#OYVeyDonaldTrump elevated the Theory of Arseholes to new levels . In a another made of Fox TV performance he issues more Trumpetism (ridiculous claims and assertions) and Screws Planet Earth. #AmericaHangsItsHeadInShame again #RIPPaxAmericana again.

ANGELA MERKEL AND THE INSULT OF TRUMP’S PARIS CLIMATE-ACCORD WITHDRAWAL

During the past few days, Merkel seemed to have had it with Trump, in some significant measure because of his flashy contempt for the climate deal and for his fellow world leaders.PHOTOGRAPH BY BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI / AFP / GETTY

On Wednesday, at around the time that news outlets were reporting that President Donald Trump had decided to pull America out of the Paris climate accord, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, was at the Berlin airport, greeting Premier Li Keqiang, of China. As their national anthems played, Li and Merkel stood on a red carpet that had been cut to look like a giant arrow. It seemed to point definitively away from Trump. There was a connection between the two moments that was more than symbolic. China has made it clear that, with America’s abdication, it sees Paris as a vehicle for its efforts to assert itself as a leader of the international community. (Whether this means that it would also make sure that carbon emissions fell is another matter.) And Merkel, during the past few days, seemed to have had it with Trump, in some significant measure because of his flashy contempt for the climate deal and for his fellow world leaders.

That contempt was well on display on Thursday afternoon, when Trump confirmed America’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. In his remarks, delivered in the Rose Garden, Trump attacked not only the terms of the deal but also the goodwill of those who argued for it. He spoke like a man unravelling a conspiracy or a con job. The climate accord had been pushed by America’s economic rivals, whose real reason for wanting us to stay in was “so that we continue to suffer this self-inflicted major economic wound,” and by “global activists that have long sought to gain wealth at our country’s expense.” Paris was just a “scheme to redistribute wealth outside of the United States.” Only Trump really cared about the environment, and he would get a much better deal for it.



The only question now is how far away from America Merkel’s frustration leads the Chancellor, her country, and her continent. It’s not that she hasn’t tried; she even invited Ivanka Trump to Berlin, flattering her all the way. Last week, as Merkel endured Trump’s company at nato and G7 meetings in Belgium and Italy—along with his boasts about the “unbelievable chemistry” that the two of them supposedly shared—she and the other leaders present made time to talk to him about the importance of protecting what had been gained for the planet in Paris. She said, later, at a press conference in Taormina, Italy, at the close of the G7, that, of all the points raised at the conferences, one that was “very difficult, not to say very dissatisfying, was the entire conversation on the subject of climate change.” That is, one person, representing one country, had dissatisfied her: “Here you have a situation in which six—if you count the European Union, seven—stand as one. And no one has any idea whether the United States is even going to stay in the Paris accords.” Indeed, one of the many ways in which Trump seems to have thoroughly annoyed his European counterparts is with his manufactured drama around the announcement of the Paris decision. After all, there wasn’t much mystery, given that Trump had put an end to American efforts to comply with Paris, back in March, when he issued an executive order discarding, among other things, President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan. The other world leaders just wanted to know if Trump would at least pretend to respect the pact and, perhaps, the idea that international pacts have value. They had all travelled to Belgium and Italy precisely so that important matters could be shared. Couldn’t he just tell them? But, perhaps, that would have given them a chance to tell Trump to his face that it was not, as he claimed again in his remarks on Thursday, “a very, very successful trip. Believe me.”

One explanation for Trump’s mishandling of the Europeans is that he is unwilling to accept that there are powerful people in the world who do not think that climate change is a joke, or a hoax, or something to just prattle about to naïve voters. Merkel, at her press conference, said, “This Paris climate accord is not just some accord or the other. It is a central accord in defining the contours of globalization.” She added, “I believe that the issue of Paris is so important that one simply can’t compromise on it.” But Merkel’s concerns may only matter to Trump if he sees it as an opportunity for bullying, or as ammunition in the trade war he seems ready to Twitter-start—or maybe just as a chance to get back at her for what she had said the day after arriving back in Germany from the G7, under a tent at a campaign beer rally in Bavaria.

The rally was in support of candidates for the Christian Social Union (the Bavarian sister party of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union) ahead of the parliamentary elections in September, so Merkel spent a good deal of time on ordinary political concerns: the rent in Munich, taxes on medium-sized businesses, shout-outs to various allies (“our friends in Schleswig-Holstein!”). But she also talked about how her recent travels had reminded her “what a treasure Europe is,” and how a strong Germany relied, for example, on a strong France. As the crowd applauded, Merkel paused to adjust the two microphones in front of her and then moved to the toughest part of her remarks—the words that, it seemed, she had really come there to say.

“The time in which we could fully rely on others is a bit in the past,” Merkel said. “I have experienced that in the past several days. And, because of that, I can say now that we Europeans truly have to take our fate into our own hands—naturally, in friendship with the United States of America, in friendship with Great Britain, as good neighbors wherever that may work, with Russia and other countries.” It was striking that America was just another name on the list. Merkel continued, “But we must understand that we must fight for our future, as Europeans, for our own fate—and that I will gladly do with you.” The “you” there was the Germans in the tent.

Earlier in the speech, Merkel had emphasized that “we’re working for the people in Germany.” That included upholding values such as freedom of expression and religious tolerance, and being ready to help refugees—although she said that, since the refugee crisis of 2015, “we’ve tightened things up.” But it also meant focussing specifically on German dreams. On this, she was speaking to the German mainstream. Her opponent in the September elections, Martin Schulz, the leader of the more left-of-center Social Democratic Party, gave a speech at a Party gathering in a far less measured tone, in which he directly called Trump’s treatment of “our Chancellor” unacceptable, indeed unbearable. He later called Trump “a destroyer of all Western values such as we have never before experienced in this form.”

For many Europeans, and for people on many continents, addressing climate change speaks to the most fundamental of values. Trump spent so much time congratulating himself on his “historic” trip that he may have been surprised by the reaction of Merkel and others. He may not have thought that it was very nice. After Merkel’s beer-tent speech, he tweeted, “We have a MASSIVE trade deficit with Germany, plus they pay FAR LESS than they should on NATO & military. Very bad for U.S. This will change.” Something will change. After Trump’s sour, shrill withdrawal from Paris, though, Merkel isn’t likely to be the one who is alone. The day before Li came to visit her in Berlin, Merkel had welcomed the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. Merkel is a busy woman.

Eight Embarrassing Things #OyVeyDonaldTrump did on his European Tour

 

We have to let this guy go out and humiliate the U.S. over and over?

For nine days, Donald Trump has been traveling across the Middle East and Europe, bringing every terrible stereotype about “ugly Americans” to vivid life. He labeled Germany (where he doesn’t have business interests) “very bad” after saying nary a critical word in Saudi Arabia (where he does have business interests). He chastised our partners in NATO while revealing he doesn’t actually understand how it all works. He literally threw his weight around like an attention-starved problem child, and he broadcast his every move to the world via his cellphone, which would be a security risk if we had a president anyone wanted to kidnap.

Mostly—when he wasn’t trading arms for political and personal gain—Trump acted like an embarrassing boor. He can’t help proving that he and his followers are the punchlines to a joke the rest of the world is laughing at.

Here are eight examples.

1. Lied to the new French president about supporting him in the election even though it’s really easy to find out he didn’t.

“You were my guy," Trump reportedly said to newly elected French president Emmanuel Macron, a quote that suggests the president doesn’t know many of us have eyes and ears and internets that prove he’s lying. For someone so practiced at lying, the president remains terrible at it.

