‘I’m going to put you on pause’: Joy Reid cuts off GOPer for suggesting Clinton Foundation murders Haitians
Joy Reid, Anushay Hossain, Jennifer Rubin, Stephanie Hamill -- screenshot
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For the second day in a row, Joy Reid pulled the plug on a conservative guest ranting about President some rich asshole’s racist immigration comments, with the MSNBC host cautioning her Sunday guest, “This is not Fox News.”
During a panel discussion on the rich asshole’s comments about Haiti and African nations being “sh*tholes,” the AMJoy host turned first to conservative commentator Stephanie Hamill.
“Stephanie, I will start with you. when you heard what some rich asshole said about Haiti, about the African countries, really talking about El Salvador and any other countries that are nonwhite, how did you feel when you heard those comments?” Reid asked.
“Joy, we didn’t actually hear him say those words,” Hamill began only to have Reid clarify, “When you read them.”
“When I read them, yeah, and this is the biggest fake news story of the week,” Hamill replied. “It’s interesting to sit back and watch people are so angry about what that the president didn’t say, and they are more angry than they are at the Clinton’s for getting rich off the poor Haitians with the Clinton Foundation.”
As the panel expressed shock at Hamill bringing up the Clinton’s, Hamill pressed on.
“You can ask Klaus Eberwein, the former Haitian government official that has all the dirt on the Clinton Foundation– oh, wait, you can’t ask him because he mysteriously committed suicide the day he was supposed to testify,” Hamill blurted
“What are you talking about?” asked conservative Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin. “This is nuts.”
“Did you get talking points before you came here from the RNC or the White House?” host Reid cut in. “It’s interesting that yesterday Mark Burns, who was the surrogate we had on on the rich asshole side yesterday, tried to roll out the same Clinton stuff? Did you get talking points before you came here?”
“Joy, I didn’t get talking points,” Hamill shot back, attempting to get back to her story.
Host Reid then cut her off with a warning.
“I don’t know you, Stephanie, but let me explain this to you: this is not Fox News and we are not going to play the game of rolling out crazy conspiracy theories in answers to my questions and take us off track,” Reid lectured. “So I am going to put you pause for the minute, I’m going to put you to the side because they are more familiar with the way that we do things here.”
You can watch the video below via MSNBC:
The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board
Los Angeles Times
Posted with permission from Tribune Content Agency
In an off-the-cuff comment with legislators gathered in the Oval Office on Thursday to discuss immigration, President Donald Trump laid bare his world vision. There are wealthy white countries such as Norway, which are welcome to send immigrants to the United States. Then there are what the president called "shithole countries" — Haiti and all the nations of Africa — whose people (overwhelmingly black and brown) the president doesn't think belong here.
Trump's comment was outrageous, immature, inhumane and vulgar — and it shames the nation. It's shocking that an American president would think so reductively and heartlessly about so much of the world. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that the president himself will feel shame. Instead, he'll bluster and bray about "fake news" and try to drag in the 2016 election results and the stock market, and in the end, he is unlikely to be punished by his base for what he said.
But his comments stand for themselves. "What do we want Haitians here for?" the president reportedly asked. "Why do we want all these people from Africa here? Why do we want all these people from shithole countries?" Then he added: "We should have people from places like Norway."
The Washington Post first reported the president's comments, based on information from people briefed on the meeting. The White House quickly issued a statement that didn't deny the comments, but defended Trump's efforts to "fight for the American people." None of whom, apparently in the eyes of the White House, are people who trace their ancestry to Africa, Haiti or El Salvador, which was also part of the immigration policy discussion.
"Certain Washington politicians choose to fight for foreign countries, but President Trump will always fight for the American people," spokesman Raj Shah told the Post. "... Like other nations that have merit-based immigration, President Trump 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."
So Trump's dismissal of a large portion of the world is framed now as an argument for merit-based immigration?
That's self-serving baloney. It's hard to interpret Trump's statement — comparing Haiti and Africa with Norway, in effect — as anything other than an attack on people of color around the world. But even those who don't interpret it that way should be appalled that the president would express such disdain and disgust for countries where poverty is rampant, where people struggle because they lack the economic advantages of Americans, where wars are not infrequent.
Ten months ago, the Los Angeles Times editorial board published a multipart series about President Trump calling him "Our Dishonest President." We called him that because of a pattern of lies, misstatements and denials of reality that we argued were designed not just to deflect criticism, but to undermine the very idea of objective truth.
But sometimes Donald Trump is at his scariest when he's saying what he truly believes.
Trump's dwindling ranks of supporters say they like him because he calls things as he sees them. He's not polished — he's the antithesis of the smooth-talking pol, the Washington insider, the denizen of the D.C. swamp. Fine. But now he has offered us another glimpse into what the unfettered Trump sees. The ugliness here isn't in the view, but in the viewer. Add these comments to the long list of embarrassments we've suffered as a nation since Nov. 8, 2016.
January 14, 2018
Tom Porter
Posted with permission from Newsweek
Some rich asshole Hotel in downtown Washington DC got a surprise makeover last night—with the expletive President Donald Some rich asshole has used to describe developing world countries beamed onto its outer walls.
Video posted on Twitter shows the words “This Place is a Shithole” projected onto the walls of the hotel Saturday night, alongside poop emojis, and an arrow pointing at the establishment’s arched entrance.
