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President Trump accused Senate Democrats Monday of blocking his nominees particularly ambassadorships from confirmation, issuing yet another Twitter challenge to Capitol Hill.

But Democrats fired back, saying the problem is that Mr. Trump has been slow in sending nominees over to Capitol Hill for action, and its up to him to get the ball rolling.

Its the latest flare-up in a relationship that has only deteriorated over the first four months of Mr. Trumps presidency.

Dems are taking forever to approve my people, including Ambassadors. They are nothing but OBSTRUCTIONISTS! Want approvals, Mr. Trump said on Twitter amid an outburst that spanned everything from the latest London terror attack to gun control to criticizing how his own Justice Department has mounted the legal defense of his extreme vetting policies.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer fired back, saying Mr. Trump has been the problem. He said there are more than 500 positions that require Senate confirmation, and Mr. Trump has only nominated 63.

Another 24 have been nominated but arent officially before the Senate, and 15 others have been announced but not formally nominated, Mr. Schumer said.

Just 39 have been confirmed.

Mr. Schumer defended his partys pace as an important check on Mr. Trump.

It was the Senates responsibility to give a thorough vetting for such important positions, with many of the nominees having conflicts of interest and incomplete ethics agreements when they were named. President Trump ought to roll up his sleeves and get to work rather than pointing false fingers of blame, the New York Democrat said.

He also pointed to a number of picks Mr. Trump announced then canceled, including his original Labor Department secretary and two different names for secretary of the Army.

Republicans chided Mr. Schumer for initially getting his numbers wrong, skipping over 24 nominations Mr. Trump has made.

And the GOP said those confirmations Mr. Schumer is touting only came after a series of roadblocks erected by Democrats on Capitol Hill. More than 60 percent of the presidents picks have faced Democratic-led filibusters, and his Cabinet saw the largest number of No votes of any president in modern history.

Democrats have used parliamentary tactics to try to delay many of Mr. Trumps appointments, asking for delays in committee and forcing filibuster voters on the Senate floor.

Mr. Trumps solicitor general and two other high-profile Justice Department appointments have been awaiting a vote in the Judiciary Committee for weeks, with Democrats exercising their right under committee rules to demand a delay.

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Donald Trump blasts Senate as 'obstructionists,' demands approval of his nominees - Washington Times

After announcing his goal to privatize the nation's Air Traffic Control System, President Donald Trump sat down at a desk on Monday and signed two documents. There was only one problem: He wasn't actually signing something that would have any tangible impact on what he had just proposed.

A White House aide told reporters Trump had signed a "a decision memo and letter transmitting legislative principles to Congress," surrounding the privatization of the Air Traffic Control system, which he had just spent the last few minutes advocating for. But in order for his goal to come to fruition, Congress would need to pass pass legislation implementing it. Before Trump gave remarks Monday, White House officials had told reporters that the President is only dictating his legislative goals of separating air traffic controls from the FAA. Congress is not required to follow through on these goals.

Trump's proposal was actually based on legislation introduced by Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Bill Shuster, the Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. The bill never made it to the House floor for a vote and reportedly faced bipartisan opposition in the Senate.

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President Trump Just Held a Signing. He Had Nothing to Sign - TIME

(Photo by Gabriele Maricchiolo/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

A dark moment in American history gets darker with each bit of information that comes out.

Donald Trump's disastrous decision to pull out of the Paris climate deal last week is already, on its face, one of the dumbest decisions a political leader has made in a long time. The reasons to stay in the agreement were countless, while the reasons to pull out were stupid both politically and, you know, factually.

Politically, polls show that seven out of ten Americans support staying in the Paris Agreement. Considering this nation is so divided that I'm pretty sure you'd be hard-pressed to get more than 51 percent of Americans to agree that ice cream is good, that is saying something. But perhaps more staggering are the facts of the situation. Donald Trump decided to leave the Paris Agreement because he thinks it will cost us jobs. Of course, this is all based on the fact that Trump desperately wants his base to think he's bringing back coal jobs. Spoiler: He's not. No one is. They're gone forever, and burning down the world's future just to try (and fail) to convince some people otherwise is not a recipe for success. And parading about in the Rose Garden as though you just accomplished something good (as opposed to terrifying) is embarrassing.

And that's become something of a theme with this administration. Embarrassing decision after humiliating fuck-up after embarrassing decision after et cetera, et cetera. But on this issue, Donald Trump had every opportunity to fix things. He had every chance to not make himself (and by proxy all of us) look stupid. A new report from Der Spiegel claims that Trump's display in a closed-door meeting with world leaders was that of a petulant child who chose recalcitrance and tempter tantrums over listening to anyone.

The newly elected French president, Emmanuel Macron, went first. It makes sense that the Frenchman would defend the international treaty that bears the name of France's capital: The Paris Agreement. "Climate change is real and it affects the poorest countries," Macron said.

Then, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reminded the U.S. president how successful the fight against the ozone hole had been and how it had been possible to convince industry leaders to reduce emissions of the harmful gas.

