Category: Policies

Trump to press: ‘I consider you a part of the Democrat Party’

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A combative President Trump initially deflected questions about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh during a White House press conference on trade, and also accused reporters of working for the Democratic Party.

During an extended attack on Democrats for their handling of Kavanaugh, Trump accused the media of taking the party’s side.

“I consider you a part of the Democrat Party,” Trump said.

Trump shot down questions three times from reporters on Kavanaugh following remarks in the Rose Garden, instead demanding they first ask questions about the newly negotiated version of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

He signaled he would eventually take questions on Kavanaugh, but didn’t do so until almost an hour into the press conference.

“What does that have to do with trade?” he said when asked by ABC reporter Cecilia Vega about his tweets on Kavanaugh. “I don’t mind answering the question, but I’d like to do the trade questions, too.”

“We’ll do the Kavanaugh questions,” he told another reporter shortly after.

When a third reporter sought to ask him about Kavanaugh — and from CNN, one of the president’s usual media targets — Trump grew irritated.

“Don’t do that,” Trump told CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins when she tried to ask about reports the White House had put limits on the FBI investigation into sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh. “Excuse me, do you have a question on trade?”

When Collins persisted, Trump directed another reporter to be given the microphone and ask a question on trade.

When he agreed to take questions on the controversy surrounding his Supreme Court pick, Trump criticized reports that the White House had not allowed the FBI to interview accuser Julie Swetnick as inaccurate.

Trump insisted he was deferring to the Senate on the investigation, saying he wants it to be “comprehensive” but completed quickly.

Throughout the news conference, Trump continued to squabble with reporters and accuse the press of misleading coverage, charges that have become a hallmark of Trump’s presidency. He accused the press of treating him “unbelievably unfairly.”

“You’ve had enough,” Trump told Collins at a later point, refusing to take another question from her about Kavanaugh.

[The Hill]

Donald Trump Contradicts Brett Kavanaugh, Saying Nominee Admitted to ‘Difficulty’ With Drinking as Young Man

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President Donald Trump appeared Monday to contradict the testimony and public comments by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh about his drinking during his high school and college days, with the president stating Kavanaugh had noted he had “difficulty as a young man.”

Trump defended Kavanaugh, stating he had been forthright with the Senate Judiciary Committee despite attacks from Democrats. The president said that Kavanaugh had explained his drinking as having “difficulty as a young man with drink…He was very strong on the fact that he drank a lot.”

However, Kavanaugh had stated before the committee on Friday and during his interview with Fox News a week ago that his drinking was not overly excessive and was in line with his peers.

“And yes, there were parties. And the drinking age was 18, and yes, the seniors were legal and had beer there. And yes, people might have had too many beers on occasion and people generally in high school—I think all of us have probably done things we look back on in high school and regret or cringe a bit, but that’s not what we’re talking about,” Kavanaugh told Fox.

Kavanaugh also told Fox that he never drank to the point of blacking out, which he also reiterated to the committee during his often combative testimony and defense.

“Sometimes I had too many beers. Sometimes others did. I liked beer. I still like beer. But I did not drink beer to the point of blacking out, and I never sexually assaulted anyone,” Kavanaugh said in his statement.

The federal judge was also grilled by senators about his drinking and he repeatedly said he had never blacked out or did not drink to the point that he could not remember what happened the evening before.

Trump was also asked if the allegations of sexual assault against Kavanaugh were proved to be true by the FBI’s current investigation would he consider pulling support for Kavanaugh.

The president said he was “open” but vehemently defended Kavanaugh. He challenged the way in which Democrats had conducted themselves during the confirmation process while blasting numerous senators like Diane Feinstein and Cory Booker, and even claimed to know of a Democratic senator in “very very bad situations … somewhat compromising.” Trump did not name the senator and said he would save the answer “for a book like everybody else.”

Trump’s press conference Monday was originally planned to discuss a new trade deal with Mexico and Canada, and the president fought off questions about Kavanaugh until he could answer inquiries about the trade deal.

[Newsweek]

Media

Trump Insults ABC Reporter, Saying She ‘Never’ Thinks

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President Donald Trump insulted a female reporter for ABC News on Monday during a Rose Garden news conference, telling her that she “never” thinks even before she had a chance to ask her question.

