This is a daily or weekly record of the Trump presidency so hopefully future generations will learn what happens when you elect an narcissistic, thin skinned, racist, xenophobic, misogynistic unqualified buffoon in a position of power where he has access to nuclear codes.
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https://horroroftrumpaspotus.blogspot.com/
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Thursday, January 18, 2018
January 12th, 2017 - January 13th, 2017. 424-425 days since the Nov 8, 2016, election of some rich asshole, no.45, and 354-355 days since the Jan 20th inauguration.
In 1963, the eminent professor Richard Hofstadter stepped to a podium at Oxford University and delivered a lecture that became the basis for one of the most influential articles in political science history. In “ The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” Hofstadter argued that “American politics has often been an arena for angry minds” which fueled populist movements based on conspiracy theories to explain why they had been “shut out of the political process.”
At the time, such forces were coalescing around Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, a right-wing Republican whose presidential campaign drew members of the John Birch Society and other extremists convinced that the party’s leaders, including President Dwight Eisenhower, were “ under operational control of the Communist party.”
Goldwater lost the 1964 election in a landslide to Lyndon Johnson, but the notion of a secret cabal at the center of the government never went away. In the 1960s and 1970s, it was revived by the left, this time positing a secret CIA-Pentagon conspiracy to explain everything from the war in Vietnam and U.S.-backed coup d’états around the world to the assassination of President John Kennedy. Its urtext was The Secret Team, by L. Fletcher Prouty, a disillusioned former Pentagon special operations colonel who laid out a conspiracy of CIA agents, military contractors and powerful hidden business interests to explain America’s moral, economic and political decline.
It’s not clear how and when Trump adopted the Deep State bogeyman as a favorite target, but the basic idea behind it had been in circulation for decades—even the moderate Eisenhower had warned of a “ military-industrial complex” in his 1961 farewell address. More recently, the Deep State concept was “popularized in Turkey” in 2012, according to various news sources, when many Turks used it “to refer to alleged criminal networks within security forces and the government bureaucracy." But Hofstadter, who died in 1970, might well have said it stemmed from Trump’s inherent paranoia, which he defined as “a chronic mental disorder characterized by systematized delusions of persecution and of one’s own greatness.”
Michael Wolff’s explosive new book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, offers some more concrete clues. To his friends and critics alike, he writes after intermingling freely with the president and his aides inside the White House for months, Trump’s mind was (and is) an empty vessel, into which any vendor can pour ideas.
One of Trump’s constant whisperers was Michael Flynn, his campaign “buddy” and national security adviser, Wolff writes. Fired from his job at chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency for his eccentric leadership style, Flynn constantly dumped on the U.S. intelligence establishment and found an eager audience in the New York real estate mogul. “Trump loved to hear complaints about the CIA and the haplessness of American spies,” Wolff writes. In a contrapuntal theme, Breitbart, the nationalist news site headed by Trump campaign chief and later White House head of “strategy” Steve Bannon, regularly served up conspiracy theories about how the “Deep State” was driving the multiple investigations into Team Trump’s Russia connections. It was “part of the Breitbart lexicon,” Wolff writes, and “became the Trump team term of art.” Such ideas seemed to fit the candidate’s paranoid personality as he transitioned from business tycoon and reality TV star to, improbably, president of the United States.
Another Deep State whisperer, according to Wolff, was former Nixon administration foreign policy guru Henry Kissinger, who became an unofficial adviser to the campaign via the candidate’s son-in-law and confidante Jared Kushner. Kissinger, “who had been a front row witness when the bureaucracy and intelligence community revolted against Richard Nixon” over Vietnam and Watergate, cautioned Kushner against attacking the spy agencies, outlining “the kinds of mischief, and worse, that the new administration could face” from them if Trump’s tirades continued, Wolff writes.
And then there was Tony Blair, the former British prime minister allegedly looking for a freelance diplomatic gig in the Middle East with Trump. “In February, Blair visited Kushner in the White House” and “imparted a juicy nugget of information,” Wolff writes. “There was, he suggested, the possibility that the British had had the Trump campaign staff under surveillance, monitoring its telephone calls and other communications and possibly even Trump himself.” Such an allegation would track with Trump’s fervent belief, however unfounded, that U.S. intelligence, a close partner with its British counterparts, had spied on Trump Tower.
Blair called the allegation “a complete fabrication, literally from beginning to end.” Whatever the truth, Trump, primed by months of Flynn’s whispers of CIA conspiracies, seized upon the idea that he was under surveillance by the Deep State. It “churned and festered in the president’s mind,” Wolff writes, an assertion borne out when Trump bizarrely tweeted his last-minute opposition to the renewal of National Security Agency’s foreign intelligence-surveillance authority, known as Section 702, in the early hours of January 11. “This is the act that may have been used, with the help of the discredited and phony Dossier, to so badly surveil and abuse the Trump Campaign by the previous administration and others?” he typed. The “dossier,” of course, was a reference to the reports gathered by former MI6 spy Christopher Steele for Fusion GPS, the firm hired by the Hillary Clinton campaign to investigate the alleged ties between Russia, Trump and his aides.
Two hours later, after a reportedly frantic intervention by House Speaker Paul Ryan, the president assented to the act’s renewal, a position that mainstream Republicans, Democrats and his own national security advisers had consistently backed.
But Trump’s darkest suspicions about his intelligence agencies are not likely to abate, even after removing James Comey from the FBI and installing Mike Pompeo, a Tea Party Republican who evidently entertains at least some of the president’s conspiracy theories, to run the CIA. The Deep State bureaucrats in the intelligence community, Trump was sure, were out to get him, a conclusion reinforced by “intelligence leaks regarding his purported Russian relationships and subterfuges,” Wolff writes, not to mention the revelation, after his book was finished, that a least some FBI agents harbored anti-Trump sentiments.
The president’s mindset “seemed to align him with the left and its half century of making a bogeyman of American intelligence agencies,” Wolff adds. “But in quite some reversal, the liberals and the intelligence community were now aligned in their horror of Donald Trump.” As if to ratify Trump’s fervid paranoia, in November former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden inaugurated a new intelligence studies program at George Mason University with a speech he called, “Truth Tellers in the Bunker: Evidence-Based Institutions in a Post-Truth World”—by which he meant the media and spy agencies.
The former Air Force general seemed giddy about the odd-fellows partnership. “My tribe is reluctant to talk to the outside world and very often does so only when it's trying to defend itself after some accusation,” he said at the event. “Far better to establish routine contact with the press.…”
That the president is free to embrace “alternative facts,” as his aide Kellyanne Conway once put it—and seems to get his most views from Fox News and even overtly racist corners of the internet—presents a formidable challenge now to “fact-based” dialogue. Or as former Assistant Attorney General Jack Goldsmith said at the Hayden event, “it will be hard to recover” from Trump’s affirmation of the paranoid worldview once consigned to the lunatic fringe.
Trump’s sense of persecution helps explain why Trump continued to defend Flynn after his dalliances with the Russians were exposed, despite the danger doing so posed to his own presidency, Wolff writes. “Flynn’s enemies were his enemies…the more doubts gathered around Flynn, the more certain the president became that Flynn was his all important ally.”
Every intelligence briefing or congressional report on continuing threats from Russia, moreover, would only serve to buttress his claim that he was under attack from within—or worse, that his own spy agencies were actively bugging him.
In the real world, however, as opposed to the one Trump inhabits, there are insurmountable legal barriers to prevent the FBI and NSA from electronically surveilling him. “It's inconceivable,” says Susan Hennessey, a former senior NSA lawyer, that “they would have attempted to obtain [a surveillance warrant] on a sitting president.” It’s likewise inconceivable in today’s Washington, where leaks abound, that a rogue intelligence unit would have tried to go around the law. What Trump seems to have misunderstood—or deliberately mischaracterized—is legal U.S. eavesdropping on Russian targets that picked up the conversations and emails between them and his associates Flynn, Paul Manafort, Carter Page and possibly George Papadopoulos.
In his 1964 article, adapted from his Pulitzer Prize–winning book, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, Hofstadter was careful to say he was not making a clinical diagnosis of political figures on the fringe. He had invented the idea of “a paranoid style, simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind.” He added that “the idea of the paranoid style as a force in politics would have little contemporary relevance or historical value if it were applied only to men with profoundly disturbed minds.” What makes it politically “significant,” he said, is that such views are adopted “by more or less normal people.”
Before he ran for president, Trump was judged “more or less normal,” at least by the standards of the eccentric rich and the Tea Party buzzards incessantly picking at the flesh of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton with their endless investigations, none of which produced evidence of criminal behavior, much less indictments. In such a world, even Trump’s fixation with Obama’s birth certificate fell within the parameters of “normal.”
If anything, he seemed to have carved out for himself a unique role that Hofstadter could never have predicted: the comedic style in American politics. “He was what he was,” Wolff writes. “Twinkle in his eye, larceny in his soul.” Fox News baron Rupert Murdoch struggled to envision Trump, “a man, who, for more than a generation, had been at best a clown prince among the rich and famous,” as president. Even his daughter Ivanka, Wolff says, likened her father to “a douchebag dad” who turned his oddball campaign into “a romantic comedy—sort of.” (Ivanka Trump has not commented publicly on the book. White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders dismissed it as, “trashy tabloid fiction.”)
But Trump’s comedic shtick did not wear well once he took office. By Wolff’s account, even the president’s family and closest friends (even though he really doesn’t seem to have friends in the usual sense but supplicants and “associates”) worried aloud about his mental stability. “He’s not only crazy,” his friend Tom Barrack supposedly told a friend, according to Wolff, “he’s stupid.” (Barrack denied saying it.) Wolff’s book is replete with similar comments. “I wouldn’t give Donald too much to think about,” the late Fox News chieftain Roger Ailes advises Bannon at a dinner Wolff attended. The author constantly evokes events and decisions by Trump, notably the calamitous firing of Comey, which demonstrate his “uncertain grasp of cause and effect.” The leader of the free world, was “full of phobias about travel and unfamiliar places,” Wolff records, not to mention being a self-confessed germophobe. (In one of his books, Trump argued that legendary industrialist Howard Hughes was unfairly maligned because of his infamous fear of germs.)
But paranoia strikes deepest in American politics, Hofstadter declared, “when the representatives of a particular social interest—perhaps because of the very unrealistic and unrealizable nature of its demands—are shut out of the political process.” But what about when the paranoid are improbably voted in?
Hofstadter had no answer for that, but had he lived long enough to observe Trump, he most likely would have compared him to Andrew Jackson, the Tennessean hero of the War of 1812, who marshalled enough anti-Northern and anti-establishment sentiment to win the presidency in 1829. The autocratic, pro-slavery, Cherokee-annihilatingJackson, Hofstadter wrote, was an "unreflective man" who "swung to the democratic camp when the democratic camp swung to him." But Bannon promoted Trump as the second coming of the largely mythical, “populist” Jackson who had famously taken down the U.S. Bank, run by a self-dealing board of directors with ties to industry and manufacturing. The president glommed onto the idea, Wolff writes, calling Jackson a “ swashbuckler” and often guiding visitors to the portrait of “ Old Hickory” hanging on his Oval Office wall. But a more apt comparison of Trump to Jackson might have been offered by Thomas Jefferson 200 years earlier, when he called the seventh president of the United States “one of the most unfit men I know of” for the White House, “a dangerous man” who he’d seen “choke with rage” as a senator and who “has had very little respect for laws and constitutions” of the country. Jackson’s virtual franchising of mob rule bore out Jefferson’s judgment, but the president shrugged off the insult by winning a second term. And whatever the much debated merits of his presidency, he turned out to be one of most consequential presidents in American history.
Trump looks like he may not be afforded that chance. His increasingly volcanic rages—against the media, Democrats, black athletes, Mexicans, the Deep State, courts, the FBI and Justice Department, topped off by an Oval Office tirade against immigrants from “ shithole countries”—may well have excited his base but turned off thousands more voters outside it.
Trump's paranoid “style,” in fact, might finally have become too paranoid.
A world-renowned electronic music DJ and performer revealed to a Louisville radio station that CIA agents requested his help in bringing attention to President some rich asshole’s alleged collusion with Russia.
Musical artist Moby discussed in a new interview what he learned about some rich asshole from CIA sources who requested the musician use his large social media following to alert Americans to the dangers posed by the commander in chief.
