US Politics in Trump era
Trump’s Taxes Show Chronic Losses and Years of Income Tax Avoidance
Trump commutes Stone sentence
At Mt. Rushmore and the White House, Trump Updates ‘American Carnage’ Message for 2020
The Lincoln Project is trolling Trump. But can it sway voters?
U.S. attorney who was investigating people close to Trump now says he will step down, ending standoff with attorney general
Barr informed Berman of the president’s move in a sharply worded letter, explaining that Berman’s deputy, Audrey Strauss, will serve as the acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan until the Senate can confirm a permanent replacement. Under Berman, the office managed a number of sensitive investigations involving people close to Trump, including his personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani.
Bolton’s Book Says Trump Impeachment Inquiry Missed Other Troubling Actions
John Bolton urged to elaborate on Trump-Erdoğan claims
The former US national security adviser John Bolton is facing calls to elaborate on a claim in his new book that Donald Trump agreed to help Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan by intervening in a federal investigation into a Turkish state-owned bank. The Turkish leader and his son-in-law and finance minister, Berat Albayrak, have both been linked to the Halkbank scandal by Turkish investigators.
George Floyd protests live updates: Peaceful protesters gassed so Trump can pose for photos
President Trump on Monday threatened to deploy federal troops if state and city leaders don’t act to quell acts of violence and looting amid the protests over the killing of George Floyd. Moments earlier, just outside the White House, federal authorities used rubber bullets, flash bangs and gas to clear peaceful protesters from the area.
As cities burned, Trump stayed silent — other than tweeting fuel on the fire
In cities across America on Sunday, people awoke to see shattered glass, charred vehicles, bruised bodies and graffiti-tagged buildings. Demonstrators gathered again in peaceful daytime protest of racial injustice. By evening, thousands had converged again in front of the White House, where people had rioted and set fires the night before. President Trump stayed safely ensconced inside and had nothing to say, besides tweeting fuel on the fire.
Trump Wants to Declare Antifa a Terrorist Organization, Even Though Right-Wing Extremists Have Been More Violent
Trump fired watchdog who was probing Saudi arms sales, Democrats say
President Donald Trump may have fired State Department Inspector General Steve Linick because he was investigating U.S. military sales to Saudi Arabia, Democratic lawmakers said on Monday, although Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he sought Linick’s removal because his work was undermining the department.
Hydroxychloroquine drug promoted by Trump as coronavirus ‘game changer’ increasingly linked to deaths
Trump Removes State Dept. Inspector General
President Trump continued his purge of inspectors general late Friday, moving to oust Steve A. Linick, who had served in that post at the State Department since 2013, and replacing him with an ambassador with close ties to Vice President Mike Pence. The decision to remove Mr. Linick, first reported Friday night by Politico, is the latest in a purge of inspectors general whom Mr. Trump has deemed insufficiently loyal to his administration, upending the traditional independence of the internal watchdog agencies whose missions are to conduct oversight of the nation’s sprawling bureaucracy.
Lancet editorial blasts Trump administration’s coronavirus response
Trump uses White House coronavirus events to project return to normalcy while relying on testing that public lacks
As Trump aides have signaled that he could soon begin regular travel, the reality is that the White House has created a picture of security that is propped up by special access to the kind of wide-scale testing for covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, that most of the nation remains without.
President’s intelligence briefing book repeatedly cited virus threat
Psychologist John Gartner: Trump is a “sexual sadist” who is “actively engaging in sabotage”
Trump rebuked by doctors, Lysol after asking if disinfectants can be injected to kill coronavirus in people
After a presentation Thursday that touched on the disinfectants that can kill the novel coronavirus on surfaces and in the air, President Trump pondered whether those chemicals could be used to fight the virus inside the human body.“I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute,” Trump said during Thursday’s coronavirus press briefing. “And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning?
Trump Urges Doctors to Lie, as One Blows the Whistle on Him
Donald Trump tried and failed on Wednesday to coerce two of the government’s top medical experts to endorse his claim that a second wave of Covid-19 infections in the fall is unlikely, hours after a federal whistleblower said he was fired by the administration for limiting the use of an unproven drug treatment touted by the president.
