Trump personally dictated a statement that was
issued after revelations that Donald Trump Jr. met with a Russian lawyer
during the 2016 election. The Washington Post's Philip Rucker and Carol
D. Leonnig explain.
Multiple sources told the Times that President Donald Trump chose to remove Scaramucci at the request of the administration’s new chief of staff, Gen. John Kelly.
Scaramucci’s short tenure was certainly a whirlwind: after giving an expletive-laden interview to the New Yorker about his colleagues, Scaramucci’s wife filed for divorce on Friday.
It is unclear at this time whether Scaramucci is being completely
removed from the White House, or whether he is taking on a different
role in the administration, reports CNN.
This is a developing story, please check back for more information.
Donald Trump, a man who wouldn't know honor if it bit his ass and
screamed, "I'm honor," gave a speech to the annual Boy Scout Jamboree.
During it, he unzipped his fly and pulled out his little dick, stretched
it until it was near ripping and said, "Check out that dick, boys. Not
bad. Not bad, if I say so myself. And you know I do." When he wasn't
shaking his dick at the children, he was making jokes like he was
starring in Hell's version of Catch a Rising Star, riffing and then
stepping away from the microphone and swinging his Yeti-like arms for
emphasis. It was like watching a brain-damaged ape trying to imitate
Rodney Dangerfield.
The next night, last night, Trump had another one of his Nuremberg
Rallies (yeah, I'm comparing him to Hitler - Do we have to wait until
he's gassing people to do that?), this time in Ohio. An asshole in
defeat, he is a throbbing, distended sphincter in victory. So he dropped
his pants in front of the gathered 6,000 people and said, "I'm gonna
make Democrats and Jeff Sessions and Lisa Murkowski kiss my fat ass!"
Well, not really. But it was two days of utter degradation, an
embarrassing display put on by our goddamned president. You've heard
some of the shitty things he said, but, believe me (as he would say),
there was line after line of shame and shamelessness and dickishness and
brazen fuckery. For instance,
- "I am thrilled to be here. Thrilled. And if you think that was an
easy trip, you’re wrong." Trump is acting like he personally hiked
through the mountains of West Virginia to get to the event when he was
brought there on a golden throne. Probably there was no golf cart go
from the holding area to the stage. But he wants the kids to be grateful
he made the effort.
- "By the way, what do you think the chances are that this incredible,
massive crowd, record-setting is going to be shown on television
tonight? One percent or zero?" Trump is obsessed with setting records.
He could just become a professional hot dog eater and call up Guinness,
but, no, he's gotta fuck with all of us.
- "I saw him at a cocktail party, and it was very sad because the
hottest people in New York were at this party." In the midst of a
rambling tale about William Leavitt, Trump dropped in that he went to a
cocktail party with the "hottest people." Because of course he did.
Because why would he waste his time with less than the hottest? Because
what the fuck else would you tell a bunch of children and teenagers
eager to race wooden block cars? A story about camping? He'd've had to
have fucking camped to do that.
- "Do you remember that incredible night with the maps and the
Republicans are red and the Democrats are blue, and that map was so red,
it was unbelievable, and they didn't know what to say?" He told the
Scouts about his election victory. Because of course he did. He also
shit on Hillary Clinton. Because of course he did.
- "By the way, under the Trump administration, you’ll be saying, Merry
Christmas again when you go shopping. Believe me. Merry Christmas.
They've been downplaying that little, beautiful phrase. You're going to
be saying, merry Christmas again, folks." It's fucking July. It's.
Fucking. July. Anyone saying, "Merry Christmas" now is a fucking loser.
And then at his speech "Saluting American Heroes" in Ohio:
- "It's great to be back in Youngstown. It was an incredible time we
had. And you know the numbers, and you saw for many, many years
Democrats -- and they're really great -- but Democrats, they win in
Youngstown. But not this time." Election victory. Because of course.
- "Boy, he's a young one. He's going back home to mommy. Oh, is he in
trouble. He's in trouble. He's in trouble. And I'll bet his mommy voted
for us, right?" This was a reaction to a protester, bullying him and
deriding him for doing what Trump did for years on Twitter when Obama
was president.
