Category: Unpresidential

Trump Bashes ‘Lowlife’ Colbert, ‘Lost Soul’ Fallon, and ‘No Talent’ Kimmel in Surreal Rally Speech

During his rally in South Carolina, Donald Trump went on a surreal tangent in which he hit the late night comedians from each of the big three networks.

For the last few days, Trump has been complaining about Fallon with regard to the infamous 2016 interview in which the NBC funnyman ruffled the then-candidate’s hair. Fallon has expressed regret for how he humanized Trump amid his various political controversies, and Trump responded by complaining about his hair being messed up.

When Trump brought this up on Monday night, he sarcastically remarked that Fallon is “going to lose all of us” for being sorry about the interview. He went on to trash Stephen Colbert as a “lowlife,” and said Jimmy Kimmel is “terrible” has “no talent.”

“Honestly, are these people funny?” Trump asked. “I can laugh at myself. Frankly, if I couldn’t, I’d be in big trouble. But they’re no talent. They’re not talented people.”

After Trump told a really dismissive story about the time he went on Kimmel’s show, he called Fallon a “lost soul” and bragged about how he gave him a ratings boost by appearing on his program. He continued to say that Fallon “really hurt himself” by apologizing, and then he eventually worked in a complaint about how Arnold Schwarzenegger ruined The Apprentice.

[Mediaite]

Sanders: Harassment of Trump supporters ‘unacceptable’

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Monday pushed for respectful political discourse in the aftermath of her dismissal from a Virginia restaurant over the weekend.

Sanders addressed the incident at the start of Monday’s press briefing, saying she and her husband “politely left” The Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Va., after she said she was asked to leave “because I work for President Trump.”

“We are allowed to disagree but we should be able to do so freely and without fear of harm,” she said. “And this goes for all people regardless of politics.”

“Healthy debate on ideas and political philosophy is important, but the calls for harassment and push for any Trump supporter to avoid the public is unacceptable,” she said.

“America is a great country and our ability to find solutions despite those disagreements is what makes us unique,” she added before launching into a list of President Trump’s accomplishments.

 

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/394021-sanders-on-fallout-of-restaurant-incident-harassment-of-trump

 

Sarah Sanders: ‘Just Because You Aren’t Seeing a Judge Doesn’t Mean You Aren’t Getting Due Process’

Sarah Huckabee Sanders offered an intriguing defense of Donald Trump on Monday when asked about his apparent call for the country to disregard due process when dealing with illegal immigrants.

It’s been over a week since the last White House press briefing, so Sanders was buried under an avalanche of questions regarding the president’s rescinded policy of taking migrant children away from their parents at the U.S. southern border. As Trump railed against immigration laws and people “[invading] the country” over the weekend, he tweeted at one point that immigrants need to be sent back where they came from “with no Judges or Court Cases” involved.

When CNN’s Jeff Zelany asked Sanders if Trump was saying illegal immigrants have no right to due process, she defended the president by saying that current laws allow for the deportation of illegal aliens without having to go through court.

“Thousands of illegal aliens are removed every month without seeing an immigration judge as a result of procedures in current law including voluntary removal and expedited removal. Just because you don’t see a judge doesn’t mean you aren’t receiving due process. The president is focused on securing our borders and reforming our immigration system to prevent the crisis at the border from betting worse.”

Zeleny continued to press Sanders by asking her if immigrants who are deported this way don’t get a chance to appeal for asylum or make their case before a judge.

[Mediaite]

Reality

On one hand we have the Constitution, which makes it very clear due process applies to anyone on American soil.

This was reaffirmed in the 2001 Supreme Court decision Zadvydas v. David (533 US 678): “the Due Process Clause applies to all persons within the United States, including aliens, whether their presence here is lawful or unlawful.”

But on the other hand we have expedited removal where a person does not see the inside of a courtroom and a low-level immigration officer simply deports a person without any due process. Expedited removal is only allowed to be applied to undocumented immigrants without any documentation, not on asylum seekers which we are mostly seeing today, and has historically been used only on individuals who are repeat offenders.

But the law has been used more and more over the past several years, for example 44 percent of all removals from the United States were conducted through expedited removal in 2013.

