Category: Unpresidential

Trump Says Obama Behind Leaks

President Donald Trump said he believes former President Barack Obama has been behind the leaks within his administration and the sizable, angry town hall crowds Republicans have faced across the country.

Trump was asked in an interview on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” if he believed Obama was responsible for the town hall protests against Republicans this month.

“It turns out his organization seems to do a lot of these organizing to some of the protests that these Republicans are seeing around the country against you. Do you believe President Obama is behind it and if he is, is that a violation of the so-called unsaid presidents’ code?” Trump was asked.

“No, I think he is behind it. I also think it is politics, that’s the way it is,” Trump replied.

Trump then discussed the leaks that have disrupted his first month in office.

“You never know what’s exactly happening behind the scenes. You know, you’re probably right or possibly right, but you never know,” Trump said in the interview, a clip of which was released Monday night. “No, I think that President Obama is behind it because his people are certainly behind it. And some of the leaks possibly come from that group, which are really serious because they are very bad in terms of national security. But I also understand that is politics. In terms of him being behind things, that’s politics. And it will probably continue.”

Trump did not offer any evidence for his claim in the clip released by Fox Monday night. CNN has reached out to Obama’s office for comment.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders declined to expand Tuesday on Trump’s claim that Obama was behind the protests, telling reporters that she would let the comments stand by themselves.

When asked if the White House believes Obama is behind the protests, Sanders added, “I think the bottom line here is we all have condemned the protests. I think that is the bigger story here, and the focus we should be talking about that this isn’t something that helps and moves us forward and that is what we are focused on right now.”

A broad coalition of groups, including Organizing For Action, the SEIU, MoveOn.org and the Center for American Progress have been working to help with grassroots organizing around GOP town halls.

Organizing for Action, the group formed from Obama’s campaign organization, has 14 professional organizers, for example, who are involved in teaching local activists skills to effectively vocalize opposition to the GOP’s top agenda items.

Earlier this month, Trump told Fox News that reports of his calls with the leaders of Mexico and Australia were caused by leaks from “Obama people.”

Trump’s administration has been beset by leaks within his administration to the media, and he has continually railed against those doing the leaking and the media since taking office. He has said the leaks are damaging to national security.

Approval ratings for the President’s job performance have been at historic lows. A recent Quinnipiac University survey found that 55% of American voters disapprove of Trump’s performance.

But the President said he would give himself an “A” in achievement but in messaging a “C or C plus.”

“In terms of messaging, I would give myself a C or a C plus,” Trump said. “In terms of achievement I think I’d give myself an A. Because I’ve done great things, but I don’t think we’ve explained it well enough to the American people.”

The President also gave himself an “A” for “effort.”

(h/t CNN)

Media

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B_F99auzmc

Donald Trump Made 61 Statements in His Joint Session Speech. 51 Were False

United States President Donald Trump on Tuesday delivered his first address to Congress, and event fact checkers were watching like hawks.

Given the 45th President’s well-documented and open attitude to proliferating myths and false statements, the stage was set for a night of disproving the President.

Politifact listed a number of points of inaccuracy and contention – largely criticising the president for not providing context to remarks or for taking credit for pre-existing policy points.

The Center for American Progress claimed that he made 51 incorrect statements, crowdsourcing factcheckers in a Google doc:

The full document (which cannot be edited), a copy of which is embedded below, can be accessed here.

(h/t Independent.uk)

 

 

Trump Blames SEAL’s Death on Military

President Donald Trump on Tuesday dodged responsibility for a botched mission he ordered in Yemen last month, placing the onus on the military and Barack Obama’s administration instead.

Bill Owens, the father of Chief Petty Officer William “Ryan” Owens, the Navy SEAL who died in the operation, demanded an investigation into his son’s death over the weekend. Owens further revealed he couldn’t bear to meet Trump at the airport as Ryan’s casket was carried off the military plane last month.

Asked about the matter during an interview with Fox News’ “Fox ‘n’ Friends,” Trump repeatedly said “they” were responsible for the outcome of the mission, in reference to the military.

“This was a mission that was started before I got here. This was something they wanted to do,” he said. “They came to me, they explained what they wanted to do ― the generals ― who are very respected, my generals are the most respected that we’ve had in many decades, I believe. And they lost Ryan.

“I can understand people saying that. I’d feel ― ‘What’s worse?’ There’s nothing worse,” he added. “This was something that they were looking at for a long time doing, and according to [Defense Secretary Jim] Mattis it was a very successful mission. They got tremendous amounts of information.”

