Tag: Donald Trump

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Donald Trump Proposes 20% Tariff On European Cars

Donald Trump proposes a 20% tariff on European cars
Donald Trump

Donald Trump tweeted today his intention to slap a 20% tariff on all auto imports from Europe.

From The Washington Post:

Car tariffs are shaping up as the next battle in what officials here fear is developing into a full-blown trade war between the U.S. and its closest allies. Trump has already imposed tariffs on European steel and aluminum, and Europe on Friday imposed countertariffs on goods ranging from whisky to motorcycles.

Although auto tariffs would be aimed broadly at imports, with cars from major manufacturing hubs such as Mexico, Canada and Japan all likely to be affected, Trump has singled out German cars as the object of his ire.

Additionally, CBS News reports as many as 195,000 U.S. workers could lose their jobs over the next three years if demand for cars imported into the U.S. slows because of the tariffs.

If other countries retaliate and tax similar products another 624,000 U.S. jobs could be lost.

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Washington Post: National Enquirer Sent Trump Articles To Be Approved By Michael Cohen

The National Enquirer regularly sent articles and cover images relating to Donald Trump to his then-attorney, Michael Cohen, before publishing the items for approval.
National Enquirer chief David Pecker (L) Donald Trump (R)

In a late breaking story tonight, The Washington Post is reporting the National Enquirer regularly sent articles and cover images relating to Donald Trump to his then-attorney, Michael Cohen, before publishing the items for approval.

Via The Washington Post:

Although the company strongly denies ever sharing such material before publication, these three individuals say the sharing of material continued after Trump took office.

“Since Trump’s become president and even before, [Pecker] openly just has been willing to turn the magazine and the cover over to the Trump machine,” said one of the people with knowledge of the practice.

During the campaign, “if it was a story specifically about Trump, then it was sent over to Michael, and as long as there were no objections from him, the story could be published,” this person added.

The stories sent for approval were either about Trump or his political foes.

While unusual, the news is an interesting commentary on the special relationship between Trump and David Pecker, chief executive of American Media Inc., the Enquirer’s parent company.

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Donald Trump Gets Another TIME Magazine Cover

Donald Trump shown on the cover of this week's TIME Magazine with the caption "Welcome to America" as a small immigrant child cries at Trump's feet

Donald Trump covers TIME Magazine again this week.

From the new issue:

TIME’s Karl Vick writes: “For the first 240 years of U.S. history, … our most revered chief executives reliably articulated a set of high-minded, humanist values that bound together a diverse nation by naming what we aspired to: democracy, humanity, equality. … Donald Trump doesn’t talk like that.”

And from Molly Ball: “The inhumanity unfolding at the border has not just been a test for Trump. It has been, and will continue to be, a moment of reckoning for America.

“Trump has often bet that if he just rides out the current frenzy, the anger will fade and some new controversy will erupt. He thinks shock is a temporary condition, moral outrage is phony posturing and that the American people can be numbed to just about anything.

“If there is a Trump creed, it’s that there’s no such thing as going too far. That may have found its limit with putting children in cages. “

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Trump Complains His Opposition Is Called “Elite”

At a rally in Minnesota last night, Donald Trump lamented that liberals and Democrats are often referred to as “the elite.”

“You ever notice they always call the other side ‘the elite.’ The elite! Why are they elite? I have a much better apartment than they do. I’m smarter than they are. I’m richer than they are. I became president and they didn’t.”

Of course, what he doesn’t mention is the label “the elite” is being used by far-right convservatives – his own people – as a putdown.

Watch the statement below.

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Obama Takes Veiled Swipe At Trump Immigration Policy On ‘World Refugee Day’

President Barack Obama

In observing World Refugee Day, former President Obama took a not-so-veiled swipe at Donald Trump’s hideous policy of separating families at the southern U.S. border.

From Obama’s Facebook page:

Today is World Refugee Day.

If you’ve been fortunate enough to have been born in America, imagine for a moment if circumstance had placed you somewhere else. Imagine if you’d been born in a country where you grew up fearing for your life, and eventually the lives of your children. A place where you finally found yourself so desperate to flee persecution, violence, and suffering that you’d be willing to travel thousands of miles under cover of darkness, enduring dangerous conditions, propelled forward by that very human impulse to create for our kids a better life.

That’s the reality for so many of the families whose plights we see and heart-rending cries we hear. And to watch those families broken apart in real time puts to us a very simple question: are we a nation that accepts the cruelty of ripping children from their parents’ arms, or are we a nation that values families, and works to keep them together? Do we look away, or do we choose to see something of ourselves and our children?

Our ability to imagine ourselves in the shoes of others, to say “there but for the grace of God go I,” is part of what makes us human. And to find a way to welcome the refugee and the immigrant – to be big enough and wise enough to uphold our laws and honor our values at the same time – is part of what makes us American. After all, almost all of us were strangers once, too. Whether our families crossed the Atlantic, the Pacific, or the Rio Grande, we’re only here because this country welcomed them in, and taught them that to be an American is about something more than what we look like, how our last names sound, or the way we worship. To be an American is to have a shared commitment to an ideal – that all of us are created equal, and all of us deserve the chance to become something better.

That’s the legacy our parents and grandparents and generations before created for us, and it’s something we have to protect for the generations to come. But we have to do more than say “this isn’t who we are.” We have to prove it – through our policies, our laws, our actions, and our votes.

