Tag: bully

Trump Wishes Everyone Happy Holiday Then Bashes Chief Justice Roberts to Start Thanksgiving Day

President Donald Trump began the Thanksgiving holiday with a nice, generic, brief holiday greeting: “HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL,” he said, in all caps. The exact sort of greeting that you’d want from a president. Too bad twenty minutes later he decided to attack the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Again.

Chief Justice John Roberts rebuked Trump’s criticism of the judge who ruled against him on immigration in a comment to the Associated Press. Trump had referred to the federal judge as an “Obama judge.” Roberts said in a statement there are no Obama judges or Bush judges but just an independent judiciary.

Trump then returned fire at Roberts saying he was wrong and that the ninth circuit is an activist court.

The attendant outrage, news reports, and Twitter meltdowns escalated things. And so Trump started Thanksgiving with another swipe at the Republican appointed conservative chief justice.

[Mediaite]

White House Tells CNN They’ll Revoke Acosta’s Press Credential Once Restraining Order Passes

CNN’s Brian Stelter reported in Sunday night’s Reliable Sources newsletter that the White House intends to revoke the Press Credential of CNN’s White House correspondent Jim Acosta at the end of the month.

Judge Timothy J. Kelly ordered, on Friday, that Acosta’s “hard pass” be returned immediately. Kelly found that Acosta’s First Amendment rights superseded the White House’s right to hold orderly press conferences.

The ruling only represented a temporary “victory” for CNN and Acosta according to Stelter’s reporting (emphasis his):

After CNN won a temporary restraining order on Friday, forcing the White House to restore his press pass for 14 days, White House officials sent Acosta a letter stating that his pass is set to be suspended again once the restraining order expires.

From the looks of the letter, the W.H. is trying to establish a paper trail that will empower the administration to boot Acosta again at the end of the month.

CNN responded with this statement on Sunday: “The White House is continuing to violate the First and 5th Amendments of the Constitution. These actions threaten all journalists and news organizations. Jim Acosta and CNN will continue to report the news about the White House and the President.”

Acosta’s press credential had been revoked, reportedly at the direction of President Donald Trump, after a contentious White House press conference in which the CNN reporter persisted in asking follow-up questions and refused to give up a microphone despite Trump’s direction.

Supporters of Trump’s banning of Acosta believe that his disruptive behavior flouted accepted standards of White House decorum, while CNN and Acosta supporters point out disruptive questions are a time-honored journalist tradition. Or put another way, “Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed; everything else is public relations.”

So it seems the ongoing war over First Amendment rights versus accepted standards of behavior will feature another battle, which will bring another distracting topic for cable news pundits to discuss at length. It’s almost as its a designed distraction from stories that paint the Trump administration in a less than flattering light?

UPDATE: CNN has responded by filed a status report asking for the Court to intervene. BuzzFeed News’ Zoe Tillman reports:

[Mediaite]

Trump tweets about “Adam Schitt” after complaining about decorum

After the White House spent a week talking about the importance of decorum, President Donald Trump over the weekend fired off a tweet alluding to profanity in reference to California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff.

Trump made either a typo or an intentional decision on Saturday when he tweeted about Schiff — the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who will become the committee’s chair in the next Congress — and compared his name to the word “shit.”

“So funny to see little Adam Schitt (D-CA) talking about the fact that Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker was not approved by the Senate, but not mentioning the fact that Bob Mueller (who is highly conflicted) was not approved by the Senate!” Trump wrote.

Whitaker became acting attorney general earlier this month after Trump fired now-former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. He’s a controversial figure and, like the president, has repeatedly criticized Mueller, the special counsel heading the Russia investigation.

As incoming House Intelligence Committee chair, Schiff has said he will continue to push the Russia investigation, reviving the committee’s probe and backing Mueller even if Trump or his allies try to intervene.

He appeared on ABC’s This Week with Martha Raddatz on Sunday (hours before Trump tweeted about him) and said he believes Whitaker’s appointment is unconstitutional, as he should be subject to Senate confirmation.

