Category: Unpresidential

White House Omits Critical Question From Trump-Putin Press Conference Video

A White House transcript and video of President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s July 16 press conference in Helsinki are missing a critical question from a reporter.

During the press conference, Reuters reporter Jeff Mason asked Putin the question: “Did you want President Trump to win the election and did you direct any of your officials to help him do that?”

As MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow said Tuesday, the White House video of the event omitted the first part of Mason’s question. Only the second part — about directing officials to help Trump — was included.

The Russian leader responded, “Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Because he talked about bringing the U.S.-Russia relationship back to normal.”

“What the White House has disappeared from the official U.S. government record of that meeting … is President Putin answering in the affirmative when asked if he wanted Trump to win the election,” Maddow said.

The Atlantic was first to point out this discrepancy, noting last week that neither the White House transcript of the exchange nor its livestream of the press conference included Mason’s full question to Putin. The White House didn’t immediately provide an explanation for this, The Atlantic said.

As the outlet noted at the time, Putin’s response to Mason’s query had already been ambiguous, as it was unclear whether he was answering the first or second part of the question when he said, “Yes, I did.”

The Reuters reporter told The Atlantic, however, that he believed Putin had likely been responding to the first part of the question — the very part the White House has omitted.

“You could interpret [Putin’s response] to mean he’s answering ‘yes’ to both,” Mason said. ”[But] looking at it critically, he spent a good chunk of that press conference, just like President Trump did, denying any collusion. So I think it’s likely that when he said ‘Yes, I did,’ that he was just responding to the first part of my question and perhaps didn’t hear the second part.”

The Kremlin doesn’t have the exchange between Mason and the Russian president in its transcript of the event.

“At least the White House had the courtesy to leave in half of his question so you can get a misleading answer,” Maddow quipped. “The Russians just disappeared [Mason] altogether … They skip over that entire exchange.”

The Atlantic said last week that it was possible the White House’s omission was accidental. But Maddow challenged that suggestion on Tuesday, saying the administration has since had plenty of time to correct the error.

As The Washington Post’s Philip Bump points out, the omission may have been the result of a technical error.

At some point in the middle of that question, there’s a switch between the feed from the reporters and the feed from the translator. In the White House version of the video, you can hear the question being asked very faintly under the woman who is translating saying “president.”
…
If you’re wearing headphones, you can notice how the latter part of the question is suddenly audible in the right earpiece. At first, the right channel is only the translator. Mid-question, the reporter is suddenly heard in both left and right as the translator feed drops out. Notice, too, that Putin then picks up his earpiece — through which he can hear the translations — and puts it in his right ear.

[Huffington Post]

Trump: Tariffs are ‘the greatest,’ president says ahead of EU chief’s visit

“Tariffs are the greatest!” Trump said on Twitter, following up with what he called a simple choice: “Either a country which has treated the United States unfairly on Trade negotiates a fair deal, or it gets hit with Tariffs.” He added, “It’s as simple as that — and everybody’s talking!”

His tweet came one day before EU President Jean-Claude Juncker is scheduled to visit the White House for discussions on trade and other matters. Trump has imposed tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum and threatened new ones on cars. Juncker will reportedly focus on arguing that the EU is Washington’s friend, not foe.

[Marketwatch]

White House stops announcing calls with foreign leaders

The White House has suspended the practice of publishing public summaries of President Donald Trump’s phone calls with world leaders, two sources with knowledge of the situation tell CNN, bringing an end to a common exercise from Republican and Democratic administrations.

It’s unclear if the suspension is temporary or permanent. A White House spokesman declined to comment.

Official descriptions of the President’s calls with foreign leaders — termed “readouts” in Washington parlance — offer administrations the chance to characterize in their own terms the diplomacy conducted at the highest levels between countries. While news is rarely contained in the rote, often dry descriptions, they do offer the only official account that a phone call took place.