The DJ explained to WFPK radio how CIA sources told him, “look, you have more of a social media following than any of us do, can you please post some of these things just in a way that … sort of puts it out there.”
“Yeah, so years of touring and spending time in DC and New York, I’ve managed to make a few friends in the intelligence community. And I guess this is about a year ago, we were having dinner and they were really concerned — partially based, not to go too much into the weeds — this Fusion GPS report on the rich asshole essentially being run as a Russian agent. And these are some active and former CIA agents who … they’re truly concerned,” Moby recounted.
“They were like, ‘This is the Manchurian Candidate, like [Putin] has a Russian agent as the President of the United States,’” he continued.
“It’s really disturbing and it’s going to get quite a lot darker,” Moby predicted. “Like the depths of the rich asshole family in business and their involvement with organized crime, sponsored terrorism, Russian oligarchs, it’s really dark.”
“I guess we should all, like, fasten our seat belts and hold on,” he warned.
Moby’s full interview with Kyle Meredith of WFPK in Louisville, Kentucky (the rich asshole begins approximately 8 minutes in):
Adult film performer Jessica Drake says some rich asshole offered $10,000 to have sex with her (Screen capture)
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Jessica Drake — one of the more than 20 women who accuse President some rich asshole of sexually harassing, groping, forcibly kissing or inappropriately touching them — is being prevented from speaking out by a nondisclosure agreement, said The Daily Beast on Saturday.
“Jessica’s NDA blankets any and every mention of the rich asshole, so she’s legally unable to comment,” Drake’s publicist told The Daily Beast on Friday evening. “Jessica signed a non-disclosure agreement after her allegations of misconduct, and she can’t do as much as peep his name publicly.”
As the Daily Beast’s Marlow Stern and Aurora Snow noted, nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) are often used by abusers who settle allegations as a means of keeping their victims silent.
These types of gag orders were a mainstay for Fox News, which covered up decades of sexual abuse, harassment and intimidation by forcing victims of the network’s ousted CEO the late Roger Ailes and its one-time star anchor, Bill O’Reilly.
“In late October 2016, Drake became the 14th woman to accuse then-candidate the rich asshole of sexual misconduct,” wrote Stern and Snow. “At a public press conference, Drake, flanked by her attorney Gloria Allred, claimed that after she met the rich asshole in July 2006 at Nevada’s American Century Celebrity Golf Championship, where she was working a promotional booth on behalf of the adult film company Wicked Pictures, he made a pass at her. the rich asshole’s wife, Melania, had recently given birth to their son Barron at the time.”
the rich asshole has been broadsided in recent days by questions about an apparent financial arrangement with another adult performer, Story Daniels. Daniels reported received $130,000 from the rich asshole attorney Michael Cohen, but signed a statement assuring that this was not “hush money” as part of the deal.
Yet another adult performer, Alana Evans, said on Friday that the rich asshole did have an affair with Daniels after marrying First Lady Melania the rich asshole and that the rich asshole and Daniels once invited her to join in on a menage à trois.
“Stormy calls me four or five times, by the last two phone calls she’s with Donald [the rich asshole] and I can hear him, and he’s talking through the phone to me saying, ‘Oh come on Alana, let’s have some fun! Let’s have some fun! Come to the party, we’re waiting for you,’” said Evans.
CNN anchor Ana Cabrera, analyst Van Jones, White House Reporter April Ryan and former Mitt Romney spokesman Ryan Williams (Screen capture)
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CNN political analyst Van Jones went off on Saturday at President some rich asshole’s political quandary over the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Act.
Ryan Williams — former spokesman for 2012 Republican presidential candidate Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) — said that “hopefully” Congress can get something done on DACA before the mid-January deadline arrives.
“Ana,” Jones said to anchor Ana Cabrera, “he is the person that ended DACA. If he wants DACA, he can just reinstate it.”
“This whole thing is just Kabuki theater at the circus,” Jones said. “He created a crisis so that he could get his wall, which he now admits he doesn’t even need his wall, and he’s mad that the Democrats won’t do what he — .”
Jones shook his head.
“There is no DACA crisis,” he said. “some rich asshole could re-instate DACA tomorrow and we could move on.”
Kabuki is an ancient Japanese form of gesture-based dance that originated in the dry riverbeds of Kyoto in the 17th century. Because the art uses slow, minimal gestures to convey whole skeins of meaning, it is used to describe political acts that are only for show and have no basis in reality.
Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, photo by AFGE (2013 Civil Rights Luncheon) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
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After Civil Defense officials in Hawaii made “a hell of a mistake to make,” by warning of an inbound ballistic missile, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) was interviewed by CNN about what she learned after receiving the false alarm.
“I was immediately told that the alert was sent out mistakenly, it was an inadvertent alert message, and that there was no ballistic missile heading to Hawaii,” Gabbard noted. “So I immediately got on Twitter, got on the phone, started getting the message out as quickly as possible to the people in Hawaii, who literally were going through this thought process of ‘I’ve got 15 minutes to seek shelter from an incoming ballistic missile. What do I do? How do I protect my family? Where do I go?'”
“This points to what the people of Hawaii went through, what my family and so many families in Hawaii just went through, it is a true realization they have 15 minutes to find some form of shelter or they are going to be dead. Gone,” Gabbard continued.
“So this is something that I hope everyone in America heeds to, because this is a threat that’s not only facing Hawaii, but this country,” Gabbard reminded. “And if they had gone through what our families in Hawaii just went through, they would be angry, like I am.”
“Our leaders have failed us, some rich asshole is not taking this seriously,” Gabbard charged. “We have to get rid of nuclear threat from North Korea. We have to achieve peace, not play politics, because this is literally life and death that is at stake for the people of Hawaii and the people of this country.”
“The talk that needs to be happening is between some rich asshole and Kim Jong-Un,” Gabbard declared. “The United States and North Korea to de-escalate and to denuclearize and get rid of this nuclear threat.”
the rich asshole freely and openly calls himself a “genius,” as he did last week in his now-notorious “very stable genius” tweet and Fisher said that while the rich asshole has keen instincts, they mostly revolve around his satisfying his constant, voracious need for attention.
The accusation squares with the needy man-child portrayed in Michael Wolff’s bombshell book, Fire and Fury: Inside the the rich asshole White House and the man described by The Art of The Deal ghostwriter Tony Schwartz as “a living black hole.”
“In the rich asshole’s vocabulary, ‘genius’ is perhaps the highest praise, and it refers to a street-level ability to get things done. the rich asshole often referred to his lawyer and early mentor Roy Cohn as ‘a total genius’ or a ‘political genius,’ even if he was also ‘a lousy lawyer,’” wrote Fisher. “the rich asshole explained in one of his books that his own true ‘genius’ was for public relations: Rather than spending money on advertising, he said, he put his efforts toward winning news coverage of himself as a ‘genius.’”
The idea of being a Midas-fingered “genius” is absolutely central to the rich asshole’s notion of himself, former executives told Fisher. “Everyone around him learned to cater to that — even his father, who trained the rich asshole to follow in his footsteps as a developer.”
“He never meant ‘book genius’ when he said it,” journalist Tony Benza told the Post. “He means, okay, he didn’t hit the brains lottery, but he’s brilliant and cunning in the way he operates. He’s amazing at taking the temperature of the room and knowing how to appease everyone.”
Fisher wrote that the relentless force driving the rich asshole’s tweets is his “lifelong conviction that he wins when he’s the center of attention” and his belief that he has a special kind of knowledge that enables him to see things that ordinary people cannot.
Republican Ken Blackwell on MSNBC (Screen capture)
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Appearing on MSNBC Saturday afternoon, former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell (R) attempted to deflect accusations of racism against President some rich asshole by bringing up a comment by former President Barack Obama.
Speaking with host Alex Witt, Blackwell described working in multiple administrations and stated that he doesn’t believe the president is a racist and that the media and the president’s detractors are making too much of his calling Haiti and African nations “sh*tholes.”
“Let’s go back to the fact that one, the language that was perhaps, allegedly inartful, that was unrefined, that was vulgar, but can we remember, I do remember when Barack Obama two years ago referred to Libya as a ‘ess-sheet,’ er, uh, ‘ess-show,'” Blackwell said.
“I would love to say we have time to go over Barack Obama,” Witt said, “but we don’t. I want to stay on some rich asshole right now because there’s a lot to talk about with this guy.”
“I know you want to isolate this, but I’ve watched, observed and served under several presidents,” said Blackwell, “and the reality is there are times when presidents use language in private settings that have different concepts and different impacts.”
Blackwell’s “whataboutism” regards a comment that Obama made regarding the U.K.’s Tory government and its mishandling of Libya.
“We actually executed this plan as well as I could have expected: We got a UN mandate, we built a coalition, it cost us $1 billion -– which, when it comes to military operations, is very cheap. We averted large-scale civilian casualties, we prevented what almost surely would have been a prolonged and bloody civil conflict. And despite all that, Libya is a mess,” said the former president.
But thanks to former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron’s inattention to the matter, the Arab Republic has become a “sh*tshow,” Obama said.
This week, President some rich asshole reportedly called Haiti and the 54 countries of Africa “sh*thole” countries during an Oval Office discussion of immigration policy.
The 15-nation Caribbean Community on Saturday condemned US President some rich asshole's use of "repulsive language" to reportedly describe Haiti and African nations.
CARICOM "is deeply disturbed by reports about the use of derogatory and repulsive language by the President of the United States in respect of our member state, Haiti, and other developing countries," the bloc's Guyana-based headquarters said in a statement.
"CARICOM condemns in the strongest terms, the unenlightened views reportedly expressed."
At a White House meeting with the rich asshole on Thursday, lawmakers raised the issue of protections for immigrants from African nations, Haiti and El Salvador.
the rich asshole then reportedly demanded to know why the US should accept immigrants from "shithole countries" rather than -- for instance -- wealthy and overwhelmingly white Norway.
Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, who was present at the meeting, said the rich asshole specifically asked, "Do we need more Haitians?" before launching into a diatribe about African immigration.
As his remarks sparked a global firestorm, the president on Friday denied he ever said "anything derogatory" about the people of Haiti, whose government called the rich asshole's reported remarks racist.
CARICOM expressed full support for the Haitian government's reaction "to this highly offensive reference," said the bloc which includes former British, Dutch and French colonies.
"It should be recalled that Haiti is the second democracy in the Western hemisphere after the United States and that Haitians continue to contribute significantly in many spheres to the global community and particularly to the United States of America," CARICOM said.
The bloc "therefore views this insult to the character of the countries named and their citizens as totally unacceptable."
The majority of Caribbean citizens are descendants of African slaves, while the ancestors of many others were indentured laborers from India.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged Americans to embrace their diverse backgrounds Friday, after President some rich asshole reportedly insulted immigrants from "shithole countries."
Washington's top diplomat was giving a speech on the value of respect to his staff that had been planned before the rich asshole's reported outburst at a White House meeting on immigration reform.
Aides said the speech was written before the rich asshole's comments, but his inclusive language marked a sharp contrast with the terms which senators say the rich asshole used on Thursday.
"America at its birth was far from perfect and we're still an imperfect nation but the American people have never lost sight of our aspirational values of equality and liberty for all," Tillerson said.
"What makes out country great is that we are constantly striving to achieve our aspirations," he said in a speech ahead of the Martin Luther King day holiday weekend.
"This process involves each of us as individuals working on our own self improvement, recognizing that our lives are enriched when we embrace the diversity in our nation and within the ranks of our own colleagues here at the State Department.
"By respecting our differences in life experiences and culture we set ourselves on a path to growth that then allows us to grow as an organization," Tillerson said.
According to one witness, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, the rich asshole repeatedly used the term "shithole" while arguing Thursday that the United States should accept fewer immigrants from Africa, Haiti and El Salvador.
When reports of the exchanges first surfaced the White House chose not to deny them, but on Friday, with outrage spreading around the world, the rich asshole tweeted "this was not the language used."
- Value of respect -
While Tillerson's prepared speech was not a deliberate response to the rich asshole's comments, the top US diplomat has previously split from the rich asshole over issues of racially-charged language.
In August, after the rich asshole said that there had been some "good people" among a crowd of racist protesters, Tillerson said in a television interview that "the president speaks for himself."
Tillerson "would have given this speech regardless of what anyone had said," Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Steve Goldstein said.
