Many of us have criticized President Donald Trump when he contradicts himself or calls facts “fake news.” On Sunday, Trump left many scratching their heads when he categorically denied referring to the the American-born Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, as nasty. What is strange is that (unlike many) I was not particularly aggrieved when Trump made the comment. He was responding to a personal attack attributed to Markle. I would prefer the President not to respond to such comments (particularly before a State visit). I also do not consider it appropriate to attack the London mayor as “a stone cold loser” and comment on internal policies on a State visit. However, the Markle comment was actually restrained for this President. What really bothered me was the denial of the comment just days later.
In an interview with the British Sun tabloid, Trump was asked about that statement of Markle that he is a “misogynist: and that “she’d move to Canada if you got elected; turned out she moved here.”
Trump responded “Well, a lot of people are moving here, so what can I say. No, I didn’t know that she was nasty.”
Now, I remain one of those Americans who is hopelessly uninterested in anything royal and I could not care in the slightest what some Duchess thinks about our president, our country, or frankly any subject.
However, I suddenly cared when on Sunday, Trump tweeted the following: “I never called Meghan Markle ‘nasty.’ Made up by the Fake News Media, and they got caught cold! Will @CNN, @nytimes and others apologize? Doubt it!”
What is also curious is that the Sun is not viewed as a liberal newspaper. It is a tabloid owned by Rupert Murdock, the owner of Fox News.
The Sun then released the audiotape.
As often is the case, I tried very hard to understand why Trump would make the denial but also why his associates would encourage people to listen to the tape. The only explanation that I can come up with is that Trump said “she was nasty” which refers to the statement itself. He could argue that saying that someone made a nasty comment is different from saying that they are a nasty person.
Once again, I simply do not understand since I do not see what it is such a towering issue that he referred to an insult toward him as nasty. He could have just left it there. Instead, he is drawing some barely perceptible distinction at best or at worse denying a verifiable fact. I also do not see why churning such controversies has any positive impact for Trump or his soon to be announced campaign for reelection.
Meghan Markle was nasty about the President. He erred by not saying,
One more try, The President wrote an imprecise Tweet. The follow-up, if one
was needed, should have been
Bad enough people go back to dragging Obama in on this but to go back to the two Clintons? Hard to decide which one deserves the comment more the He victimizer of women or the She victimizer of women.
As far as nasty goes I thought that was a statement of ‘honor’ in the ranks of the left wing extremists or so it went back in the inaugural days with the pink taco hat set.
TRUMP ARRIVES IN LONDON..
AND IMMEDIATELY INSULTS LONDON’S MAYOR
Donald J. TrumpVerified account @realDonaldTrump 12h12 hours ago
….Kahn reminds me very much of our very dumb and incompetent Mayor of NYC, de Blasio, who has also done a terrible job – only half his height. In any event, I look forward to being a great friend to the United Kingdom, and am looking very much forward to my visit. Landing now!
20,959 replies 25,964 retweets 118,493 likes
Donald J. TrumpVerified account @realDonaldTrump 12h12 hours ago
.@SadiqKhan, who by all accounts has done a terrible job as Mayor of London, has been foolishly “nasty” to the visiting President of the United States, by far the most important ally of the United Kingdom. He is a stone cold loser who should focus on crime in London, not me……
33,001 replies 37,591 retweets 152,355 likes
Edited from: The Real Donald Trump
Good for Trump. Turn Turn again Dick Whittington thrice Lord Mayor of London Town from the days the English ruled themselves and did not need a group of fakes .
“TRUMP ARRIVES IN LONDON.. AND IMMEDIATELY INSULTS LONDON’S MAYOR”
Peter is incapable of reporting the news. He is thin on his facts and looks for any trash he can write but forgets the context. Trump was replying to Kahn’s insult written as an op-ed which characterized Trump as a “global threat.”
I’m not sure it’s possible to insult Sadiq Khan. He’s an opportunistic little man who exhausted rhetoric in his attacks on the President to encourage the display of naked effigies of the President over his city (while removing advertisements of bikini-clad women on London’s buses),
The President should have ignored Khan as George W. Bush ignored then-mayor of London Kenneth “Red Ken” Livingstone’s insults during his visits to the UK.
But the President has been restrained, at least. 140 characters prevent a complete cataloguing of Sadiq Khan’s personal and political deficiencies.
Only in an English speaking country would the citizens of a capital city elect a guy like this to be a mayor.
A foreigner. Oh I know; he was born in Tooting England. But he is no Englishman.
Peter is upset about what Trump said but Peter lives in a bubble so as part of the Peter Education Project I am enclosing this editorial.
Britain Has Grown Trumpier, State Visit Shows
By SETH LIPSKY, From the New York Post | June 4, 2019
Too bad President Trump can’t run for prime minister of Britain. He arrived in London for his long-awaited state visit just as Britons showed themselves to be a lot Trumpier than the elites have been suggesting.
Oh, sure, the Leftist louts in London hauled out their 20-foot “baby Trump” balloon, showing the president in diapers. Another, showing Mr. Trump tweeting while on a gold toilet, was reportedly being readied. Protesters are out in force.
The far more meaningful “demonstration,” though, took place May 23. That’s when Britons elected a new delegation to the European Parliament. In a stunning turnout, Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party just trounced the establishment.
Mr. Farage’s party won 29 seats — more than double the number secured by the Labor and Conservative parties combined. Bear in mind that Mr. Farage is sometimes called the British Trump: The pair have been political pals since bonding over Brexit in 2016.
No wonder Queen Elizabeth II was all smiles when President Trump and First Lady Melania bounded out of the Marine One helicopter at Buckingham Palace — a 41-gun salute booming from horse-drawn cannons.
