Category: Unpresidential

Trump tells Legal Hispanic immigrants seeking asylum: ‘Our country is full’

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Donald Trump had a unwelcoming message to those seeking political asylum in the United States: Don’t bother.

“Our country is full,” Trump said at an event in Calexico, Calif., to promote construction of a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico. “Our area is full. The sector is full. Can’t take you anymore, I’m sorry. Can’t happen. So turn around, that’s the way it is.”

Trump described his remarks as “our new statement,” and said it applied to asylum seekers as well as immigrants crossing the border illegally.

“If you look at our southern border, the number of people and the amount of drugs, human trafficking — the human trafficking is something that nobody used to talk about, I talk about it. It’s a terrible thing. It’s ancient and it’s never been bigger than it is modern, right now, today. All over the world, by the way, not just here. All over the world, human trafficking, a terrible thing.”

According to figures provided by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials the number of people arrested for illegally crossing the border rose from 47,986 in January to 66,450 in February. Families, many traveling from Central American countries, made up more than half of those numbers, CBP said.

While arrests of criminal aliens have continued to fall the past two years, Trump assured his audience that “there is indeed an emergency on our southern border.”

“It’s a colossal surge,” Trump said of the migrant caravans from Central America, “and it’s overwhelming our immigration system. We can’t take you anymore.”

Specifically, Trump singled out those seeking asylum, saying that a large number of them were gang members.

“It’s a scam. It’s a hoax,” Trump said. “I know about hoaxes. I just went through a hoax,” which is how he refers to special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of his campaign’s ties to the Russian government.

At the same time, Trump proclaimed that Mexico “has been absolutely terrific for the last four days,” arresting “thousands” of Central American migrants before they could reach the U.S. border. But then the president issued another warning.

“If for any reason Mexico stops apprehending and bringing the illegals back to where they came from, the U.S. will be forced to tariff at 25 percent all cars made in Mexico and shipped over the border to us. If that doesn’t work, I will close the border,” Trump vowed.

Trump had backed off from that threat earlier in the week after lawmakers from both parties threw cold water on the idea.

“Closing down the border would have potentially catastrophic economic impact on our country, and I would hope we would not be doing that,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell warned.

As for the country being “full,” the United States, with a population density of 35 people per square kilometer, ranks 175th of 240 countries, between Venezuela and Kyrgyzstan.

Trump’s rolling up the welcome mat for immigrants stands in opposition to the long-standing American tradition of welcoming immigrants summed up by the lines in Emma Lazarus’s poem “The New Colossus,” inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”

In February, Trump painted a very different picture regarding the country’s need for new immigrants.

“I need people coming in because we need people to run the factories and plants and companies that are moving back in,” Trump told reporters in February. “We need people.”

[AOL]

Trump: I get why Barbara Bush disliked me — ‘Look what I did to her sons’

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President Donald Trump says he understands why Barbara Bush wasn’t fond of him, saying that the former first lady was right to be “nasty” to him, because he was so critical of her sons.

“I have heard that she was nasty to me, but she should be. Look what I did to her sons,” Trump told the Washington Times in an interview published Thursday night about his comments about former president George W. Bush and former presidential candidate Jeb Bush.

“She’s the mother of somebody that I competed against. Most people thought he was going to win and he was quickly out,” Trump added, referring to Jeb, who he beat in the 2016 GOP primary. “I hit him very hard.

“That’s when his brother came to make the first speech for him,” Trump said. “And I said, ‘What took you so long?’”

As a candidate, Trump was aggressively critical of Jeb Bush — whom he blasted as having “low energy” — as well as the former president, who Trump repeatedly criticized for his handling of the war in Iraq.

Trump’s comments about Barbara Bush came after the late first lady’s intensely critical comments about him to USA Today reporter Susan Page for her biography “The Matriarch” became public.

Bush, who passed away last April, had told Page she so fiercely disliked Trump that she blamed his attacks on her son Jeb Bush for what she called a heart attack and, by the end of her life, no longer considered herself a Republican.

Excerpts of the book released last week detailed Bush’s long-standing scorn for Trump, which went back decades. In diary entries from the 1990s, which she made available to Page, she described Trump as “greedy, selfish, and ugly.”

[NBC News]

Trump Posts Insane Video of Biden Getting Touched Inappropriately By Biden: ‘WELCOME BACK JOE!’

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President Donald Trump tweeted another comedy video clip Thursday afternoon, this one taking a shot at former Vice President Joe Biden.

Biden has come under criticism for what several women have labeled inappropriate touchiness and feeliness that didn’t rise to the claim of harassment but nonetheless made each feel uncomfortable. Biden posted a non-apology apology video on Wednesday — that received a tepid response from some progressive provinces — and that provided source material for the satirical video Trump tweeted below:

According to AP’s Zeke Miller, it appears that the satirical video was first posted by White House Social Media Director Dan Scavino:

The video was originally posted by Twitter user and — self-described “Eternally Sarcastic MemeSmith” — @CarpeDonktum, and an apparent favorite at the White House, since he was the individual behind the “Everybody Hurts” State of the Union video that eventually had to be edited with a different music bed after R.E.M. called out copyright ownership for the song.

