Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks at the second night of the 2020 Republican National Convention.
Breaking with diplomatic tradition, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a pre-taped speech from Jerusalem to the Republican National Convention on Tuesday that praised President Trump’s foreign policy agenda while avoiding stepping into election politics by criticizing Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
Pompeo’s speech, which stirred controversy and criticism from Democrats amid questions about whether it violates the Hatch Act, stayed away from the partisan snipes of other speakers and instead focused on the Trump administration’s actions on the world stage.
“The primary constitutional function of the national government is ensuring your family and mine are safe and enjoy the freedom to live, work, learn and worship as they choose,” Pompeo said. “Delivering on this duty to keep us safe and our freedoms intact, this president has led bold initiatives in nearly every corner of the world.”
The secretary of state went on to tout the president’s hardline stance on trade with China, his outreach to North Korea, the administration pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal negotiated under former President Barack Obama and Trump’s insistence on NATO nations contributing more financially to the international alliance.
“Today, because of President Trump, NATO is stronger, Ukraine has defensive weapons systems and America left a harmful treaty so our nation can now build missiles to deter Russian aggression,” Pompeo said.
Speaking with a view of Jerusalem’s Old City behind him, Pompeo also lauded both Trump’s move to relocate the United States embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and the recently brokered peace deal that normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
“The President moved the U.S. Embassy to this very city of God, Jerusalem, the rightful capital of the Jewish homeland,” he said. “And just two weeks ago, the president brokered a historic peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. This is a deal that our grandchildren will read about in their history books.”
In his relatively short speech, Pompeo did not once mention Biden or the looming presidential election in November, but the appearance at the convention by a standing secretary of state drew harsh denunciation from the Biden’s campaign and his fellow Democrats.
“Secretary Pompeo’s decision to address the Republican convention from Jerusalem isn’t just an abuse of taxpayer dollars; it undermines the critical work being done by the State Department,” Biden Deputy Campaign Manager Kate Bedingfield said on Tuesday. “Every day America’s diplomats abroad proudly represent our country — not a political party — but Mike Pompeo’s repeated and blatant use of his office for overtly political purposes only serves to undercut their work, and it further weakens the critical alliances and global relationships that have already been so badly damaged by this administration’s recklessness.”
Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who was a Biden rival during the presidential primaries, stressed to reporters on Tuesday that Pompeo’s convention speech “is reckless … It is counter to the traditions of our country.”
Pompeo’s speech raised particular questions as it comes just a month after he issued a cable to all U.S. diplomatic missions warning American diplomats that under federal law they should not take overt sides in the presidential campaign.
Pompeo told employees “it is important to remember that in order to avoid any confusion or misperception in this regard, the department’s longstanding policy is that U.S. citizen employees and family members may not engage in partisan political activity while posted or on (temporary duty) abroad, even on personal time.”
“Similarly, presidential and political appointees and career (senior executives) are subject to significant restrictions on their political activity; they may not engage in any partisan political activity in concert with a partisan campaign, political party, or partisan political group, even on personal time and outside of the federal workplace,” it said.
The cable was released late Monday by Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a fierce Pompeo critic who is engaged in multiple battles with the secretary of state over what he believes to be inappropriate and possibly illegal partisan behavior.
“Once again, the rules go out the window for Secretary Pompeo when they get in the way of serving his political interests and Donald Trump,” Engel said in a statement.
Pompeo’s message to State Department employees reminding them of restrictions on political activity under the Hatch Act was not unusual. Similar, if not identical, cables have been sent by successive secretaries of state every presidential election year.
But in the face of criticism, both the State Department and Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniels defended Pompeo’s decision to speak at the RNC.
A State Department official noted that “no State Department resources will be used….Staff are not involved in preparing the remarks or in the arrangements for Secretary Pompeo’s appearance. The State Department will not bear any costs in conjunction with this appearance.”
McDaniels has stressed that all production costs for the secretary of state’s address are being paid for by the RNC and the Trump reelection campaign.
She told CBS News on Sunday that “it’s appropriate to talk about this administration and what’s happening with this administration and the policies that have made the lives better of the American people.”
Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser, Adam Shaw and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
While most of the speakers leaned into the anger that has long animated Trump’s base, a few standouts rewrote history in order to portray Trump’s presidency as a great success story, including Pompeo, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow and the first lady, who delivered what was likely her longest public speech ever.
Pompeo praised Trump’s foreign policy, saying his own family was “more safe, their freedoms more secure, because President Trump has put his America First vision into action.”
In a nod to the damage Trump has inflicted on ties with traditional U.S. allies, Pompeo said, “It may not have made him popular in every foreign capital, but it has worked.” He went on to claim several questionable foreign policy victories for Trump, including that the Islamic State is now “wiped out,” because Trump authorized the killing of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Kudlow, too, offered a rosier picture of the where the country is today than many Americans are actually experiencing.
“There’s a big change in attitude happening. The American Spirit is picking up,” Kudlow said after listing several coronavirus economic aid programs that Congress passed and Trump signed this spring. “Car sales are booming. Retail spending is booming. And workers are going to have to produce new inventory to restock those shelves. That means get ready for a big third and fourth quarter, folks,” said Kudlow. “The jobs numbers just keep coming out better than anyone expected.”
