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Brynn Tannehill

Rank/branch of military: Lieutenant Commander, U.S. Navy. In the reserves until July 1, 2017 Hometown: Phoenix, AZ Proudest moment: All the years of training and dedication came together for me in those moments where I was there for my shipmates when they needed me the most. They survived because we were there. Biggest misconception: The idea that its too expensive to retain transgender service members is laughable to me. It costs more to replace two highly trained transgender service members than to provide health care for every last one of them.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Rank/branch of military: Captain, U.S. Army Hometown: Scranton, PA Proudest moment: Taking command of my first platoon after I graduated from West Point. Leading American soldiers is the single greatest honor Ive ever received. Biggest misconception: People often assume I joined the Army to make a man out of myself. I didnt. I joined the Army out of a sense of gratitude for all Id been given by this country.

Photograph by T.J. Kirkpatrick.

Rank/branch of military: Senior Chief, U.S. Navy SEALs Hometown: Wellsville, NY Proudest moment: I saved the life of an Afghanistan man in the middle of chaos. I also saw him later on and was able to have tea with him. Biggest misconception: The idea that this is a new issue. Transgender people have been serving since the Revolutionary war, and most of us dont cost a thing.

Photograph by T.J. Kirkpatrick.

Rank/branch of military: Active Duty Navy Lieutenant Commander Hometown: St. Louis, MO Proudest moment: The day I qualified in submarines and was pinned with my dolphins. Biggest misconception: We are obsessed with transitioning and cannot function or do our jobs. Many transgender service members are at the top of their game and they only get better when they are allowed to transition.

Photograph by T.J. Kirkpatrick.

Rank/branch of military: Army Sergeant Major, retired in 2012 Hometown: Jersey City, NJ Proudest moment: My service in Afghanistan in 20102011. I was awarded the French National Defense Medal, the first American to receive that medal since World War II. Biggest misconception: Expensive, complicated surgeries would make them non-deployable or [reduce their] effectiveness.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Rank/branch of military: Colonel, U.S. Army. Retired December 4, 2004, after 35 years of service. Hometown: Manitowoc, WI Proudest moment: I was the first woman to (legitimately) wear an infantry uniform after my DD 214 was changed to reflect my authenticity. I wore that uniform at [a] Pentagon Pride Event and [the] White House Pride month reception in June 2015. Biggest misconception: Some people, particularly the older generation, believe trans individuals are mentally ill. Being transgender is a medical condition, no different than someone suffering from diabetes or heart disease. All medical conditions are deserving of treatment.

Photograph by Kevin Miyazaki.

Rank/branch of military: Active Duty Army Soldier, Intelligence Officer Hometown: Houston, TX Proudest moment: The day I took command of a company. It was something I had given up hope on ever doing after deciding to transition, assuming that my career would be over. Biggest misconception: I think what it all comes down to is this stereotype people have of who trans people are. Once you work with someone and know someone personally, it breaks those stereotypes down.

Photograph by Robbie McClaran.

Rank/branch of military: Retired Army Corporal, worked as a Health-care Management Administration Specialist Hometown: Waipahu, HI What is your proudest moment in the service? Knowing that the solider was going to be able to go home to their family was and is always the most satisfying part of my career. What is the biggest misconception youd like to correct? The most common one in my opinion is that transgender people are incapable of fulfilling a duty because they are mentally unstable. In order to serve in these roles, you have to be mentally sound.

Photograph by T.J. Kirkpatrick.

Rank/branch of military: Captain, Kentucky National Guard. Currently serving in the 198th Military Police Battalion as the Senior Human Resources Officer Hometown: Lexington, KY Proudest moment: Being selected as T.A.C. (Teach, Assess, Counsel) officer of the year. It meant a lot to me to know that both my soldiers and command thought so well of my work, even as the Army was processing me for involuntary discharge due to being transgender. Biggest misconception: That being transgender is the most important part of who we are. I am proud to be a transgender man, but when it comes down to it, I am a commissioned officer in the United States Army.

Photograph by Jacob Roberts.

Rank/branch of military: Active Duty Sergeant in the U.S. Air Force Hometown: Flower Mound, TX Proudest moment: To be fortunate enough to see the policy change for transgender military members like myself. To see my brothers and sisters no longer have to serve in silence is a humbling experience. Biggest misconception: We only want to serve in the military to have our transitions paid for. At no point is my military service about me; its about those who came before me.

Photographed by Matthew Mahon.

