FAKE NEWS, FAKE NEWS!!
COMMENTARY AND COMPILATION
BY LUCY WARNER
JANUARY 11, 2017
FAKE NEWS? THE TOO OFTEN DISTORTED PHRASE “THE PROOF OF THE PUDDING IS IN THE EATING,” APPLIES PERFECTLY IN THE “FAKE NEWS” ARGUMENT. LIKEWISE, I HAVE TRIED TO INCLUDE NEWS AND COMMENTARY HERE WHICH WILL MAKE SENSE, EVEN IF THE LOGIC IS VERY UNCOMFORTABLE FOR UNQUESTIONING AND OVERLY CONTENT AMERICANS – THE MIDDLE CLASS AND WORKING CLASS ESPECIALLY. LIFE WAS SO EASY THAT WE STOPPED THINKING. THIS MATERIAL BELOW IS DEFINITELY BIASED IN THAT IT OPENLY TELLS A MY SIDE OF THE STORY, BUT SO IS OUR VIEW OF THE USA AS BEING IN EVERY CASE, “THE GOOD GUYS,” AND OF COURSE OUR VIEW OF WHAT “GOOD” MEANS.
I AM LOYAL TO MY PERSONAL VIEWS BIASED OR NOT, BECAUSE I DON’T THINK FREEDOM OF RELIGION AND THE RIGHT TO VOTE WHILE BROWN OR BLACK IN THE US SHOULD BE DENIED UNFAIRLY. I ALSO SUPPORT THE LGBT COMMUNITY AND ALL LIBERAL THINKERS, BETTER CONTROLS OVER EGREGIOUS VIOLENCE ON THE PART OF POLICE OFFICERS, AND LEGAL PUNISHMENT FOR ATTACKS BOTH VERBAL AND PHYSICAL ON OUTSIDERS WHO ARE NOT, THEMSELVES, TRYING TO OVERTHROW THE US GOVERNMENT OR ASSAULT PEOPLE OF OTHER BELIEFS. IF THEY DO THOSE THINGS THEN I BELIEVE THEY SHOULD BE INCARCERATE OR, IF TRULY APPROPRIATE, DEPORTED.
IN THIS WAY, I DRAW A STRONG LINE BETWEEN “GOOD” AND “EVIL,” AND I DON’T THINK THAT NEARLY AS MANY AS I WOULD LIKE OF THE TRUMP FOLLOWERS DO THE SAME. MANY OF THEM DON’T EVEN LOOK AT ISSUES, BUT ARE SIMPLY FOLLOWING THE LEADER OF THEIR NOW GROWING MORE POWERFUL “MOVEMENT,” AGAINST WOMEN, AGNOSTICS AND ATHIESTS, JEWISH AND CATHOLIC PEOPLE, DARK SKINNED PEOPLE, AND POLITICAL LIBERALS OF ALL KINDS; WHICH WILL COME TO FULL POWER – AND PERHAPS VERY SOON UNDER TRUMP. IF THE RIGHTISTS ARE ALLOWED TO STACK THE DECK IN THE SUPREME COURT, THE FEDERAL LEGISLATURE AND THE STATE GOVERNMENTS AS WELL -- TO MERGE THEIR VIEWS INTO THE CONSTITUTIONAL LAW OF THIS COUNTRY, CAUSING IT TO BECOME ONE WHICH IS NOT “OF THE PEOPLE,” BUT “OF THE BILLIONAIRES”; AND TOO LIKELY UNDER A POWER-HUNGRY INDIVIDUAL, WHO MAY HAVE NO SCRUPLES AT ALL ABOUT WHAT HE WANTS TO DO DURING HIS “REIGN.” YES. TRUMP DID SAY THAT RECENTLY, ACCORDING TO THE NEWS. I KNOW. FAKE NEWS!
THAT WOULD BE SO VERY SAD. ARE WE WATCHING WHAT’S HAPPENING YET, AMERICA? GET OUT YOUR WALKING SHOES AND PROTEST SIGNS. THE SECOND CIVIL WAR ISN’T IN THE FUTURE, BUT IS UPON US.
ABOUT THE POPULAR TRUMP WARCRY “FAKE NEWS” – EARLY ABUSERS OF THE TERM INCLUDE RUSH LIMBAUGH, 2012 AND BREITBART. THE LEGITIMATE PRESS ( OR “LYING MAINSTREAM NEWS” IN TRUMPS LANGUAGE) USE IT TO MEAN DELIBERATE FALSEHOODS PUBLISHED BY NEWS OUTLETS TO RUN UP THE PROFITS OF SUCH WEBSITES AND TO KEEP THEIR CRONIES IN POWER. TRUMP USES IT TO MEAN ANY GROUP WHO ARE SUFFICIENTLY COURAGEOUS TO STEP UP TO BAT AGAINST THE TRUMP ARMY.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/22/king-trump-republican-party-donald-trump-presidency, Welcome to the reign of King Trump
BY Ben Fountain, who writes “While Donald Trump’s guiding principle is ego, the structures that hold him aloft were painstakingly built over decades by the worst of the Republican party.”
Tuesday 22 November 2016 07.00 EST
…. Photograph -- ‘As monarchs do, Trump will keep his heirs close to the center of power.’ Photograph: CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images
…. Live -- Trump calls salacious allegations in Russia dossier 'fake news'
…. “Follow the aftermath of the publication of explosive unverified allegations that Donald Trump had secret contacts with Moscow and that Russia has personally compromising material on the president-elect”
…. What are the five main claims about Trump from the alleged Russian dossier?
….Trump press conference: full transcript
…. Rex Tillerson talks tough on Russia but will not call Putin a war criminal
“This bloodbath of an election,” a friend emailed me. “Like watching someone get murdered,” another said over the phone. And this in an email from a veteran of the Vietnam war: “The third Vietnam Draft Dodger is now commander in chief”.
Welcome to the full flowering of the Era of Trump, which began with that now mytho-epic glide down the escalator at Trump Tower, where Trump commenced his candidacy with these historic words:
When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best … They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.
If ever a monument is erected to the Trump presidency, then surely these words – shades of Gettysburg! – will be carved into the marble walls, along with “blood coming out of her wherever”, “fifty bucks a steak” and “I would bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding”. In true demagogic fashion, Trump bypassed the head and spoke directly to the gut, to the biles and bubbling acids of raw emotion. He said things that many civil, temperate Americans hardly dared to admit we carried in ourselves – were hardly aware of just how deeply we resented our own niceness, how angry our interior lives with all this stuff bottled up, years and years of internalized micro-aggression from a culture that kept insisting on diversity, inclusiveness, tolerance. Many discovered just what a drag political correctness was all these years, and to be free of it, freed from this code that was jamming us up? That was relief akin to a lung-puncturing primal scream. From the start Trump’s rallies had the air of the tent revival, that same hot thrum of militant exorcism and ecstasy.
“Let’s not fool ourselves,” a friend wrote “I can’t stand anything but cold honesty right now. This is not a Repub winning the election, which would be bad enough. This is white supremacy winning.”
Calm down, we’re tempted to say. It’s really not that bad. Stances are taken, things get said in the heat of a campaign, and we could take heart in the newly gracious, conciliatory Trump on display for several days after the election. Then came the news that Steve Bannon, the erstwhile chairman of the Trump campaign who bears a striking resemblance to Otis, the town drunk on the old Andy Griffith Show, was named “senior counselor and chief strategist” for the incoming Trump administration. The mainstream press still feels compelled to explain the term “alt-right”, but we know already, we know, we know, WE KNOW: white “nationalism”, AKA honky “purity” (don’t dig too deeply into the family DNA!), along with thick, glistening lardings of apocalyptic racism, and a style sense that falls somewhere between “Springtime for Hitler” and “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy”. Prior to his gig on the Trump campaign, Bannon spent four years as chairman of Breitbart News, which he proudly declared to be “the platform for the alt-right”. As Breitbart chairman, Bannon presided over such headlines as “Gabby Giffords: The Gun Control Movement’s Human Shield”, “Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy” and, two weeks after a white nationalist murdered nine members of a Bible study group at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina, “Hoist It High and Proud: The Confederate Flag Proclaims a Glorious Heritage.”
