Category Archives: Donald Trump

Last October, we were in the midst of debate preparation for Hillary Clinton when news of the "Access Hollywood" tape broke. The senior Clinton team immediately wondered what the event's impact would be. Would there still be a debate two days later? Would Donald Trump show up? Would his running mate, Mike Pence, take his place? How could Trump survive?

Trump not only showed up for the St. Louis debate that Sunday, he stood on the stage and told Clinton that if it were up to him she'd "be in jail." Ten days later, Trump insisted at the Las Vegas debate that allegations made against him by nine women of groping and other unwelcome physical contact were so baseless that he "didn't even apologize to [his] wife" for his actions. Twenty days after that, Trump was elected president of the United States.

The lesson: It is dangerous to underestimate Trump's survival skills. And so, as the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the Russia mess has Washington buzzing with nascent impeachment talk, 25th Amendment scenarios and rumors about resignation, it is worth remembering how tenaciously Trump pursued power, along with five key assets he has to maintain his grip on it.

First, while he is proving to be an incompetent president, Trump is an incredibly skilled politician. He did not come to the presidency by accident: He spent 30 years laying the groundwork for his run attacking President Ronald Reagan on trade in the 1980s, putting out a campaign book in 2000, forcing President Barack Obama to release his birth certificate in 2011. He vanquished an all-star GOP field in 2016 beating a Bush, the Republicans' Obama (Marco Rubio) and lionized candidates such as Scott Walker and Chris Christie. He resoundingly won the Republican primary in New Hampshire. He was the host of a top-rated television show for almost a decade: no small communications achievement.

Second, there is the power of the presidency, and Trump's ability to use its allure as a bulwark against accountability. Trump's staff may feud with one another, but with two family members ensconced in the West Wing they seem prepared to defend him by any means necessary. Well-regarded people - such as national security adviser H.R. McMaster and Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein have shown a willingness to sacrifice their own credibility to protect Trump. And a retinue of prominent law firms appear ready to provide legal and public relations cover in defense of Trump and his family.

Third, there is the desire of many observers to try to normalize Trump and get "back to business." This obviously includes most Republican members of Congress, who have shown a penchant for dismissing concerns about Trump so long as he continues to pursue an agenda of repealing Obamacare and cutting taxes.

But this instinct extends beyond partisans: Remember how media commentators, including some liberal voices, acclaimed Trump's presidential leadership after one well-executed speech three months ago? It might take shockingly little - a successful foreign trip next week or progress on Obamacare repeal in Congress - for pundits to conclude that he is "back on track."

Fourth, there is the intensity of his most devout supporters. While Trump has falsely boasted about many things, he was probably right when he said that he "could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody" and still maintain their support. Trump's "tribal" supporters back him, not because of what Trump does or says, but because they want the affiliation they enjoy as Trump supporters. While these hard-core supporters were not sufficient to put Trump in office - experts believe this group is 25 percent to 40 percent of the electorate - even at the lower end of that range, they make up a majority of Republican primary voters in most Republican-held districts. That is a powerful check on Republican senators and representatives who might stand up to Trump - as House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., learned when he was booed in his own district for distancing himself from Trump during the "Access Hollywood" conflagration.

And fifth, there is the frightening risk that Trump's die-hard supporters are more devoted to Trump than they are to the rule of law. The United States prides itself on being "a government of laws, not of men," but polls show that an increasing number of Americans generally, and Trump supporters specifically, have "lost faith in democracy." Sinclair Lewis's brilliant novel "It Can't Happen Here" portrayed an alliance between populist rhetoric and corporatist policies that established an iron grip on government and trampled legal accountability. A Trump campaign email, sent the day the latest Comey allegations emerged, echoed Lewis's depiction, labelling the growing scrutiny of Trump as "sabotage," accusing government officials of being against an "America First agenda" and urging supporters to "be prepared to go into the trenches to FIGHT."

Trump is down but not out. Indeed, he may even be at his most dangerous in "wounded animal" mode. The effort to hold him accountable for any abuses of power will face formidable obstacles in the weeks and months ahead. He should not be underestimated.

Washington Post

Ronald A. Klain, a Post contributing columnist, served as a senior White House aide to both Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton and was a senior adviser to Hillary Clintons 2016 campaign.

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Don't underestimate Donald Trump - Chicago Tribune

New York Times

A Prayer for Donald Trump New York Times Given the mess that he's in and the martyrdom that he hallucinates, it's only fitting that Donald Trump would turn toward God. He has fled the country not a moment too soon! for his first foreign excursion since taking office, and it's less a ...

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A Prayer for Donald Trump - New York Times

President Trump hosted an electric, bombastic, confrontational and unscheduled press conference in February.

It is now May.

And while he's hosted joint press conferences with foreign leaders, answered questions aboard air force one, and sat down for one-on-one interviews, we have not heard from him in a traditional press conference setting since and we need to.

Who is advising him to lay low?