In a meeting with lawmakers last week on protection for immigrants, Some rich asshole had reportedly called developing world countries including Haiti and some African states “shithole” countries. Some rich asshole's words have been described as "racist" by the U.N.'s human rights office.
Other messages beamed onto the building Saturday included “The President of the United States is a Known Racist and Nazi Sympathiser,” alluding to the president’s controversial comments after the Charlottesville white nationalist rally in August.
Video of the stunt was posted on the Twitter account of Robin Bell, who has previously used projectors for political messages—projecting “emoluments welcome” and images of flags where Some rich asshole has business projects on the wall of the hotel in May.
Some rich asshole is being sued by activists for allegedly violating a clause of the constitution banning presidents from receiving cash gifts by foreign governments.
That same month, Bell projected “#SessionsMustGo” and “I thought the KKK was OK until I learned that they smoked pot” on the Department of Justice building, in reference to Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Bell has been described by The Washington Post as a “hit-and-run editorial writer.”
GOP Senator Calls Democrat A Liar Over ‘Shithole’ Comment He Can’t Remember If He Heard (VIDEO)
The world is abuzz with the news that some rich asshole called Haiti and countries in Africa “shithole countries,” while saying that America needs more immigrants from Norway – you know, a very, very white country. Of course, this fits the rich asshole’s pattern of racist remarks, but that doesn’t stop GOPers from trotting out onto the Sunday shows to once again defend the indefensible. Case in point – Senator Tom Cotton (R-AK).
On CBS’s Face The Nation, when the subject came up, Cotton took a decidedly different route to defend the rich asshole’s reprehensible behavior – to call Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, who has confirmed the rich asshole’s racist remarks, a liar. Cotton insists he never heard anything about “shithole countries” leave the rich asshole’s mouth, and therefore Durbin must be lying:
“I didn’t hear that word. I certainly didn’t hear what Sen. Durbin has said repeatedly. Sen. Durbin has a history of misrepresenting what happens in White House meetings so, perhaps, we shouldn’t be surprised by that.”
Dickerson pressed Cotton further:
“You didn’t hear the word or it was not said? Because [Sen. Linsey Graham] also told [Sen. Tim Scott], your Republican colleague, that this is what happened. [Sen. Jeff Flake] was in a subsequent meeting where he was told by people in the meeting this happened.”“You’re saying it did not happen or you just don’t remember?”
Cotton then got amnesia that so many Trumpkins tend to get when things get uncomfortable:
“I didn’t hear it. And I was sitting no further away from some rich asshole than Dick Durbin was. And I know what Dick Durbin has said about the president’s repeated statements is incorrect.”
No, Senator Cotton, you know just what you heard. You just happen to agree with it, but you know it is not politically expedient to say so in the current climate. You’re likely just as racist as the rich asshole is, and you are politically smarter and know how to speak with more finesse. That doesn’t change what you are your ilk are, though: Stone cold racists.
What is really troubling is that this man is willing to go on camera and defend racism, and try to hang a fellow Senator out to dry, by insinuating that he is a liar, in order to do so. This level of sycophancy is dangerous to its core. The Article I powers that are to be used to check a president like the rich asshole are all but dead now, and we MUST take the House of Representatives back in 2018 if we want any semblance of normalcy to return to this great nation.
Watch the exchange below:
January 14, 2018
Posted with permission from AFP
Supporters of US President Donald Some rich asshole hold signs near his Mar-a-Lago resort in West Palm Beach on January 13, 2018 AFP / Nicholas Kamm
US President Donald Some rich asshole said Sunday a deal to resolve the status of hundreds of thousands of immigrants who entered the United States illegally as children is "probably dead," blaming it on Democrats.
Some rich asshole came back on the issue in a pair of early morning tweets three days after igniting outrage by referring to African and Haitian immigrants as coming from "shithole countries."
Global condemnation of the remark as racist has put the president on the defensive amid bipartisan attempts to negotiate a budget deal that would avert a looming government shutdown and remove the threat of deportation of the so-called "dreamers."
"DACA is probably dead because the Democrats don't really want it, they just want to talk and take desperately needed money away from our Military," Some rich asshole said, referring to the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program.
"I, as President, want people coming into our Country who are going to help us become strong and great again, people coming in through a system based on MERIT. No more Lotteries! FIRST," he said.
DACA, established in 2012 by Some rich asshole predecessor Barack Obama, protects from deportation hundreds of thousands of immigrants whose parents brought them into the country illegally as children.
Some rich asshole said in September he was scrapping the program but delayed enforcement to give Congress six months -- until March -- to craft a lasting solution.
But a federal judge on Tuesday ordered the government to keep DACA going pending resolution of court challenges to the president's decision.
‘I’m not a racist’: the rich asshole gripes to reporters in Florida that he’s being unfairly maligned
U.S. President some rich asshole speaks as he and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy arrive for dinner at the rich asshole's golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., January 14, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
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U.S. President some rich asshole insisted on Sunday “I’m not a racist” in response to reports that he had described immigrants from Haiti and African countries as coming from “shithole countries.”
the rich asshole also said he was “ready, willing and able” to reach a deal to protect illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children from being deported but that he did not believe Democrats wanted an agreement. He tweeted earlier on Sunday that the existing program would “probably” be discontinued.
The debate over immigration policy became increasingly acrimonious after it was reported on Thursday that the Republican president used the word “shithole” to describe Haiti and African countries in a private meeting with lawmakers.
