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Trump Fires Back at Criticism from Robert Gates

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Twitter

Donald Trump took to Twitter early Saturday morning to lob an attack at Robert Gates, after the former Defense secretary said he is “beyond repair” on national security.

“I never met former Defense Secretary Robert Gates. He knows nothing about me. But look at the results under his guidance – a total disaster!” the GOP presidential nominee tweeted.

Gates on Friday criticized both Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton on military issues, writing in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that “neither candidate has seriously addressed how he or she thinks about the military or the use of force.”

Gates specifically ripped Trump for “naive and irresponsible” expressions of admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, and for a Middle East plan he called a “dangerous approach oblivious to the reality” of the region.

“Mr. Trump is also willfully ignorant about the rest of the world, about our military and its capabilities, and about government itself,” he wrote.

“He disdains expertise and experience while touting his own — such as his claim that he knows more about ISIS than America’s generals. He has no clue about the difference between negotiating a business deal and negotiating with sovereign nations.”

Gates and Trump have gone after each other throughout the presidential campaign.

Gates ripped Trump in May for appearing unwilling to accept advice from foreign policy experts, and Trump responded that he’s “not a big fan” of the former Defense secretary, who served under President Bush as well as President Obama.

Vice Reporter Arrested Outside Trump Event

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Vice News reports that one of its journalists, Alex Thompson, was arrested outside a Donald Trump campaign event in Houston on Saturday after inquiring about a media credential.

Thompson had previously applied for a credential to the event — a luncheon for families with relatives killed by undocumented immigrants — and was told by the Trump campaign that his application was pending, according to Vice. Thompson, hoping to cover the luncheon at the Omni Houston Hotel at Westside, showed up to inquire about the campaign’s decision.

“A man who identified himself as a hotel manager then asked Thompson to leave and warned that he would be arrested if he did not,” Vice reported. “Roughly two minutes later, without further warning and while Thompson was waiting for a member of Trump’s staff to clarify his access to the event, he was arrested by Houston police, handcuffed and escorted outside. Thompson spoke with his editors while handcuffed and said that he was never given any opportunity to explain himself to police.”

The Houston Police Department said Saturday that Thompson had been asked to leave the hotel twice. The first time, he had left; the second time, they said, “he refused to do so and told hotel employees they would have to have him arrested because he was not leaving.” Hotel management then asked police to arrest him on trespassing charges, according to HPD.

Thompson’s journalism career didn’t start at Vice — he used to be an editorial assistant to New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd (who has written critically about Trump and released a book this week called “The Year of Voting Dangerously” — an unflattering take on both major-party presidential nominees.)

The Trump campaign late Saturday released a statement denying that it had anything to do with the arrest:

“The campaign was not involved in this incident or aware of the details surrounding it. The event organizers were responsible for today’s media presence and requested the campaign limit attendance to the traveling pool. The campaign had no staff presence at check-in for guests or media and therefore has no further knowledge of what occurred.”
Trump has treated the press with disdain throughout the election season, but the past few days have been particularly fractious. On Thursday, a plane chartered by the Trump campaign that was carrying reporters was delayed by about 30 minutes en route to a rally in Laconia, N.H. Trump refused to wait for the journalists to arrive and bragged to the crowd about leaving them behind.

“I have really good news: I just heard that the press is stuck on their airplane,” the GOP standard-bearer told his audience. “They can’t get here. I love it. So they’re trying to get here now. They’re going to be about 30 minutes late. They called us and said, ‘Could you wait?’ I said absolutely not. Let’s get going. Right?”

On Friday, Trump hoodwinked cable news channels into airing a campaign event live by promising a “major statement” about his longtime suggestion that President Obama might not have been born in the United States. Instead, Trump spent most of the time advertising his new hotel in Washington and calling on military dignitaries who endorse him.

“President Obama was born in the United States,” he finally said. “Period.”

Journalists fumed about getting played.

Now comes Thompson’s arrest — and seven more weeks of campaign-media relations that don’t appear to be improving anytime soon

(h/t The Washington Post)

Reality

Charges were eventually dropped.

