Tag: liar

White House: Would Be Nice If Trump Had ‘Complicit, Compliant Media’ As Democrats Do

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White House principal deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley claimed Democrats receive “complicit” and “compliant” media treatment, as he discussed President Donald Trump’s decision to walk out of a meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

“It’s amazing how the media cover what he does and what he says in a slant that makes everything negative no matter how positive the subject matter may be,” Gidley told Fox News’ Howie Kurtz in an interview that aired Sunday. 

The spokesman went on to accuse the press of mischaracterizing Trump’s behavior after he abruptly ended his Wednesday meeting with Democrats during which they were supposed to negotiate a bipartisan infrastructure deal.

Rather than talking about the topic at hand, Trump reportedly entered the room and spoke for just three minutes before taking off, declaring that he wouldn’t work with Democrats on infrastructure unless they stopped investigating his administration now that special counsel Robert Mueller’s report has been completed. He then held a news conference in the Rose Garden to criticize his opponents.

In a letter to her congressional colleagues that evening, Pelosi called the president’s behavior “a temper tantrum.”

“Democrats are here for the country,” she said. “Sadly, the only job the President seems to be concerned with is his own.” 

Frustrated by reports on the matter, Gidley claimed that journalists “take whatever [Pelosi] says lock, stock and barrel.”

“I mean, it would be so nice if we had a complicit, compliant media the way the Democrats do but we don’t and that’s the game and we understand that,” he added. 

Shortly before the meeting, Pelosi told reporters that she believed Trump “is engaged in a cover-up,” a remark that reportedly infuriated the president, according to The Washington Post.

“I don’t do cover-ups,” Trump said during the Rose Garden news conference. “Get these phony investigations over with.”

[Huffington Post]

Media

Trump Implies He Trusts North Korea’s Kim More Than His Own People

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President Donald Trump seemed to contradict his national security adviser Saturday, claiming he was unbothered by North Korea’s recent missile tests essentially because he trusts dictator Kim Jong Un. In a tweet while he was in Japan, Trump also espoused a view that is at odds with his host country. “North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “I have confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his promise to me.”

Japan had said that North Korea’s recent test of short range missiles amounted to a violation of United Nations resolutions. And Trump’s own national security adviser John Bolton agreed with that assessment, telling reporters on Saturday there was “no doubt” that the missile test violated Security Council resolutions.

Vipin Narang, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is an expert on nuclear proliferation and North Korea, said that Trump’s message was “disturbing” for one key reason. “There is a lot that is really disturbing here, but the most important bit is ‘Chairman Kim will keep his promise to me’,” Narang wrote. “Kim never promised to unilaterally disarm, and the problem is Trump continues to believe he did. THAT is why this is so dangerous.”

[Slate]

Trump denies North Korea has set off any rockets — 24 hours after admitting they shot off ‘some small weapons’

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President Donald Trump denied his own intelligence information about North Korea during a press conference in Japan Monday. Oddly, however, the comment came just 24 hours after he called the rockets “some small weapons.”

According to White House correspondent from CBS News, Mark Knoller, Trump told the press he feels “a lot of good things will come from North Korea.”

He went on to claim that the country hasn’t had any rocket testing or nuclear testing since he began negotiating with them.

It’s unclear if Trump is neglecting his national security briefings, ignoring them or forgot about the two times North Korea fired rockets in the wake of his last meeting with the dictator. The moment came just 24 hours after Trump claimed that North Korea shot off “some small weapons.”

The last missile test was May 9, 2019, when the country launched two short-range ballistic missiles. May 4, 2019, North Korea launched several short-range projectiles from the east coast of the country. The New York Times also noted that it’s possible one of the missiles was a Russian Iskander missile, which can make corrections in flight to its target.

But just 24 hours ago, Trump said something entirely different.

“North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me,” Trump said. According to theAssociated Press, the message contradicts Trump’s own national security advisor, John Bolton, who called the short-range missiles a violation of UN Security Council resolutions.

[Raw Story]

Trump Thanks Jon Voight For Video, Spells His Name Wrong

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Actor Jon Voight made headlines this weekend when he tweeted a video in which he praised President Trump, compared him to Abraham Lincoln, and ripped “the left and their absurd words of destruction,” per The Inquisitr.

