Category: Not Factual

Trump Warns ‘Whole Border’ Could Be Shut: We May ‘Close Entry Into the Country for a Period of Time’

After speaking with members of the military who are deployed around the world, President Donald Trump took questions from the media, and said that he might have to close the southern border altogether.

He talked about the border, as he did on the call with the military members, and said that the U.S. border had been entirely closed two days ago, and may have to be closed again.

Speaking specifically about the caravan, Trump said that if the military has to, they’ll use lethal force. He cited the reaction of the people of Tijuana, Mexico to the massive influx of people from the caravan.

“You ask the people in Tijuana, Mexico, they opened up with wide arms, just come in, come in, let me help you, let us take care of you. And within two days, now they’re going crazy to get them out. They want them out,” he said. “Because things are happening, bad things are happening in Tijuana. And again, it’s not in this country because we’ve closed it up.”

“Actually, two days ago, we closed the border. We actually just closed it. We say nobody is coming in because it was out of control,” he said.

A reporter asked, “What do you mean you closed the border and nobody is coming in? What do you mean by that?”

“If we find that it’s uncontrollable, Josh, if we find that it’s — it gets to a level where we are going to lose control or where people are going to start getting hurt, we will close entry into the country for a period of time until we can get it under control,” he answered.

A reporter asked, “do you mean the entire border?”

“The whole border. I mean the whole border,” the President confirmed. “And Mexico will not be able to sell their cars into the United States where they make so many at great benefit to them — not a great benefit to us, by the way. But at least now we have a good new trade deal with Mexico and with Canada. But we will close the border. And that means that Mexico is not going to be able to sell their cars into the United States until it’s open.”

“We’re going to either have a border or we’re not. And when they lose control of the border on the Mexico side, we just close the border,” he repeated. “And we have a very powerful border. We built a very strong border in a very short period of time.”

[Mediaite]

Trump disputes CIA findings in Khashoggi killing, says too much at stake to punish ally

Responding to questions about Saudi Arabia’s role in the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, President Donald Trump suggested Thursday that the U.S. can’t afford to punish foreign nations for killing people.

“Do people really want me to give up hundreds of thousands of jobs?” he said. “And frankly, if we went by this standard, we wouldn’t be able to have anybody who’s an ally, because look at what happens all over the world.”

NBC and other outlets have reported that the CIA recently determined, reportedly with “high confidence,” that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the murder of Khashoggi at a Saudi consulate in Turkey in early October.

Trump rejected that characterization in an exchange with reporters in Palm Beach, Fla., where he is spending the Thanksgiving holiday at his Mar-a-Lago resort, but said the American relationship with Riyadh wouldn’t be affected even if the crown prince is responsible for Khashoggi’s death.

“Whether he did or whether he didn’t, he denies it vehemently,” Trump said. “The CIA doesn’t say they did it. They do point out certain things, and in pointing out those things, you can conclude that maybe he did or maybe he didn’t.”

The aftermath of the killing bothered him, he said, but he argued the CIA gave him conflicting information about the act.

“I hate the cover-up. And I will tell you this, the crown prince hates it more than I do,” he said. “And they have vehemently deny it. The CIA points it both ways. As I said, maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. But I will say very strongly that it’s a very important ally.”

By design, intelligence community analyses don’t reach conclusions. Instead, analysts provide evidence and a degree of confidence about their judgments, along with information about any uncertainties.

After Trump tweeted a statement of support for Saudi rulers Wednesday, Washington Post publisher and CEO Fred Ryan slammed Trump in an op-ed.

“A clear and dangerous message has been sent to tyrants around the world: Flash enough money in front of the president of the United States, and you can literally get away with murder,” Ryan wrote.

Pressed Thursday on whether his message to foreign leaders is that they can act with impunity, Trump said “no.”

“Not at all,” he said. ” Saudi Arabia has been a longtime strategic partner. They’re investing hundreds of billions of dollars in our country. I mean hundreds of billions. They’re keeping the oil prices low.”

