Category: Unpresidential

Pentagon policy chief’s firing was part of White House purge

The White House demanded the ouster of Pentagon policy chief John Rood last week after the former industry executive opposed the administration on plans to pull U.S. troops from Syria and its policy toward Chinese tech giant Huawei, six current and former Trump administration officials tell POLITICO.

Rood, who has served as undersecretary of Defense for policy since January 2018, resigned on Feb. 19 at the behest of President Donald Trump and will officially step down at the end of this week. Rood oversees implementation of national security policy throughout the Defense Department and is one of the defense secretary’s top advisers.

At the National Security Council, Rood was known for his tendency to explode at underlings, leading to a steady string of high-level departures from the Pentagon over the past year. On top of that, the NSC chafed at Rood’s opposition to several key White House agenda items.

Trump’s campaign to root out “anti-Trump” members of his administration following his impeachment acquittal provided the NSC the perfect opportunity to finally oust Rood, current and former officials said.

“He never hesitated to tell the White House that he disagreed on stuff,” said one former administration official, citing the withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and pulling U.S. troops from Syria —decisions former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis also opposed before his own ouster. “He definitely wasn’t a loyalist.”

Most recently, Rood opposed a rule from the Commerce Department that would have barred companies from selling to Huawei from overseas facilities. The Pentagon later dropped its opposition to the rule.

Rood had warned against Trump’s hold on military aid to Ukraine, which prompted the impeachment inquiry. But long before the scandal, sources say Rood clashed with NSC officials, particularly former national security adviser John Bolton and his core advisers Victoria Coates and Charles Kupperman.

Rood’s office declined to comment.

Early last year, a group of NSC senior directors brought up complaints about Rood’s leadership style with Bolton, according to current and former officials. The sources expressed concern that Rood’s treatment of his staff, particularly widespread incidents of yelling at subordinates, was prompting senior leaders to leave the department.

Since Mattis left in December 2018, several high-ranking civilians have resigned. Of 58 Senate-confirmed positions at DoD, 18 are vacant, and that will rise to 19 once Rood departs at the end of this week.

“He’s the least liked guy in national security circles,” said one administration official. “It’s the most widespread negative view of any one official” that the source had encountered during their long tenure in the Trump administration.

Rood’s ouster has prompted fears within the Pentagon that Trump’s purge could extend to other officials seen as not sufficiently loyal to the president, said the first former administration official. People who are awaiting nomination or confirmation — including Elaine McCusker, whose nomination to be Pentagon comptroller may be in jeopardy due to her opposition to the Ukraine aid freeze — are seen as particularly vulnerable.

“There is a long list of names of people they are going to boot out and they are going to replace them with purely politicals,” the former official said.

Rood’s ouster had been in the works for a while, the sources said. It took the arrival of a new director for the White House Presidential Personnel Office, John McEntee, who Trump hired to oversee his post-impeachment loyalty purge, to push the final decision through. McEntee is “energetic and gets things done,” said the first administration official.

Another former defense official defended Rood as “a good Republican,” but noted that in the aftermath of the impeachment inquiry, the White House is eliminating all dissension and the Pentagon’s policy chief was “easily a target.”

“Rood has served in the public and private sector admirably. He is loyal to the mission, but I think President Trump has been convinced that Rood is an obstacle to his agenda,” the former defense official said.

[Politico]

Trump disagrees with his own health experts on whether US faces severe illnesses from coronavirus

Donald Trump has disagreed with his own health experts who have warned it was inevitable that coronavirus would spread within the US.

In a briefing to the media on Tuesday, officials from the centres for disease control and other health experts, said communities in the US should start planning for “social distancing measures”.

“It’s not so much of a question of if this will happen anymore but rather more of a question of exactly when this will happen,” said Nancy Messonnier, director of the national centre for immunisation and respiratory diseases.

But in his own press conference on Wednesday, Mr Trump appeared to play down such certainty, while insisting his government was ready for whatever came.

“I don’t think it’s inevitable. I don’t think think it’s inevitable because we’re doing a really job at the borders and checking people coming in,” he said.

“I think there is a chance there could a substantial increase. But nothing is inevitable.”

“Wash your hands, stay clean, you don’t have to necessarily grab every handrail unless you have to.

Mr Trump went on to dismiss concerns over the risk the virus poses to the public. 

“View this the same as the flu,” he said: “When somebody sneezes, I mean, I try and bail out as much as possible when they’re sneezing.”