President Trump not only retweeted the video, but thanked Voight personally, but spelled the actor’s name wrong in the process.

“Thank you John, so nice!,” the president tweeted. Voight, however, spells his first name “Jon.”

“Don’t be fooled by the political left because we are the people of this nation that is witnessing triumph,” Voight said in the video. “So let us stand with our president, let us stand for this truth that President Trump is the greatest president since Abraham Lincoln. God bless America.”

Voight, who is 80-years-old, won an Oscar for his performance in director Hal Ashby’s 1979 antiwar film Coming Home, in which he co-starred with Jane Fonda. Voight has been an outspoken conservative at least since the Bush years.

The actor has been comparing Trump to Lincoln going back at least as far as the presidential inauguration in early 2017. Earlier this year, Trump appointed Voight to the Kennedy Center board, per Variety. Among others named by Trump included former Gov. Mike Huckabee and the father of the White House press secretary, Mike Huckabee.

The tweet wasn’t Trump’s only Twitter misspelling of the day. In a strange tweet about North Korean dictator Kim Jung Un, he referred to the former vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Joseph Biden as “Bidan,” in the process of claiming that the North Korean dictator had called “Swampman Joe Biden a low IQ individual.” Trump later deleted and reposted the tweet with Biden’s name spelled correctly, although the Voight tweet remained up as of Saturday night.

In addition to his acting work and political statements, Voight is known as the father of actress Angelina Jolie. The two had an estranged relationship for many years, but became closer following her split from Brad Pitt, per E! Online.

As pointed out by many on Twitter, the confusion between Jon Voight and “John Voight” very much recalls the 1994 Seinfeld episode, “The Mom and Pop Store.” In that episode, George Costanza is talked into buying a car that he’s told was formerly owned by Jon Voight. The punchline of the episode is that the car was actually owned by a different John Voight, not the actor but rather a periodontist named Dr. John Voight.

The episode ends with a direct homage to Midnight Cowboy, one of Voight (the actor)’s most famous movies.

[Inquisitr]

Trump Blasts Top Senate Intel Dem Mark Warner: Acts Like He Runs the Committee

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While en route to Japan earlier today, President Donald Trump fired off a tweet blasting Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The committee received particular attention over the recent news of Donald Trump Jr. being subpoenaed to testify. They worked out a deal and the president’s son will speak to the committee.

More recently, Warner decried Trump for giving AG Bill Barr declassification authority on documents related to the origins of the Russia probe, saying the attorney general has “already shown that he has no problem selectively releasing information in order to mislead the American people”:

Earlier today, Trump blasted Warner for “acting and talking like he is in total control of the Senate Intelligence Committee”:

It’s unclear what jokester he’s referring to, though he may be mixing up Warner (who texted a Russian lobbyist in an effort to contact Christopher Steele) with House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, who was infamously called by Russian pranksters back in 2017.

[Mediaite]

Trump Tweets Cartoon Mocking Brennan, Comey, & Clapper; Brennan Fires Back at Trump’s ‘Immature Behavior’

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President Donald Trump shared a cartoon on Twitter this afternoon mocking James Comey, John Brennan, and James Clapper.

Trump has publicly blasted all three former officials over the Russia investigation. Yesterday he gave AG Bill Barr the authority to declassify documents pertaining to the origins of the investigation.

The president shared this cartoon to Twitter this afternoon:

(The very recognizable symbol on Brennan’s jacket is presumably a reference to the time he voted for a Communist presidential candidate.)

Brennan himself shot back by sending a message to young people to please never emulate Trump’s “very immature behavior”:

[Mediaite]

White House Aide Hogan Gidley Vouched For Trump’s Composure During Pelosi Meeting Despite Not Attending

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White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley vouched for President Donald Trump‘s composure during a meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this week where the president stormed out, despite the fact that Gidley did not attend the meeting.

During an event in the Roosevelt Room yesterday, Trump tried to prove that he was calm during the meeting by asking the staffers that attended “what was my attitude yesterday at the meeting?”

