The Trump thread: All things Donald

[Athos_131]

Federal prosecutors demand Cindy Yang records from Mar-a-Lago, Trump campaign

Federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., this week sent subpoenas to Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, and Trump Victory, a political fundraising committee, demanding they turn over all records relating to Republican Party donor Li “Cindy” Yang and several of her associates and companies, the Miami Herald has learned.

Yang, a South Florida massage-parlor entrepreneur, is the target of a public corruption investigation seeking to determine if she funneled money from China to the president’s re-election campaign or otherwise violated campaign-finance laws. She became a GOP donor in the 2016 election cycle and opened a consulting company that promised Chinese businesspeople the chance to attend events at Mar-a-Lago and gain access to Trump and his inner circle. Some of those events were campaign fundraisers that required guests to buy tickets for entry, payments that are considered political contributions. Foreign nationals are prohibited from donating to U.S. political campaigns.

Investigators are seeking evidence from Mar-a-Lago and Trump Victory as they build a potential case against Yang and possibly others close to her. The president’s club and the fundraising committee are not the targets of the investigation. The subpoenas cover records from January 2017 to the present. A spokeswoman for Yang did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

One subpoena, issued by a federal grand jury in West Palm Beach, compels Mar-a-Lago to turn over all documents, records and communications relating to Yang, as well as 11 other people, one charity and seven companies affiliated with her, according to a person familiar with the investigation who asked for anonymity to discuss an ongoing probe. The people named in that subpoena include Yang’s family members, former employees at her massage parlors and several donors to Trump Victory. Prosecutors were trying to serve the subpoena to Mar-a-Lago through a South Florida law firm, the source said.

The second subpoena, for Trump Victory, was served to attorneys at a Washington, D.C., law firm. It seeks campaign-finance records relating to Yang and her associates.

Mar-a-Lago is owned by the Trump Organization, the president’s family company. Trump Victory is a joint fundraising committee for the president and the Republican National Committee. It supports his re-election efforts.

The Trump Organization did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday. A Trump Victory official said: “Trump Victory makes every effort possible to ensure that all contributions are made in accordance with the law. While we can’t comment on any possible ongoing investigations, of course our committee would comply with any request from law enforcement to ensure all contributions are made legally.”

The Justice Department declined to comment.

The investigation is being handled by the FBI and the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section in Washington. While special counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election has ended, the new probe examining Chinese money may add to growing concerns over foreign influence heading into the 2020 election. (In a separate matter, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami have been investigating possible Chinese espionage operations in South Florida targeting Mar-a-Lago.)

Prosecutors handling the public-corruption probe had previously subpoenaed Bing Bing Peranio, a former receptionist at one of Yang’s massage parlors, for information about a $5,400 donation she made to Trump Victory ahead of a March 3, 2018, RNC event at Mar-a-Lago. Investigators are seeking to learn if foreign nationals may have been the original source of that money. In interviews with the New York Times and Miami Herald, Peranio has refused to answer when asked if Yang reimbursed her for the donation, a violation of campaign-finance laws against “straw” donors.

Peranio was named in the Mar-a-Lago subpoena as well. So were several other people who made donations to the president’s re-election campaign shortly before the event.

Concerns that Yang could be funneling foreign money to Trump’s campaign began in March after the Miami Herald revealed she was using Chinese-language social media to advertise ticket sales for events at Mar-a-Lago to Chinese business executives, and had been photographed several times with Trump and other leading Republican politicians. She promoted the GOP fundraisers and charity galas at Mar-a-Lago as ways to meet the president, his family and his advisers. The phenomenon was dubbed ”Trump Tourism.”

Last week, a campaign-finance watchdog group filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, claiming that Yang accepted payments from wealthy Chinese individuals in order to buy them tickets to RNC events. It is illegal to not disclose the original source of a political contribution, and it is illegal for foreign nationals — people who do not hold U.S. citizenship or a green card — to contribute to an American political campaign. Foreign nationals can attend fundraisers as guests so long as they do not reimburse the person who paid for their entry.

Yang has denied any wrongdoing and is suing the Miami Herald for defamation. The civil case is pending. She and her family have donated nearly $70,000 to Trump since his election.

RUBBING SHOULDERS
Since Trump became president, the RNC has chosen to host several campaign events at Mar-a-Lago to raise money for his re-election.

On March 3, 2018, Cindy Yang attended one of those events as a VIP guest after contributing the $50,000 required to receive a ticket and a signed picture with the president.

Yang would later use that photo and others from the event on the website of her consulting business, GY US Investments, to advertise access to the president to overseas clients. The subpoena compels Mar-a-Lago to turn over information on GY US Investments and a similarly named company, according to the source.

Over the past year, Yang advertised at least eight Trump-related events to Chinese clients. Five of those events gave proceeds to Trump Victory — the committee dedicated to raising money for Trump’s re-election. Two of the campaign fundraisers were hosted at Mar-a-Lago, and the others at various venues around the country, including one at Cipriani restaurant in New York City.

Among the parties named in the Mar-a-Lago subpoena are:

▪ Fuming Yang and Guiying Zhang, Yang’s father and mother, and Zubin Gong, her husband. They could not be reached.

▪ Katrina Eggertsson, an employee at one of Yang’s massage parlors who donated $5,400 to Trump Victory and $5,400 to the president’s campaign fund before the Mar-a-Lago event that Yang attended as a VIP, according to FEC records. Eggertsson did not respond to a message.

▪ Jon Deng, a businessman from Palm Beach County who belonged to a political group called the National Committee of Asian American Republicans. Yang served as a fundraiser for that group, commonly called the Asian GOP. In the weeks before a 2017 Trump fundraiser in New York City where Yang brought several Chinese-speaking guests, Deng and his wife, Hui Liu, donated $85,000 to Trump Victory. At that event, two guests of the Asian GOP received photos with Trump priced at $50,000. Neither is recorded as making a contribution. Deng did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday. In the past, Deng denied wrongdoing and said he no longer worked with Yang.

▪ Li Jing, a New York-based marketing executive who contributed $27,000 to Trump Victory ahead of the New York fundraiser. Jing previously told the Herald she did not recall the donation. Jing hung up the phone when reached by a reporter Wednesday. She did not respond to subsequent text messages.

▪ Elizabeth MacCall, a former employee at Yang’s day-spa chain who donated $5,400 to Trump Victory and $5,400 to Trump’s presidential campaign fund. MacCall declined to comment Wednesday.

▪ Haizhen Gong, owner of a day spa in South Florida who donated $5,400 to Trump Victory and $5,400 to the president’s campaign fund. A woman who answered a phone number listed for Gong said she did not speak English when a reporter called, and hung up twice when a Chinese-speaking reporter subsequently reached her.

▪ Several companies affiliated with Yang, including Destination of the World, Fufu International, Tokyo Beauty and Massage School and a nonprofit called the Women’s Charity Foundation. One of the charity’s founding members is Xianqin Qu, leader of the Florida chapter of a group known as a foreign arm of the Communist Party of China.

Yang had planned to attend an RNC fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago scheduled for March 10 of this year.

But she canceled at the last minute after the Herald reported that she had once owned the spa where New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft was charged with receiving sex acts from a masseuse. (He denies the allegations.) Yang had sold that spa years earlier but continued to own a chain of day spas that, in at least two cases, were reported to police for prostitution.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

As Mexico becomes the largest U.S. trading partner, here are the industries that could be most hit by Trump’s tariffs

Mexico is an integral part of the U.S. economy. It’s the source of most of America’s imported beer and tractors, to say nothing of the rest of the $346.5 billion in goods it sent the U.S. last year.

Also? All those goods may soon be hit with a 5 percent tariff. President Trump said Thursday the tariffs will begin at 5 percent on June 10. They will rise an additional five percent each month until they hit 25 percent on Oct. 1. Those tariffs will remain elevated “until Mexico substantially stops the illegal inflow of aliens coming through its territory,” the White House said.

As tariffs ramp up, the price you pay for everything from cars to cauliflower will likely rise. After all, companies tend to pass tariff’s costs on to consumers, as National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow acknowledged in May.

But beyond the ubiquitous avocados, what do we import from Mexico? To answer, we looked at imports of more than 1,230 categories of goods for the year ending in March — the most recent 12-month period for which we have data from the Commerce Department. We found a little bit of everything.

The top of the list is ruled by components for the American auto industry. Deutsche Bank Securities economist Torsten Slok told The Washington Post that two-thirds of U.S. imports from Mexico are intermediate parts U.S. companies use to produce goods. Chief among them? Cars.

It doesn’t stop there, of course. American companies increasingly look to Mexico for everything from raw materials such as gold to technical parts such as electrical transformers.

As the trade war with China intensifies, Mexico is vying to become our single largest trading partner. And an update to the transformative North American Free Trade Agreement, which made Mexico the keystone of many American companies’ production processes, may soon go to Congress for approval.

But it’s not just sheer size that leaves American companies exposed. After all, if a company can simply switch to a supplier in a different country for little additional cost, then there won’t be much to pass on to the consumer.

To find hints as to which products are least likely to have low-cost alternatives, we should consider those products that come primarily from Mexico. If companies have chosen Mexico as their main supplier, we can assume it’s because the alternatives would be more expensive.

These Mexico-dependent categories include fresh produce, such as tomatoes, cauliflower and lettuce, as well as heavier equipment such as tractors and trucks. Also beer. Mexican brands such as Corona and Modelo Especial are among the best-selling beers in the country.

And it’s not just American tariffs that could send your prices higher. There are two sides to this trade relationship, and many American industries, such as agriculture, rely on Mexican buyers. There are about 126 million of them — Mexicans outnumber Canadians by 3.5 to 1.

Mexico’s retaliation against Trump’s earlier steel and aluminum tariffs had cost hog farmers about $12 per animal, Minnesota hog farmer Randy Spronk told The Post’s Laura Reiley in May.

