Tag: liar

Trump’s First TV Ad Cites Known White Supremacist Organization for Anti-Immigrant Stats

Donald Trump is out with his first TV ad of the general election, and it’s predictably dishonest: an image of “Hillary Clinton’s America” being flooded with refugees and “illegal immigrants convicted of committing crimes” while “the system stays rigged against Americans.” The ad has drawn comparisons to the infamous anti-immigrant ad that California Gov. Pete Wilson ran in 1994 as he was trying to push through a ballot measure imposing draconian penalties on undocumented immigrants.

The ad, also unsurprisingly, cites the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), the group whose reports provide a constant stream of ammunition to anti-immigrant politicians despite its troubling roots in white nationalism and history of skewing the facts.

The CIS citation comes about 10 seconds into the ad, when the narrator warns that in Clinton’s America, “illegal immigrants convicted of committing crimes get to stay, collecting Social Security benefits, skipping the line.”

The ad’s citation appears to be referring to an April 14 CIS article on the implications of U.S. v. Texas, the Supreme Court case on President Obama’s DAPA and expanded DACA executive actions, which extended temporary deportation relief to some people brought to the country as children and some of their parents. This appears to be where the Trump campaign got the “collecting Social Security benefits” line, which it dishonestly links to its smear of “illegal immigrants convicted of committing crimes” (the DAPA and DACA programs bar people convicted of most crimes from eligibility). Those who receive eligibility to work under the programs do become eligible for Social Security, which they pay into like nearly every other American worker, under rules that existed long before President Obama took office.

It’s telling that the Trump campaign is getting its arguments about immigration policy from CIS. The group is one of a large network of anti-immigrant organizations started by John Tanton, an activist with white nationalist leanings and a troublingly extreme “population control” agenda including such things as supporting China’s brutal one-child policy.

CIS itself is more conservative in its rhetoric than its founder—allowing it to gain a foothold among members of Congress and others eager for research supporting an anti-immigrant agenda—but the agenda it promotes is one that demonizes immigrants.

As RightWingWatch.org noted in a recent report on CIS and its fellow Tanton-linked organizations, CIS has been a proponent of the idea “that instead of embracing a moderate position on immigration in order to win back Latinos who favored George W. Bush, the GOP should put its energy and resources into expanding its popularity and increasing turnout among white voters, in part by scapegoating people of color”—a strategy that Trump’s campaign is putting to the test:

CIS spokespeople regularly make this argument, along with another one that has long been popular among white nationalists: that Latino immigrants will never vote Republican because they are inherently liberal. During the debate over the “Gang of Eight” bill, CIS Executive Director Mark Krikorian argued that the GOP shouldn’t bother trying to increase its share of the Latino vote because “generally speaking, Hispanic voters are Democrats, and so the idea of importing more of them as a solution to the Republican Party’s problems is kind of silly.” In another interview, Krikorian argued that immigration reform would “destroy the Republican Party” and ultimately “the republic.” The next year, he charged that Democrats were using immigration as “a way of importing voters” and to “create the conditions, such as increased poverty, increased lack of health insurance, that lead even non-immigrant voters to be more receptive to big government solutions.” At one point, Krikorian told Republicans that they should oppose immigration reform simply to deny President Obama a political victory.

Steven Camarota, the research director at CIS, has said that the current level of legal immigration “dooms” conservatives. Stephen Steinlight, a senior policy analyst at CIS, has said that immigration reform would lead to “the unmaking of America” by “destroying the Republican Party” and turning the U.S. into a “tyrannical and corrupt” one-party state. He explained that Latinos aren’t likely to vote Republican because they “don’t exemplify ‘strong family values,’” as illustrated by high rates of “illegitimacy.” More than a year before Donald Trump made national headlines by calling for a ban on all Muslim immigration, Steinlight said that he would like to ban Muslims from coming to the country because they “believe in things that are subversive to the Constitution.”

