Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump appeared to joke about the possibility that Hillary Clinton could be shot in remarks at a campaign rally Tuesday in Wilmington, N.C.
Trump was discussing the possibility that Clinton, the Democratic nominee, would be able to appoint liberal justices to the Supreme Court if she wins the race for the White House.
He then said that there was nothing that could be done in that scenario, before mentioning “Second Amendment folks.”
“Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment,” Trump said to boos from the crowd.
“By the way, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks,” he then added.
“Though the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”
The Clinton campaign responded with a statement, with campaign manager Robby Mook saying: “This is simple — what Trump is saying is dangerous. A person seeking to be President of the United States should not suggest violence in any way.”
Democrats pounced on the comments, with Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) tweeting that the Secret Service must investigate Trump’s “threat,” while progressive group MoveOn released a statement calling on Republicans to reject Trump’s campaign in response.
A spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service said it was aware of the comments.
The Trump campaign downplayed the controversy in a statement attacking the “dishonest media.”
“It’s called the power of unification – 2nd Amendment people have amazing spirit and are tremendously unified, which gives them great political power,” Jason Miller, a top Trump aide, said in the statement.
And this year, they will be voting in record numbers, and it won’t be for Hillary Clinton, it will be for Donald Trump.”
Trump has repeatedly used Supreme Court vacancies as a key cudgel against Clinton and a way to convince wary Republicans to jump onto his campaign.
Clinton staff began to respond on Twitter, with spokesman Ian Sams blasting Trump’s “new level of unacceptable behavior.”
Justin Barasky, the spokesman for the pro-Clinton super-PAC Priorities USA sent the clip out to reporters with the comment “THIS IS NOT OK.”
The comment comes just one day after Trump sought to reset the controversy dogging his campaign with a highly-touted and scripted economic speech.
If Donald Trump tries to claim the comment was meant to be humorous then someone needs to tell him speech like this is not a joke.
In 2011, Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot outside a Tucson Safeway, by Jared Lee Loughner. Congresswoman Giffords was featured on Sarah Palin’s infamous ‘crosshairs’ map, which targeted legislators who voted for Obama’s health care bill.
While no connection had been made between this graphic and the Arizona shooting, war rhetoric like Trump and Palin’s has been linked to incitement to violence.
If that was not the case, then why did the crowd laugh?
The Trump campaign’s statement that the comment was about unification, and gathering enough votes to beat Hillary Clinton in November is absolutely absurd. A simple look at Trump’s quote shows he was talking about after November, should a President Clinton try to pick Supreme Court judges there is nothing you can do, except for the “Second Amendment people.”
Donald Trump also clearly misrepresented Hillary Clinton’s position on gun control. She has never advocated for repealing or abolishing the Second Amendment.
Clinton has called for stronger background check requirements to keep guns out of the hands of “people we all agree shouldn’t have them — domestic abusers, violent felons, and dangerously mentally ill people,” all the while affirming her support for the right to bear arms.
Update
Thanks Fox News host Sean Hannity for helping me answer this controversy with your leading question! You’re a fair and balanced “journalist.”
Donald Trump has always insisted his campaign is self funded (it’s not) so he can’t be bought, but he has been accepting large donations from mega-donors while refusing to disclose who they are.
Over the weekend Trump attended two “high-dollar soirees” in Nantucket and Cape Cod, including one at the home of a Koch brother, William, where the co-hosts received six tickets to a VIP reception and photograph with the Republican nominee as thanks for raising at least $100,000. Because there is a $2,700 limit on contributions to political campaigns, fundraisers, referred to as “bundlers,” who can tap networks of friends and business associates for money are very valuable—individual contributions must be disclosed, but the only bundlers who must be identified are those who are also registered as federal lobbyists.
Outside of this being a major flip-flop on a key selling point to his supporters of self-funding, is the issue of a complete lack of transparency compared to his Democratic rival when it comes to fundraising bundlers.
Trump had not disclosed any such bundlers through June—or, actually, any at all. Clinton, meanwhile, has named 499 bundlers (including lobbyists) who have raised at least $100,000 for her campaign.
So far, Clinton’s political operation has outraised Trump, announcing a $90 million haul in July between her campaign and the Democratic Party. But Trump said last week that he had raised about $80 million between his campaign and various GOP committees, boasting, in particular, about the $64 million in smaller digital and direct-mail donations.
But despite Trump’s rhetorical focus on small-dollar contributors, he is still dependent on bundlers and six-figure political donors.
In his Trump Victory joint fundraising account, which raised $25 million from late May through the end of June, roughly half the funds came from only 25 families.