“Constitutionally, it has to be subject to confirmation,” Schiff said, calling Whitaker’s appointment “flawed” because of statutory issues and because “he was chosen for the purpose of interfering with the Mueller investigation.” Vox’s Andrew Prokop has a full explainer of the controversies surrounding Whitaker’s appointment, including questions about its constitutionality.

Trump hasn’t amended the “Schitt” tweet

Trump and the White House spent a lot of time complaining about the need for decorum last week as part of its ongoing battle with CNN and journalist Jim Acosta, whose press credentials the Trump administration revoked earlier this month.

“There must be decorum in the White House,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement after a judge last week ruled to temporarily restore Acosta’s credentials.

“Decorum. You can’t just take three questions and four questions, and just stand up and not sit down. Decorum. You have to practice decorum,” Trump said on Friday during a bill signing when asked about the CNN ruling.

Trump appears not to be concerned with his own decorum, considering Sunday’s tweet. The message could be a typo — the president is also the person who brought us “covfefe” and often makes mistakes in his tweets. But he also could have deleted and redone the tweet with the correct spelling, which he did not. And Trump is quite a fan of nicknames, including Crooked Hillary, Little Marco, and Lyin’ Ted.

The tweet garnered a swift reaction online.

CNN’s Manu Raju pointed out the timing after the White House’s call for decorum.

Former top government ethics watchdog Walter Shaub tweeted that the office of the president was made for “better things than an infantile tweet misspelling a congressman’s name like a curse word,” but said the “real crime” is Trump firing heads of agencies for investigating his campaign.

Schiff also responded and alluded to the written questions the president is expected to soon submit to the special counsel as part of the Russia investigation.

[Vox]

Trump on Acosta: ‘If he misbehaves we’ll throw him out or we’ll stop the news conference’

President Trump brushed off a federal judge’s Friday ruling that the White House must reinstate press credentials for Jim Acosta, CNN’s chief White House correspondent.

The president also said during an interview set to air on “Fox News Sunday” that if Acosta “misbehaves” at a future press conference the White House could “throw him out.”

“Yeah, it’s fine. I mean, it’s not a big deal,” Trump told Fox News’s Chris Wallace when asked about the ruling Friday to reinstate Acosta’s press pass after it was revoked last week.

“What they said though is that we have to create rules and regulations for conduct, etc., etc. We’re doing that, were going to write them up right now,” Trump continued. “It’s not a big deal. And if he misbehaves, we’ll throw him out or we’ll stop the news conference.”

The White House stripped Acosta of his press pass last week following a fiery exchange with the president during a press conference, with the CNN reporter holding on to the microphone to continue asking questions when an intern attempted to take it away.

“We had a lot of reporters in that room, many, many reporters in that room and they were unable to ask questions because this guy gets up and starts you know doing what he’s supposed to be doing for him and for CNN and you know just shouting out questions and making statements, too,” Trump said Friday.

“But I will say this, look, nobody believes in the First Amendment more than I do, and if I think somebody is acting out of sorts, I will leave. I will say, ‘thank you very much everybody, I appreciate you coming,’ and I’ll leave,” he added.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, who was appointed to the bench by Trump, ordered the White House on Friday to restore Acosta’s press pass, giving him regular access to the White House grounds to cover events and press conferences.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the administration would abide by the judge’s ruling, but staff “will also further develop rules and processes to ensure fair and orderly press conferences in the future.”

Kelly argued in his ruling that the White House violated Acosta and CNN’s Fifth Amendment rights to due process by kicking Acosta out, but did not say their First Amendment rights to free speech were infringed.

Trump and Acosta engaged in a tense exchange during the televised press conference last week after the reporter pushed Trump on his comments criticizing a group of Central American migrants making their way to the U.S.-Mexico border.

As Acosta continued to press the president, a White House intern attempted to take the microphone away. Acosta did not let go, with his hand brushing against the intern.

After the press conference, Sanders accused Acosta of “placing his hands” on the intern and cited the incident as the reason for why his media access was being revoked.

In court Friday, Kelly said the White House’s characterization was likely untrue.

