Category: Bullying

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

Trump Shouted Down CNN’s Jim Acosta As ‘Fake News’ Then Took a Question From Breitbart

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One of the stranger moments in Wednesday’s deeply strange Donald Trump press conference came when the president-elect got into a shouting match with CNN’s Jim Acosta, who was trying to ask him a question.

Earlier in the presser — his first one since July — Trump had attacked CNN for disseminating “fake news” because it broke the story that both the sitting president and the president-elect had been briefed on allegations that Russia has “compromising personal and financial information” regarding Trump.

“Since you’re attacking us, can you give us a question?” Acosta asked during a Q&A portion of the presser. Trump replied, “Not you, not you, your organization is terrible.”

“I am not going to give you a question,” the president-elect said. “You are fake news.”

You can watch their full exchange here:

Acosta later said that incoming White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer had threatened to boot him from the press conference if he attempted to ask another question.

During an on-air segment following the press conference, CNN’s Jake Tapper — one of the journalists who wrote the initial report on the allegations — pointed out that his network had not disseminated uncorroborated rumors, as Trump had suggested. Instead, the CNN report acknowledges the existence of the rumors and reports that both Trump and Obama had received briefings on them from the U.S. intelligence community. The specific details of the rumors came from a document Buzzfeed posted in full later Tuesday evening, a move that Tapper described as irresponsible.

“What I suspect we are seeing here is an attempt to discredit legitimate, responsible attempts to report on this incoming administration with irresponsible journalism that hurts us all, and the media going forward should keep that in mind,” said Tapper of Trump’s attempt to conflate the decisions made by Buzzfeed and CNN.

Shortly after he successfully shouted down Acosta, Trump took a question from Breitbart News — a website closely associated with the white nationalist “alt-right,” and an avid promulgator of misleading or inaccurate information that supports hard-right beliefs. Trump’s top adviser, Steve Bannon, is the former chairman of Breitbart.

Here’s the question Trump took from Breitbart: “[With] all the problems that we’ve seen throughout the media over the course of the election, what reforms do you recommend for this industry here?”

(h/t Think Progress)

Trump Fires Back at Meryl Streep Over Her Comments at Golden Globes

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Donald Trump fired back at actress Meryl Streep on Twitter over her comments about him at the Golden Globes Sunday night, referring to her as “over-rated” and a “Hillary flunky” and complaining that, although she doesn’t know him, she attacked him.

Mr. Trump said much the same thing to the Times on Monday, adding, “And remember, Meryl Streep introduced Hillary Clinton at her convention (the Democratic National Convention), and a lot of these people supported Hillary.”

Streep, who was presented with the Cecil B. DeMille Award at Sunday night’s ceremony, took the president-elect to task during her acceptance speech over his remarks during the presidential campaign about a disabled New York Times reporter.

The actress called it “the one performance this year that stunned me sank its hooks into my heart.”

“It kind of broke my heart when I saw it, and I can’t get it out of my head, because it wasn’t in a movie. It was real life,” Streep said. “And this instinct — to humiliate — when it’s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody’s life, because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing.”

During the campaign, Mr. Trump had criticized Kovaleski for backing away from a 2001 story that suggested Arab-Americans in Jersey City may have celebrated the 9/11 the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.  Mr. Trump hunched his shoulders and moved his arms in apparent imitation of the reporter, saying “the poor guy. You ought to see this guy. ‘Oh, I don’t know what I said! Ah, I don’t remember”’

Mr. Trump has denied repeatedly that he was mocking Kovaleski for his disability.

(h/t CBS News)

Trump: Only ‘Stupid People’ Don’t Want a Good Relationship With Russia

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President-elect Donald Trump is hitting Twitter hard on Saturday, one day after the release of an intelligence report that concluded Russia interfered in the U.S. presidential election with the intention of helping him win.