“Find myself not sleeping at night,” a friend wrote. “The first president endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan,” noted another. Then there was Obama being Obama on the day after the election: “We have to remember that we’re actually all on one team.” A man’s character is his fate, as Heraclitus said, and what a strange, twisted fate indeed that Barack Obama – cerebral, disciplined, cool, ever seeking to reconcile and accommodate (as an African American pastor in Charleston commented, once his presidency is over, Obama will no longer have to be the least threatening black man in America) – has had to deal with an opposition that very much regarded him as not on the team. There was the birther movement, for starters. The “closet Muslim” conspiracy theories. The terrorist fist-bump. Founder of Isis. Teenage crack dealer hanging out on the corner. “All this damage he’s done to America is deliberate,” said Marco Rubio during one of the Republican debates, which is a laugh. If Obama wanted to trash the US, all he had to do on taking office in 2009 was sit on his hands and let the hot mess of the Bush economy continue its meltdown to oblivion.
But the issue is bigger than any particular president. After his post-election “all on one team” remark, Obama continued:
The point, though, is that we all go forward with a presumption of good faith in our fellow citizens, because that presumption of good faith is essential to a vibrant and functioning democracy.
This goes to the heart of the matter. The American system of constitutional government is founded on deliberate fragmentation of power, the “separation of powers” and “checks and balances” that we all learned in high school civics. For government to be effective – for government to meet the needs of the people – the US constitutional order requires a healthy measure of good faith cooperation among the players. This good faith began to fray in the early 1990s as GOP leaders in Congress, Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay chief among them, declared war on all efforts – even from those in their own party – to govern from a stance of bipartisan cooperation. Democrats, in Gingrich’s world of moral absolutes, were “the enemy of normal Americans”. Gingrich and his allies were fighting no less than a “civil war” with liberals, and as he declared in a speech to the Heritage Foundation, “This war has to be fought with a scale and a duration and a savagery that is only true of civil wars.”
And so began the constitutional hardball and scorched-earth tactics that have characterized the past quarter-century of American politics. You may recall the Gingrich-orchestrated government shutdowns of 1995 and 1995-96 over budget disputes, and the 1998 impeachment of Bill Clinton for lying about a blowjob. In more recent times, there was the famous dinner at a Washington fine-dining steakhouse on the evening of 20 January 2009 – the day of Obama’s inauguration – at which GOP congressional leaders (along with Gingrich, by then a highly paid K Street lobbyist) vowed to sabotage Obama’s presidency by opposing every item on the new president’s economic agenda – at a time when 700,000 jobs a month were disappearing – including those items previously supported or even proposed by the GOP. (“We’re all rooting for him,” Obama said of Trump when they met recently in the Oval Office. “Because if he succeeds, America succeeds.”) Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell later summed up the GOP stance when he publicly stated, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”
The single most important thing. Burying Obama was the goal, and if bringing him down required shredding the constitutional order, then to hell with the past 220 years of constitutional order. The filibuster, once reserved for only the most major policy disputes, became McConnell’s go-to weapon, routinely deployed even for small-bore matters. By withholding funding or refusing to consider appointments to government posts, the Senate effectively nullified laws that had been duly enacted in accordance with the constitution. At a time when the federal courts had a record number of vacancies, scores of judicial seats went unfilled; the current eight-months-and-counting vacancy on the supreme court is merely the most high-profile example. Government shutdowns and debt-ceiling crises – once unthinkable – became so endemic that for the first time in its more than 150-year history, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the credit rating of the US, citing the “recent” phenomenon of “political brinkmanship”. Even then, GOP lawmakers have matter-of-factly continued to use the threat of government default as a bargaining chip, a nuclear option that, if carried out, would have catastrophic effects on the world economy.
Had the founding fathers wanted gridlock, they wouldn’t have replaced the articles of confederation with the constitution. But gridlock’s been great for the Republican party, which has mastered a crude but so far effective trick: campaign as the anti-government party, on a platform decrying government as dysfunctional and ineffective, then once you’re in power pull out all the stops to make sure government is dysfunctional and ineffective. Maybe this is why Congress has lower approval ratings than cockroaches, head lice and zombies, and why Mitch McConnell has the perpetually serene look of a man who sleeps well at night. Those low approval ratings mean his side is winning. That all this has happened at the expense of the constitutional order, and of the spirit of comity and good faith so necessary for the functioning of that order, seems not to trouble McConnell or his colleagues in the least.
To call these people “conservative” is a joke. They seek to conserve precious little. Much more accurate to call them the wrecking crew.
* * *
“On this grimmest of mornings.” And, “the faces on the subway today, I will never forget”. The people want change. Can you blame us? We’ve been sucking wind for 35 years while the 1% rides higher and higher, a trend that began with the “Reagan revolution”, a sea change in American politics which the Democratic establishment accepted all too readily. “It is the poorest people in the world who will pay for this, over and over.” Trickle-down economics, free trade, government-is-the-problem, kick labor to the curb: the whole supply-side package became the default center of political debate, and the increasingly corporate Dems offered less and less to working- and middle-class people as the years went by. “Woke up at 3am thinking, I’ve failed my kids.” That the Clinton campaign wrote off the white working-class vote was not only a political failure, it was a moral failure as well, not to mention emblematic of the past several decades of Democratic leadership. “Tell her to go hang out with George W Bush in hubris hell.” Trump’s campaign spoke to our economic fear and anger with a rawness that Clinton’s didn’t even try to match. In hindsight, it’s no surprise that she lost the Wisconsin and Michigan primaries – and very nearly the nomination – to Bernie Sanders, a candidate who tapped into the same populist angst that would give Trump no fewer than 290 electoral college votes. Though one wonders whether all those good working folks who voted for Trump realized they were endorsing a huge tax cut for the 1%, and a candidate whose election left K Street as giddy as a girl asked to the prom by the handsomest boy in school.
“I wish I thought things would seem even slightly less terrifying in a day or month.”
“Try some escapist literature. I find detailed accounts of the first world war and disastrous Arctic expeditions very readable at times like this.”
This system we have, this “free market” system that grinds huge numbers of people into crumbs, it seems so vast and monolithic most of the time, an unstoppable machine steered by distant, mysterious forces. Trump seemed to offer a rare chance to throw a wrench into the works, and many took it. That there’s a much bleaker side to his victory – racist, misogynist, xenophobic – owes much to certain feelings and impulses that have been steadily nurtured over the years by the Republican party. If you have doubts about that, read up on the history of the GOP’s notorious “Southern Strategy”. Old demons we thought we’d pushed to the fringes, it turns out they’ve been right here among us all along, biding their time, waiting for their hour to come around again. That’s the heartache. And for many, more than heartache: it’s a clear and present danger.
“For a minute, tribal identity looked not to be everything. Fond little daydream –nothing optimistic comes to mind, stunned beloveds.”
* * *
Trump’s policy agenda, always a moving target on the campaign trail, is looking even more slippery in the days since the election. The “Wall”, that sturdiest beam in the Trump platform, might be downgraded to a mere “fence” in certain areas. Signature features of the formerly horrible Obamacare are actually good, and should remain. And that massive deportation force? Maybe not so massive after all. This sort of backstroking belies what’s been obvious all along: Trump has never had much in the way of policy goals besides serving the greater good of Trump.