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway insisted there was “no temper tantrum” and White House chief economic advisor Larry Kudlow claimed there was that the president was “very calm,” while Gidley also insisted the president was level-headed Pelosi even though he was not among the president’s staff included in the meeting.

“Were you there, Hogan? You know about it,” Trump went on to ask.

“I’ve seen the first one, Mr. President. That accusation that you pounded your fists — and I’ll be honest, you have every right to do that. We face a crisis on the southern border and they’ve done nothing,” Gidley replied. “You laid out the case to them, and they refused to work with you.”

However, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Gidley was not in the room for the meeting.

The Roosevelt Room event was supposed to focus on trade deals and the impacts they are having on American farmers, but the president used the opportunity to rant about Democrats’ continued interest in Trump’s obstruction of the Mueller probe.

“They’re a do-nothing group of people. The Democrats have done nothing other than to obstruct. They’re obstructing this country,” Trump said. “The Democrats have done nothing in the House, they’ve done absolutely nothing — I mean other than investigate. They want to investigate.”

Yesterday, Pelosi told reporters during her weekly presser that “the president’s behavior, as far as his obstruction of justice, the things that he is doing, it’s in plain sight, it cannot be denied — ignoring subpoenas, obstruction of justice.”

She also called Trump’s abrupt exit from their White House meeting on Wednesday a “stunt,” adding that he “stormed out” and threw “another temper tantrum.”

“I pray for the president of the United States,” Pelosi said. “I wish that his family or his administration or his staff would have an intervention for the good of the country.”

[Mediaite]

Trump: My Approval Rating Would Be 75 Percent if Press ‘Would Give Straight News’

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President Donald Trump took questions from press members assembled on the White House lawn as the commander-in-hief prepared to leave for a diplomatic trip to Japan.

Asked if he was worried that multiple investigations are hurting his re-election chances, the president pushed back at the assembled media in a manner consistent with his previous “fake news” rhetoric, but with a twist of strangely specific poll numbers.

Trump responded “My poll numbers are very good,” adding  “I guess we have a 48 today. A 51. We have very good poll numbers considering.”

A recent Quinnipiac poll has Trump’s approval rating at 38%, through the historically more Republican-friendly Rassmussen has Trump’s approval at 46%with likely voters.

But Trump did not miss the opportunity to ding what he sees as unfair treatment by the press.

“I have to tell you, if you people would give straight news, I would be at 70. I’d be maybe a 75.” He then blamed the press for bias, saying “You don’t give straight news. You give fake news. With fake news, I’m still winning the election. If you gave serious good news the way you’re supposed to, I’d probably be at 70 or 75 based on the economy alone. ”

[Mediaite]

Media

Trump Shares Edited Video of Pelosi, Quotes Fox Analyst Questioning Her Mental Fitness: ‘What’s Going On?’

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President Donald Trump took his feud with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to a new level on Thursday night, posting an edited video of the Democrat that called into question her mental fitness.

Trump first tweeted out speculation from Fox News pundit Gregg Jarrett, who claimed that Pelosi was having trouble speaking and asked, “What’s going on?”

Shortly after, Trump tweeted out a clip that aired on the Fox Business Network show Lou Dobbs Tonight in which a series of clips of Pelosi stammering were edited together. To be clear, this is not one of the doctored videos shared elsewhere on social media, which were edited to make the Speaker sound like she was slurring her speech.

“PELOSI STAMMERS THROUGH NEWS CONFERENCE,” Trump wrote.

A Fox spokesperson told Mediaite in a statement: “The FOX Business segment featuring clips from Speaker Pelosi’s speech today did not slow down any aspect of her address”

The entire Fox Business segment, which you can watch above, was held in response to Pelosi’s statement from earlier Thursday that she hoped Trump’s family would stage an intervention.

“I think the name-calling has to stop,” said Fox analyst Ed Rollins at the top of the segment.

After watching the edited clip of Pelosi, Rollins speculated: “We all age a little differently. My sense is she is a very big job I think is getting worn down. She’s always very neat and proper, I think she’s very inarticulate which she’s never been in the past. I think in a certain extent she needs to kind of step in the background and not be in front as much. She shouldn’t be the point person leading the Democrats.”

