"[T]he president was able to take quick action to limit the number of people coming in from China that had exposure to coronavirus, but the No Ban Act would make it more difficult..."

"... for the president to keep Americans safe by addressing needs as we see other countries like Iran — you're seeing a large, potential large outbreak in Iran — Iran is one of those countries that we currently have a travel ban on because they don't allow us to properly vet that terrorists aren't coming into our country.... The president ought to be able to keep potential terrorists from coming into our country, but now with this outbreak of coronavirus, the president also needs to have all the tools available to limit, people coming in from countries with a high propensity of coronavirus... You wouldn't want legislation that would make it more difficult.”

Said Steve Scalise, quoted in "GOP leaders call on Pelosi to pull travel ban bill over coronavirus" (The Hill).

Trump is about to give his victory speech.

You can watch it live at NPR, here.

ADDED: A very enjoyable speech. Spontaneous. Some rally-style, good-humored nastiness at the beginning — "evil corrupt... dirty cops... it was all bullshit" — but most of it was team building. Early on he said, "You develop friends in battle," and it turned into his thanking and celebrating the individual friends, not just for what they did helping him win his fight, but also for how they won their own way into politics, and what their wonderful future could be. He talked about how they looked — who looks like he was sent over from "central casting" and who doesn't wear a suit jacket because he's so rightly proud of his wrestler's physique. My favorite part was about Steve Scalise, the man with a wife who, unlike many wives, did not want her husband to die. I love the description of Scalise back on the baseball diamond after his brush with death, fielding a hard shot though "He had no range!" The particularity of it all was just plain nice. Didn't it make them all love being on his team, ready to go and go into the fall elections and to spring into action as soon as the Democrats throw the next "bullshit" at them?

AND: The word that kept coming up as he complimented them one by one was: "warrior." They were warriors — "friends in battle." What great spirit he found and amplified in that room!

ADDED: I see on Twitter that Trump antagonists are jumping on him for saying:

"I want to apologize to my family for having them have to go through a phony, rotted deal by some very evil and sick people. And Ivanka is here, and my sons, and my whole family. And that includes Barron."

Because... if he said "my whole family," why did he need to add "And that includes Barron"? These people. Always looking for something to spin.

I mean, I noticed "And that includes Barron." It was odd, but the man was speaking ad lib for over an hour. One thing was worded oddly. I think it was obvious that what he meant was he wanted to express love for his family after all they had to endure, and especially for Barron, the youngest one.

Trump is hilarious, but the people who hate him are totally cut off from the fun.

It's kind of sad. I'm reading Poppy Noor in The Guardian, "Trump’s joke about Melania is just one of their many awkward moments/Trump is said to have joked about the state of his marriage – the latest chapter in the strange spectacle of their relationship."

Trump was doing a fundraiser and got to talking about Steve Scalise, the Republican Congressman who got shot.

But then he came out with this gem of a line: “[Scalise’s wife’] cried her eyes out when I met her at the hospital that fateful day … I mean not many wives would react that way to tragedy, I know mine wouldn’t.”

We can only guess that Trump said this in jest, of course. But that line can be read in so many ways that soon, it was an online talking point for people eager to share their views on his and Melania’s relationship.

Maybe he is saying Melania Trump hates him so much she wouldn’t even cry at his funeral. Maybe he’s saying that after all the strain that their marriage has gone through, she has no more tears left to give? Maybe he was genuinely being funny. Who knows?

People who don't hate him know. It's obvious to me. He was paying attention to Scalise and being super-nice to him, then he said that Scalise's wife was crying. Virtually all wives can be expected to cry profusely when their husband gets shot, so he hadn't really said anything special about her yet. He could have spoken realistically and said, "Of course, she's his wife, she's going to cry, all wives would cry." Instead, hilariously, he flipped it into the absurd and said what's plainly untrue, "Not many wives would react that way to tragedy." The "to tragedy" makes it clear he's being silly. It's a tragedy, so you cry. Duh. But he said not many wives would cry. Then, soaring into the stratosphere of absurdity, he said, "I know mine wouldn’t." That's funny because it's daring and it's self-effacing and it's wildly vaunting Scalise's wife for loving him so much (even though she really only did what all wives do).

But to Trump haters it's an occasion to talk about how Melania must hate Trump.

Now, I will give Poppy Noor credit. She's funny in her own way. She's collected videos of Melania avoiding kisses and hand-holding with Trump. There's some nasty fun in looking for evidence that a married couple actually hate each other. I'm not saying Noor has no sense of humor. I'm just saying I feel a little sorry for the people who are missing out on Trump's hilarity. And it's not just that they aren't getting some great and unusual laughs. It's that they're undermining their own capacity to understand the very strange person who is our President. Even if you want to keep hating him, you should try to understand him. Don't dumb yourself down. You won't fight too well if you don't know your enemy.

Frank Bruni vs. Rush Limbaugh.

Here's the first paragraph of Frank Bruni's new column (NYT):

In denouncing the hatred that brought bloodshed to a baseball diamond in Alexandria, Va., some people went ahead and spread more of it. Rush Limbaugh, take a bow. You called the shooter “a mainstream Democrat voter.” What do I call you? I want to be clear about my disgust, but not disgusting in my expression of it. That’s the hell of American politics and American discourse today, with its 140-character emissions.

Here's the Rush Limbaugh monologue with the relevant phrase:

The Democrat base voter who shot up the Republican Congress today in Virginia, he was a mainstream Democrat voter. He was not a Looney Tune kook burger.

That's a summary after a commercial break. Of course, Rush doesn't deal in "with its 140-character emissions." The monologue in question is over 18,000 characters. We're meant to have listened to an extensive argument that preceded the break. Here are some excerpts:

The Alexandria shooter was "radicalized by mainstream media."

A good turn of phrase by Scott Adams.

"The Virginia shooting suspect is dead, President Trump said. He had been identified as James Hodgkinson, 66, of Belleville, Ill."

Banner at the NYT.

ADDED: Here's a tweet from Chuck Todd:

Hope most folks realize we have a toxic political culture and that attempting to exploit today for political gain will only poison us more

— Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) June 14, 2017

Meanwhile... what do we know about James Hodgkinson, 66, of Belleville, Ill.? I suspect there are a number of people with that name, but here's a Facebook page, with a Bernie Sanders image as the profile picture:



AND: Another screen grab from the Facebook page:



ALSO: More from the Facebook page:

"Steve Scalise, the majority whip of the House of Representatives, was shot at a baseball field in Alexandria, Va., when a gunman opened fire at field near a Y.M.C.A."

The NYT reports.

ADDED: I looked to see if I'd ever blogged about Steve Scalise, and I found this (from January 2015):

"Asked about Steve Scalise, Newt Gingrich invokes Jeremiah Wright."

"Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich defends House Majority Whip Steve Scalise after it was reported that Scalise once spoke before a white supremacist group."

ALSO:

The Capitol Police saved many lives this morning from a shooter who had obviously planned to kill many Republican members. Shaken but OK...

— Rep. Mark Walker (@RepMarkWalker) June 14, 2017

(Walker, a Baptist minister, is the pitcher on the Republican team.)

"Asked about Steve Scalise, Newt Gingrich invokes Jeremiah Wright."

"Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich defends House Majority Whip Steve Scalise after it was reported that Scalise once spoke before a white supremacist group."