Ego will be the guiding principle of the Trump presidency. In this respect he’s much more like a monarch than the duly elected public servant of a representative democracy, and, as monarchs do, he will keep his heirs close to the center of power, Ivanka, Don Jr, Eric, and that budding Cardinal Richelieu of a son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Top security clearances and advisory roles are contemplated for the kids, who at the same time will be running the for-profit entities of the sprawling Trump Organization. It’s hard to imagine a more ethically fraught, legally explosive situation for the children, managing a vast consortium of transnational businesses while being privy to the country’s most sensitive secrets, along with easy access to the most powerful man in the world. How will it all play out? Badly. Look to Shakespeare for a taste of the awful potential here, to the tragedies and history plays, those coils of ego and empire and wealth (and sex and sex and sex!) that often end with bodies all over the place. The best thing Trump could do for his children would be to put his assets in a genuine blind trust, and send the kids away – far, far away from Washington – to do their own thing. Limit visits to holidays and weekends, bounce the grandkids on his knee, not breathe a word about business or affairs of state.
But that’s not how monarchies roll. That Trump would put his children in such a legally tenuous position gives us a clear idea – as if we needed it from a man who used to rely on the infamous bottom-feeder Roy Cohn for legal counsel – of his appreciation for the rule of law. Here again we can expect the monarchical model. L’état, c’est moi. People rarely grow in humility once they reach the White House. To the extent Trump attempts to game, spin and mutilate the rule of law, his most immediate potential check will be a Congress that’s firmly in Republican hands, led by the same wrecking crew that’s already shown such faint regard for the constitutional order, with a fire-breathing rank-and-file – think “Freedom Caucus” – egging them on to new lows.
The institutions, structures and traditions of American governance are about to be tested as they haven’t been in generations. You say you want change? Here it comes. Brace for impact.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/11/donald-trump-kremlin-blast-fabricated-report-russian-ties-asfbi/
News Live Donald Trump: It's a disgrace the intelligence agencies allowed false news out - it's like Nazi Germany
BY David Lawler, washington Barney Henderson, new york Louise Burke
11 JANUARY 2017 • 7:43PM
RELATED:
….Trump: intelligence agencies could have released alleged Russian dossier
….President-elect blasts report as 'like Nazi Germany'
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….Trump: 'I'm a germophobe.. and always check hotel rooms'
….Rex Tillerson grilled over appointment as secretary of state
"Does anyone really believe that story?" he said. "I'm also very much of a germophobe by the way, believe me."
He said the publishing of the report had been done by "sick people" and suggested intelligence agencies had leaked it,
"I think it was disgraceful, disgraceful that the intelligence agencies allowed any information that turned out to be so false and fake out there," he said.
He called the dossier that makes salacious claims about him "fake news" and "phony stuff".
"I think it's a disgrace ... That's something that Nazi Germany would have done," the Republican said days ahead of his inauguration.
Mr Trump acknowledged that Russia likely hacked the Democratic National Committee and the emails of other top Democrats during the 2016 presidential election, but defended his goal of better ties with Moscow.
"If Putin likes Donald Trump, I consider that an asset, not a liability," he said.
GO TO WEBSITE FOR CARTOON: adams trump cartoon
Auto updates:
7:55pm
Tillerson backs 'full review' of Iran nuclear deal
An update from Rex Tillerson's Senate confirmation hearing: He has said he would recommend a "full review" of the nuclear deal with Iran, but he did not call for an outright rejection of the 2015 accord.
He also said he did not oppose the Trans Pacific Partnership free trade deal, but said he shares some of Mr Trump's views about whether the pact as negotiated reflects all the best interests of the United States.
He would not commit to whether he would allow a travelling press corps with him on foreign trips:
7:43pm
White House criticises Mr Trump 'secrecy' on financial dealings with Russia
The White House has said Mr Trump and his transition team have refused to make public information that would put to rest questions about his and his family's possible financial entanglements in Russia.
"There's ample evidence that they could marshal, to make public to refute those claims, those accusations that they say are baseless. But they refuse to do so," spokesman Josh Earnest said at a news briefing. "That kind of secrecy only serves to sow public doubt."
7:39pm
'No pressure'
Mr Trump said at the end of his press conference that if his two sons did not perform satisfactorily while running his business empire, he would not hesitate to use his catch-phrase: "You're fired!"
Donald Jr has responded:
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Donald Trump Jr. ✔ @DonaldJTrumpJr
Well this could be interesting in 4 to 8 years. 😂🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 #nopressure https://twitter.com/bpolitics/status/819232260121624577 …
12:25 PM - 11 Jan 2017
844 844 Retweets 4,166 4,166 likes
6:10pm
What he said v What he meant
"I think it was Russian"
Donald Trump made the strongest statement yet that he has been convinced that Russia was behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman. He did repeat his argument that too much attention is being paid to these hacks compared to other foreign-orchestrated cyber attacks but it appears that we're now all on the same page as far as the culprit.
"Hacking is bad. And it shouldn't be done...but look what was learned from that hacking"
Pointing the finger at Russia does not mean Mr Trump is upset that the hacking took place. He said valuable information about Mrs Clinton and her associates was gleaned from the hacks.
"There's a good chance I don't" get along with Vladimir Putin
Mr Trump is sticking to his guns. He says it's a good thing that "Putin likes Trump", and that it is important to pursue stronger relations with Moscow. If that relationship breaks down though, the president-elect said he will be tougher on Mr Putin than Mrs Clinton ever would have been.
"In those rooms, you have cameras in the strangest places"
Mr Trump denied that the most salacious elements of a dossier reportedly prepared by a former British spy could be accurate for multiple reasons. First, he has always been wary of hidden cameras when travelling abroad ("I'm a pretty high profile person, would you say?). Second, he's "very much of a germophobe".
"It's a tremendous blot on their record if they in fact did that"
Mr Trump says it is a "disgrace" that information that should have been restricted to the intelligence community made its way into media reports. He did not go so far as to say it was leaked by top intelligence officials, but reacted angrily to the idea that it could have been.
"I won"
Mr Trump said the American people do not care about his decision not to release his tax returns, and possible conflicts of interest with his business, because they elected him president.
5:43pm
Trump blasts CNN as 'fake news'
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Donald Trump refuses to take a question from CNN's Senior White House Correspondent @Acosta http://cnn.it/2ijZgX7
12:18 PM - 11 Jan 2017
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5:12pm
Trump: 'Buzzfeed will suffer the consequences'
Watch | Donald Trump has on air dispute with Buzzfeed
00:55
Describing Buzzfeed as a "failing" news organisation, Mr Trump states that it will "suffer the consequences" for releasing the alleged Russian dossier.
“As far as Buzzfeed which is a failing pile of garbage writing it, I think they’re going to suffer the consequences, and they already are,” he stated.
He then refuses to answer questions from Buzzfeed and CNN, branding them "fake news".
Next question from the BBC. "That's another beauty," he states.
5:06pm
'We're going to start building the wall'
Mr Trump says he wants to start immediately on building the border wall between the US and Mexico.
He states that negotiations with Mexico on the funding of wall will begin immediately after he takes office.
He said Mr Pence is "leading an effort to get final approvals through various agencies and through Congress for the wall to begin".
"Mexico in some form ... will reimburse us," he insisted.
4:59pm
Trump: Obamacare is a complete and total disaster
"Finally Obamacare!" Mr Trump jokes. He says it is the Democrats' problem and "we're gonna take it off the shelves".
"We could sit back and wait and watch and criticise" in 2017, he says. "We are going to be submitting a plan - it will be repeal and replace, it will be essentially simultaneously... Very complicated stuff. We're gonna get healthcare taken care of in this country."
He states that Mr Tillerson is "brilliant", and that: “I think we have one of the great cabinets ever put together, and we’ve heard that from so many people.”
