Tag: Trump unfit to serve as president

Unreleased State Department review blames Trump for ‘delayed’ pandemic response: report

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An unreleased State Department report on the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic reportedly blames the former president for “delayed” warnings to Americans and a “void of U.S. international leadership.” 

According to excerpts of the State Department’s draft COVID-19 Interim Review obtained by Politico, diplomats and other career agency officials expressed frustrations with former President Trump’s response to the virus. 

The draft document reportedly argues that Trump’s withdrawal from international forums weakened U.S. global leadership in responding to the health crisis. Continue reading.

Here are the most dangerous and notable lies Trump spewed during his presidency

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For the last four years, fact-checkers have had their hands full keeping up with President Donald Trump’s unprecedented level of dishonesty. While The Washington Post reported that Trump had delivered more than 22,000 false or misleading claims and as of Oct. 22, a new editorial highlights the president’s most dangerous lies over the course of his presidency.

CNN reviewed Trump’s history of lies to shed light on the most notable ones he has told. 

From his false claims taking credit for the Veterans Choice health care program former President Barack Obama signed into law in 2014 to the ridiculous “Sharpiegate” incident where Trump created his own weather forecast for Hurricane Dorian in 2019 and his fiasco with former adult film star Stormy Daniels the publication noted just how ridiculous some of Trump’s lies have been.  Continue reading.

Trump’s ex-secretary of state says he is leaving Biden with a foreign policy nightmare

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Since being fired from Donald Trump’s administration, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has been vehemently critical of the president’s decisions. Tillerson, in an interview with Foreign Policy published this week, offered insights on some of the global challenges that President-elect Joe Biden will be facing after he is sworn into office.

Tillerson, not unlike former National Security Adviser John Bolton, has described Trump as a low-information president — and Tillerson stressed during the interview that the outgoing president is leaving behind a foreign policy mess.

Discussing U.S. adversaries that include dictator Kim Jong Un and Russia, Tillerson told Foreign Policy: “We squandered the best opportunity we had on North Korea. It was just blown up when he took the meeting with Kim, and that was one of the last straws between him and I. With Putin, we didn’t get anything done. We’re nowhere with China on national security. We’re in a worse place today than we were before he came in, and I didn’t think that was possible. ” Continue reading.

Schumer calls for 25th Amendment to be invoked after Capitol riots

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Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) on Thursday called for President Trump to be removed from office through the 25th Amendment after a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol the day before. 

“What happened at the U.S. Capitol yesterday was an insurrection against the United States, incited by the president. This president should not hold office one day longer,” Schumer said in a statement. 

“The quickest and most effective way — it can be done today — to remove this president from office would be for the Vice President to immediately invoke the 25th amendment. If the Vice President and the Cabinet refuse to stand up, Congress should reconvene to impeach the president,” he added.  Continue reading.

Mick Mulvaney is latest Trump administration official to resign — says more expected to quit

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Former acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney has just resigned his post as United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland. Mulvaney, who also once served as Trump’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget, says he expects others administration officials to quit over Wednesday’s Trump-supported insurrection.

“I called [Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo last night to let him know I was resigning from that. I can’t do it. I can’t stay,” Mulvaney told CNBC.

“You can’t look at that yesterday and think ‘I want to be a part of that,'” he said referring to the attempted coup by Trump insurrectionists who took over the U.S. Capitol. Continue reading.

Aides weigh resignations, removal options as Trump rages against perceived betrayals

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President Trump was ensconced in the White House residence Wednesday night, raging about perceived betrayals, as an array of top aides weighed resigning and some senior administration officials began conversations about invoking the 25th Amendment — an extraordinary measure that would remove the president before Trump’s term expires on Jan. 20.

A deep, simmering unease coursed through the administration over the president’s refusal to accept his election loss and his role in inciting a mob to storm the Capitol, disrupting the peaceful transfer of power to President-elect Joe Biden. One administration official described Trump’s behavior Wednesday as that of “a total monster,” while another said the situation was “insane” and “beyond the pale.”

Fearful that Trump could take actions resulting in further violence and death if he remains in office even for a few days, senior administration officials were discussing Wednesday night whether the Cabinet might invoke the 25th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to force him out, said a person involved in the conversations. Continue reading.

Trump’s Tactic: Sowing Distrust in Whatever Gets in His Way

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From business competition in New York to President Barack Obama’s birthplace to mail-in voting, President Trump’s goal has been to undermine the opposition and leave people uncertain about what to believe.

Donald J. Trump leaned forward in his chair in the Capitol Hill hearing room, tossed aside his prepared remarks as too “boring” and told lawmakers on an October day in 1993 that granting gaming licenses to Native American reservations in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut — a threat to Mr. Trump’s own casinos — would be a big mistake.

There were criminal elements at work in the reservations, he warned ominously and without evidence. “It will be the biggest scandal ever, the biggest since Al Capone,” Mr. Trump said.

Then he went a step further and cast doubt on the Native Americans themselves. “If you look at some of the reservations that you’ve approved, that you, sir, in your great wisdom have approved,” Mr. Trump told Representative George Miller, a California Democrat who has since retired, “I will tell you right now: They don’t look like Indians to me.” Continue reading.

Trump DOJ Targets Democratic Governors For COVID-19 Outbreaks In Veterans Homes

“This really does smell,” said one former Civil Rights Division official who worries the Justice Department is weaponizing its power for political purposes.

President Donald Trump’s top civil rights official at the Department of Justice announced this week that he was considering launching investigations into how state-owned nursing homes responded to the coronavirus. The four states he targeted all have Democratic governors. This highly unusual public announcement of potential investigations raised alarm bells among Civil Rights Division alumni and Democrats that DOJ’s move was motivated by partisan politics. 

Eric Dreiband, the assistant attorney general running the Civil Rights Division, sent letters to Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday, requesting documents and information under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA) about how public nursing homes in their states responded to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cuomo and Whitmer said in a joint statement that the inquiries were “nothing more than a transparent politicization of the Department of Justice in the middle of the Republican National Convention.” They called DOJ’s move a “nakedly partisan deflection” and questioned why Republican-run states that, based on federal guidelines, had similar rules about nursing home admissions were not being targeted. Continue reading.

‘He’s going to be unleashed’: Republican DOJ appointees urge against Trump second term

The officials said they’re backing Joe Biden in the hope of restoring “basic honesty and integrity.”

A group of onetime Republican presidential appointees who served as senior ethics or Justice Department aides are endorsing Joe Biden for president, warning that Donald Trump has “weaponized” the executive branch and is putting in peril the legitimacy of the Justice Department.

“I think a lot of us are extremely alarmed, frankly, at the threat of autocracy,” Donald B. Ayer, former deputy attorney general during the George H.W. Bush administration, said in an interview with POLITICO. “He’s going to be unleashed if he gets a second term. I don’t know what’s going to stop him.”

The former officials endorsing Tuesday served under the Reagan, H.W. Bush and George W. Bush administrations. Continue reading.