Dramatic video has emerged of people chasing down a man believed to have punched a 69-year-old woman on oxygen at a Donald Trump rally, showing the escalation of emotions from both protesters and supporters.
Shirley Teeter told a local ABC News affiliate that she attended the event in Asheville, N.C., to protest Trump. She recalls telling supporters outside the rally that they should start learning Russian — alluding to Trump’s admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Then, she said, a man in front of her turned around and punched her in the jaw, knocking her down onto her backpack containing her metal oxygen tank.
“He turned around and just cold-cocked me,” she said.
Police issued a warrant for the man’s arrest on charges of assault.
Donald Trump said Friday night that he would shoot Iranian vessels “out of the water” if they bother American ships.
“Iran, when they circle our beautiful destroyers with their little boats and they make gestures at our people that they shouldn’t be allowed to make, they will be shot out of the water,” the GOP presidential candidate said at a campaign rally in Pensacola, Florida.
Military analysts suspect the Iranian fast-attack craft have been conducting such maneuvers mainly because they are unhappy with the US nuclear deal — an agreement Trump also opposes.
Earlier this week, the real-estate mogul also released his plan for the military if elected president.
It calls for 540,000 active-duty Army soldiers, 350 Navy ships, 1,200 combat-ready Air Force jets, and 36 Marine Corps battalions — numbers he reiterated at the rally Friday night. On the technology side, Trump calls for a modernization of the missile-defense system.
This buildup will likely cost hundreds of billions of dollars, according to Military Times.
The US military, Trump said, will be “so strong that nobody’s going to mess with us.”
Get ready for yet another Republican-led war in the Middle East should we elect a President Donald Trump.
It is scary to have a presidential candidate hold a policy of American military aggression, reinstating torture techniques that are proven not to work, while calling for a military buildup, ignoring international laws, and replacing career generals who he disagrees with puts our country on a highly volatile and dangerous path.
In an apparent contradiction to what Ivanka Trump said on “Good Morning America” yesterday, the Trump Organization has suggested that not all of its employees are eligible to receive eight weeks of paid maternity and adoption leave.
Deirdre Rosen, the senior vice president of human resources for the Trump Organization, told ABC News that the Trump Organization does offer a an eight-week paid parental leave policy, but said that may not be the case at the various properties that comprise GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s sprawling empire.
“The Trump Organization is proud of the family friendly environment it fosters throughout its portfolio. The Trump Organization, along with the lifestyle brand, Ivanka Trump, a company separate from the Trump Organization, wholly owned by Ivanka Trump, both offer an industry leading eight-week paid parental leave policy,” Rosen said in a statement. “The policies and practices allowing employees to enjoy a healthy work-life balance vary from property to property. We take an individualized approach to helping employees manage family and work responsibilities.”
During an interview Wednesday on “Good Morning America,” Ivanka Trump told ABC News anchor Amy Robach that all of Trump’s employees are offered paid maternity leave and adoption leave.
Robach asked if the benefit is applicable to all Trump Organization workers. Ivanka Trump responded: “It is and also adoption leave.”
The Trump Organization declined to release copies of its employee handbooks to ABC News, saying “the organization is a private business and will not be providing their handbooks which are considered proprietary.”
ABC News has asked the company to provide the sections in the employee handbook outlining the Trump Organization and Ivanka Trump’s family leave policies. The company has not yet responded to that request.
The Trump Organization also declined to elaborate on which employees are eligible for the eight-week paid parental leave.
The Trump campaign told ABC News this afternoon that the statement from Trump’s company “needs no further comment.”
Here is the full exchange between Robach and Ivanka Trump:
ROBACH: You’re an executive vice president at the Trump Organization. You said last night that the Trump Organization headed by your father does offer paid maternity leave for its employees. Is that for all of the thousands of employees of your father?
IVANKA TRUMP: It is and also adoption leave. So it’s a great thing and at my own business since inception I’ve offered eight weeks paid leave, only 10 percent of American companies offer that benefit, so it is quite unique and this policy is to encourage more companies and to encourage all Americans to be able to get the benefit of it should they be new mothers because it’s so critical and important.
