the rich asshole uses antisemitic dogwhistle during Gary Cohn’s sendoff
"He's gonna go out and make another couple of hundred million, and then he's maybe going to come back."
During a cabinet meeting on Thursday, President the rich asshole used an antisemitic dogwhistle while joking about economic adviser Gary Cohn’s departure from the White House, then quipped that Cohn might return to the administration after the longtime Goldman Sachs CEO makes “another couple hundred million” in the private sector.
“This is Gary Cohn’s last meeting in the cabinet,” the rich asshole said. “And he’s been terrific. He may be a globalist but I still like him.”
The room broke out in laughs, but “globalist” is a term often used as a euphemism for “Jew,” especially in far-right circles. As the Huffington Post puts it, “globalist” is “a reference to the longstanding conspiracy theory about an international Jewish cabal working to undermine the traditional white family and Western culture by pushing for immigration and diversity.”
“He is seriously a globalist, there is no question,” the rich asshole continued. “But you know what, in his own way he’s a nationalist because he loves our country.”
the rich asshole then said that Cohn is “gonna go out and make another couple of hundred million, and then he’s maybe going to come back.”
“Absolutely,” Cohn replied.
the rich asshole’s comments come a day after the Office of Management and Budget’s official Twitter account published a statement in which director Mick Mulvaney also referred to Cohn as a “globalist.”
Cohn, who is Jewish, reportedly drafted a letter of resignation after the rich asshole described neo-Nazis as “very fine people” last August. But he ultimately stayed on until the rich asshole decided to impose tariffs on imported steel and aluminum.
During his sendoff to Cohn, the rich asshole mentioned the dispute over tariffs, saying Cohn “is not quite as strong on those tariffs as we want.”
‘I didn’t say that’: Conway erupts at Fox host for suggesting the rich asshole won’t punish her for violating Hatch Act
Kellyanne Conway speaks to Fox News host Bill Hemmer (screen grab)
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White House counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway on Thursday refused to say if President some rich asshole would punish her after she was found to have violated the Hatch Act.
During an interview on Fox News, host Bill Hemmer noted that the Special Counsel’s Office had recently found that Conway illegally used her position in the federal government to campaign for Republican candidates on two occasions.
“The president and I have spoken about this,” Conway acknowledged. “I’ve not made a comment on this at all and I won’t today.”
“The White House has spoken,” she added, pointing to the administration’s denial of the charges.
“Has the president told you what he desires from this?” Hemmer asked.
“I won’t reveal my private conversations with the president except that he would like me to speak about publicly,” Conway insisted.
“So, no punishment given?” the Fox News host pressed.
“I didn’t say that,” Conway shot back politely. “I just said that we’ve spoken about this.”
Watch the video below from Fox News.
‘They don’t care’: Cuomo explains why evangelicals give the rich asshole a pass on lying about Stormy — but the FBI won’t
Alisyn Camerota and Chris Cuomo (CNN/screen grab)
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CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Thursday noted that President some rich asshole could be in hot water legally over his alleged affair with adult film actress Stephanie Clifford — who goes by the name Stormy Daniels — even though evangelicals had already given him a pass.
During a discussion about the alleged affair on CNN, political analyst David Chalian agreed with the president’s reported assertion that White House Press Secretary Sarah Sander had injected “steroids” into the debate by acknowledging that Clifford had entered into a contract with the rich asshole’s lawyer.
“We now hear from the podium for the very first time that the president is a party to this dispute with someone who is accusing him of having an affair and being paid off to be silent about that affair,” Chalian said. “If Sarah Sanders job yesterday was to put this story to bed, I think she did just the opposite.”
“So what’s the ‘so what’ what on this?” Cuomo wondered. “Because if you’re a the rich asshole voter, we’ve seen in the polls, people believe that his personal choices are such as what they seem obviously and they don’t care. They voted for him anyway, even evangelicals voted for him in a way that they haven’t since Ronald Reagan — and even more than they did for him.”
“So who cares unless some rich asshole ends up sitting across from an FBI member and doesn’t tell the truth about this,” the CNN host added. “And then you’re right back where [President Bill Clinton] was many years ago.”
Chalian agreed: “It does beg the question when you look at some of his most ardent supporters, what white evangelical leaders said about Bill Clinton back in the 1990s and what they said about Bill Clinton and that they seem willing to give [the rich asshole] a mulligan on this, I think that they need to sort of explain that discrepancy.”
In 1998, Clinton was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives after a report by Independent Counsel Ken Starr accused him of making false statements about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
Watch the video below from CNN.
the rich asshole says he's 'sticking' with tariff plan
BY JORDAN FABIAN - 03/08/18 08:21 AM EST
President the rich asshole at a Cabinet meeting on Thursday signaled he's likely to stick to his original proposal to impose a 25 percent tariff on all steel imports and a 10 percent tariff on all aluminum imports.
the rich asshole, who is expected to make those tariffs official later on Thursday afternoon, is facing a revolt in the GOP over his plan. Republicans in Congress have sought to get the president to soften the blow by excluding U.S. allies from the tariffs or by targeting the trade action toward China.
But the rich asshole did not sound like he would be shifting much from the plan he first announced last week.
“I’m sticking with 10 and 25 initially," he told reporters attending the opening of a Cabinet meeting.
"I’ll have a right to go up or down depending on the country and I’ll have a right to drop out countries or add countries. I just want fairness, because we have not been treated fairly by other countries," he said.
The White House hasn't officially announced that the rich asshole will take action on Thursday, but the president hinted at his plans with a tweet earlier in the day.
“Looking forward to 3:30 P.M. meeting today at the White House,” the rich asshole tweeted. “We have to protect & build our Steel and Aluminum Industries.”
In the tweet, the rich asshole suggested the tariffs will include exemptions for countries he called “real friends” that “treat us fairly on both trade and the military.”
Looking forward to 3:30 P.M. meeting today at the White House. We have to protect & build our Steel and Aluminum Industries while at the same time showing great flexibility and cooperation toward those that are real friends and treat us fairly on both trade and the military.
That adds to the confusing surrounding the impending announcement.
The president asked his team on Wednesday to arrange a Thursday afternoon signing ceremony in the Roosevelt Room with steel and aluminum workers, according to media reports. But it’s unclear whether the tariff announcement has been fully vetted and finalized.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
New details about the policy have trickled out in the days following the rich asshole's surprise announcement. The White House said Wednesday that Mexico, Canada and other countries could be exempt from the tariffs for national security reasons.
That decision could soothe investors, foreign leaders and Republican lawmakers, who worried that a sweeping tariff could set off a global trade war.
Fox host blindsides NRA’s Dana Loesch: ‘You’re not against universal background checks, right?’
Dana Loesch (Fox News)
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A “Fox & Friends” host briefly knocked NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch off her game when he threw her a fastball when she expected a softball.
The conservative activist appeared Thursday morning on Fox News to respond to criticism she’s received from gun violence survivors and elected officials in the wake of a deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida.
“So are you a terrorist?” asked host Steve Doocy, sarcastically referring to a charge leveled by Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy against the NRA.
Loesch took a whack at the meatball Doocy served up.
“I mean, I’m a mom, I have kids,” she said. “I mean, we are dealing with homework issues late last night, maybe making my kids get all their homework done makes me some kind of terrorist. I can’t take seriously anyone who says that they’re coming to this conversation. I cannot take their claims in good faith genuinely or seriously at all when they decide to insult and smear millions of law-abiding Americans.”
Loesch urged parents to upload videos of themselves justifying their gun ownership, and her comments showed the Parkland survivors’ pointed criticism had resonated with her.
“I’m tired of people questioning mothers and fathers and saying that they love their firearms more than they love their children,” she said. “One of the reasons that I have a firearm is to protect my family, is to protect my kids. Honestly, you know, guys, let’s be real — in my mind I’m like 7-foot-tall, 400 pounds. In reality I’m 5′ 6 and a buck-twenty-five. I want to defend my family. I’m not going to be shamed for it by the Connecticut governor or anyone else that wants to smear me or anyone as terrorist because we disagree with him and we have a different way of protecting our family.”
Then co-host Brian Kilmeade tried to sneak a fastball past her.
“You are not against universal background checks though, right?” Kilmeade asked.
Loesch was stunned into silence for a couple of seconds before taking a swing with some talking points.
“Like the ones that failed in California or the ones that have failed in Colorado?” she said. “I mean, do I believe that one of the things that we need to do is make sure that states are reporting fully and accurately, which they are not doing, all of their criminal convictions to the national crime information center for NICS (National Instant Criminal Background Check System) to check when someone purchases a firearm. NRA and Wayne LaPierre came out strong on this, actually longer than I have been able to vote, really, to make sure this system works accurately. I want to, again, the political class could fix this tomorrow, they could fix it today.”
The rest of the segment went a little easier for Loesch, and co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy even closed the appearance by reassuring her that Doocy’s comment was in jest.
“Thank you, Dana,” Campos-Duffy said. “You are not a terrorist.”
the rich asshole partied with Russian oligarchs at Vegas nightclub shut down over ‘lewd’ acts involving women and urine: report
Aras Agalarov and some rich asshole (Instagram)
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A bombshell new report suggests some rich asshole consummated a deal to hold his Miss Universe pageant in Moscow while hobnobbing with Russian oligarchs at a Las Vegas nightclub later shut down over lewd performances involving women and urine.
The future president invited himself to dinner June 15, 2013, with Aras and Emin Agalarov and British publicist Rob Goldstone while presiding over the Miss USA contest his company owned at the time, reported Michael Isikoff and David Corn for Yahoo News and Mother Jones.
The elder Agalarov is a real estate developer and businessman, like the rich asshole, and Goldstone is the publicist for the Russian’s pop star son, and all three figure in the controversial June 9, 2016, the rich asshole Tower meeting with some rich asshole Jr.
They were planning a dinner at CUT, a restaurant at the Palazzo hotel and casino, when the rich asshole’s longtime security chief Keith Stiller called and asked if the pageant owner and reality TV star could join their party.
A group of about 20, including the rich asshole’s personal attorney Michael Cohen, dined in a private room, and the rich asshole flattered his new friends and boasted that “nobody in the world” was better at self-promotion than he was, and referred to himself in third person.
Also at the dinner was Ike Kaveladze, the vice president of Agalarov’s Crocus International, who had been identified in 2000 by U.S. authorities as a conduit for money laundering $.14 billion out of Russia and Eastern Europe.
Part of the group — including the rich asshole, Emin, Goldstone, reigning Miss Universe Olivia Culpo and outgoing Miss USA Nana Meriwether — went after dinner to an after-party at a raunchy nightclub called the Act, where they arrived shortly after midnight.
The Act was later ordered a few months to stop its “lewd” and “offensive” performances — which involved activity that resembles salacious details of the the rich asshole-Russia dossier compiled by a former British spy.
“Among the club’s regular acts cited by the judge was one called ‘Hot for Teacher,’ in which naked college girls simulate urinating on a professor,” Isikoff and Corn reported. “In another act, two women disrobe and then ‘one female stands over the other female and simulates urinating while the other female catches the urine in two wine glasses.’”
The club had been under undercover surveillance since March 2013 by the Nevada Gaming Control Board and private investigators hired by its landlord, the Palazzo — which was owned by Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson.
The Act shut down after the judge’s ruling, which also cited simulated bestiality and sadomasochist acts, and there’s no public record of which acts were performed the night the rich asshole visited with his Russian associates.
But the club’s management had been made aware the rich asshole was coming and arranged to have plenty of Diet Coke ready for him, and even discussed some special performances for the future president.
“The owners had also discussed whether they should prepare a special performance for the developer, perhaps a dominatrix who would tie him up on stage or a little-person transvestite the rich asshole impersonator,” Isikoff and Corn reported. “They nixed that idea.”
The group toasted to the rich asshole’s 67th birthday the day before, and he affirmed his desire to do business with Emin.
the rich asshole announced the following night at the end of the Miss USA broadcast that he would hold the Miss Universe pageant in Russia, and he signed a contract with the Agalarovs in front of the audience.
