Category: Bullying

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

Trump Ratchets Up U.S.-China Trade War With More Tariffs; Stocks Slide

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President Trump announced Thursday that the United States will impose a new 10% tariff on $300 billion worth of products imported from China, saying Beijing had broken some of the promises it made in trade negotiations.

The new tariffs, which are set to take effect Sept. 1, represent another ratcheting up in trade tensions between the countries and sent stocks falling sharply. 

Major U.S. stock indexes fell about 1% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 280 points. Oil prices tumbled about 8% after Trump’s announcement on concerns that the tariffs would hurt demand.

The move comes days after U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin traveled to Shanghai for a brief meeting about trade with Chinese officials.

The White House said the meeting was “constructive” and negotiations were scheduled to resume in September in Washington, D.C.

But Trump indicated he was disappointed by the lack of progress in the talks, saying China had failed to follow through on promises to curb the sale of fentanyl and buy more products from U.S. farmers.

“Additionally, my friend President Xi said that he would stop the sale of Fentanyl to the United States – this never happened, and many Americans continue to die!” Trump said in a tweet.

Still, the president tried to strike a more positive tone than he has in the past, saying, “We look forward to continuing our positive dialogue with China on a comprehensive Trade Deal, and feel that the future between our two countries will be a very bright one!”

The president has already imposed 25% tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese imports. In May, Trump had threatened additional tariffs but suspended them at the last minute.

Now, he is going ahead with tariffs after all, though at a lower rate than before.

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates for the first time since 2008 amid signs that the economies of the United States and other countries are slowing. The central bank also cited the uncertainty created by the standoff with China.

“Certainly, we’ve seen … that when there’s a sharp confrontation between two large economies, you can see effects on business confidence pretty quickly and on financial markets pretty quickly,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said in a news conference after the interest rate announcement.

Industry groups said the new tariffs will hurt shoppers and threaten jobs.

“We are disappointed the administration is doubling-down on a flawed tariff strategy that is already slowing U.S. economic growth, creating uncertainty and discouraging investment,” David French, vice president of government relations at the National Retail Federation, said in a statement. “These additional tariffs will only threaten U.S. jobs and raise costs for American families on everyday goods.”

Matt Priest, head of the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America, said in a statement: “President Trump is, in effect, using American families as a hostage in his trade war negotiations. Tariffs are taxes and this move will noticeably raise the cost of shoes at retail and will have a chilling effect on hiring in the footwear industry.”

Trump has lately indicated that the U.S. can win a trade war with Beijing, pointing out that China’s economy has been slowing after a long period of rapid growth.

U.S. officials want China to address the theft of intellectual property, stop subsidizing its companies and open its markets to more U.S. goods.

[NPR]

Pentagon puts $10B contract on hold after Trump swipe at Amazon

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The Pentagon is slamming the brakes on its mega-competition to award a $10 billion cloud computing contract after President Donald Trump suggested the Defense Department might have rigged the contest in favor of Amazon, a frequent target of his criticism.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who assumed his post July 23, is now reviewing accusations of unfairness in the fiercely fought competition, the Pentagon announced Thursday, marking the president’s latest incursion into the arcane world of Defense Department contracting. Oracle has reportedly waged an aggressive lobbying campaign to push back on the competition, now pitting Amazon against Microsoft, including talking with members of Congress and preparing a graphic that made its way to the president’s desk.

“Secretary Esper is committed to ensuring our warfighters have the best capabilities, including Artificial Intelligence, to remain the most lethal force in the world, while safeguarding taxpayer dollars,” Elissa Smith, a Pentagon spokesperson, said in a statement Thursday. “Keeping his promise to Members of Congress and the American public, Secretary Esper is looking at the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) program. No decision will be made on the program until he has completed his examination.”

The latest scrape once again pits Trump against Amazon, whose founder and CEO Jeff Bezos also owns The Washington Post and has become a growing powerbroker in the D.C. region.

