Category: Unpresidential

Trump is refusing to unveil Obama’s portrait at the White House, breaking a 40-year tradition

President Donald Trump won’t be unveiling former President Barack Obama’s portrait at the White House, breaking a 40-year tradition, NBC News reported on Tuesday.

Obama would also not be interested in attending such an event, according to the report, which cited people familiar with the matter.

The White House and a representative for Obama did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Insider.

For decades, first-term presidents have held ceremonies in the East Room to unveil the portraits of their immediate predecessors. Obama did so for former President George W. Bush in 2012, for example.

“George, you went out of your way to make sure that the transition to a new administration was as seamless as possible,” Obama said at the time.

Trump and Obama have perhaps the most contentious relationship of any current and former presidents in modern US history. In recent days, Trump has made baseless allegations that Obama committed an unspecified crime. Before his transition from reality TV to politics, Trump spent years perpetuating a racist conspiracy theory regarding Obama’s place of birth.

Despite their rocky past, Obama wrote Trump an Inauguration Day letter in 2017 and left it in the desk drawer in the Oval Office; Trump said it was “beautiful.”

But that detente did not last long. Trump has frequently blamed Obama for various issues he’s faced as president, including for issues with COVID-19 testing.

Obama has generally avoided the limelight since leaving the White House. In the rare instances he’s criticized Trump, the former president has often done so without saying his successor’s name. Over the weekend, Obama appeared to excoriate Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic but did not explicitly mention him.

“More than anything, this pandemic has fully, finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they’re doing,” Obama said during a virtual commencement address for 2020 graduates of historically black colleges and universities. “A lot of them aren’t even pretending to be in charge.”

Though Obama did not mention Trump, the former president’s comments were widely interpreted as a direct jab at his successor.

[Business Insider]

Trump Blasts ‘Anti-Trump People’ at Fox After Cavuto Hydroxychloroquine Pushback: ‘Looking for a New Outlet!’

After President Donald Trump announced he was taking hydroxychloroquine, Fox News’ Neil Cavuto was incredibly stunned and took a few minutes to warn viewers about the side effects.

Those who took it, in a vulnerable population, including those with respiratory or other conditions, they died. I want to stress again — they died. If you are in a risky population here and you are taking this as a preventative treatment to ward off the virus or, in a worst-case scenario, you are dealing with the virus, and you are in this vulnerable population, it will kill you. I cannot stress that enough. This will kill you,” he said.

Based on his retweeting tonight, it’s clear the president wasn’t exactly happy to hear what the Fox News anchor had to say:

[Mediaite]

Trump touts new ‘super duper’ missile but Pentagon won’t confirm details

President Donald Trump on Friday boasted that the US military is developing a new “super duper” missile that he claimed can travel 17-times faster than anything in the current arsenal, a claim the Pentagon was unwilling to confirm.

“We are building, right now, incredible military equipment at a level that nobody has ever seen before. We have no choice. We have to do it — with the adversaries we have out there. We have a — I call it the ‘super-duper missile.’ And I heard the other night, 17 times faster than what they have right now,” Trump said at a White House event to sign the 2020 Armed Forces Day Proclamation.

Trump was speaking alongside some of the country’s top military leadership, including Defense Secretary Mark Esper and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley.

“You take the fastest missile we have right now — you’ve heard Russia has five times, and China is working on five or six times. We have one 17 times. And it’s just gotten the go-ahead,” Trump added.

[CNN]


Despite FDA Caution, Trump Says He Is Taking Hydroxychloroquine As A Preventive

President Trump on Monday revealed to reporters that he has been taking hydroxychloroquine and zinc to protect against the coronavirus.

“I was just waiting to see your eyes light up when I said this,” the president told reporters, volunteering the information at the end of a roundtable with restaurant owners.

Trump said he asked his doctor about taking it after hearing from people who had done so. “Here’s my evidence — I get a lot of positive calls about it,” he said.

“I’ve taken it for about a week and a half now. And I’m still here,” he said.

The president said that he had asked the White House physician about it and that he did not start taking it in response to a specific exposure.

Trump has been promoting the drug, used to treat malaria and lupus, in briefings and on Twitter. The drug’s impact on the virus is being studied, but there is no definitive evidence yet from clinical trials — and there have been some warnings about side effects, including from the Food and Drug Administration.

