A video tweeted by White House press secretary Sarah Sanders of CNN reporter Jim Acosta is seen alongside the original feed aired by C-Span. (Adriana Usero/The Washington Post)
The White House suspended the press credentials of CNN reporter Jim Acosta on Wednesday, hours after President Trump took issue with questions Acosta asked at a news conference.
The move to punish Acosta by removing his access to the White House is believed to be unprecedented. The Trump administration barred another CNN reporter from attending an open media event in July but until now has not gone as far as removing a credential, known as a “hard pass,” which enables a journalist to enter the White House grounds.
Press secretary Sarah Sanders cited Acosta’s brief confrontation with a White House press aide during Trump’s midday news conference as the reason for suspending his press pass “until further notice.”
The White House has altered its official transcript of a tense back-and-forth on Monday between President Donald Trump and a female reporter, despite the existence of video footage in which the accurate exchange can be clearly heard.
After calling upon ABC News White House correspondent Cecilia Vega during a press briefing in the Rose Garden on Monday, Trump blithely remarked that Vega was “shocked that I picked her. She’s like, in a state of shock.”
“I’m not, thank you, Mr. President,” Vega quickly responded.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross Credit: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call file photo
When President Donald Trump’s administration announced it would add a question about citizenship to the 2020 census, many observers argued that this appeared to be a cynical ploy to intimidate immigrants and thus under-count the population of regions with high levels of immigration.
The administration, most notably Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross in testimony to Congress, has fired back at these critiques, saying that the citizenship question arose because of legitimate concerns raised by the Justice Department. However, new emails suggest that this was a flat-out lie.
“Department of Justice, as you know, initiated the request for inclusion of the citizenship question,” Ross told the House Ways and Means Committee on March 22, 2018. “Because it is from the Department of Justice, we are taking it very seriously, and we will issue a fulsome documentation of whatever conclusion we finally come to.”
The following article by Tommy Christopher was posted on the ShareBlue.com website September 9, 2018:
Kellyanne Conway Credit: NBC
Kellyanne Conway got caught in a lie by Jake Tapper — then immediately told the same lie to Chuck Todd.
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway continued to lie about military pay raises Sunday morning, even after she was busted for it just minutes before by CNN’s Jake Tapper.
On Sunday morning’s edition of CNN’s “State of the Union,” Conway kicked off a day of desperate damage control over this week’s revelations that senior Trump administration officials routinely disobey and ignore Trump’s orders in order to keep disaster at bay.
The following article by Luke Bassett and Ned Price was posted on the Center for American Progress website August 16, 2018:
A coal-fired power plant sits near the Ohio River in WV, November 2011. Credit: Michael Williamson, Getty Images
After severalfailedattempts to bailout coal power plants, President Donald Trump and his administration have turned to co-opting national security tools and arguments to pursue their domestic energy agenda. Recently, administration officials have selectively targeted natural gas and renewable energy generation resources, falsely claiming they pose greater risks to the electric grid than do nuclear or coal resources. Specifically, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry misconstrued the facts about certain electricity generation resources and their relative vulnerability to threats, hiding behind his access to classified information to short-circuit a policy debate and thereby strengthen his proposal in a way that circumvents fact-checking.
This unprecedented use of defense arguments to favor certain electricity generators over others defies competitive energy market rules. Furthermore, it impairs the ability of experts, officials, and even the public to assess, prevent, or respond effectively to actual threats to the energy system, thereby undermining national security efforts as a whole. Continue reading “Abuse of Power: Debunking the Trump Administration’s National Security Argument for Coal”
The following article by Michael Tesler was posted on the Washington Post website August 17, 2018:
The Rev. Darrell Scott on Aug. 1 called President Trump “the most pro-black president that we’ve had in our lifetime.” (The Washington Post)
President Trump has recently faced renewed allegations of racism.
Many critics have argued that Trump’s attacks on the intelligence of such prominent African Americans as LeBron James, Don Lemon, Maxine Waters, and Omarosa Manigault Newman wererootedinracism. Manigault Newman has also made headlines for claiming that Trump is a racist who uses the n-word.