But that’s not entirely true. While some companies are bringing workers back, a virus resurgence this summer effectively ended the recovery the began late this spring. Last week alone, 1.1 million Americans filed first-time unemployment claims, a number that was worse than analysts had been expecting.
And while equities markets have recovered much of the value they lost this spring, this doesn’t help the 31 million Americans who are currently receiving some kind of unemployment benefits.
Exactly six months ago to the day from Tuesday, Kudlow claimed in an interview that “We have contained [coronavirus]. I won’t say airtight but pretty close to airtight.”
In the six months since he said that, more than 175,000 Americans died from Covid-19.
(CNN)On the the third night since the police shooting that left Jacob Blake severely injured, demonstrators in Kenosha again defied curfew and were confronted by officers in riot gear who fired tear gas into the crowd.
Brit Hume weighs in on President Trump’s pardon of bank robber Jon Ponder
Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume called President Trump‘s pardon of convicted bank robber Jon Ponder the most “striking” and “powerful” moment of Tuesday night’s program at the Republican National Convention.
Ponder, who founded the nonprofit HOPE For Prisoners in 2010, spoke in a video at the convention, along with Richard Beasley, the FBI agent who arrested him. The president honored both Ponder and Beasley in 2018 during a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden during the National Day of Prayer.
“I serve on the board of a Christian youth home in Virginia not far from Washington where miracles are done on a continuing basis with the hardest cases of the young kids,” Hume explained. “These faith-based programs that turn lives around really do work and Jon Ponder is an example of that.
“It was striking to see this pardon granted on live television,” Hume went on. “The obvious emotion with which it was received by Jon Ponder, that is perhaps the most powerful moment of the night.”
However, Hume noted, he also had a “special place in my heart” for Covington Catholic High School graduate Nick Sandmann, who Hume said was “crucified, and falsely so, by the national news media” for his part in a 2019 confrontation with a Native American activist that went viral on social media.
“When I failed the chemotherapies that were on the market, no one wanted me in their clinical trials,” Harp said in an emotional address. “They didn’t give me the right to try experimental treatments, Mr. President. You did, and without you, I’d have died waiting for them to be approved.”
Donald Trump has cultivated an image as a man of tough words and quick action, someone who’s not afraid to bruise feelings. But Republicans Tuesday tried to portray a softer Trump, one who cares about the little guy: the lobsterman in Maine, the dairy farmer from Wisconsin, the police office from New Mexico.
“More than any president in my lifetime, he’s acknowledged the importance of farmers and agriculture,” said Cris Peterson, a dairy farmer struggling until Trump’s policies helped turn her business around.
It was a shift in tone from Monday when speeches were laced with dark imagery about what might happen if Joe Biden is elected president. Still,Tuesday had its negative moments – former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi going after Biden’s integrity and Eric Trump Jr. attacking the “radical Democrats” who want to destroy the nation.
But this turned into an opportunity to portray the president as possessing the one quality his critics accuse him of lacking: empathy. One of the most notable moments came during a taped appearance from the White House where he signed a pardon to Jon Ponder, founder of Hope For Prisoners, a Las Vegas-based organization that helps ex-prisoners re-enter society.
“Today, I’m filled with hope,” said Ponder, at one point appearing to choke up. “I have been given a second chance.”
The closing speech of the evening was delivered by first lady Melania Trump, who talked about her “Be Best” anti-bullying campaign, weighed in on the issue of racial unrest and said her husband has “America .. in his heart.”
Melania Trump describes her husband as an ‘authentic person’
First lady Melania Trump rarely speaks publicly so her keynote address Tuesday was already going to be must-see TV.
Speaking at a White House Rose Garden whose renovation she oversaw, Trump’s speech came a little over a week after Michelle Obama’s searing rebuke of President Trump during the Democratic National Convention.
Melania Trump described her husband as an “authentic person” who loves the country and wants to make it better. The Slovenian-born first lady spoke confidently about the “freedoms and opportunities” her adopted country has afforded her, her ‘Be Best’ initiative to prevent children from being bullied, and the importance of recognizing the power of women.
“We must make sure women are heard and the American dream continues to thrive,” she said to a crowd of supporters who gathered to listen to her speech.
She also offered her views on racial divisions in the country.
“Like all of you. I have reflected on the racial unrest in our country. It is a harsh reality that we are not proud of parts of our history,” she said.
The first lady urged the nation to come together, learn from one another and “work together for a better tomorrow for everyone.”
“I encourage people to focus on our future, while still learning from our past. We must remember that today we are all one community comprised of many races, religions and ethnicities. Our diverse and storied history is what makes our country strong, and yet we still have so much to learn from one another,” she said.
“I also ask people to stop the violence and looting being done in the name of justice and never make assumptions based on the color of a person’s skin,” the first lady said.
Melania Trump also talked about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“My deepest sympathy goes out to all of you who have lost a loved one and my prayers are with those who are ill or suffering,” she said. “I know many people are anxious and some feel helpless. I want you to know you are not alone.”
And she praised her husband as a doer on issues including school choice, opioid addiction and race relations.
The president’s not a traditional politician, she said, but “he loves this country and he knows how to get things done … He demands actions and he gets results.”
Eric, Tiffany Trump rally around the president
Two of the president’s children rallied around their father Tuesday, offering remarks that sought to attract support from younger Americans and voters who backed Trump in 2016, saying their father’s fight isn’t over.
