Tag: Donald Trump

Posted on

Matt Lauer Getting Terrible Reviews For Lack Of Follow-Up During Presidential Forum

News outlets are howling at NBC News’ Matt Lauer after he allowed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s claim he never supported the Iraq war to go unchecked with no follow up questions at last night’s “Commander In Chief” Forum broadcast on NBC and MSNBC.

Meanwhile, Lauer spent almost 13 minutes of his time (and several follow-up questions) with Democrat Hillary Clinton on her email controversy which has been  investigated and found to be a non-starter by the FBI.

Reporters across the internet were live fact-checking Trump even as he repeated his often debunked version of history that he always opposed the war in Iraq.

As many now know, back in 2002 in an interview with Howard Stern, Trump was asked if he supported an invasion of Iraq and he responded, “Yeah, I guess so,” Trump responded. “I wish the first time it was done correctly.”

Trump’s statement last night via Politico:

“The main thing is: I have great judgment,” Trump said in response to a question as what he has done in his life that prepared him to send America’s men and women into harm’s way. “I heard Hillary Clinton say I was not against the war in Iraq. I was totally against the war in Iraq. You can look at Esquire magazine from 2004. You can look at before that. And I was against the war in Iraq, I said it’s going to totally destabilize the Middle East, which it has. It’s been a disastrous war. And perhaps almost as bad was the way Barack Obama got out. That was a disaster.”

NBC News eventually posted a fact-check online showing Trump lied during the forum after the fact.

Just a few responses from journalists:

Posted on

Seth Meyers Takes “A Closer Look” At Trump’s Approach To African-American Voters

Seth Meyers takes “A Closer Look” at Donald Trump’s recent outreach to African-American and Latino voters.

Meyers notes that even though Trump has a “well documented history of stoking racial resentment and attracting the support of white nationalists,” the thinking must have been he could “overcome all that by going to a church in Detroit and awkwardly swaying back-and-forth like a dad who brought his kids to a Demi Lovato concert.”

Posted on

Hillary Clinton Shares How She Coped With Monica Lewinsky Scandal

In advance of the coming presidential debates, Hillary Clinton spoke to CNN about how she coped with her husband Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky 20 years ago.

Donald Trump has hinted that he considers the subject “fair game” and won’t pause to somehow blame Hillary for the sins of her husband.

Having been legally married for almost 13 years now, and with my husband Michael for 22 years, I think it’s tawdry to bring up since Hillary wasn’t the one cheating on her spouse.

That said, I will add that both presidential candidates have faced challenges in their marriages. Hillary with Bill’s indiscretions and Trump with his two divorces.

While I believe political spouses should be off-limits, I think it does give the American voter information about how these two candidates handled personal challenges.

Hillary honored her marriage vows and worked through her issues with Bill. Donald, who did cheat on his first wife with his second, cut and run.

Take that info however you like.

I’m willing to bet that Hillary will not be bringing up Donald’s multiple divorces. #WhosTheClassAct

(h/t Boy Culture)

Posted on

CNN/ORC Poll: Donald Trump Leads Hillary By 2 Points

The latest CNN.ORC poll shows Donald Trump with a two point lead over Democrat Hillary Clinton as the race for the White House enters the final nine weeks of campaigning.

Trump tops Clinton 45% to 43% among likely voters, with Libertarian Gary Johnson at 7% and the Green Party’s Jill Stein at just 2%.

Read the full results of the poll here, and watch CNN’s David Chalian break down the numbers below:

Posted on

Donald Trump Draws A Half-House At Great Faith Ministries Church

Donald Trump loves to lambast news networks for not showing the size of his crowds at campaign rallies.

This is probably one view he wouldn’t want televised – from the back of the Great Faith Ministries church yesterday where he addressed a very small portion of the congregation.

Looks like the African-Americans in Detroit aren’t buying his “late to the game” appeal for votes.

Pic via Twitter.

Posted on

Leaked Script: What The Trump Campaign Wants Black Voters To Hear

Republican presidential candidate has spent a lot of time talking about African-Americans and their lives in the U.S. during the last few weeks in hopes of courting their votes.

However, what he has not done is actually go into a black community or church and address those voters face to face.

Tomorrow, Trump will sit down with Bishop Wayne T. Jackson for a one on one interview that will air on Bishop Jackson’s cable TV network, Impact Network.

The New York Times is reporting today, however, that Trump’s side of the interview will be rehearsed. In fact, the campaign has already written his script for him.

Jackson apparently sent the list of planned questions to Trump days in advance of the sit down, and the NY Times has obtained a document containing Trump’s carefully crafted answers.

An eight-page draft script obtained by The New York Times shows 12 questions that Bishop Wayne T. Jackson, the pastor, intends to ask Mr. Trump in the taped question-and-answer session, as well as the responses Mr. Trump is being advised to give.

The proposed answers were devised by aides working for the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee, according to an official who has been involved in the planning but declined to be identified while speaking about confidential strategy.

