Trump Defends Calling Himself ‘The Chosen One’: Media Claims I Have a ‘Messiah Complex’

President Donald Trump defended calling himself “the chosen one” in a set of tweets Saturday, explaining that he and the reporters present at the press gaggle understood he was joking.

“When I looked up to the sky and jokingly said ‘I am the chosen one,’ at a press conference two days ago, referring to taking on Trade with China, little did I realize that the media would claim that I had a ‘Messiah complex,’” Trump wrote. “They knew I was kidding, being sarcastic, and just … having fun.”

“I was smiling as I looked up and around,” he continued. “The MANY reporters with me were smiling also. They knew the TRUTH…And yet when I saw the reporting, CNN, MSNBC and other Fake News outlets covered it as serious news & me thinking of myself as the Messiah. No more trust!”

Trump called himself “the chosen one” and looked up at the sky on Wednesday as he spoke to reporters about trade and China, leading some pundits to accuse the president of having a messiah complex.

Trump defended the comments to reporters on Friday night.

“Let me tell you, you know exactly what I meant,” Trump said. “It was sarcasm. It was joking. We were all smiling. And the question like that is just fake news. You’re just a faker.”

On Friday, Trump announced he would raise tariffs on China by 5 percent in response to the country’s retaliatory tariffs on the United States.

[Mediaite]

Reality

The media freaked out over Trump’s “chosen on” comment because he knows his large evangelical base has called him chosen by God.

Want to see a perfect example of a “dog whistle”?

Donald Trump defended his ridiculous comments he was “God’s Chosen One” as nothing more than sarcasm, and actually we’re the ones who think he has a Messiah complex.

But actually this is not true. 

It’s very well documented American evangelicals, such as Vice President Mike Pence, truly believe Donald Trump is divinely chosen, anywhere in a range from “an imperfect vessel of God” to Jesus himself reincarnated.

From common comparisons to the Biblical King Cyrus: 

https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/3/5/16796892/trump-cyrus-christian-right-bible-cbn-evangelical-propaganda

With claims Trump is “a miracle sent straight from heaven to bring the nation back to the Lord.”:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/31/opinion/trump-evangelicals-cyrus-king.html

To Jerry Fallwell Jr.’s “The Trump Prophecy” movie, that tells the story of some random guy having a vision from God Trump would be president:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trump_Prophecy

Trump’s “Christian policy liaison” preached that God told him personally that Trump would win the GOP nomination and help pave the way for the Second Coming:

https://soundcloud.com/rightwingwatch/amedia-god-raised-up-trump-to-help-pave-the-way-for-the-second-coming

The president of Godfactor said “God was speaking through Trump,” to motivate Christians to defend their ability to discriminate against gay people and minorities:

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/cortneyobrien/2016/06/22/pastor-god-was-speaking-through-trump-at-meeting-n2181900

Influential pastor John Hagee preaching that God will hold you accountable if you don’t vote for Donald Trump:

http://www.timesofisrael.com/hagee-pro-israel-evangelicals-will-storm-us-voting-booths/

Fox News’ favorite pastor Roberts Jeffress said God loves “strongmen” dictators like Trump:

https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/robert-jeffress-top-10-excuses-for-donald-trump-11085895

Televangelist James Robinson screamed at attendees of the Liberty Council’s “Awakening” conference to vote for Trump, comparing him to the disciple Paul:

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/james-robison-christians-should-not-shun-trump-because-god-can-use-him

Trunews evangelical host Rick Wiles told his listeners while broadcasting at a Trump rally, “God has picked him up and used him as a battering ram to beat down the walls of the New World Order”

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/rick-wiles-god-has-picked-donald-trump-beat-down-walls-new-world-order

Self-proclaimed evangelical prophet Mark Taylor claimed “Donald Trump has been marked by God to lead America” to fight and kill Satan. 

http://www.trunews.com/trunews-041816-mark-taylor-gods-man/

This YouTube video proclaiming of a prophecy that Donald Trump was chosen by God has more than 1.6 million views:

To just this week Trump retweeted conspiracy theorist Wayne Allen Root earlier who called him “The King of Israel”:

https://thinkprogress.org/president-praises-conservative-radio-host-wayne-allyn-root-jews-love-trump-2afde41f9a17/

The fact is Trump knows making insane comments about him being anointed by God will motivate his base because virtually all of the people listed above Trump has placed on religious White House advisory panels and have been inside the Oval Office. 

