DONALD TRUMP FALSELY CLAIMS HE DIDN’T HAVE ‘TALKING POINTS’ ON MINORITY CONGRESSWOMEN, DESPITE PHOTOS

In the aftermath of fierce condemnation for issuing racist tweets at minority congresswomen earlier this month, President Donald Trump lashed out on Twitter Monday, labeling reports that his decision to double down on his remarks involved pre-determined talking points and opposition research as “fake news.”

Trump falsely claimed “there were no talking points” just days after issuing a speech at the White House on July 15, where he used a “Made in America” event intended toshowcase U.S. manufacturing to again tell four Democratic lawmakers—Alexandria Ocasio Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota—they “can leave right now” if they were dissatisfied with the U.S.

Photos captured by a Washington Post photographer showed that Trump’s notes did, in fact, have talking points about the progressive lawmakers who’ve been dubbed “The Squad”—all of whom are U.S. citizens and of whichthree were born in the U.S. The president’s notes specifically referenced Omar, a Somali refugee who came to the U.S. in 1995 after fleeing her country years earlier because of a civil war.

“She came here at 10 years old and is now a congresswoman. That could ONLY happen in America,” Trump’s notes read. “It is SAD that these women have a record of saying anti-Semitic and anti-American things all the time.”

Trump’s prepared remarks continued: “It’s actually DANGEROUS — because it seems like they hate America. My point was if you are not happy here, you can leave.”

At a campaign rally in Greenville, North Carolina, Wednesday evening, attendees chanted “send her back” after Trump again accused Omar in his prepared remarks of not being a proud American, being sympathetic to al-Qaeda and saying she “looks down with contempt on hardworking Americans.”

Trump’s Monday morning tweet also included denials about information in a Washington Poststory, which said that “advisers wrote new talking points and handed him reams of opposition research on the four congresswomen.” According to the article, allies, aides and confidants reportedly struggled to relay to the president why his remarks that “The Squad” should “go back” to the “totally broken and crime infested places from which they came” were racist and that he should pivot to new messages.

“The Amazon Washington Post front page story yesterday was total Fake News. They said ‘Advisors wrote new talking points and handed him reams of opposition research on the four Congresswomen.’ Now really, does that sound like me?” Trump wrote in a series of tweets. “What advisors, there were no talking points,……..except for those stated by me, & ‘reams of paper’ were never given to me. It is a made up story meant to demean & belittle. The Post had no sources. The facts remain the same, that we have 4 Radical Left Congresswomen who have said very bad things about Israel & our Country!”

However, Trump did not respond to the images of his talking points that were taken by photographers last week.

In another tweet, Trump continued to berate “The Squad,” calling them “a very Racist group of troublemakers who are young, inexperienced, and not very smart.”

Following Trump’s racist tweets, the Democratic-led House moved swiftly last week to pass a resolution of condemnation. But the formal rebuke to the president only mustered support from four Republican members. Some of the few GOP representatives who publicly condemned Trump failed to vote for the resolution.

The four freshmen congresswomen that make up”The Squad” have hit back repeatedly at Trump on Twitter and in comments to reporters. The women have quickly becomepolitical firebrands, often making headlines with their strong ridicule of Trump and even sometimes acting as a thorn in the side of Democratic leadership.

“This is the agenda of white nationalists, whether it is happening in chat rooms or it’s happening on national TV. And now, it’s reached the White House garden,” Omar said last week at a press conference with her colleagues of “The Squad.”

“He would love nothing more than to divide our country based on race, religion, gender orientation, or immigration status,” the freshman lawmaker continued, “because this is the only way he knows he can prevent the solidarity of us working together across all of our differences.”

[Newsweek]

Trump lashes out at Washington Post over reporting: ‘Presidential Harassment!’

President Trump on Sunday lashed out The Washington Post over its reporting on his attacks against a group of minority congresswomen, calling it an example of “Presidential Harassment.”

“The Washington Post Story, about my speech in North Carolina and tweet, with its phony sources who do not exist, is Fake News,” Trump tweeted, referring to a rally in North Carolina his campaign held last week. “The only thing people were talking about is the record setting crowd and the tremendous enthusiasm, far greater than the Democrats. You’ll see in 2020!”

“Presidential Harassment!” Trump added in a separate tweet, before tweeting “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” in a subsequent one. 

The tweet itself didn’t specify which story Trump was referring to, but Twitter users pointed to one that described the turmoil inside the White House after the president told a group of minority congresswomen to “go back” to the “crime infested places” they came from. 

