Trump Says Military is ‘Becoming Stronger Than Ever Before … We Have No Choice!’

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President Trump on Sunday said the country has “no choice” but to continue building up its military.

“Our military is building and is rapidly becoming stronger than ever before,” the president tweeted Sunday.

“Frankly, we have no choice!”

The president often talks about building up the country’s military.

Recently, his administration has become increasingly involved in conflicts he previously said the U.S. should avoid, and the president is placing more power in the hands of military leaders.

Earlier this month, the U.S. launched a missile strike on a Syrian airfield in response to a chemical attack in northern Syria that killed dozens of civilians. The chemical attack was allegedly carried out by operatives of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The U.S. military last week dropped a massive non-nuclear bomb on ISIS targets in Afghanistan, using the weapon for the first time ever.

The country has also stationed a naval strike force near North Korea.

The Trump administration earlier this year also proposed a budget that would increase defense spending by $54 billion, which the White House said would be offset by other cuts.

Trump Calls for Investigation Into Tax Day Protesters

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President Donald Trump on Twitter Sunday lashed out against citizens who’d taken to the streets to exercise their First Amendment rights.

While claiming that thousands of people who on Saturday demanded Trump finally release his full tax returns were “paid” protesters, Trump tweeted, “The election is over!”

“Someone should look into who paid for the small organized rallies,” Trump tweeted a day after thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in more than 150 cities across the country.

An hour after wishing his 28 million followers a Happy Easter, Trump hailed his November win and called out those making his undisclosed tax history an issue.

“I did what was an almost an impossible thing to do for a Republican-easily won the Electoral College! Now Tax Returns are brought up again?” Trump said on Twitter.

The president then followed up by repeating an unsubstantiated claim he’s made before that some of the protesters against him were “paid,” an allegation that became popular in some right-wing circles in the build up to the 2016 presidential election.

Trump himself used paid actors to pose as rally attendees during his campaign.

The Tax Day protesters called for Trump to release his tax returns — something nearly all major presidential candidates have done since the 1970s — and call on lawmakers to represent their interests over those of major corporations.

Trump and his administration have repeatedly dismissed calls for him to release his taxes, first claiming he couldn’t because he was being audited, then saying the issue was more of interest to journalists and liberal politicians.

But a poll from the Pew Research Center in January found that more than two-thirds of all Americans believe the president has an obligation to release his tax returns.

This is not the first time the president has tweeted such accusations in the wake of major demonstrations against him and his policies. On Nov. 10, Trump tweeted that protests against his victory were “unfair” and said “professional protesters, incited by the media” were turning out in the streets.

And on Feb. 3, in the midst of major protests against Trump’s first executive order on immigration, the president tweeted that “Professional anarchists, thugs and paid protesters are proving the point of millions of people who voted to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

(h/t NBC News)

As North Korea Brews, Trump Again in Mar-a-Lago

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President Donald Trump arrived for another weekend at his languid Florida resort on Thursday, this time without the usual retinue of top aides who have accompanied him in the past, even as global tensions flare.

Trump’s jaunt to Mar-a-Lago, his seventh since taking office in January, coincides with a closely watched anniversary in North Korea, where analysts have said the rogue regime may be preparing for a sixth nuclear test.

It wouldn’t be the first time Trump confronted a global incident from the confines of his terra-cotta-roofed oceanfront mansion.

During a visit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe earlier this year, North Korea test fired ballistic missiles, prompting an impromptu strategy session on Mar-a-Lago’s dining patio. Last weekend, as Trump was hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping, he announced US missile strikes from Mar-a-Lago after conferring with top aides in a specially designed conference room.

A White House official said aides from the National Security Council were accompanying Trump during his trip to Florida this weekend, and the secure facility — kitted out with video-conferencing technology and other classified features — stands at the ready.
But other top aides, including senior advisers and Trump’s chief of staff, were spending the holiday weekend back in Washington.

On Thursday afternoon, Trump boarded Air Force One solo. Reince Priebus, his chief of staff, escorted the President to Joint Base Andrews in his armored limousine but didn’t make the trip to Florida. Priebus said he had “things to go over with him for next week so I jumped in the motorcade,” but wasn’t scheduled to fly south for the weekend.

A White House official said the staffing footprint at Mar-a-Lago would be “very light” because it’s a holiday weekend, suggesting Easter would be a chance for Trump to spend time with his wife and children and so that top staffers could spend time with their own families.

But even amid his restful stay in South Florida, Trump could find himself confronting another provocative move from North Korea. The birthday Saturday of the nation’s founder could prompt the country to conduct its sixth nuclear test, according to experts.

