Published on Aug 28, 2015 by Real Time with Bill Maher
Bill Maher and his guests – Robert Costa, Michael Weiss, Wendy Davis and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher – discuss the media's role in Donald Trump's popularity in this clip from August 28, 2015 - Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO).
Published on Aug 28, 2015 by Real Time with Bill Maher
Bill Maher and his guests – Wendy Davis, Robert Costa and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher – discuss reproductive rights and the fight over Planned Parenthood in this clip from August 28, 2015 - Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO).
Published on Aug 28, 2015 by Real Time with Bill Maher
This week the FBI warned that more and more American women are being recruited by ISIS. And I think we know how: ISIS has a new women's magazine called “Uncosmopolitan” - Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO), August 28, 2015.
Published on Aug 28, 2015 by Real Time with Bill Maher
In his editorial New Rule, Bill Maher calls out those who seek to micromanage other people’s sexual urges - Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO), August 28, 2015.
Streamed live on Aug 28, 2015 by Real Time with Bill Maher
Bill Maher and his guests – Rick Santorum, Robert Costa, Wendy Davis, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher and Michael Weiss – answer viewer questions after the show - Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO).
Donald Trump told Bill O'Reilly tonight that illegal immigration is devastating our country and we must do something about it. --
Trump specifically blamed unauthorized immigrants for taking jobs, for a wave of crime, and, as unlikely as it would seem, using a Nevada poll, claimed that he was leading among Hispanics.
Immigrants and crime: Crunching the numbers By Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN Updated 0336 GMT (1036 HKT) July 9, 2015
In his recent push for building a massive wall on the southern U.S. border, Trump has said that there are "hundreds of thousands" of undocumented immigrants in the nation's state and federal prisons. It was a claim that the PolitiFact fact-checking website gave a "mostly false" rating.
"The basic claim is at best unsustainable or more likely pure fiction. A fact created out of thin air," Ramiro Martinez, a criminal justice professor at Northeastern University, told PolitiFact. http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/08/politics/immigrants-crime/
Re Trump's to be popular with Hispanics claim.
Donald Trump and the Hispanic Vote
The billionaire’s campaign is alienating the fastest-growing demographic in American politics—and the talk-radio right treats damage control as heresy.
Oh .. and i enjoyed the Mike Malloy vids, and yes, get the point that 'fascism has long been just beneath the surface of Christian USA' .. it is a rather indelicate Trump time .. :)
The poll finds that 54 percent of Republicans think Obama is a Muslim, 14 percent think he's a Christian and 32 percent say they are unsure.
Obama's country of birth also remains a question for Republicans. A plurality, 44 percent, say they don't think he was born in the U.S. Only a third believe that he is American-born, and slightly less than another third are unsure where he was born.
Beliefs that Obama is a foreign-born Muslim are even stronger among Trump supporters. Sixty-six percent of Trump supporters surveyed think Obama is a Muslim; another 61 percent think he was not born in the U.S.
Conspiracy theories about Obama's faith, as well as his birth, have existed among Republicans since the start of his 2008 campaign and have persisted throughout his presidency. In 2010, a Pew Research report [ http://www.pewforum.org/2010/08/18/growing-number-of-americans-say-obama-is-a-muslim/ ] found that 31 percent of Republicans believed Obama was a Muslim. Most recently, Republican presidential hopeful Wisconsin Gov Scott Walker told The Washington Post that he didn't know if Obama was a Christian.
Questions about Obama's birth reached a peak in 2011 when Donald Trump became one of the more famous Republican figures to accuse Obama of not having been born in the U.S. Obama eventually released a copy of his birth certificate [ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/us/politics/28obama.html ] that proved he was born in Hawaii.
Diapers are stacked in a holding area at Munich Hauptbahnhof main railway station on September 1, 2015 in Munich, Germany. (Lennart Preiss/Getty Images)
People line up to wait for registration at the reception center for refugees and asylum-seekers in central Berlin , Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2015. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
By Sebastian Matthes Posted: 09/01/2015 10:50 am EDT Updated: 09/01/2015 11:28 am EDT
Not long ago, the world was looking upon our nation with admiration. During the soccer World Cup in 2006, Germany seemed like a cheerful university dorm; a place that welcomes strangers, where everybody can party exuberantly. In the following years, Germany even turned into a role model. While our European neighbors slid into recession, jobs were created here. Young people from all over the world came, because the future looked brighter here.
It is shocking that something like this should happen in Germany. Because it has nothing to do with the nation that many of us are experiencing daily. It doesn't fit the cosmopolitan atmosphere of bigger cities like Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne and Munich.
This open, increasingly loud hatred against foreigners is mostly a small town phenomenon -- places with high unemployment, limited opportunities and a dangerous right-wing scene, in which the attackers are protected by others. One suspect in a recent attack, in which a refugee shelter was torched, is a fire fighter. A little later he helped to extinguish the fire.
For years, media and politics have overlooked and underestimated how powerful the right-wing movement has become in some parts of Germany. They have ignored the fact that small towns in the East German states [ http://www.dw.com/de/npd-verbot-l%C3%A4nder-f%C3%BChren-heidenau-als-beleg-f%C3%BCr-gewaltpotenzial-an/a-18682296 ] are "culturally controlled almost entirely by right-wing extremists": with murals in the style of the Nazi period, references to Hitler's birthplace, and an atmosphere of fear exaggerated by the far right extremists. In these towns, the right-wing culture dominates everything from high school to the carpenter's shop.
But there are also attacks on asylum-seekers' quarters in the South and West of Germany. Therefore, the radicalization of parts of German society is not a purely East German phenomenon. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution understands this as a threat, a new form of right-wing terrorism.
Sometimes, I just want to wake up from this nightmare. Is this really the country in which I want to raise my child? It is a country that I haven't known until now? My wife comes from Great Britain and has Indian roots. She came here and received a warm welcome from everyone -- like thousands of other immigrants. In our life, this other, ugly Germany didn't exist before.
Now, a small dissatisfied group has dismissed a broad cultural understanding: That, being one of the richest countries on earth, Germany is obliged to help people in need.
Many of these "concerned citizens," as they like to call themselves, are not concerned about the refugees. They worry about themselves. They are scared of economic decline, scared of old age poverty. Scared that something will be taken away from them.
And now they have found the reason for their fear: Refugess that come to Germany to take the last couple of Euros and benefits away from them.
The preachers of hatred and extreme right parties [ http://www.huffingtonpost.de/2015/08/10/braunes-1968_n_7965112.html ], which have mostly flown under the radar until now, use this fear. They have found their audience. They use the Internet to goad on the scared masses. They spread fake articles about refugees, who allegedly come at German school girls, only to later exploit our social system. According to these hatemongers, politicians and the press lie, so they construct their own reality. Following their sick logic, there is [ http://www.huffingtonpost.de/2015/08/01/merkel-wahnsinn_n_7912422.html ] a "will of the people" that justifies violence against foreign fellow citizens. Therefore, we are not only experiencing one of the worst waves of right-wing terror since World War II, but also a gruesome peak of xenophobic propaganda.
To be clear: These people are a minority. There is no powerful anti-immigrant party in Germany either -- like there are in Denmark [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/world/anti-immigrant-party-gains-in-denmark-elections.html ] or Sweden [ http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/14/sweden-democrats-flex-muscles-anti-immigrant-kristianstad ]. However, this could change, if the dangerous and vocal minority became more powerful, due to a lack of opposition. For a long time, the majority of Germans has been looking on in disbelief. Like Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has been silent about the attacks against asylum seekers for way to long, many were hoping that the rage would pass like a heavy thunderstorm. To the contrary. The silence of the majority worked like a combustive agent. Suddenly, the minority were feeling like the majority. In the beginning, not enough people spoke up in this heated debate. The Huffington Post Germany was one of the first media outlets to take a clear stance: In a big feature story, 200 politicians, actors, professors, students and retirees stated:
Whoever dares to take the refugees' side will really get to know this country's ugly side. We were pelted with emails, Facebook messages, and phone calls. They spoke of "dirty riffraff," "gas chambers" to solve the refugee problem, stating that refugees will bring nothing but "violence and diseases" to Germany.
Even the tabloids dispel myths about refugees. Only a couple of years ago they poisoned the atmosphere with questionable "truths" about immigrants.
But this can only be the beginning. Next, we will be faced with an enormous integration challenge. By now, this has also dawned on Angela Merkel. In Monday's press conference, she compared the integration work of the coming years with the effort invested in "building up the East" after the German reunification.
In the coming months and years, we have to re-integrate two minorities at once: On one side, there are the refugees staying with us long-term and on the other side are the "concerned citizens," representatives of the culture of fear.
It's likely that the second group will be more difficult.
This is a historic challenge. How we master it will decide on where this country will be headed. It all boils down to the question: Does Germany want to remain the cheerful World Cup country that many of us would like to live in?
Poland Blocks Gold Hunters From Site Of Alleged Nazi Treasure Train Men walk in underground galleries in the area where the Nazi gold train is supposedly hidden , on Aug. 28, 2015. People are flocking to the area with metal detectors. 09/01/2015 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nazi-treasure-train-gold-hunters_55e5a5c2e4b0aec9f3546cb5 [with embedded video report, and comments]
Israel Asks UN to Reject Palestinian Attempt to Raise Flag SEPT. 1, 2015 UNITED NATIONS — Israel on Tuesday urged U.N. leaders to reject a Palestinian attempt to raise their flag at U.N. headquarters as early as this month's gathering of world leaders there. Israel's U.N. Ambassador Ron Prosor accused the Palestinians in letters to the United Nations secretary-general and General Assembly president of "attempting to swiftly change longstanding U.N. tradition in order to score political points." The flags of all 193 U.N. member states fly outside U.N. headquarters in New York and other U.N. offices — but not the flags of the two non-member observer states, Palestine and the Vatican. The Palestinians are seeking General Assembly approval of a draft resolution that would allow non-member observer states to raise their flags. Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour told The Associated Press that he expects a revised draft to be circulated on Thursday and a vote on Sept. 10, though a General Assembly spokeswoman said no date had been set. He said he expects an "overwhelming majority" of states to support the resolution. It states that "observer states maintaining permanent observer missions will raise their flags after member states," Mansour said. And it gives Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon 20 days to implement the flag-raising provision. Mansour said he would like to see Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas raise the flag after he addresses the General Assembly's annual gathering of world leaders on Sept. 30. He said if the Holy See wants to raise its flag in time for Pope Francis' visit to the U.N. on Sept. 25, "by all means — we'll be there!" [...] http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/09/01/world/middleeast/ap-un-united-nations-palestinians-flag.html
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UN: Gaza could be ‘uninhabitable’ by 2020 if trends continue
By Cara Anna? September 1, 2015 at 7:41 PM
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — A new United Nations report says Gaza could be “uninhabitable” in less than five years if current economic trends continue.
The report released Tuesday by the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development points to the eight years of economic blockade of Gaza as well as the three wars between Israel and the Palestinians there over the past six years.
Last year’s war displaced half a million people and left parts of Gaza destroyed.
The war “has effectively eliminated what was left of the middle class, sending almost all of the population into destitution and dependence on international humanitarian aid,” the new report says.
Gaza’s GDP dropped 15 percent last year, and unemployment reached a record high of 44 percent. Seventy-two percent of households are food insecure.
The wars have shattered Gaza’s ability to export and produce for the domestic market and left no time for reconstruction, the report says. It notes that Gaza’s “de-development,” or development in reverse, has been accelerated.
Israel and Egypt have maintained a blockade of Gaza since the Islamic militant group Hamas seized control of the territory in 2007.