Media

Trump Toughens Anti-Women’s Health Stance

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Donald Trump has recruited the influential anti-abortion leader Marjorie Dannenfelser to lead his campaign’s national “Pro-Life Coalition.”

Not only that, but Trump has made a new policy promise that strengthens his anti-abortion position.

In a letter to anti-abortion leaders inviting them to join his coalition, Trump commits to a new policy: “Making the Hyde Amendment permanent law to protect taxpayers from having to pay for abortions.”It’s unusual for a Republican presidential nominee to move further to the right on abortion this late in an election cycle. And the move is a direct shot at Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, whose party wrote into its platform that it would repeal the Hyde Amendment. Until this summer, the Democratic platform did not include this plank.

A longstanding policy, the Hyde Amendment bans the use of federal funds to pay for abortions for Medicaid recipients except in cases of rape, incest or when pregnancy endangers the life of the mother.

Trump’s commitment to making Hyde permanent law is new, though his running mate, Mike Pence, brought up the policy at an evangelical conference over the weekend.

In the letter, released by Dannenfelser’s Susan B. Anthony List, Trump also endorses the anti-abortion movement’s two biggest legislative priorities: defunding Planned Parenthood and passing a national ban on abortions after 20 weeks.

The late-term abortion ban, known as the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, has long been one of Dannenfelser’s top priorities. Support for the bill has been the key litmus test for GOP candidates seeking endorsements from the Susan B. Anthony List for several election seasons.

The House approved the bill this year, though the initial vote had been abruptly cancelled after some Republicans voiced concerns about a restriction on abortion for rape victims who haven’t reported the crime to the police.

Legal experts have raised questions about whether a national 20-week ban would stand up in court, but Republicans say it is part of their long game to force the issue to reverse the landmark 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade.

Trump also committed to defunding Planned Parenthood, legalizing the actions of several GOP-led states over the last year. Most of those state actions have been blocked in courts.

Trump additionally doubled down on his promise to appoint “pro-life” justices to the Supreme Court.

“Hillary Clinton’s unwavering commitment to advancing taxpayer-funded abortion on-demand stands in stark contrast to the commitments I’ve made,” Trump writes, “to advance the rights of unborn children and their mothers when elected president.”

Leaders of the anti-abortion movement were hardly quick to embrace Trump, who told an interviewer in 1999 that he supported partial-birth abortion.

But as the prospect of Clinton — a career-long advocate for abortion rights — becoming president came into focus, many anti-abortion activists sided with Trump.
Still, Trump tested their patience when he said that women should be punished for abortions if the procedure were made illegal.
Those remarks in April, which he later walked back, ignored decades of conservative doctrine on abortion, which some leaders of the movement said proved that Trump was out-of-touch with their beliefs. He arranged meetings with anti-abortion leaders, including Dannenfelser, shortly after facing the backlash.

And selecting Pence as his running mate, a trusted ally of Dannenfelser and other leaders, helped Trump immeasurably with the anti-abortion movement.
Co-chairs of the Pro-life Coalition will be announced later this month, according to SBA List’s statement. Coalition members will be asked to write op-eds, speak on Trump’s behalf on television and at public events, and recruit volunteers.

“Not only has Mr. Trump doubled down on his three existing commitments to the pro-life movement, he has gone a step further in pledging to protect the Hyde Amendment and the conscience rights of millions of pro-life taxpayers,” Dannenfelser said.

“For a candidate to make additional commitments during a general election is almost unheard of.”

Reality

Hyde Amendment means that American women — many of them women of color — who cannot afford health insurance are effectively prevented from availing themselves of a legal medical procedure that is their right and that is fundamental to their ability to exert autonomy over their reproductive lives and thus their economic and familial futures. Yes. Hillary Clinton opposes the Hyde Amendment, because it is one of the policies that exacerbates economic and racial inequality in this country.

If Donald Trump is elected president, it will likely be with a Republican congress and Supreme Court seats to fill. He could do every single one of the things he’s promising anti-abortion activists he will do. And those things would return women, in a very real way — in a way that is already happening in state and local jurisdictions around the country — to their secondary status: unable to exert full control over their bodies; barred from making choices about whether or when to bear children based on their health, their economic, or familial status, or the condition of the fetuses they carry.

