Mediaboss Marketing

(MUNICH) Vice President Mike Pence vowed Saturday that the United States will "hold Russia accountable" even as President Donald Trump searches for new common ground with Moscow at the start of his presidency.

Pence, in an address to the Munich Security Conference, also offered assurances to European allies that the U.S. "strongly supports" NATO. He said the U.S. would be "unwavering" in its commitment to trans-Atlantic institutions like NATO.

In his first overseas trip as vice president, Pence sought to calm nervous European allies who remain concerned about Russian aggression and have been alarmed by Trump's positive statements about Russian President Vladimir Putin. The address to foreign diplomats and security officials also sought to reassure international partners who worry that Trump may pursue isolationist tendencies.

Pence said the U.S. would demand that Russia honor a 2015 peace deal agreed upon in Minsk, Belarus, to end violence in eastern Ukraine between government forces and Russia-backed separatists.

"Know this: The United States will continue to hold Russia accountable, even as we search for new common ground which as you know President Trump believes can be found," Pence said.

Pence met afterward with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who addressed the conference just before the vice president. Merkel stressed the need to maintain international alliances and told the audience, with Pence seated a few feet away, that NATO is "in the American interest."

European countries along Russia's border are rattled by the prospect of deeper U.S.-Russia ties after Trump suggested sanctions imposed after Russia's annexation of Crimea could be eased in exchange for a nuclear weapons deal, and after the president referred to NATO as "obsolete" in an interview before his inauguration. Trump has since tempered his language, stressing the importance of the NATO alliance during his telephone conversations with foreign leaders.

Pence also scheduled meetings Saturday with the leaders of the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko countries dealing with the threat of Russian incursion. Pence also planned to meet with Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim.

The visit, which includes a stop in Brussels on Sunday and Monday, comes amid worries in Europe about Russian aggression, Trump's relationship with Putin and whether the new president may promote isolationist tendencies through his "America First" mantra.

"The vice president has sent reassuring messages through his own engagement but that hasn't been enough to dispel the concerns that you see in many parts of Europe," says Jeff Rathke, a senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "There are such grave challenges that the U.S. and Europe faces that it only heightens the desire for additional clarity from Washington."

Pence's stature within the administration was also under scrutiny because of the recent dismissal of Trump's national security adviser, retired Gen. Michael Flynn. Flynn was forced to resign Monday following reports he misled Pence about contacts with a Russian diplomat. The vice president learned that he had been misled through media accounts about two weeks after the president was informed.

Pence is also expected to meet with the leaders of Iraq and Afghanistan, where the U.S. is embroiled in two separate wars. Trump has made clear his intention to defeat the Islamic State group. But he also said the U.S. may get a second chance to take Iraqi oil as compensation for its efforts in the war-torn country, a notion rebuffed by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who will be meeting with the vice president.

Trump's immigration and refugee ban has ruffled feathers with a number of Muslim-majority countries affected by the order currently tied up in court, including Iraq a close ally in the fight against IS.

In Munich, the American allies were searching for clues from Pence as to how the Trump administration plans to deal with Russia in the aftermath of Flynn's departure, U.S. inquiries into Russia's involvement in the presidential election and Trump's past praise for Putin.

In his remarks, Pence also reinforced the Trump administration's message that NATO members must spend more on defense.

NATO's 28-member countries committed in 2014 to spending 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense within a decade. But only the U.S. and four other members of the post-World War II military coalition are meeting the standard, Pence said.

Failure to meet the commitment, he said, "erodes the very foundation of our alliance."

"Let me be clear on this point: The president of the United States expects our allies to keep their word, to fulfill this commitment and, for most, that means the time has come to do more," Pence said.

View post:
Mike Pence Promises the World: We Will 'Hold Russia Accountable' - TIME

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and other top White House officials urged conservative activists on Thursday to set aside differences and unite behind President Donald Trump's agenda stressing tough trade and immigration policies.

Addressing the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, in suburban Maryland, outside Washington, Pence rallied the large group of Republicans who helped elect Trump on Nov. 8.

"My friends, this is our time. This is the chance we've worked so hard for so long to see. This is the time to prove again that our answers are the right answers for America," Pence said.

Trump was due to address CPAC on Friday.

Earlier on Thursday, Trump's chief strategist, Steve Bannon , known as a forceful influence in the White House, made a rare public appearance to appeal for support for the Republican president.

