Fox News’ Laura Ingraham quickly jumped in during her interview with President Donald Trump in an attempt to head off a highly inappropriate analogy, where he compared police officers who “choke” by shooting Jacob Blake in the back or kneeling on George Floyd’s neck until he dies to missing a three-foot golf putt.

During the Fox host’s hour-long interview, Ingraham turned to the nationwide protests and unrest that has followed Floyd’s death and Blake’s recent shooting. But she framed her question around the dangers that police face, claiming that she thought it was more dangerous to be a cop now than it has been in “a long time.”

“It’s more dangerous to be a police officer today, do you not think than it has been a long time?” Ingraham said. 

“The police are under siege,” Trump then claimed. “They can do 10,000 great acts, which is what they do, and one bad apple or a choker — a joker — they choke.”

“You mean, they, they panic,” Ingraham helpfully clarified.

“Shooting the guy in the back many times. I mean, ‘Couldn’t you have done something different? Couldn’t you have wrestled him?'” Trump then said, alluding to Blake, who was shot seven times in the back at point blank range by a Kenosha police offer.  

“You know, I mean, in the meantime, he might’ve been going for a weapon. And you know there’s a whole big thing there. But they choke, just like in a golf tournament, they miss a 3-foot putt…” 

“You’re not comparing it to golf,” Ingraham quickly jumped in, as Trump actually did compare police shootings and killings to missing a gimme putt. “Because of course that’s what the media would say…people make, people panic,” she then added, steering Trump away from the golf analogy while nodding her head.

“I’m saying people choke,” Trump insisted, without disavowing his comparison. “And people are bad people. You have both. If you have some bad people and they choke. You could be a police officer for 15 years and all of a sudden you’re confronted. You’ve got a quarter of a second to make a decision. If you don’t make the decision and you’re wrong, you’re dead. People choke under those circumstances and they make a bad decision. I’ve seen bad decisions of people that, it looked bad, but probably it was a choke. But you also have bad police, but you also, the vast, not only the vast majority, but thousands and thousands of great acts, and you make the evening news for weeks.”

Watch the video above, via Fox News.

President Donald Trump said on Fox News Monday that Joe Biden isn’t going to calm things down if he gets elected.

Trump spoke with Laura Ingraham about the violence in U.S. cities and said, “They will take over. They will have won. If Biden gets in, they will have won.”

He said that Biden’s “weak” and the people rioting will have “taken over your cities” for a “revolution” that “the people of this country will not stand for.”

At one point Trump added, “I don’t even like to mention Biden because he’s not controlling anything.”

“Who do you think is pulling Biden’s strings?” Ingraham asked. “Is it former Obama officials?”

“People you’ve never heard of, people that are in the dark shadows,” Trump responded.

Ingraham asked him what he means by that because “that sounds like conspiracy theory.”

“They’re people you haven’t heard of,” he said. “They’re people that are on the streets, people that are controlling the streets.”

He also claimed that there was someone who get on a plane “from a certain city” this weekend and the plane was “almost completely loaded with dogs wearing these dark uniforms, black uniforms with gear and this and that.”

When Ingraham asked what he’s talking about, Trump said, “I will tell you sometime, but it’s under investigation right now.”

You can watch above, via Fox News.

Fox News handily swept the total day ratings on Friday, thanks to a particularly strong performance by Fox & Friends, while the network also dominated in primetime with its 6:00 – 9:00 p.m. lineup taking the top three spots in cable news.

In the wake of the just-concluded Republican National Convention, Fox’s morning show increased its lead over rival Morning Joe across each hour of morning programming in the coveted 25 – 54 age demographic. The MSNBC show averaged 233,000 viewers in the demo across its three hours. But Fox & Friends eked out a narrow victory in the 6:00 a.m. hour with 263,000 viewers, followed by 377,000 the next hour, and finally with a muscular 455,000 A25 – 54 viewers leading up to 9:00 a.m. In total viewers, Morning Joe  averaged 1.41 million total viewers. Fox & Friends averaged 1.28 million viewers in the 6:00 a.m. hour, 1.81 million in the 7:00 a.m. hour, and 2.35 million in the 8:00 a.m. hour.

That helped power Fox News to a clear victory in total day ratings, scoring 425,000 viewers in the demo on average, compared to to CNN’s 281,000 and MSNBC’s 246,000. Overall ratings were similar, with Fox far out front with 2.28 million, MSNBC in second with 1.50 million, and CNN trailing behind with just 1.08 million.

In primetime, Fox News’ lineup took the top three spots in cable news, with Tucker Carlson Tonight leading with 718,000 in the demo (4.27 million overall), followed by The Ingraham Angle‘s 681,000 (3.72 million), and the guest-hosted Hannity pulling in 647,000 (3.76 million). Those numbers far outpaced CNN’s lineup and only MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show came close with 460,000 viewers in the demo and 3.02 million overall.

