Tag: Trump

Categories
News Politics U.S.

Donald Trump doubles down on division

Donald Trump is back to trying to divide people, this time by attacking professional athletes who protest racism during playing of the national anthem.

Faced with the failure of yet another attempt by Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the divider-in-chief used a speech at a campaign rally on Friday in Alabama to ridicule African-American athletes.

“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he’s fired!’” Trump told the crowd, referring to players who kneel in protest, a gesture started last year by former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

“When people like yourselves turn on television and you see those people taking the knee when they’re playing our great national anthem,” added Trump, speaking about black athletes to an overwhelmingly white crowd. In Alabama.

The president later disinvited the championship Golden State Warriors from the White House after opposition to him by Stephen Curry, their star player. The comments come roughly a month after Trump refused to criticize white supremacists and fascists who rallied in Charlottesville.

“The strong contrast in language for a black man and a Nazi is very telling,” Leland Melvin, a retired NASA astronaut and NFL wide receiver who is African-American, writes in a letter to the president. “Do you have any sense of decency or shame in what you say to the American people that are part of your duty to serve respectfully with dignity, presidentially?”

For decades, Trump has preferred division and demagoguery. The president is the same person who, as David Remnick noted on Saturday, began his career in real estate with a string of discriminatory housing practices and his career in politics with a racist questioning of Barack Obama’s birthplace.

It’s also the same person who in 1989 called for the execution of group of teenagers who were convicted – only to be exonerated – in the rape of a female jogger in Central Park.

Trump’s equivocation over racism in August led a series of business leaders to abandon him. On Saturday, NFL owners – a group not usually prone to protest – criticized the president for sowing divisiveness.

“The callous and offensive comments made by the president are contradictory to what this great country stands for,” said Jed York, the 49ers chief executive.

“Our country needs unifying leadership right now, not more divisiveness,” said Stephen Ross, owner of the Miami Dolphins.

The division that Trump practices follows a pattern. The less he succeeds at changing laws – he has proved unable to repeal the Affordable Care Act, abrogate the North American Free Trade Agreement, build a wall along the border with Mexico or deter North Korea’s nuclear ambitions; all of which he pledged to do – the more he seeks to divide the country.

The divisiveness Trump sows highlights a desperation to hold a base of supporters who actually agree with him. That won’t be enough to remain president.

As Nate Silver has documented, the announcement by former FBI Director James Comey 11 days before the election that he needed to further examine Hillary Clinton’s emails probably cost her the election by erasing her lead over Trump in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Florida.

Trump knows this, too. One way or another, he will struggle to stay in office.

The question now is how soon do Republicans in Congress abandon Trump for Mike Pence, who, were he to become president in the event of impeachment or resignation of Trump, would still assure the GOP and its supporters the tax cuts they covet.

Trump may have won the election, but he has lost the country. As Melvin advises him, “If you can’t do the job then please step down and let someone else try.”

Categories
News

Trump shows inability to get to yes

President Trump likes to tout his skills as a negotiator. He has said the U.S. would make great deals on trade and military hardware during his presidency.

But leaked transcripts of Trump’s calls with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull don’t exactly position the president as dealmaker-in-chief.

In their landmark book “Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement without Giving In,” Roger Fisher and William Ury outline six guidelines the authors, who founded the Harvard Negotiation Project, say can help both sides achieve more of what they want.

The guidelines appear below in italics, followed by ways that Trump failed to use them in his back-and-forth with Pena Nieto about paying for a wall along the border or his exchange with Turnbull about whether the U.S. will honor a promise by President Obama to accept 1,250 refugees who are currently detained in Australia.

Separate the people from the problem.

Negotiators should try to imagine the situation from the viewpoint of their counterpart.

Pena Nieto explains to Trump “the lack of margin” he has as president of Mexico to accept claims that his country will pay for the wall. But he also tells Trump that he understands the “small political margin” that Trump has “in terms of everything you said that you established throughout your campaign.

