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Youve got to be wondering whats going through Mike Pences head these days.

BT thats Before Trump Pence had a reputation as a decent, honest guy, at least as far as politicians go. Maybe you didnt like his positions on abortion or LGBT issues, but you knew at his core he meant it when he said he was a Christian first.

BT, Pence was a marginally competent politician, but most people didnt question his integrity. (Well, there was that time he used his campaign money to pay his personal expenses in violation of election law, but he later repented.)

After a nearly year in Trumps megalomaniacal circle, his integrity is peeling away bit by bit like the faux gold on a $10 wedding band.

Remember that it was Pence who assured Christian voters that Trump wasnt such a bad guy after the Access Hollywood tapes last summer. The world heard what Trump really thought about women in the lewdest possible terms in a conversation with then-host Billy Bush.

OK, Pence did say he was offended by the remarks, but then he added, I am grateful that he has expressed remorse and apologized to the American people. We pray for his family and look forward to the opportunity he has to show what is in his heart when he goes before the nation tomorrow night.

Trumps apology consisted of saying it was locker-room talk and that he was sorry if anyone was offended.

Earlier this year, Pence passed on inaccurate information that Michael Flynn, Trumps first national security advisor, had no contact with the Russians before the election. Soon after that confident assurance of Flynns integrity, the former general was forced to resign because of surprise contact with Russians before the election.

All right, Pence didnt lie. He was lied to. Maybe we shouldnt question his integrity over that incident.

But that was before last week when Trump abruptly fired FBI Director James Comey. I know what youre going to say. Nobody liked him anyhow so whats the big deal. Democrats hate him for sinking Hillary Clintons campaign and Republicans hate him for not charging her over keeping emails on a private server. So everybody should be happy, right?

Not exactly, but whether youre happy with the firing or think its part of a bigger conspiracy, theres no question that Indianas former boy scout governor got stuck in the middle.

The original story was that Comey got canned on a recommendation from the Justice Department over his handling of the Clinton email investigation last year. Maybe he did. I dont know. But that was the official White House line and Pence went out and delivered that message like the loyal soldier he is.

Heres what he said: Let me be very clear that the presidents decision to accept the recommendation of the deputy attorney general and the attorney general to remove Director Comey as the head of the FBI was based solely and exclusively on his commitment to the best interests of the American people and to ensuring that the FBI has the trust and confidence of the people this nation.

When questioned, Pence was adamant that the firing was not about the Russia investigation and said, The president made the right decision at the right time.

Then Trump sat down with NBC News anchor Lester Holt. In that rambling interview, Trump said that he was going to fire Comey regardless of what the Justice Department recommended.

And here is the rest of what Trump said: And in fact when I decided to just do it I said to myself, I said, You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, its an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they shouldve won.

So, it was about Russia after all and Pence, as he stood by his man, delivered another phony story.

How many times until the other persons lie youre telling becomes your own? Loyalty doesnt absolve anyone of the lies or wrongful acts. We all know plenty of examples from history to know the I was just following orders line doesnt wash.

So, Mr. Pence, what is the price of a soul? Is it power or at least the proximity to power?

In your case and with apologies to Lord Acton we are witnessing how proximity to power corrupts. Absolutely.

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What is the price of Mike Pence's soul? - NUVO

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump disclosed highly classified information to Russia's foreign minister about a planned Islamic State operation, two U.S. officials said on Monday, plunging the White House into another controversy just months into Trump's short tenure in office.

The intelligence, shared at a meeting last week with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, was supplied by a U.S. ally in the fight against the militant group, both officials with knowledge of the situation said.

The White House declared the allegations, first reported by the Washington Post, incorrect.

"The story that came out tonight as reported is false," H.R. McMaster, Trump's national security adviser, told reporters at the White House, adding that the leaders reviewed a range of common threats including to civil aviation.

"At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed. The president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known...I was in the room. It didn't happen," he said.

Russia's foreign ministry said reports that Trump had revealed highly classified information were "fake", according to the Interfax news agency.

The White House also released a statement from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who said the Oval Office meeting focused on counterterrorism, and from Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell, who called the Washington Post story false.

