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While Everyone Is Freaking out Over Trump DACA Promise, He Just Did the Most Trump Thing Ever

It’s become fashionable among journalists and various politicos to discuss whether Democrats should attempt to remove President Donald Trump from office via the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, supposedly because he has become too mentally incapacitated to fulfill his duties.

After his televised meeting with top House and Senate leaders from both parties, the liberal fantasy that they can simply nullify the results from the last presidential election — bolstered by the discredited accounts from Michael Wolff’s book “Fire and Fury” that made the president appear psychologically unstable — should no longer be entertained by the media any more than it already was.

No individual who is mentally unstable or dangerously unfit could have possibly ran an hour-long negotiation and discussion over complex policy solutions as the president did Tuesday.

Throughout the meeting, Trump not only seemed engaged and alert, but also served as a leader managing both parties’ desires.

Even an article in USA Today, whose editors wrote an editorial late last year titled “Will Trump’s Lows Ever Hit Rock Bottom?” called the meeting “extraordinary.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham called the negotiations “the most fascinating meeting I’ve been involved with in 20-plus years in politics.”

The president’s performance Tuesday afternoon raised further questions about how a Yale psychiatrist deemed it appropriate to deliver a warning to a group of Democratic lawmakers that they should consider removing Trump from office.

Nor does the president’s clear sanity and mental fitness — regardless of whether or not one agrees with him on policy issues — jive with Wolff’s assertion that the Twenty-Fifth Amendment is a subject of regular conversation within the White House.

In an interview on “Meet The Press,” Wolff told Chuck Todd that the Twenty-Fifth Amendment — which allows the vice president to take power in cases where the president dies or becomes incapacitated — is “alive every day” in the West Wing.

On top of being grossly inappropriate, any effort by Democrats or anti-Trump Republicans to invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment going forward will have to reconcile with the fact that millions of Americans have now seen Trump publicly performing the duties of the office more than competently.

Of course, there are those who won’t ever be happy. A Vox article ran last weekend arguing that Trump needed a psychological evaluation “by force if necessary.”

Trump defended his mental state in a series of tweets earlier this week.

The idea of essentially kidnapping a president because some tweets made a liberal writer uncomfortable was comically ridiculous before, but after today’s public meeting, it just seems like a pathetic attempt to kick a Republican out of office. (For more from the author of “While Everyone Is Freaking out Over Trump DACA Promise, He Just Did the Most Trump Thing Ever” please click HERE)

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Dems to Invite Sexual Assault Survivors as Guests to Trump’s State of the Union

Some House Democrats are planning to invite sexual assault survivors as their guests to President Trump’s first State of the Union address, according to a new report.

An aide to Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.) told NBC News that some Democrats are planning the invitations to bring awareness to the issue.

“Some members will be bringing survivors of sexual assault and advocates as their guests,” the aide told NBC News.

The report comes on the heels of Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) saying Tuesday that she and other female House members are inviting lawmakers to weak black to Trump’s State of the Union in solidarity with the anti-sexual harassment “Me Too” and “Time’s Up” movements . . .

Speier said the Democratic Women’s Working Group, which includes all of the female House members, was encouraging lawmakers from both sides of the aisle to wear black to the event, and that support is very high. (Read more from “Dems to Invite Sexual Assault Survivors as Guests to Trump’s State of the Union” HERE)

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Trump’s DACA Deal Could Flip 4 States to Dems

President Trump has long promised he will secure the U.S.-Mexico border with a “big beautiful wall,” but a major bargaining chip in his negotiations possibly could flip four or even five traditionally Republican-leaning states to Democrats in future elections.

Those states are: Texas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina.

Of the five, Texas, with 34 electoral votes, has the most impact on presidential election outcomes. Florida has 29; North Carolina, 15; Georgia, 16; and Arizona, 11. In 2016, Trump won Texas 52.2 percent to Hillary Clinton’s 43.2 percent. His winning margin in Florida was much tighter at 48.6 percent to 47.4 percent. Trump took North Carolina with 49.8 percent to 46.2 percent; Arizona, 48.1 percent to 44.6 percent; and Georgia, 50.4 percent to Clinton’s 45.3 percent.

But political trends in those traditionally Republican-leaning states could see a shift if illegal immigrants known as DREAMers, or illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as minors, are offered amnesty and particularly if they’re eventually given voting rights. Those fives states host large numbers DREAMers, as Fortune magazine reported last January.

The issue began in 2012, when then-President Obama signed an executive order giving work permits and temporary residence to more than 800,000 noncitizens under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program. In making his announcement, Obama stated: “Effective immediately, the Department of Homeland Security is taking steps to lift the shadow of deportation from these young people. Over the next few months, eligible individuals who do not present a risk to national security or public safety will be able to request temporary relief from deportation proceedings and apply for work authorization.” (Read more from “Trump’s DACA Deal Could Flip 4 States to Dems” HERE)

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Donald Trump to Senate: “Kiss My A**”; Renominates Court Picks Rated ‘Not Qualified’ to Serve

President Donald Trump on Monday resubmitted 21 judicial nominees to the Senate whose nominations expired in 2017 ― including two rated “not qualified” to be federal judges by the American Bar Association.

