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At this point, thanks to the almighty curve on which we as a nation have decided to grade Donald Trump, American president, Thursday night's yell-fest in Toledo was just another Very Presidential Event. The world's most powerful man demonized his political opponents as enemies of the state because they want Congress to have some role in making less-and-less-theoretical war on Iran. He called members of the assembled press "sick," and again suggested the free press has no legitimate role in our democratic republic if it fails to support his version of reality. He again characterized Hispanic immigrants as violent criminals, MS-13 "animals" against whom any measures are presumably justified. He lied, and also threw out more evidence-free claims about imminent attacks that justified his assassination of Iran's second most important figure. He yelled, and not for the first time, that the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee has a "pencil neck." This is all considered normal.

But there was one moment that proved particularly revealing. In the course of these explosions of, uh, patriotism, El Jefe tends to drift on and off the script provided to him by his lackeyschiefly, the Santa Monica Wormtongue Stephen Miller. In the course of one such drift last night, he railed against Democrats on-script and then jumped off to, for perhaps the first time in his life, reflect on what he's doing.

Let's just get a transcript here.

You might say he's just joking around, but the blas way he recites the "stuff" he says about Democrats points to it being a kind of bit. It's a routine. Unlike Miller and unlike the people in the crowd, Donald Trump is no true believer. He's a vector for forces that long predate him, the fear and resentment of a changing world that has long blasted out of Fox News and talk radio. He knows what people want to hear and he says it. He thinks something will help him so he says it. Democrats? Sure, call 'em vicious and horrible crime-wanters.

It's times like these that you remember Donald Trump does not actually care about any of this stuff. He does not care about illegal immigrationhe's employed undocumented immigrants at his properties and on construction projects. He does not care about these people in the crowd who support him so enthusiastically, one of whom he shouted out for booing the very mention of Central American countries. Everybody's a mark or an enemy. Do they love me, or do they not love me? The Democrats have chosen to oppose him, so now he'll say whatever's necessary to destroy them. Meanwhile, can you imagine what the Liberal Media would do if Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren called Republicans "vicious, horrible people" who want crime and chaos? The Washington Post fact-checker needles Sanders for intricate healthcare policy claims that...are true.

Is Trump's rapacious cynicism better or worse than being a true believer? I suppose we're about to find out. The run-up to the 2018 elections, where Trump himself was not even on the ballot, were incredibly ugly. Imagine what's about to come over the next 11 months.

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Another Insane Trump Rant, But This One Had a Revealing Moment - Esquire.com

Columnist E. Jean Carroll, who accused President Donald Trump of raping her two decades ago, won a key victory on Thursday in her defamation suit against the president.

The judge presiding over the case rejected Trump's argument that Carroll can't sue him in New York because he lives in Washington and denied Trump's motion to delay discovery.

"There is not even a tweet, much less an affidavit by defendant Trump in support of his motion," the judge wrote.

Carroll's lawyer, Roberta "Robbie" Kaplan, said she was "pleased, yet unsurprised" by the decision.

"We look forward to moving ahead and proving that Donald Trump lied when he told the world that he did not rape our client and had not even met her," Kaplan said in a statement.

Carroll, who went public with her rape allegation against Trump last June, celebrated the development on Thursday, tweeting, "WE MOVE AHEAD!!"

The longtime advice columnist accused Trump of violently sexually assaulting her in a Manhattan Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s. She accused him of "lunging" at her, forcibly kissing her, and forcing his penis inside her.

Trump has aggressively denied the allegation and claimed never to have even met Carroll, though a photo shows the two chatting at a party a few years before the alleged assault. The president accused Carroll of using the story to sell her memoir and insulted her by saying she wasn't his "type."

Carroll's suit alleges that Trump hurt her reputation with tweets and other statements accusing her of lying and otherwise attacking her.

White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham previously told Insider that "the lawsuit is frivolous and the story is a fraud just like the author."

Trump is facing another defamation suit from an ex-Apprentice contestant, Summer Zervos, who was one of several women to accuse him of sexual misconductin the days leading up to the 2016 election, saying he groped her twiceduring a business meeting in 2007. Trump denied the allegation,calling her claims "fake news."