Trump says government will step up coronavirus testing efforts, after governors blast federal inaction
President Trump said on Sunday that the federal government is stepping up efforts to obtain vital supplies for coronavirus testing, hours after several governors from both parties faulted his administration for not doing enough to help states. Public health experts say testing on a larger scale is a crucial step before resuming normal social and economic activity in the country. But Trump defended the administration’s approach of leaving testing largely to states.
Trump’s ‘liberate’ tweets supporting lockdown protesters spur social media frenzy
Trump announces cutoff of new funding for the World Health Organization over pandemic response
President Trump announced Tuesday that he will suspend payments to the World Health Organization in response to the United Nations agency’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, as the organization is in the midst of combating a global outbreak that has killed thousands and crippled world economies. Trump’s announcement was expected, as he seeks to deflect blame for his early dismissal of the virus as a threat to Americans and the U.S. economy.
US’s global reputation hits rock-bottom over Trump’s coronavirus response
Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, which he once dismissed as a hoax, has been fiercely criticised at home as woefully inadequate to the point of irresponsibility. Yet also thanks largely to Trump, a parallel disaster is unfolding across the world: the ruination of America’s reputation as a safe, trustworthy, competent international leader and partner.
Donald Trump Has Stake In Hydroxychloroquine Drugmaker
Trump removes Inspector General Glenn Fine, who was tasked to oversee coronavirus stimulus spending
President Trump has removed the chairman of the federal panel Congress created to oversee his administration's management of the $2 trillion stimulus package passed last month. Glenn Fine, who had been the acting Pentagon inspector general, was informed Monday that he was being replaced by Sean W. O’Donnell, currently the inspector general at the Environmental Protection Agency.
Trump to Fire Intelligence Watchdog Who Had Key Role in Ukraine Complaint
The missing six weeks: how Trump failed the biggest test of his life
hen the definitive history of the coronavirus pandemic is written, the date 20 January 2020 is certain to feature prominently. It was on that day that a 35-year-old man in Washington state, recently returned from visiting family in Wuhan in China, became the first person in the US to be diagnosed with the virus.
Trump takes immediate step to try and limit coronavirus inspector general’s power
Immediately after signing the historic $2 trillion coronavirus aid package, President Trump sought to curb oversight provisions in the bill by asserting presidential authority over a new inspector general’s office.The move could presage a major battle between the White House and Capitol Hill as the Trump administration moves to implement the new law.
Governors and mayors in growing uproar over Trump’s lagging coronavirus response
President Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic sparked uproar and alarm among governors and mayors on Sunday as Trump and his administration’s top advisers continued to make confusing statements about the federal government’s scramble to confront the crisis, including whether he will force private industry to mass produce needed medical items.
Inside the Coronavirus Response: A Case Study in the White House Under Trump
Jared Kushner told Trump media exaggerated coronavirus threat
Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, repeatedly told the president that the media was exaggerating the threat posed by the coronavirus, The New York Times reported Monday. In the early weeks of the outbreak Trump attempted to downplay the severity of the illness, comparing it to the common flu, describing it as a "hoax" concocted by Democrats at a campaign rally in February, and assuring Americans that the outbreak would "disappear."
Trump’s embrace of Mohammed bin Salman is now costing him dearly
Donald Trump made one of the biggest mistakes of his presidency in the spring of 2017, when he offered an unconditional embrace to the then-emerging 31-year-old ruler of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, and adopted his agenda of aggressively confronting Iran. Three years later, as Trump grapples with the greatest crisis he has faced, that choice is costing him dearly.
COVID-19: It’s Not About Europe, It’s About Incompetence
The Bizarre List Of Errors In Trump’s Coronavirus Speech
Trump Fired The Intel Director Who Warned Him Of A Deadly, Viral Pandemic
How much the Secret Service has spent at Trump’s properties
Trump’s Mental Health – Now the Worst Case Scenario
Lawmakers Are Warned That Russia Is Meddling to Re-elect Trump
Trump Takes Up Call for Barr to ‘Clean House’ at Justice Dept.