Its bad advice and he should stop taking it.

Instead, we hear from a communications team that is forced to react to different messaging from Trump, creating disorganization and mixed messaging, and then they come under siege.

Stress and frustration wears on their faces and has shown shockingly through Sean Spicers presentations this week in the White House briefing room. These symptoms are not necessarily a negative reflection on Team Spicer.

Sean is tasked with the impossible speak on behalf of the man who freely changes his mind, is not an ideologue, and seems not to care what was said yesterday.

It's preposterous.

It's time for a tactical pause. Stop spraying bullets, take cover, and figure out a way to get out of the perpetual kill zone that is the press briefing room.

This does not mean cancel the press briefings, but there must be a reset and they must be handled more effectively, or no one is going to survive tomorrow, let alone four years, let alone a reelection.

Step 1: rely more on "I'll have to get back to you on that." And then follow up religiously. Confirm with POTUS directly, follow up in writing, or address at the top of the next briefing. Not every sentence has to be a perfectly programmed soundbite that fits neatly into a White House communications talking points memo.

Step 2: Less is more. Spicer has effectively mastered "the tweet speaks for itself" when asked about a tweet, even if the tweet doesn't speak for itself, because no one can explain Trump's tweets but Trump. Sometimes it's OK to say "I don't know" or "We haven't spoken on that topic in detail yet."

Step 3: Bring out POTUS. President Trump dangled the possibility of canceling the daily briefings and coming out once every two weeks. In the words of the president, that would be SAD! Shutting down your message and becoming an introvert will not stop any of the bad press. Instead, it will let a two-week news cycle go by (in a 24-hour news cycle world) without any comment from the president. And reporters will happily close each article with "The White House declined to comment."

Imagine the scenario where Trump came out and explained the Comey firing, explained their private meeting, and discussed the circumstances behind Russia.

Why not just come out today?

Why not come out most days?

If his message cannot be effectively conveyed by his team, he certainly could resolve the problem by conveying it himself.

Mr. President Be transparent. Get control of your message. We need you answering questions and speaking for yourself. You control the message, so start delivering it.

Ronica Cleary is a political reporter for Fox 5 News and co-host of Fox 5 News On The Hill. Follow her on Twitter @RonicaCleary.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

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Donald Trump: Come out, come out, wherever you are - The Hill (blog)

Well, maybe this is one way to get PresidentDonald Trump to stop talking.

Disney World, which traditionally has given speaking roles to presidential robots in its Hall of Presidents, is reportedly considering a non-speaking Trump to avoid offending visitors.

The Florida resorts Hall of Presidents, currently closed, features robotic versions of all previous American presidents. A robot Trump will join the ranks when the hall reopens later this year.

The animatronic Trump was to have been unveiled June 30,Walt Disney World Today, a website devoted to Disney park news, reported in April. Disney World hasnt confirmed a reopening date.

But a theme park with the goal of pleasing everyone hasnt quite figured out how to portray a president who inspires very extreme reactions,Motherboard reports, citing a source close to Walt Disney Imagineering.

Since the mid-1990s,Disneys Hall of Presidents has featured a recorded statement from the current president, including Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Trump, however,hasnt made himself available to record a speech for his robot, Motherboard reports.

Then theres the matter of Trumps unpopularity.

Given how polarizing the president is right now, Disney Parks & Resorts is currently trying to find [a solution] that approaches middle ground, the source told Motherboard. They want to include our 45th commander-in-chief in this 45-year-old theme park attraction, while at the same time, not seem to endorse or support some of Trumps more controversial policies.

Sources told Walt Disney World Today and Motherboard that Trump will most likely be shown in a non-speaking capacity.

Disney also appears to be in a non-speaking capacity about the attraction, failing to respond to multiple inquiries from HuffPost.

Disney World typically hypes the addition of a new president to the exhibit with photos and press releases.Not so with Trump, according to Tom Corless, who runs Walt Disney World Today.

Three months into Obamas administration, they showed photos of him recording lines for the exhibit and photos of his figure, Corless told HuffPost. They havent even mentioned that this time.

Disney CEO Robert Iger announced shortly after the November election that Trump would be added to the hall, sparking a backlash.

One petition asks Disney to make sure Trumps animatronic figure didnt speak, especially since some of his more famous quotes Grab them by the pussy, I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldnt lose any voters, and My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body arent nearly as inspiring as, say, Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.

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Donald Trump May Be Causing Problems For Disney World - HuffPost

In the Oval Office, senior aides to President Donald Trump sometimes steal glances at one another while he speaks. Silent and stone-faced, they dare not say what they are thinking, but they communicate nonetheless. Beyond the President's earshot and eyeshot, the concern comes through in less subtle ways. The West Wing's thick walls, even with the TV turned up, cannot muffle the sounds of staffers shouting behind closed doors.

