Category: Unpresidential

A Trump Insider Embeds Climate Denial in Scientific Research

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An official at the Interior Department embarked on a campaign that has inserted misleading language about climate change — including debunked claims that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is beneficial — into the agency’s scientific reports, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times.

The misleading language appears in at least nine reports, including environmental studies and impact statements on major watersheds in the American West that could be used to justify allocating increasingly scarce water to farmers at the expense of wildlife conservation and fisheries.

The effort was led by Indur M. Goklany, a longtime Interior Department employee who, in 2017 near the start of the Trump administration, was promoted to the office of the deputy secretary with responsibility for reviewing the agency’s climate policies. The Interior Department’s scientific work is the basis for critical decisions about water and mineral rights affecting millions of Americans and hundreds of millions of acres of land.

The wording, known internally as the “Goks uncertainty language” based on Mr. Goklany’s nickname, inaccurately claims that there is a lack of consensus among scientists that the earth is warming. In Interior Department emails to scientists, Mr. Goklany pushed misleading interpretations of climate science, saying it “may be overestimating the rate of global warming, for whatever reason;” climate modeling has largely predicted global warming accurately. The final language states inaccurately that some studies have found the earth to be warming, while others have not.

He also instructed department scientists to add that rising carbon dioxide — the main force driving global warming — is beneficial because it “may increase plant water use efficiency” and “lengthen the agricultural growing season.” Both assertions misrepresent the scientific consensus that, overall, climate change will result in severe disruptions to global agriculture and significant reductions in crop yields.

Samuel Myers, a principal research scientist at Harvard University’s Center for the Environment who has studied the effects of climate change on nutrition, said the language “takes very specific and isolated pieces of science, and tries to expand it in an extraordinarily misleading fashion.”

The Interior Department’s emails, dating from 2017 through last year and obtained under public-records laws by the watchdog group Energy and Policy Institute, provide the latest evidence of the Trump administration’s widespread attacks on government scientific work. The administration has halted or scaled back numerous research projects since taking office, including an Obama-era initiative to fight disease outbreaks around the world — a decision that has drawn criticism in recent weeks as a deadly coronavirus has spread globally.

[The New York Times]

Trump Goes After ‘Fake News Media’ as ‘ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE’ After Decrying Coronavirus Media Coverage

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President Donald Trump continued attacking the “fake news media” Sunday afternoon, in a tweet once again using the phrase “ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE.”

It’s not clear what set off this tweet in particular, but in the past few days Trump has been trashing a number of news outlets, accusing MSNBC and CNN in particular of making coronavirus “look as bad as possible, including panicking markets.” He went after CNN for “doing everything they can to instill fear in people” and referred to the criticism from Democrats and the media over the White House’s coronavirus response as “their new hoax.”.

Today POTUS tweeted, “People are disgusted and embarrassed by the Fake News Media, as headed by the
@nytimes, @washingtonpost, @comcast & MSDNC, @ABC, @CBSNews and more. They no longer believe what they see and read, and for good reason.”

Trump has also been going after Comcast quite abit recently.

[Mediaite]

Trump praises Sammy’s Mexican Grill after owners slammed for supporting him

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President Trump on Sunday gave a shoutout to a Mexican food grill in Arizona after the owners were hit with a wave of backlash for appearing at a rally for the president in Phoenix.

“The food is GREAT at Sammy’s Mexican Grill in Phoenix, Arizona,” the president tweeted. “Congratulations to Betty & Jorge Rivas on doing such a wonderful job. I will try hard to stop by the next time I am in Phoenix. Support Sammy’s!”

The owners of Sammy’s grill, Jorge and Betty Rivas, are both naturalized U.S. citizens and unapologetic Trump supporters. They said the latest backlash for appearing at the Feb. 19 rally was only the latest in attacks since they came out in support of the president in 2016.

“We have never denied or [tried to] hide from what we stand for or what we believe,” Mr. Rivas told “Fox & Friends” earlier Sunday. “And we’ve been active. We’ve been going to President Trump’s rally in Phoenix and going to other meetings where Republicans meet.”

“We know who we are,” he said. “We know that it’s important for us to stay out there, to say what we feel. I personally feel that for me, staying quiet, saying, ‘Oh I’m not going to express my opinion because they might attack me,’ that would go against what I believe. That would go against what America stands for.”

Mr. Rivas said that despite receiving an onslaught of negative reviews and threats, their business had started picking up in recent days.

[Washington Times]

Trump Goes After ‘Very Disreputable’ CNN For Coronavirus Coverage: They’re Trying to ‘Instill Fear in People

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President Donald Trump, in comments to reporters Friday, targeted CNN over the network’s coverage of coronavirus.