Last year, when he was still working to denigrate Florida senator Marco Rubio, Trump tweeted, “Sheldon Adelson is looking to give big dollars to Rubio because he feels he can mold him into his perfect little puppet. I agree!” But in May, Trump ate dinner with the conservative financier and his wife in Manhattan, and last month at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland he made sure to stop by their private suite at the Quicken Loans Arena.
“She’s totally controlled by the special interests,” Trump said of Clinton last week. Maybe so! But if she is, then so is he.
The execution of an Iranian nuclear scientist accused of spying for the US is reverberating from Tehran to the presidential campaign trail.
Critics, including opponent Donald Trump, are slamming former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for having received emails mentioning him on her controversial personal email server.
Trump took to Twitter on Monday to link Clinton to Shahram Amiri’s death, writing, “Many people are saying that the Iranians killed the scientist who helped the U.S. because of Hillary Clinton’s hacked emails.”
Many people are saying that the Iranians killed the scientist who helped the U.S. because of Hillary Clinton's hacked emails.
The emails mentioning Amiri were were part of a tranche released by the State Department last year pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request in the wake of the revelation that Clinton used a personal server to conduct official business. The FBI has said there is no direct evidence the server was hacked, noting such evidence would be hard to come by.
The Clinton campaign fired back at GOP attacks on Monday, releasing a statement even before Trump’s tweet accusing the GOP presidential nominee of using “increasingly desperate rhetoric to attack Hillary Clinton and make absurd accusations because they have no ideas for the American people.”
The State Department Monday denied any connection between the emails mentioning the delicate case and Amiri’s execution.
State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau told reporters “there was public reporting on this topic back in 2010,” referencing a news conference in which Clinton mentioned the scientist.
“This is not something that became public when the State Department released those emails,” she added, noting that none of the emails mentioning Amiri were classified or retroactively classified as such upon their release — as some emails sent to Clinton were — a sign the Amiri material was not considered too sensitive to be made public.
“We’re not going to comment on what may have led to this event,” Trudeau added, referring to Amiri’s prosecution and execution.
Amiri was initially greeted as a hero upon returning to Iran six years ago. At the time, he had claimed he was kidnapped by American spies while on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia, saying that he had been offered millions of dollars to spy on the US’s behalf but had opted to turn it down. While in the US, he seemed to appear in one video saying he was kidnapped but later in another video said he was there by choice.
On Sunday, however, Iran’s Judiciary Ministry announced Amiri had been hanged for sharing Iran’s nuclear secrets with the enemy.
“He was put on trial and was convicted and sentenced to death,” Iran judiciary spokesman Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei told reporters Monday.
“(He) not only did not make up for his crime and did not repent, he also tried to send information from prison. Anyway, after due process, he received his punishment,” he added.
US officials have said that Amiri willingly defected but then changed his mind, choosing to return to Iran to be with his family. Officials suspect he feared for the safety of his family living in Iran.
“Mr. Amiri has been in the United States of his own free will and he is free to go,” Clinton said at a July 2010 press conference.
But the appearance of veiled references to the Amiri case in Clinton’s emails has fueled another round of recriminations over her private email account.
One message, written by Richard Morningstar, acting special envoy of the US secretary of state for Eurasian energy at the time, was sent to Clinton on July 5, 2010, just days after the videos purportedly of Amiri were posted online and less than two weeks before he left the US.
The email appears to reference Amiri’s hesitation at continuing on as a defector and his wish to leave the US.
“Per the subject we discussed, we have a diplomatic, ‘psychological’ issue, not a legal issue,” Morningstar wrote. “Our friend has to be given a way out. We should recognize his concerns and frame it in terms of a misunderstanding with no malevolent intent and that we will make sure there is no recurrence. Our person won’t be able to do anything anyway. If he has to leave, so be it.”
After arriving in Tehran, Amiri repeated his allegation that he was kidnapped by American intelligence agents.
Other Clinton critics accused her of being careless with sensitive information.
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas drew a link between the emails and Amiri’s execution Sunday, saying on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” “In the emails that were on Hillary Clinton’s private server, there were conversations among her senior advisors about this gentleman.”
He continued, “That goes to show just how reckless and careless her decisions were to put that kind of highly classified information on a private server, but I think her judgment is not suited to keep this country safe.”
Trump has been intentionally and deceitfully conflating two separate incidents of the Russian hack of the DNC emails with Hillary Clinton’s private email server.
Trump is simply being dishonest in a cheap attempt to link the execution of a possible spy with an email hack that never happened, using nothing but hearsay.