Ashley Collman contributed reporting.

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Trump suffered a key loss in a defamation case brought by the columnist who accused him of rape - Business Insider

He's pro-Brexit, but President Donald Trump is anti-Megxit.

The president on Friday weighed in on the decision by Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, to "step back" from Buckingham Palace, telling Fox News' Laura Ingraham, "I think it's sad."

Trump then sang the praises of Queen Elizabeth II, who was reportedly "hurt" by the couple's stunning surprise announcement.

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"She's a great woman. She's never made a mistake, if you look. She's had like a flawless time," Trump said.

Asked if her grandson Harry should return to the royal fold, Trump said, "I don't want to go into the whole thing. I just have such respect for the queen. I don't think this should be happening to her."

While Trump has praised the queen in the past, he's also been critical of the Duchess.

During an interview with a British paper last year, Trump called Meghan "nasty" because of comments she'd made about him during the 2016 election. The then-Meghan Markle had called Trump "misogynistic" and "divisive."

"She said she would move to Canada if you got elected. It turned out she moved to Britain," the interviewer told Trump during a visit to the United Kingdom last June.

"There are a lot of people moving here. So, what can I say? No, I didn't know that she was nasty," Trump said.

Asked if it was "good" that there was now an American in the royal family, Trump said, "I think it's nice, and I'm sure she'll do excellently." "She'll be very good," he said.

Meghan was on maternity leave during Trump's visit, and did not attend the state banquet in his honor at Buckingham Palace.

Dareh Gregorian is a politics reporter for NBC News.

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Trump weighs in on Harry and Meghan royal split, defends the queen: 'I think it's sad' - NBC News

On October 6, 1980 Donald Trump was interviewed by Rona Barrett, one of Americas most famous gossip columnists, on NBC. It was several weeks before Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter in the presidential election and near the end of the Iran hostage crisis in which the Iranian regime took 52 American diplomats and citizens prisoner after the embassy was stormed and then held them for 444 days.

It was a long and meandering interview about Trumps story to date (he was then 34). About half way though, Barrett asked Trump if he could make America perfect how would he do it. Trump replied that America should really be a country that gets the respect of other countries. The exchange continued:

Donald Trump: .The Iranian situation is a case in point. That they hold our hostages is just absolutely, and totally ridiculous. That this country sits back and allows a country such as Iran to hold our hostages, to my way of thinking, is a horror, and I dont think theyd do it with other countries. I honestly dont think theyd do it with other countries.

Rona Barrett: Obviously youre advocating that we should have gone in there with troops, et cetera, and brought our boys out like Vietnam.

Donald Trump: I absolutely feel that, yes. I dont think theres any question, and there is no question in my mind. I think right now wed be an oil-rich nation, and I believe that we should have done it, and Im very disappointed that we didnt do it, and I dont think anybody would have held us in abeyance.

As historians Brendan Simms and Charlie Laderman have observed, this interview is the first known comment by Trump on U.S. foreign policy.

Fast forward to January 4, 2020, a day after the U.S. drone strike that killed Qassem Soleimani. Trump tweeted:

One of the puzzles about Trumps strike on Soleimani is why he did it and what he will do next. His administration has pursued a very hawkish policy on Iran beginning with the travel ban, tough new sanctions, walking away from the Iran nuclear deal, and ratcheting up pressure in the year that followed. But, in recent months Trump tacked in a different direction. He did not fire back after the September attacks on Saudi oil facilities. He has professed not to care about the Middle East beyond the oil and ISIS. He seems to want to avoid war, particularly in an election year. And, he was desperate for talks with the Iranian leadership, going so far as to try to surprise the Iranians by dialing into a meeting between President Rouhani and President Macron on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.