Still, the news triggered concern in Congress.

The Senate's No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin, called Trump's conduct "dangerous" and "reckless".

Bob Corker, the Republican head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the allegations "very, very troubling" if true.

Obviously, theyre in a downward spiral right now and theyve got to come to grips with all thats happening," he said of the White House.

SECRET COMPARTMENT

The latest controversy came as Trump's administration reels from the fallout over his abrupt dismissal of former FBI Director James Comey and amid congressional calls for an independent investigation into allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

One of the officials said the intelligence discussed by Trump in his meeting with Lavrov was classified "Top Secret" and held in a secure compartment to which only a handful of intelligence officials have access.

After Trump's disclosure of the information, which one of the officials described as spontaneous, officials immediately called the CIA and the National Security Agency, both of which have agreements with a number of allied intelligence services around the world, and informed them what had happened.

While the president has the authority to disclose even the most highly classified information at will, in this case he did so without consulting the ally that provided it, which threatens to jeopardize a long-standing intelligence-sharing agreement, the U.S. officials said.

Since taking office in January, Trump has careened from controversy to controversy, complaining on the first day about news coverage of his inauguration crowds; charging his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, with wiretapping; and just last week firing the FBI director who was overseeing an investigation into potential ties between Trump's presidential campaign and the Russian government.

Trump, a Republican who has called allegations of links between his campaign team and Russia a "total scam," sharply criticized his 2016 election rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton, for her handling of classified information as secretary of state, when she used a private email server.

The FBI concluded that no criminal charges against Clinton were warranted, but Comey said she and her colleagues had been "careless" with classified information.

'NO FILTER'

In his conversations with the Russian officials, Trump appeared to be boasting about his knowledge of the looming threats, telling them he was briefed on "great intel every day," an official with knowledge of the exchange said, according to the Post.

Some U.S. officials have told Reuters they have been concerned about disclosing highly classified intelligence to Trump.

One official, who requested anonymity to discuss dealing with the president, said last month: He has no filter; its in one ear and out the mouth.

One of the officials with knowledge of Trump's meeting with the Russian called the timing of the disclosure particularly unfortunate, as the President prepares for a White House meeting on Tuesday with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, an ally in the fight against Islamic State.

Trump's first foreign trip also begins later this week and includes a stop in Saudi Arabia, another Islamic State foe, and a May 25 NATO meeting in Brussels attended by other important U.S. allies. He also has stops planned in Israel and the Vatican.

The president's trip and latest uproar over his meeting with Russian officials come amid rumors that he might shake-up his senior staff in a bid to refocus his administration.

(Additional reporting by David Alexander, Mark Hosenball, Susan Cornwell, Ayesha Rascoe and Steve Holland; Editing by Kieran Murray and Bill Tarrant, Ralph Boulton)

NEW YORK A majority of Americans, including a growing number of Republicans, want to see an "independent investigation" sort out any connections between Russia and President Donald Trump during the 2016 election campaign, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Monday.

SAN FRANCISCO Ramin Forouzandeh had applied to 13 PhD economics programs in the United States, but after President Donald Trump signed his first travel ban in January, the 25-year-old Iranian turned to Canada for other options.

WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO President Donald Trump said he would seek to keep his tough immigration enforcement policies from harming the U.S. farm industry and its largely immigrant workforce, according to farmers and officials who met with him.

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Trump revealed intelligence secrets to Russians in Oval Office: officials - Reuters

House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) wondered Monday if the Russians are holding something over President Trump's head in order to get him to cater to their needs.

"Theres something wrong with this picture," Pelosi said at a special CNN town hall with host Chris Cuomo. "And every day I ask the question, 'What do the Russians have on Donald TrumpDonald TrumpState Dept. surprised by Tillerson defending Trump: report GOP strategist: GOP would have 'rightly' tried to impeach Clinton for classified disclosure Pelosi: 'What do the Russians have on Donald Trump?' MORE financially, politically or personally that hes always catering to them?'"