Trump has had at least two calls with other leaders in the last two weeks, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The White House confirmed that the calls took place after they were reported by foreign media, but declined to elaborate on what was said.

Calls with world leaders are highly coordinated events that in the past have required careful planning by the President’s national security team. Leaders are typically patched through the Situation Room, and sometimes aides listen in. Once the call is over, both sides typically publish a readout of what was discussed. However, readouts have been known to differ between governments.

After Trump spoke with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in April 2017, the two sides offered vastly different accounts of what was discussed.

“President Donald J. Trump and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke today. The two leaders discussed the dairy trade in Wisconsin, New York State, and various other places. It was a very amicable call,” the White House’s version read.

Canada’s readout was more descriptive.

“The prime minister and the President reaffirmed the importance of the mutually beneficial Canada-US trade relationship,” Canada’s readout said. “On the issue of softwood lumber, the prime minister refuted the baseless allegations by the US Department of Commerce and the decision to impose unfair duties.”

Tony Blinken, who served as the deputy secretary of state in the Obama administration from 2015 to 2017, said there are two main reasons why issuing the readouts are important.

“One is transparency,” Blinken told CNN. “There is a public interest in knowing who he talked to and what they talked about. Secondly, these readouts help shape the narrative.

If we aren’t doing a readout, but the other country is, their narrative is going to prevail. ”

[CNN]

Wealthy Trump Pals Paid Rick Gates for Access to His Administration

Even as he became the target of a federal investigators, Rick Gates, the former Trump campaign No. 2 and longtime partner of Paul Manafort, was being paid last year by two Trump allies for insider access to the new administration, the New York Timesreports.

The paper identifies the men as Elliott Broidy, a major Trump fundraiser and former deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, and Tom Barrack, the billionaire Trump buddy who took a key role in planning his inauguration.

Broidy paid Gates $125,000 to help him in “courting foreign government clients for a defense contractor he had purchased in 2015, and pushing for policies that favored clients and prospective clients,” the Timesreports. His missions while in Broidy’s employ included advising the venture capitalist on how to get Trump to play golf with former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak, whom Broidy was trying to butter up on behalf of his defense firm. The paper learned these details after it was leaked a series of emails stolen from Broidy, who has been in the news in recent months for his supposed affair with a Playboyplaymate.

Meanwhile, Barracks’s company, Colony NorthStar, paid Gates $20,000 a month for his advice on issues related to the communications industry, he said last year. Gates’s contracts with both Broidy and Barrack eventually dried up as Special Counsel Robert Mueller closed in on him. He would eventually be charged with a raft of financial crimes and illegal foreign lobbying, pleading guilty in February. He is now cooperating with prosecutors.

The Times describes these deals as Gates marketing his “administration access,” but it’s hard to imagine why Broidy and Barrack, who were both close to Trump, would need to spend so much money for access to the administration.

[New York Magazine]

Trump Says ‘We Don’t Apologize For America’ a Week After Blaming U.S. For Bad Russia Relations

Today, President Donald Trump delivered a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Kansas City, during which he told the largely military audience that unlike in the past, nobody is apologizing for America anymore.

“We don’t apologize for America anymore,” said the President to wild cheering. “We stand up for America. We stand up for the patriots who defend America.”

After a bit of applause, he added. “And we stand up for our national anthem.”

As CNN’s Jake Tapper pointed out on Twitter, Trump delivered this applause line just a week after tweeting that America was responsible for bad relations with Russia, and saying to the world that “the United States has been foolish” in foreign policy.

[Mediaite]

Trump: ‘What You’re Seeing and What You’re Reading Is Not What’s Happening’

President Donald Trump defended his tariffs today in a speech to the VFW with multiple shots at the “fake news,” including a pretty remarkable line about how people shouldn’t believe any of it.

Trump said people shouldn’t “believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news” before defending the tariffs.

He talked about China, called the EU a “big abuser,” and then said, “But it’s all working out. And just remember, what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”

“What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”

You can watch Trump actually saying that above, via Fox News.

