President Donald Trumpsat down with Reuters’ White House reportersfor a robust Oval Office interview on the same day that the politically assassinated Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was featured on TIME’s Person of the Year issue.
Despite CIA findings that strongly suggest the Saudi Crown PrinceMohammed bin Salman was behind the murder, and a recently entered bipartisan Senate Resolution condemning MBS’s alleged role in Khashoggi’s death, Trump is standing by the burgeoning leader of the Saudi Royal family, close political ally and suspected business partner for the Trump family business.
Reuters journalists Roberta Rampton, Jeff Mason, and Steve Hollandsat with the Commander in Chief, and among the many news items to emerge is Trump’s steadfast support of MBS.
A report with bylines of Rampton and Holland claimed: “Trump refused to comment on whether Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was complicit in the murder, but he provided perhaps his most explicit show of support for the prince since Khashoggi’s death more than two months ago.”
Trump is quoted as defending his position, saying “He’s the leader of Saudi Arabia. They’ve been a very good ally.”
The White House and State Department have shown consistent support of the Saudi leader despite political pressure from leaked CIA reports and Congressional leaders of both parties. The article reports that, when asked “if standing by the kingdom meant standing by” the Crown Prince, Trump responded: “Well, at this moment, it certainly does.”
Reuters reporters followed by asking if Trump believes that his continued support is critical to MBS ascension to King, as some in the Saudi Royal family are reportedly “agitating to prevent MBS from becoming king, sources close to the royal court have told Reuters, and believe that the United States and Trump could play a determining role.”
Trump responded that he was unaware of that adding, “Honestly, I can’t comment on it because I had not heard that at all. In fact, if anything, I’ve heard that he’s very strongly in power.”
President Donald Trump spoke to reporters again this afternoon following his contentious public spat with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi on the border wall and a possible government shutdown.
Trump directly said he would be “proud” to shut down the government in the name of fighting for border security.
During a bill signing this afternoon, Trump said the meeting was “very friendly” and stood by his comments. When asked about owning the idea of a shutdown, he said, “I don’t mind.”
He elaborated:
“I don’t mind having the issue of border security on my side. If we have to close down the country over border security, I actually like that in terms of an issue, but I don’t want it to be an issue, I want it to be something that the country needs… We need border security, and part of border security is a wall. So I don’t mind owning that issue.”
And if the fight is on border security, Trump added, “I think I win that every single time.”
A US judge has ordered porn actress Stormy Daniels to reimburse President Donald Trump’s legal fees after her defamation case was thrown out.
Ms Daniels, who says she had sex with Mr Trump in 2006, sued him after he mocked her claim that a stranger had threatened her to keep quiet.
On Tuesday, a judge ordered her to pay over $293,052.33 (£234,000) – roughly 75% of Mr Trump’s legal fees.
A lawyer for Mr Trump celebrated the ruling as a “total victory”.
In Tuesday’s ruling, Los Angeles Judge James Otero declined to impose the “significant additional sanctions” requested by the US president’s legal team against Ms Daniels.
Mr Trump’s attorney, Charles Harder, had earlier requested that Ms Daniels be forced to pay almost $800,000 after her lawsuit was dismissed in October.
He said on Tuesday that the penalty includes $1,000 for having filed a “meritless” case.
“The court’s order,” Mr Harder said, “along with the court’s prior order dismissing Stormy Daniels’ defamation case against the President, together constitute a total victory for the President, and a total defeat for Stormy Daniels in this case.”
Ms Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, said in a tweet that the ruling “will never hold up on appeal”.
Mr Avenatti is representing Ms Daniels in another lawsuit against Mr Trump and his former attorney Michael Cohen.
The adult film actress is seeking to void a nondisclosure agreement about her alleged affair with the president.
What was the defamation case about?
Ms Daniels, real name Stephanie Clifford, said last April that she had been threatened by a man in a car park to keep quiet about the alleged affair.
She shared a sketch of the man who she claimed had threatened her and her child.
Mr Trump retweeted the image, calling it a “total con job”, and describing the image as being of a “non-existent man”.
She sued arguing that the president’s tweet was defamatory as it accused Ms Daniels of “committing a serious crime” – namely, falsely accusing a person of threatening her.
But in October, the judge ruled that Mr Trump’s tweet was protected under the First Amendment, which guarantees the right to freedom of speech.
The judge said Mr Trump’s tweet was merely a “hyperbolic statement” against a political antagonist.
After that initial court victory, Mr Trump promptly took to Twitter, saying his legal team could now “go after Horseface and her 3rd rate lawyer”.
Who is else is involved?