- "We're gonna have it so that Americans can once again speak the
magnificent words of Alexander Hamilton, 'Here the people govern.'" This
was weirdly sandwiched between his proclamation that he was going to
bring back factory jobs and his assertion that only the "late, great"
Lincoln was more presidential than him. As usual, Trump gets history
wrong. Hamilton was talking about
Congress, especially that Congress was a check on the power of the
presidency. In other words, "Here, sir, the people govern: Here they act
by their immediate representatives" is a direct rebuke to Trump's
desire to run roughshod over Congress.
- "So they'll take a young, beautiful girl, 16, 15, and others and they
slice them and dice them with a knife because they want them to go
through excruciating pain before they die. And these are the animals
that we've been protecting for so long." This was shortly after Trump
praised police brutality towards people arrested as gang members. It's fear-mongering in its purest, most sinister form, a kind of propaganda
that will get people worked up.
- "We will buy American and will hire, finally, American." Trump's own businesses are seeking visas to hire foreign workers. So, you know, fuck that lie.
At each of these occasions, the crowds, even most of the Scouts, cheered and chanted wildly.
This vertiginous ride we're on has gotten sickening. Trump has degraded
the language, the laws, the nation, and us, all of us. How far into the
dirt will he drag us before we finally either give up or fight back?
A stunning report in The New Republic alleges that, whether Donald Trump
knew it or not, for decades he made a large portion of his personal
fortune from Russian mobsters & oligarchs.
Joy Reid is joined by actor and author Ron Perlman, and Columbia
University professor of linguistics John McWhorter, on the bombshell
statements and run-on sentences from Donald Trump’s recent New York
Times interview.
Seventeen
years ago I gave John McCain’s Presidential campaign five bucks. It
was my first time donating to a political campaign, much less a
Republican one. But like a lot of people, I marveled at his backstory
of surviving years and years in Viet Cong captivity (I even read, like,
three pages of that big David Foster Wallace story about him), and—more
important—I eagerly took all his Straight Talk Express horseshit to
heart. Hey, that Republican is saying stuff about other Republicans! He seems like a real rebel!
Back
in 2000, McCain scratched that itch for anyone like me who enjoyed
pretending to be politically independent, and who happily latched onto
McCain as a talisman of that independence. You see, guys! I can vote for a Republican when it’s the RIGHT Republican!
And over the course of this century, McCain has dined out on his
reputation as The Good Conservative. He’s the senator who gives
thunderous copy to reporters, and does SNL, and issues bipartisan reports on the military giving the NFL promo money, and does the occasional cameo on Parks &Rec.
He fulfills every Brokawian wet dream certain members of the press
still have about politicians setting aside their differences and doing
the RIGHT THING, by God.
Today, Senate Republicans moved one step closer to dismantling Obamacare,
potentially leaving millions of people uninsured, jacking up their
premiums, and letting insurance companies cover only what they feel like
covering. John McCain voted for that bill because of course he did.
He has always been a big talker, but when it comes to the actual
meat-and-potatoes voting process, he falls in line.
He didn’t do the
right thing. He didn’t even come within 500 yards of doing the right
thing. For the past two decades, he has never done the right thing.
He’s a fraud. Alex Pareene had him nailed ages ago. In fact, it’s “nice” Republicans like McCain who provide cover for evil swine like Mitch McConnell, allowing them to gut the American security net and fuck over anyone who doesn’t live behind an iron gate.
But
that didn’t stop McCain from having the gall—the unmitigated, repulsive
GALL—to stand up in front of the Senate today and put on his Maverick
jammies and deliver a sermon bashing the very non-legislation that, only
minutes earlier, he had flown cross-country to help will into being:
This
is the part where I point out that McCain has brain cancer and is
likely dying. And while I wouldn’t wish brain cancer on my worst enemy,
McCain’s illness shouldn’t act as some magical shield that absolves him
from abetting—no wait, LEADING—a GOP whose appetite for brazen
monstrousness grows by the day. And yet, there were Senate Democrats
giving our man a standing O right after he gleefully fucked their
constituents, because Democrats would happily set aside differences with
Godzilla for the sake of gentility. There was scumbag opportunist Cory
Booker, hugging McCain and acting like this was some kind of
heartwarming meeting of the minds. And of course, there were the usual
political access merchants who were more than happy to line up and shine
McCain’s boots:
This
is vile. John McCain was never anyone’s white knight. This is the man
who ushered in the age of troll candidacies by tapping Sarah Palin as
his running mate. This is the man who caved to Donald Trump even after
Trump had the audacity to mock his time as a POW. This is the man who
called his own wife a cunt in public. This is a man who has spent all
this time acting as if all the Bad Republicans were forcing him to go
along with their nefarious deeds while voting in lockstep with them. He
is not a reluctant Republican. He’s a shitbag, same as the rest of them.