(Washington Post) – In early June, a little-known adviser to Donald Trump stunned a gathering of high-powered Washington foreign policy experts meeting with the visiting prime minister of India, going off topic with effusive praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump.
The adviser, Carter Page, hailed Putin as stronger and more reliable than President Obama, according to three people who were present at the closed-door meeting at Blair House — and then touted the positive effect a Trump presidency would have on U.S.-Russia relations.
A month later, Page dumbfounded foreign policy experts again by giving another speech harshly critical of U.S. policy — this time in Moscow.
The United States and other Western nations have “criticized these regions for continuing methods which were prevalent during the Cold War period,” Page said in a lecture at the New Economic School commencement. “Yet ironically, Washington and other Western capitals have impeded potential progress through their often hypocritical focus on ideas such as democratization, inequality, corruption and regime change.”
Page has an ambiguous role in Trump’s campaign. But since being named to the Republican nominee’s team in March, his stature within the foreign policy world has grown considerably, drawing alarm from more-established foreign policy experts who view him as having little real understanding about U.S.-Russia relations. Many also say that Page’s views may be compromised by his investment in Russian energy giant Gazprom.
Other foreign policy experts from both parties say they are distressed with Page for his criticism of sanctions, praise for Putin and his advisers, and his tepid response to what most U.S. policymakers see as Russian aggression.
“It scares me,” said David Kramer, who was responsible for Russia and Ukraine at the State Department during the George W. Bush administration. He called Page’s speech in Moscow and recent comments by Trump on the possibility of lifting sanctions against Moscow “deeply unsettling.”
Asked to comment on Page’s public statements and campaign role, Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said Page was an “informal foreign policy adviser” who “does not speak for Mr. Trump or the campaign.” Trump first named Page as one of a handful of his foreign policy advisers during a meeting at The Washington Post.
The open embrace of a controversial foreign leader is unusual for an adviser to a presidential candidate — and a break from a decades-old Republican tradition of tough stances toward Moscow.
Page, who worked in Moscow for Merrill Lynch a decade ago and who has said he is invested in Gazprom, joins other Trump advisers who have done business in Russia while advocating closer relations. Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, for example, has wooed investments from oligarchs linked to Putin and advised the now-toppled pro-Russian Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych.
Trump has also expressed admiration for Putin, questioned U.S. obligations to defend NATO allies and most recently — after hacked emails were released on the eve of the Democratic National Convention — asked for Russian help to find the deleted emails of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. At the time he spoke, the FBI was investigating a break-in at the Democratic National Committee by alleged Russian hackers. Later, Trump said the request was made sarcastically.
While his comments have drawn derision from some quarters, friends of the 45-year-old Page say that he is knowledgeable about Russian affairs, and they profess astonishment that he has chosen to advise Trump.
Relationship with Gazprom
A graduate of the Naval Academy later posted as a Marine intelligence officer in Western Sahara, Page won a fellowship from the Council on Foreign Relations, where he wrote about Turkey’s role as a hub for oil and natural gas being taken by pipeline from the Caspian Sea region to Europe. After earning a degree from New York University’s business school, Page moved in 2004 to Moscow, where he worked for Merrill Lynch until 2007.
Page, who declined to comment for this article, has said in other media interviews that he also struck up a relationship with Gazprom. His Web biography says he was an adviser “on key transactions for Gazprom,” the Russian electric utility and other energy companies. In a two-hour interview with Bloomberg News in late March, he said he advised Gazprom on its largest deals, including buying a stake in an oil and natural gas field near Russia’s Sakhalin Island and the merging of two classes of Gazprom stock, one of which was restricted to foreigners and the other to Russians.
Page has offered that experience as one of his main areas of expertise, but his boss at Merrill Lynch at the time says that Page’s claims are exaggerated.
Sergey Aleksashenko, former deputy chairman of the Russian central bank and former chairman of Merrill Lynch Russia, says that Page did not play a key role at that time. “He was a vice president, and the job of vice president is not to organize deals but to execute,” Aleksashenko said.
He also said that no one at Merrill Lynch advised Gazprom on its purchase of Sakhalin oil and gas assets from a group led by Royal Dutch Shell, because the deal was driven by the Russian government, which strong-armed Shell by holding back environmental permits, complaining about the extent of local content and slowing Shell’s work to a crawl.
“Gazprom did not need any advice,” Aleksashenko said. “It was not a commercially driven transaction.”
Merrill Lynch was one of three firms that issued a fairness opinion on the price Gazprom eventually paid the Shell group.
Aleksashenko said when he heard that Trump named Page as an adviser, “I was laughing because he was never ready to discuss foreign policy.”
