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Donald Trump, Oscars, George W. Bush: Your Tuesday Briefing New York Times President Trump will address Congress around 9 p.m. Eastern today, with a speech intended to outline his budget demands and set the course for his near-term policy agenda. He laid out a proposal on Monday that would increase military spending by $54 ...

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Donald Trump, Oscars, George W. Bush: Your Tuesday Briefing - New York Times

President Donald Trump signs H.R. 225 in the Oval Office of the White House, in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 28, 2017. Joshua RobertsReuters

President Donald Trump on Tuesday issued an executive order targeting a rule expanding federal oversight of the country's waterways, the latest in a string of actions targeting Obama-era environmental regulations.

Trump's executive order fulfills a campaign promise to undo the 2015 Waters of the U.S. rule, but does not immediately eliminate the measure. Instead, Trump directed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of Engineers to "review and reconsider" the rule. That process may take multiple years and touch off a legal fight that could last even longer.

The Waters of the U.S. rule allows the federal government to regulate pollution in a vast number of rivers, streams, lakes and other waterways that flow into the nation's major bodies of water. Opponents of the measure, which include agricultural interests, energy companies and many Congressional Republicans, say it threatens economic growth and grants the federal government too much authority.

Shortly before signing the order, Trump called the rule "one of the worst examples of federal regulation," and claimed that "the EPAs regulators are putting people out of jobs by the hundreds of thousands.

Environmental groups criticized the order as a threat to clean drinking water. "The rule protects the drinking water of 1 in 3 people living in this country, including those who voted for President Trump," said League of Conservation Voters Legislative Representative Madeleine Foote in a statement . "Dismantling these clean water protections will put safe drinking water at risk."

In the executive order, Trump instructs the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers to rely on a 2006 opinion from Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia for guidance on how to determine which waterways fall under the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act, the legislation under which the waters of the U.S. rule was issued, according to an Axios report .

The move is Trump's latest attempt to change the federal government's approach to energy and the environment. In his first weeks, he moved to revive the Keystone XL pipeline and expedite construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline using an executive order. He has also reversed environmental regulations, including a rule preventing miners from dumping waste into streams, using resolutions passed under the Congressional Review Act.

Tuesday marked the first time Trump has used an executive order to target a rule that has already taken effect, which sets off its own complicated review process. He is also expected to target the Clean Power Plan , Obama's chief measure for fighting climate change, with a similar executive order in the coming days.

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What President Trump's New Order Means for Clean Water - TIME

President Donald Trump on Tuesday dodged responsibility for a botched mission he ordered in Yemen last month, placing the onus on the military and Barack Obamas administration instead.

Bill Owens, the father of Chief Petty Officer William Ryan Owens, the Navy SEAL who died in the operation, demanded an investigation into his sons death over the weekend. Owens further revealed he couldnt bear to meet Trump at the airportas Ryans casket was carried off the military plane last month.

Asked about the matter during an interview with Fox News Fox n Friends, Trump repeatedly said they were responsible for the outcome of the mission, in reference to the military.

This was a mission that was started before I got here. This was something they wanted to do, he said. They came to me, they explained what they wanted to do the generals who are very respected, my generals are the most respected that weve had in many decades, I believe. And they lost Ryan.

I can understand people saying that. Id feel Whats worse? Theres nothing worse, he added. This was something that they were looking at for a long time doing, and according to [Defense Secretary Jim] Mattis it was a very successful mission. They got tremendous amounts of information.

The raid yielded no significant intelligence,U.S. officials told NBC News on Monday. Earlier this month, however, Pentagon officials said it produced actionable intelligence. So, too, did White House press secretary Sean Spicer, who initially called the raid highly successful.

I think anyone who undermines the success of that raid owes an apology and [does] a disservice to the life of Chief Owens, he said earlier this month. The raid, the action that was taken in Yemen was a huge success.

Carlos Barria / Reuters

Presidents have traditionally accepted responsibility for their decisions, no matter the circumstances. President Harry Truman popularized the words, The Buck Stops Here and kept a sign of the phrase on his desk in the Oval Office. His successors took those words to heart, accepting ultimate responsibility in the wake of some of the nations biggest mishaps.