By repeating crazy evangelical claims Trump is signaling to his base he knows these people and endorses what they are saying about him.



Trump admin asks Supreme Court not to extend sex discrimination ban to sexual orientation

The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court not to extend a sex discrimination ban to include sexual orientation, arguing that the language for the law was not intended for that purpose. 

The Justice Department argues that the language in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prevents employment discrimination “because of sex,” does not apply to sexual orientation, in an amicus brief filed Friday. 

The Justice Department says the term “sex” is not otherwise defined in the law, arguing that it therefore means the “ordinary meaning of ‘sex’” which is refers to a person being “biologically male or female.”

“It does not include sexual orientation,” the department said in the brief. “Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, standing alone, does not satisfy that standard.”

The filing relates to the cases of Gerald Bostock, a man who claims he was fired by Clayton County, Ga., for being gay, and Donald Zarda, who claims he was fired as a skydiving instructor at Altitude Express, for being gay. 

Bostock’s case was dismissed by lower courts. 

The DOJ sent immigration court employees a link to a racist and anti-Semitic blog post attacking immigration judges

The Justice Department sent immigration court employees an email this week that linked to an article attacking immigration judges with offensive and anti-Semitic slurs, BuzzFeed News reported on Thursday.

The article was posted on the white nationalist website VDare, which routinely traffics in racist and anti-immigration rhetoric and has explicitly targeted immigration judges in the past.

Ashley Tabbador, the head of the National Association of Immigration Judges, said in a letter to the Justice Department that the email came from the department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR).

Tabbador wrote that the article “directly attacks” immigration judges “with racial and ethnically tinged slurs,” and the label ‘Kritarch,'” according to BuzzFeed. “The reference to Kritarch in a negative tone is deeply offensive and Anti-Semitic,” Tabbador added.

Kritarch is a term derived from the concept of a “kritarchy,” or a society run by judges. It’s referenced in the Old Testament’s Book of Judges as a type of rule in ancient Israel. VDare has repeatedly used the term to pejoratively refer to immigration judges. 

Tabbador called on James McHenry, the head of EOIR, to take action following the dissemination of the article.

“Publication and dissemination of a white supremacist, anti-semitic website throughout the EOIR is antithetical to the goals and ideals of the Department of Justice,” she wrote. She added that the court should withdraw the email and issue an apology to immigration judges.

“Separately, EOIR should take all appropriate safety and security measures for all judges given the tone and tenor of this posting,” she wrote.

The post was sent to immigration court employees as part of a daily briefing that usually includes links to news reports about immigration, BuzzFeed reported.

EOIR Assistant Press Secretary Kathryn Mattingly told Insider in a statement, “The daily EOIR morning news briefings are compiled by a contractor and the blog post should not have been included. The Department of Justice condemns Anti-Semitism in the strongest terms.”

[Business Insider]

Trump says he’s ordering American companies to immediately start looking for an alternative to China

President Donald Trump on Friday said he was ordering U.S. companies to “immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies HOME and making your products in the USA.”

Trump also said he was ordering all U.S. postal carriers, including FedEx, Amazon, UPS and United States Post Office, “to SEARCH FOR & REFUSE all deliveries of Fentanyl from China (or anywhere else!).”

And Trump said he will respond this afternoon to China’s newest round of tariffs on U.S. goods.

The White House did not immediately respond when asked if the announcement, delivered in a four-part Twitter thread Friday morning, constituted an official order from the president.

It was not immediately clear how, or under what authority, the president could implement these declared orders, or whether he had already done so.

Stocks sank to session lows shortly after Trump’s tweets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 435 points, or 1.6%, while the S&P 500 slid 1.7% and the Nasdaq Composite dove 2%.

In a statement, UPS said that it “follows all applicable laws and administrative orders of the governments in the countries where we do business. We work closely with regulatory authorities to monitor for prohibited substances.”

FedEx also responded: “FedEx already has extensive security measures in place to prevent the use of our networks for illegal purposes. We follow the laws and regulations everywhere we do business and have a long history of close cooperation with authorities.”

Amazon and the Postal Service were not immediately available for comment.