Mick Mulvaney said Friday that the media is using the coronavirus news to hurt the president, saying at CPAC, “The press was covering their hoax of the day because they thought it would bring down the president.”

Trump was asked today if he thinks “this is a hoax.”

Trump responded by going after CNN in particular, calling it a “very disreputable network” that’s “doing everything they can to instill fear in people and I think it’s ridiculous.”

“Some of [the Democrats] are trying to gain political favor by saying a lot of untruths,” he claimed.

Trump touted the success the U.S. has seen so far and added, “Some people are giving us credit for that and some people aren’t, but the only ones that aren’t — they don’t mean it, it’s political, it’s politics.”

Earlier today CNN media reporters called out Fox News for comments similar to the president’s, with Brian Stelter saying, “They feel the need to protect the president from potential political damage by saying the Democrats and the media are out to get you. I think most will see through it, but it is still reprehensible.”

[Mediaite]

Trump endorses far-right conspiracy theorist who lied about Ilhan Omar “partying” on 9/11

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Terrence Williams is a pro-Trump social media personality known for pushing wackjob conspiracy theories, such as a fact-free attempt to link the Clintons to Jeffrey Epstein’s death and falsely claiming Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar partied on 9/11.

He was recently alerted by Facebook his page was at risk for being unpublished for pushing misinformation.

Donald Trump tweeted his support for Terrence because… of course he did.

Trump lashes out at Fox News for new poll showing him losing to all the Democratic candidates

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President Donald Trump lashed out on Friday at the network that normally covers him so favorably over a new national poll that shows him losing hypothetical head-to-head popular vote matchups against all six of the top Democratic presidential candidates.

“Worst Polls, just like in 2016 when they were so far off the mark, are the @FoxNews Polls,” Trump tweeted on Friday morning.

That tweet came 37 minutes after Fox News displayed a graphic on the air highlighting the results of a new network poll that shows Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Mike Bloomberg beating him handily, with Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, and Amy Klobuchar leading him by spreads that are within the margin of error.

As is the case with most everything Fox News broadcasts, Trump was apparently watching. And he apparently didn’t appreciate the reminder about it not in fact being the case that a majority of the country loves him.

His attack on Fox News serves as a reminder that despite a rough-and-tumble and still-uncertain Democratic primary, he’s eminently beatable in November.

While it’s obviously possible for Trump to repeat what he did in 2016 and win the election even if he loses the popular vote, there’s almost no chance of him losing the popular vote by a deficit of this magnitude against Biden, Sanders, or Bloomberg and still prevailing in the Electoral College. (Some other polls have been more favorable to Trump’s odds.)

And considering the poll was conducted during the early part of a week that saw a historic stock market slide amid concerns about the coronavirus pandemic and the Trump administration’s capacity for dealing with it, there’s reason to believe the president’s standing isn’t improving anytime soon. Of course, we’re still months from the general election, and it’s worth remembering that Hillary Clinton also had a healthy lead over Trump at this point in the 2016 election cycle.

Still, the poll is mostly bad news for Trump. But instead of doing some self-reflection, he’s doing what he’s in the habit of doing and attacking the messenger.

[Vox]

White House chief of staff claims press covering coronavirus to take Trump down

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White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney on Friday downplayed the threat of the coronavirus but acknowledged likely school closures and disruptions to public transportation in the United States as a result of the outbreak.

He also accused the press of peddling a false narrative about the administration “scrambling” to contain the virus, saying he briefed Congress with other top health officials six weeks ago. He accused the media of ignoring the coronavirus until now because publications were too preoccupied with Trump’s impeachment before that, which he called a “hoax.”

“Why didn’t you hear about it?” Mulvaney told an audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Friday morning in a discussion with Stephen Moore, an economic expert at the Heritage Foundation. “The press was covering their hoax of the day because they thought it would bring down the president.”

Trump has similarly accused the media of stoking panic.

Mulvaney claimed that the press is only covering the virus now because they believe doing so will “take down the president.”

“Is it real? It absolutely is real,” Mulvaney said. “But you saw the president the other day — the flu is real.”

“Are you going to see some schools shut down? Probably. May you see impacts on public transportation? Sure,” Mulvaney said, adding, “We know how to handle this.”

Mulvaney’s remarks came as the Trump administration’s efforts to combat the virus are coming under increasing scrutiny. He argued that the administration is well-prepared while asserting that the virus is less severe than past illnesses because it has a lower fatality rate, describing it as less deadly than Ebola, SARS and MERS.  

Mulvaney’s appearance at CPAC comes as President Trump has downplayed concerns about the virus, telling reporters at a news conference Wednesday that he didn’t believe the spread of the virus was inevitable.

The virus has been contained in the U.S. thus far, but health officials have said that its spread is likely. State and local officials may order school closures or otherwise limit public gatherings if the virus begins to spread communities.

