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Chances are that you can't. In fact, if you're like most of the political world, Monday feels as if it happened a month ago.

This is the nature of time in the Donald Trump presidency. There are so many storylines every single day that it's impossible to keep up with them even for a 24-hour news cycle. Some of this is, of course, strategy on the part of the President -- if you throw 1,000 balls in the air, any one person can only hope to focus on a few in hopes of catching them.

But, ascribing strategy to every ball Trump throws may be giving him and his White House too much credit. The truth is that this is a President who creates chaos in and around him. He acts, and then watches the wildness that ensues. The plan, seemingly, is that there is no plan.

He's the man knocking down the first domino in a massive chain that spiders in a thousand different directions. Or, maybe even more apt: He's smashing the ice on a thinly frozen pond and watching as the cracks spread out around him -- endangering both himself and anyone else unlucky enough to be sharing the ice with him.

Every week at the manic pace Trump keeps feels like a blur -- none more than this week, in which the President and his administration lurched from controversy to cataclysm to convulsion and back, all in the space of five days.

Let's go through the week that was:

"McMaster is at odds with President Trump on many key national security issues," reported CNN. "McMaster has also found himself undercut by others in the President's orbit like chief strategist Steve Bannon."

Later in the day Trump delivered a humdinger of a speech to police officers in Long Island on the dangers posed by the MS-13 gang, which he derided as "animals." He also appeared to condone violence against criminals; "And when you see these towns and when you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon you just see them thrown in, rough I said, please don't be too nice," Trump said.

Just before 5 p.m. Eastern Time, Trump announced -- via Twitter -- that he had fired Reince Priebus as chief of staff and replaced him with John Kelly, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

It was a month's worth of bad news -- and maybe several months' worth -- in a single week. (And the week isn't even over yet.)

Consider this: If an episode of "West Wing" had the plot outlined above, Aaron Sorkin would likely have rejected it as too fantastical. There won't ever be THAT much -- and that much bad for the President -- happening in a single week, you can imagine him saying.

And, up until Donald Trump became the President, he'd have been right. But in this reality show presidency, the truth is stranger than fiction. And a week can seem to last a month.

This story has been updated.

Original post:
Donald Trump's manic, fantastical and utterly disastrous week - CNN

Donald Trump doesnt scare Washington anymore.

That was the lesson from a week of stinging defeats for the President, from the halls of Congress to the homepage of Breitbart. Not long ago, Trump could tank a companys stock price with a Twitter blast and cow Republican allies into silence when he trampled political norms.

But these days, Trump doesnt have much juice in the capital.

The President was disengaged throughout much of the Senates dramatic fight over healthcare reform, even though his administration made the repeal of the Affordable Care Act its first big legislative priority. When Trump finally waded into the fray late in the gameafter Republican leaders had failed to rally the votes for the plan they crafted and Trump blessedhis tweeted threats failed to sway GOP Senate holdouts.

Lisa Murkowski was the primary target of Trumps ire. On Wednesday, the President took aim at the Republican senator from Alaska, tweeting that Murkowski, a moderate in her fourth term, really let the Republicans, and our country, down yesterday. Too bad! Then Trump tapped his Interior Secretary, Ryan Zinke, to ramp up the pressure. Murkowski received a phone call warning that a vote against the bill could jeopardize her states chances of getting approval from the administration on energy projects.

How did Murkowski respond? By standing her ground. First, she went public with the threat, which embarrassed the administration and led Democrats to threaten an investigation. Then she went to the Senate floor early Friday morning and cast one of the three votes required to tank the Republican repeal plan.

Sen. John McCain, whom Trump targeted for derision during the 2016 campaign, joined Murkowski and Maines Susan Collins in voting against the bill. His decisive vote followed impassioned pleas from Vice President Mike Pence and a call from Trump himself, Republican officials say.

