Courtesy of Reuters.

Dear Commons Community,

Donald Trump says he is pulling out of a scheduled September debate with Vice President Kamala Harris on ABC and wants them to face off on Fox News, making it increasingly unlikely that the candidates will confront each other on stage before the November election.  As reported by The Associated Press.

In a series of Truth Social posts late Friday, the former president said his agreement to a Sept. 10 debate on ABC “has been terminated” because he will no longer face Democratic President Joe Biden, who ended his campaign last month after a disastrous performance in their first debate.

Trump now says he will appear on Fox News on Sept. 4 in Pennsylvania with rules that he called “similar” to his debate with Biden, but with a full audience instead of a mostly empty studio. Trump said that if Harris, the likely Democratic nominee, does not agree to the new network and date, he will do a “major Town Hall” with Fox News.

Michael Tyler, a Harris spokesperson, said Trump “is running scared and trying to back out of the debate he already agreed to and running straight to Fox News to bail him out.”

It was not immediately clear whether ABC would turn its Sept. 10 event into a Harris town hall in Trump’s absence. Tyler said Harris is committed to the time slot and would appear “one way or the other to take the opportunity to speak to a prime time national audience.”

In a subsequent Truth Social post on Saturday afternoon, Trump said of Harris, “I’ll see her on September 4th or, I won’t see her at all.”

Trump has gone back and forth on debating with Harris since she entered the presidential race. He had told reporters he felt an obligation to debate but also said in a recent Fox News interview that he thought Americans “already know everything” about both candidates Harris has pressed Trump to keep the commitment he made when Biden was in the race. Noting Trump’s criticisms of her, Harris dared him recently to “say it to my face.”

In his Truth Social posts, Trump also cited his litigation against ABC News as “a conflict of interest” in his participation in the network’s debate. Trump sued the network in March following an assertion by anchor George Stephanopoulos that Trump had been found “liable for rape.” A New York jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll but rejected her claim that she was raped.

But Trump agreed, two months after filing his lawsuit, to the Sept. 10 debate on ABC, as well as the June 27 debate on CNN that helped knock Biden out of the race. David Muir and Linsey Davis, not Stephanopoulos, are set to be ABC’s debate moderators.

Trump is scared of being on the same stage as Kamala Harris unless it is in the friendly confines of Republican propaganda machine Fox News.

Tony

Temperature departures from normal are shown over Antarctica on August 1, 2024. Reds indicate warmer than normal conditions while blues indicate cooler than normal conditions. – Climate Change Institute, University of Maine.

Dear Commons Community,

A record-breaking heat wave has unfolded in Antarctica sending temperatures 50 degrees above normal. Scientists are concerned about the consequences for the continent and for sea-level changes in the rest of the world. As reported by CNN.

Temperatures since mid-July have climbed up to 50 degrees Fahrenheit above normal over parts of Antarctica and unseasonable warmth could continue through the first half of August.

The latest data shows high temperatures in portions of East Antarctica – where the most abnormal conditions are ongoing – that are typically between minus 58 and minus 76 degrees Fahrenheit are now closer to minus 13 to minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit.

That’s cold, but Bismarck, North Dakota, has reached minus 20 degrees at least once a year in almost every year since 1875. Antarctica’s typical winter cold should be operating at a level unfathomable to most people in the US.

Summerlike heat in the dead of winter – even if much of the continent is still below freezing – is an alarming development for a place more capable than any other of generating catastrophic sea level rise as fossil fuel pollution continues to drive global temperatures upward.

Most of the planet’s ice is stored here, and were it all to melt, would raise average global sea levels by well over 150 feet. Even smaller icy features, like the so-called Doomsday Glacier, could raise sea levels by 10 feet if they were to melt – catastrophic amounts for the world’s coastal communities.

It’s possible more heat waves like this will happen in future winters, which could leave the icy continent less fortified for its hottest season – summer – and more vulnerable to melting during subsequent heat waves, said David Mikolajczyk, a research meteorologist with the Antarctic Meteorological Research and Data Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Increased Antarctic melting could also potentially alter global oceanic circulations, Mikolajczyk told CNN. These circulations play an outsized role in making the planet’s climate habitable.

“I’m sure more (impacts) will emerge with time as we understand (this heat wave) better, but at the moment, it’s just a case of astonishment really, what we’re seeing,” Thomas Bracegirdle, deputy science leader for the British Antarctic Survey’s Atmosphere, Ice and Climate team, said.