The Post, in a report published Saturday, described an effort from friends, advisers and political allies to resolve the problems that came from Trump’s attacks. 

The Post did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill on Trump’s latest tweets. 

Trump last week sparked an uproar by telling four freshman House Democrats — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (Mass.) — to “go back” to the “crime infested places” they came from before speaking out about U.S. policies.  

Several Democrats, as well as multiple GOP lawmakers, condemned the comments as racist and xenophobic. The House last Tuesday voted on a resolution to condemn Trump’s tweets as racist. 

The vote was followed on Wednesday by a Trump rally crowd chanting “send her back” as the president attacked Omar, a Somali refugee who came to the U.S. with her family as a child. 

Trump distanced himself from the chant, saying he disagreed with it. But he has continued to rail against the congresswomen, saying on Sundaythat they should “apologize” to the U.S. for their hateful rhetoric. 

Trump has repeatedly attacked the media during his presidency, often describing it as “fake news” and the “enemy of the people.”

[The Hill]

Trump offers to guarantee ASAP Rocky’s bail in Sweden

President Trump said he spoke with Sweden’s prime minister Saturday about jailed rapper ASAP Rocky and “offered to personally vouch for his bail.”

Trump tweeted that during a “a very good call” with Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, he also “assured him that A$AP was not a flight risk.” The platinum-selling, Grammy-nominated artist has been in custody since early this month over an alleged fight.

Urged on by the first lady and celebrities including Kanye West and Kim Kardashian West, the president had said in a Friday tweet that he would intervene to try to free Rocky, whose real name is Rakim May.

“Our teams will be talking further, and we agreed to speak again in the next 48 hours!” Trump wrote Saturday after speaking with Lofven.

Lofven said in a statement earlier Saturday that he would be glad to speak with Trump about ASAP Rocky’s detention but that his government “cannot and will not attempt to influence prosecutors or courts.”

“I understand that President Trump has a personal interest in the case …. He has expressed the desire for a conversation with me, which is certainly positive,” Lofven said. “I will explain that the Swedish judicial system is independent. In Sweden, everyone is equal before the law, and this includes visitors from other countries.”

Rocky has been behind bars while Swedish police investigate the fight in Stockholm he was allegedly involved in before appearing at a music festival. Videos published on social media appear to show a person being violently thrown onto the ground by Rocky. A defense lawyer has said Rocky acted in self-defense.

Other recording artists have also spoken out on his behalf, including Sean “Diddy” Combs, Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendes, Nicki Minaj and Post Malone.

[Los Angeles Times]

Trump defends response to rally chant: I did not ‘lead people on’

President Trump on Saturday doubled down on his defense of his handling of a rally crowd this week that chanted “send her back” when he took aim at progressive Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), maintaining that he didn’t “lead people on” and was not “particularly happy” with the chant.

Trump in a tweet also reiterated his praise for the crowd, calling it “very big and patriotic.” The president on Friday afternoon similarly praised those who took part in the chant at his rally in North Carolina, calling them “patriots” after earlier distancing himself from the chant.

“As you can see, I did nothing to lead people on, nor was I particularly happy with their chant. Just a very big and patriotic crowd. They love the USA!” Trump tweeted early Saturday, sharing a tweet that included video of the chanting crowd from his rally on Wednesday night. 

Trump first distanced himself from the chant on Thursday as a number of GOP lawmakers spoke out against the chant, with Republicans saying they did not want it to become a narrative for the party heading into the 2020 elections. Trump said he disagreed with the audience reaction, but has since spoken out in defense of the crowd while blasting what he called “crazed” media coverage of the controversy. The rally chant punctuated days of political uproar over tweets Trump sent last weekend in which he called on four minority congresswomen to “go back” to where they came from, comments widely denounced by Democrats and a number of Republicans as racist. All four Democrats targeted by Trump – Omar and fellow Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (Mass.) – are U.S. citizens and each was born in the U.S. with the exception of Omar, who was born in Somalia before immigrating to the United States as a refugee. Omar was greeted by a crowd chanting “welcome home” when she arrived at a Minnesota airport this week. On Friday, Trump ratcheted up his attacks on the four Democratic congresswomen who are all outspoken critics of his administration, telling reporters at the White House before departing to New Jersey for the weekend: “I don’t know if it’s good or bad politically. I don’t care.” “Many people say it’s good. I don’t know if it’s good or bad,” he continued. “I can tell you this: You can’t talk that way about our country. Not when I’m the president.”

