Category: Policies

Trump Defends Trump Jr.: ‘I Applaud His Transparency’

President Trump on Tuesday praised his son, Donald Trump Jr., who is under fire for meeting with a Russian lawyer who claimed to have compromising information about Trump’s Democratic rival in the presidential race, Hillary Clinton.

“My son is a high-quality person and I applaud his transparency,” Trump said in a brief statement, which White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders read to reporters during an off-camera briefing.

Trump had previously remained silent on the growing controversy surrounding the meeting at the height of the campaign, which became public Saturday.

The revelation has shaken the White House, which for months has struggled to contain the fallout from a wide-ranging investigation into Russia’s election-meddling effort in 2016.

Sanders acknowledged that, “the president is, I would say, frustrated with the process of the fact that this continues to be an issue.”

“He would love for us to be focused on things like … the economy, on healthcare, on tax reform, on infrastructure and that’s the place that his mind is and that’s what he’d like to be discussing,” she said.

Sanders, however, did not dispute stunning new emails disclosed by Trump Jr. Tuesday detailing efforts to set up the meeting.

She was peppered with questions about the stunning disclosure during the 21-minute briefing, repeatedly referring reporters to attorneys representing the president and his eldest son.

The lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Sanders did engage some questions about the meeting, saying it’s “ridiculous” to use the words “treason” or “perjury” to describe Trump Jr.’s behavior, as some critics have alleged.

The spokesman stood by her Monday claim that Trump Jr. did not collude with Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.

She said she was not able to say the last time the president spoke with his son and refused to say whether Trump now believes Russia interfered with last year’s election.

Sanders also denied that Vice President Pence was trying to distance himself from the Trump Jr. controversy by putting out a statement saying he is “not focused on stories about the campaign… especially those about the time he joined the ticket.”

“There is absolutely no distance between the president and the vice president,” she said.

Michael Flynn was fired in February as national security adviser in large part because he misrepresented his conversation with Russia’s U.S. ambassador to Pence. The vice president went on television and denied Flynn discussed sanctions with the Russian envoy, even though he did.

[The Hill]

Reality

Donald Trump Jr. didn’t release the emails out of some altruistic sense of transparency, the New York Times obtained the emails and asked him for a comment from him before releasing them to the public.

Trump Jr. never responded to the request, and instead released the emails, most likely in a self-server move to get out in front of the story.

If it really was about transparency, Trump Jr. would have released the emails months before the New York Times broke this story.

Rick Perry Fails to Explain Supply and Demand

Energy Secretary Rick Perry attempted to offer up an economics lesson while touring a coal plant in West Virginia on Thursday. He somehow managed to only confuse people.

“Here’s a little economics lesson: supply and demand,” Perry said at the Longview Power Plant. “You put the supply out there and demand will follow.”

The former governor of Texas was responding to a question about the current popularity of shale gas, but he seemed to reference a 19th century economic theory to explain the boom.

According to Say’s law of markets, introduced in 1803 by the French economist Jean-Baptiste Say, production is the source of demand.

Only this economic rule has mostly been discarded by modern economists who argue that supplying a product does not necessarily create demand for it.

According to Perry’s law of markets, there will always be a demand for coal as long as the industry produces it.

This is obviously incorrect. A day could and likely will come when there is zero demand for coal and therefore coal will go unsold and there will be huge storage facilities filled with unused fossil fuels.

Perry’s economics lesson at the West Virginia coal plant this week will only go down as the second biggest flub in his political career. In 2011, during a debate between Republican presidential candidates, Perry said that he would cut three agencies from the federal government — except he could not remember one of the agencies

“And I will tell you, it’s three agencies of government when I get there that are gone — Commerce, Education, and, the, uh, what’s the third one there? Let’s see . . .” Perry said at the time.

The third agency Perry was looking for was the Department of Energy — the agency he now runs.