Seven times, Pena Nieto uses the phrase “I understand” to acknowledge Trump’s position.

Trump, by contrast, says “I understand” once, to tell Pena Nieto that he, Trump, understands Hispanic voters “and they understand me.”

The closest Trump comes to acknowledging Pena Nieto’s position comes when Trump tells him, “we are both in a little bit of a political bind because I have to have Mexico pay for the wall – I have to.”

Focus on interests, not positions.

Draw out the interests that underlie your counterpart’s positions, with the goal of creating opportunities to explore tradeoffs.

To Trump’s credit, he asks Turnbull why it’s so important that the White House honor Obama’s promise to take the refugees. But Trump tells his counterpart, incorrectly, that it’s 2,000 people. Rather than answer the question, Turnbull corrects Trump, telling him it’s “not 2,000” but 1,250.

To which Trump replies that he’s also “heard like 5,000 as well,” without returning to the question he asked earlier. The exchange deteriorates from there.

Learn to manage emotions.

Be sure that you and your counterpart have opportunities to express any strong emotions that tie to your negotiation.

In his call with Turnbull, Trump expresses frustration after Turnbull suggests Trump can say that the agreement by his predecessor to accept the refugees “is not a deal that you would have done, but you are going to stick with it.”

Trump agrees he will say that, adding, “I think it is a horrible deal, a disgusting deal that I would have never made.”

Trump continues:

“As far as I am concerned that is enough Malcom [sic]. I have had it. I have been making these calls all day and this is the most unpleasant call all day. Putin was a pleasant call. This is ridiculous.”

Turnbull asks Trump if he would like to discuss Syria and North Korea.

“This is crazy,” Trump replies.

Turnbull thanks Trump for agreeing to honor the pledge. “It is very important to us,” Turnbull tells him.

Express appreciation.

Work to understand your counterpart’s perspective and communicate understanding of it through words and actions.

Trump does not convey to either of his counterparts that he understands their views. In contrast, Turnbull tells Trump that he understands Trump “is inclined to a different point of view” on the resettlement of refugees than Vice President Pence, who Turnbull said assured the Australians that the U.S. would honor the agreement to accept the refugees.

Put a positive spin on your message.

Communicate in a positive way, and speak only for yourself.

Pena Nieto stays positive. The call between Trump and Turnbull fills with acrimony and never recovers.

“Can you hear me out Mr. President” Turnbull asks Trump.

“Yeah, go ahead,” Trump replies.

Escape the cycle of action and reaction.

Rather than dig in, explore interests, invent options for mutual gain, and search for independent standards.

Besides trying to help Trump out of his bind by suggesting that Trump tell people he would not have agreed to resettle refugees if it were not for the promise by his predecessor. Turnbull adds that the exchange “requires, in return, for us to do a number of things for the United States.”

When Trump relents, Turnbull offers the prospect of returning the gesture in the future. “You can count on me,” he tells Trump. “I will be there again and again.”

“I hope so,” replies Trump, offering nothing.

Categories
Film Movies New York City

Steven Spielberg conjures the Nixon era at Columbia

The Nixon era came to Columbia University on Wednesday. Or more precisely, Steven Spielberg recreated 1971 on the steps of Low Library.

The director brought with him cast and crew of “The Papers,” a movie about the Pentagon Papers that he is filming around the city this summer.

The film tells the story of a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that rejected an effort by the Nixon administration to prevent the Times and Washington Post from publishing a secret history of the Vietnam War.

We passed the set around 8:45 a.m., in time to hear Spielberg arranging his actors. They include Meryl Streep as Kay Graham, publisher of the Post, and Tom Hanks, who plays former editor Ben Bradlee.

Dozens of protestors, actors all, massed on the steps of the library, where they held signs that called for press freedom. Spielberg was audible through the din though we could not discern his instructions. And then, “Action!” he called. He sounded like he meant it, which we trust he did.