My own theory is that Her Majesty is hoping someone can tell her what’s going on in her own country. And reassure her that if Brexit does happen, America will be there with a trade deal and other cooperation with the newly independent country.
Mr. Trump, after all, “towers over Westminster,” as the London Spectator magazine put it, referring to the seat of Britain’s government. Prime Minister May will be gone from office Friday, forced out by her own party. Her meeting with Mr. Trump, if it happens, will be glancing.
The Labor Party, meantime, has become riddled with anti-Semitism and charges of sexual harassment. It boycotted Elizabeth’s state dinner for Mr. Trump, as did the anti-Brexit Liberal Democrats.
Not to mention the London Mayor, Sadiq Khan. The way the London “Independent” tells it, Mr. Trump launched via tweet from Air Force One an “extraordinary attack” on Mr. Khan. He called Mr. Khan a “stone cold loser” and — oomph — likened him to Mayor de Blasio.
Of course, Mr. Trump launched those insults only after Mr. Khan described the president as “one of the most egregious examples of a growing global threat” and suggested that he talks like the “fascists of the 20th century.”
Mr. Khan, in short, is a British never-Trumper. And no one launched these kinds of protests and insults when, say, the Communist Chinese party boss, Xi Jinping, paid his state visit.
What a far cry all this is from three years ago, when, on the eve of Mr. Trump’s inauguration as President, there was an effort to ban him from Britain altogether. Enough signatures were rounded up — something like 580.000 — to force the the House of Commons to address the question .
The Commons, of course, failed to come close to banning Mr. Trump. Today the anti-Trump faction has been holding the major protest of the visit in Trafalgar Square. They won’t be allowed near 10 Downing Street, where Mr. Trump has been talking business with Theresa May and the government.
On Wednesday, Mr. Trump and members of the royal family will be at Portsmouth to start the 75th anniversary commemoration of D-Day. Compared to that, the protests will pale away. And all of us will be reminded of the desperate moments when our countries shared a finest hour.
Alan, this article doesn’t mean much of anything. And by the way, Trump isn’t even meeting with Nigel Farrage. What’s more, anyone who follows British politics knows the U.K. is in the midst of a serious crisis right now. This is one of their lowest points in decades. Yet the columnist here pretends like things are fine over there. They aren’t!
“What a far cry all this is from three years ago, when, on the eve of Mr. Trump’s inauguration as President, there was an effort to ban him from Britain altogether. ”
“Mr. Farage’s party won 29 seats — more than double the number secured by the Labor and Conservative parties ”
There is plenty more in the article that unlike the Washington Post has true facts rather than anonymous lies.
…And of course there is opinion that has more than the tunnel vision of the Washington Post.
“My own theory is that Her Majesty is hoping someone can tell her what’s going on in her own country. And reassure her that if Brexit does happen, America will be there with a trade deal and other cooperation with the newly independent country.”
There is loads more in the article but no Washington Post approval anonymous or otherwise so nothing else counts in Peter’s mind.
What do you know about Brexit Peter? Should it occur and Trump win in 2020 what do you think Britain will do?
Sadiq Khan, Trump did them a favor by insulting him. Good for Trump.
I know some English that like Trump.
The “English” who are johnny come latelys from Lahore, don’t like Trump. big surprise!
KUSHNER STUMBLES BADLY..
WHEN ASKED IF BIRTHERISM WAS RACIST
Jared Kushner is sure that his father-in-law, President Donald J. Trump, is not a racist. But as for whether Trump launched his political career on a racist premise? Eh . . . he’d rather not say.
That’s the big takeaway from Kushner’s interview with Axios’s Jonathan Swan that aired Sunday night on HBO. Kushner was given multiple chances to weigh in on whether the birther campaign that questioned whether Barack Obama was born in the United States — a campaign that Trump led — was a racist one. And Kushner’s answer was decidedly not “No.”
Here’s a quick transcript:
SWAN: Have you ever seen him say or do anything that you would describe as racist or bigoted?
KUSHNER: So, the answer is un — uh, no. Absolutely not. You can’t not be a racist for 69 years, then run for president and be a racist. What I’ll say is that, when a lot of the Democrats call the president a racist, I think they’re doing a disservice to people who suffer because of real racism in this country.
SWAN: Was birtherism racist?
KUSHNER: Um, look I wasn’t really involved in that.
SWAN: I know you weren’t. Was it racist?
KUSHNER: Like I said, I wasn’t involved in that.
SWAN: I know you weren’t. Was it racist?
KUSHNER: I know who the president is, and I have not seen anything in him that is racist. So, again, I was not involved in that.
SWAN: Did you wish he didn’t do that?
KUSHNER: Like I said, I was not involved in that. That was a long time ago.
So that’s four instances in which Kushner emphasized that he hadn’t personally participated in Trump’s effort to question the legitimacy of the nation’s first black president, and zero instances in which he denied the entire effort was racist.
Edited from: “Kushner Was Pressed On Whether Trump’s Birtherism Was Racist. His Dodges Were Cringeworthy And Telling”
Today’s Washington Post
ha ha ha the WaPo is the DC version of the NY times representing the far left home of the ‘racist’ Southern Democrat Party who bought and owned slaves, home of the ‘racist’ Northern Democrat Party who imported and sold slaves also hunted them down and return them as property to the South. The combined North and South Democrats who supported the Jim Crow Laws, the Black Laws, The segregation laws, the anti-civil rights laws, promoted the single party, one leader anti franchise movement, the hands down straight up war mongers of the left, those who hid behind the names of socialist, liberals, progressives, and Democrats while violating their oaths of office. The anti Jewish movement in Congress especially shabby treatment of same in WWii. The anti Catholic movement up the recent and current anti DACA votes to keep their Abortion laws in place well past viability and into during and AFTER birth.