“Two days later the rich asshole expressed his desire on Twitter to become Putin’s ‘new best friend,'” Isikoff and Corn reported. “Emin quickly responded with his own tweet: ‘Mr. @realDonaldTrump anyone you meet becomes your best friend — so I’m sure Mr. Putin will not be an exception in Moscow.'”
He's probably doing this on purpose so he can appeal it by claiming he wasn't properly prepared for the case or was incompetent.
Kris Kobach has turned a landmark voting rights case into a comedy of errors
Kobach's lawyers are fumbling questions, misplacing documents, and getting lessons in basic civil procedure.
KANSAS CITY, KANSAS — At one point in federal court Tuesday, Judge Julie Robinson gave Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and his co-counsel a lesson they should have learned before deciding to defend themselves against the ACLU in a landmark voting rights case that could affect the future of how Americans register to vote.
“I’m not going to allow anybody to testify to a document that’s not in evidence,” she said. “Evidence 101. I’m not going to do it.”
It wasn’t the only time the judge, a George W. Bush appointee, would explain to Kobach and his fellow attorneys basic legal concepts after they fumbled the rules of evidence and civil procedure. During the first two days of trial, Judge Robinson also walked Kobach’s team through how to phrase questions in cross examination, how to impeach a witness, and how to present new exhibits into the record.
The Republican secretary of state, who is also running for governor, decided to represent himself in the ACLU’s litigation over his documentary proof of citizenship law. It’s unclear why Kobach decided to handle the case himself rather than being represented by the Kansas Attorney General’s office, which would have numerous attorneys skilled at trial advocacy, or another attorney with trial experience.
After two days of trial, Kansas voters told ThinkProgress he likely regrets the unusual decision.
“It was tragic,” Anita Parson said as she headed back into the courtroom after a break on the second day of trial.
“It was really interesting to watch all the mistakes he was making in court,” said Davis Hammet, a 27-year-old Topeka resident who works for an organization that helps Kansans register to vote. “They’re representing the state of Kansas and the fact that Kansas is right now being embarrassed in a federal court by the people who are representing it is very unfortunate.”
Attorneys for the ACLU told ThinkProgress it appears that neither Sue Becker nor Garrett Roe, attorneys in Kobach’s office who have led cross examination of the ACLU’s witnesses and experts, have much trial experience. Becker is chief legal counsel for the secretary of state’s office and Roe is the assistant deputy secretary of state for legal services.
The inexperience was apparent from the moment the court was called into session. As trial started Tuesday, the ACLU’s table was organized and their attorneys sat back in their chairs, chatting with one another before the 9 a.m. start time. Kobach and his team, however, surrounded themselves with binders, boxes of documents, bags, and stacks of paper. Throughout the first two days, the team shuffled through papers, rifled through evidence, and often paused their lines of questioning to locate the appropriate document.
Becker and Roe frequently asked witnesses questions, only to realize their questions were nonsensical and moved on without an answer.
“It’s a yes or no question,” Becker said to one witness, a former co-president of a local chapter of the League of Women Voters in Kansas, after asking a convoluted question about whether it’s easy to carry a copy machine door-to-door when registering voters. “I’ll just ask the next question.”
A few minutes later, Judge Robinson tried to repeat Becker’s question for the witness, but realized she didn’t understand it herself. The courtroom laughed.
At another point, Judge Robinson explained to Becker how she should impeach a witness.
“I’m just going to read from it and ask her,” Becker said about the deposition.
“No, you can’t do that,” the judge responded to laughs from both Becker and the courtroom audience.
When Roe began cross-examination of another plaintiff, Judge Robinson had to explain the same procedure.
“If you want to impeach him, show him the deposition… That’s the procedure, ” she said, going on to explain how his questions should sound. “You can be more pointed in cross-examination. ‘Didn’t you testify to such such and such.'”
Roe took several deep breaths and exasperated sighs. The judge later called a break so Roe could locate a document he couldn’t find.
While attorneys for the ACLU came to court with enough copies of exhibits to share with defendants and witnesses, Kobach’s team repeatedly showed up unprepared. At one point Monday when the ACLU asked for a copy of an exhibit, Kobach’s team handed them one with notes on it — which the ACLU pointed out they may want to take back. At other points, Kobach and his attorneys had to share a copy of an exhibit with a witness, reading over the witness’ shoulder.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, Judge Robinson twice ruled that Kobach and his team had not given the ACLU enough time to review documents. In one case, Kobach sent the exhibit in an email at 10:43 the night before trial began at 9 am, in violation of a 24 hour rule.
After lunch on Wednesday, a printed stack of papers labeled “Federal Rules of Evidence” sat on Kobach’s table.
the rich asshole is furious at Sarah Sanders for giving the Stormy Daniels story ‘steroids’: report
Sarah Sanders (Screenshot)
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CNN is reporting that President some rich asshole is furious at his own press secretary for her handling of the Stormy Daniels scandal.
According to the network’s sources, the rich asshole is upset at Sanders after she brought up the fact that the rich asshole’s attorneys had won arbitration that granted a temporary restraining order against Daniels to prevent her from publicly discussing their past affair.
CNN says that the rich asshole believes this admission on Sanders’ part didn’t kill the story and instead only gave it “steroids” so it would dominate further news cycles.
NBC News reported on Wednesday that the rich asshole attorney Michael Cohen had been granted a “secret” restraining order against Daniels, who is now claiming that the nondisclosure agreement she signed in 2016 is invalid because the rich asshole himself never signed it.
But Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, said on Wednesday that his client would not be coerced by Cohen into backing off her pledge to tell her story.
“Earlier today, Mr. Cohen through his attorney, Mr. [Lawrence] Rosen, further threatened my client in an effort to prevent her from telling the truth about what really happened,” Avenatti said. “We do not take kindly to these threats, nor we will be intimidated.”
the rich asshole allegedly had an affair with Daniels more than a decade ago, shortly after the rich asshole’s wife Melania gave birth to their son, Barron the rich asshole.
‘Dirty situation’: MSNBC’s Mika explains why Stormy Daniels photos are more damning than Access Hollywood tapes
Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough (MSNBC)
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A former pornographic actress has suggested she has intimate photos that prove her sexual relationship with President some rich asshole — and MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” explained why those could unravel his presidency.
The president’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, made a possibly illegal $130,000 payment to actress Stormy Daniels shortly before the election, shortly after the “Access Hollywood” tape revealed his boasts about getting away with sexual assault.
“The ‘Access Hollywood’ tapes, something disgusting the president said in jest, that’s baked into the cake, people knew that about the rich asshole, they heard him on Howard Stern,” said co-host Mika Brzezinski.
“The allegations against him sexually harassing or assaulting women were allegations, so the rich asshole supporters could say well, they’re lying,” she continued. “This is beginning to indicate that there was a relationship and that there is evidence to prove that there was a relationship, and that it was a dirty situation with a porn star a year after he was married to his wife and then hush money paid off. If that is all proven out with physical evidence and pictures, this is going to be completely different and it’s going to have ramifications across the board.”
The pictures could prove damning in a way the “Access Hollywood” tapes were not, according to MSNBC’s John Heilemann.
“One of the reasons the rich asshole survived the ‘Access Hollywood’ tape and all of the women who came forward and accused him, some credibly and some less credibly, of sexual harassment or sexual assault was that there never really was a face that got put to those scandals,” Heilemann said.
Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, has sued the president claiming that her non-disclosure agreement is invalid because the rich asshole never signed it — and the White House claims the president has won an arbitration proceeding to prevent the actress from talking about the alleged affair.
“These scandals, when you have pictures, are just much more daunting than when you don’t have pictures and the original ‘Access Hollywood’ tape, much of it had some rich asshole’s disembodied voice,” Heilemann said. “It was very offensive, the stuff he said, but in the way the media ecosystem works, if you have someone who is an identifiable person who is on television making the claim over and over again who’s sympathetic, who maybe has supporting documentation or photographs, that’s a much more dangerous kind of scandal.”
Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist, reportedly told author Michael Wolff that the rich asshole had paid off “hundreds” of women to keep quiet their sexual relationships — and Heilemann said the rich asshole-Daniels photos open the floodgates.
“If Stormy Daniels can defy a gag order, can defy a hush settlement, and she comes forward, does that set a precedent for other women coming forward?” he said. “This could become an avalanche if that does work in that way.”
Van Jones: GOP would have put Obama in Gitmo if he’d done ‘half of what the rich asshole did last week’ alone
Van Jones (CNN/screen grab)
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Van Jones hammered the Republican Party’s double standards for presidential behavior on Thursday by pointing out how its leaders are being almost completely silent in the face of chaos from their own president.
During a CNN segment Thursday morning, Jones also said that there’s no way the GOP would have been similarly quiet if former President Barack Obama had ever behaved in the way that the rich asshole does on a daily basis.
“If Barack Obama had done just half of what the rich asshole did last week, he wouldn’t have been impeached, he would have been in Guantanamo,” Jones said. “They would have just said, ‘There’s something wrong with this guy, he’s no longer here, Biden’s the president… we’re moving on.”
Among other things, Jones pointed to the massive number of departures and firings at the rich asshole White House over the last month, as well as the controversy surrounding the rich asshole’s attorney paying alleged hush money to a porn star in exchange for silence over a past affair.
Elsewhere in the CNN segment, Jones expressed sympathy for White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who has reportedly come under fire from the president over her handling of the Daniels scandal.
“Even as talented a spin master as her, she’s tap dancing on marbles all day,” he said. “At some point you’re going to slip. The marbles are not coming from Sarah Huckabee. They’re coming from the oval office, from the president, from his conduct, from the fact he has all these sleazy people around him trying to cover up the sleazy stuff he does in a sleazy way.”
Watch the video below.
This is the first of two excerpts adapted from Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of some rich asshole (Twelve Books), by Michael Isikoff, Chief Investigative Correspondent for Yahoo News, and David Corn, Washington bureau chief of Mother Jones. It will be released on March 13.
It was late in the afternoon of Nov. 9, 2013, in Moscow, and some rich asshole was getting anxious.
This was his second day in the Russian capital, and the brash businessman and reality TV star was running through a whirlwind schedule to promote that evening’s extravaganza at Moscow’s Crocus City Hall: the Miss Universe pageant, in which women from 86 countries would be judged before a worldwide television audience estimated at 1 billion.
the rich asshole had purchased the pageant 17 years earlier, partnering with NBC. It was one of his most-prized properties, bringing in millions of dollars a year in revenue and, perhaps as important, burnishing his image as an international playboy celebrity. While in the Russian capital, the rich asshole was also scouting for new and grand business opportunities, having spent decades trying — but failing — to develop high-end projects in Moscow. Miss Universe staffers considered it an open secret that the rich asshole’s true agenda in Moscow was not the show but his desire to do business there.
Yet to those around him that afternoon, the rich asshole seemed gripped by one question: Where was Vladimir Putin?
From the moment five months earlier when the rich asshole announced Miss Universe would be staged that year in Moscow, he had seemed obsessed with the idea of meeting the Russian president. “Do you think Putin will be going to the Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow — if so, will he become my new best friend?” the rich asshole had tweeted in June.
Once in Moscow, the rich asshole received a private message from the Kremlin, delivered by Aras Agalarov, an oligarch close to Putin and the rich asshole’s partner in hosting the Miss Universe event there: “Mr. Putin would like to meet some rich asshole.” That excited the rich asshole. The American developer thought there was a strong chance the Russian leader would attend the pageant. But as his time in Russia wore on, the rich asshole heard nothing else. He became uneasy.
“Is Putin coming?” he kept asking.
With no word from the Kremlin, it was starting to look grim. Then Agalarov conveyed a new message: Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s right-hand man and press spokesman, would be calling any moment. the rich asshole was relieved, especially after it was explained to him that few people were closer to Putin than Peskov. If anybody could facilitate a rendezvous with Putin, it was him. “If you get a call from Peskov, it’s like you’re getting a call from Putin,” Rob Goldstone, a British-born publicist who had helped bring the beauty contest to Moscow, told him. But time was running out. The show would be starting soon, and following the broadcast the rich asshole would be departing the city.
