Category: Unpresidential

Trump Says Election Meddling ‘Could Be Russia’ But ‘Nobody Really Knows for Sure’

President Donald Trump said Thursday that he thinks Russia was behind 2016 election meddling, but added that he feels “it could have been other people in other countries” and that “nobody really knows for sure.”

“I think it very well could be Russia but I think it could very well have been other countries,” Trump said during a news conference with Polish President Andrzej Duda in which he also slammed the news media, including CNN and NBC. “I think a lot of people interfere.”

Trump, asked about the fact the United States intelligence community has said it was Russia, compared that assessment to the eventually debunked claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction in the lead-up to the Iraq War.

“I think it was Russia but I think it was probably other people and or countries. I see nothing wrong with that statement,” Trump said. “Nobody really knows. Nobody really knows for sure.”

He added, “I remember when I was sitting back listening about Iraq, weapons of mass destruction, how everybody was 100% certain that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Guess what? That led to one big mess. They were wrong and it led to a mess.”

The intelligence community assessment spans both Obama and Trump administrations, however. Intelligence officials nominated by Trump have publicly said they have no doubt that Russia was behind the election meddling.

Russian meddling in the 2016 election is the subject of numerous investigations in Washington, casting a pall over the White House. The swirl of Russia investigations — and possible connections between Trump’s orbit and Russian officials — has caused friction on Capitol Hill, hampering Trump’s ability to score a number of legislative victories.

Trump slammed former President Barack Obama’s handling of Russian interference as he stood next to Duda, arguing that the former president “did nothing” to combat the interference.

“Why did he do nothing about it? He was told it was Russia by the CIA … and he did nothing about it,” Trump said. “They said he choked. I don’t think he choked. Well, I don’t think he choked. I think what happened was he thought Hillary Clinton was going to win the election and he said let’s not do anything about it. Had he thought the other way, he would have done something about it.”

Obama confronted Russian President Vladimir Putin over election meddling, though, during the 2016 G20 meeting in Hanghzhou, China. Photos of the meeting showed a stern Obama staring down Putin.

Obama later revealed that he told Putin “to cut it out” in his meddling in the 2016 election or “there were going to be serious consequences if he did not.” The Obama administration also later expelled 35 Russian diplomats from the United States and shuttered Russian compounds in Maryland and New York.

Trump’s comments come during the first day of his foreign trip to Poland and Germany, the second international trip of his presidency. Trump did not formally take questions from reporters on his first trip, so the bilateral press conference with Duda on Thursday was Trump’s first official conversation with reporters on foreign soil.

Attacks news coverage

Trump, standing next to Duda, also slammed American media, particularly CNN and NBC.
Trump, as he has done many times before, criticized CNN as “fake news” after being asked about CNN’s coverage by David Martosko of the Daily Mail.

Trump’s critique — which came during his first formal press conference in nearly a month — came in response to CNN’s coverage of the video the President tweeted that showed him body-slamming a man with the CNN logo over his head.

“I think what CNN did was unfortunate for them. As you know, they now have some pretty serious problems. They have been fake news for a long time. They have been covering me in a very dishonest way,” Trump said.

Martosko met with Trump to pitch him the idea of writing a book about the President, CNN has reported. Numerous reports have also indicated that the reporter was considered for a press job in the White House. Martosko later tweeted a statement pulling him out of consideration for any White House job.

“Since you started the whole wrestling video thing, what are your thoughts about what has happened since then? CNN went after you and has threatened to expose the identity of a person,” Martosko asked before being cut off by Trump.

CNN did not threaten to expose the identity of anyone behind the video, but did contact the Reddit user who originally posted the video that Trump tweeted.

A spokesman for the news network said CNN decided not to publish the name of the Reddit user out of concern for his safety and that “any assertion that the network blackmailed or coerced him is false.” The user, who had a long history of posting anti-semitic, racist and anti-Muslim content, apologized for his posts after being contacted by CNN but before speaking to the network.

Martosko was standing directly behind a number of smiling Trump aides when he asked the question. Martosko shook hands with Dan Scavino, Trump’s director of social media, after the news conference.

After slamming CNN as fake news, Trump turned to Duda and asked, “Do you have that also, Mr. President?”

Duda has been accused of curbing press freedoms in Poland. Though he denies the criticisms, the fears of curbs being put on reporters have led to protests throughout the country.

[CNN]

Rick Perry Fails to Explain Supply and Demand

Energy Secretary Rick Perry attempted to offer up an economics lesson while touring a coal plant in West Virginia on Thursday. He somehow managed to only confuse people.