After he left Moscow, Page worked as chief operating officer of Merrill Lynch’s energy and power department in New York. Later, he set up Global Energy Capital, which is around the corner from Trump Tower. But he told Bloomberg News that he failed to raise money for a private-equity fund to buy assets in Turkmenistan. Instead, he says on his website that he advised others on investing in Russia and emerging markets.
Page’s position as a Trump adviser has catapulted him into the most prestigious policy events, such as a closed-door session co-chaired by former secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright and Republican consultant Vin Weber at Cambridge University in July. After his speech at the New Economic School in Moscow, Page spoke briefly with another speaker, Arkady Dvorkovich, who is a graduate of the school, deputy to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and now chairman of the Russian Railways board.
Page also went to the Republican National Convention, where he attended a session held by the International Republican Institute and a separate, sponsored foreign policy event.
Page has left a trail of blog posts on the Global Policy Journal that has traditional foreign policy experts scratching their heads. For example, on Feb. 10, 2015, he compared the 2015 National Security Strategy rationale for imposing sanctions on Russia to an 1850 publication offering slaveholders guidance on how to produce “the ideal slave.”
After the Obama administration added Rosneft Chairman Igor Sechin to its sanctions list in 2014, limiting Sechin’s ability to travel to the United States or do business with U.S. firms, Page praised the former deputy prime minister, considered one of Putin’s closest allies over the past 25 years. “Sechin has done more to advance U.S.-Russian relations than any individual in or out of government from either side of the Atlantic over the past decade,” Page wrote.
Since being named as a member of the Trump team in March, Page’s background in Russia has raised questions about potential conflicts of interest.
During his interview with Bloomberg News, he said that he owns shares of Gazprom and that his stock portfolio had suffered since 2014, when the United States and Europe imposed economic sanctions on Russia after its annexation of the Crimean Peninsula.
In his Moscow speech in July, Page suggested that investment was the key to better relations. He said the United States should provide Russia with “emerging technologies and potential capital market access contingent upon the U.S.’s refocus toward resolution of domestic challenges.” Russia would, in turn, approve “collaborative partnerships in the energy industry and other diversified sectors.”
“So many people who I know and have worked with have been so adversely affected by the sanctions policy,” Page told Bloomberg News. “There’s a lot of excitement in terms of the possibilities for creating a better situation.” While acknowledging his own investments in Russia, Page told Bloomberg News his work on the campaign was unlikely to help his portfolio.
All holdings in Russia by members of the Trump team should be fully disclosed, said Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia under Obama who is now teaching at Stanford University.
‘Refreshing to Russian ears’
Trump is not the first national political figure to suggest improved relations with Russia; Obama and Clinton advocated a “reset” a few years ago, which they have since abandoned. Trump is also not alone in seeking more military spending from U.S. allies in Europe. But he is the first to cast doubt on NATO’s mutual defense commitment or to request help from Russia in undermining his opponent.
“I think what we are offering is a very clear, mature, adult, realistic view of the world,” said Sam Clovis, an Iowa talk-show host and former Senate candidate who backs Trump and makes the case for rethinking U.S. commitments around the globe.
The Republican platform committee at the party’s convention last month was one place Trump campaign aides have promoted that view, according to national security experts who were there. They said Trump campaign staffers weakened language that would have called for military support of Ukraine.
“It was troubling to me that they would want to water down language that supports a country that has been invaded by an aggressive neighbor,” said Rachel Hoff, a member of the platform committee.“I think the U.S. should properly come to Ukraine’s aid in that struggle. In the past, that would not be considered a controversial Republican position.”
Manafort denied on “Meet the Press” this week that the campaign had sought to alter platform language related to Russia. However, those present said they negotiated directly with people who worked for the campaign.
Democrats, however, have suggested something more sinister lies behind Trump’s unusual views on Russia. McFaul, who reviewed Page’s early July speech in Moscow, said he disagreed with the content and added that he knew of no precedent for a presidential campaign adviser publicly criticizing U.S. policy in a foreign capital. The ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), has said that the Russian ties of Trump’s advisers show that the “Kremlin has tentacles into the Trump campaign.”
Meanwhile, in Moscow, all this is being watched closely.
“I think Donald Trump is a very interesting internal American phenomenon,” said Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs and chairman of the presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy. He said that in July, Page had not established contacts with the Kremlin and had only met with some university professors for informal coffees.
“I don’t think he has any direct support here,” Lukyanov said of Trump. “What he’s saying sounds very much refreshing to Russian ears. If he by chance were elected president, I think many people in Russia would love it.”