Steinlight summed up the argument in 2005, when he said that immigration threatens “the American people as a whole and the future of Western civilization.” More recently, Steinlight told a tea party group in 2014 that the “Gang of Eight” immigration reform bill amounted to “a plot against America ” because it would turn the U.S. into a Democrat-led “one-party state” where citizens would “lose our liberty” and “social cohesion.” Steinlight has happily fed into some of the more vitriolic tea party hatred of President Obama, saying that the president should not only be impeached for his handling of immigration, but that “ being hung, drawn and quartered is probably too good for him .” On another occasion, Steinlight said that he’d like to attack religious leaders who support immigration reform with “a baseball bat.”

(h/t RightWingWatch.org)

Media

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UqwQCB48dA

Trump Campaign Manager Named in Ukrainian Probe Into Millions in Secret Cash

Donald Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, has been named in an investigation by Ukrainian authorities looking at whether he and others received millions in illegal payments from Ukraine’s former pro-Russian ruling party, according to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Manafort, claims it is a smear and he never done work for the governments of Ukraine or Russia, despite the fact that it has been very public knowledge Manafort worked for the Pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych as an image consultant from 2004 to 2010.

The probe is part of a wider investigation by the bureau into allegations of corruption and influence peddling against ex-president Viktor Yanukovich’s administration, for whom Manafort worked as a political consultant, before the leader’s violent ouster in 2014.

The investigation is looking into “shadow accounting” and potentially illegal payments made by Yanukovich to Manafort and other Ukrainian election officials, according to Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption.

The announcement of the investigation follows a report published late Sunday by The New York Times, which first revealed that Ukrainian investigators had found Manafort’s name included in an off-the-books, handwritten ledger detailing 22 secret payments — among them, a $12.7 million total payout to Manafort.

Daria Manzhura, head of external communications at the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, confirmed to CNN that Manafort’s name is among those listed on a handwritten ledger.

Responding to the initial report from the Times early Monday, Manafort called the report “unfounded, silly and nonsensical.”

“Once again The New York Times has chosen to purposefully ignore facts and professional journalism to fit their political agenda, choosing to attack my character and reputation rather than present an honest report,” he said in a statement.

“The simplest answer is the truth: I am a campaign professional. It is well known that I do work in the United States and have done work on overseas campaigns as well. I have never received a single “off-the-books cash payment” as falsely “reported” by The New York Times, nor have I ever done work for the governments of Ukraine or Russia. Further, all of the political payments directed to me were for my entire political team: campaign staff (local and international), polling and research, election integrity and television advertising. The suggestion that I accepted cash payments is unfounded, silly, and nonsensical.

“My work in Ukraine ceased following the country’s parliamentary elections in October 2014. In addition, as the article points out hesitantly, every government official interviewed states I have done nothing wrong, and there is no evidence of ‘cash payments’ made to me by any official in Ukraine. However, the Times does fail to disclose the fact that the Clinton Foundation has taken (and may still take) payments in exchange for favors from Hillary Clinton while serving as the Secretary of State. This is not discussed despite the overwhelming evidence in emails that Hillary Clinton attempted to cover up,” the statement continued.

(h/t CNN)

Reality

As the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine noted, that the presence of Manafort’s name on the list does not mean he received the money, and that the ledger does not contain his signature while others who were identified did sign it.

However Manafort’s claim that, “nor have I ever done work for the governments of Ukraine.” is a complete lie.

It is no secret that Paul Manafort made a career silently working for some of the worst tyrants in the world, to reinvent their image and appear more likable to Western countries. Manafort’s firm was listed amongst the top five lobbying firms receiving money from human-rights abusing regimes in the 1992 Center for Public Integrity report “The Torturer’s Lobby.”

Manafort has represented Angolan political and military leader Jonas Savimbi, Filipino authoritarian president Ferdinand Marcos, and Congolese military dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.