Bracegirdle told CNN the temperatures in this event were record-breaking and were an important signal of what could be coming in the longer term. Heat waves of this magnitude should be quite rare in Antarctica and scientists aren’t yet certain that they are occurring more frequently, but that may be changing.

“All we can say at this stage is that more high temperature extremes are what we expect (in Antarctica) under a changing climate, but for this particular event we’ll have to study more,” Bracegirdle said.

It also contributed significantly to Earth’s new hottest day on record in late June, according to an analysis from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

This is the second significant heat wave Antarctica has endured in the last two years. During the previous in March 2022, temperatures in some locations reached up to 70 degrees above normal, the most extreme temperature departures ever recorded in this part of the planet.

That unprecedented heat wave was made worse by climate change, according to a 2023 study published in Geophysical Research Letters. Climate change contributed 3.6 degrees of warming to the heat wave and could worsen similar heat waves by 9 to 10.8 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, the study found.

While the current heat wave hasn’t seen temperature departures reach the level of 2022, it’s been much more expansive and long-lasting, according to Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado Boulder.

And the crucial differences between the two come down to what’s happening in the atmosphere.

‘A very unusual event’

The set of atmospheric conditions largely responsible for the ongoing heat wave – a breakdown of the southern polar vortex – is only expected to occur once every two decades on average, according to Bracegirdle.

“This is a very unusual event, from that perspective,” Bracegirdle added.

Just like the Northern Hemisphere, the Southern Hemisphere has a polar vortex – strong winds circulating high in the atmosphere that trap cold air in place.

But when the southern polar vortex gets disrupted, it releases cold air trapped over Antarctica and sends bursts of it farther north. This also leaves the door open for air to rush down from the upper atmosphere, warming along the way.

The southern polar vortex is disrupted much less frequently than its northern counterpart, which explains why such heat waves are much less frequent, according to Amy Butler, a research physicist at NOAA’s Chemical Sciences Laboratory.

This polar vortex disruption began in the second half of July and could continue through the first half of August, perhaps peaking in intensity in about a week, Butler told CNN. This will keep temperatures at the surface elevated.

At the same time, multiple surges of warm air from the southwestern Indian Ocean pushed over East Antarctica – which comprises about two-thirds of the entire continent. Each surge of warm air was followed by another so closely that the warming has been nearly continuous over the last few weeks, according to Scambos.

East Antarctica – home to the South Pole – is where the most frigid conditions on Earth are found and is typically protected from this kind of extreme warmth, according to Mikolajczyk. But that wasn’t the case in this event or in 2022’s.

It’s part of a larger trend with already measured consequences.

The South Pole warmed more than three times the global average rate from 1989 to 2018, a 2020 study published in the journal Nature Climate Change found.

West Antarctica and its Thwaites “Doomsday” Glacier have been a major focus of scientific research in recent years due to the catastrophic impact its collapse would have on sea level rise. But other research in the last few years has demonstrated that melting in East Antarctica, where this heat wave is happening, is becoming equally troubling.

The recent warmth has posed a significant problem to the continent’s crucial ice sheet. Antarctica lost a staggering 280% more ice mass in the 2000s and 2010s than it lost in the 1980s and 1990s, according to a 2019 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This sounds very serious!

Tony

Reuters.

Dear Commons Community,

Stocks tumbled yesterday on worries the U.S. economy could be cracking under the weight of high interest rates meant to whip inflation.

The S&P 500 sank 1.8% for its first back-to-back losses of at least 1% since April. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 610 points, or 1.5%, and the Nasdaq composite fell 2.4% as a sell-off for stocks whipped all the way around the world back to Wall Street. As reported by The Associated Press.

A report showing hiring by U.S. employers slowed last month by much more than economists expected sent fear through markets, with both stocks and bond yields dropping sharply. It followed a batch of weaker-than-expected reports on the economy from a day earlier, including a worsening for U.S. manufacturing activity, which has been one of the areas hurt most by high rates.

It was just a couple days ago that U.S. stock indexes jumped to their best day in months after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell gave the clearest indication yet that inflation has slowed enough for cuts to rates to begin in September.

Now, worries are rising the Fed may have kept its main interest rate at a two-decade high for too long. A rate cut would make it easier for U.S. households and companies to borrow money and boost the economy, but it could take months to a year for the full effects to filter through.

“The Fed is seizing defeat from the jaws of victory,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management. “Economic momentum has slowed so much that a rate cut in September will be too little and too late. They’ll have to do something bigger than” the traditional cut of a quarter of a percentage point “to avert a recession.”

