deflect misdirection

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see also new /belated propaganda/spin = distinction w/o a diff?

SEE DENY

see also scapegoat

IN TRUMP 2, ALL PROBLEMS THE FAULT OF DEMS // DEMONIZATION

deflection may be a kind of mirroring, eg Franken and Moore; trump russia collusion = hillary dossier

false balance in press, eg AGW?

may also be related to chomsky et al theory thatchaos / swarm is a (conscious) strategy: Bannon deconstruct the ADMIN state?

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-=-=

AN 8 26

Trump has created a White House where "the buck never stops with the people who actually hold power," "a new piece from MS NOW argued, and it is a "master class" in endless blame that his Cabinet is taking to heart.

In a piece published Tuesday morning, reporter Hayes Brown detailed how Trump has made "deflecting blame for mistakes, lapses and failures ... completely normal," despite the long tradition of presidents accepting blame for their administration's shortcomings. Instead, his growing list of failed policies and ideas has been pinned on a predictable cast of scapegoats, including "underlings; Democrats (in general or specific); strawmen of any political stripe; or, in a pinch, other key members of the administration."

No mounting failure has proven more ripe for dismissal than his abysmal popularity and the effect it is set to have on the GOP in the midterms.

"Trump put on a master class of the technique during an interview with Punchbowl News last week," Brown wrote. "His abysmal polling numbers and string of unforced errors have threatened the GOP’s chances of holding control of Congress after the midterm elections. Trump insisted, though, that he isn’t the source of the problem: 'The question is, will they vote? Because a lot of them are very angry at Republicans, to be honest with you. … They’re angry at Republicans, but they’re not angry at me.'”

In response, Trump's Cabinet has proven they are "willing to take his lessons to heart," even if none of them have quite mastered the art of deflection as the president has. Under the president's model, officials have learned that "blame can be spread laterally among equals, down toward subordinates or even backward against the flow of time, but never up to the top," often leaving "Federal staffers down the chain" unable to fight back against accusations.

"Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been a skilled student in his time in office," Brown continued.

"In the early days of the war against Iran, the Pentagon chief was full of bravado and happy to take credit for what he claimed was a swift, decisive victory. As the conflict stretched out and munitions stockpiles have reportedly been massively depleted, he’s sought to duck any criticism. While begging Congress for a cash infusion to restore the military’s weapons supply, Hegseth both denied that there is even a shortage and also blamed the Biden administration for 'four years of underinvestment and mismanagement.'”

He concluded later: "Trump’s abdication of this tenet has fostered this fecundity of finger pointing. Beyond the unnecessary drama it engenders, it is simply no way to run a government. Without accountability, failures are left to fester instead of getting fixed. Trump has crafted an administration that follows his example in shirking responsibility, placing self-interest above the interests of the nation. The buck stops nowhere in Trump’s White House."

-=-=

NEW BS DEFLECT TACTIC, ALOTTA (TRUMP FAV?) // WHAT ABOUT?

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in Europe for a NATO gathering, rejected a suggestion that the administration was ceding influence abroad by canceling thousands of its aid and development contracts, including for disasters. He told reporters that those complaining were the aid groups, which he accused of profiting off past U.S. aid.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio talks to the reporters at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Friday, April 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)

“We will do the best we can,” Rubio said Friday. “But we also have other needs we have to balance that against. We’re not walking away.”

He pointed to “a lot of other rich countries in the world. They should all be pitching in and do their part.” deflection SOP

---

an ah 7 25

With the Jeffrey Epstein controversy continuing to dominate headlines, President Donald Trump is using much of the rhetoric he used during Russiagate back in 2016 and 2017 as well as during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Trump is accusing the mainstream media of pushing "fake news," railing against "the deep state," and repeatedly using the word "hoax." The president is also describing himself as the victim of a "witch hunt," a phrase he used during his two impeachments as well as when he was facing four criminal indictments.