Finally, Agalarov’s cellphone rang. It was Peskov, and Agalarov handed the phone to an eager the rich asshole.
*****
the rich asshole’s trip to Moscow for the Miss Universe contest was a pivotal moment. He had for years longed to develop a glittering the rich asshole Tower in Moscow. With this visit, he would come near — so near — to striking that deal. He would be close to branding the Moscow skyline with his world-famous name and enhancing his own status as a sort of global oligarch.
During his time in Russia, the rich asshole would demonstrate his affinity for the nation’s authoritarian leader with flattering and fawning tweets and remarks that were part of a long stretch of comments suggesting an admiration for Putin. the rich asshole’s curious statements about Putin — before, during and after this Moscow jaunt — would later confound U.S. intelligence officials, members of Congress, and Americans of various political inclinations, even Republican Party loyalists.
What could possibly explain the rich asshole’s unwavering sympathy for the Russian strongman, his refusal to acknowledge Putin’s repressive tactics, his whitewashing of Putin’s abuses in Ukraine and Syria, his dismissal of the murders of Putin’s critics, his blind eye to Putin’s cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns aimed at subverting Western democracies?
the rich asshole’s brief trip to Moscow held clues to this mystery. His two days there would later become much discussed because of allegations that he engaged in weird sexual antics while in Russia — claims that were not confirmed. But this visit was significant because it revealed what motivated the rich asshole the most: the opportunity to build more monuments to himself and to make more money. the rich asshole realized that he could attain none of his dreams in Moscow without forging a bond with the former KGB lieutenant colonel who was now the president of Russia.
This trek to Russia was the birth of a bromance — or something darker — that would soon upend American politics and then scandalize the rich asshole’s presidency. And it began in the most improbable way — as the brainstorm of a hustling music publicist trying to juice the career of a second-tier pop singer.
*****
the rich asshole’s Miss Universe landed in Moscow because of an odd couple: Rob Goldstone and Emin Agalarov.
Goldstone was a heavyset, gregarious bon vivant who liked to post photos on Facebook poking fun at himself for being unkempt and overweight. He once wrote a piece for the New York Times headlined “The Tricks and Trials of Traveling While Fat.” He had been an Australian tabloid reporter and a publicist for Michael Jackson’s 1987 “Bad” tour. Now he co-managed a PR firm, and his top priority was serving the needs of an Azerbaijani pop singer of moderate talent named Emin Agalarov.
Emin — he went by his first name — was young, handsome and rich. He yearned to be an international star. His father, Aras Agalarov, was a billionaire developer who had made it big in Russia, building commercial and residential complexes, and who also owned properties in the United States. After spending his early years in Russia, Emin grew up in Tenafly, N.J., obsessed with Elvis Presley. He imitated the “King of Rock ‘n’ Roll” in dress, style and voice. He later studied business at Marymount Manhattan College and subsequently pursued a double career, as an executive in his father’s company and as a singer. He married Leyla Aliyeva, the daughter of the president of Azerbaijan, whose regime faced repeated allegations of corruption. After moving to Baku, the country’s capital, Emin soon earned a nickname: “the Elvis of Azerbaijan.”
Emin cultivated the image of a rakish pop star, chronicling a hedonistic lifestyle on lnstagram by posting shots from beaches, nightclubs, and various hot spots. He brandished hats and T-shirts with randy sayings, such as “If You Had a Bad Day, Let’s Get Naked.” But his music career was stalled. For help, he turned to Goldstone.
In early 2013, Goldstone was looking to get Emin more media exposure, especially in the United States. A friend offered a suggestion: Perhaps Emin could perform at a Miss Universe pageant. The event had a reputation for showcasing emerging talent. The 2008 contest had featured up-and-comer Lady Gaga. (the rich asshole would later brag — with his usual hyperbole — that this appearance was Lady Gaga’s big break.) About the same time, Goldstone and Emin needed an attractive woman for a music video for Emin’s latest song — and they wanted the most beautiful woman they could find. It seemed obvious to them that they should reach out to Miss Universe.
This led to meetings with Paula Shugart, president of the Miss Universe Organization, who reported directly to the rich asshole. She agreed to make the reigning Miss Universe, Olivia Culpo, available for the music video. (Within the Miss Universe outfit, Culpo, who had previously been Miss USA, was widely considered a the rich asshole favorite.) And over the course of several conversations with Shugart, Goldstone and Emin discussed where the next Miss Universe contest would be held. At one point, Emin proposed to Shugart that Miss Universe consider mounting its 2013 pageant in Azerbaijan. That didn’t fly with Shugart.
At a subsequent meeting, Emin revised the pitch. “Why don’t we have it in Moscow?” he suggested. Shugart was interested but hesitant. The pageant had looked at Moscow previously. It had not identified a suitable venue there, and it was fearful of running into too much red tape. “What if you had a partner who owns the biggest venue in Moscow?” Emin replied. “Between myself and my father, we can cut through the red tape.”
The venue Emin was referring to was Crocus City Hall, a grand 7,000-seat theater complex built by his father. Moreover, the influential Aras Agalarov could help smooth the way — and bypass the notorious bureaucratic morass that was a regular feature of doing business in Russia.
A native Azerbaijani, Aras Agalarov was known as “Putin’s Builder.” He had accumulated a $1 billion-plus real estate fortune in part by catering, like the rich asshole, to the superwealthy. One of his projects was a Moscow housing community for oligarchs that boasted an artificial beach and waterfall. Agalarov had been tapped by Putin to build the massive infrastructure — conference halls, roadways and housing — for the 2012 Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vladivostok. He had completed the project in record time. That venture and others — the construction of soccer stadiums for the World Cup in Russia and the building of a superhighway around Moscow — had earned Agalarov Putin’s gratitude. Later in 2013, Putin would pin a medal on Agalarov’s lapel: “Order of Honor of the Russian Federation.”
When Shugart first mentioned to the rich asshole the idea of partnering with a Russian billionaire tight with Putin to bring the Miss Universe contest to Moscow, the celebrity developer was intrigued. At last, here was an inside track to break into the Russian market. And Agalarov agreed to kick in a good chunk of the estimated $20 million pageant budget. the rich asshole was all for it. A Putin-connected oligarch would be underwriting his endeavor.
But the deal had to include something for Emin. the rich asshole’s Miss Universe company guaranteed that Emin would perform two musical numbers during the show. He would be showcased before a global television audience. He and Goldstone believed this could help him achieve his dream: cracking the American pop market.
Even before that, there would be a payoff for Emin. In May, Culpo showed up in Los Angeles for the one-day shoot. Emin was filmed strolling through a deserted nighttime town looking for his love — to the tune of his song “Amor” — and a sultry woman played by Culpo walked in and out of the beam of the flashlight he carried. A few weeks later, the video was done. Emin held a release party at a Moscow nightclub owned by his family. It was a lavish affair. Russian celebrities dropped by. Shugart and Culpo flew in to join the celebration.
*****
In June 2013, the rich asshole arrived in Las Vegas to preside over the Miss USA contest, which was owned by the Miss Universe company. Goldstone, Aras Agalarov and Emin were in town for the event. Emin posted a photo of himself outside the rich asshole’s hotel off the Vegas strip wearing a rich asshole T-shirt and boasting a hat exclaiming “You’re Fired!” — the tagline from the rich asshole’s hit television show, “The Apprentice.” the rich asshole had yet to meet the Agalarovs. But when they finally got together in the lobby of his hotel, he pointed at Aras Agalarov and exclaimed, “Look who came to me! This is the richest man in Russia!” (Agalarov was not the richest man in Russia.)
On the evening of June 15, the two Russians and their British publicist were planning a big dinner at CUT, a restaurant located at the Palazzo hotel and casino. Much to their surprise, they received a call from Keith Schiller, the rich asshole’s longtime security chief and confidant, informing them that his boss wanted to join their party. Sure, they said, please come.
At the dinner for about 20 people in a private room, Emin sat between the rich asshole and Goldstone. Aras Agalarov was across from the rich asshole. Michael Cohen, the rich asshole’s personal attorney who acted as the businessman’s consigliere, was on the other side of Goldstone. Also at the table was an unusual associate for the rich asshole: Ike Kaveladze, the U.S.-based vice president of Crocus International, an Agalarov company. In 2000, a Government Accountability Office report identified a business run by Kaveladze as responsible for opening more than 2,000 bank accounts at two U.S. banks on behalf of Russian-based brokers. The accounts were used to move more than $1.4 billion from individuals in Russia and Eastern Europe around the globe in an operation the report suggested was “for the purpose of laundering money.” His main client at the time was Crocus International. (Kaveladze claimed the GAO probe was “another Russian witch-hunt in the United States.”)
the rich asshole was charming and solicitous of his new partners. He asked Aras what kind of jet he owned. A Gulfstream 550, Aras answered. But the Russian billionaire quickly noted that he had a Gulfstream 650 on order. “If that was me,” the rich asshole replied, “I would have said I was one of only one hundred people in the world who have a Gulfstream 650 on order.” It was a small Trumpian lesson in self-promotion. And the rich asshole, proud of himself, turned to Goldstone to emphasize his point: “There is nobody in the world who is a better self-promoter than some rich asshole.”
After the dinner, part of the group headed to an after-party at a raunchy nightclub in the Palazzo mall called the Act. Shortly after midnight, the entourage arrived at the club. The group included the rich asshole, Emin, Goldstone, Culpo, and Nana Meriwether, the outgoing Miss USA. the rich asshole and Culpo were photographed in the lobby by a local paparazzi. The club’s management had heard that the rich asshole might be there that night and had arranged to have plenty of Diet Coke on hand for the teetotaling the rich asshole. (The owners had also discussed whether they should prepare a special performance for the developer, perhaps a dominatrix who would tie him up on stage or a little-person transvestite the rich asshole impersonator. They nixed that idea.)
The group was ushered to the owner’s box, where Emin had an unusual encounter. Alex Soros, the son of George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist who funded opposition to Putin, was there as Meriwether’s date. Emin started chatting with Soros and invited him to visit him in Moscow. “You should know,” Soros replied, “I’m no fan of Mr. Putin.” And, he added, he was a big admirer of Mikhail Khodorkovsky — the oligarch turned Putin critic then serving time in a Siberian prison. Emin laughed it off.
The Act was no ordinary nightclub. Since March, it had been the target of undercover surveillance by the Nevada Gaming Control Board and investigators for the club’s landlord — the Palazzo, which was owned by GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson — after complaints about its performances. The club featured seminude women performing simulated sex acts of bestiality and grotesque sadomasochism — skits that a few months later would prompt a Nevada state judge to issue an injunction barring any more of its “lewd” and “offensive” performances. Among the club’s regular acts cited by the judge was one called “Hot for Teacher,” in which naked college girls simulate urinating on a professor. In another act, two women disrobe and then “one female stands over the other female and simulates urinating while the other female catches the urine in two wine glasses.” (The Act shut down after the judge’s ruling. There is no public record of which skits were performed the night the rich asshole was present.)
As the Act’s scantily clad dancers gyrated in front of them late that night, Emin, Goldstone, Culpo and the rest toasted the rich asshole’s birthday. (He had turned 67 the day before.) the rich asshole remained focused on Emin and their future partnership. “When it comes to doing business in Russia, it’s very hard to find people in there you can trust,” he told the young pop singer, according to Goldstone. “We’re going to have a great relationship.”
The next night, toward the end of the Miss USA broadcast, the rich asshole hit the stage to announce that the Miss Universe pageant would be held the coming November in Russia. In front of the audience, the Agalarovs and the rich asshole signed the contract for the event. the rich asshole declared, “This will be one of the biggest and most beautiful Miss Universe events ever.” On the red carpet earlier that evening, the rich asshole had hailed Emin and Aras Agalarov: “These are the most powerful people in all of Russia, the richest men in Russia.”