Trump takes on Judge Amy Berman Jackson ahead of Roger Stone’s sentencing
First he went after the prosecutors who recommended a multiyear sentence for his friend Roger Stone. Then President Trump turned his Twitter ire to the “witch hunt disgrace” of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation, which led to Stone’s indictment. But perhaps most surprising was Trump’s decision to target U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson — who will determine Stone’s fate when he appears in her courtroom next Thursday.
Alexander Vindman Fired and Escorted From the White House
Trump fires Gordon Sondland, the second impeachment witness to be removed from his post Friday
Secret Service spending at Trump hotels: Rooms for agents cost up to $650 per night
President Trump’s company charges the Secret Service for the rooms agents use while protecting him at his luxury properties — billing U.S. taxpayers at rates as high as $650 per night, according to federal records and people who have seen receipts.Those charges, compiled here for the first time, show that Trump has an unprecedented — and largely hidden — business relationship with his own government.
Trump Orders Strike Killing Top Iranian General Qassim Suleimani in Baghdad
Trump impeachment hearings live updates
Trump Has Spent $115 Million On Golf Trips ― Or 287 Years Of Presidential Salary
Secret Service spent quarter of a million dollars at Trump’s properties in first five months of his term, records show
Trump attacks Marie Yovanovitch as she calls his conduct ‘intimidating’
Former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch told lawmakers Friday that when she read how President Trump had talked about her to his Ukrainian counterpart in a July phone call — saying ominously that “she’s going to go through some things” — the color drained from her face.“It sounded like a threat,” she said.Even as Yovanovitch testified, the president continued to go after her, writing on Twitter, “Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad.”
New testimony ties Trump more directly to Ukraine pressure campaign
House GOP looks to protect Trump by raising doubts about motives of his deputies
House Republicans’ latest plan to shield President Trump from impeachment is to focus on at least three deputies — U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, Trump’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, and possibly acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney — who they say could have acted on their own to influence Ukraine policy.
Trump’s Twitter War Room Aims Its Punches at Decorated Colonel
Days after a decorated Army lieutenant colonel offered damaging testimony about President Trump’s conduct on a July phone call with Ukraine’s leader, Mr. Trump stood on the South Lawn and issued a vague but ominous warning.“You’ll be seeing very soon what comes out,” Mr. Trump said on Saturday, referring to the officer, Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman.
One Year From Election, Trump Trails Biden but Leads Warren in Battlegrounds
Trump Is Committing ‘Felony Bribery’ by Giving Fundraising Cash to GOP Senators Ahead of Impeachment Trial: Ex-Bush Ethics Lawyer
Attorney Richard Painter, who served as the chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration, warned on Thursday that President Donald Trump appeared to be committing "felony bribery" by giving Republican senators fundraising cash ahead of an increasingly likely impeachment trial in the Senate.
$16.8 Million In Campaign Funds Went To Trump Businesses, Latest Records Reveal
Not only have the U.S. and foreign governments spent money at properties owned by Donald Trump, but the president’s own political campaign and affiliated political committees have also spent about $16.8 million at his businesses since he launched his 2016 bid for the presidency, according to an analysis of federal election spending records.
Does Trump trust Putin more than Pelosi? Baghdadi death shows politicization of national security.
Doubts over Donald Trump’s dramatic account of Baghdadi raid
Footage of the US special forces raid on Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s Syrian compound reportedly consisted of overhead surveillance footage and no audio, prompting questions over the extent of the dramatic licence taken by Donald Trump in describing the final moments of one of the most wanted terrorists in the world.
William B. Taylor, acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, testifies in impeachment probe
The senior U.S. diplomat in Ukraine told lawmakers Tuesday that President Trump made the release of military aid contingent on public declarations from Ukraine that it would investigate the Bidens and the 2016 election, contradicting Trump’s denial that he used the money as leverage for political gain.
