President Donald Trumpagain criticized the late Sen. John McCain Tuesday, pointing specifically to his vote against repealing Obamacare and saying was “never a fan” and “never will be.”
“I’m very unhappy that he didn’t repeal and replace Obamacare, as you know. He campaigned on repealing and replacing Obamacare for years and then they got to a vote and he said thumbs down,” Trump said. “Plus there were other things. I was never a fan of John McCain and I never will be.”
The president’s comments came during an Oval Office meeting with the president of Brazil and after a series of weekend tweets in which Trump blasted the senator, who passed away battling brain cancer in last August.
Trump accused him of “spreading the fake and totally discredited dossier” and of sending it to the FBI and the media “hoping to have it printed BEFORE the Election.” But the president’s claim is not accurate. McCain wasn’t made aware of the dossier until after the election when he passed it on to the FBI.
The dossier, compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, alleged links between the Trump campaign and Russian officials. Along with other explosive allegations, it alleged that Russians held compromising information about Trump that could be used to blackmail him.
On ABC’s “The View” on Monday, McCain’s daughter Meghan fired back at Trump, saying he “spends his weekend obsessing over great men” because “he will never be a great man” like her father.
President Donald Trump doubled down on his words of support for conservatives on social media – a group he says has faced “big discrimination.”
“Things are happening, names are taken off, people aren’t getting through, you’ve heard the same complaints and it seems to be if they are conservative, if they’re Republicans, if they’re in a certain group there’s discrimination and big discrimination,” Trump said.
“I see it absolutely on Twitter and on Facebook which I have also and others,” Trump said during a joint press conference in the Rose Garden with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday.
“I get to see what’s going on first hand and it is not good, we use the word ‘collusion’ very loosely all the time and I will tell you there is collusion with respect to that because something has to be going on and when you get the back scene, back office statements made by executives of the various companies and you see the level of, in many cases, hatred they have for a certain group of people who happen to be in power, that happen to have won the election, you say that’s really unfair,” Trump continued. “So something’s happening with those groups of folks who are running Facebook and Google and Twitter and I do think we have to get to the bottom of it.”
Twitter says it enforces its rules “dispassionately and equally for all users, regardless of their background or political affiliation.”
His comments come on the heels of a lawsuit by Rep. Devin Nunes, the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who is suing political strategist Liz Mair, Twitter and two twitter accounts for negligence, defamation, insulting words and civil conspiracy.
President Donald Trump is pressuring General Motors to reopen the Lordstown, Ohio manufacturing plant that recently closed and put 1,700 people out of work. The president issued a series of tweets over the weekend and on Monday morning, urging GM to immediately begin discussions with the auto union.
Mr. Trump tweeted over the weekend and through Monday morning about his frustration with the plant’s closure, claiming that “car companies are all coming back to the U.S.” and touting the U.S. economy as “the envy of all.” On Sunday night, he disclosed in a tweet that he had vented his frustrations during a conversation with the company’s CEO, Mary Barra.
“I am not happy that it is closed when everything else in our Country is BOOMING,” Mr. Trump wrote. “I asked her to sell it or do something quickly. She blamed the UAW Union — I don’t care, I just want it open!”
The union is the United Automobile Workers, which represents the employees who lost their jobs in the Lordstown closure. Trump had previously told a UAW leader, David Green, to “get his act together and produce” for the Lordstown workers. Green didn’t respond to a request for comment Sunday.
Workers at the Lordstown plant worked their last shift earlier this month. More than 3,300 hourly workers were laid off indefinitely, representing about 7 percent of GM’s hourly U.S. employees. The cuts come as the automaker enjoyed a near-record $12 billion profit last year.
On Monday morning, Mr. Trump reiterated his support for the Lordstown plant to reopen quickly.
“General Motors and the UAW are going to start ‘talks’ in September/October. Why wait, start them now!,” he tweeted. “I want jobs to stay in the U.S.A. and want Lordstown (Ohio), in one of the best economies in our history, opened or sold to a company who will open it up fast!”
Donald Trump — who reportedly hadMichael Cohen threaten all of his schools to keep his own transcripts a secret — spent a second consecutive day attacking the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), falsely claiming that McCain was “last in his class” at Annapolis.
