Category: Ill-Tempered

Trump fires Rex Tillerson, selects Mike Pompeo as new Secretary of State

President Donald Trump asked Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to step aside, the White House confirmed Tuesday, replacing him with CIA Director Mike Pompeo.

In a tweet, Trump thanked Tillerson for his service and said Pompeo “will do a fantastic job.”

The ouster ends months of discord between Trump and Tillerson, who often seemed out of the loop or in disagreement with the president on major foreign policy decisions. The president also named Gina Haspel as the new head of the CIA, pending the confirmation process. Those hearings are expected to dredge up debates about controversial interrogation tactics, like waterboarding, that might make her path to permanence a rocky one.

The exit was not a voluntary one, the State Department confirmed in a startling statement Tuesday. Tillerson “did not speak to the President and is unaware of the reason” for his firing, Under Secretary of State Steve Goldstein said in a statement Tuesday morning, “but he is grateful for the opportunity to serve.”

Hours after Goldstein’s statement contradicting the White House’s account on Tillerson, a senior State Department official confirmed to NBC News that he had also been fired.

NBC News learned Tuesday from sources familiar with the situation that Chief of Staff John Kelly spoke with Tillerson by phone on Friday and told him that Trump intended to ask him to “step aside.” In that call — which came while Tillerson was traveling through Africa — Kelly did not specify when that change might come. Kelly also called Tillerson again on Saturday, a senior White House official said, expressing once again the president’s “imminent” intention to replace his secretary of state.

The Associated Press, citing senior State Department officials, reported Tuesday that Tillerson had been even more blindsided, saying that Kelly had warned him on that Friday call that there might be a tweet from the president coming that would concern him, but did not detail what the tweet might say or when it would post.

A senior State Department official told NBC that Tillerson officially found out that he had been fired when Trump tweeted the news that he’d been replaced.

Tillerson, said Goldstein, had “every intention of staying because of the critical progress made in national security.”

[NBC News]

Reality

Trump regularly fires people who do not display total loyalty to him and Tillerson did not.

Tillerson once called Trump a “moron” disagreed with him on Putin, the Paris Climate Agreement, Iran Nuclear Deal, North Korea, moving the Jerusalem embassy, etc…

Trump says he rejected Mexico request about border wall

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday he rejected a demand from Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto that Trump say Mexico would not have to pay for a proposed U.S. border wall.

At a campaign rally in western Pennsylvania for a Republican congressional candidate, Trump gave some details of a testy phone call he had last month with Pena Nieto that led to the postponement of plans for the Mexican leader’s first visit to the White House.

Trump brought up the issue when the crowd started chanting “Build that Wall.”

Trump called Pena Nieto a “really nice guy” who made his request respectfully.

“He said, ‘Mr. President, I would like you to make a statement that Mexico will not pay for the wall,'” Trump said.

“I said, ‘Are you crazy? I am not making that statement,'” Trump said he replied.

When Pena Nieto said yes, Trump said he told him, “Bye, bye. There is no way I’m making that deal.”

Officials in Pena Nieto’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s remarks.

The Mexican leader’s visit to Washington has yet to be rescheduled. Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, traveled to Mexico City last week to try to smooth over the tensions.

Trump is set to visit a prototype of his long-sought wall in the San Diego area on Tuesday.

[Reuters]

Trump: It’s ‘FAKE NEWS’ When Pundits Say My Approval Ratings Are ‘Somewhat Low’

President Donald Trump has been extremely online this morning, shooting off a series of tweets. Having already taken aim at the “Failing New York Times,” NYT reporter Maggie Haberman and Democrats, the president decided to take a shot at political pundits for calling his approval ratings low.

As you can see in the tweet above, the president claims that Republican-leaning poll Rasmussen and “others” have his poll number “around 50%,” which he claims are higher “than Obama.” Furthermore, he wants people to “[t]urn off the show” because it is “FAKE NEWS” when pundits say his ratings are “somewhat low.”

One wonders exactly what polls the president is looking at right now. Currently, Rasmussen has his approval rating at 45%, not “around 50%.” Checking other recent polls, none are higher 43% except for the previous Rasmussen poll that had him at 48%.

In terms of aggregated poll numbers, RealClearPolitics has the presidential approval rating average at 40.9%. HuffPost Pollster shows the same in their polling average.

