Category: Ill-Tempered

Trump claims Obama committed ‘biggest political crime in American history’

Donald Trump continued to fume over the Russia investigation on Sunday, more than a year after special counsel Robert Mueller filed his report without recommending charges against the president but only three days after the justice department said it would drop its case against Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser.

“The biggest political crime in American history, by far!” the president wrote in a tweet accompanying a conservative talk show host’s claim that Barack Obama “used his last weeks in office to target incoming officials and sabotage the new administration”.

The tweet echoed previous messages retweeted by Trump, which earned rebukes for relaying conspiracy theories. On Sunday afternoon the president continued to send out a stream of tweets of memes and rightwing talking heads claiming an anti-Trump conspiracy. One tweet by Trump simply read: “OBAMAGATE!”

Trump fired Flynn, a retired general, in early 2017, for lying to Vice-President Mike Pence about conversations with the Russian ambassador regarding sanctions levied by the Obama administration in retaliation for interference in the 2016 election.

The US intelligence community has long held that such efforts were meant to tip the election towards Trump and away from Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee.

Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI – which Trump has acknowledged – and co-operated with Mueller, who was appointed to take over the investigation of Russian interference after Trump fired FBI director James Comey.

Mueller did not establish a criminal conspiracy but did lay out extensive links between Trump and Moscow and instances of possible obstruction of justice by the president.

Flynn sought to change his plea while awaiting sentencing and the president championed his case, floating a possible pardon. On Thursday, in an act that stunned the US media, attorney general William Barr said the justice department would drop the case entirely.

Trump and his supporters have loudly trumpeted the decision and across Saturday and Sunday the president unleashed a storm of retweets of supporters and conservative commentators attacking targets including Obama, Mueller, Comey and House intelligence committee chair Adam Schiff.

The talkshow host retweeted by the president, Buck Sexton, is a former CIA analyst who now hosts a show which he says “speaks truth to power, and cuts through the liberal nonsense coming from the mainstream media”.

In another message retweeted by the president, Sexton called former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe – who Trump fired just short of retirement – “a dishonorable partisan scumbag who has done incalculable damage to the reputation of the FBI and should be sitting in a cell for lying under oath”.

In February, the US justice department said it would not charge McCabe over claims he lied to investigators about a media leak.

Like Comey, McCabe released a book in which he was highly critical of Trump, who he said acted like a mob boss. McCabe also wrote that Trump had unleashed a “strain of insanity” in American public life.

In his own tweets, Trump did not directly address comments by Obama himself which were reported by Yahoo News. The former president told associates the Flynn decision was “the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic – not just institutional norms – but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk”.

But Trump’s anger was evident.

“When are the Fake Journalists,” he wrote on Sunday, “who received unwarranted Pulitzer Prizes for Russia, Russia, Russia, and the Impeachment Scam, going to turn in their tarnished awards so they can be given to the real journalists who got it right. I’ll give you the names, there are plenty of them!”

The president did not immediately name anyone.

But in 2018 the Pulitzer committee did, awarding its prize for national reporting jointly to the Washington Post and the New York Times for “deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage in the public interest that dramatically furthered the nation’s understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to the Trump campaign, the president-elect’s transition team and his eventual administration.”

Trump has further reason to resent the Pulitzer committee and question its choices.

In 2019, for example, a New York Times team won a Pulitzer for an “exhaustive 18-month investigation of President Donald Trump’s finances that debunked his claims of self-made wealth and revealed a business empire riddled with tax dodges”.

The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, was rewarded for “uncovering President Trump’s secret payoffs to two women during his campaign who claimed to have had affairs with him, and the web of supporters who facilitated the transactions, triggering criminal inquiries and calls for impeachment”.

Trump’s actual impeachment, which he survived at trial in the Senate in February, concerned his attempts to have Ukraine investigate his political rivals. No reporter or news outlet won a 2020 Pulitzer, announced this week, for its coverage of that affair.

Trump’s focus on Sunday remained largely on the Russia investigation despite continuing developments in the coronavirus outbreak, which has infected more than 1.3m Americans and killed nearly 80,000.

