Tag: Donald Trump

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CNN Poll: 78% Viewed President Trump’s Speech To Congress “Positively”

It would appear that CNN has found it’s way out of “fake news” purgatory, at least for the moment.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer tweeted out the news that CNN’s poll following last night’s address by President Trump at a joint-session of Congress found the speech “Very positive” (57%) or “Some-what positive” (21%) of those polled.

Morale of the story? You get out of detention when you say things Team Trump likes.

As many know, in the past several weeks, the Trump administration has labeled CNN and other media outlets “fake news” when those sources have reported less-than-flattering information on the nascent presidency.

The feeling is so joyous over the current warm fuzzies regarding last night’s speech that the White House has announced a delay on the new, revised executive order regarding immigration policy.

A senior administration official told CNN that they don’t want to take away from the president’s speech. “We want the (executive order) to have its own ‘moment.’”

For historical comparisons, the reaction to President Obama’s first address to Congress was 68% “Very positive” and 24% “Somewhat positive.”

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No “Legal Status” Compromise For Undocumented Immigrants From Trump

President Trump

After surprising many with his flirtation yesterday afternoon with possible legal status for undocumented immigrants, the idea was not included in President Trump’s address to a joint sessions of Congress.

Many are curious about what happened between Trump’s lunch with TV news anchors and the actual speech in the Capitol last night.

From the New York Times:

The session with the television anchors started out as a nod to tradition by a president who has broken so many. Like his predecessors on the day of a State of the Union address, Mr. Trump hosted the journalists for what was supposed to be an unrecorded lunch to give them a sense of what he would tell Congress. But the conversation took a surprising turn when some of the anchors asked about his efforts to deport many of the estimated 11 million immigrants in the country illegally. Without being prompted, Mr. Trump then raised the idea of legislation, noting that there had not been any comprehensive law passed by Congress on the subject since Ronald Reagan’s amnesty program in the 1980s.

He told the anchors it was time for a bill that would grant legal status to many of those in the country illegally as long as both sides compromised, similar to the legislation sought but never passed by George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Mr. Trump said he recognized that it would cause him political problems with his conservative base voters, according to people in the room, but added that he thought he could keep them happy since they had stuck with him throughout last year’s Republican primaries.

When Mr. Trump offered the idea, he let the word “compromise” hang in the air, gauging the reaction. He then turned to Hope Hicks, his director of strategic communications, and suggested that the thought could be added to his speech.

As Mr. Trump’s words settled over the State Dining Room, the president’s aides glanced at one another. They moved quickly to alert Mr. Bannon and Mr. Miller, two of the main keepers of Mr. Trump’s address before Congress.

And there, we find the answer: Bannon and Miller were not about to allow their protege some kind of political compromise. “Compromise” has yet to be added to this administration’s vocabulary.

Most political experts, when they heard of the idea being floated, did not buy into such prospects.

And now you know why.

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Trump Signals Willingness To Compromise On Immigration

Just hours before President Trump is set to address a joint session of Congress, President Trump told TV news anchors that he could be open to compromise on immigration legislation regarding non-criminal undocumented immigrants.

“The time is right for an immigration bill as long as there is compromise on both sides,” the president told the TV anchors at the White House, according to the New York Times.

A compromise that would allow non-violent undocumented immigrants a legal method to stay in the U.S. would be a major shift from Trump’s campaign rhetoric.

This comes a day before Trump’s new executive order on immigration regarding travel from seven Muslim-majority countries is expected.

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Over 120 Generals Protest Trump’s Proposed Cuts To Diplomacy Budgets

Arguing that foreign policy can’t be approached by a purely militaristic stance, more than 120 retired generals have signed and sent a letter to congressional leaders prompted by the news that President Trump plans to propose major cuts to foreign aid and diplomacy programs in his upcoming budget.