"We want you to have our back" in upcoming battles, Bannon told the gathering, denouncing media criticism of Trump. He appeared onstage along with White House chief of staff Reince Priebus.

The early days of the new administration have been marked by deep post-election divisions between Trump backers and liberals over the president's temporary travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries, as well as moves to increase deportations of illegal immigrants and build a wall on the border with Mexico.

While conservatives celebrate Trump's role in delivering them victory in November's election, his agenda veers from traditional right-wing principles like limited government and open trade.

Republicans who control the White House and Congress are also arguing over how to dismantle and replace former Democratic President Barack Obama's landmark healthcare law.

"Globalist media"

Bannon and Priebus both sought to dispel a sense of disorder in the White House portrayed in media accounts.

Referring to media criticism of Trump and echoing the president's attacks on the media, Bannon warned: "It's going to get worse every day" as Trump presses forward with his 2016 campaign promises.

"If you think they're going to give you your country back without a fight you are sadly mistaken," said Bannon , who formerly ran the confrontational right-wing website Breitbart News. He blamed the "corporatist, globalist media that are adamantly opposed to an economic nationalist agenda" under Trump.

The CPAC conference, once a fringe event but now decidedly in the Republican mainstream, is being attended by an estimated 10,000 activists.

For more news on CPAC, watch Fortune's video:

White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, in remarks to the group, credited Trump with revitalizing the Republican Party's right wing.

"Every great movement ends up being a little bit sclerotic and dusty after a time, and I think they (conservatives) need an infusion of energy," Conway said.

CPAC organizers are trying to steer clear of controversy over the alt-right movement, a loose grouping that includes neo-Nazis, white supremacists and anti-Semites whom Trump has been slow to denounce. Breitbart has a following among some of those groups and Bannon in the past had called the media organization a platform for the movement.

Some Breitbart staffers were scheduled to participate in CPAC panel discussions.

"We don't think there's any role for the alt-right in the conservative movement," Matt Schlapp, head of the American Conservative Union, which organizes CPAC, said in a phone interview.

Reagan comparisons

Just a month into his presidency, Trump is already being compared by some conservatives to their hero, former President Ronald Reagan, who swept into office in 1981 with a small-government, free-trade, tax-cutting agenda that energized the Republican right wing and molded the views of many of the CPAC faithful.

Trump so far has been "pitch-perfect with conservatives as he starts his administration," said Schlapp.

Even so, some conservatives, including some at CPAC, are nervously watching Trump.

Trump has proposed a major expansion of government to police immigration. He has already canceled a trade deal with Asia-Pacific neighbors and sharply criticized one among the United States, Mexico and Canada.

"I always worry any discussion about trade competition and tariffs ... misdirects the focus," said CPAC stalwart Grover Norquist, a powerful advocate of low taxes and small government.

On taxes, Trump has backed cuts in rates, but his position on a Republican tax package under debate in Congress is unclear.

Schlapp credited Trump with naming the most conservative Cabinet in a half-century and nominating a Supreme Court justice, Neil Gorsuch, who has conservatives' blessings.

Trump has also thrilled conservatives by working hand in glove with congressional Republicans on overturning or gutting a handful of Obama-era regulations, including one that prevented coal companies from dumping waste into rivers and streams.

See the rest here:
Mike Pence and Steve Bannon Urge Conservatives to Unite Behind Trump - Fortune

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump on Friday sought to rally disparate strands of conservative activists and Republicans behind him by hailing the historic movement that led to his election and by promising, I will continue to fight for you.

Trump delivered an address that echoed his campaign stump speech to solidify his support at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference run by the American Conservative Union, where he was greeted with a roar as he came onstage.

The victory and the win were something that really was dedicated to a country and people that believe in freedom, security and the rule of law. Our victory was a victory and a win for conservative values, Trump said.

And he redefined the Republican Party that he now runs as the embodiment of the economic nationalism of America First. The core conviction of our movement is that we are a nation that put and will put its own citizens first, he told the standing-room-only hall.

Trump also continued his attacks on the news media, complaining about critical coverage as fake news by dishonest reporters.

More than 9,000 people registered for the CPAC meeting at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Oxon Hill, Maryland, near Washington, D.C., said Keith Zeig, executive director of McLaughlin & Associates, which is conducting the groups straw poll.

