never familiar with,” the Republican presidential candidate continued. “I mean, I was never involved with the caucus system. Don’t forget, Joe, I’m doing this for the first time. I’m like a rookie. And I’m learning fast, and I do learn fast.”

Reality

Another example of how Trump is dangerously unqualified.

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Trump Accuses Cruz of Stealing Iowa Caucuses

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Twitter

Donald Trump on Wednesday accused Sen. Ted Cruz of stealing the Iowa caucuses, calling for either new voting there or the results to be nullified.

Cruz, the conservative senator from Texas, defeated Trump in Iowa Monday night.

“Ted Cruz didn’t win Iowa, he stole it,” Trump tweeted. “That is why all of the polls were so wrong and why he got far more votes than anticipated.”

“Based on the fraud committed by Senator Ted Cruz during the Iowa Caucus, either a new election should take place or Cruz results nullified,” Donald Trump wrote a Twitter, one of a series of Tweets attacking Cruz and questioning the outcome of the Iowa caucuses.

Trump slammed Cruz for sending out deceitful mailers that shared voter’s caucus attendance records with their neighbors and warning voters of “VOTER VIOLATION.”

(h/t CNN)

Reality

Outside of conspiracy theories from neo-nazi’s and 8chan, Cruz won Iowa.

Trump later admitted he didn’t have a good ground-game in Iowa. In fact he didn’t even know what that term was.

Protesters Removed at Trumps Rally For Vets in Iowa

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Trump at rally for vets in Des Moines

Instead of participating in his party’s seventh debate on Thursday, due to his intense fear of Megyn Kelly, Trump decided to host a rival event.

Shortly after Republican front-runner Donald Trump began speaking at his veterans’ fundraising event in Iowa on Thursday night, a move in protest of Fox News’s GOP debate happening simultaneously nearby, three protesters began shouting at the billionaire from the audience.

“We love our vets, Trump loves war!” two women and a man said as security personnel escorted them out of the gathering at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.

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Links

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PMynb62GRk&feature=youtu.be&list=PLNxwX7r4A557Vi7hxxkX0GTLRbsYO7HDl

Donald Trump Throws a Grand Old Party to Avoid a Debate

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No one ever really doubted that Donald Trump could pull off a major counter-programing feat — even when competing with a GOP debate that was expected to draw millions of viewers.

He did it Thursday night, dazzling a crowd of hundreds of enthusiastic supporters by announcing that he had raised more than $6 million for veterans in one day — $1 million of it from his own checkbook. “We love our vets,” he said.

“You know, my whole theme is make America great again and that’s what we’re going to do — and we wouldn’t have even been here if it weren’t for our vets,” Trump said.

Even Trump seemed a bit surprised that he had pulled off his stunt: “Look at all the cameras. This is like the Academy Awards,” the real estate magnate said as he took the stage in an auditorium at Drake University about 20 minutes after the debate began a few miles away. “We’re actually told that we have more cameras than they do by quite a bit, and you know what that’s really in honor of our vets.”

The rally was a restrained performance by Trump standards. He dispensed with his usual riff about his poll numbers and mostly avoided jabs at his fellow candidates (with the exception of a “low-energy” shot at Jeb Bush).

Instead he delivered a speech mostly focused on the problems veterans have faced when returning from Iraq and Afghanistan — inadequate healthcare and housing, drug abuse, mental health issues and homelessness.

“Our vets are being mistreated. Illegal immigrants are treated better in many cases than our vets and it’s not going to happen any more. It’s not going to happen any more.”

Clearly enjoying his evening away from the debate, Trump also told the audience what could be another media sensation for his campaign: the fact that his daughter Ivanka is pregnant. “Ivanka, I said, it would be so great if you had your baby in Iowa. It would be so great — I’d definitely win!”

(h/t CNN)

Reality

Trump lost Iowa. He acknowledged that this event may have backfired. Voters in the Hawkeye State take their responsibly of being first seriously, and the debate that Trump skipped was the final, and critically important, debate ahead of the caucuses. “I think some people were disappointed that I didn’t go into the debate,” Trump said while in New Hampshire.

The fact is Trump did not attend the seventh Republican debate and instead hosted a rival event due to his intense fear of Megyn Kelly and the hilarious response by Fox News that mocked his inability to handle simple questions from reporters.

Trump was also criticized by also overselling the event and not managing it well. According to a statement by Drake University, the location for Trump’s Thursday night event, the auditorium is limited to a 700-person capacity, but the event had been “significantly over-ticketed by the Trump campaign.”

It is important to note that in 2012 when Michelle Bachmann skipped a debate hosted by Newsmax, someone had some choice critical words for her:

On the plus side, Trump raised a very impressive $6 million dollars for veterans. Or did he?

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Trump’s Campaign Says He’ll Skip Iowa Debate

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Moments after Fox News announced the lineup for Thursday’s Republican debate, Donald J. Trump said Tuesday that it was pretty “irrevocable” that he would skip the event, which takes place just days before the Iowa caucuses.

“Let’s see how much money Fox is going to make on the debate without me,” Mr. Trump said at a news conference here, where he continued to attack Megyn Kelly and the crew at Fox News, with whom he sparred at an earlier debate.

“It’s time that somebody plays grown-up,” he said.

Just after Mr. Trump started speaking, his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, confirmed that he would skip Thursday’s event, saying, “He will not be participating in the Fox News debate on Thursday” and that “it’s not under negotiation.”

Mr. Trump’s absence would leave the main debate stage without the candidate who leads in national polls, one who has been a big ratings draw for past debates. Mr. Trump has threatened in the past to skip debates, but his remarks Tuesday night were his strongest statement yet that he would not participate.

Fox News said Mr. Trump’s refusal to debate his rivals was “near unprecedented.”