Mr Trump’s former personal attorney, Mr Cohen, will be sentenced in New York on Wednesday for paying Ms Daniels $130,000 to keep the alleged liaison private.
According to prosecutors, Mr Cohen was directed to make the payment to Ms Daniels – and to another woman – by Mr Trump.
Mr Trump has acknowledged the payment was made, describing it only this week as “a simple private transaction”, though he denies having a sexual relationship with her.
Mr Cohen has admitted the payment, which was not reported to election officials, was a violation of campaign finance laws.
President Donald Trump says in a new interview that he is not concerned about being impeached by Democrats, saying, “I think that the people would revolt if that happened.”
In a Reuters interview Tuesday, Trump spoke out for the first time about new documents filed by prosecutors detailing the alleged crimes of his former lawyer, Michael Cohen. Cohen has said he made hush payments to two women accusing Trump of infidelity in the waning days of the 2016 campaign.
Asked if he discussed campaign finance law with Cohen, Trump tells Reuters: “Michael Cohen is a lawyer. I assume he would know what he’s doing.”
He adds: “Number one, it wasn’t a campaign contribution. If it were, it’s only civil, and even if it’s only civil, there was no violation based on what we did. OK?”
Over the weekend, former FBI Director James Comey made some comments about President Donald Trump‘s unacceptable behavior and how voters can stand up to it and vote him out of office, explicitly saying the Democrats “have to win” in 2020.
Comey’s comments have gotten a lot of attention in the past few days, and after today’s wild on-camera skirmish with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), President Donald Trump took to Twitter to blast Comey and say that he exposed himself as a Democrat who shouldn’t have been in charge of the FBI:
James Comey just totally exposed his partisan stance by urging his fellow Democrats to take back the White House in 2020. In other words, he is and has been a Democrat. Comey had no right heading the FBI at any time, but especially after his mind exploded!
President Donald Trump held a press conference Tuesday afternoon to address an earlier contentious meeting with Democrats Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
“Believe or not it was actually a friendly meeting,” Trump said.
He reiterated the idea that Congress is on the cusp of passing criminal justice reform and a farm bill. Trump then somewhat reluctantly added border security to the list. Earlier in the day Schumer and Pelosi clashed with the president over funding for a border wall.
Trump threatened to shut down the government over the wall.
“It’s common sense, the country needs it,” Trump added.
“We need border security and part of border security is a wall,” the president added.
“I think it was a very friendly meeting,” President Donald Trump says after his contentious exchange with Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer at the White House pic.twitter.com/dL1qT5O89D
President Donald Trump is willing to shut down the government if he doesn’t get funding for “the wall” on the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump said throughout the 2016 campaign that Mexico would pay for his wall, but now he’s saddling the American taxpayer with the cost as part of the next government funding bill.
Yet, when the cameras were off, CNN reporter Josh Dawsey tweeted that Trump told the two Democratic leaders that Mexico would still be paying for the wall because it was folded into the new NAFTA bill.
Trump got Mexico and Canada to sign a “new NAFTA” last week, but Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau humiliated Trump at the time for the agreement being essentially the same as the old NAFTA.
If it was true that the new NAFTA paid for the wall, it’s unclear why Trump still needs the funds from the American taxpayer.
President Donald Trump and Democrats Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi bickered at length on Tuesday in an explosive public meeting at the White House over the president’s promised border wall and threat to shut down the government if Congress doesn’t fund it.
“If we don’t get what we want one way or the other … I will shut down the government,” Trump said during a highly unusual fight that played out in front of the press before the official meeting began. “I am proud to shut down the government for border security. … I will take the mantle of shutting it down.”
If Trump and Congress can’t agree to a funding bill by Dec. 21, large parts of the federal government will run out of operating authority. The Defense Department, however, is funded through the end of next September.
Trump said it was unlikely that he would strike a deal Tuesday with Pelosi, a California Democrat who is expected to become House speaker next month, and Schumer, a New York Democrat who is the Senate minority leader.
“We may not have an agreement today,” he said. “We probably won’t.”
The House Freedom Caucus, a group of Trump’s Republican allies in Congress, demanded Monday night that $5 billion be included for the wall in any spending bill, while the Democratic leaders have been open to accepting less than $2 billion.
Earlier in the day, according to two sources who spoke to NBC News on the condition of anonymity, Pelosi told House Democrats that she and Schumer would offer the president a deal to pass six appropriations bills and a yearlong extension of current funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
Short of that, she said, they would agree to a basic extension of funding through Sept. 30, 2019, for all seven appropriations bills, including the one that funds Homeland Security.
Before Trump took ownership of a possible shutdown, Pelosi took an early dig at him in her opening remarks and noted that his party still controls both the House and Senate until January.