[Salon]

Media

 

Trump Will Have Buses of Supporters Sent to His Speech in Poland, Utilizing Communist Party Tactics

Donald Trump didn’t exactly earn a unanimously warm welcome during his first trip to Europe as president in May. To ensure that his second visit starts off on a far more positive note this week, considerable measures are being taken, including those borrowed straight from the Communist Party playbook.

Ahead of making his way to Germany for the start of the G-20 summit Friday, Trump will land in Poland Wednesday and is guaranteed a rapturous reception: Supportive crowds literally will be bused in to cheer for him.

Trump will find a rare European friend in Poland, a country governed by its own nationalistic government and encouraged by the new U.S. president’s intention to shake up the global political order. Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz said that, like Trump, Poland’s government was being attacked by “liberals, post-communists, lefties and genderists.” He added that Trump was “a man who is changing the shape of the world’s political scene.”

The leader of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice Party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, meanwhile, touted Trump’s visit as a major source of pride for the country.

“We have new success, Trump’s visit,” the conservative said. “[Others] envy it, the British are attacking us because of it.”

But the reason that Trump is even in Poland is thought to be in no small part due to the fawning reception he has been promised. And the country’s right-wing government is taking no chances to ensure the U.S. president gets his wish.

Supporters will be bussed to Warsaw, the scene of Trump’s speech Thursday, from all over Poland to participate in what has been deemed a “great patriotic picnic.”

“It’s going to be huge—absolutely huge,” Law and Justice Party member Dominik Tarczynski said. “They just love him, the people in Poland—they just really love him.”

Tarczynski, as all members of the ruling party have been instructed to do, will bus in 50 of his constituents to provide a very different reception for Trump than he is likely to receive in Hamburg, where up to 100,000 protesters are expected. The tactic is a mirror of that adopted when Poland was a member of the Soviet bloc, and the Communist Party would bus agreeable crowds to Warsaw to greet visiting dignitaries from Moscow.

Some have argued that such provisions are unnecessary. U.S. presidents tend to get warm welcomes in Poland, and 73 percent of Poles have a favorable view of the U.S., according to a Pew Research Center survey released last week.

Yet, while Trump shares much of the nationalistic anti-immigrant policies of Poland’s ruling party, just 23 percent of Poles have confidence in him. That compares to the 58 percent that expressed confidence in Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama at the end of his second term.

And, while likely not visible to the president, there will be signs of opposition to Trump.

In one notable example, a group of Polish women has prepared costumes inspired by The Handmaid’s Tale in order to protest what they view as Trump’s overt sexism.

[Newsweek]

 

 

White House Warns CNN That Critical Coverage Could Cost Time Warner Its Merger

It’s quite possible that Donald Trump would never have become president were it not for CNN. The network nurtured the reality star’s campaign in its infancy, broadcasting entire stump speeches, uninterrupted by correction or commentary. And it is likely that the president would be little more than a cultural artifact — a walking reminder of 1980s nihilism — were it not for the network’s president Jeffrey Zucker, who reintroduced Trump to the American public as a no-nonsense businessman in NBC’s The Apprentice.

But CNN is a journalistic enterprise. Or, at least, it plays one on TV. And so when a politician spews vicious, obvious lies on a near-daily basis — and directs a good portion of that venom at the free press itself — CNN’s anchors and reporters feel compelled to correct and condemn such mendacity. And that makes the president feel “betrayed.”

So, now, his administration is openly threatening to punish the network by sending the Justice Department after its parent company. As the New York Times reports:

Mr. Trump’s allies argue that it is CNN’s conduct that is unbecoming. Starting on last year’s campaign trail, the president and his aides have accused the network of bias and arrogance, an offensive that heated up again in January after CNN reported on the existence of a secret dossier detailing a series of lurid accusations against Mr. Trump. The network’s reporters now routinely joust with Mr. Trump’s press aides, and Jim Acosta, a White House correspondent, recently denounced the administration’s use of off-camera briefings as an affront to American values.

