Tag: Donald Trump

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Intel Chiefs: Trump “Suggested” We Announce There Was No Collusion With Russia

CNN reports that in separate, private meetings last week with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators, both Dan Coats (Director of National Intelligence) and Adm. Mike Rogers (National Security Agency Director) said President Trump “suggested” they publicly announce there was no collusion between his campaign and Russia.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and National Security Agency Director Adm. Mike Rogers described their interactions with the President about the Russia investigation as odd and uncomfortable, but said they did not believe the President gave them orders to interfere, according to multiple sources familiar with their accounts. Sources say both men went further than they did in June 7 public hearings, when they provided little detail about the interactions.

The sources gave CNN the first glimpse of what the intelligence chiefs said to Mueller’s investigators when they did separate interviews last week. Both men told Mueller’s team they were surprised the President would suggest that they publicly declare he was not involved in collusion, sources said. Mueller’s team, which is in the early stages of its investigation, will ultimately decide whether the interactions are relevant to the inquiry.

It sounds like Trump is basically asking everyone he meets to announce there was no collusion between his campaign and Russia.

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Trump’s Approval Rating Drops To Lowest Level In CBS News Poll

CBS News Poll this morning shows President Trump with a 36% approval rating, his lowest in a CBS News Poll since he took office.

His disapproval rating stands at 57%.

The drop in approval comes, in great part, in an 11 point drop in support from Republicans, from 83% in April to 72% approval now.

Almost two out of three Americans (63%) disapprove of Trump’s handing of the Russian investigation into interference in the 2016 election. Only 28% of those polled approve.

The poll also found 40 percent of Republicans now think it is at least somewhat likely the Trump campaign had improper contact with Russia, up from 25 percent in March.

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Trump Silent On Terrorist Attack Targeting Muslims

Terrible attack this morning in London leaving 10 dead.

Via CNN:

A man arrested after a van plowed into a crowd of worshippers near a mosque in north London is now being held on suspicion of terrorism offenses, police say.

A man died and 10 people were injured in the assault, the latest in a series of terror attacks to hit the UK this year.

The 47-year-old white man was wrestled to the ground by members of the public and then arrested at the scene, officials said.

Eyewitnesses reported chaotic scenes as the incident unfolded just after midnight, when evening Ramadan prayers had finished.

British Prime Minister Theresa May said the attack was directed at Muslims and condemned it as “every bit as sickening” as deadly Islamist attacks that hit the country in recent months.

President Trump, who usually leaps to his Twitter account to denounce terrorist attacks, has been strangely silent this morning.

But then, the targets here appear to be Muslims, and Trump does have a history of moving slowly in terms of standing up for the Muslim community.

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Six Resign From Presidential HIV/AIDS Council Because Trump “Doesn’t Care”

Six members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS have resigned, saying that President Trump has no strategy to address AIDS, and doesn’t seem to care about HIV.

Via The Hill:

Scott Schoettes, Lucy Bradley-Springer, Gina Brown, Ulysses Burley III, Michelle Ogle and Grissel Granados publicly announced their resignations in a joint letter published in Newsweek titled, “Trump doesn’t care about HIV. We’re outta here.”

The group said that the administration “has no strategy” to address HIV/AIDS, doesn’t consult experts when working on policy and “pushes legislation that will harm people living with HIV and halt or reverse important gains made in the fight against this disease.”

“As advocates for people living with HIV, we have dedicated our lives to combating this disease and no longer feel we can do so effectively within the confines of an advisory body to a president who simply does not care,” they wrote.

The group noted that Trump took down the Office of National AIDS Policy website when he took office and hasn’t appointed anyone to lead the White House Office of National AIDS Policy.

They also said that the GOP’s ObamaCare repeal bill will dramatically hurt those with HIV/AIDS, making it the “final straw for us — more like a two-by-four than a straw” in deciding to leave the council.

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Trump Lies About His Approval Rating – Again

Donald Trump is still competing with Barack Obama.

Today, he tweeted that his approval rating is higher than that of Barack Obama – despite the data he is referring to suggesting the opposite is true.