Trump delivered a call to action in a speech in which he freely ad-libbed from prepared remarks. The era of empty talk is over, its over. Now is the time for action, he said.

Trump drew applause as he ticked off his plans: building a wall on the southern border; rounding up bad dudes in the country illegally; renegotiating trade deals; bringing back manufacturing jobs; slashing federal regulation; lowering taxes; and keeping out radical Islamic terrorists.

Trump even brought up his defeated Democratic rival Hillary Clinton and her description of some of his supporters as deplorables. The crowd promptly chanted Lock her up.

Trump also dismissed people protesting the plans to repeal and replace Obamacare at Republican town hall meetings.

The people that youre watching, theyre not you, Trump said. Many of them are the side that lost, you know, they lost the election.

Later Friday, Trump met with a persistent critic during his campaign, Ohio Gov. John Kasich. After the White House meeting, Kasich, who was a candidate in the Republican primaries, said that its sort of like being on an airplane: You want to root for the pilot.

He said he shared ideas about changes to the health care law, and that Trump listened carefully and had a positive response.

View original post here:
President Donald Trump rallies conservative activists - Newsday

Donald Trump Takes On Familiar TargetsIntelligence Agencies and the Press Wall Street Journal (subscription) After a week that showed hints of the reset sought by Capitol Hill Republicans, President Donald Trump undertook several new attacks Friday focused on two of his frequent targets: the intelligence community and the press. Mr. Trump began posting ...

View original post here:
Donald Trump Takes On Familiar TargetsIntelligence Agencies and the Press - Wall Street Journal (subscription)

Look, I dont like tweeting, Donald Trump told Fox & Friends two days before his presidential inauguration. He was lying.

If Trump disliked Twitter so much, he would have surrendered Twitter to the Secret Service at the door to the White House, where using unsecured Android phones is frowned upon. Instead, he continues to tweet from his personal phone, even during national security briefings. He has used Twitter to call people haters, dummies, and losers, and to effectively subvert traditional media outlets. For more than a year he has filled our timelines with insults, turning Twitter into a toxic swamp. Its as if the slime demon from FernGully got his hands on a Samsung Galaxy instead of a timbersaw. As of today, Trump has posted more than 34,000 tweets and retweets averaging about 12 tweets a day, every day, for the past eight years.

The man lives to tweet. And thats exactly why Twitter should ban him.

I love Twitter.... it's like owning your own newspaper--- without the losses.

The presidents dependency on Twitter gives it a tremendous opportunity that no other company has: to deny the president his favorite means of poisoning the well of public discourse. Twitter has the unique ability to embarrass and diminish a man who is so thin-skinned he can be baited by a tweet. It can humiliate a narcissist by taking away his favorite toy. Trump becomes paralyzed by anything that embarrasses his ego, and so embarrassing him could make him weaker.

Trump is not a normal president, and Twitter is often the venue for his disturbing abnormality. This places the company in an uncomfortable position. Twitter is not an internet service provider or anything resembling a utility. It has no obligation to behave like a neutral party; in fact, given its unique position to influence Trumps behavior, it arguably has a moral obligation to take action.

Its okay but why do the haters (& losers) want to follow me on twitter?? Get a life!

It is surely a point of pride for Twitter that POTUS is a power user. But people inside the company also recognize their role in elevating a dangerous man to a position of real-world power. After Trump won the election, one former employee told The Verge that there was a strong sense of what have we done? from Twitter employees. Even Trumps man in Silicon Valley credits Twitter for helping his ascent. I think at a place like Twitter, they were all working for Trump this whole year even though they thought they were working for [Bernie] Sanders, Peter Thiel told The New York Times.

Twitter has banned high-profile jerks before

Twitter has shown the courage to eliminate high-profile miscreants before. Last July the company banned Milo Yiannopoulos, a pied piper of frothing right-wing Breitbart interns, for directing a wave of racist abuse toward Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones. (Trump, a big fan of Breitbart, was also unhappy about the all-female reboot.) But Twitter gave vague reasons for the Yiannopoulos ban, and has struggled to express a coherent vision for rule enforcement even after admitting a while ago that the company sucks at dealing with abuse.