First Donald Trump said that he wanted to block nearly all foreign Muslims from entering the United States. More recently, he decided to stop using the word “Muslim” as he called for halting immigration from countries with high rates of terrorism, although he has yet to say which countries that would include.
At a rally in Portland, Maine, on Thursday afternoon, Trump provided a lengthy explanation of why he thinks the United States needs to be skeptical of immigrants from many countries, even if they follow the legal process. Reading from notes, Trump listed nearly a dozen examples of immigrants, refugees or students who came to the United States legally — often applying for and receiving citizenship — and then plotted to kill Americans, sometimes successfully doing so. The countries that he referenced in these examples: Somalia, Morocco, Uzbekistan (he asked the crowd where it was located), Syria, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Iraq, Pakistan and Yemen (which he pronounced “yay-men”). Trump’s staff has yet to confirm if there are countries from which the nominee wants to limit immigration.
“We’re letting people come in from terrorist nations that shouldn’t be allowed because you can’t vet them,” Trump said. “There’s no way of vetting them. You have no idea who they are. This could be the great Trojan horse of all time.”
At another point in the rally, Trump said: “Hillary Clinton wants to have them come in by the hundreds of thousands, just remember. This has nothing to do with politics, folks. This is a whole different level. This has to do with pure, raw stupidity. Okay?”
Trump has long called for a crackdown on illegal immigration, which he has framed as a national security concern. In his announcement speech last year, Trump described illegal Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals. At numerous rallies, mothers and fathers whose children have been killed by illegal immigrants have shared their heartbreaking stories. Trump has said that building a wall along the border with Mexico will not only keep out illegal immigrants but also criminals, drug traffickers and terrorists. And he has proposed deporting the millions of immigrants illegally living here, starting with those who have committed crimes.
For more than 10 months, Trump has opposed allowing any Syrian refugees into the country because they could be terrorists, and he has promised to kick out all Syrian refugees currently in the country. In December, Trump called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.” Last month Trump said that his position on banning Muslims has “gotten bigger,” as he’s now focusing on territories with terrorism problems. Last week Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity: “People don’t want me to say ‘Muslim.’ I guess I prefer not saying it, frankly, myself. So we’re talking about territories.” But he has yet to say which territories he would target.
About 13 percent of 318.9 million people living in the United States in 2014 were immigrants, according to the Migration Policy Institute, which is a massive increase from 1970, when the rate was less than 5 percent. Mexico is the most common home-nation of these immigrants, followed by India, China and the Philippines.
Within minutes of taking the stage in Maine on Thursday afternoon, Trump warned the crowd of outsiders “pouring into our country,” and he promised to build a wall along the border. He was interrupted by protesters who held up pocket-sized copies of the Constitution. The crowd booed and then chanted: “USA! USA! USA!”
As the protesters were led away, Trump resumed: “A Trump rally is the safest place in our country to be. Believe me. Believe me. Right? It is safe. But if we keep going the way it is, our whole country is becoming different.”
Trump warned the crowd that “radical Islamic terrorism” is the “most important issues facing civilization right now” and that the United States has to be more careful in allowing foreigners to visit or move here.
“We’ve just seen many, many crimes getting worse all the time, and as Maine knows — a major destination for Somali refugees. Right? Am I right?” Trump said, as the crowd affirmed what he had said. “Well, they’re all talking about it: Maine. Somali. Refugees. We admit hundreds of thousands, you admit into Maine, and to other places in the United States. Hundreds of thousands of refugees, and they’re coming from among the most dangerous territories and countries anywhere in the world — right? — a practice which has to stop. It has to stop… This is a practice that has to stop.”
To back up this point, Trump rattled through a list of cautionary examples — nearly all of which appear on a list of 26 examples released in November by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a senior member of the Judiciary Committee who chairs an immigration subcommittee. Sessions has closely advised Trump for months and one of his former aides, Stephen Miller, is now a senior policy adviser to Trump and often speaks at Trump’s rallies about the dangers of immigration. In nearly each example, Trump noted that the suspect in question came to the United States legally and was granted citizenship.
“They’re the ones we know about. There are so many that we don’t know about. You’re going to have problems like you’ve never seen,” Trump said. “We don’t know where these people are. You know when the government puts them around… for the most part, very few people know where they even are. We don’t even know where they are located. I’m telling you, I’ve said it before: This could be the great Trojan horse of all time. They’re coming in. They’re coming in.”