That Wapo?
Home of the truly SICK and evil degenerates to preach vote for the lesser of two evils meaning it’s ok to be evil.
That WaPo?
Michael, The Washington Post is merely reported what transcribed in an interview that aired on HBO. But obviously you lack the grasp to process that.
What Peter thinks is excellent reporting is that the Washington Post gets its information from television. That is an improvement to making up the news.
Is that the best you can do. You just admitted WaPo can in no way be trusted. But obviously like most in the far left you lack the reasoning and thinking ability to grasp that. Which in an of itself makes three strikes your out. No start over perhaps with an education that is not a social promotion. That is an ad machina not an ad hominem. For that you need a human presence.
Michael, are you mentally challenged????? The Post just published a transcript of the interview. Watch the interview yourself before shooting off your stupid mouth.
Sometimes I wonder if you are, most sane people don’t debate with idiots🙂
I think Kushner was clear. Trump is not a racist and Kushner doesn’t concern himself with questions that he is not involved with. I note adequate answers to the same questions repeated over and over again as if the repetition will change the answer. The Washington Post is a rag looking for a way to embarrass anyone not on the left. In an Obama intereview they would ask do you prefer light blue or blue and after getting an answer they would fawn and tell Obama what wonderful taste he had. What a rag and what a disservice to the blog to post such minutia.
Yeah, Alan, Kushner was so ‘clear’ he couldn’t think of an answer. Watch the interview before you comment again. You will see that Kushner literally can’t think of an answer. He knows that birtherism was a blatantly racist movement. And you’re a racist if you defend it.
Peter, what do you mean Kushner couldn’t think of an answer? He answered the same question over and over again. As usual you are trying to read minds when you barely can read a newspaper.
Kushner said repeatedly that his father was never racist.
He was not going to get into birther questions. It could have been a gotcha moment, where he got sucked into a country of origin question, and then maybe the journalist might say, did you now David Duke also questioned Obama’s birth story?
He said his father was not a racist and didn’t care to get lost in the weeds. End stop.
How do you ‘now’ a David Duke. Your reframing and redefining wants a bit of just a touch of relativity to the original post. But…. one can’t expect to much from … not much. Ad Machina.
You got me! I need to proofread!
Karen, I responded to a several days old post of yours at
https://jonathanturley.org/2019/05/31/tribe-calls-mcconnell-mcturtle-and-a-flagrant-dickhead/comment-page-1/#comment-1855187
Karen, it’s a gotcha moment because no reasonable intelligent person can defend the birther movement. It was just a mean-spirtited effort to delegitimize our first Black president. There was no excuse for it. That’s ‘why’ Kushner didn’t care to answer the question.
Hillary Clinton started the “Birther Movement.”
There is nothing wrong with questioning the country of origin from someone who was described, in writing, as foreign born more than once, as well as the definition of “natural born citizen.”
I agree that some took it to extremes. But obviously there is nothing wrong with asking the question.
It’s like illegal immigration. I oppose illegal immigration, but I support legal immigration. There are racists who oppose illegal immigration, like me, but they also oppose the legal immigration of anyone not Caucasian. Of course, just because there are some racists who also reject illegal immigration, it does not make opposition to illegal immigration itself racist.
Clearly, Kushner repeatedly, and clearly, stated that his father was not, nor had he ever been racist.
We could turn it into a Dr Seuss poem and ask him if Trump was racist with a hat? Was he racist with a cat? Or Kushner could just say, he’s not racist. Period. Stop asking dumb questions.
That’s false Karen.
“Our ruling
Trump said, “Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy.”
There is no evidence to support this. Clinton supporters circulated the rumor in the last days of the 2008 Democratic primary and after Clinton had conceded to Obama. But the record does not show Clinton or her campaign ever promoting the birther theory, let alone starting it.
We rate Trump’s claim False.”
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/sep/16/donald-trump/fact-checking-donald-trumps-claim-hillary-clinton-/
Either asking country of origin questions about Obama was always racist, or it never was.
Left-leaning Snopes does not dispute that Hillary Clinton supporters were the first presidential campaign to circulate the Birth questions. Rather, they take issue with who on planet Earth actually was the first person to ever mention it anywhere.
That is parsing the truth. I have absolutely no idea who was the first homo sapiens to ever wonder if Barack Obama was born in Kenya. I do know that Hillary Clinton
I think it is absolutely true that Hillary Clinton supporters were not the very first people to ever bring this up. But I do know that as far as presidential campaigns go, I saw this circulated among Clinton supporters back when she was running against Obama.
https://observer.com/2016/09/media-fact-checkers-erase-sidney-blumenthal-key-role-in-obama-birther-muck/
“NBC News.com completely omitted the crucial Blumenthal reference from its fact-check item. “Trump said Clinton and her campaign started the ‘birther’ movement” but “they didn’t.”
Actually, he did not expressly say Clinton and her campaign started it; he merely noted how they allegedly pushed it. The misleading summation linked to a Politifact round-up of the issue. It noted that a Clinton campaign volunteer, later fired, circulated an email claiming Obama was born in Kenya.
But the Poltifact story completely omitted new claims by former McClatchy Washington Bureau chief James Asher that in 2008, Hillary Clinton’s top advisor Sidney Blumenthal convinced him to send a reporter to Kenya to investigate the possibility that Obama was born there.”
