Ex-President Donald Trump

Trump attacks protections for immigrants from ‘shithole’ countries in Oval Office meeting

President Trump grew frustrated with lawmakers Thursday in the Oval Office when they floated restoring protections for immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries as part of a bipartisan immigration deal, according to two people briefed on the meeting.

“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” Trump said, according to these people, referring to African countries and Haiti. He then suggested that the United States should instead bring more people from countries like Norway, whose prime minister he met yesterday.

The comments left lawmakers taken aback, according to people familiar with their reactions. Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) proposed cutting the visa lottery program by 50 percent and then prioritizing countries already in the system, a White House official said.

A White House spokesman declined to offer an immediate comment on Trump’s remarks.

Outlining a potential bipartisan deal, the lawmakers discussed restoring protections for countries that have been removed from the temporary protected status program while adding $1.5 billion for a border wall and making changes to the visa lottery system.

The administration announced earlier this week that it was removing the protection for El Salvador.

Trump had seemed amenable to a deal earlier in the day during phone calls, aides said, but shifted his position in the meeting and did not seem interested.

Graham and Durbin thought they would be meeting with Trump alone and were surprised to find immigration hard-liners such as Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), at the meeting. The meeting was impromptu and came after phone calls this morning, Capitol Hill aides said.

After the meeting, Marc Short, Trump’s legislative aide, said the White House was nowhere near a bipartisan deal on immigration.

“We still think we can get there,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said at the White House press briefing.

 

On Tuesday Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, released the transcript of Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson's testimony, despite Republican objections. Fusion GPS is famously behind a controversial dossier that alleges Russia possesses compromising information about President Trump. It was compiled by British spy Christopher Steele, who Simpson hired.
The committee's chairman, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), had previously told The New York Times that Simpson was "uncooperative" during his interview. Republicans have additionally raised concerns that Steele "lied to federal authorities about his contacts with journalists," the Times notes.

Rest of the article here:
https://theweek.com/speedreads/74762...-trump-dossier

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4 scary numbers for Republicans in 2018

Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large
Updated 2:11 PM EST, Tue January 09, 2018

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn...ons/index.html

Over the weekend at Camp David, Republican congressional leaders huddled with President Donald Trump to talk about, among other things, the 2018 election.

It was a "constructive" discussion that was "grounded in reality," according to a source familiar with the talks, report my colleagues Phil Mattingly, Jeff Zeleny and David Wright.

The reality -- and I'm not sure how much of this was accurately conveyed to Trump -- is that every leading indicator points to a wave headed Republicans' way that could well deliver control of the House to Democrats in 2019.

Here are four numbers that tell the story (with a special thank you to super-lobbyist Bruce Mehlman's always terrific quarterly PowerPoint):

40: That's the average -- AVERAGE -- seat loss for the president's party in midterm election since 1962 when the president's approval rating is under 50%. Trump's approval rating in the Gallup weekly tracking poll released Monday afternoon? 37%.

12: That's the average Democratic lead in the generic congressional ballot as of late December. ("If the election were today, would you vote for a Republican or a Democrat to represent you?") That's worrisome when you compare it to where the generic stood in other major wave elections. At this time in the 2014 election, a very good election for Republicans, Democrats had a nearly 2 point edge on the generic ballot. In 2006, the midterm election where Democrats won back control of Congress, the party's generic ballot edge was only 10 points.

3: There have only been three midterm elections -- 1934, 1998 and 2002 -- in the last century where the president's party didn't lose House seats. In all three of those elections there were major extenuating circumstances -- Great Depression, Clinton impeachment and September 11 terrorist attacks -- that upset the historical trend. Short of that sort of cataclysm, however, the president's party usually gets walloped.

0: Exactly none of the past five presidents have seen their job approval numbers go up in the year before their first midterm election. (Shout out to Republican pollster Lance Tarrance for this data point!). President Obama went from +13 in approval in 2009 to +1 in 2010. Ronald Reagan went from +18 in 1981 to -3 in 1982. You get the idea. Barring a massive unforeseen event, it's very unlikely Trump's approval rating gets much better between now and November.

