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TIME

Donald Trump After Hours TIME In a few minutes, President Donald Trump will release a new set of tweets, flooding social-media accounts with his unique brand of digital smelling saltswords that will jolt his supporters and provoke his adversaries. Nearly a dozen senior aides ... Trump gets 2 ice cream scoops at White House dinners everyone else gets 1Business Insider all 4 news articles »

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Donald Trump After Hours - TIME

President Trump hosted correspondents from TIME for a nearly 100-minute wide-ranging discussion on Monday, May 8 over a four-course dinner in the Blue Room of the White House. Joined by Vice President Mike Pence and two senior Administration officials, Trump weaved between topics and frequently went off the record. Excerpts from his conversation with TIME Editor Nancy Gibbs, Washington Bureau Chief Michael Scherer and White House Correspondent Zeke Miller are below:

I find the job very natural for me. I findits a very big job obviously, theres no job big like this. No job is important like this. But I think some of theI just think its something that works for me, it feels very natural to me.

And all I said, the job, it is, its a difficult job but its a job that I find to beI love doing it. I love helping people. Mike [Pence] is doing a fantastic job. He fits it so well. I mean we have a great team, he and I guess, they say were somewhat opposite and that works to be a very good combination.

MORE: Read TIME's cover story "Donald Trump After Hours"

Its never different. I think its never different. Its always the same. You have to know your subject. And that would be the misconception of misconceptions for that. I mean, its not that Ilook, I always had health care for my company. But its not that Iit was just something that wasnt high on my list. I had people that negotiated for my company.

But in a short period of time I understood everything there was to know about health care. And we did the right negotiating, and actually its a very interesting subject.

I think it is. It could be my fault. I dont want to necessarily blame but theres a great meanness out there that Im surprised at. I mean Im surprised.

No, Id like not to be. But the only way you survive is to be combative. Ill read stories in the New York Times that are so one sided. Hey, I know when Im successful. I know victory, okay.

I dont quite get it if Im going to do a job with the lowering taxes, better health care , take care of people, take care of hospitalization, all the things were doing, because theres no plan now. You would think that people would like that. And they dont. I used to get the credit in business but they want to belittle everything you do. Business is easier because you put something up, its good, whatever.

But the politics is tough.

When [Japanese Prime Minister Shinz] Abe came from Japan, first thing he said to me when I first met him. He walked out. "Thank you, thank you." I said, "For what?" F-35. You bought, you saved us one hundred million dollars. Because theyre part of the group that buy the ninety planes. Its a lot. We get, they get, different allies.

But I saved Japan a hundred million bucks. Took me probably an hour if I added up all the time. But I will be saving, when we put that out over two, the two thousand five hundred planes, billions of dollars. Nobody ever wrote a story about that.

But they said the F-35 program is now straightened out and the costs are way down. Theyre down because of me. Then Boeing when the F-18, I mean I must have got thirty-five million of each plane off. . . . You know they had the F-35s, they had thirty-five of them fly over Japan when [Defense Secretary] General [James] Mattis was there , and they were not detected by the radar. They flew over and everyone said where the hell did they come from? Thats stealth. Its pretty cool, right. Thirty-five of them flying at a high speed, low, and they were not detected. They flew right over the top of the deal, nobody knew they were coming. Pretty cool, right?

You know the catapult is quite important. So I said what is this? Sir, this is our digital catapult system. He said well, were going to this because we wanted to keep up with modern [technology]. I said you dont use steam anymore for catapult? No sir. I said, "Ah, how is it working?" "Sir, not good. Not good. Doesnt have the power. You know the steam is just brutal. You see that sucker going and steams going all over the place, theres planes thrown in the air."

It sounded bad to me. Digital. They have digital. What is digital? And its very complicated, you have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out. And I saidand now they want to buy more aircraft carriers. I said what system are you going to be"Sir, were staying with digital." I said no youre not. You going to goddamned steam, the digital costs hundreds of millions of dollars more money and its no good.