If it does offer parental leave, that’s news to employees at many of the Trump Organization’s hotels.
The Huffington Post on Wednesday morning checked the validity of Ivanka Trump’s comments to ABC. Employees at the Trump SoHo, New York and Miami hotels, as well as the Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, all said that they do not offer workers paid maternity leave. Instead, they said that the company complied with the Family and Medical Leave Act, a federal law that requires companies to give employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid time off for the adoption or birth of a child.
An undated employee handbook for the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, obtained by HuffPost, states that workers there are entitled to unpaid family leave, in accordance with the FMLA. The manual notes that employees must “substitute their earned and unused vacation days and personal days for any otherwise unpaid FMLA leave.” That is, if employees want paid maternity or paternity leave, they have to use other paid time off that they’ve banked.
Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway downplayed the need for “extensive medical reporting” on Donald Trump while accusing Hillary Clinton of a lack of transparency about her health conditions.
Speaking to MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Tuesday, Conway said that she did not know what information Trump would disclose about his health when he appears on The Dr. Oz Show on Wednesday.
“I don’t know why we need such extensive medical reporting when we all have a right to privacy,” the campaign manager opined.
Mitchell pointed out that there was a tradition of candidates releasing medical records, which Trump had refused to honor.
“The American people have a right to know what the health is of their perspective commander-in-chief,” Mitchell insisted.
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“I agree with your premise,” Conway replied. “And so the question remains, why in the world did Hillary Clinton lie to everyone and conceal such an important fact for two days [after being diagnosed with pneumonia], saying she was overheated and dehydrated and then, of course, hours and hours later after, unfortunately, her health had become the biggest trending story of the day, not the 9/11 fallen.”
“The question remains that if this is about transparency and medical records and health conditions then why was she so furtive in the business of concealment here?”
Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway lashed out at CNN host Alisyn Camerota on Tuesday and accused the media of “badgering” Donald Trump because he would not provide evidence of his charitable donations.
During an interview with Conway on CNN’s New Day, Camerota noted that Trump had refused to release his tax returns because he was being audited, and asked the campaign manager if she would provide a letter from the IRS to prove he was under audit.
“I don’t know,” Conway shrugged. “Why? Are you calling him a liar?”
“And we’re taking Hillary Clinton’s word for she was ‘overheated’,” she added. “I mean, seriously, we’re running against a Clinton and we’re going to challenge someone’s veracity?”
Continuing to press for more transparency, Camerota asked if the campaign could prove vice presidential nominee Mike Pence’s claim that Trump had donated “tens of millions” to charity.
“Donald Trump has been incredibly generous over the course of his life with his own money and his foundation’s money, which is his money,” Conway insisted.
“No,” Camerota replied. “The foundation’s money are other people who contributed to his foundation.”
“Okay,” Conway scoffed. “Are we going to actually question that Hillary Clinton and her husband made almost a quarter of a billion dollars and we’re supposed to just question — and that’s okay?”
After Camerota reminded Conway that Trump often touts his wealth, Conway pivoted to attacking Clinton for referring to some Trump voters as “deplorables.”
“I’m a capitalist, I just wish she would respect the hardworking men and women of this country who she thinks are a bunch of uneducated rubes coming down from the hills with no teeth and long fingernails, and just, you know, they need to be schooled by this precious woman in New York,” Conway said. “Do we even want a president of the United States who laughs at Americans?”
Camerota pressed on: “Part of why people are calling for him to release his taxes is so that we do know how he himself has given to charity. Will you or the campaign release exactly what that number is?”
“I doubted it,” Conway said dismissively. “This is like badgering. In other words, I don’t see it as journalism. I see it as badgering. In other words, we’ve had this conversation so many times on so many different networks, and yet, we’re not having conversations about what the middle class tax relief would actually mean for people’s wage stagnation.”
“How is it badgering to ask for the evidence of a claim?” Camerota wondered. “If Mike Pence is saying ‘tens of millions’ of dollars from Donald Trump, shouldn’t we see the evidence.”
