Merry Christmas and 36 other important things Trump said about taxes
By Chris Cillizza
Wednesday was one of the wildest news days in modern memory. Because so much happened, you might have missed President Trump's speech in St. Charles, Missouri, to sell his tax plan. As always, when Trump speaks, it's worth paying attention to.
I watched the speech and read the transcript -- pulling out some of the most memorable lines. They're below.
1. "I told you that we would be saying Merry Christmas again, right?"
Trump was surrounded on the stage by Christmas trees. And, so, of course, he couldn't resist. Remember that he did pledge (and pledge) that his 2016 win meant that "we're saying 'Merry Christmas' again."
2. "And he was great on television today. I watched him. I got up early, and I watched you on -- that was a good interview."
Trump is referring to Missouri Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer here. And affirming that he not only watches TV all the time, but places massive value on people being on TV (and saying nice things about him.)
3. "Big ones."
This is a Trump ad-lib after he gets applause for noting that the House passed a tax cut bill. It's Trump as his most Trumpian. Everything is bigger and better than anything you've ever seen before.
4. "If we do this, then American will win again like never ever before."
How can you "win again" "like never before?" It's a paradox. I feel like I am in "Inception."
5. "We're doing numbers like ISIS has never seen before. We're wiping them out, the terrorists. They're bad."
ISIS has never seen numbers like these before. Great, beautiful numbers like 48 and 91, And 1,716.
Also: Terrorists are bad.
6. "Make America great again. You've never heard that expression."
"This country needs a new administration with a renewed dedication to the dream of America, an administration that will give that dream new life, and make America great again." -- Ronald Reagan, 1980
7. "All those hats. All those -- they've never heard that expression before."
See #6. And, speaking of Trump hats, this was my favorite blog post of the 2016 election.
8. "I have to say, I didn't really know that until two days ago."
Trump is referring to the fact that Lewis and Clark began their trip westward in St. Charles. Which he didn't know. Which brings me to this book recommendation: "Undaunted Courage" by Stephen Ambrose.
9. "Look at all the fake news back there."
You mean the media who are doing their jobs by covering what the president of the United States says and does?
10. "Our country was not treated properly for a long time. We're treating it properly."
Countries deserve proper treatment. It is known.
11. "Oh, I get a headache thinking about who made these deals, one after another."
Same.
12. "I will tell you this in a non-braggadocious way there has never been a 10-month president that has accomplished what we have accomplished."
That doesn't feel braggy at all! Totally nailed it. Let me add something in a non-braggadocious way: This is the single greatest piece of content ever posted on the Internet. Period.
13. "13 states this year have seen unemployment drop to the lowest levels in the history of their state. And I hate to tell you, but Missouri happens to be one of them."
Why would Trump hate to tell people their unemployment rate is super low?
14. "They're going to say that Trump is the opposite of an exaggerator -- the exact opposite."
An "un-exaggerator"?
15. "Puerto Rico has been a very tough situation because of the fact that it was in very, very bad shape before the storms ever hit."
He will never back down on the idea that he did a perfect job in Puerto Rico. The reason things haven't come back as quickly as many would like has nothing to do with Trump, in Trump's mind, and everything to do that Puerto Rico was in "very, very bad shape" even before the hurricane.
16. "And then what happens if it passes it goes into this beautiful committee, this beautiful, I call it a pot, and we mix it up, and we stir it up and bring all the best things out, and you're going to have something, I predict, that will be really, really special."
This is the weirdest description of a conference committee ever.
17. "This is going to cost me a fortune, this thing, believe me."
We have no choice but to take Trump's word that the tax cut plan would cost him a "fortune." Why? Because he is the first modern president not to release his tax returns.
18. "I have some very wealthy friends."
I'm kind of a big deal. People know me. I'm very important. I have many leather bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany.
19. "Our current code is a giant -- and really, it is."
So, so true.
20. "Wait'll you see what finally comes out in what I call the mixer."
This going to be the best fruity drink ever! [Cracks open bottle of Malibu Rum]
21. "Do we agree? Do you agree? You better agree."
Right? Right?! RIGHT.
22. "You have people that are elderly that have done a fantastic job."
Good job, old people.
23. "It's alright. Hey look, I'm President. I don't care. I don't care anymore."
Ahem. Throat clear. Ahem. Cough.
24. "As Hillary said, 'What difference does it make?'"
The 2016 election ended 387 days ago.
25. "Not anymore. Not anymore. Not anymore."
Third time is always the charm.
26. "Our focus is on helping the folks who work in the mailrooms and the machine shops of America; the plumbers, the carpenters, the cops, the teachers, the truck drivers, the pipefitters -- the people that like me best."
I'm sure Trump didn't mean this quote to be revealing but it is. He's acknowledging that he wants to make things better for the people who like him best. Which is different than being president of all the people.
27. "The people that like me best are those people, the workers. They're the people I understand the best. Those are the people I grew up with."
Donald Trump's father was a wealthy real estate developer. When Trump started his professional career, his father gave him a "small" $1 million loan.
28. "We're going to have very strong borders. Please remember that, OK? Please remember."
Strong borders. Very strong. Got it.
29. "We're going to have the wall. Don't worry about it. We're going to have the wall."
Strong borders? √
Very strong border? √
Wall? √
Worry? Not necessary!
30. "They want to have people pour into our country -- illegals -- they don't care where the hell they come from, they want to have them pour into our country."
This feels like a slight oversimplification of Democrats policies on border security and immigration.
31. "We love them, they're wealthy."
This is my new life motto.
32. "Because these massive tax cuts will be rocket fuel ... little rocket man, rocket fuel for the American economy. He is a sick puppy."
This appears to be Trump free associating. Rocket fuel ... rocket man ... sick puppy. Of course, he is free associating about the dictator of a rogue nation that continues to test ballistic missiles.
33. "They love their children. They're very rich."
Reading through this speech, you can't help but be struck by Trump's constant focus on wealth and being rich. I know it's a speech about tax cuts but still.
34. "We're going to win so much, we're going to win that the people of Missouri are going to go to your governor and they're going to say, governor, please go see the president. We can't stand winning so much."
This is my I-am-so-bored-by-all-of-this-winning face.
35. "We're going to keep winning, and winning, and winning, and winning."
That's four "winnings." Which is a lot of winning. Objectively speaking.
36. "Together, we will give the American people a big, beautiful Christmas present."
Is it a bike? Man, I hope it is a bike!
37. "You don't see Merry Christmas anymore. With Trump as your president, we are going to be celebrating Merry Christmas again."
Donald Trump brought back Christmas. Merry Christmas everyone! God, it feels so good to say that. Again. After all these years.
November 30, 2017
State Dept. vacancies
Albright: State Dept. vacancies a 'national security emergency'
By Daniella Diaz
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright believes the US is facing a "national security emergency" because of the vacancies and staffing issues at the State Department.
"If the US military were facing a recruitment and retention crisis of this magnitude, few would hesitate to call it a national security emergency," Albright wrote in an op-ed published in The Washington Post on Wednesday night. "Well, that is what we are facing (in the State Department).
And while it saddens me to criticize one of my successors, I have to speak out because the stakes are so high."
She said turnover at the State Department is normal, but once people leave, the positions need to be filled, and the Trump administration has left many positions vacant.
"Change within the Foreign Service and the State Department's civil service is not unusual. In fact, the system is designed to bring in fresh blood on a regular basis," she wrote. "There is, however, a big difference between a transfusion and an open wound. There is nothing normal about the current exodus."
"When we must use force, as in the fight against the Islamic State, our diplomats ensure that we can do so effectively and with the cooperation of other countries," Albright, who served as secretary of state from 1997 to 2001 under then-President Bill Clinton, wrote in the op-ed.
She blamed Trump for not prioritizing the hiring of officials for the agency, citing an interview the President gave Fox News earlier this month when he said "I'm the only one that matters" when it came to diplomacy and filling positions at the State Department.
She also argued that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson -- "for reasons that only make sense to him" -- has delayed filling important diplomatic posts in Washington and abroad.
Earlier this month, Senators John McCain, the Arizona Republican who chairs the Armed Services committee, and Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat, said low morale and a perceived flood of career diplomats leaving Foggy Bottom "paint a disturbing picture."
In a letter to Tillerson, the senators expressed "deep reservations" about his staffing decisions, which, they said, "threaten to undermine the long-term health and effectiveness of American diplomacy."
Asked about the letter, as well as recent reports about high-level resignations, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert conceded that some staff are feeling frustrated.
"I know that times may seem tough right now," she told reporters at the agency's regular news briefing last week. "I know that the headlines coming out of the State Department do not look good, do not look promising. We have a lot of work to do here at the State Department."
By Daniella Diaz
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright believes the US is facing a "national security emergency" because of the vacancies and staffing issues at the State Department.
"If the US military were facing a recruitment and retention crisis of this magnitude, few would hesitate to call it a national security emergency," Albright wrote in an op-ed published in The Washington Post on Wednesday night. "Well, that is what we are facing (in the State Department).
And while it saddens me to criticize one of my successors, I have to speak out because the stakes are so high."
She said turnover at the State Department is normal, but once people leave, the positions need to be filled, and the Trump administration has left many positions vacant.
"Change within the Foreign Service and the State Department's civil service is not unusual. In fact, the system is designed to bring in fresh blood on a regular basis," she wrote. "There is, however, a big difference between a transfusion and an open wound. There is nothing normal about the current exodus."
"When we must use force, as in the fight against the Islamic State, our diplomats ensure that we can do so effectively and with the cooperation of other countries," Albright, who served as secretary of state from 1997 to 2001 under then-President Bill Clinton, wrote in the op-ed.
She blamed Trump for not prioritizing the hiring of officials for the agency, citing an interview the President gave Fox News earlier this month when he said "I'm the only one that matters" when it came to diplomacy and filling positions at the State Department.
She also argued that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson -- "for reasons that only make sense to him" -- has delayed filling important diplomatic posts in Washington and abroad.
Earlier this month, Senators John McCain, the Arizona Republican who chairs the Armed Services committee, and Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat, said low morale and a perceived flood of career diplomats leaving Foggy Bottom "paint a disturbing picture."
In a letter to Tillerson, the senators expressed "deep reservations" about his staffing decisions, which, they said, "threaten to undermine the long-term health and effectiveness of American diplomacy."
Asked about the letter, as well as recent reports about high-level resignations, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert conceded that some staff are feeling frustrated.
"I know that times may seem tough right now," she told reporters at the agency's regular news briefing last week. "I know that the headlines coming out of the State Department do not look good, do not look promising. We have a lot of work to do here at the State Department."
Tax Plan
The Republican Tax Plan:
A tax credit for the owning of a private jet. Yes, you will be able to write off the cost of Fuel, A hangar, A pilot, Maintenance.. Basically you can write off the total cost of owning a jet from your taxes...
A school teacher making $40K a year now can write off $250 for supplies bought for class. The new plan removes that $250 deduction...
Do you think this is fair?
Do you actually think you will get anything out of this tax plan?
Do you still believe that you have a government that cares about you?
A tax credit for the owning of a private jet. Yes, you will be able to write off the cost of Fuel, A hangar, A pilot, Maintenance.. Basically you can write off the total cost of owning a jet from your taxes...
A school teacher making $40K a year now can write off $250 for supplies bought for class. The new plan removes that $250 deduction...
Do you think this is fair?
Do you actually think you will get anything out of this tax plan?
Do you still believe that you have a government that cares about you?
Ridiculously Unfair
The Most Ridiculously Unfair Tax Plan
And the grass-roots movement that wants to beat it back.
BY SARAH JAFFE
This Q&A is part of Sarah Jaffe’s series Interviews for Resistance, in which she speaks with organizers, troublemakers and thinkers who are doing the hard work of fighting back against America’s corporate and political powers. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Republican leaders are desperate for a political win and are determined to push the tax bill through the Senate without a full assessment of the bill’s potential economic impact. On Tuesday the Senate Budget Committee voted to pass the $1.5 trillion tax bill, clearing the way for a full Senate vote later this week. It is increasingly clear, by many reports, that the legislation will benefit the wealthy in general, and President Trump and his family in particular. Sarah Jaffe examined what the tax bill means for everyone else with Michael Kink, executive director of the Strong Economy for All Coalition, a labor-community coalition that helped win a New York state “Millionaires Tax” and an increase in the state minimum wage.
Sarah Jaffe: The tax bill has already passed one house of Congress. What are some of the highlights and/or lowlights of this thing?
Michael Kink: I would say that it is almost all lowlights. It is a cartoon parody of the most ridiculously unfair tax plan that anyone could come up with. It literally includes an exemption for private jets while taking away tax deductions for the parents of disabled kids. [Editor’s Note: While the House bill proposed cutting deductions for medical expenses, the Senate version does not.] It is utterly, utterly ridiculous. The only highlight is that it is tremendously unpopular. The vast majority of Americans don’t like it, don’t want it, understand that it benefits the wealthy over regular people, understand that it doesn’t close any loopholes and opens up some new ones. The fact is, unless you are incredibly, ridiculously, preposterously rich, you are not going to get much of a benefit at all out of this. And most regular working-class and middle-class people are going to see tax increases. The Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation’s official report on the Senate bill said families making between $10,000 a year — which is fairly poor — and $75,000 a year — which is kind of middle class — are going to see tax increases.
The people who get big tax cuts are the heirs and heiresses of billionaires. They are going to inherit their massive fortunes tax-free. Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. and the kids of all the hedge-fund moguls and private-equity titans are going to do really well. Multinational corporations are going to get a massive cut in their tax rate. There are going to be new corporate loopholes, including actual new subsidies for moving profits and jobs overseas — one of the things that Trump voters and Bernie voters and every voter in between was pissed about. The carried-interest loophole is still wide open; and hedge fund managers and private equity managers will benefit from a new pass-through tax scam that will cut their taxes even more. All of these folks are big campaign donors and they use their political contributions to rig the system. This tax bill is a dream for them.
Young people with student debt are going to lose their interest deduction for that debt. School teachers are going to lose their deductions for purchasing teaching supplies. Families struggling with medical expenses could see deductions eliminated [depending on what happens in conference committee]. In terms of health care, the Republican budget and the Republican tax bill work together to set up nearly $1.5 trillion in cuts to non-Medicare health programs. And the tax bill itself sets off $28 billion a year in automatic cuts to Medicare.
Congress is still trying to pass the legislation even though it is incredibly unpopular. Chris Collins, the [Republican] congressman from Buffalo, admitted to a journalist from The Hill that his donors are calling him and they are telling him that they will never return any of his calls again if they don’t pass this bill. He is admitting that the main pressure for this bill is coming from his biggest campaign contributors.
There are a lot of Republican senators that have expressed concerns. Sen. McCain on process, and Sen. Collins on the health care angles, still have some significant opposition. Sens. Corker, Flake, Moran and Langford have all talked about the problems with the bill in increasing the deficit. This bill explodes the deficit by $1.5 trillion. They are going to have problems within their own conference passing this bill quickly.
We need every Democratic senator to oppose it, and we need those couple dozen House Republican members, particularly from big states — New York, California, Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania. Many Republican House members in those states voted against the bill, but many of them voted in favor of the bill. I think the bill that comes back to the House to consider is probably going to be worse than the bill they got before. It is going to hurt more people.
We are working around the country to fight this. A lot of the health care activists and grass-roots activists that fought and beat the health care bill are engaged in this and are fighting back against it. The teachers union, the American Federation of Teachers, the Communication Workers of America, the National Nurses United and a bunch of community groups will come together for a national day of action on Wednesday, Nov. 29.
SJ: The one thing I have been thinking about a lot is that the last time we had a Republican president selling us a big package of tax cuts for rich people, it was George W. Bush, and the argument was that it was tax cuts for everybody and that rich people make more money, so they got bigger tax cuts. I just wonder what is happening here?
MK:The Bush tax cuts for the rich included a refundable tax credit where families got checks. Working people got an actual check. You could say, “I got a $400 check and some billionaire a dozen ZIP codes away got a $4 million check.” Regular people who might be Republican or Democratic voters got something.
Nobody gets anything out of this bill. It goes to private-equity titans, hedge-fund managers, international banks and multinational corporations. The Republican Party shows such utter contempt for their voters that I don’t know how long they can exist as a political party. I don’t think most people who are getting hurt from public policies are going to put up with it. There is a larger question of whether there is an actual, forceful, populist, progressive option in mainstream politics that anybody is going to put out there, but the Republicans are working to pass bills that benefit billionaires and their lobbyists.
SJ: That is an interesting point that you bring up: What would we like to see as the alternative? What should anybody who wants to be the leadership of a Progressive/left alternative, be pushing forward right now? Single-payer health care was the obvious alternative in the wake of the repeated health care disasters, but what should we be demanding in response to this?