With cases confirmed among White House aides close to the president, top public health experts including Dr Anthony Fauci in quarantine and Trump reported by the New York Times to be “spooked”, the president claimed in a rare non-Russia-related tweet: “We are getting great marks for the handling of the CoronaVirus pandemic.”

He also attacked Obama and his vice-president, Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president this year, over their response to the “disaster known as H1N1 Swine Flu” in 2009.

Trump also marked a special day in the calendar, tweeting in trademark capitals: “HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!”

[The Guardian]

Trump argues with nurse in Oval Office after she explains her area still has medical shortages

On Wednesday, at an event in the Oval Office marking National Nurses Day, President Donald Trump derailed a nurse as she tried to explain there are still some parts of the country that don’t have adequate medical supplies to manage COVID-19, according to Bloomberg News.

After a reporter asked nurse volunteer Luke Adams whether he had sufficient medical equipment, he replied that he did. But Sophia Thomas, another nurse at the event who works with the Daughters of Charity Health System in New Orleans, added that she had been reusing a mask for “a few weeks” and that while the situation is overall “manageable,” supplies are “sporadic.”

“Sporadic for you,” Trump interrupted her, but he insisted not for many other people. Thomas agreed that supplies are adequate in other places.

Trump then added that the country is not “loaded up,” and said, “I’ve heard we have tremendous supply to almost all places.” He also baselessly blamed President Barack Obama for the initial shortages.

[Raw Story]

Media

Trump blasts Fox News, says he wants an “alternative” network

President Trump tore into Fox News in a series of tweets on Sunday night, claiming that he has “no respect” for the network’s leadership and that it “keeps on plugging to try and become politically correct.”

Why it matters: It’s the latest chapter in Trump’s love-hate relationship with the network. While he continues to praise and live-tweet several of his favorite Fox News shows, the president has taken a more critical overall tone toward the outlet in recent months.

What he’s tweeting:

“@FoxNews just doesn’t get what’s happening! They are being fed Democrat talking points, and they play them without hesitation or research. They forgot that Fake News @CNN & MSDNC wouldn’t let @FoxNews participate, even a little bit, in the poor ratings Democrat Debates.

Even the Radical Left Do Nothing Democrats laughed at the Fox suggestion. No respect for the people running @FoxNews. But Fox keeps on plugging to try and become politically correct. They put RINO Paul Ryan on their Board. They hire ‘debate questions to Crooked Hillary’ fraud @donnabrazile (and others who are even worse).

Chris Wallace is nastier to Republicans than even Deface the Nation or Sleepy Eyes. The people who are watching @FoxNews, in record numbers (thank you President Trump), are angry. They want an alternative now. So do I!”

Between the lines: Trump has evidently found the “alternative” he’s calling for in One America News Network. He has repeatedly praised the network’s coverage of his administration and has offered favorable treatment to its reporters.

  • Trump tweeted earlier this month: “Watching @FoxNews on weekend afternoons is a total waste of time. We now have some great alternatives, like @OANN.”

[Axios]

Trump Says the Press Is ‘Fomenting Tremendous Anger’ at Briefing: I Get Very ‘Hostile’ Questions

President Donald Trump took a moment during Monday’s coronavirus press briefing to go off on the media again and the “hostile” questions he gets.

After a question from OANN about bipartisanship and his relationship with Democrats, the president said there has been bipartisanship in addressing the economic concerns of the coronavirus pandemic.

He swiped at Speaker Nancy Pelosi a bit and said she’s been “very nasty” and “wasted a lot of time on the impeachment hoax.”

The president also took some shots at the press and complained about getting “hostile” questions:

“The people are really coming together. I think you’re going to find that our country is much more unified. I do think that the press, the media, foments a lot of this, a lot of anger. I really believe it, foments tremendous anger. For instance, I’ll be asked a tremendously hostile question from somebody and then I’ll answer in a hostile way which is appropriate. Otherwise you look foolish. Otherwise it looks like just walk off the stage and bow your head. I can’t do that. You know, I just can’t do that. But a lot of these questions are asked from certain networks are so hostile and there’s no reason for it. There’s no reason for it.”

