Author: Stop the Donald Trump

Trump Used the Phrase ‘My Military’ – Defense Community Not Amused

President Donald Trump ruffled some feathers on Thursday with his choice of words when describing an overseas military operation.

The comments came when a White House press pool reporter asked Trump if he had personally authorized the deployment of the 21,000-pound bomb that was dropped on an ISIS tunnel complex.

“Everybody knows exactly what happened. What I do is I authorize my military,” Trump said. “We have the greatest military in the world and they’ve done a job as usual. So we have given them total authorization.”

The phrase “my military” stuck out to members of the defense community, some of whom did not appreciate Trump’s use of the possessive pronoun. Chief among them was Leon Panetta, a former defense secretary and CIA director who served under President Barack Obama.

“When it comes to the military, the military belongs to the country. Our defense system belongs to the country. And it’s not the president’s military, it’s the military of the United States of America,” Panetta said on MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews.”

“He has responsibility obviously, as commander in chief, to be able to make decisions with regards to our military. But I think if you ask the men and women in uniform who they are responsible to, I think their answer would be, ‘We’re responsible to the United States of America.'”

(h/t Business Insider)

Media

Trump Caught Blatantly Lying About Whether He Knew Steve Bannon Before the 2016 Campaign

President Donald Trump told the New York Post on Tuesday that he had never met top political strategist Steve Bannon before Bannon came on to work on his presidential campaign last year.

“I like Steve, but you have to remember he was not involved in my campaign until very late,” Trump said. “I had already beaten all the senators and all the governors, and I didn’t know Steve. I’m my own strategist and it wasn’t like I was going to change strategies because I was facing crooked Hillary.”

However, PolitiFact has found that Trump’s claim to have not known Bannon until last year is completely at odds with what he said when he first announced he was bringing Bannon and top adviser Kellyanne Conway on board to run his campaign.

“I have known Steve and Kellyanne both for many years,”‘ Trump said at the time. “They are extremely capable, highly qualified people who love to win and know how to win.”

Additionally, PolitiFact points to a report from Real Clear Politics’ Rebecca Berg that claims Trump first met Bannon in 2011, while also noting that Trump appeared on Bannon’s talk radio program at least nine different times before Bannon came aboard as his campaign manager.

(h/t Raw Story)

Reality

The Washington Post has clips of Trump appearing on Steve Bannon’s radio show Breitbart News Daily a total of nine times.

Trump on North Korea: “After Listening for 10 Minutes, I Realized It’s Not So Easy”

President Donald Trump recounted an absolutely astounding detail about one of his conversations with Chinese President Xi Jinping in comments published by the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday afternoon. Apparently, Trump came into his first meeting with the Chinese leader, in early April, convinced that China could simply eliminate the threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear program. Xi then patiently explained Chinese-Korean history to Trump — who then promptly changed his mind.

“After listening for 10 minutes, I realized it’s not so easy,” the president told the Journal. “I felt pretty strongly that they had a tremendous power [over] North Korea. … But it’s not what you would think.”

Four quick observations about this:

  1. Trump thought China could fix North Korea until the Chinese president politely informed him that North Korea is in fact complicated.
  2. Trump seems to have required the leader of China to explain basic facts to him that he could have Googled, or at least asked one of the many US government North Korea experts about.
  3. Trump came to a profound realization about one of the most dangerous conflicts on earth after a 10-minute conversation.
  4. Trump is getting his information about East Asian affairs from the leader of America’s largest rival in the region.

Around the same time the Journal piece was published, North Korea informed reporters to prepare for a “big and important event.” Initial reports suggest that Pyongyang is planning to test a nuclear device for just the sixth time in the country’s history. There’s no word yet on how the Trump administration plans to respond.

(h/t Vox)

FBI Monitored Former Trump Campaign Adviser Carter Page on Russia

The FBI obtained a warrant to monitor President Donald Trump’s former campaign adviser, Carter Page, last summer on suspicions he knowingly engaged in clandestine intelligence activities on behalf of Moscow, The Washington Post is reporting.

The FBI and Justice Department obtained a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to monitor the communications of Page, who has called himself a junior member of Trump’s foreign policy advisory team, as part of their investigation into possible ties between Trump’s campaign and Russia, the newspaper says, citing unnamed law enforcement and other US officials.

The FBI and Justice Department obtained the warrant after convincing a FISA judge there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign government (Russia), the report says. The warrant presents the strongest information to date that the FBI had reason to believe a Trump adviser was in touch with Moscow and met with foreign operatives during Trump’s presidential campaign.

FBI Director James Comey has acknowledged that an investigation was opened last year into Russia’s efforts to influence the election and the question of whether the Trump campaign coordinated with the Kremlin. But Comey stopped short of naming anyone working for the campaign who may have been involved.