It is a terrible thing to work every day for long hours in a hostile environment you can't control. It is worse when the stakes are as consequential as those at the White House, when your public reputation is on the line and when the man in charge blames those around him for his self-made misfortune. The fourth month of the Trump presidency has unfolded with all the suspense of a reality show. No one knows what will happen next because the President changes his mind in real time. "We watch Twitter," says one aide. "We're just as in the dark," allows another.

Senior officials walk through the building with funereal looks on their faces. Others complain that the White House is being "paralyzed" by the commotion. "He likes everyone always being on thin ice," explains one adviser of the President's management style. A few West Wing aides have begun to look for lifeboats, shopping rsums to think tanks, super PACs and corporate communications firms in the market for anyone who can make sense of the White House's bizarre workings. When news broke on May 15 that the President had revealed sensitive classified information to the Russian Foreign Minister and the Russian ambassador in an Oval Office meeting, one White House staffer sent a message to a friend outside the building: FML, read the text--abbreviated millennial slang for an unprintable curse on one's own life.

The President they serve, duly elected by the nation, has decided to govern as he lived before winning the election: impulsively, extemporaneously, with his emotions on full display. But the effect has been different in the White House. There, his decisions have jeopardized foreign intelligence relationships, affected ongoing criminal investigations and provoked the investigatory powers of the FBI and Congress.

No less than Vice President Mike Pence has been caught as collateral damage, his credibility in question after he falsely described the reason for the firing of FBI Director James Comey--only to be contradicted a day later by the President. "The good news is that if you don't like a decision, there's a good chance the President will come up with a new one if he watches enough Fox & Friends," deadpans another senior White House aide.

That leaves White House staff struggling to create a structure that will allow him to succeed. Some are grappling with how much they should try to dissuade the boss when he has his mind made up. Many wrestle with how they can maintain their own reputations while proving their loyalty by going on television to defend him."It's exhausting," says a midlevel aide. "Just when you think the pace is unsustainable, it accelerates. The moment it gets quiet is when the next crisis happens."

In the end, how to respond is a decision each person must make alone. The presidency of Donald Trump, in short, has become an acute test for those helping to lead the nation. At the White House, up on Capitol Hill and in the bowels of the three-letter national security and law-enforcement agencies, men and women are weighing the sometimes conflicting interests of their country, their careers and the President they serve.

It is a political dilemma, to be sure, but also a moral one: a test of allegiance to the truth, to the law and to the traditions of government. For many, the priority now is to limit the damage so the mistakes that have been made don't multiply into something more disastrous. "The situation is what it is," Andrew Card, former chief of staff to President George W. Bush, told MSNBC. "And we have to mitigate it."

For Trump, the learning curve at the White House has been steep. In 2014, Trump said the thing he looks for most in an employee is loyalty. And for decades that is what he demanded, dismissing advisers and executives whose commitment or capacity he came to doubt. But loyalty in business flows directly to the boss. In the federal government, allegiance is sworn to the Constitution, and evidence is growing that Trump does not understand the difference.

Associates of Comey's say the President repeatedly asked for the top law-enforcement officer's loyalty at a private White House dinner in January, even though the FBI director should be loyal to the law only, and at the time Comey was investigating Russian interference in the election and possible ties to Trump's campaign. Then in February, Comey met privately with Trump in the Oval Office, and, according to a memo he wrote at the time, the subject of the recently fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn came up. "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go," Trump told Comey, according to the notes, which were first reported by the New York Times. Although short of a command, the plain language of the request, if accurate, comes dangerously close to a President intervening in a criminal investigation of his own associate.

The White House denies both claims. But no one can dispute Trump's singular, at times disproportionate, obsession with anything concerning the investigation into Russia's involvement in the 2016 election. Nor does the White House deny the President's decision on May 10 to give classified intelligence about the Islamic State, which had been handed over by a foreign intelligence service, to the Russian Foreign Minister, whom Trump had invited to the Oval Office. That development, first reported by the Washington Post and apparently a spontaneous boast, appeared to violate long-standing commitments for the U.S. not to share intelligence from allies without permission. Trump's second National Security Adviser, H.R. McMaster, argued that the decision was "wholly appropriate," adding that the President did not even know the source of the information he described to the Russians. McMaster, who wrote a book about military officials' failure to challenge a doomed strategy in Vietnam, appeared to be threading the needle, maintaining his loyalty to Trump, while carefully protecting his own reputation by declining to deny the facts of the President's actions.

And so the Russia specter continues to descend from several directions on the executive mansion. Anger at U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions' decision to recuse himself from the investigation led Trump to tweet a false accusation that President Obama had wiretapped his campaign at Trump Tower. Trump has never given up that claim, even as evidence compounded against it. Instead he has argued that the entire Russia-meddling investigation is a sham--and that "wiretapping" can mean things not found in the dictionary--even railing at a televised hearing in the presence of TIME reporters on May 8. Three days later, the President admitted that Comey's pursuit of the Russia investigation played a role in his dismissal, after first announcing to the world that he was only acting on the recommendation of his Deputy Attorney General, who faulted Comey's handling of Hillary Clinton's emails.