The raid yielded no significant intelligence, U.S. officials told NBC News on Monday. Earlier this month, however, Pentagon officials said it produced “actionable intelligence.” So, too, did White House press secretary Sean Spicer, who initially called the raid “highly successful.”

“I think anyone who undermines the success of that raid owes an apology and [does] a disservice to the life of Chief Owens,” he said earlier this month. “The raid, the action that was taken in Yemen was a huge success.”

Presidents have traditionally accepted responsibility for their decisions, no matter the circumstances. President Harry Truman popularized the words, “The Buck Stops Here” and kept a sign of the phrase on his desk in the Oval Office. His successors took those words to heart, accepting ultimate responsibility in the wake of some of the nation’s biggest mishaps.

“I’m the president. And I’m always responsible,” President Barack Obama said in 2012 following an attack on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans died.

“In case you were wondering, in any of your reporting, who’s responsible? I take responsibility,” he said again in 2010 after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf.

President George W. Bush in 2005 owned up to his administration’s failings in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, admitting that “the federal government didn’t fully do its job right.” And he accepted responsibility for his costly decision to go to war with Iraq in 2003, despite faulty intelligence.

President Ronald Reagan in 1987 owned up to his administration’s dealings amid what is known as the Iran-Contra scandal, telling the nation in a prime-time address from the Oval Office that he took “full responsibility” for his administration.

“As angry as I may be about activities undertaken without my knowledge, I am still accountable for those activities,” he said. “As disappointed as I may be in some who served me, I’m still the one who must answer to the American people for this behavior. And as personally distasteful as I find secret bank accounts and diverted funds – well, as the Navy would say, this happened on my watch.”

(h/t Huffington Post)

Media

Trump on ‘New York Times’: ‘The Intent is So Evil and So Bad’

President Trump got specific in his latest discussion about the “fake news media,” singling out The New York Times for scorn, while heaping praise on Breitbart News and an individual Reuters reporter.

As in his speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference, the president explained that he is not calling all media the “enemy of the American people” during an Oval Office interview with Breitbart Monday. Rather, it is only the “fake media” that he considers the “opposition party.”

“There’s a difference,” Trump said. “The fake media is the enemy of the American people. There’s tremendous fake media out there. Tremendous fake stories. The problem is the people that aren’t involved in the story don’t know that.”

“I didn’t say the media is the enemy — I said the ‘fake media,'” the president explained. “They take the word fake out and all of a sudden it’s like I’m against — there are some great reporters like you. I know some great honorable reporters who do a great job like Steve [Holland] from Reuters, others, many others. I wasn’t talking about that. I was talking about the ‘fake media,’ where they make up everything there is to make up.”

Trump has included some of the country’s most widely-consumed and well-respected news organizations in his definition of “fake media.” All three major television networks (NBC, ABC and CBS), CNN, MSNBC and The Washington Post are among the outlets Trump has slapped the label on.

But no news media organization has drawn the president’s ire like the Times.

“If you read The New York Times, it’s — the intent is so evil and so bad,” Trump told Breitbart. “The stories are wrong in many cases, but it’s the overall intent.”

Trump cited a May 2016 story titled “Crossing the Line: How Donald Trump Behaved Badly With Women in Private,” as an example of what he considers bad reporting by the newspaper. One of the women interviewed in the story, Rowanne Brewer Lane, went on cable news after the piece ran to criticize the Times‘ story, saying her words were taken out of context.

“They did a front page article on women talking about me, and the women went absolutely wild because they said that was not what they said,” Trump said. “It was a big front-page article, and the Times wouldn’t even apologize and yet they were wrong. You probably saw the women. They went on television shows and everything.”

The Times stood by the story.

Annonymous sources have been a particular source of consternation for Trump. FactCheck.org points out that the use of unnamed sources has been the subject of ongoing debate within the media. But despite Trump’s tirades against the practice, he has often used anonymous sources himself, according to FactCheck.org.

Citing “oligopolies in the media,” the Breitbart interviewer suggested that Trump might consider blocking the pending merger of AT&T with Time Warner because Time Warner is the parent company of CNN.

“I don’t want to comment on any specific deal, but I do believe there has to be competition in the marketplace and maybe even more so with the media because it would be awfully bad after years if we ended up having one voice out there,” Trump replied.

(h/t USA Today)

Trump: ‘Nobody Knew That Healthcare Could Be So Complicated’

President Trump said Monday that “nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated,” as Republicans have been slow to unite around a replacement plan for ObamaCare.