The comments led to harsh recriminations from Democrats and Republicans alike, with some critics accusing the rich asshole of racism, even as bipartisan talks continued in the U.S. Congress to seek a bipartisan compromise to salvage the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.
Asked by a reporter in Florida whether he was a racist, the rich asshole said: “No. I’m not a racist. I’m the least racist person you have ever interviewed.”
the rich asshole has threatened to end DACA, but he seemed to keep the door open for a deal when he told reporters before dinner on Sunday night: “We’re ready, willing and able to make a deal on DACA, but I don’t think the Democrats want to make a deal…. The Democrats are the ones that aren’t going to make a deal.”
Efforts to extend the program are further complicated because it could make a funding bill to avert a government shutdown due Friday more difficult.
“DACA is probably dead because the Democrats don’t really want it, they just want to talk and take desperately needed money away from our military,” the rich asshole said earlier on Twitter.
CONTROVERSY SIMMERS
A U.S. judge ruled last Tuesday that DACA should remain in effect until legal challenges brought in multiple courts are resolved.
“I hope that we are actually going to work on fixing DACA,” said Representative Mia Love on CNN’s “State of the Union” program on Sunday. “We cannot let this derail us.”
Love, whose parents are from Haiti, had criticized the rich asshole for his remarks and called on him to apologize.
the rich asshole denied making the disparaging remarks on Friday, although U.S. Senator Richard Durbin, who was in the White House meeting, said the president had used the term. One participant at the meeting on Sunday denied that the rich asshole used the term and another said he did not recall the rich asshole making such comments.
Asked on Sunday whether his inflammatory remarks made it harder to get a DACA deal, the rich asshole said: “Did you see what various senators in the room say about my comments? They weren’t bad.”
Lawmakers hope to reach an immigration deal before Jan. 19, when Congress must pass a funding bill or the government will shut down. Some Democrats insist that the DACA question be addressed by then.
Lawmakers are trying to combine some form of relief for DACA immigrants along with enhanced border security, including a wall along the Mexican border, sought by the rich asshole. The president’s inflammatory comments left lawmakers struggling to find a path forward.
“I hope we can move beyond that. What was reported was unacceptable. But what we have to do is not let that define this moment,” said Republican Senator Cory Gardner on CBS’s “Face the Nation” program.
Republican Senator David Perdue, who was at the same White House meeting and had said he did not recall whether the rich asshole made the comment, was more explicit on Sunday. He called the new stories a “gross misrepresentation.”
“I’m telling you, he did not use that word,” he said on ABC’s “This Week” program.
However, Republicans and Democrats have both said they either heard the rich asshole say it, or heard directly from colleagues who did.
Republican Senator Jeff Flake said on Sunday he was told about the remarks by colleagues who attended the meeting, before the news reports emerged.
“I heard that account before the account even went public,” he said on “This Week.”
One of the rich asshole’s top advisers, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, said on “Fox News Sunday” she did not recall if the rich asshole used “that specific phrase.”
She also appeared to rebut the rich asshole’s remarks from earlier in the day. “DACA is not dead,” she said.
By Steve Holland
WATCH: SNL lampoons the rich asshole’s relationship with adult actress Stormy Daniels
Tufayel Ahmed
Posted with permission from Newsweek
A whirlwind week in the Trump White House dominated Saturday Night Live , hosted by Sam Rockwell, as the NBC late-night show’s cast of comedians chewed the fat over Michael Wolff’s explosive book Fire and Fury, President Donald Trump’s“shithole countries” comment and the news that Trump reportedly paid off an adult film star.
Among the highlights on Saturday’s Trump-heavy SNL was Kate McKinnon and Alex Moffat spoofed MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough flirtatious Morning Joebanter, Bill Murray made an appearance as Steve Bannon, Fred Armisen parodied Wolff and SNL favorite Leslie Jones performed a winning sendup of Oprah Winfrey.
Over on “Weekend Update,” Colin Jost and Michael Che broke down the week’s events. Jost aptly opened the segment: “The book Fire and Fury, a salacious expose of the Trump White House was released last week, and then this week the sequel wrote itself.” Cue a mockup of the cover of Wolff’s book retitled S---hole Countries.
Jost and Che joked about Trump’s “shithole countries” remark during a White House Thursday in relation to African countries, Haiti and El Salvador, which Jost noted was awkwardly close in proximity to Martin Luther King Day Monday. “Now I’m just worried what he’s going to say the day before Passover,” Jost quipped.
Che added: “Here’s the thing, my job is to make jokes about the news, but Trump saying something racist isn’t exactly news anymore. It’d be news if Trump said, ‘You know what we need more of in this country? Haitians.’”
The comedian then offered Trump a pretty succinct history lesson. “Donald, you do realize how rich these places are in resources?” Che asked. “They’re in bad shape because they’ve been robbed and exploited for centuries by Western powers. So the president of the United States calling Africa a ‘shithole’ is like telling a kid you molested, ‘Boy, did you grow up to be weird.’”
With the “shithole” drama crossed off the news agenda, Jost turned to the news that Trump reportedly paid off Stormy Daniels, a former porn star, a month before the 2016 presidential election to keep quiet about a sexual encounter between them in 2006.
“So, at least there’s one storm Trump will pay for,” Jost said as the Puerto Rican flag flashed on screen. Jost, of course, is talking about Trump being criticized for not providing enough aid to hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico late last year.
