Remember when Trump said he wouldn’t have any time for golf?
No? Let’s take a little trip on the way-back machine, shall we? Watch this medley of Trump’s “greatest hits” when he promised he’d never leave the White House.
Can you believe that, with all of the problems and difficulties facing the U.S., President Trump spent the day playing golf pic.twitter.com/nrZyVI0RKN
SNL’s cold open last night featured Alec Baldwin’s “Donald Trump” checking in with Vice President Mike Pence (Beck Bennett) as he took shots at Senator Bob Corker and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
“We’re getting rid of everything Obama did. Healthcare, the Iran deal. We’re ripping out all of the vegetables in Michelle Obama’s garden and planting McNuggets.”
Trump: “Sen. Bob Corker is so small. Crowd: “How small is he?” Trump: “Bob Corker is so small a dermatologist found him on a mole.”
On Tillerson calling Trump a moron: “I took an IQ test and let me assure you it came back positive. It’s through the roof, and many of the clouds as well.”
Bennett’s “Pence” also accidentally attends a same-sex wedding. You can guess the results…
Donald Trump took to Twitter today to celebrate raising health insurance premiums for poor/low-income folks as well as cheer health insurance stocks plunging thanks to his decision to end paying subsidies for low-income Americans health insurance policies.
Health Insurance stocks, which have gone through the roof during the ObamaCare years, plunged yesterday after I ended their Dems windfall! Very proud of my Executive Order which will allow greatly expanded access and far lower costs for HealthCare. Millions of people benefit!
According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, if the subsidies aren’t continued one million additional people will become uninsured in 2018, prices for insurance would rise by 20 to 25 percent, and insurers would drop out of some parts of the country.
Health Insurance stocks, which have gone through the roof during the ObamaCare years, plunged yesterday after I ended their Dems windfall!
According to an analysis by the Associated Press, almost 70% of those benefiting from the cost-sharing subsidies live in states Trump won last November.
Nine of the 10 states with the highest percentage of consumers benefiting from cost-sharing subsidies went for Trump.
Kyle Griffin, a producer for MSNBC’s The Last Word, keeps a running tally of Donald Trump’s golf days.
Today’s report: “Per pool, Trump has arrived at Trump Nat’l Golf Club in VA. This is his 72nd day at a golf club, 92nd day at a Trump property as president.”
I realize a lot of folks may not care about Trump golfing, but given his voluminous tweets raging about President Obama playing golf during his 8 years as prez, it’s interesting to note the hypocrisy.
In addition to railing about golf, citizen Trump also ranted about Obama going anywhere. As a candidate, Trump told his followers he’d probably never leave the White House because there was too much work to do.
#Snork!
Per pool, Trump has arrived at Trump Nat’l Golf Club in VA.
This is his 72nd day at a golf club, 92nd day at a Trump property as president.
Trump has spent 1 out of every 3 days as president at a Trump property, 1 out of every 4 days at a Trump golf club. https://t.co/ecKA3NtbBt— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) October 14, 2017
Can you believe that,with all of the problems and difficulties facing the U.S., President Obama spent the day playing golf.Worse than Carter
24 days later: as just 14.6% of Puerto Rico has electricity, and just 64% access to drinking water, Trump hit the links for the 72nd time. pic.twitter.com/C8JPCf6rsJ— Amy Siskind (@Amy_Siskind) October 14, 2017
Donald Trump has said for months that the Affordable Care Act is “imploding” but the fact of the matter is Trump is doing everything he can to sabotage the legislation.
The White House has now announced that the federal government will stop subsidy payments to insurance companies that help low-income Americans afford health insurance.
This comes just hours after Trump’s executive order allowing the sale of stripped-down, loosely regulated “junk” insurance policies.
The twin hits to the Affordable Care Act could unravel President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement, sending insurance premiums soaring and insurance companies fleeing from the health law’s online marketplaces. After Republicans failed to repeal the health law in Congress, Mr. Trump appears determined to dismantle it on his own.
Without the subsidies, insurance markets could quickly unravel. Insurers have said they will need much higher premiums and may pull out of the insurance exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act if the subsidies were cut off. Known as cost-sharing reduction payments, the subsidies were expected to total $9 billion in the coming year and nearly $100 billion in the coming decade.