“We’ve been hit more than any other sector,” Spronk told Reiley. “Our highest value markets are the ones that are impacted by these tariffs. We got side swiped. The additive effects of these tariffs come out of my back pocket.”

Hope y'all don't want any spaghetti gravy on your pasta.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

North Korea Executed and Purged Top Nuclear Negotiators, South Korean Report Says

North Korea has executed its special envoy to the United States on spying charges, as its leader, Kim Jong-un, has engineered a sweeping purge of the country’s top nuclear negotiators after the breakdown of his second summit meeting with President Trump, a major South Korean daily reported on Friday.

Kim Hyok-chol, the envoy, was executed by firing squad in March at the Mirim airfield in a suburb of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, Chosun Ilbo, South Korea’s largest daily, reported on Friday, citing an anonymous source. Mr. Kim faced the charge that he was “won over by the American imperialists to betray the supreme leader,” the newspaper said.

Four officials of the North Korean Foreign Ministry were also executed, the South Korean daily reported, without providing any hint of who its source might be or how it obtained the information.

South Korean officials could not confirm the Chosun Ilbo report. North Korea has not reported any execution or purge of top officials in recent months. The country remains the world’s most isolated, and outside intelligence agencies have sometimes failed to figure out or have misinterpreted what was going on in the closely guarded inner circles of the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un.

Asked at a news conference in Berlin on Friday about the Chosun Ilbo report, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said American officials were looking into it.

The rumors of North Korean negotiators being executed at the orders of Mr. Kim have been floating around Washington for weeks, and Mr. Pompeo has been asked about them before. Each time, he has said the United States is looking into the reports.

No American officials have spoken publicly of any intelligence they might have seen that would confirm or refute the rumors. Diplomats in Washington from other countries have also acknowledged hearing the rumors, but have said they have no confirmation.

But some signs in recent weeks have led analysts in South Korea to speculate that Mr. Kim may be engineering a reshuffle or a purge of his negotiating team in the wake of the summit meeting, held in February in Hanoi, Vietnam. The meeting was widely seen as a huge embarrassment for Mr. Kim, who is supposedly seen as infallible in his totalitarian state.

On Thursday, Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, carried a commentary warning against “anti-party, anti-revolutionary acts” of officials who “pretend to work for the supreme leader in his presence but secretly harbor other dreams behind his back.”

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“Such characters won’t escape the stern judgment from the revolution,” the North Korean newspaper said. North Korean state media has issued such warnings when it needed to engineer a political purge or warn against possible lagging loyalty among the elites, South Korean analysts said.

Chosun Ilbo, the South Korean newspaper, reported Friday that Kim Yong-chol, a senior Workers’ Party vice chairman who visited the White House as the main point man for diplomacy with the United States, had also been purged, sentenced to forced labor in a remote northern province.

Also sent to a prison camp was Kim Song-hye, a senior female nuclear negotiator who teamed up with Kim Hyok-chol in working-level negotiations ahead of the Kim-Trump summit, the South Korean newspaper said. North Korea even sent a summit translator to a prison camp for committing a translation mistake, it said.

During the Hanoi summit meeting, Mr. Kim demanded that Mr. Trump lift the most painful international sanctions against his country in return for partially dismantling his country’s nuclear weapons facilities. The meeting collapsed when Mr. Trump rejected the proposal, insisting on a quick and comprehensive rollback of the North’s entire weapons of mass destruction program before lifting sanctions.

Mr. Kim took a long train ride to Hanoi to meet Mr. Trump, and North Korean state media reported high expectations for the summit meeting. But Mr. Kim had to return home empty-handed, without the sanctions relief that he badly needed to help ease his country’s deepening economic isolation.

Outside analysts have since wondered whether Mr. Kim’s negotiating team had failed to prepare him for such a breakdown in the talks or considered how Mr. Kim might react.

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Kim Hyok-chol was appointed as North Korea’s special envoy only weeks before the Hanoi summit meeting and had led pre-summit working-level negotiations with Stephen Biegun, Mr. Trump’s special envoy on North Korea.

Their negotiations could not narrow wide differences between their governments over the terms under which North Korea would give up its nuclear arsenal. As a consequence, Mr. Kim and Mr. Trump met without a draft agreement, as the negotiators from both sides left it to their leaders to sort out the thorniest problems that have bedeviled negotiations for decades.

Kim Yong-chol, the Workers’ Party leader, has seemed to disappear from state news media in recent weeks. Although he retained some of his top posts during a parliamentary meeting in April, he was replaced as head of the United Front Department, a key party agency in charge of relations with South Korea and the North’s intelligence affairs.

Both Kim Hyok-chol and Kim Yong-chol were absent from the North Korean delegation when Kim Jong-un met last month with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. In their places were senior officials from North Korea’s Foreign Ministry, like Minister Lee Yong-ho and First Vice Minister Choe Son-hui, who have emerged as the new faces of North Korean diplomacy.

Mr. Kim has said he will give Washington until the end of the year to make a new denuclearization proposal he can accept, or he may abandon his diplomacy with Mr. Trump. As if to press the point, North Korea has recently resumed tests of short-range missiles.

Even Kim Jong-un’s sister and adviser, Kim Yo-jong, did not accompany Mr. Kim to the meeting with Mr. Putin, although she has been a fixture in high-profile summit meetings with American, Chinese and South Korean leaders.

Chosun Ilbo said the sister may have been reprimanded by Mr. Kim or may be sick with pneumonia.

Jung Chang-hyun, head of the Korean Peace and Economy Institute, a research group affiliated with South Korea’s Moneytoday news media group, said he had heard that four North Korean Foreign Ministry officials were executed by firing squad around March, not because of the breakdown of the Hanoi summit meeting, but rather for a separate corruption scandal.

It remained unclear whether the four officials included Kim Hyok-chol, said Mr. Jung, an expert on the North Korean regime and author of books on the North. But Mr. Jung said that officials under Kim Jong-un’s sister were also involved in the corruption scandal and that as a consequence, Ms. Kim was put on probation by her brother. Mr. Jung said he acquired the information from third-country sources who meet or communicate with North Korean officials through China.

Since taking power seven years ago, Kim Jong-un has engineered a series of bloody political purges to remove or execute many of the top officials who had served under his late father, Kim Jong-il, and consolidate his own leadership. The most prominent victim has been Jang Song-thaek, Mr. Kim’s uncle, who was executed in the Mirim airfield in 2013 on charges of corruption and plotting a military coup against Mr. Kim.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

The feds now own a condo in Trump Tower, thanks to Paul Manafort

The federal government now owns condo 43G in Trump Tower because of the Mueller investigation, a judge certified Thursday.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson's order was the final move seizing the apartment from former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his wife Kathleen after he admitted to illegal foreign lobbying and money laundering and was convicted by a jury of fraud and other financial crimes during the Mueller probe.

Manafort is now serving a prison sentence in western Pennsylvania.

Manafort bought the 1,500-square foot, 2-bed, 2.5-bath Fifth Avenue condo more than a decade ago for $3.675 million through a shell company that hid his riches from US authorities. He used it as a home base for years when he traveled to New York and when he led the Trump campaign. His residence there was even part of Manafort's pitch to Trump to hire him in 2016, according to The New York Times.

In 2015, Manafort and his wife mortgaged it for $3 million, when his long-successful Ukrainian lobbying business dried up.

He had paid off none of the mortgage, according to court filings.

UBS Bank will get repaid nearly in full once the US Marshals Service sells the condo, and the US government will pay back condominium charges to the Trump Tower condo board, which is run by employees of the Trump Organization, as part of a forfeiture deal.

In all, the government has seized several of Manafort's properties and will sell them to pay off his debts to banks and other expenses. The US government will reap $11 million from the Manafort forfeiture after paying back his debtors, plus the government will receive back taxes Manafort owed to the IRS and court fines.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Navy acknowledges request was made to hide USS John S. McCain during Trump visit

The U.S. Navy has acknowledged that a request was made to hide the USS John S. McCain during President Donald Trump's recent state visit to Japan.

"A request was made to the U.S. Navy to minimize the visibility of USS John S. McCain, however, all ships remained in their normal configuration during the President's visit," Rear Admiral Charlie Brown, chief of information, said in a statement to NBC News.

"There were also no intentional efforts to explicitly exclude Sailors assigned to USS John S. McCain," the statement said.

Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said Friday he’d asked his chief of staff to “look into” the reported request from the White House to move the ship "out of sight" during Trump's visit.

“Our business is to run military operations and not become politicized,” Shanahan told reporters during a news conference in Singapore. “I would not have moved the ship," he added.

"The Navy is fully cooperating with the review of this matter tasked by the Secretary of Defense. Our forward-deployed Naval forces continue to stand ready to execute their assigned missions," Brown, the Navy spokesperson, said Saturday.

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that it had reviewed an email to Navy and Air Force officials dated May 15 that included the direction "USS John McCain needs to be out of sight" for Trump's Japan visit. CNBC has also obtained the email. NBC News has not reviewed the email.

Trump said Wednesday night on Twitter: "I was not informed about anything having to do with the Navy Ship USS John S. McCain during my recent visit to Japan." Trump again denied any involvement on Thursday, but said whoever made the request was "well meaning."

The ship is named for McCain, his father and his grandfather.

Trump was a fierce critic of the Arizona senator while he was alive, and he has continued to criticize him even after the Republican lawmaker died more than nine months ago.

The Defense Department has disputed parts of the Wall Street Journal's account. Cmdr. Nate Christensen, a spokesman for U.S. Pacific Fleet, said "all ships remained in normal configuration during POTUS' visit," using a common acronym for "president of the United States."

And Joe Buccino, a spokesman Shanahan, told NBC News Thursday that Shanahan wasn't aware of the directive, "nor was he aware of the concern precipitating the directive."