The review is expected to delay the award of the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, contract, which the Pentagon had hoped to award in August. JEDI would give the Pentagon a single, secure cloud computing system for data ranging from personnel statistics to intelligence information, instead of the more than 500 clouds used by different parts of the military today.

The contracting process has been plagued by controversy that pre-dates Trump’s involvement, including allegations by rival bidders that the competition unfairly favored Amazon because of perceived conflicts of interest. Companies have also raised issues with the Pentagon’s decision to choose just one company for the contract, citing a lack of competition and security concerns. Four companies — Oracle, IBM Corp., Amazon and Microsoft — initially bid for the winner-take-all contract. Amazon and Microsoft are the only two finalists.

[Politico]

Trump parrots Lou Dobbs in flip-flopping attack on his own Fed chairman

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On Wednesday night, President Donald Trump quoted Fox Business’ Lou Dobbs’ attack on Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell for cutting interest rates — ironically, something that he has spent the past several months demanding that Powell should do:

Trump has been at odds with Powell ever since he appointed him to the role in 2018, accusing him of trying to stifle the economy.

[Raw Story]

Trump Claims He’s ‘Least Racist Person’ While Calling Don Lemon ‘Dumbest Man’ On TV

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President Donald Trump lambasted CNN’s Don Lemon as “dumb” and “stupid” after the Democratic debate moderator asked questions about the president’s “bigotry” on Tuesday.

Trump called Lemon, who is black, “the dumbest man on television” on Twitter Wednesday, an insult he has used against the CNN anchor in the past.

The president also insisted he is “the least racist person in the world,” appearing to quote himself. In the last month, he has unleashed racist attacks on four Democratic congresswomen of color, as well as Rep. Elijah Cummings and the predominantly black city of Baltimore.

Lemon asked a series of questions regarding the current administration and race during Tuesday night’s Democratic presidential debate on CNN.

He asked former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, and later former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, about Trump’s race baiting: “President Trump is pursuing a reelection strategy based in part, on racial division. How do you convince primary voters that you’d be the best nominee to take on President Trump and heal the racial divide in America?”

O’Rourke responded that we should “call his racism out for what it is, and also talk about its consequences.”

“It doesn’t just offend our sensibilities to hear him say ‘send her back,’ about a member of Congress, because she’s a woman color, because she’s a Muslim-American, doesn’t just offend our sensibilities when he calls Mexican immigrants ‘rapists and criminals,’ or seeks to ban all Muslims from the shores of a country that’s comprised of people from the world over, from every tradition of faith,” said the Texan.

Lemon also asked Sen. Amy Klobuchar what she’d “say to those Trump voters who prioritize the economy over the president’s bigotry?”

Klobuchar responded that “there are people that voted for Donald Trump before that aren’t racist; they just wanted a better shake in the economy. And so I would appeal to them,” before adding: “I don’t think anyone can justify what this president is doing.”

Trump’s attack on Lemon echoed comments from right-wing commentators, including Fox News’ Howard Kurtz and Laura Ingraham, who questioned why Lemon would say Trump “traffics in racial division.”

O’Rourke tweeted Wednesday that “Donald Trump is a racist,” alongside a video of his response to Lemon’s question.

[Huffington Post]

In C-SPAN Interview, Trump Hits Fox News and John Roberts for Covering Protester at Speech

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President Donald Trump once again complained tonight about Fox News covering a protester at his Jamestown speech this morning.

A Virginia state legislator interrupted the president’s speech in protest of Trump’s “racism and bigotry.”

Trump complained directly to Roberts during a Q&A with reporters this afternoon. Roberts subsequently responded to the president on air saying, “In my 1:00 report, we did not show anything from the president’s speech because we were focused in that report on the ongoing feud between the president and Congressman Elijah Cummings of Maryland and the fallout from that, but it should be pointed out that in our 11:00 hour the Fox News Channel carried that speech in its entirety.”