Tiffany Trump, a recent Georgetown Law School graduate who rarely makes public appearances, highlighted her father’s criticisms of the media, censorship online and her father’s “relentless” fighting spirit. She made a simple plea: “I urge you to make judgement based on results and not rhetoric,” highlighting some of his accomplishments over his first term.
“If you tune into the media, you get one biased opinion or another,” she said. “Rather than allowing Americans the right to form our own beliefs, this misinformation system keeps people mentally enslaved to the ideas they deem correct. This has fostered unnecessary fear and divisiveness amongst us.”
Eric Trump, who helps manage his father’s company – the Trump Organization – chronicled his father’s campaign in 2016 and win. He highlighted the president’s policies and culture divide between Republicans and Democrats.
“This is the fight that we are in right now and it is a fight that only my father can win,” he said. “My father ran, not because he needed the job, but because he knew hardworking people across this great country were being left behind.”
He also delivered a personal message to his father, noting that while he missed working with him each day, “I’m damn proud to be on the front lines of this fight. I am proud of what you are doing for this country.”
Eric Trump closed by acknowledging the recent loss of Robert Trump, the president’s brother. “Dad, let’s make Uncle Robert very proud.”
Covington teen Nick Sandmann bashes media ‘war machine’
Nick Sandmann, the Kentucky teen who became part of a social media firestorm last year when he was filmed facing off with activist Nathan Phillips outside the Lincoln Memorial, delivered a scathing review of the news media – a frequent target of the Trump.
Sandmann, then 16, had taken a trip with his Covington Catholic High School class to Washington, D.C., for the Right to Life March in January 2019.
He and Phillips, who is Native American, were captured on videos that went viral in January when they stood facing each other on the National Mall. Sandmann stared at Phillips as Phillips participated in a song with other Native Americans.
Twitter exploded with accusations of racism and privilege. News outlets like the Washington Post, NBC, CNN and the USA TODAY Network began reporting the story.
He said the media’s portrayal of footage of the incident, which showed him in a red Make America Great Again, turned him into “the latest poster child showing why Trump is bad.”
“What I thought was a strange encounter, quickly developed into a major news story complete with video footage,” Sandmann said. “My life changed forever in that one moment. The full war machine of the mainstream media revved up into attack mode. They did so without ever researching the full video of the incident; without ever investigating Mr. Philips’ motives; or without ever asking me for my side of the story.”
After the incident, Nick sued several media outlets over their coverage of the incident, claiming they defamed him. He settled lawsuits with CNN and the Washington Post for undisclosed amounts. He has sued five other news companies, including Gannett, which owns USA TODAY.
Mike Pompeo speaks from Israel
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo‘s appearance at the convention became a pivotal moment even before he spoke.
His address, breaking diplomatic protocol and perhaps the State Department’s own policy on engaging in partisan political activity, was delivered from Jerusalem where he highlighted the president’s work and promises kept on the world stage, including moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to the city. American support for Israel is a galvanizing issue for evangelical voters, a crucial base of support for the GOP.
“President Trump has put his America First vision into action. It may not have made him popular in every foreign capital, but it has worked,” Pompeo said before listing off Trump’s work with China, North Korea and in the Middle East over his term.
The backlash over Pompeo’s role in the convention is not likely to cease after Tuesday, even though he wasn’t introduced as the secretary of state. The State Department said Pompeo was addressing the RNC in his “personal capacity” but his remarks revolved around policy and the very issues in which Pompeo has played a leading role.
Rep. Joaquin Castro, a top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, opened a probe into Pompeo’s decision, saying he has “a gross disregard” for ethics rules and “a blatant willingness to violate federal law for political gain.”
Faith and abortion take center stage
Republicans thrust faith and abortion into the spotlight Tuesday, portraying Democrats as a threat to freedom of religion.
Cissie Graham Lynch, the granddaughter of legendary evangelist Billy Graham, praised Trump’s appointments of conservative judges to the federal bench and said he stood up for religious freedoms.
“Our Founders did not envision a quiet, hidden faith. They fought to ensure that voices of faith were always welcomed, not silenced. Not bullied,” she said, saying under Democratic control, “whether you’re a baker, a florist, or a football coach, they will force the choice between being obedient to God, or to Caesar.”
Abby Johnson, an anti-abortion activist who formerly worked at Planned Parenthood, told of her time working for the women’s reproductive heath care organization, telling the story of what led her to become a pro-life activist after helping with an abortion.
“For me, abortion’s real. I know what it sounds like, what it smells like. I’ve been the perpetrator to these babies, to these women,” she said. “Life is a core tenet of who we are as Americans.”.
Speaker removed from RNC lineup over QAnon tweet
Trump was expecting to get a heartfelt boost for his border security policies from the mother of a Mesa, Arizona, police officer killed by an undocumented immigrant six years ago.
But Mary Ann Mendoza sent an incendiary tweet earlier Tuesday promoting a debunked, anti-Semitic conspiracy from the right-wing movement QAnon.
The tweet, linking to a thread from @WarNuse, claimed that the Rothschilds, a wealthy Jewish banking family from Germany, were involved in global plots over centuries, including the sinking of the Titanic and the assassination of President John Kennedy, to prevent non-Jews from accumulating power and money.
As a result of the backlash, the Trump campaign removed the video featuring Mendoza’s remarks from their convention lineup shortly before it was set to air.