MK: I think there are two angles to look at. First, if you look at public-opinion polls, most Americans want the wealthy to pay their fair share. Most Americans want to see higher taxes on rich people, not lower taxes on rich people. Most Americans would like to see a lot of loopholes eliminated, particularly the loopholes for outsourcing jobs. Most Americans would like to see a tax system that doesn’t over-reward people that are already wealthy, that doesn’t over-reward people that just invest for a living, and that does something to help families who are struggling. We don’t have any legislation that does that.
Second, what is the “single payer” of economic policy or fiscal policy? We could talk about fiscal policies that redistribute income and invest in the future. We could talk about public goods. We could talk about investing in an economy that would actually employ a lot more people then we have now. We could make the transition into a clean energy infrastructure. We could move forward with single-payer health care and staff that out in a way that responds to our opioid addiction crisis, that responds to the aging of America, that provides more independent living options for seniors and for people with disabilities.
There are a lot of things we could do that would create good, meaningful jobs for Americans with decent paychecks — and we have the money to do it. The Republicans are saying they would be willing to spend $1.5 trillion on something. If we were going to spend $1.5 trillion on clean energy, public health, education and higher education, a lot of people would be in favor of that. The tax system is a way that can provide the resources to do it. You may be scared of the phrase “redistribution of income,” but when pollsters ask questions about making the wealthy pay their fair share and invest in programs that create jobs and pay off for the public in the future, that is what they are talking about. When we have young people supporting socialism over capitalism by significant margins because they have been screwed so badly by the economy, then I think it is incumbent on politicians to provide more effective public policies.
Let’s have something big and powerful like single-payer health care. Let’s have free, affordable, universal child care for all kids that includes a strong early-education program. Let’s get every single kid in America ready to go to school and to be a great learner. If other countries do it, we could do it too. Let’s have a distributed, networked clean energy system that reduces peoples’ electric bills, that reduces climate destroying greenhouse gases, and that creates millions of American jobs for people of every race everywhere in the country. We have the ability to do the big powerful things that people want.
SJ: At the end of the health care fight, we came out with more support than ever for a single-payer health care bill. This could work the same way if the pushback to this is paired with a positive demand. Not just, “No,” but “No, and while you are at it, if you think we have a trillion to spend here, then let’s spend it on creating jobs.”
MK: [It’s] $1.5 trillion. In terms of public policy, it suggests new areas going forward. Everyone understands that if you get rid of the estate tax, it only benefits the heirs and heiresses of the billionaires. That is ridiculous, right? You could say we do not want dynastic wealth in this country. You can get your first billion and keep it, but we are not going to let you keep this 2nd, 3rd, 14th and 30th. We are going to take that and put it back into public goods, because you created Facebook, or that hedge fund, or whatever, with huge amounts of public resources. You used mathematicians trained at land-grant universities. You use the advanced research facilities at colleges and universities. You took patents that were in the public realm and you made a ton of money. We have got to do something to protect our democracy. When the heirs and heiresses of billionaire fortunes can take over an entire political party and force the legislators to pass public policies that the vast majority of their own voters don’t want, there is a problem with democracy.
SJ: What lessons did you and the other folks learn from the health care bill that you are using to fight the tax bill?
MK: On health care, from a movement perspective, it was really interesting to see a lot of different people from different backgrounds realize how much they have in common. I think in tax policy, you have seen something of the same commonality of purpose happening with the Indivisible groups, with the labor unions, with the students, and the Bernie people and the more conventional big national unions jumping into this fight. Again, on health care, it is arguably a little more emotional, it is a little more immediate, but I think that experience set people up to think about the tax fight in a similar way. And the fact that the tax fight includes a health care fight makes it a lot easier to make that leap.
SJ: How can people get involved in some of these various actions that are going to be coming up this week?
MK: StopGOPtaxscam.com. There are some simple bullets on the plan and there is a whole set of days of actions where folks can click through. That hashtag, #GOPtaxscam, is also going to be in place where you can look on Twitter and Facebook. There will be a lot of local events. I think the face to face is really important; going to events, joining with other people. There are certainly a plethora of online calling tools. You should call your member of Congress, your House member and your senator. If you go to www.stoptrumptaxcuts.org, if you got to Tax Policy Center, if you go to www.notonepenny.org, there are a lot of places you are going to get a “Click here, put in your ZIP code and we will call your senator and your House member for you.”
Indivisible has an action plan. Organizing For Action is doing a national day of actions. And we are aiming for a grass-roots march on Wall Street on Saturday, Dec. 2. If the bill keeps going, as we expect it will, into December, we are going to aim for a second wave of direct action/protests on Capitol Hill on Dec. 5. So, I do think that there are going to be several opportunities over the next couple of weeks for people power to try to work its magic one more time.
And the grass-roots movement that wants to beat it back.
BY SARAH JAFFE
This Q&A is part of Sarah Jaffe’s series Interviews for Resistance, in which she speaks with organizers, troublemakers and thinkers who are doing the hard work of fighting back against America’s corporate and political powers. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Republican leaders are desperate for a political win and are determined to push the tax bill through the Senate without a full assessment of the bill’s potential economic impact. On Tuesday the Senate Budget Committee voted to pass the $1.5 trillion tax bill, clearing the way for a full Senate vote later this week. It is increasingly clear, by many reports, that the legislation will benefit the wealthy in general, and President Trump and his family in particular. Sarah Jaffe examined what the tax bill means for everyone else with Michael Kink, executive director of the Strong Economy for All Coalition, a labor-community coalition that helped win a New York state “Millionaires Tax” and an increase in the state minimum wage.
Sarah Jaffe: The tax bill has already passed one house of Congress. What are some of the highlights and/or lowlights of this thing?
Michael Kink: I would say that it is almost all lowlights. It is a cartoon parody of the most ridiculously unfair tax plan that anyone could come up with. It literally includes an exemption for private jets while taking away tax deductions for the parents of disabled kids. [Editor’s Note: While the House bill proposed cutting deductions for medical expenses, the Senate version does not.] It is utterly, utterly ridiculous. The only highlight is that it is tremendously unpopular. The vast majority of Americans don’t like it, don’t want it, understand that it benefits the wealthy over regular people, understand that it doesn’t close any loopholes and opens up some new ones. The fact is, unless you are incredibly, ridiculously, preposterously rich, you are not going to get much of a benefit at all out of this. And most regular working-class and middle-class people are going to see tax increases. The Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation’s official report on the Senate bill said families making between $10,000 a year — which is fairly poor — and $75,000 a year — which is kind of middle class — are going to see tax increases.
The people who get big tax cuts are the heirs and heiresses of billionaires. They are going to inherit their massive fortunes tax-free. Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. and the kids of all the hedge-fund moguls and private-equity titans are going to do really well. Multinational corporations are going to get a massive cut in their tax rate. There are going to be new corporate loopholes, including actual new subsidies for moving profits and jobs overseas — one of the things that Trump voters and Bernie voters and every voter in between was pissed about. The carried-interest loophole is still wide open; and hedge fund managers and private equity managers will benefit from a new pass-through tax scam that will cut their taxes even more. All of these folks are big campaign donors and they use their political contributions to rig the system. This tax bill is a dream for them.
Young people with student debt are going to lose their interest deduction for that debt. School teachers are going to lose their deductions for purchasing teaching supplies. Families struggling with medical expenses could see deductions eliminated [depending on what happens in conference committee]. In terms of health care, the Republican budget and the Republican tax bill work together to set up nearly $1.5 trillion in cuts to non-Medicare health programs. And the tax bill itself sets off $28 billion a year in automatic cuts to Medicare.
Congress is still trying to pass the legislation even though it is incredibly unpopular. Chris Collins, the [Republican] congressman from Buffalo, admitted to a journalist from The Hill that his donors are calling him and they are telling him that they will never return any of his calls again if they don’t pass this bill. He is admitting that the main pressure for this bill is coming from his biggest campaign contributors.
There are a lot of Republican senators that have expressed concerns. Sen. McCain on process, and Sen. Collins on the health care angles, still have some significant opposition. Sens. Corker, Flake, Moran and Langford have all talked about the problems with the bill in increasing the deficit. This bill explodes the deficit by $1.5 trillion. They are going to have problems within their own conference passing this bill quickly.
We need every Democratic senator to oppose it, and we need those couple dozen House Republican members, particularly from big states — New York, California, Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania. Many Republican House members in those states voted against the bill, but many of them voted in favor of the bill. I think the bill that comes back to the House to consider is probably going to be worse than the bill they got before. It is going to hurt more people.
We are working around the country to fight this. A lot of the health care activists and grass-roots activists that fought and beat the health care bill are engaged in this and are fighting back against it. The teachers union, the American Federation of Teachers, the Communication Workers of America, the National Nurses United and a bunch of community groups will come together for a national day of action on Wednesday, Nov. 29.
SJ: The one thing I have been thinking about a lot is that the last time we had a Republican president selling us a big package of tax cuts for rich people, it was George W. Bush, and the argument was that it was tax cuts for everybody and that rich people make more money, so they got bigger tax cuts. I just wonder what is happening here?
MK:The Bush tax cuts for the rich included a refundable tax credit where families got checks. Working people got an actual check. You could say, “I got a $400 check and some billionaire a dozen ZIP codes away got a $4 million check.” Regular people who might be Republican or Democratic voters got something.
Nobody gets anything out of this bill. It goes to private-equity titans, hedge-fund managers, international banks and multinational corporations. The Republican Party shows such utter contempt for their voters that I don’t know how long they can exist as a political party. I don’t think most people who are getting hurt from public policies are going to put up with it. There is a larger question of whether there is an actual, forceful, populist, progressive option in mainstream politics that anybody is going to put out there, but the Republicans are working to pass bills that benefit billionaires and their lobbyists.
SJ: That is an interesting point that you bring up: What would we like to see as the alternative? What should anybody who wants to be the leadership of a Progressive/left alternative, be pushing forward right now? Single-payer health care was the obvious alternative in the wake of the repeated health care disasters, but what should we be demanding in response to this?
MK: I think there are two angles to look at. First, if you look at public-opinion polls, most Americans want the wealthy to pay their fair share. Most Americans want to see higher taxes on rich people, not lower taxes on rich people. Most Americans would like to see a lot of loopholes eliminated, particularly the loopholes for outsourcing jobs. Most Americans would like to see a tax system that doesn’t over-reward people that are already wealthy, that doesn’t over-reward people that just invest for a living, and that does something to help families who are struggling. We don’t have any legislation that does that.
Second, what is the “single payer” of economic policy or fiscal policy? We could talk about fiscal policies that redistribute income and invest in the future. We could talk about public goods. We could talk about investing in an economy that would actually employ a lot more people then we have now. We could make the transition into a clean energy infrastructure. We could move forward with single-payer health care and staff that out in a way that responds to our opioid addiction crisis, that responds to the aging of America, that provides more independent living options for seniors and for people with disabilities.
There are a lot of things we could do that would create good, meaningful jobs for Americans with decent paychecks — and we have the money to do it. The Republicans are saying they would be willing to spend $1.5 trillion on something. If we were going to spend $1.5 trillion on clean energy, public health, education and higher education, a lot of people would be in favor of that. The tax system is a way that can provide the resources to do it. You may be scared of the phrase “redistribution of income,” but when pollsters ask questions about making the wealthy pay their fair share and invest in programs that create jobs and pay off for the public in the future, that is what they are talking about. When we have young people supporting socialism over capitalism by significant margins because they have been screwed so badly by the economy, then I think it is incumbent on politicians to provide more effective public policies.
Let’s have something big and powerful like single-payer health care. Let’s have free, affordable, universal child care for all kids that includes a strong early-education program. Let’s get every single kid in America ready to go to school and to be a great learner. If other countries do it, we could do it too. Let’s have a distributed, networked clean energy system that reduces peoples’ electric bills, that reduces climate destroying greenhouse gases, and that creates millions of American jobs for people of every race everywhere in the country. We have the ability to do the big powerful things that people want.
SJ: At the end of the health care fight, we came out with more support than ever for a single-payer health care bill. This could work the same way if the pushback to this is paired with a positive demand. Not just, “No,” but “No, and while you are at it, if you think we have a trillion to spend here, then let’s spend it on creating jobs.”
MK: [It’s] $1.5 trillion. In terms of public policy, it suggests new areas going forward. Everyone understands that if you get rid of the estate tax, it only benefits the heirs and heiresses of the billionaires. That is ridiculous, right? You could say we do not want dynastic wealth in this country. You can get your first billion and keep it, but we are not going to let you keep this 2nd, 3rd, 14th and 30th. We are going to take that and put it back into public goods, because you created Facebook, or that hedge fund, or whatever, with huge amounts of public resources. You used mathematicians trained at land-grant universities. You use the advanced research facilities at colleges and universities. You took patents that were in the public realm and you made a ton of money. We have got to do something to protect our democracy. When the heirs and heiresses of billionaire fortunes can take over an entire political party and force the legislators to pass public policies that the vast majority of their own voters don’t want, there is a problem with democracy.
SJ: What lessons did you and the other folks learn from the health care bill that you are using to fight the tax bill?
MK: On health care, from a movement perspective, it was really interesting to see a lot of different people from different backgrounds realize how much they have in common. I think in tax policy, you have seen something of the same commonality of purpose happening with the Indivisible groups, with the labor unions, with the students, and the Bernie people and the more conventional big national unions jumping into this fight. Again, on health care, it is arguably a little more emotional, it is a little more immediate, but I think that experience set people up to think about the tax fight in a similar way. And the fact that the tax fight includes a health care fight makes it a lot easier to make that leap.
SJ: How can people get involved in some of these various actions that are going to be coming up this week?
MK: StopGOPtaxscam.com. There are some simple bullets on the plan and there is a whole set of days of actions where folks can click through. That hashtag, #GOPtaxscam, is also going to be in place where you can look on Twitter and Facebook. There will be a lot of local events. I think the face to face is really important; going to events, joining with other people. There are certainly a plethora of online calling tools. You should call your member of Congress, your House member and your senator. If you go to www.stoptrumptaxcuts.org, if you got to Tax Policy Center, if you go to www.notonepenny.org, there are a lot of places you are going to get a “Click here, put in your ZIP code and we will call your senator and your House member for you.”
Indivisible has an action plan. Organizing For Action is doing a national day of actions. And we are aiming for a grass-roots march on Wall Street on Saturday, Dec. 2. If the bill keeps going, as we expect it will, into December, we are going to aim for a second wave of direct action/protests on Capitol Hill on Dec. 5. So, I do think that there are going to be several opportunities over the next couple of weeks for people power to try to work its magic one more time.
The great Tinhorn dictator...
America the Banana Republic
Thanks to Trump the tinhorn dictator and those who elected him, this country is no longer a beacon of freedom, but a laughingstock.
BY NEAL GABLER
When people call Donald Trump an authoritarian, it almost gives him more credit than he deserves.
You don’t think favorably of authoritarians; they are despicable. But you do think of them as monstrously large, grievously terrifying, as somehow taking the measure of the polity they control and drawing on its stature to puff themselves up, even as they destroy their nation’s moral core. Despots like Mussolini and Hitler epitomized evil on the grandest possible scale. To call them clowns would trivialize the unconscionable horrors they inflicted.
Trump is certainly an authoritarian, but he is more of a tinhorn dictator, a tiny, negligible man who, rather than inflating himself with the nation’s grandeur, has managed to deflate the nation with his own insipidness. Thanks to him, America is now a banana republic. It is no longer a country of soaring ideas and idealism, a beacon to the world, an example of freedom at home and a protector of freedom abroad, an anchor of sanity in a world often bouncing on the waves of madness.
Whatever her failings, America was once majestic. Now she is hopelessly diminished — a wealthier version of the corrupt nations in the developing world that we used to ridicule. And we owe it all to Donald Trump for making America small again.
The meme of America withering into a banana republic is not a new one. Some observers made the claim after the 2000 presidential election, when Republicans successfully wrested the presidency from Al Gore, just the way cabals do in those banana republics. And it was toted out again in 2008 during the great financial meltdown when the economy was revealed to be not some great dynamo but a façade hiding a giant swindle, banana republic style. Citing the inability of the congressional Republicans to do anything but dither in the face of crisis, Paul Krugman called us a “banana republic with nukes.”
In Vanity Fair, the late Christopher Hitchens was more expansive. He enumerated the many ways in which America, the last great hope of mankind, had become a banana republic — primarily the way the government was willing to bail out the oligarchs while letting the general public suffer.
Hitchens wrote:
The chief principle of banana-ism is that of kleptocracy, whereby those in positions of influence use their time in office to maximize their own gains, always ensuring that any shortfall is made up by those unfortunates whose daily life involves earning money rather than making it.