On Sunday morning, Trump tweeted another attack on McCain, saying that it was “‘last in his class’ (Annapolis) John McCain that sent the Fake Dossier to the FBI and Media hoping to have it printed BEFORE the Election.”
So it was indeed (just proven in court papers) “last in his class” (Annapolis) John McCain that sent the Fake Dossier to the FBI and Media hoping to have it printed BEFORE the Election. He & the Dems, working together, failed (as usual). Even the Fake News refused this garbage!
Trump’s claim about McCain is false. He graduated fifth from the bottom of his class, and self-effacingly noted in 1993 that “My four years here [at Annapolis] were not notable for individual academic achievement but, rather, for the impressive catalogue of demerits which I managed to accumulate.”
Former Trump fixer Michael Cohen has testified that Trump had him threaten all of his own former schools to keep his academic records secret.
Trump’s attack cones a day after he similarly slammed McCain, prompting a cutting response from Meghan McCain. Trump’s obsession with attacking John McCain’s military record dates back at least twenty years, when he toldDan Rather “He was captured. Does being captured make you a hero? I don’t know. I’m not sure.”
It was an attack that he infamously repeated during the 2016 presidential campaign, but which did not dim his popularity with Republican voters.
Trump chastised McCain for his no vote on a bare-bones repeal of President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare legislation, wrongly describing it as a “thumbs down on repeal and replace after years of campaigning to repeal and replace!”
Spreading the fake and totally discredited Dossier “is unfortunately a very dark stain against John McCain.” Ken Starr, Former Independent Counsel. He had far worse “stains” than this, including thumbs down on repeal and replace after years of campaigning to repeal and replace!
The legislation opposed by McCain did not have a replacement component.
Responding to reports in conservative media outlets that cite court documents that say a former aide to the Republican senator from Arizona was the source of a leak that put a Trump opposition-research dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele into the hands of multiple media outlets in late 2016, the president echoed former independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s remarks on Fox News.
The reports about the source of the leaks have not been confirmed by NBC News.
The dossier alleges the Trump campaign worked with the Russian government to defeat rival Hillary Clinton in 2016. The core allegations in the dossier compose the heart of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian influence on the presidential election.
“The more we find out the uglier it becomes,” Starr, referring to the alleged media leaks of the dossier, said recently on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends.” “The Steele dossier I think has been very substantially discredited.”
Starr said of McCain, “I think he was an American hero. But I’m very sorry he got implicated in this in terms of spreading this very nasty stuff around.”
The reports that McCain leaked the 35-page dossier, which was originally the product of funding by a conservative publication, are “unfortunately a very dark stain” on the former senator’s record, Starr said.
In December former U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg said on MSNBCthat “the dossier holds up well. None of it has been disproven.”
Starr, a Republican, headed the investigation that led to the impeachment of President Clinton for lying about having sex with White House staffer Monica Lewinsky.
Trump lashed out at McCain again on Sunday, claiming McCain sent the dossier to the FBI and the media. McCain gave a version of the dossier to the FBI in December of 2016, after the presidential election, and asked if any of it was true, but he had denied being a source of the document for BuzzFeed, which published it in January of 2017.
President Donald Trump is falsely asserting that the latest trial of his former campaign chairman proved there was no collusion with Russia. That’s twice in two cases that Trump claimed vindication that did not occur.
The ex-campaign chief, Paul Manafort, was sentenced to nearly 3½ years in prison Wednesday on top of a nearly four-year sentence given by another judge last week.
As if anticipating Trump would claim exoneration from the case, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson reminded her courtroom during the sentencing hearing Wednesday that the case before her was unrelated to questions about whether the Trump campaign worked with Russians to tilt the 2016 election.
“The ‘no collusion’ mantra is simply a non sequitur,” she said, scolding Manafort’s lawyers for bringing it up during the trial. It’s not accurate, she continued, because “the investigation is still ongoing.”
She said pointedly: “Court is one of those places where facts still matter.”
The president was undeterred.
TRUMP: “I can only tell you one thing: Again that was proven today, no collusion.” — remarks to reporters at the White House.