“I have to tell you, it’s an unbelievably complex subject,” Trump said after a meeting with conservative governors at the White House.

The GOP governors were in town this weekend for their annual conference and met with Trump to talk about a variety of things, but it’s likely the conversation largely focused on healthcare.

Governors have been split on what should be done with ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion, which brought health coverage to many even in deep-red states.

Trump didn’t publicly address that issue Monday morning, but said ObamaCare’s repeal and replacement will give states more flexibility “to make the end result really, really good for them.”

“We have come up with a solution that’s really, really good I think. Very good.”

Trump also dismissed polls that show support for ObamaCare is at an all-time high.

The latest tracking poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation showed that 48 percent view the law favorably compared to the 42 percent who don’t.

“People hate it but now they see that the end is coming and they say, ‘Oh ,maybe we love it.’ There’s nothing to love. It’s a disaster, folks.”

(h/t The Hill)

White House Planted Fake Story to Smear Politico Reporter Who Wrote About Leaks

The White House apparently attempted to smear a critical reporter by planting a story about him laughing at the mention of a Navy SEAL’s death.

Politico published a story Sunday morning by Alex Isenstadt and Annie Karni on a surprise meeting called by White House press secretary Sean Spicer to examine aides’ phones and other electronic devices for evidence of leaks.

When multiple sources leaked details of that meeting to Isenstadt and Karni, it appears other White House officials slapped back at one of the Politico reporters using the death of a Navy SEAL killed just days after President Donald Trump’s inauguration in a controversial Yemen raid.

The Washington Examiner published a story Sunday evening, about six and a half hours after the “phone check” report broke, that claims one of the Politico reporters mocked a Trump aide’s emotional reaction to the death of Chief Petty Officer William “Ryan” Owens.

Politico’s editor, Carrie Budoff Brown, accused the White House of anonymously planting a false story to smear one of the website’s reporters.

Trump complained last week that anonymous sources should be banned as sources of “fake news.”

Isenstadt and Karni reported that Spicer had caused deputy communications director Jessica Ditt to cry after criticizing her work at a staff meeting — but the press secretary offered a denial to Politico.

“The only time Jessica recalls almost getting emotional is when we had to relay the information on the death of Chief Ryan Owens,” Spicer said.

Hours after that story broke, “one informed official” told the Examiner‘s Paul Bedard that Isenstadt “appeared dismissive and laughed” at Spicer’s denial.

“He started laughing about that SEAL,” the “informed official” told the Examiner.

That anonymous White House source also complained that Politico had described Ditt as a “more junior spokesperson,” which the official found “insulting.”

Politico spokesman Brad Dayspring flatly denied that Isenstadt had laughed at the reference to Owens’ death, and the Examiner’s Bedard defended his use of the anonymous source for his report.

“I thought Brad had a good response as did the anon Politico who characterized Spicer,” he told Washington Post media reporter Erik Wemple.

(h/t Raw Story)

Trump Lashes Out Over Russia Allegations

President Donald Trump couldn’t hold back anymore.

After a weekend of thorny questions and barbed Democratic criticism surrounding ties between his campaign and Moscow, Trump took to his favorite platform Sunday to fight back.

“Russia talk is FAKE NEWS put out by the Dems, and played up by the media, in order to mask the big election defeat and the illegal leaks!” the president tweeted.

The tweet marked a departure in tone from the Democratic trolling he had done just a day earlier, mocking the opposing party’s newly elected chairman and attempting to sow discord by speculating that the Democratic National Committee had rigged the election against Bernie Sanders’ preferred candidate.

The White House, however, would have been hard-pressed not to weigh in on the subject of Trump associates’ contacts with Russia. Republicans on Sunday faced endless questions about the ongoing investigation into Russia’s role in the presidential election — especially what role, if any, Attorney General Jeff Sessions should play in overseeing it.

In the wake of allegations that associates of Trump’s campaign were in contact with Russian officials prior to the election, emboldened Democrats increased their calls this weekend for an independent prosecutor to take on the case, arguing that Sessions’ role as a Trump campaign surrogate renders him incapable of handling the case impartially.

Even a vigorous Trump supporter, GOP Rep. Darrell Issa of California, joined the drumbeat on Friday. “You’re right that you cannot have somebody — a friend of mine, Jeff Sessions — who was on the campaign and who is an appointee,” Issa told Bill Maher on HBO. “You’re going to need to use the special prosecutor’s statute.”

