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The Trump administration began the formal process to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, but says its willing to "re-engage" if terms more favorable to the U.S. are met.

The State Department said it notified the United Nations that the U.S. will pull out of the global agreement as soon as it can under the terms of the 2015 accord, but President Donald Trump would agree to remain in the deal was reconfigured to be better for U.S. interests.

As the President indicated in his June 1 announcement and subsequently, he is open to re-engaging in the Paris Agreement if the U.S. can identify terms that are more favorable to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, and its taxpayers, the State Department said.

The U.S. will continue to participate in international climate negotiations, including the upcoming UN meeting on climate change "to protect U.S. interests and ensure all future policy options remain open to the administration."

The filing by the State Department kicks off a withdrawal process that will take years to unfold and is largely symbolic. Under terms of the deal, the earliest the U.S. can formally remove itself from the accord is in November 2020 -- just after the next presidential election.

The Secretary General welcomes any effort to reengage in the Paris agreement by the United States, said Stphane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antnio Guterres.

Trump announced in June that the U.S. would leave the Paris climate pact, saying it favors other nations at the expense of American workers, but remained open to seeking a better deal. That stance drew umbrage from world leaders, including those from France, Germany and Italy who have called the agreement "irreversible."

"We firmly believe that the Paris Agreement cannot be renegotiated, since it is a vital instrument for our planet, societies and economies," they said in a statement then.

Observers said they doubted the administration truly intended to renegotiate the climate deal.

"This reckless move by President Trump demonstrates that he has no real intent to renegotiate the Paris climate agreement, and would rather walk back from our international climate commitments altogether," Oxfam Americas Climate and Energy Director Heather Coleman said in a statement.

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Donald Trump Notifies UN of Paris Exit While Keeping Option to Return - TIME

John Kelly is a former United States Marine Corps general who has had multiple deployments in the battlefields of Iraq. However, he may have just embarked on his toughest assignment yet: controlling the Twitter habits and impulsive decision-making of a 71-year-old man.

Related:President Trump Has the Work Ethic of a Bored, Lazy Child

Formerly the secretary of Homeland Security, last week Kelly was appointed asPresident Donald Trump's new chief of staff, replacing Reince Priebus. But any notion that this might be a comfortable posting for a man more familiar with war zones than war rooms was quickly dispelled, according to Leon Panetta, a chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and a friend of Kellys who has spoken with him this week.

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He knows the problems. He knows how difficult its going to be, Panetta told The Washington Post Friday. Its like being dropped into the middle of a combat zone.

According to the Post, one major problem Kelly has identified as being in need of fixing is the way Trump makes decisions on important issues. Kelly has already assumed control of managing the paperwork and advice that reaches Trumps desk.

resident Donald Trump shakes hands with John Kelly after he was sworn in as White House Chief of Staff in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., July 31, 2017. Joshua Roberts/Reuters

The way Trump consumes advice and intelligence is a stark departure from previous incumbents of the Oval Office. Hampered by the presidents notoriously short attention span, National Security Council officials have resorted to tactics such as inserting Trumps name into as many paragraphs as possible because reading his own name is one way to maintain his interest.

Trump is said to favor an Oval Office with open access to the president, which has led to fierce competition from aides to get their desired information to the president. Kelly is not the first to try to control that flow. Priebus was long fighting that battle before he was ousted last month.

And then there is the cable news addiction. Television and particularly Fox News is a major source of Trumps information, often directly seen when he tweets out claims or arguments that only minutes later were raised on his network of choice.

That brings us to perhaps Kellys toughest job yet: controlling Trumps tweets. Trump has long lauded his Twitter use as being key to his outsider victory in last years election and regularly boasts about his number of followers. According to a Politico report Friday, he also marvels at how quickly his tweets appear on television after he hits the send button.

Trump often tweets early in the morning or late at night, with little or no consultation with his advisers beforehand. Such habits have long been discouraged by his legal advisers, among others, regarding an ongoing investigation into possible collusion between his campaign and Russia. Indeed, his Twitter use was cited by multiple law firms as a major reason why they turned down an offer to represent the president.

Another example was his recent announcement of a transgender military ban, which caught the military, among others, off guard. Kelly, reports Politico, sees one of his major tasks as pushing his tweets in the right direction, although he has already given up the idea of preventing him from tweeting.

You can't have a president who gets up at 5 a.m. and tweets policy, Panetta told Politico. The best thing would be if the president stopped tweeting, but thats not going to happen.

But perhaps Kelly can succeed where others have failed. Since the days of his campaign, Trump has shown himself to respect generals above perhaps all others and has continued to surround himself with senior military officers since moving into the White House. If General Kelly cant rein in the president perhaps nobody can.

