Trump Tweets Shocking Assault on Brzezinski, Scarborough

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On Thursday morning, while MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” was on the air, Trump posted a pair of hateful tweets about co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.

MSNBC responded with this statement: “It’s a sad day for America when the president spends his time bullying, lying and spewing petty personal attacks instead of doing his job.”

The president’s deputy press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, defended the tweets by saying Trump was responding to the “outrageous attacks that take place” on “Morning Joe” and other shows.

Trump refuses to be “bullied,” Sanders said on Fox News. “This is a president who fights fire with fire.”

Trump’s tweets in the 8 a.m. hour on Thursday said that “Morning Joe” is “poorly rated” (it’s not) and that the hosts “speak badly of me” (that’s true). He called both hosts disparaging names.

Trump claimed that Scarborough and Brzezinski courted him for an interview at Mar-a-Lago around the New Year’s Eve holiday.

“She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!” the president wrote.

He actually said yes, according to accounts of their meeting. Trump, Scarborough and Brzezinski mingled with guests and had a private chat.

For the record, photos from Mar-a-Lago do not show any blood or bandages on Brzezinski’s face.

Stunned commenters on social media noted that Trump targeted both hosts with his barbed tweets, but only opined on the physical appearance of the woman involved.

Democratic commentator Maria Cardona, speaking on CNN, said it was part of a pattern of misogynistic behavior by Trump.

“We should not normalize this,” she said, calling it “unacceptable and unpresidential.”

Lawmakers immediately condemned the president’s tweets, as well.

“Mr. President, your tweet was beneath the office and represents what is wrong with American politics, not the greatness of America,” Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican, tweeted.

But First Lady Melania Trump spoke up in defense of her husband.

“As the First Lady has stated publicly in the past, when her husband gets attacked, he will punch back 10 times harder,” her communications director Stephanie Grisham said in response to reporters’ questions.

Melania Trump has previously said that as First Lady she wants to focus on the problem of cyberbullying.

Critics say Trump uses his Twitter account as a powerful megaphone to bully people.

Observers also expressed a lot of skepticism about Trump’s Thursday morning claim that he doesn’t watch “Morning Joe” anymore.

The president is known to watch all the major morning shows, including the programs on Fox News, CNN and MSNBC’. He sometimes calls up pro-Trump guests to thank them for their remarks on the shows.

Trump had a friendly, jovial relationship with “Morning Joe” during the presidential campaign, but it turned sour over time.

At one point he called Brzezinski “very insecure” and threatened to expose her off-screen relationship with Scarborough.

Brzezinski and Scarborough were dating at the time, and they are now engaged.

Thursday’s anti-media tweets were astonishing — and part of a pattern.

On Tuesday his main target was CNN. Trump reveled in the fact that three CNN journalists resigned on Monday after their Russia-related story was retracted.

On Wednesday Trump went after two of the nation’s biggest newspapers, The New York Times and the Washington Post.

He mangled the facts several times, but his overall message came through loud and clear: Do not trust the people who are trying to hold my administration accountable.

Brzezinski responded to Trump Thursday morning with a tweet of her own, mocking him with a reference to “little hands,” a reference to a disparaging idea about him that has circulated for years.

Mark Kornblau, the head of PR for NBC News and MSNBC, also weighed in on Twitter, saying, “Never imagined a day when I would think to myself, ‘it is beneath my dignity to respond to the President of the United States.'”

[CNN]

 

Trump posts misleading tweet about Medicaid spending under the Senate Republican healthcare bill

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President Donald Trump took exception Wednesday with a Democratic argument regarding Medicaid funding in the new GOP healthcare bill.

“Democrats purposely misstated Medicaid under new Senate bill – actually goes up,” Trump tweeted with a chart.

One of the biggest criticisms of the Senate healthcare bill, the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), has been the projected cuts to future Medicaid spending under the legislation, which the Congressional Budget Office said would lead to 22 million fewer Americans being insured by 2026.

Trump’s tweet echoes an argument from Republicans that says the legislation doesn’t cut Medicaid spending.

But critics of the legislation note that the projected increase in funding from the federal government will be lower than the current projected rate of increase. This could have serious consequences for Medicaid recipients and state budgets.

Currently, the federal government provides states with a percentage of their Medicaid funding based on a formula of how much a state actually spends. Under the BCRA, states would receive a set amount of money based on the number of people on Medicaid in that state.

In other words, federal funding would grow in raw terms as the US population grows and the total number of people on Medicaid increases, but the amount per person would not be as generous as the current system.