Trump’s tweets followed another missive against Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell, who had just pledged to “act as appropriate” to sustain the U.S. economy amid the “deteriorating” global economic outlook.

In an apparent response, Trump tweeted: “Who is our bigger enemy,” Powell or Chinese President Xi Jinping?

Earlier Friday, China had announced it would slap retaliatory tariffs of 5% and 10% on roughly $75 billion in U.S. imports. The new import taxes represent the latest escalation in the increasingly fraught U.S.-China trade war, as well as a direct response to Trump’s plan to impose duties on $300 billion worth of China’s goods by mid-December.

Top trade advisors Robert Lighthizer and Peter Navarro were reportedly near the Oval Office just before the president sent his latest tweets. A source later told CNBC that Trump was meeting with his trade team Friday.

[CNBC]

Trump calls Fed Chairman Jay Powell ‘enemy,’ compares him to Chinese President Xi

President Donald Trump significantly ramped up his criticism of Fed Board Chairman Jay Powell on Friday, describing his longtime target on economic issues as an “enemy” and likening him to Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“My only question is, who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powel or Chairman Xi?,” Trump wrote, misspelling Powell’s name. 

Trump has repeatedly blasted the Fed, even before his election. But his long-standing dissatisfaction with the Fed, which he accuses of bungling the U.S. economy, has increased amid concerns over a global economic slowdown. Trump nominated Powell as chairman in 2017.

The president’s tweet came as he prepares to head to France on Friday for the G-7 meeting of world leaders, where trade and the economy will be atop the agenda. 

The Fed, an independent board whose members are appointed by the president, raises interest rates to cool down a hot economy and cuts them to stimulate a sluggish one. The rates affect how much it costs to use a credit card, sign a car loan or buy a home.

Trump this week has upped the ante in his year-long campaign to browbeat the Federal Reserve into slashing rates, calling for the central bank to lower its key short-term rate by “at least” a full percentage point “over a fairly short period of time.”

For good measure, he has added that the move should be accompanied by “perhaps some quantitative easing as well,” referring to the Fed’s massive bond purchases during and after the Great Recession to lower long-term rates. 

Trump again voiced frustration with the Fed on Wednesday, tweeting that Germany “is actually being paid to borrow money, while the U.S., a far stronger and more important credit, is paying interest.”

[USA Today]

Trump jokingly blames Dow plunge on Seth Moulton’s withdrawal from 2020 race

President Trump joked on Twitter that “perhaps” the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 500 points on Friday because Rep. Seth Moulton dropped out of the crowded Democratic race for president.

“The Dow is down 573 points perhaps on the news that Representative Seth Moulton, whoever that may be, has dropped out of the 2020 Presidential Race!” Trump tweeted.

Rather, stocks fell sharply on Wall Street after Trump said he would respond to China’s latest tariff increase by calling on U.S. companies to consider alternatives to doing business in China.

Stocks had been wavering between gains and losses earlier in the day after China said it would retaliate against the latest round of tariffs imposed by Washington with duties on $75 billion of U.S. products.

Moulton, a three-term congressman from Massachusetts and U.S. Marine veteran who served four tours of duty in the Iraq War, struggled to gain traction in the Democratic race. He ended his long-shot bid in San Francisco at the Democratic National Committee’s summer meeting.

“I am ending my campaign for president,” Moulton, 40, said Friday, adding, “I am leaving this race knowing that we raised issues that are vitally important to the American people and our future.”

When a reporter for Bloomberg News asked Moulton for his reaction to Trump’s tweet, the Democrat shot back: “I’m glad he thinks that I have more influence over Wall Street than he does.”

[Fox News]

Top Climate Scientist Quits USDA, Accuses Trump Administration of Trying to Bury Research

Lewis Ziska, one of the United States’ leading climate-change scientists, has quit the USDA’s Agriculture Department and says he’s protesting the Trump administration’s attempts to bury one of his studies. The study, which was published in Science Advances, was about how rice loses nutrients to the increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere—which has implications for the 600 million people who depend on rice for most of their calories. Ziska, who’s worked at the USDA for 20 years, says the Trump administration questioned the findings of his study and attempted to minimize its press coverage. “This was a joint decision by ARS national program leaders—all career scientists—not to send out a press release on this paper,” a statement released by the USDA said in response to Ziska’s complaint.