Jost, echoing sentiments shared widely across the world, then cracked about the breakneck speed at which new Trump scandals are appearing in the press.
“Let me just say what a thrill it is to be alive a time when ‘Porn star blackmails president’ is, like, the fourth biggest story of the week,” Jost said. “At this rate, in a year from now, we’re going to find ‘Trump found with dead hooker’ right next to the crossword puzzle.”
Among the highlights on Saturday’s Trump-heavy SNL was Kate McKinnon and Alex Moffat spoofed MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough flirtatious Morning Joebanter, Bill Murray made an appearance as Steve Bannon, Fred Armisen parodied Wolff and SNL favorite Leslie Jones performed a winning sendup of Oprah Winfrey.
Over on “Weekend Update,” Colin Jost and Michael Che broke down the week’s events. Jost aptly opened the segment: “The book Fire and Fury, a salacious expose of the Trump White House was released last week, and then this week the sequel wrote itself.” Cue a mockup of the cover of Wolff’s book retitled S---hole Countries.
Jost and Che joked about Trump’s “shithole countries” remark during a White House Thursday in relation to African countries, Haiti and El Salvador, which Jost noted was awkwardly close in proximity to Martin Luther King Day Monday. “Now I’m just worried what he’s going to say the day before Passover,” Jost quipped.
Che added: “Here’s the thing, my job is to make jokes about the news, but Trump saying something racist isn’t exactly news anymore. It’d be news if Trump said, ‘You know what we need more of in this country? Haitians.’”
The comedian then offered Trump a pretty succinct history lesson. “Donald, you do realize how rich these places are in resources?” Che asked. “They’re in bad shape because they’ve been robbed and exploited for centuries by Western powers. So the president of the United States calling Africa a ‘shithole’ is like telling a kid you molested, ‘Boy, did you grow up to be weird.’”
With the “shithole” drama crossed off the news agenda, Jost turned to the news that Trump reportedly paid off Stormy Daniels, a former porn star, a month before the 2016 presidential election to keep quiet about a sexual encounter between them in 2006.
“So, at least there’s one storm Trump will pay for,” Jost said as the Puerto Rican flag flashed on screen. Jost, of course, is talking about Trump being criticized for not providing enough aid to hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico late last year.
Jost, echoing sentiments shared widely across the world, then cracked about the breakneck speed at which new Trump scandals are appearing in the press.
“Let me just say what a thrill it is to be alive a time when ‘Porn star blackmails president’ is, like, the fourth biggest story of the week,” Jost said. “At this rate, in a year from now, we’re going to find ‘Trump found with dead hooker’ right next to the crossword puzzle.”
the rich asshole silent on Hawaii, retweets Pizzagate theorist
January 14, 2018
Tom Porter
Posted with permission from Newsweek
President Donald Trump renewed his attacks on “fake news” and shared a message by an alt-right conspiracy theorist in tweets Saturday—but was criticized for his silence over Saturday’s false missile alert in Hawaii.
Trump retweeted a message by Jack Posobiec—an alt-right activist who has spread baseless conspiracy theories about the death of former DNC staffer Seth Rich, and claimed that Hillary Clinton ran a child sex trafficking ring from a DC pizzeria.
The tweet claimed to show Senator Dick Durbin—who has confirmed reports that Trump called develping world nations "shithole" countries in a recent meeting—calling for an end to chain migration, or family migration. In the clip Durbin in fact calls for chain migration to be limited but not ended.
The president also drew criticism for failing to reassure Hawaiians after false ballistic missile alert plunged the island into nearly 40 minutes of panic, before being declared a false alarm.
Trump was on the links at the Trump International Golf Course in Florida after the emergency alert was issued at approximately 1:09 p.m. EST, before leaving for Mar-a-Lago at around 1:38 pm, according to pool reports.
State officials and the U.S. military’s Pacific Command has confirmed there was no actual threat to the state, but Hawaiians waited for nearly 40 minutes for officials to retract the warning.
In his first tweet after the incident—which has been blamed on an official pressing the wrong button—Trump renewed his attack on Fire and Fury author Michael Wolff.
“So much Fake News is being reported. They don’t even try to get it right, or correct it when they are wrong. They promote the Fake Book of a mentally deranged author, who knowingly writes false information. The Mainstream Media is crazed that WE won the election!” the president wrote.
White House deputy press secretary Lindsay Walters said in a statement cited by The Huffington Post that the president had been “briefed on the state of Hawaii’s emergency management exercise.”
“This was purely a state exercise,” she added.
A White House official told CNN that the president was briefed in person by national security adviser H.R. McMaster, deputy national security adviser Ricky Waddell and White House chief of staff John Kelly. Politico reported that the situation did not prompt a reaction from the president's national security team because the alert was false.
At the time of publication, Trump had issued no statement on the incident.
Trump was criticized for continuing his round of golf as Hawaii panicked, and for his silence on the incident.
“For 38 minutes American citizens in Hawaii braced for a ballistic missile strike ... and @realDonaldTrump continued his round of golf in Florida on his 120th taxpayer funded vacation day in less than a year,” tweeted former Pentagon official Morris Davis.