White House advisers have discussed a potential point of leverage over their adversary, a senior administration official said: a pending merger between CNN’s parent company, Time Warner, and AT&T. Mr. Trump’s Justice Department will decide whether to approve the merger, and while analysts say there is little to stop the deal from moving forward, the president’s animus toward CNN remains a wild card. [my emphasis]

This detail is buried 12 paragraphs into a feature on CNN’s combative relationship with Trump. Which is bizarre, given that it’s an open confession of corruption by a senior White House official. It hardly matters whether the administration follows through on its threat: The White House is extorting a news network in the pages of the New York Times. The fact that this didn’t strike the paper as headline material is a testament to how thoroughly Trump has already succeeded in eroding our expectations for good governance.

Shortly after the mogul’s election, Vox’s Matt Yglesias posited politically motivated interference in the Time Warner–AT&T merger as a frightening hypothetical — a development that would signal America’s descent into kleptocracy.

Trump is not going to crush the free media in one fell swoop. But big corporate media does face enough regulatory matters that even a single exemplary case would suffice to induce large-scale self-censorship. AT&T, for example, is currently seeking permission from antitrust authorities to buy Time Warner — permission that Time Warner executives might plausibly fear is contingent on Trump believing that CNN has covered him “fairly.”

It’s worth noting that CNN has already allowed the desire to appease Trump (and his voters) to undermine its journalistic integrity. The network literally pays Trump associates Corey Lewandowski and Jeffrey Lord to lie to its audience on the president’s behalf — even as it cut ties with Reza Aslan for profanely criticizing the president on social media.

While this is the first time the administration has publicly declared its interest in using the Justice Department as a tool for stifling dissent, Trump has been encouraging Time Warner to discipline its news network for months now. In February, the Wall Street Journal reported that senior White House adviser (and Trump son-in-law) Jared Kushner “complained to Gary Ginsberg, executive vice-president of corporate marketing and communications at CNN’s parent Time Warner, about what Mr. Kushner feels is unfair coverage slanted against the president.”

On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to block Time Warner’s desired merger “because it’s too much concentration of power in the hands of too few.”

If that sentiment were genuine, it would be worth applauding. There’s considerable evidence that corporate consolidation in general — and media concentration, in particular — has been bad for our economy and our democracy. But the Trump administration has signaled an appreciation for the virtues of monopolies, appointing a former lobbyist with an affinity for big business as the Justice Department’s head of antitrust enforcement.

And the White House is perfectly comfortable with media consolidation — when such mergers increase the bandwidth of pro-Trump outlets. Earlier this year, the FCC relaxed rules on how many local stations a single owner can control. Shortly thereafter, Sinclair Broadcast Group purchased Tribune Media — thereby gaining ownership of enough local television stations to reach 70 percent of American households. Sinclair is run by a big-dollar GOP donor, and forced its local affiliates to skew their coverage in Trump’s favor throughout the 2016 campaign.

If the White House blocks the Time Warner–AT&T deal, it will not be out of a desire to enhance competition, but to limit free speech.

To be sure, there’s reason to doubt that Trump will make good on that threat — this White House’s bark tends to be louder than its bite. In an interview with the Times, Zucker claims that the merger is not something he thinks about and that Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes has never brought that subject to his attention.

But when a president with an ardent, white-nationalist following barks, it’s reasonable to fear that someone else might use their teeth. While Zucker isn’t worried about antitrust enforcement, he told the Times that he is worried for his staff’s personal safety:

The level of threats against CNN employees, he said, has spiked this year. Mr. Trump, he said, “has caused us to have to take steps that you wouldn’t think would be necessary because of the actions of the president of the United States.”

Over the weekend, Trump tweeted a GIF that portrayed him battering a wrestling figure with the CNN logo for a head. The creator of that clip turned out to be a neo-Nazi Reddit user who had posted a list of all the Jews that work at CNN. The network’s Andrew Kaczynski tracked down that user and extracted an apology. Kaczynski declined to reveal the figure’s identity, but suggested that he retained the right to do so, if the shit-poster resumed his “ugly behavior on social media.”