While Trump never explicitly endorsed noted Islamophobe, Holocaust revisionist and French National Front leader Marine Le Pen, he gushed over her racist bonafides during the French election. "She's the strongest on borders, and she's the strongest on what's been going on in France," he said in an April interview with the Associated Press. "Whoever is the toughest on radical Islamic terrorism, and whoever is the toughest at the borders, will do well in the election."

On April 21, a couple days shy of the first round of voting, and 24 hours after the shooting of a police officer on the Champs-Élysées, Trump tweeted, “Another terrorist attack in Paris. The people of France will not take much more of this. Will have a big effect on presidential election!”

2. Tried to pull that weird, aggressive handshake move with Macron and failed.

Probably because of his insecurity about his wittle Vulgarian fingers, Trump turns every handshake into a textbook display of macho posturing and heterosexual male insecurity. It’s happened enough times now that word has gotten around, and Macron had reportedly been forewarned by French ambassador Gérard Araud. The result, as you can see in a video below, was that Macron was fully ready for a hands-only cagematch and Trump found himself out-muscled by his French counterpart. Quelle tristesse!

3. Tried the handshake thing again with Macron. Failed again.

Arriving at NATO headquarters, Macron doubled down, and then tripled down on his Trump diss. First, as Macron walked toward Trump in a cluster of world leaders, he did a super conspicuous dodge of the U.S. president and instead veered toward German chancellor Angela Merkel and also anyone not named Donald Trump. Only after Macron ran out of ways to avoid Trump did he finally take Trump’s extended hand, but immediately turned the American president’s yank-and-pull tactic against him. Watching the video, below, you can almost hear every single person thinking, is this guy for real?

4. Asked Macron for his private cellphone number.

Of course, it makes sense that Trump would develop a new respect, and probably a reverence for anyone who beats him in a pissing match. After repeatedly witnessing Macron’s feats of strength, Trump turned fanboy and decided he wanted Macron for a new best friend. "Do you want my cell phone [number] so we can speak directly to each other?" Trump reportedly asked the big, strong Frenchman.

5. Physically pushed Montenegro’s leader out of his way.

Trump wanted to be in the front row when pictures were taken so he pushed his way to the front of the crowd of assembled leaders. That included shoving Montenegro Prime Minister Duško Marković to one side. A lot was written about Trump’s offensive behavior, but CNN pointed out a mostly overlooked bit about NATO, Montenegro and Trump’s idol, Vladimir Putin:

This was Markovic's and Montenegro's first NATO summit. The tiny Balkan country has just been accepted into the alliance, much to Moscow's chagrin. How much chagrin? Authorities in Montenegro say they stopped a Russian-backed plot to kill Markovic's predecessor, which was aimed at preventing Montenegro from joining NATO. They have arrested 14 people, including two Russians. (Russia denies involvement.) The plot, prosecutors say, sought to install a new government loyal to Russia and opposed to Montenegro's efforts to grow closer to the West and to NATO. The plot failed, and now Montenegro is becoming NATO's 29th member.

Watch how, after bullying his way to the front, cocky Trump tugs on his suit jacket with smug satisfaction. Because he is the absolute worst.

6. Made a NATO speech that gave world leaders a good, derisive laugh.

“NATO members must finally contribute their fair share and meet their financial obligations,” Trump said in a lecture he delivered at NATO headquarters. “But 23 of the 28 member nations are still not paying what they should be paying, and what they are supposed to be paying, for their defense. This is not fair to the people and taxpayers of the United States.”

Trump seems to think NATO is like a social club, with member nations paying dues into some central kitty. It isn’t. A 2014 agreement established that member countries should be spending 2 percent of their GDP on their own military defense. Those countries have until 2024 to hit that goal. Trump is trying to be the world’s policeman on a policy that’s neither set in stone nor even a concern for another seven years. It’s also rich coming from someone whose most noted business practice is refusal to pay his debts.

The speech went over like a lead balloon with assembled world leaders, who smirked, snickered and whispered to each other as Trump spoke. In the video below, Luxembourg’s Xavier Bettel and France’s Macron seem to share a giggle at Trump’s expense.

“And I never asked once what the new NATO headquarters cost,” Trump added. “I refuse to do that.”

Here’s Angela Merkel looking rightly annoyed.

You can see the stifled giggles on the faces of Estonian prime minister Jüri Ratas, Croatian president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaite, German chancellor Angela Merkel, and French president Emmanuel Macron.

7. Riding in his golf cart while everyone else walks in Italy,

A summation of Trump’s afternoon on Saturday, from the Times of London:

The distance between Donald Trump and his G7 partners was spelled out dramatically today when Theresa May and the leaders of Italy, France, Germany, Japan and Canada strolled the streets of Taormina, Sicily — while he followed in a golf cart.

The six are planning to put pressure on Mr. Trump over his opposition to free trade and efforts to combat climate change. They walked the 700 yards from the traditional G7 group photo, taken at a Greek amphitheatre, to a piazza in the hilltop town, but Mr. Trump stayed behind until he could take a seat in the electric vehicle.

He had been the last to arrive for the photo, keeping the others waiting at the amphitheatre…

"She doesn't have the stamina,” Trump, probably on the verge of being winded, said of Hillary Clinton last year. “I said she doesn't have the stamina, and I don't believe she does have the stamina."

8. Complained that he hasn’t been given carte blanche to make a fast buck in Europe.

“Every time we talk about a country, he remembered the things he had done. Scotland? He said he had opened a club. Ireland? He said it took him two and a half years to get a license and that did not give him a very good image of the European Union,” according to a source who spoke with Belgian outlet Le Soir. “One feels that he wants a system where everything can be realized very quickly and without formalities.”

Trump to spend 7th consecutive weekend at Trump-branded property, at enormous cost to taxpayers Austerity for us, regular Florida vacations for the president.

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump stop to pose for a photo with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife Akie Abe before they have dinner at Mar-a-Lago on February 11. CREDIT: AP Photo/Susan Walsh

President Trump doesn’t want to spend federal dollars on after-school programs, meals for poor people, or heating assistance that helps keep folks alive.

But he has no problem wasting more than $3 million a pop to spend weekends at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. Trump has already made four trips there since becoming president on January 20, and on Friday he confirmed he’s headed there this weekend for the fifth time.

Despite vowing during his campaign that he “would rarely leave the White House because there’s so much work to be done” and “would not be a president who took vacations” because “you don’t have time to take time off,” Trump has visited Trump-branded properties each of the past six weekends. That streak will hit seven when Trump lands at Mar-a-Lago later Friday.

In fact, Trump has spent time at Trump-branded property every weekend of his presidency other than the very first, when he created chaos throughout the country by signing a Muslim ban executive order that was later stayed by a federal court.

Let’s run through them.

February 4–5: Trump heads to Mar-a-Lago for the first time as president. There, he and Melania attend a “Vienna to Versailles” black tie Red Cross Ball that was closed to the media (Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross was in attendance, however).

President Trump’s inaugural appearance at Mar-a-Lago comes just days after the Trump Organization announces the club’s initiation fees are doubling to $200,000 (taxes and $14,000 annual dues not included).
(See Trump’s effort to profit off the presidency gets underway in earnest
Mar-a-Lago dues are doubling, and Trump-branded hotels look to expand across the country.thinkprogress.org )

February 11–12: Trump travels to Mar-a-Lago for the second consecutive weekend. His guest is Japanese Prime Minster Shinzo Abe. On Saturday night, Trump and Abe deal with a North Korea missile crisis in full view of diners on one of the club’s terraces, with national security documents illuminated by aides’ cell phones.
( See Trump handled North Korea crisis in full view of diners and waiters at his private club
Remember “lock her up?”thinkprogress.org )

February 18–19: The president heads to Mar-a-Lago yet again. While there, Trump, who repeatedly criticized Obama for playing golf while president, enjoys his sixth golf outing during his first month in office. In a sign that he might feel a bit guilty, the White House is later forced to admit that officials initially misled reporters about the amount of golf Trump played during his 18-hole excursion with pro golfer Rory McIlroy.