The Point: Yes, there are exceptions to every political rule. And Trump proved he could buck conventional wisdom by winning in 2016.

But Trump's current approval numbers and the massive weight of electoral history suggest that Republicans are in very deep trouble heading into the 2018 midterm. Very deep trouble.

 

Ryan Candidly Reflects On Defeat: ‘We Were a 10-Year Opposition Party…Being Against Things Was Easy’

JOE DEPAOLO MAR 24, 2017 5:22 PM

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.med...-was-easy/amp/

At a Friday press conference after the indefinite postponement of the House vote on the GOP’s health care plan, the American Health Care Act, House Speaker Paul Ryan candidly reflected on the process, and admitted that things are much more difficult now that his party is in charge.

“We were a 10-year opposition party, where being against things was easy to do,” Ryan said. “You just had to be against it. Now, in three months’ time, we tried to go to a governing party where we actually had to get 216 people to agree with each other on how we do things.”

Calling it “the growing pains of government,” Ryan insisted that even though the House was unable to pass the bill, other parts of their legislative agenda — namely tax reform — would not be stalled as a result of this defeat.

“We weren’t just quite there today,” Ryan said. “We will get there, but we weren’t there today.”

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/u...el-russia.html

Trump Ordered Mueller Fired, but Backed Off When White House Counsel Threatened to Quit

WASHINGTON — President Trump ordered the firing last June of Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel overseeing the Russia investigation, according to four people told of the matter, but ultimately backed down after the White House counsel threatened to resign rather than carry out the directive.

The West Wing confrontation marks the first time Mr. Trump is known to have tried to fire the special counsel. Mr. Mueller learned about the episode in recent months as his investigators interviewed current and former senior White House officials in his inquiry into whether the president obstructed justice.

Amid the first wave of news media reports that Mr. Mueller was examining a possible obstruction case, the president began to argue that Mr. Mueller had three conflicts of interest that disqualified him from overseeing the investigation, two of the people said.

First, he claimed that a dispute years ago over fees at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va., had prompted Mr. Mueller, the F.B.I. director at the time, to resign his membership. The president also said Mr. Mueller could not be impartial because he had most recently worked for the law firm that previously represented the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Finally, the president said, Mr. Mueller had been interviewed to return as the F.B.I. director the day before he was appointed special counsel in May.

After receiving the president’s order to fire Mr. Mueller, the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, refused to ask the Justice Department to dismiss the special counsel, saying he would quit instead, the people said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be identified discussing a continuing investigation.


Mr. McGahn disagreed with the president’s case and told senior White House officials that firing Mr. Mueller would have a catastrophic effect on Mr. Trump’s presidency. Mr. McGahn also told White House officials that Mr. Trump would not follow through on the dismissal on his own. The president then backed off.

 

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At Davos, Trump Hobnobbed With His Dubai Business Partner

Billionaire Hussain Sajwani also met with Wilbur Ross.

Donald Trump has pledged to keep his distance from his businesses and vowed that his company would not enter into any new foreign deals during his presidency. But during the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump hobnobbed with at least one of his foreign business partners, Dubai billionaire Hussain Sajwani, once again highlighting the blurry lines between his corporate empire and his presidency.
Before taking office last year, Trump and his lawyer held a press conference to explain the steps he was taking to insulate himself from conflicts. During the event, Trump brought up Sajwani, who heads the real estate company DAMAC, to illustrate why the American people need not worry that he would put his own interests ahead of the country’s.
In 2014, Trump had licensed his name for a luxury golf development that Sajwani’s company was constructing outside Dubai. Since then, he has reported earning between $2 million and $10 million on the deal. And at the press conference, he maintained that Sajwani had recently approached him with a more lucrative venture. “Over the weekend I was offered $2 billion to do a deal in Dubai with a very, very, very amazing man, a great great developer from the Middle East,” Trump said. “Hussein, DAMAC, a friend of mine, a great guy. I was offered $2 billion to do a deal in Dubai, a number of deals, and I turned it down.”


https://www.motherjones.com/politics...iness-partner/

 

Trump tells Pentagon to plan a military parade


By Eli Watkins and Ryan Browne, CNN
Updated 9:57 PM EST, Tue February 06, 2018

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn...ump/index.html

President Donald Trump has asked for a military parade and the Pentagon is reviewing potential dates, Pentagon spokesman Charlie Summers said Tuesday.

