On Donald J. Trump spilling the beans ...
Joe Biden
"President Trump is once again welcoming foreign interference in our elections. This isn't about politics. It is a threat to our national security. An American President should not seek their aid and abet those who seek to undermine democracy."
Bernie Sanders
"Well, Anderson, to tell you the truth, I'm not exactly shocked. I think we have a president who neither understand the constitution of the United States or respects the constitution. Somebody who doesn't believe in the separation of powers.and somebody who thinks he's above the law."
Elizabeth Warren
"The #MuellerReport made it clear: A foreign government attacked our 2016 elections to support Trump, Trump welcomed that help, and Trump obstructed the investigation. Now, he said he'd do it all over again. It's time to impeach Donald Trump."
Kamala Harris
"He's the commander in chief and has a duty and a responsibility to the American people to be a defender if not the greatest defender of our democracy. But to quite the contrary, what we hear tonight is that he is yet again open to the idea of working with foreign governments to undermine the integrity of our election system. It's outrageous."
Beto O'Rourke
"When the President of the United States openly welcomes foreign help to win an election, he threatens the very core of our democracy. If we are to secure justice and ensure this never happens again, we must impeach him."
Amy Klobuchar
"This is inexcusable. The President of the United States just effectively gave permission to foreign agents to interfere in our elections. We need my Secure Elections Act and Honest Ads Act passed immediately. The 2020 elections are not secure. Disgraceful."
Cory Booker
"It's not 'oppo research' — it's foreign interference in US elections. That you would say this is disgraceful. That you would do it from the Oval Office (yet again) proves you're unfit for the office you hold."
Michael Benet
"My reaction is that this is weak and pathetic. This is what he has been doing since the beginning of his presidency even before he was president He said wikileaks if you're out there, send me the stuff. He said Russia, if you're out there, send me the stuff.
"Now he's actually president of the United States, and he's effectively inviting foreign interference into our election. He has never held Putin responsible for what Putin did. And he stood next to Putin and said I take his word for it.
"Every single Western democracy is under attack from Russia, and the President of the United States needs to be someone who stands up not just for America but for our allies as well, and he's failed that test again."
Annoyed White House press corps vented before Sarah Sanders exit announced
President Trump's surprise Thursday announcement that Sarah Sanders is stepping down as his press secretary followed a pair of stern rebukes by members of the White House press corps.
In pitches to the group's voting membership, two candidates competing to become the next president of the White House Correspondents' Association accused the Trump administration of consistently spreading lies and the president of unfairly attacking the media.
"We as an organization need to be more concerned about getting lied to as a matter of course - and the American public getting lied to, through us - than about access," HuffPost correspondent S.V. Dáte wrote in an email, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.
"I've been in this business more than three decades, and what's happening now is unprecedented. We are attacked on a near daily basis using Stalinist language," he added. "We are called corrupt and dishonest. We are given false information from staff who often know full well that it is false."
CBS News Radio's Steven Portnoy cast the White House press shop as one that ignored several controversial issues by refusing to hold a formal press conference for more than 90 days. "As the president continues to call news organizations 'corrupt,' these are just some of the issues he has ducked by not having his aides appear regularly before the press corps," Portnoy said.
… article continues
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...ers-exit-announced/ar-AACQkQU?ocid=spartanntp
3 things Sarah Sanders will be remembered for
1. The end of the daily press briefing
The main job of the White House press secretary has for years been briefing reporters every day the president doesn’t hold any kind of media availability. This allows for reporters covering the White House to at least have a chance at someone responding on timely issues.
But Sanders has all but scrapped the briefing. After a slow but steady scaling back of the number of briefings in 2018, they have been virtually nonexistent in 2019. The last one she held was more than three months ago — March 11 — and it didn’t even last 15 minutes.
The lack of briefings is even more remarkable when you consider how little the White House press office performs the other main part of its traditional responsibilities: to work with reporters as they write their stories, and to beat back unhelpful ones. Often, this White House doesn’t even try to explain the administration’s actions when reporters come calling.
2. False statements — including in the Mueller report
Sanders’s name will forever be etched into history as the White House press secretary who admitted to investigators that she made false statements to the country. According to the Mueller report, she conceded to special counsel investigators that her statements after Trump’s firing of James B. Comey as FBI director were essentially made up.
The report says “she also recalled that her statement in a separate press interview that rank-and-file FBI agents had lost confidence in Comey was a comment she made ‘in the heat of the moment’ that was not founded on anything.”
Of course, this is hardly the only time we know she made something up or offered a false denial. She said Trump never encouraged or promoted violence, when he did; she said multiple news outlets had reported that Barack Obama ordered wiretaps of Trump using a shoddy foreign report; and she on multiple occasions denied allegations about Trump’s hush-money payments that turned out not to be true. Explaining the last one, she said, “We give the very best information that we have at the time.”
Okay, but you speak for the president. He needs to trust you enough to tell you the truth and have you spin it for him. Even as Sanders is supposedly a trusted adviser, she often didn’t seem to actually know how to speak for Trump.
3. The White House correspondents’ dinner shake-up
If Sanders ended the daily press briefing, she might have also played a role in ending the press corps dinner as we knew it: an annual comedic roasting of the current administration. After comedian Michelle Wolf took on Sanders in very personal terms in 2018 — alluding to her makeup and comparing her to a gruff softball coach — some reporters argued the bit went too far. White House critics, in turn, complained that the reporters were being too cozy with the White House.