The roughly $10 million Trump has already spent on unnecessary travel approaches the $12 million President Obama spent each year.
( see Trump’s first month of travel expenses cost taxpayers just less than what Obama spent in a year
Meanwhile, his budget proposal cuts programs for poor people.thinkprogress.org )

February 25–26: Trump doesn’t travel to Florida, but he does stop by his swanky hotel in downtown DC for dinner on Saturday night. The president’s outing to the Trump International is documented by Benny Johnson of IJR, a conservative media outlet founded by Republican operatives.

Johnson, who writes a fawning first-person account about dining next to Trump’s table, says that he “received a tip from a well informed source that Trump would be dining at the BLT Steakhouse inside his Trump hotel at approximately 6 PM that evening.” Lo and behold, the tipster was correct.

Also hanging out at the Trump International that night were Brexit leader Nigel Farage, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and Trump’s daughter Ivanka.

March 4–5: Trump heads to Mar-a-Lago. The Palm Beach Post publishes pictures of Attorney General Jeff Sessions mingling with members.

Politico reports that in response to the negative publicity resulting from photos of Trump and Abe dealing with the missile crisis in the dining area, Trump’s “private club issued new rules prohibiting pictures or videos of the president when he’s on the premises so that the world can’t follow along on Twitter if it ever happens again.” Meanwhile, a helipad is under construction on site to make it easier for Marine One to land right outside the club.

March 11–12: On Saturday, Trump visits the Trump National Golf Club in Virginia in suburban DC.

It’s his ninth trip to a golf course in the seven weeks he’s been president.

Trump’s repeated trips to Trump-branded properties aren’t just problematic because they embody how he’s profiting off the presidency and breaking campaign promises. They also represent Trump’s selective austerity when it comes to spending taxpayer dollars.

As Quartz reported on Friday, after this weekend, Trump will have already spent about $16.5 million on trips to Mar-a-Lago. For that amount, Meals on Wheels could feed 5,967 seniors for a year and after school programs could feed 114,583 children for a year.

On Thursday, Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney defended the draconian cuts included in the Trump administration’s proposed budget by arguing that the federal government can’t ask “a coal miner in West Virginia or a single mom in Detroit to pay for” programs like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. But one wonders whether those struggling Americans would rather have public radio or dole out their share of the $3.3 million a self-proclaimed billionaire is spending each weekend to mingle with his ludicrously wealthy club members down in Florida.

How much is Donald Trump’s travel and protection costing, anyway?

President Trump boards Marine One at the White House with his grandchildren Joseph and Arabella Kushner before departing to Joint Base Andrews for a trip to Florida on March 3. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)

President Trump’s 2018 budget proposal is unabashed in its goal: slashing or eradicating a number of social and research programs to offset new spending on defense and homeland security. That emphasis quickly met with broad criticism, including from some who pointed out an apparent contradiction. Trump places a heavy emphasis on cutting waste and targets for elimination programs that, in some cases, cost the government only a few million dollars a year. That is a lot of money in the context of the amount of money you or I spend in a year, but in the context of the government, spending a million dollars is like someone with a $50,000-a-year salary spending one penny.

What really jumped out at some people, though, was that Trump was proposing cuts to some relatively low-cost programs shortly before he prepared to fly to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. According to an analysis from Politico, that’s a trip that costs about $3 million each time — and it’s a trip that he’s made four times this year.





If that $3 million estimate is true, he could have funded the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness — budgeted at $4 million in 2016 — for nearly four years if he’d just stayed in the White House.

Others noted the cost of protecting first lady Melania Trump and the Trumps’ young son, Barron, at Trump Tower. Shortly after the election, a CNN Money report indicated that protecting Trump’s family in New York cost $1 million a day. If they instead joined him at the White House, of course, that cost would essentially be eliminated.

Combined, these costs could make Trump’s presidency awfully expensive, particularly in light of that proposed budget.



Follow
Bruce Bartlett @BruceBartlett


Trump is on track to spend $1 billion in 4 years housing his wife in NYC and vacationing in Mar-a-Lago virtually every week.
5:08 PM - 17 Mar 2017

4,2974,297 Retweets
3,5933,593 likes

But that’s only if those estimates are correct.

We can start with the Trump Tower number. The million-dollars-a-day figure was sourced to three city officials, reflecting the city’s costs.

In February, the city of New York detailed precisely how much it had been spending to provide additional security at Trump’s home. Between the election and the inauguration, when Trump was living there as president-elect, the city spent about $308,000 a day. Once Trump moved to Washington, the city expects that the cost will be up to $145,000 a day when Trump isn’t visiting. (He hasn’t since being inaugurated.) That’s sharply lower than $1 million a day.

[Trump family’s elaborate lifestyle is a ‘logistical nightmare’ — at taxpayer expense]

It’s also only the city’s costs. There are additional costs at the federal level, like Secret Service protection. In 2008, the former head of that agency estimated that protecting a candidate costs about $38,000 a day. Presumably protecting a spouse and young child would cost less. There were also reports about the Secret Service and the military seeking to rent space in Trump Tower to aid in supporting the president. It’s not clear whether that’s happened or how much space has been rented. (The Secret Service denied that it was planning to rent space.)

CNN estimated that one of the floors of space reportedly under consideration could cost $1.5 million a year — or about $4,100 a day. If those numbers are all correct, and if the military rents that floor, the total for protecting Trump’s family in New York is a bit under $200,000 a day, including New York City’s costs.

Then there are those Mar-a-Lago trips.

Politico’s $3 million-plus estimate was based on an October 2016 Government Accountability Office report on a trip President Barack Obama took in 2013 — a report that The Post has also cited. That 2013 trip, which included a stop in Palm Beach, Fla., cost $3.6 million, $3.2 million of which was the cost of aircraft.

Mar-a-Lago isn't just Trump's vacation spot; it's his second White House
Play Video2:57

The Washington Post's Jenna Johnson and Aaron Blake explain why President Trump spends so much time at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, and how he uses it as a second White House.(Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

Air Force One costs $206,337 an hour to operate, and the D.C. to Palm Beach flight takes about two hours. That’s $824,000 right there, round-trip. So where did the other $2.8 million come in?

In part, it’s the cost of support aircraft. That 2013 trip included five other planes and four helicopters as part of Obama’s overall team, serving defense and short-distance transport roles. (The president goes to and from Andrews Air Force Base by helicopter, for example.) But that trip also included an unrelated trip to Illinois, meaning a much more complicated ballet of movement than Trump’s Mar-a-Lago trips would require.

(Government Accountability Office)

Secret Service staffing on the 2013 trip ran about $180,000, according to the GAO. Most of the cost was eaten up by those support aircraft. The 89th Airlift Wing ran up a tab of $1.3 million, including the costs of operating Air Force One. Additional aircraft were used to “provide global passenger airlift, logistics, and aerial support and communications to the President,” which they would presumably also do for Trump’s trips down to Florida. But again, that trip included a flight to and from Chicago, which is slightly closer than Palm Beach from Washington.

If we assume, just for the sake of an estimate, that the full cost of the 2013 trip can be allocated by hour of overall flight time — since the trips themselves were about the same length, one weekend, and since air support costs ate up most of the bill — we get an estimate of about $514,000 an hour. ($3.6 million divided by 3½ hours to and from Chicago and four hours to and from Palm Beach).

A five-hour trip to Palm Beach, then, would be about $2 million — $514,000 times four hours. This is a very loose estimate, mind you, but it seems more fair than $3.6 million.