“Here’s a little economics lesson: supply and demand,” Perry said at the Longview Power Plant. “You put the supply out there and demand will follow.”

The former governor of Texas was responding to a question about the current popularity of shale gas, but he seemed to reference a 19th century economic theory to explain the boom.

According to Say’s law of markets, introduced in 1803 by the French economist Jean-Baptiste Say, production is the source of demand.

Only this economic rule has mostly been discarded by modern economists who argue that supplying a product does not necessarily create demand for it.

According to Perry’s law of markets, there will always be a demand for coal as long as the industry produces it.

This is obviously incorrect. A day could and likely will come when there is zero demand for coal and therefore coal will go unsold and there will be huge storage facilities filled with unused fossil fuels.

Perry’s economics lesson at the West Virginia coal plant this week will only go down as the second biggest flub in his political career. In 2011, during a debate between Republican presidential candidates, Perry said that he would cut three agencies from the federal government — except he could not remember one of the agencies

“And I will tell you, it’s three agencies of government when I get there that are gone — Commerce, Education, and, the, uh, what’s the third one there? Let’s see . . .” Perry said at the time.

The third agency Perry was looking for was the Department of Energy — the agency he now runs.

[Salon]

Media

 

White House Warns CNN That Critical Coverage Could Cost Time Warner Its Merger

It’s quite possible that Donald Trump would never have become president were it not for CNN. The network nurtured the reality star’s campaign in its infancy, broadcasting entire stump speeches, uninterrupted by correction or commentary. And it is likely that the president would be little more than a cultural artifact — a walking reminder of 1980s nihilism — were it not for the network’s president Jeffrey Zucker, who reintroduced Trump to the American public as a no-nonsense businessman in NBC’s The Apprentice.

But CNN is a journalistic enterprise. Or, at least, it plays one on TV. And so when a politician spews vicious, obvious lies on a near-daily basis — and directs a good portion of that venom at the free press itself — CNN’s anchors and reporters feel compelled to correct and condemn such mendacity. And that makes the president feel “betrayed.”

So, now, his administration is openly threatening to punish the network by sending the Justice Department after its parent company. As the New York Times reports:

Mr. Trump’s allies argue that it is CNN’s conduct that is unbecoming. Starting on last year’s campaign trail, the president and his aides have accused the network of bias and arrogance, an offensive that heated up again in January after CNN reported on the existence of a secret dossier detailing a series of lurid accusations against Mr. Trump. The network’s reporters now routinely joust with Mr. Trump’s press aides, and Jim Acosta, a White House correspondent, recently denounced the administration’s use of off-camera briefings as an affront to American values.

White House advisers have discussed a potential point of leverage over their adversary, a senior administration official said: a pending merger between CNN’s parent company, Time Warner, and AT&T. Mr. Trump’s Justice Department will decide whether to approve the merger, and while analysts say there is little to stop the deal from moving forward, the president’s animus toward CNN remains a wild card. [my emphasis]

This detail is buried 12 paragraphs into a feature on CNN’s combative relationship with Trump. Which is bizarre, given that it’s an open confession of corruption by a senior White House official. It hardly matters whether the administration follows through on its threat: The White House is extorting a news network in the pages of the New York Times. The fact that this didn’t strike the paper as headline material is a testament to how thoroughly Trump has already succeeded in eroding our expectations for good governance.

Shortly after the mogul’s election, Vox’s Matt Yglesias posited politically motivated interference in the Time Warner–AT&T merger as a frightening hypothetical — a development that would signal America’s descent into kleptocracy.

Trump is not going to crush the free media in one fell swoop. But big corporate media does face enough regulatory matters that even a single exemplary case would suffice to induce large-scale self-censorship. AT&T, for example, is currently seeking permission from antitrust authorities to buy Time Warner — permission that Time Warner executives might plausibly fear is contingent on Trump believing that CNN has covered him “fairly.”

It’s worth noting that CNN has already allowed the desire to appease Trump (and his voters) to undermine its journalistic integrity. The network literally pays Trump associates Corey Lewandowski and Jeffrey Lord to lie to its audience on the president’s behalf — even as it cut ties with Reza Aslan for profanely criticizing the president on social media.

While this is the first time the administration has publicly declared its interest in using the Justice Department as a tool for stifling dissent, Trump has been encouraging Time Warner to discipline its news network for months now. In February, the Wall Street Journal reported that senior White House adviser (and Trump son-in-law) Jared Kushner “complained to Gary Ginsberg, executive vice-president of corporate marketing and communications at CNN’s parent Time Warner, about what Mr. Kushner feels is unfair coverage slanted against the president.”