The report comes as Egyptian military bulldozers press ahead with a project that effectively would fill Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip with water and flood the last remaining cross-border underground smuggling tunnels, which have brought both commercial items and weapons into Gaza.
The report calls the economic prospects for 2015 for the Palestinian territories “bleak” because of the unstable political situation, reduced aid and the slow pace of reconstruction.
Cobb, a hate crimes fugitive from Canada who is currently on probation for brandishing a gun at Leith residents in 2013, joins a number of other individuals with known white supremacist leanings who've expressed their adoration for Trump.
"I don't know about the individual you're talking about in Alabama," Lewandowski said on "State of the Union." "I know there were 30-plus thousand people in that stadium. They were very receptive to the message of 'making America great again' because they want to be proud to be Americans again."
“Hopefully, he’s going to sit there and say, ‘When I become elected president, what we’re going to do is we’re going to make the border a vacation spot, it’s going to cost you $25 for a permit, and then you get $50 for every confirmed kill,’ ” said Jim Sherota, 53, who works for a landscaping company. “That’d be one nice thing.”
You can say one thing about Donald Trump: He's definitely found his audience.
GOP establishment plans Trump takedown August 31, 2015 [...] An anti-Trump ad deluge after Labor Day? It's no secret the Republican establishment is unnerved by Donald Trump and his lead in national and key state polls. And now, after weeks of assuming his support would be fleeting, there is a debate about how to take aim at Trump -- and just who should finance such an effort. CNN's Maeve Reston noted that most GOP strategists see risks in having the attacks come from the other candidates or their directly affiliated super PACs. So, she reports, there is conversation about what other group might raise money for anti-Trump TV ads. "There are a lot of donors out there who see it as much too dangerous, obviously, for the candidates, or their allied super PACs, to go after Trump," said Reston. "So they're looking to more establishment PACs to potentially take him down in post-Labor Day ads." [...] http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/30/politics/ip-obama-trump-jeb--romney/
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in addition to (linked in) the post to which this is a reply and preceding and (other) following, see also (linked in):
In a freewheeling and strangely self-defeating interview on Sunday, Sarah Palin rallied behind Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, promoting herself as Trump’s potential secretary of energy even as she pledged to abolish the department.
“I think a lot about the Department of Energy, because energy is my baby: oil and gas and minerals, those things that God has dumped on this part of the Earth for mankind’s use instead of us relying on unfriendly foreign nations,” she told CNN’s Jake Tapper in an interview that aired Sunday on “State of the Union.”
The GOP’s 2008 vice presidential nominee then took an usual stance toward the department she positioned herself to lead: “I’d get rid of it. And I’d let the states start having more control over the lands that are within their boundaries and the people who are affected by the developments within their states. If I were in charge of that, it would be a short-term job.”
Palin also defended Trump’s wobbly performance during a foreign policy interview last Thursday. In conversation with radio host Hugh Hewitt, Trump mixed up the Quds and the Kurds and struggled to identify prominent figures in the Middle East. He later tried to downplay the importance of knowing such facts about the region, dubbing them “gotcha” questions. Palin, herself the star of several error-filled foreign policy interviews over the years and a self-proclaimed victim of “gotcha” questions, agreed with the Donald.
“I think I’d rather have a president who is tough and puts America first than can win a game of Trivial Pursuit,” she told CNN. It’s more important to have a grasp of industry details than to know “the leader of some tribe or a religion or even a country,” she added, and she believes that most voters will feel the same way.
“I don’t think the public gives a flying flip if somebody knows who, today, is a specific leader of a specific region or a religion or anything,” she said.
Trump has previously said if elected president he would “love” to have Palin as a member of his cabinet. ”She really is somebody that knows what’s happening. She’s a special person, she’s really a special person,” Trump said on radio show “The Palin Update with Kevin Scholla.”
Palin also envisioned a country where every resident speaks the same language, a mother tongue she calls “American.” She was trying to take a swipe at Trump’s 2016 rival Jeb Bush, who is fluent in Spanish and sometimes speaks in that language on the campaign trail.
“It’s a benefit of Bush to be able to be so fluent, because we have a large and wonderful Hispanic population building America, and that’s a great connection he has with them,” Palin said. “On the other hand, I think we can send a message and say, ‘You want to be in America, A, you’d better be here legally or you’re out of here. B, when you’re here, let’s speak American.”
Perhaps realizing that “American” is not a language, she later elaborated: “Let’s speak English, and that’s a kind of a unifying aspect of the nation is the language that is understood by all.”
Palin also announced that she will rally against the Iran deal next week, joining Trump and other opponents in Washington.
“We walked away from the draft of that treaty giving a win to Iran, our sworn enemy,” she told Tapper. “Iran, who immediately after the deal was struck, started mocking us and poking us and saying yes, of course we’re going to violate it. Thanks for freeing up $150 billion, America, too.”
All the best moments of Sarah Palin interviews, starring Sarah Palin, Charlies Gibson, Katie Couric, Sean Hannity, and special guest appearance from John McCain himself
Bristol Palin has just announced she is pregnant with her second child. This comes just a month after she called off the wedding with her former fiancee. She has been a longtime advocate for the abstinence only education movement, yet this will be her second child out of wedlock. Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian (The Point), Hannah Cranston (Think Tank) hosts of The Young Turks discuss.
"Seven years after her mother’s failed bid for vice president and one month after breaking off an engagement, Bristol Palin has announced she is pregnant with her second child.
Her previous pregnancy with son Tripp made headlines during Sarah Palin’s campaign with John McCain. Palin, then 17, got engaged to Tripp’s father, Levi Johnston, but they never married.
She announced her new pregnancy on her blog, writing, “Honestly, I’ve been trying my hardest to keep my chin up on this one…I know this has been, and will be, a huge disappointment to my family, to my close friends, and to many of you.” She said she was sharing the news much sooner than she had hoped, “due to the constant trolls who have nothing better to talk about.”*
after taking a fistful of prescription goodness. The only surprise? It actually did have a discernible effect on her word salad! I couldn’t resist having a little Fair Use fun with video (but only out of Christian concern).
Sarah Palin Out-Palins Herself In Weird, Wild, ’Tragic' Speech
Published on Jan 26, 2015 by The Young Turks
"Iowa Republicans voiced scepticism on Monday over Sarah Palin’s claim to be contemplating a campaign for president in 2016, amid criticism of her unusual speech to a conservative rally in the state.
The former Alaska governor and vice-presidential nominee revived speculation about her future over the weekend by twice telling reporters that she was interested in running for the White House next year, before addressing the Iowa Freedom Summit in Des Moines on January 24, 2015.
– in which she described President Barack Obama as an “overgrown little boy who is acting kinda spoiled”, and declared “the man can only ride you when your back is bent” – received poor reviews even from some conservatives."* The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down.
Sarah Palin's Latest Fail: Online Channel Goes Under
Published on Jul 7, 2015 by The Young Turks
Sarah Palin thought she was going to compete with people who make videos online (wonder who that would be?). She heard people paid subscription fees online and figured it was easy money to put in her pocket with minimal effort and content. She was wrong.
Today on SarahPalinChannel.com she announced her content would now be free. Translation: the site was a massive fail and she quits. Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks, breaks it down. Tell us what you think in the comment section below.
Aug. 26 -- Mark Halperin and John Heilemann interview Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at Trump Tower in Manhattan and discuss Jeb Bush, taxing hedge fund managers, the Bible, Clarence Thomas and more.
Photograph by Ted Thai/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Featured in Bloomberg Businessweek, Sept. 7, 2015. Photographer: Harry Benson
Trump gets ready to ride in 1976. Photographer: Chester Higgins Jr./New York Times/Redux
Inside the empire
By Max Abelson | September 3, 2015
Past Trump Tower’s bow-tied doorman, through a shiny revolving door, toward the 60-foot waterfall, up a dim elevator, after glass doors and smiling assistants, Donald J. Trump, chairman of the Trump Organization, sits with pictures of himself to his left, to his right, in front of, and behind him. A gun he got at an awards dinner this year in Charleston, S.C., is mounted above his desk.
Trump is three days away from his first debate with the nine other Republican presidential candidates who made the cut, the ones he’s pulverizing in polls. He’s taking a break from a campaign that, though he has no experience in government, has him zooming toward the White House. We’re talking business rather than politics—after all, that’s his central qualification for the job he’s seeking.
When Trump is asked to name a leader he looks to for advice on managing his company, his mouth, just as acrobatic as his more famous hair, pulls tight, snaps open, and lets out its most important syllable.
“Me,” Trump says.
“Mirror,” says one of the two deputies in the room. “The mirror.”
“I look at me,” says Trump.
Does he admire any other business leaders?
“I,” Trump says, “don’t like the word admire.”
* * *
Trump isn’t exactly self-made—he inherited substantial wealth from his father—but he is definitely self-invented. There’s no model in the political world for how he transformed himself into a campaign megastar without preparation, politeness, policy, or public service. To wander around inside Trump’s kingdom with his deputies, children, lenders, and former executives is to find a New York real estate mogul who stopped building Manhattan real estate and a global hotelier who doesn’t own most of his foreign hotels. Long before he was ignoring basic political rules, he was sailing far beyond the limits of his industry, steering an empire that’s as similar to most corporations as his run is to most presidential campaigns. In the same way that his campaign is post-politics, his company is post-business.
Trump is selling himself to America as the king of builders, a flawless dealmaker, and masterful manager. But he isn’t really any of those things. Trump has built few skyscrapers this century, stumbling twice when he’s tried, and struggled with an array of other projects. Meanwhile, his corporate leadership is a kind of teenager’s fantasy of adult office power. From his Trump Tower desk in Midtown Manhattan he controls the teensiest details, rejects hierarchy, and picks top deputies by following his own recipe for promotion.
None of those things means he’s a sham. The story of how he came to be what he is now—above all else a landlord and a golf bigwig—is even weirder than his charge to the White House. Trump rose in the glitzy 1980s on borrowed money, survived early 1990s disasters that nearly brought him down, then transformed himself and his business. His organization is still successful, just not in the way he’s claimed.
“We evolve very much in this company,” Trump says. “See that? I’m just looking while I’m talking to you. See that record?” There’s a plaque across from his desk. “That’s a platinum, that was sent. Mac Miller, did you ever hear of Mac Miller? He’s a rapper. He did a song called Donald Trump—100 million hits!” He takes a breath and goes back to his company. “I tell you what,” he says a few minutes later. “Someday before I kick the bucket, somebody is going to get what a great business I built. People don’t know.”
* * *
Four days later, the morning after the debate, Matthew Calamari’s eyes are misting. Trump’s chief operating officer has the mustache and bulk of a late-1970s linebacker because he was one in college. That was before he tackled hecklers at a 1981 US Open women’s semifinal, won the attention of a young real estate star who happened to be there, got hired as his bodyguard, and rose to become one of his top executives.
“I love the guy,” Calamari says. “My thing is, I’ve always promised I would, knock on wood, never let anything happen to him.” His voice wobbles. Lately, if you catch the right Trump speech and look carefully, you see Calamari. He likes to watch over his boss on the trail. “I just enjoy it. It’s not the money. I enjoy working for the man.”
A commemorative Secret Service knife keeps him company in his office, along with a poster of Tony Soprano, snapshots of his Shih Tzus, and a photo his brother took of the moment his knee was wrecked in a game. “You know what?” Calamari says. “If I would have made it in football, I would not be working for Donald Trump.”
Calamari gets up from his chair to show how he escorted his boss in the early days, just behind and slightly to the side. “Being able to walk with him to these other job sites, I saw his eye for detail,” he says. Calamari tried to emulate Trump when he hired other security guards. Besides security, Calamari’s responsibilities now include building management, construction, and insurance. “He promotes you until you fail,” he says. “There are no boundaries.”