After two earlier tweets that criticized Democrats and downplayed Russia’s role in the election, Trump tweeted that “only ‘stupid’ people” do not want a good relationship with Russia, adding that the United States has “enough problems around the world.”

“Having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. Only ‘stupid’ people, or fools, would think that it is bad! We have enough problems around the world without yet another one. When I am President, Russia will respect us far more than they do now and both countries will, perhaps, work together to solve some of the many great and pressing problems and issues of the WORLD!” the president-elect wrote on Twitter early Saturday.

On Friday, the Intelligence Community released a declassified report that concluded Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign to help Trump win the White House.

“Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary [Hillary] Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump,” the report said.

Trump, who signaled throughout his presidential campaign that he was open to warmer relations with the Kremlin, has criticized United States intelligence agencies over reports about Russia’s cyber activity.

Earlier on Saturday, the president-elect said that there is “no evidence” Russia’s cyber activities affected the election outcome.

“Intelligence stated very strongly there was absolutely no evidence that hacking affected the election results. Voting machines not touched!” he wrote on Twitter.

The Intelligence Community’s report notes that it did not analyze the impact of Russia’s actions.

“We did not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcome of the 2016 election. The US Intelligence Community is charged with monitoring and assessing the intentions, capabilities, and actions of foreign actors; it does not analyze US political processes or US public opinion,” the report said.

(h/t The Hill)

Trump Kicks Critic Off His Golf Course

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Trump golfing in the rain

President-elect Donald Trump on Friday ejected from his West Palm Beach golf course one of his most critical biographers, Harry Hurt III, who had been preparing to play in a foursome with billionaire mega-donor David Koch.

Hurt is the author of “Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump,” a 1993 book that revealed among other things that Trump was accused of “rape” by his ex-wife Ivana Trump in a sworn deposition during their divorce proceedings.

Donald Trump has denied the allegation, as well as other parts of the book, and Ivana Trump herself later said that she did not intend for her use of the word “rape” to be interpreted in “a literal or criminal sense.”

On Friday, Hurt approached Trump on the practice tee at Trump International Golf Club, and congratulated him on his victory in last month’s presidential election, according to an account that Hurt posted on Facebook on Saturday.

Trump responded by criticizing Hurt’s biography as untrue, to which Hurt replied “It’s all true,” according to both Hurt’s Facebook post and a transition official who was briefed on the incident, but did not want to be identified discussing a testy exchange involving the president-elect.

Trump told Hurt “you’re out of here,” according to the transition official, while Hurt wrote on Facebook that Trump told him it was “inappropriate” for him to play at the club.

David Koch could be reached for comment, and the Trump transition team declined to comment.

Hurt told POLITICO in an interview that he approached Trump “out of courtesy and respect for the office of the President of the United States … I support the office of the President of the United States, and I sincerely hope that Donald Trump will look after the interests of the United States with the same passion as he has looked after his business interests heretofore.”

The various accounts given to POLITICO diverge after the initial interaction between Hurt and Trump.

Hurt’s Facebook post says that Trump “had his security detail escort Hurt, Koch, and their playing partners to the parking lot,” and that Koch “was appalled,” and criticized Trump as “petty” and “vulgar.”

Another member of the Hurt-Koch foursome, fellow GOP donor John M. Damgard, told POLITICO that neither he nor Koch were privy to Hurt’s exchange with Trump, and that Hurt didn’t recount it to them in any detail.

“Harry just said he had been asked to leave,” said Damgard, a former president of the Futures Industry Association who has a house in Palm Beach. “I thought he was kidding. And then I learned that there had been some previous bad blood between them from back in the ‘90s apparently,” Damgard said, adding, “Unbeknownst to us, he had written a book or an article that was critical of Trump.”

So, Damgard continued, “rather than exacerbate something that wasn’t going to go very well, we just decided to get into the car and leave.”

A Koch associate told POLITICO that when Hurt returned from his exchange with Trump, he offered to take an Uber home and allow the rest of the foursome to continue playing without him.