The White House regularly responds to accusations of racism by noting that black unemployment is at historic lows under Trump’s presidency. Sarah Huckabee Sanders even cited some wildly inaccurate statistics on black employment from the White House podium this week to defend the president from charges of racial bias. She later acknowledged the error.
The following article by Jeff Stein was posted on the Washington Post website August 14, 2018:
When asked if a tape of Trump using the n-word exists, Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she “can’t guarantee anything.” Credit: Reuters
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders apologized late Tuesday for wrongly stating that President Trump has created three times as many jobs for black workers as President Barack Obama did.
At a news conference Tuesday, Sanders said Obama created 195,000 jobs for African Americans during his eight years in office.
“When President Obama left after eight years in office — eight years in office — he had only created 195,000 jobs for African Americans,” Sanders told reporters. “President Trump in his first year and a half has already tripled what President Obama did in eight years.”
The following article by Osub Ahmed and Jamila Taylor was posted on the Center for American Progress website August 8, 2018:
Thousands march in Portland, Maine, for the Women’s Walk on January 21, 2017. Credit: Derek Davis, Getty Images
The Trump-Pence administration has been using alternative facts and fake evidence with alarming regularity to justify major policy reversals and attacks on women’s health. Evidence-based decision-making has taken a backseat to an extreme conservative ideology, and the administration frequently uses disproven and demonstrably false information to rationalize its radical actions. Now, for no reason other than conservative ideology and partisan gamesmanship, the administration has decided to put the legal and regulatory foundations of the Title X family planning program and abortion rights in its crosshairs.
Roe v. Wade faces one of its greatest threats yet
When the Supreme Court issued its landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, it affirmed a woman’s constitutional right to abortion—ushering in an era in which women had more agency around their reproductive choices and a better ability to pursue safe abortion. Today, abortion access is considered fundamental to women’s reproductive rights and has been found to be safer than childbirth and other common medical procedures. Access to abortion also confers significant social and economic benefits, supporting women in their aspirations to pursue educational and professional goals that allow them to care for themselves and their families.
And yet, with clear evidence to support its importance, access to abortion has become increasingly regulated at the state level through a series of bans and restrictions, under the guise of safeguarding women’s health. In fact, between January 2011 and July 2016, states enacted an astounding 334 restrictions to abortion access. For some women, particularly women of color and young women, access is so restricted that this safe, legal medical procedure is virtually unattainable.
The following article by Aaron Blake was posted on the Washington Post website August 1, 2018:
Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Aug. 1 called insults shouted at CNN reporter Jim Acosta by President Trump’s supporters “freedom of speech.” (Reuters)
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders just accused the media of hindering the American government’s pursuit of Osama bin Laden just a few years before 9/11. But she may want to check her evidence.
While defending Trump supporters’ vulgar treatment of a CNN reporter at a rally Tuesday night in Florida, Sanders argued that the media has a responsibility to report accurately because the stakes are so large. But rather than dwell upon recent examples of supposedly shoddy reporting, like she usually does, she went back 20 years, to 1998.
“The media routinely reports on classified information and government secrets that put lives in danger and risk valuable national security tools,” Sanders said, clearly reading a prepared bit of gaslighting. “One of the worst cases was the reporting on the U.S. ability to listen to Osama bin Laden’s satellite phone in the late ’90s. Because of that reporting, he stopped using that phone, and the country lost valuable intelligence.”
The following article by Salvador Rizzo was posted on the Washington Post website July 30, 2018:
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told Congress a question on immigration status was added to the 2020 census at the request of the Department of Justice. (U.S. House Ways and Means Committee)
“I am mystified why nothing have [sic] been done in response to my months old request that we include the citizenship question. Why not?” — Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, in an email about adding a citizenship question to the census, May 2, 2017
“Department of Justice, as you know, initiated the request for inclusion of the citizenship question. … Because it is from the Department of Justice, we are taking it very seriously, and we will issue a fulsome documentation of whatever conclusion we finally come to.” — Ross, testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee, March 22, 2018
Who came up with adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census?