Charles Goodwin and Holly Teeter are among those in the president’s renominations. The ABA concluded in December that Goodwin, Trump’s nominee to a lifetime seat on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, is unqualified to fulfill the demands of a federal judge given his “work habits.” The ABA concluded in November that Teeter, Trump’s nominee to a lifetime seat on the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas, is not qualified based on her lack of trial court experience.

Judicial nominees rarely earn such an abysmal rating from the ABA, which has reviewed more than 1,700 federal judicial nominees since 1989. None of President Barack Obama’s nominees were rated “not qualified” during his eight years in office. Eight of President George W. Bush’s earned the rating during his two terms. In Trump’s case, four have earned the rating in his first year. Senate Republicans actually confirmed one of them, for some reason. The other one bowed out in embarrassment.

Part of Trump’s problem is that he’s flying through judicial nominations without much vetting, and he’s not submitting potential court picks to the ABA before he announces their nominations. Most presidents wait for the ABA rating to come out before announcing a nominee, in part to save face in case one of their nominees gets a bad rating. Obama had a handful of potential court picks who got a “not qualified” rating, but then they were never formally nominated.

Progressive advocacy groups are urging Senate GOP leaders to stop being a rubber stamp for Trump’s questionable court picks, despite being in the same party as him. (Read more from “Donald Trump Renominates Court Picks Rated ‘Not Qualified’ to Serve” HERE)

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Bannon Regrets Trashing Trump in Family Book

By Mike Allen. Battered by the backlash from Michael Wolff’s book, Steve Bannon is trying to make amends with the Trump family, providing a statement to Axios that expresses “regret” to President Trump and praises his son, Donald Trump Jr.

“Donald Trump, Jr. is both a patriot and a good man. He has been relentless in his advocacy for his father and the agenda that has helped turn our country around.”

“My support is also unwavering for the president and his agenda — as I have shown daily in my national radio broadcasts, on the pages of Breitbart News and in speeches and appearances from Tokyo and Hong Kong to Arizona and Alabama.”

“President Trump was the only candidate that could have taken on and defeated the Clinton apparatus. I am the only person to date to conduct a global effort to preach the message of Trump and Trumpism; and remain ready to stand in the breech for this president’s efforts to make America great again.”

“My comments about the meeting with Russian nationals came from my life experiences as a Naval officer stationed aboard a destroyer whose main mission was to hunt Soviet submarines to my time at the Pentagon during the Reagan years when our focus was the defeat of ‘the evil empire’ and to making films about Reagan’s war against the Soviets and Hillary Clinton’s involvement in selling uranium to them.”

(Read more from “Bannon Regrets Trashing Trump in Family Book” HERE)

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How Bannonism Got Trumped

By Paul Waldman. The story of Bannon and Trump’s relationship isn’t just about a couple of colorful characters; it also tells us something important about this presidency and the Republican Party. Even if Wolff’s book had never come out, Bannonism was already dead. In the era of Trump, it never had a chance . . .

The first policy shifts that grew out of Bannon’s ideas, like efforts to clamp down on both legal and illegal immigration, were certainly amenable to President Trump. But as Trump now understands, he never had Bannon’s loyalty. Bannon saw Trump only as a vehicle for his own agenda, one Trump was never going to fully appreciate in all its ambitious majesty, even if the candidate might share pieces of it. What Trump certainly shared was its destructive force, the idea that smashing existing norms and institutions was essential to doing what Bannon wanted.

And Bannon certainly had something to offer Trump. His dark genius, such as it was, lay in identifying groups of angry people who could be mobilized for a political end, whether they really understood what that end was or not. As Joshua Green, author of the book Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency, explains, even before Bannon took over Breitbart News and later became CEO of the Trump campaign, a brief experience in the video game industry “awakened him to the power of what he called ‘rootless white males’ who spend all their time online. And five years later when Bannon wound up at Breitbart, he resolved to try and attract those people over to Breitbart because he thought they could be radicalized in a kind of populist, nationalist way.”

They were, but even after Bannon helped guide Trump to victory, he may have overestimated the degree to which Trump voters were actually in the market for a clash of civilizations. (Read more from “How Bannonism Got Trumped” HERE)

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Hold On! Trump Makes Big Change to Fake News Awards

Despite days of anticipation, President Trump has decided to postpone his “Fake News Awards,” making people wait more than another week to find out who he thinks is the most corrupt and biased in today’s news media.

Trump tweeted the change in schedule Sunday afternoon, saying: “The Fake News Awards, those going to the most corrupt & biased of the Mainstream Media, will be presented to the losers on Wednesday, January 17th, rather than this coming Monday. The interest in, and importance of, these awards is far greater than anyone could have anticipated!”

