Category: Gaffe

An unintentional act or remark causing embarrassment to its originator; a blunder.

Trump Bemoans ‘Persecuted White Farmers’ in South Africa

President Trump says he has instructed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to look into alleged violence against white farmers in South Africa and the government’s alleged seizure of their land after watching a Fox News report on the subject. Citing Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s statement that the “South African government is now seizing land from white farmers,” Trump tweeted that he’s asked Pompeo to “closely study” the matter, which he said involves the “large scale killing of farmers.” The comments, which appear to fuel claims by right-wing groups that the South African government is waging war against whites, seemed to be an abrupt change of subject from perhaps the biggest blow to Trump’s White House so far: the conviction of his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and the plea deal by his longtime fixer Michael Cohen earlier this week. The State Department has yet to comment on Trump’s tweet, but in a statement cited in the same Fox News report Trump was referencing, the State Department noted that South Africa’s land redistributions are being carried out through “an open process including public hearings, broad-based consultations, and active civic society engagement.” Most of South Africa’s land belongs to a white minority two decades after apartheid ended.

[The Daily Beast]

Reality

How does a specific white genocide conspiracy theory about white farmers being murdered in South Africa pushed by the white supremacist groups AfriForum and Identity Evropa, where the white supremacist podcasts White Rabbit Radio and Jared Taylor’s American Renaissance both had episodes dedicated to, end up being tweeted out by Donald Trump?

Oh he watched it on white supremacist Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show.

The reality is, as with the vast majority of conspiracy theories, it is simply not true.

Yes there are farmers being murdered in South Africa and each one is sad and tragic, but since Trump is talking about the data then we have to look at the data. Murder rates among African farmers have drastically declined over the past decades and there are no stats that say they happened for racial reasons.

The last time there was large scale tracking in South Africa of murders of farmers by race, 33% of victims were black.

Also, South Africa’s has a high murder rate, of 34.1 per 100,000 people, that number is far lower in the rural areas.

 

Trump cites ‘massive’ Obama campaign finance violation.

President Donald Trump suggested Wednesday that the campaign finance violations his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to in federal court are equivalent to campaign finance violations committed by Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign.

“If you look at President Obama, he had a massive campaign violation, but he had a different attorney general, and they viewed it a lot different,” Trump said in an interview with Fox Business.

Earlier Wednesday the president had tweeted: “Michael Cohen plead guilty to two counts of campaign finance violations that are not a crime. President Obama had a big campaign finance violation and it was easily settled!”

But there is no comparison, experts told NBC News. Cohen’s admitted campaign finance law violations are indeed a crime, and they are not similar to the campaign finance violations made by Obama’s 2008 campaign. Election law experts said that more minor violations are treated as regulatory or civil matters, while egregious and willful campaign finance violations are treated as criminal acts — no matter who the attorney general is.

“What Michael Cohen has admitted to doing is absolutely a crime,” said Mitchell Epner, a former federal prosecutor who is now of counsel at Rottenberg Lipman Rich P.C.

Cohen, who was Trump’s longtime lawyer, pleaded guilty to violating two campaign finance rules — willfully causing a corporate finance violation and making an excessive campaign contribution. Each charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and involved hush-money payments to two women who said they had relationships with Trump.

[NBC News]

Trump introduces Border Patrol agent: He ‘speaks perfect English’

President Donald Trump wanted to congratulate Border Patrol agent Adrian Anzaldua, who the president proclaimed had saved 78 lives a little over a week ago after he arrested a human smuggler.

But Trump stepped on his own message when he announced on national television that Anzaldua, whose last name the president didn’t attempt to pronounce, could speak “perfect English.”

Trump has a history of making assumptions about people based on their ethnic backgrounds, including claiming a U.S.-born judge couldn’t be impartial because of his Mexican heritage. His commentary on the language skills of a man with a Spanish-sounding last name seemed to fit that pattern.

Trump said at the event honoring members of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Custom and Border Protection that Anzaldua had caught a smuggler who was holding 78 undocumented immigrants inside a trailer, which the president called “horrible.” He praised Anzaldua for saving their lives.