That threat did not sit well with the alt-right, who saw it as an attempt to restrict free speech through intimidation. Thus, some Trumpists decided to express their principled opposition to such intimidation, by threatening to kill Kaczynski and his family. As BuzzFeed reports:

For now, according to a source with knowledge of the situation, Kaczynski and his family are the subject of an ongoing harassment campaign that includes the publication of personal information and death threats. And earlier today, the pro-Trump social media personality Michael Cernovich announced a protest outside Kaczynski’s New York home.

The White House is openly threatening to punish a (barely) adversarial outlet through selective regulatory enforcement. White nationalist Trump supporters are threatening to kill investigative reporters and assembling outside their homes.

Donald Trump has been president for less than six months.

[New York Magazine]

Trump praises record-low July 4th gas prices

As travelers hit the road for the Fourth of July holiday, President Donald Trump touted record-low gasoline prices and expressed hope that they would continue to fall.

“Gas prices are the lowest in the U.S. in over ten years!” Trump tweeted Tuesday. “I would like to see them go even lower.”

AAA said Monday that the national average of $2.23 per gallon was the cheapest gas has been all year. The last time gas prices were this low on Independence Day was 2005.

Trump’s tweet came minutes after he wished his followers a “Happy 4th.”

“Getting ready to celebrate the 4th of July with a big crowd at the White House. Happy 4th to everyone. Our country will grow and prosper!”

[Politico]

Reality

Forgetting the fact that government actions typically have little impact on the fluctuation of gas prices, Trump was not exactly telling the truth.

While the national average gas price is at the lowest point they have been in the past ten years on the date of July 4th, beating last year by just a few pennies, Trump didn’t say that. He claimed gas prices are the lowest ever in over ten years, which is a distortion of the truth. A lie.

 

Trump tweets a video of him wrestling ‘CNN’ to the ground

President Trump posted a short video to his Twitter account Sunday in which he is portrayed wrestling and punching a figure whose head has been replaced by the logo for CNN.

The video, about 28 seconds long, appears to be an edited clip from a years-old appearance by Trump in WrestleMania, an annual professional wrestling event. The clip ends with an on-screen restyling of the CNN logo as “FNN: Fraud News Network.”

Cartoonish in quality, the video is an unorthodox way for a sitting president to express himself. But Trump has ratcheted up his attacks on the media in recent days — assailing CNN and crudely insulting the hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” — while defending his use of social media as “modern day presidential.”

In a speech Saturday at a faith rally in Washington, Trump was met with cheers when he referred to CNN as “garbage journalism” and said: “The fake media tried to stop us from going to the White House. But I’m president, and they’re not.”

The wrestling video stirred criticism, disbelief, and dumbfoundedness. Some journalists denounced its portrayal of violence as dangerous, saying it could incite attacks or threats against media employees.

“I think it is unseemly that the president would attack journalists for doing their jobs, and encourage such anger at the media,” said Dean Baquet, executive editor of The New York Times.

The administration did not respond to a request for comment. Trump’s homeland security adviser, Thomas Bossert, defended the video when he viewed it for the first time during a broadcast interview with Martha Raddatz of ABC News. “No one would perceive that as a threat,” Bossert said. “I hope they don’t.”

“He’s a genuine president expressing himself genuinely,” Bossert added.

CNN criticized Trump for posting the video. “It is a sad day when the president of the United States encourages violence against reporters,” the network said in a statement.

“Instead of preparing for his overseas trip, his first meeting with Vladimir Putin, dealing with North Korea, and working on his health care bill, he is involved in juvenile behavior far below the dignity of his office,’’ the statement said. “We will keep doing our jobs. He should start doing his.’’

Asked about the video on ABC, Governor John Kasich, Republican of Ohio, said he hoped Trump’s family would talk to him and say, ‘‘Knock it off.’’ He added, “the coarseness doesn’t help anybody.’’

Rallies for and against Trump were held in several cities Sunday.

Demonstrators hoisting signs and chanting anti-Trump slogans marched through downtown Los Angeles to urge Congress to impeach the president. Organizers said they believe the president has violated the Constitution and obstructed justice. A smaller group of Trump backers rallied outside the police headquarters.