“Did anybody ask Hillary Clinton for evidence she was overheated and dehydrated?” Conway shot back. “Is anyone asking her for evidence of why she thinks she so precious and special that she would have break protocol at Ground Zero on Sunday, Alisyn, and take her to her daughter’s apartment rather than a hospital?”
“I just don’t buy that,” Camerota remarked. “You also just can’t make claims and expect everyone to just accept it.”
“Donald Trump is a very generous man,” Conway said. “And to employ tens of thousands of people from different countries, both genders certainly, from all walks of life over the years.”
“That’s not charity,” Camerota observed. “Employment is not charity.”
Many times her answers to questions, like on Trump’s lack of transparency, was to point out that their Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, was engaging in the same activity. So basically her response was to point to how low Clinton’s bar was on these issues, but then justify their stance by having their bar lowered to the exact same level. That doesn’t make a good argument as to why one should trust Trump over Clinton.
We covered Trump’s lack of charitable giving back in April 2016, so it is good to see this getting national attention it deserves. Trump brought this extra scrutiny on himself with illegal contributions from his foundation to bribe Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to not prosecute his Trump University scam.
Trump has also had other controversy surrounding his charitable giving, such as donations to veterans groups. Four months after claiming he gave money to veterans groups, reporters uncovered the fact that Trump never donated a dime. Once he was exposed he cut a check that evening then went on an all out attack on the media for uncovering his lie.
You can see the same play happening here with Conway, don’t answer questions, just attack the media for even bringing up these completely valid and relevant questions.
In May, Donald Trump thought the Federal Reserve handled interest rates exactly right.
“Right now I am for low interest rates, and I think we keep them low,” he told CNBC.
Today, he said Fed chair Janet Yellen’s interest rate decisions proved she was “obviously not independent” from the White House and was, in fact, a partisan conspirator out to help Democrats.
“It’s staying at zero because she’s obviously political and she’s doing what Obama wants her to do,” Trump told CNBC on Monday. “And I know that’s not supposed to be the way it is, but that’s why it’s low.”
In an interview last week with Reuters, Trump said the low rates had created a “false economy,” adding, “at some point the rates are going to have to change.”
What changed between May and today? Nothing. The Fed has the same policy of low interest rates that Trump gushed over just four months ago. They last voted to raise rates in December 2015, the first time in nearly a decade, although there’s speculation among analysts that they could raise them this month.
Like a lot of Trump’s flip-flops, it’s not clear what prompted the shift. But it’s hard to reconcile Trump’s comments from springtime, where he warned of terrible economic consequences from an interest rate hike, with his comments today.
Trump repeated his strong support for a low interest rate policy throughout his May interview with CNBC, warning that “one point more, even, is devastating” and that “we have to be very, very careful” about making changes as a result.
While he said he planned to replace Yellen when her term expired, he described her at that time as a kindred spirit on the issue.
“She is a low interest rate person, she has always been a low interest rate person, and I must be honest — I am a low interest rate person,” Trump told CNBC on May 5. “If we raise interest rates and if the dollar starts getting too strong, we’re going to have very major problems.”
He gave Fortune a similar assessment in April, saying a rate increase would be “scary” for the economy.
“The best thing we have going for us is that interest rates are so low,” Trump said. “There are lots of good things that could be done that aren’t being done, amazingly.”
On Monday, those substantive arguments for low interest rates had disappeared in favor of wild accusations of shady behavior around the same course of action.
“She’s keeping them artificially low” to boost Obama, he said. “Watch what’s going to happen afterwards, it’s a very serious problem. And I think it’s very political. I think she’s very political. And to a certain extent, I think she should be ashamed of herself.”
This isn’t the first time Trump has lurched erratically between extremes on the issue. He also accused Yellen of refusing to raise rates for political reasons last November.
“Janet Yellen should have raised the rates,” Trump told reporters. “She’s not doing it because the Obama administration and the president doesn’t want her to.”
The Fed voted to raise rates the next month.
Bumps in the economy tend to hurt the party in power, and partisans often grumble around election time that low interest rates are helping incumbents. Already, markets have been shaky this week as investors increasingly believe the Fed might announce a rate increase, which could slow growth in the short term in order to guard against inflation.