"Trump knew within minutes no missile was hurtling toward Hawaii. He was golfing. They told him. He did not tweet out that info. He kept golfing. People thought they & their families were going to die FOR 38 MINS. Then when the panic was over he tweeted how media is so mean to him," tweeted author Reza Aslan.
the rich asshole misquotes himself while claiming he was misquoted
January 14, 2018
Jason Silverstein
Posted with permission from Newsweek
Let’s go to the tape. Again and again.
President Donald Trump on Sunday misquoted himself in a tweet complaining about how he had supposedly been misquoted in a scrutinized Wall Street Journal interview. The Journal soon released audio of the interview to prove the president said what it reported, and the White House followed up minutes later with a seemingly identical recording trying to prove the Journal wrong.
Trump on Twitter took issue with the most notorious line from his Thursday interview: When he said “I probably have a very good relationship with Kim Jong Un,” the North Korean dictator who has been threatening for months to launch a nuclear attack on the United States.
“I have relationships with people. I think you people are surprised,” Trump added, declining to say whether he had ever spoken directly with Kim.
Trump’s cryptic comment stood out not only because of the shared hostility between him and Kim, but also because the U.S. has no diplomatic ties with North Korea, and it would be unprecedented for an American president to have a “very good relationship” with the leader of the world’s most hermetic nation.
But on Sunday, after days of speculation over his remarks, Trump claimed the whole thing was a mistake.
“The Wall Street Journal stated falsely that I said to them ‘I have a good relationship with Kim Jong Un’ (of N. Korea). Obviously I didn’t say that. I said ‘I’d have a good relationship with Kim Jong Un,’ a big difference. Fortunately we now record conversations with reporters... ...and they knew exactly what I said and meant. They just wanted a story. FAKE NEWS!” he wrote over two tweets.
The Wall Street Journal stated falsely that I said to them “I have a good relationship with Kim Jong Un” (of N. Korea). Obviously I didn’t say that. I said “I’d have a good relationship with Kim Jong Un,” a big difference. Fortunately we now record conversations with reporters...
Within minutes, the Journal released audio from the interview that seemed to clearly show Trump’s comment had been reported right the first time. The recording backed up a transcript already released by the Journal that included the quote Trump now disputes.
The Journal said in a statement that it “stands by what it reported.”
We have reviewed the audio from our interview with President Trump, as well as the transcript provided by an external service, and stand by what we reported. Here is audio of the portion the White House disputes. on.wsj.com/2r4IW2z
But that wasn’t enough for the White House, which responded minutes later with its own recording of the conversation. The White House clip sounded identical to the Journal audio, but it had a more muffled sound quality, making it harder to make out Trump’s exact words.
On Saturday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted a “fake news” alert accusing the Journal of botching Trump’s Kim comment.
Trump’s battles with media organizations are routine for him, but the Sunday spat showed him facing off against a publication that he has mostly regarded favorably. The right-leaning newspaper has published many editorials supporting Trump’s controversial stances, and Trump has thanked the Journal on Twitter for “very nice” coverage and often shared its stories. (But he has also, in nearly equal measure, attacked the paper as “ever dwindling,” “dying” and “phony,” and he has previously disputed some of its reporting.)
The Journal jumble came two days after the paper broke the story of Trump’s lawyer arranging to pay porn star Stephanie Clifford (also know as Stormy Daniels) $130,000 in the final month of the 2016 campaign to keep quiet about an alleged consensual sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, one year after he had married First Lady Melania Trump.
‘His head exploded’: Michael Wolff laughs over the rich asshole’s attempt to stop ‘Fire and Fury’ publication
Michael Wolff (Facebook)
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Author Michael Wolff laughed to The Guardian about President some rich asshole’s last-ditch effort to stop the publication of his book Fire and Fury: Inside the rich asshole White House, saying that the rich asshole “shoots himself in the foot at every opportunity.”
“On the eve of publication, Wolff and his publishers were facing a legal effort by the rich asshole to block publication. It only inspired them to rush the book forward, after the Guardian first reported its contents,” wrote Edward Helmore in a profile published Sunday.
“It’s another example of him being out of control,” said Wolff. “I know that everybody was trying to stop him from doing this. He couldn’t be stopped. His head had exploded, so he did what no president has ever done: attempt to sue someone for defamation and invasion of privacy.”
He continued, “There are two sides. I was sort of appalled by an attack on the constitutional bulwark on what we do as journalists and how we live as Americans. The other side, is this guy is a complete fool. All he managed to do was call more attention to my book. He just shoots himself in the foot at every opportunity.”
With regard to the rich asshole’s mental fitness and capability of carrying out his duties, Wolff said, “I don’t know if the president is clinically off his rocker. I do know, from what I saw and what I heard from people around him, that some rich asshole is deeply unpredictable, irrational, at times bordering on incoherent, self-obsessed in a disconcerting way, and displays all those kinds of traits that anyone would reasonably say, ‘What’s going on here, is something wrong?’”
Cotton hits Durbin for claims of the rich asshole's 'shithole countries' comment
BY BRETT SAMUELS - 01/14/18 11:23 AM EST
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on Sunday reiterated that he didn’t hear President the rich asshole call Haiti, El Salvador and African nations “shithole countries,” suggesting Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) misrepresented the president’s comments.
"I certainly didn’t hear what Sen. Durbin has said repeatedly. Sen. Durbin has a history of misrepresenting what happens in White House meetings, though, so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by that,” Cotton said on CBS's “Face The Nation.”
