Tag: Donald Trump

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Washington Post: President Trump Revealed Highly Classified Information To Russian Officials

From The Washington Post:

President Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said Trump’s disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.

The information the president relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, officials said.

The partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russia, and officials said Trump’s decision to do so endangers cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State. After Trump’s meeting, senior White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and the National Security Agency.

“This is code-word information,” said a U.S. official familiar with the matter, using terminology that refers to one of the highest classification levels used by American spy agencies. Trump “revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies.”

[snip]

In their statements, White House officials emphasized that Trump had not discussed specific intelligence sources and methods, rather than addressing whether he had disclosed information drawn from sensitive sources.

Just to underline that last point: The Washington Post reported Trump revealed intelligence from a secret source, not that Trump revealed the source itself.

Remember, this was the meeting that Trump allowed a Russian state news organization to be present and take photos, but no U.S. media outlet.

You may recall Trump turned the entire presidential election into a referendum on Hillary Clinton’s handling of “unmarked,” low-level classified info.

Now this.

Let’s take a trip on the way-back machine:

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White House Refuses To Deny Oval Office Recordings

What kind of game is the White House playing in hinting that President Trump may have recorded Oval Office meetings with unwitting colleagues?

At today’s press briefing, White House Press Secretary repeatedly refused to confirm OR deny the existence of such recordings.

One reporter asked, “Is the White House intending to cooperate with those requests and furnish that information as requested in writing?”

“I think I made it clear last week that the president has nothing further on that,” replied Spicer.

That same reporter attempted for some kind of clarity on the issue: “Does that mean the president will deny –” but Spicer stopped her.

“I think I said – I was very clear – the President would have nothing further,” Spicer said.

Two more reporters tried to get past the stonewalling stance, but Spicer refused again repeating some version of the same statement.

Very odd.

Watch below.

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Randy Rainbow: “The Russian Connection”

Randy Rainbow starts out your week with his parody of the Muppets classic, “The Rainbow Connection,” rewritten with more Trumpian lyrics – “The Russian Connection”

“And since you’re fixin’ to trump Richard Nixon
Your days are numbered and few.
Someday they’ll find it, the Russian connection,
The covers, the schemers, and you.”

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Politico: How Trump Gets His Fake News


 Politico’s Shane Goldmacher has an engrossing account of how information and misinformation makes it’s way into the hands of the president.

Goldmacher explains how aides get articles into the Trumpster’s hands to gain an advantage in promoting a certain policy, or just to step up in the ongoing Game of Thrones happening daily in the West Wing.

White House chief of staff Reince Priebus issued a stern warning at a recent senior staff meeting: Quit trying to secretly slip stuff to President Trump.

Just days earlier, K.T. McFarland, the deputy national security adviser, had given Trump a printout of two Time magazine covers. One, supposedly from the 1970s, warned of a coming ice age; the other, from 2008, about surviving global warming, according to four White House officials familiar with the matter.

Trump quickly got lathered up about the media’s hypocrisy. But there was a problem. The 1970s cover was fake, part of an Internet hoax that’s circulated for years. Staff chased down the truth and intervened before Trump tweeted or talked publicly about it.

The episode illustrates the impossible mission of managing a White House led by an impetuous president who has resisted structure and strictures his entire adult life.

The consequences can be tremendous, according to a half-dozen White House officials and others with direct interactions with the president. A news story tucked into Trump’s hands at the right moment can torpedo an appointment or redirect the president’s entire agenda. Current and former Trump officials say Trump can react volcanically to negative press clips, especially those with damaging leaks, becoming engrossed in finding out where they originated.

Make sure you read the full article.

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Trump Continues To Fixate On Electoral College Win

According to the New York Times, President Trump continues to stew and sulk that he has not received the credit nor the celebration he feels he deserves for landing in the White House.

In the small dining room next to the Oval Office where he works much of the time, President Trump keeps a stack of color-coded maps of the United States representing the results of the 2016 election. The counties he won are blotchy red and span most of the nation.

Mr. Trump sometimes hands the maps out to visitors as a kind of parting gift, and a framed portrait-size version was hung on a wall in the West Wing last week. In conversations, the president dwells on the map and its import, reminding visitors about how wrong the polls were and inflating the scope of his victory.

At the root of Mr. Trump’s unpredictable presidency, according to people close to him, is a deep frustration about attacks on his legitimacy, and a worry that Washington does not see him as he sees himself.

As he careens from one controversy to another, many of them of his own making — like his abrupt decision to fire the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, who was leading an investigation into the president’s associates — Mr. Trump seems determined to prove that he won the election on his own. It was not Russian interference. It was not Mr. Comey’s actions in the case involving Hillary Clinton’s emails. It was not a fluke of the Electoral College system. It was all him.