Calamari won his job when the hecklers interrupted Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert. “I took one guy immediately right down,” he says. Then someone else started getting rude. “I ran right at him, I picked him up, I slammed him to the ground, I carried him down,” he says. He remembers Trump’s wife at the time, Ivana, asking for his name on her husband’s behalf. Navratilova won.
Calamari isn’t the only bodyguard Trump has promoted. The man who manages his Las Vegas hotel “used to drive us to school every day,” middle son Eric Trump says. “If you go down to Wall Street, that’s not happening.” Eric, like his sister Ivanka and their brother Donald Jr., is a senior executive at the company. Allen Weisselberg, who grew up in Brownsville, worked as an accountant for Trump’s dad before joining the son, and hasn’t shaken his terrific Brooklyn honk, is now his chief financial officer. Amanda Miller, who was a teenage waitress when Trump spotted her at his Westchester club, is his head of golf marketing.
“I like taking people that I know,” Trump says. “They don’t have drug problems, they don’t have alcohol problems. They’re family. I would rather take guys at a lower level and move them up than hire people that you have no idea who they are.”
* * *
Trump’s empire is almost moving if you spend time with the deputies who admire him, alarming if you focus on its messier deals, and astounding if you remember how close it came to ruin. If you’re Donald Trump, it’s totally underrated.
It’s not a gargantuan company. The $605 million revenue that Weisselberg says it took in last year (though the months shift depending on the business line) makes it, for purposes of comparison, roughly the size of a company called NN, based in Johnson City, Tenn., which produces tiny steel balls.
The $605 million is almost double the revenue he reported in his financial disclosure for candidates, which Weisselberg says was bogged down by federal rules on what they could include. The profit on that revenue was somewhere between $275 million and $325 million, the CFO says.
That margin is extraordinary. Weisselberg points out that Trump’s licensing businesses, even if they’re smaller than his real estate and golf portfolios, are essentially all profit and help make the margin so wide. Trump squeezed about 13 times more profit than the Tennessee company got from the same revenue.
Trump is about to describe the most profitable parts of his business when Michael Cohen walks into the office.
“What do you have, Mike?” Trump says. Cohen, an executive vice president and special counsel to Trump, became famous a week earlier. He said he would do something “disgusting” to a Daily Beast reporter if the website published Ivana Trump’s accusation in a deposition that Trump had violated her in 1989, when they were married. Cohen added that a wife can’t be raped by her husband, legally speaking, which isn’t true. (Ivana has said the story was “without merit.”)
Cohen is upbeat, naming a television anchor who just called.
“His comments to me just now on the phone—” Cohen says.
“He can’t believe it, right?” Trump interrupts. “Because he saw the new polls?”
“He actually thinks you really could be the nominee. He said, ‘If you asked me the same question six weeks’—I’m sorry to interrupt—‘if you would have said this to me six, seven weeks ago,’?” Cohen says. “He goes, ‘If Donald wants to come on, love to have him.’ They’re running 24/7 on just the debate.”
“I’ll talk to him,” Trump says. He corrects himself. “I’ll see if I can talk to him.”
The two other deputies in the room are sitting quietly on either side of me as we face their boss. On my left is Chief Legal Officer Jason Greenblatt. Trump tells me he’s there “not to sue you, just because he knows a lot about the company.” Weisselberg is on the right.
When Cohen leaves, the boss turns his attention back to the lucrative parts of his company. Or, rather, to parts that might be more lucrative should he decide to unlock the riches therein. “I think one of the things you have to think of is that the golf land is not just golf land; it’s land that if I want I can close up and build into thousands and thousands of units. And not one person has ever mentioned it.” He moves on to something else. “Let me just show you these real fast,” he says, picking up plans for his renovation of the Old Post Office Pavilion, soon to be Trump International Hotel, Washington, D.C.
The city he’d like to make his home comes up again when he describes some of those golf courses, one outside Washington and another in New Jersey. “Bedminster, in New Jersey, which is amazing, which you have to go see,” he says. “Have you been there? Have you seen it?”
* * *
Weisselberg, the CFO, is wearing a golf shirt when I meet him in his office four days later for a trip to New Jersey. We head downstairs and out a Trump Tower side door, driving uptown before turning west at Central Park, where Trump’s New York rise was boosted by his quick renovation of the city’s long-suffering Wollman ice rink in the 1980s.
By then, Trump had already emerged in Manhattan as a fully formed version of himself. When barely 30 he was being chauffeured around town in a Cadillac with his initials on the license plate, and newspapers were noting his dazzling grin and model companions. By the end of the 1970s he had brought his father’s outer-borough apartment company into Manhattan, transforming the Commodore Hotel on grimy 42nd Street into what would become the glassy Grand Hyatt New York. He had political connections helping him nab a new kind of tax deal to save him millions of dollars. He fought the government when the U.S. Department of Justice sued his family company for discriminating against black tenants in Brooklyn and Queens, a case he eventually settled.
Trump’s ego has its own origin story. On a cold November afternoon in 1964, the year he graduated from the New York Military Academy, he went with his dad, Fred, to watch the opening of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. He saw, he said later, its 85-year-old designer standing like a sap, with his name unspoken at the ceremony. “I realized then and there something I would never forget,” he told the New York Times in 1980. “I don’t want to be made anybody’s sucker.” It didn’t matter that the master of ceremonies, Robert Moses, had introduced the designer as “one of the significant great men of our time,” or that the man, Othmar Ammann, was applauded by 1,000 guests. Moses hadn’t remembered his name.
“Everybody thought Donald was just this brash young kid who was going to ride along on his father’s money,” says Louise Sunshine, one of his first deputies. “And I just thought, Oh boy. This was my opportunity in life.” Sunshine was also a top fundraiser for Governor Hugh Carey, an early connection to the officials who bestowed tax deals and zoning changes.
Despite saying he’d give them to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Trump got rid of some of the old Bonwit Teller building’s limestone reliefs when he demolished it to make way for Trump Tower. “When I knew Donald, he lived half in the Trump world and half in the real world,” Sunshine says. “The only thing that makes Donald different today from the Donald that I knew is that I think he listened more in those days.”
The 1980s was a steroidal decade. Trump bought an airline, a vast Palm Beach estate called Mar-a-Lago, and a yacht so big it inspired a song by the band Queen. He proposed the world’s tallest building and was considered for a job to build a City of God for Hare Krishnas in New Jersey, according to a news report at the time. He became an Atlantic City tycoon instead, calling his Trump Taj Mahal the world’s most expensive casino ever built. He took over a pair of buildings on Central Park South, renamed them Trump Parc and Trump Parc East, and offered to house homeless people in one of them to pressure rent-controlled tenants to leave.
Weisselberg and I drive by those buildings, and by the Plaza Hotel, which he bought near the end of that decade for about $400 million—borrowing every dollar. Citigroup and other banks loaned him more than the hotel actually cost, throwing in money for renovations, and Trump had to personally guarantee more than $100 million of it. He said he’d give Ivana $1 and all the dresses she wanted to run the hotel.
That kind of debt exposure wasn’t rare. He borrowed so much that he ended up guaranteeing, altogether, close to $1 billion, which meant that the banks could have ruined him if something went wrong. Before his run ended, he opened the Taj Mahal in 1990 with a giant genie named Fabu declaring Trump its master and a green laser shooting out to cut the building’s red ribbon. It beat the Verrazano’s opening ceremony. The curtain came down on that era of Trump a year later when the Taj went bankrupt.
Before this year’s presidential race, the grandest triumph Trump had managed was staying on his feet during his 1990s disaster as the economy fell out from under him. He lost the Plaza, the yacht, and the airline, and the casinos filed for bankruptcy—but he himself didn’t, as he reminds his crowds on the campaign trail. In Trump: The Art of the Comeback, a book with two chapters on his prenuptial agreements and one on his collapse, he chalks up his survival to the timing of his debt negotiation, playing hardball with his lenders, and teaching one holdout banker a better golf grip.
What saved him is that those bankers believed he was worth more to them above water than under it. He fought to buy time until the real estate market could rebound. By 1995, with some but not all of his debt wiped out and a pair of big projects that would use his name under way, limousine mogul Bill Fugazy handed him a boomerang encased in glass at a lunch marking his comeback.
A new empire rose out of the wreckage of the first. The reimagined Trump relied more on partners than on personally guaranteed debt, at least most of the time. His name on a building didn’t necessarily mean that he owned or built it. When our car gets to Columbus Circle, we pass the skyscraper that was remade in 1997 from the Gulf + Western Building into Trump International Hotel & Tower. General Electric put up the money to transform it, but the GE International Hotel & Tower probably wouldn’t have attracted as many guests. A year later, on the other end of Central Park South, even though Trump put in only $11 million to buy the General Motors Building with insurer Conseco, his name went up in 4-foot letters on the white-marble tower. They were taken down overnight and the building was sold off after Conseco’s fall a half-decade later.
“I think that a healthy bit of fear got into him, and that was good,” says Brian Harris, whose company Ladder Capital is Trump’s biggest lender, according to his campaign filings. “Like a lot of very heavy hitters, they get older, they get a little more conservative, they start thinking about the kids.”
* * *
New York disappears, New Jersey highways ooze by, and after an hour’s drive from Midtown Manhattan we pull into the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster. It’s a monument to the Trump style. At the front of the clubhouse is a fountain with lions around a pedestal below a pool, then more lions up above, another pool, even more lions, and a third pool, topped by a statue of a woman, high above our heads, holding buckets. She towers over a Lamborghini, a Maserati, a Mercedes, and a Bentley, keeping watch. Merely nice cars park elsewhere.
Stepping into the Trump world is like taking a long soak, or huffing new car smell, or doing both at the same time. We start in the main clubhouse, beneath chandeliers chosen by Trump. Mark Sanchez lived in a villa by the swimming pool when he was a New York Jets quarterback. A couple of his more prominent peers have reserved spaces near Trump’s in the glistening men’s locker room, where salves and lotions are lined up as far as the eye can see. A framed TV Guide list of catchphrases hangs by the door, with “You’re fired!” from his show The Apprentice highlighted in yellow, near gigantic urns also picked out by Trump.
The Trump Organization is not the kind of place where employees can always tell you what colleagues are working on or what their titles are. What they agree on is Trump’s immersion in the minutest of details, from the fountain and urns to the marble of lobby floors.
“Not in a compulsive way, or sick way, but in a caring way,” says David Schutzenhofer, Bedminster’s manager. When asked about it, Trump says he pays attention to details, even though he has good managers who should be able to handle them. It’s hard to imagine how Trump’s management style would or could translate to government, where hierarchies are impenetrable, micromanagement ineffective, and expensive urns susceptible to congressional scrutiny.
Bedminster has 400 members, and new ones are expected to fork over $150,000 to join on top of $24,000 a year. It’s a dreamy place, except when a player who’s facing us on one of the two golf courses a few yards away swings hard at a ball. It dribbles forward a few inches.
“We could have been killed,” Schutzenhofer says.
“That,” Weisselberg says, “was a terrible shot.”
We turn a corner and come to a spot overlooking the first hole of the club’s new course. Trump has suggested this could be his final resting place, with space for 548 more graves nearby.
“It’s funny, because when we bring it up to members, their initial reaction is they question it,” Schutzenhofer says. “But then when you ask them, ‘Where would you like to be buried?’ they kind of get it.”