The historical record offers an answer. The Iranian revolution, which led to the hostage crisis and an energy crisis, was one of Trumps formative experiences in thinking about Americas role in the world. In the years that followed, he became obsessed with the symbolism of respect (and the acquisition of oil). He was furious that allies did not pay fealty to the United States. He was outraged when foreign leaders did not meet the American president at their plane. The only time he became frustrated with Vladimir Putin in office was when he looked as if he was disrespecting Trumps military strength such as when Russian planes buzzed Americas ships or when the Russians produced a map showing Mar-a-Lago within range of their nuclear weapons. Trump does not hate Iran per se his desire for talks is evidence of that but he does have an obsession with avoiding a humiliation. For Trump, the embassy protests looked like a mash-up of 1979 with Benghazi the ultimate challenge to his own perception of himself as a strongman.

There are contradictory reports of the decisionmaking process around the Soleimani strike. Some reports say that the Pentagon added the option as a throw-away to make the other option seem more reasonable. A report in the Washington Post says Mike Pompeo and Mark Esper had been trying to get Trump to sign on for some time. The Post report may be an attempt by Pompeo and Esper to claim credit and defuse charges of incompetence, but in any event, a consistent element of all reports is that Trump did not sign on to the strike until after the Iranian backed protests outside the embassy.

Trump often lashes out at people after he thinks they criticized him, even if a fight does not serve his interests think about his attack on the parents of the fallen U.S. soldier Humayun Khan or his cruel comment about Debbie Dingel. He has the same reaction to actions that undermine his own image of America as a strong and unrivaled nation while he is at the helm. He would almost certainly not have responded the same way if Iran had continued to hit U.S. allies or to make strategic gains in Iraq.

The killing of Soleimani is a strategic error. It provides short-term gratification upon the demise of a man responsible for the deaths of many Americans, but it damages U.S. interests in the region and beyond. However, many of the downsides mean very little to Trump. He does not care that Iraq might kick U.S. troops out as long as they pay him back for the base. Likewise for Iran abrogating elements of the nuclear deal. He does not mind that this undermines the protest movement in Iraq or in Iran. He cannot envisage the return of ISIS. He couldnt care less that that the Saudis now feel in imminent danger and want a de-escalation. As for international law and creating a precedent for targeted killings of government officials, forget it.

And yet, having killed the second most important person in Iran, Trump now finds himself in a bind. If Iran reacts by attacking Americans, Trump will feel compelled to respond, but that runs the risk of the wider war that he wants to avoid. So he is trying to put the genie back in the bottle by threatening fire and fury if Iran retaliates, just as he is bombastic domestically when in a tight spot. It is unlikely to succeed and, paradoxically, makes all-out war with Iran more likely. In the Barrett interview, Trump spoke about a sparkle of war in the Middle East. The phrase is an apt one to sum up Trumps approach to foreign policy he likes the sparkle and hopes others will be scared into submission. But bluster does not always work.

All-out war between the United States and Iran is unlikely, primarily because it would not serve Irans interests. Iran may bide its time, target U.S. allies instead of Americans, or press the United States in other ways (such as by forcing it out of Iraq). If it does directly attack Americans, Trump might try to wriggle off the hook he has hoisted himself upon.

However, its easy to imagine how the situation could easily spiral into a war. There is little doubt that Trump is uniquely ill-suited to be a commander-in-chief during war time. He has no attention span, does not process information normally, is particularly prone to bad advice, and is deeply insecure. He has one of the weakest and least experienced national security teams since the United States became a global power. He will be fighting this war without many allies. Even the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was careful to distance himself from Trumps drone strike. Given his demonstrated proclivity for war crimes, if he were to decisively win the war, he would very likely do so in a way that would leave a permanent stain on the nations honor.

Trumps Iran crisis fits perfectly within his narrative arc. His administration has had three identifiable phases. The first was the age of constraint, as the so-called Axis of Adults shaped and limited Trumps options. The second was the age of hubris as Trump got rid of anyone who stood up to him so he could act as he wished this came in two variants, maximum pressure and deal-making. The third is the reckoning as Trump is forced to face the consequences and contradictions of his own actions. There have been inklings of this third phase for some time. It has now well and truly arrived.

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How Donald Trump thinks about Iran - Brookings Institution

The Trump administration has been preparing to expand its travel ban which bars individuals from seven countries from entering the US to restrict certain immigrants from several more nations around the world, according to internal government documents obtained by BuzzFeed News.