All these claims have put the country and its caretakers on notice. For a small group of influential officials, the proper response to this test has been to go public, albeit anonymously. A flood of leaks has resulted, allowing the national press to fulfill its role as a check on the powerful. Similarly, officials at the nation's investigative agencies continue to remind themselves of their professional code. "It is significant that we take an oath to support and defend the Constitution and not an individual leader, ruler, office or entity," reads an explainer on the oath on the FBI website. "A government based on individuals--who are inconsistent, fallible and often prone to error--too easily leads to tyranny on the one extreme or anarchy on the other."

In practice, this means the FBI is built to resist loyalty requests from a President. Andrew McCabe, the bureau's acting director and a candidate for the job, has testified to the Senate that there will be no letup, whatever the wishes of the President, in the inquiry into his campaign's contacts with the Russians. "There has been no effort to impede our investigation to date," he said. "You cannot stop the men and women of the FBI from doing the right thing, from protecting the American people, from upholding the Constitution."

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has echoed the same line. In office less than a month, he wrote a memo urging Comey's firing on the grounds that the FBI director had mishandled the investigation into Clinton's emails. For less than 48 hours, Trump adopted this memo as his justification before recanting, and then openly citing the Russia investigation as the cause. With the embarrassing episode behind him, Rosenstein says he plans to return to his primary mission, regardless of the questioning of his motives. "I took an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States," Rosenstein said in a May 15 speech to business owners in Baltimore. "There is nothing in that oath about my reputation."

Two days later, Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein acceded to the demands of Democrats in Congress by appointing a special counsel, former FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, to take over direction of the Russia investigation, creating a new buffer to protect the probe from political interference. Mueller ran the FBI from 2001 to 2013.

The system demands a different role to be played by the elected members of Congress, who pledge allegiance to the Constitution but are directly answerable to voters. Here, too, two weeks of disturbing revelations from the White House have begun to shift calculations. For Democrats, the pressure to oppose Trump is overwhelming. For most Republicans, loyalty to the President will last as long as their interests align.

So far, the GOP's 52 Senators have all voted in accordance with the Trump Administration's preferences at least 88% of the time. But in sotto voce conversations across the Capitol, Republican lawmakers are venting about the President's recklessness. At a minimum, they are fed up with his antics. Some question his suitability for the job. "Probably two-thirds of the Republicans in the Senate are deeply worried about President Trump," says Senator Tim Kaine, the Virginia Democrat who was Clinton's running mate in 2016. "A handful have been willing to say so."

But the past few weeks have done little to dent Trump's popularity among Republican voters. White House aides remain confident that most Trump supporters see the scandals primarily as media creations. "Our shock absorbers are thick," says one senior White House official, citing campaign controversies like the Access Hollywood tape. When Richard Nixon resigned from office in 1974, 24% of the American public still approved of his presidency. That was more than two years after the Watergate break-in. As it stands, according to Gallup, 38% of Americans support Trump. But that includes more than 70% of Republicans in recent polls. "There is an overwhelming percentage of Republican [voters] who are still loyal to Trump," explains Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, the chamber's second-ranking Democrat. "And so it unnerves them when they think about retaining control of the House and Senate."

Republican leaders have mostly gone to ground. House Speaker Paul Ryan has tried to change the subject, holding a press conference about tax reform in the midst of the uproar and offering only a weak assurance that he maintains confidence in the President. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has repeated his patient requests for less White House drama. Others have begun to break ranks more forcefully. "The White House has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and in order," said Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "Obviously, they're in a downward spiral right now." In an interview with TIME, Senator John McCain exhorted colleagues to stop carrying water for the President. "I can't relate to those people who weather-vane," fumed McCain. "Do what's right." He later told an audience that the waves of revelations were reaching "Watergate size and scale."

On the House side, Utah Representative Jason Chaffetz, who has announced that he will not seek re-election, sent a letter to the FBI on May 16 requesting all memos, notes and recordings relating to communications between Comey and the President. The House and Senate Intelligence Committees have also promised to press on with their investigations, as has South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, who is leading a separate inquiry.

Top communications advisers to House and Senate Republicans have given up trying to coordinate messages with the White House, since no one is sure what the President will do next. In a telling sign of where the power in the White House lies, the calls of concern are going not to White House chief of staff and former party chairman Reince Priebus but rather to Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, who has been quiet as the scandals have multiplied. "Jared," says one longtime Senate campaign strategist, "might be the only one who can dig us out."

That doesn't solve the immediate problems that White House staff face in preventing Trump from further unforced errors. Inside the West Wing, daily staff meetings have become solemn affairs, with aides waiting for the next shoe to drop and no one quite sure whom the President will take counsel from next. "It's really grim," says one White House aide.