Whether or not Trump saw that from Roberts, he’s clearly still steamed.

Trump was asked by C-SPAN’s Steve Scully about his tweets on Baltimore and whether he is a uniter as president.

Trump went from talking about the “tremendous divide” between the parties to decrying the “Russian hoax” and defending Mitch McConnell to touting his administration’s accomplishments.

“But they read the tweets,” Scully said. “Do they think you’re a uniter as president?”

Trump said he “wouldn’t need to” tweet if the press covered him fairly.

And then he complained about Fox:

“There was one protester who stood up… he held up a sign and he said whatever he said. Something… I don’t need publicity, Steve, at all, but I just thought it was so terrible, and it was on Fox with John Roberts. He talked about the protester for almost an entire segment of that. And I said isn’t that a shame. One guy stands up, not an impressive person, he stood up and he got all of this –– he took the whole thing away. One person.”

[Mediaite]

Media

Trump Rips NBC for ‘Negative’ Coverage: ‘I Made a Lot of Money’ for Them With The Apprentice

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President Donald Trump sat down with C-SPAN’s Steve Scully for an interview that ended up touching on the media in a few different ways.

As Scully asked the president about his Twitter habits and whether he regrets it, Trump talked about using Twitter as a tool to communicate directly with the people and hit back at the “dishonest” news.

He called CNN “100 percent negative” and then went on a tear against NBC:

“NBC is negative. I made a lot of money for NBC with The Apprentice. It was a tremendous success at a time when they didn’t have any successes. But they forgot about that very quickly. And they wanted to extend me… I wanted to run for president, I think I’ve done a great job.”

[Mediaite]

Media

Donald Trump says he’s not a ‘uniter’ because the media isn’t fair

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President Donald Trump had a unique excuse for why he’s not a more unifying president for all of the United States. It’s due to the media.

In a Tuesday CSPAN interview, Trump told the Congressional TV network that the country wasn’t unified because the media is unfair.

“If I got fair coverage I wouldn’t even have to tweet. It’s my only form of defense,” he told CSPAN.

He also revealed that he’ll be glued to his TV for the Democratic debate on CNN, which means he’ll likely be tweeting along with the show.

“I’ll be watching the debates tonight…I would like to know who I’m going to be running against,” Trump said.

[Raw Story]

Media

Trump grows furious when reporter points out his dismal approval numbers from black Americans

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President Donald Trump on Tuesday grew visibly angry after a reporter informed him that a recent poll showed that the vast majority of black Americans believe he is a racist.

While talking with reporters on the White House lawn, one reporter asked the president why 80 percent of black voters in a Quinnipiac poll said that he was racist. The same poll also showed that 89 percent of black voters said they would “definitely” not vote for Trump in 2020.

The president responded by blaming the reporter.

“You know why? Because the fake news doesn’t report it properly,” Trump said. “People like you! Fake news does not report it properly! If the news reported it properly, the right way, like instead of a statement like you just made, if the news reported it properly for all of the things I’ve done for African-Americans… I think I’d do very well with the African Americans!”

[Raw Story]

Media

Donald Trump rebuffed U.S. airlines and trade adviser in a tense Oval Office meeting

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The three largest U.S. airlines presumed that President Donald Trump would take their side in a ferocious, yearslong dispute with Persian Gulf-based airlines — if they could just get his attention.

They got his attention, by way of TV ads the president saw on Fox News. But when Trump finally gathered executives from both sides of the dispute this month in the Oval Office for a heated, “Apprentice”-worthy showdown, he ultimately sided against them.

During an hour-long session, the president ribbed American Airlines CEO Doug Parker over his company’s flagging stock price, asking why it’s so low at a time when the stock market is surging. He scolded Delta Airlines, whose CEO Ed Bastian did not attend, for buying billions in planes from the European firm Airbus while Qatar Airways is buying its jets from Chicago-based Boeing Co.

