Now lets take the damn gloves off and expose who is right damit!
President Donald Trump denounced his former top strategist, Steve Bannon, on Wednesday, saying that he “lost his mind” after leaving the White House last summer.
“When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind,” Trump said of Bannon in a statement the White House issued. “Now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn’t as easy as I make it look.”
The statement represented an emphatic break from the person considered the architect of Trump’s presidential campaign. Bannon continued to enjoy access to the president after he left the White House, but that has ended, one person familiar with the matter said.
Earlier on Wednesday, New York Magazine published excerpts of a forthcoming book by author Michael Wolff in which Bannon criticizes Trump’s campaign as well as the president and his family. The Guardian published excerpts of the book in which Bannon predicts that Special Counsel Robert Mueller will “crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV” over the president’s son’s meeting with a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower in June 2016.
Bannon also called Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with the lawyer, in which he expected to receive damaging information on Trump’s election opponent Hillary Clinton, “treasonous” and “unpatriotic,” according to the Guardian.
Bannon, reached by Bloomberg News, declined to comment on the remarks published by the Guardian. Two people close to him said he wasn’t bothered by the president’s statement. They asked not to be identified discussing Bannon’s reaction.
265-Word Statement
In his 265-word statement, Trump went on to indict Bannon for some of his activities at the White House and afterward. He blamed him for the loss of a Republican Senate seat in Alabama in a special election last month and accused him of leaking to news reporters while he served as the White House chief strategist.
“Steve had very little to do with our historic victory, which was delivered by the forgotten men and women of this country,” Trump said. “Yet Steve had everything to do with the loss of a Senate seat in Alabama held for more than thirty years by Republicans. Steve doesn’t represent my base — he’s only in it for himself.”
Bannon backed former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore over Trump’s preferred candidate, incumbent Senator Luther Strange, in a primary election for the Alabama seat. Moore lost to Democrat Doug Jones in the special election after several women accused him of sexual misconduct while they were teenagers.
Trump Jr. also declined to comment, but re-tweeted a Bloomberg News reporter’s tweet about the outcome of the Alabama election with the comment: “Thanks Steve. Keep up the great work.”
“Steve pretends to be at war with the media, which he calls the opposition party, yet he spent his time at the White House leaking false information to the media to make himself seem far more important than he was,” Trump said. “It is the only thing he does well. Steve was rarely in a one-on-one meeting with me and only pretends to have had influence to fool a few people with no access and no clue, whom he helped write phony books.”
Statement from the President of the United States:
Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my Presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind. Steve was a staffer who worked for me after I had already won the nomination by defeating seventeen candidates, often described as the most talented field ever assembled in the Republican party.
Now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn’t as easy as I make it look. Steve had very little to do with our historic victory, which was delivered by the forgotten men and women of this country. Yet Steve had everything to do with the loss of a Senate seat in Alabama held for more than thirty years by Republicans.
Steve doesn’t represent my base—he’s only in it for himself.
Steve pretends to be at war with the media, which he calls the opposition party, yet he spent his time at the White House leaking false information to the media to make himself seem far more important than he was. It is the only thing he does well. Steve was rarely in a one-on-one meeting with me and only pretends to have had influence to fool a few people with no access and no clue, whom he helped write phony books.
We have many great Republican members of Congress and candidates who are very supportive of the Make America Great Again agenda. Like me, they love the United States of America and are helping to finally take our country back and build it up, rather than simply seeking to burn it all down.
In addition to Wolff’s book, titled “Fire and Fury: Inside Trump’s White House,” Bannon was the subject of a best-selling book published last year by Bloomberg Businessweek writer Joshua Green, “Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency.”
Trump complimented Bannon when he left the White House in August, saying he “would be a tough and smart new voice at” his website, Breitbart news. “Maybe even better than before. Fake News needs the competition!”
And Bannon boasted at a private luncheon in Hong Kong in September that he spoke with Trump by phone every two to three days, according to two people who attended.
After Trump issued his statement on Bannon, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s campaign staff tweeted a GIF image of the Kentucky Republican sitting at his desk, grinning. Bannon, a populist and nationalist who considers much of the Republican establishment corrupt, has said Senate Republicans should replace McConnell and has sought to recruit people to run against McConnell’s favored candidates in Republican primaries, including in Alabama.