These figures put Trump’s costs in a slightly different light. Sure, two trips to Mar-a-Lago still eats up the same amount as that year of funding for the Interagency Council on Homelessness, but at a slightly disproportionate level.

If Melania and Barron never move to Washington and if Trump heads to Mar-a-Lago for four out of every nine weekends, our estimates put the total cost at something like $526 million over the course of Trump’s presidency. Melania Trump is apparently planning to join her husband in Washington at the end of the school year, though, and Trump calls Mar-a-Lago the “winter White House,” implying that he won’t be there in the summer. In which case the overall spending plummets further.

To only, say, $130 million or so. Only enough to fund the homelessness agency until 10-year-old Barron Trump is 42.

Why It’s Just Fine to ‘Frum Shame’ Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner

Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump

As we all know by now, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump got special rabbinic dispensation to ride in a car on Shabbat for daddy Donald’s inauguration. This led to a collective Jewish (and general!) eye-roll, but also to demands that we respect the young couple’s religiosity and let them be. Jessica Levine Kupferberg and Andrew Silow-Carroll both made versions of the case that the self-appointed guardians of Shabbat observance should mind their own beeswax Shabbat candles, as it were.

The ‘don’t frum-shame Jared and Ivanka’ take is… well, it’s like ‘don’t kink-shame Donald Trump’ (re: pee-gate) or the ongoing take that it’s mean-spirited and unfair to looks-shame the now-president. Yes, under normal circumstances, you should be respectful of private bedroom activities, and, heck, of the choice to sport orange foundation and an elaborate combover. But just as religious restrictions (such as those about driving on Shabbat) can be broken under special circumstances, so too can etiquette rules along these lines.

Why? Because it’s clear that the Trump looks-shame isn’t about, say, making everyone with small hands feel bad about this, but to get at what would annoy him. So, too, in a way, with the frum-shaming of Jared and Ivanka. It’s not that I’d expect them to be touchy about it, like Donald about his hands. Rather, it’s that the Trumps have invested a lot politically in the image of the couple as a good Jewish family. This fact is used to rebuff the rather heavily substantiated claim that Trump’s rise brought with it a new, right-wing American anti-Semitism. It’s also used, more generically, to suggest that the Trump brand stands for good family values, and not, say, trading a string of wives in for younger models.

So consider this your dispensation: You are totally allowed to frum-shame Jared and Ivanka. You get to do so even if you yourself aren’t pious (am I? is TMZ?), and you can rest easy that you are not, in frum-shaming that particular couple, in some way invading the religious privacy of all observant Jews, or of all converts to Judaism.

Shabbat at Home with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump Every Friday night.

Inthe cold, dark days of winter, the sun sets early on a Friday night. Depending on the week, the sun might set as early as approximately 5:15 p.m. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have spent the whole day preparing for this: The eve of the Sabbath. Their phones are off. Their computers are locked in a safe and the safe’s combination is written down and kept in yet another safe, only accessible by Jared, Ivanka, and their housekeeper, who does not even know of the safe’s actual contents. Their windows are closed and blocked by a second set of walls that come down before sunset and stay there until sunset the following evening, once the Sabbath is over. There are only four people on this planet that have access to them for these 24 hours: Their three children, Arabella, Joseph, and Theodore, and their housekeeper.

The Sabbath is a time for mindfulness and reflection on the week gone by. To shut yourself off from the outside world and spend time with your loved ones. It’s also the only reprieve Ivanka and Jared have from the POTUS’s alarming policies, divisive cabinet picks, and his tweets. It is important that the world knows that when Trump makes his worst, most hateful decisions, the Kushners had nothing to do with it. Certainly this is not a coincidence. Six days a week it’s, “Nordstrom is dropping your line this, you played a role in bringing about the apocalypse that.” But not today. Not on Shabbat.

Ivanka and Jared begin Shabbat the way any other family would: By saying the prayers over the traditional Shabbat candles, wine, and challah. “Baruch, atah, Oh God, what have I done?” Ivanka starts the blessing, thanking God for what he’s provided and then apologizing profusely for her role in destroying his creation. The family eats the festive Shabbat dinner. It is always an impeccably prepared, delicious meal, for they know that without Jared’s small influence over his father-in-law for the evening, it could be their last. “Do we have enough rations in the event of a nuclear war?” Ivanka asks her husband. He nods solemnly. When they say the blessing over the children, Ivanka whispers, “May God make you like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah,” and “may you outlive the nuclear holocaust your family will have helped to create.”

Jared and Ivanka do not make love on the Sabbath. In fact, they rarely make love at all anymore. They lie awake at night, eyes towards the ceiling. The next day, they’ll play with their children, and for a brief, shining moment, they’ll feel like a normal family again. But all Shabbats must come to an end, and with their end, comes the onslaught of the real world. And for Jared and Ivanka, that means reentering the inner circle of Donald Trump.

#OyVEyDonaldTrump calls out Santa Claus as a looser

After #OyVeyDonaldTrump's bad weekend, online betting site says he probably won't last the year

You’ve probably heard about Trump’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad weekend. Reports say he spent a good chunk of it pretty angry as he raged over falling short in comparisons to Obama and then accusing him of wiretapping Trump Tower (lol). Turns out everyone else has noticed, too, and started shifting their bets on how long Mr. 45 will remain in office. From Salon:

British betting behemoth, Ladbrokes is speculating that Trump may not even finish out the year in office, offering 2 to 1 odds that Trump is replaced before the end of this year. To put it in perspective, those are the same odds that he’ll be replaced in 2021 (meaning Jan. 20, 2021). There’s even money that he’ll serve his full term — meaning no President Mike Pence — and 4 to 5 odds that he’ll leave office before the end of his term. As an added bit of trolling, Ladbrokes give 6 to 4 odds that he’ll visit Russia before the end of the year.

What do you think? Are they being too optimistic? Or perhaps they’re being too pessimistic? Weigh in below!

Wiretapping and ‘Don’t Worry, I’ll Pull Out’ And Other #OyVeyDonaldTrump Lie

KEVIN LAMARQUE / REUTERS

Donald Trump is ushering in the Golden Age of Lying.

When we were little, “it wasn’t me” was a good lie. Even as kids, we instinctively understood that you can’t prove a negative. In the absence of an eyewitness, “it wasn’t me” might instill at least the shadow of a doubt in our parents. Even if it didn’t get you totally off the hook, maybe it could reduce the punishment.

As we grew older, we had to make our lies more specific to the occasion. “I’m going to the library” was a staple during our high school years. (Note to millennials, a “library” is a building with a lot of books in it. “Books” are. . . ah, never mind. Just take it on faith that “the library” was a place where your parents used to tell their parents they were going when they were really going out looking for booze, drugs, and sex).

Our parents knew we were lying when we said we were going to the library, and we knew that they knew, but most of the time we could count on them being too lazy to check it out. So long as our friends didn’t rat on us, we didn’t stagger home drunk in the middle of the night, and we didn’t wreck the car, the library story was good enough.

The old lies still work, but they are no longer state of the art. Trump is re-writing the book. Given its variety, creativity and complexity, Trump’s mendacity deserves serious study. It could, to paraphrase James Joyce, keep professors busy for hundreds of years.

And it is not only academics who stand to benefit from a better understanding of Trump’s lies. It has practical applications. Generations of law students, for instance, will hone their courtroom skills by studying the Trump Method of lying.

For now, we have enough material to start the process of naming, defining and cataloging the various forms of Trump’s lies. Here are my favorite examples.

The “Don’t Worry, I’ll Pull Out”

The DWIPO is a promise made in the heat of the moment, knowing that you won’t be able to keep it when the time comes.