4:47pm
Trump 'builds a wall' between Trump organisation and the Trump presidency
Mr Trump has said he is voluntarily handing over control of his business empire to his two sons Donald Jr and Eric.
No new foreign deals will be made during the Trump presidency, his lawyer, Sheri Dillon, has said, stating all conflict of interest issues will be resolved by these actions.
"The business empire built by President-elect Trump over the years is massive - not dissimilar to the fortunes of Nelson Rockefeller when he became vice-president, but at that time no-one was so concerned," she said.
She said Mr Trump wanted voters to "rest assured that all of his efforts are directed to pursuing the people's business and not his own".
He had instructed her firm to set up a structure for his businesses that would "completely isolate him from the management of the company" and ensure "that the activities of the Trump Organisation cannot be perceived to be exploitative of the presidency", she said.
"He instructed us to take all steps realistically possible to make clear that he is not exploiting the office of the president for his personal benefit."
4:41pm
Trump: 'I'm very much of a germaphobe - believe me'
Watch | Trump: "I am extremely careful, there are cameras in the strangest places"
00:52
The president-elect has said that on foreign trips - such as when he went to Russia with the Miss Universe franchise - he was always very aware of security such as hidden cameras in hotel rooms.
"I am extremely careful. I always tell [my people] be very careful, because in those rooms you have cameras in the strangest places -you can’t see them and you won’t know," he said.
"You better be careful or you will be watching yourself on nightly television.”
4:37pm
Trump supports allowing government to negotiate over drug prices
Donald Trump just came out in favour of allowing the government to negotiate over drug prices. That is massive news for the pharmaceutical industry, and could have a significant impact on the markets.
The likes of Bernie Sanders have been pushing for a more open drug market for years, but it marks a significant policy shift for the Republicans if Mr Trump includes it in his healthcare plan. Sky high drug prices are a big part of what makes healthcare in the US more expensive than almost anywhere else in the world.
The Pharma lobby, which Mr Trump just said is too powerful, will fight him tooth and nail.
4:35pm
Donald Trump: "If Putin likes Donald Trump, that's an asset!'
Watch | Trump: "If Putin likes Donald Trump, that's an asset!'
00:26
The president-elect is referring to himself frequently in the third person.
"If Putin likes Donald Trump I consider that an asset, not a liability because we have a horrible relationship with Russia," he said.
"Russia can help us fight Isis, which, by the way, is number one tricky.
"If you look, this administration created Isis by leaving at the wrong time."
He added: "I don't know that I'm going to get along with Vladimir Putin. I hope I do, but there's a good chance I won't.
"And, if I don't, do you honestly believe Hillary would be tougher on Putin than me? Does anybody in this room honestly believe that? Give me a break."
He states he has no deals or loans with Russia.
4:33pm
Trump: I think it was Russia behind election hacking
Mr Trump confirms that he accepts Russia was involved in hacking the 2016 presidential election. However, he said Russia was not the only country hacking and that the Democratic party was "open" to hacking.
"Look at what was learned from that hacking: that Hillary Clinton got the questions to the debate and didn't report it."
He said that if "Donald Trump had got the questions and didn't report it, it wold [sic] be the biggest story in the history of stories".
4:28pm
Donald Trump suggests intelligence agencies could have released alleged Russian dossier
Mr Trump said the report was "released - who knows - maybe by the intelligence agencies... It should never have been released".
He said it if was the case that intelligence agencies released the report, it would be a “tremendous blot” on their legacy.
He then thanked the news organisations who did not published "that nonsense".
"I want to thank many news organisations - I have great respect for the news and freedom of the press and all that," he said, thanking those organisations who did not publish the alleged report.
Mike Pence said it was an "irresponsible decision of a few news organisations to run with a false report".
4:19pm
Trump spokesman: 'Buzzfeed and CNN reports were sad attempt to gain clicks'
Watch | Trump spokesman: 'Buzzfeed and CNN reports were sad attempt to gain clicks'
00:53
Sean Spicer opens up the press conference by saying the Buzzfeed and CNN reports about an alleged Russian dossier were false and a "sad attempt to gain clicks".
4:10pm
'We need to move Russia from an adversary always to a partner at times'
Mr Tillerson is being pressed on American relations with Russia. He says it would be constructive to make Russia a partner for America "at times".
He said it was important to keep the status quo on Russian sanctions until a new approach is developed.
"I would leave things in the status quo so we are able to convey this can go either way."
"America still holds all the aces, we just need to push them out of that deck," he said.
4:04pm
Trump press conference minutes away
The lobby of Trump Tower - the place where he announced he was running for the presidency on June 16, 2015 - is packed with people, Harriet Alexander reports.
It's his first press conference since July; a total of 167 days. And there is a lot to discuss. The conference was initially scheduled a month ago, to explain how Mr Trump would disentangle himself from his business empire and assuage concerns about conflict of interest.
That will surely feature, certainly in his prepared remarks. But when he opens up to questions, that's when the fireworks will really start.
What is his response to the explosive allegations last night about Russia having "conpromising material" on him?
What will he say about hacking of the DNC emails, now that he has been fully briefed by the intelligence agencies?
How does he feel the hearings of his Cabinet nominees are going - yesterday Jeff Sessions, his choice of attorney general, was interrupted by angry protests and people dressed in KKK robes.
Today his nominee for Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, is being grilled quite intensely, it seems, about his ties to Russia.
What about Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump - how has he overcome accusations of nepotism? What did he make of President Barack Obama's speech last night? And his urging to preserve Obamacare? What will he do on day one?
3:52pm
Tillerson: Trump and I have not discussed Russia and Putin
Mr Tillerson has been grilled about Russia's aggression in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and said he would have supported providing Kiev with far more military assistance against Moscow at the time.
He was asked whether Mr Trump supported those views, and responded: "The president-elect and I have not had the opportunity to discuss this specific issue, or the specific area."
Senator Bob Menendez responded: “Pretty amazing.”
3:39pm
Tillerson declines to accuse Russia of war crimes in Syria
Both Marco Rubio, a Republican, and Bob Menendez, a Democrat, have pushed Rex Tillerson on whether Russia has committed war crimes in Syria or Ukraine. He told Mr Rubio that he, "would not use that term".
Mr Tillerson also said he does not have sufficient evidence to confirm that Vladimir Putin has been responsible for the deaths of journalists and dissidents.
The former ExxonMobil CEO is struggling to make the sort of strong stand on Russia that he himself advocated in his opening statement.
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Marco Rubio: “Is Vladimir Putin a war criminal?”
Rex Tillerson: “I would not use that term.”http://cnn.it/2iG49Y4
10:32 AM - 11 Jan 2017
1,255 1,255 Retweets 1,344 1,344 likes
2:58pm
McCain: 'Could not judge accuracy' of dossier, passed to FBI
Speaking of John McCain, he has put out a statement this morning confirming that he received "sensitive information" last year. He says he could not determine whether it was accurate, and passed it on to the FBI.
A spokesman has not responded to questions about the source of the information.
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Mark Berman ✔ @markberman
Sen. McCain confirms what has been reported, that he was given info on the Trump/Russia allegations and passed it on to FBI Director Comey
9:13 AM - 11 Jan 2017
926 926 Retweets 1,006 1,006 likes
2:53pm
Tillerson hearing underway
Rex Tillerson, the former ExxonMobil CEO and Donald Trump's nominee for secretary of state, is now facing questions from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
His nomination has already been criticised by the likes of John McCain over his business ties with the Russian government, but most Republicans and some Democrats have signalled that they are willing to support him.
Tillerson Putin
Rex Tillerson (L) and Vladimir Putin CREDIT: AFP
2:49pm
The wrong Michael Cohen
Holes are continuing to emerge in the dossier which has now made headlines around the world.
Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's lawyer and adviser, has already denied that he was in Prague on the dates mentioned in the document.
Now CNN is reporting that a different Michael Cohen visited Prague on those dates. Maybe a different Donald Trump visited Moscow?
2:13pm
Kellyanne Conway: Trump 'not aware' he was briefed
Kellyanne Conway, Donald Trump's spokeswoman, claims the president-elect "said he's not aware" he was briefed on the reports of Russia having compromising information about him.
She made the comments while being interviewed by Seth Meyers on 'Late Night' as the allegations were breaking.
"That concerns me," Meyers shot back.
A two-page summary on the topic was supposedly included in the report on Russia’s interference in the US election which was shown to Mr Trump on Friday. The director of national intelligence and the chiefs of the CIA, FBI and NSA all travelled to Trump Tower for the briefing.
So, now we have three possible scenarios:
A. Trump was briefed but is denying it
B. Trump was briefed but wasn't paying attention
C. Trump was not briefed and this is all news to him
The third scenario appears the most likely, as Mr Trump's advisers say the summary may have been included in the report but was not mentioned in the briefing, and the report was not stored at Trump Tower because it is not considered sufficiently secure.
Conway also said she was concerned intelligence officials "leak to the press" instead of going to the president-elect or the president: "They'd rather go tell the press".
It has been well reported that Trump has been turning away daily intelligence briefings since he was elected.
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Seth Meyers ✔ @sethmeyers
Here's our full Kellyanne Conway interview from last night https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_dv5qAsJMU …
8:13 AM - 11 Jan 2017
540 540 Retweets 1,650 1,650 likes
2:01pm
Russia sends more fighter jets to Syria
Telegraph Beirut correspondent Josie Ensor reports on the Syrian "ceasefire":
Russia has sent as many as a dozen more fighter jets to Syria, days after President Putin’s announcement that Moscow was scaling back its military deployment in the war-torn country.
Vladimir Putin declared last week that Russia would begin withdrawing forces following a ceasefire deal between the government and opposition.
However 12 Su-25s were reported to have arrived at Moscow’s base in the coastal city of Latakia on Monday, signalling its intention to remain deeply involved in the conflict.
Experts speculated that the warplanes had been sent to make up for theloss of its rusting aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, which was also recalled on Friday.
Read the full story here.
1:58pm
No golden escalator for today's press conference
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BrakktonBookerNPR ✔ @brakktonbooker
One difference from @realDonaldTrump press set up today vs. during on primary nights, no view of golden escalator.
8:50 AM - 11 Jan 2017
11 11 Retweets 36 36 likes
1:39pm
'Deeply embarrassing for Britain'
Telegraph Defence Correspondent Ben Farmer reports:
Prof Anthony Glees, director of Buckingham University's Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies, said if the dossier was compiled by a former MI6 spy, it was highly embarrassing for Britain.
The revelation came as Britain tries to forge a friendship with Mr Trump and sign new trade deals after Brexit.
He said: "If this really was a former MI6 officer and using contacts that they had in MI6 as a private consultant, then that would be a major security breach.
"It's deeply embarrassing to us now in the UK, because of this potential MI6 involvement."
1:37pm
Trump press conference coming up in a few hours
And the MSM (Main stream media if you're not au fait with Trump supporter speak) is champing at the bit... Only one problem: it doesn't start til 11am (4pm GMT).
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BrakktonBookerNPR ✔ @brakktonbooker
Media set up ahead of @realDonaldTrump presser
8:01 AM - 11 Jan 2017
17 17 Retweets 21 21 likes
1:26pm
Can you tell the real Donald Trump tweets from the fakes?
It's quiz time!
Before the US election, CNN (that's the Clinton News Network, remember) made a prescient prediction, writes Guy Kelly:
Just as Franklin D Roosevelt was the first ‘radio president’, John F Kennedy the first ‘television’ president and Barack Obama the first ‘internet’ president, they said, so Donald Trump would be the first to harness the campaigning power of Twitter. Trump was the social media president-in-waiting.
We can now change that to President-elect. Today, Trump's tweets are uniformly newsworthy – whether they respond to something serious, like today's riposte to the claim that the Kremlin has 'compromising' personal information on him ("FAKE NEWS", screamed Donald), or something a little more frivolous, like last Friday's Twitter battle with Arnold Schwarzenegger about television ratings ("Arnold Schwarzenegger got swamped", swaggered the Pres-elect).
God, he really does have us lying mainstream media exactly where he wants us.
Over more than 35,000 tweets and seven years, Trump's followers (numbering 19.2m at the moment) will have noticed the president-elect has an idiosyncratic style of writing online. There's the unexpected CAPITAL letters (plus snarky brackets!), overuse of dashes--and, above all, whiny and patronising exclamation marks!!, followed by one or two extra words thrown in as an afterthought, like a child insistent upon having the final say!! Like this!
But how well do you know The Donald's tweets from some fake alternatives that we – the deceiving, sore-loser MSM – have dreamed up? It's time to put that confidence to the test...
Can you tell the real Donald Trump tweets from the MSM fakes? Take our quiz to find out
1:15pm
Kremlin's Dmitry Peskov says allegations 'completely fake'
We had all better pack up and go home, it's not a story, says Russia:
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Russian Embassy, UK ✔ @RussianEmbassy
Kremlin spox Peskov: Allegations that Russia gathered compromising intel on @RealDonaldTrump is "absolutely fake"
5:28 AM - 11 Jan 2017
118 118 Retweets 175 175 likes
Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow: "This is an evident attempt to harm our bilateral ties. The Kremlin does not engage in collecting compromising information."
Cue collective eye-rolling.
Meanwhile, Boris Johnson is on the nose with the London embassy this morning after his comments last night, when he said hacking was just one of the “dirty tricks” carried out by Vladimir Putin's government.
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Russian Embassy, UK ✔ @RussianEmbassy
Thatcher went to US to mend relations btw Washington & Moscow & end Cold War, @Boris_Johnson pursued the opposite objective
5:26 AM - 11 Jan 2017
40 40 Retweets 51 51 likes
1:06pm
Trump is awake and fired up
It's just gone 8am in New York and Donald Trump has started responding to the latest episode in the Russian hacking story in typical fashion:
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Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Russia just said the unverified report paid for by political opponents is "A COMPLETE AND TOTAL FABRICATION, UTTER NONSENSE." Very unfair!
7:13 AM - 11 Jan 2017
13,331 13,331 Retweets 43,552 43,552 likes
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Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Russia has never tried to use leverage over me. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA - NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!
7:31 AM - 11 Jan 2017
16,295 16,295 Retweets 51,532 51,532 likes
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Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
I win an election easily, a great "movement" is verified, and crooked opponents try to belittle our victory with FAKE NEWS. A sorry state!
7:44 AM - 11 Jan 2017
18,370 18,370 Retweets 65,095 65,095 likes
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Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to "leak" into the public. One last shot at me.Are we living in Nazi Germany?
7:48 AM - 11 Jan 2017
21,517 21,517 Retweets 64,013 64,013 likes
1:05pm
Claim Russians have 'compromising' personal information 'a fabrication', Kremlin says
David Lawler and Roland Oliphant report:
The Kremlin says documents suggesting Russia has compromising information about Donald Trump were fabricated in an attempt to damage US-Russia relations.
It emerged on Tuesday night that a former British spy reportedly tipped off US intelligence that Russian operatives are claiming to have compiled damaging information about the president-elect.
The claims were included in an addendum to a top secret report presented last week to Mr Trump and to President Barack Obama, according to CNN.
According to the report, the British source informed the US that Russian operatives were claiming to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr Trump.
The FBI is now investigating the veracity of the Russian claims.
While intelligence sources told CNN they consider the former British agent’s past work credible, doubts were raised after Buzzfeed News published a full version of the agent’s disclosures.