The Fed needs to get its act together!

Tony

Simone Biles.  Getty Images.

Dear Commons Community,

Simone Biles proved once again this week why she’s called the greatest of all time after she became the first American gymnast to win the Olympic individual all-around competition twice. And as she and the world celebrated her accomplishments, she also chimed in with a comment on social media seeming to take a dig at former President Donald Trump.  As reported by CBS News.

“I love my black job,” she tweeted Friday, reposting images of her showing off her gold medal and silver “GOAT” necklace.

It’s a reference to something that Trump, the GOP nominee for president, said during his June debate against President Biden and reiterated during an interview at the National Association of Black Journalists’ conference on Wednesday, a day before Biles’ individual all-around win.

Speaking to interviewer Rachel Scott of ABC News at the conference, Trump was asked to explain his misleading claim that “millions and millions of people” crossing the U.S.-Mexico border “happen to be taking Black jobs.”

When Scott asked what a “Black job” is, Trump responded, “A Black job is anybody that has a job. They’re taking the employment away from Black people.”

Since his initial remarks at the debate, people on social media have been commenting about what “Black jobs” are, and sharing some examples of their own.

One doctor, for example, posted a video of herself “heading to my Black Job” on June 28, saying “Black pediatricians are awesome,” while a general surgery resident posted a photo of herself in scrubs, captioned “me at my black job.”

And some politicians got in on the trend. “Donald Trump is about to find out being the President of the United States is a Black job,” Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said on July 22, alongside a photo of him and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Congratulations to Ms. Biles and all our Olympians!

Tony

Credit:  Washington Post.

Dear Commons Community,

A bipartisan bill expanding the child tax credit, as well as business deductions sought by corporate America, failed to advance in the Senate yesterday after overwhelming opposition from Republicans who feared giving Democrats a major win ahead of the November elections.

The 48-44 vote came amid debate about which party is more “pro-family” and whether the government should penalize people without children, or “childless cat ladies,” as Ohio Sen. JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential candidate, suggested in recently resurfaced comments that have drawn bipartisan criticism. As reported by the Huffington Post.

“If these folks are so pro-family, why aren’t they supporting paid family and medical leave? If they believe in families, why are they not supporting the child tax credit?” Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) told HuffPost when asked about GOP opposition to the bill.

The legislation would have given low-income parents larger tax refunds, especially in households with multiple children. Tax analysts said a tax filer who has two children and earned $9,000 last year would receive a child tax credit refund worth $975 under current law, but $1,950 under the proposal.

The bill’s authors, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), said it would “help 16 million kids from low-income families and lift 500,000 out of poverty,” in part by allowing parents to claim the full tax credit for each of their kids, something they can’t do now.

Republicans complained that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) only brought the measure up for a vote six months after it was approved by the House (by a 357-70 vote) to help bolster the campaigns of vulnerable Democratic incumbents facing tough reelection fights in November.

Some GOP senators also warned about giving Democrats a major election-year legislative victory, insisting that they’d be better positioned to pass the legislation next year if they win control of the White House and the Senate.

But Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who voted to advance the bill, wasn’t convinced by that argument.

“You could turn that around and say that a Republican House was able to pass meaningful tax relief for children and that’d be great for them going forward into the fall campaign. You could put the political argument both ways,” he said.

Progressives in the chamber, meanwhile, voted to advance the bill even though they didn’t think it included enough benefit for families.

The bill included several sweeteners for Republicans, including business tax breaks for research-and-development expenses long sought by corporate donors. It would also not cost the government money, according to budget scorekeepers, because it would crack down on abuse of the employee retention tax credit, or ERTC, a program from the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic that encouraged business owners to keep workers on company payrolls. Republicans disputed that cost analysis, however.

Senator Vance, who missed Thursday’s vote, has repeatedly accused Democrats of being the “anti-child” party, citing, among other things, liberal concerns over the human impact on climate change. In 2021, for example, he argued that Republicans should “go to war” against the idea of deciding not to have children, suggesting that someone who focuses on building their career instead of making babies will be “a sad, lonely, pathetic person.”

Last week, he doubled down, saying, “This is not about criticizing people who for various reasons don’t have kids. This is about criticizing the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-child.”

But Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) took offense to his remarks.

“I said that it was offensive to me as a woman,” Murkowski told reporters Wednesday. “Women make their own determinations as to whether or not they’re going to have children or cats or dogs or how many kids they’re going to have.”