“The border patrol agent who caught the accused and likely really saved many lives, he’s here with us. And Adrian, where is Adrian? Adrian is here with us,” the president said. “Thank you, Adrian. Great job. Thank you. It’s a lot of lives.”

The president then invited Anzaldua to the podium to describe the incident.

“Come here, you’re not nervous, right? Speaks perfect English,” Trump said to Anzaldua.

“Come here, I want to ask you about that, 78 lives. You saved 78 people,” Trump continued. “So how did you feel that there were people in that trailer? There’s a lot of trailers around. Please.”

Anzaldua, who wore a giant smile as he stood next to the president, said the trailer was flagged after the vehicle eluded a checkpoint in Texas.

Anzaldua said after the vehicle was stopped, he ran out with a patrol canine and conducted a non-intrusive search of the vehicle.

“I opened the little latch of the back of the tractor trailer and revealed a lot of subjects,” Anzaldua said. “I quickly asked for backup, and backup got there, and the subjects were transported back to…the checkpoint, and all of them were in good health.”

Trump seemed pleased with Anzaldua’s retelling of the encounter.

“What a good job he did. What a good job,” he said. “Tomorrow he will be announcing that he’s running for office.”

Trump has been criticized over his immigration policies, including a “zero tolerance” approach toward people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border that resulted in thousands of parents and children being separated. While the administration has taken steps to reunite families, there are still about 550 children who were separated from their parents in custody with the Department of Health and Human Services.

[Politico]

Rudy Giuliani says ‘truth isn’t truth’

Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s attorney, said Sunday that “truth isn’t truth” when explaining that he won’t let special counsel Robert Mueller rush Trump into testifying because he doesn’t want investigators to trap the President into a lie.

“When you tell me that, you know, he should testify because he’s going to tell the truth and he shouldn’t worry, well, that’s so silly because it’s somebody’s version of the truth. Not the truth,” Giuliani told NBC’s Chuck Todd on Sunday morning during “Meet the Press.”

“Truth is truth,” Todd said in response.

“No, no, it isn’t truth,” Giuliani said. “Truth isn’t truth. The President of the United States says, “I didn’t …”

“Truth isn’t truth?” Todd interjected. “Mr. Mayor, do you realize, what … I think this is going to become a bad meme.”

“No, no, no … don’t do this to me,” Giuliani said.

“Don’t do ‘truth isn’t truth’ to me,” Todd continued.

“Donald Trump says I didn’t talk about [former national security adviser Michael] Flynn with [then-FBI Director James] Comey. Comey says you did talk about it. So tell me what the truth is,” Giuliani said.

This isn’t the first time in recent days that Giuliani has spoken about the truth and facts this way. During an appearance on CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time” on Tuesday evening, Giuliani told CNN’s Chris Cuomo that facts are in the eye of the beholder.

“If fact [checking] is anything, we’ve never had anybody with the level of mendacity that he has. Not even close,” Cuomo said of Trump.

“It’s in the eye of the beholder,” Giuliani responded.

“No, facts are not in the eye of the beholder,” Cuomo said.

“Yes it is — yes they are. Nowadays they are,” Giuliani asserted.

The President’s outside legal team for the special counsel investigation, which is headed up by Giuliani, replied to Mueller’s proposal for terms of possible presidential testimony earlier this month, but the former New York mayor wouldn’t disclose the details of his team’s response.

Trump has said he is willing to speak with Mueller’s team, but his legal team has expressed opposition to that possibility because they believe the special counsel’s investigators could take what Trump says, if it differs from what others have laid out, as a lie.

“They have two pieces of evidence,” Giuliani said to Todd on Sunday morning, explaining his stance. “Trump says I didn’t tell them, and the other guy says that he did say it. Which is the truth? Maybe you know because you’re a genius.”

On Sunday afternoon, former FBI Director James Comey appeared to respond to Giuliani’s “truth isn’t truth” comment via Twitter.

“Truth exists and truth matters. Truth has always been the touchstone of our country’s justice system and political life. People who lie are held accountable. If we are untethered to truth, our justice system cannot function and a society based on the rule of law dissolves,” Comey tweeted.