As the reporter, Cecilia Vega, turned to retrieve a microphone to ask Trump a question, Trump joked “she’s shocked that I picked her. Like in a state of shock.”

Vega responded, “I’m not, thank you Mr. President.”

Trump appeared to misunderstand her. “That’s OK, I know you’re not thinking, you never do.”

“I’m sorry?” she responded.

“No, go ahead. Go ahead,” Trump said.

Vega tried to ask a question about the FBI investigation of sexual assault allegations against Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, but the president initially insisted she ask about trade. He returned to Vega later for a Kavanaugh question.

“A news conference means you get to ask whatever question you want to ask,” Vega tweeted later, adding the hashtag “#FirstAmendment.”

[Bloomberg]

Media

Trump Says He and Kim Jong Un ‘Fell in Love’

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Donald Trump has been fawning, to some degree or other, over Kim Jong Un ever since he met with the North Korean dictator back in June: praising him for being such a “strong head” of his regime, bragging about their “very good relationship,” and gushing about how much they “like each other.”

But over the weekend, the president suggested their bond goes even deeper than that—which is to say that the two of them “fell in love.”

According to the Associated Press, Trump devoted a good chunk of his rally in West Virginia on Saturday to discussing his special connection with Kim, at one point screaming “I like him, he likes me!” before going on to explain just how close they’ve grown since their summit in Singapore.

“When I did it—and I was really being tough, and so was he, and we would go back and forth—and then we fell in love,” Trump said. “OK? No, really. He wrote me beautiful letters. And they’re great letters. We fell in love.”

The comment seemed to be a reference to a note Kim sent Trump back in July, in which the despot addressed Trump as “Your Excellency”—a correspondence so nice, Trump ignored the fact that North Korea had reportedly begun developing an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of striking the US. It’s just one example of how Kim hasn’t followed through on plans for nuclear deescalation, but Trump has kept on singing his praises anyway, moving right along with plans to meet with Kim for a second summit.

In his time as North Korea’s leader, Kim has reportedly executed hundreds of people, allegedly had his own half-brother assassinated, and detained tens of thousands of political dissidents in prison

—among many other atrocities. But somehow, that hasn’t stopped Trump from turning their bromance into a campaign talking point in the Heartland.

[Vice]

Trump anti-discrimination official once called most hate crimes hoaxes

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A senior Trump appointee responsible for enforcing laws against financial discrimination once questioned in blog posts written under a pen name if using the n-word was inherently racist and claimed that the great majority of hate crimes were hoaxes.

Eric Blankenstein, a policy director at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, expressed those and other controversial views more than a decade ago on a political blog he co-authored with two other anonymous contributors.

In a 2004 post, Blankenstein wrote that a proposal at the University of Virginia to impose harsher academic penalties for acts of intolerance was “racial idiocy.” He questioned how authorities could know the motivation of someone using a racial slur.

“Fine . . . let’s say they called him n—– ,” he wrote, spelling out the slur. “. . . would that make them racists, or just a——-?”

Blankenstein also wrote that “hate-crime hoaxes are about three times as prevalent as actual hate crimes.”

The details about Blankenstein’s blog have not been previously reported. He wrote under the name “egb3r,” an alias built from his initials. The Washington Post verified the writer is Blankenstein by examining biographical details in the blog that include his age, his graduation from the University of Virginia, the date of his marriage and a reference to his father, a lawyer.

In a statement, Blankenstein acknowledged that he had written the posts but said they have no bearing on his work today. “The insight to be gained about how I perform my job today – by reading snippets of 14 year old blog posts that have nothing to do with consumer protection law — is exactly zero,” he said.

“Any attempt to do so is a naked exercise in bad faith, and represents another nail in the coffin of civil discourse and the ability to reasonably disagree over questions of law and policy,” he said. “The need to dig up statements I wrote as a 25 year old shows that in the eyes of my critics I am not guilty of a legal infraction or neglect of my duties, but rather just governing while conservative.”

Blankenstein, 39, is one of several Trump appointees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency created by President Barack Obama following the 2008 financial meltdown. He is among the highest paid employees in the government, earning $259,500, records show.