Im the president. And Im always responsible, President Barack Obama said in 2012 following an attack on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans died.

In case you were wondering, in any of your reporting, whos responsible? I take responsibility, hesaidagain in 2010 after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf.

President George W. Bush in 2005owned up to his administrations failings in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, admitting that the federal government didnt fully do its job right. And he accepted responsibility for his costly decision to go to war with Iraq in 2003, despite faulty intelligence.

President Ronald Reagan in 1987 owned up to his administrations dealings amid what is known as the Iran-Contra scandal, telling the nation in a prime-time addressfrom the Oval Office that he took full responsibility for his administration.

As angry as I may be about activities undertaken without my knowledge, I am still accountable for those activities, he said. As disappointed as I may be in some who served me, Im still the one who must answer to the American people for this behavior. And as personally distasteful as I find secret bank accounts and diverted funds - well, as the Navy would say, this happened on my watch.

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Donald Trump Blames SEAL's Death On Military: 'They Lost Ryan' - Huffington Post

President Trump has never been all that willing to acknowledge his own faults. He occasionally admits he might have some, mind you, but he prefersto treat them like Voldemort.

Such was the case in an interview with Fox and Friends on Tuesday morning. Check out this exchange, when Trump and Brian Kilmeade were talking about Trump pulling out of the White House correspondents' dinner, where Trump was roasted a few years ago:

KILMEADE: You said before, 'I can take hits when it's justified.'

TRUMP: Correct.

KILMEADE: Right.

TRUMP: One hundred percent.

KILMEADE: Can you give me an example of a time when someone was critical of you and you thought to yourself, I deserved that hit, I deserved that column, I deserved

TRUMP: No, probably I could never do that.

And there it is.

This isn't entirely new territory, mind you. There was that time during the campaign when Trump acknowledged having said the wrong thing a rare expression of contrition, it seemed. But then he spent days declining to point to anything specific, leaving all of us to guess as to what precisely he meantand even whether he really believed in his own faults.

He had previously said that he wasn't opposed to apologizing but was still in search of something to apologize for. I fully think apologizing is a great thing, but you have to be wrong, Trump told Jimmy Fallon in 2015, perhaps jokingly. I will absolutely apologize sometime in the distant future if Im ever wrong. (That moment finally came and Trump did apologize for the Access Hollywood tape in October.)

Trump has also said he didn't think he has ever asked God for forgiveness, despite it being a core tenet of Christianity. I am not sure I have, he said in July. I just go on and try to do a better job from there. I don't think so.

But within the same interview with Fox on Tuesday, Trump did flash a bit of his ability for self-reflection at a somewhat granular level. He admitted that his messaging over the first month-plus of his presidency has been somewhat lacking and contrasted it with the results, which he assures us are fantastic.

In terms of achievement, I think I'd give myself an A, because I think I've done great things, he said. But I don't think I have I and my people, I don't think we've explained it well enough to the American public. I think I get an A in terms of what I've actually done, but in terms of messaging, I'd give myself a C or a C-plus.

And that's about it for Trump's ability to self-reflect. What's remarkable is that it's not really all that self-critical. This is actually something President Barack Obama said regularly about himself excusing his poor reviews for bad messaging but assuring the product was good. If the reviews are bad, after all, it has to be something and blaming the messaging absolves the quality of the actual output.

Obama said this repeatedly over his years as president, telling Bill Simmons in 2015 that in his first years, a certain arrogance crept in, in the sense of thinking as long as we get the policy ready, we didnt have to sell it.

Messaging is also something Trump isn't totally in charge of, so it has the bonus effect of placing the blame on other people's shoulders along with himself which Trump, it should be emphasized, did.

So while the C or a C-plus comment might get some play, just remember that this is still the same Trump who doesn't really admit his own flaws.Not that he doesn't have them, of course. (Wink.)

Excerpt from:
Donald Trump just admitted he's incapable of acknowledging legitimate criticism - Washington Post

President Trump sat down with "Fox and Friends" on Tuesday morning to preview his address tonight to a joint session of Congress. Using Genius, I annotated it. You can too! Sign up for Genius and annotate alongside me!To see an annotation, click or tap the highlighted part of the transcript.

DOOCY: Mr. President, thank you very much for the invitation.