QAnon is a baseless conspiracy theory that alleges that there is a “deep state” run by political elites, business leaders and Hollywood celebrities with ties to a child sex trafficking ring. In addition to claiming that “deep state” members are pedophiles, the theory insists that they are actively working against President Donald Trump.
The online movement started in the fall of 2017 on internet message boards, with posts from a self-proclaimed government insider who calls himself “Q.”
The episode highlighted what critics describe as an unsettling relationship between Trump and QAnon. Trump last week said he didn’t know much about the movement but welcomed support from it followers, adding that he heard they “like me very much” and “love our country.”
Trump has praised Marjorie Taylor Greene, a GOP House candidate in Georgia who is a QAnon supporter as a “future Republican Star.”
Mendoza apologized for her tweet, saying she had not read the entire thread and it “does not reflect my feelings or personal thoughts whatsoever.”
She founded Angel Families, an organization that advocates for tougher immigration policies. Her son, Mesa Police Sgt. Brandon Mendoza was killed by an illegal immigrant who was drunk on May 12, 2014, in a head-on collision on his way home from work.
Mendoza is a long-time Trump supporter, having spoken at his rallies in Phoenix, during the 2016 campaign. She also spoke at the 2016 Republican National Convention.
Blake, 29, was shot by a Kenosha police officer claiming to respond to a domestic dispute. In the cell phone video that captured the officer shooting him, Blake leans into a vehicle before being shot. It is unclear from the audio whether police officers asked him to yield. Blake’s three children were in the car.
In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times on Tuesday, Blake’s father said that there are “eight holes” in his son’s body, paralyzing him from the waist down. Benjamin Crump, the attorney representing Blake’s family, said that Blake is in surgery for the spinal injuries sustained from being shot at such close range and remains in critical condition.
Graham’s comments come as the country enters its third month of protests catalyzed by the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, African Americans who were killed by police officers. Blake’s shooting has prompted a new round of protests against police brutality in Kenosha and around the country. Wisconsin’s governor declared a state of emergency Tuesday after some protesters vandalized buildings.
Graham, who said he supports police reform measures, argued that Floyd’s death was an example of bad policing, calling it “heinous” and “wrong.” His office did not respond to a request for comment.
“Police are not above the law,” Graham said. “There are places where police act with impunity. This is not one of those nations.”
Graham is running in a hotly contested re-election campaign for Senate in South Carolina, a state that is more than 30 percent Black. An August Quinnipiac poll put him in a virtual tie with Democratic challenger Jamie Harrison.
During the press conference, Graham called on Harrison to return donations he received from the organization MoveOn.org, which supports a divest-invest model to redirect funds from police departments to municipal services and community programs. Harrison has denied that he is in favor of defunding the police, as some protesters are demanding.
A woman who was slated to speak Tuesday night at the Republican National Convention was pulled from the lineup shortly before her scheduled slot after she posted about an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory earlier in the day.
“We have removed the scheduled video from the convention lineup and it will no longer run this week,” communications director Tim Murtaugh said in a statement.
Mendoza earlier Tuesday encouraged her Twitter followers to read a thread from a conspiracy theorist associated with QAnon. The thread included anti-Semitic claims that prominent Jewish families were part of a plot to enslave the rest of the world.
The post was first reported by The Daily Beast. Mendoza has since deleted it and apologized.
“I retweeted a very long thread earlier without reading every post within the thread,” she tweeted. “My apologies for not paying attention to the intent of the whole message. That does not reflect my feelings or personal thoughts whatsoever.”
Mendoza is an “angel mom” whose son, a police officer, was killed by a drunk driver who was in the country illegally. She has previously shared other anti-Semitic conspiracies.
According to excerpts of her prepared remarks, she was expected to say that Trump “is the first political leader we’ve ever seen take on the radical Left to finally secure our border and to end illegal immigration since day one. I’ve met him many times and I know what’s in his heart . . . I know what he hopes and dreams for this country.”
One of President Donald Trump’s impeachment defense lawyers tried to paint Joe Biden and his son Hunter as corrupt at the Republican convention on Tuesday.
For Joe Biden, the U.S. has “been the land of opportunism, not opportunity,” said Pam Bondi, the former Florida attorney general.
She then took aim at Hunter Biden, whose job at a Ukrainian energy company was key aspect of the impeachment trial. Trump had asked the Ukrainian president to “do us a favor” and give information about Biden and his son to Attorney General William Barr.
“Joe Biden — the vice president of the United States — threatened to withhold aid to Ukraine unless that same prosecutor was fired…and then he was fired,” Bondi said.
She neglected to mention that the probe into the company was dormant at the time, and that numerous Western countries had wanted the prosecutor gone because he was soft on corruption.
The Biden campaign issued the same statement it had used about the allegations during the impeachment trial.
Andrew Bates, the Biden campaign’s rapid response director, said, “Here on planet Earth, the conspiracy theory that Bondi repeated has been conclusively refuted. Joe Biden was instrumental to a bipartisan and international anti-corruption victory. It’s no surprise that such a thing is anathema to President Trump.”
Bondi, who made other vague allegations about other unidentified Biden family members in her speech, maintained that the people who’ve benefited from Biden’s political career “are his family members, not the American people.”