THE FACTS: There was no such proof in either trial. Whether collusion happened was not a subject of the charges against Manafort. It’s one of the central issues in a separate and continuing investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller.
In the case that produced Manafort’s first prison sentence, he was convicted of tax and bank fraud related to his work advising Ukrainian politicians. Judge T.S. Ellis III neither cleared nor implicated the president, instead emphasizing that Manafort was “not before this court for anything having to do with collusion with the Russian government.”
Trump ignored that point afterward, tweeting Friday: “Both the Judge and the lawyer in the Paul Manafort case stated loudly and for the world to hear that there was NO COLLUSION with Russia.” He misquoted the lawyer as well as the judge.
On Wednesday, Jackson sentenced Manafort for misleading the government about his foreign lobbying work and for encouraging witnesses to lie on his behalf. Again, the case did not turn on his leadership of Trump’s campaign.
As with other Americans who were close to Trump and have been charged in the Mueller probe, Manafort hasn’t been accused of involvement in Russian election interference. Nor has he been cleared of that suspicion. The same is true of Trump.
Donald Trump, who is president despite receiving 2.87 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton, complains that “the Electoral College is a big advantage for Democrats, not for Republicans.”
This is a repeated claim by Trump, last said in Helsinki during the same press conference where he bowed down to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The reality is the last Republican who was elected to office with a larger popular vote than his opponent was George H. W. Bush in 1992. The Electoral College has been an advantage for Republicans for over 20 years.
Trump, who is president despite receiving 2.87 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton, complains that "the Electoral College is a big advantage for Democrats, not for Republicans." pic.twitter.com/rGUwil2DyN
In his latest Fox & Friends live-tweeting session, President Donald Trumpapplauded former Greenpeace president Patrick Moore for saying the planet’s climate crisis is “fake news” and “fake science.” This comes after Trump echoed a segment of the show where one of his former campaign staffers called on Jews to abandon the Democratic Party.
Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace: “The whole climate crisis is not only Fake News, it’s Fake Science. There is no climate crisis, there’s weather and climate all around the world, and in fact carbon dioxide is the main building block of all life.” @foxandfriends Wow!
Moore was invited onto Fox & Friends because he called Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes (D-NY) a “pompous little twit” for her latest defense of the Green New Deal. Sure enough, he used his segment to call the proposal “completely ridiculous” and push his denial of climate change.
Moore went on to bash the majority of the scientific community for their concerns about climate change, saying Greenpeace has been “hijacked by the extreme left” to sell “sensationalism, misinformation, and fear.” He also suggested that global warming could be a good thing, saying that burning fossil fuels and releasing more greenhouse gases will “fertilize” the planet, resulting in a net positive for the environment.
As it were, Greenpeace has responded to Trump, saying that contrary to Moore’s claim, he did not co-found the organization, and they essentially renounced him ever since he started operating as a lobbyist and an advocate for polluters and corporate energy industries.
Patrick Moore was not a co-founder of Greenpeace. He does not represent Greenpeace. He is a paid lobbyist, not an independent source. His statements about @AOC & the #GreenNewDeal have nothing to do with our positions. https://t.co/u0chD1Ne0Hpic.twitter.com/TfwtwYZ98R
It’s worth noting the Trump Administration released a report from multiple federal agencies last year that determined global climate change could have extreme long-term consequences for the United States. Then again, Trump has made his skepticism of man-made climate change perfectly clear in the past, so his parroting Moore could just be confirmation bias on his part.
Donald Trump takes great pride in his golf game. Shinzo Abe and Tiger Woods and countless others can tell you about that. He once tweeted “I don’t cheat at golf” but added that Samuel L. Jackson does and “with his game he has no choice.” The president’s official USGA handicap index is listed as 2.8, though he seldom posts scores. Any visitor to the ornate men’s locker room at his club here, Trump International Golf Club, can see small rectangular brass plaques on his locker, recognizing him as the 1999, 2001 and 2009 club champion, and the 2012 and 2013 senior champion.
And now there’s a new plaque on his locker, screwed into its stained wood with two small Phillips head screws, to commemorate his latest title. It reads:
President Trump’s locker at Trump International in West Palm Beach, Fla.
Yes, Trump was president of the United States for all of 2018.