[Mediaite]

Trump kicks off Sunday with bonkers tweet: ‘The only Collusion was that done by the DNC’ and ‘Crooked Hillary’

President Donald Trump took to Twitter Sunday morning to attack the New York Times for reporting he is seeking the services of a Clinton impeachment attorney to help defend him against special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into his administration.

In a frantic set of Tweets, Trump called out New York Times writer Maggie Haberman by name, calling her a “Hillary flunky.”

“The Failing New York Times purposely wrote a false story stating that I am unhappy with my legal team on the Russia case and am going to add another lawyer to help out. Wrong. I am VERY happy with my lawyers, John Dowd, Ty Cobb and Jay Sekulow. They are doing a great job,” Trump tweeted. “And have shown conclusively that there was no Collusion with Russia..just excuse for losing. The only Collusion was that done by the DNC, the Democrats and Crooked Hillary. The writer of the story, Maggie Haberman, a Hillary flunky, knows nothing about me and is not given access.”

You can see the tweets below:

[Raw Story]

Reality

A Showtime documentary released the following month shows called “The Fourth Estate” will show Trump gives Haberman incredible access, such as showing the U.S. President on the phone with Haberman.

Trump pushes back on report he’s ‘unhappy’ with legal team

President Trump on Sunday insisted he is “VERY happy” with the legal team defending him against allegations his campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election.

He also claimed they have shown “conclusively” there was no collusion between his campaign and Russia. His comments follow a report in The New York Times claiming that Trump is looking to shake up his legal team amid some frustration with their approach.

Trump in two tweets on Sunday morning criticized one of the reporters behind the story, claiming she is “a Hillary flunky.”

“The Failing New York Times purposely wrote a false story stating that I am unhappy with my legal team on the Russia case and am going to add another lawyer to help out. Wrong,” Trump tweeted.

“I am VERY happy with my lawyers, John Dowd, Ty Cobb and Jay Sekulow. They are doing a great job and…have shown conclusively that there was no Collusion with Russia..just excuse for losing. The only Collusion was that done by the DNC, the Democrats and Crooked Hillary. The writer of the story, Maggie Haberman, a Hillary flunky, knows nothing about me and is not given access.”

The Times reported that Trump is considering adding the lawyer that helped Bill Clinton during his impeachment trial to the White House legal team to handle special counsel Robert Mueller‘s inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 elections.

Trump reportedly met with lawyer Emmet Flood this past week to discuss him joining his legal staff, though no agreement has been reached yet, according to the Times.

“In private conversations, Mr. Trump has seesawed between expressing confidence in Mr. Cobb’s claim that the inquiry will wrap up in relatively short order and that he will be exonerated, and sounding frustrated with his team’s legal strategy,” the report claimed.

[The Hill]

Trump Goes Full MAGA: Calls Maxine Waters ‘Low IQ’

At a Moon Township, Penn. rally on Saturday, Donald Trump dropped any sense of decorum and presidential behavior in an extended rant against anything black, brown or logical, fulfilling predictions that he plans to go full MAGA to distract from the increasing coverage of the Mueller investigation, his legislative failures, the NRA’s wholesale buyout of the Republican Party’s soul and White House appointees dropping line like it’s hell week at the Que House.

At a KKK political rally for congressional candidate Rick Saccone (R-Penn.) on Saturday night, President Trump became so unhinged that his his face turned the color of the inside of an overripe cantaloupe as he railed against…

Hold up. I’m being told that’s his normal color. I’m not sure that’s medically possible, but in order to avoid any further mistakes,let’s just look at some excerpts from his speech:

“That’s why we have to defeat people like Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters, a very low IQ person. You ever see her? You ever see her? ‘We will impeach him! We will impeach him!’ … She is a very low IQ individual. You can’t help it. She really is.”

[The Root]

Media

Trump taunts press over North Korea news

President Trump is back to attacking the press again.

After a series of more subdued tweets about North Korea, the President apparently couldn’t resist taking shots at the media again:

Culminating in…

Trump did get some positive media coverage over this week’s announcement. CNN’s Erin Burnett said Trump could go down as a great president if this is successful, and even Bill Maher said Trump could pull it off while telling liberals to stop “reflexively hating” the idea.