Several government employees recently reported that they’d lost their jobs over climate-change disagreements and a Politico investigation showed that the USDA regularly buried its own climate-research discoveries. “You get the sense that things have changed, that this is not a place for you to be exploring things that don’t agree with someone’s political views,” Ziska said.

[Daily Beast]

Trump Calls Himself ‘Chosen One’ and Insults Jewish Voters

President Donald Trump has proclaimed himself as the “chosen one” during a recent discussion regarding his ongoing trade war with China. Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Trump dramatically looked up at the sky and asserted his self-importance in the confrontation with Beijing. He indicated that the trade war was a necessary action that previous presidents should have undertaken, distancing himself from any personal responsibility.

Trump’s comments came in a context that highlighted not only his arrogance but also an unsettling theme of religious self-aggrandizement. Hours prior, he had tweeted that Jewish people in Israel see him as akin to “the King of Israel” and even compared himself to “the second coming of God.” This flagrant misuse of religious rhetoric aligns with historical patterns of Trump employing inflammatory language to rally support and deflect criticism, particularly against those who oppose him.

His claims about the trade war have sparked rising concerns regarding the economic implications of his tariffs. The Trump administration has implemented significant financial penalties, including 25% tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods, with plans for an additional 10% tariff on $300 billion of imports set to take effect soon. Such measures threaten to destabilize the economy while serving as a distraction from his administration’s inadequacies.

Moreover, Trump’s notion of being the “chosen one” signifies a troubling trend among Republicans who frequently elevate their leaders to quasi-mythical status. This elevation not only undermines democratic principles but also encourages a cult-like worship among his supporters that could threaten the very fabric of American governance and civil discourse.

Furthermore, utilizing divisive language suggesting disloyalty among Jewish voters who choose to support Democrats backs Trump’s regressive agenda. His actions and words not only sow discord but equally spotlight the ethical and moral bankruptcy prevalent in Republican politics, undermining democracy in a national landscape too often shaped by privilege and power.

(h/t: https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-looked-at-sky-said-hes-chosen-one-china-2019-8)

Trump Brags That Victims of Mass Shootings ‘Love’ Him: ‘They Love Their President’

President Donald Trump gushed over himself during a freewheeling press spray on Wednesday, insisting that victims of mass shootings adore him.

“I went to the hospitals,” Trump said when asked about his recent visits to hospitals in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio following two massacres that left 31 dead. Trump then made bizarre remarks on the victims, complaining that there was no media coverage of their adulation for him:

“The people that were so badly injured that I was with, they love our country. And frankly, do you want to know the truth? They love their president. And nobody wrote that. Nobody wrote that. Because you didn’t write the truth. New York Times doesn’t like to write the truth. They totally love our country and they do love our president. So when I went to Dayton, when I went to El Paso, and when I went into those hospitals, the love for me, and me maybe as a representative of the country, but for me, and my love for them, was unparalleled. If you read the papers, it was like nobody would meet with me. Not only did they meet with me, they were pouring out of the rooms. The doctors were coming out of the operating rooms. There were hundreds and hundreds of people all over the floor, you couldn’t even walk on it.”

[Mediaite]

Trump says he wanted to give himself Medal of Honor

President Donald Trump claimed to laughter on Wednesday that he sought to give himself a Medal of Honor, but decided not to after being counseled against the move by aides.

The offhand remark from the president came during his address to the 75th annual national convention of American Veterans, a volunteer-led veterans service organization also known as AMVETS.

At the event in Louisville, Kentucky, Trump singled out for praise WWII veteran and Medal of Honor recipient Woody Williams.

“Thank you, Woody. You’re looking good, Woody. Woody’s looking good,” Trump said.

“That was a big day, Medal of Honor. Nothing like the Medal of Honor,” he continued. “I wanted one, but they told me I don’t qualify, Woody. I said, ‘Can I give it to myself anyway?’ They said, ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’”

Amid scattered chuckles, Trump concluded: “Great, great people. These are great, great men and women that get congressional Medal of Honor. Thank you, Woody.”

The president’s assessment that he should receive the nation’s highest award for acts of military valor followed his statement earlier Wednesday afternoon that he is “the chosen one” in relation to his administration’s trade conflict with China — a proclamation he turned to the sky to deliver.

Trump never served in the military and was granted five draft deferments — four for college and one for bone spurs in his heel.

[Politico]

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