“And David said, ‘No, we came as a foursome and we’ll leave as a foursome,’” said the Koch associate, who was briefed on the incident.

Koch is a member of the golf club, said his associate, adding that Koch and Hurt are “golfing buddies” who have “known each other for years.” The associate said that the final member of the foursome was someone invited by Hurt who boasts of having a scratch handicap and may have been giving golf lessons to the person.

The Koch associate said Hurt had only approached the president-elect “as a courtesy.”

And Damgard said, “Harry was with a young lady who was a friend and he thought it would be fun to introduce her to the president-elect.”

But the transition official described Hurt as “trying to instigate,” and said that, instead of leaving after the exchange with Trump, the biographer returned to his foursome as they waited to tee off.

“The course security actually had to go and tap him on the shoulder and tell him to leave,” said the transition official. Koch protested that Hurt was part of his foursome, said the transition official, who said that security informed Koch that he could either leave with Hurt or play without him.

Damgard denies this, saying, “We had no interaction with security.”

And Hurt told POLITICO “There was nobody tapping me on the shoulder, nobody forcing me out.” He said the reason he did not leave immediately after Trump asked him to do so was that “We had to go collect our stuff.”

Hurt said he posted his account on Facebook “to have a true factual narrative of what happened when I was there between Donald Trump and me.” He said “I knew that this story was going to get out and that there are a lot of people, such as the Trump transition people … who were going to take different facts and twist them and say things that were not true.”

But the transition official suggested Hurt was looking for publicity. “The courtesy would have been to just tee off with David Koch and keep to yourself,” said the official. “He could have easily teed off with Koch, and nobody would have said anything.”

Instead, Koch’s foursome left and played at Emerald Dunes, which Hurt described in his Facebook post as “a much, much better golf course than Trump International.”

Damgard, on the other hand, said that Trump’s West Palm Beach course is “one of [Koch’s] very favorite golf courses,” adding, “if he had thought that there would have been an incident, he would have done whatever he could to avoid it.”

The Koch associate said that Koch “will continue to golf” at the Trump course, and didn’t anticipate that the incident would pose any problems between Koch and the president-elect.

But Trump and Koch have recent history.

Koch, a billionaire industrialist, with his brother Charles Koch spearheads arguably the most influential network of donors and advocacy groups on the right. But the brothers sat out the presidential election out of distaste for both Trump and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

Charles Koch once likened the choice between Trump and Clinton to choosing between cancer or a heart attack. Trump in turn boasted that the Kochs could not influence him because he didn’t “want their money or anything else from them.”

When Trump and David Koch encountered one another last week at the president-elect’s luxury Mar-A-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Trump referenced the brothers’ sitting out the campaign, according to a transition team source.

Trump Tweets New Years Greetings in Most Childish Way

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President-elect Donald Trump tweeted New Year wishes on Saturday morning, and didn’t forget about what he called his “many enemies.”

“Happy New Year to all, including to my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don’t know what to do,” Trump wrote, adding his love at the end.

Trump: Vanity Fair is ‘dead’

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President-elect Donald Trump took aim at a new media target Thursday morning, writing on Twitter that Vanity Fair magazine is “dead” and its editor has “no talent.”

The magazine has been regularly critical of Trump throughout his candidacy and into his transition, publishing stories this week headlined “someone has finally agreed to perform at Donald Trump inauguration” and “Trump Grill could be the worst restaurant in America.”

Trump shot back at the magazine Thursday morning, asking his followers, “has anyone looked at the really poor numbers of @VanityFair Magazine. Way down, big trouble, dead! Graydon Carter, no talent, will be out!”

Carter, the long-serving editor of Vanity Fair, is credited with originating a popular joke about the size of Trump’s hands. The Manhattan billionaire was regularly referred to as a “short-fingered vulgarian” in the pages of now-defunct Spy magazine, which was co-founded by Carter. Sen. Marco Rubio cracked a joke about Trump’s hands during the Republican presidential primary, prompting Trump to hold up his hands at a GOP debate and say “Look at these hands. Are these small hands? And he referred to my hands if they’re small, something else must be small. I guarantee you there’s no problem. I guarantee you.”