“As a career prosecutor and former attorney general of Florida, I fought corruption and I know what it looks like, whether it’s done by people wearing pinstripe suits or orange jumpsuits,” said Bondi, whose office dropped a fraud probe into Trump University after the Trump Foundation donated $25,000 to a political group connected to Bondi when she was A.G. Bondi has denied there was any connection.
Trump was impeached by the House for abuse of power involving Ukraine. Democrats said there was ample evidence that Trump had abused his power by pressuring Ukraine to announce investigations into Biden and his son while withholding almost $400 million in aid, and that he had obstructed Congress by refusing to release any documents related to his actions. Trump was acquitted after a Senate trial.
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley speaks at the 2020 Republican National Convention.
CNN analyst Asha Rangappa drew backlash on Tuesday for attempting to use Nikki Haley’s name against her over the former U.N. ambassador’s claim that the U.S. is not a “racist” country.
During her speech on the first night of the Republican National Convention, Haley firmly defended American values and shared her own experience as the daughter of Indian immigrants.
“In much of the Democratic Party, it’s now fashionable to say that America is racist. That is a lie. America is not a racist country,” Haley said. “This is personal for me. I am the proud daughter of Indian immigrants. They came to America and settled in a small Southern town. My father wore a turban. My mother wore a sari. I was a Brown girl in a Black and White world.”
She continued, “We faced discrimination and hardship. But my parents never gave in to grievance and hate. My mom built a successful business. My dad taught 30 years at a historically black college. And the people of South Carolina chose me as their first minority and first female governor. America is a story that’s a work in progress. Now is the time to build on that progress, and make America even freer, fairer, and better for everyone.”
However, Haley’s message that America wasn’t racist didn’t sit well with the CNN security analyst.
“Right. Is that why you went from going by Nimrata to ‘Nikki’?” Rangappa asked.
That tweet was slammed by critics, many of whom pointed out that the former South Carolina governor’s birthname is Nimrata Nikki Randhawa.
“Asha revealing that she’s lost so much touch w/ her Indian culture that she doesn’t know that Nikki is actually a Punjabi name,” The Hill’s Saagar Enjeti reacted.
“I hope you did better research when you worked for the FBI than you do when calling people out for the name they go by. Nikki Haley was born Nimrata Nikki Randhawa & married someone w/ the last name Haley. Her family called her Nikki growing up. It means ‘Little One’ in Punjabi,” Washington Examiner reporter Jerry Dunleavy swiped the CNN analyst.
“I understand this is a divisive issue among South Asians, but I keep landing here: A name doesn’t belong to a community. It belongs to an individual. If Haley/Jindal changed names, it’s their choice. There’s lots of reasons why one would do that. Don’t think we need to judge,” New York Times writer Sopan Deb said, also referring to former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.
“What happened in your life to make you like this?” Tablet Magazine associate editor Noam Blum asked.
“Have you ever thought about not tweeting,” Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel told Rangappa.
“Whenever there’s a controversy about a blue check being a jerk, the odds that person is with CNN are around 98.5%,” Mediaite editor Caleb Howe wrote.
Fox News was way ahead of its rivals in coverage during the 10 PM ET hour, with 7.1 million total viewers, followed by CNN with 2.01 million, ABC with 1.98 million, NBC with 1.74 million, MSNBC with 1.6 million and CBS with 1.5 million. In the 25-54 demographic, Fox News led with 1.6 million, followed by CNN with 606,000, NBC with 541,000, ABC with 521,000, CBS with 424,000 and MSNBC with 308,000.
The Fox News viewership was the highest rated for Night 1 of a Republican convention, and the network also topped the other broadcast networks combined and the cable networks combined.
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The figures are early numbers from Nielsen and were released by Fox News and CNN. The total viewership number also is a drop of about 30% from the viewers who tuned in to the first night of the Republican convention in 2016.
The figures do not include digital streaming, which has grown substantially in the past four years. Democrats and Republicans have promoted expanding viewing on various platforms, albeit the forms of measurement can vary.
The coverage of the convention drew a rare point of praise from President Donald Trump, who wrote on Twitter on Tuesday morning, “Very appreciative that @CNN covered the vast majority of the Republican Convention last night. That was really good for CNN, while at the same time being good for our Country. Thank you!” Of the six networks, CNN provided the most uninterrupted carriage of the proceedings through its 2 1/2 hours.
The marquee speakers at the Republican convention were Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), Donald Trump Jr. and Nikki Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations. Former first lady Michelle Obama was among the speakers on the first night of the Democratic National Convention last week.
In the wake of protests over the shooting of a Black man by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the state governor, Tony Evers, has promised to move forward with reforms to curb law enforcement misconduct.
Evers has demanded state legislators meet on 31 August in a special session to consider a set of nine police reform bills which were floated more than two months ago. The proposals – which followed the 25 May killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police – include banning chokeholds and limiting other use-of-force methods.
But criticism over policing in Wisconsin, including specific incidents in Kenosha, long predates the recent shooting of Jacob Blake – which has reportedly left him paralyzed from the waist down.
The criticism includes officials’ past failure to institute safeguards. In Kenosha, for example, a police body-camera initiative greenlighted in 2017 may be delayed until 2022 and that long wait has meant that the police who shot Blake were not wearing cameras.
While Kenosha city and police officials unanimously agreed to this body-camera initiative – with the intent that it would foster accountability and gathering evidence – they balked at the cost, according to the Associated Press.