#Resist

[Athos_131]

A tale of 2 invoices: Beto O'Rourke pays El Paso, while Donald Trump's campaign still owes $470,000

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Actually, which one it was depends on what street you stood on during a chilly winter evening in El Paso, Texas.

On one side of town, raucous crowds gathered at the El Paso County Coliseum. With American flags and banners reading "Finish the Wall" displayed above him, President Donald Trump hailed his "big, beautiful" border wall as the reason for El Paso's low crime rate.

Outside the coliseum, thousands of protesters gathered. Marching along the Rio Grande, they joined former Texas Congressman Beto O'Rourke at the Chalio Acosta Sports Center for a counter rally to celebrate El Paso's immigrant culture. It marked a clarion moment for a prospective candidate testing 2020 waters, and heralded what many expected to come -- O'Rourke's official campaign kickoff.

Just a few weeks later, he held his first official campaign rally in his hometown.

The bills came due for both. Beto For America owed the city $28,630.50 for his March campaign launch; he had already paid $7,609.14 of that as a deposit. The remainder was due May 24. They paid on time -- just under the wire -- with a check dated the day prior to the deadline.

El Paso also billed Donald J. Trump for President Inc. for his "Make America Great Again" rally -- for nearly half a million dollars. The invoice was sent to the campaign's Fifth Avenue offices in New York on March 27. It was due April 26, and El Paso has yet to see a dime.

The exact number is $470,417.05, broken down by reimbursements owed to six departments:

Department of Aviation: $6,286.57
Fire Department: $60,630.84
Health Department: $528
Streets & Maintenance: $6,452
Sun Metro: $15,577.52
Police Department: $380,942.12

A month overdue and no check in sight, El Paso sent a warning to the Trump campaign of its looming penalty -- a letter, coincidentally, sent the same day Beto's check was cut.

"Failure to pay your past due balance or to make acceptable payment arrangement within 30 days from the date of this notice (May 23) may result in your account being charged a one-time collection fee of 21 percent on your gross account receivable balance," the letter from El Paso's Office of the Comptroller states.That 21% would add almost $100,000 to the Trump campaign's tab, bringing the sum total to almost $570,000.

"As with any invoices we issue out, our expectation is to be paid for the services rendered," Robert Cortinas, El Paso's chief financial officer, told ABC News in a statement. "The City is fiscally responsible."

If El Paso doesn't receive payment from the Trump campaign, that money would come out of municipal revenue and the city's contingency budget -- funds used for unexpected and emergency situations, like natural disasters. Just last June, historic and deadly flooding ravaged southern Texas. Now, as tornado alley wakes up and hurricane season looms, the fund is a financial life vest that no city wants to do without.

Donald J. Trump for President Inc.'s outstanding $470,417.05 is about 63% of the city's contingency budget for the year.

The Trump campaign has said it doubts El Paso's accounting and has implied it's been overcharged.

"Since 2015, the Trump Campaign has held nearly 550 rallies all over the country, and this invoice is roughly 10 times the amount that a locality generally asks to be reimbursed," Michael Glassner, chief operating officer with the Trump Campaign, told ABC News. "We are reviewing it."

Campaigns failing to pay cities for their visits is not uncommon. During the 2016 election, the presidential campaigns of both Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders were behind in several rally payments.

Trump himself has a storied history of not paying his bills. Often boasting of his business success and touting his record as the "Dealmaker in Chief," Trump has a trail of receipts and lawsuits that reflects a long line of personal debts shifted to businesses -- with the burden of multiple Chapter 11 filings falling on investors who bet on his business acumen. Thousands of contractor lawsuits claim that Trump and his businesses have refused to pay them.

This time, one of the nation's most important border cities would have to recoup the damage.

City of El Paso officials tell ABC News that they will continue to reach out to see the bill is paid, even after the books close on this fiscal year -- but if it's in vain, they'll have to absorb the difference.

Ironically, that cost would have to be eaten by the very people championed at Trump's campaign rally: El Paso police officers who are on the front lines of the president's border battle.

El Paso police, who partner with state and federal law enforcement including the FBI, told ABC News that they'll keep serving the public no matter what.

"We're doing our duties, whether it's a late call, or overtime -- we're going to respond no matter what," El Paso Sgt. Enrique Carrillo told ABC News. "Budget isn't going to dictate how we handle an emergency."

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Trump Tells Americans to Boycott AT&T During Unhinged Twitter Rant

Donald Trump sent a barrage of strange tweets during his flight to the UK overnight, but one of the weirdest tweets instructed Americans to stop using and subscribing to AT&T’s services. CNN, which the president hates because the network will sometimes accurately describe his crimes, is owned by AT&T.

“I believe that if people stoped [sic] using or subscribing to @ATT, they would be forced to make big changes at @CNN, which is dying in the ratings anyway,” Trump tweeted at 6:50 a.m. ET/ 11:50 a.m. London time, shortly after landing.

“It is so unfair with such bad, Fake News!” the president continued. “Why wouldn’t they act. When the World watches @CNN, it gets a false picture of USA. Sad!”

In case you needed a reminder, this is a very weird thing for a president to be doing. U.S. presidents generally refrain from openly calling for American businesses to lose customers. But this is far from the first time that the president has openly rooted for an American company to struggle, especially CNN.

President Trump very openly tried to intervene to block the AT&T-Time Warner merger for political reasons. And whatever you think of the merger, it’s undoubtedly an abuse of power for the president to interfere with a business because he doesn’t like the journalism that they produce.

The president’s tweet was actually a follow up to a tweet that the president sent 13 minutes earlier, complaining that CNN was the only American news channel he could find in London.

“Just arrived in the United Kingdom. The only problem is that @CNN is the primary source of news available from the U.S. After watching it for a short while, I turned it off. All negative & so much Fake News, very bad for U.S. Big ratings drop. Why doesn’t owner @ATT do something?” the president tweeted.

President Trump spends large parts of his day watching TV and reacting to the things that he sees. In fact, it’s the defining feature of his presidency, despite the fact that he claims to watch very little TV.

But those weren’t even the only unhinged tweets that the president sent this morning. He also attacked London Mayor Sadiq Kahn for daring to criticize the Trump regime and the “red carpet” that has been rolled out for Trump and his cronies in the UK.

“.@SadiqKhan, who by all accounts has done a terrible job as Mayor of London, has been foolishly ‘nasty’ to the visiting President of the United States, by far the most important ally of the United Kingdom. He is a stone cold loser who should focus on crime in London, not me......” President Trump tweeted.

That invocation of the word “nasty” couldn’t be an accident, since Trump recently used the same word to describe Meghan Markle, an American who is now British royalty. Trump, aided by his propaganda arm Fox News, denied that he called Markle nasty, despite there being video evidence proving he said just that.

President Trump even “liked” a tweet that highlighted the president’s lies while on his flight to London overnight. And the weird part is that it may not have been an accident. The tweet in question is a famous quote from George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel 1984.

CNN media reporter Brian Stelter captured a screenshot of the “like” overnight.

The president deleted his “like” not long after.

I’d say that it’s going to be another one of those days online, but it’s always one of those days in the Trump era. Much like concentration camps for asylum seekers and children dying in U.S. custody, this is the new normal.

#Resist

[_priapism]

Probably the most common mistake among men who wear white tie for the first time is the fact that the waistcoat is too long. The reason for this phenomenon is probably the low rise of pants. While it is true that the waistcoat should always cover your waistband, the vest length and rise have to harmonize in the sense, that the trousers have to be cut high, and the waistcoat short, so the vest does not peek out from underneath the tailcoat. Also, you should not wear a belt with a vest, because it makes you look bigger and creates a gap between the vest and trousers. Now, last but not least I want to say that it is always easy to criticize but actually doing it better is the difficult part.

Seriously, who dresses this man?

[Lois]

So why did Trump hire people with criminal backgrounds?

Two associates with the Trump campaign involved in Quatar scandal.  (Note, the name of this Arab country is pronounced like "kutter".

Elliot Broidy:  Served in the Trump campaign as a top fundraiser for the Trump campaign, and then became Deputy Finance Chair of the RNC.  Previously, he had narrowly avoided prison time after being caught for paying bribes to financial regulators.

George Nader: Took frequent meetings with Jerod Kushner, Don Trump, Jr., and Steve Bannon, was convicted for child pornography and child pornography.

Watch for more ...

[Athos_131]

Trump says transgender troops can’t serve because troops can’t ‘take any drugs.’ He’s wrong in many ways.

Two years after Donald Trump announced his transgender military ban and two months after a version of it went into effect, the president offered a new and rather novel justification for it.

One he seems to have invented it whole-cloth.

Appearing on “Good Morning Britain” in an interview with his friend Piers Morgan, Trump said transgender troops can’t serve because they need certain drugs, and that the military bans service-members from taking drugs.

“Because they take massive amounts of drugs, they have to — and also, and you’re not allowed to take drugs,” he said. “You’re in the military, you’re not allowed to take any drugs.”

He added of transgender people who get gender reassignment surgery: “They have no choice; they have to. And you would actually have to break rules and regulations to have that.”

While Trump has in the past cited the cost of gender reassignment surgery to justify his transgender troop ban — a case he again made in this interview — this appears to be the first time he has cited some kind of prohibition on members of the military taking any drugs.

Experts say there’s really nothing to it. It’s not true that service-members are “not allowed to take any drugs,” nor is it true that they can’t take the specific drugs used for gender reassignment.

“This statement is incorrect,” said Jane Schacter, an expert on gender and sexuality law at Stanford University. “Many members of the military use prescription medication, and it is made available to them worldwide. Hormone therapy, in particular, is prescribed, including to manage the gynecological needs of non-transgender service members.”

Dr. Joshua Safer, the head of the Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery at Mount Sinai Health System, agreed.