The dominant narratives of the early days of the Trump White House have proved wrong in recent weeks. Those who diagnosed chaos missed the controlling order. Those who focused on ideological splits, between globalists and nationalists, conservatives and moderates, missed the larger picture. The President is not living alone under siege, nor is he unaware of what is transpiring around him. The more operative divide now is that between those who are there to serve Trump himself and those who toil for the institution of the presidency.

There's a chief of staff, a Vice President and a National Security Adviser leading hundreds of political and career employees working to keep the lights on. No one in this group has worked with Trump for more than a couple of years. Then there is a separate staff of Trump loyalists--a shadow Trump organization within the West Wing. It includes family members like Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump; Trump Tower veterans like Keith Schiller, Hope Hicks, Dan Scavino Jr. and Jason Greenblatt; plus the coterie of outside friends who serve as a sort of rump Cabinet.

Both factions have labored to protect the President from his worst instincts. Aides have tried everything from restricting access to the Oval Office to filling the President's schedule in a futile bid to minimize distractions. Staffers are frustrated by leaks about staff turmoil coming from Trump's extended circle of allies. But Trump has so far resisted attempts to impose order, insisting on long stretches of unstructured time to watch television and call allies. Unlike most CEOs, he is an "instinctive and reactive" leader, in the words of one aide, "unwilling or incapable" of hewing to a long-term strategy. Others inside the White House have likened his itchy Twitter finger and obsession with cable chatter to a drug addict who cannot grasp that his habits have become a problem. A single segment "can take over the day" for the entire West Wing, complains a staffer.

The result is a dysfunctional workplace. The President has made clear that he believes he has been let down by his staff. Meanwhile, his staff is increasingly hesitant to sacrifice their credibility for a boss who won't protect them. When news of the classified intelligence given to the Russians came out, the press office, still reeling from supplying bad information on the firing of Comey, sent out McMaster to issue a spirited defense. One day later, when news broke of Comey's memo alleging that Trump had asked him to drop the Flynn investigation, no White House staff rushed to the cameras. Instead, reporters received a denial from the White House by email. No adviser to the President chose to attach their name to his defense.

--With reporting by ZEKE J. MILLER, PHILIP ELLIOTT, TESSA BERENSON, ELIZABETH DIAS and SAM FRIZELL/WASHINGTON

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Trump's Loyalty Test - TIME

At first glance, it looks like a standard cartoon for kids. Claymation figures ofdifferent ethnicities dance, clap, rap and play little clay instruments, frolicking in front of neon backdrops andsingingout peppy lyrics.

Ive got your back, and youve got mine. Everybody, lets make friends! they sing.

But it's not a simple kids' cartoon. It's a propaganda film fromthe Chinese state-run media outlet Peoples Daily aimed at promoting the Silk Road Economic Belt, a massive investment infrastructure project to link Asia and Europe.

The video is just one piece in a series of articles, speeches and videos from within China that have recently portrayed the country as a defender of globalization and free trade.

In another from the state media organization China Daily, cute kids of various ethnicities peak out from behind giant animated camels and jump around in front of animated factory settings.

When trade routes open up, thats when the sharing starts. Resources changing hands and shipping auto parts! they sing.

As China paints itself as a pro-free-trade agent of global harmony, it also notes that the United States passed on opportunities to join the Asian infrastructure project. And while Trump is not named,the videos draw a clear rhetorical contrast with the newpresident, whofrequentlyderides globalism andwon the election running on an anti-free-trade platform.

But that self-characterization is a bit rich, experts on the country say.

Having China be the worlds leading advocate for globalization is like having Al Capone be put in charge of tax reform, said Scott Kennedy, deputy director of the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

It is beyond ironic, he added.

The problem with this characterization is that Chinas economy is still far more closed than the United States' when it comes to trade and especially investment and China has shown less, not more, willingness to open its economy to foreign investment in recent years.

Chinas economy was completely shut off to foreign investment for decades under Mao Zedong, and since the 1980s, it has done a lot to open to foreign business, becoming an integrated part of the global supply chain.

Yet much of that business is still done on Chinas terms. In many industries, state-owned companies still dominate, and foreign businesses face high barriers to entry. In some industries, such as automotive manufacturing, foreign companies can operate only by forming joint ventures with Chinese partners. In other sectors, such as media, energy and banking, foreign companies are entirely excluded often in contravention of World Trade Organization rules.

Under President Xi Jinpings leadership over the past four years, China has tended to show more-intensive government intervention in the economy, not less, Kennedy says.

It is true that China is becoming a de facto leader in foreign trade. But the sole reason that China can make this claim is that the United States is receding from that role, Kennedy says.

Trump signed a presidential memorandum to withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation trade pact, on one of his earliest days in office, and he has repeatedly questioned the importance of multilateral institutions such as the World Trade Organization and NATO.

The only reason China has a leg to stand on in this argument is the campaign rhetoric and ongoing statements of President Trump and his advisers, Kennedy says. Were Alice in Wonderland and we have gone down the rabbit hole.