Tillerson also said that US diplomats and State Department and embassy staff around the world will receive training in how to prevent or deal with sexual harassment.
Citing a person who spoke with the president, the AP reported that Trump doubled down on his reported comments from this week, defending the remark as not racist but a “straightforward assessment” of the living conditions in the countries discussed.
The person who spoke to Trump told the AP that the president was not apologetic, but blamed the media for distorting his meaning. Trump also reportedly believes that he was saying what many people think.
The Washington Post reported this week that Trump, in a private meeting about immigration Thursday with lawmakers in the Oval Office, complained about the U.S. attracting immigrants from “shithole countries." He was referring specifically to Haiti and some African nations.
The blowback from the comments was swift and harsh, with dozens of lawmakers, world leaders, and other figures calling out Trump for racism.
Trump defended himself publicly and appeared to deny the comments in a tweet Friday morning, saying that the language reported was “not the language used” in the meeting. The White House did not initially deny the comments.
At least one Democratic lawmaker present at the meeting confirmed the comments, though two GOP lawmakers who were present said they did not recall them.
Trump’s private explanation for the comments, as reported by the AP, is similar to that of conservative media figures that came to the president’s defense on Thursday.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson criticized the backlash, saying that if countries weren’t “shitholes,” immigrants would not want to come to the U.S.
"So if you say Norway is a better place to live and Haiti is kind of a hole, well anyone who’s been to those countries or has lived in them would agree,” Carlson said. “But we’re jumping up and down, ‘Oh, you can’t say that.’ Why can’t you say that?”
And Fox News host Jesse Watters said that the “forgotten men and women” who comprise Trump’s base would approve of the comment.
President the rich asshole will again waive sanctions against Iran that were lifted as part of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal, the White House said Friday.
But the rich asshole administration is imposing new, nonnuclear sanctions in response to Iran’s ballistic missile activity and its crackdown on anti-government protestors.
the rich asshole also warned that this will be the last such waiver, calling for a follow-on deal with Europeans and a legislative fix from Congress.
"Today, I am waiving the application of certain nuclear sanctions, but only in order to secure our European allies' agreement to fix the terrible flaws of the Iran nuclear deal," the rich asshole said in a statement Friday.
"This is a last chance. In the absence of such an agreement, the United States will not again waive sanctions in order to stay in the Iran nuclear deal. And if at any time I judge that such an agreement is not within reach, I will withdraw from the deal immediately. No one should doubt my word."
The White House’s announcement Friday keeps alive for now an agreement that the rich asshole has called the “worst deal ever negotiated” while trying project a continued hard-line stance against Tehran.
The decision also represents a win for national security Adviser H.R. McMaster, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis, who have all advised against walking away from the international agreement.
The Obama-era deal between Iran and the United States, China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and Germany provided Tehran billions in sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.
the rich asshole and other critics say the deal is flawed because several provisions sunset and it does not address Iran’s other destabilizing activities, including its ballistic missile program and support for terrorists and proxies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.
But even many who objected to the agreement in 2015 say it’s not in the U.S. interest to withdraw now. Doing so, they say, would put the country at odds with its European allies and show that the United States reneges on its commitments.
In October, the rich asshole refused to certify to Congress that the deal is in the U.S. national interest. The announcement did not kill the deal, though, as the certification is a requirement of U.S. law, not the agreement itself.
But on Friday, the rich asshole faced the first in a series of deadlines that could have killed the deal. The U.S. sanctions that were lifted as part of the deal have to be waived every few months, and a failure to do so would essentially mean the United States was no longer following the accord.
The deadline this week was complicated by the recent mass protests in Iran. Officially, more than 20 people have died and more than 1,000 have been arrested since the start of the protests at the end of December, though the numbers are said to be far higher.
The rich asshole administration has been eager to show it is on the side of the protesters and to retaliate against Tehran for cracking down on them. But those arguing to stay in the nuclear deal said tearing it up could have the opposite effect by drawing attention away from the protestors and imposing crippling sanctions that would ultimately hurt the Iranian people.
The new sanctions announced Friday are against 14 people and entities for serious human right abuses, censorship or weapons proliferation, an administration official told reporters. The new designations include sanctions against the head of Iran’s judiciary, an Iranian prison that is housing many of the arrested protesters, the director of the prison, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ electronic warfare and cyber defense organization, and Iran’s supreme council for cyberspace.
“As all of you have seen over the past couple of weeks, Iran’s malign activity really has been in full display,” an administration official said. “This includes its human rights abuses and censorship of protesters, including those held in Iranian prisons, as well as their continued developments of threatening weapons systems.”
In his October announcement, the rich asshole also called on Congress for a legislative fix to address the issues he sees with the deal. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) has been working with the administration on the bill and has recently touted progress with Democrats and European allies.
Committee ranking member Ben Cardin (D-Md.), though, has indicated wide gaps continue to exist between Democrats and Republicans on the potential legislation.
An administration official told reporters Friday that the legislation must include four elements: a demand that Iran allow “timely, sufficient and immediate” inspections requested by the International Atomic Energy Agency; a requirement to remain above a one-year breakout time to achieving a nuclear weapon; an end to the sunset clauses by allowing the United States to immediately snapback sanctions if Iran restarts those activities; and state that U.S. law views Iran’s missile program as “unacceptable.”
It’s unclear whether Congress and Europeans will heed the rich asshole’s call. The terms of the legislation laid out by the administration Friday are similar to a framework released by Corker and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) in October that Democrats dismissed as an unacceptable unilateral rewriting of the deal.
Administration officials have been meeting with European allies since the October announcement and have said progress has been made. But ahead of the rich asshole's move, Britain, France and Germany agreed Thursday to reaffirm their support for the current deal.
“We want to protect the [deal] against every possible undermining decision whatever that may come,” German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said alongside his French and British counterparts and European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini after meeting Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. “It would send a very dangerous signal to the rest of the world if the only agreement that prevents the proliferation of nuclear weapons was negatively affected.”
Wendy Sherman, the former under secretary of State for political affairs and the lead U.S. negotiator of the nuclear deal, said in a conference call Friday that the Europeans would be unlikely to agree to a new deal with the U.S. without the inclusion of other parties to the initial agreement, including Iran, China and Russia.
"I cannot imagine that any process that will go forward will exclude the other players in the initial deal," Sherman said.
Breaking his silence, Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Friday called President the rich asshole's "shithole countries" remarks "very unfortunate" and "unhelpful," noting that he himself was a descendant of Irish immigrants who had faced prejudice and hostilities when they first moved to America.
The Speaker said he had read press accounts Thursday night about the rich asshole’s immigration meeting with lawmakers in which he reportedly complained about restoring protected status for immigrants from “shithole countries” like Haiti, El Salvador and some African nations.
“The first thing that came to my mind was very unfortunate, unhelpful,” Ryan said at a WisPolitics event in Milwaukee. “But you know what I thought of right away? I thought of my own family.
“My family, like a whole lot of people, came from Ireland on what they called coffin ships and came here and worked the railroads. The Irish were really looked down upon in those days,” Ryan said, detailing how his ancestors emigrated from Ireland and ended up in Janesville, Wisconsin.
“I hear all these stories from my relatives about ‘Irish need not apply.’ [The Irish] could basically get constructions jobs, cops or firefighter jobs. And James and Catherine Ryan came over and literally worked the railroad until they had enough money to buy a farm, which happened to be outside of Janesville, Wisconsin.
“Then their son, my great-grandfather, started a railroad business with horse plows and it’s an earth-moving business which to this day is run by my cousins. It is a beautiful story of America, and that is a great story.”
“That is a story we have today. That is a story we had yesterday. And that is what makes this country so exceptional and unique in the first place,” Ryan went on. “So I see this as something to celebrate and I think it’s a big part of our strength, whether you are coming from Haiti — we’ve got great friends from Africa in Janesville who are doctors, who are just incredible citizens.”
So far, Ryan is the only member of GOP leadership to criticize the rich asshole's remarks, roughly 20 hours after The Washington Post reported on what was said in the Oval Office meeting. But Ryan’s reaction is much softer than other leading figures in the party.
Rep. Mia Love (R-Utah), who is Haitian American, called on the rich asshole to apologize for remarks that were "unkind, divisive, elitist, and fly in the face of our nation’s values." Michael Steele, who was the first African-American chairman of the Republican National Committee, said it's “incontrovertible” evidence the rich asshole is a racist.
the rich asshole has denied he made the vulgar comment, saying he simply used tough language to reflect his position that the United States should change its immigration policies, and said Haiti is a poor country.
But Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who attended the meeting, said the rich asshole did make the "hateful" remarks. Two Republicans in attendance, Sens. Tom Cotton (Ark.) and David Perdue (Ga.), said they did not "recall" the rich asshole making the remark.
Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said the senior senator from his state, Republican Lindsey Graham, who also participated in the rich asshole meeting, told him the “shithole countries” comment was “basically accurate.”
Ryan's top deputy, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), also attended the Oval Office meeting, but has had no comment so far.
The firestorm over the rich asshole’s remarks complicate already delicate immigration negotiations between Democrats and Republicans. The two sides are struggling to reach a deal on how to shield hundreds of thousands of young "Dreamers" from deportation as conservatives clamor for tougher border-security measures.
Friday was far from the first time Ryan, the highest-ranking Republican on Capitol Hill, has publicly distanced himself from the rich asshole’s controversial words or actions.
During the 2016 campaign, the rich asshole said a federal judge could not fairly rule in a case against the rich asshole University because of his Mexican heritage.
At an anti-poverty event outside of Washington, Ryan slammed the rich asshole’s remarks about Judge Gonzalo Curiel, calling them the “textbook definition of racist comments.”
"I regret these comments that he made," Ryan said. "I think that should be absolutely disavowed."
A lawyer for President the rich asshole reportedly arranged a six-figure payment to a former adult-film star to keep her from discussing a sexual encounter with the rich asshole, according to a new report Friday.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Michael Cohen, an attorney for the rich asshole Organization at the time and now the rich asshole’s personal lawyer, arranged for Stephanie Clifford, known in the industry as Stormy Daniels, to receive $130,000 as part of a nondisclosure agreement one month before the 2016 presidential election.
Clifford has privately told sources interviewed by the Journal that she and the rich asshole had a consensual sexual encounter in 2006, the year after he and Melania the rich asshole were married. Clifford was 27 years old at the time of the alleged encounter in Lake Tahoe.
A White House official declined to comment to the Journal about the payment, but said that the allegations of the interaction between the rich asshole and Clifford were “old, recycled reports, which were published and strongly denied prior to the election.”
Cohen told the Journal in a statement that the rich asshole “once again vehemently denies” the encounter, but did not comment on the alleged $130,00 payment.
“This is now the second time that you are raising outlandish allegations against my client,” Cohen said in the statement. “You have attempted to perpetuate this false narrative for over a year; a narrative that has been consistently denied by all parties since at least 2011.”
Cohen's reference to previous allegations may include the Journal's report in the days before the election that Clifford intended to appear on "Good Morning America" to discuss the alleged affair. She reportedly chose not to appear on the show at that time without explanation.
Cohen sent the paper a statement signed by “Stormy Daniels” denying the sexual encounter with the rich asshole and saying that hush money rumors are “completely false.”
Clifford did not comment directly to the Journal, and Clifford’s lawyer declined to comment on the matter.
Clifford reportedly received the payment through her lawyer’s client-trust account. A spokeswoman for the bank where the account is held declined to comment.
The payment was allegedly made around the time that the “Access Hollywood” tape surfaced, in which the rich asshole made a comment about grabbing women “by the p----.”
Sexual harassment and assault allegations against the rich asshole from more than a dozen women surfaced during the campaign, and again during the rise of the "Me Too" movement. the rich asshole has repeatedly denied the allegations, and the official White House position is that the women are lying.
The White House physician announced Friday that President the rich asshole is in "excellent health" following his first physical exam as commander in chief.
"The president's exam at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center went exceptionally well. The president is in excellent health and I look forward to briefing some of the details on Tuesday," Dr. Ronny Jackson said in a statement.
the rich asshole told reporters earlier this week that he would be "surprised" if he received poor results from the physical.
"I think it's going to go very well," the president predicted. "I'll be very surprised if it doesn't."
"It better go well, otherwise the stock market will not be happy," he joked later.