The result was that the White House Correspondents’ Association scrapped the comedy portion of the dinner. With most of the jokes being told by left-leaning comedians, it was decided that it wasn’t a good look. And that might have been for the best.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...-be-remembered-for/ar-AACQkwX?ocid=spartanntp
Joe Biden
"President Trump is once again welcoming foreign interference in our elections. This isn't about politics. It is a threat to our national security. An American President should not seek their aid and abet those who seek to undermine democracy."
Bernie Sanders
"Well, Anderson, to tell you the truth, I'm not exactly shocked. I think we have a president who neither understand the constitution of the United States or respects the constitution. Somebody who doesn't believe in the separation of powers.and somebody who thinks he's above the law."
Elizabeth Warren
"The #MuellerReport made it clear: A foreign government attacked our 2016 elections to support Trump, Trump welcomed that help, and Trump obstructed the investigation. Now, he said he'd do it all over again. It's time to impeach Donald Trump."
Kamala Harris
"He's the commander in chief and has a duty and a responsibility to the American people to be a defender if not the greatest defender of our democracy. But to quite the contrary, what we hear tonight is that he is yet again open to the idea of working with foreign governments to undermine the integrity of our election system. It's outrageous."
Beto O'Rourke
"When the President of the United States openly welcomes foreign help to win an election, he threatens the very core of our democracy. If we are to secure justice and ensure this never happens again, we must impeach him."
Amy Klobuchar
"This is inexcusable. The President of the United States just effectively gave permission to foreign agents to interfere in our elections. We need my Secure Elections Act and Honest Ads Act passed immediately. The 2020 elections are not secure. Disgraceful."
Cory Booker
"It's not 'oppo research' — it's foreign interference in US elections. That you would say this is disgraceful. That you would do it from the Oval Office (yet again) proves you're unfit for the office you hold."
Michael Benet
"My reaction is that this is weak and pathetic. This is what he has been doing since the beginning of his presidency even before he was president He said wikileaks if you're out there, send me the stuff. He said Russia, if you're out there, send me the stuff.
"Now he's actually president of the United States, and he's effectively inviting foreign interference into our election. He has never held Putin responsible for what Putin did. And he stood next to Putin and said I take his word for it.
"Every single Western democracy is under attack from Russia, and the President of the United States needs to be someone who stands up not just for America but for our allies as well, and he's failed that test again."
Post automatically merged:
Annoyed White House press corps vented before Sarah Sanders exit announced
President Trump's surprise Thursday announcement that Sarah Sanders is stepping down as his press secretary followed a pair of stern rebukes by members of the White House press corps.
In pitches to the group's voting membership, two candidates competing to become the next president of the White House Correspondents' Association accused the Trump administration of consistently spreading lies and the president of unfairly attacking the media.
"We as an organization need to be more concerned about getting lied to as a matter of course - and the American public getting lied to, through us - than about access," HuffPost correspondent S.V. Dáte wrote in an email, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.
"I've been in this business more than three decades, and what's happening now is unprecedented. We are attacked on a near daily basis using Stalinist language," he added. "We are called corrupt and dishonest. We are given false information from staff who often know full well that it is false."
CBS News Radio's Steven Portnoy cast the White House press shop as one that ignored several controversial issues by refusing to hold a formal press conference for more than 90 days. "As the president continues to call news organizations 'corrupt,' these are just some of the issues he has ducked by not having his aides appear regularly before the press corps," Portnoy said.
… article continues
3 things Sarah Sanders will be remembered for
1. The end of the daily press briefing
The main job of the White House press secretary has for years been briefing reporters every day the president doesn’t hold any kind of media availability. This allows for reporters covering the White House to at least have a chance at someone responding on timely issues.
But Sanders has all but scrapped the briefing. After a slow but steady scaling back of the number of briefings in 2018, they have been virtually nonexistent in 2019. The last one she held was more than three months ago — March 11 — and it didn’t even last 15 minutes.
The lack of briefings is even more remarkable when you consider how little the White House press office performs the other main part of its traditional responsibilities: to work with reporters as they write their stories, and to beat back unhelpful ones. Often, this White House doesn’t even try to explain the administration’s actions when reporters come calling.
2. False statements — including in the Mueller report
Sanders’s name will forever be etched into history as the White House press secretary who admitted to investigators that she made false statements to the country. According to the Mueller report, she conceded to special counsel investigators that her statements after Trump’s firing of James B. Comey as FBI director were essentially made up.
The report says “she also recalled that her statement in a separate press interview that rank-and-file FBI agents had lost confidence in Comey was a comment she made ‘in the heat of the moment’ that was not founded on anything.”
Of course, this is hardly the only time we know she made something up or offered a false denial. She said Trump never encouraged or promoted violence, when he did; she said multiple news outlets had reported that Barack Obama ordered wiretaps of Trump using a shoddy foreign report; and she on multiple occasions denied allegations about Trump’s hush-money payments that turned out not to be true. Explaining the last one, she said, “We give the very best information that we have at the time.”
Okay, but you speak for the president. He needs to trust you enough to tell you the truth and have you spin it for him. Even as Sanders is supposedly a trusted adviser, she often didn’t seem to actually know how to speak for Trump.
3. The White House correspondents’ dinner shake-up
If Sanders ended the daily press briefing, she might have also played a role in ending the press corps dinner as we knew it: an annual comedic roasting of the current administration. After comedian Michelle Wolf took on Sanders in very personal terms in 2018 — alluding to her makeup and comparing her to a gruff softball coach — some reporters argued the bit went too far. White House critics, in turn, complained that the reporters were being too cozy with the White House.
The result was that the White House Correspondents’ Association scrapped the comedy portion of the dinner. With most of the jokes being told by left-leaning comedians, it was decided that it wasn’t a good look. And that might have been for the best.
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