On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to block Time Warner’s desired merger “because it’s too much concentration of power in the hands of too few.”

If that sentiment were genuine, it would be worth applauding. There’s considerable evidence that corporate consolidation in general — and media concentration, in particular — has been bad for our economy and our democracy. But the Trump administration has signaled an appreciation for the virtues of monopolies, appointing a former lobbyist with an affinity for big business as the Justice Department’s head of antitrust enforcement.

And the White House is perfectly comfortable with media consolidation — when such mergers increase the bandwidth of pro-Trump outlets. Earlier this year, the FCC relaxed rules on how many local stations a single owner can control. Shortly thereafter, Sinclair Broadcast Group purchased Tribune Media — thereby gaining ownership of enough local television stations to reach 70 percent of American households. Sinclair is run by a big-dollar GOP donor, and forced its local affiliates to skew their coverage in Trump’s favor throughout the 2016 campaign.

If the White House blocks the Time Warner–AT&T deal, it will not be out of a desire to enhance competition, but to limit free speech.

To be sure, there’s reason to doubt that Trump will make good on that threat — this White House’s bark tends to be louder than its bite. In an interview with the Times, Zucker claims that the merger is not something he thinks about and that Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes has never brought that subject to his attention.

But when a president with an ardent, white-nationalist following barks, it’s reasonable to fear that someone else might use their teeth. While Zucker isn’t worried about antitrust enforcement, he told the Times that he is worried for his staff’s personal safety:

The level of threats against CNN employees, he said, has spiked this year. Mr. Trump, he said, “has caused us to have to take steps that you wouldn’t think would be necessary because of the actions of the president of the United States.”

Over the weekend, Trump tweeted a GIF that portrayed him battering a wrestling figure with the CNN logo for a head. The creator of that clip turned out to be a neo-Nazi Reddit user who had posted a list of all the Jews that work at CNN. The network’s Andrew Kaczynski tracked down that user and extracted an apology. Kaczynski declined to reveal the figure’s identity, but suggested that he retained the right to do so, if the shit-poster resumed his “ugly behavior on social media.”

That threat did not sit well with the alt-right, who saw it as an attempt to restrict free speech through intimidation. Thus, some Trumpists decided to express their principled opposition to such intimidation, by threatening to kill Kaczynski and his family. As BuzzFeed reports:

For now, according to a source with knowledge of the situation, Kaczynski and his family are the subject of an ongoing harassment campaign that includes the publication of personal information and death threats. And earlier today, the pro-Trump social media personality Michael Cernovich announced a protest outside Kaczynski’s New York home.

The White House is openly threatening to punish a (barely) adversarial outlet through selective regulatory enforcement. White nationalist Trump supporters are threatening to kill investigative reporters and assembling outside their homes.

Donald Trump has been president for less than six months.

[New York Magazine]

Trump praises record-low July 4th gas prices

As travelers hit the road for the Fourth of July holiday, President Donald Trump touted record-low gasoline prices and expressed hope that they would continue to fall.

“Gas prices are the lowest in the U.S. in over ten years!” Trump tweeted Tuesday. “I would like to see them go even lower.”

AAA said Monday that the national average of $2.23 per gallon was the cheapest gas has been all year. The last time gas prices were this low on Independence Day was 2005.

Trump’s tweet came minutes after he wished his followers a “Happy 4th.”

“Getting ready to celebrate the 4th of July with a big crowd at the White House. Happy 4th to everyone. Our country will grow and prosper!”

[Politico]

Reality

Forgetting the fact that government actions typically have little impact on the fluctuation of gas prices, Trump was not exactly telling the truth.

While the national average gas price is at the lowest point they have been in the past ten years on the date of July 4th, beating last year by just a few pennies, Trump didn’t say that. He claimed gas prices are the lowest ever in over ten years, which is a distortion of the truth. A lie.

 

Trump tweets a video of him wrestling ‘CNN’ to the ground

President Trump posted a short video to his Twitter account Sunday in which he is portrayed wrestling and punching a figure whose head has been replaced by the logo for CNN.

The video, about 28 seconds long, appears to be an edited clip from a years-old appearance by Trump in WrestleMania, an annual professional wrestling event. The clip ends with an on-screen restyling of the CNN logo as “FNN: Fraud News Network.”

