Tag: tweet

Trump says he intentionally called Apple’s Tim Cook ‘Tim Apple’

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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.

Trump made the slip of the tongue while he thanked Cook for investing in his company’s U.S. operations.

“I mean, you’ve really put a big investment in our country. We really appreciate it very much, Tim Apple,” Trump said at the time.

Cook reacted playfully, changing the name on his Twitter profile to Tim with an Apple logo emoji.

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.”

[The Hill]

Media

Trump: I did not break campaign finance laws

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President Trump on Thursday doubled down on his assertion he did not break the law when he involved himself in a scheme to pay two women who alleged in the lead-up to the 2016 election that they had extramarital affairs with him.

“It was not a campaign contribution, and there were no violations of the campaign finance laws by me. Fake News!”  Trump tweeted.

The comments come after The New York Times reported Trump signed checks to reimburse his former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, while he was serving as president.

Cohen last year pleaded guilty to breaking campaign finance laws, in addition to other financial crimes, and lying to Congress. He was sentenced to three years in prison. Cohen implicated Trump in the scheme in court and in congressional testimony.

Federal prosecutors in December alleged that Cohen acted at the direction of “Individual-1,” a person widely believed to be Trump, when he committed the campaign finance violations.

Prosecutors said the payments to Stormy Daniels, the adult-film actress who said she slept with Trump, broke the law because they were meant to influence the outcome of the election. Cohen reached the agreement with Daniels in October 2016, one month before Election Day.

During his explosive testimony last week to the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Cohen presented several checks signed by the president he said were meant to reimburse him for payments to Daniels.

The Times reported Wednesday that Trump authorized one of the checks for $35,000 in October 2017, nine months after his inauguration.

While the checks do not prove Trump committed a crime, they could be used as evidence by prosecutors should they pursue a case alleging that the president directed an illegal hush money scheme while in office.

Trump initially denied any knowledge of the payments to Cohen, but then shifted his explanation after Cohen pleaded guilty, saying the payments did not violate the law because they “didn’t come out of the campaign.”

Then in December, Trump said he “never directed Michael Cohen to break the law” while repeating his assertion that Cohen’s actions in the hush money scheme were not illegal.

[The Hill]

Trump Retweets Known Racist Jim Hanson ‘No Obstruction’

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In a continued effort to “work the refs” and obstruct justice, Donald Trump retweeted Jim Hanson’s defense of the president, claiming

“.@JerryNadler admits on #CNN they have no proof of Obstruction by @realDonaldTrump it’s just his “personal opinion”

Of course that was a complete mischaracterization (lie) of Representative Nadler’s comments:

“He tried to protect [former national security adviser Michael] Flynn from being investigated by the FBI. He fired [former FBI Director] James Comey in order to stop the ‘Russian thing,’ as he told NBC News,” Nadler continued. “He’s intimidated witnesses in public.”

Rep. Nadler on ABC’s This Week (not CNN)

For one, Trump famously (or infamously) fired FBI Director James Comey for not stopping his angency’s investigation into him and his campaign… which is textbook obstruction of justice.

GUY WHO DUBBED NEO-NAZIS “VERY FINE PEOPLE” SUDDENLY CONCERNED ABOUT ANTI-SEMITISM

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In August 2017, Donald Trump responded to the Charlottesville riots that resulted in the death of Heather Heyer by insisting that a violent mob of white nationalists—whose ranks included neo-Nazis chanting “Jews will not replace us”—also contained some “very fine people.” For his first International Holocaust Remembrance Day as president, the White House’s statement did not include any mention of Jews or anti-Semitism, a decision it defended by claiming that such a reference would have excluded all the other people who died, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses and anarchists. While running for office, Trump tweeted an image of Hillary Clinton’s face against a backdrop of $100 bills alongside the Star of David, and closed out his campaign with a dog-whistle to anti-Semites about a group of Jews who make up the “global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities.” But on Wednesday, the president insisted he’s super committed to stamping out anti-Semitism in a tweet that was 100 percent sincere and not at all politically motivated:

Trump, of course, is all worked up after progressives in the House Democratic caucus protested plans to vote on a resolution condemning religious hatred, in the wake of the uproar over freshman Representative Ilhan Omar’s bad tweets questioning U.S. support for Israel. There’s plenty of hypocrisy to go around: Republicans spent years ignoring Rep. Steve King’s paeans to the white race, until King literally asked when the term “white supremacist” became offensive. In 2002, Rep. Steve Scalise, who bashed Omar on Fox News, just happened to pop up at a white supremacist-hosted rally. Just this week, House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler attacked Republican Rep. Jim Jordan for an “inane AND anti-Semitic” tweet in which he spelled the name of billionaire Tom Steyer, a liberal activist whose father was Jewish, with a “$” in place of the S. (In a statement, Jordan’s spokesman said, “Congressman Jordan has always stood against hatred and bigotry,” adding somewhat strangely, “Also, according to public sources, Steyer is Episcopalian.”)