Hitchens added that there is absolutely no accountability for the thieves. This all should sound very familiar this week, as Republicans retool the entire tax system to rob from the poor and middle classes and give to corporations and the wealthy. If that isn’t a banana republic, I don’t know what is.
But Krugman and Hitchens were writing before we had a bona fide banana republic dictator to rule our kleptocracy. And while America long has had the economic and social characteristics of a banana republic, it took Trump, who has the instincts and temperament of a gangster, to finish the transformation. There is no disguising it now. We are what we are.
Tick down the list. If kleptocracy is the hallmark of a banana republic, Trump is the kleptocrat-in-chief. He not only appears to be using the presidency as his own personal ATM, now promoting a tax-cut scam by which he stands to gain tens of millions of dollars, he also has been petty enough to steer business to his hotels and hawked his “Make America Great Again” tchotchkes. Check.
Apparently not satisfied to have enriched himself at the public’s expense, Trump has brought unprecedented nepotism to the presidency in a way that only tinhorn dictators do, giving his family access to the public trough while placing his unqualified cronies in positions of power. In this administration, everyone may be on the take. Check.
Just about every Trump directive, from health care to the environment to so-called tax reform to trade policy, seems expressly designed to give benefits to a small coterie of the wealthiest Americans while the rest of the country goes to hell. There is no longer even the pretense of concealment as there was in the good old days of Republicanism. Sure sounds like a banana republic to me. Check.
Like other tinhorn dictators, Trump has no use for the essentials of democracy. He openly attacks a free press and has a house press of his own, Fox News, and soon, quite possibly, Time Inc., the acquisition of which has been partially financed by the Koch brothers. More, there are allegations that he may using the levers of government to punish his press opponents, using the Justice Department’s antitrust suit against the proposed AT&T purchase of Time Warner to try to force the divestment of CNN.
This, too, is unprecedented in an American democracy, but not in a banana republic. Meanwhile, the Voice of America has placed on administrative leave (a reporter whose bias has leaked into his stories and who on the side has been advancing Trump’s right-wing agenda and casting racial epithets at others in the media. Check.
Trump has taken aim at the electoral process itself, not only claiming that his loss of the popular vote was a fraud, but empaneling a government commission whose sole purpose is thought to be the disenfranchisement of voters who might oppose him. This is pure banana republicanism and an affront to democracy. Check.
Banana republics are often agent states — that is, they operate at the behest of larger states. In fact the phrase “banana republic” first was coined by the writer O. Henry back in 1904, to describe the dependence of Central American countries on American businesses like United Fruit, which ran plantations in those countries and exported bananas.
Now, America itself is one of those agent states, thanks to Trump’s troubling obeisance to Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Let’s not pretend otherwise just so we can save some face. There is no more face to save. American elections interfered with by Russia and a president intimidated by a Russian dictator? Check.
In banana republics, ideology is nothing, policy is nothing, ethics are nothing. Power is everything. Trump is notoriously nonideological. He has no policies or any interest in them. His sole desire is to feed his own inflated ego. In this, he stands with other banana republic potentates. Check.
Tinhorn dictators do everything they can to dismantle a system of checks and balances. Trump has done everything in his power to do the same — from dismissing FBI Director James Comey, who was investigating Trump, intimidating the Justice Department and taking over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to…. well, you name it. Untrammeled power is his goal. Check.
In a banana republic, power is concentrated in the hands of one man or a small coterie. Trump has been openly contemptuous of any delegation of authority, even calling himself the “only one that matters,” which is dictator talk, not the talk of a democratically elected chief.
What’s more, he actively has worked to damage any countervailing authorities, essentially gutting the entire diplomatic corps, to cite just one example. Check.
In a banana republic, the dictator makes his own rules and lives by his own reality. Clearly, Trump thinks he is above the law, be it legal or moral. He boasts of it. He also is above fact. The latest example of the thousands of his presidency: According to The New York Times, he privately has declared that the Access Hollywood tape was not actually him! Banana republic time. Check.
And last but not least, there is the tragi-comic state itself — a kind of laughingstock of governance. America has joined that company of buffoonish nations that keep tripping over their own feet. By one account, when Trump took his first world tour in May, other leaders were aghast at Trump’s ineptitude. One foreign expert commented on how “rapidly the American brand is depreciating over the last 20 weeks.” Check.
Donald Trump has demeaned himself, but he has also demeaned the country that was deranged enough to elect him. These characteristics speak to a corrupt and desiccated nation, one that is staggering into oblivion.
The “alt-right” insist that until Trump, America was going the way of Rome — rotting from the inside. They are wrong. It is not decadence that is destroying America, but petulance. We are going not the way of Rome but the way of Guatemala or Zimbabwe or the Philippines — the way of banana republics. Thus does this once great nation tumble.
Check and double check.
Thanks to Trump the tinhorn dictator and those who elected him, this country is no longer a beacon of freedom, but a laughingstock.
BY NEAL GABLER
When people call Donald Trump an authoritarian, it almost gives him more credit than he deserves.
You don’t think favorably of authoritarians; they are despicable. But you do think of them as monstrously large, grievously terrifying, as somehow taking the measure of the polity they control and drawing on its stature to puff themselves up, even as they destroy their nation’s moral core. Despots like Mussolini and Hitler epitomized evil on the grandest possible scale. To call them clowns would trivialize the unconscionable horrors they inflicted.
Trump is certainly an authoritarian, but he is more of a tinhorn dictator, a tiny, negligible man who, rather than inflating himself with the nation’s grandeur, has managed to deflate the nation with his own insipidness. Thanks to him, America is now a banana republic. It is no longer a country of soaring ideas and idealism, a beacon to the world, an example of freedom at home and a protector of freedom abroad, an anchor of sanity in a world often bouncing on the waves of madness.
Whatever her failings, America was once majestic. Now she is hopelessly diminished — a wealthier version of the corrupt nations in the developing world that we used to ridicule. And we owe it all to Donald Trump for making America small again.
The meme of America withering into a banana republic is not a new one. Some observers made the claim after the 2000 presidential election, when Republicans successfully wrested the presidency from Al Gore, just the way cabals do in those banana republics. And it was toted out again in 2008 during the great financial meltdown when the economy was revealed to be not some great dynamo but a façade hiding a giant swindle, banana republic style. Citing the inability of the congressional Republicans to do anything but dither in the face of crisis, Paul Krugman called us a “banana republic with nukes.”
In Vanity Fair, the late Christopher Hitchens was more expansive. He enumerated the many ways in which America, the last great hope of mankind, had become a banana republic — primarily the way the government was willing to bail out the oligarchs while letting the general public suffer.
Hitchens wrote:
The chief principle of banana-ism is that of kleptocracy, whereby those in positions of influence use their time in office to maximize their own gains, always ensuring that any shortfall is made up by those unfortunates whose daily life involves earning money rather than making it.
Hitchens added that there is absolutely no accountability for the thieves. This all should sound very familiar this week, as Republicans retool the entire tax system to rob from the poor and middle classes and give to corporations and the wealthy. If that isn’t a banana republic, I don’t know what is.
But Krugman and Hitchens were writing before we had a bona fide banana republic dictator to rule our kleptocracy. And while America long has had the economic and social characteristics of a banana republic, it took Trump, who has the instincts and temperament of a gangster, to finish the transformation. There is no disguising it now. We are what we are.
Tick down the list. If kleptocracy is the hallmark of a banana republic, Trump is the kleptocrat-in-chief. He not only appears to be using the presidency as his own personal ATM, now promoting a tax-cut scam by which he stands to gain tens of millions of dollars, he also has been petty enough to steer business to his hotels and hawked his “Make America Great Again” tchotchkes. Check.
Apparently not satisfied to have enriched himself at the public’s expense, Trump has brought unprecedented nepotism to the presidency in a way that only tinhorn dictators do, giving his family access to the public trough while placing his unqualified cronies in positions of power. In this administration, everyone may be on the take. Check.
Just about every Trump directive, from health care to the environment to so-called tax reform to trade policy, seems expressly designed to give benefits to a small coterie of the wealthiest Americans while the rest of the country goes to hell. There is no longer even the pretense of concealment as there was in the good old days of Republicanism. Sure sounds like a banana republic to me. Check.
Like other tinhorn dictators, Trump has no use for the essentials of democracy. He openly attacks a free press and has a house press of his own, Fox News, and soon, quite possibly, Time Inc., the acquisition of which has been partially financed by the Koch brothers. More, there are allegations that he may using the levers of government to punish his press opponents, using the Justice Department’s antitrust suit against the proposed AT&T purchase of Time Warner to try to force the divestment of CNN.
This, too, is unprecedented in an American democracy, but not in a banana republic. Meanwhile, the Voice of America has placed on administrative leave (a reporter whose bias has leaked into his stories and who on the side has been advancing Trump’s right-wing agenda and casting racial epithets at others in the media. Check.
Trump has taken aim at the electoral process itself, not only claiming that his loss of the popular vote was a fraud, but empaneling a government commission whose sole purpose is thought to be the disenfranchisement of voters who might oppose him. This is pure banana republicanism and an affront to democracy. Check.
Banana republics are often agent states — that is, they operate at the behest of larger states. In fact the phrase “banana republic” first was coined by the writer O. Henry back in 1904, to describe the dependence of Central American countries on American businesses like United Fruit, which ran plantations in those countries and exported bananas.
Now, America itself is one of those agent states, thanks to Trump’s troubling obeisance to Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Let’s not pretend otherwise just so we can save some face. There is no more face to save. American elections interfered with by Russia and a president intimidated by a Russian dictator? Check.
In banana republics, ideology is nothing, policy is nothing, ethics are nothing. Power is everything. Trump is notoriously nonideological. He has no policies or any interest in them. His sole desire is to feed his own inflated ego. In this, he stands with other banana republic potentates. Check.
Tinhorn dictators do everything they can to dismantle a system of checks and balances. Trump has done everything in his power to do the same — from dismissing FBI Director James Comey, who was investigating Trump, intimidating the Justice Department and taking over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to…. well, you name it. Untrammeled power is his goal. Check.
In a banana republic, power is concentrated in the hands of one man or a small coterie. Trump has been openly contemptuous of any delegation of authority, even calling himself the “only one that matters,” which is dictator talk, not the talk of a democratically elected chief.
What’s more, he actively has worked to damage any countervailing authorities, essentially gutting the entire diplomatic corps, to cite just one example. Check.
In a banana republic, the dictator makes his own rules and lives by his own reality. Clearly, Trump thinks he is above the law, be it legal or moral. He boasts of it. He also is above fact. The latest example of the thousands of his presidency: According to The New York Times, he privately has declared that the Access Hollywood tape was not actually him! Banana republic time. Check.
And last but not least, there is the tragi-comic state itself — a kind of laughingstock of governance. America has joined that company of buffoonish nations that keep tripping over their own feet. By one account, when Trump took his first world tour in May, other leaders were aghast at Trump’s ineptitude. One foreign expert commented on how “rapidly the American brand is depreciating over the last 20 weeks.” Check.
Donald Trump has demeaned himself, but he has also demeaned the country that was deranged enough to elect him. These characteristics speak to a corrupt and desiccated nation, one that is staggering into oblivion.
The “alt-right” insist that until Trump, America was going the way of Rome — rotting from the inside. They are wrong. It is not decadence that is destroying America, but petulance. We are going not the way of Rome but the way of Guatemala or Zimbabwe or the Philippines — the way of banana republics. Thus does this once great nation tumble.
Check and double check.
M33: Triangulum Galaxy
The small, northern constellation Triangulum harbors this magnificent face-on spiral galaxy, M33. Its popular names include the Pinwheel Galaxy or just the Triangulum Galaxy. M33 is over 50,000 light-years in diameter, third largest in the Local Group of galaxies after the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), and our own Milky Way. About 3 million light-years from the Milky Way, M33 is itself thought to be a satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy and astronomers in these two galaxies would likely have spectacular views of each other's grand spiral star systems. As for the view from planet Earth, this sharp composite image nicely shows off M33's blue star clusters and pinkish star forming regions along the galaxy's loosely wound spiral arms. In fact, the cavernous NGC 604 is the brightest star forming region, seen here at about the 7 o'clock position from the galaxy center. Like M31, M33's population of well-measured variable stars have helped make this nearby spiral a cosmic yardstick for establishing the distance scale of the Universe.
Shakeups Ahead
NYT Reports More White House Shakeups Ahead
KEVIN DRUM
Um…
The White House has developed a plan to force out Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, whose relationship with President Trump has been strained, and replace him with Mike Pompeo, the C.I.A. director, within the next several weeks, senior administration officials said on Thursday. Mr. Pompeo would be replaced at the C.I.A. by Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas who has been a key ally of the president on national security matters.
Pompeo has mainly distinguished himself by being the most political CIA chief in recent history, but I suppose if you’re going to be openly political you might as well be in an explicitly political job like Secretary of State. As for Cotton, he strikes me as pretty inexperienced to be head of the CIA, but who knows?
Of the major players in the Trump administration when it began, this would mean that Trump has lost or fired: Sean Spicer, Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, Mike Flynn, and Rex Tillerson. Of the original campaign crew, only Jared Kushner and Jeff Sessions are left, and both seem to be on thin ice these days.
But don’t worry. Things are going great. Like a Swiss watch.
KEVIN DRUM
Um…
The White House has developed a plan to force out Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, whose relationship with President Trump has been strained, and replace him with Mike Pompeo, the C.I.A. director, within the next several weeks, senior administration officials said on Thursday. Mr. Pompeo would be replaced at the C.I.A. by Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas who has been a key ally of the president on national security matters.
Pompeo has mainly distinguished himself by being the most political CIA chief in recent history, but I suppose if you’re going to be openly political you might as well be in an explicitly political job like Secretary of State. As for Cotton, he strikes me as pretty inexperienced to be head of the CIA, but who knows?
Of the major players in the Trump administration when it began, this would mean that Trump has lost or fired: Sean Spicer, Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, Mike Flynn, and Rex Tillerson. Of the original campaign crew, only Jared Kushner and Jeff Sessions are left, and both seem to be on thin ice these days.
But don’t worry. Things are going great. Like a Swiss watch.
Colbert Mocks...
Stephen Colbert Mocks Trump for Commenting on Matt Lauer Firing
“That is the pot calling the kettle at 3 am and asking what she’s wearing.”
MOTHER JONES
Stephen Colbert, who introduced himself on Wednesday as “one of the few men still allowed on television,” mocked President Donald Trump’s decision to weigh in on Matt Lauer’s abrupt firing from NBC, reminding the president that more than a dozen women have lodged similar accusations of sexual misconduct against him.
“Listen up: You don’t get to comment,” the Late Show host said. “That is the pot calling the kettle at 3 am and asking what she’s wearing. Plus, remember the whole Billy Bush bus thing?”
Colbert then brought up recent reports that Trump has started to privately question the authenticity of the infamous Access Hollywood recording, in which Trump was caught bragging about grabbing a woman’s “pussy” without her consent.
“When you listen to it again, it can’t be him,” he said. “Because anyone who said that wouldn’t get elected president of the United States.”
“That is the pot calling the kettle at 3 am and asking what she’s wearing.”
MOTHER JONES
Stephen Colbert, who introduced himself on Wednesday as “one of the few men still allowed on television,” mocked President Donald Trump’s decision to weigh in on Matt Lauer’s abrupt firing from NBC, reminding the president that more than a dozen women have lodged similar accusations of sexual misconduct against him.
“Listen up: You don’t get to comment,” the Late Show host said. “That is the pot calling the kettle at 3 am and asking what she’s wearing. Plus, remember the whole Billy Bush bus thing?”
Colbert then brought up recent reports that Trump has started to privately question the authenticity of the infamous Access Hollywood recording, in which Trump was caught bragging about grabbing a woman’s “pussy” without her consent.
“When you listen to it again, it can’t be him,” he said. “Because anyone who said that wouldn’t get elected president of the United States.”
We called it "The Utah Jobs Project..." Zero Experience? No problem..
Kellyanne Conway Has Zero Experience In Drug Policy But Is Running the White House Opioid Response
Attorney General Jeff Sessions called the appointment “a very significant commitment” from the Trump administration.
JULIA LURIE
Kellyanne Conway is spearheading the Trump Administration’s efforts to combat the opioid epidemic, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said at a press conference Wednesday.
Conway will “coordinate and lead the effort from the White House,” according to Sessions. “I think her appointment represents a very significant commitment from the president and his White House team.”
Conway has “zero background” on drug policy, says Keith Humphreys, a Stanford psychiatry professor and former Obama drug policy advisor, adding that it’s unclear what this position entails. The White House has reportedly clarified that Sessions was simply acknowledging a role Conway was already playing in the administration’s response to the epidemic, according to Politico reporters.
