Category: Unpresidential

Trump-Ordered Raid in Yemen That Killed US Navy SEAL Was Approved ‘Without Sufficient Intelligence’

The US military said on Wednesday it was looking into whether more civilians were killed in a raid on Al Qaeda in Yemen on the weekend, in the first operation authorized by President Donald Trump as commander in chief.

US Navy SEAL William “Ryan” Owens died in the raid on a branch of Al Qaeda, also known as AQAP, in al Bayda province, which the Pentagon said also killed 14 militants. Medics at the scene, however, said about 30 people, including 10 women and children, were killed.

US Central Command said in a statement that an investigating team had “concluded regrettably that civilian noncombatants were likely killed” during Sunday’s raid. It added that children may have been among the casualties.

Central Command said its assessment “seeks to determine if there were any still-undetected civilian casualties in the ferocious firefight.”

US military officials told Reuters that Trump approved his first covert counterterrorism operation without sufficient intelligence, ground support, or adequate backup preparations.

As a result, three officials said, the attacking SEAL team found itself dropping onto a reinforced Al Qaeda base defended by landmines, snipers, and a larger-than-expected contingent of heavily armed Islamist extremists.

The Pentagon directed queries about the officials’ characterization of the raid to US Central Command, which pointed only to its statement on Wednesday.

The US officials said the extremists’ base had been identified as a target before the Obama administration left office on January 20, but President Barack Obama held off approving a raid ahead of his departure.

A White House official said the operation was thoroughly vetted by the previous administration and the previous defense secretary had signed off on it in January. The raid was delayed for operational reasons, the White House official said.

The military officials who spoke with Reuters on condition of anonymity said “a brutal firefight” took the lives of Owens and at least 15 Yemeni women and children. One of the dead was the 8-year-old daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, a militant killed by a 2011 US drone strike.

Some of the women were firing at the US force, Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told reporters.

Intelligence gathered

The American elite forces did not seize any militants or take any prisoners offsite, but White House spokesman Sean Spicer said on Wednesday the raid yielded benefits.

“Knowing that we killed an estimated 14 AQAP members and that we gathered an unbelievable amount of intelligence that will prevent the potential deaths or attacks on American soil — is something that I think most service members understand, that that’s why they joined the service,” Spicer said.

A senior leader in Yemen’s Al Qaeda branch, Abdulraoof al-Dhahab, and other militants were killed in the gunfight, Al Qaeda said.

One of the three US officials said on-the-ground surveillance of the compound was “minimal, at best.”

“The decision was made … to leave it to the incoming administration, partly in the hope that more and better intelligence could be collected,” that official said.

As Sunday’s firefight intensified, the raiders called in Marine helicopter gunships and Harrier jump jets, and then two MV-22 Osprey vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft to extract the SEALs.

One of the two suffered engine failure, two of the officials said, and hit the ground so hard that two crew members were injured, and one of the Marine jets had to launch a precision-guided bomb to destroy it.

Trump traveled to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Wednesday in an unexpected visit to meet with the family of Owens, who had been a chief special warfare operator.

(h/t Business Insider)

Trump’s Private Security’s Use of Force Questioned

Trump security punch protester

Donald Trump’s private security lacked basic procedures and policies — including for the use of force — giving guards free rein during the campaign and transition to physically confront protesters and journalists they found objectionable, according to hours of deposition transcripts in a civil lawsuit that were reviewed by POLITICO.

For instance, during a September 2015 protest outside Trump Tower, Trump security guard Gary Uher forcibly escorted a protester away from the building’s entrance because he believed — incorrectly — that the adjacent sidewalk was Trump’s property, according to his testimony. Uher said he was authorized by the campaign to use force to move the protesters, but in a separate deposition, Trump’s security director at the time, Keith Schiller, said Uher had no such authorization.

Yet Schiller, who joined Trump’s White House staff last month, explained that he decided to place his hands on Univision’s Jorge Ramos while ejecting him from an August 2015 press conference because Ramos was “not listening or not being cordial or respectful to Mr. Trump or his colleagues, because he spoke out of term (sic).”

And Trump Organization executive Matthew Calamari, to whom Trump testified in an affidavit he had delegated “full responsibility and authority for the hiring and supervision of all security personnel,” said the last time Trump’s operation produced a “security procedures” document was during the 1990s, and that it’s long been out of use. “I haven’t seen it in many, many years,” testified Calamari in his deposition. While he claimed that all of Trump’s security personnel are licensed as security guards by New York state, Uher, Schiller and another security official said in their depositions that they did not have such licenses when they responded to the September 2015 protest.

The sworn testimony was ordered in connection with a lawsuit brought in New York State court against the guards, the Trump Organization, the Trump campaign and Trump himself by participants in the September 2015 Trump Tower protest. The protesters claim they were “violently attacked” by Trump’s security “for the express purpose of interfering with their political speech.”

Schiller, Uher and the Trump Organization did not respond to requests for comment. In their depositions, the security officers claim that they were just trying to keep the sidewalk clear for pedestrians and got physical only when protesters refused to clear the sidewalk and one accosted Schiller.

Yet the depositions paint a picture of a security operation guided more by instinct than procedures, where employees were not subject to background checks or regular evaluations, and where lines were blurred between Trump’s campaign, his corporation and even the United States Secret Service.

All of the officials deposed in the lawsuit continued working for Trump in some capacity after his Election Day victory, and at least two remained involved in some facet of Trump’s operations after he was sworn in as president last month.

Schiller, a retired New York City detective, began work last month as Trump’s director of Oval Office operations while Calamari continued as the Trump Organization’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, a position from which he oversees the company’s security apparatus. Uher suggested in his deposition that he too had gone to work for the company after the election.

Hope Hicks, the White House director of strategic communications, stressed that Schiller’s new White House job “does not entail any security-related functions” and that he “is in compliance with all rules applied to White House staff.” She referred questions about security personnel and functions to the Trump Organization and the Secret Service.

The Trump Organization did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

A Secret Service spokesperson stressed that the agency has sole authority to protect the president and his family but explained that it would coordinate with Schiller and other members of the president’s staff as well as “any private security organization responsible for the protection of facilities where a USSS protectee will be present.”

The depositions and the underlying lawsuit — one of at least three winding through federal and state courts brought by protesters against Trump, his campaign or its security — are likely to fuel scrutiny of Trump’s private security. It has drawn repeated complaints for excessive force and aggression, racial profiling and trampling free speech. And its relationship with the Secret Service has raised concerns among agency employees, outside law enforcement experts and members of Congress overseeing the agency, who worry that the private security may have complicated the service’s ability to protect Trump during the campaign and transition.

“I’m surprised that apparently these people have been around the Secret Service all along,” said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) during an interview on Washington’s NewsChannel 8 in December. “Who’s in charge if you have your long-term guards and the Secret Service?” she asked in response to a POLITICO article revealing that Trump had retained private security even after winning the presidency.

Norton, who sits on the House subcommittee that oversees the Secret Service, did not respond to a request for comment from POLITICO. But she told NewsChannel 8 that she intended to push the committee to investigate “how were they used during the campaign? Who was in charge then, because I understand that they had a role in the campaign that I did not know of, and I don’t believe the Congress knew of.”

POLITICO, in conjunction with the nonpartisan transparency organization the James Madison Project, on Monday sued the Secret Service under the Freedom of Information Act for public records detailing the agency’s relationship with Trump’s private security.

While the Secret Service assumed responsibility for Trump’s personal security in November 2015, some members of Trump’s private security detail continued traveling with him, while others continued providing security at rallies in conjunction with the service — highly unusual moves for a presidential campaign.

Schiller, in particular, appeared to continue acting as if he had a security function throughout the campaign. That raised concerns among Secret Service agents, who said Schiller bristled at their efforts to take charge and got in their way at times, according to a law enforcement official who communicates regularly with the agency’s agents.

The agency’s director, Joseph Clancy, suggested in a CNN interview last month that Trump’s private security stepped back when Secret Service assumed protection in November 2015. The private security wouldn’t have intervened if there were a threat to Trump, asserted Clancy, casting Schiller as a “conduit for information” between Trump and his agents.

Clancy told CNN that there was “no friction at all” between his agents and Trump’s private security. He declared that his agents “only work with the law enforcement partners” and “don’t interact with” Trump’s private security.

But some of Clancy’s own agents took umbrage at Clancy’s pushback, which they interpreted as an effort to minimize serious concerns about Trump’s private security in an effort to make nice with the new boss, according to the law enforcement official. Clancy’s comments on CNN “were in line with his efforts to try to keep issues out of the media and move on from an issue rather than address the matter,” said the law enforcement official.

In fact, Clancy’s assessment appears to be at odds with the depositions, as well as legal filings in other cases and POLITICO’s own reporting.

Eddie Deck, a former Marine and FBI agent, testified in the Trump Tower protest case that, after the Secret Service granted protection to Trump, Deck’s job changed from providing such protection to doing security at Trump events, including being a “liaison with the police and the Secret Service.”

In his deposition, Deck explained that his contract calls for him “to do the coordination with the police department or Secret Service for the safety and security at the Trump rallies.”

And Deck, whose policing of Trump rallies drew repeated complaints from protesters for using excessive force and ejecting people solely because they didn’t look like Trump supporters, suggested that he and the Secret Service were involved in a decision to cancel a March 2016 rally in Chicago amid raucous protests — both outside and inside the arena.

“It created such an unsafe environment, that Mr. Trump did not come due to my advisement and Secret Service’s advisement, because it would’ve been very, very, very unsafe,” said Deck.

Deck did not respond to a request for comment, while a Secret Service spokesperson said Deck was not involved in the agency’s security planning or decision-making. “During the campaign, Mr. Deck was considered a staff member,” the spokesperson said, adding “staff members serve different functions of which being a liaison with USSS or local police might be one.”

And although Clancy told CNN that the Secret Service wouldn’t get involved in ejecting protesters who weren’t a threat to Trump because “We want to make sure everyone has their First Amendment rights,” Trump’s own lawyers suggested he saw things otherwise.

In a filing in a case brought by three protesters roughed up and ejected by Trump supporters from a March 2016 rally in Louisville, Kentucky, after Trump barked “get ’em out!,” Trump’s lawyers wrote that “Mr. Trump was calling on the Secret Service, event security, and local law enforcement to enforce the law and remove hecklers who were ruining the event for others.”

The Secret Service spokesperson said that the agency “will not impede the First Amendment right of protesters and will only engage if a verbal or active threat is directed toward a protectee.” Decisions about whether to remove disruptive protesters are made “at the discretion of the host committee,” the spokesperson said, adding that agents “would not be involved in the removal of those individuals.”

The fact that the Kentucky rally was held in a private venue using Trump campaign funds meant that once the protesters voiced anti-Trump sentiments, they became trespassers, according to the filing by Trump’s lawyers. And that “gave Mr. Trump and the Campaign the legal right to remove the protesters by force,” Trump’s lawyers argued. Nonetheless, video shows the lead plaintiff, a young African-American woman named Kashiya Nwanguma, was mostly forced from the arena by Trump supporters who shoved and taunted her as she made her way toward the exit.

Nwanguma alleges in the suit that she was subject to racial epithets and other slurs during the ordeal. And her lawyer Daniel J. Canon argued in an interview that what happened to Nwanguma represented a failure of Trump’s private security and local police.

“Part of the problem here is that they weren’t removed by private security,” said Canon. “Instead, they just let this angry mob of white people attack this black person who was protesting,” said Canon, who brought the suit against Trump, his campaign and three attendees, one of whom is a well-known white nationalist.

“The idea that a presidential candidate goes on the road and makes campaign stops and asks or commands the crowd to turn on peaceful protesters who are in the audience is beyond the pale, especially when you know that you’ve got a powder keg on the ground of white supremacists and other violent people and groups,” he said.

The protesters who clashed with Trump’s security outside Trump Tower in September 2015 also contend that the security is a reflection of Trump himself.

The protest was motivated by Trump’s incendiary claims about Mexicans, and it included a pair of protesters dressed in paper facsimiles of Ku Klux Klan robes and hoods, while others carried signs declaring Trump a racist.

After mistakenly informing the protesters that the Trump Tower sidewalk was private property, Uher escorted one of the protesters in a KKK costume away from the building, inside of which Trump was holding a press conference to announce that he’d signed a loyalty pledge to support the Republican Party’s presidential nominee — even if it wasn’t him.

Uher argued in his deposition that the situation required him to put his hands on the protester. “Yeah, I’m sure I touched him… just to advise him that we had to keep moving,” said Uher, explaining “my hands weren’t on him the whole time. As I invaded his space, he was — he moved.”

Schiller demanded that protesters remove an 8-foot-long sign mimicking Trump’s campaign logo, but instead reading “Make America Racist Again.” When they didn’t comply, he aggressively grabbed and ripped the sign, turned and began walking with it toward Trump Tower.

One of the protesters, Efrain Galicia, pursued Schiller, grabbing him from behind in “an attempt to retrieve the [sign] before Schiller could abscond with it into Trump Tower,” according to a legal complaint filed by lawyers for Galicia and others who protested with him. Video shows Schiller quickly pivoting and striking Galicia in the head. Schiller explained in an affidavit that he did so “instinctively” and “based on … years of training” because he felt Galicia’s “hand on my firearm, which was strapped on the right side of my rib cage in a body holster.”

Though Schiller admitted in his deposition that his gun was concealed beneath a loose-fitting suit jacket, he contended that Galicia “could have seen the bulge” from the weapon through his jacket.

Deck quickly grabbed Galicia around the neck, holding him back, because, Deck argued in his deposition, Galicia “had already jumped and assaulted Mr. Schiller,” though Deck also conceded it was unclear whether Galicia knew Schiller was armed.

Deck, Schiller and Uher all explained in their depositions that they were trying to clear the sidewalk because the protesters were impeding foot traffic, though the protesters’ lawyers argue there was ample room for passersby to walk past.

“It was mayhem out there,” Deck said.

But Galicia suggested to reporters at the scene that Trump’s private security personnel were targeting protesters and “just acting like their boss.”

While the judge hearing the case ruled that Galicia’s lawyers could not depose Trump before the case went to trial, one of the lawyers, Roger Bernstein, suggested that the tactics of Trump’s security nonetheless reflected on Trump and his operation.

“Given Donald Trump’s policies and practices, we expect to prove that Donald Trump and his companies explicitly or implicitly authorized the assaults by their unlicensed security personnel,” Bernstein said.

Schiller, Deck and Uher all said in their depositions that they were led to believe that the Trump campaign or the Trump Organization would pay their legal fees if they lost the case, and all three are represented by lawyers for the Trump Organization. The three expressed some uncertainty at times during the depositions about whether they were working for the Trump Organization or the Trump campaign.

According to Federal Election Commission filings, the campaign through the end of November had spent more than $1 million on private security, including $181,000 paid to Schiller, and $50,000 to a company called KS Global Group LLC. While the company, which was registered in Delaware in October 2015 without revealing the names of its principals, bears Schiller’s initials, neither he nor Trump’s representatives would comment on who is behind it. The biggest recipient of Trump security cash is a company called XMark LLC, which is owned by Deck and which lists Uher as vice president.

Deck, Uher and Schiller continued providing security after the election for rallies funded by Trump’s campaign as part of his post-election “Thank You Tour,” during which protesters were removed — sometimes roughly — at many stops. The funding and security for those rallies will be covered by campaign finance reports that were due to be filed with the FEC before midnight Tuesday.

When Bernstein during the depositions asked why XMark’s logo included St. George’s Cross, which is often associated with military causes, Deck appears to have become angry. Explaining the cross was “to honor the fallen dead of the soldiers and the military people that I worked with for three years in Joint Special Operations Command,” Deck accused the lawyer of “desecrating the memory of those heroes that I’ve worked with” and said “they gave their lives so you can question me about that.”

(h/t Politico)

Trump Tells Mexico: ‘I Might Send’ U.S. Military to Take Care of ‘Bad Hombres’

President Donald Trump threatened in a phone call with his Mexican counterpart to send U.S. troops to stop “bad hombres down there” unless the Mexican military does more to control them itself, according to an excerpt of a transcript of the conversation obtained by The Associated Press.

The excerpt of the call did not make clear who exactly Trump considered “bad hombres,” — drug cartels, immigrants, or both — or the tone and context of the remark, made in a Friday morning phone call between the leaders. It also did not contain Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto‘s response.

Still, the excerpt offers a rare and striking look at how the new president is conducting diplomacy behind closed doors. Trump’s remarks suggest he is using the same tough and blunt talk with world leaders that he used to rally crowds on the campaign trail.

A White House spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.

The phone call between the leaders was intended to patch things up between the new president and his ally. The two have had a series of public spats over Trump’s determination to have Mexico pay for the planned border wall, something Mexico steadfastly refuses to agree to.

“You have a bunch of bad hombres down there,” Trump told Pena Nieto, according to the excerpt seen by the AP. “You aren’t doing enough to stop them. I think your military is scared. Our military isn’t, so I just might send them down to take care of it.”

A person with access to the official transcript of the phone call provided an excerpt to The Associated Press. The person gave it on condition of anonymity because the administration did not make the details of the call public.

The Mexican website, Aristegui Noticias, on Tuesday published a similar account of phone call, based on the reporting of journalist Dolia Estevez. The report described Trump as humiliating Pena Nieto in a confrontational conversation.

Mexico’s foreign relations department denied that account, saying it “is based on absolute falsehoods,” and later said the statement also applied to the excerpt provided to AP.

“The assertions that you make about said conversation do not correspond to the reality of it,” the statement said. “The tone was constructive and it was agreed by the presidents to continue working and that the teams will continue to meet frequently to construct an agreement that is positive for Mexico and for the United States.”

Trump has used the phrase “bad hombres” before. In an October presidential debate, he vowed to get rid the U.S. of “drug lords” and “bad people.”

“We have some bad hombres here, and we’re going to get them out,” he said. The phrase ricocheted on social media with Trump opponents saying he was denigrating immigrants.

Trump’s comment was in line with the new administration’s bullish stance on foreign policy matters in general, and the president’s willingness to break long-standing norms around the globe.

Before his inauguration, Trump spoke to the president of Taiwan, breaking long-standing U.S. policy and irritating China. His temporary ban on refugees and travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries, aimed at reviewing screening procedures to lessen the threat of extremist attacks, has caused consternation around the world.

But nothing has created the level of bickering as the border wall, a centerpiece of his campaign. Mexico has consistently said it would not pay for the wall and opposes it. Before the phone call, Pena Nieto canceled a planned visit to the United States.

The fresh fight with Mexico last week arose over trade as the White House proposed a 20 percent tax on imports from the key U.S. ally to finance the wall after Pena Nieto abruptly scrapped his Jan. 31 trip to Washington.

The U.S. and Mexico conduct some $1.6 billion a day in cross-border trade, and cooperate on everything from migration to anti-drug enforcement to major environmental issues.

Trump tasked his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner — a real estate executive with no foreign policy experience — with managing the ongoing dispute, according to an administration official with knowledge of the call.

At a press conference with British Prime Minister Theresa May last week, Trump described his call with Pena Nieto as “friendly.”

In a statement, the White House said the two leaders acknowledged their “clear and very public differences” and agreed to work through the immigration disagreement as part of broader discussions on the relationship between their countries.

President Trump Fires Acting Attorney General Who Would Not Defend Immigration Ban

Sally Yates, who had been appointed under Barack Obama, earlier ordered justice department lawyers not to enforce the president’s executive order.

In a statement, the White House said Ms Yates had “betrayed” the department.
Dana Boente, US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, replaces her as acting attorney general.

In a letter, Ms Yates had said she was “not convinced” that the president’s order was lawful.

“As long as I am the acting attorney general, the department of justice will not present arguments in defence of the Executive Order,” she said.

But the White House said she had “betrayed the department of justice by refusing to enforce a legal order designed to protect the citizens of the United States”.

“President Trump relieved Ms Yates of her duties,” a statement from the press secretary said.

White House Ices Out CNN

The White House has refused to send its spokespeople or surrogates onto CNN shows, effectively freezing out the network from on-air administration voices.

“We’re sending surrogates to places where we think it makes sense to promote our agenda,” said a White House official, acknowledging that CNN is not such a place, but adding that the ban is not permanent.

A CNN reporter, speaking on background, was more blunt: The White House is trying to punish the network and force down its ratings.

“They’re trying to cull CNN from the herd,” the reporter said.

Administration officials are still answering questions from CNN reporters. But administration officials including White House press secretary Sean Spicer and senior counselor Kellyanne Conway haven’t appeared on the network’s programming in recent weeks.

Spicer, speaking at an event at The George Washington University on Monday, denied that CNN is being frozen out, pointing out that he’s answered CNN’s questions in the regular daily briefings.

But, he added “I’m not going to sit around and engage with people who have no desire to actually get something right.”

The last time an administration official appeared on CNN’s Sunday public affairs show “State of the Union” was Jan. 8 when Conway was interviewed. She also appeared on CNN the following Wednesday with Anderson Cooper, the day of then President-elect Trump’s news conference at which he derided CNN for airing a report that intelligence officials had briefed both Trump and then-President Barack Obama that the Russians might have negative information about Trump. At the news conference, the president-elect refused to take a question from CNN correspondent Jim Acosta, who shouted out to Trump to answer his question since Trump was attacking his news organization.

After his inauguration, Trump has continued blasting CNN as “fake news.”

Since then, Conway, Spicer, chief of staff Reince Priebus and even Vice President Mike Pence have made the rounds on the major Sunday shows with the notable exception of CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“State of the Union” anchor Jake Tapper said on his show and via Twitter that the White House has declined his invitations to appear.

“We invited the Trump White House to offer us a guest to provide clarity and an explanation of what the president just did, especially given so much confusion, even within its own government by those who are supposed to carry out this order,” Tapper said on Sunday as he introduced a segment about the Executive Order banning visitors from some countries and putting a hold on the United States’ refugee policy. “The Trump White House declined our invitation.”

Tapper had made a similar announcement the previous Sunday.

Last week, New York magazine reported that Trump’s feud with CNN has roots in his relationship with CNN President Jeff Zucker, a former NBC president who brought Trump’s television show “The Apprentice” to the network. Trump, the magazine reported, has told White House staffers that he feels personally betrayed by Zucker and that Zucker should tilt CNN programming more favorably toward him because of their long relationship.

In an interview with New York magazine, Zucker said he’s not worried about getting access to Trump.

“I think the era of access journalism as we’ve known it is over,” Zucker said. “I think our credibility is higher than ever, and our viewership is higher than ever, and our reporting is as strong as ever.”

“One of the things I think this administration hasn’t figured out yet is that there’s only one television network that is seen in Beijing, Moscow, Seoul, Tokyo, Pyongyang, Baghdad, Tehran, and Damascus — and that’s CNN,” he noted.

Part of the effort to ice out CNN may be related to ratings.

CNN “Reliable Sources” host Brian Stelter wrote in one of his recent newsletters that an aide in “Trumpworld” told him that his ratings would likely be hurt “because no Trump administration officials had agreed to be interviewed.” Stelter said in that newsletter that his ratings were in fact his highest since last November’s election coverage at 1.3 million viewers.

It’s hard to tell whether “State of the Union” ratings have been affected by the lack of Trump officials, considering it’s less than two weeks since theinauguration. While far behind the broadcast shows and “Fox & Friends” on cable news, the past two weeks of “State of the Union” have seen higher ratings than on Jan. 8, the most recent time a Trump official appeared. They’ve also won the demo (the key age group advertisers use) over the past two weeks, and last Sunday the show had 1.25 million viewers during the 9 a.m. broadcast, and 1.42 million viewers in the noon rebroadcast.

It’s not unusual for an administration to tangle with certain outlets. The Obama administration, at times, had a rocky relationship with Fox News and limited its officials from appearing on its programs. Former Obama White House Communications Director Anita Dunn told The New York Times in 2009 that they were going to treat Fox “the way we would treat an opponent.”

“As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave,” she said at the time.

A former official in the Obama administration acknowledged that they had their “battles with Fox,” and that there may have been some times where “we sent people on other networks and not on Fox.” But as a general rule, the official said, officials would go on the network.

“I think, in my hazy recollection is it would be unusual to do all [the networks] except one. What drives that is sometimes amount of time available to the person doing them,” the official said. “If they are stiffing CNN intentionally, that is different than what normally happens.”

A spokesperson for Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A CNN spokeswoman declined to comment.

(h/t Politico)

Update

On Wednesday, the day after this article was published, the White House made Dr. Sebastian Gorka, a Deputy Assistant to the President for national security available for an interview.

The White House Cited the Quebec Mosque Attack by White Supremacist to Justify Trump’s Policies

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is citing the Sunday attack on Muslims in Quebec City as an example of why his own policies are needed.

“We condemn this attack in the strongest possible terms. It’s a terrible reminder of why we must remain vigilant, and why the president is taking steps to be proactive, rather than reactive, when it comes to our nation’s safety and security,” press secretary Sean Spicer said at his daily briefing on Monday.

Spicer did not specifically identify the policies he was referring to.

But the “proactive, rather than reactive” language is similar to the rhetoric Trump and his allies have used in defending his “temporary” ban on refugees and by visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries, which has caused a worldwide uproar.

Spicer used similar words when asked directly about the travel ban later in the briefing, saying Trump was not going to “wait and react.”
“There is nothing nice about searching for terrorists before they can enter our country. This was a big part of my campaign. Study the world!” Trump himself wrote on Twitter earlier Monday.

The Quebec City massacre killed six Muslims who were attending a mosque for evening prayers. Trump’s policies have been condemned by Muslim groups and many others around the world as discrimination against Muslims.

Trump spoke to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau earlier on Monday.
Spicer said Trump offers “his condolences as well as his thoughts and prayers to the victims and their family and to all Canadians.”

He noted that Trudeau was “cautious to draw conclusions of the motives at this stage of the investigation.” He said “the president shared those thoughts.”

(h/t Toronto Star)

Spicer: Diplomats Opposed to Immigration Ban Should ‘Either Get With the Program or They Can Go’

White House press secretary Sean Spicer had a stern message for State Department employees opposed to President Trump’s executive order banning immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries: “Either get with the program or they can go.”

Dozens of career diplomats have signed on to a “dissent channel” document, which is a mechanism by which State Department employees can express policy disagreements privately without fear of retribution. The memo has been circulating in the agency and it expresses the view that the immigration ban “will not achieve its aim of making our country safer.”

Asked to respond to the document, Spicer suggested that the “career bureaucrats” who disagreed with the executive order should not continue to serve in the government.

“This is about the safety of America, and there’s a reason that a majority of Americans agree with the president,” Spicer said. “They should understand it’s his number one priority.”

Asked to clarify whether he was suggesting that public servants who disagree with the president should leave their posts, Spicer doubled down.

“If somebody has a problem with that agenda, then that does call into question whether … they should continue in that post or not,” Spicer said. “I know the president appreciates the people who serve this nation and the public servants.

“That’s up to them to question whether or not they want to stay,” he added.

(h/t The Washington Post)

Kellyanne Conway: Reporters Who ‘Talked Smack’ About Trump Should Be Fired

Kellyanne Conway, senior adviser to President Donald Trump, on Sunday continued the administration’s attack against the media by claiming that network television reporters and commentators who “talked smack” about Trump before the election should be fired.

“Not one network person has been let go. Not one silly political analyst and pundit who talked smack all day long about Donald Trump has been let go,” Conway said on “Fox News Sunday.” “I’m too polite to mention their names, but they know who they are, and they are all wondering who will be the first to go. The election was three months ago. None of them have been let go.”

She added that the networks should be “cleaning house,” firing “these people who said things that just weren’t true.”

Conway accused the media of focusing too much attention on her attempt last week to defend press secretary Sean Spicer flagrantly lying to reporters — by claiming he was stating “alternative facts.”Trump and his administration spent much of his first week in office antagonizing the media. In his first White House press briefing on Monday, Spicer spent several minutes on what he deemed “demoralizing” coverage, and continued to defend his lying by claiming that “we can disagree with the facts.”

In an interview with the New York Times on Wednesday, chief strategist Steve Bannon, who previously ran Breitbart, a site that traffics in white nationalism, called the media “the opposition party” and said it should be silenced.