Now, I thought it was obvious that when I talk about the Hillary Clinton people starting the birther movement, I’m talking about the first presidential campaign. It would seem obvious that I would never have knowledge of who was the first person on Earth to ever question his country of origin, given how there were differing conflicting accounts. How would anyone know that? I also do not have any idea who was the first person to put that question in writing, the first person to put that question online, or the first forum it appeared in.
What I do know is that Hillary Clinton’s people were the first presidential campaign to circulate the Birth question. Asher claims that Sid Blumenthal met with him and encouraged him to investigate Obama’s connection with Kenya. While Sid later denied ever meeting with Asher at all, Asher has Sid’s card, and McClatchy staffers recalled Sid speaking with Asher.
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/sid-blumenthal-birthers-clinton-obama-228388
What Politico et al zeroes in on is who was the first person to actually put the question online, and that Clinton eventually rejected the line of questioning. She goes where the wind blows. Although some of her recovered emails told Sid Vicous to keep more emails coming to her, she denied really knowing him.
Note that not even Politico rejects the notion that Clinton people were circulating this rumor long before Trump’s campaign. The difference is that Hillary did not come out in public about the issue, and eventually the campaign moved away from such questions.
It’s kind of like the dossier. Leak it to the press, bring it to the FBI, but lie about having paid for it until she’s been caught.
What I will say about the Birth questions is that they circulated long after the matter should have been put to rest. He was born in Hawaii. What I do still wonder about is if Obama changed his story from American born to foreign born if and when it helped him. It seems strange that he was described as Kenyan born more than once, and it wasn’t corrected.
Give it a F rest.
Hillary did not start the racist birther movement and Trump rode it until 2016.
19 words. I win.
Were Trump’s people the first presidential campaign to ask the country of origin question?
No. Hillary’s were.
The question was either always racist, in which case the Clinton camp were racists, or it was never racist.
Yes, it went on for too long. Some of Obama’s actions prolonged it.
Let’s explore that, Anon.
Let’s say Hillary really ‘is’ the witch Trumpers describe.
Why would Donald Trump take Hillary’s lead on the Birther Movement? As a Fifth Avenue gentlemen from a prominent family, Trump should have condemned Hillary. Instead he copied her! What the heck was Trump thinking??
If Hillary wore a KKK costume, would Trump put one on? Of course not! He never should have copied Hillary on that Birther thing. That was inexcusable for a product of Jamaica Estates. We expect a whole lot more from the upper class.
Trump should have done the ‘opposite’ of Hillary. He should have been congratulating Obama for defeating John McCain. Didn’t Trump hate McCain back then? I mean McCain was a loser, right?
Trump should have been showing Blacks how to get off the Democratic Plantation. Instead he attacked Obama. Leading Blacks to wonder if Trump was just a racist.
But Trump would say he couldn’t be cool to Obama without approving of the Democratic Plantation. So he had to show his disapproval through the Birther Movement. That way he was signaling to Blacks that Obama wasn’t cool.
“Why would Donald Trump take Hillary’s lead on the Birther Movement? ”
Peter, it is very simple. Obama used his place of birth to help sell his books like he used his place of birth for other things.
Yeah Current. Somehow Karen is fixated on blaming someone who is now a private citizen with no particular power while running interference for the most powerful man in the world who is either a racist or plays to them. Karen’s become scroll over territory and I’m not wasting my time on her lame machinations on this one.
There’s Anon with the usual ad hominem again.
Unfortunately she will respond.
Karen……..Larry Johnson, former CIA and former, now missing, blogger, wrote on his blog No Quarter about 5 years ago, that he and Sid Blumenthal of the Hillary camp, were dispatched to unearth those pics of Obama in Kenya garb. It was to rsise the birth question and make Obama look silly during the 2008 promaries.
Cindy B.
I’ve seen interviews with Larry Johnson a couple of times…..These were 15-20 years ago, I think on the PBS News hour. I haven’t heard much about him since, and I checked and could not find any news about him missing.
All the things that Karen S could be and do…, if she just had more time.
I’ll defend the question of whether or not a candidate was born here under law and thus is qualified to run for POTUS.
Whether it’s Barry Soetero or Ted Cruz
Is it racist to wonder if old Ted Cruz qualifies?
Ted looks white to me, but maybe he’s not qualified. Can I ask or am I now racist?
Oh wait I forgot what i been told for decades. I’m racist– because all white folks are.
It was indeed a gotcha moment and he was gotten.
Shame you can’t prove any of that. Always the trouble with subjectivists Objectivist thinking wins everytime.
No, Current PH, the question of eligibility of a foreign born candidate is not racist. Questioning whether Obama was actually born in America was not racist. It was based upon his book having a forward or the dust jacket (cannot remember which now) which said that he was born in Kenya.
The Harvard Law Review Yearbook biography said, “born in Kenya, raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.”
I remember there were objections to the original birth documentation provided, but I believe that was resolved.
It was actually Hillary Clinton’s campaign that began questioning his eligibility, only abandoning it later when it started to not play well. Either it was racist the entire time, when Hillary was questioning his country of origin, or it was never racist.
I don’t think he was born in Kenya. I think he was born in Hawaii. I suspect, but do not know for sure, that Obama might have said he was born in Kenya when being foreign born was considered an advantage. He would have also emphasized the black half of his heritage, and not mentioned being part of a banker’s family, when that suited him politically.
Politicians use every advantage they can to get support.
Even though I believe he was born in Hawaii, I do not believe that it would have mattered if he had been born in Kenya. I interpret “natural born citizen” to mean anyone that is a US citizen upon birth. Born to an American citizen, Obama was an American citizen at birth.
Otherwise, military and ambassadors abroad would have children who were not American citizens or qualified to become President, an unfair handicapped to serving overseas.