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Norman Lear Refuses to be Honored by Donald Trump - Vanity Fair

By Drew Angerer/Getty Images.

Since Donald Trump packed up his bathrobes and self-tanning formula last January and begrudgingly moved into that dump on Pennsylvania Avenue, rare is the weekend that he hasnt fled D.C. In the winter and spring, hed jet down to his Palm Beach palace, Mar-a-Lago, entertaining world leaders and crashing weddings. As the days have gotten hotter and the president has presumably begun to shvitz, hes moved things north to his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where on Friday hell begin a 17-day vacation.

The one place he surprisingly hasnt visited, however, is his beloved Trump Tower apartment in Midtown Manhattan (although that may have more to do to with the throngs of protesters who have become fixtures outside the building). Still, by law, the Secret Service treats Trump Tower as the presidents main residence and must keep a team there to protect it. Which it was doing from inside the skyscraper until recently, when it was forced to move to a trailer on the street after lease negotiations broke down with the Trump Organization. Per The Washington Post:

The Secret Service has vacated its command post inside Trump Tower in Manhattan following a dispute between the government and President Trumps company over the terms of a lease for the space, according to two people familiar with the discussions. Previously, the Secret Service had stationed its command postwhich houses supervisors and backup agents on standby in case of an emergencyin a Trump Tower unit one floor below the presidents apartment. But in early July, the post was relocated to a trailer on the sidewalk, more than 50 floors below, a distance that some security experts worry could hamper the agency that protects the presidents home and family.

While its not clear exactly where the talks broke down, people familiar with the matter told the Post the sticking points included the price and other conditions of the lease, and the statement from Trump Organization spokeswoman Amanda Miller seems to support that. After much consideration, it was mutually determined that it would be more cost effective and logistically practical for the Secret Service to lease space elsewhere, Miller said in an e-mail. In June, Bloomberg reported that the presidents net worth had taken a hit thanks to his three Manhattan office properties dropping in value, including Trump Tower. So youll have to forgive the people working on his behalf if they tried to make up some of the gaps by hosing the Secret Service on rent.

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The Secret Service is Sick of Getting Hosed by Donald Trump - Vanity Fair

The first came when he claimed, at a Cabinet meeting on Monday, that the President of Mexico had called him recently. Said Trump: "Even the President of Mexico called me. Their southern border, they said very few people are coming because they know they're not going to get to our border, which is the ultimate compliment."

Neither of those phone calls actually happened, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders admitted in her daily press briefing Wednesday.

When Trump said the President of Mexico had called him, he was referencing a conversation the two men had at the G20 meeting in Germany, which ended July 8.

As for the Boy Scouts "call," what Trump meant was that "multiple members of the Boy Scouts leadership following his speech there that day congratulated him, praised him and offered quite powerful compliments following his speech," Sanders explained.

Despite those admissions, Sanders blanched at the idea Trump had purposely misled. "I wouldn't say it was a lie," she said. "That's a pretty bold accusation. The conversations took place, they just simply didn't take place over a phone call."

But, here's the thing: This is not so easily dismissed as Sanders would like.

Why? Because this is a pattern of conduct with Trump. Throughout his candidacy -- and his presidency -- he has said things that are not provable, at best, and not true, at worst.

He saw Muslims celebrating on the rooftops in northern New Jersey on September 11, 2001. Evidence that President Barack Obama might not have been born in the United States had been brought to his attention. Three to 5 million people voted illegally in the 2016 election. His inauguration crowd was the largest ever recorded. Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign.

Against all of that untruth, telling two fibs about phone calls seems minor. In both cases, Trump was exaggerating to the point of lying to make himself look good.

Trump's border policies are working so well that even Mexican President Enrique Pea Nieto, no friend of Trump's, had to acknowledge it. That, in Trump's mind, is proof positive that all the chatter about him not being able to make good on his campaign promises is, to coin a phrase, fake news.

Trump's claim that the head of the Boy Scouts called him to tell him how amazing his speech was came after the Wall Street Journal reporters and editors interviewing him suggested the reception Trump had received at the Jamboree last Monday was somewhat "mixed." Trump can't have that image; he is cheered, loudly, wherever he goes. Period.

In both cases, it's possible that Sanders' version of events is right. That Trump may have made up the phone calls but that the idea he meant to convey in each situation was fundamentally accurate.

It's also possible, of course, that it isn't true. That Trump heard what he wanted to hear or made it up entirely in order to make himself look or feel better.

The broader point here is that these misstatements, while minor as compared to something like, say, what role Trump played in the crafting of his eldest son's statement responding to the reporting of a meeting with a Russian lawyer, still matter.