[Mediaite]

Trump claims Obama launched Russia probe to discredit campaign

President Donald Trump on Monday accused the Obama administration of using the investigation into potential ties between his campaign and Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election to discredit his bid and boost the chances of his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

“Why did the Obama Administration start an investigation into the Trump Campaign (with zero proof of wrongdoing) long before the Election in November? Wanted to discredit so Crooked H would win. Unprecedented. Bigger than Watergate! Plus, Obama did NOTHING about Russian meddling,” Trump tweeted Monday morning.

It’s unclear exactly what pre-election investigation Trump was referring to, though the FBI opened its investigation into the Trump campaign’s links to Russia in July 2016. Then-FBI Director James Comey oversaw that investigation until Trump fired him in May 2017. Shortly after that, former FBI Director Robert Mueller was appointed as special counsel to continue the probe.

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was wiretapped before and after the election. Some of the intelligence collected includes communications that sparked concerns among investigators that Manafort had encouraged the Russians to help with the campaign, three sources familiar with the investigation have told CNN. Two of these sources, however, cautioned that the evidence is not conclusive. Manafort was Trump’s campaign chairman from May to August 2016.

The FBI also eavesdropped on Carter Page, a campaign associate that then candidate Trump once identified as a national security adviser, on suspicions he was acting as a Russian agent. Page stepped away from the campaign in September 2016 amid questions about his Russian ties.

The surveillance of Manafort and Page was approved by the secret court that oversees domestic surveillance of American citizens under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In Page’s case, the FBI and Justice Department presented enough evidence to the court to convince Republican-appointed judges to continue the surveillance into mid-2017.
Trump, who has called the investigation into potential ties between his campaign and Russia a “witch hunt,” has repeatedly slammed the Obama administration’s handling of the Russia investigation, saying it “did nothing.”

Before leaving office, however, Obama applied new economic sanctions on the Russian government, ordered the State Department to shut down Russian compounds in Maryland and New York, and expelled 35 Russian diplomats that he described as “intelligence operatives.”

[CNN]

Reality

Except the investigation into the Trump campaign wouldn’t have happened if Carter Page, George Papadapolous, Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, Donald Trump Jr., and others all had conspired with Russia during the campaign. That happened.

And we’ve been over the claim that Obama did nothing to stop Russian meddling before, and it is a clear lie.

Obama faced Putin and told him “to cut it out”, tried to alert the public with a bi-partisan announcement but was blocked by Mitch McConnell, expelled 35 Russian diplomats and closed two compounds.

‘Is Hillary a happy person? Do you think she’s happy?’ obsessed Trump muses during Mar-a-Lago fundraiser

Donald Trump is still obsessed with Hillary Clinton.

Despite all his own troubles, the president is still talking to donors about his 2016 opponent, who spends a lot of time hiking in the beautiful woods near her upstate New York home.

“Is Hillary a happy person? Do you think she’s happy?” Trump mused during a speech at Mar-A-Lago, which was recorded and passed to CNN. “When she goes home at night, does she say, ‘What a great life?’ I don’t think so. You never know. I hope she’s happy.”

Elsewhere in the speech, Trump fantasized about the possibility of eliminating political opposition and becoming a dictator. Specially, he praised a power grab by China’s President Xi Jinping.

“He’s now president for life. President for life. No, he’s great,” Trump said. “And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day.”

Trump also criticized his staff and mocked former president George W. Bush as “another real genius” for invading Iraq.

[Raw Story]

Trump Touts Mark Levin Segment to Slam ‘Mainstream Media’: ‘They’ve Gone CRAZY!’

President Donald Trump threw a jab at his favorite punching bag from Mar-a-Lago on Saturday, taking to Twitter to declare the “Mainstream Media” is “being mocked all over the world.”

Trump’s tweet was in response to one from his adult son, Donald Jr., who was touting a clip from conservative commentator Mark Levin declaring that media attacks on the president are “unparalleled in American history.”

“They’ve gone CRAZY!” Trump wrote of the American media:

Levin, whose Sunday Fox News show debuted last week, argued on his radio show that Trump is facing a degree of criticism from the press that was not seen by his predecessors, Presidents Obama and Clinton.

The president is spending the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. After a visit to the golf course, Trump is expected to speak at a Trump Victory reception, a joint fundraiser for his reelection campaign and the RNC.

Tickets to the event are reportedly set at $2,700, while a reception and a pair of seats at a dinner with Trump will run you $25,000.

[Mediaite]

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