“The hormones taken by transgender individuals are not prohibited by the military,” Safer said. “Medication for transgender people in the military would be — and is currently, for those transgender individuals already serving in the military — handled similarly to other prescribed medication where an emergency interruption is not life threatening.”

Aaron Belkin, an advocate for LGBT rights in the military who runs the Palm Center, said, “Cisgender troops are allowed to serve and even to deploy to combat zones even if they’re taking the exact same medications that transgender individuals require."

It’s also important to note that not all transgender people undergo gender reassignment surgery or take prescription hormones, so even if such prescribed drugs were prohibited, it wouldn’t necessarily mean transgender troops would have to be banned from serving. Trump’s comments seem to suggest that these drugs would be required for all transgender troops; they’re not.

"The recovery period [after gender reassignment surgery] is long, and they have to take large amounts of drugs after that for whatever reason — but large amounts, and that’s not the way it is,” Trump said. “I mean you can’t do that. So I said yeah, when it came time to make a decision on that and because of the drugs and also because of the cost of the operation.”

The military does have certain restrictions on what kinds of prescription drugs certain types of service-members can take — pilots and fight crews, for instance. But the military has even relaxed some of those standards in recent years. Earlier this year, for instance, the Navy relaxed its policy to allow flight personnel with mental health disorders to take psychotropic drugs.

When Trump initially announced the transgender military ban, he declared that the government would “not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military.” The actual ban technically allows transgender troops to serve as long as they haven’t been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, haven’t transitioned sex and abide by the military’s rules for their biological gender. Transgender advocates have argued that is, practically speaking, a ban.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Amid London protests, Trump appears in denial over his standing abroad

It was an uncomfortable spectacle for an American president — thousands of protesters greeting his arrival in London for a state visit with the queen.

For President George W. Bush, the moment called for a direct response.

“The last noted American to visit London stayed in a glass box dangling over the Thames,” Bush said at Whitehall Palace in November 2003, referring to a recent stunt by illusionist David Blaine. “A few might have been happy to provide similar arrangements for me.”

Bush’s stab at self-deprecation did not spare him — in Britain or elsewhere — from withering criticism over the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that year. But his response to the public dissent — acknowledging that the war was unpopular and attempting to rebut his critics — stands in sharp contrast to President Trump’s reaction to thousands of demonstrators who have taken to the streets during his three-day state visit to London this week.

Instead of recognizing the public’s expressions of anger, which included a 20-foot-tall, diaper-clad “Trump baby” blimp flying above Parliament Square, the 45th president has adopted a different tactic — denial.

“I heard there were protests,” Trump said during a news conference with British Prime Minister Theresa May on Tuesday. “I said, ‘Where are the protests?’ I don’t see any protests. I did see a small protest today when I came — very small. So a lot of it is fake news, I hate to say.”

Trump’s efforts to minimize opposition to his presidency on the first stop of a week-long tour of three European nations represented his latest attempt to misrepresent his public standing and rewrite perceptions about the popularity of his agenda — an effort that began on his first week in office, when a White House spokesman argued, against evidence, that the president had the largest inauguration crowd in history.

The president’s claims in London were just as easily proved false. After the news conference, CNN aired footage of the demonstrators, including a giant Trump robot sitting on a toilet and repeating two of his catchphrases: “Fake news” and “witch hunt.” On social media, photos circulated of protesters holding signs reading “Trump climate disaster,” “Don’t attack Iran” and “Trump, you are a mind-bending [expletive] human being.”

Organizers estimated that 75,000 people turned out for the demonstrations.

To Trump’s critics, the display showcased a president refusing to come to grips with the reality that he remains deeply unpopular around the world and that perceptions of U.S. global leadership have plummeted during his 2½ years in office. Although Trump has expressed support for Britain’s decision to exit the European Union, his stances on Iran, climate change and other matters have been met with widespread opposition.

In Britain, 19 ­percent had a favorable view of Trump, while 68 percent viewed him unfavorably, according to an Ipsos MORI poll last summer. Fifty-three percent of the public said Trump had weakened the “special relationship” between the United States and Britain, while just 6 percent said he had made it stronger.

“The Bush protests were largely focused around Iraq, an ongoing war Britain was involved in,” said Thomas Wright, a Europe security expert at Brookings Institution. The opposition to Trump “is more generic. It’s not about a conflict or a particular policy. It’s a large array of policies and Trump himself.”

Trump has sparked protests during several of his trips abroad, but he often has attempted to schedule his itineraries to avoid encountering the public. He has not held town-hall-style forums or visited local restaurants or schools, as his predecessors regularly did to promote policies and democratic values.

Trump delayed his first visit to Britain for months amid the threat of protests, then held a working visit with May in July 2018 outside central London, far from the demonstrations of an estimated 100,000 Britons.

“Some of them are protesting in my favor,” Trump asserted in an interview with television host Piers Morgan on that trip.

“It’s an open question of whether Trump actually understands the profound outrage that he engenders from foreign publics,” said Ned Price, who served as a White House national security spokesman under President Barack Obama.

Price noted reports that the White House asked the Pentagon to “minimize the visibility” of the USS John S. McCain during Trump’s visit two weeks ago to a naval base outside Tokyo.

“The staff goes to great lengths to pull the wool over his eyes,” Price said. “One can only imagine what other tactics they are using to provide him with sources of information that inflate his popularity overseas.”

Since taking office, Trump has avoided visiting Mexico, where his approval ratings have remained in the single digits over his threats on immigration and trade. The White House canceled a visit to Ireland last year amid reports of potential protests, then rescheduled it for this week in the tiny town of Doonbeg, where Trump owns a golf resort and enjoys more robust public support.

Trump also has expressed admiration for strict control on public expression in authoritarian countries, including China, where he marveled at a military honor guard performance during a visit to Beijing in 2017. Trump came away from his first foreign trip to Saudi Arabia in an ebullient mood, which Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross credited to how well he was treated in Riyadh.

“There was not a single hint of a protester anywhere,” Ross said on CNBC, prompting anchor Becky Quick to point out that public protests are against the law in Saudi Arabia.

In London this week, Trump traveled mostly by helicopter, traversing even relatively short distances in Marine One.

Protests swelled Tuesday as Trump met with May at 10 Downing Street. Chants could be heard from the interior courtyard of the building, as opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn addressed the crowd of a few thousand people.

Minutes later, Trump and May took a walk across the courtyard to the room where they held a news conference. It was not clear if Trump could hear the commotion.

“We’ve had anti-Americanism in Europe before,” said Molly Montgomery, a former State Department official who now is a vice president at Albright Stonebridge Group. “But it’s another level that this president, in traveling to the country with which we have the special relationship, feels the need to travel by helicopter everywhere to not be exposed to protests.”

To Peter Wehner, a former Bush speechwriter, the difference in how Bush and Trump responded to the protests speaks volumes. During his speech at Whitehall Palace in 2003, Bush noted that Britain’s “tradition of free speech . . . is alive and well here in London.”

“We have that at home, too,” Bush said, adding that “they now have that right in Baghdad, as well.”

“There was no effort to hide or keep him away or pretend it didn’t exist,” said Wehner, whose book “Death of Politics: How to Heal Our Frayed Republic After Trump” was published Tuesday. “The effort was to try to make the case in a way that was dignified and had a touch of humor and grace where necessary.”

#Resist

[Athos_131]

How Payday Lenders Spent $1 Million at a Trump Resort — and Cashed In

In mid-March, the payday lending industry held its annual convention at the Trump National Doral hotel outside Miami. Payday lenders offer loans on the order of a few hundred dollars, typically to low-income borrowers, who have to pay them back in a matter of weeks. The industry has long been reviled by critics for charging stratospheric interest rates — typically 400% on an annual basis — that leave customers trapped in cycles of debt.

The industry had felt under siege during the Obama administration, as the federal government moved to clamp down. A government study found that a majority of payday loans are made to people who pay more in interest and fees than they initially borrow. Google and Facebook refuse to take the industry’s ads.

On the edge of the Doral’s grounds, as the payday convention began, a group of ministers held a protest “pray-in,” denouncing the lenders for having a “feast” while their borrowers “suffer and starve.”

But inside the hotel, in a wood-paneled bar under golden chandeliers, the mood was celebratory. Payday lenders, many dressed in golf shirts and khakis, enjoyed an open bar and mingled over bites of steak and coconut shrimp.

They had plenty to be elated about. A month earlier, Kathleen Kraninger, who had just finished her second month as director of the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, had delivered what the lenders consider an epochal victory: Kraninger announced a proposal to gut a crucial rule that had been passed under her Obama-era predecessor.

Payday lenders viewed that rule as a potential death sentence for many in their industry. It would require payday lenders and others to make sure borrowers could afford to pay back their loans while also covering basic living expenses. Banks and mortgage lenders view such a step as a basic prerequisite. But the notion struck terror in the payday lenders. Their business model relies on customers — 12 million Americans take out payday loans every year, according to Pew Charitable Trusts — getting stuck in a long-term cycle of debt, experts say. A CFPB study found that three out of four payday loans go to borrowers who take out 10 or more loans a year.

Now, the industry was taking credit for the CFPB’s retreat. As salespeople, executives and vendors picked up lanyards and programs at the registration desk by the Doral’s lobby, they saw a message on the first page of the program from Dennis Shaul, CEO of the industry’s trade group, the Community Financial Services Association of America, which was hosting the convention. “We should not forget that we have had some good fortune through recent regulatory and legal developments,” Shaul wrote. “These events did not occur by accident, but rather are due in large part to the unity and participation of CFSA members and a commitment to fight back against regulatory overreach by the CFPB.”

This year was the second in a row that the CFSA held its convention at the Doral. In the eight years before 2018 (the extent for which records could be found), the organization never held an event at a Trump property.