The only publicly available video which shows an officer shooting Blake in the back several times was recorded by a neighbor who saw the incident unfold. While Kenosha police do have cameras in their department cars, it’s not known whether there is any vehicle-based footage of the shooting.
Governor Tony Evers. Photograph: Melina Mara/EPA
Evers declared a state of emergency in Wisconsin on Tuesday after largely calm protests devolved on the fringes into outbreaks of arson and looting overnight, following the curfew imposed to try to keep order in the city.
Evers said he would double the presence of national guard troops to 250 on Tuesday night.
Years before Kenosha officials approved – and then delayed – body cameras, the city’s police department also saw criticism for several deaths at the hands of officers.
In 2015, a Kenosha police officer fatally shot 26-year-old Aaron Siler, the Kenosha News reported. A police officer stopped Siler’s car. Siler, who was wanted on a probation violation warrant, fled on foot. The officer chased him into a garage. Siler “picked up an empty plastic bucket” and the officer fired at him. The officer claimed to have thought he was in danger. Kenosha county’s former district attorney deemed the shooting justified, the newspaper said.
In 2004, a Kenosha police officer fatally shot Michael Bell Jr – who was unarmed and “restrained in his driveway by other officers”, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. Police claim that they decided to follow Bell in his car after watching his driving. A toxicology analysis following Bell’s death reportedly revealed that he had consumed alcohol that evening.
Dashboard footage shows a police officer confronting Bell after he left his car. When police attempted to arrest Bell, there was a struggle. The 21-year-old was shot “point blank in the head”, according to NPR. His mother and sister saw police fatally shoot Bell from inside their house.
Bell’s death prompted his father, Michael Bell, to successfully advocate for state legislation that requires outside investigation for police-involved killings.
The elder Bell, a retired lieutenant colonel in the US air force, is now pushing for a law that would investigate the causes of police-involved shootings, to prevent them in the future. He described this idea as a “learning model”, approaching police-involved shootings similarly to how the National Transportation Safety Board examines aircraft accidents.
For Bell Sr, protests and calls for reform following the shooting of Blake evoked pain and optimism.
“Blake got something that my family never got. He got an outside agency to investigate, instead of a local authority – that changes the curve,” Bell told the Guardian. “It was bittersweet. It still reminded me that I could never get it done.”
Bell also called for change in how police force incidents are handled after outside agencies investigate them. In Wisconsin, local prosecutors still have the authority in deciding whether to bring a criminal case against police.
“The county district attorney, his voting base [is] the police and law enforcement family,” Bell said. “It needs to be taken out of the hands of the county district attorney.”
Advocates have also criticized Wisconsin police for disproportionately targeting people of color.
Days before Blake was shot by a police officer, the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin released a list of eight persons of color who died “in police interactions” since 2014 – comprising “just a few” of persons killed in these incidents, they said.
Visible GOES-16 satellite image of Hurricane Laura at 12:30 p.m. EDT Tuesday, August 25. (Image credit: NOAA/RAMMB)
Hurricane Laura was slowly intensifying on Tuesday afternoon over the very warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, as the storm headed towards an expected Wednesday night or early Thursday morning landfall in Texas or western Louisiana as a major hurricane.
Mandatory evacuations were in effect across large parts of southeast Texas as of Tuesday morning, August 25. These included Galveston Island and Jefferson and Orange counties, which encompass the entire Beaumont-Port Arthur-Orange metro area.
Laura had crossed over western Cuba Monday night as a tropical storm with 65 mph winds, emerged into the Gulf of Mexico around 10 p.m. EDT. Immediately upon exiting the coast of Cuba, Laura began to organize. A NOAA hurricane hunter aircraft found 75 mph surface winds in Laura Tuesday morning, leading the National Hurricane Center (NHC) to upgrade Laura to hurricane status at 8:15 a.m. EDT.
Laura is the fourth hurricane of this extremely active Atlantic hurricane season, which has set 13 records for most named storms so early in the season and six for most named storms to make a U.S. landfall so early. The average date for the season’s fourth hurricane is September 21, so the current pace is nearly four weeks ahead of average for the number of hurricanes. The total accumulated cyclone energy, or ACE, so far this year – a measure of the destructive power of a season’s storms – is more than 50% above average for this point in the year. And there’s a long way to go, too – the typical half-way point of the Atlantic hurricane season is September 10.
Laura brought torrential rains and flash flooding to Cuba on Monday, with Topes de Collantes recording 5.58″ (141.7 mm) of rain in 24 hours. Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico have all suffered damaging flooding from Laura. The storm is being blamed for at least nine deaths in Haiti and two in the Dominican Republic.
Laura then brought heavy rain squalls and winds near tropical storm-force to the Florida Keys, with Key West recording sustained winds of 36 mph, gusting to 47 mph, at 3:16 p.m. EDT. The Key West National Weather Service office recorded a gust of 69 mph.
Laura slowly intensifying
At 11 a.m. EDT Tuesday, Laura was located over the waters of the southern Gulf of Mexico, about 620 miles southeast of Galveston, Texas. The waters there were a very warm 30.5 degrees Celsius (87°F). Laura was headed west-northwest at 16 mph with top sustained winds of 75 mph and a central pressure of 990 mb. This pressure was 10 mb lower than it was 24 hours earlier.