The chart below shows the difference:

Also, the BCRA would end the Medicaid expansion program under the Affordable Care Act, the law better known as Obamacare, which would represent another significant decrease from the current path of funding.

The Congressional Budget Office projected that federal funding for Medicaid would decrease by $772 billion over the next 10 years compared to the current system.

According to analyses from The Brookings Institution, The Kaiser Family Foundation, and the CBO, the formula for the Medicaid growth rate under the BCRA would lead to increased financial stress on states and detrimental outcomes for Medicaid recipients.

[Business Insider]

Reality

Vox fixed the chart:

 

 

Trump Rips ‘AmazonWashingtonPost’ as Fake News

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President Trump on Wednesday attacked The Washington Post and its owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, for its coverage of him and his administration.

“The #AmazonWashingtonPost, sometimes referred to as the guardian of Amazon not paying internet taxes (which they should) is FAKE NEWS!” the president tweeted Wednesday morning.

The president is escalating his attacks on the news media as he struggles to advance his agenda in Congress and grapples with the wide-ranging probe into whether his associates colluded with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election.

Trump’s broadside against the Post came after it published an article revealing that fake Time magazine covers with Trump’s photo hung at several of his properties.

It also ran a piece headlined “Who’s afraid of Trump? Not enough Republicans — at least for now.” It details the president’s strained efforts to get wavering GOP senators behind the Senate plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare.

He also went after The New York Times earlier Wednesday over a similar piece.

“The failing @nytimes writes false story after false story about me. They don’t even call to verify the facts of a story. A Fake News Joke!” he tweeted. “Some of the Fake News Media likes to say that I am not totally engaged in healthcare. Wrong, I know the subject well & want victory for U.S.”

In his Post tweet, Trump appeared to reference Amazon’s past efforts to keep online purchases tax free. But the retailer does collect sales tax on purchases across the U.S.

Breaking with practice of past presidential nominees, Trump refused to release his tax returns during the 2016 campaign.

[The Hill]

Trump Interrupts Call to Compliment Female Reporter’s ‘Nice Smile’

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President Trump singled out a female journalist during a phone call with the new Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar, on Tuesday, telling Varadkar, “She has a nice smile on her face. So I bet she treats you well.”

The journalist in question was Caitriona Perry, who has been the Washington correspondent for Irish state broadcaster Raidio Teilifis Eireann (RTE) since 2014.

Trump’s comment about Perry drew some adverse reaction on social media. But she appeared to take the exchange in good humor and can be heard laughing in a video clip of the exchange.

Trump told Varadkar, “We have a lot of your Irish press watching us,” referring to several Irish reporters who were present in the Oval Office for the call.

In video posted to Twitter by RTE, he turns to Perry and says, “And where are you from? Go ahead, come here, come here. Where are you from? We have all of this beautiful Irish press.”

It is not the first time Trump’s interactions with female reporters have raised eyebrows.

He famously tangled with Megyn Kelly, then of Fox News Channel, during his campaign for the White House. He also singled out NBC News’s Katy Tur, whom he would sometimes refer to as “Little Katy” during campaign rallies.

Trump told Varadkar that he was calling to congratulate him on his “great victory.”

Varadkar became prime minister, or Taoiseach, earlier this month after winning a party leadership election following the resignation of Enda Kenny.

During the call with Varadkar, Trump also acknowledged the influence of the Irish-American community in the U.S.

[The Hill]

Reality

Right-wing news tried to play this act of sexism off by asking “why can’t anyone take a compliment anymore?” This would probably help to explain why Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly, and others were fired from Fox News for sexual harassment.

Media

 

Trump’s EPA chief met with chemical CEO before dropping pesticide ban

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Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt met privately with the CEO of a top chemical company before deciding to drop a ban on a widely-used pesticide that has been shown to harm children’s brains, The Associated Press reported Tuesday.

Pruitt, President Trump’s top environmental official, reportedly met with the CEO of Dow Chemical, Andrew Liveris, for 30 minutes at a Houston hotel on March 9, according to records obtained by the AP.

Pruitt announced later that month that he would no longer pursue a ban on Dow’s chlorpyrifos pesticide from being used on food. An EPA review found that even minuscule amounts of the pesticide could impact fetus and infant brain development.

An EPA spokeswoman told the AP that Pruitt and Liveris were “briefly introduced” at the conference, where both were speaking.

“They did not discuss chlorpyrifos,” the spokeswoman said. “During the same trip he also met with the Canadian minister of natural resources, and CEOs and executives from other companies attending the trade show.”

Pruitt also reportedly attended a larger group meeting with two other Dow executives, but the spokeswoman said they didn’t discuss the pesticide there.