Trump has yet to install a drug czar, or the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which typically leads the White House’s drug policy efforts. Earlier this fall, Trump nominated Rep. Tom Marino (R-Penn.) to the position, but Marino withdrew from consideration after Mother Jones and other outlets reported on Marino’s ties to the pharmaceutical industry and his track record sponsoring legislation that weakened the Drug Enforcement Agency. Last month, Trump declared the opioid epidemic to be a public health emergency, falling short of the national state of emergency status that would open up federal disaster funding.
Conway seems to share Trump’s reluctance to allocate significant funding to combat the opioid epidemic. In June, she made headlines when she told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos “pouring money into the problem is not the only answer.”
Solving the opioid epidemic, she declared, “takes a four-letter word called ‘will.'”
Attorney General Jeff Sessions called the appointment “a very significant commitment” from the Trump administration.
JULIA LURIE
Kellyanne Conway is spearheading the Trump Administration’s efforts to combat the opioid epidemic, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said at a press conference Wednesday.
Conway will “coordinate and lead the effort from the White House,” according to Sessions. “I think her appointment represents a very significant commitment from the president and his White House team.”
Conway has “zero background” on drug policy, says Keith Humphreys, a Stanford psychiatry professor and former Obama drug policy advisor, adding that it’s unclear what this position entails. The White House has reportedly clarified that Sessions was simply acknowledging a role Conway was already playing in the administration’s response to the epidemic, according to Politico reporters.
Trump has yet to install a drug czar, or the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which typically leads the White House’s drug policy efforts. Earlier this fall, Trump nominated Rep. Tom Marino (R-Penn.) to the position, but Marino withdrew from consideration after Mother Jones and other outlets reported on Marino’s ties to the pharmaceutical industry and his track record sponsoring legislation that weakened the Drug Enforcement Agency. Last month, Trump declared the opioid epidemic to be a public health emergency, falling short of the national state of emergency status that would open up federal disaster funding.
Conway seems to share Trump’s reluctance to allocate significant funding to combat the opioid epidemic. In June, she made headlines when she told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos “pouring money into the problem is not the only answer.”
Solving the opioid epidemic, she declared, “takes a four-letter word called ‘will.'”
Closing Their Checkbooks
Republican Donors Are Mad as Hell and Closing Their Checkbooks
Even the passage of a tax bill may not assuage the GOP’s frustrated benefactors.
RUSS CHOMA
When politicians come knocking on Bill Miller’s door, he usually has big checks to deliver. But lately, Miller, a Republican lobbyist in Austin, Texas, says the major donors he advises on how and when to make their campaign contributions are not taking out their checkbooks. At all.
“I’m not saying they’ve cut them off for good, but they have cut them off temporarily,” Miller says. “This conversation has been repeated more than a few times, ‘Not going to give right now, Bill, I’m just mad. Nah, not going to give right now.'”
The reason, Miller says, is the failure of Republicans to accomplish much of anything in Washington, from their whiff on Obamacare to their ongoing wrangling over tax reform. Donors are livid, particularly because Republicans control both chambers of Congress and the White House and have still floundered.
Dan Eberhart, the CEO of Canary, an Arizona-based oil drilling services company, is one of them. Eberhart, who describes himself as “a frustrated GOP establishment donor,” helped bundle donations for several GOP presidential candidates in 2016 and estimates he donated about $200,000 in the last election to campaigns and super-PACs. Much of that, he directed to the Republican Party itself: $70,000 to the Republican National Committee and $15,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the party’s campaign arm supporting Senate candidates. This year, he’s holding back. He donated $2,500 to the NRSC in September but says he will refrain from more serious donations until he at least sees action on tax reform. A Senate vote on the legislation could come as early as this week.
“I don’t know why donors should give to the NRSC until tax reform is passed,” Eberhart says. “Thanks for [Supreme Court Justice Neil] Gorsuch, but you haven’t otherwise used the majority.”
Donor dissatisfaction has translated into meager Republican fundraising hauls. Monthly fundraising totals for the NRSC, which is closely aligned with the Senate leadership, have dropped steeply. Through the first six months of 2017, the NRSC raised an average of $4.6 million per month. But since July, after the GOP’s effort to repeal Obamacare flopped, it has raised an average of $2.1 million.
The Republican National Committee has fared better but also appears to be suffering. In October, the RNC raised about $9.1 million, far more than the $3.9 million raised by its Democratic equivalent. But it was the committee’s second-lowest month of fundraising this year, making up less than half of what it raised in January, when enthusiasm for President Donald Trump and a GOP-controlled Congress was at its peak.
Eberhart’s ire is targeted at the Senate, but Miller says the anger from donors he knows is wider and deeper—and worse than the numbers reflect. There are too many “black holes,” such as super-PACs and dark-money groups, to fully grasp the scale of the drop-off, he says, but it is significant.
“I just know in my experience, the people I’ve talked to write big checks, and big checks to a lot of different places and a lot of different people, and they’re not writing any checks to anybody—to anyone, anywhere,” he says. “They’re kind of put off generally down the line. They might do some things a little more locally, but the national thing? Nah. Nothing. Flat.”
Fundraising pleas from Republican politicians are falling on deaf ears, Miller says. Donors just want action. And even the passage of a tax bill may not be enough to convince donors to get back on the bandwagon anytime soon.
“The tax bill they’ve got now, it will help, because you’ve done something, and taxes are a big deal to a lot of people,” he says. “Is it a cure? No. It’s a salve.” After he began publicly making critical comments in the press about the GOP-controlled Congress for failing to heed its donors’ wishes, he says, he got calls from four Republican senators asking him to reconsider. None of them convinced him.
Perhaps more dangerous for Republican leaders is that Stephen Bannon, Trump’s ousted strategist who has declared war on the GOP establishment, has been sidling up to donors, including Eberhart, who says he’s spoken to the Breitbart head numerous times. Eberhart says Bannon hasn’t hit him up for cash yet, but he’s been impressed with Bannon’s vision.
“He has not asked me for money,” Eberhart says. “I am not naive in the sense that I don’t think that’s not coming, but literally when I met with him, he hasn’t seemed that worried about it. He was focused on policy, tax reform, and results.”
Bannon’s pivot to fundraising mode may already be happening. Axios reported last week that Bannon had established a politically active nonprofit—a dark-money group—to fundraise and promote his agenda.
The signs are ominous for Republican leaders, Miller says. “If they’re not worried, they’re stupid,” he says. “Or crazy. Or both.”
Even the passage of a tax bill may not assuage the GOP’s frustrated benefactors.
RUSS CHOMA
When politicians come knocking on Bill Miller’s door, he usually has big checks to deliver. But lately, Miller, a Republican lobbyist in Austin, Texas, says the major donors he advises on how and when to make their campaign contributions are not taking out their checkbooks. At all.
“I’m not saying they’ve cut them off for good, but they have cut them off temporarily,” Miller says. “This conversation has been repeated more than a few times, ‘Not going to give right now, Bill, I’m just mad. Nah, not going to give right now.'”
The reason, Miller says, is the failure of Republicans to accomplish much of anything in Washington, from their whiff on Obamacare to their ongoing wrangling over tax reform. Donors are livid, particularly because Republicans control both chambers of Congress and the White House and have still floundered.
Dan Eberhart, the CEO of Canary, an Arizona-based oil drilling services company, is one of them. Eberhart, who describes himself as “a frustrated GOP establishment donor,” helped bundle donations for several GOP presidential candidates in 2016 and estimates he donated about $200,000 in the last election to campaigns and super-PACs. Much of that, he directed to the Republican Party itself: $70,000 to the Republican National Committee and $15,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the party’s campaign arm supporting Senate candidates. This year, he’s holding back. He donated $2,500 to the NRSC in September but says he will refrain from more serious donations until he at least sees action on tax reform. A Senate vote on the legislation could come as early as this week.
“I don’t know why donors should give to the NRSC until tax reform is passed,” Eberhart says. “Thanks for [Supreme Court Justice Neil] Gorsuch, but you haven’t otherwise used the majority.”
Donor dissatisfaction has translated into meager Republican fundraising hauls. Monthly fundraising totals for the NRSC, which is closely aligned with the Senate leadership, have dropped steeply. Through the first six months of 2017, the NRSC raised an average of $4.6 million per month. But since July, after the GOP’s effort to repeal Obamacare flopped, it has raised an average of $2.1 million.
The Republican National Committee has fared better but also appears to be suffering. In October, the RNC raised about $9.1 million, far more than the $3.9 million raised by its Democratic equivalent. But it was the committee’s second-lowest month of fundraising this year, making up less than half of what it raised in January, when enthusiasm for President Donald Trump and a GOP-controlled Congress was at its peak.
Eberhart’s ire is targeted at the Senate, but Miller says the anger from donors he knows is wider and deeper—and worse than the numbers reflect. There are too many “black holes,” such as super-PACs and dark-money groups, to fully grasp the scale of the drop-off, he says, but it is significant.
“I just know in my experience, the people I’ve talked to write big checks, and big checks to a lot of different places and a lot of different people, and they’re not writing any checks to anybody—to anyone, anywhere,” he says. “They’re kind of put off generally down the line. They might do some things a little more locally, but the national thing? Nah. Nothing. Flat.”
Fundraising pleas from Republican politicians are falling on deaf ears, Miller says. Donors just want action. And even the passage of a tax bill may not be enough to convince donors to get back on the bandwagon anytime soon.
“The tax bill they’ve got now, it will help, because you’ve done something, and taxes are a big deal to a lot of people,” he says. “Is it a cure? No. It’s a salve.” After he began publicly making critical comments in the press about the GOP-controlled Congress for failing to heed its donors’ wishes, he says, he got calls from four Republican senators asking him to reconsider. None of them convinced him.
Perhaps more dangerous for Republican leaders is that Stephen Bannon, Trump’s ousted strategist who has declared war on the GOP establishment, has been sidling up to donors, including Eberhart, who says he’s spoken to the Breitbart head numerous times. Eberhart says Bannon hasn’t hit him up for cash yet, but he’s been impressed with Bannon’s vision.
“He has not asked me for money,” Eberhart says. “I am not naive in the sense that I don’t think that’s not coming, but literally when I met with him, he hasn’t seemed that worried about it. He was focused on policy, tax reform, and results.”
Bannon’s pivot to fundraising mode may already be happening. Axios reported last week that Bannon had established a politically active nonprofit—a dark-money group—to fundraise and promote his agenda.
The signs are ominous for Republican leaders, Miller says. “If they’re not worried, they’re stupid,” he says. “Or crazy. Or both.”
Memes mock Melania
Memes mock Melania Trump's White House Christmas decorations
By Amy Graff
Social media is mocking a photo display of White House holiday decorations that some say look rather haunting.
While most of the decorations appear traditional, one hallway has a more modern, stark display. The First Lady's Director of Communications Stephanie Grisham also sent out a tweet with the image of the hallway decorations that many are deeming eerie and spooky and better suited to Halloween than Christmas.
One Twitter user pointed out that the dimly lit hallway lined with dead branches painted white looks like the perfect spot to tape a "Stranger Things" scene.
Another took the shadowy image and Photoshopped in Jack Skellington.
Someone also joked the decorations are reflective of First Lady Melania Trump's goth phase.
The White House unveiled its holiday decorations this week, issuing a video (below) of the Balsam fir trees sparkling with lights and ornaments adorning rooms throughout the White House.
A press statement from the White House says the decorations were designed by First Lady Melania Trump "with a nod to tradition" and paying "respect to 200 years of holiday traditions at the White House."
The theme goes hand-in-hand with President Trump's belief that America needs to restore the tradition in Christmas. For example, he routinely makes the point that we should use the more traditional greeting of "Merry Christmas" over the politically correct "Happy Holidays."
By Amy Graff
Social media is mocking a photo display of White House holiday decorations that some say look rather haunting.
One Twitter user pointed out that the dimly lit hallway lined with dead branches painted white looks like the perfect spot to tape a "Stranger Things" scene.
Another took the shadowy image and Photoshopped in Jack Skellington.
Someone also joked the decorations are reflective of First Lady Melania Trump's goth phase.
The White House unveiled its holiday decorations this week, issuing a video (below) of the Balsam fir trees sparkling with lights and ornaments adorning rooms throughout the White House.
A press statement from the White House says the decorations were designed by First Lady Melania Trump "with a nod to tradition" and paying "respect to 200 years of holiday traditions at the White House."
The theme goes hand-in-hand with President Trump's belief that America needs to restore the tradition in Christmas. For example, he routinely makes the point that we should use the more traditional greeting of "Merry Christmas" over the politically correct "Happy Holidays."
Sue President for Libel?
Could Joe Scarborough Sue President Trump for Libel?
He could try. But there’s almost no way he could win.
By BRADLEY P. MOSS
Almost lost amid the furor surrounding President Donald Trump’s widely condemned promotion Wednesday morning of anti-Muslim videos was the president’s suggestion that his current media nemesis, Joe Scarborough, was somehow involved in the tragic death of an intern in 2001. Though PolitiFact has ruled Trump’s tweet “pants on fire,” the urban myths surrounding the death of Scarborough intern Lori Klausutis in his Florida district office have never truly disappeared from the fever swamps, and the president seemed to give them new life by suggesting MSNBC fire Scarborough based on this “unsolved mystery.”
“Looks like I picked a good day to stop responding to Trump’s bizarre tweets,” Scarborough replied. “He is not well.”
Although Trump’s tweet, a pedestrian attack beneath the dignity of the office of the President, is disgusting in its own right, the unfortunate reality is that there is no viable legal action Scarborough can take against the president for libel or defamation for one simple reason: The president is immune.
The president’s immunity is based upon a statute that covers all federal employees. The Federal Employees Liability Reform and Tort Compensation Act of 1988—more commonly known as the Westfall Act—stipulates that federal employees retain absolute immunity from common-law tort claims arising out of acts they undertake in the course of their official duties. That immunity extends to both “negligent” and “wrongful” acts.
If a federal employee is sued for a common-law tort—such as libel—it’s up to the attorney general to determine whether the alleged act falls within the scope of the official’s employment. In practice, these scope-of-employment certifications are broadly issued to a host of activities in which federal employees may engage, and often are done so even if the activity is only tangentially related to the employee’s actual duties. If the attorney general issues the certification, the individual federal employee is removed from the lawsuit and the United States takes his or her place as the defendant. Under the Federal Tort Claims Act (which the Westfall Act amended), claims cannot be brought against the United States for libel or slander. Put simpler, if the attorney general’s certification stands, the lawsuit dies.
The sliver of good news here is that the attorney general’s certification is subject to challenge. The bad news is that the burden is on the person bringing the lawsuit to demonstrate that the federal employee’s actions did in fact exceed the scope of their employment.
Speaking from personal experience, I can attest to the fact it is exceedingly difficult to meet that burden, particularly in the context of political remarks made by constitutional officers such as the president or members of Congress. Two infamous cases addressing this problem involved controversial remarks made by since-deceased members of Congress, namely Reps. Cass Ballenger of North Carolina and John Murtha of Pennsylvania.
In both cases—the latter of which was litigated by the firm in which I serve as a partner—the members of Congress made what would otherwise likely be construed as libelous and defamatory statements. Ballenger described the Council on American-Islamic Relations as a “fund-raising arm for Hezbollah” and Murtha accused U.S. Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Frank D. Wuterich (and other Marines) of deliberately murdering innocent Iraqi civilians in the Haditha incident during Operation Iraqi Freedom. CAIR and Wuterich sued, and in both cases, the courts determined that speaking to the press fell within the scope of the congressmen’s authorized duties, and that, so long as the underlying conduct was motivated at least in part by a legitimate desire to discharge official duties, it was sufficient to warrant immunity.
The courts have afforded federal employees similar amounts of latitude to push back against critics of government policy. Civil litigation brought by Valerie Plame Wilson against certain Bush administration officials who had disseminated to the media her covert affiliation with the CIA ultimately failed after the D.C. Circuit concluded that the administration officials were within the scope of their duties to speak to the press for the purpose of defending administration policies. The fact that this action manifested itself in the form of disseminating Wilson’s covert status did not alter the analysis or the ultimate legal conclusion; vice presidential aide Scooter Libby ultimately was convicted by a federal jury for obstruction of justice, perjury and lying to the FBI—but he faced no civil penalty.
It seems crazy to think that suggesting a prominent media figure is a murderer would fall within the scope of the president’s official duties, but the precedent is clear: It would be almost impossible to win a libel lawsuit against him. This reality provides Trump with a significant amount of legal cover, as presumably he has been reassured by the White House Counsel’s Office. Indeed, it is difficult to envision a viable argument by which someone who is the target of the president’s Twitter rants—such as Scarborough—could successfully bring a claim that would puncture the president’s immunity.