In Ukraine, Manafort worked as an adviser on the presidential campaign of Viktor Yanukovych (and his Party of Regions during the same time span) from December 2004 until the February 2010 Ukrainian presidential election even as the U.S. government opposed Yanukovych because of his ties to Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin. Manafort was hired to advise Yanukovych months after massive street demonstrations known as the Orange Revolution overturned Yanukovych’s victory in the 2004 presidential race.

Also, Manafort claimed that the New York Times did not report on possible controversies at the Clinton Foundation, except they have:

Trump Spokeswoman Again Rewrites History to Blame Obama

Donald Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson has once again blamed President Obama for something that happened years before he took office.

Remember how Pierson blamed Obama for Captain Humayun Khan‘s death in 2004? Well, on CNN this morning, as she was arguing with anchor Victor Blackwell about Trump’s “founder of ISIS” remark, Pierson actually said, “Remember, we weren’t even in Afghanistan by this time. Barack Obama went into Afghanistan, creating another problem.”

Blackwell asked, “You’re saying Barack Obama took the country into Afghanistan post-2009?” Pierson said, “That was Obama’s war, yes.”

After the commercial break, Blackwell confronted her about this glaring factual inaccuracy. Pierson protested that “we’re talking about ISIS specifically.”

Blackwell pointed out that ISIS did not suddenly spring up when Obama became president.

As we described in a earlier post, ISIS was formed in 1999 and grew it’s membership from former members of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party who were out of a job after the Bush-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, then calling them

We should point out here that after Pierson got in trouble for muddling the facts on Captain Khan’s death recently, a high-level Trump adviser said on CNN, “I think we’re fixing it, I guarantee you that won’t happen again with her, that’s for sure.”

(h/t Mediaite)

Media

 

Trump Campaign “Confirm” a Gulf War Marine Rescue From Trump That Never Happened

In a May post on his website, Fox News personality Sean Hannity falsely claimed that in 1991 now-GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump sent his private jet to retrieve 200 “stranded” Gulf War veterans from Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina.

According to the erroneous report — which the Trump campaign said they confirmed to be true — “Mr. Trump did indeed send his plane to make two trips from North Carolina to Miami, Florida to transport over 200 Gulf War Marines back home.”

The Hannity story mostly relied on the recollections of a single source, of Cpl. Ryan Stickney, who was a squad leader in a Marine Corps Reserve antitank (TOW) company that was called up for duty for the 1990-91 conflict that took place after Iraq invaded Kuwait. Cpl. Stickney told his story at a Trump rally in June.

Snopes.com and Washington Post looked deeper into the anecdote and found that the plane — though it bore Trump’s name, as does his private jet — was actually one of a Trump Shuttle fleet of planes from his short-lived airline and not his personal plane as the Trump campaign “confirmed.”

Trump Shuttle was an airline that Trump briefly owned before it was essentially seized by the banks because he failed to make payments on his loans.

But this is where Sean Hannity’s and the Trump campaign’s story starts to break down. Trump’s personal plane only holds 24 passengers, not anywhere near the space required for 200 Marines. Also the Boeing 727s, which do have the appropriate seating capacity, flown by Trump Airlines had a white fuselage while Trump’s personal plane from 1991 was blue and had different markings.

A picture of Trump’s plane from 1991

And finally, Donald Trump made a terrible deal when he purchased Eastern Air Shuttle and re-branded it as Trump Shuttle. Timing is everything in business, and unfortunately for Trump he entered the airline game at the wrong time. So in September 1990, Trump defaulted on the loan and the banks took over Trump Shuttle. The banks searched far and wide for a buyer before they reached a long-term agreement with US Air to manage the airline until 1996, and then to buy it.” So by April 1991, Donald Trump no longer even controlled the planes that flew with his name on them.

Even veterans who were there and in the know rebuked the Trump campaign’s claim.

