Letters from an American - October 9, 2024

Episode Date: October 10, 2024

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October 9th, 2024. Yesterday, we learned from a forthcoming book by veteran journalist Bob Woodward that in 2020, while he was president, Trump secretly shipped COVID-19 testing equipment to Russian President Vladimir Putin for his own personal use at a time when Americans could not get it. To be clear, this equipment was not the swabs we now use at home, but appears to be what at the time was a new point-of-care machine from Abbott Laboratories that claimed to be the fastest way to test for COVID-19. Journalist Carly Kingsley points out that at the time, central lab testing to diagnose COVID-19 infections took a long time, causing infections to spread.

Machines like Abbott's were hard to get. Trump chose to send them to Putin, not to charge him for them or to negotiate for the release of Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed, two Americans being held by Russia at the time and later released under the Biden administration, but to give them to him rather than keeping them for Americans. It's hard to overstate just what an astonishing story this is. In 2016, Republicans stood firm against Putin and backed the arming of Ukraine to stand against Russia's 2014 invasion of Crimea. But that summer, at Trump's urging, the party changed its platform to weaken its support

of Ukraine. In 2020, it appears, Trump chose to give life-saving equipment to Putin rather than use it for Americans. And in 2024, Trump's willingness to undermine the United States to cozy up to an adversary his own party stood against less than a decade ago does not appear to be a deal breaker for Republicans. As Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat of Connecticut, put it, what does this country come to if the revelation that Trump secretly sent COVID testing machines to Putin while thousands of Americans were dying, in part because of a shortage of testing machines here, doesn't disqualify him to be president. He continued, Donald Trump helped keep Putin alive during the pandemic and let Americans die.

This revelation is damning. It's disqualifying. He cannot be president of the United States. Increasingly, Trump's behavior seems to parrot the dictators he appears to admire. After 60 Minutes called him out for breaking a 50-year tradition of both candidates talking to 60 Minutes and backing out of an interview to which he had agreed, Trump today accused the producers of 60 Minutes

of cutting Vice President Kamala Harris's answers to make her look good. He suggested that such cuts were illegal and possibly a major campaign finance violation that must be investigated starting today. The public is owed a major and immediate apology, he wrote. The public is owed a major and immediate apology, he wrote. Trump is trying to cover for his own failure by attacking CBS in an echo of dictators determined to control the media. In a post on a social media site tonight, Trump appears to have declined to appear at another presidential debate with Vice President Harris. After declaring he had won the previous debate with Harris and rehashing many of his grievances, he wrote, there will be no rematch. As Beth Reinhart of the Washington Post recounted yesterday, a report from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse,

a Democrat of Rhode Island who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, revealed that the Trump White House prevented a real investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against Trump's second Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. More than 4,500 calls and electric messages about Kavanaugh sent to the FBI tip line went directly to the White House, where they were never investigated, and the FBI was told not to pursue corroborating evidence of the accusations by Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez, although lawyers for the women presented the names of dozens of people who could testify to the truth of their allegations. A number of senators said the lack of corroborating evidence convinced them to vote in favor of Kavanaugh's confirmation. As Steve Bannon of MSNBC recalled,

Senator Susan Collins, a Republican of Maine, said at the time that it appeared to be a very thorough investigation, while the late Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat of California, said that the 2018 FBI report looks to be a product of an incomplete investigation that was limited, perhaps, by the White House. After he left office, Trump told author Michael Wolf that he had gone to bat for Kavanaugh, saying, I fought like hell for Kavanaugh, had gone to bat for Kavanaugh, saying, I fought like hell for Kavanaugh, and I saved his life, and I saved his career. Kavanaugh was the crucial vote for Trump's right-wing agenda, including ending the federal recognition of abortion rights by overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Ken Benzinger reported in the New York Times today that Trump's team has refused to participate in preparations for a transition to a potential Trump presidency.

as much as six months before the election to begin vetting and hiring political appointees and working with the administration in office to make sure the agencies continue to run smoothly. With the election less than a month away, Trump has neither signed the required agreements nor signed the transition's ethics plan that would require him to disclose private donors to the transition and limit them to contributions

of no more than $5,000. Without that agreement, there are no limits to the money the Trump transition can take. Trump has also refused to sign an agreement with the White House requiring that anyone receiving classified information have a security clearance. Currently, his aides cannot review federal records. Trump ignored the traditional transition period in 2016, cutting off communications with President Barack Obama's team. He refused to allow incoming President Joe Biden access to federal agencies in 2020, hampering Biden's ability to get his administration in place in a timely fashion. Now it's possible that Trump sees no need for a normal transition, because Project 2025, on which he appears to be relying, has been working on one for many months.

It calls for him to fire most federal employees, reinstating the policy he started at the end of his term. To fill their positions, the Heritage Foundation has been vetting loyalists now for months, preparing a list of job candidates to put in place a new right-wing agenda. Yesterday, on California's KFI radio station, Trump told host John Kobbeltranton, Pennsylvania, that he expects to put former rival Vivek Ramaswamy into an important position in his administration. On October 7th, 2024, Ramaswamy suggested on social media that he wants to get rid of Social Security and Medicare. He wrote, are addicted to it themselves. Trump has expressed frustration with the independence of the Federal Reserve, expressing a desire to make it answer to the president. In an interview with Barron's,

one of his advisors, Scott Besant, has floated the idea of creating a shadow Fed chair until the term of the current chair, Jerome Powell, ends, thus undercutting him without facing a fight over firing the Fed chair. This agenda is not a popular one in the U.S., but Trump is getting a boost as Russian operatives work to swing down-ballot races toward the Republicans. In a briefing on Monday, October 7th, experts from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, or ODNI, told reporters that China and Iran are trying to influence the upcoming election and that Moscow is leveraging a wide range of influence actors in an effort to influence congressional races, particularly to encourage the U.S. public to oppose pro-Ukraine policies and politicians. Russian influence

actors have planned and likely created and disseminated content, particularly over social media, intended to encourage the election of congressional candidates that Moscow assesses will oppose aid to Ukraine. Russia, an ODNI spokesperson said, uses influence for higher firms or commercial firms with expertise in these types of activities. It also co-opts witting and unwitting Americans to work on Russia's behalf to launder their influence narratives through what are perceived as more authentic U.S. voices. Not all of Trump's supporters appear eager to stick around to see if Trump will win another term. Today, news broke that Patrick M. Byrne, the former chief executive officer of Overstock, who became a fervent advocate of the idea that Trump was the true winner of the 2020

presidential election, has left the country, apparently permanently, to live in Dubai. Dominion Voting Systems is suing Byrne, as is President Biden's son Hunter. The younger Biden sued Byrne for defamation last November, after Byrne claimed Hunter Biden sought a bribe from Iran. In September, Biden's lawyers were trying to schedule a date for Byrne's deposition, when his lawyer abruptly claimed for the first time that defendant has moved his residence to Dubai, and if plaintiff wanted to take his in-person deposition,

counsel would have to fly to Dubai to do so, to which plaintiff responded with various related inquiries to try to resolve this matter, and defense counsel stated defendant would not be returning to the United States for the foreseeable future. Byrne claimed to have fled the U.S. because the Venezuelan government has put a bounty on him. But as Biden's lawyers note, the defendant's truthfulness is directly at issue. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss