Category: Unpresidential

New Trump Campaign Manager Says He ‘Doesn’t Hurl Personal Insults’, Then He Proved Her Wrong

Donald Trump’s new campaign manager says the Republican presidential nominee doesn’t hurl personal insults.

In an interview on ABC’s “This Week,” Kellyanne Conway was asked about past statements she made criticizing Trump’s tone and attacks on his rivals.

“I don’t like when people hurl personal insults, that will never change,” Conway said. “I’m the mother of four small children. That would be a terrible example for me to feel otherwise.”But when pressed by host George Stephanopoulos on whether Trump would change his approach, Conway defended his tone.

“He doesn’t hurl personal insults,” she said.

“He just this week — look what he talked about. He’s bringing the case right to communities of color in Michigan, and he’s speaking to all Americans when he does that. What he’s doing is he’s challenging the Democratic Party. He’s challenging President Obama and Hillary Clinton’s legacy.”

Conway took over as Trump’s new campaign manager last week. She had chastised Trump in February, though, for “hurling personal insults” and using “vulgar” language.

“Do I want somebody who hurls personal insults or who goes and talks about philosophical differences?” Conway asked on CNN at the time.

(h/t The Hill)

Reality

Within a few hours after making this statement, Donald Trump sent tweets personally insulting MSNBC hosts Donny Deutsch and then attacked and threatened fellow MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.

Here are a few other examples of Trump hurling insults:

JUNE 16, 2015 – Trump officially threw his clown hat into the circus that would soon be the 2016 race with a jaw-dropping, ad-libbed speech in which he insulted Mexican immigrants as “rapists,” derided foreign countries and lambasted President Obama and other American leaders as “losers.”

JULY 18, 2015 – In one of his cruelest, and strangest attacks, Trump, at a conservative summit in Iowa, ripped John McCain, a former prisoner of war. “He’s not a war hero,” Trump said dismissively of McCain, who spent more than five years being tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam and suffered permanent injuries as a result. “He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”

AUG. 6, 2015 – Tenacious moderator Megyn Kelly kicked off the event by reminding Trump that he’d called “women you don’t like, ‘fat pigs, ‘dogs, slobs and disgusting animal.’ Trump interjected, “Only Rosie O’Donnell,” setting off tensions between he, the conservative news network, and the entire GOP establishment that have yet to fully cool.

AUG. 7, 2015 – Trump, clearly affected by Kelly’s aggressive questioning of him during the initial GOP debate, was quick to go on the attack against the respected journalist. In an interview the night after the debate, Trump blasted Kelly for bringing up his years of piggish, anti-women remarks, as she questioned him during the Republican debate. He even suggested disgustingly that her ire was a product of menstrual cycle. “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her – wherever,” Trump said

NOV. 24, 2015 – Trump mocked reporter’s physical handicap. “Now the poor guy, you ought to see the guy,” Trump said, mimicking New York Times (and former Daily News) reporter Serge Kovaleski, who suffers from arthrogryposis, a congenital condition that limits the movement of the joints and weakens the muscles around them. “‘Uhh, I don’t know what I said. I don’t remember,'” Trump said, gyrating his arms as he mocked Kovaleski’s movements.

2015 – 2016 – At Republican debates and during various campaign stops, Trump began rolling out clever nicknames for his political rivals. And like his candidacy, they all stuck. Among them? “Lyin’ Ted” (Ted Cruz), “Little Marco” Marco Rubio), “Crooked Hillary” (Hillary Clinton) and “Goofy Elizabeth Warren.”

AUG 1, 2016 – Trump insults Khizr and Ghazala Khan, whose son, Army Captain Humayun Khan, died in the line of duty in 2004, after they criticized him during a speech at the Democratic National Convention. Trump bizarrely claimed his real estate empire was a “sacrifice” and questioned why Ghazala Khan stayed silent on stage while her husband spoke. “If you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably – maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say. You tell me,” Trump said, suggesting that the Khans’ Muslim faith barred the woman from speaking out.

Media

Trump Faces New Backlash Over Pitch to Black Voters

On the heels of another staff shakeup, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was facing a new backlash – this time for his attempt to get black voters to vote for him in the November election.

At a campaign rally near Lansing, Michigan, on Friday, Trump asked what African-Americans have to lose by voting for him.

CBS News correspondent Errol Barnett reports it was supposed to be a day for a clean slate, but Trump’s latest attempted outreach to a larger voting bloc was called ignorant and heavy-handed by his critics.

“Look how much African-American communities have suffered under Democratic control. You’re living in poverty. Your schools are no good. You have no jobs. To those I say the following: What do you have to lose?”

Speaking from a predominately white suburb in Michigan. Trump tried to increase his support from African-American voters, which according to a recent Pew survey favor Hillary Clinton over the Republican nominee by an 83-point margin.

“You’re living in poverty,” Trump said. “Your schools are no good. You have no jobs – 58 percent of your youth is unemployed. What the hell do you have to lose?”

Moments after the speech, Clinton responded with a tweet.

(h/t CBS News)

Reality

Trump’s comments seem to be the result of him trying to correct his incredibly low numbers with black voters in recent polls. A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showed 91 percent of black voters favoring Clinton in comparison to one percent of black voters favoring Trump. At a rally in June, Trump showed he was in touch with black voters by singling out a black man in the crowd and calling him “my African American.”

Trump has also come under criticism from delivering his message to predominantly white cities while neglecting to entertain meeting with African American organizations like the NAACP.

Trump has a curious habit of reiterating the thoughts of white supremacists on social media, particularly when they are being complimentary toward him. When these presumed supporters are revealed to be racists, Trump has not removed his retweets (in some cases from the same user) or apologized for the presumed oversight.

Also, allegations of racism have dogged Trump’s campaign from the beginning, when he said undocumented Mexican immigrants were “rapists” during his announcement speech last June. And while Trump has offended Asian-Americans, Latino-Americans, Arab-Americans and Native Americans in the past, his transgressions as far as the black community is concerned could be even more costly come November.

For example, Donald Trump said in July he believes the Black Lives Matter movement has in some cases helped instigate the recent killings of police officers, and suggested he might direct his future attorney general to investigate the civil rights activist group. Trump also called the group a “threat” and accused the group of “essentially calling death to the police.”

African American Unemployment at 58%

Donald Trump has claimed several times that 58 percent of African-American youths are unemployed — more than double the government’s monthly breakdown.

According to BLS numbers, last month’s unemployment rate among 16-to-19-year-old black Americans was 25.7 percent, adjusted seasonally.

Media

Half-Indian Supporter Racially Profiled and Escorted Out of Trump Rally

A man who identified himself as half-Indian was escorted out of a Donald Trump rally on Thursday out of concern that he was a protester, but the man insisted he was a Trump supporter and said he feels that he was racially profiled.

Jake Anantha, an 18-year-old from Charlotte, was approached by a member of Trump’s security team and then ushered out by police. He was told that he resembled another man who had previously disrupted Trump rallies.

“I told him I’ve never been to another rally in my life,” Anantha said. “I’m a huge Trump supporter. I would never protest against Trump.”

Anantha is a registered Republican, according to state voter records, who registered to vote in March. Anantha, who said he’s a student at Central Piedmont Community College, was wearing a pro-Trump shirt with another pro-Trump shirt underneath.

“I do think it’s because I’m brown,” Anantha said, explaining why he believes he was kicked out. He added that he was “totally shocked.”

Trump’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment about the incident. Requests for comment from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department have not been returned.

It’s not unusual for known demonstrators who have been previously spotted at Trump rallies to be asked to leave. A Muslim woman, Rose Hamid, was also kicked out of the rally Thursday night. She had been escorted from at least one Trump rally in the past for peacefully protesting and had previously been interviewed by major media outlets, including CNN.

Attempting to verify his political beliefs, Anantha said he was a conservative and expressed views in line with those of Trump, including opposition to Black Lives Matter protesters, who were demonstrating Thursday night outside the venue, and his belief that “radical Islam is a large threat to our country.”

“I couldn’t believe what was going on,” he said of the incident. “Obviously now I’m very angry. I’ve wasted a bunch of time coming here. I may have wasted six months of my life supporting Donald Trump, who doesn’t even let me come to his rallies.”

While Anantha said he was now questioning his support for Trump, he maintained he won’t be voting for the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton.

“I couldn’t do that,” he said.

(h/t CNN)

Media

Footage of Jake escorted by security:

 

Trump Says He’d Racially Profile and Deport US Citizens Over ‘Extreme Views’

In an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, Republican nominee Donald Trump said that as President he would start racial profiling United States citizens, and should their views be “extreme” he would have them deported.

As an example, Trump used the father of Omar Mateen, the man who killed 49 people at Pulse nightclub in Orlando — in spite of his status as a U.S. citizen.

“I’d throw him out,” Trump said of Seddique Mateen, according to the Washington Post. The former reality TV star said that racial and religious profiling is something our country should start practicing in the interest of protecting itself.

“But look,” said Trump, “we have — whether it’s racial profiling or politically correct, we’d better get smart. We are letting tens of thousands of people into our country. We don’t know what the hell we’re doing.”

“And frankly, the Muslims have to help us, because they see what’s going on in their community,” he said. “And if they’re not going to help us, they’re to blame also.”

Regarding Seddique Mateen, Hannity asked, “What do we do when we find somebody that has extreme views? Do we throw them the hell out?”

“I’d throw him out,” Trump said as the audience cheered. “If you look at him, I’d throw him out. You know, I looked at him. And you look, he’s smiling.”

(h/t Raw Story)

Reality

Donald Trump is putting forth a proposal that would be a clear violation the 1st, 4th, and 14th amendments to the United States Constitution, as well as existing laws.

Mateen is a U.S. citizen, a status that is considered irrevocable except in extremely rare cases in which naturalized citizens become “denaturalized.” Typically, to be denaturalized one must get caught forging documents, falsifying important information or concealing of relevant facts, refusal to testify before Congress, membership in groups attempting to overthrow the government and dishonorable discharge from the military.

Racial profiling is the practice of targeting individuals for police or security detention based on their race or ethnicity in the belief that certain minority groups are more likely to engage in unlawful behavior.

Racial profiling is patently illegal, violating the U.S. Constitution’s core promises of equal protection under the law to all and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. Just as importantly, racial profiling is ineffective. It alienates communities from law enforcement, hinders community policing efforts, and causes law enforcement to lose credibility and trust among the people they are sworn to protect and serve.

Media

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RHP11SJTrI

Donald Trump Appoints Alt-Right Leader to Run Campaign

Steve Bannon and Donald Trump

Donald J. Trump named as his new campaign chief on Wednesday a conservative media provocateur whose news organization regularly attacks the Republican Party establishment, savages Hillary Clinton and encourages Mr. Trump’s most pugilistic instincts.

Mr. Trump’s decision to make Stephen K. Bannon, chairman of the Breitbart News website, his campaign’s chief executive was a defiant rejection of efforts by longtime Republican hands to wean him from the bombast and racially charged speech that helped propel him to the nomination but now threaten his candidacy by alienating the moderate voters who typically decide the presidency.

It also formally completed a merger between the most strident elements of the conservative news media and Mr. Trump’s campaign, which was incubated and fostered in their boisterous coverage of his rise.

Mr. Bannon was appointed a day after the recently ousted Fox News chairman, Roger Ailes, emerged in an advisory role with Mr. Trump. It was not lost on Republicans in Washington that two news executives whose outlets had fueled the anti-establishment rebellion that bedeviled congressional leaders and set the stage for Mr. Trump’s nomination were now directly guiding the party’s presidential message and strategy.

Mr. Bannon’s most recent crusade was his failed attempt to oust the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, in this month’s primary, making his new role atop the Trump campaign particularly provocative toward Republican leaders in Washington.

Party veterans responded Wednesday with a mix of anger about the damage they saw Mr. Trump doing to their party’s reputation and gallows humor about his apparent inability, or unwillingness, to run a credible presidential campaign in a year that once appeared promising.

“If Trump were actually trying to antagonize supporters and antagonize new, reachable supporters, what exactly would he be doing differently?” asked Dan Senor, a longtime Republican strategist who advised Mitt Romney and his running mate, Mr. Ryan, in 2012.

Terry Sullivan, who ran Senator Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign, said Mr. Trump and Breitbart “both play to the lowest common denominator of people’s fears. It’s a match made in heaven.”

For Mr. Trump, though, bringing in Mr. Bannon was the political equivalent of ordering comfort food. Only last week, Mr. Trump publicly expressed ambivalence about modifying his style. “I think I may do better the other way,” he told Time magazine. “They would like to see it be a little bit different, a little more modified. I don’t like to modify.”

Mr. Bannon’s transition from mischief-maker at Breitbart to the inner circle of the de facto leader of the Republican Party capped the second shake-up of Mr. Trump’s campaign in two months.

Kellyanne Conway, a veteran pollster and strategist who was already advising Mr. Trump, will become his campaign manager and is expected to travel with the candidate, filling a void that opened up when Corey Lewandowski was fired on June 20.

Mr. Trump’s loyalists put the best possible face on the changes announced Wednesday, but their timing, after a New York Times article detailing his advisers’ frustration at trying to impose discipline on him, underscored why so many in the party have soured on his prospects: His decisions are often made in reaction to news coverage.

Paul Manafort, the campaign chairman, will retain his title and focus on the political shop but was widely seen as being sidelined: Mr. Bannon and Ms. Conway have both developed close relationships with Mr. Trump, and Mr. Bannon is likely to be more amenable to letting him run the sort of media-focused campaign he prefers.

“This is an exciting day for Team Trump,” Mr. Manafort wrote in an internal staff memo. “I remain the campaign chairman and chief strategist, providing the big-picture, long-range campaign vision,” he added.

On a conference call Wednesday morning, Jason Miller, a Trump spokesman, said the moves had been well received, along with a speech on crime reduction that he gave in Wisconsin, pointing to favorable coverage on the MSNBC show “Morning Joe.”

Under Mr. Bannon, Breitbart News has been an amen corner for Mr. Trump, and perhaps more relentless than any other conservative outlet in its criticism of the Republican establishment.

But what most distresses mainstream party strategists about the union of Mr. Trump’s campaign with Breitbart’s guiding vision is the brand of populism that the website has advocated, and that Mr. Trump has championed.

Mr. Bannon has overseen a site that is focused primarily on pushing Republicans away from what it calls a globalist agenda and toward a hard-line and often overtly racial one, railing against what it sees as the threats of free trade, Hispanic migration and Islamist terrorism.

“This is Trump going back to the nativism and nationalism that fueled his rise in the primary,” said Lanhee J. Chen, who was Mr. Romney’s policy director in 2012. “But it’s very dangerous to the future of the party because it only further narrows the appeal of a party whose appeal was already narrow going into this cycle.”

Mr. Chen called Mr. Trump’s shift “a base reinforcement strategy” and noted that it was very different from the tack of most party nominees, who use the final months of the presidential race to broaden their appeal in hopes of winning over the maximum number of voters.

But to those on the right who are hoping to permanently shift Republicans away from free-market conservatism and toward a harder-edged populism, the addition of Mr. Bannon was a victory for the “America First” approach they want to ingrain in the party.

“He doesn’t need any help formulating his message — his message is perfect,” the conservative author Ann Coulter said of Mr. Trump. Referring to Mr. Trump’s policy adviser, speechwriter and warm-up speaker, she added, “Maybe he could use 10 more Stephen Millers.”

As comfortable as Mr. Trump may feel with Mr. Bannon’s style of politics, their unconventional alliance, and the possibility that the coming weeks could resemble a conservative publicity tour more than a conventional White House run, fueled speculation that Mr. Trump was already looking past November.

In recent months, Mr. Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, have quietly explored becoming involved with a media holding, either by investing in one or by taking one over, according to a person close to Mr. Trump who was briefed on those discussions.

At a minimum, the campaign’s homestretch offers Mr. Trump, who has begun to limit his national media appearances to conservative outlets, an opportunity to build his audience and steer his followers toward the combative Breitbart site. Even before announcing the staff shake-up, Mr. Trump intensified his criticism of the mainstream news media in a speech on Tuesday night in which he declared that he was running against the “media-donor-political complex.”

Mr. Trump’s elevation of Mr. Bannon and Ms. Conway also highlights the growing influence of Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah, conservative donors from Long Island. The Mercers are investors in Breitbart, and their foundation funds a host of other conservative activist groups. They spent millions on Senator Ted Cruz’s behalf during the Republican primary, an effort Ms. Conway helped lead. And they began bankrolling a pro-Trump “super PAC” in recent weeks after becoming friendly with Mr. Trump, his daughter Ivanka and her husband, Mr. Kushner.

At Breitbart and its sister foundation, the Government Accountability Institute, Mr. Bannon ran a hybrid between a news organization and an opposition-research operation aimed at discrediting Mrs. Clinton. The institute sponsored a book about Mrs. Clinton’s financial entanglements, “Clinton Cash,” which spawned various articles in mainstream newspapers last year, including in The New York Times.

Rival conservative news organizations viewed Breitbart as something of an outlier, which was evident in the title of an article the Weekly Standard writer Stephen F. Hayes wrote on Wednesday: “Trump Has Decided to Live in Breitbart’s Alternative Reality.”

“It’s the merger of the Trump campaign with the kooky right,” William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, said of Mr. Bannon’s new role.

Mr. Bannon has now joined with Mr. Ailes in a common cause on Mr. Trump’s behalf, a mission that Breitbart never pretended to deny. But Mr. Ailes’s direct involvement casts a new light on how his network handled Mr. Trump’s candidacy.

In the weeks before the Fox News host Gretchen Carlson filed the sexual harassment lawsuit that led to Mr. Ailes’s forced resignation, Mr. Ailes had been in regular contact with Mr. Trump and met with him at least twice, people briefed on the sessions said.

While meetings between a presidential candidate and the chairman of an influential television network are hardly unheard-of, especially with Mr. Trump, Mr. Ailes’s direct involvement in the campaign raises new questions about whether the sessions involved more than the usual complaints about coverage.

Before Mr. Ailes’s ouster, some of the network’s journalists and contributors privately complained that Mr. Ailes was pushing them to be more supportive of Mr. Trump. This drew particular umbrage from longtime Republican staff members and contributors who either opposed Mr. Trump’s candidacy on ideological grounds or believed it demanded tough reporting on journalistic grounds.

There was, though, one prominent conservative voice unambiguously in Mr. Ailes’s corner since the beginning of the sexual harassment scandal: Breitbart.

The website emerged as a singular defender of Mr. Ailes, with a piece about a planned walkout by network stars loyal to him should he be forced out — it never came to pass — and one by Mr. Bannon ridiculing the “minor Murdochs” (the 21st Century Fox chief Rupert Murdoch’s sons and co-executives, James and Lachlan), who were seen as leading the push for Mr. Ailes to resign.

(h/t New York Times)

Trump Campaign Manager Named in Ukrainian Probe Into Millions in Secret Cash

Donald Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, has been named in an investigation by Ukrainian authorities looking at whether he and others received millions in illegal payments from Ukraine’s former pro-Russian ruling party, according to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Manafort, claims it is a smear and he never done work for the governments of Ukraine or Russia, despite the fact that it has been very public knowledge Manafort worked for the Pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych as an image consultant from 2004 to 2010.

The probe is part of a wider investigation by the bureau into allegations of corruption and influence peddling against ex-president Viktor Yanukovich’s administration, for whom Manafort worked as a political consultant, before the leader’s violent ouster in 2014.

The investigation is looking into “shadow accounting” and potentially illegal payments made by Yanukovich to Manafort and other Ukrainian election officials, according to Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption.

The announcement of the investigation follows a report published late Sunday by The New York Times, which first revealed that Ukrainian investigators had found Manafort’s name included in an off-the-books, handwritten ledger detailing 22 secret payments — among them, a $12.7 million total payout to Manafort.

Daria Manzhura, head of external communications at the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, confirmed to CNN that Manafort’s name is among those listed on a handwritten ledger.

Responding to the initial report from the Times early Monday, Manafort called the report “unfounded, silly and nonsensical.”

“Once again The New York Times has chosen to purposefully ignore facts and professional journalism to fit their political agenda, choosing to attack my character and reputation rather than present an honest report,” he said in a statement.

“The simplest answer is the truth: I am a campaign professional. It is well known that I do work in the United States and have done work on overseas campaigns as well. I have never received a single “off-the-books cash payment” as falsely “reported” by The New York Times, nor have I ever done work for the governments of Ukraine or Russia. Further, all of the political payments directed to me were for my entire political team: campaign staff (local and international), polling and research, election integrity and television advertising. The suggestion that I accepted cash payments is unfounded, silly, and nonsensical.

“My work in Ukraine ceased following the country’s parliamentary elections in October 2014. In addition, as the article points out hesitantly, every government official interviewed states I have done nothing wrong, and there is no evidence of ‘cash payments’ made to me by any official in Ukraine. However, the Times does fail to disclose the fact that the Clinton Foundation has taken (and may still take) payments in exchange for favors from Hillary Clinton while serving as the Secretary of State. This is not discussed despite the overwhelming evidence in emails that Hillary Clinton attempted to cover up,” the statement continued.

(h/t CNN)

Reality

As the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine noted, that the presence of Manafort’s name on the list does not mean he received the money, and that the ledger does not contain his signature while others who were identified did sign it.

However Manafort’s claim that, “nor have I ever done work for the governments of Ukraine.” is a complete lie.

It is no secret that Paul Manafort made a career silently working for some of the worst tyrants in the world, to reinvent their image and appear more likable to Western countries. Manafort’s firm was listed amongst the top five lobbying firms receiving money from human-rights abusing regimes in the 1992 Center for Public Integrity report “The Torturer’s Lobby.”

Manafort has represented Angolan political and military leader Jonas Savimbi, Filipino authoritarian president Ferdinand Marcos, and Congolese military dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.

In Ukraine, Manafort worked as an adviser on the presidential campaign of Viktor Yanukovych (and his Party of Regions during the same time span) from December 2004 until the February 2010 Ukrainian presidential election even as the U.S. government opposed Yanukovych because of his ties to Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin. Manafort was hired to advise Yanukovych months after massive street demonstrations known as the Orange Revolution overturned Yanukovych’s victory in the 2004 presidential race.

Also, Manafort claimed that the New York Times did not report on possible controversies at the Clinton Foundation, except they have:

Trump Blames ‘Crooked Media’ for Reporting on the Statements He Makes

After a week of bad poll numbers, Donald Trump is blaming the media.

“If the disgusting and corrupt media covered me honestly and didn’t put false meaning into the words I say, I would be beating Hillary by 20%.”

“It is not “freedom of the press” when newspapers and others are allowed to say and write whatever they want even if it is completely false!” he tweeted Sunday afternoon.

His blasts against the media on Twitter on Sunday followed what he told a crowd at a Connecticut rally Saturday night: “I’m not running against crooked Hillary Clinton. I’m running against the crooked media.”

In another tweet, Trump referred to the large size of his rallies and the passion of his supporters, claiming that these details have been ignored by reporters.

“My rallies are not covered properly by the media,” he said in Connecticut. “They never discuss the real message and never show crowd size or enthusiasm.”

To emphasize the statement he made Saturday at the rally in Fairfield, Connecticut, about the “crooked media”, the 70-year-old real estate tycoon waved his finger in a horizontal line toward where the press was stationed.

(h/t ABC News)

Reality

Basically Donald Trump is complaining that the media should be covering his economic plan, but takes no responsibility on a week full of gaffes that redirected attention away from what should have been an honest discussion on his policy.

Trump wasted yet another opportunity to show the he can stay on message by making ridiculous comments such as:

The single best response from the media came from CNN’s Jake Tapper who sarcastically quipped, “How dare we cover the comments he makes.”

The irony that Donald J. Trump, leader of the conspiracy theory “birther” movement, attempting to lecture the press on ethics is not lost on us.

The birther movement, which Trump was the public face, was an attempt to discredit the legitimacy of the Presidency of Barack Obama by claiming he was not a natural born citizen, as required by the United States Constitution. Right-wing news media, like Fox News, went full-birther and propped up Donald Trump as a champion for the “truth.”

President Obama released his short form birth certificate in June 12, 2008 and the long-form birth certificate on April 27, 2011.

Some of the examples of crooked statements made by Trump that were completely false include:

  • On Good Morning America, Trump claimed he was “skeptical” of President Obama’s citizenship, years after Obama released his short form birth certificate.
  • During a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference falsely claimed growing up nobody knew Obama. CNN host Suzanne Malveaux released a documentary earlier that year where she spoke with people who grew up with President Obama.
  • Trump got into a shouting match with Whoopi Goldberg while defending the obvious racial bias in the birther claims.
  • In an NBC News interview said that “there is a big possibility” Obama may have violated the Constitution by not being born in the United States, again, this was years after Obama released his short form birth certificate, proving he was indeed born in Hawaii.

 

Trump Spokeswoman Again Rewrites History to Blame Obama

Donald Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson has once again blamed President Obama for something that happened years before he took office.

Remember how Pierson blamed Obama for Captain Humayun Khan‘s death in 2004? Well, on CNN this morning, as she was arguing with anchor Victor Blackwell about Trump’s “founder of ISIS” remark, Pierson actually said, “Remember, we weren’t even in Afghanistan by this time. Barack Obama went into Afghanistan, creating another problem.”

Blackwell asked, “You’re saying Barack Obama took the country into Afghanistan post-2009?” Pierson said, “That was Obama’s war, yes.”

After the commercial break, Blackwell confronted her about this glaring factual inaccuracy. Pierson protested that “we’re talking about ISIS specifically.”

Blackwell pointed out that ISIS did not suddenly spring up when Obama became president.

As we described in a earlier post, ISIS was formed in 1999 and grew it’s membership from former members of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party who were out of a job after the Bush-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, then calling them

We should point out here that after Pierson got in trouble for muddling the facts on Captain Khan’s death recently, a high-level Trump adviser said on CNN, “I think we’re fixing it, I guarantee you that won’t happen again with her, that’s for sure.”

(h/t Mediaite)

Media

 

Trump Whines That “Lowest Form of Life” Journalists Report on What He Says

Donald Trump has increasingly organized his general-election effort around antagonizing the press. He dedicates long sections of his speeches and innumerable tweets to savaging individual outlets, and claiming that media bias could effectively “rig” the election for Hillary Clinton.

At times, his enthusiasm for venting anger about the news media has seemed to rival his interest in criticizing Mrs. Clinton. In Erie, Pa., on Friday, Mr. Trump swerved back and forth between attacks on Mrs. Clinton and an extended airing of grievances about the press.

The news media, he said, was determined to cover up Mrs. Clinton’s missteps and highlight his own. (Mr. Trump allowed that Fox News, home to several anchors who openly favor his candidacy, was an exception.)

“These people are the lowest form of life, I’m telling you,” he said, pointing at the journalists covering his rally. “They are the lowest form of humanity.”

In Altoona, Pa., on Friday evening, Mr. Trump continued his diatribe: “It is so ridiculous, the pile on,” he complained of the coverage of his campaign. “Every single day, story after story after story.”

Mr. Trump’s crowd-pleasing allegations of news media malevolence also serve a tactical purpose: Providing him license to revise or play down his remarks. After stating several times this week that he considered Mr. Obama to be the founder of the Islamic State, Mr. Trump reversed course on Friday with a declaration that he had only been speaking sarcastically and that the press simply did not understand.

In Pennsylvania, he reiterated that he had been sarcastic, but added: “Not that sarcastic, to be honest with you.”

Republicans often complain about the national news media, arguing that most reporters and publications are tilted against them. In the 1992 presidential race, Republicans even produced a bumper sticker urging voters to “annoy the media” by re-electing President George Bush. And in his 2016 primary campaign, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida accused the press of being the equivalent of a “super PAC” for Democrats.

On the Democratic side, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont fulminated this year about the “corporate media,” which he described as hostile to liberal ideals. And aides and supporters of Mrs. Clinton routinely complain that reporters treat her unfairly.

But the Trump campaign has made accusations of news media bias a pervasive theme, and has attacked publications and reporters with virulence. Since last year, Mr. Trump has made a practice of riling up his crowds with mockery of the media, often pointing to the press risers and describing reporters as dishonest.

In Erie on Friday, his audience jeered each time Mr. Trump mentioned a news outlet, and at one point many in the crowd turned their backs on him to face the press and express their contempt with a variety of shouts and gestures. “Dinosaur media is failing!” one man yelled.

Mr. Trump’s slashing attacks have generated embarrassing scenes for his campaign, as agitated Trump fans have acted on his goading. On Thursday night, video circulated widely online of an angry Trump supporter berating reporters and making an obscene gesture in their direction in Kissimmee, Fla. In one instance during the primaries, Katy Tur, a reporter for NBC News, reported she was escorted to her car by the Secret Service after a rally in which Mr. Trump assailed her by name.

If bashing the media proved an effective way of rallying the Republican base to his side during the primaries, Mr. Trump must now prove himself to a broader community of voters in the general election, who are far less preoccupied with the notion of press bias. Republican strategists see Mr. Trump’s offensive mainly as an exercise in thin-skinned defensiveness, rather than a shrewd political strategy.

Kevin Madden, a former spokesman for Mitt Romney’s and George W. Bush’s presidential campaigns, said Mr. Trump was veering away from issues actually weighing on swing voters, which he said were “economy and security-focused.”

“Whining about media coverage is just that: It’s whining,” Mr. Madden said. Of complaints, Mr. Madden said: “Any campaign that tells you it makes a difference with swing voters is just lying to themselves and lazy, because it’s easier than developing an actual strategy or message.”

(h/t New York Times)

Media

Kissimmee , FL – 8/11/2016

Erie, PA – 8/12/2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFsbDuGt7A4

Altoona, PA – 8/12/2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFz51NcVBhQ

 

Trump Insults Protester “Your Mother is Voting for Trump!”

Protesters brought Trump’s rally in Erie, Pennsylvania to a brief halt, carrying signs demanding that the GOP candidate release his “tax forms.”

As the protesters were calmly escorted out of the stadium, Trump did not respond, besides quipping that Bernie Sanders‘ protesters had a lot more passion.

One reporter tweeted that there were Black Lives Matter protesters in the venue as well. Trump responded, “Go home to mom! And your mother is voting for Trump! She’s voting for Trump!”

Trump has repeatedly refused to release his tax returns, citing on ongoing audit. Experts have pointed out that there is no reason why an audit should preclude him from releasing his returns. Trump has even refused to release returns prior to those years that he claims are currently under audit.

(h/t Mediaite)

Reality

Normally “yo mama” jokes are meant as an insult.

Media

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