[Mediaite]

Reality

“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

—George Orwell

Trump says he’s worried about Russian meddling … to elect Democrats

President Donald Trump would like you to believe that Russia, which targeted the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016 and whose president, Vladimir Putin, said just last week that he wanted Trump to win, are interfering in American politics to boost … Democrats.

Trump is also “very concerned” about Russian meddling, despite, also last week, telling a reporter he doesn’t think Russia is still targeting the US and publicly doubting Russian interference on multiple occasions.

The president has faced mounting criticism over his handling of relations with Russia in the wake of his disastrous performance at a press conference with Putin in Helsinki, Finland, last week. After a one-on-one meeting with Putin, whose contents remain unknown to US officials, Trump failed to publicly denounce the Russian leader for his country’s efforts to interfere in US politics in 2016 and beyond and said he wasn’t so sure about the intelligence community’s consensus that Russia was and is meddling.

The White House’s cleanup efforts have largely centered on one strategy, which is, basically, gaslighting.

Trump claimed he misspoke at the Helsinki press conference and that when he told reporters, “I don’t see any reason why it would be [Russia]” who meddled in the 2016 election, he meant to say he didn’t see why it wouldn’t have been Russia. And when he told a reporter later in the week, “No,” when asked if Russia was still targeting the US, the White House claimed he was just saying he didn’t want to answer questions.

On Tuesday, Trump was at it again with another counter-reality tweet, this time claiming that Russians are interfering — but that they’re doing it to boost Democrats because Russia is so afraid of him.

[Vox]

Attorney General Sessions joins ‘Lock her up!’ chant in front of high school students

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions briefly joined in during a “Lock her up!” chant while delivering a speech to a group of conservative high school students on Tuesday, marking the latest example of President Donald Trump and his aides making aggressive gestures toward their political rivals.

Sessions was speaking about freedom of speech on college campuses when the chant broke out at the Turning Point USA High School Leadership Summit at George Washington University.

“I like this bunch, I gotta tell ya, you’re not going to be backing down. Go get ‘em! Go get em’!” Sessions said, when the audience started yelling “Lock her up!” — a staple of Trump’s political rallies that refers to Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.

Chuckling and repeating the chant once himself, Sessions then attempted to move on before saying, “I heard that a long time over the last campaign.”

The remarkable comment by an attorney general of the United States follows other moves by Trump and his aides that have alarmed not only Trump critics but other fellow Republicans.

Trump set off a firestorm by expressing openness to handing over former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul to Moscow for an interrogation if special counsel Robert Mueller’s team was allowed to question a dozen Russian intelligence agents indicted earlier this month.

When Putin floated the idea, Trump called it an “incredible offer” during a news conference last week.

The White House caught more heat when press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump would consider revoking the security clearances of former intelligence and law enforcement officials who have publicly criticized the president, including former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey.

Trump has also continued to revel in the “Lock her up!” chant at his rallies, and the high school student crowd at the leadership summit has broken out in the chant multiple times this week.

The summit runs through Thursday and features speakers such as Donald Trump Jr., Sen. Rand Paul, British politician Nigel Farage and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley.

[Politico]

Trump, citing politics, looking to revoke security clearances

President Donald Trump is considering stripping a half-dozen former national security officials of their security clearances, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Monday, calling their public commentary about the ongoing Russia probe inappropriate.

The list of former officials under consideration includes former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former FBI Director James Comey, former national security adviser Susan Rice, former deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe and former National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden, according to Sanders.

“They’ve politicized and in some cases monetized their public service,” Sanders said during a press briefing. “Making baseless accusations of an improper relationship with Russia is inappropriate.”

Sanders would not say when the President would make the decision; she said only that the White House would provide updates when it had them.

The announcement came after Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, tweeted that he planned to speak with Trump about removing Brennan’s security clearance. Brennan declared last week that Trump’s performance following a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki was “nothing short of treasonous.”