They matter because they reveal -- or maybe re-reveal -- that Trump views the truth as a very subjective thing. On matters small and large, he bends reality to fit how he wants it to be. The Boy Scouts DID love him and so he said the head of the group called him to tell him he was the best ever. Whether it actually happened or not is, to Trump, not all that important. It felt like it happened. He was telling the truth as he sees it.

Of course, the truth as you might see it isn't the same thing as the plain, old truth. And if Trump is willing to lie about something so minor as phone calls, what else is he willing to stretch -- or break -- the truth about?

That's why the deceptions revealed Wednesday matter. And they (should) matter a lot.

Original post:
Donald Trump just keeps lying - CNN

Updated: 11:27 AM ET | Originally published: 11:21 AM ET

In a phone call with Mexican President Pea Nieto in January, President Donald Trump said he won support in New Hampshire "because New Hampshire is a drug-infested den," a reference to the state's opioid crisis .

A transcript of Trump's Jan. 27 phone call during which he faulted Mexico for the flow of illegal drugs into the U.S. was obtained and published by the Washington Post on Thursday.

"They are sending drugs to Chicago, Los Angeles, and to New York. Up in New Hampshire I won New Hampshire because New Hampshire is a drug-infested den is coming from the southern border," Trump told Pea Nieto.

Trump who won the Republican primary in New Hampshire but lost the state to Hillary Clinton in the general election campaigned in New Hampshire on a promise to solve the opioid addiction epidemic.

"We are becoming a drug-addicted nation and most the drugs are coming from Mexico or certainly from the southern border," Trump told Pea Nieto in the call. "We have a massive drug problem where kids are becoming addicted to drugs because drugs are being sold for less money than candy because there is so much of it."

The New Hampshire comment drew ire from Democratic leaders as well as the state's Republican governor on Thursday.

"The President is wrong. Its disappointing his mischaracterization of this epidemic ignores the great things this state has to offer, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu said in a statement. " Our administration inherited one of the worst health crises this state has ever experienced, but we are facing this challenge head on."

Democratic New Hampshire Sen. Maggie Hassan called the remarks "disgusting." "Instead of insulting people in the throes of addiction, @POTUS needs to work across party lines to actually stem the tide of this crisis," she said on Twitter.

"Its absolutely unacceptable for the President to be talking about NH in this way a gross misrepresentation of NH & the epidemic," New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat, said in a tweet , calling for Trump to apologize.

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Donald Trump Called New Hampshire a 'Drug-Infested Den' in Call With Mexican President - TIME

Zach Tomasovic and Nate McLeod as Donald Trump and Jared Kushner in Trumpus InterruptusEmily Lipson

President Donald Trump is due to be forced out of office. The commander-in-chief has been caught in a plot with Russian President Vladimir Putin , and is desperately working to save his presidency with the help of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner . The rest of the world is in chaos. It may sound like a grim prophecyor a liberal fantasybut in fact it's the premise of Trumpus Interruptus , a comic play due to be performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this summer.

This August, artists from both sides of the Atlantic are placing American politics at the heart of the Edinburgh Fringe, which claims to be the worlds biggest arts festival. Donald Trump may work 3,458 miles from Scotlands capital but he'll be on center stage there, as at least 23 shows at this year's festival will seek to explore the past, present and future of his Presidency. Last year there was only one.

The "Fringe," which runs this year from Aug. 4-28, has been a platform for young artists to make a name for themselves ever since it began in the late 1940s. It's where the likes of Alan Bennett and Dudley Moore rose to prominence in the 1960 sketch show Beyond the Fringe and where a young playwright named Tom Stoppard had his first success with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in 1966. Alan Rickman, Rowan Atkinson, Steven Berkoff, Billy Connolly and others launched their careers on its stages. It's uniquely democratic; the organizers do not select or commission the shows and absolutely anybody can perform if they can cover their costs. This year, over 3,300 shows will be staged. Many choose to perform for free, funding their shows by donations and working in the venues in lieu of a hire fee.

The festival is also no stranger to controversy. Most famously, Jerry Springer: the Opera was first staged there in 2002, which was boycotted by Christian groups for its foul-mouthed portrayals of Biblical figures including God and Jesus Christ. In 2015, pro-euthanasia Dr. Phillip Nitschke, who is banned from practicing medicine in his native Australia, put on a show that explored how to circumvent the laws on assisted suicide but first had to prove to local government officials that he wasn't going to gas the audience . Elizabeth Burchell, a spokeswoman for the festival said at a briefing on June 7 that theres always something to challenge audiences at the Fringe. But thats what art, theatre and what we do is all about. Its actually provoking that debate and that discussion. It will be really interesting to see how that unfolds at the festival.