The spokesman described the planning process as being in its "infancy."

In response to the news, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement that Trump had asked the Defense Department to "explore" the idea.

“President Trump is incredibly supportive of America's great servicemembers who risk their lives every day to keep our country safe. He has asked the Department of Defense to explore a celebration at which all Americans can show their appreciation," Sanders said.

The Washington Post first reported Trump told top Pentagon brass last month he wants a military parade.

The marching orders were: I want a parade like the one in France," a military official told the paper. "This is being worked at the highest levels of the military."

Trump's meeting with senior military leaders last month included Vice President Mike Pence, White House chief of staff John Kelly, Defense Secretary James Mattis and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Joseph Dunford.

Trump was French President Emmanuel Macron's guest on Bastille Day last year, and later called the French military parade he witnessed "one of the greatest parades" he had ever seen.

He said last September in a conversation with Macron that when he came back from France he wanted a military parade on the Fourth of July in Washington.

Trump's call for a military parade might be hitting a few snags. The Post said shipping tanks and military hardware into Washington could cost millions of dollars, and that military officials said they were unsure how to pay for it.

After the Gulf War in 1991, the US put on a victory celebration replete with servicemembers and military gear.

The news of Trump's call for a military parade in the US comes as North Korea plans to show off dozens of long-range missiles during a February 8 parade, sources with deep knowledge of North Korea's intentions told CNN last week.

The parade is expected to include dozens of intercontinental-range Hwasong-15 missiles, which the North Koreans test-fired for the first time in late November, the sources said.

The display of "hundreds" of missiles and rockets would be an attempt "to scare the hell out of the Americans," one of the sources said.

 

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The Netherlands and the rest of Europe are TROLLING our President!​

 

Immigration bills fail in Congress, leaving ‘dreamers’ in limbo

By Ed O'Keefe, David Nakamura, Mike DeBonis
February 15, 2018 at 7:42 PM

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.was...3fe_story.html

Weeks of intense negotiations for a bipartisan deal on immigration collapsed in Congress on Thursday, leaving hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants facing possible deportation.

The rejection of four proposals in the Senate, coupled with a lack of consensus in the House, underscored the immense political pressures on Republicans and Democrats alike.

Immigration has proved in*trac*table for years, vexing lawmakers and presidents of both parties. Breaking the stalemate in an election year seemed even more unlikely.

In a sharp rebuke, the Republican-led Senate blocked an immigration plan backed by President Trump, with the bill mustering just 39 votes. It highlighted the divisions even within GOP ranks, with some wary that granting legal status to undocumented immigrants would amount to amnesty.

The House offered no answers, with conservatives threatening Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) unless he pushes a bill that provides only temporary work permits for dreamers, while also imposing border-security measures and restrictions on legal immigration that go beyond what Trump has proposed.

“I don’t think the president helped very much, but the bottom line is the demagogues won again on the left and the right,” said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.).

How the Trump administration and Congress will resolve the fate of dreamers — undocumented immigrants who were brought into the country as children — remained unclear Thursday, but several senators said they hoped a solution could be included in a sweeping spending plan that must be passed by March 23.

Proposals have been floated by senators in both parties to temporarily extend the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program — which is set to end on March 5 — and provide some funding to begin border-security construction projects. Courts in California and New York have issued temporary injunctions requiring the administration to extend DACA; those rulings could render Trump’s deadline moot.