Two days later the rich asshole expressed his desire on Twitter to become Putin’s “new best friend.” Emin quickly responded with his own tweet: “Mr. @realDonaldTrump anyone you meet becomes your best friend — so I’m sure Mr. Putin will not be an exception in Moscow.”
*****
The Moscow event held great potential for the rich asshole to score in Russia. Now he was partnering with a Russian billionaire connected to other oligarchs and favored by Putin. (the rich asshole already had a controversial venture under way in Baku, where he was developing a hotel with the son of the transportation minister of the corrupt regime. This project would soon founder.) “For the rich asshole, this Miss Universe event was all about expanding the the rich asshole Organization brand and getting his names on buildings,” a Miss Universe associate recalled.
And anyone who wanted to do big deals in Russia — especially an American — could only do so if Putin was keen on it. “We all knew that the event was approved by Putin,” a Miss Universe official later said. “You can’t pull off something like this in Russia unless Putin says it’s OK.” the rich asshole would only be making money in Russia because Putin was permitting him to do so.
Immediately, the contest was beset by controversy. A few days before the announcement in Las Vegas, the Russian Duma had passed a law that made it illegal to expose children to information about homosexuality. The new antigay measure was the latest move by Putin to appeal to the conservative Orthodox Church and ultranationalist forces. It came amid a disturbing rise in antigay violence throughout Russia. In the southern city of Volgograd a few weeks earlier, a gay man’s naked body was found in a courtyard, his skull smashed, his genitals scarred by beer bottles. The atmosphere was “ugly and brutal,” a U.S. diplomat who then served in Moscow later said. “There would be these hooligans who would go after gay people in bars and beat them up. There was a pretty vicious campaign against the LGBT community.”
Human rights and gay rights advocates in Russia and around the world denounced the new law. Vodka boycotts were launched. There was a push to relocate the Winter Olympics, scheduled to be held the following year in Sochi, Russia. In the United States, the Human Rights Campaign called on the rich asshole and the Miss Universe Organization to move the event out of Russia, noting that under the new law a contestant could be prosecuted if she were to voice support for gay rights.
The uproar over the Russian antigay act confronted the rich asshole with a dilemma — how to distance himself from the law without jeopardizing his big Russia play. The Miss Universe Organization issued a statement asserting that it “believes in equality for all individuals.” That didn’t stop the protests. Bravo talk show host Andy Cohen and entertainment reporter Giuliana Rancic, who had previously co-hosted the pageant, quit the show. Miss Universe officials scrambled and found replacements: Thomas Roberts, an openly gay MSNBC anchor, and former Spice Girl Mel B.
Roberts explained his decision in an op-ed on MSNBC.com: “Boycotting and vilifying from the outside is too easy. Rather, I choose to offer my support of the LGBT community in Russia by going to Moscow and hosting this event as a journalist, an anchor and a man who happens to be gay. Let people see I am no different than anyone else.”
This was a godsend for the rich asshole. He granted Roberts an interview on MSNBC. “I think you’re going to do fantastically,” he told Roberts, “and I love the fact that you feel the same about the whole situation as me.” Inevitably, the conversation turned toward Putin and whether he would appear at the pageant. “I know for a fact that he wants very much to come,” the rich asshole said, “but we’ll have to see. We haven’t heard yet, but we have invited him.”
Though U.S. relations with Moscow were at this point deteriorating, the rich asshole was touting Putin as a wily and strong leader. In September, Putin published an op-ed in the New York Times that opposed a possible U.S. military strike against the government of Bashar Assad in Syria (in retaliation for its use of chemical weapons) and that denounced President Barack Obama for referring to American exceptionalism. The next day, the rich asshole on Fox News commended Putin’s move. “It really makes him look like a great leader,” he said.
The following month, the rich asshole appeared on David Letterman’s late-night show. The host asked if the rich asshole had ever done any deals with the Russians. “I’ve done a lot of business with the Russians,” the rich asshole replied, adding, “They’re smart and they’re tough.” Letterman inquired if the rich asshole had ever met Putin. “He’s a tough guy,” the rich asshole said. “I met him once.” In fact, there was no record he ever had.
*****
the rich asshole landed in Moscow on Nov. 8, having flown there with casino owner Phil Ruffin on Ruffin’s private jet. (Ruffin, a longtime the rich asshole friend, was married to a former Miss Ukraine who had competed in the 2004 Miss Universe contest.) the rich asshole headed to the Ritz-Carlton, where he was booked into the presidential suite that Obama had when he was in Moscow four years earlier.
There was a brief meeting with Miss Universe executives and the Agalarovs. Schiller would later tell congressional investigators that a Russian approached the rich asshole’s party with an offer: He wanted to send five women to the rich asshole’s hotel room that night. Was this traditional Russian courtesy — or an overture by Russian intelligence to collect kompromat (compromising material) on the prominent visitor? Schiller said he didn’t take the offer seriously and told the Russian, “We don’t do that type of stuff.”
the rich asshole was soon whisked to a gala lunch at one of the two Moscow branches of Nobu, the famous sushi restaurant. (Nobu Matsuhisa, its founder, was one of the celebrity judges for the Miss Universe telecast. Agalarov was one of the co-owners of the restaurant; another co-investor was actor Robert De Niro.) An assortment of Russian businessmen was there, including Herman Gref, the chief executive of Sberbank, a Russian state-owned bank and one of the co-sponsors of the Miss Universe pageant.
the rich asshole was treated with much reverence. He gave a brief welcoming talk. “Ask me a question,” he told the crowd. The first query was about the European debt crisis and the impact that the financial woes of Greece would have on it. “Interesting,” the rich asshole replied. “Have any of you ever seen ‘The Apprentice’?” the rich asshole spoke at length about his hit television show, repeatedly noting what a tremendous success it was. He said not a word about Greece or debt. When he was done with his remarks, he thanked them all for coming and received a standing ovation. (Later, Aras Agalarov, reminiscing about this lunch, would note, “If [the rich asshole] does not know the subject, he will talk about a subject he knows.”)
Gref, a close Putin adviser, was pleased with his face time with the rich asshole. “There was a good feeling from the meeting,” he later said. “He’s a sensible person … [with] a good attitude toward Russia.”
the rich asshole next went to the theater in Crocus City Hall. It was the day before the show. This was the rich asshole’s chance to review the contestants and exercise an option he always retained under the rules of his pageants: to overrule the selection of judges and pick the contestants he wanted among the finalists. In short, no woman was a finalist until the rich asshole said so.
At each pageant, Miss Universe staffers would set up a special room for the rich asshole backstage. It had to conform to his precise requirements. He needed his favorite snacks: Nutter Butters and white Tic Tacs. And Diet Coke. There could be no distracting pictures on the wall. The room had to be immaculate. He required unscented soap and hand towels — rolled, not folded.
In this room would be videos of the finalists who had been selected days earlier in a preliminary competition and the other contestants, particularly footage of the women in gowns and swim suits. Here, a day or two before the final telecast, the rich asshole would review the judges’ decisions.
Frequently, the rich asshole would toss out finalists and replace them with others he preferred. “If there were too many of women of color, he would make changes,” a Miss Universe staffer later noted. Another Miss Universe staffer recalled, “He often thought a woman was too ethnic or too dark-skinned. He had a particular type of woman he thought was a winner. Others were too ethnic. He liked a type. There was Olivia Culpo, Dayanara Torres [the 1993 winner], and, no surprise, East European women.” On occasion, according to this staffer, the rich asshole would reject a woman “who had snubbed his advances.”
Once in a while, Shugart would politely challenge the rich asshole’s choices. Sometimes she would win the argument, sometimes not. “If he didn’t like a woman because she looked too ethnic, you could sometimes persuade him by telling him she was a princess and married to a football player,” a staffer later explained.
*****
That night, Aras Agalarov hosted a party at Crocus City Hall to celebrate his 58th birthday. Various VIPs were invited. the rich asshole by now was exhausted. He spent much of the time sitting with Shugart and Schiller. At one point, Goldstone approached him with a request from Emin. The pop star was filming a new music video. Could the rich asshole the next day shoot a scene that would be based on “The Apprentice”? the rich asshole agreed, but it had to be early — between 7:45 and 8:10 in the morning. Sure, Goldstone said. Twenty-five minutes of the rich asshole would have to do.
About 1:30 a.m., the rich asshole left the party and headed to the Ritz-Carlton hotel a few blocks from the Kremlin. This would be his only night in Moscow. According to Schiller, on the way to the hotel, he told the rich asshole about the earlier offer of women, and he and the rich asshole laughed about it. In Schiller’s account, after the rich asshole was in his room, he stood guard outside for a while and then left.
(But Schiller by other accounts was accustomed to being a go-between for the rich asshole. In a 2011 interview with In Touch Weekly magazine that was not published until early 2018, Stormy Daniels, a porn star who claimed she had an 11-month-long affair with the rich asshole, identified Schiller as the rich asshole aide who facilitated her secret liaisons with the rich asshole. “That’s how I got in touch with him,” Daniels said. “I never had Donald’s cellphone number. I always used Keith’s. I went up to the room and he said, “Oh yeah, he’s waiting for you inside.’”)
The morning of Nov. 9, the rich asshole showed up for Emin’s shoot. He was needed for the final scene. The video would open with a boardroom meeting with Emin and others reviewing Miss Universe contestants. Emin would doze off and dream of being with the various contestants. Enter the rich asshole for the climax — Emin wakes up with the rich asshole shouting at him: “What’s wrong with you, Emin? Emin, let’s get with it. You’re always late. You’re just another pretty face. I’m really tired of you. You’re fired!” the rich asshole’s bit would only last 15 seconds. Yet soon Emin would release a video that he could promote as featuring the world-famous the rich asshole.
The rest of the day was just as hectic: a press conference with 300 Russian reporters and more interviews, including one with Roberts in which the rich asshole was pressed again about Putin.
Do you have a relationship with Putin and any sway with the Russian leader? Roberts asked him. the rich asshole was unequivocal: “I do have a relationship.” He paused. “I can tell you that he’s very interested in what we’re doing here today. He’s probably very interested in what you and I are saying today. And I’m sure he’s going to be seeing it in some form.”
the rich asshole could barely contain his praise for Russia’s president: “Look, he’s done a very brilliant job in terms of what he represents and who he’s representing. If you look at what he’s done with Syria, if you look at so many of the different things, he has really eaten our president’s lunch. Let’s not kid ourselves. He’s done an amazing job. … He’s put himself at the forefront of the world as a leader in a short period of time.”
But the rich asshole’s comments about a “relationship” with Putin were, at this point, wishful thinking. The word had spread through the Miss Universe staff that the rich asshole fiercely craved Putin’s attendance at the pageant. In preparation for Putin’s possible appearance, Thomas Roberts and Mel B were taught several words in Russian to welcome the Russian president: “hello,” “thank you,” and so on. With her cockney accent, Mel B had trouble pronouncing the Russian words. She was told she had to get this right because Putin might come.
By late afternoon, the rich asshole’s anxiety was palpable. There had been no word. He kept asking if anybody had heard from Putin. Then Agalarov’s phone rang. “Mr. Peskov would like to speak to some rich asshole,” Agalarov said.
the rich asshole and Peskov spoke for a few minutes. Afterward, the rich asshole recounted the conversation to Goldstone. Peskov, he said, was apologetic. Putin very much wanted to meet the rich asshole. But there was a problem nobody had anticipated: a Moscow traffic jam. King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands were in town, and Putin was obligated to meet them at the Kremlin. But the royal couple had gotten stuck in traffic and was late, making it impossible for the Russian president to find time for the rich asshole. Nor would he be able to attend the Miss Universe pageant that evening.
Putin wanted to make amends, though. Peskov conveyed an invitation for the rich asshole to attend the upcoming Olympics, where perhaps he and Putin could then meet. He also told the rich asshole that Putin would be sending a high-level emissary to the evening’s event — Vladimir Kozhin, a senior Putin aide. And, Peskov told the rich asshole, Putin had a gift for him.