Whatever his motive, Trump’s comments drew a brush-back from Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari, who is a Republican.
“Politics simply does not come up,” Kashkari said on CNBC Monday. “We look at the economic data and … everyone around the table is committed to achieving our dual mandate of employment and inflation.”
With the many other flip-flops since becoming the Republican party’s nominee, Trump rejected almost every stance that his supporters loved which separated him from the other Republican primary candidates.
A man was captured on video appearing to choke a man and slap a woman who were with a group of protesters at a Donald Trump rally in Asheville, North Carolina on Monday.
The man, who was unidentified, was not arrested and was allowed to stay at the rally while the protesters were ejected from the event, CNN reports.
Prior to the incident, the protesters directed “an obscene gesture” in the direction of Trump, according to The Guardian.
The incident is the first instance of violence in months. During the primary season, there were multiple instances of violence at rallies, both among supporters and protesters.
Last month, the New York Times published a roughly three-minute video showcasing some of the obscenities hurled in the massive crowds in and around Donald Trump’s rallies.
At a Republican presidential debate in March, the brash billionaire said he doesn’t condone violence at his rallies, but at a previous event a month prior, Trump said of a protester: “I’d like to punch him in the face.”
Trump, on multiple occasions, has defended violence against protesters, encouraged violence against protesters, and promised violence. It stands to reason that it is Trump’s actions and behavior that creates an environment where violence against protesters is acceptable.
Donald Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani on Sunday claimed that “anything’s legal” during war, including the theft of private property.
Speaking on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” Giuliani said that the United States should have seized oil fields in Iraq following the 2003 invasion, to prevent the resource from falling into the hands of terrorists.
It is a position that Trump has argued for years, but it has only garnered serious attention since the former reality TV star became the Republican nominee for president.
Asked why such a move would not amount to theft, Giuliani scoffed. “Of course it’s legal,” he said. “It’s a war. Until the war is over, anything’s legal.”
This is patently false. The seizure of private property in war has been prohibited under international law for more than a century.
That Giuliani, a lawyer and former U.S. attorney, would dismiss decades of international law was unexpected, but it was in keeping with Giuliani’s recent adoption of many of Trump’s most unsubstantiated claims.
The tenor and tone of Giuliani’s media appearances on behalf of Trump have caused a number of his former colleagues to worry publicly that the former mayor of New York is throwing away his legacy.
Giuliani went on to claim that Trump never meant that the United States should have literally removed Iraq’s chief natural resource from the country, only that American troops should have remained in Iraq to ensure it was divided up evenly. “Leave a force back there and take [the oil] and make sure it’s distributed in a proper way,” he told Stephanopoulos.
“If that oil wasn’t there, we wouldn’t have the Islamic State,” Giuliani continued. “That oil is what makes the Islamic State so rich. Had we held that oil, made sure that it was equitably distributed within Iraq, we [could] have some say, some control over the distribution of it.”
For Trump, however, the notion of taking Iraq’s oil has always held an appeal as a sort of plunder. Speaking to Stephanopoulos in 2011, Trump explained: “In the old days, you know when you had a war, to the victor belong the spoils. You go in. You win the war and you take it. … You’re not stealing anything. … We’re taking back $1.5 trillion to reimburse ourselves.”
On the presidential campaign trail, Trump has moderated his statements, leaving out the part about Iraq reimbursing the United States for the cost of our blundered invasion of their country.
In addition, the 1949 Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Times of War provides that “any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public authorities, or to social or cooperative organizations, is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.”
For example, when Saddam Hussein (the former authoritarian leader of Iraq who Trump admires) invaded Kuwait in 1990, one of the justifications for international intervention was because Hussein seized and held Kuwaiti oil fields.
A white nationalist symbol has made its way into the latest back and forth in the 2016 presidential campaign.