When the President went to war on his own attorney general this week, conservative media outlets normally friendly to Trump leapt to Jeff Sessions defense instead. Breitbart News, one of Trumps top cheerleaders, called Sessions a man who embodies the movement that elected Donald Trump President. Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh criticized Trumps handling of the spat. Outside groups rallied Tea Party leaders and lawmakers to Sessions defense, and Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley publicly warned his committee would not consider another nominee for the post this year. The battles lines had been drawn, and conservatives stood on Sessions side.

Meanwhile, congressional Republicans were making life difficult for Trump on another sensitive front. Both houses of Congress voted nearly unanimously to impose new sanctions on Russia, sending a bill to Trumps desk that the White House has criticized. The move put the President in a bind: veto the billwhich Congress can override anywayand risk looking as though he was taking a soft line on Moscow in the midst of deepening investigations into whether members of his campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election. Or sign it and risk retaliation from President Vladimir Putin.

White House officials expect Trump to sign the legislation, but to issue a signing statement outlining his reservations on the bill. Whats clear from the vote tally is that House and Senate Republicans didnt much care about putting the President in a predicament. After all, theyd watched Trump twist arms to help get the healthcare repeal bill over the line in the House, only to turn around and call the legislation mean.

Even the military pushed pause on their commander in chiefs orders this week. In a series of tweets this week, Trump announced that transgender men and women would no longer be able to serve in the U.S. armed forces. The decree caught the Pentagon by surprise, with even the Joint Chiefs left unaware beforehand of Trumps order. The Pentagon swiftly put the burden of clarifying the policy on the White House, and informed commanders that Trumps tweets had no practical effect until that happened.

Trump remains a formidable foe. He has the bully pulpit of the presidency at his disposal and a loyal base that has largely stuck with him through the fumbles and controversies that marred his opening months in office.

But the series of sharp rebukes this week highlighted how quickly Trumps political capital has eroded. Presidents are typically near the apex of their influence in the months after an election, riding high off their inauguration and enjoying a honeymoon in the polls. But Trump is shattering convention there as well. His approval rating hasnt been north of 40% in more than a month, setting new records for unpopularity so soon into an administration.

Maybe its no wonder few people in town seem afraid of him.

The rest is here:
Who's Afraid of Donald Trump? Good Question. - TIME

Our leonine president spent the week pawing and poking his downed prey, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, licking the little mans fur in great slurps with appetite-whetting tweets as he dillydallied about delivering the death bite and devouring his catch.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes (where are E-mails & DNC server) & Intel leakers! Trump tweeted on July 25. Why didnt A.G. Sessions replace Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, a Comey friend, Donald Trump tweeted in a damning two-parter the next day. I am disappointed in the attorney general. He should not have recused himself, the president said at a news conference a couple of hours later.

Story Continued Below

Was it human sadism at work, an indication of how frustrated Trump has become at blunting the investigation into the scandal with no name? Or was it just Trump obeying the law of the savanna, which dictates that the strongest, largest cat with the most tufted mane and the most prolific seed shall dominate the pride at his leisure? According to Newt Gingrich, another subservient member of the Trump pride, the president doesnt like to deliver the dispatching blow himself. I think Donald Trump doesnt like to fire people, period, Gingrich told Fox News on July 25. Trumps squeamishness about sacking people and his insistence that others do the deed has been long acknowledged, most saliently by my colleague Michael Kruse. New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman asked two Trump insiders why he insisted on toying with his attorney general. Because he can, both said.

Trump prefers the suicide of resignationprovoked by nonstop, continued public humiliationover actually sacking staffers. The younger lions in the Trump pride, watching from the short grasses, have taken to mimicking their leaders displays of dominance. Anthony Scaramucci (who will first dare call him Scar?) has been playing a slightly less effective game of catch-torture-and-release, catch-torture-and-release, with his quarry, White House chief of staff Reince Priebus. Scaramucci used Twitter to threaten Priebus with an FBI and Department of Justice investigation, then deleted the tweet, denying Priebus would be targeted. In a profanity-laced conversation with the New Yorkers Ryan Lizza, Scaramucci made the vulgar Trump sound like a parson in comparison. He both promised bulk firings at the White House and used so many expletives to describe chief strategist Steve Bannon and others that newspapers and cable-news chyrons exhausted their hyphen stockpiles as they attempted to censor him. Scaramucci also accused Priebus of cock-blocking hima new one to me, requiring a visit to the Urban Dictionary. I hope Mooch meant it metaphorically.

