Trump signs executive orders banning TikTok, Wechat

Washington: US President Donald Trump has signed executive orders banning popular Chinese apps like TikTok and WeChat, terming them a threat to the national security and to the country’s economy.

The ban comes into effect in 45 days, Trump said in his two separate executive orders signed on Thursday, August 6.

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Here’s how Trump’s opposition to mail voting hurts the GOP

Tallahassee: Republicans once dominated voting by mail in Florida. But that was before President Donald Trump got involved.

After months of hearing Trump denigrate mail-in balloting, Republicans in the critical battleground state now find themselves far behind Democrats in the perennial push to urge their voters to cast ballots remotely. While Democrats have doubled the number of their voters who have requested mail ballots compared to 2016, Republicans have increased their numbers by about 20 per cent since the same time.

Read More ... Here’s how Trump’s opposition to mail voting hurts the GOP

Trump confident of winning Presidential election 2020

Trump confident of winning Presidential election 2020

Washington: US President Donald Trump on Tuesday exuded confidence of winning the November polls, asserting that he will turn around the country’s economy for the second time.

“This is a very important election. We have done a great job. We had to turn it off, as I said, turn it off, now we have started it again. As you know, they announced two weeks ago record job numbers, almost five million people, and that be the last month, which was also a record, 2.8 million people. Nobody has ever done what we have done and now we are doing it twice,” Trump told reporters at a White House press conference.

“And I think by Election Day, you are going to see some incredible numbers. The third quarter is going to be really good. The fourth quarter is going to be great, but the next year is going to be one of the best economic years. So hopefully, I will be able to be the president, where we say look at the great job I did,” he said.

Trump was responding to a question on whether he will win the November presidential polls. “Do you see yourself as the underdog in this race? Do you see yourself losing in the fall?” he was asked.

“No, I do not. I think we have really good poll numbers. They are not suppression polls. They are real polls,” the president asserted.

“We won a race where it was the same thing, 2016. We had polls that were fake. They turned out to be fake. Not all, couple of them got it right. Three of them, to be exact, three of them. One of them was unsuspecting, but they got it right. They were very proud of it. But we had, in 2016, something even more so. But we got in,” he said.

US has biggest COVID-19 testing programme in the world: Trump

US has biggest COVID-19 testing programme in the world: Trump

Washington: The United States has the biggest COVID-19 testing programme in the world, better than big countries like Russia, China, India and Brazil, President Donald Trump said on Monday, asserting that America has “just about the lowest mortality rate” due to the disease in the world.

“We have one of the lowest mortality rates anywhere,” Trump said at a White House roundtable. More than 34 lakh Americans have tested positive for COVID-19 so far and over 1,37,000 have died due to the disease, both of which are the largest numbers among all the countries.

The huge number of positive cases, the president said, is due to the massive testing efforts undertaken by his administration, more extensive than any other country.

“We test more than anybody by far. And when you test, you create cases. So we have created cases. I can tell you that some countries, they test when somebody walks into a hospital sick or walks into maybe a doctor”s office, but usually a hospital. That is the testing they do, so they do not have cases, whereas we have all these cases. So, it is a double-edged sword,” he said.

At the same time, the United States has the lowest mortality rate or just about the lowest mortality rate due to the disease in the world, Trump added. “We are doing a great job. We are doing very well with vaccines and we are doing very, very well with therapeutics. I think we are going to have some very good information coming out soon,” he said in response to a question.

“But we have the best and certainly, by far, the biggest testing programme anywhere in the world. If you tested China or Russia or any of the larger countries, if you just tested India, as an example, the way we test, you would see numbers that would be very surprising. Brazil too. You know, Brazil is going through a big problem, but they do not do testing like we do,” Trump said.

“So we do the testing and by doing the testing, we have tremendous numbers of cases. As an example, we have done 45 million tests. If we did half that number, you would have half the cases probably — around that number. If we did another half of that, you would have half the numbers. Everyone would be saying, ”Oh, we are doing so well on cases”,” he added.

Responding to a question, Trump said what China did to the world should not be forgotten.

“I think what China has done to the world with what took place — the China plague — you can call it the China virus, you can call it whatever you want to call it. It has about 20 different names. What they did to the world should not be forgotten,” he said.

The trade deal with China that was signed early this year remains intact, the president said. “It is intact, they (China) are buying. Whether they buy or not, that is up to them. They are buying,” he said.

Trump to establish a merit-based immigration system

Trump to establish a merit-based immigration system

Washington: US President Donald Trump is working on an executive order to establish a merit-based immigration system, the White House has said.