The U.S Bureau of Economic Analysis does not report figures for Saudi Arabia’s direct investment in the U.S. to avoid revealing information about specific companies. While overall data is not available, the office of the U.S. Trade Representative reports that “Saudi Arabia’s direct investment in the U.S. is led by real estate, information services, and retail trade.”

Financial transactions between the two countries amounted to a negative number in 2017 — about $161 million in Riyadh’s favor — according to BEA.

Saudi Arabia spent about $9 billion on U.S. arms between 2013 and 2017, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, but Trump has said erroneously that Saudi rulers are ready to spend many multiples of that in the coming years — up to $450 billion in goods, including $110 billion in military equipment. Saudi Arabia’s annual gross domestic product has been below $700 billion in each of the last three years.

[NBC News]

Trump Wishes Everyone Happy Holiday Then Bashes Chief Justice Roberts to Start Thanksgiving Day

President Donald Trump began the Thanksgiving holiday with a nice, generic, brief holiday greeting: “HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL,” he said, in all caps. The exact sort of greeting that you’d want from a president. Too bad twenty minutes later he decided to attack the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Again.

Chief Justice John Roberts rebuked Trump’s criticism of the judge who ruled against him on immigration in a comment to the Associated Press. Trump had referred to the federal judge as an “Obama judge.” Roberts said in a statement there are no Obama judges or Bush judges but just an independent judiciary.

Trump then returned fire at Roberts saying he was wrong and that the ninth circuit is an activist court.

The attendant outrage, news reports, and Twitter meltdowns escalated things. And so Trump started Thanksgiving with another swipe at the Republican appointed conservative chief justice.

[Mediaite]

Trump confuses climate change with weather

Donald Trump has once again confused the weather with climate change after suggesting chilly weather headed towards the US means global warming is not real.

“Brutal and Extended Cold Blast could shatter ALL RECORDS – Whatever happened to Global Warming?” Mr Trump tweeted on Wednesday evening.

The US president was apparently referring to possible record low temperaturesforecast for northeastern US this weekend.

Mr Trump’s claim echoed another tweet from a year ago, in which he said America would benefit from “a little bit of that good old global warming” when much of the US was inundated with snow.

The 72-year-old has long denied the scientific consensus on climate change, claiming in 2012 the phenomenon was a Chinese hoax intended to hurt American exports.

Scientists generally prefer the term “climate change” to “global warming” because the effects of humans emitting heat-trapping greenhouse gases are more likely to manifest as extreme weather events rather than temperature increases alone.

[The Independent]

Trump Thanks Saudi Arabia for…Making America Great Again With Lower Oil Prices?

After more or less excusing Saudi Arabia’s alleged murder of a journalist, President Trump is showing praise on them over lower gas prices.

In his first tweets of the day, Trump celebrated the fact that oil prices are falling on the market amid fears of a global slowdown in economic growth. In any case, he’s giving thanks to the Saudis over this news and finishing it off with “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” for good measure.

Trump’s tweets come a day after he released a statement declaring he will take Saudi Arabia’s side over the controversy of whether their royal family was directly involved in Jamal Khashoggi‘s gruesome murder in Turkey. Trump justified his decision by declaring “America first,”embraced Saudi Arabia’s smears of Khashoggi for being a political dissident, and he also ignored reported evidence collected by the intelligence community that Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman ordered Khashoggi’s killing.

[Mediaite]

Reality

We only get 10% of our imported oil from Saudi Arabia, which is already a fraction of the oil we generate ourselves.

OPEC has recently called for a drop in oil production because of a looming glut on the market and a fear that oil prices were going to fall lower. There are also links to the economy that a possible slow down in economic growth has been signaled by a drop in oil prices.

These are things that have nothing to do with the US government’s relationship with Saudi Arabia.

Trump Promotes New Book From Adviser Who Falsely Claims to be a Psychologist, Lawyer: ‘Great Read!’

Donald Trump is back on Twitter, this time to help promote the new book released by his 2020 re-election advisory council member: Gina Loudon.