Supporters and opponents clashed in Austin, Texas, at a march by a group calling for impeachment.

A version of Trump’s video appeared last week on a Trump-dedicated page on the message board site Reddit, a popular meeting ground for Trump supporters.

The CNN logo is superimposed on what appears to be the head of Vince McMahon, a wrestling magnate and a friend of Trump, who in his prepresidential years often appeared as a guest on wrestling shows.

Trump’s fans on Reddit were exuberant about what they viewed as validation from the country’s most powerful man. “I love this,” wrote a user identified as American_Crusader. “You know he saw it, chuckled, and knew he could control the media narrative for days by hitting the ‘post’ button. So he did.”

The president’s allies say his attacks on the media are justified, arguing that the president is merely defending himself from coverage that his supporters view as biased. Trump’s war of words with CNN is especially popular with his voter base.

Media advocates, however, have raised alarms about a recent spate of arrests and assaults on working journalists, including a high-profile episode in which a Montana congressional candidate, Greg Gianforte, assaulted a reporter for The Guardian, breaking his glasses. Gianforte, who won a House seat, later apologized to the reporter.

Bruce Brown, the executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, condemned the wrestling video as a ‘‘threat of physical violence against journalists.’’

“Targeting individual journalists or media outlets, on-or off-line, creates a chilling effect and fosters an environment where further harassment, or even physical attack, is deemed acceptable,” said Courtney Radsch, the advocacy director for the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Trump posted the wrestling tweet just as prominent Republicans began appearing on the major Sunday news programs.

On CNN, Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, accused the president of “weaponizing distrust” toward the media.

But Tom Price, the health and human services secretary, bristled when asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” about Trump’s antimedia remarks. “This is really remarkable,” Price said. “Your program — a program with the incredible history of ‘Meet the Press’ — and that’s what you want to talk about?”

[Boston Globe]

The White House’s Science Division Is Now Completely Empty

Despite the veritable purge of scientists and science communication that has characterized the Trump administration, the White House still has an Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Unfortunately, its science division is now completely lacking any staff whatsoever.

As reported by CBS News, the three remaining employees, all of which were holdovers from the Obama administration, have left. One staffer, the assistant director for biomedical and forensic sciences, tweeted, “Science division out. Mic drop” as she left.

Over the last couple of years, there were up to 100 employees working at the OSTP, which saw a high level of investment from the former President. It is unclear when or even if the roles will be filled again, and by whom.

First established in 1976 by Congress, it is designed to provide the President and others with “advice on the scientific, engineering, and technological aspects of the economy, national security, homeland security, health, foreign relations, the environment, and the technological recovery and use of resources, among other topics.”

Many governmental scientific agencies have been threatened with massive and historic funding cuts; the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is being effectively stripped of its scientific advisory board; that is why federal scientists have been bullied to not to speak out about their research. Entire departments that focus on science and technology are being shut down.

As of June, around 85 percent of all scientific posts in the federal government, including an official scientific advisor to the President, were left unfilled. Perhaps uniquely, this percentage has now increased, what with the recent dismissals at the EPA and the new removals at the OSTP.

[IFLScience]

Trump threatens to sue CNN, according to GOP fundraiser audio

President Trump pummeled CNN during his first re-election fundraiser Wednesday night, according to audio released Friday by The Intercept.

“Boy, did CNN get killed over the last few days,” Mr. Trump said in the audio that lasted for about 40 minutes.

The fundraiser speech took place at at his hotel in Washington, D.C.; media were excluded and attendees were charged $35,000 each.

Mr. Trump went on to bash CNN commentator Van Jones and the president of CNN, Jeff Zucker, and asked the audience if he should sue people who work there.

“These are really dishonest people. Should I sue them? I mean, they’re phonies. Jeff Zucker, I hear he’s going to resign at some point pretty soon. I mean these are horrible human beings,” Mr. Trump could be heard saying.

The president said “it’s a shame” what they’ve done to CNN’s brand.