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Trump Announces Executive Order To Stop Family Separations At The Border

President Trump announces he will finally stop separating migrant children from their parents after weeks of saying he had no power to do so
Donald Trump

After weeks of claiming only Congress has the power to stop separating migrant children from their parents at the southern border of the United States, Donald Trump announced today that he will sign an executive order to stop the horrific policy.

The truth of the matter is no executive order is needed. Trump can stop all this with a phone call to his Attorney General.

From The New York Times:

Mr. Trump’s executive order would seek to get around an existing 1997 consent decree, known as the Flores settlement, that prohibits the federal government from keeping children in immigration detention — even if they are with their parents — for more than 20 days.

Stories of children being taken from their parents and images of teenagers in cage-like detention facilities have exploded into a full-blown political crisis for Mr. Trump and Republican lawmakers, who are desperate for a response to critics who have called the practice “inhumane” and “evil.”

Mr. Trump has for weeks refused to simply end his government’s “zero tolerance” policy that led to the separation of more than 2,300 children from their parents, saying that the alternative would be to fling open the nation’s borders and allow immigrants who cross the border illegally to remain in the country.
But the president, furious about the pummeling he has taken in recent days, has been casting about for an escape from the crisis, people familiar with his thinking said.

Today’s announcement comes as Trump’s approval rating on immigration has hit an all-time low.

According to a CNN poll released Monday, Trump’s handling of immigration dropped five points in just the last month to only 35% approval.

Axios reported this morning that a senior White House official described Trump’s perspective on the issue as “being moved personally, but also doesn’t want to look weak.”

“He feels boxed in, is frustrated and knows it’s bad politics — but also understands it’s not a fight he can back down from,” added the official.

Watch Trump weave back and forth in his announcement below:

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All 49 Senate Democrats Have Signed On To ‘Keep Families Together’ Act

Donald Trump continues to lie in blaming Congressional Democrats for his own administration's policy of separating children from migrants at the southern border of the U.S.
Donald Trump

UPDATE – All 49 Senate Democrats have now sponsored the Keep Families Together Act.

I’d say that’s “doing something.”

Your move, Donald Trump.

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Donald Trump went on a Monday morning Twitter rant about his administration’s harmful policy of separating children from migrant parents at the U.S. southern border.

In the past two months, over 2,000 children have been separated from their families according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Once again lamenting that it’s the Democrats in Congress who won’t fix the current policy – when it was implemented by Trump’s own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions – Trump tweeted, “Why don’t the Democrats give us the votes to fix the world’s worst immigration laws?”

The fact of the matter is there is a bill in the Senate that would stop Trump’s policy of separating immigrant children from their parents at the border. There are currently 43 Democratic co-sponsors and zero Republicans.

What probably kicked off Trump’s rant was former First Lady Laura Bush’s op-ed in The Washington Post this morning calling for a more humane and moral solution.

I live in a border state. I appreciate the need to enforce and protect our international boundaries, but this zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart.

Our government should not be in the business of warehousing children in converted box stores or making plans to place them in tent cities in the desert outside of El Paso. These images are eerily reminiscent of the Japanese American internment camps of World War II, now considered to have been one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. history. We also know that this treatment inflicts trauma; interned Japanese have been two times as likely to suffer cardiovascular disease or die prematurely than those who were not interned.

In 2018, can we not as a nation find a kinder, more compassionate and more moral answer to this current crisis? I, for one, believe we can.

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Steve Bannon: Trump Doesn’t Lie, He Speaks In A ‘Special Vernacular’

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon tells ABC News that Donald Trump has never lied that he knows of. Bannon says Trump speaks in a "special vernacular" that connect with the American people
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon

During an interview with Jon Karl on ABC News’ This Week, former Trump campaign and White House adviser Steve Bannon declared President Trump has never lied to his knowledge.

Umm, ok. And I’m Justin Timberlake.

Karl had played clips of Trump promising to never lie to the American public during the 2016 campaign. As Karl points out that was a promise the Trumpster “obviously broke. He has not always told the truth.”

“I don’t know that,” replied Bannon. “From what I’ve seen, he has.” Karl asked him again, “you think the President has never lied?” “Not to my knowledge, no,” Bannon said again. Then he joked “except when he called me ‘Sloppy Steve.’”

Bannon went on to say that Trump simply speaks in a “special vernacular” that resonates with the American people.

I don’t think Bannon knows what “vernacular” means.

Watch the exchange below.

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Donald Trump: My Followers Are The Smartest, Strongest In History”

Donald Trump tweets that his followers are the smartest and most loyal in history.
Donald Trump

Donald Trump took to Twitter, his favorite sandbox, to lavish praise on his followers this morning calling them the “smartest, strongest, most hard working and most loyal” in the history of the United States.

“My supporters are the smartest, strongest, most hard working and most loyal that we have seen in our countries history. It is a beautiful thing to watch as we win elections and gather support from all over the country. As we get stronger, so does our country. Best numbers ever!” he tweeted.

Not really sure what “numbers” the Trumpster is looking at.

FiveThirtyEight took a look at Morning Consult’s monthly round up of approval polls from every state in the county.

The simple math shows Trump’s net approval has declined in all 50 states since he took office.

He’s lost the most ground in New Mexico and Illinois – both show 31 point drops since inauguration day.

Trump has lost the least support in Louisiana and Alabama – only 6 point declines, but still, declines.

FiveThirtyEight also points out that Trump’s approval is basically steady at

Plus, the generic ballot asking which party would voters like to see win in the mid-term elections shows Democrats with an 8 point advantage, up two points from last month.