CNN is working to confirm The Washington Post’s story.

Page, however, called the FISA warrant “unjustified” in a statement to CNN’s Manu Raju.

“There have been various reports [about FISA documents and FBI surveillance of him],” Page said. “But I was so happy to hear that further confirmation is now being revealed. It shows how low the Clinton/Obama regime went to destroy our democracy and suppress dissidents who did not fully support their failed foreign policy. It will be interesting to see what comes out when the unjustified basis for those FISA requests are more fully disclosed over time, including potentially the Dodgy Dossier — a document that clearly is false evidence, which could represent yet another potential crime.”

Page was referring to a leaked dossier of unverified information compiled by a former British intelligence official for Trump’s political opponents. Then-President-elect Trump and President Barack Obama were briefed on the existence of the dossier before Trump’s inauguration, CNN reported.

When asked in March of last year to list members of his foreign policy team in an interview with The Washington Post, Trump included “Carter Page, PhD.”

Page has said he sent policy memos to the campaign and participated in conference calls as well as gatherings that included Trump, but also said he never personally briefed Trump or was in “small meetings” with him during the election. But Trump said at a White House news conference in February that he doesn’t think he ever met Page.

“I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to him,” Trump said. “I don’t think I’ve ever met him. And he actually said he was a very low-level member of I think a committee for a short period of time. I don’t think I ever met him. Now, it’s possible that I walked into a room and he was sitting there, but I don’t think I ever met him.”

Page told CNN he had never shaken Trump’s hand and that by saying he had met with Trump, he had meant meetings in the “Russian sense,” which he said meant he had attended rallies Trump spoke at.

In recent interviews, Page described himself as a “junior member” of Trump’s foreign policy team, and has denied working on any Russia-related policies for the campaign. He also said in February that he is still in contact with some people in the Trump orbit.

(h/t CNN)

Reality

A lot of right-wing news media and Carter Page himself have declared this revelation to be some sort of vindication, that finally there is some proof that Obama wiretapped Donald Trump at Trump Tower during the election.

But first, this is none of those things.

And most importantly, Page should not be excited over this news because you don’t get slapped with a FISA warrant unless the court thinks you could be the agent of a foreign power. U.S. officials convinced a FISA court judge during the presidential campaign that there is probable cause that Page was “knowingly” working as an agent of a foreign government while advising Trump.

Trump: NATO Is ‘No Longer Obsolete’

President Trump on Wednesday said that NATO is “no longer obsolete” — a big change after Trump repeatedly called the alliance obsolete on the campaign trail.

At a joint press conference with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, Trump said that he will continue to work closely with NATO allies, particularly when it comes to fighting terrorism.

“The secretary-general and I had a productive discussion on what more NATO can do in the fight against terrorism,” Trump said at Wednesday’s press conference. “I complained about that a long time ago and they made a change and now they do fight terrorism.”

“I said it was obsolete,” he continued. “It is not longer obsolete.”

During the 2016 campaign and after his election, Trump frequently criticized NATO as “obsolete” and knocked allies for not paying their “fair share.”

At Wednesday’s press conference, Trump reiterated his call that NATO allies “meet their financial obligations and pay what they owe.”

He said he discussed with Stoltenberg his desire that allies fulfill their responsibility to spent 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense by 2024.

Trump will travel to Brussels to attend a NATO summit on May 25.

(h/t The Hill)

Media

In Major Reversal, Trump Says China ‘Not Currency Manipulators’

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he no longer believes China manipulates its currency, a complete shift from the position he repeatedly took during his 2016 campaign.

“They’re not currency manipulators,” Trump told the the Wall Street Journal during an Oval Office interview.

The reason he changed his mind, the president said, was because China has stopped manipulating its currency in recent months and the accusations could jeopardize U.S. negotiations with China to deal with the nuclear threat from North Korea.

Trump’s flip flop comes just days after the president hosted his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, at Mar-a-Lago in southern Florida.

Throughout the campaign, Trump repeatedly said he would instruct his Treasury Secretary to label China “a currency manipulator.” And as recently as 10 days ago, he told the Financial Times that China was the “world champion” of currency manipulators.

The official label would need to be included in a semiannual Treasury report expected this month.

(h/t NBC News)

Jeff Sessions Was Prepared to Call Illegal Immigrants ‘Filth’

During a speech at the U.S.-Mexico border on Tuesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions reiterated his and President Donald Trump’s commitment to cracking down on undocumented immigrants. But one thing was missing from his speech as it was delivered: a phrase referring to criminals who cross the border as “filth,” which appeared in his prepared remarks.

