Category: Bullying

Donald Trump’s rhetorical style is straight out of middle school. He’s like an eighth-grade girl.

Trump taunts press over North Korea news

Leave a comment

President Trump is back to attacking the press again.

After a series of more subdued tweets about North Korea, the President apparently couldn’t resist taking shots at the media again:

Culminating in…

Trump did get some positive media coverage over this week’s announcement. CNN’s Erin Burnett said Trump could go down as a great president if this is successful, and even Bill Maher said Trump could pull it off while telling liberals to stop “reflexively hating” the idea.

[Mediaite]

Trump says there’s no CHAOS in White House amid unprecedented staff upheaval

Leave a comment

President Trump sought to push back Tuesday on news reports that “chaos” has enveloped his White House, saying staff turnover and infighting are part of the normal course of business.

He also warned that more dismissals may be on the way.

“People will always come & go, and I want strong dialogue before making a final decision,” Trump said in a morning tweet, later adding: “There is no Chaos, only great Energy!”

Amid real and rumored staff departures, Trump also said that “I still have some people that I want to change (always seeking perfection),” but he did not specify who he might be referring to.

Later in the day, during a joint news conference with the prime minister of Sweden, Trump again dismissed the idea of staff turmoil, and said he won’t have any trouble filling all the jobs that have opened up.

While some Republicans in Washington have questioned whether they would like to work in the Trump White House, the president said, “maybe people don’t want to work for Trump,” but “everybody wants to work in the White House.”

Not only does it look good on a resume, Trump said, but the White House is “just a great place to work; it’s got tremendous energy.”

While aides have fought, sometimes publicly, over issues ranging from trade to foreign policy, Trump told reporters that he likes “conflict” among his advisers.

“I like having two people with different points of view, and I certainly have that,” Trump said. “And then I make a decision. But I like watching it. I like seeing it. And I think it’s the best way to go.”

Staff turbulence has been a regular feature of the Trump administration since he took office on Jan. 20, 2017.

Within a month, his national security adviser, Michael Flynn, resigned over claims he had lied to the FBI about contacts with a Russian ambassador; within seven months, his chief staff, press secretary, and two communications directors left amid various disputes; Trump and much of his staff became embroiled in an investigation of Russia influence during the 2016 election.

In the past week, another communications director, long-time aide Hope Hicks, announced her resignation, while aides fought it out in the press over the timing and wisdom of Trump’s plan to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

As aides fought, Trump himself tweeted that “trade wars” would be “good” and “easy to win,” further roiling markets already worried about the impacts of tariffs.

Trump is looking for his fifth communications director; he has had four if you count then-Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who did both jobs before his resignation in July.

Spicer left when Trump brought in Anthony Scaramucci to run communications; he lasted 11 days after getting caught after on tape trashing other White House officials.

After Trump’s denial of chaos, Scaramucci sent out a tweet quoting comedian Mel Brooks: “If you’re quiet, you’re not living. You’ve got to be noisy and colorful and lively.”

[USA Today]

Reality

The Trump White House has had more first-year departures than any other president in at least 40 years.

H.R. McMaster, Rex Tillerson, John McEntee, Gary Cohn, Andrew McCabe all resigned or were fired since this tweet.

Trump claims Obama launched Russia probe to discredit campaign

Leave a comment

President Donald Trump on Monday accused the Obama administration of using the investigation into potential ties between his campaign and Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election to discredit his bid and boost the chances of his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

“Why did the Obama Administration start an investigation into the Trump Campaign (with zero proof of wrongdoing) long before the Election in November? Wanted to discredit so Crooked H would win. Unprecedented. Bigger than Watergate! Plus, Obama did NOTHING about Russian meddling,” Trump tweeted Monday morning.

It’s unclear exactly what pre-election investigation Trump was referring to, though the FBI opened its investigation into the Trump campaign’s links to Russia in July 2016. Then-FBI Director James Comey oversaw that investigation until Trump fired him in May 2017. Shortly after that, former FBI Director Robert Mueller was appointed as special counsel to continue the probe.

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was wiretapped before and after the election. Some of the intelligence collected includes communications that sparked concerns among investigators that Manafort had encouraged the Russians to help with the campaign, three sources familiar with the investigation have told CNN. Two of these sources, however, cautioned that the evidence is not conclusive. Manafort was Trump’s campaign chairman from May to August 2016.

The FBI also eavesdropped on Carter Page, a campaign associate that then candidate Trump once identified as a national security adviser, on suspicions he was acting as a Russian agent. Page stepped away from the campaign in September 2016 amid questions about his Russian ties.

The surveillance of Manafort and Page was approved by the secret court that oversees domestic surveillance of American citizens under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In Page’s case, the FBI and Justice Department presented enough evidence to the court to convince Republican-appointed judges to continue the surveillance into mid-2017.
Trump, who has called the investigation into potential ties between his campaign and Russia a “witch hunt,” has repeatedly slammed the Obama administration’s handling of the Russia investigation, saying it “did nothing.”