Trump was connected to the land even before he bought the course. When gull-wing car magnate John DeLorean was going bankrupt in 1999, he announced plans to turn his estate into two golf courses, saying he could pull off a Trump-like comeback. He couldn’t; Trump himself bought it three years later. Trump’s website now lists a dozen U.S. clubs, two in Scotland, one in Ireland, and a licensed course planned for Dubai, leaving out the licensed Trump golf course in Puerto Rico that went bankrupt in July.
Schutzenhofer expects his club to make a $5 million profit this year. It will host the PGA Championship in 2022.
* * *
When we’re driving home, New York rises across the Hudson River in the afternoon sun. Manhattan’s skyline grows taller and ganglier by the day. Trump Tower has been dwarfed by a new generation of skyscrapers sprouting around it, skinny and strange.
Trump once wanted to be the biggest. Halfway through his 1980s climb, he tried to build the world’s tallest tower, a 150-story skyscraper on an East River landfill. A year later he zoomed across town, proposing to go just as high on the long stretch he controlled along the Hudson. Instead, after his 1990s fall, he sold 70 percent of the project, called Trump Place, to Hong Kong investors. A decade later, with only some of the towers up, they sold off the whole thing, including his stake, without his approval. He sued. Peace came when the Hong Kong investors used the money from that sale to buy two towers in New York and San Francisco, and then sold their 70 percent chunk to Vornado Realty Trust, a more acceptable partner for Trump.
That’s how he ended up with about a third of two huge Vornado office towers. He didn’t get to build higher than everyone else, he gave up control of his West Side dreamland, and sued over its sale, but ended up with a stake that the Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimates is worth $640 million, his most valuable holding. (Trump says it’s worth even more.) And it’s just one part of the real estate portfolio he owns that Weisselberg says is Trump’s biggest business, along with office building 40 Wall Street, Trump Tower, the NikeTown store connected to it, and shiny resorts. One of them is Trump National Doral Miami, where the spa menu includes a 35-minute beard shave, an 80-minute hydrating cocoon, a 100-minute antigravity face-lift, and a two-hour foot and hand treatment with salt exfoliation.
Landlords—and Trump is a major one—have a very good business. But builders capture the city’s imagination because they move brick, soil, money, government, and men. And only losers give up when they try and fail twice to put up the world’s tallest skyscraper. In 2001, before construction began on Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago, he said he’d love to make it the tallest building ever. It ended up as that city’s second-highest, after Willis Tower, and in a flashback to his old ways he personally guaranteed $40 million on a Deutsche Bank construction loan to build it. It was still going up when the 2008 financial crisis struck. With sales slow and the German bank asking for its money, Trump claimed that the credit crunch was the kind of random catastrophe that allowed him to delay. They sued each other and announced a year later they would settle privately.
He built one other skyscraper with a big investment of his own in the past decade, and it suffered the same bad timing. His partner at Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, fellow billionaire Phil Ruffin, tells me they would have made a fortune if the economy hadn’t crashed as they opened in 2008. For now, Ruffin says, they still owe about $12 million out of the $560 million they borrowed.
Trump, such a proud erector of towers that he once promised to put up “the stiffest building in the city,” hasn’t built his own skyscraper since.
“Here’s the thing,” he says in his office. “What I’m doing now—I’ve been building all my life. I built a lot of buildings.” His voice hushes, serious and nostalgic, and he ticks through Trump Tower, the Trump Palace condos on Third Avenue, the Trump World Tower across from the United Nations, and Trump Park Avenue, which he converted from the Hotel Delmonico into apartments. “All over the city I built.”
* * *
Trump didn’t leave Atlantic City after his ugly fall. He doubled down, winning control of his casinos from his lenders, opening another, and turning down at least one offer to sell. He even said he’d build the world’s biggest yacht, a few yards longer than the royal Britannia, and dock it by the Trump Castle casino. “I’ve always wanted a boat bigger than the queen’s,” he said. Atlantic City continued its slide, and Trump didn’t leave until more than a decade later, though his name stayed on his old casinos even after he gave them up. He said last year he’s thinking about buying back in.
In 2005 he became an education entrepreneur, founding Trump University. “The problem with school is that school is a little academic,” said Roger Schank, its chief learning officer, when the online program started. Trump U gave out no degrees, wasn’t accredited, changed its name to the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative, and was sued by New York’s attorney general for cheating students. Trump denied the allegations and countersued.
The parts of his company that slap his name on other people’s things help explain how Trump can make all that profit from such a modest amount of revenue. Trump can earn millions of dollars when he licenses out his five sparkling letters, that unbeatable verb, to new towers in the Philippines, Panama, India, Uruguay, Brazil, Canada, and the U.S., too. And he doesn’t have to worry about spending money on stuff like concrete.
“It’s not conventional, traditional real estate, but it’s real estate,” says Richard LeFrak, another billionaire son of an outer-borough New York developer. “I mean, if you think about it, his brand is his real estate.”
A year after the university opened, he launched Trump Mortgage with a press release, saying in all-caps it would put the “SUIT AND TIE BACK IN THE MORTGAGE BUSINESS.” His CEO’s work experience, posted on the company’s website, turned out to be embellished, and within a year the company shut down.
Trump began endorsing a multilevel-marketing firm called ACN around that time. “Hey, if you want a nice, easy, OK life, you can be in the pack ... but if you really want to do something, you do have to get out of the pack,” he said in a promotional video. “We do a lot of research on companies before we agree to do something like I’m doing for you, and ACN’s a great company.” ACN, which charges new members $499 to join a system that rewards them for selling digital phone service and natural gas, was featured on 2009 and 2011 episodes of The Celebrity Apprentice, where contestants promoted a video phone. In between, Montana’s securities commissioner accused ACN of running a pyramid scheme, dropping a cease-and-desist order when the company agreed to better training programs. Trump got $1.35 million for three recent speeches to the company.
Trump, a teetotaler, launched his liquor the same year as his university. The spirit, which was billed as the World’s Finest Super Premium Vodka, lasted until at least 2008. A phone number for the company that made it, Drinks Americas Holdings, leads to the answering machine for a hair design studio.
There’s also Trump tea, a Trump energy drink for the Israeli and Palestinian markets, Trump coffee, and Trump colognes called Success and Empire. And those are only the liquids.
He found more success with NBC’s The Apprentice, which his campaign says made him more than $200 million over 14 seasons. He also rolled out Trump-brand menswear sold at Macy’s and Serta’s Trump Home® iSeries® mattress with Cool Action™ Dual Effects® Gel Memory Foam. The clothing and mattress deals each brought in between $1 million and $5 million last year, according to Trump’s filings—and all three companies announced they were cutting ties with him after he said in June’s campaign kickoff at Trump Tower that some Mexican immigrants are rapists. The speech, a loud amplification of The Apprentice’s insult drama, cost him some sponsors while hurtling him into the Republican stratosphere.
Antagonizing enormous swaths of North America, mocking women, and startling anyone tuned in to a few minutes of his speechifying wouldn’t be a wise business move if those products were all he had, because he’d be alienating precious customers. But there’s more to Trump’s business, and not just because he has the real estate and golf portfolios. His brand isn’t kindness and inclusiveness; it’s aggression and extravagance and power. It’s a self-rendered notion of an elite man who controls and wins, even when he loses.
That doesn’t mean you can take the boasts about his empire literally.
“I’m the biggest developer in New York, by far,” he told Larry King in 1999. “I’m the biggest developer in New York, and I’m not looking for additional work,” he told the New York Post in 2003. “My name’s Donald Trump, and I’m the largest real estate developer in New York,” he said in 2004’s Apprentice pilot, introducing himself in a limo. “Here I am, the biggest developer in New York,” he told a reporter from Scotland in 2007. “The greatest builder is me, and I would build the greatest wall you have ever seen,” he said this May, invoking his plan for Mexico’s border at a speech in South Carolina. He pointed at his chest while rolling his head around. The crowd went wild.
Trump isn’t the biggest New York developer. He isn’t really a skyscraper developer anymore, and he hasn’t been for years. He put up huge buildings and casinos, borrowed to do it, nearly wiped out, came back as a brand name that often needed bigger partners, was smacked by the financial crisis when he tried to again take massive risks, and ended up with a profitable business anyway.
The lesson from the 150-story building he craved is the same one you get from stepping inside the company. It’s not the hugest in the whole world, and it’s not what it was supposed to be, but it’s something. And, like his politics, it can seem much, much bigger than it is.
Trump has crushed his presidential competition by presenting himself as the finest businessman ever to don a suit. Will his career’s blemishes hurt him? Could Americans who love the great, amazing, terrific, perfect version of Trump accept the flawed one? In his office, he tells me that someone said the cool thing about his race to be the leader of the free world is that if he loses he gets to go back to being Donald Trump again—only an even vaster version.
“So win, lose, or draw, I’m glad I did it,” he says. “Although it’s too early to say that yet.”
HH: Joined now by Donald Trump. Donald Trump, welcome back to the Hugh Hewitt Show, it’s always a pleasure to talk to you.
DT: Thank you, Hugh.
HH: I would thought that today, this is our sixth interview, I’d turn to some of the commander-in-chief questions. Are you ready for that?
DT: Okay, fine.
HH: Are you familiar with General Soleimani?
DT: Yes, but go ahead, give me a little, go ahead, tell me.
HH: He runs the Quds Forces.
DT: Yes, okay, right.
HH: Do you expect his behavior…
DT: The Kurds, by the way, have been horribly mistreated by …
HH: No, not the Kurds, the Quds Forces, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds Forces.
DT: Yes, yes.
HH: …is the bad guys.
DT: Right.
HH: Do you expect his behavior to change as a result…
DT: Oh, I thought you said Kurds, Kurds.
HH: No, Quds.
DT: Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you said Kurds, because I think the Kurds have been poorly treated by us, Hugh. Go ahead.
HH: Agreed. So Soleimani runs the Quds Forces. Do you expect his behavior is going to change as a result of this deal with Iran?
DT: I think that Iran right now is in the driver’s seat to do whatever they want to do. I think what’s happening with Iran is, I think it’s one of the, and I covered it very well. I assume you saw the news conference. I think Iran is, it’s one of the great deals ever made for them. I think it’s one of the most incompetent contracts I’ve even seen. I’m not just talking about defense. I’m not talking about a contract with another country. I’ve never seen more of a one-sided deal, I think, in my life, absolutely.
HH: Well, Soleimani is to terrorism sort of what Trump is to real estate.
DT: Okay.
HH: Many people would say he’s the most dangerous man in the world, and he runs the Quds Forces, which is their Navy SEALs.
DT: Is he the gentleman that was going back and forth with Russia and meeting with Putin? I read something, and that seems to be also where he’s at.
HH: That’s the guy.
DT: He’s going back and forth meeting with other countries, etc., etc.
HH: That’s the guy.
DT: Not good.
HH: And so do you think…
DT: Not good for us. And what it shows is a total lack of respect, I mean, that the other countries would even be entertaining him, and they’re entertaining him big league, big league.
HH: So when you went before the Senate, and I always tell people my favorite testimony of all time is when Donald Trump just schooled the Senate on the construction of the U.N. remodel.
DT: Right.
HH: You know that stuff. You know every developer in Manhattan. You know everything about building buildings. You could build the wall. I have no doubt about that.
DT: Right. By the way, and nobody knows how easy that would be. And I mean, it would be, it would be tall, it would be powerful, we would make it very good looking. It would be as good as a wall’s got to be, and people will not be climbing over that wall, believe me. Go ahead.
HH: You know, I’d buy that, because you’re a builder. But on the front of Islamist terrorism, I’m looking for the next commander-in-chief, to know who Hassan Nasrallah is, and Zawahiri, and al-Julani, and al-Baghdadi. Do you know the players without a scorecard, yet, Donald Trump?
