Tag: Donald Trump

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President Obama: ‘Fundamentally Disagrees’ With Trump Immigration Order

President Obama has issued a statement regarding President Trump’s controversial immigration executive order:

President Obama is heartened by the level of engagement taking place in communities around the country. In his final official speech as President, he spoke about the important role of citizen and how all Americans have a responsibility to be the guardians of our democracy — not just during an election but every day.

Citizens exercising their Constitutional right to assemble, organize and have their voices heard by their elected officials is exactly what we expect to see when American values are at stake.

With regard to comparisons to President Obama’s foreign policy decisions, as we’ve heard before, the President fundamentally disagrees with the notion of discriminating against individuals because of their faith or religion.

While normally former presidents don’t chime in on a new president’s actions, in that the Trump administration has brought up Obama’s name as “having done the same thing” regarding immigration bans in the past, I think it’s fair game for Obama to issue a statement.

In the past 24 hours, Trump representatives have begun pointing to a ban of Iraq immigrants during Obama’s time in the White House.

From CNN:

Trump’s order temporarily banned immigration from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia and indefinitely stopped Syrian refugees from coming to the United States.

Though the current White House has compared Trump’s action to what Obama did in 2011 when “he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months,” Obama’s move was much narrower in scope. It was crafted in response to two Iraqi refugees implicated in a bomb making scheme and while it did not outright ban refugees from coming to the United States, it did increase the amount of vetting each Iraqi refugee received.

It’s a curious tactic, in my view, for Trump to campaign on a strong message of criticizing everything the Obama administration did, and then once in office and use an excuse of “Obama did it.”

#Weak

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President Trump’s Immigration Policy Could Cause Whiplash

President Donald Trump

Today there are massive protests continuing across the U.S., including in front of the White House, against the president’s executive order regarding immigration which:

• suspends the entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days

• halts the admission of refugees from Syria indefinitely

• bars entry for three months to residents from Muslim-majority countries of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen

It’s understandable that folks have been confused about the reach of President Trump’s immigration plan.

Not only does it affect refugees and residents from the countries listed above, it’s been back and forth whether the decree includes those “green card” holders who are legal permanent residents of the United States.

Apparently, the policy was hammered out by the White House policy team, avoiding the usual interagency process that would normally assist in providing operational guidance.

On Friday, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and Department of Homeland Security leadership saw the final details just before the order was finalized, government officials said. Officials at DHS determined that the executive order’s restrictions did not apply to green card holders.

On Saturday night, the Department of Homeland Security reversed, saying that the president’s order did apply to green card holders who were traveling to the United States from the seven countries affected.

Later, White House officials announced that green card holders from the seven countries would need a case-by-case waiver to return.

White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus told NBC News’ Meet The Press: “As far as green card holders, moving forward, it doesn’t affect them.” He later added: “If you’re traveling back and forth you’re going to be subjected to further screening.”

Saturday afternoon in the Oval Office, when asked about the rollout, Trump said all governmental agencies were “totally prepared.”

“It’s working out very nicely,” Trump told reporters. “You see it at the airports. You see it all over. It’s working out very nicely and we’re going to have a very, very strict ban, and we’re going to have extreme vetting, which we should have had in this country for many years.”

(source)

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Trump Signs Executive Order Banning Syrian Refugees Indefinitely

President Trump signed on Friday an executive order which bans citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East from entering the United States for 90 days, and puts in place an indefinite ban on Syrian refugees.

From the New York Times:

The executive order suspends the entry of refugees into the United States for 120 days and directs officials to determine additional screening ”to ensure that those approved for refugee admission do not pose a threat to the security and welfare of the United States.”

The order also stops the admission of refugees from Syria indefinitely, and bars entry into the United States for 90 days from seven predominantly Muslim countries linked to concerns about terrorism. Those countries are Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen.