Yes, Trump turned 72 last year, which would be an impressive age to win even a senior club championship.
But there the plaque is, identifying Trump as the reigning club champion at his spectacular Trump International course.
His most recent win brings Trump’s club-championship haul — all won at clubs bearing his name — to an even 20. That includes senior and super-senior titles, too.
But to be precise about it, the plaque on his locker is two letters short of accurate. Trump is not actually the men’s champion at the club. He’s the co-champion. While that distinction is not found on his locker, it is made elsewhere at the club.
As for Trump’s path to No. 20, it was not conventional.
Originally, a man named Ted Virtue, the 58-year-old CEO of a New York investment firm called MidOcean Partners, had the 2018 club championship title all to himself.
Virtue, a member of Winged Foot and Westchester Country Club in New York and Lost Tree and Trump International in South Florida, won a series of matches en route to his title. He played football and basketball at Middlebury College in Vermont in the early 1980s and his golf is more athletic than poetic. His index is listed as 3.3 and his 20 most recent scores, all from 2018 and this year, range from 73 to 83. Trump has posted only two scores since 2016.
After Virtue won the championship, Trump ran into him at the club, according to multiple sources who recounted the story. Having some fun with him, Trump said something like, “The only reason you won is because I couldn’t play.” The president cited the demands of his job, although he was able to make 20 visits to the club in 2018, according to trumpgolfcount.com. Trump then proposed a nine-hole challenge match to Virtue, winner-takes-the-title.
You could say there wasn’t much in it for Virtue, and you could argue that this is not how these matters are typically, if ever, settled. But consider these factors:
1. Trump owns the course;
2. Trump is the president of the United States;
3. Trump is not your typical golfer.
Virtue said yes.
They played match play (each hole as its own contest) and straight up (no shots were given). As in nearly all amateur golf rounds, no rules official was on hand. Golf’s tradition calls for players to police themselves and, if necessary, one another.
Trump won.
In victory a magnanimous Trump said to Virtue something like, “This isn’t fair — we’ll be co-champions.”
The crowning of co-champions in golf is rare, but it does happen, at every level. In the 1949 Motor City Open, Lloyd Mangrum and Cary Middlecoff each shot 273 for 72 holes and then matched scores for 11 straight sudden-death playoff holes, playing through sunset. They were declared co-champions.
And that is how Trump and Virtue are reportedly listed on a large club-championship plaque on a clubhouse wall, as co-champions. That would mean Trump’s name is now on that plaque four times. Or five, if you include the appearance of his surname on the gold crest at its top.
Several club employees said they were not allowed to discuss club matters. Eric Trump, who runs the Trump golf-course empire for his father, did not respond to messages. Neither did Virtue.
Regardless of the outcome of that short match, 2018 was a good year for Virtue. A movie he helped get made, Green Book, was released, and on Feb. 24 it won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Virtue, tall and tanned, was standing on the stage when the movie’s director, Peter Farrelly, hoisted the bronze statuette at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood.
Virtue’s co-champion, who has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, was otherwise occupied that night, as the host of the Governors Ball at the White House.
There was no immediate word on the president’s plans, if any, to defend the championship he co-owns.
President Trump on Monday claimed he intentionally referred to Apple CEO Tim Cook as “Tim Apple,” seeking to push back on media coverage of his remark, which was mocked online.
Trump wrote on Twitter that he just tried “to save time & words” by referring to the tech industry titan by the wrong name last week at a White House meeting with business leaders.
“The Fake News was disparagingly all over this, & it became yet another bad Trump story!” he tweeted.
At a recent round table meeting of business executives, & long after formally introducing Tim Cook of Apple, I quickly referred to Tim + Apple as Tim/Apple as an easy way to save time & words. The Fake News was disparagingly all over this, & it became yet another bad Trump story!
While the encounter was a viral moment for only short amount of time, it has stuck with Trump, who is sensitive about the way he is portrayed in the media.
Axios reported Sunday that Trump told a group of Republican donors over the weekend he actually said “Tim Cook, Apple” very quickly but that the “Cook” was said quietly.
A video recording of the event, however, shows Trump said “Tim Apple” and not “Tim Cook, Apple.”