Turning to one of the health experts stood behind him, Mr Trump added: “I really think, doc, you want to treat this like you treat the flu, and, you know, it’s going to be fine.”

Flanked by vice president Mike Pence, who he has appointed to head the government’s response to the disease, and other officials, Mr Trump said: “The risk to the American people remains very low.”

He added: “We’re ready to adapt and we’re ready to do whatever we have to as the disease spreads, if it spreads. It probably will, it possibly will. It could be at a very small level, or it could be at a larger level. Whatever happens we’re totally prepared.”

There are currently 15 cases of coronavirus detected among individuals inside the United States. In addition, 40 American passengers brought back from a cruise ship in Japan also tested positive for the virus. 

The administration has proposed $2.5bn in additional funding to address the coronavirus, a sum politicians from both parties have said may be insufficient.

On Wednesday, public health officials warned Americans to prepare for more coronavirus cases and New York City announced plans to provide up to 1,200 hospital beds if needed stock markets fell for the fifth consecutive day.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the head of the national institute of allergy and infections diseases, said that while the virus was contained in the United States, Americans must prepare for a potential outbreak as transmissions spread outside of China.

“If we have a pandemic, then almost certainly we are going to get impacted,” he told CNN.

[The Independent]

Trump campaign files libel suit against New York Times over Russia story

President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign said on Wednesday it filed a libel suit against the New York Times accusing the newspaper of intentionally publishing a false opinion article related to Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.

In an escalation of the Republican president’s long-running battle with the news media, campaign officials said the lawsuit was being filed in New York State Supreme Court, the state’s trial-level court.

A statement from the campaign said the aim of the litigation was to “hold the news organization accountable for intentionally publishing false statements against President Trump’s campaign.”

The lawsuit relates to a March 27, 2019, opinion article written by Max Frankel, who served as executive editor of the Times from 1986 to 1994.

The campaign attached to a news release a draft copy of the suit accusing the newspaper of “extreme bias against (the campaign) and animosity” and cited what it called the Times’ “exuberance to improperly influence the presidential election in November 2020.” Trump is seeking re-election on Nov. 3.

The Times did not have an immediate comment.

The opinion piece was headlined, “The Real Trump-Russia Quid Pro Quo” with a subhead adding, “The campaign and the Kremlin had an overarching deal: help beat Hillary Clinton for a new pro-Russian foreign policy.” Quid pro quo is a Latin term meaning a favor in exchange for a favor.

The lawsuit originated with the Trump re-election campaign, but Trump himself has contended the Times has at times been biased against him.

Trump often refers to various news media outlets as “fake news” and has called elements of the U.S. news media “the enemy of the American people.”

Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller documented Moscow’s campaign of hacking and social media propaganda to boost Trump’s 2016 candidacy and harm his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.

It documented numerous contacts between people associated between Trump’s campaign and Russians. Mueller found insufficient evidence to show a criminal conspiracy between Trump’s team and Russia but did not exonerate Trump of obstruction of justice related to the investigation.

In the opinion piece, Frankel stated, “Collusion – or a lack of it – turns out to have been the rhetorical trap that ensnared President Trump’s pursuers.”

Frankel added, “There was no need for detailed electoral collusion between the Trump campaign and Vladimir Putin’s oligarchy because they had an overarching deal: the quid of help in the campaign against Hillary Clinton for the quo of a new pro-Russian foreign policy, starting with relief from the Obama administration’s burdensome economic sanctions. The Trumpites knew about the quid and held out the prospect of the quo.”

“Today the President’s re-election campaign filed suit against the New York Times for falsely stating the Campaign had an ‘overarching deal’ with ‘Vladimir Putin’s oligarchy’ to ‘help the campaign against Hillary Clinton’ in exchange for ‘a new pro-Russian foreign policy, starting with relief from … economic sanctions,’” said Jenna Ellis, senior legal adviser to Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.

“The statements were and are 100 percent false and defamatory. The complaint alleges The Times was aware of the falsity at the time it published them, but did so for the intentional purpose of hurting the campaign, while misleading its own readers in the process,” Ellis said.

In a copy of the lawsuit provided by his re-election team, the campaign stated, “The Times was well aware when it published these statements that they were not true.”

[Reuters]

Trump again attacks US intel agencies from India when asked about Russian election interference

President Donald Trump on Tuesday was asked about reports that Russia is interfering in the 2020 presidential election during a press conference in India — and he used it as an opportunity to once again attack American intelligence agencies.