Murkoski has it right!

Tony

President Biden surrounded by the families of the released Americans. (Nathan Howard/Reuters)

Dear Commons Community,

President Joe Biden yesterday celebrated an historic prisoner exchange that freed several Americans wrongfully detained in Russia, calling it a “feat of diplomacy and friendship” in remarks from the White House.

Biden was surrounded by family members of Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan, Alsu Kurmasheva and Vladimir Kara-Murza as he spoke about the efforts involved in the swap, which is the largest since the Cold War involving 24 people and several countries. As reported by ABC News.

“This is an incredible relief for all the family members gathered here,” Biden said. “It’s a relief to the friends and colleagues all across the country, who’ve been praying for this day for a long time.”

Biden took a moment to describe the three American citizens and one legal permanent U.S. resident being brought back to the U.S. He said each was arrested, convicted and sentenced by Russian authorities “with absolutely no legitimate reason whatsoever.”

“And now their brutal ordeal is over and they’re free,” Biden said.

Biden, who officials said was directly involved in helping negotiate the deal, had gathered the families at the White House earlier yesterdday to inform them that the release was underway. Biden said he and the families were able to contact the freed Americans over the phone.

When asked what he said to them, Biden replied: “I said, ‘Welcome almost home.'”

The multipart prisoner swap is the product of months of detailed, painstaking negotiations, according to national security adviser Jake Sullivan. The nations involved also included Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway and Turkey.

A senior administration official said even the day Biden announced he was no longer seeking a second term, he was on the phone working to secure this deal.

Sullivan, who addressed reporters at the White House daily briefing, choked back tears as he emotionally talked about the extensive effort to secure the deal and said it “was vintage Joe Biden rallying American rallying American allies to save American citizens.”

Biden, in his remarks, touted his administration’s work and the power of global alliances while also seemingly criticizing his Oval Office predecessor Donald Trump.

“For anyone who questions whether allies matter, they do. They matter,” he said.

“Our work did not start just on Day 1. It started before Day 1,” Biden said. “During the transition, I instructed our national security team to dig into all the cases of hostages being wrongfully detained, which were inherently — well, we inherited them from the private — the prior administration.”

“I wanted to make sure we hit the ground running, and we did,” Biden continued. “As of today, my administration has brought home over 70 Americans who were wrongfully detained and held hostage abroad. Many since before I took office.”

Later, when asked by a reporter about Trump’s repeated claims he could’ve gotten the hostages out of Russia without concessions, Biden took a more direct jab at his former political opponent.

“Why didn’t he do it when he was president?” Biden responded.

Speaking further on yesterday’s release, Biden noted several of the 16 individuals freed on Thursday were Russian political prisoners who “stood up for democracy and human rights” and were subsequently jailed by their own leaders. He took a moment to contrast that with the work of the U.S. and its partners.

“The United States helped secure their release as well. That’s who we are in the United States,” he said. “We stand for freedom, for liberty, for justice, not only for our own people, but for others as well. And that’s why all Americans can take pride in what we’ve achieved today.”

As he closed his remarks, Biden turned back to the families gathered in the State Dining Room, saying he couldn’t imagine what they’ve endured these last few years.

He then led the singing of “Happy Birthday” to Miriam, the daughter of Kurmasheva, an American-Russian journalist who was freed on Thursday. Biden said Mariam will turn 13 on Friday and will now be able to celebrate with her mother.

“That’s what this is all about. Families able to be together again, like they should have been all along,” Biden said. “So, I want to thank you again to everyone who did their part. In just a few hours, we’ll welcome home our fellow Americans.”

A great day for America!

Tony

PET scan results that are part of a study on Alzheimer’s disease at Georgetown University Hospita (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

Dear Commons Community,

Good news for senior citizens who are having memory lapses. New blood tests may help doctors diagnose Alzheimer’s disease faster and more accurately, researchers reported Sunday.  As reported by The Associated Press.

It’s tricky to tell if memory problems are caused by Alzheimer’s. That requires confirming one of the disease’s hallmark signs — buildup of a sticky protein called beta-amyloid — with a hard-to-get brain scan or uncomfortable spinal tap. Many patients instead are diagnosed based on symptoms and cognitive exams.

Labs have begun offering a variety of tests that can detect certain signs of Alzheimer’s in blood. Scientists are excited by their potential but the tests aren’t widely used yet because there’s little data to guide doctors about which kind to order and when. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration hasn’t formally approved any of them and there’s little insurance coverage.