Ive done a lot with [Vice President] Mike [Pence] where we have a meeting in the [Roosevelt Room], well have a lot of different people , labor unions, workers. ... We had Harley Davidson up. Ill say anybody ever see the Oval Office? Nobodys ever said theyve seen the Oval Office. President Obama was different. He didnt, not a lot of people invited in. Me, I invite people in. ... And it means something, the Oval Office. It means something to them. Im telling you Ive had big people, some of the biggest business people, youve seen it. They go in theyre like, they cant believe it. And Ive seen them cry. Its weird.

Ill tell you, I used to watch sports. I dont watchIm now consumed by news. And business, I like the business stuff.

See, there wasnt a second attempt. There was only one attempt. There was a mistake, was we set a date . Now had we not set that date, we would have had one time. What we did was we started off and it changed until three or four days ago when it got passed. But we set a date. And when we didnt vote, everyone said Trump fails with health care. The thing that surprised me is, I said, Im not stopping. And everybody, not one person said that was going to pass. Which was sort of surprising to me. Nobody thought it was going to pass. Everyone saidand Id go to [Vice President] Mike [Pence], I said remember I said, theyre talking like we dont have a chance of passing. Ill tell you, it was a great thing. It was a great process because those two hundred plus people in congress I got to know almost every one of them. And I developed a bond with many of them that you can only develop under fire. And it was a great thing. And again, somebody wrote an article where they said this is one of the greatest learning experiences, because Donald Trump has gotten to know everyyou know I was with them for eighteen hours a day, calling.

You know whats interesting, Im getting very good marks in foreign policy. People would not think of me in that light. Im just saying, and you read the same things I read. Im getting As and A+s on foreign policy. And nobody thought about it.

Great relationship with [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel, one of the best. In fact so good she invited my daughter over. She loves Ivanka. Ivanka was over there and did great. But no I have a very good relationship with all of them, including Australia. You saw that the other night, right. You know they all said I hung up and I slammed the phone on him. I didnt do that. I mean, it was a little testy for a while because Obama made a ridiculous deal. But that wasnt [Australian Prime Minister] Malcolm [Turnbull]s fault. But we have a very good relationship with Australia and him. Which I think the other night showed.

I get back [former Egyptian prisoner] Aya [Hijazi] . Nobody could have done that. Nobody else could have done that. They could have negotiated how tough is [Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah] el Sisi, right? Nobody else could have doneand hes a great guy. Nobody else could have gotten her back. She would have been in jail for twenty-eight years. And thats not twenty-eight years youre going away for one. Thats twenty-eight years meaning twenty-eight years.

Ive been doing this, in all fairness, when I first came into the office, the first night. You werent here.

But they say sir, were ready to go. I said where? They had some people in a certain country, Yemen , where they had them [surveilled] and they needed the go ahead to kill, to kill them.

But in other words they wanted the right to go. So theyre telling me this. And this happened for two or three weeks, four weeks. And they keep coming to me, at weird times too. I dont care about that.

And theyre in parts of the world that most people have never even heard about. They were in cities that nobody every heard about or towns. And in some cases theyre ISIS or al-Qaeda. And so they say sir, we have a situation wed like to be able to go and they tell me what.

Then after about four or five weeks I said wait a minute. By the time they get to me, and I get back to them, usually its over anyway, its gone, theyre gone. They couldnt fire. You know under the Obama Administration they get back to them three or four weeks later and say its okay to go. They say okay to go, they left three weeks ago.

So I said to myself, Im a believer in professionals, these people over there, whether its in Iraq or in Yemen or anywhere, Libya, they went to West Point, or wherever. Annapolis, they went to Air Force Academy.

I said to the general, I said how good. The lieutenants, the captains, their majors, their colonels, theyre professionals. They love doing it, they know every inch of the territory, right. I say why am I telling them? So I authorized the generals to do the fighting. You know.

