Category: Authoritarian

Trump Abruptly Drops John Ratcliffe As DNI Nominee Amid Political Headwinds

President Trump abruptly dropped his intention to nominate Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, to serve as director of national intelligence on Friday.

Coolness from Senate Republicans and reports in the press about past overstatements about Ratcliffe’s record appear to have prompted the White House to calculate that it was wiser to cut bait now than try to press ahead against those headwinds.

Trump wrote on Twitter that Ratcliffe had been treated “unfairly” in media coverage and that he’d told the congressman it might be easier to just stay in the House.

Trump also wrote that he would announce another nominee to become director of national intelligence “shortly.”

The position is to become vacant with the resignation of Dan Coats, with whom Trump never developed a rapport.

Tensions between the president and the intelligence community also appear to have worsened over the Ratcliffe episode, as people in the spy world made clear via the newspaper coverage how unqualified they believed he is and how unwelcome he would be atop the sprawling alphabet soup of domestic and foreign spy agencies.

The feeling is clearly mutual: The New York Times reported on Friday that Trump has at least once barred Coats’ deputy, Sue Gordon, from the Oval Office and that the White House might attempt to stop her from serving as the interim DNI during the interregnum after Coats’ departure.

Gordon is an intelligence community lifer with some three decades of experience and has served as the day-to-day, hands-on manager. Her supporters faulted what appeared to be a scheme to deny her at least an interim role in the top job, which they argue is owed her by law.

Senate intelligence committee ranking member Mark Warner, D-Va., told the Times the idea of denying Gordon was “outrageous.”

As for Ratcliffe, he thanked Trump in a Twitter post following the one Trump used to announce he would no longer be nominated. Ratcliffe also said he would have been a candid and professional director of national intelligence, following worries that he was being installed as a political lackey.

[NPR]

Trump praises North Korean dictator’s ‘great and beautiful’ vision for his country

Donald Trump has heaped fresh affection on North Korea’s Kim Jong-un– praising his “great and beautiful” vision for the country.

Earlier this week, the US president played down the significance of a series of short-range missile tests carried out by Pyongyang, saying they were “very standard” and would not impact his ongoing diplomatic engagement with Mr Kim.

Speaking to reporters before he left the White House for a rally in Ohio, Mr Trump was asked about the missile tests, the latest of which was fired from North Korea’s South Hamgyong province.

“I think it’s very much under control, very much under control,” he said, saying the tests were of short-range missiles. “We never made an agreement on that. I have no problem. We’ll see what happens. But these are short-range missiles. They are very standard.”

Mr Trump, who in June made history by becoming the first sitting US president to visit North Korea when he met Mr Kim at the demilitarised zone between the two countries on the Korean peninsula and stepped into the north, on Friday repeated his claim the missile tests were not a problem.

“Kim Jong-un and North Korea tested 3 short range missiles over the last number of days. These missiles tests are not a violation of our signed Singapore agreement, nor was there discussion of short range missiles when we shook hands,” he said on Twitter. 

He added: “I may be wrong, but I believe that chairman Kim has a great and beautiful vision for his country, and only the United States, with me as president, can make that vision come true.

“He will do the right thing because he is far too smart not to, and he does not want to disappoint his friend, president Trump!”

Mr Trump’s outreach to the North Korean dictator, accused of overseeing widespread human rights abuses, has divided opinion. 

Some have accused the president of giving legitimacy to the North Korean regime, while securing little in return. 

Others, including some of those who frequently criticised the president, have praised his outreach, and said it is better the nuclear-armed nations are talking to each other, after decades of hostility and mutual suspicion.

[The Independent]

Trump responds to reports of Cummings’s Baltimore home being robbed: ‘Too bad!’

President Trump responded early Friday to reports that Rep. Elijah Cummings’s (D-Md.) Baltimore home was broken into, tweeting that the reported incident was “really bad news” and “too bad!”

“Really bad news! The Baltimore house of Elijah Cummings was robbed. Too bad!” Trump tweeted.

Trump’s early morning remark came just days after he sent more than a dozen tweets criticizing the House Oversight and Reform Committee chairman, accusing Cummings of being a “brutal bully” and saying his district, which includes parts of West Baltimore, was “rat and rodent infested” and a “very dangerous & filthy place” where “no human being would want to live.”

His attack on the longtime Democratic lawmaker was seen as the latest in a line of statements aimed at minority members of Congress, which some Democrats have denounced as racist.

Trump has insisted on multiple occasions that he is the “least racist person anywhere in the world.” 

Cummings has spoken out against Trump repeatedly on various issues surrounding his administration and chairs a committee that has pursued aggressive investigations into the Trump administration.

The burglary, which police said occurred early Saturday morning, reportedly happened just hours before the president’s initial tweet about Cummings.

“At this time, it is unknown if any property was taken from the location,” a spokesman for Baltimore police told news outlets on Thursday.