The White House statement came soon after Trump, in an interview with Telemundo News channel, said he is working on an executive order on immigration that will include a “road to citizenship” for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme.

Responding to a question, Trump said his action on the DACA is going to be part of a much bigger bill on immigration.

“It’s going to be a very big bill, a very good bill and a merit-based bill and it will include DACA, and I think people are going to be very happy,” Trump said.

“One of the aspects of the bill is going to be DACA. We’re going to have a road to citizenship,” Trump said, drawing sharp criticism from quarters in his camp. Senator Ted Cruz described the move as a mistake.

“As the president announced today, he is working on an executive order to establish a merit-based immigration system to further protect US workers,” the White House said in a statement.

“Furthermore, the president has long said he is willing to work with the Congress on a negotiated legislative solution to DACA, one that could include citizenship, along with strong border security and permanent merit-based reforms,” the White House said.

“This does not include amnesty. Unfortunately, Democrats have continually refused these offers as they are opposed to anything other than totally open borders,” said the White House in a statement.

During the interview, Trump alleged the opposition broke the deal with him on the DACA.

“I had a deal with the Democrats and they broke the deal. The DACA could have been taken care of two years ago, but the Democrats broke the deal. All of a sudden they just broke it for no reason. Actually, they had a court case that slightly went their way, and they said, ‘Oh, let’s not talk about the deal anymore,’” he said.

Trump said the recent Supreme Court ruling gave the president tremendous powers when it said that you could take in, in this case, 700,000 or so people.

“Based on the powers that they [Supreme Court] gave, I’m going to be doing an immigration bill. One of the aspects of the bill that you will be very happy with, and that a lot of people will be, including me and a lot of Republicans, by the way, will be the DACA. It will give them a road to citizenship,” Trump said.

Trump, Biden fight for primacy on social media platforms

Trump, Biden fight for primacy on social media platforms

Washington DC: On an average day, President Donald Trump sends about 14 posts to the 28 million Facebook followers of his campaign account. His Democratic rival, Joe Biden, delivers about half that many posts to an audience of just 2 million. The numbers are similarly skewed in other spheres of the social media landscape.

On Twitter, Trump’s 82.4 million followers dwarf Biden’s 6.4 million. The president has spent years cultivating a ragtag digital “army” of meme makers and political influencers who retweet campaign messages hundreds of times daily.

Trump is outspending Biden on Google and YouTube advertising by nearly 3 to 1. As his reelection bid faces growing obstacles, his primacy in the dizzying digital world is one of his top advantages, giving him a massive platform to connect with supporters and push a message that ignores his vulnerabilities related to the pandemic, unemployment and race relations.

Biden and his allies are now working feverishly to establish a social media force of their own. For the first time, Biden outspent Trump on Facebook advertising in June, pouring twice as much money into the platform as the president. His campaign is recruiting Instagram supporters to hold virtual fundraisers.

And it’s plotting ways to mobilize the power of hundreds of teens on TikTok who reserved tickets for Trump’s recent Oklahoma campaign rally and took credit for sinking the event by artificially inflating the crowd count before it began. But Trump’s head start may be tough to overcome.

“Vice President Biden and Trump have very different challenges right now,” said Tara McGowan, the founder of liberal digital firm Acronym and former digital director for the Democratic super PAC Priorities USA during the 2016 campaign.

“Trump needs to hold his base … and Vice President Biden needs to define and in a lot of ways introduce himself to you new voters, and potential supporters.” But Trump’s unimpeded access to the digital microphone is facing its limits.

Twitter is beginning to fact check Trump’s posts, including one that made unfounded claims that mail-in voting would lead to fraud. The company also alerted users when the president posted a manipulated video, and it hid his Twitter threat about shooting looters in Minneapolis.

Under pressure in June as major companies yanked advertising from its site, Facebook promised it would label Trump posts when they break rules around voting or hate speech.

Video messaging platform Snapchat last month also said it would keep the president’s account active and searchable but would stop showcasing his profile on the platform.

And in a move to clamp down on hate and violent speech, the online comment forum Reddit decided to ban one of the president’s most prolific fan forums, The_Donald. Trump and Biden have strikingly divergent tactics on social media.

A centrepiece of Trump’s digital efforts is the Team Trump Online! nightly live broadcasts streamed on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Twitch, an online streaming platform. The broadcasts feature top Trump surrogates including daughter-in-law Lara Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.

Trump also tweets with far greater velocity, sending more than 160 Twitter messages during seven days starting June 14, an Associated Press analysis of Trump and Biden’s accounts reveals. More than 50 of Trump’s posts were retweets from an assortment of users that included the U.S. Army, far-right meme makers, conservative news outlets, little-known congressional candidates and anonymous accounts that in some cases promoted conspiracy theories.