Lt. Gen. Vernon J. Kondra, now retired, was in charge of all military airlift operations. He said that relying on commercial carriers freed up the military cargo aircraft for equipment transport. But Kondra said the notion that Trump personally arranged to help the stranded soldiers made little sense. “I certainly was not aware of that. It does not sound reasonable that it would happen like that. It would not fit in with how we did business,” he told The Washington Post. “I don’t even know of how he would have known there was a need.”

(h/t Salon, Washington Post, Snopes)

Reality

During this election cycle, Hannity has: peddled a moot voter fraud theory to support Trump’s claim that the election is rigged; launched an investigation into the Gold Star Khan parents, whose political agenda he said made them unfairly target Trump; and claimed “nothing” Trump’s “said is racist.”

Trump Doubles-Down That Obama ‘Literally’ Founded ISIS

Donald Trump said twice Thursday that he meant exactly what he said when he called President Barack Obama the “founder of ISIS” and objected when a conservative radio show host tried to clarify the GOP nominee’s position.

Trump was asked by host Hugh Hewitt about the comments Trump made Wednesday night in Florida, and Hewitt said he understood Trump to mean “that he (Obama) created the vacuum, he lost the peace.”

Trump objected.

“No, I meant he’s the founder of ISIS,” Trump said. “I do. He was the most valuable player. I give him the most valuable player award. I give her, too, by the way, Hillary Clinton.”

Hewitt pushed back again, saying that Obama is “not sympathetic” to ISIS and “hates” and is “trying to kill them.”

“I don’t care,” Trump said, according to a show transcript. “He was the founder. His, the way he got out of Iraq was that that was the founding of ISIS, okay?”

Hewitt and Trump went back and forth after that, with Hewitt warning Trump that his critics would seize on his use of “founder” as more example of Trump being loose with words.

But the GOP nominee remained steadfast, saying it was “no mistake” what he said, standing by his labeling of the Democratic opponent as a “co-founder.”

“Do you not like that?” Trump asked Hewitt.

“I think I would say they created, they lost the peace. They created the Libyan vacuum, they created the vacuum into which ISIS came, but they didn’t create ISIS. That’s what I would say,” Hewitt said.

“Well, I disagree,” Trump replied, and Hewitt moved on.

The criticism that the policies of President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are mostly originating from right-wing conspiracy cranks like Breitbart.com, Alex Jones, or Senator John McCain. Taking the idea a step further to suggest Obama and Clinton literally founded the terrorist group is something far more nefarious.

Former ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul hit Trump on the comments, saying they mimicked Russian talking points designed to sow anger toward the US and the West.
“BTW, Trumps line that Obama founded ISIS echoes exactly a myth propagated by Russian state-controlled media and bloggers,” McFaul tweeted.

(h/t CNN)

Reality

Trump claiming that because President Obama withdrew troops from Iraq, thus creating ISIS, is patently false.

First, Obama was honoring an agreement between Iraq and the United States for a timeline to withdraw troops signed on December 14, 2008 by President George W. Bush. You might remember the press conference to announce the strategic agreement more for Bush dodging a shoe thrown at him than the actual details of the timeline.

Second, will require quick history lesson to show at no time did Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama walk into a room and declare, “Hey guys you know what would be a great idea? A new Islamic caliphate in the Levant!”

ISIS was originally formed in 1999 under the name “Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad” and was greatly expanded in 2003 by former members of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party who were out of a job after the George W. Bush-lead invasion of Iraq, which was based on faulty evidence. Without a strong-man dictator in the area and a weak Iraqi government, ISIS had a chance to expand even more by pledging allegiance to Osama Bin Laden and changed their name to al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI or ISI) in 2004.