Amid the flurry of statements about Hillary Clinton calling “half” of Donald Trump supporters a “basket of deplorables,” — a reference to some of the Republican nominee’s supporters who ascribe to views popular among the white nationalist-linked alt-right movement — informal Trump adviser and confidante Roger Stone tweeted a picture of the poster from the movie “The Expendables” altered as “The Deplorables.” Donald Trump, Jr., one of Trump’s sons, posted the same image on Instagram. The origin of the image is unclear.
The Photoshopped faces in the picture include Trump, running mate Gov. Mike Pence, Gov. Chris Christie, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Dr. Ben Carson, both of Trump’s eldest sons, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, alt-right icon Milo Yiannopoulos, and Stone himself.
Prominently featured over Trump’s right shoulder: popular white nationalist symbol, Pepe the Frog.
“Pepe the Frog is a huge favorite white supremacist meme,” Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center told NBC News of the meme.
While Pepe the Frog may not be a household name, the meme is known to members of the alt-right on the internet.
“It’s constantly used in those circles,” Beirich said. “The white nationalists are gonna love this because they’re gonna feel like ‘yeah we’re in there with Trump, there’s Pepe the Frog.'”
Pepe the Frog, a cartoon amphibian, was popularized on the website 4chan, and became associated with the neo-Nazi movement.
The Trump campaign has been repeatedly accused of dog whistles to white supremacists and the alt-right, though his original position on support from these groups was ambiguous. When confronted with the support of prominent white nationalist and former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke in February, Trump stumbled in his initial disavowal of the man — telling CNN at the time, “I don’t know David Duke. I don’t believe I have ever met him. I’m pretty sure I didn’t meet him. And I just don’t know anything about him.”
He later clarified that he disavowed Duke’s support, though the former Klansman — now running for Congress in Louisiana — has continued to tweet messages of support for the Republican nominee.
Over the course of this campaign, Trump has retweeted Twitter accounts with names such as ‘WhiteNationalistTM’ and blasted out anti-Semitic images to his over 11 million followers on the social media site. Some members of his campaign have been tied to the alt-right, including Breitbart’s Steve Bannon, who is now CEO of the Trump campaign. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton gave a speech shortly after Bannon’s appointment linking Trump’s campaign to the nationalistic movement and calling on the rest of the GOP to reject extremist views. Clinton has continued to argue that Trump has “given voice” those who engage in “offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric.”
Stone, for his part, is known for his controversial tweets that usually defend Trump, warn of a rigged election, and lashing out at Clinton. For months he has repeatedly advertised “Clinton Rape” t-shirts on his account and pushed hard on the Trump-proposed narrative that the election could be rigged against the Republican nominee.
Stone is no longer with the campaign in an official capacity, after parting ways with Trump in August of last year. Despite that, he remains a self-described “FOT: Friend of Trump” who was most recently invited to attend the campaign’s event announcing Gov. Mike Pence as Trump’s running mate.
Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks tells NBC News that “Don Jr., like Mr. Trump, disavows any groups or symbols associated with a message of hate.”
Stone could not be reached for comment on this article or the image’s origination. In his tweet, Stone said that he was “proud” to be among “The Deplorables” in the image, while Trump, Jr. wrote that he was “honored to be grouped with the hard working men and women of this great nation that have supported” his father.
Tweeting white supremacist and neo-Nazi imagery once could be considered an accident, multiple times shows an unmistakable pattern that can’t be explained away.
On July 4th, 2015, Trump tweeted that Jeb Bush likes “Mexican illegals because of his wife.”
On August 28th, 2015, Trump tweeted an attack on Jeb Bush how he should stop “speaking Mexican.”
On November 4th, 2015, Trump tweeted a meme tying Jeb Bush to the Nazis that used racist imagery.
On November 22nd, 2015, Trump tweeted a graphic with fake statistics that incorrectly inflated African-American murderers in the United States.
On January 22nd, Trump retweeted a tweet from the white supremacist WhiteGenocideTM.
On February 10nd, Trump AGAIN retweeted a tweet from WhiteGenocideTM, after being blasted a few weeks prior.
On July 4th, the Trump campaign tweeted anti-Semitic imagery of rival Hillary Clinton with a star of David on a backdrop of money. Trump tried to explain the controversy away that it was a “sheriff star” but journalist uncovered the Trump campaign never created that image because it was originally posted on a neo-Nazi website.