Abortions accounted for 3 percent of the nearly 10.6 million total services provided by Planned Parenthood clinics in 2013, according to its annual report.

Trump Jokes About Congressman’s Disability

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Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid chastised Donald Trump on Friday for joking about an accident that blinded Reid in one eye.

“Donald Trump can make fun of the injury that crushed the side of my face and took the sight in my right eye all he wants — I’ve dealt with tougher opponents than him,” Reid said in response to Trump’s “toxic comments.”

Reid, D-Nev., a fierce critic of Trump’s, was referring to remarks that the Republican presidential nominee made in an interview with The Washington Post that was posted online Thursday night.

The Post reporter told Trump that Reid had said that Trump is “not slim and trim.”

“Harry Reid? I think he should go back and start working out again with his rubber work-out pieces,” Trump was quoted as saying.

Reid was exercising with a rubber resistance band in his bathroom on New Year’s Day 2015 when the band reportedly broke or slipped from his hands, causing him to spin around and strike his face on a cabinet. Reid lost vision in his right eye and suffered a concussion, broken orbital bones, and a broken rib.

“I may not be able to see out of my right eye, but with my good eye, I can see that Trump is a man who inherited his money and spent his entire life pretending like he earned it,” Reid said. “In Searchlight (Nevada), we learned a thing or two about hard work that Trump may not have learned at his boarding school.”

Trump made his remarks the same day that Reid took to the Senate floor to blast Trump as “a spoiled brat” and “a human leech who will bleed the country.”

(h/t USA Today)

Reality

This is not the first time Trump has mocked someone’s disability. Back in November 2015, Trump mocked New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski’s muscular disorder by saying, “You should see the guy!” then waved his hands to mimic Kovaleski’s disability.

Trump Insinuates Hillary Clinton’s Assassination, Again

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Donald Trump has once again insinuated that Hillary Clinton be assassinated, telling a crowd of supporters in Miami on Friday night that he thinks Clinton’s bodyguards should disarm in order to “see what happens to her.” The suggestion came after Trump falsely told the crowd that Clinton is “very much against” the Second Amendment and wants to “destroy” it. He then continued:

Guns. Guns. Guns. Right? I think what we should do, is — she goes around with armed bodyguards like you have never seen before. I think that her bodyguards should drop all weapons. They should disarm. Right? … I think they should disarm immediately. … Take their guns away. She doesn’t want guns. Let’s see what happens to her. Take their guns away. Okay? It’d be very dangerous.

Not surprisingly, the comments — which elicited a big cheer from the crowd — were apparently not in Trump’s campaign-prepared remarks.

It was the second time that Trump has suggested that violence befall Clinton in relation to her gun control positions, having told a crowd at a meeting of the National Rifle Association in August that there was “nothing you can do” to prevent Clinton from appointing Supreme Court justices if she was elected president, then adding, “Although, the Second Amendment people, maybe there is. I don’t know.” He and his campaign later indicated the remark was in regards to the political power of gun rights advocates, but the U.S. Secret Service still spoke with the Trump campaign about the comment.

For a major party presidential candidate to make even one insinuation of violence or assassination regarding an opponent is of course unprecedented in modern American history — let alone two separate remarks, as Trump has now made. Then again, precedent has rarely applied when it comes to Trump and suggestions of violence.

Trump’s comment on Friday was also, in part, similar to other previous statements he has made on the subject, like this tweet he sent in May one day after receiving the NRA’s endorsement for president at their annual convention:

He said roughly the same thing again early Saturday morning:

The false statement that Clinton is opposed to the Second Amendment and wants to ban all gun ownership is one Trump has repeated throughout his campaign. Clinton has regularly said that she supports the right of American citizens to own guns, but wants additional “reasonable” restrictions on gun ownership, such as a ban on assault weapons, an expansion of background checks to more types of gun sales, and new measures to prevent criminals, suspected terrorists, domestic abusers, and the severely mentally ill from being able to purchase firearms. In the past, Clinton has also supported other gun control measures such as the required registration of new guns.