During his press conference, Trump alleged that no intelligence officials told him about Russian efforts to help his campaign even though they had briefed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) about the ways Russia was working to boost his chances in the Democratic primary.

“Intelligence never told me!” he complained without evidence.

He then accused Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) of leaking the information about Russian wanting to help Trump and Sanders, although he cited no evidence to back up this claim.

[Raw Story]


Trump accuses Supreme Court justices of bias in first direct attack as president

President Donald Trump on Tuesday demanded that two sitting U.S. Supreme Court justices recuse themselves from all Trump-related matters, insisting without evidence that they have treated him unfairly.

“While ‘elections have consequences’, I only ask for fairness, especially when it comes to decisions made by the United States Supreme Court!” Trump said in a pair of tweets posted from Delhi, India, where he was completing a state visit 7,000 miles from Washington.

Trump singled out Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg – both appointed by Democratic presidents — for comments he alleged reflect animus toward him. “Both should recuse themselves on all Trump, or Trump related, matters!” he said.

The tweets are the first time Trump has directly attacked members of the Supreme Court by name since taking office. Justices, who are appointed for life, decide on their own when it’s appropriate to recuse from cases.

The criticism comes one month before the court will consider the legality of subpoenas for Trump’s financial records and as the justices weigh rulings on major Trump administration policies, including the cancellation of DACA. It also follows reportsthat Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife Virginia has been closely advising the president and top aides on ensuring White House staff are loyal to Trump.

Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said the justices have no comment.

In his tweets, the president cites a Fox News report that claims Justice Sonia Sotomayor recently “accused GOP appointed justices of being biased in favor of Trump.”

“This is a terrible thing to say,” Trump said in his tweet. Sotomayor, in fact, has not leveled such a pointed accusation.

Legal experts said statements attributed to Sotomayor and others by Justice Ruth Ginsburg do not meet the recusal standard applied to all federal judges.

The extraordinary exchange stems from a narrow Supreme Court decision issued Feb. 21 lifting a lower court hold on the Trump administration’s new “public charge rule” for immigrants in the state of Illinois.

The court’s conservative majority offered no explanation for allowing the policy to take effect as legal challenges continue; Justice Sotomayor dissented in a seven-page statement.

“Perhaps most troublingly,” she writes, “the Court’s recent behavior on stay applications has benefited one litigant over all others.”

While clearly passionate in her objection, Sotomayor never names Trump or the administration, instead referring to “the Government” as is customary.

“This Court often permits executions—where the risk of irreparable harm is the loss of life—to proceed, justifying many of those decisions on purported failures ‘to raise any potentially meritorious claims in a timely manner,’” she writes in the dissent. “Yet the Court’s concerns over quick decisions wither when prodded by the Government in far less compelling circumstances.”

Sotomayor’s position is consistent with her long running and much publicized views that her colleagues often too quickly dismisses appeals from death row inmates and inconsistently address nationwide injunctions issued by lower courts.

She concludes, “I respectfully dissent.”

The White House did not respond to questions about whether Trump had read Sotomayor’s opinion or only the Fox News characterization of it and why he believes Sotomayor was trying to “shame some into voting her way” as he alleged on Twitter.

The president also revived criticism of Justice Ginsburg who had referred to Trump as a “faker” during the 2016 campaign. She later apologized.

“She went wild during the campaign when I was running,” Trump said of Ginsburg during a press conference in India. “I don’t know who she was for. Perhaps she was for Hillary Clinton, if you can believe it.”

None of the justices has publicly revealed his or her votes during the 2016 presidential election.

“The idea being advanced by President Trump – that a justice becomes conflicted if she disagrees with the executive branch’s legal strategy or constitutional theory – is not only wrong but also degrading to the independence of our judiciary,” said Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court, a nonpartisan advocacy group.

“The notion that a dissent like Justice Sotomayor’s could somehow be construed as an invalid attempt to shame other justices into coming to different conclusions would come as a surprise to many jurists throughout the country and throughout American history,” he said.

[ABC News]

Trump rants about the crimes he alleges Rosie O’Donnell has committed

During a wide ranging tirade at a rally in Las Vegas this Friday, President Trump ripped into what he sees as the unfair application of the law against people who support him and those who are against him.

At one point, Trump turned his focus to comedian Rosie O’Donnell, referencing the alleged illegally over-sized campaign donations she allegedly made to at least five Democratic federal candidates back in 2018.