You know I have a lot of respect for President Xi [Jinping]. I have great respect for him. I think we have a very good mutual liking of each other. And I told you we had tremendous dialogue at Mar-a-Lago.

And Mar-a-Lago is a great place for the dialogue because theres a warmth to Mar-a-Lago that you just dont find anywhere else. You can sit down in a chair and just talk for hours. Where in some places you dont have that.

And this is great. I mean its very different. But you dont have that here. Its not the same. Its great in a different way.

Weve never had the relationship that we have now. Now, in all fairness to President Xi, he loves China, he loves his people, and he is representing the people of China. Hes not representing the people of the United States. So well see how that all turns out.

I think we have to be a strong nation. I think we were being laughed at by the world. Theyre not laughing anymore. When I saw that, I thought it was incredible. And then he called them child actors, and that was even, that was just a terrible disrespect.

I mean when he actually said they were child actors, who would even think of that? But I felt something had to be done. And the interesting thing is, a friend of mine whos very much a warrior and a person over there, a general, said you know when they hit a barrel bomb right in the middle of a town, the kids are more brutally damaged, and people.

You have arms and legs and everything else laying all over the town where it is. A real problem too. But you know, it just seemed, when they start using gases, its something that is just terrible. But honestly barrel bombs are incredible when you see the damage done by these.

My friend said to me that, he said you know its interesting, he said you hit them because of the gases but the barrel bombs are worse. He said what they do to people is unbelievable. You have arms and legs laying two hundred yards away.

And despite that there was something about the gases. Its just terrible. And I guess it was also that he violated the deal that was done with Obama. Hes got gas all over the place. Hes got gas all over the place.

We have to humiliate the enemy. And if we dont humiliate them, were going to have our kids continuing to go and fight for ISIS. We have kids leaving this country because theyre so damned good at the internet, ISIS, theyre better at the internet than Google . You know its a smart enemy. Believe it or not. And these kids are going over and fighting.

You know weve gotten billions of dollars more in NATO than hat were getting. All because of me. I mean its not like a bragging thing, Im just saying. If Hillary Clinton would have gotten in, she wouldnt even know that were getting screwed by everybody.

But we have gotten billions of dollars more coming in. and coming in. I asked one simple question, I says is everybody paid up? An they bring their chart, and these countries havent paid for years. Havent paid a fair amount for years. Billions, and billions, and billions and billions of dollars. And were paying. Were paying for it.

And they pay 2% and we pay close to 4%. And in all fairness its better for them than it is for us. Its wonderful. But its better for them. And I get along great with Merkel. I got along great with all of them. I said folks, you gotta pay. You gotta pay.

Terrible. Incredible and terrible. Theyre so brave. I mean their legs are blown off, their arms are blown off, their faces Their spirits amazing. Its incredible. One guy had his leg blown off in Afghanistan. Handsome guy, really good looking guy. And he was with his girlfriend. His leg was blown off high, you know.

All he can do, because now they let them go back, was with the prosthetic, if you can, it works out okay. All he wants to do is go back. Its amazing. The spirit is so incredible.

I always say the president has a gift for hospitalityI think people sense when theyre around the president an open door, a hospitality, a graciousness. I think itsI've had more people tell me that it was the memory of a lifetime.

And its just because of the kindness that hes shown large and small groups with his time and attention.

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Read Donald Trump's Interview With TIME on Being President - TIME

By Molly Riley-Pool/Getty Images.

Last week, Donald J. Trump sat down for an interview with The Economist, which sort of feels like a kindergartner being interviewed by the The Paris Review. The chat covered a variety of issues, from trade to taxes to health care to immigration, and included some delightfully surreal moments, such as when the president claimed to have invented the phrase prime the pump. Herewith, the highlights:

Trumponomics, as it were, is about self-respect and winning: . . . it really has to do with self-respect as a nation. It has to do with trade deals that have to be fair, and somewhat reciprocal, if not fully reciprocal. And I think thats a word that youre going to see a lot of, because we need reciprocality in terms of our trade deals . . . We always lose. But were not going to lose any more.