Pelosi was discussing Trump's dismissal of FBI Director James Comey last week, in the midst of an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The Washington Post broke news Monday evening that Trump shared high classified intelligence aboutthe Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) with top Russian diplomats in a meeting last week. Trump did not receive permission from the source, a U.S. partner, to disclose the information with the Kremlin officials.

While it is within the president's rights to declassify information as he sees fit, many say he could have burned a source with rare insight and access into ISIS's inner workings.

"This is sloppy and he can correct it, but we have to know more about it. He cant do it again," Pelosi added about Trump's reported disclosure.

Pelosi also questioned the president's competency, suggesting he is unprepared for his role.

"It goes to the preparedness or the lack thereof of President Donald Trump to be president."

The California lawmaker touted her 20 years as a member of the House Intelligence and Ethics committees, saying Congress must follow the facts and the law as it digs into Trump's reported disclosure.

"Only about the facts, the rules, and the law and so we have to see what the facts are in this situation. And how far did he go and what this is about?" She said.

Pelosi also said this is a "very damaging" report.

"In some ways Im sorry that this is all so public because its very, very, very damaging ... but the fact is it is public and the president has to answer for this. We expect to have some briefings in the Congress about this," the Democratic lawmaker said.

She also expressed hope that Trump would allow "the investigation of the Russian connection continue."

Read the rest here:
Pelosi: 'What do the Russians have on Donald Trump?' - The Hill

U.S. President Donald Trump (R) meets with Mohammed bin Salman, Deputy Crown Prince and Minister of Defense of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in the Oval Office at the White House, March 14, 2017 in Washington, DC. Mark WilsonGetty Images

Before he became president, Donald Trump once accused a Saudi prince of wanting to control U.S. politicians with daddys money. He claimed Saudi Arabia blew up the World Trade Center and also claimed that the kingdom wouldnt exist without American assistance.

At the end of this week, Trump will fly to Saudi Arabia in the first overseas trip of his presidency. He will arrive having set aside the combative, Saudi-bashing stance he adopted as a political candidate, on a mission to instead reinforce Americas decades-old alliance with the Saudi monarchy.

Accordingly, the U.S. President is expected to arrive in Saudi Arabia bearing gifts a package of weapons deals totaling more than $100 billion, which if confirmed would be one of the largest single arms sales in American history. The agreement includes ships, missile defense, and maritime security systems, according to a White House official quoted by Reuters .

The arms sale would herald the end of a brief period during which the United States signaled disapproval of the conduct of Saudi Arabia's military adventure in neighboring Yemen. In March, the Trump administration reversed a decision made in 2016 under President Barack Obama to halt some sales of weapons linked to the killings of civilians in Saudi Arabias two-year old military assault on Yemen, where at least 10,000 people have died.

The revitalized friendship now stands to benefit both Trump and the Saudi monarchy . The U.S. president and key members of the royal family now appear united behind a more aggressive approach to a series of crises throughout the Middle East.

Both Trump and key Saudi officials favor intensified military action in Yemen, where a U.S. commando raid resulted in the deaths of 30 civilians and an American Navy SEAL in January in the opening days of Trump's presidency. Trump has also become more confrontational with Iran, which has long been the Saudi's arch-rival in a region-wide, sectarian contest for power and influence. The White House's decision to increase the flow of weapons suggests that the two governments have laid the foundations for a tight partnership.

I dont think the Saudis are alarmed by the way Trump is behaving or his past remarks. I think they see this as an opportunity to roll back the clock a little bit. I think they see him as a moldable character, says Toby Craig Jones, a historian at Rutgers closely studying Saudi Arabia.

At the center of Trumps evolving relationship with the kingdom is a rising star within the Saudi royal family: Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who met the U.S. president in March. The 31-year-old prince has emerged as one of the most prominent faces of the Saudi government. As defense minister, he oversees the war in Yemen and he is also responsible for a massive overhaul of the Saudi economy that intends to privatize part of the state oil company and increase sources of non-oil revenue.

According to Rosie Bsheer, a historian at Yale and an expert on the Saudi state, the young prince is attempting to ingratiate himself with the Trump administration in order to gain leverage over his cousin, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Nayef, with the hopes of replacing him as Washingtons darling and contender for the Saudi throne.