In the Senate on Thursday, the atmosphere was corrosive.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) blamed Trump, who had tweeted moments before the votes that the bipartisan plan was a “total catastrophe” that faced the threat of a veto.

“If he would stop torpedoing bipartisan efforts, a good bill would pass,” Schumer said.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a strong proponent of the president’s plan, said there was “broad agreement about how to solve this problem, but we won’t succeed unless the Democrats stop this incessant virtue-signaling and start negotiating in good faith.”

A senior White House official said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) wants to move on from immigration, and the White House is inclined to agree. The individual, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the conversations, said McConnell has told White House officials that there is little appetite in his conference for continuing an immigration fight.

McConnell has told others that any bill he could pass in the Senate would be unlikely to earn Trump’s support.

The week began with the hope of a freewheeling debate on immigration policy, but robust exchanges never materialized. Instead — as is the modern-day custom — most of the action played out behind closed doors as a self-described “Common Sense Coalition” put the finishing touches on its plans and top party leaders discussed which amendments might earn votes.

Over the course of 90 minutes Thursday, the debate ended with no breakthrough.

Click Above Link For Full Story

 

Former Trump aide Rick Gates to plead guilty; agrees to testify against Manafort, sources say



A former top aide to Donald Trump's presidential campaign will plead guilty to fraud-related charges within days – and has made clear to prosecutors that he would testify against Paul J. Manafort Jr., the lawyer-lobbyist who once managed the campaign.

The change of heart by Trump's former deputy campaign manager, Richard W. Gates III, who had pleaded not guilty after being indicted in October on charges similar to Manafort's, was described in interviews by people familiar with the case.

"Rick Gates is going to change his plea to guilty,'' said a person with direct knowledge of the new developments, adding that the revised plea will be presented in federal court in Washington "within the next few days.''

That individual and others who discussed the matter spoke on condition of anonymity, citing a judge's gag order restricting comments about the case to the news media or public.

Gates' defense lawyer, Thomas C. Green, did not respond to messages left by phone and email. Peter Carr, a spokesman for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, declined on Saturday to comment.

Mueller is heading the prosecutions of Gates and Manafort as part of the wide-ranging investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and whether Trump or his aides committed crimes before, during or since the campaign.

The imminent change of Gates' plea follows negotiations over the last several weeks between Green and two of Mueller's prosecutors – senior assistant special counsels Andrew Weissmann and Greg D. Andres.

According to a person familiar with those talks, Gates, a longtime political consultant, can expect "a substantial reduction in his sentence'' if he fully cooperates with the investigation. He said that Gates is apt to serve about 18 months in prison.

The delicate terms reached by the opposing lawyers, he said, will not be specified in writing: Gates "understands that the government may move to reduce his sentence if he substantially cooperates – but it won't be spelled out.''

One of the final discussion points has centered on exactly how much cash or other valuables – derived from Gates' allegedly illegal activity – that the government will require him to forfeit as part of the guilty plea.

Gates, 45, who is married with four children, does not appear to be well positioned financially to sustain a high-powered legal defense.

"He can't afford to pay it,'' said one lawyer who is involved with the investigation. "If you go to trial on this, that's $1 million to $1.5 million. Maybe more, if you need experts'' to appear as witnesses.

The Oct. 27 indictment showed that prosecutors had amassed substantial documentation to buttress their charges that both Manafort and Gates – who were colleagues in political consulting for about a decade – had engaged in a complex series of allegedly illegal transactions rooted in Ukraine. The indictment alleged that both men, who for years were unregistered agents of the Ukraine government, hid millions of dollars of Ukraine-based payments from U.S. authorities.

According to the indictment, Gates and Manafort "laundered the money through scores of United States and foreign corporations, partnerships and bank accounts'' and took steps to evade related U.S. taxes.