One of these days, “natural born citizen” will need to be defined clearly, but that’s how I read it. The silver lining of the birth question is that it got people thinking about what natural born citizen actually means.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/travel-legal-considerations/us-citizenship/Acquisition-US-Citizenship-Child-Born-Abroad.html
Correction. It was never resolved. The document provided was a Certificate of Live Birth arranged for by his Bank Vice President in a format not used at the time and it was not a Birth Certificate. Nothing since has been discovered. So it remains we have the Second Black President as Clinton Ist claimed it first and at best Obama was a 50%er. This time they do not have to rely only on one candidate they have 40 plus losers to spread the fertilizer.
That’s the present stance of the government I myself but far too late for it to matter went from born in another country not eligible to born of at least one US citizen and eligible. I noted that on a replacement to my Certificate of Citizenship.
Karen, the Governor of Hawaii released Obama’s birth certificate very early in Obama’s presidency. That should have the end of the matter there.
I agree that it went on for too long. There were questions raised about the certificate itself. To further muddy the waters, Barack’s half brother Malik said that Obama was born in Kenya.
It’s strange that he was described as Kenyan born in the material for his first AND allegedly his second book, as well as in the bio of the Harvard Law Review. I don’t have an explanation for why he didn’t correct that. My question is, did he claim to be foreign born when it would give him some sort of cache? I have no idea either way, and it’s such supposition on my part.
For me, when I looked into the matter, I realized it didn’t matter where he was born, because he was born a natural citizen, according to the government citizenship link provided above.
None of this would have happened if Barrack Obama had simply corrected every time it was published that he was born in Kenya, at the time. Since he didn’t, he should have released his long form birth certificate when he was asked. Natural born citizenship is a requirement to be president, not just a tradition. If he’s on bad terms with his half brother, there’s nothing he can do about whatever he says. The years’ long delay in releasing his birth did not help matters.
If I can’t blame anyone for asking the question, I also can’t blame anyone for asking it longer since his own brother kept speaking out against him.
People have forgotten that the foundational requirement for a charge of racism is bias against an entire race.
Think the country of origin is a racist question?
—–Hypothetical Thought Experiment—–
A black Republican wins the 2020 election. His father was an African American who lived in Russia after marrying his Russian mother. Afterwards, his parents divorced and they lived in Ukraine for a number of years. He claims that he was born in Pennsylvania, where he and his father later resettled with his banking family after his parents divorced.
His book was marketed as his having been born in Russia and raised in Ukraine. He did not correct this description at the time. His college bio stated that he was born in Russia and raised in Ukraine. He did not correct this description at the time. His birth certificate that he released in the campaign was only a short form, and used fonts that were not available at the time of his birth. Rumors start that it’s a fraud, and that he’s really a Russian national. He refused to release his long form birth certificate until 3 years after his election. Meanwhile, his Russian half brother keeps saying that he was born in Russia.
Eventually, years later, his release of the long form birth certificate allays a lot of fears. A reporter traveled to Russia and could not uncover supporting evidence that he was born there. However, the delays in correcting published accounts of where he was born, as well as his years-long refusal to release his long form birth certificate allowed those concerns to grow for too long.
Think country of origin wouldn’t be a serious concern for people? Would these concerns be racist?
————-
This reminds me of Trump’s tax returns. Natural born citizenship is a Constitutional requirement. Releasing tax returns is just a fairly recent tradition. However, critics can claim whatever they want about Trumps taxes – that he’s never paid taxes, that he engages in tax evasion or fraud, and as long as Trump does not release his returns, those rumors will put down roots. He may not want to release them, because it isn’t fair that the rest of Congress doesn’t do so, and he knows he will be hammered for using tax deductions, carrying forward losses, and for business losses themselves. But as long as he doesn’t release his tax returns, he has no evidence to counteract claims ranging from reasonable concerns to wild fantasies.
Doesn’t 4 denials fulfill some prophecy?
Very weak metaphor for Judas. Judas denied knowing Jesus 4 times, until the cock crowed, and then he accepted 30 pieces of silver to lead the Romans to where Jesus was holding vigil with his Apostles. He knew at the time that his betrayal meant Jesus’ torture, crucifixion, and death. However, Judas was afraid for his own life and succumbed.
Jared Kushner, however, became irritated at the repeated questions of whether Trump was a racist. Trump, his staff, and his family frequently get asked this question, which they always answer, no, he is not nor has he ever been, a racist. This was in part due to the selective editing of his remarks after the Charleston violence, in which the weaponized media changed his statement 180.
Answer is always the same. No, Trump is not a racist.
A reporter can ask that question in a thousand ways, and the answer is always the same. It has got to be so tiresome. By now, answer it once in every conversation, and then they have to move on.
Karen, you’re beating a dead horse that stinks. Get that crap out of here.
Your boy was a birther until 2016 which means he was a racist or playing to them. The latter is probably worse.
Anon, Trump was able to read the flap jacket of the book Obama was selling and he believed Obama’s story. You can’t or don’t read so to you this ploy of Obama’s to sell books and other things is unknown to you.
nah, i think he was ok on that
why’s it racist to wonder if someone is qualified to be president under the constitution? is that racist?
that would have been my answer
Jared’s a goof, lots of problems, but i cant fault him on this one
Why is this of the slightest interest, Peter?
Typical nonsense from the fake prezidentura. “Who you gonna believe? Me or your lying eyes?”
Professor Turley propagates “fake news.”
That’s the headline here.
why is this news? who cares
about a hundred other things demand attention
“The only explanation that I can come up with is that Trump said “she was nasty” which refers to the statement itself. He could argue that saying that someone made a nasty comment is different from saying that they are a nasty person.”