Medical experts have urged caution around the drug, and last month the FDA strongly warned against using hydroxychloroquine without medical supervision, such as in a hospital or as part of a clinical trial.

Although researchers have been skeptical of hydroxychloroquine’s role in treating COVID-19, there is more enthusiasm about its potential to prevent infection. That’s because multiple studies have shown that the drug can prevent coronavirus replication.

Two such studies are currently underway.

One is being conducted by scientists and physicians at the University of Minnesota and will involve 1,500 volunteers at high risk for contracting COVID-19, either because they are health care workers or live with someone who has the disease. The study is actively recruiting high-risk health care workers and first responders from around the United States.

That study began clinical trials on April 6 to determine whether hydroxychloroquine is effective at preventing infection from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease COVID-19.

The other is a multicenter study led by Duke University that is also aimed primarily at health care workers. It aims to enroll 15,000 volunteers.

Neither study has released any results.

Dr. David R. Boulware, a medical professor who launched the University of Minnesota study, said there is no data showing that using hydroxychloroquine as a preexposure prophylaxis is effective.

“It may be. It may not be. We do not know,” he told NPR.

“The only way I would recommend taking hydroxychloroquine is within a clinical trial,” he said.

[NPR]

Trump tears into ’60 Minutes’ after segment with whistleblower Bright

President Trump took aim at CBS News and its flagship news magazine program, “60 Minutes,” on Sunday after the program interviewed whistleblower Rick Bright, former head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).

In a tweet, the president excoriated CBS and its “third place anchor, @NorahODonnell,” whom he accused of “doing everything in their power to demean our Country, much to the benefit of the Radical Left Democrats.”

“Tonight they put on yet another Fake “Whistleblower”, a disgruntled employee who supports Dems, fabricates stories & spews lies. @60Minutes report was incorrect, which they couldn’t care less about. Fake News!” he tweeted.

“This whole Whistleblower racket needs to be looked at very closely, it is causing great injustice & harm. I hope you are listening [Sen. Susan Collins.] I also hope that Shari Redstone will take a look at her poorly performing gang. She knows how to make things right!” Trump added. Redstone is the chairwoman of ViacomCBS.

Bright, who last week slammed the Trump administration’s response to the COVID-19 crisis during testimony before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, told CBS News that he was not “disgruntled,” as Trump has described him, but instead was frustrated with the administration’s response to the virus threat.

“Remember, the entire leadership was focused on containment. There was a belief that we could contain this virus and keep it out of the United States,” he said. “Containment doesn’t work. Containment does buy time. It could slow. It very well could slow the spread. But while you’re slowing the spread, you better be doing something in parallel to be prepared for when that virus breaks out. That was my job.”
“I am not disgruntled,” Bright added. “I am frustrated at a lack of leadership. I am frustrated at a lack of urgency to get a head start on developing lifesaving tools for Americans. I’m frustrated at our inability to be heard as scientists. Those things frustrate me.”

Bright told the House committee last week that “unprecedented illness and fatalities” would occur if the U.S. coronavirus response does not improve in upcoming months, and cast doubt on predictions that the U.S. would see a COVID-19 vaccine developed in the next year and a half.

[The Hill]

Trump interrupts PGA to blame Obama for the COVID-19 crisis

Former President Barack Obama may have been out of office for three years, but the 2019 coronavirus was somehow made worse by him, according to President Donald Trump. 

Interrupting the PGA on Sunday, NBC interviewed Trump over the phone, where he name-dropped golfers claiming that he knew them. Then he quickly turned from hoping to bring back sports to blaming Obama for the crisis.

According to Trump, he was left woefully unprepared due to Obama, who left office in 2017. Trump has not yet revealed what he spent the subsequent three years doing if there was such a lack of resources. During Trump’s first two years in office, the Republican Party ran the House, Senate, and White House.

COVID-19 is so named because it stands for coronavirus found in 2019. Obama had been out of office for just under three years during the discovery of the coronavirus. No tests could be invented for coronavirus three years before the virus existed, though Trump seems confused by the timeline about when he took over the White House and when the COVID-19 crisis began.

[Raw Story]

Media

The President Says He “Can’t Get Enough” of His Supporters Harassing the Press

On Thursday, Kevin Vesey, a TV reporter for News12 Long Island, visited a local protest against the remaining restrictions put in place by New York to stem the spread of the coronavirus, filing a studiously restrained segment for broadcast.