[The Hill]

Pentagon puts $10B contract on hold after Trump swipe at Amazon

The Pentagon is slamming the brakes on its mega-competition to award a $10 billion cloud computing contract after President Donald Trump suggested the Defense Department might have rigged the contest in favor of Amazon, a frequent target of his criticism.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who assumed his post July 23, is now reviewing accusations of unfairness in the fiercely fought competition, the Pentagon announced Thursday, marking the president’s latest incursion into the arcane world of Defense Department contracting. Oracle has reportedly waged an aggressive lobbying campaign to push back on the competition, now pitting Amazon against Microsoft, including talking with members of Congress and preparing a graphic that made its way to the president’s desk.

“Secretary Esper is committed to ensuring our warfighters have the best capabilities, including Artificial Intelligence, to remain the most lethal force in the world, while safeguarding taxpayer dollars,” Elissa Smith, a Pentagon spokesperson, said in a statement Thursday. “Keeping his promise to Members of Congress and the American public, Secretary Esper is looking at the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) program. No decision will be made on the program until he has completed his examination.”

The latest scrape once again pits Trump against Amazon, whose founder and CEO Jeff Bezos also owns The Washington Post and has become a growing powerbroker in the D.C. region.

The review is expected to delay the award of the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, contract, which the Pentagon had hoped to award in August. JEDI would give the Pentagon a single, secure cloud computing system for data ranging from personnel statistics to intelligence information, instead of the more than 500 clouds used by different parts of the military today.

The contracting process has been plagued by controversy that pre-dates Trump’s involvement, including allegations by rival bidders that the competition unfairly favored Amazon because of perceived conflicts of interest. Companies have also raised issues with the Pentagon’s decision to choose just one company for the contract, citing a lack of competition and security concerns. Four companies — Oracle, IBM Corp., Amazon and Microsoft — initially bid for the winner-take-all contract. Amazon and Microsoft are the only two finalists.

[Politico]

Trump Offered Putin U.S. Help Fighting Wildfires, Kremlin Says

Donald Trump called Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday to offer U.S. help fighting Siberian wildfires, the Kremlin said in a statement.

Putin thanked Trump for the offer but said a group of airplanes had been formed in Siberia to fight the fires, according to a translation of the statement. Putin said that Trump’s call was a signal that “in the future, it will be possible to restore full-format relations between the two countries.”

The White House later confirmed the call and said that the two leaders also discussed trade.

Relations between the U.S. and Russia deteriorated after American intelligence agencies determined that the Kremlin interfered in the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf. The U.S. issued sanctions against Russia both for the election interference and the attempted murder of a former Russian spy in the U.K. that the British government blamed on the Kremlin.

Trump has nonetheless tried to maintain a personal friendship with Putin. The two leaders agreed to continue discussions by phone and in meetings, the Kremlin statement said.

Putin ordered the Russian military to help fight the Siberian fires earlier on Wednesday. Russia has declared a state of emergency in four Siberian districts because of the fires. Plumes of smoke visible from space have stretched across the region to the Ural mountains thousands of miles away.

June temperatures in the Siberian districts were about 10 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius) above the 30-year average from 1981 to 2010. About 3 million hectares were burning as of Wednesday, according to the country’s Federal Forestry Agency.

Wildfires in the U.S. haven’t always drawn sympathy from the American president.

Trump sparked outrage last year as wildfires devastated parts of California by insisting that poor forest management by the state’s Democratic leaders was to blame. He threatened to withhold federal money for maintaining the forests even as the fires raged through Butte County north of Sacramento, effectively destroying the town of Paradise and killing dozens of people.

After a backlash, Trump softened his tone and approved an expedited request for disaster aid.

Nevertheless, Trump has proposed cutting the U.S. Forest Service’s funding for the national forest system by as much as 19%. Some of the programs designed to reduce wildfire risk, including restoring forest landscapes and the Integrated Resource Restoration Pilot, would be eliminated altogether.

[Bloomberg]


Trump Claims He’s ‘Least Racist Person’ While Calling Don Lemon ‘Dumbest Man’ On TV

President Donald Trump lambasted CNN’s Don Lemon as “dumb” and “stupid” after the Democratic debate moderator asked questions about the president’s “bigotry” on Tuesday.

Trump called Lemon, who is black, “the dumbest man on television” on Twitter Wednesday, an insult he has used against the CNN anchor in the past.

The president also insisted he is “the least racist person in the world,” appearing to quote himself. In the last month, he has unleashed racist attacks on four Democratic congresswomen of color, as well as Rep. Elijah Cummings and the predominantly black city of Baltimore.

Lemon asked a series of questions regarding the current administration and race during Tuesday night’s Democratic presidential debate on CNN.

He asked former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, and later former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, about Trump’s race baiting: “President Trump is pursuing a reelection strategy based in part, on racial division. How do you convince primary voters that you’d be the best nominee to take on President Trump and heal the racial divide in America?”