[Mediaite]

‘You don’t have the brains you were born with’: Defensive Trump goes off on CNN reporter

President Donald Trump unleashed on CNN as a reporter was asking why he comes out to talk about being praised by governors when people are dying.

“You’re CNN. You’re fake news!” Trump shouted. “You don’t have the brains you were born with.”

He went on to attack the reporter again later in the press conference when he asked additional questions about whether Trump was duped by the Chinese. Trump said that he wasn’t, it was former President Barack Obama that was duped by China.

He then went off on how the Obama administration left him high and dry on tests for the coronavirus. COVID-19 is named “19” because it was discovered in 2019. Obama was out of office on Jan. 20, 2017.

[Raw Story]

Trump says exclusion of Romney from task force shows he’s still holding a grudge

President Trump on Sunday said he intentionally left Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) off his congressional task force on reopening the U.S. economy amid the coronavirus, acknowledging it shows he still holds a grudge over the senator’s impeachment vote.

The president included every Republican senator on the task force except Romney, who voted to convict Trump for abuse of power. Asked if his exclusion shows he’s still holding a grudge, Trump said, “Yeah, it does.”

“I’m not a fan of Mitt Romney,” Trump said, adding, “I don’t really want his advice.”

The White House on Thursday released the members of its “Opening Up America Again Congressional Group.” The list included nearly 70 senators, including all 52 of Romney’s GOP colleagues in the chamber.

A spokeswoman for Romney and a source familiar confirmed that the GOP senator was not asked to take part in the task force. Romney is a former governor, private sector executive and presidential candidate.

Romney was the only GOP senator to vote for one of the articles during the Senate impeachment trial earlier this year. Trump has repeatedly referenced the vote in chiding Romney, at one point swiping at the Mormon senator’s use of religion to explain his reasoning for the vote.

There has been animosity between the two dating back years. After courting his support in 2012, Romney was fiercely critical of Trump during the 2016 campaign.

The two appeared to reconcile, with Trump considering Romney for a Cabinet post and endorsing his Senate bid in 2018. But the relationship appears to have deteriorated beyond repair with the impeachment vote.

[The Hill]

Trump lashes out at CBS reporter asking tough questions

President Donald Trump appeared to play it cool at first when he was pressed by CBS News reporter Weijia Jiang on Sunday, asking about the slow response to the coronavirus crisis.

“If you look at what I did banning china from coming in,” Trump began.

“Not American nationals,” she cut in, to mention the 40,000 people who were allowed back into the U.S. from China.

“Nice and easy. Nice and easy. Relax. We cut it off. Everybody was amazed that I did it. We had 21 people in a room. Everybody was against it but me. Dr. Fauci said had I not done that, perhaps tens of thousands and maybe much more than that people would have died. I was very early, very, very early. And we just saw, you saw Bret Baier making a statement. They had a debate well into February and not even mention — it wasn’t mentioned, the Democrats, we were very early. I’m the president, and you know what I just did?”

He then asked her how many people had died by the time Trump had intervened. In fact, no one knows how many people with COVID-19 died or were even infected because there was no testing.

“So do you acknowledge –” she began again before he snapped at her again.

“Keep your voice down!” Trump shouted.

[Raw Story]

Media

Trump Blows Up at CNN Reporter Grilling Him for Self-Praise After More Than 40,000 Coronavirus Deaths: ‘You People are So Pathetic!’

President Donald Trump repeatedly stormed at CNN reporter Jeremy Diamond for questioning his self-praise while the coronavirus continues to ravage the country.

During his latest press conference at the White House, Trump read praise of himself from the Wall Street Journal and played two clips of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo offering positive comments about the federal response. These clips were cherry-picked, however, for Trump declined to roll any footage of Cuomo calling for greater federal action on the crisis, nor the governor’s requests for more health resources.