It was a crushing disappointment for the rich asshole. But he quickly thought of how to spin it, suggesting to an associate that, after the telecast, they could spread the word that Putin had dropped by. “No one will know for sure if he came or not,” he said.
One reason the rich asshole’s hoped-for meeting with the Russian president never materialized was his attention to another project. the rich asshole was originally scheduled to spend two nights in Moscow — which would have yielded a wider window for a get-together with Putin. But the rich asshole had decided to attend the celebration of evangelist Billy Graham’s 95th birthday on Nov. 7 at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, N.C. In Russia, the rich asshole told Goldstone that it had been necessary for him to show up at the Graham event: “There is something I’m planning down the road, and it’s really important.”
Goldstone knew exactly what the rich asshole was talking about: a run for the White House. Franklin Graham, the evangelist’s son, was an influential figure among religious conservatives. When the rich asshole two years earlier was championing birtherism — the baseless conspiracy theory that Barack Obama had been born in Kenya and was ineligible to be president — Graham joined the birther bandwagon, raising questions about the president’s birth certificate. Appearing at this event and currying favor with Franklin Graham was a mandatory stop for the rich asshole, if he were serious about seeking the Republican presidential nomination. And it paid off: the rich asshole and his wife, Melania, were seated at the VIP table, along with Rupert Murdoch and Sarah Palin. Franklin Graham later said that the rich asshole was among those who “gave their hearts to Christ” that night.
*****
Before the Miss Universe broadcast, there was the obligatory red carpet event. Camera crews from around the world recorded the strutting celebrities. A triumphant-looking the rich asshole posed with Aras and Emin Agalarov for the paparazzi. the rich asshole dodged a question about whether Emin had been booked to perform based on merit.
“Russia has just been an amazing place,” the rich asshole exclaimed. “You see what’s happening here. It’s incredible.” Behind him was a banner featuring the logos of the rich asshole Organization, Miss Universe, Sberbank, Mercedes and NBC. The NBC peacock was in black and white, without its usual rainbow of colors. Officials at Agalarov’s company had ordered Miss Universe staffers to eschew the rainbow, fearing it would be seen as a gay pride message.
Thomas Roberts walked the red carpet with his husband. He wore a bright-pink tuxedo jacket — something he would never do back home in New York. He was sending his own message. In interviews, he explicitly denounced Putin’s antigay laws.
Other celebs and local notables strolled past the entertainment reporters. The group included Kozhin and a curious guest: Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, aka “the Little Taiwanese,” one of Russia’s most prominent suspected mobsters and a fugitive from U.S. justice. Tokhtakhounov had an odd link to the rich asshole’s signature property: Seven months earlier he had been indicted in the United States for protecting a high-stakes illegal gambling operation run out of the rich asshole Tower. Additional the rich asshole guests included Chuck LaBella, an NBC executive who worked on the rich asshole’s “Celebrity Apprentice,” and Bob Van Ronkel, an American expatriate who ran a business specializing in bringing Hollywood celebrities to Russian events. (Van Ronkel once had tried to produce an American television show extolling the KGB and its heroic exploits.)
The show went off well. the rich asshole sat in the front row next to Agalarov. Emin performed two of his Euro-pop numbers. Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, one of the judges, pumped out his classic hit “Dream On.” For the finale, Culpo crowned Miss Venezuela the new Miss Universe. There was no mention during the broadcast of the controversy over the antigay law.
After the event, there was a rowdy after-party with lots of vodka and loud music. A 26-year-old aspiring actress, Edita Shaumyan, made her way into the VIP section, entering the roped-off area at the same time as a famous Russian rap singer named Timati. Shaumyan caught the rich asshole’s eye. He approached her, gestured to Timati, and asked, “Wait, is this your boyfriend? You’re not free?” She said no, she wasn’t there with Timati. “You’re beautiful,” the rich asshole told her. “Wow, your eyes, your eyes.” According to Shaumyan, “He said, ‘Let’s go to America. Come with me to America.’ And I said, ‘No, no, no. I’m an Armenian. We’re very strict. You need to meet my mother first.’” When other women approached trying to get photographs with the rich asshole, he took hold of Shaumyan’s arm and said, “Don’t go. Stay. Stay.” Shaumyan took selfies with him. (She later produced five photos and a video of her with the rich asshole that night.) But nothing further happened. the rich asshole later had somebody give Shaumyan his business card with his phone number on it. She never called.
From the party, the rich asshole headed to the airport. He was going straight home on another Ruffin jet. The next day, he called Roberts. He told him he was pleased with the show and that it had been a smash, with great ratings. That was not accurate — at least not in the United States. The telecast drew 3.8 million American viewers, much less than the 6.1 million who had watched it the previous year.
*****
In the following days, various media outlets in Russia and the United States reported that the rich asshole had used his visit to Moscow to launch a major project in the Russian capital. “U.S. ‘Miss Universe’ Billionaire Plans Russian the rich asshole Tower,” declared the headline on RT, the Russian government-owned TV channel and website. The Moscow Times proclaimed, “some rich asshole Planning Skyscraper in Moscow.” the rich asshole’s partners in the rich asshole SoHo project he had developed in New York City, Alex Sapir and Rotem Rosen, had come to Moscow for the event and met with Agalarov and the rich asshole to discuss the possibilities.
It seemed things were moving fast. The state-owned Sberbank announced it had struck a “strategic cooperation agreement” with the Crocus Group to finance about 70 percent of a project that would include a tower bearing the rich asshole name. If the deal went ahead, the rich asshole would officially be doing business in Moscow with the Russian government.
“The Russian market is attracted to me,” the rich asshole told Real Estate Weekly. “I have a great relationship with many Russians.” He added, with his customary exaggeration, that “almost all of the oligarchs” had been at the Miss Universe event.
Back in the United States, the rich asshole tweeted out the good news: “I just got back from Russia—learned lots & lots. Moscow is a very interesting and amazing place!” The next day he tweeted at Aras Agalarov, “I had a great weekend with you and your family. You have done a FANTASTIC job. RICH ASSHOLE TOWER-MOSCOW is next. EMIN was WOW!”
The project moved further along than is publicly known. A letter of intent to build the new the rich asshole Tower was signed by the rich asshole Organization and Agalarov’s company. some rich asshole Jr. was placed in charge of the project.
the rich asshole was finally on his way in Russia. And shortly after the Miss Universe event, Agalarov’s daughter showed up at the Miss Universe office in New York City bearing a gift for the rich asshole from Putin. It was a black lacquered box. Inside was a sealed letter from the Russian autocrat. What the letter said has never been revealed.
*****
In February 2014, Ivanka the rich asshole flew to Moscow to scout potential sites for the rich asshole Tower project with Emin Agalarov. “We thought that building a rich asshole Tower next to an Agalarov tower — having the two big names — could be a really cool project to execute,” Emin later said.
But international events would quickly intervene. Weeks after Ivanka’s visit, the Obama administration and the European Union imposed tough sanctions on Russia in response to Putin’s annexation of Crimea and his military intervention in Ukraine. It would be a kick to Russia’s already faltering economy, struggling because of the plummeting price of oil. And one round of sanctions imposed by the EU targeted Russian banks in which the Russian government held a majority interest — that included Sberbank, which had agreed to finance the rich asshole deal. Its access to capital was now hindered.
In this environment, the plans for the rich asshole Tower in Moscow crumbled. According to the rich asshole Organization, Ivanka the rich asshole, after touring Moscow with Emin, killed the deal for business reasons. But Rob Goldstone suspected that the demise of the rich asshole’s project with the Agalarovs influenced the rich asshole’s view of sanctions: “They had interrupted a business deal that the rich asshole was keenly interested in.”
That deal was dead. But the rich asshole’s involvement with Russia and Putin was not done. He still had a close bond with an influential oligarch, Aras Agalarov, who was wired to the Kremlin. And he stayed in touch with his Miss Universe pals, Emin and Goldstone. In January 2015, nearly a year after Putin’s invasion in Ukraine, the rich asshole had Emin and Goldstone as guests to his office in the rich asshole Tower — a meeting that was never publicly revealed during the investigations that followed the 2016 election. As Goldstone recalled it, they found the rich asshole listening to the blaring sounds of a “hideous” rap video about the rich asshole. The lyrics were ridiculing the rich asshole, and Goldstone asked, “Have you listened to the words?” the rich asshole replied, “Who cares about the words? It has 90 million hits on YouTube.” While they chatted, the rich asshole was encouraging to Emin, who had performed at the Miss Universe contest in 2013: “Maybe next time, you’ll be performing at the White House.”
Seventeen months later, in June 2016, Goldstone would return to the rich asshole Tower — this time escorting a Russian-led delegation dispatched by the Agalarovs, offering potentially derogatory information on Hillary Clinton, courtesy of the Kremlin, to the top officials of the rich asshole’s presidential campaign.
By
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March 8, 2018
Kellyanne Conway refuses to say whether the rich asshole punished her for the violation.
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway conceded she violated the Hatch Act by endorsing accused child molester Roy Moore, but wouldn’t say what consequences she’ll face.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended Conway at Wednesday’s press briefing, but in an interview with Fox News’ Bill Hemmer Thursday morning Conway did not dispute Hemmer’s declaration that she “made an endorsement” during the Alabama special election race.
“You were in the news and made an endorsement for the Alabama senate race several months ago, and ultimately it’s the president’s call whether or not you’re punished for this and whatever punishment will or will not come from this,” Hemmer said, asking “Have you met the president on this, and is there a final word on that?”
“We have spoken about this,” Conway said, but refused to comment on what the rich asshole told her.
“Has the president told you what he desires from this?” Hemmer followed up.
“I won’t reveal my private conversations with the president, except for which he’d like for me to speak about publicly,” Conway replied, implying that the rich asshole did not give her permission to share the information.
“So, no punishment given?” Hemmer asked.
“I didn’t say that,” Conway replied, but still refused to divulge the answer.
Whether the rich asshole punished her or not, Conway’s silence is outrageous. She didn’t make her multiple endorsements of alleged child molester Roy Moore inprivate, she made them on the North Lawn of the People’s House, and the people are owed an explanation.
But the rich asshole owes them an explanation, as well. Conway will be campaigning for anti-puppyHouse candidate Rick Saccone later on Thursday, but in January the rich asshole used an official White House event to campaign for Saccone, according to the rich asshole’s own Twitter feed.
the rich asshole and Conway should be held accountable for violating the public’s trust, but for now, that accountability will have to come from the voters.
CNN: the rich asshole upset with press secretary over handling of Stormy Daniels questions
BY MAX GREENWOOD - 03/08/18 08:38 AM EST
President the rich asshole is upset with White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders for her handling on Wednesday of questions about allegations that the president once had an affair with adult-film actress Stormy Daniels.
CNN's Jim Acosta reported that the rich asshole is "very unhappy" with his press secretary after she acknowledged at a press briefing on Wednesday that the rich asshole has been involved in a legal dispute with Daniels stemming from her allegations.
Sanders at Wednesday's press briefing said that an arbitration process had gone in the president's favor.
By doing so, a source told Acosta that Sanders "gave the Stormy Daniels storyline steroids yesterday."
Michael Cohen, the rich asshole's personal attorney, paid Daniels $130,000 weeks before the 2016 presidential election to keep silent about an alleged affair. Cohen has acknowledged the payment, but insists that it came from his personal funds, which would distance the rich asshole from the payment.
By describing the president as being involved in the arbitration process, Sanders put the rich asshole closer to the legal process.
The arbitration proceeding pertained to a restraining order obtained by Cohen that sought to bar Daniels from speaking out publicly about the alleged affair with the rich asshole. The restraining order, which was granted by a private arbitrator, prevents Daniels from disclosing "confidential information" related to the nondisclosure agreement.