Acosta and CNN argued that the press pass was revoked because the administration didn’t like the questions Acosta asked.

[CNN]

Trump Boasts About Midterms in Which GOP Took Heavy Losses: ‘Epic Victory’

President Donald Trump declared the 2018 midterm elections an “epic victory” for the GOP on Twitter today, as he pimped out the two Senate seats earned by Republicans and attacked the media for focusing on Democrats taking the House.

“People are not being told that the Republican Party is on track to pick up two seats in the U.S. Senate, and epic victory: 53 to 47,” Trump tweeted this afternoon.

He then criticized the presiding media narrative on the midterms, which is that Democrats etched out a win since they took the House: “The Fake News Media only wants to speak of the House, where the Midterm results were better than other sitting Presidents.”

Trump has called the midterms a victory in the past.

Before many of the results had even come in, the president took to Twitter: “Received so many Congratulations from so many on our Big Victory last night, including from foreign nations (friends) that were waiting me out, and hoping, on Trade Deals. Now we can all get back to work and get things done!”

[Mediaite]

Trump says decreasing media favorability is a ‘great achievement’ of his presidency

Donald Trump said Wednesday that one of his great achievements as president is lowering the media’s favorability among Americans, claiming a victory in his crusade against what he considers unfair press coverage at the same time that CNN is suing his administration to restore one of its reporter’s revoked White House credentials.

The president, in an interview with the Daily Caller on Wednesday, said he believes Americans are starting to see many media outlets — Trump named CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC — as “fake news.”

“You look at what’s going on with the fake news and the people get it,” the president said. “And you know, they had a very high approval rating before I became president and I think it’s actually a great achievement of mine.”

“Their approval rating now is down as low as just about anybody,” the president continued.

The president has long had a contentious relationship with media, often labeling press coverage he does not like as “fake news.” Egged on by the president, supporters at Trump’s rallies also heckle reporters, sometimes chanting “CNN sucks.” Trump also argued at a press conference last week with CNN‘s Jim Acosta, refusing to answer the reporter’s questions in an exchange that prompted the administration to revoke Acosta’s press credentials. CNN has since filed a lawsuit against the president and other top White House officials to have those credentials returned.

Fifty-five percent of Americans trust national news networks, according to a Poynter Media Trust Survey released in August. In regards to national newspapers, 59 percent trust them, with 47 percent trusting online-only organizations.

Trump also claimed that media approval rating is “much lower than your president.”

The president’s approval rating is at 43.2 percent, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average, which takes the average of nine major polls. That same polling average showed a 52.9 percent disapproval of Trump’s handling of the presidency.

“I actually have good approval ratings, which nobody ever writes,” he said.

[Politico]

Trump: Don’t Forget That Mueller Probe Is A Total, Raging, Screaming Witch Hunt

How could we forget? Well, Donald Trump has been relatively quiet about the Robert Mueller probe lately, perhaps because of his work with his legal team in answering Mueller’s questions in writing. This morning, however, Trump let his anger out for an early morning walk in the Twitter neighborhood:

Actually, Mueller worked for Obama for four-plus years, and only two by dint of an Obama decision. George W. Bush appointed Mueller as director of the FBI in mid-2001 (and started one week before 9/11, in fact), but Obama extended it by two years after his ten-year term expired. That decision was met by unanimous acclaim in the Senate, with the only concern raised — briefly — by Chuck Grassley over the precedent it would set rather than any issue with Mueller’s performance. Between his eventual departure in September 2013 and his June 2017 appointment as special counsel, Mueller worked in the private sector at Stanford, the law firm WilmerHale, and then Booz Allen Hamilton — not for Obama.

Most media outlets wondered what prompted the sudden reversion to offense, but no one’s taking it seriously. Politico just recaps the Mueller-Trump relationship while noting the “revive[d] personal attacks.” The New York Times points out Trump’s being “relatively quiet about the investigation” of late, and also that his legal team had reportedly urged him to quit attacking Mueller on Twitter.