The DWIPO is often repealed and replaced by a lesser promise that is easier to keep. For instance, “Don’t worry, I’ll pull out” may be replaced by “Don’t worry, I’ll drive you to the hospital.” Big difference.

Trump mastered the DWIPO during the campaign. Don’t worry, Trump assured us, he’ll pull out of (“dismantle”) the Iran Nuclear Deal. Later, that became don’t worry, I’ll renegotiate it. When it finally dawned on Trump that none of the other parties to the Iran deal were going to renegotiate, his promise morphed into don’t worry, I’ll enforce it strictly. Forget that strict enforcement of the Iran Nuclear Deal is exactly the opposite of pulling out of it. That’s just nit-picking.

Trump also rolled out the DWIPO for Obamacare. Don’t worry, he told us on the campaign trail, he’ll pull out of (“repeal”) Obamacare immediately upon taking office and replace it with “great health care for a fraction of the price.”

Oops. Somewhere along the way, Trump made the startling discovery that repealing and replacing Obamacare was “very complicated,” and would “take some time into next year.” Well, what he really meant to say is that he might do “something” on “the rudiments” of repeal and replace by the end of the year, or maybe “the following year.” Stay tuned for, “we’ll hopefully do something on healthcare during my first term.” Or maybe the second.

Trump even pulled a DWIPO on Israel. Don’t worry, Trump promised during the campaign, we’ll pull out of Tel Aviv and relocate our embassy in Jerusalem. Now that it has dawned on him that pulling out of Tel Aviv would inflame the Middle East, kill any hope of a peace process, and that behind the scenes even the Israelis don’t want him to do it, he’s retreated to promising a “process.” “There’s [sic] no decisions. We’re at the very early stages of that decision process,” says Trump mouthpiece Sean Spicer.

Excellent! Process is progress! Thinking about stuff is good!

The “Pee-wee”

Pee-wee Herman had the perfect response to any insult, “I know you are, but what am I?”

Here’s how it works. Whenever somebody exposes something horribly twisted about you, you turn it back on them. You pretend that they were actually saying is about themselves, not about you. It doesn’t matter if it makes no sense going the other way. Just do it. You will be rewarded.

The Pee-wee is perhaps the signature Trump lie, and the most effective. Time and again during the campaign, and now into his presidency, Trump has changed the narrative by accusing his accusers of his own transgressions.

During the campaign, when it became clear that Trump was barking mad, Hillary Clinton began to describe him with words like “unfit,” “erratic” and “unhinged.” Trump turned it right back on her, branding Hillary as “totally unhinged.” Never mind that, whatever reason you may have for hating Hillary, being “unhinged” isn’t one of them. She is, in fact, quite hinged. Perhaps excessively so.

But Trump was still rewarded for this clever bit of dishonesty. As noted by Cokey Roberts, calling Hillary “totally unhinged” was code for, “Don’t elect a woman.” Since Hillary was also “very shrill,” a “nasty woman,” and “low energy,” she was not only afflicted with the disease of being female, but also suffering from the heartbreak of menopause. Very dangerous! That I can tell you!

Trump Pee-weed on Hillary again, brilliantly, when he was caught on the Access Hollywood tape bragging about how he used his celebrity status to sexually assault women. “I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it, you can do anything . . .”

Unable to deny his own sexual deviancy, and unable to claim that Hillary had sexually assaulted anybody, Trump nevertheless found a way turn it back on her. He accused Hillary of abusing and bullying women who had allegedly been mistreated by her husband decades ago. By accusing Hillary of “enabling” her husband’s alleged misconduct, he created a narrative that she was complicit in it.

Now here’s the beauty part. By turning the revelation of his own predatory sexual conduct into an attack on Hillary, Trump re-shaped the entire story. No longer was everybody talking exclusively about Trump’s deviant behavior. Rather, they were now comparing his sexual transgressions with Bill Clinton’s. Trump had turned a seemingly devastating story about his own sexual misconduct into a race to the bottom. And that’s one race Trump will always win.

Another signature example of Trump using the Pee-wee to his advantage is the “fake news” dustup. Say Donald found some preposterous piece of garbage on one of the fringe websites he cruises in the dark of night. He would simply pick up that garbage and place it right on America’s dinner table. All he had to do was retweet it, or blurt it out at a rally.

When the press accurately accused Donald of trafficking in “fake news,” Trump Pee-weed all over them. It wasn’t his malicious rumor mongering that was fake news. The real fake news was the meticulously reported, impeccably sourced, and carefully edited stories published by CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. What kind of loser worries about corroboration or other archaic standards of journalistic integrity? Failing! Sad!

Once again, Trump had successfully manipulated the press. Rather than reporting something like, “Trump Spreads False Internet Rumors,” the headlines started to read more like, “Trump and Media Trade Accusations of Fake News.”

Not only that, but supposedly serious writers started churning out think pieces with titles like “What Does Fake News Really Mean?” As if this were a philosophical enigma as deeply mysterious as “What is the meaning of life?”

You don’t need a think piece to define “fake news.” It means using the media to spread lies.

The “meaning of life” is slightly more complicated. Defining it probably requires the full 140 characters. I’ll tweet it out during my first term as a blogger. Or maybe my second.

The “Kellyanne”

If there’s one image of the Trump era that we all wish we could un-see, it’s Kellyanne Conway, her face frozen in a hideous fixed grin, literally lying through her teeth.

Kellyanne is a jack-of-all-lies, also known as “alt-facts,” but she is also a master of one. The technique that bears her name starts with denying, or at least ignoring, something Trump actually said, and pretending that he really said something else. Then you defend the “something else,” all the while taking great offense that the questioner had missed the point by focusing obsessively on Trump’s words.

Trump and his defenders employed the Kellyanne right out of the gate. On the very day he declared his candidacy, Trump accused Mexico of sending its “bad ones” to the United States. “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

Trump and his surrogates then defended his statements about Mexico, drugs, crime and rape by ignoring the part about Mexico, drugs, crime and rape. What Trump was really doing was “calling our attention to the important issue of illegal immigration,” or something like that. Surrogates then praised Trump for having the “courage” to introduce this issue into the national conversation. How dare the press criticize Trump for this brave stance!

Never mind that Trump was making offensive, racist remarks about Mexicans, not making a high-minded appeal for a national policy debate. And never mind that, even if Trump had been simply raising a policy issue, doing so would have been neither novel nor courageous. The issue of immigration, of course, has been the subject of heated and prolonged national debate for as long as anybody can remember.

Trump did not invent the immigration issue, he exploited it. His naked appeal to bigotry was anything but a profile in courage.

No matter. Just flash a big fake grin when you praise Trump for making racist and xenophobic statements. Who knows, a Trump supporter may believe you.

The “Whopper”

A “whopper” is generally understood to be a lie. Or an oversized hamburger. But whether a hamburger or a lie, a Whopper has to be really big. Size matters. Especially, it seems, to Trump.

Trump’s hang-up about size (“I guarantee you there’s no problem!”) has shaped some of his best lies. That I can tell you.

He won the largest electoral vote victory since Ronald Reagan! Oh, wait a minute. Except for Bill Clinton. Twice. And George H. W. Bush. And Barack Obama. Twice.

Well, anyway, his electoral victory was really, really huge! A historic landslide! So what if it ranks 46th out of 58 presidential elections in the United States. He did squeeze in somewhere between the lowest one-fourth and the lowest one-fifth. So there’s that.

He won the popular vote too, at least if you count it right. Don’t try to muddy the waters by pointing out that Hillary Clinton received almost three million more votes than Trump. That doesn’t count because there were untold millions of fraudulent votes cast in the election, all of them for Hillary. Do the math, stupid!