If Manafort maintains his not-guilty plea and fights the charges at a trial, the testimony from Gates could provide Mueller's team with first-person descriptions of much of the allegedly illegal conduct. Gates' testimony, said a person familiar with the pending guilty plea, would place a "cherry on top'' of the government's already-formidable case against Manafort.




http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-n...218-story.html

 

Trump's note card for Parkland shooting discussion: 'I hear you'

By Betsy Klein, CNN
Updated 7:36 PM EST, Wed February 21, 2018

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn...ard/index.html

President Donald Trump heard emotional stories Wednesday from people affected by the nation's deadliest school shootings, and it appears he had an assist in responding to some of the powerful testimony.

In a photo from the event taken by Getty Images photographer Chip Somodevilla, the President is holding a piece of White House stationery with five discussion points written in black marker.

The visible points include prompts such as "1. What would you most want me to know about your experience?" "2. What can we do to help you feel safe?" and "5. I hear you."

Trump didn't appear to use the visible prompts, but he did cast a tender tone during the event, saying he grieved for those affected.

He was briefed by White House officials before participating in the listening and did not use a teleprompter during the event.

“We're fighting hard for you and we will not stop," Trump said. "I just grieve for you, I feel so -- to me, there could be nothing worse than what you've gone through."

He continued, "Thank you for pouring out your hearts because the world is watching and we're going to come up with a solution."

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http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/w...-1166187587653

More proof Trump is not enforcing the sanctions against Russia 3 Russians who are sanctioned and not allowed to come to the US well they did. The second they stepped off the plane they should have been arrested and thrown in prison. Trump is not enforcing the Russia sanctions that congress approved with the biggest support ever.

 

John Kelly overhauls White House clearance procedure

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
FEB 17, 2018
| NEW YORK


https://www.google.com/amp/www.latim...outputType=amp

Under pressure over his handling of abuse allegations against a top aide, White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly has ordered sweeping changes in how the White House clears staff members to gain access to classified information, acknowledging that the administration "must do better" in how it handles security clearances.

Kelly issued a five-page memo Friday that acknowledged White House mistakes but also put the onus on the FBI and the Justice Department to provide more timely updates on background investigations, asking that any significant derogatory information about staff members be quickly flagged to the White House counsel's office.

The issue has been in the spotlight for more than a week after it was revealed that former staff secretary Rob Porter had an interim security clearance that allowed him access to classified material despite allegations of domestic violence by his two ex-wives.

”Now is the time to take a hard look at the way the White House processes clearance requests," Kelly wrote in the memo. "We should — and in the future, must — do better."

The memo said the FBI and Justice Department had offered increased cooperation and, going forward, all background investigations of top officers "should be flagged for the FBI at the outset and then hand-delivered to the White House Counsel personally upon completion. The FBI official who delivers these files should verbally brief the White House Counsel on any information in those files they deem to be significantly derogatory."

Dozens of White House aides have been working under interim clearances for months, according to administration officials, raising questions about the administration's handling of the issue and whether classified information has been jeopardized.

Kelly's plan would limit interim clearances to 180 days, with an option to extend them an additional 90 days if background checks had not turned up significant troubling information. The memo also recommends that all Top Secret and Sensitive Compartmented Information clearances that have been pending since last June be discontinued in a week.

Click Above Link For Full Story

 

Hope Hicks' totally ridiculous explanation for why she quit

Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large
Updated 9:37 PM EST, Wed February 28, 2018

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn...sis/index.html

Here's how Hope Hicks explained her decision to resign as White House communications director, according to The New York Times' Maggie Haberman, who broke the story:

"She told colleagues that she had accomplished what she felt she could with a job that made her one of the most powerful people in Washington, and that there would never be a perfect moment to leave."

Ahem. Cough. Throat clear. Nervous looking around. Collar tug. Cough.

Whatever the opposite of the perfect time to leave the White House is -- the "imperfect time"? -- this is it.