The publisher, the editor and their lawyers descended the stairs in a cluster, surrounded by a gaggle of reporters (again, actors), the way litigants do when they emerge from a courthouse. We can’t say whether the library served as stand-in for the Supreme Court.

The columns that front the library’s facade are Ionic; the ones in front of the court are Corinthian. But Cass Gilbert, who designed the Supreme Court building, began his career at McKim, Mead and White, which designed the library.

Around 1 p.m., the action broke. Protestors and reporters from 1971 emptied onto Broadway and turned left toward food trucks from 2017.

The film is slated for release later this year. The timing seems impeccable. While the filmmakers filmed, the president of the United States tweeted. This time to announce that transgender people will no longer be allowed to serve in the military.

The filming continued as we headed home later. Spielberg, it seemed, aimed to wring all he could from the light. The president offered only darkness.

Categories
Finance

Jamie Dimon can help fix the ‘stupid s*#t’ he says ails the US

The chief executive of the nation’s biggest bank is sounding off about what he says is holding back the U.S. economy, but he may want to redirect his fire.

Political gridlock, a tax code that sends investment overseas, a lack of investment in infrastructure and stupidity are all to blame, says Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase.

“The United States of America has to start to focus on policy which is good for all Americans, and that is infrastructure, regulation, taxation, education,” Dimon told reporters on a conference call Friday to discuss the bank’s earnings. “Why you guys don’t write about it every day is completely beyond me. And, like, who cares about fixed-income trading in the last two weeks of June? I mean, seriously.”

Putting aside Dimon’s pique – he seems to have become irritated by the temerity of a reporter who asked about revenue from bond trading, which fell 19 percent from a year earlier despite the bank’s record profitability in the quarter – the problem seems to lie less with the press (which writes all the time about policy) than it does with politicians.

President Donald Trump campaigned on a pledge to rebuild the nation’s crumbling highways and bridges and change the tax code, among other things. He and his party control all three branches of government.

Which is why it’s strange that Trump began his punch list on infrastructure improvements with a push to privatize the nation’s system of directing air traffic.

Speaker Paul Ryan is scrambling to find the votes, which, not surprisingly, fall a few dozen short of a majority, Politico reported on Saturday. Even GOP lawmakers say privatizing the air system gets them nothing in their districts.

Lawmakers from rural states fear that privatization would lead to cutbacks in service to smaller airports. They thought that when the president said rebuilding infrastructure, he meant fixing crumbling roads, decaying bridges and other public works that create jobs.

There may be a need to update air traffic control as well, but it mostly involves installing a system that guides planes via satellite.

“I think fighting over this part of the infrastructure program [air traffic control] slows down progress we can make in getting a larger infrastructure plan in place,” Sen. Jerry Moran, a Republican from Kansas who serves on the committee that oversees the Federal Aviation Administration, told the Washington Examiner.

Meanwhile, a rewrite of the tax code appears to be going nowhere.

Dimon also cited education. The administration is discouraging states from including student performance in science as a priority, despite such coursework counting toward federal standards for student achievement, science teachers say.

To be fair, that comes from science teachers. And Trump is continuing a stance adopted by the Obama administration. But the Obama administration didn’t also abandon a global agreement on climate.

Dimon said it’s “an embarrassment being an American traveling around the world” and listening to the “stupid s*&t” Americans have to deal in connection with the country’s struggle to pass anything in Washington that might expand the economy greater than the one to two percent the US economy is growing at currently.

Dimon may not be alone in his frustration. Two-thirds of Americans disapprove of Trump’s performance, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll.

But compared with most Americans, Dimon’s job makes him uniquely able to do something about it. JPMorgan Chase spent nearly $3 million on lobbying last year. (Financial firms overall contributed more than $1.2 billion to congressional campaigns in the most recent elections, more than twice the amount given by any other sector.)

He also serves on the White House Strategic and Policy Forum, a group of 17 top executives who advise the president on business.