TRUMP: Thank you.

DOOCY: And by the way, thank you very much for the shout-out you gave at your press conference about 10 days ago.

TRUMP: That's true, I did. And you treated me -- you have treated me very fairly and I appreciate it. I like your (INAUDIBLE)...

DOOCY: Did you take much heat for that from the other networks?

TRUMP: No, not really. I think they know it's true. You know, they know what's fair and not. But you have treated me very fairly. And I've been a friend of your show for a long time.

Remember those call-ins, right (INAUDIBLE)?

DOOCY: For years.

TRUMP: Maybe without those call-ins, somebody else is sitting here.

AINSLEY EARHARDT, HOST: Let's talk about your speech. You're addressing Congress tonight. You have talked about spending $54 billion in additional money for our military.

Senator John McCain has said that is not enough.

What's your reaction?

TRUMP: Well, we're going to spend a lot more money on military. We really have to. We have no choice. And a lot of people think it's a tremendous amount of money. It could be, actually, $30 million, $30 billion more than that. We're going to upgrade our military very substantially.

Remember this, I also am going to get involved in negotiating. we have many planes and boats and ships and everything that we are spending too much money individually on.

We're going to get involved in negotiating. We're going to be able to get, I think, a lot more product for a buck and I'm going to be very, very serious about it.

We saved $700 million plus on an F-35 after I got involved. And I have to tell you, Lockheed was terrific.

But we saved a lot of money on airplanes and that number is going to increase very substantially as we keep going, We will be having the greatest military that we ever had by the time I finish.

BRIAN KILMEADE: Mr. President, you'll have the biggest -- if tradition means anything, and I know everything is a little bit different these days...

TRUMP: Right.

BRIAN KILMEADE, HOST: -- you'll have the biggest audience for a State of the Union like address this year, bigger than any other year.

Having said that, how do you plan on capturing that opportunity for yourself and for your administration?

TRUMP: You know, Brian, all I can do is speak from the heart and say what I want to do. We have a really terrific, I believe, health care plan coming out. We have to understand, ObamaCare has been a disaster. It's way out of control, it doesn't work.

We're coming out with a health care plan that I think will be terrific. It will be very inclusive and I think it's going to do, really, what people are wanting it to do.

But I'll be talking about that. I'll be talking about the military. I'll be talking about the border. And remember this, on the border and throughout our country, we're getting the bad ones out, the bad people -- gang members, drug lords, in some cases, murderers...

KILMEADE: Has that not been communicated...

TRUMP: We're getting them out.

KILMEADE: -- do you think that that has not been communicated effectively?

TRUMP: I don't think so. No, I don't think it's been -- maybe it's my fault. But, you know, when they show people being taken out, these are people that are -- we're looking at the bad ones. And I said that from day one. I said from the day I'm president, we're getting rid of the bad ones. And a lot of people understand it.

I can tell you, the communities where we're removing people that are really trouble and really frightening to a lot of the people that live there...

DOOCY: Right.

TRUMP: -- those communities are very, very happy.

DOOCY: Sure. Mr. President, you're going to spend $54 billion, at least, more on the military. And the people who -- in our audience like that -- love this and you've said you were going to do that all along. You're going to make big spending cuts at the EPA...

TRUMP: Right.

DOOCY: And State Department.

Where does the money come from?

TRUMP: Well, the E...

DOOCY: Because it doesn't seem -- if you cut all the money from EPA and all the money from State, that's about $50 billion.

TRUMP: Well, I think the money is going to come from a revved up economy. I mean you look at the kind of numbers we're doing, we were probably GDP of a little more than 1 percent and if I can get that up to 3 or maybe more, we have a whole different ball game. It's a whole different ball game.

And that's what we're looking to do.

DOOCY: But to get the economy going, you've got to get the Affordable Care Act...

TRUMP: Right.

DOOCY: -- replaced and repealed.

TRUMP: Right.

DOOCY: And then you've got to do something about taxes and how close are we to either of those?

TRUMP: Right. We're going to be doing things having to do with other countries, because we're treated very, very unfairly. We're going to be doing cuts on so many different things.

We're also going to be -- when we help other countries, when we help them, even militarily, we're going to ask for a form of reimbursement, which right now -- I mean we have countries where we're taking care of their military, we're not being reimbursed and they're wealthy countries.