The catalyst for this morning’s eruption is likely the attacks on his choice for acting AG, Matt Whitaker. That’s the Washington Post’s take as well:

Trump’s rant, in a pair of morning tweets, came a week after the installation of Matthew G. Whitaker as acting attorney general, a move many Democrats have said appears designed to curtail Mueller’s investigation into possible coordination between Russia and Trump’s campaign during the 2016 election.

Trump angrily dismissed a reporter’s question about that notion last week and said he had not spoken to Whitaker about the Russia probe before naming him to replace ousted Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Many of Trump’s complaints in Thursday’s tweets were familiar, but they took on heightened significance with Whitaker now overseeing Mueller’s probe, which is also examining whether Trump has obstructed justice.

Is Whitaker actually overseeing the probe, though? So far that’s still Rod Rosenstein, with Whitaker overseeing Rosenstein. Courts will likely weigh in on whether Whitaker can oversee anything, but at least there’s been no indication of a transfer of that portfolio to this point.

All of this is likely much ado about nothing, anyway. There is a slim chance that Mueller will pull a smoking gun out of his report, but it’s far more likely that he’ll have little impact on Trump in the end. Columbia professor Lincoln Mitchell argues for Reuters that even drawing lines between Trump and the Kremlin won’t result in any action:

Trump has succeeded in making the Mueller investigation so partisan an issue that whatever Mueller has found, or will find in the future, will have little effect other than reinforcing existing views among voters and lawmakers. It is unlikely that anything, even evidence of criminal activity, beyond the campaign finance violations Cohen cited in connection with Trump, will change this.

Trump has never been a very popular president, but his support has been quite stable in the face of revelations that one might expect to influence public opinion. From the time he was inaugurated through the recent midterms, according to Gallup’s weekly polling, his popularity was always between 35 and47 percent, with fluctuations that were not particularly correlated to Russia-related revelations. By comparison, for a similar period, Obama’s ranged from 44 and69 percent and Bush’s from 51 and 90 percent. Trump’s numbers suggest that while he is never going to be well-liked by most Americans, there is a floor of about 35 percent that is not going to abandon him.

That base of 35 percent is significant because it roughly translates into more than 35 Republican senators whose voters like Trump and will continue to back him. The presence of those senators and their constituents’ unflappable support for the president is the guarantor that he will not be removed from office by Congress. Regardless of what Mueller finds, even if the Democratic House votes to impeach Trump, there seems to be zero chance that two-thirds of the Senate will cast the decisive vote required by the Constitution.

I’d guess, based on the process-crimes and old-news indictments generated by the Mueller probe thus far, that his final report won’t even be as significant as Mitchell presumes. He’s correct, though, in his assessment of what it would take to impeach and remove Trump at this point, in part because of Trump’s relentless campaign to cast the probe as a partisan “witch hunt.” If all Mueller has is a dumb decision by Don Jr and Jared Kushner to meet with Natalia Veselnitskaya at the Trump Tower and campaign-finance violations over payoffs to former paramours, it won’t go much of anywhere in the Senate — and maybe not even an impeachment in the House.

[HotAir]

Donald Trump ‘berated Theresa May in Air Force One phone call’

Donald Trump reportedly berated Theresa May in a phone call while he was on Air Force One.

The prime minster called the US president to congratulate him on the results of the US midterm elections last week, the Washington Post reported.

Mr Trump was on his way to Paris for events marking the centenary of  the end of the First World War.

According to the report Mr Trump berated Mrs May, saying she had not been doing enough to rein in Iran.

He was also said to have questioned her over Brexit, and to have complained that US trade deals with European nations were unfair.

Mrs May’s aides were said to have been taken aback by the president’s tone, the Washington Post reported, citing officials briefed about the call.

Downing Street has yet to comment on the report. After he arrived in Paris, Mr Trump faced criticism for cancelling a scheduled visit to a US ­military cemetery because of bad weather.

Mrs May’s relationship with Mr Trump has been a rocky one. She was the first foreign leader to visit Mr Trump at the White House after he became president, but people close to Mr Trump suggested there was a lack of “chemistry” between the leaders.