Pressed on whether he didn’t hear the comment or if it wasn’t said, Cotton said, “I didn’t hear it.”
the rich asshole during a meeting with lawmakers last week reportedly questioned why the U.S. accepted so many immigrants from “shithole countries” like Haiti, El Salvador and some African countries. He suggested the U.S. should instead should take in more immigrants from countries like Norway.
Cotton, Durbin, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) were among those present during the meeting.
Cotton and Perdue have said they did not hear the comment.
Durbin confirmed the rich asshole’s comments, then reiterated that claim even after the president denied making them.
“He said those hateful things, and he said them repeatedly,” Durbin said.
Graham has neither confirmed nor denied hearing the comments, but reportedly told Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) the reports are “basically accurate.”
Cotton claimed Sunday that Durbin and Graham proposed expanding the existing immigration legislation to create more quotas for certain countries, and the rich asshole reacted with “pretty tough language,” a phrase the rich asshole used when denying he made the vulgar remarks.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who appeared on "Face The Nation" after Cotton on Sunday, criticized the suggestion that Durbin misrepresented the comments.
“Someone saying that Sen. Durbin or Sen. Graham is going to make something up that the president of the United States has said, and thinking they would do that to gin up people one way or another, that’s wrong," Manchin said.
"I don’t believe any senator would walk in and make up something so atrocious as that." –@Sen_JoeManchin on Sens. Cotton and Perdue saying reports of Trump’s vulgar comments are made up. Says it’s time to move on.
BY MALLORY SHELBOURNE - 01/14/18 02:01 PM EST
The controversy over President the rich asshole’s reported use of the phrase “shithole countries” to describe several nations showed no sign of easing on Sunday, as lawmakers wrestled over the comment and what it means for immigration negotiations.
While lawmakers from both parties condemned the reported remark, some stopped short of labeling the president a racist, and two Republican senators either denied hearing the comment or said that the president did not utter the words.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said that while he did not think the remark was “constructive,” he also believes it is “unfair” to label the rich asshole a racist.
“You can't have an immigration compromise if everybody's out there calling the president a racist,” Paul told NBC’s “Meet the Press. “But both sides now are destroying the setting in which anything meaningful can happen on immigration.”
Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), meanwhile, would not go so far as to call the rich asshole a racist, but said “there’s no question” that the comment the president allegedly made during a White House meeting with lawmakers last week was racist.
“I was raised not to call people racist on the theory that it was hard for them to be rehabilitated once you said that,” Bennet said during an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“But there’s no question what he said was racist. There’s no question what he said was un-American and completely unmoored from the facts.”
Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) was not as generous, however, telling ABC that he thinks the rich asshole is a racist and that he will not attend the president’s first State of the Union address.
“I don't think there's any way that you can square what the president said with the words of Martin Luther King Jr. and what he said about Dr. King,” Lewis said when asked how he could “square” the rich asshole’s comment with the president's speech Friday honoring Martin Luther King Jr.
“It's just impossible. There's not any way you can do that. It's unreal. It's unbelievable. It makes me sad. It makes me cry.”
the rich asshole received swift backlash after The Washington Post reported last week that he referred to immigrants from African nations, El Salvador and Haiti as coming from “shithole countries.”
“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” the rich asshole reportedly asked.
While the White House initially did not deny the remark, the rich asshole on Friday denied saying “anything derogatory” about individuals from Haiti.
“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,” the rich asshole wrote on Twitter. “I have a wonderful relationship with Haitians. Probably should record future meetings - unfortunately, no trust!”
Republican Rep. Mia Love (Utah), the first Haitian-American elected to Congress, on Sunday admitted the comment was racist, but said it should not “derail” a fix to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
“I can’t defend the indefensible. There are countries that do struggle out there, but their people are good people. Their people are part of us. We’re Americans,” Love told CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Love said “the worst thing” that could occur is if lawmakers did not craft a legislative fix to DACA, an Obama-era program that protects immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children. the rich asshole said last year he would rescind DACA, but gave lawmakers time to come up with a solution for its recipients.
“There are people that are depending on us, not just Americans on border security, but families that are waiting, that are in limbo, that need something that a president can't give or take away from them,” Love said.
“We have to find a way to fix the immigration issue, fix the DACA issue. And we can't let this derail us.”
Republican Sens. David Perdue (Ga.) and Tom Cotton (Ark.), both of whom participated in the meeting at the White House, said Friday that they did not "recall" the rich asshole making the comment. Perdue took that one step further Sunday, saying the rich asshole did not say what had been reported.
“I’m telling you he did not use that word, George. And I’m telling you it’s a gross misrepresentation. How many times do you want me to say that?” Perdue told ABC’s “This Week” after host George Stephanopoulos pushed for an answer.
Cotton during an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation” maintained that he did not hear the rich asshole say the word in question.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen also said during an interview on “Fox News Sunday” that she did not “recall [the rich asshole] saying that exact phrase.”
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), a red-state Democrat up for his first reelection this year in a state the rich asshole won by more than 40 points, said that while the comment was “hurtful,” it should not halt negotiations.
“So we've got to move on. I mean, if it was said in whatever content it was said, it was hurtful, it's harmful, it shouldn't have been said, but let's move on,” Manchin told CBS. “Don't let it stop the whole procedure.”