After years of fighting in the Iraqi Civil War and blowing themselves up, in 2011 some members of AQI saw an opportunity in the Syrian Civil War and left on an expedition calling themselves al-Nusra. Al-Nusra joined the Free Syrian Army (FEA), a loose confederation of different factions fighting the Assad Syrian government, and were known to be the largest, best organized, and most experienced, having fought an insurgent campaign against American forces since the start of the invasion of Iraq. This caused many Islamic fundamentalist FEA fighters leave their factions for al-Nusra, where their membership continued to grow. In December 2011, shortly after al-Nusra joined the FEA, President Obama declared the group a terrorist organization, and prevented them from receiving weapons from the US in the fight against the Assad government.

After political infighting Al-Qaeda disavowed AQI, and eventually AQI and al-Nusra merged together under the new name ISIS in 2013.

This is not the first time Donald Trump has made this false claim. Back in January 2nd at a rally in Biloxi, Mississippi he told the crowd that, “Hillary Clinton created ISIS with Obama.” On June 13th in an interview with Fox News and again in a tweet on June 15th, Trump suggested that President Obama was an ISIS sympathizer.

Media

Hugh Hewitt Show:

Speech at National Association of Home Builders:

Trump Claims Obama and Clinton Founded ISIS, Which Formed in 1999

Donald Trump said Wednesday that President Obama “founded” the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

“ISIS is honoring President Obama,” he said during a rally in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. “He’s the founder of ISIS. He founded ISIS.”

“I would say the co-founder would be ‘Crooked’ Hillary Clinton,” Trump added of Obama’s former secretary of State and his Democratic rival.

(h/t The Hill)

Reality

Donald Trump has a habit of repeating or starting untruthful conspiracy theories.

A quick history lesson, ISIS was formed in 1999 and greatly expanded in 2003 by former members of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party who were out of a job after the George W. Bush-lead invasion of Iraq, which was based on faulty evidence.

In 1999, Hillary Clinton was too busy celebrating with her husband, President Bill Clinton, with a victory over impeachment hearings, while Barack Obama was busy teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School while serving in the Illinois State Senate.

In 2003 at the start of the invasion, Barack Obama was still an Illinois State Senator and Hillary Clinton was still a junior Senator of New York.

Neither founded or was in a position to create an Islamic State back in 1999.

Media

Trump Tweets ISIS and Bad Economic Numbers are Obama’s Fault, Both Not True

Twitter

In his Twitter account, Donald Trump fired off a tweet blasting President Obama’s decision-making for causing ISIS and a horrible economy, claims that are as far from reality as one can get.

Reality

What was crazy about Trump’s claims, that we are seeing worst economic numbers since the Great Depression, is that there is no reading of any data that puts our economy at the same level of the Great Depression or even the Great Recession.

Also there was this little thing of the Labor Department’s monthly jobs and economic report released just a day after Trump’s tweet which shows a bright economic outlook. Whoops!

The Labor Department report said employers added 255,000 jobs in July continuing the longest streak of private-sector job growth, the unemployment rate remains below the natural rate at 4.9%, and the labor participation rate went up, all beating economic expectations. In response to the report the NASDAQ surged so high stocks are into record territory.

The jobs report was so good that usual critic Jeff Cox of NBC said “It’s hard to find anything bad, even for a skeptic.“

The even crazier claim in Trump’s tweet was how “Obama gave us ISIS.” A quick history lesson, ISIS was formed in 1999 and greatly expanded in 2003 by former members of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party who were out of a job after the George W. Bush-lead invasion of Iraq, which was based on faulty evidence. Donald Trump (as well as Fox News) can’t rewrite history here, Barack Obama was not a United States Senator until 2005, two years after the start of the invasion.

Fact is, over the past 2 years ISIS has been, losing ground, pushed out of key cities, and cut off from revenue producing oil fields. While ISIS still has the ability to inspire attacks in other countries, the multi-nation military response is working.

Finally, the “rise of Iran” may sound scary to some on first read, but as experts at think-tanks and NATO have argued, their rise is unsustainable, short lived, and a good thing as it will help towards stabilizing the Middle-East.

