Category: Attack the Press

Trump lashes out at Fox News coverage: ‘I won every one of my debates’

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President Trump on Thursday lashed out after a segment on Fox News’s “Your World with Cavuto,” in which RealClearPolitics associate editor A.B. Stoddard compared former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s debate performance to “cringe-worthy” moments Trump has had on the debate stage.

“There were many bombs,” Stoddard, a former associate editor at The Hill, said on Fox News, while analyzing Bloomberg’s debate performance.

“I think he’s uncoachable. I think that Donald Trump had disastrous debate performances, many answers were so cringe-worthy you just couldn’t believe he was still standing on the stage, and he’s president so I don’t think debates kill off normal candidates who do not have a billionaire juggernaut machine,” Stoddard added.

Trump promptly took to Twitter to attack the commentator, as well as host Neil Cavuto, while taking a swipe at former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who is now on the board of Fox News.

“Could somebody at @foxnews please explain to Trump hater A.B. Stoddard (zero talent!) and @TeamCavuto, that I won every one of my debates, from beginning to end. Check the polls taken immediately after the debates. The debates got me elected. Must be Fox Board Member Paul Ryan!” Trump tweeted.

Cavuto later responded on air to Trump’s tweet.

“He heard A.B. Stoddard and tweeted out this, that she’s a Trump hater and that ‘I won every’ debate the last go around. You can read that as well as I. But, just to point out, he did not. When you look at polls that came out from Fox, NBC, CNN, Politico, YouGov and a host of others, the initial read was that he had failed to do well in those debates. He ultimately won, but he didn’t poll well in those debates.”

Trump has focused many of his recent attacks on Bloomberg, often referring to him as “mini Mike” in tweet storms.

During Wednesday night’s debate, after Bloomberg said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) had no “chance whatsoever” of defeating Trump, the president responded on Twitter: “Mini, there’s even less chance, especially after watching your debate performance last night, of you winning the Democrat nomination…But I hope you do!”

[The Hill]

Trump Insists Real Photo Revealing His Fake Tan Is Fake

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Last night, an especially grotesque photo of President Trump began to circulate online. The image, taken by photographer and apparent Trump enthusiast William Moon, showed the sunset-lit president with the wind sweeping his hair back, revealing an especially striking contrast between whatever fake tan or coloration he uses and the ghostly pallor of the skin bordering his hair:

Moon also posted an even more disturbing black-and-white version:

The photo became an instant meme, and so irked Trump that he insisted it was “fake news,” and complained that his opponents would do “anything to demean” him:

Some suspect the images were altered, but Moon posted other photos from the scene, and after comparing his with press-pool shots of the moment, it seems apparent that the wind did indeed expose the fault line in Trump’s orange coloring:

https://www.instagram.com/p/B8SEry-pySm/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

It is of course hilarious that Trump would complain that he is being demeaned on the basis of his appearance. He has spent his entire career as a celebrity put-down artist, sexual harasser, and politician who relentlessly demeans his targets based on their bodies. He is especially cruel to women, having called his former lover Stormy Daniels “Horseface,” mocked Carly Fiorina as ugly (“Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?” Mr. Trump said during an interview with Rolling Stone magazine. “I mean, she’s a woman, and I’m not supposed to say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?”), and belittled such targets as Heidi Cruz, Rosie O’Donnell, and many others.

Trump likewise has mocked Jerry Nadler as fat; sundry opponents, like Marco Rubio, Adam Schiff, and Michael Bloomberg, as short; and had a period of fixating on the allegedly narrow size of Schiff’s neck.

Trump himself places more importance on appearance than any president in history, and perhaps any powerful person who does not work in modeling, television, or film. He staffs his administration in large part based on their appearance. He blocked a second term for Janet Yellen in part because she was too short, initially hesitated to hire John Bolton due to his mustache, and constantly praises the officials surrounding him because they look like they come from “central casting” — the job criteria he most values.

Yet Trump himself is not a central-casting pick for his job. (He was cast for the role of president in Sharknado 3, but he was tabbed to play himself, and tragically turned down the offer at the last minute because he decided to run for real president.) Despite being a tall, white male — the traditional American cultural norm for his position — his appearance is nonetheless anything but “presidential.”