Even though Defense Secretary James Mattis said during his stint as commander of U.S. Central Command, ‘If you don’t fully fund the State Department, then I need to buy more ammunition,'” President Trump’s view is military might far outweighs diplomacy.

From CBS News:

One signer is Marine Gen. John R. Allen, a retired United States Marine Corps four-star general, former top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, and 2014-2015 Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL appointed by President Obama.

“Cutting the State Department budget by 30 percent is consigning us to a generational war. We cannot fight our way out of this. It is an issue which can be decided by decisive diplomacy and enlightened development,” General Allen told CBS News.

“If [the president] wants to eradicate radical Islamic terrorism, his only hope of doing it is not through an interminable war on Islam. It is by funding the very things in the State Department that give us the capacity to work with other countries and to help, in the context of development, to change the human condition in places in the world where young men and women are radicalized by virtue of the social environments they are in. They are pushed into the arms of extremists who we must fight.”

Other prominent generals who signed the letter include former NSA chief Gen. Keith Alexander and former Army Chief of Staff Gen. William Casey.

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President Bush On US Under Trump: I Don’t Like The Racism And Name-Calling

During President Obama’s years in the White House, former President George W. Bush refused (wisely) to criticize his successor saying he didn’t want to make a difficult job that much harder.

A month into President Trump’s administration, though, Bush has voiced some artfully phrased comments about the new Commander-In-Chief.

Via PEOPLE.com:

“I don’t like the racism and I don’t like the name-calling and I don’t like the people feeling alienated,” Bush, 70, tells PEOPLE in an interview for the new issue of the magazine on newsstands Friday.

“Nobody likes that.”

A spokesman for Bush previously told PEOPLE that neither he nor the former first lady voted for Trump – or for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton – in November. Both of the Bushes, who had campaigned for Bush’s younger brother Jeb in the 2016 Republican primaries, cast write-in votes on Election Day for a candidate they did not reveal.

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Trump: I’ve Done Just About More Than Anybody In The First 4 Weeks In Office

President Trump

President Trump, speaking to his besties at Fox News, explained this morning that he’s “done just about more than anybody in the first four weeks in office.”

Of course, at this point in President Obama’s first term he had expanded health care to 4 million kids and cut taxes for 160 million Americans.

Trump has issued executive orders and spent three out of four weekends away from the White House golfing at a cost of $10 million to the nation’s taxpayers.

With his approval numbers languishing in the low 40s/high 30s (currently 42% according to Gallup), Trump had more self-praise to deliver to his fawning friends at Fox News:

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News Round-Up: February 27, 2017

(photo: Joan Crisol)

Some news items you may have missed:

• Check out the Instagram account of acclaimed international photographer Joan Crisol (Rolling Stone, Zero, Playboy). Color, texture, and sensual staging are all front and center in his gorgeous imagery.

• Don’t miss the premiere of When We Rise, a four-night mini-series chronicling the journey of LGBT rights in America. The series begins tonight on ABC at 9PM ET.

• The father of slain Navy Seal William “Ryan” Owens refused to meet President Trump at Dover Air Force Base when Owens body was returned to his family. “I told them I didn’t want to make a scene about it, but my conscience wouldn’t let me talk to him,” Owens said Friday, speaking out for the first time in an interview with the Miami Herald. Owens has now requested an investigation into the events which caused his son’s death.

• President Trump’s family trips have cost taxpayers nearly as much in a month as President Obama in an entire year. Remember when he criticized Obama for “wasting” the taxpayer’s money?

• White House press secretary Sean Spicer is now conducting “random phone checks” with his staff in an effort to find the source of “information leaks” in the West Wing. Spicer recently called an “emergency meeting” in his office and when staffers arrived they were told to dump their electronic devices on a table to be checked for outgoing messages.

