A new Cygnal/L2 poll in Alabama shows Judge Roy Moore leading Sen. Luther Strange in the GOP Senate race, 31% to 23%, followed by Rep. Mo Brooks at 18%.
Daily Archives
August 10, 2017
29 posts · Thursday
Trump Insists He Hasn’t Thought of Firing Mueller
President Trump told reporters “that he hasn’t given firing special counsel Robert Mueller any thought, despite people close to him telling reporters that he is,” CNN reports.
Said Trump: “I haven’t given it any thought. I’ve been reading about it from you people. You say, ‘Oh, I’m going to dismiss him.’ No, I’m not dismissing anybody.”
But he added: “We have an investigation of something that never took place.”
Trump Thanks Putin for Expelling U.S. Diplomats
President Trump thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for expelling hundreds of U.S. diplomatic employees from Russia, saying he appreciated the ability to cut the federal government’s payroll, CBS News reports.
Said Trump: “I want to thank him because we’re trying to cut down our payroll and as far as I’m concerned I’m very thankful that he let go of a large number of people because now we have a smaller payroll. There’s no real reason for them to go back. I greatly appreciate the fact that we’ve been able to cut our payroll of the United States. We’re going to save a lot of money.”
Trump Says It Was ‘Tough Stuff’ to Raid Manafort Home
President Trump said he was “surprised” by the fact that the FBI conducted an early morning raid of his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s home last month, CNN reports.
Said Trump: “You know, they do that very seldom, so I was surprised to see it. I was very, very surprised to see it. I thought it was a very, very strong signal, or whatever.”
He added: “But to do that early in the morning, whether or not it was appropriate you’d have to ask them. I’ve always found Paul Manafort to be a very decent man. He’s like a lot of other people — probably makes consultant fees from all over the place. Who knows? I don’t know, but I thought it was pretty tough stuff to wake him up, perhaps his family was there. I think that’s pretty tough stuff.”
CNN Fires Jeffrey Lord
CNN severed ties with Jeffrey Lord on Thursday, hours after he ignited controversy by tweeting the words “Sieg Heil!” at a prominent liberal activist, CNN reports.
Said a CNN spokesperson: “Nazi salutes are indefensible. Jeffrey Lord is no longer with the network.”
Graham Says Trump Is Willing to Strike North Korea
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told radio host Hugh Hewitt that while President Trump said he would try to negotiate with North Korea, he is very “willing to abandon strategic patience and use preemption. I think he’s there mentally. He has told me this.”
Said Graham: “I wish a Democrat would take their hatred of Donald Trump and park it…because of everyone else’s failure, he’s run out of the ability to kick the can down the road.”
It Makes No Sense to Attack Mitch McConnell
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Don’t Double Dare Kim
Dennis Wilder, former special assistant to George W. Bush for East Asian affairs, quoted by the Cipher Brief:
The key thing now is President Trump has got to realize that Kim Jung-un is a man who can be provoked by words, and therefore, be careful with what you put out there. There is danger that he can be provoked into steps. And, remember that Kim was behind the sinking of the Cheonan. We know the South Koreans have had quite good public statements on this, we know that Kim himself was involved in the decision to sink the South Korean warship.
This is a guy who will take those kinds of actions to demonstrate his toughness. You want to think hard about — again, I use a kid’s “I double dare” you sort of language, “I triple dare you,” you know, all that stuff. I just don’t think that’s mature foreign policy.
Trump Escalates Rhetoric on North Korea
President Trump said of North Korea that “things will happen to them like they never thought possible” should the regime attack the United States or its allies, the Washington Post reports.
Trump told reporters that his Tuesday statement warning of “fire and fury” may not have been “tough enough.”
“Trump would not say whether he is considering a preemptive strike on North Korea, and while he said he was open to negotiating with Pyongyang, he said talks over the years had done little to halt the country’s nuclear program.”
The Unexpected President
Out next month: The Unexpected President: The Life and Times of Chester A. Arthur by Scott S. Greenberger.
“When President James Garfield was shot, no one in the United States was more dismayed than his Vice President, Chester Arthur. For years Arthur had been perceived as unfit to govern, not only by critics and his fellow citizens but by his own conscience.”
Castro Launches Political Group Ahead of 2020
Former Obama Cabinet secretary Julián Castro has formed a new PAC as he steps up his political activity and considers a possible run for president in 2020, Politico reports.
“Castro, long considered a rising star in the Democratic Party, has discussed his political intentions carefully, telling reporters that he will not run for office in 2018 but is not ruling out running for president… He is taking several preliminary steps associated with presidential campaigns; in addition to forming a political group, Castro is also writing a memoir.”
Most See Congress as a Failure
A new CNN poll finds 68% of Americans judge the Republican Congress a failure so far after last month’s Obamacare repeal and replace plan died in the Senate.
Approval of the current Republican leaders in Congress has dropped from 39% in January to just 24% now.
Mueller Turns Up Heat on Manafort
Special counsel Robert Mueller “is bearing down on former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort as he directs a wide-ranging probe into Russian interference in last year’s presidential election,” Bloomberg reports.
“Mueller’s team of investigators has sent subpoenas in recent weeks from a Washington grand jury to global banks for account information and records of transactions involving Manafort and some of his companies, as well as those of a long-time business partner, Rick Gates, according to people familiar with the matter.”
“As prosecutors gather many years of information about his financial affairs, Manafort could be dragged deeper into any number of legal disputes. He has a history of doing business with oligarchs and politicians in Ukraine and Russia that predates his political work for Trump, with payments routed through foreign banks and investments in U.S. real estate.”
Extra Bonus Quote of the Day
“Even those that want me to die don’t want me to die right away, so that’s good.”
— Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), on Facebook Live.
Win Bigly
Coming soon: Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don’t Matter by Scott Adams.
“From the creator of Dilbert, an unflinching look at the strategies Donald Trump used to persuade voters to elect the most unconventional candidate in the history of the presidency, and how anyone can learn his methods for succeeding against long odds.”
Trump Appointee Stoked Birther Conspiracy
Sam Clovis, President Trump’s pick to be chief scientist for the Department of Agriculture, pushed unfounded theories about then-President Obama’s upbringing, CNN reports.
A review of Clovis’s writings and radio broadcasts during 2012 and 2013 has found that he “regularly engaged with fringe theories that were prevalent in the right-wing radio and blogosphere during Obama’s presidency.”
One more thing: He’s not a scientist either.
The Military Has Never Had More Influence
Time: “Rarely in U.S. history has a clutch of senior brass played such an outsize role in the affairs of state as they do now. The President’s chief of staff, his Defense Secretary James Mattis and his National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster are all either active-duty or retired generals. What makes the arrangement all the more interesting is that the three men are not only friends but longtime allies. Two of the three are Marines, and when you add Joseph Dunford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (who, with Kelly, served under Mattis), it is safe to say the scrappy Marine Corps has never had so much clout in the chain of command.”
European Diplomats Think Trump Is Dangerous
In interviews with BuzzFeed News, “six top European government officials who’ve had firsthand dealings on the international stage with Trump and his administration describe a president regarded even by allies as erratic and limited, and whose perceived shortcomings are compounded by the ongoing chaos beneath him in the White House.”
“The officials, all speaking on condition of anonymity, voiced similar and consistent concerns, in particular over his unprecedented use of Twitter, which they said demonstrated the lack of normal government controls at the top of the administration… That observation came before Trump’s latest bellicose rhetoric, and the sense of alarm in European governments can only have increased in the last 24 hours.”
“They also believe Trump’s foreign policy is chiefly driven by an obsession with unraveling Barack Obama’s policies.”