Prior to making his suggestion about Clinton’s bodyguards on Friday night, the candidate framed the remark by insisting Clinton had, in her “basket of deplorables” comment about half of Trump’s supporters at a fundraiser last week, slandered “working people who just want a fraction of the security enjoyed by our politicians and certainly enjoyed by [Clinton.]” Trump also repeated his false assertion that some American inner cities are now more dangerous than war-torn Afghanistan.

In addition, Trump appeared to ridicule Clinton for taking time off from the campaign trail this week, which she did after suffering a bout of pneumonia and falling ill at a 9/11 memorial service in New York on Sunday. After saying Clinton “doesn’t have a lot of the energy” and is “totally unfit to be the president,” Trump bragged that he goes to multiple rallies in a day and asked the crowd, “Do you think Hillary Clinton can get through one?”

(h/t New York Magazine)

Reality

For the record, Clinton has a gun violence prevention proposal on her website, which would deny gun owners from buying certain guns and block or delay the ability of some to purchase guns. But it does not call for taking any guns away. Compare this writing to Trump’s 20 second video on his Second Amendment policy.

Among other things, her plan would:

  • Expand required background checks to include some private sales at gun shows and over the Internet, which include 40% of all gun sales.
  • Require a potential gun buyer to pass a background check before being sold the gun.
  • Reinstate the 1994 semi-automatic “assault weapons” ban.

Clinton has also come out against the controversial Supreme Court case District of Columbia v. Heller” which determined that the Second Amendment is indeed an individual right, overturning centuries of court rulings which opinioned otherwise.

Nothing comes remotely close to Trump’s claim or other right-wing media claims that she intends to diminish American’s rights.

Media

Trump Drops ‘Birther’ Theory, but Floats a New False One: Clinton Started It

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Donald Trump finally admitted Friday that “President Barack Obama was born in the United States,” reversing himself on the issue that propelled him into national politics five years ago.

Trump sought to end his longstanding attempt to discredit the nation’s first African-American president with just a few sentences tacked on at the end as he unveiled his new hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington.

But the issue isn’t likely to die down any time soon — especially as Trump continues to falsely blame Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton for starting the “birtherism” controversy. Clinton said earlier Friday that Trump’s acknowledgment of Obama’s birthplace doesn’t go far enough and that he must also apologize.

“For five years, he has led the birther movement to delegitimize our first black president,” Clinton said at an event in Washington. “His campaign was founded on this outrageous lie.”

Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961.

Trump offered no apologies for his leading role in the birther movement and didn’t explain what drove him to change his mind. The President dismissed Trump’s criticism Friday, joking with reporters at the White House and saying, “I was pretty confident about where I was born.”

Speaking at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, Friday, First Lady Michelle Obama addressed the controversy head on.

“There were those who questioned and continue to question for the past eight years up through this very day whether my husband was even born in this country,” she said. “Well, during his time in office, I think Barack has answered those questions with the example he set by going high when they low.”

Rep. G.K. Butterfield, a North Carolina Democrat who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus, called Trump a “disgusting fraud.”

Birtherism controversy

The birtherism controversy exploded the previous night when Trump said in an interview with The Washington Post that he still wasn’t prepared to acknowledge Obama’s birthplace. Within a few hours, the campaign released a statement — attributed to his spokesman — that said Trump now believes Obama was born in the United States.

Trump finally said the words out loud Friday morning.

“President Barack Obama was born in the United States. Period,” Trump said, ignoring reporters’ questions despite earlier indications he would hold a press conference. “Now we all want to get back to making America strong and great again.”

The developments over the past day were steeped in political motivations. With 53 days before the presidential election, Trump is moving into a margin of error race with Clinton and trying to broaden his appeal while maintaining his grip on the GOP base. Trump has tried to improve his dismal standing among minority voters and moderate Republicans in recent weeks, many of whom see birtherism as racially motivated and an insult to Obama.

He is also aiming to take the issue of Obama’s birthplace and legitimacy off the table by the time of the crucial debate with Clinton September 26.

Trump has declined other opportunities during the past two weeks to refute his original birtherism.

When local Philadelphia TV station WPVI asked Trump on September 2 about his past statements, Trump replied: “I don’t talk about it anymore. I told you, I don’t talk about it anymore.”