For Trump the Dealmaker, Troop Pullouts Without Much in Return
The Taliban have wanted the United States to pull troops out of Afghanistan, Turkey has wanted the Americans out of northern Syria and North Korea has wanted them to at least stop military exercises with South Korea. President Trump has now to some extent at least obliged all three — but without getting much of anything in return.
“There Is Definite Hanky-Panky Going On”: The Fantastically Profitable Mystery of the Trump Chaos Trade
In the last 10 minutes of trading on Friday, August 23, as the markets were roiling in the face of more bad trade news, someone bought 386,000 September e-minis. Three days later, Trump lied about getting a call from China to restart the trade talks, and the S&P 500 index shot up nearly 80 points. The potential profit on the trade was more than $1.5 billion.
Trump Lashes Out on Syria as Republicans Rebuke Him in House Vote
President Trump seemed to wash his hands of the conflict between Turkey and America’s Kurdish allies in Syria on Wednesday, generating withering criticism from Republican allies, who rebuked him in a House vote. The day ended with a heated confrontation between Mr. Trump and Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the Oval Office.
Trump Had Ukraine Envoy Removed on ‘False Claims,’ She Tells House Inquiry
Marie L. Yovanovitch, who was recalled as the American ambassador to Ukraine in May, testified to impeachment investigators on Friday that a top State Department official told her that President Trump had pushed for her removal for months even though the department believed she had “done nothing wrong.”
Deutsche Bank Might Have Destroyed Physical Copies of Trump’s Tax Returns, Cleansed Servers, Claims Former Executive
A former Deutsche Bank executive who reviewed President Donald Trump's tax returns reportedly said it is "not normal" that the institution no longer holds copies of those records.Trump for many years relied on Deutsche Bank for loans to sustain his real estate business when many other institutions would not lend to him because of his rocky financial history.The president is accused by some, including his former attorney Michael Cohen, of manipulating the value of his assets to either secure finance or reduce his tax bill.
White House Declares War on Impeachment Inquiry, Claiming Effort to Undo Trump’s Election
Anti-Muslim Group ACT for America to Host Gala at Mar-a-Lago
An anti-Muslim organization plans to host its annual gala at Mar-a-Lago, President Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, Fla., in November.ACT for America claims to be the nation’s largest grass-roots national security organization, and is considered the largest anti-Muslim group in the United States, according to the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks such groups.
Trump Publicly Urges China to Investigate the Bidens
Impeach Away, But Let’s Not Pretend Trump’s Plot Against Biden is his Worst Crime
Since his emergence as a political figure, Trump has promised that if he ever attained power, he would use the U.S. military to inflict a massive bloodletting on others, including noncombatants. Unlike other campaign promises, Trump has delivered on this one. Since taking office, he has presided over skyrocketing rates of civilian casualties in America’s many foreign conflicts.
Kremlin says disclosure of Trump-Putin phone calls would need Russian consent
The Kremlin said on Monday that Washington would need Russian consent to publish transcripts of phone calls between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. The Democratic-led House last week launched an impeachment inquiry into Trump in the aftermath of a whistleblower complaint alleging that Trump had solicited interference by Ukraine in the 2020 U.S. election for his own political benefit.
Trump impeachment: lots of scandalous news — and one clear scandal
Trump Pressed Australian Leader to Help Barr Investigate Mueller Inquiry’s Origins
President Trump pushed the Australian prime minister during a recent telephone call to help Attorney General William P. Barr gather information for a Justice Department inquiry that Mr. Trump hopes will discredit the Mueller investigation, according to two American officials with knowledge of the call.
I Wrote About the Bidens and Ukraine Years Ago
Trump Raises Idea of Arresting House Chairman for Treason
Trump Was Repeatedly Warned That Ukraine Conspiracy Theory Was ‘Completely Debunked’
Trump Attacks Whistle-Blower’s Sources and Alludes to Punishment for Spies
President Trump told a crowd of staff from the United States Mission to the United Nations on Thursday morning that he wants to know who provided information to a whistle-blower about his phone call with the president of Ukraine, saying that whoever did so was “close to a spy” and that “in the old days,” spies were dealt with differently.
