Sunday, with flurry...

Trump kicks off Sunday with flurry of tweets

By BRENT D. GRIFFITHS

President Donald Trump started his Sunday morning with a flurry of tweets jabbing at his former personal attorney, threatening to shut down the government if Congress does not bow to his immigration demands and repeating the debunked claim that his poll numbers are higher than any other Republican president.

"Do you think the Fake News Media will ever report on this tweet from Michael?" Trump wrote on Twitter, continuing the back-and-forth with Michael Cohen, his longtime former lawyer who has signaled that his loyalty to the president and his family is no more.

Trump's blast at Cohen included a quote tweet of something his former attorney wrote in July of last year.

"So proud of @DonaldJTrumpJr for being open, honest and transparent to the American people," Cohen wrote on Twitter on July 11, 2017, attaching a photo of Trump Jr. for good measure. "This nonsense needs to stop!"

Reigniting fears that the government could shut down just before the midterm elections, Trump said he would have no problem considering such a move if congressional Democrats do not support additional funding for a border wall with Mexico.

"I would be willing to 'shut down' government if the Democrats do not give us the votes for Border Security, which includes the Wall!" the president wrote on Twitter.

At the time Cohen's tweet was sent, reports were just starting to break about Donald Trump Jr. and other top Trump campaign officials' attendance at a meeting at Trump Tower with Russians during June 2016. Trump's oldest son and others initially played off the encounter as a discussion of Russian adoptions, but it later came to light that the Russians had promised dirt on Hillary Clinton.

On Friday, CNN cited sources saying that Cohen claims Trump knew about the meeting in advance, a claim Trump has denied. That report followed the release of audio of a phone call between Cohen and Trump during the campaign in which Trump appears to discuss payment to Playboy model Karen McDougal, who has said she had an affair with the president. The Trump campaign denied the then-Republican presidential nominee had any knowledge of the payments connected to McDougal's story.

Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump's current attorneys, slammed the notion that Cohen would secretly record one of his own clients. Giuliani said Saturday that Cohen and Trump's legal teams have ended their joint defense agreement to share information.

Trump also claimed that he met with New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger. Trump said the two chatted about "the vast amounts of Fake News being put out by the media."

"Had a very good and interesting meeting at the White House with A.G. Sulzberger, Publisher of the New York Times," Trump wrote on Twitter. "Spent much time talking about the vast amounts of Fake News being put out by the media & how that Fake News has morphed into phrase, 'Enemy of the People.' Sad!"

The president did not specify when or where the meeting took place, but Sulzberger subsequently responded: “I told the president directly that I thought that his language was not just divisive but increasingly dangerous.”

Sulzberger added: “I told him that although the phrase ‘fake news‘ is untrue and harmful, I am far more concerned about his labeling journalists ‘the enemy of the people.‘ I warned that this inflammatory language is contributing to a rise in threats against journalists and will lead to violence.”

The president continued to defend his administration's immigration policies, as the federal government struggles to fulfill a court order to reunify parents separated from their undocumented children.

"Tom Homan, fmr ICE Director: 'There is nobody that has done more for border security & public safety than President Trump,'" Trump wrote on Twitter, quoting former Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Thomas Homan, from a TV appearance by Homan on Saturday night on Fox News. "'I’ve worked for six presidents, and I respect them all, but nobody has done more than this Administration & President Trump, that’s just a stone cold fact!'”

Trump, as he has before, also claimed he is the most popular commander in chief in the Republican Party's history, a line that stretches all the way back to Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860. Setting aside the fact that widespread public polling did not begin until the mid-1930s, Trump remains less popular among his party than a number of his recent predecessors.

According to the Gallup tracking poll, as of July 1, 88 percent of Republicans currently have a favorable view of Trump's presidency. But as CNN reported, only Gerald Ford failed to reach an 88 percent approval rating within his own party by July of his first year in office. Overall, his popularity among all voters (42 percent in the most recent weekly poll) remains well below the high point of predecessors: Dwight D. Eisenhower peaked at 79 percent in 1956, Ronald Reagan at 68 (twice), George H.W. Bush at 89 at the time of the Gulf War, and George W. Bush at 90 percent shortly after the 9/11 attacks.