Vanity Fair is the latest addition to a long list of media outlets attacked by Trump, including POLITICO, The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, The Washington Post and NBC News.

(h/t Politico)

Trump Attacks Union Boss Who Fact Checked Him

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Chuck Jones, president of United Steelworkers Local 1999, has been critical of Trump’s claim to have saved 1,100 jobs at the Indianapolis plant since Tuesday.But shortly after Jones appeared on CNN’s “Erin Burnett Out Front” program Wednesday night, the president-elect appeared to blame union leaders like him for companies leaving the U.S.

“Chuck Jones, who is President of United Steelworkers 1999, has done a terrible job representing workers. No wonder companies flee country!” Trump wrote.

He followed up with another attack just over an hour later: “If United Steelworkers 1999 was any good, they would have kept those jobs in Indiana.”

Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who is also the governor of Indiana, gave a very different description of the union back in March. He tweeted a photo of a meeting he had about Carrier with Jones and Local 1999 members, calling them “hardworking.”

Jones has complained that Trump has fallen short of his campaign promise to keep Carrier from moving 1,400 jobs to Mexico.

“You made a promise to keep all these jobs. You half-way delivered,” Jones told CNNMoney in an interview earlier Wednesday. “We expect you go back and keep all the jobs.”

Jones added that Trump should also help the 350 workers at an Indianapolis plant owned by another company, Rexnord, which is also slated to move to Mexico. Workers there are also members of USW Local 1999.

“Trump said no companies would be allowed to go to Mexico,” Jones said. “There are more than 300 people over there at Rexnord. He needs to deliver for them as well.”

Jones did not get to speak with Trump when the President-elect visited Carrier last week. But he said he was angry when Trump praised Carrier for “keeping 1,100 people” in jobs that won’t move to Mexico. The real number is 800.

To get the higher number, Carrier and Trump are counting 300 administrative and engineering jobs at a different facility in Indianapolis that were never at risk of being shipped to Mexico.

Carrier is still shifting about 600 jobs building fan coils to Mexico sometime next year. Under the deal with Trump, Carrier only agreed to keep the part of the plant that builds furnaces open, saving the 800 jobs in Indianapolis.

Carrier confirmed to CNNMoney on Friday that it never planned to move the 300 administrative and engineering positions.

“He’s lying his a– off,” Jones said about Trump’s claim of saving 1,100 jobs. “That’s not just my feeling. The numbers prove he’s lying his a– off. It’s a damn shame when you come in and make a false statements like that.”

Later Wednesday Jones elaborated in an interview with Erin Burnett.

Jones said many of the workers whose jobs may now be saved are grateful to Trump, but that some workers who are still worried about losing their jobs are angry.

“We have a lot of our members, when word was coming out… they thought they would have a job. Then they found out Friday, that most likely they weren’t,” he said.

Burnett asked if Jones thought Trump should apologize, and he said, “I think he ought to make sure he gets all the facts straight before he starts talking about what he’s done.”

“I’m extremely grateful for what he did. There’s 800 people who have jobs… It’s not all one sided. I just wished it had been handled in more of a professional matter.”

The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment about the jobs still moving to Mexico.

Jones said he hopes the company will offer workers the chance to leave voluntarily with the severance package that was previously negotiated — one week of pay for every year of service.

Ideally, more senior workers at the plant would take the package and retire, which would save the jobs of younger workers. The plant has a large number of senior employees.

“For workers who have 40 years in and were getting close to retirement, that 40 weeks pay might look pretty good,” Jones said. But severance talks have yet to start.

(h/t CNN)

Update

Jones wrote a follow-up explaining his side.