Lawmakers from both parties have urged the president to continue the payments.
New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and 16 other attorneys general have announced they will stand up against the action by Trump to cut off subsidies for Obamacare. “Our coalition of states stands ready to sue if President Trump cuts them off.”
Sadly, instead of working to lower health costs for Americans, it seems @POTUS will singlehandedly hike Americans’ health premiums.
This morning Donald Trump became the first sitting president to address the Values Voter Summit organized by the certified hate group, the Family Research Council.
You read that right – a man with 3 marriages and 15 women accusing him of sexual assault is currently giving a speech on “values”
This is Trump’s third visit to the conference having spoken there in 2015 and 2016.
The Family Research Council has been named by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-gay hate group for spreading false, harmful, and misleading information about LGBT people.
Virulently anti-gay Tony Perkins, the president of the FRC is reportedly behind the Trump’s decision to call for a total ban on transgender service members in the military.
Richard Cohen, the president of the Southern Poverty Law Centre, condemned President Trump’s decision to address the event. “By appearing at the Values Voter Summit, President Trump is lending the legitimacy of his office to a hate group that relentlessly demonizes LGBT people and works to deny them of their equal rights,” he told The Independent.
In addition to religious zealots, the event will host white supremacists and far-right activists, and feature speeches from such luminaries as departed White House advisers Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka.
The president is addressing the Values Voter Summit today. Here’s what they’re giving guests in a swag bag: “The Hazards of Homosexuality” pic.twitter.com/eRufvSncc0
Donald Trump got a face full of internet wrath today when he warned that federal emergency workers can’t stay “forever” in hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico.
He also suggested that the U.S. territory is currently facing a financial crisis “largely of their own making” and infrastructure that was a “disaster” before Hurricane Maria struck on Sept. 20.
“Puerto Rico survived the Hurricanes, now a financial crisis looms largely of their own making.” says Sharyl Attkisson. A total lack of…..
Mind you, Trump hasn’t threatened to pull the FEMA teams down in Texas, Louisiana or Florida after their recent hurricane damage.
Today, the U.S. House passed $36.5B disaster aid package for hurricane and wildfire relief by vote of 353 to 69. All “no” votes were Republicans.
CNN’s Jim Acosta tweeted that the comments were a knee-jerk reaction to the mayor of San Juan who spoke about Trump’s lackluster response to the disaster in Puerto Rico.
@POTUS your comments about Puerto Rico are unbecoming of a Commander in Chief they seem more to come from a “Hater in Chief”.
Donald Trump, frustrated with his inability to lead the GOP-controlled Congress to reform healthcare, today did exactly what he criticized President Obama for and signed an executive order circumventing the legislative process.
Trump’s executive order will allow the sale of cheaper, less regulated policies with fewer benefits and fewer protections for consumers than those mandated under the Affordable Care Act.
In other words, this is basically the health insurance version of buying a Yugo.
Mr. Trump’s order could eventually make it easier for small businesses to band together and buy insurance through new entities known as association health plans, which could be created by business and professional groups. A White House official said these health plans “could potentially allow American employers to form groups across state lines” — a goal championed by Mr. Trump and many other Republicans.
[snip]
Consumer groups and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, representing state officials, have opposed association health plans because they could be largely exempt from state regulation.
Association health plans can “cherry-pick healthy groups,” making it more difficult for less healthy groups to find affordable coverage, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners told Congress this year.
Some state regulators and insurers greeted the move with alarm and warned that by relaxing standards for association health plans and short-term policies, Mr. Trump would create low-cost insurance options for the healthy, driving up costs for the sick and destabilizing insurance marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act.
This will severely impact the LGBTQ community, especially those people with pre-existing conditions like HIV who won’t be able to access these junk policies intended primarily for younger, healthier people.
In offering these cheaper policies health care insurance providers will have to raise the premiums on regular insurance policies.
“Within a year, this would kill the market,” said Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation.