His hairdo matted with lion spittle, Sessions temporarily escaped to El Salvador for a photo-op about deporting MS-13s bad hombres. He quivered like a baby wildebeest suffering PTSD when Fox News Channels Tucker Carlson caught up with him to inquire about the presidents scolding. Trumps steady disparagement was kind of hurtful, a humbled Sessions squeaked, but the president of the United States is a strong leader. Beyond saying his decision to recuse himself from the Russia business was the correct one, Sessions offered nothing that would provoke renewed Trump attacks.

The Sessions and Scaramucci dramatics muted any news about the slow-moving investigation in Russian meddling into the 2016 election, of which there was very little this week. The leader of the prides son-in-law, Jared Kushner, gave closed-door testimony on Capitol Hill in an attempt to untangle himself from the scandal. He told cameras afterward that he had never colluded with the Russians. What then, pray tell, was that Trump Tower meeting with four Russians, Donald Trump Jr., and Paul Manafort in which Russian kompromat to incriminate Hillary Clinton was on offer? So boring, he arrived late and sought an excuse to leave early, Kushner said in a statement.

Lost in the weeks histrionics was an NBC News piece sourced to the Department of Justice that connected former Trump campaign boss Manafort to an upper-echelon [associate] of Russian organized crime, a connection Manafort denied. The Guardian made a similar effort to link Russian money to the Kushner real estate empire. At the Atlantic, Julia Ioffe stirred the scandal stew looking for meat, and found a pot roast hidden in plain sight as she tallied the many overtures Russians have made to those in the Trump pride. This is how Russian intelligence works, sending tendrils into cracks and expanding.

The New Yorkers Lizza, who deserves some sort of bonus or promotion, hustled another bracing quotation this week, in a piece that complements Ioffes. Michael Hayden, former CIA and NSA chief, essentially told Lizza that Kushners Trump Tower confab was more like richly marbled antelope steak than nothing-burger. Through Haydens eyes, the meeting looked precisely like a Russian intel oppart of a patient, step-by-step effort by agents of influence, cutouts and front organizations to penetrate and compromise its target. If Hayden is right, his analysis helps explain why the Lion King roared so vehemently at little Jeff Sessions over the AGs recusal this week.

My god, this is just such traditional tradecraft, the spook told Lizza.

******

The search for a name for the no-name scandal conducted here over the past two months, continues. Theres still time to submit your nomination to Shafer.Politico@gmail.com. This weeks honorable mentions: Trump loeli, (Larry Gordon), Trump Cower, (Lisa Green), Kislyak and Tell, (Jim Zien), Irkutsk a Been a Contender, (Jim Zien), Tsar-a-Lago, (Keith Denoyer), Arrested Developer, (Daniel Nix), Borscht in the USA, (Alex Khachaturian), Dossier-evsky, (Alex Khachaturian), Beyond the Valley of the Russian Dolls, (Rana Buckner), and Fast and Spurious, (Teresa Miller). My email alerts have fired both my Twitter feed and my RSS feed. Readers will be the next to go.

Jack Shafer is Politicos senior media writer.

Read the original here:
Week 10: Donald Trump, Lion King - POLITICO Magazine

WASHINGTON In the wee hours of Friday, while most Americans were sleeping, Donald Trump suffered the biggest political defeat of his presidency.

Senate Republicans failed to repeal Obamacare again and this time, at least for now, they appear ready to throw in the towel. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) looked stunned as the vote went down, and set up a vote for a judicial nominee next week before gaveling out. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) issued a statement saying hes moving onto what hes wanted to do all along tax reform.