“We must keep the government open,” she said. “We cannot have a Trump shutdown.”
“A what?” he snapped at her.
“You have the White House, you have the Senate, you have the House of Representatives,” Pelosi responded.
But, she noted, not all Republicans are on board with his plans to build a physical barrier.
“There are no votes in the House, a majority of votes, for a wall,” Pelosi said.
“If I needed the votes for the wall in the House, I would have them in one session,” Trump countered. “It would be done.”
But for two years, he has been unable to muster those votes for his core campaign promise during the 2016 election — a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border that Trump vowed Mexico would pay for.
Vice President Mike Pence watched Tuesday’s spectacle unfold in silence as Trump and the Democrats also fought over the results of last month’s midterm elections and their meaning.
Outgoing White House chief of staff John Kelly and presidential advisers Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and Stephen Miller were also in the room for the meeting.
Pelosi urged the president to stop bickering in front of the media.
“This is spiraling downward,” she said.
The private portion of the discussion was brief, as Pelosi and Schumer emerged quickly to talk to reporters outside the White House.
Schumer said Trump threw a “temper tantrum.”
Later, back at the Capitol, he said the meeting was “productive” in that “the president showed what he wanted: shutdown.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a top Trump ally, cheered the president on from the sidelines of Twitter.
“Great job sticking to your guns on border security, Mr. President!” he wrote. “You are right to want more border security funding including Wall money. They are WRONG to say no.”
Graham also advocated for Trump to add into the mix a provision protecting certain undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country as children from deportation to put pressure on Democrats to approve money for the wall.
Likewise, some Democrats took to social media to back their leaders.
“Remember when Mexico was going to pay for the President’s wall?” Rep. Val Demings of Florida tweeted. “Shutting down the government over this foolish idea would be wildly irresponsible. A shutdown would cripple the economy and degrade transportation security during the holidays.”
Donald Trump lied multiple times and threw a very public temper tantrum during a photo op at the White House with Senator Chuck Schumer and Rep. Nancy Pelosi over the southern border wall funding and averting a government shutdown, which Trump said he would take full credit for.
Trump, who promised his supporters Mexico would pay for a wall, instead demanded the American taxpayers pay for his wall.
President Trump on Tuesday pushed back on reports that he’s had difficulty finding candidates interested in serving as his next chief of staff, claiming “over ten” people are fighting to get the job.
“Many, over ten, are vying for and wanting the White House Chief of Staff position,” Trump wrote. “Why wouldn’t someone want one of the truly great and meaningful jobs in Washington.”
The president accused the “fake news” of getting the story “purposely wrong.”
Fake News has it purposely wrong. Many, over ten, are vying for and wanting the White House Chief of Staff position. Why wouldn’t someone want one of the truly great and meaningful jobs in Washington. Please report news correctly. Thank you!
Multiplenewsreports in the last 24 hours have portrayed Trump as scrambling to find his next chief of staff after the presumptive favorite for the position, Nick Ayers, said he would not be taking the job.
Sources told The Hill there was no clear plan B after Ayers, currently Vice President Pence’s top aide, dropped out.
Meadows said on Monday that it would be an “incredible honor” to be chosen as chief of staff, while the other candidates have reportedly indicated they’d prefer to stay in their current roles.
Trump announced on Saturday that chief of staff John Kelly would depart the administration at the end of the year, marking the end of an often acrimonious relationship between the two men.
With Kelly’s exit, Trump will seek his third chief of staff in the two years since he took office. Kelly took over in mid-2017 for former chief of staff Reince Priebus.
Former Trump official Michael Anton baselessly claimed on Fox & Friends that Democrats are in favor of illegal immigration because changing demographics help them politically.
Fox & Friends‘ Brian Kilmeade interviewed Anton — who left the White House earlier this year — about the battle to avoid a government shutdown, and President Donald Trump‘s request for $5 billion to fund his border wall. Democrats have rejected that request, instead offering $1.6 billion for border security.
Kilmeade asked Anton if Trump has “any leverage over Chuck and Nancy” to get his wall funded, to which Anton replied: “He has the American people’s public opinion on his side, he won the election largely on this issue.” (Note: A recent poll found most Americans think Trump should compromise on his border wall.)
Anton went on to baselessly suggest that Democrats don’t want security on the border because illegal immigration helps them politically:
“They don’t want a wall, they don’t want greater security, and they really don’t care about the consequences,” he said. “Because for them, the consequence is the more immigrants come in, the more the demographic change there is in the United States of America, the more that benefits Democratic politicians. And that’s what they care about the most.”