When Diamond got to ask his question, he started off by noting that the U.S. has now exceeded 40,000 deaths from the virus. To that point, Diamond asked Trump “can you explain why you come out here and you are reading clips and showing clips of praise for you and your administration? Is this really the time for self-congratulations?”

Trump claimed to have been directing praise to the health workers on the front lines of treating the pandemic, but Diamond noted that “the clip you played and what your read earlier was praising you.”

As Diamond once again brought up the 40,000 dead Americans, Trump switched gears to call the reporter “fake news” and said “they were excoriated by people like you who don’t know any better because you don’t have the brains with you were born with.”

“It’s not about me. Nothing is about me,” Trump grumbled.

“You are never going to treat me fairly, many of you, and I understand that. I don’t know, I got here with the worst more unfair press treatment in the history of the United States for president. They did say Abraham Lincoln had very bad treatment too.”

As Trump continued to wax on about he’s “remaking the playbook,” there was a moment when he said there were “almost 40,000” deaths, which prompted Diamond to note that it’s over 40,000.

“Oh, more than. Okay. Good. Correct me,” Trump said in sarcastic bitterness. After touting that the body count could’ve been worse, he bashed Diamond again by saying “you just don’t have the sense to understand what’s going on.”

Later in the press conference, Diamond drew Trump’s ire again when he brought up the president’s past praise for China’s coronavirus response and asked “were you duped by President Xi?” Trump deflected by responding “you and the Obama Administration” were the duped ones, and then he digressed into his trade dealings with China.

After Trump steamrolled over Diamond’s follow-up questions and claimed “nobody was tougher before the deal ever on China than Trump,” he said “you people are so pathetic at CNN” and then shifted into attacking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

As Trump moved on despite Diamond’s efforts, he ended it with “your ratings are so bad because you are pathetic. Your ratings are terrible. You have got to get back to real news.”

[Mediaite]

Trump announces U.S. will halt funding for WHO over coronavirus response

President Trump announced Tuesday that the U.S. is placing a hold on funding to the World Health Organization for 60–90 days over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, pending a review.

Driving the news: Trump accused the WHO of “severely mismanaging and covering up” the coronavirus crisis, adding that the U.S. “has a duty to insist on full accountability.”

  • “With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have deep concerns whether America’s generosity has been put to the best use possible,” Trump said at a briefing in the Rose Garden.
  • “If we cannot trust them, if this is what we will receive from the WHO, our country will be forced to find other ways to work with other nations to achieve public health goals.” 

By the numbers: The WHO’s 2018–2019 budget was about $6 billion, and the U.S. is by far the biggest donor of any country, contributing more than $400 million to the organization last year.

  • “American taxpayers provided between $400 million and $500 million per year to the WHO. In contrast, China contributes roughly $40 million a year, or even less,” Trump said Tuesday.
  • “As the organization’s leading sponsor, the United States has a duty to insist on full accountability. One of the most dangerous and costly decisions from the WHO was its disastrous decision to oppose travel restrictions from China and other nations.”

Behind the scenes: Trump has been fuming for days about what he sees as the WHO’s botched response to the pandemic and its deference to China.

  • “The W.H.O. really blew it. For some reason, funded largely by the United States, yet very China centric. We will be giving that a good look,” Trump tweeted last week.
  • Trump’s national security team has rallied behind him, believing that the U.S. needed to go beyond public statements and make the WHO feel some pain for its missteps, according to officials involved in the internal discussions.
  • Our thought bubble: The decision gives Trump somebody else to blame and a way to deflect from his own missteps in handling the virus.

Details: Below are some of Trump’s specific complaints, which he said led him to his decision to freeze U.S. funding:

  • “The WHO failed to adequately obtain, vet and share information in a timely and transparent fashion. … The WHO failed in this basic duty and must be held accountable.”
  • “The WHO failed to investigate credible reports from sources in Wuhan that conflicted directly with the Chinese government’s official accounts. There was credible information to suspect human-to-human transmission in December 2019, which should have spurred the WHO to investigate.”
  • “Through the middle of January, it parroted and publicly endorsed the idea that there was not human-to-human transmission happening, despite reports and clear evidence to the contrary. “
  • “The delays the WHO experienced in declaring a public health emergency cost valuable time, tremendous amounts of time.”
  • “The inability of the WHO to obtain virus samples to this day has deprived the scientific community of essential data.”
  • “The WHO has not addressed a single one of these concerns nor provided a serious explanation that acknowledges its own mistakes, of which there were many.”