Asked whether the choice of venue had anything to do with the fact that its owner is president of the United States and the man who appointed Kraninger as his organization’s chief regulator, Shaul assured ProPublica and WNYC that the answer was no. “We returned because the venue is popular with our members and meets our needs,” he said in a written statement. The statement noted that the CFSA held its first annual convention at the Doral hotel more than 16 years ago. Trump didn’t own the property at the time.

The CFSA and its members have poured a total of about $1 million into the Trump Organization’s coffers through the two annual conferences, according to detailed estimates prepared by a corporate event planner in Miami and an executive at a competing hotel that books similar events. Those estimates are consistent with the CFSA’s most recent available tax filing, which reveals that it spent $644,656 on its annual conference the year before the first gathering at the Trump property. (The Doral and the CFSA declined to comment.)

“It’s a way of keeping themselves on the list, reminding the president and the people close to him that they are among those who are generous to him with the profits that they earn from a business that’s in severe danger of regulation unless the Trump administration acts,” said Lisa Donner, executive director of consumer group Americans for Financial Reform.

The money the CFSA spent at the Doral is only part of the ante to lobby during the Trump administration. The payday lenders also did a bevy of things that interest groups have always done: They contributed to the president’s inauguration and earned face time with the president after donating to a Trump ally.

But it’s the payment to the president’s business that is a stark reminder that the Trump administration is like none before it. If the industry had written a $1 million check directly to the president’s campaign, both the CFSA and campaign could have faced fines or even criminal charges — and Trump couldn’t have used the money to enrich himself. But paying $1 million directly to the president’s business? That’s perfectly legal.

The inauguration of Donald Trump was a watershed for the payday lending industry. It had been feeling beleaguered since the launch of the CFPB in 2011. For the first time, the industry had come under federal supervision. Payday lending companies were suddenly subject to exams conducted by the bureau’s supervision division, which could, and sometimes did, lead to enforcement cases.

Before the bureau was created, payday lenders had been overseen mostly by state authorities. That left a patchwork: 15 states in which payday loans were banned outright, a handful of states with strong enforcement — and large swaths of the country in which payday lending was mostly unregulated.

Then, almost as suddenly as an aggressive CFPB emerged, the Trump administration arrived with an agenda of undoing regulations. “There was a resurgence of hope in the industry, which seems to be justified, at this point,” said Jeremy Rosenblum, a partner at law firm Ballard Spahr, who represents payday lenders. Rosenblum spoke to ProPublica and WNYC in a conference room at the Doral — filled with notepads, pens and little bowls of candy marked with the Trump name and family crest — where he had just led a session on compliance with federal and state laws. “There was a profound sense of relief, or hope, for the first time.” (Ballard Spahr occasionally represents ProPublica in legal matters.)

In Mick Mulvaney, who Trump appointed as interim chief of the CFPB in 2017, the industry got exactly the kind of person it had hoped for. As a congressman, Mulvaney had famously derided the agency as a “sad, sick” joke.

If anything, that phrase undersold Mulvaney’s attempts to hamstring the agency as its chief. He froze new investigations, dropped enforcement actions en masse, requested a budget of $0 and seemed to mock the agency by attempting to officially re-order the words in the organization’s name.

But Mulvaney’s rhetoric sometimes exceeded his impact. His budget request was ignored, for example; the CFPB’s name change was only fleeting. And besides, Mulvaney was always a part-timer, fitting in a few days a week at the CFPB while also heading the Office of Management and Budget, and then moving to the White House as acting chief of staff.

It’s Mulvaney’s successor, Kraninger, whom the financial industry is now counting on — and the early signs suggest she’ll deliver. In addition to easing rules on payday lenders, she has continued Mulvaney’s policy of ending supervisory exams on outfits that specialize in lending to the members of the military, claiming that the CFPB can do so only if Congress passes a new law granting those powers (which isn’t likely to happen anytime soon). She has also proposed a new regulation that will allow debt collectors to text and email debtors an unlimited number of times as long as there’s an option to unsubscribe.

Enforcement activity at the bureau has plunged under Trump. The amount of monetary relief going to consumers has fallen from $43 million per week under Richard Cordray, the director appointed by Barack Obama, to $6.4 million per week under Mulvaney and is now $464,039, according to an updated analysis conducted by the Consumer Federation of America’s Christopher Peterson, a former special adviser to the bureau.

Kraninger’s disposition seems almost the inverse of Mulvaney’s. If he’s the self-styled “right wing nutjob” willing to blow up the institution and everything near it, Kraninger offers positive rhetoric — she says she wants to “empower” consumers — and comes across as an amiable technocrat. At 44, she’s a former political science major — with degrees from Marquette University and Georgetown Law School — and has spent her career in the federal bureaucracy, with a series of jobs in the Transportation and Homeland Security departments and finally in OMB, where she worked under Mulvaney. (In an interview with her college alumni association, she hailed her Jesuit education and cited Pope Francis as her “dream dinner guest.”) In her previous jobs, Kraninger had extensive budgeting experience, but none in consumer finance. The CFPB declined multiple requests to make Kraninger available for an interview and directed ProPublica and WNYC to her public comments and speeches.

Kraninger is new to public testimony, but she already seems to have developed the politician’s skill of refusing to answer difficult questions. At a hearing in March just weeks before the Doral conference, Democratic Rep. Katie Porter repeatedly asked Kraninger to calculate the annual percentage rate on a hypothetical $200 two-week payday loan that costs $10 per $100 borrowed plus a $20 fee. The exchange went viral on Twitter. In a bit of congressional theater, Porter even had an aide deliver a calculator to Kraninger’s side to help her. But Kraninger would not engage. She emphasized that she wanted to conduct a policy discussion rather than a “math exercise.” The answer, by the way: That’s a 521% APR.

A while later, the session recessed and Kraninger and a handful of her aides repaired to the women’s room. A ProPublica reporter was there, too. The group lingered, seeming to relish what they considered a triumph in the hearing room. “I stole that calculator, Kathy,” one of the aides said. “It’s ours! It’s ours now!” Kraninger and her team laughed.

Triple-digit interest rates are no laughing matter for those who take out payday loans. A sum as little as $100, combined with such rates, can lead a borrower into long-term financial dependency.

That’s what happened to Maria Dichter. Now 73, retired from the insurance industry and living in Palm Beach County, Florida, Dichter first took out a payday loan in 2011. Both she and her husband had gotten knee replacements, and he was about to get a pacemaker. She needed $100 to cover the co-pay on their medication. As is required, Dichter brought identification and her Social Security number and gave the lender a postdated check to pay what she owed. (All of this is standard for payday loans; borrowers either postdate a check or grant the lender access to their bank account.) What nobody asked her to do was show that she had the means to repay the loan. Dichter got the $100 the same day.

The relief was only temporary. Dichter soon needed to pay for more doctors’ appointments and prescriptions. She went back and got a new loan for $300 to cover the first one and provide some more cash. A few months later, she paid that off with a new $500 loan.

Dichter collects a Social Security check each month, but she has never been able to catch up. For almost eight years now, she has renewed her $500 loan every month. Each time she is charged $54 in fees and interest. That means Dichter has paid about $5,000 in interest and fees since 2011 on what is effectively one loan for $500.

Today, Dichter said, she is “trapped.” She and her husband subsist on eggs and Special K cereal. “Now I’m worried,” Dichter said, “because if that pacemaker goes and he can’t replace the battery, he’s dead.”

Payday loans are marketed as a quick fix for people who are facing a financial emergency like a broken-down car or an unexpected medical bill. But studies show that most borrowers use the loans to cover everyday expenses. “We have a lot of clients who come regularly,” said Marco (he asked us to use only his first name), a clerk at one of Advance America’s 1,900 stores, this one in a suburban strip mall not far from the Doral hotel. “We have customers that come two times every month. We’ve had them consecutively for three years.”

These types of lenders rely on repeat borrowers. “The average store only has 500 unique customers a year, but they have the overhead of a conventional retail store,” said Alex Horowitz, a senior research officer at Pew Charitable Trusts, who has spent years studying payday lending. “If people just used one or two loans, then lenders wouldn’t be profitable.”

It was years of stories like Dichter’s that led the CFPB to draft a rule that would require that lenders ascertain the borrower’s ability to repay their loans. “We determined that these loans were very problematic for a large number of consumers who got stuck in what was supposed to be a short-term loan,” said Cordray, the first director of the CFPB, in an interview with ProPublica and WNYC. Finishing the ability-to-pay rule was one of the reasons he stayed on even after the Trump administration began. (Cordray left in November 2017 for what became an unsuccessful run for governor of Ohio.)

The ability-to-pay rule was announced in October 2017. The industry erupted in outrage. Here’s how CFSA’s chief, Shaul, described it in his statement to us: “The CFPB’s original rule, as written by unelected Washington bureaucrats, was motivated by a deeply paternalistic view that small-dollar loan customers cannot be trusted with the freedom to make their own financial decisions. The original rule stood to remove access to legal, licensed small-dollar loans for millions of Americans.” The statement cited an analysis that “found that the rule would push a staggering 82 percent of small storefront lenders to close.” The CFPB estimated that payday and auto title lenders — the latter allow people to borrow for short periods at ultra-high annual rates using their cars as collateral — would lose around $7.5 billion as a result of the rule.

The industry fought back. The charge was led by Advance America, the biggest brick-and-mortar payday lender in the United States. Its CEO until December, Patrick O’Shaughnessy, was the chairman of the CFSA’s board of directors and head of its federal affairs committee. The company had already been wooing the administration, starting with a $250,000 donation to the Trump inaugural committee. (Advance America contributes to both Democratic and Republican candidates, according to spokesperson Jamie Fulmer. He points out that, at the time of the $250,000 donation, the CFPB was still headed by Cordray, the Obama appointee.)