It would be the first test under the Trump administration, and his response will be scrutinized in Pyongyang and Washington. Trump has spoken out aggressively against North Korea this week, saying that his recent meeting with China’s Xi made him realize how complicated the problem was.

Speaking Thursday, Trump said he wasn’t sure if his administration’s decision to drop a “Mother of all Bombs” on an ISIS enclave in Afghanistan was meant as a display of American resolve to North Korea.

“I don’t know if this sends a message,” Trump said at the White House. “It doesn’t make any difference if it does or not. North Korea is a problem. The problem will be taken care of.”

Trump said he’d gained important cooperation from Xi during their talks last weekend and in subsequent phone calls.

“I will say this, I think China has really been working very hard and I have really gotten to like and respect, as you know, President Xi. He’s a terrific person,” Trump said. “We spent a lot of time together in Florida and he’s a very special man so we’ll see how it goes.”
Administration officials maintain that Trump will be kept well informed of activity in North Korea by his team, should the need arise, and will continue to be updated through the weekend.

It was standard practice in the Bush and Obama administrations for a senior national security aide (often at the deputy national security adviser level or higher) to always travel with the president, including on vacations.

One former senior administration official said this was key advice that the Bush team offered the Obama team during that transition. Physical proximity to the President during a national security event was seen as critical for decision-making and keeping the president informed.

A senior White House foreign policy aide told reporters Thursday that, broadly, military options were already being assessed with regard to North Korea, and those options would arise during Vice President Mike Pence’s trip to Asia this week.
Pence is due to arrive in Seoul on Sunday.

(h/t CNN)

Trump Used the Phrase ‘My Military’ – Defense Community Not Amused

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President Donald Trump ruffled some feathers on Thursday with his choice of words when describing an overseas military operation.

The comments came when a White House press pool reporter asked Trump if he had personally authorized the deployment of the 21,000-pound bomb that was dropped on an ISIS tunnel complex.

“Everybody knows exactly what happened. What I do is I authorize my military,” Trump said. “We have the greatest military in the world and they’ve done a job as usual. So we have given them total authorization.”

The phrase “my military” stuck out to members of the defense community, some of whom did not appreciate Trump’s use of the possessive pronoun. Chief among them was Leon Panetta, a former defense secretary and CIA director who served under President Barack Obama.

“When it comes to the military, the military belongs to the country. Our defense system belongs to the country. And it’s not the president’s military, it’s the military of the United States of America,” Panetta said on MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews.”

“He has responsibility obviously, as commander in chief, to be able to make decisions with regards to our military. But I think if you ask the men and women in uniform who they are responsible to, I think their answer would be, ‘We’re responsible to the United States of America.'”

(h/t Business Insider)

Media

Trump on North Korea: “After Listening for 10 Minutes, I Realized It’s Not So Easy”

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President Donald Trump recounted an absolutely astounding detail about one of his conversations with Chinese President Xi Jinping in comments published by the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday afternoon. Apparently, Trump came into his first meeting with the Chinese leader, in early April, convinced that China could simply eliminate the threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear program. Xi then patiently explained Chinese-Korean history to Trump — who then promptly changed his mind.

“After listening for 10 minutes, I realized it’s not so easy,” the president told the Journal. “I felt pretty strongly that they had a tremendous power [over] North Korea. … But it’s not what you would think.”

Four quick observations about this:

  1. Trump thought China could fix North Korea until the Chinese president politely informed him that North Korea is in fact complicated.
  2. Trump seems to have required the leader of China to explain basic facts to him that he could have Googled, or at least asked one of the many US government North Korea experts about.
  3. Trump came to a profound realization about one of the most dangerous conflicts on earth after a 10-minute conversation.
  4. Trump is getting his information about East Asian affairs from the leader of America’s largest rival in the region.

Around the same time the Journal piece was published, North Korea informed reporters to prepare for a “big and important event.” Initial reports suggest that Pyongyang is planning to test a nuclear device for just the sixth time in the country’s history. There’s no word yet on how the Trump administration plans to respond.

(h/t Vox)

FBI Monitored Former Trump Campaign Adviser Carter Page on Russia

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The FBI obtained a warrant to monitor President Donald Trump’s former campaign adviser, Carter Page, last summer on suspicions he knowingly engaged in clandestine intelligence activities on behalf of Moscow, The Washington Post is reporting.

The FBI and Justice Department obtained a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to monitor the communications of Page, who has called himself a junior member of Trump’s foreign policy advisory team, as part of their investigation into possible ties between Trump’s campaign and Russia, the newspaper says, citing unnamed law enforcement and other US officials.