Satellite images early Tuesday afternoon showed a modest increase in heavy thunderstorms near Laura’s center, but the hurricane was still struggling to build heavy thunderstorms on its north side. The Hurricane Hunters did not observe an eyewall Tuesday morning, showing that Laura lacked the strong inner core needed to rapidly intensify.
High-level cirrus clouds were streaming out to the south of Laura, indicating good upper-level outflow on that side, but outflow was restricted to the north and west. Laura was embedded in a moderately dry region of the atmosphere, with a mid-level relative humidity of 55%; light to moderate upper-level wind shear of 5 – 10 knots was driving dry air to the north of Laura into the core and slowing development.
Figure 1. The 0Z Tuesday, August 25, forecast of the UKMET model, which has made the best track forecasts for Laura thus far. The model predicted a landfall near the Texas/Louisiana border as an intensifying hurricane with a pressure of 956 mb, typical of a category 3 storm. (Image credit: weathermodels.com)
A track west-northwest, then a turn to the north
Over the next day, the Bermuda high, which is steering Laura, will force the storm to the west-northwest. On Wednesday evening, a trough of low pressure over the central U.S. will create a weakness in the high, allowing Laura to turn to the northwest and then north.
The model predictions for Laura still have a wide spread, with much of the upper Texas and west Louisiana coasts at risk for a potential landfall. The model trend in recent days has been to push Laura farther to the west, towards Texas. The 0Z and 6Z Tuesday runs of many reliable models are farther to the west than they were on Monday, implying more risk that Laura will make landfall over Texas, potentially bringing its strongest winds directly over Galveston and Houston. Note that for about one-third of NHC forecast cones, the actual track will extend outside the cone at some point. The cone is assigned a standard width each year, based on typical errors over the previous five years of tropical cyclones tracks. Some systems end up being less predictable – and some more predictable – than the cone implies.
The best-performing model for Laura continues to be the UKMET model, which has out-performed all other models and the official NHC forecast. The UKMET model’s 0Z Tuesday forecast predicted a landfall near the Louisiana/Texas border close to midnight Wednesday as an intensifying hurricane – approximately the same as in its 12Z Monday run. However, the 12Z Tuesday run of the model put landfall just north of Galveston, Texas.
The top track model in 2019, the European model (which has not performed well for Laura), had its 6Z Tuesday run predict a landfall in Texas just north of Galveston, along the Bolivar Peninsula. The European model’s 0Z and 6Z Tuesday ensemble forecasts, which generate a set of 51 runs of the model at low resolution with slightly different initial conditions to depict the potential uncertainty in the forecast, had the center of its ensemble envelope over Galveston and Houston.
Figure 2. Predicted path of Laura from the 0Z August 25 run of the European model’s 51 ensemble members (colored lines, which show minimum central pressure). The model’s ensemble-mean track is shown as the black line. Model members showed a wide range of potential landfall locations along the coasts of Texas, and none in Louisiana. The 6Z Tuesday run of the model had a similar look. (Image credit: weathermodels.com)
Steering currents will keep Laura moving steadily after it comes ashore, so it is unlikely to stall out and produce the type of catastrophic inland rains generated by Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Instead, storm surge and wind are most likely to be the major threats posed by Laura.
Intensification into major hurricane expected
Conditions for intensification will be very favorable until Wednesday evening. Ocean temperatures are a very warm 30 – 31 degrees Celsius (86 – 88°F) across much of the Gulf of Mexico, and an upper-level high-pressure system with light winds will bring light to moderate wind shear and good upper-level outflow. The atmosphere will be somewhat dry, with a mid-level relative humidity of 55 – 60%, but once Laura establishes an eyewall and strong inner core, the dry air is unlikely to significantly impede intensification.
On Tuesday morning, Laura passed over the warm, deep waters of the Loop Current, with its tremendous amount of ocean heat content (see Sunday’s post). However, by Tuesday afternoon, much of Laura’s northern portion was over a cool eddy in the Gulf, which may slow intensification. Laura was also passing over the cool-water wake that Hurricane Marco had left behind.
From Tuesday evening though landfall on Wednesday night, Laura will leave the cool eddy and be passing over Gulf waters with very high heat content. The top dynamical intensity models – the HWRF, HMON, and COAMPS – continued to predict in their 0Z and 6Z Tuesday runs that Laura would be at major hurricane strength by Wednesday evening, as it approaches landfall in Texas or western Louisiana. The 12Z Tuesday run of the SHIPS model gave a 31% chance that Laura would rapidly intensify by 30 mph by Wednesday morning, becoming a strong category 2 hurricane. The official NHC forecast at 11 a.m. EDT Tuesday called for Laura to peak as a low-end category 3 hurricane with 115 mph winds at 8 p.m. EDT Wednesday. Wind shear is expected to increase to a moderately high 15 – 20 knots in the six hours before Laura makes landfall, so the hurricane may not be intensifying right up until landfall.
