Category: Unpresidential

Zinke reprimanded park head after climate tweets

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke brought the leader of a California park to his office last month to reprimand him for climate change-related tweets the park had sent via Twitter, two sources close to the situation said.

Zinke did not take any formal disciplinary action against David Smith, superintendent of Joshua Tree National Park. And the tweets at issue weren’t deleted, because they didn’t violate National Park Service or Interior Department policies.

But Zinke made it clear to Smith that the Trump administration doesn’t want national parks to put out official communications on climate change.

And by bringing Smith from California to Washington, D.C., to deliver the tongue-lashing, he also sent a message to the park service at large.

One source said Smith “got a trip to the woodshed” and described his one-on-one meeting with Zinke as “highly unusual.”

Another source said Zinke expressed concern with the tweets during the meeting, and told Smith “no more climate tweets.”

Other sources with knowledge of the meeting confirmed that Zinke wanted to stop tweets about climate change.

The Park Service didn’t respond to various questions about the situation, including requests to confirm the Zinke-Smith meeting and to identify who sent the tweets at issue.

“Many of our 417 National Park sites have a social media presence and content is generally determined at a local level,” Park Service spokesman Jeremy Barnum said in a statement.

Smith did not talk to The Hill for this story, and the Park Service did not make him available for an interview.

Heather Swift, a spokeswoman for Zinke, denied the description of the meeting.

“You have been given really bad information,” she said, declining to elaborate or to make Zinke available for an interview.

The meeting came after a series of 15 tweets were sent on Nov. 8 by Joshua Tree’s Twitter account. The tweets were focused on climate change’s impacts both on national parks in general and on Joshua Tree in particular.

The tweets were based on scientific conclusions, sometimes citing federal government reports and including caveats when necessary.

An overwhelming consensus—over 97%—of climate scientists agree that human activity is the driving force behind today’s rate of global temperature increase. Natural factors that impact the climate are still at work, but cannot account for today’s rapid warming,” read the first tweet of the series.

“Current models predict the suitable habitat for Joshua trees may be reduced by 90% in the future with a 3°C (5.4°F) increase in average temperature over the next 100 years,” said another.

It detailed climate change’s expected impacts on the desert Southwest, including on flora and fauna species like pinyon pine and desert iguana, and linked to a Park Service web page with more details on Joshua Tree and climate change.

The tweets got significant attention, garnering far more retweets and likes than the vast majority of tweets from national park accounts.

It’s not the first controversy surrounding the Park Service’s social media under the Trump administration.

On the day of President Trump’s inauguration, the Park Service’s main Twitter account retweeted a comparison of the inauguration crowd size on the National Mall — which the agency manages — against an obviously larger crowd from former President Obama’s 2009 inauguration.

The tweet was soon deleted.

Days later, the Twitter account of South Dakota’s Badlands National Park sent out tweets with facts about climate change. They were deleted, and the agency said a former employee with access to the account was responsible.

Trump’s opponents celebrated both episodes, along with the Joshua Tree tweets, as rebellion against the new administration, including Trump’s skepticism of human-induced climate change.

Conservationists say Zinke’s admonishment over the Joshua Tree tweets is especially troubling, both because of the chilling effect on the agency and as a sign of the administration’s views on global warming.

“This meeting shows how little respect Secretary Zinke has for the front-line employees who manage our national parks and public lands. It also reveals how far the Trump administration will go to hide basic facts from the American people,” said Aaron Weiss, spokesman for the Center for Western Priorities, which has fought much of Zinke’s agenda.

Zinke’s decision to call the Joshua Tree superintendent to Washington also serves as a window into Zinke’s leadership style.

He’s caught significant attention as Interior secretary for his brash style, reflected in direct attacks on the outdoor gear maker Patagonia after it criticized him; accusations that “the dishonest media or political operatives” were trying to tie him to Whitefish Energy’s utility repair contract in Puerto Rico; and his declaration that controversies surrounding his travel spending are “a little BS.”

Zinke has instructed employees to raise a flag for the secretary atop Interior’s building when he is there and has had commemorative coins made for him.

Maureen Finnerty, a retired Park Service superintendent and career official with the agency, accused Zinke of ignoring science in criticizing the tweets.

“The parks should be at the forefront of climate change discussion, because it’s impacting them,” she said.