“What tests can we trust?” asked Dr. Suzanne Schindler, a neurologist at Washington University in St. Louis who’s part of a research project examining that. While some are very accurate, “other tests are not much better than a flip of a coin.”

Demand for earlier Alzheimer’s diagnosis is increasing

More than 6 million people in the United States and millions more around the world have Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia. Its telltale “biomarkers” are brain-clogging amyloid plaques and abnormal tau protein that leads to neuron-killing tangle

New drugs, Leqembi and Kisunla, can modestly slow worsening symptoms by removing gunky amyloid from the brain. But they only work in the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s and proving patients qualify in time can be difficult. Measuring amyloid in spinal fluid is invasive. A special PET scan to spot plaques is costly and getting an appointment can take months.

Even specialists can struggle to tell if Alzheimer’s or something else is to blame for a patient’s symptoms.

“I have patients not infrequently who I am convinced have Alzheimer’s disease and I do testing and it’s negative,” Schindler said.

New study suggests blood tests for Alzheimer’s can be simpler and faster

Blood tests so far have been used mostly in carefully controlled research settings. But a new study of about 1,200 patients in Sweden shows they also can work in the real-world bustle of doctors’ offices — especially primary care doctors who see far more people with memory problems than specialists but have fewer tools to evaluate them.

In the study, patients who visited either a primary care doctor or a specialist for memory complaints got an initial diagnosis using traditional exams, gave blood for testing and were sent for a confirmatory spinal tap or brain scan.

Blood testing was far more accurate, Lund University researchers reported Sunday at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Philadelphia. The primary care doctors’ initial diagnosis was 61% accurate and the specialists’ 73% — but the blood test was 91% accurate, according to the findings, which also were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Which blood tests for Alzheimer’s work best?

There’s almost “a wild West” in the variety being offered, said Dr. John Hsiao of the National Institute on Aging. They measure different biomarkers, in different ways.

Doctors and researchers should only use blood tests proven to have a greater than 90% accuracy rate, said Alzheimer’s Association chief science officer Maria Carrillo.

Today’s tests most likely to meet that benchmark measure what’s called p-tau217, Carrillo and Hsiao agreed. Schindler helped lead an unusual direct comparison of several kinds of blood tests, funded by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, that came to the same conclusion.

That type of test measures a form of tau that correlates with how much plaque buildup someone has, Schindler explained. A high level signals a strong likelihood the person has Alzheimer’s while a low level indicates that’s probably not the cause of memory loss.

Several companies are developing p-tau217 tests including ALZpath Inc., Roche, Eli Lilly and C2N Diagnostics, which supplied the version used in the Swedish study.

Who should use blood tests for Alzheimer’s?

Only doctors can order them from labs. The Alzheimer’s Association is working on guidelines and several companies plan to seek FDA approval, which would clarify proper use.

For now, Carrillo said doctors should use blood testing only in people with memory problems, after checking the accuracy of the type they order.

Especially for primary care physicians, “it really has great potential to help them in sorting out who to give a reassuring message and who to send on to memory specialists,” said Dr. Sebastian Palmqvist of Lund University, who led the Swedish study with Lund’s Dr. Oskar Hansson.

The tests aren’t yet for people who don’t have symptoms but worry about Alzheimer’s in the family — unless it’s part of enrollment in research studies, Schindler stressed.

That’s partly because amyloid buildup can begin two decades before the first sign of memory problems, and so far there are no preventive steps other than basic advice to eat healthy, exercise and get enough sleep. But there are studies underway testing possible therapies for people at high risk of Alzheimer’s, and some include blood testing.

As someone who is approaching my 77^th birthday later this month, this is welcome news!

Tony

Andrew Feinberg – Communications Director of Kamala Harris Campaign

Dear Commons Community,

Donald Trump attended a Q&A with political journalists at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago yesterday, where, despite some internal opposition to Trump’s presence, NABJ President Ken Lemon promised those assembled “the opportunity … to ask the tough questions” of the twice-impeached former president.

Trump, who’s grown accustomed to softball questions from right-wing reporters, was clearly out of his league.

ABC News’ senior congressional correspondent Rachel Scott, who served as a moderator, opened with a question addressing “the elephant in the room.” The question is worth reading in its entirety:

“You have pushed false claims about some of your rivals, from Nikki Haley to former President Barack Obama, saying that they were not born in the United States — which is not true; you have told four congresswomen of color, who are American citizens, to ‘go back to where they came from’; you have used words like ‘animal’ and ‘rabid’ to describe Black district attorneys; you have attacked Black journalists, calling them ‘losers,’ saying the questions that they ask are ‘stupid’ and ‘racist’; you’ve had dinner with a white supremacist at your Mar-a-Lago resort.