The White House announced earlier this week that Jackson would take the unusual step of answering questions about the president's exam during the daily briefing next Tuesday.
The physical follows recent speculation surrounding the president's health leading up to the exam.
A new book that paints the rich asshole as ill-equipped to occupy the Oval Office sparked questions about the rich asshole's mental fitness, questions the rich asshole has dismissed in calling himself a "very stable genius."
the rich asshole, 71, is the oldest person elected president and often boasted on the campaign trail in 2016 about his physical stamina.
President Donald Trump is slated to undergo his first physical exam as President today in Bethesda, Maryland. According to NPR, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has announced that the results of the physical will be released to the press on Tuesday, January 16th. It is still unclear what information from the exam will be released to the public.
Only Dr. Ronny Jackson, who will be administering the exam, is poised to know the full details of Trump's physical health through the 2016 campaign and election. But we know from previous years via Trump’s personal physician that, at least as recently as February 2017, Trump was reportedly regularly taking a drug for hair loss, baby aspirin, and antibiotics.
Finasteride/Propecia
In early 2017 it was widely reported that the President was taking the drug finasteride, which is sold under the brand name Propecia, for hair loss prevention. As The Washington Post reported when it was first found Trump was on the drug, it has been associated with sexual side effects. The Post also mentioned literature that describes possible psychological side effects that result from using finasteride, although there appears to be no conclusive evidence.
Baby aspirin
Trump has been widely reported to take a baby aspirin a day. This is a relatively common practice for heart attack prevention, according to the Mayo Clinic. The drug works by interfering with clotting in the blood. Although clotting is a necessary function for sealing wounds, that same mechanism can be deadly when it occurs in blood vessels in the heart. Aspirin stops the same cells that form blood clots when a person has a cut on the skin from forming plaques in the heart that can lead to heart attacks.
Statin
Trump also takes a statin to lower cholesterol. Like the baby aspirin, this prescription seems to be in the interest of heart health. Statins can help the body “reabsorb” cholesterol that accumulates on the walls of blood vessels, to the end goal of preventing a heart attack.
Antibiotics
It was reported that Trump takes an antibiotic to treat rosacea, a skin condition whose major feature is reddened skin, according to the National Institutes of Health.
The results of Trump’s physical—and which, if any of these drugs he's still on—may become clear on Tuesday.
Fox News contributor Tomi Lahren faced widespread scorn online Friday after she defended President Donald Trump's reported comments about immgrants coming to the United States from "shithole" countries.
"Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?" Trump said, according to a report published by the Washington Post Thursday. The statement was made during an Oval Office meeting with lawmakers, and the countries he was referring to were Haiti, El Salvador and a number of African nations. "Why do we need more Haitians?" Trump added, according to the Post. "Take them out."
Condemnation over the remarks was swift and widespread. But Lahren, a conservative talking head with a penchant for riling up liberals, predictably rushed to the president's defense.
"If they aren’t shithole countries, why don’t their citizens stay there? Let’s be honest. Call it like it is," she tweeted.
Lahren's controversial commentary, predictably, drew it's own wave of outrage.
"Why do you live/work in California/NYC instead of your native South Dakota?" tweeted CNN's Andrew Kaczynski, for instance.
Kevin Sieff, Africa Bureau Chief for the Washington Post, joined in as well, tweeting, "Hey Tomi, Washington Post shithole bureau chief here. Love your foreign affairs reporting. Did you know there are 8.7 million Americans living overseas? Can’t imagine why they would leave home."
Soon Lahren's name was trending across the country.
If there aren't shitty, racist Americans who enjoy half-baked thoughts from a mediocre, white supremacist moron, then how does Tomi Lahren have a large audience? Let's be honest. Call it like it is. https://twitter.com/TomiLahren/status/951727859814490112 …
Lahren, 25, seems to take pleasure in provoking outrage, dating back to her time creating videos for the Glenn Beck-led outlet, The Blaze. In the past, she has racked up headlines and video views by going after singer Beyoncé and football player Colin Kaepernick.
In fact, in the wake of criticism over her "shithole" tweet, she tried to tie the controversy to Kaepernick's peaceful protest in which he kneeled during the national anthem before NFL games.
"All these leftist pearl clutchers are so upset President Trump referred to some 'shithole' countries while they’ve spent the last 2 years+ telling us the USA is a shithole country not worth standing for. Please. Get over yourselves," she tweeted after her initial shithole defense.
Trump, meanwhile, seemingly attempted to walk back his shithole comments, or, rather, deny they happened.
"Never said anything derogatory about Haitians other than Haiti is, obviously, a very poor and troubled country," Trump tweeted. "Never said 'take them out.' Made up by Dems."
No word yet on whether Lahren will follow Trump's lead and walk back her remarks, too.
President Donald Trump’s already infamous “shithole” comment is among several remarks the commander-in-chief has made that have energized white supremacists, rights groups fear.
Trump made the comment Thursday in the context of asking why America should accept more immigrants from Haiti and Africa—instead of places like Norway—while discussing a bipartisan immigration deal with lawmakers. The remark reinvigorated accusations that Trump is a racist, and it was embraced online by white supremacists David Duke and Richard Spencer.
The director of the ADL’s Center on Extremism, Oren Segal, told Newsweek that such Trump remarks are “the engine that fuels white supremacy” in America.
“You have white supremacists like Andrew Anglin calling Trump’s words ‘encouraging and refreshing,’” Segal said, referring to the editor of Daily Stormer, a fringe, anti-Semitic conspiracy website that serves as a homepage for young, disaffected white men. Segal said that when Trump makes racially charged remarks, it gives a signal to isolated and hateful people that their views are normal and are “gaining a foothold in this country,” even if that might not be the case.
The Southern Poverty Law Center noted in a 2016 report that “in the ten days following the election [of Trump], there were almost 900 reports of harassment and intimidation from across the nation.” Trump’s campaign “energized the radical right,” it said, helping to fuel a number of white nationalist rallies like the one held in Charlottesville, Virginia in August.
Trump was criticized heavily for his reaction to that chaotic rally, which led to the death of Heather Heyer, an antiracist activist. The president appeared to give a pass to the white supremacists who marched that day, saying of their clash with counterdemonstrators that there were "some very fine people on both sides.” White supremacists have subsequently been attached to a number of murders and an attempted terrorist attack. They also have amplified their violent rhetoric, including threatening Jews with potential violence, and have called James Fields, the man accused of murdering Heyer, a “prisoner of war.”
Spencer, who in an apparent nod to the president’s remarks put the Norwegian flag in his Twitter handle, complimented Trump for focusing on immigration from a race-based perspective. “It’s obviously all about race, and to their credit, liberals point out the obvious,” Spencer wrote on Twitter, referring to the blowback to the president's remark. On Twitter, Duke called what Trump said “perfect,” adding that the president "spoke Blunt, hard truth that makes PERFECT TRUTH! So, Mr. Prez -ACT ON IT - DON'T CAVE IN!”
ther white supremacists also piped in to support the president’s words on social media. Mike “Enoch” Peinovich, who helped lead the rally in Charlottesville, wrote on Twitter that “millions of white people are asking themselves today why indeed do we have to accept immigrants from shitholes?” He implied that Trump's words had helped to push forward a white nationalist agenda.
Daryle Jenkins, executive director of One People’s Project, a civil rights group that monitors far-right figures, told Newsweek he felt that Trump had made a serious political miscalculation by embracing the type of rhetoric frequently espoused by white supremacists. “His administration is on borrowed time and so is the Republican Party,” Jenkins said of Trump’s comments, referring to the desire of people of color to vote in the 2018 midterm elections. “People have had their fill of this rhetoric and I think we’re going to see that come November.”
On Fox News, where hosts like Tucker Carlson typically voice uncritical support for the president, and where white supremacist rhetoric is also bandied about on occasion, Jenkins’s warnings about potential electoral blowback didn’t seem to be much of a concern.
“I don’t understand what the sin is,” Carlson said of Trump’s remarks.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Friday confirmed media reports that President the rich asshole disparaged several nations as “shithole countries” in a private meeting with lawmakers about immigration reform.
At a press conference, Durbin, who was the only Democrat at a Thursday meeting at the White House, said that the rich asshole used “hate-filled, vile and racist” language to describe immigrants from poor countries.
“I cannot believe in this history of the White House, in that Oval Office, any president has ever spoken the words that I personally heard our president speak yesterday,” Durbin said.
A second senator, Arizona Republican Jeff Flake, who has frequently tangled with the rich asshole, tweeted that other senators meeting with the rich asshole had relayed the rich asshole’s remarks to him.
“The words used by the President, as related to me directly following the meeting by those in attendance, were not ‘tough,’ they were abhorrent and repulsive,” Flake tweeted.
None of the other Republican lawmakers who were present in the meeting responded to requests for comment, however, and GOP leadership has so far not weighed in.
Durbin said he personally heard the rich asshole use the disparaging comments and that Graham “spoke up” and rebuked the president at the time.
“My colleague [Graham] spoke up and made a direct comment on what the president said,” Durbin said, according to MSNBC. “For him to confront the president as he did, literally sitting next to him, took extraordinary political courage and I respect him for it."
The White House initially declined to dispute a story, first published in The Washington Post, that the rich asshole had complained about restoring protected status for immigrants from “shithole countries” like Haiti, El Salvador and some in Africa.
the rich asshole also reportedly said that Haitians should be removed from any immigration deal offering protected status to countries that lawmakers have targeted for special treatment.
But after anchors on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” — a show the rich asshole is known to watch early in the morning — said that the president should “clarify” his comments, the rich asshole issued a denial over Twitter.
“The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used,” the rich asshole tweeted, referring to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. “What was really tough was the outlandish proposal made — a big setback for DACA!”
“Never said anything derogatory about Haitians other than Haiti is, obviously, a very poor and troubled country,” he added. “Never said ‘take them out.’ Made up by Dems. I have a wonderful relationship with Haitians. Probably should record future meetings — unfortunately, no trust!”
But Durbin directly contradicted the rich asshole.
“You’ve seen the comments in the press,” Durbin said. “I’ve not seen one of them that’s inaccurate. To no surprise, the president started tweeting this morning, denying that he used those words. It is not true. He said these hate-filled things, and he said them repeatedly.”
Flake has little to lose by firing on the rich asshole; the Arizona Republican announced he was not running for reelection as the rich asshole signaled support for his possible primary challengers.
The other GOP lawmakers tearing into the rich asshole over his remarks were generally either frequent opponents of the rich asshole who, like Flake, are retiring from office. Others are Republicans running in districts where ties to the rich asshole could be a problem in the 2018 midterm elections.
Reps. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.), Mia Love (R-Utah), Carlos Curbello (R-Fla.) and Erik Paulsen (R-Minn.) — each a target for Democrats — all denounced the president.
Love’s remarks were particularly stinging, as the Utah Republican’s parents came to the United States from Haiti.
“The President must apologize to both the American people and the nations he so wantonly maligned,” Love said.
While GOP leaders have yet to weigh in on the controversy, Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is likely to get asked about it at a press conference with a political reporter in Milwaukee scheduled for midday Friday.
The White House did not respond to multiple requests for a comment from The Hill and seemed to be hunkering down in hopes that the controversy blows over.
On Friday, the White House released a statement lauding China for curbing trade with North Korea and officials were preparing to release the president’s decision on whether he would re-certify Iran's compliance with the Obama-era nuclear deal.
the rich asshole appeared at a ceremony just before noon to commemorate Monday’s holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr. As the rich asshole exited the ceremony, reporters peppered him with questions, with one member of the press asking twice if he was “a racist.”
Blowback from Democrats over the remarks has been unequivocal, with lawmakers denouncing the president.
“We now know that we have in the White House someone who could lead the Ku Klux Klan in the United States of America,” Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.) said on MSNBC.
President the rich asshole’s inflammatory remarks against immigrants from a host of developing-world nations have sparked outrage amid talks on the fate of Dreamers just as lawmakers from both parties were claiming progress on a hard-fought deal.
But supporters of the immigration package say the deeper threat to an agreement is not the president, but the conservatives in both the White House and Congress fighting to kill the deal before it can pick up steam –– an effort they’re calling “the Stephen Miller ambush,” referencing a top White House aide.
The leading negotiators on an immigration package — Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) — were invited to the White House Thursday to huddle with the rich asshole on their emerging agreement to combine Dreamer protections with tougher border security and new restrictions on immigration.
