A resource for journalists and for shutting down your crazy uncle.
Donald Trump’s rhetorical style is straight out of middle school. He’s like an eighth-grade girl.
In a tweet Donald Trump again went after Megyn Kelly calling her a mean and bitter woman.
"@luvinlife1967: @foxnewspolitics @realDonaldTrump @HowardKurtz I dvr every Fox evening show EXCEPT Megyn's. She is a mean & bitter woman."
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 21, 2015
Links
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/645939692983054337
After speaking to a reporter from Rolling Stone magazine, Donald Trump sparked condemnation for remarks he made about the appearance of Carly Fiorina, a rival presidential candidate.
Look at that face, Would anyone vote for that?
Can you imagine that, the face of our next next president? I mean, she’s a woman, and I’m not s’posedta say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?
Fiorina’s face would not be a good reason to not vote for her.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/trump-seriously-20150909?page=13
Questions from Univision reporter Jorge Ramos became heated with Trump on his positions on birthright citizenship and a wall with Mexico. After Ramos continued to ask questions Trump command he “Sit down” and “Go back to Univision” then motioned to bodyguards to escort the well-respected reporter out of the conference.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/25/politics/donald-trump-megyn-kelly-iowa-rally/
http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/30/media/donald-trump-jorge-ramos-interview/
Donald Trump attacked Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush on Twitter by quoting a fan taking issue with the fact that Bush “speaks Mexican.”
"@YoungYoung54: @JeriHyatt @megynkelly @JebBush So true. Jeb Bush is crazy, who cares that he speaks Mexican, this is America, English !!"
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 25, 2015
First off, people don’t speak “Mexican”, they speak Spanish.
Second, the purely racist trope “you’re in America speak English” has been so overplayed by Republicans. Forget the fact that the United States has no official language, there is no requirement outside of lawyers to speak English. The reason why it is racist is because it makes an assumption that one language and culture is superior to another.
Finally, most of you can’t speak English yourselves so how can you push it on someone else?
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/635998754546548737
Presidential candidate Donald Trump defended himself from the fierce backlash he’s received for criticizing Fox News debate moderator Megyn Kelly, insisting he said nothing wrong and that he values women.
“I cherish women. I want to help women. I’m going to be able to do things for women that no other candidate would be able to do” the real estate mogul told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union,” adding that he did not mean to imply that Kelly asked him sharp questions during the debate because she was menstruating.
“Who would say that?” Trump said Sunday. “Do you think I’d make a statement like that? Who would make a statement like that? Only a sick person would even think about that.”
He blamed his Republican presidential opponents for fanning the flames of controversy, and claimed he meant to refer to her “nose and/or ears” — not a woman’s period.
In the context of the conversation one can extrapolate that Donald Trump was implying Megyn Kelly was angry at him, coincidentally inventing a new idiom about blood and eyes. Regarding the “wherever”, men in the U.S. joke say that women who are menstruating are angrier or more aggressive than they usually are. It doesn’t take a genius to accept that Trump was speaking about Kelly’s lady bits.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/09/politics/donald-trump-blood-comment-response-2016-sotu/
Donald Trump was so enraged by Fox News moderator Megyn Kelly’s tough questions during the GOP debate, he took to Twitter in the wee hours Friday to rip her for being “not very good or professional.”
I really enjoyed the debate tonight even though the @FoxNews trio, especially @megynkelly, was not very good or professional!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 7, 2015
He was still angry at Kelly later Friday, delivering bizarre comments on “CNN Tonight” with Don Lemon:
I am very disappointed in Fox News. I think they had an agenda.
I don’t have a lot of respect for Megyn Kelly, she came out, reading her script, trying to be tough and sharp. When you meet her you realize she is not very tough or very sharp. She is zippo.
When asked further about Kelly, who asked the billionaire developer about his previously disparaging comments about women, Trump said:
I just don’t respect her as a journalist. I don’t think she is very good. I think she is highly overrated.
Then went on to say:
You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever.
Trump’s fury was sparked by Kelly’s opening question, asking if calling women “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals” is behavior befitting a president.
Trump quipped that he had only called Rosie O’Donnell those names, but Kelly said he had bad mouthed other women “well beyond” the comedian.
Trump would go on to lie about his statement after backlash from all sides.
(h/t New York Post, Newsmax)
Megyn Kelly’s question was valid and Trump acted very unpresidential.
Donald Trump retweeted a tweet from a follower commenting how viewers gave “bimbo” Megyn Kelly low marks.
“@timjcam: @megynkelly @FrankLuntz @realDonaldTrump Fox viewers give low marks to bimbo @MegynKelly will consider other programs!”
"@timjcam: @megynkelly @FrankLuntz @realDonaldTrump Fox viewers give low marks to bimbo @MegynKelly will consider other programs!"