He got the biggest crowd ever at his inauguration! Don’t believe the photographs on the Fake News networks showing that Trump’s crowd was a fraction of the size of the crowd at Obama’s inauguration in 2009. Believe Trump, not your lying eyes.

And what about Obama’s fake birth certificate? And the Sweden massacre (not to be confused with the Bowling Green massacre)? And the thousands of Muslims who were cheering in the streets of New Jersey as the towers fell on 9/11? And Hillary’s secret conspiracy to undermine America’s sovereignty? And Ted Cruz’s father palling around with Lee Harvey Oswald before the Kennedy assassination? And the money the crooked Clinton Foundation slid under the table right into Bill and Hillary’s pockets? And the media’s phony claim that Michael Flynn had discussed sanctions with the Russians? And “Civil Rights Champion” Jeff Sessions? And the open borders allowing masses of refugees into the United States without any screening at all?

The beauty of the Whopper is that it takes the truth off the table entirely. There is no truth. It’s all in the eye of the beholder. It doesn’t need an objective basis in fact. It is revealed by a purely subjective test. Whatever “many people believe” to be true is, by definition, true.

And Trump can make many people (his people, at least) believe almost anything just by saying it.


Slick.

Haaretz : @realDonaldTrump Reportedly Suggests Wave of anti-Semitic Incidents Could Be False Flags Perpetrated by Jews ....(again)

Reprinted from Haaretz Newspaper 

Similar suggestions have been a theme on right-wing conspiracy theory websites and are being promoted aggressively by white supremacist David Duke on his Twitter account.

U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington, February 27, 2017. Evan Vucci/AP

Three Nonsensical Claims Made While U.S. Jewry is Under Attack

Everything you need to know about the wave of threats terrorizing U.S. Jews

Informal Trump adviser implies wave of bomb threats against U.S. Jews linked to Democrats

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday indicated for the second time that he believes it is possible that the current wave of anti-Semitic incidents could be “false flags” – perpetrated by the left or by Jews themselves in order to make his administration and supporters look bad.

Trump spoke to a gathering of state attorneys general from across the country that included Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro. Shapiro told reporters in a conference call after the meeting that Trump suggested that the attacks could reflect something other than anti-Semitism, saying that “the reverse can be true” and “someone’s doing it to make others look bad,” according to Philly.com.

The suggestion that the wave of attacks are false flags meant to perpetuate the impression that they were being committed by Trump supporters has been a theme on right-wing conspiracy theory websites and is being promoted aggressively by white supremacist David Duke on his Twitter account. Trump supporter and informal adviser Anthony Scaramucci tweeted a similar suggestion on Tuesday.

At a press conference on February 16, Trump suggested a false flag conspiracy was being perpetrated by his “opponents” in order to bolster claims that his election and presidency was fueling racism and anti-Semitism. “You have some of the signs and some of that anger caused by the other side,” charged Trump. “They’ll do signs and drawing that are inappropriate. It won’t be my people. It will be people on the other side to anger people like you,” he said.

Shapiro told reporters in a teleconference call, that Trump promised to explain more in his address to Congress Tuesday night. "Hopefully he'll clarify a bit more about what he means about the reverse possibly being true," said Shapiro, who said that he and his colleagues found the president’s remarks “curious.”

According to another Philadelphia-based news website, a reporter asked Shapiro during the call whether Trump was indicating that he believed his camp was being falsely accused of perpetrating the crimes. The attorney general reportedly answered that he wasn’t exactly sure what Trump meant by his answer but “he used the word ‘reverse’ I would say two to three times in his comments” and “I don’t know why he said that.”

In response to the reports, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League told Buzzfeed: "We are astonished by what the President reportedly said. It is incumbent upon the White House to immediately clarify these remarks."

Way to Go #OyVeyDonaldTrump :The First 100 Lies: The Trump Team’s Flurry Of Falsehoods The president and his aides succeeded in reaching the mark in just 36 days.

To say that President Donald Trump has a casual relationship with the truth would be a gross understatement. He has repeatedly cited debunked conspiracy theories, pushed voter fraud myths, and embellished his record and accomplishments. The barrage of falsehoods has been so furious that journalists have taken to issuing instant fact-checks during press conferences and calling out false statements during cable news broadcasts.

All presidents lie, but lying so brazenly and so frequently about even silly factoids like his golf game has put Trump in his own category. His disregard for the truth is reflected in his top aides, who have inflated easily disproved figures like the attendance at his inauguration and even cited terror attacks that never happened.

The Huffington Post tracked the public remarks of Trump and his aides to compile a list of 100 incidents of egregious falsehoods. Still, it is likely the administration has made dozens of other misleading and exaggerated claims.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer falsely claimed the crowd on the National Mall was “largest audience to ever witness an inauguration.” (Jan. 21)


Trump falsely claimed that the crowd for his swearing-in stretched down the National Mall to the Washington Monument and totaled more than 1 million people. (Jan. 21)


As Trump fondly recalled his Inauguration Day, he said it stopped raining “immediately” when he began his speech. A light rain continued to fall throughout the address. (Jan. 21)


During his speech at CIA headquarters, Trump claimed the media made up his feud with the agency. In fact, he started it by comparing the intelligence community to “Nazi Germany.” (Jan. 21)


During his speech at CIA headquarters, Trump repeated the claim that he “didn’t want to go into Iraq.” He told Howard Stern in 2002 that he supported the Iraq War. (Jan. 21)


During his speech at CIA headquarters, Trump said he had the “all-time record in the history of Time Magazine. … I’ve been on it for 15 times this year.” Trump had been featured on the magazine a total of 11 times. (Jan. 21)


Trump claimed that his inauguration drew 11 million more viewers than Barack Obama’s in 2013. It didn’t, and viewership for Obama’s first inauguration, in 2009, was even higher. (Jan. 22)


Spicer said during his first press briefing that there has been a “dramatic expansion of the federal workforce in recent years.” This is false. (Jan. 23)


While pushing back against the notion of a rift between the CIA and Trump, Spicer claimed the president had received a “five-minute standing ovation” at the agency’s headquarters. He did not. The attendees were also never asked to sit down. (Jan. 23)


Spicer claimed that “tens of millions of people” watched the inauguration online. In fact, about 4.6 million did. (Jan. 23)


Trump told CBN News that 84 percent Cuban-Americans voted for him. It’s not clear where Trump got that number. According to the Pew Research Center, 54 percent of Cuban-Americans in Florida voted for him. (Jan. 23)


While meeting with congressional leaders, Trump repeated a debunked claim that he only lost the national popular vote because of widespread voter fraud. (Jan. 24)


In remarks with business leaders at the White House, Trump said, “I’m a very big person when it comes to the environment. I have received awards on the environment.” There is no evidence that Trump has received such awards. (Jan. 24)


In signing an executive memo ordering the construction of the Keystone pipeline, Trump said the project would create 28,000 construction jobs. According to The Washington Post Fact Checker, the pipeline would create an estimated 16,000 jobs, most of which are not construction jobs. (Jan. 25)


Spicer said in a press briefing that Trump received more electoral votes than any Republican since Ronald Reagan. George H.W. Bush won 426 electoral votes in 1988, more than Trump’s 304. (Jan. 24)


In remarks he gave at the Homeland Security Department, Trump said Immigration and Customs Enforcement and border patrol agents “unanimously endorsed me for president.” That’s not true. (Jan. 25)


Spicer said during a press briefing that a draft executive order on CIA prisons was not a “White House document.” Citing three administration officials, The New York Times reported that the White House had circulated the draft order among national security staff members. (Jan. 25)


In an interview with ABC, Trump again claimed he “had the biggest audience in the history of inaugural speeches.” False. (Jan. 25)