[The Hill]

Reality

Donald Trump retweeted a deceptively edited clip by Katie Hopkins, a known white supremacist who calls immigrants “cockroaches” and praised the racist “send her back” chants, to claim he did not lead the crowd… to repeat his own words that women of color should “go back to the crime infested country they came from.

If the video was more honest, you would see moments before Trump was whipping up the crowd with various lies about Rep. Ilhan Omar.

Trump reverses course, defends racist chants directed at Ilhan Omar

One day after he made an unconvincing attempt to distance himself from the racist chantsthat rang out at his rally in North Carolina on Wednesday night — something his fellow Republicans said they were welcome to see — President Donald Trump abruptly reversed course and defended them.

During an Oval Office event on Friday that was ostensibly to honor Apollo 11 astronauts, Trump cut off a reporter who tried to ask him about his effort to distance himself from the chants, and instead offered a full-throated defense of not only his supporters who made them but also racist tweets he posted last Sunday that incited them.

“You know what I’m unhappy with? I’m unhappy with the fact that a congresswoman can hate our country,” Trump said, alluding to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), one of a group of four congresswomen of color whom he last Sunday admonished on Twitter to “go back” to the countries they came from (Omar is a Somali refugee; the other three women were born in America). “I’m unhappy with the fact that a congresswoman can say anti-Semitic things. I’m unhappy with the fact that a congresswoman — in this case, a different congresswoman — can call our country, and our people, garbage. That’s what I’m unhappy with.”

Trump then turned to defending the people at his rally, who chanted “send her back!” after he viciously attacked Omar using misleading claims like the ones he made on Friday. (For instance, despite what Trump claimed in the Oval Office, none of the congresswomen in question have called America or its people “garbage.”)

“Those people in North Carolina, that stadium was packed,” Trump said. “It was a record crowd and I could’ve filled it 10 times, as you know. Those are incredible people, those are incredible patriots. But I’m unhappy when a congresswoman goes and says, ‘I’m going to be the president’s nightmare.’ She’s going to be the president’s nightmare. She’s lucky to be where she is, let me tell you. And the things she has said are a disgrace to our country.”

Trump’s comments came hours after he similarly suggested on Twitter that the racist chants were somehow justified because there were so many people — “packed Arena (a record) crowd” — at his rally.

Trump’s “incredible people” line echoed how he defended white supremacists following violent rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia, two summers ago, when he infamously characterized them as “very fine people.” And for those who have been paying attention, the president’s latest defense of racism shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Trump told us this week he isn’t concerned about his or his supporters’ racism because “many people agree” with him

While Trump’s comments on Friday are out of step with what he said on Thursday — when he made a far-fetched attempt to distance himself from the chants by insisting he “started speaking very quickly” to quell them, which is inconsistent with video of the incident — they’re in line with what he said on Tuesday, when he defended his racist “go back” tweets.

Asked during a White House event that day if it concerns him that “many people saw that tweet as racist and that white nationalist groups are finding common cause with you on that point,” Trump said he is not.

“It doesn’t concern me because many people agree with me,” he said.

These comments provide a window into how Trump thinks about the world. Moral judgments take a back seat to whatever people around him think. Racism is okay because many of his supporters are also prejudiced, and they agree with him when he makes loaded attacks on women of color. And as a matter of expedience, Trump views stoking his supporters’ sense of white grievance as a way to motivate them to go out and vote, and hence as a premeditated strategy to win a second term in office.

Trump is concerned with doing what he perceives to be most beneficial for himself, not about rightness or wrongness in any sense beyond that. To that end, he’s now walked back the insincere effort he made just the day before to distance himself from an ugly incident that represented a new low in his long history of racial demagoguery. And as long as he perceives that Omar and other congresswomen are useful political foils for him, it’s likely that such chants will become a staple at his rallies going forward.

[Vox]

Trump administration invokes privilege again, blocks intel committee from classified Mueller docs

The Trump administration has been quietly engaged in an escalating tug-of-war with the House and Senate intelligence committees over sensitive documents from the special counsel’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 elections, the latest in a series of attempts to stymie Congress, including with claims of executive privilege, sources have told ABC News.

“The scope of confidentiality interests being asserted by the executive branch is breathtaking,” said Andrew M. Wright, an expert on executive privilege who served as a congressional investigator and as a White House attorney in two Democratic administrations. As is “the lack of accommodation and compromise,” he added.

Members of the Senate intelligence committee sent a letter in mid-April to the CIA and other covert agencies asking them to share copies of all the materials they had provided to special counsel Robert Mueller’s team over the course of their 22-month investigation, according to sources familiar with the request. The requests were referred by the intelligence agencies to the Department of Justice, which has custody of all of the records gathered as part of the Mueller probe.