It leaves Trump in his weakest position yet. Six months into the job, he has failed to unify his party, at a time when the GOP controls all of government, to pass their No. 1-priority issue. Hes proven to be a terrible dealmaker. Hes demonstrated that his grand promises to his base about repealing President Barack Obamas signature law were empty, and that hes more interested in showmanship than substance.

The photo below from a May ceremony in the Rose Garden, when Trump took a premature victory lap with House Republicans after they passed their (now dead) bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, is already starting to feel like his very own Mission Accomplished moment.

Carlos Barria / Reuters

As lawmakers prepare to head home for the month of August,the president still doesnt have a single major legislative accomplishment under his belt. His popularity is stuck at historic lows. And while it may seem far away, the 2018 elections are on lawmakers minds and will increasingly drive how they vote, regardless of what Trump wants.

Some conservative pundits are already saying Trumps presidency is cooked.

This president cannot change, Rick Tyler, former communications director to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), said Friday on NBCs Morning Joe. And if you cannot change and you cannot become presidential, and you cannot convince the majority of the American people to enact some legislative agenda that he wants passed, his presidency legislatively is effectively over.

Part of Trumps problem is that he keeps burning bridges with the very people who are supposed to be his allies in policy-making: Republicans on Capitol Hill, who hes routinely thrown under buses and blamed for any failures.

On Friday, in a series of tweets, he criticized Senate Republicans who voted against repealing Obamacare and ranted about the need to change the chambers rules, which he still doesnt understand. He seems to think Obamacare repeal could have passed if the Senate only required 51 votes for its passage instead of 60. It couldnt even get 50 votes.

But if theres one thing Trump claims to love, its winning. And hes got a penchant for being able to cast anything as a win with the right framing.He could still eke out a win on health care if he put those skills to work, but it would mean redefining successand working with Democrats and the Republicans hes clashed with.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), one of Trumps biggest critics and one of the GOPers who voted against the Senates repeal bill, said in a Friday statement that its time for everyone to start fresh and work on a bipartisan solution to fix Obamacare instead of repealing it.

It is now time to return to regular order with input from all of our members Republicans and Democrats and bring a bill to the floor of the Senate for amendment and debate, McCain said I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to trust each other, stop the political gamesmanship, and put the health care needs of the American people first. We can do this.

Is it possible for Trump to not attack McCain over his war hero status, or not accuse him of generallylosing,or not criticize his daughter for being angry and obnoxiouson television, long enough to get something done together on health care?

A White House spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment.

Read more from the original source:
Donald Trump Slumps To His Weakest Position Yet - HuffPost

President Donald Trump speaks at Suffolk Community College on July 28, 2017, in Brentwood, N.Y.

President Donald Trump spoke before an audience of law enforcement officials on Long Island, N.Y., about measures his administration is taking to crack down on illegal immigrant gang violence.

The central theme of his July 28 speech was his goal of restoring law and order to a country he says has been beset by lax enforcement of immigration and other laws.

Heres a rundown of several specific claims Trump made, and whether they were accurate.

"The previous administration enacted an open-door policy to illegal immigrants from Central America. Welcome in. Come in, please."

The reality is Obama carried out more than 5.2 million deportations over two terms. That figure combines both "removals," which involve a formal court order, and "returns," which dont.

Obama returned more than 2 million Central Americans in his first seven years in office, according to data from the Department of Homeland Securitys Office of Immigration Statistics (that does not include formal removals or 2016 data).

Roughly 150,000 of those deported under Obama were returned to El Salvador, from which MS-13 hails, according to data from the Los Angeles Times.

Between 2003 and 2013, one in five deportations over this time were to Central Americas "Northern Triangle" countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, some of the worlds most dangerous countries, according to data analyzed by the Migration Policy Institute.

Michelle Mittelstadt of the Migration Policy Institute said Obama confronted a surge in migration from Central America, particularly from the Northern Triangle, fueled by instability, gang violence and worsening economic conditions.She noted the Obama administration faced legal constraints -- both from a congressional statutes and court rulings -- that impeded its ability to remove an influx of illegal entrants with children, or unaccompanied minors, many of whom were fleeing Central America.