The president’s steady retweets of everyday users helps fans feel connected to him, said Logan Cook, a Kansas internet meme maker whose work Trump has regularly promoted on his social media accounts.

“President Trump’s team, they’re blending in with social media culture, which is also why they’re getting into so much trouble,” said Cook, whose Twitter account @CarpeDonktum was permanently suspended last week for copyright violations. His memes are controversial because he alters videos to mock Trump’s political rivals, including Biden.

Twitter users celebrate being retweeted by the president, or his inner circle, like the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., who has more than 5 million followers. Trump’s followers see producing sardonic memes or videos as a game where the ultimate prize is a retweet from the president, said Misha Leybovich, a tech entrepreneur who produces social media engagement products that support Democratic candidates and causes.

“The fan base is having a blast,” Leybovich said. “If they never gave the fans the ability to be amplified by the president, the stakes would be lower.”

Biden has stuck to a more conventional approach, tweeting nearly 60 messages during that same time, only a handful of which were retweets from verified accounts, like former President Barack Obama, or established news outlets.

Every video Biden tweeted out over that week in June was produced by his campaign. But the effectiveness of campaign messaging isn’t just about numbers, said Jennifer Mercieca, a political rhetoric professor at Texas A&M University.

Trump’s restrictive policy on immigration will be detrimental to US economy: USIBC

Trump’s restrictive policy on immigration will be detrimental to US economy: USIBC

Washington: The temporary suspension of H-1B and other non-immigrant visas by President Donald Trump along with other restrictive policies on immigration is detrimental to the United States and its economy, president of a top American business advocacy group has said.

“It (the proclamation) is unfortunate,” Nisha Desai Biswal, president of US India Business Council (USIBC) told PTI in an interview.

Trump had earlier this week issued a proclamation to suspend issuing of H-1B visas, popular among Indian IT professionals, along with other foreign work visas for the rest of the year.

Trump argued that the step was essential to help millions of Americans who have lost their jobs due to the current economic crisis. However, the US Chambers of Commerce and USIBC do not agree.

“I think that the United States has benefited greatly over the years by successive waves of immigration and most particularly the skilled workers that have been coming in under these H-1B visas and L-1 one visas that have enabled necessary talent to come in and augment American workers in support of technology fields,” Biswal said.

Ironically, many of the companies that utilise H-1B workers are also using and creating training programmes to create integrated teams that can support the work. And that can bring more American workers into the skills that are necessary for these jobs, she said. “So, in curtailing the programme, I think it is actually going to impede the upskilling of American workers to be able to take on many of these jobs,” Biswal said.

“The challenge that companies face is that the work needs to be done and the companies that are providing IT services and the companies that are utilising this talent, if the talent is not available in the United States, I”m worried that the jobs will actually go offshore,” she said.

There are other countries that are competing to draw some of that investment and bring in these workers as a competitor to the US, she said. Observing that the United States is a hub of innovation and talent, she noted that Trump’s policy on work visas is only going to hurt America’s own competitiveness, inhibit economic investment, and have a counterproductive effect.

“The US has been able to grow and be at the head of research and development of innovation because we have for over decades and decades been able to draw the best and the brightest from around the world,” she said.

Citing US Chambers of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue’s statement after Trump’s proclamation, Biswal said: “As our CEO Tom Donohue had that if we put a ‘not welcome’ sign on our door, then I think, it will affect America”s ability to be as great as it is in terms of both our society and economy.”

USIBC is part of the US Chambers of Commerce.

However, Biswal said the India-US relationship is a very deep and broad based.

“So, while this (visa policy) certainly does not support the US-India relationship, I do think that the relationship is strong enough and important for both countries to withstand any individual setback. We”ve seen that time and again,” she asserted.

Trump rally highlights vulnerabilities heading into election

Trump rally highlights vulnerabilities heading into election

New York: President Donald Trump’s return to the campaign trail was designed to show strength and enthusiasm heading into the critical final months before an election that will decide whether he remains in the White House.

Instead, his weekend rally in Oklahoma highlighted growing vulnerabilities and crystallized a divisive reelection message that largely ignores broad swaths of voters — independents, suburban women and people of color — who could play a crucial role in choosing Trump or Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

The lower-than-expected turnout at the comeback rally, in particular, left Trump fuming.

“There’s really only one strategy left for him, and that is to propel that rage and anger and try to split the society and see if he can have a tribal leadership win here,” former Trump adviser-turned-critic Anthony Scaramucci said on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.”