As the United States has withdrawn, China has very transparently tried to fill that vacuum. But without significant liberalization to further open its economy, the countrys professed dedication to free trade and globalization rings hollow.

In January, Xi, the leader of the Communist Party of China, gave a speech at Davos to an audience of the most powerful capitalists on the planet, expounding on a doctrine of inclusive globalization.

China is pushing its own international trade deal that excludes the United States, called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. And it has launched the Silk Road Economic Belt (also called One Belt, One Road), in which an institution it created, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, is leading investment in roads, railways and ports across the Asian continent.

In a speech at a forum for the project on Sunday, Xi called the plan theproject of the century" and emphasized its open and inclusive nature.

The United States declined to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, viewing it as a potential challenge to the U.S.-dominated multilateral institutions such as the World Bank. The United States' absence is noted in Chinas propaganda videos.

Some countries are moving away from globalization. So the Belt and Road is an opportunity to move globalization forward, a bespectacled man tells his daughter in a video made by the state media organization China Daily. But the United States hasnt joined the initiative.

Is that because its too far away? the little blonde girl asks.

Actually any country can join anywhere, the man responds.

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Chinese propagandists are using adorable kids to take on Donald Trump - Washington Post

New York Times

Donald Trump, Emmanuel Macron, Google: Your Thursday Briefing New York Times Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, offered to give Congress a record of Mr. Trump's recent meeting with the Russian foreign minister to show that the American leader had not divulged any secrets so long as Mr. Trump did not object. In the ... After speaking to Donald Trump, Turkish president's bodyguards beat up Kurdish protesterSalon Donald Trump tripped up by his own administrationWashington Times Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Donald Trump hold talksAljazeera.com The Independent all 1,064 news articles »

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Donald Trump, Emmanuel Macron, Google: Your Thursday Briefing - New York Times

YouTube is host to so, so many Donald Trump parody videos of Let It Go from the 2013 Disney movie, Frozen. Having not watched all of them, most are still assuredly terrible in that way jokes that fully rely on a trending topic plus other random trending topic construction tend to be.

But Stephen Colbert still found a way to make a Let It Go Donald Trump joke work on The Late Show last night.

Colbert focused part of his monologue on The New York Times revelation that former FBI Director James Comey kept notes of a private meeting Trump had with him in the Oval Office.

During their conversation, Trump reportedly said, I hope you can let this go, referring to Comeys investigation of Trumps former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Flynn is one of several Trump associates under FBI investigation over potential ties to Russia, hence implying that Trump has, in fact, tried to affect the FBIs investigation into his possible collusion with Russia.

Jumping on the, I hope you can let this go, quote, Colbert spun the phrase in a way you can now probably predict.

Trump told Comey repeatedly to let it go, said Colbert. He even got Ivanka to help.

The show then aired footage of Queen Elsa from Frozen singing the popular song.

When the camera went back to Colbert, the comedian continued, So beautiful. So beautiful. Talented. Lovely. I hear if she wasnt a cartoon, hed date her.

Colberts usage of the Frozen tie here ends up working despite the well-tread (icy?) waters of the joke.

Perhaps the world didnt need yet another live rendition of the song, but Colberts singing talent probably could have carried the joke another step if hed decided to sing a few lines himself.

Trump also has a strange history with the movie Frozen.

When still a candidate, he was accused of racism for tweeting a photo that originated on a white supremacist website of what appeared to be the Star of David alongside an accusation that Hillary Clinton was corrupt, all in front piles of cash. Trump said the image wasnt anti-Semitic, then found a picture of Frozen merchandise that used a similar six-pointed star to the one he originally tweeted.

Where is the outrage for this Disney book? Is this the Star of David also? Dishonest media! #Frozen, Trump wrote.

It was a beautiful tweet, especially for the use of #Frozen. The mental image of Donald Trump typing #Frozenat the end of a statement claiming hes not racist is just ... yes.

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Stephen Colbert Uses 'Let It Go' From 'Frozen' To Mock Donald Trump - HuffPost

Does Donald Trumphave even an ounce of shame?

As a presidential candidate, he spent much of the election campaign needling, critiquing, denouncing, and even threatening the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Yet as president, he is making his first foreign visit this weekend to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Even by Trumpian standards, the volte-face is brazen. In his first few months in power, we have witnessed the trademark Trump Turnabout on issues ranging from NATO to China to the Export-Import Bank. We have listened to him go from praising Bashar al-Assad and rebuking Janet Yellen on the campaign trail, to praising Yellen and rebuking Assad in office. Last October, he saidthat then-FBI DirectorJames Comey had guts for doing the right thing; last week, he sacked Comey and called him a showboat and a grandstander.