They were reportedly surprised to find a handful of Republican lawmakers joining the meeting, including Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.), as well as Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), all immigration hard-liners who are opposed to the Graham-Durbin framework, which they deem too soft on enforcement.
“Graham and Durbin expect to have a meeting, they show up and there’s this anti-immigrant cast of characters there. And that was obviously designed by Stephen Miller to try to kill the deal,” said a senior Democratic aide.
There’s no love lost between immigration reform advocates and Miller, a senior advisor to the rich asshole long known for his tough approach to immigration policy. As an aide to former Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), now the rich asshole’s Attorney General, Miller built a reputation on Capitol Hill as a staunch opponent of any effort to provide legal protections for those living in the country illegally. He’s also the author of a White House memo demanding a host of enforcement provisions as part of any agreement to protect those eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, an Obama-era initiative providing temporary benefits to those brought to the country illegally as kids. the rich asshole had dismantled the program in September but is urging Congress to enact a legislative fix. He set a deadline of March 5.
Amid Thursday’s meeting, the rich asshole allegedly spurned a bipartisan effort to allow new immigrants –– even in reduced numbers –– from Africa, Haiti and El Salvador, characterizing them as “shithole countries.” The comments sparked an immediate outcry from lawmakers in both parties and has consumed much of the media’s attention over the last 36 hours.
But the more damaging development to come from the meeting, the aide said, “was the Stephen Miller ambush.”
“Everyone expects the rich asshole to say stupid things, and obviously this is a new low,” the aide said.
“But I think the more unhelpful thing is that Stephen Miller is feeling empowered and is apparently running the White House in terms of immigration policy, and has the ability to create this ambush situation.”
The White House on Friday rejected that narrative, saying the rich asshole had requested all the participants at the White House meeting. The president first spoke directly to Graham and Durbin by phone on Thursday, inviting them to the Oval Office later in the day to discuss their DACA proposal, according to a senior White House official. Afterwards, he asked his staff to “get Cotton and Purdue to come because they represent different viewpoints,” the official said.
“And then he called Kevin McCarthy and he said, ‘I want some House folks to come as well.’ And then they picked up the conversation in the Oval Office,” the official said. “I couldn’t tell you if Lindsey Graham and Dick Durbin knew who was going to be in the meeting when they walked in. But the president definitely invited them.
“If they were surprised then they were surprised.”
Also attending the meeting were Rep. Mario Diaz Balart (R-Fla.), a south Florida immigration reform advocate, and other members of the White House team, including Miller, Chief of Staff John Kelly, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and her acting chief of staff, Chad Wolf.
The offices of Durbin and Graham did not respond to requests for comment Friday.
The meeting came at a crucial time in the debate over the future of DACA. Both sides say they want to secure protections for the almost 800,000 immigrants who have benefitted from the program, but the debate has become entangled in sharp disagreements over the scope of the new immigration restrictions being pushed by the rich asshole and conservatives on Capitol Hill.
The Graham-Durbin proposal attempts to thread the needle, coupling the DACA protections with new funding for border security as well as efforts to rein in family migration and scale back the diversity visa program –– a four-tier approach demanded by the rich asshole. But the proposal has done little to appease conservatives. Cotton has called the Graham-Durbin proposal “a joke,” and the rich asshole this week also rejected the package.
“There was a deal proposed that didn’t meet our criteria, that didn’t really make the kind of progress on these four topics that we’re looking to make some sort of negotiation on,” the White House official said.
Durbin, undeterred, is vowing to push ahead with his proposal, which he and Graham plan to unveil next week, challenging GOP leaders to consider it.
“If the Republican leadership has a better alternative, bring it forward,” he told MSNBC on Friday. “If they don’t, for goodness sakes, give us a vote.”
He said he’d be calling colleagues in both parties “begging” for their support.
Yet Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said he won’t consider any bill that doesn't have the rich asshole's support. And the opponents of the bill are expecting him to follow through. Perdue laughed when asked if there’s a DACA deal.
“They may have an agreement among themselves,” he said. “There's no agreement with the president ... so there's no deal yet.”
Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, a progressive pro-immigration advocacy group, accused Miller, Cotton and Goodlatte of conspiring to undermine any bipartisan DACA fix.
“They want to derail and defeat anything that helps Dreamers," he said, adding that a competing House bill introduced by Goodlatte “was designed and primed to destabilize and undercut the bipartisan deal.”
That bill, co-authored by Reps. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), Michael McCaul(R-Texas) and Martha McSally (R-Ariz.), shares many of its enforcement provisions with Miller's White House memo.
Labrador told reporters Wednesday that the bill could garner the necessary votes to pass the House, especially in the wake of the Republican Conference’s successful passage of tax reform, if Republican leadership puts its weight behind it.
“[Leadership] should put it on the floor,” said Labrador. “Their job now is to help us whip the Conference to make sure this happens. That’s the only thing that could unify the Republican Conference.
“I think we could for sure get 218 Republicans,” he added.
Others say that’s quite unlikely.
“You’re not getting 218 [votes], that’s not happening,” said one Republican aide with knowledge of the talks. The aide said the bill is too heavy on enforcement provisions to and doesn't give deportation relief to enough people to win 218 GOP votes.
“[Goodlatte] will say he didn’t put in the kitchen sink, which is technically correct, but it was pretty close,” said the aide.
Even if the Goodlatte bill does get through the House, it’s unlikely to pick off the necessary nine Democrats to pass the Senate.
CNN's Erin Burnett (left), Urban Radio's April Ryan (middle) and the rich asshole evangelical board member Pastor Mark Burns (right). Image via screengrab.
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When a member of some rich asshole’s evangelical board tried to offer a biblical defense for the president’s comments about brown and black nations being “sh*thole countries,” a CNN host and panelist immediately struck him down.
“I’ve grown up in church so let’s be clear!” Ryan responded, which drew a “praise God” from Burns.
“A man who does not take care of his own home, his own home, their own people, is worse than an infidel,” the televangelist said, paraphrasing the Bible verse. “We have somehow forgotten that in America.”
At the mention of scripture, however, Ryan and Burns began talking over one another, the former mentioning the famous “love thy neighbor as thyself” verse.
“What you just were quoting was about the government,” Nelson said. “We’re talking about the people coming over. What you’re basically saying is if you come from an s-hole country that you’re an s-hole person. That’s not correct.”
“This country is filled with people who came from terrible countries, terrible governments and they fled here and they came here,” the analyst continued. “That’s the exact kind of people I think a pastor would be saying, we would want them to come to the country, and they’ve been major contributors to this country.”
Burns admitted that as a church official, his job is to help the poor and homeless.
“But don’t let them into your home, God forbid,” Burnett retorted.
Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), the former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, did not mince words during a Friday evening appearance on MSNBC’s “All In.”
Guest anchor Joy Reid, introducing President some rich asshole’s “sh*thole” scandal, noted “so far the only person who’s given a full account of what the president said yesterday is the one Democrat who was present, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, leading advocate for ‘dreamers’ and other immigrant groups.”
Reid a played video of Sen. Durbin recounting President the rich asshole’s comments.
“Your thought, Congresswoman?” Reid asked.
“I have called him what I know him to be for a long time,” Rep. Waters replied. “Remember some time ago I called him a scumbag. I’ve called him a racist. Deplorable. Despicable.”
“Added to what others are calling him, a moron, ignorant, on and on and on,” Rep. Waters reminded.
“The United States of America is represented by the most despicable human being that could possibly ever walk the earth,” Waters suggested.
“What more do we need to see or hear from this racist man?” Rep. Waters asked. “And for all of those Republicans on the other side who stand with him, who claimed to have been patriotic, they are not patriotic. They are weaklings with not the guts to stand up, or they join him as racists.”
“And so, I have known this, and I’ve called for his impeachment over and over again,” Rep. Waters reminded.
“This man has obstructed justice right before our very eyes,” Waters charged. “I simply believe that not only has he colluded, and of course he has obstructed justice, but his character is such that the United States and the citizens of this country, rather, should not be willing to tolerate.”
Reid also asked about Speaker Paul Ryan’s comments about President.
“Well, evidently he is not a real leader,” Waters concluded. “And I wish I could say he didn’t have the courage of his convictions, because I don’t know if he has any.”
“But I know this: history will not be kind to him, to these Republicans, and to those who are basically standing by him, embracing him. As far as I’m concerned, they’re confirming that they’re just as bad as he is,” Waters explained. “He’s not doing his job, we need to get rid of him also.”
Reid also asked if Congresswoman Waters would be attending the rich asshole’s State of the Union address.
“Oh no. You know, I didn’t go to the inauguration, I didn’t go to the joint-session that was held after that,” Congresswoman Waters replied. “I don’t intend to go to this one.”
“What does he have to say that I would be interested in? I don’t trust him, I don’t appreciate him and I wouldn’t waste my time sitting in that house listening to what he has to say,” Waters explained. “He does not deserve my attention.”
Lewandowski then tried to distract Cuomo’s audience by saying the backlash against the president was about his profanity, not his racism.
“It was the analogy, okay? “It was, I don’t want brown people here, why do we have to have all these brown people, why can’t we have more people from Norway?” Cuomo noted.
“I want this, do you see what I’m pointing at? I’m pointing at my heart, I want heart,” Cuomo noted. “You want people who come here with the love in their heart for this country and for opportunity.”
Speaker Paul Ryan on Friday afternoon broke his silence and condemned President the rich asshole's remark about "sh*thole countries" from a day earlier.
The Wisconsin Republican was asked about the remark during a Q&A event at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. He said that the first thing that came to mind is it's "very unfortunate" and "unhelpful."
"I thought about my own family," he said, describing his Irish immigrant relatives who came to the U.S. on what he said were called "coffin ships" and began working the railroads. Eventually, he said, they opened a farm in Wisconsin after they raised enough money.
"It's a beautiful story of America," he said. "I see this as a thing to celebrate and I think it's a big part of our strength."
some rich asshole issued a denial Friday about using that language in a Thursday Oval Office meeting where he reportedly described Haiti, El Salvador and African nations as "sh*thole countries." The White House meeting on immigration included a bipartisan group of senators. After The Washington Post first reported some rich asshole's remarks, later confirmed by CBS News' Nancy Cordes, the White House did not deny the comment in a statement.
While other Republicans have condemned the president's remarks, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, has not yet issued a response.
Ryan reiterated that he wants to craft a legislative solution to protect so-called "Dreamers" and make the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program permanent. But he said he wants it to be part of a deal on border security.
The speaker clarified that the immigration legislation will not be part of a government funding package that Congress will need to pass and that it'll be voted on separately. As a result, Ryan said he doubts there will be a government shutdown.
Alisha Laventure, the daughter of Haitian immigrants and a TV news anchor in Dallas, delivered a powerful rebuttal to President the rich asshole’s infamous comments in an Oval Office meeting on Thursday. In the meeting, the rich asshole reportedly questioned why the United States would provide protections for people in Haiti and African nations, calling them “shithole countries.”
On Friday, Laventure offered a very personal response, saying that she “sat up until 3 a.m. trying to figure how to address this.” She recounted her parents’ journey from Haiti and their experience in the United States. “They busted their butts. And when you look at what they’ve managed to accomplish, there is no denying they are rock stars,” Laventure said.
Then she laid into the rich asshole.
Enough is enough! If the head of any corporation said what the president said yesterday, that person would be fired.
Why should we accept any less from the President of the United States of America?A country, by the way, that’s played a hand in the poverty Haiti and other nations face today.
We have a right and a responsibility to hold the president to a higher standard.
His rhetoric falls far from it.
If my job is to report the truth – the truth is, what the president said was hurtful. It was mean. And to be blunt — it was racist.
If you’re willing to let this language fly, you’re part of the problem.
Elected officials — that includes you.
Watch Laventure’s whole commentary.
While Laventure encouraged elected officials to denounce the rich asshole, some Republican officials are aggressively defending him.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY ADMINISTRATOR SCOTT PRUITT TESTIFIES BEFORE THE HOUSE ENERGY AND COMMERCE COMMITTEE. (CREDIT: PETE MAROVICH/GETTY IMAGES)
In a series of tweets on Thursday night, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt cheered his agency’s year-long effort to stall or repeal numerous regulations, arguing that it will save the American public $300 million in regulatory costs.