The big question so far has been whether Trump has done something to violate the platforms terms of service. Inside Twitter, employees are skeptical that Trump will break the rules hard enough to justify a ban. A New York Times piece on the question of banning Trump walked the tightrope of Twitters terms of service, noting that hes appeared to tack just inside the lines on the services rules of conduct. The Ringer, Vanity Fair, and others have ruminated on which potential violation Twitter could pick from to boot Trump from the service. But this is the wrong angle of attack.

My twitter has become so powerful that I can actually make my enemies tell the truth.

Nothing would look weaker than trying to nail Trump on a technicality. Kicking the president out because he broke a rule in the fine print might seem like a fair way to do it, but in reality it would be seen as a tacky, cowardly move. Nobody seems to think the president is a regular Twitter user who is subject to the regular rules, nor, arguably, should he be.

Instead, Twitter should ban Trump precisely because it will hurt him. With clear eyes and a full throat, a ban could be a form of direct action against a man who deserves to be deliberately and fiercely opposed. It would be an extraordinary act by a private company to battle someone in power who threatens its interests and those of its users.

Trump harms Twitters users, and is a threat to its business

Twitter already recognized Trump as a threat publicly when it joined 97 others to file an opposition to the presidents immigration ban, saying it inflicts significant harm on American business, innovation, and growth, and that it would make it more difficult and expensive to recruit, hire and retain some of the worlds best employees. A ban would also likely serve Twitters users by ending a high-profile pattern of harassment centered around Trump. Twitter has struggled to deal with this kind of abuse for years, and banning Trump would be seen by many users as a defense of their interests and safety.

In the best-case scenario, Twitter can mitigate the damage Trump will be able to inflict on his nation and world through the careless words and actions he is constantly tempted to produce by tweeting. On balance, the value of the public seeing the presidents thoughts on Twitter seems outweighed by the public interest in those thoughts never occurring in the first place. Weve never had a president tempted to casually imply in a tweet that the US will start a new nuclear arms race. Trumps tweets are not just poorly spelled insults and gaffes theyre often alarming and dangerous.

The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes

Through his rise to power and beyond, Twitter has fueled Trumps rampage of ignorance and animus. He has ruthlessly insulted rivals, attacked journalists, denigrated judges and lawmakers, helped to organize harassment, and cause general instability in the world whether its a tweet threatening to upend essential alliances, or an attack on Nordstrom for choosing to not enrich his family. He even undermines his own administration with Twitter, like today, when he ruined the White Houses response to an FBI scandal with hysteria.

So it would overwhelmingly be a good thing for the president to stop tweeting so much just ask the president, who promised to quit. Dont worry, Ill give it up after Im president, we wont tweet anymore, Trump said last year at a campaign rally in Rhode Island. Not presidential. And yet.

A ban could also satisfy the broader meaning of the companys stated mission to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers. It would not be ironic for Twitter to attack someone who wants to erect costly physical, technological, and social barriers that will erode progress and hope for the lives of millions of people around the world, if doing so sends a message that those measures cannot be tolerated by free societies. There would surely be a risk to Twitters business to provoke protest, but Twitters value does not come from hosting Trump. It comes from the millions of artists, celebrities, reporters, and regular folks who freely contribute to it on a daily basis as a real-time source of information and conversation. Theyre not all going to leave because hes banned.

The whole world is watching Twitter

Earlier this month, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey used an underwhelming quarterly earnings statement as an occasion to recognize Twitters influence and power. The whole world is watching Twitter, he wrote on Medium. You dont go a day without hearing about Twitter. How it carried some of the most important commentary and conversations. How it mobilized people into action.

Twitter forever changed the way the world communicates, and well do it again, he wrote.

Its true that Twitter has changed how the world communicates. Indeed, a bizarre facet of our reality is that the president of the United States is a person who tweets. But it is Facebook, not Twitter, that has strained itself to become the public square to break bread with Glenn Beck and behave as if it is bringing people together. (Facebook is currently threatening to become the new world order.) Thats not a brand Twitter needs to compete with. Twitter has the opportunity to stand tall as the only major company in history to refuse this kind of service to a sitting president, while its peers cozy up to Trump by giving him credit for things he didnt do.

Let Mark Zuckerberg be the sweater-wearing town mayor. You can be the leather jacket-wearing renegade, willing to make a stand for your company and your users. Are you ready, Jack?

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." Anas Nin

Read more here:
Ban Donald Trump - The Verge