Tag: Trump self-agrandizement

Trump reversed course on hosting G-7 at his club after learning that impeachment-weary Republicans were tired of defending him

Washington Post logoPresident Trump was forced to abandon his decision to host next year’s Group of Seven summit at his private golf club after it became clear the move had alienated Republicans and swiftly become part of the impeachment inquiry that threatens his presidency.

In a round of phone calls with conservative allies this weekend, Trump was told Republicans are struggling to defend him on so many fronts, according to an administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.

Democrats, meanwhile, continued to blast Trump for awarding the massive government contract to his own company and said they might add the alleged “emoluments” violation to the articles of impeachment they are preparing.

View the complete October 20 article by Toluse Olorunnipa, Josh Dawsey and David A. Fahrenthold on The Washington Post website here.

Internet piles on ‘humiliated’ Trump for whining about pulling G7 summit from his golf resort

AlterNet logoLate Saturday Donald Trump took to Twitter to announce that he was no longer going to be holding next year’s G7 at his Doral golf resort, whining about pressure that he claims came from Democrats and the media.

As Trump sees it, “Therefore, based on both Media & Democrat Crazed and Irrational Hostility, we will no longer consider Trump National Doral, Miami, as the Host Site for the G-7 in 2020. We will begin the search for another site, including the possibility of Camp David, immediately. Thank you!”

Reaction to Trump’s capitulation was swift and harsh, with one Twitter commenter pointing out, “Once again, the Sociopath-in-Chief is embarrassed and humiliated into backpedaling away from yet another moronic, corrupt decision.”

View the complete October 20 article by Tom Boggioni from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

President Trump’s claim that ‘when I came in, we had no ammunition’

Washington Post logo“When I took over, it was a mess. … One of our generals came in to see me and he said, ‘Sir, we don’t have ammunition.’ I said, ‘That’s a terrible thing you just said.’ He said, ‘We don’t have ammunition.’ Now we have more ammunition than we’ve ever had.”

“We were very low. I could even say it stronger. I don’t want to say, ‘No ammunition,’ but that gets a lot closer.”

— Trump, in remarks at the White House, Sept. 16

This is a good example of how Trump’s most-repeated claims tend to become more exaggerated over time. The president has insisted in recent weeks that when he took office in 2017, the U.S. military brass told him there was no more ammunition.

As the two quotes above show, the claim quickly grew from snowball to avalanche. Trump hedged in September: “We were very low … I don’t want to say ‘no ammunition.’ ” But one month later, the hedges were gone: “One of our generals came in to see me and he said, ‘Sir, we don’t have ammunition.’ I said, ‘That’s a terrible thing you just said.’ He said, ‘We don’t have ammunition.’ ”

Had the president stuck to his formulation in September, we might have skipped this fact check. Near the end of President Barack Obama’s term, military leaders publicly warned that stockpiles of precision-guided munitions were running low.

View the complete October 18 article by Salvador Rizzo on The Washington Post website here.