Sounding off to reporters generates headlines. But rallying business leaders to back an economic policy that benefits all Americans might be a better place to begin.

Categories
Economy Environment

The US is yielding its leadership in the world

On Saturday, the world’s economic powers, with the exception of the U.S., affirmed their commitment to the Paris climate agreement and pledged to work together to tackle challenges in areas ranging from trade and terrorism to migration.

President Trump left the annual meeting of the G-20 without committing the U.S. to those shared goals. “We take note of the decision of the United States of America to withdraw from the Paris agreement,” the G-20 leaders wrote in a statement issued on Saturday. “The leaders of the other G-20 members state that the Paris agreement is irreversible.”

America may still have its military might and economic might, but influence comes from leadership. “Most presidents understand this intuitively,” Derek Chollet and Julie Smith noted on Friday in Foreign Policy. Most presidents includes presidents of both parties.

Of course, we are told the whole point of Trump is to deride the establishment, at home and abroad. By that measure, he has succeeded. But by any measure, we live in a many-sided world. And that’s not fake news.

Categories
Law

Trump’s travel ban is moot

The White House needs a travel ban why?

On March 6, the president issued an executive order that banned travelers to the United States from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days while the government reviewed procedures for vetting visitors from those countries.

Though at least 13 federal courts have blocked the order on constitutional and statutory grounds, the Ninth Circuit ruled in June that the president can proceed with a review to determine what additional procedures, if any, might be needed from the countries subject to the ban that would address security concerns.

Still, the administration has asked the Supreme Court to reinstate the ban and to review decisions by both the Ninth and Fourth Circuits that nullify “a national-security directive of the president,” as Jeffrey Wall, the acting solicitor general, wrote in a brief filed last Wednesday.

Even if the court reviews the executive order, the justices won’t hear arguments in the case until October at the earliest. Which means the administration has at least four months to carry out its review. So review away.

The travel ban will remain blocked, but the White House has cited no reason not to assess the threat. If security is at stake, there’s seemingly no reason to delay. Of course, the White House has cited no evidence that would suggest a threat that Congress didn’t address when it tightened visa procedures 18 months ago.

The State of Hawaii, which challenged the travel ban in the Ninth Circuit, contends as much. “Indeed, there is no need for the court to grant review at all,” the state wrote in its latest brief, noting that by October, “the government will have had almost nine months to complete the review and upgrade of immigration procedures that the order was allegedly designed to accomplish.”

The administration’s actions suggest the travel ban may be motivated less by keeping the nation safe than by keeping the president’s supporters stirring. If so, that’s a political calculation, which the justices don’t review anyway.

Categories
Law

Ninth Circuit misread the law governing the Trump travel ban, government tells Supreme Court

The Ninth Circuit misread the law that underpins the president’s exclusion of visitors to the United States from six majority-Muslim countries, the government argues in a new round of papers that ask the Supreme Court to reinstate the travel ban.

The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) requires only that the president find entry of a group of visitors to the U.S. would be detrimental to the nation’s interests, regardless of whether Congress comes to the same conclusion, says the government in a brief filed on Thursday. Thus, the appeals court erred when it ruled on June 12 that the travel ban has no basis in the record and therefore exceeds the president’s authority, the government says.

“The court of appeals read into that provision a requirement that, before suspending entry, the president must articulate a factual finding — satisfactory to courts — that support[s] the conclusion that entry of all nationals whose entry he suspends would be harmful to the national interest,” writes the government. “That requirement turns the statute’s text on its head.” [internal quotes omitted]

In its ruling, the Ninth Circuit noted that the executive order containing the ban does not discuss any instances of terrorism in the U.S. by citizens of Iran, Libya, Sudan, Syria or Yemen — an omission the State of Hawaii and others challenging the ban raised before the appeals court and are likely to assert in their brief, which is due this Tuesday. The executive order cites one example of domestic terrorism by a native of Somalia who came to the U.S. at the age of 2.