The president did not offer even a token reference to national unity in remarks that spanned more than an hour and 40 minutes at his self-described campaign relaunch as the nation grappled with surging coronavirus infections, the worst unemployment since the Great Depression and sweeping civil unrest.

Nor did Trump mention George Floyd, the African American man whose death at the hands of Minnesota police late last month sparked a national uprising over police brutality.

But he did add new fuel to the nation’s culture wars, defending Confederate statues while making racist references to the coronavirus, which originated in China and which he called “kung flu.”

He also said Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, who came to the U.S. as a refugee as a child, whom he said “would like to make the government of our country just like the country from where she came, Somalia.”

Trump won the presidency in 2016 with a similar red-meat message aimed largely at energizing conservatives and white working-class men.

But less than four months before early voting begins in some states, there are signs that independents and educated voters — particularly suburban women — have turned against him. Republican strategists increasingly believe that only a dramatic turnaround in the economy can revive his reelection aspirations.

“It’s bad,” said Republican operative Rick Tyler, a frequent Trump critic. “There’s literally nothing to run on. The only thing he can say is that Biden is worse.” But the day after Trump’s Tulsa rally, the president’s message was almost an afterthought as aides tried to explain away a smaller-than-expected crowd that left the president outraged.
The campaign had been betting big on Tulsa.

Trump’s political team spent days proclaiming that more than 1 million people had requested tickets. They also ignored health warnings from the White House coronavirus task force and Oklahoma officials, eager to host an event that would help him move past the civil rights protests and the coronavirus itself.

His first rally in 110 days was meant to be a defiant display of political force to help energize Trump’s spirits, try out some attacks on Biden and serve as a powerful symbol of American’s re-opening.

Instead, the city fire marshal’s office reported a crowd of just less than 6,200 in the 19,000-seat BOK Center, and at least six staff members who helped set up the event tested positive for the coronavirus. The vast majority of the attendees, including Trump, did not wear face masks as recommended by the Trump administration’s health experts.

After the rally, the president berated aides over the turnout. He fumed that he had been led to believe he would see huge crowds in deep-red Oklahoma, according to two White House and campaign officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations.

There was no sign of an imminent staff shakeup, but members of Trump’s inner circle angrily questioned how campaign manager Brad Parscale and other senior aides could so wildly overpromise and underdeliver, according to the officials.

Publicly, Trump’s team scrambled to blame the crowd size on media coverage and protesters outside the venue, but the small crowds of pre-rally demonstrators were largely peaceful. Tulsa police reported just one arrest Saturday afternoon.

It’s unclear when Trump will hold his next rally.

Before Oklahoma, the campaign had planned to finalize and announce its next rally this week. Trump is already scheduled to make appearances Tuesday in Arizona and Thursday in Wisconsin. Both are major general election battlegrounds.

At least one swing state governor, meanwhile, says Trump would not be welcome to host a rally in her state amid the pandemic.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, said she “would think very seriously about” trying to block Trump from hosting a rally there if he wanted to.

“We know that congregating without masks, especially at an indoor facility, is the worst thing to do in the midst of a global pandemic,” Whitmer said in an interview before the Oklahoma event, conceding that she wasn’t aware of the specific legal tools she had available to block a prospective Trump rally.

“I just know we have limitations on the number of people that can gather and that we’re taking this seriously.”

Biden’s campaign, meanwhile, seized on a fresh opportunity to poke at the incumbent president, suggesting that Trump “was already in a tailspin” because of his mismanagement of the pandemic and civil rights protests.

“Donald Trump has abdicated leadership and it is no surprise that his supporters have responded by abandoning him,” Biden spokesperson Andrew Bates said.

Trump OKs bill to punish China over ethnic crackdown

Trump OKs bill to punish China over ethnic crackdown

Washington: President Donald Trump has signed a legislation that seeks to punish China for its crackdown on Uighurs and other ethnic minorities.

The bill includes sanctions on Chinese officials involved in the mass surveillance and detention of Uighurs and other ethnic groups in the western Xinjiang region.

The legislation represents the most significant action to date by any country to punish China for a crackdown in which more than a million people have been detained in camps under harsh conditions.

It was expected to further inflame already tense relations with China.

Congress passed the bill with little opposition. Trump signed it Wednesday with no ceremony as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in Hawaii to meet with a senior Chinese diplomat.

Trump issued a statement saying the Uighur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020 would hold “perpetrators of human rights violations,” accountable, but noting that a section of the law would interfere with executive authority to terminate certain sanctions and the administration would treat that section as non-binding.