He has to avoid wind, or guard against it by wearing a hat, lest it turn his combover into comic, flapping yellow wings:

As for his orange color, Trump is clearly aware that it creates a strange look, but he oddly blames it on newfangled light bulbs, and seems to believe that rolling back bulb efficiency standards will make his skin look normal again.

Trump’s superficiality is the main problem. That a president would bully others based on their appearance, and select his aides on their looks, is one of his many utterly disqualifying character traits. But as bad as it may be that the president does this, what tips it from the infuriating to the absurd is the fact that the body-shamer-in-chief is also quite possibly the most ridiculous-looking president in American history.

[The New Yorker]

Trump justifies firing Alexander Vindman for being “insubordinate”

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President Trump tweeted on Saturday morning to explain why he fired national security official Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who had testified before the House Intelligence Committee that the president’s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was “improper.”

“I don’t know [Vindman], never spoke to him or met him (I don’t believe!) but, he was very insubordinate, reported contents of my ‘perfect’ calls incorrectly…….and was given a horrendous report by his superior, the man he reported to, who publicly stated that Vindman had problems with judgement, adhering to the chain of command and leaking information. In other words, ‘OUT.'”

Context: Vindman was fired on Friday just before U.S. ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland was dismissed. The firings took place two days after Trump was acquitted by the Senate.

  • Trump “expressed deep anger … over the attempt to remove him from office because of his actions toward Ukraine,” the Washington Post writes.

[Axios]

Reality

If any other person in America retaliated against witnesses like Donald Trump is doing, they would be in jail. But today we have a monarch.

Pompeo says denying credentials to NPR sends “perfect message about press freedoms”

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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended the State Department’s decision to deny NPR press credentials for his trip to Europe following his confrontation with reporter Mary Louise Kelly, stating in an interview in Kazakhstan Sunday that it sends “a perfect message about press freedoms” to the world.

The backdrop: In an NPR interview in January, Kelly pressed Pompeo about his reluctance to defend former Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch after she was the victim of a smear campaign. After the interview ended, Kelly says Pompeo took her into his private living room and berated her, asking if she could even find Ukraine on a map.

  • After Kelly went public about the episode, Pompeo released a statement accusing her of lying to him, claiming the interview was “another example of how unhinged the media has become in its quest to hurt President Trump and this Administration.”
  • The State Department later denied an NPR reporter press credentials to cover his trip to Europe.

https://twitter.com/RFERL/status/1224028787190484993

What he’s saying: During an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Pompeo denied that he had a confrontational interview with Kelly and said the State Department only grants press credentials when it believes reporters are “telling the truth and being honest,” according to a transcript.

  • “I always bring a big press contingent, but we ask for certain sets of behaviors, and that’s simply telling the truth and being honest. And when they’ll do that, they get to participate, and if they don’t, it’s just not appropriate — frankly, it’s not fair to the rest of the journalists who are participating alongside them,” Pompeo said.

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

[Axios]

White House excludes CNN from annual pre-SOTU lunch with news anchors

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President Donald Trump’s targeting of CNN is moving to yet another arena: The annual presidential lunch with television network anchors.CNN anchors are being excluded from Tuesday’s lunch, three sources said on Monday night.Trump, like presidents before him, typically invites anchors from all the major networks to dine with him at the White House in advance of his State of the Union address. The lunch conversation is considered off the record, but it gives the anchors a sense of the president’s state of mind before they anchor SOTU coverage. “Despite Trump’s persistent attacks on the news media, he’s kept up such traditions,” Politico pointed out last year.CNN’s Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer attended last year’s lunch. Blitzer has been attending these lunches longer than almost any other anchor — 20 years in a row.

Journalists from other networks are still planning on attending Tuesday’s session, according to sources at those networks.This is the first time in recent memory that a president has singled out one network and opted to not invite any anchors from there.White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham did not respond to a request for comment on Monday night.The president has directed his ire at CNN dozens of times over the past three years. He has declined all of CNN’s requests to sit down with him for an interview and has denigrated both the network as a whole and some of its individual journalists. His administration also suspended chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta’s press pass until a federal court ruled in CNN’s favor.

[CNN]

Trump praises Pompeo for confrontation with NPR reporter: ‘You did a good job on her’

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President Donald Trump on Tuesday praised Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for his testy confrontation with an NPR journalist last week, saying Pompeo “did a good job on her.”