Uncertainty alone justifies a ban, White House says

Besides relying on a series of State Department reports from 2016, the administration cited no evidence to support its assertion of a threat to national security posed by residents of the six countries. The omission explains in part why the challengers say the reasons for the ban offered by the White House are a pretext to disfavor Islam in violation of the Establishment Clause.

In its brief to the court, the government says the president imposed the travel ban “in the face of uncertainty over whether these foreign governments that sponsor or shelter terrorism are able and willing to provide” information that would allow the Departments of State and Homeland Security to determine whether entry of visitors from those countries constitutes a threat.

The uncertainty alone justifies a halt for three months on visitors while the administration ascertains whether each of the countries can screen travelers sufficiently, says the government.

The administration also urges the justices to overrule a finding by the Ninth Circuit that the travel bank violate the INA’s prohibition on discrimination based on nationality in the issuance of visas. That bar does not apply to the president’s ability to restrict entry of visitors, the government contends.

Categories
Law

A second federal appeals court rejects Trump’s travel ban

A second federal appeals court has refused to reinstate President Trump’s travel ban after concluding that the prohibition exceeds the scope of his authority.

To justify a ban on visitors to the United States for 90 days from six predominantly Muslim countries, the president by law must find that entry of those visitors would harm the interests of the U.S., a conclusion that has no basis in the record put forward by the White House, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit said in an 86-page ruling published on Monday.

The decision offers a different basis for rejecting the ban than one relied on by the Fourth Circuit, which found that the ban disfavors Islam in violation of the Establishment Clause. The government has appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court. (The challengers’ briefs are due today.)

The executive order that enshrines the travel ban does not discuss any instances of terrorism in the U.S. by citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan or Yemen, the Ninth Circuit ruled. (The order cites one example of domestic terrorism by a native of Somalia who came to the U.S. as a child.)

“The order does not offer a sufficient justification to suspend the entry of more than 180 million people on the basis of nationality,” the panel wrote. “National security is not a ‘talismanic incantation’ that, once invoked, can support any and all exercise of executive power under [the Immigration and Nationality Act].” (citation omitted)

Nor, the judges said, does the order include a finding by the president that procedures currently in place for screening visa applicants is inadequate. The ban also contravenes a provision in the immigration law that prohibits discrimination in the issuance of visas, the court said.

The Ninth Circuit narrowed an injunction by a district judge in Hawaii in a way that may offer the Supreme Court an out should the justices want to avoid ruling on the ban’s constitutionality. The panel permitted the administration to proceed with a review of vetting procedures to determine what additional information, if any, is needed from the countries subject to the ban that would allow the government to determine whether to issue a visa.

That leaves the possibility the administration would revise the procedures and dispense with the need for a moratorium on issuing visas, a conclusion that could render the appeal moot. Of course, whatever rationale the White House were to cite for revising the vetting procedures would need to be grounded in national security and not merely be a pretext for banning Muslims, which would subject the revised procedures to continued constitutional challenges.

Categories
Law

A rule of evidence suggests the Comey memos can be trusted

President Trump on Friday accused James Comey, the fired FBI director, of lying under oath to Congress when Comey told senators the president asked him to pledge his personal loyalty and to drop an investigation into fired national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Trump told reporters he would be willing to restate the accusation under oath to Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating ties between the president’s campaign and Russia. That set up a “he-said, he-said” between Trump and Comey, who has a reputation for integrity. (Trump, not so much.)

Unfortunately for Trump, Comey documented in a series of memos the nine one-on-one conversations between the men in the four months that followed Trump’s victory in November. And while such memoranda would ordinarily be kept out of court under the rule against hearsay, the Comey memos likely fall into an exception to the rule for statements made while an event is occurring or immediately thereafter.

Comey testified that he gave the memos to Mueller. Of course, even if Mueller’s investigation finds evidence to suggest the president obstructed justice, the Justice Department would not charge a sitting president. Any evidence the special counsel were to uncover would be considered by Congress as part of impeachment, which is the remedy the Constitution provides for presidential wrongdoing.