Announcing his “extreme vetting” plan, the president invoked the specter of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Most of the 19 hijackers on the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pa., were from Saudi Arabia. The rest were from the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Lebanon. None of those countries are on Mr. Trump’s visa ban list.

Human rights activists roundly condemned Mr. Trump’s actions, describing them as officially sanctioned religious persecution dressed up to look like an effort to make the United States safer.

Just to recap:

Banned by Trump’s executive order: Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia & Yemen

Hijackers on 9/11 were from: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE & Lebanon

So, while Trump invokes the history of 9/11, we aren’t banning folks from the countries our attackers came from…?

Hint: Bloomberg News notes that Donald Trump has business dealings in several of the non-banned countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and UAE.

Remind me again how Trump doesn’t have conflicts of interest.

It’s worth noting that a study of terrorist attacks on US soil between 1975 and 2015 conducted by the conservative-leaning Cato Institute concluded foreign nationals from the seven countries listed in the president’s executive order have killed zero Americans.

According to Reuters, even folks who have been granted “green cards,” making them permanent legal U.S. residents, will be affected by the ban if they are originally from one of the seven countries listed. If currently traveling outside the U.S., those folks from the banned countries – even with green cards – will not be able to get back home now.

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Trump To Implement 20% Tax On All Imports From Mexico To Pay For Border Wall

President Trump (L), Mexican President Pena Nieto (R)

Now we know how President Trump plans to pay for the border wall he campaigned on so strenuously.

The New York Times reports:

President Trump plans to make Mexico pay for his border wall by imposing a 20 percent tax on all imports into the United States from Mexico, raising billions of dollars that would cover the cost of the new barrier.

The proposal, which Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, said the president discussed privately with congressional Republicans before giving remarks at a party retreat here, would be a major new economic proposal that could have far-reaching implications for consumers, manufacturers and relations between the two governments.

Mr. Spicer said the 20 percent tax on annual Mexican imports would raise $10 billion a year and would easily pay for a border wall that is estimated to cost between $8 billion and $20 billion. The value of imported goods from Mexico in 2015 was $296 billion. Mr. Spicer said taxing imports is something that 160 other countries already do.

The new tax would be imposed on Mexico as part of a tax overhaul that Mr. Trump intends to pursue with the Republican Congress. Mr. Spicer said the tax initially would apply only to Mexico, but that the president supports imposing a 20 percent tax on all imports.

It seems to me that if this plan goes forward, it’s the American people who will be paying for “the wall” buy having to pay 20% more for imported goods from Mexico.

The Times goes on to say new legislation would have to be crafted to implement such an import tax.

As earlier reported, a planned meeting of the two presidents scheduled for January 31 was cancelled today by the Mexican president. See tweet below from the Mexican president:

UPDATE – The White House is walking running this back now:

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Multiple Polls Show Trump’s First Days In Office Viewed Negatively

A new poll conducted by Quinnipiac University shows President Trump’s first few days in office are not resonating with the American people.

From the survey:

• Trump begins with 36% of Americans disapproving vs. 44% job approving

• The results are worse when you look at the opinions of women polled – 33% approve while 50% disapprove

• No surprise that Trump enjoys healthy numbers from Republicans (81% vs. 3%), while Democrats disapprove (77% vs. 4%). Independent voters disapprove 45% vs. 35% approve

Additionally, there’s slightly better news from Public Policy Polling, who have just released their latest survey which indicates the American people evenly split 44% approve/44% disapprove of Trump’s first week in office.

Also from the PPP survey:

• Only 34% of voters want to build a wall with Mexico if American taxpayers have to pay up front for it, compared to 53% who are opposed to doing that

• Only 30% of voters think the best approach to healthcare in the US is to repeal the Affordable Care Act and start over, while 61% would prefer Congress to keep the Affordable Care Act and fix parts that aren’t working

• 59% of voters think Trump needs to release his tax returns versus 32% who don’t think it’s necessary for him to

• 54% of voters would support a law requiring candidates for President to release 5 years of tax returns in order to appear on the ballot

The poll goes on to indicate that Americans feel Trump will be a worse president that Richard Nixon.