Before leaving office, however, Obama applied new economic sanctions on the Russian government, ordered the State Department to shut down Russian compounds in Maryland and New York, and expelled 35 Russian diplomats that he described as “intelligence operatives.”

[CNN]

Reality

Except the investigation into the Trump campaign wouldn’t have happened if Carter Page, George Papadapolous, Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, Donald Trump Jr., and others all had conspired with Russia during the campaign. That happened.

And we’ve been over the claim that Obama did nothing to stop Russian meddling before, and it is a clear lie.

Obama faced Putin and told him “to cut it out”, tried to alert the public with a bi-partisan announcement but was blocked by Mitch McConnell, expelled 35 Russian diplomats and closed two compounds.

‘Is Hillary a happy person? Do you think she’s happy?’ obsessed Trump muses during Mar-a-Lago fundraiser

Leave a comment

Donald Trump is still obsessed with Hillary Clinton.

Despite all his own troubles, the president is still talking to donors about his 2016 opponent, who spends a lot of time hiking in the beautiful woods near her upstate New York home.

“Is Hillary a happy person? Do you think she’s happy?” Trump mused during a speech at Mar-A-Lago, which was recorded and passed to CNN. “When she goes home at night, does she say, ‘What a great life?’ I don’t think so. You never know. I hope she’s happy.”

Elsewhere in the speech, Trump fantasized about the possibility of eliminating political opposition and becoming a dictator. Specially, he praised a power grab by China’s President Xi Jinping.

“He’s now president for life. President for life. No, he’s great,” Trump said. “And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day.”

Trump also criticized his staff and mocked former president George W. Bush as “another real genius” for invading Iraq.

[Raw Story]

Trump Touts Mark Levin Segment to Slam ‘Mainstream Media’: ‘They’ve Gone CRAZY!’

Leave a comment

President Donald Trump threw a jab at his favorite punching bag from Mar-a-Lago on Saturday, taking to Twitter to declare the “Mainstream Media” is “being mocked all over the world.”

Trump’s tweet was in response to one from his adult son, Donald Jr., who was touting a clip from conservative commentator Mark Levin declaring that media attacks on the president are “unparalleled in American history.”

“They’ve gone CRAZY!” Trump wrote of the American media:

Levin, whose Sunday Fox News show debuted last week, argued on his radio show that Trump is facing a degree of criticism from the press that was not seen by his predecessors, Presidents Obama and Clinton.

The president is spending the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. After a visit to the golf course, Trump is expected to speak at a Trump Victory reception, a joint fundraiser for his reelection campaign and the RNC.

Tickets to the event are reportedly set at $2,700, while a reception and a pair of seats at a dinner with Trump will run you $25,000.

[Mediaite]

‘DISGRACEFUL!’ Trump rage tweets at Jeff Sessions for not doing enough to investigate Obama

Leave a comment

President Donald Trump on Wednesday once again publicly attacked his own attorney general for not doing enough to investigate former President Barack Obama.

“Why is A.G. Jeff Sessions asking the Inspector General to investigate potentially massive FISA abuse,” the president asked on Twitter Wednesday morning. “Will take forever, has no prosecutorial power and already late with reports on Comey etc. Isn’t the I.G. an Obama guy?”

Trump then trashed Sessions for not directing his own attorneys at the Department of Justice to investigate Obama themselves.

“Why not use Justice Department lawyers?” he asked. “DISGRACEFUL!”

Trump has not been shy about ripping into his own attorney general for not doing enough to investigate his political foes. Last week, Trump on Twitter told his followers to ask Sessions — whose name the president initially misspelled as “Jeff Session” — why Democrats weren’t being investigated for “crimes” related to Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

And last summer, Trump called Sessions “beleaguered” and “weak” because he was not sufficiently investigating former Democratic rival Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state.

Trump has also raged against Sessions for recusing himself from overseeing the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election after it was revealed that Sessions falsely told the Senate during his confirmation hearing that he had never met with any Russian government officials during the campaign.

[Raw Story]

Trump Rails About Russia, Investigating Clinton’s ‘Criminality’ After Watching Old Fox News Segments

Leave a comment

President Donald Trump’s TiVo was working overtime on Tuesday morning, as it seemed he was catching up on old episodes of Fox News — notably last night’s episode of Martha McCallum’s Fox News show.

The president first took to Twitter to quote Fox News judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano, who said on McCallum’s show Monday night that “someone at the Justice Department has a treasure trove of evidence of Mrs. Clinton’s criminality at her own hands, or through others, that ought to be investigated”:

“I fully agree with the president on that,” Napolitano added.

The former judge was reacting to Trump’s remarks in an interview with Jeanine Pirro from the weekend, in which he called on “you know who” — ostensibly Attorney General Jeff Sessions — to investigate Democrats for alleged misdeeds during the 2016 election.