Trump, to put it mildly, is no stranger to the shameless U-turn. Still, the Trump Turnabout on Saudi Arabia one of Americas closest allies since President Franklin D. Roosevelt met with King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud aboard the USS Murphy in 1945 is a true sight to behold. This weekend, Trump will arrive in Saudi Arabia for a bilateral summit with King Salman as well as a series of meetings with members of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

There will be handshakes, hugs, and smiles galore. We will be expected to forget how Trump blasted the Saudi royals for being freeloaders and threatened them with an economic boycott. Speaking to the New York Times last year, Trump claimed that, without U.S. support and protection, Saudi Arabia wouldnt exist for very long. The real problem, he continued, was that the Saudis are a money machine and yet they dont reimburse us the way we should be reimbursed. Asked if he would be willing to stop buying oil from the Saudis if they refused to pull their weight, Trump responded: Oh yeah, sure. I would do that.

We will be also expected to ignore the fact that Trump slammed the Saudi government for executing homosexuals and treating women horribly. In the third presidential debate last October, Trump attacked Hillary Clinton for taking $25 million from the Saudis, from people that push gays off buildings. These are people that kill women and treat women horribly and yet you take their money.

Perhaps above all else, we will be expected to brush under the carpet the fact that, twice in a single day, Trump accused Saudi Arabia of being behind the 9/11 attacks. Who blew up the World Trade Center? Trump asked his pals at Fox and Friends on the morning of February 17, 2016. It wasnt the Iraqis, it was Saudi take a look at Saudi Arabia, open the documents.

At a campaign event in South Carolina later that day, he again cited secret papers that could prove it was the Saudis who were in fact responsible for the attacks on 9/11. It wasnt the Iraqis that knocked down the World Trade Center because they have papers in there that are very secret, you may find its the Saudis, OK?

(To be fair to Trump, far more credible and better-informed figures have come to a similar conclusion: I am convinced that there was a direct line between at least some of the terrorists who carried out the September 11 attacks and the government of Saudi Arabia, wrote former Florida Sen.Bob Graham, who co-chaired the Senate intelligence committees inquiry into 9/11, in an affidavit in 2012.)

Donald Trump walks from a campaign stop Feb. 17, 2016, in Bluffton, S.C. At the event, he cited secret papers that could prove it was the Saudis who were responsible for the attacks on 9/11.

Photo: Matt Rourke/AP

Whether or not the Saudi government played a role in the 9/11 attacks and we may never know for a leading U.S. presidential candidate to claim that they did, not once but twice, had to be seen to be believed. And yet, astonishingly, a little over a year later, it is to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that Trump has chosen to make his maiden foreign voyage rather than to Canada or Mexico, as every president since Ronald Reagan has.

Will Trump return from his Saudi jaunt with a big fat check? His much-hyped reimbursement? Will he dare raise the issue of gay rights while in Riyadh? Or womens rights? Will he manage to bring back a Saudi royal or two in handcuffs for their (alleged) role in the 9/11 attacks?Please. There are greater odds of the American president coming back as a proud convert to Islam.

Hypocrisy is not the exclusive preserve of Trump or the United States, of course. Saudi Arabia sees itself as the the birthplace of Islam, ruled by a king who styles himself custodian of the two holy mosques. Yet this coming weekend, the Saudi government will offer a warm and lavish welcome to a president who has said Islam hates us and wanted to ban all of the worlds 1.6 billion Muslims from entering the United States. The Saudi position on the latest iteration of the Trump travel ban, targeted at 170 million-odd Muslims? A sovereign decision aimed, apparently, at preventing terrorists from entering the United States of America and made by a true friend of Muslims.

On Sunday, the fawning Saudis will offer a platform to the worlds most famous Islamophobe, to give a speech on Islam in the birthplace of Islam. AndTrump will likely take the opportunity to decry radical Islamic terrorism while visiting a country thathas perhaps done more than any other to incite, fund, and fuel it.

Hypocrisy unites them both. So too does their fear and loathing of the Iranians the Saudis are busying dropping bombs and backing militants to push back Iranian influence in Yemen and Syria. The Trump administration, filled with Iran hawks, is on the verge of inking a series of arms deals with Riyadh worth more than $100 billion.

To be clear: Trumps U-turn on Saudi Arabia has little to do with being moderated by the realities of high office or swayed by the Beltways foreign policy elites. Despite his bombastic campaign rhetoric, he never planned to go after the Saudis in office even after publicly accusing them of murdering 3,000 Americans. Early on in the campaign, in 2015, a senior Arab diplomat told me, on condition of anonymity, that Trump had informed most of the Gulf governments, in private, that his anti-Muslim and anti-Arab rhetoric was all for the campaign and that it would be business as usual once he was elected (or, for that matter, defeated).

As ever, for Trump, it is always, above all else, about the bottom line his bottom line. The Saudi-bashing Trump sold an entire floor of the Trump World Tower to the Saudis for $4.5 million in 2001. And would it surprise you to discover that Trump also registered eight companies tied to hotel interests in Saudi Arabia inthe midst of his Saudi-bashing presidential campaign?