Professor, you have a good explanation, and yes, a nasty person is different than a nice person that said something nasty. Did you really need to make a big thing out of something this insignificant and meaningless? Professor, you are a man of stature, do you wish to diminish yourself?
It was good opportunity to relist the just who are sick and nasty througout their history. But that’s a cross the left has to bear and the Constitutional center has to destroy.
He said he didn’t know she was nasty. That’s merely saying what he doesn’t know – not what he *does* know.
This will be a self inflicted pitfall right before a state visit. I’m sure the Queen will be gracious, as ever. I’m also sure that this may cause some tension with Harry. It will detract from a meeting between two world leaders, as the press and public focus on another misstep. He cannot afford to make such mistakes.
Regardless of whether Trump forgot what he said, or lied about it deliberately, it was wrong to call Markle herself “nasty”. He could have said he was dissapoined in her nasty comments or, better yet, how about this? “I am sorry to hear that. Regardless of personal feelings or disagreements in the past, I’m sure everything will go smoothly in the UK. It is our duty to put personal biases aside and work towards the best result for our respective countries and for cooperation.”
That is not Trump’s style, but I wish he had responded with something along those lines.
Wait a second. I just listened to the audio. That’s the kerfuffle? Trump said he hoped she was okay. When told she had threatened to move to Canada if he got elected and said not nice things about his election, he said he didn’t know she was nasty. He thought she would do an excellent job. Overall, his tone was very nice. Tempest in a teapot.
I took his off hand comment to mean he didn’t know she’d said anything nasty. He clearly was not trying to say that Megan herself was a nasty person, although he expressed himself rather awkwardly. He was clearly very positive about Megan, both before and after he was told she’d been not very nice about him.
I don’t understand how anyone could think he expressed hateful views of Megan when they actually listen to the audio. He was very positive about her. He did say, “I didn’t know she was nasty”. If you parse out that single sentence, it changes the tone of the entire conversation and makes it sound like he hated her. He didn’t.
I have taken issue with Trump in the past. I still think it was a clumsy misstep. In light of the context of his entire conversation, I think he commented that he didn’t know she acted badly, or nastily, but he certainly did not convey that she herself was a bad person. Not in any way.
This is definitely splitting hairs. Trump speaks off the cuff and not in any measured, stilted, self conscious way. It’s all extemporaneous and rough. I wondered at first if he was lying about the comment, but upon listening to the conversation, he was so generally positive about Megan that he probably either forgot that word, or thought the media was trying to portray him as hating Megan, which obviously wasn’t true.
I would give him 1 Pinocchio, because he did, in fact, use that word. It doesn’t really matter if he forgot, lied, or was addressing the allegation that he said Megan herself was nasty. Before commenting on the allegation he should have double checked. I would give the media another Pinocchio because they are clearly selectively editing his entire remarks and trying to change the gist entirely.
The phrase “don’t be nasty” means don’t act nasty.
“Wait a second. I just listened to the audio. ”
Karen, I didn’t hear the audio and I thought based on Turley’s own words and thoughts that it was a cheap shot by Turley. If you have the http of the audio handy perhaps you will post it for all to listen to and maybe for Turley to listen to as well. Thanks for the information.
Sure, here you go:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9196110/donald-trump-meghan-markle-nasty-comment-uk-visit/?utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=sunmaintwitter&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1559380782
That’s it? Trump’s detractors are up to their hips in trivia.
Here’s the bare link, without the extraneous stuff:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9196110/donald-trump-meghan-markle-nasty-comment-uk-visit/
That gives an entirely different spin to what Turley said in his blog. Most of the comments against Trump are comments taken out of context. One would hope a man like our friend Turley would be more judicious in his criticisms.
Thanks.
I’ve noticed that Turkey tries hard to overcome his instinctive dislike of Trump. While he often makes an effort to be fair, he sometimes falls victim to to the Fake News promulgated by most of those he associates with and feels comfortable around. This is a shame.
Riskog…,
I don’t know if you read many of the comments in these threads, but JT is accused of having both a strong bias against Trump and a strong bias in favor of Trump.
Sometimes both in the same day.😄
Tom, Turley’s politics are left of center but he believes in freedom of speech something the left no longer wants to permit. He is also a jacket and tie type of person with an elite education. A lot of people that are in this elite class dislike Trump because they feel his behaviour stains their own.
A typical uninformed reaction from “Allan”:
“Karen, I didn’t hear the audio and I thought based on Turley’s own words and thoughts that it was a cheap shot by Turley. If you have the http of the audio handy perhaps you will post it for all to listen to and maybe for Turley to listen to as well. Thanks for the information.”
____
Did you bother to read or skim the article, Allan. Here’s the key statement:
“The Sun then released the audiotape.” (with a hyperlink)
In which case we should be able to get a listen but nothing pops up on ye olde google machine or ought else.
The link works for us.
In the news. The Queen greeted President Trump with a big smile and royal welcome.
That her job Michael. She’s good at it. As noted by the Guardian …..”the royal escort work that has seen her endorse Ceausescu, Mugabe and any number of bloodstained patriarchs …”
You mean like Obama (Afghanistan II, and a few other mid east places)? Or Clinton (Bosnia, Herzegovina and Somalia) or Carter (E Salvador or Guatemala) or (LBJ Vietnam) or Truman (Korea) or FDR (Banana Republic Wars and WWII) et. al back to Woodrow Wilson( invaded Russia twice and WWI)?
notice the War Powers Act was honored twice by two GOP Presidents and ignored twice by Clinton and Obama). Trump took over an existing war which Obama claimed also to have done..To bad it was after he declared a finish to Iraq and THEN sent troops into Afghanistan.
