Tag: Trump bullying

Trump calls on Schiff to ‘immediately resign’ over his portrayal of Trump’s call with Zelenskiy

President says longtime thorn in his side tried to ‘defraud the American Public’ in Thursday hearing

Donald Trump on Friday called for House Intelligence Chairman Adam B. Schiff to resign over his portrayal of Trump’s message to Ukraine’s president in their phone call that the president called an attempt to “defraud the American public.”

Schiff has long been a thorn in Trump’s side and now Speaker Nancy Pelosi has placed him in charge of Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, which is centered on the July 25 telephone conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskiy. During the call, Trump asks Zelenskiy for a “favor” after the incoming Ukrainian leader noted his intention to purchase more U.S.-made military hardware. That favor was Trump’s desire for an investigation of 2020 Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden.

During a Thursday hearing about an intelligence community whistleblower’s complaint about that call and White House aides’ coordinated effort to “lock down” the records, Schiff kicked off the hearing by summarizing Trump’s request of Zelenskiy, saying what he was about to recount was “the essence of what the president communicates.”

View the complete September 27 article by John T. Bennet on The Roll Call website here.

Trump writes the GOP impeachment playbook: Scorched earth. But will it work?

Washington Post logoPresident Trump on Thursday excoriated an unidentified whistleblower and the White House aides who informed their complaint as “almost a spy” and likened their work to treason — part of a scorched-earth strategy he is directing for the Republican Party at the outset of an impeachment showdown.

Trump has acted impulsively and indignantly as he wages an all-out political war to defend himself from allegations that he abused his power to solicit foreign interference in his 2020 reelection bid.

And in a testament to how completely he controls the Republican Party, many GOP officeholders and conservative media figures have followed Trump’s cues by joining his attempts either to attack the anonymous whistleblower, discredit the explosive accounts in their complaint, or malign the media for covering it.

View the complete September 26 article by Robert Costa and Philip Rucker on The Washington Post website here.

How the tyrant in the White House just took our government to a new depth of depravity

AlterNet logoTo me, it feels ice-tinglingly creepy that the U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu in Washington wants to bring criminal charges against former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.

The charge, basically that McCabe lied about a leak to a reporter, seems to come nowhere near close to supporting a criminal charge after 18 months of investigation, an expired grand jury and public humiliation for McCabe in firing him two days short of his professional resignation, killing off his pension. It seems that even a grand jury has decided not to react to the prosecution’s call for indictment.

But that’s not what’s wrong here. It is the White House squeezing the Justice Department to do its political bidding.

View the complete September 20 article by Terry H. Schwadron of Raw Story and DC Report on the AlterNet website here.

McCabe’s legal team says Trump’s attacks have made fair prosecution an ‘impossibility’

Washington Post logoFormer acting FBI director Andrew McCabe and his legal team have waged a vigorous public campaign to dispute allegations that he lied to investigators about a media leak.

Behind the scenes, they have been just as aggressive.

In recent months, McCabe’s attorneys shared with federal prosecutors and top Justice Department officials a point-by-point rebuttal of what they view as flaws in a possible criminal case against McCabe.

View the complete September 16 article by Matt Zapotosky on The Washington Post website here.

Fed Chair Powell Isn’t The ‘Enemy’ — It’s Trump Himself

Jerome Powell is the bane of Donald Trump’s existence. Lately, it seems Trump would rather bash the Federal Reserve than eat his favorite fast food. Every other tweet from him accuses the central bank chairman of being a hopeless bungler.

On Friday, the president decided he had been far too mild in his criticism. “My only question is, who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chairman Xi?” he tweeted. This comes from someone who said of the Chinese leader in June, “I think we’re going to be strategic partners.”

Trump has grown increasingly frustrated that Powell will not do his bidding. The president asserted Wednesday, “The only problem we have is Jay Powell and the Fed.” Earlier in the week, he accused Powell of a “horrendous lack of vision.” A year ago, he was grousing about Powell for raising interest rates.

View the complete August 26 article by Steve Chapman on the National Memo website here.

Rule 1 at the G7 Meeting? Don’t Get You-Know-Who Mad

New York Times logoBIARRITZ, France — For a day, at least, everyone was on their best behavior when the cameras were on, eager to present a show of bonhomie after so many previous meetings ended in discord.

