In a “Meet the Press” interview with Chuck Todd, Trump expressed ambivalence about allowing Ukraine into NATO.
“I would not care that much to be honest with you. Whether it goes in or doesn’t go in, I wouldn’t care. If it goes in, great. If it doesn’t go in, great. Look, I would support NATO,” Trump said. “Why isn’t Germany, Chuck, leading this charge? Why is the United States? I mean, we’re like the policemen of the world. And why are we leading the charge in Ukraine?”
Reality
Many might agree with Trump’s general point, but it very much matters whether Ukraine is a member of NATO: One of the organization’s founding principles, codified in Article 5 of the treaty, specifies that member countries must take “such action as it deems necessary,” as “an armed attack on one … shall be considered an armed attack on all.” Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea and subsequent meddling in eastern Ukraine could have obligated the United States to come to Ukraine’s defense, were the country a NATO member.
In his interview with Todd, Trump stated that Iran would get to keep its $150 billion from the deal even if it does not live up to it. As Politifact noted, that figure is in line with, but very much on the very highest end of evaluations of the value the regime’s frozen assets as a result of international sanctions. (The general consensus is somewhere in the ballpark of $100 billion, according to experts interviewed by Politifact, though without U.S. participation, the maximum amount Iran could recover is $40 billion.)
“No sanctions relief?” Todd asked.
“‘We will never give you back your money. We will never … give you back your $150 billion. You’re never getting that money back,’” Trump said he would say in negotiations with Iranian leaders.
Donald Trump thinks Megyn Kelly‘s vacation could very well be because of his feud with her over her “inappropriate” questions at the first Republican primary debate.
Kelly asked famously tough questions of Trump during the televised debate, and several days later the real estate mogul made his infamous comment to CNN that she had “blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her… wherever.” Fox News CEO Roger Ailes and Trump eventually had a phone call to “clear the air.”
On Wednesday evening, Kelly told her Kelly File viewers that she will take a long overdue 10-day vacation to spend some time with her husband and children.
Newsmax TV host Steve Malzberg asked Trump: “Do you think there was any connection to have her go away for a while in the wake of what she did?”
The GOP candidate replied: “Well, there probably was, but I wouldn’t know anything about it.” But he added: “People were very surprised that, all the sudden, she decided to go away for 10 days… Some people make those quick decisions.”
Contrary to that, however, a Fox News representative told Mediaite that Kelly’s vacation had been planned long in advance. Nevertheless, Trump said he hopes “she is well” and that she returns to be “fair,” presumably to him.
We’re not Megyn Kelly’s boss so we’re not privy to when she requested her time off. Until actual evidence is presented otherwise we should take Fox News at their word, and their response is actually pretty priceless:
“The conspiracy theories about Megyn Kelly’s vacation rank up there with UFO’s, the moon landing and Elvis being alive. Megyn is on a pre-planned, annual summer vacation with her family, which is much deserved. To imply otherwise as Donald Trump and his campaign operatives have is not only wildly irresponsible, but downright bizarre. Perhaps Mr. Trump thinks it’s advantageous to his poll numbers to keep talking about Megyn, but that doesn’t change the fact that Roger Ailes has fully supported her and her tough journalistic questioning since day one and is thrilled with the added exposure from the debate which resulted in even higher ratings of The Kelly File this week. Anyone who knows Roger is aware of how historically and consistently loyal he is to all of his talent and how he protects them at all costs. As Governor Terry Branstad said today, ‘when you’re a candidate, you’ve got to basically answer the questions. You can’t just attack the person asking the questions. That doesn’t work.’”
NBC joined the list of companies who fired Donald Trump over his comments about Mexicans during his announcement speech.
NBC entertainment chairman, Bob Greenblatt, had two words Thursday on whether Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump would ever return as host of “The Celebrity Apprentice:” Absolutely not.
Greenblatt said that the show will not be back next season, but will return in the future with a new host.
NBC cut ties with Trump in June days after he made critical comments about Mexican immigrants and NBC canceled its airing of the Miss USA pageant, which Univision also decided not to air.
Reality
Some people may argue about “political correctness run amok” but Donald Trump’s comments were clearly racist. Companies do business with more than just white people.
Donald Trump has something to say to Detroit autoworkers: you make too much money. Talking about U.S. vehicle manufacturers moving production to Mexico in an interview with The Detroit News, Trump said this:
He said U.S. automakers could shift production away from Michigan to communities where autoworkers would make less. “You can go to different parts of the United States and then ultimately you’d do full-circle — you’ll come back to Michigan because those guys are going to want their jobs back even if it is less,” Trump said. “We can do the rotation in the United States — it doesn’t have to be in Mexico.”He said that after Michigan “loses a couple of plants — all of sudden you’ll make good deals in your own area.”
