June 1, 2018

Tennessee Senate Race Scaring Trump

Eric Boehlert

June 1, 2018 4:00 am

Privately contradicting his public boasts about the state of Tennessee’s U.S. Senate race, Trump told donors behind closed doors this week the Democratic candidate there is “tough” and the race remains winnable for Democrats.

Trump won Tennessee by 26 points in 2016. But the party there is struggling with this year’s Senate race.

“It’s close. It’s very close,” Trump warned donors, as he discussed the campaign of Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). “She was down by a little bit a couple of months ago, now she’s pulled even. We’re in a very even race,”

He later stressed, “I do want to tell you get out there and make sure everybody that you know votes for Marsha because it’s going to be a tough election. It’s going to be very close.”

That’s a very different message than the one Trump gave at a Nashville rally on Tuesday, where he mocked Democratic candidate Phil Bredesen as “a total tool” whom he’d never heard of.

more
http://www.nationalmemo.com/tennessee-senate-race-scaring-trump/

June 1, 2018

New Book Portrays Obama's Revulsion After Trump Victory

Cody Fenwick

June 1, 2018 4:00 am

President Barack Obama felt self-doubt and disappointment after Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 election, Ben Rhodes reveals in a new book previewed in the New York Times on Wednesday. The passages paint the picture of a devastated White House in shock over the election result and reveal the range of emotions Obama endured through the transition period.

It notes, for instance, that Obama did his best to cheer up his aides in the days following the election. But he soured in the days that followed. “Maybe this is what people want,” Obama reportedly said about Trump’s win. “I’ve got the economy set up well for him. No facts. No consequences. They can just have a cartoon.”

Rhodes also writes about Obama’s farewells to world leaders. German Chancellor Angela Merkel reportedly told Obama that Trump’s victory made her feel a greater obligation to run for a fourth term which she ended up winning. When she left Obama for the last time, she “had a single tear in her eye.”

Obama also apparently felt that, despite the criticism he has since received, there was little more he could have done to counter Russian interference in the 2016 election. Calling out the meddling efforts even more than he did would have resulted in Trump saying Obama was rigging the election and Putin working harder to undermine the vote, the president feared.

more
http://www.nationalmemo.com/new-book-portrays-obamas-revulsion-after-trump-victory/

June 1, 2018

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy ousted amid corruption scandal

Source: The Washington Post




By Pamela Rolfe and William Booth
June 1 at 6:11 AM

MADRID — After a bitter two-day debate in parliament, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on Friday lost a no-confidence vote and was ousted from office. He will be replaced by a leader of the opposition Socialist Party.

The vote was 180 to 169, with one abstention.

Rajoy appeared in parliament Friday morning and in a brief speech said, “I will accept the decision.”

He added: “It has been an honor to be the leader of Spain and to leave it in a better state than the one I found. I believe I have satisfied my responsibility, which is to improve the lives of Spaniards. If I have offended someone in my role, I ask forgiveness.”

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/spanish-prime-minister-mariano-rajoy-ousted-amid-corruption-scandal/2018/06/01/d35db758-64ed-11e8-81ca-bb14593acaa6_story.html

June 1, 2018

Trump says he's a master negotiator. Those who've actually dealt with him beg to differ.

‘He Pretty Much Gave In to Whatever They Asked For’

Trump says he’s a master negotiator. Those who’ve actually dealt with him beg to differ.

By MICHAEL KRUSE June 01, 2018

n 1985, Tony Schwartz, a writer for New York magazine, was sitting in Donald Trump’s office in Trump Tower interviewing him for a story. Trump told him he had agreed to write a book for Random House. “Well, if you’re going to write a book,” Schwartz said, recalling this interaction in a speech he gave last fall at the University of Michigan, “you ought to call it The Art of the Deal.”

“I like that,” Trump said. “Do you want to write it?”

These sorts of arrangements typically are not that generous for the writer. “Most writers for hire receive a flat fee, or a relatively modest percentage of any money the book earns,” Schwartz said in the speech. Schwartz, by contrast, got from Trump an almost unheard-of half of the $500,000 advance from Random House and also half of the royalties. And it didn’t even take a lot of haggling.

“He basically just agreed,” Schwartz told me in an email, meaning Schwartz ever since has brought in millions of dollars more of royalties and Trump has brought in millions of dollars less.

It’s a telling example, Harvard Business School negotiating professor Deepak Malhotra said in a recent interview. “What should have been a great deal on a book about negotiation actually is one of the most interesting pieces of evidence that he’s not a good negotiator.” Malhotra, the author of Negotiating the Impossible, pointed out Schwartz even got his name on the cover, and in same-sized text. “I don’t think there’s a better ghostwriting deal out there.”

more
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/06/01/donald-trump-deals-negotiation-art-of-deal-218584

June 1, 2018

Mueller probe spending tops $17 million

By DARREN SAMUELSOHN 05/31/2018 05:27 PM EDT Updated 05/31/2018 05:47 PM EDT

The Justice Department has spent more than $17 million on its Russia investigation since special counsel Robert Mueller’s appointment last May, according to a government report released Thursday.

The latest DOJ totals reflect $10 million spent from October until March — a particularly productive period for Mueller. During that times, Mueller netted five guilty pleas and 17 indictments of people and companies as part of his examination of Moscow's meddling in the 2016 election, and whether the Kremlin coordinated its efforts with the Trump campaign.

Mueller’s office in a statement said its spending was “within the approved budget,” though it’s still likely to draw complaints from President Donald Trump and his allies who have already found fault with the open-ended nature of the special counsel’s fiscal setup. The president has long labeled the investigation a "witch hunt" that has strayed far from its original mandate.