Finnerty is chairwoman of the Coalition to Protect National Parks, a group composed largely of retired Park Service employees who advocate on numerous agency issues.

In Zinke’s time as secretary, he’s worked to roll back nearly all of the department’s major climate policies, including a moratorium on new coal mining on federal land and a policy to limit methane emissions from oil and natural gas drilling.

The changes have been less pronounced at the Park Service. But the agency did scrap a controversial Obama administration policy from December 2016 that asked parks to formulate plans for preserving natural resources and protecting them from threats like climate change.

If Zinke wants park employees to avoid talking about climate change, he should be more transparent about it, Finnerty said.

“They should go through the process, they should be transparent about it, they should seek whatever input they need, and then they can change the policy,” she said.

[The Hill]

Trump moves to weaken black lung protections

President Donald Trump is considering weakening a regulation intended to protect the health of one of the demographics he has often claimed to care most about — America’s coal miners.

A notice labeled “Regulatory Reform of Existing Standards and Regulations; Retrospective Study of Respirable Coal Mine Dust Rule” was published on Thursday by the White House for the Labor Department’s Mine Safety and Health Administration, according to the Charleston Gazette-Mail. The stated purpose of the reevaluation would be to determine how a 2014 rule passed under President Barack Obama regulating coal miners’ exposure to coal dust “could be improved or made more effective or less burdensome.”

When the rule was first implemented, it utilized new technologies and increased sampling in mines so that workers would have real-time information about dust levels. This would in turn allow both the miners and operators to minimize the chances that workers would be overexposed to coal dust, which has caused an epidemic of black lung disease among coal miners.

In spite of a 1969 law that increased coal mine safety requirements, more than 76,000 coal miners throughout America died of black lung disease between 1968 and 2014. Many of those deaths occurred among coal miners whose entire mining careers took place after the 1969 law had taken effect.

In response to the announcement that the coal dust rule would be reevaluated, the National Mining Association released a statement saying, “While we’ve not had any discussions with the agency regarding the retrospective study, we think it might shed valuable information on operation of the rule since its promulgation and ways it might be improved to provide further protection for miners while eliminating unnecessary implementation requirements for operators.”

Meanwhile a spokesman for mining company Murray Energy — whose owner, Bob Murray, was a major Trump backer in the 2016 election — released a statement saying that it is “pleased that the Federal Mine Safety and Health Administration is reexamining the Obama administration’s Respirable Dust Rule, which fails to protect coal miners in any way.”

Although coal mining has been on the decline in Appalachia over the past few years, that isn’t as a result of Trump’s policies. Part of that is something Trump can’t control. And part of it is something Trump doesn’t want to control. The chief struggle facing coal miners is that natural gas, solar and wind power can outcompete coal due to their low cost and abundance. Making matters worse for coal miners themselves, the coal mining jobs are often the best-paying ones in their area, and job retraining programs have a spotty track record of actually helping individuals who use them.

This latest policy undermines Trump’s longstanding claim to be an ally of coal miners, which he bragged about when he pulled out of the Paris climate accord. “I happen to love the coal miners,” Trump proclaimed at the time.

Trump may have let his true feelings about coal miners be known during a Playboy interview in 1990, however.

“The coal miner gets black-lung disease, his son gets it, then his son,” Trump told Playboy. “If I had been the son of a coal miner, I would have left the damn mines. But most people don’t have the imagination — or whatever — to leave their mine. They don’t have ‘it.'”

[Salon]

CDC banned from using ‘evidence-based’ and ‘science-based’ on official documents

The Trump administration has reportedly banned the Centers for Disease Control from using the phrases “evidence-based” and “science-based” on official documents.

Senior CDC officials distributed the list of “forbidden” words and phrases to policy analysts at the CDC on Thursday, the Washington Post reported Friday. The list also bans the use of “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender” and “fetus.”

Analysts are reportedly prohibited from using the phrases on official documents they prepare for the 2019 budget, which is expected to be released in February.

An analyst who attended the meeting at the CDC in Atlanta told the Washington Post that instead of “evidence-based” or “science-based,” policy analysts are instructed to use the phrase, “CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes.”

The analyst told the Post that other branches of President Trump’s health department are likely adhering to the same list of banned words. The source said that others at the meeting reacted with surprise when given the list.