The remark — which drew raucous laughter in the East Room — came after Trump offered appreciation for Pompeo at the rollout of the White House’s Middle East peace plan.

Pompeo received a standing ovation at the event, leading the president to say, “Whoa,” as Pompeo waved to the room. “That was very impressive, Mike.”

“That reporter couldn’t have done too good a job on you yesterday,” Trump said. “I think you did a good job on her, actually.”

NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly has alleged Pompeo exploded at her after an interview on Friday, shouting and swearing in his private living room at the State Department after she asked a series of probing questions about Ukraine.

Pompeo then reportedly asked aides to provide a blank map and made the host of “All Things Considered” point out the Ukraine, the country at the center of the Trump impeachment drama.

“Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?” Pompeo allegedly asked.

Kelly said he used the F-word in that moment and at other points in their conversation. The journalist, who has a master’s degree in European Studies from Cambridge University, said she correctly identified Ukraine.

Pompeo issued his own statement on Saturday accusing Kelly of lying and suggesting the reporter said the post-interview conversation would be off the record. Pompeo also said Kelly pointed to Bangladesh instead of Ukraine.

In an op-ed published Tuesday night in The New York Times, Kelly reflected on the now-infamous interview, hoping to draw focus back to the contents of the exchange. Before asking about Ukraine, Kelly asked Pompeo a number of questions on U.S. foreign policy in Iran. In her op-ed, Kelly wanted to emphasize the risky escalations between the two countries that have manifested in strikes on military targets and heated threats.

“The point is that recently the risk of miscalculation — of two old adversaries misreading each other and accidentally escalating into armed confrontation — has felt very real,” she wrote. “It occurs to me that swapping insults through interviews with journalists such as me might, terrifyingly, be as close as the top diplomats of the United States and Iran came to communicating this month.”

Tensions escalated Monday when veteran NPR reporter Michele Kelemen was removed from the list of reporters authorized to fly with Pompeo on his trip to Eastern Europe.

The State Department Correspondents’ Association condemned Kelemen’s removal in a statement on Monday, saying her exclusion was in retaliation for Pompeo’s exchange with Kelly. The White House Correspondents’ Association also responded Tuesday, calling the “punitive” action taken against NPR “outrageous and contrary to American values.”

“The WCHA calls on the State Department to reverse this ill-conceived decision,” the statement said. “We stand with our colleagues at NPR and the State Department Correspondents’ Association.”

[Politico]

State Department Bars NPR Reporter from Flying with Pompeo

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The State Department has denied a National Public Radio reporter a seat aboard Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s plane for an upcoming trip to Europe and Central Asia, the decision coming a few days after Pompeo lashed out at another NPR reporter.

NPR said in a statement Monday that correspondent Michele Kelemen wasn’t given a reason for being barred from the flight. The State Department declined to comment.

The State Department Correspondents’ Association said the decision to deny Kelemen a seat on Pompeo’s plane led it to conclude that “the State Department is retaliating” against NPR. The group asked the agency to reconsider and allow Kelemen to join Pompeo.

In an interview Friday, Pompeo responded testily when NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly asked him about Ukraine and, specifically, whether he defended or should have defended Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador in Kyiv whose ouster figured in President Donald Trump’s impeachment.

Kelly said that after the NPR interview she was taken to Pompeo’s private living room, where he shouted at her “for about the same amount of time as the interview itself” and cursed repeatedly.

Pompeo responded Saturday that Kelly had “lied” to him, and he called her conduct “shameful.” NPR said it stood by Kelly’s reporting.

In its statement Monday, the correspondents’ group said Kelemen “is a consummate professional who has covered the State Department for nearly two decades. We respectfully ask the State Department to reconsider and allow Michele to travel on the plane for this trip.”

Ben Wizner, director of the Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project for the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement: “The State Department cannot retaliate against a news outlet because one of its reporters asked tough questions. It is the job of reporters to ask the tough questions, not be polite company.”

[Snopes]

Donald Trump Tweets His Defense by Attacking AOC

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President Donald Trump’s lawyers, who launched his defense at his impeachment trial in the Senate Saturday morning, have claimed that they will respond substantively to Democrats’ methodical case for why the president should be removed from office. But shortly before the Senate convened for the first day of the White House defense, the president teed up the proceedings with a tweet strong on name calling and short on evidence. 