The room where it happened

Still, the exception to the hearsay rule for so-called present sense impressions such as those Comey typed up within minutes of concluding his conversations with Trump underscores the trustworthiness the law accords statements by someone who remains stressed by the event that triggered them. As Comey states in the prepared testimony he delivered to the Senate Intelligence Committee:

“To ensure accuracy, I began to type [the notes from his first conversation with Trump] on a laptop in an FBI vehicle outside Trump Tower the moment I walked out of the meeting. Creating written records immediately after one-on-one conversations with Mr. Trump was my practice from that point forward.”

Trump has tweeted that he may have recordings of the conversations, but on Friday he appeared to walk back the assertion. “Oh, you’re going to be very disappointed, don’t worry,” he told a reporter who asked if there are tapes. The leaders of the House Intelligence Committee have asked the White House to produce any such tapes by June 23.

Categories
Law

Trump’s tweets can (and will) be used in court

After President Trump took to Twitter on Monday to defend the merits of his “travel ban” (his words) on visitors to the U.S. from six predominantly Muslim countries, a series of surrogates stepped forward to try to undo the damage to the administration’s defense of the ban in the courts.

Sebastian Gorka, an adviser to Trump, told CNN that tweets “are not policy… [they’re] social media.” In short, Gorka reasoned as follows: Only policy binds the president. Tweets are not policy. Therefore, tweets cannot bind the president.

The premises put forward by Gorka miss the point. Tweets are statements. Under the Federal Rules of Evidence, out-of-court statements, including those made on social media, will be excluded as hearsay if they are used to prove the truth of the matter asserted.

But a statement that would otherwise be hearsay falls outside the definition of hearsay (and therefore can be used in court) if a party to the litigation (insert Trump) said it, and the statement is offered against that party by his opponent (insert those challenging the travel ban).

If you wonder whether Trump is a party to the litigation over his travel ban, here’s how his lawyers captioned the brief they filed on Thursday asking the Supreme Court to revive the ban, which has been blocked by the Fourth Circuit:

Statements via social media are still statements

A statement made through social media fits the exclusion from hearsay so long as it is offered against, not by, the party who made it. As District Judge J. Michelle Childs explains in an article for the American Bar Association:

Social media sites seem designed specifically for users to assert their views, relate their experiences, manifest agreement with others’ opinions, and acknowledge others’ activities. Courts have found these activities to come under [the rule’s] exclusion from hearsay by admission. For example, a plaintiff’s sexually explicit Facebook comments were not hearsay when used by the defendant to show that the defendant’s remarks concerning similar conduct should not be considered harassment against the plaintiff.

Of course, Trump’s lawyers know this, which is how we know that no lawyers reviewed his tweets. The lawyers for those challenging the travel ban know it, too, which is why they welcomed the tweets. Here’s reaction from Neal Katyal, who argued on behalf of the challengers in the Ninth Circuit:

And here’s reaction from Omar Jadwat, the attorney who persuaded the Fourth Circuit to suspend the travel ban:

Trump’s lawyers argue that if you set aside statements by Trump and his surrogates during the campaign (and a few statements following the inauguration) you’ll see that the appeals court erred in enjoining the travel ban. The presidential oath of office transformed Trump into the chief executive, whose determinations regarding immigration policy are entitled to deference by the courts, say his lawyers:

Taking that oath marks a profound transition from private life to the Nation’s highest public office, and manifests the singular responsibility and independent authority to protect the welfare of the Nation that the Constitution reposes in the President.

Trump shattered that notion in five 140-character outbursts. Expect to read his tweets in papers the Supreme Court has asked the challengers to file by this Monday. Yet in the end, the travel ban will fall not because the president tweeted about it. The travel ban will fall because it disfavors a particular religion in violation of the Constitution.