“But as far as I’m concerned, I love it,” he said. “If anybody’s a lawyer in the house and thinks I have a good lawsuit — I feel like we do. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

A Republican source told CBS News that the fundraiser was expected to pull in roughly $10 million for the GOP.

[CBS News]

Media

The Intercept

 

Trump Endorses Repeal-First Strategy if Health Care Deal Not Reached

As Senate negotiations continue over the stalled Republican health care bill, President Donald Trump Friday morning called on senators to pass a simple repeal of Obamacare now and focus on replacing it later this year if no deal is reached.

Trump’s tweet came just after Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., sent a letter to the White House urging the president to support a repeal-first, replace-later strategy if there is no agreement by the time senators return from their week-long Fourth of July recess on July 10.

The idea has been floated by some Republicans since a planned Senate vote on the GOP Better Care Reconciliation Act was postponed Tuesday because leaders were unable to secure the 50 GOP votes needed to pass it.

Sasse has been working quietly with the White House on the idea, according to a Senate Republican aide who said the administration was receptive to the idea.

“You campaigned and won on the repeal of Obamacare. So did every Republican senator. We should keep our word,” Sasse wrote in the letter.

“On the current path, it looks like Republicans will either fail to pass any meaningful bill at all, or will instead pass a bill that attempts to prop up much of the crumbling Obamacare structures,” he added. We can and must do better than either of these — both because the American people deserve better, and because we promised better.”

Sasse also asked the president to call on Congress to cancel its scheduled month-long August recess to work on a replacement bill for a Labor Day vote. “After we gave our word to repeal and replace Obamacare’s monstrosity,” he said, “we should not go back to our states during August as the American people struggle under fewer choices and skyrocketing costs. We should remain in D.C. at work.”

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who has publicly been advocating starting the idea of starting with a full Obamacare repeal publicly for two weeks, quickly retweeted the president and added his support.

Sasse has kept a low profile throughout the negotiations on health care, refusing to comment or publicly engage on the bill.

The idea was considered by Republican leaders at the beginning of this year when Trump took office but it was quickly dropped when they realized it would be too politically difficult to replace Obamacare outside the reconciliation process where the Senate would need the support of Democrats to pass a replacement.

Senate Republicans continue to discuss a way forward in the health care bill, considering changes to appear both moderates and conservatives to get the support of 50 of 52 Republicans.

[NBC News]

 

Trump posts misleading tweet about Medicaid spending under the Senate Republican healthcare bill

President Donald Trump took exception Wednesday with a Democratic argument regarding Medicaid funding in the new GOP healthcare bill.

“Democrats purposely misstated Medicaid under new Senate bill – actually goes up,” Trump tweeted with a chart.

One of the biggest criticisms of the Senate healthcare bill, the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), has been the projected cuts to future Medicaid spending under the legislation, which the Congressional Budget Office said would lead to 22 million fewer Americans being insured by 2026.

Trump’s tweet echoes an argument from Republicans that says the legislation doesn’t cut Medicaid spending.

But critics of the legislation note that the projected increase in funding from the federal government will be lower than the current projected rate of increase. This could have serious consequences for Medicaid recipients and state budgets.

Currently, the federal government provides states with a percentage of their Medicaid funding based on a formula of how much a state actually spends. Under the BCRA, states would receive a set amount of money based on the number of people on Medicaid in that state.

In other words, federal funding would grow in raw terms as the US population grows and the total number of people on Medicaid increases, but the amount per person would not be as generous as the current system.

The chart below shows the difference:

Also, the BCRA would end the Medicaid expansion program under the Affordable Care Act, the law better known as Obamacare, which would represent another significant decrease from the current path of funding.

The Congressional Budget Office projected that federal funding for Medicaid would decrease by $772 billion over the next 10 years compared to the current system.

According to analyses from The Brookings Institution, The Kaiser Family Foundation, and the CBO, the formula for the Medicaid growth rate under the BCRA would lead to increased financial stress on states and detrimental outcomes for Medicaid recipients.

[Business Insider]

Reality

Vox fixed the chart:

 

 

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