If you’re some Pollyanna offering your support to John McCain as he hollows out Medicaid, you’re a naïve dupe. As this guy said, The West Wing
wasn’t real. It was never real. The twin illusions of bipartisanship
and decorum have always provided handy cover for anyone looking to
willfully ignore the fiendish inequalities of the American political
infrastructure and the GOP’s rapturous thirst for cruelty; a thirst that
has only recently emerged in the foreground thanks to the existence of
President Trump.
"John McCain is the perfect American lie, a man who professes to be noble and fair and just while being none of those things."
I
was duped when I gave McCain my pitiable little sum all those years
ago, but I know better today. Everyone should know better. Everyone
should realize that John McCain is the perfect American lie, a man who
professes to be noble and fair and just while being none of those
things. He served his country honorably in combat, but in no other
fashion. And he serves out his time in the Senate, and here on planet
Earth, as a pathetic enabler. Never the lion; always the sheep. For
seventeen years, gullible people have been waiting for him to make his
face turn, to make some grand defiant move for the sake of God and
country. But that was always just clever branding on his part, and today
should serve as a cold slap in the face to anyone who still thought he
might have that kind of political courage left in him.
We know that Republicans have lied nonstop about the Affordable Care Act
ever since it was passed into law by a Democratic-led Congress and
signed by the Negro President.
We know that Republicans are stuck
because the ACA is mostly based on Massachusetts's Romneycare and both
come from plans from the conservative Heritage Foundation.
We know that
Republicans lied and continue to lie about the effects of the AHCA and
then the BCRA, the House and Senate versions of their "repeal and
replace" bills.
But there is one more thing, one more set of lies, that
is responsible for sticking a shiv into the GOP's dream of murdering a
bunch of poor people so rich people can be richer.
See, Republicans keep trying to put the blame for the fix they're in on
American voters. "We have to keep our promises to the American people,"
Republicans say. "We won the last three elections by promising to repeal
and replace Obamacare," they whine like a dog that caught a cat only to
realize it was a fucking mountain lion. Yeah, they're right. Voters did
put Republicans in power over the promise of getting rid of the
Obamacare horror and torture or whatever drama queen word you wanna use.
But, and this is important, they only wanted to get rid of it because
Republicans said they'd do better. Or, to put it another way, they lied
about what they could do for people if the Affordable Care Act was
overturned.
Senator after senator told you how you were enslaved by Obamacare and that the GOP would set you free. John McCain proclaimed,
"Families in Arizona and across the country should have the power to
make their own medical decisions – not Washington bureaucrats. This bill
puts patients and doctors back in charge of their health care by fully
repealing Obamacare and replacing it with a free-market approach that
strengthens the quality and accessibility of care." John Thune promised, "It’s time to repeal this law and replace it with something that works. And that’s precisely what we’re going to do."
Others got even more explicit. For instance, here's Wyoming Senator John
Barrasso (campaign slogan: "If you can't trust a man whose name
includes the phrase 'bare ass,' who can you trust?"), from a speech
he gave on the floor of the Senate in November, shortly after the
election: "First of all, nobody is talking about taking people off of
insurance without a replacement plan in place." Except that's exactly
what they talked about. While Republicans will constantly mention how
President Obama said, "If you like your doctor, you can keep your
doctor" (which, to be fair, was an absurd promise), they simply aren't
owning that they got voters all excited about this new fantasy health
care plan where they wouldn't lose coverage despite repealing the very
law that gave them coverage.
In fact, when you get to what President Donald Trump said, Republicans were promising something amazing. Put aside that Trump repeatedly
said he wouldn't cut Medicaid and then, immediately after inauguration,
put out a plan to cut Medicaid. Trump and his people consistently promised that Americans would have better health insurance coverage, that all Americans would be covered, and that it would cost them less in premiums and deductibles. He literally said
this: "You will end up with great health care for a fraction of the
price." And he told Americans that we would have a "beautiful picture"
in the future of health care.