He repeated the same line when asked about it during a gaggle with reporters aboard his plane last week.

And in an interview with Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly last week, Trump again said, “I don’t bother talking about it.”

Trump’s extraordinary attempt to prove Obama was not a natural-born US citizen and was therefore not qualified to be president started on the conservative fringe but gathered momentum and became a major issue. The White House initially tried to ignore the birtherism movement as the work of conspiracy theorists, but Trump’s huge media profile propelled the issue through conservative media and it eventually gained traction.

The saga only ended in a surreal and extraordinary moment in American politics when the sitting President went to the White House briefing room in April 2011 and produced his long-form birth certificate.

‘Sideshows and carnival barkers’

“We’re not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers,” Obama said at the time, in a clear reference to Trump.

In his statement Thursday night, Trump spokesman Jason Miller said, “Mr. Trump did a great service to the President and the country by bringing closure to the issue that Hillary Clinton and her team first raised.”

He was referring to a controversy from the 2008 Democratic primary fight between Obama and Clinton. In a March 2008 interview with “60 Minutes,” Clinton said she took then-Sen. Obama’s word that he was not a Muslim, but when pressed if she believed he was, she replied, “No. No, there is nothing to base that on — as far as I know.”

Clinton, however, was not questioning Obama’s birthplace.

Clinton slammed Trump’s comments to the Post while speaking at a Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute event in Washington Thursday, saying he needs to stop his “ugliness” and “bigotry.”

“He was asked one more time: Where was President Obama born? And he still wouldn’t say Hawaii. He still wouldn’t say America. This man wants to be our next president? When will he stop this ugliness, this bigotry?” she said. “This is the best he can do. This is who he is. And so we need to decide who we are.”

Clinton’s campaign later tweeted, “President Obama’s successor cannot and will not be the man who led the racist birther movement. Period.”

The ‘birther’ controversy

Trump’s embrace of the birther controversy seemed outlandish when it began. In retrospect, it looks like a template for the fact-challenged approach he has adopted in his presidential campaign.

After Obama’s news conference, the real-estate developer claimed credit for getting the President to produce evidence of his birthplace.

“Today I’m very proud of myself because I’ve accomplished something that nobody else was able to accomplish,” Trump said in New Hampshire, after Obama’s news conference.

In subsequent years, Obama poked fun at the birtherism controversy and used it to ridicule Trump, most memorably in a savage takedown at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner in 2011.

“Now, I know that he’s taken some flak lately, but no one is happier, no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than the Donald,” Obama said.

“And that’s because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter — like, did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?”

(h/t CNN)

Reality

The first idea that Barack Obama was not a naturally born citizen can actually be traced back to 2004 with the loony racist ravings of Judah Benjamin and Andy Martin. But the origins of the birther conspiracy theory for the 2008 presidential cycle did indeed start with supporters of Hillary Clinton, but there is no evidence that it came from Clinton directly. Most of the noise from the idiot birther conspiracy theorists came after Jun 13, 2008, days after Clinton ended her campaign on June 7, 2008.

While it is true there was some hand from Clinton supporters who were not associated with her campaign, the idea that she started it or was “all in” as Trump previously claimed, is pure fiction.

Trump’s Son: Tax Returns ‘Detract’ from Political Message

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Donald Trump’s son has a new reason to explain why his father won’t release his tax returns: They’ll steal from his political message.

“Because he’s got a 12,000-page tax return that would create … financial auditors out of every person in the country asking questions that would detract from (his father’s) main message,” Donald Trump, Jr. told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review in a piece published Wednesday.

That’s a dramatic shift from the Republican nominee’s longtime explanation that an ongoing audit is preventing him from releasing his tax returns. (There are no laws barring Trump from disclosing his tax returns while he is being audited).

The comment reflects the political potency of Trump’s tax returns. There are growing questions about what’s in the documents, including details of investments in foreign countries. House Speaker Paul Ryan, who was the GOP’s vice presidential nominee in 2012, said Thursday that presidential candidates should release their tax returns.

“I released mine,” Ryan said. “I think we should release our returns. I’ll leave it to him when to do it.”