DT: No, you know, I’ll tell you honestly, I think by the time we get to office, they’ll all be changed. They’ll be all gone. I knew you were going to ask me things like this, and there’s no reason, because number one, I’ll find, I will hopefully find General Douglas MacArthur in the pack. I will find whoever it is that I’ll find, and we’ll, but they’re all changing, Hugh. You know, those are like history questions. Do you know this one, do you know that one. I will tell you, I thought you used the word Kurd before. I will tell you that I think the Kurds are the most under-utilized and are being totally mistreated by us. And nobody understands why. But as far as the individual players, of course I don’t know them. I’ve never met them. I haven’t been, you know, in a position to meet them. If, if they’re still there, which is unlikely in many cases, but if they’re still there, I will know them better than I know you.
HH: That’s what I’m getting at, because the Islamist extremism is metastasizing. Nasrallah’s been there a long time, and al-Baghdadi’s running ISIS. And so I wonder if you’re going to throw yourself into the details of this during the campaign the way you did into the U.N. deal, because you knew that stuff cold.
DT: Well, you know, and unfortunately, I said I’d build it for $500 million. They were at $3 billion. And it ended up costing $6 billion, and I told them that would happen. And it was a disgrace. Frankly, that whole U.N. situation was a disgrace. They ended up spending $5-6 billion dollars to renovate a building that I would have done for $500 million, and I told them I would have done it, and it would have been better. Now as far as what you’re talking about now, I will know every detail, and I will have the right plan, not a plan like this where we’re probably going backwards based on everything that I’m hearing, but we’re probably going backwards, zero respect. We have, we are not a respected country, and certainly as it relates to ISIS and what’s going on, and Iran.
HH: Now I don’t believe in gotcha questions. And I’m not trying to quiz you on who the worst guy in the world is.
DT: Well, that is a gotcha question, though. I mean, you know, when you’re asking me about who’s running this, this this, that’s not, that is not, I will be so good at the military, your head will spin. But obviously, I’m not meeting these people. I’m not seeing these people. Now it probably will be a lot of changes, Hugh, as you go along. They’ll be, by the time we get there, which is still a pretty long period of time, you know, you start, let’s say you figure out nominations, and who is going to represent the Republicans in, let’s say, February, March, April, you’ll start to get pretty good ideas, maybe sooner than that, actually. But that will be a whole new group of people. I think what is really important is to pick out, and this is something I’m so good at, to pick out who is going to be the best person to represent us militarily, because we have some great people, militarily. I don’t know that we’re using them.
HH: All right, well, let me expand it, because you know, it’s not gotcha. I’m trying not to do that. But I wanted to see if you…
DT: Well, it sounded like gotcha. You’re asking me names that, I think it’s somewhat ridiculous, but that’s okay. Go ahead, let’s go.
HH: All right, good. Now have you ever been to Israel? And how often?
DT: Yes, I’ve been to Israel once.
HH: And if Israel acts unilaterally against Iran because they view this deal as so bad, will you unequivocally stand by the action of the Netanyahu government?
DT: Of course, I will. In fact, he’s a friend of mine. I did commercials for his reelection. And according to what he said, I’m the only celebrity, he’s used the word celebrity, this was a while ago, that did commercials, that he asked to do commercials. But he’s a good man, and I would absolutely stand with him. But you know, we have a problem, because according to the deal, and this is hard to believe, but we’re supposed to be protecting Iran against any invader. And if Israel invades, nobody knows exactly what’s going to happen, because if Israel invades Iran, I don’t know if you know, but we have a clause in that agreement that the way I read it, it’s almost like we have to go, and by the way, I can guarantee you that clause, first of all, should have never been there, maybe they had it taken out, but we didn’t win anything. But do you know there’s a clause in there that in theory, we’re supposed to help them fight Israel?
HH: Yup. Yeah, it’s in Annex Three. We agree to cooperate in the security of their nuclear installations. It’s remarkable, and I’m glad you know about it. And I’m glad you’ll stand with Israel. Let me ask you about Saudi Arabia and Egypt. I don’t know if you’ve been able to get to those countries, yet, have you?
DT: I have, yes.
HH: And so do you…
DT: Well, I think the biggest, you know, I think it’s terrible, first of all, with Egypt, and with Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia in particular, was making a billion dollars a day, one billion dollars a day. Now let’s say they make half of that number because oil prices have been so depressed. But Saudi Arabia was making a half a billion dollars. It was a billion dollars a day. Why aren’t they helping us out? When they asked, and you may not like this, but I like it, because when we owe now $19, we’re up to $19 trillion dollars, I certainly like it, and I like protecting…why aren’t they helping us with the costs? We get virtually nothing from Saudi Arabia. Every time somebody raises a rifle in the air and points it in the direction of Saudi Arabia, or, by the way, South Korea and other places, every single time that happens, and I mean without exception, we start loading up and getting ready and sending ships and sending all sorts of things. We get nothing. And you know, maybe you’ll explain why, but we get nothing. And I don’t like that.
HH: I’m curious, though, if we need them, in your opinion, as strategic allies – Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan. Do we need them even if they’re not paying us money for their defense?
DT: Well, you need, I think Egypt and Israel get along, and they’re starting to get along pretty well. Mubarak should have been frankly, probably, taken care of better than he was. That sent a bad signal around. But I think in terms of Israel, Egypt starts getting very important. Maybe we don’t need the oil to the same extent as we did, and pretty soon, if we allowed, if we allowed what we have, technologically, to go forward, we wouldn’t need them at all. You know, we have potentially the greatest oil reserves in the world right here, and we wouldn’t need them at all. You know, we used to need Saudi Arabia for oil, and that part of the world. It all started with the oil, and it sort of ends with the oil. But now, we’re at a point where we’re going to be doing ten million barrels. It’s very interesting. We’re probably, very soon, if we allow our people to get going, we’re probably not going to need them for the oil. So we don’t need Saudi Arabia nearly to the extent that we needed them in the past.
HH: Okay, looking to Asia, if China were to either accidentally or intentionally sink a Filipino or Japanese ship, what would Commander-In-Chief Donald Trump do in response?
DT: I wouldn’t want to tell you, because frankly, they have to, you know, somebody wrote a very good story about me recently, and they said there’s a certain unpredictable, and it was actually another businessman, said there’s a certain unpredictability about Trump that’s great, and it’s what made him a lot of money and a lot of success. You don’t want to put, and you don’t want to let people know what you’re going to do with respect to certain things that happen. You don’t want the other side to know. I don’t want to give you an answer to that. If I win, and I’m leading in every single poll, if I win, I don’t want people to know exactly what I’m going to be doing.
HH: Fair response. Good response.
DT: Part of the problem with Obama, he says we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that, we’re going to attack here, we’re going to do this. Every time they capture somebody, they make a big deal out of it, and all of the other people, like for instance, they hit somebody with a drone, and they start making a big deal over the fact that they took out a mid-level accounting person, and now everybody else goes and runs, and it makes it harder. I don’t want to explain, and I think it’s a very bad thing. I think we do too much talking, and not enough, do you understand what I’m saying in this, Hugh?
HH: Oh, it’s a great point. It’s a very good answer.
DT: We do too much talking. General Douglas MacArthur, I was watching as President Obama was talking about, I won’t go into great detail, was talking about attacking at a certain time in a certain place, and I’m saying can you imagine General Douglas MacArthur, General Patton, they must be spinning in their graves when they hear it. So when you tell me a ship is attacked, I don’t want to tell you exactly what I’m going to do. I don’t want people to know my thinking on that, and I do have very spoken…thinking on it.
HH: Fair play.
DT: But I don’t want people to know my thinking.
HH: All right, next question. Presidents respond to disasters. Governors respond to disasters. What disasters have you, Donald Trump, responded to?
DT: Well, I’ve responded very much to disasters. I’ve had, you know, fires in buildings, big buildings. I’ve had economic changes where the world crashed in the early 90s, and I came out stronger than I was before. And I didn’t go bankrupt like many people they were forced into bankruptcy, and they were forced into, like, you know disasters never to be heard from again. I came out stronger than I was before. There was an old expression in the early 90s – survive ‘til ’95 that I made up, and I gave. And I actually became much stronger. But I’ve gone through, I’ve watched economic problems happen. Eight years ago, nine years ago when I was buying and everybody else was selling because they had no money and I did have a lot of money and I bought a lot of great assets. And you know, I’ve gone through a lot of different things, and I’ve come out on top always.
HH: Very good. Now some political questions. Do you own a gun?
DT: I do.
HH: What kind?
DT: I’d rather not say.
HH: Okay.
DT: I have a license to carry. I have a license, you know, I have a concealed license, I have a license to carry concealed.
HH: Didn’t know that. How do you define assault weapon? This is important to our 2nd Amendment friends out there.
DT: Well, yeah, I think that you know, the word assault weapon, and a lot of people, there’s been a lot of controversy, but I wouldn’t give you exact, I am in favor, I have two sons that are members in very high standing at the NRA.
HH: Right.
DT: And I would ask them for a definition, but I am in favor of allowing, I’m very, very pro-2nd Amendment. And if you want to ask that, I would go to the experts. All I can tell you is that I am totally a 2nd Amendment person, and totally in favor of not doing anything. You know, an interesting thing happened. When the two prisoners escaped in upstate New York, Hugh, people that really were very much against guns all of a sudden, they have these two prisoners, and they are someplace up there and nobody knew where, and a woman who said she used to fight with her husband all the time, she didn’t want guns, all of a sudden, they felt so safe because they were sitting with guns, and they were able to protect themselves. Now nothing ever happened, and ultimately, they caught the one and they killed the other. You know the case I’m talking about three months ago.
HH: You bet.
DT: But it was very interesting to watch this woman who was totally, and I mean absolutely totally against guns, and all of a sudden, she felt safe because they were able to have guns in the house. So it’s interesting. No, I’m totally pro-2nd Amendment.
HH: All right, now the age question. Hillary’s had to face it. You should as well. You’re 69. How’s your health? And is it legitimate for people to worry about you being president at 69?
DT: Well, my health is very good, and my father was 94. My mother was 89 when she passed away, and my father was in great shape until he was really like almost 90. My mother was in great shape almost until the end, and mentally, her capacity was 100%, so from a genetic standpoint, very good. I’m in the process of getting some documentation from doctors that have taken care of me over the years. I’ve never had a major problem. I’ve had almost no minor problem as I knock on wood. But my health has been very good and very strong. And maybe you get to see that, because people say boy, you have a lot of energy. You’re able to do so many things. Don’t forget, in addition to running a campaign where it’s number one in every poll, I’m also running a business, which I’m rapidly giving over to my executives. I have a very big business, and I’m rapidly giving that over to my executives and my children.
HH: All right, now every GOP candidate for high office gets this question, Meg Whitman most recently. It’s the illegal alien employment question. Usually, about six weeks before an election, so Donald Trump, have you or any of close member of your family hired an illegal alien in close proximity to your family?
DT: Not that I know of, no.
HH: Okay, Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia blasted you yesterday without naming you. He’s a very well-respected Catholic cleric for belligerent bombast about illegal aliens. He’s a man of the cloth. What do you say in response?
DT: Well, I think that’s fine. I mean, he can feel that way, and I understand that. And he’s not the only one, but I feel we need borders. I feel that we have to, the word illegal means we’re a country of laws. You saw that at my press conference today, and illegal means illegal. They’re not supposed to be in the country. And we’re either going to have a country or we’re not. And if we’re not going to have strong borders with a wall, which will make it very strong, by the way, and walls do work if they’re properly built, not the little 11 foot walls that we have up right now, and they’re not walls, they’re fences. There is a difference. But you know, I can understand him saying that. And other people have said it, too. But I believe we either have a country or we don’t. We either have laws in the country or we don’t.