The Pesticide Action Network and the Natural Resource Defense Council both sued the EPA days after Pruitt’s decision. “President Trump and his EPA flouted court orders and EPA’s scientific findings that chlorpyrifos puts children, farmworkers, their families and many others at risk,” Patti Goldman, the Earthjustice managing attorney handling the case, said in a statement at the time.

The American Academy of Pediatrics also called for the pesticide to be taken off the market, sending a letter to Pruitt on Tuesday saying they were “deeply alarmed” by his decision to allow the pesticide to continue to be used.

[The Hill]

Trump Draws a His Own Red Line in Syria

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Defense officials were “caught off guard” Monday by a White House statement warning against “potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime,” Buzzfeed reports.

“The United States has identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime that would likely result in the mass murder of civilians, including innocent children,” the statement from White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer reads. “The activities are similar to preparations the regime made before its April 4, 2017 chemical weapons attack.”

“As we have previously stated, the United States is in Syria to eliminate the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. If, however, Mr. Assad conducts another mass murder attack using chemical weapons, he and his military will pay a heavy price.”

Buzzfeed spoke to five US defense officials who told the publications “they did not know where the potential chemical attack would come from” and were not informed that the White House was going to release such a statement. As Buzzfeed notes, statements like this are usually coordinated across national security agencies prior to their release.

Likewise, the New York Times reports that “several” military officials were caught of guard by the White House statement.

[Raw Story]

White House Tells the World to Watch an Unverified James O’Keefe Video Attacking CNN

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At Tuesday’s White House press briefing, Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders used a question from Breitbart News to attack the entire press corps. Breitbart reporter Charlie Spiering asked about a specific story CNN retracted, but in her response, Sanders accused CNN of being “repeatedly wrong” on other stories, and encouraged people to watch an unverified video from James O’Keefe’s disreputable Project Veritas instead.

“Frankly everybody across the country to take a look at it,” Sanders said of the video that was just released Tuesday morning. “I think it’s a disgrace to all of media, to all of journalism. I think that we have gone to a place where, if the media can’t be trusted to report the news, then that’s a dangerous place for America.” She went on to refer to the “Russia/Trump hoax,” suggesting that all of the reporting about President Trump’s connections to Russia was more “fake news.” Her tirade prompted Brian Karem, a local reporter and editor for a Washington, D.C.-area paper, to openly criticize her for demonizing the media in this way.

In the Project Veritas video Sanders referred to, someone is secretly recording a series of casual conversations with John Bonifield, a CNN supervising producer who works in the network’s medical unit. Like just about every other “gotcha” video O’Keefe has released over the years, this one appears to be highly edited. Nevertheless, he claims that Bonifield’s comments prove that CNN knows its stories about collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia are “mostly bullshit,” but is running them heavily just for the ratings.

The New York Times’ Sopan Deb was quick to point out the obvious flaws in the video. Besides the fact the video is clearly edited and O’Keefe is notoriously untrustworthy, a single producer for CNN’s medical coverage has absolutely no authority to speak about the network’s Russia coverage.

This isn’t the first time the Trump administration has promoted O’Keefe’s videos. In a presidential debate last October, then-candidate Trump promoted some of his other videos purportedly showing Hillary Clinton supporters boasting how they were inciting violence against Trump supporters. Though Trump claimed these efforts were “started by her,” there is no evidence in any of the videos to suggest Clinton had any knowledge about the supposed schemes.

And Trump’s support for O’Keefe extends beyond simply promoting his videos. In 2015, the Trump Foundation made a $10,000 donation to Project Veritas. Besides the fact that O’Keefe selectively edits all of his undercover videos, he also has a financial motivation to try to help Trump.

O’Keefe can also thank his duplicitous antics for a criminal conviction. After a botched “sting” of then-Sen. Mary Landrieu in 2010, he and three of his associates pleaded guilty to entering U.S. property under false pretenses. O’Keefe was sentenced to three years of probation, a fine of $1,500, and 100 hours of community service. He later also agreed to pay a $100,000 settlement to an ACORN employee he secretly recorded in 2009.

Of the 17 minutes Sanders spent at the podium on Tuesday, she spent more than half of it criticizing the media, including the spiel in which she peddled O’Keefe’s video. All of the questions that provoked those criticisms came from conservative news outlets like Breitbart and Lifezette, while other outlets that were called upon asked policy questions.

[ThinkProgress]

Media

Trump on CNN Retraction: ‘What About All the Other Phony Stories They Do?’

