Category: Bullying

Donald Trump’s rhetorical style is straight out of middle school. He’s like an eighth-grade girl.

Trump threatens San Francisco with EPA violation because of city’s homeless

President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to have the Environmental Protection Agency issue a “notice” to San Francisco over the city’s homeless issue, comments that were criticized by local officials.

From Air Force One, Trump, who had been in California for a two-day fundraising trip, blamed the homeless population for environmental issues. “There’s tremendous pollution being put into the ocean,” he said, noting “there are needles, there are other things.”

“We’re going to be giving San Francisco — they’re in total violation — we’re going to be giving them the notice very soon,” Trump said.

“The EPA is going to be putting out a notice and you know they’re in serious violation and this is environmental, very environmental,” Trump said. “And they have to clean it up. We can’t have our cities going to hell.”

In January, San Francisco found that under the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development definition, around 8,000 people were experiencing homelessness. That was a 17 percent increase over the 2017 “point-in-time” count, according to a 2019 homeless count and survey report. But the city and county of San Francisco uses an expanded definition, under which the homeless population is around 9,700, the report said.

The city has long struggled with problems of human waste and needles on the streets in the Tenderloin district, where many addicts and homeless people are found. The city set up public toilets and last year announced formation of a special six-person “poop patrol” team to clean up the human waste.

The city also announced funding to hire people to pick up used needles, the Associated Press reported. The city’s health department hands out an estimated 400,000 clean syringes a month under programs designed to reduce the risk of infections like HIV that can be transmitted to people who share needles, the news service reported.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed seemed to bristle at the president’s comments Wednesday evening. She tweeted: “If the President wants to talk about homelessness, we are committed to working on actual solutions.” She cited plans to add 1,000 shelter beds and said the city is working to pass a $600 million affordable housing bond to create badly needed housing.

“In San Francisco, we are focused on advancing solutions to meet the challenges on our streets, not throwing off ridiculous assertions as we board an airplane to leave the state,” the mayor said, according to NBC Bay Area.

Trump’s comments on homelessness in San Francisco and Los Angeles — there are almost 59,000 sheltered and unsheltered homeless people in Los Angeles County, according to a 2019 count — come as he has escalated feuds with the Golden State.

On Wednesday, the president announced that he would revoke the state’s waiver that allows it to set its own vehicle emissions standards, which the state’s attorney general and governor have vowed to fight in court.

Earlier this week Gov. Gavin Newsom in a letter signed by state and city officials called on the Trump administration to provide 50,000 more vouchers for rental subsidies and to increase the value of those vouchers to account for higher rent.

Newsom said in the letter dated Monday that state and local governments have increased their support for homeless programs, but “in contrast, your Administration proposed significant cuts to public housing and programs like the Community Development Block Grant.”

But Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson rejected the housing aid request in a letter Wednesday, saying that California’s policies on law enforcement, an overregulated housing market and sanctuary policies regarding people living in the country illegally have driven up housing costs while increasing demand.

“Your letter seeks more federal dollars for California from hardworking American taxpayers but fails to admit that your state and local policies have played a major role in creating the current crisis,” Carson wrote.

Carson said that nearly 500,000 California households already receive some kind of federal housing assistance and that “federal taxpayers are clearly doing their part to help solve the crisis.”

Courts have limited what cities can do to clean up homeless encampments, the AP reported.

On Tuesday, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to join an effort to get the U.S. Supreme Court to review a decision that restricts efforts to bar homeless people from sleeping on sidewalks in Western states.

The board voted 3-2 to file a motion supporting Boise, Idaho, in its efforts to overturn a ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that said it was unconstitutional to arrest or otherwise sanction homeless people who sleep on sidewalks when there aren’t enough shelter beds.

[NBC News]

Trump on Cokie Roberts’ death: ‘She never treated me nicely.‘

President Donald Trump on Tuesday reacted to the death of veteran journalist Cokie Roberts by saying “she never treated me nicely” before extending his well wishes to her family.

“I never met her. She never treated me nicely. But I would like to wish her family well. She was a professional, and I respect professionals,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to California. “I respect you guys a lot, you people a lot. She was a real professional. Never treated me well, but I certainly respect her as a professional.”

Trump’s tense relationship with the press has become a cornerstone of his administration, with the President repeatedly admonishing journalists as “the enemy of the people.” His comments on Tuesday — and, notably, his complaint that Roberts “never treated me nicely” — stood in stark contrast to the praise Roberts’ memory received elsewhere as a trailblazer in journalism.