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 7, 2015
(h/t The Hill)
Trump has had an issue with Kelly when she moderated the Republican presidential debate. He accused her of being unfairly harsh on him by asking him valid questions about past sexist and misogynist comments. Fox News stood up for its anchor, calling the attacks on her “sexist verbal assaults.”
Donald Trump, the Republican presidential frontrunner and not exactly friend of women, was expected to say some confrontational things at the first Republican presidential debate.
But when his machismo went up against Megyn Kelly, the Fox News personality, debate moderator and nonstop voice for women’s issues, he didn’t stand a chance. In fact, Kelly spent most of the debate grilling Jeb Bush, Scott Walker and more candidates with surprisingly tough questions over reproductive rights and beyond.
“You’ve called women you don’t like fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals,” Kelly began her question, about as directly as you can.
“Only Rosie O’Donnell,” Trump interrupted with a sneer, earning cheers from the crowd.
Kelly wasn’t having it. Any of it.
“For the record, it was way beyond Rosie O’Donnell,” Kelly said – before launching into a laundry list Trump’s most misogynistic moments:
“Your Twitter account has several disparaging comments about women’s looks. You once told a contestant on the Celebrity Apprentice it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees. Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president? And how do you answer the charge from Hillary Clinton – that you are part of the war on women?”
Trump, unchastened, responded with a misdirect: “I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct.”
Then he made a veiled threat at Kelly herself.
“What I say is what I say, and honestly, Megyn, if you don’t like it, I’m sorry. I’ve been very nice to you, although I could probably maybe not be based on the way you’ve treated me, but I wouldn’t do that.”
(h/t The Guardian)
Donald Trump responded to a question about past sexist and misogynist comments and responded with… more sexist and misogynist comments.
To try to gauge how unpresidental that was, try to imagine your favorite president publicly making comments like:
Furthermore Trump hid behind political correctness in his attempt to redirect the conversation. See, he’s not an sexist for making those comments, you’re what is wrong with this country for being offended by his sexist comments. There are so many inherit logical flaws with this argument. Just to name a few:
After an editorial published by the Des Moins Register that criticized Trump for his comments about John McCain’s war record and called on Trump to quit the Republican race, the entire newspaper was barred from future Trump events.
Trump’s national campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, told political columnist Kathie Obradovich in a phone call that the Register was being excluded from the event because of the editorial. “We’re not issuing credentials to anyone from The Des Moines Register based on the editorial that they wrote earlier in the week,” he said.
Links
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2015/07/24/trump-barring-des-moines-register-campaign-event/30645343/
A New Jersey appeals court has affirmed a lower court’s ruling to dismiss a defamation lawsuit brought by Donald Trump against a book author who claimed the real estate magnate/reality TV star isn’t really a billionaire.
In a ruling, the appeals court affirms that Trump hasn’t demonstrated that author Timothy O’Brien committed “actual malice” by citing three unnamed sources who estimated the net worth of The Apprentice star to be between $150 million and $250 million.
Trump filed the $5 billion lawsuit in 2009 over O’Brien’s book, TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald. The lawsuit was rejected in 2009 by a New Jersey superior judge. Trump then appealed the judgment on the theory that relying on anonymous sources could rise to the actual malice standard needed for public figures to prevail in a libel suit.
But a New Jersey appeals court doesn’t see the logic here. According to the decision:
“There were no significant internal inconsistencies in the information provided by the confidential sources, nor was there ‘reliable’ information that contradicted their reports, so as to provide evidence of actual malice. Nothing suggests that O’Brien was subjectively aware of the falsity of his source’s figures or that he had actual doubts as to the information’s accuracy.”
The latest decision will likely give Trump another reason to gripe about the nation’s libel laws. In past public comments, Trump has said these laws “have never been fair.”
As for Trump’s own estimation of his net worth, Trump’s lawyer says it has been “proven conclusively” to exceed $7 billion.
Then again, during a deposition, Trump admitted that his sense of financial worth depends on his feelings day-to-day. Asked whether it was really true that his “net worth goes up and down based upon [his] own feelings,” here’s Trump’s funny response:
“Yes, even my own feelings, as to where the world is, where the world is going, and that can change rapidly from day to day. Then you have a September 11th, and you don’t feel so good about yourself and you don’t feel so good about the world and you don’t feel so good about New York City. Then you have a year later, and the city is as hot as a pistol. Even months after that it was a different feeling. So yeah, even my own feelings affect my value to myself.”
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/donald-trump-loses-libel-lawsuit-232923
http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2016/03/14/trump-biographer-timothy-obrien.cnnmoney
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-07-21/dear-mr-trump-i-m-worth-10-billion-too-