Donald Trump Claims He Watched a Nonexistent Recording of Iranian Money Transfer

As Fox News reported on the controversial transfer of $400 million in cash to Iran in January, it repeatedly played dark, grainy footage of shadowy figures walking off a small private plane with bags in hand. The video is often labeled as being from Jan. 17 in Geneva where three Americans first landed after being released from prison in Tehran.

Republican nominee Donald Trump watched this sort of footage, according to his spokeswoman, and concluded that it showed the controversial money transfer that was described in detail for the first time this week by the Wall Street Journal. At a rally in Daytona Beach, Fla., on Wednesday afternoon, Trump announced that the months-old video had been recorded by the Iranian government and released to embarrass the United States.

“Remember this: Iran — I don’t think you heard this anywhere but here — Iran provided all of that footage, the tape of taking that money off the airplane,” Trump said at the rally. “Right?”

Trump provided no source for this exclusive information but described in detail what he saw in the video.

“Now, here’s the amazing thing: Over there, where that plane landed, top secret, you don’t have a lot of paparazzi. You know, the paparazzi doesn’t do so well over there, right?” Trump said, seeming to refer to Iran and not Switzerland, where the footage was recorded. “And they have a perfect tape, done by obviously a government camera, and the tape is of the people taking the money off the plane. Right? That means that in order to embarrass us further, Iran sent us the tapes. Right? It’s a military tape; it’s a tape that was a perfect angle, nice and steady, nobody getting nervous because they’re gonna be shot because they’re shooting a picture of money pouring off a plane.”

Twitter quickly filled with confusion and this central question: What is Trump talking about?

Several senior U.S. officials involved in the Iran negotiations told the Associated Press on Wednesday they weren’t aware of any such footage. There was speculation that perhaps Trump saw the footage during one of the classified security briefings provided to presidential nominees, but Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort said in an interview on Fox News earlier in the day that those briefings have not yet begun.

The Washington Post asked Trump’s staff to explain what Trump was talking about and emailed a link to a Fox News clip that showed the January footage from Geneva, asking if that was the video the nominee saw.

“Yes,” spokeswoman Hope Hicks responded in an email. “Merely the b-roll footage included in every broadcast.”

(h/t Washington Post)

Reality

Donald Trump later repeated this false claim at another rally in Portland, Maine. Then after being corrected by about every news agency Trump admitted his error in an early-morning tweet Friday, without actually saying he was wrong.

There was nothing secret or clandestine about the $400 transfer of cash to Iran as it was made public early this year.

The $400 million payment — part of an overall $1.7 billion settlement of claims — was announced by the State Department on Jan. 17, the same day that President Obama announced the release of the detainees.

The U.S. had no way to directly deliver cold hard currency to Iran. Rather, the pallets traveled to Switzerland and the money was eventually transferred to Iran.

Media

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhKjAqpCbcU

Eric Trump Says Father Apologized to Khans (But He Hasn’t)

Eric Trump defended his father Tuesday from criticism for his treatment of the family of a slain Muslim US soldier and said that he had already apologized to the Khans and Gold Star families — despite the fact that the senior Trump has pointedly declined to apologize.

Appearing on “CBS This Morning,” Trump was pressed about his father’s lack of apology for his criticism of the Khan family, even amid stinging bipartisan condemnation for his remarks.

The senior Trump has so far not apologized for his remarks toward the Khans, despite Eric Trump’s claim.

“Would your father be willing to apologize and move on?” co-host Norah O’Donnell asked.

“I think that’s a great question for him, and I think he has by calling them a hero,” Trump responded.

“In terms of the one question — whether you’ve made a sacrifice — I think my father has. Now, that’s certainly not the ultimate sacrifice, the ultimate sacrifice is a soldier dying for this nation, dying to protect the three of us, no doubt about it –”

Co-host Gayle King interjected, “Is it difficult for your father to apologize?”

“My father’s a fighter,” Trump said. “I think that’s what this country needs is a fighter. And I think he was attacked the other day — he was attacked viciously — and by the way, that’s politics. You’re going to get attacked.”