Trump claimed during an interview with ABC that the applause he received at CIA headquarters “was the biggest standing ovation since Peyton Manning had won the Super Bowl.” It wasn’t even a standing ovation. (Jan. 25)



In an interview with ABC, Trump attacked the Affordable Care Act and said there are “millions of people that now aren’t insured anymore.” Twenty million people have gained health coverage because of the law so far. The estimated 2 million people who did not qualify under the law received waivers that kept the plans going until the end of 2017. (Jan. 25)


At the GOP retreat in Philadelphia, Trump claimed he and the president of Mexico “agreed” to cancel their scheduled meeting. Enrique Peña Nieto said he had decided to cancel it. (Jan. 26)


At the GOP retreat in Philadelphia, Trump said the national homicide rate was “horribly increasing.” It is down significantly. (Jan. 26)


On Twitter, Trump repeated his false claim that 3 million votes were illegal during the election. (Jan. 27)



In an interview on “Good Morning America,” Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway said Tiffany Trump, the president’s daughter, had told her she was “not registered to vote in two states.” A local election official confirmed to NBC News twice that the younger Trump indeed was. (Jan. 27)


Trump said he predicted the so-called “Brexit” when he was in Scotland the day before the vote. He was actually there the day after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. (Jan. 27)


Trump claimed The New York Times lost subscribers “because their readers even like me.” The Times experienced a sharp uptick in subscribers after Election Day. (Jan. 27)


Trump claimed two people were fatally shot in Chicago during Obama’s last speech as president. That didn’t happen. (Jan. 27)


Trump claimed that under previous administrations, “if you were a Muslim you could come in, but if you were a Christian, it was almost impossible.” In fact, almost as many Christian refugees were admitted to the U.S. as Muslim refugees in fiscal year 2016. (Jan. 27)


Trump defended the swiftness of his immigration order on the grounds that terrorists would have rushed into the country if he had given the world a week’s notice. Even if terrorists wanted to infiltrate the refugee program or the visa program, they would have had to wait months or even years while being vetted to get into the country. (Jan. 30)


The White House maintained that Trump’s immigration order did not apply to green card holders and that was “the guidance from the beginning.” Initially, the White House said the order did include green card holders. (Jan. 30)


Trump said his immigration order was “similar to what President Obama did in 2011 when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months.” Obama’s policy slowed resettlement of refugees from Iraq, but did not keep them from entering the country. Moreover, it flagged the seven countries included in Trump’s order as places the U.S. considered dangerous to visit. (Jan. 30)


Spicer said that “by and large,” Trump has been “praised” for his statement commemorating the Holocaust. Every major Jewish organization, including the Republican Jewish Coalition, criticized it for omitting any specific references to the Jewish people or anti-Semitism. (Jan. 30)


A Trump administration official called the implementation of Trump’s travel ban a “massive success story.” Not true ― young children, elderly people and U.S. green card holders were detained for hours. Some were deported upon landing in the U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) even criticized the rollout as “confusing.” (Jan. 30)


Spicer equated White House adviser Steve Bannon’s appointment to the National Security Council Principals Committee with Obama adviser David Axelrod attending meetings pertaining to foreign policy. Axelrod, however, never sat on the Principals Committee. (Jan. 30)


Spicer said people would have “flooded” into the country with advance notice of Trump’s immigration order. Not true. (Jan. 30)


Spicer insisted that only 109 travelers were detained because of Trump’s immigration order. More than 1,000 legal permanent residents had to get waivers before entering the U.S. An estimated 90,000 people in total were affected by the ban. (Jan. 30)


Trump tweeted the false claim that “only 109 people out of 325,000 were detained and held for questioning.” (Jan. 30)


Trump took credit for cutting $600 million from the F-35 program. But Lockheed Martin already had planned for the cost reductions for the next generation fighter plane. (Jan. 31)


Trump accused China of manipulating its currency by playing “the money market. They play the devaluation market, and we sit there like a bunch of dummies.” According to The Washington Post, the United States is no longer being hurt by China’s currency manipulation, and China is no longer devaluing its currency. (Jan. 31)


In defending the GOP’s blockade of Merrick Garland, Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Spicer said no president had ever nominated a justice “so late” in his term. It previously happened three times. (Jan. 31)


Spicer repeatedly insisted during a press conference that Trump’s executive order on immigration was “not a ban.” During a Q&A event the night before, however, Spicer himself referred to the order as a “ban.” So did the president. (Jan. 31)


White House officials denied reports that Trump told Peña Nieto that U.S. forces would handle the “bad hombres down there” if the Mexican authorities don’t. It confirmed the conversation the next day, maintaining the remark was meant to be “lighthearted.” (Jan. 31)


Trump claimed that Delta, protesters and the tears of Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) were to blame for the problems over his travel ban. In fact, his administration was widely considered to blame for problems associated with its rollout. (Jan. 31)


Trump said the Obama administration “agreed to take thousands of illegal immigrants from Australia.” The deal actually involved 1,250 refugees. (Feb. 1)


Trump said the U.S. “has the most generous immigration system in the world.” Not really. (Feb. 2)


Trump said the U.S. was giving Iran $150 billion for “nothing” under the Iranian nuclear deal. The money was already Iran’s to begin with, and the deal blocks Iran from building a nuclear bomb. (Feb. 2)


Spicer called a U.S. raid in Yemen “very, very well thought out and executed effort” and described it as a “successful operation by all standards.” U.S. military officials told Reuters the operation was approved “without sufficient intelligence, ground support, or adequate backup preparations.” (Feb. 2)


Spicer said that Iran had attacked a U.S. naval vessel, as part of his argument defending the administration’s bellicose announcement that Iran is “on notice.” In fact, a suspected Houthi rebel ship attacked a Saudi vessel. (Feb. 2)


In his meeting with union leaders at the White House, Trump claimed he won union households. He actually only won white union households. (Feb. 2)


Conway cited the “Bowling Green massacre” to defend Trump’s travel ban. It never happened. (Feb. 3)


Conway said citing the nonexistent “Bowling Green massacre” to defend Trump’s immigration order was an accidental “slip.” But she had mentioned it twice prior to that interview. (Feb. 3)


Trump approvingly shared a story on his official Facebook page which claimed that Kuwait issued a visa ban for five Muslim-majority countries. Kuwait issued a statement categorically denying it. (Feb. 3)


Trump claimed people are “pouring in” after his immigration order was temporarily suspended. Travelers and refugees cannot simply rush into the U.S. without extensive and lengthy vetting. (Feb. 5)


After a judge halted his immigration ban, Trump claimed that “anyone, even with bad intentions, can now come into the U.S.” Not true. (Feb. 5)


Spicer said nationwide protests of Trump are not like protests the tea party held, and called them “a very paid AstroTurf-type movement.” Although Democrats have capitalized on the backlash against Trump by organizing, the massive rallies across dozens of cities across the country ― which in some cases have been spontaneous ― suggests they are part of an organic phenomenon. (Feb. 6)


During an interview with Fox News before the Super Bowl, Trump repeated his debunked claim of widespread voter fraud during the presidential election. There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud. Republican and Democratic state officials have said so, as have Trump’s own campaign attorneys. (Feb. 6)


During an interview with Fox News before the Super Bowl, Trump repeated his false claim that he has “been against the war in Iraq from the beginning.” (Feb. 6)


Conway said she would not appear on CNN’s “State of the Union” because of “family” reasons. CNN, however, said the White House offered Conway as an alternative to Vice President Mike Pence and that the network had “passed” because of concerns about her “credibility.” (Feb. 6)


Spicer claimed CNN “retracted” its explanation of why it declined to take Conway for a Sunday show appearance. CNN said it never did so. (Feb. 6)