Issa’s break with the White House suggested the swirling questions surrounding Trump’s ties to Russia were beginning to singe GOP members of Congress. The former House Oversight chairman — famous for his dogged pursuit of the Obama White House — narrowly won reelection in 2016 with Trump atop the ticket and likely faces a competitive challenge in the midterm election.

He told POLITICO in an interview Saturday that his views about transparency and accountability under Trump are simply an extension of his career-long fight for those issues.

“My view is: It’s extremely important that Congress point the guns at the same direction that they were pointed,” said Issa. Under the Trump White House, Republicans must continue to “demand what we were demanding: transparency, accountability.”

“And this is the best time to show leadership. … We need to seize the opportunity and really push hard to have access so that no sacred cows are protected,” he said. “For credibility, we have to hold this president to the level of transparency that the last president took every effort to thwart.”

Issa remained an outlier among Republicans, however, in his call for a special prosecutor. Responding to calls for an independent investigation into contacts between Trump associates and Russia, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said Saturday that the House would not engage in a “witch hunt.”

“This is almost like McCarthyism revisited,” the California Republican told reporters at the California GOP’s spring convention in Sacramento. “We’re going to go on a witch hunt against, against innocent Americans …?”

“At this point, there’s nothing there,” Nunes insisted. “Once we begin to look at all the evidence, and if we find any American that had any contact with Russian agents or anybody affiliated with the Russian government, then we’ll be glad to, at that point, you know, subpoena those people before the House and let the legislative branch do its oversight and then we would recommend it over to, you know, the appropriate people.”

Still, the topic dominated the Sunday morning news shows, with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and newly elected Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez each demanding an independent investigation without Sessions at the helm.

“What we need to be looking at is whether this election was rigged by Donald Trump and his buddy Vladimir Putin,” Perez said.

One day earlier, Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate committee investigating Trump’s ties to Russia, said he had “grave concerns” about the independence of the probe following a Washington Post report that said Nunes and Sen. Richard Burr, the panel’s GOP chairman, helped the White House knock down negative news stories.

Warner said he had called both Burr and CIA Director Mike Pompeo to express his concerns.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Trump ally whose name is frequently linked to a future role in the White House, was among the Republicans insisting there’s no need for a special prosecutor to investigate allegations about Trump’s relationship with Russia.

“The Justice Department over the course of time has shown itself, with the professionals that are there, to have the ability to investigate these type of things,” Christie told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.” “This is whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, we’ve seen it happen on both sides, when a special prosecutor gets involved, the thing gets completely out of control. And I think that doesn’t serve anybody’s purposes.”

The attorney general’s former Senate colleague Tom Cotton of Arkansas said Sunday there is “no doubt” that the Senate’s investigation into Russia’s role in last year’s presidential election will be fair. And he insisted it’s far too early to demand that Sessions recuse himself from any investigation into the Russia issue.

“I think that’s way, way getting ahead of ourselves here, Chuck,” Cotton told NBC’s Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press.” “There’s no allegations of any crime occurring. There’s not even indication that there’s criminal investigations under way by the FBI, as opposed to counterintelligence investigations, which the FBI conducts all the time as our main counterintelligence bureau. If we get down that road, that’s a decision that Attorney General Sessions can make at the time.”

(h/t Politico)

Trump’s First Dinner Out in DC: His Own Hotel

Donald Trump picked a familiar spot for his first dinner out in Washington since becoming president: his own hotel.

Trump’s motorcade arrived at the Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, a recently renovated property located less than a mile from the White House, shortly before 8:30 p.m. on Saturday.

The White House said Trump was dining with his daughter Ivanka Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is also a senior adviser to the president.

Scenes posted on social media from inside the hotel also showed Trump with Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) and former U.K. Independence Party leader Nigel Farage, a campaign backer.

The group of White House reporters that trails Trump, known as the “pool,” was held in vans and not permitted to enter the building.

The visit is likely to add to buzz surrounding the president’s potential conflicts of interest stemming from his business empire.

The building that houses the hotel — the Old Post Office — was leased by Trump from the federal government.

Language in the lease says that no U.S. elected official “shall be admitted to any share or part of this Lease, or to any benefit that may arise therefrom.”

Critics have said that Trump is in violation of the lease agreement.

Trump has repeatedly denied that he has conflicts of interests. He announced at a Jan. 11 press conference he would take steps to distance himself from his businesses, but he has not divested in his companies.

