Category: Not Factual

Betsy DeVos Would Not Agree to Bar Discrimination by Private Schools That Get Federal Money

President Trump’s budget proposal includes deep cuts to education but funds a new push for school choice.

When pressed by representatives at a House appropriations subcommittee hearing on the budget, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos declined to say if, when or how the federal government would step in to make sure that private schools receiving public dollars would not discriminate against students.

She repeatedly said that decisions would be left to school districts and parents.

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) stressed that Milwaukee’s school voucher program has resulted in years of failure. When he pressed DeVos on whether the federal government would hold recipients of public money accountable, DeVos punted.

“Wisconsin and all of the states in the country are putting their ESSA plans together,” said DeVos, referring to the Every Student Succeeds Act, a school accountability law. “They are going to decide what kind of flexibility … they’re allowed.”

“Will you have accountability standards?” Pocan asked.

“There are accountability standards,” DeVos said. “That is part of the ESSA legislation.”

That’s not true. ESSA’s regulations state that the law’s accountability rules do not apply to private schools.

Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) asked DeVos about a Christian school in Indiana that gets state dollars through a voucher program but explicitly states that gay students may be denied admission.  “If Indiana applies for funding, will you stand up and say that this school is open to all students?” Clark asked.

DeVos said states make the rules.

“That’s a no,” Clark said. Then she asked what if a school doesn’t accept black students.

“Our [civil rights] and Title IX protections are broadly protective, but when our parents make choices,” DeVos started.

“This isn’t about parents making choices,” Clark interrupted. “This is about the use of federal dollars.”

After a few more rounds like this, DeVos said that her “bottom line” is that “we believe that parents are best equipped to make decisions for their schooling.”

Clark said she was shocked by this response.

DeVos’ staff later came to her defense, saying that the line of questioning in the hearing concerned a “theoretical voucher program” and indicated a “misunderstanding” about the federal government’s role in education.

“When States design programs, and when schools implement them, it is incumbent on them to adhere to Federal law,” DeVos’ press secretary Liz Hill said in an email. “The Department of Education can and will intervene when Federal law is broken.”

[Los Angeles Times]

Media

 

Trump Interrupts Mistake-Free Meeting With Netanyahu to Declare He Never Mentioned ‘The Name Israel’ to the Russians

President Trump on Monday landed in Israel and met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has referred to Trump as a “true friend” of Israel.

Trump’s friendship with the Jewish state is apparently so grounded, so pure, that he would never take its name in vain — or, say, mention it to Russian officials while disclosing classified intelligence that Israel had gathered. He interrupted his otherwise successful photo opportunity with Netanyahu to say so:

Trump had never been accused of revealing Israel by name as the source of the sensitive information; in fact, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster took to the White House lectern last week to defend Trump’s disclosure by saying the president “wasn’t even aware of where that information came from.” Israeli officials had also declined to confirm that Israel had gathered the information Trump discussed with the Russians.

Rather, Trump was under fire for sharing the intelligence information in the first place — which, even if he did blab, he definitely didn’t say the information was from Israel, who knows where it came from, and he decided to defend himself against that claim while standing next to the country’s prime minister for some random and unrelated reason.

[The Week]

Trump Was Proud Of Himself For Coming Up With A Phrase That He Definitely Did Not Come Up With

On Thursday, The Economist released a lightly edited transcript of the interview, where Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Director of the National Economic Council Gary Cohn were also present.

While talking about his tax reform plan, Trump used the phrase “priming the pump” and claimed that he came up with it “a couple of days ago.” Except that the phrase dates back to the early 19th century, according to, you know, the dictionary.

Trump asked the editors from The Economist if they had had heard of the expression “prime the pump” and whether they understood it.

The Economist editors repeatedly assured him they had heard of it and even told him that the phrase was “very Keynesian.”

Trump asked again, “Have you heard that expression used before? Because I haven’t heard it. I mean, I just… came up with it a couple of days ago and I thought it was good.”

But it turns out the only way Trump came up with this phrase a couple days ago is if he is a time traveler.