Never Trump conservative David French, in his July 31 column for the New York Times, emphasizes that Trump and his allies are responding to the "ongoing Epstein saga by playing one of MAGA's greatest hits: the claim that Trump was the victim of a witch hunt, that the establishment attempted to destroy him even before he began his first term."

"The (Trump) Administration's claims about the Russia investigation are designed to alter our understanding of history, to foster MAGA’s fake narrative of Trump and MAGA as perpetual victims of a maliciously corrupt 'deep state,'" French explains. "In fact, the response to the Russia story provided the template for how MAGA has responded to nearly every Trump scandal. And once you recognize the pattern, you can see it play out time and time again. It comes in four distinct steps."

IFrame Content

Those "steps," according to French, are: (1) "redefine the scandal on the terms most favorable to Trump," (2) "lie relentlessly," (3) "ignore genuine concerns," and (4) "reverse the villains."

"Trump has run this same playbook for more than eight years," French argues. "Whether he was facing impeachment in 2019 over charges of threatening to hold back aid to Ukraine unless Ukraine investigated the Biden family or facing impeachment again over his effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election, the pattern is the same. It has worked on Republicans every single time. It works because he's telling them what they want to hear: Trump is not corrupt; his critics are."

French continues, "But for the first time since he announced his first campaign in June 2015, Trump's team has told his base something many definitely did not want to hear — and very much did not expect: that the Epstein scandal is less expansive than they thought, that there was nothing to see here. He has been flailing ever since. So it's no surprise that he turned back to the 'Russia hoax.' It was the first significant scandal of his administration, and the fight over the (Robert) Mueller investigation helped bond Trump to his base. But the real Russia hoax is the idea that there was nothing to investigate."

*David French's full New York Times column is available at this link (subscription required).

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WOW DEFLECTION ON EPSTEIN IMPLOSION OF MAGA

mma

Trump’s latest attempt to defuse the Epstein revolt: Point supporters at common enemies

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 07/21/25

President Donald Trump is seeking to reunify allies enraged by his administration’s repudiation of MAGA claims about late convicted sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein by offering up spurious attacks on common and familiar enemies: the media — in this case Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal — and former President Barack Obama.

Trump brought together an ideologically diverse coalition and a fractured right-wing media ecosystem during his 2024 campaign based largely on their shared hatred for Democrats, liberal institutions like the press, and the left. His administration’s actions have at times sparked criticism from different factions over the handling of issues like the Russia-Ukraine war, tariffs, U.S. strikes on Iran,, and, most of all, disclosures in the Epstein case.

The president spent last week failing to tamp down discussion of the Epstein story that seemed to be fracturing the MAGA movement. He tried claiming that his political enemies had “written” the “Epstein Files,” argued that the Epstein case is “pretty boring stuff,” and even lashed out at supporters who talk about it as “weaklings” and “stupid people.” But while the propagandists at Fox News were willing to play ball, Trump’s statements backfired elsewhere, leaving many right-wing media figures and the base alike in a state of revolt.

On Thursday, however, The Wall Street Journal reported that a “bawdy” letter bearing Trump’s signature had been included in an album created for Epstein’s 50th birthday (before allegations of his sexual abuse of girls became publicly known). The document, according to the Journal, had been reviewed by Justice Department officials who handled Epstein’s case.

The Journal report could have focused the right’s attention on Trump’s voluminous ties to Epstein. But Trump redirected them at a familiar target: journalists. responded that night by calling the letter “FAKE,” denouncing the paper, and claiming that he would sue. The following day, he followed through with a defamation lawsuit seeking $10 billion in damages from the two authors of the article; the Journal’s publisher, Dow Jones & Co.; parent company News Corp and that company’s CEO; and Murdoch himself.

Trump’s lawsuit is both unprecedented and consistent with Trump’s authoritarian treatment of a free press whose criticism he seeks to curtail through corrupt means. The message it sends is straightforward: If you publish reporting that displeases the president — even if, like Murdoch, your support was crucial to his political ascension — he may try to ruin you, so don’t try it.