Payday and auto title lenders collectively donated $1.3 million to the inauguration. Rod and Leslie Aycox from Select Management Resources, a Georgia-based title lending company, attended the Chairman’s Global Dinner, an exclusive inauguration week event organized by Tom Barrack, the inaugural chairman, according to documents obtained by “Trump, Inc.” President-elect Trump spoke at the dinner.

In October 2017, Rod Aycox and O’Shaughnessy met with Trump when he traveled to Greenville, South Carolina, to speak at a fundraiser for the state’s governor, Henry McMaster. They were among 30 people who were invited to discuss economic development after donating to the campaign, according to the The Post and Courier. (“This event was only about 20 minutes long,” said the spokesperson for O’Shaughnessy’s company, and the group was large. “Any interaction with the President would have been brief.” The Aycoxes did not respond to requests for comment.)

In 2017, the CFSA spent $4.3 million advocating for its agenda at the federal and state level, according to its IRS filing. That included developing “strategies and policies,” providing a “link between the industry and regulatory decision makers” and efforts to “educate various state policy makers” and “support legislative efforts which are beneficial to the industry and the public.”

The ability-to-pay rule technically went into effect in January 2018, but the more meaningful date was August 2019. That’s when payday lenders could be penalized if they hadn’t implemented key parts of the rule.

Payday lenders looked to Mulvaney for help. He had historically been sympathetic to the industry and open to lobbyists who contribute money. (Jaws dropped in Washington, not about Mulvaney’s practices in this regard, but about his candor. “We had a hierarchy in my office in Congress,” he told bankers in 2018. “If you were a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn’t talk to you. If you’re a lobbyist who gave us money, I might talk to you.”)

But Mulvaney couldn’t overturn the ability-to-pay rule. Since it had been finalized, he didn’t have the legal authority to reverse it on his own. Mulvaney announced that the bureau would begin reconsidering the rule, a complicated and potentially lengthy process. The CFPB, under Cordray, had spent five years researching and preparing it.

Meanwhile, the payday lenders turned to Congress. Under the Congressional Review Act, lawmakers can nix federal rules during their first 60 days in effect. In the House, a bipartisan group of representatives filed a joint resolution to abolish the ability-to-pay rule. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., led the charge in the Senate. But supporters couldn’t muster a decisive vote in time, in part because opposition to payday lenders crosses party lines.

By April 2018, the CFSA members were growing impatient. But the Trump administration was willing to listen. The CFSA’s Shaul was granted access to a top Mulvaney lieutenant, according to “Mick Mulvaney’s Master Class in Destroying a Bureaucracy From Within” in The New York Times Magazine, which offers a detailed description of the behind-the scenes maneuvering. Shaul told the lieutenant that the CFSA had been preparing to sue the CFPB to stop the ability-to-pay rule “but now believed that it would be better to work with the bureau to write a new one.” Cautious about appearing to coordinate with industry, according to the article, the CFPB was non-committal.

Days later, the CFSA sued the bureau. The organization’s lawyers argued in court filings that the bureau’s rules “defied common sense and basic economic analysis.” The suit claimed the bureau was unconstitutional and lacked the authority to impose rules.

A month later, Mulvaney took a rare step, at least, for most administrations: He sided with the plaintiffs suing his agency. Mulvaney filed a joint motion asking the judge to delay the ability-to-pay rule until the lawsuit is resolved.

By February of this year, Kraninger had taken charge of the CFPB and proposed to rescind the ability-to-pay rule. Her official announcement asserted that there was “insufficient evidence and legal support” for the rule and expressed concern that it “would reduce access to credit and competition.”

Kraninger’s announcement sparked euphoria in the industry. One industry blog proclaimed, “It’s party time, baby!” with a GIF of President Trump bobbing his head.

Kraninger’s decision made the lawsuit largely moot. But the suit, which has been stayed, has still served a purpose: This spring, a federal judge agreed to freeze another provision of the regulation, one that limits the number of times a lender can debit a borrower’s bank account, until the fate of the overall rule is determined.

As the wrangling over the federal regulation plays out, payday lenders have continued to lobby statehouses across the country. For example, a company called Amscot pushed for a new state law in Florida last year. Amscot courted African American pastors and leaders located in the districts of dozens of Democratic lawmakers and chartered private jets to fly them to Florida’s capital to testify, according to the Tampa Bay Times. The lawmakers subsequently passed legislation creating a new type of payday loan, one that can be paid in installments, that lets consumers borrow a maximum $1,000 loan versus the $500 maximum for regular payday loans. Amscot CEO Ian MacKechnie asserts that the new loans reduce fees (consumer advocates disagree). He added, in an email to ProPublica and WNYC: “We have always worked with leaders in the communities that we serve: both to understand the experiences of their constituents with regard to financial products; and to be a resource to make sure everyone understands the law and consumer protections. Educated consumers are in everyone’s interest.” For their part, the leaders denied that Amscot’s contributions affected their opinions. As one of them told the Tampa Bay Times, the company is a “great community partner.”

Kraninger spent her first three months in office embarking on a “listening tour.” She traveled the country and met with more than 400 consumer groups, government officials and financial institutions. Finally, in mid-April, she gave her first public speech at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, D.C. The CFPB billed it as the moment she would lay out her vision for the agency.

Kraninger said she hoped to use the CFPB’s enforcement powers “less often.” She alluded to a report by the Federal Reserve that 40% of Americans would not be able to cover an emergency expense of $400. Her suggestion for addressing that: educational videos and a booklet. “To promote effective approaches to savings and particularly emergency savings,” Kraninger explained, “the Bureau recently launched our Start Small, Save Up initiative. It offers tips, tools and information to help consumers build a basic savings cushion and develop a savings habit. Later this year, we will be launching a savings ‘boot camp,’ a series of videos, and a very readable, informative booklet that serves as a roadmap to a savings plan.”

Having laid out what sounded like a plan to hand out self-help brochures at an agency invented to pursue predatory financial institutions, she then said, “Let me be clear, however, the ultimate goal for the bureau is not to produce booklets and great content on our website. The ultimate goal is to move the needle on the number of Americans in this country who can cover a financial shock, like a $400 emergency.”

Back at the Doral the month before her speech, $400 might not have seemed like much of an emergency to the payday lenders. Some attendees seemed most upset by a torrential downpour on the second day that caused the cancellation of the conference’s golf tournament.

Inside the Donald J. Trump Ballroom, the conference buzzed with activity. The Bush-era political adviser Karl Rove was the celebrity speaker after the breakfast buffet. And the practical sessions continued apace. One was called “The Power of the Pen.” It was aimed at helping attendees submit comments on the ability-to-pay rule to the government. It was clearly a matter of importance to the CFSA. In his statement to ProPublica and WNYC, Shaul noted that “more than one million customers submitted comments opposing the CFPB’s original small-dollar loan rule — hundreds of thousands of whom sent handwritten letters telling personal stories of how small-dollar loans helped them and their families.”

A couple of months after the Doral conference, Allied Progress, a consumer advocacy group, analyzed the new round of comments that were submitted to the CFPB in response to Kraninger’s plans. In one sample of 26,000 comments, the group discovered that 27% of the statements submitted by purportedly independent individuals contained duplicative passages, all of which supported the industry’s position. For example, Allied Progress reported that 221 of the comments stated that “I have a long commute to work and it’s better for me financially to borrow from Cash Connection so that I can still make it to work than to not take care of my car and lose my job because of absences.” There were 201 asserting that “I now take care of my parents and my children” and I “want to be able to enjoy life and not feel burdened by the additional expenses that are piling up.” Allied Progress said it doesn’t know “if these are fake people, fake stories, or form letters intentionally designed to read as personal anecdotes.” (Cash Connection couldn’t be reached for comment.)

Taking account of public comments is the final task before Kraninger officially determines whether to put the ability-to-pay rule to death. Whatever she decides, it’s a likely bet that decision will be challenged in court, the CFSA will weigh in and the payday lenders will still be talking about it at next year’s annual conference. A spokesperson for the CFSA declined to say whether the event will be held at a Trump hotel.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

‘I don’t like critics’: Critic in chief Trump asks U.S. allies to abide by his double standard

President Trump has called London Mayor Sadiq Khan a “stone cold loser” who is “soft on terrorism.”

He has criticized British Prime Minister Theresa May for not heeding his advice on Brexit.

He repeatedly attacked Britain’s former prime minister David Cameron for “subsidizing” Scotland and said Cameron should be “run out of office.”

He also criticized the British government, accusing it of trying to “disguise their massive Muslim problem” and for its national health-care system.

[Trump says he would have sued E.U. over Brexit, but Theresa May is ‘probably a better negotiator’]

On Tuesday, the very same Trump said it was unproductive for British politicians to criticize him. “I don’t like critics as much as I like and respect people who like to get things done,” Trump declared. Referring specifically to Khan, Trump said, “I don’t think he should be criticizing a leader of the United States that could be doing so much good for the United Kingdom.”

Apparently, when it comes to U.S.-Britain relations, criticism should flow in only one direction across the Atlantic.

Trump’s declaration that he doesn’t like critics is a nice little window into his worldview. Basically nobody is immune to Trump’s jabs, and he often reserves some of his sharpest ones for top allies abroad. Trump has used his ability to criticize perceived foes and turn his supporters on them to great effect, in some cases, including by keeping congressional Republicans in line.

But he also regularly attacks the mere idea that anybody would criticize him.

“I don’t like critics,” he said when former defense secretary Robert Gates criticized him in 2016. “I don’t like critics. I like the people that get it done and get it done right.”

“In the ‘old days’ if you were President and you had a good economy, you were basically immune from criticism,” he tweeted in April.

At the commencement ceremony for the Coast Guard Academy in May 2017, Trump intoned: “No politician in history — and I say this with great surety — has been treated worse or more unfairly. . . . You can’t let the critics and the naysayers get in the way of your dreams.”

Less than two years earlier, in November 2015, he said: “You know, I don’t like critics. I never like even movie critics, theater critics. They complain, but they can’t do it themselves. I don’t like people that complain.”