“This is rooted in one thing – Megyn Kelly, whom he has viciously attacked since August and has now spent four days demanding be removed from the debate stage,” the network said in a statement.

“Capitulating to politicians’ ultimatums about a debate moderator violates all journalistic standards, as do threats, including the one leveled by Trump’s campaign manager Corey Lewandowski toward Megyn Kelly,” the statement continued. “In a call on Saturday with a Fox News executive, Lewandowski stated that Megyn had a ‘rough couple of days after that last debate’ and he ‘would hate to have her go through that again.’ Lewandowski was warned not to level any more threats, but he continued to do so. We can’t give in to terrorizations toward any of our employees.”

The drama capped an increasingly heated war of words involving Mr. Trump, Ms. Kelly and Fox News as the debate neared and as Mr. Trump found himself facing the prospect of being questioned by her again before a national audience.

Mr. Trump had lashed out against Ms. Kelly back in August over her questioning of him at a debate, when she asked if previous remarks he had made were a “part of the war on women.”

The clash between Mr. Trump and Fox News reignited over the last few weeks, as the network set out to defend Ms. Kelly from the repeated criticisms of Mr. Trump.

Mr. Trump threw the first punch, tweeting that Ms. Kelly had a “conflict of interest” and “should not be allowed to be the moderator of the next debate.”

The network was quick to respond, saying: “Megyn Kelly has no conflict of interest. Donald Trump is just trying to build up the audience for Thursday’s debate, for which we thank him.”

He continued to accuse Ms. Kelly of journalistic malpractice and bias, before taking the criticisms personal in an interview with CNN on Monday.

“I don’t like her. She doesn’t treat me fairly. I’m not a big fan of hers at all,” Mr. Trump said in the interview.

Fox responded, again defending Ms. Kelly: “Sooner or later Donald Trump, even if he’s president, is going to have to learn that he doesn’t get to pick the journalists — we’re very surprised he’s willing to show that much fear about being questioned by Megyn Kelly.”

But what seemed to really draw the ire of Mr. Trump was two statements put out by the network Tuesday morning. In one, Roger Ailes, the chairman and chief executive of Fox News, personally weighed in, saying in a statement that “Megyn Kelly is an excellent journalist and the entire network stands behind her — she will absolutely be on the debate stage on Thursday night.”

A statement from the network was even harsher, invoking President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Iran’s supreme leader: “We learned from a secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president — a nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the Cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings.”

Mr. Trump alluded to those two statements in a news conference on Tuesday before an event here, calling them “wise guy” and adding, “I said bye-bye.” He did not mention his decision not to attend the debate at his two rallies in Iowa.

Mr. Lewandowski said that instead of attending Thursday’s debate, Mr. Trump would hold an event in Iowa, raising money for wounded soldiers in the state.

Mr. Trump’s main rival in various polls, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, accused Mr. Trump of chickening out of the debate.

“If Donald is afraid to defend his record, that speaks volumes,” he said, before alluding to Mr. Putin: “I promise you, Putin is a lot scarier than Megyn Kelly.”

Mr. Trump made his remarks about skipping the event right after the Fox News debate moderator Bret Baier announced the debate lineup on the program “Special Report.”

Another of Mr. Trump’s rivals, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, will rejoin the top tier of candidates on the stage Thursday, Fox News said, meaning eight candidates qualified to share the stage for the prime-time debate. Mr. Trump was to stand in the middle because he leads in polls nationally and in New Hampshire, and he is battling for the lead in Iowa polls against Mr. Cruz.

For Mr. Paul, who chose not to participate in the undercard debate this month after failing to make the cut for the later debate, the return to the main stage reflects a recent rise in his poll numbers, particularly in New Hampshire. His campaign sought to capitalize on the good news, fund-raising on Twitter after his inclusion was announced on Fox News.

Rounding out the top-tier field on Thursday are Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, Ben Carson, former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey.

(h/t New York Times)

Reality

It is important to note that in 2012 when Michelle Bachmann skipped a debate hosted by Newsmax, someone had some choice critical words for her:

Donald Trump Makes Ignorant Hat Joke to Turban-Clad Protester

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Donald Trump’s tetchy relationship with protesters took another controversial turn on Sunday when he appeared to mock a turban-clad man ejected from a campaign rally in Iowa.

The incident began as Trump was inveighing against “radical Islamic terror,” a common theme in his stump speeches.

“Somebody has to say what’s going on,” he said roughly 15 minutes into an hour-long speech at Muscatine High School, before referencing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the San Bernardino, Calif., shooting in December.

“When planes fly into the World Trade Center, and into the Pentagon, and wherever the third plane was going, when people are shooting their friends in California–” Trump said before abruptly pausing as his attention was drawn to the gym’s upper level, where a security guard and a police officer were confronting two protesters.

The protesters were trying to unveil a white sheet with the words “stop hate.” One of the protesters wore a beard and bright-red turban similar to those worn by Sikhs.

“Bye, bye,” Trump said sarcastically as the guard pushed the protester toward the exit and as the crowd began whistling. “Goodbye, goodbye.”

The capacity crowd then broke into chants of “U.S.A., U.S.A.,” before Trump appeared to make a quip about the protester’s turban, which was roughly the same color as Trump’s popular red “Make America Great Again” hats.

“He wasn’t wearing one of those hats was he?” Trump said, gesturing to a supporter’s hat and eliciting a laugh from the crowd.

“And he never will,” Trump continued, segueing back into his speech, “and that’s okay, because we got to do something folks because it’s not working.”

Reality

Sikh is not Muslim. Muslim is not Sikh. Read a little. You become less ignorant.

Media

Links

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/01/25/donald-trump-makes-hat-joke-as-turban-clad-protester-ejected-from-iowa-rally/

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