While the Journal’s corporate cousins at Fox News mostly avoided the story on Friday, the network’s competitors throughout the fractured marketplace of right-wing media responded by sharpening their knives and attacking the paper. Laura Loomer deemed the Journal story “totally fake,” Charlie Kirk accused the Journal of a “terrible drive-by,” and Benny Johnson claimed that the real “scandal is in who wrote the story,” referencing a baroque conspiracy theory that was circulating on the right at the time.

The same day Trump’s lawyers filed their suit, former Fox contributor and current Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard offered even more grist for the right-wing media mill. In a story served up to Fox as an exclusive, Gabbard claimed to have uncovered documents proving “a treasonous conspiracy in 2016 committed by officials at the highest level of our government” which aimed “to subvert the will of the American people and enact what was essentially a years-long coup.” She suggested that figures including Obama “must be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” and said she was referring the documents to the Justice Department. Leaving nothing to subtext, Trump subsequently posted to Truth Social an AI video featuring Obama beng arrested and imprisoned.

Those documents, however, demonstrate nothing other than Gabbard’s own ignorance and/or malice. They show that Obama received an intelligence report that Russia had not hacked election systems to change vote totals in the 2016 election — which is consistent with what the Obama administration said publicly at the time — then asked for and subsequently received another intelligence report detailing other actions taken by the Russian government in an effort to influence the election. That effort, according to the intelligence community, the Justice Department, and a Senate committee helmed at the time by current Secretary of State Marco Rubio, included hacking and releasing Democratic emails.

Fox News contributor Andrew McCarthy, in a withering piece at National Review, described Gabbard’s argument as a “frivolous” attempt to further Trump’s “foolish stance” that Russia had not tried to influence the 2016 election via “overwrought and misleading” language and “thundering claptrap.”

But her attacks served to reignite years of conspiracy-mongering about the Russia “witch hunt,” and thus were credibly regurgitated elsewhere on the right, including by Fox’s stars, with some echoing Gabbard’s demagogic language about purported “treason.” Trump, meanwhile, repeatedly posted Fox clips and articles from right-wing media hyping the purported scandal.

Much of MAGA media seems eager to target the Journal and Obama on Trump’s behalf. But it remains to be seen whether those influencers — or their audience — will be willing to allow the Epstein story to fade away altogether.

That said, Trump’s best hope of keeping his supporters happy may very well be increasing the scale and tempo of his authoritarian attacks — and that means there will be more to come in the months ahead.

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July 21, 2025, edition of The Benny Show, streamed on YouTube

BENNY JOHNSON (HOST): I mean, you're simply left to assume that all of it's been a lie and that they're 100% authentic, and I think most people in this audience already believe that.

But then if that's the case, then there's a lot of questions that are gonna be asked of Hillary Clinton. Now there's reports that Hillary Clinton and her team were aggressively pushing Barack Obama to launch Russiagate. We'll wait to see those documents — perhaps that's what Tulsi Gabbard is telling us is going to be dropping soon. We're not sure. But Tulsi Gabbard is saying not only are there major whistleblowers from inside the IC, but also that there's a lot more to come. And, you know, at what point do you begin to pull the threads back to Hillary Clinton? Could she potentially be culpable in any of this?

JULIE KELLY (HOST): I doubt it. I mean, you know, let's cut to the chase. No one's gonna indict Hillary Clinton. No one's gonna indict Barack Obama. So we can, I think, disabuse ourselves of that vision or —

JOHNSON: Really? You don't think Obama either?

KELLY: No. No. No. No. No. No. And, you know, of course, you got the issue with Barack Obama. What would you charge him with? We have the immunity ruling from the Supreme Court, really, a year ago that carves out only specific instances where a president in office could be held criminally liable. And I'm sure that Barack Obama, if anything came down, would be smart enough and his lawyers would figure that out. So no.