His targets include two lawmakers, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Alexandra  Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who have no role in the impeachment trial. Trump also posted tweets quoting Fox Business News host Lou Dobbs praising him. 

Trump’s defenders thus far have not disputed the facts of the case against him. Senate Republicans have complained about comments by Democratic impeachment managers and launched attacks on President Obama’s foreign policy and other topics that are at best tangental. Trump’s lawyers on Saturday have said they will focus on Vice President Joe Biden’s actions related to Ukraine in 2016, and that the president did “nothing wrong. White House counsel Pat Cipollone promised in his opening remarks that Trump’s team will focus on evidence that the House impeachment managers did not include. But their boss appears to have another strategy.

[Mother Jones]

Trump issues veiled threat at NPR after Pompeo blow-up with reporter over Ukraine

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President Donald Trump issued a veiled threat against National Public Radio on Sunday morning, just days after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went on an expletive-filled rant at an NPR reporter that she revealed to the public afterward.

On Sunday, the president retweeted Fox News host Mark Levin who argued, “Why does NPR still exist? We have thousands of radio stations in the U.S. Plus Satellite radio. Podcasts. Why are we paying for this big-government, Democrat Party propaganda operation.”

To which the president added, “A very good question!”

You can see the tweet below:

[Raw Story]

Pompeo explodes at NPR reporter, asks if she could find Ukraine on a map (She did)

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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reportedly lashed out at a reporter for NPR after an interview in which he was questioned about Ukraine and issues that are at the center of the impeachment trial against President Trump.

NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly said during a segment on “All Things Considered” on Friday that Pompeo forcefully questioned whether Americans care about Ukraine and if the veteran journalist — who had recently returned from reporting in Iran — could find the former soviet country on a map.

“He asked, ‘Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?’ He used the F-word in that sentence and many others,” Kelly told her co-host Ari Shapiro, according to a transcript of the program.

“He asked if I could find Ukraine on a map. I said yes, and he called out for aides to bring us a map of the world with no writing. I pointed to Ukraine. He put the map away.”

“He said, ‘People will hear about this,’” Kelly recounted.

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The secretary is expected to travel to Ukraine on Thursday, committing to a trip that was postponed in December over increasing tensions between the U.S. and Iran.

Pompeo is a key figure in the impeachment trial against Trump following testimony from multiple officials about an effort by the president’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, to push for the removal of then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch in order to clear the way to pressure the Ukrainian government to announce investigations that would politically benefit Trump.

The secretary has been accused of failing to protect Yovanovitch from a smear campaign spearheaded by Giuliani. He has also been implicated in green-lighting Giuliani’s shadow foreign policy in Ukraine, with U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland testified that “everyone was in the loop.”

Kelly asked Pompeo if he tried to block Giuliani’s efforts in Ukraine.

“The Ukraine policy has been run from the Department of State for the entire time that I have been here,” Pompeo responded. “I’ve been clear about that, I know exactly what we were doing, I know precisely what the direction our State Department gave to our officials around the world about how to manage our Ukraine policy.”

Pompeo has rarely given media interviews to mainstream outlets, typically speaking with conservative news or local outlets when traveling outside of Washington. The secretary said he agreed to sit down with NPR’s Kelly to discuss the administration’s strategy on Iran.

Kelly was recently in Tehran and reported on the fallout surrounding the U.S. targeted killing of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani.

“You know, I agreed to come on your show today to talk about Iran,” Pompeo said when asked if he owed Yovanovitch an apology. “That’s what I intend to do.”

“I have defended every State Department official. We’ve built a great team,” he added.

Pompeo has said in previous media interviews that the State Department is obligated to launch an investigation surrounding the allegations that Yovanovitch was surveilled but has provided no details of any inquiries.

Pompeo grew increasingly irate when Kelly pressed him on his failure to speak out in defense of Yovanovitch after relentless public attacks on her professionalism and character led to her removal.

“Can you point me toward your remarks where you have defended Marie Yovanovitch?” Kelly asked.

“I’ve said all I’m going to say today,” Pompeo answered. “Thank you. Thanks for the repeated opportunity to do so. I appreciate that.”

[The Hill]

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