On July 5th, Donald Trump Jr. liked a tweet by one of the worst and most active member of the “alt-right” neo-Nazi movement on Twitter.
On July 6th, Trump attempted to defend his “Star of David” tweet by retweeting a meme from a known white supremacist.
On July 20th, an elected Trump delegate known for months to be a white supremacist has had her credentials stripped by the Republican party after posting a racial slur to Facebook and making “threats of violence” against black people.
On July 25th, Trump’s foreign policy advisor Retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn retweeted an anti-semitic post.
On August, 29th, Donald Trump Jr. retweeted a post from known white supremacist Kevin MacDonald.
Donald Trump eulogized conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly Saturday, praising her as an underdog and linking the anti-feminist movement she led to his anti-establishment campaign.
“She loved her country, she loved her family and she loved her god,” Trump said at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis. “The legacy will live on every time some underdog outmatches and outguns, defies the odds and delivers a win for the people.”
“America has always been about the underdog and always been about defying the odds,” he added.
Schlafly died Monday at 92. An early supporter of the Religious Right, she was most well-known for her opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and becoming one of the leading female critics of the feminist movement.
Trump praised Schlafly for being “America First,” a phrase he’s used to articulate his international policies on trade, immigration and other global affairs.
“And in all her battles, she never strayed from the one guiding principle: she was for America and was always ‘America First,'” he said. “People have forgotten that nowadays. With Phyllis, it was America First.”
Trump — who famously never apologizes, at least not publicly — also said Schlafly was someone who “never apologized.”
“She never wavered, never apologized and never backed down in taking on the kingmakers. She never stopped fighting for the fundamental idea that the American people ought to have their needs come before anything or anyone else,” he said.
Trump said Schlafly believed in the power of everyday American to challenge “the rigged system” he said.
“The idea that so called little people or the little person that she loved so much could beat the system often times the rigged system, you’ve been hearing a lot about it,” he added.
“That the American grassroots is more powerful than all of the world’s special interests put together. And that’s the way Phyllis felt.”
In her latest book — “The Conservative Case for Trump” — released Tuesday, Schlafly argued that conservative Christians should follow high-profile evangelical leaders such as Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins in supporting Trump’s candidacy.
“Trump has gone to great lengths to court national leaders in the social-conservative movement and has convinced many of the most prominent ones that he genuinely supports their policy positions,” she and co-authors Ed Martin and Brett M. Decker wrote.
Reality
Many of us were not alive or politically aware in the 1970’s and at the height of Schlafly’s prominence, so when the media described her as simply “ant-feminist activist” they didn’t paint a full enough picture.
Phyllis Schlafly was indeed an activist who was more than against feminism, she did everything in her power to make sure that every woman would be back in the kitchen under complete and total subservience to their husband. Her claim to fame was her fight against the Equal Rights Amendment, a constitutional amendment to forbid sexism by U.S. federal and state governments.
“By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don’t think you can call it rape.”
When the Supreme Court abolished the death penalty for minors, she lead the movement for the impeachment of Justice Anthony Kennedy, who was the deciding vote in the case.
This is who Donald Trump calls a “hero.”
But she’s not a racist!
Here is Phyllis Schlafly in her own words bemoaning that today’s immigrants aren’t white enough to her liking.
Here is Schlafly on record claiming Hispanics are not like the GOP, because of illegitimate pregnancies and an inability to understand the Bill of Rights.
Here is Phyllis Schlafly in an interview saying that Obama is intentionally bringing in ebola to make the U.S. more like Africa.
Here is a column written by Schlafly upset that disaster relief resources, things that save lives, are printed in non-English languages. Again these pamphlets save lives of actual real Americans who do not speak English.
You were saying?
Bonus
For an extra laugh, head over to Conservapedia, created by Phyllis Schlafly’s son Andrew, a conservative alternative to Wikipedia, who he found to be too factual and didn’t contain enough bias. Needless to say it is an embarrassment and highly unreliable.