Objectively speaking as a 24 year veteran
That’s the thing. World leaders and others in position of power need to get along. No matter their personal differences, after an election or an assumption of power, you are expected to be equal to the task of meeting with heads of state, maintaining as good a relationship as possible, and doing what’s best for your country.
Perhaps Megan skipped the meeting because she wasn’t feeling well. Or perhaps she let her personal bias interfere with her responsibilities. She certainly was able to do a few baby shoots. If Hillary Clinton had won, she probably would have wanted to meet her, even if she was in the throes of labor at the time.
Megan Markle married into a royal family. She is expected to represent her new country, the UK, and to behave accordingly. It doesn’t matter if she doesn’t personally like Trump. He is the elected President of America. Snubbing a leader whom you don’t care for might feel good at the time, on a petty level, but it’s not in the best interests of her new country.
That is why no matter whom the Queen meets with, she is gracious and puts everyone at ease. Well, except for the time she drove King Abdullah herself around her property, and scared him half to death. The King of Saudi Arabia, where women are forbidden to drive, likely would have provided a male driver, but he had to suck it up. Subtle, that Queen.
This story should have been troubling for Megan Markle, not Trump. She made personal attacks against Trump, whom she was mad at for making personal attacks. Now she’s got to be a bigger person than before and graciously deal with him as with any foreign leader allied with the UK. Instead, she bowed out of the meeting. It could have been an opportunity for her to shine, and instead it looked petty. If she cannot leave personal biases and feelings aside in her new role, she is going to have a rather difficult time.
JT, Trump is a chronic and habitual liar. What is not to understand? You have yet to express any moral outrage about his pathological lying; rather, you only express how impolitic and unhelpful are his lies. He is a conman. When will you just say so?
Jeffery, it’s puzzling. It’s like taking Dennis Rodman seriously. Yeah, we get he’s the president, but in a democracy there should be a limit to the respect that commands. Trump spend that sum in his first week in office (lying about crowds, petty bragging in front of the CIA memorial wall, and of course the constant pathological lying).
“Trump is a chronic and habitual liar.”
Jeffery, I won’t ask Anon because he has been asked numerous times and just runs away from his statements wearing that yellow jacket.
Why don’t you provide a few significant statements of Trump in context that qualify as real lies, not error, purffery, etc.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/
With the thousand or so supposed lies you can’t even mention 10 significant in context ones. You also repeat what you did before and when I provided an example from your list and explained why it wasn’t a lie you ran away. You are nothing but a coward and an ignorant one at that.
Anon, I previously discussed with you how the WaPo’s tally was very misleading. I gave a detailed analysis before, but you’ve posted exactly the same thing.
I’m not going into it line by line anymore but here’s a quick link:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/washington-posts-10000-trump-untruths-is-about-25-fake-news-2019-04-29
“His falsehoods include such incredible claims such as accurately stating the number of new jobs since the election. Or Trump saying he signed executive orders that he did, in fact, sign. Or claiming that Sen. Bernie Sanders, who wants corporate taxes to increase, worker wages to rise, and stock buybacks to end, wants 401(k) values to “dissipate.”
“Many of the economic comments you have highlighted would be in the Two Pinocchio range [on its 1-4 scale], in which important context is missing or factual information is exaggerated (i.e., lowest unemployment rate in history, when the data only goes back 30 years, or describing the low as current when it took place a while ago),” he said in an email. “As you well know, ‘literally true’ comments can be misleading without the proper context, especially in the economic sphere.”
“I also asked Kessler about his criticizing Trump for not including context, but not providing context in his criticism, particularly when such surrounding information would be helpful toward the president.
For example, I pointed out that, while the U.S. is not the fastest growing economy in the world, as Trump has stated, it is nonetheless the fastest in the developed world, which the Post did not point out. “Your point about growth in the developed world is a fair one and I will consider adding that context, though that is not what Trump said,” he said.”
To be fair, Trump has told some whoppers, such as denying infidelity. Counting each time he said a whopper, such as in regards to an affair, as a separate untruth is completely misleading. For example, I consider Obama’s “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance” as two lies, not as 500 lies because he kept repeating it.
“It’s also important to stress, that the Washington Post exaggerating the truth about Trump is not to say that the president isn’t uniquely untruthful. Even if you accept the 25% figure I come up with, and give another 5%-to-10% leeway for comments pretty close or almost true, Trump does spout untruths on a daily basis, sometimes wildly at odds with the facts.
But it also seems that fact checkers, like Kessler, have a reflexive bias toward declaring Trump comments as untrue.”
“For example, I consider Obama’s “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance” as two lies, not as 500 lies because he kept repeating it.”
You count it as two lies not thousands because you are honest while the ones you are arguing with on this blog are totally dishonest and disingenuous. But there is more to the Obama lie then most. He lied knowingly so. He wanted to pass a bill so he lied to convince people that they didn’t need to worry. That is a characteristic of a true liar about substantial things.
Most of the reported lies are of opinion that is not a lie at all or questions of exageration most of the times having to do with things that mean different things to different people.
With the release of WH documents and permitting his own lawyer to be interviewed by the Special Consel Trump has proven himself to be the most transparent President in history that I can recall. He also has lived up to or attempted to live up to his promises to the American people. That is something that is important since Obama and his friends lied and didn’t do what they promised or did the opposite.
Democrats are dishonest by nature. We hear how Obama turned the economy around and we have heard that on the blog and by Democrats in the news media. However, when we read the emails from people like Donna Brazil to people like Hillary Clinton we hear a different story hidden from the American people of how lousy the economy was doing.
“He lied knowingly so. He wanted to pass a bill so he lied to convince people that they didn’t need to worry. That is a characteristic of a true liar about substantial things.”