But behind the scenes at the annual gathering of some of the world’s leading powers, President Trump still found himself at odds with his counterparts on Sunday over issues like trade, climate change, North Korea, Russia and Iran.

Ever so gingerly, as if determined not to rouse the American’s well-known temper, the other Group of 7 leaders sought to nudge him toward their views on the pressing issues of the day, or at least register their differences — while making sure to wrap them in a French crepe of flattery, as they know he prefers.

View the complete August 25 article by Peter Baker on The New York Times website here.

Understanding our bully-in-chief: Donald Trump’s ‘antisocial personality disorder’ fits a pattern

AlterNet logoI wasn’t surprised by Donald Trump’s rage-tweet attack on Reps. Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, any more than I was surprised by the maturity and sobriety of their response. After all, Trump’s racism is legendary, and telling them to “go back where you came from” is not just textbook racism, it’s a schoolyard bully’s taunt. And a racist schoolyard bully is the sum and substance of what Trump is.

In fact, one expert, physician and psychiatrist Dr. Frederick “Skip” Burkle, told me that autocratic leaders typically have histories of being bullies, and that that the most important thing about them that the public needs to understand. I first contacted Burkle by way of counselor and therapist Elizabeth Mika, whose chapter in “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump” (Salon review here) explained that “Tyrannies are three-legged beasts”: the tyrant, his supporters and the society as a whole. That perspective is vital to understand our specific predicament, which is historically unique only within our national borders.

he generic predicament of racism is nothing new — particularly for the Republican Party. (See “The Long Southern Strategy.” Salon author interview here.) What is new is Trump’s malignant psychology, a character disorder shared by dozens of destructive autocratic leaders whose patterns of murderous rule Burkle described in a 2015 paper, “Antisocial Personality Disorder and Pathological Narcissism in Prolonged Conflicts and Wars,” drawing on  decades of experience as a world  leader in emergency public health crises such as war and conflict, as well as his background in psychiatry and pediatrics. A recent follow-up paper (“Character Disorders,” for short), focused on the negative impact autocratic leaders have on health security, human rights and humanitarian care.

View the complete August 24 article by Paul Rosenberg from Salon on the AlterNet website here.

Trump had a plan to ‘blow up’ the G7 and give the ‘middle finger’ to our allies: report

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump’s plan was to bully our G7 allies on a range of issues by touting the strong U.S. economy. As The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent wrote Friday morning, “Trump will proclaim his ‘America First’ agenda a smashing success, and throw that in the faces of our European allies.”

That plan will have to be changed now that his trade war with China just exploded.

China imposed tariffs of $75 billion of U.S. goods on Friday. Trump launched a tweetstorm causing the DOW to drop more than 600 points (at several times during the day more than 700 points.)

View the complete August 23 article by David Badash from the New Civil Rights Movements on the AlterNet website here.

Trump crosses new line with Omar, Tlaib, Israel move

The Hill logoHe has sided with foreign autocrats over his own intelligence community; backed foreign dictators over his own military commanders; and supported foreign despots over his own allies abroad.

But President Trump broke new ground on Thursday when he urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to deny two Muslim congresswomen entrance to the country for a fact-finding visit, accusing them of harboring hatred toward “Israel & all Jewish people.”

The move reverberated across Washington, as pro-Israel groups condemned the president for threatening U.S.-Israel relations; foreign policy experts chimed in with warnings of frayed diplomatic ties; and stunned Democrats issued waves of statements denouncing Trump for pressuring a foreign government to deny his American political opponents rights of free passage.

View the complete August 15 article by Mike Lillis, Scott Wong and Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

‘Fear and the paralysis is the point’: Former federal prosecutor warns Trump will bully and intimidate any DOJ officials who investigate him

AlterNet logoIn his July 2 column for USA Today, former federal prosecutor Michael J. Stern describes a pattern in which President Donald Trump — with the help of Attorney General William Barr — has gone about trying to bully and intimate any U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) officials who investigate him. And based on recent communications with DOJ employees he knows, Stern asserts, he has to conclude that Trump’s campaign of intimidation is working.

Stern, who spent 25 years as a federal prosecutor, writes that he has a list of family, friends and DOJ employees he sends his articles to. And recently, Stern notes, he has been receiving e-mails from some DOJ employees saying things like, “Please keep sending me your articles, but don’t send them to my office e-mail anymore.”

Stern goes on to note why they feel that way: they fear becoming a target of Trump.

View the complete July 2 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.