Trump: ‘I Would Have Far Less Reason to Tweet’ If the Media Covered Me ‘Honorably’

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Twitter

President-elect Donald Trump tweeted Monday that he’d have “far less” of a reason to use Twitter if he received what he believed to be more fair coverage.

“If the press would cover me accurately & honorably, I would have far less reason to ‘tweet,'” Trump tweeted. “Sadly, I don’t know if that will ever happen!”

Trump used the social-media platform to bash NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” as “unwatchable” and “totally biased” for a skit in which Alec Baldwin impersonated the Manhattan billionaire and his tweeting habits.

“The Baldwin impersonation just can’t get any worse. Sad!” Trump tweeted.

He also used Twitter recently to defend himself for what he described as a congratulatory from the president of Taiwan. The call, which broke decades of US foreign-policy orthodoxy, was the first communication between the leaders of the two countries since 1979 and risked angering the Chinese government.

As is typically the case when Trump criticizes the media, he did not point out anything that was inaccurately reported but merely sowed doubt about whether the media was being forthcoming regarding its coverage of him.

(h/t Business Insider)

Reality

If only the press would stop reporting on the lies he makes…

Donald Trump Angrily Tweeted About the SNL Sketch About Him Tweeting

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President-elect Donald Trump unleashed another tweet of rage targeting “Saturday Night Live” — slamming the show as “unwatchable” and “totally biased.”

“Just tried watching Satruday Night Live – unwatchable!” he tweeted just after midnight on Sunday. “Totally biased, not funny and the Baldwin impersonation just can’t get any worse.”

“Sad,” he added.

He posted it after a sketch on Saturday night made fun of Trump’s persistent use of Twitter. The clip featured Alec Baldwin, playing Mr. Trump, obsessively retweeting other users.

“There is a reason actually that Donald tweets so much,” said Kate McKinnon, playing Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway in the sketch. “He does it to distract the media from his business conflicts and all the very scary people in his Cabinet.”

Baldwin and McKinnon have both been celebrated for their impressions on the comedy show, which has a history of poking fun at everyone, including politicians, through impersonations.

(h/t CBS News)

Media

Trump Tweets New Voter Fraud Claims, Blasts CNN, But Offers No Evidence

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Donald Trump lashed out on Twitter Monday night and into early Tuesday morning over a CNN report refuting his unsubstantiated claims of mass voter fraud on Election Day.

The report by CNN senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny, airing on “Anderson Cooper 360” earlier Monday, dismissed Trump’s assertion that he “won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally” as “blatant and baseless” and accused Trump of acting as a “sore winner.” Zeleny also highlighted that the president-elect had yet to provide any “hard evidence” to back up his “staggering claims of fraud.”

In response, Trump fired off a series of tweets aimed at CNN and Zeleny, some original and some retweets of his online supporters, including one user who apparently is a teenager.

“CNN is so embarrassed by their total (100%) support of Hillary Clinton, and yet her loss in a landslide, that they don’t know what to do,” the president-elect said.

Quoting a tweet directed at Zeleny that panned him as “just another generic CNN part time wannabe journalist,” Trump added: “CNN still doesn’t get it. They will never learn!”

In another quoted tweet, Trump cited a 16-year-old Twitter user who cast Zeleny as a “bad reporter.”

Zeleny replied: “Good evening! Have been looking for examples of voter fraud. Please send our way. Full-time journalist here still working.”

Trump continued his criticism into Tuesday morning, tweeting at 6:34 a.m.: “I thought that @CNN would get better after they failed so badly in their support of Hillary Clinton however, since election, they are worse!”

Trump’s Sunday claim of mass voter fraud in California, Virginia and New Hampshire was rebuffed by officials in all three states Monday.

“We have heard claims like this in the past, relative to our elections, but we have been provided no evidence that suggests that there is voter fraud on a widespread scale in New Hampshire,” David Scanlan, New Hampshire’s deputy secretary of state, told POLITICO in a phone interview Monday.

(h/t Politico)

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