Given the ongoing drama inside the White House, it's perhaps inevitable that some feel it will make great theater. Zach Tomasovic, the 25-year-old author of Trumpus Interruptus , originally wanted to fictionalize a conversation between Trump and a journalist. But the 25-year-old comedian from Pennsylvania eventually decided that exploring the Presidents impeachment in a theater setting would allow him, and his audience, to see how something like that might play out. Trump is a muse, he says. This guy has inspired a lot of art and a lot of comedy. To bone up on playing the nation's 45th President, he jokes, he's attempting a little fourth grade reading.

It's not just Americans making light of the Trump presidency, though. British student Adam Woolf, 21, has directed and produced Trumpd! , a musical that he says is more silly than serious. Woolf is a member of Cambridge Universitys famous Footlights , a comedy troupe which boasts big names like John Cleese, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and John Oliver as former members. Trumpd! is again set in the future. The year is 2030 and Trump is getting round to building The Great Border Wall of Mexico in the fourteenth year of his first term.

When he first started working on the show in January 2016 Trump wasnt even the Republican nominee, Woolf says, and it was tricky to find a balance at first. Hes such a ridiculous figureto the point where you cant satirize him because he does that himself, Woolf says. We went between being very very silly and trying to cast a judgement." Now, he continues, "there is something for everyone in it. People who like comedy, people who like musicals, people who like satire.

Neither Tomasovic nor Woolf seem to be particularly worried that the Edinburgh crowds might revolt against their depictions of Donald Trump as some did when he was depicted as Julius Caesar in New York in June. After news spread that a Trump-like character was being assassinated onstage every night, a right-wing protestor disrupted the scene screaming this is violence against Trump! while another filmed it. The play reportedly resumed within a minute.

Woolf says hes not expecting a huge amount of backlash, bearing in mind we are in Edinburgh and not in America. Tomasovic, the creator of Trumpus Interruptus , is even convinced that Republicans would like his show. I think that you can laugh regardless of political allegiances ... laughter is a universal truth, he says. But he adds that the commander-in-chief might disagree. The biggest thing that unsettles Trump is that the world laughs at him.

But it's not just theater where Trump is showing up. Festival-goers can also learn about fringe politics in Trump's America, as VICE contributor Harmon Leon will reveal how he infiltrated anti-immigration vigilantes, abortion protesters and Christian gay conversion therapists. Archivist Rachel Hosker from the University of Edinburgh will be investigating whether archives hold facts, or alternative facts in a show entitled Alternative Facts: Is the Truth in the Archives? And of course, Edinburgh's legions of standups are ready to use Trump as a muse. Seattle-based comedian Erich McElroy is even pledging to Make the Fringe Great Again.

Trump isnt even the only figure from last years election to take center stage. Oliver Chinyere, who worked on Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, has a one-man show Unprecedented and Unpresidential: How Hillary Lost the Election, in which he will provide insight into the downfall of Trump's onetime rival. The 33-year-old now works for Airbnb but worked as a digital analyst in Clinton's Brooklyn HQ, where he worked with celebrities like Amy Schumer and Lena Dunham to boost Clintons chances.

In the show, which TIME saw in a preview in London in July, he explains how "we cocked it up" standing alongside a life-size cardboard cutout of Trump, with words like "Benghazi" and "emails" pinned to it. Although the President is a "fascinating phenomenon," he told TIME , his show is more about " insight and foresight.

Chinyeres talk offers a less apocalyptic vision than Trump'd! and Trumpus Interruptus , but he does admit he was a little bit scared of the crowd reaction when he performed a version in New York earlier this year. Chinyere has to return to his day job, although he hints that hed very quickly return to campaigning if Michelle Obama ran in 2020. But Tomasovic has ambitions to take Trumpus on a West Coast tour and an Off-Broadway run. We would eventually like to take it to places that it wouldnt normally show, he adds.

The Fringe Festival, which turns 70 this year, has adopted the slogan "defying the norm since 1947" so perhaps it's little surprise so many shows are reacting against the status quo in Washington. And if anybody takes issue? Tomasovic has a suggestion to loosen them up: I would say why dont you just go and drink a pint.

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Donald Trump Takes Center Stage at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival - TIME