Of course not. Business is business. Trump is Trump. You might be repulsed by his deceitfulness but you have to admire his chutzpah.

Top photo: A view aboard an American warship at Great Bitter Lake, Egypt, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt conferred with King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia in 1945.

Continued here:

Donald Trump Said Saudi Arabia Was Behind 9/11. Now He's Going There on His First Foreign Trip. - The Intercept

A battalion of White House aides entered the Oval Office together to present a unified front after the bombshell.

The Justice Department had appointed a special prosecutor to oversee the probe into Russia's alleged involvement in the 2016 presidential election, White House counsel Don McGahn had just told President Donald Trump. Many of Trumps top aides gathered with the president Wednesday evening just after Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein signed the order and called McGahn and just before the news exploded publicly in Washington.

Story Continued Below

Trump handled it better than anyone expected, according to a person in the room. His reaction was extremely measured, another said.

He didn't yell or scream. He told the assembled crowd they had nothing to hide.

But that levelheadedness was quickly replaced Thursday morning by a wounded tweeter in chief lashing out as some of his staffers had been expecting the news would bring out.

With all of the illegal acts that took place in the Clinton campaign & Obama Administration, there was never a special councel appointed! Trump tweeted, after an unusually quiet 24 hours online.

He added in a second tweet: This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!

The change in attitude followed a typical pattern with Trump: accepting a defeat in real time, then later raging against it after talking to friends and watching television. After his first attempt at repealing and replacing Obamacare failed, he was calm and conciliatory, then later began blasting the House Freedom Caucus from his online pulpit.

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True to form, Thursdays screed was a stark contrast to the response Wednesday night in the Oval Office, according to aides present, where the mood in the room appeared to be one of resigned acceptance even though they were blindsided. Everyone knew this wasn't good news," this person said.

The announcement marked yet another severe blow to the 45th president just 118 days into his term. It followed eight days of chaos inside the White House after the president suddenly fired FBI Director James Comey, further crippling an administration already struggling with internal discord and mounting crises at home and abroad.

The president Wednesday afternoon had been interviewing candidates for FBI director when the news arrived. His staff had no advance notice that a special prosecutor would be appointed.

The crowd entering Trumps office was sizable, as is often the case: chief of staff Reince Priebus, McGahn and other lawyers, senior advisers Kellyanne Conway and Jared Kushner, communications aides Michael Dubke and Hope Hicks and others.

Aides outlined the background of the special counsel, former FBI Director Robert Mueller, who Trump had met before. Some explained to the president what a special prosecutor can do.

Over the course of about 40 minutes, aides streamed in and out of the Oval Office. The team drafted a statement from the president for Trumps approval. A gaggle of reporters camped outside press secretary Sean Spicers office to wait for it.

It was released Wednesday at about 7:20 p.m., 80 minutes after the Justice Departments public announcement and two hours after staff first got word of the action.

As I have stated many times, a thorough investigation will confirm what we already know there was no collusion between my campaign and any foreign entity, Trump said in the statement. I look forward to this matter concluding quickly. In the meantime, I will never stop fighting for the people and the issues that matter most to the future of our country.

Priebus and Trump together delivered a rally-the-troops message to the team: This is an opportunity to let them do their work so we can do ours, Priebus and Trump both reiterated multiple times to the aides gathered.

Outside the White House grounds, the news would soon be interpreted as a potential step that could drain the presidency for months to come.

Trump's upbeat response surprised some aides, though it brought the team together in the face of a common outside threat, according to a source who was present Wednesday.

No one really thinks having a special prosecutor is good and no one is happy" about it, a senior administration official said.

But the communications staff agreed on a positive message for the wrenching news: Because of the special prosecutor, the brewing Russia-related controversies would become something that we just can't talk about, one aide said.

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In the communications office, which has suffered some of the most brutal criticism internally from Trump, the feeling was the special counsel would be a burden off its shoulders.

In the weeks leading up to the decision to appoint a special counsel, Spicer and deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders both publicly said there was no need for the step Rosenstein finally took Wednesday.

Now, Spicer and other briefers would no longer have to look as if they were stonewalling on Russia questions, and could refer those elsewhere.

Aides are now urging Trump to tweet and speak cautiously. "I think he actually understands what a mess this is," one person said. "He has lawyers telling him nonstop what the stakes are here."

On Thursday, Trump was to meet at the White House with the president of Colombia and participate in a joint news conference in the afternoon.

He'll depart Friday for his first international trip as president: an eight-day, five-country journey from Saudi Arabia to Israel to the Vatican to Brussels to Sicily, where he is attempting to shift the narrative away from his domestic crises.

One of the things Trump is most looking forward to about his upcoming trip, according to a White House aide, is a reprieve from the daily press briefings.

On Wednesday night, a person close to him said, Trump was in the White House residence talking to friends and associates about how it was playing on TV.

Josh Gerstein contributed to this report.

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How Trump learned about the special prosecutor - Politico