HH: All right, now some personal stuff in our last few minutes, because people are curious about Donald Trump. What’s your, what was your worst health crisis to date?
DT: None. I mean, none. I really haven’t had…
HH: Wow, are you blessed. What’s your worst business decision that you’ve made?
DT: Worst business decision? Well, I’ve made some business decisions where markets changed, but in virtually every case, I was able to take those decisions and make them good, and take those jobs and make them good, which I think is a great test. I mean, I’ve had buildings going up and the market crashes, which is not my fault, and I go back and I negotiate with the banks, and I negotiate tough and I negotiate hard, and I’ve taken some jobs that were, that could have been disastrous and made them better than if the market had stayed the same. So I don’t know, I view business, I view that question as something you have to learn from it, and you can never make a decision that’s going to take you down. In other words, you’re not going to do something that if it doesn’t work out, because the best businessmen in the world, I know all of them, the best businessmen in the world have had difficult times, and they’ve had bad deals. And you can never allow a deal, Hugh, to take you down. You just can’t do it. So you have to know what you’re doing. But one of the things, and I get a lot of credit in the world of business, I’ve taken deals that should have been bad, and I’ve made them great, better than if the markets stayed good.
HH: Made them work.
DT: And I’ll tell you one thing, I bought deals for very low prices, like recently Doonbeg in Ireland, this incredible piece of land on the Atlantic Ocean, and other things, I’ve taken deals and bought deals that, and I bought them for very low prices, and turned them around and made them fantastic. So you know, I think you have to learn from business, and ideally, you want to learn from other people, not from yourself.
HH: All right, now President Obama is President Obama today, because when he ran for the United States Senate, his principal opponent, Jack Ryan, had divorce and custody records that had been sealed unsealed. Is there any smoking gun sealed away in records that could come out about Donald Trump down the road to destroy the Republican nominee after you’re the nominee, if you’re the nominee?
DT: No, I don’t think so, and I think one of the things you know about me, I’ve been a very public person. While I’m private, I’ve also been a very public person over many years. I mean, people know me. I’m very well known, and whether it’s the great success on The Apprentice, where it was one of the top shows on television for a long time, and by the way, NBC renewed it, and is not in love with the fact that I didn’t do it, but they renewed me for The Apprentice for many, many shows on The Apprentice, and you see the kind of money I made on The Apprentice, and I turned it down. I said I’m going to run for president, I’m going to make America great again. They were not happy that I did that, so they’re stuck in limbo. But they renewed The Apprentice. I didn’t do it. No, I think nothing. I’m a very public person, even though I’m private. I think you have seen me, and long before we met and spoke, you’ve seen me, and you know exactly what I’m talking about. So I would say nothing.
HH: all right, last question, I want to go back to the beginning, because I really do disagree with you on the gotcha question thing, Donald Trump. At the debate, I may bring up Nasrallah being with Hezbollah, and al-Julani being with al-Nusra, and al-Masri being with Hamas. Do you think if I ask people to talk about those three things, and the differences, that that’s a gotcha question?
DT: Yes, I do. I totally do. I think it’s ridiculous.
HH: That’s interesting. I just disagree with that. I kind of figured that…
DT: All right, I think it’s ridiculous. I’ll have, I’m a delegator. I find great people. I find absolutely great people, and I’ll find them in our armed services, and I find absolutely great people. And now on the bigger picture, like the fact that our Kurds are being treated so poorly, and would really is the one group that really would be out there fighting for us, I think, and fighting for themselves, maybe more importantly to them, I understand that. But when you start throwing around names of people and where they live and give me their address, I think it’s ridiculous, and I think it’s totally worthless.
HH: Well, I wouldn’t do that. That’s crazy. I agree.
DT: Well, and by the way, the names you just mentioned, they probably won’t even be there in six months or a year.
HH: I don’t know. Nasrallah’s got such staying power.
DT: Well, let’s see what happens.
HH: And so I think the difference…
DT: And you know what? In that case, first day in office, or before then, right at the day after the election, I’ll know more about it than you will ever know. That I can tell you.
HH: Oh, I hope so. Last question, so the difference between Hezbollah and Hamas does not matter to you yet, but it will?
DT: It will when it’s appropriate. I will know more about it than you know, and believe me, it won’t take me long.
HH: All right, that, I believe.
DT: But right now, right now, I think it’s just something that, and you know what, if you ask these candidates, nobody’s going to be able to give you an answer. I mean, there may be one that studied it because they’re expecting a fresh question from you. But believe me, it won’t matter. I will know far more than you know within 24 hours after I get the job.
HH: Donald Trump, congratulations on taking the pledge today. Your numbers are going to go up as a result of that.
DT: Well, let’s see what happens. I mean, I’m not sure that that’s true. I think my numbers are very high now. But I’m not really sure that that’s true, but I know you feel that. I hope you’re right. I mean, let’s see what happens.
This is the difference between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders
Trump is withering in response to questions he doesn’t like. (Mark Humphrey/AP)
By Kareem Abdul-Jabbar September 2, 2015
Ernest Hemingway once said that courage was “grace under pressure.” Two presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, have recently tested this proposition. And how each man responded revealed the type of person he is and the type of president he would make: Trump authored his own doom, and Sanders opened immense new possibilities as a compassionate person and serious candidate for president.
Here’s where it went fatally wrong for Trump. During the GOP debate on Fox, when Megyn Kelly famously queried him about his attitude toward women (whom he has called “fat pigs,” “dogs,” “slobs” and “animals”) he hit back by threatening the questioner: “I’ve been very nice to you, although I could probably maybe not be, based on the way you have treated me. But I wouldn’t do that.”
[Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: In Donald Trump’s response to my essay, the bully proved my point]
Bad enough to alienate women in this way, but there’s even more insidious political crime here: attacking the First Amendment’s protection of a free press by menacing journalists. “I wouldn’t do that,” he said coyly. If you wouldn’t do it, why bring up that you could? For no other reason than to stifle other journalists who might want to ask tough but reasonable questions. If Americans learned that a leader in another country was threatening reporters, we would be outraged. Yet here it is. Right here. Right now.
Later, after Trump had blamed her attitude on her menstrual cycle, Kelly went on what Fox says was a planned vacation. Nevertheless, Trump suggested he may have been the cause. What kind of candidate takes credit for bullying the media? And last week, Trump allowed Univision reporter Jorge Ramos to be ejected from a press conference for asking questions about immigration without being called upon. Ramos was later readmitted and permitted to ask about immigration, during which he said Trump could still deport immigrants compassionately. “I have a bigger heart than you do,” Trump replied. Trump’s non-specific answer to the question ended with a personal insult directed at the reporter.
Trump’s vendetta against the press extended to the Des Moines Register. When the paper issued an editorial calling for Trump to withdraw from the campaign, he refused to give the paper’s reporters credentials to attend his campaign event in Iowa in July. He also called the paper “failing” and “very dishonest.” Other journalists he thinks have treated him harshly he refers to as “losers” or unintelligent, as if the definition of lack of intelligence is to not agree with him.
Attempting to bully the press to silence criticism of him is anti-American. He followed up this salvo on the First Amendment with a strike at the 14th Amendment, asserting that he’d like to deny those born in the country their citizenship. The biggest enemy to the principles of the Constitution right now is Trump.
Trump’s rationale for avoiding Kelly’s debate question – that neither he nor America has time for “political correctness” – taps into a popular boogeyman. The term “political correctness” is so general that to most people it simply means a discomfort with changing times and attitudes, an attack on the traditions of how we were raised. (It’s an emotional challenge every generation has had to go through.) What it really means is nothing more than sensitizing people to the fact that some old-fashioned words, attitudes and actions may be harmful or insulting to others. Naturally, people are angry about that because it makes them feel stupid or mean when they really aren’t. But when times change, we need to change with them in areas that strengthen our society.
It’s no longer “politically correct” to call African Americans “coloreds.” Or to pat a woman on the butt at work and say, “Nice job, honey.” Or to ask people their religion during a job interview. Or to deny a woman a job because she’s not attractive enough to you. Or to assume a person’s opinion is worth less because she is elderly. Or that physically challenged individuals shouldn’t have easy access to buildings. If you don’t have time for political correctness, you don’t have time to be the caretaker of our rights under the Constitution.
It’s easy to buy into the Trump mirage because his rising poll numbers indicate he’s actually doing well. But polls are historically misleading, and his supporters will eventually desert him. Many, such as Tom McCarthy in the Guardian, have laid out the statistical reasons Trump can’t win, complete with graphs that show polls from past presidential candidates who were doing even better than Trump at this stage of an election, only to fade into political irrelevance, like Rudy Giuliani, Howard Dean and Ross Perot. In 2008, Hillary Clinton was also a front-runner who unexpectedly got beat for the nomination by Obama.
Americans may flirt with the preppy life of the frathouse partier because he’s poked sacred cows, said stuff we all wish we could say (except that reason keeps us from doing it), and acted buffoonishly entertaining. But when you wake up the next morning and he’s saying you’re now in a four-year relationship, reason comes rushing in, and it is time for the “it’s me, not you” speech. With over a year until the elections, there are too many Republican hopefuls that dilute the polls. Once the herd thins out (Rick Perry seems out of money; Bobby Jindal out of breath; Huckabee out of touch), other candidates with more substance will have their voices heard. And when it comes down to just three or four candidates, Trump’s blustering inarticulation and dodging of questions will seem untrustworthy.
Although each absurd, uninformed or just plain incorrect statement seems to give Trump a bump in the polls, there are only so many times supporters can defend his outrageous assault on decency, truth and civility. Yes, a few will remain no matter what. (One 63-year-old woman told CNN that the Republicans were out to discredit Trump: “They twisted what the words were, because they’re trying to destroy him.” No one has to twist his words because what he says is twisted enough. He speaks fluent pretzel.) But voters will eventually see the light.
Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders faced his own challenge at a political event last month, when two African American women pushed in front of him to use the microphone to demand four and a half minutes of silence to honor the death of Michael Brown. Sanders left the stage and mingled with the crowd. Later, Trump criticized Sanders as being “weak” for allowing them to speak, but truly he showed grace under pressure by acknowledging their frustration and anger. Instead of bullying their voices into silence or ridiculing them as losers, pigs or bimbos, Sanders left. After all, it was not his event; he was a guest. Besides, his voice was not silenced, but came back booming even louder: The next day, Sanders posted a sweeping policy of reform to fight racial inequality. (The timing coincided with Michael Brown’s death and had nothing to do with the two women.)
The two approaches reveal the difference between a mature, thoughtful and intelligent man, and a man whose money has made him arrogant to criticism and impervious to feeling the need to have any actual policies. Trump threatens to run an independent campaign (he won’t; that’s a negotiating ploy). Trump is a last-call candidate who looks good in the boozy dark of political inebriation.
There’s a lot of complaining about the lengthy process in the United States of winnowing candidates, but this year has shown its great strength. It gives a wide variety of people the chance to have their voices heard, and it gives voters a chance to see the candidates over a period of time when their political masks slip. Some rise to the challenge, others deflate under the pressure of nothing to say.
Two roads diverged in a political wood, and one man took the road of assaulting the Constitution and soon will be lost forever. The other will be a viable candidate who, regardless of whether he wins the nomination, will elevate the political process into something our Founding Fathers would be proud of.
Here’s how Donald Trump responded to my essay about him
The bully proves my point.