But look. I really wanna see the henchmen like Lisa Monaco — and I know I keep going back to her. But look, she also ran the Biden DOJ. So she was the one that really ran the first two invest — the two investigations into the president for classified documents and for January 6. She, I'm sure, worked with special counsel Jack Smith, was involved in his appointment. People from the DOJ leaving the Department of Justice, going to the special counsel's office — Chuck Grassley just, last week, I believe, the last several days, releasing emails showing how Tom Windom, another prosecutor who went to the DCUS attorney's office, which was in constant contact with the DOJ, I'm told, specifically Lisa Monaco's office, how he was pushing top-down the FBI to open this January 6 investigation into the president, which of course they did.

So I'm looking for a lot more records related to that as well. And so, those are the people who I think are the most likely to be held responsible, criminally liable, and the ones who should be.

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AHA mebbe // gubmint, trump admin fail tern 2 always biden/ his admin fault: air traffic, fema notif texas flood noem, bessant defiicit

AN 7 25

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is facing backlash after accusing Democrats of "blowing out the deficit in 2020" — a year when Donald Trump was president.

In an interview with CNN's Dana Bash on Sunday morning, Bessent blamed the Democratic Party for the 2020 deficit crisis, despite the fact that the Republican Party controlled the White House at the time.

His comments quickly sparked criticism and mockery on social media, with many pointing out the contradiction.

Singer-songwriter Ricky Davila wrote: "MAGA fraudster Scott Bessent falsely accused the Democratic Party of blowing out the deficit in 2020. Problem with that bulls--- accusation is that the orange felon was in office in 2020, not President Biden. They literally lie about everything."

IFrame Content

Democratic activist Lucas Sanders wrote: "Scott Bessent: 'The Democratic Party blew out the deficit in 2020.' WHAT? Can someone tell him who was the president in 2020?"

"Does the Treasury Secretary know who controlled the White House and Senate in 2020?" wrote a user.

"MAGA always drop to the Ad Hominem attack when they're unable to defend their horrible policies," said a user on X.

"Who wants to remind him who the president was in 2020? Also, Trump is now blowing up the deficit even more than Biden ever did," wrote another.

"They love trying to rewrite history. Biden became president in Jan 2021. All the stuff they complain happened with Covid started in 2020, and they always blame that on Biden too," said another X user.

Many also criticized the host for not fact-checking Bessent.

"This is WHY Americans are so ill informed. She didn't correct him! She just ignored that and moved on. When the media talking heads don't correct the record the zombies just beleive what they hear!" remarked a user.

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// deflection? we are true victim here; PC woke silence gag soc media bias BS

2024 election debate : Vance dodge question with rant on Harris censorship:

“You have said you would not have certified the last presidential election, and would have asked the states to submit alternative electors. That has been called unconstitutional and illegal,” moderator Norah O’Donnell asked Vance. “Would you again seek to challenge this year’s election results, even if every governor certifies the results?”

Vance said that instead of the threats to democracy decried by Democrats, what’s really worrying is the threat of “big technology companies silencing their fellow citizens.” Vance says Harris would like to “censor people who engage in misinformation,” and that’s “a much bigger threat to democracy than anything we’ve seen” in the last four or 40 years.

“Kamala Harris is engaged in censorship at an industrial scale,” Vance said, adding that’s a much larger threat than former President Donald Trump telling people to protest “peacefully” on January 6th at the US Capitol insurrection. Vance compared Trump’s refusal to believe the results of the 2020 election to Democrats’ concerns about Russian foreign interference in the 2016 election, where they pointed to foreign agents’ purchasing of Facebook ads as contributing to Hillary Clinton’s loss to Trump. (A Republican-led Senate committee concluded in 2020 that Russia did seek to interfere in the 2016 election to benefit Trump’s candidacy.

“January 6th was not Facebook ads,” Walz retorted, calling Vance’s version of events “revisionist history.”

Vance was apparently alluding to the events behind Murthy v. Missouri, a Supreme Court case decided earlier this year. The case covered accusations that the Biden administration coerced tech platforms to engage in censorship. Justices ruled in the Biden administration’s favor based on standing, but they also cast doubt on whether there was a meaningful connection between government outreach to platforms like Facebook and those platforms’ later moderation decisions.