Though Mueller’s report does not discuss the classified intelligence gathered during the investigation, congressional investigators believe the team was given access to a range of materials that could include intercepts, secretive source interviews, and material shared by the spy agencies of other foreign governments.

More than three months later, the attorney general’s office has still not produced them. Sources told ABC News that Justice Department officials have argued that they are, for now, shielded by the same blanket privilege they initially asserted in response to a subpoena from the House Judiciary Committee for the entire trove of special counsel records.

Trump administration attorneys declined to comment on the matter, and the Department of Justice has not responded to questions. Experts said the response was part of a pattern.

A spokesman for the House Intelligence Committee said the DOJ did produce a subset of underlying documents related to the special counsel’s investigation to their members for review, “although it has failed in recent weeks, despite repeated requests, to produce key materials central to the Committee’s oversight work.”

The House committee said Justice Department lawyers did not invoke privilege with them when refusing the requests. “None would be warranted given the Committee’s jurisdiction,” a committee spokesman said. “The Committee remains engaged with DOJ to ensure it complies fully and completely with the Committee’s duly authorized subpoena.”

Experts have been monitoring the conflict between branches as it has escalated.

“The way the administration has been using executive privilege has been extraordinary,” said Steven Schwinn, a professor at the John Marshall Law School and a co-founder and co-editor of the Constitutional Law Prof Blog. “It’s a level of non-cooperation with Congress that has been striking. We’ve never seen it to this degree.”

Congress and the White House have been locked in a range of disputes over records and testimony that the administration has withheld – covering a variety of subjects that includes the president’s personal finances, his tax returns and the administration’s policy on the census. Just Wednesday, the Democratic-controlled House voted to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in criminal contempt over their refusal to produce documents concerning the addition of a citizenship question to the census.

In May, the Trump administration invoked executive privilege for the first time in response to the request from Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, for the un-redacted Mueller report and the entire trove of investigative documents.

“Faced with Chairman Nadler’s blatant abuse of power, and at the attorney general’s request, the president has no other option than to make a protective assertion of executive privilege,” then-White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said at the time.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said at the time that members of Congress were exercising their proper authority to review the Mueller material on behalf of their constituents.

“This is not about Congress or any committee of Congress,” Pelosi told ABC News at the time. “It’s about the American people and their right to know and their election that is at stake and that a foreign government intervened in our election and the president thinks it is a laughing matter.”

This latest stalemate – over sensitive materials gathered in connection with the 2016 elections — has frustrated leaders on the intelligence committees, sources told ABC News. In part, that is because the committees have sweeping oversight powers when it comes to the secretive agencies. The National Security Act says “congressional intelligence committees [must] be kept fully and currently informed of all intelligence activities.”

The congressional committees have invoked such powers during a range of sensitive probes. Congress fought for and received intelligence documents during its investigation into the Iran-Contra affair during the late 1980s. And more recently, the senate prevailed during a review of allegations that the agencies engaged in torture during the interrogation of terror suspects. After a protracted fight, the senate received the documents and drafted its scathing report.

One Trump administration source familiar with the matter told ABC News that the stand-off is temporary – with the response to the intelligence committee on hold until the Department of Justice finishes releasing Mueller-related materials to the Judiciary Committee.

In early June, the DOJ and House Judiciary Committee reached an agreement allowing committee members access to some of the documents that underpinned Mueller’s investigation of possible obstruction of justice by President Trump. Members and some committee staff were also allowed to see a less-redacted version of the full Mueller report, with the exception of grand jury material that was included.

The DOJ is in the midst of reviewing the special counsel documents, and under an agreement with the Judiciary Committee, has pledged to turn over documents they believe do not run afoul of their assertions of privilege.

As the review process for the House Judiciary Committee grinds forward, an administration official familiar with the effort said that may free up some of the documents in the subset of materials requested by the intelligence committees. But, the source said, the intelligence request will have to wait until the negotiations with Judiciary are resolved.

Congressional sources told ABC News they believe Justice Department officials have no grounds to hold the intelligence records, and are merely stalling.

Experts said the stand-offs between branches of government may ultimately force the third branch of government – the judiciary – to get involved.

“A lot of it is going to get resolved in court,” said Wright, the expert on executive privilege who served in two Democratic administrations. “But some may only get resolved at the ballot box.”