By Kareem Abdul-Jabbar September 2, 2015
This morning, an essay of mine was published titled, “This is the Difference Between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/09/02/kareem-abdul-jabbar-this-is-the-difference-between-donald-trump-and-bernie-sanders/ (the item second above)].” Trump’s response to my piece is the best, though inelegant, support for my claims. Here again, he attacks a journalist who disagrees with him, not by disputing the points made but by hurling schoolyard insults such as “nobody likes you.” Look behind the nasty invective and you find an assault on the Constitution in the effort to silence the press through intimidation. The full text is below.
Dear Kareem,
Now I know why the press always treated you so badly — they couldn’t stand you. The fact is that you don’t have a clue about life and what has to be done to make America great again!
The Pope vs. The Donald In U.S. visit, Francis will tout immigration, call for compassion toward migrants. 09/06/15 The anti-Donald Trump is coming to town. And he speaks Spanish, too. When Pope Francis addresses Congress later this month, U.S. Catholic leaders expect the popular, groundbreaking pontiff to call on Americans to set aside their political divisions and unite to tackle challenges such as climate change, economic inequality and immigration reform. [...] http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/pope-francis-donald-trump-213343 [with comments]
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Fox News Embarrasses Dick Cheney On Iraq And Iran
NBC NewsWire via Getty Images
The former vice president waved off numbers that showed Iran’s nuclear capacity grew rapidly under the Bush administration.
By Zach Carter Posted: 09/06/2015 11:04 AM EDT | Edited: 09/06/2015 11:19 AM EDT
Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday shrugged off the rapid growth of Iran's nuclear capacity during the Bush years, insisting that the American invasion of Iraq had curbed Iranian nuclear ambitions.
"There was military action that had an impact on the Iranians when we took down Saddam Hussein," Cheney said on "Fox News Sunday." "There was a period of time when they stopped their program because they were afraid what we did to Saddam we were going to do to them next."
The invasion of Iraq in fact deeply strengthened Iran's hand in the region, ousting a traditional enemy of Iran and installing a new government far more sympathetic to the Iranian regime. Much of Iraq has effectively functioned as a client state of Iran for years [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/iran-iraq-pushed-out_55ea3353e4b03784e27603d0 (the second, concluding item below)].
Fox News host Chris Wallace pointed out to Cheney that Iran had no uranium enrichment centrifuges prior to the Iraq War, but had 5,000 of them by the time Bush and Cheney left office.
Cheney waved off the statistic. "I think we did a lot to deal with the arms control problem in the Middle East," he said.
In 2006, Time magazine reported [id.] that Hussein's ouster nearly derailed lengthy nuclear negotiations with Gaddafi. American and British leaders had been pressing since the Clinton years to cut a deal with Gaddafi that would require him to dispose of weapons of mass destruction. When Hussein was toppled, Time reported, Gaddafi nearly walked away from the talks, concerned that diplomacy with the United States would make him look weak in the face of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke about the shortcomings of the invasion of Iraq on “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
"The fact of the matter is, we did it right in the first Gulf War. We had to listen to arguments for years afterwards about, 'Why didn't you go to Baghdad?' And the 2003 war came along and you saw why you didn't want to go to Baghdad," Powell said. "We had a clear mission, clearly defined and put resources against that mission and took out the Iraqi army in Kuwait, restored the government, what we set out to do."
"Once you pull out the top of a government, unless there's a structure under it to give security and structure to the society, you can expect a mess," he added.
Cheney's comments on Iraq came amid his criticism of President Barack Obama's recent diplomatic deal that aims to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Cheney said the U.S. is a "loser" in the pact, while the Iranian regime is "the only winner."
Supporters of the pact have noted that economic sanctions against Iran have not curbed its nuclear capacities, and that other nations will not be willing to enforce economic levies against Iran if the U.S. abandons the deal. They argue that rejecting Obama's agreement would leave war as the only remaining tool to deal with a potential nuclear threat.
Iran Has Controlled Iraq For Years. Now It May Be Pushed Out.
Iraqi men take part in a demonstration to show their support for the call to arms by Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, in the central Shiite Muslim shrine city of Najaf on June 13, 2014. Credit: Haidar Hamdani/Getty Images
Iraq's top ayatollah and its prime minister are subtly challenging widespread Iranian influence.
By Akbar Shahid Ahmed and Ryan Grim Posted: 09/06/2015 09:58 AM EDT | Edited: 09/07/2015 03:53 PM EDT
WASHINGTON -- Iran has for years exerted tremendous influence over Iraq, turning it into essentially a Shiite-led client state under former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. But a new protest movement in the country's Shiite-dominated south is a key sign that Tehran's power is waning, as Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and Maliki's U.S.-backed successor, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, make forceful moves to reclaim Iraqi independence.
Much of Iraq is no longer under the control of the central government in Baghdad. The Islamic State militant group rules large swathes of the Sunni region to the west, and Kurds control their own autonomous region in the northeast. In the Shiite-majority sections of Iraq, however, including Baghdad and the areas to its south and east, a political confrontation with Iran is underway just as the Islamic Republic is engaging the international community like never before through a historic nuclear agreement.
Sistani is based in Najaf, the spiritual capital of the Shiite branch of Islam. After the Iranian revolution of 1979, influence over the global Shiite community shifted from Najaf to Iran's chief religious center of Qom -- in large part because Iraq was ruled by a Sunni minority regime led by Saddam Hussein. But following the U.S. invasion in 2003, power -- and what's thought to be millions in funds from religious tourism [ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8539006.stm ] and Shiite devotees around the world -- began to flow back to Najaf, historically the more significant site. Sistani and Iran have had a fragile alliance in the years since, one that's been threatened recently because the Iraqi ayatollah has implied that he blames the Iranian client Maliki for losing ground to the Islamic State.
An American source who has worked for years with the Iraqi government said that frustration with Iran helps to explain Sistani's groundbreaking decision last year [ http://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iraqi-shi%E2%80%99-mobilization-counter-isis-offensive ] to call up Shiite "volunteers" to join militias battling Islamic State forces. "One of the reasons Sistani called up the militias was to keep the Iranians out," the source told HuffPost. "He's also trying to push Iranians out of the governance structures."
Iran's clout manifests itself in many ways. They include Tehran's control of a number of the Shiite militias in Iraq, the role of top Iranian General Qassem Suleimani in providing arms for those militias and for the Iraqi army [ http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33075894 ], and Iranian support for a number of top Shiite political figures.
For Sistani and other players in Iraq who would like to see that influence diminished, the protest movement has created an opening, according to an Iraqi government official who spoke to HuffPost on condition of anonymity.
"It's clear that Najaf is very determined to maintain its independence from Iran. Najaf felt it was an opportunity to ride off the back" of the protest movement, the official said.
"The government listens to every word of what Najaf says very, very carefully. Every Friday, everyone is listening very closely" to Sistani's prayer message, the Iraqi official told HuffPost.
Iran's powerful proxies in Iraq are pushing back. The leaders of two of the most powerful and brutal Shiite militias, the Iraqi Hezbollah and the Badr Organization, visited the chief judicial authority recently, reports Kimberly Kagan [ http://iswresearch.blogspot.com/2015/09/irans-proxy-militia-leaders-pose-threat.html ] of the Institute for the Study of War. "The Iranian-backed militias, including Kata’ib Hezbollah, the Badr Organization, and Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, all have a vested interest in thwarting PM Abadi’s reforms, especially the attempt to eliminate the vice presidential positions and thereby expel VP Nouri al-Maliki, who has been aligning himself with the militias for months," Kagan wrote in a Sept. 3 post.
Kagan, a former adviser to U.S. generals in Iraq and Afghanistan, suggested that the Iranian-backed militia leaders hoped to pressure Iraq's judiciary and its president into stalling the reforms.
But it looks like Sistani, Abadi and other Iran skeptics are gathering a loose coalition of their own to resist these efforts.
Not all of Iraq's Shiite militias support Iran, noted Phillip Smyth, an expert on Shiite militias at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and author of the Hizbollah Cavalcade blog on Jihadology.net [ http://www.jihadology.net/ ]. Many agree with Sistani in opposing the Iranian ideology of theocratic rule.
That presents an opportunity for the American military planners who are closely watching Iraq as they to identify which partners to work with against the Islamic State -- and who have for months been worried, U.S. officials told HuffPost [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/23/obama-isis-iran_n_6165352.html ], that their personnel in Iraq would be vulnerable not only to Islamic State forces but to Iran-backed militants."It wouldn't surprise me if those in the Department of Defense are looking to liaise if not offer some support for [militias] which are both truly Iraqi nationalist and are not proxies of Tehran," Smyth told HuffPost in an email.
The Iraqi population itself may now be galvanized by the latest protest movement to start thinking about the interests of their state rather than those of the various sects, said Iraqi-American activist Zainab Al-Suwaij.
As the executive director of the American Islamic Congress, Al-Suwaij runs conflict resolution centers in Iraq and is in touch with political actors on the ground.
"After the demonstrations in Baghdad and elsewhere throughout the country, the sectarian issue between the Sunnis and the Shiites has become less than before," Al-Suwaij told HuffPost. "It's not about feeling that the Shiites are in control -- the Shiites are also complaining about corruption."
Major political parties have been forced to bow to street pressure and rush to enact reforms, she noted. And she predicted that this time, unlike in the past, Iran will not be able to protect them from popular dissent.
"Iran is no longer as strong as they used to be," Al-Suwaij said.
VA threatened by conservative privatization push The Rachel Maddow Show 4/15/15 Rachel Maddow shows how right wing groups have worked to create a political environment where the previously radical idea of privatizing veterans' health care can be presented as a viable alternative to the VA. Duration: 7:55 http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/right-pushes-to-privatize-veterans-care-428863043838
By Leo Shane III, Staff writer 9:29 a.m. EDT September 2, 2015
(Photo: Robert Turtil/Veterans Affairs Department)
Talk of eliminating or scaling back Veterans Affairs Department services sets up the VA programs to fail and puts politics ahead of veterans’ best interests, the department’s top official warned on Tuesday.
In remarks to the American Legion’s annual convention, VA Secretary Bob McDonald conceded the need for reform and improvements in many facets of his department in the wake of a nationwide scandal in 2014 over lengthy patient wait times and records manipulation.
But he pushed back against the idea that VA’s problems are beyond repair, and also refuted recent suggestions from politicians about dismantling the $160 billion-plus agency.
“Some people in Washington are questioning the need for VA. Others have attempted to squeeze the needs of veterans within a ‘sequester' budget that artificially constrains the budget,” he said.
“All of this … leads to the same place: A place where the needs of veterans are secondary to ideology, scoring political points, and shortsighted budget policies. A place where VA is set up to fail.”
Veterans groups already have cautioned that the issue of privatizing VA health care will be a major discussion point in the 2016 election campaign, and that they will oppose plans that seek to remove safety nets for veterans in need of health care and support services.
Last week, Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson suggested that VA operations should be folded into Pentagon programs, with health care vouchers for veterans to seek private care appointments instead of VA clinic services. Other GOP candidates have suggested similar, but not as far-reaching, changes.
Earlier on Tuesday, American Legion National Commander Michael Helm vowed his group “will not let someone step in and try to privatize health care for our veterans,” calling those plans “crazy ideas.”
But Helm acknowledged that VA officials must better adapt to the needs of veterans, in part by increasing the availability and ease of health care options for veterans outside the department.
McDonald — who has faced frequent criticism on Capitol Hill for not moving quickly enough to implement new outside care options — said VA is committed to providing the best care possible for veterans, whether inside or outside the department’s system.
He also said that will require adequate funding, and again criticized the House-passed budget for VA next year, which sits $1.4 billion below President Obama's fiscal 2016 request.