And he repeatedly harped on Bastian’s absence, questioning how he could be a no-show after his airline — more than any other — had been fanning the flames of the fight.

“The president kept going back to it,” one person who attended the meeting told NBC News. “There was a lot of yelling.”

The meeting was a stark illustration of the president’s freewheeling decision-making style, particularly in areas like U.S. business where he is most confident in his own instincts.

It was also a steep blow to Peter Navarro, Trump’s trade adviser, who found himself on the losing end of a tug of war with national security adviser John Bolton, National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow and others in Trump’s White House.

This account draws on interviews with 10 individuals, including senior Trump administration officials, airline officials, congressional aides and others who attended or were briefed on the unusual July 18 meeting.

Those individuals, who spoke anonymously because the meeting was intended to be kept private, said nobody knew what the president would do when he sat the CEOs or their representatives from both sides of the dispute down in front of the Oval Office’s Resolute desk and asked them one by one to make their case.

For more than four years, the “Big Three” U.S. carriers — American, Delta and United Airlines — have been waging a bitter battle with Qatar Airways and two Emirati airlines over flights between the U.S. and the lucrative European market. The U.S. carriers argue that the Mideast airlines are heavily government-subsidized and are undercutting them by offering below-market fares on flights that never stop in the Middle East.

Most recently, they’ve turned their focus to Air Italy, which added new flights between Milan and the U.S. after Qatar Airways bought a 49 percent stake. The U.S. carriers say it’s a scheme to circumvent restrictions in the U.S.-Qatar “Open Skies” agreement on civil aviation.

Navarro, Trump’s hard-charging trade adviser known for his staunch protectionist views, has kept the issue alive in the White House after overseeing agreements last year to resolve previous grievances by the U.S. airlines, several administration officials said.

But as the Qataris and the U.S. airlines clashed anew this year over Air Italy, Navarro’s campaign thrust him into conflict with the rest of the White House. It drew the attention of Bolton, who enlisted Kudlow and other agencies to wrest back oversight of the issue from Navarro, people familiar with his efforts said.

[NBC News]

Trump keeps up fight with black community by launching feud with Al Sharpton

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President Donald Trump launched a feud with the Rev. Al Sharpton on Monday, escalating a series of attacks on prominent black leaders and minority progressives.Trump has recently called out minority lawmakers and leaders in an effort to define the Democratic Party and strengthen his base ahead of the 2020 presidential election. His morning tirade against Sharpton, a longtime African-American activist, come after a weekend in which the President repeatedly assailed Maryland Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings, who is black, and the city of Baltimore, parts of which lie in Cummings’ district. Later Monday, Sharpton is set to hold a press conference in Baltimore with former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, a Republican, “to address Trump’s remarks & bi-partisan outrage in the black community.”In his tweets on Monday, Trump called Sharpton a “con man, a troublemaker” who “Hates Whites & Cops!” He also claimed that during the 2016 election, Sharpton visited him at Trump Tower “to apologize for the way he was talking about me.”

In response, Sharpton tweeted a photo of Trump speaking to him, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the late James Brown, writing, “Trump at (National Action Network) Convention 2006 telling James Brown and Jesse Jackson why he respects my work. Different tune now.” Sharpton did not address Trump’s specific claims in Monday’s tweets.

Trump ignited a racial controversy earlier this month when he repeatedly used racist language to attack four minority Democratic lawmakers. Trump has denied accusations of racism, but he hasn’t apologized for his language. On Saturday, Trump lashed out at Cummings, the House Oversight chairman who recently lambasted conditions at the border, suggesting that conditions in Cummings’ district, which is majority black and includes parts of Baltimore, are “FAR WORSE and more dangerous” than those at the US-Mexico border and called it a “very dangerous & filthy place.”

In response, Cummings tweeted that “Each morning, I wake up, and I go and fight for my neighbors. It is my constitutional duty to conduct oversight of the Executive Branch. But, it is my moral duty to fight for my constituents.”

[CNN]

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