Trump’s predecessor, former President Barack Obama, released a statement Tuesday calling Roberts “a role model to young women at a time when the profession was still dominated by men; a constant over forty years of a shifting media landscape and changing world, informing voters about the issues of our time and mentoring young journalists every step of the way.” And former Vice President Joe Biden, the 2020 Democratic presidential front-runner who served under Obama for eight years, echoed that sentiment in a tweet, calling Roberts “a pioneer.”

“Relentless in her pursuit of the truth and steadfast in her commitment to breaking down barriers for women in journalism—our country is better because of it,” Biden said. 

Former President George W. Bush memorialized Roberts in his own statement Tuesday, celebrating her as “a talented, tough, and fair reporter.”

“We respected her drive and appreciated her humor,” the nation’s 43rd President said. “She became a friend.”

Roberts died at age 75 “due to complications from breast cancer,” her family said in a statement Tuesday. 

She worked in television, public radio and publishing for more than 40 years, beginning her tenure at ABC as a contributor for “This Week with David Brinkley” and later becoming ABC’s chief congressional analyst.

In a memo to staffers announcing Cokie’s death Tuesday, ABC News president James Goldston said her “kindness, generosity, sharp intellect and thoughtful take on the big issues of the day made ABC a better place and all of us better journalists. Please take a moment today to remember an exceptional reporter and remarkable friend.”

[CNN]

Trump Wants the Government to Investigate Obama’s Netflix Deal

President Donald Trump kicked off his week with one of his favorite hobbies: calling for the investigation of his perceived political enemies.

Trump fired off tweets Monday suggesting that former President Barack Obama should be investigated for getting a production deal with Netflix.

“House Judiciary has given up on the Mueller Report, sadly for them after two years and $40,000,000 spent – ZERO COLLUSION, ZERO OBSTRUCTION. So they say, OK, lets look at everything else, and all of the deals that “Trump” has done over his lifetime,” Trump posted.

“But it doesn’t work that way. I have a better idea,” he added. “Look at the Obama Book Deal, or the ridiculous Netflix deal. Then look at all the deals made by the Dems in Congress, the ‘Congressional Slush Fund,’ and lastly the IG Reports. Take a look at them. Those investigations would be over FAST!”

It’s not clear why Trump might think Obama’s post-presidency ventures are worth investigating. But they have proven lucrative: The former president and former first lady Michelle Obama inked the reportedly “high-8-figure” deal with Netflix and a joint book deal reportedly worth $65 million. The Obamas have launched a number of projects with Netflix already, including a documentary about a factory opening in Ohio and a drama about post-WWII New York.

Monday wasn’t the first time Trump got hung up on investigating the money the Obamas have made since they left the White House.

“We want to find out what happened with the last Democrat president,” Trump told reporters in July. “Let’s look into Obama the way they’ve looked at me. From Day 1, they’ve looked into everything that we’ve done. They could look into the book deal that President Obama made. Let’s subpoena all of his records.”

Contrary to Trump’s claim, the House Judiciary Committee hasn’t given up on the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Just last week, it voted to expand its impeachment investigation and moved to obtain former special counsel Robert Mueller’s most sensitive materials, including evidence and testimony from a grand jury.

[Vice]

Trump Unwilling to Meet With Iran With ‘No Conditions,’ Contradicting Pompeo, Mnuchin and Himself

President Donald Trump said it was “fake news” to say he was willing to meet with Iran with “no conditions” – contradicting both his senior officials and himself.

Earlier this week, both Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin said Trump was willing to sit down with the Iranian president with “no conditions” or “no preconditions.”

“As of now, there is no plan for the president to meet with him, although the president has said that he is prepared to meet with no conditions,” Mnuchin told CNBC.

“He is prepared to meet with no preconditions,” Pompeo said earlier this week about Trump potentially meeting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at a U.N. summit.

Trump appeared to be disputing these comments made by Mnuchin and Pompeo … but Trump himself has also said he would meet Rouhani with “no preconditions.”

“I’m ready to meet anytime they want to … no preconditions, if they want to meet, I’ll meet,” Trump said in July 2018.

[Mediaite]

Trump says US ‘locked and loaded’ after attack on Saudi oil supply

President Donald Trump said the United States is “locked and loaded” after an attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil supply, but his administration is waiting on Riyadh to determine who launched the strikes before proceeding on a course of action.

“There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification,” Trump said in a post on Twitter.

Trump said he authorized the release of oil from the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve to keep the market well supplied.