Lawmakers have until midnight on Jan. 19 to reach another deal to fund the government, which comes as Congress also pursues a legislative fix on DACA.
the rich asshole has said his proposed wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, a key promise of his presidential campaign, “must be part of any DACA approval.” But the president on Sunday said “DACA is probably dead,” putting the blame on Democrats.
“DACA is probably dead because the Democrats don’t really want it, they just want to talk and take desperately needed money away from our Military,” the rich asshole wrote on Twitter.
TAGS KIRSTJEN NIELSEN MICHAEL BENNET SOME RICH ASSHOLE JOE MANCHIN TOM COTTON JOHN LEWIS RAND PAUL MIA LOVE
BY MALLORY SHELBOURNE - 01/14/18 08:31 AM EST
President the rich asshole said Sunday that the program protecting immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children is “probably dead,” placing the blame on Democrats.
“DACA is probably dead because the Democrats don’t really want it, they just want to talk and take desperately needed money away from our Military,” the rich asshole wrote on Twitter.
DACA is probably dead because the Democrats don’t really want it, they just want to talk and take desperately needed money away from our Military.
the rich asshole announced last year that he would rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, but provided Congress with six months to craft a legislative fix.
Lawmakers, however, have yet to reach a deal with the White House, and the president has said that a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border “must be part of any DACA approval.”
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on Saturday said it would begin taking new requests for immigrants seeking protections under the Obama-era program following a preliminary injunction last week that blocked the rich asshole's decision to end DACA.
the rich asshole on Sunday also said he wants immigrants coming to the U.S. "based on merit."
"I, as President, want people coming into our Country who are going to help us become strong and great again, people coming in through a system based on MERIT. No more Lotteries! #AMERICA FIRST," the rich asshole said.
I, as President, want people coming into our Country who are going to help us become strong and great again, people coming in through a system based on MERIT. No more Lotteries! #AMERICA FIRST
That tweet comes after heated controversy over a report that said the rich asshole during a White House meeting with lawmakers last week referred to immigrants from African nations, El Salvador and Haiti as coming from "shithole countries."
“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” the president reportedly said.
Georgia Senator claims ‘gross misrepresentation’ of the rich asshole meeting, doesn’t deny ‘s**thole’ comment
Sen. David Perdue previously said Friday he didn't "recall" the remark.
Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) went on the attack Sunday morning, attempting to smear Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and defend President some rich asshole from accusations that he said during a meeting on Thursday that he does not want immigrants coming to the U.S. from “shithole countries.”
“What we have going on here right now is a gross misrepresentation,” he repeatedly told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s This Week.
When Stephanopoulos pressed Perdue on what the “gross representation” was, Perdue claimed it was “that language was used that was not used, and that the tone was not contributory or constructive.” However, when Stephanopoulos asked the senator to declare “flat out, definitively” that the president did not say those words, he again only said, “This was a gross misrepresentation.”
To make his argument, Perdue alleged that Durbin — who insisted the rich asshole “said these hate-filled things” — has a history of inventing such quotes, referring to a case in 2013 when Durbin claimed that a House Republican leader said to President Obama, “I cannot even stand to look at you.” The Obama White House and then-House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) claimed that it did not happen.
When confronted with the fact that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) had also confirmed the “shithole” comments as “basically accurate,” Perdue dismissed his colleague, saying, “You’ll have to deal with him. ‘Basically’ is the operative word.”
On Friday, Perdue had issued a joint statement with Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) claiming that they “do not recall the President saying these comments.”
Moments after Perdue’s interview, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) reiterated to Stephanopoulos that though he was not in the Thursday meeting himself, his colleagues who were told him shortly thereafter that the rich asshole had made the “shithole” comment “before it went public.”
Republican senator calls the rich asshole ‘repulsive,’ compares him to Stalin
Speak loudly and carry no stick.
In excerpts of a speech released Sunday night, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) compares some rich asshole to Joseph Stalin. Flake takes particular issue with the rich asshole’s assault on the media, saying the language the rich asshole uses to describe the press (“enemy of the people”) is that same language Stalin used to “‘annihilate such individuals’ who disagreed with their supreme leader.”
In the speech, which will be delivered on Wednesday, Flake goes on to describe the rich asshole’s conduct as “shameful” and “repulsive,” adding that it should also be a “source of shame” for members of Congress.
EXCERPTS from a speech @JeffFlake plans to deliver on Wednesday, comparing Trump’s comments on the media to Stalin:
All of which begs the question: What is Flake doing about it?
As a United States senator, Flake is one of the most powerful people in the country. His primary power comes from his vote. But he isn’t wielding this power to oppose the rich asshole.
Flake has voted to confirm every one of the rich asshole’s nominees. Overall, he has supported the rich asshole’s position in the Senate more than 90 percent of the time. (Two of the handful of votes where Flake departed from the rich asshole’s position was when he voted against providing disaster relief to Puerto Rico and areas impacted by Hurricane Harvey.)
Most notably, Flake made noises about withholding his support for the rich asshole’s tax bill unless the administration agreed to a fix for the DACA program, which provides legal protections for 800,000 young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children. the rich asshole abruptly rescinded the program last fall.
But Flake did not secure any fix for DACA in the tax bill — or even secure an agreement for a vote on the issue. Instead, he said he got a “firm commitment” from the administration to “work with me” on making legal protections for DACA permanent.