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President Trump blasted CNN early Tuesday after the network retracted a story published last week tying a top Trump ally to a Russian investment bank.

“Wow, CNN had to retract big story on ‘Russia,’ with 3 employees forced to resign,” Trump tweeted.

“What about all the other phony stories they do? FAKE NEWS!”

The president’s comments come after three CNN staffers resigned following the network’s retraction.

Thomas Frank, the author of the story, Eric Lichtblau, an editor in the CNN investigative unit that ran the story, and Lex Haris, who oversaw the unit, have all left CNN, the network reported Monday.

The retracted story connected Anthony Scaramucci, a top proponent of Trump, to a Russian investment fund run by a bank controlled by the Kremlin.

“In the aftermath of the retraction of a story published on CNN.com, CNN has accepted the resignations of the employees involved in the story’s publication,” a spokesman said Monday.

An internal CNN investigation reportedly found normal editorial processes weren’t followed in the stories editing and publication.

Trump often hits on CNN and refers to stories from the network as “fake news.”

Trump early Tuesday also retweeted a modified image of the network’s logo that refers to CNN as FNN, or the Fake News Network.

[The Hill]

Reality

So if Trump wants to play the morality game, when is he or his staff going to resign over the phony stories he pushed? Because by the time of this article we’ve cataloged 312 complete lies from Trump since his campaign began.

Some examples of phony stories by Trump include:

  • Claiming his inauguration crowd sizes were the largest of all-time.
  • Claiming Barack Obama “wiretapped” him.
  • Claiming he had “tapes” of his private conversation with James Comey where he asked to drop the FBI’s Russia investigation.
  • Claiming at various rallies and in interviews for over four months that he donated $1 million dollars to veterans charities, cutting a check only when a journalist uncovered his lie.
  • Claiming he did not personally know reporter Serge Kovaleski, after telling people “Now the poor guy, you should see this guy,” then mocked his disability.
  • Claiming “thousands and thousands” of people in New Jersey cheered during the 9/11 terror attacks.
  • Claiming President Barack Obama was born in Kenya.

You can take the high road and resign at any time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Donald Trump abandons traditional White House Ramadan celebration

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Donald Trump has been criticised for not hosting an iftar dinner during Ramadan, breaking a nearly 20-year tradition.

Despite events held by previous administrations from across the political divide, this year’s Ramadan – which began on 26 May – passed nearly unobserved by the White House. It was marked only by a statement published late on Saturday afternoon, coinciding with the end of the holy month.

The first White House iftar dinner is said to have been hosted by President Thomas Jefferson in 1805. Guests included a Tunisian ambassador to the US.

Hillary Clinton, when she was first lady, resurrected the event in February 1996, hosting about 150 people for a reception for Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month.

The sunset dinner, attended by legislators, diplomats and leaders within the US Muslim community, went on to become an annual tradition starting in 1999, observed by the past three administrations.

George W Bush held an iftar dinner every year of his two terms, including just after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. James Norton, a former deputy assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security under Bush, said: “From President Bush’s perspective, it was important post-9/11 for the administration and to show the White House and the US is inclusive of all people and religions, especially after such a traumatic event. We were not at war with Islam itself but with terrorist organisations.

“President Bush went out of his way to wrap his arms around the Muslim community. I don’t know why the current administration made this decision.”

Barack Obama hosted his first Ramadan dinner in 2009, and subsequently every year of his presidency. He visited a mosque in Baltimore last year and spoke out against Muslim stereotypes in TV dramas.

The Washington Post reported that Saturday’s White House statement was signed by Donald and Melania Trump, and was not posted to the president’s social media presences. It read: “Muslims in the United States joined those around the world during the holy month of Ramadan to focus on acts of faith and charity.

“Now, as they commemorate Eid with family and friends, they carry on the tradition of helping neighbours and breaking bread with people from all walks of life. During this holiday, we are reminded of the importance of mercy, compassion, and goodwill. With Muslims around the world, the United States renews our commitment to honor these values. Eid Mubarak.”

But Trump was condemned for cancelling the annual dinner. Washington-based Mamadou Samba, of Senegalese origin, who attended the iftar celebration hosted by Obama in 2015, said: “As a tradition held by US presidents, I personally appreciate the reception as recognition of our faith and as Muslim Americans. I looked forward to it this year but was a bit disappointed that it did not occur and wonder what it means to have skipped it.”

Talib Shareef, imam of the Nation’s Mosque in Washington, told Newsweek magazine: “It is disappointing because that’s been a good tradition. To stop it doesn’t send a good message. You get the chance to go golfing and all this other kind of stuff. How come you don’t have time for a population of your society that needs some assistance? The message that it sends is that we’re not that important.”