Attacks crippled the heart of Saudi oil production over the weekend, hitting the world’s largest crude processing facility and the kingdom’s second-largest oilfield. Aramco, Saudi’s national oil company, was forced to cut production by 5.7 million barrels per day or about 50%. That is equivalent to about 5% of the global oil supply.

Oil futures spiked after the weekend attack. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures popped $6.4, or 11.67%, to $61.23 per barrel. Brent crude futures jumped $7.89, or 13.3% to $68.07.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for the attack, but the U.S. has pointed the finger at Iran. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Tehran of launching an “unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply.”

Iran has dismissed those allegations as “meaningless,” “not comprehensible” and “pointless.”

Foreign Minister Javad Zarif called on the Trump administration to hold talks. But Trump tweeted on Sunday saying: “The Fake News is saying that I am willing to meet with Iran, ‘No Conditions.’ That is an incorrect statement (as usual!).”

Tensions between the U.S. and Iran have escalated significantly since Trump pulled out of an international agreement that aimed to keep Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon. Trump thought the deal wasn’t tough enough and has slapped sanctions back on the Islamic Republic.

Trump came close to launching military strikes against Iran in June after the Islamic Republic shot down a U.S. drone. The president said he called off those strikes over concern about the loss of life they would cause. Four weeks later, Trump said the U.S. navy destroyed an Iranian drone, though Tehran denied that was the case.

Washington has also accused Iran of attacking and seizing oil tankers in the Persian Gulf, allegations Tehran rejects.

[NBC News]

Trump Defends Kavanaugh After NYT Report: ‘Should Start Suing People’ or DOJ ‘Should Come to His Rescue’

President Donald Trump took to Twitter this morning defending Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh after a new report in The New York Times.

The Times reported on another allegation of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh yesterday:

A classmate, Max Stier, saw Mr. Kavanaugh with his pants down at a different drunken dorm party, where friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student. Mr. Stier, who runs a nonprofit organization in Washington, notified senators and the F.B.I. about this account, but the F.B.I. did not investigate and Mr. Stier has declined to discuss it publicly. (We corroborated the story with two officials who have communicated with Mr. Stier.)

Mr. Kavanaugh did not speak to us because we could not agree on terms for an interview. But he has denied Dr. Ford’s and Ms. Ramirez’s allegations, and declined to answer our questions about Mr. Stier’s account.

There’s now renewed outcry over Kavanaugh and calls for additional investigation, including from 2020 candidate Julián Castro:

President Trump defended Kavanaugh on Twitter this morning, saying people are lying about him to “scare him into turning Liberal,” even suggesting he “should start suing people for liable [sic], or the Justice Department should come to his rescue.”

Trump previously misspelled “libel”


Brett Kavanaugh should start suing people for liable, or the Justice Department should come to his rescue. The lies being told about him are unbelievable. False Accusations without recrimination. When does it stop? They are trying to influence his opinions. Can’t let that happen!

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 15, 2019

[Mediaite]

Trump lashes out at MSNBC’s Joy Reid, claims she has ‘NO talent’

President Trump on Saturday lashed out at MSNBC’s Joy Reid, saying that the TV host has “NO talent.”

“Who the hell is Joy-Ann Reid? Never met her, she knows ZERO about me, has NO talent, and truly doesn’t have the ‘it’ factor needed for success in showbiz,” Trump tweeted.

“Had a bad reputation, and now works for the Comcast/NBC losers making up phony stories about me. Low Ratings. Fake News!” he continued.

It was not immediately clear what prompted the president to go after Reid ahead of her Saturday morning show, though the MSNBC host had criticized recent remarks by Trump while guest hosting “All in with Chris Hayes” on Friday night.

The Hill has reached out to MSNBC for comment.

The MSNBC host and a hashtag for her show, #AMJoy, trended on Twitter Saturday after the president’s post, with members of the program appearing to take the president’s tweet in stride.

“Great job getting us trending, #reiders! Can we get our #AMJoy hashtag even higher? Let’s do it!” the

Trump’s tweet Saturday morning came hours after Reid appeared on the network and highlighted a number of recent remarks by the president.

In a segment on Trump’s visit to Baltimore for the House GOP retreat, she mocked his “Mike Pounce” gaffe and said he “went on to treat the gathered Republicans to some smoking hot beauty tips” while discussing his remarks on lightbulbs. 

She also said that he sounded “like a desperate man” when he said “whether you like me or not it makes no difference because our country will go to Hell if any of these people get in.”