Reality
Trump is, of course, dead wrong about this. The article goes on to say, “Although wages are lower at non-union U.S. plants owned by foreign automakers, hourly employees for Detroit’s Big Three are paid the same no matter what state they’re in, under the terms of United Auto Workers contracts.”
It’s not easy to put brash Donald Trump on the spot. But that’s exactly what a young woman did during an event in New Hampshire.
“So, maybe I’m wrong, maybe you can prove me wrong,” said Lauren Batchelder, a student at St. Anselm College in Manchester. “But I don’t think you’re a friend to women.”
It turns out she is a volunteer for the Jeb Bush campaign, though the Bush folks say she attended the event on her own accord. Some Trump supporters suggest the questioner was a plant from the Bush campaign where she has volunteered.
Reality
The Bush campaign says she was at the event on her own and the campaign did not “sanction” her question. That is plausible, but it is also just as plausible that she was a plant.
However that does not matter at all and it (obviously intentionally) redirects attention from the actual argument. Trump has made seriously sexist and misogynist comments over the course of his entire campaign. He is not a friend to women.
Trump said he backs government tax incentives to keep auto production in the United States. He said the U.S. shouldn’t open its market to Japanese imports unless it drops trade barriers.
The United States has lost more than 5 million factory jobs since 2000; Michigan has shed more than one-third of its manufacturing jobs since then. In an appeal to blue-collar workers, Trump vows to keep the more than 12 million manufacturing jobs in the U.S.
“We’ve got to keep (factories) here. It’s not that hard to do,” he said. Without action, he added, “pretty soon all we’re going to have is nursing home jobs.”
Trump has repeatedly said that if elected, he would not allow Ford to open a new plant in Mexico. At his campaign announcement speech in New York in June, Trump said he would call Fields to explain the “bad news.”
“Let me give you the bad news: Every car, every truck and every part manufactured in this plant that comes across the border, we’re going to charge you a 35 percent tax,” Trump said. “They are going to take away thousands of jobs.”
Ford confirmed that Fields sent Trump an email the day after his announcement speech. Spokesman Karl Henkel said: “Mark sent Mr. Trump an email with information about Ford, including the $6.2 billion we have invested in our U.S. plants since 2011 and our hiring of nearly 25,000 U.S. employees. Mr. Trump thanked us for the information and said that Ford is a great company and that he is a Ford customer. We appreciate his kind words.”
Trump said Fields’ email didn’t change his views about the expansion. He called it a “very, very nice letter,” but said it didn’t justify “how it is going to be good for the United States, because that cannot be justified.”
Reality
There is no legal avenue to single out one company for punitive taxes. The highlights Donald Trump’s lack of familiarity with United States laws.
Presidential candidate Donald Trump defended himself from the fierce backlash he’s received for criticizing Fox News debate moderator Megyn Kelly, insisting he said nothing wrong and that he values women.
“Who would say that?” Trump said Sunday. “Do you think I’d make a statement like that? Who would make a statement like that? Only a sick person would even think about that.”
He blamed his Republican presidential opponents for fanning the flames of controversy, and claimed he meant to refer to her “nose and/or ears” — not a woman’s period.
Reality
In the context of the conversation one can extrapolate that Donald Trump was implying Megyn Kelly was angry at him, coincidentally inventing a new idiom about blood and eyes. Regarding the “wherever”, men in the U.S. joke say that women who are menstruating are angrier or more aggressive than they usually are. It doesn’t take a genius to accept that Trump was speaking about Kelly’s lady bits.
He was still angry at Kelly later Friday, delivering bizarre comments on “CNN Tonight” with Don Lemon:
I am very disappointed in Fox News. I think they had an agenda.
I don’t have a lot of respect for Megyn Kelly, she came out, reading her script, trying to be tough and sharp. When you meet her you realize she is not very tough or very sharp. She is zippo.
When asked further about Kelly, who asked the billionaire developer about his previously disparaging comments about women, Trump said:
I just don’t respect her as a journalist. I don’t think she is very good. I think she is highly overrated.
Then went on to say:
You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever.
Trump’s fury was sparked by Kelly’s opening question, asking if calling women “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals” is behavior befitting a president.
Trump quipped that he had only called Rosie O’Donnell those names, but Kelly said he had bad mouthed other women “well beyond” the comedian.
At the first televised Republican debate, moderator Megyn Kelly asked Trump about his treatment of women, citing comments that he allegedly made about various women being “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.”
Following the debate Trump slammed moderator Megyn Kelly on Twitter with a series of horrible tweets. The next day Trump told Good Morning America that he does not remember having said some of the comments disparaging women.
She came up with words that I don’t recognize. Some of the statements she made about the women, I don’t recognize those words whatsoever.
Either Donald Trump does not have the greatest memory ever (which would be a lie) or he is a liar for making his comment that he does not remember insulting women.
According to Vox, who researched and found every comment cited by Kelly was in fact made by Trump and outlined where each of the comments was made, many of the comments were made about Rosie O’Donnell.