Giuliani has been speaking about Comey in the news lately. Last week, Giuliani told CNN’s Jake Tapper that if the President sits down for questioning by special counsel Mueller, Trump will say he never discussed easing up on a probe of former national security adviser Flynn with Comey.

[CNN]

Trump got into a bizarre fight with Vietnam vets over the movie ‘Apocalypse Now’

A new report from the Daily Beast’s Asawin Suebsaeng claims that President Donald Trump got into a bizarre argument last year during a meeting with Vietnam veterans over the classic war movie “Apocalypse Now.”

According to Suebsaeng’s sources, the meeting between Trump and several Vietnam veterans was arranged by estranged former aide Omarosa Manigault-Newman, who at the time served as a liaison between the president and veterans’ organizations.

During the meeting, a dispute broke out over whether Robert Duvall’s character in “Apocalypse Now” used napalm or Agent Orange against Vietcong forces. Apparently, Trump falsely believed that it was Agent Orange that U.S. forces used against the enemy, despite the fact that the movie’s single most famous line is Duvall’s character saying, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”

“Multiple people — including Vietnam War veterans — chimed in to inform the president that the Apocalypse Now set piece he was talking about showcased the U.S. military using napalm, not Agent Orange,” Suebsaeng reports. “Trump refused to accept that he was mistaken and proceeded to say things like, ‘no, I think it’s that stuff from that movie.’”

One veteran who was present at the meeting described it to Suebsaeng as “really f*cking weird.”

[Raw Story]

Donald Trump calls Omarosa Manigault Newman ‘that dog’

Donald Trump has escalated a bitter row with his former aide Omarosa Manigault Newman, praising his chief of staff, John Kelly, for “quickly firing that dog”.

Manigault Newman, a former adviser to the US president and contestant on the reality TV show The Apprentice, has released three secret recordingsrelated to her firing as she promotes her memoir, Unhinged.

Her TV appearances, and her claim to have heard a tape of Trump using the N-word and other racial slurs during filming for The Apprentice, have annoyed the president, who levelled another barrage of attacks at her on Tuesday, tweeting: “When you give a crazed, crying lowlife a break, and give her a job at the White House, I guess it just didn’t work out. Good work by General Kelly for quickly firing that dog!”

On Tuesday morning, Manigault Newman revealed on CBS News a third tape that she says records a 2016 conference call among Trump campaign aides who are discussing how to address potential fallout from the release of tapes that allegedly show Trump using the N-word.

The campaign aides had previously denied that any such conversations took place.

On Monday, Trump denied claims of racism and said Manigault Newman was a liar for claiming he used the N-word: “I don’t have that word in my vocabulary and never have. She made it up.”

When Kelly fired Manigault Newman in December in the White House situation room, she secretly taped it, in an apparent breach of security protocol.

In the recording, which she played on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Kelly told Manigault Newman the firing was the result of “significant integrity issues” and that she could face damage to her reputation if she did not make it a “friendly departure”.

On Monday, Manigault Newman released another recording in which Trump appeared to express surprise that she had been fired. “Omarosa? Omarosa, what’s going on? I just saw on the news that you’re thinking about leaving? What happened?” Trump says on the tape, played on NBC’s Today show.

In a later interview on Monday, Manigault Newman said she “absolutely” had more tapes in her possession and warned that there were more to come.

The controversy has raised questions about whether she could face legal repercussions for recording in the situation room.

Defending her actions, Manigault Newman said the recordings were necessary in a White House “where everybody lies”.

Trump’s scathing attack on Manigault Newman is the latest in a string of insults directed at prominent African American people. This month, Trump questioned the intelligence of the basketball star LeBron James, who had criticised the president in an interview with CNN’s Don Lemon. Trump called Lemon the “dumbest man on television”.

Days earlier, Trump said the black California congresswoman Maxine Waters, a Democrat, had a “very low IQ”.

[The Guardian]

Trump Quotes Dubious Claim From Maria Bartiromo’s Show Slamming Russia Investigation

Sitting in for Neil Cavuto Thursday on Fox News, Maria Bartiromo took on a subject that has become a consistent field of coverage for the business anchor: the supposedly corrupted Russia investigation.