John is the kind of guy who will look you in the eye and tell you what the hell he is thinking, Panetta told The New York Times. The real question is whether the president will give him the authority he needs to do the job.

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Donald Trump: A 71-Year-Old Man Who Needs a Military General to Manage His Twitter Use - Newsweek

Im the worlds greatest person that does not want to let people into their country.

So proclaimed Donald Trump to Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull in a January phone call, according a transcript published Thursday by the Washington Post. Presumably, he meant that he was the most recognizable immigration restrictionist in the world, although he may also have been complimenting his own virtue, crowning himself a great man of history on the strength of his restrictionism.

What is so striking about Trumps language is that it shows his own view of his authority and of his policymaking to be more royalist than republican. Law and order itself? That is nothing, compared to protecting the sovereigns image and obeying his personal wishes.

The contrast between these two men was also enlightening. Turnbull acknowledges the political realities confronting Trump, but speaks of the majesty of the law itself, not the ruler. He tries to explain how Australias consistent pattern of immigration enforcement accomplishes two things at once: 1) It insulates Australian immigration law from the pressure that such laws always face when facts on the ground make a mockery of them; and 2) It has a humanitarian benefit for potential migrants because it discourages the unscrupulous human smugglers who rush in to take advantage of the market opportunity that lax enforcement creates. Its a policy with a logic that Turnbull and other Australians have been saying will eventually become obvious to Europe as it continues to struggle with its own migration crisis.

So we said if you try to come to Australia by boat, Turnbull explained to Trump, even if we think you are the best person in the world, even if you are a Noble [sic] Prize winning genius, we will not let you in. He then tried to return to the point that this discourages people-smugglers, only to be interrupted by Trump, speaking with what the reader can only imagine must have been a note of admiration in his voice: Thats a good idea. We should do that too. You are worse than I am.

In these words are a whole worldview.

This is the backhanded way that Trump talks about his own position on immigration. He practically admits that he does not think his own policy is good or just in its own right. In fact, he comes close to letting on that he thinks it is immoral.

Perhaps he believes that being a restrictionist is necessary all the same. Sometimes, a king has to greet lawlessness with mercy; other times, he has to show strength. It can depend on the sovereigns mood or on what is most expedient in a given moment. Trump is simply being tough. Hes misbehaving himself, but in the national interest. He looks up to Turnbull, because Turnbull has managed to be an even worse guy than he has.

It must be a burden for Trumps counterparts across the world to deal with his overly familiar and overly personal form of diplomacy. Turnbull tries to talk Trump down, noting that the agreement they are discussing essentially a swap of refugees between our two countries is already in place, implying that any trouble that came from their conversation could be blamed on the Obama administration. Trump says the deal to accept migrants is bad for his image. As if Australia were just one more television studios makeup room, and its head of state responsible for keeping the shine off Trumps chin.

Whatever his faults, President Obama never commented on his personal relationships with foreign leaders in real time. He soberly reflected on the shared interests between one nation, which he represented, and another, which his counterpart did. By contrast, Trump says he gets along with leaders as individuals, or has a great relationship with them.

You are in Trumps graces, or you are out of his graces. One week, China is trying to help with North Korea, and Beijing gets a kind tweet. A few weeks later, North Korea fires a few missiles into the Sea of Japan, and Beijing gets an unkind tweet.

The people who held their noses and voted for Trump in the hopes that he would bring sanity to American immigration policy should have new doubts after reading the Posts transcriptabout whether he has the stamina or strength of will to see the job through. If there was no real principle behind Trumps restrictionism if he was just telling his voters what they wanted to hear during the campaign then he is just as likely to abandon the position as hold onto it in the future.

We all know he is capable of turning on a dime. Even in the campaign, he went from saying that Mexico was sending bad hombres our way to whining that he had to hire foreign workers because America was too hot for Americans to work in during the busy season at his Florida hotels. If anything is clear about the man at this late date, its that no stance is truly non-negotiable.

Everyone acknowledges that Trump is a wildcard. He may believe hes a king, and act like it. But look again: Hes actually a Joker.

READ MORE: A Leak That Really Hurts Trump: The Series the Comedy We Want Invites the Tragedies We Dont Trumps Circular Firing Squad

Michael Brendan Dougherty is a senior writer at National Review.

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The president's conversation with Malcolm Turnbull offers a troubling window into his mind. - National Review

Bill Maher told his startled Real Time guests tonight that he believes President Donald Trump is capable of following Vladimir Putins example by ordering political murders.

The comment came during the YouTube-only Overtime segment of HBOs Real Time With Bill Maher, so wasnt seen by cable-watching viewers.