He appears unaware of the fact that his own aides opened a back channel to Justin Trudeau to convince him not to withdraw from NAFTA: I was going to terminate NAFTA last week, I was all set, meaning the six-month termination. I was going to send them a letter, then after six months, its gone. But the word got out, they called and they said, we would really love to . . . they called separately but it was an amazing thing. They called separately 10 minutes apart. I just put down the phone with the president of Mexico when the prime minister of Canada called. And they both asked almost identical questions. We would like to know if it would be possible to negotiate as opposed to a termination. And I said, Yes, it is. Absolutely. So, so we did that and well start.

He possibly had no idea how old China is, until president Xi Jinping gave him a history lesson; now, hes really excited to show off that knowledge: [Our] relationship with China is long. Of course by China standards, its very short [laughter], you know when Im with [Xi Jinping], because hes great, when Im with him, hes a great guy. He was telling me, you know they go back 8,000 years, we have 1776 is like modern history. They consider 1776 like yesterday and they, you know, go back a long time.

Hes totally flexible, but he wont give any examples of said flexibility for publication: Nobody, you know, I always use the word flexibility, I have flexibility. [Goes off the record.]

He thinks he coined the phrase prime the pump, which has in fact been used since 1932, with the creation of President Herbert Hoover's Reconstruction Finance Corporation (this exchange really must be read in full):

The Economist: But beyond that its O.K. if the tax plan increases the deficit?

Trump: It is O.K., because it wont increase it for long. You may have two years where youll . . . you understand the expression prime the pump?

Trump: We have to prime the pump.

The Economist: Its very Keynesian.

Trump: Were the highest-taxed nation in the world. Have you heard that expression before, for this particular type of an event?

The Economist: Priming the pump?

Trump: Yeah, have you heard it?

Trump: Have you heard that expression used before? Because I havent heard it. I mean, I just . . . I came up with it a couple of days ago, and I thought it was good. Its what you have to do.

The Economist: Its . . .

Trump: Yeah, what you have to do is you have to put something in before you can get something out.

Link:

Donald Trump Thinks He Invented a Phrase That's Been Around Since 1932 - Vanity Fair

Trump briefly topped @realDonaldTrump with a note he sent at 6:41 p.m. ET after former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing and said he was not aware of evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

"Director Clapper reiterated what everybody, including the fake media already knows- there is 'no evidence' of collusion w/ Russia and Trump," Trump tweeted.

The Twitter header was removed sometime early Tuesday and replaced with a photo of Trump and House Republicans at the White House. But some of the President's nearly 29 million followers had ample time to respond.

"'Getting a staffer to Photoshop your tweet denying collusion with Russia into your banner image' is untold levels of Not Mad," tweeted Patrick Monahan.

"This is the header of the president of the United States' political/personal Twitter account," Bloomberg White House reporter Jennifer Epstein tweeted.

"Never really believed there was collusion between Trump & Russia.. until he just put that twitter header up," tweeted writer Stephen Miller.

"trump's new Twitter page header is basically the equivalent of 'But they said I din't do nothin'.' Double negative intended," tweeted another.

"Trump's done a lot of embarrassing things in the < 4 months he's been POTUS, but that new header image takes the cake," Upworthy writer Parker Molloy tweeted.

"Pretty weird of Trump to photoshop an old AIM away message into his twitter header," another user tweeted.

"Is it just me who is kind of amazed Donald Trump knows how to change his Twitter profile header pic?" another tweeted remarked.

"trump changed his twitter header to push back on the russia story, showing he's not concerned about it and its NOT A BIG DEAL AT ALL," another writer tweeted with a GIF of "House of Cards" character Frank Underwood.

CNN has reached out to the White House but requests for comment were not immediately returned.