White House Tried to ‘Lock Down’ Ukraine Call Records, Whistle-Blower Says
As a foreign reporter visiting the US I was stunned by Trump’s press conference
As a political reporter for most of the last 30 years I have also endured many long and rambling political press conferences with Australian prime ministers and world leaders. But watching a full presidential Trump press conference while visiting the US this week I realised how much the reporting of Trump necessarily edits and parses his words, to force it into sequential paragraphs or impose meaning where it is difficult to detect.
Trump Acknowledges Discussing Biden in Call With Ukrainian Leader
Trump’s promise to foreign leader prompts whistleblower complaint
Donald Trump’s promise to a foreign leader so troubled an official in the US intelligence community that it prompted the person to file a whistleblower complaint, according to multiple media reports. Speculation in Washington was at fever pitch on Thursday over which leader Trump was speaking to and what promise he made. The substance of the complaint remained a mystery.
A Mystery $325,000 To A Pro-Trump Super PAC Confounds Experts
How the hunt to find out who donated $325k to a pro-Trump Super PAC leads to Florida, Giuliani, and Ukraine. The story introduces a cast of characters from the intersection of Trumpworld, Giulianiworld, and Ukraineworld that provide a backdrop to the mystery of how the $325,000 wound up in GOP coffers.
John Bolton fired: Trump fires national security adviser, saying he ‘disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions’
President Trump announced Tuesday that he had fired his national security adviser, John Bolton, saying in tweets that he “disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions.” Trump’s harshly worded tweet made clear that long-simmering frustration with Bolton had boiled over. Bolton immediately took issue with Trump’s assertion that he was fired, saying that he had offered his resignation.
Six in 10 Americans expect a recession and higher prices as Trump’s approval rating slips amid concern over his trade policies
Blackstone CEO Is Driving Force Behind Amazon Deforestation
Fed Chair Powell vows to ‘sustain the expansion’ but not in the way Trump wants
President Trump escalated his unprecedented attacks against America’s central bank Friday, calling Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell an “enemy” of the United States that is as bad as China, a tweet that triggered a stock market slide and came minutes after Powell vowed to keep the economy growing.
Israel Denies Entry to Omar and Tlaib After Trump’s Call to Block Them
Israel on Thursday barred the entry of two American Democratic congresswomen who had planned to visit the West Bank, hours after President Trump had urged the country to block them.Mr. Trump’s intervention was an extraordinary step to influence an allied nation and punish his political opponents at home.
Stock market performance by president, from Reagan to Trump
President Donald Trump has repeatedly pointed to the stock market as one of the best ways to measure his administration’s policies. During Trump’s presidency, the S&P 500 has gained 25% from inauguration day through August 15. How does that stack up to stock performance at the same point in other modern presidencies? (647 trading days, to be exact).
‘She was shaking’: Court filings describe system Jeffrey Epstein allegedly used to procure girls
He demanded sex three times a day. A parade of powerful figures visited his private estates, which were adorned with pictures of naked girls and stocked with sex toys. And the schedules of teenagers on call to give him massages at his Palm Beach, Fla., mansion were documented in phone messages from his assistants.
We Can No Longer Ignore Trump’s Role in Inspiring Mass Shootings
On Saturday morning, a gunman at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, shot and killed at least 20 people before surrendering to the police. By all accounts, Patrick Crusius, the 21-year-old alleged shooter, is a fan of President Donald Trump and his policies. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, “a Twitter account bearing the suspect’s name contains liked tweets that include a ‘BuildTheWall’ hashtag” and “a photo using guns to spell out ‘Trump.’”
Kushner owns lots of Baltimore-area apartments. Some are infested with mice.
In a now-viral tweetstorm on Saturday, President Trump characterized Rep. Elijah E. Cummings’s Baltimore-based congressional district as a “rodent infested mess” where “no human” would want to live. His criticism rang with a particular irony in Baltimore County, where presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner owns more than a dozen apartment complexes that have been cited for hundreds of code violations and, critics say, provide substandard housing to lower-income tenants.