Media

Trump Warns Maxine Waters Over Call to Harass Administration Officials

President Donald Trump on Monday warned Rep. Maxine Waters to “be careful what you wish for,” two days after the California congresswoman urged supporters to harass members of the Trump administration in public places.

Referring to Ms. Waters as an “extraordinarily low IQ person,” Mr. Trump tweeted Monday: “She has just called for harm to supporters, of which there are many, of the Make America Great Again movement.” He added: “Be careful what you wish for Max!”

At an event in Los Angeles Saturday, Ms. Waters sought to rally the crowd against Trump administration officials. “If you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd,” she said. “And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”

On Friday night, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders was asked by the owner of the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Va., to leave. Tweeting about the incident Saturday, Ms. Sanders said she was asked to leave “because I work for @POTUS” and that she “politely left.”

“Her actions say far more about her than about me,” she added. “I always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so.” She also addressed the matter at Monday’s press briefing, saying: “We are allowed to disagree, but we should be able to do so freely and without fear of harm.”

Mr. Trump defended his press secretary on Monday, calling her a “fine person.”

Last week, protesters chanted “Shame!” at Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen while she was dining at a Mexican restaurant, hours after she defended the White House’s zero-tolerance policy that resulted in the separation of thousands of immigrant children from their families at a briefing with reporters.

[Wall Street Journal]

Reality

The same day his press secretary called for civility from his opponents, Donald Trump insulted, then threatened Congresswoman Maxine Waters with physical harm.
Trump also completely misrepresented Ms. Waters’ comments, who never called to harm Trumpers.

Trump amplifies push to end due process for illegal immigrants

President Donald Trump on Monday doubled-down on his position that due process for illegal border crossers is too time consuming, advocating instead for a border security system that prevents undocumented immigrants from entering the U.S. illegally in the first place.

“Hiring manythousands [sic] of judges, and going through a long and complicated legal process, is not the way to go – will always be dysfunctional [sic]. People must simply be stopped at the Border and told they cannot come into the U.S. illegally. Children brought back to their country,” the president wrote on Twitter, splitting his message into two posts. “If this is done, illegal immigration will be stopped in it’s [sic] tracks – and at very little, by comparison, cost. This is the only real answer – and we must continue to BUILD THE WALL!”

Trump’s border security and immigration policy has been the subject of significant criticism in recent days as outcry grew over the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy that led to the separation more than 2,000 children from parents who brought them illegally into the U.S. The president signed an executive order last week aimed at keeping families together but has continued to press for tougher border security, blaming Democrats unwilling to accede to his immigration and security proposals for issues at the border.

In his efforts to point the finger at the minority party in both houses of Congress, Trump has gone so far as to undercut his own party’s efforts at passing immigration reform legislation, writing on Twitter that House Republicans are wasting their time trying to pass such a measure when it is unlikely to pass in the Senate.

The president’s Monday derision of a legal process by which undocumented immigrants are removed from the country without judicial proceedings or review was an extension of an argument he put forward over the weekend, when he wrote that “when somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came.”

“We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country,” he wrote. “Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and Law and Order. Most children come without parents.”

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/25/trump-due-process-immigrants-669334

Donald Trump attacks restaurant that kicked out Sarah Sanders

President Donald Trump defended press secretary Sarah Sanders on Monday by attacking the Virginia restaurant that asked the White House spokeswoman to leave the premises.

“The Red Hen Restaurant should focus more on cleaning its filthy canopies, doors and windows (badly needs a paint job) rather than refusing to serve a fine person like Sarah Huckabee Sanders,” Trump said. “I always had a rule, if a restaurant is dirty on the outside, it is dirty on the inside!”

It’s unclear where Trump got his claims about the restaurant based in Lexington, Va., but it has been attacked on social media reviews by Trump’s supporters since the incident that happened Friday night. Trump critics have rallied behind the Red Hen, giving it high ratings on some of those same restaurant review websites.

The flap has triggered an intense debate about the loss of political civility, with some Trump critics defending the restaurant owner’s decision because of opposition to Trump’s crackdown on immigration and other policies.

Some Trump critics on Twitter pointed out that his restaurant at the Mar-a-Lago estates in Palm Beach, Fla., has been cited for health code violations.