We have a lot of things happening.

We're going to get those numbers way up and we're going to take care of -- and we're going to have a lot of great friends, but we're going to get the numbers way up and we're going to get jobs back in our country. You see what I've done. Ford has announced, General Motors, Fiat has announced. They're all building big plants. They're all coming back into the United States.

They were fleeing. They were fleeing our country. And you mentioned EPA. We have, right now -- I call it the veins of the country. We have, right now hundreds and hundreds of massive deals that are tied up with environmental protection. When they are -- Scott Pruitt, who is terrific. Just got approved.

But when he gets going, those projects are going to be freed up and they're going to be sailing. And you're talking about thousands -- and millions, actually, of jobs.

Also, look at the Keystone Pipeline. Look at the...

DOOCY: It's all connected.

TRUMP: It's all -- it's all together. We're going to have jobs. We're going to have a better economy. But we're going to have jobs again for our people. They don't have the jobs.

EARHARDT: You ran on jobs. You ran on draining the swamp.

TRUMP: Yes.

EARHARDT: You ran on repealing and replacing ObamaCare.

When do you start to put pressure on Congress, the swamp, to get something done, to repeal and to replace?

TRUMP: Well, I think that Paul Ryan and his whole group have been terrific. I just left Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell. And, you know, Paul is working very hard.

You know, health care is a very complex subject. If you do this, it affects nine different things. If you do that, it affects 15 different things.

I think we have a great plan and I think Congress is absolutely taking a lot of blame but it's not their fault. And don't forget, I've only been here for like four weeks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.

TRUMP: Somebody said he hasn't done health care. They've been working on health care for 30 years.

DOOCYE: Right.

TRUMP: I've only been here for -- what is this, my fifth week?

And we're set to propose a plan and I'll be talking about it, as you know, tonight. And -- but we're all set to do a plan. And I think it's going to be something that's going to be really respected

And you take a look at what's going on with the stock market. Trillions of dollars of value have been created since I won the election -- I mean, trillions.. TRUMP: No, I mean the stock market is very enthused and that's jobs.

KILMEADE: But I just have to bring back two things in your cabinet.

TRUMP: Right.

KILMEADE: You have an OMB director, finally. He says you have to take an ax to entitlements. Your Treasury secretary says we're not touching it.

Who's right?

TRUMP: Well, I'll tell you what who's right. If the economy sails, then I'm right, because I said I'm not touching Social Security.

KILMEADE: So your OMB is wrong?

TRUMP: I'm not saying anybody is wrong. I'm just saying this. If we -- and I think this is what's going to happen, Brian. I think our country is going to sail.

DOOCY: Mr. President, you announced via Twitter the other day you're not going to go to the White House Correspondents Dinner.

How come?

TRUMP: Well, I am not a hypocrite. And I haven't been treated properly. And that's OK, which is fine. You know, let...

DOOCY: Well, some...

TRUMP: -- everybody treat me...

DOOCY: -- some of the left say you just can't take a joke.

TRUMP: Maybe we'll have a small -- oh, no.

Do they say that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

TRUMP: Well, I've taken it.

You know, one of the great misconceptions, when President Obama was up -- was -- now, a long time ago, five years ago or whatever, I loved that evening. I had the greatest time...

DOOCY: You were there.

TRUMP: I was there.

KILMEADE: You were there -- you were there target of the hit.

TRUMP: I was the target.

DOOCY: You were the pinata.

TRUMP: And can I be honest?

I had the greatest time. Now, I can't act like I'm thrilled because they're telling jokes. I mean he was telling jokes I'm going to change (INAUDIBLE) the White House, the Trump House and other things.

And he was very -- I thought he did a good job. And he was very respectful and it was fun. And I enjoyed it. And I left and I told the press, they were all said, did you have a good time?

And I said it was fantastic.

The next day I read Donald Trump felt terrible about the evening. I loved the evening. I had a great time.

KILMEADE: You said before, I can take hits when it's justified.

TRUMP: Correct.

KILMEADE: Right.

TRUMP: One hundred percent.

Read more from the original source:
Donald Trump's A+/C+ presidency - Washington Post