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Trump made one of his own tweets into a Twitter header. Cue the Twitter shade. - CNN

New York Times

Pipelines and Donald Trump: British Columbia Goes to the Polls New York Times President Trump. These are the issues voters are talking about as British Columbia holds its election for the provincial legislative assembly on Tuesday. Bordered by the United States on two sides, British Columbia is home to Canada's fastest-growing ... and more »

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Pipelines and Donald Trump: British Columbia Goes to the Polls - New York Times

President Donald Trump's campaign website underwent an overhaul that debuted Tuesday. Now featured prominently: a picture of the president saluting a member of the military.

"Together, we are rebuilding our nation," reads the front page of the website. The background of the page is a photo of Trump saluting a military member as he exits Marine One on the White House's South Lawn.

As the Washington Examiner's David Drucker pointed out on Twitter, right next to that military imagery was a button for contributing to Trump's campaign.

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The military has rules about the military appearing in campaign ads. Trump seemingly ran into trouble with these rules previouslywhen his ad promoting the achievements of his first 100 days in office featuredNational Security AdviserH.R. McMaster in uniform, the Washington Post reported. The ad was changed to show the president shaking the hand of a factory worker instead of featuringMcMaster.

It's not clear if the Trump website violated any rules, but it does certainly play up his brief tenureas commander in chief, during which he's ordered an airstrike in Syria while ramping up the possibility of war with North Korea.

The Trump team said the site also will be aimed at promoting"facts the mainstream media is hiding about policy positions and actions by President Trump," according to Politico. "President Trump believes in speaking directly with the American people," the campaign tweeted.

Perhaps with that in mind, the website also now prominently displays the latest tweets fired off from the president's famous@realDonaldTrump Twitter account. Tuesday it showed the president's thoughts on the ongoing investigations into his campaign's potential collusion with Russianefforts to sway the president election (it's a "total hoax") as well as his thoughts on the testimony from former acting Attorney General Sally Yates ("she said nothing but old news!").

And if you're in the mood to buy something, the websitealso has, of course, a section for Trump merchandise.

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Donald Trump's New Website Features Military Personnel, Tweets, Merchandise - Newsweek

(Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

What does it say when the man cant even get his staff in order?

The call (to Justin Trudeau, asking him to talk Donald Trump out of destroying NAFTA) was coming from inside the (White) house. Confused? Let me clear it up for you. As Donald Trump has been parading around the West Wing in his bathrobe and terrorizing aides and the international community with mood swings, erratic tweets, and a seemingly endless list of things he didn't realize were so complicated until he became president, there has been a contingent of his staff who have been attempting to manipulate the president in some pretty unusual ways. For instance, if you turned on cable news at all during the campaign, then you probably caught one of the millions of Trump rallies that they aired unedited and therefore probably heard Trump rail against NAFTA. That may make for good election-year politics, but the truth is NAFTA has become an important part of not just our economy, but also Mexico's and Canada's, and if we were to suddenly withdraw from the agreement, the economic fallout could be massive and painful and cause the price of everything to potentially skyrocket.

So what do you do if an issue requires nuance and careful consideration, but you work for Donald Trump? Well, apparently you do a little freelancing and reach out to the Canadian government to ask Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to implore Trump to reconsider. This story comes from The National Post.

The President was said to be persuaded by the argument to kill what he has repeatedly called the worst trade deal ever, despite concerns about the economic disruption that might result.

According to Canadian government sources, White House advisers pushing a more cautious approach then called Ottawa to ask for Trudeaus assistance.

You never know how much of it is theatre, but it didnt feel that way, said one senior Canadian diplomatic source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter. Maybe theyre just learning how to be a government. At least they were open to the conversation, and that stopped them doing something rash and destructive.

Just what you want to hear from a foreign government official: "Maybe they're just learning how to be a government." I mean, damn. That is vicious. And though, in the case of Canada, Trump didn't seem mad about anything that went down, instead going out of his way to praise Trudeau and Mexico's President Enrique Pea Nieto, that doesn't mean he likes being undermined. Which, according to Bloomberg, is exactly what National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster learned recently after he let South Korea know that President Trump wouldn't make them pay for defense.