Co-host Charlie Rose pivoted, asking instead: “Who tells your father he’s wrong?”

“We can tell him he’s wrong,” Trump laughed.

“When’s the last time you told him he’s wrong?” Rose pressed.

Trump replied, “Listen, we do it respectfully, we go back and forth as a family. I think that’s actually the benefit of having children be part of this process.”

King tried again to push Trump on the Khans: “Do you think he’s wrong on this?”

“I think this is something that’s honestly blown hugely out of proportion,” Trump countered, proceeding to argue that Donald Trump had praised the family as “amazing people” and that his focus was ultimately on security issues and dealing with illegal immigration and Syrian refugees.

(h/t CNN)

Reality

It appears the apple does not fall far from the tree when it comes to facts.

Eric Trump also made several other false statements:

Along with fact-checking, here is why this incident is concerning and adds to the growing evidence that Donald Trump is not fit for the office of the Presidency. Eric Trump called his father a “fighter” and Donald Trump in the past has defended his actions as “counter-punching,” but the Republican presidential nominee’s very first reaction to the valid criticism of his sacrifice and his knowledge of the United States Constitution was to “counter-punch” a grieving mother of a dead American soldier who stood on a stage and said nothing. Think about that.

The person who takes the oath of office and occupies the White House should not be someone who picks a fight at every opportunity as sees every criticism as a “vicious attack.” Instead, as history has shown, a degree of “presidential restraint” is required to be a Commander-in-Chief, which is something Donald Trump has yet to show it is something he is capable of.

Take for instance President Harry Truman’s refusal to order the use of atomic weapons during the Korean War. Its impact has been as permanent as it has been under appreciated, for the effect of Truman’s rejection of the bomb was to establish a taboo against nuclear use that has lasted all these years.

Media

CBS This Morning

 

Donald Trump Says He Has One of the ‘Best Temperaments’ of Any Presidential Candidate

Republican nominee Donald Trump says that he’s refusing to play “nice guy” anymore.

As chants of “Lock Her Up” rang out at his rally in Colorado Springs — a rallying cry against Hillary Clinton — Trump seemed to agree with them.

“You know what? I’ve been saying– I’ve been saying let’s just beat her on November 8th, but you know what? No. no. You know what? I’m starting to agree with you,” he said, a departure from the demurral he usually gives when the chants break out.

“I’ve been nice, but after watching that performance last night, such lies,” he said. “I don’t have to be so nice anymore. I’m taking the gloves off, right, yes? Take the gloves off. … Just remember this, Trump is going to be no more Mr. nice guy. Tell Hillary I am not gonna be nice anymore.”

Trump, who has given his Democratic rival the moniker, “Crooked Hillary” and attacked her on multiple fronts, also told supporters Friday that he has “one of the best temperaments” of any previous presidential candidate.

“I think I have the best temperament, or certainly one of the best temperaments, of anybody that’s ever run for the office of president. Ever,” he the crowd today. “Because I have a winning temperament. I know how to win.”

(h/t ABC News)

Reality

Trump’s bragging about his temperament is almost laughable if he wasn’t the Republican presidential nominee. As of this date we have over 400 controversial incidents involving Donald Trump, and none of them highlight someone who is even-tempered.

Some examples include:

  • When Donald Trump got into a childish shouting match with Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz during the December CNN debate?
  • When journalists uncovered the fact that Donald Trump never donated money to veterans charities after four months of claiming he did, and his response was a full-frontal meltdown calling them dishonest, not good people, sleazy, and among the worst human beings he has ever met.
  • Remember when Donald Trump mocked a disabled reporter?
  • The many times Donald Trump ejected protests, mocked them as they left, and one time demanded security to take their coats as they were thrown out into the cold.
  • When Trump instigated a months-long feud between him and Fox News’ Megyn Kelly because she asked him a valid question about past sexist comments.

Media

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