Now, don’t expect Jim Acosta or Rachel Maddow to be strolling down a red carpet or arriving at the White House in limousines in hopeful anticipation of accepting the dishonor.

In fact, several late-night comedy hosts are actually campaigning for the public disgrace that presumably will bring higher ratings . . .

Jimmy Kimmel and Trevor Noah all took time on their shows Wednesday to mull over their chances of receiving one of the awards – or as Colbert referred to them, “the Fakies.” (Read more from “Hold On! Trump Makes Big Change to Fake News Awards” HERE)

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The Author of the Explosive New Trump Book Admits There Are False Claims

By Business Insider. The author of the explosive new book about Donald Trump’s presidency acknowledged in an author’s note that he wasn’t certain all of its content was true.

Michael Wolff, the author of “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” included a note at the start that casts significant doubt on the reliability of the specifics contained in the rest of its pages.

Several of his sources, he says, were definitely lying to him, while some offered accounts that flatly contradicted those of others.

But some were nonetheless included in the vivid account of the West Wing’s workings, in a process Wolff describes as “allowing the reader to judge” whether the sources’ claims are true.

In other cases, the media columnist said, he did use his journalistic judgment and research to arrive at what he describes “a version of events I believe to be true.” (Read more from “The Author of the Explosive New Trump Book Admits There Are False Claims” HERE)

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Trump World Frustrated, Angry Over New Book

By Jordan Fabian. Allies of President Trump are aghast at the damage caused by a new book that paints a picture of a chaotic, dysfunctional and incompetent early months of the Trump administration.

Current and former Trump aides believe many of the juiciest stories in “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House” are exaggerated or wholly fictional and don’t think the book is resonating outside the Beltway among the president’s core supporters.

But they are shocked that the author, Michael Wolff, was given access to the White House for months to work on the project and stunned at the seemingly low regard some staffers have for the president as described in the book.

“The biggest political mistake in American history was to allow a reporter, whose integrity has been impugned across the spectrum, into the White House and give him free rein,” said one source close to the White House.

The source blamed former chief White House strategist Stephen Bannon for Wolff’s frequent presence in the West Wing. Bannon is quoted extensively in the book and offered blistering criticism of the president and his family. (Read more from “Trump World Frustrated, Angry Over New Book” HERE)

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Trump Tweets Explosive White House Tell-All ‘Full of Lies,’ Author Fires Back

An explosive White House tell-all hit the bookshelves Friday as President Trump ramped up his attacks on the author’s credibility, saying overnight that Michael Wolff’s account is “full of lies.”

Trump, in a late Thursday tweet, said he “authorized Zero access to White House (actually turned him down many times),” adding that he never spoke to Wolff. Trump did not mention the author by name.

Trump also rolled out a new nickname for ex-adviser “Sloppy” Steve Bannon, who is featured repeatedly in the book talking trash about his family members . . .

Wolff fired back at Trump in an interview on NBC’s “Today” Friday morning, claiming that he did, in fact, interview the president.

“I absolutely … spoke to the president, whether he realized it was an interview or not –it certainly was not off the record,” Wolff said. “I had spent about three hours with the president over the course of the campaign and as president.” (Read more from “Trump Tweets Explosive White House Tell-All ‘Full of Lies,’ Author Fires Back” HERE)

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Trump ‘Falling in Love’ With Amnesty for Illegals?

There are the so-called “Dreamers,” brought into the United States illegally by their parents, that Barack Obama protected from federal law. Then there’s the border wall on which President Trump campaigned. And don’t forget the fights erupting over “sanctuary” cities and states . . .

Trump electrified Washington when he recently tweeted:

The statement would suggest the president will push for amnesty as part of any comprehensive immigration deal.

However, he may also be using DACA as a bargaining chip to achieve other priorities on immigration, such as the introduction of a merit-based system and funding for the border wall.

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, argues there should be no DACA amnesty in the upcoming government funding bill. (Read more from “Trump ‘Falling in Love’ With Amnesty for Illegals?” HERE)

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Is Trump-Bannon Feud Based on Fake Quotes?

A friend and adviser of Donald Trump quoted in a controversial upcoming exposé of the White House calling the president “stupid” says the author put words in his mouth, casting doubt on other sensational claims that rocked the administration Wednesday, including that Trump didn’t want to win the election.

Thomas J. Barrack told the New York Times the quote attributed to him by Michael Wolff in “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House” is “totally false.”

Wolff quoted Barrack telling a friend that the president is “not only crazy, he’s stupid.”

But Barrack commented Wednesday: “It’s clear to anyone who knows me that those aren’t my words and inconsistent with anything I’ve ever said.”

Barrack told the Times that Wolff never vetted the quotation with him for accuracy. (Read more from “Is Trump-Bannon Feud Based on Fake Quotes?” HERE)

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