Yes, Obama lied knowingly. It wasn’t hyperbole. It wasn’t forgetfulness or inattention, like the “57 states”. It wasn’t about a personal, private relationship. According to one of the architects, they “took advantage of the stupidity of the American public.”
They also lied about saving the average American family $2500 a year. They knew they were lying at the time, knew this was going to cost people a fortune. That’s reprehensible. It hurt people. Took away access to cancer treatment.
Sometimes, a few lies are far and away more evil than 50 hyperboles.
Karen, why do you defend, let alone follow this despicable and transparent human being Cut the WaPo lies in half and see where that gets you. I know where it gets you. Someone with no shame about his constantly self serving statements which lack even the decency of being believable half the time. That’s a clue about what he thinks of whoever his audience is and also of his spoiled rich boy upbringing without brakes.
Isn’t that obvious to you? It is to most of the country and the rest of the world. There is no greater goal beyond his BS than promoting himself, though this former NYC Democrat has adopted the lingo of a group he decided to ride to power, starting with nonsense birtherism and now including phony piousness.
Some day, and probably not long, you’ll be looking for the exit ramp where you can try and convince yourself and others that you weren’t on his team.
By the way, Glenn Kessler has been doing this before Trump and had a running list on Obama. Some of those Pinnochios seemed arguable to me at the time as you think some of Trump’s are now. “Some” does not equal “most” or “all”, and in Trump’s case most humans have an antenna that tells them “he’s no good”. Put away the loyalty based on political goals and you’ll hear it too..
Ever the machine tool part of the Collective.
Anon, why do you deliberately misrepresent me?
I criticize Trump when I think he’s wrong. I defend him when I think an accusation is wrong.
That’s fair.
Why are you not fair?
“Anon, why do you deliberately misrepresent me?”
Plain and simple, Anon is a liar.
What it all boils down to is the country voted against the regressive liberal socialists oath breakers and went with a superior vote count for an outsider who could destroy them. In doing so both the lesser (RINO) and greater (DINO) were both exposed and then exposed themselves.
What counted was regaining our Representative Constitutinal Republic and getting rid of a foreign ideology without one shot being fired. Ballots not Bullets. With the Constitutional Centrists and friends taking 40% and the non RINO GOP and others the rest.
The rest is immaterial except we need to finish up the counter revolution, the sweeping and mopping and send the mensheviks to a well deserved zero place as the cellar team. Good job to the active, retired, former members of the US Military who led this needed action.
Actually Michael, the “country” voted against the outsider (no, not Clint Eastwood, but Little Richie Rich rode on in from 5th Avenue). He lost by 2 million votes or about 2%, the margin that 11 of our presidents were elected by – or less. The EC picked him, not the people.
Seriously?
Yes, would you like to state the serious, in context lies that Trump made and defend them? Remember mistakes and puffery are not lies. We all have a distinct way of speaking so try and provide good substative examples along with the proof.
Sometimes the word “nasty” can be uttered at the end of not only a sentence or portion thereof but at the end of a discussion. The whole situation is “nasty”– not just some Merkle.
She made a nasty comment about our president. She’s Hollywood. What’s the big deal? Trump fights fire with fire.
With all due respect, I do not understand why this is an important story….but,
if you like your Trump stories, you can keep your Trump stories. Period.
So you missed the entire point intentionally or other wise No wonder it’s so easy to make the left cut and run.
I listened to the tape. For such a learned man how is it you do not understand the nuance in his comment? Trump commented on her remarks about his possible election. YOU, Sir, are spreading Fake News!
Trump would lie about the time of day. But hey that’s ok, the big GOP donors are happy and isn’t that what Lindsey Graham told us was most important to the GOP.
From The Guardian, hoping (unsuccessfully) that Prince Charles’s commitment to fighting climate change would preclude his welcoming Trump, but still putting him in his proper place as a visitor:
“….In her history of state visits, this is probably the first time, then, that the Queen finds herself entertaining a head of state who is not merely obnoxious, mendacious, unprincipled, vain, racist, sexually predatory, misogynistic, loutish, untrustworthy, a threat to world peace and, given his denial of the climate emergency, also to future generations, but who has also indicated a creepy interest in two female members of her own family. Perhaps, though, when your job description has included hospitality for certified murderers, that hardly signifies. And it’s not as if Trump’s had any of her citizens assassinated with polonium or novichok, like one unreformed house guest. The one who is also close to Trump and Trump Jr.
Even at the age of 93, and with massive street protests in prospect, the Queen might feel that the royal escort work that has seen her endorse Ceausescu, Mugabe and any number of bloodstained patriarchs is something she cannot reasonably withhold from the strong and stable genius now fomenting war with Iran….”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/26/how-warmly-can-charles-greet-the-man-who-leered-at-kate-and-diana
Changing the; subject again. Typical of someone who is born loser.
In re the Duchess of Sussex, her mother is a New Age social worker and her occupational life was spent in Hollywood. Nothing surprising about that to which she gives voice: problem, she’s a member of the Royal Family and expressed views on most such questions are meant to be uttered behind closed doors. She’s still learning, and not quickly enough. (Prince Edward’s wife was collared 15 years ago making cutting remarks about Cherie Booth Blair (who bloody deserves cutting remarks), but she did it in the presence of people who conned her into thinking they were legitimate clients of her business when they were actually spies for the newspapers).
He didn’t know she’d SAID something that nasty when she talked about him. I understand him and so do many. He didn’t call her nasty.
I never called Meghan Markle ‘nasty.’
I had nothing to do with Russia helping get me elected.
Turley says he doesn’t understand???