The young de facto ruler needs to bolster his legitimacy and prove himself capable of running the kingdoms affairs, she tells TIME in an email. He will therefore seek a more belligerent U.S. policy in the region with the hopes that he may at once fulfill some of his foreign policy promises and, importantly, create a hostile environment for Iran, a major thorn in Saudi Arabias side.

U.S.-Saudi relations frayed towards the end of Obama's time in office. The former president's administration moved to limit some arms deliveries following a catastrophic airstrike on a funeral hall in Sanaa that killed about 140 people in October 2016.

With the proposed arms deal in the pipeline, the Trump now appears poised to accelerate U.S. support for the Saudi campaign in Yemen to the horror of human rights groups. The U.N. says the war has created one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, with more than three million displaced and millions facing starvation, while the Saudi-led military offensive has also launched numerous airstrikes on schools, hospitals, housing and other civilian targets.

It seems to make clear that the U.S. does not care about the fact that not only is the Saudi-led coalition committing war crimes in Yemen, but theyre using U.S. weapons to do so, says Kristine Beckerle, a researcher on Yemen with Human Rights Watch. Its not only alarming, its incredible in a terrible way, she adds.

Trumps visit to Saudi Arabia also comes at a precarious moment in U.S. relations with Iran. He flies to Riyadh on the same day as the Iranian presidential election, in which reformist President Hassan Rouhani faces challenges from conservative candidates who are less inclined to support negotiation and accommodation with the United States.

Trump campaigned against the Obama administrations diplomacy with Iran, which resulted in a historic, multi-nation agreement to halt the Iranian nuclear program in exchange for a reduction in sanctions. Trump introduced new sanctions on Iran in February, and National Security Advisor Michael Flynn warned that the administration put Iran on notice , shortly before he resigned in connection with the expanding investigation into Trumps ties to Russia.

This will have pleased the Saudis, who accuse Iran of supporting their opponents in the war in Yemen, Houthi rebels who seized much of the country in 2014 and 2015. Trump has articulated few specific positions on the complex politics of Iran and the Arabian peninsula, but he has shown signs that he is prepared to halt his past bombast with regard to Saudi Arabia's role in the region and the world.

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President Trump Is Visiting Saudi Arabia to Cement a Friendship - TIME

"Other than golf, he considers exercise misguided, arguing that a person, like a battery, is born with a finite amount of energy," writes Evan Osnos in a piece entitled "How Trump Could Get Fired" that appears in the May 8, edition of the New Yorker. That's far from the first time we've heard that Trump and exercise aren't friends. This, from a February 6 piece in Axios: "The only workout Trump gets is an occasional round of golf. Even then, he mostly travels by cart. On the campaign trail he viewed his rallies as his form of exercise."

In their revelatory book "Trump Revealed," the Washington Post's Mike Kranisch and Marc Fisher wrote more extensively about Trump's "battery" theory of energy:

After college, after Trump mostly gave up his personal athletic interests, he came to view time spent playing sports as time wasted. Trump believed the human body was like a battery, with a finite amount of energy, which exercise only depleted. So he didn't work out. When he learned that John O'Donnell, one of his top casino executives, was training for an Ironman triathlon, he admonished him, "You are going to die young because of this."

His counter-intuitive theories don't extend to exercise alone. He once offered this observation about people who drink a certain diet soda.

Despite reportedly being somewhat self-conscious about his weight -- Trump is 6'3" and weighs 236 pounds, as far as we know -- Trump regularly touted his physical fitness, as compared to that of Hillary Clinton, on the campaign trail. "To defeat crime and radical Islamic terrorism in our country, to win trade in our country, you need tremendous physical and mental strength and stamina," he said in August 2016. "Hillary Clinton doesn't have that strength and stamina."

Amid the ongoing Russia investigation, the firing of FBI Director James Comey and the rumors of a major White House staff shakeup, Trump's odd theory of exercise isn't the most pressing issue of the day. But, that doesn't make it any less strange.

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Donald Trump has a very strange theory about exercise - CNN