Former Rep. Jack Kingston, a Georgia Republican, sought to connect Trump Jr.’s comments with the campaign’s longtime audit explanation. In a Thursday interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room,” Kingston said releasing the tax returns could influence the IRS audit process.

“If you put it on the table, you’re going to have 300 million Americans second-guessing what is this, what is that?” Kingston said. “That actually, I think, would influence the IRS because they would say, ‘Oh, wait, somebody out in Idaho said this. Somebody in Chicago said that. Somebody in New York said this.’ Then they’re off chasing things.”

Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican, told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Wednesday that putting out the returns would lead to misinterpretations.

“With a $10 billion business, if Donald Trump dumped his taxes out today, there would be all kinds of misinterpretations of that and maybe some real interpretations of that between now and November. That would be the only discussion we’d have,” King, a Trump supporter, said on “New Day.” “So I’d say the window is closed on that but I wish he had done so last March or April.”

Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has released nearly four decades of tax returns.

(h/t CNN)

Reality

Trump had a contradictory position 4 years ago when he demanded Mitt Romney to release his tax returns.

As for the “audit” excuse, the fact remains that this rationale has never made any sense: an IRS audit doesn’t preclude someone from sharing their returns.

Since Watergate, every presidential candidate, Democrat or Republican, has released his or her tax returns. It’s not required by law, but there’s a tradition of disclosure that Americans have come to count on during the presidential vetting process: candidates for the nation’s highest office are expected to release information related to their personal health and their tax filings.

Indeed even Richard Nixon, during his presidency, released his tax materials in the midst of an IRS audit. Trump could, if he wanted to, release these returns whenever he feels like it. For reasons he won’t explain, the GOP candidate just doesn’t want to.

It’s as if the campaign has decided to wave a big, unmistakable sign that reads, “We have something to hide.”

Trump Claims Clinton Coined Term ‘Alt-Right’, This is Not True

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Trump and alt-right mascot Pepe the Frog kissing.

In an interview on Trump’s plane in Canton, Ohio, Trump tried to blame Clinton and her allies for creating the term “alt-right,” although the term has been used within the movement for years.

Clinton and her campaign argue that some Trump backers are racist and misogynistic and have sought to link him to the “alt-right” movement of self-avowed white nationalists, many of whom have rallied around his candidacy.

“The alt-right. You know they came up with the term ‘alt-right.’  I think the term itself is ridiculous. The alt-right. When did it come into existence? It was just made up.”

Later in the interview Trump said he was unconcerned that moderators during the upcoming debates may decide to fact-check during the forums.

“I don’t care. My facts are good. My facts are good. I don’t get enough credit for having my facts right,” Trump said. “They’ll say I’m wrong even when I’m right.”

(h/t Washington Post)

Reality

Trump rarely gets his facts right. We have over 150 instances of Trump not getting his facts right and we’re positive we missed quite a few.

The term “alt-right”, or Alternative Right, was not created by Hillary Clinton but was coined in 2008 by Richard Bertrand Spencer, who heads the white nationalist think tank known as the National Policy Institute, to describe a loose set of far-right ideals centered on “white identity” and the preservation of “Western civilization.

The alt-right movement is associated with white nationalism, white supremacism, antisemitism, right-wing populism, nativism, and the neoreactionary movement and wholeheartedly embrace the overt racism, misogyny, neo-Nazi affectations, bullying and trolling of chan culture as a lifestyle

Donald Trump famously hired alt-right leader and former Breitbart editor as his campaign CEO, signaling his embrace of the movement and pushing hate and racism into the mainstream.

Trump Defiant, Won’t Say Obama Was Born in United States

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Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said in an interview in Canton, Ohio that he remains unwilling to say that President Obama is born in the United States, that he is more bullish than ever on his chances to win and that he is not exploring the launch of a new media company in case he loses the race.

Trump also made a far-from-subtle push — in the interview and in a letter from his doctor released Thursday — to be seen as vigorous and healthy as his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, returned to the campaign trail after being treated for mild pneumonia.

In the interview, conducted late Wednesday aboard his private plane as it idled on the tarmac here, Trump suggested he is not eager to change his pitch or his positions even as he works to reach out to minority voters, many of whom are deeply offended by his long-refuted suggestion that Obama is not a U.S. citizen. Trump refused to say whether he believes Obama was born in Hawaii.