The U.S. stock market has experienced sharp declines over the past week amid concerns about the virus, which originated in China and has spread quickly in other countries across the globe.

“What I might do to calm the markets is turn the television off for 24 hours,” Mulvaney told the crowd at CPAC Friday, mentioning a note he received from a reporter about what the administration’s plans were to ease concerns.

Trump on Wednesday tapped Vice President Pence to lead the government’s response efforts, and Pence has since tapped a career health official at the State Department, Debbie Birx, to coordinate those efforts.

“Congratulations and thank you to our great Vice President & all of the many professionals doing such a fine job at CDC & all other agencies on the Coronavirus situation,” Trump tweeted late Thursday. “Only a very small number in U.S., & China numbers look to be going down. All countries working well together!” 

[The Hill]

Media

Pentagon policy chief’s firing was part of White House purge

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The White House demanded the ouster of Pentagon policy chief John Rood last week after the former industry executive opposed the administration on plans to pull U.S. troops from Syria and its policy toward Chinese tech giant Huawei, six current and former Trump administration officials tell POLITICO.

Rood, who has served as undersecretary of Defense for policy since January 2018, resigned on Feb. 19 at the behest of President Donald Trump and will officially step down at the end of this week. Rood oversees implementation of national security policy throughout the Defense Department and is one of the defense secretary’s top advisers.

At the National Security Council, Rood was known for his tendency to explode at underlings, leading to a steady string of high-level departures from the Pentagon over the past year. On top of that, the NSC chafed at Rood’s opposition to several key White House agenda items.

Trump’s campaign to root out “anti-Trump” members of his administration following his impeachment acquittal provided the NSC the perfect opportunity to finally oust Rood, current and former officials said.

“He never hesitated to tell the White House that he disagreed on stuff,” said one former administration official, citing the withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and pulling U.S. troops from Syria —decisions former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis also opposed before his own ouster. “He definitely wasn’t a loyalist.”

Most recently, Rood opposed a rule from the Commerce Department that would have barred companies from selling to Huawei from overseas facilities. The Pentagon later dropped its opposition to the rule.

Rood had warned against Trump’s hold on military aid to Ukraine, which prompted the impeachment inquiry. But long before the scandal, sources say Rood clashed with NSC officials, particularly former national security adviser John Bolton and his core advisers Victoria Coates and Charles Kupperman.

Rood’s office declined to comment.

Early last year, a group of NSC senior directors brought up complaints about Rood’s leadership style with Bolton, according to current and former officials. The sources expressed concern that Rood’s treatment of his staff, particularly widespread incidents of yelling at subordinates, was prompting senior leaders to leave the department.

Since Mattis left in December 2018, several high-ranking civilians have resigned. Of 58 Senate-confirmed positions at DoD, 18 are vacant, and that will rise to 19 once Rood departs at the end of this week.

“He’s the least liked guy in national security circles,” said one administration official. “It’s the most widespread negative view of any one official” that the source had encountered during their long tenure in the Trump administration.

Rood’s ouster has prompted fears within the Pentagon that Trump’s purge could extend to other officials seen as not sufficiently loyal to the president, said the first former administration official. People who are awaiting nomination or confirmation — including Elaine McCusker, whose nomination to be Pentagon comptroller may be in jeopardy due to her opposition to the Ukraine aid freeze — are seen as particularly vulnerable.

“There is a long list of names of people they are going to boot out and they are going to replace them with purely politicals,” the former official said.

Rood’s ouster had been in the works for a while, the sources said. It took the arrival of a new director for the White House Presidential Personnel Office, John McEntee, who Trump hired to oversee his post-impeachment loyalty purge, to push the final decision through. McEntee is “energetic and gets things done,” said the first administration official.

Another former defense official defended Rood as “a good Republican,” but noted that in the aftermath of the impeachment inquiry, the White House is eliminating all dissension and the Pentagon’s policy chief was “easily a target.”

“Rood has served in the public and private sector admirably. He is loyal to the mission, but I think President Trump has been convinced that Rood is an obstacle to his agenda,” the former defense official said.

[Politico]

Trump disagrees with his own health experts on whether US faces severe illnesses from coronavirus

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Donald Trump has disagreed with his own health experts who have warned it was inevitable that coronavirus would spread within the US.

In a briefing to the media on Tuesday, officials from the centres for disease control and other health experts, said communities in the US should start planning for “social distancing measures”.

“It’s not so much of a question of if this will happen anymore but rather more of a question of exactly when this will happen,” said Nancy Messonnier, director of the national centre for immunisation and respiratory diseases.

But in his own press conference on Wednesday, Mr Trump appeared to play down such certainty, while insisting his government was ready for whatever came.