Reid has been critical of the president in the past, releasing a book about Trump earlier this summer titled “The Man Who Sold America.”

She said in a tweet earlier this month that Trump “has turned the presidency into a travel agency servicing the Trump Organization and its properties and golf clubs around the world.” 

Trump’s tweet attacking the MSNBC host Saturday morning came after he sent another tweet saying “A Very Stable Genius!” and offering thanks for the comment, though he did not provide any more information on the remark or attribute it.

[The Hill]

Aggrieved Trump rips Dems for ‘sad’ impeachment effort

President Trump accused House Democrats of a “sad” effort to impeach him in a series of tweets Friday, suggesting they would be remiss to do to so because of low unemployment numbers and other purported successes.

“How do you impeach a President who has helped create perhaps the greatest economy in the history of our Country? All time best unemployment numbers, especially for Blacks, Hispanics, Asians & Women. More people working today than ever before,” Trump wrote, echoing remarks he made to reporters a day earlier when asked about Democratic efforts to impeach him.

The president also pointed to his effort to rebuilt the military, his support among veterans and his “record number” of judicial nominees.

Trump’s tweets came one day after the House Judiciary Committee voted along party lines to expand its powers to investigate Trump while contemplating formal impeachment proceedings.

The panel has stopped short of launching a formal impeachment process, but Thursday’s vote marked the first time Democrats explicitly agreed on language stating that their investigations into alleged presidential misconduct could lead to the drafting of articles of impeachment.

The tweets also came the morning after the third Democratic presidential debate, during which the 10 top candidates sparred over issues like health care. Many of the candidates took shots at Trump — former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke at one point accused Trump of being a “white supremacist” — but the word “impeachment” was not mentioned at any point during the three-hour debate.

The Judiciary panel initially focused on the details of potential presidential obstruction laid out in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

Democrats are planning to widen their probe to look at other issues, including payments made by ex-Trump attorney Michael Cohen to women who claimed to have had affairs with the president before the 2016 presidential election.

Trump on Friday falsely claimed that Mueller’s investigation — which did not result in a conspiracy charge against his campaign related to Russian interference and did not reach a conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice — demonstrated there was “No Obstruction” and “No Collusion.”

Trump also asserted without evidence that Mueller’s investigation was “illegally led against him” and called it a “phony & fraudulent Witch Hunt” — a term he often uses to refer to the two-year investigation into Russian interference. He claimed a scathing Justice Department inspector general report rebuking James Comey for mishandling sensitive memos detailing his conversations with Trump proved the former FBI director to be a “Disgraced & Dirty Cop.”

“Done more than any President in first 2 1/2 years despite phony & fraudulent Witch Hunt illegally led against him. WIN on Mueller Report, Mueller Testimony & James Comey … .IG Report, which showed him to be a Disgraced & Dirty Cop,” Trump wrote.

“Republicans have unified like never before. You don’t impeach Presidents for doing a good (great!) job. No Obstruction, No Collusion, only treasonous crimes committed by the other side, and led by the Democrats. Sad!” Trump continued. 

[The Hill]

‘I don’t blame Kim Jong Un’: In dismissing Bolton, Trump sides with North Korean leader — again

Having ousted John Bolton from the White House, President Trump delivered a kick to his former national security adviser to illustrate just how far he had fallen. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the president said, “wanted nothing to do with” him during diplomatic talks over the past 17 months.

“I don’t blame Kim Jong Un,” he told reporters in the Oval Office.

Trump’s remarks on Wednesday revealed lingering resentment that, in his view, Bolton had threatened to derail the United States’ historic first summit with Kim last year by taking an unnecessarily provocative position in suggesting that Pyongyang must follow the “Libya model” and relinquish all of its nuclear weapons under any prospective deal.

Trump’s willingness to publicly side with Kim over a recently departed senior aide marked the latest in a string of extraordinary episodes in which he has aligned himself with one of the world’s most brutal dictators against individual Americans, the intelligence community, the military and U.S. allies.

Since the second U.S.-North Korea summit in Hanoi in February collapsed without a deal, Trump has sought to rekindle dormant bilateral negotiations by flattering Kim — but also by offering him political cover on a list of provocations that cut against U.S. interests.

This summer alone, the president has:

●Reiterated his belief that joint U.S.-South Korea military drills are “ridiculous and expensive” — this time after receiving a personal letter from Kim complaining about the exercises.

●Declared that the North’s testing of short-range missiles did not violate an agreement with Kim, prompting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to call the tests a clear violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

●Endorsed, while on a state visit to Tokyo, North Korean state media’s mockery of former vice president Joe Biden as a “fool of low IQ,” saying he agreed.