O’Rourke responded that we should “call his racism out for what it is, and also talk about its consequences.”

“It doesn’t just offend our sensibilities to hear him say ‘send her back,’ about a member of Congress, because she’s a woman color, because she’s a Muslim-American, doesn’t just offend our sensibilities when he calls Mexican immigrants ‘rapists and criminals,’ or seeks to ban all Muslims from the shores of a country that’s comprised of people from the world over, from every tradition of faith,” said the Texan.

Lemon also asked Sen. Amy Klobuchar what she’d “say to those Trump voters who prioritize the economy over the president’s bigotry?”

Klobuchar responded that “there are people that voted for Donald Trump before that aren’t racist; they just wanted a better shake in the economy. And so I would appeal to them,” before adding: “I don’t think anyone can justify what this president is doing.”

Trump’s attack on Lemon echoed comments from right-wing commentators, including Fox News’ Howard Kurtz and Laura Ingraham, who questioned why Lemon would say Trump “traffics in racial division.”

O’Rourke tweeted Wednesday that “Donald Trump is a racist,” alongside a video of his response to Lemon’s question.

[Huffington Post]

In C-SPAN Interview, Trump Hits Fox News and John Roberts for Covering Protester at Speech

President Donald Trump once again complained tonight about Fox News covering a protester at his Jamestown speech this morning.

A Virginia state legislator interrupted the president’s speech in protest of Trump’s “racism and bigotry.”

Trump complained directly to Roberts during a Q&A with reporters this afternoon. Roberts subsequently responded to the president on air saying, “In my 1:00 report, we did not show anything from the president’s speech because we were focused in that report on the ongoing feud between the president and Congressman Elijah Cummings of Maryland and the fallout from that, but it should be pointed out that in our 11:00 hour the Fox News Channel carried that speech in its entirety.”

Whether or not Trump saw that from Roberts, he’s clearly still steamed.

Trump was asked by C-SPAN’s Steve Scully about his tweets on Baltimore and whether he is a uniter as president.

Trump went from talking about the “tremendous divide” between the parties to decrying the “Russian hoax” and defending Mitch McConnell to touting his administration’s accomplishments.

“But they read the tweets,” Scully said. “Do they think you’re a uniter as president?”

Trump said he “wouldn’t need to” tweet if the press covered him fairly.

And then he complained about Fox:

“There was one protester who stood up… he held up a sign and he said whatever he said. Something… I don’t need publicity, Steve, at all, but I just thought it was so terrible, and it was on Fox with John Roberts. He talked about the protester for almost an entire segment of that. And I said isn’t that a shame. One guy stands up, not an impressive person, he stood up and he got all of this –– he took the whole thing away. One person.”

[Mediaite]

Media

Trump Rips NBC for ‘Negative’ Coverage: ‘I Made a Lot of Money’ for Them With The Apprentice

President Donald Trump sat down with C-SPAN’s Steve Scully for an interview that ended up touching on the media in a few different ways.

As Scully asked the president about his Twitter habits and whether he regrets it, Trump talked about using Twitter as a tool to communicate directly with the people and hit back at the “dishonest” news.

He called CNN “100 percent negative” and then went on a tear against NBC:

“NBC is negative. I made a lot of money for NBC with The Apprentice. It was a tremendous success at a time when they didn’t have any successes. But they forgot about that very quickly. And they wanted to extend me… I wanted to run for president, I think I’ve done a great job.”

[Mediaite]

Media

Trump grows furious when reporter points out his dismal approval numbers from black Americans

President Donald Trump on Tuesday grew visibly angry after a reporter informed him that a recent poll showed that the vast majority of black Americans believe he is a racist.

While talking with reporters on the White House lawn, one reporter asked the president why 80 percent of black voters in a Quinnipiac poll said that he was racist. The same poll also showed that 89 percent of black voters said they would “definitely” not vote for Trump in 2020.

The president responded by blaming the reporter.

“You know why? Because the fake news doesn’t report it properly,” Trump said. “People like you! Fake news does not report it properly! If the news reported it properly, the right way, like instead of a statement like you just made, if the news reported it properly for all of the things I’ve done for African-Americans… I think I’d do very well with the African Americans!”

[Raw Story]

Media

Trump Tags QAnon Supporter During Random Twitter Binge

President Donald Trump inadvertently amplified the QAnon conspiracy theory on Tuesday when he tagged a random supporter in the middle of a Twitter binge.

“We should immediately pass Voter ID to insure the safety and sanctity of our voting system,” Trump wrote. “Also, Paper Ballots as backup (old fashioned but true!). Thank you!”

Washington Post reporter Josh Dawsey decided to look into who Trump tagged when he wrote that tweet, and it just so happens that @Voteridplease is an account which promotes QAnon.

[Mediaite]

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