Merriam-Webster — which has been known to troll the president frequently — explained that “pump priming” has been used to refer to government investment expenditures since at least 1933.

[Buzzfeed]

Trump Says He Didn’t Know Michael Flynn in 2015, Which Is a Big Lie

Last night, President Trump spoke with Lester Holt in an interview for NBC News. It’s truly a jaw-dropping conversation for a number of reasons, but there’s one important lie that everyone seems to have missed. Trump said that he didn’t know Michael Flynn in 2015. This simply isn’t true.

Lester Holt: Did you know that [Flynn] had received payments from the Russian government, that he had received payments from the Turkish government?

 

Donald Trump: No, but Obama perhaps knew, because he had clearance from the Obama administration, and this is something they never want to report. He had clearance from the Obama administration—the highest clearance you can have. And I think it’s a very unfair thing that the media doesn’t talk about that. You know, you’re talking about 2015. I don’t know that I knew him in 2015.

Putting aside for a minute the fact that Obama fired Flynn and that Obama even advised Trump not to hire him, it’s important to recognize that Trump is lying about not knowing Flynn in 2015.

In fact, Donald Trump first met with Michael Flynn in August of 2015, just two months after Trump announced he’d be running for president. But you don’t have to take my word for it. We know Trump met with Flynn in August of 2015 because Flynn told us.

From the February 27, 2017 issue of the New Yorker:

In August, 2015, Flynn went to New York to meet Trump for the first time. They were scheduled to talk for thirty minutes; the conversation lasted ninety. Flynn was deeply impressed. “I knew he was going to be the President of the United States,” he told me.

So let’s get this timeline straight.

  • August 2014: Flynn is ousted by Obama at the Defense Intelligence Agency.
  • June 2015: Trump announces his plan to run for president.
  • August 2015: Trump meets with Flynn for an hour and a half at Trump Tower.
  • December 2015: Flynn is paid by the Russian government to speak at a gala in Moscow and is seated at the same table as Vladimir Putin.
  • February 2016: Flynn starts acting as an informal policy advisor to the Trump campaign.

Got all that? Trump said in the interview last night that he didn’t think he knew Flynn in 2015. But he definitely did. Not only that, but by early 2016, Trump was being advised by Flynn on foreign policy matters during the campaign.

You really have to watch the entire interview from last night. It’s so bizarre, not least because Trump explained that he was going to fire FBI Director James Comey regardless of any recommendation made by the Justice Department. That directly contradicts two days of claims by his communications team.

Not to mention the fact that Trump claims Comey asked for the two of them to have dinner, a meeting at which Trump asked if he was under investigation by the FBI. Trump says that Comey assured him that he was not. President Trump also claims that Comey told him over the phone on two other occasions that he wasn’t under investigation.

Needless to say, if Trump’s story is true, it’s all highly illegal and unethical for a sitting president to ask the head of the FBI if he’s under investigation. There’s no way to explain this one away.

If Trump survives the fallout from this week—between firing the man who was leading the investigation against him to the poor optics of meeting with Russian officials the very next day—it’s safe to say that he’s going to serve his full term as president.

It doesn’t get much worse than this for Trump. But he seems to be lying his way through it with little resistance from the only people who can do anything about it: Congressional Republicans.

[Gizmodo]

Reality

Trump claims the media is not reporting that perhaps Obama knew Flynn had received payments from Russia and Turkey. But they did. Just a few days prior Sally Yates sat in front on Congress and told America yes the Obama administration knew of this and they tried to warn the Trump people, who did not taken them seriously because she was a “political opponent.”

Media

White House Spokesperson Says it’s Time to ‘Let Go’ of Russia Probe

Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said it’s “time to move on” from the inquiry into alleged links between President Donald Trump’s campaign and the Russian government.

Speaking just hours after Trump suddenly fired FBI Director James Comey, who had been leading the investigation, Sanders told Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson that while the probe would continue without the director, in her view it had already run its course.

“I think the bigger point on that is, my gosh Tucker, when are they going to let that go?” Sanders said. “It’s been going on for nearly a year.”