“I’ll answer that question at the right time,” Trump said. “I just don’t want to answer it yet.”

When asked whether his campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, was accurate when she said recently that he now believes Obama was born in this country, Trump responded: “It’s okay. She’s allowed to speak what she thinks. I want to focus on jobs. I want to focus on other things.”

He added: “I don’t talk about it anymore. The reason I don’t is because then everyone is going to be talking about it as opposed to jobs, the military, the vets, security.”

In the interview, Trump defended his wife’s immigration history; attacked targets including CNN host Anderson Cooper and Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.); and said he had been “respectful” since Clinton fell ill but “that doesn’t mean that I’m going to stay there.”

Sitting in his plush, cream-and-gold cabin as his top aides looked on, Trump began by repeatedly recounting his poll numbers, which have ticked up nationally and in some key states.

Trump said a possible turning point in the race came last week when Clinton said that “half” of his supporters belonged in a “basket of deplorables” — a remark she has since said she regrets.

“It’s the single biggest mistake in this political cycle, a massive comment, bigger than 47 percent,” Trump said, a reference to Mitt Romney’s controversial 2012 statement at a fundraiser about voters who receive government benefits or pay little in taxes. “When I first heard it, I couldn’t believe that she said it.”

Clinton and her campaign argue that some Trump backers are racist and misogynistic and have sought to link him to the “alt-right” movement of self-avowed white nationalists, many of whom have rallied around his candidacy.

Trump was a leading and vocal proponent of the debunked conspiracy theory that the nation’s first black president was born overseas and thus not eligible for the White House. Obama released his long-form Hawaiian birth certificate in 2011, but Trump has never disavowed his earlier claims.

(h/t Washington Post)

Reality

First of all, President Obama was born in Hawaii. Shut up.

The first idea that Barack Obama was not a naturally born citizen can actually be traced back to 2004 with the loony racist ravings of Judah Benjamin and Andy Martin. But the origins of the birther conspiracy theory for the 2008 presidential cycle did indeed start with supporters of Hillary Clinton, but there is no evidence that it came from Clinton directly. Most of the noise from the idiot birther conspiracy theorists came after Jun 13, 2008, days after Clinton ended her campaign on June 7, 2008.

While it is true there was some hand from Clinton supporters, the idea that she started it or was “all in” as Trump claimed, is pure fiction.

Donald Trump Jr. Casually Makes A Holocaust Joke

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Donald Trump’s son, a primary surrogate for his presidential candidacy, alluded on Thursday to the mass killing of Jewish people in Nazi Germany while laying out what he sees as a media double standard in campaign coverage.

In an interview with Chris Stigall on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, Donald Trump Jr. made the argument that Republicans would be punished if they lied or schemed in fashions similar to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign. And then he decided to talk about gas chambers.

“The media has been her number one surrogate in this. Without the media, this wouldn’t even be a contest, but the media has built her up,” Trump Jr said. “They’ve let her slide on every indiscrepancy (sic), on every lie, on every DNC game trying to get Bernie Sanders out of this thing. If Republicans were doing that, they’d be warming up the gas chamber right now.”

A reference to gas chambers is the type of remark that under typical campaign conventions would be met with profound rebuke and alarm. But while criticism came in quickly on Twitter, a senior member of the Republican National Committee still blasted out the interview.

Trump Jr. has gone down similar paths before. As the group RightWingWatch noted, he has “posted an image to Instagram that included “Pepe the frog,” which, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, is a meme “constantly used by white supremacists” and “appeared on a radio show with James Edwards, host of the white supremacist radio show Political Cesspool.”

The Trump campaign has also been accused in the past of pushing anti-Semitic memes. Donald Trump himself got into trouble over the summer for tweeting an image of Clinton pasted over money with a Jewish star badge next to her.

(h/t Huffington Post)

Update

Trump Jr. told NBC News that he was referring to corporal punishment, not the Holocaust. The reaction from some anti-Semitic Trump supporters on Twitter, however, suggests that they comfortably took it as a Holocaust reference.

Media

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