Here are the examples Trump gave:
Somalia: Trump referenced a Washington Times article about thousands of Somali refugees resettling in Minnesota and “creating an enclave of immigrants with high unemployment that is both stressing the state’s safety net and creating a rich pool of potential recruiting targets for Islamist terror groups.” The article quotes a FBI official saying Minnesota has seen recruitment videos targeted at Somalis in their state but that authorities have been working closely with the Somali community. “It’s happening,” Trump said. “It’s happening. You see it, you read about it. You can see it.” (You can read the full article here: “Feds’ relocation of Somali refugees stresses Minn. welfare, raises terror fears.”)
Chechnya: Trump noted that Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the so-called Boston bombers, came to the United States ” through the political asylum process.” Trump did not mention that the brothers were from Chechnya, but he noted that the younger brother became a naturalized U.S. citizen on Sept.11, 2012, while the older brother had an application pending. “Oh that’s wonderful, right?” Trump said. “We take them. We take them.”
Pakistan: Trump referenced the mass shooting in San Bernardino, although he didn’t mention the residency status of the married couple accused of murdering their coworkers. Syed Rizwan Farook was a U.S. citizen, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, was a permanent resident from Pakistan. At other rallies, Trump has questioned why Malik was allowed to come to the United States on a “fiancee visa.”
Morocco: Trump said that a “Moroccan national on a student visa… was arrested for plotting to blow up a university and a federal courthouse.” Some background that Trump didn’t include: Federal authorities began investigating El Mehdi Semlali Fathi, a native of Morocco who was living in Connecticut on a long-expired student visa. Fathi told a friend he wanted to use “toy planes” to bomb a university and a federal building, but he was never arrested on terrorism-related charges. Instead, Fathi was arrested on immigration-related charges, and in October 2014, he was sentenced to 24 months of imprisonment for fabricating a refugee application. He was set to be deported upon his release.
Uzbekistan: Trump said that a Uzbek refugee living in Idaho — he paused to ask the audience: “You know where that is? You know where that is, huh?” — was arrested and charged with “teaching terror recruits how to build bombs.” Trump opined: “Oh, wonderful, wonderful. I don’t want them in this country.” Fazliddin Kurbanov was arrested in 2013 and charged with teaching people to build bombs that would target public transportation. Earlier this year he was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Syria: Trump said that an immigrant from Syria, who received U.S. citizenship, planned to killed solders on a military base. He was likely referring to Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud, who was born in Somalia and became a naturalized U.S. citizen, settling in Ohio but traveling to Syria to allegedly train with a terrorist organization. Mohamud was indicted on terrorism charges in April 2015, with prosecutors stating that he “wanted to go to a military base in Texas and kill three or four American soldiers execution style.”
Again, Somalia: Trump mentioned the Oregon college student who plotted to blow up a Christmas tree during a lighting ceremony, noting that he was a Somalian refugee who gained citizenship. In October 2014, Mohamed Osman Mohamud was sentenced to 30 years in prison for trying to use a weapon of mass destruction.
Afghanistan and the Philippines: Trump said an immigrant from Afghanistan who became a U.S. citizen and a legal permanent resident from the Philippines were convicted of “plotting to join Al-Quada and the Taliban in order to kill as many Americans as possible.” In February 2015, Sohiel Omar Kabir, originally of Afghanistan, and Ralph Deleon, a citizen of the Philippines who was a lawful permanent U.S. resident, were sentenced to 300 months in federal prison for participating in plots to provide material support to terrorists and kill American military members.
Iraq: Trump said an Iraqi immigrant who applied for and received U.S. citizenship was arrested for lying to federal authorities about pledging allegiance to ISIS and his travels to Syria and wanting to “kill as many Americans as possible, didn’t care how.” Bilal Abood, who worked for the U.S. military as a translator during the Iraq War, was sentenced to four years in federal prison in May for lying to the FBI about traveling to Syria and sending a tweet that pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Islamic State. Abood testified that he traveled to Syria to fight with the Free Syrian Army, which opposes the Islamic State, according to the Dallas Morning News. During the sentencing, the judge said there no evidence suggesting Abood was planning a terrorist attack.
Again, Pakistan: Trump said two immigrants from Pakistan who became citizens were sentenced to “decades-long prison terms for plotting to detonate a bomb in the middle of New York City.” In June 2015, brothers Raees Alam Qazi and Sheheryar Alam Qazi were sentenced to 35 years and 20 years in prison for plotting a terrorist attack in New York City in 2012 and assaulting two deputy U.S. marshals while in custody.
Yemen: Trump said an immigrant from Yemen was arrested for trying to join the Islamic State and illegally buying firearms to “kill as many military personnel as possible.” A version of Jeff Sessions’ list states that this happened in September 2014 but provided no links to additional information.
Under a Trump presidency, legal immigrants could have their 14th amendment rights of equal protection gutted so some hick in middle-American is able to “feel” safer.