Finally, it was Merkel's turn. Renewable energies, said the chancellor, present significant economic opportunities. "If the world's largest economic power were to pull out, the field would be left to the Chinese," she warned. Xi Jinping is clever, she added, and would take advantage of the vacuum it created. Even the Saudis were preparing for the post-oil era, she continued, and saving energy is also a worthwhile goal for the economy for many other reasons, not just because of climate change.

So let's look at those arguments. Macron made an appeal to Trump's sense of intellect (obviously a bad idea) and compassion (oh boy...). Trudeau appealed to Trump's sense of history (yikes). Merkel, the savviest of the bunch, went in a different direction. She appealed to Trump's egohis image of himself as a brilliant businessman and his desire to "win" at all costs. "You wouldn't want the Chinese to win, would you, Donald?" Obviously, this was the only path that even had a chance, but in the end, Donald couldn't, just once, do the right thing. Nope. Donald reportedly said that even though staying in the deal was easier, he was going to leave because the agreement was hurting the economy's ability to create jobs.

Interesting. Is that true? Well, tough to say. On one hand, noted dummy Donald Trump says it is, while on the other, actual experts say "the agreement would likely help create about as many jobs in renewable energy as it might cost in polluting industries." So for no reason, Donald Trump didn't listen to our allies and then tried to embarrass them in a weirdly confrontational press event. So not only is the world going to burn to a crisp, but we'll have no friends internationally to commiserate with when it does.

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Donald Trump's Mishandling of the Paris Climate Agreement Was Even More Humiliating Than We Thought - GQ Magazine

Donald Trump reached the height of his popularity right before he became president in January. Ever since then, his poll numbers have been moving steady downward. Even in late December Trump still was notviewed favorably by a majority of Americans, according to polling averages.

With Trumppromotinga deeply unpopular health care plan and enmeshed in a scandal surrounding his current and former associates dealings with the Russian government, hisapproval ratings are literally at their lowest point of his presidency according to poll aggregator RealClearPolitics. Just less than40 percent of Americans approve of the job that Trump is doing in office when the most recent surveys are averaged together. That mirrors data from FiveThirtyEight, which gaveTrump a 39 percent approval rating as well.

Most presidential administrations would be sounding internal alarm bells upon hearingsuch low figures, but Trump and the Republicans hehas allied himself with seem to be coming to the realization that things arent likely to change anytime soon. So instead of trying to increase his support by working with Democrats on some bipartisan legislation, Trump and the GOP appear to be embracing the idea of keeping his hard-core supporters happy and motivated in the hopes that the presidents critics dont show up.

Its a risky strategy but one that is actually somewhat in line with the 2004 re-election strategy of former President George W. Bush. During that year, his top strategists Karl Rove and Matt Dowd came to the conclusion that swing voters dont really exist and therefore going toward the middlewouldntbe worth potentially alienating dedicated supporters.

Nobody had ever approached an election that Ive looked at over the last 50 years, where base motivation was important as swing, which is how we approached it, Dowd told PBS in 2005. We didnt say base motivation is what were going to do, and thats all were doing. We said both are important, but we shouldnt be putting 80 percent of our resources into persuasion and 20 percent into base motivation.

That strategy was one that was largely copied by former President Barack Obama when he ran for re-election in 2012. Facing big drops in millennial white support (his GOP rival Mitt Romney actually won over that group) and greater apathy among black Americans who had already made history by voting forObama, hiscampaign operation focused most of its resources ongaining the support of people who had enabled his capture of 365 Electoral College votes.

The problem for Trump, however, is that his base is continuing to shrink not just because elderly voters representedthe only age group with a majority thatvoted for him but also because more and more people are leaving the Republican Party.

Trying to keep happy the dwindling percentage of people who do choose to remain Republican is therefore the No. 1 job for those within the Trump administration and its a huge part of why he recently withdrew from a climate change agreement that was signed by Obama. The bet is that while the public says it wants to abide by the Paris treaty (the Senatestill had to voteon itfor the United States to be bound by its terms even if Trump hadnt withdrawn from the pact), environmental issues dont affect voting decisions that much.

Expect more such decisions of this nature in the very near future from Trump. The White Househas essentially admitted that its anti-government views wont be able to gainthe support of a majority of Americans. If enough congressional Republicans go along with this, expect even more stark policy changes to happen, especially as the party is trying to turn national media outlets into its opponents instead of Democrats.

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Donald Trump is massively unpopular, and he's making no effort to change that - Salon

BuzzFeed News

No, Londoners Didn't Chant "Donald Trump, We Love You" After The Attack BuzzFeed News An old video of protesters chanting "Donald Trump, we love you" has resurfaced in the wake of the London attack. It's being passed off as a recent recording by Trump supporters. Sadiq Khan is an EMBARRASSMENT Londoners chant #Trump's name ...

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No, Londoners Didn't Chant "Donald Trump, We Love You" After The Attack - BuzzFeed News