So my question, sir:  Now that you are asking Black supporters to vote for you, why should Black voters trust you after you have used language like that?”

Trump responded by attacking Scott herself, avoiding any substance entirely. “I don’t think I’ve ever been asked a question in such a horrible manner,” he said, to gasps from the audience.

“Are you with ABC? Because I think they’re a fake news network,” he told the journalist. “You’re a terrible network. And I think it’s disgraceful that I came here in good spirit. I love the Black population of this country. I’ve done so much for the Black population of this country.”

The back-and-forth only spiraled from there, despite softball questions from Fox News’ Harris Faulkner, who was also at the event as a moderator.

The Harris campaign pounced soon after the event concluded.

“Today’s tirade is simply a taste of the chaos and division that has been a hallmark of Trump’s MAGA rallies this entire campaign,” Harris spokesperson Michael Tyler said in an emailed statement.

Here are the five wildest moments from the panel, courtesy of The Huffington Post and journalist Aaron Rupar.

Trump panicked when asked why Black voters should trust him when he’s dined with a white supremacist at Mar-a-Lago.

Trump kept fuming even as the moderators moved on to new material, pausing amid a question about his age to refer to Scott as “this woman” and call her “very rude” and “nasty” while heckling an audience member.

Trump wouldn’t say if JD Vance is ready to be president.

When Faulkner asked Trump if his running mate would be “ready on day one” to step up as commander in chief, Trump side-stepped the question entirely.

“Historically, the vice president, in the terms of the election, does not have any impact. I mean virtually no impact,” he said. “Virtually never has it mattered.”

Trump questioned Kamala Harris’ identity and implied that a person could not be both Indian American and Black.

When Scott asked if it’s acceptable that Trump’s allies have called Harris ― who’s both the first Black and the first Asian American woman to serve as vice president ― a “DEI hire,” Trump again floundered.

“How do you define DEI?” Trump asked, apparently believing he had the upper hand. “Go ahead. How do you define it?”

“Diversity, equity and inclusion,” Scott responded.

“Ok… yeah, go ahead,” Trump replied, losing the thread. “Is that what your definition … Give me the definition, then.”

“That’s literally the words,” Scott said. “I just defined it, sir.” She then reminded Trump of her original question.

He responded that Harris “was always promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a couple of years ago when she happened to turn Black. And now she wants to be known as Black, so I don’t know ― is she Indian or is she Black? She was Indian all the way and then she made a turn and she became a Black person. And I think somebody should look into that, too.”

Trump then accused Scott of being “hostile” and “nasty” after she informed him that Harris’ ethnicity has never changed.

After the event, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called Trump’s comments about Harris “repulsive.”

“No one has any right to tell someone who they are, how they identify,” she said, The Guardian reported. “She is the vice president of the United States. Kamala Harris. We have to put some respect on her name. Period.”

Trump said he wanted to stop “people at the border from taking Black jobs.”

When Faulkner asked Trump why he’d joined ysterday’s event, referencing America’s racial divisions, Trump ran in an unexpected direction.

“My message is to stop people from invading our country,” he said.

“One of the big problems ― and a lot of the journalists in this room I know and I have great respect for ― a lot of the journalists in this room are Black,” Trump continued, prompting some laughter as people anticipated what he would say next.

“Coming from the border are millions and millions of people that happen to be taking Black jobs,” he said.

Gasps turned to laughter when Scott asked, “What exactly is a Black job, sir?”

Trump responded, “A Black job is anybody who has a job.”

Trump needed to be reminded that “innocent” Jan. 6 rioters have been convicted of crimes.

When Scott asked Trump why, as someone who’s previously claimed to be the “law and order candidate,” he would pardon the rioters who assaulted the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump short-circuited.

“Those rioters who assaulted officers. Would you pardon them?” Scott asked.

“Oh, absolutely I would. If they’re innocent? If they’re innocent I would pardon them,” he replied.

Scott noted: “They’ve been convicted.”

As the crowd laughed in disbelief, Trump dismissed the validity of the judicial system, saying, “Well, they were convicted by a very tough system.”

Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona when asked about Trump’s display at the NABJ commented that it was the performance of “an old, desperate, convicted felon.”

Amen!

Tony