[Mediaite]

Reality

This is a perfect example of the right-wing feedback loop:

  1. Donald Trump on Fox News says without evidence that Hillary Clinton committed crimes and the Department of Justice should investigate her.
  2. Judge Napolitano appearing on Martha McCallum’s Fox News show reacts to Trump’s claim and agrees with him.
  3. Trump quotes Napolitano as evidence of Clinton wrongdoing.

Peña Nieto calls off visit to White House after confrontational call with Trump

Leave a comment

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has called off an official trip to Washington to meet with President Donald Trump after a tense phone call brought the two leaders to a policy-driven standstill.

Peña Nieto was tentatively planning the trip for March, a White House official said, but the official confirmed to CNN that the trip was put on hold following the phone call, which took place on February 20.

According to The Washington Post, which first reported the cancellation, officials from both countries told the paper that Peña Nieto “called off the plan after Trump would not agree to publicly affirm Mexico’s position that it would not fund construction of a border wall.”

A White House official told CNN that any meeting would be awkward and counterproductive given Trump’s vow that Mexico would pay for the wall.

The official said the call was “less hostile” than the one that occurred between the two leaders a year ago, but “no more productive” than that call either.

At least one Mexican official, who spoke to the Post on the condition of anonymity, said Trump “lost his temper.” US officials described the President as being “frustrated and exasperated, saying Trump believed it was unreasonable for Peña Nieto to expect him to back off his crowd-pleasing campaign promise of forcing Mexico to pay for the wall.”

According to the Post’s report, the two leaders “devoted a considerable portion” of this year’s call to discussing the wall.

According to the paper, officials from both countries confirmed that Peña Nieto’s “desire to avoid public embarrassment — and Trump’s unwillingness to provide that assurance — that proved to be the dealbreaker.”

[CNN]

Trump Misquotes Fox News Anchor to Slam ‘Total Phony’ Schiff: He ‘Omitted and Distorted Key Facts’

Leave a comment

In a botched attempt to use information from Fox News to attack the Democrat’s rebuttal to the infamous GOP memo, President Donald Trump removed numerous words from a quote by one of the network’s anchors to paint Rep. Adam Schiff as “a total phony.”

After spending his Saturday night on Twitter slamming the Democrat’s claims that the FBI and DOJ did not inappropriately target Trump and his allies, the president picked up a quote from Fox News — falsely claiming the network’s anchor said “Congressman Schiff omitted and distorted key facts.”

“‘Congressman Schiff omitted and distorted key facts’ @FoxNews So, what else is new. He is a total phony!” Tweeted Trump.

However, the actual quote from the Fox News report went as follows:

“Congressman Schiff, he argues the Republican memo omitted and distorted key facts — it was initially meant to be mislead the public. And this Democratic memo was supposed to be the rebuttal that was meant to show what was left out. Was the Democratic memo released now, will it be seen as a success? Did they get their point across?”

The irony of Trump misquoting a Fox News anchor to accuse Schiff of omitting and distorting facts was first noticed by CNN media reporter Brian Stelter.

[Mediaite]

Trump says armed school officer in Parkland didn’t ‘love the children’

Leave a comment

President Donald Trump continued to criticize the armed school resource officer in Parkland, Florida, who stayed outside of the school during the shooting, saying during a White House news conference conference that Scot Peterson “doesn’t love the children, probably doesn’t know the children.”

The comments tie into Trump’s push to arm some educators, including teachers, to deter school shootings. Trump has argued that officers outside the school don’t care about the students the same way teachers do.

“We need offensive capability and we are going to be doing something about it,” Trump said.

He added that it is “very, very important that we have offensive capability, as well as defensive capability, within the schools. You really are inviting people to come in and do whatever” without arming educators.

The armed school resource deputy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School waited outside the school building as the shooting unfolded last week, officials said earlier this week. Peterson never went in after taking a position on the west side of the building, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said at a news conference.

Peterson resigned after he was suspended without pay by Israel pending an internal investigation into his actions during the shooting that left 17 people dead, Israel said. Peterson was eligible for retirement.

Trump has seized on the story, slamming Peterson by name in an attempt to prove that more people inside schools needs to be armed in case of a shooting.
Trump told reporters earlier on Friday that Peterson “certainly did a poor job” and was a “coward.”

“He trained his whole life,” Trump said on the South Lawn of the White House. “But when it came time to get in there and do something he didn’t have the courage or something happened. But he certainly did a poor job. There’s no question about that.”

The Peterson story, however, undercuts Trump’s point that an armed official with gun training could have stopped the deadly shooting. Scott was armed and failed to do so.

Trump, asked during his news conference for specific proposals he would push on guns after the Florida shooting, listed improving background checks, getting rid of bump stocks and thwarting the mentally ill from buying weapons.

One thing Trump did not mention: Raising the age limit to buy certain types of weapons, something he has previously proposed. The NRA is against any change to age limits for buying weapons.

Trump also said that he talked to House Speaker Paul Ryan on Friday morning and mentioned speaking to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

[CNN]

1 … 121 122 123 124 125 … 159