“It was very much, ‘Are you serious? Are you kidding?’” the analyst said, “In my experience, we’ve never had any pushback from an ideological standpoint.”

The Trump administration has been repeatedly scrutinized for declining to acknowledge science-based findings, particularly related to climate change. Trump himself has not said whether he believes in climate science, and numerous members of his administration and his appointees have denied aspects of scientific consensus related to global warming.

[The Hill]

Trump on whether he’ll pardon Michael Flynn: ‘We’ll see’

President Donald Trump gave a cryptic answer to reporters on Friday when he was asked whether he will consider pardoning his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.

“I don’t want to talk about pardons for Michael Flynn yet. We’ll see what happens. Let’s see,” Trump said. “I can say this: When you look at what’s gone on with the FBI and Justice Department, people are very, very angry.”

Flynn’s recent guilty plea centered on false statements he made to investigators last January about his contacts with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak during Trump’s transition to the presidency. Flynn is now cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Mueller’s work has come under heightened scrutiny in recent days, after revelations that two FBI agents who worked on the investigation had exchanged text messages critical of Trump. One of the agents was immediately ousted from the investigation, and the other had already ended her assignment with Mueller’s team.

Trump has also spoken in defense of Flynn in recent weeks, complaining via Twitter that Flynn was treated unfairly by the DOJ in comparison to Trump’s former Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.

“So General Flynn lies to the FBI and his life is destroyed, while Crooked Hillary Clinton, on that now famous FBI holiday ‘interrogation’ with no swearing in and no recording, lies many times…and nothing happens to her?” Trump wrote earlier in December. “Rigged system, or just a double standard?”

[Business Insider]

Media

Trump rips the FBI before speech at its training academy

President Trump on Friday tore into the FBI just hours before speaking at the agency’s training academy.

“It’s a shame what’s happened with the FBI. But we’re going to rebuild the FBI; it’ll be bigger and better than ever,” Trump told reporters.

The president doubled down on his criticism of the nation’s top law enforcement agency before leaving the White House for the FBI’s campus in Quantico, Va., where he spoke to law enforcement leaders graduating from a training program.

Trump said revelations about the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation and text messages from a top agent that were critical of him were “really, really disgraceful.”

“You have a lot of very angry people who are seeing it,” the president said. “It’s a very sad thing to watch, I will tell you that.”

The president has long been suspicious of the FBI and intelligence agencies, but the timing of his criticism was remarkable.

Roughly an hour after Trump spoke at the White House, he appeared on stage at the academy with FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Jeff Sessions at the graduation ceremony.

During the speech, the president cast himself as a defender of law enforcement and lauded the bravery of police officers and FBI agents.

“These are great, great people. These are really heroes for all of us,” he said.

“The president of the United States has your back 100 percent,” Trump added. “I will fight for you and I will never, ever let you down. Ever.”

Trump’s comments come as special counsel Robert Mueller is working through his investigation into Russia’s election interference and whether the Trump campaign had any ties to it.

The president repeated his insistence his campaign staff had nothing to do with Russia’s election-related activities.

“Let’s put it this way: there is absolutely no collusion. That’s been proven,” Trump said.

“I didn’t make a phone call to Russia,” he added. “Even Democrats admit there was no collusion.”

Trump did speak about his Thursday phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, during which Trump said he tried to persuade Putin to do more to counter North Korea.

Trump thanked Putin for praising the performance of the U.S. economy this year.

The president and his allies are increasingly questioning the FBI’s integrity as they attack the Russia probe.

Republicans on Capitol Hill have slammed former FBI Director James Comey for revising a draft document detailing the agency’s findings in the Clinton email probe in a way that appeared to lessen its severity.

They have also zeroed in on text messages sent by top FBI agent Peter Strzok, who was a senior official on the Clinton probe and the Russia investigation. He was reassigned from Mueller’s investigation after private texts were discovered of him criticizing Trump.

“The level of anger at what they’ve been witnessing with respect to the FBI is certainly very sad,” Trump said.

Strzok also sent text messages criticizing Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), former attorney general Eric Holder and Chelsea Clinton, among others.

Earlier Friday, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said on Fox News that “the president is absolutely supportive of and has full faith and confidence in the rank-and-file members of the DOJ and also the FBI” but is upset with its some of its leaders.