And I stress “feel” when talking about safety and the Trump supporter because no matter how strongly they “feel” it isn’t going change reality. We have over 100 years of studies which show immigrants are less likely to commit serious crimes or be behind bars than the native-born, and high rates of immigration are associated with lower rates of violent crime and property crime.
“But! But! But, there was that one Mexican who killed that poor girl in that evil sanctuary city San Francisco!” is what you the Trump supporter are thinking in your head right now. But you’re wrong. While that individual incident was indeed tragic, you are so wrong and you need to know why now. You are falling into the trap of a small sample size. Every day 91 Americans are murdered, just by guns alone, so by the time you’ve finished reading this chances are some native-born American killed someone else with a gun.
So we look at data. And larger trends. And facts. Not emotions. We look at data that violent crime is on the decline, and has been for decades. The data shows violent crime has decreased 50% since 1990. I can say that not because I “feel” like it’s dropped, but because the statistics from the FBI prove it has.
Not emotions. Evidence.
So when you hear Trump in his speeches and interviews when he uses this language to make you afraid, afraid of your family, afraid of your neighbors, afraid of people you’ve never met but who have a love of this country that rivals yours, remember he his doing this because he believes you are too stupid. Trump is betting, just as he did in the Republican primaries, that you’re so dumb that you’ll take whatever he says at face value, neglect you’ll use the same logic and critical thinking that you apply to everything else in your life, and be afraid.
So think really hard about your vote. Think about what you “feel” and what you know is fact.
In his Twitter account, Donald Trump fired off a tweet blasting President Obama’s decision-making for causing ISIS and a horrible economy, claims that are as far from reality as one can get.
Obama's disastrous judgment gave us ISIS, rise of Iran, and the worst economic numbers since the Great Depression!
What was crazy about Trump’s claims, that we are seeing worst economic numbers since the Great Depression, is that there is no reading of any data that puts our economy at the same level of the Great Depression or even the Great Recession.
Also there was this little thing of the Labor Department’s monthly jobs and economic report released just a day after Trump’s tweet which shows a bright economic outlook. Whoops!
The even crazier claim in Trump’s tweet was how “Obama gave us ISIS.” A quick history lesson, ISIS was formed in 1999 and greatly expanded in 2003 by former members of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party who were out of a job after the George W. Bush-lead invasion of Iraq, which was based on faulty evidence. Donald Trump (as well as Fox News) can’t rewrite history here, Barack Obama was not a United States Senator until 2005, two years after the start of the invasion.
Fact is, over the past 2 years ISIS has been, losing ground, pushed out of key cities, and cut off from revenue producing oil fields. While ISIS still has the ability to inspire attacks in other countries, the multi-nation military response is working.
Finally, the “rise of Iran” may sound scary to some on first read, but as experts at think-tanks and NATO have argued, their rise is unsustainable, short lived, and a good thing as it will help towards stabilizing the Middle-East.
Former Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski revived long-debunked “birther” conspiracy theories about President Obama, suggesting he didn’t release his Harvard transcript as a candidate because it may have shown he was not born in the US.
The conversation on CNN Tonight with Don Lemon Tuesday began with commentator Angela Rye noting that Trump has been attacking Obama since before the election season. She added that the Republican presidential candidate demanded Obama release his birth certificate and college transcripts to prove he was an American citizen.
“Did he ever release his transcripts from Harvard?” Lewandowski, also a CNN commentator, responded.
“By the way, tell me about those tax returns, Corey,” Rye quipped back.
Following rumors that Obama was not born in the United States, the White house released the president’s long-form birth certificate in 2011, showing he was indeed born in Hawaii.
Lewandowski pressed Rye further, repeating his question again.
“You raised the issue. I’m just asking,” Lewandowski said. “You raised the issue. Did he, did he ever release his transcripts or his admission to Harvard University? You raised the issue, so just yes or no? The answer is no.”
“At this moment I’m going to Beyoncé you,” Rye said. “Boy bye.”
At that point, Lemon interrupted, asking about the importance of Obama’s Harvard transcript.
“Look, the only reason it’s germane is because she brought the issue up, and said Donald Trump raised the issue of his Harvard transcripts,” Lewandowski said. “And I just simply said, ‘Have those ever been released?’ And the question was, ‘Did he get in as a US citizen, or was he brought in to Harvard University as a citizen who wasn’t from this country?’ I don’t know the answer.”
When asked later by Rye where Lewanowski thinks Obama is from, he acknowledged the president is from Hawaii.