Nury Turkel, a lawyer and Uighur rights advocate and member of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, thanked the president in a social media post. “It’s a great day for America and the Uighur people,” he wrote.

Members of Congress intended the legislation to increase pressure on China over the crackdown in Xinjiang, where authorities have detained more than a million people — from mostly Muslim ethnic groups that include Uighurs, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz — in a vast network of detention centres.

It would impose sanctions on specific Chinese officials, such as the Communist Party official who oversees government policy in Xinjiang.

The legislation also requires the US government to report to Congress on violations of human rights in Xinjiang as well as China’s acquisition of technology used for mass detention and surveillance. It also requires American authorities to look into the pervasive reports of harassment and threats of Uighurs and other Chinese nationals in the United States.

China has publicly brushed away criticism of its crackdown in Xinjiang, which it launched in 2014 as the “Strike Hard Against Violent Extremism” campaign in a vast resource-rich territory whose inhabitants are largely distinct, culturally and ethnically, from the country’s Han Chinese majority.

Trump signs order on police reform, doesn’t mention racism

Trump signs order on police reform, doesn’t mention racism

Washington: Following weeks of national protests since the death of George Floyd, President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that he said would encourage better police practices.
But he made no mention of the roiling national debate over racism spawned by police killings of black men and women.

Trump met privately with the families of several black Americans killed in interactions with police before his Rose Garden signing ceremony and said he grieved for the lives lost and families devastated.

But then he quickly shifted his tone and devoted most of his public remarks to a need to respect and support “the brave men and women in blue who police our streets and keep us safe.”

He characterized the officers who have used excessive force as a “tiny” number of outliers among “trustworthy” police ranks.

“Reducing crime and raising standards are not opposite goals,” he said before signing the order Tuesday, flanked by police officials.

Trump and Republicans in Congress have been rushing to respond to the mass demonstrations against police brutality and racial prejudice that have raged for weeks across the country in response to the deaths of Floyd and other black Americans.

It”s a sudden shift that underscores how quickly the protests have changed the political conversation and pressured Washington to act.

But Trump, who has faced criticism for failing to acknowledge systemic racial bias and has advocated for rougher police treatment of suspects in the past, has continued to hold his ”law and order.” line.

At the signing event, he railed against those who committed violence during the largely peaceful protests while hailing the vast majority of officers as selfless public servants.

Trump”s executive order would establish a database that tracks police officers with excessive use-of-force complaints in their records.

Many officers who wind up involved in fatal incidents have long complaint histories, including Derek Chauvin, the white Minneapolis police officer who has been charged with murder in the death of Floyd. Those records are often not made public, making it difficult to know if an officer has such a history.

The order would also give police departments a financial incentive to adopt best practices and encourage co-responder programs, in which social workers join police when they respond to nonviolent calls involving mental health, addiction and homeless issues.

Trump said that, as part of the order, the use of chokeholds, which have become a symbol of police brutality, would be banned “except if an officer”s life is at risk.”

Actually, the order instructs the Justice Department to push local police departments to be certified by a “reputable independent credentialing body” with use-of-force policies that prohibit the use of chokeholds, except when the use of deadly force is allowed by law.

Chokeholds are already largely banned in police departments nationwide.

While Trump hailed his efforts as “historic,” Democrats and other critics said he didn”t go nearly far enough.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said, “One modest inadequate executive order will not make up for his decades of inflammatory rhetoric and his recent policies designed to roll back the progress that we”ve made in previous years.”

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the order “falls sadly and seriously short of what is required to combat the epidemic of racial injustice and police brutality that is murdering hundreds of Black Americans.”

Kristina Roth at Amnesty International USA said the order “amounts to a Band-Aid for a bullet wound.”

But Trump said others want to go to far. He, framed his plan as an alternative to the “defund the police” movement to fully revamp departments that has emerged from the protests and which he slammed as “radical and dangerous.”

“Americans know the truth: Without police there is chaos. Without law there is anarchy and without safety there is catastrophe,” he said.

Trump”s audience included police officials and members of Congress, and came after he met privately at the White House with the families of men and women who have been killed in interactions with police.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters that many tears were shed at the meeting and “the president was devastated.”

Trump listed the families” relatives who died and said: “To all the hurting families, I want you to know that all Americans mourn by your side. Your loved ones will not have died in vain.”

White House adviser Ja”Ron Smith said it was “a mutual decision” for the families not to attend the public signing.

“It really wasn”t about doing a photo opportunity,” he said.

“We wanted the opportunity to really hear from the families and protect them. I mean I think it”s really unfortunate that some civil rights groups have even attacked them for coming.”