“Is she speaker in name only now? Being actually controlled and whipped by her own sort of radical branch of the Democratic Party?” Jarrett asked.

[Mediaite]

Trump: Intelligence agencies must ‘quickly and fully’ cooperate with Barr review of 2016 surveillance

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President Donald Trump on Thursday directed that U.S. intelligence agencies must “quickly and fully” cooperate with Attorney General William Barr’s investigation “into surveillance activities during the 2016 Presidential election,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement. 

Barr has also been delegated the authority by Trump to declassify information related to the investigation, the White House also announced.

Sanders said that Barr had requested and recommended that the president issue the directive to the intelligence community.

“Today’s action will help ensure that all Americans learn the truth about the events that occurred, and the actions that were taken, during the last Presidential election and will restore confidence in our public institutions,” Sanders also said in the statement.

Trump’s order came just hours after he stood in the Roosevelt Room of the White House and reiterated his claim, without providing evidence, that when FBI officials launched the initial probe into Russia that the decision amounted to “treason.”

“These are bad people,” Trump told reporters during an event with farmers. “That’s treason. That’s treason. They couldn’t win the election, and that’s what happened.”

The initial Trump investigation began when former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos told a foreign diplomat that Russia had collected thousands of Hillary Clinton’s emails and would use them to damage the Democratic candidate’s campaign. The diplomat tipped off the FBI to the conversation.

The developments advance Trump’s desire to dig into the very beginnings of the counterintelligence investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election that later became part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe. Trump and his allies have alleged the investigation began with political motivations, though there has been no smoking-gun evidence to support that theory.

Trump has repeatedly promised to declassify the documents, which many Republicans view as critical to deciphering the origins of the Russia probe. Some redacted Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court records were released last year, but Trump allies have sought more information about the evidence the FBI presented to obtain a wiretap on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

That wiretap was not authorized until after Page left the Trump campaign, but the president has used its existence to argue that the FBI was “spying” on him.

Barr last month at a congressional hearing, without providing evidence, said “I think spying did occur” on Trump’s 2016 campaign. And Barr has more recently made similar suggestions in media interviews. 

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told USA TODAY recently that seeing more of the secret FISA court documents would be a key first step to understanding the origins of the Trump-Russia probe. Kennedy said the Justice Department should also review what prompted the investigation of Clinton’s private email server, to ensure that politics weren’t involved in either case.

“The first thing I would like to see is the president declassify all documents to the FBI and Justice dealing with the 2016 election,” Kennedy said. “There will have to be redactions. But if he’s not willing to do that, then I would like to see Mr. Barr delve into the genesis of all investigations about the 2016 election – the Trump investigation and the Clinton investigation.”

[USA Today]

Reality

Donald Trump is an authoritarian, and investigating his investigators is just another checked box in the authoritarian checklist.

What does this mean?

Sweeping powers for Barr

Barr was given the authority to unilaterally declassify materials related to the investigation, allowing him to “direct” intelligence officials to declassify them. Such documents usually go through an interagency process to determine what can be declassified and released publicly, and the agency where the intelligence originated has to sign off on the final declassification.

Potential for conflict with intelligence community

While it’s not unusual for the intelligence community to cooperate with law enforcement investigations, some former officials say it will become problematic if Trump is seen as using the agencies to go after his political enemies.

Democratic fury meets Republican praise

Democrats, already critical of Barr’s handling of Mueller’s findings, have accused Trump and the attorney general of attempting to politicize the nation’s intelligence apparatus. Some suggested the administration may be looking to selectively release classified material to shape a false narrative.

Trump’s calls to ‘investigate the investigators’ get louder

Thursday’s developments illustrate Trump’s calls to “investigate the investigators” – a message he has used to counter an onslaught of investigations from Democrats following the release of Mueller’s report.

Trump has accused FBI officials involved in the original Russia probe – former FBI director James Comey, former deputy director Andrew McCabe and others – of engaging in “treason.”

More shoes to drop

Trump’s recent move all but guarantees his administration will release certain materials from the early stages of the Russia investigation.

Trump has long said he would declassify and release sensitive documents, including the application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to surveil Page, a highly redacted version of which the Justice Department made public last summer under pressure from Republicans.

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