• This weekend 17-year-old Mack Beggs, a trans high school student from Euless, Texas, won the state wrestling championship in his weight class. Beggs was forced to compete, however, in the girls division due to the University Interscholastic League (UIL), which oversees high school athletics in public schools in Texas, which ruled he had to compete as the gender listed on his birth certificate. Parents are now upset that Beggs seemed to have an advantage over his female opponents thanks to his testosterone treatments. UIL rules only allow such substances to be used if they’re part of a medical treatment, which they obviously are. Beggs has stated he would prefer to wrestle in the boys category.

Texas high school wrestling champ Mack Beggs
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President Bush On The Media: “I Consider The Media To Be Indispensable”

We haven’t heard much from President George W. Bush since he left office in 2009.

Over the Obama years he kept pretty silent, choosing to stay out of politics. I thought that served him well. After the tumultuous economic conditions of his last year in office, it felt right that he chill for a while.

But this morning, during an interview with Today show host Matt Lauer, he was asked about a number of topics regarding the Trump administration.

Asked if he considered the media “the enemy of the people” as Donald Trump has described it, Bush praised the press for it’s role in our democracy:

“I consider the media to be indispensable to democracy. That we need an independent media to hold people like me to account. I mean, power can be very addictive and it can be corrosive and it’s important for the media to call to account people who abuse their power, whether it be here or elsewhere.”

Regarding the idea of an investigation into the Trump/Russia connection, Bush said, “I think we all need answers.”

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Trump Chickens Out On This Year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner

Wow. Talk about thin skin.

Clearly the Trumpster, in a big departure from past presidents, decided he couldn’t take the good-natured ribbing from the press.

OR – he wouldn’t be able to stand up and deliver his own humorous remarks without failing.

The last time a sitting president did not attend was in 1981, when Reagan was a no-show. Of course, it was shortly after he had been shot, so he certainly had a good reason.

Before that, Richard Nixon was the last to just “no-show” and that was in 1972. And, like Trump, he had a very tumultuous relationship with the press.

From The Hill:

The dinner honors journalists who cover the White House and awards scholarships to aspiring reporters.

The White House Correspondents’ Association, which organizes the annual dinner, typically invites the president and members of his staff. A comedian is brought in to roast the commander in chief, who then delivers lighthearted remarks.

Trump attended the dinner in 2011, where he was repeatedly mocked and teased by then-President Obama. Trump chose to skip the dinner during the 2016 presidential campaign, despite receiving a number of invites from the media.

Past dinners have attracted celebrities and athletes from outside of Washington. The association hosted the first dinner in 1921.

Bloomberg L.P., who hosts a high-profile after-party, pulled the plug on the event. Vanity Fair, who usually partners with Bloomberg in throwing the party, announced earlier this month that it would not participate.

And the New Yorker, the magazine that hosts the dinner’s kickoff party beforehand, cancelled its event earlier this month.

CNN and MSNBC were also reportedly deliberating whether it would pull out of the annual dinner.

While most presidents have issues with the media, they rise above. President Obama was particularly funny delivering prepared jokes at the annual event during his 8 years in the White House.

The White House Correspondents’ Association issued this statement:

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President Trump Plans To “Do Something” About Press Use Of Unnamed Sources

President Trump told the crowd at CPAC today he plans to “do something about” the media’s use of unnamed sources.

Via Deadline:

“They shouldn’t be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody’s name,’ Trump told an enthusiastic crowd of conservatives at their annual gathering outside Washington, D.C.

“I want you all to know we are fighting the fake news. Phoney. Fake,” he said to roars of approval.

“I called the fake news the enemy of the people, and they are.. because they have no sources; they just make them up when there are none. They make up sources” he said.

“And they shouldn’t use ‘sources’,” he said, adding they should be required to put the names of everyone to whom they speak into their reports. The end result he explained, “you will see stories dry up like you’ve never been before.”

Considering we have the First Amendment, I don’t think El Trumpo will be doing anything about how the free press utilizes named or unnamed sources.

You’ll recall back in the day, the president liked to call NYC media and pretend to be “Donald Trump’s publicist” to drop blind items about himself in the newspapers.