Instead, we are left to deal with the political fallout in the “modern presidential” world in which we now live.
He could try. But there’s almost no way he could win.
By BRADLEY P. MOSS
Almost lost amid the furor surrounding President Donald Trump’s widely condemned promotion Wednesday morning of anti-Muslim videos was the president’s suggestion that his current media nemesis, Joe Scarborough, was somehow involved in the tragic death of an intern in 2001. Though PolitiFact has ruled Trump’s tweet “pants on fire,” the urban myths surrounding the death of Scarborough intern Lori Klausutis in his Florida district office have never truly disappeared from the fever swamps, and the president seemed to give them new life by suggesting MSNBC fire Scarborough based on this “unsolved mystery.”
“Looks like I picked a good day to stop responding to Trump’s bizarre tweets,” Scarborough replied. “He is not well.”
Although Trump’s tweet, a pedestrian attack beneath the dignity of the office of the President, is disgusting in its own right, the unfortunate reality is that there is no viable legal action Scarborough can take against the president for libel or defamation for one simple reason: The president is immune.
The president’s immunity is based upon a statute that covers all federal employees. The Federal Employees Liability Reform and Tort Compensation Act of 1988—more commonly known as the Westfall Act—stipulates that federal employees retain absolute immunity from common-law tort claims arising out of acts they undertake in the course of their official duties. That immunity extends to both “negligent” and “wrongful” acts.
If a federal employee is sued for a common-law tort—such as libel—it’s up to the attorney general to determine whether the alleged act falls within the scope of the official’s employment. In practice, these scope-of-employment certifications are broadly issued to a host of activities in which federal employees may engage, and often are done so even if the activity is only tangentially related to the employee’s actual duties. If the attorney general issues the certification, the individual federal employee is removed from the lawsuit and the United States takes his or her place as the defendant. Under the Federal Tort Claims Act (which the Westfall Act amended), claims cannot be brought against the United States for libel or slander. Put simpler, if the attorney general’s certification stands, the lawsuit dies.
The sliver of good news here is that the attorney general’s certification is subject to challenge. The bad news is that the burden is on the person bringing the lawsuit to demonstrate that the federal employee’s actions did in fact exceed the scope of their employment.
Speaking from personal experience, I can attest to the fact it is exceedingly difficult to meet that burden, particularly in the context of political remarks made by constitutional officers such as the president or members of Congress. Two infamous cases addressing this problem involved controversial remarks made by since-deceased members of Congress, namely Reps. Cass Ballenger of North Carolina and John Murtha of Pennsylvania.
In both cases—the latter of which was litigated by the firm in which I serve as a partner—the members of Congress made what would otherwise likely be construed as libelous and defamatory statements. Ballenger described the Council on American-Islamic Relations as a “fund-raising arm for Hezbollah” and Murtha accused U.S. Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Frank D. Wuterich (and other Marines) of deliberately murdering innocent Iraqi civilians in the Haditha incident during Operation Iraqi Freedom. CAIR and Wuterich sued, and in both cases, the courts determined that speaking to the press fell within the scope of the congressmen’s authorized duties, and that, so long as the underlying conduct was motivated at least in part by a legitimate desire to discharge official duties, it was sufficient to warrant immunity.
The courts have afforded federal employees similar amounts of latitude to push back against critics of government policy. Civil litigation brought by Valerie Plame Wilson against certain Bush administration officials who had disseminated to the media her covert affiliation with the CIA ultimately failed after the D.C. Circuit concluded that the administration officials were within the scope of their duties to speak to the press for the purpose of defending administration policies. The fact that this action manifested itself in the form of disseminating Wilson’s covert status did not alter the analysis or the ultimate legal conclusion; vice presidential aide Scooter Libby ultimately was convicted by a federal jury for obstruction of justice, perjury and lying to the FBI—but he faced no civil penalty.
It seems crazy to think that suggesting a prominent media figure is a murderer would fall within the scope of the president’s official duties, but the precedent is clear: It would be almost impossible to win a libel lawsuit against him. This reality provides Trump with a significant amount of legal cover, as presumably he has been reassured by the White House Counsel’s Office. Indeed, it is difficult to envision a viable argument by which someone who is the target of the president’s Twitter rants—such as Scarborough—could successfully bring a claim that would puncture the president’s immunity.
Instead, we are left to deal with the political fallout in the “modern presidential” world in which we now live.
Express mixed feelings
News outlets split on whether to attend Trump's party
In the wake of CNN's decision to boycott the White House Christmas party, other journalists express mixed feelings.
By JASON SCHWARTZ and GENEVIEVE GLATSKY
In the wake of CNN’s decision to boycott the annual White House Christmas party for media, opinion on the event was split among other reporters: Some told POLITICO they would attend, while others expressed reservations over mingling with members of an administration that so consistently attacks the press.
So far, no major news outlets plan to join CNN in keeping their reporters and editors from attending, based on an informal survey by POLITICO. A Washington Post spokesperson said, “The Post staff invited by the White House are planning to attend.”
Several reporters who had been invited to the reception in the past told POLITICO that they had been excluded this year, raising questions about how the White House made its list and whether it was playing favorites and adding to the sense that the event has become fraught with politics.
But many reporters stressed that they wanted to attend in order to maintain a normal sense of decorum. Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, said he was invited and plans to attend.
"It’s not our job to be bothered. It’s our job to do our job. Every president to a greater or lesser degree is unhappy with the coverage, and has an adversarial relationship of sorts with the people who cover him every day, so that goes with the territory. This one happens to be more vocal about it,” Baker said.
“Where I think we as reporters ought to be concerned is if that kind of sentiment is translated into tangible actions that restrict our ability to do our jobs.”
Another White House reporter, who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said that he would attend, despite his concerns over the administration’s posture toward the press.
“I do get bothered [by the attacks on the press],” he said, “But I don’t view it as our role to engage in a fight with the president. I think that it’s our role to keep doing our jobs reporting the news and not treat it like we’re two warring institutions of American democracy. We don’t need to reciprocate that attitude.”
Olivia Nuzzi of New York magazine took a harder line. She said she was not invited but that if she had been, she would not attend.
“While I don't think it's improper to attend social events with the president per se,” she said in an email, “I personally am uncomfortable with the idea of being a guest in this White House for a party (if I would not be covering the party), given Donald Trump's stated threats to the First Amendment and general lack of understanding or interest in its importance. For that reason, my personal feelings are that it sends the wrong message to schmooze under mistletoe while our freedoms are under attack. That said, I don't judge colleagues who arrive at a different conclusion.”
POLITICO is letting its reporters make their own decisions whether to attend. Spokesman Brad Dayspring said “several reporters were invited and will choose to attend based on their schedules and availability, as is the case every year.”
Tuesday night, CNN told POLITICO it would be skipping the party altogether.
“CNN will not be attending this year's White House Christmas party,” a CNN spokesperson said. “In light of the president's continued attacks on freedom of the press and CNN, we do not feel it is appropriate to celebrate with him as his invited guests. We will send a White House reporting team to the event and report on it if news warrants.”
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders fired back Tuesday night on Twitter: “Christmas comes early! Finally, good news from @CNN.”
On Wednesday morning, Trump retweeted Sanders, commenting himself: “Great, and we should boycott Fake News CNN. Dealing with them is a total waste of time!”
Stephanie Grisham, the director of communications for Melania Trump and a special assistant to the president, said in an emailed response to POLITICO’s questions that the Trumps still anticipate welcoming the media to the White House, despite CNN’s boycott.
“The President and First Lady look forward to hosting members of the press and their families at the White House in the spirit of Christmas,” Grisham said. “We have received CNN’s statement and removed all of them from the attendance list.”
She added, “As with Christmas parties in past administrations, this is off the record. This is not meant to be a news event, rather, it is an opportunity for the media and their guests to enjoy a reception at the White House this Christmas season.”
Unlike in previous years, Grisham said, the president and first lady would not pose for photos with guests. Trump may give “brief welcoming remarks,” she said, and may or may not mingle with the crowd.
This party is not the first social disruption between Trump and the media — the president also skipped the White House Correspondents' Dinner in April. And even the time and date of the Christmas party seem to reflect the contentiousness of the relationship: In the past, the event was typically at night, with many reporters bringing a significant other or child to join them. This year, it’s scheduled for Friday afternoon, at a time that could easily interfere with deadlines.
“By doing it at 2 p.m.,” one White House correspondent observed, “you can’t bring your family.”
The timing of the party, said Grisham, was “based on many schedules,” including “the president’s, first lady’s, and White House tours.”
Just who was and who wasn’t invited to the party has produced its own set of questions. Under President Barack Obama, the White House’s traditional practice was to tell news outlets they had a certain number of slots available, and then let them choose who could go, according to Peter Velz, a former Obama press aide who helped organize the party the last two years. This year, the Trump administration has picked the invitees itself, leading many to wonder why they were left off.
“I assumed it was an oversight, because I’m at the White House every day and contribute to the pool reports,” said Chris Johnson, chief political and White House reporter for the Washington Blade, an LGBT news site. He said he was consistently invited under Obama, but when he reached out to Trump officials to ask why he was not this year, received no answer.
“I could interpret this as playing favorites,” Johnson said. “The lack of invite is very consistent with me being ignored by White House press secretary Sarah Sanders during the press briefings.”
Another reporter not invited was April Ryan, a CNN contributor and the White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks. Asked whether she knew why she was left off the invitation list, she said, “I have no clue and did not ask.” She told The Washington Post on Tuesday, though, “I don’t think I was overlooked. I think they don’t like me. For whatever reason, they have disdain for me.”
Grisham declined to explain how the invite list was formed. “It is the policy of the social office that we not give out guest details for any of our events,” she said.
She did not respond to specific questions about Johnson and Ryan.
Some have speculated that the White House invited only White House correspondents with so-called hard passes granting them access to the building. Grisham, said, though, that the list was “a collaborative effort between East and West Wing press shops,” referring to the media spokespeople for both the president and first lady.
Baker, from the Times, said that, in the past, people from the paper beyond reporters on the beat were able to go, but this year, invites were cut down to just those covering the White House. "My impression is they pared back the list, which from time to time is done by different administrations,” he said.
According to Times spokesperson Danielle Rhoades Ha, the Times newsroom received fewer invitations than it had under the previous administration, though the number was “consistent with previous administrations prior to Obama.”
Overall, fewer people do seem to have been invited this year. The Obama administration hosted two holiday parties each year — one for print and radio and another for TV — but this year there will be only a single party.
Grisham said the number of invites was “on par for the first year of previous administrations.”
Velz, the former Obama press aide, said that to his knowledge, the Obama administration left it up to the news outlets to make their lists to avoid perceptions of favoritism.
“We viewed it as a fairness thing,” he said. “We didn’t want to pick our favorites. We tried to be inclusive by having such a large number of slots.”
“If the process is very opaque,” he added, “then everybody could point to themselves to say, why did this outlet come before me?”
In the wake of CNN's decision to boycott the White House Christmas party, other journalists express mixed feelings.
By JASON SCHWARTZ and GENEVIEVE GLATSKY
In the wake of CNN’s decision to boycott the annual White House Christmas party for media, opinion on the event was split among other reporters: Some told POLITICO they would attend, while others expressed reservations over mingling with members of an administration that so consistently attacks the press.
So far, no major news outlets plan to join CNN in keeping their reporters and editors from attending, based on an informal survey by POLITICO. A Washington Post spokesperson said, “The Post staff invited by the White House are planning to attend.”
Several reporters who had been invited to the reception in the past told POLITICO that they had been excluded this year, raising questions about how the White House made its list and whether it was playing favorites and adding to the sense that the event has become fraught with politics.
But many reporters stressed that they wanted to attend in order to maintain a normal sense of decorum. Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, said he was invited and plans to attend.
"It’s not our job to be bothered. It’s our job to do our job. Every president to a greater or lesser degree is unhappy with the coverage, and has an adversarial relationship of sorts with the people who cover him every day, so that goes with the territory. This one happens to be more vocal about it,” Baker said.
“Where I think we as reporters ought to be concerned is if that kind of sentiment is translated into tangible actions that restrict our ability to do our jobs.”
Another White House reporter, who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said that he would attend, despite his concerns over the administration’s posture toward the press.
“I do get bothered [by the attacks on the press],” he said, “But I don’t view it as our role to engage in a fight with the president. I think that it’s our role to keep doing our jobs reporting the news and not treat it like we’re two warring institutions of American democracy. We don’t need to reciprocate that attitude.”
Olivia Nuzzi of New York magazine took a harder line. She said she was not invited but that if she had been, she would not attend.
“While I don't think it's improper to attend social events with the president per se,” she said in an email, “I personally am uncomfortable with the idea of being a guest in this White House for a party (if I would not be covering the party), given Donald Trump's stated threats to the First Amendment and general lack of understanding or interest in its importance. For that reason, my personal feelings are that it sends the wrong message to schmooze under mistletoe while our freedoms are under attack. That said, I don't judge colleagues who arrive at a different conclusion.”
POLITICO is letting its reporters make their own decisions whether to attend. Spokesman Brad Dayspring said “several reporters were invited and will choose to attend based on their schedules and availability, as is the case every year.”
Tuesday night, CNN told POLITICO it would be skipping the party altogether.
“CNN will not be attending this year's White House Christmas party,” a CNN spokesperson said. “In light of the president's continued attacks on freedom of the press and CNN, we do not feel it is appropriate to celebrate with him as his invited guests. We will send a White House reporting team to the event and report on it if news warrants.”
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders fired back Tuesday night on Twitter: “Christmas comes early! Finally, good news from @CNN.”
On Wednesday morning, Trump retweeted Sanders, commenting himself: “Great, and we should boycott Fake News CNN. Dealing with them is a total waste of time!”
Stephanie Grisham, the director of communications for Melania Trump and a special assistant to the president, said in an emailed response to POLITICO’s questions that the Trumps still anticipate welcoming the media to the White House, despite CNN’s boycott.
“The President and First Lady look forward to hosting members of the press and their families at the White House in the spirit of Christmas,” Grisham said. “We have received CNN’s statement and removed all of them from the attendance list.”
She added, “As with Christmas parties in past administrations, this is off the record. This is not meant to be a news event, rather, it is an opportunity for the media and their guests to enjoy a reception at the White House this Christmas season.”
Unlike in previous years, Grisham said, the president and first lady would not pose for photos with guests. Trump may give “brief welcoming remarks,” she said, and may or may not mingle with the crowd.
This party is not the first social disruption between Trump and the media — the president also skipped the White House Correspondents' Dinner in April. And even the time and date of the Christmas party seem to reflect the contentiousness of the relationship: In the past, the event was typically at night, with many reporters bringing a significant other or child to join them. This year, it’s scheduled for Friday afternoon, at a time that could easily interfere with deadlines.
“By doing it at 2 p.m.,” one White House correspondent observed, “you can’t bring your family.”
The timing of the party, said Grisham, was “based on many schedules,” including “the president’s, first lady’s, and White House tours.”
Just who was and who wasn’t invited to the party has produced its own set of questions. Under President Barack Obama, the White House’s traditional practice was to tell news outlets they had a certain number of slots available, and then let them choose who could go, according to Peter Velz, a former Obama press aide who helped organize the party the last two years. This year, the Trump administration has picked the invitees itself, leading many to wonder why they were left off.
“I assumed it was an oversight, because I’m at the White House every day and contribute to the pool reports,” said Chris Johnson, chief political and White House reporter for the Washington Blade, an LGBT news site. He said he was consistently invited under Obama, but when he reached out to Trump officials to ask why he was not this year, received no answer.
“I could interpret this as playing favorites,” Johnson said. “The lack of invite is very consistent with me being ignored by White House press secretary Sarah Sanders during the press briefings.”
Another reporter not invited was April Ryan, a CNN contributor and the White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks. Asked whether she knew why she was left off the invitation list, she said, “I have no clue and did not ask.” She told The Washington Post on Tuesday, though, “I don’t think I was overlooked. I think they don’t like me. For whatever reason, they have disdain for me.”
Grisham declined to explain how the invite list was formed. “It is the policy of the social office that we not give out guest details for any of our events,” she said.
She did not respond to specific questions about Johnson and Ryan.
Some have speculated that the White House invited only White House correspondents with so-called hard passes granting them access to the building. Grisham, said, though, that the list was “a collaborative effort between East and West Wing press shops,” referring to the media spokespeople for both the president and first lady.
Baker, from the Times, said that, in the past, people from the paper beyond reporters on the beat were able to go, but this year, invites were cut down to just those covering the White House. "My impression is they pared back the list, which from time to time is done by different administrations,” he said.