“The new Rasmussen Poll, one of the most accurate in the 2016 Election, just out with a Trump 50% Approval Rating. That’s higher than O’s #’s”

As everyone who follows politics knows, Rasmussen famously leans right in it’s polling.

President Obama entered office on January 20 2009 with an approval rating of 67 per cent. At this point in his presidency his approval rating was 55%, five points higher than Trump.

Real Clear Politics, a site which collates data from the major national polls, estimated Mr Trump’s approval rating to be 39.9 per cent from May 30 to June 15.

The Huffington Post’s latest average puts the President’s approval rating at 38.5 per cent.

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Trump Boasts About “Very Powerful” Social Media, Inflates Numbers

President Trump decided to puff himself up a bit this morning by boasting about the number of his social media followers.

“The Fake News Media hates when I use what has turned out to be my very powerful Social Media – over 100 million people! I can go around them.”

Unless he is counting the fake accounts that troll for him, Trump is being less than truthful about his social media followers.

Adding up his followers from his two Twitter accounts (@realDonaldTrump and @potus) and two Facebook accounts, his social media totals about 75 million followers.

Twitter:
realdonaldtrump: 32.4 million
POTUS: 18.8 million

Facebook:
Donald Trump: 22.4 million
POTUS: 1.7 million

Total: about 75.3 million, not 100 million.

The citizens of Twitter Land were more than happy to weigh in:

(via NCRM)

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Australian Prime Minister Mocks Trump’s “Winning, Winning, Winning” Schtick

This probably won’t do much to warm up the chilly relationship between President Trump and Australia’s Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull.

At a recent event down under, Turnbull’s off the record speech to journalists included mimicking Trump’s attacks on fake news, “winning,” and ties to Russia all done in the Donald’s now famous hyperbole.

From The Guardian:

In his speech to the Canberra press gallery’s Midwinter Ball, the Australian equivalent of the White House correspondents’ dinner, Turnbull says: “The Donald and I, we are winning and winning in the polls. We are winning so much, we are winning, we are winning like we have never won before. We are winning in the polls. We are, we are. Not the fake polls. Not the fake polls. They’re the ones we’re not winning in.

“We’re winning in the real polls.

“You know, the online polls. They are so easy to win. I know that. Did you know that? I kind of know that. They are so easy to win. I have this Russian guy.

“Believe me it’s true, it’s true.”

Speeches at the press gallery Midwinter Ball are intended to be light-hearted. For a decade, the speeches made at the dinner have been widely regarded as being off-the-record. However, the most senior press gallery journalist, Channel Nine’s Laurie Oakes, routinely refuses to attend the ball and has consistently said he is not bound by the off-the-record convention.

I do think that if the annual ball’s antics are agreed to be “off-the-record,” then Oakes is something of a dick to publish even if he didn’t attend.

Listen to Turnbull’s comments below.

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Trump Predictably Rants On News Of Obstruction Of Justice Inquiry

Today, in Trump Twitter Land, the Donald went on a rant regarding the news that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is looking into obstruction of justice by the prez.

MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell couldn’t leave that alone.

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President Trump Blocks Veterans Group On Twitter

This is pretty messed up.

The president’s Twitter account has blocked a veteran’s group from reading his tweets.

VoteVets, a progressive veteran’s group founded in 2006, shared today that they had been blocked by the Donald along with this message:

“The Commander in Chief can block @VoteVets, the voice of 500k military veterans and families, but we will NOT be silenced.”

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Trump Postpones UK Visit In Fear Of Large-Scale Protests

President Trump has postponed his state visit to Britain telling Prime Minister Theresa May in a phone call he is choosing to wait until the British public supports such a visit.

Via The Guardian:

The US president said he did not want to come if there were large-scale protests and his remarks in effect put the visit on hold for some time.

The call was made in recent weeks, according to a Downing Street adviser who was in the room. The statement surprised May, according to those present.

The conversation in part explains why there has been little public discussion about a visit.

May invited Trump to Britain seven days after his inauguration when she became the first foreign leader to visit him in the White House. She told a joint press conference she had extended an invitation from the Queen to Trump and his wife Melania to make a state visit later in the year and was “delighted that the president has accepted that invitation”.