Other White House officials however tell me this is not the sentiment the president has expressed recently in private. Trump was livid, according to three White House officials, after reading in the Wall Street Journal that McMaster had called his South Korean counterpart to assure him that the president's threat to make that country pay for a new missile defense system was not official policy. These officials say Trump screamed at McMaster on a phone call, accusing him of undercutting efforts to get South Korea to pay its fair share.

One thing becomes clear when you hear these stories. As terrifying as Donald Trump is (and his level falls somewhere between the little girl from The Ring and "WebMD worst-case scenario"), it's somewhat comforting to know that there are some people working for the president who are doing their best to stop him from destroying the country. I mean, not as comforting as literally anyone else being in charge, but still somewhat comforting.

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Donald Trump Can't Stop His Team from Undermining Him - GQ Magazine

Christian Schneider, Opinion columnist 6:00 a.m. ET May 9, 2017

Woodrow Wilson(Photo: AP)

Throughout his life, progressive paragon Woodrow Wilson sneered at a system of government that vested so much power withCongress. Wilson, who enjoyed pointing out that the president was the only person elected by all the people of America, was frustrated by this disequilibrium."The Senate always has the last word," he complained.

A century later, Wilson's enthusiasm for consolidation of power within the presidency has a powerful new fan. Last week, President Trump offered a Wilsonesque critique of the U.S. Senate, arguing he should be given more authority because he's "a closer."

"You look at the rules of the Senate, even the rules of the House, but the rule of the Senate and some of the things you have to go through, it's really a bad thing for the country in my opinion," Trump told Fox News on April 28.

Trump further argued for "tak[ing] those rules on" such as the Senate filibuster "because for the good of the nation things are going to have to be different." He added, "You can't go through a process like this. It's not fair, it forces you to make bad decisions."

Naturally, in the Trump vernacular, any decision he gets to make unilaterally is necessarily a "good" one, and every proposal slowed by a deliberative body is, by definition, "bad." In this way, the current Republican shares the Progressive Era's lack of constitutional humility.

But while Wilson's antipathy for the separation of powers was derived from years of scholarship (as an undergraduate he proposed allowing the president to choose his cabinet from among members of Congress, British Parliament-style),Trump's latest position seems to be crafted only upon visiting Washington, D.C. on the days he can get away from Mar-a-Lago.

Republican health bill moves us forward: Christian Schneider

Donald Trump's malignant narcissism is toxic: Psychologist

Ironically, Trump's lack of knowledge of how Congress works actually makes the case of why Congress is now more important than ever. As he learns history on the job (sample tidbit about Abraham Lincoln from a March speech: "Great president. Most people dont even know he was a Republican, right?"), the legislative branch can provide him a valuable constitutional lesson by asserting its rightful authority.

Clearly in Trump's years in the private sector, his view of politicians took on a cartoonish bent, most likely informed by cable news and television dramas. During Republican presidential debates, the eventual GOP winner openly bragged about buying off politicians (mostly Democrats), arguing incredibly that his own corrupt practices were proof that only he could fix such a "broken system." (This recalls the time on Cheers when Norm derided the sad, pathetic people who sat next to him at the bar hour after hour, day after day.)

No doubt in Trump's New York City politicians were simply a procedural hurdle to be overcome when a building needed to be builtsalt the city with a few dollars here and there and city council members would one day earn a ride in one of his golden elevators.

POLICING THE USA:Alook atrace, justice, media

World history according to Trump: Gabriel Schoenfeld

But Congress can now prove that it's not simply a beagle eager to have its belly scratched. For instance, Congress should take the advice of TV star Trump when he asserted that Congress should approve military operations in Syria, even if President Trump disagrees. The House and Senate should craft responsible infrastructure and health care plans independent of Trump's capricious Twitter meanderings. Trump wants billions in taxpayer funding for a southern border wall? Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell should send over a copy of The Federalist 51, a golden shovel, and tell the president to start digging.