The FBI and Justice Department obtained the warrant after convincing a FISA judge there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign government (Russia), the report says. The warrant presents the strongest information to date that the FBI had reason to believe a Trump adviser was in touch with Moscow and met with foreign operatives during Trump’s presidential campaign.

FBI Director James Comey has acknowledged that an investigation was opened last year into Russia’s efforts to influence the election and the question of whether the Trump campaign coordinated with the Kremlin. But Comey stopped short of naming anyone working for the campaign who may have been involved.

CNN is working to confirm The Washington Post’s story.

Page, however, called the FISA warrant “unjustified” in a statement to CNN’s Manu Raju.

“There have been various reports [about FISA documents and FBI surveillance of him],” Page said. “But I was so happy to hear that further confirmation is now being revealed. It shows how low the Clinton/Obama regime went to destroy our democracy and suppress dissidents who did not fully support their failed foreign policy. It will be interesting to see what comes out when the unjustified basis for those FISA requests are more fully disclosed over time, including potentially the Dodgy Dossier — a document that clearly is false evidence, which could represent yet another potential crime.”

Page was referring to a leaked dossier of unverified information compiled by a former British intelligence official for Trump’s political opponents. Then-President-elect Trump and President Barack Obama were briefed on the existence of the dossier before Trump’s inauguration, CNN reported.

When asked in March of last year to list members of his foreign policy team in an interview with The Washington Post, Trump included “Carter Page, PhD.”

Page has said he sent policy memos to the campaign and participated in conference calls as well as gatherings that included Trump, but also said he never personally briefed Trump or was in “small meetings” with him during the election. But Trump said at a White House news conference in February that he doesn’t think he ever met Page.

“I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to him,” Trump said. “I don’t think I’ve ever met him. And he actually said he was a very low-level member of I think a committee for a short period of time. I don’t think I ever met him. Now, it’s possible that I walked into a room and he was sitting there, but I don’t think I ever met him.”

Page told CNN he had never shaken Trump’s hand and that by saying he had met with Trump, he had meant meetings in the “Russian sense,” which he said meant he had attended rallies Trump spoke at.

In recent interviews, Page described himself as a “junior member” of Trump’s foreign policy team, and has denied working on any Russia-related policies for the campaign. He also said in February that he is still in contact with some people in the Trump orbit.

(h/t CNN)

Reality

A lot of right-wing news media and Carter Page himself have declared this revelation to be some sort of vindication, that finally there is some proof that Obama wiretapped Donald Trump at Trump Tower during the election.

But first, this is none of those things.

And most importantly, Page should not be excited over this news because you don’t get slapped with a FISA warrant unless the court thinks you could be the agent of a foreign power. U.S. officials convinced a FISA court judge during the presidential campaign that there is probable cause that Page was “knowingly” working as an agent of a foreign government while advising Trump.

Trump: NATO Is ‘No Longer Obsolete’

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President Trump on Wednesday said that NATO is “no longer obsolete” — a big change after Trump repeatedly called the alliance obsolete on the campaign trail.

At a joint press conference with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, Trump said that he will continue to work closely with NATO allies, particularly when it comes to fighting terrorism.

“The secretary-general and I had a productive discussion on what more NATO can do in the fight against terrorism,” Trump said at Wednesday’s press conference. “I complained about that a long time ago and they made a change and now they do fight terrorism.”

“I said it was obsolete,” he continued. “It is not longer obsolete.”

During the 2016 campaign and after his election, Trump frequently criticized NATO as “obsolete” and knocked allies for not paying their “fair share.”

At Wednesday’s press conference, Trump reiterated his call that NATO allies “meet their financial obligations and pay what they owe.”

He said he discussed with Stoltenberg his desire that allies fulfill their responsibility to spent 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense by 2024.

Trump will travel to Brussels to attend a NATO summit on May 25.

(h/t The Hill)

Media

In Major Reversal, Trump Says China ‘Not Currency Manipulators’

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President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he no longer believes China manipulates its currency, a complete shift from the position he repeatedly took during his 2016 campaign.

“They’re not currency manipulators,” Trump told the the Wall Street Journal during an Oval Office interview.

The reason he changed his mind, the president said, was because China has stopped manipulating its currency in recent months and the accusations could jeopardize U.S. negotiations with China to deal with the nuclear threat from North Korea.

Trump’s flip flop comes just days after the president hosted his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, at Mar-a-Lago in southern Florida.

Throughout the campaign, Trump repeatedly said he would instruct his Treasury Secretary to label China “a currency manipulator.” And as recently as 10 days ago, he told the Financial Times that China was the “world champion” of currency manipulators.

The official label would need to be included in a semiannual Treasury report expected this month.