As a result, Fox handily won the primetime ratings battle with 682,000 A25 – 54 viewers. But the clash for second place was a close fight, with CNN barely edging out MSNBC by 3,000 viewers in the demo, 355,000 to 352,000, respectively. In overall viewers, however, MSNBC easily bested CNN for runner-up, with 2.24 million to 1.36 million, respectively. Fox News took the overall primetime audience title with 3.92 million viewers.

Senator Chris Murphy (D- CT) said last week that President Donald Trump’s “deliberately killing people” for not enforcing covid guidelines at his events.

Can we take the gloves off and tell the truth?

Trump is deliberately killing people.

He holds rallies where people get infected. On Thursday, no social distancing or masks, sending a clear message that the CDC should be ignored.

His plan is to kill people. Let's just say it.

— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) August 29, 2020

He followed up defending the harsh rhetoric saying there was “no good reason” for the president so require social distancing or mask-wearing at his RNC speech, saying it sends a dangerous message to people across the country.

Murphy was on with Chris Hayes Monday night to react to the president’s remarks on the violence in Portland and Kenosha. Murphy was particularly appalled by Trump’s comments about the 17-year-old charged with homicide.

Towards the end of the interview, Hayes asked Murphy about the tweet and if he stands by that.

Murphy said he does:

“I know that sounds harsh, but this is a president who knew exactly what he was doing. He knew by refusing to socially distance people at his convention, but refusing to let them wear masks or at least not requiring masks, that he was sending a clear message to all of his followers that those things aren’t worthwhile. And the science tells him if they’re not wearing masks and they’re not socially distanced, then thousands of people are going to die. Let’s call a spade a spade. The president knows exactly what he is doing. He is refusing to model the right behavior for the American public and that is going to result in people dying. If you are on the way to the grocery store and you decide to drive on the sidewalk instead of the road, knowing that may kill people, you are rightly are called a killer. I do believe this president is deliberately killing people. Because all he had to do is make different choices about the behavior that he modeled, and there would be thousands of additional people alive today. That’s his choice.”

You can watch above, via MSNBC.

Tucker Carlson asked acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf Monday why the feds aren’t acting quicker against people involved in the riots in major U.S. cities.

Wolf spoke with Carlson following the violence in Portland over the weekend where one man — identified as a supporter of the right-wing group Patriot Prayer — was killed.

Carlson questioned Wolf on whether he thinks DHS is getting enough help from the DOJ, asking, “Why haven’t we seen the leaders of Antifa and BLM arrested and charged for conspiracy under, say, RICO, like the heads of the Mafia families were?”

Wolf said he’s spoken with Attorney General Bill Barr and that “they are working on it.” He talked about the number of arrests across the country of people at these riots, saying many of them were arrested in Portland.

He added that the DOJ is targeting and investigating the head of these organizations’ and the people “paying for these individuals to move across the country.”

“You’re not allowed to fund crime. Of course,” Carlson said. “If I do business with Iran, I go to jail. But we have domestic terrorism on a greater scale than we have had in my lifetime, 50 years, and the funders of this have not been exposed by the federal government and they haven’t been punished and I’m confused as to why.”

Wolf said again the DOJ is “moving as quickly as possible” and added, “Like you, Tucker, I wish that was in a little quicker fashion. We’ll continue to see how that is. But again, this administration, this president is committed to holding individuals accountable.”

Right after the interview, Carlson added this:

“I have to say, when they don’t like somebody, justice moves very swiftly. Or when there’s something that, I don’t know, the Today Show wants them to do, they don’t waste time. When some NASCAR driver said he was the victim of a hate crime because his garage door pull looked like a noose, they sent, like, I don’t know, a dozen FBI agents down to Talladega. They didn’t waste time. Why are they taking so long?”

You can watch above, via Fox News.

Dr. Lipi Roy warned that she would be very distrustful of any vaccine approved by the FDA before the full phase 3 trials were completed: ‘”I wouldn’t recommend it for my patients, my family, or myself.”

Roy appeared on MSNBC’s The ReidOut on Monday evening, and spoke in response to a Financial Times report that FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn would be will to bypass the normal safety approval process to get any potential Covid-19 vaccine into the marketplace. President Donald Trump has repeatedly promised a vaccine by the end of the year and even hinted that it could arrive “or maybe even sooner.”

After claiming the FDA’s decision to fast-track a vaccine was “playing ball” with the White House, host Joy Reid asked Roy about how comfortable she would be with the product of such a unorthodox process.

“No. I wouldn’t give it, I wouldn’t recommend it for my patients, my family or for myself,” Roy said. “While I do believe in most health care professionals believe vaccines in general, all the vaccines that we have had thus far have been very safe and are highly recommended. Those vaccines that we highly recommend have gone through a rigorous testing process, clinical trials, what’s happening now. And what the FDA is getting pressured to do is authorize vaccines to be released to the public without going through the appropriate channels.”