At times even Trump seems astounded that he is the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Celebrating the House vote on Trumpcare legislation a week ago in the White House Rose Garden, he asked Republican lawmakers, “How am I doing? Am I doing O.K.? I’m president. Hey, I’m president. Can you believe it?”

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White House: “The President Cannot Imagine That Russia Is Pleased” About North Korea Missile Test

From The New York Times:

North Korea launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile on Sunday, the first test since a new president took office in South Korea this past week and called for dialogue with the North.

The missile took off from the northwestern city of Kusong and flew more than 430 miles before landing in the sea between North Korea and Japan, the South Korean military said in a statement. Data on the launch was still being analyzed by the South to determine the type of missile.

Saying that North Korea had been “a flagrant menace for far too long,” the White House said in a statement late Saturday in Washington that the test served “as a call for all nations to implement far stronger sanctions” against Pyongyang.

“The United States maintains our ironclad commitment to stand with our allies in the face of the serious threat posed by North Korea,” the statement said.

It also noted that the missile had fallen closer to Russia than Japan, adding that “the president cannot imagine that Russia is pleased.”

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“Sean Spicer” And “Donald Trump” Make Out In SNL Sketch

Melissa McCarthy as “Sean Spicer” and Alec Baldwin as “Donald Trump”

With Melissa McCarthy returning to Saturday Night Live for her 5th appearance as host, fans immediately hoped for a reprisal of her wild and wacky version of White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer.

Not only did SNL deliver more “Spicey” Spicer, but we got a double-team with Alec Baldwin’s “President Trump.”

In the skit, an embattled “Spicer” returns to the press podium at the White House to explain that Trump had nothing to do with Russian interference during the 2016 election.

“Let me just put this whole Russian thing to bed once and for all: Trump is innocent. How do we know? Because he told us so. Period. Then he hired lawyers to agree with him. And they’re gonna prove it with a certified letter which you know is the truth because it costs an extra $2 to have it certified.”

But “Spicey” is quickly informed by White House press correspondents that Trump is prepping to replace him with press side-kick Sarah Huckabee.

Immediately hitting the road (via his podium), the press secretary sets out to find his boss and directly ask about the possible firing.

But Baldwin’s Trump demures, “Sean, come on, I would never do that. She doesn’t have your special spice—salt and pepper, a little bit of sugar.” Then, switching gears, Trump pleads, “Sean, kiss me.”

“No, I’m married,” Spicer argues. “I can’t, I have a wife, I took vows!”

“I’m famous, it’s okay,” Trump says.

I’m amazed the Trumpster hasn’t issued one of his Twitter rants yet.

Watch the segment below.

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NY Times: Possible White House Shakeup In The Works

President Trump


The New York Times reports that a major shakeup could be in the works for the Trump administration.

Mr. Trump is growing increasingly dissatisfied with the performance of his chief of staff, Reince Priebus; the communications director, Michael Dubke; and Mr. Spicer, a Priebus ally, according to a half-dozen West Wing officials who said the president was considering the most far-reaching shake-up of his already tumultuous term.

He has been especially critical of Mr. Spicer, they said, openly musing about replacing him and telling people in his circle that he kept his own press secretary out of the loop in dismissing Mr. Comey until the last possible moment because he feared that the communications staff would leak the news.

Mr. Spicer’s blustery style mimics Mr. Trump’s, but people close to both men said he has not developed an especially close relationship with the president and has failed to use the self-protective tools that savvier Trump aides have adopted.

That seems to be changing. On Friday, Mr. Spicer prefaced much of what he said at the daily briefing with, “The president’s statement.” And while Mr. Trump has raised the Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle to allies as a possible press secretary, he has spent several hours with Mr. Spicer this week, praising his television “ratings” during the briefings.

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Gleeful Stephen Colbert To Trump: “You Know Who Has Really Bad Ratings? You Do.”

Stephen Colbert is over the moon that President Trump called the late night talk show host out for being “a no-talent guy” with “bad ratings” who uses “filthy language” during the president’s interview with NBC’s Lester Holt.

Just a bit from Colbert’s monologue:

“I do occasionally use adult language. And I do it in public, instead of the privacy of an Access Hollywood bus…”

“You know who has really bad ratings these days? You do. Terrible approval numbers. I hear they’re talking about switching your time slot with Mike Pence.”

“Since all of my success is because of you, there’s an obvious way to take me down. Resign.”

Watch the glee below.

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Trump Threatens To Cancel White House Press Briefings

In addition to making threats to former FBI Director James Comey, President Trump also had a Twitter meltdown this morning over his communication team’s bumbling with the daily White House press briefings.

Trump went so far as to say “As a very active President with lots of things happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy! Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future “press briefings” and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy???”

It’s worth noting that the reporters are at the White House as part of the effort to keep a government, including the president, transparent. And, to keep the American public informed of our elected officials actions.

And then there’s that whole First Amendment thing…

Press briefings are not about stroking a president or their administration.