Trump spoke to state and local law enforcement officials graduating from a program that is designed to improve standards and cooperation with federal authorities.

[The Hill]

Media

http://launch.newsinc.com/embed.html?trackingGroup=91690&siteSection=ndn&videoId=33354375

White House threatened CNN reporter to not to ask Trump questions at bill signing

CNN reporter Jim Acosta said Tuesday that the White House warned him not to ask President Trump a question during a bill signing event, claiming that press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders suggested his access at future events could be revoked if he did.

Acosta’s claim comes a day after he clashed with Sanders about media accuracy during a press briefing.

The White House press pool rotates print and broadcast reporters from different outlets on a schedule to cover events at the White House. Reporters, during the events, are allowed to ask the president and other officials questions.

At the Tuesday event, Acosta asked the president about his attack against Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D) earlier in the morning in which he suggested the New York senator would “do anything” for a campaign contribution.

The question, which Trump did not respond to, took place after he signed off on the National Defense Authorization Act for the 2018 fiscal year. In his remarks about the measure, he touted that his administration has accelerated “the process of fully restoring America’s military might.”

Acosta has repeatedly clashed during the administration with White House officials during press briefing, including Sanders and senior aide Stephen Miller.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Acosta’s tweet.

[The Hill]

Trump’s lawyer wants second special counsel to probe investigators

President Trump‘s legal team said Tuesday it would like a new special counsel to be appointed to probe individuals investigating Russian election meddling.

“The Department of Justice and FBI can not ignore the multiple problems that have been created by these obvious conflicts of interests. These new revelations require the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate,” one of Trump’s lawyers, Jay Sekulow, said in a statement.

Sekulow’s statement calling for a second special counsel, which was first reported by Axios, comes after Fox News published an article on Monday that said the wife of an official in the Justice Department was employed during the campaign by Fusion GPS, the opposition firm behind a controversial dossier of Trump opposition research.

The president’s attorneys, according to Axios, fault the FBI and the Justice Department under Attorney General Jeff Sessions for the probe into Russia’s election meddling and any potential ties between Trump campaign staff members and the Kremlin.

Trump has repeatedly called the probe a “witch hunt,” arguing Democrats are using Russia’s attempts to interfere in last year’s presidential election as an excuse for their loss.

“As the phony Russian Witch Hunt continues, two groups are laughing at this excuse for a lost election taking hold, Democrats and Russians!” Trump said in July.

[The Hill]

Reality

Trump’s lawyers display a fundamental misunderstanding of how special councils work. First, there has to be a crime, and Mueller and the FBI haven’t committed one. Second, a Special Council office was created because of the recusals of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Rod Rosenstein. And finally, a President of the United States calling for an investigation into the investigators, who have already secured two indictments and another two pleas, is not what happens in a democracy.

Trump says Sen. Gillibrand ‘would do anything’ for campaign cash after she calls for his resignation

President Trump lashed out Tuesday at Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., who is calling for his resignation over the multiple allegations of sexual assault against him. And Trump did so in a suggestive tweet that critics say demeans women.

“Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a total flunky for Chuck Schumer and someone who would come to my office ‘begging’ for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them), is now in the ring fighting against Trump,” the president wrote on Twitter. “Very disloyal to Bill & Crooked-USED!”

“The insinuation in this tweet is clearly sexual and it’s demeaning to women,” BBC News anchor Katty Kay remarked.

Gillibrand responded in a tweet of her own.

“You cannot silence me or the millions of women who have gotten off the sidelines to speak out about the unfitness and shame you have brought to the Oval Office,” she tweeted.

Gillibrand is one of at least 56 female lawmakers — all Democrats — calling for a congressional investigation into the allegations against Trump. On Monday, Gillibrand took it a step further, saying Trump should resign.

“President Trump has committed assault, according to these women, and those are very credible allegations of misconduct and criminal activity, and he should be fully investigated and he should resign,” Gillibrand told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “These allegations are credible; they are numerous. I’ve heard these women’s testimony, and many of them are heartbreaking.”

During the 2016 presidential campaign, more than a dozen women came forward, accusing the real estate mogul and former reality television star of sexual misconduct. Trump fiercely denied their claims, many of which emerged after the 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape was made public in October 2016. In the infamous tape, Trump boasted that his celebrity status allowed him to forcibly kiss and grope women.