In the text that was published on the Department of Justice website, Sessions told a grim tale of immigrant hordes crossing the border and wreaking havoc on U.S. citizens — a myth that has been debunked time and time again.

“We mean criminal organizations that turn cities and suburbs into warzones, that rape and kill innocent citizens and who profit by smuggling poison and other human beings across our borders,” the speech says. “Depravity and violence are their calling cards, including brutal machete attacks and beheadings. It is here, on this sliver of land, where we first take our stand against this filth.”

But according to Catherine Thompson of Talking Points Memo, Sessions dropped “against this filth” while delivering the speech to border agents in Nogales, Arizona.

In the past, Sessions, like Trump, has enthusiastically expressed discontentwith immigrants and vowed to deport thousands of undocumented immigrants who he’s repeatedly painted as hostile and violent.

As an Alabama Senator, Sessions opposed immigration reform by arguing that immigration “takes jobs from Americans and can, in fact, create cultural problems.” He was one of the most vocal Trump supporters during the 2016 presidential campaign, and supported him after he described Mexicans as bad hombres, rapists, and criminals. And during his first speech as the U.S. Attorney General in February, Sessions said, “We need to end this lawlessness that threatens Americans’ safety and pulls down wages of ordinary Americans.”

Based on the glaring omission on Tuesday, it appears as though Sessions thought the term “filth” would’ve been a step too far.

(h/t ThinkProgress)

Melania Trump Wins Damages From Daily Mail Over ‘Escort’ Allegation

The UK’s Daily Mail newspaper has agreed to pay damages and costs to the first lady of the United States over an article about her modelling career.

The newspaper had reported allegations that Melania Trump once worked as an escort, but later retracted the claims.

The story was published during the US election campaign last year.

Mrs Trump accepted damages and an apology from the newspaper at London’s High Court.

She filed lawsuits against the Daily Mail newspaper in the United Kingdom, and its digital operation Mail Online in the United States.

The US suit, filed last year, sought damages of $150m (£120m). The amount accepted by Mrs Trump in London was not disclosed in court.

However, reports suggest the payout was closer to $3m, including legal costs and damages. It is understood it will also settle the case in New York.

In its apology, the Daily Mail acknowledged it had published “allegations that she provided services beyond simply modelling”.

The article also claimed that Mr and Mrs Trump may have met three years before they actually did, and later “staged” their first meeting.

“We accept that these allegations about Mrs Trump are not true,” the newspaper said.

A lawyer for Mrs Trump told the London court the allegations “strike at the heart of the claimant’s personal integrity and dignity”.

Her lawyer said the double-page spread in August last year, titled “Racy photos and troubling questions about his wife’s past that could derail Trump”, featured an old nude photo of Mrs Trump from her modelling career.

“Readers of the newspaper that day could not fail to miss the article,” he said.

And so the mighty Mail titles have been Trumped.

Well, almost. There are people in the legal profession flabbergasted at the size of the damages that Melania Trump has received from Associated Newspapers.

But given some of the figures bandied about when this case first arose, that isn’t as bad as some at the Mail group may have feared.

Moreover, the Mail are pointing out that they stick by some aspects of their original story, but accept error on the most salacious: that the First Lady was an escort.

It will be interesting to see if this settlement encourages others to be more aggressive toward UK papers, and also whether it helps to spread the trend for legal action across multiple jurisdictions.

Charles Harder, Mrs Trump’s lawyer, also acted for Hulk Hogan when the wrestler brought his $140m (£112m) case against Gawker Media, forcing its sale.

Compared to that, this action is small fry.

Mrs Trump’s lawsuit initially said that Mrs Trump had the “unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity… to launch a broad-based commercial brand in multiple product categories, each of which could have garnered multi-million dollar business relationships for a multi-year term during which [she] is one of the most photographed women in the world”.

Critics used the phrasing to question whether Mrs Trump had plans to make financial gains from her position as first lady.

A second version of the suit, re-filed weeks later, dropped the controversial wording.

Mrs Trump was born Melanija Knavs, in Sevnica, a small town about an hour’s drive from Slovenia’s capital of Ljubljana.

She was signed to a modelling agency in her late teens, and began flying around Europe and the US, appearing in high-profile ad campaigns.

She met Donald Trump in 1998, when she was 28 years old, at a party during New York Fashion week.

They married seven years later.

(h/t BBC News)

Trump Advertises Mar-a-Lago’s Chocolate Cake in Interview

Donald Trump informed the Chinese president that he had launched missile strikes on Syria as the pair ate “the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you have ever seen”, the US president has claimed.