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Trump Signs Executive Order Beginning Process Of Building “The Wall”

President Trump today signed the executive that begins the process of building the famous “Wall” on the border of the United States and Mexico.

In recent weeks since the election, Trump has changed course on how to pay for the wall. Throughout the campaign, Trump repeated over and over that Mexico would “pay for” the wall. But now, the new president says that tax payers will foot the bill initially, and will eventually be reimbursed by Mexico through some mechanism yet to be determined/

From Buzzfeed:

“We’ve been talking about this right from the beginning,” Trump said as he signed an executive order launching the process of “immediately” building a physical wall between the United States and Mexico.

The action, taken less than a week before Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto is scheduled to visit his US counterpart is already drawing calls for the meeting between the two to be cancelled.

A person familiar with the matter said that Peña Nieto is “considering” canceling the visit, but spoke on condition of anonymity because plans have not been finalized.

Construction of the concrete wall dividing the two countries, which Trump has said will be as high as 55 feet, was indeed one of his first promises on the campaign trail. Further rousing the ire of his southern neighbors, Trump, in the same speech where he announced he was running for president, accused Mexico of sending criminals and “rapists” across the border and promised to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, the majority of them Mexican.

Additionally, Trump says he plans to take away federal funds from any state or local governments that fail to follow his deportation policies. Opponents of that plan say withholding federal funds from “sanctuary cities” would be unconstitutional.

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Trump Still Erroneously Maintains Millions Voted Illegally In Presidential Election

Last night, President Trump spent several minutes telling congressional leaders from both parties that he still believes he truly won the popular vote in the presidential election because 3-5 million votes were cast illegally.

The issue remained in the spotlight today as reporters asked White House press secretary Sean Spicer about the issue:

White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Tuesday confirmed that President Donald Trump believes millions of people voted illegally in November’s election, despite a total absence of evidence to support this view.

“The president does believe that. He has stated that before. I think he’s stated his concerns of voter fraud and people voting illegally during the campaign and continues to maintain that belief based on studies and evidence that people have presented to him,” Spicer told reporters at the daily press briefing.

Pressed for evidence to support the claim, Spicer said only, “I think the president has believed that for a while, based on studies and information he has.” He did not say what those studies or information were.

During the course of the press conference, Spicer grew visibly frustrated at the repeated questions about Trump’s false claim. “He believes what he believes based on the information he was provided,” Spicer told CNN’s Jeff Zeleny. Asked what Trump’s belief means for American democracy, Spicer snapped, “It means I have answered your question.”

Numerous studies have shown that there’s no way such massive voter fraud took place.

What neither Spicer nor Trump have explained to date is, if Trump truly believes there was such astronomical voter fraud, why hasn’t the president called for a massive investigation?

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Trump Issues Executive Orders Greenlighting Oil Pipelines, Owns Stock In Company Building Dakota Pipeline

First, President Trump signed executive orders today that allow the controversial Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines to move forward:

President Trump signed two executive actions Tuesday that will advance construction of the controversial Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines. The actions follow months of protests by environmentalists and Native American groups in North Dakota against the Dakota Access project, a $3.8-billion pipeline that would bring crude oil from the state’s Bakken oil patch through the Midwest and into the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Construction on the project was halted in December after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers denied a permit for the pipeline to cross under a Missouri River reservoir in the area so it could explore alternate routes.

Now, with that in mind, from CBS News:

President-elect Donald Trump holds stock in the company building the disputed Dakota Access oil pipeline, and pipeline opponents warn that Trump’s investments could affect any decision he makes on the $3.8 billion project as president.

Trump’s 2016 federal disclosure forms show he owned between $15,000 and $50,000 in stock in Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners. That’s down from between $500,000 and $1 million a year earlier.

But remember: he “has no conflicts of interest…”