According to Trump, O’Donnell violated campaign finance laws “as badly as anybody I’ve ever seen, and nothing happens to her.”

“Rosie O’Donnell — that was a massive violation of the campaign finance laws, but Dinesh D’Souza, they wanted to put him in jail … for doing something that was really understandable,” he continued. “Rosie O’Donnell, five times — what she did is incredible, nothing happens.”

[Raw Story]

Reality

Dinesh D’Souza willingly exceeded donation limits by making his lover (ewww) and assistant donate to a Republican campaign and paid them back. Rosie O’Donnell did what many donors do, give a donation and expect the campaign to reimburse any money over the maximum.

Media

Trump blasts wind turbines in Palm Springs at campaign event

President Donald Trump thinks the windmills in Palm Springs, California, are “rusty,” “rotting,” and “look like hell.”

Trump was talking about energy dependency and the use of wind turbines at a campaign event in Colorado Springs on Thursday, a day after he was in Palm Springs for a fundraiser, according to KESQ. That’s when he “spoke out against” the Palm Springs windmills.

“And they’re all over the place,” The Desert Sun reported Trump said. “You look at Palm Springs, California. Take a look. Palm Springs. … They’re all over the place. They’re closed, they’re rotting, they look like hell.”

He said the windmills are made in China and Germany, have an effect on the ozone layer and kill birds, KESQ reported.

“You know if you shoot a bald eagle they put you in jail for a long time,” Trump said, according to KESQ. “But the windmills knock them down like crazy.”

It’s not the first time Trump has been angry about the Palm Springs windmills. In 2012, Trump tweeted that Palm Springs had been “destroyed” by the “world’s ugliest wind farm.”

In 2016, Trump said Palm Springs was a “poor man’s version of Disneyland” on a radio show, The Desert Sun reported.

Palm Springs Mayor Geoff Kors fired back at Trump on Friday, praising the city’s mission to use only carbon-free energy, NBC Palm Springs reported.

“It is unfortunate that, at this critical time in our history, we have a president who lies about and denigrates clean green power while embracing and promoting dirty power such as coal and offshore oil drilling, which is destroying our planet,” Kors said in a statement to the news outlet.

[Sacramento Bee]

Coronavirus-infected Americans flown home against CDC’s advice

In the wee hours of a rainy Monday, more than a dozen buses sat on the tarmac at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. Inside, 328 weary Americans wearing surgical masks and gloves waited anxiously to fly home after weeks in quarantine aboard the Diamond Princess, the luxury liner where the novel coronavirus had ­exploded into a shipwide epidemic.

But as the buses idled, U.S. officials wrestled with troubling news. New test results showed that 14 passengers were infected with the virus. The U.S. State Department had promised that no one with the infection would be allowed to board the planes.

A decision had to be made. Let them all fly? Or leave them behind in Japanese hospitals?

In Washington, where it was still Sunday afternoon, a fierce debate broke out: The State Department and a top Trump administration health official wanted to forge ahead. The infected passengers had no symptoms and could be segregated on the plane in a plastic-lined enclosure. But officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention disagreed, contending they could still spread the virus. The CDC believed the 14 should not be flown back with uninfected passengers.

“It was like the worst nightmare,” said a senior U.S. official involved in the decision, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. “Quite frankly, the alternative could have been pulling grandma out in the pouring rain, and that would have been bad, too.”

The State Department won the argument. But unhappy CDC officials demanded to be left out of the news release that explained that infected people were being flown back to the United States — a move that would nearly double the number of known coronavirus cases in this country.

The tarmac decision was a pivotal moment for U.S. officials improvising their response to a crisis with few precedents and extraordinarily high stakes. Efforts to prevent the new pathogen from spreading have revealed the limits of the world’s readiness for an unprecedented public health emergency. In the worst-case scenario, covid-19, a flulike respiratory infection, could become a full-blown global pandemic.

Navigating the crisis has required delicate medical and political judgments. The decision to evacuate the Americans from the Diamond Princess came only after infections on the cruise ship spiked and passengers revealed their grim living conditions.

One lesson from that debacle is that cruise ships are like petri dishes.Thousands live in close quarters on a vessel never designed for quarantines. The crew continued to deliver food, and health workers moved throughout the ship. More than 600 of the 3,700 passengers and crew members have now tested positive for the virus and two older Japanese passengers have died.