Omar, for her part, isn’t apologizing after criticizing a “political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country.” After Rep. Eliot Engel called her apparent reference to dual loyalty a “vile, anti-Semitic slur,” Omar shot back that the charge of anti-Semitism is “designed to end the debate” about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians—a sentiment echoed by Bernie Sanders in a statement Wednesday.

The entire debate is surely above Donald Trump’s head, but that isn’t stopping him from weaponizing the issue to his benefit. Strangely, his pure moral outrage was nowhere to be seen in 2015, when he was telling a group of Jewish Republicans that they couldn’t control him because “I don’t want your money” or outing Jonathan Leibowitz—“I mean Jon Stewart”—as a Jew. In sum, everyone involved here is terrible.

[Vanity Fair]

Trump calls to save coal plant supplied by major supporter

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His missive came just days before the TVA board is slated to vote on the future of Paradise Unit 3, a 49-year-old coal plant that the federally owned utility has said would be too expensive to keep operating.

The 1,150-megawatt plant gets the bulk of its coal from a subsidiary of Murray Energy, according to data from the Energy Information Administration. Robert Murray, the CEO of the mining company, is a major Trump supporter who has personally lobbied the president to take other actions to help the ailing coal industry, particularly in regions where he sells coal. The White House has shelved a proposed coal bailout plan that has been among Murray’s top priorities, although the Trump administration has rolled back numerous other environmental rules the magnate has criticized.

Murray is a prolific GOP donor, and his company gave $1 million from his company to the Trump-supporting super PAC America First Action in the last election cycle, among other big contributions. Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, who is awaiting Senate confirmation, lobbied for Murray Energy among other clients before joining the Trump administration, including joining the CEO and other company officials in a 2017 meeting with Energy Secretary Rick Perry to discuss Murray’s policy proposals. Wheeler has said he did not write the action plan Murray presented to the Trump administration.

In a statement, Murray said he has not lobbied the White House to intervene on behalf of the plant.

“We have had no such contact,” Murray said in a statement. “In the interest of the TVA ratepayers, the remaining coal-fired unit at the Paradise Plant must remain in operation. The power will be more reliable and lower cost.”

Murray later acknowledged in an interview that he has responded to several members of Congress who have asked about “the devastation” that would be caused by the loss of the Paradise coal plant, and he said that Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin asked about the plant when the two met late last week to discuss another subject. But he told POLITICO he had nothing to do with the president’s tweet.

[Politico]

Update

Trump failed. The TVA closed the plant.

Trump ramps up attacks on media: ‘Crazed lunatics’

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President Trump on Monday ramped up his attacks against the press, calling the media “crazed lunatics” that have “given up on the TRUTH.”

Trump also said in a trio of tweets that the “Fake News” has “never been worse” and accused members of the press of intentionally making up stories to make him and his administration look bad.

“With all of the success that our Country is having, including the just released jobs numbers which are off the charts, the Fake News & totally dishonest Media concerning me and my presidency has never been worse. Many have become crazed lunatics who have given up on the TRUTH!” he tweeted.

“The Fake News will knowingly lie and demean in order make the tremendous success of the Trump Administration, and me, look as bad as possible. They use non-existent sources & write stories that are total fiction. Our Country is doing so well, yet this is a sad day in America!” Trump continued in a subsequent tweet.

In a third tweet, Trump labeled the press the “enemy of the people” and the “opposition party,” comments he has made before.

“The Fake News Media in our Country is the real Opposition Party. It is truly the Enemy of the People! We must bring honesty back to journalism and reporting!” he wrote.

Trump did not specify what reporting sparked the series of tweets.

His tweets come as an ongoing partial government shutdown, which is now in its third week, has continued to dominate the news cycle.

The shutdown was prompted when Trump refused to sign a spending bill last month that didn’t include his requested $5 billion in funding for a wall along the southern border. Democrats have vowed not to approve any funding for the wall and have offered $1.3 billion for border security.

The president has frequently lashed out against the press during his presidency, labeling negative stories “fake news” while targeting some media organizations as “the enemy of the people.”