●Stated that he would not have authorized using Kim’s family members as spies against the regime amid reports that the CIA had cultivated the dictator’s half brother as an intelligence asset. (Kim Jong Nam was assassinated in Malaysia in 2017, at the North Korean leader’s direction, according to South Korea’s spy agency.)

Former U.S. officials said Trump’s approach with Kim fits his pattern of trying to maintain good personal relationships with hostile foreign leaders in hope that it will pay off at the negotiating table. Yet they emphasized that the strategy has not led to breakthroughs on Trump’s biggest foreign policy initiatives, including an effort to secure a trade deal with China.

“It’s his idea that you have to be utterly obsequious with your negotiating partner to suggest you’re a good guy and they should deal with you,” said Christopher Hill, who served as the lead negotiator in the George W. Bush administration during the Six Party Talks with North Korea. “Of course, he’s got very little to show for it. The North Koreans have just pocketed it.”

Although Trump has emphasized that Kim has abided by a private pledge in Singapore to refrain from testing nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles, experts say the North has improved the accuracy and maneuverability of its short-range arsenal.

White House Pressed Agency to Repudiate Weather Forecasters Who Contradicted Trump


Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, told Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary, to have the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration publicly disavow the forecasters’ position that Alabama was not at risk. NOAA, which is part of the Commerce Department, issued an unsigned statement last Friday in response, saying that the Birmingham, Ala., office was wrong to dispute the president’s warning.

In pressing NOAA’s acting administrator to take action, Mr. Ross warned that top employees at the agency could be fired if the situation was not addressed, The New York Times previously reported. Mr. Ross’s spokesman has denied that he threatened to fire anyone, and a senior administration official on Wednesday said Mr. Mulvaney did not tell the commerce secretary to make such a threat.

The release of the NOAA statement provoked complaints that the Trump administration was improperly intervening in the professional weather forecasting system to justify the president’s mistaken assertion. The Commerce Department’s inspector general is investigating how that statement came to be issued, saying it could call into question scientific independence.

The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, which is controlled by Democrats, announced on Wednesday that it too has opened an investigation into Mr. Ross’s actions.

The White House had no immediate comment on Wednesday, but the senior administration official said Mr. Mulvaney was interested in having the record corrected because, in his view, the Birmingham forecasters had gone too far and the president was right to suggest there had been forecasts showing possible impact on Alabama.

Mr. Trump was furious at being contradicted by the forecasters in Alabama. On Sept. 1, the president wrote on Twitter that Alabama “will most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated.” A few minutes later, the National Weather Service in Birmingham posted on Twitter that “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane Dorian will be felt across Alabama.”

For nearly a week, Mr. Trump kept insisting he was right, displaying outdated maps, including one that had been apparently altered with a Sharpie pen to make it look like Alabama might be in the path of the storm. He had his homeland security adviser release a statement backing him up.

Mr. Ross called Neil Jacobs, the acting administrator of NOAA, from Greece where the secretary was traveling for meetings, and instructed Dr. Jacobs to fix the agency’s perceived contradiction of the president, according to three people informed about the discussions.

Dr. Jacobs objected to the demand and was told that the political appointees at NOAA would be fired if the situation was not fixed, according to the three individuals, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the episode.

The political staff at an agency typically includes a handful of top officials, such as Dr. Jacobs, and their aides. They are appointed to their jobs by the administration currently in power, as opposed to career government employees, who remain in their jobs as administrations come and go.

The statement NOAA ultimately issued later on Friday called the Birmingham office’s statement “inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time.”

Dr. Jacobs has since sought to reassure his work force and the broader scientific community concerned about political interference.

“This administration is committed to the important mission of weather forecasting,” Dr. Jacobs told a weather conference in Huntsville, Ala., on Tuesday. “There is no pressure to change the way you communicate or forecast risk in the future.”

In the speech, Dr. Jacobs praised Mr. Trump, calling him “genuinely interested in improving weather forecasts,” and echoed the president’s position that Dorian initially threatened Alabama. “At one point, Alabama was in the mix, as was the rest of the Southeast.”

He also said he still had faith in the Birmingham office. “The purpose of the NOAA statement was to clarify the technical aspects of the potential impacts of Dorian,” Dr. Jacobs said. “What it did not say, however, is that we understand and fully support the good intent of the Birmingham weather forecast office, which was to calm fears in support of public safety.”

[The New York Times]

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