It's not as if presidents haven't always felt dyspepsia about the role of Congress. When President Andrew Johnson faced impeachment in 1868, one of the articles against him charged that he had plotted to "excite the odium and resentment of all good people of the United States against Congress" and that he had used, "with a loud voice, certain intemperate, inflammatory and scandalous harangues, and therein utter loud threats and bitter menaces." These are phrases that should be emblazoned on the china in the Trump White House dining room.

"The office (of president)," Woodrow Wilson once observed, "is so much greater than any man could honestly imagine himself tobe that the most he can do is to look grave enough and self-possessed enough to seem to fill it." Last week, Wilson's philosophical descendant, Donald Trump, similarly noted that he thought being president "would be easier" than it has been during his first 100 days.

Undoubtedly, the two presidents could learn much from each other. Perhaps one of these days Trump will pick up the phone and invite Wilson and Frederick Douglass to dinner.

Christian Schneideris a member ofUSA TODAY's Board of Contributors and a columnist for theMilwaukee Journal Sentinel, where this piece wasfirst published. Follow him on Twitter@Schneider_CM

You can readdiverse opinions from ourBoard of Contributorsand other writers ontheOpinion front page,on Twitter@USATOpinionand in our dailyOpinion newsletter.To submit a letter, comment or column, check oursubmission guidelines.

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Donald Trump says Congress has too much power. He's wrong. - USA TODAY

For all the fireworks of the French election, please note that Marine Le Pen gave a simple elegant concession speech, congratulating the winner and thanking her supporters and campaign workers. She did not claim voter fraud or a media conspiracy or accuse the government of tapping her phone. She is, after all, French. Liberty, equality, dignity.

And so our country, the land of the pilgrims' pride where our fathers died, remains No. 1 in blithering tastelessness, naked self-promotion and delusional hypocrisy, thanks to Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and James Comey. North Korea is a close No. 2, followed by Sudan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, the Ku Klux Klan, the Fall of Man and the Republican health care plan.

That was a remarkable photo, Republicans on the White House lawn celebrating the House passage of a bucket of horsefeathers. It looked like the Kappa Delts gathered at the country club for the Eight-Ball Roll-'Em and Martini Scramble. Actually it was the D-minus students collecting a pile of partial term papers regurgitated by dogs and sending them to the Senate to be made into something coherent and perhaps defensible. As the man said, nobody knew health care could be so complicated. Good luck, Senator McConnell! Take your time! Read the whole thing!

Senate approval is an archaic legal requirement so much easier to simply write an executive order stating that everyone gets the care they need, pre-existing conditions or not, a beautiful deal for less money, and let's move on to something else. Sign another order that cancer has been cured that would pay for everything.

This guy is in love with the executive order. It's his idea of a selfie. He sits at his bare desk, grinning, holding up the two-page large-print document with his big bold signature, in a nice leather binding like an Award for Meritorious Achievement from the Federation of Organizations, his smiley vice-president looking over his shoulder, a select group of happy citizens clapping. Last week, he signed one assuring ministers of freedom of speech in the pulpit. Next week maybe he'll order ladybugs to fly away home, their house is on fire, their children are gone.

What is so remarkable this spring, as we all wait for the next shoe to drop, is how completely the Republican virtues we grew up admiring caution, respect for history, attention to the fine print have been thrown to the winds and the party has united behind an aging New York playboy with no fixed principles except an insatiable urge to be on the front page every single day including weekends and holidays. It would be like the Democratic Party electing Big Bird and applauding whatever comes out of his big beak.