And he said the department needs more budget flexibility to shift money between accounts, to ensure the system can more quickly adapt to veterans’ needs and program usage trends.
The budget was a main concern at the convention, not only for McDonald and Legion members but also for Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who spoke a few hours before the VA secretary.
Carter called the lack of a long-term budget plan for national security “embarrassing” and chastised lawmakers for failing to reach a compromise on repealing budget caps set to go into effect in October.
“We need to come together and get behind a sensible, multiyear approach to the budget,” he said, eliciting loud applause from the veterans group.
But neither the Defense Department nor VA budget appear poised to be approved before the end of this month, when the fiscal year concludes. Republican and Democratic lawmakers remain far apart on key budget issues and are likely to adopt a short-term budget resolution while negotiations continue.
TSA Finds Record Number Of Guns At Airport Security Checkpoints
In July, new TSA Administrator Peter Neffenger told a congressional panel that his top priority would be to close security gaps at airport checkpoints.
Reuters
Posted: 09/27/2015 04:18 PM EDT
Sept 27 (Reuters) - U.S. airport security agents discovered a record 67 firearms in luggage passengers intended to carry on to airplanes during one week in September, according to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
Of the 67 firearms found during the week ended Sept. 17, 56 were loaded and 26 had a round in the chamber, the TSA reported. The tally set a new weekly record. The prior record was 65 firearms found during a week in May 2013, TSA said.
For the most recent week, ending Sept. 24, TSA said it found 64 firearms in carry-on bags at airports. Of those, 55 were loaded and 22 had a round chambered, TSA said.
In July, new TSA Administrator Peter Neffenger told a congressional panel that his top priority would be to close security gaps at airport checkpoints.
Lawmakers opened a U.S. House of Representatives hearing after a Department of Homeland Security report that found TSA airport screeners did not detect banned weapons in 67 of 70 tests at dozens of airport checkpoints.
Scott Olson via Getty Images
Guns in airplane luggage have been found all around the country. TSA said its agents stopped a man Thursday at a Greater Rochester International Airport checkpoint in New York when they detected a gun in his carry-on bag. A day prior, on Sept. 23, TSA found a loaded firearm in a passenger's carry-on bag at the Des Moines International Airport in Iowa.
Nationwide, TSA officers have found more than 2,000 firearms at airport security checkpoints so far this year.
Weapons, including firearms, firearm parts and ammunition, are banned from carry-on bags, but can be transported in checked bags if they are unloaded, and declared to the airline. Passengers who bring firearms to the checkpoint face possible criminal charges and civil penalties up to $11,000.
(Reporting By Carey Gillam in Kansas City, Mo.; Editing by Andrew Hay)
[ Jerry Falwell Jr., sees Trump as Jesus, and as Reagan, and as his father, AND sees Trump's campaign as Liberty University. ]
Joshua Roberts/Reuters
GOLDEN GOD01.18.166:41 PM ET
Betsy Woodruff
Trump Pledges to Make God Great Again
The GOP frontrunner gave a stump speech at Liberty University on Monday dotted with panders and swears, but he received nothing but praise from the evangelical crowd.
LYNCHBURG, Va. — Evangelicals weren’t supposed to like Donald Trump. He’s boasted about never asking God for forgiveness, exhibited total Biblical illiteracy, and had as many wives as an Old Testament patriarch.
But none of that matters. When the billionaire mogul spoke at Liberty University this morning, he got a rapturous welcome that showed just how much Evangelicals love him—and why. The obsequiously warm reception he received may upend conventional wisdom about what conservative Christians want from their presidential candidates. And that’s great news for Trump.
Fox News morning programming warmed up the 11,000-strong crowd, and then the university’s hipster Christian worship band led students in song.
“We worship you today because you’re the great celebrity in this place,” prayed David Nasser, the school’s senior vice president for spiritual development, addressing God.
The boisterous crowd—some of whom woke up at 3:30 a.m. to get good seats—proceeded to worship Trump.
Liberty University students and supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump wear letters spelling his name before his speech at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, January 18, 2016. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters)
Trump’s performance certainly drew some sneers, especially when an attempt to pander fell flat after Trump mispronounced a Biblical reference as “Two Corinthians” instead of “Second Corinthians.” But despite that, his overwhelmingly warm reception confirms that he’s just as competitive as any other Republican among Evangelical Christian voters.
This was not always obvious. Many conservative Christian power-brokers -- including Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America and Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention -- have harshly criticized Trump. And his calls for barring Muslims from immigrating to the U.S. worried many conservative Christians who prioritize issues of religious freedom. But that doesn’t matter.
Jerry Falwell Jr., the university president and son of Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell, introduced Trump to the crowd and left no doubt about his feelings for the golden-haired mogul.
“In my opinion, Donald Trump lives a life of loving and helping others, as Jesus taught in the Great Commandment,” he said.
VIDEO: Sanders speaks to Christian conservatives at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University .. TheHill.com
Then he compared Trump to Reagan.
“My father was criticized in the early 1980’s for supporting Ronald Reagan over Jimmy Carter for president, I should say, because Ronald Reagan was a Hollywood actor who had been divorced and remarried, and Jimmy Carter was a Southern Baptist Sunday School teacher,” Falwell said. “My father proudly replied that Jesus pointed out that we are all sinners every one of us.”
“Jimmy Carter was a great Sunday School teacher,” Falwell added, “but look what happened to our nation with him in the presidency.”
The implication was clear as a bell: Evangelical Christians shouldn’t stress about Trump’s personal life.
But Falwell didn’t just compare Trump to Reagan; he also said Trump reminded him of his father, generous and pragmatic. And he compared Trump’s presidential campaign to the university itself.
“I’m proud that Liberty is now strong enough financially to refuse gifts if they come with objectionable conditions,” he said. “And it is clear to me that Donald Trump is the only candidate in this national election to make that same claim. He cannot be bought. He is not a puppet on a string like many other candidates--”
The crowd erupted in cheers.
“He is not a puppet on a string like many other candidates who have wealthy donors as their puppet masters,” he continued, essentially indicting the entire rest of the Republican field.
The Trump/Liberty love is a mutual one. After sauntering on stage to sustained applause, Trump announced that the turnout at the event was a new record for a Liberty University convocation -- perhaps unaware that student attendance at these weekly meetings is mandatory -- and said he would dedicate the impressive feat to Martin Luther King Jr.
Seriously.
A spokeswoman for the university said 11,000 people attended the event and did not confirm if Trump actually broke a record or what the previous record was.
Trump said that being compared to Jerry Falwell the elder was “really an honor for me.” Then he reiterated his promise that department stores will say Merry Christmas if he becomes president (Christians love that, you know).
“I have friends that aren’t Christian,” he noted. “They like to say Merry Christmas, they love it, everybody loves it.”
He also noted that he is a big fan of the Bible, saying it is the only book to top The Art of the Deal.
“Everybody read The Art of the Deal,” he said. “Who has read the Art of the Deal in this room? Everybody. I always say, a deep deep second to the Bible.”
“The Bible blows it away,” he added. “There’s nothing like the Bible.”
He spent the bulk of the speech talking about Iran, ISIS, and the sad mendacity of the national media (“Twenty-five percent are good. Two percent are great.”). Said sad national media, he argued, has failed to report on just how support Trump has won.
“You’re not getting a real picture of the silent majority, which Jerry Sr. had something to do,” he said. “And that’s a phrase you should be really cognizant of. Because it is a silent majority, but I think I’m gonna up it a little bit because it’s no longer so silent. It’s really a noisy majority.”
Trump wasn’t especially articulate there, but the appeal was clear: His success isn’t a fluke. Rather, the implication was that Trump’s supporters come from a long tradition of grassroots conservatives who seek to use the political process to change cultural norms (see Christmas, War On).
And Trump’s pitch was perfect.
“He spoke to the Liberty audience and culture almost as if he was a part of it,” said Johnnie Moore, former senior vice president at the school, “as if he had been a part of it – a graduate or an alumnus or someone who had had kids go there.”
Moore said that’s because -- despite his “Two Corinthians” flub -- he came off as authentic.
“Not a single person in that crowd this morning thought, I wonder if he’s lying to me,” Moore said.
He noted that Evangelical Christians have two basic approaches to politics: Some want candidates to have as much in common with them as possible -- they embrace long-shot contenders like Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum because they share their identical convictions about Christianity’s role in public life. The Falwells aren’t in that school of thought. Rather, they like winners, even if that means backing candidates who used to be pro-choice and have a few divorces under their belt. That’s why Jerry Falwell Sr. made good with John McCain after the Arizonan called him an “agent of intolerance,” and it’s why their family was so undyingly loyal to the Bushes -- even as George H. W. Bush struggled to win Evangelical support .. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/08/jeb-and-the-falwells-a-match-made-in-heaven.html .
The Falwell family hasn’t lost its single-minded interest in winning, and that’s why Jerry Jr. had such kind words for Trump.
“It was clear that he would be extremely comfortable if Trump was the candidate,” Moore said.
“In 2011, after failed attempts by Senator John McCain and Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump singlehandedly forced President Obama to release his birth certificate,” Falwell said, dead serious. And the students roared.
That year, Trump’s speech that year was a little bawdier; he encouraged students to get prenups (“I won’t say it here because you people don’t get divorced, right? Nobody gets divorced! OK, so I will not say have a prenuptial agreement to anybody in this room!”) and he stirred controversy by telling them to “get even” with people who wrong them. Luke 6:29 definitely isn’t Trump’s favorite Bible verse.
Despite that, Jerry Falwell Jr. practically begged him to run.
“It’s not too late to get back in the presidential race, is it?” Falwell said after that 2012 speech.
And now Trump is in, and Falwell seems to love it. This puts him a bit at odds with other Evangelical leaders; a coterie of conservative Christian influencers secretly agreed last month to coalesce behind Ted Cruz, as National Review reported. But Falwell is hedging. Cruz - who announced his presidential campaign last year in the same room where Trump spoke , might be more faithful than Trump, and he might not have been married a bunch of times, and he might have that neat Harvard Law degree. But that doesn’t necessarily make him a winner.
Students at the school shared Falwell’s energy for the candidate. Five bros wore shirts that spelled out the word TRUMP—one letter per T-shirt -- and spent the time before the event posing for photos and fielding media questions. Others woke up early to get front-row seats for the mogul’s speech.
Christian Malave, a student at the university, said he likes Trump’s attitude.
“He just thinks about everyone before himself,” he said. “And yet he has the most money in the world.”
Sophomore Emma Jerore and Freshman Mary-Madison Goforth said they were in line for the speech by 6 a.m. so they could get good seats.
“He’s a very wise businessman,” Goforth said.
Jerore said she is trying to pick between Rubio and Trump. Goforth said she faced the same dilemma.
“Today definitely motivated me a little more towards Trump’s side,” she said.
“We both got to shake his hand, so that was, I mean, enough in itself,” she added.
A number of students said they were trying to decide between Trump and Cruz. Brian Teague, a sophomore studying aviation who sported a TRUMP T-shirt, said Carson lost support when news broke in early December that he doesn’t believe in Hell.
“A lot of people were leaning towards him because he was so humble, you know, his morals,” Teague said. “But when he left the idea of Hell, I think that’s when he lost a lot of people.”
That said, Liberty isn’t all Trumpkins. Caleb Fitzpatrick, a freshman from Tampa, Fla., said he thinks the billionaire is the worst Republican candidate.
“I think he has no idea what’s going on in the world,” he said. “I think he’s arrogant, I think he’s a narcissist, I think he’s perverted.”
Still, students gave Trump an adoring welcome. If Trump wants to build a new moral majority, he’ll know where to find footsoldiers.
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