Hicks is not only the third Trump White House communications director to resign in just over a year, but she also leaves:

* One day after she spent hours testifying in front of the House Intelligence Committee regarding its investigation into Russia's attempted meddling in the 2016 presidential election. In that testimony, Hicks acknowledged that she sometimes told white lies for Trump but insisted that she had never done so in regard to the Russia investigation.

* Amid a security clearance crisis that caused White House staff secretary Rob Porter's resignation. Porter, who was romantically involved with Hicks, stands accused of domestic abuse by both of his ex-wives. Those allegations, which Porter denied, had kept him from gaining a permanent security clearance. Which meant that Porter was operating with an interim clearance, despite handling oodles of top secret and classified information in his role as staff secretary. But, wait, there's more! Hicks was deeply involved in the crafting of chief of staff John Kelly's initial defense of Porter, despite her romantic ties to the now-former aide.

* As tensions between Trump's immediate family -- Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, in particular -- and Kelly boil over. The downgrading of Kushner's security clearance by Kelly hamstrings the first son-in-law, whose portfolio includes negotiating Middle East peace and managing the US's relationship with China (among many, many other things).

* On the same day the President resumed his ad hominem smear campaign against his own attorney general and one day after CNN reported that special counsel Robert Mueller is taking a look at Trump's finances in the run-up to his decision to run for president.

Hicks' departure is another major negative story amid that laundry list. Whatever you thought of her credentials to be the head of the White House's communications operation -- Hicks had little practical experience in dealing with the media -- there is no debate that she was one of the few aides who Trump trusted totally.

Hicks had been part of the original Trump campaign staff alongside the likes of Corey Lewandowski and Dan Scavino. She was with Trump before anyone even thought he had a chance. She believed in him when everyone else was laughing at him. And that sort of loyalty goes a very, very long way with Trump.

“I don't think it's possible to overstate the significance and just the importance of her role within the White House," one Trump ally told CNN's Jeremy Diamond. "She's an invaluable team member and one of the originals."

Remember that Trump tends to view the world in very stark terms: those who are loyal to him (very few people) and those who are out to get him (everyone else). Hicks was very much in the former category.

"She is as smart and thoughtful as they come, a truly great person," Trump said of Hicks in a statement released by the White House.

Simply put: This is a White House in crisis. Hicks' departure adds to that sense that the sky is falling around and on Trump. There's no spin to put out that. You can't polish a turd. And when you try to, it tends to get all over the place.

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Trump Stuns Lawmakers With Seeming Embrace of Comprehensive Gun Control

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR
February 28, 2018

https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile....ntrol.amp.html

WASHINGTON — President Trump stunned Republicans on live television Wednesday by embracing gun control and urging a group of lawmakers at the White House to resurrect gun safety legislation that has been opposed for years by the powerful National Rifle Association and the vast majority of his party.

In a remarkable meeting, the president veered wildly from the N.R.A. playbook in front of giddy Democrats and stone-faced Republicans. He called for comprehensive gun control legislation that would expand background checks to weapons purchased at gun shows and on the internet, keep guns from mentally ill people, secure schools and restrict gun sales for some young adults. He even suggested a conversation on an assault weapons ban.

At one point, Mr. Trump suggested that law enforcement authorities should have the power to seize guns from mentally ill people or others who could present a danger without first going to court. “I like taking the guns early,” he said, adding, “Take the guns first, go through due process second.”

The declarations prompted a frantic series of calls from N.R.A. lobbyists to their allies on Capitol Hill and a statement from the group calling the ideas that Mr. Trump expressed “bad policy.” Republican lawmakers suggested to reporters that they remained opposed to gun control measures.

“We’re not ditching any constitutional protections simply because the last person the president talked to today doesn’t like them,” Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, said in a statement.

Democrats, too, said they were skeptical that Mr. Trump would follow through.

“The White House can now launch a lobbying campaign to get universal background checks passed, as the president promised in this meeting, or they can sit and do nothing,” said Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut.

At the core of Mr. Trump’s suggestion was the revival of a bipartisan bill drafted in 2013 by Senators Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, and Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Despite a concerted push by President Barack Obama and the personal appeals of Sandy Hook parents, the bill fell to a largely Republican filibuster.