Cartoonish in quality, the video is an unorthodox way for a sitting president to express himself. But Trump has ratcheted up his attacks on the media in recent days — assailing CNN and crudely insulting the hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” — while defending his use of social media as “modern day presidential.”

In a speech Saturday at a faith rally in Washington, Trump was met with cheers when he referred to CNN as “garbage journalism” and said: “The fake media tried to stop us from going to the White House. But I’m president, and they’re not.”

The wrestling video stirred criticism, disbelief, and dumbfoundedness. Some journalists denounced its portrayal of violence as dangerous, saying it could incite attacks or threats against media employees.

“I think it is unseemly that the president would attack journalists for doing their jobs, and encourage such anger at the media,” said Dean Baquet, executive editor of The New York Times.

The administration did not respond to a request for comment. Trump’s homeland security adviser, Thomas Bossert, defended the video when he viewed it for the first time during a broadcast interview with Martha Raddatz of ABC News. “No one would perceive that as a threat,” Bossert said. “I hope they don’t.”

“He’s a genuine president expressing himself genuinely,” Bossert added.

CNN criticized Trump for posting the video. “It is a sad day when the president of the United States encourages violence against reporters,” the network said in a statement.

“Instead of preparing for his overseas trip, his first meeting with Vladimir Putin, dealing with North Korea, and working on his health care bill, he is involved in juvenile behavior far below the dignity of his office,’’ the statement said. “We will keep doing our jobs. He should start doing his.’’

Asked about the video on ABC, Governor John Kasich, Republican of Ohio, said he hoped Trump’s family would talk to him and say, ‘‘Knock it off.’’ He added, “the coarseness doesn’t help anybody.’’

Rallies for and against Trump were held in several cities Sunday.

Demonstrators hoisting signs and chanting anti-Trump slogans marched through downtown Los Angeles to urge Congress to impeach the president. Organizers said they believe the president has violated the Constitution and obstructed justice. A smaller group of Trump backers rallied outside the police headquarters.

Supporters and opponents clashed in Austin, Texas, at a march by a group calling for impeachment.

A version of Trump’s video appeared last week on a Trump-dedicated page on the message board site Reddit, a popular meeting ground for Trump supporters.

The CNN logo is superimposed on what appears to be the head of Vince McMahon, a wrestling magnate and a friend of Trump, who in his prepresidential years often appeared as a guest on wrestling shows.

Trump’s fans on Reddit were exuberant about what they viewed as validation from the country’s most powerful man. “I love this,” wrote a user identified as American_Crusader. “You know he saw it, chuckled, and knew he could control the media narrative for days by hitting the ‘post’ button. So he did.”

The president’s allies say his attacks on the media are justified, arguing that the president is merely defending himself from coverage that his supporters view as biased. Trump’s war of words with CNN is especially popular with his voter base.

Media advocates, however, have raised alarms about a recent spate of arrests and assaults on working journalists, including a high-profile episode in which a Montana congressional candidate, Greg Gianforte, assaulted a reporter for The Guardian, breaking his glasses. Gianforte, who won a House seat, later apologized to the reporter.

Bruce Brown, the executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, condemned the wrestling video as a ‘‘threat of physical violence against journalists.’’

“Targeting individual journalists or media outlets, on-or off-line, creates a chilling effect and fosters an environment where further harassment, or even physical attack, is deemed acceptable,” said Courtney Radsch, the advocacy director for the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Trump posted the wrestling tweet just as prominent Republicans began appearing on the major Sunday news programs.

On CNN, Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, accused the president of “weaponizing distrust” toward the media.

But Tom Price, the health and human services secretary, bristled when asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” about Trump’s antimedia remarks. “This is really remarkable,” Price said. “Your program — a program with the incredible history of ‘Meet the Press’ — and that’s what you want to talk about?”

[Boston Globe]

Defiant Trump resumes attacks on ‘Morning Joe’ hosts, despite bipartisan criticism

A defiant President Donald Trump resumed his attacks on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski on Saturday morning, calling Scarborough “crazy” and Brzezinski “dumb as a rock,” despite days of bipartisan criticism over his initial attacks on the pair earlier this week.

“Crazy Joe Scarborough and dumb as a rock Mika are not bad people, but their low rated show is dominated by their NBC bosses. Too bad!” Trump tweeted Saturday morning.

Republican and Democratic lawmakers rebuked Trump’s attacks on the hosts Thursday after he slammed Brzezinski’s intellect, questioned her sanity and mocked her appearance.