And the president was apparently watching.

Bartiromo, during a discussion on special counsel Robert Mueller probe, made the claim that there was “no evidence whatsoever” to support an investigation into collusion between President Donald Trump and Russia.

“[Rep.] Devin Nunes (R-CA), the chairman of the Intel committee on the House, has been with me several times telling me there was no evidence whatsoever to launch even an investigation into potential collusion between Donald Trump and the Russians. And so here we are a year and a half later, the special counsel still going on, and we continue to see texts from FBI agents showing this incredible amount of bias.”

Trump quoted from the segment on Twitter Friday morning.

The idea that there is no evidence to support a collusion investigation is simply false. As NBC News’ Ken Delanian lays out here, the FBI began investigating the Trump campaign after Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos told an Australian diplomat that Russians offered him dirt on Hillary Clinton. Further, there is extensive documented contact between various individuals connected with Donald Trump’s campaign, and Russia. To say collusion hasn’t yet been proven is entirely fair. The idea that there’s no evidence to start an investigation is not.

[Mediaite]

Donald Trump Jr posts fake approval ratings graphic to falsely claim his dad is more popular than Obama

Donald Trump Jr. posted a fake graphic to Instagram on Wednesday to misrepresent his father’s approval rating.

It was unclear who made the fake graphic that the president’s eldest son shared in an Instagram post that has not yet been deleted, but in it his father’s 40 percent approval rating is clearly visible below a photoshopped 50%.

“I guess there is a magic wand to make things happen,” Junior said, referring to his father’s accomplishments.

Donald Trump remains the least-popular president of all time.

The fakery was called on out the Instagram post and on Twitter.

[Raw Story]

White House shuts down press availability after Trump tweet admits collusion

The White House announced on Monday that President Donald Trump would not take any questions after he admitted on Twitter that his son may have colluded with Russians during the 2016 campaign.

In a tweet over the weekend, Trump reversed course on his explanation of a 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer in Trump Tower. The president had originally claimed that the meeting had been about adoptions. But in his Sunday tweet, Trump admitted that the purpose of the meeting had been to get damaging information about Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee.

On Monday, White House correspondents reported that the White House had issued a “lid” on presidential travel and questions from the press.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders also had not scheduled a Monday briefing by the time of publication.

[Raw Story]

Trump wrongly blames California’s worsening wildfires on water diversions

As wildfires continued to scorch California, President Donald Trump on Sunday issued a tweet that befuddled experts, wrongly blaming the state’s water diversions for making the blazes worse.

California’s environmental laws, he claimed, “aren’t allowing massive amount of readily available water to be properly utilized. It is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Must also tree clear to stop fire spreading!”

While decades-old state and federal forest management strategies have been cited as exacerbating California’s wildfires in recent years, experts Sunday were quick to refute Trump’s claim that water policy was to blame.

While California’s river water is tightly managed to account for drinking, agriculture and environmental needs, it is not being diverted into the ocean. And the problem is not that the state lacks the water to fight fires, but that years of drought have made forests and brush more flammable.

“On the water side, it boggles the mind,” UC Merced professor and wildfire specialist LeRoy Westerling told the San Francisco Chronicle. “We do manage all of our rivers in California, and all the water is allocated many times over. So I’m not sure what he was recommending. . . . Even if we eliminated all habitat for riparian species and fish, and allowed saltwater intrusion into the delta and set up a sprinkler system over the state, that wouldn’t compensate for greater moisture loss from climate change.”

Meanwhile, the Trump administration on Sunday approved a federal disaster declaration for the state. Nine people have been killed by the 18 wildfires currently burning across the state. The Mendocino Complex fire north of San Francisco has grown to the fifth-largest in state history, burning almost 400 square miles by Sunday. and threatening 15,000 homes. Meanwhile, the Ferguson fire entered Yosemite National Park, which remained largely closed to visitors, and the Carr fire near Redding claimed its seventh life, when a PG&E lineman crashed his vehicle while working with crews to fight the blaze. Overall, more than 470,000 acres have burned in the state, with more than 14,000 firefighters on the front lines.

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