Trump cited attacks in Boston, Paris, Orlando, Florida, and Nice, France, as examples of terrorism the media has not covered adequately. “In many cases, the very, very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it,” he said at CENTCOM. Those attacks garnered wall-to-wall television coverage, as well as thousands of news articles in print and online. (Feb. 6)


The White House released a more expansive list of terrorist attacks it believed “did not receive adequate attention from Western media sources.” Again, the list includes attacks that were widely covered by the media. (Feb. 6)


Trump said sanctuary cities “breed crime.” FBI data indicates that crime in sanctuary cities is generally lower than in nonsanctuary cities. (Feb. 6)


Trump claimed The New York Times was “forced to apologize to its subscribers for the poor reporting it did on my election win.” The paper has not issued such an apology. (Feb. 6)


Trump claimed the murder rate is the highest it’s been in 47 years. The murder rate rose 10.8 percent across the United States in 2015, but it’s far lower than it was 30 to 40 years ago. (Feb. 7)


Spicer explained that the delay in repealing Obamacare was a result of the White House wanting to work with Congress. Unlike during the Obama administration, he asserted, the legislature ― not the White House ― was taking the lead on health care. Various congressional committees worked on drafting multiple versions of the bill that would become the Affordable Care Act ― a lengthy process that took over a year. (Feb. 7)


Trump accused Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) of misrepresenting “what Judge Neil Gorsuch told him” in response to the president’s attacks against the judiciary. Gorsuch called Trump’s tweets attacking federal judges “demoralizing.” A spokesman for Gorsuch confirmed the judge’s remarks. (Feb. 9)


Trump has repeatedly said he doesn’t watch CNN. But he had to in order to see and offer and opinion on the network’s interview with Blumenthal. (Feb. 9)


Former national security adviser Michael Flynn has said that phone calls he made to Russia prior to Trump’s inauguration were not related to sanctions. According to a Washington Post report, however, Flynn held private discussions with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador, before Trump took office, suggesting that sanctions against Moscow would be eased by the incoming administration. (Feb. 9)


Trump took credit for Ford’s decision not to open an auto factory in Mexico and instead expand its Michigan plant. The company said Trump was not responsible for its decision. (Feb. 9)


Trump told a room full of politicians that “thousands” of “illegal” voters had been driven into New Hampshire to cast ballots. There is no evidence of such a claim. (Feb. 11)


During an interview with ABC’s “This Week,” White House senior policy aide Stephen Miller falsely said the “issue of busing voters into New Hampshire is widely known by anyone who’s worked in New Hampshire politics.” Again, not true. (Feb. 11)


Miller cited the “astonishing” statistic that 14 percent of noncitizens are registered to vote. The study the stat is based on has been highly contested. (Feb. 11)


Trump said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was “cut off” on CNN for “using the term fake news the describe the network.” The senator was joking and he was not cut off. (Feb. 12)


Trump accused the media of refusing to report on “big crowds of enthusiastic supporters lining the road” in Florida. There were a few supporters, but they were vastly outnumbered by hundreds of protesters. (Feb. 12)


White House officials told reporters that Flynn decided on his own to resign. However, Spicer said during a press briefing that the president asked Flynn to resign. (Feb. 13)


Trump denied in a January interview that he or anyone on his campaign had any contact with Russia prior to the election. However, The New York Times and CNN both reported that Trump campaign officials and associates “had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials” before Nov. 8. (Feb. 15)


Spicer denied in a daily briefing that anyone on the Trump campaign had had any contact with Russian officials. (Feb. 15)


Trump complained he “inherited a mess” upon being elected to office. The stock market is experiencing record highs, the economy is stable and growing, and unemployment is low. (Feb. 16)


Trump disputed the notion that his administration is experiencing turmoil, telling reporters it is working like a “fine-tuned machine.” His poorly executed travel ban has been suspended by the courts, a Cabinet nominee was forced to withdraw his nomination, and Trump’s national security adviser resigned after less than four weeks on the job. (Feb. 16)


Trump said his 306 Electoral College votes was the biggest electoral votes victory since Ronald Reagan. Obama got 332 votes in 2012. (Feb. 16)


Trump said his first weeks in office “represented an unprecedented month of action.” Obama accomplished much more during his first weeks in office. (Feb. 16)


Defending himself from charges of hypocrisy on the matter of leaks ― which he frequently celebrated when they pertained to his campaign opposition but now denounces ― Trump said that WikiLeaks does not publicize “classified information.” It does, often anonymously. (Feb. 16)


Trump repeated his claim that Hillary Clinton gave 20 percent of American uranium to the Russians in a deal during her tenure as secretary of state. Not true. (Feb. 16)


Trump said drugs are “becoming cheaper than a candy bar.” They are not. (Feb. 16)


Trump said his administration had a “very smooth rollout of the travel ban.” His immigration caused chaos at the nation’s airports and has been suspended by the courts. (Feb. 16)


Trump said the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is in “chaos” and “turmoil.” It is not. (Feb. 16)


Flynn lied to FBI investigators in a Jan. 24 interview about whether he discussed sanctions with Russian officials prior to Trump’s inauguration, according to The Washington Post. (Feb. 16)


Trump falsely suggested at a Florida rally that Sweden had suffered a terror attack the night before his speech. It had not, and Trump was likely referring to a Fox News segment on crime in Sweden. (Feb. 18)


During his Florida rally, Trump repeated his false claim that the United States has already let in thousands of people who “there was no way to vet.” Refugees undergo the most rigorous vetting process of any immigrants admitted to the United States, often waiting upwards of two years to be cleared for entry. (Feb. 18)


White House chief of staff Reince Priebus said in a “Fox News Sunday” interview that Trump “has accomplished more in the first 30 days than people can remember.” Obama accomplished much more during his first weeks in office. (Feb. 19)


Trump said during his campaign that he would only play golf with heads of state and business leaders, not friends and celebrities like Obama did. Trump has golfed with world leaders like Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Most recently, however, he hit the links with golf pro Rory McIlroy, International Sports Management’s Nick Mullen and his friend Rich Levine. (Feb. 19)


A White House spokesperson told reporters that Trump only played a “couple” of holes at his golf resort in Florida. A day later, as reports came out saying the president had played 18 holes with Mcllroy, the White House admitted he played “longer.” (Feb. 19)


Trump said the media is “trying to say large scale immigration in Sweden is working out just beautifully. NOT!” Sweden’s crime rate has fallen in recent years, and experts there do not think its immigration policies are linked to crime. (Feb. 20)


Spicer said Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) asked for a meeting with Trump at the White House. John Weaver, a former campaign aide of the governor, said the president asked for the meeting. (Feb. 21)


Vice President Mike Pence called Obamacare a “job killer.” Overall, job growth has been steady since it was signed into law. And the number of unwilling part-time jobs has also gone down, contrary to GOP claims. (Feb. 22)


Trump claimed that he negotiated $1 billion in savings to develop two new Boeing Co. jets to serve as the next Air Force One. The Air Force can’t account for that number. (Feb. 22)


During a meeting with the nation’s CEOs at the White House, Trump claimed his new economic adviser Gary Cohn “paid $200 million in tax” to take a job at the White House. Cohn didn’t have to pay taxes, he had to sell more than $200 million of Goldman Sachs stock. (Feb. 23)


Trump claimed there were “six blocks” worth of people waiting to get into the Conservative Political Action Conference to see him. People filled only three overflow rooms. (Feb. 24)


At CPAC, Trump said that Obamacare covers “very few people.” Nearly 20 million people have gotten health insurance under the law. (Feb. 24)


At CPAC, Trump said companies like Intel were making business investments in the United States because of his election. The company planned their new investments before the election. (Feb. 24)