Politics is a business rife with double standards. When someone does something you don’t like, they are “playing politics.” When you do something other people don’t like, it’s being principled. And, likewise, when you believe you are doing what is right, you will view criticisms of it as gratuitous and underhanded.

But as with many things, Trump takes this to another level. If you look at some of the comments above — most especially his comment about Khan and the tweet from April — they seem to betray a man who believes he should be somewhat immune from criticism. He argues he has been too successful and wields too much power as the president of the United States. British politicians apparently need him more than he needs them, and so they should fall in line.

And there’s something to that. The president of the United States is generally understood to be the leader of the free world. He wields tremendous power, as Trump is showing, over international treaties and trade agreements. He can often hurt other nations much more than they can hurt him. And Trump has certainly tested the limits of other countries’ willingness to tolerate his bull-in-a-china-shop approach to foreign policy. Generally, they have been forced to humor his double standard.

Which makes the strong Trump criticisms we’re seeing from Khan and the head of the British Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, all the more notable. Corbyn, who spoke at an anti-Trump rally on Tuesday, leads a party that would need to forge a relationship with Trump if it were to gain power. Yet he attacked Trump on Tuesday for spreading hatred and for his treatment of minorities.

Even the favorite to become the next prime minister, Conservative Party leader Boris Johnson, has in the past leveled very tough criticisms of Trump, referring to his “stupefying ignorance” and saying he was “out of his mind.” The two have since become allies, with Trump promoting Johnson as a potential replacement for May.

It seems that one way or another, future relations between the U.S. and Britain will test Trump’s willingness to forgive the apostasy of criticizing Trump.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Trump just keeps botching how Congress and the Constitution work

A few months into Donald Trump’s presidency, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) defended the novice politician. “He’s new at government,” Ryan said in June 2017, “and therefore I think he’s learning as he goes.”

Almost two years later, Trump still hasn’t mastered many of the basics taught in Government 101.

In response to the House passing a $19.1 billion disaster relief bill Monday, Trump quickly tweeted his satisfaction and noted that “now we will get it done in the Senate.” Except the Senate had already passed the bill, something Trump himself acknowledged in a tweet. Trump deleted the tweet.

The mix-up is merely the latest example of Trump botching congressional procedure, the Constitution and other details about how the U.S. government works.

When he was talking about his tax cut bill in 2017, he said it was getting rave reviews, even though it hadn’t been introduced and most of the details were unknown. In April, he called on Congress to immediately return from recess and pass immigration laws, even though, again, no bill had been produced and even his top ally, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), said the process would take weeks. Before the 2018 election, he said Congress would pass a 10 percent middle-class tax cut by Election Day, except Congress wasn’t even in session until after the election and congressional GOP leaders were dumbfounded by the claim. The vote was never held.

Other Trump flubs have involved his apparent unfamiliarity with the Constitution or a disregard for its limitations. A few examples:

He said he was looking at getting rid of birthright citizenship via executive action, even though it would require a constitutional amendment.
He asked Congress for the line-item veto, even though it has been explicitly ruled unconstitutional. (Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and others suggested that there might be a workaround; we’re still waiting to see what that might be.)
He has repeatedly said he would work to open up libel laws, even though that’s a matter generally determined by the states, not the federal government.
Trump has also sought to bend the Constitution’s impeachment clause to his will. He has repeatedly argued that the lack of an actual crime in the Russia investigation would exempt him from impeachment, even though the Constitution’s “high crimes and misdemeanors” is generally not understood to mean actual crimes.

There was also a time when he suggested he would try to block his own impeachment by going to the Supreme Court. He recently added, “I can’t imagine the courts allowing it.” Except impeachment is explicitly a prerogative of Congress, and there’s really no conceivable way the judiciary would stop it.

Perhaps all of these were to be expected from a man who, as a 2016 candidate, suggested that the Constitution had 12 articles and that two of the three main functions of the federal government were education and health care — despite neither appearing in the Constitution and conservatives generally believing those things should be left to the states.

Trump’s mistakes even stretch into what is currently his own top priority: his growing trade war. Trump has repeatedly suggested that the countries on which the tariffs are being levied pay the tariffs, even though they are borne by U.S. companies and consumers, as his own chief economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, recently conceded. Trump has also often suggested that trade deficits are bad because that means money is leaving the U.S. economy. But economists (again including Kudlow) have emphasized that’s not how it works. Reports indicate that nobody in the White House has been able to talk Trump out of these preconceived notions.

And that’s kind of the point. Trump seems not just unfamiliar with how government and the Constitution works, but also willing to ignore basic facts to sell his own spin. Many of these examples — including on trade, impeachment and the disaster relief bill — are very recent. It recalls that quote from former aide Sam Nunberg, who said that he tried to teach Trump about the Constitution during the 2016 campaign, but that he “got as far as the Fourth Amendment before his finger is pulling down on his lip and his eyes are rolling back in his head.”

Trump has never taken care to be strictly accurate in the things that he is saying. But his disinterest in how Washington works suggests a president who, despite his concern about his own reputation, isn’t terribly engaged in the nitty-gritty.

Get an outsider to run the government, they said.

He'll learn how things work and get better, they said.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Trump’s parade of false claims overseas

President Trump sat down for an interview with Piers Morgan of “Good Morning Britain” at the conclusion of his trip to London. Here’s a roundup of some of the president’s false and misleading claims during the discussion, one of which he repeated a few hours later in Ireland.

“The United States right now has among the cleanest climates there are, based on all statistics, and it’s even getting better.”

— Interview with Morgan

“We have the cleanest air in the world, in the United States, and it’s gotten better since I’m President. We have the cleanest water; it’s crystal clean.”

— Remarks with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar

Trump withdrew the United States from participation in the Paris accord to combat climate change, and he falsely asserted that the United States had the world’s “cleanest air” and “cleanest climate” and even the “cleanest water.”

The United States actually ranks 27th in the world, according to the authoritative Environmental Performance Index, a project of Yale and Columbia universities. It ranks 10th for air quality — but 88th on exposure to particulate matter, an indication of the health effects from pollution — and 29th for water and sanitation. The United States is tied for first place — with nine other countries — for the quality of drinking water.

As for whether things have improved under Trump, that’s hard to track in the available data — in fact, the number of unhealthy days in the United States went up from 2016 to 2017, according to government data — but he has taken a number of actions that could reverse or slow the gains made in air and water quality since 1990.

“In the 1890s, we had our worst hurricanes, and I would say we’ve had some very bad hurricanes.”

— Interview with Morgan

The 1890 hurricane season was actually not especially active, but for some reason, this is one of Trump’s go-to claims.

What’s “worse” is open to interpretation. It could mean cost, damage or lives lost, but regardless of how you measure, several lists suggest that more recent hurricanes were the “worst” or “biggest,” including Hurricanes Maria and Harvey, which hit in 2017. The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 remains the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history. At least 6,000 people were killed, and 30,000 people in the Texas city were left homeless.

Oddly, when Trump asserted in 2017 that hurricanes in the 1930s and 1940s were “bigger” than more recent storms, his staff directed The Fact Checker to a report issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That report was updated in 2018, and it shows that the costliest storms, adjusted for inflation, are Katrina (2005), Harvey (2017), Maria (2017), Sandy (2012) and Irma (2017). So three of the costliest storms occurred on Trump’s watch.

“I just found out we have 94 percent support in the Republican Party. That’s higher. Ronald Reagan was the highest at 86. And we have 94 percent. It just came out.”

— Interview with Morgan

We had just fact-checked this, but here’s this Four-Pinocchio claim again. What’s odd is: (a) Trump has been making this claim for almost a year, and yet he says it’s a new poll, and (b) he claims that Reagan was “highest at 86” percent when in fact he has previously acknowledged that George W. Bush holds the record, with 99 percent approval among Republicans, in the Gallup poll. Reagan hit a high of 94 percent — but not Trump. With a high of 90 percent, Trump ranks sixth out of the seven post-World War II Republican presidents.

“You’re talking about Vietnam, and at that time, nobody ever heard of the country.”

— Interview with Morgan

In justifying his decision not to serve in Vietnam — a conflict waged two-thirds by volunteers and one-third by draftees — Trump makes the astonishing assertion that nobody had ever heard of Vietnam in 1968, when he received a possibly fraudulent diagnosis of having bone spurs to obtain a medical exemption.

The first Marines landed in Danang in 1965, and by the end of 1967, there were almost 500,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam. At the start of 1968, the Viet Cong (communist guerrilla forces) and North Vietnamese launched the Tet Offensive, weakening U.S. support for the war, and President Lyndon B. Johnson announced in March that he would not seek reelection. Vietnam — and the U.S. desire to thwart communist expansion in Southeast Asia — had been part of the national conversation since President John F. Kennedy first sent military advisers to the country in the early 1960s.

“In the military, you’re not allowed to take any drugs. You take an aspirin. And they [transgender individuals] have to, after the operation, they have to, they have no choice, they have to. You would actually have to break rules and regulations in order to have that.”

— Interview with Morgan

False. As our colleague Aaron Blake documented, experts say the president is wrong to claim that service members are “not allowed to take any drugs” or that they can’t take the specific drugs used for gender reassignment. Hormones are permissible for service members, as are opioids and psychotropic drugs. Moreover, not all transgender people undergo gender reassignment surgery or take prescription hormones, so even if Trump were correct that such prescribed drugs were prohibited, it wouldn’t necessarily mean transgender troops would have to be banned from serving.

“President Obama made a deal, the Iran nuclear deal, which was a terrible deal because it was a short-term deal. Didn’t do the trick. Paid 150 billion dollars, paid 1.8 billion in cash if you can believe it, in cash.”