(h/t NBC News)

Jeff Sessions Was Prepared to Call Illegal Immigrants ‘Filth’

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During a speech at the U.S.-Mexico border on Tuesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions reiterated his and President Donald Trump’s commitment to cracking down on undocumented immigrants. But one thing was missing from his speech as it was delivered: a phrase referring to criminals who cross the border as “filth,” which appeared in his prepared remarks.

In the text that was published on the Department of Justice website, Sessions told a grim tale of immigrant hordes crossing the border and wreaking havoc on U.S. citizens — a myth that has been debunked time and time again.

“We mean criminal organizations that turn cities and suburbs into warzones, that rape and kill innocent citizens and who profit by smuggling poison and other human beings across our borders,” the speech says. “Depravity and violence are their calling cards, including brutal machete attacks and beheadings. It is here, on this sliver of land, where we first take our stand against this filth.”

But according to Catherine Thompson of Talking Points Memo, Sessions dropped “against this filth” while delivering the speech to border agents in Nogales, Arizona.

In the past, Sessions, like Trump, has enthusiastically expressed discontentwith immigrants and vowed to deport thousands of undocumented immigrants who he’s repeatedly painted as hostile and violent.

As an Alabama Senator, Sessions opposed immigration reform by arguing that immigration “takes jobs from Americans and can, in fact, create cultural problems.” He was one of the most vocal Trump supporters during the 2016 presidential campaign, and supported him after he described Mexicans as bad hombres, rapists, and criminals. And during his first speech as the U.S. Attorney General in February, Sessions said, “We need to end this lawlessness that threatens Americans’ safety and pulls down wages of ordinary Americans.”

Based on the glaring omission on Tuesday, it appears as though Sessions thought the term “filth” would’ve been a step too far.

(h/t ThinkProgress)

Melania Trump Wins Damages From Daily Mail Over ‘Escort’ Allegation

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The UK’s Daily Mail newspaper has agreed to pay damages and costs to the first lady of the United States over an article about her modelling career.

The newspaper had reported allegations that Melania Trump once worked as an escort, but later retracted the claims.

The story was published during the US election campaign last year.

Mrs Trump accepted damages and an apology from the newspaper at London’s High Court.

She filed lawsuits against the Daily Mail newspaper in the United Kingdom, and its digital operation Mail Online in the United States.

The US suit, filed last year, sought damages of $150m (£120m). The amount accepted by Mrs Trump in London was not disclosed in court.

However, reports suggest the payout was closer to $3m, including legal costs and damages. It is understood it will also settle the case in New York.

In its apology, the Daily Mail acknowledged it had published “allegations that she provided services beyond simply modelling”.

The article also claimed that Mr and Mrs Trump may have met three years before they actually did, and later “staged” their first meeting.

“We accept that these allegations about Mrs Trump are not true,” the newspaper said.

A lawyer for Mrs Trump told the London court the allegations “strike at the heart of the claimant’s personal integrity and dignity”.

Her lawyer said the double-page spread in August last year, titled “Racy photos and troubling questions about his wife’s past that could derail Trump”, featured an old nude photo of Mrs Trump from her modelling career.

“Readers of the newspaper that day could not fail to miss the article,” he said.

And so the mighty Mail titles have been Trumped.

Well, almost. There are people in the legal profession flabbergasted at the size of the damages that Melania Trump has received from Associated Newspapers.

But given some of the figures bandied about when this case first arose, that isn’t as bad as some at the Mail group may have feared.

Moreover, the Mail are pointing out that they stick by some aspects of their original story, but accept error on the most salacious: that the First Lady was an escort.

It will be interesting to see if this settlement encourages others to be more aggressive toward UK papers, and also whether it helps to spread the trend for legal action across multiple jurisdictions.

Charles Harder, Mrs Trump’s lawyer, also acted for Hulk Hogan when the wrestler brought his $140m (£112m) case against Gawker Media, forcing its sale.

Compared to that, this action is small fry.

Mrs Trump’s lawsuit initially said that Mrs Trump had the “unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity… to launch a broad-based commercial brand in multiple product categories, each of which could have garnered multi-million dollar business relationships for a multi-year term during which [she] is one of the most photographed women in the world”.

Critics used the phrasing to question whether Mrs Trump had plans to make financial gains from her position as first lady.

A second version of the suit, re-filed weeks later, dropped the controversial wording.

Mrs Trump was born Melanija Knavs, in Sevnica, a small town about an hour’s drive from Slovenia’s capital of Ljubljana.

She was signed to a modelling agency in her late teens, and began flying around Europe and the US, appearing in high-profile ad campaigns.

She met Donald Trump in 1998, when she was 28 years old, at a party during New York Fashion week.

They married seven years later.

(h/t BBC News)

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