Loudon’s book, Mad Politics: Keeping Your Sanity in a World Gone Crazy, sings the president’s praises while touting her qualifications as a “seasoned psychological analyst” and a “twice pedigreed Master and Ph.D.” Now that her book is hitting the shelves, Trump is adding it to his recommended reading list.

As Mediaite has noted on multiple occasions, Loudon’s credentials and professional claims are highly-questionable to say the least.

Even though Loudon has a Ph.D in “human and organization systems” from online school Fielding Graduate University, she lacks an actual doctorate in psychology, and she has said that she relies on “gut instinct” rather than clinical training. She’s also pretending to be a lawyer now, judging by the fact that she doesn’t have a law degree, yet travelled to Florida recently to involve herself in the squabbles over the midterm election recount in Broward County.

Loudon’s (lack of) qualifications aside, this is far from the first time Trump has promoted books written by his political allies, so this is hardly out of the ordinary for him.

[Mediaite]

Trump Dismisses Report on Ivanka: She ‘Did Some Emails,’ They Weren’t Classified Like Hillary’s

President Donald Trump dismissed the Washington Post report on his daughter, Ivanka Trump, accessing and sending government-related emails on her private email account.

“Early on, and for a little period of time, Ivanka did some emails,” the president said. “They weren’t classified like Hillary Clinton. They weren’t deleted like Hillary Clinton, who deleted 33 [thousand] … She wasn’t doing anything to hide her e-mails.”

Trump claimed that his daughter’s emails were in the presidential record. The Washington Post piece was unclear on that point.

“Using personal emails for government business could violate the Presidential Records Act, which requires that all official White House communications and records be preserved as a permanent archive of each administration,” the piece read.

“What Ivanka Trump did, all in the presidential records, everything is there,” Trump said. “There was no deletion, no nothing. What it is is a false story. Hillary Clinton deleted 33,000 e-mails, she had a server in the basement, that is the real story.”

[Mediaite]

Trump Boasts He Knew of Bin Laden Before 9/11 Attacks: ‘I Pointed Him Out in My Book’

President Donald Trump took to Twitter this morning to claim that he called for the capture of late al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden years before the terrorist group’s 9/11 attacks.

“Of course we should have captured Osama bin Laden long before we did. I pointed him out in my book just BEFORE the attack on the World Trade Center. President Clinton famously missed his shot. We paid Pakistan Billions of Dollars & they never told us he was living there. Fools!” Trump tweeted, after he bashed the U.S. military in an interview on Fox News Sunday for not killing bin Laden sooner.

“We no longer pay Pakistan the $Billions because they would take our money and do nothing for us, Bin Laden being a prime example, Afghanistan being another,” he added. “They were just one of many countries that take from the United States without giving anything in return. That’s ENDING!”

However, the president’s claims that he called for the capture of bin Laden are questionable at best.

In his book The America We Deserve, which Trump referenced as proof that he was onto al-Qaeda before 9/11, but the following passage — the only time bin Laden is mentioned, per Politifact — shows that he did not have a specific intuition about bin Laden, and was instead criticizing America’s erratic policies in the Middle East at the time:

“Instead of one looming crisis hanging over us, we face a bewildering series of smaller crises, flash points, stand offs, and hot spots. We’re not playing the chess game to end all chess games anymore. We’re playing tournament chess – one master against many rivals. One day we’re assured that Iraq is under control, the UN inspectors have done their work, everything’s fine, not to worry. The next day the bombing begins. One day we’re told that a shadowy figure named Osama bin Laden is public enemy number one, and U.S. jet fighters lay waste to his camp in Afghanistan. He escapes back under some rock, and a few news cycles later, it’s on to a new enemy and a new crisis.”

During the early days of his 2016 campaign, Trump repeated the same claim, saying, “Remember that in The America We Deserve, I wrote that book in 2000, I wrote about Osama bin Laden: ‘We’ve got to take him out,’” Trump said during a Dec. 2 rally for his presidential campaign.

Last night, Trump attacked retired admiral William McRaven for not getting to bin Laden sooner.