— Interview with Morgan

Trump in recent weeks has claimed that the nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration and five other world powers would in five years give Iran “an open path to make nuclear weapons.” Presumably, that’s what he means by “short-term.” The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the Iran nuclear deal is formally known, actually bars Iran from ever seeking, developing or acquiring nuclear weapons. Trump is alluding to the argument that some restrictions in the deal sunset over time and that Iran could pursue a nuclear weapons program in secret once those restrictions are gone. But Iran was said to be abiding to the agreement when Trump terminated U.S. participation.

As for the $150 billion payment, Trump often makes it sound as if the United States cut a check to Iran. He also always uses too high an estimate, $150 billion, for the assets involved. But this was always Iran’s money. Iran had billions of dollars that were frozen in foreign banks around the globe because of international sanctions related to its nuclear program. The Treasury Department estimated that once Iran fulfilled other obligations, it would have about $55 billion left. The Central Bank of Iran said the number was actually $32 billion.

The cash was related to the settlement of a decades-old claim between the two countries. An initial payment of $400 million was handed over Jan. 17, 2016, the day after Iran released four American detainees, including The Washington Post’s Jason Rezaian. The timing — which U.S. officials insisted was a coincidence — suggested that the cash could be viewed as a ransom payment. But the initial cash payment was Iran’s money. In the 1970s, the then-pro-Western Iranian government under the shah paid $400 million for U.S. military equipment. But the equipment was never delivered because the two countries broke off relations after the seizure of American hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Iran. Two other payments totaling $1.3 billion — a negotiated agreement on the interest owed on the $400 million — came some weeks later.

“No, I don’t attack him. People ask me like you’re asking me. I didn’t bring his name up, you did. You brought his name up, John McCain. So I’m not attacking him at all. I don’t think about him. I was not a fan. I didn’t like what he did to health care. I didn’t like how he handled the veterans because I got him choice. He was always unable.”

— Interview with Morgan

Our database of Trump’s false and misleading claims lists 20 times that Trump has attacked McCain by name — for his vote on Obamacare, for passing on a dossier compiled by a British intelligence agent, and more recently for the false charge that he failed to achieve expanded private health-care options known as Veterans Choice.

In reality, a bill signed by Trump expanded an effort spearheaded by McCain in 2014 and was actually named after the late senator.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Trump Says People Need Assault Weapons Used in Mass Shootings for ‘Entertainment’

President Donald Trump said that people in the United States need the AR-15 assault weapons that are popular with mass shooters for “entertainment,” and compared the almost 40,000 annual gun deaths in the U.S. with stabbing deaths in the U.K that number in the hundreds each year.

British journalist Piers Morgan has long been an advocate of more gun control in the U.S. and used part of his new interview with Trump to press that point.

Asked if he’d like to ban silencers like the one used in the Virginia Beach mass shooting last week, Trump said he’d “like to think about it, I mean nobody’s talked about silencers very much,” and added that “It’s crazy what’s going on with, and not only in our country, and not only in our country…”

“But America has this particular issue with gun violence,” Morgan said, pointing out that there have been “150 mass shootings in America this year alone. In Britain, we have 35 gun deaths a year. In America today there will be 85, tomorrow 85.”

“But Piers, in London you have stabbings all over, I read an article where everyone is being a stabbed,” Trump said.

“We’ve had 50 odd-murders with knives this year in London,” Morgan said.

“Well, they said your hospital is a sea of blood all over the floors. It’s a sea of blood and they don’t have the guns,” Trump said. Annual stabbing deaths in England number fewer than 300.

“What can you do as the president to change the mindset about gun violence?” Morgan asked.

“Just talk about it, you have to talk about it,” Trump said, then went on a lengthy digression about the 2015 Paris attacks, insisting that “if one or two or three of those people had a gun, it would have never happened.”

“Here’s my problem with that argument,” Morgan said. “More people were shot dead in America that week than have died from guns and Paris since the second world war. I mean, the stats are so against that argument, aren’t they?”

“What are you going to do, you’re going to take the guns away from hunters? You have hunters, and they want guns.” Trump said.

“I think it can have special licenses for hunters,” Morgan said, and added that while he also supports gun ownership for home defense, “I don’t understand, never have understood, why anyone in America needs a semi-automatic AR-15 assault rifle at home. Why do they need them?”

“Well, a lot of them used them for entertainment, they do,” Trump said. “I mean it’s really…”

“Are guns entertainment?” Morgan interrupted.

“For some people, it’s entertainment, they go out and they shoot and they go to ranges and they have a tremendous amount of fun,” Trump said.

“Sport shooting and specific hunting with licenses, I get that, what I don’t get is the need, this guy in Vegas had 13 AR-15 assault rifles. He bought 52 guns in one year.” Morgan said.

“And he was a sick guy, and if it wasn’t guns, he would have done bombs or he would have done something else,” Trump said. “He was actually a pretty smart guy, he was supposedly a good successful gambler, there’s almost no such thing as a successful gambler. And we went out and what he did was incredible.”

#Resist

[Lois]

Finding problems he can make worse, that seems to be Trump's goal during his trip to Europe.

Case in point: Telling Ireland's Prime Minister that because of Brexit he gets to re-build the wall on his Northern border.

So much for peace in Ireland, let the bombings begin again!

[_priapism]

For D-Day, Trump recalls the heroism of ... Donald Trump

By Dana Milbank
Columnist
June 5

World leaders have assembled on the English Channel this week, on the 75th anniversary of D-Day, for two days of ceremonies recalling the unrivaled bravery and sacrifice of Donald Trump.

President Trump, staying at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in London, was up early Wednesday morning and already thinking deep and profound thoughts on the theme of the day: himself.

“Washed up psycho @BetteMidler was forced to apologize for a statement she attributed to me that turned out to be totally fabricated by her in order to make ‘your great president’ look really bad,” he tweeted.

It was 1:30 a.m.

D-Day is often referred to as “The Longest Day,” but Trump’s Wednesday had to be a close second. As the world’s focus turned to the legendary World War II battle, Trump’s attention remained fixed on the commemoration of Trump. In this great and noble undertaking he had the support of Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, who said the D-Day anniversary “is the time where we should be celebrating our president.”

The morning tweeting continued.

“This trip has been an incredible success for the President,” he declared, quoting Fox News’s Laura Ingraham.

“If the totally Corrupt Media was less corrupt, I would be up by 15 points in the polls based on our tremendous success with the economy, maybe Best Ever!” he wrote.

He tweeted a White House-produced video, set to triumphant music, showing images of — you guessed it — Trump, in Britain.

He sent word that House Republicans support him “all the way,” and he asserted that the “big crowds” of British protesters were in fact “gathered in support of the USA and me.” (But mostly him, surely.)

If any event symbolizes a cause greater than self, it is D-Day, when thousands stormed the beaches of Normandy under Nazi fire. But for Trump, no cause exceeds self. At a time for lofty sentiment, Trump defaulted to the small — about the “No Collusion Witch Hunt,” “Sleepy Joe Biden,” the “Corrupt Media” and “Cryin’ Chuck Schumer” (“What a Creep”).

On the morning of the remembrance in Portsmouth, England, Britons woke to Piers Morgan’s interview with Trump.

“I know so much about nuclear weapons.”

“I’m running on maybe the greatest economy we ever had.”

“I knocked out ISIS.”

“I had an inauguration which I have to say was spectacular.”

“We had a big election-night win.”

“I have all the cards.”

“I have a good relationship with many of the leaders.”

“I have a very good relationship with the people in the United Kingdom.”

“We have tremendous support,” Trump proclaimed.

He and his wife were the “only people at a special ceremony for the new emperor.”

He paused the self-adulation long enough to ask: “How am I doing?”

Just great, sir.

Morgan, the 2008 winner of “The Celebrity Apprentice,” showed why he earned the sole TV interview with Trump. He asked what Trump’s late mother would think of her son.

“She would have been very proud,” allowed Trump, who reported that the queen herself “was very honored” to learn his mother was a fan of Elizabeth’s.

Does he see similarities between himself and Winston Churchill?

“I would be ridiculed” for saying so, but “I certainly would like to see similarities.”

Churchill’s “swashbuckling style? His fearlessness?” Morgan prompted. “He was polarizing.”

“Well, that’s true,” Trump admitted.

In a nod to the day’s solemnity, Trump described D-Day as a “really incredible” battle, maybe “the greatest battle in history.” The best!

With a straight face, Morgan recalled that Trump was “unable to serve in Vietnam” because of his “bone spur.”

“I think I make up for it right now,” Trump replied. “Look, $700 billion I gave [the Pentagon] last year, and this year $716 billion” (in taxpayer dollars, not his).


Morgan concluded by presenting Trump with the same style of hat Churchill wore. Trump put it on. The bowler fit!

At Portsmouth, Trump read the D-Day prayer of a man nearly as great as himself: Franklin D. Roosevelt. “Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our republic, our religion and our civilization,” he read.

The dignitaries applauded politely — though, inexplicably, not as much as they did for the French president. After brief visits with veterans and leaders, Trump flew to Ireland to spend the night at his golf club. He opted to sleep there on both nights of the D-Day commemoration, because, he said of the 400-mile detour, “it’s convenient.”

The Irish prime minister, declining Trump’s invitation to meet him at the Trump International Golf Links in Doonbeg, instead met Trump at the airport. There, Trump reported, among other things, that he had “an incredible time” at the D-Day ceremony, that America’s air “has gotten better since I’m president” and that of the millions of Irish Americans, “I know most of them because they’re my friends.”

“Is this trip . . . just about promoting your golf club?” an Irish reporter asked.

The cheek! How could anybody accuse this man of self-promotion?

[Athos_131]

Let's send him to Mars to find out if it really is part of the moon.

#Resist

[Lois]

Let's send him to Mars to find out if it really is part of the moon.

#Resist

Well he is all about self agrandisement.  He might be talked into being part of the first manned visit to Mars.  I'm sure Elon would help!