It is unclear whether the administration will issue the restrictions. But the draft documents suggest it has been actively preparing to do so by creating materials to engage with the media, alongside a draft presidential proclamation.

The draft materials obtained by BuzzFeed News do not contain the names of the countries being considered, but the proclamation includes seven slots that contain descriptors for each nation and varied restrictions. The move would represent just the latest in a series of unprecedented efforts by the Trump administration to tighten immigration and could pointedly come in a reelection year.

While the countries are not listed, the descriptions included do list some indicators. Several countries are listed as not providing the US with identity information and presenting a risk of terrorist travel. One country is an important strategic partner in the global fight against terrorism but nevertheless is failing in identity management issues. Another country does not work with the United States on border and immigration security issues.

CNN first reported in October that the administration was considering restricting travel from certain countries. The Associated Press reported Friday that the administration was also considering a new travel ban.

Sen. Chris Coons and Rep. Judy Chu, both Democrats, "un-American" and "dangerous."

"Thousands of families have already been torn apart because of President Trumps discriminatory Muslim Ban that does not make us safer. Now, thousands more spouses, parents, grandparents, children, siblings, and friends could be separated by the expansion of this senseless ban, Coons said in a statement. This policy is wrong, it is un-American, and I will fight it."

Chu called it a "dangerous policy rooted in bigotry and xenophobia, sold to the American public through misinformation and innuendo."

The draft presidential proclamation details how, after a review conducted by the Trump administration of the identity management and security protocols for 200 countries, the Department of Homeland Security recommended Trump place travel restrictions on countries in addition to the seven already banned, which include Iran, Syria, Libya, Venezuela, North Korea, Yemen, and Somalia.

In addition to maintaining the current restrictions, the Secretary recommended restrictions on additional countries that failed to satisfy the baseline criteria, as informed by the outcomes of the new, enhanced methodology, the draft proclamation reads. Now, therefore, I, Donald J. Trump, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including sections 212(f) and 215(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act...hereby find that, absent measures set forth in this proclamation, the immigrant entry in the United States of persons described in Section 1 of this proclamation would be detrimental to the interests of the United States and that their entry should be subject to certain restrictions, limitations and exceptions.

Five of the countries listed in the proclamation would have more expansive blocks, according to the draft. The draft materials state that the restrictions would impact approximately 2.5% of all immigrant visas issued by the U.S. Department of State.

The entry into the United States of nationals of [Country 1] as immigrants, except as Special Immigrants, is hereby suspended, reads one section. Special immigrants are religious workers, physicians, and those who worked for the US military abroad, among other specific categories. Two other countries would have their nationals banned from obtaining diversity visas, meaning random visas given to those from countries that have low rates of immigration to the US.

In January 2017, the Trump administration initially banned those from six Muslim-majority countries before federal courts across the country blocked the order. Later, Trump instituted a separate ban and the US Supreme Court upheld it as constitutional. A waiver process for those included in the ban has led to more than 7,600 immigrants from the barred countries being allowed to enter the US, a 10% clearance rate, according to a US State Department officials testimony in a September House hearing.

The initial travel ban also called the Muslim ban after Trump pledged during his first campaign to stop all Muslims from immigrating to the US targeted only Muslim-majority countries. The DHS media team appears to be preparing for such questions.

Q: How many of these countries are majority Muslim? A: DHS did not consider or even research the predominate religion practiced in these or any country as part of its review. As a result, we would refer you to publicly available information about the demographics of these countries, read one answer of a document titled response to queries.

The document appears to be a set of questions the agency predicts it will receive as the proclamation is announced and includes questions like why are these countries facing travel restrictions? and why the new restrictions include fewer visa categories than the initial travel ban.

The answer states that, like the already banned seven countries, the new countries are some of the lowest performing in the world. The US government, however, has found that the to-be-restricted countries have prospects for improvement.

Each has a functioning government, control over its territory, and maintains relations with the United States. Most of the new countries have expressed a willingness to work on correcting their deficiencies, although it may take some time to identify and implement specific improvements, the answer reads.

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The Trump Administration Has Been Preparing To Expand The Travel Ban, Documents Reveal - BuzzFeed News