Daniels's lawyer, Michael Avenatti, reportedly disputed Sanders's claim that the arbitration proceeding was decided in the rich asshole's favor, jokingly telling a New York Times reporter on Wednesday that the president “also won the popular vote.”
In another interview with NBC's "Today," Avenatti said that the nondisclosure agreement was invalid because the rich asshole never signed it, a move that Avenatti says was intended to allow the rich asshole to "claim deniability."
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, filed a lawsuit this week seeking permission to speak freely about her alleged affair with the rich asshole, which purportedly took place more than a decade ago.
But Daniels alleges that publicly disclosing the payment voids the nondisclosure agreement, meaning that she should be able to speak about the alleged affair without fear of legal retribution.
The White House has denied that the rich asshole ever had an affair with Daniels. the rich asshole vetoed Miss Universe contestants for being ‘too ethnic’ or ‘too dark-skinned’: report
some rich asshole meets with Miss USA pageant contestants in 2012 (Screen cap).
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Earlier this year, a report emerged claiming that President some rich asshole would personally rig the Miss Universe pageant to benefit contestants from countries where he had business relationships.
Now a new report published by Michael Isikoff and Mother Jones’ David Corn claims that the rich asshole would also veto certain contestants if he deemed them to be “too ethnic.”
Specifically, one former Miss Universe staffer tells them that the rich asshole would personally “make changes” to the list of finalists “if there were too many women of color” on it.
Another former Miss Universe staffer similarly tells them that the rich asshole would weed out candidates who were too “dark-skinned.”
“He often thought a woman was too ethnic or too dark-skinned,” the staffer explains. “He had a particular type of woman he thought was a winner. Others were too ethnic. He liked a type. There was Olivia Culpo, Dayanara Torres [the 1993 winner], and, no surprise, East European women.”
One former staffer does say, however, that the rich asshole could be persuaded to change his mind about a woman of color being worthy of his pageant “by telling him she was a princess and married to a football player.”
What we found in the rich asshole’s drained swamp: Hundreds of ex-lobbyists and DC insiders
March 7, 2018
Abstinence-only education making a comeback under the rich asshole
BY JESSIE HELLMANN - 03/08/18 06:00 AM EST
Abstinence-only education — encouraging adolescents to wait until marriage for sex — is making a comeback under President the rich asshole.
In a marked departure from the previous administration, conservatives at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) are putting an emphasis on abstinence to reduce teen pregnancy rates.
“We definitely are seeing a shift,” said Kelly Marcum, a government affairs legislative assistant at the Family Research Council in Washington, which supports abstinence-only education.
“We’re really excited to see that the administration is giving some tools back to us to keep pushing that fight.”
So far, the administration has encouraged organizations applying for Title X federal family planning funds to include in their programs a “meaningful emphasis” on “the benefits of avoiding sex” when communicating with adolescents and to use programs that don’t “normalize sexual risk behaviors.”
The rich asshole administration also plans to release its first report early this summer as part of a $10 million research project looking at ways to improve sex education programs, with a focus on the impact of “sexual delay.”
And HHS officials last year cut short federal grants for organizations participating in former President Obama’s Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, which supporters of abstinence-only education have said is ineffective.
All of those policy changes were overseen by Valerie Huber, an HHS official who had been the president of Ascend, a group previously called the National Abstinence Education Association.
“As public health experts and policymakers, we must normalize sexual delay more than we normalize teen sex, even with contraception,” Huber said in 2016 while president of the organization.
“We believe youth deserve the best opportunity for a healthy future.”
Additionally, at the urging of groups supporting abstinence, Congress has tightened the requirements for receiving federal funding for abstinence-only programs and is expected to approve an increase of funding in an upcoming spending bill.
In contrast, Obama’s HHS poured resources into comprehensive sex ed, which can include lessons on contraception, disease prevention, healthy relationships and abstinence, and slashed funding for the abstinence-only programs that proliferated under the George W. Bush administration.
“I think this current administration is listening to parents on this issue. The previous administration really made it a partisan issue, unfortunately,” Marcum said.
“This shouldn’t be a partisan issue, but it was made into one. The messaging was that the conservatives wanted to impose their morals on others and tell kids not to have sex and that was very unfortunate.”
Supporters of comprehensive sex ed, however, say abstinence-only programs are ineffective and ideologically motivated. They say the programs failed under the Bush administration.
“We know from a body of evidence that abstinence-only programs don’t provide a full range of medically accurate and non-stigmatized education around contraception use,” said Jesse Boyer, senior policy manager at the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization that opposes abstinence-only programs.
“It seems like we’re at a point where it’s more important than ever to support education that provides a full range of sexual health information and education rather than reverting back to the failed practices that we wasted more than $2 billion on over the past three decades.”
Advocates of comprehensive sex ed worry about the effect a shift toward abstinence-only education could have on plummeting teen pregnancy rates.
In 2015, there were about 23 births per 1,000 girls aged 15 to 19, a record low for the U.S., compared to 41 births per 1,000 girls in 2007.
“The unplanned teen pregnancy rate is at its lowest since 1990, but it’s hard to see how that trend will continue under Huber’s vision,” said Debra Hauser, president of Advocates for Youth, a sexuality education advocacy group in D.C.
Led by Huber’s Ascend, abstinence-only education has over the past few years been rebranded as “sexual risk avoidance education,” an approach proponents say mirrors other public health models that encourage the avoidance of a risk, like cigarette use.
These changes were reflected in a spending deal Congress passed in February. The $75 million Title V abstinence-only program was renamed “sexual risk avoidance education” (SRAE) and included new requirements that organizations receiving funding emphasize and prioritize the message that waiting until marriage to have sex is the best action.
While the programs still have to teach contraception, they can’t distribute it or demonstrate how it’s used.
Funding in recent years for these programs has also crept up, rising from $55 million to $85 million in fiscal year 2016.
And in a long-term spending deal likely to be approved later this month, the Senate has recommended a $10 million increase for a competitive grant for entities teaching SRAE, which would bring the total to $25 million.
Proponents of abstinence-only education are still pushing for more changes at HHS and through Congress.
Ascend and other proponents of SRAE want to boost funding even more for these programs and for other agencies, like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to help “normalize sexual delay.”
They hope HHS redirects the $101 million in funding for Obama’s Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program to abstinence-only programs, something that can be done through a funding opportunity announcement, which is expected in the coming months.
“We’ve been really encouraged by the willingness of the administration to objectively look at what’s working and what’s not in sex education,” said Mary Anne Mosack, who took over as president of Ascend following Huber’s departure.
“It’s really our youth who are hanging in the balance, and we certainly can’t continue to do what’s been done.”
Experts just officially rated the House a toss-up for the first time
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In the Center for Politics' latest House forecast, there are no longer enough seats leaning or favoring Republicans for a GOP majority.
On Thursday, Larry Sabato’s Center for Politics shifted the rating for 26 more House races toward Democrats. And the midterm election outlook reached a critical tipping point.
For the first time in the Center for Politics forecast, there are fewer than 218 seats in total rated “Lean Republican,” “Likely Republican,” or “Safe Republican.” In other words, there are no longer enough seats favoring Republicans that the GOP could keep their House majority by winning favored races alone.
Among the races the Center for Politics reclassified are four seats previously seen as leaning Republican that are now deemed toss-ups: Rod Blum in Iowa’s 1st District, Mike Bost in Illinois’ 12th District, Erik Paulsen in Minnesota’s 3rd District, and the special election in Pennsylvania’s 18th District.
Republicans are panicking about that last race in particular. Despite the district’s massively conservative tilt, polls now show Democratic Marine vet and former federal prosecutor Conor Lamb in the lead. And as Republican outside groups frantically flood the race with money, party insiders are privately fuming about the incompetence of their candidate, state Rep. Rick Saccone.
The Center for Politics update contains other revealing developments. With the improved odds for Democratic incumbent Reps. Tom O’Halleran of Arizona, Ami Bera of California, and Stephanie Murphy of Florida, there is now no Democratic incumbent whose race is rated worse than “Likely Democratic”.
Perhaps most amazing of all, House Speaker Paul Ryan’s Wisconsin district is no longer rated “Safe Republican.” The Center for Politics says this is due to “uncertainty surrounding his future.”
Republicans believed their numbers would be rallying by this time, thanks to the tax cuts. But the tax bill continues to poll poorly, as even voters in the rich asshole country recognize it as a giveaway to corporations and billionaires at their expense. GOP strategists are now quietly abandoning their push to advertise the tax cuts in key districts.
The new ratings are a massive red flag for anyone hoping to preserve the Republican grip on power. All over the country, voters have had enough.
the rich asshole to meet with video-game industry in wake of Florida shooting
U.S. President some rich asshole speaks during an interview with Reuters at the White House in Washington, U.S., January 17, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
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After criticizing video games in the wake of a school shooting in Florida last month, U.S. President some rich asshole will meet with industry executives on Thursday to discuss what the president believes is a link between the games and violent acts.
the rich asshole, a Republican, cited the influence of video games after a 19-year-old gunman was accused of killing 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Florida and injuring more than a dozen others. “I’m hearing more and more people say the level of violence on video games is really shaping young people’s thoughts,” he said last month.
The White House said that Thursday’s meeting will be the first of several and will include an industry trade group, conservative activists and members of Congress, including Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.
Also attending will be executives from two video game-makers, Take-Two Interactive Software Inc, which owns Rockstar Games Inc, and ZeniMax Media Inc, which owns Bethesda Softworks.
The purpose of the meeting will be “to discuss violent video-game exposure and the correlation to aggression and desensitization in children,” White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said.
the rich asshole has made the issue personal by mentioning his concern for his 11-year-old son, Barron. “I look at some of the things he’s watching, and I say, how is that possible?” he said last week.
The president also has spoken for the need for a new ratings system for games. Currently, the industry employs its own system, which rates games for violence and sexual content.
Dan Hewitt, a spokesman for the Entertainment Software Association, whose CEO will attend the White House meeting, said studies have established no connection between video games and violent conduct.
“Like all Americans, we are deeply concerned about the level of gun violence in the United States,” Hewitt said. “Video games are plainly not the issue: entertainment is distributed and consumed globally, but the U.S. has an exponentially higher level of gun violence than any other nation.
In addition to Take-Two and ZeniMax, the association’s members include some of the biggest names in the industry such as Electronic Arts Inc, Activision Blizzard Inc, Nintendo Co Ltd, Sony Corp and Tencent Holdings Ltd.
It will not be the first time video game-makers have been called to the White House in the wake of a school shooting. In 2013, then-Vice President Joe Biden, a Democrat, met with industry leaders after the massacre at a Newtown, Connecticut elementary school that left 26 dead.
Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Writing by James Oliphant; Editing by Lisa Shumaker
the rich asshole is backpedaling on his ridiculous tariffs because he has no idea how to be president
the rich asshole's planned tariffs on steel and aluminium have triggered fears of a trade war. (AFP / MANDEL NGAN)
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After defying conventional wisdom, Republican Party dogma and many of his own advisers by announcing new steel and aluminum tariffs, President some rich asshole appears to be backpedaling on the brazen proposal.
The whole ridiculous saga reveals just how ill-equipped the rich asshole is at being president.
When he initially decided on the plan, he reportedly said that the 25 percent tariff on foreign steel and 10 percent tariff on foreign aluminum would apply to all countries, because otherwise, everyone would ask for an exemption. Peter Navarro, director of the White House National Trade Council, said the same thing Sunday on CNN.
“There’ll be an exemption procedure for particular cases where you need to have exemptions so that business can move forward, but at this point in time, there’ll be no country exclusions,” Navarro said.
But on Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders dialed back that hard-line position.
“There are potential carve-outs for Mexico and Canada based on national security, and possibly other countries, as well, based on that process,” she said. “That would be a case-by-case and country-by-country basis.”
So now it appears Canada, our top exporter of steel, and Mexico, our fourth most important steel exporter, will be exempt from the tariffs, significantly weakening the impact of the policy. Since the impact of the tariffs would be bad for American workers, that’s a good thing. But why do it at all?