A decision to strip a former official of a security clearance would prove a striking use of presidential power. Even Michael Flynn, Trump’s onetime national security adviser who was fired during the Obama administration, maintained his clearance when he was acting as a campaign surrogate for Trump, often leading “lock her up” chants at political rallies.

Sanders did little to mask the political nature of Trump’s threat, indicating the President was frustrated by the former officials’ criticism of him.

“When you have the highest level of security clearance, when you’re the person that holds the nation’s deepest, most sacred secrets at your hands and you go out and you make false accusations against the President on the United States, he says that’s something to be concerned with,” Sanders said.

“We’re exploring what those options are and what that looks like,” she said of the process for removing the officials clearances.

When they leave government, national security officials routinely maintain their security clearances, partly to consult with those who replace them about ongoing situations or issues.

Officials also use their clearances to obtain high-paying consulting positions in the private sector.

“I think this is just a very, very petty thing to do. And that’s about all I’ll say about it,” Clapper said on CNN in the immediate wake of Sanders’ announcement.

“There is a formal process for doing this,” he added. “But, you know, legally the President has that prerogative and he can suspend and revoke clearances as he sees fit. If he chooses to do it for political reasons, I think that’s a terrible precedent and it’s a really sad commentary and its an abuse of the system.”

Hayden indicated being stripped of his clearance would be of little consequence to his commentary.

“I don’t go back for classified briefings. Won’t have any effect on what I say or write,” he tweeted.

It is the President’s prerogative to revoke security clearances, a former senior intelligence official said on Monday, who added that instances of such an occurrence were rare.

Usually former senior officials retain clearances so their successors can consult with theem on a pro bono basis, the former official said.

[CNN]

Trump levels false attacks against The Post and Amazon in a pair of tweets

President Trump on Monday used his Twitter account to make false and misleading attacks against The Washington Post and Amazon, the behemoth online retailer whose founder owns The Post.

In the first of his tweets, Trump said the “Amazon Washington Post has gone crazy against me ever since they lost the Internet Tax Case in the U.S. Supreme Court two months ago.”

The president was apparently referring to a Supreme Court case decided last month that will allow state governments to compel retailers beyond their borders to collect sales tax revenue from consumers.

Amazon, the nation’s biggest online retailer, took a small hit in its stock price after the decision, even though it already collects taxes on its sales in all states. The company, whose founder and chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Post, does not collect taxes on third-party purchases. The Post and Amazon are independently operated.

It’s not clear what Trump meant by “gone crazy against me,” though he was critical in a separate tweet Monday of media coverage of his efforts to rid North Korea of nuclear weapons. The Post reported over the weekend that Trump has privately fumed about a lack of progress even as he has publicly touted his administration’s efforts.

In his first tweet on The Post and Amazon, Trump also complained that the U.S. Postal Service is “the delivery boy” for Amazon, which he said pays only “a fraction of real cost.”

Trump has previously said that Amazon costs the Postal Service billions of dollars in potential revenue, even though officials have explained to him that Amazon’s contracts with the Postal Service are profitable for the agency.

In a second tweet, Trump said that The Post “is nothing more than an expensive (the paper loses a fortune) lobbyist for Amazon.”

Trump has made the false claim about The Post serving as a lobbyist for Amazon multiple times.

Responding to a similar tweet in March, Post publisher Frederick J. Ryan Jr. said: “The Washington Post operates with complete independence in making all news and editorial decisions. We alone decide what to publish. It is preposterous and disingenuous to suggest that The Post is used to advance Jeff’s other commercial interests.”

Post editors have also rejected Trump’s accusation that The Post has supported Amazon’s interests.

“The reality is he didn’t present any evidence that we were lobbying for Amazon,” Post Executive Editor Martin Baron has said in response to a previous Trump attack. “The reason is because there is no evidence.”

Contrary to Trump’s assertion, Ryan has also said that The Post is positioned for “continued profitability.”

[Washington Post]

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