Pruitt’s tweet fails to mention two important things, however. First, the American public likely won’t see any of those savings, because those regulatory costs are shouldered by industry. And second, the rich asshole administration’s regulatory rollbacks might save industry money, but they will likely result in widespread environmental and public health costs, which almost certainly will be shouldered by the American public.
Take, for instance, the Clean Power Plan — an Obama administration regulation that attempted to place the first-ever limits on carbon emissions from power plants. The rule has been a major target of Pruitt since his days as Oklahoma attorney general and, as EPA administrator, he has overseen its repeal. But even the rich asshole administration’s own math admits that the CPP would have had significant public health benefits, preventing as many as 4,500 premature deaths per year by 2030.
Complying with the rule, however, would have cost the coal industry by forcing power plants to switch from carbon-intensive sources of fuel like coal to less-carbon intensive sources like wind and solar. By repealing the rule — and potentially issuing a much weaker replacement — the EPA effectively trades public health benefits for industry savings.
Under Pruitt, the EPA has also begun reconsidering rules that limit how much mercury power plants can emit. This rule, known as the Mercury and Air Toxics Standard (MATS), was the culmination of more than two decades worth of work by the agency; in April, the rich asshole administration asked a federal court to delay arguments over the rule (which has been in place for two years and is currently being challenged a coalition of states and industry) while it considered its position. According to the EPA, the rule would prevent 11,000 premature deaths, 4,700 heart attacks, and 130,000 asthma attacks every year. But industry — especially the coal industry — has vocally opposed the rule, arguing that it imposes burdensome costs that lead to closures of coal-fired power plants (coal-fired power plants are by far the largest emitter of mercury into the air).
These are two rules where the EPA has already studied the measurable public health benefits of the regulation; there are countless other rules that have been rolled back, or put on pause, where exact figures don’t exist. In March, for instance, Pruitt rejected the recommendation of EPA scientists and decided to not issue a ban on chlorpyrifos, a widely-used insecticide that has been linked to brain damage. Along with brain damage, chlorpyrifos has been linked to a higher incidence of lung cancer in pesticide applicators who were regularly exposed to the chemical.
But the ban was vehemently opposed by the chemical industry, especially Dow Chemical — one of the primary manufacturers of chlorpyrifos. Andrew Liveris, Dow’s CEO, donated $1 million dollars to President some rich asshole’s inauguration, and met with Pruitt shortly before the administrator announced his decision not to ban the chemical.
In choosing not to ban the pesticide, Pruitt argued that it was important to bring “regulatory certainty” to agricultural producers that use the chemical. But critics have argued that more than regulatory certainty, Pruitt’s regulatory rollbacks illustrate how the agency has come to place the needs of industry over the EPA’s core mission of protecting public health and the environment. Throughout his first year as administrator, Pruitt has time and again argued that “regulators exist to give certainty to those that they regulate” — but that viewpoint suggests that Pruitt believes his job is to make things easier for industry rather than the American public.
“The only ‘certainty’ Scott Pruitt is providing Americans is that he is failing to protect their air, their water, or the health of their kids in his quest to do whatever the fossil fuel and chemical industries want,” John Coequyt, director of Sierra Club’s global climate policy, told ThinkProgress via email. “The damage that gutting vital air and water protections will do to our families and our health is incalculable.”
Environmental regulations place compliance costs on industry, but they also prevent those costs from being transferred to the American public in the form of increase illness, polluted air, and dirty water. Since the Clean Air Act first became law in 1970, it has created some $22 trillion in net economic benefits, from reductions in illness to improvements in the yield of some agricultural crops. If Pruitt is going to champion the regulatory savings of his actions, he should take responsibility for the loss of public health and environmental benefits, too.
CREDIT: PHOTO BY MICHAEL S. WILLIAMSON/THE WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES
Thursday morning, Walmart had a flashy announcement: Thanks to corporate tax cuts, it was giving its employees bonuses of up to $1,000. Walmart and President the rich asshole pointed to the announcement as proof that the corporate tax cuts are really a boon to working-class Americans.
Walmart employees are eligible for the $1,000 bonus only if they’ve worked at the company for 20 years. Most Walmart employees, of course, haven’t worked there that long. Those employees will receive a smaller bonus based on seniority. Walmart didn’t explain exactly how the sliding scale will work, but said the total value of the bonuses will be $400 million. Walmart has about 2.1 million employees, which works out to be an average bonus of about $190.
The one-time bonus Walmart announced this morning amounts to just over 2 percent of the total value of the tax cut to the company.
In fiscal year 2017, Walmart had pre-tax profits of about $20.5 billion and paid an effective federal tax rate of around 30 percent. With a new corporate tax rate of 21 percent, the corporate tax cut is worth at least $1.85 billion to Walmart every year. Since this cut is permanent, the true benefits to Walmart will grow much larger over time. But it’s safe to say that, over 10 years, this corporate tax cut will be worth over $18 billion to Walmart.
But now it appears the announcement was timed carefully to cover for thousands of unannounced layoffs.
Business Insider reports that today, Walmart is abruptly closing numerous Sam’s Clubs stores across the United States. In some cases “employees were not informed of the closures prior to showing up to work on Thursday” and “learned that their store would be closing when they found the store’s doors locked and a notice announcing the closure.”
Sam’s Club shutdown? Employees at this S Loop store tell me they showed up to work and were told store is closed effective today. Sign on door says same thing. Hearing other stores also affected. Waiting on answers from parent company, Walmart #khou11
Walmart confirmed the abrupt closings and offered an explanation of sorts on Twitter. “Closing clubs is never easy,” the company said through its verified corporate account.
Wow, a whole lot of @SamsClub locations shut down today while giving 0 notice to workers. That sounds like the management team alright. They are heartless people. I feel terrible for the thousands of people who just lost their jobs.
After a thorough review of our existing portfolio, we’ve decided to close a series of clubs and better align our locations with our strategy. Closing clubs is never easy and we’re committed to working with impacted members and associates through this transition.
Business Insider identified at least 68 stores across the country that closed today. Three of the stores are located in Hurricane ravaged Puerto Rico. More stores are slated to be closed in the coming days.
Walmart’s behavior is part of a pattern of corporate misdirection related to the GOP tax cuts. AT&T and Comcast both announced bonuses for their employees while also laying off thousands.
While the rich asshole talks about a “jobs boom,” job growth was slower in 2017than in any year since 2010.
In the video above, watch how Walmart soaks up praise on national TV, while local news chronicled the devastation of mass layoffs.
the rich asshole reportedly paid adult film star not to speak out about alleged sexual encounter
Stephanie Clifford was reportedly paid $130,000 right before the election.
PRESIDENT SOME RICH ASSHOLE. CREDIT: ASAHI SHIMBUN VIA GETTY IMAGES
One of the rich asshole Organization’s top lawyers reportedly paid an adult film star $130,000 to stop her from publicly discussing an alleged sexual encounter with some rich asshole, who was running for president at the time of the reported payment.
Stephanie Clifford, also known by her stage name, Stormy Daniels, received the payment one month before the 2016 election, sources familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal. The settlement was organized by Michael Cohen, one of the rich asshole Organization’s top attorneys, who reportedly negotiated the payment after a nondisclosure agreement had been signed.
The pair are alleged to have met during a celebrity golf tournament at Lake Tahoe in 2006, a year after the rich asshole married his current wife, Melania. Both the White House and Cohen strongly denied that the alleged affair had ever taken place, with Cohen calling the claims “outlandish allegations.” Cohen also provided a statement to Buzzfeed that he said was signed by Stormy Daniels, denying reports of a sexual encounter with the rich asshole.
While the question of whether or not the rich asshole had a consensual affair with an adult film actress may be juicy gossip, it isn’t nearly as pressing as whether Clifford was paid by top the rich asshole lawyers to keep quiet (Clifford had reportedly previously discussed revealing her relationship on ABC’s Good Morning America.) What’s more, the reports fit into a larger pattern of the president denying alleged encounters — both consensual and non-consensual — and going as far as to smear those women and call them liars.
The examples are numerous, but the rich asshole has flatly denied them all. When he was asked about the accusations during the final presidential debate, the rich asshole said that the stories were “totally false” and that his accusers “want either fame or her [Hillary Clinton’s] campaign did it.” A month before the election he said that the “vicious claims” were fabricated and “preposterious, ludicrous, and defy truth, common sense and logic.”
the rich asshole’s surrogates have also adopted a “deny everything” approach when it comes to sexual misconduct allegations. When the AP interviewed former crew members of The Apprentice about the rich asshole’s alleged inappropriate behavior on set, then-campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks said that these “outlandish, unsubstantiated, and totally false claims fabricated by publicity hungry, opportunistic, disgruntled former employees, have no merit whatsoever.” When the White House was asked if all the women who had accused the rich asshole of sexual assault and harassment since 1980 were liars, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that yes, they were.
“We’ve been clear on that from the beginning and the president has spoken on it,” Sanders said.
The reported payment to Clifford would also not be the first time that the rich asshole has settled out of court with a woman in relation to allegations of sexual impropriety. In 1997, Jill Harth filed a sexual harassment suit against the rich asshole, claiming he made repeated unwanted sexual advances towards her while she was in Mar-a-Lago with her partner George Houraney. As part of a confidential settlement, Harth withdrew her suit.
the rich asshole’s former wife, Ivana the rich asshole, has also settled with the president after previously accusing him of rape. According to NBC News, Ivana the rich asshole needs permission from some rich asshole to speak about him.
IMMIGRANT ADVOCATES RALLY AGAINST THE RICH ASSHOLE ADMINISTRATION'S DECISION TO TERMINATE TEMPORARY PROTECTED STATUS FOR HAITIANS IN NOVEMBER 2017. CREDIT: TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
For members of tight-knit Haitian American communities across the United States, President some rich asshole’s description of their ancestral homeland as a “shithole” was neither surprising nor out of character for the man many are convinced is a racist.
“It’s sad and it’s shameful,” said a forlorn Gepsie Metellus, executive director of the Sant La Haitian Neighborhood Center in Miami, Florida. “That clearly was just another racist statement made by the president. I was not shocked because he’s made so many of them.”
Metellus was one of a handful of Haitian Americans who expressed anger and outrage during interviews with me on Friday, following news reports that the rich asshole uttered the profane comment to question why people from Haiti and other, unspecified African nations should be allowed to immigrate to the United States.
During a Thursday meeting with Congressional leaders to discuss immigration issues, the rich asshole responded to a question about immigration from Haiti and Africa by wondering aloud why the United States should allow “all these people from shithole countries” into the country. In the same meeting, the rich asshole said, according to news accounts quoting the meeting’s participants, that the nation should admit more people from countries such as Norway, which is overwhelmingly populated with white people.
Metellus said she was in her office when news of the rich asshole’s comments came on television and some staffers brought it to her attention. In that moment, she was nonplussed. “I just thought, the rich asshole is at it again,” she said. “So this just what he said now. Nothing new there.”
But as the evening wore on, she became increasingly dispirited as media accounts of the comment circulated within her Miami community. People were talking more and more about it — even people from outside the country were consumed by it, Metellus said.
“For a man whose slogan is to make America great, he’s making the world shake its head and say, how unfortunate for America to have a racist as president,” she said.
Rachel Decoste, a Haitian Canadian who lives in Washington, D.C. and consults on immigration issues, told me that the timing of the rich asshole’s comment — the news broke the night before the eighth anniversary of a deadly earthquake that killed an estimated 300,000 people and drew global attention to the impoverished island nation — was more hurtful than what he actually said.
“This is a day that the community looks forward to with a lot of trepidation and mixed feelings,” Decoste said. “So when I saw that Haiti was trending on Twitter, my first thought was, please don’t let them have another earthquake. Then I saw that it was the president’s comments, I was deflated, disappointed, and just really in disbelief that he would say something like that at a time like this.”
Of course, Decoste added, she doubted the disparaging comment was timed to the anniversary of the Haitian earthquake or the upcoming weekend’s commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. “I seriously doubt he’s that aware of what the significance of the dates are,” she said. “I think his ignorance is the problem. If there’s anything to be done about what he said, it would be good for some sort of education exercise that informed him about the reality of the world outside his head.”
U.S. Rep. Mia Love (R-UT), the daughter of Haitian immigrants, is one of those elected officials. She demanded the rich asshole apologize for his comment. While stopping short of calling him a racist, Love characterized his comment as “unkind, divisive and elitist.”