Wolff’s Revelations
Wolff, who New York Magazine said conducted more than 200 interviews for his book including with the president and most of his senior staff, also reported that Trump never expected to win the election and had promised his wife, Melania, that he wouldn’t be president. She “was in tears — and not of joy” on election night as it became clear Trump would beat Clinton, Wolff reported.
“The book is clearly going to be sold in the bargain fiction section,” Melania Trump’s spokesman, Stephanie Grisham, said in a statement. “Mrs. Trump supported her husband’s decision to run for president and in fact, encouraged him to do so. She was confident he would win and was very happy when he did.”
Wolff reported that friends Trump phoned at night after leaving the Oval Office for the day would leak details of the conversations to reporters and that many of them consider him ignorant. Rupert Murdoch, co-chairman of Twenty-First Century Fox Inc. and a close Trump confidante, called him an “idiot” — preceded by an expletive — after one such call, Wolff wrote.
Trump’s longtime friend Thomas Barrack called the president “not only crazy” but “stupid,” Wolff reported. Barrack denied making the comments on Wednesday.
Wolff portrays Trump’s top three advisers at the beginning of his presidency — Bannon, senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, and former chief of staff Reince Priebus — as consumed by infighting and frequently unable to coordinate strategy.
He wrote that a former deputy chief of staff who also left last year, Katie Walsh, was frustrated by the chaos of Trump’s White House and by the president himself, and quoted her saying that working for him was “like trying to figure out what a child wants.”
Other revelations may prove more damaging to the White House in the long-term. Michael Flynn, the president’s former national security adviser, allegedly justified a pre-election speaking engagement paid for by Russians by saying it would only present a conflict of interest “if we won.”
“This book is filled with false and misleading accounts from individuals who have no access or influence with the White House,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement. “Participating in a book that can only be described as trashy tabloid fiction exposes their sad desperate attempts at relevancy.”
Help! I’m an old black man trapped in a little white boy’s body
Mitch McConnell’s Former Chief of Staff Calls Steve Bannon a ‘White Supremacist’
Mitch McConnell’s former chief of staff Josh Holmes grew increasingly desperate to stop the rising wave of populist candidates challenging the Senate Republican leadership by calling former White House chief strategist and Breitbart News executive chairman Steve Bannon a “white supremacist.”
Holmes said, “In 2018 we ought to revisit this question and find out if these people are still happy to be associated with Bannon. When you’re facing voters, I’d take one of the most successful majority leaders in history over a white supremacist any day.”
Holmes’ and the establishment Republicans’ influence in the 2018 Senate election continues to fade. Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, whom Holmes’ labeled as their first choice for the 2018 midterm election, refuses to endorse Mitch McConnell for majority leader.
“He was our No. 1 recruit of the cycle,” Holmes charged. “We worked our tail off to recruit Josh Hawley.”
Hawley’s spokesman, Scott Paradise, responded in an email questioning whether Hawley would back McConnell.
“The Senate is broken and failing the people of Missouri,” Paradise said.
“Josh is running because he is not willing to tolerate the failure of the D.C. establishment any longer,” Paradise added. “He won’t tolerate Claire McCaskill’s failure. And he won’t tolerate Republican failure, either.”
Montana state auditor Matt Rosendale recently tweeted a picture with Steve Bannon and said that he will end the “D.C. status quo.”
Nearly two dozen Senate Republican candidates refused to openly back Mitch McConnell for majority leader.
Holmes’ statement echoed Sen. Sherrod Brown’s (D-OH) recent comments. Brown also called Bannon a “white supremacist.”
Andy Surabian, a former White House adviser and now a senior adviser to the pro-Trump super PAC Great America Alliance, said, “No amount of smearing can change the fact that not a single U.S. Senate candidate was willing to go on the record and say that they supported Mitch McConnell for Majority Leader. Everyone can see right through the clearly desperate, unfounded and pathetic attacks coming from McConnell Incorporated.”