Background: Over the past week, officials within the White House’s Office of Management and Budget have been working on a menu of options for how to snub the WHO. Trump administration officials told Axios the options fall along two tracks.

  • The most likely route is to reprogram U.S. funding that was allocated to the WHO, moving it to other international organizations that can administer it for comparable purposes, officials said.
  • A more dramatic, but less likely, approach is to send a rescissions package to Congress, rescinding from the federal budget funds already allocated to WHO. A similar approach was adopted in 2017 when the U.S. cut $285 million from its funding to the United Nations.
  • Trump did not reveal on Tuesday which mechanism he will use to halt funding to the organization.

What they’re saying: António Guterres, secretary-general of the UN, to which the WHO reports, said in a statement, “Now is a time for unity in the global battle to push the COVID-19 pandemic into reverse, not a time to cut the resources of the … WHO, which is spearheading and coordinating the global body’s efforts.”

[Axios]

Trump lashes out at Cuomo over remarks on presidential authority

President Trump lashed out at New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) on Tuesday after Cuomo questioned the president’s authority to override governors’ wishes and reopen states’ economies amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Trump tweeted that Cuomo couldn’t have “independence” after receiving support from the federal government, including critical medical supplies to address the massive outbreak of COVID-19 in New York. 

The remark came shortly after Cuomo warned Trump against trying to force New York to loosen physical distancing restrictions too early and rejected the president’s statements about having “total authority” over when states open up.

“Cuomo’s been calling daily, even hourly, begging for everything, most of which should have been the state’s responsibility, such as new hospitals, beds, ventilators, etc. I got it all done for him, and everyone else, and now he seems to want Independence!” Trump tweeted Tuesday morning. “That won’t happen!”

The developments foretell further fissures between Trump and governors over the president’s efforts to revive the U.S. economy as the coronavirus outbreak subsides. Most states, including New York, have implemented stay-at-home orders and instructed nonessential businesses to close in order to lessen the spread of the virus, causing a massive spike in unemployment claims.

Trump is currently weighing a decision on when to begin to relax federal guidelines on social distancing in some areas of the country to get Americans back to work, though he has indicated he will not look at doing so in New York or states that have seen significant community spread for the time being. Health experts have raised concerns about a potential move by Trump to reopen even parts of the country to early when there aren’t sufficient testing and contact tracing capabilities in place. 

More than 580,000 Americans have been infected with COVID-19 and the virus has cause over 23,000 domestic deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The president insisted several times on Monday that he has absolute authority to make a decision on when states can reopen. But Trump did not offer a constitutional explanation for his claims, and legal experts have disputed his assertion by saying the president does not have the authority to reverse state or local quarantine orders.  

“The president of the United States has the authority to do what the president has the authority to do, which is very powerful,” Trump said at a White House briefing on Monday. “The president of the United States calls the shots.”

As the U.S. has grappled with the coronavirus, Trump has insisted that the federal government’s stockpile of critical supplies is merely a “backup” and asserted that states have the foremost responsibility to accumulate medical supplies to prepare for the virus.

Trump has also largely refrained from offering recommendations to states on implementing stay-at-home orders and other restrictions, though the president’s latest comments have signaled a shift in his thinking about the role of the federal government in states’ decisions.

Cuomo responded to the president’s remarks on Tuesday morning in several interviews, saying on NBC’s “Today” that there would be a “problem” if Trump tried to reopen New York against the governor’s wishes. 

“The president doesn’t have total authority. The Constitution is there, the 10th Amendment is there, number of cases over the years, it’s very clear. States have power by the 10th Amendment, and the president is just wrong on that point,” Cuomo said.

[The Hill]


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