He is responsible for supervising lenders and enforcing an array of consumer protection laws, including the four-decade-old Equal Credit Opportunity Act, landmark civil rights legislation aimed at protecting blacks and other minorities from discriminatory practices and promoting “fair lending.”

[Washington Post]

The EPA Will Dissolve Its Science Advisory Office

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The Environmental Protection Agency will eliminate the Office of the Science Advisor, an entity within the agency that works to ensure its policies and decisions are based on quality science. The New York Times reports that the scientific advisory position, which currently reports directly to the head of the EPA, will be merged into another office — the Office of Research and Development. “It’s certainly a pretty big demotion, a pretty big burying of this office,” Michael Halpern, deputy director of the Center for Science and Democracy with the Union of Concerned Scientists, told the publication. “Everything from research on chemicals and health, to peer-review testing to data analysis would inevitably suffer.”

This is just the latest in a series of moves that have weakened the EPA and shifted its focus from science-driven policy to a relaxing of environmental protection regulations. The agency pulled information on climate change from its website after the Trump administration took over. It also stopped sponsoring the Climate Leadership Awards program, prohibited its scientists from giving talks on climate change and has proposed severe restrictions on what research can be used to inform regulations. Further, under the leadership of a climate change denier, it has made moves to repeal the Clean Power Plan and roll back fuel efficiency standards.

These actions haven’t gone without push back, however. A number of states have sued the EPA over both its decision to lift a ban on ozone-damaging hydrofluorocarbons and its gutting of fuel efficiency standards. The EPA’s Scientific Advisory Board also voted earlier this year to review many of the agency’s proposals.

When asked about the decision to dissolve the Office of the Science Advisor, an EPA spokesperson sent the New York Times a statement that said the move would “eliminate redundancies.” Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, who currently serves as both the agency’s science advisor and the deputy assistant administrator of the Office of Research Development, has been with the agency since 1981.

In a prepared statement Orme-Zavaleta said the move would “combine offices with similar functions” and that “the assistant administrator for [the Office of Research and Development] has customarily served as the EPA science advisor which will continue to be the case.” The EPA currently does not have an assistant administrator for that office. Among the programs housed by the Office of the Science Advisor, whose fates now remain unclear, are the Science and Technology Policy Council and the Scientific Integrity Office.

In a separate move, the EPA also put the head of its Office of Children’s Health Protection on administrative leave, a decision it said was not disciplinary. In an email obtained by CNN, the office’s director, Ruth Etzel, said the action was intended to “cause chaos” and undermine the office’s work.

[Engadget]

Trump ‘went off’ on French president during face-to-face meeting

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US President Donald Trump was “ranting and venting on trade” to French President Emmanuel Macron during their bilateral meeting Monday evening, according to a senior diplomatic source.

Trump lambasted the European Union for its trade policies, saying it was worse than China — a complaint that the US president made to his French counterpart in an April meeting at the White House.

The source described Trump as “going off” on EU trade during his meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. Trump said that the EU had to open up on agriculture — a continued point of contention in trade negotiations between the two entities. Macron was respectful to Trump and pushed back some on the topic but moved the conversation forward, the source said.

There was “some rapport” between the two, “but it’s not what it (once) was,” the source said.

Trump and Macron also talked about Iran and North Korea, during which Trump expressed his views in what the source described as “very predictable terms.”

The next day, Macron delivered a pointed rebuke to Trump in his speech at the UN General Assembly, both directly and implicitly criticizing the administration for its policies on Iran, climate change, the UN, migration and Mideast peace.

Macron began by telling the assembly that the world order based on sovereignty and equality among nations that came into being in the 1600s was facing a “far-reaching crisis,” and said the answer lay in cooperation and collaboration among nations.

“Nationalism always leads to defeat,” said Macron, who couched his remarks in the historical context of Europe’s world wars. “If courage is lacking in the defense of fundamental principles, international order becomes fragile and this can lead as we have already seen twice, to global war. We saw that with our very own eyes.”

On trade, Macron declared, “bilateral agreements, new protectionisms, will not work.”

The French President has made no secret of his disagreements with the US President. In April, during Macron’s first state visit as president to the US, he contradicted Trump on several fronts in a speech before Congress.