“The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while,” Bannon said.

(h/t Huffington Post)

Media

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW66qYnVpYM

Merkel ‘Explains’ Refugee Convention to Trump in Phone Call

Donald Trump’s executive order to halt travel from seven Muslim-majority countries – Iraq, Syria, Iran, Yemen, Sudan, Libya and Somalia – has provoked a wave of concern and condemnation from international leaders and politicians.

A spokesman for Angela Merkel said the German chancellor regretted Trump’s decision to ban citizens of certain countries from entering the US, adding that she had “explained” the obligations of the refugee convention to the new president in a phone call on Saturday.

“The chancellor regrets the US government’s entry ban against refugees and the citizens of certain countries,” Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert said in a statement.

“She is convinced that the necessary, decisive battle against terrorism does not justify a general suspicion against people of a certain origin or a certain religion.

“The … refugee convention requires the international community to take in war refugees on humanitarian grounds. All signatory states are obligated to do. The German government explained this policy in their call yesterday.”

Seibert said the German government would examine what consequences the ban would have for German citizens with dual citizenship, and would “represent their interests, if necessary, before our American partners”.

A summary of the phone call between Merkel and Trump, jointly issued to the press on Saturday, had made no mention of the travel ban, emphasising merely the “fundamental significance” of Nato and the intention to “further deepen the already excellent bilateral relations in the coming years”.

The French president, François Hollande, said on Saturday that “when [Trump] rejects the arrival of refugees, while Europe has done its duty, we should respond to him”.

Hollande said that in an unstable and uncertain world, “withdrawal into oneself is a dead-end response”, adding that defending democratic principles required compliance with “the principles on which it is founded, in particular the acceptance of refugees”.

In a tweet, Italy’s prime minister, Paolo Gentiloni, said his country was committed to the values that bind Europe: “Open society; plural identity; no discrimination.”

However, the leader of Italy’s anti-immigrant Northern League party expressed admiration for Trump’s entry ban.

“What Trump’s doing on the other side of the ocean, I’d like it done here, too,” said Matteo Salvini. Referring to the hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers and economic migrants brought to Italy in the last few years after being rescued in the Mediterranean, Salvini said there was “an invasion under way which needs to be blocked”.

Ireland’s foreign affairs minister, Charlie Flanagan, said that while US immigration policy was a matter for the US government, “it is clear that the most recent decisions could have far-reaching implications – both on humanitarian grounds and on relations between the US and the global Muslim community”.

The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, tweeted:

Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Sarif, said Trump’s decision would be recorded in history as “a great gift to extremists and their supporters … Collective discrimination aids terrorist recruitment by deepening faultlines exploited by extremist demagogues to swell their ranks.”

Margot Wallström, the Swedish foreign affairs minister, said she was “deeply concerned” by a decision that “creates mistrust between people”.

Australia’s foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, said the government would continue to work closely with the Trump administration to implement “strong border policies”. She said: “We share a common view on many issues so we will continue to work very closely with the Trump administration,” adding: “The very best days of the Australia-US relationship lie ahead.”

(h/t The Guardian)

Sean Spicer Retweets An Onion Article That Says He Lies For a Living

Last night, Sean Spicer retweeted a video from satirical news publication the Onion. “You nailed it,” Spicer tweeted, along with the video which listed “Five Things to Know About Sean Spicer.” Except it seems like maybe Spicer — who remember, as White House Press Secretary, is partially in the business of watching videos and reading tweets — didn’t watch the video or read the Onion’s tweet as carefully as he could have … since they declare Spicer’s “role in the Trump administration will be to provide the American public with robust and clearly articulated misinformation.”

The video’s “things to know” also include Spicer’s former role as a senior correspondent for NPR (false), his “defensive” speaking style (slightly less false), and his questionable pocket squares (style is subjective, I guess). Thing-to-know number four is “whether or not Spicer has ever knowingly lied to the press.” “One’s own mental activity is the only unquestionable fact of one’s experience,” the Onion explains in its answer.

To quote Sean Spicer, “nailed it.”

(h/t New York Magazine)

 

 

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