“I also want to say, the clip you showed of Vice President Biden, what I heard, and what’s so critical for physicians and health care professionals is the sense of empathy,” Roy added. “I heard the vice president talk about elderly Americans, people in nursing homes, like genuinely caring about the most vulnerable people, he talked about black and brown people, communities of color. The other clip you showed, you talked about the president’s son as well as the son-in-law talking about supply chains and the business side of it. Those are two different narratives and you pointed out very clearly, Joy, nothing else matters. There’s really topics one through ten are all about coronavirus. We have to get a handle on that first before we can solve any other problem.”

Watch the video above, via MSNBC.

During Monday’s White House press conference, President Donald Trump was asked about not meeting with the family of Jacob Blake when he’s in Kenosha.

Trump said he spoke with the family pastor before saying, “I thought it would be better not to do anything where there are lawyers involved. They wanted me to speak, but they wanted to have lawyers involved, so I thought that was inappropriate, so I didn’t do that. But I did speak with the pastor of the family, who’s a fine man, a wonderful man. I think we had a great talk. And I may at some point, you know, do that but they did have a lawyer that wanted to be on the phone. And I said no, that’s inappropriate. But I just gave my best regards.”

Jacob Blake Sr. reacted on CNN after the press conference, saying he won’t play politics when it’s his son’s life he’s talking about. He added that “we don’t have a family pastor” and doesn’t know who the president talked to. One White House official said that Trump was talking about Blake’s mother’s pastor.

Benjamin Crump, attorney for the Blake family, said the president’s comments are “mind-boggling” and said being on the call wasn’t an issue when Barack Obama spoke with Trayvon Martin’s family.

He said Blake’s mother and others were trying to coordinate for a presidential call, but “the call never came.”

Jim Acosta asked Blake Sr. if he would say anything to the president.

“I’m worried about my son and we’re not dealing with politics,” Blake Sr. responded. “I’m not getting into politics. It’s all about my son, man. It has nothing to do with a photo-op. It has to do with Jacob’s operation.”

At one point Crump said the difference been what happened to Blake and what happened to Kyle Rittenhouse shows “two justice systems that exist in America.”

Blake Sr. added, “The two justice systems were in stark contrast of each other right there in front of your eyes. You can see that on video. That white young man got a high-five and some water. My son got seven to the back. Hot ones through his back. He’s paralyzed from the waist down. That young man went home to his house in Illinois. Antioch, Illinois. He didn’t go home in Kenosha or Racine, he went to another state. My son went to a state of being paralyzed. It’s a stark understanding of the two judicial systems set up in America. There’s a white system and a black system.”

You can watch above, via CNN.

Read the rest of this entry »

Saul Loeb/Getty Images

President Donald Trump clearly viewed the Republican National Convention as a success — both the week’s overall events and his own personal performance — and the oddsmakers may be smiling on him as well. The betting odds are now a dead heat between Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

The latest Real Clear Politics average for the betting odds between the two presidential candidates shows Biden at 50.6 percent and Trump at 49.1 percent — “virtually tied” as pollster Frank Luntz characterized it.

Betting odds are now virtually tied for the 2020 presidential election.

• Biden: 50.6%
• Trump: 49.1%

Biden was leading 61-37 just one month ago.

https://t.co/ad6tOK1BHj pic.twitter.com/fYdjHK9iRi

— Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) August 30, 2020

This average was comprised of the numbers from seven different online betting marketplaces, like Betfair and Matchbook, that allow users to wager on who they believe will win the presidential election in November. Three of the four were actually exactly tied.

This latest result is updated as of August 30, and shows a continued narrowing of the race from even just a few days ago.

To say that we could use a break right now is a massive understatement. And sure, it’s been nice not having to do our usual commute, there’s also something incredibly exhausting about spending all day interacting with other people exclusively online. If you keep dreaming of packing up an RV and spending a weekend…

Read more...

Screenshot via @chadwickboseman on Twitter.

The last tweet posted on Chadwick Boseman‘s Twitter account, confirming the tragic news that the 43-year-old actor had passed away after battling colon cancer for four years, is now the most-liked tweet ever, surpassing over seven million likes at the time this article was written.

The tweet was posted Friday evening and included a black-and-white photograph of a smiling Boseman and a message from his family honoring his remarkable career, portraying legendary figures both historical and fictional: Jackie Robinson, Thurgood Marshall, James Brown — and of course King T’Challa, aka Black Panther.

pic.twitter.com/aZ2JzDf5ai

— Chadwick Boseman (@chadwickboseman) August 29, 2020

Twitter noted the milestone, tweeting from the official company account that this tweet being the most liked ever was a “tribute fit for a King,” adding a hashtag slogan from the Black Panther movie, #WakandaForever.

Most liked Tweet ever.

A tribute fit for a King. #WakandaForever https://t.co/lpyzmnIVoP

— Twitter (@Twitter) August 29, 2020

The previous record-holder for most-liked tweet was an August 2017 post by former President Barack Obama, which collected over 4 million likes.

“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion…” pic.twitter.com/InZ58zkoAm

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 13, 2017