[Mediaite]

White House Invents New Word to Cover for Trump: Transcript Claims He Said ‘Oringes,’ Not ‘Oranges’

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Millions of Americans heard Donald Trump substitute the word“oranges” for “origins” three times at a photo op, but rather than accurately reflect that embarrassing reality, the White House invented a new word.

During an Oval Office spray with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Tuesday, Trump riffed on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. He told reporters “I hope they now go and take a look at the oranges, the oranges of the investigation, the beginnings of that investigation,” then managed to correctly say “origins” on his third try.

He went on to say that “the only thing that’s disappointing to me about the Mueller report” was that he wished it had covered “the oranges — how it started.”

But according to the official White House transcript, released almost five hours later at 6:47 pm, Trump didn’t say “oranges” at all, he said “oringes,” and he only did it twice:

And I hope that this investigation now, which is finished — it’s totally finished. No collusion. No obstruction. I hope they now go and take a look at the oringes [origins] — the origins of the investigation, the beginnings of that investigation. If you look at the origin of the investigation — where it started; how it started; who started it, whether it’s McCabe or Comey or a lot of them; where does it go; how high up in the White House did it go — you will all get Pulitzer Prizes, okay? You’d all get Pulitzer Prizes. You should have looked at it a long time ago.

And that’s the only thing that’s disappointing to me about the Mueller report. The Mueller report, I wish, covered the oringes [origins] of how it started — the beginnings of the investigation and how it started. It didn’t cover that. And for some reason, none of that was discussed.

Presumably, someone at the White House concluded that it’s less embarrassing for Trump to have made up an entirely new word that swaps letters and adds an “e” to “origins” than for him to have said “oranges” three times, which is what actually happened.

[Mediaite]

Trump claimed wind turbines cause cancer

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President Donald Trump on Tuesday launched his latest wild attack on wind turbines, an energy source that has long attracted his ire.

“They say the noise causes cancer,” the president said of the turbines at the National Republican Congressional Committee fundraiser in Washington, DC.

Trump linked the technology to his former presidential rival Hillary Clinton, saying she “wanted to put up wind.”

“If you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations your house just went down 75% in value. And they say the noise causes cancer, you tell me that one, OK?” Trump said, imitating the whirring noise made by the turbines.

He went on to express concern for the effect of turbines on wild-bird populations.

“The thing makes so much noise, and, of course, it’s like a graveyard for birds. If you loved birds, you’d never want to walk under a windmill again,” Trump said.

Scientists have long rejected the decades-old claims of those who say that wind turbines cause a variety of illnesses, including cancer.

Simon Chapman, a professor in public health at the University of Sydney in Australia, in a 2012 article reviewed stories of people who had illnesses they blamed on turbines.

He suggested that the illnesses — which were real — were not attributable to the turbines but instead were “psychogenic,” which means they were caused by anxiety and unrest.

It is true that many birds are killed by flying into wind turbines. However, far more are killed by flying into cellphone and radio towers, or by being mauled to death by cats.

In February, Trump lost a long-running legal battle with the Scottish government over a wind farm near one of his golf courses.

Before the 2016 US presidential election, he launched the battle over an offshore farm near his golf course in Aberdeenshire in northwest Scotland. He lost and had to pay legal bills for himself and the Scottish government.

Last week, Trump attacked wind power at a rally in Michigan, saying that if the wind doesn’t blow, televisions and other electronic devices will lose power.

In fact, turbines can store the energy to be used in times of calm.

[Business Insider]

Trump tells Republicans they lost in 2018 because the election was rigged

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President Donald Trump warned Congressional Republicans to be “paranoid” that Democrats were rigging elections.

Trump spoke at a fundraiser for the National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC), the organization in charge of House elections for the GOP.

During his remarks, Trump denied that he was a reason why Republicans lost control of the House of Representatives during the blue wave of the midterm elections.

“I say, what the hell do I have to do with it?” Trump said, according to Washington Postnational political reporter Felicia Sonmez.

Trump then seemed to suggest the 2018 midterms were stolen.

[Raw Story]

Trump Can’t Seem to Remember His Father Was Born in New York, Not Germany

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President Trump met with NATO secretary Jens Stoltenberg in the Oval Office Tuesday afternoon. Then he forced the poor guy to sit there while he vomited words all over reporters who shouted questions at him. It’s a thing Trump likes to do.

Two moments in particular stood out today, and they’re both the kind of thing that’ll have you breaking out your pocket Constitution and rereading the text of the 25th Amendment.