They included factual errors, as well as allegations that Russia was aware of “sexual perversion” engaged in by Mr Trump during a visit to Moscow. According to Buzzfeed, the dossier was prepared for Mr Trump’s political rivals.
On Wednesday morning the Kremlin said the claims had been fabricated in an attempt to damage US-Russia relations.
Mr Trump responded to the report on Twitter:
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Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
FAKE NEWS - A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!
8:19 PM - 10 Jan 2017
26,777 26,777 Retweets 78,800 78,800 likes
Michael Cohen, special counsel to Mr Trump, also denied allegations in the dossier that he was central to "the ongoing secret liaison relationship between the New York tycoon's campaign and the Russian leadership" and that he met secretly with Kremlin officials in Prague in August 2016.
Mr Cohen tweeted a picture of his passport, saying "I have never been to Prague in my live #fakenews".
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Michael Cohen ✔ @MichaelCohen212
I have never been to Prague in my life. #fakenews
8:21 PM - 10 Jan 2017
8,411 8,411 Retweets 21,292 21,292 likes
A two-page summary of the findings was included in a report on Russia’s interference in the US election which was shown to Mr Trump last week.
The director of national intelligence and the chiefs of the CIA, FBI and NSA all travelled to Trump Tower to brief Mr Trump on the report on Friday.
After the meeting Mr Trump for the first time accepted the possibility that Russia may have been behind the hacks of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, but insisted that Russia’s efforts did not impact the election result.
FBI Director James Comey
FBI Director James Comey CREDIT: GARY CAMERON/REUTERS
He also emphasised the importance of warmer relations with Moscow.
James Comey, the FBI director, declined to answer when asked during a Senate hearing on Tuesday whether the FBI was conducting an investigation into ties between Mr Trump or his associates and Russia.
The Senate's Foreign Relations Committee will hold a confirmation hearing for Rex Tillerson, Mr Trump’s nominee for be secretary of state, on Wednesday.
Senators from both parties have expressed concern about the former ExxonMobil chief executive’s close working relationship with key figures in the Kremlin during his time at the oil company.
Rex Tillerson, chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil
Rex Tillerson, chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil CREDIT: JOSHUA ROBERTS / REUTERS
While Mr Trump has said he will improve relations with Russia, the country’s relationship with the UK may be souring.
Russia has claimed Britain is launching an “official witch-hunt” against Mr Putin’s administration in an 800-word statement posted online on Tuesday by the country’s embassy in London.
The outburst railed against Western "hysterics" and said the "elite" were protecting their interests with money from TV licences.
"It seems that the Western elites will go to great lengths to save their own world with its Washington consensus, Davos and austerity, even if it does no longer benefit anybody else," the statement said. "Its demise is presented as the end of the world, another twilight of Europe.
"This panic and hysterics is a response to the overall loss of control, which brought about war a hundred years ago.
"It is also a loss of control over the public debate, exercised by way of the Orwellian newspeak of political correctness. Will the elite protect its vested interest with taxpayers’ money and that of TV licences?"
The long-ranging statement, which also set out Russia's interpretation of world events including the "successful humanitarian evacuation of East Aleppo", came amid a war of words between Britain and Russia.
Boris Johnson said on Tuesday that hacking was just one of the “dirty tricks” carried out by Vladimir Putin's government, revealing for the first time that British officials share the assessment by American intelligence agencies that the Kremlin interfered in the US election.
Speaking in the House of Commons, Mr Johnson said it was "pretty clear" Moscow was behind the hacking and that the Russian government "is up to all sorts of very dirty tricks, such as cyber-warfare."
The foreign secretary made the comments as he briefed the House about a meeting with senior advisers to Mr Trump on the weekend.
“If you look at what the Russians have done in the western Balkans and on cyber-warfare, it is clear they are up to no good,” Mr Johnson said.
However, he said, it “would be folly further to demonise Russia or to push Russia into a corner.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/25/us/politics/fake-news-claims-conservatives-mainstream-media-.html?_r=0
Wielding Claims of ‘Fake News,’ Conservatives Take Aim at Mainstream Media
By JEREMY W. PETERS
DEC. 25, 2016
Photograph -- Rush Limbaugh in 2012. On his radio show, Mr. Limbaugh accused the mainstream media of spreading fake news, saying, “They just make it up.” Credit Julie Smith/Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The C.I.A., the F.B.I. and the White House may all agree that Russia was behind the hacking that interfered with the election. But that was of no import to the website Breitbart News, which dismissed reports on the intelligence assessment as “left-wing fake news.”
Rush Limbaugh has diagnosed a more fundamental problem. “The fake news is the everyday news” in the mainstream media, he said on his radio show recently. “They just make it up.”
Some supporters of President-elect Donald J. Trump have also taken up the call. As reporters were walking out of a Trump rally this month in Orlando, Fla., a man heckled them with shouts of “Fake news!”
Until now, that term had been widely understood to refer to fabricated news accounts that are meant to spread virally online. But conservative cable and radio personalities, top Republicans and even Mr. Trump himself, incredulous about suggestions that fake stories may have helped swing the election, have appropriated the term and turned it against any news they see as hostile to their agenda.
In defining “fake news” so broadly and seeking to dilute its meaning, they are capitalizing on the declining credibility of all purveyors of information, one product of the country’s increasing political polarization. And conservatives, seeing an opening to undermine the mainstream media, a longtime foe, are more than happy to dig the hole deeper.
“Over the years, we’ve effectively brainwashed the core of our audience to distrust anything that they disagree with. And now it’s gone too far,” said John Ziegler, a conservative radio host, who has been critical of what he sees as excessive partisanship by pundits. “Because the gatekeepers have lost all credibility in the minds of consumers, I don’t see how you reverse it.”
Journalists who work to separate fact from fiction see a dangerous conflation of stories that turn out to be wrong because of a legitimate misunderstanding with those whose clear intention is to deceive. A report, shared more than a million times on social media, that the pope had endorsed Mr. Trump was undeniably false. But was it “fake news” to report on data models that showed Hillary Clinton with overwhelming odds of winning the presidency? Are opinion articles fake if they cherry-pick facts to draw disputable conclusions?
“Fake news was a term specifically about people who purposely fabricated stories for clicks and revenue,” said David Mikkelson, the founder of Snopes, the myth-busting website. “Now it includes bad reporting, slanted journalism and outright propaganda. And I think we’re doing a disservice to lump all those things together.”
The right’s labeling of “fake news” evokes one of the most successful efforts by conservatives to reorient how Americans think about news media objectivity: the move by Fox News to brand its conservative-slanted coverage as “fair and balanced.” Traditionally, mainstream media outlets had thought of their own approach in those terms, viewing their coverage as strictly down the middle. Republicans often found that laughable.
“What I think is so unsettling about the fake news cries now is that their audience has already sort of bought into this idea that journalism has no credibility or legitimacy,” said Angelo Carusone, the president of Media Matters, a liberal group that polices the news media for bias. “Therefore, by applying that term to credible outlets, it becomes much more believable.”
Conservative news media are now awash in the “fake news” condemnations. When coverage of Mr. Trump’s choice for labor secretary, Andrew F. Puzder, highlighted his opposition to minimum wage increases, the writer and radio host Erick Erickson wrote that Mr. Puzder should have been getting more credit for pointing out that such increases lead to higher unemployment. “To say otherwise is to push fake news,” he wrote. (The effects actually have been found to vary from city to city.)
Infowars, the website run by the conservative provocateur and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, labeled as “fake news” a CNN report that Ivanka Trump would move into the office in the White House normally reserved for the first lady.