As Fox News reported on the controversial transfer of $400 million in cash to Iran in January, it repeatedly played dark, grainy footage of shadowy figures walking off a small private plane with bags in hand. The video is often labeled as being from Jan. 17 in Geneva where three Americans first landed after being released from prison in Tehran.
Republican nominee Donald Trump watched this sort of footage, according to his spokeswoman, and concluded that it showed the controversial money transfer that was described in detail for the first time this week by the Wall Street Journal. At a rally in Daytona Beach, Fla., on Wednesday afternoon, Trump announced that the months-old video had been recorded by the Iranian government and released to embarrass the United States.
“Remember this: Iran — I don’t think you heard this anywhere but here — Iran provided all of that footage, the tape of taking that money off the airplane,” Trump said at the rally. “Right?”
Trump provided no source for this exclusive information but described in detail what he saw in the video.
“Now, here’s the amazing thing: Over there, where that plane landed, top secret, you don’t have a lot of paparazzi. You know, the paparazzi doesn’t do so well over there, right?” Trump said, seeming to refer to Iran and not Switzerland, where the footage was recorded. “And they have a perfect tape, done by obviously a government camera, and the tape is of the people taking the money off the plane. Right? That means that in order to embarrass us further, Iran sent us the tapes. Right? It’s a military tape; it’s a tape that was a perfect angle, nice and steady, nobody getting nervous because they’re gonna be shot because they’re shooting a picture of money pouring off a plane.”
Twitter quickly filled with confusion and this central question: What is Trump talking about?
Several senior U.S. officials involved in the Iran negotiations told the Associated Press on Wednesday they weren’t aware of any such footage. There was speculation that perhaps Trump saw the footage during one of the classified security briefings provided to presidential nominees, but Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort said in an interview on Fox News earlier in the day that those briefings have not yet begun.
The Washington Post asked Trump’s staff to explain what Trump was talking about and emailed a link to a Fox News clip that showed the January footage from Geneva, asking if that was the video the nominee saw.
“Yes,” spokeswoman Hope Hicks responded in an email. “Merely the b-roll footage included in every broadcast.”
Donald Trump later repeated this false claim at another rally in Portland, Maine. Then after being corrected by about every news agency Trump admitted his error in an early-morning tweet Friday, without actually saying he was wrong.
There was nothing secret or clandestine about the $400 transfer of cash to Iran as it was made public early this year.
The $400 million payment — part of an overall $1.7 billion settlement of claims — was announced by the State Department on Jan. 17, the same day that President Obama announced the release of the detainees.
The U.S. had no way to directly deliver cold hard currency to Iran. Rather, the pallets traveled to Switzerland and the money was eventually transferred to Iran.
Donald Trump asked a foreign policy expert advising him why the U.S. can’t use nuclear weapons, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said on the air, citing an unnamed source who claimed he had spoken with the GOP presidential nominee.
“Several months ago, a foreign policy expert on the international level went to advise Donald Trump. And three times [Trump] asked about the use of nuclear weapons. Three times he asked at one point if we had them why can’t we use them,” Scarborough said on his “Morning Joe” program.
Scarborough made the Trump comments during an interview with former Director of Central Intelligence and ex-National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden, who mentioned he knows of no peers that is advising Donald Trump.
Scarborough then asked a hypothetical question to Hayden about how quickly nuclear weapons could be deployed if a president were to give approval.
“It’s scenario dependent, but the system is designed for speed and decisiveness. It’s not designed to debate the decision,” Hayden said.
Hayden was CIA director from 2006 to 2009 during the George W. Bush presidency. He was the National Security Agency director from 1999 to 2005, spanning the presidencies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
CNBC and others reached out to the Trump campaign via email and was awaiting a response.
The GOP presidential nominee jumped on an interesting report in the Wall Street Journal that the Obama administration shipped $400 million in cash to Iran at about the same time that four Americans being held in Iran were released after negotiations.
Our incompetent Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, was the one who started talks to give 400 million dollars, in cash, to Iran. Scandal!
Trump is simply wrong that Clinton started the talks that led to the release of $400 million to Iran. She initiated the talks on Iran’s nuclear program, but that’s as far as her involvement goes. Iran’s claim for the $400 million was made long before Clinton took office — and was resolved after she left.
Clinton stepped down as secretary of state in early 2013. The deal involving the American detainees — including The Washington Post’s Jason Rezaian — was announced in January this year, three years after the end of her tenure. Clinton did initiate negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program — though substantial talks with Iran did not take place until after she left.
The $400 million payment — part of an overall $1.7 billion settlement of claims — was also announced by the State Department on Jan. 17, the same day that President Obama announced the release of the detainees. (He also made reference to a settlement of claims without mentioning a dollar figure.)