.@POTUS' exec order couldn't be further from his "great health care" promise. It will up costs for seniors & ppl w/ preexisting conditions.— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) October 12, 2017
Watch: Trump's executive order on health care is an attack on the middle class and on small businesses. https://t.co/HGyy0fSmmD— igorvolsky (@igorvolsky) October 12, 2017
Not a good day in Donald Trump’s world as a string of stories from multiple sources describe a White House in daily turmoil.
First, a stunning report via Vanity Fair that describes the situation so tense insiders in the Trump administration have begun wondering if Chief of Staff John Kelly and Defense Secretary James Mattis might have to “tackle” the president if he ordered a nuclear strike.
An excerpt:
At first it sounded like hyperbole, the escalation of a Twitter war. But now it’s clear that Bob Corker’s remarkable New York Timesinterview—in which the Republican senator described the White House as “adult day care” and warned Trump could start World War III—was an inflection point in the Trump presidency. It brought into the open what several people close to the president have recently told me in private: that Trump is “unstable,” “losing a step,” and “unraveling.”
In recent days, I spoke with a half dozen prominent Republicans and Trump advisers, and they all describe a White House in crisis as advisers struggle to contain a president who seems to be increasingly unfocused and consumed by dark moods. Trump’s ire is being fueled by his stalled legislative agenda and, to a surprising degree, by his decision last month to back the losing candidate Luther Strange in the Alabama Republican primary. “Alabama was a huge blow to his psyche,” a person close to Trump said. “He saw the cult of personality was broken.”
According to two sources familiar with the conversation, Trump vented to his longtime security chief, Keith Schiller, “I hate everyone in the White House! There are a few exceptions, but I hate them!” (A White House official denies this.) Two senior Republican officials said Chief of Staff John Kelly is miserable in his job and is remaining out of a sense of duty to keep Trump from making some sort of disastrous decision. Today, speculation about Kelly’s future increased after Politico reported that Kelly’s deputy Kirstjen Nielsen is likely to be named Homeland Security Secretary—the theory among some Republicans is that Kelly wanted to give her a soft landing before his departure.
One former official even speculated that Kelly and Secretary of Defense James Mattis have discussed what they would do in the event Trump ordered a nuclear first strike. “Would they tackle him?” the person said. Even Trump’s most loyal backers are sowing public doubts. This morning, The Washington Postquoted longtime Trump friend Tom Barrack saying he has been “shocked” and “stunned” by Trump’s behavior.
(John) Kelly, the retired Marine general who is Trump’s second chief of staff, has sought to tighten the flow of information and visitors to the president, to bring order to an unruly White House and to the way that Trump makes his decisions. But he is often thwarted by one man: Trump.
The president by many accounts has bristled at the restrictions and continues — usually alone on mornings, nights and weekends — to act on his own gut sense, using his own lines to contact allies outside the White House and, using Twitter, to reach those millions of supporters he calls “my people.”
After a wild weekend of attacks by Twitter and off-the-cuff comments, including against a senior Republican senator, Bob Corker of Tennessee, Trump kept it up on Tuesday. He tweeted a schoolyard taunt about Corker’s height — “Liddle’ Bob Corker — and said the senator “was made to sound like a fool” in a New York Times interview in which Corker warned that Trump could provoke World War III.
Trump challenged his own secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, to an IQ test, even as he dismissed as fake news last week’s reports that Tillerson had called him a moron. ”And I can tell you who is going to win,” Trump added, according to a Forbes interview published Tuesday.
Allies see signs that Trump is frustrated with Kelly and increasingly unwilling to be managed, even just a little. The person close to the White House said the two men had engaged in “shouting matches” in recent days.
And finally, things are definitely not going well when Fox News hosts like Neil Cavuto take to the airwaves to address Trump directly with a message like, “It’s not that some of your ideas aren’t sound, it’s that increasingly this erratic behavior is making me wonder whether you are.”
“Now I know that you say that Senator Corker started all this bad mouthing you, but last time I checked, you are the President of the United States, so tweeting out these tacky insults just seems beneath you,” Cavuto continued.
And then, “You are running out of friends faster than you are running out of time. You might not like Bob Corker, but a lot of senators do, and you need those senators, sir.”