Let’s start with Trump’s attempt to talk about the “origins” of the special counsel’s investigation into his campaign. Three separate times he says “oranges” instead of “origins.”

It’s funny and dumb, but it’s not nearly as disconcerting as one moment of oddness that preceded it. While declaring his love for Germany, Trump said he’s proud that his father was born in the country. “Born in a very wonderful place in Germany, so I have a great feeling for Germany,” Trump said. Fred Trump was born in the Bronx

Somehow, this isn’t even the first time Trump has told this lie. In his head though, as he has on so many other issues, Trump seems to have replaced fact with fiction.

[New York Mag]

President Trump Ranted About ‘Getting Rid of Judges’

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Apparently, we had something of an “episode” in the Oval Office Tuesday afternoon.

“Sure, it’s going to have a negative impact on the economy,” the president jovially admitted of his proposed shutdown. “It is one of the biggest trade deals in the world that we’ve just done with the USMCA. It is a very big trading partner. Trading is very important, the borders are very important, but security is what most important. I have to have security. And we’re going to have security in this country. That is more important than trade. Let me just give you a little secret, security is more important to me than trade, so we’re going to have a strong border, or we’re going to have a closed border. I’m totally prepared to do it.”

“Well I haven’t made that intention known and I’m ready to close it if I have to close it. Mexico has the strongest immigration laws in the world. Nobody has stronger. I guess some have the same but you can’t get any stronger than what Mexico has and we don’t want people coming up on this dangerous journey and coming in. And what we have to do is Congress has to meet quickly and make a deal. I could do it in 45 minutes. We need to get rid of chain migration, we need to get rid of catch and release and visa lottery and we have to do something about asylum and to be honest with you, I have to get rid of judges.”

Oh. And there were some pronunciation issues.

Meanwhile, those “rural voters” who, evidently, are the only voters that truly matter, are getting hammered all over the midwest. From NBC News:

Farmers will have to destroy any grains that were contaminated by floodwater, which could also prevent some growers from planting oversaturated fields. Near Crescent, Iowa, farmer Don Rief said the flood damaged more than 60,000 bushels of his grain, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. He tried to move the crops before the flood, but dirt roads were too soft from the storm to support trucks. “We were just hurrying like hell,” Rief said. “Hopefully USDA will come in and minimize some of the damage.” The USDA does not have a program that covers flood-damaged grain because farmers have typically received more advance notice of rising waters, allowing them to move crops and limit losses, said Tom Vilsack, who ran the agency under former President Barack Obama.

That’s going to have to change, it seems. We don’t get many warnings about sudden calamities anymore and, the ones we get, we don’t listen to anyway.

[Esquire]

Trump steps back from Mexico border threat as companies warn of economic fallout

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President Donald Trump took a step back on Tuesday from his threat to close the U.S. southern border to fight illegal immigration, as pressure mounted from companies worried that a shutdown would cause chaos to supply chains.

Trump threatened on Friday to close the border this week unless Mexico acted. He repeated that threat on Tuesday but said he had not made a decision yet: “We’re going to see what happens over the next few days.”

Closing the border could disrupt millions of legal crossings and billions of dollars in trade. Auto companies have been warning the White House privately that it would lead to the idling of U.S. plants within days because they rely on prompt deliveries of components made in Mexico.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the largest U.S. business lobbying group, has been in contact with the White House to discuss the “very negative economic consequences that would occur across the country,” said Neil Bradley, the group’s top lobbyist, on a call with reporters.

Trump praised efforts by Mexico to hinder illegal immigration from Central America at its own southern border. On Monday, the Mexican government said it would help regulate the flow of migrants.

“I really wanted to close it,” Trump said on Tuesday night at a fundraiser for congressional Republicans.

[Reuters]

Trump cuts all direct assistance to Northern Triangle countries Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala

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In a stunning about-face, State Department officials said that President Donald Trump is cutting off all direct assistance to the so-called Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

“At the Secretary’s instruction, we are carrying out the President’s direction and ending FY [fiscal year] 2017 and FY 2018 foreign assistance programs for the Northern Triangle,” a State Department spokesperson told ABC News, referring to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “We will be engaging Congress as part of this process.”

These three countries are the primary source of migrants to the U.S., but for years the U.S. has worked with them to stabilize their political environments and economies and end violence and corruption so that migrants wouldn’t leave in the first place.

Trump hinted at the cuts earlier on Friday, telling reporters,”I’ve ended payments to Guatemala, to Honduras, and to El Salvador. No money goes there anymore.”

While the president has threatened these cuts before, this time the administration is actually following through.

Trump said the funds totaled $500 million, but it wasn’t clear Friday if that figure was accurate. The State Department announced in December that the U.S. would mobilize $5.8 billion in public and private american investment to these three countries.

“We’re not paying them anymore because they haven’t done a thing for us,” he added.

[ABC]

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