Walz attempted to redirect the debate back to the original question. “Did he lose the 2020 election?” he asked Vance.

“Tim, I’m focused on the future,” Vance replied. “Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 Covid situation?”

“That is a damning non-answer,” Walz said.

“It’s a damning non-answer for you not to talk about censorship,” Vance retorted.

At another point, Vance accused Harris of wanting to “use the power of government and Big Tech to silence people from speaking their minds.” Trump himself recently suggested that some people “should be put in jail the way they talk about our judges and our justices,” referring to criticism of the Supreme Court.

Walz responded to Vance with the widely used but misleading claim that “shouting fire in a crowded theatre” is a Supreme Court test for unprotected speech. Vance didn’t dispute the premise, but he claimed “you guys wanted to kick people off of Facebook for saying that toddlers shouldn’t wear masks. That’s not fire in a crowded theatre. That is criticizing the policies of the government, which is the right of every American.”

“I don’t run Facebook,” Walz said. “This is not a debate, it’s not anything anywhere other than in Donald Trump’s world.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/jd-vance-avoids-january-6th-questions-by-pivoting-to-facebook-censorship/ar-AA1ryGeZ**

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/trump-sends-letter-threatening-permanent-freeze-of-us-funding-to-who-written-for-his-base-and-to-deflect-blame/

... Trump on Monday sent a four-page letter to Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization, threatening to permanently freeze U.S. funding to the United Nations agency in the midst of a global pandemic that has made international cooperation as crucial as ever.

Trump’s letter, which he posted to Twitter Monday night, repeats the president’s accusations that WHO is deferential to China and says that if the organization “does not commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days, I will make my temporary freeze of United States funding to the World Health Organization permanent and reconsider our membership in the organization.”

The president also alleged that WHO ignored early warnings about the spread of the coronavirus and made “grossly inaccurate or misleading” claims about the virus. Observers noted that much of Trump’s critique of WHO’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic applies to the White House’s handling of the crisis, which has been condemned as fatally slow and inadequate.

“This is a phenomenally damning letter—of the president’s own response,” tweeted HuffPost White House correspondent S.V. Dáte. “All of those early dates? Late December and January? Were known to U.S. officials and relayed to Trump. Who did nothing.”...[lancet disputes]

420 an

Trump is frantically trying to scapegoat immigrants — but his trollish attempt is laughable on its face

Amanda Marcotte / Salon

attack on mccabe fbi

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/sally-yates-has-christmas-warning-trump-look-out-ghosts-mar-lago

one of the more disturbing comments President Trump has made in recent months, and that's saying something, is what he said last month to radio talk show host Larry O'Connor in the wake of the indictments of Paul Manafort and others.

You know the saddest thing is that because I'm the president of the United States, I am not supposed to be involved with the Justice Department. I'm not supposed to be involved with the FBI. I'm not supposed to be doing the kind of things I would love to be doing. And I'm very frustrated by it. I look at what's happening with the Justice Department. Why aren't they going after Hillary Clinton with her emails and with her -- the dossier.

He continued with a rather stilted explanation that he as president couldn't be involved but that he "hoped" someone was looking into it. Later that same day, he spoke to the press as he prepared to leave for his Asia trip:

You want to look at Hillary Clinton. I'm not involved with the Justice Department. But they should be looking at the Democrats. They should be looking at a lot of things.

There was something about the way he said it that was . . . off. It seemed practiced. Indeed, he had started out the morning with this tweet, as if he had decided this would his theme for the day:

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

....People are angry. At some point the Justice Department, and the FBI, must do what is right and proper. The American public deserves it!

3:11 AM - Nov 3, 2017

32,640 32,640 Replies 30,912 30,912 Retweets 131,753 131,753 likes

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Trump has been using "Crooked Hillary" as a foil for almost two years now, and it remains true that his crowds are still weirdly stimulated and aroused at the mere mention of putting her in prison. But this was the first time that Trump had said something as president that suggested a serious intention to follow through, if only he were allowed to direct the Justice Department and the FBI to do his bidding. MSNBC's Ari Melber noted at the time that Trump was "doing in public what Nixon would only do in secret. He is openly musing about pushing the DOJ to investigate or prosecute political opponents."