"We have trade deficits with almost every country."

Trump said he couldnt find countries where the United States currently has a trade surplus. He might not have looked that hard.

"We have trade deficits with almost every country, because we had a lot of really bad negotiators making deals with other countries," Trump said.

Yes, the United States has a significant trade deficit with China, smaller trade deficits with Germany, Japan and Mexico.

But the United States actually has a trade surplus with more than half of the countries or governments it does business with, according to data kept by the United States International Trade Commission.

In 2016, the United States recorded a trade surplus with 134 different nations or governments. It ran a deficit with 99 nations or governments.

A surplus occurs when the United States exports more goods to a country than it imports from it.

Share the Facts

2017-07-28 19:16:29 UTC

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Wrong

"We have trade deficits with almost every country."

In a speech

Friday, July 28, 2017

2017-07-28

"I said from the beginning, let Obamacare implode, and then do it. I turned out to be right. Let Obamacare implode."

Trump actually argued that Republicans should not let Obamacare collapse because "it wouldnt be fair to the people."

"Frankly, we could sit back and it was a thought from a political standpoint, but it wouldnt be fair to the people," Trump said at a Jan. 11, 2017, press conference in New York.

"We could sit back and wait and watch and criticize and we could be a Chuck Schumer and sit back and criticize it and people would come, they would come, begging to us please, we have to do something about Obamacare. We dont want to own it, we dont want to own it politically. They own it right now.

"So the easiest thing would be to let it implode in 17 and believe me, wed get pretty much whatever we wanted, but it would take a long time. Were going to be submitting, as soon as our secretarys approved, almost simultaneously, shortly thereafter, a plan."

At the same press conference, Trump said he would repeal and replace Obamacare at the same time. It was also a core campaign promise.

"Itll be repeal and replace. It will be essentially, simultaneously. It will be various segments, you understand, but will most likely be on the same day or the same week, but probably, the same day, could be the same hour," Trump said.

"So were gonna do repeal and replace, very complicated stuff. And were gonna get a health bill passed, were gonna get health care taken care of in this country."

Share the Facts

2017-07-28 19:18:30 UTC

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Not what he said

"I said from the beginning, let Obamacare implode, and then do it. I turned out to be right. Let Obamacare implode."

In a speech

Friday, July 28, 2017

2017-07-28

"GDP is up double from what it was in the first quarter. 2.6 percent."

The GDP indeed grew at an annual rate of 2.6 percent between April and June, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, more than double the rate at which it grew in the first quarter (1.2 percent). This is the first full quarter of GDP growth since Trump took office.

Its much closer to the 3 percent growth rate promised by Trump in May, although many economists weve interviewed said sustaining that level of growth without substantial policy changes would prove difficult.

Economists would also refrain from attributing the growth to Trump, as many of his policies have yet to be implemented. Consumer spending, which typically makes up about 70 percent of the economy, partially drove the increase.

Share the Facts

2017-07-28 19:21:00 UTC

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Correct.

GDP is up double from what it was in the first quarter. 2.6 percent."

In a speech

Friday, July 28, 2017

2017-07-28

"Trump doesn't win, your Second Amendment is gone."

Trump dialed up a popular but False attack on his 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton.

"By the way, your Second Amendment is safe. Your Second Amendment is safe," Trump said. "I feel very good about that. Wasn't looking so good for the Second Amendment, was it, huh? If Trump doesn't win, your Second Amendment is gone. Your Second Amendment would be gone.

There was no no evidence of Democrat Hillary Clinton ever saying verbatim or suggesting explicitly that she wants to abolish the Second Amendment and the bulk of Clintons comments suggest she wanted to protect the right to bear arms while enacting measures to prevent gun violence.

Read the rest here:
Fact-checking Donald Trump's Long Island speech to law enforcement - PolitiFact