Big Bird is a costume. There is a person inside it. He says what is in the script. But if he says whatever is going through his mind and starts ranting about conspiracies and TV ratings and the Civil War (how come?), you have a Big Turkey for a leader. Some people might think it edgy and cool to have an eight-foot president covered with yellow feathers, but I believe that most Democrats would not go along with this, even those who feel the party has gone elitist and needs to regain the common touch.

The American people do not wish their president to be on the front page every single day, especially not for saying stupid stuff. They would prefer government to be effective, functional, honest, rational in other words, boring. Think of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. You want it to operate quietly without drawing attention to itself. You don't want to read in the paper that when you hold a $20 bill up to ultraviolet light now, it says "Invest Kushner" with a blinking 800 number.

Same with the National Park Service. We don't need to sell ad space on the foreheads at Mount Rushmore. The U.S. Coast Guard is a fine operation, if you ask me. Ditto the F.A.A., and so is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration imagine the complexity of it, administering the oceans and the atmosphere and yet it goes about its mission without fuss. The White House could write up an executive order "Let the waves be still, let the tides not encroach upon Mar-a-Lago" but NOAA would simply build an ark for the president and life would go on as before. And that is the whole point.

Washington Post

Garrison Keillor is an author and radio personality.

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Trump's executive order of religious nothingness

Donald Trump is a lazy president

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Republicans abandon their virtues to stand behind Donald Trump and clap - Chicago Tribune

Late night comics have feasted on President Donald Trump, poking fun at his factually challenged proclamations, tortured syntax, and elaborate combover.

But The Daily Show host Trevor Noah admits that there are risks involved with getting too addicted to Trump jokes.

Youve got to look at Donald Trump as comedy cocaine, Noah said at VarietysEntertainment and Technology Summit in New York on Wednesday. A bump now and again will get you to a nice place, but you dont want to overdose.

Noah said that Trump and his ability to swallow up the news cycle provides a seemingly inexhaustible amount of material for comics. Still, he and his writers frequently find themselves asking, How much is enough?

Because the presidency comes with so much power, anything Trump says or does reverberates across the globe.

Theres almost no news in the world that in some way is not being touched or influenced by Donald Trump, said Noah.

On his Comedy Central program, Noah and his writers arent just focusing on Trumps more outrageous tweets or political feuds. Theyre trying to tell a larger story about what his rise signals about larger geo-political shifts.

What you do is youve got to cut it, said Noah, explaining that he kept returning to drug analogies, because I watch a lot of Narcos.'

Trumps rise has helped Noah find his own stride. Ratings at The Daily Show have improved as have critical reviews. Noah believes last summers political conventions marked a turning point for a show that satirizes the television news landscape. Noah was born in South Africa and said that his experience growing up in the country gave him a unique perspective.

The nextfour years will be the story of the American people and how they responded to the force known as Donald Trump, said Noah.

He saw parallels with the history of the program. He noted that Jon Stewart, his predecessor as Daily Show anchor, first connected with audiences during the contentious 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore.

History, like fashion, repeats itself, said Noah, adding As Donald Trump sinks deeper and deeper into the swamp he once thought he would drain, the show is going deeper and deeper into politics.

Noah said he stays in touch with Stewart, but doesnt ask him for advice on overseeing The Daily Show.

I promised Jon that I would let him retire, said Noah.

When Stewart stepped down, he told his successor that he wanted to concentrate on his family. Noah says he mostly asks Stewart for insight into balancing work and life.

We talk jokes, said Noah. We talk about life. We connect as human beings.

The Daily Show was created to send up the 24/7 cable news world of talking heads and prime time bloviation. In the wake of the Trump election, fake news has become a buzzword. The president often uses the term to deride media groups or articles that he finds objectionable.

We still see ourselves as fake news,' said Noah. We wont relinquish that title even though it was stolen from us by the president.

The term might have been appropriated, but Noah said the mission of the program remains the same to lampoon the powerful and the pompous alike.

Our version of fake means no holds barred news now, said Noah.

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Trevor Noah: Donald Trump Is 'Comedy Cocaine' - Variety