Donald Trump (R)
U.S. President Donald Trump warned evangelical leaders during a closed-door meeting of "violence" from leftists should Republicans lose November's midterm elections, according to an audio tape provided to The New York Times by someone who attended the event.
"The level of hatred, the level of anger is unbelievable," Trump said during a private portion of a Monday evening event at the White House.
"Part of it is because of some of the things I've done for you and for me and for my family, but I've done them…This Nov. 6 election is very much a referendum on not only me, it's a referendum on your religion, it's a referendum on free speech and the First Amendment," he added.
The American defense chief said Tuesday there are no considerations to suspend additional military drills with South Korea after U.S. President Donald Trump cancelled exercises planned for this summer.Trump made the decision as a concession to North Korea amid U.S. efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, calling the drills "very provocative." But progress on denuclearization appears to have stalled -- a fact Trump acknowledged last week when he called off a planned trip by his top diplomat to North Korea.Addressing reporters alongside Joint Chiefs Chairman Joseph Dunford at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary James Mattis said Washington has "no plans" to cancel further exercises."We will work very closely, as I said, with the Secretary of State, and what he needs done we will certainly do to reinforce his effort. But at this time, there is no discussion about further suspensions," Mattis said. "We're making no changes to the exercise program at this time."Mattis said Trump's decision to cancel exercises planned for this summer was a "good faith" measure following the president's historic sit-down with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore last June.The U.S. has conducted military drills with South Korea since the 1950s and has roughly 28,000 troops stationed there.Addressing concerns over the Saudi Arabian-led coalition's bombing campaign in Yemen, Mattis said U.S. support for the coalition is not unconditional, but voiced support for "Saudi Arabia's sovereign right to self-defense.""We are also working closely with the coalition that is fighting to support the U.N.-recognized government in order to determine what went wrong with errant bombing attacks and prevent their recurrence," he said.UN experts Tuesday said individuals in the Yemeni government and coalition forces conducted attacks in Yemen that may amount to war crimes.Coalition airstrikes, according to the report, caused “most direct civilian casualties after hitting residential areas, markets, funerals, weddings, detention facilities, civilian boats, and medical facilities.”About 6,660 civilians were killed and 10,563 injured in the Yemeni conflict since March 2015, the UN Human Rights Office said, warning real figures are likely to be “significantly higher."One of the most grisly airstrikes took place Aug. 9 when two dozen children were killed in an attack on a school bus.Mattis said continued U.S. support for the coalition is conditional on them doing "everything humanly possible to avoid any innocent loss of life, and they support the U.N.-brokered peace process."No talks with US over resuming military drills: Seoul
US says no plan to suspend more SKorea military drills
Should Republicans lose November's midterms, Trump said "they will overturn everything that we've done and they'll do it quickly and violently, and violently. There's violence. When you look at Antifa and you look at some of these groups — these are violent people."
Trump was referring to the black-clad group of far-leftists known as Antifa who have showed up at demonstrations across the U.S., sometimes turning to violence.
The president further claimed he got rid of a law known as the Johnson Amendment that prohibits non-profits, including religious organizations and charities, from endorsing or opposing political candidates.
U.S. President Donald Trump criticized Google on Tuesday, accusing the tech giant's search engine yields results that are unfavorable to himself and Republicans. "Google search results for ‘Trump News’ shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake News Media. In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me others, so that almost all stories news is BAD. Fake CNN is prominent. Republican/Conservative Fair Media is shut out. Illegal?" Trump wrote on Twitter.He added that "96% of results on ‘Trump News’ are from National Left-Wing Media, very dangerous. Google others are suppressing voices of Conservatives and hiding information and news that is good. They are controlling what we can cannot see. This is a very serious situation-will be addressed!"The White House Chief Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow later told reporters that the administration will be "taking a look at" the situation.Google's parent company Alphabet issued a statement to that said the search results are not biased."Search is not used to set a political agenda and we don't bias our results toward any political ideology,” according to the statement. “We never rank search results to manipulate political sentiment.”There are many who believe Trump’s criticism is an attempt to deflect from his response to his handling of the death of Senator John McCain who died for brain cancer Saturday.Trump and McCain had a rocky relationship and the president issued a tersely worded reaction to the senator’s death on Twitter. He then ordered the flags at the White House to be flown at half staff until just past 12.02 a.m. (0402GMT) Monday. Usually, flags are lowered for distinguished senators until after they are buried.Trump's criticism comes less than a day after Fox Business host Lou Dobbs claimed Monday that Google is "banning and suppressing" conservative news from the search results."Tech Giants Are Crushing Conservatives: 96 Percent of Google Search Results for '@realDonaldTrump' News Are from Liberal Media Outlets," Dobbs wrote Sunday on Twitter.The "96 percent" figure comes from Paula Bolyard, an author for American conservative news, opinion, and commentary website PJ MediaBolyard said Saturday she performed a Google search for "Trump" using the search engine's news tab, and then analyzed the results using journalist Sharyl Attkisson's media bias chart.Attkisson's chart places various American media outlets on a political spectrum that extends from center to left and right.
Trump accuses Google of rigging search results
"Now you're not silenced anymore. It's gone and there's no penalty anymore and if you like somebody or if you don't like somebody you can go out and say, 'This man is going to be great for evangelicals, or for Christianity or for another religion. This person is somebody that I like and I'm going to talk about it on Sunday," he said.
But the law remains on the books despite Trump's efforts and decades of opposition from evangelicals.
Trump signed an executive order early into his presidency aimed at easing the Johnson Amendment, but it did not undo the law as he claimed. That can only be done by Congress or the Supreme Court, should it rule the law unconstitutional, which it has not.
Evangelicals are a large voting bloc for the president, and Monday night's event in the State Dining Room was a bid to solidify their support.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Twitter early on Wednesday China hacked the emails of former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton but did not offer any evidence or further information."Hillary Clinton’s Emails, many of which are Classified Information, got hacked by China. Next move better be by the FBI & DOJ or, after all of their other missteps (Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Ohr, FISA, Dirty Dossier etc.), their credibility will be forever gone!" he tweeted a little after midnight on Wednesday. Hillary Clinton’s Emails, many of which are Classified Information, got hacked by China. Next move better be by the FBI & DOJ or, after all of their other missteps (Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Ohr, FISA, Dirty Dossier etc.), their credibility will be forever gone!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 29 Ağustos 2018 Google responds to Trump, says no political motive in search resultsTrump accuses Google of hiding 'fair media' coverage of himGerman, US companies concerned despite EU trade truce with TrumpTrump bows to pressure, orders flags lowered for McCain
Trump blames China for hacking of Clinton emails, offers no evidence