All reports suggest that the rich asshole decided on the policy impulsively, which led chief economic adviser Gary Cohn to resign.
the rich asshole’s engaged in a lot of bluster over how important the tariff policy is and how tough he’s going to be on it. Now, he appears to be watering it down, further tearing his credibility to tatters and revealing the shallowness of his policymaking.
Turmoil takes toll on White House
BY JORDAN FABIAN AND JONATHAN EASLEY -
President the rich asshole says he thrives on conflict, but the turmoil engulfing the White House has GOP lawmakers more concerned than ever about the direction of his administration.
In just the past month, the rich asshole has lost three of his closest advisers and lashed out at others on the ropes, including his attorney general and national security adviser.
the rich asshole tweeted Tuesday he still has “some people that I want to change,” a sign the tumult is far from over.
The latest to quit is top economic adviser Gary Cohn, who served as a moderating force during the rich asshole’s first year in office. His departure has sparked fears of an even larger wave of exits that could hamper the president’s ability to advance his agenda.
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the rich asshole this week called the White House a “great place” to work that has “tremendous energy.”
“Believe me, everybody wants to work in the White House,” he said.
Yet there has been a near-constant churn of personnel and the most vacancies at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in decades.
Forty-three percent of top-level White House positions have turned over since the rich asshole was inaugurated, according to figures compiled by the Brookings Institution’s Kathryn Dunn Tenpas. Two years into their terms, former President Obama’s staff turnover rate was just 24 percent, while former President George W. Bush’s was 33 percent.
Seven of the rich asshole’s 12 most senior advisers, including Cohn, have resigned, been fired or been reassigned.
“When individuals depart like Cohn, you cannot replicate their personal relationships,” Tenpas said in an interview. “It’s basically starting from ground zero all over again, and it makes it hard for them to advance President the rich asshole’s agenda.”
White House staff secretary Rob Porter was forced out of the White House a month ago after domestic abuse allegations against him became public.
Communications director Hope Hicks, one of the rich asshole’s closest confidantes, announced last week she would be departing. That followed longtime the rich asshole bodyguard Keith Schiller’s exit last fall.
Multiple reports have indicated that national security adviser H.R. McMaster, who has publicly clashed with the rich asshole over hotspots like Russia and Iran, could soon depart the administration.
The White House has struggled to attract top talent, and officials say that the constant turmoil will only heighten those problems.
Low morale, the rich asshole’s demand for personal loyalty and the sprawling Russia probe are also deterrents.
“When people are considering working at this White House, they’re having to ask themselves, can I work here? If I do, how long will I survive? And if I survive, how long will it take me to find a new job once I leave?” said Dov Zakheim, former undersecretary of Defense in Bush’s administration.
the rich asshole’s White House shares similarities with his family real estate business and reality TV series: heated interpersonal drama combined with frequent departures. In the president’s telling, those things are what make him a successful boss.
“I like conflict,” he said Tuesday alongside Sweden’s prime minister, who criticized his tariff plan.
Cohn’s exit hit congressional Republicans hard, given the political storm surrounding the rich asshole’s proposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, which could be formalized on Thursday.
They are worried that the tariff decision points to the growing strength of White House aides Peter Navarro and Stephen Miller and their economic nationalism, and wonder what will happen next.
“I don’t think it’s good news,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) told reporters Wednesday. “I’m concerned who the president will turn to for advice. I think Mr. Cohn was an outstanding public servant and somebody who had the credentials and experience to help the president decide what the policies of the government should be.”
Cohn’s exit has also spooked the business community, which is concerned that the rich asshole could take even more aggressive trade actions, such as ripping up the North American Free Trade Agreement or a trade pact with South Korea.
“Folks downtown are running out of people to call there and it’s not a good dynamic,” said a senior official at a major Washington business group with close ties to the White House. “The business community is without a doubt nervous about the road ahead.”
“The policy process is certainly not following the traditional rules of the road at the moment, and that is, frankly, troubling,” the official added.
In Cohn’s absence, lawmakers said they might fill the void by passing legislation to restrict the rich asshole’s ability to set trade policy.
“I believe it’s important that Congress assert its authority and check the president, rein him in on this,” said Dent.
Some Washington power players say concerns about internal strife at the White House are being overblown by the media.
They point to the GOP’s tax overhaul and the humming economy as evidence the press is “running around breathlessly” screaming about imaginary “horrors” at the White House, as one GOP lobbyist put it.
“The tweets are unnerving and sometimes his behavior is bizarre. So what?” the lobbyist said.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders also brushed aside the talk about chaos, citing progress made against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and a possible diplomatic breakthrough with North Korea.
“If you have a place in chaos, you’re not able to function and make big things happen, and we certainly have the ability and continue to do that,” said Sanders, who added it was not unusual to see people come and go.
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March 8, 2018
But Sanders isn't the one who allegedly had an affair with Stormy Daniels.
Yesterday Sarah Huckabee Sanders was cornered into commenting on the rich asshole’s alleged affair with Stormy Daniels, and now the rich asshole is blaming Sanders for his own screw-up.
At Wednesday’s White House daily briefing, Sanders tried to fend off a barrage of questions about Daniels’ lawsuit by claiming that the case had already been won by the rich asshole in arbitration.
On Thursday morning, CNN reported that Sanders is in the rich asshole’s doghouse now.
“It seems the president is not very happy with her explanation of his involvement in this case involving Stormy Daniels,” CNN’s Abby Phillips reported from the North Lawn.
“Now a source close to the White House has told CNN’s Jim Acosta that he’s upset she went there in the briefing yesterday. In fact, this source says ‘potus is very unhappy, Sarah gave Stormy Daniels, that storyline, steroids yesterday.'”
the rich asshole blaming Sanders is in keeping with his history of throwing women under the bus over his own actions, as he repeatedly did with outgoing communications director Hope Hicks.
But it was the rich asshole who allegedly engaged in an affair with Stormy Daniels, and the rich asshole who must now answer questions about the $130,000 payoff that the rich asshole’s personal lawyer “facilitated” on the eve of the 2016 election.
the rich asshole has at least three photo ops scheduled for Thursday, which will give reporters plenty of opportunity to pepper him with new questions about his misconduct. He won’t have Sarah Sanders around to lie for him, or to take the blame.
POLITICS
Here’s What You Should Know About That Secret Seychelles Meeting
Robert Mueller has zeroed in on the clandestine affair in recent weeks.
A mysterious January 2017 meeting in the Seychelles between a close associate of President some rich asshole and a Russian banker with alleged ties to Vladimir Putin has come under renewed scrutiny this week.
Special counsel Robert Mueller has been gathering evidence about the rendezvous, which took place less than two weeks before the rich asshole’s inauguration. Mueller is reportedly looking to see if the meeting was meant to set up a secret back channel between the rich asshole and Putin, the Russian president. George Nader, an adviser to the United Arab Emirates who was at the meeting, has been cooperating with Mueller’s probe, and it appears his testimony could help unlock several major questions about the affair.
Here’s what you should know about the Seychelles meeting.
Why was there a secret meeting in the Seychelles?
The UAE arranged the meeting in the Seychelles Islands in January 2017, just days before the rich asshole assumed office, The Washington Post first reported last April. The location may have been chosen for its relative discretion.
“The Seychelles is the kind of place where you can have a good time away from the eyes of the media,” the country’s secretary of state for foreign affairs told the Post at the time.
Erik Prince, a longtime supporter of the rich asshole’s campaign and the founder of the Blackwater private security firm, met with a Russian official linked to Putin, although Prince has described the meeting as an unplanned chance encounter.
It’s not clear what Prince and the official talked about. But according to The New York Times, the rich asshole’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, eventual national security adviser Michael Flynn and then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak discussed the possibility of setting up the communications channel in a December 2016 meeting.
The Washington Post also received an anonymous letter claiming that Kushner, Kislyak and Flynn “talked about arranging a meeting between a representative of the rich asshole and a ‘Russian contact’” in an unidentified third country. The Post’s Adam Entous told MSNBC that the letter said “Flynn was deemed too high-profile to do the trip.”
Kushner has denied that the request took place.
Who else was there?
Prince met with Kirill Dmitriev, a Russian banker who manages a government-controlled wealth fund and is also thought to be close to Putin.
The meeting was set up by the UAE and the country’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan. Nader served as a representative for the Middle Eastern nation and had met Prince before, serving as a consultant for Blackwater.
Prince has said he went to the Seychelles as a private businessman, and has denied the original report by the Post. He told the House Intelligence Committee in November that he had no plans to meet with Dmitriev, but Emirati officials convinced him to go to the bar at the hotel he was staying in to have a drink.
“One of the entourage says, ‘Hey, by the way, there’s this Russian guy that we’ve dealt with in the past,’” Prince told lawmakers. “‘He’s here also to see someone from the Emirati delegation. And you should meet him, he’d be an interesting guy for you to know, since you’re doing a lot in the oil and gas and mineral space.’”
He claimed they only spoke about oil prices and how much the UAE “wished for resumption of normal trade relations with the USA.”
What is Mueller investigating?
Nader has been cooperating with Mueller’s probe since mid-January and recently gave testimony about his knowledge of the meeting in front of a grand jury, according to a report in the Times this week. He allegedly served as a representative of the crown prince, and the Times notes that Emirati officials believed Prince was serving as a representative of the rich asshole transition team and Dmitriev as an envoy from the Kremlin.
In an earlier story, the Times noted that Mueller has widened the scope of his probe and is also investigating whether the Emiratis were attempting to buy influence with the rich asshole.
Nader’s recent testimony could contradict Prince’s statements over the past year and shed light on the true reasons for the meeting.
Mueller evidence shows Blackwater founder held meeting to create the rich asshole-Russia back channel: report
BY MAX GREENWOOD - 03/07/18 07:57 PM EST
Special counsel Robert Mueller has evidence showing that a meeting between the founder of a private security company and a Russian official in the Seychelles last year was intended to set up a back-channel between the the rich asshole administration and the Kremlin.
The Washington Post reported Wednesday that a witness cooperating with Mueller has told investigators that the meeting was set up in advance, apparently contradicting what Erik Prince, the founder of the security contractor Blackwater, has told lawmakers about the meeting.
Prince — whose sister is Education Secretary Betsy DeVos — had previously told lawmakers and the press that his meeting with Kirill Dmitriev, a Russian official close with Russian President Vladimir Putin, happened by chance and was not set up ahead of time.
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But the witness, a Lebanese-American businessman named George Nader, has testified before a grand jury that the meeting, which took place shortly before President the rich asshole's inauguration, was, in fact, a planned effort.
Nader helped arrange and attended the meeting, according to the Post.
MARCH 7, 2018 / 9:42 PM / UPDATED 33 MINUTES AGO
6 MIN READ
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WASHINGTON/PARIS/BEIJING (Reuters) - President some rich asshole promised on Thursday to show great flexibility and cooperation toward the United States’ “real friends” as he prepared to impose import tariffs that have provoked warnings of a trade war from Europe and China.
the rich asshole had been expected later in the day to sign a proclamation imposing 25 percent tariffs on steel imports and 10 percent on aluminum, but this could slide into Friday.
A White House official also said on Wednesday night that the rich asshole planned to offer Canada and Mexico - fellow signatories of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) - the possibility of a 30-day exemption from the tariffs.
But both Brussels and Beijing made clear they were ready for any trade war, with one European Union official saying retaliation could also target goods from areas governed by the rich asshole’s Republican Party.
the rich asshole tweeted that he was looking forward to a meeting at 3.30 p.m. (2030 GMT) at the White House. He did not say whether he would sign the proclamation then.
However, he added: “We have to protect & build our Steel and Aluminum Industries while at the same time showing great flexibility and cooperation toward those that are real...and treat us fairly on both trade and the military.”
the rich asshole did not name the countries he regarded as friends, or say what he had in mind for them. However, he has argued that the tariffs would counter cheap imports, especially from China, which he says are undermining U.S. industries and jobs.