“Frankly, it’s kind of getting absurd. There’s nothing there. We’ve heard that time and time again. We’ve heard that in the testimonies earlier this week. We’ve heard it for the last 11 months. There is no ‘there’ there,” Sanders said.

“It’s time to move on and frankly it’s time to focus on the things the American people care about,” she added.

Although Sanders said that the investigation should be “let go,” she denied Comey’s firing would disrupt it.

“You will have the same people that will be carrying it out to the Department of Justice. The process continues both I believe in the House and Senate committees and I don’t see any change or disruption there,” she said.

(h/t Time)

Media

Trump: ‘Flynn was given the highest security clearance by the Obama Administration’

President Trump on Monday attacked the media, saying the “fake news” rarely talks about the fact that his former national security adviser received a security clearance from the Obama administration.

“General Flynn was given the highest security clearance by the Obama Administration – but the Fake News seldom likes talking about that,” the president tweeted Monday.

Last month, White House press secretary Sean Spicer deflected blame for the firestorm surrounding Michael Flynn, saying he received his security clearance from the Obama administration.

Spicer signaled support for a Defense Department investigation into payments Flynn received from foreign groups in 2015, but he blamed former President Obama’s team for clearing him.

“My only point is when Gen. Flynn came into the White House, he had an active security clearance that was issued during the Obama administration with all the information that’s being discussed that occurred in 2015,” Spicer told reporters.

Spicer also brushed aside the notion the president has regrets over hiring Flynn, saying he “made the right decision at the right time.”

He added that Trump’s transition team and White House staff trusted the work of the previous administration.

“Why would you rerun a background check on someone who was the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency that had and did maintain a high-level security clearance?” he asked.

Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates, who was fired after her refusal to back the president’s controversial immigration order, is expected on Monday to give her account of the warnings she gave to the White House regarding Flynn’s contacts with the Russian ambassador to the U.S.

(h/t The Hill)

Reality

Just hours before Sally Yates is set to testify before Congress about Michael Flynn, Trump took to Twitter to attack President Obama for giving Flynn “the highest security clearance,” but did not mention that Obama also fired Flynn.

http://www.businessinsider.com/michael-t-flynn-fired-from-dia-2014-4

Update

Obama personally advised Trump to not hire Flynn before the election.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/obama-warned-trump-against-hiring-mike-flynn-say-officials-n756316

 

Trump Attacks News Media Over ObamaCare Repeal Coverage

President Trump attacked the news media Friday night on Twitter over perceived negative coverage of the House GOP’s passage of legislation aimed at repealing and replacing ObamaCare.

“Wow,the Fake News media did everything in its power to make the Republican Healthcare victory look as bad as possible,” Trump tweeted. He also predicted the Republican plan would be “far better” than the Affordable Care Act.

In a second tweet, Trump questioned why the news media “rarely reports” that ObamaCare “is on its last legs and that insurance companies are fleeing for their lives?”

“It’s dead!” Trump declared, reiterating a longstanding position.

(h/t The Hill)

Reality

Maybe the Republicans should have put forth a bill that didn’t kick 24 million people off of healthcare, raise rates for the elderly, and allow insurance companies to discriminate based on preexisting conditions?

The reality is, when the CBO had a chance to score the first version of Trumpcare, it was very clear the insurance markets are stable. This idea that Obamacare is in a “death spiral” is pure fiction.

 

 

 

Trump Doubles Down on Civil War and Andrew Jackson Comments: ‘Saw It Coming’

After his musings about the Civil War and Andrew Jackson generated sharp reaction, President Trump appeared to double down on the comments in a tweet.

In an interview that aired on SiriusXM’s P.O.T.U.S. channel and was published by the Washington Examiner, Trump said that he didn’t understand why the Civil War was fought and that it wouldn’t have happened, “had Andrew Jackson been a little later.”

“He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War,” Trump said of Jackson. “He said, ‘There’s no reason for this.’ ”

Jackson died in 1845 and the Civil War didn’t begin until 1861, prompting some to question Trump’s knowledge of American history.

In the tweet, Trump appeared to defend his comments, suggesting he did know that Jackson died 16 years before the war began but that the former president “saw it coming.”