According to Times spokesperson Danielle Rhoades Ha, the Times newsroom received fewer invitations than it had under the previous administration, though the number was “consistent with previous administrations prior to Obama.”
Overall, fewer people do seem to have been invited this year. The Obama administration hosted two holiday parties each year — one for print and radio and another for TV — but this year there will be only a single party.
Grisham said the number of invites was “on par for the first year of previous administrations.”
Velz, the former Obama press aide, said that to his knowledge, the Obama administration left it up to the news outlets to make their lists to avoid perceptions of favoritism.
“We viewed it as a fairness thing,” he said. “We didn’t want to pick our favorites. We tried to be inclusive by having such a large number of slots.”
“If the process is very opaque,” he added, “then everybody could point to themselves to say, why did this outlet come before me?”
Orangutan loves Rockets...
Trump: China's North Korea envoy 'had no impact on Little Rocket Man'
By LOUIS NELSON
President Donald Trump said Thursday that China’s recently returned envoy to North Korea “seems to have had no impact on” Kim Jong Un, questioning online why North Koreans tolerate their nation’s poor standard of living.
“The Chinese Envoy, who just returned from North Korea, seems to have had no impact on Little Rocket Man,” Trump wrote on Twitter, referring to Kim by the nickname he has pinned on him. “Hard to believe his people, and the military, put up with living in such horrible conditions. Russia and China condemned the launch.”
North Korea fired a ballistic missile Tuesday that traveled more than 600 miles, its first launch in more than two months. The Kim regime claimed that its Tuesday test shows its missiles capable of striking the entire continental U.S. The missile reached an altitude of 2,800 miles, the highest any North Korean missile has climbed, and landed in the Sea of Japan, within the Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
The Kim regime has test fired 15 missiles thus far in 2017 and conducted its sixth underground nuclear test last September, the communist nation’s most powerful nuclear test to date.
Unlike his predecessors, who have sought mostly to ignore and downplay North Korea, Trump has ratcheted up his rhetoric directed towards the repressive communist regime. He has threatened North Korea with “fire and fury like the world has never seen” should it continue its provocations, and has pointedly refused to take military action against the Kim regime off the table.
Despite his stated willingness to adopt a military strategy, Trump thus far has mostly relied on the same tactic of attempting to squeeze North Korea by leveling increasingly stringent economic sanctions against it. The president has also sought the help of China, North Korea's chief international trade partner and patron on the world stage, in reigning in the Kim regime's bellicose activity, a strategy past presidents have attempted as well and one that has thus far shown little in the way of results for Trump.
By LOUIS NELSON
President Donald Trump said Thursday that China’s recently returned envoy to North Korea “seems to have had no impact on” Kim Jong Un, questioning online why North Koreans tolerate their nation’s poor standard of living.
“The Chinese Envoy, who just returned from North Korea, seems to have had no impact on Little Rocket Man,” Trump wrote on Twitter, referring to Kim by the nickname he has pinned on him. “Hard to believe his people, and the military, put up with living in such horrible conditions. Russia and China condemned the launch.”
North Korea fired a ballistic missile Tuesday that traveled more than 600 miles, its first launch in more than two months. The Kim regime claimed that its Tuesday test shows its missiles capable of striking the entire continental U.S. The missile reached an altitude of 2,800 miles, the highest any North Korean missile has climbed, and landed in the Sea of Japan, within the Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
The Kim regime has test fired 15 missiles thus far in 2017 and conducted its sixth underground nuclear test last September, the communist nation’s most powerful nuclear test to date.
Unlike his predecessors, who have sought mostly to ignore and downplay North Korea, Trump has ratcheted up his rhetoric directed towards the repressive communist regime. He has threatened North Korea with “fire and fury like the world has never seen” should it continue its provocations, and has pointedly refused to take military action against the Kim regime off the table.
Despite his stated willingness to adopt a military strategy, Trump thus far has mostly relied on the same tactic of attempting to squeeze North Korea by leveling increasingly stringent economic sanctions against it. The president has also sought the help of China, North Korea's chief international trade partner and patron on the world stage, in reigning in the Kim regime's bellicose activity, a strategy past presidents have attempted as well and one that has thus far shown little in the way of results for Trump.
Inappropriate behavior
Garrison Keillor fired over allegations of 'inappropriate behavior'
By CRISTIANO LIMA
Garrison Keillor, the creator and former host of "A Prairie Home Companion," was fired by Minnesota Public Radio over allegations of "inappropriate behavior" with a former colleague, the public radio network announced Wednesday.
The behavior occurred while Keillor was responsible for production of his signature radio show, one of MPR's most well-known programs, the NPR member station said in a statement issued Wednesday.
The statement said MPR president Jon McTaggart and the station's board were "immediately informed" of the situation after the allegations surfaced last month, at which time the news outlet hired an outside law firm to conduct an independent investigation. MPR said "there are no similar allegations involving other staff" and Keillor.
"MPR takes these allegations seriously and we are committed to maintaining a safe, respectful and supportive work environment for all employees and everyone associated with MPR. We want a workplace where anyone who experiences unwanted behavior feels comfortable in reporting concerns to MPR," Angie Andresen, director of communications for MPR, said in a statement.
Keillor told the Associated Press in an email he was fired over "a story that I think is more interesting and more complicated than the version MPR heard." He told The Star Tribune in a separate message his hand went up the back of a woman's shirt "about six inches" after he tried to "pat her back."
"She recoiled. I apologized. I sent her an email of apology later and she replied that she had forgiven me and not to think about it. We were friends. We continued to be friendly right up until her lawyer called," Keillor told the state's largest newspaper.
The influential broadcaster also cracked that "getting fired is a real distinction in broadcasting and I've waited fifty years for the honor."
Keillor, who created "A Praise Home Companion in 1974," hosted the show until last year, when he announced his retirement from the program. He remained with MPR in a production role for "The Writer's Almanac."
MPR announced it would end distribution of “The Writer’s Almanac,” which Keillor produced, and seize rebroadcasts of “The Best of A Prairie Home Companion hosted by Garrison Keillor,” a compilation series of the program’s greatest hits.
The firing is the latest example of a high profile public media figure to be ousted over allegations of workplace misconduct.
NPR senior vice president of news Chris Turpin announced Tuesday in a memo to staff that David Sweeney, NPR's chief news editor, "is no longer on staff." Earlier, NPR's editorial director, Michael Oreskes, was ousted after two women said he forcibly kissed them while he served as Washington bureau chief for The New York Times in the 1990s.
Charlie Rose, the legendary public broadcaster and PBS host, was fired by CBS News, PBS and Bloomberg TV last week after eight women came forward with allegations of sexual harassment stemming from his time at the "Charlie Rose" show.
Longtime "Today" show host Matt Lauer was fired from NBC earlier Wednesday over allegations of "inappropriate sexual behavior."
Keillor wrote an opinion piece published Tuesday in which he defended Minnesota Sen. Al Franken, a Democrat who has also been accused of misconduct. The piece was titled, "Al Franken should resign? That’s absurd."
By CRISTIANO LIMA
Garrison Keillor, the creator and former host of "A Prairie Home Companion," was fired by Minnesota Public Radio over allegations of "inappropriate behavior" with a former colleague, the public radio network announced Wednesday.
The behavior occurred while Keillor was responsible for production of his signature radio show, one of MPR's most well-known programs, the NPR member station said in a statement issued Wednesday.
The statement said MPR president Jon McTaggart and the station's board were "immediately informed" of the situation after the allegations surfaced last month, at which time the news outlet hired an outside law firm to conduct an independent investigation. MPR said "there are no similar allegations involving other staff" and Keillor.
"MPR takes these allegations seriously and we are committed to maintaining a safe, respectful and supportive work environment for all employees and everyone associated with MPR. We want a workplace where anyone who experiences unwanted behavior feels comfortable in reporting concerns to MPR," Angie Andresen, director of communications for MPR, said in a statement.
Keillor told the Associated Press in an email he was fired over "a story that I think is more interesting and more complicated than the version MPR heard." He told The Star Tribune in a separate message his hand went up the back of a woman's shirt "about six inches" after he tried to "pat her back."
"She recoiled. I apologized. I sent her an email of apology later and she replied that she had forgiven me and not to think about it. We were friends. We continued to be friendly right up until her lawyer called," Keillor told the state's largest newspaper.
The influential broadcaster also cracked that "getting fired is a real distinction in broadcasting and I've waited fifty years for the honor."
Keillor, who created "A Praise Home Companion in 1974," hosted the show until last year, when he announced his retirement from the program. He remained with MPR in a production role for "The Writer's Almanac."
MPR announced it would end distribution of “The Writer’s Almanac,” which Keillor produced, and seize rebroadcasts of “The Best of A Prairie Home Companion hosted by Garrison Keillor,” a compilation series of the program’s greatest hits.
The firing is the latest example of a high profile public media figure to be ousted over allegations of workplace misconduct.
NPR senior vice president of news Chris Turpin announced Tuesday in a memo to staff that David Sweeney, NPR's chief news editor, "is no longer on staff." Earlier, NPR's editorial director, Michael Oreskes, was ousted after two women said he forcibly kissed them while he served as Washington bureau chief for The New York Times in the 1990s.
Charlie Rose, the legendary public broadcaster and PBS host, was fired by CBS News, PBS and Bloomberg TV last week after eight women came forward with allegations of sexual harassment stemming from his time at the "Charlie Rose" show.
Longtime "Today" show host Matt Lauer was fired from NBC earlier Wednesday over allegations of "inappropriate sexual behavior."
Keillor wrote an opinion piece published Tuesday in which he defended Minnesota Sen. Al Franken, a Democrat who has also been accused of misconduct. The piece was titled, "Al Franken should resign? That’s absurd."
N.Y. Times editorial board against Tax Rip-off bill...
N.Y. Times editorial board issues rare call to action to oppose GOP tax bill
By CRISTIANO LIMA
The New York Times editorial board openly urged voters to contact their congressional representatives to express opposition to the Senate GOP tax reform bill on Wednesday, a rare move by one of the most prominent editorial boards in the country.
"This morning, The New York Times Editorial Board is tweeting here to urge the Senate to reject a tax bill that hurts the middle class & the nation's fiscal health," the board wrote on The New York Times opinion section's official Twitter account.
The @nytopinion account's Twitter bio was changed to say the editorial board was "temporarily taking over" the platform.
In a series of tweets, the account listed the phone numbers for the congressional offices of several key Republican senators in the ongoing debate over the GOP tax bill. They included Sens. Jeff Flake and John McCain of Arizona, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Bob Corker of Tennessee, James Lankford of Oklahoma and Jerry Moran of Kansas.
The seven lawmakers are considered to be persuadable votes in the GOP's effort to overhaul the tax code, though some in the group have indicated they will support the bill.
It was not immediately clear whether The New York Times editorial board, which is separate from the news division, has ever directly called on constituents to oppose a bill by listing the phone numbers for their representatives. But the move signaled a rare call to action by the group, which has grown increasingly antagonistic to Republican efforts on tax reform.
In an editorial published Tuesday, the opinion writers blasted the "enormously unpopular tax bill" which "lavishes benefits on corporations and wealthy families."
"Republican senators have a choice. They can follow the will of their donors and vote to take money from the middle class and give it to the wealthiest people in the world. Or they can vote no, to protect the public and the financial health of the government. There’s no compromise on that," the editorial board wrote.
A representative for The Times told POLITICO on Wednesday that the editorial board's actions weren't substantively different from its everyday work, but that the social media takeover was mostly an attempt to expand its efforts onto a different platform.
"The Editorial Board has been writing for weeks about concerns over the tax legislation pending in Congress," senior vice president of communications Eileen Murphy said in a statement. "This was an experiment in using a different platform to get that message out. We emphasized to our audience that this was the position of the Editorial Board in particular, not of Times Opinion generally."
By CRISTIANO LIMA
The New York Times editorial board openly urged voters to contact their congressional representatives to express opposition to the Senate GOP tax reform bill on Wednesday, a rare move by one of the most prominent editorial boards in the country.
"This morning, The New York Times Editorial Board is tweeting here to urge the Senate to reject a tax bill that hurts the middle class & the nation's fiscal health," the board wrote on The New York Times opinion section's official Twitter account.
The @nytopinion account's Twitter bio was changed to say the editorial board was "temporarily taking over" the platform.
In a series of tweets, the account listed the phone numbers for the congressional offices of several key Republican senators in the ongoing debate over the GOP tax bill. They included Sens. Jeff Flake and John McCain of Arizona, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Bob Corker of Tennessee, James Lankford of Oklahoma and Jerry Moran of Kansas.
The seven lawmakers are considered to be persuadable votes in the GOP's effort to overhaul the tax code, though some in the group have indicated they will support the bill.
It was not immediately clear whether The New York Times editorial board, which is separate from the news division, has ever directly called on constituents to oppose a bill by listing the phone numbers for their representatives. But the move signaled a rare call to action by the group, which has grown increasingly antagonistic to Republican efforts on tax reform.
In an editorial published Tuesday, the opinion writers blasted the "enormously unpopular tax bill" which "lavishes benefits on corporations and wealthy families."
"Republican senators have a choice. They can follow the will of their donors and vote to take money from the middle class and give it to the wealthiest people in the world. Or they can vote no, to protect the public and the financial health of the government. There’s no compromise on that," the editorial board wrote.
A representative for The Times told POLITICO on Wednesday that the editorial board's actions weren't substantively different from its everyday work, but that the social media takeover was mostly an attempt to expand its efforts onto a different platform.
"The Editorial Board has been writing for weeks about concerns over the tax legislation pending in Congress," senior vice president of communications Eileen Murphy said in a statement. "This was an experiment in using a different platform to get that message out. We emphasized to our audience that this was the position of the Editorial Board in particular, not of Times Opinion generally."
It's amazing how stupid people can be.. And where it takes them...
DeVos schools Trump on 'Pocahontas' comment
By KIMBERLY HEFLING
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Wednesday responded to a question about President Donald Trump's "Pocahontas" nickname for Sen. Elizabeth Warren with a bit of advice that would make any teacher proud: "We can all do well to reflect on the things we say before we say them."
DeVos was asked by reporters in Murfreesboro, Tenn., where she was touring career and technical education programs, whether the president could be considered a good role model for children, given the "Pocahontas" comment, according to the Tennessean.
Trump took a jab at Warren (D-Mass.) at the White House on Monday while hosting the Navajo code talkers, who were recruited into the U.S. Marine Corps to communicate in the Pacific region during World War II.
“I just want to thank you because you’re very, very special people,” Trump told the group. “You were here long before any of us were here — although we have a representative in Congress who they say was here a long time ago. They call her Pocahontas. But you know what? I like you. Because you are special.”
Warren, who had claimed while a professor at Harvard to have Native American heritage, called it “deeply unfortunate” that Trump couldn’t refrain from using “a racial slur” during the ceremony.
The White House has disputed that characterization. Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the notion that "Pocahontas" is a racial slur is "ridiculous."
By KIMBERLY HEFLING
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Wednesday responded to a question about President Donald Trump's "Pocahontas" nickname for Sen. Elizabeth Warren with a bit of advice that would make any teacher proud: "We can all do well to reflect on the things we say before we say them."
DeVos was asked by reporters in Murfreesboro, Tenn., where she was touring career and technical education programs, whether the president could be considered a good role model for children, given the "Pocahontas" comment, according to the Tennessean.
Trump took a jab at Warren (D-Mass.) at the White House on Monday while hosting the Navajo code talkers, who were recruited into the U.S. Marine Corps to communicate in the Pacific region during World War II.
“I just want to thank you because you’re very, very special people,” Trump told the group. “You were here long before any of us were here — although we have a representative in Congress who they say was here a long time ago. They call her Pocahontas. But you know what? I like you. Because you are special.”
Warren, who had claimed while a professor at Harvard to have Native American heritage, called it “deeply unfortunate” that Trump couldn’t refrain from using “a racial slur” during the ceremony.
The White House has disputed that characterization. Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the notion that "Pocahontas" is a racial slur is "ridiculous."
Kushner questioned
Kushner questioned about Flynn, Associated Press reports
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has been questioned by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team of investigators about former national security adviser Michael Flynn, a person familiar with the investigation confirmed Wednesday to The Associated Press.
The person said the questioning of Kushner earlier this month took about 90 minutes or less and was aimed in part at establishing whether Kushner had any information on Flynn that might be exculpatory. The person said multiple White House witnesses have been asked about their knowledge of Flynn, who was forced to resign from the White House in February after officials concluded he had misled them about his contacts with the Russian ambassador.
The confirmation of Kushner’s interview came as prosecutors working for Mueller postponed grand jury testimony related to Flynn’s private business dealings.