With Japanese authorities isolating the passengers for weeks off the coast, the ship, operated by Princess Cruises, quickly developed the second-largest number of coronavirus cases on the planet outside of China — more than in Japan, Singapore, Thailand, the United States or all of Europe. Avoiding “another China” has been the goal of the World Health Organization for weeks, and then it happened anyway, in Yokohama harbor.

The treatment of the Diamond Princess passengers stands in stark contrast to what happened to those on another cruise ship, the Westerdam, who were greeted by the Cambodian prime minister with handshakes and flowers, and who later traveled widely. Only later did news come that one of the Westerdam passengers had tested positive for the virus.

That situation spurred fears that Westerdam passengers would spread the virus around the world. But no additional passengers have tested positive, and so far, no evidence has emerged they have widely seeded the virus.

The coronavirus (officially, SARS-CoV-2) is extremely contagious. Experts estimate that without protective measures, every infected person will spread it to an average of slightly more than two additional people. The disease has been fatal in roughly two out of 100 confirmed cases.

Travelers have already spread it to more than two dozen countries, where it has infected more than 75,000 people and killed more than 2,000.

[Washington Post]

New White House personnel chief tells Cabinet liaisons to target Never Trumpers

Johnny McEntee called in White House liaisons from cabinet agencies for an introductory meeting Thursday, in which he asked them to identify political appointees across the U.S. government who are believed to be anti-Trump, three sources familiar with the meeting tell Axios.

Behind the scenes: McEntee, a 29-year-old former body man to Trump who was fired in 2018 by then-Chief of Staff John Kelly but recently rehired — and promoted to head the presidential personnel office — foreshadowed sweeping personnel changes across government.

  • But McEntee suggested the most dramatic changes may have to wait until after the November election.
  • Trump has empowered McEntee — whom he considers an absolute loyalist — to purge the “bad people” and “Deep State.”
  • McEntee told staff that those identified as anti-Trump will no longer get promotions by shifting them around agencies.

The backstory: Several administration officials have already been targeted in a post-impeachment blitz.

  • Barely 48 hours after Trump was acquitted in the Senate, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman — a key national security official who testified during the impeachment inquiry that Trump’s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was “improper” — was “escorted” out of his White House post.
  • U.S. ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, who also testified in the impeachment investigations, was fired the same afternoon.
  • Trump has also promoted or brought back several people he considers core loyalists — including McEntee, former White House communications director Hope Hicks, and U.S. Ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell.
  • McEntee’s job already is being tested with Trump’s decision to tap Grenell, a staunch loyalist who has never worked for an intelligence agency, as the Acting Director of National Intelligence. Trump has said it’s only a temporary move until he names a new permanent director.
  • But his efforts to put a Republican congressman in that job, thereby plucking him out of a Senate race with a complicated GOP primary, aren’t going smoothly.

[Axios]

Trump Now Wants ‘Bad Ratings’ Fox Anchor Neil Cavuto Fired After Featuring Guest Who Was Mean

President Donald Trump attacked Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto on Friday, mocking his “very bad ratings” and “Fake guests.”

“So @TeamCavuto has very bad ratings on @foxnews with his Fake guests like A.B. Stoddard and others that still haven’t figured it all out,” wrote Trump in a Twitter post. “Will he get the same treatment as his friend Shepherd Smith, who also suffered from the ratings drought?”

President Trump previously called out Cavuto on Thursday for hosting a guest who was critical of his debate skills.

“Could somebody at @foxnews please explain to Trump hater A.B. Stoddard (zero talent!) and @TeamCavuto, that I won every one of my debates, from beginning to end,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Check the polls taken immediately after the debates. The debates got me elected. Must be Fox Board Member Paul Ryan!”

President Trump also attacked Fox News during his Thursday campaign rally in Colorado Springs.

“They had a crazy person on today, on one of the Fox shows,” Trump said. “Fox doesn’t treat us the way they used to.”

“Their loser shows are the ones that don’t like Trump,” he continued, adding, “How’s Shep Smith doing by the way?”

Shepard Smith, whose coverage drew the president’s ire on many occasions, left the network in October after 23 years on air.

Fox Business host Trisha Regan shot back at the president for calling out Cavuto, saying, “[Cavuto] is someone who started this network, Fox Business, and someone who is the utmost journalist and always fair… I can tell you that about Neil. He is a fair person, a fair guy, and a good man.”

“So I’m disappointed that the president said those things,” she declared. “Because Neil Cavuto is one guy who just doesn’t deserve it.”

[Mediaite]

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