Republicans like to say that Democrats promise that they'll give people
"free stuff" and that people on government programs like Medicaid are
"moochers." But Republicans didn't win on the Obamacare issue because
people didn't want free stuff. They didn't win because they said they
would take away their health insurance. They won because they promised
people more free stuff and better free stuff.
In other words, they lied. But voters believed them. They wanted to mooch more.
And the vast majority of Americans realize now that it was a lie because
the Trumpcare plan that the Senate may vote to move forward tomorrow
does none of the things they promised other than get rid of the health
insurance they have now or make it worse and more expensive. So, of
course, now we get articles like "These Americans Hated the Health Law. Until the Idea of Repeal Sank In." In that New York Times
piece, Pennsylvania dumb shits who once thought Obamacare was the worst
thing since the theory of evolution say things like "I can’t even
remember why I opposed it" and "Everybody needs some sort of health
insurance." One stupid fuck went from opposing the law to "Now that
you’ve insured an additional 20 million people, you can’t just take the
insurance away from these people. It’s just not the right thing to do."
But we knew all along that people liked the Affordable Care Act. They
liked the elimination of spending caps and of pre-existing conditions
determining premiums. They liked keeping their kids on insurance until
age 26. And a shit-ton of people got to live because of the Medicaid
expansion. Yeah, the ACA was fine. What they hated was Obamacare, which
is exactly what Republicans wanted people to think of for a very simple
reason:
Most Republican voters don't hate the ACA. They hate that their white asses were saved by a black man.
They resented the shit out of that fact. It put a lie to all the racism
they've clung to for generations. The GOP used that racism for years.
Now that the black man is gone, though, they're totally fine with the
law and its benefits. They gave Republicans a chance to give them more
stuff, but they don't want their stuff taken away. Especially when that
"stuff" is the right to live a healthy life.
Be careful this week, dear dumb shits and dearer smart asses.
Republicans are going to keep coming after the Affordable Care Act, no
matter how many shivs you stick in it. Stay on the phones. Keep the
pressure up on the few Republican senators who can make the difference.
Don't let the liars win. It's life and death, motherfuckers, life and
death.
And once we finally put this beast down, let's turn our attention to single payer.
(Fun extra part of Barrasso's speech: "Democrats promised that they
would listen to other people’s ideas, and then they went behind a closed
door in an office back there, and they wrote the law ignoring all of
the suggestions by Republicans, and without any Republican support at
all. We’re not going to make that same mistake. We will be looking for
Democrats’ help, we will be looking for Democrats to work with. We will
be listening to Democrats’ ideas, and we will be working very hard to
win Democrat votes for any new law." Insert your own
rolling-with-laughter emoji here.)
Sadly, President Obama did not have the will to send them all to jail
where many of them deserve to be—to this day.
In 2010, after President
Obama helped to navigate our country out of the largest economic
disaster since the 1929 Wall Street crash, he held a televised Town
Hall. During it, a younger and equally craven Anthony Scaramucci got to
ask a question.
The question sounded something like “WAH WAH WAH WAH
WAH, my feelings!”
To which President Obama replied.
I think it'd be useful to go back and look at the speeches that
I've made, including a speech by the way I made back in 2007, on Wall
Street, before Lehmans had gone under. In which I warned about a
potential crisis if we didn't start reforming practices on Wall Street.
At the time I said exactly what you said, which is Wall Street and Main
Street are connected. We need a vibrant vital financial sector that is
investing in businesses investing in jobs investing in our people
providing consumers loans so they can buy products all that's
very important and we want that to thrive but we've got to do so in a
responsible way.
I have been amused over the last couple of years this sense of
somehow meet beating up on Wall Street. I think most folks on Main
Street feel like they got beat up on; and I'll be honestly there's a big
chunk of the country--hold on--I was like there's a big chunk of the
country that thinks that I have been too soft yet on Wall Street and
that's the majority—not the minority.
Now, what I've tried to do is just try to be practical. You know
I'm sure that at any given point over the last two years there have been
times where I have been frustrated, and I'll give you some examples—I
mean when I hear folks who say that somehow were being too tough on Wall
Street, but after a huge crisis the top 25 hedge fund managers took
home a billion dollars in income that year. A billion!
For what it’s worth, Scaramucci is exactly like the rest of this administration—pond scum moonlighting as human.