Every power in the world is against him but God is for him so it doesn’t make any difference. God bless our president.
Praying for the President: Evangelical pastor shares image of prayer circle laying their hands on Donald Trump’s back in the Oval Office
President Donald Trump hosted prayer circle in the Oval Office on Monday
Televangelist pastor Rodney Howard-Browne shared image of it on Facebook
It shows people laying their hands on President Trump’s back as they prayed
Mr Howard-Browne called the moment ‘surreal’ and ‘humbling’
Johnnie Moore, who was also at the meeting, said Trump was in ‘good spirits’
‘He was as strong and focused as I have ever seen him. It was as if he was entirely above the fray,’ Moore added
This is the moment evangelical leaders laid their hands on Donald Trump’s back as they prayed over him in the Oval Office.
Evangelical pastor Rodney Howard-Browne led a prayer circle alongside his wife Adonica in the White House and then shared the image on Facebook.
President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence can be seen closing their eyes and bowing their heads in the solemn moment.
The group were invited to pray with Trump during a meeting with members of The Office of Public Liaison.
Others pictured included Jack Graham, the pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, and Michele Bachmann, the former Republican congresswoman from Minnesota.
Mr Howard-Browne, who is from South Africa but came to America in 1987 after a ‘calling from God’, described the moment as ‘surreal’ and ‘humbling’.
He wrote: ‘Yesterday I was asked by Pastor Paula White-Cain to pray over our 45th President – what a humbling moment standing in the Oval Office – laying hands and praying for our President – Supernatural Wisdom, Guidance and Protection – who could ever even imagine – wow – we are going to see another great spiritual awakening.
Mr Howard-Browne’s teachings on the concept of ‘holy laughter’ – an outpouring of joy caused by the Holy Spirit – helped to inspire the Toronto Blessing, which many believe to be an instance of mass blessing which took place in 1994.
Johnnie Moore, a former senior vice president at Liberty University, a large evangelical university in Virginia, was also at the meeting.
He told CNN that they used to also pray with Obama, but with Trump it is different.
‘When we are praying for President Trump, we are praying within the context of a real relationship, of true friendship,’ he said.
‘He was also in good spirits,’ Moore said. ‘He was as strong and focused as I have ever seen him. It was as if he was entirely above the fray.’
President Trump put his Christian faith at the front and center of his campaign for the presidency, and made a particular point of appealing to evangelicals.
At dozens of his rallies he proudly read out polls showing strong approval ratings from the evangelical community, and thanked them for their support.
It was Trump’s positioning of himself as a defender of the faith – at one point vowing ‘to protect Christianity’ – that saw him ultimately defeat Ted Cruz to become the Republican nominee.
And this latest image attracted a lot of support on social media.
Writing on the Facebook post, Melinda S. Wiley wrote: ‘Thank you Jesus! Cover Your President Lord! Anoint him and fill him with the Holy Spirit for Your will to be done! Hallelujah! Thank you Abba!’
Tammie Rogers added: ‘Praise God fill him Jesus with your spirit keep your hands on him. It’s time we have a president that puts America first and belief in the almighty God the one one that can change everything.
‘Thank you pastors and for obeying God and surrounding our President with all your prayers, and thank you President Trump for allowing them to pray for you.
‘I get goose bumps thinking what God is going to do.’
But not everyone was convinced by the show of faith. Kenneth Averell said: ‘Lord help us all. How anyone sees Trump as the savior of the evangelicals is beyond me.
‘Doesn’t have a Christian bone in his body. Doesn’t attend church. Multiple divorces. Adultery. Literally about every single commandment he’s broken.
‘We’re all sinners, but c’mon, the evangelical right is choosing this guy to lead their ‘spiritual awakening’?’
Hitler used hydrogen cyanide to gas Jews. Sean Spicer is an idiot justifying bad policy.
Sean Spicer on Syria: ‘Hitler didn’t even sink to the level of using chemical weapons’
White House press secretary Sean Spicer incorrectly stated on Monday that even Adolf Hitler “didn’t sink to using chemical weapons,” during an attempt to amplify how abhorrent the Syrian government’s use of Sarin gas was.