He tweeted or retweeted the phrase “fake news” nearly 200 times last year and has already used the phrase several times on Twitter in the first days of 2019.

[The Hill]

Trump continues manic Twitter assault on the press by calling the New York Times the ‘Enemy of the People’

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President Donald Trump attacked The New York Times on Saturday, only one hour after attacking CNN.

“Horrible and totally dishonest reporting on almost everything they write,” Trump argued.

“Hence the term fake news, enemy of the people, and opposition party,” he said, while listing multiple terms.

[Raw Story]

Reality

Trump isn’t quoting Jill Abramson, he is quoting Fox News’ Howard Kurtz quoting Jill Abramson, which means her words are being twisted and taken out of context to fit a Republican narrative.

Abramson told the Associated Press Kurtz misrepresented her comments in an attempt to “Foxify” her.

Per the AP:

In her email, Abramson notes that Kurtz ignored her passage in the book saying that under Baquet’s leadership, the depth and intensity of its accountability coverage of Trump “was masterful. On most days it outshone the Post’s. The news report as a whole had never been stronger.”

 

Trump Claims Again ‘Most of the Workers Not Getting Paid Are Democrats’’ But Says He Doesn’t Care

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President Donald Trump this morning went on another tweetstorm about the government shutdown, going off on Democrats and the media.

But he also tweeted again this morning that most federal workers not getting paid are Democrats––yesterday he claimed many federal workers not being paid would consider his fight for border security more important––and added this time that he doesn’t care:

[Mediaite]

Trump Twitter rants at press for exposing lack of support for his wall

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President Donald Trump got an early start on Twitter on Saturday morning, saying he has ‘great support” for his border wall and government shutdown, while at the same time lashing out at the press for publishing reports that show otherwise.

On Twitter, Trump wrote: “Great support coming from all sides for Border Security (including Wall) on our very dangerous Southern Border. Teams negotiating this weekend! Washington Post and NBC reporting of events, including Fake sources, has been very inaccurate (to put it mildly)!”

[Raw Story]

Trump Rants That He Can’t Be Impeached After Winning ‘The Greatest Election Of All Time’

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Perhaps in reaction to a handful of Democrats calling for impeachment on day one of the new Congressional term, President Donald Trump on Friday issued a tweet in response, saying that he shouldn’t be impeached based on his election win two years ago.

In his tweet, Trump also alluded to himself being a “great” president, who has had plenty of accomplishments in the first half of his term. He also brought up collusion with Russia, which some have accused him of doing after several reports and leaks about the Russia investigation have come forward over the past year and a half.

“How do you impeach a president who has won perhaps the greatest election of all time, done nothing wrong (no Collusion with Russia, it was the Dems that Colluded), had the most successful first two years of any president, and is the most popular Republican in party history 93%?” Trump wrote in his tweet.

Trump won the Electoral College in 2016 but lost the popular vote by around 3 million votes nationally to his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. Only four other presidents have won the election without securing a plurality of votes, according to the Independent, which reported on the topic back in 2016 after Trump’s win.

Some Democrats have suggested they want to start an impeachment process against the president right away. Rep. Brad Sherman, a Democrat from California, said he planned on submitting articles of impeachment on Thursday, according to reporting from Fox News. Democratic leadership, however, has urged lawmakers to set a higher bar for impeachment, warning that there isn’t ample cause as yet to push for Trump’s removal through the legal mechanism, per reporting from the Hill.

Polling on the issue demonstrates some Americans are receptive to the idea while others are not. A CAPS/Harris poll released this past week found that 39 percent of respondents wanted the impeachment process to begin, while 20 percent thought that as of right now, a censure of the president by Congress would be more appropriate. A slim majority, 51 percent, said that impeachment shouldn’t begin at this time, according to reporting from AOL.

Impeachment against a president requires a majority of the House of Representatives to agree to do so. Democrats definitely have a majority at this time, but with the Russia investigation still ongoing, the evidence for (or against) impeachment is not yet public and could be a political miscalculation if it’s done too soon. While the House is in charge of impeachment, the Senate is in charge of deciding if the charges of impeachment warrant removal of a president, requiring two-thirds of that legislative body of Congress to vote in the affirmative in order to do so.

Calls for the impeachment of a sitting president by an opposing political party isn’t uncommon in these modern times. Former Democratic President Barack Obama, for example, faced a barrage of calls for impeachment after his first two years in office, and beyond, according to reporting from theAtlantic.

[Inquisitir]

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