(h/t Los Angeles Times)

Reality

That’s not what he said.

“Had Andrew Jackson been a little later you wouldn’t have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart,” Trump said in the interview with the Washington Examiner’s Salena Zito. “He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War, he said, ‘There’s no reason for this.'”

And that still misses his other gaffe, of asking why the Civil War was fought in the first place:

“People don’t realize, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why?
People don’t ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?”

 

Spicer Says Trump Didn’t Say What Trump Literally Said

In his press conference on Monday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer directly contradicted President Donald Trump’s comments earlier in the day, denying the literal meaning of the president’s words.

The matter concerned a bizarre televised interview Trump gave earlier on Monday to CBS’ John Dickerson from the Oval Office.

“The president said, ‘I don’t stand by anything.’ How is the American public supposed to digest that, supposed to trust what the president says when he himself says, of his own comments, I don’t by anything,” a pool reporter asked Spicer.

“I think the point is, he clearly stands by that,” Spicer said. “That’s something that’s made very clear if you look at the entire back and forth exchange.”

In fact, the exchange is a few minutes of confused verbal sparring in which Trump word-for-word says “I don’t stand by anything.” It began when Dickerson asked about Trump’s relationship with President Obama, which Trump took as an opportunity to bring up — albeit in the form of veiled insinuations — his unproven allegation that Obama wiretapped him.

“Do you stand by that claim about him?” Dickerson asked.

“I don’t stand by anything,” Trump replied. “I just — you can take it the way you want. I think our side’s been proven very strongly. And everybody’s talking about it,” Trump continued.

He refused to clarify what he meant by “you can take it the way you want,” and repeated it several times before abruptly ending the interview.

https://youtu.be/SHcf6szI09M

But later in the day, when the matter came up in the press conference, Spicer insisted that the exchange went very differently.

“You don’t have to ask me,” he responded to one of Dickerson’s attempts to clarify his muddy assertions. “Because I have my own opinions. You can have your own opinions.”

Trump made the explosive allegation on Twitter on March 4th, claiming that Obama wiretapped him, and since then the White House has scrambled to come up with a justification for the tweets. In the months since, they’ve cited media reports, classified intelligence, and even alleged that it was carried out by foreign spy agencies — a false claim for which they had to apologize to Great Britain.

Yet while Trump continues to insist that their case has been validated, the White House has produced no credible evidence to back up the president’s unproven allegations.

The FBI, NSA, and DOJ have all said they know of no evidence backing up the claim.

(h/t ThinkProgress)

Trump: Why Couldn’t The Civil War Have Been Avoided?

President Donald Trump is questioning why the Civil War could not have been avoided and says President Andrew Jackson could have prevented it had he been in office “a little later” — comments that immediately drew fire Monday from Democrats who charged the president was ignoring slavery.

“People don’t realize, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why?” Trump said in a clip of the radio interview released by the SiriusXM show “Main Street Meets the Beltway.”

“People don’t ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?” Trump added.

Trump’s populist appeal has drawn comparisons to Jackson, a juxtaposition the president embraces. The president visited Jackson’s estate, The Hermitage, in March and placed a wreath on the tomb of the seventh commander-in-chief.

“Had Andrew Jackson been a little later you wouldn’t have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart,” Trump said in the interview with the Washington Examiner’s Salena Zito. “He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War, he said, ‘There’s no reason for this.'”

Jackson died in 1845, 16 years before the war began.

The president was mocked earlier this year when he claimed that the 19th-century abolitionist hero Frederick Douglass had “done an amazing job.”

Trump also has praised President Abraham Lincoln, who served during the Civil War. He told House Republicans in March that Lincoln was a “great president.”

“Most people don’t even know he was a Republican. Right? Does anyone know? A lot of people don’t know that. We have to build that up a little more,” he said.

Former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele told NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell that the comments underscore Trump’s often faulty or incomplete view of history.

“There is a clear lack of understanding of the history of this country and particularly of matters related to race and civil rights and the Civil War,” Steele said on MSNBC’s “Andrew Mitchell Reports.”

Media

 

 

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