That's how it appeared to me too. Trump had already gotten himself in trouble when he personally asked former FBI Director James Comey to go easy on his buddy Michael Flynn, so he had learned the hard way that presidents are not supposed to be "involved" with the Justice Department. Thinking he was being clever, he just said publicly what he wanted to be done, as if he were speaking off the cuff.

Why he would want to pursue Hillary Clinton after all this time is obvious. He wants to muddy the waters with a parallel investigation into the hated Hillary and discredit special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into the Russia scandal by any means necessary. His loyalists had been casting about for the best way to fight back and settled on a sort of mirror conspiracy theory: While others accuse Trump of conspiring with the Russian government to tilt the 2016 election in his favor, they accuse Clinton of conspiring with the FBI and the Justice Department to steal the election from Trump

It's crazy, but that's what they're going with. Over the past week, this has ramped up from a number of different directions. On Thursday, NBC News reported that Attorney General Jeff Sessions directed DOJ prosecutors to "ask FBI agents to explain the evidence they found in a now-dormant criminal investigation into a controversial uranium deal that critics have linked to Bill and Hillary Clinton.” This is, of course, the debunked story from the book "Clinton Cash," cranked out by Steve Bannon's phony Government Accountability Institute.

Sessions had promised the Senate that he would recuse himself from all decisions about the Clinton emails and the Clinton Foundation, because of his criticisms of her during the campaign. Apparently he didn't mean it. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders insisted on Thursday that the president didn't "direct" Sessions to investigate the uranium deal, but then, he didn't need to. He'd already made it clear what he wanted done.

Sessions' recusal was as worthless as the one House Intelligence Committee chair Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., promised after he was caught sneaking around in the middle of the night hatching plots with the White House last spring, when he was supposed to be conducting an impartial investigation. Now Politico has reported that Nunes and a handful of fellow Trump disciples on the committee have been conducting a secret investigation, without informing their Democratic colleagues, that sounds an awful lot like what the president "mused" about in those comments back in November:

The people familiar with Nunes' plans said the goal is to highlight what some committee Republicans see as corruption and conspiracy in the upper ranks of federal law enforcement. . . . The sources familiar with the separate inquiry said it was born out of steadily building frustration with the Justice Department's refusal to share details of the way the Trump dossier was used to launch the FBI's investigation of his campaign team last year.

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Senators are getting in on the act as well. Senate Judiciary Committee chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, wants Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe fired because his wife is a Democrat and he's suspected of having been hostile to Trump during the election (which apparently translates into him covering up Hillary Clinton's crimes). Meanwhile, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has become downright hysterical:

Senator Rand Paul

@RandPaul

Time to investigate high ranking Obama government officials who might have colluded to prevent the election of @realDonaldTrump! This could be WORSE than Watergate!

6:33 AM - Dec 21, 2017

32,363 32,363 Replies 34,188 34,188 Retweets 70,557 70,557 likes

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But for all this bluster from Trump's increasingly sycophantic congressional supporters, if this plan is to work he has to persuade a majority of the public that he's more honest than Robert Mueller, the FBI and the Department of Justice. That part's not looking good. CNN released some polling on public attitudes about the Russia investigation on Thursday and this result is astonishing:

[The] things Donald Trump has said publicly about the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election have been ...

8% completely true

28% mostly true

32% mostly false

24% completely false

Only 8 percent of the American people believe that their president has been completely truthful about an investigation into whether he colluded with a foreign government to win the election. One imagines Mueller isn't losing sleep worrying about about his reputation being tarnished by someone with a credibility gap of that magnitude. Trump's the one who's looking tired these days.

Heather

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/gops-new-hunt-crooked-hillary-last-ditch-gamble-save-trump

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