“Wouldn’t it have been nice if we got Osama bin Laden a lot sooner than that, wouldn’t it have been nice?” Trump said to Fox News. “You know, living — think of this — living in Pakistan, beautifully in Pakistan, in what I guess they considered a nice mansion, I don’t know, I’ve seen nicer, but living in Pakistan right next to the military academy. Everybody in Pakistan knew he was there.”

[Mediaite]

President Trump says raking can prevent fires: Finland’s President Sauli Niinistö denies the conversation

While touring a town ravaged by the Northern California Camp Fire on Saturday, President Trump said Finland’s president claimed the country doesn’t have many problems with forest fires because it spends “a lot of time on raking.” Finland’s President Sauli Niinistö said the topic of raking never came up in their conversation.

Mr. Trump was visiting Paradise, California, this weekend with California Gov. Jerry Brown, California Governor-elect Gavin Newsom and Paradise Mayor Jody Jones when he was asked what could be done to prevent a similar disaster in the future. The wildfire has been called the deadliest and most destructive in the Golden State’s history.

“You gotta take care of the floors. You know? The floors of the forest. Very important,” said Mr. Trump. “I was with the President of Finland and he said, ‘We have a much different — we’re a forest nation.’ He called it a ‘forest nation.’ And they spend a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things, and they don’t have any problem. And when it is, it’s a very small problem.”

Niinistö said he doesn’t remember mentioning raking leaves with Mr. Trump, but did say the two leaders spoke about the California wildfires when they met in Paris in early November.

“I mentioned [to] him that Finland is a land covered by forests and we also have a good monitoring system and network,” Niinistö told lta-Sanomat, Finland’s second-largest paper on Sunday. He also told the newspaper that he remembers uttering the phrase “we take care of our forests” during their conversation.

Twitter quickly learned of the raking comments, with many from Finland ridiculing Mr. Trump by tweeting images of themselves or others raking in the forest. Some used the hashtag #haravointi, which is translated to #Raking in english.

The Camp Fire in Butte County in Northern California, one of two major blazes in California, has scorched some 150,000 acres of land, killed 77 people and led to at least 1,000 missing people.

The Woolsey Fire in Southern California has burned 96,949 acres and killed three people.

[CBS News]

Media

Trump Slams Navy SEAL: ‘Wouldn’t It Have Been Nice If We Got Osama Bin Laden a Lot Sooner’

President Donald Trump dismissed criticism from William McRaven on Fox News Sunday, referring to the retired Navy SEAL Admiral as a “Hillary Clinton fan.”

While grilling the president on his anti-press rhetoric, Fox News anchor Chris Wallace brought criticism from McRaven, who oversaw the 2011 raid in Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden.

After Wallace listed McRaven’s bonafides, Trump cut in: “Hillary Clinton fan.”

“Special Operations…” Wallace said.

“Excuse me, Hillary Clinton fan,” Trump insisted.

“Who led the operations, commanded the operations that took down Saddam Hussein and that killed Osama bin Laden,” Wallace continued, “says that your sentiment is the greatest threat to democracy in his lifetime.”

“OK, he’s a Hilary Clinton backer and an Obama-backer,” Trump said.

“He was a Navy Seal 37 years,” Wallace shot back.

“Wouldn’t it have been nice if we got Osama Bin Laden a lot sooner than that, wouldn’t it have been nice?” Trump asked. “You know, living – think of this – living in Pakistan, beautifully in Pakistan in what I guess they considered a nice mansion, I don’t know, I’ve seen nicer. But living in Pakistan right next to the military academy, everybody in Pakistan knew he was there.”

“You’re not even going to give them credit for taking down Bin Laden?” Wallace asked.

Trump ignored the question in favor to hitting Pakistan: “They took him down but – look, look, there’s news right there, he lived in Pakistan, we’re supporting Pakistan, we’re giving them $1.3 billion a year, which we don’t give them anymore, by the way, I ended it because they don’t do anything for us, they don’t do a damn thing for us.”

[Mediaite]

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