[ABC News]

Trump attacks US Fed, demands rate cut

President Donald Trump attacked the independent US Federal Reserve on Friday, demanding the central bank reverse course and cut interest rates — something it is widely expected to do this month.

In another Twitter outburst, Trump called on the Fed to “Correct!” its overreach.

“We are in a World competition, & winning big,… but it is no thanks to the Federal Reserve,” he said.

“Had they not acted so fast and ‘so much,’ we would be doing even better than we are doing right now. This is our chance to build unparalleled wealth and success for the U.S., GROWTH… Don’t blow it!”

The US central bank raised the benchmark borrowing rate four times last year but seems almost certain to pull back with the first cut in a decade at its policy meeting July 30-31.

Recent comments from Fed officials seemed to confirm the signal that policymakers are prepared to act to sustain US growth in the face of a slowing global economy and persistent trade tensions with China.

“You don’t need to wait until things get so bad to have a dramatic series of rate cuts,” Fed Vice Chairman Richard Clarida told Fox Business Network on Thursday.

That comment echoed a statement earlier Thursday from John Williams, the influential vice chairman of the Fed’s policy committee, who talked about the need to vaccinate when rates are very low.

[Raw Story]

Reality

The independence of a Federal Reserve is what gives its authority and a stability that is relied upon by companies and countries around the world.

Donald Trump is doing everything he can to undermine the Fed’s independence for short-term political wins.

Trump Attacks Tom ‘The Chin’ Friedman For Calling Him Racist: We Just Spoke and He ‘Kissed My A**’

President Donald Trump unleashed a tirade against Thomas Friedman on Twitter Friday morning, claiming the New York Times columnist had been friendly in a private call before deeming him a racist in print.

Trump kicked off his Twitter meltdown with an unflattering nickname for Friedman:

Thomas “the Chin” Friedman, a weak and pathetic sort of guy, writes columns for The New York Times in between rounds of his favorite game, golf. Two weeks ago, while speaking to a friend on his cell phone, I unfortunately ended up speaking to Friedman … he could not have been nicer or more respectful to your favorite President, me. Then I saw the column he wrote, “Trump Will Be Re-elected, Won’t He?” He called me a Racist, which I am not, and said Rhode Island went from economically bad to great in 5 years because the … Governor of the State did a good job. That may be true but she could not have done it without the tremendous economic success of our Country & the turnaround that my Administration has caused. Really Nasty to me in his average I.Q. Columns, kissed my a.. on the call. Phony!

While it’s difficult to know what transpired on their call — Trump tends to be an unreliable narrator and has claimed many a time that his critics kiss his ass in private — the president is correct about Friedman’s brutal column, which warned Democrats that Trump could win in 2020.

The searing line that likely piqued Trump’s ire: “I wasn’t surprised to hear so many people expressing fear that the racist, divisive, climate-change-denying, woman-abusing jerk who is our president was going to get re-elected, and was even seeing his poll numbers rise.”

[Mediaite]

Trump Twitter-rages over media’s coverage of the racist ‘send her back’ chant he incited

President Donald Trump on Thursday said he did not like the racist “send her back” chant directed at Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) that erupted during his campaign rally this week.

On Friday, however, the president attacked the media for criticizing the chant even as he boasted about the large number of people at the rally who were conducting the racist chant.

“It is amazing how the Fake News Media became ‘crazed’ over the chant ‘send her back’ by a packed Arena (a record) crowd in the Great State of North Carolina, but is totally calm & accepting of the most vile and disgusting statements made by the three Radical Left Congresswomen,” the president wrote. “Mainstream Media, which has lost all credibility, has either officially or unofficially become a part of the Radical Left Democrat Party. It is a sick partnership, so pathetic to watch!”

Trump then bashed the media for covering the adoring crowd that welcomed Omar home when she arrived back in her home state of Minnesota.

“They even covered a tiny staged crowd as they greeted Foul Mouthed Omar in Minnesota, a State which I will win in 2020 because they can’t stand her and her hatred of our Country,” he wrote.

[Raw Story]

Trump Claims Only Republicans Can Pull Off Preexisting Condition Protections Already Available in Obamacare

Donald Trump told his rally-goers dozens of insane lies, but one lie really stood out, claiming, “The Democrats’ vision on healthcare is deception and disruption … patients with pre-existing conditions are protected by Republicans much more so than were protected by Democrats who can never pull it off.”

One problem. Obamacare, passed by Democrats, contains protections for people with preexisting medical conditions and this is the same law Republicans tried to repeal 70 times and Trump’s own DOJ is currently trying to dismantle in courts today.

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