Republican lawmakers, some of whom have been reluctant to probe Trump’s potential business conflicts, have flagged the hotel lease as a point of concern.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) said last month he has requested a copy of the contract.

“I did request from the [Government Services Administration] the full, unredacted contract,” Chaffetz told reporters earlier this month. “I requested that the first part of December. I still don’t have it. It will be interesting to see what they produce and what their take on that is. But I don’t have that yet.”

Ethics watchdogs have said Trump could be in violations of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution if his properties take payments from foreign governments.

That clause, aimed at curbing corruption, says that “no person holding any office of profit or trust under them shall, without the consent of the congress, accept of any present, emolument, office or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.”

An attorney representing the Trump said at the January news conference he would donate any hotel profits from foreign governments to the U.S. Treasury.

Trump: FBI ‘Totally Unable’ to Stop Leaks

President Trump on Friday ripped the FBI as “totally unable” to stop leaks within its own ranks, ordering the agency on Twitter to “find now” sources within the government who are speaking to the press.

The tweets come one day after reports emerged that the FBI rejected a White House request to dispute media accounts of regular contact between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russian intelligence officials.

“Multiple U.S. officials briefed on the matter” told CNN that the agency declined to publicly corroborate White House chief of staff Reince Priebus’s claim that reports of ties between Trump’s team and Moscow were “total baloney.”

Trump has sparred openly with the U.S. intelligence community since its assertion that Russia interfered in last year’s election with the intention of helping him win.

Since his inauguration, Trump has specifically turned his anger on intelligence leaks to the “fake news media.”

“The leaks are absolutely real. The news is fake because so much of the news is fake,” Trump told reporters during a lengthy, at times argumentative White House press conference last week. “Over the course of time I’ll make mistakes and you’ll write badly and I’m OK with that. I’m not OK when it’s fake.”

(h/t The Hill)

Trump Will Be First POTUS to Skip White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Over 30 Years

President Donald Trump is skipping this year’s White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, he announced Saturday on Twitter, offering without any explanation: “Please wish everyone well and have a great evening!”

Slated to take place April 29, the annual dinner is traditionally attended by the president, first lady, members of the administration, the White House press corps and numerous media outlets. Proceeds raised by the dinner go toward scholarships and awards for aspiring journalists.

The gathering is typically hosted by a noted comedian who roasts the president and members of the media, and then lets the commander in chief crack his own jokes.

A number of publications — including Bloomberg, The New Yorker and Vanity Fair — have joined a growing list of news organizations that refused to host parties around the ceremonies, citing the president’s baseless claims that longstanding media organizations are spreading “fake news” or are “the enemy of the American people.”

The announcement comes after the president and his administration continue to maintain a public feud with the press and blocked multiple media organizations from attending an impromptu daily briefing with White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Friday.

CNN, The New York Times and Politico were not able to attend the off-camera press gaggle with Spicer, while conservative media organizations were shown preference by the administration.

The White House Correspondents’ Association responded shortly after Trump tweeted and said they still planned to have the dinner despite his absence.

“The WHCA takes note of President Donald Trump’s announcement on Twitter that he does not plan to attend the dinner, which has been and will continue to be a celebration of the First Amendment and the important role played by an independent news media in a healthy republic,” association President Jeff Mason said in a statement.

“We look forward to shining a spotlight at the dinner on some of the best political journalism of the past year and recognizing the promising students who represent the next generation of our profession,” he added.

White House Strategist Steve Bannon told Conservative Political Action Conference attendees on Thursday that Trump would continue to attack the media, which Bannon described as “corporatist,” “globalist” and members of “the opposition party.”

Late-night comedy host Samantha Bee announced that she would host a dinner at the same night and time to compete with the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in protest of the Trump administration. Named “Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner,” all proceeds raised will be donated to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Trump attended the dinner in 2011 when Barack Obama was president and was roasted by the then-president.

The first White House Correspondents’ Dinner occurred in 1921, and the first president attended — Calvin Coolidge — in 1924. Fifteen presidents have attended since.

Ronald Reagan was the last president to skip the dinner, according to the Reagan Library. In 1981, the newly elected president decided he wouldn’t attend because he was recovering from a gunshot wound in a failed assassination attempt on his life less than a month earlier.

Nevertheless, Reagan still called in to provide a few remarks.

“If I could give you just one little bit of advice,” Reagan quipped over the phone, “when somebody tells you to get in a car quick, do it.”

(h/t NBC News)

 

 

 

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