On his visit to the UK in July Mr Trump embarrassed Mrs May, attacking her handling of Brexit in a newspaper interview, and saying “she didn’t listen to me”. However, he went on to apologise and lavish her with praise.

[The Telegraph]

National security aide headed for exit after clash with Melania Trump’s office

A feud with the first lady’s office is expected to cost a senior national security adviser her job after she sparred with East Wing staff and other key members of the Trump administration.
The dispute spilled into public view in extraordinary fashion on Tuesday when the first lady’s office released a statement calling for deputy national security adviser Mira Ricardel’s ouster as reports surfaced that President Donald Trump would fire the official.
A White House official confirmed to CNN that Trump has told people that Ricardel will be fired. But the official said she has been given some time to clear out her desk. It was not immediately clear when she would officially make her exit.
“It is the position of the Office of the First Lady that (Ricardel) no longer deserves the honor of serving in this White House,” the first lady’s communications director Stephanie Grisham said in a statement on Tuesday.
The statement amounted to a stunning public rebuke by a first lady of a senior official serving in her husband’s administration. It came after reports surfaced earlier Tuesday indicating Ricardel would be pushed out of her post after less than seven months on the job.
Neither Ricardel nor spokespeople for the National Security Council responded to CNN requests for comment.
Reflecting the fast-moving nature of the events, soon after a Wall Street Journal report surfaced Tuesday afternoon alleging Ricardel was fired and escorted off the White House grounds, a senior White House official denied the story to reporters.
The official said Ricardel was still in her office Tuesday afternoon. The official declined to speculate further about Ricardel’s future in the administration.
Her departure would leave national security adviser John Bolton without one of his key allies in the administration, a deputy who has also shared his penchant for bureaucratic infighting.
It was those sharp elbows that sources said led to the first lady’s stinging statement, with Ricardel most recently feuding with members of the first lady’s staff over her trip to Africa. One person familiar with the matter said Ricardel quarreled with the first lady’s staff over seating on the plane and use of National Security Council resources.
A White House official accused Ricardel of being dishonest about the feud and subsequently leaking stories to try to cover her behavior.
And before her spat with the East Wing, Ricardel butted heads repeatedly with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a rivalry that was well-known within the Trump administration. Her disputes with Mattis preceded her time as deputy national security adviser, going back to the presidential transition when Ricardel sought to block Mattis from hiring certain people who had been critical of Trump or were viewed as insufficiently loyal to Trump.
Tensions have also been rising between Ricardel and chief of staff John Kelly and his deputy Zach Fuentes in recent weeks, according to people familiar with the matter. Kelly and Fuentes believe Ricardel was leaking negative stories about them to the press, the people said.
The dispute made it difficult for Ricardel to land in a top post in the Trump administration, though she was ultimately tapped for the position of undersecretary of commerce for export administration. Ricardel then joined the National Security Council as Bolton’s deputy in April after he was named national security adviser.
Ricardel has been key to Bolton’s efforts to restructure the National Security Council and to help Bolton secure his place as an influential adviser to the President on all foreign policy matters
[CNN]

Trump Claims Report on North Korea’s Secret Missile Program ‘Inaccurate’: I’ll ‘Let You Know if Things Go Bad!’

Taking again to Twitter to bash The New York Times, President Donald Trump claimed without evidence that the outlet’s report that North Korea is secretly beefing up its ballistic missile program was false.

“The story in the New York Times concerning North Korea developing missile bases is inaccurate,” he said Tuesday about the Monday article. “We fully know about the sites being discussed, nothing new – and nothing happening out of the normal. Just more Fake News. I will be the first to let you know if things go bad!”

In its article, the Times used satellite images to reveal that the regime appeared to be “engaged in a great deception.”

“It has offered to dismantle a major launching site — a step it began, then halted — while continuing to make improvements at more than a dozen others that would bolster launches of conventional and nuclear warheads,” the report read. “The existence of the ballistic missile bases, which North Korea has never acknowledged, contradicts Mr. Trump’s assertion that his landmark diplomacy is leading to the elimination of a nuclear and missile program that the North had warned could devastate the United States.”

[Mediaite]

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