In an interview with Fox Business, Trump offered his first account of how he had broken the news to Xi Jinping as they dined at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida at the start of a two-day bridge-building summit last Thursday.

“I was sitting at the table. We had finished dinner. We are now having dessert. And we had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you have ever seen. And President Xi was enjoying it,” Trump said.

“And I was given the message from the generals that the ships are locked and loaded. What do you do? And we made a determination to do it. So the missiles were on the way.

“And I said: ‘Mr President, let me explain something to you … we’ve just launched 59 missiles, heading to Iraq [sic] … heading toward Syria and I want you to know that.’

“I didn’t want him to go home … and then they say: ‘You know the guy you just had dinner with just attacked [Syria].’”

Asked how the leader of China, which alongside Russia has repeatedly blocked UN resolutions targeting the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, had reacted, Trump said: “He paused for 10 seconds and then he asked the interpreter to please say it again – I didn’t think that was a good sign.”

“And he said to me, anybody that uses gases – you could almost say, or anything else – but anybody that was so brutal and uses gases to do that to young children and babies, it’s OK. He was OK with it. He was OK.”

China has sought to portray last week’s summit – which came after months of tension between Trump’s administration and Beijing – as a resounding triumph.

“The meetings, positive and fruitful, mark a new starting point for the world’s most important bilateral relationship,” Xinhua, China’s official news agency, said in a typically-glowing commentary.

All mention of the US strikes on Syria was relegated from the front pages of state-run newspapers in a bid to prevent Trump’s dramatic military intervention overshadowing Xi’s visit.

Bill Bishop, a Washington-based China expert who tracks the country’s political scene on his Sinocism newsletter, said Beijing would not have welcomed Trump’s decision to break the news over dessert.

“The Chinese generally hate those kinds of surprises. The Chinese would have preferred it hadn’t happened while they were in the US. Clearly it overshadowed the summit,” he said.

But Bishop said Beijing had still managed to capitalise on the Mar-a-Lago meeting by spinning Xi as “Trump’s equal” in China’s domestic media. Beijing would also commemorate how the Syria strikes had driven a wedge between Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin.

“The Chinese have been a little bit worried about some kind of grand bargainwhere the US pivots away from Asia and creates some kind of alliance in Russia against China,” he said.

“So anything, frankly, that increases tensions between the US and Russia and anything that perhaps drags America into a Middle Eastern quagmire is actually pretty good for China because the US is distracted.

“It’s an unsolvable problem. If the US gets sucked into another conflict in the Middle East, it is less likely that the US is going to be focused or have the capacity to really pressure China on certain issues.”

China’s leaders had been losing sleep over Trump’s regular bouts of Beijing-bashing and his decision to make Peter Navarro – who has described China as a “despicable, parasitic, brass-knuckled and totally totalitarian power” – the head of his National Trade Council.

But Bishop said Chinese officials had been encouraged by Navarro’s apparent absence from the Mar-a-Lago talks.

Speaking to Fox Business, Trump claimed he had hit it off with the Chinese president. He said: “I really liked him. We had a great chemistry, I think … Maybe he didn’t like me but I think he liked me … we understand each other.”

Trump had less kind words for Assad. “This is an animal,” he said.

(h/t The Guardian)

Media

Trump Hammers FBI’s Comey For Not Jailing Clinton: ‘She Was Guilty of Every Charge’

President Donald Trump is not happy with FBI Director James Comey for not arresting former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

In an interview with Fox Business, host Maria Bartiromo claimed that many people don’t understand why there are still so many appointees or staff from President Barack Obama’s administration. She was specifically talking about Comey. Still, Trump expressed confidence in the embattled director.

“When Jim Comey came out, he saved Hillary Clinton. He saved her life,” referring to Comey’s declaration that he would not be charging Clinton with a crime.

“When he was reading those charges, she was guilty of every charge, and then he said she was essentially OK,” Trump continued.

Yet, when it comes to the investigation into the Trump campaign and Russia, Trump still has confidence in Comey.

He went on to complain about the obstruction in Congress and pesky things like “the law” that blocks him from doing what he’d like to do. “I wish they’d explain better the obstructionist nature,” he said.

When it comes to former Obama advisor Susan Rice, Trump continued to claim she ordered the unmasking of the name of the American being investigated. These unmaskings are part of the responsibilities of the national security advisor.

“Does anybody really believe that,” Trump said. “What they did is horrible.”

(h/t Raw Story)

Reality

Let’s revisit James Comey’s conclusion from July 2016:

Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case. Prosecutors necessarily weigh a number of factors before bringing charges. There are obvious considerations, like the strength of the evidence, especially regarding intent. Responsible decisions also consider the context of a person’s actions, and how similar situations have been handled in the past.

In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here.

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