Given the importance of Donald J. Trump’s visit to a black church, the Trump campaign went so far as to script Mr. Trump’s answers to the church’s pastor’s questions, which were submitted in advance. A draft of the script was obtained by The New York Times.

The document includes the exact wording of answers the aides are proposing for Mr. Trump to give to questions about police killings, racial tension and the perception among many black voters that he and the Republican Party are racist, among other topics.

According to reports, the scripted answers are light on policy, and written with the hope that Trump will be able to avoid the stumbles he’s encountered in the past when asked about his faith.

Posted on

Hillary On Donald Trump’s Mexican Fiesta Fiasco

First of all, at this point we don’t even know who’s telling the truth.

Second, who was this Donald Trump who showed up in Mexico being all meek and low energy?

Does he only talk tough when he’s safely inside the US?

Posted on

Latino Trump Supporter Warns Of “Taco Trucks On Every Corner”

If you were wondering why #TacoTrucksOnEveryCorner has been trending for hours on Twitter, here you go.

Via Business Insider:

The founder of the group “Latinos for Trump” made an unconventional argument for Donald Trump’s immigration plan during an appearance on MSNBC Thursday night.

Marco Gutierrez, in an interview with host Joy Reid, described Latino culture as “imposing” and “dominant,” and suggested that without the GOP presidential nominee’s 10-point plan to overhaul the United States’ immigration policies, there might be “taco trucks on every corner.”

“I don’t even know what that means, and I’m almost too afraid to ask,” Reid responded.

Fortunately, the folks at the Washington Post can explain JUST what that means.

As most of you know, a taco truck is a box truck with a kitchen in the back that serves Mexican food. And it turns out this could very well be the employment answer we’ve been looking for.

The Washington Post crunched the numbers and guesstimates that there are about 3.2 million intersections in America. If you put one taco truck per intersection, staffed with the usual three employees, that results in 9.6 million jobs!

Tequila!

If you assume that three people work in each truck, that’s 9.6 million new jobs created. The labor force in August was 159.4 million, with 144.6 million employed. Adding 9.6 million taco truck workers would help America reach nearly full employment — and that’s just the staffing in the trucks. Think about all of the ancillary job creation: mechanics, gas station workers, Mexican food truck management executives. We’d likely need to increase immigration levels just to meet the demand.

Posted on

Donald Trump And Mexican President Continue Twitter War

Now that Donald Trump is back across the border from Mexico where he met with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto yesterday, both men are feeling quite macho again.

After a bit of a timid and low energy appearance with the Mexican president, Trump is again bragging that Mexico will “pay for the wall” that Trump says will make the U.S. borders safe again.

Peña Nieto, however, is being all bold and stuff saying again that Mexico will not be paying for any wall. “I’ll repeat what I told you personally, Mr. Trump: Mexico will never pay for a wall,” he wrote via Twitter.

The odd thing about all this is that Trump said during the very short press event yesterday that the two men did not discuss who would pay for a wall – with the president standing right there.

It wasn’t until Trump was back in the air that Peña Nieto informed the press that during their private chat he told Trump directly that paying for a wall was off limits.

It’s all a big “he said/he said” from two very unpopular public figures.

Posted on

Only One Presidential Candidate Has Been Fined For “Pay For Play” And It’s Not Hillary

Donald Trump likes to refer to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton as “Crooked Hillary,” but it’s actually Trump himself who’s been found guilty of violating tax laws by failing to report a $25,000 political donation to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi’s campaign group.

Donald Trump paid the IRS a $2,500 penalty this year, an official at Trump’s company said, after it was revealed that Trump’s charitable foundation had violated tax laws by giving a political contribution to a campaign group connected to Florida’s attorney general.

From the Washington Post:

The improper donation, a $25,000 gift from the Donald J. Trump Foundation, was made in 2013. At the time, Attorney General Pam Bondi was considering whether to investigate fraud allegations against Trump University. She decided not to pursue the case.

Earlier this year, The Washington Post and a liberal watchdog group raised new questions about the three-year-old gift. The watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, filed a complaint with the IRS — noting that, as a registered nonprofit, the Trump Foundation was not allowed to make political donations.

The Post reported another error, which had the effect of obscuring the political gift from the IRS.

In that year’s tax filings, The Post reported, the Trump Foundation did not notify the IRS of this political donation. Instead, Trump’s foundation listed a donation — also for $25,000 — to a Kansas charity with a name similar to that of Bondi’s political group. In fact, Trump’s foundation had not given the Kansas group any money.

The prohibited gift was, in effect, replaced with an innocent-sounding but nonexistent donation.

So, you see what happened here? Bondi asked for a donation to her campaign group, Trump made the donation, and suddenly Bondi decided not to investigate fraud charges against Trump University.

That’s about as crooked as you can get.

Trump was required to pay a 10% fine equaling $2,500.

Of course, the Trump campaign called the whole thing an “honest” mistake.

At the end of 2104, The Trump Foundation only had $1.4 million in the bank and no staff. You would think a multi-billionaire who talks a lot about how much he donates would have a more substantial foundation.