In Philadelphia, Numa St. Louis, a Haitian American who serves as district representative for Rep. Dwight Evans (D-PA), said he was in a meeting when he heard about the rich asshole’s disparagement of his ancestral home.
“My phone blew up with comment,” St. Louis told me. “People were outraged, but I was not surprised. It just confirmed what many of us already knew. Fact of the matter, the Haitian community is just the latest victim of this racist outlook that the president holds toward people who aren’t white.”
In Miami, Haitian American writer and activist France Francois couldn’t contain her outrage, so she took to Instagram to share it with her followers. In pointed remarks that linked the rich asshole’s comment with the devastation of the earthquake, Francois posed a philosophical question to the rich asshole: “What makes a country a #shithole? Is it how many resources countries like yours were able to extract from it to establish your riches?”
Despite the clock-like predictability of the rich asshole’s racist comments, his hateful description of Haiti is the lesser of the problems within his administration. The larger concern for Haitian Americans and others threatened by the rich asshole is that he has the potential to follow up on whatever terrible threats come out of his potty mouth — such as ending temporary protected status for Haitians and other immigrants — to threaten the lives of so many people. Hearing vile things the rich asshole says may be hard to ignore, but don’t turn a blind eye to how he acts on those feelings.
During an interview with Fox News’ Harris Faulkner on Friday afternoon, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) dismissed racist remarks by President the rich asshole as “a distraction” and criticized a Democratic senator, Dick Durbin, for informing the public about them in the first place.
Faulkner asked Cassidy about whether there’s “an etiquette” and “an honor” in “meeting privately and not discussing what was talked about. And while [what the rich asshole said] may be incendiary, I want to get your take on that.”
Faulker was referring to the meeting with lawmakers on Thursday in which the rich asshole called African nations “shithole countries” — comments that were later shared by people in the room with the Washington Post. Durbin spoke with reporters on Friday about the rich asshole’s “vile and racist” remarks and confirmed the Post’s account. Additional confirmation come from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who on Friday afternoon released a statement saying he “appreciate[s] Senator Durbin’s statements.”
Cassidy indicated he agreed with Faulker’s suggestion about there being something problematic with Durbin’s move to inform the American public about racist remarks made by their president.
“I totally agree with you,” Cassidy said. “It undermines trust going forward. Whatever was or was not said, if you disagree with what the fellow or the gal said, then you disagree with them, publicly then. But to go out and kind of, ah, report it, is going to undermine trust — not just for this issue, but for further issues.”
“It’s just a rule of human contact, whether it’s a marriage or a friendship or a political negotiation,” he added.
Unlike a private conversation between two friends, the president has no reason to expect confidentiality when making racist comments around public officials.
Cassidy isn’t the only Republican senator suggesting Durbin somehow acted in bad faith. Friday afternoon, Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AK) and David Perdue (R-GA) released a statement saying “regrettably, it seems that not everyone is committed to negotiating in good faith.”
While Cotton and Perdue stop short of denying that the rich asshole made racist comments, they add, “In regards to Senator Durbin’s accusation, we do not recall the President saying these comments specifically but what he did call out was the imbalance in our current immigration system.”
Ohio Gov. John Kasich tried to sidestep a question about President some rich asshole’s racist insult about “sh*thole” countries, but MSNBC’s Hallie Jackson made him squirm.
The Ohio Republican has urged Congress to allow residents protected under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program to remain in the U.S., and he complained the president was needlessly “dividing people” with his anti-immigrant rhetoric.
But when pressed, Kasich refused to say the rich asshole was racist.
“I have two quick questions for you,” Jackson said. “No. 1, given the conversation we are having on immigration and given the conversation about the president’s comment on S-hole countries –”
Kasich broke in, and either incorrectly guessed where Jackson was headed — or tried to head off her question by trying to change the subject.
“I have no idea what I’m doing in the future, Hallie,” he said. “I’m sorry.
“I didn’t even ask about 2020,” Jackson said, and Kasich tried unsuccessfully to steer her back toward the topic. “No, I was going to ask you about something else, the comments Dick Durbin said (Friday) with the comments being racist. Michael Steele was on the show, someone you know from the RNC, he definitively believes that the president is racist. Do you call some rich asshole is racist?”
The smile on Kasich’s face faded away, and he adopted a look of troubled concern.
“I don’t call names,” said Kasich, who once apologized to a police officer he repeatedly called an “idiot” for issuing him a ticket. “I thought the comments were inappropriate. Charlottesville, they were inappropriate.”
“Were they racist?” Jackson asked, and Kasich again said he doesn’t call names. “It’s a category, not a name, respectfully, sir.”
“No, it’s a name, it’s a name,” Kasich insisted, and then snapped at Jackson. “Look, Hallie, I have said what I have to say, I’m not saying anymore. Appreciate you letting me come on.”
Jackson threw Kasich a bone, and asked the question he was hoping she would.
“I will ask about 2020, does this make you want to run?” she said. “You brought it up.”
The amiable look came back to Kasich’s face, and he chuckled with relief.
“Hallie, I have no idea what the future is going to bring, and I believe in that old proverb, the Lord will fulfill the promise of my life,” he said. “I want to help build the country, I want to be a positive force in the country, and I hope I’m being one.”
Amid furor over racist comments he made on Thursday, President the rich asshole decided to forge ahead on Friday with an event to honor Martin Luther King Jr.
After signing a proclamation honoring King — the federal holiday honoring him is next Monday — the rich asshole shook hands with attendees and exited the room. But he couldn’t get out before April Ryan, Washington bureau chief for the American Urban Radio Networks, repeatedly asked him why he called African countries “shitholes” during a meeting with lawmakers on Thursday.
“Mr. President, will you give an apology for the statement yesterday?” she asked. “Mr. President, are you a racist? Mr. President, will you respond to these serious questions about your statement, sir?
the rich asshole ignored her.
Even though White House staff has acknowledged that the rich asshole did in fact call African countries “shitholes,” the rich asshole himself belatedly denied he said any such thing on Twitter on Friday morning shortly after his favorite show, Fox & Friends, urged him to do so.
It used to be more controversial to call the president racist. Last fall, the rich asshole administration feuded with ESPN anchor Jamele Hill after she described the rich asshole as a “white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists” — with Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders at one point calling for her job.
As the rich asshole wades through the fallout from his reported comments that Haiti and several African states are "shithole countries," a story published Friday by NBC News claims that on two separate instances, the rich asshole made prejudiced assumptions about White House visitors because of their ethnicity.
In a meeting last fall, the president apparently said that a female intelligence expert should be assisting the U.S. in its negotiations with North Korea purely because of her Korean heritage, NBC News reported. The unnamed woman was briefing the president about a hostage situation in Pakistan, NBC News explained, when the president asked her, "Where are you from?" Despite her response of "Manhattan," the president apparently kept digging and inquired about the origins of "[her] people" until she told mentioned that her parents were from Korea.
the rich asshole then asked aloud why "the pretty Korean lady" wasn't working on the North Korean nuclear crisis, NBC News reported, citing "two officials with direct knowledge of the exchange."
In the second instance, NBC News detailed how the rich asshole was reportedly surprised to learn in a meeting last March that several black members of Congress were not in fact personally acquainted with Ben Carson, the secretary of housing and urban development and the only black member of the rich asshole's Cabinet:
the rich asshole asked the elected officials if they knew just one member of his incoming cabinet — Ben Carson — according to two people in the room.
None of the lawmakers knew Carson, and the rich asshole found that surprising, the attendees said.
During that same meeting, a member relayed to the rich asshole that potential welfare cuts would harm her constituents, "not all of whom are black." The president replied, "Really? Then what are they?" [NBC News]
President the rich asshole's lawyer might have arranged a $130,000 payment to former adult film star Stephanie "Stormy Daniels" Clifford during the campaign to ensure she not speak publicly about an alleged sexual encounter with the president at a Lake Tahoe golf tournament in 2006, The Wall Street Journal reports based on conversations with people familiar with the alleged dealing.
The encounter was reportedly consensual, although another adult film star, Jessica Drake, claimed in October 2016 that the rich asshole kissed her and two other women without consent in a suite at the same tournament. the rich asshole notably married Melania the rich asshole in 2005.Clifford, 38, had reportedly agreed to be paid $150,000 by the National Enquirer for the story about the affair, although it was not ultimately published. "Rumors that I have received hush money from some rich asshole are completely false," she wrote in a statement to the Journal. the rich asshole's lawyer, Michael Cohen, said: "This is now the second time that you are raising outlandish allegations against my client. You have attempted to perpetuate this false narrative for over a year; a narrative that has been consistently denied by all parties since at least 2011." Read the full allegations at The Wall Street Journal.Jeva Lange
Ohio Gov. John Kasich tried to sidestep a question about President some rich asshole’s racist insult about “sh*thole” countries, but MSNBC’s Hallie Jackson made him squirm.
The Ohio Republican has urged Congress to allow residents protected under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program to remain in the U.S., and he complained the president was needlessly “dividing people” with his anti-immigrant rhetoric.
But when pressed, Kasich refused to say the rich asshole was racist.
“I have two quick questions for you,” Jackson said. “No. 1, given the conversation we are having on immigration and given the conversation about the president’s comment on S-hole countries –”
Kasich broke in, and either incorrectly guessed where Jackson was headed — or tried to head off her question by trying to change the subject.
“I have no idea what I’m doing in the future, Hallie,” he said. “I’m sorry.
“I didn’t even ask about 2020,” Jackson said, and Kasich tried unsuccessfully to steer her back toward the topic. “No, I was going to ask you about something else, the comments Dick Durbin said (Friday) with the comments being racist. Michael Steele was on the show, someone you know from the RNC, he definitively believes that the president is racist. Do you call some rich asshole is racist?”
The smile on Kasich’s face faded away, and he adopted a look of troubled concern.
“I don’t call names,” said Kasich, who once apologized to a police officer he repeatedly called an “idiot” for issuing him a ticket. “I thought the comments were inappropriate. Charlottesville, they were inappropriate.”
“Were they racist?” Jackson asked, and Kasich again said he doesn’t call names. “It’s a category, not a name, respectfully, sir.”
“No, it’s a name, it’s a name,” Kasich insisted, and then snapped at Jackson. “Look, Hallie, I have said what I have to say, I’m not saying anymore. Appreciate you letting me come on.”
Jackson threw Kasich a bone, and asked the question he was hoping she would.
“I will ask about 2020, does this make you want to run?” she said. “You brought it up.”
The amiable look came back to Kasich’s face, and he chuckled with relief.
“Hallie, I have no idea what the future is going to bring, and I believe in that old proverb, the Lord will fulfill the promise of my life,” he said. “I want to help build the country, I want to be a positive force in the country, and I hope I’m being one.”
President some rich asshole met with a bipartisan group of senators Thursday, provocatively saying the United States should decline to admit immigrants from Haiti and African countries, or as he described them, “shithole countries.” For various good reasons, the horror has been so great that the media has spent countless hours debating the merits of the president’s comments, forcing legal departments to mull over decency laws.
Into Friday, the news cycle appeared to forget that the meeting was about immigration. But not immigrants. They are past the president’s racist comments. They have known the rich asshole’s intentions since he described some Mexicans as “rapists“, “criminals,” “drug dealers,” and “bad hombres.”
Now, immigrants just want the national debate and Congress to turn back to them. They hope that Congress will act on a measure offering permanent legal immigration protections through a must-pass spending bill to prevent a government shutdown on January 19.
“It’s very clear where [the rich asshole’s] intentions are,” Jonathan Jayes-Green, Co-Founder and Director of the activist group Undocublack Network, said on a press call Friday. “We just need action. We need to pass a clean DREAM Act. Most Americans are on our side.”
“We know what we’re dealing with: a racist administration,” Cristina Jimenez, Executive Director and Co-Founder of the advocacy group United We Dream, said on the same press call Friday. “This is why in this moment we don’t lose focus to push back explicitly against the attack against the Black community…and people of color. It’s a moment of moral reckoning for this country.”
For some immigrants, the termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program last September made clear that the rich asshole administration wants to put them at risk of deportation. The Obama-era DACA program provides temporary work authorization and deportation relief in two-year increments to certain immigrants brought to the country as children. After he phased out DACA, the rich asshole said he would give Congress until March 5, 2018 to find a permanent solution for this group of immigrants. At the time, the White House gave some beneficiaries whose DACA statuses expire before the March date one final chance to renew their statuses.