But on Twitter, he decided to share a small piece of raw footage showing how he was harassed by the demonstrators as he went about his job of capturing their demands and relaying them to a wider audience. The footage circulated widely among journalists on Thursday and Friday, often accompanied by laments about the protesters’ targeting of Vesey. In under a minute, the video captures him being called “traitor,” “hack,” “disgusting,””the enemy of the people,” and, inevitably, “fake news.” All are, of course, phrases President Donald Trump has deployed against journalists who cover his administration.

On Friday night, the President himself retweeted the video, mimicking a chant the protestors had shouted: “Fake news is nonessential.” On Saturday morning, he retweeted it again, endorsing his supporters’ harassment by calling them “great people” and claiming that “people can’t get enough of this.” 

Vesey shared the footage with his Twitter followers because it made him alarmed. Trump shared the footage with his Twitter followers because it made him proud. 

[Mother Jones]


Trump Downplays Need for Coronavirus Vaccine at His Own Big Vaccine Announcement

President Donald Trump downplayed the need for a coronavirus vaccine at his coronavirus vaccine press briefing on Friday, claiming that if a vaccine does not happen, the virus will still “go away at some point.”

“We think we are going to have a vaccine in the pretty near future, and if we do, we are going to really be a big step ahead,” President Trump declared. “And if we don’t, we are going to be like so many other cases where you had a problem come in. It’ll go away at some point, it’ll go away.”

“It may flare up and it may not flare up, we’ll have to see what happens, but if it does flare up we’re going to put out the fire and we’ll put it out quickly and efficiently,” he continued.

After being asked how long a vaccine could take, President Trump said, “We hope to be able to do something by the end of the year or shortly thereafter, but again, it’s not solely vaccine-based. Other things have never had a vaccine and they go away. So, I don’t want people to think that this is all dependent on vaccine.”

“But a vaccine would be a tremendous thing, and I will tell you, therapeutically, or therapeutics, what’s going on there is equally as impressive,” the president added.

During the briefing, President Trump also said, “I just want to make something clear. It’s very important. Vaccine or no vaccine, we’re back.”

This week, World Health Organization (WHO) Health Emergencies Program Executive Director Dr. Mike Ryan, however, warned, “This virus just may become another endemic virus in our communities and this virus may never go away. HIV hasn’t gone away.”

[Mediaite]


Truck horns blare during Trump’s Rose Garden press conference

President Trump‘s Rose Garden press conference on Friday was scored to the sound of blaring truck horns as drivers nearby protested for fair wages.

The horns, which could be heard clearly from Constitution Avenue outside the White House, persisted throughout the president’s remarks on his administration’s efforts to speed the development and production of a coronavirus vaccine.

The horns were audible for close to 30 minutes, prompting Trump to acknowledge them. He claimed they were a “sign of love” for his presidency. 

“And you hear that outside, that beautiful sound? Those are truckers that are with us all the way. They’re protesting in favor of President Trump, as opposed to against,” he said.

“That’s the sign of love, not the sign of your typical protest,” Trump added. “So I want to thank our great truckers.”

The protest coincided with Trump’s press conference to detail Operation Warp Speed, a government-wide initiative to speed the timeline to produce a coronavirus vaccine.

The demonstration by truckers mirrored one from earlier this month in which drivers lined the street near the White House and laid on their horns to protest low shipping rates, which drivers say are making it difficult to make a living wage..

Truckers are facing economic hardship as the economy contracts due to the pandemic, and The Washington Post reported that freight brokers have imposed low rates, further driving down their wages.

Congress has not provided targeted relief for the trucking industry, though Trump hosted truck drivers at a White House event last month to praise drivers for supporting U.S. commerce and supply chains amid the pandemic.

[The Hill]

State Department watchdog ousted

State Department Inspector General Steve Linick has been fired, according to a senior administration official and a congressional aide.

Linick, a Justice Department veteran appointed to the role in 2013 by then President Barack Obama, is the latest of a slew of inspectors general to be ousted in recent months.

He played a minor role in the House of Representatives’ impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, ferrying a trove of documents to lawmakers that had been provided to the State Department by Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer.

A State Department spokesperson said that Amb. Stephen Akard, a former career Foreign Service officer, “will now lead the Office of the Inspector General at the State Department,” noting that Akard was previously confirmed by the Senate as head of the department’s Office of Foreign Missions

[Politico]

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