Mr. Trump’s embrace did not immediately yield converts. Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, said after the meeting that he was unmoved, repeating the Republican dogma that recent shootings were not “conducted by someone who bought a gun at a gun show or parking lot.” Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican, who sat next to the president looking flustered, emerged from the meeting and declared, “I thought it was fascinating television and it was surreal to actually be there.”

But Mr. Trump suggested that the dynamics in Washington had changed after the school shooting in Florida that claimed 17 lives, in part because of his own leadership in the White House, a sentiment that the Democrats in the room readily appeared to embrace as they saw the president supporting their ideas.

Click Above Link For Full Story

 

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PRESIDENT TRUMP TELLS REPUBLICAN DONORS CHINA'S 'PRESIDENT FOR LIFE' PLAN IS A GREAT IDEA THAT COULD HAPPEN IN U.S. SOME DAY

BY TOM PORTER AND REUTERS ON 3/4/18 AT 6:00 AM

http://www.newsweek.com/critics-blas...e-power-829723

President Donald Trump has made no secret of his admiration for strongmen leaders such as Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte.

And, according to a tape of closed door remarks Trump made at his Mar-a-Lago estate obtained by CNN, he supports President Xi Xinping of China's move to extend his power indefinitely.

“He’s now president for life,” Trump told Republican donors, after the Chinese Communist party last week moved to alter the constitution to allow Xi to remain in power beyond the two-term limit.

“President for life. And he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll give that a shot some day.”

It is not clear if Trump, 71, was making the comment about extending presidential service in jest. The White House did not respond to a request for comment late Saturday.

In the speech Trump delivered during a lunchtime fundraiser at his Palm Springs estate, he went on to denounce the U.S. political system as “rigged.”

“I’m telling you, it’s a rigged system folks. I’ve been saying that for a long time. It’s a rigged system. And we don’t have the right people in there yet. We have a lot of great people, but certain things, we don’t have the right people.“

U.S. Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat, said on Twitter of Trump's remarks on China's president that “whether this was a joke or not, talking about being President for life like Xi Jinping is the most un-American sentiment expressed by an American President. George Washington would roll over in his grave.”

Former White House Ethics chief Richard D. Painter also criticized the president’s remarks.

“Either he’s losing it, or we’re losing it if we let him stay on after this. How many hints do we need that he wants to be a dictator?”

Norman Eisen, ethics chief under the Obama administration, tweeted: "Trump’s secret reaction to the Chinese communist dictator changing the rules to serve for life:“Maybe we’ll try that here someday.“ You mean, suspend the constitution and make you a permanent tyrant? I don’t think so."

U.S. presidents by tradition served a maximum of two four-year terms until President Franklin Roosevelt was elected a record four times starting in 1932. An amendment to the U.S. Constitution approved in 1951 limits presidents to two terms in office.

In order to change the current prohibition, it would require initial support of two-thirds of both houses of Congress or support of two-thirds of state legislatures - and then would need to be ratified by three-quarters of the states.

China’s annual parliament gathering kicks off on Monday as Xi presses ahead with efforts to ward off financial risks without undermining the economy. The Communist party announced Feb. 25 the end of the two-term limit for the president—and parliament is expected to ratify the move.

The two-term limit was introduced by former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1982, and was designed a repeat of dictatorships such as that of Mao Zedong, who ruled China for decades.

During the remarks, Trump praised Xi as“a great gentleman” and added:“He’s the most powerful (Chinese) president in a hundred years.” Trump said Xi had treated him“tremendously well” during his visit in November.

Trump has often praised Xi, but in January Trump told Reuters the United States was considering a big“fine” as part of a probe into China’s alleged theft of intellectual property. He has been critical of China’s trade policies.

Trump told The New York Times in December that following the growing threat from North Korea, he had“been soft on China because the only thing more important to me than trade is war.”

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