“There is no planet B,” Macron told lawmakers, referring to Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement.

Macron’s visit to the White House in April also included efforts to persuade Trump to save the Iran deal, which the US President ultimately announced his intention to withdraw from in May.

Before the cracks started to appear in their relationship, Macron had been dubbed by some observers as the “Trump whisperer,” after the two appeared to form a close bond during Trump’s visit to Paris last year.

[CNN]

Trump regrets not firing Comey when Obama was still in office: ‘I should have fired him the day I won the primaries’

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President Donald Trump displayed a deep misunderstanding of his own authority Tuesday, bemoaning that he didn’t fire FBI Director James Comey back when he won the Republican primary, or at least after the Republican convention, in an interview with the Hill.

Barack Obama was still President during both of those events and vested with the power to fire Comey.

“If I did one mistake with Comey, I should have fired him before I got here. I should have fired him the day I won the primaries,” Trump told the Hill. “I should have fired him right after the convention, say I don’t want that guy. Or at least fired him the first day on the job. I would have been better off firing him or putting out a statement that I don’t want him there when I get there.”

Trump also mentioned that he is ordering the declassification of documents related to the Russia probe because exposing it as a partisan “hoax” would be a “crowning achievement” of his presidency.

“I hope to be able to call this, along with tax cuts and regulation and all the things I’ve done … in its own way this might be the most important thing because this was corrupt,” he added to the Hill.

He went on to say that his own FBI is working against him and trying to undermine his presidency.

“What we have now is an insurance policy,” the Trump told the Hill. “But it has been totally discredited, even Democrats agree that it has been discredited. They are not going to admit to it, but it has been totally discredited. I think, frankly, more so by text than by documents.”

He concluded that he hoped to “expose” the FBI as “truly a cancer in our country.”

[Business Insider]

After Trump Swipes at ‘Failing’ NYT in Presser, Reporter Responds: We’re ‘Thriving Not Failing’

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President Donald Trump took a few shots at the “failing” New York Times during his press conference today, and a Times reporter responded when Trump finally let him have a question.

Trump went on a tangent about the Times minutes earlier, and reporter Mark Landler jumped in to get Trump to give the Times a question.

Landler took a moment to tell Trump, “We’re kind of thriving, not failing these days.”

“You’re doing very well,” the President said. “Say thank you, Mr. Trump.”

Landler responded, “I think I’ll stop short of that.”

Trump teed off on the “negative” stories he gets from the Times before saying “I still love the paper.”

Landler proceeded to ask Trump about China.

[Mediaite]

Trump on world leaders laughing during UN speech: ‘They were laughing with me’

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President Donald Trump called reports that world leaders laughed during his speech to the United Nations “fake news” during a news conference Wednesday.

“They weren’t laughing at me, they were laughing with me,” Trump told reporters Wednesday.

The president’s speech Tuesday began with him saying his administration “has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country.”

The comment was followed by laughter from diplomats in the crowd and Trump saying, “I didn’t expect that reaction, but that’s OK.”

The president said the laughter was taken out of context and covered unfairly in the media.

“Well that’s fake news,” the president said. “That’s fake news and it was covered that way.”

He said the leaders “respect what I’ve done” and the crowd was having “a good time with me.”

“I said our country is now stronger than ever before, it’s true,” the president said. “And I heard a little rustle and I said it’s true and I heard smiles.”

When laughter was heard, Trump says the crowd was laughing along with him.

“We had fun,” Trump said. “They weren’t laughing at me.”

Trump’s message was an echo of comments made by UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, who said the laughs were made because world leaders love “how honest he is.”

Haley said on Fox News that the press was wrong to portray the laughter as disrespectful to the president.

“They loved how honest he is,” Haley said on the Fox and Friends show. “It’s not diplomatic and they find it funny.”

She said diplomats were “falling over themselves” to get a picture with Trump and tell him “how great his speech was.”

“They love that he’s honest with them and they’ve never seen anything like it, so there’s respect there,” she said. “I saw that the media was trying to make it something disrespectful. That’s not what it was. They love to be with him.

[USA Today]

Reality

Diplomats said they were definitely laughing at Trump at the United Nations.

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