The reason for the postponement was not immediately clear, but it comes one week after attorneys for Flynn alerted Trump’s legal team that they could no longer share information about the case. That discussion between lawyers was widely seen as a possible indication that Flynn was moving to cooperate with Mueller’s investigation or attempting to negotiate a deal for himself.
An attorney for Flynn, Robert Kelner, did not immediately respond to email and phone messages Wednesday afternoon. Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller, declined comment.
In a statement, Kushner’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, said, “Mr. Kushner has voluntarily cooperated with all relevant inquiries and will continue to do so.”
The details of Kushner’s questioning and the postponement of the grand jury testimony were confirmed by people familiar with Mueller’s investigation. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to publicly discuss the ongoing investigation.
Both developments were first reported by CNN.
The grand testimony that had been scheduled for the coming days related to Flynn’s firm, Flynn Intel Group, its work with a public relations firm and interactions with congressional staff, one of the people said.
Mueller and the FBI have been interested in hearing from employees at the public relations firm, SGR LLC, because of the firm’s work with Flynn Intel Group. SGR LLC, which does business as Sphere Consulting, did public relations work on a film Flynn Intel Group was working on about Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen. The film was never completed.
Mueller was appointed by the Justice Department in May to oversee an investigation into potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. The investigation, which produced its first criminal charges last month against three former Trump campaign officials, incorporated an earlier FBI inquiry into Flynn’s lobbying and investigative research work on behalf of a Turkish businessman. Flynn’s firm was paid $530,000 for the work.
Sphere employees have cooperated for months with Mueller’s investigation, including by turning over documents requested by investigators and sitting for voluntary interviews.
An October 2016 meeting that was expected to be the subject of the grand jury testimony has been described as a bait-and-switch carried out on behalf of Flynn’s firm.
As the AP reported in March , Flynn’s business partner, Bijan Kian , invited a representative of the House Homeland Security committee to Flynn Intel’s offices in Alexandria, Virginia, to discuss secure communications products. But after discussing the products, the session quickly turned into a lobbying pitch that mirrored Turkish government talking points.
Kian and others involved were particularly interested in pushing for congressional hearings to investigate Gulen, whom the Turkish government has blamed for a botched coup and who has been living in exile in Pennsylvania. Gulen has denied any involvement.
Flynn Intel Group’s requests for congressional hearings went nowhere.
Flynn disclosed some of the details of the meeting in a filing with the Justice Department earlier this year. According to that filing, an employee of Sphere consulting was present during the meeting.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has been questioned by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team of investigators about former national security adviser Michael Flynn, a person familiar with the investigation confirmed Wednesday to The Associated Press.
The person said the questioning of Kushner earlier this month took about 90 minutes or less and was aimed in part at establishing whether Kushner had any information on Flynn that might be exculpatory. The person said multiple White House witnesses have been asked about their knowledge of Flynn, who was forced to resign from the White House in February after officials concluded he had misled them about his contacts with the Russian ambassador.
The confirmation of Kushner’s interview came as prosecutors working for Mueller postponed grand jury testimony related to Flynn’s private business dealings.
The reason for the postponement was not immediately clear, but it comes one week after attorneys for Flynn alerted Trump’s legal team that they could no longer share information about the case. That discussion between lawyers was widely seen as a possible indication that Flynn was moving to cooperate with Mueller’s investigation or attempting to negotiate a deal for himself.
An attorney for Flynn, Robert Kelner, did not immediately respond to email and phone messages Wednesday afternoon. Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller, declined comment.
In a statement, Kushner’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, said, “Mr. Kushner has voluntarily cooperated with all relevant inquiries and will continue to do so.”
The details of Kushner’s questioning and the postponement of the grand jury testimony were confirmed by people familiar with Mueller’s investigation. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to publicly discuss the ongoing investigation.
Both developments were first reported by CNN.
The grand testimony that had been scheduled for the coming days related to Flynn’s firm, Flynn Intel Group, its work with a public relations firm and interactions with congressional staff, one of the people said.
Mueller and the FBI have been interested in hearing from employees at the public relations firm, SGR LLC, because of the firm’s work with Flynn Intel Group. SGR LLC, which does business as Sphere Consulting, did public relations work on a film Flynn Intel Group was working on about Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen. The film was never completed.
Mueller was appointed by the Justice Department in May to oversee an investigation into potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. The investigation, which produced its first criminal charges last month against three former Trump campaign officials, incorporated an earlier FBI inquiry into Flynn’s lobbying and investigative research work on behalf of a Turkish businessman. Flynn’s firm was paid $530,000 for the work.
Sphere employees have cooperated for months with Mueller’s investigation, including by turning over documents requested by investigators and sitting for voluntary interviews.
An October 2016 meeting that was expected to be the subject of the grand jury testimony has been described as a bait-and-switch carried out on behalf of Flynn’s firm.
As the AP reported in March , Flynn’s business partner, Bijan Kian , invited a representative of the House Homeland Security committee to Flynn Intel’s offices in Alexandria, Virginia, to discuss secure communications products. But after discussing the products, the session quickly turned into a lobbying pitch that mirrored Turkish government talking points.
Kian and others involved were particularly interested in pushing for congressional hearings to investigate Gulen, whom the Turkish government has blamed for a botched coup and who has been living in exile in Pennsylvania. Gulen has denied any involvement.
Flynn Intel Group’s requests for congressional hearings went nowhere.
Flynn disclosed some of the details of the meeting in a filing with the Justice Department earlier this year. According to that filing, an employee of Sphere consulting was present during the meeting.
Cancel Orangutan visit after retweets...
London mayor calls for UK to cancel Trump visit after retweets
Sadiq Khan called Donald Trump’s retweets of a far-right group a ‘betrayal’ of the two countries’ relationship.
By GINGER HERVEY
London Mayor Sadiq Khan called on the U.K. government to cancel any official state visit by Donald Trump after the U.S. president retweeted a series of videos posted by the leader of a far-right British political group.
The videos, which sought to portray Muslims as violent and dangerous, were originally posted to Twitter by Jayda Fransen, deputy leader of the extreme-right, ultranationalist group Britain First. Fransen was found guilty last year of religiously aggravated harassment of a Muslim woman. In a statement Thursday, Khan accused Trump of promoting a “vile, extremist group that exists solely to sow division and hatred.”
“After this latest incident, it is increasingly clear that any official visit at all from President Trump to Britain would not be welcomed,” Khan said.
The U.K. government had previously issued an invitation to Trump for 2018 which was accepted, but the details and timing had not yet been arranged. After Trump’s retweets, Prime Minister Theresa May condemned his actions but stopped short of rescinding the state visit offer.
Trump later pushed back, telling May on Twitter “don’t focus on me, focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism.”
Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable also demanded on Thursday that May not meet Trump, whom the party called an “evil racist” in a statement.
Khan also said “many Brits who love America” will see Trump’s actions as a “betrayal of the special relationship” between the two countries.
Ann Coulter, the right-wing American commentator who is one of just 45 people Trump follows on Twitter, could have been the source of his seeing the Britain First tweet. She said that she did not know what Britain First was when she retweeted the videos herself, but that she doesn’t “think it really matters, it’s a video.”
“A video is a video is a video,” Coulter said.
Sadiq Khan called Donald Trump’s retweets of a far-right group a ‘betrayal’ of the two countries’ relationship.
By GINGER HERVEY
London Mayor Sadiq Khan called on the U.K. government to cancel any official state visit by Donald Trump after the U.S. president retweeted a series of videos posted by the leader of a far-right British political group.
The videos, which sought to portray Muslims as violent and dangerous, were originally posted to Twitter by Jayda Fransen, deputy leader of the extreme-right, ultranationalist group Britain First. Fransen was found guilty last year of religiously aggravated harassment of a Muslim woman. In a statement Thursday, Khan accused Trump of promoting a “vile, extremist group that exists solely to sow division and hatred.”
“After this latest incident, it is increasingly clear that any official visit at all from President Trump to Britain would not be welcomed,” Khan said.
The U.K. government had previously issued an invitation to Trump for 2018 which was accepted, but the details and timing had not yet been arranged. After Trump’s retweets, Prime Minister Theresa May condemned his actions but stopped short of rescinding the state visit offer.
Trump later pushed back, telling May on Twitter “don’t focus on me, focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism.”
Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable also demanded on Thursday that May not meet Trump, whom the party called an “evil racist” in a statement.
Khan also said “many Brits who love America” will see Trump’s actions as a “betrayal of the special relationship” between the two countries.
Ann Coulter, the right-wing American commentator who is one of just 45 people Trump follows on Twitter, could have been the source of his seeing the Britain First tweet. She said that she did not know what Britain First was when she retweeted the videos herself, but that she doesn’t “think it really matters, it’s a video.”
“A video is a video is a video,” Coulter said.
Battle with Orangutan's Twitter feed
John Kelly’s losing battle with Trump’s Twitter feed
While the chief of staff has taken steps to control information in and out of the Oval Office, the president still uses the service to scan fringe websites that pop up in his mentions.
By ANNIE KARNI
When John Kelly accepted the position of White House chief of staff last July, he framed his main function as imposing order, including instituting a formal process for the documents and news articles that reached the Resolute Desk.
But President Donald Trump’s increasingly incendiary Twitter feed, which remains outside Kelly’s control, has short-circuited that attempt at creating a functional system for controlling the flow of information into the Oval Office.
Twitter has allowed the president to continue accessing fringe websites and viewing racist videos simply by scanning his “mentions,” according to two former aides who have observed how he uses the site. Trump doesn’t use the direct-message function on the website, which would allow people he follows to privately share links with him — but he often looks at tweets that mention his handle, and picks up links and videos there.
The conversation on Twitter then often dictates his thinking. “Everybody’s talking about this,” he will tell his top aides in the West Wing, referring to a clip or an article he saw circulating among the small group of Twitter users he follows.
On Wednesday morning, the failure of Kelly's attempt at information control was on the fullest display since he accepted the job. Trump retweeted three inflammatory videos that claimed to portray Muslims performing violent acts. None of the videos were independently verified, but they claimed to depict Muslims destroying a statue of the Virgin Mary, pushing a teen off a roof and beating him to death, as well as one video with the headline, “Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!" The clips were retweeted from the feed of Jayda Fransen, the deputy leader of a British ultranationalist party.
People close to Trump said that while his longtime aide and social media director Dan Scavino and his eldest son, Donald Trump, Jr., in the past have been responsible for sharing with the president more inflammatory content and articles from alt-right websites, Wednesday’s tweets were posted before 7 a.m. — earlier in the morning than Scavino typically interacts with the president. It appeared the videos came across the president’s feed via conservative activist Ann Coulter, one of the 45 individuals whom Trump follows on Twitter, who had retweeted one of the videos herself the day before.
Trump’s anti-Muslim tweets were followed by an unsubstantiated allegation against “Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough, accusing him of being involved in an “unsolved mystery” in Florida that Trump said needed more investigating. The post was widely seen as a reference to the 2001 death of a former Scarborough aide, from the days when the morning television personality still served in Congress.
Together, the president’s active morning on Twitter raised new questions about Kelly’s influence — specifically, what impact can the retired four-star Marine general exert when the president is determined to set his own agenda, based on his own sources of information, on a platform his chief refuses to monitor or even acknowledge is driving the news, the legislative process and the country’s standing around the globe, every day.
“Believe it or not, I do not follow the tweets,” Kelly told reporters while traveling in Asia earlier this month with the president. But when Trump is consumed by information he ferrets out online, the question is how long Kelly can perform his job while maintaining that position.
Kelly, a man driven by military self-discipline — he typically works from a standing desk in his large office down the hall from the Oval — has told people he never heard of former chief strategist Steve Bannon’s website Breitbart News before entering the administration, and says he also wasn’t a huge consumer of television news. But his own media diet and personal habits have had little effect on Trump.
That doesn’t surprise people who have been in the president’s orbit for years. “The notion that some new regime was going to be able to come into the White House and control the information flow to the president always seemed ludicrous to me,” said Sam Nunberg, a former campaign aide. “He will look at Breitbart, he will look at InfoWars, he will look at Drudge. He’s not going to forget about those. And eventually, he’s just not going to like that he’s being handled.”
On one level, former staffers acknowledge that ignoring the Twitter feed, however impossible that may be, might just save Kelly a losing battle. Since the campaign, aides have tried — and failed — to control the president’s use of Twitter. Trump is familiar with the criticisms — he knows that his retweets and his commentary are “not presidential,” he will tell aides, pre-empting the criticism he knows is coming. “The most success anyone has had, through numerous angles and schemes, has been to stop it momentarily, or to slow things down,” said one former aide of Trump’s tweets. “But it’s just not possible to control it.”
During the campaign, aides learned that deleting a tweet from Trump’s Twitter feed only drew more attention to it, and telling him “no” was impossible. Instead, they would simply try and bury the more damaging 140-character missives under a cascade of more benign Twitter content.
Trump’s typical response to people who tell him to tone down the tweets, multiple people said, is to remind them that he won the election in large part because of his use of social media — and everyone thought it was crazy back then. Former aides like Bannon have also convinced him that with his 43.6 million followers, the Twitter stream is a real way to circumvent mainstream media organizations. That is part of what has left the White House in chaos, despite Kelly’s attempts to impose military order.
“It obviously makes it very difficult for any chief of staff to be able to impose a chain of command and discipline in the White House when the president himself is not willing to abide by any discipline when it comes to tweets,” said Leon Panetta, a former chief of staff under President Bill Clinton.
But Panetta, who served as defense secretary under President Barack Obama, defended Kelly, who was his military assistant at the Pentagon. “The title is chief of staff, not president,” he said. “I don’t know of any chief of staff who has said that he can command what the president does or does not do. The question is how long can a chief of staff tolerate it. That is something he will have to decide for himself.”
Some White House officials still claim that there is a “night and day” difference under Kelly from how the West Wing functioned under former chief of staff Reince Priebus. There is a higher level of respect for the chief of staff’s office, multiple officials said. Indeed, criticism of Trump’s behavior, or of missteps on the part of the White House, that used to land on Priebus rarely falls on Kelly’s shoulders. But from the outside, it’s hard to measure any real change in the president’s behavior between the Priebus and the Kelly regimes.
“It’s still a wild ride with this guy,” Panetta acknowledged. “If the captain is basically steering his own course, there comes a point at which you have to ask yourself: Are you effectively serving the interests of the country?”
While the chief of staff has taken steps to control information in and out of the Oval Office, the president still uses the service to scan fringe websites that pop up in his mentions.
By ANNIE KARNI
When John Kelly accepted the position of White House chief of staff last July, he framed his main function as imposing order, including instituting a formal process for the documents and news articles that reached the Resolute Desk.
But President Donald Trump’s increasingly incendiary Twitter feed, which remains outside Kelly’s control, has short-circuited that attempt at creating a functional system for controlling the flow of information into the Oval Office.
Twitter has allowed the president to continue accessing fringe websites and viewing racist videos simply by scanning his “mentions,” according to two former aides who have observed how he uses the site. Trump doesn’t use the direct-message function on the website, which would allow people he follows to privately share links with him — but he often looks at tweets that mention his handle, and picks up links and videos there.
The conversation on Twitter then often dictates his thinking. “Everybody’s talking about this,” he will tell his top aides in the West Wing, referring to a clip or an article he saw circulating among the small group of Twitter users he follows.
On Wednesday morning, the failure of Kelly's attempt at information control was on the fullest display since he accepted the job. Trump retweeted three inflammatory videos that claimed to portray Muslims performing violent acts. None of the videos were independently verified, but they claimed to depict Muslims destroying a statue of the Virgin Mary, pushing a teen off a roof and beating him to death, as well as one video with the headline, “Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!" The clips were retweeted from the feed of Jayda Fransen, the deputy leader of a British ultranationalist party.
People close to Trump said that while his longtime aide and social media director Dan Scavino and his eldest son, Donald Trump, Jr., in the past have been responsible for sharing with the president more inflammatory content and articles from alt-right websites, Wednesday’s tweets were posted before 7 a.m. — earlier in the morning than Scavino typically interacts with the president. It appeared the videos came across the president’s feed via conservative activist Ann Coulter, one of the 45 individuals whom Trump follows on Twitter, who had retweeted one of the videos herself the day before.
Trump’s anti-Muslim tweets were followed by an unsubstantiated allegation against “Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough, accusing him of being involved in an “unsolved mystery” in Florida that Trump said needed more investigating. The post was widely seen as a reference to the 2001 death of a former Scarborough aide, from the days when the morning television personality still served in Congress.
Together, the president’s active morning on Twitter raised new questions about Kelly’s influence — specifically, what impact can the retired four-star Marine general exert when the president is determined to set his own agenda, based on his own sources of information, on a platform his chief refuses to monitor or even acknowledge is driving the news, the legislative process and the country’s standing around the globe, every day.