But since the rich asshole ended the DACA program in September, an average of 122 people have lost their DACA statuses. That’s because roughly 22,000 eligible DACA recipients were unable to successfully renew their DACA, some due to Hurricanes Irma and Harvey which affected hard-hit Texas and Florida. But after March 5, 2018, it’s expected that many more immigrants facing a DACA expiration would have to quit their jobs and be afraid that federal immigration authorities could knock on their doors.
“We heard yesterday from some rich asshole what he said was raw and unfiltered racism, which drove his presidential campaign and has been behind all his policies,” Jimenez said. She criticized the president for upholding policies and executive orders that have sought to exclude immigrants who have working legally for decades; to ban people from Muslim-majority countries abroad, and to terminate the DACA program.
For that reason, immigrants are putting pressure on congressional lawmakers who have been working together to include an immigration plan that includes permanent, legal protections for certain immigrants as part of a larger spending bill package. Democratic lawmakers are needed to help pass any spending bills to prevent a government shutdown. But Republican lawmakers and the president have added harsh elements that include border security enhancements and cuts to various legal immigration programs, making it hard to bargain with Democrats over the terms of a “clean” immigration bill.
This week the media was roiled by the revelation that the president of the United States argued against accepting immigrants from what he reportedly called “shithole countries” in Central America, Africa and the Caribbean, arguing instead for more immigrants from countries like Norway.
But as the nation struggled to define what constitutes overt white nationalism, the rich asshole’s cabinet continued to make drastic policy changes that will affect millions of Americans. Here’s what you might have missed.
Treasury Department makes it easier for banks to redline poor minority communities
During the 2016 election, the rich asshole famously asked minority voters “what do you have to lose?” in supporting his candidacy.
Now the Treasury Department, under the direction of Steven Mnuchin, is looking to change regulations to make it easier for banks to engage in redlining — a practice by which poor, often overwhelmingly minority communities were cut off from access to vital credit.
The department is seeking changes to the enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act, a bill passed in 1977 to help prevent redlining.
Community groups warn that changes to the law could prevent poor and minority communities from gaining access to loans while banks turn their attention to wealthier clients.
The EPA considers allowing teenage workers to handle dangerous chemicals
The Environmental Protection Agency is reportedly considering allowing minors to handle dangerous chemical materials while on the job. Yes, that’s minors with an “o” not miners with an “e.”
The EPA is currently weighing whether to roll back a series of 2015 regulations, including one rule that prohibited anyone under the age of 18 from working with dangerous pesticides.
The rule was based on the medical community’s warning that early exposure to chemicals in pesticides can lead to developmental issues and even cancer.
But the rich asshole administration could soon decide that individuals who aren’t old enough to drink or vote are in fact old enough to weigh those risks themselves.
The rich asshole administration allows states to add work requirements to Medicaid
FILE - In this Nov. 29, 2017 file photo, Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.Julio Cortez/AP
In a historic change for one of the nation’s largest entitlement programs, the rich asshole administration is now allowing states to radically alter the way they administer Medicaid — including allowing them to add work requirements for the first time ever.
New guidance issued Thursday by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will allow states to restrict their Medicaid programs to those who have a job, are in school or are participating in some kind of approved form of “community engagement.”
States would not be allowed to apply those new requirements to children, pregnant women, persons with disabilities or the elderly.
The state of Kentucky has already been given the green light to implement the new requirements and, amazingly, will be able to apply them retroactively to people already covered by the program.
the rich asshole renews his pledge to examine libel laws
the rich asshole once again has first amendment advocates concerned with a new pledge to re-examine U.S. laws around libel and defamation.
“We are going to take a strong look at our country’s libel laws, so that when somebody says something that is false and defamatory about someone, that person will have meaningful recourse in our courts,” the rich asshole told reporters during a cabinet meeting at the White House.
the rich asshole has repeatedly pledged to make America’s libel laws stricter — even as he repeatedly attacks and defames his detractors on social media with reckless abandon.
The latest call for stricter libel laws comes just days after the rich asshole’s personal lawyer filed suit against BuzzFeed over their decision to publish the infamous the rich asshole-Russia dossier, and less than a week after the release of an explosive book about the early days of the rich asshole administration infuriated the president and his allies.
Interior Department gives special carveout to Florida’s GOP governor in offshore drilling rule
Last week, the Interior Department was moving ahead with a controversial plan to allow offshore drilling in the U.S., despite the objections from local officials in coastal communities.
This week, the Interior Department decided to listen to one of those local officials — the one who just happens to be an ardent the rich asshole supporter.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced on Tuesday that he’d be reversing the decision for the state of Florida in response to concerns from Republican Governor Rick Scott.
“I support the governor’s position that Florida is unique and its coasts are heavily reliant on tourism as an economic driver,” Zinke said in a statement.
Other coastal state governors affected by the decision — most of them Democrats — immediately asked why their unique coastal communities didn’t warrant similar consideration, only to be met with deafening silence from the Interior Department.
Florida, a notorious swing state, has statewide elections for both its governorship and a U.S. Senate seat this year.
Several Republican lawmakers this week condemned President the rich asshole for a series of racist comments he made during a meeting in the Oval Office on Thursday, in which he disparaged immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador, and several African nations.
“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” the rich asshole reportedly asked the bipartisan group of senators, who had met with him to discuss an immigration deal. “Why do we need more Haitians? Take them out.”
The president then reportedly suggested that “the United States should instead bring more people from countries such as Norway” and said he would be “open to more immigrants from Asian countries because he felt that they help the United States economically,” according to the Washington Post.
Earlier on Thursday evening, a handful of conservative lawmakers, like Rep. Mia Love (R-UT), had pushed back against the rich asshole, calling on him to apologize for denigrating immigrants.
“The President’s comments are unkind, divisive, elitist, and fly in the face of our nation’s values,” Love wrote in a statement posted to her official Twitter account. “This behavior is unacceptable from the leader of our nation. My parents came from one of those countries but proudly took an oath of allegiance to the United States and took on the responsibilities of everything that being a citizen comes with. …That’s the American Dream.”
She added, “The President must apologize to both the American people and the nations he so wantonly maligned.”
Sen. Tim Scott (R-FL) was also critical of the rich asshole’s comments, tellingCNN in a statement,
If these comments are the president’s words they are disappointing to say the least. The American family was born from immigrants fleeing persecution and poverty and searching for a better future. Our strength lies in our diversity, including those who came here from Africa, the Caribbean and every other corner of the world. To deny these facts would be to ignore the brightest part of our history.
HATCH: “I look forward to getting a more detailed explanation regarding the President’s comments. Part of what makes America so special is that we welcome the best and brightest in the world, regardless of their country of origin.” #utpol
Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) did not explicitly call on the president to apologize, asking for the rich asshole to explain his comments instead.
“I look forward to getting a more detailed explanation regarding the President’s comments,” Hatch tweeted on Thursday. “Part of what makes America so special is that we welcome the best and brightest in the world, regardless of their country of origin.”
Florida Rep Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R) was especially critical of the president’s comments.
“[The president] needs to understand that lives are at stake when he makes such reckless comments,” Ros-Lehtinen told reporters. “The Statue of Liberty reads, ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,’ not ‘go back to your shithole.'”
.@wsvn: @POTUS needs to understand that lives are at stake when he makes such reckless comments. The Statue of Liberty reads, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," not "go back to your shithole."
In a series of tweets on Thursday night, she added, “The president calling #Haiti a ‘shithole country’ ignores the contributions thousands of Haitians have made to our #SoFla community and nation. Language like that shouldn’t be heard in locker rooms and it shouldn’t be heard in the White House. …No country deserves to be called a ‘shithole.’ The #USA stands for inclusion and opportunity, not condescension. Someone should tell @POTUS he’s the President and encourage him to start acting like it.”
The president calling #Haiti a "shithole country" ignores the contributions thousands of Haitians have made to our #SoFla community and nation. Language like that shouldn't be heard in locker rooms and it shouldn't be heard in the White House
The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used. What was really tough was the outlandish proposal made - a big setback for DACA!
Never said anything derogatory about Haitians other than Haiti is, obviously, a very poor and troubled country. Never said “take them out.” Made up by Dems. I have a wonderful relationship with Haitians. Probably should record future meetings - unfortunately, no trust!
That remarks caused a firestorm among Democrats, who condemned the clear racist overtones in the president’s comments. Among Republicans, reactions were mixed, with some criticizing the rich asshole’s comments and others jumping to defend his choice of words.
In response to the backlash, the president on Friday tweeted that reports of his “shithole” comments were false. He also claimed that Democrats had lied about what was said in the meeting.
“The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used. What was really tough was the outlandish proposal made – a big setback for DACA!” he tweeted. “…Never said anything derogatory about Haitians other than Haiti is, obviously, a very poor and troubled country. Never said “take them out.” Made up by Dems. I have a wonderful relationship with Haitians. Probably should record future meetings – unfortunately, no trust!”
Florida Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R) spoke out on Thursday night, asking the rich asshole to further explain his alleged comments.
“Under no circumstances is it acceptable to degrade, denigrate, or dehumanize #TPS immigrants,” he tweeted. “The White House must immediately explain the situation and leave no doubt regarding what was said and in what context.”
The men and women who have status under the TPS program are among the most humble and hard working in our country. They improve quality of life in our communities and many Americans depend on them to support family life.
Under no circumstances is it acceptable to degrade, denigrate, or dehumanize #TPS immigrants. The White House must immediately explain the situation and leave no doubt regarding what was said and in what context.
Virginia Rep. Barbara Comstock issued her own statement on Friday morning, addressing the rich asshole’s comments and pleading with her colleagues to remember President Ronald Reagan’s vision of a “shining city on a hill”, or open-door nation.
“I can’t defend what the President reportedly said,” she wrote. “We are all made in the image and likeness of God. The United States is a nation of immigrants, and our families and forbears have come from all over the world. This diversity is our strength and uniquely American. …What we need now is not division or discord, but finding a way we can come together and agree, as well as civilly disagree, as we tackle our diverse American challenges.”
White House spokesman Raj Shah issued a statement earlier on Thursday reinforcing the rich asshole’s supposed views on immigration. The statement did not directly address the president’s alleged “shithole” remarks.
“Certain Washington politicians choose to fight for foreign countries, but President the rich asshole will always fight for the American people,” he wrote. “…President the rich asshole is fighting for permanent solutions that make our country stronger by welcoming those who can contribute to our society, grow our economy and assimilate into our great nation. He will always reject temporary, weak and dangerous stopgap measures that threaten the lives of hardworking Americans, and undercut immigrants who seek a better life in the United States through a legal pathway.”
UPDATE, 2:05 p.m.: Friday afternoon, several more Republican members of Congress issued statements condemning President the rich asshole’s “shithole” comments.
During a WisPolitics Luncheon in Milwaukee, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) said that the remarks were “very unfortunate, unhelpful,” adding that immigration was “a big part of [the country’s] strength.”
Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) was more forceful in his condemnation, saying that the rich asshole “owes the people of Haiti and all of mankind an apology.”
“That is not the kind of statement the leader of the free world should make, and he ought to be ashamed of himself,” he said during an interview with POTUS SiriusXM radio. “If he did not make it, he needs to corroborate the facts and prove it and move forward.”
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) tweeted that the rich asshole’s comments were “highly inappropriate & out of bounds.”
These comments are highly inappropriate & out of bounds and could hurt efforts for a bipartisan immigration agreement. The President should not denigrate other countries.
Respect for the God-given dignity of every human being, no matter their race, ethnicity or other circumstances of their birth, is the essence of American patriotism. To believe otherwise is to oppose the very idea of America.
“Respect for the God-given dignity of every human being, no matter their race, ethnicity or other circumstances of their birth, is the essence of American patriotism. To believe otherwise is to oppose the very idea of America,” he tweeted. “People have come to this country from everywhere, and people from everywhere have made America great. Our immigration policy should reflect that truth, and our elected officials, including our President, should respect it.”
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) issued a statement on Friday as well, indirectly commenting on the rich asshole’s remarks.
“I’ve always believed that America is an idea, not defined by its people but by its ideals,” he wrote. “…Diversity has always been our strength, not our weakness. In reforming immigration we cannot lose those American Ideals.”
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