“I don’t think it’s inevitable. I don’t think think it’s inevitable because we’re doing a really job at the borders and checking people coming in,” he said.

“I think there is a chance there could a substantial increase. But nothing is inevitable.”

“Wash your hands, stay clean, you don’t have to necessarily grab every handrail unless you have to.

Mr Trump went on to dismiss concerns over the risk the virus poses to the public. 

“View this the same as the flu,” he said: “When somebody sneezes, I mean, I try and bail out as much as possible when they’re sneezing.”

Turning to one of the health experts stood behind him, Mr Trump added: “I really think, doc, you want to treat this like you treat the flu, and, you know, it’s going to be fine.”

Flanked by vice president Mike Pence, who he has appointed to head the government’s response to the disease, and other officials, Mr Trump said: “The risk to the American people remains very low.”

He added: “We’re ready to adapt and we’re ready to do whatever we have to as the disease spreads, if it spreads. It probably will, it possibly will. It could be at a very small level, or it could be at a larger level. Whatever happens we’re totally prepared.”

There are currently 15 cases of coronavirus detected among individuals inside the United States. In addition, 40 American passengers brought back from a cruise ship in Japan also tested positive for the virus. 

The administration has proposed $2.5bn in additional funding to address the coronavirus, a sum politicians from both parties have said may be insufficient.

On Wednesday, public health officials warned Americans to prepare for more coronavirus cases and New York City announced plans to provide up to 1,200 hospital beds if needed stock markets fell for the fifth consecutive day.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the head of the national institute of allergy and infections diseases, said that while the virus was contained in the United States, Americans must prepare for a potential outbreak as transmissions spread outside of China.

“If we have a pandemic, then almost certainly we are going to get impacted,” he told CNN.

[The Independent]

Trump campaign files libel suit against New York Times over Russia story

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President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign said on Wednesday it filed a libel suit against the New York Times accusing the newspaper of intentionally publishing a false opinion article related to Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.

In an escalation of the Republican president’s long-running battle with the news media, campaign officials said the lawsuit was being filed in New York State Supreme Court, the state’s trial-level court.

A statement from the campaign said the aim of the litigation was to “hold the news organization accountable for intentionally publishing false statements against President Trump’s campaign.”

The lawsuit relates to a March 27, 2019, opinion article written by Max Frankel, who served as executive editor of the Times from 1986 to 1994.

The campaign attached to a news release a draft copy of the suit accusing the newspaper of “extreme bias against (the campaign) and animosity” and cited what it called the Times’ “exuberance to improperly influence the presidential election in November 2020.” Trump is seeking re-election on Nov. 3.

The Times did not have an immediate comment.

The opinion piece was headlined, “The Real Trump-Russia Quid Pro Quo” with a subhead adding, “The campaign and the Kremlin had an overarching deal: help beat Hillary Clinton for a new pro-Russian foreign policy.” Quid pro quo is a Latin term meaning a favor in exchange for a favor.

The lawsuit originated with the Trump re-election campaign, but Trump himself has contended the Times has at times been biased against him.

Trump often refers to various news media outlets as “fake news” and has called elements of the U.S. news media “the enemy of the American people.”

Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller documented Moscow’s campaign of hacking and social media propaganda to boost Trump’s 2016 candidacy and harm his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.

It documented numerous contacts between people associated between Trump’s campaign and Russians. Mueller found insufficient evidence to show a criminal conspiracy between Trump’s team and Russia but did not exonerate Trump of obstruction of justice related to the investigation.

In the opinion piece, Frankel stated, “Collusion – or a lack of it – turns out to have been the rhetorical trap that ensnared President Trump’s pursuers.”

Frankel added, “There was no need for detailed electoral collusion between the Trump campaign and Vladimir Putin’s oligarchy because they had an overarching deal: the quid of help in the campaign against Hillary Clinton for the quo of a new pro-Russian foreign policy, starting with relief from the Obama administration’s burdensome economic sanctions. The Trumpites knew about the quid and held out the prospect of the quo.”

“Today the President’s re-election campaign filed suit against the New York Times for falsely stating the Campaign had an ‘overarching deal’ with ‘Vladimir Putin’s oligarchy’ to ‘help the campaign against Hillary Clinton’ in exchange for ‘a new pro-Russian foreign policy, starting with relief from … economic sanctions,’” said Jenna Ellis, senior legal adviser to Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.

“The statements were and are 100 percent false and defamatory. The complaint alleges The Times was aware of the falsity at the time it published them, but did so for the intentional purpose of hurting the campaign, while misleading its own readers in the process,” Ellis said.

In a copy of the lawsuit provided by his re-election team, the campaign stated, “The Times was well aware when it published these statements that they were not true.”

[Reuters]

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