Mr. Trump has used the term to deny news reports, as he did on Twitter recently after various outlets said he would stay on as the executive producer of “The New Celebrity Apprentice” after taking office in January. “Ridiculous & untrue — FAKE NEWS!” he wrote. (He will be credited as executive producer, a spokesman for the show’s creator, Mark Burnett, has said. But it is unclear what work, if any, he will do on the show.)
Many conservatives are pushing back at the outrage over fake news because they believe that liberals, unwilling to accept Mr. Trump’s victory, are attributing his triumph to nefarious external factors.
“The left refuses to admit that the fundamental problem isn’t the Russians or Jim Comey or ‘fake news’ or the Electoral College,” said Laura Ingraham, the author and radio host. “‘Fake news’ is just another fake excuse for their failed agenda.”
Others see a larger effort to slander the basic journalistic function of fact-checking. Nonpartisan websites like Snopes and Factcheck.org have found themselves maligned when they have disproved stories that had been flattering to conservatives.
When Snopes wrote about a State Farm insurance agent in Louisiana who had posted a sign outside his office that likened taxpayers who voted for President Obama to chickens supporting Colonel Sanders, Mr. Mikkelson, the site’s founder, was smeared as a partisan Democrat who had never bothered to reach out to the agent for comment. Neither is true.
“They’re trying to float anything they can find out there to discredit fact-checking,” he said.
There are already efforts by highly partisan conservatives to claim that their fact-checking efforts are the same as those of independent outlets like Snopes, which employ research teams to dig into seemingly dubious claims.
Sean Hannity, the Fox News host, has aired “fact-checking” segments on his program. Michelle Malkin, the conservative columnist, has a web program, “Michelle Malkin Investigates,” in which she conducts her own investigative reporting.
The market in these divided times is undeniably ripe. “We now live in this fragmented media world where you can block people you disagree with. You can only be exposed to stories that make you feel good about what you want to believe,” Mr. Ziegler, the radio host, said. “Unfortunately, the truth is unpopular a lot. And a good fairy tale beats a harsh truth every time.”
Get politics and Washington news updates via Facebook, Twitter and in the Morning Briefing newsletter.
A version of this article appears in print on December 26, 2016, on Page A11 of the New York edition with the headline: Wielding Claims of ‘Fake News,’ Conservatives Take Aim at Mainstream Media. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
NYT ON FAKE NEWS, NOVEMBER 16, 2016
Alex Jones, Host and Conspiracy Theorist, Says Donald Trump Called to Thank Him
By MAGGIE HABERMAN
NOV. 16, 2016
Photograph -- Alex Jones speaking at a rally for Donald J. Trump in Cleveland during the Republican National Convention in July. Credit Hilary Swift for The New York Times
When Donald J. Trump emerged from the haze of his surprise victory in the presidential election, one of his first calls was apparently to an early supporter, a controversial radio host and conspiracy theorist with a large following.
The supporter, Alex Jones, the host of “The Alex Jones Show” and the operator of the website Infowars, says he fielded a phone call on Friday from the president-elect, thanking Mr. Jones for his support. The call served as a reminder that Mr. Jones, who has been repeatedly denounced in the mainstream news media, will remain someone whose support Mr. Trump wants.
“He was just thanking me for fighting so hard for Americans, and for Americanism, and thanking my listeners and supporters and to let me know that he was working really hard around the clock,” Mr. Jones said in a telephone interview this week.
Mr. Jones said he urged Mr. Trump to hold to his pledges to “go after the corruption in the government, and at least remove a lot of the establishment.”
Aides to Mr. Trump declined to respond to an email seeking comment on the phone call.
As a candidate, Mr. Trump generated headlines when he appeared on Mr. Jones’s Texas-based radio show during the Republican primary contests for a nearly half-hour interview. Mr. Jones thanked him at the end, informing the candidate that he would be “hit” for the appearance on what is considered a fringe show, despite its large audience.
Among Mr. Jones’s more suspect stances are his insistence that the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut was a hoax and that the government is creating chaos by manipulating weather systems. He has been loudly and roundly denounced by Democrats and some Republicans.
He is also a vocal opponent of trade and immigration, two issues that dovetailed with Mr. Trump’s hard-line positions during the primaries.
“I think he’s emerged as the single most powerful voice on the right,” Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime informal adviser to Mr. Trump, said of Mr. Jones. It was Mr. Stone who connected Mr. Trump with Mr. Jones months ago.
“Elitists may laugh at his politics,” Mr. Stone said, adding, “Alex Jones is reaching millions of people, and they are the foot soldiers in the Trump revolution.”
Mr. Jones said Mr. Trump had promised to come on his radio show in the next few weeks. And the radio host is positioning himself as someone who will hold Mr. Trump accountable to the most anti-establishment voices in his party.
Mr. Jones said he planned to hold the incoming president to his campaign promises. That includes appointing cabinet members who will pursue investigations of Hillary Clinton, he said.
If that does not happen, Mr. Jones said, “yes, people will be upset.” It will be an indication of a return to politics as normal, he added.
Mr. Jones, who railed against the establishment news media throughout the interview, also warned Mr. Trump to keep listening to the grass-roots voters who helped elect him. Among the president-elect’s interviews since his victory has been a traditional sit-down with the CBS News program “60 Minutes,” one of the most establishment venues in journalism.
“If he starts acting like he’s divorced from us and doesn’t care about us, they’ll turn against him,” Mr. Jones said of Mr. Trump’s followers.
</i>
Mr. Trump needs to complete only a portion of his promises, he said.
“If he gets 20 percent done, people will be happy,” he said.
Get politics news updates via Facebook, Twitter and the Morning Briefing newsletter.
http://patch.com/new-york/new-york-city/watch-live-stream-donald-trump-press-conference-trump-tower
Watch Live Stream: Donald Trump Press Conference From Trump Tower
The president-elect's first formal press conference since Election Day was scheduled to start at 11 a.m. Eastern time.
By Marc Torrence (Patch National Staff) - January 11, 2017 12:15 pm ET
NEW YORK CITY, NY — President-elect Donald Trump is holding his first formal press conference since Election Day from Trump Tower, just hours after reports from major media outlets said that Russia may have damaging information about America's next commander-in-chief.
Trump called those reports a "disgrace" and said Buzzfeed's publication of the sensitive document of unverified claims "never should have been written."
Trump and one of his attorneys also said that he will not divest from his sprawling business interests, instead handing over control of his company to his two adult sons. The attorney added that all of the company's profits will be donated to the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
He also said he will not be releasing his tax returns.
"You know, the only one who cares about my tax returns are the reporters," Trump said.
In a remarkable exchange, Trump got into a shouting match of sorts with a CNN reporter who was trying to ask a question. Reporter Jim Acosta said he should get a question after a riff from Trump blasting Buzzfeed and CNN.
Trump shut the question down, pointing at Acosta and saying, "You are fake news."
Trump has occasionally taken questions from pool reporters in the Trump Tower lobby, outside of his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, and at his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey. But the president-elect has not formally faced the media since winning the presidency on Nov. 7.
A press conference scheduled for December to address his conflicts of interest was abruptly cancelled. His last press conference came in July, when he called on Russia to hack into Hillary Clinton's State Department emails and make them public.
Trump's Wednesday press conference was expected to be closely watched across the country. Major cable news stations were broadcasting countdown clocks until the event's scheduled start time.
The president-elect's first formal press conference since Election Day was scheduled to start at 11 a.m. Eastern time.
While Trump couldn't have planned against it, the timing of his press conference couldn't be much worse for the president-elect.
CNN first reported Tuesday evening that Trump and President Obama's intelligence briefings on Russian interference in America's election included claims that Russia may have compromising information on the president-elect.
After The Washington Post and The New York Times published similar accounts — not detailing specific allegations that could not be confirmed — Buzzfeed published a full dossier of intelligence that was put together by a former British intelligence official.
