Tag: Donald Trump

We Redacted Everything That’s Not a Verifiably True Statement From Trump’s Time Interview About Truth

This is so telling, if people are willing to give it some attention.

The following article by Ellie Shechet was posted on the Jezebel website March 23, 2017:

President Trump recently participated in an interview with Time Magazine’s Michael Scherer for a cover story about his relationship with the truth. Predictably, this conversation really tested the limits of irony.

In the full transcript of the interview published by Time, Trump lies a lot, says a number of half-true things, does not admit he was incorrect to link Ted Cruz’s father with Lee Harvey Oswald, foists responsibility for his inaccuracies onto media reports that he misrepresents, says the word “Brexit” 11 times, and forms sentences like “Brussels, I said, Brussels is not Brussels.” But, listen, some of it was fine! In the transcript below, we have redacted everything that is not verifiably true. What remains is everything the president said that is definitely true. Continue reading “We Redacted Everything That’s Not a Verifiably True Statement From Trump’s Time Interview About Truth”

President Trump’s cascade of false claims in Time’s interview on his falsehoods

The following article by Glenn Kessler and Michelle Ye Hee Lee was posted on the Washington Post website March 23, 2017:

President Trump had a remarkable interview with Time magazine on March 22 about falsehoods, in which he repeated many false claims that have repeatedly been debunked. Here’s a round-up of his key misstatements. Continue reading “President Trump’s cascade of false claims in Time’s interview on his falsehoods”

Trump’s crackdown focuses on people in the U.S. illegally – but not on the businesses that hire them

The following article by Cindy Carcamo was posted on the L.A. Times website March 20, 2017:

Nearly 20 years ago, Mark Reed, then a top boss for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, sent agents into Nebraska to crack down on meatpackers hiring immigrants who were in the country illegally.

Agents pored over records to ferret out forged documents or fake Social Security numbers, and thousands of workers, fearful of being caught without papers, fled the state.

Reed thought the effort, Operation Vanguard, could become a national model to shut down a magnet for illegal immigration, and he said as much to Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) during a congressional hearing on immigration while Vanguard was underway. Continue reading “Trump’s crackdown focuses on people in the U.S. illegally – but not on the businesses that hire them”

White House installs political aides at Cabinet agencies to be Trump’s eyes and ears

The following article by Lisa Rein and Juliet Eilperin was posted on the Washington Post website March 19, 2017:

The political appointee charged with keeping watch over Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt and his aides has offered unsolicited advice so often that after just four weeks on the job, Pruitt has shut him out of many staff meetings, according to two senior administration officials.

At the Pentagon, they’re privately calling the former Marine officer and fighter pilot who’s supposed to keep his eye on Defense Secretary Jim Mattis “the commissar,” according to a high-ranking defense official with knowledge of the situation. It’s a reference to Soviet-era Communist Party officials who were assigned to military units to ensure their commanders remained loyal. Continue reading “White House installs political aides at Cabinet agencies to be Trump’s eyes and ears”

Can President Trump Handle the Truth?

The following article by Michael Scherer was posted on the Time Magazine website March 23, 2017:

Generations of American children have learned the apocryphal tale of young George Washington, bravely admitting to his father that he chopped down the cherry tree. The story sprang from a culture that wanted even its fables to serve the ideal of truth. By that standard, the House Intelligence Committee hearing on March 20 should have been a massive humiliation for the President, who followed Washington 228 years later. It is rare for such hearings to be unclassified–and thus televised–but FBI Director James Comey found the largest possible audience for his rebuke of the sitting President.

He had given Donald Trump nearly three weeks to walk back his incendiary tweets accusing President Obama of “wire tapping” Trump Tower during the campaign. If such surveillance had been done through legal channels, the FBI would have known; if done illegally, it was a scandal of historic proportions and the FBI should be digging into it. Either way, Trump’s accusation implicated the integrity of Comey’s bureau, which is why the former prosecutor felt compelled to push back as the cameras rolled. “I have no information that supports those tweets,” Comey said. “We have looked carefully inside the FBI. The Department of Justice has asked me to share with you that the answer is the same.” Continue reading “Can President Trump Handle the Truth?”

$2,183,552: Donald Trump’s Annual Tax Cut from ACA Repeal

The following article by Harold Stein was posted on the Center for American Progress website March 22, 2017:

The House of Representatives is preparing to vote on a health care bill that would take away insurance from 24 million Americans in 2025—the same year that it would give a tax cut of $57,570 to the average household making more than $1 million per year. The personal benefit to President Donald Trump appears to be even larger: more than $2 million, based on recently leaked partial tax returns from 2005.

If the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, had been law in 2005, then President Trump could have paid $2,183,552 under two taxes on the wealthiest Americans that help pay for expanding health insurance coverage. This includes $589,080 in Additional Medicare Tax on President Trump’s wages and self-employment income, along with $1,594,473 in Net Investment Income Tax on his interest, dividends, and capital gains. Continue reading “$2,183,552: Donald Trump’s Annual Tax Cut from ACA Repeal”

Under fire over Russia investigation, White House officials choose to change the subject

The following article by Brian Bennett was posted on the L.A. Times website March 21, 2017:

President Trump walks to a meeting with House Republicans to encourage a deal on the American Health Care Act. (Shawn Thew / European Pressphoto Agency)

After the heads of the FBI and the National Security Agency denied President Trump’s claim that then-President Obama had wiretapped him, Trump’s Twitter account provided the best clue to how the White House would respond: Tuesday morning, it was silent on the subject.

Trump had started the day Monday with a tweet storm defending himself against allegations that his campaign had cooperated with Russian efforts to affect the 2016 election. He’s spent days quadrupling down on his unsubstantiated insistence that Obama had surveilled Trump Tower in New York. Continue reading “Under fire over Russia investigation, White House officials choose to change the subject”

No, Germany doesn’t owe America ‘vast sums’ of money for NATO

The following article by Amanda Erickson was posted on the Washington Post website March 18, 2017:

Fresh off the heels of a dust-up with Britain, President Trump attacked another key ally — Germany.

At a news conference Friday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Trump “reiterated” his “need for our NATO allies to pay their fair share for the cost of defense.” He followed up Saturday with an impolitic double-barreled tweet shot, writing that Germany owes America “vast sums of money” for NATO. And, he argued, the country should pay more “for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides.” Continue reading “No, Germany doesn’t owe America ‘vast sums’ of money for NATO”