[USA Today]

Reality

Trump’s own Mar-a-Lago restaurant was hit with 78 health code violations, including black/green mold, rusty shelves, and parasites.

Trump calls for deporting migrants ‘immediately’ without a trial

President Donald Trump tweeted Sunday morning that the U.S. “Cannot accept all of the people trying to break into our Country” and called for migrants to be “immediately” deported without a trial.

“When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came,” he said. His tweet did not mention people coming to the U.S. to seek asylum, which is legal to do.

Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and Law and Order,” he said, adding in another tweet that legal entry to the country should be based on “merit.”

Immigration advocates pushed back on the comments. “What President Trump has suggested here is both illegal and unconstitutional. Any official who has sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution and laws should disavow it unequivocally,” said Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project.

Late Saturday night, the Trump administration released a “fact sheet” noting more than 2,000 children have yet to be reunited with their parents and revealing some details about the reunification process.

[NBC News]

Trump to Jimmy Fallon: ‘Be a man.’ Late-night host answers with donation to help migrants.

President Donald Trump is telling “Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon to “be a man” and stop “whimpering” about the personal anguish he felt over the backlash he received after messing up Trump’s hair during a 2016 campaign appearance on the late-night talk show.

Fallon recently told The Hollywood Reporterthat he “made a mistake” on the Sept. 15, 2016, episode and would do it differently.

During that interview with the presidential candidate, Fallon thanked Trump “for giving us the material that we are doing” and said he has been “amazing to follow” because “you say some shocking things that I cannot even believe.”

“But I’m trying not to anyway,” Trump replied.

Fallon’s latest comments, however, didn’t appear to sit well with Trump.

The president tweeted Sunday:

Fallon responded on Twitter with a nod to the plight of young immigrants caught up in administration policies.

The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, or RAICES, is the largest immigration legal services provider in Texas. The organization is on the front lines of the immigration battle in Texas.

[NBC News]

Update

Jimmy Fallon rebutted Trump’s claim that he called him:

“And he said he called and said, ‘Monster ratings.’ First of all, I’ve never called this human in my life. I don’t have his number, I don’t want his number,” Fallon continued. “I’ve never said ‘monster ratings.’ I don’t know what he’s talking about. By the way, Donald, I don’t know if you’ve seen my ratings the past two years, you didn’t help my ratings. But, really, thanks a lot. Thanks for nothing.”

 

Trump claims Obama kept migrants ‘wrapped in foil’ in cages: ‘We do a much better job’

President Donald Trump, is apparently trying to deflect criticism of his administration’s separating more than 2,000 migrant children from their parents by suggesting that former President Obama did worse.

Trump tweeted Saturday morning that President Obama kept immigrants “in cages, wrapped in foil,” pushing a Drudge Report headline that linked to an article that ran in The Daily Caller, a conservative media outlet.

The Daily Caller article was posted on Tuesday, when public outrage over the family separations was at a height. On Wednesday, the president signed an executive order to end the policy and keep migrant parents and children together.

The Obama administration also used detention facilities for migrants who crossed the border illegally but it did not engage in widespread family separations.

[ABC News]

Trump admin tightens media access for federal scientists

The Trump administration is directing federal scientists in the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to get approval from the Department of the Interior, its parent agency, before speaking to reporters, according to the Los Angeles Times.

USGS employees interviewed by the L.A. Times said the policy is a departure from decades of past media practices that allowed scientists to quickly respond to media requests. The employees said that the new policy will significantly undermine this.

A spokesperson for Interior disputed this description of the policy to the L.A. Times, saying that “the characterization that there is any new policy or that it for some reason targets scientists is completely false.”

Deputy press secretary for the Department of the Interior, Faith Vander Voort, told the outlet that Interior had only asked the USGS public affairs office to follow 2012 media guidelines established under former President Obama.

The guidelines say Interior’s communications office must be notified ahead of some types of interviews but does not say that scientists must get approval before speaking with reporters as an internal email obtained by the L.A. Times indicates.

The employees said that they believe the new policies were established to control the voices of Interior employees. They believe the move is a part of larger efforts to quell discourse about climate change, which the agency has produced research on.

[The Hill]

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