“I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don’t watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came… to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year’s Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!” Trump wrote in a series of tweets.

On Friday, Scarborough and Brzezinski responded to Trump’s attacks with an opinion piece in The Washington Post titled “Donald Trump is not well.”

“America’s leaders and allies are asking themselves yet again whether this man is fit to be president,” they wrote. “We have our doubts, but we are both certain that the man is not mentally equipped to continue watching our show, ‘Morning Joe.'”

During their Friday “Morning Joe” broadcast, Scarborough and Brzezinski also accused Trump and his White House of using the possibility of a hit piece in the National Enquirer to threaten them and change their news coverage, to which Trump responded on Twitter by calling that accusation “FAKE NEWS. He called me to stop a National Enquirer article. I said no! Bad show.”

But Scarborough said he has proof of White House threats earlier this year; he replied to Trump by tweeting, “Yet another lie. I have texts from your top aides and phone records.”

A White House official suggested to CNN that nothing untoward occurred, saying Scarborough called Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, about the Enquirer story before it was published. The official said Kushner told Scarborough to call the President. The official denied there was ever any offer from Kushner of a quid pro quo — in other words, softer coverage in exchange for spiking the Enquirer story.

The White House did not return a request for comment on Trump’s latest tweet on Saturday.Deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended Trump’s initial attack at Thursday’s White House press briefing, saying, “Look, the American people elected a fighter. They didn’t elect somebody to sit back and do nothing.” She added that Trump “fights fire with fire.”

Sanders also said on Fox News that Trump was responding to liberal bullying when he tweeted about the MSNBC host.

“I don’t think that the President’s ever been someone who gets attacked and doesn’t push back,” she told the network Thursday. “There have been an outrageous number of personal attacks not just to him but people around him.”

First lady Melania Trump also stood by her husband’s remarks about the hosts.
“As the first lady has stated publicly in the past, when her husband gets attacked, he will punch back 10 times harder,” the first lady’s communications director, Stephanie Grisham, said in a statement to CNN on Thursday.

When asked about Trump’s initial tweets during a House Republican news conference Thursday, House Speaker Paul Ryan responded, “Obviously I don’t see that as an appropriate comment.

He added: “What we’re trying to do around here is improve the tone, the civility of the debate. And this obviously doesn’t help do that.”

[CNN]

 

 

 

 

 

 

The White House’s Science Division Is Now Completely Empty

Despite the veritable purge of scientists and science communication that has characterized the Trump administration, the White House still has an Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Unfortunately, its science division is now completely lacking any staff whatsoever.

As reported by CBS News, the three remaining employees, all of which were holdovers from the Obama administration, have left. One staffer, the assistant director for biomedical and forensic sciences, tweeted, “Science division out. Mic drop” as she left.

Over the last couple of years, there were up to 100 employees working at the OSTP, which saw a high level of investment from the former President. It is unclear when or even if the roles will be filled again, and by whom.

First established in 1976 by Congress, it is designed to provide the President and others with “advice on the scientific, engineering, and technological aspects of the economy, national security, homeland security, health, foreign relations, the environment, and the technological recovery and use of resources, among other topics.”

Many governmental scientific agencies have been threatened with massive and historic funding cuts; the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is being effectively stripped of its scientific advisory board; that is why federal scientists have been bullied to not to speak out about their research. Entire departments that focus on science and technology are being shut down.

As of June, around 85 percent of all scientific posts in the federal government, including an official scientific advisor to the President, were left unfilled. Perhaps uniquely, this percentage has now increased, what with the recent dismissals at the EPA and the new removals at the OSTP.

[IFLScience]

Trump threatens to sue CNN, according to GOP fundraiser audio

President Trump pummeled CNN during his first re-election fundraiser Wednesday night, according to audio released Friday by The Intercept.

“Boy, did CNN get killed over the last few days,” Mr. Trump said in the audio that lasted for about 40 minutes.

The fundraiser speech took place at at his hotel in Washington, D.C.; media were excluded and attendees were charged $35,000 each.

Mr. Trump went on to bash CNN commentator Van Jones and the president of CNN, Jeff Zucker, and asked the audience if he should sue people who work there.

“These are really dishonest people. Should I sue them? I mean, they’re phonies. Jeff Zucker, I hear he’s going to resign at some point pretty soon. I mean these are horrible human beings,” Mr. Trump could be heard saying.

The president said “it’s a shame” what they’ve done to CNN’s brand.