In mid-May, Trump targeted Mueller over spending, though the dollar figure he used didn’t reflect what was public at the time.

more
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/31/mueller-russia-probe-cost-spending-616112

June 1, 2018

Trump: Why hasn't Samantha Bee been fired over crude Ivanka remark?

Source: Politico




By LOUIS NELSON 06/01/2018 07:57 AM EDT

President Donald Trump lashed out at TBS host Samantha Bee on Friday morning, asking his Twitter followers why the comedian had not been fired over a vulgar insult she directed at Ivanka Trump and suggesting Bee is being held to a different standard than Roseanne Barr, the pro-Trump comedian whose ABC sitcom was canceled over a racist remark she made online.

“Why aren’t they firing no talent Samantha Bee for the horrible language used on her low ratings show?” the president wrote on Twitter. “A total double standard but that’s O.K., we are Winning, and will be doing so for a long time to come!”

Bee attacked Ivanka Trump on Wednesday night on her TBS show “Full Frontal,” where she urged the president’s daughter to “do something about your dad’s immigration practices, you feckless c---!”

“He listens to you,” she continued. “Put on something tight and low-cut and tell your father to f---ing stop it. Tell him it was an Obama thing and see how it goes, OK?”

Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/01/trump-samantha-bee-ivanka-tbs-616318

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https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1002508937445478402

June 1, 2018

Republicans gobsmacked by Trump's tariffs

GOP lawmakers thought the president was going to hit China — not key U.S. allies.

By BURGESS EVERETT 05/31/2018 01:48 PM EDT Updated 05/31/2018 05:36 PM EDT

Republicans are bitterly protesting the Trump administration’s decision to impose sweeping tariffs on U.S. allies — alarmed that the White House ignored their frenzied lobbying campaign and afraid that the party could suffer at the polls in November.

The GOP’s free-traders were mollified this spring as the Trump administration exempted U.S. allies from steel and aluminum tariffs imposed on other countries like China. But on Thursday, that all changed as President Donald Trump imposed 10 percent tariffs on aluminum imports and 25 percent tariffs on steel imports from the European Union, Canada and Mexico.

The move thrusts the GOP back into an internecine war over free-trade policies that have defined the party for decades, just as Republicans mobilize for a hotly contested midterm campaign.

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) called it “bad news” and predicted imminent retaliation from the key U.S. allies. Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said there is "mounting evidence that these tariffs will harm Americans." And Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) warned that similar policies 90 years ago sparked the Great Depression.

more
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/31/trump-tariffs-canada-mexico-republican-response-615479

June 1, 2018

Jared Kushner close friend Rick Gerson now under scrutiny from Mueller

Source: NBC News



Gerson met with a UAE royal in the Seychelles around the time of a secret meeting there between Trump friend Erik Prince and Russian and Emirati officials.

by Carol E. Lee and Julia Ainsley / Jun.01.2018 / 5:52 AM ET

WASHINGTON — A close friend of Jared Kushner has come under scrutiny by Special Counsel Robert Mueller for his proximity to some key meetings between Trump associates and foreign officials, according to five people familiar with the matter.

Richard Gerson, a hedge-fund manager in New York, was in the Seychelles in January 2017, less than two weeks before President Donald Trump's inauguration and around the time Trump associate Erik Prince secretly met with Russian and United Arab Emirates officials, including Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan of Abu Dhabi, four of the people said.

While in the remote Indian Ocean island nation, Gerson met with Prince Mohammed — also known by his initials as MBZ — and communicated with a Lebanese-American businessman with close ties to the UAE, George Nader, who had organized the Erik Prince meeting, according to text messages Gerson sent at the time and a person familiar with the meeting.

Gerson had met Nader just weeks earlier when Trump officials, including Kushner, gathered for a secret meeting with MBZ at a Four Seasons hotel in New York, four people familiar with the meeting said. Trump's incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn and chief political adviser Steve Bannon, as well as the UAE's ambassador to the U.S., Yousef Otaiba, also attended the meeting.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/jared-kushner-close-friend-rick-gerson-now-under-scrutiny-mueller-n876361

May 31, 2018

Hillary Clinton: Trump admin's response to Puerto Rico 'an American tragedy'

Source: The Hill



Hillary Clinton slammed the Trump administration for its response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico last year, saying that it’s time for the U.S. government to “step up & protect its people.”

Clinton cited in her tweet a study released this week that found that the death toll from the hurricane last year was more than 70 times the official government estimate.

“The US gov’t has failed its own citizens. The response itself is an American tragedy,” Clinton wrote. “Hurricane season is about to begin in Puerto Rico. The administration must step up & protect its people,” she added.

https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/1002248081780461569

A recently released study from The New England Journal of Medicine found that there were as many as 5,740 more deaths caused by the hurricane than originally stated.

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/390101-hillary-clinton-trump-admins-response-to-puerto-rico-is-an

May 31, 2018

Trump ahead of visit with Texas shooting survivors: 'We are going to have a little fun'

Source: The Hill



BY JOHN BOWDEN - 05/31/18 02:10 PM EDT

President Trump on Thursday told reporters that he and his team would be having "fun" on a trip to Texas where the president is expected to meet with survivors from last week's deadly school shooting in Santa Fe.

Trump made the comment to reporters as he was boarding Air Force One to leave for the Lone Star state, where he is also expected to appear at several GOP fundraisers.

https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1002175839721672704

The remark was noticed by gun violence activists, who questioned Trump's use of the word to describe a trip with to meet shooting survivors and first responders.

https://twitter.com/shannonrwatts/status/1002216210216308736

Trump is scheduled to meet with survivors of last week's deadly shooting at a Santa Fe, Texas high school where 10 people were killed when a gunman attacked the school with guns reportedly stolen from the suspect's father.

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/390099-trump-ahead-of-visit-with-texas-shooting-survivors-we-are-going