“Believe it or not, I do not follow the tweets,” Kelly told reporters while traveling in Asia earlier this month with the president. But when Trump is consumed by information he ferrets out online, the question is how long Kelly can perform his job while maintaining that position.
Kelly, a man driven by military self-discipline — he typically works from a standing desk in his large office down the hall from the Oval — has told people he never heard of former chief strategist Steve Bannon’s website Breitbart News before entering the administration, and says he also wasn’t a huge consumer of television news. But his own media diet and personal habits have had little effect on Trump.
That doesn’t surprise people who have been in the president’s orbit for years. “The notion that some new regime was going to be able to come into the White House and control the information flow to the president always seemed ludicrous to me,” said Sam Nunberg, a former campaign aide. “He will look at Breitbart, he will look at InfoWars, he will look at Drudge. He’s not going to forget about those. And eventually, he’s just not going to like that he’s being handled.”
On one level, former staffers acknowledge that ignoring the Twitter feed, however impossible that may be, might just save Kelly a losing battle. Since the campaign, aides have tried — and failed — to control the president’s use of Twitter. Trump is familiar with the criticisms — he knows that his retweets and his commentary are “not presidential,” he will tell aides, pre-empting the criticism he knows is coming. “The most success anyone has had, through numerous angles and schemes, has been to stop it momentarily, or to slow things down,” said one former aide of Trump’s tweets. “But it’s just not possible to control it.”
During the campaign, aides learned that deleting a tweet from Trump’s Twitter feed only drew more attention to it, and telling him “no” was impossible. Instead, they would simply try and bury the more damaging 140-character missives under a cascade of more benign Twitter content.
Trump’s typical response to people who tell him to tone down the tweets, multiple people said, is to remind them that he won the election in large part because of his use of social media — and everyone thought it was crazy back then. Former aides like Bannon have also convinced him that with his 43.6 million followers, the Twitter stream is a real way to circumvent mainstream media organizations. That is part of what has left the White House in chaos, despite Kelly’s attempts to impose military order.
“It obviously makes it very difficult for any chief of staff to be able to impose a chain of command and discipline in the White House when the president himself is not willing to abide by any discipline when it comes to tweets,” said Leon Panetta, a former chief of staff under President Bill Clinton.
But Panetta, who served as defense secretary under President Barack Obama, defended Kelly, who was his military assistant at the Pentagon. “The title is chief of staff, not president,” he said. “I don’t know of any chief of staff who has said that he can command what the president does or does not do. The question is how long can a chief of staff tolerate it. That is something he will have to decide for himself.”
Some White House officials still claim that there is a “night and day” difference under Kelly from how the West Wing functioned under former chief of staff Reince Priebus. There is a higher level of respect for the chief of staff’s office, multiple officials said. Indeed, criticism of Trump’s behavior, or of missteps on the part of the White House, that used to land on Priebus rarely falls on Kelly’s shoulders. But from the outside, it’s hard to measure any real change in the president’s behavior between the Priebus and the Kelly regimes.
“It’s still a wild ride with this guy,” Panetta acknowledged. “If the captain is basically steering his own course, there comes a point at which you have to ask yourself: Are you effectively serving the interests of the country?”
Wild West approach
Congress’ Wild West approach to sexual harassment
When it comes to policing sexual misconduct, it’s every office unto itself.
By ELANA SCHOR and GENEVIEVE GLATSKY
The mushrooming scandal over sexual harassment in Congress and its secretive system for handling complaints has yet to zero in on another troublesome reality on Capitol Hill: What counts as harassment in one lawmaker’s office might not be considered that in another.
That’s because individual lawmakers’ offices effectively function as lone entities that formulate their own internal policies for employee behavior. And the Office of Compliance, the arbiter of misconduct complaints that provides harassment training now required in the House and Senate, does not provide templates.
“It’s possible there are 535 different policies,” Susan Tsui Grundmann, executive director of the compliance office, said in a recent interview.
To better understand the scope of the Hill’s workplace culture, POLITICO asked all 535 House and Senate offices — plus four delegates — about whether they had a harassment policy in place and whether it included a training program.
Of the offices that shared part or all of their internal policy, all the Senate offices defined harassment as including “suggestive or lewd remarks, including sexual innuendo” as well as “displaying sexual or pornographic images, regardless of the medium used (e.g. virtual, digital, paper, etc.).”
But most of the House offices' policies were less specific, issuing a general prohibition on "verbal or physical conduct or activity" among the behavior that creates a hostile work environment.
Three of the offices that agreed to share their policies — those of Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), as well as Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) — were significantly more far-reaching, barring fraternization between supervisors and subordinates. House members are weighing a broad resolution that would prohibit those relationships, according to Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.).
The differing approaches from one office to another add a fresh challenge to efforts to deter and punish harassment in Congress. Underscoring the complicated nature of the Hill's workplace culture is the occasionally confusing guidance in the compliance office's anti-harassment video, which at one point suggests that a few late-night texts and hugs from one's boss wouldn't be enough to constitute misconduct.
The handful of lawmakers in both parties who are calling for broader reforms to the system already face political headwinds, as colleagues wrestle with the urge to protect their own amid what seems to be a daily drip of new harassment allegations.
"It’s an inappropriate construct we have right now, that basically says every office is a small business unto itself and the member is the CEO," Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) said in an interview. Speier is a chief author of legislation that would overhaul the Hill's workplace misconduct system.
About 43 percent of the House and 60 percent of the Senate responded to POLITICO's harassment survey, at least in part. Of the 190 House offices that responded, all but 18 said an internal harassment policy was already in place and 131 confirmed that training was already part of it.
Of the 62 Senate offices that responded, all but five confirmed they have an internal harassment policy and 52 confirmed that training already was part of it. POLITICO followed up with each personal office that did not initially respond to a request for details on internal harassment policy. In both the House and Senate, more than 60 percent of responses came from Democratic offices versus those in the GOP.
The House on Wednesday approved a measure that mandates anti-harassment training, a move the Senate made earlier this month. But the high number of congressional offices responding that they already required — or at least encouraged — employees to get trained suggests that Congress will have to do more to address the problem if it is to have significant results.
Now that training is required, Speier said, among Congress' next steps should be "a uniform policy about what’s in the handbook in each office. I do believe it will become standardized."
For the lawmakers who already ask their aides to undergo anti-harassment training, the compliance office's video is a convenient and popular method.
One segment in the video features a congressional aide named Chloe who's having trouble with her boss. He praises her looks, twice hugs her in front of coworkers, and sends her a trio of late-night text messages — one while apparently drunk — complimenting her outfits.
A clear case of harassment? Not really, according to the video, which says the behavior Chloe encountered over the course of a year “probably” would not meet the standard to demonstrate wrongdoing — though a late-night message with an explicit sexual proposition might.
“However, Chloe’s boss probably made Chloe feel uncomfortable due to his inappropriate conduct, and he may have violated office policies,” the training video states.
The fictional Chloe’s experience with late-night texts from her boss is intended to teach a broader lesson on the level of severity and pervasiveness a harassment claim has to meet to qualify as something that creates a hostile work environment.
But the model employee handbook posted on the House Administration Committee’s website sends a conflicting message. It tells employees that they “should not wait until the actions become severe or pervasive” before reporting harassment in the workplace.
"What the employee digests is, you can’t complain until you’re already in a hostile work environment," said Les Alderman, an attorney who has represented multiple congressional employees in harassment and discrimination cases.
However, Alderman added, "That sets them up in conflict with Supreme Court precedent that says you have to complain before the environment gets to that level. It’s difficult to understand for lawyers and judges, so I can’t understand why employees should be required to understand. But they are."
The majority of the House offices that shared their policies prohibit harassment based on “race, color, sex, religion, age, disability, military status or national origin.” Less than half touched on sexual orientation or gender identity, both of which were added to prohibitions against executive-branch discrimination by Democratic presidents.
Extending protections against harassment to cover sexual orientation was more common among Senate offices that shared their internal guidelines, with 14 including that added provision and 11 covering gender identity. Only one Republican office, that of Colorado Rep. Mike Coffman, shared a policy with protections based on sexual orientation.
Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) office did not include sexual orientation and gender identity in the policy it shared, but was among the 17 responding offices that extended their protections to harassment based on a person's genetic information.
Other categories of protected harassment at certain offices included marital status, cited in six of the policies shared for this story, and uniformed service, cited in 17 of those policies.
The compliance office is the clearinghouse for employees who allege workplace misconduct, but its video isn't the only option for lawmakers and aides to comply with the new harassment training requirements. Another alternative is in-person training. Tsui Grundmann said her office is currently expanding its limited resources to accommodate skyrocketing demand for hands-on guidance.
The Senate chief employment counsel’s office also provides training in that chamber. Jean Manning, the Senate’s first chief employment counsel, said in a recent interview that the chamber “has a comprehensive training program, and I’m skeptical that the [compliance office] would develop anything as effective in the foreseeable future.”
Tsui Grundmann said the compliance office is planning to redo the harassment training video, in part to add guidance on the reaction of harassment bystanders and on anti-retaliation measures. The office's budget, notably, has remained flat in recent years.
Another segment in its training video provides clearer guidance on “quid pro quo” harassment, using an example of Chloe getting pressured to have dinner with a supervisor who tells her, “It’s good for your career.” And the office clearly states that congressional employees have 180 days after alleged harassment occurs to file a request for mandatory counseling.
However, three House offices who shared their internal policies added a clause stating that employees must report harassment within 48 hours: Reps. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.), Mike Bishop (R-Mich.), and Ralph Abraham (R-La.)
That rule raised questions for one former chief of staff. Given the unconventional workplace environment of Capitol Hill, "It’s not that far of a leap to get to something that isn’t appropriate at all to be asked to do, and a staffer's response is always going to be 'yes, whatever you need,'" the veteran aide said in an interview.
"It’s only after talking through it with more senior people and doing some reflecting that you might realize that request was inappropriate," the aide added. "The idea that that would always happen within 48 hours is pretty crazy."
When it comes to policing sexual misconduct, it’s every office unto itself.
By ELANA SCHOR and GENEVIEVE GLATSKY
The mushrooming scandal over sexual harassment in Congress and its secretive system for handling complaints has yet to zero in on another troublesome reality on Capitol Hill: What counts as harassment in one lawmaker’s office might not be considered that in another.
That’s because individual lawmakers’ offices effectively function as lone entities that formulate their own internal policies for employee behavior. And the Office of Compliance, the arbiter of misconduct complaints that provides harassment training now required in the House and Senate, does not provide templates.
“It’s possible there are 535 different policies,” Susan Tsui Grundmann, executive director of the compliance office, said in a recent interview.
To better understand the scope of the Hill’s workplace culture, POLITICO asked all 535 House and Senate offices — plus four delegates — about whether they had a harassment policy in place and whether it included a training program.
Of the offices that shared part or all of their internal policy, all the Senate offices defined harassment as including “suggestive or lewd remarks, including sexual innuendo” as well as “displaying sexual or pornographic images, regardless of the medium used (e.g. virtual, digital, paper, etc.).”
But most of the House offices' policies were less specific, issuing a general prohibition on "verbal or physical conduct or activity" among the behavior that creates a hostile work environment.
Three of the offices that agreed to share their policies — those of Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), as well as Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) — were significantly more far-reaching, barring fraternization between supervisors and subordinates. House members are weighing a broad resolution that would prohibit those relationships, according to Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.).
The differing approaches from one office to another add a fresh challenge to efforts to deter and punish harassment in Congress. Underscoring the complicated nature of the Hill's workplace culture is the occasionally confusing guidance in the compliance office's anti-harassment video, which at one point suggests that a few late-night texts and hugs from one's boss wouldn't be enough to constitute misconduct.
The handful of lawmakers in both parties who are calling for broader reforms to the system already face political headwinds, as colleagues wrestle with the urge to protect their own amid what seems to be a daily drip of new harassment allegations.
"It’s an inappropriate construct we have right now, that basically says every office is a small business unto itself and the member is the CEO," Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) said in an interview. Speier is a chief author of legislation that would overhaul the Hill's workplace misconduct system.
About 43 percent of the House and 60 percent of the Senate responded to POLITICO's harassment survey, at least in part. Of the 190 House offices that responded, all but 18 said an internal harassment policy was already in place and 131 confirmed that training was already part of it.
Of the 62 Senate offices that responded, all but five confirmed they have an internal harassment policy and 52 confirmed that training already was part of it. POLITICO followed up with each personal office that did not initially respond to a request for details on internal harassment policy. In both the House and Senate, more than 60 percent of responses came from Democratic offices versus those in the GOP.
The House on Wednesday approved a measure that mandates anti-harassment training, a move the Senate made earlier this month. But the high number of congressional offices responding that they already required — or at least encouraged — employees to get trained suggests that Congress will have to do more to address the problem if it is to have significant results.
Now that training is required, Speier said, among Congress' next steps should be "a uniform policy about what’s in the handbook in each office. I do believe it will become standardized."
For the lawmakers who already ask their aides to undergo anti-harassment training, the compliance office's video is a convenient and popular method.
One segment in the video features a congressional aide named Chloe who's having trouble with her boss. He praises her looks, twice hugs her in front of coworkers, and sends her a trio of late-night text messages — one while apparently drunk — complimenting her outfits.
A clear case of harassment? Not really, according to the video, which says the behavior Chloe encountered over the course of a year “probably” would not meet the standard to demonstrate wrongdoing — though a late-night message with an explicit sexual proposition might.
“However, Chloe’s boss probably made Chloe feel uncomfortable due to his inappropriate conduct, and he may have violated office policies,” the training video states.
The fictional Chloe’s experience with late-night texts from her boss is intended to teach a broader lesson on the level of severity and pervasiveness a harassment claim has to meet to qualify as something that creates a hostile work environment.
But the model employee handbook posted on the House Administration Committee’s website sends a conflicting message. It tells employees that they “should not wait until the actions become severe or pervasive” before reporting harassment in the workplace.
"What the employee digests is, you can’t complain until you’re already in a hostile work environment," said Les Alderman, an attorney who has represented multiple congressional employees in harassment and discrimination cases.
However, Alderman added, "That sets them up in conflict with Supreme Court precedent that says you have to complain before the environment gets to that level. It’s difficult to understand for lawyers and judges, so I can’t understand why employees should be required to understand. But they are."
The majority of the House offices that shared their policies prohibit harassment based on “race, color, sex, religion, age, disability, military status or national origin.” Less than half touched on sexual orientation or gender identity, both of which were added to prohibitions against executive-branch discrimination by Democratic presidents.
Extending protections against harassment to cover sexual orientation was more common among Senate offices that shared their internal guidelines, with 14 including that added provision and 11 covering gender identity. Only one Republican office, that of Colorado Rep. Mike Coffman, shared a policy with protections based on sexual orientation.
Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) office did not include sexual orientation and gender identity in the policy it shared, but was among the 17 responding offices that extended their protections to harassment based on a person's genetic information.
Other categories of protected harassment at certain offices included marital status, cited in six of the policies shared for this story, and uniformed service, cited in 17 of those policies.
The compliance office is the clearinghouse for employees who allege workplace misconduct, but its video isn't the only option for lawmakers and aides to comply with the new harassment training requirements. Another alternative is in-person training. Tsui Grundmann said her office is currently expanding its limited resources to accommodate skyrocketing demand for hands-on guidance.
The Senate chief employment counsel’s office also provides training in that chamber. Jean Manning, the Senate’s first chief employment counsel, said in a recent interview that the chamber “has a comprehensive training program, and I’m skeptical that the [compliance office] would develop anything as effective in the foreseeable future.”
Tsui Grundmann said the compliance office is planning to redo the harassment training video, in part to add guidance on the reaction of harassment bystanders and on anti-retaliation measures. The office's budget, notably, has remained flat in recent years.
Another segment in its training video provides clearer guidance on “quid pro quo” harassment, using an example of Chloe getting pressured to have dinner with a supervisor who tells her, “It’s good for your career.” And the office clearly states that congressional employees have 180 days after alleged harassment occurs to file a request for mandatory counseling.
However, three House offices who shared their internal policies added a clause stating that employees must report harassment within 48 hours: Reps. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.), Mike Bishop (R-Mich.), and Ralph Abraham (R-La.)
That rule raised questions for one former chief of staff. Given the unconventional workplace environment of Capitol Hill, "It’s not that far of a leap to get to something that isn’t appropriate at all to be asked to do, and a staffer's response is always going to be 'yes, whatever you need,'" the veteran aide said in an interview.
"It’s only after talking through it with more senior people and doing some reflecting that you might realize that request was inappropriate," the aide added. "The idea that that would always happen within 48 hours is pretty crazy."
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