Laura a significant storm surge threat
Laura is expected to drive a large and destructive storm surge to the coast. The size of this storm surge will depend not only on how strong the winds are, the speed the storm is travelling, and the angle at which it approaches the coast, but also on the size of the storm. A large storm with winds blowing over a wide area of ocean will typically generate a higher storm surge that covers a larger area than a smaller hurricane. The 11 a.m. EDT Tuesday NHC forecast called for Laura’s tropical storm-force winds to span a diameter of 190 nautical miles (nm) at landfall. For comparison, Hurricane Rita in 2005 – a low-end category 3 hurricane with 115 mph winds which drove a 10 – 15-foot storm surge to the southwest Louisiana coast – had tropical storm-force winds that spanned a diameter of 300 nm. Hurricane Ike in 2008 – a high-end category 2 hurricane with 110 mph winds that drove a storm surge of 15 – 20 feet to Texas’ Bolivar Peninsula – had a tropical storm-force wind field 390 nm across (thanks go to weather.com’s Jon Erdman for this information).
Inundation levels also will depend on whether Laura were to strike at high vs. low tide. Tidal ranges are low in this part of the Gulf, however, varying by roughly a foot or less between high and low tide in most locations. The broad daily high tide is centered during the overnight hours, which is when Laura is expected to arrive. Tides were already running about a foot above average at midday Tuesday across southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana.
Marco: record-earliest sixth U.S. landfall by a named storm
Tropical Storm Marco made landfall in southeast Louisiana at 7 p.m. EDT Monday, August 24, 2020, as a minimal tropical storm with 40 mph winds. During the 12 hours before landfall, Marco was nearly sheared apart by strong upper-level winds, leading NHC to drop all tropical storm and storm surge warnings a few hours before the center of Marco moved inland.
Figure 3. Radar-estimated rainfall from Marco as of 10:17 a.m. EDT Tuesday, August 25. Widespread rainfall amounts of 2 – 4 inches affected the Florida Panhandle. (Image credit: Weather Underground, an IBM business)
Those strong upper-level winds carried most of Marco’s heavy thunderstorms into the Florida Panhandle, where 2 – 4 inches of rain were common, with a few areas of six inches. Isolated street flooding occurred, particularly in Panama City Beach. At 5 a.m. EDT Tuesday, August 25, Marco was declared post-tropical.
Marco is the sixth named storm to make landfall in the U.S. so far this year, tying a record held by 1886 for the earliest in the season that a sixth storm has made a U.S. landfall. Here are the other Atlantic named storms in 2020 to hit the U.S., along with their preliminary damage estimates from insurance broker Aon and other sources:
Hurricane Isaias near Wilmington, North Carolina on August 3 (85 mph winds, over $4 billion in damage to the U.S.);
Hurricane Hanna in South Texas on July 25 (90 mph winds, $500 million in damage to the U.S. and Mexico);
Tropical Storm Fay in New Jersey on July 10 (50 mph winds, six deaths, $350 million in damage);
Tropical Storm Cristobal in Louisiana on June 7 (50 mph winds, one death, $325 million in damage);
Tropical Storm Bertha in South Carolina on May 27 (50 mph winds, $200 million in damage).
The record for most U.S. landfalls in one year is nine, set in 1916; second place is jointly held by 2005, 2004, and 1985, with eight. During the period 1851 – 2019, the U.S. averaged 3.2 named storm landfalls per year, 1.6 hurricane landfalls, and 0.5 major hurricane landfalls.
Figure 4. Himawari-8 satellite image of Typhoon Bavi approaching Korea at 8:20 a.m. EDT Tuesday, August 25, 2020. (Image credit: NOAA/RAMMB)
North Korea at risk from Typhoon Bavi
The northwest Pacific, which is usually the most active ocean basin globally for tropical cyclones, has been unusually quiet so far this year. As of August 25, the basin had experienced nine named storms, four typhoons, and one major typhoon. According to Dr. Phil Klotzbach’s Real-Time TC Activity page, the normal tallies by this point in the year are 12 named storms, seven typhoons, and three intense typhoons.
The Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) year-to-date in the basin was just 19% of average. The relative lack of activity is to be expected in a year that is trending towards La Niña conditions, when the monsoon trough that breeds typhoons shifts westwards, closer to land. As a result, the amount of time storms spend over water is shortened, limiting development.
On Saturday, August 22, the ninth named storm of the Northwest Pacific season – Tropical Storm Bavi – formed in the waters north of the Philippines and east of Taiwan, and became a typhoon Sunday. At 11 a.m. EDT Tuesday, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) classified Bavi as a top-end category 2 storm with 110 mph winds, and predicted that Bavi would move northwards and intensify into the season’s second major typhoon before making landfall in North Korea near 2 p.m. EDT Wednesday as a category 2 or 3 storm. According to NOAA’s historical hurricanes database, North Korea has only been hit by one typhoon in recorded history – Category 1 Typhoon Lingling in 2019.
Ocean temperatures along Bavi’s track are unusually warm – about 30 degrees Celsius (86°F), which is more than two degrees Celsius (3.6°F) above average. The warm waters are largely the result of an intense heat wave that brought all-time record heat to northeast Asia in recent weeks. On August 17, Hamamatsu, Japan tied the record set in 2018 for hottest temperature ever measured in Japan – 41.1 degrees Celsius (106°F). The unusually warm waters in front of Bavi from this heat wave will help keep the typhoon stronger than usual for a storm that affects Korea.
Long-range models suggest another strong typhoon may develop and head toward the East China Sea next week.
Bob Henson contributed to this post.
Posted August 25, 2020, at 2:11 p.m. EDT. Slight modifications made at 2:25 p.m. to add the 12Z model info.
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