Towards the end of a fairly standard-issue discussion of Trump, Russia and other news of the day, Maher turned to conservative activist Ralph Reed Jr. and asked, point-blank, Do you believe Vladimir Putin has ordered the murder of people?

Absolutely, responded Reed.

Do you think Trump is capable of that?, Maher asked his panelists, then said, Because I do. I think he loves dictators, loves the way they behave.

The topic seemed to catch everyone but Maher off guard (someone in the audience even uttered a loud Oh! as soon as the question was posed).

Reed responded with a firm no, and GOP strategist Kristen Soltis Anderson managed a slightly flustered, No, I dont think so. Bloomberg Businessweek journalist Joshua Green switched the subject to whether Trump would fire Robert Mueller, but CNN contributor Michael Weiss didnt get off so easily. Asked directly about Trumps killing potential, Weiss said,I think if he thought he could get away with it, he would. But one thing weve learned is the resiliency of American institutions has checked this guy tremendously.

Until the topic of assassination came up, Mahers return from a summer hiatus was free of the controversy the host stirred up earlier in the season by uttering the N-word on-air. This time around, though, he saved the bomb for YouTube.

Watch the exchange in the video above, around the14:25 minute mark.

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Bill Maher: Donald Trump Capable Of Political Assassinations - Deadline

Presidential vacations and getaways

President Donald Trump listens to a high school marching band as he arrives at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, in February 2017. He and the first lady were spending a weekend away from the White House. Here's a look at how Trump and other US presidents have escaped the pressures of the Oval Office.

Presidential vacations and getaways

President Barack Obama prepares to putt as he plays golf with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak at the Marine Corps Base in Hawaii in December 2014.

Presidential vacations and getaways

President George W. Bush rides a bicycle at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, in August 2007.

Presidential vacations and getaways

President-elect Bill Clinton plays volleyball on a Pacific Coast beach in November 1992.

Presidential vacations and getaways

President George H.W. Bush pauses to speak to the media while he plays golf in Kennebunkport, Maine, in August 1990.

Presidential vacations and getaways

President Ronald Reagan and first lady Nancy Reagan ride horses at their vacation home in Santa Barbara, California, in November 1982.

Presidential vacations and getaways

President-elect Jimmy Carter vacations at St. Simons, an island off the coast of Georgia, in November 1976.

Presidential vacations and getaways

President Gerald Ford opens a gift from his wife, Betty, during their usual Christmas vacation spot in Vail, Colorado, in December 1974.

Presidential vacations and getaways

President Richard Nixon and his wife, Pat, walk along the beach in San Clemente, California, in 1971.

Presidential vacations and getaways

President Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird, often vacationed at the LBJ Ranch in Johnson City, Texas.

Presidential vacations and getaways

President John F. Kennedy vacations with his family in this undated photo. From left is daughter Caroline, first lady Jacqueline and son John Jr.

Presidential vacations and getaways

In 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower fishes the North Platte River at the Swan Hereford Ranch in Colorado. Eisenhower also enjoyed golf trips to Augusta, Georgia.

Presidential vacations and getaways

President Harry Truman holds a news conference during a vacation in 1951.

Presidential vacations and getaways

President Franklin D. Roosevelt swims in Warm Springs, Georgia.

Presidential vacations and getaways

President Herbert Hoover and his wife, Lou Henry, sit on the porch of their Radipan Camp retreat, which is now part of the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. Hoover originally bought the land for the vacation spot in 1929.

Presidential vacations and getaways

President Calvin Coolidge poses in personalized chaps with his wife, Grace, at a party in South Dakota in 1927. The party celebrated the Fourth of July as well as Coolidge's 55th birthday.

Presidential vacations and getaways

President Warren Harding, right, goes camping with Firestone Tire founder Harvey Firestone in 1921.

Presidential vacations and getaways

President William H. Taft, center, enjoys a round of golf at the Chevy Chase Country Club in Maryland in 1909.

Presidential vacations and getaways

President Theodore Roosevelt's Sagamore Hill home, in Oyster Bay, New York, often served as his vacation retreat.

Presidential vacations and getaways

President Ulysses Grant enjoys the porch of his cottage by the sea in Elberon, New Jersey, in 1872.

Presidential vacations and getaways

President Abraham Lincoln's summer retreat was just a few miles from the White House, and he used to commute between the two on horseback. Now known as the Lincoln Cottage, it features a life-size statue of the 16th president.

Presidential vacations and getaways

President Thomas Jefferson liked to spend time at Monticello, his home in Virginia. In 1805, he spent nearly four months there while in office.

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Donald Trump is going on a 17-day vacation. Who cares? Except... - CNN