“We didn’t use chemical weapons in World War II,” Spicer said in an attempt to defend the president’s airstrikes response. “You had someone as despicable as Hitler, who didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons.”
It is widely documented that the Nazi leader used chemical gas to kill millions of Jewish Europeans.
Former first daughter Chelsea Clinton was quick to chime in after Spicer’s comment, saying that she hopes he “takes time to visit @HolocaustMuseum. It’s a few blocks away.”
Sean Patrick Keoughan of Roanoke, Virginia was arrested after he pulled up to a security checkpoint at 15th Street and East Street NW near the White House at 11pm on Saturday night in a stolen 2017 Chevrolet Impala.
According to police, Keoughan told Secret Service, “There’s a bomb in the trunk,” while holding an object in his hand. As he was being arrested, Keoughan added, “This is a test.”
A robot was dispatched to investigate the car but nothing was found. Keoughan was subsequently charged with making false bomb threats and unauthorized use of a vehicle.
Earlier in the day there was another security scare after a man breached the buffer zone around the White House “in an apparent attempt to get to the White House fence,” although he was not able to jump the fence.
Earlier this month, Jonathan Tran did manage to make it past the fence before walking around White House grounds for 17 minutes before being spotted. He was able to get close to a White House entrance before being apprehended. Tran was reportedly concerned about Russian ties to Trump and was attempting to deliver a message to the president.
In a related story, the Secret Service announced that it would permanently remove a top special agent from her position after she posted on Facebook that she would not take a bullet for Trump.
Given the innumerable death threats against Trump, including a purported assassination attempt last year, the numerous security scares around the White House, along with Keoughan’s admission that his intention was to carry out a “test,” if there was a serious plan to assassinate the president, its plotters can only be learning from these incidents.
The hysteria being generated by the mainstream media in response to Trump simply moving forward with the policy agenda he promised during his campaign will undoubtedly embolden disturbed individuals to believe they have the moral high ground, especially in light of the fact that numerous celebrities and journalists have also called for Trump to be killed.
Financial terms were not disclosed, although the deals are likely in the tens of millions of dollars.
Barack and Michelle Obama have book deals.
The former president and first lady have signed with Penguin Random House, the publisher announced Tuesday. Financial terms were not disclosed, although the deals are likely in the tens of millions of dollars.
Earlier reports had the bidding above $60 million. The record for a presidential memoir is the $15 million that Bill Clinton got after leaving office in 2000.
One unique aspect of the deal: a promise to donate 1 million books in the Obama family’s name to First Book, which is dedicated to promoting educational opportunity via new books to children in need. First Book is a longtime Penguin Random House nonprofit partner and the Washington-based partner for the 2016 White House digital education initiative Open eBooks.
Per the publisher’s announcement, the Obamas also plan on donating a “significant portion” of the book deal to charity, including the newly established Obama Foundation.
Both Obamas have published books through Crown, a Penguin Random House imprint.
“We are absolutely thrilled to continue our publishing partnership with President and Mrs. Obama,” Penguin Random House CEO Markus Dohle said in a statement. “With their words and their leadership, they changed the world, and every day, with the books we publish at Penguin Random House, we strive to do the same. Now, we are very much looking forward to working together with President and Mrs. Obama to make each of their books global publishing events of unprecedented scope and significance.”
The unusual dual arrangement is for books that are among the most anticipated in memory from a former president and first lady. Barack Obama is widely regarded as the one of the finest prose stylists among recent presidents, having written the million-selling Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope. Michelle Obama has given few details about her time as first lady: Her only book is about food and gardening, American Grown, released in 2012. Both Obamas are widely popular with the public in the U.S. and abroad.
The Obamas were represented by Williams & Connolly partners Robert Barnett and Deneen Howell. Barnett has been the go-to guy for politician book deals for a generation. (He also has helped with Hillary Clinton’s debate prep for years, often playing the opposing candidate.) Barnett and Howell charge by the hour for legal services instead of taking the standard literary agent commission, potentially saving the Obamas upwards of $9 million in fees.
The publisher did not immediately say which imprint the books would be released through. Titles, publishing dates and other details about the books also were not immediately available.