Others suggested the iftar dinner controversy was just the tip of an iceberg. Haroon Moghul, a fellow in Jewish-Muslim Relations at the Shalom Hartman Institute and author of the memoir How to Be a Muslim: An American Story, said: “[Trump] shows no concern for our rights, employs the worst anti-Muslim bigots in his administration, and enshrines Islamophobia into law.

“Just with this travel ban, the lives of thousands of Americans – and that’s who they are, because they live and work and contribute to here – are ruined. It is the beginning of his hatred of us, rhetoric unfolding into policy, and not the end. What difference would a dinner invitation make to any of these things?”

In May, Reuters reported that the secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, had refused a recommendation by the state department’s office of religion and global affairs – which typically initiates such events – to host a reception marking Eid al-Fitr.

A state department spokesperson told Reuters it was “still exploring possible options for observance of Eid al-Fitr. US ambassadors are encouraged to celebrate Ramadan through a variety of activities, which are held annually at missions around the world.”

The Trump administration has been accused of Islamophobia for the president’s controversial proposed travel ban on six predominantly Muslim countries. After the presidential order was temporarily blocked by two federal appeals courts, the US supreme court on Monday reinstated significant elements of the ban. Trump was quick to claim a victory.

This month, about 100 Muslim activists protested against the US president’s divisive policies and rhetoric on Islam outside Trump Tower in New York. The group prayed and broke fast outside the president’s business headquarters late on 1 June, as part of the “#IftarInTheStreets” action organised by immigrant advocacy groups.

Asked why the dinner did not take place, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said on Monday: “I don’t know.”

[The Guardian]

Rick Perry Loses His Cool When Confronted by Sen. Franken on Climate Science

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After a week full of misleading and inaccurate statements, Energy Secretary Rick Perry remained incredulous and defiant when confronted with climate science-related facts in a budget hearing Thursday.

Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) informed Perry that scientists have concluded that “humans are entirely the cause” of recent warming, to which Perry responded, “I don’t believe it” and “I don’t buy it.”

And when Franken reminded him this was the conclusion of a team of climate science skeptics funded by conservative petrochemical billionaires Charles and David Koch, Perry raised his voice and said: “To stand up and say that 100 percent of global warming is because of human activity, I think on its face, is just indefensible.”

What is indefensible is that the U.S. Secretary of Energy continues to reject established climate science and remain completely impervious to facts — which was made all too clear by a review of this week’s events.

Monday on CNBC, Perry falsely claimed that carbon dioxide was not the primary cause of recent global warming, along with a bunch of other nonsense. He also defended his right to be a “skeptic.”

On Wednesday, the American Meteorological Society (AMS) wrote Perry a letter informing him that he was simply wrong. The central role of greenhouse gases — of which CO2 is the “most important” — is “based on multiple independent lines of evidence that have been affirmed by thousands of independent scientists and numerous scientific institutions around the world,” the letter read.

The AMS called these “indisputable findings,” and pointed out, “we are not familiar with any scientific institution with relevant subject matter expertise that has reached a different conclusion.”

The AMS also explained that while some aspects of climate science are not fully resolved, this wasn’t one of them, adding, “skepticism that fails to account for evidence is no virtue.”

On Thursday, at an Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing, Franken asked Perry to defend downplaying the role of CO2 — and Perry reiterated his denial. Oblivious, Perry repeated, “what’s wrong with being a skeptic?”

Perry went on to call for a so-called “red team” exercise where scientists argue back and forth with a “blue team” on the issue. “But that is exactly how science works,” replied Franken, with teams of scientists pushing back and forth on one another until a consensus is reached.

Franken then pointed out that the Koch brothers had actually helped set up a “red team” of skeptics to take a new look at all of the historical data on global surface temperatures. He then quoted what the head of that team, Dr. Richard Muller, said in the New York Times about their findings:

Call me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.

At that moment in the questioning, Perry lost his composure, not merely rejecting this scientific reality but asserting angrily that it is “just indefensible.”

For the record, not only is it defensible, but in 2013, the world’s leading climatologists concluded in their summary of the latest science that “the best estimate of the human-induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period.”

To clarify this science-speak from U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the best estimate is that humans are responsible for all of the warming we have suffered since 1950. Every major government in the world signed off on this conclusion back in 2013.

But the U.S. Energy Secretary is not just unaware of the science; when presented with it, he’s sure it can’t be true. That’s what makes him a denier and not a skeptic.

[ThinkProgress]

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