Trump again denied the accusations on Tuesday.

[Yahoo News]

Donald Trump Just Claimed He Never Met Women Accusing Him of Sexual Harassment. That’s Not True

President Donald Trump targeted Democrats and the women who have accused him of sexual misconduct in a tweet Tuesday morning, calling their claims “false” and “fabricated.”

“Despite thousands of hours wasted and many millions of dollars spent, the Democrats have been unable to show any collusion with Russia — so now they are moving on to the false accusations and fabricated stories of women who I don’t know and/or have never met,” the president tweeted. “FAKE NEWS!”

While Trump claimed he did not “know and/or have never met” these accusers, several of the women had participated in events in which he was the host. Of the 19 women who have come forward with accusations against the president, one of them, Summer Zervose, was a contestant on the fifth season of NBC’s The Apprentice, and several of them were contestants in Miss USA pageants.

Additionally, one of them is Natasha Stoynoff, a former People magazine staff writer who interviewed Trump and Melania Trump in Mar-a-Lago in 2005, when, she said, Trump forced her against a wall and kissed her.

Their claims, many of which have a number of corroborators, were recently detailed again in The Atlantic and The Washington Post.

Trump’s tweet came after the White House told Megyn Kelly Today that the claims were “false” and “totally disputed in most cases by eyewitness accounts” — seemingly confirming, at least, that Trump at met at least some of his accusers.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from TIME Tuesday morning.

On Monday, three women who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct in the past spoke at a press conference and appeared on Megyn Kelly Today amid a national reckoning as more men in a variety of industries have been fired or forced to resign over accusations of sexual harassment or sexual assault. The women repeated their accusations on Kelly’s program Monday morning in light of newfound attention to the subject — and the momentum of the #MeToo movement.

The stories told by Samantha Holvey, Rachel Crooks, and Jessica Leeds included allegations that Trump came backstage unexpectedly and inspected contestants during the Miss USA pageant in 2006, and that he had forcibly kissed Crooks on the mouth at Trump Tower in 2005.

“In an objective setting, without question, a person with this record would have entered the graveyard of political aspirations never to return,” said Cooks said Monday. “Yet, here we are with that man as President.”

In recent weeks, a wave of allegations has resulted in men in a variety of industries resigning or being fired. The list includes former Minnesota Sen. Al Franken, who stepped down last week amid sexual misconduct allegations, as well as Michigan Rep. John Conyers.

Democratic lawmakers on Monday called on Trump to resign amid the allegations, as well as recommended a Congressional investigation into the claims. One of those lawmakers included New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, whom Trump also targeted on Twitter on Tuesday.

[TIME]

Trump tweets that he ‘seldom’ watches CNN and MSNBC — shortly after both networks cover a report on his viewing

President Trump tweeted on Monday morning that he does not watch as much television as a recent New York Times report claimed, adding that he “seldom, if ever,” tunes in to CNN or MSNBC.

The tweet posted just 28 minutes after MSNBC wrapped up a segment about the Times report and 30 minutes after CNN did the same.

The timing could be a coincidence. Or it could mean that Trump was doing the very thing he denied — watching CNN and MSNBC — shortly before he tweeted.

The Times reported on Saturday that “around 5:30 each morning, President Trump wakes and tunes into the television in the White House’s master bedroom. He flips to CNN for news, moves to ‘Fox & Friends’ for comfort and messaging ideas, and sometimes watches MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’ because, friends suspect, it fires him up for the day.”One of the Times journalists who reported the story, Peter Baker, appeared on “Morning Joe” on Monday to discuss the president’s TV habit.“He likes this jolt of television he doesn’t agree with,” Baker said of Trump. “It’s kind of hate-watching. He watches something that he knows is going to rile him up. It’s like a big cup of caffeine. Most people try to avoid things that make them upset, but I think that President Trump — he gets a charge out of it.”

Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio appeared on CNN around the same time that Baker was on MSNBC and said that “people who have been around the president for any real period of time know that he is a television addict. He’s probably watching us right now.”Perhaps he was.

The White House did not respond to an inquiry about whether Trump was watching and responding to CNN and MSNBC.

[Washington Post]

Reality

Also, just the day before, Trump was critical of the coverage on CNN and MSNBC, tweeting anger that they were not covering the health of the economy. Again, this was just the day before.

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