The moment Anthony Scaramucci presented his business card to President
Trump, the deal was a good as done. Sean Spicer was on his way out, with
Mr. Smooth installed as White House communications director.Scaramucci
checks all the boxes for Trump: Goldman Sachs background, ties to
Russia, Wall Street insider, enormous amounts of hair product, prepared
to say anything and most importantly, in love with himself and the
President. Truly a match made in heaven
Donald Trump, clearly terrified over the direction of the Russia
investigation, is considering to use his pardon powers on himself, his
family members and his aides, according to a stunning new report in The Washington Post.
The Post reports that Trump has asked his advisers about his ability
to pardon himself or others, and another source said that the
president’s lawyers are also discussing the possibility of issuing
pardons.
The president is also reportedly trying to build a case against
Special Counsel Robert Mueller – the man running the wide-ranging
investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election and Moscow’s
connections to the Trump campaign.
More from the eye-popping report:
Some of President Trump’s lawyers are exploring ways
to limit or undercut special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia
investigation, building a case against what they allege are his
conflicts of interest and discussing the president’s authority to grant
pardons, according to people familiar with the effort.
Trump has asked his advisers about his power to pardon aides,
family members and even himself in connection with the probe, according
to one of those people. A second person said Trump’s lawyers have been
discussing the president’s pardoning powers among themselves.
Trump’s legal team declined to comment on the issue. But one
adviser said the president has simply expressed a curiosity in
understanding the reach of his pardoning authority, as well as the
limits of Mueller’s investigation.
With the Russia investigation continuing to widen, Trump’s
lawyers are working to corral the probe and question the propriety of
the special counsel’s work. They are actively compiling a list of
Mueller’s alleged potential conflicts of interest, which they say could
serve as a way to stymie his work, according to several of Trump’s legal
advisers.
It’s hard to be shocked by any news about this president or the
increasingly explosive scandal surrounding his ties to Russia, but this
is a rather incredible development.
The news also comes a day after Trump threatened Mueller in an interview with The New York Times, telling the paper that if Mueller decides to investigate his family’s finances, then he will be crossing a “red line.”
Ultimately, Trump’s efforts to intimidate Mueller in hopes that he
will back off the Russia investigation, while now reportedly considering
whether to pardon himself and those close to him, suggests this is a man running scared.
Trump holds an audio interview with The New York Times and denigrates
his own Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the acting FBI Director Andrew
McCabe, and the special prosecutor investigating the Trump-Russia
connection Robert Mueller.
“About two weeks ago, I stopped watching the news,” Wayne Bisher, a
lifelong Democrat who backed Trump in 2016, told the publication.
“Because it was just like, it was too depressing. They’re still bitching
about the Russia thing, which is still not going to amount to anything.
I feel so much better, for the last two weeks.”
“We got fake news, like Trump said, and I’m upset with the news,” 75 year old Bruce Garis told the Guardian. “I won’t even turn on the television any more.”
When asked by the Guardian about assorted Trump scandals, many Trump supporters simply deflect the question to go back to attacking Hillary Clinton.
“No matter how it comes out, even if it comes out that there was some
shady business going on there, I’d rather Trump in there than Clinton,”
43 year old Jack Artley explained. “So, whether he had to cheat or not
to get in, I’m OK with that.”
“You really talk to people and – you know what drove a lot of people?” conservative activists Tom Carroll told the Guardian.
“Believe it or not, they won’t leave Trump for anything. But it’s not
because they love Trump, it’s because they love their families, they
love their country, and they were fearful of what was gonna happen if
Hillary Clinton got elected president.”
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer returned to the podium on Monday
– though off camera – to address reporters on the first day of “Made In
America Week.” One of the questions asked of Spicer was whether Donald
Trump would begin to manufacture the goods for his brands in the US,
which Spicer deemed an “inappropriate” question. If you can’t ask that
questions during Made In America Week, then when would it be
appropriate? Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.
Donald Trump took to Twitter to blame Democrats and “a few Republicans”
for the failure of the GOP healthcare bill in the Senate. He then ended
his infantile rant with an ominous threat that “we will return.” Does
he not understand that people don’t want the GOP’s healthcare “fix” and
that the entire Republican Party needs to simply move on? Ring of Fire’s
Farron Cousins discusses this.