Trump lashed out at the leaks Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, calling them "FAKE NEWS."
"FAKE NEWS - A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!" Trump tweeted Tuesday night.
On Wednesday morning, he incorrectly quoted the Kremlin, who denied details in the dossier published by Buzzfeed.
"Russia has never tried to use leverage over me," Trump tweeted Wednesday morning. "I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA - NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!"
Trump's last press conference was notable for his call for Russia to hack Clinton's emails.
“Russia, if you’re listening," he at the time, "I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing."
After the comments drew bipartisan criticism, Trump said he was only joking.
“Of course I’m being sarcastic," he told Fox News.
Image via Gage Skidmore, Flickr, used under Creative Commons
http://www.factcheck.org/hot-topics/
Don’t get spun by Internet rumors.
Just because you read it on Facebook or somebody’s blog or in an email from a friend or relative doesn’t mean it’s true. It’s probably not, as we advised in our special report “That Chain E-mail Your Friend Sent to You Is (Likely) Bogus. Seriously,” on March 18, 2008. More recently, we addressed the problem of bogus “stories” from fake news sites: “How to Spot Fake News,” on Nov. 18, 2016.
On this page, we feature a list of the false or misleading viral rumors we’re asked about most often, and a brief summary of the facts. But click on the links to read the full articles. There is a lot more detail in each answer. If you’re looking for articles about other viral claims, please use our search function.
In the election, did Hillary Clinton only win 57 out of 3,141 counties?
No. Clinton won at least 487 counties, according to two different counts of preliminary results.
Dec. 9, 2016
Will Marian Robinson, Barack Obama’s mother-in-law, receive a $160,000 government pension for babysitting her granddaughters during Obama’s time as president?
No. That false rumor originated from a fake news website.
Nov. 9, 2016
Did President Obama sign an executive order banning the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools?
No. That claim comes from a satirical story on a fake news website.
Sept. 2, 2016
Is it true that there were more votes than voters in Wood County, Ohio, and St. Lucie County, Fla., and that Obama lost every state with photo ID laws?
No. A viral email that makes those claims is bogus. It fabricates Ohio and Florida results. Also, Obama won four of the 11 states with photo ID laws.
Jan. 17, 2013
Has President Obama canceled the May 6 National Day of Prayer?
No. This widely circulated falsehood echoes similar claims made last year when the president issued a pro-prayer-day proclamation but didn’t hold White House services as President Bush had done.
April 29, 2010
Update: We published an updated item on May 5, 2016, to say that President Obama has never cancelled the National Day of Prayer as long as he has been president.
Are the Obamas buying a vacation home in Dubai?
No. This rumor was circulated on a fake news website.
Feb. 10, 2016
Did Democrats increase federal income tax rates in 2014 under Obamacare?
No. Tax increases mentioned in a viral email went into effect a year earlier, as part of a budget deal supported by many Republicans as well as most Democrats.
April 15, 2014
Update: A new version of this email is circulating in 2016. The revised email has a new date (January 2016, instead of January 2014) and two additional tax claims.
Was there a pro-ISIS rally in Dearborn, Michigan, on Dec. 5?
No. Actually, there was an anti-ISIS rally on Dec. 5 in Dearborn. False information about that rally was spread on social media.
Dec. 18, 2015
Did Donald Trump tell People magazine in 1998 that if he ever ran for president, he’d do it as a Republican because “they’re the dumbest group of voters in the country” and that he “could lie and they’d still eat it up”?
No, that’s a bogus meme.
Nov. 25, 2015
Can members of Congress retire and receive their full pay after serving one term?
No. Only senators are eligible for a pension after one term, but it won’t be their full salary.
Jan. 5, 2015
Did President Obama call for a “new world order” in a speech in Europe?
No. Video of Obama’s speech was edited to change the meaning of what he said.
Nov. 5, 2014
Is Charles Roots a cousin of the late U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, and did he write the “true story” about Stevens’ death?
No. Roots is not related to Stevens, and he says he is “disgusted” by a story attributed to him about Stevens’ death.
June 12, 2014
Is it true that, under the Affordable Care Act, “Medicare will not pay anything” for patients receiving only “observation” care in hospitals?
No. Medicare will pay a significant portion of observation care costs after copayments and deductibles are met. Nothing has changed as a result of the ACA.
May 13, 2014
Does the Affordable Care Act require Medicare beneficiaries over age 75 to be admitted to the hospital by their primary care physician?
No. There is no such requirement in the law.
March 27, 2014
Is it true that there are bills in Congress that would exempt members and their staffs and families from buying into “Obamacare”?
No. Congress members and staffers will be required to buy insurance through the exchanges on Jan. 1.
May 3, 2013; Updated on Aug. 7, 2013
Is “Obama’s finance team” recommending a 1 percent tax on all bank transactions, as a chain e-mail claims?
No. This idea was first floated in 2004 by one House member, who says it would replace the federal income tax and eliminate the national debt. So far it has gone nowhere.
Sept. 8, 2010; Updated June 5, 2012
Do 11 states now have more people on welfare than they have employed?
A viral email making this claim is off base. It distorts a Forbes article that compares private-sector workers with those “dependent on the government,” including government workers and pensioners, and Medicaid recipients — not just “people on welfare.”
Jan. 11, 2013
Are Obama’s early records “sealed”?
No. Many records that presidential candidates don’t ordinarily release do remain confidential, but they are not “sealed” by a court. The 16 claims in a widely distributed graphic are mostly false or distorted.
July 31, 2012
Does the Obama administration intend to “force gun control and a complete ban on all weapons for U.S. citizens” through a United Nations treaty?
No. The administration plans to negotiate a treaty to regulate the international export and import of weapons. It says that it won’t support any treaty that regulates the domestic transfer or ownership of weapons, or that infringes on the Second Amendment.
June 27, 2012
Is it true that members of Congress, their staffers and their family members do not have to pay back their student loans?
Not true. Some congressional employees are eligible to have up to $60,000 of student loans repaid after several years — just like other federal workers. But that’s not the case for members of Congress or their families.
Jan. 6, 2011
Is there any truth in the e-mail claiming to give “a few highlights from the first 500 pages of the Healthcare bill”?
Barely. We examined all 48 claims, finding 26 of them to be false and 18 to be misleading, only partly true or half true. Only four are accurate.
Aug. 28, 2009
Has a “smoking gun” been found to prove Obama was not born a U.S. citizen? Did he attend Occidental College on a scholarship for foreign students?
This chain e-mail is a transparent April Fools’ Day hoax. It fabricates an AP news story about an nonexistent group, and makes false claims about Obama and the Fulbright program.
May 7, 2009
Was Obama born in the U.S.A.?
Yes. We give you the truth about Obama’s birth certificate.
Aug. 21, 2008
Updated Nov. 1, 2008
Is there a connection between FactCheck.org and Barack Obama or Bill Ayers?
None, aside from benefiting at different times from the charity of the late publisher Walter Annenberg. We are a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania and get funding from the Annenberg Foundation, created by Walter Annenberg in 1989. Ayers was one of three Chicago educators who applied for a grant from the Annenberg Foundation in 1995, which was one of 5,200 grants the foundation made during its first 15 years. That $49 million grant, plus additional funds raised locally, funded the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which sought to improve Chicago public schools. Obama was selected by Chicago officials (not Ayers) to chair the board set up to administer Annenberg Challenge funds, and he headed it until 1999. FactCheck.org came into being in late 2003. For other details see our Oct. 10, 2008, article about Obama and Ayers, which includes a sidebar: “FactCheck.org and the ‘Annenberg Challenge.’ “
Q: Did the crew of Air Force One refuse to fly President Obama to play golf?
A: No. It’s a fake news story specifically targeting “conservative readers.”
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