“But as far as I’m concerned, I love it,” he said. “If anybody’s a lawyer in the house and thinks I have a good lawsuit — I feel like we do. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

A Republican source told CBS News that the fundraiser was expected to pull in roughly $10 million for the GOP.

[CBS News]

Media

The Intercept

 

Trump Accidentally Confesses to Blackmail Scheme Against Morning Joe Hosts

President Donald Trump on Friday fired back at the hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe program.

Specifically, the president responded to allegations that the White House asked co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski to apologize personally to Trump for their negative coverage of him in exchange for him telling the National Enquirer to back off of a negative story planned about the couple.

“Watched low rated Morning Joe for first time in long time,” Trump said. “FAKE NEWS. He called me to stop a National Enquirer article. I said no! Bad show.”

Joe Scarborough quickly shot back at Trump on Twitter — and claimed that he had a paper trail to back up his version of events.

“I have texts from your top aides and phone records,” he wrote. “Also, those records show I haven’t spoken with you in many months. Why do you keep lying about things that are so easily disproven? What is wrong with you?”

In a Washington Post editorial published Friday, Scarborough and Brzezinski revealed that the White House earlier this year contacted them about a purportedly scandalous story that would soon be published in the National Enquirer, whose boss David Pecker is a longtime Trump ally.

“This year, top White House staff members warned that the National Enquirer was planning to publish a negative article about us unless we begged the president to have the story spiked,” they revealed. “We ignored their desperate pleas.”

[Raw Story]

Sarah Huckabee Sanders raised eyebrows with the claim that Trump has never ‘encouraged violence’

White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders raised eyebrows after she claimed during Thursday’s press briefing that President Donald Trump has never “encouraged violence.”

Sanders made the comments while addressing a question about Trump’s vicious Thursday-morning tweet aimed at MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski, who he said was “bleeding badly from a face-lift” during a trip to the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

The tweet was met with widespread condemnation on both the left and right, with a number of Republican members of Congress pointing to the recent shooting of House Majority Whip Steve Scalise as a reason why such harsh rhetoric in American politics needs to be toned down.

“Some have suggested in their tweet, response, or public response that the president misconstrued one of the messages that should’ve been gathered from the shooting that involved Steve Scalise and others, that the hostility of the verbal environment can create an atmosphere of violence,” CBS White House correspondent Major Garrett said in prefacing his question, acknowledging that the shooting “affected” the White House. “Do you have any reaction to that sentiment?”

Sanders responded by saying Trump “in no way, form or fashion has ever encouraged violence, quite the contrary.”

“He was simply pushing back in terms of defending himself,” she added, having pointed to comments made by Brzezinski and co-host Joe Scarborough on the duo’s “Morning Joe” program.

But many were quick to note that Sanders’ comment was not exactly true.

Along the campaign trail, Trump seemed to encourage violence on a number of occassions when discussing protesters at his boisterous rallies.

In February of last year, Trump said he wished he could “punch” a protester “in the face” at a Las Vegas rally. The then-Republican presidential candidate also expressed a desire for a return to “the old days” when “they’d be carried out on a stretcher.”

“Oh, I love the old days, you know?” Trump said. “You know what I hate? There’s a guy, totally disruptive, throwing punches, we’re not allowed to punch back anymore. I love the old days. You know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks.”

The crowd loudly cheered.

“You know, I love our police, and I really respect our police, and they’re not getting enough,” he continued. “They’re not. Honestly, I hate to see that. Here’s a guy, throwing punches, nasty as hell, screaming at everything else when we’re talking, and he’s walking out, and we’re not allowed — you know, the guards are very gentle with him, he’s walking out, like, big high fives, smiling, laughing — I’d like to punch him in the face, I’ll tell you.”

After a protester was roughhoused by attendees at an Alabama rally in November 2015, Trump said the protester “maybe” should’ve “been roughed up” because “it was an absolutely disgusting what he was doing.”

At a February 2016 rally in Iowa, Trump told supporters that “if you see someone getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you?”

“Seriously,” he continued. “Okay, just knock the hell … I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees. I promise. I promise.”

At a March 2016 rally in Michigan, Trump said those escorting a protester out of the rally should “try not to hurt him” although, if they did, “I’ll defend you in court.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said.

And at a St. Louis rally last March, Trump explained that “part of the problem” and “part of the reason” it takes authorities so long to remove protesters from his rallies is because “nobody wants to hurt each other anymore, right?”

When asked about a number of violent episodes that took place at his rallies, Trump said he “certainly” did not “incite violence” and said that he doesn’t “condone violence.”

[AOL]

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