The European Commission raised the prospect that the rich asshole could also consider exempting the EU’s 28 member states.
Some countries advised against any overhasty reaction to the rich asshole’s tariff plan, which has drawn fire at home as well as rattled global financial markets, particularly Canada which as a close trading partner of the United States has perhaps most to lose.
But the EU talked tough. “If some rich asshole puts in place the measures this evening, we have a whole arsenal at our disposal with which to respond,” European Financial Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said.
Counter-measures would include European tariffs on U.S. oranges, tobacco and bourbon, he said, adding that some products under consideration for an EU riposte were largely produced in constituencies controlled by the rich asshole’s Republicans.
“We want Congress to understand that this would be a lose-lose situation,” Moscovici told BFM TV.
The EU is by far the biggest trading partner of the United States by value and, after China, member states have together the biggest trade surplus with the country. Once approved by the rich asshole, the tariffs would go into effect after two months.
NECESSARY RESPONSE
In Beijing, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said history showed that trade wars were not the correct way to resolve problems.
“Especially given today’s globalization, choosing a trade war is a mistaken prescription. The outcome will only be harmful,” he said on the sidelines of an annual meeting of China’s parliament. “China would have to make a justified and necessary response.”
China had a record $375.2 billion goods surplus with the United States last year.
Trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies have risen since the rich asshole took office in 2017, and although China accounts for only a small fraction of U.S. steel imports, its massive industry expansion has helped create a global glut of steel that has driven down prices.
Data on Thursday showed Chinese exports were up 44.5 percent in February from a year earlier. That left it with a global trade surplus of $33.74 billion, and a January-February surplus with the United States of $42.92 billion.
JOBS THREAT
the rich asshole’s administration has faced growing opposition to the tariffs from prominent congressional Republicans and business officials worried about their potential impact on the economy.
The White House has said there could be a 30-day tariff exemption for Mexico and Canada - and some other countries - based on national security.. the rich asshole wants to renegotiate the NAFTA and a White House official linked any extension of the exemption to progress in NAFTA talks.
In Brussels, European Commission Vice President Jyrki Katainen said he had read that Britain might be in line for an exemption too. While Britons have voted to leave the EU, the country remains a member until next year.
“If they try to make an exemption for one of our member states, it means the EU as a whole,” he told a news conference, adding that the EU was still trying to persuade Washington that tariffs were a bad idea.
Katainen cited tit-for-tat trade measures which have been blamed for deepening the Great Depression, and more recent experience. “We don’t need to go to the 1930s. It’s enough to go to the beginning of the 2000s when the U.S. authorities imposed steel tariffs for Europe. It meant in practice that in the U.S. they lost thousands and thousands of jobs,” Katainen said.
Canada urged caution. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the rich asshole had made it clear in a phone call that if he could get a good trade deal there would be no need for tariffs on Canada.
Trudeau declined to say whether or how Canada would retaliate. “We need to wait and see what this president is actually going to do,” he said.
(This story has been refiled to make 3rd paragraph read “American” instead of “America”)
Additional reporting by Michael Martina, Elias Glenn, Kim Coghill, Brian Love, Nichola Saminather, Doina Chiacu and Andrea Hopkins; Writing by David Stamp; Editing by Mark Heinrich
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
POLITICS
the rich asshole’s Lawyer Got Restraining Order Against Stormy Daniels To Keep Her Quiet
The order, obtained before she filed her lawsuit, was meant to block her from speaking out about her alleged affair with the president.
President some rich asshole’s lawyer got a restraining order against former adult film actress Stephanie Clifford (aka Stormy Daniels) in an attempt to stop her from speaking out about her alleged 2006 affair with the rich asshole.
Attorney Michael Cohen secretly obtained a restraining order on Feb. 27 in private arbitration proceedings, NBC News reported. The order was meant to block Clifford from disclosing “confidential information,” per a nondisclosure agreement she’d signed back in Oct. 28, 2016, just days before the presidential election.
The 2016 nondisclosure agreement barred Clifford from sharing information about the rich asshole or his alleged sexual partners, and detailed that Clifford’s attorney at the time would receive $130,000 for her to stay quiet.
On Tuesday, Clifford filed a lawsuit against the rich asshole, which included the text of the nondisclosure agreement. The suit claims the nondisclosure agreement ― which it called a “hush agreement” ― was not valid, because the rich asshole himself hadn’t signed it, though both Clifford and Cohen had.
At a press briefing on Wednesday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded to a question about the case by saying the president has denied the allegations and by referring to the arbitration.
“Again, this case has already been won in arbitration,” Sanders added. “Anything beyond that, I would refer you to outside counsel.”
“President the rich asshole hasn’t won anything relating to Ms. Clifford,” Clifford’s lawyer Michael Avenatti told NBC News on Wednesday, in response to Huckabee Sanders’ comment about the arbitration.
“First of all, it does not appear as if he was even a party to the arbitration Ms. Sanders is referring to. How can you win something you’re not even a part of?” Avenatti said. “Secondly, claiming that some rich asshole ‘won’ at arbitration when there has been no hearing, no notice to Ms. Clifford, no opportunity given to her to respond, and no decision on the merits, is completely bogus.”
On Wednesday, Cohen’s lawyer Lawrence S. Rosen told The New York Times that the arbitration barred Clifford from filing her Tuesday lawsuit.
In the suit, Clifford claims her alleged affair with the rich asshole occurred in summer 2006 and went “well into 2007” ― after the rich asshole married Melania the rich asshole and their son Barron was born. The suit also refers to the Feb. 27 arbitration, calling it “bogus” and listing it as one of multiple attempts to block Clifford from discussing the alleged relationship.
“To be clear, the attempts to intimidate Ms. Clifford into silence and ‘shut her up’ in order to ‘protect some rich asshole’ continue unabated,” the Tuesday lawsuit said. “On or about February 27, 2018, some rich asshole’s attorney Mr. Cohen surreptitiously initiated a bogus arbitration proceeding against Ms. Clifford.”
On Wednesday, Avenatti told NBC News that earlier that day Cohen’s attorney had “further threatened [Clifford] in an attempt to prevent her from telling the truth about what really happened. We do not take kindly to these threats, nor will we be intimidated.”
HuffPost reached out to Cohen’s lawyer Rosen, but did not immediately receive a response.
Conservative CNN panel marvels at GOP hypocrisy over the rich asshole’s Stormy Daniels payout — and admits ‘Obama is a class act’
Former President Barack Obama and President some rich asshole (Composite / Rawstory)
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A panel of conservative columnists on Wednesday was stunned by the “defining down” of the presidency under some rich asshole, remarking that—despite their irreconcilable differences with former President Barack Obama—they have to admit he was “a class act.”
The panel was responding to the never-ending Stormy Daniels saga, including reports the rich asshole’s lawyer Michael Cohen tried to silence the adult film star through a “secret restraining order” last month.
“There is no other presidency where we could possibly be having this conversation,” Foreign Policy columnist Max Boot said. “I mean, could you imagine discussing a previous president paying off a porn star? This would be such huge news, would threaten the very continuation of the presidency. With some rich asshole it’s like the tenth story of the day.”
“The Stormy Daniels thing for the rich asshole, this is chump change,” Boot added. “This is minor stuff. Whereas for any other president this is a nuclear blast.”
Referencing Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, CNN’s Don Lemon said “people lost their minds the president lied,” but added “no one seems to care when it’s President the rich asshole.”
GOP strategist Rick Wilson agreed.
“Imagine for one moment the phrase ‘Barack Obama paid a porn star $130,000,’” Wilson offered. “Or ‘George W. Bush paid a porn star $130,000.’ This country would be in a complete meltdown if that were the case. This country would be having —we would be tearing our hair out and rending our garments if that happened. And in this case it’s sort of like we have defined presidency down so far, it’s like ‘Oh, yeah, the rich asshole and porn star. Of course he is with porn stars.’ It’s a remarkable moment in the political history.”
“I was critical of President Obama,” Boot later added. “I was a lifelong Republican, I was critical of the Obama presidency. Everybody has to admit that Barack Obama is a class act. He was not an unethical president. He was a great father, husband, leader for our country. A man of—is there anybody in America who can possibly say that some rich asshole makes you proud? He makes me embarrassed. He makes me cringe. I can’t imagine there is anybody in the country who is proud to have somebody behaving this way in the White House.”
Even former Bush White House assistant Scott Jennings—who often defends the rich asshole—had to agree with his fellow panelists’ assessments of Obama.
“I think Barack Obama is generally an honorable person,” Jennings said before launching into a ferocious critique of the former president’s foreign policy.
“Having, said, everybody is exactly right,” Jennings said after his anti-Obama diatribe. “If any other president had done this it would be the top story and we had be having a national freakout.”
“The president’s, you know, moral history is already baked into his politics and his approval rating,” Jennings said.
Watch below, via CNN:
Kushner leaves US ambassador to Mexico out of meeting with Mexico president: report
BY BRANDON CARTER - 03/07/18 10:12 PM EST
President the rich asshole’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner did not invite the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico to meetings with top Mexican officials on Wednesday, according to a new report.
A senior US official told The New York Times that Kushner did not invite Ambassador Roberta Jacobson to meetings with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray.
Jacobson, who is among the State Department’s top Latin American experts, announced last week she would step down from her post in May after serving in the U.S. government for 31 years.
Christopher Sabatini, a lecturer on international relations at Columbia University, told the Times that Kushner’s meeting was “not the way foreign policy normally is, or should be, conducted.”
“The sending of the president’s son-in-law — someone with no experience in Mexican-U.S. relations — is another example of the de-professionalization and personalization of diplomacy that will hurt U.S. interests and leverage in the region,” he told the Times.
Kushner’s trip was reported Wednesday shortly before his departure. He was reportedly set to discuss immigration, trade and security with the two Mexican leaders.
The trip comes slightly more than a week after Peña Nieto cancelled plans to visit Washington after a phone call with the president, during which the rich asshole reportedly became frustrated and “lost his temper," according to a Mexican official.
It also comes after Kushner lost his temporary top secret security clearance following White House chief of staff John Kelly’s new policy surrounding temporary security clearances.
In a statement at the time of Kushner's security clearance downgrade, Kelly said that the president's son-in-law was "integral" to the rich asshole administration's relationship with Mexico.
"Everyone in the White House is grateful for these valuable contributions to furthering the president’s agenda," Kelly added at the time.
‘Like Richard Nixon in 1973’: Presidential historian explains the rich asshole’s ‘pathological’ witness tampering
some rich asshole and Richard Nixon (Composition / RawStory)
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A historian who has published nine books on the American presidency explained the parallels between President some rich asshole’s witness tampering and similar actions by President Richard Nixon during a Wednesday night appearance on MSNBC.
“I want to turn to NBC News presidential historian Michael Beschloss, a close student of not only this story, but of its antecedents,” Ari Melber introduced. “Your view of what this conjures.”
“It conjures a couple of things, Ari, one is Richard Nixon in 1973 and 1974,” Beschloss replied. “He was accused by the House impeachment inquiry of witness tampering as part of obstruction of justice, which was one of the counts against him.”
“His aide, John Ehrlichman said it was pathological,” the historian explained. “Nixon was a lawyer, he knew to get involved in this was against his own self-interest, but he couldn’t help himself, he always had to get involved in this.”
Beschloss also noted another fascinating parallel.
“Vice President George Bush was in danger of being dragged into Iran-Contra,” Beschloss reminded. “He was advised deftly by his great friend and close aide and counsel, a guy named Boyden Gray, who kept Bush out of that scandal.”
“By the hand of fate Ari, do you know where some rich asshole is eating dinner tonight,” Beschloss asked.
“No, I don’t,” Melber replied.
“He is eating dinner at the home of Boyden Gray, the same guy, in Georgetown, who just by chance happened to be having a dinner for Republican donors,” Beschloss revealed. “It’s said to be about the first time some rich asshole has gone to a private home in Washington for dinner.”
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