I will support #TaxReform bill after securing language to eliminate an $85 billion budget gimmick as well as commitment from the administration & #Senate leadership to advance growth-oriented legislative solution to enact fair & permanent protections for #DACA recipients
This “firm commitment,” of course, meant nothing. Flake provided the rich asshole with a critical vote on his tax bill. A few weeks later, Flake helped negotiate a bipartisan immigration compromise — which was promptly rejected by the rich asshole with series of racist comments.
In late October, prior to capitulating to the rich asshole on the tax bill for a meaningless promise, Flake gave a speech on the Senate floor blasting the rich asshole.
Mr. President, I rise today to say: Enough. We must dedicate ourselves to making sure that the anomalous never becomes normal. With respect and humility, I must say that we have fooled ourselves for long enough that a pivot to governing is right around the corner, a return to civility and stability right behind it. We know better than that. By now, we all know better than that.[…] Acting on conscience and principle is the manner in which we express our moral selves, and as such, loyalty to conscience and principle should supersede loyalty to any man or party. We can all be forgiven for failing in that measure from time to time. I certainly put myself at the top of the list of those who fall short in that regard. I am holier-than-none. But too often, we rush not to salvage principle but to forgive and excuse our failures so that we might accommodate them and go right on failing—until the accommodation itself becomes our principle.
Now, a few months later, Flake is preparing to deliver another stem-winder. Actions, however, speak louder than words.
Rand Paul says it’s ‘unfair’ to call the rich asshole racist
JAN 14 2018, 7:25 PM ET
WASHINGTON — Sen. Rand Paul said Sunday that it is "unfair" to call President some rich asshole a racist but said his recently reported controversial comments about immigrants from Haiti and African countries are unhelpful.
“I don’t think the comments were constructive at all, but I also think that, to be fair, we shouldn’t draw conclusions that he didn’t intend,” the Kentucky Republican said on "Meet The Press."
Rand Paul: Calling the rich asshole 'racist' hurts immigration negotiations 1:43
Paul defended the president as one of the financial backers of a medical tripPaul was part of to offer eye care and surgeries to people in Haiti in 2015.
“I think it’s unfair to sort of paint him, ‘oh well, he’s a racist,’ when I know for a fact that he cares very deeply about the people of Haiti because he helped finance a trip where they would get vision back for 200 people in Haiti,” Paul said.
During a bipartisan meeting with lawmakers on immigration on Thursday, the rich asshole reportedly questioned why the United States was accepting some immigrants from Haiti and nations in Africa — rather than allowing more immigrants from places like Norway, according to Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who was in the meeting. The president reportedly referred to African nations as “shithole countries.”
the rich asshole denied saying anything derogatory during that meeting, writing on Twitter, “The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used.” He particularly defended his comments on Haiti.
Other GOP senators in the meeting have disputed Durbin's recollection. Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., called Durbin’s assertion a “gross misrepresentation" during an interview on ABC, and Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said on CBS, “I didn't hear it, and I was sitting no further from President the rich asshole than Dick Durbin was.”
Republican senators defends the rich asshole after comment2:09
However, Sen. Lindsey Graham, also in the meeting, reportedly told fellow South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott that the reports about the rich asshole's comments were "basically accurate."
“Some people in the media have gone completely bonkers” over the remarks, Paul said on Sunday.
“You can’t have an immigration compromise if everybody is out there calling the president a racist," he added.
Civil rights pioneer Andrew Young, also appearing on Sunday’s “Meet The Press,” resisted calling the president “racist” as well.
Civil Rights Leader on the rich asshole: 'All men sin' but everyone is redeemable 0:42
“It doesn't help to label people,” he said. “You know, you don't help someone who has an alcohol problem by constantly calling him a drunk. You have to deal with the sickness. And I don't even want to use the term sickness in a moral sense. We're part of an extremely confusing time.”
Young, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, mayor of Atlanta, and Democratic congressman from Georgia, said the president "has a very good education in business, but probably not very good in history."
the rich asshole's reported comments this week came just as members of Congress have been feverishly working toward getting a compromise on immigration that would reconcile increased funding for border security with safety for recipients of DACA — the Obama-era program that allowed the children of undocumented immigrants, known as “Dreamers,” a way to stay in the country without fear of deportation.
One those lawmakers working toward a deal is Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., who said on “Meet The Press” that the rich asshole "doesn’t seem to appreciate the contributions that immigrants have given to this country.”
But Bennet wouldn’t go as far as labeling the president “racist,” saying he was raised on the theory that the label would make it impossible to rehabilitate someone. Still, Bennet added, “there’s no question what [the president] said was racist” and that “this is a trying time in our country."
Full Bennet Interview: 'No question' the rich asshole's comments were racist 8:58
Bennet is part of a group of bipartisan senators who announced on Thursday that they reached a deal that would incorporate four issues the White House wanted to include: DACA, border security, chain migration, and the visa lottery system.
Their bill deals with each of those issues the rich asshole prioritized, the senator said, “because it’s a recognition that he was elected president of the United States.”
Paul on Sunday said he could support legislation where “the Dreamers are going to get naturalized, but there's going to have to be something for border security and it has to be real and it has to be significant.”
Government funding is set to run out on Jan. 19, and numerous Democrats have threatened to withhold their votes to continue funding if a deal to address the future of DACA recipients isn’t reached.
“It should not come to that,” Bennet said when asked if he would withhold his vote to fund the government if a compromise is not reached.
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